If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy…
Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying , We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness;
And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul…
Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause,
And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them
I Kings 8:46-50
This is a prayer of Solomon, the wisest man ever to live. I think there is some great wisdom in this prayer, and I think that there are some things we can apply to our situations.
1. Our sin.
-“If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,)…” It’s not a matter of “if” I am going to sin. It’s a matter of “when” I am going to sin. If I am awake, I probably have some sinful thought or desire or motive that I need to deal with. If I am asleep, I have probably just hit the snooze button for the third time and am guilty of a little bit of sloth. We all sin. The Bible tells us in I John that “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us”. Solomon knows that the people are going to sin. And we know that we are going to sin.
2. God is angry with sin
-“…and thou be angry with them”. God hates sin and is not pleased when we sin. He knows that we are going to sin, but that does not lessen his hatred of it. When we sin, we make God angry.
3. We must “come to ourselves”
-“Yet if they shall bethink themselves… and repent… and make supplication… saying, We have sinned and done perversely, we have committed wickedness, And so return unto thee with all their heart…” Just like the Prodigal son in Luke, when we “come to ourselves”, we are ready to repent, we are ready to go to the Father and confess our sins and throw ourselves on His mercy.
4. There is forgiveness.
-“Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven… And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee”. Once we come to ourselves and leave our sin behind, coming to Him, He is ready to forgive. The Prodigal son was welcomed by the Father, and we will be welcomed and forgiven by our Heavenly Father.
What a blessing it is to know that no matter how we sin against Him, He still stands ready to forgive, if only we will turn to Him.
Justified Freely 