Address—Doug Buchanan
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Wonder if we could open our meeting this afternoon with hymn #46 in the appendix.
Have I an object, Lord below, which would divide my heart with thee, which would divert its even flow in answer to Thy constancy? Oh, teach me quickly to return, and 'cause my heart afresh to burn. 46 in the Appendix.
Today my spirit really will.
Enjoy.
Our Lord.
I wait for the dream.
I would like to use the last meeting here to direct our.
Hearts to the things of the Lord.
There's a man in the Old Testament.
Well known for his wisdom.
His good understanding.
But there's a third thing that it says about him that I would like to speak of this afternoon, and that is largeness of heart.
Who am I speaking about?
King Solomon.
And we know Solomon had his failures later on, but the Lord did give him.
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Large heartedness.
And I believe God would like us to be like that today.
The Lord Jesus told his disciples, Freely ye have received, freely give.
To be large hearted we have some have to have some a source.
A source of.
Joy, a source of blessing, a heart that is in tune with God that would share.
There is.
That scattereth and yet increases there is that withholdeth more than this meat.
And tendeth to poverty.
Sometimes we feel poverty stricken in our souls as Christians.
We who are gathered to the Lord's name have much truth. We have a heritage of things that have been committed to us as the Lord's people that are enjoyed by few Christians. And because of that we ought to be the most generous of all people on earth. And yet we find often times it's not so with us.
Were selfish.
We like to take a blessing and enjoy it by ourselves.
Job could speak of not hiding these things in his heart.
He made them known.
The Lord Jesus would speak about.
A Goodman out of the good treasure of his heart.
Bring us forth things new and old.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. You know there are many verses that we know so well about the heart.
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
Our salvation that we have is made good to us because we receive it in that innermost part of our being. That's the real me.
Our heart.
And I believe that God would have us.
Let our heart manifest itself in our daily life.
Not just an academic thing that we talk about when we go to meeting.
But something that's enjoyed in daily life, not put on, but really from the heart.
As a father.
Raising children we we soon find out our children figure us out what the real dad is.
Is that the dad that talks in meeting on Lord's Day, or is that the dad that's behaving Saturday night?
It's what we really enjoy, brethren.
That is of real value to us and it's what we really enjoy that others notice about us and want.
King Solomon.
Did that and I want to go through the expressions of that he used in his prayer at the dedication of the temple as the basis of our comments on the heart because at least 810 or 11 Times he speaks about the heart in that chapter. So if you'll open up your Bibles to 1St Kings chapter 8.
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We're going to read portions of this chapter. We're probably not going to turn to many more scriptures.
We'll begin reading from verse 12. First Kings 8, verse 12.
Then spake Solomon.
The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick darkness.
I have surely built thee and house to dwell in a subtle place for thee to abide in forever.
And the king turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel, and all the congregation of Israel stood. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which spake with his mouth unto David my father, and hath with his hand fulfilled it, saying, Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city.
Out of all the tribes of Israel to build and house, that my name might be therein. But I chose David to be over my people Israel.
And it was in the heart of David, my father, to build a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel.
And the Lord said unto David, my father, whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name.
Thou didst well that it was in thine heart. Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house, but my son that shall come forth out of thy loins, He shall build the house unto my name. And the Lord has performed his word that he spake. And I am risen up in the room of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel.
As the Lord promised, and have built in house for the name of the Lord God of Israel, and I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land.
Of Egypt.
Well, this is so touching to see Solomon here at a time of great glory and blessing, after he had abundantly worked and built a house for the Lord to dwell in.
And I think it's significant to see how that he connects this all back.
To the idea that originated in the heart of David.
To do so.
You know David is called the man after God's heart.
Isn't that lovely to think that God looks down into our hearts to find a heart that would correspond to his heart and say that man?
Has my heart.
Who but a man like that was better suited to come up with the right ideas?
Where God would dwell.
He's been done a wonderful thing, brethren, that our hearts.
Can be united together to know God's heart.
Appreciate it.
Do something about it.
God must look down today in each of our hearts.
We're all different.
Yes, we can say God probably put that idea into David's heart. But looking at it humanly?
David.
Was dwelling in a House of cedar, and then he thought about where the Lord dwelled, and he came up with this idea.
Are building a house for the Lord.
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God told him afterwards that he wasn't to be the one. Well, we live a long time later and we know the historical.
Significance of that that even really Solomon wasn't going to be the ultimate fulfillment of it, but he was a partial fulfillment of it and so as we read this we we see the right way to behave the white the right way to have our heart before the Lord and.
Act, express our heart.
Don't be afraid to express your feelings, brethren, your heart.
Be real.
I suppose this is a little easier for the sisters to do than the men folks. We tend as the as men folks, we tend to be a little more reserved in our expressions. Well, we need balance and all of these things, but.
David expressed this and through going through this exercise.
God guided David as to where the temple was going to be built.
Now we could, we could go off on a tangent here in connection with being gathered to the Lord's name and just briefly mention that, you know, how do you know where the Lord would have you meet together as a believer in this day?
There's really no substitute for getting acquainted with God by the reading of His Word, to know His heart, to find that place. That's the way the disciples found it in the upper room, that first.
Time that the Lords supper was instituted and they said where, where wilt thou we we had much about being guided by the Spirit of God.
In our last meeting and this, they were guided by the Spirit of God and it became apparent and God is able to guide us today.
In our situations, he didn't tell them to go to such and such a street. He told them to go where there was a situation that they had to make a decision about a man bearing a pitcher of water and follow the man. And so it was abundant proof.
Of his guiding hand, Solomon here had been guided.
Largely through his father.
We might say a little word about generations, you know.
I tend to feel like, and I think I mentioned it in our prayer, that.
We're kind of a new generation. This is my viewpoint of it.
Our older brethren are gone.
They have, they have handed down to us truths that we have learned to appreciate. And now the ball is in our court. We are the responsible representatives of the Lord here, a new generation.
And Solomon was that he got a lot of his instructions from his father. His heart entered into what his father had gone through, and he made it on his own, in his own heart and followed it.
Some of us as men, folks sometimes want to be independent. You know, I can look back and when I was a young person in my late teens and wanting, realizing I wanted to establish my identity as a young person, I didn't want to just be a replica of my dad.
And that's proper.
But those things that I see that my father and others before walked in.
By the grace of God.
They found entrance into my heart too and became real. I'm not just puppeting what other brethren before me.
Lived like it's a part of me. God wants us to take these things into our heart and to make them our own. And then.
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It's both fulfilling what the Father David had received of the Lord and Solomon, and so he says here.
It was in the heart of David, my father. Verse 17 to build a house.
This is especially significant when we think of what had happened, of the rivalry that had.
Happened shortly before this when other sons of David aspired to the throne.
And perished.
It was not of God.
Who was it that?
Set Solomon to be the king it was of Jehovah, and how appropriate now then for him being as Jehovah chose him to give the Lord his place in the building of the temple. So it's a question of David fulfill Solomon fulfilling.
What was in the heart of His Father? And I look at that as a picture of how we as believers discern the heart of God.
Make it our own.
And then show it out how we live.
What a privilege.
It will not leave us feeble and dried up, and then of poverty when our hearts are refreshed in this way.
Closely close to the heart of God and giving expression of it. You know, I was reading just this past week of some of the some excerpts of letters of Mr. Darby wrote and he I was struck by how he referred to how he had been extra busy.
Doing certain jobs.
Jobs in the sense of ministry, having meetings. He was having so many meetings. You know what the burden of his soul was?
He was concerned that his heart not get too far removed by being so occupied with what was given him to do that he didn't remain close to the Lord and his heart.
Refurbished or fed? Fed by feeding on the Lord Jesus Himself personally.
There's such a thing as being overly occupied with doing so much that you don't get your own soul fed.
That leads to poverty.
Verse 18.
It was in thy heart, David. And the Lord said unto David, whereas it was in thine heart to build a house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart.
Nevertheless, thou shalt not build the house.
David.
David did not.
God chose to have someone else do the work.
And of course, we know that it was only the Lord Jesus who ultimately could be that one who would build the house. Now we'll go on. I want to drop down to the next occasion in verse 20. We'll start with verse 22.
And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hand toward heaven. And he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in the heaven above, or on earth beneath.
Who keep us covenant and mercy with thy servants, that walk before thee with all.
Their heart.
Could we say this is the undivided heart?
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Our brother spoke to us yesterday in the address about loving the world.
And when we love the world, the love of the Father cannot be there. Those two things cannot go on together. It's one or the other. And so the heart must be undivided.
All for the Lord.
And this receipt in Solomon.
An undivided heart.
We sang of that in our hymn every time we sing that hymn. 46 in the appendix of my.
I think there's some others that have expressed this same thought. It takes them in thought back to our late brother Eric Smith, who I remember having given out this that hymn on many an occasion. And I, I, I remember it because I believe we saw in that man, by the grace of God, somebody who was really dedicated to what the Lord gave him to do.
And we see the results of it today in the fruit that has has the blessing that's been throughout Latin America. I being one who is a witness of it and have seen it since its beginning. An undivided heart, a life where the heart is totally given over to service of the Lord.
Is a means of great blessing. You can't divide it up the heart. It won't work.
Now we'll go down to.
A little later in the chapter.
Let's drop down to. I want to make sure I don't miss them here.
Verse 37.
First Kings 837.
If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting mildew, locusts, or there be Caterpillar, if their enemy besieged them in the land of their cities, whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness, there be, what prayer and supplication so ever be made by any man, or by all the people Israel.
Which shall know every man the plague of his own heart.
And spread forth his hand toward this house. Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do and give to every man, according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest.
For thou, even thou alone.
Only knowest the hearts of all the children of men.
That they may fear thee all the days, that they live in the land which thou gave us unto our fathers.
Now, first of all, here we have the plague.
Of our own heart. Now this gets down to where there has been failure and difficulties, and Solomon foresaw this in his prayer.
And he prayed.
For the Lord's forgiveness and for the Lord's blessing. In such a case, how gracious is our God, who knows our weaknesses and our failures and the results of those failures, brings what is spoken of here as a plague of our heart.
And I think we all have experienced this, the results of failure here and there.
It's a wonderful thing that it's not all over. When we fail, there is provision made.
And so the Lord knows that.
When you're in a problem, it's hard to see beyond that problem and sometimes these plagues of our heart that the bitterness, the difficulties that enter into our soul.
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The consequences of things that have happened.
Maybe not necessarily always because of our own failure, but in our walking together, even with our brethren, and sharing together.
And the weakness and failures as a public testimony.
Does God want us to feel these things?
Yes, I believe he does.
And I believe there is a blessing in letting these things go all the way into your heart.
You know it speaks in Hebrews 12 about despising, not the chastening of the Lord.
Sometimes we may react that way when there's failure and we may as we're trying to Garrison and cover our hearts and not really let it affect us.
I don't believe that's necessarily the mind of God.
Says about the Lord Israel, in all their afflictions he was afflicted.
Does the Lord feel?
And understand when there's a plague.
In our heart, when we're reaping the consequences of failure.
Would he have us blindly, stubbornly go on as if there was nothing wrong?
No.
The very process of going and feeling a plague in your heart can bring you close to the Lord.
And he can help and sustain, and he will.
And then it goes on in in verse 39.
And you have what I'm going to call both in the individual sense and the collective sense.
Verse 39 It says, Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and give to every man, according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest.
A wonderful thing to know that the Lord knows that heart.
It's kind of like, could I give an example of the woman of Samaritan, The Samaritan woman at the well when the Lord exposed her life.
She didn't run away and hide.
After she had known that man, the blessed man, the Lord Jesus there, even though he opened up her whole life and she she realized he was a prophet, she after her heart had been exposed, you might say, and there's other examples you could take the woman in the eighth of John who was made a public scandal. You know, sometimes it's hard to.
Let your heart be known.
Sometimes we want to hide these things, bear it all alone, keep it secret.
She the woman of the Samaritan woman says come see a man told me all things that ever I did.
She wasn't just talking about the good things she'd done.
The blessedness of the man that knew all the evil and the wretchedness that was there that yet would still love her was a man worth getting to know better.
That's the heart.
The Lord knows the heart.
That hard He knows our heart and the collective sense too. And it goes on. Thou knowest in the verse knoweth the hearts of all the children of men. Everybody else too. As face enters the face, so the heart of man to man it's all.
It's all out there, other people. It ought to help us too, in reaching out to those around us. You know, we're not really that different from each other. We're all made out of the same dust. We're like a lot alike.
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Go on to verse 44.
Now let's shorten it up a little bit. Let's start in verse 47.
Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captive, and repent and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captive, sayings 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 in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward.
Their land.
Which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, in the house which I have built for Thy name. 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 the.
And give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them.
Now here you have the restored heart.
This restoring of the heart.
We've often enjoyed Daniel as an example of this and how he confessed the sin of the people. He did not isolate himself as as a different from the rest of the bunch. He said we have sinned and he identified if there was anybody in that land of Babylon that hadn't sinned, it was probably Daniel. And yet he chose to identify in a collective way.
With the failure of the whole people and this was the means of a blessing. The blessing being that he was given the prophecies that really are the key to the understanding of the whole Bible.
The 70 weeks of Daniel and all the times of the Gentiles. And he was given an answer in a symbolic or in a figurative way in the in interpretations or in the dreams and so on of that Daniel received from the Lord. So that the Lord answered Daniel's prayer by pointing him to a future day when really the Lord Jesus would be the ultimate fulfillment of and bring the people of Israel back.
But it was also an encouragement for the remnant during the interval. And so for us today, brethren, we live in the Christian testimony when when there's been a lot of collective failure.
The remedy is not to separate from those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. It doesn't say out of a perfect heart or a sinless heart. No, out of a pure heart.
There's such a thing as identifying with the failures of the people of God.
And the restored heart.
And I believe that's happened in our lifetime here and the experiences that we've been through.
And it gives me real peace.
Not that I see the brethren as having done everything right, but I see that they have identified themselves with the failure, owning the Lord Jesus in His rightful place and seeking to give Him that rightful place, and it brings restoration.
Now we have a couple more.
Verse.
We'll drop down to.
Verse 58.
That they may incline, let's read verse 57. The Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. Let him not leave us nor forsake us, that he may incline our hearts unto Him to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, which He commanded our fathers.
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Could we say here it's the dependent heart inclined?
Our hearts, they're going on for the Lord in this time like this, when there has been failure.
Is is through dependence, and we had that book before us in connection with the guidance of the Spirit of God.
It's the person who waits on the leading of the Spirit, the inclined heart that will be guided right?
Verse 61.
Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God to walk in all His statutes and to keep His commandments as at this day.
A perfect heart.
Not perfect in the sense of sinless necessarily, but with no apparent.
Failure. The Lord wants this, he desires it be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect the perfect heart is that heart that the Lord can relate to and make himself known to and so when we incline our heart and when we are honest with ourselves and.
Submissive to the Lord.
Then there is that perfect heart. And lastly we have in verse 6665 and six.
And at that time Solomon held a feast in all Israel with him, a great congregation from the entering of Haymath unto the river of Egypt before the Lord our God, seven days and seven and seven days, even 14 days.
On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king, and went unto their tents, joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had done for David his servant, and for Israel his people. So here we have the joyful and glad heart. What a wonderful thing when there is this ability to enjoy the things of God.
In such an abundant way. And so it was with Solomon. It's a picture, of course, of the Millennium. But I believe individually, each of us, as we walk before the Lord with our heart, right, the results will be the same.
A glad and a joyful heart. May the Lord make us, brethren, this kind of a witness. May it be real with us, brethren, where our our meetings are over, we're going to go home. And I trust that there will be something of this, of a joyful and a glad heart as we go back to our homes and work.