Does God remember King Solomon's prayer? (It's buried in 1 Kings 8:22-61.) Your happiness now and forever depends on your answer.
You remember his Temple, furniture of solid gold, the wallpaper also of solid gold. Huge crowds present at the dedication. His prayer there is the longest in the Bible. He knelt (vs. 54), his hands lifted up to heaven (takes us a long time even to read it; was he tired?).
Eleven times he prays to the great God of all the earth to "hear," to "listen," to anybody in all the world who prays to Him, even the pagans and the heathen anywhere whose heart turns toward Him. Solomon seemed obsessed with this idea of begging God to LISTEN, even if those who pray have rebelled against Him, disobeyed, "forsaken the Lord, worshipped other gods and served them," you name it--the invitation is to sinners everywhere of all stripes. "Hear Thou their prayer and their supplication," Solomon begs.
Even if they should languish as captives in a foreign land, if they would "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; ... then hear Thou their prayer" (46-49).
Now the question: Does God today remember Solomon's prayer? The king asks in verse 59 that "my words, wherewith I have made supplication before the Lord" be recorded before the eyes of God, forever, written on the walls of His heavenly sanctuary! If you answer the question, Yes, then know that He welcomes YOU, a sinner, into His presence, and that He indeed "hears," "listens" to YOUR prayer.
--Robert J. Wieland
