Word of Encouragement (02/04/2025)
“And now arise, O Lord God, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints rejoice in your goodness. 42 O Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one! Remember your steadfast love for David your servant.” (2 Chron. 6:41-42)
Solomon finishes this prayer with two petitions. The first is, “Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.” This prayer is interesting. Solomon is not praying, “Lord God, do not turn Your face away from me,” which is more typical of petitions; rather, he prays, “Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.” Is there any difference?
The difference is a subtle one. When God turns His face away from a person, it indicates God’s anger with him. It is not that God is temperamental and fickle as we often are; rather, it shows how despicable one has become through his sins. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps. 103:8). For God to turn His face away in anger, there must have been a lot of unrepentant and persistent sins in one’s life.
Then, what does it mean for God to turn away the face of someone? John Gill perceptively suggests (in his commentary of Ps. 132:10), “...the request is, that God would not turn such away from him, and cause them to depart from his throne of grace, ashamed and disappointed; but hear and answer their petitions, for his Son’s sake.” We can see why this petition is appropriate as the conclusion to his dedication prayer for the temple. Throughout the prayer, he presents the temple not so much as a place of sacrifice as a house of prayer, a place to which God’s people ought to direct their petitions. If the temple is where God dwells and the ark of the covenant is His throne, it is only right that His people direct their prayers toward the temple. But in this petition, he particularly asks the Lord to hear his prayers (“the face of your anointed one”) as the anointed king of Israel.
We can claim this petition as our own because we, too, are God’s anointed ones. The oil of anointing symbolizes the Holy Spirit (Isa. 61:1). Since we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11, 1 Cor. 12:13), believers are all God’s anointed ones. And if we can be baptized by the Holy Spirit, it is because Jesus bore our guilt and washed away our sins by His death and resurrection. What is more, the Father turned away His Son’s face, the face of His anointed One, when He cried out to Him as He died for our sins, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). It is for this reason that God will never turn away our faces when we come to Him with our petitions in the name of Jesus Christ! Oh, how can we not pray when Christ made such a costly sacrifice to give us the assurance of God’s attentiveness to our prayers?