Solomon Builds the Temple
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Solomon Builds the Temple
Solomon Builds the Temple
What would it be like to build a dwelling place for God? What if you were tasked with that kinda of job? Where would you even start?
This is the very job that Solomon was tasked with doing. We are going to briefly cover three Chapters of the Bible in our story today. 1 Kings 6-8, tells the story of Solomon and gives great detail into all of the work and craftsmanship that went into building the temple.
But there is also a common theme that keeps coming up, and it has to do with God Himself, and that common theme is that God is faithful and full of Grace.
Why was building the temple such a big deal?
Why was building the temple such a big deal?
Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”
The Temple was the place where God would dwell with His people. It is like the intersection between Heaven and earth- In the wilderness after Israel was delivered from slavery in Egypt God dwelt with them in the tabernacle- God very presence would be with His people.
This is an mazing thought, but it gets better as wee will see.
And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
The glory of God fills the temple. It is seen by all as a cloud that that filled the house of the Lord. What a crazy seen.
Jesus, much later would stand up and
I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
What is Jesus saying here?
What is Jesus saying here?
Christ Connection: The temple was a place where God was with His people. The people could go there to make sacrifices and worship God.
Jesus was God coming to earth and dwelling. Jesus was God in the Flesh- All those that Jesus spoke with, that was God, all those broken people that Jesus touched- that was God, All the lost and hurting that Jesus healed, that was God
God truly is a God of Grace, who reached out to those who were in sin, offering Grace, and to those who were looked down on and casted away as useless, God called to be used for His glory.
The Word became Flesh and when see Jesus’ heart for the lost, His compassion for those who were hurting, We see God in action in this fallen world. Today, when we trust in Jesus, we have this promise that He is with us wherever we go. We can look to Him for forgiveness and help.
Jesus goes on to says that
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Why would it be better that Jesus leaves?
Why would it be better that Jesus leaves?
It is because Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, so no longer to people need to travel to a temple , or live in the area where Jesus ministered, but God has put His Spirit in those who trust in Jesus.
Jesus while He walked this earth limited Himself.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
You see the temple was a place of fellowship with God, Jesus came so that we could have fellowship with God, and this led Him to cross, where He died for our sins.
Now we who trust in Him, we are adopted into God’s family.
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
In the temple they made sacrifices for the sins of the people, Jesus the great High Priest made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, the innocent dying for the guilt- God truly is a God of Faithfulness and love.
What is Solomon’s response?
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven, and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart;
What is steadfast love?
What is steadfast love?
loyal love, unfailing kindness, devotion, i.e., a love or affection that is steadfast based on a prior relationship
Here it is a love based on the Covenant that God made with His people- For us we experience God’s steadfast love through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Solomon does something that shows God steadfast love all the more by showing that we don’t have that same love.
Solomon uses this term “because they have sinned”
“When your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them again to the land that you gave to their fathers.
“When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.
He goes on like this for till verse 53. “when we sin and repent, restore us because you are a faithful God full of steadfast love” In verse 46 Solomon makes this very profound truth
“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,
For everyone sins.
It was for this very reason that someone greater then the temple came; Because everyone sins.
Christ the living temple offered fulfilled the law by offering the only perfect sacrifice- His very own life, because He lived in perfect obedience to God.
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Sin, Original
A young boy and his father were walking in an apple orchard. The father pulled an apple from a tree and, cupping his hands around it, asked his son what he saw. The son replied, “A beautiful red apple. May I have it?” The father then handed the apple to his son for examination. The boy touched it and immediately dropped it. Why? Because the apple appeared to be perfect only when viewed from one side. You see, on the other side it had been attacked by an insect and was rotten throughout. Yet the skin on the first side still had wholeness.
All people are like that apple. They may appear to be beautiful, but, once we examine them thoroughly, we see that all of us are rotten and marred because of our sin nature.
Why did Christ Come?
Why did Christ Come?
It is because He is faithful- When speaking to these same people who would go one a betray God, turn away from Him and worship idols in God place, God says:
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Through the prophet Isaiah God would paint a picture of just how steadfast His love truly in
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Solomon build a temple where God’s presences would dwell with His people, that temple would later get destroyed because those people turned from God.
Yet God’s promise was that He would send the Messiah to come and would be freedom to those who would put their faith and trust in Him, and that Messiah would free them from the greatest slaver master- Sin
Repentance:
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Repentance
Noah’s message from the steps going up to the Ark was not, “Something good is going to happen to you!”
Amos was not confronted by the high priest of Israel for proclaiming, “Confession is possession!”
Jeremiah was not put into the pit for preaching, “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.!”
Daniel was not put into the lion’s den for telling people, “Possibility thinking will move mountains!”
John the Baptist was not forced to preach in the wilderness and eventually beheaded because he preached, “Smile, God loves you!”
The two prophets of the tribulation will not be killed for preaching, “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world!”
Instead, what was the message of all these men of God? Simple, one word: “Repent!”
This message is all because of God’s grace as we saw with Solomon’s speech, We wander, we sin, we fail, yet God is a God of steadfast loves and He forgives us we turn to Him, which is what repent means.
Solomon ends with this
The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”
The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott The Cross Discloses God’s Inmost Nature
“Just as the flame which flashes out from a volcano momentarily reveals the elemental, unceasing fires burning at the earth’s heart, so the love that leapt out on one crowning day of history in the sheer flame of the cross disclosed what God’s inmost nature is for ever