1 Kings 6

[0:00] 1 Kings chapter 6. 1 Kings chapter 6 is where we will be at. So we just continue to make our way through Scripture and we are this far into it.

[0:13] 1 Kings chapter 6. Alright, let's go ahead and open up with a word of prayer and then we'll begin. Lord, thank you so much for this day.

[0:25] Thank you, God, for just the day you've given us, the opportunity we've had to gather together with your people. Lord, just the chance it is to open up the word with one another. And we pray even as we look at the historical writings, Lord, we continue to see the character of God.

[0:41] We continue to see the usefulness and purpose of man. Lord, I pray that you help us to walk in a closer fellowship with you as a result of it. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the promises and even the challenges that it contains.

[0:53] And God, we just ask that in all things you would be exalted in it. And we just ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. 1 Kings chapter 6.

[1:04] Very instrumental passage in the nation's history. You'll see why in just a moment we get into it. So it's a very instrumental passage and I want you to see it this evening. Again, we're looking at history.

[1:15] So when we look at the historical writings, so many times we kind of have to catch it as an overview. So we don't really pull out so many verses per se and just kind of dissect the verses because the challenge is always to see the application of the truth that's contained in the history.

[1:31] But we see some truths contained in this history that have application to us. While none of us will find ourselves in the same position that Solomon is in here.

[1:42] We won't be doing this. They're namely building a temple. We are the temple. We are the stones of the temple. So we're not going to find ourselves historically doing what it is that God calls and even equips Solomon to do.

[1:55] We won't be. I know Bible scholars are kind of divided over this. I'm not looking for the construction of a new temple.

[2:06] I know when you start looking in end times prophecies and things of that nature, people are looking for the construction of a new temple. And I'm not doing that because I think that my interpretation of that is not saying that mine's wrong, yours is right, and yours is wrong, and mine's right.

[2:22] But I'm just saying in my interpretation of Scripture is the church is the new temple that is actually in Jerusalem during the millennial reign of Christ. We are that temple that's presented. But anyway, we're not looking at a building per se, but there are some truths that come from the history that we can apply to our lives.

[2:42] So when we read it and we study it, we look at it that way. But we're going to read the entire chapter, 1 Kings 6, and we'll make our way through that, and then we'll kind of look at it from there.

[2:53] Now it came about in the 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel in the month of Zev, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.

[3:08] As for the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, its length was 60 cubits, and its width 20 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. The porch in front of the nave of the house was 20 cubits in length corresponding to the width of the house, and its depth along the front of the house was 10 cubits.

[3:24] Also for the house, he made windows with artistic frames. Against the wall of the house, he built stories encompassing the walls of the house around both the nave and the inner sanctuary.

[3:35] Thus, he made side chambers all around. Now, the lowest story was 5 cubits wide, and the middle was 6 cubits wide, and the third was 7 cubits wide.

[3:46] For on the outside, he made offsets in the wall of the house all around it in order that the beams would not be inserted in the walls of the house. Don't worry, we'll look at that in just a minute, okay? We'll kind of break that apart.

[3:57] The house, while it was being built, was built of stone prepared at the quarry, and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built. The doorway for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the house, and they would go up by winding stairs to the middle story and from the middle to the third.

[4:16] So he built the house and finished it, and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar, and he also built the stories against the whole house, each 5 cubits high, and they were fastened to the house with timbers of cedar.

[4:27] Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying, concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statues and execute my ordinances and keep all my commandments while walking in them, then I will carry out my word with you which I spoke to David your father.

[4:44] I would dwell among the sons of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. So Solomon built the house and finished it. Then he built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar from the floor of the house to the ceiling.

[4:57] He overlaid the walls on the inside with wood, and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress. And he built 20 cubits on the rear part of the house and boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling, and he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, even as the most holy place.

[5:13] The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was 40 cubits long, and there was cedar on the house within, carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar. There was no stone seen.

[5:26] Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place the ark of the covenant of the Lord. The inner sanctuary was 20 cubits in length, 20 cubits in width, and 20 cubits in height. And he overlaid it with pure gold.

[5:38] He also overlaid the altar with cedar. And so Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, and he drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold, and he overlaid the whole house with gold until all the house was finished.

[5:52] Also, the whole altar, which was by the inner sanctuary, he overlaid with gold. Also, in the inner sanctuary, he made two cherubim of olive wood, each 10 cubits high. Five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub.

[6:08] From the end of one wing to the end of the other wing were 10 cubits. The other cherub was 10 cubits. Both the cherubim were of the same measure and the same form.

[6:19] The height of the one cherub was 10 cubits, and so was the other. He placed the cherubim in the midst of the inner house, and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that the wing of the one was touching the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall, so their wings were touching each other in the center of the house.

[6:36] He also overlaid the cherubim with gold. Then he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, inner and outer sanctuaries. He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, inner and outer sanctuaries.

[6:50] And for the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood, the lentil and five-sided doorposts. He also made two doors of olive wood, and he carved on them carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.

[7:03] And he overlaid them with gold, and he spread the gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. So also he made for the entrance of the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood and two doors of cypress wood.

[7:15] The two leaves of the one door turned on pivots, and the two leaves of the other door turned on pivots. And he carved on it cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. And he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the engraved work.

[7:28] He built the inner court with three rows of cut stones and a row of cedar beams. In the fourth year, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month Ziv. In the eleventh year, the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to all its plans.

[7:46] So he was seven years in building it. Here we have the building of the temple. A lot of details given to us here, and we'll kind of look at those in just a moment, and we'll kind of see them for what they are.

[7:59] But we have the building of the temple. Again, there are marked events in the history of the nation of Israel in which we say, okay, this is one of those times. We have the call of Abraham.

[8:10] We have the covenant with Abraham. We have the birth or the renewal of that covenant through the descendants of Abraham. We have the going into Egypt. We have the exodus of Egypt.

[8:21] We have Mount Sinai. There are these marked times, the anointing of the king. And here we have another one, which is the construction of the temple, because for the first time in the history of God's people, they have a permanent place of worship.

[8:34] Up to this time, the Ark of the Covenant has resided in tents, or it's kind of went in and out and it's moved amongst the people of God. He has tabernacled with them. That is, he has existed among them.

[8:45] And now for the first time, they're going to do what God had said they should do. They should have a centralized place of worship that all of Israel would come, and they would worship together. Because remember, this wasn't about so much worshiping the building as providing an opportunity for corporate gathering.

[9:02] It wasn't that each person was free to go worship however they wanted to, wherever they wanted to, as they wanted to. You didn't have that freedom of choice. God longed, or God commanded, that his people would have a centralized location of worship wherever he called his name to be, is how he declared it in the book of Deuteronomy, so that the people of Israel would come to a certain place and worship together.

[9:25] God has always been about the corporate body more than just the individual. Not that the individual isn't important. It's just that the individual finds his fulfillment and his purpose and his connection in the body.

[9:36] There's no isolation here among the people of God, which is an astounding thing, because while God works with the individuals, again, we stay consistent in Scripture. God works with the individuals, but he unites the individuals to other individuals to form a body.

[9:49] And he longs for that worship, the worshiping together of the saints, Old and New Testament. It is a powerful thing. So here for the first time in the nation of Israel, we have the building of the temple. There's just some truths that I want us to pull out of that, things that we see that take place in this time.

[10:04] It won't take us very long tonight, but we'll see them. And there are truths that are so astounding here, but also have the great application to us throughout history. The first thing we see is that this is a dedicated time.

[10:16] Okay, this is a dedicated time. It says, now it came about in the 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt. Note this in Scripture. This is the first chronological mentioning of a time frame.

[10:31] This is how you date the Exodus. This is so new in Scripture by the time we get to this point in 1 Kings. Some Bible scholars have even kind of cast doubt on the authenticity of this date.

[10:48] We're not here to do that as Bible criticism, not that it's necessarily right or wrong. They long to go and say that that was added by scribal editions later on in the history of God's people.

[10:59] But we have it here before us, and we just look at this, and we say, okay, for the first time, God gives us a date. This would date the Exodus if you bring it back to somewhere around 1400 B.C.

[11:11] Okay, when you're looking at the reign of Solomon, and you kind of have dates for the reign of Solomon, which would be in the 900s, this would be around the year 1400 B.C. There are reasons for why that should be the right date, and then there are reasons for why people say it shouldn't be the right date.

[11:27] Most of the reasons that people give for it can't be the right date as well. We don't have any evidence that this city fell at that time or this city fell at that time, and what we have found is the more that man sticks a shovel in the ground, the more that what man finds aligns with Scripture.

[11:40] Okay, it's just an easy way of saying that archaeology is actually aligning with Scripture as we study it and we come to a greater understanding. But for the first time in Scripture, God gives us a benchmark, a date mark, right?

[11:53] This is why the beginning of the construction of the temple is so important because it says, now, when you open up your New Testament, it says in about the 400th year after the kingdom. So that's a roundabout number, right?

[12:05] Here we have a specific date, the 480th year. And it is reconciled with dates that we find in the book of Judges, which says during the reign of one of the judges, the nation of Israel had lived in the land for 300 years.

[12:18] And we can kind of look at the generations that follow that and come to this point. You say, well, what does that matter? This is just dealing with history. Right. But we mark this history again. We are not, when we open up Scripture, we are not reading the full history of mankind, but rather we are reading the history of God's interaction with mankind.

[12:38] And one of the ways that we mark that interaction is with these things that God calls man to do, right? And here the construction of the temple in Jerusalem, Solomon's temple, is one of those markings of this is how we know this happened in time and space.

[12:56] This is a good way to say that this actually happened, right? There was a year, there was a date that this started. And we not only see that it was historically, we can date everything else that God did with his people according to this.

[13:11] Everything that you look at, how God dealt with his people, you have to start at this date and either go back or you go forward, which is important because this is the temple, right?

[13:22] This is what God said that they should do. They should construct a centralized location or should have a centralized location of worship. And it's marked. This is what we use to mark it. But we also notice at this dedicated time that it is in a very peculiar time or a very specific time in the reign of Solomon.

[13:39] It tells us that it is in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, which shows us this calling and this project has priority in Solomon's life. I mean, four years into your reign, if he was around 18 to 19 years of age when he came upon the throne after David died, some people believe maybe even younger than that, he doesn't wait very long before he starts building this temple.

[14:04] It takes a couple of years to weed out the problems that are still resided after David, right? We know that he has a beathar that he has to remove from being priest. He has Joab he has to deal with.

[14:15] There are other things that he needs to deal with. There are some problems not not that he is defending his father, but that he is fulfilling God's judgment in the lives of these individuals. Big difference there.

[14:26] So we don't say, well, Solomon is just defending his father because David could have defended himself. But the very first thing that we see Solomon doing proactively is building the temple. And it's in the fourth year of his reign.

[14:37] It's in the second month of that year. And it is in the month of Ziph, which tells us, again, we get very specific. All right. We get very, very, very specific because when God calls us to a work, he always calls us to be intentional about that work.

[14:54] In our own lives. It's amazing. When we think about the testimony of our own lives, we not normally will kind of share our testimony with the highlights of what God was doing at a moment.

[15:07] Right. There's a point. Samuel refers to them as Ebenezer's here. I raise my stone of Ebenezer. Right. And Ebenezer is kind of that stone. It says, thus far, the Lord has helped me.

[15:18] We did something there. God did something there at that moment. And we look back and we say, OK, there's an Ebenezer. It is not so we can go look at all these cool stones around us. It is so that as we move forward and we look back and we see the stone which we raised up, thus far, the Lord has helped us.

[15:35] There was a point in time. There was a specific moment that God did something or God called us to do something. And the faithfulness of God is seen. This is exactly what's going on here in Solomon's reign.

[15:47] Right. He's four years into his reign. He's in the second month of that year. And he starts the construction of the temple. That's a benchmark, again, not only just for the nation, but for him. He says, well, God, now he is doing what God's going to do.

[15:59] We all have those. Right. Then when God calls us and equips us to begin something, he begins to lay it on our heart. Then there is always a time in which we start that.

[16:11] People come to me recently. A lot of people say, well, I think God wants me to do something. But can you tell me what it is? I say, well, when God lays it on your heart and the doors begin to open up, I can tell you some things to do. But what I want you to do is just to kind of wait in the presence of the Lord.

[16:25] And when the Lord begins to open that up, then there will be a start date. You'll know exactly what it is God has for you. Right. What are you passionate about? What are you excited about? And then there'll be this kind of this marking. Here it is.

[16:35] This is what I'm called to do. And we see that going on in Solomon's life. But then we read this passage. But what's even so much more amazing is when we get to the end of it.

[16:46] It says in the fourth year, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Zip. So the fourth year, the second month. And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bull, which is the eighth month.

[16:57] So you're now seven years and six months. So seven and a half years, right? Eighth month, the house was finished. So what we see is this was not only a dedicated time that we can date the history of Israel, not only a dedicated time in which we can see that Solomon began something.

[17:14] But this is all we know that they were doing at that time. Seven and a half years in the nation of Israel, the only thing taking place is they're building the temple.

[17:25] Now we know there are other things going on, right? Seven and a half years, there are a lot of things that happened over the span of a lifetime there, but we understand that for this time, this was a time set apart solely among the nation and during the reign of Solomon to build the temple.

[17:43] And it's, again, that reality that there are seasons when God calls us to begin something. And then there are seasons where God says, this is what I want you to focus on.

[17:57] There are seasons in church life. There are seasons in individual's life. There are seasons where we say, okay, this is the laying of the foundation. This is the building and this is the moving forward.

[18:07] But there are seasons where we say, this is our focus. And Solomon had that. And we see that in the building of the temple. Other things may have pulled. Other things may have needed attention.

[18:19] But what we know from scripture here is that for that seven years, six months, the temple is being built. That's the main thing. And they wanted to keep it priority because that's what God had called and equipped them to do.

[18:32] He'd equipped them through David. He had called them, again, I'm reminded, Warren Wiersbe reminds us, the two great sins of David, the sin with Bathsheba and the numbering of God's people, right?

[18:44] When he numbered God's people, he ended up buying a field from Arunah the Jebusite. And the outflow of the sin with Bathsheba is a child named Solomon. Now, David, those sins are forgiven, but those sins cost him dearly, right?

[18:56] He lost four children as a result of his sin with Bathsheba and 70,000 people died in the nation of Israel because he counted them. He repented of those sins. He found forgiveness and mercy in those sins, but he paid dearly for those sins.

[19:08] But the result of those sins was that God used the son that was born from that sin and the field that was bought from that sin to build his temple. And it's amazing how God redeems even our mistakes.

[19:23] The enemy wants to keep us back here and say, oh, well, you've messed up so much. And God, while that price is dearly paid, so it's not an excuse to go out and say, well, I can live however I want to because God can do something amazing with it.

[19:36] It is the comfort that when we realize we've messed up and we repent and we know the weight of our sin and we're even in the midst of paying the penalty of our sin, that that doesn't thwart or stop the purposes of God and the plans of God.

[19:48] Because God's plan, while it might have taken 480 years, it took 480 years once they came out of Egypt before this finally came about. Because even before they went into the promised land, about year 38, after 38 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses declared to them, so it's 40 years, so it's two years at Mount Sinai, 38 years of wandering around, right?

[20:07] You say they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. No, they hung out at Mount Sinai for two years after they came out of Egypt. They got to law, the plans, the tabernacle, they constructed it. And then they went to go into the promised land.

[20:17] They failed to go into the promised land and they wandered around for 38 years. So after 38 years of wandering, right before they were getting ready to go into the promised land, Moses gave his, you know, the book of Deuteronomy. In the book of Deuteronomy, he says, this is what's going to happen.

[20:29] It only takes another 480 years for him to do it. But God's consistent, right? God is consistent. And we see this dedicated time. He found his man at the right time to do what he'd want it done.

[20:44] Sometimes we're that person that God is dedicated to it, but he calls us to dedicate our time to it as well. The second thing that we notice in this passage, again, we're looking at these things kind of from bird's eye view and then we bring them down.

[20:57] We not only see there's a dedicated time, there's a detailed finish. I mean, it's astounding. When you look at the carpentry work, this is not a big building, okay? It seems big in scope, but in really in comparison to the buildings we have today, it's not a big building.

[21:12] The temple itself is going to be 90 feet long by 30 feet wide by 45 feet high. That's what all your cubits mean. Cubit, a common cubit is 18 inches.

[21:23] There's a long cubit, it's somewhere around 20, 22 inches that we see given to us in one of the books of Chronicles. But if we convert this because it tells us that it's used by the common cubit, you do the math, it's about 90 feet long by 30 feet wide and 45 feet high and it has a 30 foot wide porch by a 30 foot long porch that's 15 feet wide going all the way around it.

[21:45] Okay? It's not massively large. It's large, but it's not just crazy large. But the detail work is astounding because when you begin to pay attention to everything that goes on there, you need to know this too because we're getting into the details.

[22:00] The temple is exactly twice the size of the tabernacle in every respect. So there's some intentionality here. Okay? Moses was given the plan for the tabernacle.

[22:13] David was given the plan for the temple. We see that the temple is exactly twice the size of the tabernacle. It is astounding what happens because God had declared in the book of Deuteronomy through Moses that they should not.

[22:31] When they built an altar, he said it in the book of Exodus and he also said it again in the book of Deuteronomy. So it repeats itself, right? That when they build an altar or build a stone altar for them that they should never use any hammer or chisel or any stone on it because they would defile it.

[22:42] They should build it out of natural stones. The spirit of that is that when you're coming to God, you're bringing this sincerity and using what God has provided. Now, this is not necessarily just for the altar, but that spirit is even conveyed in how they build it on site because it says that you never hear any sound of hammer nor axe nor chisel nor tools or anything on site.

[23:04] It's a place of solemn and simile. They're doing all that work at the quarry. That's what we looked at last week when we were looking at this passage that the stone cutters and all that, that's happening over there. By the time they bring it to the temple, they're just using what has been provided and it fits together perfectly.

[23:19] They would say that some of the stones are so tight, you couldn't even slide a piece of paper between them. But it's amazing the craftsmanship that goes into this. But yet they construct it with such detail and such fine work here that everything's intentional.

[23:34] Everything that goes on about it has intentionality. He constructs it two times larger. The cherubim inside the Holy of Holies are two times larger than what takes place in the tabernacle.

[23:44] There's a difference. The cherubim that are in the tabernacle that are the mercy seat that are above the Ark of the Covenant, they're facing one another. Their wings are stretched towards one another. Some of you have seen the drawing, the renderings of that.

[23:56] And each wing is touching the other and they're bowed. In Solomon's temple, they're standing this way or actually this way and their wings are outstretched and they're looking forward. And this wing is touching that wing. This wing is touching the wall.

[24:07] And they're going all the way across, right? So there's a little bit of difference there. But everything has some intentionality about it. Solomon builds the outer courts, which seems kind of weird to us because they get larger the farther they go up, right?

[24:22] So they're all six foot tall. They're five cubits tall, which means they're about six foot tall. And the bottom one, it tells us, is this size and it gets this size and it gets this size. So essentially it goes from seven foot or seven and a half feet wide to nine feet wide to ten and a half feet wide.

[24:37] So every time you take a step up, you're increasing a foot and a half. And you're like, well, that makes no sense whatsoever to me. How are you going to do that? Well, it says that Solomon did it in such a manner that he put beams on the outside of the temple because they're not the temple proper.

[24:50] They're the storehouses and probably sleeping chambers for the priest. But he did it in such a way that he put beams on the outside so that it would rest on those beams and nothing would protrude through the wall into the temple.

[25:02] That way, the details matter. There's no distraction from worship inside the temple, right? All the construction is in such a manner that everything is self-supporting outside. Literally, those buildings on the outside that go up and down each side could be taking off and the structure in the middle, that is the temple proper, is unaffected.

[25:22] The temple is not holding it up. They're just built beside it. There's a spiral staircase, which I always thought would be really cool to go see. There's something different in the temple that was not in the tabernacle.

[25:33] That is, there are windows. There were no windows in the tabernacle, but there are windows in the temple. And we get in the book of 2 Chronicles chapter 3 is where they start the construction there.

[25:46] The windows are a little bit different. They're kind of like the castle windows where they're narrow towards the outside and they get wider when you go on the inside. And it's just shining a little bit of light. But the greater part of the light of the temple was really the candles that were there, the candle stands that were on each side of it.

[26:01] We notice when we get into there that the Holy of Holies encompasses a third of the temple. And it is perfectly square. It's 30, it's 20 cubits by 20 cubits by 20 cubits.

[26:15] So it's 45 by 45 by 45. It encompasses a third. Two-thirds of it are the holy place where the priest would walk into in the very back of it. So if it was a rectangle kind of like this, it would be you walk in here and there would be a wall here and the rest of this is the Holy of Holies.

[26:30] It is intentionally built. It is all to measurement and it is all to perfection. And he overlays it all with gold. He overlays everything.

[26:40] There's no stone that can be seen on the inside because it's cut stone, right? So God says there shouldn't be any cut stone. So there's no stone that can be seen on the inside. Everything is overlaid with wood.

[26:50] And then the wood is overlaid with sheets of hammered gold. Even the nails are covered in gold. There's a five-sided post door that goes into the Holy of Holies.

[27:03] And then he has these doors that are large doors. They're so large that they bifold in the middle. So you can open them up and then open them up again. And there's a door that corresponds to that there. The door faces towards the east just like the tabernacle.

[27:17] Why? Because when men are coming back to worship God, again, the consistency of scripture, you're always coming from the east, right? Men was put out towards the east. So they're facing east so that when you come to worship God, you're coming from the east.

[27:30] Everything is intentional. The overlaying and the carvings in the doors. Everything is overlaid with gold. Everything is overlaid with gold. But the wording and how the doors are covered in gold is the carvings were not just overlaid with gold.

[27:43] It was actually pressed into it. There was great detail taken in all this. Why? Because there was nothing in there that would distract you from worship.

[27:58] Everything fit. God is a God of details. When we look at creation and we see that, he is the one of finite details and we see his wonder and his work in what he has done.

[28:13] Everything is symmetrical in creation. And when it is asymmetrical, then we understand that there's a problem with it. It has always amazed me. And I know you can kind of tell me I'm kind of fruity if you want to, but that's okay.

[28:25] When you look at the smallest of flowers, the details in the smallest of flowers is just amazing. Or the smallest of anything of creation that God really knows what he's doing. Everything is symmetrical.

[28:36] It has a purpose. It has a place for being there. And he has really kind of knit his creative design and everything. Well, that is mimicked in the construction of the temple. Right?

[28:46] Because anything that would have seemed out of place would have distracted you from why you were there. There's a court of the Jews that is outside of it, which is that outer court where it says that he had three rows of stones and then cedar timbers, referred to as the upper court, because more than likely there was a lower court down below the hill from that.

[29:08] But everything matters. The details are there. And we see this. This should be, and it was intended to be, God honoring and Christ focusing.

[29:23] But by the time Christ comes along, he tells them that to go to the temple is counted more worthy than the altar that's in the temple. Right? Man begins to exalt the created rather than the creator. He declares to the Pharisees that if you swear by the goat of the temple, then it's binding.

[29:39] But if you just swear by the altar itself, he said, but it's the altar that sets apart the goat. It's the holiness of God that is the thing that he calls apart.

[29:52] But what, in the original design, the detail matters. This finish, why? Because when God calls us to do something, he calls us to do it well. Right?

[30:03] The smallest detail of everything we do really, really matters. This is something that has been ingrained in me ever since I came to Christ and really was encouraged to begin to do work in church and just volunteer-wise and everything I've done was really just ingrained to me from a pastor I had very early on that how we do things and the details of how we do them really matters.

[30:25] It really matters. Because we can't just be haphazard about any part. What if Solomon said, well, what difference does it matter if a timber is sticking through the wall? We can hang that up. He didn't do that.

[30:35] He did everything right. And everything was according to plan and everything was according to purpose. There's a dedicated time. There's detailed finish. And everything fit together perfectly. It's one of the great wonders of the ancient world.

[30:48] But in the midst of this, we have this one grand application that's really smack dab in the middle of the passage. And it's our last thing. And it's this declared truth.

[31:00] It's this great declared truth. Solomon is the one man that God has called and equipped and is using now to build his temple. Over and over again, we are told here that this is the temple that Solomon built.

[31:13] This is the temple that Solomon built. He is the one who is fulfilling the desire of his father. He's the one who is bringing to fruition the vision of his father. He is taking all the raw materials and constructing or calling the people to construct this great structure.

[31:29] But yet, right in the middle of that, we have the word of God being declared. This is where we will look at the verse. Verse 11 says, Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, During the construction of the temple.

[31:47] Really, if you look at it in the setting, it is after he has got everything we would say in today's terminology dried in. Right? The outer walls are constructed. The roof is constructed. Everything there. The chambers on the side are constructed.

[31:59] He hasn't started doing any finishing work on the inside. And what an astounding building he has before him. And he knows what he's doing. He knows what the plan is. But God has something to say here. Because Solomon's doing a great work.

[32:12] Right? He's doing a great work. He's doing a work for the Lord. He's doing a work towards the Lord. He's doing a great work among the people of the Lord. But yet the Lord has something to say.

[32:23] He says, Concerning this house which you are building. So he says, Really? I'm going to say something to you in light of the fact that you're doing a great work. Some people, Bible scholars read this and say, Well, maybe Solomon was getting discouraged.

[32:36] And maybe he just needed a little encouragement to move forward. Or on the other hand, Maybe Solomon was getting a little prideful and saying, Look at what I'm doing. And I kind of lean towards the latter. Because that's the natural tendency of man.

[32:47] Right? Solomon had enough people working for him that he knew he could complete what was going on. And he probably was on the verge of getting a little prideful. Because God says, I've got something to say to you in light of this great work you're doing.

[32:58] He says, You're doing a great thing. You're doing a work. And the temptation is to find acceptance in that work. To say, Well, since I did this, Surely God is pleased with me.

[33:10] But after God says, Concerning this work that you're doing. Or concerning the building of this building. He doesn't really say anything else about it. Right? He says, Concerning this house which you are building.

[33:21] If you will walk in my statutes. And execute my ordinances. And keep all my commandments by walking in them. Wait a minute. He doesn't say, If you'll bring this about. If this will be a beautiful building. If this will be the most magnificent temple ever built in the world.

[33:33] He doesn't say really anything else about the work. He says, Concerning this work you're doing. Okay, This is really what I'm calling you to do. And the calling is the same calling.

[33:43] And it is faithfulness and obedience. Right? It doesn't say work harder. It doesn't say do more. It doesn't say make me a more perfect temple. He says, You're doing a great work over here. But the truth is, Is acceptance isn't found in works.

[34:01] It's found in obedience and faithfulness. This is a great Old Testament truth that keeps bringing itself up. Is that God didn't accept his people because they did good things.

[34:13] God doesn't accept his people because they fought good wars. Or they built this beautiful temple. Really, He's calling them to obedience and faithfulness. And we know the story. Man in his own abilities cannot obey and cannot be faithful.

[34:25] And then when man came to the end of himself, Then God came to man. Right? That's the beauty of the gospel. Is that when man realizes, I can't. Then God comes to man and says, Yes, But I can and I will. And I love you enough to do it.

[34:36] But what we say, He says, If you will walk in my statues and execute my ordinances and keep all my commandments by walking in them. That's all I'm asking. I'm not asking that you finish this project. I'm not asking that you expand the kingdom. Just obey me.

[34:47] Just be faithful to me. Then I will carry out my word with you, Which I spoke to David, Your father. So here we go. This conditional covenant. Right? This is one of the conditional covenants that God made a promise to David concerning his son.

[35:02] And his son Solomon. That condition there was based upon his obedience. If you will follow me. And if you will obey me. And all this other stuff. He says, And I will dwell among the sons of Israel.

[35:14] And will not forsake my people Israel. Look at this great truth. This great truth is that your blessing does not come in what you are doing. But rather the blessing comes from obedience and faithfulness.

[35:27] And as far as the nation was concerned. This great temple does not assure us that God is among us. Right? This great temple.

[35:38] This wonder of the world. Is not the proof that God dwells among us. Solomon would rightly declare. That the heavens cannot hold him. That nothing can hold him.

[35:49] Much less this house that he is building. That he had built it to the name of the Lord. Right? But the temple. The great building. And all of its glory. And all of its splendor.

[36:00] And all of its right construction. And all of its ornate decorations on the inside and the outside. And all the carvings. And everything that is going to be there. Does not assure the nation that God is among them.

[36:14] Because when Jerusalem falls. The temple is still there. But Ichabod has been written across it by the hand of God. Because God was not there. Right? In Ezekiel's vision. He sees the temple still standing.

[36:27] And God takes Ezekiel into the temple. And he sees all these carvings. And there's a temple there. But the spirit of the Lord had went out the back door. Which there is no back door. But he had made another way out. Right? The spirit of God had left.

[36:39] And what happens to the nation of Israel. You remember when Jesus is on Temple Mount. And he's walking out. And that last time he goes to Temple Mount. He'd been there that Passover week.

[36:49] We refer to it as Passion Week. And he's walking away. And the disciples say, look at all these ornate structures. And look at all these stones. And Jesus said, I'll tell you the truth. That not one stone was set upon another stone.

[37:00] Matthew 24 and following. You remember that, right? The nation of Israel was. The one thing that they brought Jesus to trial. Is they heard. We heard him say with our own ears.

[37:13] That he would destroy this temple. And rebuild it in three days. The nation of Israel was putting their hope and their confidence in the temple. A structure. The fact that they had a building.

[37:23] They could look at it and say, oh. Since we have the building. We have God. God declares this truth here. He says, faithfulness and obedience is the thing that leads to assurance that I will dwell among the sons of Israel.

[37:36] And will not forsake my people. He doesn't say that the fact that this building is here is going to ensure that I'm here. He says, as you walk in faithfulness. As you walk in obedience to my commands.

[37:48] Then I will not fail to dwell among the sons of Israel. And I will not forsake my people Israel. God can forsake. And he does forsake a building. He leaves it. The glory of the Lord departs.

[37:59] But God does not forsake those who are his own walking in faithful obedience to him. That application is in the New Testament as well. Right? Our works and the assurance of the fact that God is among us is not in what we do.

[38:13] Or even the things we build. Or the work we accomplish. It is in the reality that God has called us and renewed us and equipped us to be faithfully obedient to him. That we have the spirit of God dwelling in us because of the price that Christ paid for us.

[38:29] And we can walk in obedience to him. Not because of who we are but because of who he is. And acceptance comes in that. Not in doing a great work.

[38:40] There are a lot of people who do a great work. They build temples. They do all this other stuff. God says that work is not it. It is the fact that you stay faithful to me. You keep my ways. You keep my commands.

[38:51] God never backtracks on this calling to obedience. You ever notice that in scripture? God doesn't tell us in the New Testament.

[39:02] Well now that there's a cross you just go live however you want to live. Don't worry about this obedience thing. No God says now you have something inside of you that enables you to obey. That's called the Holy Spirit. I will empower you to obey.

[39:14] You'll fail sure but then I will call you back to myself. I'll restore you and I will equip you and empower you to obey. And it is that faithfulness, that obedience, that surrender. That is the thing that leads to an assurance that he will not forsake us.

[39:29] He declares this truth right in the most instrumental time in the nation of Israel. They're going to have the grandest of all buildings. It will be exceeded by Herod's temple. But it will never really have the same glory that Herod's temple.

[39:44] Herod's temple exceeds it in scope and in construction and even in its ornate abilities. Herod, again, Herod the Great was not Herod the Great because he was a great person. Herod the Great was Herod the Great because he was a great builder.

[39:57] He developed underwater concrete, built the first seaport, brought the aqueduct to the nation of Israel from the sea that watered Jerusalem until 1942, I think it was.

[40:07] It was until the 1940s. I mean, I'm talking about from 4 BC to 1940s, all right? That's a pretty good water system. Or Trace could learn something from that. Anyway, you know, we had all this stuff that was going on.

[40:19] He was Herod the Great because of that. His temple exceeds it in scope. But there's something in Solomon's temple that Herod never has, and that is the Shekinah glory that falls there.

[40:31] The Shekinah glory falls in Solomon's temple. But mark it in Scripture. Whenever it tells us in the Old Testament that the glory departed, it never came back.

[40:43] The only time the glory of the Lord ever reappears in the temple is when Jesus is standing on temple mount, and he says, I am the light of the world.

[40:56] That's when the glory is back. It doesn't matter what building you have. It doesn't matter what construction project you've done. And the assurance comes from faithfulness and obedience, and God declares this even here in the book of 1 Kings chapter 6.

[41:14] Okay? Any word? Any word before we leave? All hearts and minds clear? All right. Brother Glenn, you want to close us in a word of prayer, and then we'll...