1 Kings 5

[0:00] We're in 1 Kings chapter 5. We're in the reign of Solomon. We're about four years into it. We'll see that in the sixth chapter, actually. Very beginning pages, very beginning verse of the sixth chapter tells us this is in the fourth year of his reign.

[0:14] But now we're getting to kind of the heart of the matter of what Solomon really has laid upon him to do. It says, Now Hiram, king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father.

[0:27] For Hiram had always been a friend of David. Then Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying, You know that David, my father, was unable to build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which surrounded him until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet.

[0:43] But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune. Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God as the Lord spoke to David my father, saying, Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he will build the house for my name.

[1:01] Now therefore command that they cut for me cedars from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants. And I will give you wages for your servants according to all that you say. For you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.

[1:17] When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the Lord today who has given to David a wise son over this great people. So Hiram sent word to Solomon saying, I have heard the message which you have sent me.

[1:31] I will do what you desire concerning the cedar and the cypress timber. My servants will bring them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will make them into rafts to go by sea to the place where you direct me, and I will have them broken up there, and you shall carry them away.

[1:45] Then you shall accomplish my desire by giving food to my household. So Hiram gave Solomon as much as he desired of the cedar and cypress timber, and Solomon then gave Hiram 20,000 cores of wheat as food for his household and 20 cores of beaten oil.

[2:00] Thus Solomon would give Hiram year by year. The Lord gave wisdom to Solomon just as he promised him. And there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a covenant.

[2:12] Now King Solomon levied forced laborers from all Israel, and the forced laborers numbered 30,000 men. He sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in relays.

[2:23] They were in Lebanon a month and two months at home, and Adnorim was over the forced laborers. Now Solomon had 70,000 transporters and 80,000 hewers of stone in the mountains besides Solomon's 3,300 chief deputies who were over the project and who ruled over the people who were doing the work.

[2:43] Then the king commanded that they quarried great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with cut stones. So Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders and the Gebelites cut them and prepared the timbers and the stones to build the house.

[2:58] 1 Kings chapter 5. We see here preparing to build the beginning stages of the temple. We see this preparation to build.

[3:09] It's an astounding thing, Solomon's temple. When we begin to look at it and we begin to understand it, some of the stones that still lay there in the old part of the city are what many believe are still remnants of Solomon's temple.

[3:22] It's astounding when you look at the vastness of these stones, over 9 foot tall, many of them, some of them 20 plus feet long and 8 foot wide. They didn't mill or cut anything on site.

[3:36] It was quiet on the site of the temple. So everything was cut off site and brought here and set in place. The reason the Romans burnt the temple is because it was so tightly jointed, those stones, and they were overlaid with gold that they wanted to get the gold out of it so they had to melt it.

[3:52] It is said that those stones, as large as they were, you couldn't even put a piece of paper between them because they fit perfectly. It's amazing the construction that takes place during this time.

[4:03] And it truly is one of the wonders of the ancient world. It's never again exceeded in majesty besides Herod's temple, but even Herod's temple at that time is greater in expanse, maybe in area that it covers, but maybe not as majestic in scope.

[4:19] But yet we see here Solomon preparing to build the temple and just a number of things that we want to kind of take into account or have in our mind. Because when we get to the sixth chapter, we'll actually get into the building process.

[4:30] We'll get into all the details of how things are going there. We see it also being played out for us or written out for us in 2 Chronicles chapter 2. So much of what we gather from this, we gather from 1 Chronicles 22 and 2 Chronicles 2.

[4:45] Okay? Because that understands all the backstory and kind of the rest of the story. When we finish 2 Kings, we'll get into 1 and 2 Chronicles in our Bibles.

[4:55] But if it was in Jewish Scripture, we wouldn't because those are later on in the Old Testament. So while it seems odd to us that we're reading, we just read this, and while we're reading it again, that is the composition of the English Bibles, those books weren't considered historical books in Jewish literature.

[5:13] They were part of the prophetic books. And they were towards the end of the Old Testament because it's told from a different perspective. I know we've kind of looked at that before, but not that it really matters because it's the same book.

[5:25] It's the same writings. We just read it differently in different settings. But we have the beginning here of this building process. Solomon is definitely a king of peace.

[5:36] The land around him is greater than has ever been ruled or reigned upon. Solomon, we've just seen, just to put it in scope, Solomon's allowance of food is greater, Solomon's monthly allowance of food is greater than the amount of food he sends to the king of Tyre.

[5:55] Okay, so just to put it in perspective. Solomon and his household eat more in a month than he sends this king for a year. And you also have to keep in mind that Tyre, the region of Tyre, while known for their timber, was not really known for their crops.

[6:10] That's why the covenant made is you send crops, I send wood, right? It's a barter system. We have this, you have that. And so that kind of shows us the scope of Solomon's reign, right?

[6:20] Very prosperous. There's no enemies from without. Everyone has kind of entered into this covenantal relationship with him. He's still here at this time walking in faithfulness. He's in the early stages of his rulership.

[6:34] Unfortunately, it is after the construction of the temple, after everything, this kind of glory falls and everything is set up for worship, that Solomon begins to be distracted by other things.

[6:47] We know it's the multiple wives and it's all the agreements he entered into with foreign powers. And his devotion is waning at the end of his reign while it's faithful and good at the beginning of his reign.

[7:01] So here we see him walking in faithfulness and goodness. So just three things I want you to see tonight from this. Okay. Number one, we see that this building process is really a continuation of a great work.

[7:15] Okay. It's just a continuation of a great work. Solomon is not starting something new. He is going to bring about something that has already begun.

[7:27] And that's the back story we need to understand. That's what he's referred to as the chronicler, the author of the book of 1 and 2 Chronicles that many people believe was Ezra.

[7:38] Think Ezra, the book of Ezra, Ezra, Nehemiah, the scribe who was writing from a scribal tradition that Ezra really highlights for us. You remember when David wrongly ordered the census to be taken near the end of 1 Samuel and also in 1 Chronicles.

[7:57] He counts the people. Joab goes around counting, gets well over a million people there and counting. And then God sends the angel and is going to discipline him. Remember that he chose his discipline. He goes up onto the hill of Arunah the Jebusite.

[8:09] And on the hill of Arunah the Jebusite, he buys that later temple mount. And he offers a sacrifice to appease the anger of God. He begs for mercy. It's a forgiveness sacrifice.

[8:22] And he offers this sacrifice here. And he confesses his sin. The book of 1 Chronicles tells us in the 22nd chapter, actually the end of the 21st, end of the 22nd chapter, that when he was there, Arunah the Jebusites healed.

[8:38] Or Ornan, depending on where you're at in scripture because he's referred to as both. That David has a revelation. He says that this is the very house of God. And he knew that that is where the temple was to be built.

[8:53] Now David had a desire to build the temple. Remember? Nathan said, do whatever's in your heart. And he said, it was in my heart to build a temple. And Nathan had to come back the next day and go, oh, wait a minute, don't do whatever's in your heart.

[9:04] God says you're not going to build the temple because you're a man of bloodshed. So he had this desire. But then in this moment of darkness, this moment of really, I mean, 70,000 people die as a result of the plague that God causes to come upon the nation of Israel because of David's sin.

[9:19] And in his mourning and in his grief and in his plea for mercy, when he's on this hill and he's offering a sacrifice, he realizes this is where it's at. When we keep reading in 1 Chronicles, I know we're not there, but we have to get that.

[9:32] We have to understand that for where we're at here. David goes so far as to get a vision for what the temple would look like. He knows what it should look like.

[9:44] All those plans that cause the stones to fit together perfectly, everything, all the pillars that you'll see, all the ornate carvings and all the instruments that are there.

[9:55] Much like Moses on Mount Moriah gets the vision of what the tabernacle should look like, David gets the vision for what the temple should look like.

[10:07] And he comes down and he knows what God's calling him to build. And then David does an astounding thing. David begins to set aside money. I mean, it's a bunch of gold and a bunch of silver and bronze that couldn't be counted.

[10:22] It's thousands of pounds of gold. It's thousands of pounds of silver. It's bronze that is unattainable to count. He begins to set all this stuff aside and then he calls the people of the land to give and everybody else gives.

[10:36] So that when Solomon comes, the charge that he gives Solomon, again, 1 Chronicles 22 and following, he says, all of this is waiting. God's called you to build the temple.

[10:48] So while we call it Solomon's temple, what Solomon is doing is really just completing or continuing a great work that's already started.

[11:01] He has the opportunity to be the tool and the instrument that God uses to do this work. And we know that from this chapter because it says that when Solomon was main king, Hiram, king of Tyre, sent a group of people to congratulate Solomon.

[11:20] Right? Hiram reached out. Now they are the hewers of wood. You need a lot of wood to build a temple like this. They are the ones who provide it. These are the people after my own heart, right?

[11:32] They cut trees down, they make it useful and they send it to somebody else and they make it pretty. I like these people. They're the ones who can do that job. They know what they can do. And Solomon reaches out to him and it appears from the text and we also see it in the Chronicles account that David had already prepared Hiram for this because Hiram had also provided David with the lumber for his house.

[11:52] And more than likely, he had told him, hey, this is coming. You know, this is on its way. Know in advance that when my son becomes king, he's going to do this because it tells us that Hiram always liked David.

[12:11] So the first thing we notice is that Solomon is really dependent upon a relationship that someone else had already built. He needs timber, he needs lumber, he needs wood and the only reason really economically and politically that that's available to him is because David, his father, had already developed that relationship.

[12:32] And David, his father, had already prepared everything in advance. Hiram never wants questions. He said, okay, yeah, we'll do that and this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to have all my guys. Now this is important because the construction of the temple of the Lord is a great project, overwhelming project, right?

[12:46] But what he's doing is really just continuing something that someone else has already begun. You say, well, where's the application of that for us? Well, when we're called to labor in the kingdom, we're not called to come up with the idea, we're just called to continue the work on the idea, right?

[13:04] Jesus says, upon this rock I will build my church. The church was his plan from the beginning of creation. It is his design, it is his purpose and the relationships he's already made.

[13:18] And all we're called to do is to labor with him and to continue doing what he's already done. We're not called to do something new. We're not called to do something fantastic.

[13:31] We're not called to, you know, I love studying history of the church. I love studying that. You know, preachers have been preaching the same sermons ever since the church began. We're not called to do it in a new way.

[13:43] We're just called to do it in a faithful way, right? We're called to continue the work that's already begun and to walk in faithfulness to it. And that's exactly what Solomon, Solomon didn't have to come up with the idea, he just had to do his part in it.

[13:59] When it comes to the laboring in the kingdom, we don't have to come up with the idea, we just have to do our part in it. Which leads to the second thing. The second thing that we notice about Solomon is that he was committed to a purpose.

[14:13] Now, you put yourself in his shoes. Solomon was probably 18 to 19 when he became king, so you fast forward four years. Okay, so he's a college graduate.

[14:25] So he's maybe 22, 23, right? So he's 22, 23 years old. He's got all this gold, all this silver, and all this bronze sitting here waiting on him. Now, we know Solomon later in life.

[14:38] We know Solomon who more than likely wrote the book of Ecclesiastes who said, I tried to do this, I tried to do that, and he spent a lot of money and all the joys and the pleasures of this life, and he did everything he could.

[14:48] He pursued education, he pursued pleasure, he pursued everything, right? And we know that guy. But we find this really awesome reality at the very beginning of his reign is that he has everything provided for him.

[15:00] His father had given him a charge, but David's not there anymore. Right? David's dead. And Solomon's king and his throne is established. He's taking care of the enemies.

[15:13] He's exiled people who need to be exiled. The people who should have paid with their life for their crimes have paid with their life for their crimes. He has no one opposing him, and yet he's committed to this because he tells Hiram, he says, I will build a house to the Lord my God.

[15:30] That's striking. He said, well, that makes sense. That's what he's supposed to do. Right? But he didn't have to. He's king. He has all these resources sitting here.

[15:41] Now, I do have a problem theologically that he spends much longer building his own house than he does building the temple of the Lord. But we're not there yet. He didn't build his house first.

[15:55] So we have to say the purposes and priorities were right. Right? He built it according to plans. He could have, and who are we and who would have stopped him?

[16:08] So, well, let me take care of my house first. And once I get my house done, because remember, he started marrying people pretty quick. Let me get my house done first. As a matter of fact, by this time, he's already married to the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt.

[16:23] He's already gotten it, and she's not there in the city of David. He said, you can't come here. You'll have to live over there until I build our house. And he has to wait seven years for the construction of the temple before he begins to build his house. Right?

[16:33] But he didn't say, well, let me build my house first. Let's make sure we build the house of the Lord first. He was committed to that. Now, we see this later on in Bible history. We keep reading through Scripture and King Cyrus issues a decree and whoever of the Jewish people want to go back.

[16:48] Remember that? They can go back. And so this is the Ezra, Nehemiah time. So they go back and the people who want to go back and start this remnant want to rebuild the temple of the Lord. And they're there and they set up the altar and you have this altar right there and it's awesome and they have it and they're ready to worship and then all of a sudden the enemies start mocking them and the people start coming at them and they get scared and then they say, well, let's stop that.

[17:13] They laid the foundation stones of the house of the Lord and then they stopped. This is Hezekiah's temple is what I'm talking about. And they stop.

[17:25] And they go home and then the prophets come to him. Hezekiah says, you live in your paneled houses but the house of the Lord remains in ruin. What did they do? They stopped and said, it was too hard to do that work.

[17:37] I'm going to go build my house because we just came back from captivity. I'm going to go build my house and they let the house of the Lord stay in ruins and they went here and God chastised them and they let it sit in ruins for years. Solomon doesn't do that.

[17:49] Right? He knows that what God has called him to do and he's committed to do is to build this temple and he comes in and he makes this emphatic declaration and we have to say that's amazing that he does it.

[18:00] He says, I will build the house. God would not let my father do it but he says that I can do it so I will build the house of the Lord and he commits to that purpose and he commits so much so that he gets the cutters of wood and he enters into this agreement and says, you tell me what I need to do and we'll do it.

[18:18] They enter into this covenant, right? He gets laborers from the nation of Israel, Mark, this in your scripture this is the very first time in the nation of Israel that the king which God had prophesied would happen.

[18:32] God had told Samuel this would happen so Samuel prophesied God declared it would happen. God doesn't prophesy he calls prophets to prophesy but Samuel had prophesied this would happen this is the first time it happens where the king takes laborers from the nation and makes them work.

[18:48] 30,000. 10,000 a month you're there and in your home for two months it's in your back it's 30,000 people and about 1,300,000 people very, very, very, very, very, very, very small percentage wise and yet that smaller percentage wise is what leads to Jeroboam's revolt because they're mad because you made us work.

[19:09] He took us out of our fields to go build that temple and they get upset about it but Solomon's committed to it. He's going to do it. Now the other you say what happened to the other 150,000 people the 70,000 toters of stuff and the 80,000 hewers of stone those are non-Jewish residents that were living in the land probably all the ites the Canaanites Hittites Jebusites Hivites the people that were left over that God said that they could make forced laborers and they should make forced laborers those are those guys right but the 30,000 are the first mention of any Jewish people being conscripted to labor by the king and God had said these things would happen and he does it.

[19:52] Where's the application? There has to be this full commitment to the purpose that God gives his people. Take care of the purpose first stay committed to that purpose fulfill it and then move forward.

[20:07] Thankfully Solomon did that. The most astounding thing in this whole chapter though that we see and I know we're looking at it kind of an overview not like we do most passages where we get in real detail because we know the story and we just kind of the application comes from the truths that we see running across it.

[20:28] The third and final thing that we see that is so astounding is that this building program is a direct result of a contribution of many. So you have a continuation of great work a commitment to a purpose and the contribution of many and by many I mean not just many people not just the 30,000 and the 150,000 not many in number but many in nationality.

[20:53] Okay. God had chosen Abram, Atlanta, Ur of the Chaldeans. You know the story, right? If you're in a Sunday school class and y'all know y'all looked at the Abrahamic covenant Genesis 15 you'll be looking at it again this week Genesis 17 you know there's a continuation of that covenant.

[21:07] God made a covenant with Abraham, right? What a wonderful thing. You say well some people say well God chose people and God was picking and choosing teams. No. God was choosing the people to reveal himself to the world through, right?

[21:19] And it's a gracious act of God to say I'm going to choose one man from all of the world and I'm going to enter in a covenant with that one man and his family so that all the world could see how awesome it is to live in a relationship with me.

[21:33] That's exactly what was going on. He didn't just say because if God had not chosen that then nobody would ever see the benefits of walking in a relationship with a holy God.

[21:44] Let me just admit it's like oh there's a God up there but we don't know what it looks like to be faithful to him we don't know what it looks like to obey him and we don't know what it looks like when he's faithful to you because there's no view of that and in mercy God took the initiative and God chose Abraham or Abram became Abraham and he built this nation called Israel and he's showing the world what it looks like and now everybody around them has temples to their God they all have these temples to their gods all their false gods and for the first time in the history of the nation of Israel they're going to build a temple to the God their God to the name not to just to house God Solomon says later on no man can construct a temple that would house God because the world is his foot so he created everything so this is just a representation of their God it was to hold his name right it was to hold his glory it was to be there to reflect again the temple is there to display the greatness of the God they worship and this is the Jewish people's temple but do you notice the very first people that Solomon reached out to are non-Jews the very first suppliers of materials are the Sidonians of Tyre who are non-Jewish and the people cutting the stones are non-Jewish and when Solomon asked Hiram to send him someone that would build that was a master in artwork we'll see that later on in the 6th chapter we see it also and he said

[23:17] I need some craftsmen well Hiram says I know another guy named Hiram it actually had the same name it's really cool he said and this Hiram is a master in metal work and he's a master he's the guy who carves all the ornates around the pillars he does the baths and he brings other people with him well that guy is a half Jew his father is a Sidonian and his mother was from is a Danite the region of Dan now if you fast forward to the Old Testament I mean to the New Testament they didn't like half Jews Herod was half Jew nobody liked him the Jewish people didn't like him but when we look at the construction of the temple I mean this is the temple the Shekinah glory of God falls in this place so much so that nobody can go in there there are Jews and Gentiles and half Jews everybody is working and it's dependent upon everybody right it's not just one people it's not just the Jewish people say well we're gonna end the construction of the tabernacle you know the tent only the Jews did that when Nehemiah comes to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem the people outside of Jerusalem they you know you remember they want to go to the plain of Ono right

[24:36] Samballot and Tobiah said hey Nehemiah come meet us in the plain of Ono and Nehemiah said oh no I'm not going there you remember that right there's he comes all these people want to come help and Nehemiah tells them we're doing a great work to the Lord our God you have no part in this so then the construction of the walls is only the Jewish people no outsiders are allowed Nehemiah is again a man after my own heart there he like pulls his hair out and pulls the people's hair out and he cast them out because they're not Jews he said you don't belong here in this temple but when we look at the construction of the temple it's the nations that are building it and you know the Old Testament declares says it in the book of Psalms Jesus quotes it when he turns those money tables over it is written my house shall be a house of prayer for the nations see God is not just picking and choosing people God is actually using this to draw all people that they may see his glory right by the way when Jesus turned the money tables over do you remember where he was at it was in the court of the

[25:49] Gentiles it was the one place in Herod's temple that everybody could come into and Jesus was upset because the Jewish people the money changers were you can bring your Roman currency here and we'll transfer it over to Jewish currency and that's the only thing that when you get into the inner recesses of the temple we don't want Roman coins we want Jewish coins that's what money tables were they were the money changers and it's like going to Mexico and having to get your money right when you leave Mexico they keep a little bit of that money back with them so you know there's an exchange rate there was an exchange rate and Jesus wasn't just so upset because they had this exchange rate he wasn't so upset because they were changing currency to pay the temple tax he was upset because they were doing this in the court of the Gentiles which was the one place that everybody in the world had access to God and they were obstructing it and he gets them out of there because he says this is to be a house of prayer it began the very first temple that was ever constructed was a direct result of many people and nationalities and we see their direct contribution why because the kingdom of heaven doesn't consist of one people group it doesn't you know what's even more amazing is we never read of the

[27:19] Sidonians or the Jews or anybody ever bickering and fighting because there's a purpose greater than themselves in this there's a right king on the throne we're told over and over again that Solomon was wise he's a wise king on the throne who's putting it all together and varying people from varying places are laboring for a single cause that sounds a lot like the kingdom of heaven to me sounds a lot like laboring in the harvest fields of the king who's on the throne who's calling us to join with other people in varying backgrounds and varying racial lines and varying nationality lines and all the variances that go into the multitude of people just walking side by side and laboring for a common purpose knowing that each one has a part why because each one was following the same plan there's one set of master plans right the ones cutting the stone knew what they were cutting the ones hauling the stone were taking to the right people the ones building the temple were or constructing it had the same plan everybody was moving along sure it's a it's a great illustration of organization that even the world can use but it's even more astounding illustration for encouragement to the church because we see here multitudes of people from different regions and different nationalities and not too many years prior to this are fighting and bickering with one another not too many years after this they're going to be fighting and bickering with one another but yet here for just this moment when they're focused on the right thing they can do it together and the result is astounding what a temple still never be surpassed we're not looking for another temple we're not looking for that because we know that the true seed of David that builds the temple is

[29:11] Jesus Christ but the temple he's building now he's building with many many many many people different nationalities he's building across a worldwide thing he's joining stones upon stones perfectly fit together to declare his glory and he's building it from the nations not just for the nations it's a wonderful thing here but we see this preparing to build in first kings chapter five thank you my brothers so Thank you.

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