Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Solomon in building the temple used the best materials on a solid foundation. There’s wisdom to be found in that. With the importance of good foundation, here’s Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: They’re making the foundation of high-quality stone. Some people would be tempted to make the foundation out of something low quality. You can’t see it, so what’s it matter? It’s the foundation. It’s going to be invisible. It’s going to be covered over. It’s going to be unseen, so we wouldn't want to make it too pretty because no one's going to see it, so let's just use junk. But he was concerned about what was unseen as well as what was seen.

Give me one pure and holy passion. Give me one magnificent obsession. Give me one glorious ambition for my life: to know and follow hard after you.

Guest (Male): It’s been said that all of us are builders, so we must be careful to build wisely. Jesus used this figure of speech encouraging us to build our lives on his word. Hello and welcome to Hope From the Word with Bill Luebkemann, Pastor of Calvary Chapel of Marlton. Today’s teaching is on the building of God’s temple by Solomon. The amount of preparation, cost, and work involved is instructive for us as we seek to be wise builders. From 1 Kings chapter 5, here is Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: We are going to be in 1 Kings chapter 5. We were looking at Solomon and what a wise guy he was. Not the kind of wise guy from South Philly, but he was a wise king. He inherited the throne from his father, consolidated his reign, made some very wise decisions, and appointed rulers in different areas. We saw how much the daily provisions and requirements of his government was, and we saw a lot about how much wisdom he had.

Now we come to one of the major tasks of his career, and that is the building of the temple. Something his father wanted to do, but the Lord would not let his father do because David had been such a man of bloodshed. David had fought so many wars and shed so much blood. David had been a man that wanted to build a temple for the Lord.

He had told the Lord, "I live in a great palace. I have this very fine abode, this great place of lodging, and you're still living in a tent, a tabernacle." It was not even a new one—more than 400 years old. We’re going to see here that when Solomon started building the temple, the tabernacle that Moses had built was somewhere around 480 years old.

When David took over as king some number of years before, it was maybe 450 or 440 years old. So the Lord's tent was pretty old, and David felt like he wanted to build a temple. But the Lord said, "You're a guy that has shed a lot of blood. You're going to have a great kingdom, but your son is going to be the one that's going to be able to build this temple."

David did spend some time putting together a lot of the materials and supplies that Solomon would need, but Solomon was actually the one that got to build the temple. Beginning in verse 1 of chapter 5: "When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David.

Solomon sent back this message to Hiram: You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster.

I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David when he said, Your son, whom I will put on the throne in your place, will build the temple for my name. So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians."

Here's this guy Hiram, and that means brother of Ram or my brother is exalted. David did not offend everyone. He didn't fight everyone or kill off everyone. Not everybody was David's enemy. Here's a guy that apparently David had been friendly with—this guy Hiram, king of Tyre. I was thinking it'd be a great guy to have a tire store. Sounds like the name of a tire store. "Come on down to Hiram, King of Tires!" If he was also the king of tires and batteries, he'd be all set.

This guy Hiram, king of Tyre, was a friend of David. He was apparently enough of a friend that I think you can infer that David even discussed the Lord with this guy. But we’ll put that off for a second. Hiram heard that David had passed away and that Solomon had become king, and he sent some representatives over to Solomon.

This would have been a likely time when a king could have tried to extort money from a new king. He could have sent over representatives and demanded a payback or a kickback. He could have asked for some money and said, "I left your father alone, but I'm not going to leave you alone for a small, pricey sum of half a million bucks."

It could have been a time to even the score. He could have done a lot of things, but he didn't. He extended friendship to Solomon. I think that's significant here. You're seeing his true colors come out. I think you see that he was truly a friend of David. He sent his envoys to Solomon because he had always been on friendly terms, and you see that was sincere.

Whatever these envoys said, it doesn't say, but whatever it was, it was a friendly message because Solomon sent this message back. The message began in verse 3: "You know that because of the wars waged against my father David, he could not build this temple for the name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet."

Over in Psalm 110 verse 1, the Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." Putting your enemies under your feet is a way of saying victory over your enemies. When he said he could not build a temple for the name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet, in other words, the job could not be done until the enemies were conquered.

David had to finish conquering all the enemies, which took a significant amount of time. During that, it took a good deal of his lifespan to do that and also made him into a guy that had a lot of blood on his hands, which therefore made him into a guy that the Lord decided would not be the guy to do this. He decided to let his son do this.

Because of these wars, because of the amount of time it took, because the Lord decided to let his son do this, now the Lord's given Solomon rest. David did all the work, by the way, and Solomon got the rest out of it. It was a pretty good deal for Solomon. He has no adversary and no disaster. All the adversaries have been eliminated.

They've been either eradicated or they've been beaten into submission. They're either not there anymore or they're paying taxes to Solomon. They're either giving him their duty, they're paying him some money to leave them alone, they're part of his kingdom, or they're not there anymore. There's also no disaster, no natural disaster. He's not having any problems at all. He's just having a good old peachy time as king.

Solomon is telling his dad's friend Hiram, "I've got peace, I don't have any enemies, I don't have any disaster, and the Lord my God has given this to me." The Lord gave his father the victory over the enemies, and now the Lord has given him rest and peace. I think it's interesting here; he's talking to his dad's friend almost as if... I don't know that we can say that this guy Hiram is a Jew or a believer in the Lord, but he seems to be talking to him about the Lord as if he were a believer.

It's almost like they're good friends and like they've shared the Lord before. You kind of get that impression. He says, "Look at what the Lord did for my dad and look at what the Lord did for me." He could not build a temple for the name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. That's what the Lord did for his dad.

Now here's what the Lord's doing for him: giving him rest on every side. He's giving lots of testimony here for the Lord, not mincing words. He's not afraid to mention where his help comes from. Verse 5 spells it out real clearly: "I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David when he said, Your son, whom I will put on the throne in your place, will build the temple for my name."

He's got the Lord's name here; he mentions the Lord in just about every verse. By the way, Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote sometime around the time of Christ, mentions in his writing that copies of this letter—the letter from Hiram to Solomon and the letter from Solomon back to Hiram—they had copies of these letters in existence at the time of Josephus's life.

When Josephus wrote his history in the time of Christ, they had preserved at that time copies of these letters. They don't have them anymore, but they did as of when Josephus was around. So he says, "I intend to do this. I'm going to build this temple." This is what I need you to do, in verse 6: "Give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me." This was the finest quality wood they had available.

"My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set." He doesn't even have to worry about negotiating. He's not even trying to get a deal or anything. "Look, I'll pay you whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians." Your guys are the very best at cutting down the wood.

They were noted timber craftsmen. In fact, there's an ancient inscription that's been found dating back to the year 2200 BC. Solomon started building this temple around the year 971 BC. There's an ancient inscription somebody dug up dating back to 2200 BC, which is way before that. By the way, the Exodus was around 1447 BC.

There's an ancient inscription going back way before the Exodus, way before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that mentions the Sidonians and what kind of craftsmen they are. The inscription talks about how they took timber down to Egypt. It mentions in that inscription that they had been already doing it for 400 years at that point.

It’s amazing to me that anybody could build boats and travel around that long ago. Makes you wonder how they did that. So Solomon is saying, "Look, I trust you. I'm willing to pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You get your guys, you get the wood, come on down to the party. You set the wage, and just let me know how much I owe you. Give me a bill and I'll take care of it. Thank you very much."

Verse 7: "When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and said, Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation. So Hiram sent word to Solomon: I have received the message you sent me and will do all you want in providing the cedar and pine logs. My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you specify.

There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household. In this way, Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and pine logs he wanted, and Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to 20,000 baths of pressed olive oil.

Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty." So here was Hiram giving praise to the Lord back in verse 7. You get the idea that in some way this guy must be worshipping the Lord.

He agreed to the terms. He said, "No problem, we'll cut down the logs, we'll bring them down to the sea, and we'll float them on down to you. Your only job is going to be to take them out of the water and bring them on up there. Then what you're going to do for me is provide food for my household," which seems like a fair trade. On the surface, he wasn't gouging him or anything.

He's going to provide about 20,000 cors of wheat, which my footnote says is 125,000 bushels. The guy was the king, so he had a big household. I don't think he was taking it to the New York Stock Exchange. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. This went on year after year. We're going to see that the building of the temple went on for many years.

King Solomon conscripted—some versions of the Bible say raised up, NIV says conscripted—laborers from all Israel, 30,000 men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of 10,000 a month so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

Solomon had 70,000 carriers and 80,000 stonecutters in the hills, as well as 3,300 foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen. At the king’s command, they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and the men of Gebal cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.

He got himself these laborers. One commentary I read said they were free men, but here they say they were conscripted. If you look over in chapter 12, when King Solomon died and his son Rehoboam took over, the people rebelled against Rehoboam. They said to Rehoboam, "If you lighten the load against us, your father put a heavy load on us. If you just lighten the load, we'll serve you faithfully forever."

Rehoboam went to his father's advisors and asked, "What do you guys think?" His father's advisors said, "The people have a point. Your father put a heavy load on them, and you ought to take their advice and lighten the load and they'll support you forever." But Rehoboam didn't listen to his father's advisors. He went to all the young punk kids that he grew up with—the whippersnappers.

He said, "What do you whippersnappers that I grew up with think I should do?" All of them said, "You ought to tell those people I'm even stronger than my father. My pinky is even bigger than my father's waist." In chapter 12, he said, "My father put a heavy yoke on you; I'll make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I'll scourge you with scorpions."

Basically what Rehoboam did was he put an even heavier load on them, and that's what caused the kingdom to divide. He lost a big chunk of the kingdom and the kingdom split because of that. He was foolish, but that was of course what the Lord wanted to have happen at that point. What you can see from chapter 12 is Solomon had put a heavy load on the people.

Looking forward to that, I'm tempted to think that this raising up of laborers just might have been some form of conscription or forced labor. You're coming with me, buddy; we need you to work here, even if it was only one month out of every three. They did the work, and they had 10,000 each month on a rotating basis. They also had carriers and stonecutters in the hill and foremen.

They had this whole organization, this huge, huge, huge organization. Of course, they're working by hand. Nowadays it'd be done a lot easier with the machinery that we have today. They removed these large blocks of quality stone from the quarry to make a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. It's interesting here that they're making the foundation of high-quality stone.

Some people would be tempted to make the foundation out of something low quality. You can't see it, so what's it matter? It's the foundation. It's going to be invisible. It's going to be covered over. It's going to be unseen, so we wouldn't want to make it too pretty because no one's going to see it. So let's just use junk.

But he was concerned about what was unseen as well as what was seen. He wanted to make the whole project well, and he wanted what was on the bottom—what the whole temple was resting on—to be of the highest quality. He was building this thing for the Lord, and he was doing it all for the Lord and he wanted the whole thing to be of very high quality there.

Verse 1: "In the 480th year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt—if you're wondering where I got those numbers from—the 480th year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord."

He probably spent the first three years getting ready. It doesn't say he was sitting around doing nothing, although he did spend some time organizing his kingdom and getting things ready and bumping off the people who weren't really supporting him. Remember we read that in the first couple of chapters. He was consolidating his reign, so to speak.

But I think at the same time, it's also quite possible that he was organizing his materials and supplies and looking over the stuff that his father had gotten ready for him. In fact, if you look over in 1 Chronicles chapter 22 beginning in verse 5, David said, "My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord should be of great magnificence and fame and splendor in the sight of all the nations. Therefore, I will make preparations for it."

David made extensive preparations before his death. Then he called for his son Solomon and charged him to build a house for the Lord the God of Israel. David said to Solomon, "My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: You have shed much blood and have fought many wars.

You are not to build a house for my name because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. You will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He will be the one."

In 1 Chronicles 28:11-12, David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms, and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans for all that the spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of the Lord and for the treasuries of the dedicated things.

He gave him instructions for the division... well, you can read that yourself a little bit later on. But David gave Solomon the plans and he also gave him a lot of materials with which to work. David was well prepared for this thing here. So when Solomon began to build in the fourth year of his reign, you can know that he already had the plans.

He already had a lot of stuff his father had given him by way of materials. He probably had spent the first three years of his time as king getting other things ready. I don't think he was sitting around doing nothing. Verse 2: "The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 60 cubits long, 20 wide, and 30 high."

Now a cubit was most likely about 18 inches—roughly half a meter. Approximately. This temple was not really huge. Its magnificence was not in its size. 60 cubits would have been about 90 feet. That's not much bigger than this building.

Guest (Male): You’ve been listening to Hope From the Word. We’re currently in the study of 1 Kings. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill’s messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts.

We’d love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there’s a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link: ccmarlton.org.

And if you would, take a moment to write to Pastor Bill. It would be such a blessing to us. We’re thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We’ll continue our study of 1 Kings next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.