Hope From the Word

Uncredited Announcer: What does the building of a temple teach us about priorities? Find out next on Hope From the Word, coming up right now.

Uncredited Announcer: Welcome. It's great to have you with us as we begin Hope From the Word, from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. As part of our ongoing study through the book of First Kings, we'll be looking at chapter seven today, where we'll once again be challenged to take a good look at our priorities. It's often a difficult task, but almost always will glean wonderful and fruitful results. With today's teaching, here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann to get us started with a cross-reference from Haggai chapter one.

Bill Luebkemann: I think something that's interesting to look at is in Haggai chapter one. When the Jews returned to Jerusalem, the whole city was in a shambles. At that point, the temple was destroyed. And the Israelites were sitting around fixing up their own homes and they were not rebuilding the temple. And the Lord spoke through the prophet Haggai here in chapter one, then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai, "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"

So here after the captivity, the Jews had returned to Jerusalem. They were living in their houses. They were fixing up their houses. And yet the, His own house at the time was a shambles. And they weren't paying any heed to it.

Now, this is what the Lord Almighty says. "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it."

This is what the Lord Almighty says, "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the Lord. And he goes on here for not fixing up the house of God. But instead, for putting all their effort into their own homes. Now look, that's hardly Solomon's problem here. He did build the house of God. He did a fabulous job with it and the Lord was going to bless him tremendously. That's hardly his problem.

It may be our problem today. I mean, you look around the world today, this verse almost seems to apply in many ways today. "You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough." Doesn't that sound like what you see around you in the world today? Busy, busy, busy, never have enough, never have enough. Doesn't that sound like the consumeristic, materialistic society, we live in today? "You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, they seem to slip away." Hopefully not for a believing Christian, but certainly in the world system it seems like people that follow the world system never have enough, never have enough, never have enough because they're putting the materialism of the world first. And God says, "Put me first. Put me first."

If you look over in First Kings chapter 10, we don't need to turn there now, but it says there that Solomon had made 500 gold shields. I believe 200 were large gold shields and 300 were small gold shields. And he had them stored in this house. In 10:16 and 17.

King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold, 600 shekels of gold went into each shield. He also made 300 small shields of hammered gold with three minas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the, listen to this, "The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon." There it is. That's his palace. The Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. That's what they called it. Hey, where are you going today? We're going over to the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. We're going to get lost in between the trees there. He's got so many trees in his palace there.

Isaiah 22:8 refers to his palace as an armory. So it sounds like his army kept all their battle stuff there. We're talking about a large place there. Well, look, we're not going to nail on the guy all night here. But wanted to suggest those thoughts to you. Verse 13.

King Solomon went to Tyre and brought Huram whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him. So King Solomon went off to Tyre and he hired this guy. Now you remember Tyre was the place where he was getting the wood from. Back in chapter five, we saw that Hiram was the king of Tyre and Hiram was the guy providing the wood. And Solomon went off to Tyre and got this guy Huram, who was a worker in bronze. And he was actually half of an Israelite. His mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali. So she had married outside of the nation of Israel. His mother was an Israelite. His father was a man of Tyre. He went off and hired this guy and brought him back to Israel to do this bronze work that we're going to be reading about here.

Even though this temple was going to be a small building, it was going to have big-time furnishings, which we're now going to look into, the rest of chapter seven here. And Solomon wanted to have the best guy he could find to work on these furnishings here. You're going to make a small building, at least you're going to do is pack it with big furnishings, right?

He cast two bronze pillars, each 18 cubits high. Now again, a foot and a half each. So we're talking 9 plus 18, 27 feet high, almost twice as high as the ceiling here. He cast two bronze pillars each 18 cubits high and 12 cubits around by line. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars. Each capital was five cubits high.

A network of interwoven chains festooned the capitals on top of the pillars. Seven for each capital. He made pomegranates in two rows, encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital.

The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars above the bowl-shaped part next to the network were the 200 pomegranates in rows all around. He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jachin, and the one to the north, Boaz. The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies, and so the work on the pillars was completed.

So, very impressive pillars. So much so that they had to have names. Let's think about these pillars here for a little while and try to understand this here. These two giant pillars made for the front of this here. Look, this sounds confusing, but I think we can decipher it here if we look at it carefully. These things were 27 feet high.

So, not as tall as the steeple out front there, but maybe two-thirds as tall. And they were 12 cubits around, that's 18 feet around. They were 18 feet around. So, several feet thick, these big giant pillars, okay?

On top of them, he also made two big ornaments out of cast bronze to set on top, these capitals. And each one of them was about seven and a half feet high. And he had these chains that were interwoven chains. Now these had to all be made by hand. He didn't just run out to the Ace Hardware store. Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man, you know? "Hi, I'm your helpful hardware man. What would you like?" "I'd like some brass chains, please, about this big." "Oh, no problem. We have them here in aisle three." He had to make these chains one link at a time. And this network of interwoven chain. So these chains went around these ornaments and the chains were interwoven with one another.

So, he had to make the chains, then he had to interweave them with one another. Then he had to, you know, forge the ends together so they were all locked on there tightly somehow. A network of interwoven chains festooned the capitals on top of the pillars. Seven for each capital. So there's this seven networks of chains on each capital on top of each pillar. Then he has two rows of pomegranates. This is not the kind you eat. He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network. Now we saw that there were seven networks of chains for each capital. So there's two rows of pomegranates for each of the seven networks. So there's 14 rows of pomegranates, if I'm following this right here, on each capital on top of the pillars.

The capitals on top of the pillars and the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars above the bowl-shaped part next to the network were the 200 pomegranates in a row. So there was 200 pomegranates in a row. Really fancy pillars, really fancy decorations at the end, fancy networks of chains, interwoven, a lot of little pomegranates around. We're talking really, really impressive here, more impressive than the buildings that you'd see in Washington D.C., I think.

These were so impressive here, these pillars, that he had to give them names. And he called the one Jachin and the other Boaz. And the name Boaz, by the way, means "in him is strength." And the one Jachin means "he establishes."

Just remember that, okay? "He establishes" and "in him is strength." Just think establish and strength, because we're going to get to that in a minute here. Now, I think these two big pillars in front of the temple here could mean a lot of things, but for one thing, a reminder of God's authority here over the kingdom. You come here to the temple to worship God, and you know the average Joe didn't go inside the temple. Only the priests went inside the temple, and only the high priest went into the innermost part of the temple, and only then once a year.

So the average guy just came outside and is confronted with this very impressive structure, with these very impressive columns here, very impressive design standing out there, just exuding strength and establishing God's kingdom here. It's sort of like, well, this is the seat of God's reign and authority over the kingdom. Over all of Israel and therefore over all the world and over all the universe and all mankind and everything else.

So, I think one way you can look at this, a reminder of God's authority over his kingdom. I mean, you go to Washington D.C. I love to go down there and walk around Washington D.C. Everybody's been there, right? A three-hour drive, park your car for free, walk around. You can go see old Honest Abe sitting up there in his big chair. He hasn't moved since I was a little kid. The Washington Monument. You just see history. And you think, this is the seat of power in America and the great things that happened here and what a great country it is and all this jazz, right?

The last time I was there we went on the tour of the Capitol and we saw in this room this happened, this this famous thing happened in this very room. Daniel Webster was here in this room or, you know, argued this court case or Noah Webster or whoever was, you know, arguing before the Supreme Court or. This senator did this in 1837 in this room and this guy died. We saw some some sofa where some guy died in the 1800s. They said, "Do you want to see the sofa where this guy died?" He was the president and then he was, I think it was was it John Adams maybe? He was the president and then he was in Congress for 20-something years and then he died. And they laid him on this sofa and he laid there for a couple days and died. My wife said, "I don't want to see it." I said, "I want to see it." So we had to go in his little room and here's his sofa. You're like, "He died on this sofa?" "Yep, same sofa, right here in this spot." He died. "Wow, one of our presidents died here." You know, big deal.

Then we went out and I was trying to find a drinking fountain. You know, there's no drinking fountain. Finally, I found one. It was it was worse than drinking the water in Philadelphia. I went outside. I said real loud, "You know, I know why the guy died. He was thirsty." Poor guy couldn't get a drink. There was no water around here. "Water!" He was shouting out, "Water!"

But as great as it is to see Washington D.C. and to go on the Washington Monument. And there's a tour down there in the Washington Monument. You know, you can go on the monument and you can ride up the elevator and you can look out the window and see far and wide. But a lot of people don't know that you can also walk on the steps in the Washington Monument. But you have to pre-arrange that. And I don't know how easy that is to do after 9/11. But they have a walking tour on the on the steps, which I did. They don't let you walk up but they let you walk down because the park ranger doesn't want to walk up. But if you call ahead and you make the arrangements, the park ranger, like once a day, will take a group of people and they ride the elevator to the top and then he'll walk down the steps with you. Down the down the steps of the Washington Monument.

And there is inside the Washington Monument, as you walk down the steps, set in the walls are stones from each of the 50 states, who sent, well, there weren't 50 states back then, but however many states there were when they built it, each state could send a stone to be placed in the wall. "Dear George, from your friends in New Jersey. Best of luck on your birthday," or whatever. They have. And there were also stones set from other countries. "From your friends in France," and, you know, different countries, different states, even different organizations, fraternal organizations, whatever, there's all kinds of markers in the walls, stones that were sent from different places actually set in the wall of the inside there. Amazing history. And I did that once. It was just amazing.

And I enjoy going to those places, and it's really thrilling to do that. But if you take that and multiply that by a million or something, that must have been what it was like to go to this temple here. And to see this amazing building and then to see these pillars standing out front. Which by today's standards, granted a building 90 feet long, you know, by 40 feet wide, I forget, but the building was hardly bigger than our building here, maybe even smaller. Wouldn't look like much by today's standards. But by the standards of the day, it would awe-struck, those people would be awe-struck by it. And to see these two massive pillars and to say, "Man, the Lord is in control and he establishes his kingdom and in him is strength."

And he had the strength to bring us into the promised land here. And he established his kingdom. And he parted the waters of the Red Sea, you know, and he brought us out of Egypt. And that was 500 years before these events happened. So he promised us. He was going to see us through. And here we are now. We have our own kingdom. We've conquered the promised land. And we even have now established a temple for his name. By the way, somebody else suggested that these two pillars they also be taken to represent one, the fire by night and the cloud by day. And you could look at it that way as well.

Important reminders when worshipping the Lord. He establishes. And he establishes you as well. And he establishes you and your walk with him and you in your life here on the earth and you and all that you do. He establishes you. And he's standing in front of you and he's leading you wherever it is that you're going to go. And when these people were standing in front of the temple, they were being reminded. He established this kingdom. And in him is strength. And he has he has conquered all of our enemies and we have peace here in the land. And you know what? He'll conquer the enemies in your life today and he'll give you peace in your life also. If you turn your life over to him.

And this represented, I think, his strength and his establishing abilities to the nation and to the world. And the temple represented these things, these pillars represented these things, and maybe that's why they were named, "He establishes," and "in him is strength." People came here to experience God. And these these very nature of God in a way was present in this place. More than in a way, God was present in his Shekinah glory as the cloud filled the temple.

Verse 23. He made the sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring 10 cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of 30 cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, gourds encircled it, 10 to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the sea. The sea stood on 12 bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The sea rested on top of them and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held 2,000 baths.

So he made this giant tub. That's what this, I hate to denigrate it by calling it a tub. But he made this giant big swimming pool if you want, this big sea, out of cast metal. It was round. It was 10 cubits from rim to rim, that's 15 feet across and seven and a half feet high. So they probably would have needed a ladder or steps or something to get up on top of it. And it took a line 45 feet long to measure around the circumference of it. And below the rim they had gourds around it, and the gourds were in two rows. And then it stood on 12 bulls. So they had faced bulls facing outwards because it said their hindquarters, remember, were facing towards the center. So there there were three bulls on each of the sides, north, east, west, and south. They were like the stand that was holding it up. Three bulls facing each direction. And it held 2,000 baths of water, roughly 11,500 gallons. This was used by the priests for cleansing their hands and their feet when they were needing to become ceremonially clean. It did not have a diving board on it. It was also used to supply water to the smaller containers it is thought for cleansing the offerings.

He also made 10 movable stands of bronze. Each was four cubits long, four wide and three high. This is how the stands were made. They had side panels attached to uprights. On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim, and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered works. Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles. And each had a basin resting on four supports cast with wreaths on each side. On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame, one cubit deep. This opening was round and with its base work it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round. The four wheels were under the panels and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half, about two feet in diameter. The wheels were made like chariot wheels, the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal. So we had these stands, which looked like little carts that you might put a projector on nowadays. Four wheels, two axles, about six feet high, the wheels about two feet in diameter, sides made of bronze with intricate artwork hammered into the sides of them and smaller basins could sit in these.

Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the Lord's temple, the golden altar, the golden table in which was the bread of the presence, the lampstands of pure gold, five on the right and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary, the gold floral work and lamps and tongs, the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers. And the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the most holy place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple. Well, I saw sockets there. I got excited. I thought it was for the electrical service. The sockets were for the for the doors.

To hold everything together. When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated, the silver and gold and the furnishings, and he placed them in the treasuries of the Lord's temple. So he brought all this stuff in that his father had dedicated. Now, his father had saved a lot of stuff up. In fact, if you look over in First Chronicles 29, there's some mention about what King David had saved up. Gold for the gold work, silver for the silver work, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron, and wood for the work, as well as onyx for the settings, turquoise, stones of various colors and all kinds of fine stone and marble, all of these in large quantities, all provided by King David ahead of time, so Solomon could do this work.

Uncredited Announcer: You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill's study of First Kings. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at CCMarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find your podcasts.

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