Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): What are you determined to do? With encouragement to do what God calls you to, here’s Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: Solomon was determined to do the task the Lord had appointed for him to do, and we should be also determined to obey His teaching and to do whatever the work is that He’s given us to do. And of course, the main thing is to believe in the one that He sent. The work of God is this: to believe in the one that He sent.

But beyond that, doing what He commands, living by His principles, living the way that He taught us to live righteously and by the spirit and living for things of heaven and not for things of the world, and putting Him first and not ourself first. There’s always a contrast in our life, and everything basically comes down to ourself or Him. Things of the spirit or things of the world.

Guest (Male): What usually causes a fire to go out? It’s neglect. Perhaps that’s why the Bible encourages us not to neglect the gift God has given each one of us. But that takes determination, doesn’t it? Hello and welcome to Hope From the Word. We’ll be joined by Pastor Bill Luebkemann in a moment.

Solomon had been determined to build the temple, but he made a decision to follow the Lord’s desires and not his own. That’s a wise decision, one we should make. With encouragement to that end from Second Chronicles Chapter 2, here’s Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: We are in Second Chronicles Chapter 2. We looked at Solomon asking for wisdom. I mentioned last time the chronicler here, writing Chronicles at the time that the Israelites returned from the exile. We see the chronicler leaving out things that perhaps he didn’t feel as were important as the writer of First and Second Kings.

He talked about Solomon being asked by God, "Ask me for whatever you want me to give you," and Solomon asking for wisdom and knowledge that he could lead the people. God being so impressed with the prayer that He said that Solomon would have wisdom and knowledge more than anybody else, but he’d also have wealth and riches and honor. God gave him way more than he asked for because he was impressed with that prayer.

The chronicler doesn’t really recount many of the things that happened early in Solomon’s reign. He doesn’t recount the famous incident with the baby where God gave him the wisdom to figure out who the mother was. He doesn’t talk about Solomon taking hold of the kingdom and doing some things that he needed to do to set himself up as king. He doesn’t talk about the reforms that Solomon did or the administration. He gets right into the building of the temple here, and that was what was important to those people who were returning from exile.

They needed to see that this work could be done because they had to do a lot of work to rebuild the temple. They needed to see what was involved. They also needed to know who they were descended from and what their ancestors had done. The chronicler considered this temple and the palace that Solomon built after it to be super big major accomplishments and wanted everybody to be aware of them.

Solomon here has been king now for he's in his fourth year. We're going to see that here, verse 1 of chapter 2. Solomon gave orders to build a temple for the name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself. He conscripted 70,000 men as carriers and 80,000 as stonecutters in the hills and 3,600 as foremen over them.

Here we see Solomon. Some of your translations say, and I like it better, "Solomon determined to build this temple." See, the NIV says "Solomon gave orders to build a temple," but some other translations say "Solomon determined to build a temple for the name of the Lord." I like the way that comes out, that he was determined to do it, that he decided it because the first thing any of us needs to decide in our service to the Lord is that we’re going to do it.

We’re going to live for Him. We’re going to serve Him. We’re going to do what He called us to do. We spent a long time on Sunday in John Chapter 14, and it seemed like we were reminded over and over and over again. Jesus saying the people that love me do what I say to do. They follow my teaching. They obey my will. If you love me, you will obey what I command in John 14:15. Over here in 21, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. Down in verse 23, Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching."

It seems like Solomon was determined to do the task the Lord had appointed for him to do, and we should be also determined to obey His teaching and to do whatever the work is that He’s given us to do. Of course, the main thing is to believe in the one that He sent. The work of God is this: to believe in the one that He sent.

But beyond that, doing what He commands, living by His principles, living the way that He taught us to live righteously and by the spirit and living for things of heaven and not for things of the world, and putting Him first and not ourself first. There’s always a contrast in our life, and everything basically comes down to ourself or Him. Things of the spirit or things of the world, things of the flesh or things of heaven.

Either living for God or living for ourselves. There’s really nobody else to live for. We’re going to live for ourselves or we’re going to live for Him. He calls us to live for Him, and He calls us to do the things that He says, to obey His commands, to follow and obey His teachings. Those are the people that love Him. So I like the way it says that Solomon determined to build a temple for the name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

In other words, he made a decision. He decided he was going to follow God. He didn’t just fall in love with God because when you fall in love with someone, you can fall out of love with them. But when you make a decision to love someone, then you can keep doing that forever. That’s the kind of love that God is looking for, the kind where we decide to love Him.

Solomon made that kind of decision here early on. He was determined to follow the Lord, at least at this point in his life he was. He was determined to build this temple that had been deposited at his footsteps. His father was collecting materials to build the temple probably when Solomon was knee-high to a grasshopper. David was probably already collecting materials.

He grew up probably with stacks of supplies all around the place. "What are these for, Dad?" "Well, when you grow up, you’re going to get to do this, build this temple." He didn’t run off and say, "I’m not going to do what I’ve been appointed to do. I’m going to do something else. I don’t want to do that. Don’t tell me what I have to do. I want to live my life for myself." That seems to be the thread that you hear so many times today.

We’re living for ourselves. Me, myself, and I, the three most important people. Solomon determined to do what God had in store for him. He determined. He made a decision. We can do the same thing. We can determine to follow Him. Then when we get up each morning, we can put that determination into practice. That’s what this is talking about here.

He determined he gave orders to build a temple for the name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself. So he was going to have a nice palace for himself. He didn’t skimp on that either, by the way, but we're focusing in here on the temple in the very beginning.

He conscripted 70,000 men as carriers and 80,000 as stonecutters in the hills and 3,600 as foremen over them. We’re going to find out at the end of the chapter, in chapter 17, that these were aliens, foreigners, not from outer space. These were aliens from other countries. Verse 17 says Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were in Israel after the census his father David had taken, and there were found to be 153,600. That’s verse 17.

That’s who these people were, by the way. He didn’t conscript Israelites. He conscripted foreigners who were living in the land. By the way, it’s recorded in some places, not in the Bible, and this cannot be proved, but it’s a Jewish belief, or maybe a myth, or maybe it’s true. It’s recorded and felt that none of these people that were working on the temple ever died or even got ill during the time that they were building the temple. It is said they were perfectly healthy the entire time. No sick days.

It’s also said that their tools had no problems. They never had to repair their tools, fix their tools, probably even sharpen them. That sounds kind of far out except when they were walking through the desert for 40 years, God kept their footwear in perfect shape for 40 years. Their shoes never ran out. I have to wonder about the kids that were growing up. Did their shoes expand with their feet? When you have kids, it’s always time to go to the shoe store. "We were just at the shoe store!" "Well, we need to go again. The feet are getting bigger."

I don’t find that hard to believe. Again, can’t prove it. It’s not in here. It’s nice to think about. Sure, for 40 years in the desert, they got manna every day, their footwear never wore out. So why couldn’t their tools not have worn out here? That’s extra-biblical. You don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to.

He got 70,000 men as carriers. They were the ones carrying the stuff back and forth, carrying the logs back and forth, carrying the stones back and forth. He had 80,000 stonecutters in the hills. In the quarries, they were digging stone. I saw somewhere just recently in the news that they were building an apartment building in Jerusalem. They found part of the foundation or footing of it. It wasn’t this temple. It was one of the later temples. Or maybe it was the quarry where they dug the rocks out of. I can’t remember, but it was some relic going back to one of these temples. Not this one, but a later one.

You think about how many men: 80,000 men. How was this done with hammers and chisels? Blocks of stone that were massive. How much work. It says 3,600 as foremen over them. I think somewhere else it says or in some other translation it says 3,600 foremen to keep the people working. Oh yeah, it’s at the end of the chapter, in the last verse. 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working. Sounds like they were taskmasters almost. "Get back to work. Coffee break's over."

Solomon sent this message to Hiram, king of Tyre. Hiram is an abbreviation for Ahiram, same guy. Solomon sent this message to Hiram, king of Tyre. "Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in. Now I am about to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to Him for burning fragrant incense before Him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on Sabbaths and New Moons and at the appointed feasts of the Lord our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel."

This letter continues, but we’ll stop there for a minute. Archaeologists have discovered a sarcophagus in this area with the name Ahiram on it. It’s been dated to roughly the year 1200 BC, which is approximately in the same timeframe here. It’s interesting how the more research is done and the more archaeology is done, the more this kind of stuff lines up. We find out the Bible really is true.

This letter that Solomon sent to King of Tyre, the northern kingdoms, the Romans referred to these kingdoms as barbarous. Yet this king was able to read and write his own mail. So it was not exactly an uneducated guy. By the way, Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century AD, says that copies of this letter were extant in his day. This letter was preserved at least for a thousand years or so until somewhat after the time of Christ that there were known to be copies of this letter in existence at the time of Josephus.

Solomon here sending this message to Hiram, King of Tyre, kingdom to the north. "Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in." Now David had built a palace. See, David had fought a lot of people, as you know, and he wasn’t allowed to build a temple because he was a man of blood, the Lord said. He had shed much blood. But he didn’t shed Hiram’s blood. He knew who to be friends with.

He didn’t just kill people for the sake of killing them. He didn’t just exterminate everybody. If he could have a friendship with somebody, if he could have a relationship with another kingdom, if they could be friends or partners in some way, he was open to that possibility also. He didn’t just willy-nilly blindly kill everybody that came his way. His father David had paved the way for this relationship with Hiram, King of Tyre. David had a friendship with him. David had struck a deal with him for some cedar logs so that David could build his palace sometime earlier.

Now here's Solomon sending a letter to his dad’s friend saying, "I want some cedar logs also, just like you gave to my father David to build his palace." Now this is what I’m going to do with them in verse 4. "I’m about to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to Him for burning fragrant incense before Him and for doing these other things that we’ll talk about in a minute."

Notice, by the way, that they were very reluctant to write the name of the Lord, the proper name of the Lord, which we would pronounce as Yahweh. That would be spelled Y-A-H-W-A-H or W-E-H. I’m not sure, but they would always abbreviate it often as YHWH so that they didn’t have to put the name of God down because that was considered to be disrespectful.

Notice here he doesn’t mention the name of the Lord. He says, "I’m about to build this temple for the name of the Lord my God," without mentioning the proper name himself here. He’s not really building a temple for the name of the Lord. He’s building a temple for the Lord. But the Lord is represented here by His name. And again, he’s not going to say, "I’m building a temple for Yahweh, my God." It’s easier and safer for them, they felt, not to use His name.

"I’m about to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to Him for these different tasks listed here, for burning fragrant incense before Him." So we’re burning the incense here as a way of worshipping Him. "For setting out the consecrated bread regularly," that the law called for them to put out, "and for making burnt offerings every morning and every evening and on the Sabbaths, New Moons and at the various feasts that they were having."

That’s what this temple was for. This temple was going to be a building for the worship of God where they could worship Him, where they could come before Him, and where they could make offerings to Him and remember and think about His goodness and His greatness.

He says here in verse 5, "The temple I am going to build will be great because our God is greater than all other gods." Now what a rub, because Hiram has his own god. Now Hiram doesn’t seem to be all bent out of shape about it, by the way. I think he knows a good business deal when he sees one. He has a lot of respect for the Jews. But Solomon here is very sound in his understanding of who God is. He says, "We have to build a great temple because our God is greater than all the other gods." So if all the other gods have temples, we need a greater one because our God is greater than all of them.

But here’s the interesting part when he says in verse 6, "But who is able to build a temple for Him since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain Him? Who then am I to build a temple for Him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before Him?" This is amazing because this was not at all what most people in the world believed in that day. They had their idols, and they made a temple and they put their idol in the temple. Most of them, their god fit inside their temple, whatever it was. They had an idol to a certain god, put that idol in the temple. The temple contains their god. This is the way people worshipped, not the Jews. This is the way the Gentiles worshipped.

He here has a very proper understanding, which is just truly amazing if you compare to all the other nations of the world back then, that God cannot fit in a building. He doesn’t fit on earth even. He doesn’t fit in the solar system or the galaxy that we call the Milky Way. He doesn’t fit in any of that stuff. "Who is able to build a temple for Him since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain Him?"

In a way, this was sort of prophetic even because the highest heavens are a lot higher than he thought they were. They had no idea how big the universe was back in these days. I don’t know what they thought, but the concepts that we have now about light-years and billions of light-years and billions of galaxies and everyone with billions of stars and lots of solar systems and all this stuff, the whole idea that it is so big, they just couldn’t have begun to even fathom that in the slightest.

Yet he says here almost prophetically, "No temple could contain Him. Who is able to build a temple for Him since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain Him?" He’s well ahead of his pagan friends here, by the way, and very, very biblical in his understanding. "Who then am I to build a temple for Him except as a place to burn sacrifices before Him?" So he knows what the purpose of this temple is going to be. It’s going to be a place where the humans can go and make their sacrifices to God. It’s not going to be the house of God in any kind of concept like the fact that we have a house. People may refer to it as the house of God, but it’s not the kind of house where God comes home at night. "Honey, I’m home! Let myself in. Going to stay inside here." He wouldn’t fit, and he knows it.

He’s not so foolish as to make his own idol and say, "Here’s my idol. Let me set up my idol." Remember when they brought the Ark of God, Ark of the Covenant, into the temple of Dagon? The statue of Dagon kept falling over. They came in the next day, it was fallen over. They came back the next day after that, fallen over, and the arms and some other pieces of it broke off. Dagon couldn’t stand up to the presence of the real God.

But even at that, the Ark of the Covenant symbolically represented the presence of God. Sure, Solomon was going to have an encounter with God in this temple here, but it wasn’t all of God, like when you have at your house some friends come over for dinner. Your friend comes over for dinner to your house, they’re there with you. They’re not also back at their home at the same time. They’re just with you. But God is everywhere. I had a great quote I should have brought it with me, but how God couldn’t be contained in anything we make. He’s bigger than everything there is, bigger than the universe. He can hold the whole universe in His hand and turn it around and do whatever He wants to.

So you see here just an amazing idea here for people who just criticize the Bible and just say, "Oh, it’s just a book of myths and fables and fairy tales." Well, this concept of God here being bigger than we are, being bigger than the universe and everything, this is very accurate and very right on. Even somebody today who said, "Well, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God." But if there was a God who created everything, they would even have to agree with you. Well, he would have to be bigger than the universe if he created it. So I just find some of what he says in here to be really, really cool.

Verse 7. He understands this is going to be a place for people. This temple is for people to come in, make offerings to God and somehow to pray to God and somehow to be in His presence. "Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled craftsmen whom my father David provided." He wants to get the best possible labor here.

Ancient history shows that the northern neighbors to Israel were more advanced than Israel was in using tools and making things and using implements of different ways. Archaeological discoveries have shown that the Israelites were not the most advanced. So he is reaching out here saying, "I want the best possible help. And if we have to reach out to some Gentiles and invite them in, no problem. This is going to be a house where everybody can worship God in some way. So I want the best guy available who can work with gold and silver, bronze and iron, and with purple, crimson and blue yarn and be able to engrave." This guy was real going to be a real expert craftsman, if you will.

"And I want you to send me a guy who can do this to work with my skilled craftsmen whom my father David provided." And here's just a reminder that David had done so much to prepare for this day when Solomon would build the temple. David had stored up supplies. You remember we looked at that a few weeks ago: gold and silver and bronze and iron and I don’t know what else, I can’t remember. But it was vast, almost beyond being counted. David had a whole administration set up and lots of skilled laborers who could do all kinds of things. But Solomon knew we need somebody in here who’s the best of the best.

"Send me also cedar, pine, and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your men are skilled in cutting timber there. My men will work with yours to provide me with plenty of timber because the temple I build must be large and magnificent." Look, the Sidonians, peoples to the north there, it’s recorded as early as 2200 BC that they had been shipping logs by sea to Egypt and had already been doing it for a few hundred years.

So it’s just amazing to me that people this long ago could build ships and carry logs and travel over those kind of distances. Yes, it was up and down the Mediterranean. It wasn’t across the Atlantic Ocean, but we’re talking about 2600 BC. It’s amazing to think that they could do that. But archaeology keeps turning up these things that further support this. He wants the best materials for building this: cedar, pine, and algum logs from Lebanon because he knows that King Hiram’s men know how to cut the timber. They knew exactly when to cut it. They knew how to cut it. They knew how to treat the wood so that it would last. They were known for these things.

Guest (Male): You’ve been listening to Hope From the Word. We’re currently in a study of Second Chronicles. 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. 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’d like to 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 through 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 in Second Chronicles next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.