Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): In 2nd Chronicles chapter 5, the temple project was completed, and it was time to dedicate it to God. The people were excited and thankful to have the Lord in their presence. Could the same be said for the modern-day church? Pastor Bill Luebkemann with a few thoughts.

Bill Luebkemann: It seems like in some places today, people get together and call it a church, and it's just more of a social club. They're more interested in preventing global warming, protecting the environment, and paying tribute to Mother Earth. These people got together, and they knew why they were there. They were there to praise and give thanks to the Lord. Why praise him? Because he's worthy of our praise, by definition, because of all the things that he's done.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Hope from the Word, coming to you from Calvary Chapel of Marlton with our pastor and teacher, Bill Luebkemann. Today we continue our study in the book of 2nd Chronicles. King Solomon and his crew are putting the finishing touches on the temple and adding some furnishings. Solomon can see that the end is in sight, and it's time for a celebration and dedication. They're ready to say thank you to God. That's certainly appropriate after God accomplishes a great work. Let's join Pastor Bill Luebkemann now as he begins his study in 2nd Chronicles chapter 5.

Bill Luebkemann: When all the work 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 all the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of God's temple. So there you have it. When it was all finished, he brought in the things his father had dedicated. All the extra stuff was put in the various rooms of the temple—the extra gold, the extra silver—plus all the things that they made for the temple: all the furnishings, all the tools, and all the implements.

When the building was done, they brought everything in and set it all up. And how much fun that is to set up a new building. This is a temple for God, and what a joy it must have been as it came to a completion here, as they could begin to put their stuff in it. It is like building a new house, or if you get married and you get a house and you start to put your stuff in it. Well, here it was the temple of God, the temple of the Lord, and how exciting it was for them to bring in the things God had told them to make for it, as well as all the large amount of extra items that they had, all the extra silver and gold and everything else they had which could be used in the future.

But there was one important thing that wasn't in the temple yet, and that was the Ark of the Covenant. Now the ark was not with the tabernacle. You remember they foolishly brought the ark into battle with them even though it was supposed to stay in the tabernacle, and you remember that it got captured by the Philistines. Only the Philistines kept getting sick and having boils and all kinds of problems, and they sent it from one town to the next to the next.

"We don't want it, send it over there." "No, we don't want it, send it over there." And finally it came back. It was at someone's house for like 70 years. Then David brought it up to Jerusalem. The first attempt, the guy died who was—remember they were bringing it on a cart, and the guy reached out his hand to steady it, and God struck him dead because he dared to touch the ark.

But later on David successfully brought it to Jerusalem, pitched a tent for it. It was not the tabernacle; it was just a tent that David had put it in. That was some 40 years before these events here. So it's in Jerusalem, but it's not in the new temple now. It's time to bring this ark, which represents the very presence of God, up and put it into the temple.

And that's what happens here next. Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the chiefs of the Israelite families to bring up the Ark of the Lord's Covenant from Zion, the city of David. And all the men of Israel came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month. We're talking about Pentecost here, around the September-October timeframe, I think.

He sent out word this is going to be an extra special festival here because we're going to bring the ark of God up to the temple. We're going to bring the ark representing the very presence of God himself. This is moving day. God's going to move into his new house. And how excited they were that this was finally going to come to fruition.

Remember David wanted to build this temple when he was alive, and he couldn't. Solomon might not even have been born when David first got the idea. But certainly Solomon was knee-high to a grasshopper when David was talking about this and accumulating supplies. The whole time that Solomon was growing up, anywhere he walked, his father was stacking up supplies to build this temple.

So this has been in preparation basically for Solomon's entire life. Then he takes over as king, and it's his job now to pull off this project even though he was young and inexperienced. And now seven more years have gone by, and how exciting it is. Let's go get God and move him into his house here. Look, they knew it was the presence of God that it really represented—the presence of God. It was not an idol.

It might have been for some people. Certainly the rod that budded, which Hebrews says was in this ark, certainly that was an idol to some people at some point. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. So here they were moving it the proper way. Solomon had learned no doubt from his father, maybe from reading the scriptures or maybe from the priests or maybe from all of them, that the ark could only be carried by the priests and only using the poles that were attached to it.

It had to be covered in a certain way and carried a certain way. It couldn't be put on a cart. You didn't call up North American Van Lines and arrange for them to come and move the thing for you. It had to be carried by people using the poles walking on their feet. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it.

The priests who were Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. So they brought it up, and the ark was in its tent. There were other things there, and the priests brought everything up while everybody else rejoiced and celebrated and sacrificed an innumerable number of sheep and cattle.

So many so that they could not be recorded or counted. This was beyond their capabilities to record it. They didn't have enough people with enough abacuses lined up there to count them. They couldn't work the slide rule that fast. This was a joyous, happy, and exciting occasion. And you remember it was a similar occasion when David brought the ark up to Jerusalem some 40 or so years before this.

But there were so many sheep, so many cattle offered, it was beyond being counted. The priests then brought the Ark of the Lord's Covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the most holy place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. These giant creatures that we saw with 15-foot wingspans, two of them side by side, each of them touching the outer wall and each other. Underneath those center wings was placed this Ark of the Covenant.

The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. The poles were so long that their ends extending from the ark could be seen from the front of the inner sanctuary but not from outside the holy place. They are still there today. In other words, as of whenever this history was put together here. When the chronicler was going back to Jerusalem, leaving Babylon, this had all been destroyed.

But as of the time that they gathered this history, they were still there. And in the front of the room, that holy of holies, there was kind of like a doorway on each side, and the ark was in the middle. When you were outside, you couldn't see the ark, but you could see the ends of the poles that were sticking out from it. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

So these were the ten commandments, the second set, not the set that Moses broke all at once. Moses broke all the commandments at one time—the only guy ever to do that—by throwing them on the ground. But this was the second set. If you look over in Hebrews 9, verse 4, behind the second curtain was a room called the most holy place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered Ark of the Covenant.

This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. So here in Hebrews it says it had the stone tablets, but it also had the jar of manna, souvenir manna from the time in the wilderness, and also had Aaron's rod, his staff that budded. It's possible that those items had been removed prior to this time when Solomon is dedicating the temple.

Or they could have been added afterwards. Hebrews doesn't really say when they were in there, so they could have been in previous to this event and not been there anymore, or they could have been in later. But at the time that it was set up there, the only thing in the ark at that time was the two tablets. Now as far as where the ark is today, we know Indiana Jones was looking for it, and he might be able to find it.

You hear all kind of stories about the ark is here, it's in Ethiopia, it's buried under Jerusalem, it's in a secret place, some people know where it's at. It's going to be made known. The Bible's unclear about that, and I don't really see the ark being crucial to the end times prophecies of the Bible. It represented the presence of God, which we now have by the Holy Spirit living in our lives.

It might be somewhere, who knows. It might come forth at some point and be seen, which would sure be pretty cool if it was. But this was the presence of God kept behind a curtain where you had priests that were the go-between between God, who was behind the curtain, and the people who were outside in the outer court. Now that curtain's been torn in two; we can approach the holy place of God ourselves by his Spirit.

So you see there's a picture here of God being separate from the people in the Old Testament. There's a picture here: God is to be revered, God is sovereign, he's high and mighty, and we cannot approach him ourselves. We need someone to go talk to. "Would you go talk to God for us, Moses? Whatever he tells you will be fine. We'll do anything he says, Moses." When they said that, they had their fingers crossed. "We'll do anything he says, Moses, anything at all, just bring it back to us."

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses placed in it at Horeb where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. That's where God had made the covenant with them through Moses. The priests then withdrew from the holy place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves regardless of their divisions. They were all ritually clean.

So they were in divisions. Different divisions worked on different days and different weeks, and they had some kind of a schedule. But here it says with such a big occasion that regardless of their division, if they were assigned to work that weekend or not, everybody had consecrated themselves to be there in God's presence when this happened. All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps, and lyres.

They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: "He is good, his love endures forever." Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

So they were having this great old worship service here, and they were playing instruments here, and they were dressed for the occasion. They were playing cymbals, harps, and lyres, and there were 120 priests sounding trumpets and there were singers. They were all playing this music and singing together as with one voice to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Their church—here we call it the church, but in a way it was the church of the Old Testament.

This was the place where the believers in the Lord came together, and they weren't there to have a social club. They weren't there to play bingo afterwards. They weren't there for a covered-dish supper, although I think they ate pretty well. They were there, and they knew why they were there: it was to give praise and thanks to the Lord. They raised their voices along with the instruments and sang: "He is good, his love endures forever."

Seems like in some places today people get together and call it a church, and it's just more of a social club. They're more interested in preventing global warming and protecting the environment and paying tribute to Mother Earth. These people got together, and they knew why they were there: they were there to praise and give thanks to the Lord. Why praise him? Because he's worthy of our praise, by definition, because of all the things that he's done.

Why give thanks to him? Because in this case it was such a great occasion, and the Lord had provided this opportunity for them to have this great temple where they could worship him. But we have the same reason to worship and praise him today, to give thanks to him for what he's done for us today. He's done more for us because now we know the end of the plan. We know the last chapter of the book.

We know that death is going to be banished, that we'll live forever with him. These people didn't know that yet, but they knew he was good, and they knew that his love lasted forever. They knew the same love that God had in the Garden of Eden and the same love he had in the time of Moses. They knew it was the same love that God had for them here, and it was going to be the same love that God would have for them for for all eternity in heaven.

And this was such a worship service. In the New Testament, there are a few times in Acts where they were worshiping and things happened. Paul was in jail one night, and he was singing praises to God, and the whole jail started rocking and the chains fell off. Here in the Old Testament, the worship here was so great, and God came in his presence and filled the place with a cloud.

So much so that they could no longer continue the service, for the glory of God filled the temple. God was pleased with their sacrifice of praise, if you'll call it that. Then Solomon said, "The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud. I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever." While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them.

Then he said, "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David." How great it is to see the leader of the nation giving praise to God. I think about our founding fathers. They prayed during the Revolutionary War and how they were trusting in God. That stuff's been almost completely obliterated and erased from our national history.

Today if the president was to call upon God, a bunch of people would be unhappy. They'd say he was breaking the Constitution, separation of church and state, and all that kind of stuff. And how great it is to see the king here giving praise to God. He recognized he had built this place here, and he seems to take credit for it in verse 2: "I had built a magnificent temple for you." It seems a little like he's high on himself there.

But then in verse 4 we see he's really not because he's giving the praise to God: "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David." Everything he said to David—that your son's going to build this temple—it's all been fulfilled now. He honored what he promised, and we can remember that God does the same thing today.

He keeps his promises; he keeps his word. Christians should be known as people that keep their word. When you say you're going to do something, you do it and you make a commitment and you keep it, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And that's the way God our Father is here, and Solomon recognized that here. This is the fulfillment of what he promised to my father, Solomon realized.

For he said, "Since the day I brought my people out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built for my name to be there, nor have I chosen anyone to be the leader over my people Israel. But now I have chosen Jerusalem for my name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel." So Solomon's saying that previously no one was ever chosen.

No city was ever chosen to have a temple, and no person was ever chosen to be a ruler. But now David has been chosen to rule, and his descendants, and Jerusalem has been chosen to be the city for God's name to be there. "My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, 'Because it was in your heart to build a temple for my name, you did well to have this in your heart. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, who is your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my name.'"

So Solomon here recounting the fact that David wanted to build this, but that wasn't God's plan. But it wasn't a bad idea, and then the Lord complimented David and said, "That's a really good idea, and it's good of you to want to do that, and you did well to have this in your heart." David was allowed to have a part of it in that his son built it and he provided many of the materials, even though he was gone by the time this happened.

But David wanted to do it. It was a good thing, but God telling him no, your son's going to be the one to do it. "The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have succeeded David my father, and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised, and I have built a temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. There I have placed the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with the people of Israel."

What a fitting place to end. The Lord has kept the promise he made. It's popular today for people to joke and say, "Well, you're waiting for God to return, you're waiting for Jesus to return, you're going to be waiting a long time." Well, it may be a long time, but he is returning just like he said. Solomon here just remembering the promises of God that have been fulfilled.

I don't think we can ever go wrong in our own lives if we just contemplate and think about and reflect on the promises of God in our own life and what promises he's fulfilled for us. We can feel blue at times. We don't have something that we want. Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you: in the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk."

How much better to have the Spirit of God in you than to have all the silver and gold in the whole world. Because the scripture says if you gain the entire world but lose your soul, why would you want to do that? He's recognizing here and reflecting and thinking about the promises of God and how they have been fulfilled. No matter what we're going through in our lives—and we have our ups and downs and our trials and tribulations and sometimes sickness and illness and family matters and income, money, and what have you—we all go through different kinds of trials that God allows.

But we all can think back on many times when God fulfilled promises. I see that that's what Solomon's doing here. He's reflecting on the goodness of God, what the Lord has done, how he's built the temple there for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. Now he's put the ark in it, which is the covenant of the Lord. The ark containing those stone tablets representing the presence of God, but the stone tablets representing or revealing or displaying or showing the covenant that God made with his people.

What else would you want to put in this place, the most holy of holy places? What else would you want to put there but the presence of God and the symbol of his covenant of what he promised to do for them if they would follow him? So I think that's a good upbeat place to end. The Lord has provided so much, and we can never go wrong if we just reflect and think about and consider the way he has filled his promises.

He's going to continue to fill them next week just like he did last week. He's not going to stop; he's not going to change. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and praise God for that.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a study of 2nd 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 a.m., and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7. 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 2nd Chronicles next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.