Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Well, let's hear God's Word From
First Chronicles chapter twenty two. Will Continue
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First Cross continue preaching through first chronicles, hearing the God's word. Here I'll
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be reading the whole chapter. First
Chronicles, chapter twenty two. Then David
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said here shall be the House of
the Lord God, and here the altar
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of burnt offering for Israel. David
commanded to gather together the resident aliens who
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were in the land of Israel,
and he set stone cutters to prepare dressed
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stones for the building are for building
the House of God. Verse Three.
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David also provided great quantities of iron
for nails for the doors and of the
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gates and for clamps, as well
as bronze in quantities beyond weighing and Cedar
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Timbers without number, for the Sidonians
and the tyrians brought great quantities of Cedar
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to David. For David said,
Solomon, my son, is young and
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inexperienced, and the House that is
to be built for the Lord must be
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exceedingly magnificent, of fame and glory
throughout all lands. I will therefore make
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preparation for it. So David provided
materials in great quantity before his death.
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Then he called Solomon, his son, and charged him to build a house
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for the Lord, the God of
Israel. David said to Solomon, my
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son, I had it in my
heart to build a house to the name
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of the Lord, my God,
but the word of the Lord came to
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me, saying, you have shed
much blood and have waged great wars.
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You shall not build a house to
my name because you have shed so much
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blood before me on the earth.
Behold, a son shall be born to
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you who shall be a man of
rest. I will give him rest from
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all his surrounding enemies, for his
name shall be Solomon, and I will
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give peace and quiet to Israel.
In his days, he shall build a
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house for my name. He shall
be my son and I will be his
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father, and I will establish his
royal throne in Israel forever. Purse Eleven.
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Now, my son, the Lord
be with you, so that you
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may succeed in building the House of
the Lord, your God, as he
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has spoken concerning you. Only may
the Lord grant you discretion and understanding that,
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when he gives you charge over Israel, you may keep the law of
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the Lord your God. Then you
will prosper if you are careful to observe
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the statutes and the rules that the
Lord commanded Moses. For Israel. Be
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Strong and courageous. Fear not,
do not be dismayed. With great pains.
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I have provided for the House of
the Lord One hundred thousand talents of
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gold, a million talents of silver
and bronze, and iron beyond weighing,
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for there is so much of it. Timber and stone too. I have
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provided to these, you must add, you have an abundance of workmen,
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stone cutters, Mason's carpenters and all
kinds of craftsmen without number, skilled in
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working gold, silver, bronze and
iron. Arise and work. The Lord
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be with you. David also commanded
all the leaders of Israel to help Solomon,
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his son, saying is not the
Lord your God with you, and
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has he not given you peace on
every side? For he has delivered the
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inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the
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Lord and his people. Now set
your mind and your heart to seek the
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Lord your God. Arise and build
the sanctuary of the Lord God, so
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that the Yark of the covenant of
the Lord and the holy vessels of God
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may be brought into a house built
for the name of the Lord. Amen,
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he may be seated. I was
at Home Depot recently and I noticed
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that on the side of some of
the boxes they were tell you not only
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what's in the box itself, but
they also have listed the materials that you'll
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need to complete the project. So
there may not be a hammer in the
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box, but there's one in the
other aisle that you can go and get
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to do what you need to do. If this is true for hanging a
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door or putting in a window or
something like that, can you imagine?
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Would you? Can you imagine the
kind of preparations it would take to build
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a whole house? What about now, a house for God, a temple
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where people will worship, where animals
will be sacrificed, and not any temple
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either. Notice what David wants in
particular. He doesn't just want a Nice
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House for the Lord. He doesn't
just want a good temple and average temple,
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he wants one that is exceedingly magnificent, of fame and glory throughout all
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lands. I'm not sure how many
things that we could think of that could
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be DIS cribed this way. Can
you think of something that is exceedingly magnificent
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of fame and glory throughout all the
lands. On our vacation we went to
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the Grand Canyon and we notice there
that there were lots and lots of people
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there that weren't from Arizona, people
from Spain, people from France, people
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from Canada, people from all over
the United States. Maybe the Grand Canyon
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comes close as a good decide,
something that describes this exceedingly magnificent of fame
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and glory throughout all the lands.
That's what David wants for the Temple of
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God. Now, imagine you're in
David's position. You want to build a
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temple like this, a temple that
everyone will talk about, that everyone will
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know about, that everyone will think
of Israel, will think of Jerusalem ago,
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yes, the temple of Yahwa,
nothing like. What would you include?
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What kind of preparations would need to
be made? We that's what we
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have here in this chapter, is
we have a description of David's preparations.
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Now, ultimately it's going to be
Solomon who's going to build the house,
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and there's a reason given here.
David tells Solomon that the Lord has kept
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him from building the House. I'm
partly because the reason that's listed here is
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that he is a man of war. It's worth mentioning that this is not
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a punishment against David, just as
an aside. God made David a man
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of war. He is the one
who sent him out into the battle.
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He's the one who wanted him to
go and defeat the Philistines, as you
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remember from a few chapters back.
But nevertheless, God wants his temple to
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be established in a time of peace. He wants the completion to be done
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in a period of rest and quiet, and that's why Solomon is being called
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to the task. It tells something
about what the temple is going to be.
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Sometimes, when people retire, they
move to places where all they can
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have, or all that they want, is a little peace and quiet,
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right, a little rest, a
little relaxation. It implies that the busyness
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of life, the war of life, is over, and that's what God
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wants for his people. No more
war, no more work, just peace
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and rest in the land. And
that's the setting, that's the context in
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which God will dwell with his people
in the temple. Well, focusing on
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this and reading this chapter is not
just interesting and amazing to hear how this
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was built, or the kinds of
things that went into it. But it
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will really help us to understand the
kind of temple that Jesus builds. David
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and Solomon together work to picture Jesus, our king, who builds a temple
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not out of stones but out of
people. Seeing something of the model helps
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us understand something of the real thing, of the thing that it points to,
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and so we want to spend some
time this evening thinking about what God
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says in First Chronicles twenty two,
of getting a sense of the greatness of
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the temple. But as you we
do this, as we discuss this and
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think about this, I want you
all ready to be thinking about how the
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temple of Jesus, the Temple of
God that he makes out of you and
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me, is all the more greater. So first, what is needed?
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What is David preparing? I wonder
if you can list them in your mind
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as you kind of tick through the
things you heard in first chronicles twenty two.
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What are some of those things?
Well, one of the things that
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David needs and is preparing our workers. If this temple is going to be
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built, he can't do it by
himself. He is going to need workers,
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and we see that right away from
verse two. Interestingly, the people
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that are going to be working are
not Israelites but resident aliens, people who
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were in the land of Israel,
gentiles are going to be building this most
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Holy House of the Lord. And
he sat and then we read in verse
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two that he set stone cutters to
prepare dressed stones for the building of the
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House of God. This is hard
work. You have to go into a
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big quarry where there's large stones.
From what I understand, they would,
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one of the things they would do
is drive these long wedges into cracks and
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then fill soak those wedges with water
so that the stones would break apart.
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And then once you have this these
large pieces of stone broken apart, you
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have to chisel off the sides.
You have to move them somehow, probably
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on little lead balls or something like
that. It's a lot of work.
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There are these people particularly skilled at
this craft, and that's what he needs.
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He needs workers, stone cutters.
We have other people listed, other
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workers listed in Verse Fifteen. In
Verse Fifteen, Paul, I'm sorry,
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David says to his son. You
have an abundance of workmen, stone cutters,
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Mason's, carpenters and all kinds of
craftsmen without number, skilled in working
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gold, silver, bronze and iron. Well, what else does David prepare
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other than the workers? He also
prepares the materials. We read of the
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stones, of course. In verse
two we read of these various minerals,
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iron, Bron on's gold, Cedar, a Seedar, obviously, a tree,
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the trees that were, by the
way, gifted to the kingdom from
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the Sidonians and the tyreans. And
what we see in all of these things
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is there is a lot of them. Remember David says about the workers there
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without number. Well, he says
the same thing about the bronze and the
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iron. It's so much bronze and
iron going into this temple that you can't
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even begin to weigh it. It's
sort of an impossible task, so much
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of it. And that's true not
only of these less precious elements, but
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even the silver and the gold.
Take the gold, for example. The
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silver, it says there's a million
talents. I'm I'm forgetting all of a
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sudden a hundred thousand talents of gold. That's three thousand seven hundred and fifty
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tons of gold. If you took
all the gold together in your house,
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how much do you think you have? Don't tell me, but how much?
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How many rooms can you fill with
the gold that's in your house?
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Three thousand seven hundred and fifty tons. That's about forty five billion dollars worth
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of gold. And you know what
David says to solemn about that gold.
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Make sure you add more, more, put more on, more El more
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gold, more silver. This is
an amazing amount of gold. Outside,
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inside of first chronicles, the second
highest number is only a hundred and twelve
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tons. Outside of chronicles we only
see twenty five tons, an amount that
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was given to Solomon yearly. There
are other amounts of gold mentioned in the
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ancient Near East, but very rarely. There's only one instance where I'm forgetting
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the name of the city, but
in the time of Alexander, the great
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a city is mentioned and it's the
amount of gold. It exceeds this hundred
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thousand talents by just a little bit, and this is the city with the
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greatest wealth in the world at the
time. This is an amazing amount of
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materials, amazing amount of precious materials. Why is all this important? Well,
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it's magnificent right. He's meeting his
goal. He wants the template of
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God to be exceedingly magnificent, and
with this kind of material and these kind
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of workers, certainly it will.
But it also reminds us that this is
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a special at place. It's to
be exceedingly magnificent because the Lord God of
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Israel is exceedingly magnificent. You don't
go by a Strativarius and then put it
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in a sack and carry it around
with you. You don't go get an
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expensive sports car and then leave it
outside and not garage it. You don't
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build a temple to the Lord God, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth,
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and not build it like this.
That's David's vision here. We are
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going to do this right, we
are going to do this well. Yah
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Ways. Name is going to be
known throughout the land. In many ways,
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the temple was meant to picture heaven
itself. Indeed, the closer you
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moved into the holy of holies,
the more precious these materials would become,
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the more beautiful everything would be.
The entire temple was meant to express the
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magnificence of God. As you approached
it, as you saw it, as
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you heard about it from a far
away land. It was supposed to impress
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on you the truth of Yah ways
greatness and of his great love for Israel.
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So we have the workers, we
have the materials. What else does
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David Need? Well, he needs
a man of character and obedience to make
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all of this work. If you
were going to build a house, you
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would go higher, an architect,
a contractor, you would gather together people
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who would be in charge of the
project, especially if you were not capable
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at this yourself. You would need
need someone who could supervise make good decisions.
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Solomon needed to be that kind of
man. There have been many kings
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in history who have been given vast
amounts of wealth and have squandered it,
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who have wasted it, lost it
through bad policies, through greed, all
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kinds of things. But psalmn and
must be wise. He must be wise
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and his father praised this for him. He calls Solomon in verse six,
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to his son and he tells him, I want you to build this house.
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And then in verse eleven, he
says, may God be with you,
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and then in verse twelve, only
may the Lord grant you discretion and
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understanding. But it's not just for
building the house, for managing kind of
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this big work that he needs discretion
and understanding. You See, Solomon's not
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just a contractor, he's going to
be a king. He is going to
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not just construct a house but rule
a kingdom. David goes on to say
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that when God gives you charge over
Israel, you may keep the law of
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the Lord, your God. The
connection between the temple and the law,
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between the temple and the kingdom or
the king who would keep the law,
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is seen in the last few verses
of this chapter, in last few verses,
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when David is speaking to the other
leaders in Israel. He says,
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arise and build the Sanctuary of Jehovah, God, so that the Ark of
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the Covenant of Jehovah and the Holy
Vessels of God may be brought into the
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house, into a house built for
the name of Jehovah. You see the
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connection there and that article in particular, the Ark of the covenant. Do
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you remember what's in the Ark of
the Covenant? The Law of God?
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God doesn't God reveals himself through his
law. He wants a kingdom ruled by
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his law. God is a God
who is holy. God is a God
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who is righteous, who is filled
with justice and mercy, who is justice
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and mercy and love and he wants
his king and he wants his kingdom and
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his people ruled in this way.
And that is why, in the place
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where God dwells, the Ark of
the Covenant will be and that is why
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the king who builds this house,
who will place the arc in this holy
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of holies, must have discretion and
understanding that he might rule according to God's
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law, that he might apply God's
law with understanding to his people. The
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name of God would dwell with his
people, but his people must dwell with
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him, and to do so they
must be righteous, they must be holy.
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So David praise that his son would
have discretion, would have understanding.
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He also calls him to be strong
and courageous. Though he's a man of
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peace, he must not be weak. He must be as vigilant as Joshua,
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who is also called to be strong
and courageous, to go forward into
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battle. David also was called to
be strong and courageous. Well, just
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as these men were called to be
strong and courageous and times of war,
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so Solomon must be in times of
peace. And all and much of what
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is said here of Solomon extends to
the leaders mentioned in verses. Seventeen through
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twenty two. He says to the
leaders of Israel to go and help Solomon,
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his son. He says God has
given you peace, God has given
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you is subdued the people. Now
set your mind. Verse Nineteen. Set
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your mind and your heart to seek
the Lord, your God. You remember
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this? This theme of seeking has
been so important in first chronicles. Do
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you remember who didn't seek the Lord? Saul? Saul didn't seek the Lord.
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The people didn't seek the Lord and
Saul was replaced. The King of
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God's people must seek God, must
know him, belong to him, submit
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to him. This is the kind
of man that David needs. Well,
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the last thing that David needs,
so to speak, is God. Psalm
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one hundred and twenty seven famously says
this. I'll read it to you.
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Perhaps you even have it memorized.
Psalm one hundred and twenty seven, verse
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one. It's a song by the
way of Solomon. Unless Jehovah builds the
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house, those who build it Labor
in vain. Unless Jehovah Watches over the
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city, the watchman stays awake in
vain. It is in vain that you
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rise up early and go late to
rest, eating the bread of anxious toil
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for he who gives for he gives
to his beloved sleep. You can have
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the strongest man, the most courageous
man, the most skilled cutters, the
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largest amounts of gold and silver and
bronze and iron. You can have great
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gifts coming to you from other kingdoms, but nothing, nothing will work unless
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God is on your side. This
is always true of everything that we do.
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We must always seek after God,
we must always seek the he is
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on our side, that he is
with us, that we are going about
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his word work. And that's why
David says and asks and praise that Yahwagh
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would be with you, that Yah
Wah would grant to his son a discretion,
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understanding peace. Sometimes people want understanding. This will want to deny the
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work of men. But this isn't
true, is it? You see both
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here, though. God is ultimately
supreme over these things, though. God
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is the one who will built this
temple. What is David say to his
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son? A rise and work,
get busy, do the things that I've
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called you to do. May God
be with you. So these are the
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things that are going to be required, these are the things that David is
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preparing the temple with workers, materials. He needs a good king a good
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son and he needs the Lord God
of Israel on their side. Well,
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what does all this tell us?
Well, tells us a lot, but
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we only have a little bit of
time. One thing, it tells us
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that David is most certainly doing God's
work. David's not out seeking to gain
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glory for his own name. Everything
that he's doing is centered around the covenant
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that God has given in and notice
how David is doing it properly, in
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an accord with what God has commanded. God said, no, you shall
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not build my house, while your
son shall build my house. Can you
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imagine sitting around with all this gold, with all this labor, with so
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much success, so much power,
and have to pass it on, to
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have to say, well, that'll
be for the next generation? Can you
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imagine being King David and knowing that
you would not see this temple that was
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in your heart to build, that
you have prepared for and build? And
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yet David seems to be okay with
this. He's at peace with this because
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he submitted himself to God's will obediently. He has submitted himself to God,
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his father, and is going about
things a god. This way, we
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also see what is required to build
the Temple of God a lot of work,
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costly material, obedience, a godly
king. Only through these things would
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God be present among his people.
Now, with that being said, let
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us turn the corner and consider the
work of Jesus and how it compares to
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the Temple Building we have here.
Perhaps the easiest way to do this is
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to consider how the original hearers would
have heard this passage. You remember the
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WHO the original hearers were? They
were people who had returned back from the
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exile, the people who heard this. We're not people who were waiting for
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the temple to be built. They
were people who had seen the temple destroyed.
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This is the ears through which they're
hearing this history. They're hearing this
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great story and all this anticipation about
David getting the the the Temple Materials Ready,
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about Solomon being prepared, this young
and inexperienced man being prepared and a
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gifted and anointed by God. But
they know the end of the story,
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don't they? They know how Israel
would defile the temple, defile the land,
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how they wouldn't be holy, how
the King's including Solomon, would not
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follow God's law, how all of
it would come crashing down in judgment and
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in exile and in defilement. This
text has this note of joy, but
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after the exile it has a kind
of sadness to it. All the work,
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all the materials, all that had
gone into this were lost, plundered.
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People put to death, no wonder, but the older people who had
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seen the temple before it was destroyed
wept even as a new one was being
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constructed. Did hearing this history,
on that side of history might very well
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cause you to weep and to wonder. God had surely kept his promises to
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judge, but what about his promises
of grace? What about his promise to
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David that his son would be established
on a throne forever, it says,
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a kingdom forever, an eternal covenant? Well, that's where Jesus comes in.
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For thousands of years, ever since
the fall, people have been taking
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holy things of God and defiling them. They've been taking humanity, has been
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taking the close relationship that it has
with God and separating through sin, taking
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the temples of God and worshiping idols
in them, building towers of Babel in
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their name and in their glory,
when God is the one who made us
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and God is the one who deserves
us. Humanity, ever since the fall,
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has been constantly separating itself from God, and of course we can't just
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look over our shoulders and say all
all those terrible people right, the same
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as true of us. Would you
do any better? Do you do any
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better? How often do we try
to find God and other than in the
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places that he would meet us?
How often do we seek to work on
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projects that his will simply isn't in, to build our own towers, to
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strengthen our own name? Do we, like David, go out and seek
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the glory of God? Is that
something that's important to you? Is that
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something that you devote your time,
your money, your energy, your prayers
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to? Or do we amass fortunes
and pursue careers at any cost? Do
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we try to find a name for
ourselves so that we can finally be independent
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of God? We do, but
these attempts of course, always fail,
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and this one does as well,
not because God failed, but he let
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his people fail so that they could
see what real glory, what real peace,
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whateverlasting rest and communion with God would
be. In some ways, you
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can think about the temple as a
little model. When I was in sixth
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grade, we all had to do
an Egypt project and everybody did different things.
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I remember there were Barbie dolls wrapped
in toilet paper, a little SARCOFFA,
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the guy and that sort of thing. Other people would take sugarcubes and
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build little pyramids and things and they
would all be on displaying. Well,
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why? What's the point of this? Well, we were building models so
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that we could understand something of what
the real thing was. So you'd walk
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down the Sixth Grade Hallway and you'd
see a little pyramid and you'd look inside
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and there'd be a little chamber,
a burial chamber, and be some pots
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over here, and but it wasn't
anything like the Pyramids really, right,
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you didn't stand in front of this
thing and be amazed at the magnificence that
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Tommy put together. They're just a
little sugar cubes, right. What's pretty
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much exactly the same thing with this
temple. As grand as it is,
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as much gold as was poured into
it, as much workman skilled and all
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the rest that were devoted to this
temple, it's really just a sugarcube pyramid
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compared with the temple that Jesus builds. Do you believe that, how do
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we know that? Let's tick through
the list quickly. The materials right.
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What about the materials? Gold,
silver, bronze. What could be more
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expensive? What could be more costly? What could be more magnificent? Listen
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to first Peter two, verse five, Verse Four. As you come to
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him, that is Jesus, a
living stone, rejected by men but in
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the sight of God, chosen and
precious. You yourselves, like living stones,
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are being built up as a spiritual
house, to be a holy priesthood,
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to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable and pleasing
to God. If you didn't catch
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it there, listen to Ephesians too, Effesians two, nineteen through twenty,
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twenty two. So then you are
no longer strangers and aliens, but you
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are fellow citizens and saints and members
of the household of God, built on
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the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ, Jesus himself being the cornerstone
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in whom the whole structure being joined
together grows into a Holy Temple and the
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Lord. In Him, you also
are being built together into a dwelling place
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for God by the spirit. Talk
about materials. We're not talking about rocks
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anymore. We're talking about people.
What could be more costly, what could
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be more magnificent and wonderful than God
taking each one of you and building you
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into a holy house, a temple
for him to dwell in? What about
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the workmen? Well, did you
hear what Paul said? WHO BUILDS THAT
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HOUSE? The spirit, not gentiles
who happen to be around, or gentiles
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foreigners, who are being pressed into
Labor, the spirit of God taking you
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and putting you one next to another, joining you together, building you up.
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If you doubt the cost of your
own soul, consider who paid the
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price to put you there. Jesus, the son of God, giving his
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own life, shedding his own blood
so that he could take you and corry
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you and put you on himself,
so that he can dwell in you.
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Very interestingly, we read an acts
hundred and forty seven, and then again
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in chapter seventeen, that this temple
that God is building, it's described as
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one that's built without human hands,
without human hands. That's how the new
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temple, the temple that Jesus is
described, or that Jesus builds, is
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built, that is to say,
it's built spiritually. There's all kinds of
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implications of this. I'll tell you
just one, one really exciting one.
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Do you remember, if you were
here, when we were going through Daniel,
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how Nebuchadnezzar had this dream that there
are all these kingdoms of the world
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built up and then there was this
thing that came and blew at all the
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smitherines. Do you remember what that
thing was? It was a stone and
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it was a stone uncut, untouched
by human hands. And this stone,
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Daniel says he interprets, grows so
big that it becomes a mountain and fills
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the entire earth. What he's describing
here is the temple of God. He
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describes it as an individual stone,
but ultimately it's all of these stones.
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It's us in Jesus, the foundation
of the temple, the Apostles and the
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prophets there with him ministering his word, and US built on them. This
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is a temple that will fill the
earth, and this tells us something else
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about the temple and how much grander
it is. This temple the David built
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was indeed large, was indeed magnificent
and wonderful, but did it fill the
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entire earth? No, not even
close. But this is what the Temple
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of the Lord does. In fact, when John sees the people, when
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God sees us, our sorry,
when John Sees in revelation, these the
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visions of God in his dwelling place, he doesn't even see a temple,
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he just sees a people feeling filling
the earth. The materials are more magnificent,
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more costly, the the ex the
size of the temple is a greater
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what about the man who builds the
temple? Jesus, Not Solomon, who,
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yes, was wise, who yes, was great, but failed in
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many ways. Married foreign wives,
many married many foreign wives, brought in
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all kinds of idolatry. There are
many points at which Solomon was not strong
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it, which he was not courageous, but never Jesus, and this is
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the great thing, beloved, Your
Foundation is established on the rock of our
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salvation. Jesus was always strong,
he was always courageous, he never got
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weak knees, he never buckled under
temptation, he never went the wrong way,
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he always did the thing that was
right, he always did the will
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of his father, and because of
that he was able to establish peace between
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us and God in the Kingdom of
God, and he will establish it completely
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and perfectly when he comes again.
So this is the temple that Jesus built,
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as wonderful as David's is, it
doesn't really compare. It's just a
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little sugar cube structure. Ultimately,
it's kind of like the story of the
398
00:36:46.210 --> 00:36:50.329
three little pigs, you know.
One goes out builds a house of Straw,
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one goes out builds a house of
sticks, sticks, and finally someone
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does it right. That's what Jesus
does. He does it right because he
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does it eternally, he does it
perfectly. Stones fall apart, gold tarnishes,
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00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:12.400
things rust, doors fall off.
The temple was rated, the temple
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00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:15.630
was destroyed, it was plundered,
the people were killed, but the temple
404
00:37:15.710 --> 00:37:22.469
that Jesus is, Jesus builds,
can never be destroyed. It's made by
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00:37:22.550 --> 00:37:27.190
the spirit of God, through spiritual
means, through the preaching of the Gospel,
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through the administration of the sacraments,
through the changing of our hearts,
407
00:37:30.619 --> 00:37:37.019
by the Holy Spirit themselves, unto
resurrected life where we will never die.
408
00:37:37.619 --> 00:37:42.460
This is a temple that cannot perish, a temple that cannot be destroyed.
409
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And so that means, brothers and
sisters, that our communion with God is
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forever and ever and ever, and
our kingdom is forever and ever. He
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is eternal and established, just as
God promise. We get to hear this
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passage with different ears as well.
Just like the Jews after the exile heard
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it with a particular understanding, we
do as well, don't we? We
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hear it not just as those who
have been who who came back from the
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exile, but as those who have
been built up in the new temple itself
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and by our great King Jesus.
So, with that in mind, shall
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we do any less than Solomon?
Shall we be weak and cowardly when it
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00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:43.210
comes to doing the work of the
Lord? Shall we be hesitant in bringing
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sacrifices, in giving ourselves? Shall
you not give all that you have and
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all that you might? Will you
not live belonging to God, enjoying his
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presence, knowing the safety and security
that you have in him, the rock
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of our salvation? That's how we
hear this passage rightly. We see the
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thing that it points forward to,
it see it points forward to us,
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and we rejoice and we live happily
and securely in him. Let us pray
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and ask that God would help us
in these things.
