Episode Transcript
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Well, let's a turn to second
chronicles chapter five. If you would please
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remain standing. Second Chronicles Chapter Five, I'll read from verse two to the
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end of the chapter. Let's hear
God's word. Second Chronicles Five, verse
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two. Then Solomon assembled the elders
of Israel and all the heads of the
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tribes, the leaders of the father's
houses, of the people in Israel or
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of Israel in Jerusalem, to bring
up the Ark of the covenant of the
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Lord Out of the City of David, which is I am and all the
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men of Israel assembled before the king
at the feast that is in the seventh
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month, and all the elders of
Israel came and the Levites took up the
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Ark and they brought up the ark
the tent of meeting and all the holy
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vessels that were in the tent.
The levitical priests brought them up and King
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Solomon and all the congregation of Israel
who had assembled before him were before the
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Ark, sacrificing so many sheep and
oxen that they could not be counted or
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numbered. Then the priests brought the
Ark of the covenants of the Lord to
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its place in the inner sanctuary of
the house in the most holy place,
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underneath the wings of the Cherubeam.
The cherubims spread out their wings over the
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place of the Ark so that the
Cherubeam made a covering above the Ark and
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its Poles, and the Poles were
so long that the ends of the pools
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were seen from the holy place before
the Inter sanctuary, but they could not
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be seen from the outside, and
they are there to this day. There
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was nothing in set in the arc
except the two tablets that Moses put there
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at Horeb, where the Lord made
a covenant with the people of Israel when
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they came out of Egypt and when
the priests came out of the holy place,
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for all the priests who were present
had consecrated themselves without regard to their
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divisions, and all the levitical singers, Asaf he moon and Jedithan, their
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sons and kinsmen, arrayed in fine
linen, the symbols harps and liars,
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stood east of the altar with a
hundred and twenty priests who were trumpeters,
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and it was the duty of the
trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in
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unison, in praise and Thanksgiving to
the Lord. And when the song was
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raised, with trumpets and symbols and
other musical instruments in praise to the Lord,
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for he is good, for his
steadfast love endures forever. The House,
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the House of the Lord, was
filled with a cloud so that the
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priests could not stand to minister because
of the cloud, for the glory of
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the Lord filled the House of God. He may be seated. When you
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hear second chronicles, Chapter Five,
if you are not hearing it with your
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mind, remembering the context around it
and sort of placing this event in all
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that has come before it, it
may feel a little bit like just another
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assembly of people, just another movement
of the ARC. Some musicians the glory
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the Lord. That's pretty neat.
At the end. It may not make
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a very big impact, but I
want you to remember for a moment how
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big this is. This is huge. This is like the climax of the
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story. We have been tracing the
movement of the ARC on back in from
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first chronicles and indeed, if you
go into earlier parts of scripture, even
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back into exodus, the movement of
the ARC was since it was first constructed,
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has been moving and moving and moving
until finally it reaches this place of
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rest and there's a lot of things
like this in this book or, I'm
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sorry, in this chapter. The
things other than the Ark that have been
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leading up to this point have been
going on for a long time. And
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consider the Promised Land, for example, when God sent his people out,
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rescuing them out of Egypt, bringing
them into a promised land took a long
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time. Even after they finally got
there, they were not settled, even
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after they got their first king,
Saul, their second King David. Now
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they're third King Solomon. They have
yet to really fully settle. Finally,
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the temple has been built, this
temple that Dave and Solomon's father wanted to
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build. Finally, the temple has
been built about eleven months before this point.
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Finally, everything is in place,
everyone's ready, the preparations have been
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made, the people are assembled.
That's why Solomon brings them together. And
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in this chapter and the next to
Assaul, we are going to hear this
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dramatic climax of all the easy events, not only from first chronicles but all
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the way back, all the way
back to the very beginning when God first
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promised Abraham that he would make a
numerous people and they would all come into
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the land and here they are.
It's great number of people, a temple,
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a land, freedom from enemies,
tons of money, tons of wealth
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and power and on every side Solomon, this great king, this great anointed
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one, a response to God's covenant, to David. And then they all
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are there, arranging themselves, getting
ready. They bring they process the arc
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out of Gibbeon, they bring the
old tent of meeting that's the temple is
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now replacing. They bring it up
to the Levites, all get together,
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they get this huge orchestra and or
choir on this vast number of musicians.
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A hundred and twenty trumpeters are mentioned, but there's others, symbols, Harps,
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liars, there's a choir. They're
all standing over there by the altar.
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I'm ready, ready to announce this
thing, and they start announcing it.
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They're they're playing. I've never heard
a hundred and twenty trumpeters. I've
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been in a lot of different musical
setting. Summer has played the trumpet.
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Have you ever had a hundred and
twenty? That is a lot of trumpets
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and bouncing off the walls and all
of these stones. It would have been
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intensely loud and if my just from
a musician standpoint, if these others are
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going to even hope to compete with
a hundred and twenty trumpeters, Harps and
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liars. I suppose the symbolists wouldn't
have the percussionist would have any trouble,
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but that choir you would have to
have very large groups of people. We're
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talking about a lot of musicians ready
to a ready to see this temple dedicated,
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and there they all are, not
making some kind of cacophony, but
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devoting themselves. We read in verse
thirteen, to being heard in unison,
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in praise and Thanksgiving to Yahweh to
the Lord, and that's what happens when
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the song was raised, the trumpeters
in the symbols and the musical instruments of
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the Lord and they're all singing for
he is good, for his steadfast love
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and doors forever. Then something that
it doesn't seem anyone was expecting, though
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there are reasons to expect it.
Suddenly the Lord fills the temple with this
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cloud, this glorious cloud. He
reveals himself in this cloud in such a
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powerful way that all these musicians,
all these people, all these priests who
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had been carrying the arc, everyone
who was there couldn't stand to minister because
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of the cloud. Imagine if something
like that happened here. We all get
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together for our service, we'RE READY
TO SING, we're here to praise God
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and then all of a sudden the
room fills up with a cloud so thick
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that we all just have to leave. They built a temple for God and
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God said it's mine, I'm moving
in. This is a dramatic moment,
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an amazing moment. The glory cloud
here that descends on the temple is also
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a reminder of the movement of Israel. You remember, back from the very
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beginning, when Israel came out of
Egypt, God sent his cloud and his
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fire to lead them by night and
by day. This was such a great
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thing that the people of Israel.
We read when the cloud, the same
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cloud, descended on the Tabernacle,
they shouted for Joy. Leviticus nine hundred
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and twenty four. In the Psalms
we read about the glory of the Lord.
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Like Psalm Eighty five nine. Surely
his salvation is near those who fear
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him, that his glory may dwell
in our land. Indeed, there's a
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moment after Israel made the golden calf. They're at Mount Sinai in front of
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these Great Glorious Cloud of the Lord
that had descended on the mountain that the
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Lord so angry with them, this
is an exodus thirty three, so angry
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with them, threatens to take his
presence away. Says I'm going to take
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the cloud away, I'll lead you
to the promised land with an angel,
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and they begin to mourn, they're
scared and they don't want it to happen.
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God does relent and they continue on. But this shows you the preciousness
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which God was to them in this
cloud. But the cloud is it communicated.
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This kind of blessing was also sort
of always on the move. They
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never knew exactly what would happen.
They would follow the cloud and the pillar
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of fire and the smoke and they'd
stopped for a few days and they move
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and then then stop again and then
stop for a long time. Maybe they
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never knew what was going to happen. There was kind of a unsettling nature
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of being pilgrims, as we all
know. So think about what it means
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that when the land is established,
the king is enthrone, the temple is
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built and then the cloud comes down
not over a tent, but over this
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rock solid gold plated temple. It's
not going anywhere and it rests down.
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It fills the house of the Lord. This is the ending of a great
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story, or at least it would
seem that way. Second Chronicles Five,
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to me, reads like one of
those passages that sometimes you'll read in a
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great big novel, or or usually
these kind of grand, lengthy stories,
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where you're about two thirds of the
way in and everything gets resolved, and
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yet there you are with a third
of the book left and you're going,
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why is everything conclude? hoooting now
the guy gets the girl there where they
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wanted to be. You know,
all these things are kind of getting wrapped
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up, but yet you still see
all these pages left. I think second
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chronicles five is kind of like that. We read the culmination of all these
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things, the great hope of all
that was happening, the presence of the
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Lord descending on the people, music, sacrifice, the overwhelming glory and majesty
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of God, and yet boy,
there's sure a lot of pages left still.
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It seems like such a perfect ending, but it's not. That's because
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there's these loose ends. If you
pay attention to those stories, these grand
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stories, these novels that I was
talking about. Even though it feels like
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everything's wrapped up, as soon as
you read on you kind of go,
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Oh yeah, I didn't remember that
there was that one thing that didn't get
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resolved and there was that other thing
too, and it's like that here in
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second chronicles five. It seems like
the climax of the story, and in
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many ways it is, but there
are these loose ends. For example,
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if we think back and we remember, Israel is still under this covenant,
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the Old Covenant, that promise is
blessing if they obey, but threatens curse
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if they disobey. If they just
if they obey, God present promises to
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be with them, to protect them, to give them all kinds of blessings,
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but if they disobey his laws,
if they break the covenant, then
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he threatens separation, exile and destruction. This is even this point is even
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brought up, alluded to, when
it mentions that in the arc are these
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two tablets of Moses, this great
thing that signifies the foundation on which these
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people belong in the land. They
are there by the grace of God,
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but if they're going to stay there, they must obey or they will be
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kicked out, they will be sent
out, they will be exiled. Moses
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says this very explicitly. He got
he said. God says, I will
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spit you out of the land.
I will do exactly what I did to
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all the people were here, were
here who were here before you. And
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so there's this loose end that's left
a kind of question in our minds.
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What's going to happen? Will they
obey? And in some ways it's not
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quite right for us to just suppose
that they will. Right, and they
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lived happily ever after. The glory
cloud descends, there are the people in
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the land, the temple is built. Well, of course it will all
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work out fine. The reason we
can't say that or expected is that God,
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the author of this story, the
one who's recounting this history, has
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old us many times that we don't
really have any reason to believe that this
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is going to end up in a
happy ending. We don't have any reason
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to believe that Israel will be the
faithful bride and they will live happily forever
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after in the kingdom. We don't
believe this and we know that this isn't
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true for many reasons. Remember,
for example, the Golden Calf. There
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Mount Sinhai, there is a God
speaking his laws to Moses on a mountain
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that is shaking in a cloud that's
flashing lightning. It's so terrifying that the
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people are afraid they will die,
and yet they make a golden calf and
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say these are Aaron says, these
are your gods who brought you out of
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Egypt. If you wouldn't be scared
enough in a situation like that, what
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could possibly scare you? Do you
see how deep down the sin goes?
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And we see this over and over
again throughout Israel. The lack of sense
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of fear of the Lord, even
when his glory is present, is evident
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in many places. Paul summarizes all
of these up when he talks about the
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Old Covenant and Second Corinthians Three.
He says that the old cove and came
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with glory, but it was a
ministry of death and condemnation. Why would
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he speak of it that way?
Because the Covenant and would which they were
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under created a situation in which every
time God came close to his people,
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he was repulsed by them because they
kept sinning over and over and over again.
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And indeed the story doesn't turn out
well. We know this because second
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chronicles itself is being written after the
exile, after they have already been spit
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out of the land, after all
the horrors that came upon the Canaanites before
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them have come upon them as well. The people that are hearing chronicles for
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the first time are hearing this knowing
that the glory of the Lord did depart
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from Israel, that it didn't dwell
in that house which Solomnon made forever.
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There are pictures in Ezekiel, visions
Ezekiel Haves, right before the destruction of
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the temple, of the Glory Isekiel
Ninety three of the glory of the God
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of Israel went up from above the
Cherubim, whenever it had been and moved
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to the threshold of the temple and
then eventually lifts up and out before the
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destruction of the temple, before the
invading armies came in. That's what Ezekiel
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saw God leaving. And yet Ezekiel
also promises that even that is not the
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end of the story. And Ezekiel
Forty three I'm he pictures he sees,
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God reveals to him the glory of
the Lord Coming back into the temple,
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but yet a much more magnificent temple, a glorious temple. And it's not
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just Ezekiel. The other Prophet speak
to this as well. A return of
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the Lord, a wall of protection, Zachariah to five, a wall of
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fire surrounding of the temple. Hagi
to speaks of this as well, but
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speaks of it in these grand terms. They picture a temple that's greater,
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they picture the glory of the Lord
returning. They also picture the nation's coming
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into this place, the temple being
a place that is desired by the nations
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when Israel comes back out of exile. These things don't really happen. Indeed,
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even the nations are trying to keep
it from happening. They're they're not
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exactly desiring it and hoping for it. But when Jesus comes, this changes.
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These prophecies that we read throughout the
Bible are pointing towards another descent,
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the descent of the son of God, who is called a temple, who
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comes to live with us, dwell
with us, Tabernacle with us. He
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comes as the holy one through whom
we can approach God. He is that
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great sacrifice for sin on cut.
He is the one through whom we worship,
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and we see the spirits manifestation in
him, in the way that it
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overshadowed Mary, in the way that
the spirit descended on him like a dove
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at the amount of transfiguration, then
again at pentecost when the the spirit descends
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again in these tongues of fire on
the disciples. All of these things are
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pointing us to this reality that when
the Temple of the Lord comes, it
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comes in Jesus, and indeed we
are even made into this temple as we
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are united with him now. These
are striking differences. When we speak of
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the temple in terms of Jesus,
were obviously talking about a person and not
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a building, but those differences indicate
to us that things are similar in some
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ways. Here is a Manuel God
with us, dwell with us, coming
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to us to bless us, but
he's doing so in a different way than
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he's done before. The Bible says
that God in Christ is putting together a
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new kind of house, a different
kind of house in which his spirit will
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dwell, and this house truly is
the end of the story in second chronicles
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five, it feels like it,
but there are still all these pages,
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but in the pages to come,
we read of the Lord Jesus coming to
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build a house out of his people, to build and establish a kingdom and
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to give them an inheritance in this
kingdom, even himself, and inheritance that
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is imperishable, in destructible, spiritual, eternal. That temple was destroyed.
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The second, the first temple that
we read of here in second chronicles,
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the temple that was built again,
was also destroyed. But the temple that
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Jesus builds will not be destroyed.
And when we connect these two things,
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we begin to see what it is
Jesus has accomplished for us, what it
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means that the climax of the story
is in him. It means that the
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peace and the security in the rest
and all that p Israel was hoping for
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and longing for and in some measure
achieved there on that day when the glory
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of the Lord descended into the temple. That is what is achieved permanently and
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in the grand way that the prophets
predicted. This means that Jesus establishes us
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a grace with it, by His
grace, the presence of God that will
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last forever in Jesus, in his
perfect atoning for our sins, in his
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removing the curse of the law,
in giving to us all his blessings.
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We stand before God, with God, in God, knowing that we not
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need ever fear that his spirit will
depart from us. When Jesus gives us
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his spirit, it will never leave
us, he will never forsake us,
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because his presence with us is not
dependent upon our obedience, but is dependent
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upon the final and perfect obedience of
Christ. When we consider this high point
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in Israel's history and second chronicles five
and in the chapters coming, we consider
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this great thing that God has done, and I want to point that out
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on a day September eleventh, when
we remember one of the lowest points in
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our national history. September eleventh,
for many of us, marks this point
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of evil and murder and terror and
horror. It's a reminder of the evils
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that we've always been facing and that
we continue to face day to day,
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evils that in many ways seem to
be strengthening, and this can cause us
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to be anxious, to worry and
to wonder if the Lord really is doing
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his work, if the evils of
this world really are winning the day.
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But this high point in Israel's history
and its connection with our Lord Jesus and
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the things that he has done,
reminds us that God has not departed,
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that God has not left us,
that God is with us and, by
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his spirit, unites us to his
son in such a way that we live
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and love and have peace and rest, even in the midst of a broken
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and fallen world. In many ways, we are like the Israelites before they
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entered the promised land. We walk
by faith, we wait for the glories
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of the Lord to be revealed in
their consummated way. We have to trust
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day by day, even as the
those who would seek to attack the Lord
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and his anointed surround us and press
in on us. As Christians around the
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world have to endure much suffering and
much persecution. But even while we find
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ourselves in this stage of pilgrim,
of pilgrimage, even as we find ourselves
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in some sense as exiles, we
also, through Jesus and his testimony to
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us, know that we belong to
him and that we've already begun to enter
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into this final sabbath rest, that
the work Jesus has caught, as done
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on the cross, has inaugurated a
kingdom has brought into the world something that
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will not pass away, that is
strong and secure. So when we look
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at the suffering in the world,
when we look at the evils of the
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world, when we think of the
ways in which we are afflicted, whether
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nationally or personally in our families,
are most importantly spiritually and as the as
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the Satan attacks the Kingdom of God. As we consider all of these things
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and we think about God's work throughout
redemptive history, let us not forget that
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God has come down, he has
come down into our world in order to
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lift us out of it, that
we belong to him and that the pages
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of that book are quickly, quickly, coming to an end. In all
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this, I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, do not be
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weary, don't be anxious. The
Lord who is come to us in our
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Savior, Jesus Christ, God who
has given us his very spirit, who
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dwells in us, we as the
Temple of God. He will not leave
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you, he will not forsake you, because Jesus has fulfilled all things and
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soon, very soon, you will
see all things in subjection to him.
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You will see the complete end of
sin, of death and the devil and
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you will enjoy the perfectly blessed state
of righteousness of life enjoy in the Lord.
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So do not grow weary, do
not grow faint, but lift your
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voices and praise the Lord and sing
with all the saints who have come before
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us. The Lord is good and
his steadfast love endures forever. Let us
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pray
