Amen. I would encourage you all to turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter five, 1 Kings chapter five, as we continue on in the book of 1 Kings. Now I'm sure I am not telling you anything that you don't already know when I say that in the ancient world, in the time of Solomon, they did not have email. They did not have text. They had no phones. They did not have even, you know, the most rudimentary of applications that would enable them electronically or through the Ethernet or whatever to converse with one another. However, they did have their own version of sandal net. What would happen would be that when a king or some official wanted to communicate with someone else, he would write down on a clay tablet, an Akkadian or some other lingua franca that everybody understood in the area, He would write down his message, and then he would seal it with his own personal seal, and then send it off via somebody actually walking all the distance to that other person and delivering the clay tablet to them. So, for instance, when the Hittite capital of Hattusa was discovered in Anatolia, which is modern-day Turkey, they were amazed to find all of these thousands of, and they're actually, you know, they're about cell phone size, most of them, little clay tablets. that were dealing with all the minutiae, not only of government, but of building things, of buying things, records of stuff that had been maintained or given to the king, receipts and so on, and a lot of communications, a lot of communications between various kings and so on. And here we are going to read about a communication that went between Hiram, king of Tyre, and Solomon over something very important, a building project that was near and dear to Solomon's heart. And we are blessed to have the record of their communications given to us here in our English Bibles translated from the Hebrew and not having to read them in Akkadian on clay tablets. Let us, before we come to the word of the Lord, go to the Lord who gave it to us, and let's ask for him to bless it to our hearing. Sovereign Lord, now as we read your word once again, we pray that you would be the light of our minds. Help me to divide it aright. I do not wish to say anything that goes against your word. or sends your people in the wrong direction. So help me, O Lord, to open up and unfold the wonder of what you are doing in the midst of ancient Israel through your servant Solomon. I do pray now, Lord, that we would understand the importance and application of this to our own lives, our own time. These are not merely details of an ancient building project long ago, but rather these are things we must learn about building the kingdom of God in our own time as well. And we pray all of this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. 1 Kings chapter 5. I'm going to be reading the entire chapter. Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father. For Hiram had always loved David. Then Solomon sent to Hiram saying, you know how my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which were fought against him on every side until the Lord put his foes under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to my father David, saying, your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for my name. Now therefore command that they cut down cedars for me from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants, and I will pay you wages for your servants according to whatever you say. For you know there is none among us who has skill to cut timber like the Sidonians. So it was when Hiram heard the words of Solomon that he rejoiced greatly and said, blessed be the Lord this day, for he has given David a wise son over this great people. Then Hiram sent to Solomon saying, I considered the message which you sent me, and I will do all you desire concerning the cedar and cypress logs. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon to the sea. I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you indicate to me, and will have them broken apart there. Then you can take them away, and you shall fulfill my desire by giving food for my household. Then Hiram gave Solomon cedar and cypress logs according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 cores of wheat as food for his household and 20 cores of pressed oil. Thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year. So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom as he had promised him. And there was peace between Hiram and Solomon. And the two of them made a treaty together. Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel. And the labor force was 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in shifts. They were one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. Solomon had 70,000 who carried burdens and 80,000 who quarried stone in the mountains, beside 3,300 from the chiefs of Solomon's deputies who supervised the people who labored in the work. And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, agun stones, to lay the foundation of the temple. So Solomon's builders, Hiram's builders, and the Gebelites quarried them, and they prepared timber and stones to build the temple. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. One of the things that I was constantly trying to emphasize this past week as I was speaking to the pastors who were taking the Old Testament Historical Books course over in Kapshura in Uganda, was the essential unity of the Old Testament. And no matter what book we were in, I was attempting to relate the way that that book functioned as part of the overall story of redemption that God had been telling. And how the story, essentially, although it progresses consistently through time, that ultimately it was all traveling towards the same end. How the Old Testament is always looking forward to the coming of Jesus Christ. And we discussed at length the idea of types and shadows. Things that pointed forward to the coming of Jesus Christ. Things that foreshadowed him. things that showed him in type to the world, whether it be kings or even, in this case, a building, a temple, a place of worship, a place where man and God might meet and where there might be acceptable worship given to God. We'll talk more as the temple unfolds in its building. We'll see how the temple itself pointed forward to Jesus Christ. But one of the things that we see here is the way that God's work in redeeming his people was something that was set out long in advance. And in fact, He, through the lifetimes of his servants, the prophets, and then kings, and before them the judges, he was building up towards certain points in the history of redemption, one of the most important of which was the building of the temple in Jerusalem. Now, you remember that God brought the people out of Egypt. He brought them out as a mighty host. They passed through the Red Sea, and they did so because he caused it to part before them, and then to come back and to drown their enemies, the Egyptians. But because of their faithlessness, when they got to the borders of the Promised Land, They were afraid, they grumbled against God's providence, they did not think he was strong enough to deliver them and to overcome the enemies that were dwelling in the land, and so unfortunately they spent 40 years wandering as nomads, in essence, in the wilderness. Now during that time, It was impossible for them to have fixed accommodations. They could not carry along with them log cabins or stone buildings or anything like that. They were wanderers in the wilderness going from place to place. They dwelt in tents, and God commanded them, as a result of their dwelling in tents, you remember at Sinai, to build a tabernacle, a tent of meeting between him and his people, someplace where the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the tablets that God gave to Moses on Sinai, and also it contained a pot of manna, it contained Aaron's rod which budded, these were things that were put in subsequently later on, but the Ark of the Covenant also had the mercy seat, upon which the high priest would, on Yom Kippur, once a year, he would sprinkle the blood of atonement upon it, and it would point forward to the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood by which they were going to be forgiven. This tent of meeting, therefore, was incredibly important. It was where the morning and the evening sacrifices took place. It was where the incense altar, where incense was burned according to the Lord's instructions, according to his menu, his formula for the incense. It was burned and it symbolized the prayers of the saints going up. And when they were done in one place, the glory cloud would move, and they would move after it, and they would pack up the tent of meeting with all their tents, and the Levites would carry it to the next location. So it was a traveling tabernacle. And that was the way that the people of Israel had worshipped for hundreds of years. Even after they entered into the promised land, they still had the tent of meeting. for the entire period, the 300 years during which the judges were ruling in Israel before the kings came. But we read in 2 Samuel how David became concerned 400 years plus after they had entered into Israel after they had entered into the promised land, after he had been established as king after Saul, yet still there was no permanent place of worship. Even in the capital city, King David's city, Jerusalem, there was still no permanent place of worship. they still worship the Lord in tents. And the Lord had not told them, I need you to build a house for me. But David himself, for instance, when David had taken the capital from the Jebusites, he had wrested Jerusalem from their control and had made it the capital city in this incredibly important location. You remember that the capital city was Mount Zion, collectively, but The most important of the mountains that made up Jerusalem was Mount Moriah. That was the place where, of course, Abraham had been instructed to take Isaac many, many years before. And he had been about to slay him, but instead the Lord had provided a ram in place of his son. and he had slain the ram. This was a place, therefore, that had sacrificial significance already, and that was going to be the place where the temple was going to be made. So the people are in the land, they're dwelling in houses. David himself has a house of cedar. We read in 2 Samuel 5, 9, then David dwelt in the stronghold and called it the city of David, and David built all around from the millow and inward. So David went on and became great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him. Then Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons, and they built David a house. But David is looking at this, he's very zealous for the Lord, he loves the Lord, and he wants him to be glorified, not just in that nation, but he wants him to be glorified among the nations. And he looks and he says, I'm dwelling in a city, in a cedar house, and yet the Lord is still dwelling in a tent. Now, it's very important that we understand this. No house of worship can contain the Lord. The Lord is omnipotent, the Lord is also omnipresent, simultaneously present in every place within his creation, and even as vast as the galaxies are, And I've heard two sermons now recently trying to spell out exactly how mind-bogglingly vast the universe is, yet even the universe, with all of its vast space, cannot contain the Lord. He is far greater than his creation. So the idea that the Lord could be present only in a tent in one place, or even in a massive building, That's just not the case, and yet it was symbolic of his presence amongst his people. For instance, when Isaiah was going to promise the people that God would be with them forever, he uses a name for him, Immanuel, God with us. And he gives them the promise that the Lord would tabernacle with them, that he would pitch his tent in their midst once again, looking forward to that time of the coming of Christ when he would literally dwell with his people. So, turn with me if you would in your Bibles to 2 Samuel 7, because there we have this picture of what David wanted to do so very badly. David wanted to build a house for the Lord. So we read in 2 Samuel 7, 1, now it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies all around, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains. Then Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you. Now, this was bad advice from the prophet. The prophet had not inquired with the Lord. Should David be building a house for your name in the midst of Jerusalem? He had just heard it. It sounded like a good project. Let's go ahead and do it. But he had not checked with the Lord. This happens quite a bit, unfortunately, in the Old Testament. People of God just go ahead and do what seems right, and it turns out it's not right in the Lord's eyes, and it usually backfires. So what happened? Well, the Lord comes to Nathan, and he graciously and mercifully tells him, uh, no. It's not my intention that David would build a house for me in the midst of Jerusalem. So taking up where we just left off in 2 Samuel 7 chapter 4, but it happened that as 2 Samuel 7 verse 4 rather, but it happened that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying go and tell my servant David thus says the Lord would you build a house for me to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since that time that I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt, even to this day, but have moved about in a tent and in a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the sheep fold from following the sheep to be ruler over my people, over Israel. And I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And it made you a great name, like the name of the great men who were on the earth. Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people, Israel. And I will plant them that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more, nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them any more as previously. Since that time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel and have caused you to rest from all your enemies, also the Lord tells you that he will make you a house. when your days are fulfilled, and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son." Now that, of course, we could see it in the short term, that promise that the Lord made. He said, after you rest with your fathers, what's going to happen? I'm going to raise up a son for you. And he is going to build a house for my name in the midst of Jerusalem. And I'm going to establish, David, your kingdom forever, says the Lord. Now, Solomon did not live forever, obviously. But the Lord did establish the throne of David forever, for he was not just speaking of Solomon, building a house for his name, he was talking about, of course, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be great David's greater son, a literal descendant of Jesus, rather David, after the flesh. and yet the Son of God as well, and the one who would be that forever King, who rules not just over Israel, but over all the nations. And we have that promise that the Lord Jesus would build a house that would go on forever. As we'll see as we go through the book of Kings and then into 2 Kings, we'll see that eventually the temple, sadly, that Solomon built will be destroyed. And yet the temple, the true temple, Jesus Christ, can never be destroyed. David, you won't be building this temple, says the Lord, and disappointed David terribly, because he was a man of war. He had shed much blood. Solomon acknowledges this. He was not a man of peace. He never had time. So if David wasn't going to get to build it, who would build it? And the answer, of course, is his son Solomon. So Solomon is going to build the temple for the Lord. But David had helped him out by making the initial plans for it. And more importantly, he had established a friendship with Hiram, king of Tyre. The Sidonians were famous for their woodcutting. They were famous also for their quarrying. And because of this friendship between David and Hiram, king of Tyre, and Tyre, incidentally, is in modern-day Lebanon. I wish I'd put up a map. You can see just up the coast there is the city of Tyre. Well, because of that friendship that had existed between David and Hiram, and now that is being established between Solomon and Hiram, they're going to be able to build it. Incidentally, Hiram lived from 969 to 936 BC. Hiram is an abbreviation of another name, Achiram, which means brother of Ram, or my brother is exalted. And archaeologists, believe it or not, have discovered a royal sarcophagus in Byblos of Tyre. which was probably his home city, dated from about 1200 BC, inscribed with the king's name, Ahiram, and they believe that this was where Hiram, king of Tyre, was reburied after his death. So, I'm sorry, the number there, 1200 BC, is wrong. Well, anyway. They found a sarcophagus where he was laid, and he wasn't put in it before he died, I assure you. But in any event, Byblos, the city that it was from, is also called Gybal. Now, why is that important? Well, we have the inhabitants of the city, Gybalites, who were known for their shipbuilding and also for their stone cutting. They're mentioned in 1 Kings 5 near the end. So Solomon's builders, Hiram's builders, and the Gybalites quarried. They were going to be very important in building the temple because they had great stone-cutting skills. But at this point, some people ask the question, wasn't it wrong for Solomon to go to Hiram, king of Tyre, this pagan, and get him to help with this whole process of building the temple? Shouldn't it have been the case that only the people of God would work upon it? Well, the answer is no. It was entirely appropriate for Hiram to be involved in the building of Israel. lacked the expertise that was necessary to build the temple. They did not have timber that grew in the country of sufficient size and quantity. They did not have enough stonemasons who were good at creating these giant blocks of stone that would be necessary for the temple. They could not simply build the temple with the skills they had on hand. The opportunity, therefore, to build the temple would depend upon the help that Hiram, King of Tyre, could assist them with. And the Bible makes it very clear that the King's Treaty with Hiram was an example of royal wisdom. And a number of commentators, my favorite of which is Dale Ralph Davis, he points out that here we see there is King David showing the nations, or rather King David's son Solomon and before him King David, showing the nations the love of the true and living God. And in building this great and mighty temple in the midst of Jerusalem and the people of Tyre being involved, we have once again the gospel being opened up to the nations and the God who actually reigns over all things being seen and grand. Now, the Sidonians were famous for the fact that they were timber craftsmen. There's a stone that was found in Palermo in Sicily with an inscription talking about their timber-carrying ships that sailed from Byblos to Egypt, and the skill of the Sidonians were expressed in their ability to cut down, it says, the most suitable of the trees and to prepare them. That's what Hiram was going to do. He was going to cut down these These wonderful cedars that were well known. Those of you who have ever smelled a good humidor know what cedar smells like. I was talking to the men about how after the temple was just smelled, the cedar smell must have been overwhelming. And I remember many, many years ago, we had been discussing as a family the fact that the temple was built of cedar. And I had opened up a cigar box, and there were these cigars that were cedar wrapped. And Graham, my son, who was much younger at the time, I assure you, had taken one of them. And he'd sniffed it, and he said, oh. And I said, yeah, that's cedar. And he said, the temple was built out of cedar. And I said, yeah. And he said, so this is what it smelled like. And I said, yeah. And then he goes and he runs to his mother and says, mommy, the temple smelled like cigars. That's not the point. But in any event, it would have been something that would have appealed to all of the senses, olfactory as well as the visual ones, where when you see the grandeur of the temple, it is going to be paneled in the Holy of Holies, for instance, entirely in gold. It's going to be something that is truly magnificent. But Israel did not have the ability to do this themselves. If you'll take a look at your worship folders, there's a wise quote here from Matthew Henry. And hopefully it will afford those of you who are about as mechanically gifted as I am some word of encouragement if perhaps we are more devoted to prayer and Bible reading. Israel and the things of God are wise and understanding people and yet in curious arts inferior to their neighbors. True piety is a much more valuable gift of heaven than the highest degree of ingenuity. Better be an Israelite, skillful in the law. than a Cydonian skillful to hew timber. The people of God were called upon to be primarily devoted to him and his word and to his service. The Sidonians had the skills that they needed, though, to build that house, and so they take advantage of it. It's worth noting, obviously, that we did not ourselves inquire as to whether the crews working on this church were all saved before we began construction. And those of you who have worked in construction know that was probably not very likely that all of our crew were saved, but nonetheless, the house of God was built, and it was something in which the world could glorify him. Now the task, and we'll go into it later on, the task that they were about to endeavor to begin was huge. The payments that Solomon would be making to Hiram king of Tyre were immense. The labor force, for instance, was also gigantic. In addition to all these skilled Sidonian workers who Solomon was going to be paying for, there was a forced labor force made up of Israelites who, as we see, were being sent all the way to Lebanon on a monthly basis. These were Israelites who were drafted, essentially, into national service on rotating shifts and so on. And then there were these people described as the workers. These were tribute slaves from the Canaanites and other conquered nations. They would not be given time off. They were constantly to be employed on the work of carrying stones and timber and so on. But you have all these 30-day shifts that the people of Israel would be engaged in. Truly this was a work that would have exhausted the kingdom. But, as great as this work would be, something that we need to remember is that there had been many other kings who had built other similarly great things for the gods that they worshipped. Magnificent houses for their deities, perhaps not quite as magnificent as the temple in Jerusalem, but nonetheless pretty impressive. The Babylonians, for instance, built ziggurats. They did not have the conception of the god who came down, who revealed himself to us, who speaks to us directly. They believed that you had to climb up to the god. So they would build these stepped ziggurats. And at the very top, they would put the temple as the idea that the god would only have to come a little way, and that they would meet with him. So you have already an idea of workspace salvation, where moving towards god, even as he moves towards us, and so on. And there were these giant ziggurats. I mean, they still exist to this day. I was speaking to a soldier, and this is way back, ancient history now, during the invasion of Iraq. And he said, you're never going to believe where I'm sleeping. And I said, is it Saddam's palace? He said, no, I already did that. He said, no, I'm actually sleeping on a ziggurat. I'm actually sleeping in ancient Babylon. It's amazing. well, Saturn's reconstruction of an ancient city, right? And I said, that's amazing. So he sent me a bunch of pictures of where he was, and indeed, you know, there was this great and mighty temple that must have cost, also, a fortune to build. So what's the difference between those ziggurats in the temple in Jerusalem if they probably were almost equally expensive and difficult to build? And the answer is not the building, but who was going to be worshipped at the building. The most important thing here is the deity, the gods of the particular nations that supposedly dwelt in these temples made with human hands. They were not true gods. They were idols. This temple, though, is being built for the one true God of heaven and earth. The temple would be the place where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had promised to bless all the nations through his offspring, that was the place where he was going to be worshipped. It was to be a place where the God who had covenanted directly with David, who had promised that his throne would go on forever, that there would never fail to be somebody sitting on his throne, this was the place where that God would be worshiped. And so we see in Psalm 96, for instance, In verse 1, O sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name, proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples, for the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised, he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory. Do His name. Bring an offering and come into His courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth. And this was something also that you saw in the way that the temple is going to include also a courtyard wherein the Gentiles can not, obviously they weren't allowed to go directly into the temple, certainly not too close to the Holy of Holies, but it was supposed to be a place where there was prayer being made by all the nations. Because the God who was being worshiped here is the one who blesses all the nations. And we know that has happened most specifically through his son, Jesus Christ. Now, one and only one major point. Here the Lord shows his glory through his servant Solomon, who is willing to pour out the resource of his kingdom in order to glorify that God. He's willing to send his people off to work to quarry the stone necessary for this building. He's willing to take the tax money that he is earning and use it in order to pay for those workers. He's willing, in essence, to beggar the kingdom, if need be, in order to glorify God. By contrast, are we as willing to beggar ourselves in glorifying Him? Or do we give not what's best to the Lord, but what's left? Is that what we give to Him? We see here that the temple was being built, the temple that would point forward to the greater temple who was coming. You remember the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll talk about this more as we go on. The Lord spoke of himself as a temple. He was the real temple. That's why he said, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will build it up again. He wasn't speaking of the temple in Jerusalem. He was speaking of the temple of his own body. John makes that clear in John chapter two. But the temple that we are building is not even the temple that is the Lord Jesus Christ, but rather it is the temple made with living stones, the temple of the church. And we're all, although we're not building an actual physical location any longer, we already have a church building over our heads, yet we are supposed to be involved in the building of the church, not just here, but the church worldwide, the church that is the blessing to the nations. It was a blessing to me to be able to go over to Uganda and see brothers and sisters in Christ and to work with them in the building up of the church there and strengthening it. And it was a great reminder to me that I am part of that process. I'm supposed to be part of that process. But it's not just me who's supposed to be part of that process. It's you as well. Each and every single one of you is part of the kingdom, is part of the temple made without hands. You are living stones in that temple. You are priests. Did you know that? We have this wonderful concept of the priesthood of all believers. You have the Holy Spirit. If you are a Christian dwelling within you, you're able to come into his presence at any time and to offer up worship. And you are supposed to be making him known. Solomon was going to build this great and mighty temple. People would come from around the world and they would come to Jerusalem and they would see Solomon's temple shining in the distance because of the particular stone that was selected and the way that it was overlaid. Coming from great distances you could see the glory of the temple even as you approached and the pilgrims who would go up to the feast were amazed. They magnified the Lord and they wrote those, and we have those songs of ascent that were written as the people went up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord in his temple. But it wasn't just the people of God who saw it. It was the nations as they would come to Jerusalem from various reasons. They would see the temple as well. And they would be, even against their will, reminded that there is only one God in heaven and earth. Only one God who rules over all the nations. We know that, don't we? We know there's only one mediator between man and God. What are we doing, though, to make him known to the nations? What are we doing to build up his church throughout the world? Now we may give our tithes, and I hope we are giving tithes. One of the things that saddened me about African Christianity is there really isn't any tithing. In fact, one of the things, if there was one ritual in an African church service I would do away with immediately, aside from singing Bethlehem Hill song in African translations. Now, that would be the number one. I would get rid of that immediately. But the second thing after Bethlehem Hill song was picked out would be they put the offering baskets up front. And everybody comes up front like this. They have their hand closed. And then they put their hand in the offering basket, and they open their hand. So the idea is if you have money inside, you're dropping it in. You're being very, very humble. You don't want anybody to see how large the tithe you're giving in. But standing and watching from the side where I was, I could see 95% of the hands were empty. Nothing was being put in. We were pretending to give to the Lord, but nothing was. And people might say, well, they're dreadfully poor and so on. But it's still a case of what are you giving? What are you choosing to spend your money on? We, even if we only give 10%, if we give the widow's might and remember that, she was absolutely impoverished and yet she gave all that she could for the Lord. Are we doing the same? Are we building up not just a spiritual house in terms of the church here, okay, and the church overseas, the things that TBI and TCWM and the ARP are doing worldwide. Are we building the house of the Lord in our own homes? Are we building a church for his name amongst our family? Something that will go on. We are a people who have so many resources. We have an abundance of money. We have an abundance of written materials. But are we using them? Are you and I employing the Sidonians in our own lives to help to build the Church of the Lord? Are we doing everything that we can to make Him who is the blessing of the nations know Him? Are we building the temple of the Lord in our own time? That would be the question that I have for you. And if not, why not? Why is it that it was such a priority for Solomon, but it's not a priority for us most of the time? Let us see if we can't adjust our own desires so that we are building a house for the Lord in the midst of our nation here. Let's go before him now. God, our Father, we thank you that you employ ordinary men to do glorious things. Men with feet of clay, you use them to build you a holy temple in the midst of Jerusalem, something that would be a wonder to all the nations, something that would dazzle the eye as it was being approached. and some place where the worship of the living God could go on day after day. Lord, we want to build that kind of edifice in our own lives as well. We want there to be a temple. and we want to be part of it. We want to be the living stones. We ask, therefore, Lord, that you would shape us and mold us as the Sidonian stonecutters shaped the blocks that went into the temple. We pray, Lord, that you would shape us, that you would take away those parts that don't fit, that don't conform to the building plan of Jesus Christ, and that you would help us to be used in glorifying the Lord amongst the nations. May his name be praised, and may everything that we have be devoted to glorifying him now and always.