Good morning, and I'm speaking to you from the auditorium of the Addison Baptist Church, where I soon pray we'll be able to meet together as a congregation, as guests, and gather in God's house that he's built for us here. But for now, we are unable to do that. And so I continue the series and hope the message will be a blessing to you as you consider God's word with me. Turn your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 3. Returning to 2 Chronicles 3, we're looking at a series I've called Sermons on the Mount. We've looked at Noah and the Ark on Ararat. Abraham is tested with the sacrifice of his son on Moriah. God provides a ram and a substitute is provided for Isaac, and Isaac's life is spared. One of the wonderful portraits of Christ in the Old Testament as our substitute. Moses on Sinai. Caleb on Hebron, Elijah on Mount Carmel, Elisha on Mount Carmel, Joshua on Mount Ephraim, David on Mount Olivet, and David on Mount Moriah. And then today, Solomon on Mount Moriah. 2 Chronicles chapter three, verse number one, just one verse. Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah. where the Lord appeared unto David his father in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite." Now, the word house in the Bible is a fascinating word. It encompasses a great deal of God's dealing with us. The tabernacle was said to be a house of God that Moses built, Solomon's temple. Sometimes a nation is called the house of God. Sometimes a family is called a house. There's a sense in which each individual is a house or a tabernacle in which our soul and spirit dwells. Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the house of God. He is the incarnation, God in the flesh, God dwelling, God with us, Emmanuel. Jesus Christ is the ultimate house. But we're gonna look today at Solomon's temple and see some pictures and types of Jesus Christ. Also, some lessons we'll draw from the sermon on Solomon on Mount Moriah. This mountain, as you remember, is the place where David offered a sacrifice and repented of his sin of numbering the people, a sin for which God had judged both David and his nation with a terrible plague. And when David had repented and worshiped God, God accepted his sacrifice and his repentance and the plague was stayed. And the site of that sacrifice was a plot of ground that David bought from a man there on Mount Moriah. And that plot, that site, that land will be the location of Solomon's temple. Of course, you remember David prepared much of the material. He collected much of the wealth to carry the key of the treasury of David was said to be a great thing because a storehouse that he gathered all the wealth of his kingdom, preparing, anticipating when Solomon, his son would be allowed to build the temple. David was not allowed to build the temple because he had been a man of war and God reserved that honor for Solomon, So Solomon's temple is quite famous. Solomon was blessed with incredible wealth and incredible safety and peace in his 40-year reign. Perhaps the golden years of Israel were under Solomon, and he begins to build this temple. Up until that time, the Ark of the Covenant, God's dwelling place, had been in a tent or in the tabernacle that Moses had built. and the furniture within the tabernacle had been the place where God designated the sacrifices to be brought and for God's dwelling place to be recognized. But Solomon is led to build by God a house for the Lord. In the Old Testament, this Mount Moriah, as I told you, is a place where Abraham was tested with Isaac, David built an altar there, a primitive altar there at the end of the plague, and then Solomon's temple. We don't really know what Solomon's temple looked like. I've seen many artists' conceptions and ideas, but we know it was a staggering in splendor. Here's one artist's conception of the outside of Solomon's temple, the courtyards and the walls and so forth. The interior of the temple would have been breathtakingly beautiful with the gold and the splendor and the holy place and the most holy place and all of the things that God instructed Solomon to build. It was a sure wonder of the ancient world. I want to just build a simple message on this great and glorious temple that Solomon builds. We know that it really happened. It's genuine history. Both the historical books and the New Testament test to the building of this temple. When you open the New Testament, another temple is under construction. It's not Solomon's temple. It's on the site of Solomon's temple. It was called Herod's temple. And Herod the Great had begun construction of that. And when Jesus walked the earth, that temple had been under construction for about 46 years. It was never actually completed, ultimately being destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans when the Jewish people were scattered and destroyed by the Roman emperor. In the Old Testament, there is another temple between Solomon's temple and Herod's temple. It was called the Temple of the Restoration. It was built by the captives returning from Persia. And although a wonderful, It was nothing in comparison to the glory of Solomon's temple. But I draw a lesson here from Solomon's work. Present always builds upon the past. Solomon uses the material that his father had collected. Solomon uses the place that his father had prepared. And Solomon uses the furniture, some of the furniture from the tabernacle. And so there's a connection between the past and the present. We do not live unto ourselves, not individually, nor as it comes to time. Everything we do has a past, and Lord willing, everything we do has a future, but the present always builds on the past. I think of that in terms of where we are even as families and churches and a nation dealing with the current crisis. What the future will be be determined in a great deal by what we do in the present. And our sacrifices now, both in our battle against this virus and our sacrifice of public meetings, I pray that they will be a foundation upon which we can build a better future if God would spare us, if God would grant us reprieve, if God would grant us a new beginning. What we do now, the sacrifices we make, the difficulties we endure, the hardships we share, the sadnesses we share, there'll be a foundation for us to build. God's people want to step up and speak up in the best Christ-like ways, God-honoring ways, faithful ways, continuing to pray, continuing to witness, continuing to give, continuing to minister as best we can so that as we go forward these days will be a foundation upon which we can build and nothing of which we would be ashamed or sad that we had failed our Lord or that we had failed our fellow man. The present always builds on the past. Always use the present honoring the past as best you can. I never cease to be amazed at what God has allowed the Addison Baptist Church to view over the 120 years in which this church has ministered in this little village of Addison from world wars and floods and flus and epidemics and pandemics across the 20th century through the modern times of terrorism and 9-11, and yet the ministry goes on. And I know even as we speak here about our difficulties, there are thousands of Christians in other countries who are being persecuted politically, not just battling physical difficulties, but political persecution. And some are in prison, some life at risk because they serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that we will build upon the past and that we'll be faithful. We'll look back to those in our church and our churches who have been faithful to God in other circumstances and times of stock market crashes and great depressions and world wars, and we will see their faithfulness and we will build on that past. Solomon built a temple because his father had gathered materials and found a place that God approved The present always builds on the past. Now, number two, nothing can be built without sacrifice. The place that David buys, he will not buy, he will not offer a sacrifice without payment. Nothing can be built without sacrifice. I'm reminded immediately of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin, the Bible says. Nothing can be built without sacrifice. The Old Testament, with all of its festivals and sacrificial systems, which were all pictures or types of the Lord Jesus Christ, yet the Old Testament is just full of the cost of serving God, the cost of worshiping God. Now, is there great reward? Is there great blessing for serving the Lord? Absolutely. But nothing can be built without sacrifice. Nothing can please God without first a sacrifice. Coming to God in the way He prescribes, in the manner He prescribes, the time He prescribes, nothing can be built without sacrifice. The present always builds upon the past. Nothing can be built without sacrifice. And the greatest house of God is Jesus Christ. Although we admire the tabernacle that Moses built, And we are in awe of the masterful temple that Solomon built and even cause to appreciate the restoration temple after the exile. And in some way, the grandeur of Herod's temple, where Jesus walked and upon whose steps Jesus preached and in whose chambers the people of God met early on in the book of Acts, we can admire and appreciate those buildings. I think also we can appreciate the buildings God gives us. And we're saddened we can't use those buildings right now. We remember that the church is the people. We are an assembly of born again, baptized believers, coveted together. And we certainly long for the day when we can meet together again in prayer and worship and singing. And we long pray for that. We miss that. We cannot replace that with videos or teleconferencing, or audio, we need to meet together. I pray that day will soon come when we can meet together. But the greatest house of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. Everything we need to know about God, everything we need to hear from God, everything we need to understand about God is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the God-man. We're told in Scripture that He's the creator, that He's the sustainer, that He's the ultimate judge of all things. So He's truly God. And yet this God lay aside the splendor of heaven, the royal robes of glory, and came to this earth and was born of Mary, a virgin. No human father, no Adamic sin nature transmitted to Him, But the Holy Spirit overshadowed a virgin named Mary, and a child was conceived in her womb. And that miraculous virgin birth brings to us God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. He is incarnated. He takes upon flesh. He becomes man as though he were not God, yet he remains God as though he were not man. It's a great mystery, Paul says. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. God came to us in the flesh. Anyone who denies that Jesus Christ is not God in the flesh is antichrist and is not of God, cannot be saved, cannot be born again if he denies the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The greatest house of God is Jesus Christ. And though we long to be in physical buildings and physical gatherings, if we are in Christ, we are accepted by God. Ephesians says, we're accepted in the beloved. The finest and first house that we ought to know is the house of Jesus himself, Jesus Christ in whom We have the forgiveness of sins, the hope of heaven, eternal life. Let's praise Jesus Christ. He is the greatest house of God. I must say this also to Christians in a reflective way, in a representative way, we are also Christians. We are followers of Christ and we also become the house of God. That is to say, when you're born again, You become a child of God. The Holy Spirit comes in and takes up residence in you, and you become a dwelling place of God, a habitation of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says. And so the individual believer is also a house of God. The Holy Spirit dwells in you and resides in you. That's why you can pray wherever you are. That's why you can study the Bible wherever you are. That's why you can witness wherever you are, because the Holy Spirit is speaking through you through his word. Now, I know also that the church, that is the gathering of God's saints and the collection of saints is also the house of God, that not so much the building I'm thinking about now, but just the believers who are set as the Holy Spirit sees in the membership of a church, that church is a house of God as well. It's a dwelling place of God. And though we are not able to gather, yet we're able to minister as the hands and feet and voices and the heart of God in our communities and doing the best we can to pray, to help, and to be an example of what Christ would have us to be in these days. And so individuals, saved individuals are houses of God. Churches are houses of God, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest house of God. Are you in that house? Are you a child of God? Have you been translated from darkness into the kingdom of God's Son? It's a great transaction that takes place when God puts our sins on Jesus Christ, and puts Jesus' righteousness on us, and counts our sins against Jesus, and he pays for them on the cross. and then takes Jesus' righteousness and charges them to our account. Do you know that good news? That good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Have you trusted Him? Have you been born again? Have you told someone about that? Maybe by a phone call. Maybe by a text. Maybe by a media message. Maybe by forwarding this message to someone. Maybe by just sending them a track. Telling them about Jesus Christ. Though we pray that the medical providers will have success in treating the sick and finding answers to this virus, let's never forget that our ultimate need is to be born again. To live, be born once is to die twice. To be born twice is to die but once. And that is, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, All that death can do is take your physical body. Your soul will be immediately in the presence of God. It is appointed unto man once to die. And though we exercise the best stewardship we can and the best care we can, it's very clear we do not know how many days, how many weeks, how many months, no, how many hours we have to live here on this life. And we need to be ready. And we need to warn others about We need to invite others to go to heaven through the finished work of Jesus Christ. The greatest house of God is Jesus. Let us pray together. Father, I pray that you would bless the listeners and viewers today as we think of Solomon's temple and the wonder and the glory of it. Yet it is surely overshadowed by Jesus Christ himself. May we see the wondering glory of Jesus Christ and understand that he is our Savior, that he is our Lord, that he is the captain and finisher of our faith. And Father, may we know that to be in Christ, we are counted, accepted in the beloved. Father, help us to walk by faith. Help us to walk faithfully in these days. Bless the Addison Baptist Church individually as members and collectively as the body of Christ. and give us wisdom and courage to know and to do your will in these days. We pray in Jesus name, amen.