Good morning and welcome to Walking with Jesus through the Word, one chapter per day. I'm Pastor Jason van Bemmel from Forest Hill Presbyterian Church. It's day 456 of our three-year journey through God's Word. Beginning of April, we're beginning, what is this, the sixth quarter of what will be 12 quarters for this plan. So at the end of this quarter, at the end of June, we'll come to the halfway point. But anyway, it's good to be with you on this Saturday morning, April 1st, and I apologize that this wasn't posted on time. I just forgot that I needed one for today. So this is coming out a little bit late, and I just had to silence my phone so that it doesn't interrupt us again. Anyway, we're into the building of the temple here from Solomon. Let's pray and let's ask the Lord's help as we look to his word this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love for us, for this day that you've given to us, for your Son, our Savior, for your Church. which is pictured and prefigured for us in the temple. We thank you for just your spirit who inspired your word and then who also illuminates it for our understanding and writes it on our hearts. We pray that you would do this work in us. Show us Christ, show us ourselves, show us what we would need from this chapter today to walk more closely with you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. 1 Kings 6. In the 480th year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was 60 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was 20 cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and 10 cubits deep in front of the house. And he made for the house windows with recessed frames. He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around. The lowest story was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. For around the outside of the house, he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house. When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built. The entrance for the lower story was on the south side of the house, and one went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third. So he built the house and finished it, and he made the ceiling of the house of beams and planks of cedar. He built the structure against the whole house five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar. Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, concerning this house that you are building, if you walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel. So Solomon built the house and finished it. He lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar, from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling. He covered them on the inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress. He built 20 cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls. And he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the most holy place. The house, that is the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was 40 cubits long. The cedar within the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar, no stone was seen. The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house to set there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. The inner sanctuary was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 20 cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar. And Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold. And he drew chains of gold across in front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold. And he overlaid the whole house with gold until all the house was finished. Also the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold. In the inner sanctuary, he made two cherubims of olive wood, each ten cubits high. Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherubim, and five cubits the length of the other wing of the cherubim. It was 10 cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. The other cherubim also measured 10 cubits. Both cherubim had the same measure and the same form. The height of one cherub was 10 cubits and so was that of the other cherub. He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house, and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one touched the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall. Their other wings touched each other in the middle of the house, and he overlaid the cherubim with gold. Around the walls of the house he carved engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers in the inner and outer rooms. The floor of the house he overlaid with gold in the inner and outer rooms. From the entrance to the inner sanctuary, he made doors of olive wood. The lintel and the doorposts were five-sided. He covered the two doors of olive wood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. He overlaid them with gold and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olive wood in the form of a square and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. On them he carved cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work. He built the inner court with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams. In the fourth year, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Zio. I'm sorry, Zio. There ain't no month of Zio in the Hebrew calendar. This is my eyeballs playing tricks on me. In the month of Ziv. And in the 11th year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts. And according to all its specifications, he was seven years in building. it. So seven years it takes Solomon to build the temple of the Lord. Now he also built his own house, which we'll look at in a couple of days, his grand palace. But this is a very important moment in the history of God's people because prior to this, for 400 years for almost 480 years you had the tabernacle a tent and now this temple is going to stand. And this temple is going to stand for about 400 plus years. And it's going to fall when the Babylonians come and conquer it. And then that one is going to be rebuilt. And then that one is going to stand for, you know, about 500 years until it's finally destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. But this is a transition from the temporary tabernacle to the more permanent temple. But even this more permanent temple is going to give way to the church. The reason why the temple was finally destroyed in A.D. 70 and never needs to be rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem is that the church is the temple of the living God. This is one of those things that confuses me about what a lot of Christians have taught and believed and passed down, is that somehow we should be looking for the rebuilding of a temple on earth, on the earthly temple mound in Jerusalem. By the grace of God, I'm planning on making a trip to Israel here in just about a month. And we'll be gone for 10 days. And one of the places we're going to go is to the Temple Mound in Jerusalem. And we'll be at the Western Foundation Wall of the Old Temple, the Wailing Wall. And it's a very, very important place for Jewish people. And there's this idea that we're waiting for that temple to be rebuilt. But the New Testament is super clear in Ephesians 2 and in 1 Peter 2 and Jesus' own words to Peter in Matthew 16. as well as the end of the book of Revelation chapters 21 and 22, the church is the temple. The church is the living temple. It's the dwelling place for God. It's built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Ephesians 2 20. We are living stones that are being built up into this temple. That's first Peter two. And then in the end, the glorified city of God, the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven, like a bride prepared for her bridegroom is the picture of the glorified temple. John is told, come, I will show you the bride of the Lamb. And he's shown this temple city. So the church is the living temple. And then each believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God. And Paul writes that in Corinthians. So it's very important to know that what we have here It's a foreshadowing, it's a picture, it's a type of the church. Now, Solomon prioritizes building up the temple for the glory of God. His father David wanted to build the temple, he wanted to honor God, but he was a man of war and so it was left to his son Solomon to build. And we saw yesterday that Solomon had entered into these negotiations with Hiram king of Tyre to get all this cedar and now we're seeing what all this cedar is being used for. This is a magnificent building so it's made of stone structurally to be very very sound but the entirety of the inside of the temple building is covered with beams and planks of cedar and then the entirety of the inside of the temple is then overlaid with gold so the cedar is a very great wood. It's just a wonderful wood to prevent rot, to prevent decay, and it's very strong. And then it's overlaid with gold so that the entirety of the inside of the temple would have been shimmering with gold. That's the glory of the temple. So it's stone. Stone is kind of an ordinary material, but then it's glorified, right? It's glorified on the inside. And that's kind of a picture of us. We are jars of clay, as Paul says. We're just ordinary vessels, ordinary human beings with normal natures and constitutions. But in our hearts, in our souls, we carry the greatest treasure in the world. in our souls is covered in gold because the King of Glory lives there by His Holy Spirit. And the church, even more so, when the church gathers together, we're just an ordinary group of people. Like, there's nothing all that remarkable about us. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, not many of you were noble, not many of you were wise, not many of you were of any importance, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to shame the strong. You're just ordinary people. But God brings you together, and when we're gathered together as the people of God, as the temple gathered, their God is in the midst of us. Jesus said, wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of you. And that is a holy, holy thing to have the living God living in the midst of an ordinary people. So, that's this picture that the inside of the temple is glorious. And there's also this prohibition against stone, against any cutting tool being used at the site. And so, this is, I think, kind of an echo of the fact that when we are finally assembled together, in the new jerusalem so the ultimate ultimate fulfillment of the temple is the new jerusalem and it's not just an ultimate fulfillment of the temple it's an ultimate fulfillment of the holy of holies so the holy of holies the most holy place the inner sanctuary which is where the ark of the covenant was placed and where Solomon had these two great cherubim. Each one had wings that were, you know, 10 cubits from end to end. The whole thing was 20 cubits, about 30 to 35 feet wide. And you've got these two great gold cherubim on the inside. So the inside, but this Holy of Holies is a cube. It's a cube, 20 by 20 by 20 cubits. We're told that the New Jerusalem is a perfect cube, but it's 10,000 by 10,000 by 10,000 stadia. We translate that to be about 1,500 miles on each side. So from 35 feet, I just think from 35 feet to 1,500 miles, that's the scale of magnitude between this picture that's given in Solomon's temple, as glorious as it was, to the reality that is coming when Jesus comes again and gathers his church in. But when his church is gathered in and is assembled together for the final time, and that Holy of Holies is fulfilled in the living sanctuary of the people of God, there will be no more cutting done at that site. We will be in glory. We will be brought together at the wedding supper of the Lamb, to be the eternal dwelling place of God. This is the wonderful promise kept in Revelation 21. Now the dwelling place of God will be with man and he will walk among them and be their God and they will be his people. This is the covenant promise that unfolded throughout all of scripture and it comes to its culmination In revelation 21. So this is what this picture of the temple is. We are this temple And so as wonderful and glorious as solomon's temple was and as much as it would have been awesome to be there to see it We have something more awesome that's happening in our own hearts and lives and in the church today And that's coming in the future and that we will be a part of and that's what we should be rejoicing And we should be rejoicing in christ Who has given his life for us? so that we can be the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that we can be a living stone in the temple of God, and that we by grace are being brought in to be this eternal temple. So let's rejoice in that even as we look forward to gathering together tomorrow to praise the Lord and Him to dwell in our midst on that Lord's day. Let's pray. Father, thank you for grace that is rich and free and full in Christ. Thank you for glory. that is unspeakable, it is beyond our comprehension what will be revealed in us, to us, and through us when Jesus returns. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has the mind of man conceived what you have in store for those who belong to you. So we think of this glorious temple that Solomon built and how awesome it would be to be inside of this building that's covered with gold and that's shining and radiant with the candlelight from the candle stand. and the smell of the incense and how wonderful it would have been to be there, fresh baked bread out on the show table. But Father, we are part of something more sacred than that, more wonderful, more glorious by far. We are. And that's such a privilege and that's such a joy. Help us to rejoice in it. Help us to rest in it. Help us to strive toward that day when we will see Jesus face to face and your temple will be gathered in from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. We thank you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for joining me for First Kings chapter six. And I hope as always that you do have a blessed day in the Lord.