Well, good morning. Here we come again at the end of another week, and we're winding up our daily time together throughout the week here in our study of 1 Kings. This morning we come to 1 Kings chapter 6, and it serves to point us as a reminder of what God is intending to do, and that is to dwell with his people. The outworking of God's ultimate plan, the thing that I would suggest that unifies scripture and is at the center of God's activity with us as human beings, is that he had purposed in eternity past to establish a relationship in a rule of loving sovereignty and fellowship with human beings who are made in his image because he wants to dwell with us forever. The consistent testimony of scripture is found in, you can see this from Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, on throughout, even down into Revelation, at the very end, two expressions, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. That's loving sovereignty, God ruling over his creatures. But the second expression is, and I will dwell among them, I will dwell with them. And again, you can see that in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, throughout the prophets, down to the book of Revelation as it ends. These themes work their way forward. I think, as I said, it is a unifying theme. It gives us God's ultimate purpose is to bring glory to himself. That's not selfish because he brings glory to himself by causing us to be like him, to enjoy him. The overflow of his goodness flows down to us and that's how he radiates his glory and we apprehend it and we are brought to joy. If I have to bring glory to myself, then I have to either be better than you and push you down. And well, God brings us into the warmth of his glory to enjoy it forever. And so God's work in history will culminate down to the millennial kingdom and then throughout eternity into the eternal kingdom In the midst of all of this, God's purpose is to be with us. And as we come to chapter six, this purpose of God dwelling with man and us being his people and he being our God is pictured as Solomon is described as building God's house, God's temple. So we begin here and we read together all of 1 Kings chapter 6. Now it came about in the 480th year after the sons 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, that he began to build the house of the Lord. As for the house, which King Solomon built for the Lord, its length was 60 cubits, and its width 20 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. The porch in front of the nave of the house was 20 cubits in length, corresponding to the width of the house, and its depth along the front of the house was 10 cubits. Also for the house he made windows with artistic frames, Against the wall of the house, he built stories encompassing the walls of the house around both the nave and the inner sanctuary. Thus he made side chambers all around. The lowest story was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide. For on the outside, he made offsets in the wall of the house all around in order that the beams would not be inserted in the walls of the house. house while it was being built was built of stone prepared at the quarry, and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built. The doorway for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the house, and they would go up by winding stairs to the middle story and from the middle to the third. So he built the house and finished it and covered the house with beams and planks of cedars. He also built the stories against the whole house, each five cubits high, and they were fastened to the house with timbers of cedar. Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and execute my ordinances and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will carry out my word with you which I spoke to David your father. I will dwell among the sons of Israel and I will not forsake my people Israel. So Solomon built the house and finished it. And he built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar from the floor of the house to the ceiling. He overlaid the walls on the inside with wood and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress. He built 20 cubits on the rear part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling. He built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, even as the most holy place. The house that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was 40 cubits long. There was cedar on the house within, carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers, all with cedar. There was no stone seen. And he prepared an inner sanctuary with the house in order to place where the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. The inner sanctuary is 20 cubits in length, 20 cubits in width, 20 cubits high in height. And he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar. So Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold and he drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold. He overlaid the whole house with gold until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar, which was by the inner sanctuary, he overlaid with gold. Also in the inner sanctuary, he made two cherubim of olive wood, each 10 cubits high. Five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub. From the end of the one wing to the end of the other wing were ten cubits. The other cherub was ten cubits. Both the cherubim were of the same measure and the same form. The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the other cherub. He placed the cherubim in the midst of the inner house, and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that the wing of the one was touching the one wall and the wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall, so their wings were touching each other in the center of the house. He also overlaid the cherubim with gold, and he carved all the walls of the house round about the carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, inner and outer sanctuaries. He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, inner and outer sanctuaries. For the entrance of the inner sanctuary, he made doors of olive wood and lintel and five-side doorposts. So he made two doors of olive wood, and he carved on them carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold. And he spread the gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. So also he made for the entrance of the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood, and two doors of cypress wood, and two leaves of one door turned on pivots, and two leaves on the other door turned on pivots. He carved on it cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold, evenly applied on the engraved work. He built the inner court with three rows of cut stone and a row of cedar beams. In the fourth year, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Ziv. In the 11th year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it. So a lot of this and that and cedar and gold, but the main word, if you were just counting noses, the main word throughout is house. This is God's house. We hear in this chapter connected to God's overarching purposes in his rule that God is intending to accomplish his goal and that is to dwell with God's people. As the chapter begins, and just to remind you, this is written to people in exile. The house is torn down. Babylonians have taken all the gold, all the precious stones, and all of the expensive fabrics. It's all gone. But here it was at the beginning, and the narrator takes us back to Exodus, the foundation of the nation. It came about in 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt. Here is the time when God had purposed to make a nation for himself and establish that nation and brought them out of Egypt. The Exodus is dated at 1446 BC. So by doing the math here, the 480th year is now 966 BC. It's April-May, Solomon's reign over Israel began in 971 and it went to 931, 40 years. So why all these time references? What's the point that this chapter begins with? Well, the specific dating by the biblical author indicates that this is a major development in the progress of God's plan. Now, when Israel came out from the land of Egypt and they sang the song of Moses, they sang of this day, Exodus 15, verses 17 and 18, you will bring them and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, Jerusalem, a mountain, particularly the Temple Mount, that David had purchased. You will plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established, and the Lord shall reign forever and ever. Here, as Solomon pursues God's plan, God's purposes. The key term, as I mentioned throughout, 24 times in the Hebrew, in 38 verses, the word that dominates is not religious building, temple, but house. This particular term designates a private fixed dwelling for an individual or for a family. So what Solomon is building is the Lord's palace, a more fixed, permanent place. This is not to say, as Solomon will tell us in chapter 8, can God really dwell on earth? Can this temple or any building confine you? It's not to limit God by the confines of the house. No, what was the significance is that this is a house. From the very get-go, God's intent was to share Himself with us. Adam and Eve, God came and met with them, walking in the cool of the evening. David had been motivated to get God out of a tent. Israel is building houses for themselves. God is the king. The king's palace should be first. And yet David was told no, because there's no time for peace. The enemies need defeated. So carry on the battle. So here is, just in one verse, God's earthly King Solomon, pointing to the fact of God as King, the one who rules and reigns. And therefore, God should be honored and exalted and his house should be built. It's a good devotional before a workday. on Saturday, right? You should come at workday because, no, that's not really the point at all of the passage. If you can, we would be glad to have you. But that's not what he's talking about here. So, the remainder of the chapter, verses 2 to 10, verses 14 to 38, just give us an overwhelming description of the Lord's house. The description is intended to point to the ornateness and the glory of the house. Solomon's effort to make this house glorious. We hear this again as we mourn with the exiled people. Most of them had never seen the inside of the house. They had only gone to the outer tabernacles. And here the biblical narrator begins with the outside in verses 2-10, and he describes it. It's 90 feet long, and it's 30 feet wide, and it's 45 feet tall. That's approximately the length and width of our auditorium, though much taller than our building. He describes its front porch, 15 feet deep, as wide as the building. He proceeds to describe the sides of the house, which contained windows, and he decorates them. That probably puts lattices on them to keep wild animals from coming in, but letting light and air in. He surrounds the outside of the house with storage rooms on three different levels on the three sides, right, left, and back wall. These were accessible only from the outside. In verse 7, he gives us a side note that indicates that this was no ordinary building site. What do you mean? Well, all of the work had to be done off-site. There weren't hammering. There weren't saws. There weren't... This house, even the worksite, had to be special care given, dignity. This is God's house. And so there won't be hammers here. Well, pressing back into the text, Solomon constructed the house with solid cedar beams and planks for the ceiling. He completed the structure according to the plan that God had given to David. We know that God had given it to David from 1 Chronicles 28, verses 11 to 19. So he begins a tour, then having described in verses 2-10 the exterior building, now he begins a tour on the inside. This is what the exiles had never, the majority, unless they were priests, had never been able to see. What was it like? It was covered with cedar paneled walls. The floor was stone. All of this was, the cedar was more durable than cypress wood. And then all of this was covered in gold. He describes the holy of holies as covered in cedar as well. And he gives the dimension of the holy place, 60 feet long and 30 feet wide. He describes the walls in these rooms in greater detail. They're covered with carvings of fruit and open flowers. Is it a reminder of the Garden of Eden? Probably? Possibly? Then he returns to then the Holy of Holies. This is the throne room. This is where the Ark of the Covenant would reside. He provides the dimensions of that as a 30-foot cube. Again, the walls are covered with cedar and then overlaid with gold, as was the altar of incense. In fact, the whole house was covered in gold. In order to highlight the greatness of God, then the narrator describes in this Holy of Holies, massive golden cherubim. These were 15 feet tall and 15 feet wide from wing to wing, so they filled the width of the Holy of Holies. They were carved out of olive wood and covered in gold. These cherubim represent God's sovereignty and his kingship. They are picturing him enthroned in heaven above even the angelic beings. That God is receiving their praise, they're bowing before him and he's receiving their worship and their service. And the biblical author and the narrator describes in great detail even the doors and the various rooms of God's house in verses 31 to 35. All of the doors, whether into the Holy of Holies or into the Holy Place, they're described with carvings of trees and fruit and cherubim. Again, this is suggestive of God's having been with man in the garden, and the flourishing and the bounty and the blessing. The tour is then concluded with a look at the courtyard, the inner court, where the bronze altar and the sea were. It surrounded God's house. Assuming it was to scale, he doesn't give us the parameters, but assuming it was to scale of the tabernacle, it would have been 150 feet wide and 400 feet long, longer than a football field. He was surrounded by a low wall of stone and wood. And the narrator throughout has reminded us, Solomon finished it, Solomon finished it, Solomon finished it. This is a catch word. So it took him seven and a half years, 966 BC, the second month to 959 BC, the eighth month. But it was done, an amazing building for an amazing king. So what does Solomon building the temple point to us? Well, we skipped over a couple of verses in this quick flyover of chapter six. That's verses 11 to 13. I mean, we read them earlier. In the midst of all of what Solomon was doing, we're reminded, and so are the exiles. Great kings and great buildings will be replaced if disobedience becomes a way of life. Concerning my dwelling with you, this house, If you walk in my statutes and execute my ordinances and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will carry out my word with you, which I spoke to David, your father. I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will not forsake my people. The point is, yes, this is a clue. I mean, an amazing complex. And it's told in detail. A house fit for God as King, as best we humans can do it. Of course, it's not truly worthy. Nothing in the creation is worthy of the greatness of our King. But with what we have, here is this marvelous place. But God wants something more. He wants to share life with you. That's why He intends to have a permanent temple. He wants to walk with you. He wants you to walk in obedience to His will and His ways. His will and His ways are flourishing, open flowers, and gardens, and blessing, and joy, and sweetness, and pleasures. that are appropriate, not inordinately worshiped. God wants to share his life with you. And disobedience only destroys. And God will win. But God's building, you go there today, that Temple Mount, vast, flat level ground. There are two pagan mosques on it. And God's people are still in exile. Now, what about today? What is God doing today? Well, what God's doing today is God has a dwelling place today. dwelling place according to Ephesians chapter 2 so he says so then you are no longer strangers and aliens this is verse 19 but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and are God's household because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy sanctuary temple house in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit. God dwells on earth today by means of his church. That's where his spirit comes and rests and resides and where he meets. And so when the Corinthians were living worldly and buying worldly wisdom, and so they were divided, I'm from Paul, I'm from Apollos, Paul says, why are you poking us? We're just servants. Paul, Apollos, we're just workers. You are God's field. Verse nine of first Corinthians three, you are God's building. And according to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation and another is building on it. We're just servants of God, but each man must be careful how he builds on it for no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each man's work will become evident, for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, fire purifies and cleanses gold, silver, and precious stones. They survive. If any man's work remains, you will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, wood, hay, and stubble, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Those are not talking about your physical body, that's talking about, this is God's people. Corinth there were all kinds of temples to all kinds of pagan God don't you know that and he doesn't even use Just the general term for temple mount. He uses the inner sanctuary the place of God's residing And that the Spirit of God dwells in you So if any man destroys the temple of God God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are and God's building his own ornate temple, and it's the brothers and sisters in Christ that he's saving. So there's no place, Corinth, Waterford, there's no place for you to abandon, dismiss, minimize. There's no place for you to focus on yourself, build your own little room in God's temple, make it about you. There's no place to destroy God's temple. Don't you know by God's spirit, he dwells in some ways, we are indwelt by the spirit, so we have the spirit. But in other ways, the biblical picture is that I don't have all of the grace gifts of the spirit, We need one another, we are a body. There is no place in Christ's dwelling place for us to focus on anything other than God and his glory. And to stand back and to watch and to marvel with the angels back in Ephesians chapter three, after all this declaration of what God is doing He mentions that in verse 8, to me the very least of all the saints grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery for which ages has been hidden in God who created all things so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in heavenly places. in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and competent access through faith in him. A God in building his temple is producing marvel before the angelic beings. We have no right then to make life about us, and how good we parent, and us, and how good we teach, and us, and how good we sing, and us, and how we, as God's temple, as the dwelling place of Christ on earth by his spirit, we remember, we look forward when there is a physical earthly temple, where Christ rules and reigns, we dwell on earth with God. We look forward to that. But friend, today, Christ is ruling and reigning. And he dwells with us. With us. God made a people, not a person. And we have no right to destroy his temple with selfishness. We have no right to minimize his temple as if it's not that important. we have the responsibility to remember, from the very get-go, God's purpose is this, to enter into a relationship of loving sovereignty. He rules. He's God. We're his people. And fellowship. So today, just like in that first tabernacle, then temple, God resided with man through a glory cloud above the cherubim. So today God resides with man. Yes, we have the word. Yes, we are blessed with the saving work of the Spirit's presence in us individually. But God dwells with man in a very unique way. through local churches like ours. So God's King, Solomon, led God's people to prize God dwelling with men by building a temple. And God's King leads God's people to prize God dwelling with men by simple little churches like ours. Don't destroy it. Don't minimize it. Marvel at what God is doing and thank him for the gift of him dwelling with us in the way he's chosen until we dwell with him forever in the eternal state, God with us. Well, I trust that encourages you. And yes, come to work day if you can, but more so, rejoice. God dwells with men. See you at Lord Willing on Sunday, or tomorrow.