The Success of Solomon

Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings chapter 4. 1 Kings chapter 4. Well, it's good to be back together tonight. Can you believe that last week at this time it was like negative 50 or something like that outside? I don't think that's hyperbole. It was something like that. It was pretty bad. Anyway, it's good to be back on a Wednesday night.

So, we are continuing on with our story of Solomon. And of course, we saw the new king at the beginning of 1 Kings. And then last week we saw him be a... a good, a wise king as he chose wisdom. God said, I'll give you anything that you want, anything that you ask, just because of who your dad is, just because of my faithfulness to him, I'm going to give you anything you ask for. And Solomon said, oh man, I just need wisdom.

I need to know how to go out and come in because I'm just a kid, I'm just a youth, and I need the wisdom that it requires to be able to govern your people. Really, he asked for understanding. And of course, we said that that understanding really carried with it the idea of... of the ability to listen. He wanted to be able to listen to what God wanted. And God said, oh, that just makes my heart happy. And since you've asked for that,

I'm going to give you not only that, but I'm going to give you everything that you did not ask for. All of the...all of the wealth that you can imagine. I'm just going to bless you more... more than you can ever imagine. And so, so as we move into chapter 4, we're going to cover quite a bit of territory tonight. I've entitled it, The Success of Solomon, because that's really what we see him move into that place of success and then

begin to really, ultimately, build up what he needs to for...for the building of the temple. And so we pick up in chapter 4, verse 1, and it says this, Now King Solomon was over all Israel, and these were his officials. Azariah, the son of Zadok, was the priest. Okay, so I'm going to do the best I can here, but this is Old Testament names, and sometimes they're hard.

Eli, Horef, and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, the secretary, see what I mean? Jehoshaphat, the son of that guy, was the recorder. And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the army. And Zadok and Abiathar were priests. And Azariah, the son of Nathan, was over the deputies. And Zabud, the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king's friend. And Eshishar, yeah, was over the household.

And Adoniram, the son of Abda, was over the men, subject to forced labor. Solomon had 12 deputies over all of Israel, the king and his household. Each man had to provide for a month in the year, and these are their names. Ben-Hur, in the hill country of Ephraim. Ben-Dikur, in Makaz. And Shalbim, Beth-Shemesh, and that guy. Ben-Hesed, and Aruboth, Soko, was his in all the land of Phefer.

Ben-Abenadab, in all the height of Dor. Baana, the son of Aholud. Man, I'm struggling here. Into Anak. In Megiddo, and all Beth-Shin, which is beside Zarethan, below Jezreel. Beth-Shin, too. Yep. And then Ben-Geber, and Ramoth-Gilead, the towns of Jer, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, were his. The region of Argob, which is in Bashan, 60 great cities with walls.

Bronze bars were his. And Hinnadab, the son of Ido, in Mahanaim. Ahameaz, in Naphtali, he also married Basemath, the daughter of Solomon. Baana, the son of Hushai, in Asher, in Baal. Yep. Jehoshaphat, the son of Perua, in Issachar. Shimei, the son of Elah, in Benjamin. And Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead. The country of Sihon, king of the Amorites.

And Og, king of Bashan. And he was the only deputy who was in the land. So we see the layout of his cabinet, if you will. That he had princes who governed and were in cabinet sort of positions. And then each of the 12 tribes had a governor. Essentially over them. And so the governor's job was to oversee in those particular areas. And as you read a list like that, you're like, why on earth would God put all of that in his word?

Right? If you're going with us throughout the scripture this year, we're in the book of Numbers right now. Congratulations for being in the book of Numbers. And you read all of those names and you're like, why did God see fit to put all of these names in the Bible? Why did God see fit to do all this? And I want to give you a handful of reasons why the names are important.

And I struggle to read them. I can read them in my head, but then my mouth doesn't agree with what my head is trying to say. And so they can't get along. And so that's why it comes out the way that it does. But I find it fascinating that God spends as much time as he does naming things. There's practical reasons why. It's a historical record. Right? This shows us that these are real people that lived in real time in a real country in a real place.

Right? So it adds the human level to this and the historical relevance of it. But I think that's why. There's a couple of other reasons why it's really important that God names all of these names. Have you ever thought about what it must have been like to be one of these individuals living in the nation of Israel at that point in time? And to see that your name was encased in something that would ultimately live on for centuries, thousands and thousands of years later.

Because God took the time to note the name of all of those that were in charge of something within the nation of Israel. And I think about that with the book of Numbers. Like God saw fit to name all of those different people. All the different heads of that. The tribes and things like that. Because God is a God of details. And one of the details that he pays most attention to is your name.

Right? Like I think that that's kind of a cool thing about God. Because we're told that in heaven, once you come to faith in Jesus Christ, we're told that your name is recorded in heaven. And so somewhere there's this huge chronicle of all of the names. And it's not of the cabinet of the nation of Israel. It's of those who are God's kids. And he knows them all by name.

As a matter of fact, Jesus said, I know my sheep by name and they know me by voice. And so as I read a list like that, sometimes you can kind of find yourself going, why on earth do we have to read this list? But I want you to think about something. God knows your name. And he can even pronounce it way better than I can pronounce these names right now. Because that's how important you are to God.

Right? And so now I think there's two other really practical lessons that we learn from the naming of his cabinet. Number one, Solomon was a wise man. And a wise man delegates authority. A wise man doesn't try to take everything on himself. He tries to delegate to other people around him. Because at some point in time you realize that you're just one human being.

And the best thing that you can do is to delegate those kinds of things. But I'm also reminded of one last point that I'll make about all these names. And that's that a wise man is only as good as the wise counselors that he is surrounded by. Our wisdom is only as good as the people that we surround ourselves with. And I think that's an important thing for us to pay attention to.

Because who are we surrounding ourselves with? Constantly? And what kind of advice are they giving us? What kind of things are they pouring into us? I think one of the greatest things we can do is make sure that we surround ourselves with lots of people who are going to pour godly advice into us. Pour godly advice into our particular situation. Because here's what can happen.

We start going through something hard. And then we start listening to our worldly friends. And already when life is a little bit hard, we're looking for the easy way out. And our worldly friends are usually content to give. That's the easy way out. We have to surround ourselves with the people of God who will not give us the easy way out. They will give us the godly way out.

Because that's what we do as wise individuals. And that's what Solomon did as a wise leader. Is he surrounded himself with other leaders who would not only lead wisely but would counsel him with godly counsel. And we'll find that for a time he's going to lead as one of the wisest leaders that any country at that point in time had ever seen. If not perhaps any country had ever seen.

But part of it is the wisdom to know to surround himself with the right people. And so I think for a pretty consistent, on a pretty consistent basis we have to ask ourselves the question. What counsel am I constantly surrounding myself with? What people am I surrounding myself with? Not long ago we read the story in the book of Mark. Beginning of Mark where Jesus is with his, maybe it's the end of Matthew.

I don't remember. It all runs together to me after a while. Jesus is teaching in a house and the house is so packed that nobody else can get in there. And there was a man who was lame and he needed to be healed. And his friends wanted to get him to Jesus. Because they knew that the only hope that he had was to get to Jesus. And they couldn't get through the front door.

So rather than just give up they went up to the top of the house on the roof. And they peeled back the tiles of the roof and they lowered this man down. And it says that Jesus healed him because of the faith of his friends. Because that's why it's so important who we surround ourselves with. The kind of people who will take us to Jesus. Or the kind of people who will take us to the world.

Solomon surrounded himself with good men who pointed him in the right direction. Well now we see more of Solomon's wealth and abundance. Notice what it says in verse 20. It says, Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that was on the sea. And they were in abundance. And they were eating and drinking and rejoicing. And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the river to the land of the Philistines to the border of Egypt.

They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. Now I'd like for you to take note of one thing that's missing from anything about Solomon's reign. It says that the people of Judah and Israel were incredibly abundant. More than the sand on the seashore. Probably a little hyperbole there but that's okay. They were an abundant group of people.

And they lived in abundance and they lived in peace. And Solomon reigned and it gives you the extent of his reign. But you know we never read about with Solomon him ever having to win a war to gain that sort of territory. We never read of him having to go into battle to gain all of that territory. As a matter of fact all of Solomon's reign was in peace. But the reason why Solomon reigned in peace is because David shed blood.

David was a warrior who went before him. And shed blood and won the peace. So that Solomon could rule in peace and never had to fight a war. He was able to just rule in a time of peace. And I'm reminded that as David is a picture of Jesus for us. And we a little bit of Solomon right now. We can live in peace because Jesus shed his blood for us. See Jesus has gone before us and he has already won the victory.

He has already won the battle. He has already taken care of all of the enemies. And has won the victory because he shed his blood. And now you and I can live in peace. We can live in the land in peace. Because Jesus has already won the war. And there's a beautiful picture of that type for us here in Solomon. And it says in verse 22. And Solomon's provision for one day was 30 cores of fine flour.

60 cores of meal. 10 fat oxen. 20 pasture fed oxen. 100 sheep besides deer. 40 calves. And 50 roebucks. And fat and fowl. For he had dominion over everything west of the river from Tifsa even to Gaza. And over all the kings west of the river and he had peace on all sides round about him. So Judah and Israel lived in safety. Every man under his vine and under his fig tree.

From Dan to Beersheba. All the days of Solomon. Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses. For his chariots and 12,000 horsemen. Those deputies provided for King Solomon. And all who came to Solomon's table. Each in his month, they left nothing lacking. They also brought barley and straw for the horses and swift steeds to the palace or to the place where it should be,

each according to his charge. Now God gave, wait, let's stop right there. So first of all, the abundance was amazing. I don't even know how to put all that into perspective other than to say Sam's Club showed up at his house every single day, right? That's basically what that means. Sam's Club and the butcher showed up every single day at his house because that is a phenomenal amount of food,

an amount of food that we can't even imagine because of just how much it is. And all of that abundance came about because of what God had done for him. And I'm reminded that part of this is God keeping his promise for Solomon. God keeping his promise that because he asked for wisdom, not only would he have all of the wisdom that he needed, but he would have everything else that he didn't even ask for.

And so we see God keeping his promises. Now there's one chink, again, that we see in the armor of Solomon. And I'm gonna read it to you again. It says in verse 17, 26, that Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots and 12,000 horsemen. You say, Ryan, who cares if he had horses or not? Well, if you would, maybe in the margin of your Bible, write Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 16.

Deuteronomy 17, 16. You don't have to turn there, but I'm gonna read it to you. It says this. Moreover, he, speaking of rules for the king, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way. And, and I added this part for posterity's sake,

he shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away, nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. One more little chink in the armor of Solomon is that we see he started to amass for himself a lot of horses. Now, you and I would think about that, and we don't think, why is that a big deal? Why did God even command that that would be a big deal for them, not to amass horses?

Well, the amassing of horses at that point in time was two things for people. Number one, it was pride. Number two, it was a lack of trust in God, and it was a trust in one's own military prowess, right? Because what were horses used to pull? Chariots, which was a whole, a whole aspect of military power that they had. And so the amassing of things like this

meant that a king was starting to get built up in pride, and that he was starting to get built up in pride, and that he was starting to trust in his military might instead of in the Lord. After all, in Jeremiah it says, some trust in chariots and some trust in horses, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God. So it indicated a little bit of a heart condition that, listen, was underlying in Solomon that will eventually find its way out. And it's a good reminder for us that we have to deal with those underlying issues of sin in our life.

They may look small now. I bet when Solomon was amassing, he was like, you know, what's one more horse, right? What's one more thing? But deep down, there was a little bit of pride that was welling up, perhaps a little bit of underlying issue that he was maybe continuing to push down, and because he kept pushing down that underlying issue, we will find later that it becomes a problem for him.

So it's a good reminder for us, when we see sin, we should deal with it immediately instead of allowing it to fester in our lives. Anyway, back to the happy stuff. So, verse 29, Now God gave Solomon wisdom and great discernment and breadth of mind like the sand that is on the seashore. Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all of the wisdom of Egypt.

For he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezraite, Heman, oh, that's fun, Keachal, and Darda, the sons of Mahal, and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations. And he also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even to the hyssop that grows on the wall. He spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish.

Men came from all the peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. Again, we see God keep his promise. He kept his promise to give Solomon all of the wisdom that he needed. As a matter of fact, so much wisdom that he wrote all of these different proverbs. I never thought about this before, but I was listening to John Corson teach on this today.

He said, have you ever tried to just go home and write a proverb? Something that is a wise saying that lots of people are gonna continue to follow years after you, he said. That's a really hard thing to do. Listen, my kids don't listen to anything that I say, right? Whether it's a wise proverb or not. I can only imagine trying to be Solomon and write all these proverbs all the time.

And he had all of this wisdom, but I wanna point something out to you. Again, we are told, in verse 30, it says that Solomon's wisdom surpassed all the wisdom of the sons of the east and all of the wisdom of Egypt. Now again, we find an interesting promise in Deuteronomy. Again, you might write down Deuteronomy 28, verse one, in the margin of your Bible. This is what Deuteronomy 28, verse one says.

Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all of his commands, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. Isn't it great to see God keep his promise like that? Because Solomon, at this point in time, is putting God first in his life. God is setting him above all of the other nations that are around him, so much so that everybody's coming to Solomon to find out what he has to say about particular subjects.

I don't know who the guys are that were named, but I can only imagine that when this was written, everybody was like, that's really wise, because he's wiser than those guys, right? Like, I don't know who they are, or what kind of wisdom they've got, but apparently it was so important that the writer of the book of 1 Kings named them, because he was so much wiser than him. And all because, listen, God keeps his promises. God keeps his promises.

Now, maybe Solomon started out as like the smartest guy on the face of the earth, but in his own mind, he wasn't. But because of what God did in his life, because of the wisdom that God brought to him, he was renowned throughout the known world at that point in time for his wisdom, so much so that he was a great man. So that everybody came to him. And so now as we move into chapter five, Solomon is gonna begin to prepare the temple.

Now it says in chapter five, verse one, now Hiram, king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon. And when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend of David, Solomon sent word to Hiram saying, you know that David, my father, was unable to build a house for the name of the Lord, his God, because of the wars which surrounded him. Until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord, my God, has given me rest on every side.

There is neither adversary nor misfortune. Behold, I intend 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 will build the house for my name. Now therefore, command that they cut for me cedars from Lebanon, and my servants will be with your servants. And I will give you wages for your servants, according to all that you say.

For you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians. The time had come for Solomon to begin to gather the materials. Now interestingly enough, if we were to jump ahead into the very end of 1 Chronicles, into the start of 2 Chronicles, which will repeat the story of David and Solomon, we'll find that David had already been gathering materials for the building of the temple, and had even already given Solomon the plans for the building of the temple. Because even though this is Solomon's temple, this is David's baby, right?

And so he'd already done a lot of preparing for him. And one of the things he knew would be best is if he brought the cedars from Lebanon, which were renowned for their size and just the beauty of what came from there. And so he approaches Hiram and he says, hey listen, you know my dad. Hiram had been a really good friend with his dad. He said, you know who he is.

Please give me some of these cedars so that we can work this out. And so Hiram responds to him in verse seven by saying, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly and he said, blessed be the Lord today who has given to David a wise son over this great people. So Hiram sent word to Solomon saying, I have heard the message which you have sent me. I will do what you desire concerning the cedar and cypress timber.

My servants will bring them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will make them into rafts to go by sea to the place where you direct. And I will have them broken up there and you shall carry them away. And you shall accomplish my desire by giving food to my household. So Hiram gave Solomon as much as he desired of the cedar, cypress timber. Solomon gave to Hiram 20,000 cores of wheat as food

for his household and 20 cores of beaten oil. Thus Solomon would give him year by year. And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom just as he promised. And there was peace between Hiram and Solomon. The two of them made a covenant. Now, every commentator that I read seemed to agree on one thing. This Hiram guy, this king of Tyre, may or may not have had any kind of relationship

with the Lord, but he at least had a distinct understanding of who God is, the wisdom that God has, and the leadership that God had established in the nation of Israel. And the only way that Hiram would have known anything about the Lord is because of his friendship with David. David, though full of his faults, made sure that those that were around him knew about the God that he served. And I think it's kind of an interesting thing for us to pay attention to, because Hiram's understanding of God came from David's witness of God.

And it's just a great reminder in the world that we live in today, this is what you and I are called to be. We are called to be witnesses of the truth of who God is to the people that are around us. And God gives us these opportunities over and over and over again to be witnesses of the truth of who God is to the people that are around us. But there is one thing that God continues to do.

There is one thing that continues to impress upon me. It's that God's Holy Spirit is being poured out right now. And as God's Spirit is being poured out right now, he is looking for witnesses for him. And you may think to yourself, but how can I be a witness for God? I don't know that much about the Bible. Maybe you're even a new believer. Maybe you're new in your understanding of God.

But listen, all you have to do is know God, and you can become a witness for God to the people that are around you, because your changed life is the greatest witness to the truth of who God is. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be a witness to the truth of who God is to the people that are around you. And I love what I'm seeing with people right now as they are sharing the truth of God's word with the people that are around them.

I think that's why our church keeps growing, is because you all are taking advantage of the opportunity to be a witness to the people around you. And you're getting kind of bold about it. And it's kind of fun to watch happen, because that's what God's doing right now. And that's what God did in Hiram. God used David to give the truth of who he is to a foreign king.

And now this foreign king says, oh, God bless you. And God blessed David for giving him a son like you. And so they established this covenant. Again, we see the promise of God that the Lord gave wisdom to Solomon just as he promised. It says in verse 13, that King Solomon levied forced laborers from Israel, and all the forced laborers numbered 30,000 men. He sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 men in relays.

They were in Lebanon a month and two months at home. And Adoniram was over the forced labor. And Solomon had 70,000 transporters and 80,000 hewers of stone in the mountains. Besides Solomon's 3,300 chief deputies who were over the project and who ruled over the people who were doing the work. Then the king commanded and they quarried great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house

with cut stones. So Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders and the Gebelites cut them. And they prepared the timbers and the stones to build the house. There's two words in here I want to point out to you. And they're in the middle of verse 17. And it's the two words, costly stones. Those are really important, because it says costly stones are what would be used

to establish the foundation for the temple. Now that word, that phrase, costly stones, can also be translated quality stones. In other words, the foundation, the foundation of the temple was of the highest quality. Because that temple was so important that it needed to be established on the highest quality stones possible. And it's a great reminder of what our lives

are to be built on. Our lives are to be built on the highest quality of stones possible. On the greatest foundation that we could possibly build our lives upon. You know what Jesus told us? The greatest foundation? The greatest foundation that we could build our lives upon would be? Well, after he finished teaching the sermon on the mount, he said, he who hears these words of mine and does them,

I will liken him unto a man who builds his house upon the rock. The wind will blow, the waves will beat against the house, the storm will be great, but the house will stand, because its foundation is firm. So how do you build your house? How do you build your temple on the highest quality stones possible? Well, you need to hear the word of God, and you need to live the word of God.

You see, if the word of God is our foundation in both the things that we hear and the way that we live our lives, then our lives will be built upon high quality stones. And the storms of life will come, the waves will beat against the house, the rain will come down, and the winds will be strong. They'll beat against the house. But your house will stand, because it's built on a quality foundation.

Brothers and sisters, the word is consistent throughout about our need to build on the right sort of materials. And so as we come into chapter six, we begin to see the process of the building of the temple. Now it came about in the 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land, 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. Now I think it's important for us to pay attention to two time markers that are given to us here.

First of all, this is the 480th year after they came out of the land of Egypt, right? So that gives us a time marker for how long they've been in the land at that point in time. A good amount of time, right? But not only that, Solomon did not begin building the temple until the fourth year of his reign. That means that he spent the first three years, three years of his reign doing what?

Gathering all of the materials for the building of the temple. In other words, he took three years in preparation before he undertook what would be the greatest work of his life. Now, I point that out to us because we sometimes like to skip the preparation, don't we? Sometimes we just wanna jump into the work. Sometimes we just wanna jump in and just do it,

and God's like, no, just wait. There's important preparation work that has to be done first. You're better to take time to plan. You're better to take time to gather. You're better to take time and make sure that you have everything that you need before you jump into the work so that you are ready when the work begins. And some of you are in a place of preparation right now.

And sometimes we can find ourselves going, Lord, but can't it be today? Can't I do this today? And God's like, no, not yet. You still need preparation. You still need work. You're not ready yet. You keep pouring into the work of preparation, and when the time is right, it will be time for the work to begin. Well, now it's time for the work to begin. And so after those years of preparation,

notice what it says, as for the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the 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 about, and the nave and the inner sanctuary.

Thus, he made side chambers all around. The lowest story was five cubits wide, 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, and all around, and that the beams would not be inserted into the walls of the house. And the house, while it was being built, was built of stone, prepared at the quarry, and there was neither hammer, nor ax, nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built. I bet I forgot to have him pull that up.

I had a picture, and I don't think I had him get to it. No, that's my fault. That's on me. The temple that he built was a phenomenal structure. Huge, especially compared to the tabernacle. I think one of the commentaries that I read said it was three times larger than the tabernacle at that point in time, about three or four stories high. Just a huge, magnificent structure.

So magnificent that when they tried to rebuild the temple in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, when they rebuilt the temple, the people that knew Solomon's temple, they wept. Not because they were so happy that a new temple had been built, but because it was nothing compared to the temple that they built. The temple that Solomon had built. It was a fantastic structure.

And all of these stones were fit together perfectly. But I want you to notice what it says about the stones. I want you to look at verse seven one more time. While it was being built, it was being built of stone prepared at the quarry, and there was neither hammer nor ax nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built. Let me tell you what that means.

They cut the stone somewhere else, and they set them perfectly in place at the temple. Listen, I worked in construction for some time, and I have never seen anybody be able to do anything like this, where they can make all of their cuts and everything somewhere else, show up, and never have to use a tool to put anything together. I've worked with some of the best cabinet makers, in my opinion, that I've ever been around, and they still have to use a saw when they get to the job, because there's still things they have to figure out. And I can't imagine what this was like, for them to be able to do all the work somewhere else and bring it in and just slip it right into place.

I'm a measure. I'm a measure twice, cut 17 times sort of a guy, because that's the way I do things. I'm not very good at it. And I can only imagine what this was like. But there's a wonderful spiritual principle, again, that I think needs to be applied here. All of the work was done elsewhere. All of the beauty was seen in the temple. And oftentimes, that's how God works.

Most of the greatest work that we see in a person's life, no one ever sees. Most of the background work, to get somebody to where they need to be, most of us don't ever see, because it's work that the Holy Spirit does behind the scenes. It's work that the Holy Spirit does that nobody else sees. Let me give you a little bit of an example. I read this article today.

I can't think of the guy's name. It was kind of an interesting name, but he was an inmate in a prison. And he was just living the inmate life, just completely lost, completely away from God. And he shows up. He shows up to a church service that a lady by the name of Jenny Allen was doing that day. And just happens to show up in the chapel, and she gives a salvation invitation.

And next thing he knows, he finds himself going forward to receive Jesus. And that very same day, he gets baptized with some of the other inmates. And everybody's like, yeah, because this guy got saved. What he didn't know is that three weeks before that, 10 of his friends, who were also inmates in the jail, who had also received the Lord, started praying for him.

And for three weeks, those 10 men dedicated every day that they were going to pray for this inmate so that he would eventually come to know Jesus. You see, they were cutting the stones where no one saw so that when the temple was ready to be built, that temple of the Holy Spirit, it was ready. And no other cut had to be made because the work had already been done. And that's what oftentimes happens in our lives.

We don't ever see what God does back here. Sometimes we don't see what God does. And the time that we spend praying, and the time that we spend pouring in, and we can't see that background work because all that's taking place at the quarry. And then all of a sudden, we see all the stones slip perfectly into place, and we go, what a miracle. I didn't have to do anything.

It was the work of the Holy Spirit behind the scenes that nobody saw. Isn't that great? And so that's what took place with this temple. And so no noise of tools was seen. No work of man was seen. It was completely done offsite. And then they just put it all into place. It says in verse eight, and the doorway for the lowest side of the 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. He covered the inside, covered the house with beams and planks of cedar. Had to have smelled amazing in there. He also built the stories against the whole house, each five cubits high. And they were fastened to the house with timbers of cedar.

And 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. And I will dwell among the sons of Israel and I will not forsake my people Israel. Now I'd kind of battled with this a little bit the past couple of weeks because I spent time studying this last week too, obviously, because I didn't know we were gonna have church. And I've kind of struggled with why in the middle of this, this entire chapter about the building of the temple, why in the middle of all of this, with all these details about the size of the windows

and the size of all the things that he's gonna build, why in the middle of all of it does God show up to Solomon and say, remember, concerning this house, if you walk in my statutes and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I'm gonna do what I said and I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. Why at this point in time does God show up and remind him of this particular point in his promise because Solomon is in the middle of an incredibly beautiful work. And when you're in the middle of an incredibly beautiful work like that, you know what your eyes get focused on? The incredibly beautiful work.

And sometimes you can miss Jesus in the work. Sometimes you can miss God in the work. And you can be so focused on this great thing that you're doing for God, on this great thing that's happening, and you can be so focused on, Lord, look at this, this is the temple that I'm building, that he has to show up and say, but remember why you're doing this. This temple is not so that you can tell everybody that you built a temple.

This temple is so that I can dwell among you, so that I can be your God and you can be my people. Don't ever forget why you're doing the work. You're doing the work for the presence of God. And so he reminds him of this truth and it says, so Solomon built the house and he finished it. He built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedars 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 and he built 20 cubits on the rear part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling and 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 was cedar. There was no stone seen. Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place the ark of the covenant of the Lord. The inner sanctuary was 20 cubits in length, 20 cubits in width and 20 cubits 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. He drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary and he overlaid it with gold. And he overlaid the house with gold, picking up on a theme here, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar, which was by the inner sanctuary, overlaid with, wait for it, 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 one wing to the end of the other wing were 10 cubits. The other cherubim, each cherub was 10 cubits. Both of them were of the same measure and the same form. The height of one was 10 and so was the other. And he placed them in the midst of the inner house

and the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that the wing of one was touching the wall, the wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall. So their wings were touching each other in the center of the house and he overlaid them with gold. He carved all the walls of the house roundabout with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, open flowers, inner and outer sanctuaries. And 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 the lentil and five-sided doorposts. So he made the doors of olive wood and he carved on them the carvings of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers and overlaid them with gold and he spread the gold on the cherubim of the palm trees. So also he made for an entrance of the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door turned on pivots and the two leaves of the other door turned on pivots.

And he carved on it cherubim, palm trees and open flowers and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied in the engraved work. Can you imagine what the inside of this place would have looked like? Ornate decorations of palm trees, almond blossoms, cherubim all over the walls everywhere you looked and all of it overlaid with gold. Now I want you to paint this picture in your mind, okay?

So you walk past those giant doors that were in there and you walk inside of this house that is all completely covered in gold. And do you remember what there was inside of that main sanctuary area? There was the golden lampstand that was to stay lit all the time. Well you know what would happen with the light of that lampstand beaming off of all of the gold in the place.

You walked in and you needed sunglasses, right? Because there was so much light shining from all of the gold. Can you imagine the magnificence of the presence of God and all of that brightness because of the light of God that shined in there. And so it says in verse 36 He built the inner court with three rows of cut stone and a row of cedar beams and in the fourth year the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Ziv.

In the eleventh year in the month of Buel which is in the eighth month the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to its plans. So he was seven years in building it. What a phenomenal structure he built for the house of the Lord. And what a phenomenal picture of that great success that Solomon had. Why? Because God keeps his promises. Amen.

Let's pray. Father we come to you now and Lord we just thank you Lord that you are the God who keeps his promises. And so Father may we rest in who you are. And may we rest in the promises that you have in our lives. Father keep our hearts and our lives focused on you. We just pray these things Father in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.