Wednesday Night Service 7PM - 2 Chronicles 1-2 - A Strong Start for Solomon - Pastor Ryan Nichols

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Hello, everyone.

If you guys will pray with me to open up. Dear God, thank you so much for gathering us all here together in the middle of our week for that refresh that I think we all need and to be refilled with your spirit and to be able to carry your word with us throughout the rest of our week. I pray for Pastor Ryan as he comes up here that you give him the right words to speak and that you lead him in what you want him to teach us tonight. And I pray for the rest of the people around the world that are not able to gather together in the way that we are right now.

I pray that you're with them and that you keep them safe and that you give them encouragement and peace in what they're doing. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You guys can go ahead and stand for the first song.

Dear God, it's a gift that you've given us that we really can rest in the goodness of Jesus and that we don't have the fears and worries of people who don't have hope, but we do have hope and it is in you. And we can rest. Every single day knowing that no matter what happens that you are good and that you love us and that we can just trust fully in your plan and just rest in your hands. Thank you for giving us this time to worship you tonight.

You are so amazing and we do not deserve you, but we are so thankful for what you've done for us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Good evening. Open up, if you would, in your Bibles to the book of 2 Chronicles 1. 2 Chronicles. So 1 Chronicles dealt with mainly the kingdom of David. It, if you will, sort of paralleled the accounts of both 1 and 2 Samuel, although we left out most of Saul in 1 Chronicles, but it really just focused on the kingdom of David. As we move into 2 Chronicles, we'll find that it focuses on the kings after David of the nation of Judah.

Of course, Solomon will be the last ruler of the United Kingdom, but then it will just deal with the kings of Judah. And as a reminder, 1 and 2 Chronicles at one time were just one work, known as the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, were written by Ezra, at least that's what most scholars agree on, was written by Ezra the scribe for the children of Israel that were returning from captivity in Babylon. The reason why it was written was to sort of spur on in them the reminder of God's promise, the reminder of what they had in the Lord, and that reminder that God still had a work for them. And so, with that as a backdrop, we come to 2 Chronicles, and we start looking at the reign of Solomon.

It says this in verse 1. Now Solomon, the son of David, established himself securely over his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him and exalted him greatly. And Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, to every leader in all Israel, the heads of the fathers' households, and Solomon and all the assembly with him went to the high place, which was at Gibeon, for God's tent of meeting was there, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the wilderness. However, David had brought up the ark of the covenant of God from Kirjath-Jerim to the place he had prepared for it.

He had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. Now the bronze altar, which Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord, and Solomon and the assembly sought it out. And Solomon went up there before the Lord to the bronze altar, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it. And in that night, God appeared to Solomon.

Verse 1 gives a little bit of a summary, sort of of the beginning of the reign of Solomon. Remember, Solomon was a pretty young guy at this point in time, and his dad was the greatest king that Israel had seen. And so the greatest king Israel would ever see, he would be the one who all other kings were compared to. And he had a great work in front of him. And we're given this little summary.

In verse 1, where it says, Solomon was established securely over his kingdom, but we're given one line in there that really is the secret to the greatness of Solomon's kingdom. And the Lord, his God, was with him and exalted him greatly. There's going to be some things we'll be able to point to about Solomon. The wisdom that God gave to him, the wealth that God gave to him, the discernment that God gave to him, and all of the great things that you can point to.

There's going to be some things we'll be able to point to about Solomon as the king. There were some downfalls, and we'll deal with those. But the one thing that made him a great king, at least in the beginning, because I've entitled this, A Strong Start for Solomon. The one thing that really truly made him great was that God was with him. This is true for every leader, and this is true for every individual.

The thing that brings greatness into our lives, the thing that brings worth and value and everything else into our lives is the presence of God. Not only is he a great king, but he's a great leader. Not only is he a great leader, but he's a great leader. Not only is he a great leader, but he's a great leader. Not only is he in us, but with us. From the very beginning, anybody that God dealt with,

anybody that God used powerfully, he always made the same promise. I will be with you. We saw it when he told Abraham to leave his family. He told him he would be with him. We saw it with Isaac. We saw it with Jacob. We saw it with Joseph. God was always with these guys. We saw it with Moses when Moses was told to go in and talk to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go.

We saw it with the judges. We saw it with the judges. We've seen it with the prophets. God's presence is what brings greatness to an individual. And may I also say God's presence is what brings greatness to a nation. And the reason why we're having the problems that we're having in the nation right now is because God's presence has been kicked out. Because we have said, God, you're not welcome here any longer.

We'll take it from here. We'll take it from here and do whatever we want to do. Because I'm here to tell you right now, when you allow chaos to reign, which is what reigns, when God's presence isn't the thing that is governing, and when God's presence isn't the thing that is guiding leaders, chaos reigns. And when chaos reigns, which is what we saw take place, and then anybody tries to bring order, the one that tries to bring order is called an extremist.

And that's what we're seeing happen in our culture right now. Is that anybody, I don't care if you like the president or not, anybody that tries to bring order when chaos is what has ensued is always called a tyrant. You'll see it over and over again as we go through the book of 2 Corinthians. And what we're seeing rule and reign in the nation as well as the world is we are seeing chaos reign because nobody wants the presence of God.

But the presence of God is what will bring greatness to a person. The presence of God is what will bring greatness to a nation. Now here's the thing about the presence of God. God is always present with us. We'll deal with this a little bit more when we get to the part about the temple here in just a few minutes. God's presence is always with us. We don't need to try to ask God to be present with us.

What we need is we need to be aware of God's presence with us. What we need is to realize that He's who we truly need. And so that's what made Solomon great is that God was with him and He exalted him greatly because Solomon started off so humbly in his walk with the Lord. And then of course Solomon gathers all of the leaders together and does exactly what he's supposed to do.

Again, a strong start for Solomon. Gathers all of the leaders together and they go down to seek the Lord at Gibeon. Now, the writer of the book of 2 Chronicles, Ezra, reminds us that the Ark of the Lord is in Jerusalem because David had moved the Ark of the Lord to Jerusalem and sort of set up a makeshift tabernacle there. But the place where they were still offering sacrifices was in Gibeon because that's where the bronze altar was.

If you remember the bronze altar that was made by the guys that were just mentioned here, this bronze altar was made centuries before this when the children of Israel were roaming the wilderness when God had given them in the book of, the Numbers, exactly what they were supposed to do. They created this bronze altar and this bronze altar was where they made sacrifices to the Lord, whether it be the sacrifice for sin, whether it be the burnt offering, whether it be the whole offering, the fellowship offering. This is where the sacrifices were to be made. And so they went down to Gibeon and I found something interesting and not every translation translates it this way, but I did find the way the New American Standard translates this to be interesting.

Look down at verse 5. It says, Now the bronze altar, which Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made was there before the tabernacle of the Lord and Solomon and the assembly sought it out. Now, I don't know why that verbiage stuck out to me, but the minute I read it, I underlined that because that phrase sought it out, I think is so important for us to pay attention to because Solomon was not content just to know that the altar was in Gibeon. Solomon was not content just to know that the altar was down there.

He wanted to go where the altar was because he wanted to make sure that he would make sacrifice to the Lord. Obviously not he himself, the priest would have to do that for him, but he wanted to go where the sacrifice was to be made because what did sacrifices always represent within the nation of Israel? Sacrifices always represented worship. Whether it be worshiping God and praising Him for the fact that He had forgiven your sins or whether it was worshiping God and praising Him for the fellowship that you have with Him or worshiping God through a complete consecration of yourself unto the Lord, the altar was the place of worship.

And so he wanted to go where he could worship the Lord. He wanted to go where he could seek the Lord. As a matter of fact, he sought it out. And I'm going to tell you why I think that that's important because so Solomon seeks out the altar of the Lord. And it says in Solomon, verse six, went there before the Lord to the bronze altar, which was at the tent of meeting,

and he offered a thousand burnt offerings on it. Now that's something that we sometimes just run by real quick and go, wow, that's a lot of offerings. That's a lot of, offerings like that was not a quick experience. I need you to think about that, right? I need you to think about what took place when they would make these offerings. This is a live animal that they would then have to kill,

that they would then have to deal with and then burn on an altar a thousand times. This was not a quick event. This was an event that took time. This was an event that took a dedication unto the Lord. And I point that out to you because I'm reminded over and over again, that we want a 15-minute devotional that will completely line us up with Jesus. And Jesus is like,

I mean, you can have a 15-minute devotional, but then you're going to have a 15-minute walk with me. Right? Sometimes this takes time. Was it extravagant on the part of Solomon? Absolutely. Does God love that? Absolutely. Do you always have that kind of time in your life? No. But wouldn't it be great if sometimes you took that kind of time? When you said, I'm going to sacrifice,

because that's what this was. I'm going to sacrifice some other things in my life because I think that this is so important. I'm going to sacrifice some other stuff that's going on in my life because I think that my presence with God and His presence with me is the most important thing that I can be aware of in my life. Because the whole reason that I was created was for time spent with my Creator.

And so I'm going to sacrifice everything else for that. This took time for Him to lay out a thousand sacrifices unto the Lord. Not only did it take time, but listen, it cost. Because these are animals that meant income in the nation of Israel. This was an expensive, extravagant thing that He did for the Lord. And it kind of, if we were to jump into the New Testament,

it made me think about something. It made me think about Jesus on His way to Jerusalem for the ultimate sacrifice that He would make. And He arrives at the house where the woman breaks the expensive jar of oil and pours it all over His feet and the whole place is enveloped with the smell of this perfume. This perfume that would have cost an immense amount of money.

Probably an entire life savings. And yet she did this incredibly extravagant thing for Jesus and the disciples mocked her for it. What are you doing? We could have used that to feed so many people. Which of course Judas didn't really want to do because he was pilfering from the money box. But it's the excuse he used in the moment and the other disciples kind of went,

yeah, what do you think in being that extravagant? Not again. And Jesus says, listen here boys, I need you to know something. Everybody in the world for all time is going to know what she did in this moment. Because God loves the extravagant pouring out of sacrifice unto Him. And you know how I know that? Because I want you to read the next verse. Verse 7. In that night,

God appeared to Solomon. In that night, God appeared to Solomon. You see, God responded to that extravagant worship by simply giving him His presence. The presence of God was there with him. And I was reminded of a couple of things. I think I had him put this up there. In the margin of your Bible, you might write James 4, 8. We talked about this last week, but it felt like it needed to be brought up again.

In James chapter 4, verse 8, it says, if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you. But what really stuck out to me was out of the book of Hebrews. I know I'm getting ahead of myself in Hebrews here. But in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 6. Matter of fact, I want you to go over to Hebrews chapter 11 real quick. All the way at the other end. Hopefully you have a bookmark there

because of Sunday mornings. Hebrews chapter 11.

Sorry, mine's in chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 11. I want you to look at verse 6.

This is what the writer to the Hebrews says. And without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. In this instance, I do not prefer the New American Standard Translation. I actually prefer the New King James Translation because in the New King James Translation and in the Old King James,

it says that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That's the idea there behind that word to seek. It means to diligently seek after. That God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Now we have to understand something. Salvation is never something that we earn. It's not something that we earn by showing how serious we are about following Jesus.

But once we have started following Jesus, then it becomes the thing that we pursue with our entire purpose and our entire being. And that's what you see here with Solomon is that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And listen, the more that you pour out your heart to seek after God, the more that you sacrifice the temporary for the eternal in order to seek after God, the more He loves to respond to that. I think sometimes we think that God is this guy who's not going to return.

He's not going to return our messages, right? Like God is this guy who's not going to return our phone calls. Like He's not going to call, is He? I don't believe He's going to call. Meanwhile, God is sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. He's just sitting there waiting to hear from you. And when He does, He longs to pour out everything that He has into you

to give you everything that you need and to respond to you in that sort of way. I've shared this with you before, but there's a great book called Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. One of my favorite things about it is, is that A.W. Tozer never graduated from college. Matter of fact, I think he was a pastor with the Christian Missionary Alliance. And for a long time, they would not ordain him as a pastor

because he did not have the proper formal education. But eventually, he came to a point where they said, this guy knows Jesus in a way that the rest of us don't know him. We got to ordain him as a pastor. And when he wrote the book, Pursuit of God, he will tell you in the foreword, he wrote it while he was on his knees seeking God. He said, these are not things

that I studied in a book. These are things that God revealed to me as I was on my knees writing this book. And when you read it, you go, wow, God met him where he was. Like God showed up that day because that's a book that when you read it, you feel drawn into the presence of God because that's where he wrote that book. And that's what God desires for us. Every man or woman of God

throughout the Old and the New Testament that had the greatest revelations of God spent time seeking God. I'm here to tell you right now, if in 2026, your desire was to know God more, you will know him as much as you want to. You will know him as much as you want to. If you want to know him 15 minutes a day, you'll have a 15 minute relationship with him. If you want to know him with every fiber of your being,

you have to diligently seek him. But if you diligently seek him, he will be found of you. Because that's a promise of God. Back over to the book of 2 Chronicles. It says, That night God appeared to Solomon and he said to him, Ask what I shall give you. Ask what I shall give you. Such a fascinating thing that this is what God does with Solomon. He literally gives him a blank check

for lack of better terms. He says, You fill in the amount. And that's what I'll give you. If you want it to be all of the wealth in the world, I'll give you all of the wealth in the world. If you want it to be all of the lives of your enemies, I will give you all the lives of your enemies. If you want it to be the, you name it. I'll give you what you ask. And again, I'm going to say something to us.

I think sometimes we think God is a stingy God. That God is like, Nope, not give me that. I don't want to give you good things. And we forget that God longs to give us good things. Now sometimes the good things look, different than what we think they are. Because God still says, His will needs to be done. But sometimes I agree with James on this. We have not because we ask not.

And I know he goes into the thing, and sometimes you ask a miss to spend it on your lustful flesh. But can we just take that first part for just a minute and say you have not because you ask not? I want you to think about two verses. I want you to write these down. The first one is Romans chapter eight, verse 32. You don't need to go there, but write Romans 8, 32.

In Romans chapter eight, verse 32, it says this, that if God did not withhold his own son from us, how much more will he not freely give us every good thing? Now listen, this is not the name and claimant message, okay? But this is the, why aren't you praying big prayers? Why aren't you asking God to do great things? Why do we limit God and say, well, I'm not going to ask for that

because I don't know if God wants to do that or not, you know? Why don't we just pray the big prayers? I'm going to give you one more. John chapter 16, verse 24. Matter of fact, I do want you to go to John 16. I want you to bear some, and you didn't know you were coming out to flip all over the place in the Bible, but that's why you're here. John chapter 16, verse 24.

This is Jesus talking to his disciples, right before he goes to the cross. He's within 12 hours, of the cross at this point in time. It says this, until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. Do you know that fullness of joy is what God wants for us? Do you know that joy is his desire for us? I'm just getting ready to start going through the book of 1 John with some kids.

And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and. You know why 1 John was written? That your joy may be made full. That's exactly why it says it was written. So that you can have joy in the Lord that comes from the life of Jesus, comes from the light of Jesus, and comes from obedience to Jesus. I want your joy to be made full. And so Jesus says, up until this point,

you haven't asked anything in my name. Ask, and you shall receive. What if, what if we got really bold with God? in our prayers? What if we got really bold with God and started praying some big prayers? Will he say no sometimes? Probably. But that's okay. You don't know if you don't ask. Right? So Solomon goes and he makes all of these sacrifices to the Lord. And God says, Solomon, I love you so much.

I just want to bless you. I want to bless you. Back over to 2 Chronicles. I want to bless you more than you can ever imagine. Ask what I shall give you. And this is what Solomon says. Solomon said to God, you've dealt with my father, David, with great loving kindness and have made me king in his place. Now, O Lord God, your promise to my father, David, is fulfilled. For you have made me

king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people. For who can rule this great people of yours? What a fantastically strong. Start for Solomon. Those two things that he asks for. I don't remember who I was reading, but they went in a little bit of depth with these words. He first of all asks for wisdom.

He said, I want wisdom, Lord. And that word wisdom can be translated discernment. And the idea of the discernment there is the discernment to know right and wrong. And listen, the discernment to know good and best. Right? Like we first are given the discernment of right and wrong. We first start walking with Jesus. He starts giving us that discernment of, oh, I never knew that was sin. I should probably not do that anymore. Oh, I didn't know God wanted

me to do that. I should start doing that now. Like I love that about new believers is because they start to get that discernment of right and wrong. But then as you grow in your walk, you begin to gain the discernment of good and best. Right? Like there's nothing wrong with X, Y, and Z over here, but it's not the best thing for me. And so God says, listen, not sin, not going to profit.

You need to be over here. You need to be over here. You need to be over here. You need to be over here. We're here doing the best. And that's the discernment that he wanted. He wanted that wisdom, that discernment to know how to rule the people with the right and the wrong and how as a ruler to know good and best, because this is a great people that sat in front of him. He says,

Lord, the nation is great. The responsibility is immense. I need discernment to know how to best govern the people. But the second thing that he prays for is he prays for knowledge. And the idea of knowledge is the practical know-how in daily affairs, the practical know-how in daily affairs. In other words, I just need to know how to perform from day to day. I need to know one day to the

next what I'm supposed to do. So he asks for these things. Now, one thing I'll say is this. If there was one thing that Solomon could have done even better than this, he could have said, Lord, deepen my knowledge of you. Deepen my knowledge of you. But he prays for that wisdom. He prays for that discernment. And God is pleased with it. You know how I know that? Because it says in verse 11, God said to Solomon, because you had this in mind and did not

ask for riches or wealth or honor or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for long life or a closet full of sneakers. I'm just kidding. But you have asked for wisdom and knowledge that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king. Wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you. And I will give you riches and knowledge over whom I have made you king.

Wealth and honor, such as none of the kings who were before you has possessed, nor those who come after you. So Solomon went from the high place, which is a Gibeon, from the tent of meeting to Jerusalem, and he reigned over Israel. I'm reminded of another really good principle that's given to us in scripture. Again, if you're the right verses in the margin of your Bible sort of a person, next to verse 12, you might write Matthew 633.

Because in Matthew 633, it says, And all these things will be added unto you. It doesn't mean you're going to get rich because you follow Jesus, but it means if you put Jesus first, he's going to take care of all of the other physical issues that you have to deal with. If you will always put the pursuit of God first, he will make sure that you are always taken care of. And can I tell you, in the family that I grew up in, I watched that happen over and over again. I watched that happen over and over again. I watched

that happen in my life. When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of things, but we always had everything that we needed. But I will tell you this, I watched my dad over and over again, always put God first. If it was ever a question between putting God first or putting things first, God was always going to win. And every now and then as a little kid,

I was like, really, this time even? Because I knew it meant I might not get what I wanted in the moment. But I look back and I am so happy that I was able to get what I wanted in the moment. I was raised by a father who always put the Lord first in everything that he did. Because I have watched how God has blessed him throughout his lifetime. And how God blessed him even in his death, because he always put God first.

And so we see Solomon do that. He says, I could have asked for all the things. Instead, I want the wisdom to know how to govern your people, to be godly in the way that I handle myself. And so God says, not only am I going to give you what you did ask for, I'm going to give you what you did not ask for. And so God says, I'm going to give you what you did not ask for.

And then we're given a little bit of a picture of his wealth. It says this, Solomon amassed chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen. And he stationed them in the chariot cities. And with the king at Jerusalem, the king made silver and gold as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones. And he made cedars as plentiful as sycamores in the lowland. Now, I'm not sure if that's hyperbole or if that's really

how it was. It turns out it's not hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. It's hyperbole. turns out it was pretty wealthy solomon's horses were imported from egypt from q the king's traders procured them from q from q for a price and they imported chariots from egypt

for 600 shekels of silver a piece and horses for 150 a piece and by the same means they exported them to all the kings of the hittites and the kings of iran solomon ultimately became a businessman when it came to horses and chariots he got them from egypt and then started selling them to other kingdoms now in this moment as wise as he was in this moment we see a little bit of a chink in the armor of solomon strong start but we see a weakness because in deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 16 it specifically says that kings were not to amass horses and they were not to get them from egypt it's kind of interesting that he did both of those two things right because no matter how much

wisdom you have you still have to govern yourself no matter how much wisdom you have to govern all of the other people around you you still have to learn how to govern yourself and your own desires and so so we see a little bit of a weakness in the area of solomon's life but now we move into chapter two and we see him begin to prepare the temple it says in chapter two verse one it says now solomon decided to build a house for the name of the lord in a royal palace for himself so solomon assigned 70 000 men to carry loads and 80 000 men to quarry stones in the mountains and 36 000 to supervise them and solomon sent word to huram the king of tyre saying as you dealt with david my father and sent him cedars to build him

a house to dwell in so do for me so the first thing solomon does in the organizing of the labor is. He looks within the nation of Israel, and he begins to essentially create a works project for the construction of the temple. And you can see the different jobs. There were three categories of jobs. There were those that would carry loads. There were those that would quarry

stones, and there were those that would supervise. And as he had wisdom, he had fewer supervisors than workers. I'm just saying some people could probably learn from that situation right there. Fewer supervisors, more workers. Just saying, throwing that out there. But he had these three guys, these three groups set up within the nation of Israel. But his workforce was not just within the nation of Israel. His workforce was also outside of the nation of

Israel, because he goes to this guy named Haram, the king of Tyre, who had had a very good relationship with David, to seek out not only cedars from Tyre, but also to seek out workmen from there. And I want you to notice what Solomon has to say, because I think this is really important. He says, behold, verse four, I'm about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, dedicating it to him to burn fragrant incense before him, and to set out the showbread continually, and to offer burnt offerings morning and evening on Sabbaths and on new moons, and on the appointed feasts of the Lord our God, this being required forever in Israel. The house which I am about to build will be great, for greater is our God.

than all the gods. But who is able to build a house for him? For the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain him. So who am I that I should build a house for him, except to burn incense before him? Now send me a skilled man to work in gold, silver, brass, and iron, and purple and crimson, and violet fabrics. And who knows how to make engravings to work with the skilled men

who I have in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father provided? Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon. For I know that your servants know how to cut the timber of Lebanon, and indeed my servants will work with your servants to prepare timber in abundance for me, for the house which I am about to build will be great and powerful. Now behold, I will give to your servants the woodsman who cut the timber, 20,000 cores of crushed wheat, 20,000 cores of barley, 20,000 baths of wine, and 20,000 baths of oil. So he lines up these workers, but in doing so, he almost kind of preaches the gospel

of who God is to the king of Tyre. Did you notice that? This is all in the message that he sent him. He's like, dear king of Tyre, I'm building a house for God. Let me tell you about it, right? Sends him the longest text message ever about what he wants him to do. But in doing so, he tells him of the greatness of God. First of all, he tells him the purpose of the temple. Did you notice what

the purpose of the temple is? It's the purpose of the temple. It's the purpose of the temple. Let me read verse four to you again. Behold, I'm about to build a house for the Lord, my God, and dedicating it to him to burn fragrant incense, to set out the showbread, and to burn offerings before him on the Sabbaths and on the new moons. The purpose of the house is to burn

the incense. Those are the prayers of the people. To put out the showbread, that's fellowship with God, and to make the sacrifices, that's worship. And I thought about something. I actually jumped all the way forward in my mind to what Jesus had to say when he came to the temple. He said, when Jesus came into the temple and saw what was going on in there with the money changers and how

they had turned what was supposed to be a beautiful thing into a place of merchandise. Do you remember what he said? He quoted a passage of scripture from the Old Testament. Jesus says, my house shall be called a house of prayer. My house shall be called a house of prayer. Do you know what that's a quote from? It's a quote from Isaiah chapter 56, verse seven.

In Isaiah chapter 56, verse seven, God tells Isaiah to tell the people, my house shall be called a house of prayer. And I think that that's kind of interesting because that's what God's house was supposed to be. Because what is prayer? That is our seeking of the Lord. And that's what this temple is supposed to be. Solomon says, I am building this temple as a place for people to

seek the Lord, specifically in the area of prayer. I think that's important because it means that us, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, are to be called a house of prayer. That God's house is to be called a house of prayer. That our house should be called a house of prayer because that was God's greatest desire. And so when Jesus came into the temple and he saw that what was intended to be a house

of prayer had been turned into a den of thieves, it had been turned into a place of merchandise, he was very angry with that. I oftentimes wonder if Jesus showed up in the church of the 21st century, how many whips would he build, right? Like how many tables would he flip? And not for the things that most of the liberal Christians say he would flip tables for, but probably for a lot of the things that's going on in their churches.

Because this house is supposed to be called a house of prayer. But lest we just criticize the liberal church, maybe we should look inside of us too and say, Lord, is our house, your house, called a house of prayer? Is it where people are seeking you? Because that's what Solomon said he's building. He said, I'm building a house. For God. And it's to be a house of prayer. But then he kind of goes into it and he goes,

but who am I to build God's house? Because is there any house that can hold God? The heaven of the heavens can't contain him. The earth can't contain him. Because God will never just dwell in a house. We always have to be careful to not localize God, right? Some of us grow up going to camp and maybe you had a great, great experience with God at camp. And in your mind, that's where God dwells,

right? And so if you need a good experience with God, you have to go back to that camp. That's where you had the good experience with God. That's where God dwells. Sometimes we think, well, I had a good experience with God in this church, which I'm really happy about. Well, God doesn't just dwell in this church. Well, I had a great experience with God on the mountaintop. I've got to go back to that

mountaintop so that I can have a good experience with God. Listen, folks, God is everywhere. David in the Psalm says, where can I go? Where can I go from your presence? Where can I flee from your spirit? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, the place of the dead, you are there. Everywhere I go, there you are. Nowhere can I hide from you.

Because here's the thing. God's presence is with us everywhere. I was listening to Chuck Smith teach on this and he said, I show up to these church services sometimes and these worship leaders are saying, Lord, bring your presence. And he goes, I wish they'd realize he's there. Quit asking for God to bring his presence and start praying that you would be aware of his

presence. Start praying that you would be aware of what's going on. Remember that story with Elisha? One of my favorite stories in all of the Old Testament. When Elisha's there and all these enemy armies, this enemy army comes against him and surrounds his house and he's inside of the house with his servant and they will knock on the door. You better come out. We're taking you

captive. And his servant's like, oh, dude, we got problems, man. We have problems. We have problems. The entire army is surrounding us. We are in really big trouble. And Elisha goes, listen, here's the thing. There's more of us than there are of them. And he's going, dude, you have been in the sun too long. Quick math tells me there's two of us and there's a multitude of them.

And he says, Lord, would you open his eyes? Would you open his eyes to see the army of heaven? And God pulls back the layer for just a moment and he sees the entire army of heaven surrounding him. And then Elisha goes straight Star Wars on him. He's like, we're not who you're looking for. Come, let me show you who you're looking for. And he blinds all of them and leads them there. Sometimes I think we are all kind of like that servant.

God is here. And sometimes we need God to make us aware of his presence because his presence is already there. Remember we talked about Sunday morning. God is the all knowing, all powerful, but there's one other thing about God. He is all present. It's a great, great theological term for that. It's omni-present. He's everywhere all the time. Sometimes we need to be made aware of that. The awareness of God's presence does a couple

of things for us. The awareness of God's ever-present nature, first of all, is a great purifier in our lives. Can we all agree with that? That if we would become more aware of the presence of God, we would not ever have to preach on holiness because, we're not going to do something wrong when the principal is standing right in front of you, right? The other day, I'm driving. Gosh, I out myself a lot with this. Okay, I paid the ticket.

The other day, I'm driving. I may have shared this with you. I don't know. I'll out myself a second time. And I hit a stoplight and it's about, it turns yellow and I'm like, I've got time. I, in fact, did not have time. Now, when I drive, I watch people run red lights with reckless abandon in this town. I've, actually, never seen in my lifetime as many people run red lights as they do. I watched somebody drive

all the way down Summit Street and not stop it. They hit every, I didn't even know how they did it. They hit every red light on Summit Street and did not stop on any of them. And I was like, where's the cop now? That is seven tickets, right? That's a whole bunch of money. But there was a cop right there when I ran mine. And as soon as I went through, I was like, that's the fastest yellow light

I've ever seen in my life. And Aaron said, there's a cop. And I was like, well, shoot. And I did say shoot, okay? All good words came out of my mouth at that point in time. And sure enough, whoop, right? The lights flipped on. I'm like, yep, I'm not getting out of this one. So I pull over and sure enough, I got a ticket out of it. I do not run red lights anymore. If that light is yellow, I slam on my brakes. I send

everything through the front windshield of my car. So I am not paying that ticket again. That's just all that there is to it. But if the cop's always there, you're not running that red light, right? If the cop's always there, you're not speeding in front of him. I go five under when a cop's behind me, right? I ain't paying that ticket. Then why, if God is present with us all the time,

do we not take holiness more seriously? See, the awareness of God's presence creates purity in our lives. There's a second thing that the awareness of God's presence does. The awareness of God's presence creates awe in our lives, which ultimately leads to worship. Sometimes I think the reason why we don't worship God with as passionate of a heart as we could

is because we see a worship leader on stage. We don't see the presence of God. And it's not because the worship leader isn't showing us. It's because sometimes we're not aware of it. Sometimes we come in. That's why I think we take the time that we do before worship. I've heard people say before, you know, worship is really supposed to be a response to what God has done. So why do we start with worship? I said, because if I don't

give you people five songs, A, none of you show up on time, and B, your hearts aren't ready for what God's word has to say. You ever notice that? Like when you show up to church, the first couple of songs, you're just like, coffee didn't taste good enough. Car didn't run like it was supposed to. Yelled at my wife on the way here. My kid's a knucklehead, right? Those are the first two songs.

And then by the third song, you're like, oh, God is pretty good. Yeah, he saved me. That's your hips getting into it. That's you starting to sway with the motion, right? Just let it take over. Pretty soon, you got one of these things going on. That's why by the last song, everybody's standing and singing loud, right? Like sometimes I always go pray with the worship

team, run back to the bathroom one last time because my biggest fear is having to go to the bathroom while I'm on stage. So run back to the bathroom one more time, and I come back in here, first song, and everybody's standing, and I'm just kind of like, what's wrong in here right now? Well, y'all are working through your business, right? You're getting your hearts lined up.

That's what those first five songs do for you. By the time you hit the last song, it's like, and everybody's geeked about it because you've had that time. All of a sudden, now you're starting to become more aware of the presence of God. Then you can hear what God has to say through his word. If we could be aware of the presence of God, it creates an awe in our

hearts. It creates an incredible amount of worship. It doesn't matter what the worship team sounds like or what the worship song is at that point in time. I'm convinced the reason why people complain about the worship songs is because they stopped seeing the presence of God, and they started seeing the presence of a worship leader, right? Now, if you're somebody that complains about worship songs,

I'm talking to you, okay? You just need to know that because I know it happens. And it's because you're not paying attention to what the worship song is supposed to be doing. It's reminding you of the presence of God. Solomon says, how do you build a house for God? And I'm sure going to try. So the third thing that I see in here is this. It's kind of interesting that

it's not only people from the nation of Israel that are building the temple. It's not just the Jewish people that are building the temple. It's what? It's the Gentile people as well. So this is a temple that's being constructed not only by the Jewish people, but it's being constructed by the Gentile people. Do you know what the rest of the verse of Isaiah 56,

Isaiah 56, seven says, it says, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. My house should be called the house of prayer for all nations. That's why Jesus was so upset because in the court of the Gentiles, which is where anybody could go, that's where all those money changers were. That's where all of the merchandising was taking place. And so the only

place that the Gentile world could seek God in the temple was in that court of the Gentiles and the place that was supposed to be where anybody from any nation could come and seek the Lord now just got turned into a house of merchandise, which is why Jesus got so upset, started flipping tables and he said, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Because God always intended the church to not be localized to one group of people. God always intended the church to be for anybody. Because as you know, I like to say so much because the gospel is for everybody.

So Solomon says, how am I going to build a house for God? I'm going to do the best that I can. Could you send some folks? Notice how he responds to him. Verse 11, then Huram, king of Tyre, answered in the letter sent to Solomon, because the Lord loves his people, he has made you king over them. And Huram continued, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who's made heaven and

earth and who has given King David a wise son endowed with discretion. And understanding who will build a house for the Lord and a royal palace for himself. Now I am sending Huram Abi, a skilled man endowed with understanding, the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father who knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and purple, violet, linen, and crimson fabrics, and who knows how to make all kinds of engravings and how to execute any design which may be assigned to him, to work with your skilled men and with those my lord david your father now then let my lord send his servants wheat and barley oil and wine of which he has spoken and we will cut timber you need from lebanon and bring it to you on rafts by

sea to joppa so that you may carry it to jerusalem solomon numbered all the aliens who were in the land of israel and following the census which his father had taken and 153 600 were found so he appointed 70 000 of them to carry loads and 80 000 of quarry stones and in the mountains and 3 600 supervisors to make the people work so everything's set up for the construction of the temple he has the workers that he needs he has the materials that he needs and most importantly he has the heart that he needs he has the understanding that this temple is just a building it's just a building where people will seek god it's just a place that will be called the house of prayer amen father we come before you and lord i thank you for your word lord i thank you

that your word is lamp into our feet and light into our path lord i thank you that your word convicts and that it instructs or that it comforts and that it changes us and father i want to lift up our church body here in ark city for everybody that's watching online and i pray that you would continue to use your word not only that they've heard here tonight lord but that you that they would have a hunger created in their heart for you and for your word to know you lord that they would diligently seek you that we would diligently seek you and father i lift up our nation right now father i pray for revival in our country i see seeds of it but lord i still fear because

there is so much tension and and there is uh so much chaos division and lord i know that the only place where we can find the word of god is in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and in our hearts and we got zawsze and in our hearts and here's a spot where our hearts are repeated here and we get so many audio content during this series and that's got to be clear because we want to live the journey burned in the desire that's in our hearts and we can't just eat stuff right now

and sisters in iran that are fighting for their lives that are risking their lives for their desire for freedom and lord i want to pray that you would move in that place i pray that you would protect their lives and father be with those that have lost loved ones in the last 24 to 48 hours lord in such horrific ways i pray that you would give the leader of our nation wisdom to know how we are to support them and help them and lord i pray that you would give us as the church the discernment that we need to pray for our brothers and sisters knowing that your word is going out with power there to a level that we can't even begin to understand lord because people are

realizing their need for a savior lord the revival that's taking place in iran is unprecedented lord i lift up our brothers and sisters throughout the world that that every day being a believer in the gospel of jesus christ may cost them their lives but they're completely willing to do it because they know that there's nowhere else that they can go because you have the words of eternal life lord may we weep as if we are there with them may we pray as if we are chained with them and lord may we support them in any way that we possibly can so lord continue to do your work in our hearts and continue to do your work in those places we pray in jesus name amen be blessed