Organization & Temple Preparation (Part C)

Yahweh, my God, he acknowledges that his dad's God is his God.

He's not ashamed of that. The God of his father is his God. This is why it's so pronounced when Isaac says, the God of my father, or Jacob, the God of my father, and later the God of my father is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They're saying, we have this unbroken witness.

We've not departed. We didn't become grown and figure we're too big for the God of our parents. Satan delights in turning children from the true God of their parents. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of 1 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick in 1 Kings Chapter 5 with his conclusion of his message, Organization and Temple Preparation. Here Solomon is obtaining the materials for the construction of the temple because when David lays out the temple, he lays it on heavy. We talked about he had this, no pun intended, this sunshine moment in his life where he was, you know, couldn't keep warm and it was probably in the colder months, Jerusalem can get a little chilly, but then when the summer comes, he looks like he just was able to muster the energy to lay out the speech to the nation, a series of speeches, and they're quite powerful. They're in 1st and 2nd Chronicles. We pick up some of what David said and we'll be referencing that, but this section details acquiring the materials and his relationship and trade agreements with King Hyrum of Tyre, who is an exciting character himself.

At least a little bit we know of him is very positive. So we look at verse 1 of 1 Kings 5. Now Hyrum, king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon because he heard they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hyrum always loved David. And that's the first thing about Hyrum that we're introduced is that he loved David.

And how can you not love, well I mean David gave a few people reasons not to love him, but overall he was a charismatic character. I'm sure David was the type, when he walked in the room, you just knew he was in the room without even looking almost, and he, in the latter part of David's reign, Hyrum becomes king and they hit it off. He supplied David with materials to build David's palace, the one that Solomon would not allow his Egyptian wife to come to. Verse 2 of chapter 5, then Solomon sent to Hyrum saying, you know how my father David could not build a house for the name of Yahweh, his god, because of the wars which he fought against him on every side until Yahweh put his foes under the soles of his feet. Solomon maintains that David was a man of God. His father was a man of God and he was a man of war, and that gave Solomon the territory he now enjoys, but it also barred David from being directly associated. So God sort of puts up a buffer between David and the temple.

I love David, but I don't want you to associate the place of sacrifice with human bloodshed. Sin is awful to God, that's my take on it. Sin is saying, God is saying, I hate the sin, I hate the problems that it causes, and I want you to know I am no fan of war, though I must use war because of the resources that I have from sinners, and I am a strong believer that God works with his with the resources he has, not exclusively because he can of course create resources, but as a rule. Job, that's the story of Job, God is boasting on the resources, hey, consider Job.

So Job, have you considered Job? That was God's resource, none like him, a man that hates evil and does good. We are to try to give God the resources to use us, and the proof of that is God sends people who can sing to a church, because if he didn't, you either would have no music or you would wish you had no music. So here, David, King David, the memory in Hyrum is sweet. Solomon maintains that his dad was a man of God, verse 4, but now Yahweh my God has given me rest on every side, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. And yeah, the name Solomon means peace and his kingdom is characterized by no war, peace. Here in verse 4, where he says, but now Yahweh my God, he acknowledges that his dad's God is his God.

He's not ashamed of that. The God of his father is his God. This is why it's so pronounced when Isaac says the God of his father, or Jacob the God of my father, and later the God of my father is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They're saying we have this unbroken witness, we've not departed. We didn't become grown and figure we're too big for the God of our parents. Satan delights in turning children from the true God of their parents to anything else, and we should be ready for this.

I don't know how much we can do outside of prayer at some point, but this is not something that is, if it happens, it's not, oh this is so unheard of. It's all, it's throughout the scripture, and it's a delight to see Solomon not departing from the God of his father, which is in this case, of course, David, verse 5. And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God, as Yahweh spoke to my father David, saying, your son whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for my name. Well, Israel's forest did not have the cedar trees that Solomon wants to use.

Tyre does, the land of Tyre in Lebanon. Solomon's kingdom, again, the peace it has is because of David, but, and the treasures, David amassed treasures, and so here's where it gets exciting. Towards the end, David says in 1 Chronicles 22, indeed I have taken much trouble to prepare for the house of Yahweh, one hundred thousand talents of gold and one million talents of silver and bronze and iron beyond measure, for it is so abundant I have prepared timber and stone also that you may add to them.

He goes on in chapter 29 of 1 Chronicles, now for the house of my God I have prepared with all my might. Moreover, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, I have given to the house of my God over and above all that I have prepared for my holy house, my own special treasure of gold and silver. And so here's David, he's speaking to the nation, Solomon present, he's handing over the kingdom to Solomon, and he's saying, I have thrown everything into the house of God, and I have given to the house of my God, and he wants the nation to do something with what he's bequeathing to the temple, to the building of the temple. And as I mentioned, you know, you contrast what we hear from Solomon with things like this from David, and it's no surprise you'd rather read what David has to say than what Solomon has to say.

This is not boring to me, this is exciting to me. And David hands Solomon the plans for the house, the blueprints that God gave to David. First Chronicles 28 verse 19, all this said David, Yahweh made me understand in writing by his hand upon me all the works of these plans. And so when he says to Solomon, be strong, be a man, and get the job done, and be wise, you're wise enough, and this is, you know, it meant something to Solomon. It just, he just did not keep it up because of, and now always in criticizing Solomon you have to say, well wait a minute, what if I was a trillionaire, you know, never had a need for money, I've had so much of it, would I have done better?

Any urge that I, if I really liked oranges, you know, I could just buy them all, you know, just to be a slave to my urges, which was what happened. I think more large of it, much of it was Solomon, maybe, you know, a son can compete with the dad and that I think is a wrong turn. Instead of building on what the dad is instilled, the son can try to outdo the dad, make their own name for themselves, but that's not always a problem unless he's departing from something that is, cannot be improved, and Solomon did that. He tried to build a nation, not with Psalms and, you know, the life of David, but with these deals, these wheelings and dealings, and like, oh dad didn't understand business like I understand business. Yeah, well, you look at, look at your fruit, look at the Psalms David wrote. Israel's national symbol today is not the star of Solomon.

That would be a dollar sign, probably, or the AU for gold from the chart. Anyway, David, not stopping there, he assembled artisans and craftsmen and laborers and to follow those plans. In 1 Chronicles 22, verse 1, then David said, Then David said, This is the house of Yahweh God, and this is the altar of burnt offerings for Israel. Is this a passion in his tone about these things? There's nothing that is routine in his language. And you say, well, you know, I'm not excited about God. Well, tell God that.

Tell him you're not excited. Ask him to fill you with the Spirit. So David commanded to gather the aliens who were in the land of Israel, and he appointed masons to cut hewn stone to build the house of God. And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails of the doors.

That would be bolts too, high strength, 490s I'm sure. Anyway, doors for the gates and joints for the bronze in abundance beyond measure. And so it just goes on in this very exciting reading. Now David said, Solomon, my son is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for Yahweh must be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries. I will now make preparation for it.

So David made abundant preparation before his death. I mean, that's the excitement. So if you've had that kind of excitement and you've lost it, well, you've got to understand that's part of the struggle.

That's part of the fight to prove the faith, that the genuineness of your faith may be proven to you, not God, to you. And once you get that, okay, this is how it is. I've got to just sail through these, you know, ice bird laden waters of life, but I'll come out ahead. If I stay the course, you will. You'll spring back. It may take years, but it's certainly not worth saying, you know, I used to be excited about God and just life just hammered me and now I'm not excited anymore. That is a defeat that I think all of us are able to avoid by just learning that, okay, this is the fight. It's not that God hates me.

It's not that I'm some sort of special kind of fool. It's that this is the fight. Boredom is a beast.

It's real stuff. Disillusionment. I expected more from Christianity.

I expected, you know, Wednesday nights to have a packed sanctuary. Well, I didn't get what I wanted, so I quit. Of course, that would be, you know, you look at that, you say, what are you doing? Well then, why would we expect that that would be acceptable on a personal level when a Christian says, I didn't get out of Christianity what I wanted, so I'm not so excited about Christianity anymore. That's the devil in your flesh. That ain't God.

God says persevere. Anyway, David, 450 tons of gold. That's a lot.

I would take it like a few pounds I'd be happy with. 38,000 tons of silver. This is what Solomon had to work with.

Thousands, tons of bronze and iron and precious stones and publicly presented to Solomon. Verse 6 now of chapter 5. Now therefore, command that they cut down cedars for me from Lebanon. He's speaking to Hyrum while sending a written document.

And my servants will be with you, with your servants, and I will pay you wages for your servants according to whatever you say. For you know there is none among us who has skill to cut timber like the Cydonians, which is the people under Hyrum's rule. So Solomon admits that we don't have the skill level nor do we have the harvest of trees. And he offers to put his workers with Hyrum's workers. Now Hyrum, I think, is saying, no, I am not giving up trade secrets of my lumberjacks so that you can, then enter into this, you know, I think in verse 9 it comes, it suggests that he's going to use Solomon's labor force.

Once the trees are fell and chosen and fell and ready for shipment, then he'll probably use them. But I don't think Hyrum is going to give up the knowledge of how to do this to anybody and that would be wise. When I was an apprentice, some of the old timers told me, said before there was an apprentice school, said, you know, if they're old timers, which would be very old, I said if they didn't like you, they would not show you anything. And if they tied a knot, they'd turn their back so you couldn't see them tie the knot. They guarded, if they didn't like you, they guarded their knowledge, the journeymen from the apprentices. But if they liked you, man, they'd show you everything. And I enjoyed that.

I had great teachers in that industry, men who would show me how to do things that I could never learn in a classroom. So knowledge is power and Hyrum knows that. You don't get to be king and stay king not knowing that. Verse 7, so it was when Hyrum heard the words of Solomon that he rejoiced greatly and said, blessed be Yahweh this day, for he has given David a wise son over this great people. Well, here he acknowledges Yahweh as, you know, the God of Solomon and David.

That's consistent with the practice in those days of the kings, but there's more to it. At this time, Solomon writes to Hyrum, 2 Chronicles chapter 2, but who is able to build him a temple since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I that I should build him a temple except to burn sacrifice before him? And so we have a song like that, you know, the heavens can't contain him, you know, forget it all.

I had it when I was reading. Anyway, Hyrum writes back. He answers this and other statements of Solomon in that letter. Then Hyrum, king of Tyre, answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon. He says, because Yahweh loves his people, he has made you king over them. Hyrum also said, blessed be Yahweh, God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, for he has given King David a wise son endowed with prudence and understanding, who will build a temple for Yahweh and a royal house for himself. So my thoughts are that Hyrum doesn't have to do this.

He doesn't have to. He can acknowledge Solomon's God, but he goes a step further and he says Yahweh is the maker of heaven and earth. To the ancients, that's huge and to us too. It's something, again, the evolutionists can't figure out. When I was getting on the Scientists' Sunday, it was the one that buy into the evolution. I mean, we need scientists. I mean, how do you get an Oreo cookie without a scientist to be just so perfectly?

All right, all right. So we do need them, of course, and next time you get a headache, you know, thank you for the scientists, Lord. God opened that knowledge up to them. My point is, I believe that Solomon, Hyrum, I lean towards him being a true believer.

The fact that he doesn't mandate his kingdom to follow the God that he believes in does not undo that. Well, anyway, you may have a differing opinion, but verse 8, then Hyrum sent to Solomon saying, I have considered the message which you sent me and I will do all you desire concerning the cedar and the cypress. The cedar and the cypress logs. The cedar known for its beauty, its fragrance, durability. It was used for construction of not only buildings throughout even Persia, the Persian Empire, but ships also. The biblical authors hold the cedar tree as the envy of all the other trees, you know, said the bramble to the cedar tree and you get that parable in Judges.

Cypress logs, a species of evergreen, I think both beautiful trees. Verse 9, my servant shall bring them down from Lebanon to the sea. I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you indicate to me and will have them broken apart there and then you can take them away and you shall fulfill my desire by giving food for my household. So he doesn't mention, yeah, you can let your workers work beside ours.

That's left out. He offers to cut and transport the lumber to Solomon to whatever port he chooses. Afterwards, Solomon's workers can take it from there. He wants to maintain the monopoly over the cedar production and understandably so. Although verse 14 again will indicate that Solomon sent workers to Lebanon and there they labored.

Again, probably not gaining the skills that they would have liked. Verse 10, then Hiram gave Solomon cedar and cypress logs according to all his desire. Verse 11, and Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 cores of wheat and food for his household and 20 cores of pressed oil. Thus, Solomon gave Hiram year by year. So evidently wheat and olives were not plentiful entire because the land was taken up with the cedar trees.

Anyway, that's not necessarily why but that's what he imported from Israel. Verse 12, so Yahweh gave Solomon wisdom and he had, as he had promised him, and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon and the two of them made a treaty together. Then King Solomon, verse 13, raised up a labor force out of all Israel and the labor force was 30,000 men. Verse 14, and he sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in shifts.

They were one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. So 30,000 men who labored in Lebanon in shifts, 10,000 a month in four-month rotations. Verse 15, Solomon had 70,000 who carried burdens and 80,000 who quarried stone in the mountains.

Well, limestone was the principal material in the temple and we'll come back to that in a moment. Besides 3,300 from the chiefs of Solomon's deputies who supervised the people who labored in the work. Well, if you don't have supervision, you don't have production. When the boss walks out the room, everybody starts talking. So supervision is a good thing. The post office, they have only supervisors. I shouldn't say that. I worked for the post office years ago and everybody was a supervisor, I'm telling you.

It was bad. I quit and then a year later, I got a notice that I was relieved. That's a true story. Like, what is this, huh?

You're no longer employed. I know that. Anyway, then King Solomon commanded them to quarry large stones. Well, I think, let's go back to verse, I've read 16. He commanded them to quarry large stones, verse 17, costly stones and hewn stones to lay the foundation of the temple. Well, these are prefabricated, we would say today.

They're put together off-site and then they're transferred to the building site. From where, in this case, stones quarried and this would disallow the sound of iron tools being heard on the temple grounds. And that's in chapter 6, verse 7. And the temple, when it is being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. And just the sound of men working, it was a really quiet job site. Even to this day, when they put up cathedrals by stone, it takes decades and it's very quiet compared to a steel-framed building or a concrete building.

It's very loud, all the banging around and stuff. This is verse 18. So Solomon's builders, Hiram's builders, and the Gebelites quarried them and they prepared timber and stone to build the temple. How do you get these large stones? Well, you put them on logs and you pull them with your mules and they roll on the logs and before they get to the end, you put other logs in front of them, just keep rolling like you got a land train.

And it's very effective. The Gebelites were known for shipping and building ships and stone cutting. They show up in Ezekiel as builders working on ships.

And so they're in Lebanon overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

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