The House of Grace (Part B)

Conditional. The promise is conditional, Solomon.

You have to do something, too. You know, we Christians have a saying, you know, we don't get to the place where you want Jesus to do all the dying, crucify the flesh. If you walk in my statutes, the civil law, if you execute my judgments, if you uphold the law, it's not enough to quote the scripture.

Are you really going to do that? You're actively trying to bring it to life, to keep my commandments, to both spiritual and moral commandments. Well, it is the house of God, the altar, a place where sinful man may approach a holy God, a God who is without sin. The price of sin is high. Sin did violence to the commandment of God's word.

And therefore, to resolve this, there must be propitiation, satisfaction. Romans 3, verse 25, whom God set forth as propitiation by his blood, he's speaking of the Lord Jesus, through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God has passed over the sins that were previously committed. Jesus is our altar.

The Bible tells us that straight out. Hebrews 13, verse 10. Now, remember, Paul is saying to the Jews that the temple spoke of Christ.

He has now satisfied the imagery, the emblems, the types. Hebrews 13, 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. Paul is saying, if you're still going to the temple offering sacrifices, you're not benefiting from the blood of Christ, because you think it's not enough. Those things have been made obsolete by the perfect offering. And you insult God by bringing an inferior offering and placing it next to the superior offering, which those sacrifices pledged would come and has now come. So iron tools, they were reserved for use upon our altar. Iron tools were used on our altar, Jesus Christ, wielded by Roman soldiers and those spikes that we call nails. So the Jews, they could not use iron on their altars.

As I mentioned, it was reserved. No man made tools to create noise at the tabernacle of Solomon. And no debris, less hazards on the ground, no skillful chiseling at God's house, no chiseling at the place of sacrifice and grace. First Peter chapter two, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, built on grace, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We are a royal priesthood. That's why we can go beyond the veil. Two reasons, Christ split the veil and two, we are priests. We serve the Lord.

Now granted, only the high priest was allowed to go behind the Jewish veil, but Christ, who is our high priest, has extended this and we have access. Solomon tried to shape the kingdom using the wisdom God gave him instead of using it the way we would have liked to have seen him use it more. He began to, you know, make moves, political moves.

He became the savvy statesman on the throne. But God again wanted to shape the kingdom, not let Solomon do it, although the Lord did not force this. And God, of course, he wants to shape our faith, keep the chisels out, keep the man-made hard tools away. Now in building the temple, wooden tools, block and tackle made of hemp and wood, they would have been used to finish the work, to set the stones in place, but no forged iron tools.

And I hope I've been able to communicate the value behind this prohibition. Anyway, verse eight, the doorway for the middle story was on the right side of the temple. They went up by stairs to the middle story, from the middle to the third, stairways going up to the various chambers. This the priest would have appreciated because scaling the wall every day would have been a drag. Verse nine, and he built the temple and finished it and he paneled the temple with beams and boards of cedar.

Well, the description's not even started up yet. It's going to enhance this tremendously and significantly. As I mentioned, I'm interested in the spiritual values more than some of the details that seem to be above my reaching any great meaning, bringing out a great meaning from the numbers.

Anyway, sometimes the numbers of course do have great value, but they're difficult to connect in this. Verse 10, and he built the side chambers against the entire temple, each five cubits high. They were attached to the temple with cedar beams. Well, the ceilings are about seven and a half feet high in this area that he's talking about.

This completes the exterior. Now, I mentioned the numerical spiritual values. Well, they are attainable in many places, but some commentators, they're just far, they become far-fetched, I think. They read into, you know, and this number means that, and they have no basis for that, to come up with that.

Peter's, you know, 158 fish. Well, it means this, and I just think they're stretching it sometimes. But then in other areas, it's right there.

You get it. Well, verse 11, then the word of Yahweh came to Solomon saying, now before we read this, before we get to the interior, the Lord has something to say. The historian, I don't know if it was intentional on his part, it certainly was intentional on God's part, he's inserting this.

He's interrupting the flow on purpose. We are not told how this invitation and warning was delivered to Solomon, but we're told that we, here it is, and it's a repeat, it echoes what was given in chapter 2, verse 4. So, looking at verse 12 now, God is speaking, concerning this temple which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I spoke to your father David. This will make God blameless when He allows the temple to be destroyed, both times.

But there's, of course, more. It's an ominous word that is conditional, the promise is conditional, Solomon. You have to do something too. You know, we Christians have a saying, you know, we don't get to the place where you want Jesus to do all the dying, crucify the flesh. If you walk in My statutes, the civil law, if you execute My judgments, if you uphold the law, it's not enough to quote the scripture, are you actively trying to bring it to life? To keep My commandments, to both spiritual and moral commandments.

The Jews, they failed with the spiritual commandments first, the idolatry, which led them into the moral sin. Walk in them, he says, in other words, live there. John the Baptist, looking at Jesus as he walked, we read in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, behold the Lamb of God. Isn't that profound for us? You know, the just shall live by faith, we walk not by sight. And there we, well, we walk by faith, looking at the Lamb of God. 1 John, evidently it never, he never lost sight of this, he writes in 1 John, chapter 2, verse 6, he who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Wouldn't it be amazing if Jesus were alive today, if he came at this day and age, and he was driving somewhere, wouldn't you want to be in the car with him? He wouldn't get angry at anybody. Would he do the speed limit exactly?

I would have loved to just, you know, maybe ignorance is bliss and maybe I don't need to know. But anyway, to walk as the Lord walks is mainly with each other, and that's where the real problems are. He says here at the bottom of verse 12, then I will perform my word with you which I spoke to your father David, as I mentioned, echoing 2, 4, verse 13.

And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. Why does God have to repeat this so much? Because life is booby-trapped. It works against us. The universe is winding down.

I mean, you don't put, you know, eggs in the refrigerator and come back the next day and there's egg salad. Everything just wears down. Sin wears us down. So God is constantly addressing this. They did forsake God.

He says if the children dwell among, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel, but they will forsake him. Now I had to tone this back because it would turn into a study on Ezekiel. Ezekiel just lights this up, and here he is a captive in Babylon, and God gives him these outrageous visions and instructions to act out many of his prophecies. He's very dramatic.

Lay on your side and do this and draw a map and burn the hair and just do all these things. And Ezekiel seems that was his character. He's probably a weirdo.

And, you know, as personalities go, he's a little strange. But of course his prophecies have all come. Well, not all of them. They're coming to pass. Many of them have.

None of them failed. Well, Ezekiel tells us, beginning in the sixth chapter, how the people broke God's heart. Ezekiel 6 verse 9.

Then those of you, pause here. I have to go back because I mentioned he's in Babylon. He's a captive.

The temple is still up. Nebuchadnezzar came. He took captives away once. He comes back.

He takes them again and finally gets fed up. He comes back, and he destroys the city and takes even more captives. Well, at this point the temple is still up, and God is giving Ezekiel these visions because the people still think God's going to just send them all back and save Israel. And the prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, are saying, you're going to live in Babylon. I know the thoughts I think towards you, thoughts of love and peace and to give you a future.

You're not going anywhere. Seek the peace of that land. And that's the Christian mission also, to seek the peace where we are through the gospel. So here's Ezekiel, and God says then to the prophet, Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations, where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart, which they departed from me, and by their eyes, which played the harlot after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations, because they forsook God. So God withdrew.

The consequences fell upon them. You get to Ezekiel 7, verse 22, and there God says, I will turn my face from them, and they will defile my secret place, for robbers shall enter it and defile it. He's talking about Solomon's temple that's being built that will be dedicated in chapter, when we get to chapter 8. Chapter 7 is the palace of Solomon. Chapter 8 is the dedication of the temple when they bring the ark in. In 200 years there about, the temple is going to be destroyed, and God is laying it out so that when it happened, the Jews, this was no accident. We're not the victims of foreign invaders. We're the victims of our abominations against God, and the prophets were telling us.

They gave us details, precise little details, and now they've fulfilled. Ezekiel in the 8th chapter, God says, go down to the temple Ezekiel, let me show you what they're doing there. They're abominations, the men and the women. And then by chapter 9, God gives Ezekiel a vision of six men, and they have weapons except one, clothed in linen.

He's the team leader. He's got an ink horn, and he's going to put a mark on those who sigh and cry over Jerusalem. But those who do not have the mark, they're going to be judged, singled out. Verse 6 of Ezekiel 9, utterly slay, do not come near anyone on whom is the mark, and begin at my sanctuary. This is Solomon's temple. So they began with the elders who were before the temple, and he said to them, defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out. And they went out and killed in the city. And he's just very graphic in that section.

I've taken out some of it. This is how we preach. We say this to people who are lost. Look, there is going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There's going to be sorrow and resentment towards God for daring to be God. Tell me why again you don't believe that Christ is your Savior?

Is there anyone, anyone that even comes close to offering what Christ offers? Hold them accountable to their conscience, hopefully. Now, it sounds simple from the pulpit. You can just say, and go out and reach the lost.

Yeah, man, it is a war, but it's doable, or else you wouldn't be here. Verse 14, so Solomon built the temple and finished it, and he built the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards. From the floor of the temple to the ceiling, he paneled the inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the temple with planks of cypress. Everything's going to get covered in gold. The entire inner sanctuary, the inner sanctuary and the outer sanctuary, the holy place, the holy place, all gold. The nails, the screws, the pegs, the pins to fasten, you know, the doors and the hinges, all dipped in gold, or not dipped in gold, probably some of it may be gold relief, which is a skill that was long in existence. You know, you make gold like aluminum foil, and you hammer it onto the various objects that you want to cover, gold plate. 2 Chronicles 3 verse 9 tells us that even the nails were covered in gold. Gold is not a strong metal, though it's a heavy one. Those who like heavy metal, are they just talking about lead or gold, because lead is just as heavy. Anyway, one of my brothers was always able to acquire things that the legality was questionable. And I don't know, at one point he had this lead ingot, it's a bar, that was, you know, minted out like in lead. So if I forget verses, it said lead poisoning from handling this thing as a kid, and it was very heavy, it wasn't that big, like, you know, twice the size of a common stick of butter. And gold, kind of lost my thought, but I can say this, I used to unload gold at Kennedy Airport from, Air Argentina would bring it in every Tuesday at 10.30. And that little box was so heavy, two of us on our, you know, our hands, you know, back of us, shoving it with our feet just to get this thing 10 feet out the door of the belly of the plane onto the conveyor belt. Then four men had to lift it off the conveyor belt into the armored truck.

It really has nothing much to do with anything I'm talking about, except these flashbacks. Verse 16 was they built the 20-cubic room at the rear of the temple from the floor to the ceiling, the cedar boards, he built it inside as the inner sanctuary as the most holy place. So the holy place is 30 feet square, wide, long, and tall. This gives it about 15 feet of loft space as you're standing, you know, outlined by the Ark of the Covenant.

Gold overlaid the cedar boards and a wainscot pattern it seems also. Verse 16, we'll come back to this, verse 17, and in front of the temple sanctuary was 40 cubits long. So the holy place with a golden incense altar stood, 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, 45 feet high. So you had the outer sanctuary where the lampstand was, the incense altar that was in gold, the showbread, then the inner sanctuary separated by curtain in this temple by doors also, doors and curtains.

I'll give you that verse, maybe if I'm in the mood, I'll give it to you in a little while. Verse 18, the inside of the temple was cedar carved with ornamental buds. That means there were ornamental friendly guys faces, there's the buds. Hey bud. Anyway, covered with ornamental buds, you'll never see that again, read that the same way again.

Ornamental buds, open flowers, all with cedar. There was no stone to be seen. See those little statements, they're like zingers, you know, but they're blessings, they're the opposite of zingers. You know somebody, you talk to them and they just have to always lead you with a snide remark, you know, that guy.

Just always say something to ruin it. Well, this is the other way around, always something to make you go, hmm, there's something there. Okay, the temple with the cedar, the carved ornaments, we got that. Remember, David designed this as according to the vision given to him by God or the inspiration. But there was no stone to be seen.

Well, sandstone's not unattractive, why? Well, these verses come to mind for me. Ezekiel again, 36 this time, verse 26, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Matthew 13, some fell on the stony places where they did not have much earth and they immediately spring up, but because they had no depth of earth, they withered away. And then 2 Corinthians chapter 3, so I'm saying this little feature just for me triggered in my memory, there's verses that talk about stone working against us in this context because, of course, we have the foundation and the rock of Christ, so you have to balance it.

But 2 Corinthians 3, verse 3, clearly you are an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh. That is the heart. And so you have this tabernacle, this temple, and the structure, permanent structure, not portable like Moses, and God is saying, I need the stone for the foundation, but everything has to be in its place. Inside I want the beauty and the glory, and on the outside or beneath it, I want the strength.

But there's more. Verse 19, And he prepared in the inner sanctuary inside the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. Now, the ark is not here yet. That will not happen until chapter 8, the first verse, the dedication. But this room, this holy of holies, is not now a holy of holy place in the truest sense. It's an empty space until the ark arrives. Then it becomes the most holy place because the ark is the presence of God to the people, and I am with you. The Shekinah departs, and Ezekiel talks about that in chapter 10 of his prophecy, and it's a reluctant departure. At first he lifts off the cherubim.

Then he goes by the threshold of the door. Then he crosses over the brook, and it's this sad distancing of God having to leave the people who want nothing to do with him. And those who accuse God of deism, just abandoning the planet, they don't understand. So here, the sanctuary where the ark is going to go is just an empty space until the presence of God comes, and that presence of God will depart because of their apostasy. So much to think about.

If you're going through this in your devotional time, at least for me, these are the things that make you say, you know, I've got to think about this. Verse 20, the inner sanctuary was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 20 cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold and overlaid the altar of cedar. Eleven times in this chapter we read the word gold, and 10 times we read of that gold being overlaid. You saw no wood.

The priest that was in the holy place and the holiest of holies, when he looked around, he did not see wood. He saw gold. God never sees me apart from his son, the king. Gold is the emblem of royalty. And when God looks at me, he doesn't see the sinful nature that is underneath what has been made valuable by the blood of the lamb.

And thank God it is that way. Jesus looked at Peter and said, tonight you will deny me three times. He saw beyond Peter, Peter's failure, because he says to him, when you return, strengthen your brothers. And will we see in Acts chapter 2, Peter, the one who failed miserably, is leading, you know, multitudes to Christ.

Peter didn't even know what to do with them. He preached a sermon so good he didn't know how to finish this thing. 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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