Dedicating the Temple (Part C)

His glory can be expressed by his just developing us to be more mature, more effective Christians. Examples, of course, are all over the New Testament, from Christ to John the Baptist to Stephen to James the Apostle. These men were all brutally slain. They were living sacrifices. That's what happens in war. We talk about spiritual war.

How much spiritual war are we talking about? 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. Today, Pastor Rick will conclude his message called, Dedicating the Temple, in 1 Kings Chapter 8. They would say something about, the Bible says this. And I said, what did you find? Did you ever read the Bible?

Why would you even repeat that? That's not in the Bible. That's contrary to the Bible.

And that was just so remarkable because it was so fruitful. Well, that to me is part of the church bringing the light to the world. And the blessings that God is giving the people was not that they might, of course, hoard and boast of the blessings as they eventually did. They would shut the world away from the Gentile.

They would boast that they were God's people and the Gentiles were, you know, fuel for the fires of hell. That is, of course, not what God wanted. Verse 44, when your people go out to battle against their enemy wherever you send them, and when they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen and the temple which I have built for your name. Verse 45, then here in heaven their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause. Oh, man, do I want God to maintain my cause.

I feel He always has. But I also feel it is always cost. I don't know, you know, seldom is it free. This pain of heart, this emotion is in it. Skin is in the game. And it hurts to serve God.

And I think anybody who's serving public ministry, oh, it's just wonderful. I think they're lying and they probably sound like that. Because it hurts. It's hard stuff. And just ask Paul who said, I bear on my body the marks of Christ.

How intense is that? And it wasn't one or two. He didn't just get shoved around once or twice.

He took some heavy beatings. And the healing in process, you know, when he and Silas are going from Philippi to Thessalonica, walking down those roads, maybe hitching a ride on a cart as it's bumping down those Roman brick roads, you've got to know the caning they received on their backs is still oozing out stuff and sensitive. And they get there and they preach Christ and the Thessalonians are like, what is this? They beat you over there and you're still preaching?

Sign us up. Many of them became Christians. So, yeah, Christianity is. But God knows how to bind the sacrifice to the altar. He knows how to tie you to the place where you're going to be sacrificed so you can't get away.

J.W. Tojo said, God is ingenious at making crosses for us. And it's just, these are facts. And I don't think anybody can dispute them.

What it comes down to, is it worth it? That's where the action is. Well, that's why Paul says, you know, I give myself. I am spent and will gladly be spent for you Corinthians. I would have organized a beat down party for the Corinthians. Paul, we're sick of what those Corinthians are doing. They're not Christians.

We're going to go get them. Verse 45. Then here in heaven their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause. To have God maintain the cause. Now, Israel was not to choose their own battles. They were being attacked, of course, the reaction was standard. But as far as launching an offensive against a foreign power or kingdom, they had to be led by God.

And that is no different from us. When we are launching the gospel into enemy territory, we want to be led by God. Verse 46. When they sin against you and there is no one who does not sin and you become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy and they take them captive to the land of the enemy far and near. Verse 47. Yet when they come to themselves in the land where they are carried captive and repent and make supplication to you in the land of those who took them captive, saying, We have sinned and done wrong. We have committed wickedness. Now, of course, it had to be more than verbalizing this.

It had to be a contrite heart. And here is another veiled prophecy of the captivity. Displacement of vanquished people was common for large kingdoms. You'd conquer somebody and you'd take out the ones you liked, take the cream of the crop to the palace and the others you'd spread out and displace them and the ones you really thought were a threat, you'd kill them. That's systematically relocating the people.

That's how they did it. Micah, in his prophecies, Micah, around the time of Isaiah, I think he was a little older than Isaiah in his ministry, and they did minister at the same time for a period. He writes, Be in pain and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion.

Now pause there. Remember we said Zion grew to mean other things than just that hilltop, and there's an application. He says, Like a woman in birth pangs, for now you shall go forth from the city, you shall dwell in the field, and to Babylon you shall go. There you shall be delivered, there Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

He leaves out that it will take over 70 years to bring that about, but that's the truth. And of course, a little more than 200 years from now, the Syrians will take away the northern kingdom and then about 360 years from this point, they will begin taking them away from Judea. There were raids that were going throughout the time of the kings after Solomon. Naaman, you know, he was conducting raids against Israel.

In fact, it was a servant girl, a little Jewish servant girl, that introduced Naaman's wife, and not in person, but by name, in fact, to Elisha the prophet. Well, this statement about all are guilty before God, well, we Christians know that, but it's still, I think, a positive exercise to review it. Proverbs 20 verse 9, Who can say I have made my heart clean? I am pure from my sin.

I don't know, that's that plague in your own heart, right? Ecclesiastes 7, For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. So you have those who do good, but they do sin also. Romans 3, As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. Then verse 23 of Romans 3, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Now notice the difference in that verse. All have sinned. The tenses, all sinned, is past tense, and then he goes on, because we're not only sinners by nature, but we're also sinners by practice, he goes on, fall short of the glory, that's present tense. All have sinned, that's the past, and fall present, and it's an ongoing fight. So we fall short in ourselves of the glory of God, and yet, as God said, you know, my temple is here, there's a way back, there's a way to be cleansed. 1 John, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And the devil, he just wants to challenge one word in that. All righteousness? All of it?

You sure about that? And try to leave us with enough guilt to harm us and others around us. Verse 48, And when they return to you with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, who led them away captive and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the temple which I have built for your name. Verse 49, Then here in heaven your dwelling place, their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against you, and grant them compassion before those who took them captive, that they may have compassion on them. Verse 51, For they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of the iron furnace. Well, next time someone says, Well, the Old Testament is all hate and anger. Well, there's grace.

I don't know about that. Just flat out grace. Always the road back to God is open. The road back to God for one entire lifetime is never blocked.

It is never flooded. It is never, it's just there for us. Jonah looked toward the temple and prayed, as I read earlier, and God forgave him. David wanted God to be the center of their existence, and the temple was just, it was the product again of David saying, Why do I live in a cedar-paneled house and the Ark of the Covenant, the representation of the presence of God, is in a tent? And he wanted God to be central, and it happened. That reference to the iron furnace comes from Deuteronomy 4.

Jeremiah picks it up too. It's metaphor for the harsh conditions in Egypt. Verse 52, That your eyes may be opened to the supplication of your servant and the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them wherever they call you. Verse 53, For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your inheritance, as you spoke by your servant Moses, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Adonai Yahweh, O Lord Yahweh. There is no set time for the Jew to come and pray. He could pray any time. There were set intervals where public worship was to be organized because it was in synchronization with the sacrifices, at least some of them, but not as an individual Jew.

You could pray any time. Daniel prayed three times a day, which made sense, and of course, picking up on the lead from David in his Psalms, separated the people. Well, there's your difference. The Jews versus everybody else, you could say. Jews versus the Gentile world. Christianity comes along, and it says, we're going to keep this thing with the Jews being God's people because they're part of his end time plan, but for now, the church, they will have their assignment.

That's the way it is right now. Israel's not going anywhere. To the millennial kingdom, that's where it's going. Verse 54, are some of you, and I know you don't gamble because you're Christians and there's no wages taking place, but if there were, who would be betting that I'm not going to get to the end of this chapter? 66 verses, well, minus 21. Verse 54, and so it was when Solomon had finished praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh that he arose from before the altar of Yahweh from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. Then he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, Blessed be Yahweh, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised.

There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised through his servant Moses. So we've got these various prayer postures. You can pray impaled on a cross. You can pray while you're being stoned. You can pray while you're in a fish. You can pray on your knees with your hands up. You can secretly pray as Nehemiah did. If you're falling head first, you pray falling head first.

There's no restriction. Verse 57, may Yahweh our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us nor forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to himself to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers.

Well, you've got to love. I mean, it's a long prayer, and the historian really enjoyed this prayer, and he has captured as much of it as he could. I like when he says Solomon prayed with a loud voice.

He's bellowing this out. You get to Revelation, you're constantly hearing about the angels, with a loud voice, with a thunder, you know, this loud. Back to this section here. God, he's praying, would not forsake them, leave them or forsake them. Now, with them, it was based on their idolatry or refusal or their loyalty. What about my life when I feel like God has forsaken me and I can't put my finger on doing anything in particular that was wrong? God is doing the same thing. God blessed me, and all of a sudden now I feel like he's forsaking me when I've done all that he's asked.

What happens then? Well, it's not being forsaken if being abandoned by God is for God's glory, and that can go in a lot of directions. His glory can be expressed by his just developing us to be more mature, more effective Christians. Examples, of course, are all over the New Testament, from Christ to John the Baptist to Stephen to James the Apostle. These men were all brutally slain. They were living sacrifices. That's what happens in war, and we talk about spiritual war. How much spiritual war are we talking about?

I mean, troops have been sacrificed by politicians forever, because I, politicians, kill more troops than troops kill troops. Anyway, Romans 12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And that's what we have to learn to do, and it hurts. It doesn't mean God has always forsaken us. Actually, it can mean he's the author and finisher of our faith. Love and sacrifice are inseparable in a cursed world. Free will and sin are inseparable in a cursed world. You say, well, what if Adam and Eve didn't sin? No, they were going to sin. There's no way the free will is going to do it, and God said, I'm going to work this thing out.

I'm not going to abandon it. Verse 59, And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before Yahweh, be near Yahweh our God day and night, that he may maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel as each day may require? That's a daily prayer. Verse 60, That all the people of the earth may know that Yahweh is God, there is no other. Well, the presence of God to bless was dependent upon the people's obedience. And Solomon recognizes this, but he also recognized that to be obedient, the people were dependent on the presence of God. So there was this, you know, this interdependence.

Not independence or dependence, but interdependence. Our ability to love God comes from God. We know that. John says it right out. We love him because he first loved us.

It's good to remember that. Verse 61, Let your heart therefore be loyal to Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes and his commandments, as at this day. What is the first task of a Christian and a church? It's not to make disciples. The first responsibility of an individual Christian and a church is to be disciples. You know, what do you have otherwise? Lined up with Christ and working to order your life, to discipline it?

What is left? Jeremiah 16, O Yahweh, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come to you from the ends of the earth and say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, worthlessness and unprofitable things. Well, a born-again Gentile is saying that when he comes to Christ. Well, not if he's coming from a Christian home, he can't say that.

If he's coming from a non-Christian home, he can say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, worthless and unprofitable things. Israel was, again, supposed to be a royal priesthood, but they failed. The church is supposed to be a royal priesthood, and we fail. There is no way you can ever say the church is doing better than Israel.

We are messed up just like they are, but both are getting what God wants done in spite of it. Gradually, Solomon becomes more interested in politics rather than personal holiness. It comes with age, that temptation to be drawn away to say, You know, I put so many years into this, and I haven't gotten as far as I thought.

Man, I'm just going to start slacking off. That's a trap. He wanted splendor for the kingdom more than scripture. He began to invest himself in expanding the kingdom's influence instead of the scripture's influence on his own life. Well, as mentioned before, there will be two fillings of the temple. The one when the priest exited the temple after putting the ark there inside the holiest place, and then after Solomon finishes praying. 2 Chronicles 7, when Solomon had finished praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, and the sacrifices and the glory of Yahweh filled the temple. So just as when God ignited the altar of Moses, God is igniting the altar of Solomon at the temple. The priest could not enter, it tells us, also in 2 Chronicles, because of the glory of the Lord.

There was just no place for human activity with that much presence of God. Verse 62, Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before Yahweh, and Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Yahweh 22,000 bulls and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of Yahweh. Verse 64, On the same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of Yahweh, for there he offered burnt offerings, grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before Yahweh was too small to receive the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings. Verse 65, At that Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great assembly from the entrance of Haman to the brook of Egypt, before Yahweh our God, seven days, and seven more days, fourteen days. This was just this extraordinary festival, and so it should have been. You've got Jews coming in from Syria and all over Egypt, just converging on Jerusalem.

They had 11 months to plan this, and it's no surprise that they were ready. They had the animals there, and they had the orders of the priests to take care of this. This altar of Solomon is 30 foot square.

It's 15 feet high. This was an enormous altar, so they could have multiple animals being offered up to the Lord, of course, and then he ordains auxiliary altars to help with the load. So this dedication of the temple, several things going on here. You had three Jewish holidays happening.

Well, almost three. I'll get to that in a minute, but you had the bringing of the ark into the temple. That's one part. Then you had the dedication of the temple, including the altar, and the feast first started with the Day of Atonement. In this seventh month of the Jew, the first day of that month was the Feast of Trumpets, and then the ninth day of the month began the Day of Atonement. They're all called feasts. We think of a meal.

That's not necessarily the idea. It's the celebration, the commemoration. The Day of Atonement, when they would reflect on their sins for a day, and then came, and the high priest would go into the altar and do what he did, then came the Feast of Booths, which was a seven-day period, seven-day feast, as was the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, which were together. So this Feast of Booths, which alone was seven days, was commemorating their wilderness wandering, when God provided for them manna from heaven and water and just was still with the people till he brought them into the Promised Land. It was to celebrate also the autumn harvest.

And as I mentioned, this altar just couldn't do it. So I just, you know, how do you crunch some numbers here, the rate of sacrifices of 142,000 animals? Twenty-two thousand bulls. Well, they would be, of course, the most time-consuming.

They probably, I don't know, anyway. In 14 days, if you divide that, you come up with 10,140. Fourteen days into the 144,000. I did it at a rate of 12 hour a day, with as much daylight as you could get out of it, I guess. Yeah, lunchtime, union rules. It comes up to about 845 sacrifices an hour. And then, you know, how many other, well, you say, well, how can you do that in a day?

Well, you can't. You've got a 14-day period here. So now it all becomes manageable. Just to review, this is September, October, Feast of Trumpets. No big celebration going on there. The Day of Atonement, a few days before this festivities begin. He dedicates the temple, dedicates the altar. They celebrate these feasts at the same time.

I think I've covered everything. So, we now come to verse 66. On the eighth day, he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their tents, joyful and glad of heart, for all the good that Yahweh had done for his servant David, and for Israel his people. And so the spirit of abundance, obvious right now, this was a good time to be an Israelite.

And it was a new and fresh beginning for the nation concerning their worship. 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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