1 Kings 7

Discussion Questions

1. The level of detail of Solomon’s Temple in this chapter is profound.  How are today’s houses of worship similar?  How are they different? Why?
2. Luke 17:21 says, “…behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” What does this mean? How is God building his kingdom through you?
3. “We cannot be our own foundation…” Have you ever tried to be your own foundation? When have you been thankful to have God as your foundation?
4. See CS Lewis quote: Name a time in your life when you thought, “what on earth is He up to?” How is the palace God is building different from the cottage you imagined?

Transcript

Well, we study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel and today is no different. And if you’d like a paper copy to follow along with, raise your hand and someone will deliver it to you quickly. And if you prefer to use your device, you can hop on our Wi-Fi. There’s our information, the network, and the password, and you can also grab the QR code if you want to get to the sermon notes and the quotes.

This morning, we’re going to continue our study of 1 and 2 Kings that we’re calling “The King of Redemption History.” And I’ve titled our study this morning, “What’s He Building?” with apologies to Tom Waits. Any Tom Waits fans? Come on, come on. Yes, I figured. Yes. Well, 1999 Mule Variation. What’s he building in there? If you knew Tom Waits – if you know, you know.

It’s a creepy little spoken word piece that I won’t go through right now, but it’s great, and he’s super talented. What’s he building? Well, if you drive around Nashville at all these days, you’re familiar with this whole process of a builder coming in and bulldozing a few old houses, getting ready to build a new, bigger building of some sort. The first thing they do is dig this gigantic hole in the ground surrounded with fence.

And then, it just sits there for a while, and you’re wondering every day you drive by, “What are they building in there?” You just got to know. So, this is all going to apply both to our good friend, King Solomon and then to us, hopefully too. Solomon reigned in Jerusalem for 40 years. We’re so used to term limits, right? Four years, and six years and renewable stuff, 40 years, that’s a long time.

Half of that, 20 years, was spent in this long construction project, seven years on the temple and 13 years on his house, almost twice as long as the temple really. It’s definitely a building phase in Solomon’s life. And we’re going to get to the end of the building phase today. We’ve got a lot to get through in this chapter. On this next slide, I’ve got a little breakdown that I’d like to show you of our chapter, a little bit of an outline that’ll help us get through the details.

So, even though Solomon spent twice as long on the building of his palace, it doesn’t get much airtime in this passage. It just gets 12 verses. It’s almost like the author was saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Solomon has a big palace and he spent twice as long on it, but it’s not as important as the temple.” And you know what? It isn’t as important as the temple. The temple represents where God comes to dwell with His people. It represents where the priests make atonement for our sin in order that we can approach God. And as Pastor Jim said last week, the God of the house is much more important than the house of God. And all of the details that we’re going to see today, and boy, there’s a lot of them, they point to Christ, the temple.

All of the furnishings, everything in the temple, it points to Christ, to His fulfillment of the law and to His once and for all atonement for our sin. Amen. Well, back to our outline. The second part of the chapter describes Hiram, a craftsman from Tyre. And this is not King Hiram. This is another man, and that’s where we’ll spend the bulk of our passage today, describing in great detail a lot of the furnishings that he made for the temple. There’re some big ones, the two pillars, the sea, and the 10 stands, and bases, and then a lot of smaller bronze pieces. And then, the last part of the chapter, it describes the golden vessels that Solomon has made for the temple.

Well, let’s pray, church, and then we’ll dive into this chapter: Heavenly Father, we all come to You this morning with different hurts, hearts weighed down in different ways, different celebrations, hearts lifted up in different ways, different desires, but we are here. Lord, we ask that You would meet all of us here, meet each of us here. Help us to hear Your voice and open our hearts to you in a new way today. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, before we start reading, there’s a graphic here from the ESV study Bible and I forgot to get the laser pointer out, so I’m just going to point. So, if you’ll notice, there’s that big vessel, that’s called the sea. That’s where the priests would wash and ritually cleanse themselves in order to present a sacrifice. That thing holds 12,000 gallons of water. And then, the little carts, they’re called stands, next to it. There’s five there, and five on the other side of the temple, and there’s a little basin in each of those that holds about 240 gallons of water. Those are used to clean the sacrifices, the animals, the animal parts before they’re offered as burnt offerings.

And then, you can see on the entrance into the temple, one of those big pillars that Hiram is going to make. Those were freestanding, they’re not load bearing, but you would see those every time you went into the temple. So, I just wanted you to have that in your mind’s eye while we read through some of these details. I think that will be helpful. Alrighty, well, chapter 7 of 1 Kings starting with verse 1, Solomon builds his palace. “Solomon was building his own house 13 years, and he finished his entire house.” He built the house of the forest of Lebanon, which probably end up being an armory because there’s mention later on of 300 shields being stored in there.

“Its length was a hundred cubits, and its breath 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits. I’m not going to say this on everything, but Jim has been reminding us, a cubit is about a foot and a half. So, this one house, 150 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet tall. That’s big. Well, it was built on four rows of cedar pillars with cedar beams on the pillars, and it was covered with cedar above the chambers that were on the 45 pillars, 15 in each row. There were window frames in three rows, and window opposite window in three tiers. All the doorways and windows had square frames, and window was opposite window in three tiers. And he made the hall of pillars, which was just a foyer, an entryway to all the other houses in the compound. Its length was 50 cubits and its breadth 30 cubits.

“There was a porch in front with pillars, and a canopy in front of them, and he made the hall of the throne where he was to pronounce judgment, even the hall of judgment. It was finished with cedar from floor to rafters.” That’s where he would sit on the throne. And one of his jobs as king was to pronounce judgment for the people and that’s where he would do it. Well, then his own house where he was to dwell in the other court back of the hall was of like workmanship. Solomon also made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter whom he’d had taken in marriage. All these were made of costly stones cut according to measure, sawed with saws back in front, even from the foundation to the coping and from the outside to the great court.

“The foundation was of costly stones, huge stones. Stones of eight and 10 cubits, and above were costly stones cut according to measurement in cedar. The great court had three courses of cut stone all around in a course of cedar beams, so had the inner court of the house of the Lord and the vestibule of the house.” Big stuff. I think Solomon was from Texas because everything he did was big.

Well, verse 13, we’re going to start getting into the bulk of the chapter. We’re going to meet Hiram here. “King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre.” Again, this is not King Hiram that we’ve already heard about. He was the son of a widow… God bless you, of the tribe of Naphtali. And his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze, so Israeli mother and a Phoenician father. “And he [Hiram] was full of wisdom, understanding and skill for making any work in bronze”. He came to King Solomon and did all his work. And the way that the author talks about Hiram here, he was full of wisdom, understanding and skill. That’s very much like Bezalel, he is described from Exodus 31, who is in charge of building all of the tabernacles.

God gives each of us gifts and He can use those gifts in a life yielded to Him for His kingdom. And that’s what happens here. So, verse 15, here’s the first of these big things that Hiram built. He cast two pillars of bronze. 18 cubits was the height of one pillar, a line of 12 cubits measured its circumference. So, that is 27 feet tall, 18 feet around. These things are huge. It was hollow. Its thickness was four fingers, about three inches. The second pillar was the same. Here’s some of this amazing detail that we’re privy to. “He also made two capitals of cast bronze to sit on the tops of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits. The height of the other capital was five cubits.

“There were lattices of checker work with reeds of chain work for the capitals on the tops of the pillars, a lattice for the one capital and a lattice for the other capital. Likewise, he made pomegranates in two rows around the one lattice work to cover the capital that was on top of the pillar. And he did the same with the other capital.” Very consistent. Now, “…the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were of lily work, four cubits. The capitals were on the two pillars and also above the round in projection, which was built beside the lattice work. There were 200 pomegranates and two rows all around and so with the other capital. He set up the pillars at the vestibule, the entrance of the temple.

“He set up the pillar on the south and called its name Jachin, and he set up the pillar on the north and called its name Boaz. And on the tops of the pillars was lily work. Thus, the work of the pillars was finished.” The names of these two pillars, Jachin roughly means “he established.” The Lord has established His temple. Boaz means “by Him.” He is mighty. In other words, the king is reliant on the Lord for his strength and his ability to rule. And the king and all the priests, everybody that entered that temple, every time they entered, they’d see those two pillars, know the names, know what they meant, and were reminded that, “Oh yeah, it is by God that this is established and it is by God’s strength that this remains.”

Okay, moving on to the sea. Verse 23, “…then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round 10 cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of 30 cubits measured its circumference.” So, this big sea, 15 feet across, seven-and-a-half feet high. “…under its brim were gourds for 10 cubits, compassing the sea all around, the gourds were in two rows, cast with it when it was cast.” That’s important. “It stood on 12 oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, three facing east. The sea was set on them, and all their rear parts were inward.” In other words, they were facing outward. “Its thickness was a hand breadth and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like the flour of a lily. It held 2,000 baths…” about 11,000 or 12,000 gallons. That is big.

Now, we’re moving on to the next thing, the stands. “He also made the 10 stands of bronze.” Those were those little carts that we saw. “Each stand was four cubits long, four cubits wide and three cubits high. This was the construction of the stands. They had panels and the panels were set in the frames. And on the panels that were set in the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the frames, both above and below the lions and oxen, there were wreaths of beveled work. Moreover, each stand had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze. And at the four corners were supports for a basin. The supports were cast with wreaths at the side of each. Its opening was within a crown that projected upward one cubit.

“Its opening was round as a pedestal is made a cubit and a half deep. At its opening, there were carvings, and its panels were square knot round. And the four wheels were underneath the panels. The axles of the wheels were of one piece with the stands, and the height of a wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made like a chariot wheel. Their axles, their rims, their spokes, their hubs were all cast, all of one piece. There were four supports at the four corners of each stand. The supports were of one piece with the stands. And on the top of the stand, there was a round band, half a cubit high. And on the top of the stand, its stays and its panels were of one piece with it.

“And on the surfaces of its stays and on its panels, he carved cherub in lines and palm trees according to the space of each with reeds all around. And after this manner, he made the 10 stands. All of them were cast alike of the same measure and the same form. And he made 10 basins of bronze. Each basin held 40 baths, again, 240 gallons. Each basin measured four cubits. And there was a basin for each of the 10 stands. And he set the stands five on the south side of the house, [meaning the temple] and five on the north side of the house. And he set the sea at the southeast corner of the house.” And here’s some of the smaller things: “He also made the pots, the shovels and the basins. So, Hiram finished all the work that he did for King Solomon on the house of the Lord.”

And I’m going to fly… not read the next four verses because it just restates everything he made. So, moving on to verse 45. “Now, the pots, the shovels and the basins, all these vessels in the house of the Lord, which Hiram made for King Solomon were a burnished bronze in the plain of the Jordan, the king cast them in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan. And Solomon left all the vessels unweighed because there were so many of them. The weight of the bronze was not ascertained.”

So, talking about the plane and the sculpting process, this is why it’s so impressive that all that stuff was all of one piece. So, Hiram used this sculpting process called the “lost-wax process,” or I wish I had written it up there. It’s C-I-R-E-P-E-R-D-U-E, cirperdue. So, it started around 2,500 B.C. in Egypt. It went through the Middle Ages, but some sculptors still use it. And Kim, I meant to ask you this, does Ross use this? It’s a complicated thing. So, how this works, there was all of this clay on the plains that we just read about. So, the sculptor would make a mold out of clay, and then he would take wax, and melt the wax, and make a thick mold of wax over that layer of clay. And then, he would come back with another mold to find clay, put it over the top of the wax.

Then, they would put all that into a giant oven, and heat it up, and they cut little holes or vents in the outer layer of clay. So, what would happen when they heated it up? The wax would heat up and get molten and would run out. Well, then they would replace the space left in there between the two layers of clay with molten bronze, inject that in there, fill it up. Then, they would let it all cool. And when it was all cool and hardened, they would break the outside layer of clay. And since the bronze was hollow, they would go in and break the inside layer of clay. And there you have your sculpture. And think about this, those 27-foot-tall pillars, that huge vessel that held 12,000 gallons of water, those must have been gigantic ovens.

And what amazing craftsmanship to be able to do this several thousand years ago, it’s just stunning. Hiram was good at his job. So, let’s finish this out, verse 48. “Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of the Lord, the golden altar, the golden table for the bread of the presence. The lamp stands of pure gold, five on the south side and five on the north before the inner sanctuary. The flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of gold, the cups, snuffers, basins, dishes for incense, and fire pans of pure gold, and the sockets of gold for the doors of the innermost part of the house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the nave of the temple. Thus, all the work that King Solomon did on the house of the Lord was finished.

“And Solomon brought in the things that David, his father, dedicated, the silver, the gold, and the vessels and stored them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.” Well, certificate of occupancy has been released. We are done building the temple and the palace. So, over the last couple of weeks as I’ve been studying this and thinking about it, I’ve just been so mindful of this concept of building foundations. And I am in awe of architects, engineers, and builders who can look at something and they can look at the beginning stages of a construction project, but they already have in their mind, they know what it’s going to look like when it’s completed. That’s just amazing vision.

Well, there are three things to me that have stood out that I just have been thinking about and thinking about in relation to building. And the first one is that God is building His kingdom now. Jim has talked several times about asking us this question: What role might Jesus be asking you to fill or fulfill right now in redemption history? God is building his kingdom right now. At this very moment, He’s building His kingdom come among us. It’s been such a hard week in the news – just unspeakable tragedy occurring in Israel and Palestine. And do I have an answer for why that happened? Why God allowed that to happen? No, I mean except for the fact that it points to the fact that evil exists in the world, that sin exists, that as far as the curse is found is still present in the world.

We know that Jesus has promised one day to make all things right, and we know that we’re still living in the tension of the now and the not-yet, right? But God is building His kingdom right now. And this week has not changed that. The Old Testament looked forward to the promise of God making all things right, the completion of God’s redemptive work. And when Jesus was alive, when He was incarnated, many thought that that was the time when the kingdom would be restored. When Messiah comes, the kingdom will be restored. And in Luke 17, some Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come, and this was His response: “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

It is in the middle of you. It is right in you. And then, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, you’d think that the disciples would understand the concept of “Your kingdom come.” It looked different than a political or a military kingdom. But even then, they asked, in the first chapter of Acts, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And it’s stunning to me that they still ask that question. And Jesus responds and He says, “Well, it’s not for you to know the times or season that the Father has fixed by his own authority,” which is really important. God, the Father, has the authority here. And then, Jesus goes on to tell the disciples, “You’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

The Father has fixed his own authority. And just like Jim led us in that confession of faith about the providence of God, His authority is unwavering. A.W. Tozer puts it like this: “While it looks like things are out of control, behind the scenes there is a God who has not surrendered authority.” Amen. He has not surrendered authority. So, a question that I have for myself and for all of you: What are you building? What am I building? What are we spending our lives building? A couple of weeks ago, when Pastor Jim was teaching through chapter 5, he talked about doing our best work. Do you remember? And he was using the phrase, he said, “Don’t live to work, instead work to live.”

And then, he said, “Work to worship, work to live, work to worship.” And I’m going to add another thought to that phrase: Work to build “Your kingdom come.” It’s all a question of why, right? What’s the why in what we do? We always ask that question for any program, or event or study that we do. What is the why? What’s your why in what you do? Is it just to build a great business or be great at what you do? Those are all fine and good. Or is there a deeper why? Is it to build a great business and be great at what you do in order to build “Your kingdom come” in every square inch of your life, your square inch of creation? And I was thinking about this this morning.

We pray “Your kingdom come” every time we recite the Lord’s Prayer. But are we open to God building that in our lives, and through our lives, and the people that we’re around? What would that look like in your life to be able to say, “God, Your kingdom come in my life this coming week”? Which brings up another question: What foundation is your life resting on? Have you noticed the foundation down at the end of the hall, the TVC Plaza outside the living room? For a couple of weeks, we had the footers in and conduits and some of that stuff, but I think on Friday, they started laying the foundation. And it looks fantastic. It looks great, rock solid.

So, here’s the interesting thing that most of us know about foundation work. It’s so important to the structural integrity of the building that it supports. And then, after the foundation is laid and the rest of the structure gets built, you don’t see the foundation anymore, do you? But it’s doing its job day in and day out, carrying the load of the entire structure, support, stability – 24/7. Isaiah 33:6 talks about this type of support. I love this verse: “He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.” Man, what a promise that is, a rich store of salvation, wisdom and knowledge, a sure foundation that will last our whole life long.

Thinking about this idea of foundations, I’m just going to read this passage. I didn’t put it up on a slide because it’s a little lengthy. Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Do you notice that both of these groups of people who built their houses experienced the same type of stress in their lives?

The people who built their house on the rock experienced the same type of stress that the people who built their house on sand experienced. Being believers didn’t magically remove them from the storms of life, but their firm foundation gave them support to withstand the storms of life. Spoiler alert, typically, if you have cracks in your walls, you’ve got a foundation problem, right? So, again, I ask the question: What foundation is our life resting on? Culture carries on this unending conversation with us telling us that the bedrock of our identity, the foundation of who we are, is up to us. It’s our choice. It’s our truth.

And whatever happens to move us on any particular day, that becomes our foundation, our ultimate truth, our ultimate support in life. And the problem with that worldview is that there’s no substance to place a foundation on. It’s just this ever-shifting sands, and tides of people’s emotions, and whims in a physiological construction. We can’t be our own foundation. There’s just nothing to support us. It does not work. In other words, our foundation needs to be on the bedrock of the living God who created the heavens out of nothing, who is steady and sure throughout all generations.

Sinclair Ferguson says it like this: “The foundation of our love for the Lord lies in the recognition of His holiness, our sinfulness and His grace…those who are forgiven much love much.” That is our firm foundation to build our lives on, to cling to when the storms of life come. And God does not leave us in the dust. The miracle of grace is that when we’re at our worst, that’s the point where He stands the most firm, right? Where God refuses to abandon the work of His hands, but instead sacrifices His own son to save His original creation and His handiwork, which is our last takeaway from this passage.

Aren’t we glad that Jesus is in the restoration business and not the demolition business? When we’re at our most vulnerable, our lowest, when we’ve trusted in ourselves rather than God, when we’ve chosen ourselves first and chosen God last, man, instead of showing up in a bulldozer to just scrape us off, and demolish us, and push us into a trash heap, He shows up with a set of blueprints for a renovation project to rebuild us from the inside out. He promises to make all things new. He promises to make us new.

This past week at lunchtime talks, Pastor Tommy taught through the Book of Joel and one of my favorite passages is from Joel 2, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else, and my people shall never be put to shame.” My loved ones, I cannot emphasize this enough. God steadfastly refuses to give up on us. He relentlessly pursues us with grace, and He absolutely refuses to cast us aside like trash.

His marvelous little book, Creation Regained, which I can’t recommend highly enough, Al Wolters says this, “God didn’t make junk, and He doesn’t junk what He made.” He’s not going to cast us aside. He is in the restoration business, not the demolition business. We sang this Guy Peterson song last week is our response hymn and here’s the last verse: “I am not my own and now my heart is free. O Maker, come and make what You will of me. There is nothing broken that You cannot repair. So, Lord, I leave my life in Your loving care.”

And I’ll close with this C.S. Lewis quote: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. And at first, perhaps, you can understand what He’s doing. He’s getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? What’s He building? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of… you thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live it Himself.”

That is good news, isn’t it? What’s He building? We can trust the work that God is doing in our lives because he’s building a temple, a palace, in each one of us where He intends to come and dwell with us. He’s building His kingdom come and He invites us to be part of that process with Him. Amen. Let’s pray, church: God, we thank You that you are building Your kingdom come, that You have not abandoned us. You have not abandoned that work when You certainly could have. And we come to You and just say that even when it’s hard, we trust in You to continue to build Your kingdom in us. Whatever it looks like, whatever the method looks like, we don’t know, but we know that we can trust You. We know that You are always and only good. And we lift this up in Jesus’ name. Amen.