Well, good evening. It is good to be together, even if it is a bit damp, and we're all feeling
a little bit moist this evening. As Pete mentioned, this is the second in our series on Solomon.
We've had last week and this week. Next week, Sunday evening, we have a break. The following
two weeks, John will continue in Solomon's story. Those of you who were here last week,
remember we talked about Solomon's slide with the overarching theme of these four evenings on
Solomon. How does the wisest of Israel's kings, so favored by God, seemingly start so well and yet
finish so badly? Thinking about last night and tonight, there's no surprise ending. We know the
story, and it's not a sort of cliffhanger. There's no spoiler alert. You know things are going to end
wrong. It feels a little bit awkward constructing a sermon where we hold up a picture and the pictures
are negative. That's for those of you who remember a thing called film. It was the inverse of what you
wanted to see, and when the photograph was developed, you saw the positive picture. Well, we're holding up
in some ways negatives in these four evenings, but I hope tonight as well, by the time we're finished,
we'll see some positives too. Well, let's just pause as we come to God's Word and seek His help again in
prayer. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do. Lord, we want to take that invitation this evening
seriously as we look again into your Word. So we ask that you would incline our hearts to your testimony
and away from selfish gain. And so do your work in our hearts for your glory's sake. It's in Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.
Well, last week as we began this series, we started with Solomon's wisdom, and this evening we look at
Solomon's worship. And last week we saw that his wisdom was compromised from the start and remained so,
and so maybe the slide wasn't as steeply sloped as we might have thought. In fact, it started at a fairly low level already.
Well, like last week, this week we'll be moving around in Solomon's story in 1 Kings, but we'll camp out a little bit
in 1 Kings chapter 8. So I'd invite you to turn to 1 Kings chapter 8,
and then keep your Bibles open in front of you.
Those who were here this morning, we had quite a long prayer which focused on Israel's sin,
and those of you who know 1 Kings chapter 8 will know that it's a long prayer that focuses on Israel's sin.
But we won't be looking at the whole of the passage, and our focus is Solomon's worship.
We saw last week already that Solomon was a keen worshiper. He was an enthusiast.
And so this week as we explore his worship, we want to see how someone so eager to be in God's presence
could end up by experiencing God's absence.
So 1 Kings chapter 8 is the story of the dedication of the temple that Solomon built,
or that was built under Solomon's direction.
And we'll just read the first 13 verses to start to explore Solomon at worship.
So this is 1 Kings 8 verse 1.
1 Kings 8 verse 1.
And they brought up the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it.
The priests and the Levites carried them up.
And King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark,
sacrificing so many sheep and cattle they could not be recorded or counted.
The priests then brought the ark of the Lord's covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple,
the most holy place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim.
The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its carrying poles.
These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary,
but not from outside the holy place.
And they're still there today.
There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets Moses had placed in it at Horeb,
where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
When the priests withdrew from the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord,
and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud,
for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.
Then Solomon said,
The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud.
I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell.
Forever.
And so we see Solomon at worship.
Now, we could spend weeks looking at the theme of worship.
It's a very rich theme to dig into.
Already in the things that Pete's put together for us to our singing and in our prayers and in our reading,
we'll have seen lots of pointers to true worship and what it's about and so on.
But we'll be looking at four moments in Solomon's life where we see Solomon at worship.
And it would help to have some definition of what worship is.
And worship can mean different things.
It means different things in different contexts.
But my working definition for us this evening runs this way.
Worship is the recognition and respect offered to God in public and private life,
by which we enjoy communion with him.
And that captures quite a bit, perhaps not everything, but quite a bit of what worship is about.
The recognition and respect offered to God in our public and private life,
by which we enjoy communion with him.
So everything isn't worship, but a lot of things are worship.
What we do here together is worship, but what we do on our own is worship.
The four moments that we'll press into in Solomon's life have a little slide of their own.
There's four of them.
Well, they go down and down and down.
And then we get a nice little flip up at the end.
At least that's the hope.
We'll see that Solomon's worship involves him in expensive building,
in exuberant sacrifices, in expansive spirituality,
but also brings up emphatic obedience.
And as we move through his building work, his sacrificing,
his spirituality and his note of obedience,
we'll see that Solomon's external and visible actions,
what he did, held at best an uncertain relationship
to his internal and actual standing before God.
The old adage, you can't tell a book by its cover.
What Solomon's doing externally in worship bears an uncertain relationship.
To what's going on internally between him and God.
And of course, the overarching question as we look at Solomon at worship is,
is this also true for us, for me?
Well, we start then with Solomon's expensive building.
And the passage we read at the beginning of 1 Kings 8
comes towards the culmination of Solomon's temple building project.
It's a project he inherited from his father.
You might remember that when David intended to build a temple,
initially the prophet Nathan came to him and said,
right, on you go.
All that is in your heart, it's good to do, do it.
And the prophet went away and the Lord said to Nathan,
no, that's not my plan.
Go back to David and tell him that he won't be the one to build a house for me.
And so this task of building a temple for the Lord is inherited, in a sense, by Solomon.
And it dominates Solomon's story in 1 Kings 1 to 11.
That's where Solomon's story runs.
And actually, it's the whole central section.
It amounts to almost half of Solomon's story.
It's the story from chapter 5 to chapter 8 of Solomon preparing to build the temple,
setting people up out to build the temple,
getting, moving into the temple, and dedicating the temple.
Almost half of Solomon's story.
Like we saw with kingship last week,
the temple is quite late coming to Israel.
Everybody had temples.
Every good king has a temple.
And with the late coming of kingship to Israel,
so we have a late coming to Israel of a temple.
Now, it's not to say that the temple,
nor to say that the king was a bad thing in coming to Israel.
And you'll have seen in the reading that we had
that the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
So, this is the place that God has chosen to mark his presence with his people.
But we know its late coming.
There's a couple of things to note about the timing of its coming to Israel
that help us to see the place it has in Solomon's life of worship.
Take us into that, at any case.
Turn back a couple of pages to 1 Kings chapter 6.
So, chapter 5 is all preparations for temple building.
In chapter 6, they get started.
So, chapter 6, verse 1.
In the 480th year after the Israelites came out of Egypt,
in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel,
in the month of Ziv, the second month,
he began to build the temple of the Lord.
Well, I note this not because we just like all the technical details.
You know, it's like getting a car or a computer or a new appliance.
And we just love reading the manual and the specifications.
That's not quite it.
It's because our historian puts this timing here for a reason.
As far as this historian is concerned,
the temple comes at the precise midpoint of God's national life with his people Israel.
It's a very significant moment.
480 years after the Israelites came out of Egypt.
Well, what had happened in this chronology 480 years earlier?
Well, it's the exodus from Egypt, but it's also the dedication of the tabernacle.
And some of you might have heard an echo of the end of exodus in our passage from 1 Kings 8.
This is what happens when the tabernacle is dedicated.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Moses couldn't enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
That's the exodus event.
480 years, we're at Solomon in the temple,
and the glory of the Lord fills the temple.
And 480 years on this reckoning later,
we'll get Ezra founding the second temple.
And we have these markers of Israel's worship life with God.
And here we have Solomon's temple right at the fulcrum,
the center point of that history of this God and this people.
So it shows us something of the importance accorded to the temple.
But what kind of importance did it have for Solomon?
Well, clearly it was important.
But if we go to the end of chapter 6, we can start to qualify that.
So the end of chapter 6, we'll pick it up in verse 37,
which repeats verse 1, basically.
The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year,
in the month of Ziv.
That's what we read in verse 1.
Solomon's fourth year, he starts building.
In the eleventh year, the month of Bul, the eighth month,
the temple was finished in all its details,
according to its specifications.
To save us from doing the maths,
he had spent seven years building it.
That's a pretty substantial building project on any reckoning.
But we keep reading across the chapter division.
Let's continue into chapter 7.
It took Solomon 13 years, however,
to complete the construction of his palace.
And its construction then is briefly told.
Well, it's a joint building project then.
And Solomon's building for a long time.
Seven years on the temple,
13 years on the palace complex.
Three observations about this.
First, as I've noted already,
our interest this evening isn't on the fact of the temple.
It's the place of the Lord's choosing
to mark his presence with his people.
But it's on Solomon's building as an act of worship.
And if we have that in mind,
and if worship is that offering
of recognition and respect given to God,
and by which we enjoy communion with him,
then for all its grandeur,
Solomon's building of this temple
seems at best partial.
Maybe we're not intended to think
that it's half as important to him
as the building of his own palace.
But it invites us to at least raise that question.
Solomon's building as an act of worship towards God
seems at best partial.
Well, beyond this is the observation that
repeatedly through chapter 8,
as the temple is dedicated,
five times in all,
we read that this is the house that Solomon built.
And we know that because Solomon is the one telling us
that this is the house that Solomon built.
I mean, we saw the first of these in verse 13
as we finish that passage.
Solomon said,
the Lord,
Solomon said,
the Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud.
I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you,
a place for you to dwell forever.
And four more times as chapter 8 unfolds,
the house that I have built,
do this in the house that I have built.
Well, it's worth recalling a Psalm of Solomon.
There's two Psalms of Solomon in the 150 in the Psalms.
Last week we looked briefly at Psalm 72.
The other one is Psalm 127.
Do you remember how that one begins?
Some of you will.
Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.
Solomon loved building.
He built all kinds of things.
As we see the end of the dedication of the temple in chapter 9,
when Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord
and the royal palace
and had built all he had desired to build,
on it goes.
And later on in chapter 9,
it gives us a further account of Solomon's building activities.
This is verse 17.
Although it starts before that,
Solomon rebuilt Gezer.
He built lower Bet-Horon,
Balat, and Tadmor in the desert within his land.
He built all his store cities
and the towns for his chariots and his horses.
Whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem,
in Lebanon,
and throughout all the territory he ruled.
He was a bit of a compulsive builder, in fact.
It's like a kid with a Lego set.
He just kept on building,
giving me more Lego,
more buildings.
And that was Solomon.
Again, we put this beside his insistence,
this is the house that I've built.
It starts to qualify
how we see the place of temple building
in Solomon's life of worship.
And just to finish this one off,
recall that promise to David
I mentioned a moment ago.
When David purposed to build a house,
eventually Nathan came to him and said,
the Lord declares to you
that the Lord himself will build a house for you.
And David replied to Nathan the prophet,
Lord Almighty, God of Israel,
you have revealed this to your servants,
saying, I will build a house for you.
It's worth bearing in mind
that when God builds a house,
he builds it with people.
He builds it of people.
It's perhaps an irony
that the word for worship occurs
quite infrequently in Solomon's story,
just two places, in fact.
And one of the places is in the end of chapter 11,
when the prophet comes to Jeroboam
and says that the people's worship
has turned away from the true God.
Solomon was very much concerned
with his bricks and mortar.
He wasn't concerned about the house building
that goes on with the people of God.
For me, it very much shunts my thoughts forward
towards what we read in 1 Peter,
that when we come into the kingdom of God,
when there is a new king who comes to build.
We read in 1 Peter 2,
as you come to him,
to the living stone, that is Christ,
rejected by humans,
but chosen by God and precious to him,
you also, like living stones,
are being built into a spiritual house
to be a holy priesthood,
offering spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So Solomon, expensive building,
but perhaps not the right kind of building
to reflect worship to the true and living God.
But we've just heard of offering sacrifices,
and that's the second thing we want to look at,
not just, not only expensive building,
but exuberant sacrifice.
We've seen this already in our reading,
but a reminder again for those of you
who were here last week,
in 1 Kings chapter 3,
that's the dream at Gibeon.
Solomon goes to Gibeon,
has the dream,
and that's where God gifts him wisdom.
And as that chapter begins,
verse 4,
still setting the scene in 1 Kings chapter 3,
at verse 4 we read,
the king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices,
for that was the most important high place.
Kings got to go to the most important high place.
And Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings
on that altar.
And after the dream,
he returns to Jerusalem,
verse 15,
stood before the ark of the Lord's covenant,
sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.
So he's an enthusiastic sacrificer,
which on the face of it seems a good thing.
Seems a good thing.
Let's look a little further.
So we've seen already,
as we read in 1 Kings 8,
that they start off with this
unimaginable sacrificing.
1 Kings 8, 5,
King Solomon,
the entire assembly of Israel gathered about him,
were before the ark,
sacrificing so many sheep and cattle,
they could not be recorded or counted.
The dedication takes place,
and at the end of chapter 8,
they've found enough accountants
to manage the job.
So at 1 Kings 8,
start at verse 62,
then the king and all Israel with him
offered sacrifices before the Lord.
Solomon offered a sacrifice
of fellowship offerings to the Lord,
22,000 cattle,
and 120,000 sheep and goats.
So the king and all the Israelites
dedicated the temple of the Lord.
Well, this is sacrifice on a grand scale.
Commentators have interesting discussions
about these numbers,
as you could well imagine.
I'm not great with numbers,
but we know that the festival of dedication
took two weeks.
So,
140,
what's that?
See, I'm not good with numbers.
143,000 offerings,
sacrifices.
That comes out to roughly,
I've written it down,
10,143 sacrifices a day,
or if you imagine this is just during waking hours,
845 an hour.
It's pretty good going.
It's extravagant.
And I think at one level we think,
wow,
I wish I could sacrifice like that.
But his father again said something interesting.
When he acquired the place
on which the temple was to be built,
he was offered some cattle
and some wood to sacrifice on the spot.
And David said,
no,
I will not offer to the Lord
sacrifices that cost me nothing.
And we start to think,
well,
what do these sacrifices mean,
in fact?
And I got a bit of help thinking about this
from Jonathan Edwards.
Now,
Jonathan Edwards
was a pastor
philosopher in New England
in the 18th century,
something like 1700 something,
1758 roughly,
his life.
He was the preacher
in one of the New England churches
in 1734
when there was a dramatic revival,
such a dramatic revival,
there was international interest in it.
15 or so years later,
there was another sort of echo
of that revival.
And as often happens
in times of revival,
there's controversy.
And Edwards
looked back
on the 1734 revival
in which he was deeply involved.
His family affected deeply,
his own wife,
experiencing quite amazing things
during that period.
And he wrote a book
called
A Treatise Concerning
Religious Affections,
which still bears reading today.
You can download it
on the internet.
The PDF's 304 pages.
But he thinks about,
in this context,
controversy over revival.
What's a true sign
of God at work?
Those crazy people
down the street,
is God at work in them?
What's a true sign
of revival?
And much of the work
is taken up
with discerning
and discussing biblically
what are true signs
and what are no true signs,
or at least uncertain signs.
And the first thing
he starts off with
in the middle section
of the book,
which bears the title,
this is part two,
showing what are no certain signs
that religious affections
are gracious.
These are not certain signs.
And the very first of these
is that it is no sign
one way or the other
that religious affections
are very great
or raised very high.
He says,
after considering
that it's important
that we have affection
in worship,
he writes this,
it's no evidence
that religious affections
are of a spiritual
and gracious nature
because they are great.
It is very manifest
by the Holy Scripture,
our sure and infallible rule
to judge of things
of this nature,
that there are
religious affections
which are very high,
which are not spiritual
or saving.
some are,
he says,
some aren't.
So here we have
no true sign.
And as we reflect
in this way
on Solomon's story,
we recall
that the Old Testament
has no requirements
for sacrifice
on this scale
that Solomon's offering.
In fact,
there's something
like the opposite.
Now,
it comes from
a later time,
but in Micah,
chapter 6,
we have a reflection
on exactly this dynamic.
I'll read it for you.
It's Micah,
chapter 6,
verse 6,
to verse 8.
And the prophet asks,
with what shall I
come before the Lord?
And that's our question.
How shall I come
before the Lord?
And bow down
before the exalted God.
Shall I come before him
with burnt offerings,
with calves,
a year old?
It's a good starting point.
Or will the Lord
be pleased
with thousands of rams,
with 10,000 rivers
of oil?
We're getting into
Solomon territory now.
Or shall I offer
my firstborn
for my transgression?
Maybe now I'm going
too far.
The fruit of my body
for the sin of my soul.
What's the ultimate
sacrifice I can make?
And the response comes.
He has shown you,
O mortal,
what is good.
And what does
the Lord require of you
but to act justly,
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly
with your God?
not the extravagant
sacrifices.
So again,
we put a question mark
over that
and say with,
perhaps,
Jonathan Edwards,
no true sign.
Well,
we have
expensive building.
We have
exuberant sacrifice.
A third place
we see
Solomon at worship
is in what I've called
expansive
spirituality.
And we need to
turn over
a couple of pages
to get
our best glimpse
of this,
although,
again,
we've seen it already
in what we've been
reading this evening.
So to look at
1 Kings chapter 11.
When we were back
at Gibeon
in chapter 3,
Solomon's there.
It's a high place.
It's the most important
high place,
and you get the sense
that Solomon's a bit
of a spiritual tourist.
He'll go where he needs
to go to get
to the best high place.
And that kind of openness
to spiritual experience
grows to alarming proportions
later in life.
My hunch is
this is possibly
a passage
that John will be
looking at later
for other reasons,
but let's read
1 Kings 11.
We'll start at verse 4.
Read just a few verses.
As Solomon grew old,
his wives turned his heart
after other gods,
and his heart was not
fully devoted to the Lord,
his God,
as the heart of David,
his father,
had been.
He followed Ashtoreth,
the goddess of the Sidonians,
and Molech,
the detestable god
of the Ammonites.
So Solomon did evil
in the eyes of the Lord.
He did not follow
the Lord completely
as David,
his father,
had done.
On a hill
east of Jerusalem,
Solomon built
a high place
for Chemosh,
the detestable god
of Moab,
and for Molech,
the detestable god
of the Ammonites.
He did the same
for all his foreign wives.
He burned incense
and offered sacrifices
to their god.
The Lord became angry
with Solomon.
This is not a good thing.
So Solomon's kind
of inclusiveness
in worship
starts welcoming
in these foreign cults
into his own palace,
and he even makes
a home for them
in Jerusalem.
It's quite sobering
to observe
that Solomon's
pagan sanctuaries
persisted in Jerusalem
for 300 years.
Right towards the end
of the history
of Judah,
before the Babylonian exile,
of which we've been
thinking in our
morning services,
there was a great
reforming king
named Josiah.
And 2 Kings 23,
the other end
of the story of Israel,
we read about
Josiah's reforms,
and among them
we read this.
It's 2 Kings 23, 13.
The king,
in this case,
it's Josiah.
The king also
desecrated the high
places that were
east of Jerusalem
on the south
of the hill
of corruption,
the ones Solomon,
king of Israel,
had built for Ashtoret,
the vile goddess
of the Sidonians,
for Chemosh,
the vile god of Moab,
and for Molech,
the detestable god
of the people
of Ammon.
So for 300 years,
Solomon's mix-and-match
worship had been there
as a snare and temptation
for the people
of Judah
in Jerusalem.
And as I
pondered this
circumstance,
I couldn't help
but ask myself
my own question,
what illicit shrines
do I build
in harbor
in my life?
What illicit shrines
have been built
generations ago
that might still be
sullying,
polluting
the spiritual
inheritance
that we have
in our families?
And it came to mind
again a program
that aired
last Christmas,
just before last Christmas
on Radio 4.
Chrismica
and other
cultural mash-ups.
Sounds a bit
Solomonic.
This is our religious
and cultural context.
Here's a part
of the program
description.
As the number
of interfaith
marriages
in Britain
increases,
we uncover
a growing phenomenon,
the cultural
mash-up.
Families who are
getting creative
as they combine
different religious
and cultural
traditions to create
their own
unique festivals.
Well, there was
a review of the
program in the
Radio Times.
The viewer loved it.
This program,
all about pluralism
and integration,
provides the right
kind of balance
this holiday season.
The reviewer noted,
we hear, for example,
of a Muslim Easter
egg hunt.
It's wrong on quite a
number of levels.
And he finishes,
truly,
a glimmer of light
in the darkness,
echoing,
knowingly or not,
John 1
at Advent season.
This is our
cultural milieu.
And this is the
temptation that we'll
be facing in our
generation,
as this kind of
thing is approved.
But there are
other shrines,
other forms of
illicit spirituality
we build into
our lives,
and that have the
potential to pollute
across generations.
I remember a good
Christian friend
who said how
hard it was for
her to break
away from her
devotion to
horoscopes.
Tarot,
down the
center of
Edinburgh.
Many families,
I think,
feeling the
effects of
Masonic
involvement,
going on
through generations.
What other
forms of
illicit
spirituality
do we
domesticate
in our
homes?
I know
it's
controversial,
but what
about
Harry Potter
and many
other forms
of
supernatural,
illicit
supernatural
powers that
we just
make a
space for
and enjoy
in our
homes?
Are we
doing what
Solomon was
doing when
we make a
place for
these shrines
that do not
honor the
true and
living God?
God?
Well,
one
commentator
on these
passages
put it
this way.
Ultimately,
even a
faithful king,
he was
referring to
Josiah,
ultimately,
even a
faithful king
will not
be able to
undo the
idolatries
of generations.
Josiah's
reform flickered
briefly and
then snuffed
out as the
Babylonian exile
came.
amidst the
cries of
the people
that we
worship the
queen of
heaven.
It will
take a
king of
an entirely
different
order of
fidelity to
deal decisively
with his
people's sin.
So,
expensive
building,
exuberant,
sacrificing,
expansive
spirituality,
and finally,
finally,
emphatic
obedience.
It's that
little ramp
at the
end of
the slide.
Solomon
seemed to
have learned
something from
his father.
And you'll
recall that
after David's
adultery
with Bathsheba,
he repented,
and we have
the prayer of
repentance in
Psalm 51.
As part of
that, David
prayed this,
you do
not delight
in sacrifice,
or I would
bring it.
You do
not take
pleasure in
burnt offerings.
The sacrifices
of God
are a broken
spirit, a
broken and
contrite heart.
O God, you
will not
despise.
And what
does God
desire?
It's in
Psalm 51.
6.
You desired
faithfulness,
even in the
womb.
At some
level, Solomon
must have
learned this
lesson.
And the
closing petition
in his
lengthy prayer,
we saw a
closing petition
this morning,
comes at
verse 56
of chapter
8.
1 Kings
8, 56.
And we'll
just read a
couple of
passages here
as we draw
towards an
end.
Solomon's
closing petition,
praise be to
the Lord who
has given
rest to his
people Israel,
just as he
promised.
Not one
word has
failed of
all the
good promises
he gave
through his
servant Moses,
echoing the
words of
Joshua centuries
earlier.
May the
Lord our
God be with
us as he
was with
our ancestors.
May he
never leave
us nor
forsake us.
May he
turn our
hearts to
him, to
walk in
obedience to
him, and
keep the
commands,
decrees, and
laws he
gave our
ancestors.
And may
these words
of mine,
which I
have prayed
before the
Lord, be
near the
Lord our
God day
and night,
that he
may uphold
the cause
of his
servant, and
the cause
of his
people Israel,
according to
each day's
need, so
that all the
peoples of
the earth may
know that the
Lord is God,
there is no
other.
And may your
hearts be fully
committed to the
Lord, to live
by his decrees,
and obey his
commands, as
at this time.
It's a good
prayer.
It speaks to
many of the
concerns that
we've raised as
we've looked at
the building, the
sacrificing, and
the inclusive
spirituality.
It's a prayer
that God heard
and answered.
And we know
that, because
that's what we
read of in
chapter 9.
So I'll just
continue in
chapter 9.
when Solomon
had finished
building the
temple of the
Lord and the
royal palace and
had achieved all
he had desired
to do, the
Lord appeared to
him a second
time as he had
appeared to him
at Gibeon.
The Lord said
to him,
I have heard
the prayer and
plea you have
made before me.
I have consecrated
this temple,
which you have
built, by putting
my name there
forever.
My eyes and
my heart will
always be there.
As for you,
if you walk
before me
faithfully with
integrity of
heart and
uprightness, as
David your
father did, and
do all I
command and
observe my
decrees and
laws, I will
establish your
royal throne over
Israel forever,
as I promised
David your
father when I
said, you
shall never
fail to have
a successor
on the throne
of Israel.
But if you
or your
descendants turn
away from me
and do not
observe the
commands and
decrees I have
given you and
go off to serve
other gods and
worship them,
then I will cut
off Israel from
the land I have
given them and
will reject this
temple I have
consecrated for
my name.
Israel will
then become a
byword and an
object of ridicule
among all
peoples.
This temple
will become a
heap of rubble.
All who pass
by will be
appalled and
will scoff and
say, why has
the Lord done
such a thing to
this land and
to this temple?
People will
answer, because
they have forsaken
the Lord their
God, who brought
their ancestors out
of Egypt and
have embraced
other gods,
worshipping and
serving them.
That is why the
Lord brought all
this disaster on
them.
As we began,
we wanted to
see how someone
so eager to
be in God's
presence would
end by experiencing
God's absence.
And this is
precisely how.
It comes back
again to a
life of
obedience.
And it's not
an irony that
immediately after
this great high
point of
dedicating the
temple, the
first thing
Solomon hears is
a warning.
Much as in his
first dream in
Gibeon, God's
God wants him
to be.
In a sense,
in a sense,
warning him by
putting before him
the man God wants
him to be.
And again, here, the
Lord warns him to be
the man that God
wants him to be.
The temple was
destroyed.
It was reduced to
rubble.
And yet God was
faithful to his
promise.
Well, expensive
building, exuberant
sacrifice, expensive
spirituality, emphatic
obedience.
This gives us a
profile of Solomon
at worship.
But in a sense, it's
that negative, isn't
it?
Even with the
little positive
kick at the end
that came with a
warning, it still is
a negative.
Well, how do we see
this picture as a
positive?
Just in a few
minutes.
Jesus perfectly
fulfills the
worship that Solomon
imperfectly signaled.
Jesus perfectly
fulfills the
worship that Solomon
imperfectly signaled.
Jesus is that
temple towards
which Solomon's
temple was
pointing.
Remember in
John, a few
texts from John
here, Jesus
answered them,
destroy this
temple and I
will raise it
again in three
days.
They replied, it
has taken 46
years to build
this Herod's
temple.
You're going to
raise it in three
days?
But the temple he
had spoken of was
his body.
Of course, in
Revelation 21, there
will be no temple
when the Lord's
presence is there
unmediated.
Jesus is the
temple and he's
building us, as we
read earlier, as
living stones into a
spiritual temple for
him.
Jesus wasn't about
exuberant sacrificing.
Jesus was the
sacrifice.
Jesus wasn't about
inclusive worship.
Jesus pointed all
mankind to
himself.
As he said in
John 10, I am the
good shepherd.
I know my sheep, my
sheep know me, just
as the Father knows
me and I know the
Father.
I lay down my
life for the
sheep.
That's the
sacrifice.
I have other
sheep that are not
of this fold.
I must bring them
too.
Or as he said a
little later to his
disciples, when I
am lifted up, there's
that sacrifice again, I
will draw all people
to myself.
And finally, Jesus'
obedience invites a
response of obedience.
As he spoke to his
disciples in the
hours before his
sacrifice, he said,
greater love has no
one than this to lay
down one's life for
one's friends.
You are my friends if
you do what I
command.
Our worship then
takes a Christ-like
shape as we are
transformed by him
and have his mind
in us.
Or to finish that
allusion to Romans
12, where Paul
writes, I urge you,
brothers and
sisters, in view of
God's mercy, offer
your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God.
This is your true and
proper worship.
Do not conform to the
pattern of this world,
but be transformed by
the renewing of your
mind.
Then you will be able to
test and approve what
God's will is, his
good, pleasing, and
perfect will.
In a sense, Solomon's
life is a bit of a
counter example to
that instruction from
the Apostle Paul.
As I'm sure many of you
realize, there's one
flaw in Paul's request
when he calls us to
offer our bodies as a
living sacrifice.
The problem with a
living sacrifice is it
always crawls off the
altar.
death.
And so we want to
look to Christ, to
find our obedience in
his obedience, and to
offer worship, to
recognize and respect
God in our lives so
that others see him
there too, and we
enjoy fellowship and
communion with him.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we thank
you that you desire to
have fellowship with
us, and that you
want us to enjoy you.
So we're sorry for the
many ways in which our
thoughts and words and
deeds offend you.
And we thank you for a
Savior and the Redeemer
and the Lord Jesus who
lived the life we could
not live and died the
death we should have
died so that we might
have new life in him.
Help us as we look to
him day by day, moment
by moment, to live lives
that are pleasing to
you, offering you the
recognition and respect
you deserve, and so
enjoying communion with
you as you enable us
by your Spirit.
It's in Jesus' name we
pray.
Amen.