Today we are in the 2nd week of the latest chapter in our Legacy series titled, “Solomon:
the good, the bad, and the ugly.” If you were here last week you heard a good deal of
good about Solomon… and a little bad. The good we saw was that Solomon was a man
who recognized his need of God and particularly his need for God to give him the
wisdom he needed to be Israel’s king. But in the midst of this good we also saw that
there were times when Solomon wasn’t above going his own way for political
expediency: murdering his adversaries; marrying foreign wives. But it’s all good this
week as we look at 1 Kings 5- 9:9 (240). These chapters cover the most important
accomplishment of Solomon’s reign: building a temple for the Lord. And as we’ll see, it
was a huge project. Now, building the temple was originally Solomon’s father, David’s
idea. Here is what he’d said. “After David was settled in his palace, he said to Nathan
the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the
LORD is under a tent." (Comment on Tabernacle and Ark) Nathan replied to David,
"Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is with you." That night the word of God
came to Nathan, saying: "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says:
You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in… When your days are over and you
go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own
sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I
will establish his throne forever. 1 Chronicles 17:1-4, 11-12. But even if he couldn’t build
the temple, David did draw up all of the plans; he secured a location; he started
collecting the materials: gold, silver, bronze, iron, cedar logs and precious stones; and
he gave orders to Solomon that he was to build the temple once he was gone. And
today’s passage begins with Solomon starting the process of following through on his
father’s orders. Let’s look at 1 Kings 5:1-7 When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon
had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon,
because he had always been on friendly terms with David. Solomon sent back this
message to Hiram: "You know that because of the wars waged against my father David
from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the LORD his God until the
LORD put his enemies under his feet. But now the LORD my God has given me rest on
every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. I intend, therefore, to build a temple
for the Name of the LORD my God, as the LORD told my father David, when he said,
'Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.'
"So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and
I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so
skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians." When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he
was greatly pleased and said, "Praise be to the LORD today, for he has given David a
wise son to rule over this great nation.” Hiram was the king of the island city of Tyre
and his dynasty also covered a large stretch of land in the hills of Lebanon. Hiram’s
kingdom was rich in cedars and pines (many over 100 ft tall) and it contained a good
deal of limestone, but there wasn’t enough agricultural land in his kingdom to feed his
people. So, Hiram kept the people of Tyre fed through making business deals like the
one he eventually made with Solomon. Hiram’s people would ship timber to Israel and
provide the stonemasons to finish limestone and Solomon would in turn send grain and
olive oil to Tyre and provide the workmen needed to cut down trees and mine the raw
stone. It was a great deal all around… Tyre got the promise of much needed food and
Israel got the materials it needed for the Temple. But, it did mean that Solomon had to
put his own people to work… actually, I should say Solomon forced his people to work!
Forced labor was common in the ancient world; it was the ancient equivalent of paying
taxes. So, Solomon ‘called up’ 30,000 Jewish men, divided them into three groups of
10,000 and then put them into 3 rotations of 1 month on 2 months off cutting trees in
Lebanon. This way the Jewish men could spend two of every three months at home on
their farms, but they still were obligated to give the king 4 months a year. Solomon also
forced 150,000 foreign men living in Israel, (all remnants of the nations that had not
been driven out of Israel by earlier generations), into fulltime slavery. He made 70,000
carry material and 80,000 cut limestone. Solomon also hired 3500 foremen and
numerous craftsmen. It wasn’t long before the entire nation was fully engaged in the
project of building a house for God!
And the temple they built was an amazing structure; the plans actually called for a
building whose dimensions were exactly twice the size of the original Tabernacle. (Put
up slide of Temple) Now, the worshiping areas, the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place and
the outer porch were the same size as the Tabernacle, but the additional store rooms
and priestly chambers built around the worshipping center doubled the size of the
structure. It was huge and beautiful. Here are a few facts: almost everything in the
building was covered in gold: altars, tables, candelabras, even the hinges on some of
the doors; the stones that made up the walls were massive: between 12-15 feet long
and 4-6 feet high and weighed up to 150,000 pounds; it had a bronze basin for hand
washing and cleaning sacrifices, a big bowl they called the Bronze Sea, that held
10,000 gallons of water; all of the interior walls of the temple were covered in pine or
decoratively carved cedar paneling because David’s plan said no stone was to be
visible from the inside of the Temple; and the temple was filled with new bronze pots for
boiling sacrifices, and shovels for moving ashes, and sprinkling bowls for catching blood
from sacrificed animals; plus, all of the old articles that were used in the original
Tabernacle (and even the Tabernacle itself) were in the Temple. The project was so big
and complicated and difficult that it took hundreds of thousands of people seven years
to complete.
But once it was finished, Solomon knew it was an accomplishment worth celebrating.
And he chose to celebrate the temple’s dedication during the nation’s annual, week-long
harvest celebration, called the festival of Booths (when most Jews came to Jerusalem
anyway). And what a celebration it was: tons of music and feasting! The people were
enjoying the dedication so much that what was supposed to be a one week festival
stretched into a two week celebration! And the biggest moment in the two weeks came
when the priests placed the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. And as the
priests set the ark under the wings of the two huge wooden cherubim in the Holy of
Holies everyone was wondering, “Is God going to be pleased with what we have done?”
Well, 1st Kings tells us that as the priests were backing out of that Holy space a cloud
suddenly filled the temple; a cloud so thick that you could barely see your hand in front
of your face. And this was wonderful because this cloud represented the very presence
of God and this meant that God was pleased with his people and his temple. What an
amazing moment! Solomon responded by standing before all of his people, raising his
hands toward heaven and praying! And his prayer, which is recorded in 1 Kings 8:23-
53, is a testament to Solomon’s reverence for God and his understanding of mankind.
Now, we only have the time to briefly look at this prayer today, but there are some
things I’d like to point out. The first being: even though Solomon had just completed a
very complex and important task, rather than pointing out all he’d done for God,
Solomon went right to praising God. Look at verse 23. “O Lord, God of Israel, there is
no god like you in heaven above or on earth below.” Solomon started his prayer by
affirming that nothing compares to God… nothing! And the reason that nothing
compares to Israel’s God is that their God is trustworthy… he keeps his promises…
Look at verse 24: “You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with
your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it.” Solomon was
praising God because he speaks and then he acts. No other god can do either! And
then Solomon went so far as to put his own great accomplishment into perspective.
Look at what he says in verse 27: “But will the Lord really dwell on earth? The heavens,
even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built.”
This is big praise: Solomon knew the truth about God… There is nothing like him…
there is no one like him… he is trustworthy: he keeps his promises and the proof is
everywhere... and nothing can contain Him. He is beyond our imaginations and the idea
that he could actually be confined to a temple, no matter how massive and amazing that
temple might be, was preposterous! And just a side note, I am confident that when we
pray like this, when we praise God for who he is and what he has done in a way that
recognizes his greatness and his majesty, he is pleased. But Solomon’s prayer moved
quickly from praising God to an admission of mankind’s frailty. Now, there are seven
requests in this prayer: a request that God will ensure that justice is done in Israel; a
request that God will go with Israel when he sends them into battle; a request that God
will answer the prayers of foreigners so they, too, will honor Israel’s God… and while I’d
like to have the time to talk about all of these requests I am only going to touch on the
remaining four requests… four requests that all have to do with the our weaknesses and
our deep need of God’s mercy. Look at verse 33 with me. "When your people Israel
have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when
they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in
this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring
them back to the land you gave to their fathers. When the heavens are shut up and
there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray
toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have
afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people
Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people
for an inheritance. When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew,
locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities,
whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by any of
your people Israel—each one aware of the afflictions of his own heart, and spreading
out his hands toward this temple- then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive
and act; deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you
alone know the hearts of all men), so that they will fear you all the time they live in the
land you gave our fathers.” Now skip down to verse 46. “When they sin against you—for
there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over
to the enemy, who takes them captive to his own land, far away or near; and if they
have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead
with you in the land of their conquerors and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong,
we have acted wickedly'; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the
land of their enemies who took them captive… hear their prayer and their plea, and
uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all
the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their conquerors to show
them mercy.” Solomon was a wise and realistic man. He knew all about human nature
and human frailty. He knew that sin, even sin that demanded punishment, was
inevitable and so he asked God to remember to listen and forgive. And he prayed these
things at the dedication of the new temple! Yes, the temple was amazing and yes, God
had shown them that he was pleased; the cloud proved that; but Solomon knew how
fragile and predictable and wayward people are; he knew how quickly we forget God’s
goodness and move on to our own desires and how much we continually need
forgiveness. Solomon was saying, “Lord, we’re going to sin. You may even need to jerk
us around through calamity to get our attention, but please don’t ever stop listening to
our prayers or stop being a forgiving God, because without you we are hopeless… we
are your people… you have been faithful in the past, please be faithful in the future!”
And this was exactly what the people needed to hear. A fancy temple wouldn’t keep
God in their midst; it was going to take obedience on their part and most likely a lot of
mercy on God’s.
During the past week I have read a good number of commentaries and even
listened to some sermons on this passage and almost everyone takes this passage and
looks for some kind of pattern in this prayer that we can use to make our own prayer life
deeper or more effective. And I can understand this desire. Who doesn’t want God to
hear and act on their prayers? Yet, I feel that looking for patterns in this prayer misses
the reason we even have it at all. This prayer was the spontaneous outpouring of a man
who recognized God’s greatness and yet knew that he had good reason to worry about
his people. He wasn’t praying a pattern; I think he was simply calling on God to be
merciful because he knew his people would need God’s mercy. Now, I do feel his first
words of praise to God are helpful… they remind us of the importance of praise in
prayer; God is incomparable and he is trustworthy and he is transcendent and we
should continually thank him and praise him for this. But much of the rest of this prayer
is a cry to God in the face of the impossibility of keeping the law. Solomon’s fear was
that as the people sinned, and sin they would, that God would eventually do something
worse than punish them: that he would abandon them… and Solomon knew that if God
wasn’t forgiving and merciful, if he left them alone, they were doomed. And so he cried
out to God on behalf of his people.
I had hoped that I could come back from my sabbatical with something brilliant and new
to say about this passage; but the truth is that what I’ve taken from this passage isn’t
anything that would be described as brilliant or new… but it is wonderful… what I’ve
taking from this passage is simply this: Solomon does a great job of reminding us that
we are fallen people; we all sin… but, unlike Solomon, we have been offered freedom
from all of Solomon’s worries about God abandoning us. Here is what I mean: Solomon
prayed something like this, “God, we long for your continued presence but we are frail,
we’re going sin and we’ll need your mercy and your forgiveness. Please hear us when
we cry out to you.” But for you and me the situation is completely different. It is God who
is calling out to us now; and he is calling, “I know you and I love you… I know that you
are frail… I know that you will sin… I know that you need me. I am offering you
forgiveness, mercy and my unending presence.” Last week I said some things in our
Sanctuary service that I feel are worth repeating today. I have to continually remind
myself of the difference between Solomon’s prayer and God’s offer of forgiveness
through Jesus. Solomon was obligated to obey the law and his observance of the law
determined his relationship with God. But, we don’t live under that yoke any longer. And
when we read a passage like today’s, with all of its if-you-do- this-then-this-will-happen
stuff, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that when things go badly in my life it is
somehow connected to my spiritual failures in some way. And when I do what I think I’m
supposed to do that things should go well for me. Now, is it is true that our actions still
have consequences… yes! And God doesn’t deliver us from the results of our own
foolishness. And we do we still need to confess our sins to him? Yes! But things are
different now; there is a very different “Son of David” on the thrown today and King
Jesus has already changed everything for us by having done all that the law required.
And so, we are not under the pressure of the weight of the law and there is no need to
live in the fear that when we fail we will be separated us from God’s love. We have
forgiveness and mercy in Jesus. This frees me to see life differently… it’s a huge weight
off of my shoulders to know that my circumstances cannot necessarily be traced back to
obedience or sin… Solomon prayed, “Please listen when we have sinned and cry out to
you.” But we can pray, “Thank you, dear Jesus, for what you have done for us.”
I have a dear old friend… someone that I’ve known since I was 15… someone whose
life has been intertwined with mine in just about every way possible but one… he
seemed about as uninterested in my faith as a man could possibly be. He recently
moved to Florida and we’d not talked for a bit, but while I was on sabbatical, out of the
blue, I got a call from him… and as we talked I could sense that something had
changed. His tone was softer… not so sarcastic or jaded. Finally, I just asked, “John,
what is going on… something’s different.” And he said, “Well, I didn’t know how to get
around to telling you but I recently figured out what you’ve been talking about all these
years. I finally realized that what you believe is that what God gives us is a gift. You
weren’t talking about something I had to earn. And knowing that what God wanted for
me was a gift broke down all of my resistance to listening to the message of Jesus. And
once I saw that God loves me and all I had to do was accept the gift he was offering me,
it changed me… and I just wanted you to know that God’s spirit has changed me.”
Again, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Yes, Solomon was right: we are frail and we need God’s mercy but because of Jesus
we can live each day in the wonderful confidence that nothing, absolutely nothing can
separate us from the love of God.