Solomon's Worship

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,

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention 1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

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.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

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,

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

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 8:1

1 Kings 8 verse 1.

1 Kings 8:1

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.

1 Kings 6 · chapter mention

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,

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,

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

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,

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

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,

Micah 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6,

we have a reflection

on exactly this dynamic.

I'll read it for you.

It's Micah,

Micah 6:6

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.

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.

1 Kings 11 · chapter mention

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

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.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.