Route 66: 2 Chronicles - From Threshing Floor to Holy Place

I have to say, having been studying Chronicles for the past several weeks, maybe a couple months or so, chronicles has become my favorite book in the Bible, right now at least.

And I've enjoyed Matthew, as we've been going through Matthew in our morning services as well, in our morning services as well.

So we continue today on our journey along Route 66, the 66 books of the Bible, and last Sunday we began our drive through Chronicles.

I introduced last Sunday that there are two major themes in the book of Chronicles, and when I say book of Chronicles, I am referring to 1 and 2 Chronicles.

We have two books, but the original text in Hebrew was really one scroll Chronicles.

The first major theme which we covered last Sunday is God's commitment to the house of David, and the second major theme which we'll cover today is God's commitment to the house of David.

And the second major theme which we'll cover today is God's temple and his presence in the worship of his people.

Both of these themes are derived from the Davidic covenant.

So let's take a turn to 1 Chronicles 17 as our starting point this evening.

Okay, turn to 1 Chronicles 17, and I'll read from beginning the second part of verse 10.

Furthermore, I declare to you that the Lord in prayer and I will establish his throne forever.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, help us understand the deep significance of the Davidic covenant in our lives and to live in accordance to its truth.

Amen.

God spoke to David through the prophet Nathan.

In that passage, david expressed his desire to build a house for Yahweh.

Yahweh turned it around and he promised to build the house of David.

The book of Chronicles centers on these two houses the house of David, the dynasty of David, and the house of the Lord, the temple.

Last week we examined these two major themes God's commitment to the house of David and we looked at that in three points.

We looked at God's commitment to the house of David by placing David on the throne, by promising that David would have an everlasting dynasty, and, thirdly, that God will be preserving David's dynasty.

God's covenant, faithfulness to David and his royal line points forward to and is ultimately fulfilled by the greatest son of David, the Messianic King, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And our Lord Jesus Christ sits on that throne forever.

So today we'll spend our time examining the second major theme God's temple and God's presence in the people's worship and, by the way, throughout Chronicles, and I mean 1 and 2 Chronicles.

Okay, so Solomon's temple is given a lot of prominence in Chronicles, much more than in Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings.

The emphases in Chronicles, taken as the whole book, can be seen in the overall structure of the book, and I touched on this last week.

But I'll review briefly.

The first nine chapters of Chronicles are genealogies.

They're lists of people, father to son to son to son to son to son.

These genealogies not only highlighted the Lion of David, the Davidic kings, but also gave a great prominence to the Lion of Aaron and the Levitical order.

These are the individuals who would serve the tabernacle and the temple.

The next 29 chapters in Chronicles reports on the reigns of both David and his son, solomon.

These cover 73 years of rulership, 33 for David, because this is recording when David was in Jerusalem, not the earlier seven years of Hebron, and then the 40 years of Solomon in Jerusalem.

And of these 29 chapters, 18 of them cover the planning and the building of the temple.

And the last 27 chapters of Chronicles Survey the 345 years Of the line of Davidic kings, the kings of Judah After David and Solomon, and it particularly paid attention to how they treated the temple as a direct measure Of their relationship with Yahweh, and we'll get into more of that in this time together.

So the chronicler's interest in the temple is not really the building.

The chronicler's interest in recording in the book of Chronicles is really the fact that Yahweh moved into the temple to dwell among his people.

So to seek the temple in the eyes of the chronicler really meant seeking the Lord, seeking God, seeking after Yahweh.

The temple was a sign of God's very presence with his people on earth.

This is where the northern tribes got it wrong.

They built other worship centers, not in Jerusalem.

So they violated this principle.

They did not seek the temple of Yahweh.

God punished them and they went off into captivity as Assyrians took them away.

So instead, those who sought the Lord in the temple in Jerusalem were filled with joy.

So let's examine tonight Yahweh's temple, the place where Yahweh dwelt with his people and the place where his people sought the Lord and worshipped him.

We'll look at Yahweh's temple by way of three points First, yahweh's plan for the temple.

Secondly, yahweh's presence in the temple.

And thirdly, yahweh's people in the temple.

And as we go through these three points, I want you to imagine yourself in the year 424 BC In the shoes of one of those people living in the post-exilic community.

You are the grandson or you're the granddaughter of one who served in rebuilding the temple under Zerubbabel, because he or she came back from Babylon, back to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel in that first return of exiles.

And now you're reading this book of Chronicles, the first point, yahweh's plan for the temple.

We'll look at the preparations and then we'll look at the construction.

I mentioned last week that David's reign occupied 19 chapters in 1 Chronicles.

David's reign in Chronicles is taking up mostly with the preparations for building the temple.

Yahweh had been orchestrating this groundwork for decades.

So first this preparation included transferring the Ark of the Covenant to the city of David.

This happened very early during David's reign in Jerusalem.

It happened not too long after actually, david conquered the Jebusites.

The Jebusites were the ones who inhabited.

They were Canaanites who inhabited Jerusalem and David had to conquer it.

And when he did I.

David had to conquer it, and when he did.

I won't get into it now, but it's very interesting how he did that.

It happens to Pat and I when we visited Israel we walked through Hezekiah's tunnel and there's a waterway that Hezekiah's tunnel.

I'm going off on a tangent, but it channeled the Gihon Springs, which is the main water source of Jerusalem, to.

It was located outside the city, but it was channeled into the city so that Hezekiah would have a water supply and that the Assyrians would not cut him off.

But anyway, in that tunnel there was a shaft.

David was smart enough to see that the Jebusites needed to go and get water from the Gihon Springs.

They used that shaft.

Well, david knew that he can climb up that shaft and get into the city.

That's a whole other story.

I didn't mean to go into that, but it just triggered the thought.

David conquered the Jebusites and turned Jebus into the city of David.

But don't you remember how painful it was for David to transfer the ark back to Jerusalem?

It took him two times right.

The first time, an individual called Uzzah walked alongside the cart and saw that the oxen were stumbling and he put his hand to stabilize the Ark of the Covenant.

He was struck dead.

Why he was struck dead?

Why David encountered the problem where he ordered the ark's transfer but ignored the proper instructions from the law of Moses.

How the ark was treated was equated to how God was being treated.

This demonstrated a lack of reverence for the sacred object of God's presence and for the law of Moses.

David and the Levites studied the Mosaic law and got it right the second time because God worked on David's heart.

David's instruction to the priests and the Levites to consecrate themselves was not only for ritualistic purposes, but it was also, and even more so, for internal attitude change, their internal attitude in how they handled holy things.

The second thing in terms of preparation we see in David's time is God worked on David's heart to appoint the Levites to a new ministry of music and praise.

This is what he conducted in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant as it was successfully transported to Jerusalem.

This was a whole new function for the Levites and the priests.

This was the prelude to temple worship.

Solomon also continued this same practice in organizing the Levites for temple worship, and that's in 2 Chronicles 8.

David and his singers wrote psalms for temple worship.

They actually prefigure Christ in leading the people in singing praise to Yahweh.

The Levites were also assigned other temple duties, including being gatekeepers, treasurers, and this is all recorded.

David expanded the roles of the Levites and the priests to prepare them for a greater role for worship and leading the people to worship.

A third piece of evidence of preparation, of God working on David's heart, is actually, through David, he secured all the borders around Israel, around the nation of Israel, during the time of David.

Now you would think, how does that prepare for temple construction?

Well, the Davidic wars as you will see in 1 Chronicles 8, chapters 18 to 20, allowed David and Solomon to focus on the task that God gave them to build the temple.

They weren't distracted to fight a war with the Ammonites.

They weren't distracted to fight with the Moabites.

That was all done.

They had peace.

A fourth supporting piece of evidence in preparation for the construction of the temple is recorded in 1 Chronicles 21.

Do you remember David?

After he had victory over the Philistines in a battle, a big battle, in a battle, a big battle, he asked Joab, his key commander, and his commanders, to take a census, a military census, a census of all the men of military age.

David took this census, in spite of a recent victory.

Usually you do a census to draft more men if you find that you have not enough fighting men.

Or you do a census because you want to levy taxes.

The writer of Samuel actually portrayed this as a sin of David's faithlessness, lack of faith.

Right, because he did this in spite of having a victory against the Philistines.

But you know the writer of Chronicles.

I mentioned to you last week that Chronicles is not just a reporting of the facts or the events that are happening.

Chronicles is a divine commentary on what has happened.

So the writer of Chronicles, in this instance, used this story to show God's mercy.

How is that?

Well, as you know, because of David's sin of faithlessness, god did punish him.

God saw his faithlessness and punished him.

And remember, david said I'd rather fall into the hands of a merciful God than men.

So God put a plague and killed 70,000 people in Jerusalem, and then God told him to build an altar and make sacrifices.

Where David was told to do that happened to be on a threshing floor, a place where, in fact, arona is his name and he's also called Nankam.

His threshing floor was used as an altar.

David purchased that land to be an altar, to be made an altar because the angel of the Lord stopped over that threshing floor.

Turn with me to 1 Chronicles 21.

I'd like to recount that story in the words of the Lord stopped over that threshing floor.

Turn with me to 1 Chronicles 21.

I'd like to recount that story in the words of the chronicler 1 Chronicles, chapter 21.

1 Chronicles 21 · chapter mention

Go down to verse 27.

I'll read from there.

Then the Lord spoke to the angel and he put his sword back into its sheath.

At that time David offered sacrifices there.

When he saw that the Lord answered him.

At the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the tabernacle of the Lord which Moses made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were at the high place in Gibeon.

But David could not go before it to inquire of God because he was terrified of the sword of the Lord's angel.

You picture this.

The angel of the Lord is right above him.

He is standing right at the threshing floor.

And the Lord told the angel who has a sword out there, to stop slaying people.

The angel who has a sword out there to stop slaying people.

David was terrified.

He wouldn't go any further.

Now, chapter 22, verse 1.

Then David said this is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel, of burnt offering for Israel.

David declared that this place was to be the house of the Lord God, the threshing floor and the altar of burnt offering for Israel.

And now turn with me to 2 Chronicles 3.

2 Chronicles 3.

Verse 1.

Then Solomon began to build the Lord's temple in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father, david, at the site David had prepared.

On the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Solomon's temple was to be erected, right at that site of the threshing floor, the place where God showed mercy, and this is going to be a place where God will continually pour out his mercy on his people the temple, pour out his mercy on his people, the temple.

These events, these collected events before the transporting of the Ark to the city of David, the expansion of the duties of the Levites and the priests to include worship, music and praise.

And thirdly, the Davidic wars which gave peace to Israel.

And then this fourth one that I mentioned, the identification of the location where the temple was to be built, a place where God showed his mercy.

All of these events taken together paved the way for building the temple which would house the ark, the symbol of God's presence with his people.

Yahweh was David's motivation to build a glorious temple, and David began preparations during his reign.

Those four events were during David's reign.

It indirectly and directly involved him, but David himself here is putting into the preparation.

David collected construction materials, boundless metals, woods, jewelry, gold, tons of gold His own personal as well as the national account of gold and silver and bronze.

He created the temple staff I mentioned to you the Levites right, the priests, the musicians, the gatekeepers, the treasurers and other officials, and these are recorded in 1 Chronicles 23-26.

David also gave Solomon, his son, when he commissioned him, the actual blueprints for the temple and for the vessels that needed to be housed in the temple, as well as its staff.

It echoes back to Moses and the instructions Moses received from God in building the tabernacle in Exodus.

These all tell of God's sovereign work in David's life to make preparations for building the temple.

And these are preparations.

The construction of the temple was left to his son, solomon, but David's influence on the construction was very significant.

Not only did David give the detailed plans from God and pass them on to Solomon, david gave Solomon a strong charge.

He charged Solomon to follow after and obey the Lord.

Simple command, very hard to do, wasn't it?

Follow after and obey the Lord.

And with this David reinforced the link between obedience and temple blessing.

The link also was between disobedience and being forsaken.

This is 1 Chronicles 28, verses 9 and 10, when David is commissioning Solomon to build the temple.

1 Chronicles 28:9

If we move to a couple of chapters later in 2 Chronicles, we see that the first nine chapters in 2 Chronicles record Solomon's reign and this is taken up mostly by the building and the dedication of the temple.

God provided Solomon with the wealth, the materials and the workers, the materials and the workers to build the temple.

And not only do we see Yahweh's divine plan for the temple being revealed over the four decades David reigned in Jerusalem, but really, arguably over millennia, because this all started with Adam.

The planning of all of this, we saw that in the genealogies.

Well, let's now examine Yahweh's presence in the temple, god's presence in the temple.

This was a high point.

The high point of Chronicles is actually the dedication of the temple, the dedication ceremony of the temple, which we can see in 2 Chronicles 5-6.

2 Chronicles, chapters 5 and 6.

2 Chronicles 5 · chapter mention

The ark, which represents God's presence, entered the most holy place in the temple, called the Holy of Holies and placed under the wings of the cherubim.

This was a grand finale of the whole construction process.

No-transcript.

As Yahweh dwelt in the temple and dwelt among his people.

This initiated the temple as the center of worship for all of Israel.

Turn with me now to 2 Chronicles 5, and let's look at this text 2 Chronicles 5.

This is on the dedication ceremony of the temple, starting at verse 2.

Chapter 5, verse 2.

At that time, solomon assembled at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the tribal heads, the ancestral chiefs of the Israelites, in order to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord up from the city of David, that is, zion.

So all the men of Israel were assembled in the king's presence at the festival.

This was in the seventh month.

All the elders of Israel came and the Levites picked up the ark.

They brought up the ark, the tent of meeting and the holy utensils that were in the tent.

The priests and the Levites brought them up.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him, were in front of the ark, sacrificing sheep, goats and cattle that could not be counted or numbered because there were so many.

The priests brought the ark of the Lord's Covenant to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place, beneath the wings of the cherubim.

Now skip down to verse 10.

Verse 10.

Now skip down to verse 10.

Verse 10.

Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had put in it at Horeb, where the Lord had made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of Egypt.

Now, all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions, when the priests came out of the holy place, regardless of their divisions.

When the priests came out of the holy place, the Levitical singers, dressed in fine linen and carrying cymbals, harps and lyres, were standing east of the altar, and with them were 120 priests blowing the trumpets.

The Levitical singers were descendants of Asaph, heman and Juduthun and their sons and relatives.

The trumpeters and singers joined together to praise and thank the Lord with one voice.

They raised their voices, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, and this is what they sang For.

He is good.

His faithful love endures forever.

His faithful love endures forever.

The temple, the Lord's temple, was filled with a cloud, and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled God's temple.

Wow, there was a great celebration at the dedication of this temple.

Celebration with music, lots of sacrifices, too many to be counted, but more importantly, did you note God's word, those two tablets in the ark?

God's word finds the central location in the most holy place in the temple.

God's word was placed in the most central place of the most holy part of the temple.

What does this tell us about where God's word should sit in our own lives?

The Psalms tell us Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

That's Psalm 119, verse 11.

Psalms 119:11

And then this one I've learned since childhood Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

That's Psalm 119, verse 105.

Psalms 119:105

But what is your attitude toward the word of God From that text?

There's another observation to make here.

There is a direct connection between God's presence and God's glory.

The presence of Yahweh was so strong that the priests were not even able to stand because the glory of the Lord filled God's temple.

That's 2 Chronicles 5, verse 14.

2 Chronicles 5:14

We just read when God is present, there too is his glory.

This reflects back to exodus 40 and verses 34 and 35 regarding the cloud covering the tent of meeting, and the glory of the lord filled it so much that moses could not enter it.

Yahweh's special dwelling place, his presence among his people at this stage in history was particularly in the physical temple.

The temple was the center of Jewish life and worship.

Well, when the people returned from exile back to Jerusalem, they rebuilt the temple.

But this temple was no comparison to the glorious temple that Solomon built in his day.

The physical appearance was far less glorious.

Also, the manifestation of God's dwelling place, manifestation of God dwelling there, was very different.

In fact, in the last kings of Judah, just before the exile, god departed from the temple.

He left the temple.

So Israel had many failures, failures in obeying God's commands and to keep his covenant.

Many prophecies about this, about the temple, did not really refer to Solomon's temple or the post-exilic temple.

Instead, they referred to a future temple to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the church, and fully in the new heaven and new earth.

When you example the temple theme in Chronicles, we had just reviewed God's plan for building the temple, god's presence in the temple, and now we want to consider God's people and the temple.

So God's people, how?

God's people revered or did not revere Yahweh?

The writer of Chronicles addressed these questions regarding the identity of Israel and tried to renew their hope and confidence because they'd just returned from a 70-year captivity.

The genealogies of Israel that we see starting this book trace the people's ancestry back to Adam, and this is to remind them that Israel has always been at the center of God's focus from the very beginning of creation.

But in spite of being only a remnant and a small outpost on the fringes of a very large empire, israel needed to remember that its security and destiny rested entirely with their covenant-keeping God.

This is the God who rules over all nations and has given the land to Abraham's descendants forever.

But, being a sinful people living before a holy God, they had to pay special attention to personal purity and holiness.

First thing, god demanded that only one tribe, levi, be the ones to serve him at the altar.

Major reason for this, as we see in the genealogies that the chronicler presented it, was to show which Israelites were allowed to serve the priestly duties.

You recall when Uzziah, one of the Davidic kings, entered the holy place, he quickly was rebuked by the litical priests.

They said to him Uzziah, you have no right to offer incense to the Lord.

Only the consecrated priests, the descendants of Aaron, have the right to offer incense.

Leave the sanctuary, for you have acted unfaithfully.

You will not receive honor from the Lord God.

This is 2 Chronicles 26.

And the next verse says that the Lord struck him with leprosy because he violated the laws of purity and took the presence of God without reverence, reverence, without reverence.

Secondly, the kings of Judah allowed showed much, how much they treasured and revered God by how well they maintained the temple.

The hearts of the kings of Judah was measured by how well they treated and maintained the temple.

King Ahaz, for example, in 2 Chronicles 28, gathered up the utensils of God's temple.

He cut them into pieces, shut the doors of the Lord's temple and made himself altars on every street corner in Jerusalem.

And he anchored the Lord in Jerusalem and he angered the Lord.

Now, ahaz's grandson, manasseh, really the most wicked king of Judah in that line of David, in 2 Chronicles 33, manasseh built altars to all the stars in the sky in both courtyards of the Lord's temple.

He passed his sons through the fire in Banhinom Valley.

He sacrificed his sons.

He practiced witchcraft, he practiced divination and sorcery and consulted mediums and spiritists.

He did a huge amount of evil in the Lord's sight, amount of evil in the Lord's sight.

Angering him For his sin, god sent an army of Assyrian soldiers from the king of Assyria.

They captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with shackles and took him to Babylon.

Thirdly, in contrast to these wicked kings of judah, the godly kings consistently devoted themselves to the temple.

They opened its doors and purified its courts.

They resumed its sacrifices and repaired its structures.

Joash, in his early years, when he was under the influence of Jehoiada the priest, is an example of this.

If you remember Joash, hezekiah is another godly king who exemplified this, and Josiah later on also exemplified this behavior.

Fourthly, when the people now we're talking about the people, not the kings.

Now, when the people now we're talking about the people, not the kings.

Now, when the people obeyed god, the temple was a great place of joy and blessing.

Um, after solomon dedicated the temple, he sent the people home.

What were they doing?

They were rejoicing with happy hearts for the goodness the lord had done for david and for solomon and for his people, israel.

That was the people's response after the dedication of the temple.

Another example of this is Hezekiah.

Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 29,.

In the very first year of his reign, opened the doors of the temple, repaired them and had the Levites cleanse it of all impurities and consecrate it.

He restored the temple worship.

Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over how God had prepared the people, for it had come about suddenly.

For it had come about suddenly.

Fifth, when the sinful pride of people distort their understanding of God's covenant blessings, they suffer God's curse.

Let me repeat that when the sinful pride of people distort their understanding of God's covenant blessings, they suffer God's curse.

And this is what the chronicler wanted the post-exilic community to avoid happening again.

This led them to be taken to exile into Babylon.

In the first place, disobedient Judah had sought for anything that could give them a sense of security, and this gave rise to a very popular belief that the temple provided some sort of guarantee of God's protection and presence, as if God was bound to do that, even in spite of their disobedience and corruption.

The temple was a false reassurance of God's protection.

It was a good luck charm.

That's how they took it.

They trusted in a temple rather than God.

So God sent Jeremiah to give a message to correct this wrong thinking.

That's recorded in Jeremiah, chapter 7.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

So the temple polarized God's covenant people.

Obedience and humility and worship brought covenant blessings.

Disobedience and arrogance brought covenant curses.

So, in summary, the major themes in Chronicles are derived from the Davidic covenant, david asked to build God a house, a temple.

So, in summary, the major themes in Chronicles are derived from the Davidic covenant.

David asked to build God a house, a temple, but Yahweh responded saying that he would build David a house, a dynasty.

Chronicles has been about these two houses how God raised up the Davidic dynasty as a promise of hope and, secondly, how David's royal house was constructed and maintained, maintaining Yahweh's temple.

These two institutions, the monarchy and the temple, are really integrally connected with each other.

Last Sunday, we looked at God's commitment to the house of David.

Today we examined God's temple and its presence and its people, and we reviewed Yahweh's temple by way of the three points God's plan for the temple, god's presence in the temple and God's people and the temple.

The event of the ark coming to rest in the Holy of Holies is given a fair amount of space, indicating its importance.

A cloud filled the temple and showed that Yahweh visibly took up residence with his people in the temple.

Today, the glory of God dwells in his people by the Holy Spirit.

As we conclude, I want to leave you with two questions.

The first question to reflect on is how can you celebrate this important blessing that God has given us today?

And secondly, why is it better for us to have the glory of God dwelling in us by the Spirit than to have it outside us in a visible cloud?

I'll repeat that question again why is it better for us to have the glory of God dwelling in us by the Spirit than to have it outside us in a visible cloud?

Let's pray, father.

Thank you that Solomon's temple was a symbol of your everlasting presence among your people.

Today, we no longer need the temple, because you dwell in and among your people by your spirit, because your spirit dwells in us, produce in us the fruit of the spirit and impart in us an atmosphere of joy as we serve you and your people.

Amen.