So we are in 1 Kings chapter
5 and we're going to read from verse 1. And Hiram king of Tyre sent his
servants unto Solomon for he had heard that they had anointed
him king in the room of his father. For Hiram was ever a lover of
David. And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,
Thou knowest how that David my father could not build a house
unto the name of the Lord his God, for the wars which were
about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles
of his feet. But now the Lord my God hath
given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary
nor evil occurrent. And behold, I purpose to build
an house unto the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spake
unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon
thy throne in thy room, he shall build an house unto my name. Now therefore, command thou that
they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon, and my servants shall
be with thy servants, and unto thee will I give hire for thy
servants, according to all that thou shalt appoint, for thou
knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew
timber like unto the Sidonians. And it came to pass, when Hiram
heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly, and said,
Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a
wise son over this great people. And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying,
I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for,
and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and
concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them
down from Lebanon unto the sea, and I will convey them by sea
in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will
cause them to be discharged there. And thou shalt receive them,
and thou shalt accomplish my desire in giving food for my
household. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees
and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave
Hiram 20,000 measures of wheat for food to his household and
20 measures of pure oil. Thus gave Solomon to Hiram year
by year. And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom,
as he promised him. And there was peace between Hiram
and Solomon, and they two made a league together. And King Solomon
raised a levy out of all Israel, and the levy was 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon,
10,000 a month by courses. A month they were in Lebanon,
and two months at home. And Adoniram was over the levy. and Solomon had threescore and
ten thousand that bear burdens and fourscore thousand hewers
in the mountains. Beside the chief of Solomon's
officers which were over the work, three thousand and three
hundred which ruled over the people that wrought in the work. And the king commanded, and they
brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to
lay the foundation of the house. And Solomon's builders and Hiram's
builders did hew them, and the stone squarers, so they prepared
timber and stones to build the house. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. We're going to spend a few weeks,
God willing, thinking about the temple that Solomon built in
Jerusalem. And he built it on the top of
Mount Moriah. Solomon built this temple, he's
not built it yet, he's gathering the components of it, but he
built this temple around a thousand years before the time of Jesus
Christ. And its location was chosen by
David. It was the place where Abraham
had offered up Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. And there is where
the temple was to be built. So that there was this continuity
between the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs,
the forefathers of the children of Israel, and the place where
Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac. before God stayed
his hand and provided a lamb caught in a thicket. And that
of course you'll remember I'm sure is a picture of how the
Lord Jesus Christ would come as a sacrifice for sin. And it is there that the temple
will be built. And it's there from now on in
the history of the Jews that the temple sacrifices, again,
that prefigured the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ would be
carried out and conducted. This was to be an amazing building
for size and for beauty and for value. It was a temple dedicated
to the glory of God and the worship of God. It's called Solomon's
Temple because Solomon was the builder. However, throughout
scripture it is also called by many other names and I'm not
going to name them all because there really are a lot. But it's
called the house of the Lord. It's called the temple of the
Lord. It's called the house of prayer.
It's called the house of sacrifice. And it's called Zion. And this
is the first time in history, in the history of God's people,
where he allowed a permanent temple to be built for his worship. Previously, he had dwelt with
his people in a makeshift tent or tabernacle, as it was called,
during the times of their wanderings, and all the time from the time
of Joshua through the the judges and Saul as king and David as
king until this time when Solomon takes the throne. The ark of
the covenant and the sacrifices of God had taken place Bethel,
I think it's Bethel, and that was where the ark and the tabernacle
continued to be. Now is the place in the time
of Solomon when God agrees that a temple should be built. Before
his death, David provided material in great quantity for the building
of this temple. But much of that which was gathered
by David, although there was timber involved, much of it was
in terms of silver and gold and money, financial things, precious
things for the temple, perhaps to pay for part of it, perhaps
for the adornment of it. But still more was required and
the fabric of the building was required. And so Solomon went
about to get the raw materials that would comprise the building
and construction of the temple. And he quarried huge stones,
huge stones from underneath Jerusalem and underneath the mountains
around Jerusalem. And he also asked King Hiram
of Tyre and Sidon to supply high quality wood and skilled craftsmen
for the task of building. timber was transported by sea
to Joppa, perhaps on barges, or perhaps, which is interesting
to think, in great rafts, like we sometimes see the Canadian
lumberjacks doing on the rivers when they move the vast quantities
of timber downstream. It may well be that that as well
was what Hyrum employed, and he moved these great rafts of
logs along the coast from Sidon down to Joppa where they were
landed. And it seems as if there were
almost 200,000 men involved in the cutting, and the transporting,
and the quarrying, and the finishing of the stone used. And it really
was a monumental task. And it was made with great organization
and it was made with rotating teams as well so it was done
as it were on shift work and it involved men going to work
for a month in Lebanon and then coming back home for two months
doing their own work in their own farms and in their own land
and then going back off again to Lebanon for another month. A mighty undertaking and Solomon
with his wealth and with his wisdom and in this time of peace
that was granted to Israel, embarked on this task with speed and with
energy. And it was a great enterprise
for the whole of Israel. And it must have caught the attention
and the imagination of the country as a whole. These were good days
in Israel. And there was peace from war.
There was lots of fertile land. There was good trade with partners
and neighbours near and far. And Israel was growing prosperous,
and the nation flourished under the guidance and the ability
of its new king. And when we come to think of
the spiritual application to this temple being built, we remember
that Solomon was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah,
as he was called in the Old Testament. And Solomon's material wealth
and his wisdom and his power points us to the spiritual riches
of Christ, his spiritual wisdom and his spiritual power. Solomon's
task was to build a temple in which God might be worshipped. And the Lord Jesus Christ's task
in coming into this world was to build a temple as well, not
a temple of stone and wood, Not a temple of gold and silver,
but a body of people, a congregation of individuals joined together
in union with Christ. Not a physical temple, but a
church of gathered individuals. These individuals would be redeemed
by the blood of Christ. They would be called out by the
preaching of the gospel into a single family of God. with whom and in whom God dwells. Just as he dwelled in the temple
that Solomon built, so he dwells in his people. He dwells in the
church and there he is worshipped by his people. The apostle Paul
actually employs this picture when he writes to the believers
in Ephesus. That city where the believers
lived, they had a large temple dedicated to an idol god. I think she was called Diana.
And this temple was a great attraction for people who used to come and
visit the city of Ephesus. But Paul wanted to show the Ephesian
believers that the true spiritual meaning of Christ's work and
Christ's grace was that he was building a much more valuable,
a much more glorious temple. by gathering in sinners and making
them into his kingdom and his congregation, his temple. Here's what he wrote in Ephesians
chapter two. He tells the Ephesian believers,
you are built upon a foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. in whom all
the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in
the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation
of God through the Spirit. So you see, when we look at Solomon's
temple, It's a picture of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what we've always
got to remember. Solomon's work of gathering materials
to build the temple is a picture of the work of Christ in the
gospel and the gathering in and the fitly framing together. That's an odd phrase, fitly framing. But it just, it's what an architect
would do, it's what a master builder would do, it's what a
planner would do as he puts everything in its right place, suitably
positioning What should be in its proper place? As far as the
church is concerned, we might think about that as people, certain
people in certain places. The Lord calls one here, one
there. He calls people from all over
the world. He calls people from all different
backgrounds. He calls people from all different
languages and all different nations. And he brings them into his family
and he makes them one in Christ. fitly framing his temple, his
body, his church, and his people. And the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit dwell in the body that the Lord Jesus Christ
has produced. Dwells in all believers, both
individually and collectively in the church. Even when we gather
for worship here today, Christ is in the midst of us because
we are the temple of the living God. And another beautiful type
of the Lord Jesus is the chief cornerstone. And Paul referred
to that in his Ephesians letter. But that, again, was an aspect
of this temple that was built. And a cornerstone was put in
the temple. And from that cornerstone, all
the other edges were measured and placed so that the whole
temple was built upon the measurements the true foundation of the cornerstone
and it's a solid foundation and it is a true foundation and all
Christ's temple all the individual members like stones that go into
making of the spiritual temple are men and women, boys and girls,
made in the image of Christ. We are true and we are fixed
according to the cornerstone of the temple and according to
the foundation that has been laid. And we serve Christ's purpose
when we are built on and made like him. Yes, we're all different. No two of us are the same in
Christ's church. But we are all fitly framed together
on Christ, who is our firm foundation. And here's a couple of little
applications that I want to make for us today. Firstly, this. I think it's very interesting
that Solomon asked Hiram for help. Hiram wasn't the mighty
king. He was king over one city or
maybe two if we count Tyre and Sidon as being sort of joined
together, linked together as they often are. Solomon was the
mighty king. He was the king over the empire. But Solomon knew that he could
not do everything himself. So Solomon employed teamwork. and Hiram was delighted to help
and support Solomon in this great task to the glory of God. I don't know if Hiram was a believer,
but he knew something of the Lord of David and something of
the Lord of Solomon. Now our Lord Jesus Christ is
powerful enough to do everything himself. He did everything himself
when it comes to those things that were required to save us. And yet, he also uses his people
to accomplish his purposes here on earth. He uses the church,
he uses the temple that he is building to serve his glory. He calls us to pray for one another,
to help and support one another, to engage in this building up
of one another, the building of the church in the place where
he has placed us. Maybe you think you're just small
or you're not able to do very much. But every stone has its
proper place and every piece of wood has its purpose. So like
Solomon, don't be afraid to ask for help from your brothers and
sisters in the Lord. And don't be slow to lend a hand
to help when the opportunity arises. Second point is this,
Solomon not only enlisted the help of Hiram, he also prepared
the finest materials. Before he started building, he
prepared the finest materials because only the best was worthy
of the Lord and his temple. when we serve the Lord, let us
do so to honour and glorify His name. We may not be able to do
much, but what we do ought to be done to the best of our ability,
and it ought to be offered to the Lord as a mark of our sincere
gratitude and thanksgiving, an act of praise for all that he
has done for us. And then thirdly, and finally,
let me just say this. Let us not forget to look beyond
the history of the Bible narrative that is given to us, for example,
in these Old Testament scriptures. Let us not forget to look beyond
the story to see the Lord Jesus of whom all the scriptures speak. One of the later prophets in
Zechariah chapter six and verse 12, he wrote concerning Christ. who was called the Branch. That's
another name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's called the Messiah. He's called the King of Kings.
One of the names of Christ is the Branch. And this is what
Zechariah wrote concerning Christ the Branch. He said this, Thus
speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is
the Branch. and he shall grow up out of his
place and he shall build the temple of the Lord. This is our Jesus. And Zechariah
and God himself says, behold the man whose name is the branch. And that's what we've got to
do. He shall build the temple of the Lord. And Christ is building
his church today, calling us to have faith in him and to follow
him in our lives. So let us all behold the branch. Let us all behold Christ. Let
us look to him in faith and believe what he says. He is building
his church of those who trust in his blood for the forgiveness
of sins and to rest in him for peace with God. May the Lord
bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.