Transcript
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies. Then in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Now we turn back to the Book of Kings, chapter 7. First Kings chapter 7. We’re going to begin reading at verse 40, and our reading will extend into chapter 8, to verse 11.
Hiram made the lavers and the shovels and the bowls. So Hiram finished doing all the work that he was to do for King Solomon on the house of the Lord: the two pillars, the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on top of the two pillars, and the two networks covering the two bowl-shaped capitals which were on top of the pillars. Remember we talked about these things when they were described. Four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on top of the pillars, the ten carts and ten lavers on the carts, one sea and twelve oxen under the sea, the pots, the shovels, and the bowls.
All these articles which Hiram made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were burnished bronze. In the plain of Jordan the king had them cast in clay molds between Succoth and Zaretan.
And Solomon did not weigh all the articles because there were so many. The weight of the bronze was not determined.
And Solomon had all the furnishings made for the house of the Lord: the altar of gold, and the table of gold on which was the showbread, the lampstands of pure gold, five on the right side and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary, with the flowers and the lamps and the wick-trimmers of gold, the basins, the trimmers, the bowls, the ladles, and the censers of pure gold, and the hinges of gold, both for the doors of the inner room, the Most Holy Place, and for the doors of the main hall of the temple.
So all the work that King Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated, the silver and the gold and the furnishings, and he put them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.
Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the City of David, which is Zion.
Then all the men of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the feast in the month of Ethanim, which is the seventh month.
Then all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. They brought up the ark of the Lord, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up.
Also King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled to him were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude.
When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
Well the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
One of my mother’s favorite secular songs, and when I think I can almost certainly say I learned it at my mother’s knee because I heard her sing it so many times. And I suspect it was a popular song during the days when my dad was courting my mom, and maybe that’s the reason she liked it so much.
Well the words have kind of stuck with me through the years. The song goes like this. I’m not going to sing it for you but I am going to give you the words, so relax. We’re just going to give you the words here.
“Golden days in the springtime of our happy youth. Golden days full of innocence and full of truth. How we laughed with the gaiety that had no end. Looking back through memory’s haze we will learn that life hath nothing sweeter than its springtime. Golden days, days of youth, golden days.”
Well obviously the writer of that poem was bitten by the nostalgia bug and he was looking back at his youthful days and he was saying those were the greatest days that I ever had. And that’s true of everybody. And the golden days of youth are not to be duplicated at any time later in life.
And sometimes Christians are bitten by what I call the spiritual nostalgia bug. And with respect perhaps to the beginning of the Christian experience or if we are in church we look back to the beginnings of the church and we think to ourselves, “Wasn’t it great back there? I can remember when I was first saved I was so enthusiastic. I was so joyful. I was witnessing for the Lord and getting answers to prayer.” And we are tempted to say to ourselves, “It’ll never be like that again.”
And the same thing can happen also for a Christian church. Can’t it? We look back at what we would regard as the springtime of the church and we say, “My, wasn’t it wonderful? Wasn’t the fellowship great? Wasn’t the ministry of the word good? Wasn’t it a blessing to be in that church here in those days?” And again we’re tempted to say, “Well I guess it’ll never be that way again.”
But you know whenever we are tempted to say that about our personal lives or about our church experience that’s wrong. They can be that way again.
If you had been an Israelite who had grown up under King David and King Solomon you would have been tempted to think about the history of Israel in exactly that way. Why, remember that we were told at the beginning of chapter 6 that 480 years had passed since the children of Israel came out of Egypt when Solomon began to build his temple.
And if you had been a young boy or a young girl living in Israel in those days as you grew up you were told all the wonderful stories about how God brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt with all sorts of miraculous signs. You were told how the presence of God had manifested itself in Israel. You remember the pillar of cloud that led them by day, the pillar of fire that led them by night. You would have been told of how God had descended on Mount Sinai and that your fathers had seen the glory of God. God appeared, we remember the rebellion of Korah and how the glory of God appeared before all the congregation.
But if you’d been living in Solomon’s day you would have said, “That’s a long time ago. That’s at the very beginning of the history of our nation. And we haven’t seen the glory of God manifested in Israel for centuries.”
And you know that was right. If you take a concordance and look up the word “glory” you won’t find any reference to the glory of God in the book of Joshua, in the book of Judges, the book of First and Second Samuel. It’s just as if a dull period had unfolded there where the children of those who had never really seen the glory of God.
And I think that the striking thing about the passage that we read together just a few moments ago is that for the first time in maybe nearly 500 years the glory of God actually appeared again in the nation of Israel. And it appeared in the house which they had built to worship the Lord their God.
And I want to ask the question this afternoon, what led up to the manifestation of God’s glory after all of this time? Mind you, after all of this time since the wilderness experience. What led up to the manifestation of God’s glory once again to the nation of Israel?
And very quickly I want to suggest five things that this passage suggests I think were preliminary things that paved the way for God to manifest Himself to His nation in His glory.
The first of these is found in verses 40 to 45 of chapter 7. And I want to say that what these verses tell us is that the craftsman finished his job. Remember Hiram, the very skilled artisan who worked with bronze. He had a lot of things to make and all of the things that he did make are listed here in this passage. And we are told that he finished all the things that he had come to Israel to do. There was a man who was skilled with his hands. He worked with his hands and he was a brilliant worker in bronze and he did the job.
Now in every Christian church there are people who are good with their hands. We have some people here at Victor Street Bible Chapel who are good with their hands. And I don’t happen to be among them. If I have any kind of mechanical contraption before me I would be very lucky if I could get it apart. But if I could get it apart there’s no way in the world I could get it back together again. I just don’t have that talent.
But some of you guys do. Some of you have carpentry talent. You’re excellent at repairing things. And also women have talents with their hands as well. Cooking takes some use of your hands I found. And you know some of the women don’t drop eggs like I do on the floor and all that sort of thing.
And we have a lady sitting over here very gifted with her hands, don’t you agree, Frances?
And one of the things that every church needs are people who can use their hands for the glory of God. If your particular skill, your particular talent is expressed through your hands, by all means do the job that God set before you. Don’t expect everybody to do the job. But if God has given you the ability, the talent to do that, get the job done.
A second thing that I notice here is that the supervisor sees the work through to the end. The supervisor sees the work through to the end. Who is the supervisor? Solomon. Notice that the text suggests to us very strongly how much he was involved in overseeing this whole process.
For example in verse 46 we’re told that he saw to it that the things that were made by the bronze worker were cast in clay molds at a certain location. In verse 48 we’re told that he had all the furnishings made for the house of the Lord. In verse 51 we’re told that all the work that King Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished.
Notice there’s all of the work that King Solomon had done. What had he done? I doubt very much if he picked up one single tool for the whole process of building the temple. I doubt if he dug any holes with a shovel. I doubt if he did anything that we might have called manual labor. But Solomon saw to it that everything was done and therefore in a sense he did it.
In the Truman Museum in Independence, Missouri, there is a desk that President Harry Truman used to sit at when he was president in the Oval Office. And on the desk there is a sign which I understand was also on his desk when he was president at the time. It said, “The buck stops here. The buck stops here.” He was the president. If it didn’t get done he was the man where the buck stopped.
And so Solomon was a man who picked up the responsibility and saw to it that everything was done. This needed to be done, a huge project with who knows how many workers and with how many different operations. But Solomon saw to it all got done.
And just as every church needs people in the church who are gifted with their hands, every church needs people with supervisory talents. And I repeat that every church needs people with supervisory talent.
As I’ve said many, many times this year, we’ll say many more times, I’m stepping down from the board when I turn 65 which is coming up rather rapidly. And I’m also stepping down from my responsibilities as superintendent of Sunday school. The reason I’m doing that is not because I positively am so low that I couldn’t manage to eke my way through another year as superintendent. But because we need to develop supervisory talent in the church that will come on after those of us who have been at it for a long time are finished.
And so we are looking for a Sunday school superintendent. The board has somebody in mind and they are weighing this before the Lord. And we sincerely hope that the Lord may lead them to make this step.
But we also need another kind of supervisory work. We have not had a Vacation Bible School for several years. The reason is we don’t have anybody who will lead it. Now the last one we had was led by me and that must have been my 99th Vacation Bible School. That’s an exaggeration. But I told the board I’m stepping out. I’m stepping into this one more time and then we’re going to have to find somebody else to lead a Vacation Bible School.
So one of the things we need to find in our midst is somebody who can organize and supervise a Vacation Bible School. If we want to have a Vacation Bible School we’ve got to find somebody like that. And it may well be that the person with that talent is sitting around this table. In fact if they’re not sitting around this table we would be less inclined to encourage them to take the responsibilities than a person who’s committed to the Lord and who is here worshiping with the body.
And if any of you feel as you think and pray about this a burden for picking up that kind of responsibility please let one of the board members know about it.
Notice therefore that in the construction of the temple the man with the gift in his hands did his job. The man with the supervisory responsibilities did his job. Now the building is complete, right? And now a very important operation must take place. They must bring the ark of the covenant which had been, you remember, in the tabernacle and which had been through the years a symbol of the presence of God in the nation of Israel. They must bring the ark of the covenant up to the temple and place it in the temple.
Now this was an exceedingly important operation because remember in the days of David it had been tried once in the wrong way. David tried to bring it up to Jerusalem and you recalled it says he didn’t put it in charge of the Levites and the priests. And a man named Uzzah reached out and tried to steady the ark when it was kind of shaking and he was struck dead. And David was very dismayed by that but later learned the lesson that if you do this you have to do it right.
Now if you’ll notice in chapter 8 when Solomon gets ready to take this very important step he assembles the leadership of Israel. He assembles, we are told in 8:1, the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes and the chief fathers of the children of Israel. And apparently these men go down to the section of Jerusalem called the City of David. That was the old, old section where apparently the Jebusite city had been and that’s apparently where the tabernacle and its furnishings were. And they are there as the tabernacle material is brought up to the Jewish temple. But it’s not the leaders who do it. It’s the priests and the Levites who bring these up. But the leaders take responsibility and oversee the operation.
So that’s the third thing I notice here. Not only does the craftsman get his job done. Not only does the supervisor see the work through to the end. But the leaders lead. The leaders take responsibility for the way in which this important operation is done.
We’re talking about the board now, aren’t we? And we cannot emphasize too much how absolutely essential it is that we have a board made up of men who want to lead and who want to lead in the proper way and see the things are done in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.
At the present time I know most of you know who the board members are. Besides myself who will be stepping down in June we have Bruce, we have Carlos, we have Joe, and we have one. And one serves as the chairman of the board.
One of the things that I like about the board that we now have is that the board is not just simply interested in doing things but it’s interested really in doing things right. Let me give you an illustration here that happened recently. I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes here but the suggestion came to us for that for our sons and daughters service out there we are not to that boovie old say we ought to get somebody else maybe one of our former piano players to play for that special meeting. The board was not favorable to that because it seemed to us that it was like pushing Julio aside and saying, “Well you’re not good enough for our special meeting. You can play at the regular meetings but not at this special meeting.”
And so the board I think very properly correctly turned thumbs down on that. Julio who always serves us every Sunday he has a right also I think to serve in a special meeting such as we had on sons and daughters day. But I’m proud of the board that the board thinks in those terms. The board is not just thinking in terms of putting on the best banner for performance that we have. Then if we wanted that we could maybe dangle a wad of money before Frances here to get her to come. But we felt that the person who was serving in the morning meetings ought to serve the special meeting. And I think the board’s concern is that whatever we did be appropriate. We’re not just trying to be successful. We’re trying to be appropriate.
And the elders here oversee the very important and delicate operation of seeing that the ark of the covenant and all the other furnishings of the tabernacle handled properly and they are brought into the temple of God.
There’s a fourth thing that I notice here and that is in 8:5 we noticed that the congregation offers sacrifice. Did you observe that? Also King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel were assembled to him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude.
This is the nation of Israel, the individuals, the congregation of Israel. And they are offering so many sacrifices that nobody could possibly count. So that’s how intent they were in giving to God and in worshiping God.
And we talk now have we not about people with gifts with their hands. We have supervisory talent. We talk about the leadership of the congregation. What do we want of our congregation? Well one of the things we want is an attitude of offering sacrifice to God.
First of all remember the writer of Hebrews tells us, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” One of the things that should characterize the entire congregation is that we should be extremely thankful.
You know we have to remind ourselves sometimes in prayer meeting where we gather together to make requests that we also ought to be thankful for all the things that God has done. It’s so easy to plunge into requests and to forget to give thanks.
The Bible also says, in fact the same book of the Bible says, “To do good and to share do not forget for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Two kinds of sacrifices that we can offer in this day and age. Not animal sacrifices as the children of Israel did but the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips. That doesn’t need to be done just at a meeting like this. Every time that you say something to God’s favor but praises God before other people that’s a sacrifice you’re offering to him.
And also every time you’re sharing with people’s needs, helping others materially, that’s a sacrifice which he accepts. And it’s wonderful if you have a congregation that wants to sacrifice in those ways. That’s exactly the kind of congregation Israel had here. They were dedicating this marvelous and beautiful house of God and they were offering so many sacrifices nobody could possibly tabulate them.
Who knows how poor things so far. Number one the man who worked with his hands did his job. The supervisor saw the work through from the beginning. The leaders met and supervised so that the work was done properly. The congregation offers sacrifice.
And finally the priests in verses 6 to 9. The priests are the only ones who can do this operation of bringing the ark of the covenant inside the house of God and bringing it into the Holy of Holies. And they do pick up that responsibility and they do it.
Now it’s not been too many weeks ago that we were talking about the fact that in our church and in Christianity today we don’t have a unique class of men or men and women as they now want to talk about it who are priests. We believe that the Scriptures teach clearly that all believers are priests. And you remember that we quoted the verse in Hebrews chapter 10, “Having therefore boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus through a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God.”
That is true of all of us. We are near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our bodies washed with pure water and our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. There is an invitation to all of us to go exactly where the priests of the story did in symbolic fashion. They actually carried the ark into the holiest of all. And now it’s our privilege as believer-priests to come into the very holiest of all, to realize that we are here for example at this meeting, that we are drawing into the presence of God and that we should be conscious of the fact that we worship God as near to him as we possibly can be. Even though physically we are here on earth by the Spirit of God we are drawn into the very presence of God and we can worship him there.
So here we have the priests entering the holiest of all and as believers we should do the same.
Now notice what we’ve seen here. The craftsman gets his work done. The supervisor sees the work through to the end. The leaders lead. The congregation sacrifices. And the priests enter the holiest of all.
And what is the result of that? The glory of God. The glory of God. Because once the priests have gone in to deliver the ark of the covenant into the holiest of all we’re told in verses 10 and 11 that the cloud of God’s glory filled the house and they had to leave now because God was there. And for the first time in more than 400 years the glory of God was manifest through the people of Israel.
And anyone who grew up in those days and said it can’t ever happen again was wrong.
And let me just suggest to you that if you look back at your own Christian experience and you say my early days were the best and they’ll never, it’ll never be better you’re mistaken. Because if you do the things that God sets before you God can make your experience even richer than before.
And as a church we must not ever fall into the trap of thinking that our best days are behind us, that the really glory days if you want to put it that way at Victor Street were 30 years ago. I believe that if the church will observe all of these things in the days ahead we can by the grace of God be brought into the richest experience that we’ve ever had as a church.
And what will happen? God will be glorified. Remember the verses we read from First Peter right at the beginning of the talk. Peter says, “As everyone has received a gift so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. He that speaks let him speak as the oracles of God. Let him speak as though he were a spokesman of God. And he who serves, implying the serving ministry, the use of the hands, let him do it as of the ability that God gives that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ and all things to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Bottom line, if we all do our part individually and collectively the glory of God will be seen at Victor Street. Not physically. We’re not looking for that. We’re looking for a manifestation of God’s presence and God’s power and God’s working in our midst.
One of the psalms that we have kind of latched on to as a group out of the new songbook and the minute I start quoting it you’ll all probably start singing it in your mind goes like this:
“Father we love thee, we worship and adore thee. Glorify thy name in all the earth. For if I thine may glorify thy name, glorify thy name in all the earth.”
We want God’s name to be glorified in all the earth but our first priority must be let Him be glorified at Victor Street Bible Chapel.
Okay let’s have any comments or questions that the men may wish to bring.