The Two Pillars of God’s Temple (1 Kings 7:13–22, 41–42)

We begin our reading in First Kings chapter 7 at verse 13. First Kings 7:13:

Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram. He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a bronze worker. He was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill in working with all kinds of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and did all his work.

And he cast two pillars of bronze. Each one was eighteen cubits high, and a line of twelve cubits measured the circumference of each. When he made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the top of the pillars, the height of one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. He made a network of chainwork with wreaths of chainwork for the capitals which were on top of the pillars, seven chains for one capital and seven for the other capital.

So he made the pillars, and two rows of pomegranates above the network all around to cover the capitals that were on top. And thus he did for the other capital. The capitals which were on top of the pillars in the hall were in the shape of lilies, four cubits. The capitals on the two pillars also had pomegranates above, by the convex surface which was next to the network. And there were two hundred such pomegranates in rows on each of the capitals all around.

Then he set up the pillars by the vestibule of the temple. He set up the pillar on the right and called its name Jachin, and he set up the pillar on the left and called its name Boaz. At the tops of the pillars were in the shape of lilies. So the work of the pillars was finished.

Now will you skip down to verses 41 and 42, which summarize the material that was made in connection with the pillars.

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, four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on the top of the pillars.

That summarizes the material that is described in verses 13 to 22.

Now without a doubt the most important project which Solomon undertook during the course of his forty-year reign over the nation of Israel was the construction of the Jewish temple, the construction of the house of God.

You may remember from our last time together in the Book of Kings that we also discovered that he built a palace, really what we should call a palace complex with more than one building in it. And the palace complex was much larger than the Jewish temple, and it took him longer to construct it.

But it is interesting for the writer of Kings there are only twelve verses on this huge palace complex which Solomon built for himself. And the writer spends in excess of seventy-five verses describing the construction of the temple. The lesson which we draw from that, and which we drew last time, is essentially this. During the course of our life whatever we build for God is many, many times more important than anything that we build for ourselves.

And the writer of Kings brings things into perspective here by spending more time on what Solomon built for God than the writer spends on what Solomon built for himself. And the description that the writer of Kings has given to it in First Kings chapters 6 and 7, and the fact that he spends a large amount of space describing these tremendously important buildings in Solomon’s edifice.

Now one of the facts that is oftentimes forgotten about the Jewish temple is that right from the very beginning the Jewish temple was not simply a work done with Jewish materials and Jewish labor. The Gentiles were also involved in the construction of the temple.

You remember that in an earlier chapter we found that Solomon sent a message to Hiram the Gentile king of Tyre. And because the workmen of Hiram were so skilled at cutting timber he requested a large amount of cedar and cypress wood which Hiram agreed to have his servants cut down and float down on rafts to the place where King Solomon’s workers could pick them up.

So from the very start the Gentile team and their skillful labor force was involved in the construction of the temple. Now we discover in the passage that we read a few minutes ago that there is a master artisan, a master craftsman, a man whose special skills were in bronze work. And by a coincidence he has not only come from Tyre but he has the same name as the king of Tyre. His name is Hiram.

And Solomon sent for this very skilled craftsman to engage in the construction of certain elements or items within the Jewish temple. Well you notice in verse 14 that this man is a son of a mixed marriage. His father was a man of Tyre, which means that his father was a Gentile, and his mother was from the tribe of Naphtali, meaning that she was of course a Jew.

So that this very skilled and impressive specimen had a Gentile father and a Jewish mother. He had the genetic inheritance of both a Gentile and a Jew.

We are reminded by all this of a statement which the Lord Jesus Christ made in the last week of His life in Jerusalem. You remember that during the last week of His life in Jerusalem He went into the Jewish temple. And that He drove out of the Jewish temple the people who were changing money, who were selling sacrificial animals.

And as He was throwing them out of the temple He quoted a passage from Isaiah which said this. And Jesus said,

Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of thieves.

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” It was never God’s intention that only the Jewish people would worship Him or pray to Him in the Jewish temple. It was always His intention that it should be a house of prayer for all nations. If those who sincerely sought the Lord could come to the temple and could pray in God’s house to the one true and living God.

And so it is very striking, is it not, that from the very beginning God introduces the Gentiles into the construction of that temple. And this artisan that we are reading about today is a mixture of Jewish and Gentile blood. Because God intended the temple to be a place where Jews and Gentiles would mingle as they worship and as they pray to God.

Now keep this purpose in mind as we look at the first piece of bronze work which the man named Hiram carried out. He built two pillars of bronze. You’ve already noticed that their names are Jachin and Boaz.

And you have in front of you a piece of artwork that will never appear in any gallery nor will it gain fame for the artist who did this. Someone before the meeting suggested this was a Renoir painting. And I hate to tell you this is not a Renoir painting. This is supposed to represent very roughly one of the pillars which were erected by this artisan named Hiram.

We should begin by observing that, like most Hebrew names, the names Jachin and Boaz have meanings. The name Jachin means something like “He will establish,” and the name Boaz means “in Him is strength.” When you take the two names of the two pillars together, Jachin meaning “He will establish” and Boaz meaning “in strength,” you have “He will establish in strength.”

So these pillars represented in a very real way the ability and strength of God to establish whatever He wished to establish. Obviously the temple was His establishment. But this truth of God, that everything that God performs, everything that God does, He will establish with strength.

The first thing that strikes us about the pillars is their absolutely enormous size. We are told that the pillars are eighteen cubits high, which comes out to about twenty-seven feet high. Though these pillars were huge. And they were more than four times the height of a six-foot man.

The circumference of the pillars we are told is twelve cubits, which comes out to about eighteen feet. They were eighteen feet around. And these were in bronze. You couldn’t get your arms around them. They were very thick.

And therefore very appropriate symbols of the strength and power of God. They must have looked very solid. They must have looked very strong. And they represent, as their name suggests, the ability of God to establish His purposes in strength.

And we also notice about these pillars that there was no decoration on them until you got up to the capitals. Soon we all know what a capital is. A capital is the headpiece that stands on top of a pillar. And the capitals that stood on top of the pillars were an additional five cubits high, or about seven and a half feet high.

So you add that to the twenty-seven foot height of the pillar. So that you have over thirty-four feet for these huge capitals that stood at the top.

Now all of the decorations that were described here in our passage are decorations that were placed on the capitals of the pillars. So if you are looking at my very feeble diagram, there is no decoration on these fairly just solid bronze pillars. But on the top is the capital which has decorations on it.

Now first of all these two pillars stood at the outside of the sanctuary of the temple. So they were visible undoubtedly to everybody who was in the courts of the temple. They were not like some of the objects of the temple inside and only seen by the priests and the Levites who went inside. They were visible outside. They didn’t hold up anything. They’re called freestanding pillars. They just stood there as monuments so to speak, as emblems and symbols of the strength of God.

So everybody who came into the temple courts could see these pillars. Now imagine yourself standing in the courts and you are looking toward the sanctuary of the temple. And here are these two gigantic pillars standing there. What is your eye going to do? Well in order to view the capitals your eye is going to travel up the pillar all the way up to the capitals which are on top of the pillar where all the decoration is.

So notice that from an artistic point of view these pillars actually direct the gaze of the worshippers upward. To follow me, to really appreciate these capitals you had to look up to heaven, if I would like to put it that way. Well you got the upward gaze.

And let me just say before we go any further that of course that was what the temple was about. As we mentioned a few moments ago this was to be a house of prayer for all nations. It was supposed to be a place for all men to come and look up to God, look up to the one who dwells in the heavens, offer Him their praise, offer Him their petitions.

And notice how these pillars directed the gaze upward so that the inevitable result of this is that you would be focused in an upward way on the capitals which stood at the top of the pillars.

Now I confess to you that I worked long and hard to figure out the decorations of the capitals here. And this is a difficult section of the Hebrew text. But after consulting some books and working with the text I came up with this diagram which does not do justice, I might say for the nineteenth time, to the undoubted beauty of the capitals.

But apparently what we have by way of decorations on the capitals is this. First of all we have a latticework which was in the form of chains. And we are told there were seven chains on each capital. Now if you are looking at my diagram you will notice that I have depicted to have, I think this is the way it probably was, three chains going horizontally you notice that, and four chains flowing up and down, up to the seven chains, creating a network impression.

Okay, now in addition to this there were two rows of pomegranates which were apparently, or may well have been, attached to the latticework. Either they were attached to the latticework or they were in between the openings in the latticework. These are also carved out of bronze of course. And each row of pomegranates represents a hundred pomegranates going all the way around the top of the capital. But you have two rows with each a hundred pomegranates. So each capital had two hundred pomegranates. The total number of pomegranates of the two capitals was four hundred as given to us in the verses that summarized this.

In addition to this the shape of the capital was the shape of a lily. Now I admit here that I have no idea whether this is the correct shape for a lily and wouldn’t even venture to suggest that’s anywhere near. But we are also told in the summary verses that we read a few minutes ago that they were bowl-shaped. They were in the shape of a bowl. For what we probably have here is like lily work opening up at the top. And the open top looked like the opening of a bowl. So you kind of get that picture.

And as much as possible you can visualize it from this. The bowl shape of the capital. The capital was girded around with this latticework of chains. And in between the openings of the latticework were rows of pomegranates, a hundred to a row, two rows to each capital.

Now if you get that picture let me suggest how these decorations relate to the basic significance of the pillars. Remember that the name Jachin means “He will establish” and the name Boaz means “in Him is strength.” “He will establish in strength.” But I want to suggest that each element of the decorations enriches our concept of the way in which God establishes His work, establishes His purposes with strength.

First of all if you look up at these capitals you saw the chains going around the capitals. And even though this was decorative material it would obviously hold the capitals together by the chains. Do you follow me? You wrap chains around something maybe though there’s a little band that will keep it from coming apart. May I suggest the chain work, the latticework of chains, suggests the ability of God to hold things together, the ability of God to hold things together.

Do you remember what is said of the Lord Jesus in the book of Colossians? We are told that He is before all things and in Him all things consist. Or as we might translate, in Him all things hold together. We are also told in the epistle to the Hebrews that He upholds all things by the word of His power. And the first thing I want to observe here is that the God whom we look upward to for strength and enablement is a God who keeps everything together, including the entire universe. The whole universe at every moment of every day is held together by the power of God.

Remember the words of Elihu in the book of Job. He said if He were to gather His spirit and His breath, mankind would return to dust. Mankind would return to dust. As a result the thing that keeps everything going, the thing that keeps the planets in space, the thing that keeps nature working, this is not a machine that God has wound up and it can go on without Him. And He can go away and leave it. The creation is something that is held together by the mighty power of God.

And if God can hold together the entire creation can He not hold together the works that He does within His creation, the work that He does among Christians and in the lives and experience of churches? So I would suggest as the writer of Kings suggests the power of God to hold things together.

The pomegranates of course they were fruit. Their size was about the size of oranges and they were red when they were fully ripe. Their juice was much admired and enjoyed in ancient times. And obviously the pomegranates represent God’s ability to produce fruit. God can get results. God can accomplish purposes. He not only holds His work together, He can make it abundantly fruitful.

And then finally they are shaped like lilies. The capitals themselves are shaped like lilies. These of course were admired in ancient times for their beauty, for their loveliness. And so this suggests God’s ability to create beauty in His work, that the works of God are beautiful.

Remember that in the Garden of Eden we are told that when God planted the garden that within the garden He planted every tree that was pleasant to the eyes. Not only trees that were good for food but trees that were beautiful. And so He planted trees that were lovely to look at and He planted trees that bore fruit that could be eaten by the inhabitants of the garden.

We are reminded of a statement made in the book of Ecclesiastes that we often see. He makes all things beautiful in their time. Whatever God does, whatever He establishes, whatever He accomplishes in strength, He accomplishes so that it is productive and fruitful and lovely and beautiful to behold.

Now how does this apply to us? I hope that as you are sitting here and listening to these things about God you’ve already done some application. God’s power to hold things together, God’s power to produce results of fruit, God’s power to do things that are beautiful and admirable and lovely. But how do they apply to us at Victor Street?

What I was thinking about it, oh boy, and I was reminded that the work that is now represented here on Victor Street began over a half a century ago as I understand it. It began with two women, Mrs. Llewellyn and Mrs. Humphreys, who as I am told met out in the open with little groups of kids. They were sharing the gospel with kids from the neighborhood in South Dallas, which is of course the neighborhood in which we started.

If you had been standing there and I had been standing there watching Mrs. Llewellyn and Mrs. Humphreys teach the little children, could we have anticipated what would come from that? Why would we not have said well in a few years these two ladies will be gone and in a few years the kids that they have taught out under the trees will have disappeared and there will be no trace of this anymore.

But as a matter of fact from under the trees God moved this work into an old clapboard building. I don’t remember the clapboard building. I wasn’t here then. Lois remembers it and he was very young at the time. The clapboard building with homemade benches and with a wood-burning stove. Lois can tell you about that if you want to know more about it.

And then God moved us to a washeteria building. That’s where I first met this group, a washeteria building located on the corner of Jeffries and Hickory Street. Later we moved into a storefront building on the corner of Hickory and Orleans and through several other places of meeting until we finally found ourselves in the building in which we are meeting today.

Would you say that’s come a long way from little classes under the trees? This is the work of God. This is His ability to hold things together. At any stage along the history of this church the work could have come apart. It could have collapsed. It could have disappeared from the pages of history. But it didn’t. Why? Because He is able to establish with strength. He established this work. He sustained the work. He has held it together for more than half a century. And we still exist as a work of God today.

We’re not only His ability to produce fruit. Does Victor Street illustrate God’s power in this respect? It most certainly does. In fact the majority of the people sitting around this table have come to know the Lord through the ministry of Victor Street. But for the other persons who are sitting around this table there may well be six or more other people who have come to know the Lord through the ministry of this work who are not sitting here.

The last time we had a Vacation Bible School and we asked the kids at the end of the Vacation Bible School how many of them had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life during the week of the Vacation Bible School, we had maybe nine or ten hands go up. Well but that’s only one of the Vacation Bible Schools that has come through here. That doesn’t even consider the Sunday School classes.

Do you see what I’m talking about? That through the years God has been producing pomegranates. If you would think of it, if you’ll permit me to use the comparison, every soul that He has won is a beautiful piece of fruit, the result of the ministry of His work. There were four hundred pomegranates around the top of the two pillars. There may well be four hundred or more people that have trusted the Lord over the fifty years of the existence of this work.

But it has not only held the work together, He’s made it fruitful. Has He created beauty here? I think He has. In fact I think one of the most beautiful things that has occurred here is the meeting of which we are now gathered. Let’s remember that according to the book of Ephesians, angels of God watch the church. And what we try to do here is to create a meeting that as far as we can tell the Lord would approve resembles the meeting of the early church.

And I have to think that as the angels look down on that they find that beautiful. They find that attractive. I like to think that if the Apostle Peter were alive today and were to walk through that door he would feel perfectly at home. This is the kind of meeting he was used to. And he could sit down and take part of it with perfect ease and naturally.

But that’s not the only beauty that God has created here. I was pointing out to a number of people that when we had our Sunday School meeting at the end of last year, when we set up our rotation for Sunday School, the entire rotation for the upstairs class and the downstairs class consists of people who have found the Lord directly or indirectly through the ministry of Victor Street.

In fact our rotation for the morning class, the upstairs class, is so long it takes us fourteen months to get through the rotation to give everybody a turn. But they have now. You will only remember how for many years we had outsiders coming in to do this. We’re grateful for what they’ve done, the contributions made by many people from the outside. But in my judgment there’s a special beauty to the fact that God is now using in the Sunday School of this church people who have benefited directly from the ministry of Victor Street and are now in the process of giving back to others what they have received themselves. That’s beautiful in my opinion.

Now that’s not the only beauty that I see here at Victor Street. We have a board of men who are the leaders of this church. And as I assume all of you know on June the 15th when I turn the ripe old age of sixty-five or cabin age I’ll step down from the board. And the board will be run by the church will be led by the remaining men.

Now I think this is beautiful because all of these men are products of the ministry of God’s Word here at Victor Street. I believe all four of them who will get up on the board are men who are committed to God, who have shown regularity and faithfulness in the work of God. And I think I’m having a very special thrill which many preachers and teachers don’t have of stepping down and watching people that have been trained here pick up the responsibilities, pick up the burden and go on with the work of God.

I think that, and of course I’m only scratching the surface here. We could talk about the changes that God has wrought in the lives of people sitting right here or other people that we know. And it’s all beautiful, don’t you agree? It’s all lovely. It’s all attractive. It’s all wonderful.

So what we’ve seen here I think in the two pillars is God’s ability to establish His work with strength, to hold it together, to make it productive and fruitful and to make it beautiful. And it seems to me that as we head into this transition that I’m just talking about, when the leadership will pass to imperative men who have been nurtured within the church, that we need to maintain the conviction of the truth of these two pillars.

What’s the future of Victor Street? As I’ve said to Lois as we’ve talked about this, I think Victor Street’s best days are ahead of it. And it often happens that the next generation of leaders can go further and wider than the first generation of leaders. Moses could only lead the children of Israel to the borders of the land and Joshua could conquer it. David could only make preparations for the temple but Solomon built it.

And so I think that because this is the work that God has established with strength, that this is a work that God can continue to build and can continue to establish and produce with strength. But we will need the upward look. I was surprised, I’m not totally surprised, a little surprised by Lois’s message this morning because it does tie so well with what I wanted to say to you.

The whole genius of Jachin and Boaz is that you look up. And when you looked up you saw the beauty, the stability, the fruitfulness of God’s work. If we as a church will look up to God, if we will look up to Him in prayer, if we will realize that it’s not what we do but what He does, we do not establish, He establishes. We do not make things fruitful, He makes them fruitful. We can’t hold it together folks but He can hold it together.

As what we need to do as individuals, as Lois was telling us earlier, is to give ourselves to prayer. More than the kind of prayer where we hop into bed and say, “Lord bless the church, amen.” But intercessory prayer that recognizes that God is the doer of this work and that we must always, always look up to Him. That’s where the prayer of Moses the man of God comes in.

And I want to close with that. You remember what he said at the end of Psalm 90. He says,

Let Your work appear to Your servants and Your glory to their children. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

Is that not what we want for Victor Street? Don’t we want God’s work to appear to us as we serve Him? Don’t we want God’s glory to appear to our children? Don’t we want our children to know the glory of the God who works here? Don’t we want the beauty of the Lord our God to rest upon this church? And do we not especially want God to establish the work of our hands? That’s a good prayer to pray at Victor Street.

Okay that’s all I had to say. Maybe we have comments, questions and observations from the men right now.