In 'The Building of the Temple Part 2', Chuck Smith elaborates on the construction of Solomon's temple, emphasizing its grandeur and the meticulous craftsmanship involved. He highlights the significance of the chief cornerstone, which was initially overlooked by the builders but later recognized as essential, drawing a parallel to Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of faith. Smith stresses the importance of obedience to God's statutes and judgments, noting that the nation's spiritual health depended on their adherence to God's commands. He concludes with a reminder of God's promise to dwell among His people if they remain faithful. The sermon serves as a call to recognize and honor the foundational truths of faith in our lives.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life And make you whole 1 Kings 6, verse 1 And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith Now it came to pass in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt So, in those days to date a thing they would date from some specific point of their history and their coming out of Egypt was really the birth of the nation so 480 years after the nation was birthed in the 4th year of Solomon's reign in the month of Ziph, which is the 2nd month that he began to build this temple or house of the Lord and the house which King Solomon built for the Lord the length of it was three score cubits a cubit is about 18 inches so you have 90 feet long and as you look at the dimensions of the temple that he built, you'll find it's just about twice the size of the Ark of the Covenant that was built as far as the length and all it's just about twice the size all the way around of the Ark of the Covenant the height of it was 45 feet and the width of it was 30 feet and then it describes the porches that were around it and this is where we need a architect to draw it up for us to give you the idea of what it looked like these porches were probably two-thirds of the way up and came off of the main building which stood 45 feet high, 90 feet long 30 feet wide, of course the Holy of Holies within it was a cube of 20 cubits or something in here above where the porch came off they had narrow little windows for light within the temple there of course was no light within the Holy of Holies that was as in the tabernacle lit by the Shekinah of God and he built these little chambers or rooms around the temple around the Oracle and the Oracle here is the Holy of Holies, the place where God would speak to them and so it describes these various little chambers and rooms and all around it. The house when it was building was built of stone that was made ready before it was brought there so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building these people were tremendous stonemasons and it was set out in a very brilliant way they designed the size of each stone and at the quarries away from the site they did all of the chiseling, all of the carving of the stones and then they would number the stones and send them to the builders who were putting the stones together they were so perfectly carved, so perfectly chiseled, so flat and they were interlocking that they did not need to use any mortar and so at the very site of the building itself there was no sound of hammer tools of any sort, iron or whatever you didn't hear the striking of the iron tools and all because the thing was all fit to interlock together and to be put up as one would put up a prefab kind of a building. The work was all done in the factory and all they did was assemble it when it came to the building site. Now when they were building the temple according to the story, the history, a stone came from the quarry and the builders who were erecting the building couldn't figure out where it went and so they just sort of tossed the thing aside and they came to the completion of the temple and the chief cornerstone was missing. According to the quarry they sent the message we're ready you know to finish the thing we need the chief cornerstone and the message came back it's already been sent and so finally some fellow discovered over in the bush this stone that the builders had set aside not realizing it was the chief cornerstone and so in the prophecy Psalm 118 concerning Jesus Christ that deals with that particular incident it said the chief cornerstone which was said of not by the builders the same has become the chief cornerstone this is the Lord's work it is marvelous in our eyes and in the New Testament Peter picks that up and says that was a reference to Jesus Christ he is the chief cornerstone but was set of not by the Jews by the builders they didn't recognize him they cast him aside but God has ordained that he should be the chief cornerstone so talks about the quarrying of the stone putting it together without any tools of iron while the thing was being built being heard around the house the door for the middle chamber was on the right side of the house and they went up winding stairs and so there's a winding stairway and if you go to Jerusalem today you can go under the Damascus gate and into the guardhouse and in the guardhouse there's an interesting winding stair which was used by the guards in Jesus' day as they guarded the gate of Damascus but it gives you an idea of the winding stairways and how they built them in just sort of a square area probably eight feet and how that they just wind on up and around and it gives you the idea there in the Damascus gate you can see it today then they built the chambers and all and it describes all of these in the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying verse 11 now verse 12 concerning this house which you are building if you will walk in my statutes and if you will execute my judgments now again we mention that the judgments of God were God's declaring what kind of judgment should be made in particular situations and circumstances the judgments did not deal with the ordinary people they dealt with the leadership you that are in the position of authority and leadership when you have a case where this happens and this happens this is what you are to do this is the judgment that is to be executed and so God says if you will keep my judgment you see God is a God of justice and one of the times of Israel's weakness when Israel fell before their enemies God declared one of the reasons for their fall was their failure to execute his judgments they were letting people get by with crimes without any kind of punishment they had developed a plea bargaining situation and judgment the Lord said is not forthcoming and because of that there came a weakness within the nation a moral and spiritual weakness because people were getting by with evil things and it created that weakness that brought the fall of the nation and I worry today when I see so many times people getting by in the court system with evil things judgment is not forthcoming but the Lord said if you will walk in my statutes if you will execute my judgments and keep all of my commandments to walk in them then I will perform my word with you which I spoke to David your father you keep my word Solomon and I will keep my word I'll keep my promises but you have to keep my word and the same is true for us today if you keep God's word God will keep his word God will be faithful to his promises unto us God said I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel later on in Chronicles we read concerning Asa after he came back from the victory over the Ethiopians and the Nubians the Lord said unto him the Lord is with you while you will be with him and if you seek him he will be found of you but if you forsake him he will forsake you forsake the ways of the Lord God will forsake you keep the ways the Lord God will keep you the Lord is with you while you'll be with him if you seek the Lord you can find him I'll dwell the Lord said among the children of Israel God's presence among his people is always a glorious desired thing so Solomon built the house it says and finished it now it goes on to describe some of these boards of cedar for the that they covered over the stones they sort of build it with stones and then they covered over the stones with these boards of cedars and on these boards there were beautiful carvings of different cherubim and pomegranates and flowers and all and then they overlaid all of that with gold so the whole thing must have been magnificent to look at just looking at this beautiful gold with the carvings of the various things upon it and of course these two cherubim that were inside of the Holy of Holies and the whole thing is described here the Oracle verse 19 the Holy of Holies he prepared in the house to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the Oracle was 20 cubits in length 20 cubits in breadth 20 cubits in height or 30 feet cubed and it is interesting the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was cubed 15 feet this is cubed 30 feet which you remember we are told in Hebrews these things were all a pattern of heavenly things and the heavenly city itself is a cube what is it some 1200 furlongs the scripture says this cube of heaven and it's as tall as wide as thick and he overlaid it with pure gold and so he covered the altar that was of cedar with gold Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold he made a partition of the chains of gold before the Holy of Holies and overlaid it with gold and the whole house he overlaid with gold until he had finished all of the house also the whole altar that was by the Holy of Holies he overlaid with gold and within the Holy of Holies he made two cherubims out of olive wood and then each one were 15 feet high they had wings that were seven and a half feet each and so you have 15 foot wingspan on the cherubim and they were so placed that their wings touched each other and touch the walls so here were these two cherubim carved out of olive wood with these huge wings going out touching each other and stretching from wall to wall within the Holy of Holies and he overlaid those with gold so the thing must have been fabulous to look at but the only thing was the only the priest saw it you see when you read the dimensions of the temple you think well man that's small you know only 90 feet long and all that it seems awfully small well they didn't meet the people didn't meet in it like we gather and meet here in the church they would gather in the courtyard outside only the priest would go into the temple only the priest were there worshipping within the temple itself and only the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies within the temple the temple wasn't a place for the people to congregate before the Lord that they did outside in the temple area around the temple but the priest would go in and it was just the place for them to go in offering the sacrifices and doing the service of God within the temple and so he describes the doors that went into the Holy of Holies they also were made out of olive wood and the lentils and the side posts verse 31 the two doors were of olive wood he carved upon them the carvings of cherubim palm trees open flowers and then he overlaid them with gold so you had these beautiful gold overlaid doors man would they be fabulous today with all of these carvings upon them and it goes on and describes for you the fancy gold ornamentation of the temple that he built and as I said the estimated amount of gold to do all of this work was 75,000 pounds so in chapter 7 we now deal with the building of Solomon's palace and it seems like the palace was made up of several different areas some of it was of course just for the entertaining there were the living quarters there was the porch for judgment and then of course the house that he built for Pharaoh's daughter one of his wives Solomon was building his own house 13 years and he finished all of his house probably the buildings were started simultaneously and the temple was finished in seven years 13 years for the building of Solomon's house he built also the house of the forest of Lebanon and the length of it was a hundred and fifty feet the breadth of it was 75 feet so a good size main house 75 feet by a hundred and fifty feet that's a good size mansion the height thereof was 45 feet some believe that it was three stories high which 45 feet would give you ample room for three stories it would be 15 feet per floor so it is quite possible that it was a three-storied house which means that you then have around 25,000 square feet within the house which isn't a bad size home but of course you look at the queen's the palace in England stuff like that you know it's for kings that's it's not shabby but it's it speaks about the beams covered above the cedar beams 45 pillars 15 in a row and so it goes on and gives the the details which can get rather laborious talks about the windows and the doors and the porch of the pillars and then the porch for his judgment verse 7 and then where he dwelt his own living quarters there was another court the big main palace was probably for affairs of state that were carried on there he had his own living quarters which were sort of separate and then the place the built verse 8 for Pharaoh's daughter who he had taken as his wife it was likened to his own living quarters and these were all of costly stones according to the measures of the huge the huge stones they were sawed with saws within without and they were on the outside toward the great court these stones were 15 feet some of them and some of them 12 feet not as big as some of the stones that were in his temple which some of them were as large as 18 feet and above were costly stones and so forth the great court round with the three rows of the huge stones and and always as I say it it gets laborious it's hard to really picture it too well in your mind but it talks about his own living quarters we'll return with more of our verse by verse study through the book of first kings in our next lesson as we continue with the construction of Solomon's house and we do hope you'll make plans to join us but right now I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details simply call 1-800-272-WORD and phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time once again our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 and for your added convenience you can order online anytime when you go to the word for today dot org and while you there be sure to browse through the additional resources that include Bible studies commentaries CDs DVDs and so much more once again that's the word for today online at the word for today dot org 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