In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the building of the house of the Lord as described in First Chronicles. He emphasizes the importance of being aware of God's presence and seeking His guidance and wisdom in our lives. Pastor Chuck also mentions a book he has written called "Living Water," which explores the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives. He concludes by listing the various responsibilities assigned to the Levites in the temple, including serving, judging, and praising the Lord.

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 mold you And His Spirit like a dove We'll descend upon your life and make you whole So David was old and full of days, and he made Solomon his son king over Israel. Through David's leadership, the nation was brought into an apex of glory and power. But David in his older years had a tremendous urge to make his life count for God. And it was in his heart to build a magnificent house for God. A palace, a temple. But God told David that he could not be involved in the actual construction of the temple because of his many wars, his bloody hands. He had shed too much blood. But God promised that his son would be able to build the temple. Now, David was still obsessed with the idea of the temple. And so, in his latter years, he drew up the plans for the temple. All of the details. He gathered together the materials for the building of the temple. And then he even went so far as to organize the whole ritual for temple worship of the tribe of the Levites. And he organized them how they would come in and serve their turn in the temple and then return to their various villages. As you know, the Levites lived in certain cities that were apportioned to the Levites throughout the land. They were cities of refuge. And as we get from chapter 23 to 27, it is dealing with David's division of the task and the division of the families for these tasks so that they set up the various courses and when they would come and when they would minister in the temple during the years. So, David was old, full of years, and he made Solomon his son king over Israel. In the book of Chronicles, it doesn't tell us at the death of David how that the other sons were vying for power and there was a power struggle. And one of his sons had actually acclaimed himself as king and Bathsheba came to David and said, I thought you promised my son would be king. And so David passed the scepter on to Solomon before his death to cut short the attempt of Adonijah to usurp the kingdom. So he gathered together all of the princes of Israel with the priest and the Levites. Now, they had numbered the Levites from age 30 years and upwards. They had to be 30 years old before they could begin their ministry unto the Lord. It is interesting that Jesus was 30 years old when he began his public ministry. The priest spent the first 30 years in schooling and training for the ministry. At 30 years, they began their active ministry and at 50 years, they retired from their ministry. And so at 30 years, they numbered the Levites and their number by the census, man by man, was 38,000 above the age of 30, of which 24,000 were set for the work of the house of the Lord, 6,000 were appointed as officers and judges, moreover 4,000 were porters, janitors, and 4,000 praised the Lord with instruments which David said, I made to praise therewith. And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi, namely the family heads were Gershom, Kohath, and Merorai. These were the three family heads from Levi and thus they were divided in their courses by David. 24,000 to serve in the house of the Lord, 6,000 were to be officers over the land and judges, and then 4,000 to take care of the janitorial work, the upkeep and so forth of the temple, and 4,000 just to spend their time singing and praising the Lord with the various musical instruments that David had made for this task. So we first of all get the listing of the families of the Gershonites and then in verse 12, the families of Kohath, and of course from Kohath came Aaron and Moses, and then the family of Merorai beginning with verse 21. Then in verse 25 we read, David said, The Lord God of Israel hath given rest unto his people that they may dwell in Jerusalem forever. Also unto the Levites there shall no more carry the tabernacle nor any vessels of it for the service thereof. Now you remember originally when Moses divided the families, there was one family that were the porters who had to carry the tabernacle through the wilderness. Whenever they would move camp, they would collapse the tabernacle and then they would set up the camp, they would set up the tabernacle again, but it was a portable kind of a place of worship and they were carrying it through the wilderness. When they came into the land, they first of all set the tabernacle in Shiloh, later in Gibeah, but it was still a tent, it was still a portable kind of an edifice. Now David said we're going to build this temple. Jerusalem is the place, it's going to be here and we're not going to need these fellows anymore from the tribe of Levi who were the porters. Their job is over because it's going to be an established place to worship God and therefore they were the maintenance men and given the task of keeping the place up, keeping it maintained and all. And so they were to wait on the sons of Aaron to make sure that the show bread was all prepared, to make sure that the oil was there and so these fellows were involved in the worship aspects from behind the scenes, making sure that everything was all set and prepared and ready for Aaron as they would minister every morning, thanking the Lord and praising the Lord and likewise at evening, verse 30. And so they were the ones that made the show bread for the meal offerings, the unleavened cakes and they took care of the behind the scenes kind of work. Now in chapter 24 we have the divisions of the sons of Aaron. They were divided by lot, verse 5. They oversaw the sanctuary of the house of God. Now I will only point out one and that's in verse 10 and this was the seventh course. There were 24 courses, as I said, they would serve two weeks. The seventh course fell upon Hachaz, the eighth to Abijah. Now the eighth to Abijah. You say, well, so what? Something interesting. Turn to the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke chapter 1 and verse 5. There was in the days of Herod the king of Judea a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of Abiah. The Abiah is the Greek for Abijah. And his wife was of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. They had no child. Verse 8. It came to pass that while he executed the priest office before God in the order of his course. Now you understand what David was setting up. And it so happened that in the New Testament this program that David inaugurated was still being followed a thousand years later. Here is Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. His turn has come. He was of the family of Abijah and thus it was his course and he was of the eighth course of the priest. He was serving his two week duty in Jerusalem and when you would come then they would draw lots as to what part of the priesthood you would fulfill. And it so happened while Zacharias was there that it came his lot. They drew lots. It came his lot to offer the incense before the altar of incense before the Lord. And so this whole organizational chart was set up by David. And this whole order of priesthoods and all was set up by David. Very excellent program. And I'm amazed at David. He was a man of many talents. Tremendous organizational skills. But before we give David too much credit we should listen to David's own words concerning these things and we will take a jump ahead to chapter 28 verse 19. All this said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me even all of the works of this pattern. So David acknowledges it was all from the Lord. It was by inspiration. Now we know from the New Testament that David was a prophet. That many of the Psalms are prophetic. And in referring to the prophetic Psalms David is referred to as a prophet. But David was also a king. The prophet and the king. And being a prophet God spoke to David and God gave David understanding and more so in his later years as he had sort of settled down from his wild early youthful years. So 24 orders are given here for those who would serve in the priesthood. Then in verse 20 they divided the house of Kohath, the Kohathites. And then the mirror writes in verse 26. Chapter 25. David and the captains of the host separated the service of the sons of Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun who should prophesy with harps and with the psalteries and with the cymbals and the number of workmen according to the service was, and it lists then the families, who prophesied with a harp to give thanks and praise unto the Lord. And so God gave to Heman the latter part of verse 5 14 sons and 3 daughters and these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the Lord with cymbals and psalteries and harps for the service of the house of God. So the number of them with their brethren that were instructed in songs, even all of those who were cunning on their instruments were 288. 4,000 altogether involved in the music. And they would come in and there was to be continual music, worship and praise being offered to God by the singers and those that would play on the various instruments. So anytime you would come to the temple, day or night, you would hear the music, the worship, the praises going up unto God. It must have been quite an experience. It's one of those things I wish that somehow we could get in a time machine and go back and observe what was going on during the time of Solomon when they inaugurated this whole system that had been organized by David. So they divided them by lot or by the casting of lots into 24 orders and those are given to us in the rest of the chapter. In chapter 26, the divisions of the porters from the family of Korah. It tells us of the divisions of these porters and they were there to minister in the house of the Lord. That is in the maintenance aspects. And then the guarding of the gates that led into the temple. The men that would stand and guard the gates. Now they had the outer court which was the court of the Gentiles could come in but then the Gentile could not come past a certain line. There were signs warning Gentiles not to enter with the threat of death. And then the inner court and the gates that led into the temple and so the families that were assigned to guard the gates. And a passage of scripture that for some crazy reason has become popular is verse 18. And you hear it quoted often. Some joker will say 1 Chronicles 26 18. But it was just one of the gates and at Parbar westward four at the causeway and two at Parbar. And for some reason people like that scripture. But it just talks about the guards that were set up at that gate on the west side. And then there were those who were assigned to oversee the treasuries of the temple. And the hijah was over the treasures of those things that were dedicated. And Shulamith and his brethren were also over the treasures and the dedicated things. The things that they the spoils from battles. So many times they would say Lord if you give us this city we'll give you the spoils of the city. And so so many of the spoils in the temple that came from the various battles. They dedicated to maintain as a maintenance for the house of the Lord. And all that Samuel the seer and Saul the son of Kish and Abner and Nur and Joab who were the generals of the armies in Zuriah. The things that they had dedicated whosoever had dedicated anything it was under the hand of Shulamith and his brethren. And then the next listing is for the officers and the judges. For the judges also came from the tribe of Levi. And they would judge in every matter that pertained to the law of God. And the affairs of the king. Chapter 27 They set up the 12 captains who were over the thousands and the hundreds to serve David each month a new group of 24,000. They were sort of the personal army of the king that would come in each month a new captain with 24,000 men. And those are listed in chapter 27 there. Coming now to verse 23. So David did not take the number of those who were under 20 years old. Because the Lord had said that he would increase Israel like the stars of heaven. And Joab the general the son of Zuriah began to number but he didn't finish the census because God's wrath came against Israel. We studied this last week. And neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of King David. Then David had a man Asmapheth who was over his finances over the treasures of David. Adiel was over the warehouses in the field where they would bring in the grain and so forth at the time of harvest. And in the cities and villages. And in the castles was Jonathan. And over them that did the work of the field for tillage the farm foreman was Ezri. And over the vineyards was Shimei. And over the olive orchards and the fig trees that were in the low plains was Baal-Hanan. And over the vast barrels the cellars of oil C-E-L-L-A-R-S not S-E those cellars of oil was Joash. Over David's herds that fed in the valley of Sharon was Shittri. And over the herds that were in the valleys of Shephat the son of Adlai. Over the camels was Obel. And over the flocks was Jeziz. And all of these were the rulers of the substance which belonged to David. So you got a lot of stuff man. You need a lot of help. And so David had those organized who took care of the farm that took care of the storage of the food that took care of the olive orchards that took care of the herds and the herds in the various valleys that were David's. And Jonathan was David's uncle. He was David's counselor. He was a wise man. And also the recorder, the scribe. And Jehiel the son of Hakmoni was with the king's sons. But Ahithophel was the king's counselor. And we remember how Ahithophel had gone over to Absalom when he rebelled against David and was upset and went out and committed suicide. And Hushai then became David's chief companion and counselor. And after Ahithophel committed suicide, Jehoiada the son of Beniada who was one of the priests became David's counselor. And the general of David's army was Joab. We'll return with more of our study of 1 Chronicles in our next lesson as Pastor Chuck Smith continues to guide us verse by verse through the entire Bible. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. 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And now on behalf of the word for today we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support. And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck Smith continues his verse by verse venture through the book of First Chronicles. That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now once again here's Pastor Chuck Smith. I pray that the Lord will just give you a special week of blessing the awareness and the consciousness of his presence and so as David said to Solomon the Lord be with you guiding you all week long prospering you in the things of the spirit giving you wisdom and giving you understanding that you might become God's witness to this world around us. Blessed of God used of God may you be rich in the things of God in Jesus name. What does the Holy Spirit do? What are the gifts of the spirit and how should I respond? It's Pastor Chuck's desire that by God's grace and through this book the Lord will develop in you a hunger and thirst for the things after the spirit that will help you come into a deeper and personal relationship with him transforming your life. To find out more and to read a book preview visit the wordfortoday.org and click on the link to download Living Water by Chuck Smith or if you would like to order this book in print call the Word for Today at 800-272-WORD that's 800-272-9673 This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California