II Chronicles 5:1-9:31

[00:00:00] Now, this evening, we come to take the last few chapters of that second part of the second great division of these two books. [00:00:09] Realization of the purpose of God, the building of the temple as it is centered in Solomon. [00:00:20] Remember, just very simply, last week we dealt with only two things. [00:00:27] We dealt first of all, where the chronicler takes up Solomon's reign, the most remarkable thing. He doesn't begin where the writer of kings begins, but he takes up Solomon as found at the tent of meeting at Gibeon. [00:00:49] That is, he was found at the beginning of his reign and God met him there at the altar in the old tabernacle at Gibeon. We saw then that his reign began, as far as Chronicles concerned, at the tabernacle when it was separated from the ark. The ark and the tabernacle had become separate. [00:01:18] The ark was in Jerusalem. It was on the right ground. [00:01:25] The tabernacle was now, as it were, it had lost its meaning, really. [00:01:31] Essentially the symbol of the presence of God, personally committed, had gone. [00:01:39] And it was then only a legal institution. [00:01:43] And we noticed how interesting it was that when the plague swept over the land, David does not go to Gibeon to inquire there. [00:01:52] He kept to the ark. The Holy Spirit made David cleave to the ark and leave the tabernacle. But Solomon's reign begins not at the ark, but at the tabernacle. And we saw straightaway last week that God is out to reunite the tabernacle with the ark. That is, to bring back the house of God to himself, as it were, simply to bring back the people of God into a living relationship with himself. [00:02:28] That's why Solomon's life is the reuniting of the tabernacle with the ark. David's life is the preparation for of everything for the house of God. The getting of the ground, the possessing of the ground, the capturing of the ground which was so important. [00:02:49] And then through the bringing up of the ark that was the highlight of David's life, the bringing up of the ark of God onto the right ground into Jerusalem, that was David's life. Solomon was a different aspect altogether. Solomon's life ministry was to bring the vessels of God back to the Ark of God. In other words, to reunite everything to the Ark of God. [00:03:16] And then we saw the last week we saw the actual building of the temple. You remember some of the technical facts we mentioned. 90 foot long, 30 foot, 30 foot high. [00:03:29] You remember it took 160,000 men consistently and continually over seven years to build it. The values of the material, not of the labor, but of the materials used alone, at the most conservative estimate, is not less than £100 million. [00:03:50] It was one of the most magnificent structures of the ancient world, in proportion, in color, in material and in harmony. [00:04:00] Everything about it was absolutely magnificent. [00:04:05] Last week we also dealt with something of the construction of that house. [00:04:11] You remember, Solomon had got Jerusalem. [00:04:15] He came into that. His father had captured Jerusalem. He had built the walls and it extended the ground. He'd maintained the ground. [00:04:25] Now, you remember David, in his terrible failure, came into a discovery of the site of the actual house, the threshing floor of Ornon the Jebusite. Do you remember that? He came into a discovery of it by a failure by sin. [00:04:42] God, when he confessed his sin, turned his sin into discovery of the Lord. [00:04:50] When he discovered the Lord, he discovered he'd found the actual site for the house of God. He'd not only got the ground of God, he'd not only got God committed to that ground, he'd actually discovered the actual site itself. He found the actual altar, the place of the altar. Now, that place of the altar was Mount Moriah. [00:05:17] And you remember, the last thing we dwelt upon last week was very simply, as we looked at the construction and the order of the construction of the house. First of all, they levelled out the peak of Mount Moriah. They leveled it. To this very day, it is still leveled. Some people even question as to whether at any time it really was a peak. We understand from Josephus and other historians, they actually leveled the peak, except for one craggy point, which was allowed to jut its way up through the foundation and became the actual floor of the brazen orbiter that today is still seen in the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. [00:06:05] They leveled the peak and then they built. They put into position these huge foundation stones, some of them 24, 20, 25, 30ft long, seven and a half foot high and a good deal more thick. They leveled them, they brought them together and fitted them one by one into their position until a huge platform had been made on the rock. And then on that rock, they built the stones. You remember the white marble stones, a kind of marble. [00:06:37] Nowhere in the whole house was a stone scene. That was the glory of it. Nowhere was a stone scene. All the work in the quarries of Lebanon and at Bethlehem and around Jerusalem, all the work of chiselling out those stones, beveling their edges, sizing them, actually marking them with a mark. Each one was marked, so they knew exactly where it was to go and which one. Either side was to have its place. And Above. [00:07:05] And then they were bought and put into position, each one as they were accepted and proved, so they were bought, and without any sound or noise whatsoever, were fitted into their place. [00:07:18] We found that in spite of all that work that was taken over those stones, they were never seen. For over them completely was overlaid cedar wood. [00:07:30] And the cedar wood was carved deeply and embossed and engraved. [00:07:35] And then over it all gold plated completely throughout, from end to end. You never saw the stone. [00:07:48] So we learned last week that the word of God teaches us that from the actual rock to the foundation to the stone, to the wood, to the gold, everything is Christ. [00:08:03] It is not ourselves. Some people make the tragic mistake of thinking the stone is our natural life, hidden. This is not so. We are quarried out of what Christ is. Then we are fitted. [00:08:16] Then there is something of the nobility of Christ's nature, of his human nature, is developed and reproduced. And then the gold of what he is refined, purified, tested, tried, is then produced so that when God sees it, it is a most wonderful thing. From the outside surface to the innermost heart. It is something that speaks completely and utterly of His Son in every part. [00:08:51] Look right down to the foundation and you will find that the whole foundation is Christ produced. Christ, the cornerstone, and then every other stone. The apostles and the prophets, but all out of Christ. [00:09:05] Go deeper than the actual foundation to the rock underneath, and you've still got Christ. Thou art Peter, said the Lord Jesus upon this rock himself will I build my church. Foundations, stone, cedar, gold. And then encrusted into the actual gold, the most beautiful gems everywhere, so that the whole thing scintillated in the light of the golden candlestick. [00:09:35] It was evidently a place of breathtaking beauty. [00:09:44] Well, we might not think it that the church is a place of breathtaking beauty, whatever we might find down here on earth. [00:09:56] God says that his church is the place of breathtaking beauty. [00:10:04] What we often call the church is no more the church than a cinema or a public house. [00:10:13] What is the true church of God? The is something produced by the working of the cross and the energy of the Holy Spirit into something that God rests in, something that God delights in, something that God can utterly commit Himself to, because it is His Son. [00:10:33] No sin gets into it. [00:10:35] Nothing that's just of the old nature can get into it. Belonging to the old creation, it is from beginning to end, a new creation. [00:10:45] Now we dwelt last week with all that we saw how all those wonderful vessels, the candlestick, the table, the golden altar, were put into Their position. We saw how outside there was the brazen labor and the altar put into its position. How everything took its place. Do you remember? We saw how those two new great cherubim were put into their position over the old cherubim on the mercy seat. Two huge new cherubim with one great and distinctive difference. Instead of looking down into the ark, they looked out into the house. [00:11:21] That is exactly what God does. [00:11:23] First, he's got something, as it were, that depends a humanity. And I believe the cherubim are a symbol of God. [00:11:32] God's humanity, the humanity which is according to the mind of God. [00:11:37] First, to get such a humanity, it depends utterly upon Christ and His atonement and his salvation. [00:11:46] But when he's got it, it is a humanity that looks right out to the rest of the world. [00:11:54] So we saw that. And lastly we saw there were two great bronze pillars that were placed outside. [00:12:00] One was called in him as and the other he will establish. And around the top, where you could hardly see it was lily work. And then draped on all four sides of the chapter of the capital, there were chains. And on the chain, 200 pomegranates on each pillar. It spoke of the work of the Lord Jesus. It spoke of the fruitfulness of his life and the purity of his life, glory of his life. But those pillars are a testimony when the house is complete outside, two pillars that just simply reminds one of, I will build my church and Christ in you is the hope of glory. [00:12:47] That is the final testimony of the church. One day, when we get to the glory and we find by the grace of God, if in his grace he has so been able to deal with us, if we find that we are part of the church, part of that eternal habitation of God, we shall find that there symbolically there is a great witness. [00:13:11] The Lord Jesus said, I will build my church. And as we see everything in retrospect, we shall see that he has fulfilled his word. He has built his church. He has presented it to His Father without spot, without blemish, without wrinkle, without any such thing. [00:13:29] Perfect, thoughtless, the very vessel of God's glory. [00:13:39] We shall also see that it was Christ in us, but was the real ground for God to do such a work. [00:13:51] Now this evening we come to another side of it. We come this evening to this question of the dedication of the temple. We have only a few chapters actually to look at this evening. From chapter five to chapter nine. [00:14:10] The temple took seven years to build. It was began in May of the first year and ended in September of the seventh year. [00:14:18] Then a whole year went by. And at the feast of tabernacles in the following October, there was a great feast of dedication. [00:14:27] It lasted the seven days of tabernacle, the seven days of the feast of tabernacles, and then added to it were eight special days of festival for the feast of dedication, one great feast for the dedication of the temple. [00:14:47] Now, if we look together at chapter five, we find now that the house of God has been built. [00:14:55] And in chapter five, the first thing we find is the ark and the holy vessels being brought into the house of God. [00:15:05] You see that it immediately takes up this matter of the Ark. Again. [00:15:11] The ark is the most important thing in Old Testament history. [00:15:19] And we have to carefully understand the position and the place and the relationship of the ark of God if we're going to understand the relationship of God to his people at any given point. From Moses right through to the rubber ball. [00:15:40] And here we find that the ark is on the right ground, but it is now being brought into the house. [00:15:49] This teaches us that when God gets a people on the right ground, we have not necessarily got the house. [00:15:59] When God gets a people on the right ground, he will commit himself to them. [00:16:07] But the end is to build a house which can be a place of rest for him. [00:16:16] You do not just build a house as so many people think. And the tragedy of the 20th century has been simply that everywhere people have tried to build New Testament churches. [00:16:31] And then they get on their knees and ask the Lord to come into them what they've created, what they've patterned out, what they have put together. Then they all get on their knees, oh, Lord, now bless us, come, bless us, use us, come into it. This is not the way. [00:16:48] And therein lies a fatal tragedy. [00:16:54] God first gets the ground clear, then he gets the people on that ground. Individuals, units, much fault, much failure, much sin, much ignorance, much superficiality, much that's unreal. But he gets the people on that ground. And when he's got that people on that ground, he commits himself to them. [00:17:18] He commits himself to them. And when he commits himself to them, the devastating work begins of breaking them of what they are. [00:17:26] Then the work starts of building a house which will be a resting place for the Ark. Oh, it's a wonderful thing to have the ark on the right ground, but it is also a terrible thing to have the ark on the background. [00:17:43] It's a wonderful thing to have the ark on the right ground, because it is the earnest that the house of God is going to be built There. [00:17:51] But it is a terrible thing to have the Ark on the right ground because it is in earnest that we are going to be ended. [00:17:58] We are going to be finished. [00:18:00] God is going to deal with us. [00:18:02] There are many, many people who like to think that this question of the church is your all happy friendship, gay gaiety and fun and plenty of love and affection. [00:18:18] And, well, we're all. It's wonderful. It's just wonderful. And maybe when we come into it, we see it, but if we are on the ground and committed to it, we find that it's anything but that. It is a place of devastation. It's a place of destruction. It's a place of being broken, isn't it? It's a place where the Lord will use your brothers and sisters to break you and will use you to break your brothers and sisters. [00:18:45] It is a place where sometimes you would prefer to be far away from. [00:18:51] But it is a place, once committed, that you can never get away from. [00:18:55] Once you come to church ground, you're chained, you're fattened, you can't go again. [00:19:01] You stop. [00:19:02] You might dislike your brothers and sisters. You can't get on with your brothers and sisters. You might collide with your brothers and sisters, but God keeps you there because the Ark is there. If you leave that ground, you lose the presence of God. [00:19:15] If you go away, the ark won't go with you. The Lord may bless you from afar, but the Lord's not committed to you. [00:19:23] To have the Ark, you stay on the right ground. [00:19:26] You can't build a house where you wish to build it. [00:19:29] Even if you call it Bethel or anything else that's got a good sounding name and a good interpretation. [00:19:37] You can't do it. [00:19:40] Neither can you run away and choose where you will live and expect the Lord to be with you. [00:19:45] God brings you to the ground, and there on that ground he commits himself. And once he has committed himself, woe betide that people. [00:19:55] It is a wonderful thing. It is a thing of living stones built together on a foundation on rock. It is a thing of cedar and olive wood and thorn. [00:20:04] It is a thing of purifying gold and gems and jewels. [00:20:11] It is something that is eternal and permanent, incorruptible and indestructible. [00:20:18] But the way to it is always and ever by the altar. [00:20:25] There is no other way. [00:20:27] Mount Moriah on the ground is the heart of the matter. [00:20:34] So we find here the Ark is being brought into the house we have, the house we saw at the beginning of Solomon's reign. There Was no house. [00:20:45] We found Solomon at the tent at Gibeon. God never said that his name would be there at Gibeon. [00:20:53] Man said that God would be found at Gibeon. [00:20:57] There they set up the Tent of Meeting. [00:21:01] And the Lord provided for them in his grace. He even sustained them there as a legal institution. [00:21:08] But the Ark did not stay there. [00:21:11] The Ark journey, it made some strange journeys into Philistia and later into some other strange homes. But at last it came back to Jerusalem. When it came to Jerusalem for the first time, that was the first great move of God to bring back the Tent of Meeting to the Ark. [00:21:30] Now we have found that the Ark and the Tent of Meeting, the tabernacle, are going to be reunited in the house. [00:21:41] That is, we have got the Ark on the right ground. [00:21:47] Now God has produced the habitation, his habitation. [00:21:52] Now the ark is going to go into the house. [00:21:54] And as it goes into the house, the vessel, those holy vessels of God are going to be reunited to it. [00:22:01] You see, this is a very modern thing. This is absolutely out to the. [00:22:06] You take all the ministries of Christ today, they are absolutely like spokes without a hub, are they not? Take this question of evangelism, take this question of teaching, take this question of healing and many other things. They're all here, there, everywhere, independent, unrelated, free lungs. [00:22:31] There's no help to them. [00:22:33] People are saved. Where do you put them? [00:22:37] People are taught to what end is has no end. [00:22:44] There is nothing to which to introduce it. [00:22:46] There's no means of building up. [00:22:49] When ministry has not an end, it is nothing in the sight of God. [00:22:55] Ministry is a means to an end. [00:22:57] It is to the building up of the house of God. [00:23:01] Evangelism is a means to an end. It is providing the material to the body of Christ. [00:23:08] Whatever it is. Whatever it is, I don't know. There are a thousand or one thousand in the ministry of Christ. Yet only as they are brought into the house where the Ark is in its western place, can they possibly be related. [00:23:24] Can there be a harmony? [00:23:25] Can there be something which is a unity, so that evangelism is bringing the people in and the teaching is building them up, and all the other ministries are gathering them in, strengthening them. Whatever it is they need, it's there in the body. [00:23:42] Whatever they need, it's there. [00:23:47] Perhaps sometimes our need will be met by the humblest sister in the company. [00:23:55] But God has an answer to every need in his body. And sometimes what the platform cannot touch, the lowliest saint can touch, because it's the house of God. [00:24:10] And when you've got the house of God, you have the candlestick, you have the table of showbread, you have the golden altar. All has a context, all has a realm, it has a meaning. [00:24:23] It is not just a candlestick standing there by itself. It is a candlestick within a house. It is not a table of showgrade for food. The presence of God imparted, given to us out there on its own. It's there in the realm of the house. [00:24:41] Worship comes into its own in the house of God. [00:24:46] So you see, here is a wonderful thing in chapter five. [00:24:50] Those holy vessels of God now that have been separated from the ark and lost their meaning, really are now being brought back into their right realm, back into their right relationship, back into the right context. [00:25:06] All as a harmony now. [00:25:09] All is a human. [00:25:11] What a wonderful day that was. [00:25:14] No wonder. [00:25:17] I was going to say something. Perhaps I shouldn't say. But you know, it seems to me almost as if the Lord couldn't hold himself at this point. [00:25:24] It seems to me as if really the glory should have stayed until after that prayer of dedication. Dramatically, we would have done that. We would have kept it all back as an allord restricted. [00:25:35] When we've had the prayer of dedication, you come in, just sweep everything over, leave us all breathless. [00:25:45] But no, it's as if the Lord couldn't. He couldn't stay out. [00:25:50] When the ark came into its right place. And the best Lord's got into their right place. Was it. The Lord said, this is it. [00:25:56] You can lead the prayer of dedication. This is it, this is it. [00:26:01] Prayer of dedication is now a formula. [00:26:04] We've got the thing in reality. [00:26:09] So you see, it's a wonderful thing to read in these chapters, in this chapter about the ark coming in and the vessels of God into their place. What a wonderful thing it says when it says that the staves were so long that the end of the stage was seen from the ark. Before the article, there's a great controversy over these few words. There are those who say it means the staves were drawn out and put up on either side so that you could see them from standing here. You could see them through the veil on either side, the end of the veil. You could just see the stage. There are others who say that what it means is that they were pulled one out that way and one out that way. You could just see one and one. [00:26:55] But whatever it means, surely the point is the same. That the ark was now had come to its permanent resting place. [00:27:07] Whether they were actually drawn out or whether they were Only drawn out so far as to keep the Mosaic commandment, which was, they should never be taken out. [00:27:16] But they were drawn out that far as to just point out to everyone, this is home. [00:27:22] No more pilgrimage, no more subject. This is hope. [00:27:27] And even more clearly as it seems, in the fact that what was once in the ark was a golden pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded and the 12 Commandments on stone. But now we're told expressly that there was only the Ten Commandments in the Ark. That's all there is. There, you see, what God is saying is this. [00:27:56] I have come home to rest. [00:27:59] This is my home. [00:28:02] Symbolically, the Ark was, as it were, God coming back home, forever staved out. [00:28:11] No more journeying, no more yearning, no more desire to be at home. God had come home. And now God was saying, and that's where I want you. [00:28:23] There will come a day when you won't need a rod to bud. You know why I had to bud, don't you? Because there was faction and murmuring and trouble in the camp. [00:28:32] No more of that rest and no more manna. [00:28:37] That was when you were in the wilderness and you needed food. [00:28:43] How weary you were, how tired you were, how hungry you were, no more slept. [00:28:48] But the Ten Commandments are the heart of God's universe. [00:28:55] Morally, the Lord Jesus is the personification of the Ten Commandments fulfilled and to all eternity. He remains at the heart of God's universe as the Ten Commandments personified. [00:29:15] And when we're there, we've got the same Ten Commandments inside written on our hearts. If there's anything of the Lord Jesus inside, the Ten Commandments are there, don't worry. [00:29:26] Only our old nature that will break them. [00:29:29] There's a new nature inside that can do nothing else but keep them. [00:29:33] It's in it, inherent within it, right inside. Can't do anything about it. [00:29:38] So we need together to really see that here we're taught on one side God has come to rest, on the other side we're taught God will bring us to rest. [00:29:51] Now, there is a sense in which we've entered into rest. [00:29:55] Is that not so? [00:29:56] There is a sense in which we have entered into rest. There is a sense in which our rest is yet to be. [00:30:03] I believe rest is bound up with the house of God down here. [00:30:08] It's not only a question of the Lord Jesus personally, but there's a terrible sense of frustration, which you only know when you're torn away from the children of God. [00:30:18] Some of you may have to Know it. [00:30:20] Are you planted some other end of the country or somewhere else where you're just absolutely lonely. And once you've known what it is to be amongst the saints, really, you can't rest till you find fellowship. [00:30:34] You know it, you know it. Whenever you really come and touch the house of God, you're changed. You may not know it, but you are. [00:30:43] You're spoiled. And once you get away anywhere, anywhere, you always know when you touch the house of God again. Always. And you always know when you're not touching the house of God, because something's happened just inside that you cannot explain. I must be very careful what I say. But it's like birds coming home to roost. [00:31:03] You just know when you come home to boost on this earth, when you touch a company that is in the smallest way the house of God, you come home to roost. And you know it's inside. [00:31:15] Just like the bird, the homing bird that cannot rest until it's back, but when it's got there, it just rests. [00:31:25] So we find here together that God speaks very, very wonderfully of this rest. And then I want you to notice in that last paragraph from 11 to verse 40, what a wonderful thing this is. Here the ark is in, the staves have been drawn out, the vessels are in their place. And then we find the most wonderful thing. It came to pass, says the chronicler, and it came to pass, and he goes on to say that here were the Levites with their psalteries and harps and cymbals and so on, their musical instruments. And over Here were of 120 priests with silver trumpets, all ready to blow their trumpets. [00:32:08] And when the ark had been put into its place and the vessels of God had been put into place, and by the way, every priest was there, and all the Levites, no one kept their courses. You know, There were the 24 courses, no one kept their courses. The whole lot were there. It must have been a tremendous complication. [00:32:25] If you could have only seen it. [00:32:27] When they came out of the house having put the there, then the song began, and they sang evidently a psalm. And we have the psalm three times mentioned. [00:32:41] For he is good, his love for he is good, for his loving kindness, or his mercy endureth forever. This was the song they sang. [00:32:51] And evidently as they sang, it said when they and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord before that came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in Praising and thanking the Lord. [00:33:17] Well, that must have been, I think, a miracle to have all those psalteries, those harps, those cymbals, those other musical instruments and 120 trumpets all making one sound. [00:33:34] But when they made the one sound, the glory of the Lord filled the house. [00:33:43] Now, real worship is not only what we basically. [00:33:49] And that in an elementary way. Worship is not just my bowing down to someone over there. [00:33:56] Worship is when something inside happens. It happens inside of me. [00:34:01] Something breaks. Something is not only broken in me, but something is offered up in me. [00:34:08] That is Christ is offered. That is worship. [00:34:12] But when the glory of the Lord touches earth and the earth touches the glory of the Lord is when you've got a company in whom one sound is being founded. [00:34:27] That's worship. [00:34:29] Grace is the key to that. That's why their song was great. For his mercy endureth forever. What a song to sing. [00:34:36] His mercy endureth forever. And I'm very interested that in verse 6 it speaks of the cross. But it says that their evidence made. A number of things offered at the altar were tremendous. [00:34:51] In verse 6 says they were assembled unto him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be presented, could not be counted nor numbered for multitude. [00:35:06] I always think that it means the working of the cross to get one sound. [00:35:11] Is that not so? [00:35:14] There are these people who must be individualists. [00:35:19] They must be individualists. [00:35:22] Now, forgive me, but I'll give you a little illustration that many of you heard a little while ago at a certain meeting at a conference. [00:35:30] We were all singing a hymn. It was the closest hymn. [00:35:34] There was real fervor and zeal in the singing for him. [00:35:41] We sang it because we felt inwardly we could sing it. And then suddenly at the end, a lady warbled away right up into her own little desk and fell again sadly to the earth. [00:35:59] And there was something that in me, and I'm quite sure, my dear brother who sat next to me, that I will not name that died, just died. [00:36:12] Now, no doubt that dear saint thought she was presenting her little offering in the congregation of the saints. [00:36:20] But I believe the Holy Spirit was offended. [00:36:26] The Holy Spirit doesn't need people to be either dramatic or individualistic. [00:36:34] The greatest thing is when we blend and we can blend into a background. [00:36:41] That's when the Lord thinks. And that is when you always get a sense of everything being right, it all being as it should be. I once heard that word. [00:36:54] I was once told. I remember, my dear brother, glorious simply. Everything as it should be. [00:37:01] Glory is just Simply everything as it should be. There. There they all were, 120 priests. There must have been thousands of Levites, all with their harps and their psalteries and their musical instruments of other kinds. The singers, a vast choir. There were two hundred and eighty eight choir masters without the 12,000 that they had to look after. [00:37:30] But my. [00:37:33] They sang one note now that needed the work of the cross inside to produce such a note altogether. [00:37:40] There we learn something. Not even our praise together, even our gathering together, even our worship together. To be able to seek grace from the Lord. To blend, to harmonize, to be together. To be. Not to have to sort of be something, but just to be absolutely one. Everyone individual, each one unique, each one original, but all peacefully blended to the other. [00:38:11] Now, another little illustration may or may not help you. Someone pointed out to me the other day the remarkable way in which the royal family, the ladies of the royal family dress when seen together. [00:38:25] That they dress in such a way as not to take from each other and yet all to blend. [00:38:31] That is perfectly true. [00:38:35] They dress in such a way that they all blend together and yet they're beautifully and wonderfully clothed. [00:38:46] A little lesson for us all spiritually that we each one our personality. [00:38:53] I'm speaking spiritually, not about the thing. Our personality, our being should be absolutely unique, absolutely original in our own experience of the law and yet wonderfully blended and built into the stone that is next to you and above you and under you. [00:39:11] The way one those stones, you know, were fitted together. The wood wasn't just little plaques, but marked out where the stone was so that when you looked at it, you could see clearly where the stone was. [00:39:23] The wool was long and long so that really you couldn't quite where one stone began and the other ended. [00:39:33] When we're built together, we're like that. [00:39:36] You're not quite sure where something begins and where something ends. [00:39:40] It's just like that. [00:39:42] It's an atmosphere. [00:39:44] So we see that this glory, the glory of the Lord filled the house of God when the ark was brought into its place and when they really worshipped him. [00:39:53] Now let us simply look at the print of dedication that we find in chapter six. [00:40:01] You see that Solomon first of all reviews the history of his people. [00:40:10] He goes right back to the beginning. [00:40:12] He recounts the purpose of God. [00:40:16] He points out again this question of the name of the Lord. [00:40:20] He points out the choice of God which is so important. Not anywhere, he says, not anywhere. The Lord did not choose any city. The Lord didn't choose any place. He makes it very Clear the Lord chose this place, this Jerusalem and that alone that he might build his house and place his name there. Then he goes on to that, to the choice of David his Father as the one who should lead Israel and then he goes on from that to the fact of how David was not allowed by the Lord to build the house but it was promised to him that his son true and then we come to the body of his prayer which is a really remarkable prayer. [00:41:06] The body of his prayer is simply that everything in life and among the very nations is related to Bihar. [00:41:17] Now either we've got to confess that Solomon was very swell headed when he offered this prayer or he had a spiritual principle. [00:41:28] So he starts and if you look, we'll just look look through it ourselves from verse 21 in verse 21 he tells us that prayer that is heard is prayer uttered in this house. [00:41:41] This may be a key to why some of our prayers are not answered. [00:41:46] Some of us don't like to bring anything into the house of God. [00:41:51] We like to hold it to our own bedroom and sometimes our prayers are not answered. [00:41:58] There are personal prayers. There are things too intimate to and rightly to be made the property of the whole family of God. [00:42:13] But even those intimate prayers can be prayed towards the house. [00:42:19] I believe there is no other meaning to in the name of Jesus than prayer because you are a member of the body of Christ. I don't see any other point in it. [00:42:32] Some people have an idea that the name just simply means they've got an authority. Personally I can't find that anywhere. [00:42:39] If they have such an authority why doesn't the Lord just throw them out personally to use that authority? Why does he always say that to bind anything or to release anything there must be two or three of you in the name. [00:42:52] Why does he vest anything that's in the name in more than one prayer? Therefore even when personally uttered when we say in the name of Jesus we are really praying toward the church, toward the house of God as part of the church, as part of the body of Jesus. [00:43:12] Now some of you sisters have been married. When you were married you took your husband's name. [00:43:17] You took your husband's name. Henceforth you are his body. [00:43:21] You two have become one and you share one name. Wherever you go you are Mrs. [00:43:29] And because of that you have an authority. [00:43:32] But if some other unneried sister were to come in and say in the authority of Mr. So and so I wish to do so she may well be challenged and legally she will touch has no right whatsoever when you pray. [00:43:47] You and I pray. We pray because we've been married to Christ. [00:43:52] We are members of his body, and therefore we pray in the name because we have come to have his name named upon us. [00:44:05] We've lost our name and we've gained his name. [00:44:10] That is a wonderful thing. [00:44:12] Prayer, then, is to be in the name. [00:44:15] And unfortunately, because of this terrible swing to that which is just purely individual as individuals, there's this idea that you can just pray anything in the name. And that is why so often you do not get your prayers answered. [00:44:33] Prayer that's prayed in the name is prayer that is prayed within the context of the house of God. That does not necessarily mean just immediately. [00:44:44] It means even in your own home, your family, your business, you see yourself as a part of Christ and of his body. [00:44:53] And as such your prayer life is given rise. I remember once brother Lee saying something which stuck in my mind. He said, even prayer is in the prayer of Jesus. [00:45:03] We pray in the prayer Jesus. [00:45:07] Think about it. [00:45:09] Then in verse 22, and in 23, we find something else. We find the whole question of judgment. [00:45:17] Judgment is a question of the house of God. Now, it's no good, you brothers and sisters, if you fall out with one another, having a little quarrel with each other and say, well, you said so and so. And the other say, but you said so and so. And so you start to hurl epithets at each other. So you say, I'm not going to talk to so you anymore. And the other one says, I'm not going to talk with you anymore. I think you're absolutely wrong and a hypocrite. Goodbye. [00:45:40] That's the end of you. [00:45:42] I shall sit in the same gathering and glare at you from the other side. [00:45:48] Well, there will be nothing from that. [00:45:52] You wait until the judgment of God falls on that brother. That brother waits until the judgment of God falls on you. And so you eye each other like vultures, waiting for the judgment of God fall. A sniffle appears in brother so and so. And I hear the other brother saying, ah, that's going to die of pneumonia. [00:46:10] You'd laugh at that. It's the kind of thing that happens in the church. [00:46:15] Terrible thing. It is, but it happens sometimes. [00:46:19] Nothing ever happens when two children of God fall out with each other, God them to it. [00:46:26] And the more they fight, the more God leaves them till at last they can take their jackets off and get really down to it. And who smashes the other one's face will be left to it. [00:46:38] But the moment one side comes into the house and brings the matter into the house. The judgment of God is brought to bear on that situation immediately. [00:46:51] You bring a matter into the house, you go to that one and say, listen, we are members of one body. We cannot behave like this. Will you put this right if they say I will not put it right. You take the matter to the church. [00:47:09] And if the church says something as it acts by the Holy Spirit, sooner or later her the Lord will vindicate his own name. [00:47:25] Judgment, therefore, is a question of the house and not an individual matter. [00:47:29] And then if we go on, we shall find again defeat, Defeat because of sin. [00:47:36] Here there is someone who has sinned or they have sinned. And because they have sinned, they have fallen. [00:47:45] If we're living defeated lives, it may be that somewhere or other there's something we haven't got through. Now listen to this. [00:47:53] If we are living defeated lives, there may be some point that we haven't got through on. It may be with a brother, it may be with a sister, it may be on a principle within our life together. [00:48:06] But we've got to get through on it. And there'll be defeat and, and defeat and defeat and defeat and defeat and continual defeat until the moment we turn towards the house. The moment we lift up our hands toward the house, that moment God answers us. [00:48:23] You see, it's again, it's a question of a life together, a common salvation and a common life. [00:48:30] And then if you go on to verse 26:27, we find here that it is a question of drought. This drought is due to sin. [00:48:40] Something's been done wittingly or unwittingly. Many of us do things unwittingly. Because we do them unwittingly does not mean to say we don't suffer the consequences. We can suffer the consequences. But the moment we wake up to the fact that we sin and somehow because of that, blessings dried up in our lives. [00:48:58] And I'm not talking about the ways of cross where sometimes we have to go through dryness because it's the way of the moon, but because we've taken a step that wasn't right or done something. [00:49:10] And the drought comes often. [00:49:14] What's the way through? The only way through is again to be rightly related. [00:49:21] All the way through is a question of our relationship to God in His. [00:49:28] How has God found amongst his people? [00:49:30] Some of us would dearly love to find the Lord. Personally, we would like to say now, Lord, forget the people. [00:49:35] Just you forget the people. I feel rather bad about something. I want to meet you apart from your People. Now you leave them all over there, Lord, and you meet me over there. The Lord says, no, I meet you in the next. [00:49:47] This may entail your getting yourself right with brother so and so, sister so and so, brother so and so, sister so and so, brother so and so you get to me. [00:49:56] That is true. [00:49:59] Sometimes I again, I remind you of something was sitting in the conference room a year ago. [00:50:05] Sometimes we have to be more closely related. This hand's got to be more closely related to that arm if it's to be closely related to the head. [00:50:15] And so we must be rightly related to one of those un. You can't treat your fathers with the son of a poor old 40. They are in any way. [00:50:24] These are principles we discover once we put these things right. Once we turn toward the Lord in the midst of his people, then these things are immediately set right. [00:50:36] And then again you find verse 28 to 31, the question of trouble, all kinds of troubles. Now, these troubles are not a question of freedom. [00:50:46] There is no where here is it mentioned that sin is the root of these matters. It talks of famine, pestilence, blasting mildew, locusts, caterpillar, enemies besieging the land. Whatsoever plague or whatsoever sickness there be. Well, of course, sometimes some of those things could be sin. Sin could be the root of them. But often, as optimists know, sin is not the root of them. They are the way. [00:51:13] Somehow or other, God's sun shines on the just and the unjust, and his storms come on the just and the unjust. [00:51:21] And so we sometimes come in for things. [00:51:24] And what's our attitude to be. Our attitude is to be rightly related. [00:51:31] Always to be rightly related. This question of relationship, it's the greatest battle that we ever fight because the devil knows only too well. Fall out with your brother and you've fallen out with the Lord. [00:51:45] He knows it. These dear people that hive off into their own little homes and have their own little meetings all with themselves because they can't stick any of the other of their dear brothers and sisters or seen through them all, as they often put it. [00:52:00] Does the Lord really meet with them? I would like to ask them that question. Does the Lord really meet with them? [00:52:06] Perhaps in sovereignty he touches them. [00:52:10] You fall out with your brother and your sister and you fall out with the Lord. You can't love him who was begotten without loving the one who begat. [00:52:24] And the scripture says if we can't love the visible, we cannot love the invisible. [00:52:32] So there we find all these things, then we find in 32 and verse 33, that the foreigner. Now here is a wonderful thing. The foreigner, the unsaved. [00:52:44] It says, wherever he is, in whatever nation he is, if this foreigner looks towards the house, he will be stayed. [00:52:55] God will meet with him. [00:52:57] There's your king. To real evangelism. [00:53:02] Let him look toward the house, and he will be saved. [00:53:06] It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? [00:53:08] And then you find again the question of victory. And here it's another question of sin. It just says, whenever the people of God go out to a battle, whenever they go out to battle, no question of sin. But if on the way out, they pray toward the house, the Lord will be with them and will bring them again in victory. [00:53:29] Now there you are. There's a key to victory, isn't it? [00:53:32] And then again we find this, that it says in the last verses to chapter, to verse 40, to the end of the chapter. Really, it speaks of exile. If my people, through their sin, shall be dispersed and scattered and exiled even in the place of their exile, let them but turn toward the house, and I will meet them. Now, I believe that every revival, every true revival, has been the turning of people toward God's original thought. [00:54:02] Then he told me, revise thy work. [00:54:06] I think one of the most tragic things of today is the people that are asking the Lord to come back and bless and use things that exist. [00:54:15] That's not the way. [00:54:18] You don't bring the ark back to the tabernacle. You take the tabernacle back to the ark. That's when the revival happens. You get the tabernacle back to the ark, and the Lord will fill it with glory. [00:54:32] I believe that's the way you. You get people to leave all the things that are just traditional and claptrap and set and rigid, let them really seek the Lord at whatever cost, and the Lord will make them. That's really turning towards the church, turning towards the house may not put it in so many words, but it is so. [00:54:56] So you see, the house is the heart of it all. He goes on to say, God's rest, God's priesthood, God's saint, God's royal line, everything to do with it, it's all found here. They're going to be judged as to their attitude to it. Everything's going to be found there. [00:55:16] So then we find in chapter seven, and we will not stay with it very long, but in chapter seven, we find the ratification of God a very wonderful thing. God ratifies Solomon's Prayer. [00:55:29] Solomon prays God ratifies it. Now, this Is a wonderful thing. [00:55:34] It says that when in verse one of chapter seven, when Solomon finished his prayer, fire fell from heaven and it fell on the altar and it consumed the burnt offering. And it is when the people saw the fire fall from heaven, they bowed down on the pavement and worshipped the Lord. And it says again in brackets, for he is good, his mercy endure forever. [00:56:01] Isn't that wonderful? It's grace again. You see, grace is the key again to it. [00:56:07] Fire and glory and worship. Now, isn't that. Isn't that a little lesson? I would like to take that all out of its context now and give a little word on file. Glory and worship. [00:56:22] There's something in itself. Fire, glory and worship. [00:56:27] Fire to pursue, glory to fill and worship the outcome. You go and think about it. That's how the Lord will lead us into worship. You can't come to worship any other way than by the altar. And by fire. [00:56:41] First you come to the altar and then God's fire will consume that where God's grace consumes, glory takes place. [00:56:48] Glory takes the place of what is consumed. [00:56:52] It fills. [00:56:54] And when the glory is filled, everyone bows their head and touches their with the forehead, the pavement, and they worship the Lord. [00:57:07] That's the ratification of God. [00:57:09] Sometimes God doesn't speak. God acts. That's how God ratifies something. You say, lord, please, please, Lord, do so and so and so and so. And then heavens are sound. You're waiting for a little word from the Lord. Oh, you're just waiting for a word from the Lord. And he never gives a word. And then suddenly something devastating happens and you go, dear, dear, why does the Lord allow this to happen? [00:57:33] That's the Lord, his answer. [00:57:37] By an act. [00:57:39] Fire has come there, fires fall there. [00:57:44] The Lord often is silent. Where he has his choicest sense, fire takes the place of his word. [00:57:59] So there's something very wonderful, really for us to see. See there? And then I want you just to see that grace began this work, grace sustained this work, and grace completes it. That's why again in verse six, we have for he is good, his mercy endureth forever. This funny little word that comes in a bracket three times, at least in my version it's put into a bracket, rightly, I think. For he is good, his mercy endureth forever. [00:58:31] Well, what does it speak about? It speaks of grace. Do you know, it's the most amazing thing that always when the foundation of the house is laid, grace is mentioned. And whatever the coping stone is put on the headstone, top stone is put into place, grace is mentioned. That is why Zechariah says, and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of grace, space and to. [00:58:54] Well, why grace? I would have thought it been better to say glory, glory unto it. Or as some people would have said, a hallelujah instead. But no, they said they will bring the headstone and put it into place with shoutings of grace. [00:59:08] Grace. [00:59:09] I believe that when we come to the completed thing, the finished thing, we will be overcome with grace, absolutely overcome with the glory will be filling us and flooding us. But we shall be conscious only of gracethen him that glorieth, let him glorieth in all. No flesh is going to glory there. It's just going to be that when he last gets the glory, we shall be so overcome with the marvel of it, the wonder of it, and above all, the grace of it. [00:59:43] We shall see that the house of God and what we call cost it was the greatest privilege that we ever had given to us to sacrifice anything, if we can call it sacrifice. We shall see. One day I don't believe there'll be a saint up there that will be recounting experience. Do you know, I had to let go of all that. There another saint over there saying, you know, I went, this is a dark way there. And someone was saying, oh dear, it was so terrible that I didn't remember there would be any talk. [01:00:12] I believe the saints will not behave to talk one way. They will look upon all that as a privilege, as the very grace of God allowing them to go away that involved them in the work of God. [01:00:28] Involved in the work of God. These stupid people that talk about the cross as if they say sometimes to me, we have too much of the corporation Cross. What stupid people. [01:00:40] Well, I shall ask them to say that again when they were both standing in the presence of the Lord. [01:00:46] I shan't say anything either. I leave it to the Lord to say everything. [01:00:52] See if they can. [01:00:54] You can't ever talk too much about the cross, nor can you have too big of experience. Because it's the greatest privilege for us to have an experience of the cross, however devastating. [01:01:03] One day we'll not talk about the devastation. We shall talk about the privilege and we shall think and we shall weep for those who had such an easy time. [01:01:15] And we shall count them as those that, well, we shall feel so sorry for. [01:01:25] So there we are. That's God's answer. [01:01:27] When God answers Solomon in chapter seven, he says some wonderful things to him that we're not going to remain with. But he calls it the house of sacrifice. [01:01:35] I've chosen this, he says, as a house of sacrifice. Then he says, my ears are the tent, my eyes are open to the prayer that is said in this place. [01:01:44] And then he goes on, he says, I have chosen this place, I've hallowed this place, that my name shall be there. [01:01:50] What a wonderful thing. [01:01:52] So there's all of it. [01:01:56] And then at the end of it all is a solemn warning. And that solemn warning at the end of chapter seven is the commentary on the rest of the Book of Chronicles. [01:02:07] If the Lord says I will. [01:02:11] But if thou turn away, this, this and this. [01:02:18] Some people cannot understand how God can remove children candlestick from the church. [01:02:24] God has removed candlestick from the church many times in history. [01:02:31] He says, if I will be with thee. But if thou turn away, this place will be pulled to the ground for the habitation of animals. [01:02:42] And people will hiss at it. [01:02:44] And they will say, because they were than the gods disappointment. [01:02:51] So chapter eight and chapter nine record something which is self explanatory. The visit of the Queen of Sheba. [01:02:59] You all know the visit of the Queen of Sheba. If you know nothing else, I expect you were told it when you were at Sunday school. How the Queen of Sheba came, how she brought all that gold, precious gems and spices such as had never been theme before. [01:03:14] What is the Queen of Sheba an illustration of? She's taken up everywhere else in the Bible as an illustration of one wonderful thing. [01:03:24] The nations and their glory and their wealth glowing into the house of God. [01:03:34] This house of God is a house of prayer for all nations when God has built it. We suddenly find in chapter eight and chapter nine that all the nations begin to look toward it. All the kings come to it. [01:03:50] They come and they see and they marvel. [01:03:53] The Queen of Sheba is the greatest example of this. And so later on the prophets take up and they take it up in wonderful words. They say, Sheba shall come unto thee. And the gold shall come and the wealth of the nations shall be turned to thee. Dromadores and camels shall burn it. You know Isaiah's great words. Thy children shall come from far, from east and the west, from the north, from the south. They shall burn them. All this shall come unto thee, they shall come bowing down their heads unto thee. [01:04:26] So the prophets take up all this. [01:04:29] That's the wonder of prophecy, real prophecy. [01:04:32] It first of all tells us where the ruin is. It tells us always how there can be a restoration. But it always looks on to what can come after a restoration. And that's why Isaiah, just like an eagle, he just gets off the ground, just right up. And then he, as it were, starts to talk about all the nations bowing down, all the kings coming to it and the queens coming to it. How kings will be our nursing fathers and queens, our nursing mothers, how they will bring our children, how they will bring their gold, how they will bring their beasts and hearts and everything else. [01:05:09] That's how it should be. [01:05:11] That is the tragedy today of a church which is in ruins and every. [01:05:20] Unfortunately, the original master recording ended at this point, although we understand there was only a few minutes missing.