IN THE MIDST OF GOD'S GLORY

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide (using the cubit of the old standard). The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits long across the width of the building and twenty cubits high.

He overlaid the inside with pure gold. He paneled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple—twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents of fine gold. The gold nails weighed fifty shekels. He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.

For the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold. The total wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub.

Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub. The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.

He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.

For the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits long, each with a capital five cubits high. He made interwoven chains and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.

He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high. He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it—ten to a cubit. The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths.

He then made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. In them the things to be used for the burnt offerings were rinsed, but the Sea was to be used by the priests for washing.

He made ten gold lampstands according to the specifications for them and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.

He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold sprinkling bowls.

He made the courtyard of the priests, and the large court and the doors for the court, and overlaid the doors with bronze. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner.

And Huram also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.

So Huram finished the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of God:

the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars); the stands with their basins; the Sea and the twelve bulls under it; the pots, shovels, meat forks and all related articles.

All the objects that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord were of polished bronze. The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan. All these things that Solomon made amounted to so much that the weight of the bronze could not be calculated.

Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in God’s temple:

the golden altar; the tables on which was the bread of the Presence; the lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to burn in front of the inner sanctuary as prescribed; the gold floral work and lamps and tongs (they were solid gold); the pure gold wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold doors of the temple: the inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors of the main hall.

When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated—the silver and gold and all the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of God’s temple.

Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.

When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The Levitical priests carried them up; and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.

The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good; His love endures forever.”

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

2 Chronicles 3, 4, and 5

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever been in the midst of God’s glory?

I can say with full confidence that all of us have been.

I say that because of the very nature of God’s presence and the very definition of glory.

First, consider the very nature of God and His presence as spelled out by David in the 139th Psalm:

You have searched me, Lord, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue You, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and You lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.

For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. (VV 1-16)

I love this passage for it reveals to us two very important truths regarding God’s presence and glory:

First, God is omnipresent. There is nowhere we can go where He doesn’t dwell and exist. And no life circumstance can separate us from His presence.

Second, God’s glory is as close as looking at ourselves in the mirror for we are wonderfully made, fashioned by the hands of God, our Master Designer, who knew everything about David as He does us. For the scriptures tell us that God searches us and knows us. He knows all that we are and all that we do. He knows our every thought and spoken word, even before we speak it.

Indeed, David knew full well of God’s wonderfully glorious presence and work and we should as well.

David’s son Solomon and the people surely experienced the glory of God firsthand as well. For as we look at our passage from 2 Chronicles, Chapters 3, 4, and 5, we find a very detailed account of the temple construction. We know the temple was built in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place where David encountered the angel of the Lord and appeased God by repenting of his sin and offering sacrifices on the altar he constructed. As we read of the construction account, we can only marvel at all the work and handiwork that went into making the temple a suitable place to worship the Lord.

And that’s just what happened after the temple was finished. The Israelites turned to worship.

Scriptures tell us that the priests had withdrawn from the Holy Place and had consecrated themselves. Meanwhile, the Levites stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. It was quite an assembly who had come to worship the Lord with the trumpeters, musicians, cymbals and other instruments joined in unison to give praise and thanks to Him. There were also singers who raised their voices in praise to the Lord singing, “He is good; His love endures forever.”

It had to be quite a get together, one that I would have loved to be a part of.

It’s obvious that the Lord felt that way too for it wasn’t long before he made His presence and glory felt in a big way. We know this because the scriptures tell us that “the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.”

We can only wish that one day our worship in church will result in this - that we will worship in such a fashion that the Lord fills our sanctuaries with a cloud as the glory of God wills the worship place of God.

In the interim, we can revel in His glory each and every day as we bring Him praise and honor and thanksgiving for His awesome, almighty power and glory that is on full display each and every day.

For the truth of the matter is that we are immersed in His splendor, majesty, and magnificence each and every day. Let us never take that for granted and always display the highest level of gratitude and exaltation to the Lord who made us and knows us as His own.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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