66 – BUILDING AND DEDICATING THE TEMPLE AND THE GLORY OF
SOLOMON’S REIGN – I Kings 4-10; II Chron 2-9; Psalm 72 May 14
This entry covering three days discusses the LONGEST PRAYER IN THE BIBLE, as
well as covering the magnificent GRAND OPENING OF SOLOMON’S TEMPLE.
Perhaps Solomon’s best known achievement is the building of the magnificent temple in
Jerusalem. Unsurpassed in beauty, it became a national monument symbolic of Israel’s
special relationship with God. King David had drawn up the initial plans, and it was left
to Solomon to oversee the construction. The completed work was magnificent beyond
description.
The opening passage here describes the friendly relations between King Solomon and
Hiram, King of Tyre. We get to read their correspondence over the issue of Hiram
supplying wood and workmen to build the temple. Look at all the “foreign workers” they
had – 153,000! Notice they weren’t slaves who were treated badly. The cool thing was
that they kept the location David chose, which was the one where he saw the angel at the
threshing floor of Araunah (II Samuel 24:15-25).
Then God made a promise to Solomon: If you follow my decrees and keep my
commands, I will fulfil the promises I made to David your father. God looked forward to
them building a temple, but it was still the heart he was interested in. And it is the same
today – even though we in Singapore have our awesome Punggol building, we must
remember that the heart is the most important thing to God.
The design of the temple was intricate, with multiple stories, a porch, lots of gold, and
other rich materials. (I couldn’t help but smile when I read the verse that said there were
no hammers, chisels or other iron tools heard at the site while it was being built – maybe
they had trouble with the authorities over noise pollution, too!!! That’s an inside joke for
our building committee!!)
When it was all completed, Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord according to
the daily requirements laid down by Moses. Thereafter, Solomon summoned the elders of
Israel, the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the families to bring up the ark. They
sacrificed so many sheep and cattle at this time that the numbers could not be recorded –
Solomon wanted it to be mind-blowing!
Now we had fun at the grand opening of our building in Dec 2004, but it was nothing
compared to this celebration!! Imagine how it sounded with all the musicians dressed to
the nines, and playing instruments and singing in unison “with one voice”. They raised
their voice to God singing “He is good; his love endures forever.” And THEN, the
temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service
because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Now THAT is what I call
a celebration!!
Solomon followed this by addressing the crowd; then he knelt before the altar and spread
out his hands to heaven and prayed the longest prayer in the bible (as written in both
I Kings 8 and II Chron 6). If you can, kneel down, spread out your hands, and read/pray
this out loud – it is truly magnificent! Your mind will be filled with the phrase “hear from
heaven” and you will not forget this prayer! (Try it at night on the roof of the church
building with a torch light and you will really get a charge out of it!!)
The prayer touches many topics, but the basis of the prayer is Solomon’s trust in God’s
promises to David. This is a good point for us as we go to meet God in prayer: do we
trust in God’s promises? Do we go to God with that confidence? This is how we should
pray everyday!! Wow, I am convicted!!
Notice that when he starts praying, King Solomon is kneeling. I find this posture to be
especially helpful when I am struggling with submitting to God on something: the
position itself is humbling.
Solomon starts off by proclaiming God’s uniqueness and reminding God that he keeps
his covenant with those who WHOLEHEARTEDLY follow him. He uses the fact that
God promised David that Solomon would be the king and of course, did become the king,
as proof that God does keep his promises. He was also humble enough to plead for
mercy and to know that he would be doing it more in the future.
Now Solomon was dedicating a temple for God and he was looking at it from the
perspective that God would LIVE in the temple, hence the request for God to hear the
prayers when they are directed toward the building. As Christians we know that the
kingdom of heaven is within us (Luke 17:21) and that God doesn’t live in temples built
by human hands (Acts 17:24-25), but at the same time we must appreciate the culture that
the Hebrews lived in at that time. (For those of you in Singapore, think back to Wee
Keong’s sermon about Moral Development and spiritual growth – God related to his
people at a level they could understand.)
Solomon is basically asking for God to grant forgiveness and answer from heaven
whenever he or any of the Israelites pray or are facing defeat in battle or starving in a
drought or taken captive. He also asked on behalf of strangers/foreigners, which was
quite advanced thinking for his day. The heart of the prayer is awesome; hopefully you
will get a chance to pray it out loud!
Solomon rose and ended with a benediction, which he also addressed to the whole
assembly. The benediction alone is a whole sermon.
1. He praises God and thanks him for his promises.
2. “Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant
Moses.”
3. He asked that the Lord never forsake them.
4. He asked that God turn their hearts toward Him, so that they would always walk
in his ways.
5. He asked that the Lord keep the words of his long prayer near to him, “SO THAT
all peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other.”
6. He reminded the people that their hearts must be fully committed to the Lord and
that they must obey Him.
As if this whole event hadn’t already been amazing enough, when the prayer was over,
fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offerings! Whoa!!!! This time the
glory of the Lord filled the temple to such an extent that the priests had to leave! The
Israelites saw all of this and knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground
worshiping God, praising and thanking Him!! I’ll say!! Then they offered thousands upon
thousands of sacrifices and sang and worshiped some more. This went on for days and
days, until Solomon finally sent the people home, “joyful and glad in heart for the good
things the Lord had done”.
While the temple has been under construction, so too has Solomon’s royal palace. The
temple, massive at it was, took seven years to build; the palace took 13! That could have
been a good thing – he ignored his palace to crank on the temple – or it could have been
an omen of things to come; i.e., he paid more attention to his personal life than his
spiritual. We can ask God that question in heaven <smile>.
II Chron 7 has a great section – verse 11-22 shows God answering Solomon’s “Hear from
Heaven” prayer. God told him, “Yes, when the people humble themselves and pray to me,
I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins and answer their prayers!” In the past, God
dealt with David, but now God was making a covenant directly with Solomon! However,
God did include a caveat – he said that he would establish Solomon’s royal throne IF
Solomon walked in his ways. But IF Solomon worshiped other gods, God would reject
Solomon AND the temple! God even promised to make the temple an object of ridicule
among all nations. How sad. Of course, it all came true, sadly. For us today, we can apply
it to ourselves, in that we have built a church building. We don’t believe that God LIVES
in the temple, but we use it as a place to worship and fellowship and learn and bring
others and meet specific needs. We also believe that God has blessed us with the
building. However, if we don’t use it to glorify God and fulfil his purposes, then he may
also take it away and it will also become an object of ridicule.
I Kings 4:29-34 tells of Solomon’s wisdom and insight, and how his fame spread to
surrounding nations. And check out I Kings 10:22 – Solomon had his own private zoo!
Also from the same chapter is a description of all the gold. The writer may be even
cracking a joke when he mentions that “nothing was made of silver because silver was of
little value in Solomon’s day”…Wow! Just goes to show how rich they were!! When
God keeps a promise to bless you, he really blesses you!! Solomon was greater in riches
and wisdom than all other kings.
Of course, Solomon was conveniently ignoring the part of the Mosaic Law that said for
any future kings of Israel to not accumulate horses (see Deut 17:24). But the people were
happy and had peace on all sides. Solomon had some talented guys helping him but
didn’t have a “Nathan”. Too bad - this is what happens when we are religious but not
righteous. We can do some things well and reap God’s blessings in the beginning, but if
we don’t walk in God’s ways, or have spiritual people in our lives, we will eventually
lose everything.
I Kings 10 also contains the amazing story of The Queen of Sheba! About 15 years ago,
Mike Fontenot preached a sermon on the Queen of Sheba and John heard it and preached
it in Singapore. It went over so well that he preached it in at least three more countries
after that. People loved the story of the woman who travelled thousands of miles to see
for herself what she had heard about Solomon. She was amazed that not only was it all
true, but that his kingdom and wisdom were even greater than she had imagined. The
coolest comment she made was the one about “how happy your men must be! How happy
your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!” I associate this
with me being grateful for what I have in the church and with the bible. Of course the
punch line to the story of the Queen of Sheba is the comment that Jesus made about her
thankful seeking heart and how now “one greater than Solomon is here!” (Matt 12:42)
How can we not be impressed with Jesus, with the bible, with the Christian life? If we
are not, we are seriously in need of a gratitude check!!
This entry on Solomon’s glory ends with Psalm 72.
If this psalm is read as a Messianic prophecy of Jesus, the true and everlasting king, then
it is quite majestic. If, however, it is read as Solomon’s tribute to himself, it does come
across on the narcissistic side. On the other hand, he had been promised great blessings
from God, as well as from his father, so perhaps he was just acknowledging that in
prayer. Again, who knows? At least at the end he praises God and lets it be known that he
believes God alone does marvellous deeds, and prays for God’s glory to be made known
everywhere, not his glory!
[email protected]