Okay, so lesson six is entitled God's Temple is Built and Consecrated or the glorious Temple of God, a lot of things I wanted to call it, but it's all going to convey the same point that this is a magnificent temple And it's really going to be the high point of all of salvation thus far and the culmination of all previous covenants It's really really tremendous So we're gonna be looking at chapters one through nine of second Chronicles first Chronicles is behind us now and that's done all the work that David Did in preparation for this moment and so first chronicles Like I said, it's leading up to this point now second Chronicles one through nine is focusing on Solomon's Tasks right his great duty which is to build a temple that his father had set in his heart to do Which of course we already talked about all the reasons why he couldn't build the temple so I need to have no need to rehash that now So this is a lot of content chapters one through nine and actually what I decided to do is to pair up six and seven together as one real unit Because what we're gonna do here in this lesson lesson six is focus on the story All right looking at the scripture and the narrative of what Solomon did and there's gonna be a lot of great typology Of course, as always looking backwards towards previous covenants and forward towards Christ a little bit But really what I want to do is I say that I decided to save all the theology the typology There's so much to talk about in the temple. I'm gonna save all that for lesson seven So lesson seven is gonna be something along the lines of the theology of the temple So we will see little hints here and there a couple connections I'm gonna really table all that for the next lesson So the task right now lesson six is to look at the narrative chapters one through nine And then we're gonna circle back and look at these chapters thematically and theologically and typologically and spiritually in the next lesson Lesson seven. All right, that's gonna be the game plan. All right, so excuse me as we open up to chapter one of second Chronicles I'd like to give you a little brief quote here from your Catholic study Bible Which tees this up very very nicely for us and it says chapter one affirms the traditional image of Solomon as a man of first worship Which is verses one through six second wisdom which is verses seven through thirteen and third wealth which is fourteen through seventeen The chronicler ends his account of Solomon by returning to the very same themes in chapters eight and nine Which is at the end of this unit so a brief quote for you But it says the stage really nicely for us it builds our foundation here because again Yeah, Solomon is a man of worship first and foremost which leads to asking him God for wisdom Which leads towards ideally with and most of the time he did use his wealth for the Construction of the temple and the really the building up of the kingdom of God So that's we're gonna look at here in chapter one But briefly before I move on I don't want to forget where the study Bible says that this kind of trifecta of worship wisdom and wealth Is setting the tone and actually it's returning to those same themes in chapters eight through nine That's kind of an inclusio really for at least a thematic inclusio for this whole section on Solomon Because we're gonna see little blimpses little hint little red flags here and there throughout this section of where Solomon goes wrong The chronicler never points that out.
There's all get too soon enough He never really clarifies or at least spends a lot of time talking about Solomon sends like first Kings does But still nevertheless you've got this beautiful very positive depiction of Solomon as a man who worships God and uses his Wisdom and his wealth for the sake of serving the Lord and serving his people So we will come back briefly to those things and that I think is a lovely chugging material for us All right Well, let's begin with this first act of his kingdom which is to worship God We are in I like to try to read these sections a lot of this stuff today We're gonna have to breeze over or summarize and just kind of cherry pick a few key verses But I think that we can do all of chapter one here really nicely All right, so chapter one verses one through six is this first act of worshiping God and givian and by the way actually before I read That I should clarify that this concept that the tabernacle of Moses is in givian But there's another tabernacle another tent for the Ark of the Covenant which is in Jerusalem Remember we talked about that before when David brought the Ark to Jerusalem He sped up he set up a special tent just for the Ark But the tabernacle of Moses that went through the wilderness that had been around for so long I mean hundreds of years at this point that's going to be still in givian and only chronicles tells us it's in givian here, okay? All right, so verse one Solomon the son of David established himself with his kingdom in his kingdom and the Lord His God was with him and made him exceedingly great. Well, that's it I'll stop really quickly here That's a great intro and part of what makes that a great intro is it states explicitly that the Lord his God was with him That's a key description for all of these great biblical characters If God is with somebody then they're going to accomplish the Lord's will they're going to be obedient and they're going to fulfill God's tasks for them We saw this with David we see this with Moses and Joshua. We see this with judges We see this with Abraham and the patriarchs later on we're gonna see this with Mary, right?
When the archangel Gabriel greets Mary with this great angelic salutation and says the Lord is with you and Mary is really Treble that what kind of green this can be I can't get back into Luke chapter one But the point is that the Lord is with you then go forward man with all confidence that you have because it's gonna work out Really well so long as you say faithful, right? So this whole book begins with the statement the Lord is with Solomon Therefore we should understand that all of Solomon's success is due to the Lord. It's not of his own making It's not of his own powers the Lord's grace. Okay, so let's keep going verse two Solomon spoke to all Israel Let me pause again.
Sorry. It's gonna be a very very long lesson if I keep pausing every single verse But again that we talked about this in previous lessons the expression or the line there all Israel is really crucial So and before we saw that all Israel was supporting David and everything that he did and now it's gonna transition to Solomon So we still have unification of all the tribes under King Solomon This is gonna go on to describe here, right? So unity right now unity behind the king to worship God and fulfill the covenant Alright, so Solomon spoke to all Israel to the commanders of thousands and hundreds to judges and all the leaders and all Israel The heads of all the fathers houses so they're one block one people verse three Solomon and all the assembly with him went to the high Place which is that Gibian for the tentive meeting of God which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness was there But David had brought up the Ark of God from Gidya Jareem to the place that David had prepared for it for he had pitched a tent for In Jerusalem like I was saying before earlier right There's two separate tents which is a temporary amount of time before they're gonna be unified once more in the temple Once finally built There's five more over the bronze altar that bezel-el the son of Ure the son of who had made was there before the tabernacle the Lord We'll talk more about bezel-el here as we go along bezel-el and a holy ad those are two very important people so more on them to come And Solomon and the assembly sought the Lord and Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the Lord which was at the tentive meeting and offered a thousand Burn offerings upon it. That's a lot of animals right a thousand is typically a biblical number of the epitome of perfection All right, ten is the number of perfection completion totality So if you have ten threefold like ten cubes ten times ten times ten you're gonna have a thousand or multiples or variables of a thousand Like you know ten thousand is even more than that right?
So ten thousand times ten thousand there's all kinds of great numbers especially an apocalyptic literature on this so a whole multitude So he offers this this perfect sacrifice a complete total sacrifice to the Lord here in the altar Give him where the tent of meeting is and this is this is really important to establish here that the chronicler is making a very important point That Solomon's first act now We don't have any of the drama by the way of first Kings So we don't have any of the intrigues of an anaija who tried to make a play for the throne and failed miserably And then how he goes to Bathsheba and says here You know let me you know Interesting for me on behalf of the king give me Abishag to Shinnamai is my wife and all this stuff And he basically merits death because he's making a power play none of that stuff that we discussed in our Bible study on first Kings That you can read about there in the first couple of chapters of first Kings None of that is there the chronicler is just depicting pretty much a smooth transition And he's just either assuming that we know what happened which I think that is the case But he's also thematically and literally pointing out that God is with Solomon right so his reign is established Despite the intrigues and the hiccups and the speed bumps at the beginning his reign is established really God's grace So he doesn't want to clarify that But this first act as king when the Lord gives him the throne of his father David is to worship God That's a very beautiful foundation for all the rest of the chapters that are the follow here Everything is rooted in a proper worship of God for the king as well as for the people if you put God first Then everything will be taken care of like God will just give you all your temporal blessings and needs as they come up So his first act is a spiritual act and that's very much in line with his father David despite his hiccups and his sins Which again the chronicler only eludes to here and there But despite all of that David really loved God and even when he said his contrition was perfect You know he really had compunction and sorrow and remorse for what he did and Solomon is continuing that and that's what this quote here Is trying to convey from the Catholic study Bible again It says for the chronicler David and Solomon are model kings Precisely because they exercised spiritual and not just political leadership over Israel the prerogative of David and Solomon to act as priests Though not without mystery maybe trace to the pronouncement in Psalm 110 for and we talked about this before but let me keep reading So the reason why this quote is mentioning this and why I want to share it with you as a reminder So Solomon is offering all of these sacrifices and he's involved to a certain extent But only in as much as he's exercising his Melchizedekian priesthood, which is a unique separate parallel priesthood It's a superior priesthood to Levites to Levites, but he's not usurping the Levitical priesthood All right, so how can you how can you do all this? How can he worship and how can he be a spiritual leader? How can you offer sacrifices? Well, it's because of the pronouncement in Psalm 1104 where the Lord swears and oath to make the Davidic king a priest in the order Melchizedek Melchizedek goes on was the priest king of ancient Jerusalem who invoked Lord's blessing on Abraham end quote All right, so this again is crucial his first act is an act of spiritual leadership All right It's an act of religious leadership guiding the people towards their proper end Which is rest with God and worship with God and he's doing that by virtue of him being a successor of David Who is I would argue and I have argued in previous Bible studies that David is both a biological heir of Melchizedek who was actually Shem Melchizedek is the is the throne name of Shem as the as ancient Jewish and Christian tradition testifies All right, but he's also the political error of Melchizedek Melchizedek was the king of the same city Salem and David becomes king of Jerusalem So he is the successor of Melchizedek both politically and biologically right And so that's why Solomon is able to offer up all this religious and spiritual leadership as he will continue to do in the following chapters Especially during his prayers for the consecration of the temple.
All right, so that's that's step one the most important foundational step Worshiping God with all of Israel together united to him the next act is to ask for wisdom, right? So when you worship God your priorities are straight and you're gonna ask for what is truly good for you and the people which is his Request Lord make me wise. Let's read on here in all say a few things Okay, verse seven in that night in that night God appeared to Solomon and said ask what I will give to you I just always love that a complete blank check What if God gave you a blank check would you pass the test would you ask the wind the lottery? Would you ask to have fame and fortune or long health or whatever it may be?
That's a that's a good little thing to think about and pray about what would you ask for if the Lord gave you a blank check? All right So he says to Solomon asked what I shall give to you and Solomon said to God you have shown great and merciful love That's the Hebrew word said right we've talked about that a ton this concept of steadfast covenantal merciful love compassion friendship intimacy That's what you've shown to my father David and I've made me king in his stead verse nine Oh Lord God let your promise to David my father be now fulfilled for you have made me king over people as many as the dust of the earth All right, so really quickly to stop here Let's read one more verse in the second at verse 10 so he says okay first you have recognized your he recognizes God's fidelity His said his mercy towards David and also all of Israel and he says they are like the dust of the earth really what he's referencing here In recognizing his God's fidelity not just to his father David But to their spiritual father and biological father Abraham right remember how God said Abraham multiple times and I have the passages here in your notes Genesis 13 Genesis 28 He said God says Abraham I'm gonna make your descendants as many as the dust of the earth and elsewhere He'll say as many as the stars in heaven right now This is a challenge for Abraham if you remember in Genesis because Abraham at this point has no son He doesn't have one son let alone many to become like this visual Hope of many descendants right so Abraham has to trust God and it's a beautiful story But God is faithful to Abraham and Solomon says we are now like the dust of the earth We have multiplied and we fill the land that you have given to us So because you've been so faithful to David and so faithful to Abraham and Israel He's gonna ask for wisdom verse 10 this is famous story obviously give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people For who can rule this your people that is so great. All right, that's a good request Right and stop those are to stop right there So he asks for wisdom in order to fulfill his purpose the purpose that his own father had told him as we discussed back at the Final chapters of first Chronicles multiple passages Solomon is given a bit of a pet talk by daddy, right? Like that says to him, you know God has chosen you be faithful be courageous.
Do not fear you're gonna build a temple I can't and all this stuff actually I have noticed something myself that I think this pretty is pretty important I'm if I do say so myself, I don't mean I can't it's anyway But the so people will ask why did Solomon know to ask for wisdom They just come up with it all by himself Well, I have two points about this well number one if you go back and look at the parallel passages the similar story in first Kings When David is on his deathbed and he is getting ready to expire and lay with his father's He speaks to Solomon a couple different times and he always says to Solomon for you are very wise You'll know how to deal with the situation whether it's how to deal with the loose strings of Joab the chief commander or how to deal with Anything else in the Kingdom he says you're a wise man. So number one Solomon had natural wisdom All right, he was a very gifted high IQ kind of dude And so because he had some basic natural wisdom He's able to kind of figure out that he's gonna need something more than that right? That's the first point that I always think of the second point actually comes from first Chronicles chapter 22 And I don't remember if I mentioned this in the previous recording the previous lesson or not Let me take you back to first Chronicles chapter 22 verse 11 and 12 where David is speaking to his son and he says Now my son the Lord be with you as we read in verse one chapter one verse one May the Lord be with you so that you may succeed in building the house of the Lord your God as he has spoken concerning of you So again, we made that connection Solomon is going to succeed in all that he does as long as he's faithful to the Lord Because the Lord is with him and that's what David's prayer is now in verse 12 David says only may the Lord grant you discretion and understanding That when he gives you charge over Israel you may keep the law of the Lord your God and so on and so forth So David just flat out tell Solomon may the Lord grant you his grace for wisdom and understanding and knowledge So that way you can lead the people and you can finish the task of building the house And may the Lord be with you in this endeavor So that I think Solomon is asking for wisdom one because he's a high IQ gifted person to begin with and grace always builds on nature But also because his dad told him me the Lord grant you what you need to do this And I'm willing to bet part cash that Solomon was pretty darn overwhelmed with this a duty Right that he's gonna be the successor of his father despite the fact that there are so many other sons God has chosen him He needs to build a glorious edifice to glorify the Lord and so he realizes Wow dad's right I need wisdom for all of this so all of that I think is in the background of why he asks for wisdom It just didn't come out of the blue which I used to think of you know I was a kid you know It's a famous story obviously, you know me God give me wisdom so I can rule your people well Which is a good request but he's been he has been prepared for this moment I think in a couple of different ways All right So again he asks for wisdom that is a result of his worship and he asks for wisdom to rule the people and to build the house And that's gonna be an important connection with the construction of the tabernacle under Moses There are two characters we read excuse me a tongue tied here We read about one character here bezel elle well his buddy a holy of they were also granted wisdom to be the chief artisans Or architects builders of the tabernacle under Moses and that's back in exit It's chapter 31. We're gonna talk more about them here pretty soon here The main initial point is just like God granted a holy of and bezel elle wisdom Hochma is the Hebrew word to build the tabernacle now God is gonna give Solomon Hochma wisdom to build the temple because the temple is really the perfection and the completion of the tabernacle More on that to come soon in the next page I think all right So this is lovely so as a response to His request for wisdom the Lord is going to give him everything else besides all these other incredible gifts So let's keep reading here.
This is gonna be the third thing So God answered Solomon because this was in your heart and you have not asked for Possessions wealth honor or the life of those who hate you and I'm not even asked for a long life But I've asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king wisdom and knowledge We're all will be granted to you But I will also give you riches possessions and honor such as none of the kings had who are before you and none after you shall have the like So because you have wisdom I can entrust you with all of these other things which are grave temptations and even Solomon himself Felt of these temptations sadly right just because you have wisdom doesn't mean necessarily you're going to you're going to resist and conquer temptation All right, so this is the third ask the third thing Oh, I almost forgot one important point before we talk about his wealth Which is going to be for the service of the temple remember how I was saying before like it always really strikes me God gave us a blank check what would we ask for well? We need to be asking for these spiritual needs first and foremost now This is interesting because various commentaries have pointed out the connection between Solomon and Christ's words on the sermon on the mount In Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 Jesus says that I was one of my favorite sections in the sermon amount I've a lot there are a lot of famous favorite sections there It's incredible but in chapter 6 verse 33 Jesus says seek first the kingdom of God and all of these things will be given to you as well And what is he talking about? He's talking about money and food and shelter and clothing and all these things right? So God says if you seek the kingdom first God will grant you everything else that you actually need in the temporal world Your temporal wants and needs he'll take care of you and that's exactly what Solomon did So in other words Jesus is saying be like Solomon be like Solomon who puts the kingdom first who puts worship first who puts the Needs of his people first and then you can trust and know that you'll have everything that you need in order to live your life So Jesus's words have have a lot of Old Testament references behind them here And that's what we need to do as well So Saint John Chris and comments on this and he says quote ask for nothing in prayer that is worldly But for things that are spiritual and you will surely receive them again I'm taking just pause that for a second remember asking you will receive knock in the door will be open to you seeking you will find Or we're talking about here our spiritual needs God will never ever withhold the graces that we need to become saints He'll never withhold the graces that we need to conquer temptation He'll never withhold the graces that we need to fulfill our state in life And that's kind of what Saint John Chris is done is saying here right if you ask for things that are spiritual You will surely receive them and he goes on so it is that Solomon having asked for what he ought received it quickly Two things are required to the person who prays he should ask earnestly and he should ask for what he ought But if children asked their parents for anything inappropriate they are refused But if the request is appropriate the parents consent and bestow the gift end quote So Saint John Chris's point is ask for what you should ask ask for what's appropriate and the Lord being a good father a heavenly father Who desires our good and our happiness more than we do for ourselves He will grant us those spiritual requests, right?
If especially if it's for our own good, you know You have to be kind of careful you want to ask for charismatic gifts that are actually not going to be beneficial for you or for your community You know the gig I might ask him to make something up. I asked for the gift of healing I actually thought about this a lot It would be awesome to have the gift of healing You know if someone is suffering or paralyzed or you know Whatever ill in some way wouldn't it be amazing to be able to go and pray over that person and restore them to perfect health? I think that would be dynamite But on the other hand it would probably be a nightmare because if we're gone out pretty quickly which it would that you had the gift of healing And people were miraculously Restored from ill health or injury then there's no way you could ever live a private life again So you can ask for something that spiritually good But ask for what you ought to ask for according to God's will so all of this is very beautifully applicable to us as well We should be like Solomon when we get a blank check ask for spiritual needs as we should ask earnestly for it And if it is according to God's will and for our better mint and the better mint of those around us Then God will grant it and still beyond that he will give us everything that we need food clothing housing Shelter all the rest of the stuff, okay, all right, so I had a right I was a little head of myself here I had read how the Lord says I'm gonna give you all this stuff And so remember he God gives him all the wealth and ability and treasures and possessions and all of this stuff Because his wisdom will guide him and it did for half of his reign anyways It did guide him and so all of these possessions and wealth are all going to be used first and foremost for the sacred task of building the temple And that's exactly why chapters two through nine are going to be developing this right chapters two through nine is going to be Solomon You like focusing on worship and then using his wisdom to direct all of his possessions and wealth for the sake of building the temple in order to worship Right, okay, that's that's how this all develops. Hey, this is Dr.
Nick Thank you so much for listening to this course sample if you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson Please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course But also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand However, and whenever you want so thank you so much. God bless you and keep setting your vital