Teaching Notes

TH1057: II CHRONICLES

Last week we completed the book of I Chronicles, which dealt primarily with the life of king David, ending with his death in chapter 29. For a total of 40 years David was king, 7 years in Hebron, and 33 years in Jerusalem. And David brought the nation far and laid the foundation for his son to build upon. Solomon, David's son, will take the nation to the zenith of its power and glory, but Solomon is only riding on the wave of his father, David, who truly loved the Lord and served Him with all his heart.

At the time Solomon took the throne he was only 14 years old, very young and inexperienced. And yet he has a tremendous spiritual heritage that was passed down from his father David. You see, Solomon was going to have to make a decision in who he was going to serve. That is why David Encouraged him to follow after the Lord in I Chronicles 28:9. He told him "As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever."

Solomon will start out good, but soon his heart will be seeking after other things and not the Lord. And it will take him his whole life to figure out that what his dad said was true. That true joy is only found in the Lord. And Solomon, of all people, knew better than anyone else for he had everything. He had riches, buildings, knowledge, wives, all the material blessings you could ask for, and in the end he was still empty. The Lord is the only thing that filled that void, for all else was emptiness. Let us learn from his example, for if we don't we will learn the lesson the hard way.

And so now as we move into II Chronicles, the first 9 chapters deal with the reign of Solomon, Israel's third king, and the last king of the united kingdom, for under his son the kingdom will be divided. And so under the reign of Solomon, the kingdom reaches the zenith of its glory and power. It is after this and even during the end of his reign, that the nation begins its downward trend.

II CHRONICLES 1

VERSES 1-5

1. Remember from our study of I Chronicles, David brought the ark up from Kirjath Jearim and placed it in a tent in Jerusalem. But the tabernacle, that portable worship structure that Moses had built some 500 years earlier during their wilderness wanderings, was now located in Gibeon. With it, besides the other temple articles, was the bronze altar in which the sacrifices were offered. Thus, you would first have to go to Gibeon and offer your sacrifices to the Lord, for Leviticus 17:11 says "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." It is only after the atonement was made that then you could go before the presence of God, which the ark represented, and worship Him.

2. The same is true for us. We just can't come before the Lord unless the blood of Christ has been appropriated into our lives, and then and only then are we made clean before Him. As we are told in Hebrews 10:19-20 "Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh." You see, we just can't approach God anyway we want, Jesus said "I am the way!..."

VERSE 6

1. The burnt offering was given totally to the Lord and it symbolized your consecration to the Lord, that you were totally given to Him. While the peace offering was partly given to the Lord and you would eat part of eat, symbolizing communion. You see, in that part of the world when you ate with someone, you became one with them, in a sense. This was the fellowship offering.

VERSE 7

1. The answer you give to this question shows where your heart is at. Are you going to ask for money, a husband or a wife, a job, a house, or whatever? You see, we tend to think of short term, material things. I think the best response would be "Lord, give me what is best for me and will glorify you!" His will is far better than ours.

2. Jesus does ask us this question in John 15:7, He tells us His response to what we ask for. He said "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." Jesus is saying that He will give you the desire of your heart, if you ask for it. The interesting thing here is that it is all linked to abiding in Jesus, if we are, then His desire will be our desire.

VERSES 8-10

1. Remember that Solomon was only a kid, some 14 years old at this time. Notice what David said to him in I Chronicles 29:1 and 22:12. He says "...'My son Solomon, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced; and the work is great, because the temple is not for man but for the LORD God...Only may the LORD give you wisdom and understanding, and give you charge concerning Israel, that you may keep the law of the LORD your God.'" Now Solomon echo's the prayers of his father David, that God would give him wisdom and understanding to lead His people, for he rightly recognized he could not do it on his own.

VERSES 11-12

1. God honored the prayer of Solomon and gave him the desire of his heart, for it is what God wanted for him. Solomon did not ask for his own personal gain, and with his heart being right, God blessed him abundantly.

2. Now the sad thing here is this. With all the wisdom God granted to Solomon, he did not apply it to his own life.

VERSES 13-17

1. Here we see the seeds of destruction for the nation being sown. Solomon is gathering chariots, horses, wealth, he has become an arms merchant as he traffics in chariots, even going to Egypt to obtain them, and he will also multiply wives unto himself. But in Deuteronomy 17:14-17, before they ever entered the promised land and had a king, God warned them that "When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself."

2. Now some may argue that David had much wealth and it did not affect him, and that is true. But you see, it is not money that is evil, but the love of it that is evil, and that is what caused Solomon to take his eyes off the Lord and focus them upon these material possessions. He was trusting in them instead of the Lord.

II CHRONICLES 2

VERSES 1-2

1. Solomon gathers together this tremendous work force to build the house of God.

VERSES 3-5

1. The temple Solomon was building was going to be magnificent and the reason is simple. Back then, the greater, the more spectacular your temple, the greater your God was. Solomon wanted to make a statement, that there is no other God that can compare to the true and living God. In fact there are no other gods except what we make with our hands and our minds. Isaiah 46:3-10 says "Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age, I am He, And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you. To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal And compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, And weigh silver on the scales; They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it And set it in its place, and it stands; From its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer Nor save him out of his trouble. Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, 'My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.'"

VERSE 6

1. Solomon rightly understood that no temple or building could contain God, for the universe can't even contain Him. He had the right perspective of God. Scientists say that our universe is some 12 billion light years in diameter, and light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Now to put that in perspective, you could circle the earth 7 1/2 times in 1 second. Thus, the universe is beyond our comprehension in distance, and yet God says He measures it with the span of his hand. Now a span is the distance between your thumb and little finger, about 9 inches. God measures the universe with the span of His hand! The temple that Solomon was building was a place in which sacrifices and worship could take place, but he also realized that the presence of God filled the universe.

VERSES 7-10

1. Solomon was going to send back to Hiram, king of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre, 160,000 bushels of wheat and 160,000 bushels of barley, 150,000 gallons of wine and 150,000 gallons of oil for the work they were doing on the temple.

VERSES 11-16

1. Hiram, king of Tyre, was going to send to Solomon the beautiful cedars of Lebanon. To do this they would tie these logs together and float them down the Mediterranean Sea, some 70 miles, to the only seaport in the area, Joppa. From Joppa they would be carried across land some 20 or 30 miles, to the city of Jerusalem, where they would be used in the construction of the temple.

2. This other Hiram, not the king, was the son of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father, she was from the tribe of Dan and was residing in the area of Naphtali. He is the skilled craftsman that was to oversee the work. The point here is simple, Solomon goes to the world to find skilled people to do the work of the Lord. We do that today. We get professional business people in to build the church, help it to grow, just as they built their corporations, and that is wrong. Yes it may look magnificent on the outside, but on the inside it is just an empty shell, there is no dynamic work of the Spirit inside.

3. Now some of you may be wondering what to do if you don't have skilled people to do the work, where else can you go? Remember when Moses had the tabernacle built in the wilderness, that portable worship structure. Notice what is said by God to Moses in Exodus 31:1-11. We read "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 'See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship. And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all who are gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you: the tabernacle of meeting, the ark of the Testimony and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furniture of the tabernacle; the table and its utensils, the pure gold lampstand with all its utensils, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the laver and its base; the garments of ministry, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, to minister as priests, and the anointing oil and sweet incense for the holy place. According to all that I have commanded you they shall do."

God took untrained, unskilled men, and empowered them to do the work by His Spirit. And it tells me that we can try to do the work of God in the flesh, but we will fail and come far short of what God wanted to do. Or we can submit to God and be filled and lead by His Spirit and God will do far above what we were able to do in the flesh. It is not by our might, nor by or strength, but by God's Spirit working through us! Don't look to the world to get help in doing the work of God, look to Him to empower His own!

VERSES 17-18

1. Solomon takes the foreigners who remained in the land and turned them into his work force.

II CHRONICLES 3

VERSES 1-2

1. Solomon began this construction project around 966 BC, about 480 years after the exodus, according to I Kings 6:1, which would date the exodus around 1446 BC.

2. And remember that the Temple was being built on the threshing floor or Ornan, which was located on Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham went to offer his son Isaac 1,000 years earlier, and then 1,000 years after the temple was built, on this same mountain, another Father offered His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, Jesus Christ.

VERSES 3-7

1. The temple was some 90 feet long by 30 feet wide, roughly twice the size of the tabernacle, which was 45 feet long by 30 feet wide and 15 feet high. Now all this beautiful wood they brought from Lebanon was overlaid with pure gold - imagine what that must have looked like.

VERSE 8

1. The most holy place or the holy of holies was 30 feet long by 30 feet wide, and this is where the ark of God resided. The holy place was 60 feet long by 30 feet wide. But understand that the whole temple area was a lot bigger. I believe it is some 50 acres in all. Thus, this area had to be built up and supported with various structures to help support it. And today, with some additions that Herod made to it, we have this large temple mount area that is being contested by the Jews, the Muslims, the Christians and the Catholics as their holy site.

VERSES 9-13

1. Inside the holy of holies, standing above the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat, were these two giant cherubim with a wing span of 15 feet each. One of their wings would touch the wing of the other, and their other wing would touch the wall, thus filling the whole place.

VERSE 14

1. This veil separated the holy place from the most holy place, for only the high priest could enter the most holy place, and only once a year after a ceremonial cleansing. And even then they would enter with a rope around their foot and bells on their robe, for if the bells stopped ringing, the people outside would know that he was unclean and God struck him dead, and they would then grab the rope and pull out his body. Now some say that this veil was made of many woven layers of material, some 18 inches thick and a mule team of 20 could not pull it apart.

2. In the New Testament, when Christ gave up His spirit, and paid for our sins, that veil was torn from top to bottom, signifying that God had opened the way into the most holy place, not man. Now we can boldly come before God anytime we need to. There is no longer a middle man that you must go to, no longer did any other man have to intercede for you. And yet, not only the Jews, but many others have sown that veil back up and have gone back to their dead, empty forms of religious activities.

3. The colors of the veil are interesting to me. Blue is symbolic of heaven. Purple of royalty. Crimson of redemption. And white the color of holiness. Thus, our holy God, our king, came from heaven to redeem us so that we may enter His presence, not by our own righteousness, but by His!

VERSES 15-17

1. These two free standing pillars stood before the entrance of the temple. One pillar was named Jachin, to the south side, and the name means "He shall establish." The other was Boaz, to the north side, and the names means "In Him is strength." Thus, every time you came to the temple, before you would even enter it, you were reminded that God has established this nation and it is only by His strength that this nation will stand. It was important to have the right perspective of things before you entered the temple.

2. In the New Testament listen to what Jesus says regarding His disciples. He says in Revelation 3:12 "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name." We are the pillars, the living pillars in the temple of God!

II CHRONICLES 4

VERSE 1

1. The altar of sacrifice was nothing more than a giant barbecue pit which was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide and some 15 feet high. This stood in the courtyard directly in front of the temple.

VERSES 2-5

1. The sea of cast bronze or the laver was 15 feet across, 45 feet in circumference, and 7 1/2 feet deep and was able to hold between 12 and 15,000 gallons of water. This was used by the priests for ceremonial cleansing and was located to the south side of the temple or on the left as you walked in.

VERSE 6

1. These 10 portable lavers were used to wash the animals that were to be sacrificed. Each laver was able to hold some 230 gallons of water and they were mobile, placed on carts. These were located on the sides of the temple, 5 on each side.

VERSES 7-8

1. The tabernacle only had 1 menorah and 1 table of showbread. Solomon makes 10 of each, placing 5 of each on each side of the temple.

VERSES 9-17

1. The cast for the temple articles were made of clay that was obtained in the plain of Jordan.

VERSE 18

1. They had so much bronze that they used in the temple that they did not even bother to weigh it.

VERSES 19-22

1. (READ THROUGH VERSE 1 OF CHAPTER 5).

2. Solomon completes the work on the temple, a 7 year building project, and what a sight it must have been. Next week we will get into the dedication of Solomon's temple.