________________________________________________________________________

There is so much that can be learned about our walk with God from the temple of Solomon and the events surrounding it's building and dedication. It was the only physical temple that was ever built with no expense spared. If we could build a church that would be our dream, ideal church and there was no limit to the money, that would basically be the modern day equivalent of Solomon's Temple. Solomon was one of the richest kings that ever lived, and modern Bible scholars estimate that the money that went through the palace of Solomon to be the equivalent of around 200 million dollars a year. Of that, after all the bills were paid and all construction completed, and all debts were erased, Solomon still had roughly 20 million dollars a year as "extra money." The temple walls were made of cedar wood overlaid with marble. Solomon not only had his great wealth to draw from but also tremendous donations from the people and a large "building fund" that his father, King David had spent his entire life developing. And the result was the most magnificent structure that man had ever seen. Almost every individual item within the temple was overlaid with gold. So much silver and brass was used that they did not even bother to count or weigh it!

It is obvious that God was pleased with the extravagance because it was God Himself who gave the plans for the temple to David. I believe that God allowed Solomon's temple to be built to teach us about the Apostolic Church whose bodies are to be the temple of the Holy Ghost (I Corinthians 6:19). There will never be a physical king as great as Solomon ever again, but Jesus Christ was a spiritual king that far exceeded the splendor of Solomon. In fact, Jesus told the Jewish people that they were impressed with just the stories of Solomon's wealth, but that a "greater than Solomon is here" referring Himself! It follows then that there will never be another physical temple built to exceed the temple of Solomon, but the true Apostolic Church will far exceed the splendor and wealth of Solomon's temple in the Spirit because we have the one who is greater than Solomon building us!

You may never have a million dollars in the bank or become rich and famous to this world's standards, but that kind of wealth does not define true success. Worldly wealth is only temporary and cannot be taken with you when you move from this earthly life. When you allow the "greater than Solomon," Jesus Christ, to build your life into a temple of God, you inherit and possess a wealth far beyond anything that this world can ever know. Take the richest man on earth, and ask him how much would he give to be able to live forever? Probably everything that he has. How much would he give for an insurance policy that protected him from the destruction of earth and that no matter what happened in his life, things would always come out in his favor? That would be priceless. But that sort of riches cannot be bought by man, but it was by God. Jesus Christ gave a great sacrifice on Calvary that goes beyond anything that King David or Solomon gave for their temple. And that is because Jesus Christ was building an even greater temple, the Apostolic Church.

When you are born again of the water and of the Spirit, you have been adopted into the family of God. You are heir to the riches of heaven, and you are given the coveted promise that you can live forever. You are given a ticket out of here before the destruction of this earth, and you've got a promise that "all things will work together for the good" in your life! Everything that we would consider priceless has been given to those whose body is the temple of the Holy Ghost! When you allow Jesus Christ to build your temple, you are becoming a spiritual building that far surpasses the glamour and splendor of Solomon's. In fact, if you will allow Jesus to build your life according to His Word, then you will not only reap eternal benefits, but you will find that your marriage and home can be healed, your relationships and friendships can be stronger, your life can be more peaceful and contented, and the emptiness of a sinful life can be replaced with a strong purpose and resolve of someone who has a definite purpose in life!

But it is not a one time process and God is done, but it is a life-long project. It took 7 years to build Solomon's temple and 7 is the number of God's perfect completion in scripture. God completed the creation in 7 days. Jericho fell after 7 days and 7 trips around. When Peter asked "how many times should I forgive someone of the same offence?" Jesus answered and said "70 x 7." In other words, keep on forgiving until the matter is resolved. Be as patient with others as God has been with you. Be as merciful to others in their mistakes and development as God has been to get you where you are today. Your life becoming the temple of the Holy Ghost is not just a water baptism, receive the Holy Ghost, one time deal and you are completed. You must continually yield to the Holy Ghost and the plan of God, His Word, until God is finished with you. You must keep moving forward in God and allowing Him to change your life, or else your life will become the empty shell of what might have been. There are some people, that when you think of their life, you think of "what might have been if they would not have gotten sidetracked, bitter, or cold in God." Unless God's mercy is able to draw them back, they will live the rest of their lives as an unfinished building with others saying "they were starting to take shape but they are just a shell of what they were designed to be." That's why after you receive the Holy Ghost and are baptized in Jesus' name, church attendance becomes even MORE important. Yielding to the Holy Ghost and obeying His Word becomes even more important than it ever was, because you faithfulness and obedience and surrendering to His Spirit determines whether or not you are allowing Jesus Christ to build a temple greater than Solomon's! God will not build junk or imperfection. If you want to grab the hammer from His hands and form your life as you want to, then He'll let you take over, but the final result of your own devices will not even compare to what you could of been under the skillful hand of the "greater than Solomon."

Some people insist upon building their lives themselves, and then there are those who want to build most of it until they run into a hard area or trial, and then they want God to intervene and help. God will often get them out of their jam, but rather than submit to the design of God, once things get better, these people tend to pick back up the hammer and push God back out of the construction. All the cutting, hammering, and hewing of the timber and stones of Solomon's temple was done far away from the actual temple site. It was made so perfectly that when they brought it to the actual temple site, the scriptures say "not a sound of a hammer" was heard during the actual construction. The site was quiet during the building and if you were watching from afar, it would seem as if God was just placing the beams and stones together and not one sound of man's hammer could have been heard. Why did God command it to be done this way? Because He wanted to teach us something about our bodies being the temple of His Spirit. If we are to be the type of temple that the "greater than Solomon" would build, then we must allow the hand of God to shape our lives and put us together. That means not resisting when God begins to deal with this area of our life. That means not complaining when God begins to chip away at a hard area that is keeping everything from coming together. That means allowing God to shape and form everything in our life according to His Word and His plan.

There are many more correlations between the dedication of Solomon's temple and the "dedication" of the Apostolic Church which was the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. First of all, Solomon had a great platform built in the courtyard and before the dedication could take place, Solomon walked upon the platform which placed him high above all of the people. It must have been a magnificent sight looking up at Solomon dressed in his royal finery standing high and regal! Before the dedication of the Day of Pentecost could take place, Jesus Christ had to die and be resurrected and He had to ascend into heaven as the disciple watched. Even more magnificent a sight than Solomon in his royal robes, must have been Jesus Christ clothed in a resurrected, immortal body ascending into the heavens as the disciples looked up at Him! The people were gathered together for seven days, just as the 120 were gathered together for seven days in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost. After the seven days were over, Solomon sent the people away back throughout the land, and after the seven days of tarrying were over, the Holy Ghost fell on the Day of Pentecost equipping the disciples to go throughout the land with the revival message of Jesus Christ!

The scriptures say that Solomon had so many lambs killed during the dedication of his temple that they could not be counted. This represents two things: First, despite the great sacrifice represented at Solomon's dedication, it was outdone completely by the sacrifice of the one, perfect Lamb of God, Jesus Christ on Calvary. Even by killing thousands of sacrifices, Solomon was still not able to atone for all of the sins of the Jewish people. But Jesus Christ bought forgiveness for the sins of the entire world with His death! He may have been only one lamb, but OH what a lamb! The sacrifice of Calvary was far greater than the sacrifice at Solomon's temple!

Second, the great many sacrifices represented the fact that many people would be born into the kingdom of God. We are saved by obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is His death, burial, and resurrection. When you die to your sins through repentance, are buried with Him in baptism, and rise to a newness of life through the infilling of the Holy Ghost, you become a "living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1-2). The scriptures say that after Solomon prayed over the sacrifices, that fire fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifices completely. On the Day of Pentecost, it was Holy Ghost fire that fell "on each of them" and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. God was once again consuming the living sacrifices! What had been sinful and unclean, God was sending His fire to refine and consume! Not only that, but after the sacrifice had been completely consumed by the fire falling from heaven, the scriptures say that the presence of God descended into the temple and filled all of it! When the Holy Ghost fell on the Day of Pentecost, not only did a fire from heaven consume them spiritually, but the very presence of God moved into their bodies! Their bodies became a living temple of God!

This experience is still available today, by the way. If you will die to your sins through repentance, be buried with Jesus Christ by baptism in His name like Colossians 2:11 states, and you will exalt Jesus higher than anything on earth, then you can too receive the Holy Ghost. It will fall from heaven and consume your passions and desires that are wayward. It will consume your thoughts and your heart. It will take hold of your evil tongue and tame it by causing it to speak the praises of God in a language that you have never studied or learned. And most of important of all, at the same time, the presence of God will move into your life and take residence there, causing your body to become a temple of the Holy Ghost. And then it will go to work trying to tear down everything that is not like God and trying to change your life to match the blueprints of God's Word! It may sound like a lot, and quite dramatic, but the results of your life will far surpass anything that you ever dreamed of it being when you allow the one who is "greater than Solomon" to build the house! In fact the scriptures say:

Who is building your spiritual house? Does God's Word reign supreme or are you taking the hammer from Him and modifying it as you wish?! Just remember that if you choose to build it yourself, that the end of your spiritual house will be to be burned. But when God builds the temple, then it cannot help but last forever! I want to spend eternity alive with Him!

________________________________________________________________________

There are many other correlations between the dedication of Solomon's temple and the formation of the Early Apostolic Church in the book of Acts. One neat correlation is that Solomon built a huge bronze bowl called the "sea." It was a huge version of the brazen laver and was filled with water for the priests to wash themselves before the entered into the service of the Lord. It of course was a perfect representation of water baptism. The neat thing about this huge bronze bowl is that it rested upon twelve oxen in groups of three. The twelve oxen who bore the burden of the water represents perfectly the twelve disciples of Jesus to whom were given the commandment and burden of Jesus name baptism. By the way, scripture is very clear that Jesus Christ did not baptize anyone during His ministry but commanded that His disciples baptize (John 4:2). Why did Jesus make His disciples do all the baptism? Because He was transferring that burden and responsibility to the twelve men who were represented by the twelve oxen in Solomon's temple. In every scripture that the oxen in Solomon's temple are mentioned, they are mentioned as looking out from under the bowl in the four directions of the earth (I Kings 7:25; II Chronicles 4:2-5). And each time the directions are mentioned in a unique order the same way: north, west, south, and then east. It is more natural to say "north, east, south, and then west" but the scriptures always describes the oxen under the sea in that unique order. Why? Because it matches the direction that the Apostolic Church traveled in taking this message of Water Baptism. Revival first went to the North, first spreading north in Samaria in Acts 8 and into Caesarea then further north above Galilee to Damascus and Antioch in Acts 9-12. The revival then spread west throughout Asia into Greece and even to Italy through the rest of Acts. In fact, God forbade Paul from going east in his missionary travels. It is after the book of Acts closes that revival began to the south of Jerusalem into Africa through the missionary efforts of the disciples, and only at the end of Peter's life do we find him preaching to the east. The burden of water baptism and it's life changing message was carried in the directions specified by God in Solomon's temple!

________________________________________________________________________

Instead of throwing zillions of more correlations between Solomon's temple and the Apostolic Church at you, I would like to finish our study by focusing on the passage of scripture that we read as our text. It happened after all the hoopla of the dedication was over and everyone had all gone home. Solomon was in his house at night and probably in bed, when in the stillness of the night, God spoke to him. God told him that "I have heard your prayers and have chosen this place that you have built to be a place of sacrifice." Notice the following scripture:

God promised Solomon that His name would be in the temple forever, and that His heart would be there forever as well! My point is, the actual temple of Solomon was destroyed in 586 B.C. God had to know that when He made this promise to Solomon about dwelling there forever, so what did He mean!? Could He be referring to the temple which was fashioned unto Solomon's but even greater: the Holy-Ghost filled believer? I think so, because it is currently the only temple which was formed after the type of Solomon's temple! If that is true, and the correlations are as sure as we have seen, then God's instruction and promise to Solomon is just as valid for us today. God said to Solomon:

If there is a drought, if there is a tragedy, or if there is great sickness among his people, God would answer the prayers of His people if they prayed in the manner of verse 14. Verse 14 then becomes the God-given directions to praying and getting results and of having a move of God in your life. If you are having a spiritual drought in your life, then here is the formula to receive a fresh anointing and blessing from heaven. If you feel as if you are having trouble reaping a harvest, then this is the remedy. If you feel as if the spiritual building of your life is "sickly" and is not as it should be, then here is the path to spiritual wellness. Verse 14 is given by God on how to approach God. It is His direction for healing those not only in Solomon's temple, but those who are being built by the one greater than Solomon! Let's take God's commandments briefly one by one:

If my people - He is talking to people who are making an effort to obey His commandments and are following Him. He is talking to those who are filled with the Spirit of God and allowing it to work in their lives.

This promise is not to everyone, but only to Spirit-filled believers!

are called by my name - Not only is the promise exclusive to Spirit-filled believers, but also to those Spirit-filled believers who are "called by His name!" In Solomon's day, God's revealed name of salvation was Jehovah. Only those who were known as "Jehovah's" were able to access this promise. Today, we have been given a better and higher name which is "above every name":

The name of Jesus is the highest name and the only name that can bring salvation in our age (Acts 4:12)! And this promise is available to those who are known as "Jesus people." I'm glad to be known as "Jesus only" even though I'm really "Jesus everything." Call me a Jesus freak if you want to, but I believe the scripture when it says that the name of Jesus is the only one that brings deliverance and salvation! Whatever we do in "word or deed" we must do it all in the name of Jesus (Colossians 3:17)! We must baptize in that name. We must pray in that name. We must repent to that name. We must worship that name. There is power in the name of Jesus! And for reasons that you may not have realized: there are some promises and blessings like this one that are reserved for people who are "called by the name!"

shall humble themselves - Humility is not self-depreciation. I've known people to constantly think negative of themselves or their faults or abilities and think that they are humble. Jesus Christ was never negative of Himself but He was certainly the perfect human being and thus humble. True, Godly humility means to surrender yourself and submit yourself to God and others. It means that you do not come to God with a selfish agenda. Many people live for God with their own agendas that they seek for that bleeds through in everything that they do. Perhaps they desire to be noticed, or desire fame or power. Perhaps their agenda involves popularity or self-appreciation. When one comes to God in humility, they push aside their own agendas and feelings of "self-importance" and acknowledge their need for Him in every area of their life. Humility then is complete submission in every area to God. It is the acknowledgment that I need God in every area of my life or I will fail. It doesn't come to God and say, "you can fix this area of my life, but I've pretty much got this over here in control." It doesn't set certain aspects of our lives as "off limits" to God. That's true humility.

and pray - When I pray, I talk to God much like I would talk to you, only I am more open with my desires and dreams and secrets. I pray differently in church than I do in my own prayer time. In church I take on the role of a minister and an interceder and pray accordingly. I pray differently in worship, and yield to the boldness and Spirit of God when it moves into a place and pray accordingly. But when I talk to God throughout the week, it sounds like I am talking to my best friend. The worst thing that people do when they pray is to leave up masks and treat God as they treat their own friends. God is the friend that "sticketh closer than a brother." You should not be more candid and open and responsive to anyone else in your life than you are with God. I can express to Him everything. If you are meeting with someone to talk about a specific purpose or business, then the meeting tends to be formal and stiff. If you are meeting with friends and just "hanging out" because you want to be around them, the conversation is usually more down to earth and more general and relaxed. Your daily prayer life should be one that is "comfortable" with God. It should not have the rushed feeling of "I am praying for 30 minutes and then on to my next appointment" but should have the feeling of two good friends chatting about things that are important to them. For these reasons, your attitude and time of day of prayer go a long way into establishing a true prayer life.

and seek my face - We must do more than just say pretty words or hold a conversation with God, but we must "seek His face." This is obviously figurative language because it was written before God ever came and flesh and had a "face." Remember that the earthly body of Jesus is "the image of the invisible God." What did God mean? Think about everything that you can learn from observing a face. You can tell which direction they are facing. You can see facial expressions of delight or disgust. You can get direction from watching a face. What God is saying is that when we pray and when we come to Him according to this promise, we must endeavor to see which way God is facing and cause that to become our direction as well! If God is wanting us to do this, then we must not do that! If it is time to do this, then we must go along with the direction that God's Spirit is moving. To "seek His face" is to learn to follow the leading and guiding of God's will. It's taking time each day to check on what His will is before we impose our own will upon our day. It's taking stock of our lives and removing the things that cause God grief and filling our lives with the things with which God is pleased. It is learning to be sensitive throughout the day to the Spirit of God and the gentle tugging of the voice of God. It is approaching every day with the attitude that "God wants to use me today." Before you act, seek His face!

and turn from their wicked ways - We must allow His Word and the Holy Spirit to speak to us about the areas in our lives that are contrary to His Word and will. The Holy Ghost will always begin to work upon the areas that are against God's Word. If God's Word takes a stand against something and you do not feel conviction to change, then you have grown callused to the gentle nudging of the Spirit of God. They will not contradict. The Spirit of God and Word of God will always be perfectly in synch in your life. We must turn from willful sin. We all will slip and accidentally fall, but we must refrain through the power of the Holy Ghost and the direction of His Word from repeating willful sin in our life. It brings confusion. It brings damage to our relationship with God. It causes this promise to become unavailable to us. Willful sin is the major reason why some Christians struggle to be sensitive to the things of God and disdain coming to church and worship. Because every time that they approach God, they hear the same voice dealing with them in the same area. And God will until they change that area of their life that they have not submitted. Until they listen to the voice of the Holy Ghost and their conscience and the Word of God, they will be unable to grow further in Christ.

And if we will do these things, then God will "hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land." By obeying this scripture, we get God moving in our life. It cannot fail. It is direction by God on how to approach God. If you step out in faith on this promise and meet these conditions, then God WILL begin to move in your life! And not only in your life, but in those around you! Your harvest will be reaped! Your drought will be over! Your life will be forever changed and made closer to the blueprint that God has for it. Because you have followed the commandment of the one who is greater than Solomon and therefore you can become a temple greater than Solomon's! If God would do all of that for people in Solomon's temple, then how much more will He do for those whose bodies are literally the temple of the Holy Ghost!?