Sermon: Living Stones

Solomon's Temple Foreshadows God's Spiritual Temple
#1734B
Ted E. Bowling
Given 11-Nov-23; 35 minutes 2023-11-11

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It has been a little over a month since we have been home from the Feast and sometimes it is difficult to get back into our routines. Oftentimes after the Feast it is a letdown. And what has been let down quite a bit this year, I think, is so many were sick of the Feast and so many came home sick. I became sick. I was amongst those that have been struggling the last few weeks. Many came home to uncertainty in their jobs not knowing what they were going to be doing because of their sacrifice and their obedience.

If you watch the evening news, it is continually filled with mass shootings. War in Israel. There seems to be a seemingly ruthless amount of killing these days, and it affects all of us because that hate and destruction cannot help but be in our minds. Even in Washington, since we have been back, the politicians just cannot get along even in their own parties. They cannot agree. What it does create is unrest in all of us and in the nation.

And then as we are in this season, for the next few weeks we are going to have to put up with these holidays. It is in the mind, it is constantly in the ear. You cannot get rid of it, you cannot get away from it. And so we are constantly being bombarded.

I want to start today where I ended my sermon at the Feast to remind us how precious and special we are to God, as we go through this lull, as we go toward the Passover in the spring.

Please turn to I Peter chapter 2, verse 9. Again, this is where I ended at the Feast.

I Peter 2:9 But you are chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people.

Be encouraged, brethren. You are His chosen people. You are a part of the Temple of God. My subject today is from I Peter because you are living stones in the Temple of God. I want to start just a few verses up from verse 9. I want to go back up to verse 4 because these verses are quite encouraging because they show us how important we are to the plan of God, that we are being prepared for that Kingdom, that spiritual Temple as living stones.

I Peter 2:4 Coming to Him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.

Right off the bat he is talking about Christ here. He is the living stone here. And I want to mention, this is the only place in the Scriptures that I can find that Christ is ever called a living stone. He is repeatedly called Rock of Ages or just the stone or the stone at the corner. Many other ways it has been said but here He is called a living stone. And I think Peter wanted to show us that there is a direct connection with Christ to His people because we will be shoulder to shoulder with Him, next to Him, as pillars and stones. And so for us to be able to be butted up against Him means that we must be like Him—just like Him.

Jesus Christ was chosen of God, though He was rejected of men. But He stood up to every test that was given Him. He was continually bombarded for the last three and a half years of His life. Satan searched in vain to find flaws in Christ's character, some type of imperfection, no matter how small, but he never found it. He was full of integrity. They worked shamelessly to find something in Him, but they never found it.

I Peter 2:5-7 You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame." Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."

The living stone, that chief living stone, makes us living stones.

I think it is really interesting the imagery that Paul uses here. In fact, it is an oxymoron, if you think about it. A living stone? Because a stone is an inanimate object, nonliving. A stone is solid, hard, unmoving, unchanging. But if you look at it on the spiritual level, we are spiritually dead. The imagery is perfect.

Without God's calling, without God in our lives, we are as dead as a stone. Through our sins, we are separated from Him. But it was only through His sacrifice and the blood of Jesus Christ that has made us alive. So on a spiritual level, that is what God is looking for us. Living stones who will be solid, unmoving, unshakeable in our service to Him.

Now, Satan is doing everything possible today. Just as he looked for flaws in Jesus Christ, he is looking for flaws in you. He is looking for ways to discourage you, to break your will, and there will be times that it may happen. He looks for opportunities to shame you. And how often do we struggle because of these very things? That is why we must struggle against that every day. That is why we need to pray and meditate. That is why it is so important that God will give us the strength to overcome this flesh, to overcome this man within us. So never forget—never forget—our wonderful calling that He has given to us to be a part of His Temple.

I Corinthians 3:16-17 [never forget this] Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

Paul wanted the church to recognize how special their calling was and that they were going to be a part of something so much greater and to never forget what was before them. But it does require holiness. It is not because any of us are special. It is not because we are smart. It has nothing to do with us. It is because He called us to make us a part of His Family. That is the most wonderful thing that we can ever consider in our lives.

Now, we have a physical example of the Temple of God today that we have seen in the past. One of the greatest structures ever built was Solomon's Temple. When Solomon built the Temple, it was to honor his father David, but more importantly, it was to honor God; to worship and to glorify Him. Solomon's Temple was built of literal stones and it is a foreshadowing of a spiritual Temple that God is building through us, through you. I think it may be the greatest structure ever built. It is not the biggest, but I think it was the greatest. And I think you will see that as I go forward here.

Solomon brought in special craftsmanship, men that had special abilities, and you will see the perfection in the Temple. This is a temple of enormous value. Consider it was full of precious stones inlaid with gold. And we can see the love that was put into this great endeavor. It helps us to appreciate our great calling even more as living stones of God, which we, which our God is working with us to develop right now.

Please turn to I Kings and I want to look at that first Temple. Now, first of all, I want to mention that the Temple was built on Mount Moriah. This is the very location that Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. This is the location of the threshing floor of Araunah that David bought that God commanded him to do. This is where he set up the altar to God, which you can read about in II Samuel 24. And so his Temple was built on a location where Abraham sacrificed Isaac. And this is a place where David gave an altar to God. It is a very special location.

I Kings 5:5 And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to my father David, saying, "Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for My name."

Verses 6 through 11 shows how Solomon made the agreement with King Hiram of Tyre to build and to cut down the cypress and cedars for the logs for the Temple. I will pick it back up in verse 12.

I Kings 5:12-18 So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty together. Then Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel; and the labor force was thirty-thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts: they were one month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains, besides three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Solomon's deputies, who supervised the people who labored in the work. And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, and hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the temple. So Solomon's builders, Hiram's builders, and the Gebalites quarried them; and they prepared timber and stones to build the temple.

This was a massive undertaking! You can see there was just under 180,000 men who were a part of this operation. And that does not even include the men from Tyre. I want you remember, though, Solomon's house, Solomon's Temple is a type of the true house of God, the true church of God. Just as a temple was made up of many stones, rocks, boulders, making up the foundation, the flooring, walls, all the pillars—it is the same as He is doing in His spiritual Temple today. We are a work in progress and Jesus Christ became the chief cornerstone.

Remember, Mount Moriah is on a mountain. Consider the difficulty in building such a structure on such a plateau. The chief cornerstone was a principal stone placed in this structure. The cornerstone was usually the largest, most solid, and the most carefully constructed of any building. And here the builders buried that stone into that natural rock which provided a stable and strong support for the Temple. The cornerstone had to be perfectly anchored in a superstructure for this building to be sound.

The word you often hear in construction is integrity, and there was integrity in the chief cornerstone, which was the most vital stone in that building, and it was placed perfectly. Archaeologists believe that they have found this unique stone. And they have found that it is literally embedded into the stone. They could not even move the stone even if they wanted to.

Isaiah 28:16-17 Therefore thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation [this could also read a tested stone or a stone of proof]. . . Also I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plummet.

I want to use that word again—integrity. Jesus Christ is the standard of integrity, uprightness, and righteousness, which we will be measured by. And you can see this is where Peter was quoting from here in Isaiah. This stone had been tried and tested and stood unchanged and unchangeable.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points [tested] as we are, yet without sin.

I think you could say that the word integrity can be defined as Jesus Christ because He was honest, upright, moral, sound, principled, full of character, decency, and righteousness. That is our goal—to be just like Him.

Again, we talk about structural integrity. This means the ability of a structure to withstand the intended load without failing due to structure and to sound. And so Solomon's Temple was an example of structural integrity. This building stood for almost 400 years before Babylon came in and raided it. They carried off all the valuables, the gold, the precious stones, and they burned down the Temple. But the superstructure remained. In fact, when Israel returned from captivity, they rebuilt the Temple on the same foundation. That cornerstone did not ever change.

Jesus Christ is the cornerstone for Solomon's Temple, the second Temple, and today. And if you want to listen to a sermon about that second Temple, listen to David Grabbe's sermon from the Feast. He covers it beautifully and so I am not going to go there. But I will say, when that second Temple was built, it had not nearly the splendor of the first. In fact, many wept who had seen the first one, but it is understandable because of the resources that was put into it, all that was put into that. They did not have it coming back out of captivity, but God's name, His presence was still there.

I want to look at one other fascinating aspect of Solomon's Temple. To me, it is one of the most fascinating aspects of it. That is found in I Kings chapter 6, verse 7. It seems to me that this verse is just dropped into the chapter. It does not fit. And I tried to find if there is any other references to this verse in the Bible and there are none. But it is such an important verse.

I Kings 6:7 And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished in the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

Consider the enormous task of building a temple on this platform, on this mount. But the whole structure as they put it together rose in peace and quiet. Why? You know, I think of Moses as he neared the the burning brush and God told him to take off his shoes because this is holy ground. I do not know if it is the exact same thing, but this is the place where God's presence was going to be. And so there was no hammering at that location, no chisels shaping anything. The workmen simply put the building together. They used mallets but they were quiet.

The last couple of weeks, I have listened to Richard talk about the work outside. He has talked about how he stepped outside and he could hear the chiseling and the pounding. And I was looking, I stopped as I drove in to look at the stones. These are stones this big [gesture], but they are shaping them around these pillars and there is a craft in it.

But you imagine a job site so huge as this. If you have ever been to a typical construction site or a house being built, it is noisy. Hammering going all the time. The noise can be overwhelming, but not here. Back then, in ancient times, most of these things were built of stone. So can you imagine, as we talk about this little tinkling outside here, thousands of stone masons working all at once, cutting these blocks to fit. These were skilled men hammering and chiseling. This was an amazing feat, but it was all done offsite.

I was thinking about the thought "measure twice, cut once." Well, this blows that out of the water. For the Temple to be built. . . it was not just one quarry, by the way. As I was reading, there were many, many quarries that the stones came from. And so the designers, the builders, had to be exact in their precision and their skill to accomplish this. Again, this goes way beyond, more than we can even imagine. That is why I think this is the most special building that was ever constructed because you can see God's hand in it.

There were 30,000 men working to shape these stones with 3,300 supervisors, but not one of those stones came to the building without being formed and properly prepared. I read that some of these stones could have weighed up toward 100 tons, yet they were perfectly honed and fitted together when they were onsite.

One more thing to think about. Getting the stones from the quarry to the mountain. On one site I read said it would be almost impossible not to damage one of these stones in transporting it that far. But as I said, no hammer or chisel was used onsite. That means that God blessed the transportation of these stones from one place to the other. It is an incredible feat. It is incredible, and it is clear, I believe, that God was the Master Architect at that first Temple. He blessed Solomon with the wisdom to place the right people in the right job to get the job done.

I would like to read a quote from Josephus. It is from the Antiquities of the Jews regarding Solomon Temple. It is in chapter 3.

Now, the whole structure of the temple was made with great skill of polished stones, and those laid together so very harmoniously and smoothly that there appeared to spectators, no sign of a hammer or any other instrument of architecture. But as if without any use of them, the entire materials had naturally united themselves together, that the agreement of one part with another seemed rather to have been natural then to have arisen from the force of tools upon them.

I just think that is very beautifully said. And by the way, it took seven years for them to build the Temple. And, if I understand right, seven is the word for completion.

Brethren, today God is both architect and builder of the spiritual Temple.

You know, I have wondered why all this work was then offsite where no hammer, chisels, anything could be heard at the location of the assembly of the Temple. But this was a foreshadowing of the church, of the spiritual Temple. It is that when Christ returns, there will be nothing more to do, we will be prepared. And He raises this up, He will just assemble us together. There will not be no chiseling at that time. No more testing. It will just come together. That is my opinion.

Today, the church is scattered in many quarries around the world. You know, many of you out there are meeting with one family, two, there are even some that are alone on this trek. But please do not be discouraged. You are not alone. Now, you may not be able to see the stones in the other quarries, but they are being shaped, and they are being shaped to fit with you, and and not just shaped, but perfectly shaped to fit seamlessly but we must do our part.

I talked earlier, a few months ago, about structural integrity and it is necessary for a sound and upright structure. As living stones, we must line up perfectly with Jesus Christ. Remember, we will be shoulder to shoulder. If we are not like Christ, how can we butt up to Him perfectly and seamlessly?

I will say again, as children of God, integrity must be at our core. Integrity is honesty, uprightness, moral soundness, principle, character, decency, and righteousness. I have written down a few verses here regarding integrity.

Proverbs 11:3 The integrity of the upright guides them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.

Proverbs 20:7 The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.

Proverbs 21:3 To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to God than sacrifice.

I thought about that one. It is more important to God that we are honest, that we are principled, that we are decent, than sacrifice. There is a whole lot there to think about.

Psalm 41:11-12 I know that You are well pleased with me, because my enemy does not triumph over me. As for me, You uphold me in my integrity, and set me before Your face forever.

Jesus Christ is the definition of integrity and to fit seamlessly with Him we must be living our lives of the same integrity that He lived his.

I want to go back to I Peter one more time, but I am going to start a little bit earlier. Again, in verse 4, it talks about the living stones, but I am going to start before there because I believe the verses leading up are about integrity.

I Peter 1:13-16 Therefore gird up your loins of your mind, be sober and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."

I Peter 1:22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.

I Peter 2:1-3 [leading into these other verses] Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking [all these are the very opposite of integrity], as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Brethren, we are going to have many difficulties. We are going to have to make very difficult choices as we go through trials every day. How you deal with hate, it matters. How you deal with someone that does you wrong, it matters. It matters how you deal with love and mercy, patience. It all matters because it matters to God. Why? Because that is how you will be determined that you will be shaped and polished for the ultimate Kingdom of God, that living Temple.

You know, we do not know how many stones in those quarries were discarded because they were unusable, because they just would not conform to the shape needed for their position. We do not know, but we must work hard. We must work hard on ourselves to change. As I said earlier, Satan is working desperately to exploit our flaws, to discourage us, to break our will, to even question our conversion. There will be those that shame you. How will you handle the peer pressure in these challenges?

I think of the trials of Job and how his friends even questioned him. And in verse 9 of chapter 2, even his wife struck a blow at him seeing how he had been struck with boils and he was sitting in the dust scraping his sores. What did she say to him? "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die!" It is a fantastic statement. You know what? Job stood fast in his integrity and in his righteousness. And he is quite an example for us today for us to hang in there with our integrity, what we have been told, what we have been learning.

The choices that we make affect our character because we have to have the character of Jesus Christ and the Father.

As we go forward and as the church goes forward, never forget how precious you are to God. When you look in the mirror, you are not looking at a piece of coal but you are looking at a precious gem that He is shaping for His purpose. Remember, you are handpicked stones, chosen by God the Father Himself.

So no matter what the future holds, let us pray that God will lead us and guide us individually in these different quarries and to be committed to do His will and become those living stones that He wants us to become.

I will finish in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2:19-22 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fit together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

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