06 June – Additional Notes

1 KINGS 6: THE ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN SOUL

Upon reading today’s chapter, I could imagine that people would give up reading after the first verse. After all, who cares about King Solomon’s Temple and what month it was, when he started building it! What possible relevance could it have to my life today? Well… I’m under the impression that the Creator God is interested in every detail. He keeps a record of seemingly insignificant information which, as it turns out later, actually become vitally clues in HIStory for shedding light on His Global MasterPlan that is still unfolding today.

So, the first thing I notice is that the Author behind the Script has a long-term vision. He knows exactly what year it is and He’s keeping an actuate record. The fact that Solomon lays the foundation of the House of the Lord in the second month, also caught my attention this morning. Is it just a coincidence, or is it perfectly fitting puzzle pieces that, centuries later, Jesus died in the first month – at the time of the Jewish Passover. And, with “His enemies under His feet”[a], in the second month He appeared to 500 of His followers over a period of 40 days – laying the foundation of what has become the third Temple – the Creator God’s Global Church.[b]

Today’s chapter then describes, in detail, Solomon’s work and two things I notice again. First, while drawing a picture as I read, I couldn’t help but see, appearing in the words, an Ark – a boat like Noah’s Ark. This was most especially so, with the two wings of side rooms on either side of the main hall. Interestingly, the lower floor of rooms was six feet (in total) narrower than the third floor. [v6] Most people would put narrow at the top, but Solomon made it wider at the top. In addition, these two side wings were less than half the height of the main hall [v10] – just as the sides of a ship are shorter than the main body of it.  Why am I saying this?

Just as the animals flocked to Noah[c], Solomon’s wisdom was attracting wide-spread attention from every king on earth.[d] And with this, the Temple was meant to be yet another Ark, designed to save lives. Standing on the hill, and clearly visible to all who visited Solomon, anyone could call on the Name of the Lord and be saved.[e] If we put this into our minds, and hold it there, we may begin to understand why Jesus was so angry with the misuse of the Temple in the first century AD. And why He seemed so cross with the religious leaders, most especially, who hadn’t grasped the Creator’s Global MasterPlan.[f]

The second thing I noticed, was the ridiculously impossible task Solomon had undertaken, to box in the Creator God’s Name.[g] With it clear from the beginning, that the Creator had never asked for a house, how was it at all possible to house the Living God and Creator of the Universe in something as small as a box that measured 90 feet x 30 feet x 45 feet. [v2] In every likelihood, it was smaller than a king’s palace. Bizarrely enough, only a small cube shaped box in the back of the hall was the Living God’s Most Holy Place – His personal quarters. [v16,19&20] So He gets a box within a box, like the heart positioned in “the main hall” of a human.

Apart from the fact that this was like a flea trying to build a house, in flea-size proportions, for a Great Dane to live in. Still, another gemstone is woven within the fabric of the storyline today… Just as the Most Holy Place was in the shape of a cube measuring 20 cubits x 20 cubits x 20 cubits, the Creator God’s Holy City (built for God’s people to “dwell in” permanently in His Kingdom), is also in the shape of a cube – measuring 12,000 stadia x 12,000 stadia x 12,000 stadia.[h]

For now, the Creator is gracious and agrees to put His Name in Solomon’s box. But here’s the thing, if the Creator God’s Name is embedded in a person – roughly the size and shape of a human image of God[i] – who is this person that has God’s Name buried within Himself?

Like any great Playwright in history, the One behind HIStory will reveal the answer in due course.[j] Suffice to say now that, the Creator God allowed His Name – His Presence – to be placed inside a box in a building on earth, because His Global MasterPlan includes “the dwelling place of God being with man”.[k]  Having made images of Himself and set us going to fill the earth[l], it’s little wonder that He wouldn’t want to live at the centre of those who were created specifically to be like Him.

But without a physical Temple now for 1948 years (since the Romans dismantled it in AD70), the possibility of the uncontainable God actually making His “dwelling place with man” (where He, His Word and Name are at the centre of everything), can really only be possible, in any wide-spread way, through the fulfilment of His own promise:

“It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” [Joel 2:28-32]

So, not a sentence of HIStory is so insignificant that it can be cut from the script and, today’s chapter (boring though it may seem at first glance) is no different. I noticed, for example, huge significance in the tiniest of words that form the centre-piece of it all…

^“Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, ‘As for this house which you are building, if you will walk in My statutes and execute My ordinances and keep all My commandments by walking in them, then I will carry out My word with you which I spoke to David your father.’” [v11-13]

In other words, this scene is like a man building a house for his bride-to-be. But before it’s half-way complete, she comes along saying, “As for this house you’re building, I don’t care about it. I don’t care how exquisitely beautiful it is. I don’t care how much time, effort and money that is going into it if, at the end of the day, you’re not going to love me. I’m more than happy to live in a tent. And, in all the years you’ve known me, I’ve never asked for more than that, if only you loved me, and me alone, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and strength.”[m]

Now, if my body is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” whom I’ve received from God[n], today’s chapter shows the anatomy of the human soul. [v18,21,22,29-35] It’s like looking through a stained-glass window at the exquisite detail of the inside of my soul – the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit of God. That being the case, God’s people are living stones forming a world-wide holy temple, which has not been built by human hands.[o] And, now that Solomon’s Temple and the Second Temple have both been destroyed in history, how great is the importance of not allowing history to repeat itself in me. I need to take on board every other chapter (from cover to cover) conforming the outside of my life to bring it in line with the make-up and anatomy of my inside – preferably before my “temple” is destroyed, and my only chance of displaying to the world all that it represents, as an image of the Living God, is irrevocably gone.

It took Solomon 7½ years to build Father God a temple for His Name to dwell in. [v37-38] People from all over the world came to marvel at the wealth of its artistry, and no-one seems to have built anything quite like it since – using the amount of gold that Solomon used. With that said, it’s taken 54+ years for my Maker to prepare me, for His Holy Spirit to dwell in. After taking nine months to lay the foundation for who I was to become, He’s used my family, my community, my education, my life-experiences and, in time, my understanding of His Word, to slowly make me uniquely me and all what He wants me to be – as a “showcase” of Himself to the world – a working progress from the inside out…

CLICK to return to today’s “Daily Breadcrumbs”

[a] 1 Kings 5:3

[b] Acts 1:3 and 1 Corinthians 15:6

[c] Genesis 6:20

[d] 1 Kings 4:34

[e] Joel 2:28-32

[f] Matthew c23

[g] 1 Kings 5:3 compared to Exodus 23:21

[h] Revelation 21:15-16

[i] Exodus 23:21

[j] Isaiah 9:6

[k] Revelation 21:3 (See also Ezekiel 37:26-28)

[l] Genesis 1:26-27

[m] Deuteronomy 6:5 and c10:12-21

[n] Isaiah 44:3, Ezekiel 39:29 and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

[o] Isaiah 28:16; Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 8:14 and 1 Peter 2:4-10