1 Kings 5
IT was that Hiram, king of the seacoast City of Tyre, who had sent cedar trees to David, and carpenters and masons, to build his home (2 Samuel 5:11) who now sent his servants to Solomon.
The glory of the Israel of that day has long faded, and the people are scattered; the judgment of God is upon them according to His promise in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, and upon the Jews in particular, on account of their rejection of Christ. Observe their own words in Matthew 27:25, which are surely being fulfilled, “His blood be on us, and on our children.”
“But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and, people shall flow unto it, and many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and He shall judge among many people;” etc. Micah 4:1-4.
There is then a day yet future, when Israel shall he restored to their land and exceedingly blessed by God, and Solomon’s reign gives us a picture, only partial and faulty it is true, but a picture nevertheless of the coming millennial day. In David’s reign we had a forecast of the beginning of the future thousand years of the reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20, and numerous Old Testament Scriptures); then the enemies shall be put down with much bloodshed (Isaiah 26:20, 21; and 28:14-20; Zephaniah and elsewhere). In Solomon, however, we see the enemies gone, and the earth in peace seeking Jerusalem, as Isaiah 60. and 65:18-25 so beautifully foretell.
To return then to our chapter: Hiram learned from Solomon what was needed to build the house or temple of God, and rejoicing greatly and blessing God, he told him that he would do all his desire about furnishing timber for the house. And so the work was done and paid for. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom as He had promised.
This is a precious word to those who trust in Jesus. Ephesians 3:20, 21, the close of a prayer of the apostle Paul, speaks to the praise of “Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,”—no doubt including the answer to every right desire, every prayer raised in faith by even the weakest believer, regarding earthly needs, as well as spiritual things.
We read of the great number of men engaged in hewing down the trees of Lebanon, and in bringing the materials to Jerusalem, among which were “great stones, costly stones, hewed stones,” for the foundation of the house. Let us think of this a moment: the great trees were living, towering high on the Lebanon hillsides, and they had to be brought down: the axes were laid to the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10), and they were dragged down to the sea. This speaks strikingly of death, as well as of humbling the pride that is natural in us. Then the stones that were used in the building: there was no life there at all: they had to be taken out of the pit or quarry where they lay. Did they lift themselves out? O, no! They could not do that. Power which was outside themselves entirely had to be applied to them. Besides, there was no worth in them at all, except as they were hewed out, taken out of the pit, and squared by the stone squarers.
So it is with man! He may be very well satisfied with himself, never having been humbled by the Word of God, but we may praise God when at last the truth of his lost and ruined condition is brought home to him (see Romans 3:9-20). Then he will learn and drink in as a thirsty soul the precious words of Romans 5:6-8:
“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And they were not only great stones (great sinners, these stones tell us of), but they were costly stones; a great price was paid for them.
1 Corinthians 6:20 speaks of the believer’s having been “bought with a price,” and 1 Peter 1:18-20 names that price in the touching and forcible language of the Holy Spirit,
“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, ... ..but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory that your faith and hope might be in God.”
Lastly we think of the stone squaring. There is a lot of fitting to be done by the Holy Spirit in preparing the believer for glory with Christ. Old ways, wrong thoughts, have to be wrought upon by the Spirit through the Word of God, and of this precious work we learn in so many portions of the holy Book that it would be burdensome to make a list. We will therefore just refer to Colossians 2:6 to 3:17, which the reader may examine with much profit.
ML 05/15/1927