Mount Lebanon is situated on the north of Palestine, and the trees which grow there are the most beautiful of the whole eastern countryside the cedars. They are always green; file wood is very hard and solid, of a brown color, and very beautiful. So the tree has stood pre-eminent for beauty; and in its natural state, on the mountain side, most picturesque. It is an apt picture of man.
Man was created by God, and pre-eminent among His creatures possessing not an almost everlasting, but an immortal soul. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. He was as the cedar when God made him; but sin came in, and in consequence that which was lovely and beautiful has been destroyed. The result of sin is death, “but after this the judgment.”
The natural home of the cedars was Lebanon, but the purpose of Solomon was to put them in the temple of God, the most wonderful building on earth. Let us trace the cedar’s story from the mountain to the temple: I seem to see Mount Lebanon in its wild and lonely state, with the wind swaying the trees; and I see in it a picture of this world. There, in all their solitariness, swayed by the prince of the power of the air, and producing all manner of sin, are men and women. Yes, it is a picture of the world, with all its self-exaltation and pride, full of sin and death, and “after this the judgment.”
What happened to the cedar tree on the mountainside? It had to be cut down cut from its root, severed from its natural source. Death had to come in, and all that conduced to its pride and beauty had to he hewn down. So has the pride of man to sink into its true condition, and own itself lost and ruined. The sentence of death was passed on those cedars, and has been passed on man, because of his sin.
Then they were brought down to the sea, and taken by sea to the place Solomon had appointed. What is the sea typical of but death! Now we have to turn to Him Who went into the waters of death for you and me. Think of Him, and the anguish of His soul when hanging on the cross, and saying “Let not the waterfloods overflow Me, neither let the deep swallow Me up.”
What figurative language! What does it mean? The waters of God’s judgment were poured out on Him on the cross. He knew what it was to be judged for sin when He took the place of the sinner: He tasted death. Why did the waves and billows of God’s wrath roll over His sacred Head then? He might have gone back to the Throne; but He chose to go into the waters of death for the poor, hell-deserving sinner for the man who is proud and lifted up, if he will only take his true place, like the cedar when it fell to the ground under the stroke of the ax.
The timber was taken down by sea to the place appointed by Solomon. The one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ participates in that death on Calvary, and is brought to the place God has appointed, the ground of resurrection. Our sins have been dealt with, once and forever, and we stand in resurrection, with a risen Christ.
After the trees had been brought to the place of appointment, they were prepared and made into boards; and while we HAVE eternal life, and ARE children of God, yet God has some preparation for us down here, by the Holy Spirit for just the particular place we shall each have in His house. There is a place for every saved sinner in heaven, and every saved sinner will be in his place. So the boards were prepared before they were brought into the temple, as the stones were, and fitted in without any hammer, or noise of any tool. Thus is the sinner taken from the place of death and judgment, and placed in Christ, the Beloved of God.
But there is more. In that temple no wood was seen. It was all covered with gold. Here we have the thought of that wherewith God covers the sinner His own righteousness. There is not a flaw, because God has done it all, and the sinner stands in the perfectness of God’s own righteousness. God has done it and as the gold covered the cedars, so does the righteousness of God cover every saved sinner.
Oh, dear reader, where do you stand? Still on the mountains, swayed by the angry winds, by the prince of the power of the air; or are you resting, safe, secure, accepted in the Beloved, so that God’s thrice holy eye, looking on you, sees you in all the perfection of Christ? Which is it?
QUARTUS.