Scripture Lamentations 1-5
The Temple of God replaced the Tabernacle of God. The Tabernacle was an enormous tent enclosure that housed the Ark of the Covenant, with its cherubim-covered mercy seat. An outer sanctuary (the "Holy Place") contained a gold lamp-stand, a table for the showbread, the 7 branched Menorah candle stick and the golden altar of incense. [2] It was constructed of 4 woven layers of curtains and 48 15-foot tall standing wood boards overlaid in gold and held in place by its bars and silver sockets and was richly furnished with valuable materials taken from Egypt at God's command.
The Temple of God replaced the Tabernacle of God. The Tabernacle was an enormous tent enclosure that housed the Ark of the Covenant, with its cherubim-covered mercy seat. An outer sanctuary (the "Holy Place") contained a gold lamp-stand, a table for the showbread, the 7 branched Menorah candle stick and the golden altar of incense. [2] It was constructed of 4 woven layers of curtains and 48 15-foot tall standing wood boards overlaid in gold and held in place by its bars and silver sockets and was richly furnished with valuable materials taken from Egypt at God's command.
1 Kings 5-6 & Chronicles 2-7:10
1 Kings 5:13-17
King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel — thirty thousand men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen.
1 Kings 6:1
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord.
1 Kings 6:2
The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 60 cubits long, 20 wide and 30 high. [Holy place 60 x 3 0 x45 Holy of Holies 30 x 30 x 30]
In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
1 Kings 6:21-22
Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. So he overlaid the whole interior with gold, including the floor.
How long did it last? It was completed about 960 BC. The Babylonians destroyed it about 586 BC. Rabbinic literature says that the temple stood for 410 years. Sounds like a long time? The Dome of the Rock that is there today was built around 691 AD. 1330 years ago – current dome is 1000 years old.
This is sacred ground – “The Rock” is supposedly where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac (unless you are Muslim, then it is where Abraham went to sacrifice Ishmael).
DESTROYING THE TEMPLE
2 Kings 25:8-17 (The Message)
In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon's chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned The Temple of God to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city — burned the whole place down. He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields.
The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in The Temple of God and hauled the bronze off to Babylon. They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories used in the services of Temple worship, as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls. The king's deputy didn't miss a thing — he took every scrap of precious metal he could find.
The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, and all the washstands that Solomon had made for The Temple of God was enormous — they couldn't weigh it all! Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high, plus another four and a half feet for an ornate capital of bronze filigree and decorative fruit.
They could no longer GO TO the place where God dwelt or offer sacrifice for their sins (until a replacement temple was built around 515 BC – modest and renovated by Herod the Great over a 40 year period then destroyed in 70 AD)
One thing it shows us is that there is a time to Lament. The entire book of Lamentations (that should be included with the writings) is included with the prophets, and believed to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah. It is a collection of 5 very symmetrical poems of Lament. To lament means to cry over some loss. But Lamenting is more than crying. A Lament is a prayer that states the reason for the cry, that calls out to God in the midst of pain or loss, and that ultimately recognizes our only hope is in God. The entire book of Lamentations is a lament over the destruction of Solomon’s temple.
Through Lamentations, God compassionately shows us a way to express our grief which he will help us through. But it also shows something much greater about who this compassionate God is.
As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."
Matt 9:36
When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
John 2:19-22
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Israel’s past revealed 4 things:
1 God’s presence was found in the temple.
2 What the people did for God, how they served him, was of highest importance.
3 From the time of Adam, we are all born to be children of God.
4 God’s children try to worship him through objects made by man.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
“We Remember, therefore, We Repent”
Like the woman at the well we worship the Lord in Spirit & in Truth and the God we worship will also raise us from the dead!
No comments:
Post a Comment