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For 400 years, the tabernacle had moved through the wilderness. But in Today's study of 2 Chronicles 7, we see a transition from the tabernacle to a temple. Specifically, today's passage talks about the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, an event that was marked with fire from heaven. However, that fire was not in recognition of the temple itself. It was about the nature and object of the worship that would soon take place there.
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You know the majority of our choices in life for what we would call transactional. Most of our decisions in life involve us giving something of ourselves in order to get some sort of return. Let me give the most obvious example. Does anyone go to a 9 to 5 job, work regularly, consistent hours? Let me ask you, if the boss said, I'm going to withhold your paycheck, would you still go? Why not? Because there's a transaction involved. You say, I have skills and time and resources, and I'm willing to give them to the company. My expectation is that I'm going to get something in return. As long as we have that quid pro quo, as long as we have that sort of relationship, as long as that transaction is in place, we're good. Now, that extends to other things. Most of our decisions are transactional. If you go to the gym, why do you go to the gym? You go to the gym in order to get stronger. If you practice something, be it music or whatever, you practice something. Why do you practice? You practice to get better. There's a transaction. I will commit this time, energy and resources to this end with the idea that I'll get something that'll make it all worth. Well, here's the thing. You can do that with church, too, and not even know you're doing it. Why did you come to church today? Why are you here? Why are you here now? You know the answer that I would hope and expect. You know the answer that you should give. You say, well, I'm here to worship. I've been doing this a long time, and I know there's a lot of motivations by which people come to church, and oftentimes worship is number one. But you know what competes with that? Fellowship, interactions, activities, to see and to be seen. Sometimes it's the food, sometimes it's the music. There's a lot of reasons why people can pursue church, and a lot of them are very good. But there's only one that is pinnacle, and that is I'm here to worship. I'm here because God is good and his mercy endures forever, and he's worthy of it. I'm here to worship God. You couldn't keep me away. I'm here to worship because he's worthy of that worship and the other things that I receive from it. That's his blessing to me. But that's not the reason I come. If you pursue God with the idea of what you can get from God, if you pursue church with idea of what I can get from church, or take out of church or how it will feed and nourish me again, it's not bad to be fed and nourished. I hope that you have that experience here. But principally you walk through those doors with idea. I'm coming to the presence of God in order to worship Him. And when I sing, I'm worshiping. It's the sacrifice of my lips when the off choice went out. That's a different type of sacrifice. Either way, you had to sacrifice time that you could be doing other things just to even be in this room. We sacrifice of ourselves. We say, God, you're worthy of it. And I will carve out this time, this day. In fact, I'll carve out the whole day unto this end. I will carve out a portion of my paycheck. I will carve out a portion of my time, my energy, my resources, without the week to dedicate to you. Why? Because you're worthy of it. Because you're worthy. When we say we're to worship God, the predicate to that is that you exist to worship something other than you. Our culture doesn't buy into that. Our culture is about self fulfillment, principally. But this book tells us that there is a God and you're not Him. You and I exist to give him praise and glory and adulation. And it shouldn't be that hard to do. And it's not that hard to do. The more you know who he is. If worship is difficult for you, I would submit to you. It's in part because of this, because you do not know Him. The more you get to know who this God is and his attributes and his nature and his character, the more readily you'll worship Him. And I'll explain why as we proceed through this text. All right, let's return to today's text. Let's look at verses one and two and then work our way through the passage as time allows. This morning, remembering once again as we come to Second Chronicles, chapter seven, the temple has just been built, it's been constructed. So Psalmist just gave a lengthy prayer in chapter six. And now in chapter seven, we're seeing God's response to that prayer at the completion of the temple. Verse 1. Now, when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And the priest could not even enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. All right, as we said earlier this morning, today's passage comes at just a really critical time in the life of God's people. For 400 years, worship had been based around this mobile sanctuary, around this tabernacle that had been taken through the wilderness and ultimately across the Jordan into the promised land. However, under the reign of King Solomon, who is David's son, a transition was now to occur at God's volition from the tabernacle worship that they were used to to temple worship and a great period of time and resources gone into the construction of this temple. So chapter 6. Solomon had prayed not just for the temple as a structure, but for God's glory to fill the temple and then for God's people to respond to his glory. He had prayed at some length that God would continue to bless his people. Well, here as we come to chapter seven. As soon as Solomon says amen, so to speak, at that moment, God responds, fire comes down from heaven. And as impressive as the fire was, it was not the most impressive thing that happened, because what came next was that the glory of God filled the temple. Fire came down to consume the sacrifices. And if you had just seen that, you'd go, ah, this is amazing. There's fire burning up the sacrifices. Fire from heaven, which is an aside, occurs several times in Scripture. Any other ideas where fire comes down from heaven? You remember Elijah, he's battling out with the evil prophets of BAAL and Asher there on Mount Carmel. And the prophets of BAAL and Asher are trying to get their false God to give spark, you know, bick lighter to try to get their sacrifice going. Nothing happens. All day long, Elijah mocks him. He says, maybe your God is sleeping. And the like. They start to cut each other, to bleed and dance around hoping that something will happen. And Scripture itself mocks him by saying this, that no one heard. There was no answer. It's like the universe itself did not respond. There was certainly no God who was capable of responding to their prayers. With that said, as soon as Elijah stepped forward, he sets up the sacrifice, pours water all over it. Usually water is not the friend of barbecues and fires and the like, but he pours water over it in order to prove that when it is lit, it'll be lit only through the power of God alone. Then he speaks, he prays, and fire comes down. Fire came down from heaven on Mount Carmel. And it says that the fire was so crazy, so intense, so bright, so blinding, it eviscerated the sacrifice. Scripture even says it consumed the dust. Everything was gone. There are other intervals where fire comes down from heaven. More than we have time to review. But the point is this. When fire comes down, it's in the sight of all the people. Everyone knows that this is not a Bic lighter. This is not an accident. It's not a coincidence that this is of God. The fire came down, but that was not the most impressive part. Verses 1 and 2. We see that even after the fire came down, that then the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The glory of the Lord is a reference to the manifest presence of God himself. The glory of the Lord is a way of saying that God showed up. God was in the building. And that had always been God's plan. God's promise. God had told the people, he says, look, you're my special people. I didn't call you because you're great or wonderful. In fact, oftentimes you're not. I didn't call you because you earned it. You certainly didn't. I called you and I made a promise to Abraham out of my own volition. And even when you've messed up, I've still been there for you. I will be your God. You will be my people. That's not going to change tomorrow when you mess up, which is a promise you also have. I will be your God. You will be my people. Even if you mess up well, God holds his covenant, keeps his covenant. With that said, he also tells them that I will dwell with you. I will dwell with you. I will dwell with you. Emmanuel. God with us. That was from the garden on, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the afternoon. God loves to be with his people. What a shock, given how horrible we can be, right? There's. Sometimes we don't want to be with one another. Sometimes we don't want to be with the person we see in the mirror. But God says, I want to be with you, even though I know everything about you. He did that with Adam on through. That's always been his promise. Elsewhere in Exodus 29, he says this. I'll dwell among the children of Israel. I will be their God. I'll know I'm the Lord, their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. When God's glory entered temple here in 2nd Chronicles 7, it was evidence that I am dwelling among. Among you. I am in your midst. And you know what pagans didn't have that the pagan nations, the Moabites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Philistines, all these, they didn't have that. They had gods they would bow down and worship and do all sorts of crazy stuff to. But those gods, A, they didn't exist, and B, they didn't dwell with their manifest glory in their presence. The people of Israel, if they ever wanted to know where God is, they could point. They point to the temple, say he dwells with us. Guess what? He still does. Where's God's spirit right now? It's in a temple. Where is that temple? Right here. It's always been his promise. Always been his promise. And even this, as exciting as it is in 2nd Chronicles 7, was a shadow and type of something even cooler. All right, let's look at our next verses. Let's look at verse three. Verse three. Now, when all the children of Israel saw the fire came down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed their faces to the pavement. There's times in life where you've seen something so amazing. Maybe you fell down or you've been impacted so deeply your knees have buckled. Well, they went down like Isaiah in chapter six of his book. He went down. They bowed their faces to the ground in the pavement. They worshiped and praised the Lord. And they said, for he is good and his mercy endures forever. You know, our family. I think I may have shared this story before. A number of months ago. This has happened a lot of intervals, but I remember this particular time a number of months ago, our family was driving across the Ocean Springs Bridge. We were actually going to Ocean Springs. I don't get eat at the Euro place or something like that, but we go across the bridges. We're going across the bridge. It's the right time of day, you know, 5, 5:30 at night or something like that. The sun is setting. Or at the top of the bridge, you look out, you see the sun setting across the water. And it's just awesome. It's just amazing. At the right place, at the right time. To see all the colors, all the hues. It's right on the water. So what do I do when I see this? I say, hey kids, take a look the sunset. Hey kids, look outside. They get tired of that, because I do that all the time, I'm easily impressed, but I'm always pointing to different things. Hey, beauty, look at that. So I point out this sunset, but it really was that amazing. And for like the, you know, the eight sun seconds we had at the top of the bridge, just long enough to kind of all take it in, you know, we're looking, I'm trying to be safe, and we're all checking out this sunset, and it's amazing and it's oppressive. And we all stared until we were gone. The sunset had us transfixed. You see, when you see something beautiful, when you see something amazing, your tendency is to do three things. Number one, you look at it. If you see something amazing, you almost can't help to stare at it. Number two, you invite others to look too. You want to share this? You say, this is awesome. I do that with food. I have some good meal, I get the good gyro. I say, hey, hon, take a bite of this. Why? Because it's great. I love it, and I want to share that which has impressed me or that which I've enjoyed with someone else. We do that with sunsets, po boys and other different things. Number three, what do we do? We praise it. What do I tell the waiter? I say, this is the best po boy I've ever had, right? I go to knuckleheads or in Ocean Springs, I get a po' boy and I say, this is just the greatest. I'd say, tell the chef, this is just great, right? I praise it. Now, if we do that with po' boys and sunsets, how much more readily should we do that with regards to God himself? If we'll do it with regard to the things that God has made, how much more readily should we do with God himself? We will spend umpteen million tourist dollars to go to see Niagara Falls or to go to the Grand Canyon. Why? Because you get there and you look at it and you're just transfixed. It's just amazing. So this is amazing. This is great. And what do we do? We got the pictures right, and we start sending out all the pictures to everyone. You know, we put it on the Facebook. Why? We're sharing something that has impressed and amazed us. We've seen something that has just taken our entire focus and everything else has shift away for the moment. You're looking at the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. At that moment, that's all you can see. It's amazing. It's wonderful. You send out the pictures, you tell your wife, this is great. I'm so glad we came. And so forth and so on. If you do that, if you go to Destin, look at that blue water and say, this is just the greatest. If you do that, you look at things in the created realm and you praise them and you tell people about them and you get excited about them and you think about them the next day and the next week and the next year. If you do that with things in the created realm, how much more readily should you do that with regards to the Creator? If you have an encounter with God? The more you get to know God, the more you see God, the more you experience God in your life, the more you've observed God, so to speak, with eyes of faith, the more readily this comes. I'm telling you right now, if worship is hard for you or feels like a chore, it's probably because God is at arm's distance from you. You have not looked at him with the eyes that God willing, you one day will. And when you do, the more you see him, apprehending him through eyes of faith, the more you see him, you see him, the more worship becomes not a chore, but something you desire to do. Why? Because he's worthy of it. He's far more worthy than hobo. He's far more worthy than Niagara Falls. He's far more worthy than anything you will see on this globe. He is worthy. So get to know him better and worship will be easier. Now, before we move on to verses four through six, do you remember when God freed his people from evil Pharaoh in Egypt? When he freed the people as a Sends Charlton Heston to go, let my people go. Sends Moses to go, let my people go. That was the first part of the message. He says, tell Pharaoh to let my people go. But there was a second part to that message. We often forget that. Do you know what else he said? He says, let my people go. But there was a reason why let my people go. To do what? That they can go and worship. Let my people go that they may worship me. That was the full message. Let my people go that they may worship me. Let my people go from bondage to Pharaoh, that they may worship me. The same is true with regards to bondage, to sin and death. The reason God has set you free from sin and death is the same reason he set his people free from Pharaoh that you might worship when he changes the heart, when he regenerates a man and woman, when he breathes a spirit into you. The objective is not simply because he loves you so much. He just wants you to have this cool thing, Heaven itself. He doesn't grant you just because you're so worthy of it. He wants you to see the neat things you'll see. He does it. He does it so that you will have a close and abiding relationship with him, one of worship. That's why God has formed us. That's why the angels exist. That's why what the angels do. And they're not bored of it. You know, the angels that are in heaven right now gather on the throne. It's not like they're looking their clocks. And boy, I hope my shift ends soon. It's simply not the way that that works. Why? Because they're doing the coolest thing you can do. They're in the throne room looking at God himself, so to speak. Although they've got the wings that cover their eyes and their feet. Nevertheless, the worshiping God, it doesn't get better than that. If you think it's a chore again, it's because you have yet to study fully the object of that worship. And the more you do, the more natural it will be. And the same is true with regards to sacrifice. You know, Isaiah, chapter six. I mentioned this earlier. Isaiah, who was probably at the time he lived about the most holy guy on the planet. Isaiah was probably amongst his peers, just about the top of the top. With that said in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah gets this vision. It's a vision of the throne room itself and of the one who sits there. And do you remember the reaction that this man had, this holy, pious man, this devout man, this diligent man, this righteous man? Do you know the reaction he had when he encountered God? Well, here's the reaction. I'll read it for us. And the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. He was high and he was lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and above it stood seraphim. And one cried to another and said, this holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out. And the house was filled with smoke. So this is what Isaiah saw, and this is how he responded. So I said, woe is me. I am undone. I am undone. Why? Because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king. He falls down again. This is the most pious, righteous man on planet Earth at that time. He came in the presence of God. And his reaction was to fall down in worship because God is worthy. And at a glimpse, he saw it, and it caused this man to fall before him. The natural reaction to knowing God is to worship God. The natural reaction, the most appropriate thing you could ever do to knowing God is to worship God. All right, let's look at our remaining verses. Let's look at verse four through six. So we're back here. Second Chronicles, chapter seven. The people, they've fallen down. The temple's filled with the glory of God. Everyone's just amazed and just beside themselves. And then verse four, then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. Not just the people offered sacrifices, but the king, the leader, the highest man at this time on planet Earth is the leader of God's people. He offers sacrifices. So verse four, the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 bulls. Sounds like a lot. And 120,000 sheep. And so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. And the priests attended to their services, the Levites also, with the instruments of music for the Lord, which King David had made to praise Lord, saying, his mercy endures forever. Whenever David offered praise by their ministry, and then the priest sounded trumpets opposite them, and all of Israel stood. One of the ways that we demonstrate love is when we give something valuable. One of the ways that we demonstrate love and affection for one another, let alone for God, is when we give something that means something to us. In the time of Abraham. We talked about Abraham earlier. God's question, so to speak, of Abraham was, do you love me? Of course I love you. Then take your son, take Isaac, take him up to the Mount Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice for me there. Now, this was the apple of Abraham's eye. His son, his son, the son of promise. But he was willing to sacrifice his own son. Ultimately, God stayed his hand. That's a different story for a different day. But he was willing to. Why? Because of love. When we love, when we love our God, when we love our spouse, when we love our neighbor, we sacrifice to our God, to our spouse, to our neighbor. That is part of what love looks like. Love is inherently sacrificial. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Husbands are to love their wives sacrificially. And the picture is that of Christ's own sacrifice. As Christ sacrificed himself for the church, so we should be sacrificial to our spouses with that Said that sacrifice extends to all other relationships. To our children, to our loved ones, to our friends and co workers, to our neighbors, to the people in our church. What we do, if we love one another, is we live sacrificially. In verses 4 through 6, you see a tremendous level of sacrifice. I can't even picture, I don't know what a 22,000 bulls looks like. I've never seen that much. You know, we're driving down Cal Narrain. What's that farm over there? It's got like 10 cows, you know, I can't even picture it. Let alone you get to 120,000 some odd sheep. This is a tremendous level of sacrifice. And because it was a tremendous level of sacrifice, it was costly. Someone owned those bulls, Someone owned those sheep. They would miss them once they were gone, yet they gave them. Why? Because God is worthy. And if you love God, you sacrifice of yourself for him. And it's not because he needs it. To be clear, he owns a cattle on a thousand hills. He doesn't need it. There's nothing you could give him that he needs. And yet when we sacrifice to him, it not only glorifies him, as is his due, but guess what? We're the ones who reap the benefit for having lived sacrificially. You know, when you give something to another, what's the old saying? It's more blessed to give than receive. When I was a kid, at Christmas time, I didn't get that so much. I still counted my presence. You ever do that? You got a sibling or more than one sibling, you kind of figure out how many you got versus siblings and the like. You know how that is. And they can tell you all day long it's better to give than receive. But at the same time, your focus is on that one is for me. Or you measure the size of the boxes. If it's not the quantity, it's the size and all that sort of stuff. Whatever the case is, we tend to think differently. Our fallen nature tends to look inward, which is what makes worship so hard. Remember, worship and sacrifice. That whole premise tells you that you are called to do and to live in accordance with the benefit of something external to yourself. And that's just. It's not natural to us. Natural man looks inward. And if we happen out of our abundance to bless someone else or some others, or even to glorify God out of our abundance, then we're cool. With that said, we tend to look to our own needs first. We can be very self absorbed, but Love is expressed through sacrifice. And as we express that love to God, to our spouses, to our relatives, to our neighbors, to our co workers, as we do so, we're the ones who grow the most. We're the ones who benefit the the most. And the more you do that, the more you see that the more you give of yourself, the more you are blessed. Now that sounds like just fortune cookie advice. The more you give, the more you are blessed, Right? But it's true. And those of you who have experienced it, who have given of yourself your time, your energy, your treasures, your resources, whatever, the more you give, the more you receive. And God says, this is the way this works. And God says, hey, let me demonstrate that for you. Let me demonstrate that love is sacrificial. By giving that which is most important to myself, my own son, for your sake, God has given us the picture of what this looks like. By giving that which is of most value his only begotten son. How should we respond? Let me close with this thought. How should we respond to that sort of thing? Well, the people in 2nd Chronicles 7, they talked a good game. The very temple that they were all so excited for, the very temple that the Spirit filled, the very temple that was there. Is that temple still there today? No, it was destroyed, so they built another. Is that temple still here? No, these temples are destroyed in part to a lack of covenant fidelity of the people. Everyone can come in and say, God, you're worthy, and you're worthy of worship and praise and adoration and yes, team Jesus, it's not hard to do that. In second Chronicles, chapter seven, the people bow down. Of course they bow down. There was fire and glory and so forth, but they forgot so quickly. Dear heavens, they gave all these sacrifices. Do you know, if you just turn a few chapters to the right, you get to the prophets. The prophet Malachi is one of my favorite examples of this. In Malachi, the same covenant people, so to speak, their ancestors from this generation, Second Chronicles 7, but the same covenant people of Israel. Years later, they would have such a low view of God that although they'd still sacrifice, they would give God the worst, crummiest, scurviest sheep and goats they had to offer. In the book of Malachi, God says, give me that which is precious to you. Offer that which means something to you. Therefore, it's a real sacrifice. In the book of Malachi and throughout most of the prophets, they said, all right, well, we'll keep the letter of the law, we'll offer sacrifices, but we'll do it on our terms. Rather than giving, you know, the prized sheep over there, we've got the lazy eyed three tailed buck tooth, you know, leprous lamb over here, this thing here, this three legged buck tooth, lazy eyed lamb. Let's give that to God. He won't mind. God does mine. We worship God because He's worthy and we sacrifice because he's worthy and we sacrifice that which means something to ourselves, just as he did this morning. The response that we're called to have is to assess why we came in the room this morning to assess a relationship and say, is my relationship with God based on true worship or is it transactional? Am I here principally because I want to have my best life now? Is that what I'm all about? Is this worship experience principally about me or is it principally about Him? Ask yourself that because we have to answer that. Person to person to person. Ask yourself your reason for worshiping God and then look at your sacrifice, your time, your effort, choices, prayers and petitions and see if what you're doing is in accordance with that which you believe. Let's pray.
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