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Now let us read once more in the first book of Kings, beginning this evening in chapter uh eleven. chapter eleven of the first book of Kings. Now King Solomon loved many strange women. Together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, you shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love, and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. And his wives turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, went not fully after the Lord as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place at Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem. For Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives, which burned incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice. Chapter twelve, verse one: And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. And it came to pass when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, for he was yet in Egypt, whether he had fled from the presence of King Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt, and they sent and called him. That Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous. Now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us lighter, and we will serve thee. And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed. Verse twelve. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day as the king had bade, saying, come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people roughly and forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. So the king hearkened not unto the people, for it was a thing brought about of the Lord, that he might establish his word, which the Lord spake by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw the king hearkened not to them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? Now either have... This thing stands dominant among them, that for the maintenance of his people, for their spiritual enrichment and preservation, for their development in the things of God, their spiritual and material wealth, God's provision for his people was the establishment of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. And if there is any truth in that thesis of mine, then it is not to be wondered at that God's Holy Spirit should inspire the writer of these histories to spend no less than two whole detailed chapters in the early portion of the history to the description of this magnificent house of the Lord that God had Solomon build. And as a kind of an hors d'oeuvre for our last session here this evening, you might care to cast a preliminary eye over these two chapters, six and seven of this book, and observe what God therein has to say about this glorious house that he had Solomon build. There are, you might say, s- 5 sets of plans given us by the historian. They are not so much architects' plans, such as you would find in the blueprints of their drawing office. They are more, uh, in the nature, perhaps, of a tourist guide, so imagine yourself walking around with some expert guide at your elbow to give you a conducted tour of the House of the Lord at Jerusalem, these hundreds of years BC. And the first chapter, the first section of the plans, chapter six verses one to ten, give us the structure of the House of the Lord, its external structure. There was, it explains to us, to be only one house. Of course, in the service of that house, there were many servants of the Lord. There were priests and there were Levites, and each of them had his own special service to perform. They would need many rooms in which to bake the showbread, to beat the incense, to prepare the oil, to see after the vestments. And the good ladies would need places where they might wash the veil and, uh, tend to the priests' uniforms, and so on and so on. So they were provided many side rooms. But though there were many side rooms, there was only one house. It is a fact, both in Old and New Testament, you will never read of the houses of the Lord. You will read in the New Testament of the Church of God. You will read in the plural of the churches of God. You will read of the house of God. You will never read of the houses of God. There are no such things. By very definition and because of its essential concept, there is one house of God. And still to this present day, it remains true. For the basic concept of the house of God, as we saw this afternoon, is no other than the presence of the living God. There cannot be a half a dozen houses. You, for all I know, sir, might live in Timbuktu, and you in some more civilized place. You live among the delights of Vancouver, and here you serve the Lord in your particular task. Die in the glories and beauties of Antrim, uh, i- i- in the heavenly province of Alsace. We serve the same living Lord, though sundered far and about our varied business in his service. When it comes to appealing to headquarters, we bow our knees in the house of God, and lo and behold, we have met around that mercy seat. You have access to the same headquarters, and the only one headquarters to which I, in my remote province, have access. One house there was to be, though of course many side chambers. And you who are expert in these things will observe, as you study these different sets of plans for the house of the Lord and for the king's house, that in each of them, those features are emphasized by the historian that are different from the tabernacle of Moses. And I'm persuaded, of course, that all of you are experts in the details of the tabernacle, of course. Believing as you do, that the tabernacle and its plan was shown to Moses by divine revelation in the Mount of God. That the tabernacle, being divinely ordained, served the double purpose of being a copy of things in the heavens, to bring down the very realities of heaven in symbolic form to the ability of the Israelite to comprehend them. Heaven brought down to earth. It served also as a prototype, as a shadow of the coming good things. Symbols that would find their eventual reality and fulfillment when our Lord Jesus came. The house of God that Solomon built had similar authentication. And Chronicles tells us, uh, with the word of David, that the plans for the house of the Lord were transmitted to David in writing, directly from God himself. So then the structure of the House of the Lord, one house and many side chambers. And this that was different from the tabernacle, this house had a porch where the priest might come and stand before the gathered throngs. The priest whose lips should keep Torah, the priest whose task it was to educate the people in the word and command and ordinances of the law. There in the porch of the house of the Lord he might stand to counsel, advise, guide, and encourage the people of God. Time forbids that we should follow these plans just now, but according to the thesis of the historian, you will find, just as there are here successively five sets of plans, those for the structure of the house of the Lord, then, following a special appeal for obedience, those for the internal installations and decorations of the house of the Lord. Then plans for the royal house. Finally, plans for the furniture of the court of the house of the Lord. As you'll read them, and carry them in your mind into the story of the subsequent history, you will find them very revealing. It is the fact that the provisions that God there made in symbolic form were the key to Israel's subsequent history. Why there, to mention just one small detail, standing inside the holy place in the house of the Lord, right direct in front of the throne of God, with the veil as an intermediary, stood the golden altar of prayer and incense, where humans might exercise their privilege of speaking to the transcendent Lord, and thus cooperate with God in the government of his people. We shall remember it tomorrow, God willing, when we come to study the life and ministry of Elijah the prophet, he never went anywhere near this house, as far as we remember, but Elijah was a man who had drunk deeply in spirit into the heavenly realities that were symbolized in that house. Was there an altar, a golden altar, where man might stand, little man, and address the transcendent Lord who presents himself on the throne in the holiest of all. And would the transcendent Lord listen to a mere man and allow a mere man to take part and cooperate with the Almighty in the government of his people? Then Elijah learned how to rise to this privilege. And Elijah, as the New Testament comments, Elijah prayed. The living transcendent Lord listened to the man Elijah and altered the very weather pattern over Israel to do as his servant suggested. These were not empty symbol. These were the expressions of the spiritual realities and laws by which God proposed to govern his people, to bless and restore them through his presence among them in the house of the Lord. You'll think of these plans when presently you read how that because of Israel's sin, eventually God visited his people in judgment. Were there plans for the building of the royal house with all its palaces, a double unit of government, the house of the Lord and the royal house. Ah yes, but there came a day, says the history, when because of Israel's serious apostasy and Judah's sin, that a certain Jehu was commissioned of God and rose up and destroyed the royal house, root and branch, not only the buildings, but the princes of that house. And as a revenge, therefore, Ataliah, that wicked woman, rose up and slaughtered the house of Judah. Only one little prince was left. Chilling histories. But as you read them, make you feel that behind human sin, even in those far off days, was the dark moving shadow of a satanic power. Would oppose the God of heaven and his government, and work upon the sin of his people to destroy what the house of the Lord stood for, and the very royal house, if it were possible, through whom eventually God's son and Messiah was to be born into our world. I must not anticipate, for tonight I have to tell you another sorry story. Oh, how I wish I could send you home rejoicing in lovely and delightful things. And perhaps I will. Just now I must tell you a sorry story. Just, just let us remind ourselves of God's provision. Let's listen to the young Solomon standing, then kneeling, overwhelmed with the majesty of the glory that he had just witnessed with his eyes, as he had seen the Ark of the Lord taken into the house of the Lord, and the glory of the Lord descended until the very priests could not stand. Solomon replied, will God indeed dwell upon earth? The very heaven of the heavens can scarce contain him. Will he dwell in this little house that I have made? And when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart. A few months after Solomon died, the ten tribes rebelled, forsook the throne of David, said their goodbyes to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, abandoned it completely, built their own idolatrous headquarters, way up in Bethel, and then again in Dan. Did you ever hear such a story? Shall we not have to take a grip on ourselves to bring ourselves to believe it so soon? However did it happen. There were three great elements in this sad decline and departure. And the first one must be put solidly at the feet of Solomon, the very man who built the house that the ten tribes abandoned. And he was old. His wives turned away his heart. It wasn't perfect for the Lord his God. There's where the maggot first bit. Divided his loyalty that should have been undivided towards God, that befogged his wisdom, that almost supernatural wisdom that God gave him in his youth, and had him die a silly old man. That diverted his energy and his time as he played with his baubles. Had no energy left to seek the Lord his God, or to be involved in pursuing the interests of the Lord. So does scripture explain it. Why he turned away his heart. I don't know if it explains it. But then perhaps I, I, I, I'm at a disadvantage, for I am a crusty old bachelor. Come, you married men, you explain it to me. He had, what was it, seven hundred wives. Oh, granted they were all of them as pretty as pretty could be, and as charming in their grace and the way they walked, and the tingling bells of their voices. Can't help thinking it got a bit boring, what, when you had five hundred and sixty five wives as the number five hundred and sixty six A bit samey. Because if they were pretty, pretty, how wouldn't they attract a man? Yet, and yet, and yet. Oh, but this was a man who had seen the very glory of the transcendent Lord. Tell me how a thousand concubines could ever serve to ravish his eyes and heart, so to take his heart from the living Lord. Tell me if you can. Oh, look at him now! What use of crowned head, playing with these little playthings and spending an odd million or two to build this favorite wife a house to her god Shemos, in full view of the house of the Lord on the opposite hill of Jerusalem. And then having the neck to go up and offer a sacrifice on the altar of the Lord on a Sabbath. How did it look? And if you can explain to me, uh, the thousand wives and things. I'll defy you to explain the horses. I mean, horses are delightful. Nothing to be compared with wives, I hope. We and horses had some. Oh, they were horses. What time he ought to have been at his prayers. He was spending more than he should with the horses. Just like some men today, what time they should be spending with the word of God and their prayers, are playing with their Jaguars and their Buicks and their Cadillacs. You say that is to be expected. Expected of ordinary men, yes. Here is a man who see the glory of the living God. How did horses take away his heart? And then it was cash. But you know, cash has a way of defeating itself, surely. If you have two dollars, well, a million are attractive, I suppose. If you've got five million, it begins to get a bit boring, doesn't it? Why, silver in Solomon's day got so plentiful that men saw it dropped in the street, they kicked it down the drain, didn't bother to pick it up. That's the way money is, you know. For all, God had given him magnificent wealth. The silver and the gold drew his heart from God. Cryingly pathetic, isn't it? God finds it difficult to be kind to some people when he would give them beautiful things because of the danger. But beautiful and lovely things, not sinful and nasty things, but beautiful and lovely things will come so to encroach upon a man or a woman's heart that they take that heart away from the Father. It wasn't as if God had not warned Solomon. Deuteronomy seventeen tells us, or told the Israelites, that when a new king came to the throne, he had personally to write out a copy of Deuteronomy. And among the injunctions there was that the king should not amass wives, amass silver, and amass horses. Why not? Well, the horses came from Egypt, and while there was nothing wrong with the little gGs, excessive horsies would get the people of God back to the Egypt they had left, says Deuteronomy. There was always that peril about it. You don't have to be Puritan in your heart to realize that there is a danger still. It is not the nasty things, by and large, that keep the people of God from their spiritual exercise and a hundred percent devotion to the Lord. It's the nice things of life. We should find Solomon's story incredible. Did we not know our own hearts. Love not the world. Our brother quoted it, I quote it again. My own heart and yours. Love not the world, my brothers, says John. Neither the things that are in the world. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. You cannot get two pints of milk in one pint bottle. If the love of the world fills us, then the love of the Father is pushed out. Here is a father, wealthy, and his son becomes twenty one, is now of age, and the father thinks to mark the occasion by a splendid and unforgettable gift that will endear his son to him, for it will show him his fatherly love. And proudly he takes the son out onto the spacious lawn outside of his gracious and stately home, and there stands an aircraft of the latest model, which father gladly gives to his son. There, my boy, is a present worthy of your manhood and your coming of age. Boy climbs up with beaming face into the cockpit, sets the engines going, waves out of the window, bye-bye, brother, flies off into the sunset and never bothers to come back again. I tell you, the father will live to curse the day he ever gave the son an airplane. Oh, what a job God has to get us home to heaven, doesn't he? What a risk he takes, my brother, my sister. What shall we do with the glories of heaven if a little tinsel of earth has sometimes taken our way, our hearts away from the Father? How shall we then bear the weight of glory without it taking our hearts away from the front. The world is a difficult thing to cope with when it is attractive, when it is hostile, as John reminds us in his third letter of his first, the first third chapter of his first epistle. When it is hostile, it's easier to bear. I have stood with my Eastern European brethren, because eleven of them have sang their praise to God in a conference, thought about their imprisonments and their sufferings and their privations, and heard them over the Easter time, eleven hundred of them, in the city of Ostrava in Czechoslovakia. I found it difficult to sing. To see men and women who have suffered thus cruelly for their faith, with so little of this world's goods, massed in their hundreds, and singing God's praise. But I begin to tremble for them these days. What now if their countries shall turn affluent like the West? What will happen then? Sometimes when they would ask me, how many do you get out to your midweek prayer meeting? I didn't know what to say. In some of those insistent countries, you'd find two hundred at the prayer meeting. I didn't like to tell them we only had forty, lest they thought we were a lot of old hypocrites coming to preach to them. If such were our practice. Oh yes, Solomon had the structure of the house of the Lord. It was still delightful to see, but the heart was out of it. He no longer had undivided zeal, nor undivided loyalty, nor undivided cash, nor undivided time. So God gave influence to a certain young man by the name of Jeroboam. He was head over the works in the ten tribes of Ephraim. And God will have his people looked after. And if Solomon won't do it because he hasn't got the time, he's dabbling with the latest concubine and pleasing her by building her a nice little thing of a chapel to worship in. Well, if Solomon hasn't got the time, nor the energy, nor the zeal, nor the money, but God is going to have his people looked after. Oh, listen, we who are Our elders. elders. If we're not prepared to do the work, then God will give the work to others, and if we don't approve of their methods, they'll serve us right then. Mistake number one, in the heart of Solomon. I said this afternoon, this is a prophetic book. It's not typology I'm preaching you, my brethren, my sisters. As I talk to my own heart, the voice of God comes through this word directly, practically. Second mistake. When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam came to Shechem to be made king, which was the custom, of course. God appointed the kings, but then the people were given by God a say in the matter, did they agree that such and such a man was appointed by God? And they came to Shechem to make, uh, Rehoboam king, but they had an argument. They said, Rehoboam, with all due respect, your father made our yoke intolerable. Now they said, make your father's yoke lighter, and we will serve you. But if not, goodbye. Revan suggested they go away for three days while he consulted. First he consulted with the old men. What shall I do, said he? They say, make my yoke lighter. Shall I? Or would that be giving, be giving in to the modern age? The old man says, yes, listen to them. Make their yoke lighter, and they will serve you. And Rehoboam went and listened to the young men. He said, what do you say, gentlemen? And the young men, with youthful zeal, said, not. You make it harder, Reba. You speak to them real tough. Say, my little finger shall be fatter and heavier than my father's loins. He chastises you with whips, did he? Serves you jolly well. I shall chastise you with scorpions. He tough. Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, took the counsel of the young men. When the people came, said, make our yoke lighter. He said, I shouldn't think so. I shall make it ten thousand times heavier. The people said farewell. They abandoned him completely. Tragic, wasn't it? First mistake. The discussion, make it heavier or make it lighter, missed a primary, a prior point. It ought to have been, didn't it? Well, what says the Word of God? Why ever didn't they remember that the temple had a porch? Why not in humility, the both of them with their grievance coming before the priest of the day, suggesting that they reexamine their ways, both king and subject, in the light of God's holy word? Then Rehoboam's son would have discovered that his tightness, his toughness was not scriptural, was not faithfulness to scripture. His father had exceeded his rights, laid burdens on the people that he had no right to, according to the scripture of Deuteronomy. It would call, would have called upon Rehoboam to bow his knees in repentance and tears and ask his people's pardon. The people, instead of rebellion, would have said, yes, but whatever happens, we must be loyal to the house of David, for thus has God commanded us. No. As so often in this type of argument, between the tough and the easy, the tight and the loose. Scripture is forgotten. Second mistake. I'll make my yoke harder, said he. I could not have been in sympathy with the God of heaven could eat. For we know his attitude to yokes, governmental yokes, for the incarnate Son of God later expressed himself on the topic. Listen to him, the transcendent Lord incarnate, who once dwelled in Solomon's house. Listen to him, as with divine authority he says, all things have been committed to me and my Father. No one knows the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I told you I should tell you some happy things. Oh, listen again, my brother, to your own very redeemer talking to you. Come to me. Have you been feeling his demands, the demands of his service are excessive? Come to the king himself, come direct to the house of the Lord, and hear his divine majesty saying, come and take my yoke, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Don't let us mistake the issue. When he says his yoke is easy, mark, it is a yoke. As our brother has so vividly portrayed to us, it is a yoke. Thy service is not a laissez-faire. And take my yoke. It's a kingly term, as you observe from our Old Testament passage. He's offering you the yoke of his divine kingship and his absolute authority. And we shall see what that yoke means if we, uh, remind ourselves of the following story. They were walking, says Matthew chapter twelve, through the cornfield of a Sabbath, and his disciples began to pluck the ears of corn and to rub them with their hands and to eat. And the Pharisees said, why do your disciples that on the Sabbath day which is unlawful? Among the replies our Lord Jesus gave was this, gentlemen, he said, tell me, the priests in the temple of a Sabbath break the Sabbath, do they not, gentlemen? And are guiltless? Yes, of course they did. And the reason was this. Outside, your ordinary Tom, Dick, or Harris, six days of the week went about his own work, but on the Sabbath he had to rest from his own work, that he might give attention to the Lord. That was proper. Six days for yourself, one day for the Lord. The priests in the temple were different, weren't they? When the Sabbath came, there was no rest for the priests. Even on the Sabbath they must work, for in the temple they serve not themselves, but they serve the Lord. Turning to the Pharisees, he said, if the priests on the Sabbath in the temple break the Sabbath and are guiltless. I'm telling you, my disciples are guiltless today as they rub this corn in their hands, Sabbath day though it be. For in this cornfield, one greater than the temple is here. Oh, blessed house of God. The transcendent Lord come down and standing in the cornfields. And though it was but ears of corn that they were taking and rubbing for their simple f- me- meal on that Sabbath day, they got hungry in the service of the Lord, and eating their little corn was part of serving the Lord Christ. And you catch its implications, don't you? The mere religious man, six days of the week for himself and one for God. But the man or woman that has caught sight of the glory of the incarnate Lord, it can never be that again, can it? Not uh six days for me and one for the Lord, but seven days, and all for him. Think not it as a slavery, as our brother was saying, but write it, my dear sister, over the kitchen sink, as you toil with the old pots and pans that can get so monotonous. One greater than the temple is here. Write it in your mind's eye over that whirring lathe. Put it in the children's bedroom when they're being fractious and difficult, my sister. Put it in the stock exchange, put it in your office, be where it will, and have it with you on your Saturday and on your Sunday. Put it by your pillow at night. One greater than the temple is here. You say, how doesn't it become a difficult yoke if that's what it must be? Well, because of this twin thing. That story of that Sabbath in that cornfield tells us what we think of Christ, doesn't it? One greater than the temple. And the story that follows it in Matthew tells us what he thinks of us. But the Pharisees said it was wrong to heal a man upon a Sabbath day, and our Lord replied, you hypocrite, you. Does not each of you, on a Sabbath day, rush to rescue his ox or his ass that are in difficulty? Or lead them out to water if they need to be refreshed? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? Two statements of comparative value, one greater than the temple, one of more value than a sheep. The one is what we think of the Lord, and the other is what he thinks of us. Oh, my brother, my sister, ponder anew these simple things, what Christ thinks of you. He knows the very worst about us. How much more value, he says, are you than the sheep? Then how much more value. Only Calvary can give you the gauge to tell you what Christ thinks of you. And we put the two together. Whose yoke is this? Who stands before us offering his kingly yoke? And I think of who is, who he is. And if he valued me like that, how shall I refuse his yoke? Oh God, save me from the things that would divide my heart, my time, my energy, my love, my work from him. And the last and final mistake, when Jeroboam proudly led the ten tribes off to set up his own independent kingdom that in some sense God had given. Jerry Burns said in his heart, politician that he was, it won't do, he said to himself, uh, sitting there for Friday evening one day, contemplating the Sabbath to be, he said, it won't do, I can see that now. It won't do to let these people go up to Jerusalem, to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, for if they go up to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, who knows what they might get ideas into their heads and return to serve Rehoboam, son of David. So he hit upon a scheme. With all the swardness of an experienced politician, not say a preacher. He said, uh, you know, it is too much for you. Now look, let's be reasonable. It's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. It's not reasonable that anybody would expect you to go up to Jerusalem. I know that Moses said that three times in the year shall all the males drop their work and go up to Jerusalem, to the house of the Lord, but that's old fashioned stuff, and standards have changed, and what you can expect of people is different these days, you'll see. As for the transport up to Jerusalem is hopeless, and the hotels, well, people expect more of hotels nowadays anyway than they used to. And there are so many more interesting things, particularly if, like Solomon, you've got a lot of horses, that you could do with a weekend, you'll see, than going up to Jerusalem. They're too much to go up to Jerusalem, he said. I tell you what, and he made two golden calves. He said, these have I got that brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And he set up one in Dan and the other in Bethel. You might have thought that Jeroboam was a bold innovator in the forefront of modern thinking. He was a hoary old apostate, actually. His trick had been tried out years before.