12/20/2010 8:43:17 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Conscripting workers
Bible Reading
& Meditation Reference: 1Kings 5:13-18; 9:15-23; 2Chron. 2:2, 17-18;
8:7-10
Message of the verses: “13
Now King Solomon levied forced laborers from all Israel; and the forced
laborers numbered 30,000 men. 14 He sent
them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in relays; they were in Lebanon a month and two
months at home. And Adonijah was over the forced laborers. 15 Now Solomon had 70,000 transporters, and
80,000 hewers of stone in the mountains, 16
besides Solomon’s 3,300 chief deputies who were over the project and who
ruled over the people who were doing the work. 17 Then the king commanded, and they quarried
great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with cut
stones. 18 So Solomon’s builders and
Hiram’s builders and the Giblets cut them, and prepared the timbers and the
stones to build the house.
15
¶ Now this is the account of the forced
labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the LORD, his own house,
the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16 For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and
captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and killed the Canaanites who lived in
the city, and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17 So Solomon rebuilt Gezer and the lower
Beth-horon 18 and Baalath and Tamar in
the wilderness, in the land of Judah, 19
and all the storage cities which Solomon had, even the cities for his
chariots and the cities for his horsemen, and all that it pleased Solomon to
build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land under his rule. 20 As for all the people who were left of the
Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were
not of the sons of Israel, 21 their
descendants who were left after them in the land whom the sons of Israel were
unable to destroy utterly, from them Solomon levied forced laborers, even to
this day. 22 But Solomon did not make
slaves of the sons of Israel; for they were men of war, his servants, his
princes, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen. 23 These were the chief officers who were over
Solomon’s work, five hundred and fifty, who ruled over the people doing the
work.”
“2 So Solomon assigned 70,000 men to carry loads
and 80,000 men to quarry stone in the mountains and 3,600 to supervise them.
17 Solomon numbered all the aliens who were in
the land of Israel, following the census which his father David had taken; and
153,600 were found. 18 He appointed
70,000 of them to carry loads and 80,000 to quarry stones in the mountains and
3,600 supervisors to make the people work.
7 All of the people who were left of the
Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were
not of Israel, 8 namely, from their
descendants who were left after them in the land whom the sons of Israel had
not destroyed, them Solomon raised as forced laborers to this day. 9 But Solomon did not make slaves for his work
from the sons of Israel; they were men of war, his chief captains and
commanders of his chariots and his horsemen. 10
These were the chief officers of King Solomon, two hundred and fifty who
ruled over the people.”
This
sections speaks of all of the different peoples that Solomon used in the
building of the temple of the Lord and also in his house, along with different
cities that he built. There were only
30,000 men from the nation of Israel who were forced to work on the timbers in
Lebanon, something that would cause a great deal of trouble for his son when
Solomon died.
I
want to say something about the quality of this work being done and also about
the plans that the Lord gave David to pass onto Solomon, who then passed it on
to the supervisor and then the workers.
The stones that were cut at the quarries were very large and they had to
fit together without using any type of cement or something like that, although
I do believe that the temple that the Lord Jesus Christ went into had gold
between the large stones, for that was one of the reasons that Titus chose to
destroy the temple. The point is the
work was very exacting and the Lord sent the right people to do the job,
something that is near and dear to my heart this day.
Another
point is that there were both Jews and Gentiles doing the work on this temple,
and this temple was to be for both Jews and Gentiles even though there surely
was a prejudice against Gentiles by the Jews. In the same sense the Church is
made up of both Jews and Gentiles, and this was a big problem for the Jews of
the early Church. Paul writes about this
in his letter to the Ephesians, and John MacArthur speak about this when
preaching through the book of Ephesians where he says that the Jews would rather
have been in contact with lepers than Gentiles and this created a big problem
in the early Church, and I suppose that there are prejudices in the church
today, which should not be.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I should never be surprised at what the Lord
gives to me during my devotional time each morning. Here I am a frightened man, which should not
be, as I am only to fear the Lord. At
any rate as I come to this portion of Scripture I am wondering how the Lord can
comfort me because of the procedure that I must go through this morning, the
use of men to build the temple of the Lord is what this section is all
about. God gifted men with certain gifts
to form this great temple in Solomon’s day and now I think of the gifts that
the Lord has given to Dr. Morse to take care of me. That to me is a great deal of comfort.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1.
I must trust the Lord to see me through this
procedure this morning knowing that He is the one who has gifted my doctor to
do things like this.
2.
I must not fear concerning this procedure, for God
will never leave me nor forsake me, and I am only to fear the Lord. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of
power and love and a sound mind or which I need this morning.
3.
Trust the Lord for the outcome of this procedure.
12/20/2010 9:20:08 AM
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