Solomon’s Temple (Solomon): The Temple in Jerusalem was the signature building project of King Solomon’s reign. But almost hidden in the middle of a passage full of details about the building’s design is a reminder of a Bible-long theme that is such good news: The great big beating heart behind everything God does is his steadfast desire to dwell with his people. Recorded on Nov 23, 2025, on 1 Kings 6 by Pastor David Parks.
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This sermon is part of the Solomon: The Legacy of a King series. King Solomon was a complex man whose story started some 3,000 years ago, when David, his father, was the most powerful and successful king of ancient Israel. David’s reign brought peace, prosperity, and plans to build the temple before handing the kingdom to Solomon. How would King Solomon handle living in the shadow of his great father’s legacy? Would he learn to be a wise and godly king? Could he overcome the plotting of his enemies, the dysfunction of his family, and the temptations of virtually unlimited wealth, fame, and women? What would be his legacy? Solomon’s story is a vital part of the history leading up to the ultimate son of David and anointed king, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sermon Transcript
“This time of year is hard for me,” is a sentiment that I heard from several people over the last week. As we come into the holiday season, a season of joy and celebration for so many, I’m certainly aware that it can be a uniquely difficult time for others as well. Whether because of family dysfunction and broken relationships or personal losses that happened over the past year or two, the pain of which can seem greater around the holidays. Then, sprinkle in the earlier darkness of the winter months, and some of us might be feeling the weight of loneliness pressing down more now than at other times throughout the year. Isn’t it strange that sometimes we can feel lonely even when we’re physically near many others? Sometimes it can even feel like God is at a distance. Is he near even when it feels like he isn’t? Well, we’re exploring the life of one of the most important ancient kings of Israel in a sermon series called Solomon: The Legacy of a King. Almost 3,000 years ago, Solomon succeeded his father, David, as the king during a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity. But Solomon was young and inexperienced, so he asked the Lord for help, and God graciously gave Solomon a greater portion of wisdom than anyone on earth. So King Solomon used this God-given wisdom to start organizing his kingdom to start the signature building project of his reign, the Temple in Jerusalem. He mobilized money and manpower from the whole kingdom, and last week, we saw that Solomon decided to partner with a neighboring kingdom, a pagan kingdom, for resources and skilled labor. And so, we’re finally ready for the work to begin. But almost hidden in the middle of our passage for today is a Bible-long theme that is such good news, but especially when we feel lonely and abandoned. So if you have your Bible/app, please open to 1Ki 6:1. We’ll read through this passage and unpack it as we go, before ending with some applications of this teaching.
1 Kings 6:1-10 (NIV), “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came 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. 2 The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. 3 The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple. 4 He made narrow windows high up in the temple walls. 5 Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. 6 The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls. 7 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. 8 The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third. 9 So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. 10 And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.” Our passage starts off reminding us that these are not myths or legends, but records of events that actually happened in history. Moses wrote that the Israelites had spent 430 years as slaves in Egypt before the Exodus. Now here, we’re told that 480 years had passed since that time. So, we’re about 1,000 years from when God made a covenant of promise with the family of Abraham and Sarah. And God was faithful, and so their little, miraculous, improbable family had grown into a large and flourishing kingdom, marked by abundant peace and prosperity. It’s no wonder that David and then Solomon wanted to build such a great new Temple for the one who had been so faithful to them. And now, “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” with all the wisdom that God had graciously given him. We can see from this artistic rendering of Solomon’s Temple that the outside was a fairly simple, almost fortress-like stone structure. There were water basins for the priests to wash the meat of the animal sacrifices, and one larger water basin called the Molten Sea, which was made of bronze and was used for ritual washing and purification of the priests themselves before entering the Temple. Finally, there was the large stone altar, later replaced by a bronze altar, for all the burnt offerings, sin offerings, peace offerings, and fellowship offerings performed by the priests on behalf of the people. These priestly activities were all defined by God’s word in the Mosaic Law, but especially in the book of Leviticus. Now, the inside was much more lavish than the outside, as we’ll see. Let’s jump down to v. 14 and consider the interior design.
1 Kings 6:14-38 (NIV), “14 So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15 He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper. 16 He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17 The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long. 18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen. 19 He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 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. 22 So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary. 23 For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. 24 One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. 25 The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. 26 The height of each cherub was ten cubits. 27 He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 28 He overlaid the cherubim with gold. 29 On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30 He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold. 31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary. 32 And on the two olive-wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold. 33 In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall. 34 He also made two doors out of juniper wood, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. 35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings. 36 And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams. 37 The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. 38 In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.” Now, I don’t know how you feel about it, but all this description might seem a little unnecessary for us today. So why do you think this passage in the Bible? Well, first, we must remember that the Bible was not written to us. The Bible is, of course, written for us and for all of God’s people, no matter where or when we live. But the book of 1 Kings was originally written to people facing very different circumstances. 1-2 Kings were recorded over a number of generations and reached their current form among ancient Israelites during the Exile — a time when the average Israelite was desperately in need of hope and probably wondered if God had abandoned them or not. And wouldn’t this picture of the beauty and glory of the Temple of the living God be a hopeful reminder of what God was like and of his desire to live among his people? They needed this word. But second, why is there so much description of the interior design? Because we’re talking about God’s house here. Solomon’s Temple was to be the most important building on earth, and this building project deserved more than a footnote in God’s word. Ok! So what do all these details reveal to us? Let’s look at the inside of Solomon’s Temple. And we see the lampstands, the table for the bread, and the altar of incense before the veil which separated the holy place where the priests ministered from the inner Holy and Holies or the Most Holy Place. The Most Holy Place was where the two towering cherubim statues guarded the ark of the covenant containing the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God, and where, once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter and make atonement for the sins of the nation. The imagery intentionally mirrored the Garden of Eden, with the “cherubim, palm trees and open flowers,” a place where God walked with his people in the cool of the day. The gold was meant to represent the infinite worth of God. Nothing but the very best for God, right? But what does it mean to have the lamps lit, fresh bread put out on the table, and incense burning every day? That someone was home. This wasn’t an empty house built in honor of some God who was actually far off and removed from his people. This was meant to look like a house that was lived in, as if God were home. But, my friends, it wasn’t just meant to look that way. As hard as it might be to believe, it actually was that way. We see this in the passage we skipped over, the heart of chapter 6. I’m not sure if you noticed, but sandwiched between the first section, which describes the temple’s exterior, and the third section, which covers the interior, in the middle is this purpose statement for the whole structure. Yes, this is what Solomon’s Temple was going to look like, but more importantly, what was it all for?
1 Kings 6:11-13 (NIV), “11 The word of the Lord came to Solomon: 12 “As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13 And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.” This is God’s word. So, it wasn’t just that the Temple was made to look like someone was home. God actually wanted to dwell with and among his people. Though God was the creator of the universe and sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth, Yahweh had chosen Israel as his people. And he desired to dwell with them. However, an ancient Israelite couldn’t simply wander into the Temple, and even the priests couldn’t wander into the Most Holy Place whenever they wanted. There were strict rules about these things. Why? We saw why in the Exodus series last year. Because even in the best-case scenario, the holiness of God was still something of a threat to God’s people. Why? Because the holy presence of God himself was in there. Ok! So, would the Israelites be able to handle the presence of God living in their midst? Well, we see in v. 12 that God’s presence in Solomon’s Temple was conditional on Israel’s obedience. “…if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them…[then] I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.” Of course, this would be the main problem of the Israelites in the generations that followed. They would not be faithful to obey the word of the Lord. And eventually, Solomon’s Temple would be abandoned by God and would be destroyed during the Exile as the just punishment for their covenant unfaithfulness. But God still wanted to dwell with and among his people. The faithful people of the Exile needed this message, but we do today as well. And here’s the message: The great big beating heart behind everything God does is his steadfast desire to dwell with his people. This is the great big beating heart of God behind creation, salvation, and new creation. God wants a people, made in his image, that he can be with and work with and enjoy, and that we can flourish in life, work, and worship and enjoy him in return. Now, we can certainly question why God would want to dwell with disobedient, unreliable, unfaithful people, but we can’t deny that this was and is God’s heart behind the whole record of Scripture. Think about it, when God made the first people, he wanted to walk with them in the garden in the cool of the day. But when their sin drove them from his holy presence, did God give up? No. When, during the time of Noah, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Ge 6:5), did God give up? No. Graciously and mercifully, he just worked his plan for redemption and salvation. In the Tabernacle and here with the Temple, we see this Bible-long theme of God still wanting to dwell with his people. But the first audience of the book of 1 Kings had to be wondering if, after their utter failure to be faithful to God and the just punishment of the Exile, God still wanted to be their God and for them to be his people and for God to once again dwell with them. I’m sure many were wondering, “Has God finally abandoned us?” But the ultimate answer came with the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Apostle John wrote, “The Word [that is, Jesus] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14). I love Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of this verse in the Message, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We couldn’t keep God’s presence among us through our obedience, so God had to come and be obedient for us in the person of Christ. We couldn’t climb up to heaven through our goodness, so God had to come down into this broken world to rescue us. And through his sinless life, his atoning death on the cross, and his victorious resurrection from the dead, Jesus accomplished everything needed for us to be in the presence of a holy God without fear of punishment. So in Jesus, we see that despite their sin, despite the Exile and the destruction of the Temple, God still hadn’t changed his mind one bit. He still wanted to dwell with and among his people. But as we saw last week, this plan would include Jews and Gentiles to build God’s house. So today, all are invited into the house of God. Today, it’s a spiritual reality for the Holy Spirit dwells in and among us, who is the very power and presence of God himself. But one day, Christ will return from his present heavenly reign, the dead will be raised, and all will give an account of their lives to him. Those who did not believe the gospel and receive Jesus as Lord will be separated from the life, light, and love of God forever. But those who have believed and received Jesus as Lord by grace and through faith will finally see what God has wanted from the beginning: God’s dwelling place will be among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. And he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away (Rev 21:3–4). So today, when you feel lonely or if you ever wonder if God has abandoned you or even notices all the difficulties of your life, you need the same reminder of hope that our ancient brothers and sisters needed. The great big beating heart behind everything God does is his steadfast desire to dwell with his people. We see this Bible-long theme pop up at the heart of 1 Kings 6 as the great purpose behind the building of Solomon’s Temple. But we also see this theme behind God’s work of creation, salvation, and, one day, in the return of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, in a broken world, you might feel lonely at times, but you are not alone. And you might feel that God is far off, but he has not abandoned you. Why? For some crazy reason, God loves us despite our sin and not only has committed to saving and sanctifying us by his Son and Spirit today, but wants to dwell with us forever and ever in the kingdom where Jesus is King. Isn’t that amazing? All we can say now is “Come quickly, Lord! We want to dwell with you, too.” Let us pray.
