June 2, 2025 • 20 mins
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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Coffee podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
Mark will then look forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with
SPEAKER_02 (00:47):
Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee Podcast for Monday, June
the 2nd.
I'm Mark.
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee.
I'm looking at some sermon stufffrom yesterday, and I've got my
Bible open so that we can dosome daily Bible reading.
I'm glad to welcome you to theMonday Morning Coffee Podcast.
We're thinking about how tointegrate yesterday's sermon
(01:13):
into our life effectively, andwe are getting ready to read in
our Bibles all week long inKings.
We want to start the week rightwith a sharp spiritual focus.
I've got coffee.
Do you?
Pour that cup of coffee.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
(01:33):
Yesterday, I preached a sermonwith the upfront title of Why
Won't the Instrumental MusicIssue Go Away?
And that is exactly how I feelabout that issue.
I am ready to lay that to rest.
But I'm under no delusions thatthe sermon yesterday or the
sermon that I'll preach again insix months or next year is
finally going to put all thataway.
It just keeps coming up.
(01:53):
And we talked about thatyesterday.
But maybe if we're thinkingabout how to integrate that into
our lives, I would say this.
You could share that sermon withpeople.
Send an email link, post it onFacebook.
But maybe even better than thatmight be to take a positive
approach to church music.
Brother Doyne Moyer did somewriting on his Facebook page
(02:15):
entitled, Five Reasons Why ILove Singing Together.
And I think he makes a goodpoint that sometimes when we're
discussing the authority for acappella singing over and
against playing instrumentalmusic in the worship assembly,
there's lots of back and forthand it becomes a debate.
Sometimes maybe a betterapproach is just to notice some
great things about the the NewTestament pattern.
(02:35):
For example, Doyne noted, itencourages everyone to
participate in mutualedification as we speak to one
another.
And it highlights the unity ofthe saints as we worship God
together with one voice.
And it helps create a bondbetween our emotions and the
truth that's being expressedthrough the poetic words that we
are singing.
I like all of that.
(02:55):
He had several other things tosay, but I think that's a very
good starting point.
Maybe people who are confusedabout instrumental music, kind
of not sure why we're not doingthat.
Maybe the difficulty is they'vejust never come to the assembly
of a New Testament church andheard and seen what can happen
(03:17):
when you put away theinstruments and everyone makes
melody in their heart.
Think about making that play,giving people that option.
Hey, come and see.
Just come and try it.
Think it's so strange.
Hey, just come.
You'll see something.
You'll hear something.
You'll be part of something outof Ephesians 5.19 that you could
(03:39):
never be a part of as long asthe band is blaring away and
some soloist up front like we'reat a rock concert instead of
worshiping the Lord.
I think that is worthconsidering.
Hope you'll give some thought tomaking use of that sermon and
making use of the positive casefor acapella music in the
worship assembly.
(04:00):
All that said, we're going totalk a lot about the pattern
because this week we're in 1Kings chapter 4 and it's not
going to be very long and we'llbe talking about the pattern for
the temple that Solomon wants tobuild.
Get your Bible Let's talk aboutdaily Bible reading.
(04:33):
The reading for Monday is 1Kings chapter 4.
Our reading on Monday is 1 Kingschapter 4.
Let's get situated in the text.
Where are we?
In chapter 3, Solomon is giventhe opportunity to ask of God
anything, and he shows himselfto be a wise person already by
asking for more wisdom andunderstanding mind in 1 Kings 3
(04:56):
verse 9.
Then, the rest of that chapterdemonstrates Solomon's wisdom
with the famous case of the twowomen who are both claiming the
same baby.
Now, once we move into chapter4, the stuff that we're reading
today, the question is going tobe, what's this doing here?
And the answer is, this is stillabout wisdom.
Notice chapter 4 verse 29, Godgave Solomon wisdom and
(05:18):
understanding.
In fact, that theme continuesinto chapter 5 and verse 12.
There's lots here about wisdomand how God has fulfilled his
promise.
So we begin with a long list ofall the various court officials
and court provisions, all thethings that are going on in this
court, which is wisely arrangedby King Solomon, shows his great
(05:42):
wisdom here.
And there's a couple of thingsas we're working along that give
us a little bit of a pause here.
For example, we notice thatthere's no mention of Judah
here.
And we wonder if they gotfavored treatment and didn't
have to pay taxes, which mayhave contributed to some of the
hard feelings that we'll seebetween the various tribes later
(06:03):
on after Solomon is dead andgone.
But what you get here is agrowing kingdom.
It's got a real palace, a realgovernment.
There's really a king.
There's all kinds of officials.
And of course, there's lots oftaxes.
And as you move into chapter...
verse 20, you start getting anecho of Genesis 12, as many as
(06:24):
the sand by the sea, but youstart seeing all the provisions
necessary to sustain this giantbureaucracy.
Please remember, this is exactlythe thing that Samuel said would
happen.
The king would take, the kingwould take, and I'm
uncomfortable in verse 26because you're not supposed to
multiply horses if you're theking, Deuteronomy 17, verse 16,
(06:45):
but again, I need to stay ontrack.
The result of of having a wiseking.
Again, verse 20, is that thekingdom prospers and everyone
ate and drank and was happy.
How we should pray for wiserulers today.
And our reading today concludesthen, verses 29 to 34, by
exalting the wisdom and fame ofSolomon.
(07:07):
He has incredible understanding,breadth of mind is how the ESV
gives it.
I think another translationrenders it largeness of heart,
comprehensive understanding ofjust many many things, all sorts
of stuff.
Plants, and he can write songs,and everybody hears verse 34 of
(07:27):
the wisdom of Solomon.
God has kept his promise toSolomon.
I find that to be veryencouraging.
Our reading for Monday is 1Kings 4.
It is Tuesday.
It is Tuesday.
And our reading today is 1 Kingschapter 5, the entire chapter, 1
Kings chapter 5.
And I would remind folks fromWestside that we do have a Zoom
(07:50):
call tonight.
The elders are not meeting, sowe'll meet tonight on Zoom for
prayer and for Bible study.
1 Kings 5 is a technicalchapter.
Lots of details here, and it'seasy to get lost in all of that
or even decide this is notimportant.
Of course it's important.
It's in your Bible.
There's a couple of places herewhere we really see the value.
(08:10):
you of this kind of material.
I think overall, it's saying anawful lot about how glorious
Solomon's kingdom really was.
We're a long way from that timewhen Nabal said of David, I've
never even heard of this guy.
No, right now, the house ofDavid is running the show.
They're the big dogs on theblock.
And in fact, kings come, verse1, to Solomon to seek him out.
(08:33):
And we get the promises of Godto David, verse 5, the important
promise in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
It is clear that David has toldSolomon about his dream to build
the temple, and now Solomon ismoving forward to make that
dream come true.
And once again, we get wisdom.
Verse 7, 5, 7, he has given toDavid a wise son.
(08:54):
In verse 12, the Lord gaveSolomon wisdom.
This is about how Solomon iswalking in tune with God's will,
doing God's word, doing what Godwants.
And we meet this Hiram, king ofTyre, fella.
Maybe you It's important toremember that in Acts chapter
12, the people of Tyre are stilldependent upon the people of
(09:16):
Palestine for food.
They're still trying tonegotiate trade alliances.
And there is another one ofthose little red flags.
Verse 13, there's a forced laborforce being forced.
Wow.
Okay, let's drink coffee and tryto rethink that.
There is a task force of workersbeing drafted out of Israel,
(09:40):
verse 13, and later on that'sgoing to be a problem.
That will be a huge problem.
We'll talk more about that as wejourney along.
And kings, just kind of filethat in the back of your mind.
That is the kind of thing thatcan cause all sorts of
unhappiness in your kingdom.
So Solomon's builders andHiram's builders, verse 18,
(10:00):
they're cutting and preparingstones and timber.
What does all this mean?
Thank you for watching.
(10:24):
It's unbelievably valuable,beautiful, and immaculate, and
the Bible pays attention to itand wants us to pay attention to
it.
God's house is important.
We'll talk more about thattonight in our Zoom call.
For the rest of you, I'll seeyou Wednesday on the podcast,
and we'll start our podcasttomorrow with something special.
(10:47):
See you on Wednesday.
The reading for Tuesday is 1Kings 5.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Our reading today is 1 Kingschapter 6 verses 1 to 13.
But before we get into thatreading, it's time to do
something special.
I promised that yesterday,didn't I?
What's special?
What's special about today isthat today we start our annual
(11:10):
summer series.
We'll be bringing in a guestspeaker every Wednesday night,
and this year they'll bespeaking on the theme of the
judges, which is our VacationBible School theme as well.
And that will start with StephenRussell.
Here's Stephen to tell you abouthis lesson.
SPEAKER_02 (11:27):
Hi, I'm Stephen Russell, and I'm going to be
delivering an introduction tothe judges of Israel.
The stories of the judges areexciting, intriguing, and often
disturbing.
But these stories aren'tincluded in our Bibles as mere
colorful additions to thenarrative.
Like all of the stories in God'sWord, they tell us about God,
(11:48):
about His people, andultimately, about Jesus.
And that is what we'll belooking at together on June 4th.
I hope to see you there.
SPEAKER_01 (11:57):
Thank you, Stephen.
I don't know about you, but I'mlooking forward very much to
studying the Judges, and I'mexcited about Stephen giving us
a good introduction to that.
I believe that will help us in areally good way.
So let's talk about our Biblereading, 1 Kings 6, 1 to 13.
Maybe you're looking at this andthinking, oh boy, a whole bunch
(12:18):
of details and measurements andso forth.
What are we doing here?
There's a lot more here thanjust details, cubits, and how
much gold.
Notice, for example, in verse 1that we get a wonderful
chronology passage.
The fourth year of Solomon'sreign would be about 966 or 967
BC.
That's 966 years before thebirth of Jesus, give or take.
(12:40):
The calendar gets wonky inplaces, which means the Exodus
would date 480 years back behindthat to 1447-1446.
Sometimes I round that off to1440, somewhere around in there.
And we do get the actual size ofthe temple.
It's It's 90 feet long.
That's if you use an 18-inchcubit.
(13:01):
It's 30 feet wide and about 45feet tall.
Could be helpful here,particularly as a family, to
just go outside and pace it offbecause it's really not that
big.
It is about double the size ofthe tabernacle, but it's not
that large a building.
It is not something like theParthenon in Athens or
(13:22):
especially the Temple of Dianain Ephesus, which of course is
not going to be constructed foranother thousand years or so,
but those are enormous temples.
This is really not that large,but it's very carefully done.
Verse 7, the stones are slidinto place, cut perfectly to fit
here, and all of this emphasizeshow special God is.
(13:44):
I recently preached in 1 Kings6, and I just couldn't talk
about that nearly enough.
All of this material says God isspecial.
You want to get that out ofthis?
And that's what I need to getout of this.
Verse 12 is helpful.
Something there about theconditional nature of the
promises.
(14:05):
And that is important becausehearts are more important to God
than a beautiful building.
But this is about how God isspecial and God needs to be
treated as special.
That's our reading forWednesday, 1 Kings 6, 1-13.
I'll see you tonight as we startour summer series.
(14:25):
Welcome to Thursday, and todaywe'll read 1 Kings 6, verses
14-38.
Let me just say a couple ofthings here as we look at the
arrangement of the temple, andthe internal things that are
there, and the furniture, andsome of the other details that
were being given here.
Please notice, this is a verystandard blueprint for a temple.
(14:46):
It is the same shape, size, andproportion of temples that are
found throughout the ancientworld.
Those are called, byarchaeologists, long-room
temples.
And there's lots of those thathave been excavated all over
Palestine and other parts of theancient world.
I point that out becausesometimes someone will say that
if a denominational group isdoing something, we can't do
(15:09):
that.
We can't look like them.
We'd better not do that.
Look at them over there.
They're doing this.
We'd better not have thatourselves.
And I think that's completely inerror.
I think that's a terriblemistake.
I think it hamstrings much ofthe work of It's a false
standard of authority, and it'sdefeated right here in 1 Kings 6
(15:32):
because Solomon is given theplan by God, and that plan is to
build a temple that looks likeany other temple you would have
seen in the ancient world.
So clearly God is not overlydisturbed by someone, by his
people, having something thatkind of sort of resembles what
(15:52):
they're doing over there in afalse religion.
Just think about that a littlebit.
I do think that the interior ofthe temple itself is designed to
evoke the Garden of Eden, allthe flowers and palm trees that
are carved there.
And the Holy of Holies is aperfect cube, verse 20.
And that imagery is used in thebook of Revelation, the city
(16:13):
four square.
And there are cherubim, verses23 to 28.
These cherubim are not...
any kind of specific animal.
Instead, they are super powerfulangels.
They serve as guardians to theway of the Lord, and they guard
God's house.
That's what they are doing herebecause the Holy of Holies is
(16:35):
God's throne room.
Again, all of this just says Godis very, very special, which is
why Verse 38, even with all thepreparations that David had
made, it still took seven yearsto build it because it was so
elaborate, because it was soexpensive, because it was so
(16:57):
carefully done, because God isspecial.
We need to get that from 1 Kings6.
I'll see you tomorrow.
We'll be in the Psalms.
A reading for Thursday, 1 Kings6.
It is Friday.
We've made it to the end ofanother week.
It's Friday, and today ourreading is Psalm 24.
The reading for Friday is Psalm24.
(17:19):
Now, the first question wealways want to ask about a psalm
is, what kind of psalm is it?
What was it used for?
We have invitation songs.
We have Lord's Supper songs.
We have songs of praise.
What kind of song is this?
This is a temple worship song,and it is about worshiping God
as the king.
It goes great with our readingin 1 Kings 6 as we're preparing
(17:40):
the temple, the house, And ifyou look there, you see that it
has about three parts.
Verses 1 and 2, praise God.
And then there's kind of an askand answer back and forth in
verses 3 to 6 about who canworship God.
There's question, response, andaffirmation.
And then verses 7 to 10 soundlike a song for the bearing of
(18:01):
the ark itself.
Verses 1 and 2 then have theidea of God bringing order out
of chaos in his creation.
There's a poetic image here.
Verse 2, praise God.
2 of the solid earth rising upout of the waters.
And that's a metaphor, a figureof speech for what Genesis says
about how God separated the landfrom the waters.
Please notice verse 4, he whohas clean hands and a pure
(18:23):
heart.
That sets up the beatitude ofMatthew 5 verse 8.
And as well, it sets up James 4in verse 8.
And I like this idea of Godbeing active.
Verse 5, he will receiveblessing from the Lord.
One scholar said, this man hasthe smile of God upon That's why
we want to seek the face of God.
(18:45):
Verse 6, And the glory of theking is then extolled in verses
7 to 10.
Even the doors are said to liftup.
And look, the king of glory iscoming in.
God is so amazing.
What did we say out of 1 Kings6?
God is special.
Psalm 24 goes with that ideavery well.
(19:07):
Our reading for Friday, Psalm24.
That concludes the podcast forthe week.
Let's have a little more coffeeas we're tying everything up
here.
I appreciate you listening sovery much.
Hope you're telling other peopleabout the podcast.
So until next week when we'llopen our Bibles together again,
(19:28):
I'm Mark Roberts, and I want togo to heaven, and I want you to
come too.
I will see you on Monday with acup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, you can connect with
us through our website,justchristians.com, and our
Facebook page.
Our music is from upbeat.io.
That's upbeat with two Ps,U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators
(20:07):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Coffee podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
Mark will then look forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with
SPEAKER_02 (00:47):
Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee Podcast for Monday, June
the 2nd.
I'm Mark.
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee.
I'm looking at some sermon stufffrom yesterday, and I've got my
Bible open so that we can dosome daily Bible reading.
I'm glad to welcome you to theMonday Morning Coffee Podcast.
We're thinking about how tointegrate yesterday's sermon
(01:13):
into our life effectively, andwe are getting ready to read in
our Bibles all week long inKings.
We want to start the week rightwith a sharp spiritual focus.
I've got coffee.
Do you?
Pour that cup of coffee.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go.
(01:33):
Yesterday, I preached a sermonwith the upfront title of Why
Won't the Instrumental MusicIssue Go Away?
And that is exactly how I feelabout that issue.
I am ready to lay that to rest.
But I'm under no delusions thatthe sermon yesterday or the
sermon that I'll preach again insix months or next year is
finally going to put all thataway.
It just keeps coming up.
(01:53):
And we talked about thatyesterday.
But maybe if we're thinkingabout how to integrate that into
our lives, I would say this.
You could share that sermon withpeople.
Send an email link, post it onFacebook.
But maybe even better than thatmight be to take a positive
approach to church music.
Brother Doyne Moyer did somewriting on his Facebook page
(02:15):
entitled, Five Reasons Why ILove Singing Together.
And I think he makes a goodpoint that sometimes when we're
discussing the authority for acappella singing over and
against playing instrumentalmusic in the worship assembly,
there's lots of back and forthand it becomes a debate.
Sometimes maybe a betterapproach is just to notice some
great things about the the NewTestament pattern.
(02:35):
For example, Doyne noted, itencourages everyone to
participate in mutualedification as we speak to one
another.
And it highlights the unity ofthe saints as we worship God
together with one voice.
And it helps create a bondbetween our emotions and the
truth that's being expressedthrough the poetic words that we
are singing.
I like all of that.
(02:55):
He had several other things tosay, but I think that's a very
good starting point.
Maybe people who are confusedabout instrumental music, kind
of not sure why we're not doingthat.
Maybe the difficulty is they'vejust never come to the assembly
of a New Testament church andheard and seen what can happen
(03:17):
when you put away theinstruments and everyone makes
melody in their heart.
Think about making that play,giving people that option.
Hey, come and see.
Just come and try it.
Think it's so strange.
Hey, just come.
You'll see something.
You'll hear something.
You'll be part of something outof Ephesians 5.19 that you could
(03:39):
never be a part of as long asthe band is blaring away and
some soloist up front like we'reat a rock concert instead of
worshiping the Lord.
I think that is worthconsidering.
Hope you'll give some thought tomaking use of that sermon and
making use of the positive casefor acapella music in the
worship assembly.
(04:00):
All that said, we're going totalk a lot about the pattern
because this week we're in 1Kings chapter 4 and it's not
going to be very long and we'llbe talking about the pattern for
the temple that Solomon wants tobuild.
Get your Bible Let's talk aboutdaily Bible reading.
(04:33):
The reading for Monday is 1Kings chapter 4.
Our reading on Monday is 1 Kingschapter 4.
Let's get situated in the text.
Where are we?
In chapter 3, Solomon is giventhe opportunity to ask of God
anything, and he shows himselfto be a wise person already by
asking for more wisdom andunderstanding mind in 1 Kings 3
(04:56):
verse 9.
Then, the rest of that chapterdemonstrates Solomon's wisdom
with the famous case of the twowomen who are both claiming the
same baby.
Now, once we move into chapter4, the stuff that we're reading
today, the question is going tobe, what's this doing here?
And the answer is, this is stillabout wisdom.
Notice chapter 4 verse 29, Godgave Solomon wisdom and
(05:18):
understanding.
In fact, that theme continuesinto chapter 5 and verse 12.
There's lots here about wisdomand how God has fulfilled his
promise.
So we begin with a long list ofall the various court officials
and court provisions, all thethings that are going on in this
court, which is wisely arrangedby King Solomon, shows his great
(05:42):
wisdom here.
And there's a couple of thingsas we're working along that give
us a little bit of a pause here.
For example, we notice thatthere's no mention of Judah
here.
And we wonder if they gotfavored treatment and didn't
have to pay taxes, which mayhave contributed to some of the
hard feelings that we'll seebetween the various tribes later
(06:03):
on after Solomon is dead andgone.
But what you get here is agrowing kingdom.
It's got a real palace, a realgovernment.
There's really a king.
There's all kinds of officials.
And of course, there's lots oftaxes.
And as you move into chapter...
verse 20, you start getting anecho of Genesis 12, as many as
(06:24):
the sand by the sea, but youstart seeing all the provisions
necessary to sustain this giantbureaucracy.
Please remember, this is exactlythe thing that Samuel said would
happen.
The king would take, the kingwould take, and I'm
uncomfortable in verse 26because you're not supposed to
multiply horses if you're theking, Deuteronomy 17, verse 16,
(06:45):
but again, I need to stay ontrack.
The result of of having a wiseking.
Again, verse 20, is that thekingdom prospers and everyone
ate and drank and was happy.
How we should pray for wiserulers today.
And our reading today concludesthen, verses 29 to 34, by
exalting the wisdom and fame ofSolomon.
(07:07):
He has incredible understanding,breadth of mind is how the ESV
gives it.
I think another translationrenders it largeness of heart,
comprehensive understanding ofjust many many things, all sorts
of stuff.
Plants, and he can write songs,and everybody hears verse 34 of
(07:27):
the wisdom of Solomon.
God has kept his promise toSolomon.
I find that to be veryencouraging.
Our reading for Monday is 1Kings 4.
It is Tuesday.
It is Tuesday.
And our reading today is 1 Kingschapter 5, the entire chapter, 1
Kings chapter 5.
And I would remind folks fromWestside that we do have a Zoom
(07:50):
call tonight.
The elders are not meeting, sowe'll meet tonight on Zoom for
prayer and for Bible study.
1 Kings 5 is a technicalchapter.
Lots of details here, and it'seasy to get lost in all of that
or even decide this is notimportant.
Of course it's important.
It's in your Bible.
There's a couple of places herewhere we really see the value.
(08:10):
you of this kind of material.
I think overall, it's saying anawful lot about how glorious
Solomon's kingdom really was.
We're a long way from that timewhen Nabal said of David, I've
never even heard of this guy.
No, right now, the house ofDavid is running the show.
They're the big dogs on theblock.
And in fact, kings come, verse1, to Solomon to seek him out.
(08:33):
And we get the promises of Godto David, verse 5, the important
promise in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
It is clear that David has toldSolomon about his dream to build
the temple, and now Solomon ismoving forward to make that
dream come true.
And once again, we get wisdom.
Verse 7, 5, 7, he has given toDavid a wise son.
(08:54):
In verse 12, the Lord gaveSolomon wisdom.
This is about how Solomon iswalking in tune with God's will,
doing God's word, doing what Godwants.
And we meet this Hiram, king ofTyre, fella.
Maybe you It's important toremember that in Acts chapter
12, the people of Tyre are stilldependent upon the people of
(09:16):
Palestine for food.
They're still trying tonegotiate trade alliances.
And there is another one ofthose little red flags.
Verse 13, there's a forced laborforce being forced.
Wow.
Okay, let's drink coffee and tryto rethink that.
There is a task force of workersbeing drafted out of Israel,
(09:40):
verse 13, and later on that'sgoing to be a problem.
That will be a huge problem.
We'll talk more about that as wejourney along.
And kings, just kind of filethat in the back of your mind.
That is the kind of thing thatcan cause all sorts of
unhappiness in your kingdom.
So Solomon's builders andHiram's builders, verse 18,
(10:00):
they're cutting and preparingstones and timber.
What does all this mean?
Thank you for watching.
(10:24):
It's unbelievably valuable,beautiful, and immaculate, and
the Bible pays attention to itand wants us to pay attention to
it.
God's house is important.
We'll talk more about thattonight in our Zoom call.
For the rest of you, I'll seeyou Wednesday on the podcast,
and we'll start our podcasttomorrow with something special.
(10:47):
See you on Wednesday.
The reading for Tuesday is 1Kings 5.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Welcome to Wednesday.
Our reading today is 1 Kingschapter 6 verses 1 to 13.
But before we get into thatreading, it's time to do
something special.
I promised that yesterday,didn't I?
What's special?
What's special about today isthat today we start our annual
(11:10):
summer series.
We'll be bringing in a guestspeaker every Wednesday night,
and this year they'll bespeaking on the theme of the
judges, which is our VacationBible School theme as well.
And that will start with StephenRussell.
Here's Stephen to tell you abouthis lesson.
SPEAKER_02 (11:27):
Hi, I'm Stephen Russell, and I'm going to be
delivering an introduction tothe judges of Israel.
The stories of the judges areexciting, intriguing, and often
disturbing.
But these stories aren'tincluded in our Bibles as mere
colorful additions to thenarrative.
Like all of the stories in God'sWord, they tell us about God,
(11:48):
about His people, andultimately, about Jesus.
And that is what we'll belooking at together on June 4th.
I hope to see you there.
SPEAKER_01 (11:57):
Thank you, Stephen.
I don't know about you, but I'mlooking forward very much to
studying the Judges, and I'mexcited about Stephen giving us
a good introduction to that.
I believe that will help us in areally good way.
So let's talk about our Biblereading, 1 Kings 6, 1 to 13.
Maybe you're looking at this andthinking, oh boy, a whole bunch
(12:18):
of details and measurements andso forth.
What are we doing here?
There's a lot more here thanjust details, cubits, and how
much gold.
Notice, for example, in verse 1that we get a wonderful
chronology passage.
The fourth year of Solomon'sreign would be about 966 or 967
BC.
That's 966 years before thebirth of Jesus, give or take.
(12:40):
The calendar gets wonky inplaces, which means the Exodus
would date 480 years back behindthat to 1447-1446.
Sometimes I round that off to1440, somewhere around in there.
And we do get the actual size ofthe temple.
It's It's 90 feet long.
That's if you use an 18-inchcubit.
(13:01):
It's 30 feet wide and about 45feet tall.
Could be helpful here,particularly as a family, to
just go outside and pace it offbecause it's really not that
big.
It is about double the size ofthe tabernacle, but it's not
that large a building.
It is not something like theParthenon in Athens or
(13:22):
especially the Temple of Dianain Ephesus, which of course is
not going to be constructed foranother thousand years or so,
but those are enormous temples.
This is really not that large,but it's very carefully done.
Verse 7, the stones are slidinto place, cut perfectly to fit
here, and all of this emphasizeshow special God is.
(13:44):
I recently preached in 1 Kings6, and I just couldn't talk
about that nearly enough.
All of this material says God isspecial.
You want to get that out ofthis?
And that's what I need to getout of this.
Verse 12 is helpful.
Something there about theconditional nature of the
promises.
(14:05):
And that is important becausehearts are more important to God
than a beautiful building.
But this is about how God isspecial and God needs to be
treated as special.
That's our reading forWednesday, 1 Kings 6, 1-13.
I'll see you tonight as we startour summer series.
(14:25):
Welcome to Thursday, and todaywe'll read 1 Kings 6, verses
14-38.
Let me just say a couple ofthings here as we look at the
arrangement of the temple, andthe internal things that are
there, and the furniture, andsome of the other details that
were being given here.
Please notice, this is a verystandard blueprint for a temple.
(14:46):
It is the same shape, size, andproportion of temples that are
found throughout the ancientworld.
Those are called, byarchaeologists, long-room
temples.
And there's lots of those thathave been excavated all over
Palestine and other parts of theancient world.
I point that out becausesometimes someone will say that
if a denominational group isdoing something, we can't do
(15:09):
that.
We can't look like them.
We'd better not do that.
Look at them over there.
They're doing this.
We'd better not have thatourselves.
And I think that's completely inerror.
I think that's a terriblemistake.
I think it hamstrings much ofthe work of It's a false
standard of authority, and it'sdefeated right here in 1 Kings 6
(15:32):
because Solomon is given theplan by God, and that plan is to
build a temple that looks likeany other temple you would have
seen in the ancient world.
So clearly God is not overlydisturbed by someone, by his
people, having something thatkind of sort of resembles what
(15:52):
they're doing over there in afalse religion.
Just think about that a littlebit.
I do think that the interior ofthe temple itself is designed to
evoke the Garden of Eden, allthe flowers and palm trees that
are carved there.
And the Holy of Holies is aperfect cube, verse 20.
And that imagery is used in thebook of Revelation, the city
(16:13):
four square.
And there are cherubim, verses23 to 28.
These cherubim are not...
any kind of specific animal.
Instead, they are super powerfulangels.
They serve as guardians to theway of the Lord, and they guard
God's house.
That's what they are doing herebecause the Holy of Holies is
(16:35):
God's throne room.
Again, all of this just says Godis very, very special, which is
why Verse 38, even with all thepreparations that David had
made, it still took seven yearsto build it because it was so
elaborate, because it was soexpensive, because it was so
(16:57):
carefully done, because God isspecial.
We need to get that from 1 Kings6.
I'll see you tomorrow.
We'll be in the Psalms.
A reading for Thursday, 1 Kings6.
It is Friday.
We've made it to the end ofanother week.
It's Friday, and today ourreading is Psalm 24.
The reading for Friday is Psalm24.
(17:19):
Now, the first question wealways want to ask about a psalm
is, what kind of psalm is it?
What was it used for?
We have invitation songs.
We have Lord's Supper songs.
We have songs of praise.
What kind of song is this?
This is a temple worship song,and it is about worshiping God
as the king.
It goes great with our readingin 1 Kings 6 as we're preparing
(17:40):
the temple, the house, And ifyou look there, you see that it
has about three parts.
Verses 1 and 2, praise God.
And then there's kind of an askand answer back and forth in
verses 3 to 6 about who canworship God.
There's question, response, andaffirmation.
And then verses 7 to 10 soundlike a song for the bearing of
(18:01):
the ark itself.
Verses 1 and 2 then have theidea of God bringing order out
of chaos in his creation.
There's a poetic image here.
Verse 2, praise God.
2 of the solid earth rising upout of the waters.
And that's a metaphor, a figureof speech for what Genesis says
about how God separated the landfrom the waters.
Please notice verse 4, he whohas clean hands and a pure
(18:23):
heart.
That sets up the beatitude ofMatthew 5 verse 8.
And as well, it sets up James 4in verse 8.
And I like this idea of Godbeing active.
Verse 5, he will receiveblessing from the Lord.
One scholar said, this man hasthe smile of God upon That's why
we want to seek the face of God.
(18:45):
Verse 6, And the glory of theking is then extolled in verses
7 to 10.
Even the doors are said to liftup.
And look, the king of glory iscoming in.
God is so amazing.
What did we say out of 1 Kings6?
God is special.
Psalm 24 goes with that ideavery well.
(19:07):
Our reading for Friday, Psalm24.
That concludes the podcast forthe week.
Let's have a little more coffeeas we're tying everything up
here.
I appreciate you listening sovery much.
Hope you're telling other peopleabout the podcast.
So until next week when we'llopen our Bibles together again,
(19:28):
I'm Mark Roberts, and I want togo to heaven, and I want you to
come too.
I will see you on Monday with acup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, you can connect with
us through our website,justchristians.com, and our
Facebook page.
Our music is from upbeat.io.
That's upbeat with two Ps,U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators
(20:07):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
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