FINDING THE PLAN OF SALVATION - Conclusion

KEY VERSES: (THE PLAN OF SALVATION.)

Furthermore David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God. (1 Chron 29:1)

  The “House” that Solomon built was not for people, but for God. Let’s digress for a moment on the modern “church” (small letter). They too are palaces for God, and not for man. However, there has been a turn-around in that God’s palaces of brick – the church – is more for the entertainment and ideas of men! Nothing in God’s House should be taught but the Doctrine of God. Now it is the vain philosophies of men (Col 2:8).

  Likewise, the dramas, music, and even the message are more to tickle the ears for the amusement of the people because they will not want to hear sound doctrine  (2 Tim 2:4)!

When sound doctrine is taught, sinners should be offended because sound doctrine is to convict. If guilt is not experienced in God’s House, then perhaps the message is not sound doctrine. There is a time for joy and a time for mourning. Sometimes, the meek should mourn for their affronts to God!

  God chose Solomon to build the Temple, but the plans came from God through David. God planned His own House and generated all the materials for its building. Solomon, as “young and tender” was “as the little children” of whom Jesus spoke in explaining conversion of coming to God (Luke 18:16). Solomon was to put his knowledge aside and hearken unto truth. That is wisdom! “Keep my commands and live. Get wisdom. Get understanding!” (Prov 4b-5a), and “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Prov 3:5). That is being “young and tender.”

  As far as “the palace is not for man, but the Lord God…” that also applies to the “palace” which lies within the saints of God. I repeat again an important verse:

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

  Just as God’s Palace was not for people, the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, is for God! Your body and spirit are not your own, but belong to God who purchased them for a price. That is in reference to God redeeming you from perishing forever by paying your bond with His own Flesh!

  (As a side-note, it is infuriating to hear from feminists, “It’s my body, and I have a right to do with it as I please,” in reference to abortion.) That silly statement contradicts God and is rebelliousness.

  It is imperative to understand that when someone is “born again” the old “house” (the soul) is put asunder along with its filth, and a new “House” is created all cleaned from filth. The doctrine of sin is removed and replaced with the Doctrine of Christ (2 John 1:9).

That refers back to what must be taught in God’s Palace; the Doctrine of God, not the philosophies of men. That was done in Athens, and Paul confronted the philosophers.  It is not what science says but what The Word speaks! His Voice is written down in Holy Scripture. It is used to test for faithfulness (saintliness).

  You are for God’s service, not for God to serve you! That was done one time once and for all… now it’s your turn in gratitude for His service!

Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? (1 Chron 29:5b)

  Solomon did not consecrate the House to the Lord. He was willing to consecrate himself! “Consecration” is “sanctification.” He set himself apart to serve God, not God to serve him! Before Solomon built God’s House, he was willing to allow God to clean his house, and by that, I mean his soul of unfaithfulness (infidelity against God). A post-lude to conversion is sanctification.

  If truly converted, sinners will want their “houses” cleaned:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thes 5:23)

  Solomon cleaned God’s House, but God cleansed Solomon’s House for habitation for Himself! Solomon was willing to be consecrated, although God did the consecration. It’s the same with sanctification! “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts…” (1 Pet 3:15a). That is the willingness to be made clean.

(They all) offered willingly? (1 Chron 29:6b)

  Following the example of Solomon, they all offered willingly to construct God’s House.  Jesus did the same thing: “And for their sakes I (Jesus) sanctify myself, that they (us Christians) also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19). Because Jesus sanctified himself is an example for us to be sanctified.

  Jesus came to save us from sin, not for us to reside in sin. In fact, “born again” is saved from sin. “Glorification” is saved from death and the Devil. When one speaks of conversion, it is better said, “I am saved from sin and look forward to salvation in the end!” (Mat 10:22). In between, God’s House – your soul – must be kept clean for cohabitation with God!

Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy. (1 Chron 29:9)

  Simply put, “joy” is submitting to God’s service. Just as the people rejoiced for David’s name, we are to have joy in the Lord’s Name! Willingly providing the “property” for God’s Temple inside us, brings joy to the King as well as ourselves.

Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.

But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. (1 Chron 29:13-14)

  God had blessed the Israelites with safety from their adversaries. God had defeated sin on their behalf. The people thanked God for their rescue and safety from adversaries. “Part two” of conversion is giving thanks to the savior. God had saved the Jews from peril many times, and they were grateful. They praised Him for it!

  Likewise, out of gratitude for providing safety from the adversary, by living for God, Christians are to “praise God’s glorious Name.” What Name must we praise? The Savior who is called “Jesus.”

  The people understood that they were merely serving God, and “that all things come of thee.”  Christians must understand that they had no part in becoming a Temple for God’s Presence, and that God provide all things.

  We merely serve Jesus, the Carpenter, because he is who built the Temple inside us! It is a sturdy, fortified, and strong “temple” as it must endure the fiery barbs of the Devil. God keeps us safe through his shield of faith which is the Word of God (Ephes 6.)

  If people do not have gratitude for Jesus paying our fine, then perhaps they are not even safe, but vulnerable to the adversary. Dietrich Bonnhoeffer referred to safety without gratitude as “cheap grace.” It was not! Our Temple cost God much for He paid the price just as He provided all the material for the House of God!

O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own. (1 Chron 29:16)

  There are two substances: space or void and matter (Gen 1:1). God created matter and the space to contain it. All that exists, is by the hand of God, specifically Jesus for the physical attributes of God is Him manifested. God manifested is called Jesus.

  The house for his “holy name” is a Temple for Jesus for that is what God is called! The “house” is the matter which contains the void. Void is where the soul resides because it is the absence of “things.” God was tought to need a House to fill with His Spirit. Solomon’s Temple was to house God’s Spirit just as the human soul does.

  The “store” was free stuff… what the Jews gave back to God that was His out of their abundance. It came from God and they gave it back. They tithed to the storehouse as was God’s Will (Mal 3:10). Treasures are to test the sincerity of faith. In that money is the root of all evil, to diminish the affects of money, it is to be cheerfully given. Those who take God seriously and trust Him, bring things to His “store.” Charity is another way to demonstrate love. We can’t pay God for dying in our place, but we can return a portion that is His.

  Tithing is an important aspect for the assurance of salvation. Those stingy with God’s money have their reward already. To build God’s House, not only meant tithing of gain, but tithing of time. All the workers must be willing to build God a fitting House. That goes for building Him a spiritual “house” within as well.

  Grace does not dismiss God’s expectation for something in return. For loving us, He anticipates love in return. That is shown by sacrifice to Him in time and with gain. Our things belong to God, and our time does as well. Tribute and service to God lengthens our days on Earth as well as stores up our love for eternal existence with God.

I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. (1 Chron 29:17)

  Willingness to give of oneself emits joy. God didn’t demand that His people sacrifice gain and service, but they saw both were necessary to build for God a proper House. God does not want to demand for it all is His already. He wants us to give back some of what He has given.

If willingly given, then there is joy. If joy is not forthcoming, then the gifts of time and gain are payment for what has already been paid. Those who are God’s true people love to serve Him. If they are not serving, then perhaps they are not His. If joy is missing, perhaps God has withheld or retracted His Spirit.

  God doesn’t come and go. He Is always with us. He can be seen only by those whose eyes are bright enough with His Light to see Him in the dark. A bright spirit has bright eyes! If people can’t see God, then they are spiritually blind. God’s House is important as is written, “Now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here.”

  On the other hand, God “triest the heart” of Solomon.  It was not coincidental that God picked the threshing floor for His House! “Threshing” separates the grain from the chaff. Once the harvested grain is placed on the stone, it is threshed to separate the grain from the stalk. Once the threshing is finished, then a winnowing fan blows the chaff off the floor into the space below.

Beneath the Foundation Stone of the threshing floor is an abyss. The chaff would all blow down into the Earth and there it would decay. That is much like the parable of the tares: “Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn” (Mat 13:30). Of course, both are symbolic of the righteous and unrighteous. The “tares” are the unrighteous who will be winnowed with the chaff into Hell.

  God’s House would be much like the threshing floor. Everyone is welcome therein, but many will perish. The threshing floor was where God judged the grain and threshed out the chaff. His House would be the same. Not by coincidence as well, the Foundation Stone is believed to cover the Holy of Holies. That’s where the best, clean grain is “stored.” In ancient times only the ceremonially cleansed and righteous priest could enter in. It would seem that the Holy of Holies are where the righteous (the good grain) is stored. Until when? God judges whether it has endured the environment of the world.

  Nearby The Foundation Stone, and maybe on it in the beginning, is Golgotha – the place of Adam’s skull. My book, The Skull of Adam, explains that thoroughly. The cross of Calvary whereon Jesus died, is the directional marker for the what “grain” is left. The horizontal seems to represent the winnowing of who goes where, and the vertical the direction they shall go. The cross stands on Rock and points toward Heaven. Its lower end represents those who are winnowed to Hell and the upper end points toward the Kingdom of God. (See my book, On the Origin and Survival of the Species, for more about the symbolism of the cross.)

  The Foundation Stone is believed to be the origin point of the universe. It is the axis mundi of the cosmos. Thereon, Adam is believed to have been created. Thereon, Adam was surely judged, but only after He was found guilty and offered reprieve by God. He threshed Adam and Eve severely on that old “floor.” God “had church” there with Adam and Eve. What better place to build a House of God of cedar than where the trees of the Garden of Eden once stood?

The “trees” of the Garden surely represented living souls. That came to me that trees were as men walking. As blind Bartamaus received his sight, he saw “men as trees walking” (Mark 8:24). Of course, there were no other men in the Garden but there would be!

  Many of those “trees” over the years were judged on Ornan’s Threshing Floor! The Foundation Stone seems to be the first “Church.” As the place mankind originated, there seems to be an attraction between God’s people and that small rock in The Promised Land.

In the interval between the creation of that stone and God’s House, Church was wherever the Hebrews went. Their tabernacles (tents) were their “houses” surrounding God’s Tent. Their tents represented their souls and God’s Tent His Spirit. They were the “tents of Shem” mentioned in Genesis 9:27. In the interim, judgement came upon those whose tents were righteous and those whose were not!

  People always came to the “Church” from the time of Noah until God’s House was built. However, Jesus turned that around; rather than bringing people to God, we are to take God to them! “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mat 28:19). God is wherever righteous people go. No wonder God had no need for a house!

  God’s invisible House was built during Pentecost when people came together of one accord. (Acts 2). Church after that no longer needed a building for each Christian again had their own tent; it was their soul which is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

  What good came out of tabernacles? Those tents are forerunners of Christ in us! They were symbolic of our living souls. What if we could only have Church in God’s House? Obviously, God would be confined to one place. To pass along God’s Spirit, we must have Jesus’s Ghost living in our tents! “Church” is where Christians are. It’s a shame that few converts represent the invisible Church very well. Many don’t even represent their local church as they should.

  The point in the key verses preceding is that God’s House is a place of trying or testing. Sinners are welcome there as chaff is converted to grain with Jesus’s miracles! The faith of the converts is tested, and in the end, all will be judged, not in God’s House here on Earth but in Heaven: “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

  God’s House on Earth has changed, but in Heaven, God has a House – actually a palace with many surrounding mansions. Those mansions are much like the tents of ancient times. In Heaven, God’s creatures will again come to God because there will be no need for a threshing floor since the threshing has preceded, deciding which Christians are worthy of dining with God! (1 Cor 11:27).

  You see, Solomon’s Temple (aka God’s House) has great significance. God already had a throne in His House in Heaven, why would he need a House for His “footstool” on Earth (Acts 7:49)?

And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for the which I have made provision. (1 Chron 29:19)

  “A perfect heart” is a willingness to please God perfectly. “The heart” is not the flesh but the Spirit and countenance of Christians. It is their attitude toward God. Perfection is achieved when the heart is “circumcised” (Jer 4:4).

  God does the circumcision, the priest need not as Moses found out. Jeremiah explained that: “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Jer 4:4). Christians should be willing to have their hearts circumcised, but God cuts the flesh off with His own sword: “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deut 30:6).

A perfect heart, then, is a loving heart. Jesus repeated that as The Greatest Commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Mat 22:37).

  To build God’s House (The Church which is us Christians) requires a loving spirit and a kind nature. That kind of love cuts off the flesh of the heart so that the soul lives on for eternity with a new, perfect heart!

And they sacrificed sacrifices unto the Lord… (1 Chron 29:21)

  The Jews sacrificed animals. It was not really the animals God wanted, but the willingness to sacrifice things of value as we found out when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only remaining son to God. Sacrifices are things which one gives of themselves. The best sacrifice to God is always ourselves.

  We are to be “living sacrifices.” God calls that “our reasonable service” (Rom 12:1).

It is the flesh from our heart that we are to sacrifice. Our wills and bad attitudes are cut-off and given to God as we diminish ourselves and elevate God. Our old attitude that we are as God is hung on our own cross, and a new attitude is given to the new creature: To “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

  We are not to have self-esteem but meekness. Our esteem must be for Christ who will lift us up (Jas 4:10).

And did eat and drink before the Lord on that day with great gladness. (1 Chron 29:22a)

  Because of the accord, they ate supper with the Lord. This meal is a foreshadowing of Jesus’s Last Supper with the apostles. They were a sad lot, though, in contrast with gladness in Solomon’s Day. If they had only remembered the gladness of Solomon’s building God a House, they would have understood that Jesus’s impending death and resurrection was a time for gladness as well (with the exception of Judas who was soundly threshed by guilt just as David was!) Jesus was soon to be transfigured into the Cornerstone of God’s new House – The Church!

And the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel. (1 Chron 29:25a)

  Mankind’s problem is that we magnify ourselves which was the way with the first sin (Gen 3:5). That’s a wrong attitude; the Lord magnifies the righteous. How so?

  Those who are born again are royal priests; they replace David’s priests, Eleazer and Zadoc, who are no longer required. What’s more, we no longer need a king other than Jesus. Why is that? We shall inherit the earth (Mat 5:5). It seems that God will retain His throne in His House, but our bodies will remain physical, not as has been, but a new creation which is a glorified body!

  Death is judgement with reward and punishment. “Salvation” is saved from punishment and occurs at death. God puts a hedge of safety about us so that Satan cannot kill us until we die.

Conversion is the time in our lives when we realize that we cannot save ourselves but God can! That’s when we are safe from the evil one, but saved from sin in that God made the propitiation with His own blood. There is a difference between saved from sin and saved from Hell. We are safe as long as we are in God’s House and He in us!

Summary:

  God converted a threshing floor (1 Chron 21:22) into His House. Likewise, Christians are converted from a den for Satan into a Temple for God. Who lives in your “house?” To Whom does your soul belong?

  David insisted on not having the threshing floor granted to him, but to pay full price. It was Ornan’s threshing floor, but David soon converted it to God’s threshing floor! God paid the price to purchase it by providing the blessings (spoils of war) for His own House, just as Jesus paid the price for his temple in our “land” (bodies).

  The money is important because the Jews were kept safe from the plague. Jesus paid the price for our own safety from the plague of sin (See the Book of Job.) The story of Solomon building a House for God is much more than how to build a church building, but the construction of the Spiritual Church to which Christians in accord with God and each other belong. As one of the “lively stones” making up the pillars of the church, we are construction material for building God’s real House – the invisible Church!

  The material must be “very good” to meet God’s standards (Gen 1:31). Our perfection depends on whether or not we are willing to be perfect material. Just as Jesus made wine from water, he makes good “timber” from bad. As Christians, we are to allow God to mold us into what He needs!

  Solomon building a House for God is more of us becoming the Church which is God’s. I believe that the Jews knew what they were doing; they were building a Church for Jesus, and they were the pillars!