DEVOTION
1ST KINGS
NEVER ENDING STORY
1 Kings 7:13-40
13 King Solomon sent to Tyre and
brought Huram, 14 whose mother was a
widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a
craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of
bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him. 15
He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around,
by line. 16 He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the
pillars; each capital was five cubits high. 17 A network of interwoven chains
festooned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. 18 He
made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals
on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. 19 The capitals on top
of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. 20
On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the
network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. 21 He erected
the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named
Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. 22
The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars
was completed.
NIV
This is unclear when there
was a transition from describing his palace to describing the items for the
temple of the LORD. But we know from all the rest of the things that were made,
this was for the temple, not his palace. These two pillars were at the door or
in front of the doors into the temple, and they were 27 feet high and 18 feet
around. Their tops of their crowns were about 7 feet high. Again, it is difficult
to determine if there are any significant truths for our lives from the pillars
of any other items in the temple. However, we do know that from the letters to
the churches that whoever overcomes, that remains steadfast, Jesus will make a
pillar in the temple of God, and the overcomers or pillars will never leave, and
they will have his name written on them and the name of the city of God, the
new Jerusalem. Some day, the Lord will be finished with all his work on the
pillars that will stand in the temple of God in that new city of Jerusalem. Interestingly,
the pillars were cast or made by a man, but the pillars that will stand in the
temple of God, who are those who overcome, are not made by man, but by the work
of the Lord. If we are to be those overcomers, we have to come to grips with the
truth that it is not up to us to become a pillar. We cannot get there by any effort
of our hands or deeds, but it is all about the hand of the Lord at work, casting
us into the shape and size he has determined that we all fit together as
living stones into the temple of God, or pillars in the temple. The symbolic meaning
of being a pillar is that we will have a permanent or eternal place in the
realm of God within that new city of Jerusalem, never to leave it. This
world only offers temporal things and places for us to have and live in, but
there in the temple of the Lord, everything will be forever, eternal, and our
presence there will never end. Once we arrive in the new city of God, the new
city of Jerusalem, as a pillar, we will have a never-ending story.
No comments:
Post a Comment