The Inner Sanctuary

 DEVOTION

1^ST KINGS

THE INNER SANCTUARY

1 Kings 6:23-38

23 In the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim 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 of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood with five-sided jambs. 32 And on the two olive wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with beaten gold. 33 In the same way he made four-sided jambs of olive wood for the entrance to the main hall. 34 He also made two pine doors, 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.

NIV

This is the best description we have of the interior of the temple Solomon built. It is difficult to imagine these two cherubim that are 15 feet tall with a total wingspan of 15 feet. This inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, was 30 by 30 feet and 30 feet high. If the one wing tip touched the one side wall with its other wing 15 feet away, that would mean they filled the whole 30 feet of width, wingtip to wingtip, and the ark would then be in the middle of the room between or under the two touching wingtips of the cherubim. Once again, we are faced with how much forethought was put into the design and building of this temple, which took 7 years to complete. We cannot imagine the amount of gold that was used to cover the entire interior of the temple, as well as the cherubim and the doors. We have to come back to the temple that God calls us, and we wonder how much thought we put into our design of what it is to look like. Although Solomon was able to complete his temple in a limited amount of time, we also have a limited amount of time to work on the temple of the Holy Spirit, our inner selves, yet we do have a lifetime from the moment we were reborn, or born again, which is also born from above. How much time do we spend on the construction of the temple? Again, this is not about how we look on the outside, as the world does, but what we look like inside, within our inner selves. How much detail are we paying attention to? Solomon poured much detail into the carvings in the interior and on the doors and covered them with gold, the doors with hammered gold. Our bodies, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, must have that kind of detail within. Our spirit needs to be carved by the hand of God, to be made beautiful and overlaid with gold, so our inner being is precious to the Lord. We may have had a door to our hearts, but when God knocked on that door, we opened up and allowed him to enter into the inner sanctuary of our hearts. Again, this is not about being religious or having a religion, but about our spirit and spiritual life, which ultimately reflect how we walk the path he has laid out for us. Let us pay attention to how the Lord works on the carvings within our hearts, making them a proper inner sanctuary for His Spirit.