A Decorated Temple

2nd Chronicles 4

One of the funniest memories that I have with my wife before we were married was at the beach. We went with some friends and as we were just hanging out my friend Dirk and I noticed Alyssa’s feet had some black stuff on it. We looked at each other and thought that obviously is not normal but then again maybe it was some dark birthmark or skin condition. As we tried not to embarrass Alyssa about we still did or normal hanging out stuff and then Alicia who is Dirk’s wife said, “Alyssa, you have some tar at the bottom of your feet.” Once we found out that is was tar and not some foot disease we laughed and told Alyssa what we thought. Then we all helped in trying to get the tar of her feet. That was a task in itself because it did not want to come off. We had to scrub and scrub and scrub. Alyssa rinsed, she soaked, she did what ever she could to get it off. Finally it came off and her feet were like feet minus the black tar. 

In this chapter we read about all the gold furnishings that Hiram made for Solomon to put in the temple. We even read that so much bronze was used that it goes beyond weight. At the end of this chapter we read about the bread of Presence and the lamp stands being made out of pure gold.

Pure is What God requires

As you read about all the awesome cool stuff in the Temple we need to also know that the gold had to be pure. That means that it could not have any other substance in it. When you read about how metals are purified it is called refined. This is what they do to make a metal pure and not have any impurities in it. What they would do is heat the gold so hot that it would become liquid and all of the impurities would come to the top. They would scrape off the top and do this process a couple of times until no impurities would rise up. This would show that the non-gold parts would be gone and away from the gold. 

Not only does this process take time but it needs to take place for the gold and precious metal to become pure. If not then the gold would be less in value less in strength, less in pure gold. 

As anything that needed to be in the presence of God is pure, God requires that of us. The problem is, we are not pure. We are sinful and impure (Romans 3:23). The only way we can become pure is by being refined by the fire which is through Jesus Christ.  In Zechariah 13:9 we see that the good shepherd is cut off and God’s people will scatter but he will put them in the fire and refine them as one refines silver, test them as gold is tested. We need to be put through the heat so the impurities of the world and ourselves can be scraped off. We need to be emptied of ourselves so we can be tested and last through the fire.