Cedar in the House of God

 Rev Anthony Phua 

23 Mar 2008

The tabernacle is the house of God or the temple of God. It is where the presence of God dwells. We have the Holy Spirit in our heart but are we the temple of God?

 In 1^st Kings Chapter 6 – we see Cedar,Pine and Olive being use to build the House of God.

1^st Kings 6:9-36

9 So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. 10 And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.

 11 The word of the LORD came to Solomon: 12 "As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, carry out my regulations and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13 And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel."

 14 So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15 He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of pine. 16 He partitioned off twenty cubits ^[i] at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17 The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits ^[j] long. 18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

 19 He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. ^[k] He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22 So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

 23 In the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits ^[l] 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.

In Deuteronomy 10 :3, we see Acacia also  being used.

 3 So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.

Cedar trees grow in Lebanon and they have many varieties and today I want to introduce you to the following:

1.  Little Cedar

2.  Fire Cedar

3.  Humming Cedar

4.  Tall Cedar

Little Cedar 

Little cedar grow up to a max of 7ft or less. It is important for farms as they are durable and sturdy for building fences. When the cutters gather the newly cut stems, they just throw into the truck, and in the process of the transportation, the rocking along the journey will cause them to lined up properly when they reach their destination.

The rocking of life’s journey  should help us cling closer together – to be joined and linked together- with the church leaders to offer sacrifices and build a formidable and spiritual house

1^st Peter 2:5

5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Ephesian 4:3-6

3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Acts 2:42-47

The Fellowship of the Believers in building the church 

 42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. 

Small cedar are essential to building great churches, which are big in heart, strong in spirit and reaching out to people with roots and foundation. 

Fire Cedar

Fire cedar are for burning. Just like modern day charcoal which are prepared in a meticulous way of curing it so that it achieved the ambient conditions to be efficient for burning and cooking purposes  Cedar wood speak to  us about being on fire for the Lord – and a church on fire with the Holy Spirit will never be defeated. 

Acts 2:3

3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 

Humming Cedar 

Lebanon cedar trees can resonate with the wind to produce a humming sound.  

Colossians 3:16 

16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 

Ephesians 5:19  

19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,  

Acts 16:25-26  

25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.  

In spite of our life tragedies, the loss of love ones, children with down syndrome, children with physical deformation, the onset of chronic sickness such as hole in the heart conditions and in the midst of life ‘s misery- will we have a song to sing to the Lord ?   

Romans 8:18-25  

 18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that^[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

2^nd Corinthians 4:17 

17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.   

Philippians 4:4  

4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  

In the journey of life, may we be like the humming cedar.  

Tall Cedar  

In Psalms 92:12  

12 The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
       they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;  

We need the tall cedar in the church to realize the vision and to form the pillars of the church and its  ministries.   

Going back to history, there are lessons in the life of people to teach us integrity and doing what is right. Al Capone’s talented lawyer –Edgar Joseph O’Hare or “Easy Eddie” or EJ has been able to protect his mafia boss – but he decided to turn himself in and indict his boss on tax fraud charges and was murdered on 8 Nov 1939.  

In the process, he was setting his legacy or rather “correcting”  the direction for his son to do the right thing in life.  

Down the history lane, we learn about his son Edward Henry Butch O’Hare’s act of bravery – diving and penetrating the Japanese  air defence and firing until  his ammunition was finished. He became a hero with Chicago O’Hare Airport named after him – read this: 

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/ohare.asp  

Similarly, we need man of integrity to be pillars of the church.