Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Transcript
we'll get goinguh it's mentioned in the uh
little descriptor i gave uh steve
the the theme of this class comes from second corinthians six paul wrote do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers in what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship is light with darkness
what accord is christ with belial or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever what agreement has the temple of god with idols
we are the temple of the living god as god said i will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and i will be their god and they shall be my people
so you know paul uh lays out this analogy for us that we should be viewing ourselves as
the temple of god a dwelling place for god almighty a place for him to dwell and walk among us
he also
um in first corinthians 6
comes back to the same analogy he says flee from sexual immorality
every other sin the person commits is outside the body but the sexual immoral person sins against his own body but you do not know
your body is a temple of the holy spirit within you whom you have from god you are not your own for you are bought with a price but glorify god in your body
it's funny today people have uh you know taken this idea that my body is a temple and they've applied it to all kinds of
uh different ideas about health and fitness and diet and
you know trying to make their body as physically pure as possible but it kind of misses the point obviously
paul was talking about the spiritual cleansing of your temple that
this is not just like the temple itself we're going to look at wasn't
wasn't your living room it wasn't a place to get comfortable and throw your feet up and uh still chips and salsa watching football it was a wholly dedicated place and that's that's what paul is directing us to
see ourselves as a holy dedicated place
for god
so uh what was the temple
in in paul's day obviously there was literally a temple
uh in jerusalem that would be in existence for another uh 10 or 15 years
um it was a magnificent evidence edifice
um doing a little brief uh
history on it it was started
excuse me
we'll go back to solomon's day about a thousand years before christ saul and built the temple and we're going to look at that a little bit too
uh and it was in existence till about 600
bc when the babylonians came and destroyed it it was rebuilt by ezra nehemiah
existed for a number of years and then herod
the king of judea and christ today was decided to rebuild it he actually literally tore down
nehemiah's temple and built something that looked similar to this in its place
the walls especially on the the south and west side i think i was reading that it was 30
meters tall 120 feet to the um
top of the top of the wall from the valley floor
the
massive plaza that you see inside the temple
one of the the guys i was listening to must have been british because he said it was about 30 soccer pitches
in size um
some of the information i was reading about it just uh you could put hundreds of thousands and some estimates up i think it was 300
000 people inside of this
worship and feast days it was a massive
massive construction
but when you think about it
um
this temple it's
often when we talk about the house of god or god's temple i don't know if you can see my cursor but
what i usually think about is the building in the middle the holy and most holy place
and you know that's that is the focus of the whole thing
so when you think about ourselves as being the temple of god
you uh
and what i'm gonna say is
i'm drawing an analogy from from what we know about the temple and it's i'm not going to be dogmatic about this i don't think it can be and i
don't mean to uh
when i say this
i'm going to bring up some questions in in your minds about how i how i but apply what i'm about to say but i'm not trying to be very specific i'm just talking in general terms
uh when you look at this house
the whole focus
was on this building in the center
and as a kid that used to kind of trouble me because
you get a chance to see uh large cathedrals like i i got a chance when i was a teenager to see notre dame in paris and um some other things this is a very small building it's beautiful and ornate but it's very small
but when you think about ourselves
as uh
reflections of this building
right you have this this
large edifice
um this large place for the congregating of people
and what you have out here to go to the left and right of the main building
is what they call the cord of the gentile
then you're looking at the temple from the east facing towards the west and as you going through these front doors of the
temple complex
you enter the uh
you leave the court of the gentiles and you enter into the court of the women and the court of the israelites and then you proceed further into the temple and you go into the holy place
and then the most holy place
so you have this this
graduation of of
acceptable people
uh within each precinct right and
the lesson one of the lessons i'd like to take away from tonight is
at its core at its center was the the most holy place the holy of holies
the the place of the presence of god
and you know who was allowed
in that spot
that in that if we think about ourselves in our core being the the innermost part of ourselves
there really should be room for
no one but god himself and his high priest jesus christ
the high priest was the only person allowed into that sanctuary and once a year so you you have
at its core
um
only space or should only be space for god almighty and his son
and then you move outside from that
and then you go into the holy place and it is full of priests
uh a peculiar set of levites like not any levite could be a priest it was a certain set of priests
and they what was their job
it was to minister to the temple
so when if you think about ourselves
as a temple of god
then you have room for for god almighty and his son jesus christ at your core
and then there are those who spiritually minister to the temple
are the people that you allow in
the closest next to that
and then outside of that
there's the precinct of the the court of the priests
where they were performed the sacrifices and the
washings from the ceremonies and beyond that was the court of the israelites
and the women then the gentiles
so one of the things that it occurred to me as i you know prepared for this class was that there was room
for the gentiles
within the temple precinct in fact the court of the gentiles
was a the vastly uh
largest area
and and in our own lives
you know we're apt to be bumping shoulders and running into a lot more gentiles than than priests and fellow israelites
in our own spiritual journey
now
i'm not saying that
we should
associate with friends without regard to who they are and their their focus in life and what they think is important we want to definitely uh
like the temple itself focus our attention to the holy of holies
and keep that very protected
and and slowly as we go out create space for other people and knowing that
the gentiles
by and large in this temple precinct
were people who had an interest in learning about this hebrew god
we're fascinated with his
glory and honor and if nothing else his tourists wanted to see what this was all about that the jews were so involved in
it is interesting to point and again i don't know if you've been sharing you can see my cursor but just outside of the
the courtyard of the israelites there's this little barrier
that wraps around it on that barrier there were signs that said any gentiles found beyond this point
put to death that was it was not a joke but there was a place in the house of god
for the gentiles and and so when isaiah wrote the foreigners who joined themselves to the lord to minister to him to love the name of the lord and to be his servant everyone who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it holds fast my covenant these i will bring to my holy mountain make them joyful in my house of prayer their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people
it's really a
a beautiful promise of you know something i don't think we've ever seen completely filled
we will when our master returns but in our own lives as we look at ourselves there has to be room for and looking for these people
who would go to god's holy mountain who would seek him out and love his name
and service and minister to him as we do
so uh
what piqued my interest in this this
subject though was
what paul was saying about ourselves being a temple of god and he says what agreement has the temple of god with idols
we are the temple living of god as god says i will make my drawing among them and walk among them
and as we're going to look at
this actually occurred and it happened frequently that not only did the israelites
bring idolatry into their lives
but they've brought it literally into the temple service
this is a
rendering of of israelites at the gate of the temple
worshiping at an idol of ishtar or ashtara
which we're going to see
happen
before we get to that though we want to talk about how the temple started
right when solomon built it
uh it says in first kings eight and one and
really if if i
hatch together two passages here these chronicles have something else i wanted to mention but these two are very similar passages then solomon assembled the others of israel and all the heads of the tribes
the leaders of the fathers of the houses of people of israel before king solomon in jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the lord out of the city
zion also king solomon and all the congregation of israel that were assembled unto him before the ark sacrificed sheep in austin which could not be told nor numbered from multitudes and the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the lord unto its place
the oracle of the house into the most holy place even under the wings of the cherubim
the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark and the cherubims covered the ark and the stays thereof and they drew out the staves of the ark that the end of the slaves were seen from the ark before the oracle but they were not seen without and there it is and to this day
i want to uh
just kind of
posit this thought
two things one is
what a magnificent day this was when when the jerusalem
temple itself is just packed with people celebrating the dedication of this house right and
here is this passage we see what makes this different from the tabernacle
verse 9 they drew out the staves of the ark
the ark was made to be transported it was made to be carried around
that the tabernacle was not fixed but
when they dedicated that temple
they pulled out the staves from the ark and god's mercy came to a rest and and had a home a permanent place
and you know clearly that's what we should be a permanent place
uh forever dedicated to the presence of god in our lives
deep in the the deepest part of our being
just like the the most holy
in the temple
and i'm sure there's a wonderful spiritual lesson about the cherubims spreading their wings over that place and the the shadow of their wings covering over the ark in the states but uh
that's for another time i guess
so the same uh dedication solomon says
the lord has said he would dwell in thick darkness but i have built a house of habitation to thee in a place where you're dwelling and the king turned his face and blessed the whole congregation of israel and all the congregation of israel stood
and he said but will god indeed dwell with man on earth
both heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you how much lifts this house that i built you have regard to the prayer of your servant and who is plea oh lord
listening to the cry in a prayer that your servant prays before you that your eyes may be opened day and night towards this house
place where you have promised to set your name that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers towards this place and listen to the pleas of your servant and your people israel when they pray towards this place and listen from heaven from your dwelling place when you hear
forgive so you have when you consider this as analogous to
ourselves our body being a temple of god
uh how unworthy are we that we should
call ourselves a house of god a dwelling place for him if he can't be if the heavens can't contain him and solomon's magnificent temple was
insufficient to contain him
yet
god has promised like he promised solomon that he would dwell with his people and he would be in that house
he has promised that to us and then so that we get this opportunity with almighty god to say well
put your a's eyes day and night on on this temple
and listen to the prayer of your servant
for this place and you can think of this in the singular as ourselves and you can think of this as in the plurality of the brotherhood
that you know when we come together to pray
god says he will listen you will hear
he will forgive
it's really a beautiful and touching
uh analogy that that paul gives us and then at the end of solomon's dedication that as soon as solomon finished his prayer fire came down from heaven and consumed the burned offering
and the sacrifices and the glory of the lord filled the temple the priest could not enter the house of the lord because of the glory of the lord fill the lord's house
i don't know if if
you guys have all dealt with them i know when i was baptized i i can liken that day to this
when you felt so
unworthy
and yet so filled by the presence and glory of god
um
we dedicate ourselves completely to his service this is the kind of
reaction on his part we can expect
he will fill this house this dwelling place with his glory
he did then
so if you look at the history of this temple
you have examples like in second kings
where jehovah sets the priests
all the money and the holy things
that is brought into the house of the lord the money for which each man is assessed the money from the assessment of persons the money that a man's heart prompted him to bring into the house of the lord let the priests take each room his donor and let them repair the house
wherever any need of repairs was discovered
but by the 23rd year of king johash the priest has made no repairs on the house
god's house requires
repair it reply requires a constant maintenance and you can see in jehovah ash's day
that that had not been taken care of and we can ourselves
fall away from the daily maintenance
and let our temple fall into disrepair
you know i'm sure
the idea isn't for me to tell you all the ways that uh
you can let your temple fall into disrepair
uh it's
more for for you to kind of think about ways maybe that your own temple i mean i know
i know mine is lapsed that time and and you know then you need to make a great effort like they did in johash's day
to uh
pick up the pieces and get started and put it back together
so you have that example
then
even worse
you have manasseh is 12 years old when he began to reign this is second kings 21 and he reigned 55 years in jerusalem and his mother's name was
jesus was evil in the sight of the lord
and i won't read all of this
um
you can read it as i talk maybe there's some awful stuff in here uh
verse seven like carved image of asherah that he made he set in the house of which the lord said to david and solomon his son in this house and in jerusalem which i have chosen out of all the tribes of israel i will put my name forever so here you have the first uh
at least the first i'm aware of the kings of judah actually bringing idols into the temple
and
that is a metaphor for
all of us to consider you know do we bring
our idols into our temple
when you get to the
final days of
judah's commonwealth
prophet ezekiel if you remember he was in babylon
he was
already a an exile
living there and he was taken in a vision
back to jerusalem
and when he arrived he's shown these things ezekiel 8 and 5.
son of man lift up your eyes now towards the north so i lifted up my eyes towards the north and behold the north of the altar gate in the entrance was the image of jealousy he said to me son of man do you see what they are doing
great abominations of the house of israel are committing here to drive me from my sanctuary but you will still see greater abomination
so he goes further and he's told to dig into the wall
and when once he's made a hole he's told to go in and look
so i went and saw and they're engraved on the wall all around with every form of creeping thing and loads of beeps and all the idols of the house of israel and before them stood at seventy men of the elders of the house of israel
jayaz and i are the son of shay fans standing among them each had a sensor in his hand and the smoke the cloud of infants went up
he said to me son of man have you seen what the elders of the house of israel are doing in the dark teaching his room of pictures
they say the lord does not see us the lord is forsaken the land so this is in the temple complex
that ezekiel is seeing this
these people have like apparently apartments if you read later on in ezra nehemiah i think it's sam ballet actually had
built his own apartment in the courtyard of the temple
and in these these these private apartments as it were these people are in the dark in the room of pictures it reminds me very much of uh
you know
i don't think this is what ezekiel had in mind but it makes me think of sitting in a
darkened living room with a tv on a
room of pictures flashing on the wall and you know what is it that we're
putting into our temple
the
lesson we have there
so after that he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the lord and behold there sat women weeping for to move
he said to me have you seen this oh son of man you will still see greater abominations than these um tomus is the the god um from babylon who's pictured on the right and this
at least that's what google images said i'm assuming that's actually him uh he was the consort of ishtar
who you see her image on the left
uh
they were
like they were a pair
and they were like a fertility kind of cult she was the goddess of love
and uh he was her consort he actually
according to babylonian mythology went into the the underworld to rescue her from her evil sister the queen of the underworld
and the price to get her out of
the underworld was that he had to go into the underworld for six months
um so in the winter they would weep for tamooze because he was dying and the the god of grain and and harvest and all of that uh was disappearing for six months and so they they wept for him which is what that
sorry for the long story but that's what that's all about
uh and then finally uh i won't read all this but ezekiel has shown the the eastern end of the temple which is where the doors were
the inner precinct
and these men were by between the porch and the altar 25 men were their backs to the temple of the lord and their faces toward the east worshiping the sun so you have all this evilness and idolatry this is like the the apex though
where
they're actually in god's holy temple
facing away from it and worshipping something else they're they're at the center of of yahweh worship
worshipping the son with their backs to their god
and uh it doesn't end well for them
so the the conclusion of this vision this whole time there's a presence of cherubim
there and the cherubim was standing on the south side of the house when the man went in cloud filled the inner court and we just read how
the glory of god filled the temple when solomon dedicated it
like the glory of god should fill us when we dedicate ourselves to him because the glory of the lord went up from the cherub
to the threshold of the house
the house was filled with the cloud and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the lord
then you skip on to chapter 10.
since the terrible were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in and the crowd filled the inner court and the glory of the lord went up from the cherubim to the threshold of the house
33 done that sorry
anyway the long and short of it as you get to chapter 11 and verse 22
when the chairman lifted up their wings and the wheels besides him and the glory the god of israel was over them and the glory lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city
so when
we fill our temple
with idols in
faithlessness and
and all of the debauchery that they were engaging in
the glory of the lord departed it left
and and we don't want that to happen in our own lives
we want to maintain that purity of our own temple so that god
will continue to dwell there if you remember back a few verses he talked about the the wickedness they're doing that is driving me from this place
and then when god leaves
it's not long till
total destruction come
and you know it's a theme that we see repeated it it happens
in ezekiel's day and it happens after christ's death in 70 a.d
no the lesson for us here
as we get into the new testament is that
paul says although they knew god they did not honor him as god or gave thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claimed to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal god for images resembling mortal man birds and animals and creeping things therefore god gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves
and here's the key thing
because they exchanged the truth about god for a lie
and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator
that they worship the thing created usually the thing of their own creation
instead of the one who created them and it's a common failure in mankind throughout history it's
as easy to happen to us as it is to as it was to them
that uh
we worship and trust and and put our hope in the things that we create
our 401ks our government our
ability to solve problems our relationships
uh and we turn to those things and not god almighty who created us not his ministers who who he has provided to service in the temple fellow israelites who are
uh guiding us and walking with us on our journey
within our nature to wanna trust in ourselves the things we create
when you get to the temple in christ's day it's interesting the temple was not in disrepair in fact it was still being built
you remember the disciples
taking him on a tour around the temple saying look at all these magnificent buildings right
but and yet the temple was
not a disrepair and it there was no idolatry there were no images
the
revolt that happened in 70 a.d was because the romans were threatening to put an image of the
caesar in
in the temple and that was that kind of kicked that all off
but while there was
no physical idols there was all kinds of idolatry going on
jesus uh matthew 21 and 12 went into the temple of god and cast out all that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the table for money changes from the seats of them the troll dove
said unto them quotes what we read in isaiah earlier my house should be called the house of prayer would you have made it a den of thieves so you know we can
bring idols into our
temple that are not
traditional idols
matthew 23 and 1 jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples the scribes and the pharisees sit in moses's seat so do and observe what they tell you but do not the works that they do for they preach but do not practice they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear they lay them on the people's shoulders but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger
there's all kinds of
rejection of god's
law and the spirit in which it was given
by the the leaders at that time and that's a
something we have to be very careful about causing each other to carry heavy burdens that are hard to bear and laying those burdens on each other's shoulders and not being willing to help move them with our own fingers
so in the end
you know what agreement has the temple of god was idol
jesus the temple is a living god as god said i will make them