The Gospel of Glory Filling the Temple (2)
What does the temple mean as a building? As a building, the temple means nothing at all without our acknowledgement of God’s accompany us and our pleasant obedience to him. Israel, which was extinct by Babylon gives us an idea. Israel had built the temple by Zerubbabel’s directions after their release from Babylonian captivity and after that, they had constructed again Herod’s temple again for a religious purpose. However, Jesus Christ rebuked the Israelites. Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days(John 2:19),” and no one was able to understand his word at that time. As a building, temple is no more than a religious symbol. The symbol truly means that He will regard our spirits as temples through the Cross (1 Corinthians 3:16). Even in Revelation chapter 21, the scripture prophecies that the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb of God themselves will be a temple. Hallelujah!
The most miserable thing to a person’s life is that the presence of God’s word takes no place in his/her life. Among the Israelites, Eli was one of the miserable people. He was a high priest by bloodline, he barely dealt with his duty at the tabernacle but he had never experienced God’s words and ideals as his generation corrupted. Nowadays, it is still one of the most terrifying curses to us. God had endured incomprehensibly for a long period of time to the impiety of Eli’s two sons: who were bloodline believers.
Eli’s two sons had only the notion of God. Without believing God, Eli’s two sons used God as an amulet in an urgent situation of war. After all, both of two sons are killed at the war. The father, Eli is also dead of a broken neck when he heard the ark was captured by the Philistines. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law also died during delivery with crying out and named her son, ‘Ichabod’ that means ‘The glory of God departed from Israel.’
These were the results of absence of God’s words. Saul, the first king of Israel, faced a miserable death. He was nervous before the Philistine army. Despite he was inquiring God’s name as are religious comfort, the Lord gave no answer to Saul in any way, such as dreams or Urim(1 Samuel 28:6). Even before his miserable death of flesh, Saul was already under the curse of spirit with not being able to listen to God’s words. So it that sense, it is so grateful to God that he disciplines in our everyday lives of faith.
The Pain of Spiritual Famine
In the Bible, we can find witnesses who suffered from God’s silence(Psalms 22). The Bible tells us that a spiritual famine, which cannot listen to God’s words, is much more awful than a food famine(Amos 8:11). There will be even a generation will be coming which people hear, but never comprehend. Like Judas Iscariot had never repented before the Lord, even after his feet washed by Jesus, which includes he was treated him like a very important person and given a piece of bread.
Just like spiritual leprosy, the entire spiritual nerves die, comes little by little nota one shot. If we surrender ourselves to the flesh little by little, our selves finally become too much stubborn and unable to repent at the end. We would not be able to repent even after seeing obvious evidence such as a miraculous sign. A rich man in Luke chapter 16 begged Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers so that they may be warned and not to come to the hell. However, Abraham said, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” This is God’s apparent warning which says that if a person does not receive the grace of the Lord’s words, he/she cannot receive grace by anything. People in flesh, of course, they are not able to realize the grace of God’s words. This is the reason why the most terrible curse to human being is not being able to hear God’s words, and in contrast, the most wonderful mercy is the fact that God speaks to us. It is truly the blessing of blessings that we have the Bible, which is the words of God, cannot be altered by anything in the world. (From a sermon on June, 2016, To be continued.)
Missionary Yong-Ui Kim (the president of LOG Mission)
