A Tale of Two Temples part four

See, as the Nations rise against each other "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then the end shall come" MT:24:14. This is saying this Gospel of the kingdom (of love) must be preached and lived out before them as a witness. For those who receive the example we set it will result in their salvation, for those who don't our witness will testify against them. Then the end will come. Remember, the disciples asked Him in verse three, "what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world"?, see whenever Jesus shows up it spells the end of the world, it's worldly ways and religious system, so Jesus answers their query here essentially saying wherever My gospel is preached, I will show up because I accompany My Word with signs and wonders, and When I show up in every nation it will mean the end of Satan's grip on this world.

God will knowingly send you as sheep among wolves, knowing they will hate and devour and kill you, or try to, because He loves them! And He will do it to train you in His ways. The only way you can learn to love even your enemies is to go out and meet them and their hate and animosity and malice. The only way you can learn to respond to the things Jesus experienced is to go through what He went through. Many of us however will avoid confrontation at all cost and simply will not go out into all the world, not even our own highways and byways to confront Satan and his kingdom, sadly enough. Conflict and confrontation aren't things to be avoided but rather embraced.

What happened to the Temple when Jesus departed from it and after the veil was torn and the Father departed? Nothing! It went right on operating, business as usual, as if God was still there. It wasn't till over seventy years later that it was destroyed, in all that time they kept up the charade that everything was business as usual, that God was still there and this is exactly what most churches do today. Whether God is actually there or not, they keep right on going with their rituals and religious traditions. And those in the Temple, supposedly the guardians and safe keepers of all that is Holy and God, decried and denounced Jesus, the very One they claimed to worship and serve in that very Temple! They did this because He left them and would not submit to their religion. He went outside the boundaries they had set for Him with their religious traditions. Therefore He must be false and a usurper because he (God) wouldn't submit to them. You (anyone not with them) can't be of God because He dwells here, in this Temple, in our Church, fellowship or denomination, with us. We have Him and no one else. All denominations fall into this same prideful attitude and if they're not careful, non-denominational fellowships can too. Even house churches can be lifted up in pride. Long after God departs they stay where He was and refuse to follow Him and abandon what they have made with their own hands and hearts, doctrines they have concocted with their intellects or traditions they have followed not of His Spirit but of their flesh.

This conflict between those espousing the Temple made with hands (religious Christianity) and the true Temple that is God made (not man made), made without hands, continues to this day and it was clearly on the Holy Spirit's agenda as He birthed and nourished the infant church. The religious crowd used it as an indictment against Jesus - to them it posed the ultimate threat to their house built on sand. Mark 14:58 - "We heard Him say I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and within three days I will build another made without hands". I have no doubt Jesus spoke this and I long to see this scripture come to pass. If a day is as a thousand years to the Lord, then we are in the third day since this was spoken by Jesus, we are in the third millennium, so sometime soon the "Temple made without hands" will be completed and the glorious New Jerusalem will come bursting out of the sky and we'll all rise up at His bidding, and meet Him there, in the air, where we'll be wed to Him forever for the New Jerusalem is us, His Bride! Hallelujah!

to be continued.....