The Lord's House Part 2

 

Greetings in the name of Jesus! This is Rob Haymes. This program is called 15 Minutes With Jesus. Today we will talk about The Lord's House. This will be the second program on the Lord's House. The House of God is the place where He meets with us. In the Old testament, with Moses, He was very particular about the Tabernacle and the service; the way it should be performed and how everything should be set up. Exo 25:9, According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it. Exodus 29:42-46, This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet you to speak with you. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests. I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. When He was satisfied that everything was right, according to His instructions and conditions, then He would come and visit with the people, and His presence and His power would be manifested. And this was in the time of the shadow of things to come under the Old Covenant. How much more important is it now that everything be in order and pleasing to Him according to His will in the House that He is building for His habitation with us through the sacrifice of His own Beloved Son who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood that we might enter into fellowship with Him and eternal glory.

During the time of King David he had sinned by numbering the children of Israel and the angel of God was sent to destroy the people. The Lord had sent a plague and seventy thousand men of Israel had already fallen. David and the elders fell on their faces and cried out to God. Let's go to 1Ch 21:18, Therefore, the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Verses 26-30, And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD; and He answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offering. So the LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath. At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. For the tabernacle of the LORD and the altar of the burnt offering, which Moses had made in the wilderness, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD. 1 Ch 22:1-5, Then David said, "This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel." So David commanded to gather the aliens who were in the land of Israel; and he appointed masons to cut hewn stones to build the house of God. And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails of the doors of the gates and for the joints, and bronze in abundance beyond measure, and cedar trees in abundance; for the Sidonians and those from Tyre brought much cedar wood to David. Now David said, "Solomon my son is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the LORD must be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries. I will now make preparation for it." So David made abundant preparations before his death. The threshing floor of Ornan is the same location on mount Moriah where Abraham offered up his son Issac and Abraham told Issac when He asked him, Father, where is the lamb for the burnt offering? My son, God will provide Himself a Lamb... It is the location also where Solomon built the first Temple at the direction and provision of his father David. 2Ch 5:1-14, So all the work that Solomon had done for the house of the LORD was finished; and Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated: the silver and the gold and all the furnishings. And he put them in the treasuries of the house of God. Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel, in Jerusalem, that they might bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD up from the City of David, which is Zion. Therefore all the men of Israel assembled with the king at the feast, which was in the seventh month. So all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. Then they brought up the ark, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up. Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude. Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. The poles extended so that the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen from the holy place, in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day. Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they had come out of Egypt. And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without keeping to their divisions), and the Levites who were the singers, all those of Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, stood at the east end of the altar, clothed in white linen, having cymbals, stringed instruments and harps, and with them one hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets- indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying: "For He is good, For His mercy endures forever," that the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God. Then Solomon fell on his knees and prayed a prayer to the Lord, and in 2 Ch 6:26-33 he said, "When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance. "When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows his own burden and his own grief, and spreads out his hands to this temple: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men), that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You gave to our fathers. "Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, when they come and pray in this temple; then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name. 2Ch 7:1-3 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD's house. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying: "For He is good, For His mercy endures forever." Verses 11-20, Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king's house; and Solomon successfully accomplished all that came into his heart to make in the house of the LORD and in his own house. Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 2 Ch 7:13, When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 2 Ch 7:14, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.' 2Ch 7:19&20, "But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

God has sent a plague over all the earth in these days and we are in the midst of an extremely corrupt election here in the United States where we are at risk of loosing our nation as we have known it, as it was established by our fore fathers. It is up to us in the Church of Jesus Christ, the House of God, to humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways and pray and seek the face of Almighty God, that He might hear from heaven and turn from the judgement which He will surely bring upon us if we refuse and harden our necks and will not repent.

In the Book of Nehemiah we read of how God appointed Nehemiah and gave him favor and provision with the King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem and help the children of Israel who had returned there from the Babylonian captivity and restore and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He did so with much opposition from Tobiah the Ammonite and Sanballat the Horonite, and Geshem the Arab, and others:
Neh 13:4-14, Now before this, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah. And he had prepared for him a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests. But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Then after certain days I obtained leave from the king, and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense. I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. So I contended with the rulers, and said, "Why is the house of God forsaken?" And I gathered them together and set them in their place. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse. And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah; and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services!
We see here that Tobiah continued to resist the restoration of God's House and the service of His worship by seducing God's servants and moving into the House of God to defile it and cut off the provision for the ministry of the priests and the Levites and the singers, and they had left the service of God to go back to their fields. We saw earlier how he and Sanballat and others had tried to put Nehemiah and the children of Israel in fear to weaken them and keep them from completing the work. The same thing has been going on for years now in the Church of Jesus Christ. Many men walking in witchcraft, intimidating the people of God and seducing them into idolatry and fornication, and the House of God is defiled. True worship and true fellowship is cut off in many cases. You cannot come before the Great and Holy God with sin and uncleanness in your life and worship Him who gave His beloved Son to die for you and cleanse you of that sin that separates you from Him in His own shed blood unless you repent and truly turn from all of it and be washed and be cleansed. The House of God must be cleansed!

2 Cor 6:14-18, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an infidel? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. 2 Cor 7:1, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Again, we are the temple of the Living God, and we must cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And when we do so, God will inhabit His Temple. He will come. We will experience His presence and His Glory.

1 John 1:1-10, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life- the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us- that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said, I exercise myself daily to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man. We should have such a burning desire to fellowship in the Spirit of our God, with Him, that we would not allow anything to defile us or to defile His House; where we meet with Him. We should want Him to be happy and pleased to come and meet with us because we love Him and we want to be in His presence, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. The House of God is in neglect. It is broken down and defiled. It is in great need of repair and cleansing, and to be furnished in such a way as is pleasing to our God. The Lord recently spoke to us and told us that He is disgusted with the things He sees in His House. John 2: 13-17, Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE HAS EATEN ME UP." We need to be zealous for the House of God; that it be cleansed, that it be purified, that it may be a place where God is welcome to come and fellowship with us, and us with Him.

God is going to have a holy people, millions of them, that He has cleansed in the Blood of His Son Jesus Christ, that will live with Him forever in His glorious Kingdom. He has prepared for them a city; New Jerusalem, where they will live with Him and with His Son Jesus, the precious Lamb of God, in the light of their Glory, and they shall see His face, and He will wipe away all sorrow from their hearts; all tears from their eyes, and they will rejoice forever together with Him. Rev 21:22&23 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. We are the Temple of the Living God. We are His House; not a building, not a ministry, not a denomination, we are His House. Therefore we must cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit that we may offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. His House is Holy. It is a Holy Sanctuary where we His people meet with Him.

Thankyou Lord. We just give you thanks Lord. Praise you, bless your Holy Name! Thankyou Father, you are Holy, and your Temple must be holy. Your Temple is Holy. It is the place of fellowship for God and His people. Thankyou Lord, thankyou Lord, Hallelujah! Thankyou Lord! Blessing, Glory, honor, majesty, power, might, and dominion be unto our God! Hallelujah! Both now and forevermore, for you alone are Holy, you alone are worthy of all Glory, honor, praise, dominion, majesty and power! Blessed be the Holy Name of the Lord, both now and forever, Amen!