1. The seven Temples of God

  1. I am very excited to announce that we are starting with a new series, entitled - The seven Temples of God.

This might interest you that there was and is going to be seven temples in total. Within the next couple of weeks we are going to discuss these seven temples in detail and see what we can learn from them.

First of all, let us start with the interesting facts of where the first and the second Temple were built.

You all know the Biblical event where Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his only son Isaac. He was supposed to offer Isaac on Mt Moriah (Genesis 22:2). God was in fact only testing him, He would never have allowed Abraham to sacrifice his only son. God provided a ram in the nick of time and Abraham could make this offering to Him there on the altar he built to offer his son on.

A second Biblical event of significance is where King David took a census of the size of his army (1 Chronicles 21). It was a sin in God's eyes, as it meant that King David was depending more on the size of his army than on God helping them. God therefore gave King David a choice between three punishments, either three years of famine, three months of being given into the hands of his enemies or three days of punishment from God. King David chose the latter and God started to inflict the people with a plague. The plague only stopped three days later, but unfortunately with 70 000 casualties. When the Lord instructed the angel to restrain his hand, he stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.  Then the Lord commanded Gad to tell David to go and erect an altar to the Lord at this threshing floor of Ornan. So David went immediately and bought the threshing floor from Ornan for 600 shekels of gold. He built the altar and offered burnt and peace offerings to the Lord there. The Lord answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offerings. Then the Lord commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath and returned to heaven.

Now the reason I highlighted these two events is because this is exactly the same place that both these events took place. And also the place where the Temple was built:

"Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite." 2 Chronicles 3:1

Isn't that interesting? It is the same place where the patriarch of the Jewish family, Abraham made an offering and also the place where the Jews' greatest King, David also made an offering to the Lord.

And today we are part of their heritage. We are also children of Abraham in the faith (Galatians 3:7) and we are also descendants of King David, because of Jesus living within us and He was a direct descendant of King David.

What can we learn from them today? Both of them understood their dependency on God. They both knew that He was in charge, and they both followed His voice and offered burnt offerings to Him on an altar. Today we needn't make burnt offerings on altars anymore, because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for us and atoned for our sins. But in a sense we still have things to offer to God at the altar of His grace. We need to offer our future to Him, all our future plans should be placed in His hands. We need to offer of our time, we need to set aside all our ambitions and plans and give honour and glory to God Almighty. We should offer our family to Him as He knows best. We should offer our future to Him and place our lives in His hands. We need to have an eternal Temple perspective as we approach Him, our Holy God. We need to understand our dependence on God as Abraham and King David did. We need to internalize that He is in charge and that He knows best. We need to let go and let God as we learned last week.

Total dependency is what God wants. We will discuss His Temple furthermore in the coming weeks, but know the main aim of the Temple was that God wanted them to come to Him with everything and He wanted to live amongst them to bless them. And today the principle is the same. He wants us to come to Him with everything and allow Him to be God in our lives. Are you ready to give over today?

Father, we give over. We surrender. We want to offer You everything that is important in our lives. We want to offer our future to you and we want to offer our lives into Your wonderful capable hands. You are the God of more than enough, and we trust in You. We walk deliberately in Your footsteps. We love and praise You. Amen

1 comment for “1. The seven Temples of God”

  1. Gravatar of RonelleRonelle
    Posted Thursday, 31 May 2018 at 8:25:57 AM

    Very interesting, thank you Ilze. Abraham and David are also the two people that God made a covenant with, isn't it?

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