{"id":617,"date":"2013-06-12T12:22:08","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T18:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/?p=617"},"modified":"2013-06-12T12:22:08","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T18:22:08","slug":"temple-not-destroyed-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/12\/temple-not-destroyed-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Temple Not Destroyed Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. (Haggai 1:9<\/a>\u201310, ESV)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the side effects of claiming that \u201cthe old Mosaic economy of sacred priests, sacred buildings, sacred rituals, and sacred objects has been forever destroyed by the cross of Jesus Christ\u201d (as Frank Viola says in the book pagan Christianity<\/span>) is that we ignore His house while \u201ceach of us busies himself with his own house.\u201d We should be embarrassed that we have no Temple. We make money offerings at huge stadiums built for stupid sporting events having some slight benefit for the body but nothing for the soul. Mega-churches haul in millions of dollars and spend them on campuses and monuments to pride like huge meeting halls or TV ministries. Comfortable theater seating for thousands and huge TV\u2019s for seeing the star or pastor are used for preaching a false gospel of freedom in Christ which then gives license to ignore God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

God\u2019s house in the meantime is dust. We hide behind the claim of not knowing where to build, but we put no resources into finding the site. Many churches are \u201cdivesting\u201d themselves of investment in Israel when we should be putting everything we\u2019ve got there. Some cheesy pagan temple for a hateful and unjust moon god stops us in our tracks from tearing the unclean thing down and building God\u2019s house. A temple will be built once again (according to Ezekiel) but shame on us that we put more effort into our own comfortable houses and none into His. Shame on us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There were times when the Temple fell out of use. Other times it didn\u2019t get a lot of respect, and was defiled by idols and idol worship. After a long while of this kind of treatment God\u2019s glory finally departed according to Ezekiel. Yet standing or not, filled with idols or neglected God has never stopped trying to get people into His \u201chouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Temple is a picture of the heart of a nation as well as the heart of an individual. As the heart of the nation it reminds us of lost intimacy with Him and how quickly we forget or take for granted all that He is and has. Though the copy was destroyed the picture still stands as an example of heartless lip service and false belief that the mere presence of an object grants protection from lawlessness. As the heart of the individual the copy of God\u2019s abode shows us the glorious possibilities if we embrace His presence and take Him into our hearts as we did (somewhat briefly) with the freshly completed building built by Solomon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the book Whole Bible Christianity<\/span> chapter 5<\/a> What About the Temple?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,145,96],"tags":[525,524,527,530,526,529,528,716],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-temple","category-whole-bible-christianity-book","tag-heart","tag-house","tag-liturgy","tag-mega-church","tag-ritual","tag-sports-2","tag-stadium","tag-temple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wholebible.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}