Sermon April 24
Two Temples
Text: Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)
Scripture talks about two temples. The first was built with stone and mortar and timber. Solomon’s Temple, and the rebuilt Temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah after the Babylonian captivity are the Temples built with stone and mortar and timber.
The other temple spoken of in Scripture is built with flesh and blood and bone. Here is what the Holy Spirit tells us through St. Paul’s pen: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16
A few chapters later, he warns the Corinthian Christians: “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
We’ll come back to that text in a few minutes, but first we need to all be reminded that God designed both temples to be sacred places, places set apart for worship, a place to meet God, and a place from which worshipers will go out to serve God.
The ‘brick and mortar’ temple was a place of sacrifice. Each day animals and birds were slaughtered to either purify or to atone for the sins of those bringing the sacrifices. The temple was also a place for prayer, as Isaiah tells us: My house shall be called a place of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7). In 1 Chronicles 7, God tells Solomon that He set the Temple apart for Himself.
But despite the purpose God had for the brick and mortar temple, history is replete with examples of how often God’s people distorted and diluted and perverted what God had intended to be holy.
For example, Jeremiah 7 tells how Israel committed their murders, sexual sins, and idolatries during the week, and then came into the Temple to worship God on the Sabbath. Ezekiel records how the priests and elders in the Temple and its environs were actively engaged in blasphemous idolatries, prostrating themselves toward the sun in worship (Ezekiel 8).
Nehemiah tells us that the priestly leadership invited a pagan anti-God idolator to live in one of the apartments in the rebuilt temple. Such an invitation was astonishing, considering that the temple had been rebuilt under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah after the Babylonian exile. God had exiled the whole nation to Babylon BECAUSE of their egregious and continuous murderous idolatries and unspeakable sexual immoralities. And now, once again, in the aftermath of that exile, the religious clergy invited the symbol of sin and rebellion into God's temple.
Nehemiah was righteously furious about the sacrilege. He tossed the pagan out of the apartment, along with his furniture and clothes and everything else that belonged to him. Nehemiah then ritually cleansed the apartment and restored it to its original and holy use for God.
And then of course, the perhaps most well-known story of zeal for God's house is found in the gospels when Jesus overturned the tables and chased the profiteers out of the Temple. John records Jesus to angrily accuse them: “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” (John 2:13-17)
Zeal for God's house.
We could say, “Zeal for God's house” also consumed Nehemiah.
And Christian, listen. Please do not overlook this point: God expected His children – and He expects His children – to have zeal, a passion for the sacredness of His temple.
Now I am not suggesting we toss preachers or priests who preach a perverted and diluted Jesus – I am not suggesting we physically toss them out of God's local church.
But I AM urging this: If you attend such a church or financially support such a church where the pastor is a false teacher, a 21st century Judas who distorts and perverts God's word – then stop attending and supporting that church which no longer has a zeal for God's house.
I believe this warning is appropriate here: If WE do not have a passion for Christ and for His church, then I fear we will slowly, by degrees, lose our love for the God of the Bible and fall in love with a God of our own imagination. And THAT will be disastrous for us.
I said at the beginning of this message that Scripture talks of two temples. We looked very briefly at the one built with stone and mortar and timber. Now let’s look at the other temple spoken of in Scripture. This one is built with flesh and blood and bone.
Here is what the Holy Spirit tells us through St. Paul’s pen: “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
Listen: Does it not make perfect sense that since God-incarnate – also known as God-in-the-flesh – was zealous for the brick and mortar temple, then is it not reasonable to believe that He who created OUR flesh expects US to be zealous for His temple in our flesh?
I wonder if St. Paul had in mind what Nehemiah did with the pagan tenant in the rebuilt temple when Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1
Perfecting holiness – developing holiness in ourselves – in the fear of God. Some translators render the text, “Developing holiness in the reverence of God.” In other words, if we love God, if we really reverence God, and yes, if we really FEAR God, then we must be careful how we live our lives in these temples of flesh and blood and bone.
What it means for you to perfect or to work toward your own holiness might be different than what it will look like for me. But that is not the point. What IS the point is if we have a ZEAL for God's temple in our bodies then we have to rid ourselves of everything than can defile His house.
For example, we must cleanse ourselves of theological defilement. And how do we do that?
Well, first, we will NEVER be able to cleanse ourselves of theological error unless we fully believe in the full inerrancy and infallibility of God's word. If we permit ourselves to dilute God's word because it tells us things we do not want to hear, then we do not really believe God's word is infallible and without error.
I must, under God, remind us that we are in a supernatural battle for our souls. Satan wants to destroy you and me and those we love. And if he can get us to doubt the inerrancy of God's word, then he knows it is only a matter of time before he will take us captive to do his will.
Christian, hear this. Believe this. Live this. God's word is immutable. That means it does not change and will never change with the change of the centuries or the cultures or the technological advancements of the nations.
God's people must have a zeal for the theological integrity of their pastors and teachers. As He warns us through St. Peter: “False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them.” 2 Peter 2:1
And St. Paul warns: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.
What do these servants of Satan teach? I’ve talked about these things many, many times before from this pulpit and in our Bible studies – and I will continue to speak of them and warn of them as long as I have breath.
Very few of the devil’s servants come right out and tell us to deny the full deity and humanity of the Lord Jesus. Very few will tell us to deny the full and infallible inspiration of the Bible.
Instead, Satan’s servants try to move people by degrees away from God. For example, they seduce the biblically illiterate with heretical ideas such as: “A God of love would not condemn anyone for expressing sexual love to another person outside of marriage.” Or, “A God of love would never condemn a person for expressing sexual love to a person of the same sex.” Or, “A God of love would never condemn someone to an eternal lake of fire for rejecting Jesus as the only door to salvation.” Or, “The Bible was written for another time and culture, so why in the 21st-century should anyone live by its ancient prejudices?”
And here is
one of the latest damnable heresies that I’ve recently railed against, and I do
so again because of its insidious evil. I am speaking about a syncretism of
Christianity and Islam called “Chrislam.”
But I will tell you as clearly and as kindly as I can, Islam and Christianity have absolutely nothing in common as it relates to God, to Jesus, and to eternal life. Islam makes no secret about its view of Jesus. To Muslims, Jesus is NOT Jehovah God in the flesh. To them, the idea of the trinity is blasphemy. In their theology, Jesus did not resurrect from the dead.
I could go on and on with the differences between Christianity and Islam, but there is no need. ANYONE who believes in the inerrancy and infallibility of God's word cannot abide with the heretical position that Chrislam takes about Jesus our Lord.
Christian – beware of receiving theological error into your temple in which the Holy Spirit lives. And while we are talking about zeal for our temples of flesh, let me also warn us all to beware of receiving moral error into our temple.
The Holy Spirit tells us again through His word: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Romans 6:12-13)
How do we unwittingly present the members of our body to sin? Most often through what is called the ear gate and the eye gate. It is a well-documented principle that what we hear and see works in our subconscious minds for good or for evil. As Solomon instructs through the Proverb: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” Proverbs 23:7
And so, the Lord Jesus said, “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.” (Matthew 18:9)
Now, I don’t at all think Jesus wants us to literally pluck out our eyes. But I do believe the Lord said what He said to make a critically important point: We must guard against inadvertently inviting sin through our ear and eye gates. The more often we present ourselves to sin, the easier it is for it to alter our minds.
St. Paul picked up the same theme in his letter to the Christians at Rome when he wrote: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
Our eyes and ears cause us to stumble when we willingly permit images and words to take up residence in our minds when they enter through our eye and ear gates. So, what kinds of television or movie images do we allow to enter our minds? What kinds of coarse and profane language do we willingly permit into our ears?
Listen: In this supernatural battle for our souls, we simply do not know how subtle and smooth sin can be, and how easily it can slip into our thoughts. And make no mistake: Satan knows very well how pliable our brains are. He knows how easily a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. And if we are not ALERT to the ear and eye gate dangers we face every day, after a while our minds will be altered, and we no longer will recognize how our moral underpinnings have become warped and weakened.
Many of you remember the children’s song – which is quite applicable to adults: “Oh, be careful little eyes what you see. Oh, be careful little eyes what you see. For the Father up above is looking down in love; Oh, be careful little eyes what you see.”
The next stanza goes: “Oh, be careful little ears what you hear. Oh, be careful little ears what you hear. For the Father up above is looking down in love; Oh, be careful little ears what you hear.”
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Shall we take our bodies, inhabited by God Himself by His spirit, shall we take the members of our bodies and present them to sinful images and ideas and words?
I ought to routinely ask myself – and so ought you – if the Lord Jesus were physically sitting beside me, would I watch this program? Would I listen to what I am listening to? Would I read what I am reading?
St. Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-7)
Oh, may God Almighty give each of us a passion for His 21st century temples – a passion for doctrinal holiness and purity in our churches, and a passion for holiness and purity in our own personal temples, temples wherein the Holy Spirit lives. Amen.
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