The Temple

Wayne Matthews

September 23, 2023

Welcome, brethren, to this Sabbath day.

God has revealed much with regard to the building of a spiritual temple. The truth is, once a person has been called to see spiritual matters they then can start to learn much from the building of the physical temple, which is in the Old Testament, which I think is in 1 Kings.

We can learn from what is written in the Bible because we can see things now on a spiritual level, whereas a lot of people look at it as just a story. You know, the building of the temple, yes, they did this and did that. But there is so much in that building of the physical temple that God has revealed to His Church it’s actually about the building of a spiritual temple.

We can only see spiritual things once God’s holy spirit is in us and dwelling in us. That’s why we talk about things on a spiritual level. But the world thinks that we’re insane because they’re still looking at the physical things because they can’t see the spiritual, can’t understand it.

Now, God has been working on building a spiritual temple, which we are involved in. Now, that’s a staggering thing when you look at it. God is building a spiritual temple which we are. If we have God’s holy spirit living and dwelling in us we have a work to do. So, God is working, Christ is working, and the question really boils down to are we. Because the problem is not going to be God or Christ, the problem is going to be us. We’re not working in building this spiritual temple.

So, God is going to have a spiritual temple that is complete. We are God’s work in progress, which is staggering. The world isn’t at the moment. They’re not involved in it. But we are.

If you’d like to turn to John 5:16. We’re cutting into the story flow here a little bit. This is when Christ had been healing on the Sabbath and the Jews then saw it as work. The works of God, and yet they saw it as physical work.

John 5:16—For this reason, this healing that Christ had done, and they saw as work, the Jews persecuted, and that word really is “pursued.” …they pursued Joshua and sought to kill him. Isn’t that staggering? They were looking at everything on a physical level. Here we have Christ healing, which is the power of God at work, on a Sabbath day. The Jewish people saw, the ones there, mainly the leaders, of course, saw it as work. “You’re working on the Sabbath, and that justifies killing you.” That’s staggering really when you think about the spirit of the law. What a staggering thing that people would think like that. But that’s the carnal mind, it’s going against what is wanted or desired by the human mind.

…they sought to kill him because they, which is justified their thinking, he had done these things on the Sabbath. So it was a major problem to them that Christ was actually working as far as they were concerned, and they looked at it physically. But the reality was that it was spiritual works that were taking place.

But Joshua answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I have been working. So, what’s that really all about? Well, what is God working at? God is actually working today and that working is bringing many sons to glory. We have the potential to be one of those, about God bringing many sons to glory.

But to do that God has to work. He calls a person and then He works with them. He reveals spiritual things to them and then they have to work. Because things are shown to the mind and then we have to say, “Ah, what are we going to choose at this point? What are we going to do?

So, God is working, Christ is working – he revealed more of what God’s desire, the plan of God was, and Christ is the head of the Church, now is working. He’s working in developing God’s Family, of which we’ve been called to be part of.

The creation of Elohim is a work. It’s a work that God is doing in mankind in a time order. Which is an amazing thing. Mankind doesn’t know it, we understand it.

God is building a spiritual temple. So, when we look at a physical one (we’re going to look at little aspects of it or talk about it at least), we’ll see how a temple was built. David desired to do it and Solomon built it. But there was a lot of components to do with that temple, but it all points to something spiritual, what God desires. God desires a family, which is a spiritual temple, of which we are. We are part of that, or we can be part of that.

God has revealed to His Church the truth about what has happened to His called-out ones, the Church of God.

The title of this sermon is The Temple.

We’re going to look at Truth #26. We’re going to go over a few truths because they are very powerful when we understand this very truth about the temple.

26 (5) The stones of the temple are about the people in the Church of God at the end-time.

Amazing! Now, if we went out there and said to people, “Well, we’re stones of the temple,” people would just think you’re absolutely crazy. But we are and it’s God’s work that He is doing. So, we are part of that.

The discussion between Christ and the disciples in Matthew 24 is about the end-time. Christ stated that the stones of the temple would be cast down before he returned.

Now, some of us are witness of that. We are evidence of that. I’m one of them. I know there are others here that are part of that. We’re actually stones of the temple completely cast down and no longer having God’s spirit actively dwelling in them. We have evidence of us. Many of us only hear that component of it but it actually did happen.

This happened immediately after the Apostasy at the time of the scattering of God's Church—the spiritual temple of God.

So, we now are part of that temple. As you know, a physical temple would be built on a time structure. It depends what goes down first. We know there has to be a foundation. When you’re building a house the first thing is you measure out the temple, what it’s going to be, or you measure out the house and you will dig where and put where the foundations are going to go. The first thing that is laid is the foundations.

Well, God has a blueprint, has a plan, and it’s exactly the same. The first thing that has to go down is going to be the foundation. The stones of the temple will then go on that foundation. It’s an amazing thing. We are part of that building of God.

Truth #25. Truth #25 is about the Apostasy.

25 (4) The Abomination of Desolation is about what Joseph Tkach did in the Church. This “abomination of desolation” began within the Church as a result of the sermon he gave in Atlanta on December 17, 1994…

Which is almost thirty years ago. It’s twenty-nine, I think it is now, no? We’re heading for that in December. Twenty-nine years ago. That’s when that apostasy, that sermon was given, and then from that members of the Body then had to make decisions about what to do. As we understand a third completely left, another third decided to go with the change, and another third was scattered abroad into many organizations.

…where [this is Tkach] he changed the laws of God.

Now, when you stop and think about that, that is quite arrogant. It is quite arrogant.

On the radio the other day I was listening to somebody there and it happened to be somebody that was a vegan. Personal choice to be a vegan, and was talking about the dairy industry, which we understand is a cruel industry. The dairy industry is cruel. But there was someone else there which had a little bit more logic about it and said, “Well, it could be right. It could be all right. You could still take the milk from the cow and still have the baby.”

Because as you understand, I don’t know whether you know, but the calf is born and the calf is virtually taken away the next day so that the cow continues to produce milk and it’s milked. But you could have both. You could have enough milk for families, and you still could have the baby calf there with the mother until it was weaned off. But that’s not what happens in the dairy industry.

He’d come up with something logical and then she came up with something about, well, she wouldn’t drink milk, you know. You could drink, I think they called it oats milk, soy milk. Of course, soy is not milk, and oats are not milk. That’s just a name they’ve stolen to make it commercially acceptable community. None of those things are milk. Milk comes from an animal.

So, you listen to these discussions, and you realize how twisted people really are about these things and they’re changing what God made. God made cows for the benefit of mankind so mankind could have milk. Meat. They wouldn’t eat meat. And you know, the cows are all polluting because they have an excreting in the paddock, and of course, all the cows should be killed because the ozone layer. And you think, we are, mankind is just going absolutely crazy.

Well, here the arrogance of somebody, really, to change God’s law, you know, in the Church of God? To override God, to make a ruling and override God on basic truths like a Sabbath and Holy Days, it’s absolutely staggering stuff.

I do remember that they came up with a slogan. Which, everything can be very tricky, and we need to be careful in our life when we’re listening to the world. And one of them was that you no longer had to tithe, and therefore everyone rejoiced, “I’m not going to have to tithe!” Well, then, of course, money ran out very quickly and they said, “No, no… If you love God you’d tithe, but tithing is done away.” You can see how confusing it can be to the carnal mind. Because that’s a lot of what was wrong, the carnal mind kicked in. That if you loved God you’d tithe, but tithing is done away. It’s double-speak. It’s forked tongue stuff. It’s insane.

Well, that’s what’s going on in the world. Insanity is going on in the world and there is double talk about a lot of things and a lot of pictures you see and a lot of things we read today that are not real. With artificial intelligence latest one was they brought up something on Twitter where they showed you a picture of a girl, and this was one of the influencers. She was now the influencer on this particular thing. Then they announce it’s artificial intelligence. This person is not real. Doesn’t exist. It’s what the human eye would like a woman to look like. And so people then of course were donating money to the influencer. But it’s not real. It doesn’t exist. It’s just a computer program.

You realize we are heading down paths where we don’t know what’s real. You see a photo of things that maybe something has been destroyed. Has it? How do you know that it’s been destroyed? Just because somebody writes it or there’s a photo of it, how do you know the photo hasn’t been doctored?

So, we’re in that world now. Utter confusion. That’s why we need to stick to the trunk of the tree. Because there’s going to be a lot of untruths, a lot of things that look real that aren’t real, because that’s the world we’re in. Satan is at work.

So, here we see the laws of God being changed. Well, that’s why we need to hang on to the trunk of the tree. That’s our calling. As we get deeper into this where people become more and more insane and the natural carnal mind and the more twisted things get, we have to go back to the truth. That’s our life, hanging on to the trunk of the tree.

Continuing on in Truth #25.

This initiated the Apostasy, which was an attempt to defile and destroy the very “temple of God,” which is God’s Church.

Which we are. Satan has tried to destroy it, and it was allowed for a reason. The Apostasy was allowed for a reason so that we now come out of that other side of that, some came through it—very blessed to have done that, been able to—but others have been called since. So, we now are part of the Temple of God, have that potential. Maybe not to be the first stone that’s going to be delivered, 144,000, but others that will be added to the building of the Temple, a spiritual house.

This became the prophesied event spoken of by Daniel of the “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.”

The building of the physical temple points us to what God is building, a spiritual temple. Now, if we could keep that in the forefront of our minds. Because it is difficult often because of the world, that we’ll get drawn away by physical things, but if we could always remember every day, every minute of our waking life that God is working in us, building something that is futuristic, which we’ve been called to be part of. It is absolutely staggering and there are few that know that and believe that today. Very few out of the millions or billions of people that exist.

The truth is that we are to be fully involved with the building of the spiritual temple. Because if we’re not involved in the building of it, which means we’re not fighting self, we’re not overcoming self, we’re letting other physical things come into our life and take over from the greatest work that could ever be and will ever be, the building of Elohim, a spiritual Family, a temple.

Now, we are that temple at the moment because God can dwell in us. But if God is not dwelling in us we are not part of the Temple; we’re not going to be part of the Temple because we haven’t been called to it or we’ve done something stupid in our life.

So, we have to be fully involved in this. God is working. Christ is working as the head of the Church, and we’re part of the Body of Christ, the Church now. We have to be working too to be part of Elohim.

Once called by God to be part of the spiritual temple we are to choose to be involved in the building of Godly character. But it is our choice. Because it’s so easy not to be working. I know that and I can speak from experience because I was one that went to sleep and stopped working, stopped building the Temple. You know, it’s shame on me.

But that’s what we can do even now today. People can stop working on building, supporting God’s work. God’s work is building Elohim.

1 Peter 2:4. So, we have a chosen stone, Joshua the Messiah, and then there are the chosen people, which we are.

1 Peter 2:4—Coming to him, Christ, a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen, which is selected by God. God determined that Christ would come for our benefit, the foundation stone, precious.

Verse 5—you also, so it’s talking to us individually, you also, as living stones, are being built up. So, it’s a process. We are being built up. It’s not that we’ve achieved it, we are being built up. …are being built up a spiritual house, which is a Family, the Church. That’s the most important thing to God on this earth at this very moment, those that are working to support His work, which is the creation of Elohim.

…a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Joshua the Christ. Spiritual sacrifices. So, it’s not a physical work, it’s a spiritual one. So, what’s a work that we would be involved in? Well, when we have this natural carnal mind we have natural thoughts, and the work is denying self. That’s the work we have to do. We have to deny self.

God reveals truth to us. God reveals what sin is. Then when it’s in our mind we have to work. God’s work – by showing to us, revealing to us. Now we’ve got an advocate, God’s holy spirit that will reveal that and will help us and support it, but we have to choose. We have to choose to fight every day. The moment we stop choosing to fight is the day we’re not offering up spiritual sacrifices.

Verse 6—Therefore it is also contained in the scripture, Behold, I, talking about God the Father, lay in Zion, which we know what Zion is, a chief cornerstone, Christ, elect, precious. And he, now, this is talking about the called-out ones, talking about us, who believe on him, which means believe what he said. Because there are many things that God revealed through Christ that He gave to us, which is in the New Testament as we call it. …will by no means be put to shame.

So, it’s a guarantee. It’s a promise. God calls us for a purpose. He can’t fail. Christ can’t fail. But we can because of our stupid choices, where we would reject what we’re told.

Therefore, to you who believe, which is to have faith, to live the truth, to be obedient to God’s word. When we look at what God’s word is it’s what’s been given to us. …he is precious, talking about Christ. …he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, The stone, Christ, which the builders rejected, by those in the Church at some point, he has become the chief cornerstone.

It’s all based on Christ. The foundation of the Temple that we’re going to see, it’s all built on Christ. Everything that’s there is about Christ and what Christ did for us through Passover.

…and a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. They stumble, being disobedient to the word. That’s key scripture. We can stumble if we become disobedient to God’s word. That’s when we stumble, when we have a different opinion or a different view. …to which they were appointed.

But you, a chosen, which is now talking about us again, a chosen generation, a royal (kingly) priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people. Isn’t that staggering? The creator of the universe who designed everything now calls us His special people.

We’re special to God because we’ve been called, His spirit dwells in us; now we are involved in the very work of building a spiritual temple which will come to fruition. It will happen. It’s a guarantee. It’s said, God is going to have a Family. Whether we’re there and part of it comes down to us. We’ve been given the opportunity. One day we’ll look back and realize that a lot of the things we worry about in this physical world and what we have and things that are going on are just irrelevant things compared to Elohim.

So, if you go twenty trillion years in advance, twenty trillion years in advance – which is the potential we all have – what will any of this really mean? It’s a testing ground now. It’s about choices now. This will seem irrelevant, really, when you look at it, when you go that far ahead and then even further and further another twenty hundred trillion ahead. Because it never stops. It’s staggering.

So, this little bit of time that we’re in, it’s about time we were working, that we’re doing the work of God in us as well. God wants us to be part of His Family but in the end, it does boil down to our choices.

…that you may proclaim, which is to show forth the virtues (praises) of Him who called you out of darkness, because we were in sin, our minds were blank, they didn’t know anything spiritual. So, we’ve been called out of that into His marvelous light. We’ve been called out into the truth.

Now, we do have truth, and therefore, we should preciously guard it in our life. Doesn’t matter about what other people think, it’s about guarding it in our life.

So, how do we “proclaim the praises of Him?” Well, it’s by the way we live. It’s about the way we live to each other within the very family that God is building. We are family. Well, God wants us in His Family complete, changed to spirit. Well, that’s going to happen without or without us. A lot of that is going to be about our choices. So, this is about how we reflect God's way in our life today, right now.

Verse 10—who once were not a people but now are the people of God. Isn’t it staggering? We are now the people of God. We are precious to Him. …who have not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. So, we’ve been called, we’ve been baptized, we’ve received the gift of God’s holy spirit, and now we can see spiritually. We can now see the real purpose of Christ as our Passover. Because that’s the foundation.

We have to have Passover. We have to have the calling and we have to have all that, but we have to have Passover so that the forgiveness of sin can take place so that God and Christ can live and dwell in us. So, without Passover, we have nothing, absolutely nothing.

Now we can actually see the spiritual temple being built. Now, isn’t it a marvelous thing that we here within the Body of Christ can see the Temple being built within us? We can see it. It’s being built. It’s going to happen. Where we fit in it, we don’t know. Are we going to fit in it? Well, that’s our choice. It’s our choice whether we’re going to make the right decision.

Christ is the chief cornerstone of God's spiritual temple. We are the stones of the Temple of God. We are being shaped.

Now, when you look back at the temple, the way it was built, there is so much we can learn about it. But if you look at it the way that the stones were… They were all chiseled offsite. There was not to be a noise in the building of the temple. The stones were cut precisely and then they were moved into place.

Well, it’s exactly the same today. Nobody – nobody – can hear the sound of your mind or my mind. True? It’s quiet. It’s not obvious. Because all the noise that’s going on, we know, all the thoughts and the things that go on in our minds, we understand what’s going on. There is a work taking place. The chiseling’s going on, and the chiseling is the mind. The mind is being chipped away. The old bits that don’t fit need to be chipped off, it needs to be made smoother, so it fits into a place in the temple.

Well, that’s a spiritual thing. Those old pieces, the carnal mind, have to be chipped off, got to be worked on, worked on, worked on. But when it’s complete it’s going to fit into the temple like it did when Solomon built the temple. The stone fitted perfectly in place, in its place. Not all in the one – in its place. We have that potential. Isn’t that staggering? But the work is going on. The work is going on today.

When you look at what Solomon did he had… I can’t remember the numbers. I think it was something like thirty thousand workers in the quarry. I think that’s about right. I’d have to look it up again. He had overseers there as well. And what they did is they used to work like a week on – well it was a month on and a month off, and then another month. So, it was like a third, third, third. So, they’d have out of the thirty thousand, ten thousand were working, the other twenty were resting. Then another ten thousand would come. That ten would go back and rest for two more months. Month on, two months off.

Imagine the logistics of that and the design, trying to get all that chipped away and get it right and then someone else comes in behind you to continue that work building the temple.

Well, it’s no different than us. We’re now called at this time, we’re in the quarry working. God’s there, but are we working? Are we there chipping it away as well and, you know, knocking off the pieces as well as God shows them to us? So, we’re being shaped but it’s all in themind and it’s very quiet.

When we were out today walking around and different places nobody knew that there’s a work going on in this mind and in that mind, and that mind, and that… all these minds. Nobody. Everybody you interacted with today never knew there was a work going on, that God is working, Christ is working, and we’re working. Nobody. It was dead quiet, not obvious.

It’s a marvelous analogy, isn’t it, the chipping away? But that’s what has to go on. It’s quiet, nobody else really knows about it. They might think you’re weird. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about this work that we’re doing.

So, David desired to build a physical temple, a resting place, a physical house for God. We understand that. That’s what he wanted. God said he couldn’t, and that Solomon would build it.

Acts 7:44—Our fathers had a tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He, God, appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. So, there were precise things that had to be done. There were certain colors, or certain things, they had to be a certain size. Everything was laid out.

Well, it’s no different than the spiritual temple that we’re looking at today. It’s all precisely worked out. We’ve been given an opportunity to slot into a particular position within that temple.

Verse 45—Which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the gentiles. Now, this is talking about Joshua, the physical man Joshua, not Joshua the Christ. …possessed in the land of the gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.

So, here is David, he wants to do something. He sees the importance of it. But we see a greater importance. It’s spiritual. We should also desire to build a temple for God, a dwelling place for God. That means ongoing repentance so that God can dwell in us. Because God can dwell in us, but if we are not willing to repent and fight and work, God won’t dwell with sin, so God won’t dwell. So, we’re not going to be part of the Temple because we made a decision not to be.

We should desire to build a house for God, a dwelling place for God. We should repent of sin. The moment we see something, and it’s obvious to us, “Ah, I can do better.” Repent of that and move on, and God forgets it. That’s one of the things about our natural carnal mind, it’s difficult for us to forget and move on. It’s very difficult. With God, it’s done, it’s gone, it’s forgiven. But we’ll hang on to it. We bear grudges and all sorts of things because we can just kind of let go, “You know, that person said that,” and it’s very difficult for us.

Verse 47—But Solomon, David’s son, built Him (God) a house. Moreover, the Most High God does not dwell in temples made with hands, talking about a physical building, as the prophet says, Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the Eternal. It’s true, isn’t it? Because the natural carnal mind limits God.

God created everything, everything, and here are our minds thinking, “Oh, we’ll build a special location where God will dwell in this tabernacle or this tent or this building, this temple,” and God says, “Well, hang on a minute, the earth, I made it all, and you’re going to build something for Me? And yet…” Natural mind. You just see how quickly and easily we’re just so stupid, really, when you think. Because deep down we often forget that God created everything.

I often look at certain insects or butterflies or koalas and things, and you look at them. How long did it take God to work that out? And you look at the millions of insects alone and they’re all different. Incredible thing! Fish. And yet each one fitted in perfectly into a system called the earth and its whereabouts, uniquely. Man can’t do those types of things. Only God can do those things.

Or, finishing that off, Or what is the place of My rest? Well, we know where it is. Individually, we know it.

Has My hand not made all these things, all the physical things? The truth is God is now building His resting place, which is spiritual, and it’s all done via Christ because Christ is the head of the Church and Christ is working to complete God’s plan of salvation for mankind.

Truth #24:

24 (3) The “temple” in Matthew 24, 2 Thessalonians 2, and in many other prophecies, is about the Church of God.

We’re part of that. We're part of the Church of God.

The Man of Sin, who “sat in the temple of God,” was Joseph Tkach, Sr., who sat in authority in the Church... As it was taught by Herbert W. Armstrong before his death, only God's presence makes anything holy, and God’s presence is not in a physical [tabernacle] temple, but a spiritual one which is God’s own Church.

Now, this truth is staggering and it’s something that the world has no understanding about. But we know and we’re part of it. It’s talking about us. Us. We’re nobody but it’s talking about us. Isn’t it incredible that God thought on us?

If a physical temple were to be rebuilt in Jerusalem by anyone, it could not be sanctified and made holy.

When I remember going over this and reading it, I remember once sitting in a bus and the lady's name was Julie, and I remember telling her about how the stone would be dragged up. (When I first came into the Church, Worldwide days.) The stone would be dragged up to the temple mount and, you know, about the abomination. It was all physical things. I was that convinced I would die then knowing this was what was going to happen.

But the reality is we know now that imagine if anyone even tried to start that what would happen. Imagine the Muslim world, what would happen? They’re not going to get very close at all. They’re going to break loose. It’s going to be madness.

Matthew 16:15. We’re looking at this because it’s physical things. But there are spiritual ramifications for us because we know what God is talking about and we know what Christ was talking about.

Matthew 16:15. This was about Joshua and the temple. He (Joshua) said to them, But who do you, talking about to the disciples, say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of the living God. Joshua answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed (uncovered) this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

It's exactly the same for us. It’s the same thing, it’s same as Christ was telling Simon Peter. Same for us. We only know the truth because God the Father has revealed something to us. Isn’t that staggering? That’s exactly the same principle. We only see because God allows us to see. Other than that we’d be like everybody else who sees nothing.

Verse 18—And I also say to you that you, that you are Peter, and on this rock, “on this rock,” “on this Petra,” on this Christ, it’s talking about Christ, I will build My Church, and the gates of the grave shall not prevail or be victorious against it. Virtually saying that the Church will not die out. The Church will exist no matter what happens right up until the return of Joshua the Messiah. There will always be a Church of God right up until Christ's return, until the end time, until the end of man’s self-rule.

Verse 19—And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, the reality is if people truly could grasp what was said here there wouldn’t be half the problems and issues that have happened in the Church. It would never have happened if people could understand this.

So, here it’s saying, “I will give you,” so we now have a “you” in this, we have an apostle. “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s an administration or Church authority.

…and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Now, that is an amazing thing that mankind wouldn’t understand. There’s been many in God’s Church that have not understood it. So, if the administration of God’s Church led by an apostle says, “This is the way we will go as a body,” it’s bound in heaven. Staggering. So, when a person goes against what is given they’re going against God. It’s an amazing thing.

When you look at the makeup/no makeup which Ron refers to, makeup was approved in a limited way. That’s bound in heaven. So, people would then yield to that and do it. Then no makeup. It’s bound in heaven. No makeup. It shouldn’t be a big problem if we believed what Christ said.

There are many other things that have happened administratively that really if it’s bound on earth, if it’s said on earth God will back it up. People don’t understand this. Well, that’s been a problem in God’s Church. People have not understood it.

…and whatever you loose on earth, change, undo it, change it, will be loosed in heaven. Christ was telling Peter about the Church that he was going to build, that Christ was going to build. It was a Church that would not die out but would continue until he, Christ, returned to receive his kingdom on this earth.

Joshua the Christ is going to return to a spiritual temple, not a physical one. So, one of the reasons we should fear going against what Church government gives or Church government says, we should fear that. Because when it’s said it is supported by God. It’s bound. It’s law. It’s the spiritual principle of it. The spirit of the law is now, “That’s it, yield.” People who don’t yield to that Church administration, their government, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They’re fighting God…they’re fighting God.

1 Corinthians 3:5. Now, often people in times past have said, based on pride, “Well, I was baptized by…” someone in authority within the Church, and then they’d said, “I was baptized by God’s apostle,” as if it was something greater than being baptized by me or another elder or any elder. Because it’s a problem of pride. “I had hands laid on me by…” because they don’t understand the spirit of it. It’s God working. It’s God working. He works through a Church government. He works through a structure and the authority is passed down and it can be an elder. So, there’s always been this problem, and going forward, it’s probably going to exist again and still because that’s the way human minds work. This is about Paul explaining the situation to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 3:5—Who then is Paul? Good question. Who is Paul? Paul is somebody who was involved in the spirit of the law part. He killed people. That’s who he really was. That’s who he was. Then he was called by God, and he became somebody different. So, who is Paul? Paul is a man that God anointed to do a job. That’s who he is.

And who is Apollos? So, what’s the difference? …but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? So, there’s a different work going on. There is a work going on in Paul. Christ was working with Paul. Christ was working with Apollos. But they’re not necessarily exactly the same work. They’ve been given different authorities, positions of authority, different things to do.

But really, it’s God’s work. It’s God working through Christ. That’s what’s going on, and if we lose sight of that then pride gets in the way.

So, they’re both ministers. Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. Spiritual growth comes from God. It doesn’t matter who baptized us. It was a work of God because it’s about the building of a spiritual temple. God gives the increase. God gives gifts.

So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. So, really it doesn’t matter. This is God’s work. It’s God building the Temple. The ministry is there as a support network to build the Temple of God.

Now, he who plants, and he who waters are one, they’re in unity, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. That statement, we often read it, but what is our labor? So, someone says, “Oh, I’m not in the ministry. I’m just a member of the Body.” There is no such thing as “just a member of the Body.” What is the work? God has called us individually. Doesn’t matter where we are in the Body, God has called us individually to be part of a spiritual temple. Incredible things.

So, what is it? Have we chosen to fight self? Have we chosen to sacrifice for the benefit of others? Have we chosen to obey the truth? Have we chosen to hold on to the trunk of the tree, the 57 Truths that we have? Is that what we’ve chosen? Till death, is that what we’ve chosen? Or are we choosing something else physical that’s a temporary thing? It’ll have no fruit in the end.

Verse 10—For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field; you are God’s building. We should be in awe of that. We don’t take it to ourselves in pride, but we should be in awe, and what should happen is actually humility because we know what we really are. I know who I am and what I’m really like and what I’m capable of. I know it. I know the mistakes I make. Still make them today, this very day.

But the reality is I know that God has called me for a purpose. Just like He’s called you for a purpose. And even if we stumble and even if we fall and we do things wrong the end result is we move forward. I’m still going to hang on to the trunk of the tree no matter what happens. That’s the goal. That’s our thinking.

Verse 10—According to the favor/grace of God, which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundations. So, the foundation is Christ. We understand that. Paul now is preaching about Christ; he’s laying the foundation. The foundation is about Christ. It’s about Passover. It’s about what Christ did for us. That’s the foundation, and the truth that was given.

Now, we understand also when we look at truth, that Christ came to magnify the spirit of the law, to reveal the spirit of the law, but to give it to us. Because the law was the law. For example, scripture talks about murder, that “You shall not kill.” “I haven’t killed anybody.” Well, the spirit of it is that, yes, it’s any ill will to another person can be murder. Not desiring the best for another person is considered murder by God’s spirit, the spirit of the law. So, that’s what was revealed to the Church through Christ.

The foundations have been laid (about Christ), and another builds on it. Because after that there is much more. So, once we’ve done that then there is much more about living the truth, etcetera.

But each one take heed how he builds on it. So, there’s a sober warning there, really. We ought to be very cautious, take heed how we’re building. So, what we’ve been given, what we do with what we’re given, hmm. And for the ministry, take heed about what we’re building on, what’s being said.

For no other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, which is Joshua the Christ. So, that’s the foundation. It’s about our Passover.

Now, whether anyone builds on this foundation (Christ), with gold, silver, or precious stones… So, we’re going to separate them here because there’s a different type. So, it’s gold, silver, or precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw, each one’s work, So we’ve got to be doing something. We’re going to be doing something, which is working, which is overcoming self, yielding to God’s word, will become clear. How is it going to be revealed?

Well, we understand the way that it’s revealed is through fire, which is a trial. …because it will be revealed by fire. There’s a trial. If we’re not having a trial there is probably something wrong. We’re all going to have trials.

The fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If it’s of gold, silver, or precious stones? Now, we should be aware that if you have a normal fire and you put gold, silver, or precious stones in it what happens? Nothing. Doesn’t change shape, stays as it is. But if it’s built on wood, hay, or straw, what happens? It’s consumed.

So, the implication is that going forward, having a background of Worldwide history and somewhat of a Pollyanna approach in some ways, to how humans will be in the Millennium and the Last Great Day. Because that scripture is going to apply to mankind. Everyone is going to have trials.

How do you have a trial in the Millennium? You’re going to be dealing with humans. Every human is going to have a trial one way or the other. It’s either in the mind or it’s something is going to happen. Everyone is going to be tested. So, depends what we build on.

So, we’re going to have trials. We’re going to have trials coming our way soon that we probably never even imagined because when things get tough, they’re going to get real tough. Our trials, we’ve got to make sure we’ve built on the three precious stones, the metals, so that when the pressure comes and the fire comes, that we stand, we stand in God’s word. Because if we haven’t it’s going to get burned up and we’ll get taken away. It’s nothing because we won’t stand, we can’t.

Verse 14—If anyone’s work which he/they have built on endures, he will receive a reward. It’s not “he,” it’s a he or she, it’s they will receive a reward. So, if we’ve been building, if we’ve been working, if we’re listening and implementing it into our life we’ll get through this, what’s coming. And what is coming in the Millennium for people and what’s coming in the Hundred Years, if we’re building on God’s word through Christ we will survive it. It’s going to be fine, and we’ll be part of the Temple, the spiritual temple, we’ll be in location. It’s going to be so great, so exciting with a different mind, different way of thinking.

If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself may yet be saved. That could be another future time. But even if get through that time and get to another time, so yet through fire. No matter what happens. People might fail now at certain times of their calling, the first time around. They may get another opportunity. But guess what? Still going to be the same thing. Going to be tests and trials. It’s the only way to find out whether a person is going to endure, is a test or a trial.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells/abides in you? That’s a question. Don’t we know that, that God’s with us now, God’s in us now? We should know that.

The evidence of God and Christ dwelling in us is that we see and choose to yield. We see the truth and we choose to yield. That’s how we know, we’re choosing to yield. We live the truth, and we live sacrificing love to the brethren. That’s how we know. We know we’re in the truth.

If anyone defiles or pollutes by non-repentance the temple of God, which is in the mind, of course. So, we see if anyone defiles, anyone pollutes, in other words, doesn’t repent of the natural carnal mind, the Temple of God where God dwells, God will destroy him. God will destroy them. It’s going to happen. There is no way out of it. Some get chances and others may have gone too far.

The temple of God is holy, which temple you are. The mind polluted by sin that is non-repentant will be destroyed. It’s one of those things. There is no other way out of it. Sin cannot enter Elohim.

John 15:1. It’s about the vine and it’s about the Church really. It’s about the Church, which we’re part of. It’s talking about the Body of Christ.

John 15:1—I am the true vine, that’s Christ speaking, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. He’s the gardener. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, which is talking about spiritual growth… Now, spiritual growth, we understand, is important. We should all be growing spiritually. The way is about fighting self. The thought comes in, we do something with it. We don’t just leave it and leave it and leave it. We deal with it. We’re working; therefore, spiritual growth can come.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit—and if you needed to look up the fruits of the spirit, they’re in Galatians 5—He takes away. So, if we’re not going to be growing and working in building something, it’s taken away.

And every branch that bears fruit He prunes. So, what it’s saying is that if we’re not willing to do anything about our human nature we’re not going to make it, we’re not going to be part of the Temple. We’re not going to be placed into the Temple, the spiritual temple, because we’re not doing anything about it, we’re not working.

“And every branch that bears fruit,” which, in other words, we are growing spiritually, we’re “going to be pruned.” What does that mean? Well, there’s going to be bits that are going to be cut off, aren’t they? It’s going to be snip, snip. It’s like the stone block where they get the chisel and bang, bang, bits are going to come off. What are the bits that come off? The bits that don’t belong. It’s the bits of the mind, the carnal mind that have to be gotten rid of. It takes time. But God will prune.

So, if we’re going through a trial, if it’s a spiritual trial and we see God in it, well, we’re blessed. We are blessed because it’s an opportunity for spiritual growth. …that it may bear more fruit. God’s spirit demands growth. We have to be growing. There are times, that I know personally, that I’ve stagnated, and we all go through these ups and downs, you know, highs and lows in it. There are times when we believe we’re working, and things are very obvious and it’s spiritual and there are other times where we may not be. It’s just the human mind has a bigger dominance in us than it should.

You are already clean, because we were baptized, because of the word, the word of God, which I have spoken to you. So here it is, we’ve been baptized, we see Christ’s words, we see God, what He’s revealing to us, therefore, we can repent, we can see when we’re wrong.

Abide in me, which is stay connected, which is about repentance as well, and I in you. Which that “I in you,” which talks about, obedience is required. That’s the truth of it. Obedience is required because God is right, and we are wrong. So, obedience to God, we should understand that’s what we should be doing because He’s right and we’re wrong.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. Which is the same thinking. We have to develop the very thinking of God.

Verse 5—I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me, which is stays connected with the Church, stay connected, stay connected through repentance, stay connected about believing God’s word, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without me, you can do nothing. The natural carnal mind of itself can’t see spiritually. It cannot grow. It requires the gift of God’s holy spirit and a choice that we have to make.

If anyone does not abide in me, which is not obedient, he is cast out as a branch and is withered. In other words, we’re cut off from the flow of God’s holy spirit. We’ll just wither up.

If you’ve ever been pruning, two buds and prune. I mean, when I was in school, boarding college, agricultural farm, seventy thousand acres, and we used to go out and do vines. We used to do fruit trees. We used to run cattle, sheep, was about shearing, all that. We did everything to do with the farm. Picking olives.

It was the same with the vine, if the vine comes out it has to be pruned so that it produces more fruit. That analogy if you’ve ever pruned and know what pruning is about, it’s about producing more, more growth. But if it’s cut off and cast out what happens to it? It just withers up and dies. It just becomes hard and firm, and you put it in a fire, and you burn it. Big fires.

…and gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. So, that is what we have the potential of too. We can dry up and wither and at a point in time, we could face the second death. We could be burned because we’ve cut ourselves off.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, which is God’s spirit, God’s words abide in us, we’re working hard in the mind, you will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you. Now, this is something that is not physical.

So, whatever we ask of God. So, for example, we may ask for humility, which I think is a wonderful thing to ask for. Ask God for humility and ask God through humility and ask God for humility. And what does He say? By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so that you are my disciples.

Going back to verse 7—and it shall be done for you. If we ask for humility… There are two humilities. There is a human humility from the natural carnal mind, and then there is a Godly humility which is God’s spirit in us to truly know our spiritual state. True humility. What we really are. We understand what we are. That’s humility. If we ask for it, we will be given it to us. God won’t deny us.

You know, there’s a scripture that talks about if a son asks the father for something you don’t go and give him a stone. It’s talking about spiritual things. So, if we ask God for spiritual things that He wants to give us anyway and we want it and we ask and we then implement it, it will be given to us. God will do it. He’s not a liar. We might fail, He won’t. Whatever we ask that’s spiritual that is going to benefit us as a part of the Temple God said He’ll give it to us.

I think it’s an amazing thing. So, one thing out of this, we all should be asking for something from God that He wants to give us. He’ll give it to us if we’re asking for the right reason.

Matthew 21. This is about Christ going into the physical temple and cleaning it out. Part of the analogy that I’m looking at here is same principle applies. We have to clean out the temple. That God is wanting to dwell in us, we are the Temple of God, well, it’s got to be cleaned out. We’ve got to get rid of all the garbage, the things that are wrong, the wrong thinking. It’s gotten to be gotten rid of. Well, here we have Christ going into the temple.

Matthew 21:12—Then Joshua went into the temple of God, which is a type of the Church of God, and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, because they were trading in there, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. So, we look at it, we should be overturning the things that are sin. These people here, not keeping the Sabbath, trading on the Sabbath in the temple, it’s crazy stuff. But this is physical.

For us it’s spiritual. So, we should be overturning the things that are wrong in our thinking. We should be overturning them and getting rid of them. We don’t want to get to the point of being removed from God’s Church. We don’t really want that. That’s not what we want. We want to actually start to get rid of the wrong thinking.

We are the Temple of God. If we have unrepentant sin we will be driven out of the Church of God by Christ. Because he did it physically, he will do it spiritually too, because this is about a spiritual temple, and if we’re not willing to repent and we want to hang on to unrepented sin at some point we will be overturned, we will be thrown out of the very temple. Physical versus spiritual.

And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, which is about spiritual, but you have made it a den of thieves, which is about sin. So, we’ve got a choice.

Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. What’s that about? That’s us. We are blind and we are lame. Where do you go to be healed? You go to where God is. Part of the Church of God, we can be healed because God gives us the truth, God feeds us, and it’s a matter of whether we take it on board whether we’re going to be healed or not.

So, we can be in this position where we see spiritually and our minds can be healed, we think correctly. We all need to be healed. It’s an ongoing process.

John 2:13. The Church, really, the Church of God is a place where the called-out ones can be healed spiritually. That’s what it is. We’re in the process of being healed. It’s an ongoing process.

John 2:13—Now the Passover, the Passover season of the Jews was at hand, and Joshua went up to the temple. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and money changers doing business. So, this is a physical priority to them. It’s not a spiritual one because they couldn’t. But this is something they’re doing because they’re all making money on it.

When I read the thing about money changers, when you travel, when we look at that and think, fancy being in the temple and having money changers. It’s called foreign exchange because people used to react to fees, having fees when you went overseas, and you have a seventy-five-dollar fee. So, now the gimmick is no fees. We’ll change your money just percentages are ours. They still get their four or five percent out of it. So, money changers haven’t changed, it’s just they’re not in the temple, which we are. They’re not in the Church of God changing money. But if you travel overseas you’ve got to do it otherwise you can’t travel unless you’ve got a plastic card now which will do it for you.

When he had made a whip of cords, he, it’s talking about Christ, drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the money changers’ money and overturned the tables. A lot of people look at that and think it’s a great story but it’s actually something spiritual that we can look at and say, “This is what we need to be doing.”

And another way to look at it, it’s going to happen in the Church. If we’re trading the wrong way in our minds and we’re not willing to do anything about it and just continue on we’ll get thrown out of the temple too.

And he said to those who sold doves, Take these things away! Which is talking about a type of repentance. Do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise! So, this is exactly what we must do, drive out of our thinking everything that is against God’s way of thinking. So, we’ve been asked to do that, which is that sacrificing love.

Verse 17—Then his disciples remembered what was written, Zeal for Your house has eaten me up. Well, it’s something we need to be zealous about. We need to be zealous for God’s house, spiritual temple. We need to be zealous for the Church!

Verse 18—So the Jews answered and said, What sign do you show to us since you do these things? Joshua answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Now, of course, they can’t understand what he’s talking about. We understand because it’s spiritual, really. He’s talking about his body, that he was going to be in the grave for three days and three nights.

Then the Jews said to him, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple. That’s physical. “Forty-six years of building the physical temple and will you’re going to get rid of it and raise it up in three days?” …and you will raise it up in three days? But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

Now, it’s interesting that the temple is about a body, Christ’s body. But we’re in the Body of Christ so we have to work hard, true, building a temple. We need to work hard at building a temple because we are the Temple of God if God dwells in us.

Therefore, when he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this to them; and they believed the scripture and the word which Joshua had given. The physical temple, we understand, was actually destroyed physically in about 70 A.D., and the Jewish nation was taken into captivity.

We’ve been called out of spiritual captivity. So, that’s a physical captivity but we’ve been called out of a captivity, which is spiritual, because we were bound under Satan and what Satan’s thinking. We’ve been called out of that into the Body of Christ.

The spiritual house, the Church of God, was actually pulled down in December 1994. The stones of the Temple were cast down.

Mark 13:2. Now, this is about the destruction of the temple, and everyone thought it was about a physical thing, but it was actually a spiritual thing.

Mark 13:1—When he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said, Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Joshua answered and said to him, Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down. So, we understand that’s about the Apostasy. The stones of the Temple, which we are, were cast out, cast down, every one of them.

Well, there’s been many, as I’ve said before, that have experienced that, to know what that’s like, and the confusion and the hurt and the pain, knowing not what to do. It’s very confusing.

I lasted ten years out in the wilderness after that, but I remember sitting up in bed with Chris and we’ve got the Bible and we went through because they said the Sabbath was done away. So, we went through it all and I went through everything about the Sabbath. Came to the conclusion the Sabbath is not done away. There is no way. It’s just not done away and therefore, God’s mercy, for some reason, we continued with the Sabbath. We continued with the Sabbath, continued tithing, continued with Holy Days even though it was habitual, it wasn’t with God’s spirit because we’d lost God’s spirit, and it wasn’t until we were awakened in 2005.

But we had proven that previously and believed it and then all of a sudden it was all done away. Didn’t make any sense. But everyone is different. Everyone handled it slightly differently. I must say there was a time I believe, whether it’s right or not, I’m sure, but I believe that we were being awakened probably two to three years prior before that, that we were having all sorts of problems because we were hanging on to aspects of the trunk of the tree, even though it might have been physical, it wasn’t spiritually, we didn’t have God’s spirit.

But there were things that we knew were right and wrong. But it was all such wishy-washy and therefore, we’d say certain things and get banned and get black banned and people didn’t want to talk to us. Because we were saying, “Well, hang on a minute, what about this and what about that?” It was just confusion. So, I think it was a long, drawn-out process.

Then one night in particular we were awakened. We remember, again, sitting up in bed, and just could not believe it. I remember the day. I remember the date in 2005, and I remember the morning that I rang up the elder and said that we’re no longer in fellowship in the church. It was United. We’re no longer part of it because “two can’t walk together unless they agree.” It’s scripture. But that was my foundation, that “Two can’t walk together unless they agree.”

But it’s true! We can’t walk with Christ unless we agree. We can’t walk with the Church of God unless we agree, in unity. Same principle. Same principle applies. This is spiritual now, totally spiritual, not the physical. It’s spiritual. If we disagree with God, if we disagree with God’s administration, we are not walking in unity. Simple. “Two cannot walk together unless they agree.”

The importance of the prophecy about the physical temple was about the spiritual. It’s about the Church, of course, about the Apostasy.

Revelation 3:14. Now, we have to remember that the beginning of Laodicea happened when Herbert W. Armstrong died in January of 1986. Then we come to a period where the Apostasy takes place, and that, of course, was about a twelve-year period. Then there’s a period of protection for some, and then the Church of God – PKG, the Church of God was given God’s spirit where it started officially on Pentecost of 1998. It was that three-and-a-half-year period from the Apostasy, and that’s when it started. So, it goes ’94-98.

Then from 1998, Pentecost of 1998, God then began to reestablish truth back into the Church. Here we are today all these years later. Staggering, really, when we know this truth and hang on to it. Because we have to hang on to it with what’s coming. We’re going to hang on hard.

Revelation 3:1—And to the angel of the Church of Laodicea write, These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God. “The Beginning of the creation of God.” Christ is the beginning, the first to enter Elohim. Isn’t that staggering? Here is Christ saying to the Church, that he is speaking to the Church, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot, one or the other. Because then a determination can be made.

Someone who is zealous for God, working up here with the power of God’s holy spirit, is in the Temple. The cold is no work. They’re not in the Temple, not part of it. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

Verse 16—So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Which was December 17th was the Apostasy. From that point, there was a scattering.

Because you say, I am rich, and I have become wealthy… Now, this really is talking about self-reliance. So, no longer really relying on God and God’s word as the guide but being self-reliant, handling it “the way I see it,” “the way I believe it should be done.”

…I am rich and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing—and do not know, “Don’t you see spiritually?” that you are wretched, which is full of sin, self-reliance, and under the death penalty? We’re under it anyway, but this is really bad.

…miserable, poor, and blind, spiritually, and naked? God’s holy spirit was missing from the people. Their actions reflected self-reliance, which is pride, and they did not see the need for God. They were living sin. I was living sin. I was just part of that.

Verse 18—I counsel you to buy of me gold refined in fire. Now, we went through that. Remember the gold, the silver, and the precious stone? What is that about? “I counsel you to buy from me gold.” So, we better start establishing God’s character, putting Godly character on, the mind of God. “Refined in the fire,” because there is going to be a test and a trial here.

…that you become rich. So, we can become rich spiritually if we involve God in our day-to-day lives, if we involve God in the test, in the trial, that you may be rich, spiritually.

…and white garments, which is talking about repentance, to make clean, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. What’s that about? That’s about sin spiritually.

Thinking a person can see and seeing are two different things. Someone can look at something that God has revealed and think that they see it, but they may not. But we can. With God’s holy spirit, we can see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. We’ve been through that. It’s done out of love. It’s done out of help. Why? It’s about the Temple. It’s about the spiritual building that’s going to take place. It’s going to happen. There’s going to be a stone that’s going to be placed into a location. We’re talking physical referring to spiritual.

Therefore, be zealous and repent. “Be zealous and think differently.” That’s what our battle is.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. How close is this now compared to when this was first written? I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice… What’s that? What’s “my voice?” Requires God’s holy spirit but it’s also about Church government. Christ is the head of the Church. He then reveals truth to the Church, to and by our apostle, an apostle. We often forget this. We just, you know, wander on thinking we can do it, but we can’t. Without God’s Church, we can’t do it. You have to be part of the Body. We have to listen to what God is telling us through the Church.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, which is about humility, repentance, and obedience, yielding, prayer, and fasting. All those things are involved in that. I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me. Isn’t that incredible?

Verse 21—To him who overcomes, or him who conquers… What’s that about? It’s about this mind, conquering self. …I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. So, that’s about power and authority.

If we could only grasp, which is, I know, leaves us often, we get too involved in our physical things of life. If we could only really grasp what was really being offered to us on a spiritual level, this authority and love that is being offered to us, that we would live forever in Elohim, be part of the Family, motivated, never to sin; if we could only grasp it and really deep down believe it, what an incredible thing. We’d be a lot stronger, a lot stronger about a lot of things in life.

So, this is about power and authority as a spirit being, that it’s available to us, being offered to us. Whether we want it or not and how badly we want it is the question.

He who has an ear, talking about something spiritual, let him hear what the spirit says to the Churches. So, we understand that we are now to look to the future. We are to look to the future.

Ezra 3:10. I think we have time to get through this. We’ll start. Cut it off, we’ll see how it goes.

Ezra 3:10—When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Eternal, the priests, which is talking about those that had been given that position of work to do, stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, and the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Eternal, according to the obedience of David king of Israel. So, we understand that there is a rejoicing. It’s talking about the temple being finished.

What’s that about spiritually? That’s about the return of Joshua the Messiah and the 144,000. The foundation is there, Christ, the pillars of the Temple, been some, some are still being developed. That majority by far have already been secured in that position, a stone of the Temple, already there. It’s just a matter of finishing that part off. 144,000 return and we’ll see that that part of Ezra that we just read is going to be fulfilled.

Isn’t that amazing? It’s going to actually happen on a spiritual level, not a physical level.

Ephesians 2 and we’ll work to a close. Ephesians 2:19—Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. We are the called-out ones. We are the called-out ones, are being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Joshua the Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Isn’t that staggering scripture when we understand what’s really taking place?

So, the only thing that can go wrong with this temple, as far as our part is concerned, is us, what we do. The rest, it’s guaranteed it’s going to be built. There is going to be a temple. A spiritual temple is going to be built.

We know Christ is the chief cornerstone. The foundation is there. We have been given apostles, prophets. We’ve been given that. It’s just a matter of now what we do.

…in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Eternal, or in the LORD, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. It’s about unity. So, it’s going to happen and there’s going to be a temple, and it’s a matter of whether or not we do our part.

The physical points to the spiritual. How blessed are we that God has revealed this truth to us, “…which temple we are?” It’s an incredible truth. The temple that God is building is a spiritual one. It’s a spiritual house that’s being built, which we can be part of.

We’ll close on 1 Corinthians 6:19—Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit which is in you? If God’s holy spirit is in us we have the opportunity to be a permanent fixture in a spiritual temple.

…which is in you, whom you have from God. So, it’s God’s building. It’s God doing the work. …and you are not your own? So, we are purchased possessions. Through Christ’s Passover sacrifice, God’s sacrifice for us, we’ve been purchased. We belong to someone else. We belong to somebody else.

The people out in the world haven't had that opportunity yet, but we are a purchased possession; we belong to God, every single one of us. …and you are not your own.

Verse 20—For you were bought at a price, talking about Passover, therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. This temple, which we are, belongs to God. We are God’s children; we belong to God. So, we need to be careful what we say.

The point is, God and Christ are working. Are we?

1. Chapter 1