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The House of God from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Today I want to talk about The House of God, the place where we go to meet God. When the Israelites left Egypt, Moses met with God in a tent called “The Tent of Meeting” (Exodus 33:7). When Moses went inside, the pillar of cloud would descend on it and the Lord would talk with Moses. Then the Lord gave Moses instructions to build a tabernacle, or sanctuary for His presence to dwell among them in Exodus 25:8.

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It was basically an elaborate tent that could be taken down and moved, surrounded by a courtyard 150 feet long and 75 feet wide. This tabernacle housed the Ark of the Covenant and many fixtures, along with a thick veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies.

When you entered the gates, the first thing that you came to was the huge altar made of brass. The message was clear: To approach God, a sacrifice was required. Beyond that was the “brazen basin” made from polished brass mirrors that held water for the priests to wash with. They were to be cleansed. Beyond that was the tent, which contained two rooms inside.

The front room was called the Holy Place where priests took care of the lamp stand, burned incense, and replaced the showbread. The back room was called the “Holy of Holies” and contained the Ark of the Covenant, which held the Ten Commandments carved on stone tablets, a jar of the manna that fallen, and Aaron’s rod that had blossomed flowers. The Spirit of God dwelt above the Ark in this innermost room at a place called the “Mercy Seat.”

The Israelites met with God at this tent during their 40 years in the desert. After hey entered the Promised Land, some generations passed and the Lord gave King David plans for a new temple. David gathered the money, materials, and contacts, but His son Solomon oversaw building it.

It was called Solomon’s temple and was completed in 957 BC after 7 years of construction. It was beautiful and elaborately decorated and was used for over 350 years, but was looted and destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC and most of the Israelites were taken into exile.

After the seventy years of exile were over, Israelites returned to Jerusalem and began building a second temple on the place where Solomon’s had stood. The city was a pile of rubble and it rose from the ashes of the old one, reusing some of the same burned stones. They completed it around 515 BC. It was not very elaborate when compared to Solomon’s temple, did not have the Ark, and some people wept when they saw it (Ezra 3:12).

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About twenty years before Jesus was born, about 19 BC, King Herod the Great began remodeling the second temple and greatly enlarged it. At one point there were over 10,000 skilled laborers working on it. Herod completed most of the work before his death in 4 BC, but the work continued on for more than sixty years after that. When Jesus visited the Temple during the first Passover of His ministry, John quoted the Jews there as saying that the Temple had been under construction for forty-six years (John 2:20). It was completed about 63 AD, and stood for only seven years before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD.

While Jesus was there, He had something interesting to say:

(John 2:18–21 NKJV) So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body.

Jesus said that His body was the temple that would be destroyed, but raised up again in three days. Jesus spoke of the human body as a house, a container for spirits. It contains our spirit, can contain the Holy Spirit, and can also contain evil spirits:

(Matthew 12:43–45 NKJV)  “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there.”

The evil spirit called the man “MY house” and brought seven friends home with him. The “House of God” today is no longer a building. We are the temple of God. People used to travel great distances to meet with God, like the Ethiopian eunuch that Philip met on the road and baptized (Acts 8:27), but Ezekiel spoke of the day when the Lord would put His Spirit within us (Ezekiel 36:27). Paul elaborated on this:

(1 Corinthians 3:16–17 NKJV)  Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

(2 Corinthians 6:16 NKJV)  For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”

We are God’s temple today and His Spirit lives inside of us. We don’t have to go anywhere to meet with God, though we should not forsake assembling ourselves together, because we draw strength from each other (Hebrews 10:25). We are each a living stone and with all the believers in Heaven and Earth together, we form a living temple for God’s presence (1 Peter 2:5).

What does this mean for me? God does not live in a building. You carry the Spirit of God with you into the grocery store. He goes with you to work. God goes to a church building when we go. He lives with us in our homes. He listens to our conversations. There will still be sacrifices to make, there will still be cleansing to do, but now He helps us do the things that we cannot. We are the house of God.

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please cleanse and refine me from the inside out. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and help me get in tune with what you are doing today on the Earth. Come and be a part of my life today, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.