Building the Temple of God

Good afternoon. Good to be here with you. You had one more thing to that resume. I have a grandson now. So we're going to Texas. My son has a son and my daughter doesn't, so we're not in California. It's a Senate program for our children. No, it's always fun to come and speak to God's people in different areas. When I knew I wasn't going to be needed somewhere else, I decided to go down to Big Sandy.

I'm a points person. I collect points in miles and things, and they had a free hotel over in Dyersburg. I looked at the different churches and the routes that I'd go through, and solid Jonesboro was in the morning and they were in the afternoon, so it worked out really good to come speak to you. So I'm happy to be here, give the opportunity, give a break for some of you who have to speak all the time.

I understood that two years ago, as an African, I gave between the feasts a whole bunch of speaking before I went there, and afterwards, but in six weeks, I gave 13 sermons. So that was more than I cared to do, too. It was fun. In fact, last great day of the feast, I thought I was done in the morning, and I said, who's speaking this afternoon? And they said, you are. So I fixed a sermon during lunch and gave it, which was another shock. By then, I was about out of words. Plus, I'd been sick part of the time.

I never told them that because I didn't want them to feel bad for me. But it was an interesting experience to go through. And they tried to feed me up north, which we ate a little bit, and I said, you're going to feed me here, too. So we definitely won't go away hungry.

I appreciate that opportunity and all that you do, and thank you for the special music. That was good as well. Yeah, I could tell stories. In fact, my mom wants... She had... My mom gave me lots of advice. She died four years ago.

She was 82, but it was interesting. When I first started speaking, she said, well, make sure you say something you know something about. Don't just read the Bible. I said, well, thanks a lot, Mom. But then other people, I'd tell stories, and people would say, why don't you just tell us the stories? And I weave stories into a lot of my sermons. But there are so many things that happen during the work at that time of the Church that I weave them in.

And it's always fun to see the things that God did, because that's all it was, was about what He did, not about us. And I never expected to fly. I never expected to do any of the things I've been asked to do. But that's kind of what God does to you. He doesn't necessarily take you the direction you want to go.

Today, I've titled my sermon, Building the Temple of God. This will be a draw toward Passover. We can learn some lessons, I think, from the temple. It was interesting, in 1984, on a Sunday morning, I was with Mr. Armstrong watching the broadcast at his home, and the doorbell rang. I went to the door, and there were three gentlemen there. There were black suits and black ties and white shirts, black hats. They had namakas and they had little aprons with the tassels. And so, with my deductive reasoning, I figured out they were Orthodox Jews.

It wasn't too difficult, with all the clues. I asked them what they wanted. They wanted to talk to Mr. Armstrong about Jerusalem. So I went back and asked Mr. Armstrong, I said, we've got three Orthodox Jews out there that are rabbis that want to talk to you. He said, sure, it's not a bit. We'll talk. So we talked in the living room. It was interesting because they wanted to discuss the temple, building the temple because they wanted the Messiah to come back. They knew Mr. Armstrong had done a lot of things in Israel and they knew that he was on TV and they were Levites and they wanted to build a temple so that the Messiah could come.

Armstrong didn't do that, but he learned a great deal from them when he was talking to them. He found out that they had already been breeding animals, the red heifer for the sacrifices. They had been making the temple instruments out of gold and silver.

It's a perfect pair for that. All those things have been done. They've been ready, actually, to go for a couple of decades to now. But they were doing all this so the Messiah would come back to the temple. He would raise up his covenant people to be in charge and the world would be under his rule. Of course, that wasn't what was going to happen. Mr. Armstrong didn't give them any money to build a temple. But there's been a fascination from the temple. And he did do a lot of things in Jerusalem. In the 1960s, Professor Mazar of Hebrew University and Minister Cole, the Minister of Tourism, had asked Mr.

Armstrong if he wanted to work at the dig in Jerusalem. The dig was to unearth the Temple Mount and David's throne. When that happened, he was asked. He didn't know if the church should do it or shouldn't do it. He knew it wouldn't be wrong to do it. He also knew that Christ would return to David's throne. He said, well, we'll just clear the rubble off of it and he'll be ready, kind of half-jokingly.

But he knew it would be an opportunity. And he did accept it. It led the way for several hundred students to go to Israel. I went in 1973, my junior year of college. It was fun. We were earth movers. We dug. You see, our college out there with the little picks and toothbrushes, we had shovels and picks. We were going to clear it off so Christ could come, too. But we were more earth movers than archaeologists. And it was fun. We dug the whole summer long and learned a great deal about Jerusalem and the valleys around it and things were there.

Randy Stiver and Linda Dundun were there. Randy found his wife there. It proves you can find a lot more than artifacts that are dig. But we came back and that dig provided an opportunity. But it was interesting because the thoughts of the Temple and the Messiah coming back to it. The Temple has always been a fascination for many people. There have been many great and glorious buildings built over the decades.

But I don't think any of them was as glorious as the Temple Solomon built. When you read about that, and we're going to turn to 1 Chronicles 22 and get prepared for that. Because there wasn't a building as glorious, I think, as the Temple Solomon built ever. Now, there have been glorious cities. Babylon was certainly incredible if you read the description of that. The pyramids are fascinating and what they had there in Egypt. But the collection that King David collected for the Temple and the empire that he established at the time when God let him conquer all the nations around and become vassal states to him.

I want to look at the Temple today and see if we can learn something about God and Christ and ourselves. From the time of Israel's departure from Egypt, the Temple basically was an attempt. It had the Ark of the Covenant, an attempt. And in it was the Jaramanna and Aaron's rod that had budded and the books of the law. And whenever the pillar of cloud moved and the tent moved, it moved. It moved with Israel as God moved Israel. But David, when he became king, was a zealous man.

He wanted to build a house for God, a permanent place, and he prepared for it. 1 Chronicles 22, we'll start in verse 5. We can start earlier because it's more there, but we'll start in verse 5. David said, Solomon, my son, is young and tender. And the house to be built for the Lord is to be highly magnificent, for a name and for beauty to all the lands. I will now prepare for it.

And David prepared abundantly before his death. He called for Solomon his son and commanded him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. And David said to Solomon, my son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me and said, You have shed much blood and have made great many wars.

You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood on the earth in my sight. Behold, verse 9, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. And I will give him rest from all of his enemies all around, for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. You see, you can't build during times of war. Look at the wars we've had. Look at Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, look at the places.

You can't build during those times. You need peace. And David conquered and made vassal states of all the countries around him. And God promised that Solomon wouldn't have any problems like that. He wouldn't have the wars. He could build a house. Verse 10, he shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son and I will be his father, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever. Continuation of the promise to David.

But now, my son, may the Lord be with you and bless you and build the house of the Lord your God as he has said of you. Only may the Lord give you wisdom and understanding and direct you concerning Israel so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you shall prosper. If you take heed to fulfill the statutes and judgments, which the Lord charged Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and of good courage.

Do not fear nor be dismayed. We want the same of our young people. Not to fear, not to be dismayed. And behold, in my trouble I prepared for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold. A talent of gold is three hundred shekels. Three hundred shekels is about six or seven pounds of gold. So he prepared about three hundred and fifty tons of gold.

I brought a piece of gold here. It's about ten ounces. That would be over a million of these that he set aside out of the treasury to build the house. And a million talents of silver. I only have a five ounce bar here of silver. So this would be about fifteen million of these he set aside for the temple.

And of bronze and iron without weight. There's so much of it you didn't even weigh it. You didn't even count it. And I prepared timber also and stone, and you may add to them. It's interesting if you study history at all on the Mississippi River, just over here a little ways from where you are, they found some grave markers a number of decades ago. And they asked all the Indian tribes, the Cherokees, and not every different people that had gone through, if they could say what was on these markers. None of them could. Turns out the markers were in ancient Hebrew. And a Jewish rabbi saw it and recognized it. And they were Hebrew markers, carbon dated back to about a thousand B.C., about the time of David. You go up to Minnesota in that area, you find copper mines. They were mined, not by the Jews, not by us. But they're empty mines. They were mined when? About 3,000 years ago. When you read of the work that they found in Uncovering and in Getty, which is a lab, the Red Sea, where the port is down there, they dug up a few years ago a smelting center.

And the way it was channeled, the engineers looked at it, and it was channeled to suck the wind off of the Red Sea. And they said it could reach the same temperatures as the highest blasphemous we could have today. So all that horror that was brought back was probably smelted right there in Ingeadey.

See, God gave Solomon wisdom, and Solomon asked for wisdom, and God gave it to him. It was more than just wisdom. We tend to think of Solomon as kind of the cornfutious of China. People came to listen to him, divide the baby and the mothers.

And he was wise, no question, in relations of humans and things. But God also gave him wisdom in technology and things to produce. And when people came there, I think they came there to see this incredible city that was made. And we'll see the temple, how he describes it here. So he tells them to be with God, fulfill his statutes in his job and his laws, and he gave them all this money to do it.

Verse 15, And there are many skilled workmen with you, cutters and workers of stone and timber, and all kinds of skillful men for every kind of work. It's interesting, I won't turn there, but in 1 Chronicles 29, David says that he gave money for the building of the temple out of his own wealth. And what he gave them, it says, of my own goods, gold and silver, over above all that I prepared, what I read in 1 Chronicles there, he says I've given 3,000 talents, 20 tons of gold, out of David's own wealth, and 7,000 talents of silver, about 45 tons of silver.

David was a conqueror. All the nations round about, all the wealth of all the nations had come there. Turning back to 1 Chronicles 23, and we'll go back there, because David wanted the temple. He wanted to build it, and he did everything he could to make sure it was going to be glorious.

Verse 1, David was old and full of days and made his son Solomon king over Israel. And he gathered all the rulers of Israel with the priests and the Levites, and the Levites were numbered from age 30 years upward. Their number by head, man by man, was 38,000. Of these, 24,000 were set forward to the work of the house of the Lord. 6,000 officers and judges. 4,000 were gatekeepers. 4,000 praised the Lord with the instruments which David made for praising. There would be noise of praise while this was being built. It wouldn't be noise otherwise.

Go to 1 Kings 6. Solomon was building this temple. He was prepared for it. Let's look at when Solomon built it, what happened. There would be praise and noise, but it would be the praise of instruments and singing. 1 Kings 6, verse 1, as it happened, the 480th year after the sons of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziph, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.

480 years. 400 years of judges. His father ruled 40 years, and Saul ruled 40 years. Go down to verse 6. It says, the lowest story of it was five cubits broad, the middle was six cubits broad, the third seven cubits broad.

Around the outside of the house he made narrow ledges for the houses all around. Why? So as not to lay hold of the walls of the house. The temple would be holy. Remember when the man touched the ark when he was bringing it back and died because it was holy? He wasn't supposed to touch it. So he made ledges around this so that if anyone walked by they wouldn't touch it. But it was holy. Verse 7, And when it was being built, the house was built of stone already made beforehand, and there was not heard in the house a hammer or an axe or any iron tool while it was being built.

No noise while it was being built, except for the sound of the instruments and praising God. Skip down a little ways. Verse 11, The Word of the Lord came to Solomon saying, As to this house you are building, if you walk in my statutes and do my judgments and keep my commandments to walk in them, then I'll perform my work with you, which I spoke to David your father.

And I will live among the sons of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. God wants to be with His people. He still wants to be with His people. And Solomon built the house and finished it. And he built the walls of the house inside with boards of cedar, from floors of the houses and the walls of the ceiling.

He covered them on the inside with wood, and he covered the wood of the house with planks of fur. The stone, even though it fitted off-site, was covered with wood. So you'd only see that. And not only that, you wouldn't even see that. Nothing rough would be seen. Going down to verse 19, He prepared the holy of holies inside the house and set the ark of the covenant in there of the Lord.

Oh, verse 18, the verse before that, skip, The cedar of the house inside was carved with gourds and open flowers. All was cedar. There was no stone seen at all. I brought a carving with me. Imagine all the walls, all the doors, carved ornately so that you wouldn't see any stones or anything that wasn't precious behind it. In verse 21, Solomon overlaid the house with pure gold, pure gold over the house so you wouldn't see even the wood. He drew chains of gold across the holy of holies and he overlaid it with gold.

And he overlaid the whole house with gold until he had finished all the house and also of the altar that belonged to the holy of holies. He overlaid it with gold. And inside the holy of holies he made two caravs of olive wood, ten cubits high. And one wing of the carat was five cubits, the other wing of the carat five cubits, ten cubits from end to end, the wings, even to the end of its wings. It's about 15 feet across, a little more, maybe 20 feet, carved out of olive wood. I have some olive wood I bought in Israel.

Olive wood is really hard, one of the hardest woods on earth. It's very difficult to carve. Yet imagine all these things carved, 15 feet across, two of them with their arms stretched across. Verse 27, he set the caravs inside the inner house and they stretched forth the wings of the caravs so that the wing of the one touched the one wall and the wing of the other touched the other wall and their wings touched one another in the middle of the house over the ark.

And he overlaid these with gold. And he carved all the walls of the house all around and carved figures of caravs and palm trees and open flowers inside and out. The floor of the house was overlaid with gold inside and out. In the entrance of the holy place he made doors of olive wood, with flintels and side posts of a fifth part. In the two doors were of olive wood, he carved on them the carvings of caravs and palm trees and flowers and overlaid them with gold and spread gold on the caravs and on the palm trees.

This was an incredible building that he built. And he built the inner court, verse 36, dropping down with three rows of cut strung and rows of cedar beams. And in the fourth year, verse 37, in the month of Ziph, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. In the eleventh year, in the month of bull, which is the eighth month, the house was finished as to all its parts.

So he was seven years in building it. Seven years, no noise in the temple, everything cut far away, all the hammer and chiseling done off-site, brought in and assembled, all the instruments are praising God for the house of God, all delicately crafted and fitted, put together on the site of the temple. Fabulous! So much so was the temple in Jerusalem that all the kings of the earth came to see Solomon, came to Jerusalem, and the temple.

The queen of Sheba came down from Ethiopia. You read about that in 2 Chronicles 9. I'm not going to turn there. But she talks about the temple. She talks about Solomon and his wisdom, and she says, I didn't believe what they told me. I didn't think it was true. And I figured it was exaggerated, and yet she says, you exceeded the fame that I was told. Because Solomon was given wisdom by God, and he was given peace to be able to build, much as this nation was able to build in its early stages under the blessings of God.

And why the people of the earth came to New York City to see the skyscrapers, to see the highways, and the roads and things that are the envy of the world.

They came to Israel to see the same thing, and the Queen of Sheba came. And she bought gifts. It says she brought 120 talents of gold that she gave to Solomon. About a half a ton she brought, and spices and jewels, it says. Interesting. I don't know if she intended to give it. When Queen Serik had came to visit Mr. Armstrong, it was interesting because she brought some gold objects with her. I brought a picture of her. That's all I have. The gold, I don't know what, had ended up with the two peacocks. Sadly, it was interesting. She hadn't intended to give that to Mr.

Armstrong and to the college. It was a protocol gift, but she was so inspired and impressed by the students and the campuses, how beautiful they were, that she gave them these things. The reason I know she didn't intend to give them is because the staff that was carrying them were on display in the Hall Administration. The staff came to me and said, Can we have them back? I said, Why? These are the prototypes.

We're trying to make some others, and we need those back so we can copy them, and then we'll send them back. And they did. It was impressive. The temple was impressive. Everything God did about that was impressive. But it was interesting because the temple was ransacked over the years because they didn't obey God. They didn't keep it. The kings came to attack, and for a while they took the silver and they took the gold, and they bought them off. So they wouldn't destroy Jerusalem, and the gold and silver were gone. Later on, Hezekiah became sick, and the Babylonians came to see him.

That was the time in 2 Kings 20 when Hezekiah was sick unto death. And Isaiah comes and says, God says, You're going to die. Put your house in order. Hezekiah prays to God, and God gives him more time. Isaiah comes back and says God has promised that. Hezekiah says, What sign do I have? No, this is true. He says, Well, the sun's going to move back 10 degrees. And it did. Second time, it did it for Joshua earlier on.

He knew it was true. But Isaiah had asked him, Who are the visitors? And he said, People from Babylon. He said, What did you show them? And he said, I showed them everything. They were here on a Goodwill trip, so I showed them everything. And Isaiah said, Everything you've shown them is going to be in Babylon.

It's going to take it captive. It'll be gone. Isaiah lived 200 years before the captivity of Judah. And it was interesting because Isaiah wrote a book in Isaiah 44.28. I'm just going to read the one verse I've got it written here so you can listen instead of turning there. You can write it down in your notes. In relating the prophecies in Isaiah 44, God said, verse 28, Say of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, He shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, You shall be built, and to the temple your foundation shall be laid.

I would imagine when Isaiah wrote that and they read that, they thought, What are you talking about? There's a temple here already. What do you mean, Cyrus? The Persia is going to have this built. This is God's house. It's not going to be destroyed. God will protect it. It's beautiful. But it didn't last. And those words probably had meaning around 604 to 585 B.C., especially 585, the last siege of Jerusalem, when the temple was not only ransacked and destroyed, but burnt to the ground.

And all the wood went up in flames, and all the artistic stuff disappeared. And the building was gone. The temple was gone. Who's the Messiah going to come to? There's no temple. What are we going to do? But they probably remembered Isaiah's words then, that the temple would be rebuilt. Cyrus would come along and order it to be rebuilt. And sure enough, turn to Ezra 6, verse 1. Darius the king made a decree, and a search was made in the house of all the rolls where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. All the scrolls that were there made a search for them.

And he found one at Acomatha, verse 2 of Ezra 6, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record that was thus written. Verse 3, in the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king, again, the one Isaiah said 200 years before, made a decree concerning the house of God of Jerusalem. Let the house be built, the place where they offered sacrifices. Let the foundations thereof be strongly laid, the height thereof three-score cubits, and the breadth three-score, and the same size as before.

With three rows of great stones and a row of new timber, and let the expenses be given out of the king's house. And also let the golden and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem, and brought to Babylon. Let them be restored, and brought again to the temple, which is at Jerusalem. Everyone to his place and place them in the house of God. So the temple was rebuilt, as Isaiah said. That scripture came to pass. Turn to Haggai 2, the minor prophets. Haggai 2, again, this was the rebuilding of the temple. Zechariah, Joshua's rebuilding, done at the behest by the power of the king of Persia.

Send them back. Haggai 2, this prophesied second temple, was built, but it wasn't as nice as the first one. Haggai 2, verse 3, Who has left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison as nothing? The first one was so beautiful, so much gold, and so much silver, and so many craftsmen working on it. And this one was built at a time when they had to fight enemies off and try to raise the walls and do things and not as much money.

I look back, and I understand how they felt. The year Mr. Armstrong died, the worldwide income of the church was around $200 million. Ours is less than 10% of that. We're trying to do the work the same way, but not with the buildings, not with the things we had done, the three campuses, and all the things that we thought wouldn't be destroyed. It was a surprise. But yet, God's still here. Verse 4, Be strong, Zerobel. Be strong, Joshua, son of Josidec, the high priest. Be strong, all the people of the land, says the Lord, and work.

For I am with you, says the Lord of Hosts. God is still with us. He was with them. According to the word that I covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you. Fear not. Fear not. For thus, says the Lord of Hosts, yet once it's a little while, and I will shake the heavens and shake the earth and the sea and the dry land. Verse 7, I'll shake the nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, says the Lord.

Verse 9, The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, says the Lord of Hosts. And in this place will I give peace, says the Lord of Hosts. And when they read this, they probably thought, Are you kidding? Look at the building. It's not as nice as Solomon's. What's going to happen? How can that be? It's more glorious, greater than the former. Doesn't make sense. But it's a temple. At least we have a temple. The Messiah can come to the temple. It's interesting how they try to make the prophecies, the major prophets and minor prophets, fit.

The rebuilding, to fit what Haggai says here, to make the temple better. What the prophets were writing about. Turn to Isaiah 56. It wasn't really what the prophets were writing about, but that's the way they interpreted it. That's the way those four or three men that came to Mr. Armstrong's house interpreted it. We need a temple to come to. And what they applied with the Scriptures, like Isaiah 56, verse 7.

He says, Even then will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on my altar. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. Chapter 66, verse 20. Another. There's hundreds we can quote. Turn into that one. They shall bring all of your brethren for an offering to the Lord, out of the nations, out of all nations, upon horses and chariots and litters, upon mules, upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering and a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.

They thought that apply. It's going to be glorious. The second temple also fell into this repair many times. Josephus, we've read Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews. I read it when I was a teenager. Not a lot of fun reading, but it was interesting historically. But Josephus quotes the older historians about this. He talks about Tychus' epiphanies coming, ransacking the temple, desecrating it, offering a swine, a pig, on the altar. You can imagine the Jews were thinking, well, the Messiah's coming to the temple. This can't happen. How's it going to be? It's supposed to be a glorious house. The Maccabees came at this time, if you read history, and with some success, restored the temple a bit.

Not to its former glory, obviously. But it seemed there could be no hope without a temple. The Jews consistently kept trying to build this temple. We want the temple. The Messiah needs to come. The General Consul of Rome, Pompey, in 63 BC, came to Jerusalem. He attacked it. He took down a wall of the temple, and they thought he was going to ransack it, but he didn't. He just looked at everything and then left. They had to think this is a miracle from God, because the temple is still here.

They knew from the prophecies that somewhere in the next 50-60 years, the Messiah should come, because that's the way the prophecies laid out. That's why there were so many would-be messiahs around the time of Christ, because the prophecies said he was going to be born around that time. They wanted to build the temple. General Crasius came to Jerusalem to fight Parthia a few years after Pompey. He intended to strip the temple for his war, but the high priest negotiated and said, well, there's a gold beam here.

Take this and leave the rest of the temple alone. Please. And he agreed. And he lied and stole everything out of it. Nothing left. Didn't burn it down. It was still there. Just no gold, no silver, no precious stones. That's the way it was. The temple was in poor condition. There was little or no treasury at all. From the prophecies, they knew the Messiah should come, and the Jews had to be distraught now with the temple looking the way it was, and the Messiah was supposed to be coming. What's going on? This was the setting of the temple when Jesus as a man was going to come. And they were building a temple.

It was interesting because the temple that he would come to would be called Herod's Temple. Herod wanted to win the people over. So he decided to build a temple for him. Joseph records that he said he was going to destroy the old temple and start from nothing. And the people were so scared because this Messiah is supposed to come, you're going to tear down the temple and you've lied about everything else. You've killed some of your brothers and sisters and your own children. What makes us believe you're going to do this?

They were nervous. But in his self-interest, he wanted to rule the Jews. He knew building them a temple would make them happy. So he did. He started building the temple in 20 B.C. He hired 10,000 skilled workmen, 1,000 priests as masons, and 1,000 wagons with oxen to haul the stones.

That's what it says in Josephus. Josephus writes, the stones were very large. How large? He says some of the stones were 40 cubits long and 6 cubits high and 3 cubits deep. That's about 60 feet by 12 feet by 9 feet. Not every stone was the same size. The largest complete stone they've ever dug up of Herod's Temple was a little smaller. It was only 36 feet by 9 feet by 12 feet. It only weighed 400 tons. There are bigger stones than that.

400 tons. Josephus says the blocks were cut so tightly. He says they used no mortar. He says they were set so tight you couldn't slide a sheet of paper between the stones. When the sun rose on the Mount of Olives and shone on the wall, he said it was so bright and polished that it blinded you.

You couldn't look at it. It was like looking at the sun itself. Brilliant! It was built. The outer wall was 3 blocks thick. Imagine these 400-ton stones, 500-ton stones, thick. 3 blocks thick. Just like before, 3 blocks thick. Each block bore Herod's trademark and etching. I dug in Jerusalem. I saw some of those stones. They had been etching around them. When Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was taken down, they cut up some of those stones. They built the city of Gerashe with them.

They built the city of Pella, a lot of them. You can tell. You go to Gerashe in Jordan and Pella, and you can see some of the much smaller stones, but you'll see maybe on one corner the etching of the thing, on a corner. Another part with parts across the top or the bottom.

You can tell it was Herod's mark. Herod didn't build anything in Jordan. They came from that when it was destroyed. They hauled it away and built other cities out of them. The foundation of the wall was 20 meters, about 60 feet or more, below ground. Josephus says the highest point of the wall was about 450 feet high. Iron clamps were put on the inside as the dirt fill was brought in because these were retaining walls to fill up the dirt to build the temple on the level surface of the top.

The temple had four courts, each ascending as you went up to the Holy of Holies, where only the high priest and royal priestly guard went once a year in atonement. It's interesting. The temple proper was completed in one and a half years, although it was 40 years and building all together. Josephus says it did not rain during the day, but only at night during that one and a half years so the work could be completed.

We have to have a temple for the Messiah to come. What do you think the Jews thought when it didn't rain for a year and a half except at night? Wow! Something special is going on here. It had to be hope for the Jewish people and the workers in preparation for the Messiah to come to His temple. Roman Tacitus describes the temple as possessing enormous wealth. Of course, the Jews only had one temple and one God, so you only had to give to one, so all the wealth was in one spot. How did Jesus look at the temple?

He looked at it with respect and with zeal. It represented God, His Father's house, although it was physical. In Luke 2, you read about Jesus as a boy. I'm not going to turn there. He was separated from His parents. You've read that story. Twelve years old, where did they find Him?

In the temple. Teaching, talking with the masters who were shocked at how much He understood, how much He knew. But He was in the temple, and He told His parents, I was about my Father's business. I was in His house. Satan, when he was attempting Christ in Matthew 4, verse 5, says, He took him up to the Holy City and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, because the temple was 450 foot high on the wall, but it goes down through the canyon, which is another thousand feet below or so.

And He told him, Matthew 4, verse 6, If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down. For it is written, He shall give charge, His angels charge concerning you, and their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against the stone. This is God's house. God's right here. This is His temple. You can jump off, and it won't hurt you as angels will catch you. Christ quoted back, it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Turn to John 2. All four Gospels record the episode of the money changers in the temple. We'll look at a couple of them. John 2, verse 13. John 2, verse 13, the Jews' Passover was at hand. About a time now, probably was this past week, we were looking at parallels to it because He came to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money-sitting. And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple, drove the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overthrew the tables and said to them that sold doves, Take these things out of here.

Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. Verse 17, And His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house has eaten me up. I remembered that. He was zealous for His house. Turn to Luke 19. They didn't always see these things when they were with Him. They remembered these things later on. Luke 19, the same event, verse 45, He went into the temple and began to cast them that sold their end, that bought. Verse 46, He said to them, It's written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

Verse 47, He taught daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the chiefs of the people sought to destroy Him and could not find what they might do. For all the people were very attentive to hear Him because He spoke the truth, the words of life, a place of teaching and learning. And these people who would want this temple so that the Messiah can come wanted to kill Him. And they were shocked that Jesus knew what He did because, like they said in John 7, He was never taught by any of us.

He didn't learn at the feet of the scribes, or the feet of the Pharisees, or the feet of any special teacher. How could He know these? He wasn't learned. But He taught in the temple. And He was zealous for the temple. In Luke 21, turn there. And they were very, very, very powerful. Luke 21, verse 5. Jesus always went to the temple to talk to the people, not the powerful, but the people. God was wanting to be with His people. Luke 21, verse 5, And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, He said, Verse 6, As for these things which you behold, the days will come in which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Massive stones. Excuse me? What do you think His disciples thought? How many of you, if I had four and five hundred tons of stones, three rows deep, stacked up, would think, these are all going to be torn down. Not one left on another. Ever watched a movie of a siege of a town? Do they take all the walls down? They breach the wall and they come through and ransack everything, may burn it down, but they don't tear the walls down.

And yet He's telling them, and His disciples had to think, what does He mean by this? This is strange. Not one stone upon another. Mr. Armstrong, the last year of his life, we sat and talked a lot. When he was on his deathbed, he told me, he said, in a few short years, half the people in the church are going to quit keeping the Sabbath and quit keeping the Holy Days. That's Mr. Armstrong.

This book doesn't change. Exodus 20, remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy, six days of your labor and do all your work. Seventh day of the Sabbath, the Lord your God, in it you do no work. It doesn't change. That stone can't come down.

We had ten big stones. Stones can be taken down if you get away from God. We've had stones, big stones taken down in the church of God. People who were supposed to be part of the church. Jesus wept for the physical temple and what it represented and what was going to happen to it. Because it was God's house and it's not wrong to build things for God.

But they're physical. We have physical losses too that we can weep for, but that's not what it's about. Luke 24. We look at the disciples' view of the physical temple right after Jesus' death. Luke 24, verse 51. He came to pass while He blessed them. He was parted from them and carried up to heaven. And they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. The temple. Where are you supposed to go? Acts 2. Turn over there. Acts 2, verse 46. The disciples were there. Verse 46. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house and to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, having favor with all people, and God added to the church daily, it should be saved. Acts 5. All pages over. Acts 5, verse 12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were with one accord in Solomon's porch, a portion of the temple. After this, it doesn't talk much about the temple, about going to the temple. Why? In other words, persecution drove them way partially, but also I think they gained a better understanding of what Christ was talking about. Turn to John 2 again. Did the Isaiah prophecies refer to these temples that were being built? Solomon, Ezra, Nehemiah, Herod's temple, a temple yet to be built, supposedly? Verse 19 of John 2. And Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple in three days, I'll raise it up. Then said the Jews, 46 years was this temple and building, and you will build it in three days, 500 tons of stones, 750 foot high, three rows deep, three days? Yeah, right.

The disciples probably thought that as well. Verse 21, But he spoke of the temple of his body, and therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the Scriptures, and the word which Jesus had said after the fact, they remembered he said this, and oh, that's what he meant, not the 400-ton stones.

Turn to John 4. Christ's body was the temple where God's Spirit was in him as the son of God. Only God is holy, and only God makes things holy, and God's presence is there, it's holy.

John 4, verse 23. You see, we are the temple of God's Spirit as in us where God's Spirit was in him. A physical temple is not where you have to worship. A physical temple isn't what God has to come back to. John 4 talks about the woman at the well, and offering water in Christ said, I have living water, you can have that, but going to verse 21. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Was God or Christ really concerned about all the gold and the silver and all the carvings and the ornate decorations of the physical temples? It was out of respect that they built it, no question. But God was more concerned with the character and the Spirit in David.

He wanted Solomon to follow that. He wanted his people in Israel to follow that, with David's repentance, his heart, his mind, and his soul, with worshiping in spirit and in truth, to become part of the temple. It wasn't about the physical buildings. He's concerned about the character he's building in you, his spirit, the spirit of truth.

The temple is about God and Jesus Christ and His family that He's building. Turn to 1 Corinthians 3. It's not about the physical buildings. Physical buildings are buildings. Physical buildings are decaying and being destroyed. We fell into this mindset years ago. We had three campuses, three beautiful campuses. I was on all three of them. Fabulous. The finest auditorium in the world, dedicated to the great God, which has been used for all sorts of a sundry thing since that time of His death, since it's been sold.

Where is it now? But this physical is not what it's about. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16. Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwells in you.

If any man defile the temple of God, him God shall destroy. For the temple of God is holy. Which temple you are. We're part of the temple. While collectively we make a battle, we're part of the temple. We also have individual responsibilities. Turn to chapter 6, 1 Corinthians, verse 19. Paul continues the same thought here. Chapter 6, verse 19. Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own.

This is God's special property He gave to you. He put inside you to work with your spirit. It's what can make you holy because the spirit is holy. It's not about us. Verse 20. For you are bought with the price, the price of His Son, who will celebrate tomorrow night, His sacrifice. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Every part of the temple was special to God.

It was ornate, a lot of work physically. But He wants you to be ornate and pure spiritually, special to God. Turn a few pages to 2 Corinthians 6. Are you seeking purity in your actions and character to be part of the temple? Verse 16, 2 Corinthians 6. And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

God wants to dwell with His people. Wherefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you. We can't leave the earth, we can't leave the things that are around us, but we can avoid the destruction that's coming because of sin. We can avoid the destruction of our minds, or the things that are out there. Old Chinese proverb says, I can't keep the virgin flying over my head, but I can keep him from nesting on it.

That's kind of where we are. We can keep this out of our minds. We can't take it away from the world right now. Verse 18, and I will be a father to you, and you should be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

We're His children. Do we respect each other as sons and daughters of God? How do we treat our temple, the spiritual body, individually and collectively? Remember when we read there was no noise in the building of the temple? Is there hammering and chiseling in the temple of God? Is there noise around or peace? Sadly, a few years ago we had a lot of noise in the temple.

A lot of people sang a lot of things. It wasn't peace. But we're to be a place of teaching and learning and of peace. I found that those who make destructive noises have an agenda. And you don't always see that until later on. Every time there's noise, it hurts and it costs physically and spiritually. I've seen splits in the church for 60 years since I was a child. It's interesting when you look at those splits what happens because there's noise in the church and there shouldn't be noise in the church.

Dr. Hay, an evangelist back then, he's called to a house where a man had a demon. And he asked the demon why before he cast it out. I never talked to demons and asked them questions, but he was one of those type of people. And he asked, why did you rebel against God's perfect government? And the answer to the demon said is because God wasn't fair. It's interesting. Every time I've ever heard a split, I've heard the words, it's not fair.

It's not fair. How does God know that you trust Him? How does God know you have faith in Him unless there are some things that happen that don't seem to be fair? If everything's wonderful, it's easy to follow. What's interesting to me is when I look at these people, oftentimes God gives you things you want. And then He oftentimes takes them away, like Job. See how you react. Even Satan used that ploy on Job. Yeah, you gave him everything. You blessed him. Why should he bless you? Take it away. I've seen many men rise in the church, and they serve.

I have people tell me with people who have left over the decades, they were such a great passion. They serve so hard. And I say, yes, I'm sure they did. Because there were two trees in the garden. One was a tree of life, and one was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. The good actions that we see as humans look exactly the same off of both trees. The motive is what delineates them. Those young men you see on the side of the road, and he's changing the tire for a good-looking young girl.

He's serving her. He's changing her tire. Why is he doing it? Because you don't get to hit on her? Because you don't get to serve her. It's in the heart. Now, after a number of years, you see him out there with little old men, little old ladies, and everybody else, and you know he's the servant. But you don't know until then. And there are men in the church who rose up. This has happened for 2,000 years because they wanted things, and they served hard.

I'll tell you about one evangelist that was interesting because he went to Ambassador College. In the back of his Bible, after graduation, he wrote on one of those pages. He turned back to you off and found a blank page, and he wrote in there, I'm going to be a local elder by this date and a preaching elder by this date and a pastor by this date and an evangelist by this date.

And he became an evangelist. The day he was ordained an evangelist, one of my friends that I know, he's still in the church, was sitting next to him, and he made the comment to him, he's being ordained, and I'm two months ahead of schedule.

He said, what do you mean? He showed him that in his notes in the Bible that he wrote at graduation. Now tell me, did he do all the right things to get there? Yes. Why did he do them? To get somewhere. If you work hard to get somewhere and someone takes it away from you, what happens? You get angry. We saw a lot of anger a few years ago, a lot of anger 15 years ago, and a lot of anger 24 years ago.

I mean, I've seen it over and over. It's not fair. I got here. I worked here. I served. I owed this. You can't take this away from me. Why were you doing it? Versus those who serve and they're told to do this and they do that and they're raised in rank or whatever, or get another job and they say, fine, and they do that.

Then all of a sudden they're demoted to a lower job and they say, okay, what do I serve now? What do I do now? Then you know you're doing it from the heart. And it has to be from the heart. So I never deny people when they say they serve. A lot of people serve, especially if there's something in it for you. How many people serve selfishly like Christ?

We had nothing we could give Him. He had everything to give us. His motive was pure. Turn to Ephesians 2. We're stones that God is making. Are you going to be a stone that's noisy? A stone the builders have to reject? Are you going to be part of the household of God? Christ can silence the noise, and He does. He sorts it out. He separates. When Satan was unhappy because it wasn't fair, I tried to imagine what it was.

The only thing I can come up with that makes sense is when I read the Scripture that says we're going to judge angels. And I think, okay, I'm an angel. I can go through walls. I'm space and time. I can live forever. I can do all these wonderful things. And you're going to judge me? Are you kidding? That's not fair. You've got to be kidding. I can imagine an angel over me saying, he's going to judge me?

Yeah, right. I don't see any place where God said, I'm fair. Don't leave me. I'm fair. You either know God's fair and you know He's righteous, and you have faith in that or you don't. If you have faith, you have patience to let Him work. If you don't, you take matters into your own hand. You get mad. You get angry. You get emotionally involved. And that takes away God's Spirit. That's not the Spirit of truth.

That's not worshiping Him in Spirit and truth. Ephesians 2, verse 18, For through Him, that is Christ, we have both the access by one Spirit to the Father. Now therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. He's the biggest, strongest stone you could ask for. The chief cornerstone. In whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

That's what He's interested in. Remember the parts of Solomon's Temple were all built off-site and hauled in with no noise? The family of God, the church, has been built off-site. People over in the Philippines, who I was there a couple of months ago, a couple of months before that in London with a brethren there in Africa, all off-site. Not only off-site, but off-time. Abel, 6,000 years ago, the prophets, the apostles, 2,000 years ago.

Off-site and off-time, being fitly joined, built off-site so that when it gets together, there's no noise. We believe the same things. We will perfectly fit, or we will not be there. There can't be a paper between us and righteousness. And we do that through Jesus Christ, our Passover, which we celebrate tomorrow night. Turn to 1 Peter 2. Whether you lived 1,000 years ago, or 2,000, where you're young or old, died young or old, God was working with you.

He was building you to fit. 1 Peter 2, verse 5, You also, as lively stones, are built upon a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We're not acceptable to God without Jesus Christ. It's the only way. Verse 6, Wherefore also it contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone. It lacked precious, more precious than any of the gold or silver or jewels.

And he that believes on him shall not be confounded. The noise won't be able to take you away. The noise took a third of the angels away. The noise has taken many people away from the Sabbath and the holidays. But unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. That's us. We believe that. But to them which are disobedient, stones which the builders disallowed, the same as made head of the corner, the stone of stumbling, a rock of offense to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient, and to them they were appointed.

Without the cornerstone, you can't be laid straight. You're going to be crooked. You're going to be noisy. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light through Jesus Christ, our Passover.

Turn to Revelation 3. You see, you are very special to God. He's making you into what he wants you to be. His way. His way. Revelation 3, verse 12, "...him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God. He shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new name." We talk of pillars in the church, peoples whose lives have been changed, who represent and reflect Jesus Christ, who do actions of service for the sake of service off the tree of knowledge of righteousness, not knowledge of good and evil.

We must be helping one another get in. And God molds us in different ways. And He challenges us. He checks us. He's offering you eternity through His Son. What would you do to get it? Look at what people have done to get big jobs for money, for things that pass. I had one of my students I taught when I was teaching college after a strong son died.

He wrote and told me what happened to him. He was using computers. He got a great job, exactly what he wanted. He was going to be running all these different things and programs and building systems. He loved it. He got hired in the first three months or so, maybe a little longer.

All he did was string cable through this building. Six floors, every office, string and cable, a little before the wireless set. He was pretty upset because that wasn't what he was hired to do. But his boss called him in after a few months and said, I imagine you're probably about ready to quit.

He said, I'll tell you what we were doing. He said, we knew in your job you were going to deal with every person in every department on every floor of this building. We wanted to see how you interacted with every one of them. Then they gave him the job he was hired for. When you're upset, how do you know God's not giving you something to see how you react because he's preparing you for the job he wants you to have? Therefore, you should get angry and say, no, I want that other job. And get mad and leave. That kid would have left.

He loved his job. It was great after that. But he almost quit. We can't quit. God's making you. He's molding you. Why should you complain it the way that God has chosen to make you fit in his building? Turn to James 5. What is helping other people do for us? Because we need to be helping others as Christ helps us, building that righteous character so we can be part of the temple.

If you're only selfishly seeking it, you're not going to be there. James 5, verse 19, Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one converts him, let him know that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. Do you want some of your sins hidden? Help someone else. I know when I became a teacher, I learned more than I ever did taking classes. Help other people learn to be like Christ.

Verse 20, Let him know that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall hide a multitude of sins. Think about that in terms of Christ. Does not Christ hide every single sin if we lay him on him? He took all of our sins. There's only one of you, he died for you. The whole world, he died for them. Every single one, he's hiding a multitude of sins, and he didn't commit any sins.

He did that for us. Christ converts all of us sinners from the error of our ways. No question about that. He covered our sins. He took on our affirmities. He became the subject of ridicule. The Messiah coming to the temple that they didn't recognize.

He died a painful, horrible death for you and for me to be part of the temple. And we celebrate that tomorrow night that we can be part of something much better than anything that's ever been built. A part of the temple of God. Are we not like him? Can we not help other people? God's focus is on a temple that can't be destroyed, and all the physical temples were destroyed. They were types of what was coming, like the lamb as a type of Christ, like the blood and the wine. The bread and the wine are types of the blood and his body.

Christ respected the temple as God's house, but the physical temple had boundaries. Only the right people could come into certain places. The Gentiles had to be out, the women had to be over here, the men could be here, the priests could come here, the high priests go there. It's all about status and position. Nothing unclean could come into the temple.

What's unclean today? Obviously sin. We have to repent of our sins. But all too often we think of obvious sins. Ten commandments, murder, stealing, lies, etc. But most of our divisions over millennia have been over-ranked, over a block of humility, over-pride, the way of get versus the way of give. Wanting to be seen by men. You can act the part. And you might rise and deceive people for a while. But God knows the heart. And eventually he'll show what that heart is. Is it a heart of service? True Christ-like men and women shall respect in humility at all times. Not greed and selfish gain, for position or for money, for power. It's sad. God did away with ranking as the Gentiles did. You want to be great? Be a servant. That was his motto. It's about service, about fitting, for God builds you, encourages you, and places you. Not rank or character or position. Noise is sin. Jesus Christ frees us from that noise, from the slavery of sin. When we sin, there's noise in the temple. There's confusion. 1 Corinthians 14, 33 says, God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in the churches of God. We should have peace. Place of learning, place of respect, place of teaching. Not noisy. If you're about to make a noise, think about the fact that you're in the temple. It's supposed to be about praising God. The temple is to be a place of purity and peace. The Scriptures of Isaiah, the prophet, and the other prophets, Ezra, all of them, are not about a physical temple for the Messiah to come to. The Orthodox Jews who visited Mr. Armstrong didn't understand that. They wanted a temple. They wanted the Messiah, but they only knew the Old Testament. They didn't understand what the temple was. They didn't understand that the Messiah did come. He's going to come again in the power they thought He would come with the first time. Go to Revelation 21. Note there's not even a place called the temple with the New Jerusalem.

Revelation 21, verse 22. John is writing, he says, I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city who had no need of a sun or moon to shine for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor to it.

All of us will be kings and priests, glory and honor. And the gates that shall not be shut all by day, for there shall be no night there, and the gates that shall not be shut all by day, for there shall be no night there, and there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honor of all nations to it. There shall no wise enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatsoever works abomination or makes a lie.

But they that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, who have a pure heart, God and Christ are the temple and His family are the temple.

It's not wrong to build something physical for God. We all build things. My children painted little paintings they gave to us. We put them on the refrigerator. We treasured them. They weren't remvats or Monets. Some were like Picasso. But we treasured them. Why? Because they were our children. It was our house. There was love in the house. We wanted them. It was a family. It was a home with people. Nothing physical survives. All the temples were built and destroyed.

Even the pyramids are wearing down year by year with the sand beating on it. But it's not about a physical temple. It's about a spiritual family of God. Pure, undefiled, godly love, service to each other. When we look at the physical temple in Jerusalem and we look at the preparation that was made for them, the ornate carvings, the gold carved off-site, hand-heeled, and fit together, quiet, praising God, we see that kind.

How much more care is God taking in building you and in building me, each of us, to fit in His spiritual temple? Mr. Armstrong built the auditorium dedicated to God. It was interesting. It was a beautiful building for those of you who had a chance to see it. But where is it now? It went down. The dedication to the honor and glory of the great God has been removed. There's holes there where it was in the onyx, sadly. Because when God leaves a place or when God's people leave, it's no longer God's place.

It no longer has anything holy in it because it's only about God. And if God's Holy Spirit's not there, He's not there. God and Christ through the Holy Spirit are building the temple in us, in you and me. I can be a pretty rough stone. I'm sure all of you feel the same way at times.

And God is building that temple off-site, in me. This is He is you. As long as I'm a second generation Christian, that's all I've known is the truth. Some of us got carved a little bit before we came into the church. I never had to chop off Christmas and Easter.

Never celebrated it. Never had to worry about that. But I did have to chop down my own carnality. The things that I did wrong, in some cases I grew up in Imperial, I knew all the right things to say. I knew all the, I could have answered all the baptism questions by the age of 12. I had Bible five days a week, every day of my life. In school, and then Sabbath, church services, which lasted three and four hours when I was a kid. We had double services during Unleavened Bread, along with a piece of Tabernacles.

I had a lot of Bible. I could answer those questions, and I could be a hypocrite, doing the right things, but not doing it for the right reason. Not always wanting to do it from my heart. But God is chiseling and carving me as He is you. Some of you are probably using a jackhammer on to start out. A solid wall of granite, but it can be carved. We know that from our kitchen countertops. And it can be polished, you and I. It can be polished. I wish to fit in the building without annoying the other stones around me.

Scratching. I want to be spiritually mature. All of us should be spiritually mature men and women, who through the trials that we go through, are being overlaid with the gold and the silver, and being carved to fit where God wants us. I certainly don't want to damage the little ones that God is beginning to work with. I want to help them. Can you find a better craftsman than God and Jesus Christ to make you part of His temple? See, I see unfinished products in front of me in various stages of production.

Michelle and I traveled the world. We met many people of many nations, many races. We met a lot of kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers. We met a lot of beggars and people that needed healing, people that were deformed, sometimes by their own parents, they could beg better, and poverty. And they may have been royalty or they may have been beggars, but that was not their permanent state. That's not the state God has for them. See, I was taught to see every human being as the raw gold, the raw silver, the raw copper that David laid up. And this world is full of people, raw people, that have yet to know about God and Jesus Christ, that are going to become part of the temple someday, when they become part of the family of God, people who don't even know their potential to be part of the family.

We get to help them. And the people He called were not the beautiful people that were well-sculptured and strong and physically, but He called us. If we had any beauty, it's long since past for most of us. It's going to get worse. That's what time does. The temple was meticulously built off-site. Are you the gold leaf? Are you the ornate carvings? Are you the stones that help hold it up?

Some pillars in the church are the stones. Some are your tough and can hold the church together and have. It's happened over the decades that I saw. People stand in the gap. When there's anger and noise, they quiet it down. They calm people. God's Spirit works in them. Those others have personalities so caring and loving that you'd love to be around them. You just light up when you see them and you talk to them. Some people that contribute so much to the potlucks that you just go there every time because you don't want to miss the food.

Everybody has a place. God knows where you fit. He knows where I fit. And He's placing us. He's building us. Turn to Hebrews 5. Christ is working on you. He wants you to succeed. If you don't get angry and you have faith and patience and you let Him work, you will fit.

Hebrews 5 verse 9, And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. The author and finisher. It's more fun to have God place you where He wants you. You never know where it's going to be or what it's going to do. I've never asked for a job in the church. I graduated from prayer and went to college and didn't expect anything.

I was told I was going to go out in the fields to trainee. Graduation day, Mr. Armstrong called and said, I want you to fly with me. I said, I'm supposed to leave Sunday. He said, they'll understand. On Monday we left for Europe. Left on a six-week trip. Supposed to be a three-week trip. I flew back from Paris in six weeks to get married. I was still over there. Didn't know what was going to happen. Ended up being his aide, doing all sorts of jobs there.

Then was asked to go to the college after he died. It was interesting. With Mr. DeCotch, I was supposed to be his aide. There were a lot of promises I was sitting there in the room and watched all the promises get broken one by one. Hard to take. Hard to listen to. I wanted to stand up and scream sometimes, but God was doing something. He was testing the bride. Is Christ your king?

Or is a man your king? If a man tells you to do something, you'll say, oh, he's in charge. Okay. You're going to obey God. It's the choice you have to make. I watched some things fail. I watched things happen.

Knowing that God is in charge, in faith. I told Mr. DeCotch when he was wrong. Mr. Armstrong made me a promise to tell him when he was wrong. I said, Mr. Armstrong, you're asking me to tell my future boss when he's wrong? He says, well, you told me. Yeah, I did. When he asked me if I thought something was wrong, I told him. I was respectful. But I told him. Probably the best compliment he ever gave me. I got fired for a number of times, too, but that's part of the job as well. But that's what it's about. In spirit and truth. He knows where we fit. He washes our sins away with his blood. We're healed by his stripes. And we celebrate that tomorrow night. Turn a few pages to Hebrews 12. Because he died on that cross, we can be carved and chiseled the way he sees fit. Hebrews 12, verse 2, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. What better master builder could you ask for? He's been here. He's done it. He knows what it feels like. And he wants you. And he's going to help you. And he's going to carve you. And he's going to make you fit where you fit. If you'll let him. If you'll trust him. If you have faith in him. We fit because through Jesus Christ, building the inward character and purity in us, not the outward physical appearance, because the mystery is you can't build it. You can't. If he hadn't died on that cross, we couldn't be there. But you have to try. You have to do it as if you're doing it yourself. You have to put every ounce of your being and soul and heart into it. And whether it's high or whether it's low, whether you're asked to serve or asked to hold back, he's building you. He knows not only where you fit, but when to put you in. You don't start with the ornate stuff on top. You have to start with the rock on the bottom. So if you want to be up top and you're a bottom rock, you've got to fit where you fit. And he's putting you there. You can't do it alone. And as we prepare for this Passover, we know our hope is in Jesus Christ to be part of the temple. Let us keep our temples beautiful. Let us keep the noise out. Let's keep our temple adorned with the fruits of God's Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, patience, faith. Quiet and peaceful, and most of all, be ready to be assembled where God sees fit in the most beautiful temple of all, the temple of God.

Thank you.