The Lost Message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God

We've all listened to Paul Harvey's little three- or four-minute monologue, sometimes five minutes, I guess, that he does on the radio, called The Rest of the Story. And I think all of us know that story, where he takes a story and he tells it. And it's always about somebody we knew or some famous event, but he tells something about it that's different. And we see it from a different dimension. We see a new element to that person or the story that we didn't know.

And then he says, and now you know the rest of the story. Well, today I'd like to tell you a little bit about a well-familiar story with all of us and add another dimension to it that will take off from what Mr. Harvey does with his radio program and tell you the rest of the story about a story that we've all heard and we all think we know a great deal about, and we do, but do we know all of the story? That's the question. And I hope by the end of the sermon today that you will have learned a bit more about the story of the gospel of the kingdom of God.

We've all heard the gospel of the kingdom of God. We know that essentially it's a story of Jesus Christ coming back to earth. That's the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus died for our sins and He's coming back. That's the heart of it right there. And His kingdom is going to be established on this earth and the kingdom of God will be here. And He will reign for a thousand years and on beyond in that story as well. And that is at the heart of the story. But there is something else that I think that we also should understand in what I call the lost message of the gospel that is important for us to understand as we here have now taken the Passover service and we prepare to take the Days of Unleavened Bread at sunset tonight and go through the seven-day occasion.

I think this is a subject that can help us to appreciate even more the Days of Unleavened Bread by understanding the lost message of the gospel of the kingdom of God. Turn, if you will, over to the book of Luke, chapter 8. And let's look at something very quickly. This is in Luke, chapter 8, beginning in verse 4. It is the parable of the sower and the seed. Again, another parable that we should know well. I'm not going to go through all of this, but in detail I want to bring this down to a point.

But he spoke a parable about the kingdom of God. And he used the idea of a sower who went out to sow his seed in verse 5. And he sowed, and some fell by the wayside that was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on a rock, and as soon as it sprang up withered away because it lacked moisture.

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. Others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And he goes on then to interpret this parable beginning in verse 11. Because the seed that he is talking about here is really the message of the kingdom of God.

Like a kernel of corn or beans or wheat or whatever the seed might be that is sown out into a field in a trench in a furrow, and covered over with dirt, it sprouts and it bears fruit. The sowing of the gospel of the kingdom of God is likened to this work of sowing the seed. And the message going out, and that seed falls in different locations. It falls into some lives that are stony and rocky, and it doesn't bear any fruit. It falls into some lives where it does begin to bear a little bit of fruit. And then it falls into some lives where that fruit is snatched away by the evil one.

Verse 14 talks about the thorns and the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life cause the seed to not bring forth any fruit. In verse 15, however, the last category are those where the seed bears fruit. And here's what he says, The ones that fell on the good ground, the seed that fell on the good ground, are those who, having heard the word, with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

Now, we've read this many times. I've read it many times, preached many times. Matthew 13 is a parallel account for this Luke 8 account of the sower and parable. Luke's account adds something to it that I really hadn't focused on until recent times when I read through this. Because he says that those who hear the word and on the good ground and keep that seed, it says, with a noble and a good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

A noble and good heart. That just kind of left up at me. A noble and a good heart.

Here is a description of people like you who heard the seed of the gospel. At some point in your life, you responded to it. It has been implanted. It's born fruit. 10, 20, 30, 40 years or more, in some of our cases, in terms of our commitment to God, our part in the church. And we've born fruit. But it says of us, we have a noble and a good heart. How many times have you heard that? How many times have you focused on the fact that you have a noble and a good heart? Nobody's raising their hand. Not even those of you that play the piano. But that's what it says. A noble and a good heart. Now that's the goal that we strive for. That's a pretty good description of a group of people who seem to be able to and would do anything. But you know what? One of the reasons we may not have heard it, one of the reasons maybe we just read over it and don't focus on it, maybe because at times we have heard something otherwise. That we don't have a good heart. How many of you have ever heard that you don't have a good heart? Coupled? Three? When you think of the heart, when you think of having a good heart or a bad heart or whatever, what do you think of?

How many of you know what Jeremiah 17 and verse 9 says? Yeah. I know what it says. What is Jeremiah? The heart of man is above and yea, thus saith. It's one of the first scriptures when I was 12 years old coming to the then radio church of God that I remember hearing or reading about. How many of you are shaking your head? You remember that being kind of an early verse, memory verse or whatever? The heart is deceitful. Let's go back and read it. We've quoted it in plain chant here. Let's go back to Jeremiah 17 and verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind. Now, that's not a false statement. That is a true statement. But it speaks to a heart that is in sin. It speaks to a heart that is unconverted. It speaks to a heart that is deceitful. Now, what is deceit? Deceit is untruth. Deceit are lies. Deceit is guile. Deceit is an effort to deceive. Deceit is sin. It's an element of sin. That's what deceit is. You tell a lie, you get caught in it, you're going to pay the penalty. You live a lie, you find out about it, you've got to change. God says, repent from a deceitful life when He calls us and we repent. We took the Passover last night to renew a commitment to God to live a life that is good, not deceitful.

But if we sin, then we can be wicked. We can sometimes even be desperately wicked. If we sin and we don't want to repent, if we sin and we try to cover it up, we tell a lie and we have to tell another lie to cover the first lie. Or we play mind games with ourselves, then we can be desperately wicked, caught in a sin. No question about that. This is a true statement.

But is it true all the time? And is it true of those of us that represent what is described in Luke 8 and verse 15, where the seed was sown and it bears fruit? And those who have a noble and a good heart. Is there a contradiction? Is the Scripture contradicting itself?

Because Luke 8.15 is talking about the people of God, the elect. Speaking of those who receive the seed of the kingdom and are bearing fruit. But then we read this, and this has been kind of a mantra over the years in one sense. But you know what? It's important to read on further down here in Luke, in Jeremiah 17. Because yeah, there is a time of sin.

There is a time to convict people. And when people should understand that their heart is deceitful and wicked. But verse 14 is where the principle of reading on in Scripture and getting the whole story. Jeremiah says here, This was Jeremiah's prayer after what God had said. Because really the preceding verses is God's indictment, and it's a true indictment. But then Jeremiah, like any of us would say, God, heal me, save me. It's like those in Acts 2 who heard this powerful sermon of Peter's on the day of Pentecost.

And they were convicted in their heart that they had been responsible for killing Christ. And they said, what are we going to do? What shall we do? Men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said, repent and all. It's a human reaction. And Jeremiah says, God, heal me, save me, and I will be healed and I will be saved.

This is the point. God can and does heal us. And when He does, we don't have a deceitful heart. Because we're not actively trying to deceive. We're not willfully trying to sin. We're not perfect, and we'll have our ups and downs. But there's not a deceitful heart that is continuing on in deceit and wickedness, desperate wickedness. You don't wake up every morning, or I hope none of you came last night with a heart that's desperately wicked.

You examined yourself. You acknowledged your sins. You asked God's forgiveness. You came in faith, and you took the symbols of Christ's sacrifice. That's not a desperately wicked state of mind. I hope not for any of us. And so what are we talking about here? Well, in essence, it's important to understand that the message of the gospel, that seed that is sown, is that we begin to grow and develop with God's Spirit. Our minds are healed, or begin to be healed. And that healing can take years.

It can take a long time, many experiences. But our minds begin the process of healing, as God's Spirit, as a Comforter, works in our mind and in our heart. Because what we are doing through the years of our calling is living under a different covenant, a new covenant, wherein God's laws are being written where? Where under the new covenant does God write His laws? In our heart. In our heart. Look over here in Jeremiah. Let's go to chapter 31. Jeremiah chapter 31. And look at what it said here. This is the new covenant from Jeremiah, and of course it's repeated in Hebrews 8.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. That's the essence of the new covenant. That's what repentance and baptism, receiving God's Holy Spirit, begins to do. God's law is written on our heart and on our minds. And when we use this term, the heart, we're talking about not that which beats, beats, beats, beats right here to the center of our chest.

That's the physical organ. The heart is an idea for the mind, for the seat of our emotions, and of our intellect, and our soul, if you will. Not the soul of immortality or anything like that, but the essence of our life, our conscious being, as human beings, and where we think, and laugh, and cry, and weep. That's what the heart is, the mind. And God's law is being written on our heart in that way.

And it's very, very important to keep this. What Jeremiah here is saying in verse 33 is the lost message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. I say lost because perhaps we have not focused on it to round out the whole dimension of understanding that we have. In terms of protecting our heart, guarding our heart, understanding what is taking place, and lifting our appreciation of ourselves and what God is doing through us in a positive way to approach Him, Christ, the Church, the work of the Church, our lives, and one another from a positive perspective of what God is truly doing, and living with a joy that is so important for our calling.

The heart. The heart is so important. In Proverbs 4, it says, It says, How many of you have ever gone to a spring out in the country and just seen a spring coming up right out of the earth, the water coming up? One of the most beautiful things that I think you could do is to be able to drink water from a spring like that. We used to find those places and go and fill our jugs up from a spring coming up out of the ground.

We hope it's pure. We thought it was at the time. Clean. I remember on the grounds of Big Sandy, the property that we had there in Big Sandy, when we started going to the feast there in 1963, there was a spring down below the Redwood building. Remember, was that spring still there in your years, Scott and Peggy? There was a spring down there. They had it kind of walled up in a little pipe just coming out. But in those days, you had church services morning and afternoon, and it was hot in Texas. So we'd all go down there and get a drink of water from the spring.

That's where campgrounds got their water from this spring. Remember, it was cool, shady, and the water sure tasted good. And it was always refreshing. And so when he says here, keep your heart, for out of it, spring the issues of life. It's just like the life-giving water spring from the earth. Guard your heart.

Guard that source. You find a good spring, you guard it. You keep it clean. You don't want to make sure that for miles around, nothing toxic is going into it.

And you keep it clean there so that it helps. And you have this image of a picture of the spring that really represents our heart and our mind and the things that are going into it. This is what a noble and a good heart is all about. Out of it springs the issues of life. The emotions, the questions, the actions, the successes, the things that we do with our life.

The overcoming, the righteousness, the love of God, the love of the truth. All of that springs from our heart. And this is what the Bible talks about in so many different places. It's all about the heart. You ever stop to analyze and to think about the idea and how many times in the Bible you run across this idea of the heart as it is addressed within the Scriptures?

I did a very quick search on one of the Bible programs that I use online and just typed in heart, ran a search on it. The Bible Gateway. It came up with 926 references to the heart. I thought that was a little bit low. There may be probably more if you configure that search query a little differently. But 926, just with the word heart, you can run your own... you'll probably find more. But there are hundreds, if not more than a thousand, verses and places and references in the Scriptures using the word and the concept of the heart. That's quite amazing. It comes out and is used in so many different ways.

Look at Deuteronomy 6. Let's just quickly look at a few here to remind ourselves of the diversity of the way the word is used. In Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, Here, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. The very famous Shema of the Scriptures. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Love God with all of your heart. 1 Samuel 16 and verse 7, where Samuel was sent to find a replacement king for Saul, remember? He went to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem.

And he was instructed, he said, Look, be careful. He said, You're going to look after the size and the outward appearance. But remember what he said? The Lord looks upon the heart. God looks on the heart. And he chose the one that Samuel and everybody else overlooked, which was David, who was a man after God's own heart, we know from another Scripture. God looks on the heart. He looks on the mind, and the emotions, and the thoughts. That's where God looks to judge our character, to judge our life. He doesn't look at how much hair we have, what color it is, how much we weigh, what we look like, whether we're on the cover of Vogue, Time, or GQ.

He does not look at that. He doesn't care. He looks at the heart and every one of us. Hopefully what we wear and how we adorn ourselves reflects what we are inside. But God looks on the heart. And that's something that no human being can really do, ultimately. Only God can know that. Proverbs 3 and verse 5, I'll just reference this. I'll turn to it. It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Turn over to Luke 12. Turn back to the New Testament.

Look at Luke 12. These are just a handful of verses that we'll look at. Luke 12 and verse 34. Again, a well-known verse, but to illustrate how many times in the Bible. Luke 12 verse 34. Christ says, Where your heart is, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where's your treasure? Where have we sunk all of our money? Bear Stearns? Or our home? Or the bank account? Or CDs? Or something else? We'll put our money where our heart is.

Whether it's something we just feel we've got to have, whether we really need it, but we've got to have it, or we hoard it away, or we prudently invest it or whatever. You know, we make decisions based on a lot of factors, and that tells a lot about us as people. Where our treasure is, there's our heart. Psalm 119 and verse 4. I'll just reference this.

You don't have to turn to it. Psalmist wrote there, Your word I have treasured in my heart. While we're here in the Gospels, let's look at Matthew chapter 15. This is a little different application of it in Matthew 15 and verse 8. As he quotes the prophet Isaiah, he says to the scribes and Pharisees that they're hypocrites. He quotes Isaiah in Matthew 15 and verse 8 by saying, These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And what is the one verse that we recently went over in the series on the Sermon on the Mount? Matthew 5 and verse 8, where it talks about, blessed are the pure in heart.

You see how many verses we could even recount from our memory of the heart, the pure in heart. Blessed are those people. So you see just a smattering of verses here that talk about the heart. And it's little wonder. It is such an integral part of how God describes so many different aspects of our calling and of our life within the Bible. And it's a part of life.

You look at popular culture. There's a St. Valentine's Day with its symbol of the heart, a symbol of love. And that one event through the year that has become a part of our holiday system that aims at the heart. We talk about broken hearts. And we talk about people whose hearts are in love. It's so much a part of our popular culture. How many songs are written with the idea of the heart in mind? I have a lot of songs. I have about 2800 songs on my computer that I put on over the years and loaded up on my iPods.

And I did a search on my iTunes where I could just, I just typed in heart to see how many on my computer I had, how many songs I had where the heart was in the title. And here's a short list of what I came up with. Your Cheatin' Heart. Okay? The old Hank Williams standard. Young at heart. Wooden heart. What do I do with my heart? That's an Eagle song. Teardrops in my heart. Shoot straight from the heart.

I think that was George Strait. A lot of these are George Strait. Sea of heartbreak. Rose of my heart. I left my heart in San Francisco. Tony Bennett. I've got that. See, I've got a eclectic collection of songs. Hearts of Stone. Heartbreak Hotel. Yeah. A few other Elvis fans around here. Heartaches by the number. And the hard rock bottom of your heart. I guess if I really searched hard and long out on the Internet, I could have found some really good ones. You know, about stompin' that sucker flat and all the other types of applications to the heart that come from...

Most of these are country songs, just on this short list of mine right here. Which tells you my primary preference of music. But so many songs in our popular culture, of all different genres, use the heart and talk about the heart. Because of love, because of emotions, because of heartbreak, because of relationships between people.

It is so much a part of our life. The heart can be wounded. The heart can be troubled. The heart can be broken. The heart can be cheerful. The heart can be joyful. The heart can be merry. But the heart is at the center of so much of the truth of God and of our life. And when it is properly channeled, when we are pursuing the kingdom of God, we can even do so with a noble and a pure heart.

There's one other example from popular culture of the heart that, again, you all know that... But knowing the whole story here, I think, helps to understand, again, why this is such an integral part of the fabric of life. We've all seen the movie The Wizard of Oz. Is there anyone in this room that's never seen the movie The Wizard of Oz? One person. I'm going to tell you a little bit of the story of The Wizard of Oz here.

I started watching it when I was a kid, watched it every year, and I was visiting a member two or three, four years ago. And I watched The Wizard of Oz while I visited with this member. She had it on for her kid. And so I sat there and watched it again as the last time I saw it. But you all know the story of Dorothy, winds up in Kansas. And you remember the three friends that Dorothy goes down the yellow brick road to Oz with?

There was the cowardly lion, and what was it that he wanted? No. He wanted courage. He wanted courage. And then there was the scarecrow. What did he want? He wanted a brain. If I only had a brain. And then there was the tin man. And what did the tin man want? The heart. What the movie doesn't tell us, if you've ever read the book, you find out why the tin man wanted a heart. So this movie doesn't tell you everything behind everything. The story from the book is, Frank Baum's book, is that the tin man was once a real man, human being, flushed in blood.

And the wicked witch put a curse on him because the tin man was in love with a beautiful munchkin maiden. And the wicked witch was jealous, and the wicked witch put a curse on him. So that as he was working and chopping wood to build a cottage so that he could marry his munchkin maiden, his limbs started falling off under this curse.

And each limb was replaced with a limb made of tin, metal. But he kept on working because he wanted to marry his munchkin maiden. And the wicked witch got even madder and pronounced another curse on him to where one day the axe slipped and it kind of just went through his body.

And so his body was replaced with a whole tin body. And so he became a completely tin man, but the thing was at that point he didn't have a heart. But he had become so enamored with work that work was his goal now, and he kept chopping wood. But he kept chopping, and he forgot about his love for the munchkin maiden because he was just working, working, working.

And the key to keeping working was to keep himself oiled. And as long as he kept himself oiled, he kept moving. But one day he forgot the oil can and he got caught out in a ring. And he rusted. And there he is when Dorothy and the other two come along. I don't know how many are in the sequence at that point, but when Dorothy comes along, she finds it. And he's kind of frozen in the field. Well, that's how he got to that point. And so when you read what comes out of Frank Baum's book, the tin man is telling his story to them all. He says, Alas, I had no heart.

I had lost all my love for the munchkin girl and did not care whether I married her or not because of his work. There's a lesson there about life, and that's how he got to that point. And so, well, you know, well, let's all go to the wizard because we all want something. And he'll give you a heart just the way the story goes. But in the book, it comes down to this, and here's an interesting lesson.

It was a terrible thing to undergo, the tin man says. But during the year I stood there, frozen in the field. During the year I stood there, I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart.

Not his arms, not his leg, not his head. He'd lost his heart. The greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love, I was the happiest man on earth, but no one can love who has not a heart. And so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the munchkin maiden and marry her.

Both Dorothy and the scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the tin man, of the tin woodman. And now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart. All the same, said the scarecrow, I shall ask for brains instead of a heart, for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one. I shall take the heart, returned the tin woodman, for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world. And so that's how and why he wanted a heart. And he makes a point that happiness, a happy heart, shall I say a good and noble heart, is what makes, is the greatest thing in the world.

Now, the Wizard of Oz is a fable, and some can get a little bit bent out of shape because of the Wizard of Oz and other elements of it, and all literature is like that. But it does strike to this one fundamental truth of life, a heart, with this one character. And brought back into an understanding of how God shows us to guard our heart, to work toward and for a noble and a good heart, is very important than to understand and to realize. Look at our own lives. You look at yours, where you are, where you've been, how you've lived it.

Why are there so many failed relationships?

Why do people divorce? Why does one person fall out of love or decide they don't want to be married or don't want to be married to this person? Why do people break up as friends?

Is it because neither partner, the husband or the wife, or the two women or the two men, neither partner has a heart for the relationship?

There's no more heart for the relationship. There's no more desire. There's no more joy.

I've never divorced. I've not gone through that. Some of you have. You understand the pain.

You understand what that means. But one or both people lose a heart for the relationship, for whatever reason, maybe because of sin, maybe adultery. Maybe it wasn't there to begin with.

Maybe someone just changes.

My mom told me one time that when my dad came back from World War II, he was not the same man that left for the war.

And that's understandable.

And what she was telling me was that they would have divorced had I not come along about six, seven years, six years after the war ended. So I think I kept my parents alive. And my sister another year and a half later. And, you know, second family. People change.

And that's one of the reasons marriage is dissolved.

I've had many friends over the years. I've had some friends that we just... One day you kind of turn around and you don't want to be with that person. Or you don't want to go visit with them. You don't necessarily want to communicate with them. The friendship dies. You ever had a friendship to die with somebody? And someone loses heart for the relationship. There's no heart there anymore. There's no desire to put anything into it. Put the time, put the emotion, put the energy. And friendships happen like that. That's something about relationships that take place.

And the heart goes out. Why do we deal with depression? Why do we deal with discouragement at times? In some cases, when there's more of an emotional than a physical chemical element to it, we've just lost heart.

For life. I've talked with people who are very depressed, and they lose an appetite for life. They lose a desire to even live. I've seen that with people. There's no heart to live. And discouragement. And because of that, people can give themselves over to alcohol. They can give themselves over to drugs. And in addiction, whatever it may be, to gambling, to alcohol, to drugs, to sex, is giving our heart to something else. To a chemical. To a passion. We give our heart to something else, and that's where it is. So you look at the issues that we deal with, and again, the heart is at the center of it. The way we feel. The way we react. What we see. The heart hasn't been guarded. Our heart goes after something else. And again, you see the centrality of this issue to life, and why it is so important. Back in 1 Kings 3, King Solomon becomes king.

And the first thing that he asked for was something that pleased God very well. 1 Kings 3 and 9. This is where he had had this visitation from God after becoming king, and God basically says, whatever it is you wish, I'll give you. Solomon hadn't rubbed his magic lamp. He had just become king. And God said, whatever you want, I will give it to you. And Solomon said, well, look, I'm a servant in the midst of these great people, and there are too many to be numbered and counted. Verse 9, he said, therefore give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours. He asked for an understanding heart, and that pleased God when you read through the rest of the story. And he had a very good reign. He didn't wish for money. He didn't wish for power. God gave all that to him. But he wanted an understanding heart so that he could make wise and sound judgments in people's lives, and he could begin to, in his own way, discern people's attitudes and even discern their heart, understand where they were coming from. Why is this so important? Why is it vital to have a pure heart, to guard your heart? Well, let me answer it this way. I could go through many dozens and, as I showed, hundreds of scriptures that talk about various aspects of the heart and its application to our life, to our calling. But why is all this important? Why is it important to work toward having a noble and a good heart that is bearing fruit for the kingdom? Why is it important to have a heart upon which God can write His law? Why is all of that so important? Let's go back to the story of the Israelites in the wilderness. It was a good time of the year to do that. Remember when Israel left Egypt and went out into Mount Sinai and eventually, through the story, God began to give instructions to Moses to build this tabernacle in the wilderness made out of skins. He went through a very elaborate design. The book of Numbers and Leviticus gives us so many of the details of how that was built. The fine skins and fabrics, the gold and silver, and all that went into the various ornaments of the temple called the tabernacle in the wilderness. Later, there was a temple that Solomon built and then rebuilt later on. But in the wilderness is where it began. There was this tent of goat hair and goat skins. It was all by God's design. It was tended to by the Levites and by the priests. There was a holy place wherein there was an altar. Only the priests could go through that to minister within the holy place when you look at a design of the tabernacle. We all know that at the back of that holy place, there was a chamber that was called the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. You remember that in that Holy of Holies was what is called the Ark of the Covenant. Inside that covenant were tablets of stone upon which were written, the Ten Commandments.

There was the errands rod that budded. There was some showbread that was in there. It was all in this very elaborate little cabinet that had caribs carved over it. It represented the seat and the very seat of God. It was in the Holy of Holies and only the high priest could go back there. He could only go there once a year on the Day of Atonement. That's where God dwelt. When you look in numbers and you see where all of that finally came together, God's presence came down upon the tabernacle and upon that holy spot, and that's where God dwelt. That's why no one could go in there but the high priest and he only after washing and sacrificing for himself and then spreading incense all through the room so that he would be hid from the glory of God. That's where God dwelt in the Holy of Holies. In actual fact, according to what we read there in terms of where God was. He later left that in the temple in the Holy of Holies when Israel sinned. But that's where he was when things were working and it was all coming together. And that was all a symbol, the book of Hebrews tells us. The tabernacle and later the temple was all of a symbol of something greater to come. The sacrifices, the priests, the placement of the tabernacle, and that is a study in itself, if you've ever made a study of that. All of it points to something even bigger. It was all a symbol of something greater to come of a deeper eternal truth which essentially is summed up by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Everything done and everything that was a part of that tabernacle pointed to Christ. We came together last night to keep the Passover service. We took two symbols, bread and wine to symbolize the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We ate and we drank, as the command is, to symbolize God in us. We all have the communion, one communion of that one bread. But that was the greater sacrifice to which it all pointed. That tabernacle, that temple, it all disappeared over time. And the need for it certainly disappeared after Jesus' death.

But what's left behind? What's left behind? Where is the temple today? Well, let's turn to a couple of Scriptures to see. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19. We don't go to a temple today. You went to a place called what? The Lantern last night? The Lantern? We were in our hall down in Greenwood. We don't go to a temple today. We don't go to a tent in the wilderness that's set up after the design of Moses. Why it? Why don't we? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 brings us right essentially to the reason. Paul says, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own? The body is the temple of God, of the Holy Spirit, who is in you whom you have from God and we're not our own. And this is why he's giving certain principles about glorifying God, taking care of our body, and being very careful. Don't sin. Don't go into a harlot. Don't get involved with sexual immorality. And he makes many statements through Corinthians here to teach us the importance even of taking care of our body. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that's what we have from God. Now back in chapter 3, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, he says this again.

He says, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? You are the temple of God. You don't go to Jerusalem for a temple. There's no need for it anymore. It's one of the amazing things you go over there and you see the veneration with which that site is given by so many.

And it's an interesting place to visit for all of the biblical reasons, but there's nothing holy about it anymore. There's no temple there. There's no presence of God. There's nothing holy about Jerusalem as a city or the site of where the temple stood, that temple mount area. It's a focal point of religion and political intrigue and certainly will play a role in the future.

But there's no temple there and there hasn't been for nearly over 2,000 years. Paul said, we are the temple of God and the God Spirit dwells within us. And so, if this is true, and it is by these scriptures, we are the temple of God. Let me ask you another question. Where's your holy of holies?

Where's your holy of holies if you are the temple of God? Let's turn over to Ephesians 3, if you find the answer.

Ephesians 3.

And let's begin in verse 14.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love. And it goes on. Verse 17 gives you the answer. Where's your holy of holies?

It's in your heart that Christ dwells in your heart through faith. If you're the temple of God, as we've already read twice, it's fair to ask where's your holy of holies? It's in your heart. I'm not here in the center of your chest. I guess you won't look at it in your mind, but it's where we are, where we think, where we have our being.

That's where your holy of holies is, because Christ dwells in us through faith by His Holy Spirit. That's why we took those symbols last night. And that's what, as we read through John, Jesus talking about the Comforter coming and being with us, leading us into truth. The days of the love and bread that we begin tonight here in the sundown, we eat only unleavened bread for this period of time.

A symbol of Christ's life. A symbol of sinless life. And we eat it, and we should try to eat it every day a little bit. If you miss a day, you're not going to sin or do anything wrong, but try to eat a piece of unleavened bread a bit every day, just for the lesson. And again, I'm not setting a rule or a dictum here in any sense, but at least it will remind us through the seven-day period of what we're doing.

And the whole seven-day period is really to point to the resurrected Jesus Christ living His life in us. That's what it's about. As we put sin out and as Christ dwells in us through faith.

We took the symbols of the Passover through faith. Through faith in the Son of God. That's where our holy of holies is. It's in our heart. That's why it's important to guard your heart. That's why it's important to have an understanding heart. That's why it's important to have a noble and a good heart. That's why it's important to understand that we no longer have a deceitful heart that is desperately wicked.

Unless you happen to be caught in something that you just can't get out of at this point in your life. But if you're living a reasonably normal Christian life, and you're not caught and trapped in a horrible sin, I hope and pray that none of us are deceitful above all things. And that we don't look at our heart as something that is wicked.

But rather, we go back to what we read in Luke 8.15, and let's do that one more time. Let's realize that if God's seed of the kingdom of God has been sown in our lives, we've responded, we've begun to bear fruit. And we represent those in verse 15, upon whom the seed fell that has been good ground.

There's been a receptive mind, there's been a desire to obey. We've overcome, we've been keeping God's word in His law. That's the good ground. And those who have heard the word with a noble and good heart keep it and bear fruit with patience. Don't let anyone tell you you have a bad heart, but you're a bad person in that sense. You have a good heart if you are following the Scriptures according to the principle of this parable. Strive to continue to have a noble and a good heart.

That's the lost message of the Gospel. That, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story for us to think about, especially as we enter into the days of the love and bread, and worship God in this way, in spirit, and in truth, in faith, the life of Jesus Christ being lived within us. Keep your heart, nourish your heart with good things, obey God, and continue to bear fruit with a noble and a good heart.