Establishing The Presence of God

00:02 All right. Well, greet you this morning in the name of Jesus. Let the church say amen. Would you turn in your copies of the Scriptures to 2 Corinthians 6? And I want to share with you this morning about restoring the dwelling place of God. 00:18 And we're going to have a two-part message here for the next two times that I preach about establishing the presence of God and the implications of that, what that means, what that looks like in the life of the church, in the life of the believer. You see, ever since mankind was evicted from the presence of God, 00:37 God has been about trying to restore us into His presence and Him into ours. You see, not only does God want to restore us into His presence, but He wants to be with us. 00:52 And this is reflected this morning in 2 Corinthians 6:16 and following, where in the middle of the verse it says, "For you are the temple of the living God. 01:05 As God has said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them,' I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate," says the Lord. "Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. 01:23 I will be a Father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters," says the Lord Almighty." And so we want to look at that this morning. See, God has been, as I mentioned, has been looking to be reunited with us in a harmonious relationship where He sets the agenda, 01:42 not a relationship where we set the agenda and come into His presence on our own terms, but in a harmonious relationship where He sets the agenda. He is the ultimate reality. He is the life giver. He is the light. He is the truth. He is the way. 01:59 And where we come into His presence on His terms in the ways that He, in the way that He has admonished and instructed and given us that we should come. So there are several reasons for this message this morning, this two-part message. One is to prepare us for our upcoming series from the book of Hebrews. 02:21 We're going to, as Brother Dwayne shared last Sunday, be doing some tag team preaching from Hebrews and take the next six months basically to go through that book and dig out the truths from the book of Hebrews. 02:33 If you know the book of Hebrews and have read through it or studied it, you know it is very dependent and reliant on the Old Testament, especially the Old Testament law, the tabernacle, the ordinances of the Old Testament law and tabernacle. 02:51 It is very dependent upon the priesthood and it delves into all those things. It shows us how Christ, Jesus Christ, is the answer to that and is the fulfillment of that in the New Testament and in the church age. That is the one reason, is to prepare us for our upcoming series from Hebrews. 03:09 The second reason for this message is to prepare for part two. 03:14 You got to have part one before you can get to part two, obviously, where we will look at the Old Testament dwelling places of God today and then look at the New Testament places of the dwelling place of God in the New Testament in the next message and see how those relate and how they interact and learn some things about 03:32 what God expects of His people today in comparison and in continuation and in fulfillment of what He expected in the Old Testament. 03:45 Now, the third reason for this is to show that the glory of God is not reflected in our systems and in our ornamentation and in our highfalutin, high-mindedness. 04:02 But the glory of God is experienced in humility and in simplicity where the inner man, the life of the inner person, is filled with His glory as His temple and out of that inner person comes forth a living representation of Christ. 04:24 You see, the Christian life is not about what we tack on from exteriors, 04:29 but it's about what flows from within that impresses and transforms the way that we live and even what we do with our bodies. And so we have some Scriptures as we look this morning to these Scriptures from our text here in 2 Corinthians 6. 04:49 He says, "I will dwell in them. I will dwell in them. I am the living God. You are the temple of the living God. I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people." Isn't that what we're looking for? We're looking for heaven. We're looking for heaven on earth, 05:09 as it were, and heaven in heaven where God dwells with us today and where we will ultimately dwell with Him for eternity. Now, the Bible says of Jesus that God dwelt in Christ. And the Bible says in John 1:14, "And the word," that's the word, "was Christ. 05:29 The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten, full of grace and truth." And Brother Todd, if you're back there and able, would you come and fire up my computer again? It died with lack of power and now a cord has shown up. It has arrived. And if you could get that going again for me, 05:49 I'll keep preaching. "And so the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten, of the Father, full of grace and truth. It tabernacled among us." The word there for dwelt is the idea of to pitch a tent. It has the idea of the Old Testament where God dwelt. 06:07 He tabernacled in the midst of the assembly of His people right in the center, the center of the community. There were three tribes on the north, three tribes on the east, three tribes on the south, three tribes on the west. And He was in the center of their lives dwelling in a tent of all places. 06:26 Can you imagine that the God of heaven and earth would be satisfied to dwell in a tent? We would want to have a full parade there if we were the king, if we were the Lord of glory. We'd probably show up with chariots and horses and gold covered this and that and the other thing. And God showed up in a tent of all places. 06:48 And then what happened from there with the building of the temple, we'll look at that this morning. Now it's in Christ. Christ dwells among His people. But now Jesus is not here. He has gone back to the Father. And so He said, "Now I will dwell in my people, not just among them, but I will dwell in them," 1 Corinthians 3. 07:08 "Know ye not that your body is the temple or that ye are the temple of God?" I think that ye in chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians is a corporate temple, that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you. "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy. 07:28 Which temple are ye?" And so God dwells in His people, in His church, in us as individuals, but also in His church in a corporate way. That's followed up in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. What? "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, 07:49 which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." And so He dwelt in Christ. He dwells in you personally. He dwells in us corporately. And He dwells in the church. 08:10 The Bible says in Ephesians 2:19-20, "Now therefore ye 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 prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 08:30 in whom the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. That as the Spirit dwells within the church of Jesus Christ, 08:50 He is building up the temple." We could sing that song this morning. If I hadn't got this going, Brother Todd, we might have had to sing it. Take the time to do so. Building up the temple. Building up the temple. Building up the temple of the Lord. Say, "Brother, won't you help me? Sister, won't you help me?" Building up the temple of the Lord. 09:10 That is, excuse me, building the church, building the people of God. And then one day Christ will come back again. And in Revelation 21:3 it says, "I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. 09:31 And He will dwell with them and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.'" 09:43 And so we have those dwelling places of God. Where did it all start? It all started back in the Garden of Eden when God created that beautiful place where He could walk with man and talk with mankind. And of course, He placed in that garden Adam and then Eve. 10:01 And He said, "I will walk with you." And He come and walked with them in the cool of the evening day after day. We don't know how long that was, how many days it was until they took matters into their own hands and were alienated from God, separated from God. 10:14 And there was a cherubim that was set at the garden gate that kept them out from the presence of God. And so God then was alienated from man. Man was alienated from God, rather, and has sought ever since to get back into fellowship with us and us with Him. 10:37 So I want to have us look this morning at the Old Testament dwelling places. And the first thing we're going to look at is the tabernacle. I'm not sure why it's not changing here. We're going to try something else here. 10:58 Well, let's sing Building Up the Temple. Building Up the Temple. Building Up the Temple. Building Up the Temple of the Lord. Building Up the Temple of the Lord. Building Up the Temple. Building Up the Temple. 11:18 Building Up the Temple of the Lord. Say, "Brother, won't you help me? Sister, won't you help me?" Building Up the Temple of the Lord. 11:34 Well, this is really frustrating here because this PowerPoint was 11:44 embedded with my sermon. And now it's not doing anything. 11:51 You want to come and try it again, Todd? Because some of my notes were on it. 12:00 Well, go with me to the book of Exodus 24:25. And let's look at the dwelling place of God in the tabernacle. 12:11 "And so after God had delivered them from the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, He goes about walking with them and talking with them and delivering to them His message. And He dwelt in a tent." Now, earlier in chapter, early before chapter 24, 12:33 He brought Moses up onto the mountain and Moses was shown the heavenly tabernacle. And he was told by God to go down and build a tabernacle like this. But instead of a spiritual reality, you build it with physical things. And you build a physical tabernacle with physical furniture, a tent. 12:53 And of course, we know that there was the altar of brass that you approached when you came into the courtyard. And then there was the laver of brass, the brass laver or basin where the priest would wash their feet and their hands and their bodies before going into the holy place. 13:13 Then the tabernacle itself was a tent in that courtyard about two-thirds of the way back, centered from one side to the other. And in that tent were some articles of furniture. When you went into the first room, which was called the holy place, there was the table of showbread on the right. 13:34 There was the altar of incense straight ahead. And there were the golden lampstands on the left. Speaking of Christ, Christ is all spoken of through the tabernacle. And we'll see that when we get into the book of Hebrews. 13:52 At the end, about two-thirds back in that tent was a curtain, a curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place or what was called in the King James language, the holy of holies. The holy of holies. And in that holy of holies there, that's where the gold was. 14:13 That's where the gold was. That's where the presence was, the presence of God in that holy of holies. The Ark of the Covenant, which was a box that had a lid on it, the mercy seat was the lid. And over that was two cherubim facing the box, the lid, 14:33 and covering the glory of God, covering the glory of God. And if we get this up here going here one of these days, I'll show you pictures of that, of what to help cement it in our minds. Now, in chapter 24 or 26 of Exodus, 14:54 we have what that tent was covered with. It was covered with skins. 15:00 It was covered with a curtain. 15:05 And in chapter 26:1 through about 14, 15, 16 in there, we have them making this tabernacle. 15:20 It was covered with skins and the outward covering was what the King James calls a badger skin. Now, there's a problem with that translation about it being a badger skin because badgers were unclean animals. 15:40 And they were to be put away from God's people and not used as a covering of the presence of God. But Bible scholars have done some translation work on that and some different language studies. And more of your new translations will say that that was, 15:59 like the ESV says, it was a goat skin or ram skin and goat skin rather than badger skin. And then also the Christian Standard Bible and the New American Standard Bible translates that as fine leather. 16:14 But what you want to notice in the Old Testament tabernacle was that the presence of God was on the inside and the gold was on the inside. Now, everything outside, the courtyard was brass against the earth to speak of God's judgment on sin. 16:34 It was a brass altar, a brazen altar to speak of brass speaks of judgment. And then there was the brazen laver of washing. And the curtains there were made out of wood and on top of those were silver. 16:51 And that probably whole courtyard was probably a little bit bigger than this church building footprint. 16:58 I don't remember the dimensions of our building here, but the whole courtyard was about 150 feet long by 75 feet wide. And so you have about the footprint of this building for housing that tabernacle. Now, the tabernacle itself, the tent, 17:17 was 15 by 15 by 15. That's the holy of holies. And the rest of it was 15 by 15 high by 30 feet long. And so about two-thirds of that was the holy place and one-third of that was the holy of holies. 17:36 So we have the bronze that was for judgment and sin. 17:40 And some figures have been done about the size and value of that tabernacle in relationship to today's currency. I ran across this that the size was about 45 by 15 by 15. That was the tabernacle itself, the tent. 18:01 And it was about three school buses in, if you take length, width, cubic size, would be about the size of three school buses. And they figured that that in today's currency would be approximately $51 million worth of value. When you figure all the gold, all the value of materials and so on, 18:22 $51 million in American currency. Now, you go then into 1 Kings 6:7-8. And we get into the second dwelling place. That is, the second dwelling place was the temple. And you recall the account how David had in mind to build himself a palace, 18:43 which he did. 18:47 And then he had in mind to build a temple for God. And God said, "You're a man of war. You will not build the temple because the temple is the place of peace. 18:58 It is a place of harmoniously dwelling together between God and man, a place where man's sin has been dealt with and now he can come into the presence of God and deal with Him in peace." And so Solomon then was appointed to build the temple. You know that. And David had put all together, all of the furnishings, 19:18 all of the plans were made by David. They brought in cypress logs and cedar from Lebanon, from the cedars of Lebanon. And they cut those stones that were used for the exterior of the temple down under the earth, quarries down under the earth. 19:39 And that's where all the chiseling and the hammering and the forming and fashioning of those stones were down there. And then they brought them up, placed them in place. And there was not one sound of a tool on that construction site. That'd be quite a thing to see. It was all prefab temple. 20:00 You talk about prefab housing and this was the prototype for that. And inside that temple was that temple sat upon an acre, about 17 acres of ground. And it was 90 by 30 by 45. And it did preserve, 20:20 pretty much preserve, the integrity of the original structure in that you also had an entrance, you had a holy place, and you had a most holy place. And those were preserved basically the structure of the tabernacle. 20:40 Now, this they say, and I'll show you pictures in a minute, this they say by calculation was the size of about 38 school buses. The tabernacle size of about three school buses. The temple built by Solomon size of about 38 school buses. And everything was overlaid with gold. Now, 20:59 in the tabernacle, it was gold furniture inside the holy place and the most holy place. It was gold boards that were the structure over which these animal skins were placed as a covering. But in the temple, everything beyond the front doors, 21:19 including the front doors, were gold, overlaid with gold. There was gold floor. There was gold walls. There was gold in the ceiling. There were gold pomegranates that had been carved out of wood. Everything was gold. And you take those lampstands. 21:35 It must have been quite an experience to walk in there and see that golden lampstand shining and shining against all the glittering and the brightness of that glory of gold. And they say that that was worth, again, where the tabernacle was worth in current terms of financial terms, 21:55 American value, was about $51 million. 21:58 Solomon's temple would be valued at about $13 billion today if you were building that structure today with all the gold, all of the cedar, all of the cypress, all of the furniture, all of the articles, all of the snuffers and the bowls and the things that were also created out of gold and brass, $13 billion. 22:21 Now, if you want to look at Exodus 40, I want to show you what happened. In Exodus 40, we know this, but I want you to read it again because this all will be fulfilled next week or next time I preach from the church's dwelling place. So in Exodus 40:34, 22:43 "While they were finishing up, setting up the tabernacle, the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 22:54 And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting because of the cloud that rested above it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. 23:13 "For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day and fire over it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys." And so you have this tent now being filled with the glory of God, the weightiness. The Old Testament word for glory means weight. It was a weighty, glorious, smoky, 23:33 heavy experience that was an expression of the presence of God. All right, here we go now. Let's see if we can... I did determine a long time ago that the devil lives in electronics. It's not responding. 23:53 So a new computer would be in order, I think. Now, if you go and you look back in 1 Kings 8, there we go. Okay, we're on here, guys. So you can see the tabernacle as it was set up there. 24:15 You have the second picture there is the tabernacle tent. Now, between the front section there was a screen, was a fabric made out of blue and purple and scarlet, blue, purple, and scarlet. 24:36 Blue representing the divinity of Christ, blue, the sky, the deity of Christ. Purple was the color of royalty. So that would illustrate the royalty, the kingly nature of Christ. And then you have scarlet, which was representing blood or sin and the blood of Jesus Christ, His humanity. 24:57 And so then you go in, you would go into that holy place and then you look at the screen there or the curtain there between. The curtain at the front of the tabernacle or the middle of the tabernacle was similar in nature, but the one in the middle had a cherubim embroidered on it. 25:16 And so you can get a glimpse there of how beautiful it was inside. But if you looked at that tent on the outside, it was just an ordinary looking tent. It was just made out of skin and leather, fine leather, yes, but just a common, ordinary looking tent. 25:37 The glory was on the inside. Now, I want you to remember that. You'll hear me say that repeatedly. Now we come to Solomon and Solomon's temple. You can see what that looked, a replica of what that may have looked like. 25:53 Down in the lower left-hand corner, you have the laver of brass on the backs of bowls. Over on the right, lower right, you can't hardly see it, but that's the altar of brass, the brazen altar. On the left side there is a row of washing vats. 26:13 By the way, that laver of brass held about 10,000 gallons. And then there were other places for washings of the animal sacrifices before they were taken in and the blood was applied onto the furniture there. 26:30 Now, we have a cutaway here of what that looked like inside. Inside, you would see just the beauty, the beauty of the gold. You have there, the size of it was approximately... 26:52 The inner sanctuary being 30 feet cubed, 30 by 30 by 30, 26:57 and the whole thing being approximately 90 by 30 by 45. So you see it's bigger, it's brighter. There on the left, you have the columns. There was a column by the name of Boaz. The column on the south was called Jacob. 27:18 There were two ornate wooden folding doors that were overlaid with gold that took you into the holy place through the vestibule there. And you'll notice on the side there, there was, you can see the cutaway, there were rooms. There was a room, three layers. In fact, this is an interesting archaeological structure, 27:37 is that the layer on the top, the third floor, was actually wider than the second floor, which was wider than the first floor. And I don't know what that was signifying about, but nevertheless, you have these ornate doors, everything covered with gold, all of the carvings, everything just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 27:58 Now, something happened. Something happened when they set this up, 1 Kings 8, like I mentioned. 28:09 They brought the ark, verse 4, they brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up. Also, King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude. 28:29 I mean, this is a celebration, a celebration. God now has a permanent place to live among the people. Then the people brought in the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place under the wings of the cherubim. These were 10-foot cherubim that were scattered. 28:50 They had about that were covering the altar. From one side of the wall to the other side, you had one wing on each side and then the cherubim and then another wing, and they met in the middle. So it was very elaborate. Cherubim spread their two wings over the place of the ark, 29:10 and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. The poles extended so that the ends of the poles could be seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary. They could not be seen from outside. And they were there to this day. 29:21 Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass when the priests came out of the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priests could not continue ministering because the cloud, 29:40 for the glory of the Lord, filled the house of the Lord. And then Solomon spoke, and then he had a speech at that experience and then a lengthy prayer. But you see God again filling the tabernacle. Now, God doesn't fill something that He doesn't approve of. And so He approved of the tabernacle. 29:59 He approved of the temple even though this was more the work of man and less the direct instruction of God. He approved of it. He said, "I'll bless it by placing My presence there, and I will dwell with My people, and they will dwell with you, with Me." But something happened after about 500 years. 30:20 Now, you need to follow me on this and go to the book of Ezekiel. After about 500 years and their disobedience, disobedience, restoration, disobedience, restoration, disobedience, it was that old cycle of carnality and sin. God had sent the northern tribes of Israel into captivity with Assyria. 30:41 And the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were still down in the south. The temple was still functioning. The priesthood was still functioning until the time of Nebuchadnezzar. And at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, because of the rebellion that God had told them not to rebel, but they did it anyway. 31:00 And God had told them that He would send them into captivity. In fact, interestingly enough, there was a time where God says, "Even if you do repent, you're still going into Babylon because I've had enough. I've had enough. I'm finished. For 70 years, you're going down there to learn not to worship idols." Now, in Ezekiel 9:3, 31:22 when this was happening, God moved out. You realize that? God moved out of the temple. 9:3, "Now the glory of Israel had gone up from the cherub where it had been to the threshold of the temple. 31:40 And He called to the man clothed with linen and had the writer's anchor at his side." Bible scholars believe that this was a literal movement. You see, God had been dwelling in that most holy place, and God starts moving because of their sin, because of their rebellion out of judgment. 32:01 He moves to the threshold in 9:3. 10:4, "Then the glory of the Lord went from the cherub and paused over the threshold of the temple. And the house was filled with the cloud, and the cloud was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory." So He paused there. But in 10:18 and 19, 32:22 "The glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim." What you have here is in 9, He's moving to the threshold. The glory is still there. In 10, He's moving out, and the glory rests over the cherubim, 32:42 probably out in the courtyard. And then in 11:22 and 23, "So the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was high above them." Now, that picture goes back to Ezekiel 1, 2, and 3 where He saw the wheels of the glory of God. 33:02 He saw the wheels and a wheel and a wheel, and the wheels were turning and turning and turning. We don't understand what all that represents, but it represents the glory of God. Now, you have the glory of God going up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city. 33:20 "And then the Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to those in captivity. And the vision that I had seen went up from me," and so on. And so what God is doing here is He's moving out of Israel. Now, of course, we know He's everywhere. We know He's everywhere present. 33:38 So He didn't literally completely withdraw His presence. But the visible presence and manifestation of the glory of God moved out of the temple so that the temple became an empty shell. Still had all the gold, still had all the silver, still had all the furnishings, but God had departed. 34:00 Makes you wonder, does that happen today where people still have all the shell of a Christian, all of the trappings, all the furniture, all of the morality of a good upstanding person, but God is not in their midst? Now, we know from biblical history that this second temple was destroyed. 34:21 Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. His soldiers destroyed it. It was flattened. It was leveled. It was left a heap of destruction and rubble. However, a man was raised up by the name of Cyrus, King of Babylon. 34:35 And Cyrus issued a decree that Zerubbabel could go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple after the 70-year period. And so in Ezra 6:15, why don't you go with me to Ezra? Let's look at Ezra. And because there's going to be something there in Ezra that we're really going to want to notice. 34:57 Ezra 6:15, "So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddu. And they built and furnished it according to the commandment of God of Israel and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, King of Persia." They weren't all king at the same time. 35:17 There was a progression of time going on here. "And the temple was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year and of the reign of King Darius. Then the children of Israel, the priests and Levites and the rest of the descendants of captivity celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. And they offered sacrifices at the dedication of this house of God: 100 bulls, 35:37 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they assigned the priests to their divisions and the Levites to their divisions over the service of God in Jerusalem as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, book of Moses." Now, something happens here at the rebuilding, 35:58 or rather, let me say something doesn't happen. The second temple, which this is now called, never had the glory come back. There is no evidence that the glory of God returned to the second temple. 36:18 What also happened during that time was that, well, not during that time. They still had the ornamentation. They had the ark. They had all those things. But the glory didn't come back. And in Ezra 3:12, "The old, old men remembered the glory of the other temple. 36:38 And many of the priests and Levites, heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. 36:58 For the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off." Have you ever wondered why did the old men weep? They wept because this temple is not going to be like the previous temple. What was missing? 37:19 The glory. The glory didn't come back. They say, "Well, how do you know that?" They weren't even building yet. This was just the foundation. Ah, they knew. They knew. They knew that the worship of God was forever going to be different. Now, 37:39 this second temple was remodeled 37:45 under who? Anybody want to tell me? 37:50 Herod. 37:51 Herod. Herod's temple. That's the temple we see standing in the time of Jesus. Through the next 400 years, the intertestamental period between the close of the Old Testament, rebuilding of the temple, close of the Old Testament, and the beginning of the New Testament, that temple was again defiled and rebuilt, refiled, defiled, rebuilt, 38:09 remodeled, always decaying, decaying, 38:12 decaying until finally Herod says, "We're going to enter into a covenant with the Jews, and we're going to really do this thing well." And Herod went to work. Now, he did this in connection with the Jewish people. 38:30 The reason why it's not called the third temple is because it was a continuation of the second temple. It was a remodeling. It was a rebuilding, remodeling, and resanctification and rebuilding. But he had made a commitment that only the priests and Levites would do the work. And that the continuation of sacrifices would continue while he was building. 38:52 So the sacrifices didn't end. They kept on going. So it's called Herod's temple. It's actually called the remodeled or rebuilt second temple. Now, here's some interesting information for you. Tabernacle, 51 million, all the gold on the inside. Temple, 39:13 13 billion, all the gold on the inside. Herod's temple? To make up for what was missing of the glory. They did elaborate gold everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. In fact, there was so much gold in Herod's temple. You remember what Jesus prophesied? 39:34 When this temple will be destroyed. And He talked about the destruction of His own body as the temple. But when He talked about the actual physical Herod's temple, He said, "Not one stone shall be left on top of another." Remember that? Literally true. The heat, 39:53 when they burned that whole pavilion and campus, the heat was so hot that all the gold melted down through the stones. And Herod's soldiers literally took every stone apart and dug out the gold. There was so much gold. 40:13 And not only was there not one stone left on another, but they excavated the whole place. There's probably no stones left. Say, "Well, what about the wailing wall?" Well, that's interesting. In my research, I discovered the wailing wall is not the western wall of Herod's temple. It was actually a retaining wall. 40:32 It was a retaining wall from a bridge that I could show you if we had time this morning. But I'm going to close with this idea. How much was the second temple worth? It was a campus of 172 feet by 172 by 172. 40:53 That's the temple itself. 40:57 $575 billion to build that today. We're talking God started out in a tent worth 51 mil. That's a lot for us in our day. But it was not that much back then, but comparatively. 41:17 He started out in a tent. He moved to a stationary place where He could be in the midst of His people in a permanent location, 13 billion. 41:26 Herod's really going to do it right. $575 billion and no glory. No glory. In fact, the glory of God did show up, and they hung Him on a cross. 41:49 Let's pray. Lord, we're fascinated and humbled. 41:56 And yes, in a sense, terrified that You, in all of Your weight of glory, would want to live with us. And that with all that weight of glory, You would want to live in us. And with all that weight of glory, 42:16 You would want to live in the temple that's being built called the church. 42:23 O God, I pray that You'll speak to us that we would not be guilty of living on the fumes of the past, trying to make up for a departed glory where God has left, but that we would repent and humble ourselves, 42:45 turn from our wicked ways, seek Your face, 42:51 and pray that we might experience the power of God in the gospel and the glory of God as a result that has nothing to do with how expensive the building is, 43:10 how beautiful and ornate and elaborate the structure is, but has everything to do with Christ living in us. 43:24 Lord, we feel like we've failed some this morning to present cohesive thoughts and applications. I pray that You'll take what was given and apply it to our hearts, that we would be the people of God and be vessels of righteousness and holiness where God might dwell. 43:46 In Jesus' name, Amen. Shall we stand together?