Wednesday: The Desire of All Nations
Read Haggai 2:6-9.
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
What is being promised here, and how are we to understand its fulfillment?
Through Haggai, God announced a great earthshaking of nations on the day of the Lord when the temple would be filled with Divine presence. The prophet called on his contemporaries to look beyond the present adversities and poverty to the future glory of God’s kingdom toward which the temple pointed.
The main reason for the splendor built into the temple of Jerusalem was to make it worthy of God’s presence. Yet, according to this text, the Lord was willing to inhabit the less-than-glorious house and subsequently bring splendor to it. The people did not need to be concerned overly with the ways in which they could finance the temple’s rebuilding. All treasures belong to God who had promised to dwell in this new temple. The Lord himself was the provider of the temple’s splendor.
“As the people endeavored to do their part, and sought for a renewal of God’s grace in heart and life, message after message was given them through Haggai and Zechariah, with assurances that their faith would be richly rewarded and that the word of God concerning the future glory of the temple whose walls they were rearing would not fail. In this very building would appear, in the fullness of time, the Desire of all nations as the Teacher and Saviour of mankind.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 577.
God promised that the splendor of the present temple would be greater than the glory of the former temple. It would be a different type of glory because this temple would be honored by the presence of Jesus, in the flesh. Indeed, Christ’s presence made the glory of the new temple greater than that of Solomon’s temple.
Read Hebrews 8:1-5. Whatever the glory of the earthly temple, we never must forget that it was only a shadow, a symbol of the plan of salvation. Think about what it means, that right now, Jesus is ministering in our behalf in the “true tabernacle,” the one made by God, not man. How can we learn to better appreciate the importance of the sanctuary message in the plan of salvation?
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As the lesson states, "Whatever the glory of the earthly temple, we never must forget that it was only a shadow, a symbol of the plan of salvation." That was certainly true for the people in the Old Testament but I suspect that many Adventists today do not properly understand the sanctuary. We generally do not see it as a symbol of ministry but as a literal piece of architecture where Jesus actually goes from one compartment to the next. We may even ask if He is sprinkling His blood on the altar of burnt offering and before the altar of incense and taking a censer full of incense into the holy place on a daily basis in Heaven.
Right~o, Tyler! I have visited churches of women that I have dated outside our faith, Serbian Orthodox and Catholic, to see their worship service as the Priest enters into various compartments imitating the Levite Priest of the Old Testament. This did not compare to what the Levite Priest's days must have been like. To know that Jesus' death on the cross replaced the earthly Sanctuary with His Work in the Heavenly Sanctuary knocks me flat on my back! When enough of us decide to follow Him, He'll be here to take us home!
I just tought about sanctuary doctrine. 1.WE ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD
2.HEAVENLY SANCTUARY IS A SIMBOL OF SPIRITUAL REALITIES
Jesus priestly service so goes in next faze in 1844. Like finale. When all cards are open and we see Jesus in most holy place. I think there is more for us to discover. Even a simbolites of a New Jerusalem and its measures. Seams that every thing is focused on us beeing a Gods temple and part of Jesus resurected body. Are we there jet?
1844 reference..interesting..we are all living in an extending period of Grace.
Goran, what you, Lincoln and Bill are saying can easily be shown to be true through several texts of Scripture. We can see that in 1 Cor 3:16 the church is the temple of God and in Jn 2:19 Jesus equates the temple to himself and the two come together because we are the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27) and are parts of the temple (Eph 2:19-22). Furthermore we are the temple of the Holy Spirit on a personal level as well (1 Cor 6:19). These are all metaphors, a kind of parable, given to teach a particular thing about our relationship to Christ.
However, when you say, "Jesus priestly service so goes in next faze in 1844. Like finale. When all cards are open and we see Jesus in most holy place" to me you seem to understand what I said only in part. I have no doubt that there is a temple in Heaven, I just don't know what size it is. My only question that I have is why is there one there? And if the one on earth is a replica then why all the furniture and layout including two altars in Heaven? Besides, certainly God cannot be confined to a building:
God's presence glorified the sanctury then and still does so now. And His presence in our hearts glorifies Him and purifies us. This is what the sanctuary service is all about.
As we work hard to come up with splendid churches to worship from, it's my sincere prayer that we sought a renewal of God's grace in our hearts and life. May Jesus the church with walls that cannot fall dwell in our lives day after day, as we wait for his second advent. Amen.
Heaven's Tabernacles are the best Churches to attend. I often wonder how effective these earthly "super-churches" are. I am not a hater of them. I reckon their various ministries would have to be assessed to their effectiveness. However, I do appreciate the efforts behind those that build and maintain the earthly Houses of the Lord. i.e. Morman Tabernacles are always inviting. However, the Lord can Lead us to a hut to preach the Truth in which far exceeds any earthly structures.
I wonder if the verses in Haggai could also refer to our bodies as the living temple that He dwells in through the Holy Spirit? 1 Cor. 6:19-20 NKJV: Or 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? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
When our dear Savior gave His life for our redemption, all of heaven, all of His creation was mortgaged to purchase our salvation. He is of far more value than silver and gold.
After knowing that our bodies are the houses of the wholly ghost we need to dedicate ourselves to be used by our creator to facilitate the programme of evangelism.After all all treasures belong to our LORD and He is the only provider.Why worry??He has promised that He will be with us until the end of the world.
Quite encouraging. The problem is we often forget this! Preach-on, my brother!
The desire of all nations is to see great return of Lord Jesus on earth. As we wait for that return we are required to be humble and to do the work of the Lord. We know that the lord Jesus is in the sanctuary of heaven and we are needed to send our prayers to Lord Jesus every day in order to stand to that great day of all nations where everyone will be rewarded according to his/her ways. As we know this, let us sanctify ourselves through the blood of Lord Jesus our Savior, amen. Revelation 22:12-14
I think that we may not be there yet as for the fact that we are human and here on earth, this is not my home. I will live here as God has directed, I will seek Him in all things and keep my temple clean ( it is not always easy) if I stay focused and keep my eye on the prize then I may obtain that Holy place, that peace.
We are aliens, it is not our world,we are just passing through.
We seem to be more concerned about who we are and what we do than who Jesus is and what He does. When we allow, He replaces our selfishness with His love,and we become a new creation. It is His love in our hearts that causes us to become the temple of the Holy Spirit. When we truly behold our Savior, and submit our lives to Him, we will grow in His grace and be changed into His likeness. We would actually learn to love the sinner and hate the sin just as He does. Without His love in us we could give our bodies to be burned and it would serve no purpose. Jesus is the answer.
Our bodies are indeed Temples when we allow the Holy Spirit to enter. When we do this, there are no limits on how the Lord can use us to impact the lives of others. To God be the Glory.
Bill, I agree with you concerning our focus on Jesus but if we stop with just a devotional kind of experience then I believe we are missing the other half. The Roman Catholic Church went that route and basically set aside the importance of the Bible for the lay people in the church and because of that all sorts of things went off into never-never land. We need to understand more than the simple fact that Jesus resides in our hearts through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The newest publication of the church paper for the North Pacific Union Conference (part of the North American Division) dated June 2013 has a very interesting article in it, "It's Beyond Belief" with the subtitle, "Why Members Leave and What Could Bring Them Back" which can be accessed on the internet:
http://www.gleaneronline.org/2013/05/its-beyond-belief-why-members-leave-and-what-could-bring-them-back/
The crux of the research is that most people leave because of doctrine not because of social problems in the church even though those things are definitely a major problem also. Now I realize that the paper concerns what is happening in North America, specifically the US, and the situation may very well be different in others places throughout the world but it is still very interesting that at least in this small corner of the world relationships may not be the major issue.
For these reasons I think we need to be holistic in our thinking and well balanced rather than narrowing ourselves down to a sort of tunnel vision.
Interesting research. Relationships are driven by beliefs. Example:
if we understand church like this: community of repented sinners, relationships can be open and honest
or
if we understand church like this: community of perfect righteous peoples,
relationships can be false and insidious, to the extend in doing abortus to rest outside of reproach.
We can see influence of theology when some do and some don't shake hands in church.
Tyler, what I wrote was simplistic. As long as Satan lives we will have severe obstacles placed in our paths to divert our attention away from Jesus and to ourselves. It is only the power of the Holy Spirit that can guide us, and only when we realize our weakness and depend totally on Him can we follow. This fight against evil is far beyond our capability, but Satan tries hard to make us depend on self. Our focus has to be on Jesus.
I have often heard people show an overall lack of desire for wanting to go to Heaven, saying all there will be is streets of gold and Angels saying lovely arias. However, their ignorance of the promises of Scripture leads them to not want to dwell with their wonderful friends and relatives that are a resting in Jesus. I want my name to be in the BOOK OF LIFE. I have a long list of people that I cannot wait to see, again! Today's lesson is one of hope during trying times and it encourages the morale of God's people, leading them back to Him, rather than focusing of all the gloom this world has to offer. Darkness does not exist when the Light of the World, enters.
Aloha:
First of all; we know, or at lease most of us know that our GOD is a GOD of love. We need to remember that HE died for us!!! Wow, what a powerful statement....
Thank you for your comments, Praygod, George, Beverly and Bill. Everything that was said by all of you is what we need to look at in our lives. No, it's not easy, but with all our being and the strength from the Holy Spirit nothing, no, nothing is inpossible!
May the Holy Spirit guide us each day with willingness from "OUR" hearts.
Again, thank you for your words of comfort.
May the LORD bless each and every one of us as we strive for our HOME!!!!
I just had a ah ha moment about the Temple. The ministry that existed then is to bare witness to the splendor and glory of Jesus's ministry. I will look forward to going to church to meet God in the presence of His temple. Bring my temple to meet Jesus at the Temple. I like that- makes it special!
Aloha Zsuzsi, Just left your wonderful state four days ago and was blessed to be in God's house on Sabbath and experience the warmth and love of the people of God. Looking forward to our Lord's return.
Looking at us, our bodies being the temple of the Lord, let me say this we are more focused on ourself and having our desires more inclined on the things of this world which contribute less to our salvation. We tend to make ourselves comfortable, forgeting that we need to make the Holy Spirit be comfortable to dwell in us. Matthew 6 v 33, so the question we need to ask ourselves is can God realy say I have a temple when he looks at us or at our lives in general??