The Temple – Things You Did Not Know

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

There's a lot of stuff that we don't realize with the temple. And I hope that you guys are edified by at least a few of the things that I've shared. And I hope that at least some of it was applicable to you and your life. We know that one of the functions of the temple was to unite all mankind back to God. That's what its function was. We see that God gave Solomon the wisdom to grant the peace treaties. So that the borders would be secure, peace would be secure, and that the temple would be built by Solomon, just as Deuteronomy prophesied. But it wasn't just Solomon that assisted in building the temple.

It wasn't just Israel that assisted in building the temple. It was kings and queens of other nations came. King Attar sending down all kinds of stuff. Wow. Glory be to your God, Solomon. Queen of Sheba, all the way coming over, making the journey. Whoa, praise be to your God. Praise be to the Lord. The temple stood as a symbol that united all mankind back to God, all nations back to God, all people back to God. It was a reversal of the Tower of Babel. It was incredible what took place. It was the place that heaven met earth. And that's going to be a reoccurring theme. I'm going to mention that a lot probably in the rest of this series because I'm going to be using it in one of the new series that we're going to be coming to here in just a short while.

Solomon's temple was glorious. It was absolutely incredible. Let's see here. See how my invisible clicker works. It's not working. Batteries are dead. Bam, there we go. So has anyone ever seen a picture of Solomon's temple? We see a lot of pictures of depictions or illustrations of the Beit HaMikdash of the first century and the Herodian temple is what I would call it because that's what he retrofitted. It made it really big and glorious. But this was Solomon's. This is the one that I feel that the glory of God filled the holiest of holies in. And let's see, you have the sea over here, the lava over here, and then you have all the basins in the back, the wheels in the back, all the basins that they would wash the burnt offerings in and the lava for the priest, and of course the two pillars.

It's a huge temple. And then we go to the next slide, and I want to show you something very interesting. Because this is a look inside the holy place. And maybe the picture's not big enough, but I want you to notice something. So if you can see it, here's the holiest of holies, beyond the veil, if you will. And you notice there's some really big, big, big cherubim in there. Solomon made some bigger cherubim than were on top of the ark and put them in there.

The Interior and Its Dimensions

So what's in the holy place? You have the altar of incense right here, right? And you have the table of showbread in there. And then you have what else? What's the thing with the lights? The menorah, right? And so then you have the menorah here, and here, and here, and here, and here. There's five candelabras right here, five menorahs, if you will, right here. And there's actually five more on the other side, on the north and the south side. Did you know that they had more than one menorah in Solomon's temple? Why would he have more? God commanded for them to be one, right? Why would Solomon add nine more menorahs?

It's interesting because, next slide, we see that in 2 Chronicles 4-7, we see that he added ten, or he made ten lampstands to go in the holy place. I remember when I learned that, I'm like, what? He also made ten basins, the ones on the wheels outside, right? And also ten tables inside the holy place. Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten. Rabbinic commentary asserts that the ten lampstands, how many lamps, individual lamps are in each one? So 10 times 7 is what? So they assert that the 10 lampstands were there to represent the 70 nations of the land. All inside God's house, if you will. It's debatable. There's some arguments against that.

But I found that interesting because if that is true, then it goes along with what the purpose of the temple was. Reuniting all mankind to God. Just a little knick-knack. Can we go back a slide? Why don't you look at this altar right here? You could do some barbecuing on that. Would you think that's a big altar? It's pretty big. Does it look bigger than the one that Moses was commanded to build? A little bit. So according, in Exodus 27, it states that the one that Moshe built was three cubits high and five cubits by five cubits. Okay? Now, I know that, Brad, a couple weeks ago, I think we were discussing how long a cubit was.

And it's fascinating because there were different lengths. We know Ezekiel talks about a cubit plus a hand's breadth, a short cubit. But generally speaking, a cubit is 18 and three quarters of an inch, somewhere between that and 20 and a half inches, somewhere around there. The royal cubit is the latter, and we know that was used in the first century. And it's fascinating because...

Let's just assume it was a royal cubit that was made with Moshe's altar, even though it's probably a little bit shorter. It's about eight feet by eight feet. This altar is a lot bigger.

Where Was Solomon's Temple? Can I take an exit ramp? Because we're talking about cubits, and it's going to make me talk about temple location, which is kind of something that I'm passionate about, but I don't really do a lot of teaching on, but I want to rant about it a little bit. Can I do that? Okay, so how many of you guys know that there's a debate on where the temple was located on and off the Temple Mount? You've seen a bunch of videos going around, right? So there's four major theories out right now that are argued, okay? Three of them carry a lot more weight than one of them, and I believe only one of them is correct, of course, obviously.

I'm biased towards that, but the first one is the Northern Theory, okay? And it's sponsored by Asher Kaufman, and it places the Temple Mount... or it places the temple on the northern side of the Temple Mount, just north of the Dome of the Rock, and the Holiest of Holies would be placed on top of a building that's known as the Dome of Spirits right now. And that's one theory that's out there. Another theory is the central theory, which places the Holiest of Holies right over the Dome of the Rock, right? And I agree with that. I lean towards that, and that means the temple was right about smack dab in the middle of the 500 by 500 cubit Temple Mount, okay?

Okay? And then we have the southern theory presented by Tuvia Sagiev. It places the temple down lower on the Temple Mount where the Holiest of Holies would be on top of the spring that's just outside of the mosque that's up there. And then there's a fourth theory. And the fourth theory is Ernest Martin's theory. Dr. Ernest Martin. He was a meteorologist that met Benjamin Mazar back in the day and got inspired to do Temple Mount research. And he came up with the idea that the temple was not even on the Temple Mount at all. That it was down in Erdavi, the city of David, which is, the whole area is only about 17, no, 14 acres.

And he believes that the temple was on top of the Gihon Spring, where David's palace was, actually, but regardless. Now, it's fascinating because Martin's theory could be correct, right? That the temple could be down on top of the Gihon Spring. And we talk about, we know a rural cubit was around 20 inches, at least in the first century. Martin's theory could be correct if the cubit size for the temple courts down in the Gihon Spring was only six inches. Martin thinks that the temple was extremely small, 1 20th of 14 acres. That's where it fit. It's incredible because we know, and I want to seed you against this stuff, guys, because there is junk on the internet.

And just because something seems new knowledge on the internet, oh, this is sensational, oh, this is this rogue knowledge, oh, the Temple Mount's on the Gihon Spring, it's not even on the Temple Mount. I have this new knowledge by a meteorologist that did some studies and came up with this idea that—it doesn't mean that it's new knowledge. It's been around for a while, and it's been dismissed for quite a while. It's funny because you guys know Titus, the Roman general that led the attack on the Temple Mount in 70 A.D. Josephus was an eyewitness to all this. In Josephus' book, The War of Six, he talks about how Titus commanded that Antonio Fortress, the fortress that was on the Temple Mount next to the temple, that half of it be destroyed so that they could bring in siege works and have direct access to the temple.

Right? And it talks about, and Josephus records that Titus was overseeing the battle. And he was kind of standing on an elevated platform in a tower on the Antonia's fortress. And he was watching his men face to face. He could see their faces as they fought so that he could distinguish which ones were brave and which ones were cowards, right? And he could see everything that was going on, identifying the men by faces. All right, Brad. Can you see me? Would you be able to recognize me from here? What if I was at the other end of the parking lot? Would you still try to figure out if I'm out there swinging a sword?

Would you be able to figure it out me? Right? Okay, so the Gihon Spring is a half mile away from the Temple Mount. So if Martin's theory is correct, Titus had some banging eyesight to be able to see his men and recognize their faces from half a mile away. Anyway, sorry, that was my exit rant.

The Weight of Temple Theories

The Northern theory has some weight, but I don't agree with it. The Southern theory has a little weight. The Central theory has a lot of weight. Benjamin Mazar was one of the leading experts in the Temple Mount area—a man who devoted his whole life to this topic. And his granddaughter, Eilat Mazar, has set the standard if you want to study Temple Mount archaeology. She's still alive today. You can buy her books, and they are the standard in Israel. She's amazing—absolutely amazing in the research she's done. That was a rabbit trail, but let's get back to the altar. 2 Chronicles 4:1 says that Solomon built the altar to be 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 10 cubits high. Four times larger than the altar at the Mishkan. Who gave Solomon the authority to make God's ordained altar bigger? Who gave Solomon the authority to put ten lampstands in the holy place instead of one? Because God told Moses to only put one there. And he told him to make an itty-bitty altar. Man could barely lay on it. Who gave Solomon this authority? Did he have the authority?

If we go to the next slide, we can see evidence that he did. In 1 Chronicles , it states: "And David gave his son Solomon the pattern of the porch and its houses, its treasuries and upper stories and inner chambers and the house of the art cover." Pattern. What's the Hebrew word for pattern? Blueprint. Tavneet. Everybody say tavneet. The pattern. The blueprint. And the tavneet —the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit. So David gave the blueprints. Tavneet is the same word that is used in the Torah when God gave Moses the blueprints for the Mishkan. So David gave Solomon the blueprints to the temple. This is how you're going to build the houses, this, that, this, that. The pattern that he had by the Ruach. So who gave David the pattern? David. And the weight of the golden candelabra and their lamps of gold of the weight of each candelabrum and its lamp and for the silver candelabra and its weight and the candelabra and its lamps and the services of every candelabrum. Verse 1.

When God Upgrades His House

You ever move to a new house? Typically it's an upgrade. God had a new set of blueprints that he wanted for his house. There were some changes made. Make that altar bigger. Just something interesting. The altar in the second temple was actually even bigger than this, a little bit bigger, and it was raised up a little bit more, and it had a few more details in it. The first temple was destroyed during the Babylonian exile, and when they came back, Nehemiah had some decisions to make, Ezra had some decisions to make. We don't have the tabneet from David anymore. Some information was passed down through a few people, but we don't have the complete blueprints. How are we going to build the temple if we don't really have the blueprints for it? And so the Mishnah actually gives an answer for that question, and I find it fascinating. They went to the book of Ezekiel at the end, where it describes Ezekiel's temple. They used some of those elements for things they had questions about. Some aspects of the altar were part of it. It's just a fascinating assertion. I like it.

Expanding the Temple Mount

Did you guys know that the temple mount was actually expanded by the Judeans? The mount, right? Next slide. This is just information I want you guys to be aware of. So this is an awful picture at this resolution, but that's okay. This is a picture of the expansions of the Temple Mount over time. This square in the middle was the original Temple Mount that Solomon built the Temple on. That was the size of it.

When the Judeans came back from exile, they began to rebuild the Temple, and it stayed the same size. Until about 150, 160, 170 years B.C., we had an incident with some Greek folk and the Hasmoneans. You guys know the story of the Maccabees? Well, the Maccabees—filled with the Spirit of the Lord, in my opinion—fought. They purged the Greeks out, the Hasmoneans. They went back in, and they rededicated the temple. And you guys remember what they did with the altar? They tore it down, and then they rebuilt another one, right? But the stones of the altar, even though they were kind of defiled at one point, they were still holy.

So they stacked them in the corner of the Holy of Holies, in the house of the hearth, in one of the compartments, because it's still holy. Don't just throw a Bible away just because it's old. The Hasmoneans also extended the Temple Mount out—just this little blue area. Not a lot, but they just kind of extended it and made the Temple Mount bigger. About 150 years later, King Herod came in and wanted to make the temple a lot prettier. The second temple wasn't really the most magnificent temple. It's not like the Judeans took a big loan out and made this thing fabulous. They did the bare minimum to create the temple, and King Herod made it magnificent.

It's known as Herod's Temple, even though he didn't build it. He just retro-did an upgrade on it.

The Herodian Expansion

You see all this extra space around? This is the extension—the Herodian extension. This is how big King Herod made the temple mount—extended the walls of the temple, made the buildings around the temple really big, bigger than the temple itself. It's fascinating. Who gave them the authority to extend the temple mount? They didn't have a tabneet. So you see a lot of stuff happen with the second temple, especially around the first century, that is not commanded in Scripture. It's prettier. The courts are prettier. The buildings are a lot bigger. We now know that the buildings surrounding the temple—the House of the Spark, right, the House of the Hearth —all these places were bigger than the actual temple complex. Who do they think they are? The concept comes to that conclusion. You can't change what God said. You can't really change the size of the altar. You can't change the size of the temple. You can't just make the ark bigger if you wanted to. You can't just change stuff, but you can beautify it. Did you get that?

Beautifying the Commandments

And this is a concept: if you ever start studying the temple and pull in references from the Mishnah, you'll understand why they did things. They had this mindset—we can't change what God ordained, but we can beautify it. We can make the temple mount bigger, right? We can make the outer porches bigger. God never commanded us to make the temple mount bigger. He gave us the temple. But this is what we can do: make everything bigger, beautify it, make it gorgeous. Matt, God never commanded that. No, but he never commanded it not to. We do the same thing with the commandments of God. Did you guys realize that?

How many of you guys sit down to eat a nice meal Friday night, Shabbat? Anybody? Anybody? You don't grab McDonald's before the sun sets and go home, right? No, you have something nice. How many of you guys like to bake fresh challah or go out and buy some challah? You really don't have time to make it, right? How many of you guys drink just a little bit of wine Friday night? Oh, the hands go up. How many of you guys read the Bible or read the Torah on Shabbat? None of these are commandments of God. All of these are things we do to beautify the commandment of Shabbat. Reading the Torah? No. Torah says to read the Torah once every seven years at Sukkot.

If you read Torah on Shabbat, you are following a tradition of man. It's a tradition that beautifies the commandment of Shabbat. Tradition breeds reverence. That's why we have traditions in our family. So we're not breaking Shabbat because we're making it beautiful. They weren't breaking the commandments of the Tabernacle because they were making the temple beautiful. They were beautifying God's house. And I found there's a great lesson in that with the way that we walk, the way that we're ambassadors. God doesn't stop us from applying the commandments in different ways or presenting the commandments in different ways.

He has his standard, but when we spread the gospel, when we act as light and salt, salt's a seasoning. Sometimes you use a little bit more salt for some people, a little bit less salt for other people. It's a seasoning. As long as we're not transgressing the pattern—the tabneet that God has given to us—if we're beautifying the commandments, that's awesome. A lot of people have a lot of different types of traditions for Sukkot, for Passover. That's awesome. And I think that's totally appropriate at the same time. And so I wanted to touch on that a little bit.

The Rooster and Peter's Denial

Next slide. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned something about the rooster—that Yeshua said would crow a couple times before Peter denied him. And I was like, yeah, we know it wasn't a stupid bird. And everyone looked at me like I was crazy. And so I wanted to revisit that a little bit. If you would turn to Matthew , this may be something of interest to you. Matthew 26, verse 30: "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." Jesus said to them—Man, anyone else ever had that attitude? We read the Bible and we read about Israel just constantly hitting brick walls and sin and idolatry. And we're like, man, we would have never done that. That's awesome. Don't worry, Yeshua, I'll never do that. I got you, Yeshua said to him, "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows or before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times."

Peter's Denial and the Rooster

Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you." And all the disciples said the same. Well, we know what happens. The sheep got scattered. Peter denied him—not once, not twice, three times. And then he heard the cock crow. Turn with me to the next slide. So we can learn a lot from the Mishnah. And I keep using this Mishnah term as a reference. I view the Mishnah as extremely important, specifically as a historical reference. It was redacted around the 4th century. Everything got compiled and written down. And it was written down by people whose relatives were the priests—people who were involved in the maintenance of the temple, people who knew the history of how things were done.

And so the Mishnah tells us things about the temple that we don't really know and gives us insight about the first century that we may not have known. Now, do I agree with everything that the Sanhedrin allegedly decreed in there? Sometimes it's questionable. I don't really understand that. That's kind of strange. But I look at it and think, "Oh, this must have been the mindset of the first century Judean faith." Of course, they were kind of biased towards the Pharisees at that time. But regardless, the Mishnah gives us insight. It's like taking a time machine back to the first century culture of how things were viewed, at least through the eyes of the Pharisees.

The Holiness of Jerusalem

And so when we look at the Mishnah, Bava Chama, it states: "We may not raise chickens in Jerusalem." Now, why would they not be able to raise chickens in Jerusalem? Why do you think? Why wouldn't chickens be raised in Jerusalem? Let me just give you a little backstory. Jerusalem is considered an extension of the temple—or the temple mount, specifically—in the first century. Why? Because lesser offerings were allowed to be eaten in it. So let me put it this way: Many offerings can only be eaten in the temple grounds, right? Things like the Pesach were allowed to be eaten in the gates of the city of Jerusalem.

Therefore, the holiness, the Kedushah, rose in Jerusalem. It had a higher level. Holiness is defined by what? Restriction. Hammering that with you guys. Hammering it. So Jerusalem was seen as a type of extension of the Temple Mount, as far as Kedushah goes, holiness goes. Okay? So why wouldn't you want to raise chickens? In Jerusalem, they're dirty. They're still clean. What? They make noise. People make more noise. They poop, but it's still clean poop. What's wrong with the poop? Poop's clean, right? So the issue—and it wasn't just chickens, but fowl specifically—the issue was, has anyone ever raised chickens or had chickens?

That was the phase for us, and it was kind of fun until it wasn't. And the thing about chickens—the thing about chickens—they love to pick up junk in their mouth and carry it around. And most of the time they'll eat it, but sometimes they'll carry it to places like a little cat. Saw one carrying a little snake around. Ew. Went to a corner, ate it. The threat was that a chicken might contaminate itself or carry something—either stuck to its foot or in its beak. It might carry something that would defile the sacrifices, defile the animals going up to the temple mount, may get in the flock, around, who knows.

It would increase the risk of defilement. So fowls, along with some other animals, weren't allowed to be raised in Jerusalem because of that threat. It makes sense. It makes sense. Kind of like, why was the goat for Azazel knocked off a cliff when Torah says just to let it out? It might come back. It probably did one time. We can't ever let this happen again. Kick it off. So if the Mishnah had a ruling that allegedly was in place in the first century that fowl was not to be raised in Jerusalem, why did Peter hear a cock crow? You wouldn't think he could.

The Trumpet Stone

Next slide. In Mishnah Yoma, "the day of atonement, every day they used to remove the ashes from off the altar at the cock crow or near it, before it or after it." So this is talking about one of the first things they do in the morning. That would be so cool.

The priest would come in—the priests who are ready and clean when the supervisor comes and knocks at the door. So when you knock at the door, whoever's ready, the one who's listening for the knock and has already been prepared and has his clothes on, is ready when they hear the knock and the door opens. They know that they need to go out and minister in the presence of God, where heaven meets earth. They'd go up, and of course they'd have the lottery. One of the first lotteries would be: Who's going to clean the ashes off the top of the altar? For me, that is just cool. If you guys ever look at some of the illustrations at the Temple Institute, there's one illustration where it has all the priests lined up outside the temple in front of the steps, and one of them is drawn looking at the camera, and he's holding the silver shovel, and that's his job for the day—to ascend the altar of God and to scoop up the ashes of the burnt offerings and everything from the day before.

It was his responsibility, because they have a level of Kedusha. They're just a bunch of ashes. They're sanctified. It doesn't matter that they're... So he'd gather the ashes together, and then there would be a clean place outside the camp that he would take them to, similar to the red heifer, if you will. And so there would be a clean place where he would take them, and I think that's just awesome. I get excited about stuff like that because sometimes I fantasize about being picked. Yeah, it would be so cool. So this is talking about that, and when does he go do that? After the cock crows. Did they have a rooster in the temple?

Next slide. So if we turn to the section of Sukkot—Mishnah Sukkah—at cock crow, they blew a sustained, a quivering, and another sustained blast. Guys, in other words, a cock crow refers to a time early in the morning when a trumpet signaled the beginning of the day for the temple. And it was early. It was before the sun came up. See, excavations along the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem discovered something. And this is another thing: When we start talking about various theories and all this, we have archaeology. We have stuff that we found on the Temple Mount. And so when we start looking at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, we've discovered a stone somewhere.

And the stone—actually, next slide, I think I have a picture of it. Yeah, the trumpet stone is what the stone has been named, okay? And the stone has an insignia on it. It says, "To the place of the trumpeting," or "To the place of the trumpeting," or "This is the place of the trumpeting," right? I think we have another slide. What's the next one?

Yeah, so there it is, and you can see the inscription right there. And you see that it's beveled, and I want you to imagine being the priest, and you're the rooster blower for that afternoon. That's your job with the shofar. You're going to trumpet the beginning of the day, the work day. And so you'd be standing at the southwestern corner of the temple, way up high, right? And then you see how the stone is almost smoothed out right here, like it's purposely cut out right here? And there's a ledge there—like an insert, you guys see that? That is where you would stand at the place of trumpeting to trumpet at the cock crow. I think I have one more illustration. What's the next slide that paints this picture clearly? There it is, yeah.

The Cosmic Timing of Peter's Denial

We found this stone. We found it. Before a new day starts in the temple, Peter, you will deny me three times. Before the workers of my father's house put one finger on concluding a day in worshiping and ministering to the presence of God, you're going to deny me three times. No, I won't. Do you know him? Do you know him? Hey, you're Peter. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I don't know this man. I don't know this man. Nope, nope, nope. The cock crows. Fascinating. The things that we can find and have found. So it's very exciting when we find these things. I thought that was interesting when I discovered that. That was fascinating. Joseph Goode actually showed me that evidence, and I kind of knew that it wasn't a rooster, but I can't encourage this enough: JerusalemTempleStudy.com, Joseph Goode's temple course. This guy is the leading expert in temple studies, in my opinion. He's even worked with the Temple Institute. Yeah, he's a believer.

Knowledge and the Heart

So what is interesting about all this? I just showed you a bunch of cool stuff. The name of this message was "The Temple: Things You Didn't Know." How many of you guys didn't know something that you learned today or want to go investigate? That's awesome. Great. What was the point? What are you going to leave here with? How is this going to allow you to love your neighbor more tomorrow? How is this going to allow you to forgive that person in your life—you've been holding onto unforgiveness toward them for so long, and it has opened doors to so many things in your life and in the lives of your family. How did this get you to a place where you can go before the Father and say, "Father, I forgive that person that offended me"? It's cool knowledge, right? It's cool knowledge. I love it. None of this is going to make you any closer to the Father. And it's cool to know. It's cool to bring a Bible study or a Midrash. But there is a reason why I'm trying to expound on the temple, and I want to show you the complexities of the temple.

The Temple: Where Heaven Meets Earth

And not only that, I want to show you the levels of holiness in the temple, like we've discussed before. The temple wasn't just about cool archaeology or about whether this or that was interesting. The temple was the place that heaven met earth. Holiness is defined by restriction. You guys know that one? The temple is the place where heaven meets earth. That's the point of this series. That's why I'm wanting to show you all this stuff. Not just to have useless knowledge, but so you realize that God's house is important. And the reason why I want to emphasize this so much is because it builds an understanding of who Yeshua, who Jesus is. When sin entered God's creation in the garden, it induced chaos and disorder. Now you guys have heard me talk about ancient Near Eastern stuff and all that mess.

God's Creative Order

Most Near Eastern stories and myths about deities, they gain power by bringing order to chaos. That's exactly what the creation story is about. Our God took chaos and made it into something beautiful and had order over it. And not only that, on the seventh day he rested on his throne, managing creation forever. Not only did he just poof and now it's in order—all creation. Unlike every other nation where they have a deity that creates order in the sky, or a deity that creates order in the sea, or a deity that creates order in the crocodiles or whatever. No, our God did it all. And not only that, he's still maintaining it through his sovereignty and his reign.

Temple Purity: Death Cannot Enter

The temple was the one place on earth where God's order remained and chaos could not enter. Why do you think death was banned in the temple? Don't bring a corpse in the temple. I got leprosy. Biblical leprosy, you look like a corpse. That's what Torah says. Don't you come in the temple. No, no, no, no, no. Made unclean by a corpse. Nope. Don't come into the courts. Why?

The wages of sin is... Death is the mascot of chaos and sin. It's not allowed in a place of order because it was never supposed to exist to begin with.

Jesus as the New Temple

And so when we read verses like those found in John 2, 18, when we read verses like this: "So the Jews said to him, 'What sign do you show us for doing these things?' And he answered them, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.' And the Jews then said, 'It's taken 46 years to build this temple and you're going to raise it up in three days?'" But listen to what he says next—verse 21. I used to struggle with this concept. The whole concept of Jesus being the temple and more so us being the temple, like Paul says, I used to think, "Nah, that's not right. That doesn't make any sense."

We're not—what does Yeshua say? What's the author of John say? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scriptures and the word that Jesus had spoken. Guys, I'm not saying that Jesus replaced the temple. We know according to Acts -26, the early believers still went and made sacrifices to the temple. It was reported that Paul was speaking against the Torah. And so the Jerusalem council, led by James, agreed that Paul—we've got four guys that need to go make some sacrifices. They've got to shave their head, complete this Nazarite vow.

You need to go with them. Help pay for the sacrifices. Go with them and do it too. And Paul was like, "No, Jesus did away with that." Paul said, "All right, cool, that sounds like a great idea." So he went to go do it. He got arrested before he could do it, but that's beside the point. We know that early believers were still worshiping at the temple and still offering sacrifices. Jesus didn't replace the temple. He didn't replace the temple in the physical world. But I do believe that he stood as an example of what the temple was in the spiritual. What's the temple? It's the place where heaven meets earth, where God meets with man. That's what our king was in the spiritual, in his body.

Heaven and Earth United in the Messiah

I'm getting ahead of myself in a future series, so I don't want to just come out and say stuff that I really need to formulate better. But, oh, why not? So you know the Lord's Prayer, right? Can we read it together?

So this is the prayer of the man who was divine, the full embodiment of heaven meeting earth where God meets with man. No man can get to the Father except... I mean, it all makes sense, right? This person, this being—the disciples came to him and said, "Teach us how to pray." Isn't it important to know what he said in response? All right, next slide. Let's go to the next slide. Fantastic. Would you please stand as we say the Lord's Prayer? I feel like we owe this section of Scripture a little bit more reverence than typically. So please say it with me. Matthew 6, 9 through 13. Pray then like this. Amen. You can be seated.

Your Kingdom Come

Something that stuck out to me recently that I've never seen before—and we say it all the time —is this verse right here. What was the prayer of the King of Kings and Lord? What was the prayer of the Messiah? What was the prayer of Yeshua? What was his passion? Your kingdom come. Come where? Come where? Here. Your will be done where? Here. On earth as it is in heaven. His prayer was that heaven would come to earth. His prayer was for a new heaven and a new earth. A renewing of creation. His prayer was for a new creation where it wasn't man's kingdom. It wasn't a kingdom that was founded in idolatry.

It was a kingdom based on God. It was a kingdom of royal priests—and I emphasize that phrase—who knew and understood their vocation as image bearers. The vocation that mankind was given in the garden. That's what the Messiah's prayer was. You see, through him, the chaos of sin is defeated. Order is brought. God's reign on earth is brought, and you're invited into that reign. You're invited into that kingdom. What does he say? The kingdom of God is among you. It's already happening. New creation already started. The renewing of heaven and earth has already started. The kingdom of heaven is right there.

It's within you. Are you doing your part?

Your Vocation: The Ministry of Every Believer

I'm going to read one of my favorite passages—next slide. And I hope you don't mind, but you don't have a choice because you're seated there! It's 2 Corinthians . I'd like you to turn there because, in Hebrew roots teaching, we don't always preach this. I want to show you what your job is. You guys want to know what your job is? I know what my job is. My job is to keep Torah. I would disagree with that, actually. It's not your job—oh, the whole duty of a man is to keep the commandments of God and fear God. Yeah, that's your duty. That's your duty.

Brad, did you have a duty when you were in the Army? You were in the Army or Marines? No. Huh? Fantastic. You had a duty. Did every soldier have the same? When you came in, you had the duty of a soldier. You had a flat line. Everybody had a duty that they needed. Was it through an oath? Did you have to take an oath? And that dictated what your mindset was always, right? The oath to protect the Constitution. I don't know. I've never enlisted. Diabetes, it stops me. In a nutshell, what was it that you had to agree to as your duty in the Army? Do you remember? Okay, never mind. It was a long time ago.

Your duty is to protect the country from foreign or domestic terrorists, defend the Constitution, protect the President, so on and so forth. Protect freedom, protect your country, right? That's the duty of every soldier. What was your job in the military? What does that mean? So you had an infrastructure job. Okay, so Brad was involved in maintaining the infrastructure of the army. Some people fly helicopters, right? Some people are infantry. Some people are specialists, right? That's their job. It's not necessarily their duty. They all have the same duty. Duh. Of course, I'm a soldier. That's my duty.

But you have different vocations within the military, right? Guys, your vocation is not to keep Torah, to keep the commandments of God. Of course you're supposed to keep the commandments. For those of you who have a job, you might see it posted somewhere in the back—probably in the bathroom or break room—there's a code of ethics for your company. Everybody has to follow those ethics. That's the minimum requirement. Duh, that's what you're supposed to be doing. That doesn't define your job description. Do you guys want to know what your job description is? As believers in the Messiah? Of course you're supposed to keep Torah.

This is beyond that. That's minimum. That's like the bar. So here's your job. In 2 Corinthians it says, "For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this. We're about to say something important. That one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves. But for him, for their sake, died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." Everybody say, "I'm a new creation."

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God. He's about to say something really important. That's from who? Every single one of you is a minister. That's what Paul says. What do you mean I'm a minister? God gave you a ministry to be a part of.

Ministry of Reconciliation

Found it in truth? No. No, it's bigger than found it in truth. It's bigger than any other ministry out there. Right? This ministry is the ministry from God that he's given to you, and it's called the ministry of reconciliation. And you know what your job is? Your job is to be something called an ambassador. Do you guys understand what that is? As a new creation in Christ, you had a resume that you handed to God when you wanted to come into his kingdom, and it was junk. I'll tell you, it was junk. If anyone called the references, no, it was junk. Your work history didn't matter, and he didn't even look at it.

He said, you know what? You're a new creation, and you're hired. You're hired to be an ambassador for God. Yeshua, what does that mean? What's an ambassador? You guys know what an ambassador is? An ambassador is someone's emissary. When the king has a message he needs to send out, he gives it to an ambassador, and it's the ambassador's job not simply to read the message—it's the ambassador's job to represent the king. There are a lot of people that think they're ambassadors and they have the message, but they want to read it their way. They want to read it with their tone. They don't think the people that they're talking to deserve to really hear this message.

They just want to be mean about it, present it rudely, present it not with kindness, not with passion, not with forgiveness. People just want to present it harshly. They're failing as ambassadors.

Representing the King

Ambassador means that when people see you—this is going to sound big, and you're going to want to disagree at first—they see Yeshua. I'm not Yeshua. You're the ambassador of Yeshua, which means that every step that you take, every word that you speak, everything that you do, every tone that you take, every single thing that comes out of your mouth to the world around you that is lost, it shouldn't be you speaking. It should be Yeshua speaking. It should be forgiveness, the message of reconciliation. Let me tell you about the message of my king. Exile's over, guys. You guys know what sin is? Sin sends you into exile.

That's the curse of the law. End of Deuteronomy—the curse of the law is that Israel would sin and they'd be exiled. In order for the exile to end, sins have to be forgiven. Guess what happened on the cross? Except for this time, it wasn't an exile to Babylon. It wasn't an exile through Assyria. It wasn't an exile into Egypt. It was an exile from the garden. It was an exile caused by sin. Guess what? We get to come back to intimacy with God. That's our vocation. That is your job.

Anyone ever been fired from a job? You don't want to raise your hand. That's fine. We'll just assume you asked. Why did you get fired from your job? Probably because you weren't doing your job. Would you agree? I mean, is that far-fetched? My boss didn't like me. You're not going to have a problem with God. God likes you. God loves you. He loves you a lot. Do you think that you could get fired? Pun intended. If you're not doing the job that God has hired you to do? Yeshua kind of says so. Matthew 25. Some of them goats kept Torah. I guarantee it. And some of the sheep that were entered in probably didn't keep Torah as much as we think they should have. But they were pursuing God's will with their heart and their understanding.

Your Vocation: Ministers of Reconciliation

That's our vocation—to be ministers of reconciliation and represent Yeshua on earth and represent the kingdom of God that is present now on earth. The renewing of heaven and earth, guys, we're helping facilitate that. Are you doing your job? So as we conclude, Paul speaks about you, you being the temple of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians . You guys have heard of this? You've read the verse, right? You know, see someone smoking a cigarette, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What is wrong with you? Drinking soda, you're the temple of the Holy Spirit. That was back in the Baptist days. I don't necessarily disagree with that concept, with that understanding, but he says that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Yeshua was the place where God meets man, and because of your faith, you are an ambassador of that. You are also a vessel of the Spirit of God. It's interesting. That Greek word for temple in 1 Corinthians isn't heron, which is like when Yeshua talks about the temple's going to be destroyed—it's heron. It's the word naos. And I've heard some people say, oh, the naos means mishkan or something like tabernacle, because it was portable. Naos means the holiest of holies. In the Septuagint, whenever the holiest of holies was spoken of, the Greek word naos was mentioned. What happened in the holiest of holies?

There was an ark. There was a throne. And there was something above the covering of the ark. You guys remember what it was? It was the glory of God. And something came out of that presence above the cover. Do you remember what it was? We talked about it, I think, two weeks ago. The voice of God. That's where he spoke to Moses from. That's where man—that is the essence and the intimacy level of where man met with God.

You Are That Place

Guess what Paul calls you? You are that place. You are the naos, a new creation. Do you choose to accept this job? And if you do, you are a new creation. But it's not about you anymore. It's not about idolatry anymore. You guys realize that all sin is founded in idolatry? Idolatry. Ryan White—check his website out, rootedintour.com. I look up to Ryan. He's a peer. He's a friend of mine, but I look up to him as a teacher. He just got his master's in theology of the Old Testament. And it's fascinating because he speaks on idolatry. And he says, idolatry is when you give the authority that God gave you in the garden—dominion over the earth—the vocation that God gave you, you give the authority that God gave you to someone or something else, causing you to be enslaved to it.

It's idolatry. I'm not an idolater. I don't bow down to—really? If you even look at that woman with a little bit —if you even look at her with unclean thoughts, you've committed adultery. Idolatry. You've given power over to someone else to distract you from your covenant with your wife, for example. Addiction—your flesh, wanting you to think things, do things, say things, willingness to be enslaved. Why do you think Paul talks all through Romans? A greater Passover has happened. Your sins are forgiven, and the chains have been broken. You get to come back, and you get to serve the one true God with the fullness of his spirit inside you.

Guys, that's your job as a new creation in Christ. I hope you take it seriously because it's a big deal. Very big deal.

Remember What Matters

The temple. The temple. The things you did not know. I hope you guys will remember not the size of the altar this week, not that 10 lampstands in the holy place, not that—see here, the Hasmonians extended the temple mountain, and Herod, man, he—whoo—he extended it big time. Or the cock's crow platform, that was pretty cool. That's what you're going to be thinking about all this week, right? Write those down. Notes in your Bible for Bible study. What I would hope that your mind is set on this week is 2 Corinthians 5 and what your job description is. It's not simply keeping Torah. There was a bigger expectation for believers— beyond just keeping Torah. There were bigger expectations, a lot bigger—minimum requirements. Are we pursuing God's heart with the passion that we should as forgiven slaves, forgiven, that have turned over our chains, bound to the powers of this world in this present age, and give them to the Father and say, we serve you now. That should be your mindset this week.

Closing

Hey guys, I'm Matthew Vanderels, pastor at Founded in Truth Fellowship, and I really hope you enjoy this message. If you would like to see more messages and teachings like this one, please subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here. You can also visit our website to find out more information about our ministry and what we do right here. And if this message has been edifying to you, please consider supporting us and the ministry through our secure online giving portal here. This will ensure this message along with many others will continue to reach those who find themselves. We'll see you guys next time.