Still, Still with Thee - King’s Heralds It Is Well with My Soul - King’s Heralds

Still, Still with Thee - King’s Heralds It Is Well with My Soul - King’s Heralds

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Voice Of Prophecy

H.M.S. Richards

Temples on Earth

Along with the the, the shall it be at and life shine. My father, h m s Richards and I are happy to be with you for this worship service. We have visited in our travels many temples around the world. We've been in Rangoon, Burma, we've seen the Shwedagon there. We've been in various areas of India and in different countries. My father's subject today is a very interesting one. Listen now as he speaks on the subject temples on Earth. It's trains that with our modern science and marvelous inventions, modern men so often do not see God in his universe. Many themselves. The farther they look out into the infinitely big, the deeper they delve into the infinitely little. They see only their own accomplishments, worship only their own magnificent deeds. Well, the fact is that God is not far from them all the time. God is not merely behind the farthest star of the most elusive rine. God is everywhere. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 1721. It was Colonel Lawrence of Arabia who in his unique book of seven pillars of wisdom, speaks of an Arab shaik who after hearing a Western scholar recount, the wonders revealed by the modern telescope said, you foreigners see millions of stars and nothing beyond we Arabs see only a few stars in God. Does God have a dwelling place on earth? Does he have a temple in which he used to be worshiped? For a few brief minutes, we shall speak of God's temples on earth. Divine instruction to build a temple or sanctuary for God once came to a man called Moses. We read about this in several books of the Holy Bible, Exodus, Hebrews, the Chronicles, this temple or sanctuary, originally built by Moses later on a grander scale by Solomon was built at the direct order of God and according to his specifications. Now, when God made man in the beginning, he made man himself a temple, a living temple. Read Genesis two, seven. Let us compare these two temples, a building which was in a sense God's dwelling place on earth. And man, the living temple, the ancient temple was built for God's glory when completed, his glory filled it so none could enter it. Second Chronicles five 14. On the other hand, we read that man was created for God's glory. First Corinthians six 20, listen to these words and as you listen, think of your own body as God's temple. The apostle says, Noy not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you and which you have of God and you are not your own. For you bought with a Christ. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are Gods one. Corinthians six 19. If each of us is a living temple for the indwelling of God and for his glory, it's a supremely important how we live. How do we treat God's temple? Is it ever defile by a way of living, thinking, eating, drinking? God's ancient temple was cleansed from time to time. As you read in Hebrews 9 23, a sacred and solemn service was conducted in which lambs were slain and blood was sprinkled. What about the living temple we read in First John one, nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful in just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Does our living temple need to be cleansed? In one Corinthians six 11, we read, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. And by the spirit of our God in the literal temple on earth, which was a figure of the heavenly, the father and son had their dwelling place. Listen to the words of our savior in John 1423. If a man love me, he will keep my words and my father and I will love him and we will come onto him and make our abode with him. How solemn wonderful is a human life like that with such a statement. Wonderfully true. Every one of us becomes supremely important. We are living temples. Jesus himself, who was our example once said, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, but he speak of the temple of his body. John two 19, every Christian is a temple of God. In the ancient temple of Solomon, there were two apartments, the holy and the most holy. So in every human being, there's not merely the intellect, but the affections, the emotional life. Let us speak first of the holy place in the ancient temple coming into it from the east, the holy place was entered first. So it is with us. We comprehend. We see, we understand God's gospel offer the truth of his word, but it's only when the spiritual life is awakened and we obey from the heart. We are truly his children. The Apostle Paul speaking of those early Christians in the city of Rome said, but God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you Roman six 17. We must not only comprehend God's truth, we must not only see the wonderful and harmonious outline of scriptural truth, but we must from the heart, from true love, obey it and receive it as applying to us and as our very own. As one entered the holy place in the earthly temple, he saw on his left the beautiful seven branched candlestick giving right to the whole golden room. He read this in Exodus, the 40th chapter. So in the temple of the human heart, God's holy word brings light. As we read in Psalm 1 19, 1 30, the entrance of thy words give us light. It give us understanding unto the simple. First of all, God appeals to our reason. As we read in Isaiah one 18, come now, let us reason together. Set the Lord though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as well. Now it's reasonable to accept his truth. It's reasonable to believe on the right side of the holy place of the ancient temple was the golden table on which were the 12 loaves of show bread or bread of God's presence. So in God's living temple, we are to feed upon his divine truths. We read this in Jeremiah 1516. Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. We are to feed upon the word that is our spiritual food. First Peter two. In the first apartment of the ancient temple, immediately in front of the dividing veil, which separated the holy place from the most holy was the golden altar where the holy incense was offered morning and night. So Christians are to offer prayer and praise to God. We read in Philippians four, six, be careful for nothing. That means worry about nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. The prayers of God's people are represented by the Sweden sense, which ascended from this golden altar of old. In one of his visions, the apostle John speaks of the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints and ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. That's Revelation eight verse four, radio Friend, does this incense of prayer arise from the altar of your heart? Prayer is true. Prayer when it's your own prayer, the expression of your own needs and your own hope, your own communion with God the infinite, as George Santana put it, prayer is not a substitute for work. It's not the lazy who are most inclined to pray. Those who pray most are those who having worked hard find that they need help beyond their own powers. Talk to God in your own way. Anytime, anywhere, ask him for help. Yield your heart to him. Tell him your problems. Thank him for his goodness. That will be prayer, real prayer and will ascend like incense to heaven. Now just two more important points about God's temples. In his literal temple of old and one Solomon built the most holy place was the very center of everything. There in the holy golden arc were the tables of the law, the 10 commandments written on stone by God's own finger. You read that in Exodus 24. Now we see the beautiful parallel in every Christian's heart. The law of God is written by His Holy Spirit. The scripture actually uses those very words, the tables of the heart. To prove this, read Hebrews eight 10. Listen, I will put my laws into their mind. Write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. This is God's promise to you and me and every believer. The other text is second Corinthians three, verse three. Here, the apostle tells us that we are an epistle or a letter of Christ written not with ink, but with with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart. There you are, is the holy law of God written in our hearts? God knows and others may know. By the way, we act for the scripture says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23, 7. What are we like inside? Well, what we are inside will soon be known by others outside. If the holy law of God is written by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we shall be obedient to it. It'll be only natural for us to act out its holy principles and truth. Last of all, we mention the historical truth that when the ancient temple was dedicated, the presence of God as a holy light or fire appeared between the two golden Cher angels that were over the mercy seat covering the tables of the law and remain there as long as God recognized that temple as his own most holy place. What about us again, we refer to First Corinthians six, where we are told that Christians are the temples of the Holy Ghost and that the spirit of God abides within them. The Holy Spirit lives in every Christian unless he has been grieved away by an evil life. This is why Christians should put away every wrong habit. We should constantly remember that we are living temples and that God, by his spirit lives in us. This will make life different. Make it holy and wonderful. Gloria's happy, successful, filled with overcoming power. So the question is asked, does God have a temple on earth today? And the answer is yes. A thousand times, yes. 10,000 times. Yes, yes, yes. Many temples. Every earnest, sincere Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit and the very presence of God abides within him. Robert e Spear tales of attending a church down on Mercer Street in New York City years and years ago. It was located on a little pocket of a street between Broadway and university place near Washington Square and was called the Church of the Strangers. Very few people attended that. The old pastor stood before them and bore his message faithfully. He once used this illustration. A French soldier in the wars of Napoleon had been shot in the breast and the surgeons were probing deep for the bullet. It was before the day of anesthetics. And as they cut deeper, the poor man felt the cool air around his heart. He looked up at the surgeon and said, haltingly, doctor, if you cut much deeper, you touch the emperor. You see, he had him in his heart. If Napoleon and earthly emperor could command such loyalty, how much more should our emperor, the king of kings, by his Holy Spirit, command our loyalty? Yes, we're living temples. He dwells within us. Will you have him as your savior and your king? There's one thing that we can do about God living temple. We can open the door and invite him to dwell within. Shall we not do that just now? Oh Lord, of space of earth and sea and sky. Thy word created all each blazing star in all the host of heaven marching high flamed forth in war and are oh Lord of space like constellations. Bright and world electrons of the Adam sad. Make their procession through creation's light about the throne of God. Oh Lord of space. The heaven of heavens above thy dwelling is eternal king. Now art and now more wonder still the Lord of love forever. In my heart, Soul. Soul, the soul, it is well.

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Temples on Earth

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