Calvary Temple

From the beginning of creation, God sought a way to commune with man, but sin was always in the way.  In Exodus 24 and 25, God formed a plan and created a place for this communion to take place, and He told Moses, you build it this way, and I'll meet you there!  But first, the sin issue had to be dealt with by the sprinkling of the blood of the animal sacrifices upon the elements of the tabernacle, the altar and finally, the people, themselves.  Only then could they approach the Holy God. God told Moses to create a place to house the tablets of stone and the testimony, which would be covered by the mercy seat—and He would commune with them there. Thank God for the pure blood of Jesus Christ that covers our sin so that we can commune with God, having been cleansed by his blood.

Mount Zion is prevalent throughout scripture. It was a physical mountain in ancient Jerusalem, but it was also used to describe the Jewish Nation, and it is referred to as the Heavenly Jerusalem and will be the physical location of the Millennial Jerusalem, and it was the very birthplace of the early church! Mount Zion was the dwelling place of God. It was where people physically came to worship God. Hebrews 12:18-24 NLT tells us that Jesus came as the fulfillment of Mount Zion—and that when we worship God from our spirit in truthfulness, Verse 24 says “we have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and (you’ve come) to the sprinkled blood of Jesus, which speaks of forgiveness…” We may never visit the earthly Mount Zion, but we have already been there if we have accepted that precious blood of Christ, and we will surely see when we reign in the Millennium with Christ!

Less than 90 years after the prophet Jonah had preached to Ninevah that they must repent of their sin of idolatry and return to God, they’d not only fallen back into idolatry but had become so barbaric and cruel to the people of Israel that God had had enough and sent the prophet Nahum to Ninevah, but this time, it was to tell them of their certain, unavoidable destruction. This strong city that was considered virtually indestructible, was completely destroyed at God’s hand. Nahum 1:3 says that The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. That’s why the writer of Hebrews wrote that it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God—the God who can punish sin eternally. But, we who love and follow hard after God, can be so thankful that the love of God, which we can all know by simply believing in the saving grace of his Son, Jesus Christ, saves us all from certain destruction and eternal damnation.

The Lord gave Isaiah some very strong words about not following along with his culture, which we can certainly relate to today. V11 The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them. Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. He is the one you should fear. He is the one who should make you tremble. He will keep you safe. This is my New Year’s Resolution!

It can be hard for us to comprehend some portions of the Christmas story. While the joy that comes from the birth of a baby is easy to relate to, it’s harder for us to comprehend that, Jesus WAS—HE EXISTED, in all of His Heavenly, Kingly, status, before he was sent to earth in the flesh as a baby by His Father. We must remember, remember and worship, the one who LEFT the splendors of Heaven; who was separated from the comfort of His Father’s bosom and who lowered himself in status, to come in the flesh to bring Joy to the World!

The book of Isaiah prophecies the coming of the Son, who would be called the Prince of Peace. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome that the God of peace shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly. From the first prophecy of the promised Messiah through the final war between Jesus and Satan, when Jesus fully and finally crushes him, God had a plan that Jesus would be the Prince of Peace on earth. In the “in-between” times, right at the point where we live our very lives, Jesus is our personal Prince of Peace. He brought peace in our relationship with God; in our circumstances, in our family, in our heart. Though our minds can’t comprehend it, He is our Perfect Peace.

Genesis 22:1 tells us that Abraham’s faith was tested by God. God required him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, the son of promise to God. Abraham said that this act of service to the Lord was “Worship.” That’s a very, very different interpretation of what some modern-day church goers might call worship. It’s not fancy lights and loud music performed by an entertainment group. Romans says that worship is our spiritual service. Are we holding on to anything at all so tightly that we couldn’t open our hands and let it go as worship unto the Lord? If we are, we must re-evaluate our worship.

Repentance always precedes revival. It’s God’s way. In the book of I Samuel Chapter 8, God had provided Israel with a righteous judge and prophet, Samuel. But the people rebelled, and demanded a king. Despite God’s warnings that a king would exact taxes from them, put their men into work camps and hijack their women for his own purposes, they still wanted a king. So God gave them Saul as their king. Saul had every outward appearance of a great king—but inwardly, he lacked righteous character. And this lack led him to make risky, selfish decisions. God repented of putting him on the throne, and together with Samuel, they anointed David as the next king of Israel. David was so important to be the next king because he had a righteous, repentant heart. And, he was also of the bloodline from which Jesus, the Messiah of the world would descend. Jesus was not only David’s divine creator and human descendent, but also his eternal Savior.

Last week Pastor Debbie called on the congregation to prepare something uplifting and edifying to share with the church this week. Join us as we share our testimonies, favorite scriptures, or whatever else we felt may uplift and edify the church.

The Jewish leaders were so indoctrinated in the laws of Moses that they were blind to the message of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In Acts 13, Paul built on the familiar, until in Acts 13:23, he told them: And it is one of King David’s descendants, Jesus, who is God’s promised Savior of Israel. There, he’d said it. Addressing yet another group of staunch Jewish leaders in Rome, in Acts 28:28, Paul said, Brethren,… I believe that the HOPE OF ISRAEL, THE MESSIAH, HAS ALREADY COME. But, since the message was widely rejected by the Jews, God, in His mercy, opened up the way for the Gentiles to hear, and accept the message of forgiveness of sins and redemption. The Gentiles accepted the message with gladness and thanksgiving. Have you accepted God’s gift of love which is available to all people who will believe?

Yokes are intended to equalize the weight of a heavy load between a team of animals. It serves them well as long as the animals don’t rebel under the yoke. God told the prophet Jeremiah to fashion a yoke around his own neck as an illustrated sermon to show the people of Israel that they soon would be under the yoke of the King of Babylon because of their sin. He warned them not to listen to their false prophets who would say that all was well and that God would not put them under the foreign King’s yoke, but He did just that, and then dealt harshly with the false prophet. But, in Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus speaks of another kind of yoke. He said, “Come unto me all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you..." He meant that we can exchange the heavy yoke of sin and shame for His yoke of rest and peace, for His yoke is easy to bear and His burden is light.

Faith or Fear? Sometimes, because we are 100% human, it’s both. The Prophet of Israel, Elijah was mightily used by God in I Kings Chapters 18 &19. He did mighty things through God, but his humanness was a big struggle for him. He was called to a confrontational type of ministry—one that required introspection and personal decision. He asked the people, “How long will you waiver between two opinions? If God is God, then serve Him, but if Baal is god, then serve him!" The people didn’t like being put on the spot like that and this friction caused Elijah to be lonely and despondent at times, to the point that he felt sorry for himself and became depressed and it affected his ministry. But, God saw his potential and revealed Himself to Elijah in a very quiet, personal way. Can you hear God’s gentle voice, or do you look only for the loud demonstrations of power?

It’s important to God that we remember. Like in Joshua, Chapter 4, where He instructed Joshua to have the priests erect memorial stones so that they would always have a marker by which to remember God’s miraculous deliverance of them out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 19:14 God told the people not to forget the landmarks, the stones that would mark their properties in the new Promised Land, and not to move their neighbor’s landmarks. Physical landmarks are good, but spiritual landmarks of where we’ve met with God in prayer, in church services or alone with Him, where He touched us mightily, where our hearts broke in sweet surrender and we could accept His will in a matter—those are the landmarks we need most for today. For they will give us strength, and build our faith.

Have you ever felt like you’ve lived through something before? Deja vu? We can find the answer to this in Ecclesiastes 3:15! What is happening now has happened before and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again. When God brings the past into a believer’s present, He is virtually giving us a do-over to learn from our mistakes the first time around, repent, and do it better the next time. For non believers, He’s giving them an opportunity to accept Jesus as their Savior so they do not have to face judgment. Matthew 24:35 tells us that Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. God calls the past in account according to His eternal word.

I Corinthians 14:33 tells us that God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. From the beginning, on the very first day of creation, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God established order out of chaos. He brought form and filled the voids with all things pertaining to life and godliness. He did the same with the coming of Christ; all things done in the order in which God intended it. Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection all in accordance with prophetic scripture. God will bring order out of our chaos; Psalm 121 confirms it. He will bring order to our world, our lives, and yes, even to Israel. Psalm 121:4, Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

It is said that the drink offering described in Numbers 15 represents the works that the worshipper did in order to make the sacrifice. The drink offering was not shared with the priests or the worshippers, but was only for God. Jesus, under the New Covenant, became our sacrifice, and when he was offered once and for all, the Old Testament sacrifices were abolished. But, the drink offerings—the worshipper’s efforts and works for others, are still required by God! Romans 1:1-2 tells us that we, who are the strong in the Lord, must bear up our weaker brothers and not just please ourselves. Christ did not please himself, but his Father and all those who reproached him. Yes, the drink offering of our love, devotion, and acceptance of other believers is truly a sweet smelling savor to the Lord.

God had a dual intent and purpose for the children of Israel. On the one hand, He wanted them to learn to trust Him, depend fully upon Him, but He also wanted to bless them. To provide for them. So He took them through the desert, through hardships and trials to teach them. And God will do the same for us. Whatever it takes—whatever it costs, for us to learn to trust Him, for as Psalm 46:1-3 assures us, He is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in time of trouble. Even when the earth changes beneath our feet or the mountains disappear into the seas, the seas roar and the mountains quake. Still, God’s intent is to be our refuge.

One of the most confusing aspects of Jesus’ power is that of healing. Isaiah 53:5 tells us that the reason Jesus bore vicious beatings and the stripes on his back was for our healing. Jesus healed every single person who came to him in faith. He also said that those who believe and follow him will have visible signs that follow them—signs that identify believers with Jesus. One of those signs listed in Mark 16:18 includes that believers who have faith in Jesus will lay their hands on sick people in the Name of Jesus, and the sick person will recover. In the Name of Jesus, be healed. Rise up and walk. Recover. Be well. Colossians 3:17 says that whatever we do, whether we give a word to someone or we do a deed, that we are to do it all in the name of Jesus and then give thanks to the Father. And that’s what we did today!

In the 17th Chapter of Judges is a very disturbing story of how a mother and son blended the teachings of God, which they knew from childhood from the Books of the Law written by Moses, with idolatry to suit themselves. On the one hand, the mother was thankful to God for the good fortune of the return of her stolen money (stolen by her own son!), but on the other hand, she used part of the money to create idols for her son’s house and the son used his own son as a fake priest, overseeing his fake idols…until he found a ‘real Levite priest’ who was willing to serve in the house of idols for money! Verse 6 was certainly true when it said that “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Yet, as ludicrous as this sounds, the Apostle Paul wrote in II Timothy 3:5, that in these treacherous last days, we would also see the exposure of men who oppose truth, men of a depraved mind, who rejected the faith and who had a form of godliness, but who would deny the very power of the one true God who could mak

A prophecy, a prayer, and a praise.  Many times, God uses the physical realm as a prophetic model of what He plans to do in the spiritual realm.  This has recently happened at our church. In Job, God instructed Job to pray for his friends as they made a sacrifice to God because they mis-spoke about God to Job.  In doing so, God doubly restored all Job’s losses.  Focusing on others is paramount to our own healing. Praise God for the entirety of the Bible, the logos, which is the inspired word of God. But, the work of the Holy Spirit is to enlighten the RHEMA of the word to our hearts; the RHEMA are those words that make an UTTERANCE to our spirits, and have IMPLICATION to our lives, thereby building the faith that comes by hearing the word of God.