your Bibles with me again, if
you will, to Mark Chapter 13. Mark Chapter 13, and we will
just read the first two verses this time. And as he went out of the temple,
one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner
of stones and what buildings are here. And Jesus answering
said unto him, seest thou these great buildings? There shall
not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
I wanted to bring one last message from this chapter before we Move
on to the next. The Lord Jesus declared the complete,
absolute destruction of the temple that he had just walked out of.
There shall not be one stone upon another that shall not be
thrown down. And I have three things I want
us to think about this morning when we think about the temple.
First, the temple was the second temple built. Let me just remind
us of some things. After God delivered the nation
of Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage in Egypt, delivered them
by the blood of the Passover lamb, delivered them by power
when they came through the Red Seas, then God gave Moses instructions
to make a tabernacle, a place of meeting, And this was to be
God's dwelling place. The tabernacle was to be God's
dwelling place among his chosen people, that is, the nation of
Israel. And God later told David, King
David, through the prophet, I have not dwelt in any house since
the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt,
even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. Now that period was about 450
years. These numbers are roughly 450
years since God commanded Moses and the Israelites to build a
tabernacle where he would manifest his presence, where he would
dwell, in fact. He said, I have walked in a tent
and in a tabernacle all of these days. Now, God told David this
because David, being a man of God, being a person who loved
God, being a king, a wealthy man, had a beautiful house, I'm
sure. had a beautiful home in which
to live, and he was thinking, now there's the God that I love
and the God that I worship. His manifest presence is over
there in a tent. A tent's not much to talk about,
is it? Here I am living in this sealed
house, this house of cedar. And my God, the God I love and
the God I serve, he's dwelling over there in a tent. And he
told the prophet Nathan, he said, I want to build God a house,
house of stone, more permanent dwelling place. And the prophet
said, do what's ever in your heart. But then the prophet went
home and God told him, you go back and tell David, He's not
going to build me a house. I'm going to build him a house. And the reason David tells us
later, the reason why God would not allow him to build
that house is because as the king of Israel, he had fought
many battles. He had led, he fought the giant. He killed the giant Goliath.
And he killed many Philistines while Saul was king. And then
after he became king, there was many enemies, many nations that
he led the armies of Israel out and killed people. And God said
for that reason, he would not build him a house. David would
not build him a house because he was a man of blood, a man
of war. But from that time, from that
point, David began accumulating and putting aside things to be
used in the building of the temple. And he put aside gold. You can
read about it. Gold and silver and precious
stones and iron and bronze and wood. Everything that he knew
that his son Solomon would need. to build a temple. Nothing was
too extravagant, nothing was too great for David to give for
the building of this temple. And David said this temple that
was to be built, it must be exceeding magnificent. Not going to be
just some little old shack by a railroad track. This is going
to be a temple that will be magnificent, not only here in our country,
but in all the surrounding countries. There's not going to be any false
god that will have any temple that's going to compare with
the temple of our God, the true and the living God. It must be
a magnificent temple. of fame, he said. It must be
a magnificent temple of fame and of glory throughout all countries. Solomon, his son, came to the
throne and he built that magnificent temple. And he dedicated it after
the Ark of the Covenant had been brought into the Holy of Holies. He dedicated the temple and the
scripture says the glory of the Lord filled the temple. God manifested his presence there
in that temple. But then, after Solomon, and
actually Solomon himself, the king's heart began to turn away
from God. And one king seemed to be worse
than another. They had four or five good kings
through that time, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah and a few of those
kings. But they were on a steady decline
from that time on. And the kingdom divided itself
after Solomon's death. His son, Rehoboam, when he came
to the throne, then Jeroboam took 10 tribes and they separated. from then on was called Israel,
the nation of Israel. And the two tribes, Judah and
Benjamin, was referred to as Judah, the nation of Judah. And God had put his name in Jerusalem. That's the only place where men
could worship God. And that temple lasted about
370 years. At one point, one of the kings
of Judah, he, He commanded a false altar to be built and placed.
Actually, they removed the altar that God had designed through
Moses to be built, put it on one side of the temple, and placed
this pagan altar to some god that this wicked king had come
in contact with in another country. And remember in Jeremiah, the
prophet said, you've committed two evils. This nation's committed
two evils. Number one, you've forsaken the
true and the living God. And number two, you've hewn out
broken cisterns. In other words, you've turned
to false gods, nothings. the product of human imagination. You've committed two evils. You've
forsaken the true God, and you've turned and worshipped these idols.
Therefore, you're going into captivity for 70 years. And God raised up the nation
of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was the king,
and he brought his armies in, and they eventually destroyed
this magnificent temple. I mean, it was burned and destroyed. And then we know, after those
70 years, King Cyrus, the Persian king,
who had conquered the nation of Babylon, and God raised up
Cyrus, called him by name 200 years before he was born. Our God is truly God. Who could fail to want to love
and serve and honor this God of the Bible, the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ? That word awesome is thrown around
a lot, but God is an awesome God. He knows the end from the
beginning, my friend. And after 70 years of captivity
in Babylon, they were free to come back, but there wasn't a
whole lot who wanted to come back, and then only those whose
spirit God stirred up. Another picture of the fact that
man As we come into this world, we are lost, we're dead, we're
depraved, spiritually dead. And if God doesn't come to us
and do something in us, we'll remain dead as long as we live
in this world. That salvation is not partly
of God and partly of man. Salvation is of the Lord. And God stirred up some some
of the Jews, the spirits of some of them, and they came back,
and there were some men who had seen that first temple, and when
they saw the foundation of the temple that Ezra and Nehemiah
came back and started to build, they started crying, they started
weeping. This temple, it's not going to
be anything compared to the temple that Solomon built, that magnificent
temple. But God told them through the
prophet Haggai, this temple that you're building, to encourage
them. Keep on building. No, it's not
going to be as big and you're not as wealthy now as you were.
in Solomon's day, but keep on building because this temple
is going to have more glory. The glory of this temple is going
to be greater than the temple of Solomon. You say, well, how,
how, how would that happen? Because God said the desire,
the desire of all nations is going to come into this temple.
Now who is the desire of all nations? It's Abraham's seed,
Abraham's son. In thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed. And the Lord Jesus Christ we
know was brought into this temple. that they built after they returned
from captivity, and Herod had become king. He was a wicked
man, but he did adorn and refurbish that temple, and it was in the
process of being refurbished. But this temple had more glory. Its temple was greater because
at six weeks of age, Mary and Joseph brought the Lord Jesus
into this temple. I remember that old man by the
name of Simeon, took this baby up in his arms. He said, I'm
ready to die. I'm ready to leave this world
now because I have seen thy salvation. And where did he see God's salvation? He saw God's salvation where
God's salvation is, in Christ. Not in ordinances. It's not in
church membership and baptism and all the ceremonies that religious
man comes up with. Oh, no. Salvation is in the person
and work of Jesus Christ, God's dear son. He's the only way to
the Father. The only way to know God is through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. At 12 years of age when he was
in this temple, We have his first recorded words. Wished you not,
spoken to his mother, wished you not that I must be about
my father's business. His father, Joseph wasn't his
father. He was Mary's husband, but the
Lord Jesus Christ, his father, was God. And the prophecy was fulfilled
in the last book of the Bible, which said, behold, God said
this, behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare
the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant
whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. God sent his messenger before
himself. John the Baptist came first and
then came the messenger of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not that old covenant, no, but
a better covenant, a new covenant that has better promises and
that new covenant that God has made with every child of his
in Christ. So that's the temple that our
Lord walked out of that day and said to his disciple, there's
not one stone standing here that's not going to be thrown down.
And let me just say this before I go on. That's true of everything
in this world. Everything. We may put all of
our attention and all of our concern about the things of this
world, but everything is marked for the fire. Everything is marked
for the fire. The day is going to come when
God's going to burn it all up. And there's going to be a new
heaven and a new earth come out of that fire. Now, the second
thing I want to mention is the temple. Now, we looked at the
temple that our Lord said would come down. Now, secondly, the
temple was a type of the person of Jesus Christ. As we have seen, the temple replaced
the tabernacle. And we know the tabernacle also
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ in many ways. That's one way
the gospel was preached in that old dispensation, through those
types and pictures and shadows and whether the temple replaced
the tabernacle. Let me mention three things about
the temple that typified or is a type of Jesus Christ, the person
of Christ. First of all, the temple was
the special dwelling place of God. You remember I read that
verse when God told David that he walked in a tent or a tabernacle. And when Solomon dedicated the
temple, part of his prayer was, I have built a house of habitation
for thee. and a place for that dwelling
forever. God's presence was manifested
in the temple. He dwelt between the cherubim. The cherubim were connected onto
the mercy seat and God, the Shekinah, manifested itself there between
the cherubim. So the first way the temple pictured
Christ is God dwelt in the temple. Paul said the fullness of the
Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ. To see Christ is to see God.
To believe in Christ is to believe in God. To know Christ is to
know God. You cannot know God, no one.
can come to the Father, no one can know the Father apart from
the Son. Why do you always preach about
Christ? Because this Bible's all about Christ. And this is
what he's told me to preach, that's why. The temple, dwelling place of
God, Christ the man, in Him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead Bible.
The second thing, in the temple, it had an altar where priests
sacrificed for sin. It had the mercy seat where the
blood was sprinkled to make atonement for the sins of the people. It
had the lampstand. It had the showbread. It had
the golden altar of incense. And each and every one of these
pieces points us, pictures to us, Jesus Christ, our Lord. each and every one of them. He's
our priest, not like Aaron, who died and someone took his place.
Our priest has an everlasting priesthood. He's made a priest
after the order of Melchizedek, and he's our sacrifice. He gave
himself, shed his blood, and he's our altar. You see, our
Lord said the altar sanctifies the gift. The gift was his life
set upon his deity. And that's what gives value to
his sacrifice. If he wasn't God, I shouldn't
even say this probably, because he is God and you know he's God.
But if he had not been God, his blood wouldn't be in it. have
any more value than my blood or your blood or any other man's
blood? Oh no. His blood justifies. His blood redeems. His blood
brings forgiveness of sin. His blood sanctifies. His blood
brings us nigh unto God. His blood gives us peace with
God. His blood removes a guilty conscience
when His blood is sprinkled upon our hearts. When we come to see
the value of His blood, who He is and what His blood is, that's
the only thing that gives a sinner any relief. When we're made to
feel and to know, I've sinned. I've sinned against God. I'm
filthy. I'm depraved. And I'm under the
wrath of God because of my sin. Where am I going to find any
peace? Where's my conscience going to be relieved? By the
blood of Jesus Christ, and only by his blood. Each piece of furniture, that
lamp stand that gave light, he said, I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." That table
of showbread, he said, I am the true bread which came down from
heaven, which giveth life unto the world. And that golden altar
of incense, he's the one, the incense as it was placed on that
altar, that incense, the smoke from it, he's the one who gives
gives our prayers, we pray, but our prayers wouldn't hit the
ceiling, bounce back and hit us in the head if it were not
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever lives to make intercession
for all who come unto God by Him. And He takes our prayers
and they're filtered through Him, aren't they? And that's
selfishness that most of us are guilty of even when we pray. He cleanses, His blood cleanses,
and our prayers ascend unto the Father. Everything in that temple pictured
Christ some way. And third, the temple stood alone. Now, when you read through the
Gospels, you know there was Various people, the Lord healed in a
synagogue here, a synagogue there. There was a lot of synagogues,
a lot of places where people could meet and study the scripture. There's only one temple. There
can only be one temple. There's only one Savior. There's
only one Christ. But third, the temple, was a
picture, as I said, a type of the person of Christ, but the
temple also, now listen to me, the temple also was a picture
of the body of Christ, mystical,
his church. question might be asked. Well,
in A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed
that temple, has God not had a temple in this world since
then? Well, less than a hundred years after the Romans destroyed
that temple, our Lord's words were fulfilled. Then some of
the Jews were allowed to come back and they attempted to build
a temple there. And the Roman Emperor Hadrian,
he put an end to that. And some people believe that's
when that Old Testament prophecy about Jerusalem being plowed,
that's when that took place. I mean, they did everything they
could so that the Jews could never again build a temple there.
And then in the seventh century, the Muslims, the followers of
Muhammad, they conquered Jerusalem. They put a mosque. You see that
on the news, if you ever watch the news there about Jerusalem.
And that mosque is sitting on part of what was called the Temple
Mount. And the Jewish people, they know,
I had a wonderful, wonderful testimony of a Jew. I still have
it back there in my study, but they know there's only one place
where they could sacrifice. And that place now has a Jewish
mosque on it. And so they can't sacrifice. They can't sacrifice. God made
certain of that. Because all those pictures, those
types, they've all been fulfilled. Once you have the real, you don't
need the picture anymore. Isn't that true? You men go on a trip, you take
a picture of your wife with you, and you may take it out at night
and look at it, and you might even kiss it. I don't know. But
you're not going to do that when you come home. No, you can kiss
her now. You're not going to kiss her
picture. A lot of ceremony that man, religious man just loves
ceremony. And a lot of so-called Christian
groups today that are bringing these old things that were part
of that old dispensation and trying to use them today to worship
God. The Passover. Many different things. You know, our Lord said, they
that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. In truth. Well, that doesn't answer the
question. Has God not had a temple here since 70 A.D.? Yes, he has. He certainly has. He has, and it is what I'm calling
Christ mystical. That is the body of Christ, that
believers, everyone who is saved by the grace of God is a member
of his body. That's Christ mystical. And that
is the temple that God has had here in this world and still
has. And I'm going to point us to
three verses of four verses of scripture in just a moment. But
let me say this part of this temple is already in heaven.
And part of us are still down here on earth, but it's one temple. It's one temple. Look with me,
if you will, first in Ephesians 2. And we'll just look at these
verses and probably I'll be finished. Probably. Ephesians chapter 2. This body,
it's his bride, the bride of Christ. It's called New Jerusalem. It's called Mount Zion. And the
temple that was made there in Jerusalem that our Lord said
would be destroyed, it was made up of stones, hewn stones, brought
from the quarry and put into the temple. But it pictured this
spiritual temple, and it's not made of dead stones, it's made
of living stones. In Ephesians 2 and verse 19,
the apostle said, now therefore, You are no more strangers and
foreigners, he's speaking to the Gentile believers, but you're
fellow citizens with the saints. There's only one body. People today still trying to
separate the Jews and make them one body and the church another
body and no, God has one body. Christ has one body. A body has
one head, and Christ is the one head of the one body. And everyone
who is saved is part of this body, which he here calls a spiritual
temple. Fellow citizens, with the saints
and of the household of God, that's the family of God, and
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
What is the foundation of the apostles and prophets? Christ.
He's the only foundation. He said, upon this stone, this
confession of Peter, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It may be called
a church. It may be called a temple. It
may be called a family. The bride, it's the body of Christ,
in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto
a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together,
built together, Jew and Gentile, one building, one temple, for
an habitation of God through the Spirit." Just as God dwelt
in that old temple, God dwells in His church, in every believer. In fact, the scriptures tell
us that we are temples of God. Your body is a temple of God.
Now look with me in 1 Peter, or let's go to Hebrews first.
Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 and verse 22. But you are coming to Mount Zion. You haven't come to Mount Sinai,
the law. Mountain that smoked, and loud
noise, and Moses said, I was so afraid. I trembled, you know,
to go up into the presence. You didn't come to that mountain.
No, you've come to Mount Zion. A church, the body of Christ,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly
and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven. Now let's go to 1 Peter. You
can take the time to come back later and look at these verses. 1 Peter chapter two. Verse 2, as newborn babes, spiritually
born, new birth, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the
word that you may grow thereby. God's people need God's word. That's how we grow. We don't
grow by eating grass like Nebuchadnezzar had to eat. We grow by eating
the food that God has prepared for us. Sheep, the green pastures,
the word of God. Desire the sincere milk of the
word that you may grow thereby. If so be you have tasted that
the Lord is gracious. Have you tasted that? Have you
tasted him? The scripture says, oh, taste
and see. The Lord is good. Have you tasted the grace of
God? If you haven't, then don't talk
about it being bitter if you've never tasted it. Don't speak
about it being bad or not the best thing. No, if you've tasted
of it, it's good, isn't it, the grace of God? You can't talk to me too much
about the grace of God. That's what I, that's what I
love. That's what has brought hope
to me. Just like we saw in the Sunday
school class about Noah, the whole world was given to wickedness
and Noah wasn't any exception, but Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. If you found grace in his eyes,
if you tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming? Coming to Christ as unto a living
stone. You see, this temple is made
up of living stones. Christ is a living stone and
everyone who comes to him, we have life. He is our life. This temple is a living temple,
not a dead temple like that one in Jerusalem, or built up a spiritual
house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. Now, look with me one more place,
Revelation 21. John. is gonna tell us here what he
was privileged to say. Verse 22, he said, and I saw
no temple therein. Therein. What does he have reference
to? I saw no temple therein, for
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Now, look back to verse nine,
and let's see what led up to that. And there came unto me one of
the seven angels, which had the seven vows of all of the seven
last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, John,
I'm going to show you the bride of the Lamb. I'm going to show
you the Lamb's wife. Don't you know his eyes got him
up there? He's going to show me the Lamb's
wife? The bride of the lamb? That's
what he said. But notice what he saw. And he
carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain
and showed me, now this is the wife of the lamb that he seen. He showed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. a city, a temple, a body, a bride. All of these refer to the saved,
all of God's elect who are saved by the grace of God. And the
thing, we don't have the time and I can't pronounce a lot of
those words, but if you read on through that scripture, that
passage, you're going to find out that it had 12 gates. And
lo and behold, on each one of the gates was the name of one
of the tribes of Israel, one of Judah's sons. There's one
gate named Levi, there's one gate named Simeon, one Naphtali,
and you just go all the way around. And this city is as wide and
as long and as high as it is wide and long. Clearly, it's
not a physical city. It's a picture. It's a picture
of the church, of the bride of the lamb, of the body of Christ. And it has 12 foundations. And
on each one of these foundation stones, there's a name of one
of the 12 apostles of the Lord. What does that show us? It shows
us that God's people, from the old dispensation, this new dispensation,
We're all one. It's just one church. What a blessing, right? To be
a part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be a part of
his bride. Well, I pray the Lord will bless
these words. It's a living temple. And not
only is this temple living, but it's growing. Every time God
saves someone, another stone's added, another stone's added,
living stone. Oh, what a blessing it'd be to
hear that maybe someone here today, God adds to this temple.