THE THIRD TEMPLE
By Pastor Jim May
1 Peter 2:5-10
We are living in a time when all of those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord are watching the events of this world and wondering just how close we are to that day when we shall all be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. Hardly a day goes by that the subject of the Rapture of the Church doesn’t somehow work its way into our conversation or into our thoughts.
Since we are preoccupied with the end time, it is only natural that we have a curiosity about the prophetic Word and what it has to say about these last days.
One of the things that we have spoken of, and read much about, is the fact that in these last days the nation of Israel would rebuild the temple and re-institute the observance of the sacrificial system that was in operation throughout the Old Testament times, first in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, then in Solomon’s Temple and finally in Herod’s Temple that was destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman Army.
The only thing that remains of the temple is a small section of the wall. We see that wall in pictures and on the news quite often. It is called the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall and it is the place where devout Jews often come to pray, to cry out to God for deliverance and to place small scraps of paper containing their prayers into the cracks of the stones.
(Show Pictures of the Wailing Wall)
There is a lot of planning and preparation going on right now, getting everything ready for when the time is right to build the temple again. According to some news sources, the cornerstones for the third temple are already in Jerusalem and some of the vessels to be used in the temple worship are being stored under guard just waiting for the day that they can be used again.
Surely we live in some exciting times. Don’t allow the daily cares of life to distract you from realizing how close we are to the coming of Christ to take His Bride away.
It’s interesting and exciting for us to examine prophecy and to watch as God prepares the way and fulfills His Word and His promises to Israel, but I want to show you something this morning that perhaps you haven’t seen before.
Surely there will be a third temple built in Jerusalem before the end of time as we know it comes but I am convinced that there is already a third temple in existence right now. It exists, not in the stone and materials of the natural, but in the realm of the Spirit. All of you here have seen that third temple. You look at it every day, but you may not have realized it. Let me begin to show you that temple just in case you haven’t seen it.
1 Peter 2:5-10, "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."
It is no coincidence that Peter refers to the saints, those who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, as lively stones. As you have seen, stones are the building blocks of the temple in Jerusalem, but those are natural stones. You and I, as spiritual stones, are the building blocks of the third temple that I want to show to you right now.
When the Jews started gathering stones for their temple they had to find a quarry that was filled with the right kind of stones. Those stones had to be a bright white in color and soft enough to cut out of the solid bedrock. But they also had to be able to harden over time and exposure to the elements. Even today, some engineers in Israel believe that they have found some of the old stone quarries that King Solomon used because some of the stones in the quarry have already been cut and grooved to fit but were never used. According to these engineers, there has been enough stone removed to build the Old City of Jerusalem several times over. Could it be that some of these same stones will be used some day?
The thing that I want you to note is that the stones had to be pure white and soft enough to remove from the quarry.
Look at what Jesus said to the churches in Revelation.
To the church of Sardis Jesus said in Revelation 3:5, "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels."
To the Church of Laodicea He said in Revelation 3:18, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
Can you see now why Peter calls those who are Born Again, Lively Stones? Who are we and where did we come from?
We are nothing more than sinners saved by the Grace of God. Every one of us was taken from the same “quarry” of stone where all of mankind is found. We were all anchored in sin and molded into the quarry of sin and shame, locked into a life without God and hardened against all that is holy and just.
But God saw something in us and desired us for Himself. He wanted each of us to be a part of His temple. So by His Grace He chose us. We were “called out”, “hewn out of the quarry of humanity”, chosen by God and lifted out of that life of sin and shame to be a part of His kingdom. He lifted us out of the miry clay. He took us out of that quarry of sin. And by His Grace we have been cleansed from sin and made into a new creation in Christ.
First God looked into the quarry of humanity, looking for that one who would be willing to be a part of His temple in the earth. He looked for a “stone” that would be soft and pliable, one that would yield to the call of God and desire to serve Him.
God took us out by His own power, cleansed us by His own blood and made us whiter than snow. He has clothed us in the white robes of His righteousness and now we are made ready to be a part of His temple. He took a stone from the quarry of sin, and has made us fit for His spiritual building. We receive beauty, strength and everlasting durability through Jesus Christ and we are made into “Living, or Lively Stones”.
We get our life from the “Chief Corner Stone”. We live upon Him and He lives in us and His grace in us is a well of Living Water that is springing up into everlasting life.
Jesus takes each of us, one living stone at a time and cements us together in love and fellowship, one with another, under His guidance and the leading of the Holy Spirit. He builds us together into a “spiritual house”, a church, a single Body of Christ. Just like the temple and the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, we are assembled by God; anchored in Jesus, founded upon The Rock of Ages, and fit together stone by stone. We come together for one purpose – to perform spiritual services in prayer, praise, preaching, hearing the Word of God, administering the ordinances of God and giving of our selves in sacrifice to God’s Work.
The Jews are looking for the day when their Third Temple will be built for it will be sign of the soon coming of their “Promised Messiah”. For those of us who are saved and who know Jesus as Lord, we are already a part of that Third Temple. As Living Stones we already know that the Messiah has come and we are a part of His Spiritual House. We don’t need a literal temple in Jerusalem to go and worship God. We worship Him right where we are because He lives inside of us.
One Jewish Rabbi says that, "it is known from the ancient wise men, that the future redemption, with which shall be the third "spiritual" sanctuary, is the work of God, and will not be as the former redemptions: "I will fill this house with glory"; this is "a spiritual" one, for even the walls shall be "spiritual". For even all this "house" shall be "spiritual"; for that which was then built, which is the second, shall be turned into another a "spiritual" one:”
You and I can see that this has already been done through the church that Jesus established under the Gospel. God’s House is no longer a worldly sanctuary where the carnal worship of the Jews takes place through the sacrificing of animals and observance of religious ceremonies. The earthly priests don’t need to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial lamb upon the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies anymore.
The Blood of the Lamb has been shed once and for all. Jesus’ Blood has been applied to each of us now and we are sanctified, made holy, given righteousness and set in place in His Kingdom. God has created you and I to be His new sanctuary.
Just as the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem and the priest of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness were set apart and sanctified to hold the office of the priesthood, Jesus has done the same for you and me.
All of the saints are priests unto God now. And we are all appointed and directed to offer up spiritual sacrifices. We are commanded to offer up to God our whole being; our soul, our body and all that we are, as a holy, living, and acceptable sacrifice. We are to offer up our pray and praise, and all of our good works done in faith. We are to give sacrificially because we love God, and we are to give Him glory through acts of kindness.
And all of our sacrifices are made acceptable to God because we are a part of that Royal Priesthood, being made righteous and holy through Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone of this Third Spiritual Temple. He is the precious stone, cut out without hands, precious and chosen of God. He is rejected by man because they won’t recognize that He is the very Son of God, the Savior of the World. To the eyes of sinful man, Jesus is nothing more than a stumbling block, a rock that offends him, because mankind cannot see His beauty through eyes that are blinded by sin, and cannot see Jesus as He is until those eyes are opened to see things in the realm of the Spirit.
For those of us who are saved, we know that Jesus is truly the Chief Corner Stone, elect and precious. It is Jesus who makes this “Spiritual Temple” a thing of beauty for we have no beauty within ourselves. Jesus is the Rose of Sharon and the Bright and Morning Star. He gives this building strength. He unites all of the Living Stones and becomes the mortar that holds us together in unity. Mankind didn’t build the church; Jesus did.
The church is built upon the Rock, Jesus Christ, and the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it.
We are founded upon that Rock and we will never be “confounded” or ashamed of our foundation. We will never be ashamed of the faith that we place in Jesus. We will never lose our confidence that He is able to carry us through, and we will not be ashamed when Jesus comes again. We are safe on the Rock right now, and we will be safe in the Rock forever more.
This precious corner stone, the Rock of Ages was, and still is, a stumbling block to the Jews.
They stumbled at his virgin birth and the fact that his real father was God in Heaven and that his earthly parents were from a little village called Nazareth. They stumbled at the fact that Jesus was a carpenter’s son and no the son of a King.
They stumbled at the fact that Jesus wasn’t educated in the schools of the Rabbi and could still dazzle those same Rabbi with His knowledge of the Scripture. They couldn’t understand, or accept the great wisdom that Jesus had and it confounded them to no end.
The whole world stumbles at the fact that Jesus had no earthly means of support. He wasn’t wealthy or rich. He didn’t own homes, lands and property. He had no place to call home or lay his head down. If he really was God, then why couldn’t He be rich and have a kingdom that would rival all the kingdoms of the world?
The Jews stumbled at the company that Jesus kept. It was always the poor, the more illiterate, the profane, the wicked, publicans, and harlots that hung around Jesus. They didn’t understand that they were no better and that these who hung around Jesus were there because He changed them into a new creation. Those who are delivered and set free by the Blood of Jesus were once sinners like everyone else but now they are different. But the world just doesn’t understand.
The world stumbles at the ministry of Jesus and the true Church. They stumble at the doctrine we preach. They stumble at the fact that Jesus is the only way of salvation. They stumble at the fact that we desire a close communion and relationship with an invisible God. They stumble at the observance of Communion and identifying with the shed blood and broken body of our Lord. The church world, and the worldly crowd stumble at the miracles that Jesus gives.
Most of all, the whole world stumbles at the fact that Jesus, the very Son of God, came down in the form of a man, died on the cross and rose from the dead, just because He loved sinful men and wanted to make a way of salvation.
While the whole world, and especially the nation of Israel, looks for the building the Third Temple in Jerusalem, we as Christians, already know that the Third Temple has come in a spiritual sense.
You and I, each one of us, are living stones, made white by Christ. We allow our hearts to be made soft and pliable so that God can mold us and make us into His image. As time goes on, we become more established in Jesus. Our love for God makes us “hard” against the wiles of the devil and seals us into the Kingdom of God and His spiritual house.
That’s what Peter is talking about in 1 Peter 2:9, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light…"
Are you a “lively, living stone” this morning? If you are born again by the blood of Jesus then realize your place in God and know that you are a part of the fulfillment of the prophetic word. While there will be a literal third temple in Jerusalem, you are already a part of that third temple spiritually right now.
If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, now is the time that you can accept Him. Will you allow Jesus to come into your heart and be your Lord? Jesus came to this earth and died on the cross so you could be a part of His House too. Will you come to Him today?
