DESTROY THIS TEMPLE

 

"Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up." 

The words of the Lord Jesus to the dangerous and conniving religious leaders of His day who sought to kill Him and thus to silence the Truth of Yahweh (YHWH).

He said this in reply to their demand for a miraculous sign in query of the authority He had to chase the money changers and merchandise sellers from the Temple just after He had cleared the Temple of these economic profiteering activities in the (falsely) religious space. 

This same Christ who is the Truth gave His Word and Spirit of Truth to His Apostles who, as He had done, also bore witness to the Truth even with their lives and passed the same Truth down to the Church, which is the Body of Christ, who is the Only Head of His One Body. Selah.

To be clear, we don't need to chase any religious merchant from their self-owned religious centres or overturn any tables. We only need to "bear witness to The Truth" and "earnestly contend for the Faith once delivered to us" at any blessed opportunity that we have to do so. 

The same religious spirit in the religious system that hated Christ and His Apostles has hated, is hating and will always continue to hate anyone who has the Spirit of Truth and clearly speaks God's Truth. It is of The Satan.

Just as they sought to silence the Truth then, they do same today albeit in different subtler ways and formats. 

One thing they have failed to learn and understand from biblical history and from church history is this factuality:

Destroying (desecrating and discrediting) the human messengers or witnesses of God's Truth does not destroy God's Spirit of Truth. God's Truth is Life indeed. 

It is power. The "Gospel of Christ", which is God's Grace and Truth, is essentially and exclusively "the power of God unto salvation". God's power and plan to save souls. 

It is fire. It compels the small and meek to speak powerfully even to the great and mighty not for personal interests but in bearing witness to God's Truth. It makes the blind to see and the deaf to hear. It makes even the dead to live in and by the Spirit. Surely, God's Truth is Life.

It made the three Hebrew boys in Babylon to not bow down in worship to the image of gold (typifying the spirit of mammon) made by the king of Babylon even in the face of threats and danger because their hearts were already devotedly and loyally bowed to the King of Heaven and Earth. For as Christ categorically stated: "You cannot worship God and mammon." Both are immiscible. 

God's Truth is spiritual seed. The Seed of Life. Very potent in its nature. Once it is resident and rich in a man's heart, it will surely spring forth into Life even when it has been buried with several and severe lies, manipulations, sabotage, setups, sins, trials, temptations, afflictions, oppressions and all manner of deceitful and destructive devices of the devil and his human or demon-spirit cohorts. 

It will increase and multipy if it is bruised and buried, or crushed and covered. Dealings, darkness, dirt and death will make it grow. This is the God-ordained mystery and power in the seed. Death producing or preceding life. 

Selah.

Best thing is to ignore it if you don't want it. If you try to suppress or silence it, the All Wise God of Truth has designed it to grow by reason of the same destruction planned and executed against it because He already knew the world (which is under Satan's deception) will do untold things to silence God's Truth by doggedly distressing and destroying the containers of His Truth. Really, "they know not what they do" on the Macro Scale.

The wisdom of God uses the workings of Satan to fulfil the will of God. All of this is divinely ordered and divinely indiscernable to the devil and the world in real time. Let the LORD be praised! He is indeed Sovereign over all. 

It would have been better for them to have ignored Truth and receive to themselves only the condemnation of negligence or complacency but they add to this the sorer condemnation of spite, stoneheartedness and sabotage, attracting far greater punishment from The Almighty. 

Yet, Truth cannot be successfully ignored even by Darkness for "the Light shines in Darkness and the Darkness did not comprehend (extinguish, overcome, overtake, overpower, put out, apprehend, appropriate, absorb, grasp, perceive, is unreceptive to) it". Darkness will take over or envelop a place once all the lights go.

Yes, total darkness takes over when all lights are gone. 

Selah.

Normally, the haters of Truth are scared of it because it reveals their lies and opens the blind eyes of their victims to their widespread and dominant deception. 

However, rather than reflect and repent humbly when they are presented with Truth, the proud and wicked religious chieftains devise different means and invent varied sophisticated strategies to dent, destroy, discredit, desecrate or diminish the mortal carriers of God's Truth.

The workers of wickedness today will even employ espionage in either an incremental or immediate execution of their deeply sinister elimination strategy. 

Yet still, with the clear proof of biblical and church history, destroying the messengers of God never ever destroys the Message or Truth of God. 

Truth is immortal.

The wicked do their worst and best by finding and utilising many ways to destroy the earthen vessel, physical temple, corruptible flesh, mortal housing, temporary building, earth suit and biodegradable human body complex. It is the worst they can do to the Believer. 

But it is also the best they can do for the Believer. Selah.

In reality, it is part of "the trial of faith that develops perseverance, works patience or produces endurance".

"Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4 AMP)

It is a necessary measure or means that the Lord allows to increase knowledge of Christ, deepen understanding of Truth, strengthen faith in God's Word, build trust in the LORD and thus facilitate spiritual growth in His children, as He matures them. 

It should be expected by Believers as part of the process of their sanctification and if need be their crucifixion, "taking up the Cross and following Christ", meaning both death to self-will and their physical death as Christ did in Gethsamane and Golgotha. This is the honor of saints. 

It is a Divinely authorized verification process and validation point of regeneration or salvation. It should be a cause of rejoicing for God's sons. This is the God-powered blessing in (blessedness of) affliction and suffering. 

"Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!" 

The LORD is to be greatly praised.

Those who have Truth have Life and, through the good times and the so-called bad times (for "all things work together for good to them that love God and are The Called according to His Purpose"), so in obscurity or in publicity, in health or in sickness, in plenty or in paucity, in life or in death, they simply bare witness to the Truth in loyalty and allegiance to Christ their King, obedience to God, and fulfilment of their God-assigned tasks on Earth.

Truth prevails. God reigns! 

"The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the distant shores and many islands be glad."

To God be the glory forever. Amen.