Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
The Temple, Part 2
May 7, 2008
The one time the prophet clearly was not in agreement with God, was in connection with the building of a temple for God. Nathan, the prophet, encouraged King David, who had it in his heart to build a house for the Lord, to go ahead and do so. At this point, the Word of the Lord came to Nathan, instructing him to return to David and relay to him the will of God in this matter, something about which the prophet was definitely in error.
It could be stated that this was the one issue on which many prophets who were to follow would also be confused. They would jump to conclusions about the temple without the necessary revelation from God for which Nathan had set the prophetic pattern.
Nathan returned to speak to David again with a definite reversal of what he had originally thought and stated. God’s message for David was that He had never asked anyone from the tribes of Israel to build a house for Him of cedars, having moved about with them in a tent and a tabernacle. Furthermore, He had taken David from the sheepfold and had established him as ruler over Israel, making him a great name.
Through the voice of His prophet, God promised that He would appoint a place for His people, Israel, and plant them there so they would move no more, at a time when the sons of wickedness would no longer oppress them. Does this sound like what we know as the nation Israel today? Does it not sound more like the time when Jesus returns to establish His government of peace, for without Him there will be no lasting peace?
The Lord said He would establish a house for David after his days were fulfilled and he had been laid to rest. The Lord stated that he would establish a kingdom from the seed of King David’s body and would build a house for His name, by which God would establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
God went on to state that He, and not David, would be his Father and he would be His son. And if he should commit iniquity, he would be chastened with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But the Lord’s mercy would not depart from him. Did the mercy and glory depart from the nation of Israel, as we know it today? Is God not speaking of His spiritual sons of Israel, for if this is not the case then the church has no place in the kingdom (see 2 Samuel 7:1-17)?
David’s house and kingdom would be established before him forever. This is a unique line of men and women of the future who will rule on an eternal throne as did Adam before he sinned, when he shared ruler-ship with God over the beasts of the field and over the earth. But it must not be forgotten that the woman was given to Adam as his comparable partner, therefore, also created in the image of God.
If there were to be a second Adam, there would also have to be another comparable partner, or woman for Him, who births of the Spirit of life, a sister or spouse for her Beloved. Mary was the first of a new line of women who would bring forth the good fruit, born of the Spirit of life. The apostolic church and the revived apostolic church, or the bride, are as a woman in labor from a spiritual line (not blood line) birthing sons for God, reborn in the right spirit as acceptable children of the marriage bed.
David could not fully grasp this message, for God gave him the plans for a future temple by means of the Spirit of the Lord. He understood it by his own writing with the hand of the Lord over his.
David took it upon himself to prepare for the gold and silver coverings for the vessels of the sanctuary and for the structure. But God clearly stated that David would not build this house, for he was a man of war who shed blood. In other words, he was of the corrupted seed of Adam.
Solomon was no different, and, in fact, was not the seed who came from the loins of David after he was dead and gone. David was very much alive when Solomon was crowned king over Israel. David had made a serious mistake in identity, when he believed that his son Solomon was the son who could build a lasting temple, which would rival the tabernacle. The Son of Whom God spoke would have to be one with God for only God, not man, could build a temple for Himself.
After the death of his father David, Solomon went ahead of God and began construction by employing the services of Hiram, the king of Tyre, who supplied the cedars and stone for his project. Solomon indicated that his servants would work with Hiram’s servants to whom he would pay wages.
Now, the tabernacle was erected on a totally different basis. The people donated willingly of their possessions, which God had provided for them, and of their time, which He had made free for them, when He removed them from their state of slavery in Egypt, where they served the world and not God.
The prophet Ezekiel makes it clear to us that the King of Tyre is a type of the devil. Of course, Hiram was thrilled to have worked his way into the temple building plans of Solomon, for he would then be forever ensconced in the root system of Israel’s temple building program. With this union, the Israelite people of God would come to terms with feeding Satan’s household, as well as feeding their own.
The foundation was of cut stone cut by the tools of man. Hiram’s builders, Solomon’s builders, and the Gebalites worked together on this project, with Hiram and Solomon making an unholy treaty with each other.
For all the wisdom given to Solomon, he made some pretty unwise decisions spiritually. It only goes to show that the wisdom of brilliant men, who think themselves wise, are more like fools, in comparison to the perfect wisdom and understanding of God.
And God addressed Solomon with regard to his temple, beginning with the words – “Concerning this temple which you (not He) are building…(see 1 Kings 6:12).” He said He would be there to perform His Word with Solomon only if he were to walk in His statutes and execute His judgments. In other words, God can inhabit any temple that honors only Him and worships only Him in the right spirit and within the parameters set by His truth.
Of course, temples built by man are never lasting, and from the time this first temple was built for God by His people, Israel, it was doomed by the compromised way in which it was built, in conjunction with the spiritual agents of Satan.
These same cut stones of Hiram are foundational to the building of Masonic temples, today, used for the purposes of satanic cultism. It all begins with this first man-made structure, called a temple, which could never become the house of God in any lasting way. It would be destroyed and rebuilt, refurbished and destroyed again, for this was not the house God had said He would build for His people. Nor are the great stone cathedrals and the little white clapboard church buildings the houses, which God told David He would build for His people.
Ezra and Nehemiah were sent back to Israel from Persia by the king of Persia, the ruler of the Babylonian system under the Medo-Persians. They knew the importance of purity as the essence of a holy God, if His glory were to be manifested in the temple. But they were only a few short years after the time of these two men when Satan weaseled his way back into the rebuilt temple through the cracks of religion, which open wide when men disobey the truth or commandments of God.
The Temple Mount today is anything but a holy place. It is the picture of the unholy condition of men, who think they can build a tower to God, with Babel resurfacing once again in Jerusalem. In the book of Revelation, the Lord God describes this city of modern times as being like Sodom and Egypt. The religious system today is producing synagogues of Satan.
Jesus was the Son of David, the Son of Man and the Son of God Who became the lasting Temple come down from heaven to set up the true house of God. He declared it when He said that if they should destroy this Temple (speaking of Himself) it would be rebuilt again in three days. A day is as a thousand years, and in the third millennium, when He returns, the Temple of the Lord will be rebuilt again.
His comparable partner, after witnessing to the truth like He witnessed in the spirit of Elijah and Moses, will be killed and raised again after three days. There can be no other pattern than that of the Bridegroom for His bride, who will choose to drink from His cup, as a true spiritual Benjamite.
Jesus is the second Adam, with the temple of the first being destroyed by sin. He was a sinless Man Who was resurrected on the third day to defeat death and become an everlasting Temple. There was seen no temple in heaven by John, the revelator, for God and the Lamb were the Temple of heaven. On the dawn of the third millennium, man will see the rebuilding of the Temple of God, with the return of His perfect Son, Jesus, the second Adam and the second Temple that cannot be destroyed.
The church is the body of Christ and the house of God promised to David – not buildings of cut stones, but of living stones who witness to the truth, born again, with the Spirit of life within them. The apostles were the temples cleansed by the Lord, as will be the bride, who will worship, not in buildings, but rather in spirit and in the truth of the Lord, the testimony of whom will be given in the spirit of prophecy.
The temple of the bride will leave no cracks of religion open, by way of which satanic spirits can enter. For she, like her Beloved, is a lasting temple, and the true house of Israel, who, like Jesus replacing the first Adam, will replace the harlot Eve, mother of all harlots. The bride’s temple will reach into the heavens, for her heart is like the heart of her father, David, a heart after her Lord’s heart and the heart of their Father in heaven.
And so the hearts of the children shall be returned to the Father, just as the prophet Malachi prophesied, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
Only God can build a temple where worship is conducted in spirit and in truth. The temple-building of man is doomed to be finally destroyed when Satan sits on the throne of his temple, ruling over his world-wide religious body, which will worship the beast instead of worshiping the Most High God. This is what is known as the time of the fullness of the gentiles, and it is then when Jesus will return to put an end to it all.