The Nation and the Temple

Households of Faith
Today’s Focus: Type and Shadows: The Nation and the Temple
Scripture: Psalm 127; Malachi 4:5,6; Romans 1:20

Greetings Kingdom Citizens
We have discussed intensively about the setup of Israel in another of our series “Israel: The Kingdom’s 42nd Immortal Generation” so please download that for a in-depth understanding but for the sake of time and energy we will broad stroke this but keep with the understanding that God has always maintained the concept of households in the Earth, even in type and shadow. Real quickly for those who may not know, a type and shadow is a representational thing, typically something natural that your five senses can relate to that leads you to eventually understand and eternal concept or characteristic of Christ (Romans 1:20). Now we know that the Nation of Israel was a bloodline family that carried the seed of Christ through the Tribe of Judah. However, God also gave Israel something else that to a Jew was the most precious of things and that was the Temple at Jerusalem. God gave Moses specific directions and instructions on what this Temple is to look like, how big it is, and what things to house in it. The Temple was made up of an outer court, inner court and Holy of All. Inside the Temple there was particular furniture that was to be made a certain way and maintained by the Levitical tribe. Those particular pieces of furniture is the Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, Golden Altar of Incense and the Ark of the Covenant. Now keep all that in mind because when we discuss the reality we will begin to understand that all of this was needed to maintain the household.

One of the great situations in the Bible was the building of the Temple in the time of David and Solomon. We know that David was given the vision to build but not the grace to actually do it because of all the blood that was shed. However, His son, Solomon would be given the grace to actually build the temple. Solomon’s name means peace. So the building of the Temple was to be done by a man at rest and at peace, not at war. One of the beautiful scriptures for this is

Psalm 127:1: Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

This is one of the millions of scriptures that it is best to get a good interpretation of what is being said. Now we know that Solomon was given the grace to build the Temple. Many who read this scripture will say “ok, without the Lord, Solomon could not build the temple”. But when we examine the words build and house we see something very unique:
Build (Hebrew-Banah): Obtain children
House (Hebrew-Bayith): Family
Now with that clarified a little let’s substitute: Except the Lord obtains children (build) for the family (house), they labour in vain. Now that should open our eyes to show that God’s heart is in building His family in the earth. But just to prove this is what the scripture is referring to, look at

Psalm 127:3: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb IS HIS REWARD! Happy is the man that hath has his quiver full of them (children): They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

I can show you many other scriptures, including Nehemiah and the people who had a mind to work to build the Walls around Jerusalem. This is a metaphoric designation of restoring us back to the Laws and Commandments of God because that is the hedge around the House of God. Now eventually God will bring Christ to restore the lost sons of promise back to the House of God but look at how He does it and please pay attention:

Malachi 4:5,6: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GREAT AND DREADFUL DAY OF THE LORD: AND HE SHALL TURN THE HEART OF THE FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN AND THE HEART OF THE CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS, LEST I COME AND SMITE THE EARTH WITH A CURSE.

If the Lord does not turn the hearts of the fathers and the children then the curse will be a earth lead and stewarded by orphans and widows. So in the next message we will look at how the spirit of Elijah is used in building the House of God.

Peace, Love and Grace from the Father,
Calvin Calhoun, Jr.