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Church as Temple
00:04:26
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| You know, Pastor Carl, in Masquerade, and let's talk about the church because I believe, you know, the church is going to be the key in the last days. | |
| And we know from our father, he's written books like The Refuge, Time Has Come, and always points back to the church. | |
| But in your book, In Masquerade, you asked this question about the rebuilding of the temple. | |
| And you say, what if Paul was not meaning the Jewish temple at all, but the Christian church? | |
| What did you mean by that? | |
| Thank you. | |
| I've got about 10 chapters, and my chapter is only five pages each. | |
| So about 40, 50 pages on this topic. | |
| And as you know, you've read it. | |
| I do a lot of research. | |
| I go all the way back to the scholars of the first century. | |
| That means those, first of all, the first scholars were those that wrote the New Testament documents. | |
| They walked with Jesus or walked with those who did walk with Jesus. | |
| So those scholars, of course, then for the next generations of the church fathers and the scholars, all the way through for 1800 years into the classical scholars of our historical time, then into the modern scholars. | |
| And I was referring to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where it speaks of the man of lawlessness in the last days. | |
| Truth is thrown to the ground. | |
| Rebellion takes place. | |
| Lawlessness abounds. | |
| Wow. | |
| Does that sound like the headlines of our day? | |
| And it says, watch this, guys. | |
| This is so important. | |
| It says, and that man of lawlessness will set himself up in the temple of God. | |
| And some translations say, or God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. | |
| All right. | |
| All I did was take that verse. | |
| I did not dispute or debate this whole issue of a third temple, and I've got my theories about that, and that can be another show. | |
| But I took that one verse and I put it in context of everything Paul ever wrote about the temple of God, where he uses those exact words. | |
| And every book in every place where he speaks of the temple of God, he uses a specific Hebrew word or Greek word, naos. | |
| There's two Greek words, hi-eran and naos. | |
| Hi-eran speaks of the actual temple edifice with all of its glory, including the holy place on the temple mount in downtown Jerusalem. | |
| That's the hi-aran. | |
| There's one place in one of Paul's writings when he talks about, and the priests go up to the temple and they offer their sacrifices on behalf of the people. | |
| Where he uses that, he calls it the hi'aran, the edifice, the building, the temple. | |
| But then he uses the word naos about six times in all of his other writing. | |
| And this is the only time he ever uses the word temple. | |
| And it's always written like this. | |
| Don't you know that you are the temple of God? | |
| Don't you know that you are God's temple and the Holy Spirit lives in you? | |
| And every word for temple there is na'os. | |
| When you look it up in the Greek dictionary, it says it's the literal holy place of the literal temple, or the Greek dictionary says, most often used in the New Testament to denote the church. | |
| It says that in the Greek dictionary. | |
| So he says, don't you know that you are the temple of God? | |
| Don't you know the Holy Spirit dwells in you? | |
| Believers are the temple of God. | |
| Well, what are believers united? | |
| We are the church, the ecclesia. | |
| So then he goes on to talk to the church in Ephesians 2. | |
| He says, don't you know, Jew and Gentile, under the blood of Jesus, you are being built into a holy temple in the last days. | |
| You are brick by brick. | |
| Jesus is the head. | |
| He's the cornerstone. | |
| But you, Jew and Gentile, you're the one new man, the new temple. | |
| And then Jesus himself told the Pharisees, Matthew chapter 12, when they came out to trash him. | |
| He was walking through the grain fields before he would go into the synagogue and heal the man's withered hand. | |
| And they were just condemning him for everything. | |
| And he talked about that he was the Lord of the Sabbath. | |
| And then he said, and by the way, you need to know that one greater than the temple has come and he is among you. | |
|
Watch This Now
00:01:43
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| He was talking of himself. | |
| He says, I'm beyond the temple. | |
| I am the temple. | |
| The temple represents me. | |
| Then Jesus would say, look, destroy this temple in three days. | |
| I'll raise it again. | |
| John tells us he was talking about his own body. | |
| Well, he identifies himself as the temple, but now that he physically is fleshly not among us, he's here in the Holy Spirit and is to come. | |
| What does he say we are? | |
| We are now the temple. | |
| Why? | |
| We are the body of Christ. | |
| And so you can't deny it. | |
| I know people want to go to that verse because it sounds so, you know, like how lindsay is, you know, he will set himself up in the temple of God, proclaiming he is God. | |
| But I want to shock your audience. | |
| What if it means just what Paul always meant? | |
| It said. | |
| What if it means that this spirit, and eventually maybe a man himself is going to set itself up over the churches? | |
| Watch this now, guys, and shut the churches down all over the world and say, I'm God. | |
| You don't worship Jesus Christ. | |
| You don't sing to Jesus. | |
| I am working through the governments. | |
| I am the spirit of Antichrist and rebellion and lawlessness. | |
| I'm throwing truth to the ground. | |
| And you, the temple of God, okay? | |
| I'm God over you. | |
| Shut your doors. | |
| Wear your masks. | |
| Quit singing. | |
| Quit saying all lives matter. | |
| Quit preaching the gospel. | |
| I am God over you. | |
| I'm setting myself up in your midst, proclaiming you are God, and you will do what I tell you to do. | |
| Does that make sense, guys? | |
| We're living it. | |