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Who is Building Your Temple?
by Jerry Ousley Here was the deal; after seventy years of captivity first by the Babylonians then the Medes and Persians, just as God had influenced the prophet to speak, He prodded the heart of King Cyrus of Persia to allow the people of Judah and Benjamin to return to their land and rebuild their temple. You can read about this incident in Ezra 4:1-3. Okay, so they packed their bags and made the long trip back to the Land of Promise, all forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty of them (plus wives and children). They arrived in the land and began making their plans to reconstruct the Temple. Now just like it always is, the people that had been left in the land showed up with their opinion. Don't you just love it when God has given you something to do and every Tom, Dick and Harry tries to tell you how to do it? More correctly stated, these folks had been moved into the part of Israel known as Samaria. They were a mixed group of people, not truly Jews. Before this the divided kingdom of Israel had been taken into captivity by Assyria. In order to keep the land populated the Assyrians had brought these people in and sent a priest to show them how to worship the God of Israel. They did but they also kept right on serving their false gods too. So with that bit of a history lesson we see this group of people who were now in their third or fourth generation in the land supposedly serving God in their twisted pagan way. Since they had been here so long they felt like they should have a part in rebuilding the temple and, reading between the lines, probably felt they had more right in it than these true Jews who were new-comers. They approached Zerubbabel, the leader of the Jewish people returning from captivity asking, and even demanding that they be allowed to help. On the surface it didn't sound like a bad idea. I mean, couldn't they use all the help they could get? The original temple had taken years to build under the reign of King Solomon. He had help from the Lebanese so where would be the wrong in letting these folks help? The plain and simple fact was that they weren't truly worshipping God. Had they have gone through the lawful rite of becoming a proselyte (a Jewish convert) and giving up their pagan gods worshipping and serving the one and only God of Heaven, then maybe it would have been okay. To make a long story short, the Jewish people refused to allow these false Jews to help and they paid for it. They did everything they could to stop them from building the temple. But they couldn't get the job done. Now here's the point to this story. In the Church today there are all kinds of outside influences trying to tell us how to do things. We're told that we should try to win converts using modern day sales tactics; we're counseled to conduct the Church like a business. While these things may sound plausible, they aren't ordained by God. They require congregations to allow pretty much anything in order to win souls. But when we do that are we really winning souls or just populating pews? I believe in change. I think that God wants us to use every tool possible in order to reach the lost for Jesus. But according to the word of God compromise is out of the question. You see the Church should hold to the old standards. I'm not speaking of those of twenty years ago, fifty years ago or even a hundred years ago. I'm talking about the standards upon which the original Church was founded; the standards in place when Peter, John and Paul were around. That's the old fashioned Gospel. Yes we are to do what we can to win the lost to Christ. But when it requires compromise of the Gospel truth then it is out of the question. Years ago when I was selling insurance one evening I was at the home of a local farmer. He wanted what I was offering and he needed it. But he asked me the question, "Can you share part of your sales commission with me to give me a break on the cost?" It was tempting. I desperately needed a sale that week. But what he was asking me to do was against the law and required me to compromise. Even though I needed the money badly I began packing up my things and getting ready to leave. The man asked me, "What are you doing?" I told him that as a Christian I couldn't compromise my standards by breaking the law in order to get a sale. You know what, the man smiled real big and said, "Awe okay, go ahead and write it up," and he got out his checkbook. The point is that God took care of me because I didn't compromise. And God will take care of His Church if we build the temple and don't compromise His standards. Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |