The Temple that is adorned with Faith

2 Chronicles 3 4-9 The New International Version

The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits long across the width of the building and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold. 5 He paneled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. 6 He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. 7 He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

8 He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple—twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents of fine gold.( that is about 45,000 pounds or roughly 700,000 oz) 9 The gold nails weighed fifty shekels. He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.

The New International Version (Chapter 25)

The Parable of the Bags of Gold

Speaking of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven

14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28 “ ‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

With the help of the Lord I want to share with you the message I believe God has given me that I will entitle “The Temple adorned with Faith” speak a prayer if you feel.

Part 1.

If you all will, I want to ask you to close your eyes very briefly, I want you to do your best to imagine with me what this temple that Solomon built looked like on the inside. According to the Word, The inside of the temple was nearly 90 feet long and 30 feet wide and 30 feet high. It was about the size of 4 bedroom house in terms of square feet but the major difference here is that the inside of this temple was very tall, in fact it was roughly 3 stories tall. I picture a beautifully proportioned, long, very straight, very tall rectangle. Now imagine this structure being laid with pure gold. This would be truly be a sight that has never before been seen especially among God’s people. Now imagine the details. As if being completley covered with gold wasn’t enough, There were added to it many precious stones of great value, very costly, and then along with all this there were beautiful engravings all over. There were etchings of palm trees, and cheribums, and decorative chains of beautiful detail on all the ceilings, door frames, and walls. The Holy place was overlaid with a pure gold that would be worth billions today. Thats just the materials but with the all the work that was put into building this temple would make this place priceless. Surely this was a place worthy to call the dwelling place of the Lord.

Thank you.

This temple was centuries in the making. Up until this point the Lord dwelt in a tent that followed His people as they moved from place to place. So to go from a tent to a magnificent place like this is a near indescribile transition. With all intents and purposes the Israelites had finally built the Lord a permanent dwelling place. They never had it in their minds that God could ever want to dwell anywhere else. There could never be a more magnificent structure that was custom made with one sole purpose in mind, to make the most beautiful and sacred place that all the combined resources and talents in the world could ever build for their God to call home.

But they didn’t have the luxury afforded us to look back over time and see how this Holy place would one day come to ruin. How through turning their back on their God by chasing other gods and abandoning their covenants they made with Him to follow their own selfish ambitions and desires would throughout the years lead to all this gold, precious stones and sacrifice to being stripped down and left as rubble, never to be restored to it’s former glory.

Centuries upon centuries, the heart wrenching memories of this glorious place would be passed down through the generations of once was, but is no more. Undoubtably, these stories brought an air of defeat to all those who would hear them, leaving all who heard of this tragic loss, discouraged, wanting, wondering could they ever muster the strength to allow even a spark of hope to enter their hearts. What a dismal portrait of wasted opportunity.

But praise be to God that we know there is hope. OH, if we could just go back in time and let them know that the Magnificent temple they longed for, dreamed of, and weeped over was never meant to be a permanent place of dwelling for their God. As the Lord spoke through His prophet Isaiah, in an attempt point to brighter days ahead, He said, The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, Where is the house you build unto me?

Solomon’s temple was the greatest temple that could be built by the hands of man. It could never last forever. Matthew 24: 35 reads, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.” It’s not very difficult to imagine that this earth could one day be gone, but Heaven?” Heaven is supposed to be forever! But the Lord is saying that His words will outlast “forever”! They will never go away! They will never return to Him, void! Even if “forever” impossibly found an end, His word will remain forever. “Forever will outlast forever”. Of His word there shall be no end! That’s the ONLY thing that shall always be, therefore there is NOTHING we could ever have more confidence in than HIS WORD! That’s why there is so much POWER in the spoken word Of God!

Part 2.

John 1:1 (KJV 1900)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.vs 14 and the Word became flesh and DWEALT, what? DWEALT among us. Among who? US!

In the beginning was the Word (also translated as message also could be translated as PLAN!) The plan from the very beginning of time was never to make a corruptible temple for Him to dwell in but an incorruptible one. A temple that would last for eternity. So He came to earth and dwealt among us, and then to die for us, so He could then send His Spirit to dwell IN us. We are the temple He has chosen to dwell in. Not a building!

Romans 8:9

The New International Version (Chapter 8)

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.

When God’s Spirit dwells in us, He dwells in our spiritual temple. Yes, its in this body as our spirits also dwell in this body but, when this body is dead and gone, our spirit and His Spirit live on. He dwells in our spiritual temple. Solomon’s temple was merely an example of what was to come. The plan all along was to dwell in this temple. In this place. His new home. Solomon’s temple was an earthly shadow of what would take place in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual temple, or should I say, “spiritual temples” that were to come.

Part 4:

So if Solomon’s temple was a shadow of what was to come then we must look closely and carefully at the details that went into his temple and what they were communicating to us. There was intention placed behind every detail in this temple from the gold, to the details etched in it’s walls. In like manner, the Lord desires our spiritual temple’s to be adorned with gold, precious stones and details etched on their walls.

Gold!

There’s just something about gold! God chose to have the temple completely covered by gold, and not just any gold, but Parvaim gold. This gold comes from a place that was know for the very fine gold it produced. After going through the process of refinement, this gold was known to be very pure. God wanted the temple to be covered by the most valuable substance on earth. Now, it’s common knowledge that gold goes through a refinement process. It may have value before the process, however, it has no practical use until it’s been through the painstaking process of applying intense heat to the gold and separating all the impurities from it, sometimes over and over again until it is pure, valuable, and of great use. We must understand that when we look at shadows and analogies in the word of God we must understand when there are natural things that represent spiritual things and gold is one of the most important, if not the single most important representation of this principle in the Word of God. Therefore, we must examine it closely. So if a temple is analogy of us, then what is gold representing in the spirit. There is one very specific property that gold represents and it is the single most valuable thing that we can ever acquire on this earth and it is something that will last for eternity. Pause. It is faith.

Everything I’ve said to this point was to bring us here. Gold. Faith.

Let’s compare the two, with gold being the natural substance, what does gold represent spiritually? Grab some gold coins.

Let me first tell you a little about Gold. Now, this is not real gold so dont get sidetracked but by the time we leave here we wont care whether this is real or not cause our hearts will be set on pursuing the only substance of true value we can gain in this life!

So, I led a men’s group with a friend of mine (Chad) and I learned a lot about gold. In, fact Ive never looked at it the same since then.

I want to show you some the connections with Gold and Faith.

First off, there’s the refinement process. There’s only one way I was able to find that gold was purified in biblical times and it was through fire. Heat has to be set to this unrecognizable dirty lump in order to separate all the impurities from the gold to determine its content and have any practical use. ——-In the same manner our faith is unrecognizable and of little use until it is put to the test. Eleazar the priest said in Numbers 31 22

Numbers 31:22 (KJV 1900)

Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, lead and anything else that can withstand fire MUST be put through the fire and it will be clean and

1 Corithians 3:13

13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

And who could ever approach a subject like this and not quote Job 23 10

Job 23:10 (KJV 1900)

But he knoweth the way that I take:

When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Job lost nearly everything anyone could imagine losing and suffering some of the greatest things anyone could suffer all while remaining FAITH-full to God! He knew this test was a test of faith so he mustered the strength to speak one of the most quoted scriptures there is: “though He slay me, yet do I TRUST him!

The man Job going through all this made the connection on his own! This faith God is producing in me is JUST LIKE the refinement process of GOLD.

Please hear me tonight you can NOT purify natural gold with out the process of fire and you most certainly can not purify your faith without the fire of trials! There is a natural fire for gold and there is a spiritual fire to produce faith!

Someone needs to hear this. In my studies I found that it is IMPOSSIBLE to destroy gold by fire. Australia refinery 65,000 times since 1993

Somebody here tonight needs to be encouraged by letting it be settled in their spirit that though there is a process of fire to produce your faith IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOUR FAITH TO BE DESTROYED BY FIRE!!!! IT CAN’T BE DONE!

I found a video on Youtube where a man set out on a mission to destroy gold completely through the use of toxic acids and chemicals. It was a long tedious process but he finally separated every mineral he could and separated them in jars where it seemed there was nothing of value left. However, for experiments sake he came to find that shockingly the process was able to be reversed!!!!

Somebody hear me! You may have done all you can to self destruct and turn from God and harden your heart, you may have turned to chemicals or other things and whether intentional or unintentional, you must know tonight that with God there IS no process or destruction that can’t be undone!!! He can take an unrecognizable mess and reverse engineer whatever remains and restore it to its purest form!!! He can do it!!! Ive seen Him do! He’s done it in me and He can do in you!!!!

You see what’s happening here? Faith is being produced.

One more thing about Gold.

Gold is highly ductile. once ounce 50 miles stretch. hammered to cover nearly 300 square feet.

This is one of my favorite things about gold. It’s shapeable and workable when its purified.

Psalm 37:4 KJV 1900

Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

When your faith is tested, when your faith is tried, it produces a yielding to God’s will. You will let him take you where He wants to and do whatever He wants to! It brings you to the place where you will “trust with all your heart and lean NOT to your own understanding”.

Part 5:

So why all this? Why all the trials? Why all the pain and suffering?

It’s because there’s no other way to produce the most precious material He desires for His temple. He is furnishing and adorning His temple. His temple isn’t covered with gold. His temple is adorned with your faith. There is nothing more beautiful to God than your faith. In fact, with out faith it’s impossible to please Him. There’s nothing in this world that He would rather see when looking in His temple than your faith in Him.

1 Peter 1:7 (KJV 1900)

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold

There’s nothing more precious than the trying of our faith.

The details in the temple are so significant. You see, you only add details and decoration to something you want to showcase. The details in the temple are believed by some that they told the story of the garden of eden. God want’s to draw peoples attention to your story. Written on the walls of faith in your temple is the details of your story. The engraving and carving of these intricate details may be painful to endure but the story is beautiful. There is no other way to produce the materials to cover the walls of your temple than through the trying of the spiritual gold of faith!

You see for years and years I got it all wrong! I always looked back on my life all the way to my earliest memories and I saw so much pain. I love my family dearly and so please understand that I don’t mean to hurt anyone by sharing some details of my story. I had good times. I was loved. I know I was, but there were times I just couldn’t see it. At two years old my parents divorced, I was too young to remember that but not too young to be affected by it’s aftermath. My mother was divorced 3 times. I watched her suffer greatly as she took care of 4 children, working multiple jobs and still not able to provide. Thank God for welfare or there were times we wouldn’t have eaten. I was mistreated and abused by some people in my life verbally, physically, sexually. As a child I just thought life was a punishment at times. It was difficult being on welfare in high school. I was embarrassed to have people over to my house because we had welfare food in our cabinets and we didn’t have any furniture that wasn’t second hand or donated to us. In high school, we lived in two bedroom duplex where my sister and I shared a room and we each had a mattress on the floor. For years, I couldn’t sleep without listening to a recording that walked me through the process of relaxing my body and mind. Because of many things, I was afraid to sleep at night. We moved and moved. I never found any stability. I was on mediation. I couldn’t focus in school. I was put in some facilities with troubled and suicidal teens. Ive been in foster homes. I found a great distraction with my friends as I grew older and turned to drugs to feel anything other than what I was feeling at the moment.

At 12 years old I was told my dad never wanted to see me again. To this day Im not sure what the full truth is in that situation. I reconnectewith thaiim when I was 17 and then again when I was 18. I had to move back with my dad because of some circumstances where I was living in California. I got on a plane to GA with some drugs in my sock and some violent music resounding in my headphones. I came to Georgia bitter, broken, and angry. My dad made me go to church the day after I arrived. I remember saying to myself over and over “i wont do what you tell me, I wont do what you tell me”. That very night at church full of bitterness, the preacher approached me and laid hands on me and I immediatley began to speak in tongues. Who would’ve thought! One thing I thought would be certain and it was that all my problems would be gone. God did some amazing things in my life but much to my surprise, my trials seemed as though they had just begun. There was so much work left to be done in me that I thought would just disappear. I thought everything was defeated and would be overcome and just go away. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t in God’s plan for them to go away. He didn’t want to take my problems, hurts, sins, fears, disappointments, anger, bitterness, and rage away from me. He wanted those things to shape me. To purify me. All my life, up until about 6 years ago, I allowed these things to plague my spirit. I let these things tell me that something was wrong with me and that something was wrong with everyone who played a roll in any of my struggles. But about 6 years ago a great deliverance began in my life. I began to clean my heart and clean my life and find a place of forgivness towards myself and all those who had caused hurt in my life.

I was praying last week and an even new revelation hit me literally like a light switch! I was thanking God for everything He had done in my life and where He had brought me from and I was thanking Him for my story and then it hit me!!! I entered a place of power and authority in the Spirit that I never experienced before. I literally could see and feel that I had broken through a barrier. I broke straight through a barrier the devil had set up in my life. I realized that because I had embraced my story that he had been stripped of all his power over me. In a split moment I looked back over my life and what used to look like a long road of pain and suffering suddenly seemed like a shorter story of Grace and faith. It could all be summed up very quickly by saying though it all God was with me the whole time and an excitement came over me because I had tapped into the whole purpose of it all. There are so many people that have a similar story or can relate on some level and they HAVE TO KNOW HOW POWERFUL THEIR STORY CAN BE.

See through all these things we suffer, the devils sole purpose is to distort our story. If he can keep us focused on the pain and shame, it will be a story we wont want to share!!! Why is this so important to him? Because we overcome by the blood of the Lamb AND the word of our testimony. THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND OUR STORY DEFEATS HIM!!! WHEN WE EBRACE OUR STORY, OUR STORY OF FAITH, HE LOSES ALL POWER OVER OUR MINDS!!!! He cant torment us anymore. He cant discourage us anymore. Just look at how effective we are when we dont face the discouragemnt and confusion over all our trials. All that’s left is FAITH. And its through faith that we access ALL the power in heaven and earth!!! Every healing, every miracle, every deliverance! They all come to pass through faith.

We now begin to understand WHY these hardships come!!!! They are an opportunity to produce faith! And it’s our faith He wants people to see!

I’ll never look at gold the same again. You cant get the gold without going through the fire. If you are ever able to hold a piece of gold in your hands, understand that this gold was burned and scorched order for it to get into our hands. It is a reflection to us that when the Lord hands us some faith it comes with some trials.

I go back to the parable of the talents. grab the gold and explain he hands us some trials.

he expects something from it. we have to tell our story.

Jon’s story

A WORD FOR SOME OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN THROUGH IT AND HAVE STAYED FAITHFUL. WHY DO YOU KEEP GETTING MORE.