Big buildings and religiosity cannot deceive those in the spiritual world who are looking at us. The fact remains that you can be religious, you can be rich, you can have the most beautiful religious building in the world, but if you are unrepented, have not surrendered the serpent seed and have not believed in the message of the Son, you’re still a child of the devil. You still need to repent.

The need to go to the temple so that we can inquire of God and find His presence was already implanted in us when we came into this world.

Our system of worship came from Old Testament times. It all began with the Jewish Nation, called out through the patriarchs, starting with Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, who was later named Israel. Israel’s descendants propagated and became a nation, which was eventually divided into 12 tribes. The nation of Israel was given the covenants, the commandments and the tabernacle. Moses was tasked to build the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was a movable structure which the Jews brought with them as they moved from one place to another, in accordance with God’s commandment to Moses. It was the center of Jewish worship during that time. The tabernacle was where God dwelt and that was where the people would inquire of Him.

The tabernacle was divided into two parts: the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holiest. Nobody could approach the Holy of Holiest except the High Priest, because that was where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt.

The First Chosen Nation

To begin the salvation of His chosen people, God talked to Moses. He led the Israelites out of Egypt through the wilderness and into Canaan, the Promised Land. When they had attained peace in their land, Solomon built a permanent structure according to the commandments that God gave to their patriarch, Moses. They called this the Temple in Jerusalem, for it was built in Jerusalem, the capital and chosen city. King Solomon built the temple in a grand and glorious manner. The division within the temple was the same—the Holy Place and the Holy of Holiest.

The Israelites were supposed to be the model of the salvation works that were to be completed in man, so they were given the covenants and the presence of God was with them.

But their mistake was that they stopped right where they were. They just wanted to remain a physical people with a physical temple and a physical king. They wanted to continue with their temple-centered worship which was done through animal sacrifice. In the temple, the High Priest would go to the Holy of Holiest to atone for their sins. When he came out, they would jump for joy because it meant their sins had been forgiven for a year. They would do this year after year, unaware that it was not the perfection of the Father’s salvation works.

The Old System of Worship

All of that was just a shadow of the things to come; the beginning of God’s dealing with man in completing His salvation works. The Jews forgot that the real plan of the Father was to complete the salvation of man. God dwelt with men and drew close to them, so that they could inquire of Him continuously.

Although it was a grandiose thing for the Jewish people to have the temple within them and the Shekinah glory present in that temple, that was not yet the solution to the problem of sin. Their form of worship was temporal. It was not perfect. How could man, who was separated from God, come back to Him?
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