God’s goal is the temple of God – He desires to gain His house, His church, His building, His temple, the place of His dwelling and where He can rest. God knows this, and Satan also knows this – this is why Satan attacked the temple of God and did his best to destroy it again and again throughout history.
When the Lord unveiled the fact that He is building up His church, He immediately said, “and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Satan hates God and he hates God’s purpose; he is doing everything he can to destroy, damage, desecrate, and defile the temple of God.
But we are here to build up the church, being sanctified in God’s word and speaking the word of God for the building up of the Body of Christ! We are a kingdom of priests, those chosen by God and reborn by Him with His divine life.
We love to spend time with God in His presence to be infused with Him and filled with Him, and we beam Him out – we shine out God to man! All believers are priests, and it is our right and privilege to enjoy God so that we may minister God to man!
Lord Jesus, unmask Satan in all his attempts to destroy and defile Your building, Your temple. Lord, build up Your church. Build up the Body through the functioning of each member in their measure. May we all realize what a priest is, and what we can do to defeat Satan and cause him to suffer loss through our proper functioning.
Satan’s Struggle Against God is Aimed at the Temple of God
Satan rebelled against God and he does his best to frustrate God’s purpose from being fulfilled. God desires to have a place on earth for His people to worship Him as a testimony that He still has an interest on this earth.
Satan knows that God’s goal is not to gain individual Christians but a corporate temple of God, the building of God, so he tries to destroy this temple.
The first temple was built by Solomon, and Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. After 70 years, Cyrus released the captives of Israel to go back to their father’s land and rebuild the temple.
Later, Antiochus Epiphanes came and desecrated the temple, profaning it with idolatry, fornication, and unclean offerings. The Lord raised up the Maccabees to defeat the king and cleanse the temple.
After Christ’s death, prince Titus came and destroyed the temple again in AD 70.
Since then, there has been no physical temple of God in Jerusalem, but soon the Jews will rebuild it (it is prophesied, they are ready, and it will happen). But according to the Bible, even that temple will be sought after by Antichrist to be destroyed and desecrated.
This really shows that the center, the aim, and the goal of Satan’s struggle against God is related to the temple of God – he strongly desires to destroy God’s temple! In the New Testament, the Lord was God’s temple, and Satan did his best to destroy Him and put Him to death.
Today the church is the spiritual temple and house of God, and the gates of Hades are fighting against the church – but they will not prevail, because the Victorious Christ is with us (1 John 4:4)!
Whenever the temple is built up, God’s glory fills the temple, and God is happy (1 Kings 7:51)! It is through and with the temple that God has a testimony on the earth, a place on earth to speak His interest and represent Him. This is the church today, God’s temple, the place of God’s speaking!
Zechariah was a Priestly Prophet
Zechariah lived in the time of the return of the people of Israel from the captivity, and he prophesied together with Haggai to encourage the disheartened and discouraged people of Israel to rebuild the temple.
Haggai’s words was good, encouraging and warning the people of Israel to rebuild God’s house, but Haggai’s revelation concerning Christ was limited. Zechariah on the other hand, who was born of a priestly family in captivity, was first a priest and then a prophet (Neh. 12:1, 4, 12, 16; Zech. 1:1).
Because Zechariah’s ministry sprang up from and was based on his priesthood, he spoke very much concerning Christ – he didn’t “predict” things but he spoke about Christ, and his speaking was something coming from contacting the Lord all the time (see Zech. 9:9; 11:7, 12-13; 12:10; 14:17).
We need Haggai’s ministry today to encourage us and warn us to return to the Lord and build up His Body, but we need the ministry of Zechariah much more that we may see visions after visions concerning Christ related to the recovery of the building of God’s house.
All Believers are Priests of God
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired for a possession, so that you may tell out the virtues of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9).
All the genuine believers in Christ as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:5).
We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired for a possession, so that we may tell out the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9).
What does it mean that we are priests? What is a priest and what does a priest do? A priest is one who lives in God’s presence and enjoys God. He is not necessarily busy with many things, but he mainly lives in God’s presence, enjoys God, is infused with God, and ministers to God moment by moment all the time.
Every saved one is a priest. In the Body of Christ there is no “elected class” of people who are “priests”; every one of God’s children is a priest who can enjoy God and live in His presence. From the Old Testament type of priests we see a few functions of the priests:
- A Priest Offers the Sacrifices – the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, etc. All the offerings are a type of Christ, who is the all-inclusive offering. We daily need to take Christ as the reality of all the offerings, applying His blood, confessing our sins, laying our hands on Him as our absoluteness, being in ascension waved before God, enjoying Christ as the poured out offering that we may become a drink offering poured out upon the sacrifice and service of the saints’ faith, etc.
- A Priest Spread the Showbread before God’s Presence – Christ as our fresh life supply, Christ as our bread of life, He is available to us to enjoy and feed on with God and before God. Daily we need to be sustained and supplied by eating Jesus as the bread of life in God’s presence.
- A Priest Dresses the Lamps of the Lampstand – we are those in the light, children of light, enjoying Christ as the light of life. We hate darkness, and we love and enjoy the shining of Christ as the light of the world, bringing life into us. The best way we do this is by coming to God’s word to enjoy God’s shining in His Word.
- A Priest Offers Christ as Incense to God – at the golden altar we offer Christ as incense for our acceptance to God. When we pray, we join Christ in His prayer and we even pray Christ, offering God prayers filled with Christ that would move God’s hand, causing Him to accomplish His purpose on earth.
- A Priest Serves God before the Ark – we bear God’s testimony! As we enjoy Christ as the reality of all the offerings, enjoy Him as our life supply and light of life, we will bear His testimony. Others will see Christ expressed through us, and we will be the testimony of God on earth, His expression.
- A Priest Serves the Tabernacle – we as priests serve in the church. We don’t start with serving God – we start with enjoying God, eating Him, being under His shining, and then we are strengthened and supplied to serve God in His house.
We need to see that we all are priests, and we need to live the life of a priest. Our Christian life today is a priestly life, a life of enjoying God, taking God in as our life supply, remaining in God’s light, learning to offer Christ as the incense in our prayer, bearing God’s testimony, and serving in the church.
Oh, how blessed is the priests’ life – Christ is now our all! If we live such a life, just like Zechariah, we will know Christ and we are enabled to present all the mysteries concerning Christ, ministering Him to others to help them build up the temple of God today!
Lord, apply the blood to our entire being according to Your valuation of it. We take You as the reality of all the offerings for us to be right with God and to be covered before Him. Lord Jesus, You are our bread of life, our living bread, which we eat to live because of today! You are the light of life, shining on us and removing any darkness and sin. We offer You to God in prayer as the incense as our acceptance before God. Lord, we are here to be Your testimony on earth, the kingdom of priests enjoying God and expressing God. How we love the church, Your house, where we serve by enjoying God and ministering God to His people!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from brother James Lee’s speaking in this message and portions in, The Recovery of God’s House and God’s City (chs. 4-5), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on Crystallization-Study of Daniel and Zechariah, week 7 (entitled, Christ as Everything for the Building of the Temple of God).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Holy priests are living stones / For God’s building work today; / If these stones would builded be / All the priests must learn to pray.
# O how blessed is the priest’s life, / Christ to him is all in all: / All His clothing, food, and dwelling, / And His portion therewithal.
# The gates of hell cannot prevail / Against the builded Church! / The hours are few, the builders too— / Lord, build, O build in us! - Pictures credit: Matt. 16:18 and 1 Pet. 2:9 (google search).
About aGodMan
Brothers and sisters, we must see that this mystery is the mystery of Christ. In the recovery of the Lord’s house today, we do not need the prophets like Haggai so much. Yet today nearly all the prophets are like Haggai. Have you heard some prophecy about Christ as God’s mystery? This is the problem today. There are too many Haggais and hardly any Zechariahs. Haggai only opens the way for the prophecy, and Zechariah follows. In the recovery of the local churches, we need more prophecies like Zechariah’s, more prophecies about Christ. Today we rarely hear the voice of Zechariah, because it is mysterious; it is something that is not according to the human concept. We need the heavenly vision to see the things concerning Christ related to the recovery of the building of God’s house. (The Recovery of God’s House and God’s City, pp. 47-48, 55, 49)
Christ s on His thrown!
Zech 6:12a … Thus says Jehovah of hosts, saying, Here is a man…
'Haggai only opens t way 4 t prophets..' Zechariah contacted t Lord all t time so was always speaking of Christ. 'Satan's struggle against God s related 2 t temple.'
Oh Lord we r 4 t recovery of Ur temple 4 U! Unveil us from limited human concept through opening 2 U & continually contacting U & Ur heavenly vision! Then we will ' c t things concerning U(Christ) related 2 t recovery of t building of Ur house!
Amen!!!
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We must see that Christ is everything for the building of the temple of God. Therefore, we must a priestly contacting Christ all the time so that we can speak forth Christ as the mystery of God for the building of God's house, the temple.
The Lord ask His disciples, “who do you say that I am?” and Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And then the Lord said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” (Matt 16:13-20). The church is built on Christ as the rock and on the Father’s revelation of who Christ is. Christ is the real Adam who died and the church is produced by His resurrection life. This proves that the church is not an organization, but a living PERSON, Christ with His believers, stones. He being the Head and the believers as His Body . Such a living organism cannot be destroyed by the gates of Hades. The Lord indicated that Satan’s power will attack the church and thus, there is a spiritual warfare between Satan and the church. Satan’s struggle against God is mostly related to God’s building. Because God’s temple is God’s interest, God’s desire and God’s testimony on earth.
The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, He is building His genuine church through the Lord’s recovery. Religion is not for Christ and has no room for Christ and the revelation concerning Christ and the church was hidden from them. Today in the Lord’s recovery, we need the strengthening, the warning and the stirring from prophet Haggai but even more we need Zechariah to bring us the living Christ, and the living message concerning Christ as God’s mystery. “O Lord, gain us to be today’s Zechariah speaking the living Christ to one another for Your building.”