Beginning at the 22nd verse of the second
chapter of Ephesians, in whom ye, individually, in
whom ye also are built together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit.
And then we turn to 2 Corinthians, the
sixth chapter, be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers?
For what fellowship hath unrighteousness with righteousness?
What communion hath light with darkness?
What concord hath Christ with Belial?
What part hath he that believeth with an
infidel?
And what agreement hath the temple of God
with idols?
For ye are the temple of the living
God.
My text in Ephesians 2.22, we are
built together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit.
For ye are the temple of God, of
the living God, as God hath said, I
will dwell in them.
And I'll walk in them, and I'll be
their God, and they'll be my people.
Wherefore, come out from among them, and be
separate, saith the Lord, touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you.
I'll be a father unto you, and you'll
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
God Almighty.
Having therefore these promises, that God will make
our body be built together as an habitation
of God, and that God said that your
bodies are the temple of the living God.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, the promises
of God dwelling in us, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
of the Spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear
of God.
This is found in the Bible that I've
just been reading to you, Ephesians and also
2 Corinthians the 6th chapter, given by the
Apostle Paul, God anointed and sent forth to
enlighten the church and the believers.
This is not error, it's the truth.
Every person sitting and looking at me now,
God has designated, he has so ordained and
so ordered it, that when you come to
him and are born again, your body ceases
to be yours, for your body and your
spirit which are God's.
When you come to God, you are called
holy in the sense that you belong to
God, you're God's property, and God dwells in
you, and that's his motive of dwelling in
you.
Now let's go from that and keep this
in the back of our mind, that the
New Testament teaches that under the new setup,
not under law, they couldn't do that, they
didn't have that set up at all, but
under the new setup, God cleanses us with
the blood, lets the third member of the
Godhead move in, and when the third member
of the Godhead moves in where the blood
has already been applied, he makes our body
a temple for God to dwell in.
Our body is made an habitation of God
through the spirit.
Is that clear?
You don't have much trouble with people that
have this experience, it's people that don't have
it we have trouble with.
In the beginning, God made man for the
purpose of getting with him, talking with him,
and communing with him, having the fellowship, having
things in common.
I might stay, a lady went out in
Africa there and studied the gorillas in such
state about a year and a half.
Well, she's paying a great price, I'm sure
she didn't enjoy it all the time.
If I'm going to talk some, stay around
a year and a half, I want to
understand them and I want them to be
on my level, at least I want to
have something in common.
I don't want to talk to a monkey
because I know he don't understand me and
I don't understand him, but I'm going to
tell you if I want to be with
someone a year and a half, I want
to have somebody I can understand that I
can talk and like to be around.
God made this man with the thing in
mind that I want to have fellowship with
him, I want to come down every day
and visit him and talk to him and
enjoy and we're going to have a big
time together so I, the God of the
universe that can do anything, I am going
to make him right so I can enjoy
being with him.
And God left heaven every day, left angels
and left the throne, left everything, and he
came down every day to talk to Adam.
Adam, yeah, how you getting along?
Fine.
And you say, what all to do?
I don't know.
Since God eats, he might have come down
and he ate a few plums, picked some
picked some strawberries, might have picked some cherries,
we don't know what he did, but he,
but we do know one thing, he came
down and had fellowship.
So then everything was filed up, the devil
came in, always destroying things, and God was
greatly grieved because they sinned and the very
day they sinned, sin and death passed upon
the human race and God had to come
down and thrust Adam out, put him on
the outside, don't you know it tore his
heart apart, and sent an angel down to
keep the way to the tree of life
lest they should eat it and live forever.
He put him outside to till the ground
and to earn the bread with the sweat
of the brow.
And then the time rolls on, and then
the flood came because men's hearts were evil
continually.
Sin began to grow, multiply, and just like
an epidemic, the whole earth become filled with
violence, men's hearts were on evil continually.
And then God stepped in and destroyed the
whole world with water, save Noah the eighth
person.
And then after that, he started again, wasn't
but a short time till idol worshiping was
everywhere, people drifting away from God.
Abraham found grace with God, Isaac and Jacob,
he had fellowship with them because they loved
him, but quickly we come to Moses going
out and leading the children of Israel in
the wilderness, and there he brings them to
Mount Sinai and he gives them the Ten
Commandments.
Now again, God comes down from heaven and
gets as close to man as he can,
but he tells Moses, he said, Moses, he
said, I want you to come up here
in the mountain and I'll have a thick
cloud and it'll be thick between you and
I, and I want to talk to you
like a man talks with a man.
So he got up there, God spoke to
Moses, Moses spoke back to him, and they
had conversation, said, I'm going to get ready
to give the law.
And I stayed up there 40 days.
And when he came down, God had the
trumpeters to come down, and the trumpet sounded
louder and louder.
And then finally, there was a great sound,
so horrible that all at once the mountain,
Mount Sinai, think of how many trillions of
tons of iron and steel and stone in
that huge mountain.
And the old mountain began to shake.
And even way down at the foot of
the cross, the mountain was shaking there.
No man dare cross over the line.
And even if a beast would wander across
it, he would be struck dead because he
was drawing near to the mountain where God
came down.
His presence was being now made on Mount
Sinai.
Only Moses and Aaron could come up and
there's Moses left Aaron behind and came in
closer.
And God talked to him.
And when Moses came back down to the
children of Israel, they had to put their
faces and their hands before their faces.
His face shone like the sun.
They could not look at him because the
pigments of his skin had received the glory
and the radiance of Almighty God.
And they had heard the sound of the
mighty trumpet.
They had heard the vibrating, the thunder, the
lightning displayed itself.
The mountain itself shook.
And they said, such a fearful sight that
we exceedingly fear and quake.
You've talked to God.
Don't ever let him speak.
It was a great sight, God coming down
to man.
But when he came down, he told him
about an ark.
He told him about preparing it.
And he gives him instructions how that he
can make this ark.
And I'm going to find a substitute.
And it will be for a while that
I can come down and be in the
midst of my people.
And it must be made by instructions.
And so God had them to make the
ark.
And then God would come down and get
in the ark.
And because he, God, was present in the
ark among his people Israel, they won the
battles they went out and fought, didn't they?
And the enemy respected not just Israel, but
they respected that ark because that ark represents
their God whenever it goes in the battle.
That means we've lost.
There's no way to whip Israel when that
ark is there.
When the ark went out in the River
Jordan and it was overflowing its banks and,
brother, it was rushing down thousands of tons
of water, whirling by every second.
But God said to the priest, take my
ark and step out into that water.
And when you get your feet wet, you
don't need to worry.
That's all you have to do.
When they got their feet wet, the water
stopped off and just cut off like a
knife and cut it off.
And the water began to reverse and go
uphill and backed up like a wall and
stood there.
And the waters that were here rushed down
and they went through on dry ground because
the ark possessed the God that shook the
mountain and the vibration when God came down.
But God, they respected the presence of God
in that ark.
But under Samuel's last days, it fell in
the hand of Philistines and they finally had
to get rid of it because it, it,
plague broke out everywhere it went among the
enemy because it didn't belong among the enemy.
And now Saul comes to the throne.
Saul is wicked.
He's not God's choice for the people.
David is God's choice.
But during the reign of Saul, they inquired
not of God about the ark.
It was left stored at a certain place
that they had left it in one of
the Levites' home.
And God blessed the Levite while it was
there, but they just forgot it.
Saul kind of thought, we'll paddle our boat
without it.
We can afford to do without it.
Now let me get to the rest of
the story.
Paul Harvey sometime tells some interesting things.
He said it's the rest of the story.
He tells you things that you've just always
heard one part of but you've never heard
the rest of it.
Many people have heard just one part about
the bringing back of the ark when David
decided to bring it back, but I'm going
to tell you today the rest of the
story.
Some of you may know it, but I'm
going to tell you the rest of the
story.
Saul is now killed.
His sons have been killed by the Philistines.
The enemies have hired themselves together against Saul
and his army, and they're destroyed.
David is now equipped.
He's trained.
He's God's man.
All Israel knows that eventually David is to
come to the front because while King Saul
was in power, David was the only one
who went out against Goliath.
But he went out and said, I'll go
out and take your head and bring it
back.
I don't have nothing but a slingshot, but
I'm not afraid of you because the God
you've insulted, my God's been insulted.
He will deliver you into my hand, and
I'll take your head and bring it back,
and the Philistines shall be our servants.
It insulted him that a little boy, not
with an armor, not with a coat of
mail, not with a spear.
He didn't have a sword of any kind,
just a little slingshot.
Here he comes out to insult him, this
great giant, nine feet in tall, in height,
and to think of how high his head
would have been, his big chin, and he
was a warrior from his youth, bellowing out
and challenging Israel to bring someone.
But David rushed out there, and it said,
because you have insulted the God of heaven,
God will deliver you into my hand this
day, and I'll feed your carcass to the
jackals and to the vultures of the air.
And so he killed the giant, took his
head off with his own sword, because he
didn't have any, and brought it back.
So there was jealousy.
Saul became very jealous of David, and he
ran here in fire, but he had an
army, and he was well equipped.
He could fight, and he had choice men
that were really warriors that were with David,
but he was limited because he had to
stay hid all the time, afraid of Saul,
that he would come in and kill him,
because he knew that when Saul was removed,
which God had told David he would do
it in his day, that then he would
step in the place.
But one day, the battle went sore against
Saul.
God told Saul the day before that he
was going to fall among the Philistines, and
they would take his body and misuse it,
destroy it, and your sons will fall.
And the ark shall be taken captive.
And it was a sad plight.
But at this great discouraging moment, David heard
of the downfall of Saul's kingdom, and how
the Philistines were gloating, because the ark is
now in our hands, Israel is defeated, her
great king Saul is dead, and the sons
are dead, but David is still around.
David went to Hebron, and as he went
to Hebron, he went there because it was
close to Jerusalem.
And it said that when they heard that
David was at Hebron, not far from Jerusalem,
they immediately began to send to all of
the coasts of Israel, to all twelve tribes.
And each tribe that had a chief that
was in head of that tribe, gave the
signal, and their choice armed men arose with
their chariots and horses, and they began to
travel toward Hebron.
And so it goes here in the 16th
chapter of 1st Chronicles, the 16th chapter, it
tells how that Gad and Issachar and Judah
and Benjamin, and it goes on to tell
each one, and it tells how many hundred
each tribe brought in to David, and said,
we have come to stand behind you, and
to fight with you, and to be yours,
because we know God has ordered you to
be king of our country, and we want
to make you king.
So, I put it down, as it went
down and told each one, I put down
how many came in.
A little over 200,000 men, top fighting
men, fully equipped with chariots, bayonets, and with
the armor, and with the shields, 200, a
little over 200,000 strong began to pour
in from all parts of the country to
the little town of Hebron where David and
his men were there.
And when they gathered in, all of the
chiefs and the captains came to David, and
said, David, it's well known that you're beloved
and loved, and upon the lips of mothers
in homes everywhere, and Israel has fallen to
you with a whole heart.
We are ready to give you 100%
strength.
And David said, if I found favor in
your sight, I want you to send out
messengers to every quarter of Israel, and I
want all Israel to get in their wagons
and their chariots, and I want them to
come to Hebron.
And I want you to send, Zadok, I
want you to send for the priest of
God.
And I want you to send for the
Levites.
We want this to be a religious thing,
not just a military thing.
And we want you to bring it, bring
them in here.
And I want all the Levites and the
priests of God to be here.
And we want to have a time.
And we get them together.
And so they sent out, and they began
to come by the teeming thousands from every
direction, and it's that all Israel turned out,
children and all, young people, all the mothers
and dads, and the Levites and the priests
and all came to Hebron.
Now there was a crowd for three days,
and it says that at the command of
the captains and all, they began to bring
bread in.
They ladened the asses by the hundreds all
over the country, and it said the asses
were bringing great loads of hot bread into
Hebron.
The camels were loaded down with bread, and
they came into Hebron with bread.
The mules they had were loaded down with
bread.
You say, what does that have to do?
It has right to do, so listen to
it.
The mules, the camels, the asses, and the
oxen.
The oxens were loaded down with bread.
Brother, you talk about driving along and passing
a bread bakery.
You take a deep smell like that, and
all at once, your gastric juices begin to
flow, and man, you want to find something
to eat.
How many ever smelt a bakery when you
went by it?
Let me see your hand.
You've got good noses, all right.
Brother, don't you know that was an aroma?
To see those asses coming in by the
hundreds, and the camels, and the mules, and
the oxens there bringing hot bread, bringing bread,
light bread.
Man, what a smell.
Then it says, after that, they brought all
kinds of meat.
They brought cakes, and they brought figs.
That means great sacks of figs.
I love them.
I wish I'd have been there.
And they brought raisins.
They brought wine, and they brought oil.
And they brought, they had beef in abundance.
They slew cattle, and they had hot T
-bone steaks broiled.
They had barbecue, and it says they had
lamb in abundance.
So they had lamb a leg.
They had hot T-bones, brother.
They had ribeye, and they barbecued it.
And it says here, they came to Hebron
for three days, eating, and drinking, and making
merry with a joyful heart.
They got together and said, let's go to
Jerusalem and make David our king.
And then David comes, and everything is high.
The captains are rejoicing.
Our right captain has finally arrived.
Saul was the wrong one.
Now we can be proud of our nation.
We've got a man that God's behind him.
And when David stood up, there was a
quietness.
Everybody was happy.
Everybody was full.
It was a time of festivity.
It was a time of joy, a time
of happiness.
And David said, God has preserved me and
has kept me for this moment to come
into the kingdom as we have this day.
And we must remember the goodness of God.
And I remember that the ark of God
is at the house of Uriah.
And it has been there for some time.
And now we must go and fetch the
ark of God, because he had respect for
the presence of God and for what the
ark would do when it was in the
midst of his people when they were obedient
to God.
David remembered the importance and the value of
that ark.
And so David goes to get the ark.
And when he comes up, he decides they're
buzzing with, what should I say, well, there's
nothing earthly we have that can compare to
it now.
But you can imagine, every man you see,
there was no one sad, no one with
a downcast.
Everybody was happy.
Everyone was praising God.
Our leader is respecting God.
So they went, they got the ark.
They said, let's get a new cart, come
on.
So, if it
went all right for them, it'll be all
right for us.
With good meaning, David meant well.
But he loaded the ark on with great
festivity, and they started out toward Jerusalem.
He said, let's have some music.
Let's have the Levites come and play.
And while the ark brings God's presence down
to Jerusalem, let's have a trumpet here, too.
Who's got a trumpet?
Let's get some trumpets.
Let's get some declamer.
And he called about four or five different
kinds of instruments.
And so let's have a little tune.
And so they were playing their tune and
coming along, and all at once, they didn't
realize it, but God was fuming mad, angry.
You say, what do you mean mad?
He said angry.
God was angry.
And so the ark came to a threshing
place, threshing floor, and as it went over
the threshing place, there was a bump.
And when the ark went over it, Uzzah
reached out because the ox stumbled.
And when he stumbled, it pulled the ox
cart over a little bit, and the ark
of God kind of leaned, and Uzzah was
pretty close.
And Uzzah reached up and laid his hands
on it to keep it from falling and
to try to hold it up there, you
know.
And when he did, God struck him dead.
And he fell dead with good intentions, just
trying to keep things tipping over.
It wasn't that he was so mad at
Uzzah.
The Bible says so.
He was very displeased with what was going
on.
He was very displeased with it.
And he hated to strike Uzzah dead, but
he struck him dead.
And when it happened, David said, halt just
a minute.
What happened?
He said he reached up when it was
overbalanced and touched it and said he was
struck dead.
And it said, unhook the horses, take this
ark, and Levi, it's lifted over here into
this house, Obededom's house.
And when they put it in this house,
it said David said, well, let's go on
down to Jerusalem.
And it said David was afraid of God.
There was a wet blanket put over all
the high priests, the Levites, King David, every
mama, every papa, all the chief of the
army.
Over 200,000 strong-armored men.
There's no rejoicing now.
And David was made king.
But David walked softly before God and was
afraid before God.
And now, I'm coming to the rest of
the story.
It says here, after a few months passed,
David began to seek God.
He began to pray.
And as you read the account in 1
Chronicles 13, 14, 15, 16, you read it,
that's all, it tells everything I'm telling you.
David began to earnestly seek God.
And he found out, to his amazement, that
that ark should never have been touched by
an animal, only to be carried by the
Levites.
When Philistines had it, there was no Levites
over there, they had to do the best
they could.
Brother, we can't do things because the world
doesn't.
God has a special program for his people.
And when God saw David starting off wrong
and putting his divine presence to be burdened
by an ox, instead of being carried by
the weight of that ark on the shoulders
of his separated, sanctified Levites.
And as David looked into the original pattern
where God Almighty said it must be moved
and attended to only by these directions.
And when David saw that, he made this
statement.
It said here, that we may bring up
the ark of the Lord, God of Israel,
unto the place that I have prepared for
it.
I have prepared a place for it.
15th chapter of 2nd Chronicles, first verse.
And David made him a house in the
city of David.
And he prepared there a place for the
ark of God.
David prepared a place for the ark of
God.
Notice in the third verse, and David gathered
all Israel together under Jerusalem to bring up
the ark of the Lord unto his place,
which he had prepared for it.
He found out that before you move that
ark, you're supposed to have a place fixed
for it to go to.
And there is specific instructions what that place
must look like, and what the environment is
to be, and unless that, don't move it.
And he was moving it, just by a
little slipshod instrument here and there, by an
ox, carrying it to Jerusalem, put it in
the church in some corner maybe, or put
it somewhere else.
But when they found God's divine order, God
had voiced His opinion what to do.
You must prepare a place specifically earmarked for
it, and it only.
Believe it or not, let me show you
what he told them.
It said here, I want you, David said
we're going to do it right this time,
we're going to get priests and Levites.
I want the two priests, the main two
priests, I want them to come.
And I want them to carry the ark
and minister to the ark.
Get that.
Then I want all the Levites.
And he called all the Levites by the
ones that were headed under certain chiefs, and
there was about 14 different groups of the
Levites.
And so when he figured them up, there
was 862 Levites that were supposed to minister
in the moving and in the carrying on
after the ark had made its arriving at
its destiny.
862 Levites, designed and destined for one job,
is to carry this on.
There is to be the sounder of cymbals
of brass.
There are to be three special men trained
that knows how to ring cymbals.
There must be nine guitars.
While the word doesn't use guitar, it is
guitar.
They were stringed instruments just like guitars today.
They were called palsters, but they were, what?
Salters.
Well, but the real, our meaning of the
salters is like they have the guitar.
And they had nine guitars.
Eight heavy stringed instruments equivalent to our bass
guitars, what we call bass violins.
They're the ones that give the deep bass.
Eight there, nine that must maneuver the guitars.
There must be six harps, six that play
the harp.
And then there must be seven trumpeters that
blow the trumpet.
And then there must be one song leader
that is picked out that is very skillful.
Now then the Levites that sing, 862, there
were picked out hundreds of them that were
wonderful singers that could sing.
And then it said, I want you to
get the porters.
And there are to be 14 of the
porters taken from among the Levites.
There are to be two door watchers to
stand at the door.
And I want you to notice what he
says here.
He says here, and he appointed certain of
the Levites to minister before the Ark.
These are the Levites, and he calls the
names of them below and gives each one
of 862.
They're to minister under the Ark.
Now what else?
And they're to minister before the Ark of
the Lord.
And to record and to thank and praise
the Lord God of Israel in the place
of the presence of the Ark.
They are to record and thank and praise.
I looked up that record.
And if you'll notice and read like I
tell you, in 16th chapter, David goes through
and rehearses all that God has done.
How he saw them in bondage in Egypt.
He heard their cry.
He brought them out.
He brought them to the water and gave
them water.
He brought them to the place when they
were hungry and gave them the manna.
And he rehearsed.
He recorded.
He brought back.
So I looked it up.
It says it's to go over.
To remind and to bring afresh again the
things that have happened in the past.
It said they must continually let the sound
of the trumpet, the sound of the stringed
instruments, the brass cymbals and the bass strings
and the harpers and the singers skillfully with
them singing and individuals repeating the blessing of
God, what God has done.
And as they sing and as they praise,
they come into what David said.
He prepared a huge tent.
It goes on in the details of its
glory.
And this was specifically prepared for the ark
only.
Now the porters.
The porters are the ones that keep everything
spotless clean.
See that every post is in its place.
That every curtain is exactly right.
And the porters at the door is to
watch who comes in and to see that
nothing that would defile the presence of God
gets in.
And they will stand there.
And the place that had the privilege of
keeping it in his home for several years,
he was one of the ones they chose
to stand at the door.
He had been watching over it a long
time anyway while it was in captivity.
He had been watching over it.
But they chose him and another one to
be the doorkeeper.
And now this, and let me quote this
right here, refer this again, 15 and the
13th verse.
It says, the Lord God of Israel, to
bring in again the ark of the Lord
God of Israel into the place that I
have prepared for it.
For because you did it not at the
first.
Because you did not prepare a place for
the ark of God.
Because you did not get the amount of
porters.
Because you ignored the doorman.
Because you did not have a tent pitch.
Because you did not have its place prepared.
And because you did not have so many
singers.
And because the trumpeters were not there to
minister to God inside.
Because ye did it not at the first.
The Lord your God made a breach and
killed you upon us.
For that we sought him not before after
the due order.
Because God gave us specific orders how to
move it and what to do.
Because it represented God's divine presence.
Oh my brother, that's the rest of the
story.
It wasn't because he was mad, because Uzzah
took it.
It was because they were moving it.
There was no place to take it.
They had not prepared.
And they were going contrary to God's law.
God said at Pentecost, I'm going to go
to heaven.
And God said, I'm going to send the
Holy Ghost.
And when the Holy Ghost comes down, then
my presence will not be in an ark.
It will be in my people.
Our body becomes an habitation of God.
What does the Bible say?
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, that God
has pushed aside the ark.
God has chosen by sending the Holy Ghost
into our temple.
Our body is a temple of the living
God.
And by it are built together on habitation.
On habitation of God through the Spirit.
For God said, I will walk in them.
I will talk in them.
I will be their God.
And they will be my people.
And when I put the third member of
the Godhead in them.
And their body becomes a temple of God.
Then Jesus said, my Father and I, we
will come and we will make our abode
in you.
God in you.
Reconciling the world unto himself.
My friend Jesus turned to the disciples and
to the multitude.
And they said to him, doesn't it say
that Elijah must come?
Yes, Elijah must come first.
And he's already come.
But he said, John the Baptist was the
Elijah that was to come.
Who did you go out to see when
you went out to see Elijah?
I mean, when you went out to see
John the Baptist.
A reed shaken with the wind?
Blown about by every wind of doctrine?
No.
You didn't go out to see a reed
shaken with the wind.
You went out to see a man.
Jesus said, never from the beginning of man
has a woman ever given birth to a
child as great as John the Baptist.
All that is ever born of a woman,
John the Baptist, is greater than all that
is ever born of a woman.
It takes in Moses.
It takes in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Daniel,
Elijah.
It takes in all the prophets.
It takes in all humanity.
All that is ever born of a woman,
John the Baptist, is greater.
Listen to what I've got to tell you.
Under the New Setup, the Old Testament has
to move out of the way to give
room to the New.
It's going to be different.
He that comes in under the New Testament
Setup, he that is the least in the
kingdom of God, is greater than John the
Baptist.
Why?
It's not who he is.
It's what's in him.
Oh, for us to come for the Holy
Spirit, and to receive that blessed thing, get
in a car and carry it down to
some slick, slimy, filthy, gooey, damnable, hellish sex
movie, and sit there and claim to be
a Christian, carrying the Holy of Holy in
you.
I've got room for you.
He left you before you ever moved to
go there.
Tell filthy, dirty tales and laugh at it.
Claiming to house the God of Heaven that
come down on Mount Sinai.
God said, having therefore these promises, let us
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh
and of the Spirit, perfecting holiness in the
fear of God.
Let's stand to our feet.
How many believe we're living in a day
of the pouring out of His Spirit, when
God is using our bodies as a temple
of the Holy Ghost?
Let me see your hand.
How many?
How many believe today God is just as
particular?
What happens where His presence comes?
It's early yet.
I'm going to ask you to do something
for Brother Hibbard.
I'm going to ask people here this morning.
You see a need of a dedication, not
only sanctifying, but keep sanctified, to be able
to house the God that is placed in
our bosom.
How many believe that there's a certain requirement
for Him to keep His abode with us?
God said, don't you grieve the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby we're sealed under the day
of redemption.
How many believe that there's many people that
need the Holy Spirit, but they need to
realize the dedication they need to make to
present their body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable
unto God?
I'm going to ask everyone while they play,
I'm going to ask before we leave, we
can go from down on the lower floor.
I'm going to ask Christians all over this
place.
I'm going to ask you to answer your
own question.
Is my temple set in order according to
the New Testament?
Because the same God that gave specific orders
how to move His ark, it contained His
presence.
Then how many believe that same Bible and
that same God said, for God has said,
I will dwell in them?
Having the promises that God's going to dwell
in us, let us cleanse ourselves from all
filthiness of the flesh.
How about us to take stock this morning,
just a few minutes before we leave.
How many believe God gave me this message?
That's the rest of the story.
It wasn't just because someone tried to balance
it, and that's usually the end of it.
It was the care of an ark, they
shouldn't have done it.
The main thing, they had not prepared a
place for the ark.
How many believe we need to prepare a
place for God's divine presence?
I want you to come from the balcony,
I want you to come from the lower
floor to the front, and we're going to
have a prayer.
We're going to ask God to search our
heart, and I want us to make a
dedication to God this morning.
Lord, if there's anything unclean in my life,
I want you to move upon me.
I want you to feel free.
All over this building to move out, come
down the steps, come to the front.
We can leave here and go home.
While you're coming, just the same as they
had good intentions when they took the ark
the first time, it was awful happy.
Things are sure going good.
You'd have thought God would be dancing a
jig up in heaven.
David's going to be king.
Everybody's happy, and everybody's standing behind David.
But God was greatly grieved because they had
not honored His divine presence.
If God was interested in that ark back
there, how much more believe unto the New
Testament set up that the same presence of
God, the Bible says that we're built together
on habitation of G-O-D, God by
the Spirit.
You have God in you.
Is your life fit for God to dwell
in?
I believe this, that when we have God's
divine presence in us and every Christian going
to heaven, you should have that hope in
you that God is dwelling in.
You practice the presence of God.
Why?
Because God in you.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
You know if Christ is not in you,
the Bible said you're a reprobate.
Know you're not that Christ is in you
unless you're a reprobate.
Christ comes into your heart.
You're in Christ.
If any man be in Christ, Christ in
us, the hope of glory.
Why?
They played with God back there.
Just get the ark, bring it in.
A lot of people today, oh, I'm going
to get the Holy Ghost.
I don't talk in tongues.
How many believe that receiving the Holy Ghost,
talking in tongues is way, way down the
line.
Receiving the Holy Ghost is receiving one of
the members of the Godhead whereby your body
is made an habitation of God.
For God has said, I will dwell in
them.
God comes to dwell in you.
Don't fear He that's in the world, for
He, a person, He that is within you
is greater than He that's in the world.
He that's in the world is the devil.
Sin.
Who is this in you that's greater?
It's God.
People go around lusting, talking vulgar, claiming to
be caring God.
You'd be afraid that as He struck us
dead, you'd think sometime that God would just
strike people dead.
But He doesn't.
In the grace age, He just leaves them.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
There's a qualification.
How many want God's presence?
You want Him.
Oh, we need Him to be left a
prey to the devil, to demons.
Brother, I wouldn't want to go five minutes
twenty years ago.
God knows I sure wouldn't want to go
today five minutes without God's presence in my
life.
Be not drunk on wine, but be filled
with the Spirit.
Am I right?
How many believe we owe it to ourselves?
We owe it to our public.
And let me tell you one thing, what
I believe.
If you're as full of the Holy Ghost
as God expects you to be and God
dwells in there, you're going to want to
come to church more than you want to
be entertained by anything else.
You're going to want to read your Bible
and you want to pray.
You'll want to do it.
Why?
Because God dwells in you and you're not
the same.
You're a new creature.
You're living in the Spirit instead of the
flesh.
Am I right?
And another thing, when God wants us, we'll
win souls.
We'll witness.
We'll be a witness.
If you know that God sees you.
And how many believe God knows every person
that's come forward?
He knows exactly who you are.
He knows all about you.
And if God sees that you need a
dedication, I want Him to see you make
that dedication right now.
I want you to be filled with joy.
The joy of the Lord is your what?
Strength.
I want you to put your hand up
and mean it.
Come on.
While they play in the background, be playing.
Oh, hallelujah.
Father in heaven, I come to you.
You gave me this message.
And we are the ark of God.
It said we have this treasure in earthen
vessels.
We have the presence of God.
We walk about carrying God with us.
And we pray to cleanse us.
You said, having therefore these promises, let us
cleanse ourselves.
And Lord, there's a fountain.
There's the blood that cleanses us from evil
thinking.
Evil talking.
Evil imagination.
Evil desires.
Oh God, anything that we have done or
said that would wound or grieve thy blessed
spirit, we pray to pardon it right now.
We pray to blot it out.
And we pray to come within and let
the presence of God be felt in each
heart.
Hallelujah.
Oh God, move right now.
Hallelujah.
Jim played that, he touched me.
While her hands are raised, I want to
sing, he touched me.
And when he touches you, that's all it
needs.
Well, he touched me.
Oh, he touched me.
And oh, the joy that floods my soul.
Well, something, well, it happened.
And now I know.
He touched me.
And he made me whole.
If you know your heart, how many of
you want God to touch your life?
Let me see your hand.
You want God to touch you.
He that comes to me, I'll in no
wise cast out.
God wants to do it.
Let me say this.
Why did he come inside?
Because he made man in the beginning.
While he, the God that could swing worlds
out and make them, he made man.
I can't have fellowship with worlds, trees, animals,
fish, whales, monkeys, donkeys, horses.
I'm going to make something in the image
of God and the likeness of God.
And he made man, not an angel.
Man is not an angel.
Man is made in the image of God.
And when he made him, he had sweet
fellowship.
And if God is not having sweet fellowship
with you daily, he has utterly failed in
his program to make your body a temple.
For he comes in to dwell and to
have sweet fellowship.
You can't do it in the flesh.
You grieve and wound and stab his heart.
And you put yourself on a very dangerous
ground.
We are to live in the Spirit.
We are to walk with God, talk with
God.
For our body is an habitation of God.
That's what the Bible says.
That's what every apostle believed.
And that's what Jesus died for.
That the very least here this morning is
greater than John the Baptist.
Because John the Baptist didn't have the privilege
of the new setup.
He came under the old.
How could you be greater than Moses?
Because we have the baptism of the Holy
Ghost.
The third member of the Godhead comes and
dwells in our body and it never did
do that to Moses.
Abraham, it never did do it to him.
God loved Abraham and blessed him.
But when God puts in you one of
the members of the Godhead, makes your body
a tabernacle of God, and then God Himself
comes to dwell in, you're greater than John
the Baptist.
And he was greater than any man that
has ever borne a woman.
Jesus said that.
You can read it in your book.
How many believe we better not play with
God?
We better realize what great confidence He's put
in us.
Oh, hallelujah.
Do you love Him?
What does He want you to do?
I want these singers to sing continually before
the presence of God.
I want the porters to be there day
and night.
When it arrives, I want them to sing.
I want them to let the incense burn.
And I want the trumpeters to trump.
When they get through, others take their place.
But I want them to be continually ministering
to the ark.
I read you and you heard me.
Minister to the ark of the Lord God
of Israel.
Minister to the ark.
Why?
A box?
No.
What's in the box?
God is in the box.
The river had to go back.
No army could fight against Him.
Why?
God was in the box.
What's in this temple of clay?
It's God in us.
The hope of glory.
I'm preaching to you the truth.
There's a lot of church members playing with
God.
I want us to raise our hand this
time and say, God, I want to thank
You for what You've given and entrusted into
my being.
Put it up, will you?
Father, we thank You.
We want to thank You for what You
have done.
What You have given us.
And let us some way see the depth
of its wonderful mystery.
Keep our life filled with Thy presence.
And, oh God, let us perfect holiness in
the fear of God.
We thank You for Your love and grace.
Oh, how we love You, Jesus.
How we love You, Jesus.