June 22
DebDay 100: Pillars in the Temple
Unbelievable! 100 days. I'm trying to let that sink in.
I'm thinking I might have to self-publish these posts ("Covid Diaries"), just so my children can have a coffee table book someday. Or not.
What have we learned in the past 100 days? Pestilence didn't end in the middle ages. Our culture increasingly proves itself to be messed up. Face masks fog up eyeglasses.
We've added new phrases to our vocabulary, like: social-distancing, shelter-at-home, digital church.
We've also sensed God is up to something. It may be He's wanted to purify His Church, even cull the herd. It may be He's been preparing each of His children for a new age of what it will mean to be a family, servants, missionaries, disciples who make disciples of Jesus.
Zechariah 6:13 says, "It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord..." NT readers know Jesus said "He would build His Church."
A curious bit about the construction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem is found in 1 Kings 6:7.
"When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built."
Weird. Not a job site I've ever seen or heard. Deb and I lived through the 3+ years of the new Auke Bay Marina boat launch project. Right outside our window. Day and night. Floodlights at night. And a lot of noise.
Why then would God instruct the workmen to be so quiet on the project?
The great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, once had something to say about this.
The temple job site was quiet because the building materials would come prefabricated. The stones and wood and metal objects showed up already ready for the exact spot they were to occupy.
Same way Jesus is building His Church.
The preparation of the building materials (us) is being done here on earth. We're being made ready here. And the Lord is using Covid and other societal challenges as part of that sanctification process.
These are our "hammers, axes and tools of iron." Except we're the ones getting pounded and shaped into something useful.
Someday, He will then deliver each of us to the permanent building site; the Jerusalem where heaven and earth will be one; where God Himself will be present and reign forever.
As Spurgeon said, "to live as eternal pillars in the temple of our Lord."
-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau
