Cleansing the Tabernacle (12/23/2001)

Park Meadows Church

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I'm going to, Paul's going to help set the, because I want to show you a picture before we start, because what

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I'm going to show you is a picture of you, and you won't think it looks like you, but there you are, an old tabernacle, an old tent.

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Now really you live inside that thing that you look at in the mirror every morning, that's your tent, and we're going to talk about that some this morning, and we've been talking about it for several weeks, so I wanted you to get a picture of it the way

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God pictured it, and certain parts of that place you need to know a little bit about before you can understand anything about the message this morning.

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Many of you know a lot about this, some of you have only begun to study it, some of you haven't studied it before, but you will, and this is the wilderness tabernacle.

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God gave exact instructions for how to build it, exact dimensions, and then he did the same for the temple a little bit later on when they got into the promised land, the permanent, well you can't say permanent, but certainly more permanent than this, the temple of Solomon, and some day in our near future another one will be built in the same place, and this was the first one, and this is called the outer porch, it's like a fence, or pictures a wall, but all of it pictures you, if you think about it, this was built in such a way that people who are on the outside can't hide from the outside, whatever is going on on the inside, if you picture that as you, this would be the body that people see when you walk by, that's what the world sees, and we grow up thinking that's us because we start seeing that at a very young age in the mirror, mom starts combing our hair, bathing and powdering us, and I won't tell you that story some other day,

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I have a family story about being bathed and powdered, but if you focus on those who are not in the tent here, it's all just me, and only the word of God can cut asunder or make a difference between the soul and the spirit, let alone the body and the soul and the spirit, so many of us live our whole lives focused on this, but if you get saved and you begin to study the word of God, God begins to move you through these gates and closer and closer to this area, now let me show you another one, now notice it's somewhat lying around the top in the shape of a cross, you see this office right here, labor, water, nobody has to go inside, other than the high priest of Israel, and he could only do that once a year, and he could only do it with the blood, which pictured the body of Jesus, but also fellowship with the

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Lord Jesus Christ, Zacharias, before John the

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Baptist was born, he was actually in this place, he was one of the priests, so y 'all were rooting for me back there,

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I know you said man, I didn't know that, I have a problem listening to the rest of this, but the designated priest could be in here doing his duties, and Zacharias was in there when the angel told him about the

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Baptist, like I kept saying here, but once a year, pictures our prayers going up before God, no bread, pictures the body of Christ, the fellowship, candlesticks, pictures that God himself is eternal, that Jesus is the light of the world, but they were instructed never to let that light go out, ever, so it pictured the eternal nature of God, and it also pictured his omnipresence, that he is always with us, his light is with us, all these things are pictured here, and you need to remember some of this, as we get into the scriptures, this is a mercy seat, it's really not a mercy seat, so it's sprinkled with blood, it's a judgment seat, it can picture the great white throne judgment,

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I think, but when you sprinkle it with blood, it becomes the mercy seat, and that's what it is to God's children.

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Now, notice that to get into this place, it's called the

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Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies, to get into this place, you've got to go past this label, but you have to first come to the altar, as we do now here, this is where the animals come in through the gates, the first thing you see is the blood of the sacrifice, cleansing, water, and you can go into the

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Holy Place, where you see fellowship with Jesus, you see the altar of incense, and our prayers going up before God, and then also one man, the high priest, where the mercy seat is, which is actually the presence of God with the nation of Israel.

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Now, all of this was given to us, the Bible says, in two different places in the

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New Testament, as end samples, or examples, for those of us who live in the last days, to learn spiritual truths.

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The New Testament says that our body is the temple of the living

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God, so as you look at this, you can picture yourself, you can see a lot about how things work with your relationship with God, and many, many, many thousands upon multiplied thousands of truths can be learned from studying this.

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So, I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 29, and we've been in this passage of Scripture the last two times

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I've preached, and so today we'll follow up with the conclusion of this message.

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We had started talking about some duties of the priests, and we pointed out that all of us, as believers, are priests unto

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God, and so we have duties that are pictured in the Old Testament by the Old Testament priests, the things that they did can picture, or be end samples of things that we ought to be doing in our lives.

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The first thing that we studied was the fact, the obvious fact, that a priest's duty is to offer sacrifices, and we mentioned that one such sacrifice is giving praise unto the

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Lord. We find that in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 15 in the New Testament. Secondly, we should offer a sacrifice of giving substance to others, to other brothers and sisters who are in need, in their time of need.

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Hebrews 13, 16 says that that is, in fact, an offering, and then in Romans chapter 12, in verse 1, giving our bodies as a living sacrifice.

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I believe my reference is wrong on the first one, praise to God. I don't believe that's Hebrews 1, 15.

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It's probably Hebrews 13, 15. We'll check that out later. Is that right? Hebrews 13, 15.

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So we see these things that the sacrifices that the priest would give in the

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Old Testament pictured many things, but one of the things it pictured for us is that we have the duty of offering sacrifices as priests, the sacrifice of praise from our lips, the sacrifice of giving from our substance, and the sacrifice of giving our own bodies as a living sacrifice unto the

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Lord, Romans 12, 1. And then we talked about, we began to talk about what we're going to conclude today is the second duty of a believer priest is keeping the charge of the tabernacle.

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Now we just showed you a picture of the old wilderness. Numbers 18 in verse 5 says, and you shall keep the charge of the sanctuary and the charge of the altar, that there be no wrath anymore upon the children of Israel.

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Now that implies clearly that if they do not keep the priest and leave to keep charge of this, we see that in the instructions, it says that the

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Levites are given as a gift from the Lord to the priests to be as servants, to help them take care of this place.

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And it goes on in verse 7 and it shows specifically that the priest's duty is to take, let me put, turn this back on, the priest's duty specifically is to take care of this, the altar, and everything that's inside the innermost place.

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The Levites are going to help carry all these bars, and poles, and stakes, and tents, and all this when they get ready to take it and to carry it away to the next place.

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They help take care of the necessary physical things with this physical building or tent.

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But it says very clearly, therefore thou and thy sons shall keep your priest office for everything of the altar and within the veil.

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Usually if the word veil is used alone like that, it means the tent that comes right before that little last room we looked at where the mercy seat is.

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So it was their job to take care of everything that was in there, especially when they had to move it and so forth.

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And the Levites took care of the outer part. Now, we'll turn to 2

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Chronicles 28, verse 27. We'll review just a little bit and then we'll bring our conclusion to this passage because not all of you were here for the first two messages and those who were, it's been quite a few weeks since we talked about it.

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So we'll do a little bit of review. But we see in 2 Chronicles 28, verse 27 that Hezekiah became king and he was a good king.

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He follows the bad king. But the good king, now we have to remember that Jesus fulfills three offices.

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Who can tell me one of them? King and priest.

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Give me the prophet. All right. Now, I believe Hezekiah can picture

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Jesus in his kingly role in this passage. And you watch and see if you agree that Hezekiah here can be a type or a symbol of Jesus in his kingly role.

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Now, Hezekiah in verse 29, now going into chapter 29, verse 1, began to reign when he was 25 years old and he reigned 29 years in Israel.

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He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, verse 2 says. There were several things that the king commanded that they be done almost immediately when he took the throne.

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He didn't wait. He didn't get a committee together and vote on it. He didn't get the wise men together and say, do you really think we ought to do this?

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Would this be politically expedient? He said, start right now and let's do this. And the very first thing he did in verse 3 was he opened the doors of the house of the

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Lord and repaired them. And if you were here for that message, you remember that we went into Revelation chapter 3 and the famous passage in verse 20 where Jesus said, behold,

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I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, I will open the door and sup with him was not written to a lost person telling him how to be saved.

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Although I wouldn't get angry with you if you used it as a soul winning verse, it wouldn't bother me at all.

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But that's not the context. The context is that verse is written to a saved person whose door has been, is in disrepair and is closed to the

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Lord. And the first thing a person can do if you picture yourself as this tabernacle is make sure if that door is closed to the

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Lord, you're in big trouble, especially if you claim to be a believer. But this came in disrepair, it couldn't even be used, and the door came in disrepair.

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Picture Jesus outside that door where he's not supposed to be outside that door, he's supposed to be inside that place.

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And he's knocking on the door saying, let me come in and I will sup with you, that's fellowship.

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It's like we learned in Sunday school this morning, you can't lose your salvation if you're saved, but you can certainly lose your fellowship.

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And for those who have or who do in the future, just remember the order of things is to repair the door first.

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Open the door, open the door to this place. This is the first thing that the

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King commanded to be done. Now the second thing is that happened is they went into the innermost parts first.

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They didn't start trying to repair the outside of that tabernacle, the little thing that looked like a fence around it.

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They didn't work on that part first. They didn't work on the part that the world can see first. Notice that in many churches that's exactly what is done, however, they work on the outside part first.

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They want you to get a haircut, or they want you to wear a skirt down to a certain length, or they want you to make sure you go to this place or that, or that you use this version or that version of the

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Bible. And all of these outer things are going to be repaired first. And yet when we go into 2

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Chronicles chapter 29, let's go down to about verse 4.

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Immediately after this door was fixed, which had to be fixed first to get into the inside part, they immediately walked into this place, went all the way into the innermost part of it first.

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And that's where they began to clean out first. Verse 4 says, and he brought in the priest and the

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Levites and gathered them together into the east street. Now this is the king speaking, and this is what the king

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Jesus would exhort us to do and demand that we do with our temple.

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And he said to them, hear me ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves and sanctify the house of the

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Lord God of your fathers and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

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Go into the holy place, which was pictured by the smaller tent that was inside the big fenced in area.

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It includes the outer part with the candlesticks and the altar of incense and the show bread.

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And it also goes beyond into the veil and where the mercy seat is.

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The very first thing they were exhorted to do was to clean out the filth from this place and to bring it out of there.

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And you're going to find a little bit later in this study that it was the priest's duty to go into that place and get the filth out.

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And then the Levites took that and did other things with it as we'll see in this passage.

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So you have within you that which plays the role of the Levite that's supposed to keep your outer body clean.

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You know, some people don't think that how we look on the outside has anything to do with Christianity.

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And that's not true either. That's like you've got pendulum swings back and forth from one end of the spectrum to the other.

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Over here on this side, you've got the people that believe that we all need to dress just like the preacher and just like the preacher's wife or whatever.

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And you've got to just march to these standards and you swing all the way over this side and you have people that say it doesn't matter how

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I look, I believe in Jesus. Well, that's wrong too. The truth is somewhere in the middle because what is on the inside will affect the outside.

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If the inside is corrupt and dirty, the outside certainly will be. But don't ever start working on the outside first.

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Go to the inside just like God exhorted these, just like the King Jesus exhorted them to do.

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So they, in verse five, and said unto them,

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Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves and sanctify the house of the Lord God your fathers and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

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Next, they went into the very inner places and began to isolate where the filth was and to take it out.

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Now notice that they start on the inside and move outwardly. Now we see this same pattern in the

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New Testament when the Bible speaks of us. Let's leave your hand there in 2 Chronicles. We're going to come back to it, but I want you to turn to Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

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Now while you're turning to Romans 12, Tim, I'll give you an Old Testament verse that uses the same terminology as we see so many times in the

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New Testament. 2 Chronicles 15, 8, there was another time in the history of Israel where the temple needed to be cleansed again, just like this time.

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And notice the language that's used here. They said, Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and they renewed the altar of the

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Lord that was before the porch of the Lord. They renewed it. Now I want you to think about that word renewed as you look at these

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New Testament verses. First of all, Romans 12, 2. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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Now remember, as soon as the door is fixed, we're going to go into the deepest parts of ourselves, and we're going to begin cleaning.

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One of the first things God says to do is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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Turn over to Colossians 3 .9 and then Ephesians 4 .22.

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Colossians 3 .9 and Ephesians 4 .22. When we get to the passage in Ephesians, we're going to see very clearly how this thing moves from the inside out to the outside, that if we clean the inside first, the outer things become cleansed.

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Colossians 3 .9 says, lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

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When we go to the innermost parts of ourselves, we need to begin to renew our minds, renew our knowledge, take care of the filth that is in there that can come in through television, through radio, through wrong people we hang around with, through bad philosophies in the world, through carnality, through the world system itself, through Satan himself.

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All of these bad things and thoughts that can come into the innermost part of us, we need to be aware of them and get them out immediately.

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Ephesians 4 .22 says that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

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There is no fixing the old man, so we just put him off. But we are then told in verse 23 to be renewed in the spirit of our mind and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

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You go into that innermost part of yourself and you renew it, you cleanse it.

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Now notice what happens when that innermost part is renewed in spirit. When you move into verse 25 and following, you start to go, you start to move out towards the outer part of the tabernacle, which is where most people start.

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It's futile to start there. But once you do start on the inside, all of a sudden the

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Levites, you know the priest comes into the inside and does his work of cleansing and he hauls the filth out, places it out here in the outer court and the

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Levites begin to work. Then they take that filth and the other filth that's in the outer court and the part that the world sees and they do something with it, which we'll see at the close of the message.

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It's awesome. I can't wait to get to it. I got to wait to let you wait a little while just so you have to do your dutiful sitting here this morning.

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So we're going to get to it the long way. We're going to meander through and take the scenic route.

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The new man, the inner man is renewed. Now look at verse 25 and watch how this begins to move towards the outer.

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While putting away lying, speaking every man truth. Now you know lying, you could say that's an outer thing, but it really, that's kind of in there deeper than some of these things that we think are the really biggies.

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You know, we move on out to the very outside part of the flesh and we begin to focus. Oh, there's the biggies.

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There's the big sins we got to watch out for. Lying is something that starts way in here.

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So you see how they've moved out from the very deepest part out, but they're still kind of on an inner part here on the inside and it says put away lying, speak every man the truth to his neighbor for we are members one of another.

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It's like lying to yourself when you lie to a brother or sister. It hurts you worse than it does them.

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Be angry and sin not. You see how we're still kind of on the deep part. We're in that part that really bothers us sometimes with anger or bitterness as it brings in.

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Somebody does something to us is not just right and we dwell on it. Doesn't hurt them.

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They don't even know what you're thinking. It just hurts us. The odd thing about bitterness is the

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New Testament tells us, however, that if you let it stay, it will then affect others. It begins deep in the heart.

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So we're bringing out these deep things of filthiness and we take anger and we bring that out.

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Now this is the wrong kind of anger. There is a type of anger you're supposed to have when you're angry with holy righteous anger and it's not talking about that.

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It's why it said be angry and sin not. It moves on and says let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

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What a wonderful exhortation from the Lord. If you could practice going to bed and not being bitter, you'll be a wonderful Christian.

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Just deal with it before you go to sleep every night and don't carry it with you into the next day.

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You know why? Because if you do, verse 27 says you'll give place to the devil. Now how can you do that if you're saved?

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There are some who believe the devil and his demons can affect you, but the Bible is full of exhortations for the saved not to give place to the devil.

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What place do you think he's talking about? What are we talking about? We haven't even made it out of here yet.

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We're still dealing with the sins of the inner part, such as lying and anger.

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He says now I'm going to tell you this. If you let the sun go down on yourself, that's you, this whole place, and you are still angry at some brother or sister, because I've found

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I don't get that angry with people out in the world. I mean I feel for them. I wish they could get saved. I wish you could just go, you know, convince them and they'd get saved, but sometimes you guys can irritate the fool out of me, and I know

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I never do that to you, but you can't let it come into the next day.

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You have one day to be wrathful and bitter, and at sunset, when does the next day begin,

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Brother Russ? Sunset. Not sun up. That's the

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Gentile way. God said it where the next day begins at sunset. That's where it stops.

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That's right. Now why? Because if you disobey that verse, you give place to the devil.

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What place do you give him? Where was that? This doesn't meet the theology of some

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Baptist preachers who preach that Christians can't be affected by demons, but they're just wrong. I can't help it, and they've never done any counseling.

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I guarantee you they've never done any counseling with people that are hurting. I have. I've seen them be delivered,

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Christian people, in my office right back there, and there's people sitting in this room that I've dealt with that I'll never tell any of you who it is, but they came to me.

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Well, I don't know that they're sitting here. They may or may not. Some are. Some aren't because there's more than one or two.

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Now, if you think your brothers and sisters in here aren't saved, go tell them that, but I believe they are, but they had demon problems.

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Why? They gave place to the devil. They didn't mean to. Do you think that a

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Christian ever means to? I guess there are some who do. I don't know that they outwardly mean to, but there's something about that sin they like, and so they give place, and they're the most difficult ones to help because they really still like it for some reason.

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I happen to believe that. Brother Otis was talking to me about this one day at coffee, and we were talking about, you know, and now this is pure philosophy, so just my theory, and I know y 'all don't even care about that, but I just like talking about what

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I think sometimes. I think if it happened to where he got into this place, that Christian would cease to exist on this earth and would be taken home.

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From a human viewpoint, we would call that being taken home early. He would die before what we consider his time.

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Now, from God's viewpoint, is that early, or is that on time? It's right on time, but in 1

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John, it talks about a sin that's unto death, and many interpretations of that passage, one of the most prevalent interpretations in the world in all the theological works is, though, that that means that you can die before what we would consider your time.

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If there is such a thing as that happening, then that's if you let the enemy get to a place where God is in you, so don't do that.

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Now, that's just philosophy. That's not, I don't know that the Bible teaches that part of what I'm saying now.

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I'm going to stop that. I'm going to go right into what I do know the Bible teaches. I do know that the Bible teaches that the enemy can get into this part.

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I was just theorizing what might happen if he got into this part.

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My theory is you would be taken home at that point, because God the Father will not dwell in the presence of sin, period.

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He won't dwell in the presence of Satan. He won't dwell in the presence of the world system and all that, and all of the holy angels, the cherubs, they protect the holiness of God.

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Two of them are pictured there looking down on that mercy seat. I just don't believe that's going to happen. I mean, just boom, and it's over is what

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I think. Well, even, you know, if you just consider the fact that that might be true, it certainly puts a healthy fear of the

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Lord in our hearts, is that we are to guard this place. Listen, one of the most important things you can do as a believer priest is to keep charge of your heart.

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You can't allow Satan to get anywhere close to there. You cannot afford to allow the demons of hell to get anywhere close to there.

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As they begin to come into this place, and you feel one in your outer body, perhaps, that's the time to resist.

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That's the time to resist Satan, for he will flee from you, the Bible says. But what does it mean when it says, neither give place to the devil?

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Does that imply that one could? If you give place to him. Now, let's read on here in 2

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Chronicles 29. Here we are with some of these deeper sins.

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I'm not in the right verse, am I? Oh, I'm sorry.

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I'm in Ephesians chapter 4. I'm going, wow, this is not here. Ephesians chapter 4.

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I'm sorry, I got on a rabbit trail. Back on the trail now. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27.

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Neither give place to the devil. Now, we're going to start moving out into some more outward areas, as we see the

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Levites now take some of that filth that was in the innermost parts, and they also are going to clean up some of the outermost parts of our tabernacle.

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Let not corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Like these little kids writing cuss words on our church, on the door over here, all over here.

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Now, we look at those and we say, boy, that's a hellish little children. Well, you know, that's just kind of like an outward thing.

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That's cussing. You know, we look at that as the biggie, don't we? But God mentioned some things such as lying and anger that are deeper.

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Cussing is something that comes out, it comes right out your tongue, and it's just like part of the outside sins that show to the world very much.

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You know, it wouldn't take two seconds, born again experience, and those little kids wouldn't be doing that anymore.

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I can remember when Charlotte and I were first married, I used to say, well, you know, when we have children,

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I'll have quick cussing. I don't know how I'm going to do it. She said, I don't know either, but you better figure out a way. Well, fortunately,

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I probably never would have figured out a way, but God saved my soul in my car driving to work one day when I was 24 years old.

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And I've only cussed about 100 times since that time. No, no, it just, it went away.

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Not all sins do immediately like that, but that one did. That's an easy one.

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That's my point. You know, that's one of the easier ones. Now we're in these outer ones. Communication, corrupt communication coming out of your mouth.

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Well, you know, do that which is good to the edifying. Speak what's good to edify your brothers and sisters.

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Let that which you speak minister grace to the hearers. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

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He is in this place. He's in this place, and you as the high priest party, go in there and be with him.

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He is sealed within you. That's why I believe my theory is if the demon, if you allow place in that place,

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I don't see how that can be. I don't see how that can be and you still be here physically.

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Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you're sealed into the day of redemption. How do we grieve him? We grieve him by letting corrupt communication come out of our mouths.

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We grieve him by giving place to the devil. We grieve him by being angry at one another, having bitterness.

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We grieve him by lying to one another. Now look at verse 31.

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Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted.

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This is what happens after the Levites and the priests get finished. We got a pure temple. We have a purified temple.

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Kind one to another. One of the greatest, most outstanding attributes of a saved person is that no matter what your personality was before you got saved, when you got regened, when you got regenerated, you got a kind spirit.

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That's hard for some of us who don't necessarily have one, but still it happens. When you get saved, you have a kindness there.

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Tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

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Be ye therefore followers of God as dear. I love that word, dear children. There's children and then there's dear children.

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The dear children are the ones, they keep working at cleaning this place out.

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They start on the inside. They make sure the door is working. They go all the way to the inside.

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They start carrying this corrupt stuff out and they work at this continually. So we notice how the inner sanctuary got filthy in the first place.

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We talked about that the last time I preached. In 2 Chronicles, now we're going to go back there. I told you to keep your hand there and it probably fell asleep.

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So flip back over to 2 Chronicles 29 verse 4 and following.

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We see how this temple got corrupted in the first place. And I'm just going to hit the points.

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We're not going to look at the scriptures because we already did it. Number one, they turned away their faces from God. Number two, they shut the doors.

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They shut this door right here. They didn't bother with acting like they were going to let the

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Lord in. They shut the doors. They put out the lamps. They came right into here.

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These lamps that the Lord said to keep burning continually, picturing my ever presence in my eternal nature.

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They just let the oil go away. What is the oil picture? The Holy Spirit. They just let the oil go dry and they let the fire go out.

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This is what the people did to let before this place was defiled. All of these things happened before it was defiled.

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And then when these things were done, it was defiled. In fact, we know from history that a

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Gentile came in and offered a pig, right? And then he came into this inner place, took all this precious gold and all the things in there and took it out of there, hauled it off.

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Long time before that happened, they shut the doors to Jesus. They put out the lamps. They let the fire go out.

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They didn't burn incense anymore. What does that picture? Prayer. They didn't have a prayer life anymore.

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It pictures true, genuine prayer. They stopped having burnt offerings, which to us pictures praising

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God, giving substance to God, and giving our bodies as a living sacrifice. And what was the result that we see down verses eight and nine in these places?

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Well, trouble, astonishment, hissing, the sword, captivity of the wives and daughters, which has happened in our nation.

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You know, we've got a place now where the women, we got a place where the girls, little girls call the guys on the phone trying to get dates.

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I mean, that's no big deal. Well, I'm not trying to say that's a big deal. I'm just trying to say it's a flip -flop. It's not the way it was meant to be.

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The woman is supposed to be the responder. And we've got a place where our women, our wives, and our daughters have been brought into captivity of Satan, the world system, the ads of this world, and the flesh.

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Why did this happen? Because as a people, the Christian people in this country have been turning their faces away from the true

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God for a long many years. I don't know, a couple of decades or more. They've been shutting the door of their hearts.

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They've been putting out the lamp and playing like God doesn't even exist. They put the lamp out as if God's presence is not there.

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They don't burn incense because they're not a people of prayer, and they don't worship and praise properly anymore.

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So there's trouble, astonishment. September 11th happens. Different things more greater than that will happen,

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I'm sure. So the good king came and told them to repair the doors.

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He told them to go into the innermost part and to take the filth from in here to the internal area, and they did that.

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And now let's look at the end of this message. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 29 and verse 10.

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Now before we do this, I've got to read a little bit of history to you. I want to read from Unger's Bible Dictionary, which really should be called

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Unger's Encyclopedia of the Bible. He quotes Smith, a scholar, a

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Bible scholar, and he is defining a place called the

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Brook of Kedron. And I want to read this to you. The Brook of Kedron, because it's going to come into play here in a moment.

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To the north of Jerusalem begins the torrent bed of the Kedron. It sweeps past the

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Temple Mount. And historians and archaeologists tell us that a couple thousand years ago the

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Kedron actually was the bed of it was actually closer by several hundred feet to the Temple than it is now.

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It sweeps past the Temple Mount, past where what were afterward

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Calvary. It sweeps past Calvary where the cross was. It sweeps past Gethsemane where the garden was where Jesus sweat blood.

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It leaves the Mount of Olives and Bethany to the left,

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Bethlehem far to the right. It plunges down among the bare terraces, precipices, and crags of the wilderness of Judea.

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The wilderness of the scapegoat that is. Now pay attention to where this river runs.

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This river runs past the Temple. It runs past Calvary where the cross was and Gethsemane where Jesus prayed the prayer,

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Lord it be thy will let this cup pass from me but nevertheless thy will be done. And then it went to the place and went through the very wilderness, this little river, not really a river but just a little creek almost except during sometimes the year when it floods.

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It went through this wilderness where they let the scapegoat go that had all the sins of the people on his head.

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So barren and blistered, so furnace -like does it become as it drops below the level of the sea that it takes the name of Wadi An -Nar or the

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Fire Wadi. At last its dreary course brings it to the precipices of the

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Dead Sea, the lowest place on the earth which probably covers Sodom and Gomorrah into which it shoots its scanty water in the winter but all summer it is dry.

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The valley is only 20 miles long but with a descent of 3 ,912 feet.

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It is the brook crossed by David while he was fleeing Absalom in 2

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Samuel. This valley in the time of Josiah became the common cemetery of Jerusalem.

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Now you've got some history behind you. Let me go into chapter 29 of 2 Chronicles and let's see what happened to this filth that they took from the innermost parts of the temple.

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The priest's job was to go into the very inner parts and get the filth and bring it out into the outer court. The Levite's job was to get the filth from the outer court and the filth that they had brought from the inner court and take this and do what

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God says and here's what God said to do with it. We see in verse 10, now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the

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Lord God of Israel that his fierce wrath may turn away from us, the king says.

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Isn't it interesting that the king's job in many ways is to turn God's wrath from his people.

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My sons be not negligent. What an exhortation for us this morning.

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For the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him. He's talking to you as a priest this morning. If you neglect the job of the believer priest, that means you let your body control everything.

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You just let the urges of your flesh tell you what to do every day. You predominantly walk and you're interested in that part you see in the mirror.

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That's just the outer little fence around the thing. You saw it a minute ago. It's like a little fence. It's a tabernacle or just the outer parts of it and we focus on that because we're negligent but he says my sons be not negligent for the

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Lord has chosen you to stand before him and to serve him. That's why you're here on this planet.

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He has chosen you and the real you, the new man is supposed to be in control of this outer flesh anyway and the outer flesh just serves.

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It's just a servant to the new man because the new man's job is to stand before God and serve

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God and that you should minister unto him and burn incense. What's that? Prayers.

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Then the Levites arose. Now you see the Levites listened and they gathered their brethren and sanctified themselves and came according to the commandment of the king by the words of the

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Lord to cleanse the house of the Lord and the priest went into the inner part so they listened too and they went into those deeper parts of yourselves ourselves.

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Now remember the priest is you and the tabernacle is you and the innermost part is where God dwells in you and the priest went into this innermost part of the house of the

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Lord to cleanse it and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the

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Lord unto the court of the house of the Lord and then the Levites took over and the Levites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook key drawn where it was dumped.

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Now this is amazing. Turn with me to John chapter 17 verse 24 but leave a hand there.

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Second Chronicle. Brother Russell I'm coming into the third ending you're talking about this morning.

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John 17 24. Father I will that they also whom thou has given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou has given me.

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Think that prayer will be answered? That was Jesus praying. Which thou has given me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.

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O righteous father the world hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known that thou hast sent me and I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it.

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That goes right up to our day today. Do you know that the king is in the midst of us right now teaching and singing praises as we sing he sings from within us as we teach and learn he teaches from within us and to us because that prayer was answered.

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He says I've declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou has loved me may be in them and I in them.

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Do you know that the same love that the father loves his son with he loves you with can you even believe that?

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You couldn't if the word didn't tell you that because you couldn't feel that way because you know we've sinned before and we haven't treated

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God right and we've let this tabernacle get filthy before. How can he love us as much as the one who never sinned but was tempted in all points as we?

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Well the only reason he can is because Jesus made it to be so by being our substitute and dying for us on that cross.

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So we go into chapter 18 there in John and verse 1 and it says when Jesus had spoken these words he went forth with his disciples over the brook and look what brook this is.

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Kedron where was a garden and you know the rest of that story.

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That is an important place that river. Very important place.

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Now when you go into the last verses in this chapter 29 of 2nd Chronicles where they have repaired the door of the tabernacle they have gone into the innermost places and brought the filth out of it filthiness of the mind and of the spirit and brought it out into the outermost part and then the

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Levites took that and carried it completely out through that front gate and dumped it in this river

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Kedron which is the place where the cemeteries are now. It's the place where all these things in history happen.

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It's the river that Jesus crossed the night he went into the garden and prayed about the cross itself and all of these this filthiness was dumped there and after all of this was taken care of this was the result in verse 20 of 2nd

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Chronicles 29. Then Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the rulers of the city and he went up to the house of the

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Lord. Can you see Jesus Christ as the high priest gathering you as a believer priest and me and gathering us all up together and bringing us to worship

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God and they go up to the house of the Lord which really we are but when we meet collectively in this place

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God meets with us as a group as well and we as a group become the house of God the

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Bible teaches in certain places and they brought seven bullocks and seven rams and seven lambs and seven goats for a sin offering for the kingdom.

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You've got to notice the different offerings this first one was a sin offering and notice that it says it's for the kingdom.

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Wow have you ever seen that before? I've always seen it you know it's for the sanctuary it's for the people. I never saw the praise for the kingdom until this week when

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I was studying this again. The kingdom that's who the sacrifice of the sin offering is for and he gives it and he offers it up for the kingdom and for the sanctuary.

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Now notice the kingdom is us so when Jesus died on the cross that was for us but you know what else it says it says and for the sanctuary guess who that's for that's called propitiation that is for God the father.

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We think of Jesus dying for us all the time we ought to think about Jesus dying for the father to make sure that his holy and just wrath could be fulfilled at the same time that he can show mercy to sinful people.

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It was more for him than us really because unless he was satisfied first we could not be saved.

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So he offers up sin offerings for the kingdom that's us and for the sanctuary that's

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God and the commandment of the priest the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the

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Lord then they go for the goats the sin offering and escape goat takes place and they laid their hands on the goat down in verse 23 and they offered the goat so there we have the sin offering today that is a remembrance for us of the one time death of Jesus Christ on that cross.

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He died for us and he died for the father that the father might be satisfied and that we might be saved and you go into verse 27 we see a second type of offering it's called a burn offering and Hezekiah commanded to offer the burn offering this is a free will offering this is given from the hearts of the people there's no way these people could have done this with a corrupt filthy tabernacle.

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If you want to get past the stage of just being saved which brother Otis talked so beautifully about Sunday school this morning it was eloquent anyway the ending of that lesson was as eloquent as anything

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I've heard since I got saved sorry brother Otis some good things from him too but if you just want some few

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Christians ever even get past their salvation but if you ever want to go past and beyond into the deeper things of God you've got to make sure that the temple is cleansed from the inside to the out and it would come out and this free will offerings are given from the people then and then we see in verse 25 he set the

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Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols and psalteries and harps according to the commandment of David and the instruments of David they began to sing and dance and praise

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God but you know what too many people try to do that today without taking care of this whole 45 minutes of sermon today and a whole 45 minutes

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Sunday last time I preached in the whole 45 maybe 60 minutes before that they don't go to these places they want to do this the easy way and sometimes loud music can do that for you but those of you who've seen the real thing know that it takes more than that we got to have a clean tabernacle first from the inside out and all of this spill has to be dumped into the

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Kidron to go away into the wilderness and then we can come in together with the symbols and the psalteries and the harps and the instruments of David we can shout and praise

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God and praise him for who he is praise him for what he's done and then you know it's interesting but in verse 31 it ends up with Thanksgiving we try to thank

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God often but you know a person that's got kind of a dirty tabernacle he's not a real thankful person because he's into self but in verse 31 then

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Hezekiah answered and said now ye have consecrated yourselves unto the Lord now that you've consecrated yourselves come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings you know what they did you realize that these people brought 10 bullocks 100 rams 200 lambs 600 oxen 3 ,000 sheeps sheep sheepies and they kept bringing animals bringing these free will offerings to show

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God their thanks and to praise God and to thank him for all he had done in the whole time they were picturing before Jesus Christ our

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Savior we can look back at it with hindsight and see everything that this picture they couldn't see it all just vaguely could they see it but they did it with such joy and noise and music and laughter and crying little doubt little doubt little doubt in my mind that many of the remaining years

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God is going to bring us to a cleansing in poor old

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America our religious services our abomination our prayers become an abomination when we're in idolatry we owe it to these little children to clean the tabernacle we're going to open up the altar this morning and before the fried chicken the

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Lord leads you to spend some time in confession to cleanse the temple or if you've already done that in praise or worship then you can stay where you are and do that or you can come down to this altar whatever the