God's Dwelling Place — George Warnock

We're glad that we could gather in this manner this weekend, and we pray that God will move in our midst, that it won't just be another gathering as such, but that God will come forth and reveal his glory in a new way in our midst.

And let's keep the young people in mind. All this year, we felt that God had something special for the young people, and they've had a certain touch at times, but we believe the Lord would move into their lives in a very precious way.

The Prepared Place in the Father's House

Let's look into the word of God this time. Let's turn to John chapter 14. John chapter 14. Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. We'll continue reading on later, but I wanted to speak about this prepared place in Father's house.

God has prepared a place for his people to dwell. And I'm not talking about beyond this life, the eternal realm, I'm talking about here and now. Jesus went away to prepare a place for us, here and now.

There are many things in the scripture, many, many verses, especially in the New Testament, that have been neglected or completely ignored by the church, because they said, well, that's heaven, and so we don't know much about heaven, we'll go there someday.

And many of those truths, many of those scriptures do not apply to the hereafter, but to here and now. But don't worry about the hereafter. People, you know, they feel if we're taking those things that they've always thought was heaven and apply them now, well, they think they're being robbed of something.

Don't fear that you're going to be robbed in the hereafter. God has untold glory for his people. It's going to take eternity for us to fully see the glory of God. Some people feel, well, you know, you're bringing that down for this life, that's really heaven.

Don't worry about that. God has far more for the heavenly realm and the hereafter than you and I have ever dreamt of. But the church has remained in a poverty-stricken condition for the simple reason that many of these things that we've said, well, yeah, that's heaven, that's wonderful, and we get to heaven, are for the here and now.

Revelation of Hidden Wisdom by the Spirit

And in that same chapter, where Robert quoted a verse, Paul says this, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

And I remember in church as a young person, even in Sunday school, the congregation would be asked to stand and quote a scripture, and this one would be quoted so often that I guess everybody pretty well knew it by heart.

I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. And of course, that was heaven, and God has prepared those wonderful things which I have not seen or ear heard.

But if you just read on the next verse, then you realize, no, he's not talking about going to heaven to see these things, he's talking about the revelation of it here and now. But the next verse says, But unto us God hath revealed it by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the depths of God.

And so Paul says, we speak the hidden wisdom, the hidden wisdom, as it is written, things which I have not seen, which ear hath not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him, but unto us God hath revealed them by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the depths of God.

So Paul is telling us that this hidden wisdom, this hidden wisdom which was hidden from the foundation of the world for his people to be revealed in the last time, contains and concerns things which you cannot see with the eye, and you cannot hear with the ear, and you cannot comprehend with your mind or your heart.

Those are the things that God hath prepared for his own, and hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the depths of God. And so coming into John 14 here, we might go back there again, 1 Corinthians 2, but Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled.

Ye believe in God, believe also in me. Jesus had been telling them he was going away, I'm going away, and Peter said, Where are you going, Lord? And he said, Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me hereafter.

And though the Lord had told them many times that he was to die, to go to the cross and go back to the Father, somehow it didn't dawn into their spirits what he was really saying because it didn't add up with their theology.

They knew very well that when this Messiah came to earth, that he was going to set up a kingdom, and they knew Jesus was the Messiah. And so Jesus would teach the principles of the kingdom, which was so entirely contrary to the principles of this world, and they would hear it and they wouldn't understand most of it.

Jesus would take the disciples apart and explain to them a little more concerning the mysteries of the kingdom, which most of the people couldn't see or hear or understand because their hearts were hardened.

But somehow even the disciples couldn't grasp the nature of the kingdom of God. When Jesus would talk about going to the cross and going back to the Father, oh, it must be another one of those parables, it must be another one of those mysterious sayings of his, right up to the very end.

They couldn't grasp it. But Jesus was to depart from them in just a couple of days' time. And so he said, Don't let your hearts be troubled. Don't let your hearts be troubled. If you believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions. And that word, which we have observed many times, is the same word that's used down in verse 23, where Jesus said, We will come unto him and make our abode with him.

The very same word, so that they could have translated that in verse 23, We will come and make our mansion with him. But that wouldn't seem to make sense. And so they translated the one abode and the other mansion.

But it's literally an abiding place, a place of habitation. And God certainly has a place of habitation in the hereafter. We're not denying that. And we have no way, hardly, of conceiving the nature of that eternal habitation.

But Jesus is not talking about the hereafter in this verse. He's talking about Father's house, which has many abiding realms, many abiding places. Father's house? Well, the temple is Father's house. Jesus said it is written, My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, and you have made it a den of thieves.

And so the temple was the house of God. And Jesus recognized the temple as being God's house because God wasn't through with it yet. Very shortly, it would pass away to make way for the true temple. Jesus was the true temple, but he was not manifested as such as yet, or recognized as such.

But he was really the temple of God to replace all those Old Testament types and shadows, all those old temples of a bygone day. Jesus came on the earth to replace all those old temples. And so we're told that the Word, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And a little later on, John 1, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Word was made or became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the word dwelt there is a word which, part of it is the word tent. So that if you wanted to translate it very literally, it would be, the Word became flesh and pitched his tent in our midst.

Or another translated, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. So that the Lord Jesus Christ was that true tabernacle of God in the earth. He was Father's house. But he was going away. But he said, I'm going back to, in my Father's house are many abiding places.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I would have told you if it wasn't so. He says, I wouldn't go away and leave you with nothing. I'd have told you if that was the case. But that wasn't the case.

If I go away, it's to prepare a habitation for you, my disciples. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there you may be also.

He didn't say that where I'm going, there you may be, but where I am. Because Jesus was already there. Jesus was already inhabiting the Father. And the Father was inhabiting him. And whither I go, ye know, in the way ye know.

Thomas said unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. So that's what he's talking about, coming to the heart of God, coming to the Father.

I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I'll come again and receive you unto myself at where I am. There you may be also. Jesus says, you know the way, and you know where I'm going. And they said, Lord, we don't know either one.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. He's talking about going back to the heart of the Father. And preparing a place in the heart of the Father for his own.

If I go away, he says, I'll come again and receive you unto myself at where I am. There ye may be also. For when Jesus walked this earth, he dwelt in God, and God dwelt in him. They knew he was the Messiah.

They knew he was the Son of God. They knew he was the king. They knew he was the great teacher. They knew all that, but somehow it is hard for them to grasp that he was the tabernacle, the home in which God the Father dwelt.

And so they went on, sort of arguing a little with the Lord. Tell them, Sid, Lord, you're talking about the Father and opening up the way to the Father and going to the Father. And show us the Father, and that's all we need to know.

Just don't keep using mysterious language like that. Show us the Father, and that's sufficient. And Jesus answered almost in surprise, Philip, have I been so long time with you, and yet haven't you known me, Philip?

Yeah, he knew Jesus, but that wasn't Philip's question. Philip's question was, show us the Father. Jesus said, have I been with you these three, three and a half years, Philip, and you haven't known me?

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Don't you realize that the Father dwells in me, and I dwell in the Father?

Now he's saying, I'm going away. But when I go away, I'll come and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Where was he? He was in Father's house. He was the Father's house. He was in the Father, and the Father in him.

Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak in you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. It is hard for them to grasp.

It's hard for you and I to grasp it. But the Lord Jesus Christ, walking here on earth, walked as a man in total union with the Heavenly Father, so that the very words that he spoke were the words of the Father.

It wasn't just a Messiah that was talking, a great teacher, a great prophet. The words he spoke came from the heart of the Father. But here was a man, and all they saw was the man, and they saw him opening his lips and talking.

But they didn't know that he was dwelling in the Father, and the Father was dwelling in him, while he was here on earth. While he was here walking this earth, he dwelt in the Father, and the Father dwelt in him, so that when he would speak, he would speak the words of the Father.

When he would go to a place to minister, it would be the Father that would be causing him to go to this place. When he would look upon different individuals and see their needs and their problems, it was the Father in him that was showing him the condition of the hearts of men.

And because the Father was showing him, he'd come out and declare some very strange things. It was the Father speaking through him, living in him, thinking in him, walking in him, speaking the words, and declaring the truth of God, and performing the works of God.

They weren't his own. They weren't his own works. And that's why when they would come to him on several occasions and accuse him for doing something on the Sabbath that he shouldn't have been doing, he'd almost excuse himself.

And he said, the Father showed me that. I can of my own self do nothing, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. The Son can of himself do nothing. Now, these are the words of Jesus. I know we look upon Christ as the one who could do anything he wanted to do, and we're inclined to consider his miracles in the New Testament as something that he did because he was a miracle worker.

But no, he just did it because the Father was there doing it. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. And so he had no doctrine of his own, no program of his own, no teaching of his own to expound.

He came to reveal the Father. And so John said, the Word became flesh and tabernacled in our midst. The Word became flesh and pitched his tent in our midst. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So that the glory that shone from Christ in the words he spoke, in the works he performed, in the healings he performed, the glory that shone forth was really the glory of the Heavenly Father. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Greater Works Through the Spirit in the Church

And so he goes on, John 14, verse 11. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very work's sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.

And greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. We take that scripture, you know, and we take it out of its context and quote it a lot. And we, you know, we tell the people that God's going to do greater works to his people on the earth now than Jesus did when he was here.

And all that's true. But you must see it in its context to realize that the reason God's people on the earth are going to do greater works is not because they're greater. They're much less. They're much inferior.

He alone is the exalted Son of God, and he alone must have all preeminence. But the reason these people on earth are going to do greater works than Jesus did was because I go to the Father. Greater works than these shall he do because I go unto the Father.

Well, what's that got to do with it? Well, because in going to the Father, he's able to release that same spirit that was in him into his disciples. So not only would there be one man dwelling in the Father and the Father in him, but there would be a people wherever this gospel would be preached.

There'd be a people, a corporate people, a body, a church in whom the Father would be dwelling. And because Jesus was exalted at the right hand of the throne of God, he would be able to release that spirit that was in him unto his people in the earth.

And therefore, they would do greater works because the Lord of glory, who once walked on earth and performed the will of the Father as one individual man, was now going to be exalted at God's right hand, and he would have a people in the earth, his beloved disciples who would have that same spirit that was in him, and they would go far and wide throughout the length and the breadth of the earth and do greater works because he had gone to the Father.

He had gone to the place of supreme authority. He'd gone to the throne room. Because he was at the throne room, he would be able to impart unto his own all those hidden resources that were in Christ when he was here.

And so Jesus said, he shall take of mine and will show it unto you. But let's get back to this matter here of the place, the prepared place that God has for his church, not in heaven, but here, this prepared place.

God's purpose in redeeming us was not negative. You say, well, I know that. I know, but it's been presented that way. That he redeemed us, save us from death, save us from sin, save us from hell, save us from eternal destruction.

All that is true, but that's negative. God's real purpose in saving us is to take us out of and into. Take us out of and into. Out of the place of condemnation, out of the world, out of sin, out of the grasp of the enemy, to take us into the heart of God.

So the apostle Paul says, God has translated us out of the powers of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Out of and into, out of and into. And so it's the story of Exodus and Joshua coming out and going in.

God called them out of Egypt, out of the place of bondage to bring them into Canaan. And so it is Moses that led them out by the will of God, by the anointing of God. But it was Joshua who led them in.

And God's purpose is not completed until we have both those aspects. He brings us out to bring us in. And so even when they sang the victory song in the Old Testament, when they had crossed over the Red Sea and had been delivered from Pharaoh, we're not going into that story, but when they were delivered from Pharaoh and brought across the Red Sea and God closed the Red Sea behind them and they knew they were safe on the eastern banks of the Red Sea and that Pharaoh's host had been destroyed there in the waters of the Red Sea, what could they do but sing the victory song?

And so they sang the victory song, the song of Moses, the song of victory. And Miriam, an old lady there, took her timbrel and she led the ladies in songs of praise and triumph because of what God had done.

For the Lord hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. But even here, and if you'll notice in the Scriptures, even though God does some great work, if you'll notice, if you'll read carefully, you'll discover that God always has certain ultimates in mind that we're slow to apprehend.

We see the great work that God does, but we're slow to apprehend that in that work God is seeking to point us to something greater. And failing to realize that, we fail to go on with God. And because what God has done has been wonderful and we rejoice in that, our eyes, our ears are slow to comprehend that God has something much more than this immediate thing that he has done.

And so even in the victory song, there's a verse here that declares God's ultimate purpose for them, which no doubt as they sang this song, they didn't even grasp what God was saying, but it's there in the song by prophetic inspiration.

Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

That's right there in the victory song, that God had brought them out to bring them into the place of God's inheritance. Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in.

God's place for his people is in the place that God made for himself. God's place for his people is in the very heart of God. God's habitation is in man and man's habitation is in God. I think it is Augustine who said that man was made to give glory to God.

And he can never be happy, can never find rest until he finds himself in union with God. And that is true. But do we realize that God made man to be a habitation for himself? And God cannot be in rest, totally at rest until he finds his habitation in man.

Both are true, because your habitation is in God and God is in you, so that your rest and God's rest is really the same. As you find your rest in God, it's only because God finds his rest in you. And God found total rest in his son, total rest, total delight in his son.

On two or three occasions, he declared with a mighty voice from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom is all my delight. God found total delight in his son. He found a habitation in his son, so that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it was the glory of God that was there.

We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. God always wanted a place to dwell. That's why God ordained. And one of the first things he did when he brought them out of the land, and before he brought them into the land of promise, before he brought them into the mountain of his inheritance, into the sanctuary which God's hands have established, even before that, right there in the wilderness, God ordered that they build him a sanctuary.

Now, does God really want a house of wood and stone to dwell in? It isn't that God wanted a house of wood and stone, but he was leading his people on and on and on to that place where he would find that real habitation that he was after in the hearts of men.

And all these tabernacles and tents, sanctuaries that we find in the Old Testament, and there were several of them, they all look forward to that day when the true temple would be revealed from heaven, even the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ as the True Temple of God

He became the temple of God. Jesus knew that. So that as they stood there looking at the temple in the distance, the temple of Herod, which was gorgeous and beautifully built and very costly, took 46 years to build, the stones of it were very costly and very precious.

As Jesus looked upon it and the Jews said to him, what sign are you going to give us? Give us a sign. And he said, destroy this temple. And in three days, I will raise it up. You might want to accuse the Lord of being deceptive.

But in actual fact, he was declaring very simply that he was the temple. No longer did the glory of God dwell in that temple at Herodville, if it ever was there. Never really was there, but it was still considered to be Father's house.

Sacrifices were still offered there, the true people of God still came there with their sacrifices. And even when Jesus was born, there was a remnant, a holy remnant there in that temple. There was an Anna, a prophetess.

There was Simeon, an old man who would come into the temple. There was Zacharias, a priest who was a godly man and who received a visitation from God and to whom was born John the Baptist. So there was always a true remnant, even in that temple.

And God wasn't through with it yet, but the glory of God was not there. And when Jesus stood there and they asked him for a sign, he says, destroy this temple. And in three days, I will raise it up. And of course, they started to argue and they called him a fool.

It took 46 years to build this temple and you're going to raise it up in three days. And that was one of the accusations they brought against him when he was brought to trial before Pilate. This man said he was going to destroy a temple and build it in three days.

And he spake of the temple of his body. That's what he spoke about, the temple of his body. Because in him, in that body that was prepared of God, dwelt the very glory and presence of the Heavenly Father.

I don't think we have any problem with that. But our problem comes when it is revealed that this one who was the temple of God was going to go away and that he was going to take on an enlargement of that temple.

That the temple was going to be enlarged to include a people in the earth. And that's what Jesus is talking about in John 14. He says, I'm going to prepare a place for you and I'll come again and receive you unto myself.

But where I am there, ye may be also. I'm going to prepare this place. Thou shalt bring them in into the mountain of thine inheritance and the place, O Lord, which thou hast ordained for thee to dwell in and the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

That's the place that God has gone to prepare. And considering the prepared temples in the Old Testament, we're not going to consider them all. We're just going to briefly consider the preparations that were necessary in the building of this house for God in the Old Testament.

The Sanctuary as a Pattern for God's Dwelling

When God got the people to Sinai and began to give them his holy commandments and his holy laws, and he must cause them to wait there at Sinai almost a year that this people who had just come out of Egyptian bondage might be disciplined in God's ways, might learn of the holy God, might learn of God's holy requirements, might receive his laws and his ordinances.

God said in the midst of all that, let the people bring together certain substances, certain materials. And he told them what they were. Chidam wood and linen and scarlet and purple and gold and silver and brass.

And he names it all off. Let them bring these materials and let them make me a sanctuary that I might dwell among them. Why did God, way back there in the Old Testament in the wilderness, why did he insist on having a sanctuary that he might dwell in this wooden structure when clearly God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands?

Many centuries later, when Solomon was ordained to the Lord to build a more glorious temple, a far more glorious temple than the one Moses built. Solomon built it and established the order of the priesthood and the musicians and the Levites and everybody had their place, the doorkeepers.

And when it was all prepared, the glory of God came down and filled that temple. And you remember how Solomon had built a great platform out in the midst of the great court there and he had knelt down and with his hands raised to heaven, he prayed that famous prayer, which we find there, I think, in 2 Chronicles or 1 Chronicles, that great prayer unto God, dedicating this temple.

But one thing that he said, which we must not lose sight of, in the midst of all the glory of this temple, Solomon said, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built.

Solomon made it very clear that God wasn't really dwelling there. It was just a place for his name. Just a place for his name that, he said, if your people are in trouble or if they get into captivity or if they're scattered in the far corners of the earth, if, Lord, he said, if they'll consider their sin and why you scattered them and will repent and pray towards this house, let it be that your name will be here and that as they pray towards this house that you will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and restore again their captivity.

So Solomon knew and all the prophets knew that God didn't really dwell in a house made with hands. But it became that to the people of God. That became the sanctuary. And let us never look upon any sanctuary that we gather in, let us not look upon that as being the temple of God.

Let us not think, you know, that this building here is built for the sanctuary of God. You're God's sanctuary. You're the house in which God dwells. You're that temple in which God would dwell. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God and you're not your own for you're bought with a price?

You and I are that temple. Israel got to thinking that they had done something for God. They'd made a house for God. And God, through the prophet Isaiah, he reproved them. Very severely. And he says, where is the place of my rest?

And where's the house that you're going to build for me? That's not my hand made all these things. Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain them, said Solomon. And God says, behold, the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

Now, what kind of a house are you going to build? But God said, but to this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at my word. God has always wanted to dwell in the hearts of men.

And that's the only tabernacle that God ever wanted. The only temple he ever wanted. The only temple that would truly be compatible to God. You know that in the heaven of heavens that all God, God can't find a resting place.

He can't find a place for his throne. He can't, the earth is just merely a footstool for his feet. God couldn't find a true habitation anywhere. Why? Because only man was made in his image. Only man was made in the image and likeness of God.

He made angels, he made cherubim, he made seraphim, he made archangels. How many celestial beings, how many kinds, perhaps we do not know. But there's only one creature that is said to have been made in the image and likeness of God and that was man.

I know man forfeited that, but that's what redemption is all about. That's what redemption is all about. Bringing man back, redeeming him out of the hand of the enemy and out from sin that God might once again have one in his image, one who would be compatible with himself, one in whom he might dwell.

And so he found that one in the Lord Jesus Christ. But now Jesus said, I'm going away and he said, don't let your hearts be troubled. Don't let it be troubled. This is not going to in any way hinder God's plan.

It seemed to them that it was a great interruption to the plan of God. That Jesus, the Messiah who came to establish a kingdom in the earth, it seemed that that whole program was interrupted. And that somehow they had slain the Son of God.

Jesus said, don't let your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many abodes. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. He was the abode of God, I know, but now he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you.

They said, where are you going? What's this all about? He says, you know where I'm going and you know the way. They said, no, we don't. He said, yes, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The Spirit of Truth and the Abiding Presence

Now, just briefly, let's go through this same chapter. I dealt with verse 12, where Jesus said, because the Father is in me and I'm in the Father and I'm going back to the Father, that should be a cause for rejoicing.