Holy of Holies Part I — Bertha Smith

And we lift our hearts to Thee in praise and gratitude for the good hand of our God upon us, for this beautiful weather, for this comfortable building, for all those who are here because they love you and they want to know you better.

They wouldn't be here this time of day. Now, Lord, we just thank you that you're here in our midst and they know that or they wouldn't be here. Now, Lord, you just manifest yourself here this morning.

You control this servant of Thine and you speak through my lips and you make your word live this morning. A new and some truth here comes alive in a new and fresh way to every person here. No matter how familiar it might be to their minds, you bring it to them all new this morning and thrill me with it over again as you do again and again and get glory to yourself here during this hour.

We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. How many of you were not here yesterday morning? Let's see your hands. Well, a good percent of you. Well, yesterday morning and the group that was here were reminded that the Lord took Israel by Sinai when he was taking them out of Egypt to go to school to him.

Israel Learns the Holiness of God

Remember, they didn't have one line of Bible. Moses wrote the Old Testament, the first five books of it, and he hadn't written it at that time. A lot of it hadn't happened. And all they knew about Jehovah God was what had been handed down through their ancestry and what they had learned in getting out of Egypt and to Sinai.

They had not had an opportunity before they reached Sinai to learn anything whatsoever about the holiness of God. They knew God's promise to the children of Israel through their ancestry and that he was going to take them back to the land of Canaan and he was going to make them a great nation and bless the world through them.

One would come through them who would bless the world. Now, that's about what they knew that had been handed down from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And in getting out, they learned a good deal more about Jehovah God.

Taking care of people and guiding people and giving victory in war and making a way when there was no way and punishing those who would not obey him as they punished the Egyptians. But they never had any chance to know anything about God's holiness.

And Jehovah God had to teach them about his holiness and about their sin and then he had to give them a way whereby he in all of his holiness could dwell in the midst of sinful human beings. Now, he couldn't carry out his purpose for them unless he dwelled in their midst.

And that's what all of this tabernacle is about, this tent that they built in the wilderness. It was a sanctuary. Now, a sanctuary is where God dwells. Now, this is not a sanctuary. He doesn't dwell here.

This is a church auditory. But the place where God dwells is a sanctuary. And they built a sanctuary. And there were conditions by which a human being, God can dwell in the midst of sinful human beings.

And what is that? They would all have to be put to death because they're all this black nature. You see this black crooked heart over here? God didn't make them like that. God made them like that red heart up there, upright.

Red is the happy color in China. You and I would probably make that white for purity. But the Lord makes it red for, I mean the Chinese make it red for happiness. Red is their happy color. And white is their mourning color.

That means sadness, represents sadness. But this black represents sin. And they all became sin. And they think sins and they act sins and they talk sins and act sins because they are sin. That's just the expression of what we are.

We are sin. And you know what the root of all sin is? I have a right to myself. I have a right to myself. That's exactly what the devil said to Eve when he tempted her. You have a right to yourself. You're being kept down.

But now all these people had descended from Adam and Eve. And they had that black devil nature. And David, God had to send his son through somebody. And they were as good as anybody he had and better than most of them.

Most of them were worse than Adam. Most of the rest of the world were worse than Adam. And here he'd have to put this whole crowd to death before he could dwell in their midst. And yesterday we saw how he put them to death through the sacrifices.

They died in those sacrifices. And just inside of this altar, in this entrance here, was the altar, the brazen altar. And that meant judgment. That represented the cross of Christ. And they died in a bullock.

He had priests, of course, standing between these people and holy God. Four sons of Aaron. And by the way, two of these men died. Now Jehovah God had told them exactly how to worship him. And when this was dedicated, well, everything, by the way, that went into making up this tent represented the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world to die.

And this fence around separating God from the people who lived in their tents. They were not tents like this. They used flat-top tents over there. And these looked like Indian wigwams. And this was made up in Hillsdale, Michigan.

If I'd have made it a good many years ago, I wouldn't have known any better to make them like our little champion tents over here. Well, anyway, God dwelt here. And even this fence represented Jesus Christ and his righteousness.

That pure white linen. And it was put on brass posts, which we said yesterday meant judgment. Well, now these priests had to be put to death first. And they were all put to death, as we saw yesterday, in that bullock.

And then the people all were to be put to death in a goat. And the head of each household offered sacrifice about three times a year when they went to Jerusalem. Well, yesterday we saw that those priests had to be born to the priesthood, and then they had to be dedicated to the priesthood.

And after they'd become dedicated, by having been put to death in this bullock, they'd entered into a sheep, which meant dedication. They had thoroughly dedicated their personality to the Lord. After their sin problem was solved, they had dedicated a dead, cleansed personality.

Then they entered into a sheep that followed this. And then after that, they entered into another sheep, which entered into Christ, to live in him. And they could only, only a dead, cleansed, thoroughly dedicated personality could dwell in Christ, and could have Christ dwelling in them.

You know, the Lord wouldn't come into our hearts to dwell in us unless he had possession, complete possession of us. He'd have to have complete possession of us before he could come into our hearts. Well, the Lord didn't come into our that was, that was the meaning of the sacrifices.

And they offered, these priests offered these sacrifices every morning for the people. And then he offered for themselves first, and then they offered a goat to the people every morning. Well, now that was showing people that they have to trust in Christ's death every day, all the time.

But you know, the Lord wanted them to know that when the Savior came, he would die only once. So he set aside one day, one day of worship for them, called the great day of at-one-ment, the great day when they would become at one with God.

The Day of Atonement and the Holy of Holies

Now, this old black nature is separated from God. And so, in, in Leviticus chapter 16, Leviticus chapter 16, you will see how the way, the special way that they worshiped on the great day of atonement.

Now, yesterday I took up the different pieces of furnishings in the holy place, but I did not mention the only piece of furnishings in the holy of holies. Now, this, this tent was divided into two rooms.

About two-thirds of it was the holy place, and the, and the, the one-third back here was the holy of holies, where God dwelt. And the one piece of furnishing in that holy of holies, what was, is what was called, is called the ark of the covenant.

Now, the, the bottom part was a wooden box overlaid with pure gold. Now, that box must have represented the God-man. As we said yesterday, the gold represented deity, and evidently the wood represented the manhood of our Lord, God becoming man and coming into the world.

And he hadn't become man because God couldn't die, and he had to become man to die. I bet, and so in that box, and we said yesterday, the first man Adam was made out of the dirt of the ground, wood grows out of the ground, and, and Jesus would have to become man in order to die.

In fact, he, he, he didn't have the name Jesus until he became man. That was his, that was his human name, but he was perfect man and perfect God. He was God's son in the world. He was the second person in the, in the, he was the second person in the Trinity, second person in the Trinity, equal with God.

I bet when he came into the world, he became God's son, and his name was called Jesus because that meant savior. He'd become man and become God's son, born down here in the world, took a human body in order to die.

Well, this box represented the Lord Jesus Christ coming to die, and in that box was a dead stick laid up that had been laid up before the Lord, Abram's rod, and that dead stick became, came to life and grew buds and leaves and flowers and fruit, and it stayed on, represent death and resurrection.

And there were the Ten Commandments, the second set of Ten Commandments that the Lord gave to Moses, carved by the hand of God on stone. And there's a verse in the Hebrews that tells us that our Lord Jesus had God's commands in his heart.

And then there was a, a golden pot filled with manna that was placed in that box as a memorial. Now, that manna wouldn't keep ordinarily. Now, when the Lord first rained the manna down for the children of Israel, when they were on the way from Egypt to, over to Sinai, they gathered up and up for the Sabbath day.

He told them it wouldn't come down on the Sabbath day. No, the first day. They told him it'd come down every day except the Sabbath. Well, the first day when they saw this manna, and oh, it must have been delicious and, of course, just full of all the vitamins we need.

And, lo, they gathered up and up for two days, and he told them just to gather one day. And, lo, what they'd left overnight spoiled, and they couldn't eat. But when they gathered it up on the sixth day, their Sabbath was the seventh day, our Saturday.

Lo, it kept, kept over the Sabbath day. All that forty years they were in the wilderness, the Lord fed them with manna just the same. Friday he rained down, I mean, uh, uh, the sixth day he rained down enough for the seventh, their Sabbath, and it kept.

And then they put, put a pot in this box, it just kept indefinitely. It would have been there till now, or until Jesus came. The Lord might have had it destroyed after Jesus came. In fact, it got destroyed before he came.

We don't know where it is. If, uh, if, if the mound where the temple was were dirt, I could agree with some people that it may be dug up there sometime. But that's a, that's a mountain of stone, and I just don't see how the children of Israel could have dug, uh, a hole in stone and hidden that mound, that, this.

But it's never spoken of after this, which said it was taken by Nebuchadnezzar. We'll have a little more about that later. Well, now the, the, the lid, the top of this box was a solid gold slab about four inches thick.

That was the mercy seat. And two solid gold angels, huge things, solid gold, stretched from the, from the, from the panels of this tabernacle on one side, uh, and the other ones, and the wings stretched from the panel on that side, and these wings met.

And when this tabernacle was, was, uh, finished and dedicated to the Lord, this cloud came down like, and filled the tabernacle. And it was like fire, glory, glory. And it, it lit the wood, the, the charcoal they had over here.

Of course, they, they start to talk charcoal with wood, wood. And the wooden charcoal lit over here from that fire that came down. And the priest couldn't go in. He mowers in there and couldn't go in.

Of course, the priest didn't have any right to go in until after the dedication. And, no, that glory went back up and became that cloud up there. And it left God in the form of fire back there in that holy of holies called the sanctuary, God's dwelling place, with a, with, and that fire rested on that mercy seat where those angels started.

Christ as the Mercy Seat and the Fulfillment of the Sacrifices

Now, friends, if that slab had not been on that wooden box, representing our Lord Jesus Christ with those articles in it, representing his keeping God's law, being absolutely sinless, therefore he could die for our sins, and, and, and that, that dead stick that had come to life representing death and resurrection, and God's laws there that he kept, since he kept God's law himself, he could die for you and me who have not kept them.

And that, and that part of manner showing that he was God, he was our, he was our sustenance, he was the sustainer of life, he, Jesus said he was that manner that came down from heaven. If all those articles hadn't been in that box representing our Lord Jesus Christ, that golden slab could not have been a mercy seat.

It would have had to have been a judgment seat, and you and I and everybody else in the world would have had to stood before God and been judged according to the deeds done in the body. And where we, where would we be if we had to stand before God and be judged, even for this black nature that we inherited?

Now, it was not our fault that we inherited that black nature, but, but, but what we let it produce in us and express in us is our and that's our sins. That's our S-I-N-S, sins, and that black nature is our sin.

Well, God dwelt there on that box. Now, we saw yesterday that when the priest had the privilege of going in daily, taking turns into that first room and burning that fragrant incense, which went up to God as, on a prayer altar, went up to God as incense, and feasting on that incense bread.

Well, now, the Lord wanted them to, as I said, to realize that when the Lord came, he would die only once. So he set it aside, the day of which I spoke, the great day of atonement, when Jesus would die, and they would have that service once a year, reminding the people that when the Savior came, he would die but once.

And on that day, the priest killed a, this, this bullock, they killed this bullock, by the way, every day for himself and the priest and, and his sons, the four sons, the priest. So they transferred their sins to this, this, uh, bullock and killed it and, and you remember they put his lard and his kidneys on the altar and carried it outside the city and burned it.

They did that on the great day of atonement. And then the people brought two goats, not a goat for every family on that day, but just two goats. And one of those goats was chosen to die. And even the high priest put his hands on that goat and transferred to that goat the sins of the whole nation for a whole year.

And then they killed that goat. They put its blood on the horns of the altar and around them. Goat doesn't have very much blood around the altar. And, and in the, there's a trough here, in the trough at the bottom of the altar.

And a man especially chosen took that goat in his arms outside the city, the clean place where this bullock was born, burned every day, and burned that bullock, that goat. Now that goat in tithe was bearing the sins of the whole nation for a whole year.

Now friends, that man had become so contaminated from being so closely associated with that much sin, the sin of the whole nation for a whole year, he couldn't come back to camp as he was. He was too defiled.

And that man had to have basins of water out there and clean clothes and bathe and put on his clean clothes before he could come back. Holy God, trying to teach Israel something of his own wholeness and the exceeding sinfulness of human nature.

That high priest on that day laid aside his glorious garments. You remember he had beautiful garments, made for glory and for beauty, the Bible tells us. He laid aside, that represented, he represented the Lord Jesus Christ laying aside his glory for us.

And he took off those beautiful garments and put on linen, a long linen robe like the other, like the other men wore. And he wore the other linen garments under his gorgeous, under his gorgeous robe all the time.

But he just laid aside his glory and he took some of the blood of this bullock for himself and his sins and then some of the blood of that goat which had been killed and carried out laden with the sins of the whole nation for a whole year, set it aside here in a basin till he, well he went took some of it in first, pardon me, took some in and all the had to come out of this holy place where they ordinarily went.

They had to come outside, not a soul could be in here. And that priest went in and sprinkled that blood several, seven times on that petition that separated the holy of holies from the holy place. That petition was made of white linen, pure white linen, and it hung and there were angels embroidered all over it out of thread cut out of pure leaf gold for beauty and for glory.

And that hung on those wooden posts overlaid with pure gold. And here you see the sockets of silver down here that these posts rested in. Now that gold couldn't touch the ground so they put, except to redeem Israel and to redeem you and me, to redeem everybody.

And it will be redeemed. So that they had, that those golden panels had little knobs that rested in sockets of silver. Well now Moses went in once every year and the first thing he did was to sprinkle blood on this beautiful curtain with all those angels embroidered all over it, that without the shedding of blood there's no remission.

And blood represents death. And that high priest had been put to death in that bullock and God saw him having been put to death for everything that he was that was unlike holy God. He saw that man having been put to death in his son.

And that, all of that represented his son coming into the world. And after he'd sprinkled this curtain with blood he went back and carried in an incense burner with a charcoal burning and set it right in front of this Ark of the Covenant.

Right in front of that, oh here it is, set it right in front of this on the ground and those coals were burning. And then he perhaps had to go back again to get a handful of very fragrant, a substance called incense.

Now that incense represented worship and they put it on the coals and it just effervesced and it was very highly perfumed and that perfume went up to God as worship and praise and adoration. And that incense also contained a substance that produced a very heavy smoke.

And the smoke just filled that little room. It was eight feet wide and 15 long this way. And that worshiper was in smoke and the smoke covered that fire, God's presence. Why? That priest still had his sinful nature and he was going into the presence of Holy God for himself and for the people.

And he couldn't stand boldly in that sinful nature up there before God. He had to be covered in smoke. And God had to be covered in smoke. That fire had to be covered in smoke. The psalmist tells us that God hides himself in the clouds from us, hides himself in the clouds because we can't see him until we're reborn.

And after we're reborn, we see him with the eyes of our heart, not with these physical eyes because we have these devil natures. Well, then Moses, Aaron, went out and came in again with a basin of blood and he thumped that blood seven times in front of that mercy seat.

And friends, if he came out alive, that meant that he'd done everything exactly right and God in all of his holiness had forgiven their sins and would still dwell in their midst for another year. Now, all through the wilderness after they had to camp for, to wander around and camp with the places where they could camp, where there's an oasis of water and something for the sheep to eat and their cattle, they erected this tabernacle and they worshipped.

And all through the wilderness they worshipped. And then when they went into the Holy Land, they worshipped. Well, wait a minute, I haven't quite finished something that the high priest did. When the high priest came out, he put his hand on that second goat.

They brought two goats, you remember. And he transferred all the sins to that goat of the whole nation for a whole year. And a man specially chosen to lead that goat led that goat off into the wilderness, into the desert so far that under no condition could it ever find its way back.

Now, that first goat that was killed represented the Lord Jesus Christ taking the punishment for our sins, dying for our sins. That second goat represented the results of the death of our Lord. When he would come in his death, he would become that goat because you and I are that goat, absolutely incorrigible, cannot be trained.

And his death would remove our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. So that man went so far out that he was perfectly sure that that goat under no condition could ever find its way back and turned it loose, representing our Lord's death, removing our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

Now, that man who had led that goat out into the wilderness had become so contaminated that he couldn't come back to camp as he was. He'd been so closely associated with that goat who was bearing the sins of the whole nation for a whole year.

He had to have basins of water out in the wilderness and bathe and have clean clothes out there and put on clean clothes and leave his contaminated clothes out there before he could come back. Holy God trying to teach sinful man something of his own holiness and how God in his holiness could put you and me to death in his own sign.

Moses, the Shepherd, and the Rock

And because his son would bear our sins, he would take the death penalty for us and then by doing so he would remove our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Well, after they got into Canaan, you remember, wandered around for 40 years and Moses had to die because he destroyed the Lord's type.

He disobeyed the Lord and in doing so he destroyed the Lord's type. What do I mean? Well, you know, early in their wilderness travels, they had gotten out of water and the Lord told Moses to take that shepherd's rod, which was a signal that Moses now was only a shepherd and had been after he'd followed sheep around in the wilderness for 40 years.

When he went down in Egypt, he was told to take the shepherd's rod, not the staff. A shepherd had two pieces of equipment. One was the rod and the other was the staff. The rod was for the sheep. The staff was for the shepherd.

And in walking, he used that long, strong, straight stick as a third limb. It helped him walk and it helped him protect himself and protect his sheep. He had to protect himself from bandits. He had to protect himself from wild animals.

And so that staff was what he protected and he protected the sheep from the wild animals. That's what he beat the animals off with. Now that rod had a crook in one end and that just fitted around the sheep's neck.

And, you know, sheep do not have much sense. They don't have the sense that a cat has. You try to get rid of a cat when you have too many kittens and you can take them, you can put them in your car and take them way off and in a day or two they'll be back home.

But the sheep doesn't have that sense. And a sheep just looks at the grass and it just keeps its head down and just looks at the grass and it just looks at the next bunch and the next bunch and he can just wind around and get lost and he can't find his way back to the fold.

And so when the shepherd, when the sheep was turned the wrong way, he just hooked that hook around the snake and turned his head around. And that way he kept them in line and all going the same distance even though they were eating as they went.

They slowly ate that grass and went on to the next place because they were guided by him. And nobody carried a rod but a shepherd. And anybody can be a shepherd. You don't have to know one word of any language to write it or read it in order to be a shepherd.

The few shepherds in China that I came to know, they do not raise sheep much, just a few in the north, had never been any further from home than their sheep were able to travel to get food. And he wore an old, in the wintertime, a dirty old fur-lined skinned long garment that had never been cleaned.

And he had, they didn't have a fold, didn't have enough sheep to build a big fence or pen or enclosure to bring him in at night. He had to sleep out there with them. And he looked as if he'd never bathed in his life.

Surely hadn't many times. And that would be a shepherd. And here, the man who was learned in all of the learning of the Egyptians, gave all that up and went out and followed sheep for 40 years in the wilderness.

And then when the Lord couldn't do a thing for those people that were down there, and when he called him and sent him back, he didn't have anybody but Moses to use. He said, what's in your hand, Moses?

And you remember, he said, a rod. And Moses took this shepherd's rod. And the rest of his life, he was nothing but a shepherd. But he had power with God. He was no longer a dedicated serf. He was nothing but a shepherd.

And that, and so, when he, the Lord told him to go strike that rock when the people in the, had no water in the wilderness. And he went to that shepherd's rod and struck that rock. He was nothing but a shepherd.

But God was everything. The God of Israel would give them water. And Moses knew it. And water poured forth out of that rock. Well, in their wanderings around, years later, again they came to a place where there was no water.

And the people cried to Moses. And Moses asked the Lord what to do. And the Lord said, take the rock, take the rod, and speak to the rock. He didn't say go take the rod and strike the rock. Take the rod in your hand.

You're nothing but a shepherd. But I'm the all-powerful God. You speak to the rock. Now, the New Testament tells us that that rock was Christ. And striking that rock meant that Christ was going to be nailed to the cross.

And because he was going to die on the cross for us and settle our sin problem, and come to live in these sinful natures and count them dead, and live in them and control us, and make it suitable for dwelling places for him, his temples where he would dwell, he could do everything.

And he would give them water. And Moses struck that rock with that rod and no water came, of course. Now, Christ couldn't be crucified twice. He couldn't be crucified twice. And so, but you just speak to him since he's already died and you receive the living water.

And so Moses destroyed the Lord's type. I'm just taking time to tell you this because as I go around people ask me about this, and I find a lot of people just think the Lord didn't treat Moses fairly when he didn't let him lead Israel into Canaan.

Well, they didn't realize the heinousness of Moses' sin. He destroyed the Lord's type of Jesus Christ's death. The one from whom living water comes to you and me, but we don't have to crucify him again.

He doesn't have to be crucified. We speak to him. He's already been crucified. And Moses broke that rod and struck that rock. And the Lord said, speak to the rock. Well, he destroyed the Lord's type and that was terrific sin.

And the Lord didn't let him go into Canaan, but he used Joshua to lead him in. And you remember when they got across, they put up this tabernacle and they worshiped. And during Moses' lifetime, he led that army under God when he accepted the new commander that came and appeared when they went ashore and camped.

And he destroyed 31 kings, killed 41 kings and destroyed their little kingdoms. Every city had its own king. And that king controlled the countryside around the villages and the towns and the land until the next king's began.

And the 31 kings owned all the land that the Lord had promised to Israel and that he meant for them to take. And through Joshua, all those kings were killed, 31 kings. And the military power of the land was completely destroyed, the Lord using Joshua.

It was just amazing. The Lord was their commander-in-chief. And as long as they obeyed him, the Israelites were victorious. Well, they left the private citizens who were not soldiers and some of the common people there in the land because to have destroyed all of them would have meant turning the land over to ferocious animals.

And there would have been not enough of the children of Israel to occupy all the land and they would have suffered. So the Lord through Joshua explained to them that they were to drive out those people as they multiplied and needed the land.

And the Lord promised all the victory that they needed to the Israelites. All they had to do was obey the Lord. They were not to even inquire about the idols, the idol worship. Never let on that they had any worship because it was not worship of God.

They were to have no fellowship with those people that were there. They were not to intermarry with them. They were to drive them out. Why? Because they were idol worshipers. And the Lord reserves the right to always put to death idol worshipers.

And they were all under God's condemnation to be put to death. But the time to put them all to death hadn't come. But the children of Israel were to drive them out. Well, did you know what those proud people did, the children of Israel?

They made those people start paying taxes to them. Now just what about that? As if that land was theirs when the Lord had given it to them. To prepare a place to send his son into the world, to save 10 ,000 idol worshipers too, as well as Jews.

Israel’s Idolatry and Failure to Fulfill Its Mission

Well, the next thing they did, they began to intermarry with them. And some of them made them slaves. And they began to bring those heathen girls into their homes to be wives of their sons, as the custom was.

A single woman had to go into the home of her parents. She couldn't live out in a home by herself. She'd have died of, she'd have had no protection when her husband was away at work, and she'd have died of loneliness.

And not a thing to worry to do. So they brought these heathen girls in and let them bring their idols. They didn't have to let them bring their idols. And lo, they worshiped their idols in the home of their in-laws.

And they just, in the old rent, they give up their parents and they just take the parents of the young man. And all the woman wants is, when she's getting engaged, is what kind of home to have. And they always want to marry her with some sisters in the family.

So she'll have some sisters in the family when she gets there. Well, anyway, and they taught their own children to worship idols. They sent their daughters out into those heathen homes to be daughters-in-law in heathen families.

Just exactly what the Lord asked them, not told them not to do. Bad marriage. And in two or three generations, they've grown up a generation of youngsters in the Israelite-ish homes to go worshiping idols just like the nationals who had been there all the while.

And the Lord was so grieved over them. Sometimes he'd raise up a prophet to rebuke them. And then he'd have to, they wouldn't pay any attention to his prophets, and he'd have to raise up heathen nations to come and empower them, to come and conquer them.

And when they suffered enough, some of them would repent. And when enough of them would repent, the Lord would raise up a leader among the Israelites, and they'd drive them out, and they'd have a period of peace when they worshiped God for a few years.

Well, that generation would die, and the next would be the very same thing. It went on about 400 years, you remember, under leaders that the Lord raised up called judges. And then they wanted a king. And in the kings, one king would worship the Lord, and two or three kings would worship the Lord, and then another king would come along and go back to idolatry.

And they just got more wicked and more wicked, and in spite of all the prophets that the Lord sent, the Lord couldn't save the nation. And at one time, you remember, the Philistines, who shouldn't have been there, the Israelites should have killed all those Philistines.

God wanted to use them to destroy them for their idol worship, but they didn't. And the Philistines were warriors, and all the time invading the southern part of Judah. And lo, the Israelites even carried this, this Ark of the Covenant, out to the battlefield, thinking that, and that fire had already gone.

We don't know just when that fire left, perhaps it left that day. People quit worshiping, they quit praying their tithe, and perhaps all these gold panels had to be sold for the priest to support his family.

And they just got worse and worse, and there's no difference, not much difference in the Israelites, except here and there would be a little handful worshiping God. And finally, as the Lord raised up David, a king, and he conquered more than had ever been conquered before of the land, and the Lord gave him glorious victory, and he got ready to build a temple.

And then the Lord raised up Solomon, made him, I suppose, the richest king that had ever existed, and just showing to the children of Israel what he'd like to do for them. Well, they were just so filled with pride.

They were the people, they were the people that God blessed, and didn't know that God blessed them and put them right there in the center of the world to be the missionaries to go out to all other countries and persuade all the Gentiles to give up their idolatry and their heathen myths and traditions and worship the God of the Jews to get ready for the coming of the Savior.