April 10, 2023

…the elders of Israel…said [to Samuel], “Give us a king…like all the other nations.” And the LORD said to Samuel, “…for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”  (see 1 Samuel 8:4-7)

The rejection of the LORD and His sanctuary is what eventually led to the failure of God’s people to recognize the Messiah—the Savior—at His first coming. We might say that the devil was ‘preparing the people to be unprepared.’ Do you think that he is up to his old tricks? Let us take time over these next few days to examine how he did it…

To this very day, there is a prevailing ignorance of the plan of salvation as illustrated in the sanctuary and its furnishings. Designed by the Creator Himself, the sanctuary was to be the center of life for His unique and “peculiar” people. Of course, the thing that would make the people of God “peculiar” is their obedience to Him: honoring His precepts which are outlined and highlighted in the sanctuary plan, a miniature of the heavenly temple. Had the people of God chosen obedience, the blessings and protection that God was to lavish upon them would, by shining example, lead the rest of the world out of their pagan practices and onto the safe path toward eternal life. The priestly system was divinely established to serve on behalf of the people, leading them to follow that plan of reconciliation with the Creator.

But Israel trembled before her enemies and came to demand an earthly king for protection instead of looking to the true King, the God of heaven, through His priestly representatives.

Fast-forward to the infant church as established in the first century AD. Pagan Rome persecuted the Christians. But, led by Satan, Rome’s intent to stamp out Christianity was a failure, for the church grew rapidly as she looked to her Savior in total trust. The gospel message spread like wildfire. However, a dramatic change occurred when the Roman Emperor Constantine became a “Christian.” The church shifted her trust to the emperor for protection in the place of her High Priest, the risen Jesus Christ who serves on our behalf in heaven’s tabernacle.

Here we see the church (spiritual Israel) rejecting the heavenly sanctuary just as Israel had rejected the earthly sanctuary in the Old Testament.

In both scenarios, Satan found success by entering in among God’s people: the epitome of an “inside job.” Prophecy tells us that his strategy will continue until the end of this world (Daniel 2:44, 7:14, 8:25, Acts 20:29). The Lord Himself will put a stop to it. Meanwhile, He is equipping each of us in His word to safely traverse the world that Satan has so damaged and deceived. Prophecy plays a key role in helping us to discern between the true and the counterfeit. In His omniscience, Yahweh has told us ahead of time what to expect. Knowing the significance of the elements of the sanctuary will greatly heighten the essential discernment that He wants us to possess.

Now this is the main point of what we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Hebrews 8:1-2, 9:24