November 22: OF NO EFFECT
The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary. Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place; They set up their banners for signs . . . They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name . . . Psalm 74:3b,4,7b
This prophetic passage from Psalm 74 shines a bright light for the student of God’s Word who understands the purpose of the sanctuary: to point toward, magnify, and testify to the work of the Son of God in the process of reconciling the world unto Himself. After the final destruction by the Romans of the physical temple in AD70, attention was properly directed toward the heavenly sanctuary, which the Lord pitched, and not man (Hebrews 8:2).
Brothers and sisters, the earthly sanctuary is you and me, if we allow ourselves to become a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Believers in Christ who yield themselves to Him and trust in His heavenly ministry as our High Priest, are a threat to the purposes of the enemy. The heavenly sanctuary was long ago targeted for obscurity by the devil, working through the little horn power, just as the prophet Daniel foresaw:
A little horn which grew exceedingly great . . . and it grew up to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them. He even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host . . . and the place of His sanctuary was cast down. Daniel 8:9-11
Our enemy has cast down the place of [God’s] sanctuary in our thinking, our minds and hearts, which should belong to God for a dwelling place. This place in fallen human minds has been filled with counterfeit ideas and earthly traditions.
Jesus, the Prince of the host, is also known to us as the Word of God (John 1:1, Revelation 19:13). The table of showbread in the holy place of the tabernacle proper represents the written Word—the Bread of Life—for us to feed upon daily. Throughout the 1260 years of the Dark Ages, the masses were taught that they must not read the written Word, but that the priests would interpret it for them. God’s Word was kept hidden away, in some instances chained to monastery walls. The people were—and are—taught that church tradition has authority over the Word of God. This is nothing new. Jesus addressed the very same problem with the Jewish religious leaders of His day for their practice of making tradition the “authority” which rendered the word of God of no effect.
“Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? . . . Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. . . In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:3,6,9
“…making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.” Mark 7:13
Today, leaders from every country are flocking to the little horn to gain instruction and show support for his ideas to unify the world under counterfeit plans to “save it.” But….
The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. Psalm 33:10