IF MY PEOPLE – PART ONE
Sunday – March 29, 2020, Nisan 4, 5780
Greetings my dear and precious brothers and sisters in Christ. Welcome back to this Sunday series, today titled “If My People”. By the time you read this the situation with the Corona virus will be in a different but not better place than today (March 18, 2020). The title for this teaching as you may have already recognized comes from a very familiar 2 Chronicles passage. This teaching will take several weeks to accomplish. If you are reading this on Facebook please take a moment to hit the “love” and “share” buttons to give us positive feedback and to greatly expand the reach of these teachings. Most of you may be able to quote verse fourteen of the following passage due to seeing it and hearing it so often. I have been hearing this verse prayed, read, and quoted for decades. Why do you suppose this prayer goes unanswered to this day and in fact things have gotten far worse? Are we missing something? Is the land being devoured and are there pestilences among us? Let us turn our attention to the text and read it slowly and reflectively (thoughtfully, meditatively) aloud. Yes, aloud!
2 Chronicles 7:12-16 (KJV)
12 And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.
13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.
16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
As you may or may not know King Solomon, King David’s son has built the first Temple in Jerusalem and the Lord is talking to Solomon (and to us) in part as an answer to prayer. As I talk about this I am going to swing back and forth from Old Testament to New Testament. The Old Testament after all is a shadow of that to come and is now come. At that time God, the Spirit of God, dwelt between the Cherubim over the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. This was in the Most Holy Place in the Tent of Meeting where the High Priest entered once a year to atone for sin on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Today the Spirit of God has quickened our spirit man, made us whole again, and inhabits this body or this tabernacle/temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16 (KJV)
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1 Corinthians 6:19 (KJV)
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
Our bodies are the temple of God and are not our own but were bought for God by the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Now, let’s follow this just a bit further (verse twelve). See the B portion of verse twelve “have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice”. Under the Old or First Covenant the blood and bodies of innocent animals was the sacrifice but now Christ Jesus is become our sacrifice, His body and His Blood.
Hebrews 10:4-10 (KJV)
4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Very carefully notice verse five (five is the number of grace and glory [goodness of God]) that the body of Jesus was specifically prepared for sacrifice. The sacrifice of the body the Father prepared for Jesus has cleaned all who will receive once and for all. Our God is so good. We will get to verse fourteen and what is missing in the Church. We are not focused on what the world needs to do, but what we the Church must do.
Until our next publication, as a Bible Teacher and Prophetic Voice I speak this blessing over each and every one of you, receive it, believe it, and speak over yourself and your family by faith in Jesus name! Quit asking God to bless you, you are already blessed, you have the Blessing, give Him something to do by the words of your mouth. Once you know the will of God, decree the thing (Job 22:28, Isaiah 45:11, Mark 11:23). (The Blessing is the Holy Spirit) We have left God way to long with nothing to do in our lives.
Numbers 6:24-26 (AMP)
24 The Lord bless you and watch, guard, and keep you;
25 The Lord make His face to shine upon and enlighten you and be gracious (kind, merciful, and giving favor) to you;
26 The Lord lift up His [approving] countenance upon you and give you peace (tranquility of heart and life continually).
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
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