The Tragedy Today
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But here is an infinitely greater tragedy, one that is the story of our time and of the final Church era: Most in the splinters have come to feel much the same as their worldly counterparts, but with no recognition that this has happened.
They will no longer hold precious the true Christ of the Bible. Neither will they hold to His truth. They will not yield to His government. Neither will they come to His Church, nor support His undivided Work. And they will no longer permit Him to head their lives—and to continue building them into His House. Blind to their actions, they have placed themselves outside the Temple He is constructing. They have unwittingly chosen not to be placed next to the ;living stones” with which He is building.
Get this. You are being judged on these things—NOW! The same apostle Peter also said two chapters later that ;Judgment is now on the HOUSE OF GOD” (1 Peter 4:17).
Brethren of the splinters, the Church has long understood that the ;House of God” is His Church. By now you know this is the same as saying ;His Temple”—of which you were called to be a ;living stone,” one ;closely joined” with all the others in God’s unified ;Building.” (But this will soon be seen to be a house of more than one dimension—more than one parameter.)
Why cannot people today any longer seem to remember that God’s Church—the Body of Christ—His House or Temple—is obviously one, undivided organization ruled by Jesus Christ as Head under the government of God—and doing His Work? (Four detailed sermons about the Temple of God are available on our website. They carefully discuss all you have learned—and will yet learn—in this chapter. Parts 1 and 2 are titled ;The Greatest Building!”, with Parts 3 and 4 titled ;Measure the Temple.” Do not miss them!)
What could be more important for you to understand than these points? What could be more important to you than allowing yourself to be placed by Christ back into the Temple—into the ;House of God”—recognizing that even it is still being judged?
What could be more important to you than recapturing the basic, but all-important, knowledge that God’s people sang at Sabbath services for decades? How could so many forget that ;Except the LORD build the HOUSE, they labor in vain that build it” (Psa. 127:1)? There is but one House God could have had in mind here, the one He planned long before the Psalms were recorded. How could splinter leaders think they can build their own ;houses” and that Christ would follow their lead instead of the other way around?
And how could so many blindly help them build?
The majority today have made themselves ;branches cut off” from Christ—not yet dead in most cases, but rather having made themselves dying stones, stones with the ;oil” of God’s Spirit flowing out of their ;lamps” without replenishment from Christ. They are ;branches” cut away from the ;Vine”—stones removed from theBUILDER! We will momentarily revisit this in the context it deserves.
So tragically, most simply no longer seem able to realize—or even remember—that Philadelphians are promised to one day be ;pillar[s] in the [coming] Temple of…God” (>Rev. 3:12).
How did all this incredible knowledge get lost to thousands?
Back to Zerubbabel
God’s people are without excuse. They were once aware of an extraordinary biblical parallel that guided their understanding of what God was doing within His Temple—of what the Worldwide Church of God was under Mr. Armstrong’s leadership.
The following quotes from another quite extensive Co-Worker Letter of March 19, 1981 explains what I reference—what people once knew but have now forgotten. In it Mr. Armstrong took further what he said about Zerubbabel’s Temple, and the latter-day ;glorious Temple.” He was telling the Worldwide Church of God (and co-workers) about extraordinary knowledge revealed in Malachi, Haggai and Zechariah, having to do with Zerubbabel, the local governor who we saw presided over the rebuilding of the second temple. I have left in some repetition from the earlier quote to bring helpful context.
Read carefully and allow Mr. Armstrong’s words to teach you again. I have broken his instruction into three excerpts (All emphasis is his):
Now consider the prophecy of Malachi 3:1-5. In Malachi 3:1, God will send a human messenger to prepare the way before Christ, coming as the Messenger of the New COVENANT. Now what coming of Christ is this prophecy talking about? Read Malachi 3:2-5. Jesus did none of those things at His first coming—but WILL DO THEM AT HIS SOON SECOND COMING! So the prophecy is, actually, foretelling primarily a messenger to prepare the way for His SOON SECOND COMING!
Yet Mark 1 ALL and other New Testament scriptures identify John the Baptist as fulfilling that prophecy.
But REMEMBER GOD’S PURPOSE WORKS IN A PROCESS of DUALITY! John the Baptist was a TYPE or forerunner, of one to prepare the way for His Second Coming. Jesus is to come to His TEMPLE (Mal. 3:1). He came to a material temple of stone, wood, gold and materials A.D. 27-31. To what Temple will He come IN OUR TIME, SOON NOW?
Hold this prophecy of Malachi 3 ALL in mind, and turn to Haggai 2 ALL , beginningHaggai 2:3. Zerubbabel was governor of a colony of Jews sent from Babylon back to Jerusalem 70 years after destruction of Solomon’s temple, to build a new temple. This also was the days of prophets Ezra and Nehemiah. Zerubbabel was builder of this second temple. It was the temple to which Jesus came at His first appearing as a human.
Nehemiah 2:3, the former temple of Solomon was then as nothing compared to its original physical glory. God commands Zerubbabel to be strong and work to build the temple (Nehemiah 2:4). Nehemiah 2:6') goes into a far-future prophecy of a time just before Christ’s Second Coming, when God will shake the earth and shake all nations, and the ‘GLORY OF THIS LATTER HOUSE SHALL BE GREATER THAN OF THE FORMER’ (Nehemiah 2:9). The temple Zerubbabel built of stone, wood and physical materials was nowhere near as glorious as the former temple of Solomon! This is a PROPHECY speaking about the temple to which Christ shall come the second time, in supreme POWER and GLORY—a temple far more glorious than Solomon’s!
To WHAT temple will Christ come very soon now? Are the Jews going to demolish the Moslem temple, Dome of the Rock, which stands on that site now, and build a new super-glorious new temple? NO! Turn to Ephesians 2:19-22. The Church at Ephesus was composed of former gentiles. They are no longer foreign gentiles, but fellow-citizens with the saints—a spiritual NATION. They are also a FAMILY—of the ‘household’ of GOD—the GOD FAMILY. As a BUILDING they are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being chief cornerstone. As a BUILDING, they are fitly framed together (in UNIFIED ORGANIZATION) growing into a HOLY TEMPLE!” (Author’s note: Give special attention to ;in UNIFIED ORGANIZATION.”)
This first segment sets the table for the new understanding to follow. Be sure to stay with the different parts of what Mr. Armstrong connects:
Zerubbabel built the second temple to which Jesus came the first time. John the Baptist prepared the way before the FIRST coming. But WHO was to build the SPIRITUAL temple to which Christ shall soon come the second time? Who was to prepare the way before His Second Coming?
Remember God does things in DUAL stages. As Zerubbabel built the first temple of MATERIAL stone, wood and other materials, he was a forerunner or type of one through whom Christ would raise up or build the SPIRITUAL TEMPLE—His Church of our time, prior to the Day of the Lord and Christ’s Second Coming. As John the Baptist prepared the way, in the PHYSICAL wilderness of the Jordan River for the first coming of the HUMAN Jesus (both man and God), then coming to His MATERIAL temple, and to His PHYSICAL people Judah, ANNOUNCING the Kingdom of God to be set up more than 1,900 years later, SO God would use a human messenger in the SPIRITUAL wilderness of 20th-century religious confusion, to be a voice CRYING OUT the Gospel of the KINGDOM OF GOD, about the SPIRITUAL CHRIST, coming in SUPREME POWER AND GLORY to His SPIRITUAL TEMPLE, to actually ESTABLISH that spiritual KINGDOM OF GOD.
- Brethren, HAS THAT BEEN DONE BY THIS CHURCH?
Did God raise up a one-man LEADERSHIP to be used by Him in building this spiritual TEMPLE and in proclaiming after 1,900 years the true GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD in ALL THE WORLD—to even go to kings and heads of nations (Rev. 10:11)—in bringing the Church back to the FAITH ONCE DELIVERED (Jude 1:3)?
- HAS THIS HAPPENED, IN YOUR DAYS, AND HAS GOD BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS PROPHETIC FULFILLMENT AS A PART OF IT?
- HAS ANYONE ELSE DONE IT?”
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