BH Bulletin - Tuesday 15 December 2020

Thought for the Day by Stephen Demetriou
​(Youth Minister)

​At KO over this past term, we’ve been looking at the early chapters of 1 Kings. One of the things that stands out in those early chapters is the sheer amount of time spent on the preparations for and the building of The Temple.
It is surely one of the high points of the Old Testament, God dwelling amongst His settled people – wow!
There is so much to say about the temple, but I want to focus in on the Inner Sanctuary (Most Holy Place).
  
19 Solomon prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22 So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
1 Kings 8:19-22
 
That’s some nice interior design work there! I mean, it would have been one magnificent room – a perfect cube of gold and if that’s not splendid enough it was home to the ark, the symbol of God’s presence with His people. When the temple is completed God descends in a cloud of glory to the inner sanctuary, almost saying “This inner sanctuary, this is my room, my Holy room!”
Yet as splendid as this Most Holy Place was it was also a reminder of distance… in Israelite worship, only one priest (with all the appropriate sacrifice back up) once a year would be allowed into this Holy Place, into the very room of God. It was a picture of separation…
 
But fast forward to the New Testament, to Revelation 21 and there we get a glimpse of the glorious future awaiting God’s people it’s described in stunning graphic detail:
 
16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. 17 The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
Revelation 21:16-18
 
Our future is described as life within a glorious city…
Our future is described as life within a perfect cube of gold.
Our future is described as life within the Most Holy Place.
 
Wow.
No more separation, no more distance, no more once a year – right up in the very presence of the Lord forever!
Simply breath-taking.
 
Christian, this is your future if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus. This is what His once for all sacrifice on the cross has achieved.
What a reason to praise God today?
 
Stephen

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