The Gate- the four gospels



The Gate

Guarding Our Temple

Our  bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  We are to guard our Temple and not fall asleep.  Our adversary the devil seeks whom he may devour.  He schemed and plotted to deceive Adam and Eve in the garden.  He made the fruit look better than what they had.  God is perfect, His work is perfect, he made it to look better than what it was.  Today, many people are committing adultery.  Even  preachers are being deceived that sex is better with another than their own wives.  The grass is not greener on the other side.  It is only made to look better. The  Temple gates were to be guarded at all times, lest the enemy come in and the keeper be put to shame.  

He was to be stripped naked to bring shame on the watchman, if the enemy came in.  That is what happened to Adam and Eve.  They were naked because the glory of the Lord departed.  The body of Christ should watch lest we are stripped of the glory and all the world see our nakedness.  Men are letting down their guard and are not watchmen like they are suppose to be to keep Satan out of their families and homes.   Men and women let's get back praying and seeking God so the walls of this nation be put back up again and our families are safe.  

A lot of times people work with the enemy to allow Satan to come in to kill, steal, and destroy instead of standing against him.  Father's is your family safe? The Temple had five gates that had to be protected.  We have two ears, two eyes and a mouth that needs to be protected.  

Paul said God forbid I sin against you by not praying for you.  Remember people need you to pray for them. Guarding Our Temple

Before the law was written on stone, it had been broken

The children of Israel had told Moses all that the Lord says we will do.  Moses left them and went up the mountain to hear from God.  He delayed in coming back that was all it took for them to go back to Egypt in their hearts. What would it take to cause us to go back?  They proved that their works could never save them. Ours is no better, they won't save us either.


Moses brought back with him the law and the blue print for the Tabernacle.  A picture of things to come.  Jesus would die and shed his blood for the sins of the world.  Jesus answer is to look to the blood.


Their works of righteousness had failed them.  One hand Moses held the law-death in the other hand a picture of the Tabernacle and Jesus blood being shed on the cross-life.  We come as a beggar deserving hell's wrath and ask for mercy.


Romans 4;5 but to him that works not, but believes he is justifier of the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Christ is the Tabernacle

The Tabernacle was a type or figure or picture of things to come.  Christ our high priest by a greater and more perfect tabernacle means his body.  He would not be made of hands.  By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.  For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh.

     How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, pure your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.  Hebrews 9:11-14.  Christ became our Tabernacle, when He went to the cross.  The altar speaks of Him on the Cross.  The Laver speaks of Him as the eternal Word.  The Table of Shewbread shows him as the bread of Life.  The Lamp stand picture of Him as the Light of the World.  He came into a dark world of sin and shown so bright that the world noticed.  He was so different.  He gave the world took.  He came to seek  and save what man had lost.  Man came to take all they could get any way they could get it.  He loved, men hated.  The altar of incense pictured Him as the High Priest  and intercessor.  He prayed and interceded for mankind.  The ark  showed He had all authority and His kingly position.

     The Tabernacle was a picture of Jesus He came down from His heavenly throne to walk among men.  He was the door to Heaven.  The altar became his cross that He lay down His life for us.  He was the table of shewbread.  The bread of life.  He became the golden candlestick that shown in a dark world.  He became the great intercessor for us as He sweat drops of blood for us in the garden of Gethsemane.  He became the mercy seat-come to me and find help in time of need.  The blue pictured Heaven, Jesus came down to bring Heaven to earth.  The scarlet a picture of His blood that would be poured out for humanity. Purple was for royalty, He was the King of Kings.

The Tabernacle Numbers

     The structure of the Tabernacle was held up by sixty columns.  Two ropes supported the columns.  Sixty is the number of the bloodline from Adam to Jesus Christ.  Jesus is revealing information in everything about the Tabernacle.  One hundred and twenty ropes held up the sixty posts.  God gave mankind one hundred and twenty years to get their act together and repent of their sins.  He promised if they didn't the flood would come.  God is laying out pictures in constructing the Tabernacle to teach us Bible lessons.  He is a merciful God that is long suffering not willing that any should perish, but all come to repentance.  Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty years.  God had one hundred and twenty priest blowing one hundred and twenty trumpets.  In the New Testament there are one hundred and twenty in the Upper Room at the day of Pentecost.  All of them received power from on high.  Priest called the ropes the Word and the Spirit both are needed to keep us upright.  Without these two we would get lost in this messed up world.  God is revealing facts and things about Him that should be remembered .  A book reminding us of the past and wisdom for the future.

     Let's pray to be a joy to the heart of God.  Who has been such a joy to us.

    

Today the Tabernacle is Within Us

     If we have trusted Jesus as our Savior, the Tabernacle lives within us.  We are His people and Christ lives within us.  We die inside to the old selfish way of reacting to circumstances and have the mind of Christ.

    Jesus brings us to the brazen altar within and says die to self and live for me.  Take up your cross daily and follow me.  Love the unlovely, pray for them that despitefully use you, and make your life miserable.  Go to the shewbread of my presence and learn of me.  Get what you need and go take it to a lost and dying world.  Feed them around you with the Word of the Living God.  The bread from above will build you up and sustain you.  It will keep you strong, when the pressures around you are trying to pull you down.  Jesus is faithful fasten your soul to Him and to His promises that never changes.  He will carry you through.

Psalms 3:5  I lay down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.   Lord bless us and cause us to be a blessing to all we meet.  Thank you Lord for hearing our prayer.  In Jesus name Amen.

The Way of the Cross

     If we are to go into the Holy of Holies to meet with the Savior, we will go through the way of the cross.  We are to take up our cross and follow Him.  We all like a fuzzy warm loving gospel that is easy and the way is lovely to Heaven.  The true gospel leads to the cross a prepared cross that Jesus has designed for us to carry.  We don't work our way to Heaven, but we are to die to self.  Our will, our way, what we want and take up the way of the Master.  He went before us and bore a cross to pay for our sins, that is not our cross.  We take up our cross to be conformed to be like Him.  We need to die to our flesh, the desires that are wrong, to live for others and not ourselves.

   

  Paul saw the cross before he was saved and kicked against it, but after He embraced Jesus, He took up His cross and followed Him.  Our cross is a specially designed one just for us.  It is tailored made.  Peter and the disciples saw the cross, when Jesus was being crucified and ran in horror from it.  Jonah saw it and knew he would have to love the unlovely.  The people that has killed and so horribly came against his people.  He got a ticket on a boat going another way.  Unless, we love Jesus and have His power working in us the cross will scare us away.  After the power of Pennecost the disciples died for Christ. 

    Hannah was praying in the Temple.  She was caught up in the Spirit and she saw her cross was to leave her very young son at the doorstep of Eli.  He had not raised his children well.  She would have to have faith and pray that he would raise Samuel in the right way.  Our cross will always have to include faith.  If we don't have faith that God will work, we will shrink from it.  The easy way is not the best way.  He will walk with us and carry the heaviest part.  His way is not burdensome if we walk and are one with Him.  If we go alone, it will destroy us.

     God give us faith to believe that your way is best.  

Every believer that came through Tabernacle find the security of eternal life

     The door of the Tabernacle opens to the brazen altar.  By faith the believer finds in the brazen altar everything ever need, for complete salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ.  The pins that held the Tabernacle  were driven deep into the sand of the desert.  The blood of Jesus is all over the Christian and Jesus sees His blood driven deep by love into each of His children.  We enter into Jesus and by His Word beholding His glory.  The seven pieces of furniture help us to behold His glory and what we have in Christ.

      Seven pieces of furniture that is lined up to picture the cross without it, there would be no salvation.  Two pieces in the court yard of the gentiles, three pieces in Holy Place, and two in the Holy of Holies.

      We go to the altar picture of the cross, then we go to the laver of separation from sin and the world.  Leave our old nature behind and everything that would hinder our walk with Christ.  Friends, relatives, and anyone that is not Christ like.  We have fellowship with the body of believers to feed on Christ and to become a part of the body and began to become His hands and feet on the earth.

     We go to the light of the Candlestick and being in His presence causes us to shine the light of Christ to a dark world.  We become the light of the world Matthew 5:14. 

     Next to the Altar of Incense, where we are to pray without ceasing to God for a world lost in sin.  We like Esther, we approach the King with petitions we bring to turn death into life, darkness into light, and day of mourning into a day of rejoicing.  We go before our great King so bring big petitions to Him.  We can change our world through prayer.  More things are wrought by prayer then this world ever dreamed of.  Lord Tennyson. 

     Last we enter through the veil to the Holy of Holies.  We surrender all to Jesus.  The wings of the King of Kings  shelters us the blood sprinkled on the altar keeps us, we find peace, protection, and rest in the arms of Jesus.

     

God's Wash Basin for sin

     The priest came through the door to the Tabernacle to worship and serve Almighty God. He first came to the altar of burnt offering, this was a picture or type of Jesus substitute death for us. A picture of Calvary to go get our sins washed away.  Since Christ is our Tabernacle we are now in Christ.  The priest is a type of the believer.  The believer takes the next step to the laver or the wash basin.  They go back to this laver many times during the day to be washed from the defilement of the world.  We need to stay close to Jesus to keep ourselves clean and ready for Jesus when He comes.  The new believer goes deeper into Christ until he has complete victory and is resting in the or underneath the shekinah glory in the holy of holies  

      We are to walk everyday carefully through this world so the light of Jesus will be seen amidst the darkness of this world to draw people to the cross to be forever changed.  The glory of God will set us apart and draw people to Jesus.  Let your light shine brightly every day

Peace

        The new cross says you can live any way you want to and you will be accepted.  The old cross says come to Christ to the cross and die to yourself and take up your cross and follow me.  We lay our sins at the cross and ask us to live through us, so we become a new creation in Christ the old passes away the new begins.

Are we commanding Jesus or obeying Him.

Everywhere Jesus went was filled with tension.  His disciples were grasping for positions.  Who would sit on his left and right hand.   James and John's Mother truly thought her sons should be the privileged. 

   Jesus come off a preaching tour with the disciples and stopped in at Mary and Martha's for some time to relax and discuss the fact that He would be leaving them soon.  It was close to dinner time and Martha concerned with too many mouths to feed and not enough time to prepare.  She became distracted and couldn't hear what Jesus had to say.  She forgot He had fed thousands without her help.  First she got distracted, then she got angry with Mary for not helping, and started telling Jesus what to do.  Jesus shows us a picture of Martha's soul.  We will do the same and worse while being distracted.

    Jesus was at Simon's house.  He was not treated as an honored guest.  Simon didn't wash Jesus feet.  When the woman came with the bottle of expensive perfume and began to wash Jesus feet.  She didn't have water so she washed them with her tears.  She didn't have a towel so she dried them with her hair.  She anointed Jesus with very expensive perfume for his burial.  Simon and the others objected.  Why waste this perfume?  Why wasn't it sold to make money for the poor?  Jesus was always giving.  The one time someone did something special for Jesus, it started an argument.  We don't think of how we grieve Jesus.  How they must have regretted their words later.  We see right into the men's souls and it is not pretty.

     The disciples so distracted by sleep and weariness didn't watch and pray.  Distractions are everywhere in our lives.  What are they keeping us from?  When we get distracted we do foolish things.  We get our eyes off Jesus and worry fills our minds.

     Everywhere from every angle we look at the cross was wounds.  Love poured out from every wound.  People see a picture of our soul.  What are they seeing?

High cost we pay for distractions

     Distractions are causing havoc on our bodies.  Our society is plagued with depression, tension, ulcers, and panic attacks.  The high cost of not resting, being anxious and loaded with care  The Bible instructs us to cast our care upon the Lord.  

     

      Jesus and His disciples came to Mary and Martha's house which he often visited.  He went there to get some r and r.  Rest and recover from His being pressed by people.  It was nearing the end of Jesus ministry on earth.  The cross was coming and the end of Him coming on a personal visit to His friend's home.  He wanted to tell them what was ahead.   Martha seeing it was close to supper time and so many people to feed she got distracted with too many meals to fix.  Jesus had fed thousands was sitting there wanting to talk.  She forgot all about Him being the Lord and began stewing over dinner.  In her distraction she got so angry over Mary not helping her that she began to call her sister, instead of Mary.  She is so upset she begins to command Jesus what to do.  Jesus calls her back to the heart of the matter.  One thing is needed, keep your eyes on me. 

Jesus said I am meek, and lowly and you will find rest for your soul.  The master of the sea can still master us, if we will keep our eyes on Him.  Remind me Lord your hands are a big cradle that can hold me safe as I travel through life.  He will keep you in perfect peace who's mind is stayed on HIM.  A visit back to the Tabernacle to the mercy seat to find grace to help in time of need.

Are you inside the Tabernacle or on the outside?

     Many people have come to Jesus to look in the mirror and see their sins.  Some have gotten saved, but refuse to live for God.  Many never go any further than the outer court.  Their sins are washed away, but have no real relationship with God. 

     If we are not willing to spend time with God read His Word or pray.  We will go backwards and lose any close fellowship with God.  If we are not willing to pay the price to know more than a head knowledge of God.  You will eventually drift away from Christ.  So many Christians are content to know that they are forgiven.  We are in danger of following Christ for awhile only to allow trials, hardship, or carelessness to cause us to grow cold and go away from the things of God. 

     Have we forgotten who we are in Christ?  To stop short of the Holy of Holiness and having fellowship with Jesus is to forfeit joy, peace, and have a fellowship that only Christ can bring. 

Not to reach your potential in Christ is to forfeit knowing Christ and His power in your life, but forfeit rewards in the life to come.  You will eventually be like the early Christians that went back living like the world and became entangled in it.  Our hearts can become hard and  calloused toward the things of God.  We can learn a lot of facts about the Bible, but not have the relationship that God so desires.  God loves us and wants to have a relationship with you.  We are family.  Come to God's table and feast on the riches of His grace.  Spending time with Him keeps us washed up and set apart for His glory.  Let's keep growing in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior and doing His will.  May we be washed and ready to meet Him, so we won't be ashamed at His appearing.  Soon and very soon we shall see the King.  I Corinthians 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth  all things, endureth all things.

     Keep going soon and very soon we shall see the King.

Happy Valentines Day

         Are we a safe place for a soul to trust or do they have to be on guard? Do you bless or hurt another fellow Christian?.  These things should not be.  Love does no wrong to another always builds up never tears down.  Are you a blessing or a curse to others.  Love never seeks the harm of others.                                   

Under His Shadow

How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! 

Therefore the children of men

put their trust under the shadow

of Your wings.  Ps.36:7

     All of us need to know that we are loved.  Love from others can turn our darkest moments into ones of joy.  To know we are loved by our Creator, however, brings a joy that will last forever.

     One definition of the word " shadow" is an inseparable companion.  To think that God is our inseparable companion, protecting us beneath the "shadow of His wings," enables us to soar above all the heartaches, the pain, the everyday stress that confronts us  We are not alone.  We are loved.

       God is the presence, warm, all enfolding,

       touching the drab world into brilliance,

       lifting the sad heart into               song,                                               

       indescribable, beyond understanding,

       yet by a bird's note, a chord of music,

        a light at sunset, a sudden movement of rapt insight,

        a touch of love, making the whole universe

        a safe home for the soul.

              an early Christian

Two rooms- Tabernacle

     The holy place was the larger of the two rooms.  It housed three pieces of furniture; the table of shewbread .  The bread of His presence, or the dining table on the north side.  The lamp or golden lamp stand on the south side.  A little further back was the altar of incense.  In the smaller room called the holy o holies was the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.

     There were seven pieces of furniture throughout the Tabernacle which speaks of the perfection of Christ.  Every part of the building, each piece of furniture speaks of the perfection and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It was a meeting place with God, who was our Tabernacle.  Now Christ lives in us and we commune with Him at any time or any place for He is in us.  Through the person and work of the Holy Spirit.  He came to live inside the believer at Penecost.  The furniture laid out a perfect picture of the cross.  We need to go to the cross for forgiveness for our sins.  Ask for forgiveness for our sins and let the water of His Word, the laver, wash away our sins.  The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins.  Jesus was picturing for us Calvary in the Old Testament.  Jesus the Messiah would come to die on the cross for our sins.  The furniture was all of the finest gold.  The curtains and hangings for the Tabernacle was made of the most exquisite needle work made of white linen with purple, blue, and scarlet colors in it.   The purple spoke of His royalty.  He was King Of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Blue represents Heaven, He was Heaven's gift to men.  Scarlet was for the blood that would be shed on Calvary. He came to die.

     Have we been to the Holy of Holies to find grace to help in time of need?  Did we drop our burdens at the feet of Jesus and leave them there or did we pick them back up on the way out.  Take your burdens to the cross and leave them there.

The Brazen Altar had four sides to it.  One side offered  the sins we committed were passed away.  The next side was the sins of our old nature was made new.  If any man be in Christ the past is washed away and he becomes a new creation in Christ.  All things become new.

  II Cor.5:17 Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation old things are passed away; behold, all things become new.  Our wills are to exchanged for not my will but yours, when we come to Christ. 

Rom. 6:6  Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

The third side of the altar is a picture of the hold of sin being broken off of us.  All things are to become new.  We have victory over the sins of the flesh.  Sin should not reign over us, but we should reign over sin.  Sin is to be put to death.  Our will's given over to His.

Fourth horn of the altar is a picture of us giving our lives to God.  We are not to live after the flesh that brings forth death, but to be transformed or made anew by the power of God inside of us.  Romans 6:10-12.  

   

  We come to the cross and He puts our sins away by His own blood.  When, we ask Him to come into our heart and be our Savior.  We die to sin and walk in a new way.  Every day we go back to the cross not to get forgiveness, but to lay our will on the cross and do His will. 

  

   The four corners or horns on the altar represents the world.  We are to do our part in winning a lost world to Jesus.  We start where we are with telling our neighbors, friends, classmates, or family about the blood of Jesus that takes away the sins of the world.  We must all come to the cross to be saved from God's wrath poured out on sin.

     

    Have we died to sin and come alive in Christ.  The flesh in us will drive people away from Christ.

God's presence in His people

     The purpose for the Tabernacle was for God's presence to dwell among them.  Our body is God's tabernacle today and He wants to dwell supreme in us.  "Let my people construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them"  Ex. 25:8.  God wants us to yearn to know Him like David did.  For our hearts to pant after our wonderful Lord.  Where the deep in us calls to know the deep in God. 

    This life lived in harmony with God is a peaceful, powerful, and overcoming life that God intended for us to know.  We are to make an impact in the world in which we live.  The harassed, busy, stressful lives, we live reveals little of God to a lost world that is dying for lack of knowing Him.  I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old.  When we open our mouths does it reveal God to them to whom we speak.

     God has made us with a desire to know Him and to worship.  Restlessness, tension,and fear takes the place of knowing Him.  So we are paying a high price for not knowing Him.

     Let's make it our priority to know Him.  The peace we often forfeit and the pain we bear, for not knowing Him and the resurrection power.  Only He can give us, when all is placed on the altar.  When Queen Esther was willing to lose her life if necessary to fit into God's plan for her.  She went to the King and the King said, I will give your request even to half of the kingdom.  Mordecai and Esther stood up for God and changed the course of History.  They sent out letters with the King's seal on them that Purim should be kept every year among the Jews.   They changed the word Pur, a day of mourning, the Jews would be killed.  To the word Purim a day of gladness, and great joy,  The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor.  God can do the same for us and our nation, if we will humble ourselves and pray.

Tabernacle

     The Wilderness Tabernacle had only one gate.   Solomon's Temple was much larger and had five gates.  Our bodies have five ways that outside influences can enter into our bodies to defile.  The eyes are an avenue that Satan can use to get us to sin.  Job said he had made a covenant with his eyes that he not look on a maiden.  He was not going to look twice at a woman, so temptation wouldn't get the best of him.  Our nose can cause us to smell something that will take us back to an incident that happened many years ago.  Perfume is a powerful scent that attracts us.  Be careful that we be led astray by our senses.  The mouth is a powerful tool for good or bad.  We can build up or destroy.  A woman can lure a man through her deceitful speech.   A tongue can be as powerful as a weapon used in the wrong way.  Ears can hear good or evil.  What you hear can keep you awake at night, bring terror, or bring lovely music to your soul.   Satan uses music to persuade our youth to betray  their parents.  Our feet are gates to our soul.  We can use them to the house of worship or to the bars to drink.  Let's use our senses to inspire us to draw near to God.

    The Priest in the Old Testament opened the gates and kept watch over them that no enemy be allowed to enter.  God has made us as body of Christ to be priest.  We are to keep a diligent watch over these bodies that God has loaned us for awhile.  If evil came into the gates of the Temple there were severe consequences.  The Priest was dishonored.  He was stripped naked and beaten.  There are severe consequences for us letting sin into our bodies.  Every negative thought brings death to some part of us.  Positive thoughts brings life, light, and peace.  Sin reigning in our bodies brings spiritual death. 

     Let's possess our bodies with God's honor in mind.   Close the gates of your body to keep the enemy of our soul's out.

     Keep ourselves unspotted from the world.  When, He comes we won't shrink back and be ashamed.  God has given us the whole armor of God to ward off all of Satan's attacks.  Leave off one armor and we are open to a vicious attack of the enemy.