Destroy This Temple

Welcome to Verse by Verse. Thank you so much for joining us as we take a look at the book of Acts. We take things nice and slowly as we look and see what God is doing in the big picture of expanding the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. My name is David Humphrey, and I'm the pastoral care and missions pastor here at United City Church in Humboldt, Texas. We're excited to be your church family while you're incarcerated, but we're gonna be even more excited when you get out and you can come and be a part of our church in person. We love you very much. Please grab your Bible and a journal, perhaps a pen, and be ready to take some notes and let's learn together through the book of Acts. Awesome, okay. So tonight, I wanna remind you where we are, as if you didn't already know. If you've been around, you know, we're still in Acts chapter seven, and we've got a few more probably maybe, I'm guessing maybe this week and next week to go on that. But we've been talking about Stephen, and so I always like to give us a good review so nobody is lost on everything that we know about Stephen so far.

Stephen was introduced to us in Acts chapter six, okay? So that feels like a long time ago for this group, but it's really not that long ago. And he was introduced as a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. And he was chosen by who? As one of the first seven servants. If I remember, who would be the people that were choosing these guys? Disciples. Yeah, the disciples. And we would call them by this time, apostles, which just means they were just church leaders, but they were the men who had walked face-to-face with Jesus, okay? So when you hear apostles and disciples, there's like the 12 disciples, which of course later became 11, and then we added another one on there. But there's the larger group, just disciples, just followers of Jesus, then you've got the disciples and you've got the apostles. And I remember there was a time in my life I didn't really know who all the people were, but the apostles and the disciples are the same people because they just walked with him. So they were the ones that chose all of these different men at seven, actually back in Acts chapter six, and Stephen was one of them.

But Stephen is the one that we get the most stories about. We're gonna, we have all of chapter seven with him. And of course, if you've read the end of the chapter, that's all we have, okay? Because he goes to heaven and then we don't hear from him anymore. But we'll get to that, just probably not tonight. But I love verse 10 of Acts chapter six. And I would love for someone to read what it said about the religious leaders regarding Stephen. I think it's chapter six. Let me make sure I'm in the right spot. No, no, no, it's chapter seven. No, it's not, but here's what it says. I'm trying to find it. No, it was chapter six, verse 10. I thought it was six, verse eight. They could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. That's a good word right there. When you are speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit, you're not just leaning into, well, I'm smart, or I've got good ideas. There's just not a lot of coming against the power of the Holy Spirit. So we all know Stephen ends up on trial, much like Jesus. Stephen is quiet through most of his trial. Much like Jesus, he finally speaks up when questioned directly by his accusers.

Do you remember what they accused him of? What did they accuse Stephen of? Blasphemies against Moses. Yeah, against Moses and God. Basically, they're like, you're constantly telling people that Jesus said he destroyed the temple and the customs handed down by Moses. He just sits there looking like an angel. Until the highest religious leader in the land, that was the high priest, says, are these things so? I kind of think Stephen goes, well, I just thought you'd never ask, right? It's kind of like, oh, is this my cue? And then he launches out into this really powerful message that we've been working our way through. I see the message as really telling the big story of the Bible in four sections, kind of, if you want to use a musical term, four movements, right? He's got the Abraham movement. He's got the Joseph movement. He's got the Moses movement, then the tabernacle, the temple, where we're gonna spend our time in these last two tonight, because we really are gonna wrap up this Moses section tonight. We have mentioned, just as a way of review, how interesting it is that God divided Moses' life in the way that he did, okay? Remember, there's three 40-year sections in Moses' life.

If only our own lives, right, were as divided as perfectly equally into that, we would kind of know what was coming. But I don't think Moses knew that. But three months old to 40. Where was Moses? He was in Egypt. Yeah, he was in Egypt. He was being raised and grown up in Pharaoh's house Which is a story all to itself and then at age 40 He gets afraid, right? Because he killed somebody Because he was trying to defend his people and so he takes off he goes on his own personal exile in Midian and Then during that time remember he gets a wife and he gets some kids And of course this whole family unit that that came about so that's age 40 to age 80. What happened at age 80? The burning bush. God's like, okay now We got some big we got big stuff for you to do Moses Actually God's like well, I've got big stuff to do but I'm sending you to do it and he's like, oh Well, okay. So then some so you've got Pharaoh's house the first 40 years second 40 years. He's in Midian third 40 years It's when he is leading the Israelites, right? He led them, of course through the Exodus I mean, you know Pharaoh plagues Exodus the whole thing then they get out of the wilderness and things start going Terribly, so you guys you guys know that but I was as I was thinking about this You guys know how much I love the larger timeline of the Bible and I was thinking you know That really is interesting the whole 40 year 40 year 40 year thing As it turns out when you actually look at the bigger timeline of the Bible. That's really nothing It's way more organized than that. And so I actually have a visual tonight Do you see I have a visual behind me? Look at this guys I've actually got this and I want to fill a couple of things in here because this was interesting to me So if you look at Adam to Abraham

Okay, is there anybody who without looking in their Bible can knows how many generations there are from Adam to Abraham No parties Excellent Land point So there's 20 generations from Adam to Abraham that represent 2,000 years, okay 20 generations 2,000 years it gets even more interesting How much do you say how many generations do you think there are between Abraham and Jesus 20. Oh what made you guess? Abraham to Jesus we got 20 generations and we've got 2,000 years Well, let's skip down just a few minute how many years roughly are we saying between Jesus and the present Oh Do you see a pattern here friends God is very orderly and everything. He does there's actually also not only this this 2,000 years But about 20 generations Wow There's more if you look at math Well, let's just let's back it up between Adam to Abraham and Abraham to Jesus Adam to Noah Yes, how many? Let's just think about rumors. We've only got three word with it. Of course Ten generations how many of things know what Abraham we can do bad, right? We got basic Ten generations know what Abraham now the numbers change a little bit when we look at Abraham to Jesus Okay, and I've got I got something wrong in here, but let's this is gonna make sense in just a sec Okay, so the 2,000 years is exactly right. This part is what's not right. It's not 20 generations here it's actually 42 I'm telling you how that works out. How many generations are there from Abraham to David by the way? Did you find this information in?

Matthew Chapter 1 1 to 16 knows a genealogy using a Matthew That divides up his Abraham to to this this period here Abraham to David. How many generations you think there's gonna be? Well, where should I only to invite about 3 14 from David to Babylon 14 Babylon to Jesus Do you think our God is a God of order? He does everything exactly when he plans to do it and history is on his timeline not on ours So, I don't know if that blesses you but it really blesses me. It just reminds me. Oh our God He's just got everything completely in control. It also makes me really eager for the return of Christ because I kind of feel like Wait, I'm not like it. We got a pattern go in here, 2000, 2000, 2000, who's to say? Only Jesus. Only God. Only God, really, because Jesus doesn't even know when he's coming back. But the Father knows, and he'll tell the Son when it's time. So anyway, I just found that super encouraging and super interesting. So you can just kind of, you can look that up, I promise you'll find that that it's all true. Yes, Greg? There's another age at the end, a thousand years. Yes? Where's the a thousand? And so you add all those together and you have seven thousand years. Two, two, two, two, and a thousand. So what's the last thousand for, Greg? Tell us. The kingdom of Christ. Mm-hmm. Will reign with Jesus. That's known as the millennial reign, the thousand-year reign of Christ, and when you add all those together, the two thousand plus two thousand plus two thousand plus one thousand equals seven thousand. Then you remember one day is a thousand years. Creation was seven days, so you could say seven thousand years. That's right, lots of numbers. We're just kind of scratching the surface here, and we could, we could really go down that rabbit hole a lot deeper, but I just thought, I just want to go down there for just a minute. Yes, Dave? You know, going back to Acts 6, 10, I, every time I read this, but they could not stand up to his wisdom, talking about Steven's wit, and that's a lot of what was said that Jesus, when he was 12 years old. Yes, it is. He was talking to the same people, probably, and they just couldn't, they couldn't grasp it, which. Yeah, and not even just when he was 11 or

12 years old, right? It was also throughout his whole life, right? He would just stump people all the time. He would say this, and they're just like, yeah, I don't know what to do with that, right? He just, he just would kind of lead them with their, with their jaws dropped. So what I want us to do is, I want us to head back into the scripture now, and I want us to read, we're gonna pick up, we've read this before, of course, but I want us to pick up with verse 37 of chapter 7 of Acts. This is toward the end of the Moses movement, or the Moses section, and so we're just gonna read through this, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about it, and specifically as we get towards this idea of exile, which we just scratched the surface on last week. So basically, we'll start in verse 37 of Acts chapter 7. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away, and gave them over to the worship the host of heaven. As it is written in the book of the prophets, did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of your God Rephan, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. Now again, when we look at the story of Moses, we have to remember that when he fled Pharaoh's house, he went into his own personal exile, right? He kind of created that one for himself, as it were. That's when we got the wife and the kids, then comes the burning bush, and God's call to Moses at the at the age of 80, and we know with the rest. But then comes this section that we're that we're gonna look at tonight, a little bit about this kind of this final thing that he talks about with Moses. And verse 37 is very, very

important, because if you look at what Moses points ahead to, Moses says, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. So we mentioned this last week, but who is the prophet that Moses is pointing to? He's pointing to Jesus. Now obviously, Stephen did not say everything there was to say about Moses. He didn't tell the whole story of Moses in this. He chose certain things to say, certain things to leave out, but it was very important that he chooses that statement for the purpose of this particular argument, as it were, that he is making. Why did he need to link Moses with Jesus? Yeah, they trusted Moses more than Jesus, so that's super important, yes. I think it's because of that very thing. They trusted in Moses and they liked all of his laws and all the things that were coming down that God gave him, and they're like, what Stephen's trying to say is that Moses, you know, this Moses, he saw Jesus coming. He saw, he knew God was going to raise up a prophet like him from among his people. So what he's trying to do, remember, it's like this whole speech is not Stephen trying to prove his point. He's trying to implore them to believe in Jesus. He wants them to have the life that he has. And so you look at what it says about Moses next, verse 38, very next sentence, what does he say about Moses there? This Moses did what? Verse 38. God spoke to him. And then we know the most famous thing that he got from God speaking to him, the living oracles he's speaking to, what's he speaking about? It's the Ten Commandments, right? It's like God wrote, gave him living oracles, right? Literally gave him two tablets, not like where we have tablets, right? Two tablets written in stone with the finger of God saying, these are the ten, like this

is the basics. This is kind of like the skeleton of all of the other commandments. And then of course, Jesus narrowed the skeleton of ten down to two, which is what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets can be summed up in those two things. Now we also know, so Jesus says that's everything summed up in those two, kind of break it a little further than you got the ten, and then you got all the laws, right? All that boring stuff about blood and leprosy and all the things that you see in the rest of the law, all the ritual things. So basically what you see here is they're trying to point to who Moses was. This is the one. He was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him. He received living oracles to give to us. You notice he says with our fathers. Stephen is not trying to say I'm apart from you, trying to say I'm one of you, and I believe in this Messiah who came. So then he says, he brings up this whole terrible story about Aaron, right? And really, well, a little bit before that, let's not forget this, Moses, much like Jesus, was a servant despised and rejected by his people. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Then he goes into the whole thing about Moses's own brother, whose name was Aaron. Think about, I mean, Aaron, guys, this is not some random Israelite that did this cast. This is Aaron. Where was Aaron when Moses was speaking up to Pharaoh and saying, let my people go? He's right there. Like, this is his main guy. And Aaron is the one who betrayed him. Wait, does that sound familiar? Your main guy betrays you at your tough hour, right?

You see the parallels between Moses and Jesus, like they just never end. It's just nonstop. So it's like Moses's right hand guy, his brother, sold him out and led the people into idolatry. Guys, this was just terrible departure. Then you look at verses 42 and 43. This is such a tragic couple of verses here from the prophets. Says then, well, let's look back at verse 42, the beginning part. God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven. What does that mean? God turned away and gave them over. What's that mean? It's like funny to me, you're going to do it, then you're going to get punished for it. Yeah. And some of us with our kids have been like, okay, just go try that. Let me know how that goes. Right. And I feel like that's what the father's saying. He's like, okay, you want to worship those guys? All right. You're going to get what those guys have to offer. And so that's what happened here. God gave them over to worship who and what they wanted. You see, our God does not hold us under his, you know, some sort of a captivity where we have to do. No. We're free. We're free agents, right? Free will. Free. Which even underneath God's sovereignty, there is free will, and that's an amazing, amazing thing. So if you start to look at this, in this last little section here, he goes down into verse 43. Of course, he's talking about what the prophet said,

and then he says, I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. Now, we mentioned this just briefly last week, and I want us to hit just a little bit more on this theme of exile, because the theme of exile is cover to cover in the Bible, okay? We've already said Moses had his own little exile, and then the children of Israel were in exile. Well, guys, we've just got this happens over and over and over. I want us to start in Genesis chapter 3. Let's think about the first exile. You know it. You don't have to go there. Who got sent into exile, right? Adam and Eve. They had been given a beautiful, abundant garden land by God. They were to tend and care for it, follow under his rule, and when they didn't, the result was exile. We don't want to do it your way. We want to do it our way. We've got some other better plans, and so God says, okay, see how that goes. You're going to miss out on this little beautiful land that I've given you, because you want to go your own way. So, the reason for the exile of Adam and Eve was what? It was because of their sin, but what purpose did it serve in the plan of God? They wanted to be like God. They wanted to be like God. I think the purpose was for them to go out there and realize that none of this satisfies them. That's what the exile purpose is. You think about Matthew chapter 15. You might think this is a really strange connection point. I want you to think about this. Matthew chapter 15 is about church discipline. It actually talks about if you've got a problem with somebody, somebody sins against you, you go straight to them. If that does not get resolved, you take another person with you. If that doesn't get it resolved, you bring it before the church, and if that doesn't get it resolved, they're cast out of the church. That's exile. What's the purpose? Is it so that we can say, bad, bad, bad, you're a bad person. We want you to be. No, it's for them to miss out on the experience of the community and to want to get back in. That's why God allows us to go off into and worship whatever it is we want to worship, so we'll realize it's totally empty and the only real life is within the garden. God actually wants us back in the garden, back in the family, back in relationship. So the purpose of the punishment, if you think about it in church discipline, is not for the punishment itself. The desire is for restoration, for them to come to the end of themselves and realize, oh, like you said, oh, that wasn't so bad after all. I miss the fellowship. I miss the relationships that I had. So it's this whole picture of exile. Well, you can see the exile in Babylon follows the same pattern.

They were given a beautiful and abundant land that they called the what land? The promised land. There they are. Were they satisfied in the promised land? No, they're never satisfied, right? Sounds familiar, right? They weren't satisfied. They turned their hearts away from God. So God's like, oh, you want to worship those guys? Okay. See how that goes for you. And before we know it, the result was exile. And the hope of the exile was that they would learn that God is enough and everything that the world has to offer is empty and it's meaningless. So there's another kind of an interesting parallel here that you don't always notice about the Babylonian exile. So the sad Genesis exile story of that first few chapters of Genesis sort of ends, as it were, in chapter 11 with this tower that's called the Tower of Babel. And at the Tower of Babel, they're all so excited that we're going to build a tower for ourselves and we're going to reach God. And then God's like, well, no, not exactly. And I'm going to spread you out all over the earth and you're going to speak all these different languages. And then chapter 12, Abram. So then we start this whole new You see the pattern that we've got back here. Then Abram shows up. Well, I'm not sure if you ever knew this, but Babel is later known as Babylon, and that's where they go into exile. In this type of, you see how it all just kind of cycles around? You're like, oh, okay. And the exile of the Israelites was how many years? 70 years. It was a 70-year exile. Again, just the order and just the incredible timeline that God has set up. So, one of the things that I think is important for us to remember, because we're not in exile as it were, like we're here on earth under some punishment because, yeah, we're here because we've done wrong, per se. God put us on earth. However, we, who are children of God, have a citizenship that is not on earth, right? Somebody read, if you would, Philippians chapter 3 verse 20. Some of you probably just memorized it, but somebody read Philippians 3 20. And then somebody else go to Hebrews 11 verse 10. These two verses really tied together. I just want to just look at these two verses real quick before we sort of end this quick little exile section. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Right. So, in one sense, we are in exile here. In the sense that we are not in our homeland. That's why we don't fit in in this

culture that we're in. That's why we preach sermons like we preached on Sunday to cast the vision of what it's meant to be. This is the way the God of the Bible has laid out relationships. This is how heaven sees what relationships are for and their purpose. We have to cast this vision because we live in our own Babylon, right? And in our own Babylon, they're casting a very different vision. And if we're not careful as Christians, we just fall into the vision of Babylon, where we live. But that's not who we are. Would somebody read Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 10? Hebrews chapter 11 is the fake whole thing. He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, the dishonor, and filled it with scum. Yes. Who was it speaking of right there? You can look back to verse 9. I think it was Abram, wasn't it? Abraham? Yeah. You see what it was saying about Abraham? Even he did not consider that the world was his home. He was looking to a city whose foundation and builder is God. So see, Abraham had a heavenly mindset as he traversed on the earth. And that's what we're to do. We're supposed to have like a pilgrim mindset. You know where we've talked about over and over, there's three groups of people that God tells us that we're to take really special care of? Orphans, widows, and sojourners. Part of the sojourner thing is to remind you that you're a sojourner. Because a sojourner or an immigrant is in a land that is not their place. So they don't have all the rights and they don't really understand the culture. Well, we're sojourners in this land. We're just passing through. This is not our place. We're not home yet. We're just on our way through. So all of those are related to the whole thing about exile, and I think that's a beautiful way for us to remember who we are. Anybody else have a question or a thought on exile before we go back into Acts chapter 7 verse 44? All right, great. Acts 7, 44. We're moving into the tabernacle to temple movement. All right, so let's take a look at Acts 7, 44 through 50. Our fathers, again you see him, our fathers, he's relating to them, had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it. According to the pattern that he had seen, our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the

nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. "'What kind of house will you build for me?' says the Lord. "'Or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?'' Okay, so I want us to kind of dive into this and see why is Stephen bringing this up at this time. Again, remember, he's telling the big story of Scripture, and he's not telling every story. He's weaving the important ones together that are making a couple of specific points. He's already pointed to Abraham, he's pointed to Joseph, he's pointed to Moses. We have looked at every one of them and how they were all forerunners of Jesus, like every one of them were pointing us ahead to Jesus, foreshadowing his coming by their lives. Now he's actually getting to the point that they accused him of. Remember, we talked about this early tonight. The thing that the high priest is accusing him of is sharing that Jesus made these statements that he's going to tear down the temple and the traditions of Moses. Remember? That's where we started this whole thing. Now he's built the whole thing, he's built the case, and now we're going to sort of put the final argument in as to how this all fits together. Look at verse 44. Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness. Now that's a weird title for something that you know of. What is he speaking of, the tent of witness? That's the tabernacle, okay? Now sometimes you might have heard of buildings, even in modern days it might be called a tabernacle. The tabernacle in the Bible is the tent.

God gave Moses very specific instructions, build the tent, and this is where the glory of God is going to come down, and the Holy of Holies, and the Ark of the Covenant, and all that stuff. You can find that in, where is it, Exodus, and I think it's Exodus, where God gives Moses these very specific instructions, which he points to right here. This tent in the wilderness, as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it. Remember, God said, Moses, it's got to be this many cubits this wide, and this many cubits tall, and all of these things, and all of these curtains, and all these very specific things. And if you look at the tent of witness, or the tabernacle, you're actually going to find it is supposed to be a reminder of Eden. A lot of pomegranates, a lot of flowers, a lot of stuff that's kind of like garden motif, alright? Tabernacle, and the temple just makes it even more of a garden motif, okay? So there you go. So basically what you've got is, they're saying, look, God gave Moses the way for us to meet with him. Now we're going to start meeting in the tent of witness, or the tabernacle. In other words, God gave a pattern, that's what he was to do. Then he goes on, and now we're down to Moses' successor, who was who? Who came after Moses? Joshua. Okay? Again, I know some of you are like, oh yeah, that's right, that's right, it was. Moses passed the torch to Joshua. Moses didn't get to go where? In the promised land. Joshua's the one that led him through in the battle of Jericho, and the whole thing. Y'all remember the story, some of you guys. Putting it all together is kind of the thing that makes it really, really interesting.

So you've got Joshua, Moses' successor, who's the one that took them into the promised land for the exile, and it says that they brought it in with them when they dispossessed the nation. What was the it of verse 45 that they brought in? The tabernacle. Yeah, it's like, oh, that was not yet, we brought him on into the promised land. This was important. This was the meeting place. This was the place where God dwelt with them, okay? So he says, verse 45, our fathers in turn brought that tabernacle in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David. Now, you see, he's kind of speeding things up here. You notice this? Like, he's like, okay, it's time to, we got to keep moving. So now he's already to David, okay, and you can see the timeline right back here, how we get through this thing. Adam to Abraham, Abraham to Jesus. Between the Abraham and Jesus is where David fits in, right? Abraham to David, 14 generations. So that's what just passed in that one sentence right there, okay? 14 generations, just like that, okay? And it says they wanted, God wanted them to bring their worship of their God into the new lands. That's why they brought the tabernacle in. Like you're in a new place, but keep worshiping me. I'm the same God no matter where you are. So that's what he said. So that's why they brought it in when they dispossessed the nations. So it says, verse 46, basically, David still had the tabernacle and David really wanted

something more permanent. Y'all remember that? What did David want to build? Temple. He wanted to build a temple. And what did God say? Nope. Random. Yeah, you're a man of war. Kind of like with Moses. Moses wanted to go in the promised land. What did God say? Nope. You don't get to do that because you struck the rock. Right? So there's all these reasons. And he's not building. Right, and exactly which is the point that he's about to make. So David wanted something really permanent for God. God wouldn't let him. But then God did let who? Solomon. His son. Solomon whose mom was? Bathsheba. Yeah, you know the whole really bad story? I don't. Well then there's Solomon who came, comes as a result of that. So God does some great things. And then this is the Solomon that we're studying his favorite song. His song of the songs of songs, the very best one. That's Solomon. The other one with all the wives and all the whole thing. Yeah, that's the one. As I love how Pastor Chris put it last Sunday, right? God has never shied away from speaking perfect truth through imperfect vessels. And I can assure you Solomon was a very imperfect vessel. But look at the argument of verse 48. This is also interesting to me. So Solomon did build this house and yet. Somebody read verse 48. Child is not to dwell in houses made by hand. What? So why did God tell Solomon I want you to build me this fantastic magnificent house. And this time guys it's not a tent. They're not taking the temple with them anywhere. Now he actually builds like a real legit, like we're putting down a foundation here. This thing's not going anywhere. Until it did. Right? It's like you think it's not going anywhere. But actually it is, which is a whole another point that we're gonna get to in just a second. This is where it gets really interesting. So basically God says, okay Solomon I want you to build me a house. Except that the most high doesn't dwell in houses made by hand. So it wasn't a house for him to dwell in permanently. Okay? Because verse 49 and verse 50. Heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. Like you're gonna build something on my footstool. It's basically what he's saying. Okay? You're

gonna build a little house. It's gonna be cute. You're gonna give all your best stuff to it. You know millions I'm sure of dollars worth of gold and all this stuff. That's just like a little drop in the bucket. I mean you think God was like wow. Oh man I've never had a house so nice. It's ridiculous right? I mean God doesn't live in a house. God was not like. Yeah exactly. So they were being obedient. Doing exactly what they called him to. But look we get here. We've got Joshua. Then we got David. Couldn't build it. Solomon had the privilege of building it. Except that the most high doesn't dwell in man-made houses. Not simple ones. Not fancy ones. Where does? Have a place to worship. It was. It was made as a permanent structure. A semi-permanent we should say. Right? For people to go and worship God. And that was the plan. He wanted a a fixed spot in one location on planet earth for them to to come in to worship. However it was not the place for him to dwell. So I want us to. I want us to see this really clearly because. Yeah because that he's trying to make this point here. He built the beautiful temple. But heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. What kind of house are you gonna build for me? Says the Lord. What is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things? Like God is actually asking rhetorical questions here. It's like. Do you really think this is my house? No these don't limit me. Basically what you can see here is. I have already. I think God is saying. I've already built myself a house. It's not made with human hands. And it's not even just the earth as it was. Let's let's let's dial this back and see if we can kind of wrap this up. Because I want you to see this before we go. They're actually upset when they accused Stephen. They're upset about what Jesus said in John chapter 2. We're not gonna read the whole thing. But let me suffice it to say John chapter 2 is Jesus coming out of the gate cleansing the temple. John is the only one of the gospel writers who said he braided a whip of cords. Like go back and read that guys. It is a very clear picture of what Jesus is doing. And when he breaks in there and he's turning over the tables and he's getting all upset. The Jews asked Jesus why he did it. And in verse 19 of chapter 2, Jesus says destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up

man Don't worry. I'm getting there guys. Listen to this Jesus when he said that Was saying two different things at the same time He was saying destroy this temple this this temple that i'm standing in this building And i'll raise it up. But let me explain what he meant by that because he was also saying destroy this temple Jesus was saying you destroy this body of mine. You think you're going to destroy this body? And i'm going to raise it up in three days So on the same two levels as he said that He's saying i'm going to raise my body up after the resurrection I hope it's going to be three days later But jesus had also said already in john chapter four. No, he said a little bit forward in john 10 I lay down my life so that I can take it up. He said yes He's saying I am the temple you see the material temple the the actual solomon's temple that was so fancy and so beautiful Was going to be destroyed some of you some of you guys know ad 70 that temple was destroyed Jesus was already at the right hand of the throne of god when that happened, but he knew it was coming What jesus builds again in three days? Is the temple that is the new temple? He is the temple he is the place of worship Okay Jesus is and now Jesus even says in matthew 12 something greater than the temple is here Jesus said that about himself It went totally over their heads. They didn't understand what he meant. But jesus is saying I am greater than the temple This is a beautiful golden building and I know it's shining in the beautiful middle eastern sun, but I am shining brighter Than this fancy building back here with pomegranates and all of the things kind of like when they were looking for us military slash king versus Exactly. That's what they wanted

So jesus is saying Himself and you we do know now that jesus has gone to heaven He has sent the holy spirit, right? The curtain was torn in the temple from top to bottom Now we have free access guys. We live in a totally different era Now where is the dwelling place of god It is right here that is why paul says we are the temple of the holy spirit You see the tabernacle and the temple were all just picturing what god was going to do now We don't god doesn't dwell in jerusalem God dwells in his people in the true israel all over so I do want us to see this go to verses 51 and 52 53 We're gonna wrap it up with this So that we can bring this to a close and have a little tabletop before we go Stephen goes on. The next thing he says is you stiff-necked people Uncircumcised in heart and ears You always resist the holy spirit As your fathers did so do you which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute And they chilled those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have now betrayed and murdered You who received the law as delivered by angels that did not keep it And that was it guys That was the straw That broke the camel's back and we're gonna go there next week As to what happened next you read the story, you know what happens next We're gonna see exactly how that played out for steven. Yes. Yep This fly via of the temple When the israelites got sent back after the babylonian captivity

And this verse has always struck me as god was trying to tell him something Zerubbabel had all the tools to rebuild the temple. He had worker. He had gold. He had silver He had everything And what did god say to it? It's not by my or my power, but it's not my spirit Tried and god was trying to say you've got to understand my spirit lives in you and that's where I want to be That's exactly right. Yes. It's not about physical structures. It's not about anything built by man It is about we who are the temple of the holy spirit Who have been bought with a price by the blood of the lamb? So it's absolutely beautiful I do want you to do what we've been doing every week now I want you to take the final five minutes To chat at your table please don't miss this because i've been talking to people sometimes after we're done and they say some of the most encouraging things come out when we talk at the table, so Um, I want you to answer one or both of these questions What did god point out to you tonight? And or number two What does it look like for you to live as one in exile? Okay, so what did God point out to you tonight? Could be a question that you could answer. Or, and or, what does it look like for you to live as one in exile? If you're watching this, find somebody else to talk to about it. These are great conversations, and thanks for joining us. All right, we'll wrap it up in prayer in just a few minutes, guys. David. David, glad we had a chance. Yeah.

All right, give us a few minutes, I wouldn't change into twos. That's great, yes. One quick reminder is, I told Paul to remind me of this, God, I forgot. That is that May 12th, all right, which is just a few weeks away, we're gonna move this meeting, it's gonna move to Tuesday nights. Going forward, not just for one week, but it's gonna be on Tuesday nights until the Lord sees fit to move it to another, right? But that's where it's gonna be, starting May 12th. It'll be in this room, everything the same, just a different night of the week. Same time, same place. Yep, May 12th. All right, you guys, please have some conversation at your table. We'll do it. Thanks again for joining us, verse by verse through the book of Acts. I hope that you have learned a lot. More importantly, I hope that you'll apply these things to your life this week. Share it with a friend. Great thing for you to just have some discussion with the other people around you, share the things that God is doing in your life. Again, remember the Bible is a book about God,

far more than it is a book about us. So let's learn about him. Let's grow to love him more and more. Here at United City, this is not the only thing that we have on the Pando app. We would love for you to follow some of our other content, watch some of our worship services, along with music and the messages, as well as podcasts. We've got a lot of great content and we would love for you to follow that. Also, if you would like to be in touch with us here at United City, the best way to do that is by writing us a letter. You can address that to Prison Ministry at United City Church, 19901 Townsend Boulevard, Humble, Texas 77338. We'll read that, we'll pray for you and somebody will write you back. God bless you and we'll see you in the word.