Lovers of God's House

By Hayes Press

Modern Christianity seems to have largely overlooked the concept of a spiritual house for God today - but, as this book aims to show, it was a focus and an objection of deep affection for some of the most well-known characters in the Bible. More importantly, it is something that God loves, and therefore every Christian should surely learn to love it too!

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO: A PATRIARCH’S GLIMPSE
CHAPTER THREE: BETROTHAL LOVE
CHAPTER FOUR: LIFE-LONG LOVE
CHAPTER FIVE: DAVID – PSALMIST AND PLANNER
CHAPTER SIX: LOVE FOR THE HOUSE IN THE PSALMS
CHAPTER SEVEN: GIVING OUT OF LOVE FOR GOD’S HOUSE
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE GLORY OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER NINE: LESSONS FROM BETRAYAL
CHAPTER TEN: LOVING RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATING INIQUITY
CHAPTER ELEVEN: HEZEKIAH’S WHOLE-HEARTED DEVOTION
CHAPTER TWELVE: ISRAEL’S PROPHETIC VISION
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: PREPARING THE PEOPLE

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hayes Press
• Release date: Mar 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524251796

Book preview

LOVERS OF GOD’S HOUSE

COMPILED BY HAYES PRESS

Copyright © Hayes Press 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of Hayes Press.

Published by: HAYES PRESS Publisher, Resources & Media, The Barn, Flaxlands, Royal Wootton Bassett, Swindon, SN4 8DY, United Kingdom www.hayespress.org

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, the New King James Version® (NKJV®). Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved." Scriptures marked NIV are from New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scriptures marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER TWO: A PATRIARCH’S GLIMPSE

CHAPTER THREE: BETROTHAL LOVE

CHAPTER FOUR: LIFE-LONG LOVE

CHAPTER FIVE: DAVID – PSALMIST AND PLANNER

CHAPTER SIX: LOVE FOR THE HOUSE IN THE PSALMS

CHAPTER SEVEN: GIVING OUT OF LOVE FOR GOD’S HOUSE

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE GLORY OF THE HOUSE

CHAPTER NINE: LESSONS FROM BETRAYAL

CHAPTER TEN: LOVING RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATING INIQUITY

CHAPTER ELEVEN: HEZEKIAH’S WHOLE-HEARTED DEVOTION

CHAPTER TWELVE: ISRAEL’S PROPHETIC VISION

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: PREPARING THE PEOPLE

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Among the lovers of God’s house whose devotion to it is recorded in Scripture, David stands out prominently, and in Psalm 26:8 he expresses himself with fresh and spontaneous joy, Lord, I love the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwelleth.

In Psalm 69:9 the fierceness of David’s devotion to God’s house is expressed in association with a sense of deep suffering, and is certainly Messianic in import. More will appear later in this series about David, but the words of Psalm 69 are unique in the application made of them in the New Testament to David’s ‘greater Son’, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord’s disciples unhesitatingly brought to mind this psalm as they watched the Master’s robust dismissal of those desecrating the Temple courts. They ‘remembered that it was written, ‘The zeal of thine house shall eat me up’ (John 2:17). So the Scriptures bring together in a very telling fashion the strength of both divine and human devotion to God’s dwelling place on earth. God’s delight in His house had been reflected in Old Testament times in words such as Isaiah 66:1,2 and Haggai 1:8 where some of the great prophets of the day captured a sense of the same divine zeal. David’s disappointment in being precluded from building a house for God himself was more than matched by his Lord’s sorrowful declaration as He approached Calvary, ‘Your house is left unto you desolate’ (Matthew 23:38).

Why a neglected truth?

Surely an ambition which so fired David as well as Solomon, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, Haggai and others, each in his own day, must have commanded close attention by men of God throughout New Covenant times. We think not only of the apostles who were the earliest builders in the present dispensation of grace, and who wrote about a spiritual house for God, but also all who would follow them as the heirs of New Covenant purpose. Sadly it was not so. The fact that it was the churches of God planted initially and nurtured by the apostles which constituted the New Testament house of God perhaps accounts for the disappointing neglect of house of God truth for so long afterwards. For as many of the truths which undergirded the united testimony of churches of God became dim and then faded away in the early centuries AD, so with them the concept of a divine dwelling place among Christian men and women virtually disappeared; the vision of ‘a spiritual house ... to offer up spiritual sacrifices’ (1 Peter 2:5).

Unity is central

Considering for a moment the single issue of unity, we recall that the divine instructions to Moses about the construction of the Tabernacle included the words, ‘the tabernacle shall be one’ (Exodus 26:6); and even a limited study of that structure with its furnishings bears out that principle - the boards, the curtains, their couplings and much more. Little wonder then that the doctrine (1 Corinthians 11:16; 7:17) and elderhood (1 Peter 5:1,2; Acts 20:28) of the first century churches and the concept among Christians of a people of God in churches of God following a clear New Testament pattern of witness, worship and service was obscured by the subsequent fragmentation of those first century churches.

Inseparable from the principle of unity is that of faithfulness to the divine pattern. ‘See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount’ - a citation in Hebrews 8:5 from Exodus 25. Timothy was solemnly admonished by Paul to ‘hold the pattern of sound words’ (2 Timothy 1:13), while Jude was deeply exercised about the disciples contending earnestly for ‘the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints’ (Jude v.3). Only a return to these principles could restore the vision of God’s house in our day.

This introductory chapter cannot possibly take space to substantiate from Scripture all the claims implied in the above comments. Indeed the later chapters in the book will be concentrating on the Old Covenant aspects of the subject. Therefore it is appropriate at this point to direct the attention of readers to a very instructive short book by Alan Toms entitled ‘Where is God’s House Today?’ and published by Hayes Press. Suffice it to say here that even down to a point in history some 120 years ago, little appears in Christian writings or witness which can be readily identified with the New Testament picture of ‘... living stones ... built up a spiritual house ...’ (1 Peter 2:5). Those in the churches of God in the Fellowship of the Son of God today have a natural reticence about stating this, since it is readily understood how the great number of fellow Christians scattered throughout many denominations will wonder how a small movement, by comparison, can find themselves claiming identity with the house of God in a unique sense, something which was clearly expressed in apostolic times by the united churches of God of that day. They do so with no presumption of personal virtue but convinced of a latter day recovery of New Testament collective truth touching this matter under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ and the House of God

There seems little doubt that very many devout and committed Christians, across a wide denominational spectrum, see the concept of the house of God, insofar as