by J. Israel, www.ConnectionMagazine.org
Hanukkah, which means "dedication," is the festival that commemorates the purification and rededication of the Temple following the defilement. This year, Hanukkah began on the evening of December 24th, and continues thru January 1st, 2017.
A history of the unholy and ungodly INVASIONS of the house of the Lord!
Jeremiah 51:51, "We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: for STRANGERS (unclean, unholy, ungodly) are come into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house." Because of the rebellion and sin of His people, the house of the Lord became defiled by unholy and ungodly men?
Ezekiel 44:6-7, "And you shall say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; O you house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations (sins), In that you have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in HEART , and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations."
Even the book of Psalms records the unholy and ungodly invasion and defilement God's house;
Psalm 79:1 , "O God, the nations have INVADED your inheritance; they have DEFILED your holy temple,..."
After years corruption and the defilement of the alter of the Lord, He allowed a group of His people, a rebellious Jewish army called the Maccabees, to drive out the unclean and unholy from His Temple. These militant rebels were zealous for the holy things of the Lord and had an overwhelming desire to restore cleanness, purity and sanctification to the house of The Lord, which they did after defeating the Grecian Seleucid Empire.
First century Christians referred to the rebel Maccabean army as 'holy'.
Since its rededication to The Lord in 166BC, the Jews began an annual celebration of the purification of the Lord's house, which we now know as Hannukah.
Yes! Once again, the house of the Lord became the exclusive congregational meeting place for those who were circumcised in heart. And, Jesus/Yahshua Himself went up to the house of the Lord during the annual Festival of Hannukah or 'Dedication".
John 10:22-23, "And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch."
But The Lord discovered His house had become unclean and defiled once again! So, what did Jesus do about His Temple becoming defiled with unholy and ungodly men?
Matthew 21:12-13, Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'"
History shows the Lord allowed the destruction of His defiled and corrupted house around 70AD, by the Roman army.
THE NEW TEMPLE, THE NEW HOUSE OF GOD
1 Cor. 3:16, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"
1 Cor. 3:9, "...You are God's building."
1 Peter 2:5, "You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual HOUSE, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."
However, today, there is a new kind of invasion into the congregations and fellowships of the Lord. Have we not seen ungodly and unholy men invade and defile The Lord's congregations again?
What does the Lord say about ungodly and unrepentant sinners in the congregations today?
2 Thess. 3:6, "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to KEEP AWAY from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us."
1 Cor. 5:9-13, "I wrote unto you in an epistle NOT to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must you need to go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is CALLED A BROTHER be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do you not judge them that are within? But them that are without God judges. Therefore PUT AWAY from among yourselves that wicked person."
1 Cor. 5:5-7, "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened."
Should the Lord's people remain in corrupt, unrepentant and defiled congregations that refuse to be holy, godly and pleasing to the Lord Jesus/Yahshua?
Revelation 18:4, "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, COME OUT of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
FUTURE CONGREGATION OF THE LORD
Micah 4:1-2, "In the LAST DAYS the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from JERUSALEM.
Joel 3:14-17, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall ROAR out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall you know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: THEN shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers (unclean) pass through her any more."
Let those who have ears to hear, hear what the Lord is saying.
Connection Prophecy News revealing the truth, to help explain the end times, last days revelation and prophecy in the news that is beginning to happen all across the United States of America and around the world. Those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, confessing and forsaking their sins, will be forgiven. Rom. 10, & 1 John - prepared by editor@ConnectionMagazine.org -
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