Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. God had hoped that we would look at the temple if we were Old Testament saints and go, "Isn't God's dwelling place amazing?" It was the best building in town. It was the most elaborate and luxurious place you could find. Why? Because they wanted to remember God lives in an amazing place and God is an amazing person.

Dave: Welcome to Focal Point. I don't know if you're familiar with God's former earthly residences, but it was impressive. Situated in Israel, the temple was a beautiful feat of architecture and design, and the central place of worship for the people of God. But since the temple is no more, where does God live now? Has the church become God's new dwelling place?

Well, Pastor Mike will help us figure it all out as we continue our miniseries in the book of Hebrews called, Christ Changed Everything. Here's the start of our lesson titled, Why Don't We Have a Temple?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hebrews chapter 8. I decided just to take the first five verses for us to take a pause and look at because the issues that are addressed there are issues that I find we are more apt as evangelical 21st-century Christians to have a bit of a fuzzy line of delineation between Old Covenant and New Covenant. Not when it relates to the priesthood, most of us have that settled before we came to church last week, but when it comes to this one, we like to have a bit of a bleed-over from Old Testament to new that we need to clarify today.

We get to this and we talk about the concept or the question of the temple. Why don't we have a temple? If you ask that question of modern 21st-century churches, some people will say, "Well, we do. We just call it the church." If you do a search on the internet for churches and church names in any large city or small city, you're going to find names of churches that have actually adopted the word temple or you even find tabernacle or house of God.

I came up with several this week. Even famous preachers like Spurgeon in London, what was the name of his church? The Metropolitan Tabernacle. I mean, these are names that we have drawn over and put in the stead or the name of the church and said, "Well, here, we meet here at the believer's house of God," or we meet over here at this particular believer's or Christian temple or the Metropolitan Tabernacle, whatever it might be. There's all kinds of bleed-over in terminology.

But it's important for us to make a clear line of delineation. I know that Spurgeon knew the difference. I want to make sure that we know the difference so that we don't get into the pattern of thinking that in some way the building that you're sitting in now, some tilt-up cement building, takes the place of God's Old Testament tabernacle or Old Testament temple.

Let's read our text first, beginning in verse number one of Hebrews chapter 8. If you haven't opened your Bible yet to that, you're going to need it open. Hebrews chapter 8. Look at verse number one. He says, "The point of what we are saying is this," and there's a lot that you have to go back to to catch that this is a summary of the entire book so far. Everything that comes after this he's starting to go and touch on points we got from the very first chapter. This is not just, "Here's the point of the Melchizedekian priesthood," although that's a part of it.

He says, "We do have such a high priest who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven," that comes right out of the first few verses of the book. What kind of high priest? Read that sentence again, middle of verse one. "We do have such a high priest." You're going to have to go back into the end of chapter 7 to get that. Take a look at it. What's the last phrase of chapter 7? "Appointed son who has been made," what's the word? Perfect forever.

We have a perfect high priest. And what has he done? What we learned from the first chapter, he's sat down at the right hand of this throne of Majesty and where is it? It's not on earth. It's in heaven. And he serves, present tense, in the sanctuary, another word we use. I grew up in a church where they called the main auditorium the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord and not man.

Now we have the perfect priest. He's interceding for us and serving before the Father, not on earth, he's serving before the Father in heaven. He calls it the sanctuary or the true tabernacle. Every high priest, back down here now to earth verse three, is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. That was the Levitical priesthood. And so it's necessary for this one, the Melchizedekian priest Christ himself, to have something to offer. Now, not here on earth though, if he were on earth, he couldn't be that priest, for there are already men who offer gifts prescribed by the Mosaic law in this Levitical priesthood.

They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and a shadow of what's in heaven. That's why Moses is warned when he was about to build the tabernacle way back in the book of Exodus, "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern that I show you on the mountain." Here is a differentiation that is often not made as we think about the tabernacle or the temples of the Old Testament.

He's making a pretty startling statement here and that is that all of those were, look at the words, you might want to just circle them, the word copy, it's not the real deal. It's not the substance, it's only a shadow. It's not as verse two says, the true tabernacle, it's only a representative tabernacle. It's just a picture, a symbol of the real thing. Now, when we see those pictures and drawings, maybe in the back of your Bible or some sketch in your study Bible, or we think back to the flannelgraph stories of our youth, we picture the building and that's usually as far as we think.

And the Bible is saying here, "Well, wait a minute, that's just representative of another place, something else." A place where Jesus, according to the writer of Hebrews, is now serving and ministering as a priest. He can't do his priesthood down here and he can't do it in an Old Testament temple. He's got to do it in the real temple and the real temple isn't here on earth.

Number one on your outline, what's important for us to do as we think this through is to try and come up with, figuring out, Israel's, I'll just call them this, God-houses, because that's what they were. They were presented to the people of Israel as, "Here's the place if you want to meet with God you come here." As a matter of fact, one of the nicknames for the tabernacle was the tent of meeting. Tent of meeting, you're going to go meet with who? With God. It was the place where it is often said, God dwelt. It's the God-house.

It is the house of God, which is the terminology often used in the Old Testament. Let's understand these, the tabernacle. We have in the Old Testament, when it comes to Israeli God-houses, only one tabernacle and it lasts for a long time. The person associated with that is Moses. When you talk about the tabernacle, you're talking about something that God instructed Moses to make just like our text here in Hebrews 8 says. The person associated with the tabernacle, Moses.

The text, if you want to jot it down and look it up later, you can read all about it, is in Exodus chapter 26. As a matter of fact, chapter 26 through 36, you're going to read all about God's instructions, his detailed instructions for them to leave out of Egypt, go into the desert and build this thing called the tabernacle, which literally means the tent. Nickname, tent of meeting. It's like a tent, you take the stakes up, roll up all the curtains and all the coverings and all the ropes and take it with you as you travel around throughout the desert for 40 years, which is a little bit longer trip than Moses had in mind initially.

When was it built? Just for time frame here, roughly 1445 BC. Very important time frame, that's when God let the people of Israel out of Egypt and off they go into the desert and immediately they get instructions about building the tabernacle. The tabernacle, believe it or not, as it went from place to place, ended up lasting through 959 BC. This is when it was replaced. And it was replaced not by men or being destroyed, it was replaced by God. And why was that? Because we were going to build a temple.

What's the difference between the tabernacle and the temple? One was portable, one was not. One was the RV, one was the house, right? That's what it is. So the God RV, we're done with that and it lasted for quite a long time. Look how long it lasted. I mean, almost 500 years. And now God says, "Okay, we're going to build this thing. We're going to build a temple." And that one is associated with Solomon.

Temple number one, Solomon's temple, it's often called. David wanted to build it, God didn't let David build it. David was known as a warrior expanding the borders of Israel. Solomon inherited a kingdom of peace and God sent him and allowed Solomon, "Your son, this man of peace, to build the temple." A prosperous time, it was a glorious building. It was incredible and everyone lamented later on in the history of Israel that they couldn't build a temple like Solomon did, because that was an amazing building.

The text for that, if you want to read about it, there are several, but the instructions come in 1 Kings chapter 6. God gives instructions to Solomon and he says, "Build this thing. It's going to be like this. It's going to be this size, this big, got this court, this room," all the instructions as to what to put in it. You can begin to read about that in 1 Kings 6. What year was that? Well, 959 BC because that was the replacement of the tabernacle.

How long did this one last? Well, not quite as long, but it lasted quite a long time. 400 years or so, 586 BC. This wasn't God folding up the temple. Well, it was, but it was discipline and he used a foreign king. His name, Nebuchadnezzar. He was the king of Babylon. And in 586, after all of this terrible news and all the sin and idolatry of Israel, God allowed, actually used actively, the armies of Babylon led by Nebuchadnezzar to come in and rout the temple and that was the end of Solomon's temple as we knew it. Is that all familiar? That's review of Sunday school stuff there, right?

Temple number two, often called the second temple, creatively enough. The person associated with this, Ezra. After the Babylonian exile, they were put into the doghouse and couldn't have a God-house for 70 years. The text you can read about that, Ezra chapter 6. The foundation of the temple was laid, they were ready to go get this thing going. As a matter of fact, some of the latter prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi talk about the post-exilic period.

Haggai in particular, very upset that people are settling back in Israel and they're not giving due attention to building the temple. The bottom line is they needed a new temple. Why? Because Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the first one. The year for this, 515 BC. So we had about a 70-year interval here before God gives the decree through the foreign Persian king and we set up temple number two.

How long did this one last? Well, you've got an interesting and assorted history of the second temple, but let's say for clarity and simplicity's sake, 63 BC. But we are going to say temple stuff came to a screeching halt in 63 BC when Pompey, the general in the Roman army, came in and pretty much put the temple out of service. Now, don't get confused because we've called this one the second temple.

People are going to say the next column that's next to it is really a continuation of the second temple because it was kind of just a reconstruction. But it was such a major reconstruction after a period of really non-use in the temple that we can call it, just for clarity's sake, the third temple. That's why I put it in quotations, because a lot of people say, "Well, that's not really the third temple. That's the tail end of the second temple."

But it's a completely new place because someone else got involved. You know his name? He was the guy who had built the temple in Jesus's day. His name was Herod. Herod, by the way, was not a Jew obviously. He wasn't interested in worshipping Yahweh of the Old Testament. He was pulling political rank to try and unite the kingdom and a lot of people do that. They'll use religion for political means. That's all Herod was doing. He poured the coffers of Rome into rebuilding the temple.

A continuation, if you will, of the second temple. We'll call it the third temple. It's often called Herod's temple. It was the one that Jesus walked in, he looked at all these columns, he asked Peter, "What about this? What do people say about this place?" He said, "Not one stone is going to be left on the other." Remember all that? That was Herod's temple that he was looking at and pointing to.

When was this built? This was built in 19 BC, at least that's when it started and Herod poured all of his money into this and they started reconstructing the temple in 19 BC. By the time Jesus got on the scene, I mean, this thing was just decked out. It was all completed and all the stuff was going on under the tight watchful eye of the Roman Empire.

How long did this one last? We know this. This is an important New Testament date because this happens during the period of the writing of the New Testament. It went down in AD 70. Most of us date the writing of Hebrews prior to AD 70, because the writer of Hebrews is writing like it's all still going on, right? So we have to date it before 70 AD. That's why we gave the date of Hebrews, based on some other factors, mid-60s.

But just after this was penned, not long after, someone, who was it, would come in and destroy the temple in 70 AD? Do you remember this? Titus. The reason people know that is because if they go to Rome today, there's a big arch in Rome. You've been there, you world travelers? It's called Titus's Arch. You've got to get up on a ladder to see it, but if you look carefully at it or you see the plaques that are by Titus's Arch in Rome, you'll see that the inscription, the relief on it, are pictures of the Romans bringing back the menorah.

That's a famous picture, remember that? It's on Titus's Arch because they ransacked the temple and in 70 AD the temple was destroyed. As a matter of fact, they were so concerned about it being destroyed that they didn't, interestingly enough Jesus called this one, didn't leave one stone left upon the other, turn them all over. So that was the end of Herod's temple.

Fourth temple, in quotes, for counting. But you know, we are counting I guess. Fourth temple. "I didn't know there was a fourth temple." Well, there's not yet. But they're looking to build a fourth temple. Not only are people anxious to build the temple again and there are plans underway, the scripture actually predicts this as a reality and there's one temple that was described and promised by God to be built that was never built, but it was predicted in the Old Testament.

This is the fourth temple and it's associated with the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel predicted a temple that would be built that was not Herod's temple, it was not the Judas Maccabeus reform of the Old Temple, it wasn't Ezra's temple. This was a different temple. Now, it was prophesied between the first temple and the second temple, but here it really ends up being the fourth temple. If you want to read about this, all the instructions start in Ezekiel chapter 40.

When is this one going to be built? I wish I could tell you. At the beginning of the millennial period, or perhaps before, but it will be in place by the millennium. What's the millennium? It's a TV show. It's really cool. No, it's not. Are you all familiar? We're in the church age. We're going to have the rapture if our eschatology is right, seven-year period. After the seven-year period, we're going to have this thing called the millennium. What's that all about?

Romans talks about it. It's a time when God restores Israel and brings all the promises to bear that he promised in the Old Testament, including this great temple that Ezekiel prophesied would take place and there's going to be a temple there. Why? Because we have a lot of people with unredeemed bodies that come out of the tribulation that populate the millennial kingdom and they are Israel. God there is going to deal with them through again a representative dwelling place called the temple.

When is that done? A thousand years later at the end of the millennium. Who terminates this one? This is a great story. God does. As a matter of fact, God says, "No more temples because the temple is now going to be God himself. Temple is going to be in this new place called the New Jerusalem and God himself will dwell there."

Okay, copy, a shadow, a pattern, that's what it is. It's not the real deal. Here's the problem with our thinking about the Old Testament. We think these small-minded people think that God lived there. No, they didn't. Let me give you an example. Turn with me to the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles chapter 6. Let's jump into a discussion that's going on with Solomon talking about the construction of his temple, which was a big, big deal. We were moving from a tent to a temple, from the RV to a house. God was going to have a house.

Now, the discussion you'll find includes phrases that a lot of people take literally as, "Wow, this must mean that God lived there." No, they knew that when they were building it that God couldn't live in this box. Look at how they described it. Take a look at verse six. This is 2 Chronicles chapter 6 verse 6. "But now I've chosen Jerusalem for my," this is interesting. What to be there? "Name to be there."

"And I've chosen David to rule over my people Israel." Solomon says, "My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the," what? "The name of Yahweh, the God of Israel." Now they just said God's going to dwell there. Well, they know God isn't going to live in a house. But his name is going to be there. There's going to be a place that is so representative of God, it's like his name is there. And that's all a name is, right? Do you have a name? You've got a name. Is that you? No, but it represents me.

It's just a few letters. It's a few phonetic sounds. But it's not me. I'm different than my name. But my name is a representation of me. The name I hope brings thoughts of who I am when you say Mike Fabarez, you think of the person and that's what a name does. And so there is some manifestation, a representative manifestation of God there. And he says it's like God's putting his name there in the city and in this temple.

Verse eight, "But Yahweh said to my father David, 'Because it was in your heart to build a temple for my name, you did well to have this in your heart. Nevertheless, you're not the one to build the temple, but your son, who is your own flesh and blood, he is the one who will build the temple for my name.'" Who's that? Solomon. Drop down to verse 17. Now he's going to dedicate this with a prayer. He's built the temple, it's all decked out. He says this.

"And now, O Yahweh, God of Israel, let your word that you promised to your servant David come true. But," just so anybody looking on they might think and God's living in a house, "will God really dwell on earth with men? No. The heavens and even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built?" Please don't think these are primitive people that think they got God locked away in the inner room of the temple. They don't. They realize this is just like a name. It just represents God. It's a special manifestation of God's presence, but it's not God in a box.

"Give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O Yahweh my God. Hear the cry and the prayer of your servants that your servants are praying in your presence." Now this gets interesting. "May your eyes be open toward this temple day and night." Now see how he's other and transcendent from this temple? Now it says, "Just look to this place if you would." He says, "This place that you've said you'd put your name there. May you hear the prayer of your servant as he prays toward this place. Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from," where are they hearing from? Where's God hearing from? Heaven. What's heaven? Underline this, "Your dwelling place. And when you hear, forgive."

It's so important to know. There's not a tent or a building in the Old Testament that anybody thought God lived in. They knew that God lived in heaven. And in that regard, I think they have a clearer thinking of God and where he lives than most of us do as we look back at the Old Testament because we think, "Well, God was in a building." God wasn't in a building. They understood this. Even the guys that built it understood it and they're completely transparent about it. Copy, shadow, reality, heaven, picture, representation, building, Old Testament.

Now, why would God do this? God did it for the same reason my kid this summer, when we took our little summer vacation, went into the gift shop at the Hoover Dam and bought this little plaster of Paris little two and a half inch tall picture of the Hoover Dam. Now it wasn't a picture, it was a statue, so it was cool to an eight-year-old and he had his allowance burning a hole in his pocket. And he looked over the edge like I did, we took all the pictures, we scared Mom. Our hearts sunk, we're leaning over. And we just thought, "Wow, that was the coolest thing, Dad." You've been to the Hoover Dam? Impressive.

"Wow," see? So they go into the gift shop after ordering the ice cream that Dad has to pay for, they go up and go into the gift shop and they buy their little plaster of Paris thing of the Hoover Dam. Just the other day I walked in my kid's bedroom, was going to pray with them and put them to bed, and I saw the little Hoover Dam statue. And I picked it up and said, "Guys, you remember that place? Wasn't that amazing?" "Oh yeah, Dad, that was so cool." Any excuse to delay bedtime, they're good at that. So we talk for about five or 10 minutes about how cool the Hoover Dam is. That's an amazing place.

Why did my son want to buy that little thing? Well, he was so enamored with it, he wanted some representation of it. That's all the temple was. God had hoped that we would look at the temple if we were Old Testament saints and go, "Isn't God's dwelling place amazing?" It was the best building in town. It was the most elaborate and luxurious place you could find. Why? Because they wanted to remember God lives in an amazing place and God is an amazing person. That's what the temple was all about.

Dave: Well, this is one of those days where it's difficult to draw our teaching time to a close. There's much more we need to learn about the temple and you're listening to Focal Point in a message from Pastor Mike Fabarez called Why Don't We Have a Temple? We hope you've been encouraged by Pastor Mike's study in Hebrews. It's the generous gifts of listeners like you that allow us to bring relevant and accurate Bible teaching to the radio and the internet throughout the week.

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Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zaandam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. We'll gather for devotional times in God's word followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey.

Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org.

Dave: Next time we'll continue a study about God's ancient dwelling place. Don't miss a message titled Why Don't We Have a Temple? Wednesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know we live in a culture where every point of view demands affirmation. It would be easy to tell people what they want to hear, but we must teach the Bible accurately, unapologetically, and without compromise and without editing it. God's word is true. If you want to send me a question, I encourage you to get in touch with us at focalpointradio.org.

Dave: Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.