This message, this chapter has taken some time of research and testing, meditating before setting down to write it. It has implications for today. We have spoken in the initial chapters of this series about the Temple, the construction work that went on around Anna. What we did not account for is the context of this Temple and what happened.
I went to research that after the Temple construction work was finished, did the sacrificial routines continue, did the incense altar continue morning and night be lit and incense offered, did the lamps be trimmed and kept lit on the Lampstand? The answer is yes.
Within all that routine, a belief that there was a glory to revere and fear in these priestly works. It is only revealed in Jesus’ death, that the veil was rent, the inner place, the holy of holies was in fact empty. So Anna, in her praying, devotion in adoration was actually praying in a gloryless house. Yet in her ministry God honoured the preparation for her recognizing the baby Messiah that would enter.
When we consider this Temple, the corruption that became installed by Annas and Caiaphas, the selling of animals, the pay system, mammon that became the mainstay of the priesthood. Yet in this corruption the Glory was not in the inner place. God had departed many years before. The tragedy in this, was that those who worked in prayer and preparation were walking in a personal glory, there was an emptiness corporately in the nation. It does not seem that the nation perceived it, although the priesthood was increasingly being abhored. Both Annas and Caiaphas would both receive a portion of judgment after Jesus’ death and ressurection. The empire they sought to please would become their persecutor.
I believe we are in similar times. Routine has entered the altar and the pulpit. Yet the inner sanctum has been empty for a while. Mammon has kept things going. Yet there is a remnant who are walking in a personal glory yet corporately there was no glory. We have trusted so much in the routine, trusted in old prayers from old saints without walking them out ourselves corporately. The Temple had become a monument not a living movement. Whilst those walk out the fulfilment of their ministry in being unseen, in the shadows, praying out what God was preparing, the Temple would eventually end up in a downward spiral of 40 years until the Temple was destroyed by Titus, General of the Emperor. Is God about to destroy His sanctuary? No, He is about to erase a false representation. So much is going on right now, so much scandal, so much error. The world is being used to expose the empty ritual, the abuse of money and influence.
When the Glory departs from His ministries, Temple, judgment always follows. It might take some time, but the judgment that comes always is devastating. Priests died in 587 BC when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Solomon’s temple, as did those who saw Titus destroy the Temple, in 70AD.
When God comes with judgment death is a doorway to a greater judgment. Yet in the midst of the departing glory, Anna and Simeon had seen the new thing God was about to bring. They all knew the state of the nation spiritually, they all knew the Glory had departed. What a tragedy, yet God speaks and inspires them on, with His own Word; “Behold I do a new thing.”
It is even more tragic when what the priests were doing under the Law of Moses, the Levitical guidelines would not bring divine response or resolution. It was a mere religious exercise. It no longer brought any covenantal benefits. God was and had been silent for 400 years. Malachi being the last voice, confronting presumption and arrogance. Sound familiar? Then God was silent to the corporate and moving upon the individual people He had chosen to carry the vision of the new things. When God is silent it means He is changing the direction of His ways with men.
I sense more and more the voice of so called faith, dressed up mammon, prosperity, has silenced the true voice of God. People are mostly ignorant, moulded by the responsibilities that the world has placed on all. Many just eat, drink, work and sleep. No time to read the Word, and from the pulpit is the weak misrepresentation of Biblical truth, appealing to the feel good factor. Yet this whole satanic machine brings a deception and deep spiritual darkness. Just that this time Jesus is not coming as Saviour. He is coming as King to declare judgment on the wicked and deceived. So with this series, we are seeing a Call coming out from heaven to deep praying, deep study, preparing the way for the Coming of the King. This time there is no preparation for Salvation but Judgment, where tares and wheat are divided, and where the wise and foolish will find their eternal place.
So much ignorance of Biblical truth is a blindness that has come on God’s people. Even the elect being deceived indeed.
You have to now discern who you share with, who you fellowship with, because many have given away their birthright for temporal things, not seeking for Him who is eternal. Now is the time to discern, to perceive God’s personal revelation to you. He is calling, He is leading us into a place where we plan, pray toward eternity, putting our sole adoration to Him who King of kings. And we by Him are His kings and priests in eternal realms.
Just as Anna prayed and fasted, adored in a gloryless house, it was not in vain, for she saw and recognized the new things God was doing. And what God was doing in the Temple, was not through the priests or their rituals, because God was instituting something through His Son, this call is to recognize that which those who should have recognized but have not, God selects those who have no formal recognition but have a Vocation to this very same work as Anna, because in sharing in God’s pain at the state of His Church you will share in His Eternal Consolation.
Maranatha!
Leave a Reply