SHALOM!

It is The Feast of CHANUKAH a.k.a HANUKKAH (December 2017), a time to think about YAH’S Holy Temple and City.

 

Sweet LORD (YAHUVEH) Prepare Me to Be A Living Sanctuary For You

 

 

Do you remember that YAHUSHUA HA MASHIACH(a.k.a JESUS CHRIST/YESHUA) referred TO HIMSELF as The Temple of YAH while on earth when HE said HE destroy the Temple and rebuild it within 3 days?

John 2:13-22The Message (MSG)

Tear Down This Temple . . .

13-14 When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.

15-17 Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” That’s when his disciples remembered the Scripture, “Zeal for your house consumes me.”

18-19 But the Jews were upset. They asked, “What credentials can you present to justify this?” Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple and in three days I’ll put it back together.”

20-22 They were indignant: “It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days?” But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said.

 

 

IT IS TIME TO RE-DEDICATE YAH’S TEMPLE UNTO HIM!!!

 

Where exactly is YAH’S dwelling Place on earth?

Does YAH dwell in a building?

It is revealed in the Holy Scriptures that YAH loves to dwell amongst HIS people. For years, we have not had a Holy Temple in Jerusalem. However, we now also have churches and shuls  (a.k.a Synagogues) everywhere. Is that YAH’S dwelling place on earth now?

According to the Book of Exodus, YAH asked Moses to build HIM a Tabernacle so HE could have a specific place where HE dwelt amongst HIS people and HIS people could come to commune plus interact with HIM.

Why was this the case?

Interestingly enough, it was placed in the Centre of the Camps of the Children of Israel.

Why was this the case?

 

 

THE TABERNACLE OF MOSES WAS A FORESHADOW OF WHAT YAH’S DWELLING PLACE IS ABOUT!

 

Some time later, King Solomon (King David’s son) build YAH’S First Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the City of YAH! Sadly, the First Holy Temple was destroyed during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity of the Children of Israel headed by King Nebucchadnezzar. Sometime after the captivity, the Children of Israel returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. Ezra and Nehemiah helped to rebuild the walls of the City and the Holy Temple.

 

According to Wikipedia, The Hebrew Bible states that Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎: Beit HaMikdash) in ancient Jerusalem before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE and its subsequent replacement with the Second Temple in the 6th century BCE.

According to: (https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.606550), The First Temple was built in the 10th century B.C.E. by King Solomon, according to the Hebrew Bible (1 Kings 5-9). But the sanctity of the site goes back hundreds and possibly thousands of years before that.
The land on which Solomon built the temple had been acquired by King David, Solomon’s father, who thought to build a grand temple himself. But the Lord, according to the biblical story, rejected David’s ambition because of the king’s sins and the job passed to the son.
The land David chose, a threshing floor, was associated with Moriah, where the patriarch Abraham brought his son Isaac for sacrifice (Genesis 22:14). (In the Bible, the mount is also referred to as “Zion,” a name that eventually came to encompass the entire Land of Israel.) That too is a tradition shared by the three great monotheistic religions. Other than that, and a few other minor references to the site in the Bible, however, there is no obvious explanation why Solomon built his temple here.

What is clear is that the Temple was meant to be a permanent residence for the Ark of the Covenant (Aron Habrit), which held the stone tablets of the law Moses received on Mt. Sinai, and [which traveled with the Israelites during their journey through the desert.
read more: https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.606550

 

 

 

According to Wikipedia, The Second Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי‎, Beit HaMikdash HaSheni) was the Jewish Holy Temple which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. According to Jewish tradition, it replaced Solomon’s Temple (the First Temple), which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, when Jerusalem was conquered and part of the population of the Kingdom of Judah was taken into exile to Babylon.

The accession of Cyrus the Great of the Persian Empire in 559 BCE made the re-establishment of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple possible.^[1][2] According to the Bible, when the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem following a decree from Cyrus the Great (Ezra 1:1–4, 2 Chron 36:22–23), construction started at the original site of Solomon’s Temple. After a relatively brief halt due to opposition from peoples who had filled the vacuum during the Jewish captivity (Ezra 4), work resumed c. 521 BCE under Darius the Great (Ezra 5) and was completed during the sixth year of his reign (c. 516 BCE), with the temple dedication taking place the following year.^{[citation needed]}

The events take place in the second half of the 5th century BCE. Listed together with the Book of Ezra as Ezra-Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible.^[1]

The original core of the book, the first-person memoir, may have been combined with the core of the Book of Ezra around 400 BCE. Further editing probably continued into the Hellenistic era.^[3]

The book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king in Susa, is informed that Jerusalem is without walls and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor of the province Yehud Medinata and he travels to Jerusalem. There he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israel’s enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with the law of Moses. After 12 years in Jerusalem, he returns to Susa but subsequently revisits Jerusalem. He finds that the Israelites have been backsliding and taking non-Jewish wives, and he stays in Jerusalem to enforce the Law.

Based on the biblical account, after the return from Babylonian captivity, arrangements were immediately made to reorganize the desolated Yehud Province after the demise of the Kingdom of Judah seventy years earlier. The body of pilgrims, forming a band of 42,360,^[4] having completed the long and dreary journey of some four months, from the banks of the Euphrates to Jerusalem, were animated in all their proceedings by a strong religious impulse, and therefore one of their first concerns was to restore their ancient house of worship by rebuilding their destroyed Temple^[5] and reinstituting the sacrificial rituals known as the korbanot.

On the invitation of Zerubbabel, the governor, who showed them a remarkable example of liberality by contributing personally 1,000 golden darics, besides other gifts, the people poured their gifts into the sacred treasury with great enthusiasm.^[6] First they erected and dedicated the altar of God on the exact spot where it had formerly stood, and they then cleared away the charred heaps of debris which occupied the site of the old temple; and in the second month of the second year (535 BCE), amid great public excitement and rejoicing, the foundations of the Second Temple were laid. A wide interest was felt in this great movement, although it was regarded with mixed feelings by the spectators (Haggai 2:3, Zechariah 4:10).^[5]

The Samaritans made proposals for co-operation in the work. Zerubbabel and the elders, however, declined all such cooperation, feeling that the Jews must build the Temple without help. Immediately evil reports were spread regarding the Jews. According to Ezra 4:5, the Samaritans sought to “frustrate their purpose” and sent messengers to Ecbatana and Susa, with the result that the work was suspended.^[5]

Seven years later, Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, died (2 Chronicles 36:22–23) and was succeeded by his son Cambyses. On his death, the “false Smerdis“, an impostor, occupied the throne for some seven or eight months, and then Darius became king (522 BCE). In the second year of his rule the work of rebuilding the temple was resumed and carried forward to its completion (Ezra 5:6–6:15), under the stimulus of the earnest counsels and admonitions of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. It was ready for consecration in the spring of 516 BCE, more than twenty years after the return from captivity. The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius, amid great rejoicings on the part of all the people (Ezra 6:15,16), although it was evident that the Jews were no longer an independent people, but were subject to a foreign power. The Book of Haggai includes a prediction that the glory of the second temple would be greater than that of the first (Haggai 2:9).^[5]

Some of the original artifacts from the Temple of Solomon are not mentioned in the sources after its destruction in 597 BCE, and are presumed lost. The Second Temple lacked the following holy articles:

• The Ark of the Covenant^[2][5] containing the Tablets of Stone, before which were placed^[7] the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod^[5]
• The Urim and Thummim^[2][5] (divination objects contained in the Hoshen)
• The holy oil^[5]
• The sacred fire.^[2][5]

In the Second Temple, the Kodesh Hakodashim (Holy of Holies) was separated by curtains rather than a wall as in the First Temple. Still, as in the Tabernacle, the Second Temple included:

• The Menorah (golden lamp) for the Hekhal
• The Table of Showbread
• The golden altar of incense, with golden censers.^[5]

According to the Mishnah (Middot iii. 6), the “Foundation Stone” stood where the Ark used to be, and the High Priest put his censer on it on Yom Kippur.^[2]

The Second Temple also included many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the Babylonians but restored by Cyrus the Great.^[5][8] According to the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 22b),^[2] however, the Temple lacked the Shekinah, the dwelling or settling divine presence of God, and the Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of Holiness, present in the first.

 

 

In summary, the Second Temple was destroyed sometime in 70 A.D during which time, also the Children of Israel were driven out of the Land of Israel by the Romans. They were dispersed all over the world. The Children of Israel lost their home at that time. They became homeless and temple-less. The Temple served an important purpose among the Children of Israel as it represented “YAH among HIS people”!!!

 

It was in the Second Temple that the YAHUSHUA turned out the traders.

Matthew 21:12-13 Tree of Life Version (TLV)

¹² Then Yeshua entered the Temple^[a] and drove out all those selling and buying in the Temple. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers^[b]and the seats of those selling doves. ^[c] 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’^[d] but you are making it ‘a den of thieves’!”^[e]

compare versions:

Matthew 21:12-13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Cleansing the Temple

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. ¹³ And He *said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ ^[a]den.”

 

 

Note that the Second Temple was destroyed after YAHUSHUA’S 1st Coming to the earth in fleshly form as our SAVIOUR/MESSIAH (a.k.a MASHIACH)!!! By the time it was destroyed, YAH had already created a solution to the problem. This is seen in the following Holy Scripture:

Joel 2:28-32 Names of God Bible (NOG)

The Lord Will Pour His Spirit on All People

²⁸ “After this, I will pour my Ruach on everyone.

    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

    Your old men will dream dreams.

    Your young men will see visions.

²⁹ In those days I will pour my Ruach on servants,

    on both men and women.

³⁰ I will work miracles in the sky and on the earth:

    blood, fire, and clouds of smoke.

³¹ The sun will become dark,

    and the moon will become as red as blood

    before the terrifying day of Yahweh comes.”

³² Then whoever calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved.

    Those who escape will be on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem.

    Among the survivors will be those whom Yahweh calls,

        as Yahweh has promised.

 

Note that YAHUSHUA rebuked the Pharisees as follows for a purpose:

Matthew 23:26-28 Names of God Bible (NOG)

²⁶ You blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cups and dishes so that the outside may also be clean.

²⁷ “How horrible it will be for you, experts in Moses’ Teachings and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed graves that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of impurity. ²⁸ So on the outside you look as though you have God’s approval, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

• Why did YAHUSHUA talk about the inside?
• Why did YAHUSHUA focus so much on the inside more than the outside?
• Interestingly enough, John the Baptist/Immerser rebuked the Pharisees in a similar manner.

 

The answer is that this outside is temporary and will pass away but your soul and spirit are permanent! They will either go to heaven or hell depending on how you run your life on earth.

 

The following Holy Scripture tells us where YAH’S Holy Temple/Dwelling Place is now that the 1st and 2nd Temples have been destroyed:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Names of God Bible (NOG)

¹⁹ Don’t you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don’t belong to yourselves. ²⁰ You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body.

 

How and When did the Bodies of Mankind become habitable by YAH (a.k.a GOD)?

Well, the evidence is seen in the following Scripture:

Acts 2:1-4 Tree of Life Version (TLV)

The Ruach Fills the Disciples

2 When the day of Shavuot^[a] had come, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ And tongues like fire spreading out appeared to them and settled on each one of them. ⁴ They were all filled with the Ruach ha-Kodesh and began to speak in other tongues as the Ruach enabled them to speak out.

Note that RUACH HA KODESH is GOD! RUACH HA KODESH is the third member of the HOLY TRINITY GODHEAD but not the least member as they are all ONE (a.k.a ECHAD, in the Hebrew Language).

 

So, with this knowledge, what is the way forward?

How are we to take care of the Holy Temple of YAH so as to maintain it?

 

Note that YAH desires to glorify HIMSELF through mankind whom HE created in HIS image and after HIS likeness. We are shine forth YAH’S LIGHT by having YAH’S Divine Presence which is also called SHKINYINYAH GLORY within us. Remember that SHKINYINYAH GLORY is RUACH HA KODESH’S Personal Name as revealed through Apostle/Prophet Elisheva Eliyahu of Amightywind Ministry.

In summary, by loving YAH with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might/strength as per the Sh’ma/Shema (Exodus 6:4-9) as well as loving your neighbours as you would love yourself.

“BE YE HOLY AS YAH IS HOLY!” (1 Peter 1:16)

How do we do this? 

One clue is seen in the story of the Maccabees. What did they do to restore the Temple of YAH?

• Well, first and foremost, the Maccabees removed and destroyed the statue of Zeus which had been placed in the Holy of Holies / Holy Place.

 

• Secondly, they destroyed the evil sacrifices that were being made by the Greek-Syrians.

 

• Thirdly, they cleaned and cleansed YAH’S Temple with particular focus on the various Holy Altars of YAH.

 

• Fourthly, they searched for the holy instruments and items which had been removed from the Temple, purified them as instructed in the Book of Numbers after fighting against Balak and his people. After purifying the holy instruments of worship, they put them back in the Temple.

 

• Furthermore, they lit the Menorah.

A Feast unto YAH was created out of the events that preceded the Re-dedication of the Holy Temple of YAH!

 

The following is the Account from the Second Book of the Maccabees from where the CHANUKAH Feast emanated:

2 Maccabees 10 Good News Translation (GNT)

The Rededication of the Temple

10 Judas Maccabeus and his followers, under the leadership of the Lord, recaptured the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. ² They tore down the altars which foreigners had set up in the marketplace and destroyed the other places of worship that had been built. ³ They purified the Temple and built a new altar. Then, with new fire started by striking flint, they offered sacrifice for the first time in two years, burned incense, lighted the lamps, and set out the sacred loaves. ⁴ After they had done all this, they lay face down on the ground and prayed that the Lord would never again let such disasters strike them. They begged him to be merciful when he punished them for future sins and not hand them over any more to barbaric, pagan Gentiles. ⁵ They rededicated the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev, the same day of the same month on which the Temple had been desecrated by the Gentiles. ⁶ The happy celebration lasted eight days, like the Festival of Shelters, and the people remembered how only a short time before, they had spent the Festival of Shelters wandering like wild animals in the mountains and living in caves. ⁷ But now, carrying green palm branches and sticks decorated with ivy, they paraded around, singing grateful praises to him who had brought about the purification of his own Temple. ⁸ Everyone agreed that the entire Jewish nation should celebrate this festival each year.

 

Now, since we now know that the Holy Temple of YAH in this day and age is supposed to be our bodies, then The answer in relation to mankind today is similar to that above as well as seen in various ways set out by YAHUVEH/YAHWEH GOD Almighty!

• Striving to please YAH always by being lovingly obedient unto YAH – total obedience just like Abraham did.
• Through Cleansing and Purification by the mighty BLOOD OF YAHUSHUA (a.k.a JESUS CHRIST / YESHUA).
• By putting things back in order through constant genuine repentance before YAH
• Resist the Devil and he will flee from you (John 10:10; 1 Peter 5:8)
• Do away with idolatry – do not mix YAH with idolatry especially Ba-al worship, etc
• Through constantly asking YAHUVEH GOD for fresh in-filling of HIS OIL, LIGHT and GLORY hence destroying the darkness within and without.
• By eating Kosher food (YAH-ordained food as per Leviticus 11 plus asking YAH to bless your shopping, etc)
• Praying ceaselessly
• Spending time fasting
• Helping the neeedy
• Do away with immorality especially sexual immorality and abortion
• Dressing moderately
• Giving tithes and offerings
• Observing YAH’S Calendar including SHABBAT and the yearly Feast days (Genesis 2; Exodus 20)
• Striving to make peace with people around (Hebrews 12:14) – no holding grudges, bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, etc.
• Mind the way you talk and behave – do your speech, thoughts and behaviour reflect YAH (a.k.a YAHUVEH/YAHWEH, YAHUSHUA and SHKINYINYAH GLORY/RUACH HA KODESH) well? Or they full of evil and bring shame plus disgrace unto YAH?
• Do you bear the FRUIT OF RUACH HA KODESH as per Galatians 5:19-22?
• ….etc….

 

 

Matthew 21:12-13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Cleansing the Temple

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. ¹³ And He *said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ ^[a]den.”

 

The following video was recorded and uploaded on 15/12/17 during a RE-DEDICATION SERVICE in Israel, the Holy Land. It is useful to watch and join in the prayers:

There’s a bit of a glitch in the video but just keep watching. Apologies for this.