Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201623A
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00:00 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2
00:06 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:13 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:17 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:23 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:28 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:33 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:38 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:41 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 00:45 IIW-2016-23 --- The house on the rock #2 01:31 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:35 God's book, The Bible 01:39 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:59 CHRIS: You know, friends, solid foundations are critical to every building that is built, 02:04 every home that is built. And it would seem that just as critical as it is for there to be a solid 02:12 foundation under a physical building, that building a solid foundation for our spiritual 02:18 house would be extra special. Now, last week, we started a journey talking about the 02:28 foundations for our Christian life, the solid foundation of God's Word, but there in God's 02:35 Word is the revelation of the heavenly sanctuary. Now, to help me in understanding this 02:41 heavenly sanctuary and how it is important to building our spiritual house, I have with me 02:48 Karl Tsatalbasidis. Karl, glad to have you again. For those that may have missed last week, 02:54 you've pastored for 18 years, you've spent the last 5 years of your life teaching in a college. 03:00 You're in the midst of a Ph.D. program, so we're soon to call you Dr. Tsatalbasidis. And I 03:07 would love to be in the classroom as you would force your students to call you Dr. 03:12 Tsatalbasidis. PASTOR KARL: I have said to them, tongue in cheek, and they're like, "No, 03:17 we're not doing that." CHRIS: Yes, yes. Well, I want to welcome you back to It Is 03:20 Written Canada. Excited to have you here. Now, Pastor Karl, you have a great deal of expertise 03:27 when it comes to the sanctuary, because in your Ph.D. studies, you've been studying about God's 03:32 presence, and we read from the Bible that God's presence is revealed in the sanctuary, and 03:38 so you've spent a lot of time studying the sanctuary. Now, we left off last week - and a 03:44 number of people, I'm certain, were left at that cliffhanger - as we were in the book of 03:53 Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to come back to Hebrews chapter 12, but just as 03:58 a point of review, let's just ask this question: What is the sanctuary? Where is it now? 04:05 PASTOR KARL: Well, many people recognize the question of the sanctuary associated with the 04:11 earthly structure, whether it was the structure in Moses' day, where God had communicated to 04:16 him in Exodus 25:8-9 to "let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." That was 04:22 a tent structure. It could be easily taken up, transported from place to place. But then 04:29 ultimately, there was a permanent structure in the city of Jerusalem, the temple that 04:34 Solomon built. And so it is basically a structure. People think of it as an earthly 04:39 structure. It has a courtyard, I should say; it has a Holy Place, it has a Most Holy Place, and 04:45 the priests minister there in it. However, what we discussed last time was that, out of all 04:52 the things that the apostles said in the book of Hebrews, the main point in Hebrews chapter 04:56 8:2, is that there is a heavenly reality, and the earthly is actually a copy of that heavenly 05:04 reality. And so that's kind of what the sanctuary is, it's a structure that includes God; 05:09 it's the centre of worship; it's the centre of God's people meeting together; and has all 05:14 kinds of other functions as well. CHRIS: And so, we begin by asking that question, "How do we 05:21 build a solid foundation?" And what we see is that the sanctuary is so interwoven 05:28 throughout all of the Bible, that actually, the sanctuary creates a foundation, a 05:35 structure, a framework through which we can understand what is happening on this earth through 05:45 the divine reality, through the heavenly reality, that there's a real sanctuary. The sanctuary in 05:51 heaven is not symbolic, it is not some mystical experience; the heavenly sanctuary is a real 05:59 place that, according to the book of Jeremiah, has existed since the very beginning of 06:05 time. It is where God dwells. But what is so encouraging to us as human beings is that heavenly 06:15 reality is brought to earth through the symbol of the structure on earth through the 06:23 earthly sanctuary: the wilderness tabernacle and then the temple built by Solomon. But 06:31 those have been destroyed long ago. We were here in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12, 06:37 where we were seeing that we don't even need those earthly structures to worship the Most 06:43 Holy God, and that this heavenly reality actually touches us right here on the earth. Now, 06:51 we had left off with Hebrews 12:25. But why don't we back up a few verses, catch up to verse 06:57 25, and then really go beyond verse 25 there, through I believe it is verse 29? So 07:03 Hebrews chapter 12, and I believe we began in verse 18. 07:41 CHRIS: What's the scene, what's the picture that we're being shown here? PASTOR KARL: The 07:47 picture that we're being shown here is God's people actually coming out of Egypt and then 07:49 gathering around Mount Sinai and getting ready for one of the greatest events that have 07:53 happened and has happened in human history: God actually speaking with His own voice the 07:59 Ten Commandments. And it's saying that when you are gathering together for worship 08:04 here - so this is obviously much, much after the destruction of the sanctuary, the earthly 08:11 tabernacles and structures - And it's saying, "Look, when you are gathered together, you are 08:16 actually orienting yourself towards the heavenly," and that's where we're going to go 08:21 to in verse 22. So whether Canada, the United States, or South America, or Asia, or 08:24 Africa, or any other place, we are all worshipping. We're actually orienting ourselves not 08:30 towards some earthly real estate. In our previous program, you were asking the questions, 08:36 "Could it be that we're all looking in the wrong direction?" CHRIS: Yes. PASTOR KARL: Could 08:40 it be that we're all looking at the construction of some earthly structure somewhere in literal 08:46 Jerusalem? And the question is, yes, that would be looking in the wrong direction, because not 08:51 only in the Old Testament, but here we see in the New, we're not supposed to be oriented 08:55 towards that; we're supposed to be oriented towards the heavenly. And that's where our 08:59 foundations are. CHRIS: Now, we have kind of a path we're cutting here, 'cause we could go 09:05 a lot of different places, because this really impacts a lot of different realities. This 09:09 means that we have access to heaven. We have access to heaven all the time. We don't need a 09:15 structure. We don't need a person. We don't need anything to give us access other than 09:24 coming before the throne. We're going to get into that later in the series. PASTOR KARL: Mmhmm. 09:28 CHRIS: The passage continues: 09:55 CHRIS: So now what's happening? So we're making this transition. Paul writing here in the book of 10:01 Hebrews, outlines, and he's drawing back to Exodus chapter 20 and the chapters leading up 10:06 to it, the experience at a literal Mount Sinai where God encounters His people, speaks 10:13 the Ten Commandments, sees Moses, interacts with Moses. Now we transition. What's happening 10:18 in this transition in verses 22 to 24? PASTOR KARL: Yes. Well, we're being oriented towards 10:24 that heavenly Jerusalem. So the Christian church is not just existing in some locations 10:32 outside of Jerusalem now; it's almost been two millennia. God's people are scattered throughout 10:37 the entire world. And so as we gather together, there is not a literal place, geographical 10:43 place on earth; it is this geographical place actually in heaven that we are gathering 10:47 ourselves around. The interesting thing about the book of Hebrews is that the book of 10:52 Hebrews, perhaps, even more than the book of Revelation, alludes to the Old Testament scriptures 11:00 in a way that is really incredible. Actually, instead of just alluding to stories in the 11:06 Old Testament, it actually quotes directly God's speech, so things that He has said. And 11:11 what we're going to be doing a little bit later on is tying together this whole idea of the 11:16 authority of scripture and the heavenly sanctuary. And so now, as we are gathering together and 11:23 orienting ourselves to what Christ is doing up there for us and realizing that His blood is 11:28 better than the blood of Abel, that we're entering into an experience with Him up there. 11:32 In verse 25, there's an appeal. It says: 11:45 PASTOR KARL: And then it contrasts the speaking that God did when the Ten Commandments 11:46 were proclaimed on Mount Sinai with the speaking that He does today. It says: 12:06 PASTOR KARL: And so here, we have an emphasis on not just gathering around the new 12:11 Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the place where worship is oriented 12:15 towards, but we're there to hear God's Word. We're there to hear God speaking. And God speaks to 12:22 us today through His Word. Like, if we go to Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7, it tells us actually 12:29 how the Holy Spirit speaks to us. It says in verse 7: 12:48 PASTOR KARL: That's actually a direct quote from Psalm 95. And so the Holy Spirit speaks when 12:54 God's Word is spoken and when it is broken down and preached. And so as we're gathering in Hebrews 13:00 chapter 12, we're refusing Him speaking when we refuse to listen to God's Word, when we 13:05 refuse to obey God's Word, when we refuse to put it into practice, actually. CHRIS: Now, 13:11 we're going to get into this; we're going to spend an entire show talking about the 13:14 relationship between God's Word and the heavenly sanctuary. But if what I'm hearing you say 13:18 correctly is, is if we do not build upon the sanctuary as the foundation, that sanctuary which 13:26 has existed since the beginning of time, we are actually moving outside of the will of God, 13:31 where it becomes difficult to even actually hear His Voice, because God speaks from the 13:38 sanctuary through the Holy Spirit, through His Word, which He has given to us today. Am I 13:44 hearing you correctly? PASTOR KARL: That is correct. We will move to other representations, 13:49 which we may get into at some point, as the vehicles for the presence of God, other than the 13:54 Word. CHRIS: Okay. We'll come back to that. But let's talk about the sanctuary as we 13:58 continue on. Are there any other places? We've spent a lot of time in the book of Hebrews, and 14:04 we could spend, really almost an infinite amount of time in the book of Hebrews. Are there other 14:09 places in the scriptures that talk about the heavenly sanctuary and its relationship 14:14 and its interaction with the earth? PASTOR KARL: Oh, sure. There's many place we could go, 14:20 but the book of Revelation is really an awesome resource. So let's just go there. And I want 14:27 to zero in on a couple of chapters, in Revelation 4 and 5. But just to get a glimpse of the 14:33 richness of the sanctuary imagery, in Revelation chapter 1 it says in verse 12: 14:51 PASTOR KARL: Which is almost a reference back to Daniel 7:13 when the Son of man comes to the 14:55 Ancient of Days there in that sanctuary setting in the Most Holy Place. So here, you find 15:00 Jesus in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, which is rich sanctuary imagery. 15:06 CHRIS: Okay. And so John, as he begins the book of Revelation, a revelation of Jesus Christ, a 15:12 revelation that when that message was sent to John, was sent so God's people might know 15:19 what is shortly to take place, we're taken right away to the sanctuary. So it is almost as if 15:26 John, in his vision, is taken to the heavenly sanctuary and receives that message directly 15:34 from God. PASTOR KARL: That's exactly what's happening, yes. As John was in the spirit, then 15:37 all of a sudden, he sees Jesus in the midst of those seven candlesticks, which is heavenly 15:43 sanctuary image. He's dressed as a high priest. You know, when we go to Revelation chapter 4, 15:48 you'll find other sanctuary imageries there. In verse 5, it says: 16:06 PASTOR KARL: So you have more lampstands, sanctuary imagery in verse 1. There's a door that's 16:12 opened in heaven. And it says: 16:31 PASTOR KARL: And there's some really rich imagery about the throne. The throne, there's so 16:34 many mentions of the throne in the book of Revelation, and most of them occur right in these two 16:39 chapters here. Just one other text, in Revelation 8:3, you can see more sanctuary imagery. It 16:48 says: 17:01 PASTOR KARL: And then just one more, just to top it off. CHRIS: Alright. PASTOR 17:05 KARL: Revelation 11:19, it says: 17:18 PASTOR KARL: So lots of rich sanctuary imagery there in the book of Revelation. 17:21 CHRIS: Undoubtedly, the Bible is quite clear: There is a literal sanctuary in heaven that is rich 17:27 in imagery. But most importantly, it is where God dwells. That's where His 17:31 presence is. And for our viewers, for those that are listening, they have actually 17:36 heard me talk about - and you were talking just a moment ago, "and just one more" - well, I'm 17:41 going to add one more. Revelation chapter 10 actually talks about the rise of a 17:47 special group of people at the end of time that are prepared for God's second coming, for His 17:55 Son's second coming. But they are gravely disappointed, because the second coming 18:01 doesn't happen when they think it's going to happen. The very next words of Revelation 11:1: 18:16 CHRIS: The measuring of the temple, going to the temple. It's critical to build a solid 18:20 foundation. So there's no question: heavenly sanctuary exists, and earthly sanctuary 18:28 was given as a copy. And I'm going to ask a question, and again, a very broad question, 18:35 but maybe you can summarize it, and I think you may even have a verse in mind. Karl, why is this 18:43 so important to building solid foundations, a solid spiritual house? Why is it so important? 18:51 PASTOR KARL: You know, Chris, we probably don't need to spend an awful lot of time perusing the 18:56 internet or TV programs or society today to realize that just about everything is 19:03 crumbling before us. CHRIS: Yes. PASTOR KARL: And I'm turning to Psalm 11:3-4. 19:06 CHRIS: Okay. PASTOR KARL: Psalm 11:3-4. And it actually directs us, when the foundations are 19:17 gone, it actually directs us up to that heavenly sanctuary. CHRIS: Okay. PASTOR KARL: And 19:21 so here I am reading Psalm 11:3, and again, you know, we look around us, everything, 19:26 everything seems to be crumbling. CHRIS: Sure. PASTOR KARL: And it says in verse 3: 19:35 PASTOR KARL: And there are probably many people asking the question, "Is there a foundation 19:39 anywhere? Do foundations exist anymore?" And almost as if to answer that unspoken question, 19:44 the psalmist continues on in verse 4 and says: 19:57 PASTOR KARL: And so God wants to accustom our vision not to focus or be distracted upon earthly 20:03 things or even be so adversely affected that we suffer from some kind of spiritual paralysis 20:08 and we can't seem to get our bearings correct; He wants us to really orient our vision up 20:14 there, and that's what we can do when foundations are destroyed. CHRIS: Now, I'll tell you, this 20:19 is so powerful, and here's the reason it's so powerful, Karl, because as we have. and we're 20:24 going to kind of summarize everything we've been talking about, and then I'm going to ask 20:28 a very critical question about what will happen and why we don't hear much about this. 20:34 And here's the deal: Earlier, you quoted Jeremiah, where Jeremiah speaks of a sanctuary 20:41 in heaven that has existed since the beginning. That's an interesting thing, because 20:47 Jeremiah is writing at the time, because Jeremiah, of course, is writing from the trouble coming 20:53 from the north. What was that trouble from the north? That was the Babylonians. God knew that 20:58 the sanctuary, the earthly sanctuary, was going to be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. 21:03 Now, before it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, all the articles of the temple were taken out of 21:09 the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. And it was almost as if God was helping His people understand, 21:15 while the temple on this earth may be desecrated and even destroyed, there's still a 21:21 temple in heaven that's existed forever. The book of Hebrews, being written to a group of 21:26 people that were going to witness the destruction of the temple that had been rebuilt in 21:32 Jerusalem, and again, the orientation is, look to heaven, look to the sanctuary in heaven. 21:41 And what you have read here in Psalm 11 is so important to the person that's sitting at home 21:48 right now. And we've talked about things on a global scale. We look at what is happening all 21:54 over the world, the recent elections, the recent political decisions, and we see this kind 22:00 of cosmic crumbling of the world all around us. But maybe someone's sitting at home that 22:08 their world is crumbling. PASTOR KARL: Mmhmm. CHRIS: Maybe some kind of disease. Maybe some kind 22:12 of family situation. Maybe a child that has left home. Their life may be actually literally 22:21 crumbling before them. PASTOR KARL: Mmhmm. CHRIS: And the promise of the psalmist here is, 22:27 when the foundations begin to crumble, reorient yourself, or turn yourself, toward the 22:36 heavenly sanctuary. PASTOR KARL: Mmhmm. CHRIS: So now here's my question, because 22:41 there's people sitting at home where this is new. They've not heard about the heavenly 22:45 sanctuary much. They don't hear it being spoken of in churches or on television. And the 22:52 question to ask in these last five minutes that we have together, is this: Why, Karl, 23:02 don't we hear anything about this? Does the Bible tell us why we don't hear about this? PASTOR 23:08 KARL: Actually, Chris, it does. And that was a great insight that you pointed to, the fact 23:13 that God was already preparing His people in the days of Jeremiah. But yes, there is an 23:20 answer. If you'll turn with me to Daniel chapter 8, actually, the Bible kind of prophesied 23:25 that, through the little horn power, that there would come destruction to the heavenly 23:29 sanctuary. And there's four main visions in the book of Daniel, and Daniel 8 and 9 comprises 23:35 about the third vision there. CHRIS: Okay. PASTOR KARL: And there are two main entities 23:39 there in Daniel chapter 8. You have the male goat, and then before the male goat, you have 23:45 the ram representing Medo-Persia, in Daniel 8:20, and then the male goat representing 23:50 Greece. And so Greece finally takes over Medo-Persia, and then we'll pick it up in verse 8 of 23:59 Daniel chapter 8 verse 8; it says: 24:20 PASTOR KARL: And so when Alexander's empire was divided, 24:22 there was four kingdoms. And the little horn would grow up out of one of those four kingdoms. It 24:30 would actually grow up, grow out of the western Greeks, actually, in Italy, which was the cradle 24:35 for the development of philosophy, actually, Greek philosophy. And so in verse 11, 24:42 it outlines some of the activities of this little horn, and it says: 24:57 PASTOR KARL: And that's where I want to concentrate on right now. CHRIS: Okay. PASTOR KARL: 25:04 It says, as a result of the activities of the little horn, as a result of these Greek 25:06 philosophies that crept into the medieval church, the end result of that would be a total eclipse 25:10 of the sanctuary. And this is obviously speaking about the heavenly sanctuary, because in 25:15 verse 14, it says: 25:21 PASTOR KARL: As we apply the year-a-day principle, this was not something that was going to 25:25 be taking place in Daniel's day, but way into the future. And I know that you've talked about 25:27 these things, and there's been. this is the longest time prophecy. CHRIS: Yes. PASTOR 25:31 KARL: And so we're talking about a heavenly sanctuary here, and the activities of this little 25:35 horn would eclipse our view of the heavenly sanctuary by stating that heavenly realities 25:42 are basically static. There's no past, present, and future. And since the sanctuary is a 25:47 spatio-temporal structure, it literally has no grounding, it has no role, it has no 25:54 foundation. You know, on my computer, I have 37 volumes of the early church fathers, from 25:59 the 1st until the 7th or 8th century that could fill up many volumes here in your office, or 26:05 in this set. There's almost nothing that is said about the heavenly sanctuary in those 37 26:13 volumes, although we just read in the book of Revelation, it's rich sanctuary imagery. Those 26:16 Greek ideas literally eclipsed the sanctuary from view. CHRIS: And so, as I summarize 26:22 this, as we kind of close off - and it's hard to believe we're out of time once again - when 26:27 you use that word "eclipse," it's important to understand that imagery. The sanctuary has 26:31 always existed. It's existed since the beginning. But the little horn power, at a time in 26:36 the past - and we'll talk about this a little more in our next show, we'll pick up on this - 26:40 but it casts the sanctuary to the ground, and it eclipses, it moves itself in front of this 26:48 sanctuary imagery. And by doing so, the hope that comes through the sanctuary imagery, the hope 26:56 of a solid foundation, the hope of access into heaven, the hope of meeting God and having an 27:04 experience with God without the assistance of a person, without the assistance of a selected 27:11 building, is eclipsed and fades away. In the last few seconds we have, Pastor Karl, what hope 27:20 can you give a person today who says, "I have not heard about the sanctuary before, but today, 27:27 I'm hearing about it, and I want to embrace Jesus"? PASTOR KARL You know, in Hebrews chapter 4, 27:30 it says: Let us boldly come unto the throne of grace, so we can find grace and mercy to help 27:36 in time of need. PASTOR KARL: And it's actually telling us to orient our prayers, to 27:41 orient our hopes and dreams and aspirations to where Christ is, and receive from Him divine 27:46 direction. So there's a direct appeal telling us to do this. CHRIS: Pastor Karl, as we close 27:51 off, would you pray for us? Pray for our viewers, pray for our listeners, that they would 27:57 experience God's presence fully. PASTOR KARL: Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we're so 28:03 thankful that You haven't left us destitute. And I pray that you would be with each and every 28:07 listener here today. Lord, You know the struggles, You know the trials, You know the 28:11 temptations. But in You, and in that sanctuary, there is hope. And I pray that each and every 28:16 one of us may find that hope. Lead us and guide us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. CHRIS: Amen. 28:30 CHRIS: My dear friends, what a powerful revelation, that we can have an experience with God. 28:37 Today, I want to offer you the book, Where God and I meet: The Sanctuary. It'll help you dig 28:43 deeper into this study. Here's the information you need for today's offer. 29:29 CHRIS: Pastor Karl, thank you so much for being with us today and helping us in our study. PASTOR 29:34 KARL: It's been great. CHRIS: My dear friends, the sanctuary is the solid foundation where we 29:42 know we can meet God and have an experience with Him. I hope you enjoyed today's program. I 29:49 invite you to join us again next week. Until then, remember, it is written: "Man shall not live 29:56 by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." |
Revised 2017-04-11