As we begin the twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy, there is a section of Moses' exhortation that begins by talking about the changes that must be made in the worship of the Canaanites, or not so much the worship of the Canaanites, but in their places of worship, in the places where the Israelites will make their conquest in the land of Canaan. And it really involves making a very decisive break with the past, a decisive break with that which is ungodly. Moses says in beginning with verse one, these are the statutes and rules that you should be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods on the high mountains and on the hills. and under every green tree, you shall tear down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way." Can you think of how much less loot there would be in museums if this had been followed by Christians throughout the centuries? This is a break in both senses of the word, figuratively and literally, with the past. The Israelites are to show their rejection of all false gods. by destroying their places of worship. One of the reasons for the particular location of the shrines on high hills and mountains and under luxuriant green trees is that sometimes places are very much associated with gods. They are associated with idols. And this is why these shrines were put on these particular locations to begin with, because the idea of a god living on a mountaintop makes him much more inaccessible. If you go up a mountain to worship the God, there is some effort involved there. And what do you suppose the idea being communicated by under a green tree might be? Yeah, worship of nature, a God in control of nature, a God particularly in control of fertility. And so that is the idea that the locations are very important too. And one of the things that kind of lingers about a particular location is the idea of a spirit of whoever lived there. And what God wants Israel to do is go into those sacred locations, those sacred places and absolutely demolish all of the worship paraphernalia, all of the worship furnishings and any idols that are there. So they are to go in and they're to tear down the altars and they're to dash in pieces their pillars. Now the pillars usually were kind of standing stones that indicate that someone, that a god has been present. I read this week that at no less a noble place than the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, since they have made a separate worship place for Jewish airmen and women and then Buddhist airmen and women so that there is a Christian chapel, a Jewish place of worship, and a Buddhist place of worship. They now have made a place nearby by a body of water where they've put up rocks and it is a place of Wiccan worship. So Wiccan worship or pagan worship is officially recognized now at the US Air Force Academy. And this goes back to the, excuse me? You're right. Yeah, absolutely right. So this goes back to these kinds of practices. worshiping in every high place and under green trees and so on, connecting the gods with nature, connecting the gods with fertility. One of the things that they were supposed to burn down is called Asherim. I need to check my NIV consultant here. Does it say Asheripole there? Okay, yeah, we got two NIV consultants here, Ed and an Asherah pole, yeah. All right. Asherah was the goddess connected with Baal. She was the consort of Baal. An Asherah pole was used in her worship, which included fertility rites. And those poles were called by the Hebrew plural, Asherim. In the King James Version, whenever that plural word, asherim, comes up, the King James Version translates it as groves. So if you've read groves in your King James Version, that's what that means. Well, these are meant for the fire. They're to be burned with fire. You shall chop down the carved images. Why, of course. The Bible doesn't waste words, and there's got to be some reason that they put that fire in there. Is there something symbolic about it? Well, fire is both literal and symbolic of God's judgment. And it is burning with fire, and the fire being specifically pointed out that paves the way for fulfillments of judgment ultimately in hell. So, burn with fire would, I think, to an Israelite mean that you're burning it in judgment. You're not burning it to get warm or anything. You're burning it in a particular act of judgment. So you destroy them utterly. You chop down the carved images, destroy their name out of that place. In other words, you make that place void of any memory of the worship furniture that was there. You don't treat it as a neat, quaint old place and put a historical marker on it. You instead completely eliminate its use. And as a matter of fact, you know the temptation of the Israelites. Eventually, they were making offerings to God on the high places, on these high places and on the high hills and so on. And many of the kings who were very strong on reform and even godliness, couldn't deal with that because of course these were isolated incidents all over the promised land from Dan to Beersheba. People would worship on these high places and the kings did not destroy them as they should. So this particular section ends in verse 4 by this sentence. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. You're not supposed to worship him with idols. You're not supposed to worship him at these locations which have become defiled by association. You're not supposed to worship him in any other way than that which he has prescribed. in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. And so the section turns then on the word but in verse 5. There is a contrast here. But you shall seek the place. And you see that that is the first major contrast. It's a singular place rather than places. There was a pantheon of Canaanite gods and goddesses and they worshipped them all and there was this complicated story about them like there always is in mythology about wives and sisters and the legend was highly embroidered and that kind of thing and it was a multiplicity of gods in a multiplicity of places But Israel has one God and they have no other gods before Him. They have the one God and they are to worship Him in one place in verse 5. But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put His name and make His habitation there. Now, by what means will they get the habitation of God to the one place? They already have the habitation. What is it? Yeah. The tabernacle and in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, which has the representation of the throne of God on the lid, on the atonement cover, the mercy seat with the two cherubim facing each other. And then inside that ark is what? Yeah, the tablets of stone. The tablets of stone. Both the original and the copy are in there because the Ark is the repository of the law of the great king, the suzerain, God, and the law of his vassal people, Israel. So, the original and the copy, the Ten Commandments, on two tablets of stone are there in the Ark of the Covenant. They're going to take that tabernacle which, as you remember, is portable, and the whole nation surrounds it as it sets out, and they take the tabernacle down, and the Levites carry the ark, and they march. And this habitation is going to go to a place that the Lord will choose. Moses says, there you shall go, verse 5 at the end, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contributions that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. Now, all of you are probably reading this and thinking, as anybody would, Jerusalem. But not yet. Where did it go before Jerusalem? Where was the place that God chose for it before Jerusalem? Yes, Shiloh. Absolutely right. The Ark stayed for a while at Shiloh and in Joshua 18, that's when that place was established as the central sanctuary. Joshua chapter 18 verse 1, Then the whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them. So there it was, all during the book of Judges, and then there it was in 1 Samuel when Elkanah and his wives, Peninnah and Hannah, went to worship year by year to make sacrifice at Shiloh where the high priest or where the priest was the old man Eli and when Samuel was given to the Lord by Hannah as a little boy it was there at Shiloh that he heard the Lord calling to him and was given the horrifying prophecy about Eli and his sons. So there the Ark of the Covenant stayed and from there it was captured, of course, by the Philistines. Then it went on to another place during the time when David first became king. It went on to Gibeon in 1 Chronicles chapter 16. And that was the central sanctuary. First Chronicles chapter 16. It says, let's see, in verse 39. Well, let's start with 37. So David left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the Lord to minister regularly before the ark as each day required. And also, Obed-Edom and his 68 brothers, while Obed-Edom, the son of Jedathon and Hosea were to be the gatekeepers, and he left Zadok the priest and his brothers the priests before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was at Gibeon to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly morning and evening to do all that's written in the law of the Lord that he commanded Israel. Then when David captured the city of Jerusalem, he brought the Ark of the Covenant there. Not without some difficulty, as you may remember. Because the first time he tried to bring it there, to bring it on a cart, it nearly fell. Uzzah lifted up his hand to steady the Ark, and the Lord smote him. But eventually the Ark was brought safely into Jerusalem, and then that was the place that the Lord had chosen, Jerusalem which he loves. So as you read this passage tonight, the important thing is to see the incredible contrast between the polytheism and the idolatry of Israel with, I'm sorry, of Canaan with what Israel was supposed to be doing. There was one true God and there was always to be but one place where sacrifices were made to Him and where His law was placed and where the high priest made atonement once a year. Now, look what will happen at that place. Verse 5. But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation. There you shall go and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings and the firstborn of your herd and your flock. Verse seven, and there you shall eat before the Lord your God. That was an offering you remember called the peace offering. And it was the one offering where the parts of the animal were shared between the priests and the offerer's family. So it would have been the peace offering that was eaten by Elkanah and his family when they went to Shiloh. It's a fellowship meal offered to the Lord in response to his blessing. What I want you to see about verse 7 is this. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake in which the Lord your God has blessed you. So these fellowship meals were not for a request of the Lord for something. They were in response to the Lord's blessing. And they went up and they had a very festive time at Shiloh, at Gibeon, and later at Jerusalem. In verse 8, Moses talks about how worship will change for you. He says, You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today. Everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes. There was a certain amount of liberty that the Lord tolerated in worship in the wilderness. He said, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies around so that you live in safety, then, verse 11, to the place that the Lord your God will choose to make His name dwell there There you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. We're going to look at that in detail later on when we get to the 18th chapter, but you remember that there was no plot of land for the tribe of Levi. The Levites were simply mixed in with the population in the various towns, and so they were very much dependent on the other Israelites' offerings, because they themselves grew no crops, owned no herds, And so on. So this is a note of compassion for the Levites. It says, take a Levite to lunch. That's what's being said here. You know, take a Levite with you. Don't forget to include the Levites when you go to this central sanctuary. And take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, verse 13, but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you. Well, this would raise a question. And the question would be this. Everything was so connected with having the tabernacle in the wilderness handy, having it nearby. And so eating of meat in the wilderness involved a sacrifice at the tabernacle. which was never far away. But look at the provisions in verses 15 and following. However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that He has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. The reason he's singling out the gazelle and the deer as kind of exceptions or analogies here is that they were procured by hunting. You hunted down a gazelle or a deer, but the flocks and herds that you had, the oxen and the sheep and the goats, They were meant as sacrificial animals. Gazelle and deer were not. And so what God is saying here is that He's going to show mercy in the use of sacrificial animals simply for meat. rather than requiring the Israelites to present sacrifices in connection with them. In other words, when they were in the wilderness, they couldn't eat an ox, a sheep, or a goat without going through a sacrificial ritual. God's saying all that will change and you can eat them as freely as you can a gazelle or a deer that you hunt. Then I want you to notice verse 16, we'll come back to it in a moment. Only you shall not eat the blood, you shall pour it out on the earth like water. You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock or any of your vow offerings that you vow or your free will offerings or the contribution that you present, but you shall eat them before the Lord your God. in the place the Lord your God will choose. You and your son and your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord in all that you undertake. Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land." So God is elaborating here and Moses is assuring them that what they have just heard is right. There are certain rituals that they can only do in this place that the Lord designates, but they're going to have more freedom in eating the animals suited for sacrifice in their territory in which they live. So really these verses show the graciousness of God to Israel in the promised land. Because any of those sacrificial type animals had to be sacrificed at the tabernacle and eaten there. But with the central sanctuary far away and inaccessible, then any meat could be slaughtered and eaten without the sacrificial ritual. So verse 20 says, When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, I will eat meat because you crave meat, You ever been there? I will eat meat. You may eat meat whenever you desire. If the place that the Lord your God will choose to put His name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock which the Lord has given you as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire, just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. In other words, there's no sacrificial rituals connected with this meal. An unclean person doesn't have to go through various ceremonial washings to get himself or herself clean. The unclean and the clean may eat. This is not a sacrificial meal. It's just supper. So Christopher Wright, one of the great Old Testament commentators, says, since it was simple butchery without sacrifice, The ritual distinctions between the ceremonially unclean and the clean did not apply for those who shared the meal. The ritually unclean could not partake of a sacrifice, but they could enjoy the family roast. All right. Now, again, here is an admonition. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat it. You shall not. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. You shall not eat it. That all may go well with you and with your children after you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. But. Watch out for that in the Bible, but verse 26. The holy things that are due from you. Like the prescribed offerings and the offerings that you are supposed to make at various points in your life. have to be done at Shiloh, or Gibeon, or Jerusalem, or whichever it may be. But the holy things that are due from you and your vow offerings you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. Be careful to obey All these words that I command you that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God." You see that whether at home, whether you're just butchering the fatted calf, or you're at the sanctuary and you're offering your animal to the Lord, the blood must be respected. And you see that in, first of all, you see that in verse 16, only you shall not eat the blood, you shall pour it out on the earth like water. You see it in verse 23, only be sure that you do not eat the blood for the blood is the life and you shall not eat the life of the flesh. And then again, In verse 27b, it says, The blood of your sacrifice shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. Why is this important? Why all of this extensive instruction about blood? Yes. Yes. That's the bottom line. I could not have jumped to the conclusion better if I wanted to, except you missed the middle part. Yes, David. Is this not a sacrifice? The purpose of this is to feed your family, not for remission of sins, That's right. That's right. And the blood has to be the presentation of blood has to be connected with remission of sins because the blood stands for life. Your life is poured out in the blood. Yes. That's right. That's right. There is. This respect for blood as the symbol of life and blood meaning life poured out in death goes back to Genesis chapter 9. In Genesis chapter 9, God blessed Noah and his sons and he expanded their diet. For the first time, human beings were permitted to eat meat. So, Genesis 9.3 says, Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood, and for your life blood I will require a reckoning. From every beast I will require it, and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." A couple of things going on there. First of all, murder is meant, shedding the blood of man, and the due proper punishment of murder is the bloodshed or the taking of the life of the murderer, of the criminal. And the reason that that is punishable by death is that the murderer has attacked God by trying to destroy the image of God. Man is made in the image of God. Now the exception to this, which every military man needs to know, is duly authorized warfare. Death in wartime is not considered murder and it is not considered to be subject to capital punishment. The reason that David admonished his son Solomon to be sure that he dealt harshly with Joab is that Joab had murdered Abner. Even though Abner had once been the enemy of David, he wasn't at the time. They were not in a combatant warfare situation. And the way David put the problem was this. He says, he shed the blood of war in peacetime. If he had shed the blood of war in wartime, it would not have been murder. But he shed the blood of war in peacetime. That made it murder. He told his son Solomon to avenge Abner's death. This has real important implications about life and atonement, because the blood means life poured out in death. So that if you turn over to Leviticus chapter 17, where the Mosaic Law is talking about blood, You read this statement in verse 10. If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. In the previous chapter, Leviticus 16, there is this elaborate ceremony called the Day of Atonement, where the priest presents blood to the Lord once a year. And the blood stands for the life of the people. It's as if all the people died. The blood stands for substitutionary atonement. And of course, this is the central symbol of the cross, as Trant pointed out. So when Jesus died, he died a public death, high and lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness. He was considered a cursed thing by God. He was making atonement for the sins of his people, and he shed his blood on the cross. But it wasn't a matter of quantity of blood, it was the fact that his life was poured out in the blood. And therefore, he gave his life in bloodshed to satisfy the wrath of God. He endured the fury of Almighty God on the cross. So that takes us very appropriately to Romans chapter 3. And here is the heart of the Gospel. If you can get these verses from Romans 3.21 through Romans 3.26, if you can get the sense of these verses into your sharing or your ministering to someone, You've preached the gospel. Romans 3.21, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested. What that is saying is how to get right with God has now been revealed through His own means of righteousness. Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, though the law and the prophets bear witness to it. That means the whole Bible. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's a good translation. Most of you who have endured me for years know that I prefer the faithfulness of Jesus Christ there. I think that that is more accurate to Paul's context. The righteousness of God through faithfulness, through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons I think that that's important is that the big question in the first three chapters of Romans is since no one is righteous, no not one, neither Jew nor Greek, nor anyone who has ever lived, where do we get some righteousness? We need righteousness and we haven't got it. And Paul's answer is one man did. The righteousness of Jesus Christ has been made manifested and it's for all who and the Romans might have been sitting there at that point saying, OK, all who do what? I'm ready. Tell me your list of works and I'll do them. And Paul says for all who. Believe, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. That means righteous. You are put righteous. You are made not. Oh, sorry. You are declared righteous, not made righteous. You are declared righteous by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You see, if you receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, it's going to be by God's grace as a gift. And you're declared to be righteous because that righteousness of Christ is imputed to you. Then here's the central verse, verse 25. Whom God put forward as a propitiation. That means one who would take his wrath. by His blood. He poured out His life to God. First, He lived a life pleasing to God. Then He poured His life out to God in death. That means God can declare you and me as righteous as Jesus if we have faith in Jesus. God declares His life to have been your life. God declares His death to have been your death and your satisfaction for sins. Paul can even put it this way, you died. You died on the cross when Jesus died. So, your representative lived for you, your representative died for you, and he has made propitiation, satisfied God's wrath by his blood. And how in the world does all this come to you It says, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. He had not punished all those Old Testament saints as they deserved. He had shown mercy to them. When Nathan came to David and confronted him of his sins, he said, the Lord has taken away your sin. The Lord has taken away your sin. What did he mean by that? He has applied it to your descendant. He has applied it to Jesus, the son of David. Your descendant, many centuries away, who will satisfy His wrath for your sins. That descendant will be God Himself in the flesh, the Son of God. And so, verse 26, it was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Don't worry about God not punishing sins. He will. He will by no means clear the guilty. He punishes sins, and He's just to punish sins, and we would expect a just God to punish sins. But where has He punished your sin? Where has He punished my sin? He punished my sin and yours on the cross. when he punished Jesus and he shed his blood for the remission of our sins. And then God is the justifier, the one who declares righteous, the one who has faith in Jesus. So God, who does not clear the guilty, clears the guilty by laying their guilt on someone who was not guilty. God made him to be sin who knew no sin. that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This is why the strong emphasis in the Old Testament on the blood. Don't eat the blood. Don't sacrifice or only sacrifice blood to God. Don't eat it yourself. Pour it out on the ground. It stands for life poured out in death. And now let's just look at A few choice passages that talk about the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9.22. Indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. I quoted that verse one time. in Dr. Dick Junkins' church history class in Austin Presbyterian Seminary. We were asked, how do you get put right with God? I said, well, repentance and blood sacrifice. And one of my fellow students said, that's not for today, is it? Yeah, it is. It's for today. You won't come to the Lord God without the blood. It's just that simple. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. That's in Leviticus 16 on the day of atonement. For then, if that had been true of Jesus, he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Jesus' blood was what was accepted by God as his life was poured out in death. So, go to Hebrews 10, 19, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." Now on to one more, 1 John 1.7, 1 John 1.7, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. It's an amazing verse, isn't it? It actually should be translated, the blood of Jesus' Son keeps on cleansing or continues to cleanse from all sin. What does that mean? What does that mean? How would you explain that to a child? How would you explain it to someone you were witnessing to? They'd say, hey Christian, what does this mean? The blood of Jesus' Son cleanses us from all sin. That sounds pretty icky. There's a real serious question that nearly everybody asks themselves after they've come to faith. Especially God's wife who was baptized in Washington, D.C. Yeah. Yeah. What do you do after that when you sin? Poor Ben got baptized and sinned before 24 hours were up. You didn't get back to Crosman. You didn't even get back home before you sinned. OK. What is the answer? The blood will never lose its power. It keeps on cleansing. It is still the only way of satisfying the wrath of God. It is still the only basis of forgiveness. It is still the only basis of being put right with God. There remains, forever and ever, 24-7, 365 days a year, until the day you die, no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus. Why? because the blood keeps doing its work. The blood of Jesus Christ has satisfied the wrath of God. Well, we're nearly done. One more quick question for those of you who know your fulfillment theology. This whole business of a central sanctuary, this place where you've got to go to worship God, how has that been fulfilled? Within the church. Absolutely right. You don't have to go to Jerusalem. You don't have to go to Rome. You don't have to go to Waco. Amen. And for our Presbyterian friends here, you don't have to go to Montreat. You don't have to go to Montreat. No. It has been fulfilled in the church. Jesus said it would. He was talking to a multiple divorcee one afternoon at a well. And in John 4, 20, 21, he said, well, she said to him, our father is worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her woman, Believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. So that was a huge thing. And Jesus said in verse 23, The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. You won't have to go to the temple. As a matter of fact, in 40 years, it will be very inconvenient to do so. God will destroy it. He will utterly obliterate it. What is the temple now? The temple is us. The temple is the church. A holy temple to the Lord. And all of that, of course, is in the last half of Ephesians 2. And I'll read you just a couple more passages that are extremely relevant for this because it is the church that fulfills Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a type of the church and its central feature, Mount Zion, where David's Pallas was, is also a figure of the church. This is brought out in Hebrews 12, 22, where the writer says, But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And last thing I'll read you, because there's just not much more Bible left after you read this. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared, and here's a hint, as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain anymore for the former things have passed away. You're already a member of the society for whom that is going to be true. You're already a member of the community of faith. for which that will happen. You are now part of the central sanctuary. You are part of the place that the Lord your God will choose. In the hearts of His people, among His people, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which makes the heavenly Jerusalem anywhere on earth.