"God's House" By Brother Parrish Lee March 9th,
2014 What an awesome God we serve. I mean, what a refreshing, loving,
never-yielding, never-making-mistakes, never-letting-you-down God that we
serve. Two thousand and fourteen. Two thousand and fourteen, and I am hear to
report, He is still in the saving business.
The awe-inspiring, healing, teaching, business. That same God is all that. You know, we’ve had a wonderful week. Well, I know I have had a specifically
wonderful week in God. I had a
tremendous, like you spoke about, Bob, had a tremendous week-end. Tremendous week-end! I learned so much. I learned so incredibly much. I received so much of a blessing. From beginning to end; every part of it, you
know, and that launched off a tremendous week.
It launched off a super-tremendous week in God, where I was able to see
people do a mending of heart; I was able to see young people coming together
and doing things and God would just show me, “You know what? This is Me moving.” I had a chance to see a young lady give her
heart to the Lord, come and get baptized in Jesus’ name and smile about it! I rejoiced in all that. Not that I’m anybody, but I do, I rejoice in
that, and we do, we all rejoiced in all that; everything that God gives us. But, above that—I just got to say this—above
all that, I am so thankful that when you wake up in the morning and your eyes
open, before your feet hit the floor, you know that God is on your side and
that, no matter what you are facing that day.
He is an ever-present help in a time of need. He has never lost a battle, and He
will—according to His Word—never leave you nor forsake you. What kind of God that is. The theme of the month is ‘The House
of God,’ and our Scripture theme for the month is: 2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens. Eternal in the Heavens. What a great promise. What a great promise, that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle is gone, we have, in reserve for us, a place. You know what, Heaven, if we allow it, it
seems so far away, and, you know, what are we talking, twenty, forty, fifty,
or, at the most—at the most—people live to be a hundred and twenty years
old. I think they said the oldest person
is like a hundred and twenty-six. I
think they said that. It’s a woman; they
say women outlive men anyway. There are
a lot of jokes that go along with that, not appropriate for this morning. they say that this person has all kinds of
wisdom to show for how they did it, but they say a lot of older people don’t
know how they did it. They don’t
know—they don’t know why they’re living so long, they just know that they’re living. The truth of that whole matter is, God has
given them a certain gift, and, if they will receive it, for a certain
reason. As we get started with the message today—all
that wasn’t part of the message, that was just… Exodus 25:8-9 And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among
them. According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle,
and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. If you could bow your heads with me
for just a moment for a word of prayer.
Lord, we thank you so much for all Your good and perfect gifts. God, if we were to name them one by one, we
would run out of time. Lord, you have been that kind of good to
us. So, we cast off all the things that could
prohibit us from having any blessing, this day, for this day is the day is the
day that You have made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it. So, Lord, we thank You for our time of praise
and worship and coming together and offering our sacrifices of praise unto
you. We ask for a blessing on the reading,
and the studying, and the going over of Your word, for You have said that You
would not allow Your word to return unto You void, but that it would surely accomplish,
that for which You sent it. So, we thank
You, God, as we present ourselves to You.
Add a blessing on the Word, on the reading, on our understanding, God,
that it would profit us withal, and we pray and claim in Jesus’ name, and
everyone said, amen. For those of you who don’t know me,
my name is Parrish, Parrish Lee. Andy
Giebler and myself, we head up the fellowship here. Very privileged; it’s a very big privilege,
actually. We pray that everybody who
comes is able to receive a blessing, is able to be nurtured, is able to be
changed, because if you walk into the House of God, the truth of the matter is,
you ain’t supposed to leave like you came.
You can come as you are, but you cannot leave like you came. When you interact with God, there is a change
that happens. There is a change that has
to be made. So, from the Book of Exodus, chapter
25, “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shew thee, after the
pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even
so shall ye make it.” Pastor Paine
really taught—well, he taught me a lot.
As he was going over the message, like you were talking about, Bob, he
said, “Well, what is the theme?” We
said, “Well, it’s the ‘House of God,’ but you can talk about anything you want,
you’re the general pastor.” He said,
“Okay, but I’m going to pray in this direction.” I learned so much, specifically—I’m going to
do a really, really, quick revisit. In
the House of God, we do love, and he said, “we.” In God’s house, we do love; in God’s house,
we do correction. In God’s house, we
bear one another’s burdens. As he was
going over these, I was thinking, “Yeah, yeah,” and the ore he went over, the
more my ‘yeah’ got a little lower. I got
a little more studious, and a little bit more quiet, and a little bit more,
“Hmmm. I’ve got to put that into action
before I raise my hand.” He said in the
House of God, we do humility, we learned so much about that this week, and
sometimes you don’t even know that that’s an area that you need to focus on
until somebody shares with you, this is an area where you can improve, this is
where you can get better. This where you
can climb, or overtake an obstacle that’s been in your way. If you want to get a raise, this is what, the
part of the work that we have to learn.
You want to be able to run a little faster? These are the nutrients that you need to put
in your body. As he was going over this,
these are the things that were coming to my mind: “I want to be a better spiritual man. I want to be more of the man that God would
have me to be, not that everybody else would say anything or do anything, but
the man that God would have me to be. I
want that relationship with God to be airtight, to be straight; I want it to be
fit; I want it to be all that and a bag of chips. For me; not for anybody else. I don’t want to be left out of anything God
has for me. So, in the House of God, we
do humility. In the House of God, Pastor
said, we do responsibility. Then he said
a profound statement—he said it twice—he said, “It’s not enough to be part of a
good family; you need to make the family that you’re part of good.” You need to make the family that you’re part
of good, which shifts that whole responsibility from just enjoying everything
to, “Oh, I have to put forth some effort.”
I wrote that down; I needed to learn that. The last one that I wrote down, he said, we
do forgiveness in the House of God.
Every day, that’s a lesson that I go to God with every day, because I
know that, in my flesh, I need the victory over that. Every day, God gives you the victory over
that. The last one, he said, you know
what we don’t do in the House of God? we don’t do excuses. We don’t do excuses, which I couldn’t say
amen too loud to, because I had a bag full.
So, hey, I’m going to work on that; God, I’m going to give that to You
and You’re going to make it better. So,
that was the revisit from our general pastor as he opened up the door to talk
about the House of God. the House of
God. We want to talk a little bit more
about the Tabernacle, and, of course, the Anyway, they wanted deliverance. God raised up Moses; He was going to deliver
them by the hand of Moses. So Moses
listens to God, and they did that big thing—you know that Ten Commandments
movie, they have that on every year around Easter time. He gets the people delivered, and the
Passover’s there, and the Red Sea splits, and a million-plus people walk across
on dry land, and they get to the other side, and all the Egyptians, when they
try to follow them, they get swallowed up in the red Sea and they get washed
away. There they are, on the other side
and delivered. Now God has some messages
for them, “Now that I have delivered you, now I have some messages for
you. Message number 1: I have some commandments for you; I want to
show you that there’s a difference between you and Me. I have some commandments for you. We’re going to go over to
This
is the house He’s talking about. It was
called the Tabernacle. It was called the
Tabernacle of Sinai, it was called the Tabernacle of the Wilderness, it was
called several things, but it was the Tabernacle. There’s some specific things we want to get
to—we’re going to go through this kind of quick. I don’t want to take up too much of
everybody’s time here this morning.
There’s some specific things we have to mindful of. The first thing that you had o mindful of was
that there was a gate. There was a gate. A gate to get into this place where you’re
going to dwell with God. But there was
just one. There’s just one gate that you
could go through. You could try to sneak
over some other way, but they were instructed to kill you. There was only one access, and it was a
proper access, to come to God. After you
got through there was what was called a brazen—or bronze—altar. There was an attar where you would bring your
sacrifices. This symbolizes that there
is only one way—and, of course, we know that the Lord is the Way, the Truth,
and the Life—but the altar symbolizes—this was the first thing that you could
see—this was something that people would be able to see; this was a physical
thing, a physical sacrifice that you
brought. Yes, a physical sacrifice, or offering
that you brought. It was a sacrifice
that you brought unto God and, yes, some people benefitted from it, mainly the
priests, but it was a sacrifice that you brought unto God. Next, if you were to go just a little ways
further, there was a big bowl, they called it a laver—a big one. This was after your offerings, after your
sacrifices, there was a cleansing, before you got to the
That
A
menorah. It was seven candlesticks. The were to burn all the time. This was before electricity. This was before gas lights, flash lights, any
other kind of light. They would have a
candle. Okay? So, that was going to be—because the top of
this was covered also—that was going to be the only light n God’s House. The only light. So, His Spirit would be guiding. After that, there was this table of
shewbread. That was twelve cakes, and
that symbolized that all the tribes—all the tribes, all the people—of God’s
nation were represented. That stayed on
the table for one week. It stayed there
before God. This is coming to a certain
reason. IT stayed on the table for one
week—the priest would eat it on the seventh day—but there was always food on
God’s table. There was always provision
for God’s table. After he would eat
it—he would sit there at the table and eat it—and this symbolized the
communion—the true communion—or, having something in common with God. After that, there was one more altar
that was inside of there. That altar was
called the golden altar, or the altar of incense. On that was placed fine incenses that would
put up an odor and fill up the entire tabernacle with scents. So, whenever you walked in there, there was
always a smell, or fragrance, and it always permeated your mind. This represents the prayers of the saints,
that God’s house is filled with prayer.
Filled with prayer; prayers of needs, prayers of blessings, prayers of
everything in God’s house. That was just before you got to what
they called the Holy of Holies. You
couldn’t just walk in there any old time.
That was actually supposed to be done just once a year when you went for
the offering of atonement. In there,
they had something like this:
It’s
called the Arc of the Covenant. The
bottom part had the covenant. It had
three things in there, and those three things represented something. They had Aaron’s rod (Numbers 17), and that
actually represented authority, because, in God’s House, there is an authority
there. They also had manna, that God
would supply your every need at all times (Exodus 16:15)—you only have to turn
to Him, and it’s there. The other thing
that they had was the Ten Commandments.
That’s what was inside the Arc of the Covenant. These three things represented authority, provision,
and the Law, always knowing how, where and what before God. On top of the Arc of the Covenant
was what was called the Mercy Seat. On
this Mercy Seat, when the offering was made, you would see this:
It
was a cloud, it was a pillar—everybody could see it, but the blessing was taken
care of here. This symbolizes all of
us. God blesses our lives. People see the evidence of it happening. They know there’s something going on—they
can’t exactly put there finger on it, but it’s God moving, and they see the
evidence of God moving in your life. These things that were inside of
this House of God—this was the Tabernacle—and the Children of Israel went, and,
you can see, there was a bunch of tents:
They
were camped round about this. This was a
mobile thing. When the Spirit of God
said that they needed to move, they would pack everything up, and they would
move. They had a certain order that they
did it, but they did it. They’d pack it all up and they would move. In other words, wherever they would go, they
were to take God with them. Wherever
they go, they were to take God with them.
This was in the time of Moses. In the time of David, David asked
the prophet Nathan, he said, “Hey, you know, I dwell in a house of cedars, but
the
This
is where the Holy Place was, and this would have been for the Holy of
Holies. So this represented a stationary
place. This represented a place that did
not move. There are certain things that
are put in your life by God that are not to change. They are not to move; they are not to go
anywhere. God sets it up; you keep that
blessing. There are other things that wherever
you go, you take God with you; wherever it is, you take God with you. When they built this Temple, it was said that
it was seventeen years in preparing, and, when they had done it, people all the
way round about had heard about this thing, and they said, “Wow, they’re really
building a temple for God?” They would
give money from other lands—there was this one queen, she heard about it, and
she said, “Hah! Really? I need to check that out for myself.” There’s a lot of legends that go along with
the story, but the Bible says that she brought her servants, and her handmaids,
and she brought gifts, and she went up to see this, “How great can this thing really
be? I mean, I don’t know any god that
moves like that, let me see it for myself.”
As she went over to see it, the Bible says that she asked him all of her
hard questions—she was a queen; she was renowned for the wisdom that she
had—so, she got all of her advisors to come, and she asked Solomon all of her
hard questions. Solomon answered, the
Bible says, every one of them. The Bible
says that when she saw that he had answered all her questions, and she saw the
servants, and how they were arrayed, and she saw the glory of the So, in these two houses, in the
portable place, or the mobile place, and the stationary place, whenever they
would offer—because there’s a certain time, saints, and when god lays it on
your heart, it’s our time. “Time for you
and me to get—I’m asking you, dig out some time to pray to me, dig out some
time to commune. Put on the song that
you like that we can start worshipping together. If you don’t have a CD player, MP3 player,
record player, or any other kind of player, sing it to me, saints. A song in your heart—that’s the sweetest
music! Sing it unto Me. Let us have this joy that flows, bubbling
up. Bubbling up. You don’t need all those instruments all the
time. That’s somebody else doing a great
job, and they’re praising God, and, yeah, when you praise God together, you
have a wonderful time.” How many know
that when you dig out some time and you pray to God and you sing and you got
that sweet communion going on. You’re
not looking at a clock! You’re not
worried about your aches and pains! You
just want more! “Oh God, give me
more! I love this, Lord, I just want
more of Your presence! Your Shadow,
sweep over me, cover me, fill me, whatever You want to do, God, have Your way;
I gots to have more! Turn off the phone;
turn off the TV; don’t give me no distraactions1 This is our time! I now later on, I’m going to take care of
everything else, but, right now, it’s between You and me, God. That’s where we get our shewbread, and that’s
where we get our candlesticks. That’s
where we get that labor thing going on. That’s
where we get that altar of incense.
That’s when we feel that Mercy Seat being spread all over us. That’s when we know that this love thing is
for real. Me and You, Lord. Everybody else don’t have to understand
it. I’ll be more than happy to tell them
if they want to know, but, if they don’t, they ain’t taking mine away. So, God’s House is a place of
offering, a place of cleansing, a place of guidance, and a place of direction
and communion. It’s a place of prayer,
and, of course, it’s a place of atonement and mercy. 2 Timothy 2:20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to
dishonour. “But in a great house there are not
only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to
honour, and some to dishonour.” Any of
us would know that when you get a house, you kind of have this thing on how you
want it decorated. You kind of want to have
special certain things in there. Most
guys, not all guys, but most guys, around football season, “Yeah, I want a
fifty-four,” or “I want a sixty,” or “I want a sixty-two,” “I want a
eighty! Yeah! I want the BIG screen! Yeah, I want the big one!” You know what, I can get in sooo much trouble
trying to say what some of the ladies might like. But, I’ve heard—I’ve heard—something to do
with a walk-in thing. I only heard that
from my sisters. They said, “I want a
walk-in thing, where I’ve got the room and the organization and everything like
I want it. And, you know what? I want a whole kitchen type of thing that
cleans itself, and a whole bathroom thing that clans itself. You put that in there. That’s what I want.” So, in a house, you put in there the things
that you want, you know? “Get me a
lazy-boy!” “Get me that right
sofa!” You know? And everything that you put in there, or that
you design to put in there, it has a specific purpose. You put things in there for a specific
purpose. You know, you put furniture in
there, utensils, they all have a specific purpose. Cleaning supplies, storage, they all have a
purpose. One thing that we know happens
is, we put things in there for one purpose, and then figure out, “Hey! I can
use this for this!” I’ve seen—I’m a
technician, so I have a really big toolbox.
I’ve kind of got this thing about tools.
I’m crazy about them. I work
around people that got things for tools.
They really do. They talk about
they’ve got the Craftsman, because they don’t like the Blackhawk, or they might
like the Armstrong… You know, they talk
about those things, and I’ve actually seen a screwdriver get used for things
other than a screwdriver. I’ve seen a
screwdriver get used for a pry bar. I’ve
seen a screwdriver get used to butter somebody’s toast. Hey, if it works, and it’s useful, to each
his own; I don’t even know if the guy cleaned it off first. I’m not judging, I’m just saying. So, everything that is there, you get it for
a certain purpose. I’ve also seen—and
I’m sure we’ve all seen—you walk into some houses and you see a nice cabinet,
it’s got glass doors—my sister has one; she’s got her fine china in there, you
know, like a gravy spoon, and all that stuff, I don’t even know what it is,
silver stuff, you know, that you don’t eat off of, because that’s the special
stuff that you’re not supposed to eat off of, and it’s basically for show. It’s in the house for show. It doesn’t get used very much. So, there are things in this house that get
used, and there are things that don’t.
When something outlives its purpose, something doesn’t do the purpose
for which you obtained it, generally, if you can’t find another purpose for it,
it’s in danger. It’s in danger of no
longer being in your house, because it’s no longer after its purpose any
more. If it isn’t being used for any
other purpose, it becomes what you call clutter. It becomes—what did you say? a mess?—it
becomes a mess. Well, it’s a mess to
some people; I mean, one man’s screwdriver is another man’s butter knife. But, if it’s outlived its purpose; if it no
longer has utility, then it doesn’t justify itself for being around. Where a Christian could go wrong is in
thinking that they only have a specific one purpose; just one purpose. “Yeah, I’m called to do this.” “I’m called to
teach.” “Yeah, but, everybody’s working
right now.” “But I’m a teacher!” “Yeah, but everybody’s working right
now.” “Well, I’ll come back when they’re
ready for being taught.” Or, “You know,
I’m really called to prophesy and to pray.”
“Okay, but we really need somebody to give a ride to somebody.” “But, but, but, I’m called to prophesy and to
pray!” “That’s not where the need is
right now. The need is in helping
somebody who doesn’t have transportation right now.” “Well, I’ll come back when they have
prophesying going on and praying going on.”
So, you can see how, in the House of God, that could start to lose its
utility; it becomes less vital. When you
can’t supply the need, you’re not really being useful at the time. Pastor Paine told us a story—he told it a
while ago, he hasn’t told it recently—but he told us a story, he said, you
know, he said his mother had six children, so he had five siblings, and he said
his mother was really good at this: She
would—one of his brothers had come to her, and he had fixed a toy, or fixed a
clock, or changed the time or whatever—and she said, “Oh,” whatever his name
was; Greg, I think, “you’re great, you can fix anything. You’re my little fixer-upper.” I remembered that he said that. He went down all the kids, and I don’t
remember them all, but I remember that one, because I’m a technician; I fix
things, so it rang a bell. I said,
“Pastor Paine, I really liked that story, that was a good story.” Pastor Paine said, “Do you remember what my
mom spoke over me?” Well, I probably
shouldn’t have brought that story up if I couldn’t remember what your mom said
about you… “No, pas tor, I don’t. But I’m really interested in learning. Could you tell me?” He said, “Sure. She said, ‘Pete, you’re my little
peacemaker. You come in there and you
make peace in situations.’” Hence, it is
no strange thing that he would be the pastor of a ministry, but the reality is
it doesn’t stop there. That’s not the
only thing he does. He’s allowed himself
to have more utility. We could talk
about Pastor Paine, but I want to talk about Apostle Paul. Apostle Paul said, “I am chiefest of
apostles, but I am not even worthy to be an apostle.” He talked in another place, “I am a teacher
of babes.” He talked in another place,
“Yes, I am an evangelist.” He talked in
another place and said, “I’m a tentmaker.
This is what I do. Wherever the
need is, I fill it in.” In the House of
God, if you want to have more utility, if you really want to be chiefest among
them, be servant of all. Be servant of
all, and you’re the chiefest one. So,
the point from this is, never limit yourself.
Never say, “I can only do this.” When
opportunities arise, yes, there’s a teaching. Yes, there’s a preaching. Yes, when there’s a singing. Yes, when there’s a praising. When opportunities arise, yes, when there’s a
ride. Yes, when a brother or sister
needs a little comfort, needs a listening ear.
Yes, when they need somebody to pray with them. Yes, when they need somebody to pray for
them, because today it’s them, but, tomorrow, it’s us in the House of God. Which is why there’s the offering and the
washing and the cleansing, this whole communion thing, this whole having things
in common is from God outward to everybody that we could duplicate what God
gives to us. After all, he said, “Freely
you have received, freely give.” It’s
really been a wonderful time to worship, praise, and pray, and blessing and
healing, and hear the hearts of everybody.
There’s something good and pleasant about brothers and sisters getting
involved. There’s something bout God
command a certain blessing going on.
There’s just something about that. 1 John 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he
that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. He, or she, that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. Amen. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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