{"id":1881,"date":"2012-05-22T12:14:34","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T10:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/blog\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2012-05-22T12:14:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T10:14:34","slug":"who-may-enter-the-sanctuary-and-the-presence-of-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/?p=1881","title":{"rendered":"Who may enter the sanctuary and the presence of the Lord?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Psalm of David (Ps 15:1-5 NLT \u2013 New Living Translation)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>David starts off with these questions in this psalm:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although we must answer the questions from a New Testament perspective, David already had the answers to these questions.\u00a0 Although he lived in the Old Testament times under the Law, his insight was so much more advanced than the rest of his people and even most other Christians for that matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><em>Who may worship IN your sanctuary, Lord?\u00a0 Who may enter your presence&#8230;? <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The writer of the book of Hebrews, wrote: &#8220;<strong><em>But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not without blood,<\/span> which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people&#8221;<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0(<strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Heb 9:7 KJV)<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Because of sin, <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">ONLY<\/span><\/strong> the High Priest could enter the sanctuary of the Lord \u2013 <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">once a year<\/span><\/strong> and <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">NOT <\/span><\/strong>without the blood of the sacrifice.\u00a0 Now we know that Jesus Christ was our perfect High Priest and perfect sacrifice whose blood was shed for our sins.\u00a0 Through the blood of Jesus Christ we have received eternal redemption from our sins (past and future).\u00a0 See the scripture below:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<strong><em>But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;\u00a0 Neither by the blood of\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>goats and calves, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained <\/span><\/em><\/strong><strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">eternal redemption for us<\/span><\/em><\/strong><strong><em>.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 (Heb 9:11-12)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The veil in front of the Holy of Holies (the sanctuary) was rent from top to bottom and the way has been prepared (opened)\u00a0 by Jesus Christ for us to enter.\u00a0 But the principle of God still remains that you cannot enter His presence without the blood of the sacrifice.\u00a0 You will only receive the Blood of the sacrifice (the blood of Jesus) when you \u00a0accept Jesus Christ as Savior, repent and are born-again through the water and the Spirit (John 3:5).\u00a0 In other words, you will have to sacrifice yourself (your own will and attitude) and accept the will of God and His attitude (character) for your life.\u00a0 According to John 1:12 we receive first of all the power to be called sons of God, but much more so the Word also declares in other Scriptures\u00a0we receive the <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Righteousness of Jesus Christ<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 It is a gift from God to establish us once again without sin and shame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The righteousness of Jesus Christ which we receive as a gift through faith in Him, establishes us once again\u00a0 as being <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">blameless and innocent.\u00a0 As if you have never sinned before in your life.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Paul could proclaim that he is a new creation: <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2Co 5:17 KJV)<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are so many scriptures that testifies of this miraculous gift that God has given us through faith and His grace.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the Church truly understand the real meaning of it all.\u00a0 Here is another one of Paul to the Church in Rome:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: <\/span>for there is no difference: \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; Rom 3:21 -25 <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>So,\u00a0 now we can answer the questions ourselves: \u00a0&#8220;Who may enter into His presence and worship in His sanctuary&#8221;? <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Those who are innocent and blameless through the blood of Jesus Christ!\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And David already knew the answer because in verse 2 of Ps 15 he boldly declared it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><em>Those who lead <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">blameless lives<\/span> and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts; <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The people of Israel and therefore nobody else will be able to uphold the Old Testament law of Moses unto righteousness &#8211; not even the\u00a010 Commandments. \u00a0\u00a0The Word makes it quite clearly that if you transgress in one stipulation of the Law, you are transgressing the whole law.\u00a0\u00a0 Being under Grace and in righteousness of Christ does NOT give us or you now carte blanche to commit sin, \u201cbecause we are under Grace\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 No God forbid.\u00a0 It is especially the fact that we have received this awesome gift that inspire us to have a much more close and sincere relationship with our Lord and savior.\u00a0 Now it is not a framework of mind that we <strong><em>\u201care not allowed to do something wrong (against the Law<\/em><\/strong>)\u201d , but more a sense of obedience to <strong><em>\u201cwe do not want to do something wrong\u201d.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s continue with the last few verses of this Psalm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Verse 3:\u00a0 <strong><em>\u201cThose who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends\u201d;<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Verse 4: \u201c <strong><em>Those who despise flagrant sinners and honors the faithful followers of the Lord\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>and keep their promises even when it hurts; <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Verse 5:\u00a0 <strong><em>\u201cThose who lend money without any interest\u00a0 and who cannot be bribed to lie about <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From these few verses I can immediately see a couple of aspects that I would like to lift out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>David is not writing about the requirements of the Law, but about righteousness;<\/li>\n<li>He clearly lifts up issues that are also covered by the Law, but he writes about people who are blameless and does these things because they <strong>WANT<\/strong> to and not because they are <strong>FORCED<\/strong> to.<\/li>\n<li>He writes about the correct character and attitude that we need to embrace in our lives.\u00a0 Sometimes we have to <strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u201crefuse\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong> things in our lives and <strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u201cdespise\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong> the wrong in our own lives and in other people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 It speaks of <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">maturity in<\/span><\/strong> the Spirit.\u00a0\u00a0 Never should we make compromises about the wrong (sin) in our or other people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 Someone said: \u201cLove the sinner, but hate the sin\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0Mature people also know how to distinguish between right and wrong (Hebr 5:14)<\/li>\n<li>In verse 4 we need to distinguish between the sinners and the followers of God.\u00a0 Although we are in this world, we should not be from or as the world.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Especially when it comes to the second part of this verse: \u201c &#8230;<strong><em> and keep their promises even when it hurts;\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Unfortunately I have seen it too many times in the lives of children of God and even pastors who do not have any integrity. Keep your promises even if it hurts yourself, but also honor other fellow followers of God by returning a call, or answering an invitation or providing feedback when requested.\u00a0\u00a0 Speak the truth in love!\u00a0 Don\u2019t be a hypocrite and lie about a situation or why you did not attend an invitation.\u00a0 Do not just\u00a0ignore a request or invitation from a fellow follower of God, \u00a0because then it speaks of\u00a0 pride, egostism and a lack of consideration for your brother\/sister.\u00a0Do what you have promised to do! \u00a0 The Church of today needs leaders with <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">true integrity<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 that of Christ!<\/li>\n<li>Verse 5 speaks of <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">honesty and truthfulness.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>When you tell the truth, the truth will testify about itself and will stand the test of time.\u00a0 However, when you lie you will have to fabricate a complete set of other lies to substantiate the one lie and it will not stand the test of time.\u00a0 You will even have to exploit someone else as an accomplish to verify your version of the story and in the end more than one person will be in bondage because of one person and his\/her stream of lies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, David concluded this very short Psalm with the following words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>\u201cSuch people will stand firm forever\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>\u201cSuch people\u201d\u00a0 &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>Those who are blameless (in the righteousness of Christ) and who portray the correct character of Christ, being:\n<ul>\n<li>Without sin \u2013 refuse to disobey the Word of God;<\/li>\n<li>Mature in their decisions \u2013 choosing between right and wrong;<\/li>\n<li>Walking and talking with integrity \u2013 fulfilling all your promises as Jesus fulfills His;<\/li>\n<li>Those who are honest and trustworthy.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just five issues (5 = stands for Grace) that will allow you to enter His sanctuary.\u00a0 At the end it is only by Grace and the Blood of Jesus Christ that allows us in His presence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Dr Eric Heath (D.Th) \u00a0is the President of Galilee International Ministries (SA) in Pretoria and is available to lecture or minister on specific subjects as required. He can be contacted through this website.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-1881'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(1881);\" title='Like' ><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.galmin.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png?w=750&#038;ssl=1\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>1 person likes this post.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(1881);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(1881);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Psalm of David (Ps 15:1-5 NLT \u2013 New Living Translation)\u00a0 David starts off with these questions in this psalm:\u00a0 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Although we must answer the questions from a New Testament perspective, David already had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[485,479,477,483,482,481,480,478,484],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inzpired","tag-blameless-lifes","tag-blood-of-christ","tag-enter-the-presence-of-god","tag-honesty","tag-integrity","tag-maturity","tag-righteousness","tag-sanctuary","tag-trustworthy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9rp4V-ul","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galmin.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}