22.222 | What is the Place of My Rest? | Acts 7:44-50 | God’s Word for Today with Pastor Nazario Sinon

God’s Word For Today

Acts 7:44-50 ESV

44 “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. 45 Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, 46 who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.[a] 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him. 48 Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,

49 “‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,

or what is the place of my rest?

50 Did not my hand make all these things?’

WHAT IS THE PLACE OF MY REST?

God had commanded Moses to build the tabernacle. He designed it and Moses had to construct it according to the details. As they entered into the Promised Land, Joshua saw to it that the tabernacle worship did continue. When the kingdom reached its zenith during David’s time, David found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was his son, Solomon who built a house for God.

Stephen was laying down his defense against the Jews who accused him of disrespecting the temple. God didn't ask for the temple, did He? And He had no issues speaking to the priests inside a tent or tabernacle. The building is not sacred unless God's presence is actually there. The temple was not built until more than four hundred years after God gave Moses the plans to build it. God blessed the temple, but He didn't need it. Ironically, the temple was not built by Abraham or Moses or David but by Solomon. The structure designed in order to demonstrate the proper way to worship God was built by the king who started drifting away from God and worshiped idols and foreign gods instead (1 Kings 11:1–8).

Thus Stephen brought them back to the essence why the temple is irrelevant when God is not there. They had forgotten what Solomon had recognized during the dedication of the temple "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27). God has proven him right: "As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD filled the LORD'S house" (2 Chron 7:1–2).

A few years earlier, a Samaritan woman told Jesus that God has to be worshiped in the place where the temple was for the Jews. Jesus responded to the Samaritan woman, matter of factly, that a time was coming when people no longer be obligated to worship at the temple. Instead, they would worship wherever they were, in spirit and in truth (John 4:21–24). In short, the attitude of worship and the object of worship matter, not the location.

Paul will use this same rationale with Greek philosophers, saying, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:24–25).

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