AP

Exodus 36:6-7  Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.”  And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

This is a very interesting phenomenon.  Here was a group of more than two million people wandering in the desert on the basis of a promise, having been asked to contribute to the construction of a portable edifice that would symbolise God’s presence among them, and they had to be restrained from bringing any more because the supply had already outstripped the demand!  They had to be ordered to stop being so generous!

In stark contrast, here we are today, comfortably settled in our homes with all our daily requirements being supplied in abundance, and commissioned with the task of building a new ‘sanctuary’, a new ‘temple’, the people of God.  The Cornerstone of this new ‘temple’ is the Lord Jesus Christ himself (1 Peter 2:6-8).  The building ‘materials’ are those from ‘every nation, tribe, people and language’ (Revelation 7:9) who ‘like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house’ (1 Peter 2:5).  To gather these building materials together the Lord Jesus gave this instruction: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:16).

But, sadly, there is another reality that Jesus pointed out to his own generation 2,000 years ago, and which applies perhaps with even more force today: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:37-38).  The question arises for all of us: How much are we contributing, in terms of prayer, finance and human resources, to the building of the new ‘temple’?

– Bruce Christian