Bulletin Articles: Full Article for Record Number 1035
Better Be In The Right House
by Larry Ray Hafley
When the people of God prepared to leave Egypt, the Lord commanded them to put blood on the door posts of their houses when he passed over the land (Ex. 12:7). They were not to go out of the door of their houses until the next morning (v. 22). Death would come to the first born of those who were not in a house with the blood upon it. So, it was imperative that one be in a house with the blood upon it!
When Solomon dedicated the temple of the Lord, God said he had “chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice....For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that my name be there forever” (2 Chron. 7:12, 16). The temple was a “house of sacrifice.” This was the one the Lord had selected and sanctified. God’s name, everything that represented his power, purposes, and promises, was in that house. To be of God, therefore, one must worship through the appointments and ordinances of divine service which were in it (Cf. Heb. 9).
Today, God has a “spiritual house,” “the house of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Pet. 2:5; 4:17, 18). Through Christ, God has, as it were, put his blood upon it (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25). His name is there (Eph. 2:19-22; 3:15). It is God’s holy temple, his building, not made with human hands (Eph. 2:19-22; Heb. 8:2; 9:11). In it are the fulfillment of all God’s purposes, promises, and prophecies of redemption from sin. Every spiritual blessing of sanctification and reconciliation resides within it and nowhere else.
You would not have ventured outside a house without the blood upon it when the Lord passed over Egypt in that night so long ago. Nor would you have sought to offer a sacrifice upon an altar not inspired by that of the temple of Solomon in the days of Israel’s national glory. Likewise, today, you dare not despise the church of God if you would be saved by the blood of Christ, for his blood is upon that house, the church. Jesus is the Savior of the body, the church (Eph. 1:22, 23; 5:23). Do not be found outside of it when the Lord passes over in divine judgment at the appearance of Jesus Christ our Lord!
