BOOK OF HEBREWS
THE HOUSE OF GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
MAY 20, 1984
HEBREWS 2:1-6, EPHESIANS 2:11-22
Consider the fate of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Tomb at Halicarnassus is no more. It was built 335 years before Christ, and it was so famous. In that day every large tomb was referred to as a mausoleum. Its ruins may be seen in a British museum in London, England. The temple of Diana, built in the once great city of Ephesus, is no more. It had 106 marble columns, each column, 40 feet high. Each column donated from a different portion of the ancient world. It was the center of the fertility cult of Diana. The temple is no more. It was destroyed in the year 262 ad by gothic invaders two hundred years after the Apostle Paul visited the city of Ephesus.
The hanging gardens of Babylon are no more. Built by King Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century before Christ. The ruins of Babylon have just recently been discovered by archeologists near the banks of the Euphrates River, 55 miles south of modern-day Mumbai (Bombay). The great lighthouse of Alexandria is no more. It was built by Ptolemy, King of Egypt. It stood 440 feet high, and it was 200 feet square at the base. It was built on the island called Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but it was destroyed in the 14th century by a massive earthquake.
The great statue of Zeus, the most famous statue in the ancient world is no more. It was built on the, in the city of Olympics where the Olympic games were held at portrayed Zeus, king of the gods enthroned in glory, but it was pilfer by Byzantine invaders and the statue is totally destroyed.
The Colossus of Rhodes, built on the island of Rhodes, spanning the great harbor. It portrayed the great Greek God Apollo. It was 120 feet high, the size of the Statue of Liberty, but it isn’t standing as it was destroyed in the year 224 BC by a massive earthquake. Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the pyramids remain, built before the time of Moses as tombs for the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Those pyramids still stand, but even the pyramids are experiencing erosion. They are subject to decay. One day they will fade from this earth. The Bible tells us that there is only one eternal structure, only one structure that forever will remain and the Bible tells us that that structure is the house of God. And I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of the eternal house of God. The Bible tells us three things about this great house.
First of all, the Bible tells us that the house of God is founded on the apostles and the prophets. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, and he said, you are no longer strangers and sojourners but fellow citizens with the saints members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostle and the prophets. When you think of the prophets, I’m sure that most of you think of the major and minor prophets of the Old Testament from Isaiah and Jeremiah to Haggai, Zacharia and Malachi and certainly the Old Testament prophets looked through the portals of time and they saw the coming of Christ and his great kingdom. They greeted the house of God from afar and they prepared the hearts of men and women for the coming of Christ and the kingdom of Christ. But it was the New Testament apostles and prophets who gave their life to found the church of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, the tax collector, was slain with the sword and the land of Ethiopia on the continent of Africa as he proclaimed Christ to a pagan people. John Mark, the friend of Peter, the friend of Paul who wrote the gospel that bears his name, died a martyr’s death as he was dragged through the streets of Alexandria in the land of Egypt. Luke, the beloved physician experienced death by hanging as he was strung from a tree in the land of Greece. John the great apostle, the beloved disciple was banished to a prison colony on the island called Patmos in the latter years of his life. But wherever he lived, he proclaimed light, he proclaimed Christ as long as he had breath.
James the Greater was beheaded in the holy city of Jerusalem. James the Lesser was literally beaten to death with a club. James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great head of the Jerusalem church was pushed off the pinnacle of the temple in the city of Jerusalem by an angry unbelieving Jewish mob. He survived the fall, but he was stoned to death where he fell. Jude, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, who wrote that little letter in the Bible that bears his name, was shot through with arrows as he was preaching the gospel of Christ in a foreign land. Peter the great apostle, was crucified upside down in the eternal city of Rome where the basilica of St. Peters stands today. The Apostle Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles was beheaded by the hideous emperor Nero near the region of three fountains. Philip, one of the disciples, experienced death by crucifixion as he was strung from a cross, and he preached the love of Christ to his tormenters until he drew his final breath.
Andrew, the brother of Peter, who brought Peter to the Lord, introduced Peter to Christ, experienced death by stoning. Bartholomew died of the loss of blood as he was beaten and whipped to death. Barnabas, the friend of Paul, who was called a son of consolation, was stoned to death in the province of Macedonia Matthias who was chosen to replace Judas among the 12 Apostles was strung from a pillar in the city of Harus in the land of Perea and Thomas, who was called the doubter, but who came to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and God was run through the lance and died in Mylapore in the East Indies. They were all apostles and prophets. They gave their life to found the house of God. They gave their lives to establish the church of Jesus Christ.
The great fortress of Purandar was built centuries ago in the land of India and the gates of the fortress of Purandar are more famous than any gates in the world today. They were built by the Raja Shivaji the best foundation ever laid. And so he dug two caverns, each cavern 35 feet square each cavern, thirteen feet deep, and he took all the gold from his nation’s treasuries, 50,000 gold bars, and he melted them, and he poured them into those great caverns, and he established the gates of the fortress of Purandar in that gold. It is said that the gates of the fortress still stand today and that the gold foundation still sits in the earth in India. It has been said that it is the most precious foundation ever poured. It is not. The most precious foundation ever poured is the foundation that was laid by the apostles and the prophets. It is the foundation of the house of God poured in the blood of the apostles and the prophets.
It was to the apostles 2,000 years ago that Jesus Christ said, “Go into all the world and make disciples baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things whatsoever. I have commanded you and Lo I am with you always, even unto the close of the age.” They were faithful to that call. If they had not been faithful, we would not be in this place. The house of God founded on the apostles and the prophets.
Now secondly, the Bible tells us that the house of God has Jesus Christ as its cornerstone. Paul said, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
The Bible says, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious and he who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” For the Jew and for the Greek, the cornerstone was the symbol of two things. First of all, the cornerstone was the symbol of binding. The cornerstone was placed into the corner of the foundation of a building, and it held the foundation together. It held the walls of the building together and every brick in the building was thought of as tied to the cornerstone, bound to all the other bricks in the building through the cornerstone. And Jesus Christ relates to the house of God like that He binds the members of the house of God together. You cannot enter the house of God. You cannot be a member of the house of God unless you are bound to Jesus Christ.
Unless you are united with the cornerstone (and you can only be united with the cornerstone when you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior), when you receive Him as King and God, when you receive His grace and His mercy and His forgiveness of sin, in that moment when you say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sin, I want to live for you,” in that moment, He sends His spirit within you, and you are bound forever to the cornerstone of the house of God.
The cornerstone was not only a symbol of binding; however, it was also a symbol of lordship, but the cornerstone was the stone of supremacy. It was a stone of honor, and you cannot enter the house of God, you cannot be a member of the house of God unless you’re willing to take Jesus Christ, not only as Savior but as Lord, unless you’re willing to make Him supreme in your life, unless you’re to give Him all the honor that His lordship deserves.
Eight and a half months ago, Barbara and I bought a house. We have not moved into the house yet. It is almost done. I’m not going to tell you which development the house is in or who built it because I don’t want to get sued. A lot of strange things have happened in the building of this house. First of all, they poured the house with the wrong foundation. They picked the plans of a different model. That turned out to be a blessing because the new foundation provided a bigger house than we paid for. The living room, instead of being 14 x4 is 14×16. The family room or the bedroom is a little bit bigger.
Normally when plumbers install the pipes, they go down into the basement and before the cement is laid, they dig little trenches and they put the pipes under the dirt. These plumbers did it differently. They just came and laid the pipes on the dirt and then when the cement people came and poured the concrete, they just poured the concrete basement over the pipes and we had little mounds running all through our basement, wherever the pipes were, looked like a golfer had gone underneath the cement in the house. So we pointed out that is a little problem there. They went down with jackhammers, and they blew out the whole basement.
Then they put in our stairs. Now our stairs have a beam to one side of the stairs that you pass as you go up. At least it is that way in the model. But in our house, they put the beam right over the stairs, so you couldn’t go up the stairs without hitting the beam unless you went around the side. We pointed out that there was a minor structural flaw there, and they came, and they took the beam out that was the support beam that ran through the basement.
They moved it and they had to move the whole staircase to one side. Then as we went through the house, we noticed for a period of a couple of weeks that there were puddles throughout the house in various corners. We thought there were leaks in the roof and we could not figure out what the problem was. Then we discovered that actually the bricklayers were using our house as an outhouse. That was a little bit discouraging. Then we saw an area of the ceiling in the house that was all twisted. We didn’t know it was framed wrong, or the drywall had been put on wrong, but we pointed that out and they took the drywall out. But instead of reframing it or correcting it and putting new drywall in, they used some kind of plaster to try to fill that area in. It looked like Drew and Heather just took some plaster and tried to solve the problem themselves.
Now, I do not mean to create the wrong impression. Everything at this house has been corrected, everything, and the house is beautiful now, and I’d have to say in all honesty that the house is a dream come true for Barbara, and it’s not bad for me either. But I sometimes think that the Lord Jesus Christ, as He looks down at the house of God and it is His house where He is Lord, He is the cornerstone, as He looks down at the house of God. I think He must feel frustrated sometimes as He sees all that is wrong, all the problems that are in the house of God, when He sees all the mistakes that we have made. But He wants us to understand that He is Lord of this house. He is supreme, He is sovereign, and He will bring the house of God to completion, and He will bear with us until we do it right. And He is promised in His word that one day the house of God will be perfect without spot, without blemish, and every single stone in the house of God will be conformed perfectly to the image of the son of God.
We all once lived as children in the homes and houses of our parents, and for a short time they disciplined us at their pleasure in accordance with what they thought, right? They thought they had to mold us and make us that we might be good and that we might be everything we were meant to be. Jesus Christ as Lord of the house of God wants us to know that when we enter the house of God, we give him that same authority. We give him that same privilege in our lives, the privilege of parenting, but we do not enter the house of God for a season. We enter the house of God forever because it is an eternal house and you’ve given Christ eternal lordship over your life when you enter the house of God, and he will mold you and make you until you are perfect and you are ready to reign and rule with him forever. And the house of God encompasses the heavens and the earth. He is the cornerstone. He binds the house of God together and He is Lord of this great house, sovereign and supreme.
Thirdly, and finally, the Bible tells us that the building blocks of the house of God are Christians. The Apostle Paul says, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord and in whom you are built as a dwelling place of God. In the Spirit, the author of Hebrews says that Jesus Christ was faithful over God’s house as a Son, and we are that house. We have the privilege of being stones in the house of God, living stones and building blocks.
The city of Thebes was built 500 years before Christ, 30 miles north of the city of Athens for 100 years it was the greatest city in the Greek empire, and according to Greek mythology and legend, the city of Thebes was built by Amphion. Amphion was the son of Zeus, and he was a being of great musical ability. And it was said according to Greek legend, that Amphion was taking a walk 30 miles north of Athens through the countryside and he began to play his lyre. And as he began to play the instrument, the music was so melodious that the stones begin to bounce and dance, and some the stones danced and formed walkways. Other stones danced and formed buildings and houses and Amphion continued to play until the entire city of Thebes had been formed by dancing stones. A beautiful story, but unfortunately cities are not built like that, and neither is the house of God.
Jesus Christ is not some kind of mesmerizing musician that tries to induce stones into God’s house. He invites you to come into His house freely with open eyes. He wants you to understand that it is a great commitment to be a stone in the house of God. Jesus said “He who would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” The Bible says, come to Him that living stone rejected by men would in God’s sight chosen and precious and like living stones be built yourselves into a spiritual house to make spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We are called to be spiritual stones, living stones making spiritual sacrifices in the house of God. That is a responsibility.
There’s a story that is told of a multimillionaire who decided to throw a party, and so in his Olympic size swimming pool at his estate, he invited many guests and in the swimming pool he put various sharks, barracuda, and man-eating fish. He had all the guests gather around the swimming pool and he explained what he was going to do. He said, if anyone can dive into the swimming pool and swim the length of the swimming pool, get out on the other side unharmed, I’ll give you one of three prizes and you can take your choice: a beautiful new home in the mountains, a 12 month all expenses paid trip around the world for two and deluxe hotel accommodations, or a percentage of my business and my business concerns and interests. Well, immediately there was a splash. The man began swimming across the pool and the people, the guests had never seen anyone swim so fast. He was like a streak going across the pool. He got to the other side of the pool. He sprung out. He stood unharmed, and all the guests began to break into an applause. They all clapped and the multimillionaire came up to the man. He said, sir, that was a stunning performance and I’m a man of my word. Which of the three prizes do you want to have? The man said, frankly, sir, I just want to find a jerk who pushed me in!
As living stones, we’ve been called to minister in a world of infested waters. The rewards are great, but sometimes it seems we need someone to give us a push. As living stones, we not only have the joy and the privilege of being tied to the cornerstone, but we have the responsibility of ministering to other stones in the house of God and we have the responsibility of going out into an infested world and recruiting new stones for the house of God. We have been given the privilege of evangelists that takes commitment, commitment to the kingdom of God and the house of God. The Apostle Paul said One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward. Straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the mark of the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus with singularity of purpose.
The Apostle Paul gave his life to the work of the house of God. Nothing is more important in our lives than the work of the house of God and that work begins in our homes. It extends to our churches and then to the world. Throughout history, there have been many people who have accomplished great things by committing themselves with singularity of purpose to one cause.
Joseph Jefferson, the famous actor, spent 40 years of his life playing the role of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle. He decided that he would be the best Rip Van Winkle the world had ever seen, and he was. Webster spent 36 years of his life with a single task of writing the greatest English dictionary in the world, and he did. Cyrus Field crossed the ocean 50 times, and he might lay a cable that would enable mankind to communicate across thousands of miles of water.
Schumann Hank was born in poverty. Her parents could not even afford a piano, but she gave 20 years of her life overcoming her poverty that she might become one of the greatest soloists this world has ever known. Beethoven is one of the most famous composers in history, and yet there is hardly a single bar of his music that was not written and rewritten at least a dozen times. Edward Gibbon wrote the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. People marvel at the genius that could create such a work, and yet he gave 20 years of his life for the singular purpose of writing that work, and he was in his study every morning at 6:00 AM summer and winter in order that he might accomplish that one task. Joseph Hayden, the famous musical composer, wrote over eight hundred musical compositions in his life and he was 66 years old when he wrote his unmatched oratorio called The Creation. People are envious of the accomplishments of his life, and yet rarely do they mention his singularity of purpose and the pain and the suffering and the trials through which those accomplishments came by.
Michelangelo spent seven years of his life on his back, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, portraying the sum of history from its creation to its consummation and the final judgment. All of these men accomplished great things through singularity of purpose. They gave their life and commitment to a cause they considered great. I’m sure that any of you in this room, any of you could accomplish something great if you gave your life with total commitment and singularity of purpose to one thing. But the big question is what do we commit ourselves too? What is worthy of our lifetime of commitment? Some people in this world commit themselves to hedonism and the pursuit of pleasure.
Some people in this world commit themselves to materialism and the pursuit of possessions. Some people commit themselves to the pursuit of fame that the Bible says all pleasures like grass and all of its glory like the flower, the grass and the grass withers and the flower falls. The word of the Lord abides forever. John says, do not love the world or the things that are in the world or if anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world, and the world passes away and the desires of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. It is for this reason that Jesus Christ said, seek first my kingdom and my righteousness, and I will give you everything you need.
Nothing in this world is more important than the house of God and our service of the house of God. It is built. It is founded on the blood of the apostles and prophets who gave their life that the gospel of Christ might flourish. The cornerstone of this great house is Jesus Christ. He binds the house of God together and He is its Lord. He is supreme, He is sovereign. We are all called to be building blocks in this great eternal house. We are to have a ministry to each other as stones in the house of God, and we are called to go into the world that we might bring new, new stones, new blocks into the house of God. Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus, we worship You. We love You. We are in awe of You. You are the divine and eternal son of God by Your hand. The earth was made by Your hand. The heavens were created. You have all power in the heavens and on earth. You made us Lord. We are the creation. You are the creator.
And Lord, we thank You and praise You that You love us individually, that each and every one of us here in this place are precious to You. We acknowledge Lord Jesus that You came into this world not only to show us what the Father was like, not only to die on Calvary’s cross for the sin of the world, but Lord Jesus, You came into this world to start Your church, the house of God. You have said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. As we look back in history, we know that many saints have given their life to further Your kingdom. We would be faithful in our lifetime to the work of Your eternal kingdom. Lord Jesus, the reward that You promise are great. We look forward to heaven, to eternal life, to the new heavens in the new earth, but help us to be faithful in this life that we truly might make Your house our highest purpose, that we might be living stones in this house, that we would minister to each other, that we would reach out to the world. For Your sake and Your name, we pray it.