S. God's Temple tried

GOD’S TEMPLE TRIED

“For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” - 1 Corinthians 3:9-17

UNDER the figure of a building we find sometimes individual believers, and at other times the church collective represented in holy Scripture. In this passage, it is to believers individually that in the first instance, at least, and chiefly, the image applies. The apostle is discriminating between the parts which human instrumentality and divine agency respectively have in the origin and growth of personal religion. You owe your Christianity he says to the Corinthians, not to us, the apostles or ministers of the Lord, but to the Lord himself. We may be employed as labourers together with God, in. looking after some departments of the work, but as to the real essence of the work, he is alone. I may plant and Apollos water; but ye are not our husbandry, but God’s. So I and Apollos may handle or watch the handling of some of the tools; but ye are not our building, but God’s. And, at all events, whatever may have been our respective charges in laying the foundation, ye are now passed from that part of the work. The question is not now as to the foundation, but as to the superstructure. That is what is urgent now; not the laying of the foundation, in what manner and under whose oversight; that can make no difference; essentially the foundation is the same in all; for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11); but what is urgent now is the rearing of the superstructure, the getting on with the upper building, completing the erection and fitting it for an habitation of God through the Spirit. If you were as anxious and as busy about that as you ought to be, your quarrel about the comparative merits of the overseers employed in laying the foundation would soon cease. Drawing out and expanding this thought, I regard the apostle as directing attention -

First, to the materials in detail of which the fabric or superstructure of personal Christianity may be composed; “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15); and,

Secondly, to the sacredness impressed on it as a whole: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Viewing the believer set to the task of building up with God’s help his own character, I call on him to bear in mind these two considerations: - I. “What he builds is for eternity; let him see that the stuff he builds with is lasting enough.

II. It is for a temple of God; let him see that what he builds is holy enough.

I. What you are building is for eternity: how deeply therefore does it concern you to see to it that your materials are lasting and enduring enough. Now the two chief tests of the durability of the materials of any fabric, are time (the day shall declare it) and fire (the fire shall try it); the slow consuming tooth of time; the swift-licking tongue of fire. Time alone may be a sufficient test, sure, if slow; time that lays his unerring and impartial hand alike on the brilliant icy palace of the Northern Czar, melting under a single morning’s sun, and the solid pyramids of Egypt outlasting empires. And if all-eating time has for an ally the furious force of fire; if successive conflagrations in successive days or years are doomed to befall the structure; and if especially there is one day fixed in the lapse of years when the conflagration is to be complete and final; what an ordeal have we for the materials of any work to pass through! What a proof of abiding strength and value if they survive and stand. Such is the double test awaiting you, who are building on the foundation that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. There is no reference here to the sufficiency of the foundation on which you are building. That, doubtless, is to be tried. But it is the trial of the durability of what you are building on that foundation that is now spoken of. Both trials are severe. It is a fierce storm that the Lord describes as the occasion of the one trial. The other trial, according to the apostle, is to be by time and fire; by days or by a day of revelation by fire.

1. There are partial, and as it were, preliminary and premonitory, trials, by time and fire, even in this life, that serve to make manifest how you are building; there are occasions on which the day declares it, and the fire tries every man’s work of what sort it is. These are days of judgment in this present world, such as this apostle elsewhere in this Epistle speaks of, when he reproves the Corinthians for their unworthy practices and unworthy frames of mind in connection with the observance of the Lord’s supper (1 Corinthians 11:31-32). In that instance the apostle does not call in question the personal Christianity of those whose sin he is reproving: nay, the very point of his reproof lies in his acknowledging that. He gives them full credit for being really in Christ. They were built on the only true foundation; and they were God’s own building on that foundation. But in this matter of their disorderly observance of the Lord’s supper, what they were building was of a texture corrupt and perishable. And it was proved to be so by a day of fiery trial. Visitations of weakness, sickness, and mortality came upon them; and in their endurance of chastisement for their sin, they suffered loss; but they themselves were saved, yet so as by fire. Such fiery trial is surely sent in mercy; but is it wise, is it safe, is it right, to challenge or provoke it? to make it necessary so to speak, for God to send it, that you, chastened of the Lord now, may not be condemned with the world?

I speak here to apply the figure generally of the character you are cultivating, the tastes you are acquiring, the habits you are forming, the affections you are indulging; or of the way in which you are accustoming yourselves to spend your Sabbaths, to improve your privileges, to use the means and ordinances of God’s grace; or of the occupations in which you are engaged, the round and routine of duties with which you fill up the day; your devotions, your charities, your home walk of household cares and familiar kindnesses; your professional intercourse with men, your alms, and liberties, and assiduities of personal attention to the sick or the sorrowful, the fatherless and the widow, the poor and the lost; your amusements, your recreations, your pleasures, your reading, your company, your conversation, your trains of thought, your modes of speech, your leading lines of conduct; for these all go to make up the materials with which you are building. Of what sort are they? will they endure? will they stand the test of a day of fire? will your Christianity, composed as it is of all these elements - for they all enter into it, - pass unscathed through a fiery trial of distress, or disease, or solitary woe, or of persecution and reproach for the name of Christ, or of the fierce darts of Satan’s temptations, or of the hot arrows of the Almighty entering into your wounded spirit, when, in a day of spiritual decline, he seems to hide his face from you, and to give you over to your own bitter musings? Remember how complex this building of your personal religion, your spiritual character, is. Everything you think and say and do, all your works and ways, in all paths and relations of life, all enter into it. Are they all such, do you make conscience of their being all such, do you study, and try, and pray to have them all such, as a day of fire may prove and not destroy? Is there none of them such as will weaken you when sinners entice you, or disconcert you when the world mocks you, or vex you on a sick-bed, or sting you in the approach of death? Your vain imaginations, your idle words, your unprofitable days, your dissipated nights, your weary Sabbaths, your heartless prayers, your formal sacraments; your sallies of uncontrolled temper, your outbreaks of heedless selfishness; your rivalries and jealousies, and suspicions and dislikes, your strifes and divisions; your wanderings of mind, your frailty of resolution, your reserve in testifying for Christ, your occasional conformity to the world, what are they but wood, hay, stubble? What are they fit for but to be burned? And will the burning of them bring no pain, no loss to you? Remember that this building with such materials is not separate and detached from you: you are yourselves the building: these materials are part and parcel of yourselves: the burning of them, if they are to be burnt out of you by trial here, is the burning of your own flesh and spirit. Yes, it may cost you many a tear, sleepless nights and anxious days, affliction of body and anguish of soul, ere these worthless and rotten stuffs are consumed. Errors, heresies, false opinions in religious faith, infirmities, shortcomings, tolerated failings in religious practice, may all be brought to trial in a day of evil; and as their natural fruit or salutary antidote, you may have to eat your spiritual meat with bitter herbs, and to bless God if you are saved at all, even though it should be as by fire.

Oh! that believers would lay this to heart, especially when they are tempted to acquiesce in their spiritual deficiencies, and to stop short even of aiming at perfection. There may be things in you and about you now, which, when all is well, give you no uneasiness, that may appear to you in a very different light, and strike your conscience with a very different force when days of darkness come; when time is passing from your view, and eternity opening before your eye. And, alas! how sadly may you then have to mourn in vain over the scantiness of those spiritual graces you are now neglecting to cherish, and the feebleness of those spiritual tastes and habits which now you do not make it your business to cultivate and mature. But for your encouragement, remember that the same day of fiery trial which consumes the wood, hay, stubble, only proves and purifies the gold, the silver, the precious stones. And these, what are they? What but the fruit of the Spirit, - “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;” what but the features of the new man ye are to put on, “as the elect of God, holy and beloved, - bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye,” etc.; what but the qualities we are to give all diligence in adding to one another, - faith, fortitude, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity? For, it is added, “if ye do these things, ye shall never be moved.” Ah! there are materials in the composition of the Christian character which affliction only serves to perfect; elements of holy trust in God and resignation to his will, that are only called into livelier exercise when trouble comes. “For a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold tribulation;” but be of good cheer. It is thus that the building is tested. And be very sure that its being thus tested is for its good; for good to itself: “The trial of your faith is much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire; and shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

Lo! into that burning fiery furnace three witnesses for God are cast. It is to them the day of fire. But their noble protest against idolatry; their dauntless refusal to worship the golden image; - that, at any rate, is neither wood, nor hay, nor stubble. It was a fire that tried these men’s works, for the flame of it slew the men that cast the confessors in. But they had no hurt; not a hair of their heads was touched; not a seam of their garments singed; they walked in the midst of the fire, and one like the Son of God with them. The fire tried their work, of what sort it was.

2. But not always, or not alone in this life, is this day of discovery by fire. The materials with which you are now building your Christian character have to stand the test, not only of time and its trials, but of eternity also, and of that judgment which meets you on the threshold of eternity. That day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ; the day when the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; when the books shall be opened; that dread and awful day will be a day declaring every man’s work; because it shall be revealed by fire. And what fire? Not the material elemental fire. Not the fire of mere penal infliction. That cannot touch the seat either of holiness or of sin. No, but the fire of discovery, the discovery of a man to himself before the holy God. For, observe, the stress or emphasis of the intimation here given lies in this awful thought. Three times over, in this one verse, is the idea repeated: - “made manifest,” “declare,” “reveal.” The trial is by fire, because it is the trial of that day when all is made manifest, - declared, - revealed. And this “all,” what is it? It is all that is connected with your Christian character and Christian conduct. I say nothing here of what you are and what you did in your unconverted state. It is with what you are, as believers, and what you are doing, as believers, and with that alone, that I have to do. To you, as believers, it is that I now speak of the day of judgment. You stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. As believers. Granted. Justified long before by faith. Granted. With no condemnation; sure of happiness and heaven; your souls having already been with Christ in blessedness and glory, while your bodies were mouldering in their graves; now, with your risen and glorified bodies, made like unto his own glorious body, you appear before him with joy and not with grief. Granted all. But it is a day of judgment still, even to you; of open judgment. All is opened up; the whole history of your life of faith; what it was; and at the very instant when there flashes full upon your mind the vivid apprehension of what it should, of what it might, have been; all is opened up; every feature in your habit of faith; every incident in your walk of faith; and precisely when, having been made perfect in holiness, your recoil from all evil is most intense. I ask, Is that an ordeal which any serious man, with all his confidence in the full and free salvation of the gospel, can anticipate without most solemn awe? And through this ordeal every one of you must pass. You and your work; the work you are making of your personal Christianity; your progressive sanctification; your serving the Lord; your growth in grace, and preparation for glory.

Ah! there is a work which a man may by the Spirit build on that one only foundation that is laid, which is Christ Jesus; a work which will abide, and for which he shall receive a reward; the work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope. Faith, love, hope; the precious gold, the pure silver, the bright gem; let the building be constructed of these. They can stand the clearest light, the hottest fire of searching discovery and open revelation. They are of heaven; and into heaven they will pass to abide with you for ever. But is anything of earth allowed to mingle with what you are building for heaven? Does any secret leaven of the carnal mind vitiate and mar your pure peace with God, and hinder your going on to perfection? Ah! how many of the schemes, how many of the steps, even of godly men, themselves built on the foundation that is laid, which is Christ Jesus, may be found, in that day of fire, unable to stand the searching disclosure of them before the unerring Judge! And these not always schemes and steps in the direction of what the world would call sin; but plans, often, of well-intended self-discipline, and honest devotion, and real benevolence, after a sort, too; proceedings forming part, and what they deemed no unimportant part, of the very service they were doing to God; efforts of zeal without knowledge; struggles of partisanship for points of precedence, or points of form, in which at bottom carnal prejudice had more place than heavenly faith; labours in which they wearied themselves for very vanity. Alas! how in that day will all such, and many other the like kinds of building, be discovered to have been fruitless, useless; unprofitable as to any issue of them you can carry with you into the eternal state; fit only to be once for all disclosed, and destroyed in the fire of that day’s tremendous revelations. Ah! my friends, what are you about in your Christian calling? What is the Christian experience you are accumulating? How much of it, bow much of it all, I ask, will bear to be confronted with the Judge the revealer of all hearts, in that day? How much of it may pass under his eye, into the eternity that you are to spend with him?

It is no work of man; of man’s passion, or prejudice, or partisanship; it is no work about man, boasting of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; not the wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God; not the wisdom of man, which is foolishness with God; not any such sort of building will outlast the scorching and withering disclosures of that open day of judgment. No; nothing will or can survive that but what may lay claim, out and out, to the character of a work of God; the real, single-eyed, and simple-minded working out of your own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do; and the real, single-eyed, and simple-minded working of the work of God while it is day, before the night cometh in which no man can work.

II. That the structure you are building on the foundation that is laid, which is Christ Jesus, should be such as will stand the test of time, the ordeal of a day of fire, is a plain inference from the fact that such an ordeal awaits us. But there is a second reason for peculiar care as to how and what you build. It is a reason derived, not from the prospective trial, but from the present use, of the erection. It is a sacred edifice; it is the temple of God; he has founded and built it; he has taken possession of it; acknowledging, appropriating, inhabiting it as his own; and he whose temple it is thus declared to be is a jealous God; any injury done to his temple he will resent and repay, for he has sanctified it to himself, consecrated it by the sprinkling of blood, cleansed it from filthiness and idols, and called it by his name, which is holy: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The motive here suggested proceeds plainly on the principle that Christians ought to recognise their own Christianity, to the extent at least of feeling the full force of what it implies in the way of duty, and aim, and responsibility. For the question is not about the confidence or comfort of a full personal assurance of salvation, but about the obligation of a holy and perfect walk. And in this view, it is with somewhat of surprise, at least, if not of indignation, that the apostle summons you, as a believer, to an explicit recognition of your high and holy calling. “What! know ye not that ye are the temples of God?” Is not this your profession? Is not this your character and position? Is not this the standing you have to maintain before God? Is not this, therefore, the standard of the attainment you ought to be making? Nay, more, as he goes on to add; it is not merely a profession, a name with you. It should not be so. It need not be so: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is your privilege to know this. The Holy Ghost is given to shed abroad in your hearts the love of God, to seal your acceptance, and pardon, and peace; to be in you no more the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father; to witness With your spirits that you are the children of God. It is your duty as well as your privilege to know it; for the measure of your obligation now is that indwelling of the Holy Ghost in you.

Remember, that in the great day of the trial of fire, it is as a building of God; it is as a building for God that you are to be tested; it is as believers, founded on the rock, which is Christ; it is as believers, having the Holy Ghost dwelling in you, that you are to have yourself and your works, your character, your conduct, your aims, attainments, and performances, judged in that day. Is it indeed true, my friends, that ye are built upon the only foundation that is laid, which is Christ Jesus? Is it a great fact; is it a blessed reality; that even now, already, unfinished as the structure is that you are building on that foundation, it is inhabited by God himself; that you yourselves are become the temples of God; that the Holy Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Then consider how jealous this God is of whatever touches the honour of his name, and tarnishes the enduring lustre of the glory of his house. Who is it that is to be judge in that day? “Who is it whose judgment is to be as a trial of fire? Is it not he, who in the days of his flesh cried, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up?” Is it not he who “overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves?” Is it not he whose holy presence dispersed the crowd of profane traffickers that were destroying the sanctity of the temple’s outer court, and whose voice, still and small, fell as thunder on their ears, “Make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise, - the house of prayer a den of thieves!” That temple was to be destroyed, in a few short years, for ever. But, in the great day, the temple submitted to his scrutiny, subjected to his judgment and trial of fire, is no earthly house, soon to be dissolved; but a building of God. Ye are God’s building. And not the suburbs, as it were, and precincts, and Gentile court only, are to be tried; but the inmost sanctuary, the holiest of all, the recess Within the veil, where dwelleth the very Shechinah glory, where is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Who, or what, is marring that holy shrine? Who, or what, is tampering with the purity or perfection of that inmost dwelling-place Jehovah chooses for himself here below? Who, or what, around, above, within, is corrupting with any touch of earth’s pollution or earth’s vanity; that real heaven upon earth, the holy heart of a believer in Jesus? Whosoever, whatsoever it be, is doomed to destruction: “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). To apply the subject, I address myself first, to you that believe in Jesus.

How solemn, even to you, is the thought of a judgment to come! You must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” The fire shall try every man’s work. The judgment is by fire; by a searching fire of discovery and declaration. Whatever shrinks from that is doomed and destroyed.

Consider once more the principles of that fiery ordeal of detection and disclosure.

There is a building to be tested according to the time it is intended to last and the purpose it is intended to serve. The time is eternity; the purpose is the glory of the eternal God. The building is to last for ever, and to last for ever as the temple of God, in which the Spirit of God dwells: you are that building as a believer in Jesus. Judge yourself now as such, if you would not be judged hereafter. Try by the test here furnished, whatever has any influence in moulding or modifying your moral nature; your spiritual frame; the books and men and things with which you are conversant; the pursuits and pleasures that fill up your time; the musings and memories that fill up your thoughts. Are they marring the building as a building for eternity, and a building for the indwelling of God in it as his temple. Make no compromise here; give no quarter to any intruder. Let the Lord again come to his own house, and cleanse it thoroughly by his scourge of small cords. And observe the difference that there may be between your case and that of the temple of old. There, the vain traffic and dishonest arts of trade polluted only the outer court, and did not reach the inner shrine. It may be otherwise with you. What defiles or destroys may not affect the outer court at all; the external decency and decorum of your life may be scarcely touched. But worse, far worse. It may be the truth and tenderness of the inmost sanctuary of the heart that is in peril. The element of evil may be working, not in the outer but in the inner man; defiling the conscience, debauching the will, deadening the heart. It may be in that most sacred recess, for back in the depth of your moral nature, where the Spirit of God comes into secret and silent personal contact with the spirit of man - it may be there that the mischief is going on, while outwardly all is as fair and seemly as ever. Beware, friends, of whatever may turn the living temple into a whited sepulchre. Shrink not, my brother, my God, let not me shrink, from a full and faithful searching of my ways; no, not though it should force me to raise again the question, Am I, after all, built by God the Holy Ghost on God the Son, the rock of my salvation? Am I really in Christ? Have I believed, do I believe, in him? Am I in very truth in him? Yes! let me not shrink from such an issue of my self-examination. Let me, if indeed I have almost unconsciously been falling from my first love, repent and do the first works. Wilt not thou receive me, Lord. Quicken me that I may call upon thy name. And not for yourselves alone, but for others, lay this warning to heart. Let me ever remember that I am to regard my brother, not less than myself as God’s building. He, as well as I, is the temple of God. In his case as in mine, the building is for eternity; and it is for the indwelling in it as in a temple of the Spirit of God. Yes! I am to look on every man in that light; for he is or may be all that my looking on him in that light implies. Let me beware how I treat him! It is a fearful thing to offend one of Christ’s little ones! And yet, alas! by my vain conversation, I may be marring the temple of God in some hopeful inquirer or anxious soul; or in some doubtful professor whom my example may be encouraging in his unconcern; or in some weak saint whom my countenance may be encouraging in what to him is a doubtful way. Let me beware of whatever may tend in that line. And as the best safeguard against it, let me be busy in the opposite line; dealing with every one as with a child of God, whom he may be pleased to own as a temple in which he may dwell for ever. To careless sinners I have a word to say. I have been speaking to the Lord’s own people about a judgment to come as being terrible even for them, who see on the judgment seat their Saviour and Lord. What must it be to you? “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Knowing ourselves the terror of the Lord, for we must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and there is terror enough in that for us, we persuade you.

Ah! it is in no spirit of self-complacency, or of exultation over you, that we look on you who are building for self and time only; and not for God and eternity. No! we have nothing to boast of! We know who has made us to differ; and we know him as willing to make you not only what we are, but what he is! We would have you to know him thus. For you, as well as we, must stand before the dread tribunal! The great white throne; the opened books; the day of discovery; the revelation of the secrets of all hearts - that is what awaits us both. We tell you that it is and must be a formidable ordeal and trial to us, “washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.” What must it be to you, unclean, unclothed, unsaved? We speak to you solemnly, as if we were already together at the judgment seat. But we speak to you as being now together beside the cross. Thanks be to God that it is so. We are at the cross. Look there, sinner, whoever thou art! See the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. See the pierced side; the flowing stream! Hear the gracious words, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” But hark! Has not another voice issued from the dry parched lips? Slowly he toils up the hill of woe; bearing the cross on which he bears your sin. Many hearts melt: many eyes weep. Hark! what says he? “Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children! “Weep! Well you may. “For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” “How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation?”