Two Tents

I'd felt The Lord drawing my attention to two tents for some time. One tent, I first realized was me, yes... wherever we see the Word referring to "dwelling" within us, it was originally used as "making tent". Jesus wants to dwell within man. Our body...our heart... is his tent. "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" 2 Corinthians 5:1.The other tent was the temple that God gave specific instructions for how to build... His first tent, where He dwelled among His people."There I will meet with the Israelites, and the Tent of Meeting shall be sanctified by My glory [the Shekinah, God's visible presence]" Exodus 29:43.

In this study, I hope you will hold in the back of your minds Matthew 27:50 while we talk about "two tents." It will be a "special key" in this issue between these two tents. "And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and gave up His spirit. 51. And at once the curtain of the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" Mat 27:50. We will come back to this verse later. For if Christ, Jesus is central to our faith, then we must truly grasp the fullest understanding of His ultimate purpose for leaving heaven and coming here… and what it means for us, whom follow Him.

Now, in the picture above of the two tents (one big tent [representing the temple]- behind and one small one [representing each person "in Christ"] just in the foreground), you see there is a storm in the background. Think of it as sin. We must talk about this sin before we come to the discussion of tents, because sin is the issue being brought to both discussions of these tents. Behind the sin in this world, we must also understand there is this thing called "will". God has a strong will... He speaks of His will often in the bible and we were created in His image and therefore were created with this "will" of our own. Many refer to this as our free will, but I would argue that we are not as free with our will as we assume.

It was God's sovereign will that fixed the time of my birth. It is the same will that has fixed the day of my death. And was not the day of my conversion fixed as certainly by the same will? Can anyone say that God has fixed (by His will) the day of our birth and death, but leaves us to fix the day of our conversion "solely" by our own will; that is, leave us to decide whether we shall be converted or not? If the day of conversion is fixed, then it cannot be left to be determined by our own will. God determined, where and when, and how we should be born; and so He has determined where, and when, and how we shall be born again. His will must go before ours in believing; and it is just because His will goes before ours that we become willing to believe. Were it not for this, we should never have believed at all.

ROMANS 9:16-18. "So then [God's gift] is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God's mercy. [It depends not on one's own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God's having mercy on him.] For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for this very purpose of displaying My power in [dealing with] you, so that My name may be proclaimed the whole world over. So then He has mercy on whomever He wills [chooses] and He hardens [makes stubborn and unyielding the heart of] whomever He wills."

Now, if man's will was such that it precedes God's will in everything relating to himself, then how could we see any of God's plans be carried into effect. Man would be left to manage the world in his own way. God would not fix the time of man's conversion, for that would be an interference with man's responsibility. He must not fix that we shall be converted at all, for that must be left to ourselves and to our own will. He must not fix how many are to be converted, for that would be making His own invitation a mere mockery, and man's responsibility a pretense! He may turn a stray star into its course again by His divine power, and be unchallenged for interference with the laws of nature. But to stretch out His arm and arrest a human will in its devious course, so as to turn it back again to holiness, is an unwarrantable exercise of His power, and an encroachment upon man's liberty!

Though man's will is strong, still what a deceived world it is… where man believes that he gets all his own way, where God is not allowed to interfere, except in the way that man calls lawful! What a deceived world… where everything turns upon man's will;--where the whole current of events in the world or in the church is regulated, shaped, impelled by man's will alone. It's like God's will is but a secondary thing. It's part is to watch events, and follow in the track of man's! Man wills, and God must say—Amen?

In all this opposition to the absolute will of God, we see the self-will of the last days manifesting itself. Man wanted to be a god at the first, and he continues the struggle to the last. He is resolved that his will shall take the precedence of God's. In the last Antichrist, this self-will shall be summed up and exhibited. He is the king that is to do "according to his will". And in the freewill controversy of the day, we see the same spirit displayed. It is Antichrist that is speaking to us, and exhorting us to proud independence. Self-will is the essence of anti-Christian religion. Self-will is the root of bitterness that is springing up in the churches in these days. And it is not from above, it is from beneath. It is earthly, sensual, and devilish. But man will soon get his chance to see what the world would be like without Gods' intervention… and even then, it will be because God "wills it".

When we are born, we are born with this self will. It is our will to satisfy the hunger with milk and so we cry, and the hunger is satisfied. We get hungry again we cry again and are satisfied. As long as this process works, we form a habit. When this habit no longer satisfies (such as when milk must be replaced with foods… or when crying doesn't work, we scream) we must modify our will or replace our habit with another one that works better for us. I am bringing us up through the developmental process of life, to where we are today, for a very good reason. It is these habits that we are looking into as we continue.

There was no way to shorten this lesson, given the breadth of material we must cover, so I have divided the study into: this introduction, a study of our habitually sinful nature, and a study between two different systems designed by God to deal with sin. Here is the bridge between our two thoughts of study: In the first tent… The temple… the purpose was to cleanse man of his sin through the sacrifice of animals, therefore allowing God to again dwell among His created people. Because of mans habitually sinful nature, he had to return to that temple to continue this process over and over, and too – because of mans nature, this became no more than ritual, which will bring us to the purpose of Jesus, at Calvary, and the introduction to the second tent, (our physical body) where Christ, now should dwell, in spirit - The Holy Spirit, within the true believer. We will discuss the issue of "habit and ritual", and then take them to the discussion of these two tents. I hope you will continue in this powerful study of Will, Habit, Ritual, and "The Two Tents".

I love you, Preston
Two Tents - Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV