Kingdom Come - The Final Victory by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Read Free Book Online

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    The beauty of the architecture washed over Rayford, and despite his questions, he was speechless. The width of the structure increased as one went from the lowest story to the highest. The doors of the side chambers opened onto a terrace, one door toward the north and another toward the south. Three stories opposite the threshold were paneled with wood from the ground to the windows made with cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Each cherub had two faces, so that the face of a man was toward a palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion toward a palm tree on the other; thus it was throughout the temple all around.
    The doorposts of the temple were square, as was the front of the sanctuary. The altar was of wood. And Jesus said, “This is the table that is before the Lord.” Cherubim and palm trees were carved on the doors of the temple, just as they were on the walls.
    Before Rayford could ask again the reason for the continuance of animal sacrifices, Jesus brought him out into the outer court by the way toward the north, into the chamber opposite the courtyard. Chambers had been built into the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east. There was a walk in front of them also.
    Jesus said, “The north and south chambers are the holy chambers where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall lay the most holy offerings—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering—for the place is holy. When the priests enter them, they shall not go out of the holy chamber into the outer court; but there they shall leave their garments in which they minister, for they are holy. They shall put on other garments; then they may approach that which is for the people.”
    Rayford still had questions, of course, but he was speechless as the glory of the Lord entered the temple by way of the gate that faced east. Jesus said, “This is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile My holy name, they nor their kings, by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places. When they set their threshold by My threshold, and their doorpost by My doorpost, with a wall between them and Me, they defiled My holy name by the abominations which they committed; therefore I have consumed them in My anger. Now let them put their harlotry and the carcasses of their kings far away from Me, and I will dwell in their midst forever. Now that I have judged those who rejected me, those who remain shall keep the temple’s ordinances and perform them. This is the law of the temple: The whole area surrounding the mountaintop is most holy.”
    The altar hearth had four horns extending upward from it. And Jesus said, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘These are the ordinances for the altar on the day when it is made, for sacrificing burnt offerings on it, and for sprinkling blood on it. A young bull shall be given for a sin offering to the priests, the Levites, the seed of Zadok, who approach Me to minister to Me. They shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the rim around it; thus they shall cleanse it and make atonement for it. Then they shall also take the bull of the sin offering and burn it in the appointed place of the temple, outside the sanctuary. On the second day they shall offer a kid of the goats without blemish for a sin offering; and they shall cleanse the altar, as they cleansed it with the bull. When they have finished cleansing it
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they shall offer a young bull without blemish and a ram from the flock without blemish. When they offer them before the Lord, the priests shall throw salt on them, and they will offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.
    “ ’Every day for seven days they shall prepare a goat for a sin