An Endtimes Tabernacle

The tabernacle of David points to the last days of the dispensation of the church age. The days of the end will be full of tribulation, and the primary job of the church, as it has always been, will be to pray. Jesus nevertheless calls the church to pray when we see the signs of the tribulation coming upon us. After Jesus explains to His disciples concerning the events of the last days in the 24th chapter of Matthew, he says,

"Watch therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." (Matthew 24:42-44)

Jesus follows this exhortation with the parable of the ten virgins in chapter 25. Five virgins have their lamps trimmed and full of oil while the other five lack the oil and are not ready for the Lord's return. The fact that all of them are virgins reveals that they all are Christians. Some people have characterized the virgins who lack oil as unbelievers. A virgin is the emblem of someone who has remained unstained by the world. These are people who hate sin and consider themselves children of God. Jesus warns the church, however, that if we do not watch and pray, we will not be ready to meet the Lord when He comes. The five virgins whose lamps are full of oil are considered as a group. These are the ones who pray corporately as well as privately. God has called us to both.

We must have a hidden life with God and we must have a corporate prayer life where we come into agreement with the saints in prayer. Jesus not only calls us to the privacy of the prayer closet but also to corporate agreement:

"Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:19-20)

Jesus enters into the communion of prayer and worship when two or more gather together. Prayer and worship establish a kind of communion that is expressed in the Lord's supper, which is also a good way to begin times of corporate prayer. When people who pray and worship together, take communion together and wash one another's feet, a bond of intimacy results that increases the effectiveness of prayer and brings them into one accord. Corporate prayer costs us something. There is sacrifice involved in gathering together in the name of Jesus in order to seek His face. The 120 saints who waited in the upper room for ten days forsook all other activities in order to wait for the coming promise of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Jesus had spent 40 days with them following His resurrection from the dead. He was taken up in a cloud from the Mount of Olives, and the disciples withdrew to a large upper room in Jerusalem where they spent the next ten days in prayer and intimate fellowship with one another.

The tabernacle of David not only creates intimacy with God, but the experience of consistent corporate prayer and worship enhances the bond among the saints. We no longer recognize each other according to the flesh, but we experience true spiritual communion as we seek the Lord in one accord. The love of God is transformed into a tangible love for one another. Our Sunday services rarely create this kind of atmosphere and experience. Corporate prayer exposes the heart in a way that Sunday teaching and preaching services cannot really approach. The Sunday morning service is not without value, but the main activity of the early church was not teaching, though the gift of teaching was certainly at work in the church. The main activity of the church was breaking bread together and praying. They followed the teachings of the apostles, but the apostles were not in every house every day teaching the residents of Jerusalem. They did, however, gather together every day for prayer and a meal.

When the early church gathered together, they did not have 30 minutes of worship followed by a 30 minute sermon, and then a mass exodus to the parking lot where they could retreat on their camels. To what kind of meeting does Paul refer when he writes, How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. (1 Corinthians 14:26) This kind of meeting was set apart for the purpose of edifying the saints, building each other up in the faith. The other kind of gathering focused on prayer and worship: "...be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. " (Ephesians 5:18-21) Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs were not just meant to worship God in the Spirit, but they were also a means of communicating a message to each other that joined their hearts together in unity. This kind of activity echoes the high priestly prayer of Jesus when He asks the Father,"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (John 17:20-21) Worship and prayer produce communion with God and each other.

Worship and prayer also cause the saints to lay up the word in our hearts. The words we pray and worship come primarily from scripture so that we can pray and worship according to the will of God. We study the word not just for knowledge, but so that we can acquire the language necessary to communicate with God. As we pray and worship according to the word of God, the word grows in our hearts and we are united by our common understanding of the Christian life. Once again, Paul draws our attention to this fact when he writes, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." (Colossians 3:16)Not all teaching is accomplished by someone expounding the word or preaching. Much understanding of the things of God occurs through prayer and worship.

The re-establishment of the tabernacle of David is necessary for the development of a strong spiritual community, which becomes ever more necessary as we draw closer to the years of intense persecution and tribulation. Jesus warns us that the days of tribulation are drawing near when we see certain things taking place: "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." (Matthew 24:6-8) The beginning of sorrows is clearly upon us. We are seeing massive earthquakes that are resulting in death tolls that have never been seen before. The latest earthquake in Haiti is an example of this, and should serve as a warning to us concerning the days we are living in.

Many people are misreading the signs. Some Christian leaders have referred to the tragedies in Manhattan, New Orleans, Haiti, and even farther abroad in Indonesia as God's judgment on the people, as though these people who are killed in these tragedies are somehow more wicked than the rest of humanity. Jesus addresses this misunderstanding in Luke 13:1-5:

There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

Jesus makes the point here that these tragedies occur not because these people are any more wicked than anyone else, but because tragedy can happy to anyone. Jesus warns them that these tragedies should instill in people's hearts the need to get right with God so that they can acquire His protection and mercy. These tragedies more than anything else serve as banners for the nature of the times in which we live. We need to be sober and watch or we will not be prepared for the days that are coming. The beginnings of sorrow will be followed by times of intense persecution: "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another." (Matthew 24:9-10) If we have not been enfolded into a community of prayer and worship, we will not be able to survive these times. Our love will grow cold, and we will be offended by the lawlessness around us. If we continually fill ourselves with the love of God in prayer and worship, we will have understanding and insight that will help us to love not our own lives even unto death. (Revelation 12:11)

During that time, the Lord warns us to hide ourselves away into places of secret prayer. He says, "Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past. For behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will also disclose her blood, and will no more cover her slain. (Isaiah 26:20-21) I believe there will be prayer communities who will live in hiding during this time while they pray and seek the Lord. There will also be mighty evangelists who will risk and lose their lives trying to save the lost before Jesus removes His church from the earth. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." (Isaiah 55:6)