(Ezekiel 43:8)
Ezekiel told us why God was unable to pour out His holy spirit on the churches of the West. God said, “Their doorpost was beside My doorpost, and there was a wall between them and Me.”1Ezek 43:8
God’s house was not built according to His instructions.
The spirit of God is the spirit of truth. The Bible gives us four conditions that must be met for the Church to receive the spirit of God:
• The Church must keep the commandments of God. We find this in Acts 5:32, 1 John 3:22 and 5:2, Revelation 12:17 and 14:12, Matthew 7:21, and 1 Corinthians 7:19.
• The Church must obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ outlined in His 12 “if not” conditions of salvation. These include the washing of the feet and the imitation of the Father “in like manner.”
• The Church must baptize in the Name of Jesus.
• The Church must listen to the teachings of the apostles. The elementary teachings of salvation were listed by the writer of Hebrews as “instructions in baptisms [or washings] and the laying on of hands [for the gift of the Holy Spirit].” The instructions in baptisms were not listed by the writer, but in A.D. 150, Justin Martyr wrote, “We lead them to a place where there is water, and they are regenerated in the same manner in which we were regenerated.”2First Apology, Chapter 61 Then he described the need to wash completely and “the command to remove the shoes”3First Apology, Chapter 62 — the washing of the feet that followed baptism.
The requirement to follow the pattern exactly was dramatically illustrated in Exodus 39 and 40. God gave the Israelites precise instructions for the building of the tabernacle. After they built it according to God’s instructions, “the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tent.”4Exod 40:34
The prophet Ezekiel described the exact measurements for the third temple, the Church of God. After it was built in accordance with all of God’s instructions, “the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East.”5Ezek 43:2
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