God’s eternal intention is to build for Himself a glorious dwelling place, a glorious church, among His saved ones through the life of His Son. Therefore, all the work that God is doing upon us who have been saved is for us to be built together to become a spiritual house in which He can live.
I feel that we cannot merely listen to God’s word and see God’s vision yet not have any response or action before God. In the Bible—whether in the Old Testament concerning the tabernacle and the temple or the New Testament concerning the building of the church—God first reveals His heart’s desire to His people, showing them a spiritual vision that they might know that He wants to do something exceedingly glorious in the universe. Then His people respond and take action before God, and as a result, His intention is accomplished among them.
Before the people of Israel built the tabernacle, Moses led them to the foot of Mount Sinai, where God revealed to Moses the heavenly pattern in a vision. Then Moses told the Israelites the vision that he had seen. After the whole congregation knew God’s desire, they immediately responded by committing themselves to Moses and doing their best to offer to God all of the things that they had received of Him. They rose up as one man and coordinated together, each one doing his part to build the tabernacle of God in one accord. Later, when the Israelites built the temple, their response to God’s desire was even stronger and more glorious. David was perhaps the first one to respond. Although he did not personally build the temple, because he had set his affection on the temple, he used all of his effort to prepare the materials for the temple of God, even in the midst of the hardships of war. Besides this, he also offered his entire private treasure of gold and silver, which included three thousand talents of gold from the gold of Ophir and seven thousand talents of refined silver. Moreover, he said to the congregation of the Israelites, “Who will offer willingly, consecrating himself today to Jehovah?” After David sounded the call, the leaders of the fathers’ houses, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, the captains of thousands, and the captains of hundreds with the overseers of the king’s work all responded and offered themselves absolutely and willingly. They gave five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of bronze, and one hundred thousand talents of iron for the service of the house of God. In addition, they offered many precious stones. Then the people rejoiced because they had offered willingly to God with their whole heart, and David also rejoiced with great joy. Therefore, when the building of the temple was completed, the temple was filled with glory.
Regrettably, after a short time the people of Israel became desolate, and as a result the temple was destroyed and the people of Israel were taken captive to foreign lands. Whenever they remembered the desolation of the temple, they were filled with sorrow and sighing. They hoped that one day they would see the temple rebuilt. During their captivity, in the first year of the reign of Darius, who was made king over the Chaldeans, Daniel read the Scriptures written by the prophet Jeremiah and understood that the number of years for the completion of the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy. Thus, he set his face toward God to seek Him in prayer, supplication, and confession of sins with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. God then sent Gabriel to Daniel in a vision to promise him that the people of Israel would recover the holy temple and the holy city (Dan. 9). We know that before this time, Daniel prayed to God in his house (with the windows open toward Jerusalem) three times daily on his knees (6:10). I believe that in his prayers he must have asked God to quickly recover the building of the holy temple and the holy city.
Thank God that in the first year of King Cyrus (at that time Daniel was already quite old), God, in order to fulfill His promise, stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. Although Cyrus was a Gentile king, he was used by God to accomplish God’s will. He made a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and put it in writing, saying, “All the kingdoms of the earth has Jehovah the God of heaven given to me; and He has charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may His God be with him; and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and let him build the house of Jehovah the God of Israel—He is God—who is in Jerusalem.” Furthermore, he said, “Everyone who is left, in whatever place he sojourns, let the men of his place support him with silver and with gold and with goods and with cattle, besides the freewill offering for the house of God, which is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:2-4). After he sounded the call, immediately there was a great response among the Israelites. Verses 5 through 8 say, “The heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites rose up, even everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go up to build the house of Jehovah, which is in Jerusalem. And all those around them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with cattle and with precious things, besides all that was offered willingly. Also King Cyrus brought out the vessels of the house of Jehovah...and had them enumerated to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.” Thus, the people of Israel traveled in groups from Babylon to Jerusalem. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they gathered together as one man and endeavored in one accord to rebuild the temple.
Before rebuilding the temple, they rebuilt the altar, because the altar was for offering sacrifices. This meant that before the building of the temple could begin, there had to be an act of consecration. The main reason for the consecration of God’s people was not that they would offer their goods but that they would place themselves in the hand of God. We can see from the record in the book of Ezra that the glory of the situation at that time apparently surpassed the glory of the situation at the time when the temple was first built. When the builders laid the foundation of the temple on the original site, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise God. They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to God. All the people shouted with a great shout, and the old men who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice, having been greatly stirred up in their emotions. The stirring and excitement within the Israelites at that time surpassed their excitement in the past. It was truly an unprecedented event. Because they had passed through the painful experience and lesson of captivity, they could not help having such a strong reaction after returning to their own land and seeing the rebuilding of the temple.