A Psalm of David. I will praise You with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing praises to You. I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name. (Psalm 138:1-2)

An Attitude Of Heart

During a time of peace in the kingdom of David, the shepherd king reflected on his cedar house, where he dwelt, and the Tabernacle of the Lord that had endured four hundred years of use. Time had worn the Tent of Meeting heavily. David did not think it proper for the ark of God to dwell inside the tent curtains. God told David through the prophet Nathan that he would not build a house for the Lord because David was a man of war and had shed blood. It would be the son of David who would build the glorious temple for the Lord.

David prepared the material for Solomon to build the temple. It would take Solomon about seven years to build the great edifice honoring Jehovah God. The temple would stand as the grand centerpiece of Jerusalem until 586 B. C. when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it completely. When the second temple was built in 516 B. C., the elderly wept for the glory of the first temple. The Temple of Solomon was a permanent structure. David would never live to see the glory of the temple he desired to build, but his heart looked upon the Tabernacle as if it were a temple. Constructed of wooden planks, the tabernacle was a three-sided structure 45 feet long and 22 feet wide. The roof was made of white linen curtains, protected by successive layers of sackcloth, red ramskins, and goatskins.

David enjoyed a deep reverence for the worn tent of meeting where the Lord communed with His people. Weathered by four hundred years of use, the Tabernacle was not a pristine remembrance of its former days. David was struck by the fine house he lived in while the Lord’s dwelling was unkept. He writes seven psalms about the tabernacle, referring to it as a temple. David saw a tent of meeting, but in his heart, he saw the holy temple of God. His attitude was that the tabernacle was a holy place where he could commune with God. He loved to worship before the Lord in His tent of meeting. It was not so much the material but the place of honor to stand before the Lord with the congregation of God’s people to offer sacrifices to the name of the Lord.

The tabernacle was destroyed along with the three temples that once stood in Jerusalem. There will never be another temple of the Lord because the practices of the Law are abolished, the priesthood vanquished, and the covenant with Israel voided. In Christ, the people of God worship in the church where God is. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, saints assemble on the first day of the week to bring sacrifices of praise to the name of God. Sadly, the hearts of the worshippers are turning more carnal than before. David saw the tabernacle as a temple. For many in the church today, worship is a casual visitation with God, requiring only a T-shirt, flip-flops, and a cup of coffee or an energy drink.

There is no dress code in the church today, but many are going so far as to make worship of God a communal experience rather than a communion. The attitudes of the heart are more disrespectful to the name of the Lord. Carnal denominationalism has filled the church with attitudes of laxity, slackness, and outright disrespect for the remembrance of the death of Jesus. Churches are filled with weakened hearts that want to bring a relaxed, passive view of worship, instead of respecting the reality that the one they stand before (or sit) is the Lord God Almighty. He gets no respect. Jesus is not honored. The Holy Spirit is humiliated. David saw the tabernacle as a temple. Saints see worship as a trip to the beach.