The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Tabernacle of David, #8

After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. (Acts 15:16,17)

Then there is David's Tabernacle.

Out from the active Christians there is being drawn a company of people who have profited by and engaged in the graces we have mentioned but who have an unsatisfied hunger for God Himself; not just for the works, gifts, and ways of God but for God Himself. This is David's Tabernacle.

The latter group of saints are being made conscious that God is ready to avenge Himself on Satan and that God is beginning with their own personality. Every sin, every rebellion must be dealt with by fire. All that is of Satan must go. All that is of the world must leave. All that is of self-will, of stubbornness, of rebellion, of self-centeredness, of self-love, must be driven from their personalities.

"Saul" enjoys the activities of the ways and works of God. He is able to participate in these and yet retain His own will and glory. He becomes spiritually adept.

"David" also enjoys the activities of the ways and works of God. But he never can be satisfied with these. He always is pressing past the veil into the Presence of the Ark of the Covenant. "David" wants God! He will not be content with any sort of blessing. "David's" hunger and thirst after righteousness can be quenched only by the Presence of the God of Heaven in Christ.

We believe the separation between the believers represented by the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the believers represented by David's Tabernacle, is beginning in the days in which we are living and will remain until the conclusion of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

We believe further that when Christ returns in the clouds of glory, only those who are of David's Tabernacle, so to speak, will be raised from the dead. The first resurrection is for God's rulers, His judges. They will exercise judgment in the earth. They will bring all nations into subjection to Christ. Theirs is the rule of a rod of iron—a violent, crushing, imposition of force on all sin and rebellion.

Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. (Isaiah 13:9)

The Ark of the Covenant with its covering Mercy Seat was the heart of David's Tabernacle. The Covenant consisted of the two tables of stone, the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were the judgment, the condemnation of God on Satan and all who follow Satan.

When the Ark moves forward, the Covenant, the Law, the judgment, the condemnation upon the enemy moves forward. Those who receive the Lord and His Covenant enter eternal life. Those who reject the Lord and His Covenant abide under the judgment of God.

To be continued.