 always is to teach the word so when we teach the word what happens is even if there is apathy among the people they are awakened to the truth of that word so whenever we want to see a change a good thing to do is to teach from the word on that particular subject say for example if people don't believe in healing if we can break out the truth of God's word on healing and how it is available for every believer because of our covenant with God faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God so faith will come and there will be a change the same thing is applicable for apathy and self-sentence as well yeah so we could teach right does that does that does that help sure sure yes kindly good question there and of course you know worship so when we can engage in worship that again you experience the presence of God the freshness of the work of the spirit in our hearts so all the hardness right in the presence of God we know even mountains melt like wax so self-centeredness and all you know that that stiffness within us God is able to dismantle those things as we wait on him as we worship him so maybe environment for worship in the creative environment for worship that will also help yeah good question there can be anything else class anything else that you're wondering about along the lines of the church being the bright yeah so maybe I'll just share like one quick thing that I I mean it happened to me so there was once once or twice I don't know and this is again like you know as I'm learning to serve as a pastor there were opportunities to preach right sometimes we have these that we follow and then sometimes you know it's our own message and we try to hear from God what is God saying and then based on that word be ministered to the communication so there there were a couple of times actually that when I want to write out sermons there were two fiery sermons that I wrote out like you know that very like corrective correcting and you know very much like okay everyone fall in line sort of a message and in our personal thing we also kind of review we review we get feedback so when I had shared mine for feedback I did get back you know this this comment that okay why is it so you're coming from a very sort of a strict place okay and is there anything going on in the congregation you know which requires this kind of stoneness and it really made me think you know about the way I am approaching God's people and the way I am expecting yeah this it should be done like this it should be done like that you know and so it really brought me to a place of approaching the subject at the right time and you know and I'm in the right way so and obviously you know it wasn't the right time or it wasn't the right way so I prayed through and I kind of put away that message and I like rewrote another message I wrote another sermon and then I preach that sermon so it's happened to me a couple of times you know where sometimes I just want to kind of nail it and tell the people hey this is what you should do this is how it should be done and that's it but then you know God works God has been working even my heart and I'm kind of I've changed the way I approach certain things and the way I deal with the church or God's people because yes you know correction and all of that all of that is important but how do we how do we bring it across in a loving way or how do we lead the church in a loving way and that's very very important and the picture of the bride the way God relates to his people it really helps us also relate well with the people so there's always that place for us to allow God to do his work of restoration to his work of rebuilding to his work of healing the hearts of the people so on and so forth so I just thought you know I throw that thought in and if there are no questions then we will move on or comments we will move on anything to add anything else to say you can say now or forever hold your peace okay doesn't look like any questions are coming so that's yeah I guess it's fairly simple okay let's move on we're moving on to the next subject here which is about the local church and the picture of the local church as a house of prayer and worship so the body of Christ or the believers must be engaging in prayer they must be engaging in intercession they must be engaging in seeking the Lord waiting upon the Lord worshipping the Lord why is this because we have been called as God's people for priesthood in the New Testament now we see God say first period to fight where we are told that we are a holy priesthood we are a holy priesthood unto God so that means that God expects us to offer up sacrifices to him okay and in the Old Testament he had instructed his people to set up a tabernacle and the tabernacle also was a place where sacrifices could be offered to God and a ministry could be done unto the Lord and even today though we don't have the temple setup though we don't have the you know the rituals that we need to follow in a spiritual sense we do have a ministry unto God so ministering to people yeah that we are talking about it a whole lot but you know what ministry to God in the form of prayer in the form of worship you know and Peter also writes you know the giving that we do whatever we give to God that is also a spiritual sacrifice that that you know we give and our praises the fruit of our lips that is a sacrifice unto God so we are here to offer up spiritual sacrifices and to minister to God and the duty of a priest is that we have to minister to God on behalf of the people and we have to minister to the people on behalf of God and we in Christ Jesus have now become a holy priesthood so our responsibility as believers is to constantly offer up okay sacrifices unto God now we also know that the God is a God who receives sacrifices so if we go back to the whole ritual of sacrificing in the book of Leviticus we see that God had instructed people to sacrifice and the first fire the first fire was sent from heaven to consume the sacrifice and that is the fire you know which God had instructed the people to keep burning and to never put it off okay so when does God send the fire God provides the fire when we present the sacrifice so no sacrifice no fire and we know fire is representing of God's presence it represents God's anointing so how can we have more of God's presence how can we have more of God's anointing when there is a sacrifice we give the sacrifice he sends the fire so for us to have the fire we have to offer up the sacrifice to God and our sacrifice to God you know we talked about different things but we must keep it constant and we must keep it we must keep giving it unto the Lord now when we look at the presence of God you know we've talked about this that our prayers and we studied about prayer and intercession we said that our prayers go as incense in the heavens before God and you know that's that's something that is ministering in the presence of God now even when we look at the structure and the makeup of the tabernacle God had instructed for an incense to be to be provided right if this was in the inner chamber there was always an incense burning in the presence of the Lord and you know for for God to accept that God had also spoken to Moses about how to prepare this fragrance the fact that it must be pure it must be prepared only for the purposes of the tabernacle that it must not be used in any other way and that you know it should not be used for anyone else so that also shows that we come before the Lord with devotion and commitment and we present our sacrifices unto the Lord and yes as these the sacrifice would go up or sorry the incense would keep burning in the presence of God we know that the presence of God would take over the holy of holies and God's presence would be there in that in that compound so today for us right as we become that royal priest today now for our sacrifices unto the Lord and especially incense is equated with a prayer it's equated with worship as we offer that up unto the Lord you know we must remember this as God instituted for the incense to be prepared in a special way only for him our worship is also only for our God we don't we don't worship other things in our lives or we don't worship people in our lives but our worship is dedicated only to our God and the worship which we offer to God the way the tabernacle had a you know a method of preparation and it had it had to be holy and pure even our worship you know God is seeking holy and pure worship from us you know not something that is mixed with our selfishness or our pride or the works of the flesh but it is holy and pure worship unto the Lord so as God's people the point we are making is we are called to minister to God we are called to minister to God with our worship with our prayer now a beautiful picture of ministering to God is seen in the tabernacle of David and we have touched on this when we studied about prayer and intercession but I'll quickly go over it once again so the tabernacle of David for those of us who are not familiar you know David brought a worship to God which impressed him okay this is about 1000 BC David as an outflow of his heart he wanted to establish a tent for worship and nobody had ever done this before but he commanded that the Ark of the Covenant be brought and you know it be placed in a tent and that you know there be people who were dedicated to worship in that tent so we can be more about this in first chronicles chapter 15 he appointed people within the tent to lead in the worship so the numbers look something like you know he appointed 4,000 musicians 4,000 gatekeepers 288 prophetic singers who minister to the Lord how often we are told day and night okay and that is what David really wanted to do he wanted to worship God offer up the sacrifice of praise unto the Lord non-stop so day and night and that is why he needed so many people to come and bring worship to God so these people were appointed to come before the Lord day and night to make petition to give thanks and to praise the Lord and this went on and on and on and we see that the duration of this 24 bar 7 constant praise worship prayer lasted for 33 years and what is so special about this kind of worship you know the fact is that God was very impressed with it okay and we will see later on that you know he chooses to have this kind of worship back in the church so first let's start upon some of the features of David's tent of worship or we are calling it the tabernacle of worship so what are some of the features there was extravagant worship and powerful intercession which was offered up to God through the tabernacle and it's very plain to see who would appoint so many musicians and you know vocalists worshipers so David had to select from the best in his kingdom and he appointed them as we study the tabernacle we understand that he even paid them and told them this is what I want you to dedicate yourself to why did they do that he wanted the best worship for God okay and he came got extravagant worship and during that time we also understand that powerful intercession was made and that is the feature of the tabernacle of worship so today for us if we want to emulate David's tabernacle of worship then we're talking about extravagant worship we're talking about powerful intercession it was also a place of prophetic worship in 1st Chronicles 25 we see that there were people chosen to lead in singing there were people chosen to write songs write songs because it was prophetic worship they needed to hear from God and they needed to sing those songs in the now so people were kind of trained under leaders to do this and you know there were there were several people who were appointed people appointed for leading in singing using instruments writing songs releasing those songs so on and so forth and we we see that these songs right these songs were not just sung because they needed to be sung but we see the term skillful okay used in these passages so David was careful to identify people who provide excellent worship and excellent prophetic worship and that and we told that several songs which you know we read today were birthed out of this move of the tabernacle of David's worship what else what are some of the other features we see so there was extravagant worship there was prophetic worship so what does prophetic worship mean see it simply means that it's more than coming to God and saying okay God we have two praise songs and we have three worship songs so you know two fast songs to three slow songs and you know that's the worship we are offering you but prophetic worship is to hear from God you know as the leaders here from God maybe God is releasing a line or two at this morning in the prayer because Elisha I don't know if Elisha is here in our second year class but Elisha somebody yeah they wrote out some lines that God gave them so that's prophetic right and the words are being released and I'm just reminded of when we have a physical Bible college that happens here in Bangalore we also have every day from 12 to 1 we have a time called supernatural hour where the class after the classes are done all the students and you know faculty you can stay back we all gather and then we have a time of worship we have a time of intercession so we just get deep into it every day okay every day it happens and we just kind of you know worship God and we hear from God and the minister as the Lord is leading us to minister and I can recall there's one particular batch I don't remember the year but that year students were writing songs every session every session the end of the session they'd be like oh man I got three lines I got you know somebody has got a few lines and one of our students she started a blog site on which she puts even till today the songs she gets the songs the words and she puts it up on that page the words that God is giving to her prophetically one of our students from I think she was from Punjab and she would write in Hindi she would write in Hindi and she would get words I don't remember the exact count potentials graduating she told me something like I've written 24 songs okay just through the supernatural hours of worship so I mean I don't want to get deep into it but I felt like I must talk about it now so prophetic worship but talking about the now what is God releasing those words we worship him with those words we worship him with that revelation so that's prophetic worship and David kind of instituted that right in the tabernacle of worship so what are the other features we find orderly worship with excellence so we said he chose the best of the best in terms of skill and as we read these passages we understand that there were groups of people so there were 24 groups or teams of musicians and singers so they had a pattern in the schedule to follow they were not randomly assigned to lead but you know they followed a systematic way to lead worship in the tabernacle so there was an order which they followed you know and there were skilled musicians who would train others in music and then you would have that same excellence maintained among the singers so David's tabernacle had all these features and no wonder there's excellence there's order there's extravagant extravagant worship where David didn't hold anything back and you know we see that in David's life he says how can I give God the second best you know how can I give God leftovers so he always tried to give his best to God and God was very very pleased with it now God was so pleased with this manner of worship and you know David's worship was extravagant but any and every ruler that came after David that engaged in worship God was always pleased with all of them and whoever kind of reinstituted this method of worshiping God during that tenure we find that great blessings came upon that ruler and the people of the land so some of the names would be Solomon he tried reinstituting worship in the temple and you know he was blessed Jehoshaphat was another person Joash Hezekiah Josiah Ezra all of these people engaged in this form of worship and they were blessed during their times so what do we gain from this basically we gain that whenever we create a place of worship it becomes the habitation of God okay and when God's presence comes and God begins to dwell there we talked about these rulers and their land being blessed how is it that their land was blessed how is it that they experienced you know a certain level of transformation because of you know the sacrifice it provided the sacrifice God provided the fire and God's presence comes in and God's presence begins to work in the midst of the people begins to work among the you know on across the land and you know we see that God is able to do an incredible work so God loved this kind of dedication that David had his heart for worship that the prophet Amos he prophesies and he says in Amos chapter 9 verses 11 to 13 I think it will be good for somebody to read this passage it is in our notes on page number 90 Amos 9 verses 11 somebody shall I read one yes yes sir please go ahead Amos 9 11 to 13 says on that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of the old that day may possess the remnant of Idom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does this thing behold the days are coming says the Lord when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the trader of grapes him who sows seed the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it yeah yes thank you thank you for reading that so the prophet Amos what he's saying is he says on that day which is this day you know a day which is to come on that day God is promising I will meaning definitely I am going to do this raise up the tabernacle of David tabernacle of David existed 33 years and gone but the real institution happened to other rulers now God is saying I'm going to that's why you would have heard this term no some some worship events they use the term rebuilding rebuilding the tabernacle of David so God is saying I will raise up I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old so God is talking about re-establishing a place of continuous prayer praise worship and thanksgiving so as a result of that what can we see happen so once God builds this rebuilds the tabernacle of David he says verse 12 that they possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does this thing so Edom refers to those who are not in God those who are away from God and similarly even the Gentiles Gentiles who are not God's people I'm sorry I can hear somebody is on unmute so I just want to request it yeah thank you yeah so Edom refers to those who are not in Christ or those who are yet to be brought into the kingdom of God and Gentiles as well so what God is saying is when we re-establish this form of worship as a result there is going to be a winning of souls okay we can use the term harvest a harvest of souls into the kingdom of God verse 13 behold the days are coming says the Lord when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of graves him who sows seed the mountain shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it so what God is saying is he's saying there is going to be a great harvest a plentiful harvest such that the reapers will be very busy gathering the harvest from the previous season there was so much harvest that when the sowing season comes you know by then the harvesting should have been over but the harvesting is still going on there is a plentiful harvest so we can look forward for the grave commission to be fulfilled in such a mighty way but what is a prerequisite of people coming into the kingdom of God the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David so God has promised this and said that there is going to be a day when I will rebuild it now if we just fast forward a little bit in Acts chapter 15 we find the then pastor of the church or the then leader of the church James the brother of Jesus stand up and court from Amos this is in Acts chapter 15 verses 16 through 17 he says the same you know he kind of says the same thing that Amos said about rebuilding the tabernacle of David and the bringing in of the Gentiles into the family of God so why is James talking about it see by then in the early church the gospel had God had opened doors for the gospel to be preached to the Gentiles okay and then needed to be an acceptance among the Jews of another community coming into the kingdom of God so he was reminding the people and telling them don't you remember God had has already spoken through the prophet and he told us that there are Gentiles who are called by his name who will also come into the kingdom of God so he's kind of reminding the people that this is the time and it has to happen so where is the rebuilding of the temple or rebuilding of the tabernacle of David going to happen it's going to happen in and through the church because we are those spiritual representatives of the kingdom of God and that's what we've been talking about so as the church rebuilds again in a spiritual sense we may not set up a building or a tent but what we will do is engage with this form of worship abandoned worship extravagant the term used is extravagant worship then we engage in that kind of worship what happens you know God's presence comes we provide the sacrifice he provides the fire then everything that goes with it particularly the promise of Amos where we see that many people are going to come into the house of God so there's going to be a transformation right and that's what God is looking for now we've understood the importance of worship the importance of prayer the importance of intercession now God wants his house or the church to be a house of prayer and that of worship so this text is actually in Isaiah 56 verses 6 through 7 again I would request someone to please read the passage I'm on page 91 Isaiah 56 verses 6 through 7 I read yeah I read it 6 verse 6 to 7 also the sons of the fallen now who drained themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord to be his servants everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and hold the fast to my covenant even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them drift full in my house of prayer they are burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations amen amen thank you Charles so you know we see God's desire put before us very clearly God wants us to be a house of praise worship that we've seen now God is clearly telling us that his house or the church has to be a house of prayer and God is zealous for that and we see Jesus quote the same passage when he chases out money lenders from the from the temple so in Matthew 21 where people are doing business in the temple Jesus goes there and he makes a whip he overturns the tables and he quotes this he says my house shall be called a house of prayer so he was consumed by zeal because the temple which is supposed to be a place of prayer and worship it had been turned into a place of merchandise and business so how does this apply to the church today we have to be careful not to let other things slowly creep into the church and we know that you know Satan never tries to enter directly or he never tries to enter with a big noise very subtly he would love to come in to somehow turn our hearts from worship from seeking him in prayer you know two other things and we slowly give our attention to you know the things of the world but Jesus never liked that he always wanted his temple to be known as a house of prayer and we have to also be zealous to maintain that those of us we're serving the the church we're serving in various capacities never let this focus be shifted in any way this is a house it must be a house of prayer it must be a house of worship and you know we we don't want other things to come and dilute what God has called us to do so yeah we direct people in this manner and we lead them to engage in prayer and worship so how how does our prayer there is the next section here which talks about our prayer going up into the very presence of God it goes up as incense earlier we we see shadows on the earth God tells us okay you do this you burn incense in the tabernacle but also we we see that there is something else you know which which is more real than the shadow so Psalm 141 verse 2 it says you know let my prayer be said before you as incense the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice and then in the book of revelation I think revelation 8 if I'm not wrong I was just looking yeah revelation 8 we see that right before God the incense goes up okay and that incense is the prayer of the saints so what is that real incense it is the prayer of the saints and it goes directly into the presence of God so when we pray from the earth and when we engage in worship you know it's directly ministering in God's presence it's directly touching God and you know that is an encouragement for us right that is an encouragement for us and we know that in the presence of God you know there's worship going on the whole time the entire time the worship that we offer to God you know when we say that God is worthy but also you have are the heavenly beings resounding with the worship unto God where they are also crying out to God and you know they're also saying you know worthy is the lamp who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing so basically they also realized that you know it's only God who is worthy of our worship so worship is going up in heaven all the time prayer is going up and we become a part of that we kind of come and sink with what is happening in heaven okay it is happening right now it will continue to happen throughout eternity and we are aligning ourselves to that heartbeat of heaven when we're engaging in prayer and we're engaging in worship so just a I'm going to touch on that worship that the heavenly beings give unto the Lord this is in Revelation 512 where the lamp of God is is deemed as worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing so what does it mean we quickly look at that so it means that it is only our God who has power and power has to do with influence authority dominion sovereignty so we're saying you know God you have the greatest influence you are sovereign over everything our God has all the riches because you know we're saying riches is is due unto the Lord so what do riches contain wealth possessions so everything everything belongs to him wisdom wisdom has to do with knowledge with understanding with skill so where can we get it from only he has it so we say that okay God you have it all you have all wisdom you have all strength strength has to do with might it has to do with ability and that is in God and you know God can offer that to us then all honor is due unto the Lord honor has to do with respect reverence our submission unto the King glory glory has to do with God's might God's splendor so you know we we give him all the glory and blessing is our adoration okay our admiration and our love so even that belongs to God and that's the kind of worship that goes on in heaven and you know we kind of we join along with that worship and we praise and thank God so what I'll do is I will pause right now we still have to touch on this action on the movements of prayer so I won't rush through it we will look at it we'll be in the next class but any any thoughts any questions as of now we've been talking about um the tabernacle of David we've been talking about the church being the house of prayer okay so yeah anything along those lines thank you pastor I enjoyed this class it's just kind of coincidental that um this class actually clashes I don't know connects with my study because I'm actually studying when I started studying from yesterday when David brought the arc of the covenant you know back and then how we apportioned the singers you know so as you were just actually talking about it it was just trying more like that wow interesting actually when I was reading it I didn't really even think of it so much though I was meeting on the I didn't think about this about him actually because this was something he started you know he started he was the one that instituted the whole worship of singing day and night I mean in times of Moses this was not dawn so this was David actually starting something new you know and he just goes to show that um really God actually you know enjoys when we worship him from songs of praises you know when we offer him songs of thanksgiving and no wonder David tells to this day he's being reconned with as one of the greatest kings you know we have so many kings in the land of Israel but David still remains like the one most like even the the sign on the on the flag of Israel you know it's actually the sign of David so it tells us the importance and how much God treasures when we actually offer him praises we offer him worship you know in thanksgiving and praise so I think that that has really really like but trust the importance why we must never see him to give him sacrifices of praise worship him in praise and thanksgiving I think this is a very very good plan that has stressed on that and um as we pray we should not also forget you know to also to worship him praise and thanksgiving in fact I believe prayer is an orchestra of everything you know worshiping and same time praying you know sometimes when we always go to pray we're always just about our needs and interests but I think God wants us to go beyond not just praying for what we want in our lives but basically praying his will and then worshiping him from a standpoint that he's inspiring us he's showing us himself and he wants us to you know offer him what was pleasing you know what were bringing pleasure and David showed that and I think we should even do more than what was done in the whole covenant because these guys were praying before an ark but we are the temple of the Lord we are his tabernacle we carry him so a lot is expected from us if this man who never even had the spirit of God within them could do this then I think a lot also should come from us God is expecting more from us so thank you pastor for this class yeah thank you thank you say bless to hear um you know your thoughts and uh some of the understanding that you have developed uh so how about uh you pray today to wrap up the class and uh if you could also pray that um we as God's people like we will rebuild the tabernacle of worship individually and in our churches and as the body of Christ yeah would would you be able to pray for us us also say as you have no problem yeah Lord thank you let us move our dear father we bless you thank you for your word we have heard today the teachings Lord that have we've been exposed to and have been reviewed to us by your word and by your servant Lord we thank you Jesus Lord for um making us your tabernacle for dwelling within us Father as we've learned today that indeed it is this time oh God that you have revealed in the tabernacle and that is us we pray that Father individually and as at churches everywhere you know wherever we are Lord in our various churches and the body of Christ at large I pray Father that Lord you will take us back to that which pleases you that which brings you pleasure and that is Lord offering worship unto you you know praying unto you praying your will here that your kingdom may come and be fully expressed Lord again we pray that Lord we will give ourselves Lord to worship in thanksgiving and praise and that we'll never see praying we pray Father that the fire you have put inside of us that Lord will always be a living sacrifice for the fire to keep on burning we pray that Lord we would not be missing Lord when you expect us Lord to stand in the gap interceding praying Lord that your kingdom Lord will find expression and be enthroned in the hearts of men we pray that Lord continually our lips will be filled of thanksgiving will be filled with thanksgiving and praise continually but we pray that Lord your presence Lord will be in our churches when your presence oh Lord will will be invited in the midst of our worship in the midst of our praises we pray that Lord we would look to you always and we pray that Lord will be truly representatives of you and that Lord we would carry ourselves as your temple that Lord we will know we'll have this consciousness that Lord we carry you on the inside and we'll be representatives of you everywhere we go thank you Father Lord for your daughter you've used all the teachers Lord replenish her Lord inspire her more and Lord anoint her more Lord for greater works thank you Father as we go Lord for the class Lord pray for understanding I will pray for more wisdom in the name of Jesus thank you for in Jesus name we have pray amen amen amen thank you thank you so much say thank you and God bless you all thank you for being here yeah take care and yeah God bless you if we turn your business yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you bye God bless everyone