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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Father in heaven, Lord, bless us today as we open your word.

And Lord, bless us as we contemplate not only opening your word, but opening our hearts, opening our homes for your cause.

A consideration of the laws of spiritual warfare and engagement.

I just came up with that title, that's Not what's in the bulletin, but I thought it was good.

And as I was thinking about what message to preach this week, how many of you had just a struggle about what you should preach on a given week?

Maybe not as much as I do, since I do this quite often, but I was thinking, what does the campus, what does the church community, what do they need to hear, what chapter in scripture should I bring forth, bringing forth things new and old.

And I thought, well we had a wonderful week of prayer with Pastor Baute, and our hearts have been full with that, amen, in the college level.

Then we had a wonderful week of prayer with Nick Hold at the academy, wasn't that a blessing at the academy?

And I thought, you know, back on the years when I was in academy and college, and many times you'd have just a great week of prayer, and then everything would kind of go flat.

That never happened to anyone else besides me.

And I thought, what in the world, What can we do?

And then I thought of this passage, which was our scripture reading today.

I went out, this man swept his house clean, but then he didn't really follow up, and soon his situation was worse than before he even cleaned things up.

I thought maybe that's the passage, and began to think about it.

And then I was thinking about this initiative also Of wanting to get out into people's homes and opening their homes And I thought well these all 3 would kind of match together and as I read the chapter I was amazed at how this chapter seems actually tailor-made to talk about all 3.

A training book written for the people in the United Kingdom, showing how the soldiers there learned how to defend themselves from enemy invaders that were going to come, they thought, surely, and invade England.

And so they were preparing themselves for that.

Of course, thankfully they didn't have the type of invasion they thought they would have, but they were preparing for this.

In fact, many places in the world, whether it be Aleppo in Syria, whether it be the cities in the Ukraine now, whether it be various conflicts over the last number of years, the idea of the military is to try and strike from afar, from above, and to not get into the messy warfare of door-to-door combat.

In fact, most weaponry that I was reading about this week, and I don't do a lot of study on this, but, you know, I have 20 minutes of study on it, so I'm sharing all that benefits of that in-depth research.

They say that on the nightly news, we're going to have in-depth coverage, and it's only 10 minutes, So I'm just as good as the news.

But they say this is the most difficult form of warfare.

It is the thing that turns people's minds against a war rapidly, so it's fraught with difficulties.

And we can see that even now in the Ukraine, where the different cities are being bombed and people are getting more and more upset.

And the sentiment of many in the world is with those in the Ukraine as they're attacked with huge weapons from afar.

But they're not having much success because when you get into urban warfare, The urban defender has the advantage.

The urban terrain reduces the attacker's advantage in many ways.

The defender can see and engage the attacker because they have limited cover.

Buildings become like fortified bunkers And the defender maintains freedom within that urban terrain.

He kind of knows where everything is already Although there there might not be water or food or different things He still is within this terrain that he's familiar with and there might be even underground tunnels that provide refuge and might know about those.

In fact, many of these cities that are being attacked now, they developed underground tunnels and whatnot, sort of like we have here on the campus.

Did you know that this, actually this campus here has many underground tunnels?

Well, maybe I shouldn't have told you that.

And it is actually the fallout center if there's a nuclear attack in Placer County.

If there's a nuclear attack in Placer County, everyone will come here.

So, these are the benefits of those in urban warfare, and most of the weapons are designed, not for urban warfare, but from afar.

And brothers and sisters, I might kindly say, I believe that things in the world are not getting better, they're getting worse.

There's a great controversy between good and evil, and there's also a great spiritual controversy between good and evil, and I believe we're coming to a time rapidly when maybe we can't meet in a place like Haskell Hall.

Maybe we can't meet in a large auditorium.

Maybe we'll have to learn how to meet in our own homes, in bunkers, in underground caves, and how many think we should learn how to do that now?

So, as we think about the questions I put before you, I want to remind you that God was a master at house-to-house combat.

In fact, he said, in the midst of the great controversy, I see what's happening, and I'm gonna create a house and go down there and live in it, and that's how I'm going to enter into my engagement with the forces of darkness.

You go into the courtyard, you warm yourself by the fire, you then wash your hands in that laver, you go into that first room there and what do you have?

You have a table with bread and drink on it.

And then you have in the most holy place, sort of like the bedroom, the most intimate place of that building.

And it's as if God is living out what you would do in your house to win the great controversy.

He doesn't build a huge, you know, fan-shaped auditorium.

He doesn't build other types of structures.

And he says, let them make me a sanctuary that I might dwell among them.

And as I am working through and helping them learn how to live in that house, in my house, they'll have victory in their house.

Actually, when I was in Egypt recently, with some of us, we were looking at the pharaohs.

We saw a bunch of them, the mummies, all the pharaohs there in Cairo.

But we also saw the way that the pharaoh thought of himself.

And of course, Jesus, when speaking of himself, said that he came to temple or tabernacle among us.

Anyway, Pharaoh thought that he was a house, and he Represented himself and everything he did in various temples and all those temples were called Basically Pharaoh and he embodied all those temples in fact Ramses Who was 1 of the Pharaohs?

When he would go on the war, on the road, and fight with the Hittites, or with the Syrians, or with the others, he would go and he would have a temple.

Interestingly enough, that tent or that temple or that house was exactly the same dimensions as the ancient sanctuary of God.

And Actually, I think God did this on purpose, when he came down to rescue his people out of Egypt, he was saying, look, Pharaoh has a tent, Pharaoh has a house, but I am usurping his power and authority with my house and with my war chariot.

My war chariot is coming to actually get you out of Egypt.

You're going to come to my house and we're gonna have victory over his house.

In his house, you can see in the middle, right there in the most holy place of Ramsey's war tent, he's sitting there and he's covered, he's surrounded by Falcons with their wings all spread out.

In God's house they're not statues just of Falcons there, there's actually embroidered angels all over the place, and there's the actual presence of God in his tabernacle, the living presence of God.

And so God meant to win the war by his door-to-door combat.

Of course, Ramses is pictured here with his war chariot and as he had victory over the people they were drowning in 1 of the rivers and God said, well I think that's a good idea.

I'm gonna have war with the Egyptians and they all will drown in the Red Sea You think that I need your Nile River?

I can make a river in the midst of the wilderness I can make a tent a house in the middle of the wilderness and I will win this battle in door-to-door combat, showing my power, everything about this tabernacle represented Jesus, and I'll do that not only for the Egyptians, I'll do it for you in your house even today.

In fact, every house was supposed to be seen this way.

Then the Lord will create above every dwelling, not just 1 dwelling, every dwelling, a place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and a shining flaming pillar by night.

For over all the glory there'll be a covering, and there'll be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime and heat." So every single dwelling was supposed to have the same presence of God over it that the tabernacle did.

Now with that background, let's look for a moment now at Matthew chapter 12, where our scripture reading was today.

Christ came to win back his Father's house.

He said, when he arrived, don't you know that I must be about my father's business?

Literally in the ESV it means, don't you know that I need to be in my father's house?

So he says, look, I've got a house, and the desire of ages, where we get that title, the desire of the nations will enter into that house And I'm gonna make it more effective.

It's not as effective as it needed to be I'm gonna come and dwell in the house And we're going to go about my father's business.

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Nature Abhors a Vacuum

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