1Chron 9 Yesterday, the world watched as Notre Dame Cathedral, an international treasure burned. The pictures were sent around the world and we watched with tears. Centuries before another international treasure burned, God’s holy Temple. However, in God’s graciousness, the Judahites taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar never saw the Temple burned. The loss of both is/was great; never to be replicated again.
The Chronicler tells us simply the people of Judah were carried away to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. This took place to fulfill the Lord’s message spoken through Jeremiah and lasted until the land experienced its sabbatical years. All the time of its desolation the land rested in order to fulfill the seventy years. [2Ch 36:21] This is another point of His grace; the land lay resting and no enemies conquered it. Under Cyrus, the Judahites returned and rebuilt. Ezra, the priest, records that many of those who returned wept at their memory of the former temple as they stood to honor the new temple because it was only a shadow of Solomon’s former temple.
In the 16th century some Huguenots damaged Notre Dame’s statues they considered idolatrous and in 1793 removed and decapitated statues. Yesterday’s fire by far is the worst the grand lady has experienced. So too God’s holy Temple was desecrated by King Nebuchadnezzar and later the new Temple by the Romans.
Buildings may be desecrated and lost but the church is not a building. The church is the people of God who have been born again because of one day long ago: Easter or Resurrection Morning. Satan’s plans were thwarted because of that day and no power or natural events can destroy it. Victory came because of the death of our Savior. Believers are the Temple of God.