Sanctuary Biblical Quotes

This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.

We have a sanctuary in Christ, and He has equipped us with the armor of God. We

Thirsting for God O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. PSALM 63:1-2 NLT David wrote many of the psalms in the middle of difficult times. Biblical scholars believe this one was written when David fled Jerusalem when his son Absalom took the throne from him. Even in the midst of David’s breaking heart, he sought the Lord with a deep, soul-parched thirst. He was the deer being hunted by his son; he was the one longing to be filled, to be completely satisfied through the only source who truly satisfies. Many years later, Jesus said, “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6 NLT). The thirst Jesus describes is the same thirst David spoke of. Charles Spurgeon, a nineteenth-century pastor in London, explained it this way in his Treasury of David: This thirst is “the cry of a man far removed from the outward ordinances and worship of God, sighing for the long loved house of his God; and at the same time it is the voice of a spiritual believer, under depressions, longing for the renewal of the divine presence, struggling with doubts and fears, but yet holding his ground by faith in the living God.” Father, I, too, thirst for You in the dryness of my soul. Thank You for Jesus who alone is able to satisfy this thirst.

Certainly, in revising the architecture of their churches, nobody intended to lose the idea of holiness. The intention of the Reformers was rather to assert the holiness of all of life. In practice, however, we have all too often profaned all of life instead, leveling everything down rather than up. Thus we may call the room in which we meet the “sanctuary,” yet there is no sense of awe when we gather together as the church, no sense that it is the almighty and holy God himself with whom we are meeting. As a result, our individual lives are often similarly devoid of contact with the Holy One. Because we do not recognize the meeting together of the saints as a “sanctuary” in the biblical sense, we do not live the lives of sanctity that we ought.

so just as Adam was to fulfill his mandate by devoting himself to worship as a priest in the garden sanctuary, so Israel as a new Adam is to fulfill her mandate by devoting herself to worship as a priest in the tabernacle, and later the temple.

Still, the rebellious artist had placed a minor Jewish prophet in the important spot where the pope had wanted Jesus. How did Michelangelo imagine he would avoid the pope’s wrath in openly defying his wishes? Replacing Jesus with a minor prophet might have doomed any other commissioned artist, but Michelangelo found a brilliant way to appease his patron. The Zechariah panel is not simply an idealized portrait of a biblical figure. Michelangelo superimposed a portrait of Pope Julius II on the ancient Hebrew prophet. Not only that, but Michelangelo portrayed Zechariah dressed in a mantle of royal blue and gold—the traditional colors of the della Rovere clan, the family of both Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew Pope Julius II. Replacing the image of Jesus Christ with a portrait of the pontiff? This was no problem for the egomaniacal Julius. It placed his visage permanently over the entrance to this glorious new sanctuary for all future popes and commemorated his family’s role as its builders.

The idea of identifying and valuing two entities as equals is a biblical concept. For two people in covenant, to harm one was to harm the other (1 Samuel 18:1–4). And to disregard a person’s word was to disparage the person himself (Luke 6:46).Therefore, how we value the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ, is a good indicator of how we value the written Word of God, the Bible. What conclusions would someone draw about your love for the Savior after observing your relationship to the Scriptures for a few weeks? Since both the Bible and Jesus Christ are the Word of God, it’s impossible to value one and not the other. A proven way to grow closer to God is to grow closer to God’s Word.

L. Floor puts the matter succinctly: `From the Epistle to the Hebrews may be derived this most important thesis: the deeper we enter the sanctuary the further we will penetrate the world.'46

Prayer is not just a tangential or peripheral part of corporate worship. In ancient Israel, the primary function of worship was the offering of prayer. And so it should be in our churches today. Our sanctuaries should be houses of prayer.