God’s Dwelling Place

“While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen, I called you, but you did not answer” (Jeremiah 7:13).

Shiloh, located in Samaria near Shechem, is the site of the first tabernacle, built by Joshua and the Israelites, and was the center of worship for 369 years.

The Shiloh tabernacle housed the Ark of the Covenant, the Table of Showbread, the Altar of Incense, and the Golden Lampstand.

It is where the twelve tribes of Israel divided up the land of Canaan and

It is where God’s spirit dwelled.

This place was beyond special. It was holy.

But today, all we have left are ruins,

and an excavated, pieced-together urn, used to hold offerings of wine and olive oil during the tabernacle’s better years.

Why? Because God allowed the tabernacle to be destroyed by one of the Israelites’ arch enemies, the Philistines. You might wonder why a loving God would allow this to happen to his special people. Where did his protective covering go?

The answers to these questions are found in the Psalms, and in Jeremiah.

Psalm 78:56-61 says, “But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes. Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, and unreliable as a faulty bow. They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols. When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely. He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans.”

The Israelites weren’t following God’s commandments, and they were worshiping other gods besides the one true God. They were cheating on their beloved Maker.

You think this type of judgment is rash, but when his people repeated their actions during the prophet Jeremiah’s day, and were once again worshipping thousands of other gods, the LORD reminded them of what happened in Shiloh. “Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called but you did not answer” (Jeremiah 12-13).

In his mercy, God gave his people repeated warnings. This time, when the Israelites continued to turn their back on him, God allowed his people to be taken into Babylonian captivity for seventy years.

God is a loving father, but just like any loving father, he disciplines his own children more than others. It seems harsh, but despite repeated messages and warnings, his presence left the Shiloh Tent of Meeting, and he allowed it to be destroyed. It’s what we call “tough love.”

Today, there is not a man-made structure to house the Spirit of God. God’s dwelling place is in our hearts. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys Gods temple, God will destroy that person, for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

Ephesians 3:17-18 points specifically to the heart as the Lord’s home: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

To symbolize this in my own life, I bought a tabernacle necklace at Shiloh that sits directly on my heart. I don’t ever want to forget where the Lord resides, that my body is holy, and that I should never have any gods before the one true God.

What place does the LORD hold in your life? Is your world centered around him, or is your tabernacle in ruins, with other interests consuming your thoughts, and your time?

God is sovereign. He doesn’t change. He still disciplines us, because he loves us as our Father in Heaven, and he desires for us to love him with every chamber of our heart’s tabernacle, not just the back room of our heart.

Is 2015 the year to give God the ultimate sacrifice, our entire heart? That what he desires. As you can see, he always has.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). (LBW)