God Entering His Temples

God entering His temples is a solemn, holy subject which our hearts would reverence while we trace it for a little through Scripture.
Scripture abounds with evidences of the intimacy which God has sought with the works of His hands. He has always been making a habitation for Himself, in some form or another, among His creatures.
At the beginning, as Creator, He formed His works so that He Himself might rest in them. He saw everything which He had made, that it was very good, and all furnished Him with a desired habitation. The Sabbath at the end of creation-work tells us this. Whatever measure of happiness was provided for man in the arrangements of creation (and that measure was indeed complete), still the Lord God was to have a place in the garden. He walked there in the cool of the day, seeking the presence of Adam.
Thus it was at the first when the earth was in virgin purity. It is quickly changed, but this purpose of God does not change.
The creation denies the Lord God a rest or a habitation by reason of sin that defiled. He must arise and depart. It could not be His rest, for it was polluted. We therefore at once see Him as a stranger in the world His hands had made. This was not His place of rest. He visits His elect that are in it, but He does not make it a home in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He communicates with them in marked, personal intimacy, but He seeks no place on the earth. Still, God has a dwelling place here in counsel and in prospect.