Building pyramids for Pharaoh

Be careful not to squander your valuable strength on superfluous and vain cares, exhaust yourself physically and aimlessly dissipate your intellect and, then, give God your tiredness and yawns at the hour of prayer, like the sacrifice of Cain.

It is only natural that your inner condition will be like Cain's, full of stress and sighs from the devil, who will be next to you.

The one who neglects his prayer and duties unjustifiably and works all the time (building pyramids for Pharaoh) is estranged from God, becomes wild, constantly and cruelly hitting his guardian angel with kicks of disorder, until he finally drives him away.

Then, he accepts the devil as his ruler, who immediately makes the following changes: (1) abolishes the prayer rope, replacing it with worldly worry beads and (2) does away with spiritual study completely, replacing it with worldly magazines and newspapers.

In the end, the devil conquers him and he suffers internally and desires to be entertained, like Saul did, when he was alienated from God and demon possessed.

Spiritual study greatly warms the soul and disperses the cares of the day, and then, with the soul liberated and transferred to its spiritual divine atmosphere, the intellect moves about undistracted.

— Elder Païsios

The elder's word is for the individual Christian, but what of churches, large groups of people who say they are 'the Body of Christ'? Can what is applicable to us as individuals be applied to large groups of people? Or perhaps the application is still to an individual, but to one who has exerted his will over others. Perhaps it is still applicable. And do the pyramids for Pharaoh have to be secular structures? What if they are copies of things heavenly? Or, what if even temples to God can still be idolatrous monuments to mortal man's pride and rebellion? The tower of babel comes to mind, when I read things like the following...

This is just an image, not an actual video.

Solomon's Temple in Brazil would put Christ the Redeemer in the shade

One of the world's largest and most controversial Pentecostal churches has been given permission to build a $200m (£130m) replica of Solomon's Temple in Brazil's economic capital, São Paulo.

The 10,000 capacity "mega-church", which is the brainchild of Brazil's Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, will also house a replica of the Ark of the Covenant and be built according to "biblical orientations".

According to the Estado de São Paulo newspaper, planning permission was granted this week and church officials say it should be completed in four years.

"We are preparing ourselves to build the temple, in the same mold as Solomon's," the church's leader and founder, Bishop Edir Macedo said in a televised service, posted on his blog. "[Solomon's] Temple … used tonnes of gold, pure gold ...We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tonnes of money, without a shadow of doubt."

Macedo said his church had signed an $8m contract to import stones from Israel. "We have signed the contract and commissioned the stones that will come from Jerusalem, just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 ago," he said. "It is going to be a knock-out, it is going to be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful — the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem."

The 55-metre high temple, the equivalent of an 18-storey building, would tower over central São Paulo and be "twice the height of [Rio's] Christ the Redeemer statue", the blog said.

The project, drawn up by Brazilian architect Rogério Silva de Araújo, includes a car park for 1,000 vehicles, TV and radio studios, and classrooms for 1,300 children.

Founded in Brazil in 1977, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God claims an estimated 8 million followers in 180 countries worldwide, with a TV channel and a free newspaper, the Folha Universal, which it says has a weekly print run of 2.5m. The church claims its leader's blog receives up to 4m hits a month.

The church supports so-called "prosperity theology" – by which acts of faith including donations are rewarded with material wealth.

In 2009, São Paulo's public prosecutor accused 10 senior members of the church, including Macedo, of siphoning off billions of dollars of donations to buy cars and property. Macedo, who denied the charges, owns a $45m private jet.

Yes, "the outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem."
But what about the inside?