I titled our message this evening,
Christ Our Table of Showbread. I just read about the instructions
for making the table and the table was here in the first room
of the tabernacle in the holy place. You come in and on your
right side would be this table. It's one of three pieces of furniture
that was kept in the holy place. It's about two and a half feet
high, three feet long, foot and a half deep. And you might be
surprised how many pictures of Christ are in this table. I have
studied for a week and a half on this and I can't, we don't
have time to give you all the pictures of Christ that I've
seen in this, but it's very precious and I believe it will be a blessing
to us. Numbers 4 verse 7 calls, that's
the place that it's called the table of showbread. And that
phrase, the table of showbread, literally means the table of
presence, or the table of face. This table is a picture of the
presence of Christ. When we're at this table, we
have the presence of Christ. This whole table is a picture
of the person, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the presence
of God with us. He was made flesh, John said,
and He dwelt among us. His presence among us. And you
know, a moment ago, I prayed to the Lord to make this a true
worship service. The only way that we can have
a true worship service is if the presence of God is with us. And what a precious promise.
He promised where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them. His presence is here and that's
what enables us to worship. And His presence, if you're a
believer, of any age, whether you're a babe in Christ or whether
you're an old man or woman in Christ, you know the preciousness
of the presence of Christ, having the presence of Christ. I've
said this before, it's something that I've learned and it's a
difficult thing to learn, but it's so precious when the Lord
teaches you this. In time of trial, I mean, I'm
talking about a real trial, fiery trial, is what Peter called it. A trial that's just wringing
you out, just squashing you. And the Lord gives you a sense
of his presence. That's better than having the
trial removed. That's how precious his presence
is. And here's the problem with human
beings and having the presence of Christ, is by nature we don't
have it. Now before Adam fell, he had
the presence of Christ. He walked with Christ in the
cool of the day. Every single day he had the presence
of Christ with him. And he enjoyed it. But after
Adam fell, when God came walking in the cool of the day, where
were Adam and Eve? They were hiding from the presence
of the Lord. They didn't even want the presence
of the Lord anymore. Scared them to death to be in
the presence of God. And God ended up casting them
out of the garden. Casting them out of the presence of the Lord
and put an angel with a flaming sword that turned every which
way to keep them from coming back. And ever since then, man
has been seeking, how can I come back into the presence of God?
What's only in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this table
is a picture of. Christ came to save his people
and to bring them to God. Peter said in 1 Peter 3 verse
18, For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. The just one, the holy one, the
perfect one, for the unjust ones like you and me. Now why did
he do that? Peter said that he might bring
us to God. That he might bring us back into
the presence of God. And like I said a minute ago,
for the believer, the presence of Christ with us is so important. If you look over a few pages
of Exodus chapter 33, you know, if we have the presence of Christ,
we have rest from all of our works of the law. We have rest
from fear of condemnation and punishment for our sin. Exodus
33 verse 14. I'm in Exodus 32, let me get
there. And he said, the Lord said unto Moses, my presence
shall go with thee and I will give thee rest. If his presence
is with us, we have rest. Rest from our works of the law,
rest from fear, rest from many worries. Simply because his presence
is with us. And since that's true, I love
what Moses said, verse 15. If thy presence go not with me,
carry us not up hence. Lord, I want your presence. Don't
let me go anywhere that you don't take me, that I don't have your
presence. David had the same prayer. Psalm 51 verse 11, cast
me not away from thy presence. Then David says, this is my greatest
fear that you take your presence from me. Oh, it's just the most
precious thing for the believer to have his presence. If we have
the presence of Christ, do you know we have true joy in the
soul? And I'm not talking about that
silly emotion and acting just silly when you don't mean it.
I mean joy in the soul, even though your body may not have
joy. David said, Psalm 16, verse 11, in thy presence is the fullness
of joy. If I'm in the presence of Christ,
I have the fullness of joy. I have no reason to be sorrowful. I'm sure that's why Newton said
prisons would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with me there.
Outer circumstances don't matter as long as I have his presence.
That's how precious it is to the believer. And if you look
at Isaiah chapter 63, if we have the presence of Christ, we have
salvation for our souls. Exodus 63, let's begin in verse
eight. For he says, surely they are
my people, children that will not lie. So he was their savior.
And here's how he saved them. In all their affliction, he was
afflicted. Everything that they deserved,
he was afflicted with it. And the angel of his presence
saved them. His love and his pity, he redeemed
them and he bare them and carried them all the days of old. If
we have his presence, he saved us. He saved our souls. And then
in heaven, What is it that makes heaven? We call it glory. Everybody longs for heaven. What
is the glory of heaven? What is the thing that makes
heaven so wonderful? It's the presence of Christ.
We worship him face to face. This is the wonder of who Christ
is. There is there a number that
no man can number and they're all worshiping him face to face.
Jews said now unto him, that's able to keep you from falling
and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy. It's his presence that, that's
the glory of heaven. That's where this thing's gonna
end up for every believer. And all that was pictured in
this table that they put in the Holy of Holies 4,000 years ago. Then the table of showbread also
means the table of face. Look at Psalm 27. It's talking about the glory of seeing
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 27. In verse seven. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When thou saidest, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. I mean, and this will tell you
how diligently David says, I'm seeking the Lord's face. He begs
the Lord in verse nine, hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger.
Don't turn your face away from me in anger. Let me see your
face. Thou hast been my help, leave
me not. Neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. If
we see the face of Christ, we have mercy. Mercy from Him. We have the salvation of our
souls. He's our help. And if we have
the face of Christ, he's holding us in his arms, holding us up
next to his bosom in his arms. I think about, especially a newborn
baby. I guess this is true. I heard
this a long time ago. So I heard a long time ago, so
I think it's gotta be true. But this is what I was told,
that an infant has a point that it can focus with his eyes about
the distance from the mother's elbow to her face. If our Lord's
holding us in His arms, that's about the distance that we can
focus in it. If we see His face, we have everything,
don't we? Where is it that we see the glory
of God? It's in the face of Jesus Christ,
isn't it? And this simple table is such
a glorious picture of Christ. You just can't rush through it,
because every bit of it is so glorious, telling us what we
have in Christ. Then, like so many other things
that we see all through the tabernacle, this table is a picture of Christ
the God-man. Look back in our text at verse
23. Or verse 24, excuse me. You know, verse 23. Now again,
just like we talked about with the Ark of the Covenant, that
incorruptible wood is a picture of the humanity of Christ. This incorruptible wood, it's
something like cedar wood that we have today. It doesn't rot. This wood never decayed because
it's a picture of Christ whose body never decayed. Even when
he died, he lay three days in the tomb and his body didn't
decay because he had no sin. There was no sin in him. In this
table, the wood was overlaid with gold, which is a picture
of the deity of Christ. That makes him, there's two nature,
just like wood and gold, there's two natures in one body. Wood
and gold in one piece of furniture, the table. Being the God-man,
that's what enables Christ to save sinners. A mere man can't
save anybody. As much as you love your children,
you have people that you love, there's nothing we can do to
save their souls. And God can't offer himself as
a sacrifice for sin, to put away sin, only a man can do that.
So we have to have our Savior as to be the God-man, two natures
in one person. He has to be man so he can be
our representative. It has to, in our flesh, he has
to be a man. He has to have our nature so
he can be our representative to obey the law for us. And he
has to be in our nature so he can die. So he can suffer and
die as a substitute for our sins. But he also has to be God. He
has to be God so he's righteous. He has to be God so he's holy.
He has to be God so he has the mercy and grace and love to save.
Nobody would love sinners enough to die for him like that but
God. He has to be God. He has to be God so he can satisfy
his holy father. Now this is, we talk about the
God man all the time. I mean, it's just, it's something,
You hear it in practically every message and messages as long
as I can remember from a child, you hear about the God man. Just
because we hear that frequently, let's never let it quit amazing
us. God came in our nature. God became a man. Yet he was sinless. He was sinless
because he's God. And he lived in a world of sin.
He lived amongst a people of sin. When, you know, you hear
about the good, the bad apples ruining the good apples. The
only good apple ever was, was our Lord. And the bad apples
didn't ruin him. Sin around him never corrupted
him. It didn't corrupt his mind. It
didn't corrupt his motives. It didn't corrupt his heart.
It didn't corrupt his thoughts. And that's our salvation. The
God man, that's our salvation. Next, this table tells us that
Christ is king. At the end of verse 24, he says,
you make a crown of gold round about, and thou shalt make unto
it a border of a handwrath round about, and thou shalt make a
golden crown to the border thereof round about. All around this,
the border of this table, there was a golden crown telling us
that the Lord Jesus Christ is King. He's King of kings and
Lord of lords. And that's something I love to
think about. I love to preach about it. I
love to hear other people talk about it. The kingship of Christ. Our savior is king over this
whole world, over the parts of the world that we interact with.
Our savior is king over it. Now, every person in this room
knows that. We would agree with it. But if
we really get ahold of this, that our savior is king and nothing
happens in this world that's not his will. Nothing. He's king over it all. He's sovereign
so that nobody can do anything that's against his will. If we
really get ahold of that, we'd be a much more relaxed, Much
happier people, wouldn't we? Our God is King. And I know men
love to argue about this. You know, they love to argue
about, oh, you know, I got to have my free will. I got to have
my choice. And well, if I do this, that's
because I want to. And you know, how can God be
King over that if I want to sin? And I do it anyway. Well, you
know, God makes him the author of sin. He's not King. That's just arguing against truth. This thing of Christ being king
is not something to be debated and get red in the face and get
angry about. It's cause for rejoicing. It's rejoicing. David said, the
Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the
earth rejoice. You know, our only hope that
this earth stays in its orbit. is our Savior's King, keeping
it there. The only hope this earth has
is some numbskull doesn't just overrun the whole world and kill
everybody and ruin everything, is our God's King, our Savior's
King over it. And the only hope any sinner
has of salvation is the Savior's King, that He will do as He will. And if He's pleased to save me,
He's gonna do it. And me or nobody else can stop
him from doing it. He's the sovereign king. And
it ought not surprise anybody. Isn't Christ king by birth? Who
is he? He's the son of God. Well, the
son's always the heir. He's the king. He's the son by
birth. But he's also the king by purchase. By his sacrifice on Calvary's
tree, Christ purchased everything in this whole world. He purchased
it all. He has given him power over all
flesh that he may give eternal life to as many as God gave him.
That's why he is king over the whole earth. It's so that he
saves his elect people. And the kingship of Christ means
that the salvation of his people cannot be lost. Because the King
is the one who did the saving. See this crown that was on the
table, that kept everything from falling off this table. It was
a raised up crown so nothing could slide off the table. It
kept it all in place. It's the Kingship of Christ that
keeps everything secure. The believer is kept from falling
by the Kingship, by the power of our Savior. Now again, that
takes all the pressure off, doesn't it? Our security, the security
of our salvation has got nothing to do with what we do or what
we don't do. It has everything to do with
the power of the king. And if he saved us, he will not
let us fall. He won't do it. Then next, this
table tells us Christ always goes with his people. Verse 27
or verse 26 says, and thou shalt make four rings of gold and put
the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the
staves to bear the table. And thou shalt make the staves
of shit and wood and overlay them with gold that the table
may be borne with them. Now, when it came time for the
Judah of Israel, you know, the cloudy pillar would move, and
it came time for them to pack up the camp and move, they packed
this whole tabernacle up and carried it with them. And our
model doesn't show it, but there are staves on here, and the priests
would put it on their shoulders, and they'd carry it, so that
the table would go with them everywhere that they went. That's
a picture of Christ. This table was made. to go everywhere
the children of Israel went throughout the wilderness. It was made to
go with them. And that's what Christ does with
his people. He's everywhere. The big theological word for
that is omnipresence. Christ is everywhere at once.
That means you can't go anywhere that Christ is not. Wherever
it is you and I go, Christ was there first, because He's everywhere
at once. You can't flee from His presence.
David says, where else shall I go to flee from thy presence?
Everywhere I go, thou art there. Aren't you thankful you can't
flee from the presence of Christ? Because if we could, we would.
But we can't. He goes with His people. Now, I know that Christ is omnipresent. He's everywhere at once. But
he is with his people in a special way. I mean, the Lord was in
the camp of the Philistines, wasn't he? He's there. The Lord
was in the camp of the Malachites and all their enemies and so
forth. But he is with Israel in a special way. Only Israel
had this table. Only Israel had the tabernacle.
Only Israel had the mercy seat and the Ark of the covenant.
Only Israel had the altar and the sacrifices. Only Israel had
the altar of incense, which is a picture of the intercession
of Christ. Only Israel had the priesthood.
Only Israel had someone that would represent them to God and
offer a sacrifice. Only Israel had that. Only Israel
had the word. God gave his word to Israel and
to only Israel. He's with his people in a special
way. Now let that sink in. Don't feel quite so lonely now,
do you? He's with his people in a special way. And I would
tell you, like this table was born on the staves on the shoulders
of the priest to carry Christ with you everywhere you go. I say that carefully. Like, we
can take Christ, you know. I think a better way to say it
is this. Everywhere you go, go looking to Him. Go looking to
Him. Be just like Moses. Lord, if
you don't go with me, don't let me go. I was at a great big old conference
one time and it was my turn to preach next. And these two very,
very young fellows were sitting behind me. I guess they probably
preached once or twice each. And they were telling me about
all the things that they do and think about before they preach. These are things, Frank, you
ought to be thinking about. I listened to him and I tried
to be very patient. I mean, my mind was on this message
I'm getting ready to preach. You know, so I tried not to be
like myself and be smart aleck, but this is what I told him.
I got something I do before I go in the pulpit too. Lord, if you
don't go with me, don't let me go. Don't let me go. putting into that conversation
so I can try to get in the right frame of mind to preach. Maybe
I shouldn't have said that, but isn't that good? Lord, if you
don't go with me, don't let me go. Don't let me go. And then
next, this table tells us that Christ our Savior, He is everything
that we need. And He gives us everything that
we need. Verse 29 says, and thou shalt make the dishes thereof,
and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to
cover with all of pure gold shalt thou make them. Now all the dishes
and the silverware, everything that was used as a eating utensil
sat on this table was made of pure gold. It wasn't wood covered
with gold, it was pure gold. Now we're talking here about
the pure deity of Christ. So this shows us everything the
believer eats, everything that we have to sustain us, everything
that we have served us to eat and give life to our souls is
all purely from God. from his goodness, from his grace,
from the riches of his storehouses that he gives to his people.
Everything we have, God gives us. It's all from him. That's true of all of our physical,
natural gifts. And that's true of everything
we have spiritually. If you feast on Christ, why is
it? God gave it to you. Just like
those disciples I read about to open the surface. Why did
they have bread to eat and fish to eat? Christ said, come and
dine. And then he gave it to them. Christ didn't cook the fishes
that they caught. They were already ready. And
he said, come and dine. And then he gave it to them.
That's why they had something to eat. Everything we need, Christ
gives us. Everything we have, it all comes
from him. And then last, on top of this
table, was the showbread, and you can't separate the showbread
and the table. It's all one, but on top of this
table sat the showbread. Verse 30 says, and thou shalt
set upon the table showbread before me always. Now, if you
look over at Leviticus chapter 24, we have better, more details
here of the showbread. Leviticus chapter 24. God doesn't
give His people an empty table. He gives them a table full of
food, full of showbread, plenty of showbread. Leviticus 24 verse
5. And thou shalt take fine flour,
and bake twelve cakes thereof. Two tenths deals shall be in
one cake. And thou shalt set them in two
rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. And
thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each robe." And frankincense
was a bitter thing. I think maybe they burned it
or something. But it's speaking of the sacrifice of Christ, that
bitterness of the sacrifice of Christ. "...that it may be on
the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto
the Lord. Every Sabbath he shall set it
in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children
of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it should be Aaron's and
his sons, and they shall eat it in the holy place. For it
is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord, made by
fire, a perpetual statute. Now this bread, this show bread
that is baked from the fine flour and is baked in the 12 loaves,
obviously is Christ the Savior, the bread of life. Look over
John chapter six. John chapter 6, verse 32. And Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he, not a thing, but he which cometh
down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. And they said unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus saith unto them, I
am the bread of life. And he that cometh to me shall
never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Now look down at verse 48. I
am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat man in the
wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am
the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world." Now we've looked at these verses many times in the past,
and you know this from the eating. The Lord doesn't mean be a cannibal
and eat his flesh. He's talking about believing
him. Then, you know, when you eat something, you have union
with it. What he's talking here is about union with Christ. If
you have union with Christ by faith, you'll never die. You have everything that you
need to have life and you'll never die. Because Christ is
everything that we need. Christ is everything that we
need. What does a person need? to believe. What do they need to know? What
do they need to believe in order to be saved? You need to believe
Christ. Believe on his name and you'll
have everything that you need. Now, you'll grow, you'll grow
in grace and you'll grow in knowledge, but you'll not grow in salvation.
You can't be more saved than this. Simply believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ and you'll have everlasting life. And that's
true for all of God's people of all times. That's why there
are 12 cakes, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles. It's enough. Christ is enough for all of his
people. All of them. He's all we need
and it's given to all of his people freely. Come and dine. Come and dine. It's all is ready.
And this table, it said there back there in Leviticus, that
this was a place for the priests and his sons. Once a week, the
family of the high priest would sit around this table and they'd
eat those 12 loaves of bread. And I'm sure that their table
is just like ours. It's a place of fellowship. The
thing about the family dinner table, it's not just what we
eat. It's the fellowship there. We're
all one. We're all family. We're talking
to one another. We want to hear from one another.
We want to hear what's going on with you. What do you got
to say? What's going on? It's a place of fellowship. We
all got together Sunday around those tables, putting it in a
U shape. It didn't matter to me one bit
what we're eating. It's the fellowship. It's a place
of fellowship, wasn't it? This table is a picture of Christ.
We have fellowship with God Almighty in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Holy God can have fellowship
with the likes of you and me in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, that makes my hair stand
up and tingle, my scalp tingle. My goodness, fellowship with
God. That's what Adam lost. And that's
what we have in Christ. And then this table, the show
bread was put on there every seven days. They'd eat what was
there, then they'd put fresh ones on there. God is constantly
supplying his people. with Christ. Remember, that bread's
a picture of Christ. He's constantly supplying his
people with Christ by the hearing of the preaching of Christ. And
it's not hearing anything new. It's the same thing over and
over. Tell me more about him. Tell me more about him. Tell
me more about him. I ask you, is anybody here hungry?
This table is a picture of Christ. Come to Christ and be filled.
Come to Him and be refreshed. Remember the prodigal son, after
he told his father, I want my inheritance early, and he went
away and wasted it in a far country. And there he was, living in a
pig pen, feeding swine and eating the husk, you know, the same
thing that the pigs eat, that's what this boy was eating. And
he finally came to himself and he said, what am I doing eating
pig food? In my father's house, there's
bread enough and to spare. I'm going to my father. What are you doing starving to
death? Huh? Come to Christ. There's a constant supply. He's everything that you need.
And you might wonder, well, now you just read that this table
was only for the priests, the priest and his sons. That was
who it was to eat this showbread, sit around this table and eat
this showbread. Well, what's that got to do with
me? I'm not a Jew and I'm certainly not a priest. My father's not
a priest. What does this table and the showbread have to do
with me? If only the priest can eat it. Good question, isn't
it? Let me answer, look at first
Peter chapter two. Every believer comes to eat at Christ's table
because he has made his people a royal priesthood. 1 Peter 2
verse 5. Ye also as lively stones are
built up a spiritual house a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Look at verse
9. But you, you're a chosen generation. a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar, a purchased people that you should show forth the
praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light. God has made all of his people
kings and priests." And now with the Revelations 5, so they're
saying God has made us kings and priests. Christ our Savior
made it right for all of his people to come and eat. He's
made us priests to come and eat at His table. Now, I wanna close
with this. I think this is a very special,
this is a special blessing to me. I hope it will be to you.
Now, only priests can eat this table, right? Well, you remember,
well, years later, after all this was built and it was in
use, and many years later, you can read about this in 1 Samuel
chapter 21. This table became a place of mercy. place of mercy. David and his men were on the
run from Saul and they had to leave suddenly. They just left
with the clothes on their back. They didn't have any weapons
and any food. They didn't have any provisions
for the way. And David came to a town where a man named Ahimelech
was the priest. And he talked to Ahimelech and
said, you know, we're here on, you know, I think he told him
we're on a mission for Saul or something. He said, we don't
have anything. We're hungry and we need some
weapons. And Ahimelech told David, he said, well, we don't have
anything here except the sword of Goliath. You killed him and
somebody kept his swords wrapped up in a cloth back here. And
David said, that's a good sword. Give it me. But David said, we're
still hungry. And you know what Ahimelech did?
He went into the holy place and took those 12 loaves of showbread
and gave them to David. David and his men ate and not
one of them was a priest. It wasn't a Sabbath. Not one
of them was a priest. And you think, how is that all
right? Seems to me like that's a violation
of the law. Why is that okay? It's okay because
it's an act of mercy. And we never would have connected
that if our Lord hadn't taught us that. Remember, He came and
He healed that man on the Sabbath day. And oh my goodness, everybody's
in an uproar, you did a work on the Sabbath day. His disciples
were hungry and they picked ears of corn, ate it. Oh, you did
a work on the Sabbath day. And when the Lord talked to them
about that, you know what He told them? On the Sabbath day,
it's always right to perform an act of mercy, whether it's
the Sabbath day or not. And the example that he used
was a Himalayan giving the show bread to David. Now we never
would have connected that, would we? If the Lord hadn't taught
us that. Why do you come eat at this table?
It's an act of pure mercy. pure mercy. I hope we're well
taught in the scriptures, but that's not why we come eat of
Christ. I hope we're good moral people. I hope our neighbors
think that we're good moral people, but our morality is not what
enables us to come to Christ. The only plea that we have to
come eat of Him is pure mercy. That He gives us what we do not
deserve. That's what this table is a picture
of, Christ in saving his people and his mercy. And I say to us
in a spiritual sense, the same thing that the Lord said to his
disciples, come and dine, come and dine. All right, I hope that'll
be a blessing to you. Let's bow together. Our Father, I thank you for this
time we've had together to look into your word And father, I
pray that you would make your word effectual to each heart
here. Father, that you would bless,
that you would enable your people to hear you speak, to see Christ
and not to hear the preacher, but in spite of the preacher,
that we might hear and believe the Lord Jesus Christ and be
taken up with him and him alone. Father, cause us to run to him.
How we thank you that he is everything that we need. And we thank you
for your pure mercy that gives him to us. We have to admit that we're not
as thankful as we ought, but father, we do thank you. And
we ask you bless your word to the glory of your son. For his
name, we pray and give thanks. Amen.