Would you all like the new piano?
We got it for about 60% off of what it retails for new. I was
invited to a private sale over at Princeton, and I was going
out of town. So Scott and Melinda went, and
Sarah, and they bought it while I was out of town. But it's a
really good piano. We got a really good deal on
it, too. I got back on Monday night. I got to the church building
at 6 o'clock the next morning just so I could play it. Alright,
let's turn to Exodus 27. We're going to start reading in verse 9 and
we'll read down to verse 19. and thou shalt make the court
of the tabernacle, for the south side southward there shall be
hangings for the court of fine twine linen of a hundred cupids
long for one side, and the 20 pillars thereof and their 20
sockets shall be of brass, and the hooks of the pillars and
their fillets, those were bars, they shall be of silver. And
likewise, for the north side in length there shall be hangings
of a hundred cubits long, and his twenty pillars, and their
twenty sockets of brass, the hooks of the pillars, and their
fillets of silver. And for the breadth of the court
on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits, and their pillars
ten, and their sockets ten, and the breadth of the court on the
east side eastward shall be 50 cubits, the hangings of one side
of the gate shall be 15 cubits, their pillars 3, and their sockets
3. And on the other side shall be hangings 15 cubits, their
pillars 3, and their sockets 3. For the gate of the court
shall be a hanging of twenty cubits of blue and purple and
scarlet and fine twine linen wrought with needlework, and
their pillars shall be four and their sockets four. All the pillars
round about the court shall be filleted with silver. That is,
they had bars connecting them all the way around. And their
hooks shall be of silver, and their sockets of brass. The length
of the court shall be a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty
everywhere, and the height five cubits, of fine twine linen,
and their sockets of brass. All the vessels of the tabernacle,
and all the service thereof, and all the pens thereof, and
all the pens of the court, shall be of brass. Now the court of
the tabernacle, we've been studying the tabernacle. The court, you
had the holiest of holies where only the high priests went. Then
outside of that you had the holy place where the priests, the
normal regular priests went and presented the sacrifices or the
blood and did the service. Then outside of that you had
the tabernacle which was an open space where that's where the
worshipers gathered. That's where they came to. That's
where the brazen altar was. That was where the brazen laver
was for washing. All of that was in the outer
court. Now That's where worshippers
assembled. And it was enclosed all the way
around by this linen fence. This linen fence. And in this
passage, though, the focus is not so much on the court, the
actual court itself, as it is on the fence. So that'll be our
focus. In this passage here, this fence
shows us a type of our Lord Jesus Christ and his church, his people. In Song of Solomon chapter 4
and verse 12, the church is described this way, a garden enclosed is
my sister, my spouse. This enclosure is a picture of
Christ and his church. While they're coming in, I'm
going to turn this heater down a little bit. So you get the picture. We have
the courtyard. We have the fence around the courtyard made of
linen. This is where the people assembled for worship. And that
fence is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church is described
as a garden enclosed. And this enclosure pictures Christ.
Now, first of all, Christ and his church are one. Christ and
his people are one. We've been made one by the grace
of God. And we see this typified in these
60 pillars. One The pillars represent Christ
himself. Turn over to Revelation 10 and
I'll show you this. Now this angel spoken of here
is Christ. Now listen to this. And I saw
another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud,
and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. The pillars, first of
all, represent our Lord Jesus Christ. Then go to Revelation
3 and look at verse 12. They also represent His people.
the elect, the church. Revelation 3 verse 12, it says,
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my
God. We're looking at the pillars
in the tabernacle, which is the same with the temple, and it
describes believers here that have overcome through the blood
of Christ pillars in the temple of my God. So the believers are
pictured here as well. Somebody might ask, how could
Christ be pictured in the pillars and his people pictured in the
pillars? It's because Christ and his people are one. He prayed
in John 17, 23, I in them, thou father in me, that they may be
made perfect in one. We're united, we're one, one
with Christ. Now go back to our text, we're
also told in scripture, I'll add this to it too, we're told
in scripture that Christ's preachers are pillars in the church of
God. In Galatians 2.9, Paul called James, Cephas and John, he called
them pillars in the church. They're pillars. Now, back in
our text, it appears to me that these pillars as well as their
sockets were made of the same material. They were brass. The
pillars and the sockets were brass. Look here. I think it
will look this way to you too. Look at verse 10. And the 20
pillars thereof and their 20 sockets shall be of brass. I think they were all the same
material. They were all brass. They were
all brass. Now brass is a good picture of
a believer because brass is made out of two alloys. It's made
out of copper and zinc. And everybody in whom Christ
dwells, every sinner that's been born of the Spirit of God, we
have two men inside of us. We have an old man of flesh that
was of Adam, We have a new man born of the Spirit. Our Lord
Jesus Christ told us we must be born again. He said that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That part of a believer that
is born of Adam is flesh and will always be flesh until it's
buried. He said but that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit. And that's the part that's born
of God. So with Christ the truth, He's the truth. He dwells in
us and He uses us to preach the truth. And with Christ in us,
and us being one with Christ, the church is called the pillar
and ground of truth. That's what the church is, the
pillar and ground of truth. Now, secondly, Christ is the
strength of His church. He's our strength. Now, we see
that these sockets, there was a socket for every pillar. There was a socket for every
pillar. You read 3 for 3 and 10 for 10 and what have you.
There's a socket for every pillar. Well, Christ's blood is effectual
for each and every elect child of God. And this is how we stand. We stand in this socket of brass. What does that typify? Well,
remember from the brazen altar, when we were looking at the brazen
altar, remember brass is typical of God's judgment upon Christ
our substitute. And we get that from the serpent
in the wilderness. Those serpents were biting the
people and they were dying. And God said, make a serpent
of brass and put it up on a pole. And when the people looked to
that serpent of brass, it was made the same as what was killing
them. Brass. It was a serpent. A serpent. And it was made out of brass,
picturing God's judgment upon sin. And Christ Jesus said, I,
the Son of Man must be lifted up. Even as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, the Son of Man must be lifted up.
That whosoever believeth on him shall have eternal life. This
is, this is, the brass is judgment. It's judgment. God's law must
be honored. and the justice of God must be
satisfied for God to be merciful. Now, if God showed mercy and
spared just one sinner without honoring his justice, God would
cease being holy. He would cease being just. You
see how foolish it is to think that that's going to happen.
That will never happen. If He spared one sinner, Without pouring out justice,
every sinner is going to have justice poured out on us. Because
we all are deserving of it. We've earned it by our sin. But it's either going to be in
Christ to substitute that He pours out that judgment, or it's
going to be on our own head. But in Christ, in Christ, God
showed mercy and judgment. That's the reason God sent His
only begotten Son into this world. You see how important God's law
is. You see how important it is that he honor his law and
justice in that he sent his only begotten son in the world to
accomplish it. And so Christ Jesus came into
this world and He honored the law of God for His people. What
does that mean? It means He was made to bear
our sin, so God was just to pour out judgment on Him and He bore
that judgment for His people. And because He bore that justice,
that justice has been satisfied for His people. And so, being
one with Him, brethren, having been crucified with Christ, having
been justified before the law of God, we stand on satisfied
judgment. It's just as satisfied. That's
our socket. That's the way we stand is by
the judgment satisfied by Christ. And also, Christ is our nail
in a sure place. What does that mean? Well, these
pins were of brass. Get the picture now. After they
put this fence up, they had cords running out and they had a big
stake that they hammered into the ground. And that stake helped
hold that fence in place in that waste tiling wilderness. Well,
that stake here, it's called pins here, but that stake was
brass as well. And that stake pictured Our Lord
Jesus Christ who is the anchor of His people. He's the pen. He's the nail. It's called in
Isaiah, the nail in a sure place. When we're going through this
waste howling wilderness, we're just on a pilgrimage like they
were. And we have to have Christ to be our anchor, to be our nail,
to hold us in place. And so that was pictured. Then
you have a picture of Christ binding us together. He binds
us together by his accomplished redemption. Verse 11 tells us,
at the end there, it says, there was fillets made of silver. These
fillets, that word fillet means binders. They were binders. These fillets were silver rods
that ran between the pillars and bound those pillars together.
They're standing in a socket of brass, they've got a cord
running out with a brass stake in the ground, and then they've
got silver bars running between them holding them in place, holding
them in place. Now you remember, we've seen
this before, silver typifies redemption. That whole floor
of that tabernacle was made out of silver. All the sockets in
the tabernacle were silver. And silver pictures redemption
because when God was numbering the children of Israel, 20 years
and above, he told each and every one of them to bring a shekel
of the sanctuary, a perfect shekel. And they had to give that as
a memorial of their redemption. And then that silver shekel was
taken and it was melted down and they made those silver sockets
for the tabernacle out of those shekels. So you have a picture
of redemption accomplished. And all the work the priest did
was not to add to what Christ did. It was on the foundation
of redemption already accomplished. Redemption accomplished. Well,
here now you have these binders, these silver rods, and they're
holding these pillars together. We're held together in the church
of God by our Lord Jesus Christ. We sing the church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ our Lord. And just like that silver foundation
is what everything was built on, well these silver bars also
hold us together. And there picture Christ holding
his people together. And so Christ is our strength. He told us that plainly. He said
without me you can do nothing. He is our strength. Now thirdly,
The reason Christ is our strength is Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our righteousness. The covering over the pillars
all the way around was made out of fine twine linen. and that
covering was bound by silver cords. They were hooks is what
they were. You can picture it. They're hooked
at the corner of each section. They're hooked in the middle
to that silver bar. They're hooked at the bottom so that that linen
is not going anywhere. It's bound, bound there and it
had to be of silver as well. It had to be silver. Now what's
fine linen picture? Well, if you want to go back
to Revelation 19, in verse 8, it says to the church, speaking
of Christ's bride, His elect, it says, to her it was granted
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, fine linen, clean
and white, because the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Now, what's our righteousness?
There's some translations nowadays that word that in such a way
to make you think it's you doing something. That's not our righteousness. Our righteousness is Christ throughout
the scripture. He's declared to be the Lord
our righteousness. This fine linen is a picture
of the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to His people
because when Christ died on the cross, when He paid the debt,
He really arose and really sat down making us the righteousness
of God in Him. The justice is satisfied. There's
no sin that can be charged to God's people anymore. We're perfectly
righteous in Christ. The whole record of our sin has
been blotted out so that God says, I do not remember your
sin. In that day, their sins will
be searched for and they won't be found because Christ put them
all away. And so we're perfectly righteous
before God. Look at the picture of this.
This linen was a thing of the earth. You had to take a seed,
you had to plant a seed, the seed had to die, from it came
a plant from which the linen is going to be made. And our
Lord Jesus used that very analogy of a seed falling into the ground
and dying, He used that to describe Himself. He said, the hour has
come And that teaches you about God's sovereign predestination. The hour had been set from before
the foundation of the world. He knew when the hour came. The
hour has now come that the Son of Man should be glorified. And He says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die. it abideth alone. But if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit. And our Lord Jesus Christ died
for his people, in place of his people, and rose again for our
justification. And when he died, I am crucified
with Christ. When he arose, I arose, and my
life is seated at God's right hand. Every true child of God
can say that. And look, so we have here now
with this righteousness being bound, covering these pillars
and being bound by these silver hooks, silver of redemption. So you got perfect righteousness
pictured, the righteousness of Christ bound with that redemption
accomplished. Bound by redemption accomplished.
Christ's righteousness is eternally bound to all for whom He died. Each one He redeemed, His righteousness
is eternally bound to us. Even before we knew it, the work
had been accomplished. The work had been finished. And
Christ is going to come to each one for whom He died through
the preaching of the gospel and by the Spirit of our God and
He's going to give them life and faith and bring them to behold
He is our righteousness. And that will never change. We
can't mess up that righteousness. It's eternal. We can't take from
it. We can't add to it. It's eternal. It's eternal. We're bound to
Christ because He accomplished justice for us. You know, like
I said, if God poured out justice on one for whom Christ died,
God ceases to be just because they were They bore that sentence on the
cross. And God satisfied His law on the cross. So God won't
judge me at the cross and then turn around and cast me into
hell because that wouldn't be just. He's going to do what's
just. He justified us, so He's going to bring us to faith in
Christ. Now lastly, I want you to see this. Christ is the gate of entrance
into all these blessings. He's the gate of entrance into
all these blessings. There was one way into the courtyard. Just one way. There was one way
to that altar. There's one way to Christ, our
altar. There was one way to wash in that laver. There's one way
to Christ, our washing. There was one way to be accepted
of God. Christ is that one way. There
was just one gate in this, around this one gate and you had to
enter in that gate. It's the only way you could enter
in. Now turn over to Matthew verse 7. I want you to read this. Matthew
7. You need to see these words. They're very important. You need
to heed these words. Look at Matthew 7 verse 13. Our
Lord Jesus speaking, He said, Enter ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in
thereat. because straight is the gate
and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that
find it. You hear what our Lord is teaching
us? The majority in this world are going to perish in their
sin. That counts the religious and the irreligious. Our Lord
said, in that day many shall say unto me, Lord, Lord, Didn't
we prophesy in your name? Didn't we do many wonderful works?
And he'll say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never
knew you. But this gate that we enter into
is as narrow as Christ himself. You can't bring anything else
through this gate. You can't come through this gate
carrying your works. You can't come through this gate
boasting in your wisdom. Can't come through this gate
with your church creed and can't come through this gate with your many works you did in baptism
and preaching and whatever else you did in the church that you
might put confidence in. Can't get through this gate with
that. The gate is Christ Himself. He's the door. He's the door. We have to enter by Christ alone.
Remember He said, I am the way. Definite article, I'm the way.
No man comes to the Father but by me. He's the only way to enter. Would you have the blessing of
knowing you're one with Christ? Like these pillars? Would you
rejoice to know that you're established and settled on judgment accomplished? The brass sockets? Do you rejoice
to have an anchor for your soul that won't let you be carried
away in the waste tiling wilderness like those brass stakes? Would
you have the silver rod that binds His people together and
makes us love one another and be merciful to one another? Christ
the silver rod. Would you like to know that it
soothes that guilty conscience, it purges, It satisfies the conscience
when you find out that Christ is our righteousness. God's satisfied
with Him. And if you trust Him alone, He's
satisfied. He's satisfied. There's nothing
else to be done. Now you can serve Him because
you want to serve Him, not because you have to serve Him. There's
a big difference in that. Would you know that this righteousness
is bound to you by those silver cords so that it will never be
removed from you? God will never change His mind
towards you. God will never love you one day and hate you the
next. No, God is immutable. His love is everlasting, the
Scripture says. His redemption is eternal. So
it will never change and it will never end for His people. If
you would have these blessings, there is one way. enter in through
the gate. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Believe on Him. Trust Him and renounce and repent
from everything else. Flesh, works, wisdom, worth,
everything. Trust Christ alone. How to pray
that He had blessed this and caused some poor sinner to believe
on Him. And you that know Him I pray
he's just shutting you up to Christ and not allowing you to
turn to the right or to the left. All right, let's stand together. Our gracious Father and our God,
how we do thank you for your mercy. How we do thank you for
Christ Jesus our Lord. Thank you, Father, for making
him our tabernacle, our dwelling place. Thank you for these pictures
and types where you condescend to us foolish and ignorant sinners
and teach us and give us a way to understand something of what
you've accomplished in your son. Bless us now, Lord, if you will,
and give us a good service here in the next hour. We ask these
things, asking forgiveness of our sins in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.