Alright brethren, let's go to
Exodus chapter 26. Exodus 26. God told Moses back in chapter
25, He said, let them make me a sanctuary
that I may dwell among them. The children of Israel were the
only nation in the whole world where God dwelled. And amongst
that people, the only place He dwelled was in the tabernacle,
in the Holy of Holies. There's only one people in this
world amongst whom God dwells. That's God's Israel, His church. that He's gathered and assembled
together, those are the ones amongst whom He dwells. And amongst
those people, the only one in whom He dwells, or the only place
where He dwells, is in His Son. He dwells in His Son. And when
His Son dwells in you, Remember what Christ said to the Father?
Father thou in me and me in them that they may be made perfect
in one. That's how he makes us perfect in one. He's the tabernacle
that came and God was in him dwelling among us. And he's the
one who makes you and me a tabernacle in whom he dwells. And that's
what we have pictured here in this In this tabernacle, we have
the picture of Emmanuel, which is being interpreted God with
us, Christ dwelling amongst us. God was in Christ. God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing the
trespasses unto them. So this earthly tabernacle is
a picture of Christ in whom God dwells. But Christ's person and
work is so glorious. His person and work is so glorious,
brethren, that no one thing can picture Christ. No one thing
can picture Him. No one priest, no one sacrifice,
no one offering can typify the person and work of our Lord Jesus. And that's so with the tabernacle.
It took everything in this tabernacle to picture Him. The materials,
You know, the way they're constructed, where they were gathered from,
everything about this tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priests,
everything in it, pictures Christ. But it took all of those things
to picture Him because He's so glorious that no one thing can
picture Him. Brother Henry used to say, no
one type stands on four legs. It can't perfectly picture Christ.
You have to have a bunch of pictures to bring it together. And so,
today we're going to look at the last of those four coverings,
the last two of the four coverings. And we've seen in these coverings
a picture of Christ. We saw in the fine twined linen,
the innermost covering, we saw a picture of Christ's holiness,
His holy heart. His holy heart, whereby He sanctifies
us and makes us one with Him. And then in the goat's hair covering,
we saw that black goat's hair covering, a picture of Christ
made sin for us. He who knew no sin. He who would
never sin and did never sin. He was made sin for His people
that He might make His people the righteousness of God in Him.
And now today we're gonna look at the ram and badger skin coverings. We see here in Exodus 26 verse
14, thou shalt make a covering for the tent of ram skins dyed
red, and a covering above of badger skins. So we'll look at
these two coverings together. Now, the covering that went over
the tent, you remember he called the goat's hair covering, he
called that the tent. And the covering that went over
the tent was these ram skins dyed red. That went over the
tent. And then the covering above the
ram skins, the outermost covering, was these badger skins. These tough badger skins. And
that's the only covering that the people from the outside saw
was the badger skins. Now the ram skins typify Christ's
consecration to God. The ramskins dyed red typify
Christ's consecration, his devotedness to God. And the badgerskins typify
Christ's humility. So we'll look first at the ramskin
covering, and we'll see Christ's consecration. And then secondly,
we'll look at the badgerskins, we'll see Christ's humility.
Now first, the Ramskins. Now, where do we get this idea
that the Ramskins typify Christ's consecration, his devotedness,
his fidelity to God? Where do we get this notion from? Well, look over at Exodus 29. Just a few pages over at Exodus
29. Whenever Aaron, Aaron was the
high priest and his sons were priests that served him. And
when they were consecrated to God, in the ceremony, God used,
among other things, God used two rams. Two rams were used
to consecrate the high priest to make him holy, to make him
consecrated to God. And so that's a picture of Christ. Look here at Exodus 29.1. This
is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them."
See there, to hallow them, to sanctify them and consecrate
them to God. To minister unto me in the priest's
office, to make them consecrated, to make them faithful and devoted
to me in the priest's office. Take one young bullock and two
rams without blemish. And those two rams and the bullet
both picture Christ. Now look down at verse 15. You
can go back and read all of this yourself, but I'm just going
to highlight the part dealing with the rams. Verse 15, Thou
shalt also take one ram, and Aaron and his son shall put their
hands upon the head of the ram, picture Christ bearing our sin,
and thou shalt slay the ram. and thou shalt take his blood,
and sprinkle it round about upon the altar, and thou shalt cut
the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs,
and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head, and thou shalt
burn the whole ram upon the altar. It is a burnt offering unto the
Lord, it is a sweet savor. An offering made by fire unto
the Lord. That's what a burnt offering
was for. It was to picture how that Christ
was a sweet saver unto God. What he did was well-pleasing
to God. And so verse 19 says, And thou
shalt take the other ram, and Aaron and his son shall put their
hands upon the head of the ram. Picturing transference of sin
to the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram
and take of his blood. Now watch, it's applied now to
the priest. Put it on the tip of the right
ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons,
and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe
of their right foot. Whenever Christ's blood is applied
to us, he makes us hear, it's applied to our ear, he makes
us hear, it's applied to our right thumb, he makes us use
our hands to work for him, and it's applied to our toe, he makes
us walk after him. And he says here, and sprinkle
the blood upon the altar round about and thou shalt take of
the blood and sprinkle it upon Aaron and upon his garments and
upon his sons and upon the garments of his sons with him You see
that all things are, sin is put away by blood only. And that's
what's being pictured here. Everything had blood sprinkled
on it. And he says, and he shall be hallowed. He shall be hallowed. He'll be separated and be holy
and his garments and his sons and his son's garments with him.
And then down at verse 22, we're told there in that verse, it's
a realm of consecration. So this is how Aaron and his
sons were consecrated, made holy, and made consecrated to minister
to God in the priest's office. That's where we get this truth
that this ramskin, dyed red, was a picture of Christ consecrated
to God, devoted to God, faithfully serving God. Now, there's another
place we see it too. Go to Genesis chapter 22. And the whole purpose of this
passage in Genesis 22 was God called Abraham to prove Abraham
that he was consecrated, devoted entirely to God. And that's what
God was proving here, that Abraham had been sanctified, that he
was consecrated entirely to God, devoted to God, faithful to God
above all others. And so what did God call him
to do? God called him to offer up his only son. And you've got to think about
this. This is the son that God had already told Abraham, in
this son, the Messiah is coming through him. And this son right
here, so this son right here is going to be the one through
whom I'm going to bless all the nations of the world. I'm going
to call out my elect and all the world through him because
through him Christ is coming. And then he told Abraham, now
you kill this son. Offer him to me in a sacrifice.
what did Abraham do? He went up the mountain, he took
the boy with him, he went to the altar and he tied his son
on the altar and he raised up the knife and scripture says
in his heart Abraham, he had slain that boy. He was coming
down with that knife and fixing to kill Isaac. And look here,
Genesis 22 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven
and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here am I. And he said,
lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto
him, for now I know that thou fearest God. Now I know you're
consecrated to God, you're entirely devoted to God. That's devotedness,
isn't it? Abraham was with her, he believed
God so much that he was willing to slay his own son because God
told him to. But he knew God would provide.
He told Isaac that. He said, seeing thou hast not
withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted
up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a
thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son. And Abraham called the name of
that place Jehovah-Jireh, as it is said to this day. In the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And in the mount of the
Lord it was seen. The Lord Jesus Christ came forth
and He's the ram. He's the one that ram pictured.
He's the one who was so consecrated to God that his whole life was
a life of, based on this principle, I must be about my father's business. He said that to his mother and
father. I must be about my father's business. I must finish the works
he gave me to do. That was the heart in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And these ramskins picture that
consecration to God. But the dying of them red pictures,
he was consecrated this much to God even unto death. You look at Christ and you see
those thorns around his head. He's the ram caught in the thicket.
He's the ram caught in the thicket. And what did he do? He laid down
his life by bearing the sins of his people. By bearing the
curse of his people. By bearing separation from God
for his people. That's consecration to God. That's
being devoted to God. That's even more devoted than
Abraham was. Abraham was going to offer up
his only son. Christ offered up himself. He offered up himself. That's consecration to God. And
he said, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from me. Oh,
this was not against His will. He said, I lay it down of myself.
He did this thing willingly. Our consecration now, brethren,
when He applies this gospel to us, and the type there we saw,
the ear and the thumb and the toe, when He applies the blood
to us through the Spirit, He makes His people to be consecrated
to Him. He makes us to be devoted to Him. That's what we confess
in our baptism. We confess that we're no more
living for ourselves, we're living for Christ, we're living for
His people. We're confessing that when He died, we died and
we arose in Him and now we're consecrated to Him. But brethren,
your consecration and my consecration is far from perfect. We don't
serve God fully, perfectly consecrated to Him as we ought to. We're
not as devoted to Him as we should be. We're not as faithful to
Him as we should be because we have sin mixed with everything
we do. So don't ever get the idea that
your consecration is what's going to make you accepted with God.
Our perfect consecration is the Lord Jesus Christ. He perfectly
was consecrated to God. And it's in Him that God accepts
us and says we are perfectly, wholly consecrated to Him. Now, secondly, let's look at
the covering of badger skins. This typifies Christ's humility.
We say that because this dark, drab, outer covering was not
appealing at all. Now go to Isaiah 53, look at
verse 2. Isaiah 53. He shall grow up before
Him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. Now watch
this. He hath no form, nor comeliness,
and when we shall see Him, there's no beauty that we should desire
Him. This is Christ. Christ came forth
a baby, an infant, born in a manger. That's not how the children of
Israel expected him to come. That's not how they expected.
They expect him to come mighty and like a mighty king coming
to conquer. They didn't expect their king
to be born an infant. and that's how he came forth.
He was brought up in Nazareth and they despised Nazareth. They despised those born in Nazareth.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? That was the saying,
you know. He worked at a carpenter's bench.
That was his job. He didn't have some great job
in government or some great job in, you know, something that
was looked upon by people that being attractive He worked as
a carpenter. And that's an example of the
rough, unsightly badger skins. That's what it was foreshadowing,
was his lowliness, his humility before men. And we see man's
natural esteem of him. We see how men esteemed him.
They said, is not this the carpenter's son? when He spoke and declared
who He is, declared He's the Son of God, He's come with power,
He's come to save His people, and they said, don't we know
His mother and His father? Natural man saw no glory in His
death on the cross. There in Isaiah 53 verse 4, it
says, Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet, We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Men looked at him and said, he
should have never said he was the son of God. He blasphemed
God and now God's given him what he deserves. He'd been afflicted
of God. But what was he doing? But he
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. and with his stripes
were healed. Nobody ever stooped as low as
the Son of God. Go to Philippians chapter 2.
This is the passage that shows us this the best. Philippians
2 verse 5. Let this mind be in
you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of
God That means he's God. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God. But he made himself of no reputation. And took upon him the form of
a servant. And was made in the likeness
of men. And being found in fashion as
a man. He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That's low. And when it says
even unto the death of the cross, just think about that. Just think
about Christ on the cross. How low that was. God forsook
him. Martin Luther read that. passage
in Psalm 22 and slammed his Bible shut and said, God forsaken God,
who can comprehend that? And that's what happened. He
was forsaken, really forsaken. His apostles left him. They deserted him there. There was nothing they could
do and they All of them had the same sin in their heart as Peter
had, denying Him. You know they did. And then the whole rest of the
unregenerate world was gnashing upon Him with their teeth. I
mean, there was nobody, not even God, who was for Him in those
three hours of darkness. Nobody. That's his humility. That's his
consecration to God. He did that in love to God and
in love to his people. You see, God will make you humble. He'll make us meek before him. That's the heart he gives. But
our humility is not going to be what saves us. Because you
and I are proud as a peacock 95% of the time. That's what our flesh is, is
pride. And so that keeps us from being
humble as we ought to be most of the time. So you can't come
to God thinking your humility is going to get you acceptance
with God. That's not it. But again, in Christ, we see
the perfection of humility. and it's by His blood we're justified. It's by His broken body and shed
blood that we've been made the righteousness of God in Him.
That's how His people are saved. Now lastly, there are several
lessons we can learn from these coverings. First of all, notice
here that there's a contrast from the white curtains and from
the goat's hair curtains. There's a contrast between those
and these. Those, we were given precise
measurements of just exactly how big those curtains were.
Here we're not given any measurements. There was a depth and a length
and a height and a breadth to our Savior's devotedness to His
consecration to God and to His humility that can't be measured. It can't be measured. That's
what, let me read this to you. I just thought of this, Ephesians
3. Listen to this. Ephesians 3. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may
be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and
length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge. that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. There's a depth and a length
and a height and a breadth to His devotedness and to His humility.
It can't be measured. So there's no measurements here
given in these two coverings. Brethren, Salvation can never
be by our works because nobody has ever been as consecrated
to God and proved it by making themselves as low as Christ did
in humility. And that, if you read the next
verse in Philippians 2, it says, wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him. That says when he was humbled
in devotion to God, he highly exalted God. Wherefore God also
hath highly exalted him. So look nowhere but to Christ
alone. You can't be saved by anything
in you. And I can't be saved by anything in me. It's Christ
alone. And then here, there's something
else we see. Natural born sinners cannot see
the glory of Christ. Natural born sinners cannot see
the glory of Christ. Natural man saw nothing comely
to make them desire Him. All they saw when they looked
at Christ was what men saw when they looked at this tabernacle,
just badger skins. No form, no comeliness about
it to make anybody desire Him. And yet that was by design. He
made Himself of no reputation. So we need to learn something
from that. It was so that it would be evident it would be
evident that those who dropped everything and followed Him,
they did it by the grace of God alone. It wasn't something in
Him that attracted them, not in His outward appearance. So
that proved that God made men drop their livelihood and drop
everything they had and follow Him. It shows us too that God
uses nothing but the preaching of the gospel to draw His people
to Christ. And Christ will have us use nothing
else to attract His people. If Christ didn't come into this
world and make Himself attractive to use that to draw us to Him,
then that tells us we should use nothing else to try to attract
people but the preaching of the Word. Brethren, don't try to
do what this vain world does. You know, the religious thing
in the world now is, natural man, they say, I want the world
to see Christ in me. I'm trying to live so the world
sees Christ in me. Natural man did not see Christ in Christ. They're not going to see Him
in you. Then what did God mean when He said, let your light
so shine before men that they might glorify your Father which
is in heaven? There's only one way, only one
way a man's going to glorify your Father in heaven. And that's
if God's given him a new heart and brought him to faith in Christ.
And the only way God does that is through the preaching of this
gospel. And this is our light. Let this light shine forth. Preach
Christ the light. Preach Him only. Set Him forth. And that's the only thing you
do. and draw no attention to yourself. Don't use your prayers,
don't use your almsgiving, don't use anything that you do as a
church together. Don't advertise that, don't market
it, don't say we got this program and that program and the other
program. Don't use those things to attract people. Preach Christ
only. And God's people, that's how
they shine forth the light. And that's how God's people are
brought to give God, our Father, all the glory. That's the only
way. It's the only way. Then look
here. That lesson is true because of
this lesson. And we see this in these coverings. God looks on the heart. God looks
on the heart. While man saw nothing comely
about Christ, Men looked on this tabernacle, they saw nothing
comely about this tabernacle. But what was in that tabernacle
was gold. And all this beauty that was
everywhere in that tabernacle. That white linen tapestry with
the cherubim in it. I mean it was just beautiful
once you entered it. And that's a picture of though
man saw nothing comely in Christ, God looked within and God saw
Christ holy and consecrated in a humility that was perfect,
a true humble heart. God was well pleased with him.
He said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. When
he called David, he told Samuel. Samuel went to the house Jesse
had a bunch of other boys. And they was all big, strong,
good looking boys. He brought the biggest, good
lookingest one in first. He just knew that was going to
be the one God was going to use. And he just kept going down the
list, down through his sons and kept bringing them in. And Samuel
kept saying, no, that ain't him. That ain't him. God said, to
Samuel, look not on his countenance, don't look on the height of his
stature, because I've refused him. I refuse those that in appearance
only. For the Lord seeth not as man
seeth. For man looks on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The world's trying to change
men from the outside. We preach the gospel because
God changes His people from the inside. You give a man a new
heart when he's born again and change his inside, his outside
will follow. You can reform him on the outside
all you want to. And he'll be like the little
boy whose mama told him to sit down. He said, I'm sitting down
on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside. That's what he said about the
Pharisees, whited sepulchers. Outside you look pretty, but
inside you're full of dead men's bones. See, God's got to give
a new heart. And that's what we see in this
tabernacle. There was nothing pretty about this tabernacle
on the outside. But within, that's what God looked upon, within.
And when He gives you a new heart, He gives you unfamed faith and
love. And it's that, it's Christ, His
righteousness, His holiness, And it's in this new man in spirit
that we worship God and God receives us. He receives us. Now, another lesson is this. There was only one way you could
behold all the glory of that tabernacle. Just one way. You
had to enter in the door. You had to go in the door and
enter in. That was the only way you could
behold the glory in this tabernacle. The only way to behold Christ's
glory is to enter in through Christ the door. And we do that
by faith. We do that by believing on Christ.
And He's the only door. Go to John 10. Listen to what our Lord said
here. John 10 verse 1. He says, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold
that climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
There was a sheepfold, you know, it's where the farmers would,
they'd leave their sheep there. And the man who came back that
was the true shepherd of his sheep, he'd just enter the door
and get his sheep. The man that was a thief, he
didn't come in the door, he would sneak in the back way, steal
the sheep. That's what Christ is talking
about. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of
the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his
voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and he leads them
out. And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them,
and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger
will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know
not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things they were which he
spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door of the sheep. All
that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the
sheep did not hear them. I'm the door, by me if any man
enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill
and to destroy. I am come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly. So brethren, all this type and picture, I
love types and pictures. And they're good to, as long
as they point us to Christ, we behold Christ in them. But don't
get just enamored with the pictures. And think, you know, just be
moved just because you saw a picture in the Old Testament. The one
that we become in love with is Christ who's pictured. It's Christ
who's pictured. Christ has come. He came down
as low as one could come in perfect humility. And He went to the
cross in perfect consecration to God. And in His heart He was
holy, holy. And by His blood, His people
have been made the righteousness of God in Him. That's what we
see in these four coverings. We see His holiness in the fine
twine linen. We see His righteousness in the
goat skins. We see His consecration in the
ram's skin dyed red. And we see His humility in the
badger skin covering. And that's what it took to redeem
His people from our sin. It took a holy heart. It took
the righteousness of His blood. It took perfect consecration
to God and perfect humility trusting the Father alone. And that's
why He's all our salvation. The only way you're going to
behold this Stop coming to the tabernacle
and refusing to enter in. Stop coming to the tabernacle
and just looking at it and saying, I don't see anything comely about
it. Stop coming to the Bible and questioning everything you
hear. Stop coming to the Word and trying to reason yourself
so that you can stay in unbelief. Come to the Bible. Come to God
like a little child. This is God's Word. This is God's
Word. Isn't it amazing, brethren, that
the God who created heaven and earth has given us His Word? This world doesn't even regard
it. This is the Word of God. Come
to it like a little child, believing what the Father is teaching you.
He told Martha, if you believe, Martha, you'll see the glory
of God. Yes, He has to give you faith,
He has to draw you, He's going to get all the glory for this.
But I'm talking about just meeting you where you are. The only way
you're going to behold the glory that's within this tabernacle
is to come into the door of Christ Jesus through faith in Him. And
I pray that's what He'll do today, bring you to faith in Him. Amen.