This will be just the introduction
to this study of the tabernacle, and I've got to make it short. I've said before, I hope the
Holy Spirit will make it sweet. Approaching a study of this magnitude, and it is a great undertaking,
it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. One scripture
kept coming to my mind as I sat down to begin this study. One scripture just kept going
over and over in my mind. It's this. If any man thinketh
that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. Now, I've been through a study
on this tabernacle, and you have here and I've been in on it and I've studied
it myself. But turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
13 with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I sat down to study this and
I looked, began looking at it, thinking about it, and I was just overwhelmed by
it. I thought, I just don't know.
What have I gotten into? The first step—let me say all
this about this thing of studying such a thing as the tabernacle
or the gospel or anything for that matter—the first step in
seeing and understanding anything is realizing that you cannot
see. or understand. That's what that
scripture I just quoted to you says, basically. If you think
you know, if you think you understand, then you don't know the first
principles of this thing of understanding. It's like salvation. Listen to
all these paradoxes. Salvation, the way
up is down. The way out is in. Now, I'm not going to explain
these. I'm going to leave these for
you to think about. Some of you may know. The way out is in. The way to be found is to be
lost. The way to live is to die. The way to become white is to
be black. The way to see is to be blind. The way to understand is to become
ignorant. Look here at 1 Corinthians 13
with me, 1 Corinthians 13 beginning with verse 9. Paul said now, he says, we know in part, how
much, how big a part. We know in part one one-hundredth
of a thousandth of a millionth. In part. And we prophesy, that
is, we preach, we teach in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, what's perfect? Christ only. Christ. When he's come, then that which
is in part shall be done away. Now, when I was a child, I speak
as a child. Now, everybody in here, we're
little children in this thing of spiritual understanding and
knowledge. Christ said you need to be converted and become little
children. And that's what we are at understanding, concerning
anything in the scriptures, from preacher to pulpit. We're all little children in
this thing of understanding. Paul said, when I was a child,
I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child,
and that's us right now. But when I become a man, when
I became a man, when I become a man, when are we going to become
real men? When we finally become like that
man, when we all become like Christ. Then we'll put away these
childish things. Verse 12, we see through a glass
so dimly, so darkly, that even the bifocals don't help, do they?
So dimly, so darkly, but then, face to face, face to whose face? Face to face
with Christ my Savior. Then, now I know in part, but
then, oh, I'm going to know. I'm not going to need a book.
I'm not going to need a preacher. I'm not going to need a teacher.
I'm not going to need a pamphlet. I'm going to be looking into
the face of the tabernacle. Then shall I know even as also
I am known. Ah, boy. Now, no one in here
can possibly begin to understand, including me, the thousandth
part of full meaning of one little brass pin or tack on one of the
poles in that gate surrounding that tabernacle. Every little piece, every material,
every substance, the weight, the size, everything in there
has divine, eternal, all-wise significance and eternal value. We can't touch it. That's all
we're going to do. We're going to wade ankle-deep
into the ocean. We're not even going to touch
it. How much less to hold? Paul said, who is sufficient
for these things? That's another scripture that kept running through
my mind. Who is sufficient for these things? Not this pea-brained
fellow. But perhaps, in glory, Christ
himself will teach us and show us all things. He may. He may
sit down with us and teach us the tabernacle. Wouldn't that
be great? But it would take an eternity
to do it. Like I said, just one little pin on one little pole
has defined how many there are and the size and shape and so
forth. But right now, we are flesh. We're just flesh and blood,
flesh and bone. We're just a cut above a beast.
Just one cut above an animal is all we are. We're little children
in understanding and comprehension and never will be much more.
Never will. But we have to be put in constant
remembrance of the things we've already heard. Like I said, many
of us have been through this before. I have, you have. But
we need to be reminded, we need to be taught again the first
principles because we so soon forget. Many of you, you're going
through it right now, aren't you, Debra? And I'm thankful
you've done a great job. We sat down with Hannah the other
night and she recalled every piece of furniture in that without
us feeding it to it, didn't you? I'm so thankful, so thankful
that we have a faithful teacher like her. I appreciate it. I'm thankful to God. My objective
in this whole thing, my objective in this whole study, it'd be
so easy to get bogged down in material on this subject. I don't
want to do that. In beginning my research on this,
I gathered together five different books on it, and numerous loose-leaf
pamphlets and so forth, and diagrams and charts and so on. And I immediately,
surrounded by all this, became just swamped. I thought, where
in the world do I start? Where? I became mired down with
information, so much so I didn't know where to begin. I started
reading in all of it, and that's what I want to avoid in this
presentation this time, much like that study we did through
the Lord's Prayer. I don't want to give you so much
information that you don't get any information, that you don't
get any of it, anything out of it. And most especially, I fear
a mere intellectual presentation or a dissertation or a study
on the tabernacle. What I want to do is preach Christ,
preach Christ. Now, somebody explain to me the
difference between preaching and teaching. I'd appreciate
it. But what I want to do is preach. Christ, preach the gospel
in it, not just give a mere dry intellectual dissertation on
the tabernacle and have you go away impressed with all the knowledge
and so forth and having learned new information. That's not it. That's not it. The point in all
of this is to point us to Christ. The object, my object in teaching
this lesson, the reason I wanted to do it, and not for information's
sake, but the object is in all this, is to point us to Christ. the object of our faith. We need
to see Jesus Christ. We need to see the Lord Jesus
Christ, not just learn about him, but we need to see him. We need to see his person, not
just gather information, but we really need to see him. Every
time we get together, we need to see him. It takes the power
of the Holy Spirit, I know. an elder at the church in 13th
Street. He died several years ago. He
taught my father a great deal and many of the men there. His
name was Jeff Thornberry, Todd Nybert's grandfather. But one
day he made this statement. It made a real impression upon
all of us. He was an old man when he made
it. He said, Just recently, I mean after years of seeking the Lord,
diligently following the Lord, seeking Him, he said in his later
years, he said, I just recently learned how to read the Scriptures. He said, I used to read the Scriptures
for information sake, but now I try to read them to be taught
by the Holy Spirit. Now, if you think about that
a minute, it'll impress you. I used to read it for information
or ammunition or whatever you want to get, just to be reading
it, just to get information. But he said, I've since learned
to read and ask and pray for the teaching of the Holy Spirit,
to be taught by the Holy Spirit. And what does the Holy Spirit
teach? Christ takes the things of Christ. So the first thing
that I did, I got swamped with all that material. I was sitting
there at my desk and had all those books and folders and the
desk wasn't big enough. Rick, I need another desk, a
bigger desk. I sat there with all that material
around me and the first thing I did, besides pray, stop and
pray about it and ask the Lord and read through some passages
of Scripture where I put all that material aside. I pushed
myself away from the desk and I got up and I went in there
to where that tabernacle was sitting
on the table in there. I went in there and I just looked
at it. I just stood there and looked
at it and thought about it a little bit and thought about it. I thought, where'd John Gill
get his information? Where'd John Bunyan get his?
Same place I get mine. So I don't want to just look
at this a minute. That's the first thing I did. I pushed all
that material away from there and went back and just stepped
there and looked at it. That's what I want you to do, is just
look at it. And if the Holy Spirit could
get each of us just to look at Christ, just to consider Him,
just to stop in this mad pace with all this information, with
all this hoopla that's going on, and stop and look. We'll live. We'll live. But I
looked at—here's some general observations and some questions
I came up with, just standing there looking at it, okay? See
if you don't think of these things. Now, this is what you would see. If this was down in the valley
and down in an encampment, now back then when this tabernacle
was erected in the wilderness, they pitched their tents all
the way around it. Everybody, all the children of Israel pitched
their tents all the way around this thing by different tribes.
You'll see that in your pamphlet. And if you were riding by, If
you were, say, an Amorite, or a Hittite, or a Perizzite, or
a Canaanite, or a Hivite, or a Jebusite, or a something-like,
whatever, if you were riding by on some mountain peak, this
is what you'd see. This is what you'd see. That's
about the distance, about as close as you can get to it without
being seen. But you'd see it. It's pretty
big. It's about the size of half of a football field. But that's
what you'd see. And I thought about this, somebody
riding up and seeing this thing for the first time. What would
go through your mind? What's the first question that
would pop in your mind? If you're just looking at this, the first
thing you would say is, what is this? Right? What is this? They didn't know. The Perizzites,
the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Mahanites, the
Jebusites, they didn't know. They didn't know. The Armenian
knights, they don't know. It meant nothing to them, right? Do you know what that is? Do you know what that is? Most
don't. Most people, if they came in
here off the street, they'd look at the old tabernacle. What is
it? Well, it's where the Jews got, you know, sacrificed. Do
you know what it is? just by merely looking at it. Upon first consideration, the
Bible, the preaching of the gospel, means nothing to the natural
man. The Scripture said, is it nothing to you all that ye that
pass by? All these hordes of people could have passed by on
their horses and caravans, look at that. What is that? I don't
know. Let's go on back. God was in there. God was actually meeting with
men in there. But they're just passing by.
What is it? I don't know. Passing by. Is it nothing to
you? That's what I think about. All these people. There'll be
cars. There'll be probably 150 cars pass by here in the course
of this evening. And God Almighty may be meeting in here. And I
think, is it nothing to you? And they look, what are they
doing there? I don't know. Let's go. Is it nothing to you? My wife, the other day, was talking
to a lady on the phone. And the lady named her children
Naomi and Ruth. And she asked the lady, she said,
did you name your children that because of the scriptural story
of Naomi and Ruth? She said, yes. She said, that's
a really good devotional, isn't it? And then they tried to tell
her, well, it's a picture of Christ, is what it is. But she,
who named her children, didn't know what was behind that story. It's like, and today I talked
to a woman at the office supply. I was getting this material for
this thing together, and I told her what we were doing. We were
studying the tabernacle. She said, oh, I never was much good
about history, studying history and all that. I said, we're not
going to study history. We're going to study his story.
This tabernacle is a picture of Christ. what we were doing
and invited her to. She said, well, not much good
dates and history and all. She just couldn't, she didn't
know. Tabernacle meant nothing to her.
And even a closer look, you're riding by and you don't see anything
in it. You don't see much to it. And
even a closer look, if you got up even closer, if you snuck
up there a little bit closer out of curiosity and tried to
peek around, it still wouldn't mean anything to you. You could
get right up next to the fence if you could. You couldn't, but
if you could, it still wouldn't mean anything to you. You'd get
right up real close. You might even be in a crowd
of people, hovered around on the outside. Nobody knew who
you were. Just real curious, looking around. But it still
wouldn't mean anything to you. Only by revelation. Only if a high priest or a prophet
would tell you what's on the inside. Right? A mere look, just
a mere look, is not enough. You've got to get on the inside
of it. Only by revelation, by a prophet or the priest. And
what this is, just by first casual glance, by summing this whole
thing up, what this is, and you know this, what this is is a
photograph. That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, right there. That's a real close likeness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, right there. About as clear a picture
as man can construct with his hands of the Lord Jesus Christ,
right there. And God told him everything to
do, and that's a picture. Well, you might ask—next question
you might ask. You're riding by and looking
at this. First thing you say, what is that? You never would
find that, unless you were out down there and somebody revealed
it to you. The next question you might ask is, one, what to
do with it. What's it for? What is it? And
what's it for? Now, the general observations
of these heathen people going by revealed nothing. Revealed
nothing. And they ask, what do they see
in that? They see all these tents, they
see all these thousands, even millions of of people camped
about this tabernacle, all these hundreds and thousands of tents
and people just swarming and men scurrying here and there
in that courtyard and so forth, one fellow going in and coming
out, going in and coming out, and all these people scurrying
around, everybody hanging around on the outside of the fence.
And they say, they might even laugh, the fellow standing up
looking at all this. They might even laugh and say,
what are they saying that? What are they doing? What's going
on? What are they getting so excited about? What's all this
about, anyway? Huh? And the world wonders what
we do here. They wonder what we see in this.
I come there to keep going every day. I come there to camp about
that place all the time. I always camped about it. I was
always partying in that place. To worship God Almighty. To worship
God. To meet with God. And you might
have, they might have thought this, well it looks like any
other religion. Now there was, there were a lot of pagan, heathen
religions back then that used blood, that used priests, used
garments, sacrifices, many things like this. Many pagan religions. But none of them had a tabernacle.
And none of them had an ark. And none of them, God met with
the people there but one. There's just one way. There's
just one way. None quite like this, because
God himself is the one that ordained it. God is the one who instituted
this thing in the first place. But this was the only way to
God Almighty, the only way, because God himself commanded this. He
commanded it, he planned it, and it requires a look on the
inside, on the inside. And that's what this gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ requires. It requires spiritual eyes. It
requires inside information. An inside look. So the first
thing, that's the first thing I wanted you to do. I just wanted
you to look at the tabernacle and ask yourself some questions.
Ask yourself. You say, what is it? Do you know what it is? If you do, if you do, blessed
are your eyes. Oh boy. You look at this. What is that? It's a tent. This is just an old tent. What do you say? How about this
scripture? And she brought forth her firstborn
son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.
What do you say? What do you see in there? A lovely
young virgin? A sweet little baby? A sad example
of human suffering? Laying there in that cow stall?
An inspiring tale of wise men and a star that they followed?
A beautiful Christmas story. Is that what you see? Old Simeon said when he saw that
baby, he took that baby up in his arm and he blessed God Almighty. He said, now, now I can depart
in peace. In other words, I see God's peace. I've seen your salvation. Is
that what you see in that? If you do, if you do, Blessed
are your eyes." And in spite of that plain, ordinary, common
appearance, in spite of that plain, brown covering up there,
we see the way to God Almighty, the way to God by the man Christ
Jesus. And in spite of his plain, ordinary
appearance, when we see him, the Scripture says there's no
comeliness in him, no beauty that we should desire. Plain,
brown rubber, somebody said, and in spite of that, We see
the sublime glory of God Almighty in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
a gift. You could be just a Perizzite
or a Hittite or an Amalekite passing by. But if you're on
the inside, if you're down here close and you know what the priest
is doing, you know what's going on, you know what's on the inside,
blessed are you. Blessed are you. You see God,
God in human flesh. Christ said, blessed are your
eyes, they see however little and however dim they are. However
bad your eyes are, you can see. Blessed are your ears, they hear,
they hear the gospel no matter how faintly, how faintly. But you do hear, don't you? You
do hear. Now, a little closer look at
this thing. Like I said, there's lots of
people traveling by and they look at this thing. What is it?
I wonder what they're doing there. Who cares? And go on down the
road. But if you got up for a little
closer look, if one could walk up and take a closer look at
this thing, they'd see things a little bit better. A little
better. Not much. It's still covered. Not much, but a little bit. The
Scripture says the heavens declare His glory, but only God the Holy
Spirit can declare His salvation. So you can get God's people are
the only people who are allowed in on this. This is what I'm
getting at. Mere curious bystanders weren't allowed in the camp.
They weren't allowed. They wouldn't be allowed. A mere
curious peek within. If a man tried to sneak up there
and peek in, he'd be killed. He'd be killed. Somebody trying
to dabble in this thing would be killed immediately by God
Almighty. Besides, they wouldn't be allowed to get close to it.
I had to take this thing virtually apart and put it back together
because it was in bad disrepair. And while I was repairing that
thing, I got to thinking about those people preparing that ark.
People that were working on all those pieces of furniture and
working on that. Suppose some fella was driving
a nail someplace on some of these boards or whatever. Driving a
nail or whatever, and he bent that nail. Like some of us do
and bend a few nails, especially if you haven't done it in a while.
You bend most of them until you get the hang of it. He bent a
nail over and he just drove it on down here. You know how you
do sometimes? You beat that nail down and it's all bent over.
What if he did that? God wouldn't allow that. Besides,
Moses was walking around. Moses was the overseer. He was
watching everything that was going on in this thing. Everything.
Take that nail out. Take it out. It's got to be perfect. It better be perfect. And he'd
walk away and watch the coppersmiths and the goldsmiths and the engravers
and all this. It's got to be perfect. It's
got to be perfect. And I was working on that thing, and I
thought, and it even made me work a little more carefully.
I mean, that's just, that's nothing. That's a silly little model,
right? But think about it. This gospel that we're dealing
with, the seriousness of it. One man, who was that? What was
his name? Do you remember him? The ark
will carry the ark along, and it started to tilt, and he just
reached—he had good intentions, didn't he? Let me help it out.
He touched—God smote him dead. He just reached up to study the
ark, and God smote him dead. Gover got mad about it. You don't
fool around. What I'm getting at is you don't
fool around with this thing. You don't fool around with it.
It's not even a study of it in the Gospel. People fooling around,
they're going to be condemned. Mere curiosity seekers are under
condemnation. They're going to be condemned
for this thing. People who just taste of it, what Paul said in
Hebrews 6, just toasting, going to be condemned now. This thing
is for God's people. It's for true seekers. It's for
those who've been called. It's for serious, sober-minded,
God-seeking, Christ-loving people. Don't fool around here. Don't
fool around. That's what that told me. A little
closer look, just a curious look won't get it. You've got to be
on the inside. You've got to be on the inside. And a little
closer look. Let me hurry. A little closer
look at this thing. Now, it doesn't look like much.
You might see some beauty in it, but not much. But the closer
you get to it, the more you realize, hey, there's something to this.
It's kind of like that man that had his eyes open and was blind,
and he saw men walking in his trees. That's the way our vision
comes in this thing here in the gospel of Christ. The more we
learn and see of Christ, the bigger he gets, the more glorious
he becomes, the more complex this gospel becomes. That's the
reason the way up is down. Maturity, spiritual maturity
is realizing how immature you are. Spiritual wisdom is realizing
how very little you know. Men that have been around a long
time, I talk to, they say, I'm just coming to the point where
I realize I don't know anything. And they've been studying for
years. But a little closer look, a little closer look, the closer
you get, the more you look at it. I'm going to bring it down
front when we start here. You'll see that there's a lot more to
this than meets the eye. A lot more. All the pillars and
the pins. the altar, the labor, the tent,
the materials, everything that went into it. Now, somebody knew
what they was doing. Somebody had something in mind
here. This wasn't just a half-pastured
chicago. Let's throw up a tent. Let's
have us a little worship party here. No, no, you look a little
closer now. You're going to see there's a
whole lot more to this than meets the eye. Somebody had something
in mind, a plan. A plan. A purpose. Somebody smart
came up with this. Somebody real smart. A wise architect
purposed and planned this thing. Closer you look at it, and I
hope by God's Holy Spirit that we'll see that too. I want to
know. I want to know. And that's all I feel like right
now. When I approached this, I felt
like a bystander. I felt like somebody passing
by. I thought, I don't know anything about it. I know that table means
Christ the bread of life. I know that labor means Christ
the water of life. But there's 400 shamans in the
water of life, in labor. I know Christ is the light of
the world, the candlestick. I know he's our altar. I know
he's the Passover lamb. I know he's the ark. I know these
things, but what do we know? What do we know? And I felt,
that's kind of like the way I felt, like I was just passing by, just
on the outskirts. I want to know, don't you? I
want to look into it. I want to know who and what.
I want to know what it's all about. I do. I want to know who
did this. Who did this? What's this all
about? That's what I want to know about salvation, too. Who
did this? What's it all about? Who's in
this thing? What's on that altar? If you're
passing by, you say, What's on that altar? What's that all about?
Hmm? What's he got in his hand there?
Who's that man? Who's that man? Now, people will
ask questions. They'll find out. They'll find
answers. Not many people out there we run into asking any
questions of. Hmm? About gospel questions? You run
into anybody? It's really... ...justification. Or he can't
get his wife. You know, something like that.
But I want to ask questions like that. Who's on, what's on that
altar? What's this all about? What's that man got in his hand?
Huh? Who is that man in those bright garments? Who is that
man? What's he doing? Huh? Where's
he going? Look at him. Going under that,
going in that tent. Now what's he doing? Now what's
he doing? Look. What's that smoke? What's that
fire? What's that cloud? What's this
all about? Huh? What is all this? Who is that
man hanging there on that cross? That's what I want to ask. That's
what this is all about. A piece of wood. Who is that? That's God. That's God. This is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what I've done just now is
like opening up the wallet. Let me show you my picture. Let
me show you my picture. And I covet your prayers and
your thoughts and your utmost patience and attention, because
this thing is much bigger than any of us will ever know. What I'm trying to say in this
introductory message, just look at it. Do you see anything in
that? Do you? Boy, I do. The gospel, the Holy Spirit gives
you x-ray vision. Some of you know what's under
that covering. Some may not. There may be some people in here
that don't know what's under that covering. You need to know.
You need to know. If you don't know what's going
on inside that tent, you don't know what's going on in heaven
with Christ. You need to know. You need to
know. You need to know who's in that
body hanging on that cross, what he did. You need to know where
he went, where he is now. You need to know what's going
on. You need to know if you have a party or not. This is salvation. That's what this is about. This
is more than just a story. This is salvation. So I kind
of took my shoes off here and just kind of stepped back and
just considered it and took a look at it before we get into it and
tried to just take a calm and serious and sober, contemplative
look at it. And that's what this was all
about this first time. Okay, stand with me and I'll
dismiss this impractical.