Let's be the fourth in our series
and in our fabric of grace. And today we're going to be looking
at coverings of the tabernacle. And we've been looking at in
scripture on how fabrics display to us symbolically. They represent
many of the graces of God and salvation for us and his redemptive
work for the church and The first one we looked at was this coat
that the Lord wore that was without seam and woven from the top down,
and it was complete, and how all the threads touched each
other, and each one was a symbol of His working all things for
good for them that loved God, that were called according to
His purpose. It lacked nothing. It couldn't be rent. Then we
looked at the robe of righteousness that it talked about in Isaiah
61. He hath clothed me with a robe of righteousness. Like that song
we just sang, that hymn from Robert Robertson, that come thou
found richly clothed in blood-washed linen. We'll be looking at that
today a little bit. The garment of salvation, the
covering the Lord provides to His people, when having revealed
the new birth to them, and they see for the first time their
true nature of their sins, and he gives them the oil of gladness,
the garment of praise for their spirit of heaviness that they
get when they say, oh my Lord, look at where I came from, look
at the pit that I was in, and he gives them this garment of
praise. Then we looked at the coat of
many colors that Joseph wore, and each color that was in there
described a attribute of grace of God and how Joseph exemplified
and typified the Lord himself. And he said, they sold him into
slavery. They were going to kill him.
They were all kinds of evil things that they had planned for him.
And he says, you thought it for evil, but God meant it for good
to save much people alive. And so, Today, as we're in this
fourth lesson in this Fabric of Grace series, we're looking
at the coverings of the tabernacle, and we'll take a look in Exodus
chapter 25 first this morning, if you turn there. Exodus chapter 25 verse 1, where
the Lord gives instruction to Moses regarding the tabernacle. In Exodus 25, the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that
they bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly
in his heart. Shall ye take my offering? And the Lord caused their hearts
to be in the day of thy power. Thy people shall be willing,
it says in Psalms. And they gave willingly, they
brought everything. And this is the offering which
you shall take of them, gold and silver and brass. And all
these things were used in the construction of the tabernacle,
the gold tatches and the brass tatches and the silver sockets
and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goat's hair
and ram skin dyed red and badger skins. and shitum wood, oil for
the light, spices for anointing and oil for sweet incense, onyx
stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. Let them make me a sanctuary
that I may dwell among them according to all that I show thee. After
the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments
thereof, even so shall you make it. So God gave them a pattern,
and my wife, she used to make clothes all the time, dresses
and whatnot, and she would have a pattern, and you laid that
out, and you cut the material out exactly like the pattern.
And then if you were a skillful sewer like she was, when you
put it all together, it turned into a garment. And so this pattern,
the Lord, a pattern is a, It's a picture. It's a likeness, a
similitude, a figure. In the spiritual sense, it's
a metaphor for spiritual things. It was a clear pattern that was
set by God, and it was not subject to alterations. or substitutions. It was his way, absolutely, his
way only. They weren't allowed to say,
well, I don't have any of this, so I'll just substitute that,
which we do that all the time. Well, I don't have any egg whites,
so I'll use something else in this recipe, but They weren't
allowed to substitute anything in this making of this tabernacle.
It had a specific purpose and a specific thing to show and
display. And in Hebrews chapter 8 verse
5, when speaking of high priests, it says, who serve unto the example
and shadow of heavenly things. As Moses was admonished to God
when he was about to make the tabernacle, for see, saith he,
that ye make all things according to the pattern showed to thee
in the mount. Now, the various fabrics and
colors used in the coverings of the tabernacle, the symbol
of God dwelling with his people are clear displays of the gospel
of grace you might remember back in John chapter one. the word
was with God, the word was God, and in verse 14 it says that
the word dwelt among us. So that same idea is tabernacling
there. And each one of these fabrics
tells us a different thing about God, about his redemption of
the church. Each fabric, each cloth, some
of them were skins of animals. Each one of them represents an
aspect of the gospel. Each color designated by God.
Remember again the pattern for these skins. and fabric also
represent an aspect of the gospel. So it's important that we remember
that it wasn't just by accident or whim that this was created
in the way that it was. The book of Hebrews in chapter
9 verse 8 and 9 explains it this
way, as always you can go to Hebrews and get a pretty good
take on Old Testament things. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 8 said,
the Holy Ghost, this signifying, so we have some instruction from
the Holy Spirit here just says, Brother Craig said in the Bible
class this morning on fruits of election, that the way into
the holiest was not yet made manifest, that Christ had not
yet come. Although he was the lamb slain
from before the foundation of the world, he hadn't physically
came yet. And while the first tabernacle was yet standing,
which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered
both gifts and sacrifices that could not make Him that did the
service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. So it was
just a picture, it was just a figure of what was coming. The picture
of the Lord of Heaven coming down. And further on in Hebrews chapter
9 verse 24 says, for Christ is not entered into the holy places
made with hands, which are the figures of the true. They're
just pictures of the true. But into heaven itself now to
appear in the presence of God for us. And so we look at that
pattern. And then secondly, we looked
at those colors that God dictated to Moses and what they represent
spiritually. Blue is mentioned. If you go
back into the Exodus and Numbers and look at all the things in
the tabernacle, there's a lot of blue in there. All the coverings
of everything made of blue. And that symbolizes the heavenly
realm. Red or scarlet, the blood of
the Lamb. White, the color of righteousness. Blood washed linen that we talk
about. purple, the color of royalty.
And note these colors are repeatedly used in every aspect of the tabernacle,
in all furnishings, in the garments of the high priest. So when you
go back and you read in Exodus 25, 26, and in Numbers, It's blue and red and scarlet
and purple, blue and red and scarlet and purple and linen,
fine linen. I was reading about the fine
linen and it's an Egyptian term there and in the Egyptian tombs
they found linen that had a thread count of 152 per inch. which is pretty remarkable for
that time. In addition to these fabrics
and colors, we have gold, which represents the glory of God,
and we have brass, which represents a symbol of God's judgment. And
so, thirdly, we're going to look at, with the color and the pattern
and the fabrics in mind, The fabrics and the skins themselves,
they're layered in an order. They're in a specific order according
to the pattern of God and given to Moses to construct the inner
layer. It's the finished work of Christ. Fine twine linen. blue and purple
and scarlet. Ten curtains bound together with
fifty tatches of gold. Tatches are kind of a ring. They
made these fine twine linens and they put blue hoops on the
edges and where these hoops were they put these gold rings together
to hold the curtains together. The next layer contains curtains
of goat's hair bound together with 50 tatches of brass, a symbol
of God's judgment. And the third layer, a covering
of ram skin dyed red, and the outer layer, a covering of badger
skins. And that was kind of the thing
that interested me, what got me started on this tabernacle
covering out of that badger skin. Badger skin, that's kind of a
I read a few things about it and they mostly said, well that
represents him in his form as it describes him in Isaiah where
he has no form or comeliness that we should desire in. But
that doesn't, after I kind of studied it out, it didn't really
bear up. And so, this outer layer of badger skins,
the first one we're going to look at. In Exodus 26, 14, thou
shalt make a covering for the tent of ram skin dyed red and
a covering above of badger skins. Now the King James translators
rendered this from the Hebrew, the classic Hebrew word tekash,
I guess you would say it, as badger. But it doesn't really,
it isn't really the real word It is connected to the word for
skin or height of an animal. In many references you find in
the scholarly studies they talk about Tekash skins. In the Latin There's a Latin word that sounds
kind of like this, tekash. And in the Hebrew language, at
the time that the Old Testament was written, there's been like
three or four different iterations of the Hebrew language that kept
changing over time. And a lot of the things that
were very, it's like Hawker said, well, back then it was clearly,
you don't need me to elaborate on this because it's clearly
understood. perfectly obvious to the most
casual observer what a Takash skin is. But as that language
went along, nobody knew what that was really. There are some
people that suppose, well the Latin people translated into
badger and a lot of scholars think, well it was seal skins
or it was some kind of marine mammal or this or that. I think maybe, perhaps, I don't
have any evidence for it, but it was just sheepskin or fine
leather that was dyed a different color. We'll see some evidence
of that. I think we'll find that as we
look in the scriptures that badgers probably were not the animal
that they supplied the hide for. Since there's a few problems
with that perspective, geographically there just weren't
a lot of badgers in that country. So it would have been a problem
to come up with enough badgers to make a whole tabernacle out
of them. And the second thing would be, biblically there would
be a problem because badgers would have been classified as
an unclean beast in Leviticus. Leviticus 11.26 says, The carcass
of every beast which divideth the hood, and is not cloven-footed,
nor cheweth the cut, are unclean to you, even every one that toucheth
them shall be unclean." So they couldn't even touch them. And
it says in verse 27, "...whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all
manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean to you."
And whosoever touches their carcass shall be unclean till evening.
So it's unlikely that the dwelling place of the Lord would be made
out of unclean beast hide. To me, that just doesn't seem
reasonable. That it would be the outer covering
of the tabernacle. And in addition, We see, if you
go through there, as I mentioned earlier, you go through there
and you read in Exodus 25 and 26 and Numbers 14 and so on,
everything's got a covering of blue. The candlestick covering
was blue. The showbread table was covered
in a blue cloth. Everything was a blue. The robe
of the high priest, the ephod was entirely a blue. In Exodus 28-31, thou shalt make
the robe of the ephod all a blue. So, I think that's a hint there. In Numbers chapter 4 verse 5,
when the camp set us forth Aaron shall come in his sons, and they
shall take down the covering veil, and cover the ark of the
testimony with it, and shall put thereon the covering of badger
skins, and shall spread over it a cloth holy of blue, Numbers
4, 7. And upon the table of showbread,
they shall put a cloth of blue, and in verse 9, they shall take
a cloth of blue, and cover the candlestick of the light. And
upon the golden altar, they shall spread a cloth of blue, In verse
12, they shall take the instruments of the ministry with a ministry
in the sanctuary and put them in a cloth of blue and cover
them with a covering of badger skins. Now, again, most of the
biblical scholars that I read agree that what was termed badger
skin was some form of a high-quality leather. In another Old Testament
book, it talks about the makings of that sandals out of it. In the case of the tabernacle
covering, it was most likely dyed a blue or a violet color. And I was reading about this
in Josephus. He is a Jewish historian back
then. And he notes in his account in
the Antiquities of the Jews from Book 3, Chapter 6, page 195,
The Israelites, when called by God to supply the materials for
the tabernacle, remember what we read there? We read that in
Exodus. The Lord put in their hearts
to come up with all this stuff, and they willingly did it. And
Josephus says, they were not wanting in diligence according
to their ability, for they brought silver and gold and brass and
the best sorts of wood such as wood not decayed by petrification,
camel's hair also and sheepskins, some dyed of a blue color and
some of a scarlet. And then on page 199 regarding
the tabernacle coverings, He writes, there were also other
coverings made of skins above these, those curtains, those
inner coverings, which, above these, which afforded covering
and protection to those that were woven, both in hot weather
and when it rained, and great was the surprise of those who
viewed these curtains at a distance, for they seemed not at all to
differ from the color of the sky. Isn't that interesting,
this tabernacle? And I think this will all kind
of make sense here as we move forward here. A covering of blue on the outside,
the color of the realm, the heavenly realm. In John chapter 6 verse
35, Jesus said unto them, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But
I said unto you all that you also have seen me, and believe
not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, for I came down
from heaven. not to do my own will, but the
will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will,
which has sent me, that of all of which He hath given me, I
should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone
which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life,
and I will raise Him up at the last day." So we have this statement
of the Lord Himself saying, I came down from heaven. And as we peel
back this outer layer, this fine leather dyed blue, the metaphor
that represents the Son of God sent down from heaven to save
the people God gave him in the covenant of grace, we come next
to the covering of ramskin dyed red. red, the color of the Lamb's
blood. The metaphor representing the
shed blood of Christ to redeem the people given to Him by the
Father. We just read about those in John
chapter 6, and Craig mentioned them again in his Bible class.
The elect, the ones given to Him by the Father. the metaphor
representing the shed blood of Christ to redeem the people given
to him by the Father, the lamb slain from before the foundation
of the world. Let me direct our attention for
a moment back to Genesis chapter 22 and verse 7 through 13. We have this narrative about
Abraham going up to make a sacrifice that the Lord commanded him to.
As they're going up the mountain, they've got the wood and all
the things for the sacrifice. And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father in verse 7 of chapter 22. And he said, my father, and
he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold the fire
and the wood, where's the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham
said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. God himself. And so they went
both of them together and they came to the place which God had
told him of. And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the
wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the
altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out forth
his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel
of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham,
Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he
said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, 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 for a burnt offering in the
stead of his son. And so we have this picture,
this picture of the lamb slain from before the foundation of
the world, the ram, that God provided himself a lamb for a
burnt offering. And the dual meaning there, he
not only provided a physical one, but he provided the spiritual
one and the real one, kind of a triple meaning there. In Matthew
26, 27, when the Lord is instituting the, the Lord's Supper there, He took
the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all
of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed
for many for the remission of sins. And so we see the Son of
God coming down from heaven, His very blood shed for the sins
of His people. And that brings us to the next
layer brought to our view in the fabric of grace covering
the tabernacle, the goat's hair. An interesting idea there, the
goat's hair. It says there was 11 curtains
of goat's hair. held together by 50 tatches of
brass, symbols of God's judgment. Now the goat, we know, was used
as a metaphor for a sin offering and the sacrifices that Norm
brought to us many times when he was going through the book
of Leviticus. Also, it talks about here in Exodus as the curtains. In Exodus 26, 7, Thou shalt make
curtains of goat's hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle.
Eleven curtains shalt thou make. The length of one curtain shall
be thirty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits, and
the eleven curtains shall all be of one measure. And thou shalt couple five curtains
by themselves, and six curtains by themselves, and shalt double
the sixth curtain in the forefront of the tabernacle. And thou shalt
make fifty loops on the edge of one curtain, that is the outmost
coupling, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain which
coupleth the second. And thou shalt make fifty tatches
of brass, and put the tatches into the loops, and couple the
tent together, that it may be one. And the remnant that remaineth
of the curtains of the tent, the half-curtain that shall remaineth,
shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle. Now this goat,
the symbol for sin used in the sin offering, following the application
of blood by the high priest when he made the sacrifice for atonement. Leviticus chapter 16, we'll go
there now and read that. Leviticus 16, we're just going
to read verse 18 through 22, I think. And he shall go out to the altar
that is before the Lord and make an atonement for it. And she'll
take the blood of the bullock. Remember he had to make an atonement
for himself before he could even go in to make an atonement for
the people. So there's twice blood shed there. And he shall
sprinkle the blood upon it with his finger seven times. and cleanse it and hollow it
from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. And when he hath made
an end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle, the
congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat.
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live
goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
of Israel." All the iniquities of the church. And all their
transgressions and all their sins. Putting them upon the head
of the goat and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man
into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited. And he
shall let the goat go in the wilderness. And so now we come to the last
inner, the inner layer, the covering, a metaphor and a picture of what
was the result of the first three coverings. In Exodus 26, 1, Thou
shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twine linen,
and blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work
shalt thou make them. They were embroidered with all
these designs, this fine linen. The length of one curtain shall
be eight and twenty cubits, the breadth of one curtain four cubits,
and every one of the curtains shall have one measure, one exact
measure. Everything was exact. Everything
was according to the pattern. Everything was according to the
figure that God had given him. And the loops of blue, and this
one was held together with gold tatches, the symbol of God's
glory, all these curtains. 50 loops, 50 blue loops held together with 50 tatches
of gold. 10 curtains of fine linen. the fine linen. I appreciate
what Craig said. Well, we don't have to look a
lot of stuff up because the Bible tells us what all of it is. He
brought examples from Thessalonians and said, well, we don't have
to look that up because right over here in this book over here,
it tells exactly what that is. Well, if you'll turn over to
Revelation chapter 19, verse 5 through 8. And a voice came out of the throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye servants, and ye that fear him,
both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the
sound of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord
God onypta reigneth. Let us be glad, and rejoice,
and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come.
and his wife hath made herself ready, and to her was granted
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For fine linen is the righteousness
of saints. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son from heaven to come down, to
shed His blood, to give His life a ransom for many, for the church,
to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons. So we have these colors, blue,
Christ sent from heaven to dwell among us. Red, he shed his blood
for his people. Goat's hair, sin atoned for. Usually that goat hair was black
too. Remember from our study in Song
of Solemn some 10, 11 years ago. I'm black. Black as the tents
of Kedar. Black but comely. Made comely
by the righteousness of Christ. And this fine linen, this Christ's
righteousness that's imputed to the saints, imputed to the
church, imputed to the elect. The fabric of grace covering
the tabernacle. Isn't that an interesting picture? You peel back the layers of the
four coverings there, and it's a picture of the gospel. So, we'll stop there. And as always,
we'll say, be free, my friends. Hope you enjoyed that study.
I don't know if we'll be doing any more on the fabric of grace,
but that's number four. So we'll stop there.