In the book of John, chapter
1, John writes of our Lord Jesus, and he sets Him forth as that
Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. And then
he gets down deeper into the chapter and he says this, and
the Word was made flesh. And He dwelt among us. That is, He lived in a tent.
That is, an earthly tabernacle. And John said, we beheld His
glory. Even one who was in that tent,
he said, we beheld His glory. Glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. John and James, his
brother, and Peter beheld the wonders of the glory of our Lord
Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. And as John mentioned in that,
he dwelt among us. That is, he lived in a tent or
he tabernacled. That sends us back to the Old
Testament and certainly to the grand portion of the book of
Exodus that speaks about the tabernacle in the wilderness. John uses that language of our
Lord dwelling in the flesh to send us back to the Old Testament,
to the tabernacle in the wilderness. Here's my subject this morning.
The tabernacle is brought to Moses. There are several things
about this tabernacle, some we've mentioned before, others we have
not mentioned, but it was just temporary. You know, they used
that tabernacle in the wilderness for less than 35 years. And our Lord used that body that
God prepared for Him, He used that body on this earth for less
than 35 years. Tabernacle is in so many ways
a picture of our Lord Jesus. He tabernacled in the flesh in
order to suffer, bleed, and die. Because that is the penalty for
sin. The wages of sin is death. And
our Lord Jesus died in the stead of His people. As far as the
tabernacle was concerned, visibly, it was rather ordinary. It was
kind of unattractive. A humble looking thing. Nothing
to satisfy the eye or to wow the beholders from the outside
saying, isn't that, what exquisite beauty is that? No, just the
roof was made of badger skins. just a dull gray. And then the
boards of the fence that went all the way around the tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus, the Scripture says there was no beauty about
Him that we should desire Him. There was nothing appealing to
the eyes of men and women and boys and girls about Him. They
didn't say, wow, what a handsome man. Scripture says they saw
no beauty in Him. They saw no goodness in Him,
for the most part. But, that tabernacle in the wilderness,
that's where God dwelt. And this is what we need to understand,
and everybody needs to hear this, that our God was in Christ Jesus
when He reconciled us by His substitutionary death. Our Lord
Jesus is more than a man. He's the God-man. Yes, He veiled
His deity with flesh, and that flesh was unappealing to the
eyes of men and women. But beneath that, He's absolutely
God. He is God of very God. And at the tabernacle, that's
where God met with man. It wasn't anywhere else. It's the only place you can meet
with God. And I would say, do you want to meet with God this
morning? Would you like to worship God? Would you like to fellowship
with God? Would you like to know God? Would
you like to dwell with God forever and ever? Our God dwells in that
man, Christ Jesus. And in Him, we meet God. Those who have no interest in His deity,
have no interest in His sacrificial death upon the cross of Calvary,
they will not find a meeting place with God anywhere else. If you reject the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have no use for Him, you won't bow to Him, you won't
receive Him, you cannot come to God as you are. That is an
impossibility. This is where God meets with
you. He said, I'll meet with you at the tabernacle. Only there. And God will meet you in Christ
Jesus. And let me tell you something.
You will meet God in Christ Jesus either in this life or you'll
meet God in Christ Jesus at the judgment. Because John 5 says
that the Father's turned all judgment over to the Son. You're
going to meet Him one way or the other. God help us to go to Him and
meet Him now for mercy. Oh, for grace. Oh, for forgiveness
of sins. Oh, for righteousness. That tabernacle
in the wilderness, that's where God preserved His law. Israel dancing around a golden
calf. Moses came down from the mountain.
He had the two tablets of stone. He saw that. He threw them down
on the ground and broke them. The second time God wrote the
Law on two tablets of stone, God said, put them in the Ark
of the Covenant for safekeeping. Oh, God's Law is safe in Christ
Jesus. It's not safe in us because we
break it all to pieces every day in a multitude of ways. But in our Lord Jesus, He walked
on this earth in absolute conformity to that Law. Every jot and every
tittle he honored. And then he died under the curse
of the law. And it was at the tabernacle
where the sacrifice was made. Animals were brought, offered
to God. Teaching Israel, teaching us
the only way to come to God is by a sacrifice God has designated. The innocent must die for the
guilty. If the guilty are to be forgiven
and made righteous, our Lord Jesus died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. It was a tabernacle. That's where
the priests were fed. They went inside the holy place. They ate the show bread God provided
for them. Christ is our food. We feast
on Him. I hope you've come here today
with hungry souls, with hungry hearts. You desire to feast on
the things of God. Christ is the living bread that
came down from heaven. We feast on Him. Oh, that God
would give you an appetite. An appetite. Not just for an
appetizer and then leave, but stay for the main entree. He's
the main entree. Christ is. He said, my flesh
is meat for you. He said, my blood is drink for
you. What does that mean? Like you
receive meat and drink into your body, so we receive Christ Jesus
into our souls. And He's our very life. He's
our sustenance. He's our nourishment. And oh,
if we come not to hear the Word of God or we don't avail ourselves
of the Internet, oh, how lean spiritually we will become. And
malnourished. We must feed on this Gospel. It is the children's bread. It is the food we need for our
spiritual life to sustain us, to nourish us, to cause us to
grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this was indeed the place
of worship. If you lived back in those days
and you wanted to worship God, one place. And if you want to
worship God, if you're at all interested in worship, in reverencing
the God who made you, the God who gives to you, the God who
holds you up, the God in whose hand is the very breath that's
in your nostrils, if you would worship the Lord, come to Christ
Jesus, the tabernacle. You worship God in, through,
and by Christ Jesus. And with the Israelites, if they
wanted to go and worship God, they went to the tabernacle,
and they found, here's this fencing, goes all the way around the tabernacle. It had one entrance. One door. Our Lord Jesus said, I'm the
door. You all understand what a door
is. You go out the door, you come
in the door. Some of you entered in from the
very big front of the building into the vestibule. Some entered
in by this door, some by that door, but we all entered in by
way of a door. But if there's only one door,
everybody's going to have to come in the same door. And you
see, all of us, we're all alike in being fallen sons and daughters
of Adam. And we want to come to God. We
want to approach God. We want to worship God. We want
to be accepted by God. There's one door. Only one. Our Lord Jesus is that door. And there were all kinds of materials
that were used in building the tabernacle. God made use of many
things throughout creation. He used things from the mineral
kingdom. Gold. That speaks of the deity
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Silver. That speaks of redemption
by our Lord Jesus Christ. Brass. Durable. That speaks of His great strength. Everything the wrath of God could
throw at Him, He sustained it. In a little bit, I'll talk something
about the brazen altar. The brazen altar was made of
wood covered with brass. That brass could stand up to
tremendous, tremendous temperatures of heat. It had to. And that's
our Lord Jesus. He's the gold, He's the silver,
He's the brass. All of the wrath of God due to
us and to our sins, it all fell on Christ Jesus. The very heat,
the immeasurable heat of the wrath of God fell on Him. But
he's brass. It didn't destroy him. He withstood it. And all of the
tabernacle is about him. The mineral kingdom, I said,
it supplied very generously. The vegetable kingdom, from that
came the wood, linen, oil, and spices. Animals provided the
skins. Animals provided for the curtains. We read about the ram skins dyed
red, and badger skins. When you looked at the outside
of the tabernacle, the roof of it, it's badger skin. It was
the same roof that every other tent had. That's our Lord's humanity. And of course, the animals provided
for the sacrifices. And Israel, they bring all of
this to Moses, and then the ones who were in charge of making
the tabernacle, they put it all together. Till he was finished. And as I read through these verses
a little bit ago, did you notice the repetition of the word, his? Verse 33, they brought the tabernacle
unto Moses, the tent, and all his furniture, his thatches,
his boards, his bars, his pillars, his sockets. Go down further in verse 39,
"...the brazen alter and his grate of brass, his staves, and
all his vessels, the laver in his foot, Verse 40, the hangings
of the court, His pillars, His sockets, and the hanging for
the court gate, His cords, His pins, and all the vessels of
the service of the tabernacle for the tent of the congregation. It all belongs to somebody. It's all about somebody. The
wording is exactly as it ought to be according to the inspiration
of the Spirit of God. His, His, His, His. The Spirit of God keeps before
us this very nugget of truth. It's all about somebody. It's all about somebody. I was
reading a book recently, and as far as doctrinally in many
ways, it was accurate. It was a very scholarly book
that was written. But that which was missing was
His, that is the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about Him. It's interesting, as Moses begins
to set forth the various pieces of furniture, He says in verse
35, the first one he mentions is the Ark of the Testimony or
the Ark of the Covenant. and the staves thereof, and the
mercy seat. And then the very last one he
mentions is in verse 39, the brazen altar and his grate, his
brass, his staves, and all the vessels of the labor. So in other
words, Moses, he lists these from within the veil in the Holy
of Holies going outward, outward to the brazen altar. You see,
the goal of the Israelite was to meet with God. And the goal
of, listen, the goal of the Lord Himself was for people to gather
together and meet with Him. Well, where is God? God's back
there in the Holy of Holies. Well, how far can the average
Israelite go into the tabernacle? Only into the outer court. That's
as far as he can go. But as he enters into the outer
court, the very first thing he meets is this huge piece of furniture,
seven and a half feet wide, long, and high. It's the biggest piece
of furniture of the whole tabernacle. And he sees that and he knows,
I can't go any further than this. That is Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That's as far as you need to
go. Because if you get to the crucified Savior, you will meet
with God who's back in the Holy of Holies. Isn't that interesting,
the way the Spirit of God lines this up? So He starts with the
Ark of the Testimony, or the Ark of the Covenant. Within the
Ark, there's the Law of God, the covenant that God made with
Israel. There's Aaron's rod that budded
inside the Ark of the Covenant showing that Aaron was the true
high priest of Israel. Our Lord Jesus is the true high
priest. There's one God and one mediator
between God and me and the man, Christ Jesus. And He is the one who's not only
Aaron's rod that budded, but within that Ark of the Covenant
was a golden pot of manna. He is the lasting food, the everlasting
food for His people. In fact, what are the saints
of God doing in glory right now? They're still feasting on Christ. They're still eating of Him spiritually. That's the ark of the testimony. The ark was the safe haven for
God's law. I can't keep it. You can't keep
it. Oh, we agree with the apostle.
He says in Romans, I love the law of God, but I can't keep
it because it is to me a covenant of death, a covenant of condemnation. It condemns me. Every time I
look at the law of God, I know it examines me as it were. Mind, thought, words, deeds,
actions, motives, dreams. And I know I cannot keep even
one of the laws of God. I love the law, but I can't keep
it. But somebody did keep it. My
substitute. And then he died under the curse
of that law, dying my death. He was cursed in my stead. Over
the ark of the testimony was the mercy seat, covered with
blood. Every year Aaron, the high priest,
would go into the Holy of Holies, but not ever without blood. And he'd go in there and dip
his finger in blood and sprinkle that mercy seat seven times. That golden lid. The mercy seat. There's the very throne of God. That's where God's at. That's
where that bright shekinah glory came out of. The mercy seat. Here's a good word to help you
with the idea of a mercy seat. Propitiation. It's the propitiatory. Which just means the satisfaction
of divine justice. What did justice demand? Blood
of an innocent victim. And God got the blood of His
Son. And so we sing, what can wash
away my sin? Nothing but the blood. of Jesus. And then, the altar of incense. Our Savior offers unending intercession
for His people based upon His sacrificial death. A priest of
God who would burn incense, he would take his censer and take
some tongs Go out to that brazen altar right out there just inside
the door of the tabernacle. There's those really red hot
coals. He'd take those coals off several
of them, put them in that censer. Then he'd go back in to the holy
place, to the golden altar of incense. He'd put those hot coals,
red hot coals, white hot coals on that altar. And then he'd
take some incense and sprinkle it. Oh, the fragrance. The fragrance. You see the very
basis of the intercessory work of our Lord Jesus and the very
basis of us offering up our prayers to God? is the substitutionary
death of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the hot coals. Justice
satisfied. How can I approach a holy God
with my petitions? With my prayers? Will I come
to God through Christ Jesus upon the basis of His sacrificial
death? That's the only way to come before
God. You want to ask something of God? You want to request something
of God? Never come without the sacrifice
of Christ. It's the fragrance that is well-pleasing
to the Father. It's a sweet savor is what we
read in Ephesians 5 and verse 2. He's our intercessor. He's our altar of incense. Have
you come to Him today as the altar of incense? And offered
upon that altar of Christ Jesus your intercession for others,
your petitions, your prayers? You can't come to God any other
way. You can't come to God through
Mary. You can't come to God through
a dead saint. You can't come to God through
a religious picture. You can't come to God through
angels. You come to God through Christ only. And then there's
the table of showbread. He mentions that in verse 36. The table and all the vessels
thereof and the showbread. I've already said this. The bread
for the priesthood was continually out there on the table. And you
know, every time we gather together, it is the responsibility of the
preacher of the Gospel to spread a banquet table for the people
of God. Feast. For some, about all you
can handle is milk. That's okay, we give milk too.
We give the milk of the Word. For others, you can handle a
little meat, so we give some meat too. We get that which is
satisfying to the people of God, that feeds and nourishes the
people of God. And then there's the golden candlestick
he mentions in verse 37. Our Lord Jesus is the light.
He's the light. He's the one who illuminates
us. He's the one who reveals the Father to us. So we read,
in thy light we shall see light. Lord, shine the light of the
Spirit of God's grace upon the Word of God for me, so that I
might understand, so that I'll believe, so that I can grasp
what this book is all about. And then there's the brazen laver. He mentions it just briefly at
the end of verse 39, all his vessels, the laver in his foot. Brazen laborer. That's Christ
who's the fountain of cleansing. Wash and be clean. Wash in the
Word of God. Wash in the water of the Word.
Wash. Oh Lord, You wash me. And I shall
be whiter than snow. But then the last piece of furniture
he mentions, as I've already noted, is in verse 39. The brazen
altar. That's the place of suffering.
That's the place of sacrifice. That's the place of agony. It
wasn't a scene for the squeamish or the faint of heart. If you
wanted to worship God, you came there to the gate of the tabernacle,
and you went through, and you were met by this huge piece of
furniture. and you brought your animal,
which to you, if you were a believing Israelite, you were saying in
your own heart, this represents the Son of God who's coming someday. And He's going to do in reality
what this only pictures. He's going to endure the heat
of God's wrath, but it's not going to consume Him. He'll consume
the wrath. So he took that animal, the priest
took the animal, cut its throat, caught its blood, hoisted it
up on top of it, seven and a half foot high, way up here. Four
horns of the altar to make sure it didn't fall off or as it kicked
or whatever. It wouldn't get off that altar.
Four horns of the altar. Sacrifice. substitution, forgiveness,
righteousness. The four horns of the altar.
What do the horns stand for? Great power. Oh, the power of
the crucified, buried, risen Savior. He said, all power is
given unto me in heaven and in earth. And as a result of His
death, there's satisfaction for the sins of His people. There's
substitution. All for whom He died are saved,
redeemed, justified. Forgiveness. All my sins were
washed away there at the cross. And righteousness. That's where
He brought everlasting righteousness in. That brazen altar was just a
perfect square. Very sturdy. Very sturdy. Immovable as it stood there. And our Lord Jesus, He's so sturdy. Oh, He's so strong. No wonder
He's called the Mighty God. The Mighty God! In Psalm 89,
the Father says of the Son of God, I have laid help upon one
who is mighty. He has four horns. He's like
a square. He's sturdy. He's immovable. And made of brass, indestructible. And He absorbed all of the wrath
of God that all of His people would have had to absorb forever
and ever. He did it in three hours. How
can He do that? Because He's gold? Pure. That's His deity. He's silver? He's the Redeemer. He's brass. He's indestructible. And He's
square, as it were. He's up to the task. And I'm
telling you, He's mighty to save you. It doesn't matter who you
are or what you've done. He's able to save to the uttermost
all that come unto God by Him. And there at the brazen altar,
the blood was shed and poured out. The sacrifice that pleased God. So from the holy of holies all
the way to the brazen altar, everything's about Christ our
Lord. Now, if an Israelite wanted to
worship God, he entered through that gate, and by means of a sacrifice of
a live offering to a just and holy God, the animal died, having
had its blood shed. If an Israelite wanted to worship
God, could he ever go into the Holy of Holies back there? Could
he ever go into the presence of God? There's where that Shekinah
glory of God was. That's where God dwelt. God said,
this is my throne. On top of the mercy seat, the
propitiatory, where satisfaction is made. Could an Israelite ever
go back in there? Careful with your answer. The
answer is yes. But only through a representative. Well, who was that? That's the
high priest. The high priest. And when he
went in there, he had the twelve tribes of Israel upon his shoulders
and upon his breastplate. And he did business with God
for all of Israel. That's our Savior. You see that?
He entered into the holy of holies. He did business with God. for us. I was in Him. You were in Him. All of His people were in Him.
And He satisfied God. And therefore, our sins were
washed away. And righteousness, it was brought
in. And we stand before God with
His justice fully satisfied because of the substitute, He did business
with God for us. Isn't that great? That just helps
me so. It feeds me. That feeds me. Let's sing a closing song. And
we'll sing one verse of 199 Christ Receiveth Sinful Men. Number
199. And He does receive sinful men
and I urge you to come to Him. Come to God through Christ. Only
wait. And you'll find a welcome Savior.
Because it's His Spirit that's drawing you to come to Him. Let's stand together. One stanza,
199.