Let's open our Bibles this morning
to the book of Deuteronomy. And we'll go to Deuteronomy 4. And I'm just going to read one
verse out of this, and then we're going to still be considering
the Lord's tabernacle. But I came across this in my
reading, I thought this is a good place for us to begin this message. And I'll read this text and go
into the message after we seek God's face again in prayer. Lord, this is a very special
time for us. This is that appointed hour when
as a congregation we come together to worship you, to thank you
for all of your mercies to us, to thank you for your good and
wise providence that directs the steps of all of us unto the
end that you have already ordained. We rejoice to know, Father, that
You set upon Your throne of glory and righteousness, truth and
justice, and all things are under Your command. All things live and move and
have their being due to Thee and in Thee. And we rejoice to know that our
Heavenly Father is the Governor of all the universe. And your
good and perfect and wise will, your counsel, your purpose is
indeed being brought to pass every day. Now as we meet together,
we're thankful that you have provided for us a glorious Savior,
the Lord Jesus, that is, the very Christ of God. He is the
One you chose, that One who is equal with you in every way,
who entered into this world because you and your only begotten Son
loved a people more numerous than the stars of the sky or
the sands upon the seashore. And these people you love have
fallen into sin, therefore had to be redeemed. Their debt that
they owed to justice had to be fully paid. And our representative
has done just that. He satisfied you in suffering
your vengeance for all of the sins of your people. And we rejoice
to know that this has indeed been accomplished by Christ,
for He's been raised from the grave, and He ever lives, making
intercession for your people. Bless, Lord, as we go into the
message this morning, and I pray that the Word of God will touch
each of our hearts. We know that You intend Your
Word, Your purpose in sending forth the Word. Your intention
will be fulfilled. And Lord, may it be the intention,
the purpose of grace and mercy and salvation. Teach us of the
Lord Jesus, our only Savior, the only hope of glory, the one
in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. So speak, Lord,
this morning. We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Here's the verse of Scripture
that I want to read to you from Deuteronomy chapter 4. And it
will kind of help you to know that this is the book of Deuteronomy. It means the second reading.
It is indeed the second reading of God's laws to Israel. And this is not long before the
end of their wilderness journey. They will very soon enter into
the land of promise, but Moses will not be leading them. Moses
must die before he cannot enter the Promised Land. He must die
because for two reasons. He disobeyed the law the second
time that God told him to speak to the rock. You remember Israel
was thirsty and the Lord said to take your rod and hit the
rock. The Lord said to him to smite
the rock. And he did, and water came out,
and that picture is the death of our Lord Jesus. He was smitten
and afflicted by God the Father for the sins of all of His people.
And as it says in Isaiah 53, by His stripes we're healed.
Well, they go further into the wilderness. They become thirsty
again, and the Lord says to Moses, now speak to the rock. But he
was angry. Aaron was angry with the people. They murmured against God. Moses
got frustrated. In fact, Aaron said with him,
must we fetch water from the rock for you rebels? And he took
that rod and he hit the rock again. And water did come out,
but God said, now, that fit of anger, That's going to cost you. You can't take my people into
the land of promise because the Lord Jesus, my son, he will die
but once. One time God's law is going to
deal with him in justice and once will be enough. That satisfied God. Now, if you,
anybody here, anybody out there, you desire the water of life,
oh, we're not going to kill Christ all over again. That's what's
wrong with the mass that so many Catholic churches, well, all
of them observe the mass. It's really the killing of the
Lord Jesus all over again. We mustn't do that. Do you want
mercy? Do you want His salvation? Do
you want the Lord Jesus Himself? Then drink of the water of life
freely. That's what our Lord Jesus said
on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. In John chapter
7, He said, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Isaiah says to draw water from
the wells of salvation. And so you bring your empty cup
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will be amazed how He
will fill it with His grace and with His mercy and with His salvation. Moses. that burst of anger that
cost him dearly. But there's another reason he
couldn't lead the children of Israel into the promised land,
is because he pictured the law of God, all the commandments
of God. God's law can't take you into
the promised land, can't take you into the land of rest, it
can't take you to glory. And I know there are a lot of
well-intentioned people. They say, I'm trying to live
by God's law. Listen to me. God's holy law. It was never given. All those
commandments, it was never given for you or to anybody as a means
of salvation. But here's the reason it was
given, to show us our guilt before God. That's what God's law does. It backs us up in a corner, so
to speak. And it says you can't keep this
because God says be perfect. There must be exact obedience. And nobody can do that. That's what Moses represents.
He represents all the commandments of God. He can't take you in. God's law can't take you in.
Only God's appointed Savior. He's the only one who can take
you in. Joshua. That's what Joshua in the Old
Testament is translating Jesus in the New Testament. He's the
one who takes us into the land of paradise, into the land of
promise. And so here in Deuteronomy 4,
Moses is speaking to the children of Israel. And it's not long
before God's going to take him up on a mountain and God's going
to take his life. His soul's going to go to glory.
And God buried his body and nobody knows where his body is except
the Lord Himself. And He'll raise that body up
again at the last day. But here's what Moses has to
say to them. And I'm going to give you one
verse here. Chapter 4 of Deuteronomy 29. And he has said some things
before this. He said, now you're going to
fall into idolatry as you go into the land of promise, as
you cross over the Jordan River. You're going to be ill-affected
by the nations that you're going to encounter and their idols
and their gods. But, he then says this in chapter
4 verse 29, But if from thence thou shalt seek, that is when
you enter into the land of promise, thou shalt seek the Lord thy
God, thou shalt find Him. If you seek Him with all your
heart, and with all your soul." And we're all by nature idolaters. You know that, don't you? We're
all by nature idolaters. And even the people, I'm talking
to the people of God, we still have our idols, and our number
one idol is self. Wouldn't you agree with that?
That's the number one idol. That's not only the number one
idol of people who know nothing about God, but even those of
us who know God, we still have an idol within ourselves, and
we don't like that. We are very much opposed to that,
and we'll look forward to the day when we'll be totally free
from all idolatry, even the worship of self. But you know and I know
how we put self first. So let's just be honest with
God and honest with one another. That's the way we all are. That which we long to be liberated
from is all idolatry. And that'll be when we get to
glory. But Moses, before this, he speaks of the idols of the
heathens. And he says, when you get over
there into the Promised Land, and you get confronted with all
this heathenism, all this idolatry, it's going to be too great a
temptation for you to resist. But remember this, and may God
bring it to your memories, he's saying. You've got to come back
to the Lord. You must seek the Lord. Because
there's no satisfaction out there. And you know, today, there are
people, everybody's a seeker. Right? Wouldn't you agree with
that? Everybody's a seeker. Hey, we all seek happiness. Anybody
here doesn't want to be happy? Anybody doesn't want to be joyful?
We're all seeking joyfulness. We're all seeking happiness.
People seek financial security. Well, who doesn't want that?
We want financial security. We want to be healthy. We seek
to be healthy. So that's why I take a handful
of vitamins in the morning and the pills that the doctors prescribe
for me. I want to be healthy. I'm trying
to seek to be healthy, at least as healthy as I can be. As one
person said, listen, I know I'm going to die, but I want to die
healthy. Well, maybe we will. I don't know. I don't know about
that. But we're seeking good health. A lot of people seek popularity. A lot of people seek great prestige. Many people, they seek authority. They go into politics. I seek that. I seek, I seek,
people seek fame and fortune. People seek all kinds of things,
but there's a verse that, and I'm not gonna ask you to go back
to it, but Joe read this verse over here in Isaiah 55. The Lord said, wherefore do you
spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for
that which satisfies not? You see, it may be when you find
that which you're seeking for, It may be when you find it, it
doesn't satisfy you. There is, ever since Adam fell
in the garden, there has been an emptiness in man. And that is an emptiness within
the inner man that is the soul. And man seeks for some kind of
inward peace, He doesn't know who God is, but he does seek
that peace. He seeks a conscience that doesn't
accuse him. He seeks this inner tranquility. And so he goes after this, and
he goes after that, and the best example of that is seen in the
book of Ecclesiastes in a man by the name of Solomon. And you
read through the 12 chapters of Ecclesiastes, and you'll find
he says, I tried this, didn't satisfy. He said, it's vanity. He said, then I tried something
else. That didn't satisfy me either. He said, I tried pleasure,
I tried wine, I tried luxuries, I tried all of these things to
satisfy my innermost being. He said, vanity of vanities,
and then he says, all is vanity. Nothing satisfies out there.
The man who seeks money, he gets money. You say, well, you're
set for life now, aren't you? Yeah, well, what would satisfy
you? A little more money. That's just the way we are. But
there is within us this hole in our souls, I guess you can
call it, that nothing will ever satisfy the creature except the
Creator. And in order to know the Creator,
we've got to seek Him as He seeks us. That is, He seeks us and
then we in turn seek Him. Make no mistake about it. The
Bible says, no man seeketh after God. If you are a seeker, like Moses
says to these people, He's seeking with all your heart,
with all your soul. The only reason you are a genuine
seeker of God is because He is seeking you. And if He seeks you, He will
find you. And the Lord says, if you seek
Me with all your heart and all your soul, you will find Me. Now, we know that, and I've already
said, this is shortly before the Israelites are going to go
into the land of promise. But even after they cross over
the River Jordan, they're still going to worship God one place
at the tabernacle for a number of years. For a number of years. they will seek God and worship
God still one place at the tabernacle. And here's what I want to do
in the moments that remain this morning. I want to lead you,
if God the Spirit would enable me, I want to lead you and me
to see that we must seek We must seek God and we must
seek Him in the Lord Jesus Christ. Can God be found? Yes. Well, where are you going to
find Him? Well, you're going to find Him on His ruling from
His throne. You'll find Him there. You'll
find Him in His Word. You'll find Him meeting with
His people. You'll find Him wherever the
gospel of His free and sovereign grace is going forth. And here's
where you'll really find Him. In His Son. And you see, everything
about the tabernacle and the wilderness pictured our Lord
Jesus. So if you had lived back in these
days, these days we've been talking about when the tabernacle was
being built and then when it was built and for the next three
or four hundred years, this is where they worshipped God. If
you were genuinely interested in worshipping God and you're
a seeker of the Lord, this is where you'd come to worship Him.
You'd come to the tabernacle. There wasn't anywhere else for
God to be found. If the other Israelites said,
you know, we're going out to worship God this morning because
Aaron's going to be killing the morning sacrifice, the lamb,
and he's going to be burning incense. Let's all go and worship God
through the sacrifice that's going to be offered. But if you
said, well, you know, I think I'll seek God under that palm
tree over there. I believe I'll go to that oasis
over there. It looks like a nice, comfortable
place. Yeah, but here's your problem.
God's not over there. Oh, I know in a sense God's everywhere. But God said, I'll meet you at
the tabernacle. That tabernacle is a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Word was made. What? Flesh. And dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. Do you
want to meet God? Do you want to seek God? Will
you seek Him? You have to seek Him and then
you'll find Him only in the man Christ Jesus who is also the
Son of God. So let me, as it were, take all
of you, young and old, and lead you back to the tabernacle this
morning. We're going to make several stops
in our journey all the way through the tabernacle, even though had
we lived back then, we couldn't go all the way from one end to
the other. We know that. How do you seek and worship God?
Number one, And I'm going to give you these seven, eight,
and nine points as time goes by, and I'm going to give you
just one word for each of them. And this will give you clear
instructions as to how you can seek the Lord. Number one, the
gate of the tabernacle, and this is what that speaks to me of.
A seeker. A seeker. I want to seek God. If we were out there and I said,
Brother Stan, I'm going to go seek God. Where should I go?
He's going to say, go to the gate of the tabernacle. That's
where you've got to go. No need to seek God anywhere
else. Seek God at the gate of the tabernacle. That's where a seeker goes. Don't
tell me you seek the living God and you don't seek the Lord Jesus
Christ where God is found. That's foolish. I know in a general way, God
in His providence and by His power, He's everywhere. but in
a saving way. That's what I'm interested in,
aren't you? I'm interested in God's salvation.
I'm interested in righteousness. I'm interested in forgiveness
of sins. I can only find those things
in one person. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm a seeker. I'm a seeker. To enter the outer
court of the tabernacle, you had to come to the gate. There's
no other way to get in. This is where we seek God. I know we seek His righteousness,
we seek His mercy, we seek His forgiveness, we seek His salvation. But it's not just the gifts that
we seek. Now hear me well. It's not just
the gifts that we seek, it's the giver of the gifts. That's
the one to seek. Because if you seek and find
Him, all the gifts that are in Him, they are yours. You see? Somebody says, well, I seek forgiveness.
That's good. But where are you going to find
it? Well, I'll tell God I'm sorry. That's not good enough. There has to be some kind of
atonement made. An atonement that God will receive. Well, who offers that atonement?
Who has atoned for sin? Who has reconciled folks like
us to God? Who has dealt with the justice
of God on the behalf of guilty people? The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one you've got to seek.
Now you understand that, don't you? So as we go to the tabernacle,
we go there as seekers. Seekers. You see, there's no approaching
a holy God for anything except in, through, and by Christ Jesus. God's not going to come anywhere
near you, and you're sure not coming anywhere near God except
through Him. There is no approaching the God
of holiness for anything except you come to Him by the one appointed
way, Christ the gate unto God. Because if you miss the Lord
Jesus Christ, You miss God. And if you miss God, you miss
salvation. You miss salvation, you miss
everlasting life. You miss everlasting life, then
here's what you're left with. Everlasting condemnation. Now that's got to be clear to
all of you. Surely it is. So, I'm a seeker. Where am I going to go? I'm going
to go to the gate. I'm going to go to the gate.
Secondly, I'm a seeker. I go to the gate, but just going
to the gate is not enough because there's got to be the dealings
with a holy God on my behalf, an offering of a sacrifice that
I can have no part in. So, I go to the brazen altar
and that speaks, here's one word, substitution. At the gate of
the tabernacle, a seeker. At the brazen altar is substitution. God appointed the animals to
bring, the land animals to bring. Those that chewed the cud and
had a cloven hoof. So that's ox, cattle, sheep,
goats, rams, and then pigeons or turtledoves if you were poor
and you couldn't bring any of those cloven-footed animals. He brought one of those to the
brazen altar to a God-appointed priest. And you lay your hands on it.
You identify with that substitute. I know all to die, God. Have
you ever said that to the Lord and really meant it? Lord, I
have some idea what I deserve. I deserve to be separated from
you forever. But I come to you by that sacrifice
you appointed. I come to you on the basis of
a substitute. You see, those animals, they
died in the stead of the guilty. And they all pictured the Lord
Jesus. Why did He come down here? Not
to merely live a life of example, though He is the perfect example.
There's no question about that. Why did He die? Not to just show
us that we should be submissive to the will of God. Certainly
we should be. But He died for a reason. To
save His people from their sins. He died to deal with the issue
of God's justice that demanded from you and me death. And Christ
said, take me, kill me, let them go. That's substitution. You grasp that. You understand
that. I know you do. And every time an Israelite,
and let's say it's you. You go there to the gate. And the priest says, what are
you here for? And you say, I'm a seeker. I'm a seeker. What are you seeking? I'm seeking
to worship God. Where's the sacrifice you're
going to offer? And maybe his little boy and
little girl's got a rope tied around a lamb's neck. This lamb
right here. And I'm telling you, there is
one substitute for sinners. He's called the Lamb of God. He lived, He died for sinners. He was our substitute. For us,
He died. I identify with that substitute.
I identify with Him in this way. I deserve to die. Do you deserve
to die? Surely you do. Aren't you thankful
one died in your stead? Substitute. And then you go,
and let me say this, here's the answer, this substitution, here's
the answer to the questions that were raised of old time. In the book of Job, how can man
be just with God? How can he be clean that is born
of a woman? This is the way. Substitution. One dies in your stead. That
one who dies in your stead, he's got to be equal with God and
meet all of God's demands, but he's got to be associated with
you. That's why our Lord came down here. Well then, if we were allowed
to go further, we'd go to the brazen laborer. One word. We got a seeker. We were a seeker
back there at the gate. Substitution at the brazen altar. Now we go to the brazen labor
and it speaks of sanctification. The washing of the water by the
Word of God. The washing of the Gospel. Are
you washed in the blood of the Lamb? We sing that a lot of times. What can wash away my sins? The answer is found in the gospel
of substitution and satisfaction. The gospel of our Lord Jesus'
death, burial and resurrection. And the Lord bathes us in that
gospel. He washes us and we're clean. Sanctification. See, sanctification
has twofold meaning in the Bible. First of all, to set apart for
consecration. The Lord takes that which is
ordinary and He sets it apart for His own glory. So we were
sanctified in Christ Jesus before the world was made. God set us
apart. We're just ordinary just like
everybody else. but God set apart a people for
His own glory. Then secondly, it means to make
that which is impure, to be pure. To wash that which is filthy
and defiled, make it clean. This is what Paul said to the
people of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6. He talked about all the various
sins and vices that these people had been in before conversion. He said, "...and such were some
of you, but you're washed." That's what he says. You're washed. You're sanctified. But you're justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God. I'm a seeker. I'm interested
in substitution and sanctification. And then I come to the door of
the tabernacle proper. And there's the entrance. You know, the tabernacle, that's
the dwelling place of God. I want to go in. I want to meet with God. It's the
entrance. You've got to go through that
outer veil. Because Christ is the way. He's
the door. He said, I'm the door. By Me,
if any man enter in, he shall be saved. Go in and out and find
pasture. Here's the entrance into the
presence of God. The entrance into the holy place.
Christ Jesus. He's the door. He's the door. And then there's a table of showbread. As I enter in through that outer
veil, that door, I see a table of showbread with 12 loaves of
bread on it. And I think of fellowship with
the Lord. Christ said, I'm that bread that
came down from heaven. He said, I'm the bread of life.
Those of you who are true worshipers, don't you hunger and thirst after
fellowship with the Lord? And we eat the bread of fellowship,
the bread of communion. I think about the disciples.
After our Lord's resurrection, you know, they left the ministry. Peter said, I go fishing. What
he means is I'm going back into the fishing business. I'm leaving
the preaching business. I'm going into the fishing business.
But our Lord wouldn't let them go. And He went after them. And
of course, there's fishing. He said, you caught any fish?
And they said, no. He said, well, try the other
side of the boat. Oh, boy, they caught a bunch.
And he said, well, come on up. I've already got some supper
for you. He said, come and dine. Come and dine. Who were they
going to dine with? The Savior. They're going to
eat with Christ Jesus. And you know, in a very real
sense this morning, we have before us the feast of the Gospel. The
feast of wonderful things. And the Lord says to His people,
come and dine. Are you hungry? Come and dine.
Are you thirsty? Come and drink. Job read to us,
Ho, everyone that thirsteth. Come on! Are you hungry? Come and dine. This speaks to
me of fellowship. Will He fellowship with me? I'm
just a poor old sinner. He says, yes, I'll fellowship
with you. Do you know what the Pharisees, do you know what upset
them almost more than anything else? That the Lord Jesus would
eat and drink with sinners. He had fellowship with sinners.
Folks like us. Isn't that amazing? What amazing
grace is this? And then there's the golden lampstand. And of course, the one word for
this is illumination. Each morning and each evening,
Aaron the high priest, he would go in and he would maintain the
lamps. After all, without that light,
you couldn't see the bread on the table. Without that light,
you couldn't see the altar of incense. Why, without that light,
you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. And you see
our Lord Jesus, He is the great illuminator. He said, I am the
light of the world. We're in the dark. We're in the
dark as to who God is. And you know what? He who in
the beginning said, let there be light, He graciously speaks
to the innermost being of a sinner. And He says, now let there be
light. And then you get a glimpse of the holiness of God. And you
say, oh my. Oh my. He's too holy for me to
approach. And in the illuminating grace
of the Lord Jesus, you see yourself. You say, I'm such a vile sinner. And then the great illuminator
shows you Himself, the Savior of sinners. He enlightens people. Do you need enlightenment? Well, we all do. Well, come to
the light. That makes sense, doesn't it?
You need light, come to the light. Don't stay in darkness. Come
to the light. And then, we come to the golden
altar of incense. And the one word here is intercession. Every morning, Aaron would burn
incense on the golden altar of incense. He prayed for the people. Our Lord Jesus prays for poor
sinners like us. He's gone back to glory and He
makes intercession for us. And He presents to the Father
even our attempts to worship right now. He presents to the Father the
prayers, the prayer that Joe prayed, the prayer that I prayed,
He presents to the Father the hymns that we sang and the motives
behind the singing. And you know and I know there's
sin in all that we do. That's just a fact. But our Lord Jesus, He removes
all that sinfulness. He prays for us. He says, now
Father, here's their worship. Here's their thanksgiving. Here's
their prayers. Here's their Bible reading. Here's
their singing. Here's the preaching of the pastor.
Here's the reception of the Word by the people. Here they are,
Father. I have washed them in My blood. And I put the fragrance of My
own righteousness upon them. And the Father says, I accept
their worship and all that they do through You. Here's intercession. He sits
upon His throne of glory because He finished the work of redemption,
but He doesn't sit idle. He remembers us and He's working
all things together for our good. And then, we weren't allowed to do
this, but if we could have been allowed, we'd go behind the veil
and we'd see the Ark of the Covenant. And the word that comes to my
mind is holiness. Holiness. That's God's law. Demands perfection. God won't
settle for anything else. God's law. But wait a minute,
it's in a box. It's being kept safe. And I tell
you, God's only begotten Son came into this world to honor
God's law. He kept it safe. He kept it perfectly. Kept it perfectly. And then on
top of the Ark of the Covenant is a lid. The mercy seat. And the word
that I think of here is satisfaction. Because you see that animal that
died back out there at the brazen altar and the blood was caught
by Aaron on the Day of Atonement. He goes into the Holy of Holies
and he takes his finger and he dips it in that blood and he
sprinkles the mercy seed and God is satisfied. The Bible word for that is He's
propitiated which is a long word that means God is satisfied. He's satisfied with the blood
of His Son, with His death. So I'm a seeker. And I meet Him out there at the
brazen altar and at substitution, and all the way from substitution
back into the Holy of Holies at the mercy seat, there's satisfaction. God is satisfied with that substitute. And I'll tell you what, I'm thankful
for this substitute, aren't you? This is the God I seek. This
is the salvation I seek after. This is the Son of God. The One
who loved me and gave Himself for me. So, here we go. Are you a seeker? I seek the Lord, don't you? And
I rejoice that He is my brazen altar. He's my substitute. For me, He died. His blood on the mercy seat and
the Holy of Holies satisfied God. And that's the only thing
that will satisfy God's blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
come to Him on the basis of the shed blood of Christ. Christ
crucified. And you'll find the Lord. And
then when you find the Lord, you'll learn this. You'll discover
this. You sought Him, but He sought you first. It's all due
to Him. Let's get our psalm books. We'll
sing a closing song. Three. Let's sing, Take the Name
of Jesus.