the message. Our Father, it is such a privilege
to speak to you and to know of your everlasting love for your
covenant people. As evidenced by the gift of the
Lord Jesus, your only begotten Son, who is the only Savior of
the sinful. We rejoice that He who came to
this earth willingly laid down His life for His sheep. And He who laid that life down
took it to Himself again. having finished the work of redemption
and reconciliation that you had assigned unto Him from before
the foundation of the world. And having removed our sins and
separated them from us as far as the East is from the West,
He then was buried and took his life again. He took himself out
of that grave by his own authority and by his own power. And then
he went back to glory where our Savior and our dearest friend
ever rules and reigns over all things for the good of your people.
What a marvelous Savior we have. And Lord, we do rejoice in Him. And oh, the joy that fills the
hearts of all the people of God when they exit this life and
immediately are in the presence of the Savior to see Him face
to face and never to be separated from His presence. So we bow
to You and we worship. Lord, this is such a serious
time of the service. The preacher needs Your help,
and Lord, the hearers need Your help. Unless Your Spirit works in us
and among us, lasting benefit will come of
this meeting. But Lord, You have said where
two or three gather together in Your name, You'd be in the
midst. So believing Your Word, laying
a hold of Your promise, we fully embrace that glorious Word that
You're with us by Your Spirit. And I not only pray for these
who are in this room, but for those who are joining us. Lord, I pray for each one of
them. There's no way I can know who is joining us and worshiping
You with us, but Lord, You know each one. You know the burdens
that all of Your people bear. and you know the word that we
need this morning. And I ask you to enable me to
deliver the message that I believe you have laid on my heart. So
may your great name be magnified, may your dear son be lifted up,
and may the spirit of God work in all of us effectually. performing
that which you have purposed to do. We ask these things for
Jesus' sake. Amen. In our studies of the tabernacle
in the wilderness, It has been necessary each week, of course,
to do some repeating. And we have several teachers
in our congregation, some retired, some we'll call them active duty. We all understand who are teachers
or who were teachers, that it is necessary always to keep repeating. We may introduce something new,
but it will be based on some of the things that we have already
said. And I read in the book of Philippians,
chapter 3, this is what the apostle said to the people in Philippi
to the believers. He said, finally, my brethren,
to write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not grievous. It's not irksome. It is not in
any way boring to me or tiresome to me, but he says for you it's
safe. It's safe. These things, the
gospel of our Lord Jesus, protects the children of God from error,
reminding us of the very truth of God. So I make no apology
today or ever for repeating things that you've already heard. Actually, we just have one message
of the gospel, so repetition is obvious. There has to be repetition. There's only one God. There's
only one Savior. There's only one salvation. There's
only one atonement by the bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. And we read in 1 Corinthians
2, Paul said, For I determined not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Well, if that's all he knew among
them, he did a lot of repeating. And we must do that. We must
do that. I dare not introduce you to another
Christ, to another savior, to another gospel. So we keep presenting
this wonderful message over and over again about the one who
tabernacled in our flesh and who then offered himself to God
as that perfect sacrifice that did indeed put away the sins
of his people. And so we're back to the subject
of the tabernacle in the wilderness, which pictured our Lord Jesus,
his person, and his work, or the results of the work, the
effect of the work that he did for us. And we know that through
all of these sacrifices that were offered on the brazen altar,
there weren't any of them that could put away sin. The blood
of bulls and goats could not bring men unto God. They couldn't
take care of one sin, much less the multitude of all of the sins
of all of God's people of all of the ages. But they all pictured
that death of the Lord Jesus by which He brought us unto God. This study of the tabernacle
in the wilderness is vital. for it keeps before us these
various pictures of our Lord Jesus." Now, I would ask you
this question, when was it that God gave to Moses the instructions
regarding the building of the tabernacle and the services of
God in the tabernacle? When did God give those blueprints
unto Moses? Well, it was after they had put
their voices together and said, all that God has said for us
to do, we will do. Right here in Exodus, you're
in chapter 19. God says in verse 5 to Israel,
He says this to Moses, and Moses delivers the message to the elders
of Israel. Now therefore, if you will obey
my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall you be a peculiar
treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And
ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and in a holy nation. These are the words, Moses, which
thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. This is a covenant
of works. That's what this is, a covenant
of works. God says, I will if you will. That's a covenant of
works. Now look at verse seven. And
Moses, he came and called for the elders of the people. many
representatives of the children of Israel. He laid before their
faces all of these words which the Lord commanded him. And all
the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath
spoken we will do. They entered into a covenant
with God. We understand according to this
covenant If we obey you, if we do everything you tell us to
do, there will be mercies for us, blessings for us that is
of a physical nature. And we know how that turned out.
They didn't keep their promise. While they had gone through the
Red Sea and sang the song of redemption, and then before long,
they were hungry, And they said to Moses, we wish we were back
in Egypt eating from those flesh pots. We had all we could eat. We had bread. Bread to just eat
until we were full. And God, rather than striking
them all dead, He gave them manna from heaven. They got to Rephidim
and they were thirsty. Again, they murmured against
God. They're always breaking God's covenant. They're always
breaking God's law. Man can't keep the covenant of
works. You do not want a salvation conditioned
on your obedience. You don't want anything to do
with that. But see, this is their thinking to begin with. But then when they get thirsty,
they're murmuring against God, and God gave them water from
the rock. So over and over again, they revealed their inability
to keep this covenant. Notwithstanding their inabilities,
God presents to them what He's going to do. He's going to have
a tabernacle. He's going to have a sanctuary
among them. He said, I will dwell among you. Build me a sanctuary that will
be the house of God. Israel was no good as a nation,
just like we're no good as a people. They were a sinful people. They
were a wretched people. There was no possibility that
they could keep the commandments of God. They could not do that.
Though they said all that the Lord says we will do, they meant
well, but that was an impossibility. And so God is going to introduce
to them, by way of this tabernacle in the wilderness, the only way
by which he can be at peace with men, and they at peace with him. He's going to introduce to them
the tabernacle in the wilderness, which is a beautiful picture
of our Lord Jesus. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. This tabernacle was
quite ordinary looking from the outside, It looked like any other
tent covered with badger skins. But that's where God is going
to meet men, and men were going to meet with God. And our Lord
Jesus looked very much like any other man who lived in His day
when He visited this earth. He looked like any other man,
but that was the God-man. And just like that tabernacle
in the wilderness inside of the holy place and the holiest of
all, there was beauty that is beyond description. And so it
is with our Savior. He has a glory. He has a beauty. He has an excellence within Him
that no man, no woman, no man could ever comprehend for He
is God. He joined the human flesh. And
He dwells among us. I have just two things to point
out to you this morning back in this passage that Ron read
to us in Exodus chapter 27. Here's the title of the message.
A fence and a gate. That's it. A fence and a gate.
That's what I want to talk to you about. You see, all the way
around the tabernacle, except for a 30-foot wide opening at
the east end of the tabernacle, all the way around was a linen
fence, beautiful and white. Wow, how it must have stood out
to the people. The brownness of the sand, the
drab look of the top of the tent. And yet, when you look down at
that fence, all the way around the tabernacle except for the
gate, when you looked at that fence, it was absolutely white. What a contrast. What a stark
difference between everything else and here's this linen fence. It represented, first of all,
the holiness of that one who made the tabernacle his sanctuary. God is in himself pure and holy. The Israelites were on the outside. They were sinful, they were full
of iniquity. That white linen fence, beautiful. Beautiful. Reminding them there
is a separation between you and God. And that separation is first
of all His own holiness. His own purity. This is the perfections of God. And the people of Israel, they've
already proved, as we have already proved, we're anything but perfect. You put the word perfect down,
well, we're the exact opposite. We're imperfect in every single
way. There stood that white linen
fence. And I'm sure they wondered, as
this linen fence was going up, put around, going up the south
side and then the west end. The west end, that's where the
Holy of Holies was now. Just kind of keep that in mind.
There's that white fence, the south side. There it is, the
west side. Coming back down the north side,
coming in a few feet on either side, 15 feet. on either side of the gate, all that whiteness reminding
the people, everything God is, we aren't. And everything we are is just
sin. You see, folks, our problem isn't
just sins. It is sin. That's what we are. That's the root of the problem. You see, an infant born into
this world is born guilty because he's born with a sinful nature
that we all had when we came into this world and which we
all still possess. and we'll never lose it until
we die, those of us who are the people of God. Only death will
separate that sinful nature from us. That fence was a continual
reminder of the separation between God and the sinful people. There
was a barrier, as it were. A barrier. It stood seven and
a half feet tall. You can't come to God that way.
You try to climb over that fence, you'll die. You're not going
to get to God that way. And I'll tell you something else,
that fence was so tall that a casual observer couldn't see what was
going on in there. You know what was going on in
the tabernacle during the daytime? Well, in the outer court you
had the worshippers who were bringing their offerings to the
Lord and the priests killing them and shedding the blood and
burning them on the brazen altar, and then the priests going a
little further and washing their hands at the brazen laver, and
then inside, inside of the holy place, there's the table of showbread,
the altar of incense, and the golden candlestick, and there's
worship going on there. But one who was outside that
fence, a casual observer, he couldn't see any of the worship
going on. You could only be a worshiper
if you were in. Not looking on. And I wonder
this morning as here we gather and as you gather by your computer
or telephone or your cell phone, whatever the case may be, are
you just a casual observer? We're seeking to honor God. We're
seeking to worship the Lord Jesus, the only Savior. We have been
brought to love Him because He loved us first, and we're thankful
for His substitutionary death, His justice satisfying death,
and we're involved in worship. Are you just a mere casual observer? Oh God, I don't want to be just
an observer. I want to be in this, don't you?
I want to be a participant in the worship of God. And I say, unless you come to
God by way of the Lord Jesus and His bloody death, you're
just a casual observer, and a casual observer is a lost person. But another thing about this
fence I wonder what was the reason that these Israelites were not
consumed by the glory of God who dwelt in the holy place,
in the holiest of all, rather. How could they be so close to
God? As they stood back and looked
at that fence, they saw at the west end, at the west end, they
saw this bright light coming out. It's called the Shekinah
glory. And they knew that indicates
the presence of God. How could they be so close to
God, who is a consuming fire, and yet not be consumed? So close, but not consumed. Well, I'll tell you something
about that white linen fence. It pictures something else. It
pictures the righteousness of a perfect Savior. That's why
we're not consumed. That's why we're not going to
endure the wrath of God forever and ever. We have a mediator. And in Israelite
standing there, not only is that white linen fence a picture of
the holiness of God, but it's a picture of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only reason you and I
are not consumed by God because of all of our sinfulness is because
we have a righteous One who stands between us and God. And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the mediator. He is our
official, legal, accepted mediator between us and a holy God. He's
our daysman. He's our go-between. He's the
one who offered something that will satisfy both God and us. He offered Himself in His humanity
for us. We had to have a man to represent
us because a man got us in this mess to begin with. but he's
got to have something to offer to God. And that which he offered
to God was his own life, his own bloody death. That white linen pictured the
righteousness of Christ. And as in your mind's eyes you
trace that white fence, there it goes down that side 150 feet
long, and then it comes across the west end where God is, 75
feet, coming back this way another 150 feet, as you observe that
long, fine twine linen fence. You'll notice that that fence
is held up by pillars of brass. Pillars of brass. And they're
set in sockets of brass. Do you know what brass represents?
Judgment and justice. Yes, there's the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He freely imputes to His people,
but that righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is grounded
upon, it's founded upon the judgment that He endured for us at the
cross of Calvary. And if you look at the very top
of all those pillars, those posts, at the very top of them, there
are fillets of silver Strips of silver. Some people say rods
of silver that tied it all together. What is silver a picture of in
the Scriptures? Redemption. Do you know where
this silver came from? Every Israelite male, 20 years
and above, had to present half a shekel of silver, pure silver,
to the Lord. And that silver was melted down
and made into fillets, strips, strips of silver that bound it
all together. It's redemption that binds it
all together, you see. Redemption that is founded upon
the satisfaction of God's judgment. That's what happened with the
cross of Calvary. Our Lord Jesus endured the heat
of God's wrath. But he who John said had feet
of fine brass, remember reading that in Revelation chapter 1?
He had feet of brass as though they burn in a fire, but weren't
consumed. The very fire of God's wrath
fell into the heart of the Son of God, but he bearing the judgment
of God bore it all. all of the fire of hell, all
of the wrath of God fell on him, but he being the perfect one,
and him satisfying justice, endured it all, till he consumed the
very judgment of God, and nothing was left. And by his bloody death,
he redeemed us. He redeemed us. down at the bottom of the fence. Notice here, Ron read this to
us. Look at verse 19. Down at the bottom of the fence
it says, all the vessels of the tabernacle and all the service
thereof and all the pens and all the pens of the court shall
be of brass. What are those? What are those
pens? They're stakes. You ever pitched
your tent? Go camping, you pitch a tent,
you got rope, you got stakes, you drive those stakes in the
ground, you tie ropes to it, right? All the way around the
tabernacle, here are all these ropes. And they're connected
to, they're tied to these stakes made of brass. It's all bound together. You
see, you cannot separate the justice of God when it's satisfied
from the righteousness that He freely gives to His people. We're
made the righteousness of God in Him. Well then, that brings
us to the gate. The gate to the tabernacle. There
was only one gate. Only one gate. The entrance to
the tabernacle sets forth Christ the only way to God. The gate
into the outer court was 30 feet wide and faced east. Get your bearings now. We're
at the very east end of the tabernacle. It's as though, let's say I'm
standing right in front of this big 30-foot wide curtain. I'm at the east entrance. I'm
as far east as you can get in the tabernacle. Way out yonder,
at the very back of the tabernacle, toward the west, that's where
God dwelt. The gate was at the east of the
tabernacle. If you wanted to worship God,
you had to go to the east end of the tabernacle because that's
the only entrance. Now it wasn't a door. It wasn't
a door. It was made of material, a covering. So therefore it was no lock on
it. If you're bringing, let's say,
a lamb, you want to worship God, you want to thank God, you want
to petition the Lord for something, and so you come to the gate of
the tabernacle in order to go through and then present your
sacrifice, your animal to the priest, you've got to get down
low and pull up a corner of that curtain. If you're going to come
to God, you're going to have to humble yourself, aren't you?
There's no door. Not as we know a door. And you
know what? There's no lock on it. Anyone
who wanted to come and worship God may freely come. Do you want
to worship God? Would you be one who honors God? There's no lock on the door.
Come to the Savior. Come to the Savior. Don't bring
an animal. If you want to worship God, don't
bring an animal. Don't bring anything that you've
had anything to do with. Bring Christ Jesus. That's how
you come to God. You come to God through His Son. Yes, this entire tabernacle,
it was surrounded by a solid white linen fence. But this entrance, you couldn't
miss it. It'd be impossible to miss it.
Here's this white, you walk this way, walk down that way, you
walk that way, and you walk back this way, and then you come back
this way toward the entrance. Everything is solid white except
for this big curtain. This big curtain that hangs on
four pillars. also set in brass, also in sockets
of brass, and also having stakes of brass. There's one place to come, one
entrance, and you can't miss it. It's so beautiful. It's so glorious. It's blue and purple, scarlet
and white. Blue, Christ came from above. He came from heaven. Scarlet. Scarlet. Or purple, second. He's the king. He's the royal one. Thirdly, scarlet. That's his
bloody death. And then, white. White. That's his perfect righteousness. You want to come to God? Is there
anybody here this morning? What about you out there? Watching
by the computer. You want to come to God? I see
that white fence. the barrier of God's holiness? I dare not try to cross it. But
I'm reminded that that barrier also represents there's a mediator
for folks like me. Can I get in? Come to the gate. Bend down. Pull up a corner. And come on in. There's an entrance. Yes, if you wanted to worship
God, you had to go to this gate. Let's say, again, for sake of
illustration, I'm standing at the gate. I'm standing here at
the covering. I'm as far east as you can get
for the tabernacle. I want to worship God. He's over
there to the west. Over to the west. In order to
face God toward the West, I got to turn my back on everything
back East. So what's the significance of
that? You know what was back East?
Egypt. You know what the Egyptians,
you know how they worshipped? They worshipped idols. And their
greatest idol was Ra, the sun god. Where does the sun rise? In the east. You must turn your back on the
religions of this world. If you're going to worship God,
you can't have two masters. Bunyan, for those of you who've
read Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan mentions briefly a man in there,
Mr. Face Both Ways. You can't face
both ways. You either face God through the
Lord Jesus Christ, or you turn your back on God and look at
the idols of the world. Which is it going to be? Let
me show you a very interesting passage of Scripture. Go to the
book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel, and go to chapter 8
of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 8. Here the Lord
takes Ezekiel to the temple. Now we know the tabernacle was
no more then. The temple had replaced it. But
still, there was an eastern gate. So the Lord takes Ezekiel to
the temple, which was, of course, patterned after the tabernacle,
though quite a bit larger. And God exposes the rottenness
of the leaders of the Israelites. Now look at chapter 8 and verse
13. He, the Lord said unto me, turn
thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that
these do. Then he brought me to the door
of the gate of the Lord's house, which was toward the north. And
behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. That was the idol
of the God of the shepherds. God said, you see what these
women are doing? They're worshiping Tammuz, the
god of the shepherds. We'll look at verse 15. Then
said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee
yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner
court of the Lord's house, and before, and behold, at the door
of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, there
were five and 20 men with their backs toward the temple, get
this, with their backs toward the temple and their faces toward
the east, and they worshiped, they worshiped
the sun toward the east. What an abomination. What an
abomination. They're looking back to the idols
of Egypt, rather than to the God of glory, rather than to
the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners. Now I ask you this morning,
have you turned your back on the idols, back to the East? Are you facing the Lord? It can't
be both ways. Let me tell you something, you
can't hold on to free grace and free will. That's Mr. Face Both
Ways. You can't do that. You can't have a salvation that's
all of God but, well, partly of man. That's Mr. Face Both
Ways. The Lord said, the Lord Jesus
said, no man can serve two masters. You can't serve two masters.
You'll either love the one and hate the other, or hate the one
and love the other. But you can't love two. It's time for a verdict, like
Brother Barnard used to say. It's time for a verdict. You
gonna worship God? If you gonna worship God, that
means you turn your back on everything else. Everything else. Because everything else is idolatry. Everything else is an abomination
to God. If you're going to turn away
from the Lord and face idolatry, you may as well be worshiping
a rock or a tree or anything else. Because you'll be damned
for doing it. Oh God, This is my prayer. Bring us all to that eastern
gate. Do you see the loveliness of
the Lord Jesus? You want to come to God? You
come to God by that one sacrifice that God offered. The sacrifice
of His Son. That's how you come to God. There's no mistaking it. There's
just one gate. There's just one way in. Christ
said, I am the way. Mary isn't the way. Some dead
saint isn't the way. The church isn't the way. Walk
in the aisle and make a profession isn't the way. This is a new
and living way. The only way. A tried and true
way. Christ Jesus the Lord. God, bring
us to Him to worship God through the Lord Jesus in spirit and
in truth. Let's pray. Thank You, Father,
for the privilege of gathering together this morning to exalt
Your Son. We ask that You take the words
that have been spoken And Lord, make them to be life to someone
who's dead in trespasses and sins. Oh, thank You for Christ
our Savior. And Lord, once again, all of
Your people, we turn our backs on idolatry. We detest false
religion. We love the Lord Jesus Christ. We love salvation Your way. by grace through the redemption
that is in our Lord Jesus. And we thank you for these beautiful
pictures that you've left on record for us to see and get
a glimpse again of our Savior. So bless the word to the glory
of your name and for the good of our souls. For Jesus' sake,
amen.