and she reminded me that Brother
Todd Nybert's dad passed away, and he used to, when they all
lived in Ashland, he used to attend here, and I've never met
him. But she was telling me, he's
just an outstanding man. And, of course, when Brother
Ha moved to Lexington, then they moved. And you say he's been
in a nursing home for some time. And he also has gone home to
glory. And so we remember all the family
of Nioberts and ask God's blessings on our brother as he preaches
his dad's funeral. Exodus chapter 25, verse 31. Thou shalt make a candlestick
of pure gold. A beaten work shall the candlestick
be made. His shaft and his branches and
his bowls and his knops and his flowers shall be of the same."
The knops and the flowers were kind of ornamental. The bowl
was for the olive oil to be kept in and of course they put a wick
in that olive oil and thus the wick fed off the pure olive oil
that had been provided by Israel. Verse 32. and six branches shall come out
of the sides of it. three branches of the candlestick
out of the one side and three branches of the candlestick out
of the other side. Three bowls made like in two
almonds with a knop and a flower in one branch and three bowls
made like almonds in the other branch with a knop and a flower. so in the six branches that came
or come out of the candlestick. And in the candlestick shall
be four bowls made like an almonds with their knops and their flowers. There shall be a knop under two
branches of the same and a knop under two branches of the same
and a knop under two branches of the same according to the
six branches that proceed out of the candlestick. Their knops
and their branches shall be of the same, and it shall be of
one beaten work of pure gold. And thou shalt make the seven
lamps thereof." Of course, there's the main stand that went up,
and there was the seventh one. And, "...thou shalt make the
seven lamps thereof." They shall light the lamps thereof, that
they may give light over against it. And of course they had the
tongs thereof, and snuff dishes thereof shall be of pure gold,
of a talent of pure gold. Shall he make it with all these
vessels? And look thou that thou make
them after their pattern which was showed thee or manifested
to thee in the mount." Interesting piece of furniture here. A golden
candlestick. Let's bow and ask God's blessings
again. Our Father, we so desire for
Your Spirit to be with us today, to take the things of our Lord and
to show them unto us. We thank You for our Lord Jesus
Christ, and we know that in the Word of God, all roads lead to
Him. And as we meet this morning and
consider this vessel of pure, beaten gold, may we have an understanding
from the Spirit of God that our Lord Jesus is the light that
must pierce our darkness. O Spirit of grace, reveal to
us the Lord Jesus. May the things of this world
grow dim in the majestic brightness and brilliance of the glorious
Son of God. We ask, O God, that You would
speak to each of us, enable us to adore You, to honor You, to
bless You, to see that You're the One who provided the light
of the world. For as we read, Lord, You are
the Father of lights. And it makes no difference what
kind of light we speak of, whether it be natural light, the sun,
the stars that shine. Lord, You created these things.
and certainly all spiritual light must emanate from You. So we ask You, O Lord, to shine
the light of the Gospel into our hearts that we might see
the brilliance and the wonders, the perfections of our Lord Jesus
and that we would by faith embrace Him, we would run to Him for
salvation. Oh God, pierce our spiritual
darkness, we ask. Bring us into the wonderful light
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed we pray for Jesus' sake,
Amen. Throughout the Word of God, there's
always a distinction, of course, made between light and darkness,
and we don't have to go very far in the Word of God before
we're presented the nature of the natural situation in which
we find ourselves, and then the goodness of God who provides
light. We read in Genesis chapter 1
as Moses relates to us the story of God's marvelous creation,
that darkness was upon the face of the deep. And then God said,
let there be light. There would have been no light
had not God spoke. And then throughout the Word
of God, on and on you can go, throughout the Book of God. And
you'll find that there's darkness and there's light. And the condition
in which all of us find ourselves by nature is we're in spiritual
darkness. We can't see who God is. Not
really. Oh, we can get a glimpse of Him
from the creation that He has made, the creation of God. That tells forth His majesty,
the handiwork, His wisdom. But we're pretty much in the
dark concerning God. In the Bible, darkness is symbolic
of error. ignorance, of course, sinfulness,
and death. And all of those words sum up
our spiritual condition quite accurately. We are in the dark. There is no light for us. No
light to see who God is. No light to see His holiness. No light to see the majesty of
His person. No light to see His righteousness
and His demands that we be righteous. We have no light to see our own
dilemma. We have no idea how bad off we
are. In fact, even those of us who
have been given light to have some perception of our sinfulness,
we still know very little about the depth of our depravity, but
by nature, we really know nothing. We know nothing of our alienation
from God. We know nothing of how separated
we are from the Holy One. We have no knowledge of our wickedness,
our constant depravity. We have no understanding. We
just cannot see that every single thing that we do in this body is darkness. It's all iniquity. It's all evil. Before God the
Spirit comes to us and shows us what we are, we have no comprehension
of the vast distance between us and a holy God. As the Lord
Jesus, or as Abraham rather, said to the rich man who died
and he went to hell and the beggar had gone into paradise. Abraham
said, there's a gulf fixed. And I'll tell you there is a
gulf fixed between us and God that no man, no effort, no work,
no deed can ever bridge that distance. We're in the dark. And we have no way to cause the
light to shine. Oh, there is the light of the
glory of God. There is the light of His majesty. There is the light of His wonderful
countenance. There is the light that He gives
to poor sinners, blinded by nature, blinded by Satan. There is light
that He gives, but we can't force His hand. I can't force God to
give light. and in my natural darkness I
will ever remain, ignorant of who God is, ignorant of myself,
and ignorant of the only remedy by which God saves sinners. I'm in the dark. All men and women and boys and
girls by nature, we're in the dark as to the necessity of the
Savior and His saving work. That's the reason men and women
all over the world in various churches and denominations, they
pursue their own road toward what they think is going to get
them to God and to heaven, but they don't come the only prescribed
way, which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You read the Word
of God. We read the Word of God and we
have been privileged to have light. And we see in the Word
of God that there is a way to God. There is a door. God does receive, He does accept
sinners. There's no question about it.
There's one way to God, Christ Jesus. But man will go, he will
endeavor to go any other way to God, any other way to heaven,
any other way to salvation, except the only way he can get there,
Christ Jesus. That's the only way. Why is it
that men and women, and you speak to your neighbors, you speak
to your family members about the things of God. Why is it
that they'll say things like, well, I have been baptized. as
if that is how you get to heaven. Or they'll say things like, well,
I know nobody's perfect, you know, but I live a pretty good
life. And they think that merits something
before God. Why do people make statements
like that? Why do people denounce the Word
of God? We were getting a few things
at a store last night. And two people were engaged in
a conversation that I couldn't help but overhear because both
of them were in some kind of Bible school or college or something. And they were talking about some
professor in the class that they were getting ready to take. And
that had to do with the deity of Jesus Christ. and that he,
this is what they said, that he ceased to be God when he left
heaven. And he said, I've read the notes
that the professor has given us, and one guy said, yeah, I'm
reading a book to try to help me understand, but he said, here's
the problem, that professor says he hates the Word of God. That's
what he said. He said, the professor says he
hates the Word of God. He said, don't use that as a
basis for what you're going to say about the deity of Jesus.
Well, if you hate the Word of God, there's no basis for any
truth. In fact, there's no basis for
anything that you say you believe except your own vain imagination. Why do people hate the Word of
God? Why do people ignore what's in
the Scriptures? Well, I can tell you why. They're
in the dark. They're in the dark, in spiritual
darkness. They're absolutely blind. Here's a professor, and usually
professors at least have a master's degree. I don't know what school
is. Probably he's got his PhD or PhD or some kind of D. I call
D for dummy, but he doesn't know any better. Well, here's an educated
man who says, I hate the Word of God. He said, well, man ought
to know better than that. Well, he should. You say you
believe the Word of God? Why don't you follow it? Christ
said, she sang in her song, the Lord Jesus said, come unto me
and I'll give you rest. Why don't you come to Him? You
say you believe the Word of God? See, I ain't so sure we believe
it either. I say we, in our natural condition, none of us do. And
none of us who are saved believe like we ought to. But if you
say you believe this is God's Word, this is what the Lord says,
and yet you won't come to Christ Jesus? You won't bow at His feet? You won't acknowledge His deity
and that He is the Son of God and the Son of Man who lived
and died to satisfy God's justice? You deny the way God saves sinners? Through a dying substitute? You may say you believe the Word
of God, but you don't really. Not really. Those who believe God's Word
believe and understand there is one Savior, the Lord Jesus. And of course, the reason there's
so many different denominational beliefs and all of that sort
of thing is because of the spiritual darkness in which we find ourselves. So, understand this. You can't
know who God is, not really. You can't know yourself. You
can't see the Savior. In His deity, in His... Humanity? In His perfections? In His obedience? In the necessity of Him offering
Himself as a sacrifice to God? You can't see these things because
you're in the dark. You can only see the necessity
of the Savior laying down His life and giving His life a ransom
to the justice of God for His people unless God gives you light. Oh God, send forth the light,
the light. As we continue to visit the tabernacle,
we now enter into the holy place. As you enter in, there on the
right, there's the golden table. That's the table of showbread. Has 12 loaves of bread on it.
and then on top of the bread, frankincense. All around that
table is a crown of gold. It's beautiful. It's breathtaking. I'll tell you something, without
that light, and nobody's going to see it. Nobody's going to
see it. Priests make hug and kiss his
wife goodbye and pat his kids on the head and say, I'm going
for my service at the tabernacle today. And he burned a sacrifice
out there for his own sins and then washing the brazen labor,
his hands and his feet, and then enter in. But if there's no light
inside, he won't see the brilliance and the wonders of the table
of showbread. You know why people can't see
the beauties of the Lord Jesus who is that Bread of Life? It's because they're in the dark.
They're in the dark. There's that gold shining brightly
and brilliantly. Can't see it though. There's
bread on the table, bread enough to eat. Can't see it. Gotta have light. And then as
you look straight forward, there's the altar of incense. That's
where that frankincense is going to be burned. The frankincense
that's on the showbread, that's where it'll be burned. Gives
a wonderful fragrance throughout the tabernacle. Altar of incense. Oh, it's wood covered with gold. Again, beautiful, beautiful.
There's the veil, glorious. Overhead, overhead cherubim. Oh, they're so magnificent. You
can't see any of it though without light. And so over on the left side,
there is the golden candlestick. It is really an unfortunate translation
that this is called the candlestick because there were no candles
back then. The earliest candles that men
have discovered were in China and that was like two to three
hundred years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. No
candles. This is not really a golden candlestick
and I wished our King James translators had not translated it that way.
It should have been a better translation would have been the
golden lamp stand. John Gill, whose comments I respect,
He said he thinks this is a carryover, a translator's little carryover
of the grave clothes of Romanism. To get the candles in there.
Burn the candles. And of course, most religions
today, it's about candle burning. Candle burning. So, we'll call
this the golden lamp stand. because there were no candles. As I said, there's the olive
oil, olive oil that had been beaten, and there's the oil in
the little bowl, and there's a wick there, and they'd come
in and light that wick, and the olive oil would provide the fuel
for the light of that. This golden candlestick was made
of beaten gold. Beaten, pure gold. It was itself
beautiful to behold. It is the light giver in the
tabernacle. Those men were thankful for the
light, but especially they were thankful for the golden candlestick
or the lampstand. because that was the giver of
the light. And what I want you to see this
morning is that we're thankful for the light that God gives
us. Walk in the light as He is in
the light. And we have fellowship one with
another. And the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. Walk in the light of God's
Word. In thy light we shall see light
is what the Scripture says. but you can't even see the beauty
of the golden lampstand unless it gives forth light. It's exquisite. Now let me give
you three things briefly. First of all, this lampstand
is a symbol of our Lord Jesus who is, he says of himself, he
said it two times in John 8 and in John 9, I am the light of
the world. Secondly, the lampstand is a
symbol of the Holy Spirit, the great illuminator. And thirdly,
I'll go to that passage Ron read for us to begin with out of Revelation
1. It's a symbol of the church of
our Lord Jesus. which is God's light in this
world. First of all, the lampstand is
a symbol of Christ who is the light of the world. If you'll
notice here in verse 31, I want to point this out to you, and
that is the word, His. Thou shalt make a lamp, a candlestick,
a pure gold, a beaten work shall the candlestick be made. Watch
this, his shaft, that's the shaft coming up the middle, and his
branches, and his bowls, his knops, and his flowers shall
be of the same. Here's a personal pronoun. And Moses is led of the Spirit
of God to write it this way. He is, he is, he is, he is, he
is. This is a continual reference
to somebody. And you have heretofore read
the Word of God in vain if you haven't seen that all things
in this book are about Him. It's His person. It's His work. It's His magnificence. That's
what the book of God's all about. Notice it's a lampstand of pure
gold having no dross or impurity. It's made of one talent of gold. Here's how much a talent of gold
is, 120 pounds. But just out of curiosity, I
googled, I googled this, I just did this Friday, what was the
rate of gold, an ounce of gold, last Friday. Now some of you
gold investors, you could probably snap off the answers just like
that. I may have a little bit in this ring. I don't have much,
but I have a little bit of gold right here. That's all the gold
I got. But at Friday's price, $1,806 an ounce, which makes this golden lamp
stand at today's prices worth about $300, no $300, Million. Three and a half million
dollars. Three and a half million dollars,
roughly. Now if you do the math, it's
not exactly that, so don't take me to task on that. I'm just
kind of rounding it up. You're permitted to do that in
math sometime. I'm just rounding it up a little
bit. And what this tells us is exquisite value. This is what we're to understand.
This is of tremendous value, and who can set forth the true
value of the Lord Jesus? You read again in 1 Peter 2,
to the Father, He is elect and precious. God calls Him precious. And to those of you who believe
He's precious to us, He's more than all the gold in the world.
There's a preciousness about our Lord Jesus. And though we were once in religious
darkness and pagan darkness with no light, He shined the light
of the Gospel into our hearts. And now we see. And the first
thing we see is Him. We see Him. And throughout our
lives as children of God, we're growing in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. and we shall see him one day
and we shall see him in the fullness of his beauty and in his value. But here's something else about
this lampstand. It was not only a pure gold having
no dross or impurities, and of course our Lord had no dross,
no impurities, no spot, no wrinkle. The second thing is, it was a
lampstand of beaten gold. It wasn't beaten gold. It wasn't
molded like the golden cap that Aaron made for Israel, which
we'll get to in just a few chapters. It wasn't molded. It was heated and hammered. Heated
and beaten. And all the while, it remained
pure gold. How did our Lord Jesus come to
be? God's light to us. How did he
come to be the light of the world? He was heated by the wrath of
God. As he hung on the cross of Calvary,
bearing the sins of all of his people, the justice of God fell
on him. The heat of the fury of the vengeance
of God fell on him and God beat him. He beat his soul. Old men
beat his body. There's no question about that.
But God beat his soul. And all the while, now get this,
all the while, even when being beaten and hated, it still remained
pure gold. Pure gold. It didn't change the
composition of the gold. And even when our Lord Jesus
hung on the cross, enduring infinite wrath in the stead of His people,
He who was pure gold when He was nailed to that cross of Calvary,
He remained pure gold through being heated and beaten and wounded
for our transgressions. Therefore, He was a sacrifice
of a sweet savor unto God. And He who is altogether precious
to God in us, He's made precious to us by the
Spirit of God who causes us to see that He was wounded and bruised
and beaten for our sins. And thirdly, it was a glorious
lampstand in Christ's glorious light of the world One time when
our Lord went up on a mount called the Mount of Transfiguration,
He went up there with Peter, James, and John. And as He was
standing before them, Matthew said, all of a sudden His face,
it shined like the sun. Like the sun. And his raiment
was white as light. Mark says, his raiment became
shiny, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can
whiten them. And Luke says, the fashion of
his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and
glistering. Just radiating light. Light radiating
from the Savior He is light Himself. And thank God, light radiates
from Him. He gives light to us. He is the light of the world.
In John chapter 9, a man was born blind, and our Lord healed
him. And He told the people, He said,
I'm the light of the world. I enlighten people who are born
in spiritual darkness. And you know the scripture says
that this lamp stand was put within the holy place and could
only be seen by those appointed to God to enter into that room.
Thank the Lord He has appointed people to see the glory of that
light. God's people are going to see
the glory of the light of Christ. Who are His people? Well, they've
been His people from old eternity. He chose them in grace. Chose
us. God put us in Him. And by the
work of the Spirit, which we'll now get to, He shows us Christ
is the light. Which brings me to this point,
the Holy Spirit, the great illuminator, The golden lampstand gave forth
light, and it's the Spirit of God who gives forth light to
us. He shines the light of the Gospel
into our hearts. You see, the Spirit of Grace
was given, the Spirit of God was given as a result of the
redemptive work of our Lord Jesus. Had our Savior not suffered,
bled, and died, had He not been heated and beaten, There would be no salvation for
the Holy Spirit to reveal. There would be no grace and glory
for the Spirit of God to make manifest. Our Lord Jesus died
and as a result of His death, the Spirit of God comes along
and He illuminates and He quickens those for whom the Savior has
died. And then we see, then we see,
Our Lord Jesus, speaking in John 3 to Nicodemus, He said, except
a man be born again, he can't see the Kingdom of God. Why can't
he see the Kingdom of God? He's in darkness. All the things
of God are dark to him. All the things of this world
are light to him. But as far as eternity, the things
of God, of salvation, of grace, of glory, of Christ and His substitutionary
sacrifice, those things are dark. The Spirit of God has to reveal
to us God's way of salvation. The light of the lampstand revealed
the table of showbread with its twelve loaves. I'll tell you, apart from the
work of the Spirit of God, you're not going to see Christ as the
bread of life and eat of Him. The lampstand revealed the golden
altar of incense, but you won't appreciate Christ the Advocate,
Christ the High Priest, Christ the Mediator, unless the Spirit
of God gives you light. Well, what does the Spirit of
God use? The Word of the Gospel. You remember there in Luke chapter
15, one parable, three parts. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. The second part, the woman had
ten coins, one of them was lost. Ah, she took light and went searching
for it. That's what we need, the Spirit
of God to search for us and find us. Because we're so much in
the dark, we don't even know we're lost. We have no comprehension
of our natural condition. The Word of God is the instrument
that the Spirit of God uses to give light. Psalm 119, 130, the
entrance of thy Word giveth light. The entrance of thy Word giveth
light. And then lastly, go with me to
the book of Revelation again. That portion of scripture that
Ron read to us earlier, Revelation chapter 1. And here, other than in the tabernacle
and in the temple, this is the only other place in the Word
of God where candlesticks are mentioned. And of course, here
there are seven candlesticks. And all of these seven churches
of Asia Minor, they picture the church of our Lord Jesus Christ
at any time in this age in her various conditions. But he
says, John turned to hear a voice that spake with him. And look
at verse 12. He said, I turned to see the voice that spake with
me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, lampstands. And he said, I saw in the middle
of the seven candlesticks or lampstands one liken of the Son
of God. And then he describes him. He's
clothed with a garment down to the foot, a girt, and he's girt
about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs
were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were as a flame
of fire. By the way, speaking of the head
of our Lord Jesus, in Song of Solomon chapter 5, and I think
it's verse 11, speaks of the Lord Jesus and
His glories, says His head is as pure gold, as fine gold. That's the preciousness that
we see in the Lord Jesus by the enablement of the Spirit of God.
And here John says His head and His hairs were white as wool,
as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of
fire. And so he keeps on going down and our Lord Jesus gives
to John an interpretation of the things that he has seen.
And he says in verse 19, Write the things which thou hast seen,
and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter,
the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right
hand, and the seven golden candlesticks, who are the stars, preachers,
pastors. He goes on to say that the seven
stars are the angels of the seven churches. And of course, these
seven churches are symbolic of the Lord's church, His true church,
scattered throughout this gospel age. And these are golden. They're golden. You gotta like
that. Here's a local assembly. Here's
a local church. The meaning of church is a called
out assembly. Called out by God. Called out
of the world. Called out of darkness. Called
out of Satan. Called out of the wilderness
of false religion. Called into the light, the glorious
light of His truth. And here's this assembly that
meets. We're a golden candlestick. We're golden! Well, wait! We're talking about the golden
lampstand. As He is golden, so are we. Now take that home with you.
What does that mean? As He is righteous, so are we. 1 John says, John tells us, as
He is, so are we in this world, even right now. Even right now,
we're sons of God. Even right now, we're valuable,
we're pure, we're precious. Think of what it cost to purchase
us. The bloody death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is His golden church. This
is a golden church. I'm looking into the faces of
people, of men and women and young people that God the Spirit
has given you eyes to see. He's brought you into the light.
You've been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into
the kingdom of God's dear Son. That's the kingdom of light.
Now, walk as children of light. You're not children of darkness.
You're children of light. And we're precious. We're precious. And our business is to just keep
the light shining. That's our business. Keep the
light shining. Our Lord in His great Sermon
on the Mount, He said, you're like a city on a hill, can't
be hid. Here we are, we're up on a hill
here. We're up on the hill on 13th
Street. Well, what's our business? What
are we to be doing? Keep the light shining. We're like a lighthouse. You ever visited the lighthouses
around the coastline? We visited several of them in
Michigan, and of course, we've been to the Atlantic Ocean, and
we viewed some lighthouses there. Of what use are lighthouses?
To give direction for the safety of those who are traveling. You're
travelers through this world. You're sojourners through this
world, and this is a lighthouse to tell you, here is where the
The gospel of God's grace is to be heard. Here is where you
learn of Christ Jesus. Here is where you learn of the
things of God. We're a golden lampstand. What
do you think about that? What an honor, what a privilege
it is to be part of a golden lampstand. And to be blessed
of God, entrusted of God, with this message of light. Let me give you a final reference. It's in 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4. Look at verse 3. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, He is
the very shining light of God's countenance, should shine unto
them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord. And ourselves, your servants
for Christ's sake. Now look at verse 6. And I'm
pretty much finishing the message with the way I started it. For
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. In that
original darkness when God said, let there be light, and light
came into being. God who commanded the light to
shine or to beam forth out of darkness, what's He done? He's
shined in our hearts. He turned the lights on to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Our license tags for the state
of Kentucky has several sayings on it. One of them is, Cole keeps
the lights on, or something of that nature. Well, I'll tell
you who keeps the light on in our heart. It's our gracious
God. And here's the wonder and the
beauty of it. If he ever creates life within
us, He'll never take light away.
Isn't that wonderful? So we walk in the light. We're
not walking in darkness. Oh, there are a lot of things
that we don't understand, we don't comprehend, but we have
the light of the countenance of the Lord with us. And we rejoice
in Him. Let's close in prayer. Thank
You, Father, for the privilege of meeting together this morning.
Take the things of our Savior and, Lord, drive them into our
hearts. We're thankful that He is the
light who came into the world. And He is the light that the
Spirit of God reveals to us. He is the golden lampstand, Christ
Himself. in His purity, in His deity. He is the lampstand that gives
forth light. And now we understand that we
are lampstands in this world. We're one of them. Oh, there
are a lot of others. Small and large. But we are only
beneficial and useful as we shine the light of the gospel. so that travelers through this
world can come in here and find a safe haven of truth and gospel
and a revelation of the very message of grace to sinners through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So bless the words to each of
our hearts, Lord, we ask and pray for Jesus' sake. Amen. Have a good day and may
the Lord bless you.