for singing for us. They sang
at a funeral recently, and that was the song requested for them
to sing at the funeral. And they did such a good job,
and it so blessed me and others also. I asked them if they'd
sing that for us this morning, and I I certainly am appreciative
of their doing just that, and God blessed it to the hearts
of His people, so thank you so much. I'm going to begin this
morning in the book of Luke, and we'll go to the last chapter. And I'm just going to use this
kind of as a jumping off place. And then we're going to go back
to the book of Exodus, but look at Luke chapter 24. And I'll
read this scripture after we again see God's face in prayer. Lord, this is a very special
time for us when as a body of believers we come together and
we unite our voices to sing your praise and we unite our hearts
in worship. It's good to be in the house
of worship And we ask, O God, that this morning this will indeed
be a house of worship. We come, Lord, as empty vessels
wanting to be filled with Your grace and with Your mercy. We understand we can contribute
nothing to our salvation or to our righteousness. this glorious salvation and perfect
righteousness is of You. And so we bless You and we thank
You. We ask that You'd reveal the
Lord Jesus to all of us this morning that we may be made to
rejoice in who He is and all that He has done for poor sinners
like ourselves. Help us to enter into the worship
service with all of our hearts. And Lord, we bring to You this
morning our offering of thanksgiving, of gratitude for all of Your
mercies to us, and we bring to You the offering of worship. And we ask that the Spirit of
God will enable us to honor You during these next moments that
we spend together looking into Your Word. These things we ask
in the name of our Savior who is the only Mediator between
us and God. This One who is the man in Christ
Jesus. Amen. My subject this morning
is going to be Christ, the key to the tabernacle. But our Lord
Jesus is not only the key to the tabernacle, He's the key
to understanding the Word of God. Christ and Him crucified,
as you know, and you have been well instructed in this, He is
the message of all of the Word of God. I'm going to begin right
here in Luke chapter 24 and just kind of briefly give you a summary
of what is going on here. Our Lord Jesus has laid down
His life for the sheep. He has taken His life again.
He's been raised from the dead. And His disciples, His followers,
many of them were doubtful of His resurrection, didn't understand
the things that He had said to them regarding the necessity
of His death. and that he would be raised again.
And a couple of his disciples were walking in dismay and disappointment. And our Lord Jesus revealed Himself
to them. The two disciples were on the
road to Emmaus. And our Savior, He just came
walking up beside of them. And He made Himself known to
them. And that's what He has to do
to us. He's got to introduce Himself to us. He's got to make
Himself known to us. We're so ignorant, you would
think that we would naturally look for a Savior from our sinfulness,
but we don't, and we don't recognize Him when He's preached. We don't
understand why He had to die, that God might be just and justify
the ungodly. That's not something we understand. We hear preachers Sometimes they
talk about the physical agonies of the cross of Calvary and we
get all wrapped up in that and we forget that he had to suffer
deep within his soul in order to satisfy God. God bruised his
son, God punished his son, God laid stripes on the very soul
of our Lord Jesus Christ. There's the greatness of His
sacrifice, for by His offering of Himself unto God, He made
remission of our sins, He put away our sins, and He brought
in everlasting righteousness for all of His people. Well,
these two disciples, they're made aware now of who Jesus is,
and they said, would you abide with us? We beg of you to stay
with us. And then, look at verse 31. And their eyes were opened. Luke 24, 31. And their eyes were
opened, that is, the eyes of the mind, the eyes of the understanding,
They were open and they knew Him. Wouldn't it be wonderful
if God opened the eyes of our understanding this morning? The
eyes of our mind, the eyes of our souls, and we would know
Him. Know Him and the power of His
resurrection as we read in the book of Philippians. know Him
as the only Savior, know Him as the only Mediator between
God and men, that we would know Him. Oh Lord, open our eyes. Open our eyes. And then He vanished
out of their sight. Now look at verse 32. And they said one to another,
did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us by
the way while He opened to us the Scriptures. You know, and
I know, that our Savior is the key to God's Word. And indeed, as I want to show
you this morning, He is the key to understanding the tabernacle.
What is a key used for? Well, it is used to unlock that
which is locked, or it is used to lock something that you shouldn't
see or you shouldn't have. Now, our Lord Jesus is indeed,
He's the key, but He's the sovereign key. He may open to us of the
things of God or he may not. He is the key. He may unlock
to you the very treasures of his gospel. He may unlock to
you the glories of himself, the necessity of his sufferings upon
the cross of Calvary and his death. He may unlock to you that
this is the only, only way that sinners can be saved. He had
to die. He lived a life of perfection. There's no question about that.
But He's got to die. He had to shed His own blood. In other words, He had to suffer
as the sacrifice of God. And He, our Lord Jesus Himself,
whoever lives to make intercession for His people, He has the authority
and He has the power because He is the key He can unlock these
things to you that have been previously locked up. Now, He doesn't have to. This
is what I want you to see. He doesn't have to unlock these
things to you. He doesn't have to unlock knowledge
to you and wisdom to you and an understanding of the gospel
of His grace. He doesn't have to unlock for
you the glories of God, the character of God, the righteousness of
God, the justice of God, the holiness of God, the demands
of God. He doesn't have to unlock the
very characteristics of God to you. And He doesn't have to unlock
to you your own awful dilemma. Listen, folks, we're all in bad
shape. We all died in Adam. We all fell. We all became ungodly. We all
became alienated from our creator and our sustainer. Oh, that our
Lord would, as the key, unlock unto us a realization of ourselves,
of our own depravity. And I know as we look at one
another, as we speak to one another and deal with one another, especially
as the people of God, we say of each other, you know, this
is good people. And I'd say of all, you're good
people, that's the way I define good. But God doesn't define
good like I define good. God defines good as perfect. God defines good as absolutely
holy. and we're not good, we're not
holy, we're not righteous. Everything God is, we are not. Oh, that he would take the key
that our Lord Jesus himself would open to us an understanding of
just how awful we are. And if he does that, then He
will open unto us an understanding of the gospel of His grace. The gospel of His grace doesn't
ask you to do something for God. The gospel of the grace of God
does not, it actually doesn't require of you anything. The
gospel of the grace of God is good news, the announcement that
everything a holy God demanded for the salvation of sinners,
our Lord Jesus Christ has already successfully finished that work. On the cross of Calvary, he said,
it is finished. Oh, that he would open to your
understanding the very character of God, your own awful dilemma,
and the necessity of having the Lord Jesus as your righteousness. And oh, that he would open unto
you the gifts of repentance and faith. He has to do that. He is the key. And He has to
unlock these treasures unto us. But let me also say that He who
has the ability and the authority and power to unlock, He can lock
these things away from your understanding. It is a very tragic thing to
hear the gospel of God's grace and then be unreceptive to this
message. God may fix things. He may so lock things up for
you that you'll never see it. That's a horrible judgment of
God. That's called judicial blindness. That's what our Lord did to the
Pharisees. I'll express it this way. He fixed things so they couldn't
believe. They were damned while they lived. Because He stood before them
and all of these miracles identified Him as being the promised Messiah. And they just turned a blind
eye. They just refused to believe. They refused to bow. They accused
Him of blasphemy. He said, My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work. And they were ready to kill Him
because He said God was His Father, thereby making Himself equal
with God. And they just wouldn't believe.
They closed their eyes. No matter how much evidence was
said before them, they would not believe. He just locked things
up. They were dead men while they
lived. And I'm telling you, our Savior,
He is the sovereign Savior. He can lock it up or He can unlock
it. That's His business. I can't
do it. I can neither lock things up
for you and I certainly cannot unlock things for you. Oh, but
He can and I pray that He will. Now, let's take this over to
the tabernacle. He can open our understanding
of this tabernacle in the wilderness. Go to Exodus chapter 25. Exodus
chapter 25. Now, as our Lord Jesus is indeed
the key to all of the Word of God, He's the key. Without Him, you're not going
to understand the Old Testament. Without Him, you're not going
to understand the things of God. He's the key. And if we're going
to study about the tabernacle, which we're attempting to do,
if you're going to understand this tabernacle in the wilderness,
here's the key. The key is Christ Himself. Now God said to Moses while he
was up on the mount, God said to Moses, and I'll look at 25
verse 8. God said, let them make me a
sanctuary that I may dwell among them. Oh, how merciful of God. He said, I'm going to dwell among
these people. Now, this tabernacle in the wilderness
is a picture of our Savior. Oh, what mercy. Oh, what grace. He left heaven above and came
down here to this earth and He took upon Himself a tabernacle
of flesh. He said in Hebrews chapter 10,
a body thou hast prepared me. That's His tabernacle. You know,
when you read in 2 Corinthians and also in 2 Peter, both Peter
and the Apostle Paul speak of the body as being the tabernacle. Paul said, if our earthly tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a tabernacle and a house not made with hands
in the heavenlies. This is my tabernacle. This is
where my soul resides. My soul will go on and on and
on, but not this tabernacle. This tabernacle is beginning
to get a little dilapidated. It's beginning to get a little
age on it. I know, James, I'm not as old as you are, but I'm
easing my way up there, and some of you are, too. Some of your
tabernacles... I won't say too much about it.
You know how your tabernacle is doing better than I do. But
this is our earthly tabernacle. Well, our God, our God, He purposed
to come into this world. And in order to do that and be
our Savior, He had to have an earthly tabernacle. He had to
have a body. Why did He have to have a body?
Well, because God is Spirit. God can't suffer. God can't get
thirsty. God can't get weary. God can't
die. But man can do all of those things
and will do all of those things. So God, who is eternal, the second
person of the Trinity, He came down here in a tabernacle of
flesh. And He dwelt among people. We read in John chapter 1 and
verse 14, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He tabernacled
among us. And the writer says, and we beheld
His glory. the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth." This tabernacle in
the wilderness, these people beheld the glory of God. It was a great light, bright,
bright as the sun. It illuminated all the camp of
Israel. That's God's Shekinah glory. That was visible, but that's
the only visible thing about God. That's how God made Himself
visible and through the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. God said, I'm going to dwell
among them. Now that's something. That's something. For God to
say to us, I'm coming down and I'm going to dwell among you.
Oh, what grace is this. And oh, what a stoop. for the
Son of God. If an angel had come down here
to become a worm, that isn't anywhere equal to God Himself
coming down here and joining Himself to our nature, to our
flesh. I'm going to dwell among them,
that's what God said. I'm going to dwell among them.
But Lord, they're rebellious people. Lord, they're sinful
people. Lord, they're an ungodly people.
They're a thankless people. They're an idolatrous people.
Lord, You're going to dwell among them? Yes! That's my glory. To dwell among sinners. Spend
time with sinners. And you know, it's to the glory
of God. that here we are gathered together
this morning in this building and those who are watching by
way of the internet, it's to the glory of God that He comes
and dwells with us. He abides with us. He says to
you, each of you who are His people, I'll never leave you
and I'll never forsake you, that you may be bold and say, I'm
not going to fear anything. Isn't that amazing that God would
dwell with you? All right, now look at verse
nine. So make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them,
verse nine, according to all that I show thee, after the pattern
of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof,
even so shall ye make it. And then he goes on, and they
shall make an ark of Shittim wood. Two cubits and a half shall
be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof,
and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Thou shalt overlay it
with pure gold. Within, without, thou shalt overlay
it, and thou shalt put on it a, here's a crown of gold, all
around the top of this oblong box. And thou shalt cast four
rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof."
After all, it's got to be transported, got to be carried by the Levites. and the two rings shall be on
the one side of it, the two rings of the other side of it. Thou
shalt make staves of shittom wood, and overlay them with gold. Thou shalt put the staves into
the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne
with them. The staves shall be in the rings
of the ark. They shall not be taken from
it. Thou shalt put into the ark the testimony, God's law. which I shall give thee. And
thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold, two cubits and
a half shall be the length thereof, a cubit and a half the breadth
thereof. Make two cherubims of gold of
beaten work, shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy
seat. This is the lid of the Ark of
the Covenant. and make one cherub on the one
end and the other cherub on the other end, even of the mercy
seat, shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. The
cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering
the mercy seat with their wings, one looking at the other, kind
of like this, just kind of looking toward each other and yet down
toward the mercy seat in a worshipful and reverencing way. and cover
the mercy seat. Their faces shall look to one
another. Toward the mercy seat shall the
faces of the cherubim be, and thou shalt put the mercy seat
above the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony
that I shall give thee." Now watch verse 22. And there I will
meet with thee. and I will commune with thee
from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims, which
are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give
thee in commandment under the children of Israel." Now, of
all the pieces of furniture in the tabernacle, there were seven
of them. Here's the very first one that
we're introduced to. This is the first one God introduced
to Moses. Now Moses make an ark of the
covenant and then put a lid on it, the mercy seat. Now that's
the last piece of furniture. Here's what I want us to do.
Let's go back out to the very entrance of the tabernacle, okay?
Go with me in your minds. Go with me in your thoughts.
And let's just take a look at this tabernacle, remembering
that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the key to this tabernacle. First of all, as you walk up
to it, what do you see? Well, you see this massive fence.
It's made of white linen. It goes all the way around the
tabernacle proper. The whole piece of ground that
it sets on is 150 feet long and 75 feet wide. I said last week
I think about half the size of a football field. Well, if Christ
is the key, what does that white linen fence represent? His righteousness. Everywhere you looked, you saw
purity. Nothing but purity. And when you look at that one
who is the key to the tabernacle, everywhere you look on Him, you
see purity. He is Himself, Jeremiah says,
the Lord, our, what's the next word? Righteousness. What about
my righteousness, preacher? Do you really want me to talk
about that? Isaiah says all of our righteousness is as filthy
rags. Filthy rags in God's sight. Don't bring up anything you've
done for God or for other people at all as far as your acceptance
with God and your righteousness. God says your righteousness stinks. the best that you can do, if
you've ever done your best. I don't know if anybody's ever
done their best or not. But if you did the very best
that you could do, starting right now, for the rest of this day,
May the 16th, 2021, from now to midnight, I'm going to be
the best person I could possibly be. When midnight comes, God
would say, of all that you've done today, filthy rags. Amen. That's all. Filthy rags. The Scripture says, there's not
a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. We're a bunch of sinners, people.
Oh, I wish that God the Spirit would unlock our understanding
and convince us of that. You see, if we're ever convinced
we're real sinners, genuine, bona fide sinners through and
through, if the Spirit of God ever convinces us of that, then
we'll be looking for a Savior. You know why nobody's interested
in the Lord Jesus Christ? Oh, they're interested in Jesus
who's weak and helpless and needs your help and all that kind of
tomfoolery. But the reason they're not interested
in the Lord Jesus Christ Because they don't have an idea, they
don't have any idea how bad off they are. When we have painted
this picture as black as we can paint it, we've just begun to
commence to scratching the surface of talking about our own depravity. Oh, there's our Lord, pure, holy,
undefiled. Separate from sinners. And here's
the amazing thing. Here's this white linen fence,
seven and a half feet tall. Goes all the way around except
for an entrance. Here's the amazing thing. This
Holy One, He's pleased to dwell with sinners. The Pharisees said, we know who
he is. He's a gluttonous man, speaking
of Jesus of Nazareth. He eats too much and he's a wine-bibber. He drinks too much. That's what
they said about him. They said, he's a friend of sinners. Hallelujah, yes he is. That's
really good news to a person who's been convinced that they're
sinners. That's the first thing you're going to see. You with
me? I'm looking. Everywhere I look
outside that tabernacle, white fence, purity, purity. And even when our Savior died
upon the cross of Calvary, His deity, His perfection was still
intact. It was our sins that were imputed
or charged or reckoned to Him. And yet He Himself remained blameless
and spotless, the Lamb of God. Well, come a little further with
me. We've looked at that linen enclosure. Come a little closer
with me. It's a 30-foot gate right there. That's the entrance into the
tabernacle. Now, there's no other way in
there. Now, God said, this is where I'm going to meet with
you. But there's not a door over there and a gate here and another
door there and another gate over there. There's just one gate.
It's just one way to enter in. And our Lord Jesus said, I am
the door. See, it's the key. He said, I'm
the door. If any man enter in, he shall
be saved and go in and out and find pasture. Here's a priest. Or maybe Aaron
himself, the high priest, and he wants to go into the tabernacle.
How are you going to get in there? How are you going to meet with
God? How are you going to get into His presence? One way. Now you understand that, don't
you? Christ said, I'm the way. I'm the way, the truth, and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. And I know
it's a narrow way, and few there be that find it. It's narrow
in this sense, there's no room for you in your baggage of self-righteousness. Now that's going to have to be
stripped off of you. You're not going in, you're not
going into the kingdom of God, you're not going to worship God
if you're going to insist on carrying that baggage of filth
with you. The Lord's got to strip that
off of you. But here's the good news, this
opening to the tabernacle is 30 feet wide. No matter how big
a center you may feel like you are, come on, there's plenty
of room, even for big centers like you. And really, there aren't
any little centers. We're all big centers, aren't
we? But there's a lot of room. Christ is the way. You with me?
There's that white curtain. There's the way. And then you
step in and there's the biggest piece of furniture for the tabernacle. The brazen altar. And there it
stands. And you know what's going to
happen? God said, you're going to have to keep, there's a fire
that I will light and I'll maintain that fire all the time. All the time, there's a flame
coming up all the time, smoke ascending. What's that? What's that? What is that? And
what's it made out of? It's made out of wood, acacia
wood or shenum wood, which is very durable. and then it's covered
over with brass. It's got to be covered with brass
because there are going to be fiery sacrifices offered there. Those have got to burn. The sacrifices
have got to burn. Our Lord Jesus, He's the key
to that brazen altar. Because you see, that wood speaks
of His own humanity. And the brass speaks of his ability
to endure judgment because brass in the Bible always speaks of
vengeance and judgment. You got that? That's key to understanding
this brazen altar. It speaks of vengeance and judgment. But no matter how hot the fire
got, It didn't damage the brazen altar. It could withstand it. And our Lord Jesus, here's the
key. He came down here. Wood, that's
His humanity. Brass, that's His own strength
and ability to endure the vengeance and the justice of God. When all of our sins were made
to meet upon the head of our Savior, God's scapegoat, the
very vengeance of God fell on him, but did not devour him. He devoured and took all the
vengeance and judgment until there was nothing. He turned
up the cup of God's indignation against our sin, and he drank
it to its last bitter dregs. And the justice of God said,
I got no more for you. You've suffered everything all
of your people would have suffered throughout eternity. And our
Savior said, it's finished then. Bowed his head and gave up the
ghost. No, that fire of God's judgment, it didn't devour him. There's the key, that brazen
altar. That's Christ Jesus, our brazen
altar, who endured the vengeance of God. Come with me a little further.
Let's walk toward that tent, that tent that's 45 feet long
and 15 feet wide. Let's walk a little further.
Stop now. Say, what's that big round thing
right there that has water in it? The brazen laver. The brazen laver. What's that for? For washing. You know, every time one of the
priests would go into the tabernacle proper, into the holy place,
he couldn't enter in there till he washed his hands and he washed
his feet. And it's estimated that a lot
of those priests working, they go in and come back out. Somebody's
come to offer a sacrifice to God. They've got to handle that.
And then they're going to go back in the tabernacle. But wait,
they can't go back in until they wash again. Got to wash their
hands and wash their feet. It's been estimated that an average
priest probably washed in that labor a hundred times a day.
Washed his hands and washed his feet. See, if you're going to
do business with God, you've got to be washed. You've got
to be clean. Here's the key. Christ, His Word
is the washing of water by the Word. His Word cleanses us, and
also His blood washes and cleanses us. There is a fountain filled
with blood. Where did it come from? Emmanuel's
veins. Sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilty stains. And every day, every day we need
the washing of the water of the Word of God. Do you remember
when our Savior washed the feet of His disciples? Peter said,
you're not washing my feet. And if I don't wash you, you're
not one of mine. Peter said, well, wash me all over then.
And the Savior said, he that is washed needn't be washed all
over. He said, but not all of you clean,
meaning Judas wasn't clean. But every day we need the washing
of the water by the word of God, because our hands and our feet,
we get soiled, we get dirty, just living in this old world. Now, come with me and we'll go
behind the first veil. Here we go in. And over here
to the northern side, that gate back out there is east. Look
at the northern side here. You see that table right there?
You see those 12 loaves of bread and that table's got a rim around
it so those 12 loaves of bread won't fall off. Well, you think
the key is to understanding that Christ's the bread of life. He's
the one we feed on. Somebody said to me last Sunday
morning when they came in, and I greeted them, I said, how you
doing? This person said, I'm hungry. I said, well, I'll see what I
can do about that. And I finished preaching, and I went up, as
I always do, go to the vestibule, and he came out and said, I'm
full now. Christ is the bread of life.
Are you eating? Are you eating this? Are you
feasting on the Savior? You see, this service, this service,
you say, well, I hear people say this every once in a while.
Well, I didn't get anything out of the service. Could I set you
straight? Really, this service is not for
you. This is a worship service. And
worship is not for you. Worship is given by you to God. Right? We're here to give thanksgiving. We're here to give reverence.
We're here to give worship. This is about God. And if you
go out of here and say, well, He didn't have anything for us
this morning, well, I'm sorry that you don't get anything out
of me honoring Christ Jesus the Lord and trying to lead us in
worship. What do you think we're going
to do when we get to heaven? If we get there, if you get there,
if I get there, and by God's grace we will, what do you think
we're going to do there? You think it's going to be all
about us? We're so self-centered, we think everything is about
man. This whole world revolves around
man. This is all for us. No! Revelation chapter 4, Thou has
created all things and for Thy glory they are and were created. Boy, this conversion business,
a whole lot of it is getting us away from our self-centeredness
and looking to Christ Jesus only. That table of showbread, 12 loaves
of Christ the bread of life. And then over across from it, there's the golden lampstand. There is no natural light inside
the tabernacle. The only light that there is
is the light of that seven sticks and that candle stick. Seven candles on it. It's the only light. You see
the key there, don't you? The only light that will enable
us to see the things of God is Christ Jesus Himself. There is
no natural light in any man that enables him to see the things
of God. There just isn't. We're in darkness. Our Savior, He's the light of
the world. That's the key. Come a little further with me
now. You see that next piece of furniture? It's got four horns
on it. One in either corner. That's
the altar of incense. What's that for? That's where
a priest comes in and burns incense to the Lord. It speaks of the
intercessory work of our Savior. What makes that incense burn? The priest has to go back out
there to the brazen altar and get the hot coals off that altar
and take them in and then put them in that altar of incense
and then burn incense on it. You see, our Lord's authority
and power as our intercessor is based upon His substitutionary
atonement at the cross of Calvary. Now, you ready? Standing right in front of us
is a big, thick veil. Let's go underneath that veil.
It takes several of us to pull it up. Here we go, several men
helping. And let's go under. We know that
in the Bible, only Aaron the high priest could go back into
the holiest. Now that tabernacle proper is
15 feet wide and 45 feet long. That first section with the bread,
the lamp, and the altar of incense, that's 15 by 30. Now we're going
under the veil, and now we're in a room that's a perfect cube.
15 feet long, 15 feet wide, 15 feet high. And there's the Ark of the Covenant.
And we just read about that. There's the Ark of the Covenant.
It's made out of shidom wood, acacia wood, durable, but it's
overlaid within and without with gold. That's our Lord's deity.
So He's the King of that too. There's His humanity and there's
His deity. And inside this passage stresses,
that's where the Law of God is. for safekeeping. I'm so thankful
somebody came down here and kept the Law of God for me. Kept it
perfectly. Perfectly. Ark of the Covenant. Gold is His deity. That's His
deity. Wood, that's His humanity. And
then on top, there's the mercy seat. Literally, the propitiatory. The place of propitiation. And once a year, the high priests
go in there and sprinkle that thing with blood. And there's those two cherubim.
Angels of God seek to look into these things. They can't understand
redemption though. You know who can understand redemption?
A redeemed sinner. A redeemed sinner. But wait,
that veil, doesn't it speak of our Lord Jesus too? Oh yeah. That passage Terry read for us,
that's His flesh. That's His flesh. And you remember
what happened when our Savior died upon the cross of Calvary?
When He said, it is finished, Father, into Thy hands I commit
My Spirit. Over there in the temple, Three o'clock in the afternoon.
Time for the killing of the evening sacrifice. Priests were working
inside, and all of a sudden, that veil that we had to go under
to look, that veil ripped from top to bottom. You ain't got
to go under the veil anymore. Not just one man going there.
The way into God is open! It's open! Come on, sinner! Let's go in. Let's go in fellowship
and commune with God. This is what God said. Look at
verse 22 again. There I will meet with you, and
I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between
the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony of all
things, that I will give thee in commandment unto the children
of Israel. God said, that's where I'll meet
you. And that's where God will meet you too. He'll meet you
in Christ Jesus. And that's where you'll do business
with God then through Christ. That veil is His flesh. Rent,
rent the sinners and thereby open the way up into the presence
of God. I'm going in to commune with
God, aren't you? Come with me. Will you come with
me? If God makes you willing in the
day of His power, you'll say, hey, preacher, I'm going in too.
Whatever anybody else does, I'm going in. Because I want to meet
with God. I want to fellowship with Him.
I want to commune with Him. Christ is the key. Let's pray. Lord, bless the Word
that's gone forth this morning. We've tried to make things understandable,
at least to the minds of these who are hearing. Lord, You've
got to make these things known to us. You've got to reveal Christ
and Him crucified to us. So bless Your Word, and bless
these who sit before me and those watching by way of the Internet.
Lord, unlock our understanding. Unlock our minds. Unlock our
hearts. We're so barred against the things
of God. Make them known to us. Make them
real. Oh God in heaven, Reveal Your
Son to us. In His name and for His sake,
I pray. Amen.