And let each of us who, by the
grace of the Spirit, who believe and love the blessed Savior,
let us be greatly comforted in this. For there, my God, for
days is right. It may be painful for me in the
flesh, but it's right. I've often said in my messages
that whatever road you're on is the road God put you on. If
there was a better pathway for you to be on, he'd have you on
it. His way is right. And he does hold us so we'll
never fall. Therefore unto Him I leave it
all. I may as well leave it all because
it's called in His hand anyway. And we rejoice in our God. Let's go to Exodus chapter 25.
This morning, Exodus, and we'll be looking at just a couple of
verses here in Exodus chapter 25. Let's bow our heads and ask God
what to do to bless in this time of worship. Almighty God, and our marvelous
Heavenly Father, we come to you through the merits of the bloody
sacrifice Our dear Savior and Redeemer. We do bless You, Father, that
all things are ordered and ordained by You. And therefore all that You have
ordained is good. It's good. We thank You for that. substitutionary
sacrifice by our Savior. Men, evil, wicked men, thought
that they had brought that to pass. But Father, You had ordained
it. Because there was no other way by which sinners like ourselves
could be saved. could have our sins washed away. Except the Lord Jesus laid down
His life as the ransom price for your people. You ordained
the death of your son. And you've ordained all things. All such a God is worthy of our
worship, our adoration, our praise. And you have ordained that we
would have our place in this building this morning where the
Word of the Lord will go forth. Lord, we believe that The Spirit
of Grace has gathered us together to bring us here. And therefore,
we anticipate the visit of grace from Your Spirit. Bless these
who sit before me and those who have joined our worship service
by way of the internet. Lord, nothing of any eternal
value will be accomplished here this morning except the Lord
bless us, except that spirit of our Savior be among us. Oh God, be merciful to us. We're not worthy of the least
of Your mercies. But, O God, we plead today that
You would speak in grace, speak in effectual mercy to each of
us. Let us rejoice in Christ, who
is the who is the true tabernacle of God. Let us see Him as the
only way of entrance into the Kingdom of our Lord and grant
unto us faith that we may enter in into salvation and be saved
by Your free grace. Lord, help us to bless You today. For Jesus' sake, I ask these
things. Amen. Had you been out in the wilderness
when Israel had built this Tabernacle that God gave them instructions
to build. Had you been a witness out there,
you would see a massive group of people as they moved about
and then you would see them come to a stop. And that was by the
direction of God. The Lord said, I will be to you
a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They didn't move till God moved. That cloud indicated the angel
of the covenant who went before them. When he moved, they moved. When he stopped, they stopped.
And if you were an observer and you saw this vast group of people
come to a stop, you would then see some men begin to put together this tabernacle or tent. First of all, they'd go to a
big piece of ground. about 75 feet wide and 150 feet
long, roughly about half the size of a football field. And
all around that piece of ground, on the edge of it, they put a
big white fence made of linen. And it was very tall, seven and
a half feet tall it was. And that indicated the very holiness
of that one who was going to dwell with Israel. Our God is
holy. This is what struck Isaiah in
Isaiah chapter 6. When he heard the seraphim, they
were saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. That's
what that white linen fence indicated. The holiness of the one who was
pleased to dwell with the children of Israel there in the tent within
that enclosure. And that white linen fence announcing
the holiness of the one who dwelt with Israel. That white linen
fence, it separated God from the people. You couldn't come
in. You couldn't come in. The only
ones who were permitted to come in were the priesthood. Everybody
else stayed out. But now, thankfully, the width
of that tabernacle, 75 feet wide, it had a big gate, a big entrance,
30 feet wide. And that indicated there is a
way into the presence of God. Aren't you thankful there's a
way into the presence of God? God who is righteous, God who
is holy, God who will accept nothing less than perfection.
Preacher, I'm doing the best I can do. That's not good enough. God will only accept perfection. You see, that's why salvation's
got to be in Christ Jesus. He is the perfect Savior. He lived a perfect life. He obeyed
the law of God that we had broken. And He obeyed it completely and
perfectly. And then He died for our sins.
He had none of His own, except those that were put on Him, and
those were our sins. All the iniquities of His people
were made to meet on Him by the purpose of God. And therefore,
His death was a just death. It was a righteous death. He died under the judgment of
God. The wrath of God fell on Him. But now God had put us in Christ
Jesus back before the world began. And when the wrath of God fell
on Him, it fell on us who were in Him. In the Lord Jesus, we've
already satisfied the law of God. We satisfied the law of
God in Him when He lived, when He obeyed. And we satisfied the
law of God in its death penalty when the Lord Jesus died. When
He died, we were in Him. When He was buried, we were in
Him. When He arose again the third
day, we were in Him. We were in Him like Noah and
his family were in the ark. Indeed, the judgment of God fell
from heaven upon the ark. And the waters of the depths
arose up. The wrath of God coming this
way and coming this way. But we were in the ark. And we're
safe. All for whom Christ died are
safe. And the Spirit of God deals with
us through the gospel word, through the preaching. Just like I'm
doing right now. The Spirit of God deals with
us and He reveals to us God is holy. Boy, that white linen fence
meant business. It's seven and a half feet tall.
You ain't going to climb over it. Only a thief and a robber
try to come in some other way, John chapter 10. But bless the
name of God, there's a way into God. There's an entrance. And
our Lord Jesus is that entrance. Okay, so you're with me, you're
looking at that big piece of ground. 75 by 150. And you watch as they put up
that white linen fence. And then all the pieces of furniture
that went with it. And that's where they went to
worship God. And Moses got these instructions,
the way to build this, the way to assemble it, he got them directly
from God. We have noted back in chapter
24 that he went up into the mountain, and there in the mountain he
entered into a cloud. And what the people saw was the
brightness of fire. He entered into the presence
of God. The brightness of fire. Our gods
are consuming fire is what the Scripture says. And Moses went
right into His presence. And God began to speak to him.
And so it says in chapter 25 and verse 1, And the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, And then the Lord said, you speak to the
children of Israel, bring me an offering. This is an offering
that's freely given. You're not forced to. This is
not tithing. This is not a law. You bring what you want to. And you know, when it was all
said and done, they had leftovers. The people of God are generous
people. I don't preach to you this morning,
bring your tithes and offerings and put them in a box. I don't
preach bring your tithes, but bring an offering. If you love
the Gospel, if you love our Lord Jesus, bring an offering to the
Lord. A lot of times people ask me,
how much should I give? Give what you can. Give ever
how the Lord lays upon your heart to give. Be generous. The Lord loves a cheerful giver. And I'd say if they gave 10%
under the law, I surely don't want to give any less than that.
Because I'm not under law, I'm under grace. And I'll give what
I can. This is what Moses was instructed
to tell the people. Bring an offering. Bring these
things that are necessary to build the tabernacle. And to
maintain the tabernacle. To maintain the work of God. And then it comes down and he
says this. Now look what God says to him.
Verse 8. And let them make Me, God said,
a sanctuary. Make it for Me. that I may dwell
among them. I'm gonna dwell among them. Now
look at verse nine. And this will be according to
all that I will show them or manifest to them or reveal to
them, watch after the, here's a word, pattern of the tabernacle
and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make
it. You don't make it according to
your own ideas. God said, I'm going to give you
specific instructions about how to make everything. Everything from A to Z is going
to be of God. Well, sure, Israel had their
excellent craftsmen. men and women who could make
things and do the women sewing the embroidery with the fineness,
just with perfection. But they don't do those things
according, well, I think it ought to be done this way. No, no,
no, no. This tabernacle pictures Jesus
Christ and him crucified for the salvation of his people.
If you go meet with God, you've got to meet with God through
a perfect sacrifice that's our Savior. Now this is all of God. Don't bring your blueprints. Don't bring your ideas. Well,
you know, I think it ought to be this way. You leave your ideas
alone. You just bury those. Toss them
out. Because your ideas of how to
come to God and God's purpose and His specific directions about
how to come to Him, your ideas and God's purpose are totally
different. Man thinks he can work and labor
and strive and, well, you know, surely the Lord will love me
more or show me more favor if I do this, if I do something
else. You come to God God's way. Don't you dare add anything to
his salvation. I'll tell you how important this
is. If you dare to attempt to add
to this salvation that's all in Christ Jesus and all of grace, if you dare
to add anything, God will put you in hell for it. That's how
serious this is. This is not child's play. We're
not just trying to throw a little religion into our lives this
morning. We're talking about life and
death. We're talking about everlasting life and everlasting death. There's a holy God I want to
meet with. There's a holy God I want to
be accepted by. There's a holy God I want to
dwell with us and I want to dwell with Him. Well, how can I come
to Him? I've got to lay aside all ideas
that seem natural to me, and I've got to come God's way as
He has prescribed in His Word. God told Moses, I'm going to
give you the pattern. I'm going to give you the pattern.
Stick with that pattern. I remember when I was a little
kid, my mother, today's Mother's Day, and God blessed me with
a wonderful mother. And she did some sewing. She
had one of those old Singer sewing machines. And she is good, and
she'd buy the patterns at the store. And she'd, you know, there
it was, and she'd just cut out the way it's supposed to. God
said, I'm gonna give you the pattern. and you make it exactly
according to the pattern. Now there may have been some
times when my mother, who was good at sewing, it may be sometimes
when she took some liberties, and I suspect she did. And she didn't exactly go by
the pattern. And that's alright, our clothes
turned out good anyhow. Because I think sometimes her
ideas are better than the manufacturer, the ones who made the patterns,
but God's salvation is a one-way salvation by grace through Christ
Jesus. And don't add anything to it.
Let me give you another verse. Look over here at verse 40. Now,
he stressed this. God stressed this. Look at verse
40. These are now the little details
about the tabernacle. And it says this in verse 40,
and look thou, look that thou make them after their pattern
which was showed thee, manifested to thee in the mount. And in my Bible, I
have a center column And on the word, the showed, it goes over
in the column, in the middle it says, which thou hast caused
to see. You caused me to see this. And let me tell you something,
this salvation that's all of God, and all in Christ Jesus,
God has got to cause you to see it, or you won't see it. Now
that's the necessity of revelation. God's got to show us. He's got
to show us. The Lord Jesus walked on this
earth, what, 33, 34, some say 35 years. and they kind of go with that
number because that's actually the number of years that the
Israelites used the tabernacle. A lot of people think, okay,
well, 35 years for use with this tabernacle that God instructed
Moses to build, and so therefore our Lord Jesus must have lived
on this earth 35 years. Well, I suppose that's true,
and I wouldn't argue with them on that, but I will say this.
When I heard the Lord Jesus walk the streets of Galilee and Jerusalem,
when He went about doing good, nobody understood who He was
unless God revealed it, unless God caused them to see who He
was. They didn't know Him. They didn't
recognize Him. Here's the Messiah. The Jews
have been looking for Him for thousands of years. This is God's
own Son. John the Baptist identified Him
as being the Lamb of God. There He is. There He is. Nobody
could do the things that He did except God be with Him. Even
Nicodemus said that. He's a ruler of the Jews. All
the things that He did, all the miracles, His teaching, they
said no man speaks like Him. They were amazed at his doctrine.
He had such a grasp of the Word of God. Well, how come they couldn't
see and perceive and understand who He was, that He's God manifest
in the flesh? He is that seed of the woman
that was promised back in Genesis 3.15. He is that ram, the ram that
was in Genesis 22, caught by its horns in the thicket. And
then that ram died in the stead of Isaac. They couldn't see,
they couldn't see Jesus of Nazareth. He set forth in all the scriptures,
couldn't see that. God has to, as it says here in
this center column, He's got to cause us to see. You're not
going to see by nature. And I may be speaking to somebody.
I know a lot of you, as it's said, I'm preaching to the choir.
And that's wonderful. It's wonderful to preach to the
choir. But there may be some of you who say, I just can't
see this, Jim. I can't see it. I know you can't. I'm not being hard on you. I'm
not going to fuss at you. How come you don't believe? I
know why you can't see. I know why you don't believe.
Because you're dead in trespasses and sins. That's the problem.
And you never will see unless God gives you life. The Spirit
of God quickens poor sinners who are dead in trespasses and
sins. And with that quickening power,
with that new life, with that new nature, comes the ability
to see the Lord Jesus Christ and to hear His voice. And He
gives you a new heart. He takes away the heart of stone. He gives you a heart of flesh.
And you feel, you're sensitive to who God is and you're sensitive
to your only guilt and then you see Christ is the only way of
salvation. He's the only hope I've got.
And He had to come and He had to lay down His life a ransom
for many. But He didn't stay dead. God
raised Him from the dead and took Him home to glory. God's
going to have to reveal this to you. That's what we pray for. No, we're not looking for an
hour of decision. We're asking God for a revelation
of His grace. That's what we need. Oh, my heart,
my heart is burdened. I pray, I pray. Every night I pray, Oh God, open
the hearts of people to whom I preach. Oh, that they might
see the glories of Christ Jesus and enter into God's presence
through Him. God said, you make this tabernacle
according to the blueprint I'm going to give you. I'm going
to give you the pattern. I'm going to give you the figure.
Here's a perfect model. That's what it is, a perfect
model of the tabernacle. And I don't know how God did
that, don't know the means whereby he said this to Moses or laid
it out to Moses. But the idea here of a tabernacle
being pictured and as it says, here's a pattern or a blueprint
or an exact model. I used to make model airplanes
and model cars when I was a kid. I guarantee there's a lot of
fellows in here, maybe gals too, who made models like that. And
you'd make them and it says, this is a replica. It tells you
what the comparison is. And you get your glue, and you
get ready, and you put that model together. And you kids know exactly
what I'm talking about. Well, it seems to me, in my poor
brain, the way I look at it, is God showed to Moses a miniature
tabernacle. Here's this, here's the gate. Here's the gate, Moses, be 30
feet wide. And it's at the east. And then here's a brazen altar.
had that drawn to scale. Or maybe it was actually a model
of it. And then here's the laver, Moses. And Moses, nobody's going to
come into this outer court except the priesthood. You tell the
people if they want to worship me, they go to that eastern gate
and they bring an animal. And that animal's got to die.
Because if the guilty are to go free, and the innocent victim's
got to die in his place, that's substitution, my friend. And they put that animal up on
the brazen altar. And then the next piece of furniture,
God said, Moses, what's that, Lord? Well, that's the laver. What's that for? Put water in
it. That's where the priests will
wash. Because there's no ministering to God inside the holy place,
except a man be every whit clean. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. Then the Lord said, now you get
to the tabernacle itself. Forty-five feet long, fifteen
feet wide. That's the tent. That's the tent. And God said, now, you go inside
that first veil, and there's a table of showbread. Put twelve
loaves of bread on it. And then on the other side, there's
the golden lampstand. Now Moses, that's the only light
inside this tabernacle. Well, Lord, what does that table
of showbread, those 12 loaves of bread, what does that indicate
to us? Christ, the bread of life. Well, what about the golden lampstand? Christ, the light of the world. So the psalmist said, in thy
light, we see light. We're in spiritual darkness. Is there any light to be had?
Yeah. Yeah. The same one who said back in
Genesis chapter 1, let there be light. And there was light.
He's got to speak that to us, doesn't he? Now you know that's
true. Because the heart of man is darkened with iniquity and
error. Sin. He's got to turn the lights
on. Do you remember you who are the
people of God. Do you remember when you were
listening to the Gospel, or maybe it was after you've heard the
Gospel, and then all of a sudden, it's like the lights came on.
It's like somebody threw a light switch. Well, the Lord turned
that light on for you. I remember in the early 70's,
I was listening to Brother Mahan, and I was working at a church
in Winston-Salem. And I already had a head knowledge
of doctrine, of sovereign grace, but I hadn't seen the glories
of Christ Jesus. And I was listening to him preach,
and all of a sudden, a light bulb went off. The lights came on, the Lord
just flipped the switch. And if I may express it this
way, he spoke to my heart and he said, let there be light.
And all of a sudden, it makes sense. Where have I been? How come I hadn't seen this before? I'll tell you how come I hadn't
seen it before. I didn't have eyes to see. And
I didn't have a heart to believe. I was lost. And that was the
ordained time when the shepherd sought this lost sheep. And then there's another altar. Moses, you see that altar? That's
the altar of incense. Now here's what Aaron's going
to do. You tell Aaron to do this. He'll
take his censer and he'll take some tongs and go back out. Go back out through that first
curtain you came through and go all the way back out there
toward the front of the grounds that the tabernacle's on. Go
back out there at that brazen altar. You take those tongs,
you take some of the really hot coals. Boy, that's red hot, white
hot. kind of like your charcoal bricks
get. This is where a sacrifice had been offered. And you take
those tongs and you put some of those hot briquettes or whatever,
chunks of wood that are white hot, put them in that sensor. And then you go back in there.
You put some sweet incense on there. It smelled so good. You go to that altar of incense.
You put that on that altar of incense. That fragrance just
filled the holy place. Well, Lord, what's that? That's
the intercessory work of the Savior. That's his prayers. That's his petitions for you. Well, why do you have to go out
there and get them hot coals off that brazen altar? Because
all that he does is based upon his substitutionary death. Let me tell you something. If
you're going to offer prayers to God, if you're going to offer
thanksgiving to God, if you're going to do anything for God,
You've got to go back out to the brazen altar and get them
hot coals off where Christ died. I'm speaking symbolically now. You've got to offer your thanksgiving,
your prayers, your petitions upon the basis of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. That's the only way God's going
to receive you or receive your worship. See, that's the only
way He can receive our worship right now. It's the only way. It's upon the basis of our Lord,
who He is, and what He did for God, and what He did for us. You see, He had to do something
for God first before He could do anything for us. He's got
to satisfy God's justice. He's got to die under the wrath
of God. And having done that, and His
death is attested to, that is, the success of His death is attested
to by His resurrection. Everything we offer to God is
through that bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You say, well, preacher, will
God accept me? Through Christ Jesus. Through
Christ Jesus. You come to God through Him,
He'll accept you. And then there's a veil. Moses still looking at this model
of the tabernacle. Somebody's got a model. You've
got a model of the tabernacle, don't you? And probably some
of the rest of you do too. Lord, what does that veil indicate?
That's a partition. But it pictures the very flesh
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Hebrews chapter 10. And that flesh of
our Savior has to be rent. It's got to be wounded and bruised
for us. Now Moses made this after the
pattern that I'm showing you now. Make that veil. And Moses, let me tell you what
that veil stands for. Yes, Lord. It stands for keep
out. No entrance by anybody except
one man and that one man just one day a year. And you tell
Aaron, don't you dare come into my presence without blood. That's the reason I had to sing
that song, What Can Wash Away My Sin? Nothing. Nothing but
the blood of Jesus. Nothing. Nothing else can cleanse
you save the bloody sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. And you know
when He died? You know what happened to that
veil? That veil hanging in the temple? It was rent from top
to bottom. You see, because our Lord Jesus,
because His flesh was rent, because He died, the way is opened up
for sinners to come to God. Isn't that... it's astounding. We have an access
to God. But just one, there's just one
way to God. Through the rent veil. Our Lord
Jesus. Well, Lord, what's inside that
holy of holies? Oh, Moses, there's an Ark of
the Covenant in there. It's a special box, a special,
very special chest. And it has in it Aaron's rod
that budded. Christ is our high priest. A
golden pot of manna. Christ is our bread. And there's
the two tablets of the law preserved in Christ Jesus. He preserved
the law. He kept it. We broke it all to
pieces, just like Moses. He indicated that when he threw
down that first center of the Ten Commandments. but they're
safe in Christ because that Ark of the Covenant, that stands
for our Lord Jesus too. He's the one who preserves God's
law. He kept it for us. Well, Lord,
what's that gold lid on top of the Ark of the Covenant? That's
the mercy seat. That's the mercy seat. Now you
make that mercy seat in the tabernacle after the pattern of the one
I'm showing you. Lord, what does mercy seat mean?
Well, it means propitiation. What does propitiation mean?
We need to define terms not only for the children, but for us
adults too. What does propitiation mean?
That which satisfies God And the Scripture says in 1 John,
He is propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but for
the sins of the whole world. Whole world full of sinners.
He is the satisfaction of divine justice. And you remember in
the Gospel of Luke, two men went up to the temple to pray. One
was a Pharisee, the other was a publican. And the Pharisee,
oh he had his prayer He had it so he could recite it. I'll tell
you a little story here, try not to get too sidetracked, but
I had a wedding years ago and the couple had a wonderful marriage
and the husband passed away just a few weeks ago. Dear brother
in Christ. But we agreed that I would officiate
the service. at their marriage, but would
have it done at the Methodist church to keep his family happy. And I remember when I met the
preacher of that Methodist church, and he was to read scripture
and pray, and then he'd be done. He asked somebody, I was talking
to him, then somebody walked up, he asked and said, have you
seen my secretary? He said, no. He said, man, I've
got to find her. She's the one that typed out the prayer I'm
supposed to pray. Well, let me tell you something. If you've got to have a prayer
typed out, it's not coming from your heart. I guarantee you that.
But that publican, he didn't need a prayer typed out for him.
And his prayer wasn't full of all
that he had done. After the Pharisee patted himself
on the back, the poor publican, he just stood away from everybody,
smote upon his breast. He said, Be merciful to me, the
sinner. Here's the Word. Be the mercy
seat for me. Here's the Word. Be the propitiation
for me. Lord, I need a propitiation. I need justice satisfied for
me. Can you pray that? Lord, I need
justice satisfied for me. And the Word comes back. It's
been satisfied in Christ Jesus. God is satisfied. It pleased
the Lord to bruise Him. What does that mean? It satisfied
God. It's all finished. And I know
it's finished because God raised Him from the dead. Now Moses, you make this tabernacle and
I'm giving you the pattern And don't you add anything to
it. I know you're a smart man. You grew up in Egypt. And you
know the ways of the Egyptian and undoubtedly builders and
all. But don't you add anything to this. Because in the tabernacle
in the wilderness, I'm everything. I'm alpha and omega. I'm the
beginning and I'm the end. And in salvation. Oh, hear me. Christ Jesus, and Him crucified,
buried, risen, and exalted. He's the A to Z of God's salvation. He's God's alphabet. No wonder
He's called the Word. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Well, let's
pray. Lord, give to each of us that
effectual call of grace, that call through the Word of the
Lord that gets the job done, that brings us out of death to
life, and brings us to the Christ of the cross of Calvary, the
Christ who arose having finished the work that you gave Him to
do of putting away our sins and covering our iniquities and removing
them from your sight and bringing in righteousness and our salvation. He's finished it. Oh God, let
us see that. And give us grace that we would
enter into Him by faith. And entering into Him, we have
access Father, unto You. I hope the message has been clear. And Lord, if I didn't make it
clear, I sure pray Your Spirit will make it clear to all these
in the area. Do Your special, necessary work
in the hearts of those who know You not. Oh, may they come to
the Christ of the cross. and in him find a blessed and
glorious entrance into the very presence of God. Bless your word
for Christ's sake. Amen.