First, we're going to look this
morning at the boards of the walls of the tabernacle. We won't read these verses. You
can read about them if you'd like in Exodus 26, verses 15
through 25. What you'll find when you read
those verses is this. The boards that stand up and
make the walls of the tabernacle are made of incorruptible wood
covered with gold. And we see this over and over
and over again in our study of the tabernacle. That pictures
the two natures of Christ. In the courtyard, or the court
of the tabernacle, we saw the incorruptible wood covered with
brass, the two natures of Christ. Today, we see the incorruptible
wood covered with gold. It's interesting that on the
outside of the tabernacle, the tabernacle itself, you see all
the brass. You see the wood covered with
brass, you see the labor of solid brass, which pictures both the
strength of Christ, but also pictures God's justice against
sin, that brass able to stand up to God's wrath, the fire of
God's wrath against sin. But inside the tabernacle, we
see all the gold and what is so precious of all the, of everything,
you know, what we would say monetarily precious about the tabernacle. And these boards are made of
incorruptible wood covered with gold, which pictures Christ the
God-man. I want to talk to you a minute
this morning about the God-man, but say that over and over and
over and over and over again. It's pictured everywhere in the
tabernacle, the God-man. Now, we say Christ was the God-man.
We don't mean that Christ just came and inhabited a body. Now, that makes it sound like
the invasion of the body snatchers, you know, that just come in and
inhabit somebody's human body. That's not what Christ did. Christ
became God's became a man in every way. He had a human body
and he had a human soul. He was a man. He got hungry and
tired and thirsty just like we do. He had emotions like we do. Now, they were holy emotions,
but he had emotions. He drank, he wept, he had emotions. He was a real man. But without
sin, that's what the incorruptible would picture. without sin. We
wouldn't decay and grow old and fall apart if it weren't for
sin. That's why we're corruptible,
because of sin that's in us. But Christ had no sin. He was
without sin, because he was born of a virgin. And we say he's
born of a virgin. That's important for this reason.
He didn't have a human father. So he didn't partake in Adam's
sin. He didn't partake in Adam's original
sin. That's why when the angel came
and told Mary, you're going to have a child. That baby is the
Messiah. And it's like the angel didn't
know what to call him because nothing like Christ had ever
existed before. The angel said that holy thing. He didn't partake in Adam's original
sin. There's nothing like him that
ever existed before or ever existed since. He is a perfectly holy
man. Our Lord Jesus was born without
original sin in Adam, and he lived a life of perfection. Everything he did was perfect.
Always. Never did he sin. He didn't think
a sin. He didn't commit a sin. the Holy
One of Israel. Scripture said He knew no sin,
and He did no sin. That's the incorruptible wood,
the holy humanity, perfect humanity, sinless humanity of Christ. But
that wood was covered with gold. And gold is a picture of the
deity of Christ. It just means, deity means He's
God. Now gold is valuable and precious. Everybody, not only
do human beings want to have gold, we just like to look at
it. I mean, we're just fascinated
because it's precious, it's valuable. You just have a pile of gold
and people just stand behind the glass of it and look at it.
We were at a museum sometime and they had this big diamond,
you know, Well you can't touch, I mean it's behind glass this
thick and guards with guns. You can't get near the thing,
you can't touch it, you can't take it off. I didn't want to
go look at it. What's everybody's fascination
with it? Everybody just standing there, looking at it. It's the
same way with gold. Why is that? Because it's valuable. Precious. That's our Lord Jesus
Christ. He's precious. There's nothing
more valuable. than the Lord Jesus Christ, than
knowing him and having him. That's why we preach Christ every
week, every week, every week. Because there's nothing more
precious than knowing him. He's equal with the Father. He's God. That man did things
only God can do. He raised the dead, gave the
dead life. He made the lame walk. He healed the sick. And he forgave
sin. Only God can do that. This man,
it's not like he's God, he is God. This man said his name is
I Am. That's the name of God. And when
he said I Am, what he was saying is he's eternal. Before that
baby was born, one night in Bethlehem, that baby never existed before.
One night he was born, he was actually born, and that baby's
eternal. Now you can't figure that out,
you can't understand that, but it's so. That's why Paul told
Timothy, great is the mystery of godliness. This is a great
mystery. God was manifest in the flesh. God became a real man. And as long as this tabernacle
existed, that incorruptible wood covered with gold, the wood never
became gold. And the gold was never affected
by the wood, it always stayed gold. And that's Christ, the
God-man. His humanity, he was a real man. That real man never became God.
And his deity, his Godhead, was never affected by the fact that
he was a man. These boards are made of two
separate materials, gold and wood, but they're just one board,
aren't they? Well, that's Christ. There's two natures, man and
God, but there's just one Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I
want us to think about that. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man,
He's perfect, He's holy, He's harmless, separate from sinners.
During our Lord's earthly ministry, He was the opposite of everybody
He ever came in contact with. The complete opposite. They're
sinners, He's holy. They're unrighteous, He's righteous.
They're unjust, He's just. And even though our sin is disgusting
compared to the holiness perfection of Christ. Our Lord never one
time avoided being around sinners. I mean, you think how disgusting
our sin is to Him. Never one time did He avoid being
with sinners. Just the opposite, actually.
I have an example for you. You and me wouldn't want to be
around somebody that hadn't taken a bath in a month. If somebody
hadn't taken a bath in a month, We all move over. We wouldn't
want to be right by them. They wouldn't look too good.
They wouldn't smell good. We just wouldn't want to be around
them because it disgusts us. And you know what? If we stay
close to them, you and me smell bad for too long. We start smelling
just like them. They would affect us. Christ
never avoided being next to sinners. He never moved over. He was always
with sinners. He didn't avoid them. Matter
of fact, he had compassion on sinners. He ate with publicans
and sinners. The leper came to him one day.
Our Lord didn't... That's what you and me would
do. We'd pull away and snarl up our nose. We would never touch
that leper because we'd be afraid we'd catch his leprosy. He'd
make us unclean. Our Lord didn't do that. He had
compassion on that leper and he touched him. And that leper
didn't defile the Lord. The Lord healed the leper. He
has compassion on sinners. He came in contact with sinners
and was never defiled by their sins. He was always holy. You and I would start to stink
if we stayed in close contact with that person. Hadn't bathed
in a month. We'd start to stink. And you know why? We've got the
same nature. Now, we may bathe in the month,
but we've got the same nature. And soon, we would start to stink,
because we're just alike. We're just alike. I mean, you
know, you look at people who do these awful, horrible things,
and you think, oh boy, you know, look at them. You and me are
the same way. I'm telling you, we're the exact
same way. And the only reason we don't
do those things, people do out in the world if God kept it from
them. That's the only reason. We have
the exact same nature. Christ stayed holy, even though
he touched the leper, even though he ate with publicans and sinners,
he was in close contact with sinners. The Apostle John is
a sinner. He laid on our Lord's breast
at that Last Supper. It didn't affect his holy nature,
because his nature is holy. His nature is the opposite and
his flesh was the opposite. It's holy, perfect. So not only
can his sacrifice save sinners from their sin, he can come in
contact with sinners and not be made sinful. Contact with
him makes us like him, not make him like us. Does that make sense?
Who can understand that? Great is the mystery of God the
Lord. And this, the thing, this is
what I want you to get about this. This is a great mystery. God was manifested in the flesh,
but it's not just some great mystery. This affects sinners. Christ had compassion to be with
sinners and to save them from their sin. And that's one of
the, one of the many things that makes him so precious to the
believer. Now these boards, made of the
wood and the gold, they're all standing up, aren't they? Usually,
if we put siding on a house, it goes this way. It goes horizontally.
It's laying down one top of another. These boards are standing straight
up. That's a picture of Christ. That's on purpose. Our first
father, Adam, has fallen. He is those boards laying down.
Our second Adam. is perfect and upright, and that's
why these boards are all standing upright. He's perfect and upright
in all of his ways. And these boards form the walls
of the tabernacle. They held everything up. They
held all the coverings, all the veils, they held all that up.
Without the boards, the tabernacle would just be a pile of cloth,
wouldn't it? The boards hold everything up.
That's a picture of Christ. And when he fell, everybody who
would ever descend from Adam fell in. We all just fell down
and died. But Christ never fell. Everything that God ever had
was laid upon His Son. And He never let any of it fall
to the ground. Any of it. Well, what was laid
on Christ? Everything. God's elect was put
in Christ. He passed. The Father gave Him
to the Son. The Son never let Him fall. Redemption
was put upon the shoulder of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't
let Him fall. He accomplished it. The glory
of the name of God was put on the shoulder of the Lord Jesus
Christ. If Christ doesn't do what the Father sent Him to do,
He lets the glory of God fall to the ground. He didn't do it. He upheld the glory of God by
redeeming His people from their sins. God's holiness placed upon
the shoulder of Christ. He upheld it. Perfectly holy. God's grace, God's mercy, God
having peace with sinners, being reconciled with sinners, was
all put on the shoulder of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He upheld
it. That's why in Isaiah 9, 6, Isaiah
said the government should be upon His shoulder. Now what does
that mean, the government's on His shoulder? It means everything
relating to the world was put on his shoulder. And you notice
it doesn't say shoulders. If I was going to try to carry
something heavy, I'd put it on my shoulders to distribute the
weight. Christ is so mighty. He's the
mighty Savior. He didn't use both shoulders.
It doesn't say the government's upon his shoulders. The government's
upon his shoulder. He puts it all on his shoulder
and carries it to glory. Never let any of it fall to the
ground. Christ upheld The white is the holiness and
the badger-skinned is the humanity. He upheld the sinless humanity. That was over top of his board.
He never let it fall to the ground. Christ upheld the goat hair curtain
being a sacrifice for sin, being made sin for his people. And
he upheld the red ram skin. He upheld shedding his blood
being made a sacrifice. for the sins of his people. He
upheld everything, held it all up. That's what those boards
are a picture of. Now, you'll notice that the boards
are held together with bars. See those there? And they hold
the boards up. And you can read about that this
afternoon if you want, Exodus 26, verses 26 through 29. If
you read those verses, this is what you'll find. Anybody got
any idea what those bars might be made out of? incorruptible
wood, covered with gold. Picture of the God-man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and those bars held everything together. The
boards would fall down, but the bars held everything together,
gave it form and held it together, gave it unity. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. He upholds all things by the
word of His power. Hebrews 1.3 says, He upholds
all things by the word of His power. Let's look at Colossians,
chapter 1. Colossians 1, verse 16. Do I
have a volunteer? Okay, Brady Reed, verses 16 and
17 for us, would you? By Him, all things consist. That's what those bars are a
picture of. By Him, all things consist. means framed together. HB, you know about that, framing
up a house. I don't know what that means,
but I hear you talk about that. All things are framed together,
held together by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that applies to creation. Here this world is spinning in
space. You know why it keeps spinning
in space? The exact distance it needs to stay away from the
sun and why the ocean stays in the ocean and the land stays
where it's supposed to stay and the ocean doesn't fly off and
You ever wonder, why didn't the ocean, let's hold it there, why
didn't it just fly up in the air? All things are held together
by the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Word of His power. That ocean
stays where it is. It's been there 6,000 years and
it hasn't ever gone further. There it'll stay. By the Word
of His power, it all is held together by Christ. That's true
in creation, and it's true in redemption, and the salvation
of His people. It's done by and held together
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Why do God's people come to Christ?
The Father draws them. Why don't they leave? They can't
go anywhere else. They're held, bound to Him by
cords of love. And if you start taking away
any of the attributes of Christ, you start taking away from perdition,
you start taking those bars away, these boards are going to fall
down. you start taking away any of the attributes of Christ,
start taking away His glory, what He's done, the board's going
to fall down and we'll just have a pile of cloth. And we'll look
at that more here at the very end of the lesson. So these boards
held together by the bars, I don't know if you can see this from
where you're sitting, but they're held in a silver foundation,
silver sockets. I want you to look in Exodus
chapter 30. We are going to read these verses,
Exodus chapter 30. Now, all the materials that were
used to construct the tabernacle were donated. It was all donated.
It was whatever somebody wanted to give, they gave, and they
used it in the service of the tabernacle, to make the tabernacle,
with the exception of the silver. God told them to bring the silver.
If you look in Exodus chapter 30, verse 11, the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, will now take us the sum of the children
of Israel, after their number. Then shall they give every man
a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou number'st them,
that there be no plague among them when thou number'st them."
And what the Lord is saying here is that every time you number
the people, they have to bring this atonement money. If you
don't, there will be a plague come upon the people. And this
shall they give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered,
half a shekel, after the shekel is a sanctuary. A shekel is twenty
and half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Everyone
that passes among them that are numbered, from twenty years old
and above, shall give an offering unto the Lord. The rich shall
not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel
when they give an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement
for your souls. And I shall take the atonement
money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the
service of the tabernacle of the congregation then it may
be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to
make an atonement for your souls." Now, this silver that they used
for atonement money, Moses numbered the people, he counted the people.
Well, when you're counted, you gave this silver, this hapeshikl.
And they gathered all that silver up, and they melted it down,
and made a foundation for the walls of the tabernacle. There
are 100 sockets set around here to make a foundation for the
walls. Each socket weighed a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds of silver,
every one of them. Now, numbering, when you count
something, that means you own it. It refers to ownership. You
know, a farmer counts his cows. He doesn't count somebody else's
cows. He just counts the ones that
belong to him, because he owns them. They belong to him. Well,
God can count Israel. He knows the number of his people.
But nobody else can know that. Nobody else is supposed to know
that. Do you know why? We don't own ourselves. We belong to Him.
God owns His people. If you would count Israel, what
you're saying is, I own them. Well, no you don't. God does.
David learned that lesson. Remember, at the end of David's
life, he counted the people. God sent a flood among the people
because he didn't take up this silver. He didn't take up this
atonement money. ever is going to take the glory
for having this large number of people that belong to God,
except for one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He owns them. Even King David is not going
to take glory in having this large nation, because they don't
belong to even King David. They all belong to Christ. When
David counted Israel, the problem wasn't just, well, David counted
Israel and God told him not to. That's a problem, but that wasn't
the real issue. What made this such a catastrophe is, God said,
when you count the people, they're to bring this silver, always,
not just when they first built the tabernacle, but always. Whenever
you count Israel, they're to bring the atonement money, that
a plague doesn't come on the people. Well, when David counted
the people without collecting the atonement money, you know
what he was saying? I don't need atonement. I can come before
God myself without an atonement. That's the problem. That will
always end in death. Always. You and me need atonement. We're sinners. We must have an
atonement to come before God. No man can come before God without
an atonement, and it must be the atonement that God said he'll
accept. We can't say, well, you know,
I think I'll clean up, and I'll start acting better, and I'll do better,
and that'll be the atonement. No. God said don't bring that
atonement. That's not good enough. bring
the atonement that I said I'll accept." Well, what's the atonement
God said he'll accept? The blood of the Son. The blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I need Him, and if I come to
God any other way, it won't be accepted. So Moses is told to
count the people. In order to have this plague
not come on the people, God said, bring the atonement money. Now,
the people brought the atonement money, and they didn't have a
plague come on them, right? That is not teaching, if you do something,
bring something to God, the plague won't come upon you because of
what you did. This is not teaching salvation by works at all. I'll
illustrate that by asking you this. God said bring a lamb for
the sacrifice, right? Someone brings the lamb to the
priest, the priest sacrifices the lamb. Well, is that teaching
salvation by works? Is that teaching salvation because
you brought the lamb? No. It's just a picture. You can't
build a whole religion or a doctrine on a picture. This is a picture.
That's not teaching salvation by work because you brought the
lamb. That teaches salvation through the death of the substitute.
Not because you brought it, but because of the death of the substitute.
Picturing the lamb of God that he would sin. The same thing
is true about the silver. The people didn't receive an
atonement for their souls because they do something. We receive
the atonement for our souls because of the lamb that God sent. shed
his blood to make an atonement for the sins of his people. The
atonement money is a picture of how expensive salvation is. It can't be bought any other
way. You imagine what a hundred, one hundred pound sockets of
silver must be worth. I mean, astronomical. Well, that's
just a picture of what it costs to redeem a sinner from It's
infinite. Our sin is an infinite amount
of sin against an infinite God. This silver is just a picture
of how expensive redemption is, the atonement is. And that's
why only the blood of Christ can atone for sin. Because His
blood is precious. The value of it is priceless. That's why Peter said we're not
redeemed with profitable things such as silver and gold, but
with the precious blood of Christ. And this silver was used to make
sockets that was the foundation of the walls. It's what held
the walls up. Well, the foundation of everything we believe is the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Him and Him crucified. The
silver was the atonement money that was a picture of the precious
blood of Christ that redeemed us from two things. I want you
to look first in 1 Peter chapter 1. This is the foundation of everything
we believe, the blood of Christ. His blood redeemed us from two
things. First, Christ's blood is precious.
So precious, His blood paid for and atoned for, it covered the
sins of His people. It paid for all the sin of His
people. 1 Peter 1, verse 18. We've got two volunteers. Maggie, can you read verse 18? We're redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. His blood is so precious, it's
so valuable, that His blood paid the sin debt of His people. John
7, 1 John 1, 7, His blood cleanses us from all sin. His blood is
precious enough to cleanse His people from all sin. Second,
the blood of Christ is so precious that His blood bought His people. He owns us because He created
His study, and then He came and He bought His people. He bought
us with His own blood so that God's elect belong to Christ. Now what's that mean? When you buy something, I think
you've got a long cutting business. You cut grass, you work hard
at it. Suppose there's something you
really want that's expensive. Isaac cuts grass all summer long, never
spends a penny of it. Saves it all up, he goes down
there to the flea market, he negotiates, he gets whatever
it is he really wants. You worked all summer for that.
All your money, you paid for that. You're going to take it
home and throw it away anytime soon? Not a chance! No way! You worked too hard for
it. You paid too much for it. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
redeem his people from their sin. He worked out a perfect
righteousness. And that was a job. As a man,
he worked out a perfect righteousness. And he went to the cross, and
he suffered. And he died. He shed his blood
and died to buy his people to himself. He paid their sin debt,
and so that he would own them. Brother, he's not going away
anytime soon. Now, he will not pass them out. He paid too much
for them. He worked too hard to have them.
He'll not lose one. Did not lose one. They belong
to him. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
6. He bought his people. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 20. We've
got a volunteer? Okay, I see. Verse 20. You're bought with
a price. I look over in Acts chapter 20,
what price is he talking about? Is it just any price, some price,
or is it something specific? In Acts 20 verse 28, this is
Paul talking to the Ephesian elders. He's getting ready to
leave them, never see them again. He tells them, you take heed
therefore unto yourselves. and all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made thee overseers, ye be the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." With the
blood of Christ, he bought his people. And that's the foundation
of everything we believe. That's our hope. What's my hope
of not being lost? What's my hope of someday not
leaving Christ and being sent to hell? The blood of Christ. That's the foundation of everything
we believe. And if you start eroding the foundation of a building,
that building's going to fall down. If you start eroding what
Christ accomplished at Calvary, there'll be no salvation. You
know, if we start saying, well, he's not really sovereign. I
mean, not really. It's up to you to decide to accept
him or not. If you take away from his sovereignty,
you take away from the power of his blood to save his people
from their sin. If you start taking away from
His sovereignty, you start taking away His power to keep His people,
to keep them from being lost. You take away from His sovereignty,
the buildings are going to fall down. You take away His holiness. You take away His righteousness,
that Christ satisfied the law for His people, and that His
righteousness actually makes His people as righteous as Christ
Himself. Now, you may not understand that,
but that's what God's Word says. And if you start taking away
from it, you erode the foundation and the building will fall down.
Well, suddenly we're not as righteous as what maybe God left us something
to do to keep ourselves righteous. If that's the case, we've got
no salvation because we can't keep ourselves. You take away
from the foundation, the building will fall down. And this is the
foundation. Every believer, has the same
foundation. I don't care where you find them,
every believer has the same foundation. The rich shall not give more,
and the poor shall not give less. The rich have the same foundation
as the poor. The rich won't get any glory
for paying more, and the poor won't get shut out because they
can't pay enough. They both have the same foundation. You know,
we think, oh, this person is so They're so righteous. They
never do anything wrong. It must be easier to save that
person. And then we think of another person like me. I'm so
sinful. I'm so awful. I must be harder
to save. They both have the same foundation.
The Apostle Paul, he started out as Saul of Tarsus. He said
he was perfect. He was touching the law hourly.
He said, I'm blameless. Didn't help Saul any bit. He
had to have the same foundation as Rahab. You think, oh, Rahab's
a martyr. She must be harder to save than,
oh, Saul of Tarsus. She was perfect and blameless.
How about Zacchaeus? He's a publican. How about that
thief on the cross? He's a murderer. He tried to
overthrow the government. He must be harder to save. Nope.
God saved Rahab and the thief on the cross. And Zacchaeus did
that same way. He saved Saul of Tarsus through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Apostle Paul, he said,
I went everywhere preaching, preaching more than the rest
of the Apostles, suffered more than the rest of the Apostles,
that he must have a better, better hope, a better, he's more sure
for heaven than on that leaf on the cross who never did one
thing in the service of God's kingdom. No, sir. They have the exact same foundation,
the exact same hope, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. going
to be saved, we're going to have that same hope. The rich shall
not give more, and the poor shall not give less, equally redeemed
by the blood of Christ. Because it's the blood that makes
an atonement for the soul. No matter what we do, or don't
do, it's the blood that makes an atonement for our soul. That's
the foundation. That's the wall. That's the bar.
That's a good building. That's a good building. All right.
Well, Lord bless you.