So the reading will be from Exodus
chapter 40 and it'll be right at the end of the chapter that
we will be reading. But before we do the reading,
I just want to begin with a few thoughts because today I want
to be a little bit adventurous and pretty much deal with a lot
of stuff when we think about our address to the younger people. I want us to think about the
way in which the tabernacle was completed and the Lord's direction
to Moses was put in place. I want to think about the high
priest and the priestly office. I want to think about the robes
that the priests wore in the tabernacle. I want to think about
the completion of all the furniture and the raising of it up amongst
the people as the place where God would dwell amongst them
and be worshipped by them. This was to be the place where
they would come to worship and to find forgiveness with the
Lord. And it seems quite a while ago
now that we were speaking of God's instruction being given
to Moses to build this tabernacle. God had taken Moses up onto the
top of Mount Sinai and there he had given him the Ten Commandments
and he had told him about this tabernacle that was to be made,
or a tent. It's a large tent with material
and hangings and curtains and fittings, pins they're called,
and it is that tent or tabernacle where the Lord said he would
dwell with his people. The Lord gave Moses the specifications
of this tent. Its design, its sizes, the various
fittings and fitments, the furniture, the utensils, all the things
that were necessary for this tabernacle were specified by
the Lord. And in fact, God even called
a man called Bezaliel, son of Uri, and Aholiab, son of Ahizamach,
as craftsmen to do the work in the tabernacle. So he equipped
them by his spirit with skills to construct and produce all
that was required for the tabernacle. And God laid it upon the hearts
of the people of Israel to contribute their wealth, their gold, their
silver, their materials and their skills in order to construct
this place of worship. and God specified the clothes
that the priests would wear and especially the high priest's
garments as he came once a year into the Holy of Holies to atone
for the sins of the people. And here towards the end of Exodus
in chapter 39 and 40, we read about the conclusion of this
great work. And I want to just quickly mention
a few things with respect to the high priest and then wrap
up our thoughts thinking about the way in which the tabernacle
was completed. The Lord made Moses' brother,
who you'll remember was called Aaron, the first high priest. So it was Aaron who was to be
high priest in the tabernacle. And indeed, only Aaron's descendants
could be priests. Now, Aaron was from the tribe
of Levi, so the Levites were set apart for the task of the
priesthood and only the Levites were allowed to assemble and
disassemble the tabernacle and to move the tabernacle and carry
the Ark of the Covenant and the other utensils and pieces of
furniture when the people were on the move. Because remember,
they were still in the wilderness, they were still making their
way through the desert towards the land of Canaan. And this
tent or tabernacle was to be their place of worship in the
wilderness until someday in the future they would be able to
build a temple for the worship of God in the promised land.
Now the high priest's clothes are talked about in some detail
in the scriptures and in these chapters before us towards the
end of Exodus. They were made of the finest
materials and they were designed for glory and for beauty. They were designed to look amazing
and to cause people to admire them. And we're told about these
garments in detail because it was so much central to the work
of the high priest, particularly on the Day of Atonement, that
day once a year when he went into the tabernacle. We're told,
for example, that the high priest wore underwear which was of fine
linen. So underneath his garments there
was a white linen undergarment that was worn. He wore a long
tunic that went down to his feet. He wore a robe. that had bells
along the bottom that tinkled when he moved so that when he
walked you could hear him walking, you could hear the bells tinkling. He wore a cap and a mitre or
a turban on his head on which was written holiness to the Lord. It was written on a gold plate
that was on the centre of the turban. He had an ephod. I was trying to think of the
word earlier today which described what an ephod was. And I think
probably the thing that would be most like it would be an apron. He had an apron which was the
same front and back and was joined together on the shoulders with
a a piece of onyx that was made
into a clasp. So there was the material at
the front, round at the neck and a clasp on both shoulders
and the same shape again at the back. And this was called the
ephod. It was like an apron, a two piece, beautifully woven
and coloured garment that covered the upper part of his body over
the top of the robe. And all of this was wrapped around
with a sash, a piece of material that was long, we would think
of it like a scarf maybe, but a long scarf or a sash, and that
was tied around his waist and kept everything together. It has an interesting name, this
sash, it is called a curious girdle. So it girded around the
middle of the high priest. It was called the curious girdle. And around his neck he wore a
breastplate containing 12 precious stones bearing the names of the
12 tribes of Israel. And together with something called
the Urim and Thummim, which apparently means lights and perfection,
although nobody knows what it actually was, he was set for
the service of the tabernacle. So, mitre, breastplate, his ephod,
his robe, the little bells around the edges, And there he was in
all of his grandeur and all of his splendour as the high priest
ready to go into the presence of the Lord on the day of atonement
and make atonement for the sins of the people. And when all the
work was done and all the furniture and the fittings and the curtains
and the coverings and the pins and the poles and the garments
for the high priest were made, they were brought to Moses for
him to see. Here's some interesting figures
for you because I know you like numbers. It was less than a year. It was two weeks less than a
year. So 11 months and two weeks since
the children of Israel had come out of Egypt. And in all that
time as they had travelled across the Red Sea and as they had been
involved in battles, as they had been at different places
where they'd camped, as they'd received the commandments from
the Lord at Mount Sinai, that had all taken place in the last
twelve months almost, eleven months, eleven and a half months.
And it had taken, since the Lord had given Moses the Ten Commandments
and told him about the construction of the tabernacle, it had taken
five and a half months to make all of these things. So it had
been a really busy twelve months for the children of Israel. And
at the end of that twelve months, or the end of the time of making
the the tabernacle, the five and a half months, we're told
in Exodus chapter 39, And Moses did look upon all the work, and
behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded. Even so had
they done it, and Moses blessed them. He blessed the children
of Israel who had supplied the materials. He blessed the craftsmen
and the craftswomen who had made the various furniture, pieces
of furniture and the instruments and the coverings and the curtains.
And now all that was left was to set it up and set it in place. And chapter 40 in Exodus tells
us of how God specified the order in which the furniture was to
be installed in its position. So the tent was put up and then
the furniture was taken in and it was specified the order in
which it was to be placed and Moses fulfilled all of that accordingly. And once the items were in place,
Moses had to anoint with oil. and there was an anointing took
place and that anointing with oil set the pieces of furniture
and the instruments of the tabernacle apart and dedicated it to the
worship and service of God. Aaron the high priest and his
sons dressed in their respective garments, they had to be anointed
as well and it must have been an amazing sight and an amazing
time for the children of Israel. And when all these things were
done, we're told, so Moses finished the work. Now, just turn with
me to chapter 40 and verse 34, and this is what we're told what
happened when all of these things had been done. This is the word
of the Lord. Then a cloud covered the tent
of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter
into the tent of the congregation because the cloud abode thereon,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the
cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children
of Israel went onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud
were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that
it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was
upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the
sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys. And so the Lord did as he said
he would. When the tabernacle was in place,
the presence of the Lord came and dwelt above the tabernacle. And there, as a cloud by day
and as a fiery pillar by night, the presence of the Lord stayed
with his people. And as the cloud lifted, The
tabernacle was dismantled and the people moved. They followed
where the cloud led. And when the cloud stopped, then
they reassembled the tabernacle and the Lord dwelt amongst them. So this is the account that we
have at the end of Exodus with respect of the tabernacle. I
just want to make a couple of points and then I'll be done
today. Maybe you're thinking, this all
seems like a tremendous amount of work and expense and detail. Why is all this needed just to
worship God? And why did Aaron need to get
all dressed up in order to worship God? Why all the ritual and the
furniture and the timetable? What's it all about? Well, What
it's about is that the worship of God is extremely important,
and to do it properly means doing it in the way that he specifies. Now, my second point, because
I've got two points I want to mention to you at this stage,
my second point will answer the question that you might ask,
well, why don't we do all this today? But let me come back to
that in a moment. The point here is this. Worship
is important. And here we are taught to regard
it as important. We should worship God. We need to do it properly. Worship should not be considered
as a bother or as an interruption or something that we do but we're
not really interested in doing it and we don't care about it. I want to just say something
recognising that I'm speaking particularly to some of the younger
people. Some of you young people very
soon won't have to come to our service if you don't want to
because that's what growing up and maturity allows you to do. It allows you to make decisions
for yourself and maybe you'll find something else that you
think is more important. You'll consider it more important
than coming to church, more important than being in the place where
the Lord's people worship God. As you get older, you will always
be able to find a reason not to go to church and not to listen
to the preacher. And even if your parents have
taught you to do so, you'll find reasons not to do it if you don't
want to. But the truth is this, that we
owe God. We owe him worship and we owe
him big. We owe him worship because he
created us. We owe him worship because he
brought us into this world and he sustains the world as he works
out his plan of salvation. And he has given us all that
we have and it is right and it is proper for us to say thank
you. But the fact of the matter is
that we are sinners and we are rebels against God and in our
hearts and in our minds and in our souls because of our sin
we prefer to have nothing to do with him. And so God has gone
even further and He has provided the Lord Jesus Christ as a Redeemer
and a Saviour to bring us back to Himself. And that work of
Christ on the cross and that work of salvation, that covenant
of grace that we sometimes talk about, that opens a whole other
dimension to our obligations to love and to honour and to
be obedient and to give gratitude and respect to the Lord our God. And the problem is that we can't
do it properly. We can't worship God properly
because of our sin. so that all the work and expense
and detail and all the ritual and the pattern and the timetable
was to teach the Old Testament children of Israel and teach
us about God's holiness and about their unworthiness. It taught
men and women back then and it teaches us still the importance
of true and proper worship and how difficult and impossible
it is to come to God properly in any other way than he has
appointed. In fact this whole tabernacle
ritual and system of worship was designed to be burdensome. It was designed to be complicated,
to be precise, to be profound. To which I could add, it was
also smelly and bloody and genuinely hard work. And that brings us
to the second point. Why don't we do all this today? We've seen the construction of
the tabernacle. We've seen the message of Aaron's
priestly duties. And we've seen that these were
all types of pictures that pointed forward to the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ and expressly to his death on the cross, the
work of atonement. These were types and pictures
that were given to the Old Testament people to teach them about the
Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for sin. Nowadays we don't kill
a lamb or a bullock. because the Lord Jesus Christ's
death has replaced the picture that was given in the Old Testament. We don't sacrifice ourselves
because the sacrifice has already been made and Christ is our sacrifice
for sin. We are rather to think about
Christ's sacrifice, we are to concentrate upon it, we are to
draw it to mind and we are to remember and thank him for it
and what he did by it. We are to remember that the power
of cleansing is in the blood of Jesus Christ not in the lava
that the priests use to wash their hands and their feet. If
we're looking for purity, it's not to be gotten with water but
by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. We don't have a physical
box or an Ark of the Covenant or a mercy seat anymore because
the Lord Jesus Christ is our mercy seat and we go to him for
mercy. His life, His death, His resurrection
is what speaks good things to us now about the way of approach
to God into His presence. This is a new and living way
into the presence of God. And we approach God in spirit
and in truth, not holding bowls of blood or by killing animals. but we worship him properly when
we come by faith in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. When
Christ, the light of the world and the bread of life came, then
the candlestick and the showbread was not needed any longer and
the shadows of the Old Testament rituals were all taken away. Now, some churches still have smells, and bells, and robes,
and rituals, and hats, and special garments. But true spiritual worship needs
none of those things. And some people will say, well,
they help us to worship. I say they're a distraction.
But here are our lessons. Worshipping God is important
and valuable and necessary. And we must worship as God directs
and specifies, namely in spirit and truth by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We must come with that Holy Spirit
faith according to the teaching of the Bible concerning the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ and only by the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
is our true High Priest, our great High Priest and it is only
in coming by Christ that we can properly and successfully come
to God. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.