Exodus chapter 25, and we're
going to read the first nine verses. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel that they bring me
an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his
heart, ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which
ye shall take of them. gold and silver and brass and
blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goat's hair and
ram's skins dyed red and badger's skins and chitim wood oil for
the light spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense onyx
stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary,
that I may dwell among them. 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. We have seen in past weeks how
the children of Israel rebelled against God and rebelled against
Moses at Mount Sinai and made a golden calf to worship. So that at the very moment that
God was giving the law to the children of Israel, the people
broke the law, the people broke the very first commandment and
made themselves an idol to worship. Now we learned that the people
did this because they said Moses was gone from them for 40 days
and 40 nights. His absence had caused them,
they said, to want to build an idol to lead them. 40 in the Bible is a picture of
a period of testing. There's a number of times that
40 is used in that way. Noah was in the ark for that
length of time. And we also remember that the
Lord Jesus went through his trial of 40 days in the wilderness. The children of Israel were in
the wilderness for 40 years. God tested the people in this
40 days period. And what that test proved was
that they very quickly reverted to their own sinful ways and
sinful passions. And this is a lesson, I think,
for us. The law that they were being
given had no power to make or to keep the people good and holy
and righteous. And as soon as they were tested,
they failed the test. It was like Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden. As soon as there was a test,
they proved how inadequate they were to remain faithful and true. And the reality is that the word
of God's testimony to us is that only God in Christ can bring
righteousness to a weak sinner. We must find our goodness, not
in the things that we do and don't do, but in trusting the
Lord Jesus Christ, who alone the Lord our righteousness. Now it's true that Moses had
been in the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights and in that time
the Lord had revealed to him much concerning his purpose and
plan for the people of Israel. And he told Moses a number of
things that we find from these chapters that are here in this
passage. In fact, I think there are seven
or eight chapters where the Lord is speaking to Moses directly
in the mountain, telling him about the form of worship and
the way in which he is to be approached. And he also gives
Moses details about something called the tabernacle. And today,
I want to mention a few things about this tabernacle. Now, a tabernacle is what we
would nowadays call a tent. It was a large, movable building
made of wood, and pins and fabric and animal skins supported by
posts and divided up by curtains. And it was a place that God ordained
would be used for the people to come and worship Him. In many
years' time, God would order a temple to be made in Jerusalem. That would be 400 years before it happened at the time
of Solomon. But in the meantime, here was
to be a place where God, in this tabernacle, in this tent, would
meet with the people in the wilderness. This tent of meeting was where
God would meet the people. So God told Moses what the dimensions
of this tent should be, the details of its construction, what materials
were to be used, and the overall design and parts of the instruments
and the furniture that it was to contain. God even told Moses
who was to make the different parts and nominated the craftsmen
and women that were to work to supply all that was needed. It was a very important task. We may think of the tabernacle
in our mind's eye as a large rectangular tent within an enclosure
or a courtyard and the tabernacle and its courtyard were all to
be constructed according to God's pattern and this was to show
us how God wished to be approached, how he ordained that men and
women and boys and girls should meet with him, how he was to
be communicated with and how he was to be worshipped. and
it's an important principle that it is good for us all to learn. We don't come to worship God
in any old way. We worship God according to the
pattern that he has set down in the Bible. Now today we don't
have a physical tabernacle. The tabernacle was not always
the way that God was approached in the Old Testament either.
There came a time when the temple was built in Jerusalem. But we
must at all times approach God on the ground and in the way
that he declares. we are to worship him by coming
to him in the way that he directs and instructs, so that how we
act, what we do and say in God's presence matters. And if we wish
to go into the presence of God, we should do so thoughtfully,
respectfully, humbly, and with great care and attention. Now, because the Lord Jesus Christ
has come, we no longer need a physical place to worship, like a tabernacle
or a temple. Nevertheless, when we bring our
worship and our praise to the Lord, as we are doing now, and
when we bring our requests and our prayers to the Lord, We shall
only be received, we shall only be welcomed into the presence
of the Lord if we come in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and we come upon the grounds and the merits of the Lord's
sacrifice and death and the blood that was shed at the cross. All true worship is by faith
and all true worship is in spirit and in truth. Only worship that
is offered according to God's pattern is acceptable and actually
that has always been the case. The patterns may have changed
but only if it was God's pattern was it an acceptable way to approach
God. And we will see this when we
look at the tabernacle. Sinners can only come to God
on the basis of the Lord Jesus Christ's shed blood and perfect
sacrifice. But you might say to me, but
Moses and the children of Israel were led out of Egypt long before
the Lord Jesus Christ ever came to the cross. And that's true.
1500 years before the Lord Jesus Christ came and went to the cross. So the question is, how could
men and women and boys and girls worship God meaningfully according
to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ so many years before Christ
ever came into this world to make his sacrifice? And this
is where the tabernacle gets interesting. Because what God
did in the mountain at Sinai, as well as giving the law to
Moses, he also gave Moses pictures of the way of salvation by the
shedding of the blood of an innocent sacrifice. And that was a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ who was yet to come. God gave Moses
and the children of Israel pictures or symbols, we call them types. in the way in which the tabernacle
was built, in the materials with which it was constructed, in
the design and furniture of the tabernacle, and in the way that
worship was to be conducted and carried out, that all pointed
forward to the coming of Christ, who would do and accomplish by
his blood sacrifice on the cross all that was needful for worshipping
God. The Lord Jesus Christ would accomplish
by his death that which was needed for sinners. So that the children
of Israel were taught about Christ and in and by the pattern of
the tabernacle and by that pattern they looked forward in faith
to Christ's coming. Now it's been 2,000 years since
the Lord Jesus Christ came and now we look back in our worship
to the time when Christ came and the things which he achieved
just as the children of Israel using the types and the pictures
of the tabernacle and the sacrificial service looked forward to his
coming. We look back in faith on the
fulfilment of the types so that both Old and New Testament believers
approach God on the same foundation of the blood of Jesus Christ,
the merits of an innocent sacrifice, the blood that was shed and repentance
for sin. So that the tabernacle itself,
the actual tent of meeting, is a picture of Jesus Christ. Now, this tent of meeting was
located in the middle of the Israelite camp with all of the
tribes positioned around it. And so it was to be the center
of the presence of the Lord amongst the people. It was a large tent
and it was inside an even larger enclosure. And the presence of
the Lord dwelt above the tabernacle. as a cloud by day and as a fiery
pillar by night. The tabernacle was the place
where God dwelt with his people until Solomon built the temple
in Jerusalem 400 years later. Now, we're going to speak about
the furniture of the tabernacle another time, but I want to mention
just some of the materials that were used in the construction
and the people who built the structure. We read here about
the gifts that the people brought, how they were to bring gold and
silver and brass, how they were to bring they were to bring the
skins of badgers, they were to bring blue and purple and scarlet
which was material and all of these things were to be brought
and offered to the Lord for the construction of the tabernacle. Most of this probably came from
Egypt or from the dead Egyptian army at the Red Sea, or the plunder
that was gained from the battle with the Amalekites. But what
we notice is that it was to be a willing offering given by the
people as a thank you to the Lord for his goodness and his
mercy. It had to be given with a willing
heart, we're told. Now this was especially so after
the shame of the idolatry with the golden calf. And it shows
us that when we give to the Lord's work, when we contribute to the
worship of God, we are to do so with a willing heart. We make our offerings with our
heart willingly. and the sense is that we do it
with gratitude for the forgiveness that we have received, the mercy
that God has given us, and with an end to the support of the
worship of the Lord amongst us. That's the picture that we are
seeing here in the tabernacle. When we know what the Lord has
done for us in Christ, we happily give back to the Lord for his
kindness and these gifts are used to enable God's worship
amongst us. And the Lord, we're told, also
provided the skilled craftsmen for the task of building the
tabernacle. We read, for example, in Exodus
chapter 31 and verse 1, this is what it says here. The Lord
spake unto Moses saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel,
the son of Uri, the son of Har, of the tribe of Judah. and I
have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding
and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning
works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass, and in cutting
of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in
all manner of workmanship. And I behold, I have given with
him Aholiab the son of Ahizamash of the tribe of Dan, and in the
hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, and that they
may make all that I have commanded thee. We see how God provided
everything that was needed for his true worship. He put the
materials into the hands of the people and he gave them hearts
willing to give back in proportion to the Lord's work. He gave skills
and abilities for the work to be done. Belisile and Aholiab
were filled with the spirit of God and they were made willing
of heart. to do the work that was to be
done. And so too, a little later on,
I think it's in chapter 36, we read there about the women who
helped and also were made wise-hearted. It's a lovely phrase, to be made
wise-hearted in the things of God. The women that were wise-hearted
did spin with their hands and brought that which they had spun,
both of blue and of purple and of scarlet, and of fine linen. So that as believers to whom
the Lord has shown grace and mercy, we are both able and privileged
to return our thanks to God by the means that he places at our
disposal. So as we think about these things,
as we think about our worship, as we think about approaching
God, as we think about what it is to follow the Lord Jesus Christ
in serving Him and worshipping Him. Let us realise that our
worship is only because God has opened the way and is Himself
the way in the person of Jesus Christ, the way of approach through
His sacrifice and blood. And let us always approach Him
humbly. thoughtfully, prayerfully, to
worship the Lord in spirit and in truth with the faith that
he gives, thanking him for the great salvation which he has
provided and the opening of a way back to God for sinners like
us. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.