All right, if you take your Bibles
now and turn back with me to Exodus chapter 26. And you can
read ahead on these during the week. I'm not going to go very
far at a time with these things because these, you'll see as
I get into it tonight, they're way deeper than what you read
in these verses because these are pictures. And as you look
at them, they just grow. They grow and they grow and they
grow. And they're meant to do that.
As we look at Christ, which is what this tabernacle pictures,
we grow. We grow in grace. I see a whole
lot more in Christ now than I did the first time I looked. Don't
you? I see a lot of things I didn't
see then. And as you study these types
and begin to look into them, and especially As you've matured
over the years in these things, you look back at these types,
and they're just full. They're just full. Now, what
enables us to worship the God we once despised is an understanding
of who He is, the glory of His character, and what He's done
for poor sinners like us. That's what enables the believer
to worship. Paul said to the Philippians,
we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit. Now, I don't know if you've ever
paid any attention to this, but you really need to when you're
reading the Scripture. Whenever he's talking about the
Holy Spirit in his person, he always capitalizes the word Spirit. But when he's talking about the
teaching of the Spirit or the understanding of the believer,
he doesn't capitalize it. It's a small s. And the same
thing goes for the spirit of this world. It's always a small
s, and he's always talking about their understanding. And he said,
we worship God in spirit. That is, we worship Him with
a spiritual understanding. John said this in 1 John 5, verse
20. He said, and we know that the
Son of God hath come. and hath given to us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." This is the true God
in eternal life. And then turn with me to this
one over in I Corinthians chapter 2. This world is ignorant of
the true God. The true God. I prayed when I
was just little. I prayed to God, but I didn't
have a clue who God was. Not a clue. I just knew that
He was this invisible Spirit that dwelt above. That's the
only thing I knew about God, and I was taught to pray. I was
taught that there was a God, and I was taught to pray to God.
This world is ignorant of the true God. It's ignorant of His
Son, Jesus Christ, and ignorant of the work of the Holy Ghost.
Now listen to this here. I'm just going to quote this
to you. This is in verse 9. But He said, I hath not seen
nor ear heard. Now listen to this. Neither have
entered into the heart of man. That doesn't say men. That says
man. He's talking about mankind. He's
talking about all men. Neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that
love Him. They've never entered into these
things. They can't talk with you about these things because
they're not there yet. They've never entered into these
things. He told Nicodemus, he said, Nicodemus, except you be
born again, you cannot see, that word is perceive, the kingdom
of God. You can't even perceive what
I'm talking about. And sure enough, he didn't. Look
down here at verse 10. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. And you'll notice there that
word Spirit is capitalized. Look down at verse 12. Now, we
have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak,
not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." Now,
I wanted you to see this, because this is what I'm laboring to
do in our studies in Genesis and Exodus. I'm comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. We don't go to the book of Exodus
to establish doctrine. We go to the New Testament, to
the finished work of Christ, and there where the person of
Christ is fully manifested in all of his glory. That's where
our doctrines are set, and in the teaching of the apostles.
And then when we go back to the Old Testament, we see these things.
We see them in figure. We see them in type. And we see
them as they're pictured there. We compare spiritual things with
spiritual. The Bible has a message. The
message is redemption in Christ. That's the message. It's the
message in Genesis. It's the message in Exodus. It's
the message in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, all the way through,
all the way through the Bible. To Him give all the prophets
witness, to Him. And these things that we're looking
at are pictures, they're figures for the time then present, shadows
of things to come and patterns of things in the heavens. Now,
this tabernacle that we've been studying is a picture of our
Lord as He came into this world and tabernacled among us. And
tonight I want us to look at four things concerning these
boards of the tabernacle. First of all, let's look at the
boards themselves. It says that these boards shall
be of Shittemwood. And if you recall our earlier
studies, the Ark of the Covenant was made of Shittemwood. And
then we came out into the outer, what they called the holy place.
And you look in there and there was a table in there overlaid
with gold. But underneath it was Shittemwood.
And the poles that fit through to carry the furniture inside
the ark were all made out of shidom wood. And these boards
now, he said, are to be made out of shidom wood. And we'll
get into this a little later on, but there's some bars that
fashioned these boards, and they also was made out of shidom wood
and overlaid with gold. The Shittum wood was chosen of
God to be used in the Ark because of its figure or being typical
of Christ because this wood is incorruptible. It's like our
locusts or cedar. It would have been a good wood
to use for fence posts or a good wood to use for cross ties because
it's incorruptible. It's not going to rot. Insects
don't like it. It's an incorruptible quality
about it. And most of the old writers say
that this wood was the acacia, acacia tree. I have no idea what
that is. Do you? I'm yet to look it up,
but I'm going to. And the acacia tree was, as I
said, an incorruptible wood. And this wood is the only wood
used in the tabernacle. And this incorruptible wood speaks
of the humanity of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth was born not
of Adam's seed. That's very important. That's
very important. The fact is that's crucial. That's
crucial. It's a very essential doctrine
of the gospel because all of Adam's race are under the curse
of God. They're born. He said, David
said, we go astray as soon as we be born, speaking lies. Why? Because we inherited the nature
of our father. And you can just go on and on
with this thing of Adam's race about being under the curse of
God. They're born with a sinful nature
and our Lord had no sinful nature. And if Jesus of Nazareth is Joseph's
son, then he cannot be the promised Messiah and Redeemer of Israel
because the prophet of God said he would be virgin-born. Why must he be virgin-born? because he must be begotten of
God. How many times have you read
in the Scripture and never even give it a thought when it says
Jesus Christ is his only begotten Son? How many times have you
looked at that and just went right over it without even a
thought? What he's saying is this man,
this only begotten of God, is he who broke the curse. The curse
of that inheritance of Adam. He wasn't born of Adam's seed.
He was the seed of God. That holy thing, the Scripture.
In Isaiah chapter 14 it says, therefore the Lord Himself shall
give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. God with us. God come into the flesh. God
and man in one person. In Matthew 1, verse 18, it says,
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his
mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph, before they came together she
was found with child of the Holy Ghost. And when you read in the
Scripture, His only begotten Son, that's what it's talking
about. Jesus Christ is God come into
the flesh. He did no sin. He thought no
sin. He had no affection for sin. In Hebrews 1 where it's talking
about Him coming into this world as the brightness of the Father's
glory and so on, He gets down a few verses there and He tells
you why His name was above every name. Because He loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. No sin in him. Not any affection
for it. No sin. And his sinless humanity
is the very hope of righteousness for chosen sinners. And he not
only did no sin, but he loved righteousness. He didn't just
not sin, but he loved righteousness. He loved it. Now, that's hard for a man to even
identify with. Did you know that? He loved righteousness,
loved righteousness. And Jesus Christ came into this
world as a representative of those given to Him of the Father.
Everything He did as a man, He did for them and in their stead. When we see Him tabernacling
among us, when we see Christ appearing in this world and walking
among men, Those of you who are saved, when you see Him, the
only way you can be saved is to see yourself in Him. In Him. You have no righteousness of
your own. You have no redemption of your own. You can't accomplish
redemption. You can't save yourself. The
way God saves sinners is He takes them and He puts them in Christ.
He puts them in Christ. And then in time, He shows you
that in His kindness. And in His own time, He births
a believer and He reveals this to him and shows himself in Christ. Everything our Lord did is a
man He did for them and in their stead. Christ hath redeemed us,
listen to this, from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us. And then he says this, when the
fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a
woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the
law that they might receive the adoption of sons. And then he
tells us this, he said, unto you this day in the city of David
is born a Savior, Christ the Lord. There's just one mediator
between God and men, that's the gospel, the man, the man Christ
Jesus. But those incorruptible boards
were overlaid with pure gold. Pure gold. And this speaks of
the deity of Christ. Paul tells us in Romans 9.5 that
Christ is over all, God blessed forever. This is God. Jesus Christ
is God. When I was just a little fella,
I listened to them men preach, and I had God as this unapproachable,
untouchable judge of the universe, and then I had Jesus Christ,
his son, as something a little less than God, who would compromise,
who was sympathetic toward me, and who would compromise the
holy God. And somehow, he could be forgiving
to me, but God couldn't. That's the picture I drew in
my head as a child. God is our Savior. And over and
over, he calls him God, our Savior. Mary, actually, they talk about
the immaculate conception. There was nothing immaculate
about her. He was the Immaculate One. He was the Sinless One. And Mary rejoiced in God her
Savior. And then in Hebrews 1, it says
that He who by Himself purged our sins and sat down on the
right hand of God was no less than the Son of God, the brightness
of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person. Why am I saying this to you?
Because to see Him is to see God. It's to see God. God gave direction to Moses to
build this tabernacle on the mount. And everything in that
tabernacle was designed for God to come and establish communion
with them, and to give faith, and to provide
a way for you. You have to be given an understanding
to believe. Folks just say, well, just believe. Believe what? What are you talking
about? Well, just believe. You can't find that in the Scripture.
Belief comes with understanding. And God came down and He designed
this ark and oversaw the building of it and He came and sanctified
it and dwelled in it and had communion with them in this tabernacle.
This is a picture of Christ. A picture of Christ. And to see
Him is to see the Father. To hear Him is to hear the Father. To know Him is to know the Father. And to love Him is to love the
Father. What forms this holy house of
worship and this holy house of forgiveness and mercy is the
deity and humanity of God our Savior standing upon those silver
sockets. His person, His glory, His present
reign in heaven forever. with the Father. In Christ our
tabernacle, those who were given to Him..." Now you think about
this. We're talking about the boards
now. We're talking about the boards. Where did these boards
come from? They were cut off out of the
land of the living. Isn't that where they come from?
Somebody sawed them down. Somebody laid the ax to the root.
Cut it down. Our Lord was cut off is what
the Scripture said, out of the land of the living. Cut off.
Yet risen. Here they are. They've been cut
off. They've accomplished a purpose. And now they stand risen in this
tabernacle. And risen. Raised up and preserved
in His golden deity. And being raised in Him, all
of the roughness I've worked with wood all my life. I said
the word tenon while ago, read it to you out of the scriptures.
I bet you ain't two of you in here knows what a tenon is. You
remember the old tables, have you ever seen one that was coming
apart and it had this big old, looked like a tongue on it about
like that and just about that thick and it stuck out the end
and there was a hole in the other side and one went, that's a tenon.
That's what that is. That's a tenon. And these boards,
if I have it right in my head, these boards were about 27 inches
wide. And they come down and then at
the bottom they would come over and they came down like that
and came over and came back up. They had tenons on them. And
these tenons went down and locked in to the slots on the silver
sockets. But these boards were first hewn
and cut down. And then I've worked with wood
all my life, and wood has knots. It has knots. You'd be sanding
away over here on this part of the board and everything, just
working out fine. All of a sudden, you come to that knot. And you
can't do nothing with it. You heard, it's hard as a knot.
That's what it is. Well, it had knots, and it had
rough places, and the grain wasn't smooth in some places. But all
that was hidden. under this gold. All that was
hidden under this overlay. You couldn't see any of it. And
you can't see any of the roughness in the believer. You can't see
any of the hardness in the believer. You can't see any of those things,
that twisted grain. You can't see any of those things
for the gold. And He completely wrapped it
inside this gold. We stand in Him. His standing
is our standing. His resurrection is our resurrection. Somebody told me the other day,
informed me that back in Genesis when I was preaching, I mentioned
something. I was talking about the resurrection
being on the third day and so on. And I mentioned something
about Lazarus. And they called me and said,
Lazarus was raised on the fourth day. Well, let me tell you what
our Lord said to his sister. She said, we know he's going
to be raised in the last day. What did he tell her? I am the
resurrection. He was raised on that third day.
And after that resurrection, all these other resurrections
come. Spiritual resurrection. Resurrection in the last day.
All because they were raised up in Him. Read it in Ephesians
chapter 2. Raised up with Him and made to
sit together with Him in heavenly places. His standing is our standing
and His resurrection is our resurrection. And nothing, listen to this,
nothing could touch His humanity. And ours in Him. His humanity. Get this in your head. Don't
let this keep going over and over and over in your mind. His
humanity is yours. He's a representative man. When
He married Himself to the flesh, He married Himself with all His
elect. His body is their body. He's
the head of the body, the church. And He's one. He's one with us. And nothing could touch His humanity
except it first pass through His deity. Think about that. My soul, what a comforting thought
that is. That my standing is in Him. To get to me, you have to go
through God. Huh? Now, who's going to lay
anything to the charge of God? You're going to have to deal
with God. You're going to have to deal with Him. What a wonderful,
comforting thing it is to see yourself in Christ. And then
secondly, let's talk about the dimensions of the boards. God
gives their height and breadth in cubits. Do you know what a
cubit is? From right there to right here. And if you measure
that with a tape measure, it's almost always very close to 18
inches from here to here. And more or less, that's what
it is. It's not a very accurate measurement. But God gives their
height and breadth in cubits. And a cubit is about 18 inches. Now, Arthur Peake made a statement,
and he got me to thinking about it. And I'm going to go a little
bit further with it. God used human measurement in
the construction of the ark. Don't you find that amazing? He used human measurement in
the construction of the ark. It was something that everybody
could understand, something that everybody in Israel was familiar
with. God didn't speak to Israel in
terms of things which they could not identify with, but in earthly
and easy to be understood language. And Pink compares this to faith
and spiritual understanding. What men are ignorant of is God
Himself and of sin and of what it takes to reconcile a sinner
to a holy God. But once a sinner is brought
to repentance, being born of God, He then speaks to him in
the simplest terms and he can reason and he can understand.
He can understand. Don't you find it odd sometimes
when visitors come in here and they just look at you like you're
from another planet, but you're understanding exactly what I'm
telling you. Don't you find that amazing? The same words, you
can look them up in the dictionary, they mean the same thing. But
they have no understanding whatsoever. And yet God speaks these things
in the simplest of terms. Now listen to me. When God came
into the flesh, He brought dimension. He brought dimension. He brought
something comprehensible. He manifested something. He brought it to light. He gave an account of it before
men. He gave it dimension. He manifested
the glory of God before men. He displayed it in such a way
that all could see it and understand it and rejoice in it. And God
gave to this tabernacle dimension. Dimension. He no longer just
talked in godly terms with them that
they couldn't understand. But now He's going to give them
something to give them understanding. He's going to give this tabernacle
dimension. And if you'll look through your
Bible, you'll find this all the way through. Even the holy city,
which John saw coming down from God out of heaven, was measured
in cubits. Isn't that something? And you
go through there and you find the same thing concerning the
temple, you find the same thing concerning this courtyard around
here, all these things, all given dimension. And listen to this,
having stated to Nicodemus the new birth and the necessity of
it. God took something that any grown
man ought to have a knowledge of, birth. He took that. And he talked to him in those
terms of the new birth. And Nicodemus answered and said,
how can these things be? How can these things be? And
Jesus said, if I told you earthly things and you believe not, how
are you going to believe if I tell you heavenly terms? What are
you going to do? What are you going to do if I
don't condescend down to your level and give you things that
you can understand? How are you going to believe?
You're not. So these boards and the coverings
and the courtyard have a dimension so that we can comprehend what
they are and what they mean. And then there's a lot of numerology
involved in here, and I'm not even going to wear you with all
that because I don't know where they get some of the meanings
for these things. I did, you know, they'll say five means
this and eight means that. Some things are obvious to me
and some aren't. And then thirdly, let's look
at the order of the boards. I'm trying to hold to simple
things now. And so let's look at the order
of these boards. And the first thing that caught
my eye is that they were all standing upright. Did that kind
of reach out to you when I read through the text? He said that
these boards standing up, standing up. These boards were all upright. And this is a picture of our
Redeemer as He tabernacled among us upright in everything that
He said and did. He was upright. Ungodly men try
to make the work of particular redemption to be unfair and unjust
toward those for whom He did not represent. How many times
have I heard that? Well, that wouldn't be fair.
Well, it wouldn't if you had rights. But a condemned assassin,
a condemned murderer like Barabbas, he didn't have any rights. The
only reason he let go was because somebody intervened on his behalf
and was chosen to die in his stead. And that's what they failed
to see is that God judged the whole lump. Man has no rights
to anything. He forfeited all of his rights
and his father Adam. Man's guilty. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. The men are not saved because
they are worthy or because they have a right to be. They are
saved only by the free grace of God and the substitutionary
sacrifice of Christ which gives them the right and privilege
to become sons of God. Christ our Redeemer saves no
man by any means which dishonors the law and justice of God. If He can save you, and maintain
his character, he'll save you. If he can't, he'll send you to
hell. That's just so. That's just so. In fact, he himself,
as God has set him forth, is the propitiation, Paul said,
that which enables God to forgive and pardon and justify the sinner,
declaring the righteousness of God and the free justification
of sinners. And these boards were stood upright
in the house of worship and communion. And so it is in our preaching.
We must in all things declare our Lord upright." He's upright. Also, these standing boards declare
His resurrection. His resurrection. And then notice
this. What was true of the first board
is true of all the boards. He said, now here's how you do
it. You make this board a cubit and a half wide, make it 10 cubits
high, that's 15 feet high, you put two tenons in it at the bottom,
and the next board you do the same way, and the next board
you do the same way, and the next board you do the same way,
and he goes all the way around this tabernacle with those boards.
Every one of those boards were the same. What was true of the first is
true of them all. And all those that believe have
their standing in Him. He's our justification. He's
our righteousness. And we are complete in Him who
is our head. And all of these boards were
10 cubits tall. 10, they tell me, and I can kind
of go along with this, is the numerical symbol for the standard
required by God of men. Did you get that? It's kind of
a long sentence. Let me read that again. Ten is
the numerical symbol for the standard required by God of men. How many commandments is there?
Ten. Ten. That's the standard. You keep those ten things if
you could. If you could keep those ten things,
you fulfilled the standard. And even to this day, 10 is the
scale usually put to judge athletes and intellectuals and so on in
contests and in the games that they play and in school and in
athletics and things. They use that 10 as a scale. The height of those boards shows
that our Redeemer has fully met the standard that God requires
of us. He is a perfect 10. You see that? A perfect ten. And then also
these boards were a cubit and a half in width. Now what makes
that significant is the fact that this is the exact same dimension
of the width of the Ark and the Mercy Seat. This picture is our
Lord's perfect character as our Redeemer and the perfect redemption
accomplished in Him. And then last but not least,
in any sense of the word, I want us to look at the foundation
upon which our Lord stands as our Savior. Silver sockets. Silver sockets. Now, if you'll
recall in our reading, it says that there was to be two tenons
in each board, which were to be received into the silver sockets,
which served as the foundation of the tabernacle. And I was
thinking about how could I picture that to you, just picture the
plug on that fan right there going into that socket. It has two prongs on it, those
two tenons, and it goes into those two slots. That's exactly
what those boards did into that silver socket. And those sockets
were the very foundation of the tabernacle. The boards were designed to stand
upon this foundation. Nothing else will fit. Did you
hear me? Nothing else would fit. The boards
would not fit upside down. The boards would not fit lying
on the sides. The boards would not fit turned
around backwards. They only fit one way. Christ
said, I am the way. And these boards were sanctified
and ordained of God for this one purpose. Your boards ain't
going to fit in his socket. They're not going to fit. Somebody
else's boards ain't going to fit into his socket. His boards
fit into his sockets. Peter said, neither is there
salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. And these silver sockets
are the utmost important because upon these sockets rests the
whole weight of the tabernacle sits on these sockets. This is
the foundation of this tabernacle. and all of the boards were covered
in gold, why make the sockets out of silver? Why make them
out of silver? Because silver speaks of the
redemption of Israel. That's why. And redemption paid
or redemption accomplished is the foundation of our Savior's
work. Sin must be paid for. My whole generation is ignorant
of that. They are out here jumping up and down and whooping it up
and having revivals and saying this many were saved and that
many were saved and so many more are going to be saved. Like the
Southern Baptists years and years ago said a million more in 64
or 74 or whatever year it was. The foundation of this tabernacle,
the foundation upon which it rests is the redemption of Christ. It is redemption. in Exodus chapter
30 and verse 14. I'm not going to read everything
here, but I want to read a few verses here to you. He said,
everyone that passeth among them that are numbered from 20 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 atonement, for
your souls. And thou shalt take the atonement
money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the
service of the tabernacle of the congregation, that it may
be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord to
make an atonement for your souls. Called also, if you look back
to verse 12, a ransom for your souls. And this silver was dedicated
to them, Then if you want to, you can go over to Leviticus
27.3 and you can read over there that this shekel was silver. It was silver and it was donated
to make these sockets in the tabernacle as a memorial. Redemption is the foundation
upon which the God-man mediator stands. And upon his accomplished
redemption, the whole of the tabernacle, the whole of the
body of Christ, his church, stands. Let me show you this doctrine
stated in the New Testament. Just keep that in mind, what
I just said, and listen to this scripture. And you that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. That's your standing. That's
your standing. And then one more scripture,
and I'll quit, in reference to the ending of these Old Testament
types and figures. Yet drawing a direct line from
those things to Christ, I want you to listen to what Peter said.
1 Peter 1, verse 18. For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver in gold. Huh? You see what he's pointing
back to? Receive from your vain conversation,
or from your vain conversation, receive by tradition from your
fathers. That is, you look back there
at your fathers in the Old Testament, how they went through these ceremonies
and things, and you see that silver that was given, you see
that ransom money that was paid, and so on, that redemption money,
you see that paid, But he said, it's not with those corruptible
things received by tradition from your fathers, but with the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. For you. That's the New Testament. as it takes these old things
and it shows you their end and their fulfillment in Christ.
And not only that, but it shows you the greater glory of these
things. These things just stood in figure,
he said, for a while until this day of reformation, this time
of reformation when Christ should come. And when Christ comes,
then we see the full glory of what those boards were all about. If we was to find one of them
boards today, They'd take it over Rome somewhere and hang
it up on the wall and people come from thousands of miles
over there and bow down before that board and worship that board.
But we see its fulfillment in Christ. And yet we see that old
board and we see the picture of it and we understand what
it means.