After this chapter 25, you and I have looked now for
several weeks at sacrifices and what those sacrifices meant.
We learned so much from them. I hope you learned as much as
I did in them. So I thought it was good to follow up with that
by looking at the place where these sacrifices were offered.
We've seen some beautiful symbols in those sacrifices. And the
place where these sacrifices were offered was very symbolic,
and that's the tabernacle. And the whole area there of the
fence and the inner court is very, very symbolic of our spiritual
things, heavenly things. So I think you and I can learn
a lot from it. But let's read about nine verses here in Exodus
and try to concentrate tonight on what he says here. Exodus
chapter 25 and begin in verse 1, 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 skins dyed red, and badger 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 showed After the
pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments
thereof, even so shall you make it." Now, this tabernacle, and
when I talk about the tabernacle, I'm not just talking about the
tent that you see here in your picture, but the whole tabernacle
area, the fence and the tabernacle that's set on the back side of
that fence. These are very important. And
if we learn nothing else but that they are important to God,
these things were important to God. They came from His heart. These aren't something that Moses
thought of and implemented, but these are from God's very heart. We find that there in verse 9.
According to all that I showed you, after the pattern of the
tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments, even so
shall you make it." And as you read these chapters here and
in other places in the first books of the Bible where he's
talking, you realize he tells Moses this over and over again. He even warns him, admonishes
him. He says, see that you make all
things after the pattern showed to thee in the mount. And then
over in Hebrews chapter 8, this is what the Hebrew writer said.
He said, These things serve as an example and shadow of heavenly
things, as Moses was admonished of God to make all things after
the pattern showed to him in the mount. So even the New Testament
writers realized how important it was for Moses to make everything,
even down to the spoon. and the trays according to the
pattern that God showed to him. And there's a good reason for
that. These things meant something unto the heart of God. That's
the first reason. That's the first reason that
you and I want to study these, because they're from the heart
of God. As sure as this Bible, as sure as the Word of God came
from the heart of God, this tabernacle and all of its furniture and
the fence around it, all of this, came from God's very heart. It
didn't originate with man. That's the first thing. And the
second thing we want to look at this, the reason, is this.
Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 1 tells us that what we're going
to look at tonight is shadows. It's patterns or types of heavenly
things and good things that was to come. We've got nothing to
be afraid of when we open the Bible and consider what we're
going to look at tonight. These were patterns of good things
to come. And I guess if we were writing
that now, we would say these are patterns of good things that
have come. Things that already happened.
Some things maybe that will still happen, but surely things that's
already happened. Now, I'll give you, Gail was
kind enough to run these off on her copier. Does everybody have one
of these? I just want to take a minute
and look at this. You can keep those things. If
we go any deeper into this study, we'll print some more of these
things out for us. I just want you to familiarize
yourself with this. If you've never seen these drawings
before of the tabernacle and the court, this is a good one. I told Terrence if you have an
opportunity sometime, get on the computer and type in the
Jewish Tabernacle. And there's a gentleman owner,
they call him the Tabernacle Man. And he has some videos and
he has made a replica of this and it is absolutely beautiful.
It's the best I've ever seen as far as realizing how beautiful
this place was. But let's just look at this quickly.
Starting here on the left side, You see this fence. I don't know
if I can remember all the details about this or not, but Gil, I
think Gil typed up something there, ran off something, maybe
give you a little information on it. But let's just look at
this in general. What I can remember, I'll tell
you about it. Start on your left side, that's the east side. And
this fence around this place, it was 150 feet long. It was made of fine linen. It was 75 foot wide. It had 60
pillars that was made out of brass. This brass had, you can
see on here, on the top of these pillars, had silver caps. And
then the pillars themselves were made out of brass or bronze.
Then on the bottom it had copper sockets that it sat down in.
And so around this thing was 150 foot long and 75 foot wide. The entrance was at the east
end, always at the east end. When they tore this down and
set it up, the entrance was always at the east end. The reason for
that was the children of Israel encamped around about this, and
they had the exact location that each tribe camped. So they had
to set it eastward when they set it up. And then that was
the entrance, and when you entered there, you see Number four probably
on your marker there is the altar of burnt offerings. That was
made out of chitim wood, acacia wood, they tell us, overlaid
with brass. And then when you pass that,
you go to the lava. That's where they washed out
the priest. You can see a priest there washing in the basin. When they finished washing, then
they turned and went behind them into the tabernacle. Now, you'll
notice the tabernacle. It's 45 foot long, it's 15 foot
high, and 15 foot wide. There was two rooms in this tabernacle. If you go through the first veil,
you see those five large pillars? Those were made out of shit and
wood, and they were overlaid with gold. They would take the
blood and oil, the bread, the incense, They often went into
this first tabernacle, which is called the Holy Place. You had the outer court, then
you went into the Holy Place. They moved the curtains back.
It was a large veil. They moved the curtains back.
On your right, you see the showbread table. They kept showbread there
all the time. On your left was what the Jews
called the menorah. It was the candlesticks. That
was the seven churches, what that represented. On in front
of it was the incense altar. You see those staves through
the showbread table and through the incense altar. That was for
the Levites to carry these tables by. Then you see another veil.
It had four huge pillars that this huge veil suspended from.
That was made out of shidden wood. The pillars were overlaid
with pure gold. And then this veil, they tell
us at the crucifixion of Christ, this veil was probably four to
five inches thick. And it was woven very tightly
with fine twine linen. It was a beautiful veil. The
entrance to the outer court, the veil where you entered the
holy place, and this veil here was sewn with beautiful colors,
red and and scarlet and white. It had these cherubims on it.
These angelic type bins. And it was all sold very, very,
very tight. Especially this huge veil that
divided the holy place from the most holy. That was what was
so remarkable to some that this veil was rent. You couldn't cut
this thing. And yet it was rent from the
top to the bottom. Then, the high priest was the
only one that was allowed into this most holy place. And he
went in there one time a year. And he had to go in there with
blood on the Day of Atonement. He went in to the side. It had
no splits in it. It had no doors in it that he
could pull back. But he had to go either under it, which was
probably unlikely because it was so heavy, unless others held
it up. Or he went in to the side. As soon as you get in there,
you see the Ark of the Covenant. We won't go into how big it was.
But they had the Ten Commandments in there. They had a pot of manna. They had Aaron's rod that budded.
And I think maybe they kept some incense. I forget now what was
in there. But that was the Ark of the Coven. Then on top of
that was a pure plate, a pure coven that they called the Mercy
Seat that sat right on the top of that Ark. And on each end
of that mercy seat was these cherubims, these angel-like creatures
that spread their wings out, you can see. And they looked
down at the mercy seat as they faced one another. The boards
around this that made the structure, it was made
out of shidum wood. All the wood that was used was
shidum wood. They're not for sure what that is. But these
were boards 15 foot tall, 27 inches long. They were all overlaid
with pure gold. So this sanctuary that we call
the sanctuary, the holy place, was 15 foot wide, 15 foot high,
and 45 foot long. And then the Most Holy was a
cube, 15 by 15 by 15. And all of these boards were
put together, raised up, And then, when that was done, they
put four skins. They sewed many skins together
and made skins and put over this. The first one was made out of
fine twine linen. It had all of what is embroidered,
is that what we call it? Embroidered work. all sorts of
beautiful colors that were embroidered in it, and angels embroidered
in it. That covered the whole tabernacle. Now you see on here, the ceiling
was made out of what looked like maybe four befores or something.
Really, the Bible never says anything was on the ceiling. Some people assume that they
were, but the Bible never says that it was on there. There was
nothing to hold this up. skins up, the tin up. But it
went down over the side, you can see from your drawing here,
it went all the way to the ground. The first one then was this fine
twine linen. Then over that was goat skin. It was a white goat skin. We
read there in our text where they bought goat skins. Then
on top of that was, Mr. Baker, my mind just left me,
rams skins dyed red. That went over and touch the
ground on either side. And then on top for protection
was an ugly old, they call it badger skin. They're not even
sure what that is. We call it badger skin, but we
don't know what it is. The Hebrew word just is not very
clear. Some even think it was dolphin
skin. And that would make sense, I
guess, since it would shove the water, but we don't know. But
that was the ugliest part of this whole tabernacle. And I've
heard Brother Larry say before, if the heathen came close enough
to see this, they saw the ugly part. There was no beauty in
this tabernacle when they looked at it, but this old ugly dolphin
skin or badger skin. Now, everything in here was made
out of shit of wood overlaid with gold. I can't imagine the
expense. The boards, all of these boards
that went around, I forgot exactly how many boards, maybe 70 or
80 boards, but each board sat on two sockets. Each socket weighed
over 90 pounds and it was made out of silver. That's over 7,000
pounds of silver alone. So you can see the price that
went in this. What would this mercy seat of
pure gold, what would you get out of that in today's So it
was worth something, wasn't it? Even back then it was worth something.
Now somebody may ask, you know, where did they get this? Where
did they get all the material? Well, some of you know, don't
you? Bill started to smile. So you already know. He told
the children of Israel here in our text to bring these offerings
of gold and silver and all of this. Well, where did they get
it? They were slaves. Well, they spoiled the Egyptians. Remember that? That's one of
the reasons I said in the preacher school a couple of weeks ago,
it's a good thing that when Moses went and said, let the children
of Israel go, that Pharaoh didn't say, okay, get out of here. They'd
have never built this tabernacle. They wouldn't have had anything
built it either. But he kept them and refused to let them
go until the Lord finally made him let them go. Then they warmed
them out so bad, they said, take anything we've got. So they took
all their gold, they took their silver, they took their brass,
they took their copper. And when they got out there,
the Lord said, bring your freewill offerings. Well, they brought
enough to build this tabernacle and this fence around. What was
the purpose of the tabernacle? Let's look at that now. What
was the purpose of it? Well, the purpose of it was for
this. It was for the dwelling place of God. Now, that makes
it important. We find that here in verse 8.
Look at this. And let them make me a sanctuary
that I may dwell among them. That I may dwell among them. Now that gives us a hint right
there. When you read that word dwell among them, that gives
us a hint as to who this tabernacle and all of these furnishings
in it, who that represents. Who could that possibly represent?
I want you to turn your Bibles with me over to 1 John. Hold Exodus 24, if you would.
We may have to come back to that. But look in John's Gospel, chapter
1, and look in verse 1. What does this represent to us?
Who does this represent? Look in chapter 1 of John, in
verse 1. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Look in verse 14. And the Word,
the Word that was in the beginning, the Word that was with God, distinct
from God, and yet was God, one with God, the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." What
does this tabernacle represent to us? It's symbolic of the incarnation
of the Son of God. The incarnation of the Son of
God who is Himself very God. He took to Himself our humanity,
a real soul and real body, and what did He do? He dwelt among
us, even in all His glory. Most of the time it was concealed,
but in His glory, in His redeeming glory. Look in Matthew chapter
1, and look in verse 21. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. Now all this was done that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets,
saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being
interpreted, God with us. So what does this tabernacle
represent to us? The incarnated Son of God. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. And when we see the Son of God,
you know who we see? We see God. We see God dwelling
among us. The mystery of the Godhead. When
the Son of God was united to our humanity by the virgin's
womb, In Him dwelt the fullness of everything that makes up the
eternal God. When He said to His disciples,
when you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. You have seen
the Father in His eternal fullness. Jesus Christ is the only God,
and apart from Him there is no God. He is the only Creator. He is the only Redeemer. He's
the only Savior, and He is the only God. We sometimes make the
statement, I've made it, and it's just silly. I know what
we mean by it, but it's silly. We've sometimes said, I want
nothing to do with God outside of Christ. There is no God outside
of Christ. He is the only God. You cannot
get away from the Son of God, who is God. And this tabernacle,
is symbolic of the incarnation of the Son of God. Him coming
and taking to Himself our humanity, a real soul, a real body, and
living and dying to redeem His people. That's who this whole
tabernacle and all of its furnishings represent to you and us. We're
told here in verse 10 of John, He was in the world. And the
world was made by Him. So when you and I look at this
tabernacle and all the fence that encloses it, we see the
Son of God dwelling among us to redeem us and to save us.
Somebody said this, God in heaven cannot save us for He cannot
die. And until God dies, He cannot
atone. A mere man can die, but he does
not have the marriage to atone. But the God-man can both die
and atone. And this is what this tabernacle
represents to you and us. It's Jesus who is our God dwelling
among us. Now, let's see it, if we can,
for just a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Let's see
Him. Let's go back to our picture.
I want you to go back to this picture. If this represents God
dwelling among us, then let's go back and see, then, if we
can see Him, see if we can see the redeeming God, the Son of
God, Jesus of Nazareth, God in our humanity. Let's see Him,
then, in this tabernacle. Let's begin where we began to
look at it before. Let's begin here on the left
side. On the left side. How many entrances
was there into this court? Just one, wasn't it? They called
this entrance here the gate of the court. There was only one. You weren't allowed to go down
here somewhere and jump over the fence. You couldn't get over
it anyways, about seven and a half feet tall. You weren't allowed
to go around the back and to come in in the back way. There
was only one way into this courtyard. And that was through this gate. Now, is that Christ or not? What
did He say in John chapter 10? I am the door. By Me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes unto
the Father but by Me. So there he is, isn't it? At
the very beginning to get into the outer court. You have to
come through the gate. Let's go on. Just as you enter
the gate, what are you confronted with? You can't get around it,
can you? As soon as you step in the gate,
the first thing you see is this altar where they burnt the sacrifices. The altar of burnt sacrifices. It's staring you right in the
face. Who is that? That's Christ, isn't
it? He's our altar. He's the sacrifice
upon that altar, and He's the priest that offered the sacrifice. So when we look at that, the
first thing that stares us in the face, without the shedding
of blood, is no remission. The only way to enter this place
and to head towards the holiest of all is to be confronted by
this substitution, by this redemption by blood. And that's our Lord
Jesus Christ. What's the next thing you face
when you pass it? You pass this washbasin, this
lava, a place of washing. Now, does that represent Jesus
Christ to us? Well, sure it does, doesn't it?
in so many ways. But the best thing that I see
here that this represents to us is Christ the Word, or the
Word of Christ. Listen to what He said in John
17. You are clean through the Word that I have spoken unto
you. You are clean. You have been
washed through the Word. Now, let's stop there just a
minute. How in the world, what did He
mean? And how were they clean when
He said, You are clean through the Word. You know one of the
things that means? You are clean simply because
I said you're clean. That's it. If He says you're
clean, you're clean, aren't you? If He says you have no sin, you
have no sin. If He says neither do I condemn
you, you're not condemned. You're clean because of what
He has said. And then He says, Father, sanctify
them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth. So here is
Christ the Word and here is the Word of Christ. How is He sanctifying
His church today? Ephesians 5 tells us that He
is sanctifying her by the water of the Word. The water in the
Scripture sometimes represents to us His Word. So there is Christ
in His Word and the Word of Christ. Okay, you go through the veil.
You go through this veil. You lift up the veil. What's
the first thing you see? On your right-hand side, what's
the first thing you see? Let me know, and we'll make sure
you stand with me. The showbread table. There were 12 cakes that
stayed up on this table all the time. They were beautiful cakes,
very eatable and very good, if you lacked a lot of oil on your
cakes. What does this represent to us?
Who is this on our right? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the bread of life. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. He is the bread of life. You
look on your left and what do you see? What do you see when you look
to your left? You see the menorah, don't you? You see the lampstand,
Revelation 1.20, we're told what this is. The lampstands are the
seven churches of Asia. Why are there seven churches
of Asia? Because seven is the number of perfection. And when
you see the church, it's Christ's church. That's why he can call
her seven. She's perfect. It's his church,
his family. His sons, His daughters, His
loved ones, His blood-brought ones. She's here in the holy
place because she is His. And you know what's the only
thing in here? The only piece of furniture other than the mercy
seat that was of pure gold? All the other furniture had shidden
wood overlaid with gold. But not this menorah. It was
100% pure, beaten gold. Now what does that tell us? Even Christ is represented to
us by Chidamwood because of his humanity. He was born of a woman. But when you look at the church,
she's nothing but pure gold. And you know why that is? The
church has nothing of human instruments involved with her. There's no
human hands. Christ had a human mother. But
you know something? The church is completely the
works of heaven alone. No carnality, no flesh, heaven-born,
heaven-kept, and on the way to heaven. Pure gold. That's what
you see. When you look straight in front
of you, what do you see? Incense table, don't we? We see
the incense table. Every day, incense was to be
placed upon this table in a little basket that they kept it in,
and incense continually went up before this veil. This is
one of the reasons why the Lord killed two of Aaron's sons. They put strange fire and put
incense in it and stored it into this place and He killed them.
There were certain kinds of incense to use and the Lord told them
the kind. It was the incense that was sweet
in His mouth. What does this represent to us?
This is Christ, isn't it? He offered Himself without spot
to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Jesus Christ has always been
unto His Father a sweet incense, a sweet aroma. Before He came,
when He came, and now. He has a sweet aroma. And Paul
even said, we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ. When we come
into His presence, He smells His Son upon us. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The veil. It's the next thing we see, that
heavy, thick veil. Now, who is this? Well, turn
with me just for a minute to Hebrews chapter 10. Look in Hebrews
chapter 10. As you study this, and you see
Christ Jesus in all of this, you begin to realize why God
was so jealous. and why he told Moses to make
everything just after the pattern I've told you in the mouth. Because
Jesus Christ is this veil. Look what he says in Hebrews
chapter 10 and verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter unto the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which He has consecrated, made new for us through the veil,
That is to say, His flesh. Christ's flesh is represented
by this veil. And do you remember on the cross
when the Lord Jesus said, It's finished? And they took the spear
and they put it in His side and all the blood and water spilt
from His side. Remember what the Holy Spirit
tells us in the Word. The veil of the temple was rent
in twain from the top to the bottom. Before this time, only
the high priest with blood could go in to the holiest of holies.
But now the veil is torn. Now it's wide open. Now you can
see the glory of God. Now you can approach Him to the
mercy seat. And when Jesus Christ suffered
upon the cross and died, and His flesh was torn and given
to God as a sacrifice for sin, now the way unto God. is manifested. It's through His torn flesh. Boy, that lets us right into
the Most Holy now, doesn't it? That lets us right into the presence
of God because that's where He's at. That's where the Lord Jesus
Christ went into. Not this Most Holy place that
you and I are looking at, but into the presence of God Himself,
into heaven. That's where He entered. And
you know something, that He's there? We're there. Because He
took us with Him. We're in union with Him. And
we're upon this earth now, but you know something, since He's
there, and since the veil has been rent, and now we can go
into God's presence, we can come there with boldness. Look what
He says in Hebrews 10, verse 21, And having that high priest
over the house of God, Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without waver, for He is
faithful. That promise. So we've started
here at the very beginning, haven't we? We've started here on this
end. We've entered the gate. Been
redeemed. Been washed. Got in here now,
where the church is. Where's the church? She's in
here, isn't she? She's in here. She's not out
here. This is the world out here. And
the only way anybody's going to get out of the world, into
the church, is right through here. Right through here. Through the door. Through the
substitute. Through the washing. Into the church. We always tell
people to get in church. You ought to get in church. That's
not the dumbest thing. The Lord adds to the church.
The Lord adds to the church. The only way to get in the church
is to have Him to bring you and put you here. And nobody's here
but the church. Now who are these fellows? Can
somebody tell me who all these fellows here are? You see them
ready to kill the little lamb? You see two here by the gate?
You see one back here washing? You know who these fellows are?
Levites? Those are Levites, aren't they?
Those are Levites. Only one tribe was allowed to
come in here. And it was out of the Levites
the priests were taken. To get into this place, you had
to be of the right tribe of people. If you were a tribe of Judah,
you couldn't come in here. You'd be killed. They'd kill
you. You know the only way to get
in the court? You know who you have to be to
get into God's presence? You have to be a priest. And
you know what the Bible says Jesus Christ has did for every
regenerated soul? He has made us unto our God a
kingdom of priests. We're a chosen generation. We're
a royal priesthood. That's us. This is us. And we're
in the port and we can go right in here and eat of the bread
and smell the sweet incense of the Savior of Christ and go right
on into God's presence. You don't have to be a high priest
now. We got a high priest that went in there and opened that
up. Now, all of us, all of us, by the grace of God, can go into
the holiest of holies, even into God's presence.