Good evening. If you would, open
your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 25. In Exodus 25, and
we'll begin reading in verse number 23. Thou shalt also make a table
of shittum wood. Two cubits shall be the length
thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half
the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with
pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about. And thou
shalt make unto it a border of an handbreadth round about, and
thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about. And thou shalt make for it four
rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are
in the four feet thereof. Over against the border shall
the rings be, for the places of the staves to bear the table.
And thou shalt make the staves of shit and wood, and overlay
them with gold, that the table may be born with them. And thou
shalt make the dishes thereof, and the spoons thereof, and covers
thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal, of pure gold shalt
thou make them. And thou shalt set upon the table
showbread before me always." Tonight, I want us to look at
what we have here, the table of showbread. Everything about
the tabernacle construction and everything in it, its dimensions,
the materials used, and the service around them, all picture in some
way or another the Lord Jesus Christ and his work. And this
evening, Lord willing, we'll see the gospel here. That's my
hope. So first of all, I want us to
consider the construction of this table. And as we just read,
it was made of two materials, shidom wood and pure gold. Now, these two materials formed
this one table. This, of course, speaks to us
of the Lord Jesus Christ, two natures, one person. The shidom
wood came from the acacia tree, and the wood from this acacia
tree was hard, It was a heavy wood and it was almost indestructible
from insects. That's what we're able to read
about this wood. In other words, it was considered
an incorruptible wood, one that would not rot. And this of course
speaks to us of our Lord Jesus Christ and his incorruptible,
perfect, sinless humanity. He knew no sin. In him was no sin, no darkness
at all. He never even had a thought that
was sinful. He kept the law of God perfectly. And this is pictured to us so
clearly here by looking at these two materials when we consider
the Ark. Because the Ark was made of the
same two materials, shidom wood and gold, if you want to turn
back a page or two. Look at that in Exodus 25 in
verse 10. It says, And they shall make
an ark of Shittim wood, two cubits and a half shall be the length
thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit
and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with
pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it and shall
make upon it a crown of gold round about." So this ark was
made first of Shittim wood, and then it was covered on the outside
of the ark, and then the inside with gold. And we'll read that
the Ten Commandments were to be placed in that ark. If you
look down in verse 16, God tells Moses, and thou shalt put into
the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. That's the Ten Commandments.
So what's the type here? Well, you'll remember that God
gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and while he was on the Mount,
when we read, it looks like just the moment that God gave Moses
those two tables that had the Ten Commandments on them, he
told Moses to get down, for the children of Israel had corrupted
themselves. And so Moses comes down from the mount and what
is the nation of Israel doing? They're committing idolatry.
They had built a golden calf. They had already broken the very
first law. And when Moses came down, he
threw those tables and he broke them. And that's a picture of
what we can do with the law. The law in our hands, all we
can do with it is break it. We've never kept the law of God,
not one time. I've never kept one law one time
and neither have you. And so these tables were broken. Now we know that God gave Moses
those tables a second time and they were placed in the ark for
keeping. But look over here in Deuteronomy
with me real quick. Remember what we're talking about
is this Shittim wood, but look over here in Deuteronomy. Now,
it's been about 40 years and Moses is writing the book of
Deuteronomy to the new generation of Israelites before they enter
into the promised land. And he's reminding them of the
law. And look at what we read here
in Deuteronomy chapter 10. At that time, the Lord said unto
me, Hew thee two tables of stone, like unto the first, and come
up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables
the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest,
and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shidom
wood and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first and
went up into the mount having the two tables in my hand. And
he wrote on the tables according to the first writing, the 10
commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out
of the midst of the fire and the day of the assembly. And
the Lord gave them unto me and I turned myself and came down
from the mount and put the tables in the ark, which I had made.
And there they be, as the Lord commanded me." Did you notice
something here? Did you notice that the gold
was not mentioned? It says an arc of wood. Now, we read that the arc was
made of shinim wood and then overlaid with gold inside and
out. So why does the Holy Spirit leave
out the gold in this text? It's to point to us to the fact
that the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, kept the law of God. That's why the gold is not mentioned. It's to teach us that the Lord
Jesus Christ, as a man, honored the law of God perfectly. He
kept the law of God. We're the ones that broke the
law, but he, as a man, kept the law perfectly. The Lord said,
think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm
not come to destroy, but to fulfill. And I realize that he's talking
more than just the commandments, but certainly that was included
in that statement. He came to fulfill all of the
Old Testament prophecies, types, pictures of Christ, this table
that we're looking at today. He fulfilled it all and he kept
the law of God. Now, so we see here that his
sinless humanity, Now, the pure gold, of course, speaks to us
of his deity. This is fundamental to the gospel. There's no good news without
this. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. You know, the gospel of Mark,
you know, we've been going through the gospel of Mark. Y'all remember
how that book opens up? It says, the beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. What's the beginning of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, Mark? The Son of God. That's the beginning of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
If He's the Son of God, that means that He is eternal. If
He is the Son of God, that means that He is all-powerful. If He is the Son of God, that
means that He is sovereign. omniscient, if he's the son of
God, that means he can save. And that's the beginning of the
gospel to understand who we are preaching. Jesus, yes, he's a
real man, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The word
was made flesh and tabernacled among us. And Jesus of Nazareth
is the Christ, the anointed one. God, he's our prophet, priest,
and king. And yes, he is the son of God. May God enable us to believe
this. And it's what, you know, when
we were reading the Gospel of John, it's always amazed me there,
towards the end of the Gospel of John, we read there, it says
that, and many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of
his disciples. You know, for three years, the
scripture said he went about doing good and healing all manner
of diseases. And can you imagine the number
of miracles that he performed, the amount of signs that he did,
demonstrating that he truly is the son of God? It says that
if all of them had been written, we couldn't have enough books
of all the miracles that he did. But what John says, he says,
truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples many more miracles,
which are not written in this book. But here's the point. These are written, the ones that
we have written. that ye might believe, you here
tonight, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing you might have life. God has to give us the ability
to believe, doesn't he? But these things are written
that you might believe. Believe. Believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, that you might have life through his name. Now,
this table had some crown molding around the border of the table,
which was a hand breath and then a golden crown on top of it.
And this speaks to us of the security of the believer in Christ. But we'll talk about that a little
bit more here later. I want us to go back here and
look at the showbread and the table together. So turn with
me to Leviticus chapter 24. In Exodus, we're told that there's
to be showbread all the way, but in Leviticus, we're told
more about this bread. Leviticus 24, beginning in verse
5. And thou shalt take fine flour
and bake twelve cakes thereof. Two-tenth deals shall be in one
cake. And thou shalt set them in two
rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. And
thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be
on the bread for memorial, even an offering made by fire unto
the Lord. He shall set it in order before
the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by
an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron's and his
sons, and they shall eat it in the holy place, for it is most
holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord, made by fire by
a perpetual state. So this bread, we read this bread
was to be baked and every week it was to be placed on the table. The 12 loaves that were there
were eaten by the sons of Aaron, by the priests that were allowed
to go into the sanctuary and new bread was to be replaced. There was never a time as it
were that the bread was not to be on that table. There was bread. as the Lord said, continually,
bread always. Now, when we think of this bread,
the first thing that comes to mind is what our Lord said. He
said, I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. These priests were to eat this
bread. And we are made priests, kings
and priests in Christ, right? And we are to eat this bread.
Now, our Lord has several titles associated with the word life. For instance, in Acts chapter
3, he is referred to as the Prince of Life. In the Psalms, he's
referred to as the Fountain of Life. In 1 John, as the Word
of Life. And there's probably more than
this, and rightfully so, because he has life within himself. Eternal life. uncreated life,
self-sufficient and self-sustained. He doesn't need of any external
factors to preserve his life. In John 1, we read, all things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. He has the power to give life. right, as the prince of life.
He has the power to give life. His words are words of life. The gospel gives life. And the
life that He gives is life more abundant. That's what we read
in the scriptures, right? We have life more abundant, eternal
life, spiritual life. And when we think of Him as bread,
and these terms are given to teach us so we can understand,
and bread is food. And we can understand that because
we need food, don't we? And food must be eaten to give
us nourishment. A man can know a lot of facts
about bread. You can know the calorie count
of a loaf of bread. You can know the fat content,
maybe the amount of carbs, if you're a diabetic, how many carbs
are in that loaf of bread. You can know a lot about the
bread. And you could even understand that if you eat the bread, how
your body will digest that. But unless you eat the bread,
knowing these facts isn't going to do anything for you, right? If that loaf is just there and
you don't eat it. And he said we must eat his flesh
and drink his blood, or we have no life within us. In other words,
we must believe on Him. Those words are used interchangeably
in that text. Same as coming unto Christ, it's
to believe on Him. We are in union with Him by faith. Just as this bread is eaten and
it becomes part of our body to sustain us. And so, when we think
of this bread, first I think of Him as the bread of life and
how necessary it is for us to have faith. Faith in Christ. Now, if you notice here in verse
number five, again in Leviticus, it says, Thou shalt take fine
flour and bake twelve cakes thereof. Two-tenth deals shall be in one
cake. Now, we don't use these measurements
today, so I have to look up Wycliffe's Bible Dictionary for weights,
measurements, to understand what we're talking about. A tenth
deal of flour is equivalent to one omer of flour. Now, the children of Israel would
have been very familiar with what one omer's worth of flour
was. Why? Because for 40 plus years,
they were fed with manna, bread from heaven, and they were to
collect how much? One omer's worth. one omer's
worth they were to go out and grab every day except for the
day before the Sabbath in which they were to grab two days worth
of manna. But that omer's worth of flour
was exactly what they needed, exactly what they needed to sustain
themselves. But this cake has two tenths
or two omer's worth What is this picture to us when
we think about the Lord Jesus Christ? Comfort ye, comfort ye
my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, and her iniquity
is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double, double for all her sins. complete forgiveness
of sins, and a perfect righteousness. That's what's pictured to us
by these two tenth deals. Our sins are not mostly forgiven. They are not forgiven but not
forgotten. They are not forgiven but can
be found up or brought up again. Our sins are eliminated. The
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ got the job done, for by one
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. The
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. And we have
a righteousness that God can accept. I'm not going about trying to
establish my own righteousness. I'm not. Don't get me wrong,
I don't want to sin. I don't want to sin. I wish I could not sin. And I
am embarrassed by my walk, and we've been going through Genesis
here on Sunday nights, and we saw the words of Joseph when
he was tempted to sin, and he said, how can I do this great
wickedness and sin against God? And I'm convicted. I am convicted
when I hear these words because God has delivered me with such
a great salvation. And if you've been saved, you've
been delivered with a great salvation. Then why do we murmur against
the providence of God? Why do we have evil thoughts?
Why are we the way we are? Why are we sinful? I look forward
to not battling the flesh. I do. But listen, all that being said,
I have right now a perfect righteousness before God. I do. I, I don't see it in myself,
but I know, I know from the word of God that because he shed his
blood for me and because I am in Christ, I have a perfect righteousness
right now. There's, it's not like I'm going
to die and then be ready to go into the presence of God. I have
a holy nature right now given to me by the new birth. It's Christ's righteousness imputed
unto me. It's what we read about in Romans
3. It says, the righteousness of God without the law is manifest,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe. Amen. Now, this show bread is
referred to as one bread. It says, you shall set this bread
before me all way. It's one bread, but we just saw
here in verse 5, thou shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes. One bread, but it's twelve cakes. And these twelve cakes represent
the twelve tribes of Israel. And we saw this today, this is
spiritual Israel, the true Israel of God. It pictures all the chosen
people of God. So we have this table that has
these 12 bread, 12 cakes that picture all, all the people,
chosen people of God. And this bread was set on the
table. So let's think about that for
a second. The bread was held up by the table, right? And I love the parable of the
prodigal son. It's one parable and it has three
parts to it. And the first part of that parable
speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as the great shepherd, right?
And there's one sheep that's lost and the shepherd goes out
and searches until he finds that sheep. And when he finds a sheep,
he puts that sheep on his shoulder and carries it. This table held
up the bread, and we are held up by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Secondly, this bread was secured by this crown round about the
table. We read that it was a table and
it had a crown above it, and then it had this crown molding
that prevented the bread from accidentally sliding off. right? Because this table, as we read
earlier, was to have bread on it continually. That means even
when the nation of Israel, we might have time to look at this
later, when they moved, there was bread on that table. Those
staves, the family that was in charge of carrying that was to
carry that table, and there was bread on that table even then.
And so this crown kept it from falling. Now, When we were reading
over here in Exodus, if you want to turn back just to see this,
in Exodus 25, everything about the dimension of this table is
given in this unit of measurement called a cubit, a cubit, which
is about 17 and 1�2 inches is what a cubit is. except one thing
is not given in the measurement of cubit. And that is in verse
25, and thou shall make unto it a border of a hand breath,
not a fourth of a cubit, but a hand breath, which would have
been a measurement that they used back then, which was basically
the palm of your hand. That was the measurement. So
think, get the picture here. The table has The 12 loaves represents
all of God's people, and there's a border around it that's a hand
breath. Whose hand is that? Whose hand
is holding the bread? That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. Now, this bread, as I said, was
to be on the table always. Always, always, always there
was to be bread on the table. So that there was never a time
the bread was not on the table. Just as soon as that old bread
was taken off and eaten, the new bread was put on there. And
this picture is to us the fact that we have always, always,
always been in Christ. You see, because this bread is
a picture of Christ, and it's a picture of us, and we are in
him. And this teaches us that we have
always been in union with Christ. This is another one of those
fundamental things in the gospel, to understand that we are in
union with Christ. We don't have time to look at
all these verses, but consider these. You'll recognize them
as I quote them. First of all, believers are created
in Christ. We are crucified with him. We
are buried with him. We are baptized into Christ in
his death. We are united with him in resurrection. We are seated with him in heavenly
praises. Christ is formed in believers. The church is one flesh with
Christ. In Christ, we are justified. In Christ, we are sanctified.
In Christ, we are called. We are made alive. Created a
new adopted and elected and turn with me over here to John 17
Imagine we could have read all of those Teaching us about the
union we have with the Lord Jesus Christ But this is amazing here
in John chapter 17 This is the Lord's High priestly prayer And look at verse number 20.
Neither pray I for these alone. Aren't you thankful for that?
He had just prayed for his apostles and he lets us know he neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also whom shall believe
on me through their word that they all may be one as thou father
art in me. and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them,
that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and thou hast loved them as thou hast loved
me." Thou hast loved them as thou
hast loved me. I cannot understand that in any
other way than us being in Christ always. All of God's children, we are
all one. We all have one savior, Jesus
Christ. We all have one faith. We're
all justified by the same sacrifice. We all have the same righteousness.
We all love the same gospel. We're all born again. We're all
one. We are in Christ and we form
his mystical body and his church. Now, thirdly, let's look at where
this table was to be set. Turn back to Exodus chapter 26.
So we've seen how the table was to be constructed. We've seen
the bread that was to be placed on the table. And look at Exodus
26, beginning in verse 31. Let's
look at where this table was to be set. And thou shalt make a veil of
blue and purple and scarlet, and fine twine linen of cunning
work with cherubim shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it
upon four pillars of shidom wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks
shall be of gold upon the four sockets of silver. And thou shalt
hang up the veil under the thatches that thou mayest bring in hither
within the veil the ark of the testimony. And the veil shall
divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy. And
thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark of the testimony
in the most holy place. And thou shalt set the table
without the veil and the candlestick over against the table on the
side of the tabernacle towards the south. And thou shalt put
the table on the north side. And thou shalt make an hanging
for the door of the tent of blue and purple and scarlet. and fine
twine linen wrought with needlework, and thou shalt make for the hanging
five pillars of shittum wood, and overlay them with gold, and
their hooks shall be of gold, and thou shalt cast five sockets
of brass for them." So this table was to be placed inside of the
sanctuary, opposite side of the candlestick. So if you were to,
we wouldn't have been allowed to walk in. And you've been able
to, you would have walked in and the candlestick was on the
left side and the table of showbread on the right. In front of you
would have been the golden altar of incense and the veil, and
behind the veil, the Ark of the Testimony. Now, so the candlestick
was placed in the holy place, as with the table of bread. We
were, as it were, brought before the presence of God. That's what
we read, Thou shalt set upon the table showbread before me
always. Now, since we're here, I just
want to make a few comments before I get to this table being placed
where it was. Throughout the tabernacle, these
colors are used over and over again. Blue, scarlet, and purple. And that's what the veil was
to be made of. And these colors represent to
us the offices of the Lord Jesus Christ. The color blue is the
color of the sky, and we think of heaven, and this teaches us
his role as a prophet. What is a prophet to do? A prophet
is to bring the word of God from God to man, and the Lord Jesus
Christ is that prophet. He's the prophet that all the
prophets prophesied of, and he fully reveals the Father to us. He is that great prophet God
hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. And scarlet
is the color of blood. And we are reminded of his role
as the great high priest, right? Not only is he the great high
priest, he's also the sacrifice. He didn't offer up blood of bulls
and goats. He offered himself without spot
unto God. And so the blue as prophet, scarlet
as priest, and purple as king, right? The color purple was that
of royalty. and his kingship, and he is the
Lord of Lord and King of Kings. Now here's the picture. This
veil pictures to us Christ, right? Clearly it pictures to us Christ.
And if you were to, if you were to have been able to walk in,
that veil is what separated the holy place from the most holy,
where God's presence was manifested in the Shekinah glory on top
of the ark. It's very clear that there is
no other way to the Father, but through the veil, right? Through
the only way to the Father is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is not two ways. There is one way. No man cometh
unto the Father, but by me. And in this tabernacle, there
were no windows or no open doors. There was boards around it, and
then there was these coverings. The only light in there was this
candlestick. And this candlestick would have
probably been better translated as a lamp stand, because when
you think of candles, you think that there might have been candles.
But that's not the way it was. It was a lamp stand, and it burned
pure olive oil. But again, the picture here is
so clear. Without that light, you couldn't
go about and do the service of God in the sanctuary, right?
If there wasn't for that light, you'd be in complete darkness. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
lampstand. He is the light. He is the light
by which we understand the things that we've just read. These chapters
on the tabernacle, if we didn't have the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ, what would this be? we wouldn't see anything. He
is the light and we need him to give us understanding. Now, and I'm getting to the point,
this is taking a little bit long, but everything, if we didn't
have, for instance, how can God who is just justify the ungodly? Think about that. Christ is the
answer. How can God forgive iniquity
at the same time by no means clear the guilty. Christ is the
answer. And again, it's this light that
gives us that understanding. And even the layout of this tabernacle
points to the fact that salvation is by grace. And how do you get
to that? Because, again, if you were standing
on the outside of that temple, you would have noticed here as
we read, there were five golden pillars right there. And five
in the scripture is the number of grace. And so to get the picture,
to enter into the sanctuary before the presence of God, it's by
grace. It's by grace. And David actually
mentioned this earlier, being brought before the presence of
God and being accepted, that's exactly what we have here. That
table of showbread, which is a picture of Christ, and us in
Him, being accepted in the presence of God. I think we'll quit there. There's
one other thing. The tabernacle, as I mentioned,
was moved for the 40 years. And you can read there in numbers
how every piece of furniture was to be packed up and moved. And you remember those three
colors that I told you were used throughout the tabernacle, the
blue, the scarlet, and the purple? Well, guess what was over the
table of showbread when it was moved? A scarlet cloth, reminding
us that as we tabernacle through this world, we are always under
the blood.