We're going to continue our study in Exodus.
You know that a major part of Exodus
deals with the construction of the tabernacle.
Now, when we studied Genesis, I told you
that from the time of Cain, there were
these two streams that started.
False religion and true religion.
Cain and Abel, that finally ends up in
Revelation in Babylon and Jerusalem.
In Nimrod and Abraham, they followed in that
stream.
You find it in the Pharisees and Jesus.
There are always these two streams, and they
are flowing today.
And we need to make sure that we
get into the right stream.
And the tabernacle is something that was the
seed from which the temple came.
And a picture of the ultimate Jerusalem, the
church, the dwelling place of God.
In John 1, verse 14, it says, The
word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And the literal translation of that would be,
Tabernacled among us.
God tabernacled among us.
So, the tabernacle is a picture of Jesus,
first of all.
And then, of His body, the church, the
dwelling place of God.
Because, when God gave the instructions for the
tabernacle, He said in Exodus 25, verse 8,
Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that
I may dwell among them.
The purpose of God is that He must
dwell in the midst of His people.
So, the tabernacle was a sanctuary in which
God has to dwell.
Our home must be a sanctuary for God
to dwell.
Our church must be a sanctuary for God
to dwell.
It's not just a place for meetings and
for evangelism.
That's what we understand.
I am supposed to be a sanctuary, a
temple, for God to dwell.
My home is to be a temple for
God to dwell.
My church must be a temple for God
to dwell.
Everything else is secondary.
Bible teaching is secondary, evangelism is secondary, good
works is secondary, helping the poor is secondary.
Primary reason is, God must dwell there.
That's the first lesson we learn from the
tabernacle.
And if you lose sight of this, what
happens is, you get into so many good
things.
Social work is a good thing, evangelism is
a good thing, Bible teaching is a good
thing, special meetings is a good thing.
God must dwell.
Does God dwell in your church?
Does God dwell in your home?
Does God dwell in your life?
That's the main thing.
It's not you saying, I live a good
life.
So, please remember that right from the beginning.
And I want you to notice another thing
about the tabernacle.
And that is, when God gave the instructions
for the tabernacle.
Now, supposing somebody were making a plan for
building this compound here.
He will not start with this pulpit.
No.
No architect will start spending a long time,
let's start with the pulpit.
No.
They will start with the dimensions of the
compound.
And with the major buildings.
And that's how they'd go.
But when God gave the plan for the
tabernacle.
Do you know what he started with?
He didn't tell them first the dimensions of
it.
Or even about the tent.
He started with the ark.
Exodus 25, 10.
He said, the first thing you need to
do is construct an ark.
And the ark was in the most holy
place.
And God dwelt there.
In other words, he started from himself.
In the beginning, God.
God's ways are not man's ways.
And in every church, this is where we
must begin.
Not with activity.
Not with any type of activity.
But with God.
With the most holy place.
The things that are most holy in the
Christian life.
The ark.
That's where we must begin.
You see, and I'll come to the tabernacle
in a moment.
God begins from himself.
And in our dealings with God.
Like with Adam.
We saw that in Genesis.
First, spend one day in fellowship with God.
Then you can go and work.
In the garden.
Whether you're calling his evangelism or teaching or
social work or anything.
Whatever it is, begin with God.
And you see that principle in the tabernacle
too.
See, these are things which are there in
scripture.
You read them, but sometimes you don't notice
them.
It's the glory of God to conceal a
matter.
It's the glory of kings to search it
out.
Okay.
When Jesus taught us to pray the Lord's
Prayer.
What did he teach us to begin with?
Not even forgiveness of our sins.
Which is such an important thing.
He said, when you pray.
Pray our father.
Who art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
This is the ark.
In the beginning, God.
You know, if I could show you one
thing.
That throughout scripture.
God is always back to man.
Who will put him in the beginning.
Give him the first place in his life.
In his home.
In his church.
God can do amazing things.
That's what he wants.
That's the place he wants to have in
your life.
This tabernacle is also a picture of our
body.
You know, our body is a trinity.
The tabernacle has three parts.
I'll just come to that.
Spirit, soul and body.
That's what man is.
1 Thessalonians 5.23 And just like, because
man was made in the image of God,
who is a trinity.
We are also a trinity.
Each of us is a trinity.
Spirit, soul and body.
In another sense.
God is three persons.
We are one person, but with three parts.
The tabernacle also has three parts.
And there's many spiritual truths we can learn
from that.
For our body.
God dwells in our spirit.
The deepest part.
If you think of our human being as
three concentric circles.
Outer circle is the body.
Inside that is the soul.
Inside that is the spirit.
God dwells in the innermost circle.
In the spirit.
And that's why the tabernacle was divided into
three parts.
So here we see the tabernacle.
You see that is this thing where you
can see the red light.
Is the tent of the tabernacle.
And this is the court of the tabernacle.
So the tabernacle had three parts.
That's the outer court.
150 feet by 75 feet.
And that is the tent.
And the tent was divided into two parts.
One was the holy place.
Which is 45 feet by 15 feet.
And the most holy place.
Which was a square 15 feet by 15
feet.
And the height of this was also 15
feet.
So the most holy place was a cube.
Same length.
Same breadth.
Same height.
And it says in revelation 21 that Jerusalem
was also a cube.
Same length.
Same height.
Same breadth.
That means Jerusalem is not this whole thing.
Jerusalem is the most holy place.
Only.
You got to get there.
To be a part of that cube mentioned
in revelation 21.
You got to press on to fellowship with
God.
To be a part of the bride of
Jesus Christ.
So the tabernacle was surrounded by the camp
of Israel all around.
There was a specific place for each tribe.
And these three, Merari, Gershon and Kohat were
the sons of Levi.
Who looked after the tabernacle.
They lived closest to the tabernacle.
And the other 12 tribes.
You know, when the tribe of Levi was
taken away.
Then Manasseh and Ephraim, the two tribes of...
The tribe of Joseph was split up into
Manasseh and Ephraim.
So you still had 12 tribes.
And the 13th was Levi.
Now, in the outer court.
You had a plain...
This compound was marked off by a plain
white linen sheet.
And white linen in scripture symbolizes simple righteousness.
And it was a very simple way by
which the tabernacle was separated.
From the rest of the world.
It's a picture of the righteousness of Christ.
That separates the church from the rest of
the world.
And there was only one gate.
As you can see here.
30 feet.
Only one gate.
By which you could enter.
And it was very small compared to the
whole camp.
And just like the church is a very
small place compared to the world.
Now, I'll just show you a picture of
the tabernacle.
But I want to mention one thing before
I go on.
In the outer court.
There were only two items visible.
The brazen altar.
And the laver.
The laver was like a big tub of
water.
And the brazen altar was where all the
sacrifices were made.
Okay.
That's what the tabernacle looked like.
You know.
The other one you saw was a diagram.
There's the brazen altar.
And the Lord said you should not make
steps up to the altar.
You got a sloping thing going up to
the altar.
And that was the laver.
Like a big tub.
In which they washed themselves.
And this was the tent.
Covered over.
And the back part of this tent was
where the veil was.
The thick veil that separated the holy place
from the most holy place.
And which they had in the temple also.
Which was rent when Jesus died on the
cross.
And here we have a picture of how
the tabernacle was actually constructed.
With a number of boards.
Vertical boards like you see here.
You see this vertical board.
And it had two legs underneath.
That rested in a silver socket.
With two holes in it.
And this board had these four little projections
through which a board would go through.
To hold it in place.
Now there are a number of spiritual lessons
we can learn from this.
It's a picture of the body of Christ.
Many people closely held together.
Without any gap between them.
Close fellowship.
Held together by the bonds of fellowship.
And resting on the silver socket.
Silver is a picture of redemption throughout the
Old Testament.
There are examples of that where the Lord
said.
You got to pay silver when you want
to redeem some people.
And Judas Iscariot took 30 pieces of silver
to betray Jesus.
Silver is a picture of redemption.
And this board rested on silver sockets.
And here was the front of the tent.
Which had a little curtain.
And at the back you can see the
other curtain.
And these, the tent.
Now these two, I would say these two
legs into the sockets.
Speak about faith and obedience.
Trust and obey.
Those are the two legs we stand on.
God's word given us.
Promises and commandments.
If you've got faith and obedience.
You're a balanced Christian.
You're stable.
Can you imagine how that board would have
been unstable if it had only one leg?
Like a lot of Christians.
There's to be no gap.
There are many, many lessons we can learn
from this tabernacle.
And then I want you to see the
coverings of the tabernacle.
Now all this is described in between Exodus
chapters 25 to 30.
The outer court is described in 27, 9
to 19.
The tent of the tabernacle in 26, 1
to 37.
And here are the curtains which covered the
tabernacle.
There were four curtains which covered the tabernacle.
The first one is made of fine linen
with a lot of very intricate engraving.
That was on the inside.
You could not see it unless you went
inside.
There's a verse in Psalm 45 which says,
The king's daughter is all glorious inside.
The outermost covering was a dirty covering of
badger skin.
Full of dust.
Ugly.
And dark brown.
And that's how the Christian and Jesus and
the church are in the eyes of the
world.
It says about Jesus, there was no beauty
in him that we should desire in.
There was nothing attractive about the Lord Jesus
outwardly.
Oh, he was just a carpenter.
Not very highly educated.
They despised him.
And that's how God has allowed the church,
the true church is always despised.
It's never popular.
It's got this badger skin covering of very
simple and not very attractive.
And a really godly man is also not
always attractive on the outside.
The real glory of Jesus was inside his
life.
This inner curtain which you could only see
if you went inside.
With all that intricate work of many, many
colors and gold could only be seen within.
And that teaches us also that in our
personal life, there must be more glory inside
than outside.
Now, a lot of Christians are not like
that.
There's more glory on their outside than inside.
They got the badger skins inside and all
this fancy design work on the outside.
You got it wrong, brother.
That's not the way it should be.
The glory must be within.
In other words, your inner life must be
better than what other people see of you.
There must be more prayer and fasting in
your life that other people don't know about
than what they know.
There must be more sacrifice and giving in
your inner life than what other people can
see.
That is the true tabernacle of God.
But a tabernacle where all the glory is
displayed for other people, that's not a tabernacle
of God.
That's the way of Babylon.
There's a lot of difference between Babylon and
Jerusalem.
And one of the differences is seen here.
Where do you put the most glorious covering?
On the inside or the outside?
Do you try to show that you are
a great man of God or is it
enough that God Almighty knows that?
Or do you want people to know that?
That's very important.
So here was this first curtain of fine
linen symbolizing the righteousness of Christ.
It says the bride of Christ in Revelation
19 is clothed in fine linen.
And then next to that was a covering
made of goat's hair.
Probably white like you see here.
And a goat.
You think of the scapegoat.
One of the offerings is a picture of
the sin offering.
Offered for my sin.
The goat offered for my sin.
A picture of Christ.
And then you come to the ram's skin
dyed red.
A ram's skin dyed red.
And red speaks of blood, substitution, the blood
of Christ.
That was the third covering.
And the fourth covering was the badger skins
speaking of the reproach of Christ.
The ugliness of the lack of attractiveness to
the rest of the world.
The church is not attractive.
We don't try to attract people to the
church with music and money.
We try to attract the church to people
to the church with godliness.
Otherwise you can attract the wrong type of
people to the church.
That's what I've discovered.
Do you attract people to your church with
a godly message?
And with godly people?
And godly homes?
Or do you attract people to your church
with a lot of fancy music?
And a lot of fantastic building?
And a lot of other external things which
are great in the eyes of men?
I'm not against music.
I'm not against good buildings.
I'm saying that's not the basis of attraction.
It should be godliness.
Inward righteousness.
The church must be known for more glory
inside.
In other words, when people come to our
church, they should be able to say, Boy,
I didn't think much of this church when
I first came.
But after I came in and I saw
the quality of life of these people, the
quality of their families, the quality of fellowship,
it's far more glorious than I thought.
Like the Queen of Sheba said, Even the
half has not been told me of what
I first heard.
But unfortunately, many churches are the other way
around.
A lot of people are attracted.
When they come inside, they discover it's another
story.
It's full of politics and fighting and quarreling
and confusion.
It's the same with many godly men, many
preachers, rather.
I found that in my life as a
younger Christian, I would be attracted to a
person because his preaching was so wonderful.
And then I got close to him and
I found he was very proud.
I couldn't get close to him.
I found that he didn't live properly with
his wife.
He hadn't brought up his children properly.
And many things like this.
You get close and you find so many
things.
They lose their temper and they lord it
over their co-workers.
I was very disappointed in my younger days.
And I saw this as what God wanted
me to do.
I studied this 37 years ago as a
Christian.
And I found this is what God wanted
me to be.
And I'm very thankful for what I saw.
That the glory, the real glory, was seen
only on the inside.
Now, I want to show you about the
two pieces of what I call furniture.
Which is in the outer court.
You remember the outer court?
In the outer court, I said there was
a brazen altar and a brazen laver.
It was made of bronze or copper.
The brazen altar was a hollow box in
which the animals were put in and sacrificed.
And it had a grating, perhaps to remove
the ashes.
And it had four horns on the four
corners of the altar.
And it was made of wood overlaid with
bronze.
So, we are talking here about this altar.
It was made of wood overlaid with bronze.
And can you imagine with all the fire
burning inside there day and night.
Burning, burning, burning, burning, burning.
It doesn't do anything to the bronze.
The bronze still shines.
But can you imagine what happened to the
wood inside the bronze?
If you opened it up, what do you
think it looked like?
It must have been all charred and black.
And that's a picture of Jesus Christ dying
on the cross and His suffering.
The wood speaks of the inner sufferings of
Christ.
The charred wood inside the bronze, which other
people couldn't see.
If you burnt an animal here, of course
you could see all the fire and the
bronze getting hot.
And getting dirty.
That's the external sufferings of Christ on Calvary.
But inside that bronze was wood, acacia wood.
And that was burnt much more than the
bronze.
And I believe that the closer we get
to God, we learn more of the inner
sufferings of Christ on Calvary's cross.
Particularly His being forsaken by the Father on
Calvary.
To compare that suffering with the nails and
the spitting and the crown of thorns and
all, that's nothing.
The crown of thorns and all is absolutely
nothing compared to the nails.
I mean, compared to the break of fellowship
with the Father.
Now, most of us don't know what break
of fellowship with the Father means.
Because our fellowship with the Father is broken
so often and we don't even bother about
it.
And so we sort of got used to
it.
It's like people who live in a slum.
You know, people who live in a slum,
they don't know what hygienic conditions are.
But people who have lived in houses where
they've never seen a lizard or never seen
a cockroach in their life, they sort of
shrink back when they come to situations which
are dirty.
And there's a little picture of how Jesus,
from all eternity, He had fellowship with the
Father.
And then, in Gethsemane, He faced the prospect
that in a few hours, I will hang
on the cross.
He was not afraid of that.
He was not afraid of any amount of
physical suffering.
He would have been willing to go through
a hundred physical crucifixions.
But, He said, is it Father?
Is it true?
Is it there any other way?
Do I have to drink this cup?
What was that cup?
That cup was not the physical suffering.
The cup was, does my fellowship with You
have to be broken for three hours?
That's what He wanted to avoid.
Is there any other way?
And He prayed and He prayed and He
prayed.
And the Father said, no, there's no other
way.
And He said, okay Father, I'll accept it.
And I tell you, when you get close
to God, you discover the love of Jesus
Christ there, in Gethsemane, more than on Calvary.
You tell little children about the physical sufferings
of Christ, and when we are immature, that's
what we think of most.
But, the closer we get to God, we
are more taken up with the inner sufferings
of Christ, which He went through throughout His
life.
I don't have time to explain all that.
From His childhood, He was considered an illegitimate
child.
People made Him, pointed at Him, and they
said, Mary is His mother.
We don't know who the Father was.
There were many inner sufferings that He went
through throughout His life, which finally culminated in
the greatest inner suffering, which was break of
fellowship with the Father.
And there we see the depth of His
love for us, that He was willing to
even let go of that, in order to
save us, because there was no other way.
So that's what we see in the acacia
wood inside the bronze.
It's not visible.
Nobody could ever see.
All those priests could not see the condition
of that wood.
It was much worse than what you saw
on the outside.
And the four horns on the corners of
the altar, picture, you know, there's a verse
in Psalm 118, which says about binding the
sacrifice.
Psalm 118, verse 27.
Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns
of the altar.
You know, when you bring a bullock or
something like that, they would tie it to
the horns of the altar.
Bind the sacrifice.
And that speaks of Jesus being bound to
go to Jerusalem, to the cross.
It says in Luke chapter 9, He steadfastly
set His face to go to Jerusalem.
Nothing would deter Him.
And for us, the message is, that if
we want to follow Jesus, we also have
to steadfastly set our face to take up
the cross every day.
That's the only way to walk with God.
We live in a world and in a
Christendom where people don't take up the cross.
They don't understand the way of death to
self, of humbling yourself and going down.
And I pray that there will be some
at least in our midst, or many, who
understand what it is to steadfastly set our
face, even if other people are not going
that way, it doesn't matter.
I've got one goal.
I've got to take up the cross and
follow Jesus.
That's what the horns on the altar speak
about.
Then the laver, which is this brazen laver
on top here, that speaks of the Word
of God, the washing of water by the
Word.
You know, the priests had to come and
wash themselves, their hands and feet, before they
went into the...
You know, immediately, this was just at the
entrance to the tent.
And so you wash yourself and then go
in.
And this was made out of polished brass,
so you could see your face in it.
The Bible says in James chapter 1, that
God's Word is like a mirror.
And you should not forget what you see
there, it says.
So these people could see whether their face
was dirty.
When they came to the laver, this polished
brass, you could see your face in it.
In fact, that was, we read, what people
used in those days as mirrors.
The ladies in Israel used this as mirrors
and they contributed that for the making of
the laver.
So, that's a picture of the Word of
God and Ephesians 5, 26 speaks about Jesus
washing the church by the water of the
Word.
It speaks of cleansing for service.
It could also be taken as a picture
of water baptism.
If the altar is a picture of where
our sins are forgiven, the next step after
that is water baptism, which symbolizes the external
cleansing from sin.
It's a symbol of external cleansing of our
life.
Now, we go inside the tent.
Now, you remember I told you that there
is this outer court.
Let me just revise that.
See, here we have seen the brazen altar
and the laver, which is in the court
of the tabernacle.
And then, when you go inside, the laver
is the entrance to the gate and you
go in through into the tent.
There are three things here before you find
another curtain which blocks off the Most Holy
Place.
The three things are here on that side,
which is the northern side, the table of
showbread.
In the southern side, the lamp stand.
And at the entrance to the Most Holy
Place is the altar of incense.
Those are the three pieces of furniture inside
the candles inside the Holy Place.
There is just one more thing I wanted
to mention here with this diagram.
If you see down at the bottom, you
see where north, south, east, west is.
The tabernacle entrance was at the eastern end.
Every time they set up the tabernacle, it
had to be with the gate at the
eastern end.
And there is a reason for that.
Everywhere around them were people who worshipped the
sun.
The sun was the God for most people,
including Egyptians.
And God wanted Israelites to have their back
to the sun when they came in to
worship God.
Exactly the opposite of a lot of church
buildings that face east and a lot of
people who face east today praying to the
sun God even today among Christians.
It is very interesting to see that, how
God made the Israelites turn their back to
the sun and face west so that they
would deny the God of the Egyptians, the
sun God.
And the devil has done such a tremendous
work of bringing a lot of so-called
Christendom full circle back to worship the God
of the Egyptians.
That's the sun God.
And as they came here, they came to
these three pieces of furniture.
And then in the most holy place, there
was only one piece of furniture, that's the
ark with the mercy seat.
So please keep that in mind as we
see the next few pictures.
So, what you see here is, first of
all, the lamp stand with seven branches and
the golden table of showbread.
It was called a candlestick in the King
James Version.
But they never had candles those days.
It means a lamp stand which was lit
by oil.
There were vessels kept there for oil to
be poured into these lamps and that's how
the lamps burnt.
Now the lamp stand is a picture of
Christ as the light of the world.
And what Jesus said to us, the church,
you are the light of the world.
It's a picture of our manifesting the life
of Christ as a light.
In Him was life, John 1, 4, and
that life was the light of men.
The table of showbread where twelve loaves of
bread, they had to be renewed regularly by
the priests, symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel
and speaks of God's Word, of Christ as
our food and in the Word we see
Christ.
Everything is Christ.
Christ as a light and Christ whom we
see in Scriptures as our food.
Jesus Christ is our food.
It's not just the printed words in Scripture.
It's Christ that is our food.
Most of these things were all about just
about three feet high.
The brazen altar was about four and a
half feet high but this was little smaller,
three feet high, small one and a half
by one and a half the altar and
but this was a little bigger, one and
a quarter by two and a quarter or
so, one and a half by two and
a quarter feet.
And there was another piece of furniture which
I want to show you here.
This was the third bit of furniture inside
the holy place that was the golden altar
of incense which is different from the bronze
altar in the outer court.
This was the third item inside the holy
place where no animals were sacrificed, only incense
and there was a sweet perfume of incense
and inside and this speaks of the high
priestly ministry of Jesus Christ in prayer.
So there was the bread and the lamp
stand and the incense speaking of God's word
and prayer and a witness for Christ for
us.
Inside the most holy place there was only
this one item of furniture, the ark.
And the ark as you see here, if
you can see on top had the blood,
the animal's blood was put there.
Once a year on the day of atonement,
the high priest would go in his white
dress with the blood in a vessel and
he would put it inside the, on the
mercy seat.
The mercy seat was just a lid but
along with the mercy seat there were these
two cherubims and they speak of holiness.
You know when God drove Adam and Eve
out of the garden, he put cherubs.
Cherubim is the plural of cherub.
He put these cherubs to guard the tree
of life and those cherubs or cherubim were
part of this mercy seat.
Speaking of God's holiness and that was in
the most holy place and the high priest
could go in there only once a year.
And inside this ark there were three items
kept.
One was the two tablets of stone on
which the Ten Commandments were written and the
other was Aaron's rod that budded that you
read of when there was a question about
whether Aaron was the true high priest.
His rod budded overnight.
A broken rod produced fruit at night.
And the third was a pot of manna.
This speaks of God's word and obedience and
this speaks of resurrection power and this speaks
about feeding on Christ as our manna and
on the word of God.
And this speaks about obedience to God's commandments.
Now there's one interesting thing I want to
tell you about this pot of manna which
is kept.
These three things were kept inside the ark.
Now I don't know whether you remember in
one particular place when David brought the ark
back there were certain people who were very
curious to find out what's inside the ark
and they lifted the lid of the ark
and it says God smote a number of
people there for being curious.
They had no right to look inside the
ark.
In fact, the ark could not even be
touched by those who were not Levites.
Uzzah once tried to touch the ark.
That was this ark.
And God killed him on the spot.
He said you're not a Levite.
You've got no business to touch God's ark.
God was very strict about these things.
Now one thing about this pot of manna
that I spoke about is that you know
when people kept the manna in their home
in 24 hours it began to stink and
not only stink but breed worms.
Now if you keep a loaf of bread
for one day it doesn't get bad so
quickly.
But manna got bad much quicker than even
meat.
Even meat may not start breeding worms in
24 hours but manna which was vegetarian not
non-vegetarian.
It wasn't animal food at all.
It began to breed worms and began to
stink in 24 hours.
God was teaching Israel thereby you need to
go every day out and pick it up.
You can't pick up one day's portion for
two days.
You've got to be in touch with God
every day.
But we see that when this manna was
put inside the ark it did not stink.
It did not breed worms for 40 years.
And more than 40 years the ark was
there even years later 400-500 years later
in David's time the ark was there.
And for 500 years that manna did not
stink.
Now the lesson we learned from that is
that even though the manna fell from heaven
it lost its freshness.
You can get an anointing from heaven and
tomorrow you've lost it.
You can get a word from heaven and
it blesses you today and tomorrow when you
speak the same word is not fresh.
You see this is the reason why a
lot of preaching of God's word today is
so boring.
It's not fresh.
There's no life in it.
Here is the answer.
If you can understand this you've learned the
secret.
Why did the manna stink when it was
kept in your home and why did the
manna not stink when it was kept inside
the ark?
Reason.
Because the ark was in the most holy
place and God's word and God's truth and
God's anointing must be kept in God's presence.
Then it will always be fresh.
In other words if I am to preach
a truth that I understood 35 years ago
I remember taking a study on this 37
years ago and if I am to teach
something in a fresh way year by year
I have to live in God's presence.
The truths are in my head but it
won't be fresh.
It won't be anointed if I don't live
in God's presence.
That's the thing which we learn from this.
Otherwise in one day it takes only 24
hours for things to begin to stink for
freshness to go.
The Bible says Hebrews 3.13 says exhort
one another daily daily otherwise you'll be hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin.
Now I want to mention show one other
thing.
You see here this is the dress of
Aaron when he went on the day of
atonement one day in his life he wore
this dress completely white completely simple when he
went into God's presence.
The rest of the time he wore this
dress.
When he came before the people he wore
this dress.
When he went before God he went in
a simple white dress.
Now there are two lessons we learn from
that.
One is when you come before God you
can't come with all your worldly pomp and
glory and all these things.
You got to throw all that out.
Come before God in simplicity.
God wants you to come just as you
are naked, open.
And the other thing we learn from this
is God said particularly you read in Ezekiel
44 that that when you go to the
people the Lord said don't go with this
holy white dress to the people.
When you go before the people change your
clothes and go like this.
That's what Jesus said.
When you fast don't let anyone know about
it.
Let your holy white dress be before God.
When you come before people anoint your face
and appear to men as though you are
not fasting.
Appear to men as though you are feasting.
Appear to men as though you are grandly
dressed.
I remember when I was a young Christian
and I decided to leave my job to
serve the Lord full time.
I was encouraged to read something that said
even when you don't have any money act
as though you got plenty.
Then nobody will give you money like a
beggar.
You know a lot of people give money
to Christian workers just like they give to
beggars out of charity.
Oh this poor man, I see his torn
shirt I better give him some money.
And that really helped me that my need
must be known only before God.
Before men I must anoint my face and
appear that I am feasting.
This grand dress before men and a very
simple dress before God.
The number of truths we learn from this.
Aaron had a tunic that's down there and
a robe on top of that, a blue
robe with bells and pomegranates underneath and a
thing called an ephod.
This is the ephod.
A dress on top of that a turban
on top and a shoulder two shoulder plates
you see here one on this shoulder, one
on that shoulder two stones, two precious stones
where symbolizing his carrying on his shoulder God's
people.
And a breastplate in front which had twelve
precious stones with the names of the twelve
tribes of Israel showing that he carried them
not only on his shoulder he carried them
on his heart.
God's servants must carry other people on their
shoulders lifting their burdens like you carry little
children on your shoulders and you also got
to carry them on your heart.
That means you got to love them have
a concern for them.
I always say that if you want to
be a prophet you got to have two
things in your heart.
You got to have God's people in your
heart and you have to have God's word
in your heart.
If you have those two God can make
you his mouthpiece.
A lot of people have God's word in
their heads not in their hearts because they
have not obeyed it.
And some people who have God's word in
their heart don't have God's people in their
heart.
And then of course they cannot be God's
mouthpieces.
So there are number of lessons we learn
from that also.
Just one thing about this turban in the
front part of the turban was a metal
plate where it was written Holiness unto the
Lord.
And if you read Exodus 28 verse 36
to 38 it says there this was for
Aaron to bear the sin in the holy
things that Israel did.
Now that's an expression that comes only once
in scripture.
The iniquity of the holy things.
Now we know the iniquity of sinful things.
What is the iniquity of the holy things?
You need to understand iniquity in the holy
things.
Jesus carries not only our sins like dirty
thoughts, jealousy, anger bitterness, many many evil things
he also has to carry the sin of
our holy things.
The sin of our holy things is for
example when I preach that's a good thing,
it's a holy thing but if I preach
to get honor from people, there's sin there.
If I preach to get money from people,
there's sin there.
If I go to some place to preach
because I know they'll give me a good
offering there that's sin, that's the sin of
the holy things.
When I pray because I want everybody to
say Amen, Hallelujah and I'm also excited when
they say Amen, Hallelujah and I want their
appreciation and when I finish praying I think
I hope everybody was impressed by that prayer.
That whole prayer was sinful.
These are the sins Jesus has to carry.
Iniquity in the holy things, good things done
for honor.
The motive is sinful.
Now, the builders of the tabernacle, we read
in I think it's Exodus 30 perhaps, it
says the builders of the tabernacle were chapter
31 I think, first few verses Bezalel and
Aholiab The interesting thing is they were filled
with the spirit and wisdom.
Those who built the tabernacle required to be
full of the Holy Spirit and full of
wisdom.
A lot of so-called people who are
baptized in the Holy Spirit they're very foolish
in the way they behave and they don't
build a church.
You need to be like Stephen about whom
it says he was full of the spirit
and of wisdom.
So, those who built the tabernacle we read
in Exodus 31 were full of the spirit
and of wisdom.
Now, in conclusion I want to show one
more thing.
These three parts of the tabernacle speak of
three levels at which you can live the
Christian life.
One is the level of acceptance.
God has accepted me.
I'm a child of God.
I'm going to heaven.
That's the outer court life.
The second is the level of service.
You must serve God, people say.
Beyond acceptance it's not just that I go
to heaven.
The priests were always busy serving here.
There were many people in the outer court
very few serving here.
Service, service.
Saved to serve, they say.
But, there's something still further.
Fellowship with God.
In the most holy place there's only one
person.
God.
That's the lesson we learned in the Sabbath
day.
For Adam, God said fellowship first.
The ark first.
Then service.
The ark.
Yes, thank God for the one gate.
There's only one way of salvation.
Thank God for Calvary.
Thank God for water baptism.
Thank God we are accepted.
Thank God we can serve.
But the most important thing is fellowship.
Now, in the Old Testament the veil was
not rent.
You could not go into the most holy
place.
Nobody could go there.
Even the high priest once a year to
show that you couldn't go there.
But when Jesus died the veil in the
temple was rent showing that that which man
could not have till now.
Fellowship.
Here in the most holy place to be
alone with God.
To worship Him.
To give Him the glory due unto His
name.
To talk with God and walk with Him.
I say with all of my heart I
would any day walk with God rather than
with men.
If you can't say that you can't really
serve God.
You got to walk with God before you
walk with men.
You got to live before God before you
live before men.
If you want what you say before men
to be effective live before God.
Not just in a few minutes before the
meeting but all the time.
Even when I stand here I minister to
God first and then to the people.
Always before God.
That is the message of the veil that
was rent.
When Jesus died it says Hebrews 10.20
He made a new and living way through
the veil.
His flesh was rent on Calvary's cross and
He made a way into the most holy
place and the veil was rent immediately from
top to bottom showing that God did it
and the veil was and the way was
open now for us to go inside to
fellowship with God.
That fellowship with Jesus valued so much that
He never wanted to lose it.
We can say the outer court speaks of
those who are born of the spirit.
The holy place speaks of those who are
baptized in the Holy Spirit and the most
holy place speaks of those who are led
by the Holy Spirit which is much more
than just baptized in the Holy Spirit.
The outer court speaks of a life of
thanksgiving for all that God has done.
The holy place speaks of a life of
praise.
Praise is more than thanksgiving.
The most holy place speaks of worship.
Thanksgiving, praise, worship.
Most Christians never go beyond thanksgiving and praise.
A lot of what we call worship meeting
is actually only a thanksgiving and praise meeting.
Worship means much more than that.
To worship God in spirit and in truth.
In the outer court, you had natural light
of the sun.
In the holy place, you had the light
of the lamp stand.
In the most holy place, you had no
light except the light of God.
A complete dependence on God alone.
No dependence on the sun or the lamp
stand.
No dependence on anything human.
On God.
Total dependence on God for everything.
John says, I write unto you babes, I
write unto you young men, I write unto
you fathers.
Here are the babes, outer court.
Here are the young men, holy place.
Here are the fathers, most holy place.
Jesus said the seed is sown.
Some produce thirtyfold, outer court.
Some produce sixtyfold, holy place.
Some produce hundredfold, most holy place.
Wonderful truths in the word of God.
It's the glory of God to conceal a
matter.
It's the glory of kings to search it
out.
Let's pray that God will make us a
tabernacle in which he can dwell and be
happy.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, help us to be the tabernacle
that you want in our lives, in our
homes, and in our churches.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.