epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Exodus 37

Who made The Tabernacle? Many hands were used in the process. Moses directed and approved everything. Bezalel put his Spirit-endowed abilities to work. Others assisted. Willing givers contributed. But the Lord was at work in all. The Lord commanded and the Lord supplied.

The name of Bezalel was particularly identified with the holiest of sacred objects, the ark of the covenant. “Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood.” What a privilege to be selected by God for this task. Yet we are building a far more wonderful temple in the New Testament age. God has called on us to build up the body of Christ, the church. More impressive still is the Head of the body, and the work that He alone has accomplished.

The ark of the covenant was not a very large object; a little less than four feet long and a little over two feet wide and high. Nor was it complex in design. What made the ark so important was that it would be the center of God's presence for worship upon the earth during the time of preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

Bazalel made the ark of acacia wood and overlaid it with pure gold both inside and outside. Gold will perish, though it might seem to last forever. The God who would dwell with Israel is eternal. The details of the construction of the ark indicated its simplicity, purity, and utility for a people whose God was moving them along on a journey. The word “utility” might not give the right impression, since this was not just a useful place for Israel to store the tablets of the Law. The kind of utility that God insisted upon demanded that the ark be built so that it could be safely carried. That was why it had a gold molding and special gold rings for its four feet. That was why Bezalel built poles of acacia wood overlaid with gold, so that the right people could pick it up and move it without dying.

Bezalel made the mercy seat that would be placed on top of the ark of the covenant. The golden cherubim would be the most ornate object of beauty in the elegant simplicity of the Lord's design for The Tabernacle. In fact, the only images in the entire place of worship would be angelic; whether the cherubim woven into the curtains or these golden sculptures that were of one piece with the mercy seat. One angel was on one side of the seat and the other angel was on the other side of the seat, with the two figures looking toward the center of that golden cover, where God would be present.

How many idol temples are full of complex images designed and made by men? But when God commanded Moses to build a place of holy worship, what did He ask for? A chest with a cover, a small table, poles, vessels, and utensils necessary for carrying the holy objects and for using them according to the Lord's commandments.

Bezalel's hand was also on the golden lampstand, perhaps the second most glorious object in The Tabernacle. His hammer formed the base, the stem, the cups, the calyxes, and the flowers, out of which the light would shine. This would be a golden source of illumination in the form of an organic object; a plant or vine that would be glorious in its materials, and would shine in a place that would otherwise be entirely dark.

Bezalel also made the simple altar for burning incense out of acacia wood, and he overlaid it with pure gold. The safe transportation of this holy object also required a molding, gold rings, and acacia poles overlaid with gold. This chapter ends with a brief word regarding the oil and the incense. “He made the holy anointing oil also, and the pure fragrant incense, blended as by the perfumer.”

What is most striking about all the work of Bezalel, is that it could have been much more striking. The other nations and people groups of the ancient world knew how to make ornate objects of worship. The objects for the interior of The Tabernacle were few, they were unusually simple, and they were plainly obedient. God commanded, and a man who could have done much more, did what He was supposed to do. There must be some lesson for us in this example.

All the more ornate religions of the world have objects made by men springing out of their own desire to gaze at outward glory. To truly appreciate the ark of the covenant, the table for the bread, the lampstand, and the altar of incense, required something more than a natural eye. A gifted man like Bezalel needed a willing restraint that sought to follow the commandment of God, and the direction of Moses, the mediator between God and man. In order to turn away from pride and applause, Bezalel needed a different spirit in Him than the spirit of the world. He needed, and had, the Spirit of God.

Jesus came as the Temple of the Holy Spirit. As Isaiah had said, “We esteemed Him not.” Yet Jesus, as the new Temple, did what outwardly impressive people and places could not do. “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

A living, breathing Messiah, a Priest of perfect righteousness, is far more impressive to God than the most artistic statue or building that man can make. The natural man is impressed with the objects of man-made religion. The spiritual man is impressed by the God who became Man to do what no object or building could ever have accomplished. Holy men and angels look toward Him and are filled with glory.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Exodus 36

The building of The Tabernacle did not originate in the heart of man. The Tabernacle was God's idea. From beginning to end, the Lord was the author of every good gift that He chose to use in its construction including all the people involved. The Lord was the Source, and He remains the appropriate reason for all our praise.

Bezalel was a gifted and spirit-filled man. Oholiab was a skillful and intelligent assistant. But it was the Lord who commanded everything concerning this important work. He put skill in their minds and in their hands to work out what was in the memory of Moses and in the voice of the Lord.

The One who created the world out of nothing was certainly able to build this little tent house without anyone's help. But it was the Lord's glory to use people in this endeavor. He gave them skill, and their hearts were stirred up to do His work. That was more impressive than just doing it all Himself. This pattern was for our benefit, for the Lord has always been determined to use people to build His kingdom in every era of our salvation.

Some gave contributions of necessary materials. Some received the contributions of others and turned them into something more glorious and beautiful. No one brought anything of their own for which thanks could not most rightly be offered up to God. The compulsion to give was from within, so the people of the Lord gave more than was necessary for the task at hand. Eventually they had to be told to stop giving, since there was too much!

The craftsman set about their work. They made the tents, with the heavenly vision of cherubim woven into the material. They made them according to the command of the Lord. They were the same size, pleasing to the eye and to the mind; an ordered work befitting the worship of the God of Israel, who does all things with decency and order.

There was a unity displayed in their work. The Tabernacle was one, because God, in all His complexity, is now and always will be One. This unity needed to be expressed in the Old Testament worship house. We were being prepared through this example, for the church. Though we are comprised of great diversity, we have the unity of one Lord over one holy temple. The Tabernacle was made by the workmen to be a single whole.

The craftsmen made frames to give the structure necessary for this tent to be used by men. It was one thing to have a design for a holy place. It was another to build it. The structure needed integrity. It needed to make a distinction between what was outside and what was inside. Without a suitable frame under the various coverings, this would have been impossible.

It was made with reference to the world all around it. It had a south side, for example. The sun outside the tabernacle rose in the east every morning. This one orientation defined the meaning of north, south, and west as well as east in the world of creation. This tabernacle was to be placed in this creation as a picture of another world, another creation. It was a mysterious and even dangerous link to a place that would enliven the hope of the faithful living in this present world who were eager for the promises of God to be fulfilled.

The overlay of gold on the frames and the bars that provided necessary support were a part of the great work of building the tabernacle. Those with skill in working with gold accomplished this task. The very frame of the Lord's house would speak of glory and holiness, like a door to heaven, where even the bells on the horses might be inscribed with the phrase “holy to the Lord,” and where even the streets would be paved with gold.

We must believe in the glory of the life to come. This structure was one of the ways that the Lord provided a special aid to faith, not only to those who walked through this movable house of glory back in those days, but to the church in every era who would read about these details and consider the greater glory that was yet to be revealed.

A veil was made that would separate The Most Holy Place from The Holy Place. It must have been beautiful; blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; with cherubim skillfully worked into it. But that veil and its supporting structure, its golden hooks, and its silver bases told a story not only of the glory of a Paradise beyond the veil. It also warned the worshiper about the consequences of getting too close to the glory of God without the protection of a perfect sacrifice. What must it have been like to make that veil when the heart of the true worshiper longed for it to be torn apart? As long as that veil stood, the people of God were kept out, except in the presence of a high priest, who had his own sin problem. Even the entrance to the tabernacle spoke a similar message to the nations of the world. They were on the outside. They could not come in.

But now the perfect blood sacrifice has been offered. When He died, the veil was torn in two from top to bottom. The entrance to the presence of God has come to us through Christ, our Gate, and we are engaged in the building of a world-wide temple of the Holy Spirit. Our most skilled Artisan, our perfect Lamb, our entrance to heaven, and our sympathetic Priest is Jesus. He is leading us in a glorious endeavor, and is Himself our greatest delight. To us, He has become more beautiful than any building that men can build. We are pleased to serve with Him. He is our Lord.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Exodus 35

The Lord said more about the Sabbath than any of the other nine commandments that He gave to Israel through Moses in Exodus 20. He kept on coming back to it. Even when the Christ came, the Lord was insistent in showing the Pharisees that they were wrong about this commandment. They turned resting into a work. What a great irony. The command to not work became a work of righteousness for them, by which they thought they could work their way to peace with God. Jesus continually healed people on the Sabbath. That could not have been an accident. He insisted that Sabbath was about wholeness. His enemies insisted that His words of wholeness that brought life to the desperate were done on the wrong day of the week.

There was always something mysterious about Sabbath. It seemed so obvious. What could be more obvious or more keepable? All you had to do was not do? Yet that not doing had been built up in the rabbinic tradition that told you how to safely do all that not doing. When Jesus came, Sabbath came in person. Sabbath spoke wholeness to the sick and demon-possessed and they were made well. When Sabbath died, He rose again on the first day of the week, and a new Day of the Lord was alive.

“Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.” Sabbath was a matter of life and death to God and to Israel. What a mystery! “You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.” Why was rest so serious? There must have been some holy work behind this commandment that only God could do; some wining of rest for the people of God that only the Lord could accomplish. The day for that great work had to come when Sabbath came in person. He accomplished all righteousness and then completed His perfect work with one great act of obedience; His death for a people that did not even know how to rest rightly. That work of the cross was His alone to do. His resurrection was the proof that this great work was effectual. Now we rest in the greater light of God's accomplished work for us in Christ, the work that brought us eternal wholeness.

The Israelites needed to hear about Sabbath again before they returned to the construction of the Tabernacle. Old Testament Sabbath was an encouragement that a great rest was coming in the One who would do the works that we could not do. It was time to get back to the construction of the Lord's moveable house of worship. It was time to resume the story that had been interrupted by the making of a calf idol. God would be merciful and just to His people. How would He do this? The answer was not yet fully revealed. The people needed to rest in Him as they began to build what God had shown to Moses on top of the mountain.

The Lord had Moses collect all the contributions from the people. They had left Egypt with gifts from the Egyptians. Some of those gifts they had squandered on idolatry. They had unnecessarily impoverished themselves by their foolish desires. But there was much left over that the Lord would use for the building of The Tabernacle. This would be brought forward not by compulsion, but by a voluntary offering. Their Lord, who owned everything, was determined to use their generous hearts in the building of His Kingdom. All of the necessary materials were mentioned, along with all of the items that the Lord had displayed before Moses. The Lord stirred the hearts of the people, and they gave what the Lord placed within their hearts to give. Only God could bring about such a wonderful result from a people that had so recently displayed such an inclination toward idolatry.

The plan of the Lord was perfect. The people were moved to offer up the objects they had carried out of the land. Ornaments and garments that had been placed on the necks of their children would soon be a part of the Lord's house of worship.

Imagine what this offering was like: brooches, earrings, signet rings, armlets, a variety of gold objects, yarns, fine linen, goats' hair, rams' skins, goatskins, silver, bronze, even acacia wood was given for the work of the Lord. Not only that, some of these objects required some labor in order to make them more useful for the skilled craftsmen who would do the building. Cloth was spun by many hands, and all kinds of gifts were brought to the Lord. Onyx stones, other gems, spices, oil,... everyone did their part, and the Lord was the One who brought it all about. Yet each person gave and worked freely. What a mystery to see God use His people to accomplish His great plans.

But the Lord would use a spirit-filled man to take all of these voluntary offerings and to construct this space according to His holy will. In our day, Christ is the builder of His church and of the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness shall dwell forever. He alone has the skill, intelligence, knowledge, and the eye for beauty to build up the Lord's dwelling place. He will not settle for less than His Father desires. He will make us into a perfect temple for His Spirit.

We are called to work on this eternal house for the Lord as we proclaim His Word and do what He reveals. But only He can lead us in this great task. It is right for us to rest in Him on the first day of the week, and then to work for Him as those who know that His perfect work has won for us our eternal Sabbath rest.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Bible Survey #28 and 29 - 1/2 Chronicles

Time To Go Up


History must be retold in every generation and applied to the current struggles and opportunities of the current generation. The people of God were oppressed by Assyria and Babylon. During their exile, the Lord was preparing them to do a great work of faith and obedience.

Beginning with Adam, extreme spiritual shorthand of selective genealogies reminds the hearer of the stories behind the names. These lists can move the people to be faithful to the right descendant of David, seeking the restoration of the Lord's worship and kingdom.

It is unnecessary to retell all the sordid details of the kings of Judah. What is needed is to hear the prayers and messages that warn returning exiles and encourage them in the way of suffering faithfulness. The result is a streamlined view of heroes, especially David, preparing us for the best Son of David who will be the eternal King of the kingdom. The plain facts of the unfaithfulness of later kings after Solomon are exposed for everyone to hear who will receive correction.

The goal of this retelling of history is not the despair of hopelessness. Even a Manasseh can repent. The kingdom of God is there for the taking. The restored Israel must go up, following the leadership of the Lord.


From Adam to the days of David's Son,

The story of the Lord must be retold.

Let all the sons of God return to Him

And serve the Lord in truth and righteousness.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Exodus 34

God promised Moses that His presence would continue to be with the people of Israel. The favor and mercy that the Lord determined to show His people was confirmed by the Lord's own presence passing before Moses. Further assurance came through the instruction to bring two new tablets to God. Moses had destroyed the original tablets of the Law in His anger over Israel's idolatry.

God said, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” Once again, Moses was told to come up to God on the top of Mount Sinai. No one was to accompany him, not even an animal grazing in the area.

Moses did what God commanded. The Lord had already revealed Himself to Moses as the great I-AM in what must have seemed like another lifetime. He had also proclaimed Himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At this important new moment in the history of Moses' relationship with God, the Lord who had said that He would have mercy on whom He would have mercy, revealed more of His own mysterious character. Descending in a cloud of glory that stood by Moses, God said that He was both gracious in His love and inflexible in His justice. The great I-AM was not easy to understand. We could have received a God who wass perfectly gracious, a God who had determined to pass over our iniquities. Alternatively, we could have understood a God who was perfect in His righteous who would punish everyone for their sins. But how could we fathom a God who had both the fullness of perfect mercy and the fullness of inflexible justice at the same time? This was the way God spoke about Himself to Moses, but it was too much to comprehend.

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, ...” Yes... “but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” How could this be?

We could not understand how such conflicting absolutes of love and wrath could ever be reconciled until the Son of God cried out from the cross as the Lamb of God, and then, within the space of three days, rose from the dead with us held tight in His arms. Until that moment, the people of God had to do what Moses did; worship and wonder. We had to simply and humbly petition the Lord to pardon us, not understanding how this could ever happen. How could the Lord take us as His inheritance forever?

But now the Lord of the covenant has come. He has solved this great mystery in His person and in His sacrificial work. The covenant existed before the Lord of the covenant came to secure His promises for us through the gift of His life and death for us. Before that point, we already had His promise. He would be the God of His special people, doing great marvels for them, and giving to them The Promised Land. God would give this great gift, but would Israel be able to keep the gift? The insecurity of not understanding how God's mercy could somehow satisfy His anger with us over sin kept the Lord's people wondering. Yes, God would drive out the occupants of the Land before Israel, but would He then have to drive out Israel, and very soon.


Would a people that had so quickly worshiped a calf idol soon worship all of the gods of the nations they were replacing? Would they turn away from the Lord forever? Would they ignore His sacred festivals and take up the customs of these other nations? Would they forget what He commanded concerning lawful and unlawful sacrifices? Would they refuse to rest in Him, and profane His Sabbaths? Would they fall so fast and so completely that they would be unable to call God their God? Would they fall, like Adam?

Yet there was something more in God's relationship with Israel than what could be expressed through the Law. There was a certainty of relationship that could only be seen in the face of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. There was a glory that would shine forth from heaven for the Lord's holy people.

This glory was largely hidden from the view of Israel for a long time. Moses saw the glory of the face of God, and He was visibly changed. But even the reflected glory in His countenance was something that the nation could not see and live. Therefore, even the face of Moses was veiled, like The Most Holy Place in The Tabernacle.

But now, through the death of Christ, that veil has been forever removed for those who are found in Jesus. We see in Him the fullness of God's love and the complete satisfaction of His justice. Christ has brought us what the Law could never give: The certainty of eternal glory, and the assurance of a forever promise that was older than the writing of the Law on tablets of stone.

The time has come for our souls to be open to the unveiled presence of God with His people. The glory of God is among us forever. The God of Israel will not abandon us.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Exodus 33

The question that remained for Moses and the people of Israel is whether or not the Lord Himself would lead them into The Promised Land. Was the breach so bad, that God would be unwilling to be their God? Was the grace of God crushed under the weight of His anger over their sin?

God told Moses to depart, and He continued to call Israel “your people.” The Lord then spoke of an “angel,” a messenger, that He would send ahead of them. This angelic leader would drive out the current inhabitants of Canaan. God assured Moses that the land would be good, a land “flowing with milk and honey,” but the Lord then plainly said this frightening word: “I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

When the people heard that news they mourned. God had made it clear that if He stayed with them even “for a single moment,” He would destroy them. How could it ever be that God, the Holy One of Israel, could maintain steadfast love for a people that worshiped a calf idol when they thought that their leader was dead and gone? What would God do with Israel. They took off any ornaments of celebration and waited for the Lord's decision.

Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant. He was standing in the place of Jesus until the time of the Son of God had fully come. We needed a mediator. This was the way that God would deal with us and be our God. When Moses did this, it was a picture of what was to come. Christ is the eternal Mediator of a covenant that has brought us a solid grace that will never be taken away.

At this point in Exodus, the Lord reminded Israel of the story of The Tabernacle to come and of the man who met with God. While The Tabernacle had not yet been constructed, God wrote in this chapter of how He would meet with Moses there, outside of the camp of Israel, and how all of Israel needed God to do that, so that they would be led forward to The Promised Land.

There at The Tent of Meeting, people would come to God and His mediator, Moses, with the struggles that others could not solve, and Moses would call out to God for an answer. God would come down upon that Tent of Meeting, and He would speak to the current mediator of the covenant. Moses was that mediator, but his assistant Joshua was being prepared for his own year of covenant service. One day, Moses would be gone, and this Joshua would lead the people into The Promised Land. As God was with Moses, He would be with Joshua.

But we need a better Mediator than either Moses or Joshua. We need more than a picture of redemption and reconciliation. We need a Man who can make us right with God, who can satisfy God's just demands, and who can give to us the rewards that come from that satisfaction. Such a Mediator would have to take our death away. Moses and Joshua could not do this for us.

What Moses did do, in part, was prepare Israel for the coming of a Man whose prayers would be fully effectual before Almighty God. Moses wanted to see God, and he wanted to express before the Almighty a heartfelt dedication to the well-being of the people that God was committed to in love.

Moses knew that the people of God needed God, and that they could not come home to God unless God Himself showed them the way. Moses looked beyond the breach between God and His people caused by their sin, and He pleaded for reconciliation. True reconciliation required this important clarification: The descendants of Jacob were not the people of Moses. As Moses said to the Lord, “Consider that this nation is your people.”

God said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” But Moses had to be sure. He kept on pleading with the Lord. “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Moses was shaken by life. He was frantic for God. The Lord settled Him in His promise to go before Israel, by showing Moses Himself. This is what Moses wanted, “Please show me your glory,” he asked of the Lord. He wanted to see the One who He knew to be full of goodness. He wanted to know face to face the God of grace and abounding love.

God showed Moses the truth of the Lord's saving mercy: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” But could a sinner like Moses see the face of God and live? No, but God could hide Moses in a crevice of the rock and protect Moses with His hand, and then He could pass by Moses. But now we gaze into the face of a new Mediator through word and sacrament, and we see God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we want something more. We want to see Jesus as He is.

It is this vision of the One who has been in the presence of the Father and lived, this One who is the King of heaven, and who is the Way to The Promised Land, that assures us that we are safe. We could easily panic about our situation. We have been sinners like the people of Israel, like Aaroin, even like Moses. Yet we have found peace in the gospel vision of the Mediator from heaven who died and rose again. He intercedes for us, and we are not afraid.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Exodus 32

The people of God are supposed to rest in Him and to serve Him according to His commandments. But do not leave us alone for too long...

Moses was on top of the mountain. There he received The Ten Commandments and many specific provisions from the Lord about life in The Promised Land. Prominent in these instructions were the Lord's directives concerning His worship.

But Moses was delayed, and the people who had heard the Lord's voice not too long ago were panicking. They came to Aaron with an instruction that was boldly idolatrous: “Up, make us gods who shall go before us.” Aaron followed their word.

The gold that the people should have freely offered for making sacred objects for the Tabernacle, Aaron instead collected in order to make a calf idol. He then proceeded to schedule a sacred feast for the next day. The people offered up this absurd proclamation: “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” Aaron built an altar, and the people rose up early to enjoy the man-made idol, with Aaron claiming that their celebration was a “feast to the Lord.” In came the animal sacrifices followed by eating, drinking, singing, and great celebration. Was this so wrong?

It was at this point that the Lord instructed Moses to go down the mountain. The Lord referred to the people of Jacob as “your people” in talking to Moses. If God should ever walk away from us, how will we go forward? God's Word to Moses: “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” This had all happened so quickly. The Israelites, the Lord's special nation, were worshiping a golden calf.

God's provisional plan for the future: “Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” This dreadful pronouncement brought forth in the mediator of the covenant a spirit of intercession for a sinful nation.

The plea of Moses at this critical juncture in the history of Israel was for God's own glory. Would the Lord want to leave the Egyptians with the impression that He was incapable of accomplishing the redemption of Israel, or that He had brought them out of Egypt with evil intent, only to destroy them? Moses reminded the Lord of His own divine promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. God had promised to multiply their offspring. How would slaughtering them in the wilderness fit in with that plan? This intercession caused the sovereign Lord to relent, and surely the mediator, Moses, was changed by the experience.

Now what would happen? They were in the middle of the wilderness. The Lord would not kill them all; that was established. But would He do some positive good for them? Would He lead them into The Promised Land? How would His justice coexist with His tolerance? Before those answers came, Moses went down the mountain to see for himself what had taken place. He was carrying the handwriting of God on tablets of stone, but when he encountered the idolatry of the people, he broke those sacred tablets of Law. Even Moses was angry for the sake of God's holiness. “He threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.” He turned the metal image to powder, added it to the water, and made the people drink it.

Moses questioned his brother Aaron. The man who would be high priest blamed the people, and spoke of the circumstance of Moses' long departure. By this time the people had utterly thrown off the Lord's protective restraints. They had “broken loose,” and we are told that this resulted in “the derision of their enemies.” Even the Gentiles could see that Israel had lost all self-control.

The opinion of Almighty God was expressed that day in the death of many within the camp of God's people. First the Levites took their swords as agents of the Lord's justice by God's instruction through Moses. Three thousand man died by the sword. Then the Lord Himself sent a plague upon them.

Moses sought to make atonement for the nation. He offered himself up in the place of the nation, but God would not accept Moses as a Substitute. “Blot me out of your book.” This was the cry of a man who would have stepped into this frightening breach between God's justice and His steadfast love. The Lord's response: “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

This was bad news, and on that very day, the Lord sent a plague on the people.

We cannot wish away the Law of God. We cannot define sin or its penalties by our own desires. We cannot demand that God accept one of us as a substitute for the guilt of a nation. We cannot win a victory over death and hell by concluding in our own minds that we know better than God.

An acceptable sacrifice must be found according to God's terms. A man far holier than Moses was necessary to accomplish this work of atonement. This Man has finally come. He has accomplished all that was necessary that His death might win forgiveness with God for all who are found in Him.

This is what the cross of Christ is all about. We have the Son of God to lead us to heaven. We have not been left behind in the wilderness to die for our many transgressions. This is the truth about God's love and justice.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bible Survey #27 - 2 Kings

The Road to Defeat and Exile


The Lord's commands for Israel and Judah showed them the way of blessing. Yet they refused to follow His Law, both in the northern kingdom, and in Judah. God raised up prophets to confront the wickedness of the people, but they would not continue in faithfulness.

In the northern kingdom of Israel, there were no exemplary kings. In the south, the line of David was maintained, and the godly waited for the promised everlasting king from the line of David.

While many of the kings of Judah were disappointing, some were extraordinary. Men like Hezekiah, and the final good King, Josiah, turned back not only Judah, but even a remnant in Israel, calling them home to God and His covenant.

In the end, the northern kingdom was overrun by the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians defeated Judah, carrying off many to exile. These events need to be understand according to the Lord's discipline of His people, and not as the inevitable result of the superior military power of other nations. It was the Lord who was using other armies to judge His people, calling His own children back to a life of true worship and obedience.


The land of Joseph worships gods of gold.

They violate the Word that calls them home.

And kings of Judah cannot save the Land.

But God will not forget His faithful Word.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Exodus 31

God was the Designer of the Tabernacle. He showed Moses what it should look like on top of the mountain. He commanded him to build it, but it would not be Moses who would do all of the skilled work necessary to accomplish this great project. God would bring gifted men to serve with Moses.

God knew these men. He knew their names. He knew where they were from. He knew their heritage. He knew their gifts. The Lord is the Giver of every good gift, including the ability to follow His instructions in any area of worship or life. Everything we have has come to us from God's kind provision.

God spoke the world into being by His own powerful Word. He ordered the days of creation for His purposes. He has complete command over the new heavens and new earth that will one day be revealed. Though He has this full sovereignty over all these marvelous works from beginning to end, He chooses to work out His great plans by using people.

Bezalel, Oholiab, and others who would serve in various ways, were all part of God's plan. The Lord could have built the Tabernacle instantaneously, but He chose to do it through instructing Moses, and through raising up these craftsmen. By His Spirit He brings forth beauty and glory through the hands of men made in His image. He gives them ability and intelligence. They had knowledge and craftsmanship in order to accomplish their duties. Even though the Lord Himself was the Designer, Bezalel would be called on to “devise artistic designs.” The general instructions would leave room for creative insight under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The men would use the material gifts of God; gold, silver, bronze, and precious stones. They would take these raw materials in their hands and they would create a place of worship. What a task!Their hands would form the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the mercy seat, all the objects used in this system of divine worship. They would build the table for the holy bread, the golden lampstand, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering, and the basin for ceremonial washing. They would make the holy garments for the High Priest and the garments for his sons who would serve with him.

Many decisions were necessary in order to do this work. They were tasked with the building of a great reproduction that they had not seen. Moses saw the original on top of the mountain. His mind would contain that image, but their hands had to do the work of building. For this to be done right, it was necessary that God would be with them in a special way. They needed to make these sacred objects with accuracy so that Moses could affirm that the job had been rightly accomplished. To attain to the correct result would require great skill and insight.

The construction of the tabernacle is a useful parable for us concerning the building up of the Lord's kingdom today. Our resurrected Mediator, Jesus Christ, sends forth His Spirit, and uses His servants. God could just speak his church into being in a moment, but He chooses to use all His beloved redeemed children in heaven and on earth to accomplish this great task. Jesus is the Master Builder, filled with all the fullness of the Holy Spirit. He Himself is the Cornerstone of the new creation. There is no moving away from the foundation that we have in Him. He has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us above. Even now the final tabernacle for the worship of the Lord is being constructed. Our efforts on earth are part of this work. If not, then why are we surrounded by a great cloud of heavenly witnesses? Any movement from death to life by faith and repentance causes heavenly beings to rejoice in the presence of angels. Can we doubt that all our growth in grace and knowledge causes sincere cheers before the presence of God on high?

Those who have gone before us have entered into the Sabbath rest where Jesus lives. He is working, doing His perfect building of the final tabernacle of persons. Yet He is not weary. He does not fall asleep in the stern of a boat anymore. He does not come down from a mountain and walk into situations that bring forth holy expressions of exasperation. He has run the race for us here below. He has taken His place of ruling rest at the right hand of the Father.

We celebrate a day of rest in this and in earlier generations as a testimony to the fact that we too will soon enter that place of rest. Even here below, where we have a cross to bear in following our King, the one who works best is the one who rests most fully in Jesus; in His blood, His righteousness, and His heavenly attainments.

Our weekly rest is a sign between God and us, a sign that we know that the Lord is the One who sanctifies us. The Lord who did His great creation work in six days has entered the realm of the seventh day. Jesus did His work on earth, and has risen from the dead as the Man of a new day. We work by His Spirit as people of that new day. Soon we will be with Him above. Let us work today as the residents of heaven work, walking in the Spirit by the power of the perfect day of Jesus Christ.

God gave Moses two tablets with the testimony of the Law for the Old Testament Tabernacle. Jesus is our testimony, the testimony of the final Tabernacle. All that we have flows to us from the grace that He has won for us through His death and resurrection. His Spirit is the finger of God at work in our lives even now. He is using us to build up a holy dwelling place for God. Who is sufficient for these things?

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Exodus 30

“How long, O Lord?” We are waiting for the fulfillment of all of these Old Testament signs to fully come. Surely God has a plan for His people that goes beyond the limits of this life. Surely the Lord of Israel did not instruct Moses to build all that was necessary for tabernacle worship only to have people live and die with a picture of what the Lord showed to Moses on top of the mountain.

We have followed this picture in our minds' eyes from the ark of the covenant in the Most Holy Place, through the tabernacle with the other furnishings, into the courtyard containing the bronze altar, and to the priests themselves with their special vestments, first for the high priest, and then for the other priests who were the sons of Aaron. As we complete the descriptions of these sacred objects, we long for something more. The hearts of God's redeemed who have been rescued from bondage thirst for Him. See Psalm 42.

We long to be taken up bodily into His presence, yet this is also a fearful thought, because of His holiness and our sin. In the meantime, the people of the tabernacle were given a symbolic representation of their prayers coming up into the Lord's heavenly sanctuary through the altar of incense. See Revelation 5:8. Until that time when we can be with the Lord more fully, we want our ways of communicating with God to be most fruitful. We know that we need His help.

The altar of incense was much smaller than the bronze altar that was for offering animals to the Lord. The placement of this smaller altar of prayer was inside the tent, just before the veil that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the tabernacle. If we think of the Most Holy Place as God's side of the tabernacle, and the other space, the Holy Place, as our side, the altar of incense is on our side. Here we are on our side of the heaven/earth divide. The veil is a border for us that we cannot cross. We pray to God. Does He hear? Will He help us? When is the veil coming down? But now the veil has been torn from top to bottom in the death of Christ. This is a great encouragement. May the Lord answer our prayers during our present distress. Some are in pain. Others are oppressed. We are praying for individuals and whole people groups to be found among the worshipers of the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer!

Our High Priest in heaven intercedes for us. Even on this side of the divide, Jesus has sent His Holy Spirit to us, and that great Immanuel is working in us. We do not know how to pray as we ought. When you do not know what to say, groan from within with true thanksgiving or the deepest mourning. Surely God will help you. See Romans 8:26. Our altar of incense has been purified by the perfect blood of Christ. Our High Priest loves us.

This atonement that is ours is nothing we could have paid for ourselves. We do not have even the smallest copper coin of the perfect righteousness that is required to take care of that debt. But Christ has found the redemption price in the boundless gold of His own obedience. In the days of the tabernacle, God commanded that every fighting man who would serve the Lord would have to give a census tax of half a shekel. That was the cost of liberty below. The price in heaven is much more. But Christ has paid it in full.

The Lord also instructed Moses to make a basin of bronze. He was to place it outside the tabernacle in the courtyard on the way to the Lord's presence. Who can dwell on the Lord's holy mountain? Will the washing rituals of men using the water of earth suffice to cleanse us from our iniquity? Aaron and his sons needed to perform these rituals to show their own need for cleansing. We have been cleansed by the water of heaven. We are priests to God through our High Priest, Jesus, the Messiah.

The water of the earth was enough for a symbol of the washing necessary to go in the tabernacle or to offer an animal to the Lord on the bronze alter. But we have a deeper cleansing that has washed our hearts. We have been made alive in Christ by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now we can worship with confidence. Now we can offer up our lives in the simplicity of holy living.

The anointing oil for the priests and the incense for the altar of incense were both of a special composition that the Lord gave to Moses. These were not for common use, nor were any other oil or incense to be used as substitutes for the Lord's sacred purposes.

The sweet oil was for anointing the tent, the holy furnishings, the lampstand, the altar of incense, the alter of burnt offering, and the basin. By this oil, all these would be set apart as holy. “Whatever touches them will become holy.” So much in this world is unclean, but when Jesus touches the unclean, we became clean. What a sweet oil of godliness comes from His resurrection hand! He embraces us with a secure and holy love.

The special incense of sweet spices and frankincense, seasoned with salt, was to provide the aroma for the tabernacle. But now the Lord who breathed life into Adam, and gave the breath of heaven to His apostles, has breathed the fragrant incense of His sacred mouth on us. He is an aroma of life to us.

We say all of this, and it is true. We love the tabernacle and everything in it. Even more, we love the temple of the Holy Spirit, the church. Still we cry out, “How long, O Lord!” Our hearts still yearn for Him. Come, Lord Jesus!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Exodus 29

The tabernacle was a wonderful place of God's presence. The furnishings and garments that God told Moses to make were full of meaning. They were objects of beauty that testified to the Lord's glory. God designed them, Moses could speak of them, and gifted men would make them.

Far more glorious is a man. God knits a baby together in his mother's womb. Even that little child can also be a tabernacle for the the Holy Spirit. One person is more wonderful than the most glorious temples that people can build.

Our destiny is to be priests to God and to one another. Filled with the Holy Spirit, we will offer up ourselves to God and serve one another with joyful hearts and perfected bodies. We are priests now, but we are imperfect. Jesus the Messiah came as the perfect Priest. In Him we are perfect priests.

God prepared His people for this priestly role in part through His instructions concerning the sons of Aaron. In the Old Testament system of worship they had a special role as priests before God. They were to be set apart from their fellow Israelites for this holy office through ceremonies of consecration that God gave to Moses. But Christ was set apart for His office as our representative from eternity past, and through the key events of His earthly and heavenly consecration. When the fullness of time came, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of His mother Mary. At just the right moment, when He identified with those who would repent and believe, He was baptized with water by John, and the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove. When His time came to die for our sins, He offered up Himself as an acceptable sacrifice. But it was especially in His resurrection and ascension that He took His place as our eternal heavenly representative. Now He always lives to intercede for us. He is our High Priest.

The sons of Aaron were not consecrated that way. They were set apart in ceremonies involving the emblems of preparation; the blood of animals, the water for ceremonial washing, the holy garments for their apparel, the anointing oil poured upon their heads by Moses. Jesus was set apart by God for His eternal resurrection priesthood.

Aaron and his sons were also to be priests forever. But these men would die. We need a priest who will not be prevented by death from continuing in His holy office.

By the Law of Moses, the priests were involved in a symbolic ministry of atonement. Dealing with sin always requires the shedding of blood. The Old Testament priests were set apart apart for that preparatory ministry by the blood of bulls and rams. But Jesus dealt with sin by His own blood.

In the days of Aaron, the blood of animals sanctified the altar and the priests. That blood did not have the power to work inner sanctification. But we have been cleansed through and through by the blood of Christ.

As part of the ordination ritual, the fat of the sacrifice would be burned on the altar before the Lord. How much more satisfying to God is the righteousness of Christ that supplied for us all the holiness that the Lord required. Even now that righteousness is powerfully at work in us so that we can serve the Lord as we walk in the Spirit of Jesus.

He is the whole-burnt offering that ascends to the Father with our names on His hands. He is the sin offering that has done away with all our filth outside the camp. We live now as priests in Him, sanctified by His blood. We have been cleansed by the washing of water with the Word. We have been touched in our hearts by the holy oil of His Spirit.

Now we eat the bread and drink the cup that assure us of the peace we have with God through Him. These simple tokens of the body and blood of our Savior are better than all the holy bread of the centuries of ritual among the descendants of Aaron. Christ is our present reality. We gather together as a priesthood of believers to worship Him, and we move out as the priesthood of His faithful ones to serve Him all over the earth. In Him, we are a living offering to the Father. We serve and praise God with hands that help and heal. And we that know that we are one in Him who died for us and who rose from the grave. We are in Him even now in heaven.

For centuries, the descendants of Aaron had certain privileges. There was special food only them. They wore garments that only they could wear. They had been ordained to do tasks that only they could perform. Now the people of God have graduated beyond the days of preparation.

In Christ, we have not only been declared holy, we have been and will be fully healed by the touch of His hand. He is the altar that makes us holy. He is our continuous righteousness and forgiveness. There is no need for Him to repeat the cross ever again.

Because of this power, we offer up our bodies day by day as living sacrifices. We do not have to feel that something is missing because there is no longer a daily sacrifice offered up by the sons of Aaron in Jerusalem. The power of the death of Christ is forever. Now we have a Messiah who has won for us a perpetual priesthood of the holiest love and service to God and one another.

In Jesus and His worldwide church the tabernacle of God has become a person. This Jesus is not only the Messiah for Jew and Gentile; He is the Lord our God. He brought us out of the bondage of sin. We will dwell with Him forever.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Bible Survey #26 - 1 Kings

The Son of David


God prepared His people for the reign of a glorious and wise Messiah through the history of the Son of David, Solomon. Though Solomon was outwardly more powerful and prosperous than the coming Messiah, Jesus told those who heard His word that one greater than Solomon was with them.

Solomon did fulfill the desire of his father by building the temple in Jerusalem, and he called together God's people in covenant assembly to dedicate that great place where God would dwell. Yet Solomon's heart was turned away by his many wives. He accommodated their religious desires and introduced more false worship into God's nation.

After Solomon, the land would be divided into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Judah would be the place of the continuing line of kings descended from David. The north would also have kings, but none of them would be counted as good by God.

God showed his continued concern even for the northern tribes by the provision of mighty prophets like Elijah who confronted wicked rulers like Ahab and his evil wife Jezebel. The Lord worked great wonders through Elijah, defeating popular idols in a time when so few Israelites were faithfully following the Lord.


A greater man than Solomon is here.

His kingdom will have glory ever more.

God sends forth an Elijah to the lost,

And calls His people back to David's Son.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Exodus 28

God's commands for worship involved not only a special place, the tabernacle, but also special leaders of worship, the priests. Those priests were to wear special garments according to the directives of the Lord through Moses. Aaron and his descendants would serve the Lord as priests throughout the entire Old Covenant. They were set apart based on their family heritage, but at the appropriate time of life, they would be set aside by ordination. Their clothing would tell a story that reaches into the realities of New Covenant and even into heaven.

The holy garments that God spoke about to Moses were “for glory and for beauty.” They would be made by those who were gifted by the Holy Spirit for this great work and skillful in assembling such garments. The Lord was the designer. He reserved that job for Himself, since everything in the tabernacle, including these special garments, were full of symbolic meaning. The office of the priesthood was a particular calling that a man could not presume to take upon himself, and the clothing that the Lord commanded was one way, together with the ceremonies He ordained, to set apart men for this special blessing of drawing near to Almighty God.

These garments included a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash. The names of the twelve sons of Israel were to be engraved on two onyx stones, six on each stone, and the stones were to be set on the shoulder pieces of the ephod. Twelve precious stones in four rows were to be set on the breastpiece, each one inscribed with one of the names of the twelve tribes. The breastpiece and the ephod, each with this constant reminder of the descendants of Jacob, were attached together with cords and rings according to the Lord's instruction. The symbolic importance of this picture was explicit: “Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord.”

The breastpiece of judgment had a special function as its name suggests. The priest was to use the Urim and Thummim to understand the Lord's will for Israel at times when they inquired of the Lord. This too would be on the heart of Aaron, the High Priest. Israel needed the Lord's direction for living, and the use of this system provided that necessary help. God put it this way: “Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the Lord regularly.” The answer of the Lord for the tribes of Israel would be of utmost importance in many challenging situations for years to come.

The hem of the priestly garment would make noise as the priest moved. Bells of gold would be heard when the High Priest went into the Holy Place before the Lord. The Lord said that this was a matter of life and death for the High Priest, reinforcing a message that became more pronounced as the Lord's directives for worship were given through Moses: To come before the Lord in the tabernacle as a priest was a dangerous matter. Only those authorized by God were allowed to draw near to Him, and only with appropriate reverence and awe.

Beyond the names of the sons of Israel, there was one more set of words engraved on a plate of gold and set on the priestly turban. That plaque gave this important directive: “Holy to the Lord.” This requires very little interpretation. The priest, the one who would be a mediator between God and the people of Israel, would have to be a man who was set apart for the Lord's service. Surely the God who gave such a probing commandment as “You shall have no other gods before Me,” and “You shall not covet,” was looking for more than mere ceremonial holiness. Surely the one who would be a priest before God for others would have to possess moral righteousness in accord with the Law of the Lord.

Where could such a man be found? And what would Israel do without a priest that was holy to the Lord? Aaron would soon make a golden calf. Two of his sons would die when they made unauthorized fire. These garments were for real. Approaching God with recklessness could be deadly. The Lord needed to provide an acceptable priest or all was lost, but no sinless priests came from Aaron's descendants.

Aaron was a sinful man wearing a turban with a gold plate fastened upon it, and that plate made a claim that neither Aaron nor his sons could fully live up to. They were to represent their brothers among the Israelites as they wore their tribal names engraved on precious stones before the presence of the Lord. Those tribes were full of those who were unacceptable, and they would be represented by priests that were not holy to the Lord in the depths of their hearts.

But now we are accurately counted as holy to the Lord. In the New Testament era we have one great High Priest for both Jews and Gentiles who believe in His Name. Our names are written on His hands. By His wounds we have the forgiveness of sins. He was perfectly holy to the Lord. In this one holy Head, the body of the entire church of Jesus Christ has been counted as holy. Now in heaven, this one High Priest represents us before God, and in Him, we are holy priests before the Lord.

Any priestly clothing we have in heaven comes from the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ. He still loves the tribes of Israel, but also bears the names of many other beloved children close to His heart. God has rendered a judgment of eternal blessing for us in Him. May He grant to His children growth in holiness appropriate for those who are priests of God forever in Jesus, our Lord.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Exodus 27

God's description to Moses of this very important tabernacle building project started with the object where He would be most present. He would dwell over the mercy seat that was to be placed on top of the ark of the covenant. He gave instructions as well concerning the table for the bread of the presence and the golden lampstand. See Exodus 25. The Lord went on to instruct Moses about the building of the tent that would go over these objects, and the spaces inside that tent that would be divided by the veil into the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The frames and the multiple layers of fabric and skins that God told Moses to build were what is specifically referred to as the Tabernacle. See Exodus 26. But there was more for the worshiper to see outside the holy tent. God instructed Moses concerning the space that the worshiper would experience on his way into the tabernacle of God. To get into that place of closer fellowship with God one needed to walk through this outer court. Prominent in that court was an altar where sacrificial offerings were burned before the Lord.

The frame of the altar was to be made of acacia wood and covered with bronze. The altar had four horns, one on each corner. Throughout the history of Israel this would be a place where someone might desperately come and hope for mercy from God and man. Why would the Israelites connect mercy with this altar?

The altar was the place of sacrifice. The blood of the substitute insisted that someone else was killed instead of the worshiper. This is a necessary accomplishment in order for a sinner to come into the presence of the Lord in His heavenly abode. The altar speaks of mercy from God based on a genuinely acceptable sacrifice.

But could the Old Testament system ever deliver that mercy? With its pots for ashes, special shovels, basins, forks, all its bronze utensils; with its grate upon which an animal would be placed and burned, could it really be the place where a true and permanent aroma could come up to God that would be pleasing to Him? The altar could be made perfectly according to the pattern on the mountain, but it is what is put on that altar that must make all the difference. Is there a death that will make a difference to God? Only if there would first be a life that fully pleased Him.

The voice from heaven in the days of Jesus assured us of the pleasing life of Christ. The resurrection of the holy Victim insisted that the death accomplished all that the altar system of the Old Testament only whispered about in the time of shadows.

That bronze altar was in the court of the tabernacle, the area surrounded by curtains that distinguished between the camp and the approach to the tabernacle of God. The ground itself was just ground. It would be the linen hangings around the entire perimeter that would create the special spaces that God commanded Moses to make.

This court was a place for those who could draw near to the God of Israel. All the inhabitants of the earth should have been streaming into that courtyard, petitioning the Lord with hope in His mercy. Yet the time had not yet come for the expansion of the people of God to every tribe and tongue and nation. They should have been there inquiring about the God who would dwell between the cherubim. They should have longed for a sacrifice that would have been acceptable to Him.

Though the nations were not seeking after the great I-AM, He would one day seek for them and find them. His courts should have been flooded with eager worshipers already, and His house should have been a place of prayer for the nations, but it would become a den of robbers before the nations would be glad in Jesus. Instead of a place where people could seek and find the Lord, those in charge of the Lord's holy place would turn his courts into a place of buying and selling for profit. This would be a matter of great concern to the Lord.

Zeal for the Lord's tabernacle consumed Jesus. He loved the dwelling place of the Almighty. He who was God's holy tabernacle was filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit of God.

Without the oil of this Holy Spirit, there is only darkness in the tabernacle of God. If the oil is gone, the light will go out. What if one stumbled in the darkness beyond the veil, falling into the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant was kept, where the Lord dwelt on His great mercy seat? If a worshiper stumbled without the light of God, how could he receive mercy? All that would remain for such a careless person would be an expectation of judgment.

But we are those who have the oil from heaven filling the lamp of our souls. Christ dwells in us. The sacrifice has been offered, and we see now the full brightness of the Lord's holy lampstand. The veil has been removed, and heaven is alive in us, for Jesus lives in us.

Now the nations have met the Lord of Glory who died for us. His sacrifice was acceptable to the Father. We have a light in us that will never be extinguished. Now, in accord with 1 John 1, we are those who walk in the light as He is in the light. We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

Monday, April 04, 2011

Exodus 26

New Covenant worshipers of God are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. See Hebrews 12:1. The tabernacle, the movable house of God that the Lord told Moses to build, once made the invisible world of heavenly witnesses visible, in shadows, to those who worshiped the Lord. The tent of God had angels, cherubim, woven into the fabric of the curtains that formed the tent. God showed Moses what it should look like and then told Him to make it according to that pattern.

In Hebrews 12, the great cloud of witnesses are not only angelic observers. The Old Testament worshipers of Hebrews 11 are seeing the church today, together with the New Testament children of the Lord who have more recently entered His heavenly household. They are witnesses on high from a place where clouds are not a sign of confusion or deception, but of the divine presence. God and His heavenly host see. They are not deceived when people are deceiving others and even themselves. Because we are seen by this heavenly cloud, we are told to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The tent of the assembly of God's people on earth, even during the Old Testament days, was a place of holiness. It was not a tent of tolerating or encouraging sin by sophisticated talk of supposed freedoms that defile the body of Christ. Especially now that Christ, who is our life, has appeared, we should be moving from glory to glory through the Word and Spirit of God. We should be perfecting holiness in the fear of God. See 2 Corinthians 7:1.

The curtains that formed the covering of the framed structure of the assembly of heaven on earth were twenty-eight cubits long. They were large enough to go up one wall of the frame of the tabernacle, over the top, and down the other side of the frame. The width of each curtain was only four cubits, but these curtains were connected with each other in two groups of five curtains each, connecting curtain to curtain with clasps of gold.

On top of these curtains was a second set of coverings, made out of goats' hair. This set had an extra curtain beyond the number of the linen curtains underneath. That extra curtain was doubled over at the front of the tent. Clasps of bronze were to be made that would be put into the loops of gold, making the tent into a single whole. There would be an extra part of the tent curtains, a half curtain, hanging over the back of the tabernacle, and extra length that would hang over the sides. All of this was to be covered by another covering of rams' skins and then a final covering of goatskins on top.

This moveable tent house of God needed frames on which the curtains could be hung up, first on one wall, then over the top, and continuing down the other wall. These structural frames of the tabernacle would be made of acacia wood. The walls would be fifteen feet high. Each section of the frame would be fit together with the next, with special bases to provide stability for the frames. In addition there would be bars going along the tabernacle walls horizontally making all the frames into a sturdy whole. These bars would be thread through rings in the panels. Whatever might be a challenge for us to imagine about this structure is a result of our not having seen what Moses saw on the top of the mountain. The Lord said to Moses, “You shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain.”

The curtains and frames of the tabernacles spoken of so far provided the structure of this special place of Old Covenant worship. But there was one interior curtain that was of great significance. This curtain was called the veil, and it separated the tabernacle into two spaces, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.

As with the outer curtains, cherubim were woven into the veil. This heavenly curtain was a dividing wall that could not be easily breached. God was to be especially present in the Most Holy Place. In that cubic area, 15 feet high, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet long, Moses was to place the mercy seat on top of the ark of the covenant. On the other side of the veil, in the Holy Place, Moses would place the lampstand and the table for the holy bread. This part of the tabernacle was to be twice as large as the Most Holy Place, 15 by 15 by 30 feet long.

The final special curtain was the screen at the entrance of the tabernacles. This screen was at the gateway to the Lord's movable house. This tent was to be made according to the Lord's instruction. It was a tent for God. But when God came to dwell with us as our Redeemer, he took up a different tent, the tent of a human body, as his residence.

The human body, like the Old Testament tabernacle, was to be an impressive though simple setting for God to take up His residence. But this Old Testament tent, with its layers of curtains, and a single golden lampstand with seven lamps would be a place of shadows, as the Old Covenant people eagerly waited for the lights to be turned on. Now Christ has come, and His Holy Spirit dwells within His church. With the death of Jesus, who tented with us, the Old Testament veil has been torn in two, and we have been granted bold access to God. The day of shadows is over. The Light of the World has come.