Exodus 35 - Freewill, Sabbath Breaking & Offerings To Build The Tabernacle

Let's pray and we'll begin our study of Exodus 35. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening and those who have come out, we pray for those who are not able to be here, whether they're not feeling well or Dennis preaching in Greenfield tonight, I just ask that you would be with all of them and help us to be attentive, open our hearts and our minds to receive your truth from your word tonight here in Exodus 35.

We pray these things in Jesus name, amen. Exodus 35.

The Sabbath Command and the Penalty for Breaking It

Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together.

These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you. A Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.

And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel.

This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying, take from among you an offering to the Lord. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord. Gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, ram skins dyed red, badger skins and Acacia wood, oil for the light and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense.

Onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded. The tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars and its sockets.

The ark and its poles with the mercy seat and the veil of the covering. The table and its poles, all its utensils and the showbrick. Also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps and the oil for the light.

The incense altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense and the screen for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle. The altar of burnt offering with its bronze grating, its poles, all its utensils and the labor and its base.

The hangings of the court, its pillars, their sockets and the screen for the gate of the court. The pegs of the tabernacle, the pegs of the court and their cords. The garments of ministry for ministering in the holy place.

The holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons to minister as priests.

And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. And everyone came whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing. And they brought the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service and for the holy garments.

They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold. That is every man who made an offering of gold to the Lord.

And every man with whom was found blue, purple and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, red skins of rams and badger skins brought them. Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought the Lord's offering.

And everyone with whom was found a acacia wood for any work of service brought it. All the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands and brought what they had spun of blue, purple and scarlet and fine linen.

And all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goat's hair. The rulers brought onyx stones and the stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense.

The children of Israel brought a freewill offering to the Lord. All the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work which the Lord by the hand of Moses had commanded to be done.

And Moses said to the children of Israel,.

See the Lord has called by name, Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And he has filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.

And he has put in his heart the ability to teach in him, Anaholeab, the son of Ahissamach, of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do all manner of work of the engraver and the designer and the tapestry maker in blue, purple and scarlet thread and fine linen and of the weaver, those who do every work and those who design artistic works.

Okay, so you may remember how in Exodus chapters 25 through 31, that's when the Lord gave Moses the instructions and how to build the tabernacle. And then we get a little break in that and now it resumes here.

The Sabbath as a Warning About Sin and the Need for Atonement

But before that work begins, the Lord reminds them about the Sabbath rest. So look at verse one, Exodus 35, verses one and two. It says, then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together and said to them, these are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do.

Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be what? Put to death. Put to death. Now there's actually only one instance in scripture where this takes place.

So let's turn there, go to Numbers chapter 15. Numbers 15, or at least there's only one account of this being carried out in scripture. And we've talked about the Sabbath several times already as we've been going through Exodus.

So I don't wanna go over it again. In Exodus 31, I explained how the Sabbath rest is a picture of salvation in Christ. We talked about it in chapter 16. So you could go back and watch those videos, but we've already discussed the Sabbath quite a bit.

So before we read on, understand there were certain sins in Israel that were crimes. Okay, not every sin was a crime, but some sins were crimes and had punishments. And then some sins were capital crimes that you would get the death penalty.

Look at Numbers 15, verse 32. Now, while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron into all the congregation.

They put him under guard because it had not been explained what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, this man must surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

Now, who is it that said that? Yeah, the Lord said that. So as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones and he died. Now, I think it's a common reaction for people to read this and hear this and to react what way?

That's not fair. Yeah, well, gee, that seems a little harsh. Here, this guy is picking up sticks on the Sabbath and he's stoned to death. I mean, all the guy did, here's my response to that. I mean, all the guy did is disobey God.

I mean, that's no big deal. I mean, it's only God. God will understand or God will just have to deal with it. Well, actually God did deal with it. So whatever else is happening here, the Lord is showing the children of Israel the seriousness of sin and the importance of obedience.

And if that does seem harsh, remember that the entire human race was cast into darkness because Adam ate a piece of fruit that God told him not to eat. So the immediate result of that situation, Adam and Eve realized they were naked.

So as soon as the problem arose, what happened next? God killed an animal and clothed Adam and Eve. And that's representative of being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. So as soon as you see a problem in scripture, God will then present the solution.

And I think that's what you see here. You see the problem of sin with the Sabbath and it being a capital crime. What's the solution? Well, the tabernacle in a sense is the solution because that is where atonement was made.

So you see the seriousness of sin, but then you see the grace of God displayed in the tabernacle. But does that strike you as harsh, picking up sticks on the Sabbath? It's unique. It's, again, the only example anywhere in the Bible of someone actually being put to death for that.

I'm sure it happened, but again, I would say, well, yeah, he disobeyed God. And we kind of know as Christians, we know instinctively that that is serious. So this, I think, is just another hint at the gospel.

You have the problem and then the solution. Look at verse three of Exodus 35. You can turn back there if you're not there already. Should always keep a finger or a bookmark where we started out. Verse three of Exodus 35, it says, you shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.

Now, if you put two and two together, we just read that man was gathering sticks. Why do you think he was gathering sticks?

Probably cold and wanted to build a fire. Right, right.

He almost certainly wanted to build a fire. So the Lord specifically said, you are not to do any work. You are not to kindle a fire. And then this man, knowing that, intentionally went out and did the exact opposite of what God said.

So what did the Lord do? He made an example out of this one man. Why? Because if the children of Israel saw that here this man is doing this and he's doing it openly, if they saw that people could break the law with impunity and that God wasn't going to do anything about it and Moses wasn't going to do anything about it, what would the result be?

People wouldn't trust in God. Sure. And believe him because he's not upholding his word.

Right, so if you make a law and then people are openly breaking it and you don't do anything about it, you're basically saying that law is worthless. You're undercutting yourself and your own authority.

So the next Sabbath, the next Sabbath, a whole group of people would be doing that, right? And so it's kind of like today, if you want to see an increase in crime, a guaranteed way of doing that is simply prevent the police from making arrests, tell them to stand down.

If someone is arrested, immediately let them out of jail or don't prosecute them. And that sends a clear message that, hey, it's a free-for-all you can kind of go out and do whatever you want. Well, the same thing with the children of Israel.

So God did something about it to send that message. And I think the same goes with parenting. The Bible talks about the rod, the rod of discipline. So if a person spares the rod, if they don't discipline their children, then the children do what?

They kind of run wild. And the Lord loves his people. And they're God's children in this sense. So God deserves all the glory. God deserves to be honored. So as a father would love their child, God disciplines his children here with the people of Israel.

And really it's only one day a week, right? The Sabbath is one day a week and God said, this day is mine. Keep the Sabbath holy. They were capable of making provisions. This guy could have gathered sticks the day before or the week before.

So God basically is telling them, if you love me, if you reverence me, show it by keeping the Sabbath day holy. So what was the Sabbath? What's the Sabbath all about? It's a day of what? Rest. Right, it's a day of rest.

And that was a good thing, right? You get a day off. Everyone loves to have a day off. So by the time Jesus comes 1 ,500 years later, the Jews had so distorted the Sabbath, what should have been or what was intended to be a blessing, the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious leaders had turned it more into a burden.

And that's still that way. Today, many Orthodox Jews, this commandment about kindling a fire, you probably, some of you are familiar with this, how today, I think it's the Orthodox Jews or maybe the Hasidic Jews, they will not even turn on a light switch because a little spark occurs in the bulb and that's kindling a fire.

So they won't even turn on the lights on the Sabbath day. In New York City, have you ever heard of a Shabbat elevator? Shabbat is, I guess, another word for the Sabbath. So in New York City, you have Shabbat elevators that just go up and down all day, stopping at each floor because a Jew can't get in there and press the button because when he presses the button, a light comes on.

And that's kindling a fire. Now, okay, how do people respond to that? Well, you've taken a day off Sabbath rest and you've turned it into this legalistic burden where you're worried about doing this and you're worried about doing that.

So I think a lot of people kind of stand back in amazement and kind of shake our heads and like, guys, you don't get it. This seems kind of absurd. However, when you look at how Christians regard the Lord's day, I would ask, are we today really any better?

You know, I can't go to church because I might miss kickoff, right? Or, you know, my kid has sports practice. I can't make it to church because cheerleading practice is more important than worshiping the Lord on his day.

Or I just want to sleep in, right? We have woken up on Sunday morning probably and felt like sleeping in. So, and I'm not saying the Sabbath and the Lord's day are the exact same thing. The point is we constantly are reading through the Old Testament and we see what the Jews are doing and we say to ourselves, why don't they see it?

Why don't they get it? What is wrong with them? And yet, I think if you look at Christianity as a whole today, I don't know that things are all that different in some cases. Is that fair? Is that a fair assessment?

That's a more than fair assessment. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mark, for backing me up on that. So if an issue comes up in scripture, if it was relevant then, it's relevant today. All right, the next section, starting in verse four, it's titled, Offerings for the Tabernacle.

Freewill Offerings, Tithes, and Christian Stewardship

Exodus 35, verse four says, "'And Moses spoke to all the congregation "'of the children of Israel, saying, "'This is the thing which the Lord commanded, "'saying, take from among you an offering to the Lord "'whoever is of a willing heart, "'and let him bring it as an offering to the Lord, "'gold, silver.'".

And then he goes on to list more items through verse nine. This is what we would call a free will offering. Okay, a free will offering. I like to read what Matthew Henry says about this. He says, "'The tabernacle was to be dedicated "'to the honor of God and used in his service, "'and therefore what was brought for it "'was an offering to the Lord.

"'The rule is, whosoever is of a willing heart, "'let him bring. "'All that were skillful must work. "'God dispenses his gifts, "'and as every man hath received, so he must minister.'". And that reminded me of 1 Peter 4, verse 10, which says, "'As each one has received a gift, "'minister it to one another, "'as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.'".

So again, we're always trying to take what's in the Old Testament and apply it to the New Testament. So there's this law about the Sabbath, we wanna look at the Lord's Day, even though it's not the exact same thing, we wanna make application.

So here they had gifts, they were to make offerings. Well, okay, what about today? So to build the tabernacle, they had to give of their own free will. So if they had items they could spare and they wanted to give to God, they were not obligated to do that, but they could give what they felt was right.

I think about just this church building. This church building was put up many, many years ago, 120 years ago, why? Because Christians freely gave of their resources, their time and their effort to have this building erected.

And then of course, it had to be maintained all throughout the years. So the pews that you're sitting in, somebody donated money to pay for the pews that you're sitting in. The TV screen or the piano that we enjoy, that was paid for by your tithes and offerings.

The ministries that encourage us and teach the children, the tracts that are handed out in the community. All of this is possible, everything the church has and everything we do, it's all made possible by church members who give and are committed to serve and see that the work of ministry is carried out.

Now in verse 10, just one illustration. So this is for you here or for those watching later on, because we wanna minister our gifts. I think this is one of the topics that I preached about most consistently throughout the years of ministering your spiritual gift.

In case there's somebody who says, I don't know what my spiritual gift is. I probably have one, I just, I don't know what I can do, or there's no ministry that's open for me to kind of fit into that role.

Here's one thing every Christian can do. So here's a tract, right? It's a Bible tract, but it's also a brochure for the church that lists the service times. Anybody can say, hey, how are you doing? I'd like to invite you to church on Sunday.

Hey, how are you doing? Come and join us Wednesday night, 6 .30 p .m. And just give it to them. And then it's, the ball's in their court. Anybody could do that. So, well, maybe that's not your gift, approaching strangers or doing that.

Everybody has a gift, right? So we just want people to be involved. So the children of Israel were involved in the ministry of the tabernacle, even though they were not allowed into the complex, right?

Because only the priests could get in there. But everyone was involved, how? By donating it, and they felt part of it. All right, verse 10, starting in verse 10, we come to the articles of the tabernacle.

It says, all who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded. The tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its clasp, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets, the ark and its poles with the mercy seat and the veil of the covering, the table and its poles, all its utensils, and the showbread.

And when we went over all of the furniture, what was the, it all had something in common. What was it? Covering the gold. Okay, yeah, there was a lot of gold. But say the table of showbread, the lampstand, they all pointed to something.

They all had one thing in common. They all did what? They pointed to Christ or they spoke of Christ. How so? Well, the table of showbread, remember Jesus is the bread of life. The mercy seat of the ark where the blood was placed, that represents the blood of Christ.

The lampstand, Jesus is the light of the world. And then the oil that he talks about, oil is usually seen as symbolic for who? Holy Spirit. Right, good, the Holy Spirit and so on and so forth. So now the tabernacle of the congregation or the tent of meeting, the tabernacle is finally being built or it's going to be built.

If you remember from a few weeks ago, what were they using in the meantime? Because they did have a tent of meeting, but it wasn't this structure. What were they using for the tent of meeting? Does anyone remember?

There's somebody's house, basically. Think of Moses is here, right? Who's Aaron? Who's kind of the third man that's gonna take Moses position? Who's the successor of Moses? Joshua, okay, good. So the tabernacle of meeting up until this point was basically Joshua's house.

Joshua's tent. And the people could observe. This is where Moses would go to meet with the Lord. And the people had to observe from afar, right? The people had to kind of stay away. Remember, that's not what God wanted.

What did God want to do? He wanted to dwell in their midst. But why was he not able to? Because of the incident with the golden calf. That just threw a wrench, to say the least, into everything. So God could not dwell in the midst of them because if he did, remember, he said he would consume them.

So the people had to kind of watch from afar. That tells you that there's an ongoing problem within the nation of Israel. So there's always, it seems, this bad element within the nation. Some people speculate it was the mixed multitude that went with them.

So some of the Egyptians followed them out into the wilderness. Some people speculate that was part of the problem. But there was always a bad element. Remember, it was the idolaters. They built the golden calf.

Later on, there's going to be Korah. Do you remember what Korah did? Korah will lead a rebellion against Moses. And this all pictures, in the New Testament church, how there are always going to be tares mixed in among the wheat.

So Satan doesn't just attack from without. Satan attacks from within. And that's what he was doing. There was always this element within the nation. Starting in verse 20, moving on, the tabernacle offerings are presented.

Says, and all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. Then everyone came whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing. And they brought the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service and for the holy garments.

And they came, both men and women, as many as had a, what? A willing heart. And then skip down to verse 29. The children of Israel brought a free will offering to the Lord. So I just want to spend a few moments on this idea of free will.

This is the first time in the Bible that you see the word free will. When you hear free will, what do you think of? And I'm not looking for anything specific, just what comes to mind when you hear the word free will.

It's your own choice. Okay, good. Someone could point to this verse and they see the word free will. And they see the Bible teaches free will. There's the word free will. What's Moses talking about though?

An offering, right? So what's the difference between a free will offering and their other offering? So on Sunday morning, you know, we have, well, we don't pass the plates since the COVID thing started but what do we call that?

The passing of the plate is the, yeah, tithes and offerings. So are those two different things, tithes and offerings? Well, it's two different words but they are two different things. So a tithe is what?

Right, a tithe. A tithe is 10%. So this was an Old Testament commandment that the Jews or the children of Israel had to pay the tithe. It was kind of like taxes really for the nation. But an offering, a free will offering was something different.

So a tithe, you pay 10%. A free will offering, you could pay 10%. You could pay 20%. You could pay 2%. You could pay 92%, right? So this is whatever you choose. It's of your own free will, whatever you decide.

So we also have done throughout the year, there's something else that might be equatable with the free will offering. What is that? Love. Right. So we've had love offerings in the past. So if something tragic happens, let's say somebody, they had a house fire and they were in need and people wanted to help them out.

We could have a love offering and people can give whatever they want. Or we've given money to certain ministries. We've donated to the radio ministry over the years at times with a love offering. And basically that's what it is.

A free will offering. Now, when you hear free will, usually though the offering is one thing. There's a whole debate surrounding free will. And what is that? So if someone were to ask me, pastor, do you believe in free will?

Because again, this is the first time in the Bible we see the word. Do you believe in free will? Well, let me ask you that. Do you believe in free will? Yes or no? Sounds like a trick question. Well, it could be.

Yeah, obviously I believe in free will. I think every human being believes in free will in the sense that you have the ability to make up your own mind. You have the ability to make your own decisions.

So do I believe that people can, we're volitional creatures. We can make up our own mind. Yes. I can choose to do more or less what I want to do. Here's what we don't have the free will to do. A person does not have the free will in and of themselves to choose to love God and to obey God.

A lost person in the world cannot just decide one day in and of themselves, that's kind of the key, to say, I believe in Christ. I love God. I want to obey God. We don't have that ability in and of ourselves.

Why? Because of the sinful nature. So the kind of the key there is in and of ourselves. So a person can only believe and put their faith in Christ and a person can only love God. That's only made possible by God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.

So if somebody turns to Christ in their life, yes, they did make that decision, but they are responding to the grace of God. Okay, so I normally bring that up because when the term free will is mentioned, that's often what people think of the debate between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.

You know, who's really in control, God or us? Well, again, we have the ability to make a lot of choices, but God is in control, but we respond to his grace. Are there any questions about that? I couldn't help myself when you see the word free will to at least touch on that.

No questions, does that make sense? God chooses us, we don't choose him.

Yeah, because there's two positions and I like to do this. I like to draw the extremes and oftentimes the truth is somewhere in the middle. So there's a position called hyper-Calvinism. How many of you were getting into the deeper theological terms?

Hyper-Calvinism, this is the idea that mankind is like a puppet on a string. You're a pre-programmed robot. Whatever thing you do, it's because God kind of forced you to do it or God ordained you would do it and you didn't have any choice in the matter.

I've never met anyone who believes that. I hear that they're out there. I've never met anyone who believes that. So that's incorrect. We do have the ability to make choices. The other extreme is the position called Pelagianism.

And this is the idea that man is basically good and that we don't have a sinful nature. We're morally neutral or maybe good. And if I wanna believe in God and serve God and if I wanna obey God perfectly, I can do that.

I have the ability to do that. So that's incorrect too because they say you don't even need the grace of God. So both positions are wrong. The correct position is God extends his grace. We respond to it and we love him because he first loved us.

Okay, let's finish the chapter, the final verses, verses 30 through 35. The artisans who build the tabernacle are now called by God. We'll just close by reading verses 30 through 32. And Moses said to the children of Israel, "'See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uriah, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.

And he has filled him with the spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze and cutting jewels for setting and carving wood and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.'".