The Application of the Tabernacle Today (03/03/2002)

Brother David asked me if I felt up to doing this, and of course I did, but I don't think

I could make it all the way through without Russell's help. So he's going to read the scripture.

The application of the tabernacle to present -day man and the earthly church.

We find lots and lots of pictures in that tabernacle.

Now to open, we'll hear James 1 .20, the wrath of man.

The words I speak to you are not my words, they're from the word of words,

Jesus Christ. I beg of you that we all must hearken to them, 2

Timothy. All right, that lays the foundation.

We're going to look at a picture this morning, I think in a series of pictures.

The picture which we are looking at is one of the wilderness. We've gone there just to inspect the tabernacle.

The children of Israel wandered for some 40 years, always with this tabernacle.

We're walking toward it. In the far distance, it looks much like one of the tents of these people, only it's much larger.

As we approach, we can see the tabernacle as it rises from the desert floor. It's visible to the world, just as we are visible to the world.

People can look at us and know that there's something about us that makes us different from the others, but they do not understand what this difference is, and they cannot look inside.

That's where the difference lies, inside. Everyone knows there is a

God, but only his people know him, Romans 1 .20.

The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Ecclesiastes 3 .11, he hath made every being, everything beautiful in his time.

Also, he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

So everybody knows there is a God. As we draw closer, we come to a long curtain.

It's some 7 1⁄2 feet high and 150 feet long on the side. 7 1⁄2 feet high,

I can't see over that. We cannot see over the top to determine what it is on the other side.

We know it's enclosing something, but I can't tell what. The world can look on the things of God without understanding.

Titus 1 .15, unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and consciousness is defiled.

Titus 1 .16, they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate.

Now this curtain, if you want to call it a curtain, is held in place by cords, rope if you please.

They're fastened to an upright column. They're tied down to a stake, each one in its own position.

That stake is driven into the ground. Just as the curtain is fastened to the earth, so we, the church, are fixed in this world.

We can't escape it. We're tied down to this world. When the proper time was come,

God took the tabernacle and the temple away, so will the church be cut loose and will fly away at the right time.

This curtain represents our skin. That's what I see of you and you see of me.

It's on the outside of me. This is the part that rubs elbows with the world.

This is the part that gets dirty. You have to take a bath. As we move on to the east, we come to the gate or gap through which you must pass to enter into the tabernacle ground.

In order to be passed through this gap, we must believe a certain way. Philippians 1 .29

For to you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.

Philippians 2 .13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

This gap is built in such a way that only those entering can see inside.

You cannot see in by looking. You cannot see in or you cannot see inside unless you enter.

The gate is Jesus Christ. For without being in him, and he is to us, that's the only way we can enter.

John 6 .56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him.

John 15 .5 I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

For without me you can do nothing. No man can come to me except the

Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up on the last day. But there are some of you that believe not.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said,

Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my

Father. Twice we have heard those words. You cannot enter this gate unless you believe in Jesus Christ.

You cannot believe in Jesus Christ unless it's been given to you. He takes it totally out of our hands.

No man can believe unless it's given. And you cannot enter unless you believe.

That pretty well ties down who will enter. So we enter.

Now we're inside the holy compound. The very ground was made holy by the blood offering poured upon it.

Exodus 29 .16 And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.

Leviticus 1 .5 And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord, and the priest, Aaron's son, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Blood comes into play. There's a lot said about the blood. The blood of the animals.

The animals according to God. We see the brazen altar which was symbolic of the cross of our

Lord. It was here that all the sacrifices and offerings were made day by day, year by year, eternally, they thought.

We now approach the tent. The tent of the tabernacle and come to a large brass laver filled with water.

A large bowl made from brass. Exodus 30 .18

Thou shalt also make a laver of brass, and his foot also of brass, to wash withal.

And thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and thou shalt put water therein.

For Aaron and his son shall wash their hands and their feet thereat. When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not.

Or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not.

And it shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generations.

So we have to be clean. Washing the hands and feet compares with our confessing sins.

We must confess sins or we dare not go further or we die. Just as the priest had to wash before entering, so we also must confess all sins before we can approach our

Lord. This was done outside of the tabernacle. There is a strong word of caution given to us here for the unsaved to approach

God is to die. Matthew 10 .32 Whosoever thou shalt confess me before men, him will

I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will

I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Romans 10 .9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the

Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 1 John 1 .9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

After the priests have been cleansed, they enter the first room of the tabernacle.

It is made up of two rooms. The first one was 15 foot wide, 15 foot high, and 30 foot long.

The second room was 15 by 15 by 15. This first room is called the holy place or the room of meeting.

This is where the Lord said he would meet with man. And also the tabernacle of the congregation.

Because here I'll meet with man, saith the

Lord. It is here we meet with our Lord, Exodus 29 .43

And there will I meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.

Now, the ordinary Israelite cannot come into this room.

The priests only. The priests only could enter this room.

We are what? Believer priests.

1 Peter 2 .5 He also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2 .9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

It is while we are in this room that we can commune with the

Lord. Only in this room. Not outside, not in the other room, but this room.

Just as the tabernacle priest could not talk with God outside of this room, neither can we.

Matthew 6 .33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you.

The priests come into this area, this room, for one purpose only, and that was to perform the necessary rituals, praising

God. As we look around, we're in the room, we look all around, perhaps the first thing we notice, there's no windows.

There's no windows to this, I can't see out. But there are certain pieces of furniture and a lampstand.

In this room we have the light of Christ, represented by the golden lampstand.

Exodus 25. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.

For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of them that hate me.

For thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous

God. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

Joshua 24 .19 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy

God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins.

God demands, and he will have, all of our attention when we are addressing him.

Now, that becomes a problem. Unless you're in the practice of addressing him, it doesn't come easy.

We must think only of him when we're addressing him.

We can't think of the roast that's on the stove or what I'm going to do tomorrow while we're addressing him.

God demands it. We do not come to church to look out the window at the awful world, gossip, or joke, or talk about the weather, or plan protests, or anything, except those things that will draw us closer to the

Lord. We are to come with quietness, reverence, meditation, prayer, all things that will bring praise to the glory of the

Father. One more amazing quality of this room was there's no echo.

It's dead. Everything is absorbed. You did not hear yourself talking.

It was dead silence. We, as priests, can come in and out of this room as we please, but know this.

When we're outside the room, in the courtyard, we're subject to the winds of the world.

Even though we're still on holy tabernacle grounds, again,

I must quote John 644. No man can come to me except the

Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. The only place you can do this is in the room of meeting, in that first room.

As you go about your daily tasks, you must be mentally in this room. You've got to be there for your gifts to work.

Your joy will not be with you, and you will become dysfunctional, misunderstood.

We can call upon the Lord wherever we are physically, but mentally we must be in the room of meeting to make connection.

I cannot stress that enough. We think we can come and pray. We don't have to come, but we can pray.

Wherever we are, we're mentally in this room where Jesus is.

Now, he's with us all of the time, but when we pray, we have to be with him.

This simply means that you cannot have a prayer time early in the morning and expect it to keep you in touch with the

Lord all day. Those that spend their time outside of the courtyard are those that are yet babies.

Out here you can work your gift, and if you have not been or you do not spend time in the holy place, you'll never know how to exercise the gift given to you.

Matthew 25, 25. And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth.

Lo, there thou hast that is thine. We know this story.

We deal with the last part of it. He hid his talent. As we continue on, we come to another room.

This is called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place.

Here is where the Almighty Father himself dwells.

The priest entered this room once a year. This is the most dreadful, precious place of all.

This compares with our innermost being, the heart of a new man, the subconscious.

It is here the essence of God lives. In your subconscious, the very heart and center of you.

We can go in unto him because we are in Christ. There is no way for man to enter this room without his high priest.

Without his high priest. Jesus is our high priest. So, if you are not in Jesus, you cannot come close to this room.

In our case, this is Jesus himself. In fact, he is here all of the time. He is our high priest.

Hebrews 2 .17 Wherefore, in all things, it behooved him to be made like unto us his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 8 .1 Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such a high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.

Is set. That means something is finished. What was it he finished?

All of his earthly work. All of our salvation. He didn't leave any of that for us.

He did it all. His set means once for all. It's finished.

And then, he didn't sit down of his own volition. He was invited by the heavenly father to sit because of what he did on earth.

The tabernacle was movable. We're ambulatory. God provided a cloud by day to keep them cool, fire by night, so they could always know that he was with them.

John 14 .16 And I will pray the father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever.

John 14 .26 But the comforter, which is the holy ghost, whom the father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance.

Whatsoever I have said unto you, John 15 .26 But when the comforter is come, whom

I will send unto you from the father, even the spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the father, he shall testify of me.

When the cloud moved, the tabernacle moved. When we move, God has moved.

He leads us day by day through the Lord Jesus. This was done by the priests.

They had to pack up everything. If you think it's a problem for you to move, and I've done it many, many times, and it gets worse every time, each pin, each rope, each column, each cap, each hanging, each piece of furniture was under the care of one man for each one of them.

One pin, one man. One rope, one man. That was his responsibility to see that it was at the new site, ready when it was needed.

Now, suppose you've been doing this for all your life, it seems like.

You have the pin on the northwest corner, and for some reason or other you decide,

I'm not going to do it. So you don't do it. You don't go and pull it up.

The tabernacle's gone, but you didn't pull up your stake. But you go on.

One stake can't make any difference. When they get ready to set up the tabernacle, they're one stake short.

So they go to Moses and say, Who had charge of this stake? And he looks through his records, and John Doe had charge of that.

So you look up John Doe, because you know right where he lives. And they said,

Where's the stake? Well, I didn't think

I needed to do it. I left it back yonder. John Doe has to go back, and he has to pull up that stake, and he has to bring it, for the tabernacle cannot be set up without it.

So he brings it, and he drives it into the ground, and everybody watching.

And they tie the corner down. One stake makes a difference.

We also have our one place in his church, and his church body for which we are held responsible.

No one else can do it. Neither should we try to do the work of someone else.

There is no talent given by God that will give you the right to tell others exactly how they should work and what their gift is.

That doesn't exist. Now, some people take it upon themselves to cause it to exist, but that's wrong.

This will always lead to trouble. We're not to try to tell someone else how to do their particular work.

We can advise and suggest it must be in an absolute spirit of love.

Always remember they are the one assigned to that task, not you. Our talent will fit only our own work.

Don't find fault with others because when you do, you're finding fault with God.

And he doesn't like that. In fact, when you find fault, you're finding fault with God.

Romans 14 .4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?

To his own master he standeth or followeth. Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand.

One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. He that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.

He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth to God thanks. And he that eateth not to the

Lord, he eateth not, and giveth to God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.

For whether we live, we live unto the Lord. And whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the

Lord's. You can't escape it. You belong to the

Lord, whether you're alive or whether you die. Do not ever criticize another

Christian for doing their work. You have more than you can handle yourself.

You may think they're doing it wrong. Please let them do it unto the Lord. Our high priest has entered into the

Holy of Holies and never needs to come out and will not come out until the day of the rapture.

Hebrews 4 .14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed from the heavens,

Jesus the Son of God, let us hope fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like us we are, like as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let us come boldly. I challenge you today to use the tabernacle as a guide for your life.

It's an interesting study. We just barely scratched the surface. We could go on for many hours.

Study the tabernacle and find out what you're supposed to do. Let's stand and be dismissed.