Application of the Tabernacle, Pt. 1 (11/12/2000)

All right, today's lesson, I have prepared a manuscript of at least 30 pages, so consequently we're not going to finish the lesson today.

Most of this is going to be a lecture type, but there will be lots of scripture, and I'd like for you to make note of the scripture.

Some of it I'll ask you to read, most of it I will read. The title of this lesson is,

Application of the Tabernacle to Present Day Man and the

Earthly Church. So we're going to study the

Wilderness Tabernacle in some detail, of course we will not exhaust all of the material, but I want to paint you a word picture today of the beautiful meanings of the tabernacle.

Know you this, this day I come before you not just as your teacher, but more as the mouthpiece of our

Lord. The words I speak to you are not my own, they are from the word of words,

Jesus the Christ. I beg of you, you must hearken to them. If we will,

I'm sure that in the event we ever have any problems, it will not be a problem.

The first scripture is found in 2 Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

So that's the reason of the scripture. I think it would behoove us to always look for that in all scripture.

Now come with me as we are walking through the desert. The picture at which we are looking is one of the wilderness where the children of Israel wandered.

You're all familiar with that, I'm sure. As we are walking toward the east, we begin to see something in the far distance.

It begins to look much like one of the tents in which these people live, only it's becoming much larger.

As we approach, we can see it as the tabernacle, as it rises from the desert floor.

It is visible to the world, just as we are in our daily life.

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

1 Corinthians 2 .15, now these that I do not give you time to look up, just make a note of the scripture for reference.

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

He hath made all things beautiful in his time, this is Ecclesiastes 3 .11.

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

It's impossible for the natural man to understand God. As we draw closer to this whatever it is, we come to a curtain.

This is a long curtain. It's seven and a half feet high and a hundred and fifty feet long.

The height of it prevents us from looking over the curtain to the other side.

We cannot determine what is immediately on the other side of this curtain. The world cannot look on the things of God with understanding.

The curtain, seven and a half feet, has a direct reference to the fact the world cannot see in.

Now in 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 conscience is defiled.

They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

Again Bell is pointing out the fact that we as spiritual people understand as it is revealed to us, the world cannot.

The curtain, by the way, before we get that far, Greg would you go put it on pause a moment.

As you look at your handout, we have the picture of the outside of the tabernacle and it is to that fence that you're looking at that we are now standing.

Later we'll go inside and that's on the other side of the tabernacle, but just concern yourself right now with the one that shows the curtain.

This curtain is fastened to the earth so we the church are fixed in this world.

Let me repeat that. Just as the curtain is fastened to the earth so we the church are fixed in this world.

When a proper time was come, God took the tabernacle and the temple away. Likewise, the church at the proper time will be cut loose and we will fly away.

The curtain represents our skin. Now first of all, we're looking at the tabernacle as an individual, as one of the

Christians. Jesse, did you get a picture?

Okay. So just imagine now, this is one of us.

We have a skin, the outside of us. It's obvious that the outside of the curtain is toward the world.

The outside of it is the part that rubs elbows with the world. That's the outside of us.

As we move on to the east, and that's to the right in your picture, we come to the east end of this and we come to a gate or a gap.

It's not a swinging gate, through which we must pass to enter into the tabernacle.

Now, to enter into the grounds, there is no way in except through the gap that is on the east.

By gap, I mean not having a swinging door or a gate, Russell.

It is much like a gap would be built in a fence that would prevent animals from getting through except a human could walk around it and get through.

You have the gap and then in front of that, you have another section of fence that would prevent any animal from twisting around and going through there.

Well, that's the way this is. So to enter into the tabernacle grounds, we must pass through this gap.

And in order to do that, we must believe in a certain way.

So we go to Philippians 1 .29, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.

So our belief is given to us. Then over in Philippians 2 .13,

for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

We must, it's imperative that we understand that we're not the center of anything.

God is. And Russell, everything is done according to his pleasure.

And his pleasure has been foreordained from eternity back in infinity.

The gap and the construction of it is such that no one can see into the campground or the tabernacle grounds.

The gate is Jesus Christ, for without being in him and he in us, no one can enter.

Now, if you have questions, please ask. John 6 .56,

we have the words of our Lord, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.

John 14 .6, Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man cometh unto the father, but by me. That's the gate again. John 7 .10

.17, then said Jesus unto them again, verily, verily, I say unto you,

I am the door of the sheep. So, we pass through the gate being in Christ, we're able to do this.

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

Inside of this curtain, the ground inside is holy ground. Now, if you were to look at it and feel of it, it would be no different than that on the outside.

We're all like everybody else. In Exodus 29 .16,

we have a reference to the blood, and thou shalt slay the ram and thou shalt take his blood and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.

And in Exodus 29 .12, thou shalt take the blood of the bullock and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger and pour all of the blood beside the bottom of the altar on the ground.

The ground becomes holy because of the blood. So as we enter into the campground, we find the brazen altar.

This is symbolic of the cross of our Lord. This is where the sacrifice was burned.

We now approach the tent, and you'll see that it is further into the campground, the tabernacle grounds.

I don't know why I keep calling it campground. The brazen altar was symbolic of the cross.

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

And we have reference to that in Exodus 30 .18, thou shalt also make a lever 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.

This is a very large wash basin, Fred. In Exodus 30 .19,

for Aaron and his sons 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.

Very important. They must wash before they go in to keep from dying.

And when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offerings 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.

Now, understand, this washing is confession.

It is being cleansed before we go into the first room of the tabernacle.

It is as though you were trying to approach

God without having your sin forgiven. Just as the priest had to wash before entering, so we also must confess all sins before we can approach our

Lord. Now, I know we approach him to confess, but I'm talking about communing with him.

There's a strong word of caution given to us here, for the unsaved to approach

God is to die. John 10 .1,

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.

Matthew 10 .32, Whosoever therefore shall 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.

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.

John 13 .8, Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet.

Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

So you see the importance of being clean when we go to our

Lord. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands, my head.

Jesus said unto him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet.

You've been saved. You don't need that. You just need to confess. But it's clean every whit and ye are clean, but not all of you are clean.

And he's speaking of Judas that was in the crowd. Now the Bible gives us a perfect example of someone trying to approach

God that is not one of his people, that is full of sin.

I'd like for you to follow along with this. This is found in Numbers 16, verse one.

It has to do with a man by the name of Korah. I'm not going to be reading all of the scripture, but we'll work our way down through it.

But I want you to have this example of the danger of claiming to be a

Christian, going through the act of praying to the father when you have unconfessed sin in your life.

Folks, it's dangerous. Numbers 16, one.

Now Korah, the son of Ishar, the son of Korath, the son of Levi and Dosen and Abram, the sons of Elab and Ong, the son of Pilate, sons of Reuben, took men.

These were the leaders and they took other people. By taking them means that they convinced them to follow them.

And they, verse two, and they rose up before Moses. Now, this is at the time the tabernacle was in operation.

Moses is leading two million people and there are those that find fault.

And they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.

These were important people. At least they had established their importance.

And they gathered themselves together against Moses. Moses is the leader, the

God -appointed leader. And against Aaron and said unto them, ye take too much upon yourself, seeing all of the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the

Lord is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the

Lord. He said, Moses, what makes you think you can lead? How come you have decided that you're the leader of this group?

Everybody, anybody could be. Much like someone saying, well, anybody could do that.

Well, just anybody can't. Number 1616 now,

Moses said unto Korah, be thou and all of thy company, all these people with you before the

Lord, thou and they and Aaron tomorrow. Richard Moses speaks with authority.

He knows where he talks. He said, you are to appear before the

Lord tomorrow. Verse 20, and the Lord spake unto

Moses and unto Aaron saying, separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment.

He gives Moses instructions to separate himself. If he didn't, he would be consumed with them.

We're to separate ourselves from the world. We live in the world, but Russell, we're not a part of it.

So don't try to be. Now 1628, and Moses said, hereby you shall know that the

Lord has sent me to do all these works for I have not done them of mine own hand or my own mind.

If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the

Lord has not sent me. In other words, if they die a normal death, then I'm not the leader.

But if the Lord make a new thing and the earth open up her mouth and swallow them up with all that appertaineth unto them, and they go down quickly into the pit, then you shall understand that these men have provoked the

Lord. 31, and it came to pass as he had made an end of speaking all of these words that the ground clave asunder that was under them, under those that were rebelling.

And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertaineth unto

Korah and all their goods. They and all that appertaineth to them went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation, drastic.

This is what happens when you take it upon yourself to approach

God. Now after the priests have been cleansed, they can enter into the first room of the tabernacle.

If you'll turn your sheet over, you'll see the tabernacle, which is the rectangle center and to the left, center left of the floor plan.

First room, there's two rooms. We come in from the east and we exit to the east.

The holy place is what this is called, or the room of meeting, also called the tabernacle of congregation, because here

I will meet with man, saith the Lord. It is here where we meet with the

Lord. Now this is where we meet with the Lord. In Exodus 29, 43, and there

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

It is God that sanctifies things. Things do not sanctify God. Now only the priests can enter into this room.

The general congregation of Israelites could not.

It's just the priests, but Russell, we're priests, you and I.

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

First Peter 2 .9, but ye 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.

So you see, we can enter into this first room because we're priests, but we can enter into the very presence of the

Lord only after we've confessed everything. We cannot go in dirty. It is while we're in this room that we can commune with the

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

Now, this is a hard point to understand, perhaps. It's true that you can communicate with God any place you are, but it's also true that you have to mentally enter into this room before you can.

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

So first seek God all of the time. The priest came into this area for one purpose only, and that was to perform the necessary rituals for praising

God. As we look around, perhaps while in this room, as we look around, the first thing we notice is that there's no windows.

Well, what would a church be without windows? We have one here that you can actually see outside a little bit, but there's no windows.

But there are certain pieces of furniture and a lampstand in this room. We have the light of Christ represented by the lampstand.

Exodus 20 .5, 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 their children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

The key word I want you to see is jealous God. 14,

For thou shalt worship no other God, for the

Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. Now, I was raised,

Dennis, to think that to be jealous was wrong. But the word is not wrong.

In a way, I'm jealous of you people. I'm very particular as to who else you listen to, and I would have you not listen to every preacher that comes down the pike.

The Lord in verse 24, Deuteronomy 4 .24, And the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous

God, and Dennis, he means it. God demands all of our attention when we are addressing him, thus no windows.

We do not come here to look out of the window at the awful world, or to gossip, or to joke, or to talk about the weather, or lay plans to protest, or anything except those things that will draw us closer to our

Lord. That's why we're here, folks. There's far too much extemporaneous joking and laughing in the house of worship, and I'm as guilty as anyone else.

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

Father. Now understand, we cannot bring glory to the Father. That's him. He is glory, but we can praise his glory.

We can honor his glory. We can think and perform acts that will bring praise to his glory.

One more amazing quality of this room was that there was no echo in it. Having been in the sound reinforcement business most of my life when

I was working, and we did mostly churches, we learned very quickly that the denomination would dictate the reverberation of the auditorium.

The Catholic Church was always looking for something that was absolutely quiet.

So in figuring all of the savings of all of the materials and the angles and reflections and everything, we had to design it in a way that there was a minimum of echo.

How many have ever had the experience of being in a soundproof room?

Absolutely soundproof. You walk in on a grid, not on the floor, but on a grid of wire, and when they close the door behind you, it's the most weird feeling you can imagine, and after just a few seconds you can hear your own heart beating, but that's all you can hear.

Now the Pentecostal people like a real live room, one that echoes a lot, because it makes you sound better when you sing, and that's all right.

The baptist is about halfway in between. But in this room, there is nothing to reflect sound.

It's all made of material. The ground itself does not reflect.

There's nothing to cause echo. This is the best medium in which you can be to meditate, because there's nothing else to distract your mind.

We as priests can come in and out of this room as we please. We can go into the very presence of our

Lord whenever we desire, wherever we are. But I want you to understand something this morning.

Know this, that when we're outside of this room and in the courtyard, we're subject to the winds of the world, even though we're still on the holy tabernacle ground.

Again, let me quote John 6, 44. No man can come to me except the

Father which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

The only place that you can draw close to the

Heavenly Father is in this room of meeting. As you go about your daily tasks, you must mentally be in this room at all times, or your gifts will not work.

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

I have here this morning a simple demonstration.

I wanted to make it more elaborate, and I couldn't seem to get the things together. I want you to imagine with me, can everyone see what

I'm playing with? Imagine with me that this light represents

Jesus Christ as we are in his presence, and if we go into his presence, then it will light.

So there's a little push button. We go into this room, we're confessed, we have no outstanding sins.

We go into his room, and he's there, and I know it, and I'm there, and I commune with him.

Now this is a mental action on our part, not physical. So as long as we stay mentally connected with our

Lord in this room, we have communion with him. But when we leave, it goes off.

He does not follow us outside and still try to talk to us when we're not wanting to.

And it is a mental attitude, and we have to learn to develop it. You will know when you go in, and then you'll go out.

If you try to pray outside, nothing happens. You just have a lot of exercise and experience.

So mentally, he gave us a picture, and all scripture is given to us to educate us.

So the purpose of this first room, which was 15 by 15, he had built to represent our being in his presence, because he said, that is where I will meet with you.

I will not meet with you outside of this. As hard as it may seem, we can pray to him any place, but the moment,

Russell, that we enter into the prayer closet, we say, or enter into communion with our

Lord, we must mentally be in this room where he is. Does anyone understand what

I'm saying? You do? Anyone not?

This is simply a physical demonstration of a mental process. Now, I have to hold my finger on that.

I wonder why. When I take my finger off,

Satan's present, because I've left the presence of God.

I'm out in the world now. So we should mentally keep our finger on it, and it takes work.

You cannot lock it in. He didn't make it so we could just turn it on and throw the key away.

We have to, every moment of our life, mentally be in this room to communicate with God.

No matter what you're doing, where you are, or what's going on, or what the president says, or anything else, to communicate with the

Lord, you have to be in his presence. Do you understand?

Do you understand you can do this any place, but you have to put out the effort.

It's not an automatic action. So there's only one place now to communicate with the

Lord, and it's in this first room. With them, it was a physical act, and only priests could go in and do it.

They went in behalf of the other people. We are priests, so we can enter into that room.

We have the right and privilege to do that. But we must enter into the room mentally, spiritually, in order to speak to the

Lord. You see that? I guess your mind will fool you.

Yes. Yes. Yes, we choose to do this.

Now, he still has input to us. He gives us the desire to do it, in fact. But we must do it willingly.

You cannot come into this room and try to turn the switch on when you don't want to. You're not in the room when that happens.

And again, I say, do not misunderstand me. You can call upon the Lord wherever you are, physically.

But mentally, we must be in this meeting room to make connections. This simply means that you cannot have a prayer time early in the morning and expect that to keep you in touch with the

Lord all day. You can't put enough in your pocket that will last all day.

You can go back every moment and get more. Those that spend their time outside in the courtyard, this is where the women and the

Gentiles could meet, was inside the curtain but outside of the tabernacle.

Those people are yet babies. They're saved, but they're spending all their time outside.

There you can only exist. If you do not spend time in the holy place, you will 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 you have what is yours. And he gave it back.

And we know what happened to him. As we continue on past this room, we come to a veil.

The veil represents the body or flesh of Christ, which was Jesus Christ, Jesus the

Christ. And we go through his flesh into the

Holy of Holies. This is the very presence of the Heavenly Father.

We cannot enter into this room. It is utterly impossible for anyone to come into the presence of the

Heavenly Father except you're in Christ. He is our high priest.

Once a year, Aaron, who was the first high priest, would go into that room.

And he had to do it under certain conditions. And they were very, very demanding conditions.

For if he did anything wrong, he would be struck dead. And no one else could go in or they'd be struck dead.

So they developed the process of tying a rope to his ankle so they could pull him out.

They never had to. On his robe, he had bells around the bottom hymn.

This was the tinkling of the bell that would keep his mind on what he was doing and tell those outside he was still moving, which meant he was still alive.

The veil is the body of Christ. And it was torn, you remember. We're now in another room.

This is the most holy place. Here is where the

Almighty Father himself dwells. This compares with our innermost being, the heart of the new man, the subconscious.

It is here that the essence of God lives in us. We can go in unto him because we are in Christ.

There is no other way man can enter this room without their high priest.

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

He is our high priest. And our time is up.

We'll come back to entering into this room next week. Does anyone have any comments now?

Well, I was. Broadcasting room. No, no, that's different.

A soundproof room is one that has great wedges of sound -absorbent material.

Not a broadcast room.

It still has echo. But an absolute testing chamber for microphones.

Anything else? Well, I thank you for being very attentive.

And we'll continue on next week. Bill, would you dismiss this, please? Help us to know that the solution to all of our problems is to have faith.

And that for us to have success in moving toward solutions to our problems means that we must draw closer to Him.

And we must follow the words which He has laid out for us to prepare ourselves before we approach what's after us.

Help us to use this lesson in our lives. Thank you.

look forward to reading your letter. Thank you.