Exodus 25 - Let Them Make Me A Sanctuary

Exodus 25 and the Tabernacle as God’s Dwelling Place

All right, well, let's turn to Exodus chapter 25. Exodus 25, we'll pray and then begin the video. Heavenly Father, we are thankful again to be in your house. And as we look at this chapter, which deals with the building of the tabernacle, help us to see what it means for us today.

And the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread, the lampstand, and how all of these things point to Christ. Because we know the Bible is a book all about him. So we just ask that Christ would receive all the glory this evening.

We pray it in his name, amen. Exodus 25.

To Moses, speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, you shall take my offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them.

Gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and a kishel, oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense.

Honest stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them, according to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.

And they shall make an ark of a kishel. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around.

You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them in its four corners. Two rings shall be on one side and two rings on the other side. And you shall make poles of the kishel and overlay them with gold.

You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them. The poles shall be in the rings of the ark, they shall not be taken from it. And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I will give you.

You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two cherubim of gold, of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.

Make one cherub at one end and the other cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat. And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another.

The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.

You shall also make a table of acacia wood, two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around.

You shall make for it a frame of a hand breadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that are at its four legs.

The rings shall be close to the frame as holders for the poles to bed the table. And you shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them. You shall make its dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring.

You shall make them of pure gold, and you shall set the showbread on the table before me,.

Always.

You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be of hammered work, its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and its flowers shall be of one piece. And six branches shall come out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side.

Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms on one branch with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch with an ornamental knob and a flower, and so for the six branches that come out of the lampstand.

On the lampstand itself, four bowls shall be made like almond blossoms, each with its ornamental knob and flower. And there shall be a knob under the first two branches of the same, a knob under the second two branches of the same, and a knob under the third two branches of the same, according to the six branches that extend from the lampstand.

...knobs and their branches shall be of one piece. All of it shall be one hammered piece of pure gold. You shall make seven lamps for it, and they shall arrange its lamps so that they give light in front of it, and its wood trimmers and their trays shall be of pure gold.

It shall be made of a talent of pure gold with all these utensils, and see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you.

The Tabernacle, the House of God, and Willing Offerings

All right, back in 1896, 1897, there was a group of Christians right here in Moore's Corner who had been assembling for a little while, but they had no meeting house or meeting place of their own. They had no church building.

So after much prayer and seeking God's will, a man donated a plot of land, this plot of land, and all of the people donated of their hard-earned money. And with that, Moore's Corner Church was built.

Well, here in Exodus 25, you have the children of Israel. They have begun their wandering in the wilderness. They came out to meet God at Mount Sinai. God made a covenant with them. But God said he was gonna dwell among them, but where?

Where?

They really had no central place of meeting. Moses had no one central meeting place with God. So now God is giving them instructions of how to build the house of God, the tabernacle. And the people, here's the connection, the people had to donate.

They had to donate to have this structure built. Look at Exodus 25, starting in verse one. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, you shall take my offering.

And this is the offering which you shall take from them, 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 and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

So what is the tabernacle?

The tent.

Yeah, on its most basic level, the tabernacle was a tent, but the word tabernacle actually means a dwelling place. So basically this is now the dwelling place of God. But of course we know that God is everywhere, right?

God is omnipresent. Jeremiah 23, verse 23 and 24, the Lord says, am I a God near of hand, says the Lord and not a God far off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him, says the Lord?

Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? So while God is everywhere, this dwelling place of the tabernacle was to be a special set apart meeting place where God would come together with Moses to meet with him there.

And all of Israel was camped around them. So this is a central meeting place between God and his people. And it would remind all the people that the Lord dwells among us. So I made a reference to our church building a moment ago.

And we know that our church building is a permanent structure. And obviously there's many differences between a church building today and the tabernacle. But the tabernacle eventually gave way to what?

The temple.

So we're gonna talk about some of the connections between the tabernacle and the temple and then the New Testament house of God and the church. We'll talk about that now and again as we go through Exodus.

But the way God wanted it originally was to have this tent that could be set up, broken down and moved from place to place. And obviously this was necessary because they were wandering in the wilderness.

So they were gonna spend the next 40 years in the wilderness. They needed something that they could set up, break down, move from place to place. Once they are established in the land about 500 years later, give or take, King David is then going to come up with the idea of the temple, which is the permanent structure.

But both the tabernacle and the temple were, they were both called the house of God. And in the New Testament, the church is called the house of God. So it's a tendency to think of this, right, this as the house of God, which I don't personally have a problem with that because that's where the church meets.

However, when you think of the tabernacle and then the temple, what is the temple of God today? Does God dwell in this building or is that God dwells in you? God, the Holy Spirit dwells in you. So your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So the house of God really is the people. It's where the people are assembled. That's where God dwells among his people. But you know, you have to start somewhere. So God is instructing the building of the tabernacle and it's all gonna teach people as time goes on.

So any questions or comments so far?

No? All right.

So the Israelites give, they donate that this structure could be built and it's pretty elaborate. I mean, there's a lot of gold. That's one thing that stood out. Solid gold everywhere. Everything's made out of gold.

But it's important that they gave willingly. This is what you might call a free will offering. In the New Testament, Paul talks about this, how the Lord loves, what?

Cheerful.

A cheerful giver. God did not want Moses to say, okay, impose a tax of whatever percent and everybody has to give this much. That would kind of leave a sour taste in people's mouth, I think. When they looked at the tabernacle, this is what they wanted to do.

So they gave willingly and really that's the way it should be. Commentator Matthew Henry says this about Exodus 25. The people were to furnish Moses with the materials by their own free will. The best use we can make of our worldly wealth is to honor God with it in works of piety and charity.

We should ask not only what must we do, but what may we do for God. So as far as the tabernacle goes, it's called several different things. So what I gathered, there are five names for the tabernacle.

Name number one is the tabernacle.

Okay.

It's called a tent. All right, so that's the second one. The third, it's called a sanctuary. And of course we still call this, we call the sanctuary. What does sanctuary mean? Who wants to take a guess?

Or maybe you know, what does sanctuary mean, Larry?

Safe place.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a sacred place. Number four, it's also called the tabernacle of the congregation or the tabernacle of meeting. And what is the church? The church is an assembly. It's a meeting together of people.

The church, church means congregation. So the tabernacle is called the tabernacle of the congregation. And then finally, number five, it's also called the tabernacle of who knows the fifth?

What?

The tabernacle of the testimony. If you give testimony or you give your testimony, what are you doing? Well, you're expressing something. You're giving words. You're telling of something, right? So that's what God does.

He gives his testimony. Of course, this is the commandments. This is his law. So this leads us into the next section, starting in verse 10, at least in the new King James version, it's titled the Ark of the Testimony.

Christ in the Bread, the Lampstand, and the Ark

Before we get into that, let me just comment briefly on the table and the show bread and the gold lamp stand. The show bread was set out on this table on display and it was to, it's show bread, right?

So it's out on display. Eventually the priests would eat it. And what's the whole purpose of this? Well, the Old Testament doesn't make a whole lot of sense without Jesus and the fulfillments in the New Testament.

So in the New Testament, what does Jesus call himself? The bread of life, right? He says, I am the bread, which has come down from heaven. So the show bread typifies Christ. Guess what the lamp stand typifies?

Christ, of course. So the lamp stand also, we usually call it what? There's another well-known term for it. The menorah, right? So the menorah provided lights, because it's a tent, there was no natural light in the place.

So you had to have the lamp stand, the menorah to give light to the priests so they could minister. And when you get to the New Testament, Jesus said about himself, I am the light of the world. So we'll cover these things in more depth later on, but just to touch on those.

But to focus on the most significant item in the tabernacle, it's what? The ark. The ark. The ark of the covenant usually is what we call it. What is it? It's basically, you think of ark, people think of Noah's ark, right?

Obviously this is not the same thing. It's not a boat, it's basically a big box. It's like a chest. And in it, God is going to instruct Moses to put in the box, in the ark, the 10 commandments, the tablets of stone, or the testimony.

So it's the ark of the covenant, the ark of the testimony. So this is God's word to Israel, but unfortunately, and this is important because this is how we see the significance of the ark and the mercy seat.

Unfortunately, this word to Israel ends up bringing condemnation to Israel because they don't obey it. So God gives his law, the testimony, they agree. Remember, it was the last week or the week before.

Everything you said, we will do and obey. Okay, it's not the way it worked out. But, so inside is the testimony, which they broke, and that leads to what goes on top of it, what is to cover it, which is the lid.

The lid, which is referred to as the mercy seat. So just imagine this large box. I think everybody here, I'm sure, has seen pictures. We've all, I think we know what it probably looked like, maybe not exactly, but you have this box overlaid with gold, gold rings on it.

The poles went through so that it would be carried by hand. One time they put it on a cart. That didn't go well. You gotta obey God, guys. Like, just do what God says. And they really struggled with that.

People still struggle with that. But look at verse 17. The Lord says, you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two cherubim of gold.

So a cherub is an angel. Cherubim is plural. So there's two angels of hammered work. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub at one end, the other cherub at the other end.

And you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it, one piece with the mercy seat. And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another.

The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark. And in the ark, you shall put the testimony that I will give you. None of this is just arbitrary and God's just kind of, there's no rhyme or reason to it.

There's a reason for everything. Every, all of the furniture, even the dimensions, I'm sure there's probably a reason, but just because we can't figure it out, sometimes there's always a reason. So one of the things that we've been saying throughout Genesis, throughout Exodus, is that the Old Testament, all of these things are symbolic throughout the Old Testament, and they point ahead to Jesus.

Jesus is on every page of the Old Testament scriptures. And he's pictured right here as well, not just with the showbread, not just with the lampstand. He's also pictured here with the ark and the mercy seat.

So just envision this in your mind. You have the ark, inside of the box was the testimony. Above the ark, the Lord would appear between the cherubim in the form of the glory cloud. So the commandments are here, the Lord is up here.

Right?

So God is holy. The commandments do what? They show man his sin.

Right?

So God is here. The testimony is here showing that man is unholy. Second Corinthians 3, 7, the apostle Paul spoke of the tablets of stone or the law of God. He called it the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones.

So you see the problem. There's the law, which represents man's unholiness. God above it. God is holy. There's a problem. How is man reconciled? How do you reconcile the two? Well, what's in between? Right?

The mercy seat is in between. So only through God's mercy, through the shed blood of Christ, which is pictured by the mercy seat or the blood that would be sprinkled on the mercy seat, it does what? It makes atonement.

So the blood covers man's sin and guilt. So God is above when he looks down, instead of seeing man, this is the picture. When he looks down, instead of seeing man's guilt, he sees the blood. The blood of Christ has covered, taken away our sin.

So Christ is pictured in the mercy seat. It's a picture of the gospel. So this structure, the tabernacle, is going to be really the center of Israel. It'll be located in the center of the camp. The Holy of Holies, where the Ark is situated, that will be the central focus of the tabernacle.

This is where God is going to dwell among his people. So Moses gets all these instructions. He writes it down for us. But if you just look at what's written, could you go and read? I know people have made representations based on what is written, but could you recreate the tabernacle based on what is given?

Well, you can't, because there's not enough details that are given. Part of that, God doesn't want anyone doing that,.

Number one.

That's a bad thing. When people try to go backwards, God does not want anyone trying to recreate the tabernacle. There's a type and a foreshadow is fulfilled in Christ. So how did Moses end up building this thing if the details that he's given, really, they don't really give the full picture?

Well, it's interesting. It says that Moses saw a picture on the mountain. When he met with God, God showed him the tabernacle that, at least on earth, had not yet been built. How did that work? Does anyone know or have any ideas about that?

No?

All right, well,.

Hopefully we'll see that in just a moment. Who is the man who actually built the tabernacle? Here's a little trivia question. Moses gave the orders. Moses was not the man doing the construction. What was the man's name who built the tabernacle and the furniture?

What was his name?

I can't remember his name, but he designed and helped fabricate a lot of the things,.

Most of the things, all of the things in the tabernacle.

Yes.

I can't remember his name, but there was him and another fellow.

Okay, so

General contractor.

Yeah.

His name was Bezalel.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, so remember that, because he's going to come up again. Bezalel, he's in Exodus 31. And I believe, you can check this out. Feel free to fact check me, okay? But I believe Bezalel was the first one in the Bible who is said to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So it appears that God chose this man, filled him with his spirit, gave him really a supernatural ability to build all of these things, the tabernacle and its furniture. Now let's turn to Hebrews chapter eight and try to answer this question of, well, what does it mean that Moses saw the tabernacle, that God showed him?

So here's the thing that I find maybe the most fascinating part of this whole chapter. The tabernacle is a copy. The tabernacle that Moses had built was a copy of the one in heaven. If you were here on Sunday, you might've noticed in the sermon from Revelation, it said in Revelation chapter 11, verse 19, it says, then the temple of God was opened, where?

In heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple. A lot of people have wondered, whatever happened to the ark? Because in the Old Testament, the ark of the covenant just disappears. Indiana Jones says it's in a government warehouse somewhere, but I don't think that's true.

But nobody knows where it is. Some people say, well, Bible says it's in heaven. Now, is that the real thing? And the one on earth was the copy? I mean, who knows? But let's look at Hebrews 8, 1. What we do know is the tabernacle on earth, this is a copy of the one in heaven.

Hebrews 8, verse 1. Now, this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest, speaking of Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of the throne on the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord erected and not a man.

This isn't talking about the one here in Exodus 25. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore, it is necessary that this one also having something to offer, for if he were on earth, he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the what?

The copy and shadow of the heavenly things. As Moses was divinely instructed, that's what we're reading about, when he was about to make the tabernacle. For he said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

Now flip over to chapter nine. So Moses was shown something on the mountain. It says the high priest served on earth, served the copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Of course, in the New Testament, who is our great high priest?

Who's the high priest in Exodus 25? Aaron's the high priest, but our great high priest is Christ. Look at Hebrews 9, 11, and 12. It says, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Then verses 23 and 24 says, therefore, it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of God for us. So it's very clear that the sacrifices in the tabernacle all pointed to what?

To that one true and final sacrifice that Christ made on the cross with his own blood. And it says, the tabernacle on earth was patterned after the true tabernacle in heaven, that Christ entered into that heavenly dwelling place.

So oftentimes we think of Jesus on the cross when he said, it is finished, right? And now he's seated at the right hand of God, the father. Don't let any of that ever get you to thinking that Jesus, he's kind of finished everything that he's going to do or that he's not active today.

He is active today. What is Christ active in doing today? The work of atonement has been made, but what's he doing right now? Right, he's acting as our great high priest, interceding for us before God's throne.

Jim, you had a hand up?

I just wanted to say that in reading this in the past, and he made a comment about no one really knows where the tabernacle, I mean, where the emergency seat is.

The ark, yeah.

It's more than a box. It is a chest, and it's very ornate, but God at times actually took people into heaven that didn't die. Elijah, for one, and the other one, Enoch.

Yep.

It's quite possible, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility, that that's where the mercy seat is. It's in heaven.

In heaven. So you're saying because God has taken at least two men to heaven, why couldn't he have taken the ark to heaven?

And then it'll come back when the temple is finished, when Christ returns to establish his kingdom.

I don't see why that's not possible.

Yeah, right.

All right, so.

That's a far out thought, but it's, like I said, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Anyone have any ideas on that? Okay, it's possible. So Jesus right now, he's acting as our high priest. He is making intercession, so he's acting as a priest right now. So the priest is what? A mediator between God and man.

So if you wanna look at it this way, in heaven right now, Jesus stands between us and God the Father. So think of it like a courtroom. Satan is called the accuser of the brethren, right? Revelation 12, verse 10 says that Satan stands before God day and night, accusing the brethren.

So you can look at it this way, like Jesus, and I hate to compare him to this, but he's like a defense attorney in that regard. So the devil can say, look at these people, look at what he did, look at what she did, and Jesus can simply say, and maybe he points to the ark or the blood on the mercy seat in heaven, saying, no, they're innocent, they're justified, I already took care of this.

So Satan can accuse us, even when we're actually guilty, but if Jesus paid for our sins, you can't be held accountable for them. Now there are still earthly, okay, you say no, but if Jesus died for our sins, how can you be held accountable for your sins?

There's a pretty basic concept called double jeopardy, right, that you cannot be prosecuted for the same crime twice. If Jesus paid for our sin on the cross, I mean, all right, if you're saved, who's saved here?

Who's saved?

Okay, so Jesus died for your sin, and you've asked him to forgive you of your sin. Are you forgiven, yes or no?

Yes.

But there's a price to pay for your sins, and we have several examples of that, and one of them's with David. Yeah, common terms of politics. He committed a sin, God forgave him, but his kingdom never came to be what it was intended to be, totally.

I mean, he had some sons where, you know, I mean, things started to go crazy after that.

Yep.

So there is, I think that there's a price to pay for your sins.

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously, if you go out and do something rotten, there's going to be a price that comes along with it. But you have to determine, am I forgiven or am I not? And if Jesus paid for our sin, and he shed his blood for our sin, God cannot look at us as guilty sinners anymore.

It also says in scripture that when our sins are forgiven, that God remembers them no more, and they are as far as the east is from the west. So they're not there anymore. Those sins are forgiven, the price has been paid for those sins.

Yeah.

But Satan will always bring them up to you. He'll always remind you where you came from, and how bad you really were.

Sure, so if you did something just absolutely terrible 10 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever, and all of a sudden, you start feeling really bad about that thing, is that God? I mean, if you've repented of that, is that God?

That's the key word, repentance.

That's the devil accusing you, your own conscience accusing you, but God doesn't hold you, he doesn't view you as guilty for that anymore.

Dennis.

Best I understand is when I stand before Christ one day, I'm gonna be responsible for the way all that he gave me, and living for him here, and I'm not gonna answer for my sins, I might have sorrow for lack of reward, for not having lived for and served him, and that's what the scriptures are pretty clear about.

Anything else?

Jana.

We have first John 1 and 9, that if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, but I've always thought that if we had unconfessed sins, those would be the ones that we may have to answer for.

So I wonder if you could quote this.

Well, if you go out and sin tonight, and you do it again tomorrow, and you do it again the next day, and it's gonna interrupt your fellowship with God, and your walk with God, and you're gonna lose your peace, and yeah, there will be earthly consequences, because that's just the way it's designed, but God does not see you as guilty, if we really believe that he died once for all, but we're gonna look at that in just a moment.

Obviously, that can be abused in both directions, so we're not saying, hey, you're forgiven, go out and live it up, it doesn't matter. Obviously, we're not saying that. So all of these Old Testament sacrifices are pointing ahead to that one final, ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Look at Hebrews 9 .25, not that he should offer himself often as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood of another. He then would have to have had suffered often since the foundation of the world, but now once, notice that, once at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this, the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation.

One Mediator, One Sacrifice, and the Mercy Seat

All right, let's turn back to Exodus 25. So Jesus died for sin, how many times? Once. Once, once. So when we celebrate communion, this is my body, this is my blood, that's a reminder, do this in memory of me.

Jesus is not being represented and re-sacrificed on the altar like some churches claim. No, he died once for all. And by the way, the same churches that say he has to be represented and re-sacrificed, they're the ones who say, you're never really forgiven.

You have to come back again next Sunday and get your absolution and you're never really forgiven. And that's just a terrible heresy. That Christ's death wasn't enough. And that's something that we're all tempted to maybe buy into, because sometimes we don't feel forgiven.

But we are, the Bible says we are. All right, so once again, here in the Old Testament book of Exodus, we see that Christ is the center. It may be through symbolism types and foreshadows, but Christ is at the center.

The tabernacle represents the Lord's presence among them. Moses and the high priest acted as mediators between God and the people. So Moses is a type of Christ. Even Aaron is a type of Christ. But in the New Testament, speaking of mediators, what did Paul say to Timothy?

First Timothy chapter two, verse five says, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. So Jesus is now the one mediator. You don't pray to the saints and they'll mediate some things.

You know, go to Jesus for the bakes of the saints. You know, if you lose something, saint so-and-so will help you find it. That's superstitious. Mary is not a mediator. I'm not a mediator, or some guy with a collar is not.

There's one, one, right? Is that what it said? Let me check that again. First Timothy two, five. So there are many mediators between. No, there's one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.

So Jesus is now the only one. But here in Exodus, who's the primary mediator between God and the Israelites? Moses, Moses is the man. So we'll close with verse 22. The Lord says to Moses, and there I will meet you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are on the ark of the testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.