The Tabernacle, Pt. 3 (11/14/1999)

Park Meadows Church

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I'm coming with a blessing. I'll get out of here real quick.

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Thank you for staying. I appreciate it. We're going to be looking at the golden altar of incense.

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Can you hear another? The golden altar of incense.

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Exodus chapter 30 verses 1 -10 and verses 34 -38. As you can see, also, it was an altar.

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And this, remember, was in the holy place. Now, the outer court was the brazen altar where they killed the animals.

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And then there was a labor of cleansing. And then inside was the tabernacle itself.

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This was one of the three items that's in what we call the holy place. And it's a very unique piece of furniture.

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It was three feet by one and a half feet square. Three feet by one and a half feet square.

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It was made of that same incorruptible wood that we call acacia wood. It was overlaid with pure gold.

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So here it is wood. But remember that it's covered in pure gold as most of the items were.

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It stood immediately in front of the veil. Immediately in front of the veil. Incense was burned on it perpetually.

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Never stopped. Always and ever. It was burning incense. Just constantly, continually, night and day.

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Which was a picture of Christ as he ever lives to make intercession for us. Because that's what the altar of incense is about.

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It's about intercession. That's what it's a picture of. And remember that you couldn't get to here where prayer without going through the brazen altar.

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Which would be out here. Which would be the sacrifice. So without atonement you could never get to this.

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So a person who's never really been born again can't pray. A person who's never really been born again, they can say what they want.

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But God doesn't deal with that. God deals with people who have been born again. Because why? The only way we can get to him is through Jesus Christ, right?

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I'm the way, the truth, and life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And this is all portrayed in what we call the altar of incense.

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And there's something significant about this one. Of all the items in the holy place, this one was one half inch higher than the rest of them.

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One half inch. Now why would you think that would be? Well already you've picked up on it. If this is a picture of Christ interceding for us, then his exaltation, he would be higher.

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He would be exalted more than all the rest. And so it is one half inch, excuse me, one half cubit.

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One half cubit, which would be really, a cubit is 18 inches basically. And so it would be a half a cubit higher than all the other vessels in the tabernacle because he's exalted above everything in the fact that he's able to intercede for us.

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And again it's made of a casewood overlaid with gold. That always is a picture. The wood is always a picture of the humanity of Christ.

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And the gold is always a picture of his deity. So you've got a man within, or God in human flesh.

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And he is the man of sorrows, but he is now glorified in heaven. And that's what that is a picture of.

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He ever lives to make intercession for us, Hebrews 7 .25. And I said incense was placed on the coals.

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They always had hot coals, and incense was placed on there every morning and every evening. There was never a time when the incense was not being burned upon the altar.

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And the golden crown of the altar prevented the coals, this little crown here, so that nothing would fall off.

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God was very careful to tell him so that nothing would be desecrated. Nothing would be tainted.

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No accidents could occur, so to speak. And there are no accidents with God, are there? I mean God's got everything worked out.

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And so being in the holy place, it speaks of Christ giving us access. Through him we have access.

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And it's through the altar of incense that they would have prayer whereby they could intercede.

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It also speaks of the blood because once a year, these little horns right here, once a year the priest would anoint those little horns with blood.

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And he did that once a year. Now what would that tell me? That would tell me the value of the blood in the intercession of Christ.

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He died once, well, once a year they would put the blood on there. They didn't have to do it every day because the blood is valuable.

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It has value when God is involved in it. And so that speaks to us of the value of the blood of Christ and the power of Christ's intercession for us.

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And as I said, it went up continually before the veil. Always endeavor that smoke. And the scripture talks about the psalmist talks about it being a sweet savor to the nostrils of God.

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Always endeavor that beautiful fragrance would be going upward, upward, upward. What's the

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Bible say? That Christ always is making intercession for us perpetually before the throne of God.

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The sweet savor into the nostrils of God the Father because our Lord, His Son, is always and ever uttering intercession on your behalf and mine.

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Now the incense was very specific. They couldn't just take anything and sprinkle it on there.

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They had to use specific things that God told them. And there were four particles that they were able to use.

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And I find them highly significant. There in Exodus chapter 30 verses 34 to 38.

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First of all, there was a thing called stacti. Now stacti is a very interesting thing because stacti would flow from a tree and you didn't have to do anything about it.

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You ever gone to a tree and see sap coming out of a tree or something? Well, stacti would do that. And remember we're in that part of the world and stacti would just come out and you didn't have to cut it.

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You didn't have to pierce it. You didn't have to stab it. You didn't have to make a wound in it. You didn't have to do anything.

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So what does that tell you? That talks about spontaneous prayer and praise. That we pray spontaneously.

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It doesn't have to be worked up. It doesn't have to be carried forward. It just is. And another one of the items was anika.

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And where this came from was from a perfumed crab. Only one in the world. It's interesting that God would give these people things too where they could only find it in one place in the world.

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Nobody else had access to it. And what it was, it was a little perfumed crab and it was in the depths of the

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Red Sea. It wasn't in the Mediterranean. Remember they hadn't gotten there yet. But Egypt had things from the

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Mediterranean Sea. And of course them being down in Egypt, they were near the Red Sea. But once they came out, they crossed the

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Red Sea. And this perfumed crab lives in the very depths of the Red Sea. And that indicates to me that prayer and praise, intercessory prayer, has to come out of the depths of the heart.

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It comes from the depths. Prayer that just falls from your lips is valueless. It has no value.

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Just throwing words doesn't mean anything. Memorize it and say it like a lot of people do. They memorize their prayers.

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That doesn't mean anything. God wants what? He wants it from my heart. My heart. And then the third item was galvanum.

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And galvanum, there was a special shrub. There was a little plant over there.

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And they would take the leaves from that plant and they had to crush them. They had to crush them together and break them and mash them up in order to make this.

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So what does that tell me? That tells me that prayer comes from a broken and a contrite spirit.

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If my will isn't broken and if my heart isn't really tuned, if I'm not contrite, if I'm not repentant, if I'm not sorrowful, again, those little words

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I throw at God are not impressive to God. Not impressive. And this is all pictured in this particular one.

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And then, of course, the famous one that everybody knows was frankincense. How did you get frankincense? You had to make an incision.

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You had to make an incision. You had to cut to get it. And so it was the blood that gave value.

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Christ was cut and it gave value to the incense as the priest would put it on those little horns.

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It was that blood that gave value to that incense. And it's the blood of Christ that makes our prayers worth anything to God.

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Any human being that thinks that because they pray, God's automatically obligated to get on it, doesn't really understand their

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God. Doesn't understand the God of the Bible. God moves in our prayers simply because Christ, the

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Son, is there. And if Jesus ever stops interceding for us, then we'd be lost forever.

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We'd be lost forever. Our wonderful Lord. So Christ not only made atonement for us with His blood on Calvary, He now continued to make intercession for us.

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Now, the next item that we'll look at is the table of showbread. In the Hebrew, that's actually translated bread of faces.

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Bread of faces. And it is another table and you have the appropriate scripture there in your notes there.

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Let me just read. I write myself a little note sometimes and it'll tell me stuff to do.

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So that when I'm reading through here, I'm trying to tell you something. In Leviticus chapter 24, let me just read verse 5.

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And thou shalt take fine flour and bake twelve cakes thereof. Two -tenth parts shall be in one cake.

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Thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. Thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the

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Lord. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

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And it shall be Aaron's and his sons, they shall eat it in the holy place, for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the

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Lord, made by fire a perpetual statute or a perpetual law.

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So here we have a table that is three feet by one and a half feet by two and a quarter feet.

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Again, made of what? A case of wood. Covered with?

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Pure gold. Pure gold. We don't like to say pure gold, do we? Evidently you don't like to say pure gold, because we don't have any, but pure gold.

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Can you imagine the gold? 8 ,400 pounds of gold they brought out with them. And take it and put it on all these items.

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The intricacy of the handiwork. I mean the things that these people were able to do, craftsmen.

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I mean these things were not easy to do. To take wood and cover it with gold so it would stay, and they're out in the wilderness.

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You know the tools that they would have had to make by themselves and put together, I mean it's astounding what they were able to do.

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Now remember it held 12 loaves of bread. 12 loaves of bread and it was replaced how often?

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Every Sabbath. Every Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. Shabbat, Sabbath.

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They would replace those. Every week then we see that they would replace it. What would be a picture of?

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It would be God's bounties to the people that God's providing. God's taking care. And it would typify for you and me

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Christ in the presence of God. And it speaks of Christ seated and expecting.

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That's what it's a picture of. Let's set it on here. Psalm 110 .1 says, The Lord said unto my Lord, Set thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.

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Christ is at the right hand of the Father, but what's he doing? He's not only making intercession, but he's waiting. And what's he waiting on?

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He's waiting until God gets ready to make this world his footstool. When Christ comes and he judges the world.

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So Christ in glory, he's our advocate. Now it's interesting, this was located on the northern side of the holy place.

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On the northern side. And on the table, as I say, were twelve loaves, one for each tribe.

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Twelve loaves, the people would bring them and they'd put them in there. On each Sabbath, Aaron and his sons, they would eat that in the holy place.

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It was for them, Aaron and his sons who were priests. And they would eat that in the holy place, as believers feed on the written word.

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Jeremiah 15 .16 says, Thy words were found, and I did eat them. And thy word was unto me, the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

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For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. And in John 6 .35, Jesus said unto them,

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I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

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There is sustenance in Christ. There is a sustenance. If you just live your life, or any person lives their life based on a church relationship, they're never going to be contented, are they?

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They're never going to grow much. They'll always have the same attitude. They'll always have the same reactions. They'll never be what we call growth in their life.

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We have to feed on the living word, and the way we do that is the written word. We must become students of the word of God.

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And again, made of acacia wood, which is a picture of Christ's humanity, overlaid with pure gold, which is a picture of his deity, so here is

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God, and Christ, and man. Man, perfect man, perfect God. It was to be carried with two staves, it had four rings, and it would be carried thusly.

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Twelve loaves of bread, six in a row, covered with frankincense, renewed every Sabbath, eaten by Aaron and his sons.

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And so it had the table, again it had a boiler, so nothing could fall off. Make sure no crumbs would fall, and it would become desecrated.

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It was in the holy place, which is a picture of the heavenlies. The materials were wood and gold, as I've said, and it's on the northern side.

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It's interesting when you're reading the scripture, and I don't know how to explain this to you, because I really can't explain a lot of it to myself, but it's in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 13, it talks about Satan.

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You remember he said when he rebelled against God, it's the five I wills of Satan, and he said, I will do this, and I will do that, and I will do that.

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And one of the things he said was, I will ascend to the congregation, and the sides of the congregation in the north.

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So Satan says when he overthrows God, that's what he was planning to do at the moment, that when he's going to overthrow God, he would go to the congregation on the sides in the north.

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So there are those who conclude that somewhere in space, be it the northern part of space, wherever that would be, is where God's throne basically is.

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They go to like Psalm 75, 6 says, for promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, and the north is left out.

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So if promotion doesn't come from the north, east, and south, where would it come from? There's only one other. So again, from the north.

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So again, theologians have concluded that somewhere out in space, whichever way you want to turn, I don't know how you'd figure it out, but somewhere out there in the north part of space,

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God's throne is. And I wouldn't argue with that. It wouldn't matter to me one place or the other.

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I mean, you know, because I'm not ever smart enough to figure it out. But what it does do, it pictures Christ in his glorified state in heaven as man's representative before God.

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It's a memorial, it's an everlasting covenant, and it's an assurance that we are never, never, ever forgotten.

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It reminds us that as the bread of life, Jesus nourishes and sustains life. How many people do we know that if they could just understand this, how happy they would be, how blessed they would be, how blessed their homes would be to understand that Christ is the one who gives sustenance, not the educational system, not the jobs we hold, and all those things.

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It's a personal relationship with Christ. So many people, is it not true, sit in churches, and they have a good relationship with the church, they have a good relationship with the people, but they just don't have a very strong, they love the

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Lord, but they just don't have a strong relationship with him. He's not very real to them. He's off somewhere.

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He's out somewhere. He's always way removed, but he's never really personal. He's never really private.

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He's never really walking with them. And the table, as I say, was the place of priestly nourishment.

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This is where the priests would come, and they would eat. And every Sabbath, they would come in there and eat. They would devour the bread that's indicative of the bread of life.

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So we as priests in the Lord, as believer priests, and we would come, and obviously, we should be taking that which would indicate to us or be a picture of the bread of life itself that nourishes and sustains life.

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So from man's point of view, the show bread is a tremendously wonderful teacher to me.

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The bread was to be eaten by a priestly family, and the Bible says that all believers are a priestly family.

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You'll be made into a holy habitation of priests. You're a holy nation of priesthood. That's what the Bible teaches in the

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New Testament portion of the Scripture. So the bread was eaten by the priests, and so we have opportunity and privilege of eating the living bread.

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And the table was the place of nourishment. They ate it, and they didn't. I mean, God said do it, but if they didn't do it, it's of no value.

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They did it. God said do it, and they did it. Jesus said if you come to me and partake of me, he says do it, but we don't always do it.

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But if we do it, and apply it, and appropriate it, then it becomes meaningful to us in our life.

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And this was the place that was indicative of them having fellowship in the work of Christ, because that's what it is a picture of.

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We are a kingdom of priests, and Christ is in heaven, and he is our showbread. And then the...

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I know the movement... This is called the menorah.

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When you go to Israel, right across from the Israeli government house, or the Knesset, the parliament, one of the foreign countries gave

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Israel a giant menorah. It is a massive, massive thing, and everybody likes to go and have their pictures taken there.

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We've all done it, those who've gone. But it doesn't look like this. It's a little different, and when you buy them, there are several menorahs.

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There's the Hanukkah menorah, which has nine, but this is the Shabbat, and this is the one that was in the picture of the one that was inside the holy place.

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It was made of pure gold, and the value back then, and we're talking four or five thousand years ago, the value of that then was a hundred thousand dollars.

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That's what it was worth then. So you can magnify that through the thousands of years of pure, beaten gold, what that thing would be worth today.

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I mean, collectors would love to have that. Pure gold, which speaks of the deity of Christ as the light of the world.

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It was a beaten work. They had to beat it. They had to take it and form it, and the

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Bible says that Christ was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

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It was of one solid piece beaten into its final form. It was beaten into one solid piece.

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It had a central stem, six branches, a central stem, and six branches.

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This is called the shamash, the shamish, and this is called, when you go to synagogue, this is the servant.

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Now in a synagogue, that one always stays lit. It always stays lit. You light the others off of it.

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It is the central focal one, and it will always be a little higher because that represents, and it's called the servant.

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The servant light. And again, that is a picture of the Lord. They used pure, beaten olive oil that was supplied daily by the priest.

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This was a light in the holy place, because it's the only light that was in there.

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No other light, this was the light, but it also was a light bearer. It was a light bearer as well as a light.

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So Christ is the light of the world, and the light of life to the believer, and the Holy Spirit reveals

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His attributes in us, so we become light, but we also are light bearers. Without Christ, there is no light.

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Now the central stem of this, with three branches on each side, pictures the work of Christ throughout the ages.

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On the one side, whenever you, I mean this is just what is believed, and what people see, and on from one side is creation to the cross.

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Creation, of course, the cross being central in everything, so from creation to the cross on one side, on the other side is from the cross to glory.

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From the cross to glory. And that would cover the six dispensations of man, if you look at it in the scripture.

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So from creation to the cross, we have the starlight of promise, we have pictures, we have types, we have prophecies in the

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Old Testament, but they all point it, where? They all point to Him. They all point up there to Him.

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Everything does. From the cross to glory, we have the full revelation of Christ through the ministry of the

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Holy Spirit as it comes earthward. As it comes earthward. So we have that picture there.

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It's in the holy place, which is a picture of heaven, and in Christ being its light. Hebrews 9 .24

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says, For Christ is not entered into the holy place, see with that, again without the tabernacle, that scripture means nothing to you.

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If you just read Christ is not entered into the holy place, if you had the holy place in the tabernacle, your mind would correlate the two, and you'd say, oh wait a minute,

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I know what he's talking about here. It says, Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the truth.

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These things are just pictures of the truth. What's the truth? He's the truth, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

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So he said, all these things are pictures of what he's doing now. They are pictures of what he has done and is doing for us.

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And again, oil, oil in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament is always a picture of the Holy Spirit.

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It's always a picture of the Spirit of the Lord. Isaiah 61 .1 says,

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The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

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Acts 10 .38 says, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

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And so that's what the oil is a symbol of. And this candlestick supplied with oil is a picture of the fullness of Christ.

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Now when you go to the Scriptures, it can get confusing if you don't put this together. For example, Revelation 1 .4

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talks about, when he talks about the fullness of the Holy Spirit's operation. The fullness of the

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Holy Spirit's operation. Revelation 1 .4 talks about the seven spirits before God's throne.

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Now if I ask you the question, how many spirits does God have? How many

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Holy Spirits are there? One. Yes, one. Exactly one.

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But the Bible talks about seven spirits before the throne of God and it will be capitalized in your translation.

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We go to Revelation 4 .5 and it talks about seven lamps of fire burning before the throne of God.

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So we got seven spirits and we got seven lamps of fire. Seven lamps of fire.

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Now we also believe them to be these. Because that's what the Word translates out in the Scripture.

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Revelation 5 .6, now let me give you another and think with me. Seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God.

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Now you know there's only one Holy Spirit and we're not a bunch of them. You know, there's not a bunch of them. So what is he talking about?

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These are seven but it's actually one beaten piece. And so when we come to the

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Scriptures what we understand is the seven spirits when you put that together signify the perfection.

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Seven is the number of spiritual perfection. It's the number of spiritual completeness. And so when we read back to seven spirits, they're not seven spirits of God but it reads about and talks about the complete work of the

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Holy Spirit. The perfected work of the Holy Spirit. And that's what it means when it talks about seven spirits.

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But if you just grab that, you know, there are those who believe that there are seven spirits of God and they're pantheistic.

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You might read Isaiah 11 .2 at your leisure. Let me just give you something about the

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Holy Spirit. First of all, the Spirit of the Lord. He's the servant of the Lord. The Holy Spirit always points people to Christ.

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Christ always points back to God the Father. There's the spirit of wisdom. The Holy Spirit gives wisdom.

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He gives discernment to apply knowledge. You and I can talk about these things and you can take them home and study them.

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You can memorize them. But all you've got is the same thing I would have. We'd just have some facts. We'd have some data.

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We'd have some information. You can put it in a computer and I put it in and it doesn't make any difference. But to know how to use that.

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Knowledge is power they say if you know how to use it. Just knowing something you know

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I don't mean anything. But if you know how to use it and that's discernment. Discernment is how to apply the knowledge that you've got.

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Most Christians know a lot. They really do. They just don't know how to use it. That's why they'll come and say

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I don't understand how things are going like that. Could you help me? Give me a little counsel. They don't want counsel.

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They want consolation but they call it counsel. They want you to tell them how great you are and all that. So what I'm saying is there's a spirit of understanding.

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What's the spirit of understanding do for you and me? To understand what is right and what's wrong. What is right and what is wrong that's understanding.

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Now discernment tells me how to use things but understanding tells me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. I have that and the

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Holy Spirit creates that. There's the spirit of counsel. Wisdom to advise. I've said this for years.

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I have a Ph .D. in counseling but I promise you I believe that every Christian is capable of counseling if they just prepare themselves.

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But the problem is most Christians want to clone everybody and make them like them. They want everybody to be like them because every

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Christian thinks they're normal. Every Christian thinks their life is normal. Yet you and I wouldn't want to live like most

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Christians do. I mean they're good people but I wouldn't want my life to be like them. I mean I have a hard enough time as it is.

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I don't want to be like them. I mean do you? No. But I do believe that every

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Christian who schools himself in the word of the Lord and who will live for the Lord is capable. Appropriate so to be able to counsel so you would never have to go to anybody else.

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That's what God's people have always done through the years but most people don't equip themselves and then there's the spirit of might.

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Understand that we have power in the Lord. The might of the Lord. The power of the

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Lord operating in our... God never tells me to do anything that he doesn't equip me to do.

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It would be foolish to me for God. It would be inconsistent for God to command me to do something that I couldn't do.

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And then hold me guilty because I didn't do it. He has to equip me to do that. And then there's the spirit of knowledge.

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Knowledge deals with your intellect and gives you vision. If you don't know where you're going how are you going to get there?

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If you don't know where you've been how do you know where you're going? And so without vision what?

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The people perish. That's true in individual life. That's true in a family. I mean we all have goals and things that we want to accomplish and then one of the things that the

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Holy Spirit does is the fear of the Lord. I wish that somehow the Holy Spirit would create in the body of Christ a fear of the

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Lord. The Lord is not sitting up there ready to zap you and me. He's not sitting up there ready to throw a bolt of lightning but he can.

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He can. And he can do it in a number of ways. God can get an individual. Can you imagine?

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I've shared this a thousand times over but it's just no certain. There was a guy that I know he used to be a quarterback for one of the

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NFL football teams. And you know quarterbacks today are not like they were back in the day. Quarterbacks today they're 6 '4", 2 '40".

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I mean they're like running backs. They are big. And this guy was a quarterback for the

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Green Bay Packers. And there was a little boy that lived across the street from him and this little boy was 12 years of age.

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And this little boy idolized him. He thought he was the greatest thing that ever lived. This little boy just loved him. And every day that guy would come home from his office and he would pull up in his drive and it was a ritual.

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Five days a week he did this. This little boy would be sitting out there waiting on him, watching him. And as soon as he got out of his car, this big giant of a man, you know, he had a, you put a 7 1⁄4 inch hat on his hand, he had a hand like I mean you couldn't even see the football and he put his hand on it like I mean just a massive guy.

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That little boy would watch for him. And as soon as that guy got out of that car, here comes that little boy.

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And you know what that little boy would do? That little boy would fight. This 12 year old kid, he would say, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

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That little hippie jumper, come on, come on, he'd jump around like that. And that guy just, boom, and he'd lock his hands on his head.

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And that kid just swinging, man, he's going crazy and he He ain't doing nothing, all he's doing is spending a bunch of energy.

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And you know I watched it and I thought about that, and I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and it just teaches me such a great lesson, that's the way people are with God.

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Come on God, do something about it. Come on God, do you want to get with it? Come on God, me and you, go.

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And God laughs. I just preached a sermon, never preached it in my life. I wrote a sermon the other day on why

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God laughs. Why God laughs at people. Do you understand dear people that God will laugh at you?

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He laughs when people are in trouble. He laughs when they're in derision. You can't just run to God and say,

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God here, and think God's going to weep and say, oh yeah, I'm going to help you. We do it

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God's way, then we got God's help. And so what I'm saying is the fear of the Lord, a holy reverence for God, that God is

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God. He really and truly is. Now there's something about this that we need to know. There are no measurements for it.

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There was no measurement. He wasn't told to make this thing three feet high, two feet high, or you know, whatever.

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There was no measurements. There also the labor of cleansing that we looked at, there was no measurement for that either. He can make it as big as he wanted to.

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He can make it as small as he wanted to. And we don't know how big he made it, but what does that do?

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That speaks to me of the immeasurableness of the Holy Spirit. You cannot measure the

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Spirit of the Lord and the power of the Word of God for cleansing in the labor. I mean, you can't measure it because God can cleanse you, he didn't cleanse me, he didn't cleanse everybody else.

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But he still got plenty, still got plenty. And so it just speaks of the immeasurableness and the fullness of Christ.

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In him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. John 1, 14, verse 16 says, in him was the fullness of grace and truth.

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There was the fullness of blessing through the gospel, Romans 15, 29. John 15, 11,

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Jesus talks about the fullness of joy. In Ephesians 5, 18, he talks about the fullness of the

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Holy Spirit when he possesses the life. And Ephesians 3, 19 talks about the fullness of God when he transforms a person, when he fills that person's life and transforms their life.

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And then Hebrews 10, 22, the fullness of faith to give assurance, fullness of assurance.

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There's no doubt, just fullness of assurance. And then also John 1, verses 4 to 5, the fullness of God to reveal when

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God reveals himself in fullness. So the only light in the holy place, remember no windows, no other light in there, curtained off, all natural light was excluded.

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There could be no natural light in the holy place. So what does that tell me? There ain't no natural light. Your natural light means nothing.

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Your natural inclinations and your mind and what you think and what you feel really are irrelevant as far as God's concerned.

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They're important to you and me, but they're irrelevant as far as God is concerned. And the priests were to walk and to worship in this light, and it was a constant testimony that we do not walk according to nature.

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We don't walk according to natural light. There's light in education, there's light in science, there's light in medical technology, but we do not live our lives according to the whims of what the scientists say or what the school teachers say.

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We do not live our lives that we go to a higher source, and that is the light that comes from God.

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It is a supernatural light, and Christ was a supernatural person. Now, you remember that the apostles, when they were accused by the leaders of the day, they said they could tell that these people had been with Jesus.

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I mean, they were just a bunch of fishermen, but they saw something different. What did they see? They saw supernatural light in their lives.

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They saw something different in their lives, and they saw that in them. And it was only by the light of the candlestick that these people see the showbread, which was the place of fellowship, and it was only by the light of the candlestick that they could see the altar of incense, which was intercessory prayer.

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So prayer and fellowship is dependent upon light. If you can't see, how in the world are you going to do anything?

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You just can't. It's a horrible thing to be in darkness and not be able to see. And so it was the light that lit up that particular place.

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And then, I was talking about going into the holy place, I was talking about a veil a while ago, and it is the veil to the holy of holies that we'll talk about in just a moment, and then there's the veil that went into the holy place.

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Remember, we had the outer court, I won't go back and speak to that, but we had the brazen altar here, had the labor of cleansing, and then there was a veil.

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There was a veil there, and that took us into the holy place, and then in there of the holy of holies, there was another veil, and then only the high priest himself could step around behind that.

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And the door to the holy place, going into this one, was the same size as the eastern door to the holy place, which means it was 30 feet.

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30 feet. Now, no one was permitted to enter into the holy place, no Israelite could go.

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Only the priest could go in there, and only the high priest could go in behind that inner veil.

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So, only the priest could go in there, where the light was, and where the showbread was, and the altar of incense.

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It was completely shut off to the people. The people never got to go in there. No one was ever able to enter in there, and that door is symbolic of the character and the life of Christ, it is symbolic of our entrance into the full life of Christian service, and it's the door to the privileges of the gospel, whereby it's been opened to us where we can now go into the presence of the

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Lord. And the colors and materials, we've already talked about how they follow the different types.

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Fine linen, pure white, talks about the righteousness of Christ. You remember what he told them? He said, which one of you could point out one sin in my life?

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Man, what a statement to say to the most learned and intelligent and most religious people in the world at the time, and he stands in front of them and says, yeah,

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I'm a carpenter from Nazareth, my mom is married, my dad is Joseph, as far as you know, but which one of you could,

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I mean, you're criticizing me, you're complaining about me, you're trying to set up a plan to kill me, but which one of you could point out one thing in my life that's wrong?

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Man, no one's ever been able to say that, and the amazing thing is they couldn't, and if they could have, they would have.

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You know that. They would have. If they could have found one thing wrong with him, they'd have pointed it out, but they couldn't. They couldn't.

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What an amazing, amazing thing, and this is the pure righteousness, blue, his heavenly character.

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Don't ever forget, put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee. That sounds so wonderful, and he was from Galilee, but he's more than a man.

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He came from heaven. Yes, Mary was his mother, and I know it's coming out on TV, Mary, see the greatest story ever told from the eyes of his mother.

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Can you imagine Hollywood doing such a thing? They never have, and I guarantee everybody else is sitting there crying, weep, oh, oh.

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Now they're always talking about how wonderful of a guy who plays Jesus is, and what a dramatic actor he was. I'll let,

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I'll go to the real, I'll just go to the Bible and read that. Get the real. Get the real, but dear people, don't ever forget that he was from heaven.

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He was from heaven, and Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit before Joseph ever knew her, before he ever touched her, and Jesus was born, and the scripture says that holy thing that will come to him will be him.

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He's the one that was promised by God, and then, of course, the scarlet, his redemptive work, his cross, the blood, and the purple, that he is king.

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It doesn't appear to me that he's king. It doesn't look like he's king. It doesn't look like he can handle

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Washington and Moscow. God looks like he can, he's not handling it, but I promise you he is, he is, he is, and nothing that's going on today surprises

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God, I'll promise you, nothing surprises God. If you become a student of Bible prophecy and see what the

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Bible predicts, you can see these things happening before your very eyes, and one of these days, he'll come back, and he'll shut it all off, and he'll show this world who really and truly is king of kings and lord of lords.

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Now, the veil that I'm talking about that allowed you to go in there where the light and the bread and the altar of incense was, was hung upon five pillars of the steam wood.

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It was overlaid with gold, it had hooks of gold, it had sockets of brazen material. It had five pillars.

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Now, what are those five pillars? I've asked myself this, and I've gone back to the ancient writers and the ancient writers of history to find out what did they mean when he had five pillars, because I know everything in there talks about something, and what

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I discovered was, amazingly to me, that the five pillars refer to the five writers of the epistles of our

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Lord. Now, who did? Who wrote the epistles of our Lord? Five men? Five men?

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Peter, James, and John, and who do you have, Mar, Luke, Matthew, what do you have?

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Those are the four gospels. You look and see who they are, they're sitting out there. Paul wrote most of the

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New Testament by himself. And so these men, so these five pillars are the writers of the epistles and tell us of Christ the

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Lord. You've got Jude, you've got Philemon, and just work them all out and put them into here, the five, and they talked about the past, present, and the future.

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They talked about atonement, they talked about Christ being our advocate, and they talked about the coming of the Lord. Then you had four pillars also at the gate, you had four pillars also at the gate that refer to the four gospels, which again,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, why? Because they talk about the way to God, that's what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John talk about, how

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Christ, in some aspect of his life, is the way to God. So we've got the five pillars overlaid with gold, the hooks of gold, and the sockets of praise and material, and they refer to the five writers of the epistles that tell us about the things the

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Lord would be doing. The gospels basically don't teach us any doctrine and don't give us a whole lot of depth, they just tell us how he's the way to God.

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That's basically what they're, each one of them's talking about a different aspect of his life. And so the five pillars of the door set him forth as the believer's

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Lord, and they refer to Paul, James, Jude, John, and Peter, and they wrote the epistles, they wrote the epistles.

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Now, another one we talked about a few moments ago, of labor. This is that wonderful labor that has so much in it, remember, the brazen altar, they had to go to the brazen altar, and then when they came to the brazen altar, they had to come, the atonement, the death of the animal, then they would come to the labor of cleansing.

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Now remember, how do we start? Now normally, this would be at the very first, if you follow it from man, if you go the outside and come in, but we went inside and came out from the ark of the covenant, why?

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Because everything starts with God, everything starts with God. Now this was a giant bowl of brazen material, and it had no measurements, again, the scripture does not tell us how big it was to be.

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The priest washed their hands and their feet before they ever ministered to the

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Lord, before they'd ever go in there and do anything, but in the holy place, they washed their hands and their feet.

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And so, remember, that the altar was first, and then the labor, offered sacrifice, blood, and then come to cleansing, always and ever.

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Altar is for sinners, labors are for priests. Altars are for sinners, that's where you get your sins forgiven, but a labor is for a priest which couldn't get here without going to the other end first.

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So this is for priests, this is by priest believers. We are a nation of priest believers, the scripture tells us.

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And so, it stood between the altar and the tabernacle, it taught salvation, and it taught sanctification, because once you're cleansed, you're set aside.

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Once you are cleansed, you are sanctified, you're set aside for the purpose of God, so then you can approach

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God, then we can worship God. Now, how was it made? It was interesting, it was made of the looking glasses of the women.

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Now remember, they had mirrors, but they didn't have glass mirrors. They had metal, you know, sort of like if you've ever been in the military, or you've watched movies on TV or something, if they were trying to signal an airplane, and every,

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I was in the military, and I know that every time we would go flying, I was in aviation, so every time we'd go flying, we always carried with us a little metal mirror.

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It wasn't glass, it was a little metal mirror, and it had a little hole in the middle of it. So you could take that thing and look through that hole in any airplane going, if you crashed or something, and just get the sun on that thing and look through that hole, and you could aim that at any plane, and you could see it for miles and miles, you could see that glistening.

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We've been out in the ocean many times, whenever we had to leave our, a couple occasions specifically where we had to leave our aircraft, and bailed out, and had to go out into the ocean, and we're sitting out there, and one was at night, so you can't do it at night, but one was at day, and everybody had them functioning, trying to find them, and it's amazing how far you can see that, and we'd go out on patrol, we would see things glistening.

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So this is where they did that, they used the looking glasses that the women brought out of Egypt, that's the thing they used, and it's symbolic of the written word of God.

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Again, John chapter 13 is about the washing of the water of the word, and James 1, 23 and 24, and no measurement indicates, again, the immeasurable depth of God's word.

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No one ever learns everything about God's word. It doesn't make any difference how much you and I could study at the tabernacle for two months, we'd never learn everything.

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I mean there's no way you could ever fathom the depth of the word of God, and it was filled with water, and the priests were commanded to wash in it while performing the service of the tabernacle.

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What does that tell me? If you're going to serve God, you've got to be clean. Not just physically, but mentally, spiritually, emotionally, most

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Christians that you and I know aren't, aren't, and so that stuff doesn't get done, but they was, and it was a symbol of the cleansing power of the

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Lord, Ephesians 5 and John 15. The labor at the door of the tabernacle emphasized the necessity of regeneration that as it was impossible to enter into the tabernacle except by washing at the labor, so it is impossible to enter into the presence of God and the

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Christian life except by and through what? Regeneration, by the washing and the regeneration of the water of the word.

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There has to be a salvation experience. Now, the priests were to wash their hands and their feet before they started trying to do anything for the

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Lord, and if they didn't, what happened to them? They died. God killed them instantly.

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If they walked into that holy place, even though it's not the holy of holies, only Moses, I mean,

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Aaron could go in there. If they went into the place where the light was, if they went into the place where the food was, the bread, if they went in where the altar man sits, if they stepped behind that curtain and had not washed their hands and their feet in that labor of cleansing,

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God killed them instantly. You read it. It's there. Boy, I mean, you're talking about an awesome guy.

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You're talking about a God that didn't play. You're talking about a God. That'd make you think about coming in church, wouldn't it?

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If you really understood that, I promise you, you wouldn't play games in church. It wouldn't be a game for you or me or any of us.

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It wouldn't be. We'd be dead serious about the matters, wouldn't we? Now, I don't think you got to sit around looking like you're in a funeral service.

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I mean, we don't do that, but nonetheless, we would understand where we were, wouldn't we? We'd understand that we're in the presence of an awesome holy

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God who loves us and who's willing to communicate with us. And so what's going on?

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Hands for service and feet for walk. Wash their hands because everything that they touched and did, they wanted to be clean for the

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Lord. And then they washed their feet, which means wherever they would go. They'd always never honor the

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Lord in what they were doing. So the Christian can be kept clean in our walk. We can also be kept clean in our service only as we feed on the word of God.

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And by what Jesus said in John 15, now you are clean through the word which I've spoken unto you.

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So if we read the Bible and study the word of God and become students of the word of God, it cleanses. Remember what

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David said, King David? I say David, King David said, thy word have

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I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. It has a cleansing effect, doesn't it? It has a cleansing effect and they knew that.

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So what, how often did they wash? Every day. So you can't read, you know, you can't study

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God's word one day and forget it and next month pick it up again. Some people read a portion here and they never pick it up again.

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They never study anything. They never get down into, get into a discipline day of study. There was manna for every day.

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God gave them, he didn't, you notice they didn't get enough manna on Monday and it just lasted them all week.

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God gave them manna every day. He gave them just enough for every day. God gave them that manna.

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Each day does what for you and me? Each day demands food and each day demands washing.

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You got to be clean every day and you got to sustain yourself every day. Now there was a solemn warning.

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If they didn't do it, they died. And I don't doubt in my mind, knowing human nature, that some probably die.

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I mean, you know, man will try. God, well, he'll try. Well, God doesn't mean that. Well, I know what you're saying,

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Aaron, but I mean, Moses, I understand. You know, you guys been out here in the desert. You know, you got a little too much stress, pressure, leadership.

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You know, leadership probably affected your mind. God wouldn't do that. He wouldn't bring us out of Egypt to kill.

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No. So they stroll in there and bam, down they go. I don't know what they did with them, but God take care of that too.

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God take care of that. Now, this does not mean, it does not mean that if a person makes a mistake, if a person does that which they should not do, it doesn't mean you lose your salvation.

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It does mean you lose the enjoyment of your salvation and you can lose your life.

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Physically. Salvation is secure. Once you're saved, you're saved. You're going to heaven. But Ann and Allison and Sapphira, Acts chapter 5,

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God killed them both. The two sons of Aaron. Aaron told them what to do, and in Leviticus chapter 10, remember, they dabbled out here, two teenage boys.

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Their daddy was the one that went in the high priest. And they did what they wanted to do. He told them about the fire on the altar.

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And these two young boys who were young priests under the tutelage of their daddy, they went in there and they did something their way.

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And the Bible says the fire leaked out and God killed them both instantly. Killed them both instantly.

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Also, Dr. John Daniel, a great old Christian of old, said this. I love what he said, but it's true.

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He says, and I quote, The Christian who is not walking according to the word of God, who is not going according to God's mind and will revealed in the word of God, or who is unwilling to apply the truth of God to his own life, will sooner or later lose the consciousness of the spirit of God in his own soul, and he will seem indeed as one spiritually dead.

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He will just seem as if he's dead. And you see that all around you many, many times. Review.

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The body of Christ is the habitation of God through the spirit, as the tabernacle was the habitation of God in Israel.

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The believer, the Bible says, we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit doesn't dwell in a tabernacle anymore.

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Doesn't dwell in a building anymore. He's with you and me. And if the Lord isn't with you and me when we come in here, what's going on in here?

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This is only a building, isn't it? Lovely as it is, it's only a building. Only a building. And then a portrayal, the tabernacle is a portrayal of the heavenly reality.

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One of these days, you know, we're going to have, you know, it's interesting, whenever you go, the Holy of Holies was a square.

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15 by 15, four square. My Bible tells me in Revelation chapter 21, when the New Jerusalem comes down, it will be a city four square.

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It will be a city four square. As far as from Florida to Maine on the bottom.

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Equal distance from bottom to top. If you put 15 to 16 feet to a story, and that's what construction people tell me a story is, it's about 15 to 16 feet, whichever depends on which way you go.

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Do you know how many stories are in the New Jerusalem? Literally trillions of stories.

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If every man, woman, boy and girl who has ever lived on this earth, who's ever lived on this earth, this is the largest generation of all time.

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75 % of all the people who will have ever lived on this earth will have lived in this generation. And if every child who's ever lived since Adam was born again, and was going to live in the

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New Jerusalem, there'd be enough space there to give every man, woman, boy and girl 81 square miles of territory.

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It is an immense thing that will descend from heaven. And dear people, when

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I look at the brazen altar, Christ's cross, the labor of cleansing, He cleanses you from all your sins.

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The golden candlestick, He is our light. Table of showbread, He is the bread of our life. Altar of incense,

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He's our great intercessor. The veil, His human body. The Ark of the Covenant, the humanity and the deity of Christ.

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And that is from God's standpoint. That's the way God sees it. But if I look at it from man's standpoint, I see the brazen altar of atonement.

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I need atonement of blood. The labor, regeneration through the word and through the spirit of God. If I come by blood, then

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God will regenerate me. And from man's point of view, the table of showbread with its oblations and libations representing food and drink for sustaining my life is found in fellowship with Christ.

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Only in fellowship with Him. Human fellowship will satisfy your emotions and your mind.

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But fellowship with Christ is the only thing that sustains the spirit. It sustains the spirit. The golden candlestick to you and me is the light of the world.

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The altar of incense, prayer and supplication where we can pray to the Father and pray to our

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Lord and bring our supplications. The mercy seat always endeavors intercession, reconciliation and identifying with God.

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And in fire on the altar, God our life, Christ our all.

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God is very real. The Bible says our God is an all -consuming fire. You remember the psalm,

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Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. We don't see much of that anymore.

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Don't see much of it. And I really believe with all of my heart. If you and I, as we go back through the scriptures and we look at this wonderful structure called the tabernacle,

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I never cease to be amazed at it. I never look at it or can look at it without becoming amazed.

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To think that here is a group of people out in the middle of the wilderness and God told them to do something that was going to perfectly picture what

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He had already planned His Son would leave heaven and come and do.

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These young men would be doing things that God had already pictured and planned that you and I would be doing in the name of our

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Lord. The things we do every Lord's Day. The things we do every day. That our wonderful Lord pictured that and portrayed that so that, as Paul said in 1

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Corinthians 10, those things that were done back there were done as examples for you.

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I can learn from these wonderful things. Aaron, he had some problems in his life.

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That man and that man alone got to go in once a year into the very presence of God. What a response.

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What a thrill. What a thrill. And then his sons could go into the holy place.

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The people couldn't. They had to stay outside. And they would go in there with the light and the bread and the altar incense and the prayer.

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All the rest of the people stood outside. Can you imagine what they must have thought? Oh, I wonder what it would be like to be in there.

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I wonder what it would be like. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what they see. I wonder what they feel.

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But you and I aren't left that way because now every believer can move right on through the holy place, right on into the holy of holies because the veil has been raised.

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There is an opening. There is an access. And that's through Christ Jesus, our Lord. All pictured in the

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Tabernacle is our wonderful High Priest and our coming King. Let's pray. Father, for your wonderful and gracious goodness, how we thank you.

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Lord, we just love you today and thank you for your goodness. Again, I thank you for these faithful friends. I thank you for the encouragement that pastor and people always are.

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I thank you for the encouragement that I see in their lives. And, Lord, just knowing of them, even though we're a distance away, just thinking of them and hearing about them and knowing how you're blessing them and knowing how faithful they are.

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And, Lord, they work hard every day. They go to school every day. They have all kinds of responsibilities and family and making a living in this world and building family relationships, and yet they always find time to serve you.

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They always find time to be around you. They always find time to be in your presence. And, Lord, for granting us a part of that privilege,

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I thank you. I just pray that you'll guard the truth. I pray that you'll guard your word. Lord, I pray that you'll watch over it so the fowler cannot come now and snatch it away.

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I pray that you'll let it be on fertile ground, and I pray that you'll bring forth fruit that will be beneficial to us.

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And then, by being beneficial to us, it'll be beneficial to others as we minister and serve as servant kings.