Castles Made of Sand

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Let's pray, we'll get into it. Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learning.

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Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of your holy word that we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Amen. Okay, quick questions. Any questions percolate up as a result of the sermon?

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Have any of you noticed how much there is a parallel between Daniel and the lion's den and the death and resurrection of Christ and his trial?

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I mean, when you put the two together, you can't miss it. But a lot of people don't think of Scripture in those terms.

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And unfortunately, they look for themselves in the Bible text and by looking for themselves, they miss Jesus. You know, talk about, you know, missing the forest because of a tree.

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So that's kind of the idea. I just thought he was a good lion tamer. He said he was a good lion tamer. So he went in there and cracked the whip.

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Listen up, you lunch. Yeah, I, it doesn't tell us the demeanor of Daniel, but I'm pretty sure if it were me,

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I would be standing like this the whole time. Don't put a hand out. Don't, you know, try to make myself as small as humanly.

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Yeah, that's right. That's right. And you got to remember this, that God doesn't promise that we aren't going to be eaten by lions because in the, you know, with the launch of Christianity and then with the real launch of the

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Roman persecution of Christianity in its early days, Christians became lion food.

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I mean, you know, and if you became a Christian, you know, they gave you a t -shirt that said lion chow, you know, and, you know, that was a, and so a lot of Christians lost their lives as a result of being torn by wild beasts for entertainment and spectacle.

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That was all part of what happened in the Roman Empire. Yeah. I'm just thinking of what

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Daniel's example had to have been for Darius to come all through the night.

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He was wandering and then to come in the morning and to ask, are you still alive? He must, who would have thought of that?

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Yeah. Yeah. And it's so clear that Darius is, he's penitent and he also, you know, by this time in Daniel's career, the stories of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and what happened with Nebuchadnezzar, these things are already in the bloodstream of Babylon, if you would.

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And so Darius is clearly keyed into that, but hadn't really considered his own need for repentance.

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And then when he is culpable, notice he is absolutely a player. He is not an innocent party when it comes to this plot because by him bucking against the commandments of God, he himself now, you know, unwillingly and unwittingly participates in this plot to murder

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Daniel. And so, yeah, exactly. That was kind of the point.

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The parallels between Darius and Pilate are unmistakable. There's Pilate trying to let Jesus go.

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He's done nothing wrong. And the Jews saying, no, no, you're no friend of Caesar if you let

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Jesus go, you know, and ultimately him having to acquiesce to these murderous thugs, you know,

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Darius as well. So just as Darius was culpable, Pilate's also culpable by the way. Yes. I think it's also interesting how in our minds we have a vision of how things might work out, but the

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Lord's plan is so much greater than that. Yes. And how he uses the kingdom of the left hand to accomplish his will in ways that we can't see.

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Exactly. And so here you have not just a leader of the government, but a pagan at that.

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Yes. And he is at work accomplishing the will of the Lord. Yes. And then becomes a minor author of scripture.

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Unbelievable. Isn't that amazing when you think about it? You know, it's, and so God working through these means,

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I mean, that particular story, I mean, led to the repentance and salvation. We'll see Darius with Christ when

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Christ returns. We'll see Nebuchadnezzar with Christ as well. It's about having faith in Christ. Exactly. You know, we put our faith here, we put our faith in this guy to be there.

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We always, no matter what the circumstance, need to be grounded in faith in Christ. Yeah. One of the things I love about the complete acrimony that is right now

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American politics, putting your faith in anybody right now seems like not a good bet.

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You know, it's... That is one of the fun things to point out to people on the internet, to people who worship government.

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Yeah. To say, where is your God now? Yeah. With the election of Donald Trump, the US government as idol has turned into a really awful idol.

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Yeah. What I see is with Pilate, he wanted to do well, but that's where the born corruption into government was.

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I don't know if it probably happened before that because of human nature, but he saw, well, okay,

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I need to do this, otherwise I'm not going to get elected again. Yeah. Or selected again by the people in power.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you make decisions to save your own skin, you know, you become, you're the blood of the person who you're not helping is on your hands.

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It's the opposite of the blood of our neighbor. But this, what you spoke on today was, is you showed, or Daniel was showing others that there is a, there is a higher form of,

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I mean, there is a, okay, the lions may eat me, okay, but it won't be done in vain because he's not worried about himself.

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Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, you don't know if we're, if we are going to be given the privilege and scripture talks about it in this way, if we're going to be given the privilege to give the ultimate witness to Christ by having to be martyred and lay down our lives rather than do something evil.

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That could happen in our day here. And I also think that having that eternal perspective is what keeps us as Christians because in this story, you were talking about vengeance of the

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Lord and when we think of that term, we think about it in an authoritarian way against us.

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Yet that isn't the context here. It's against the powers of the devil. And so at the end of the story, what looked like the demise of Daniel was actually the beginning of his salvation.

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Yeah. And yet what looked like the accomplishment of the evil task by the two other judges turned out to be their final damnation because of their wrath of the

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Lord. So even if we look at, I'm going to be eaten by lions, having that eternal perspective means that that is not the end of me.

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In Christ, I have life. Yeah. And this is one of the things we have to keep in mind that God in his sovereign wisdom has chosen to come to us now in weakness.

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The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Tiny little thing if you think about it. And that we as Christians are persecuted, we suffer, and the ultimate example then is

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Christ. You know, king of kings, lord of lords. In this earth, under the dominion of darkness, satanically occupied earth, the kingdom looks like it's small, it's paltry, it's powerless, it's weak, it's miserable.

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It has none of the accolades and it comes to us in miserable things like the preached word, water, bread and wine, and an absolution.

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I mean, what kind of kingdom is this, right? So in this life, prior to the return of Christ, God has chosen that everything is done in weakness.

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And even the gospel is preached in the mouths of sinners who are also forgiven.

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And that eternal perspective says this, that what God has chosen in His mercy and grace to do in weakness now, when the day of salvation is done, which is today, when it is done, then

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God comes in glory. And the ultimate turnaround happens. The vindication occurs.

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And so it's like, fine, you want to take my life? No problemo. I don't know if you've noticed, I'm getting old and ugly anyway, so you're doing me a favor.

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I have an eternal perspective. And the eternal perspective is that Christ is going to call me and all of those who are in Him from the grave.

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And then we're going to see God face to face. And we're going to see Him in His power and His glory.

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And there will be no more weakness in that sense. Weakness gives way to true glorified strength of God.

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And so we know that God, this is what is promised. So we hang on to that, knowing that every single person here,

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I mean, I don't understand this at all, but the human mind, twisted by the devil, wants to somehow create kingdoms for itself.

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And yet, we heard in our psalm today how the plans of the wicked, the wicked in power, they all come to naught on the day that they die.

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I mean, I remember when I was a kid. I remember going to the beach as a kid. I loved to make sandcastles.

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I loved to make sandcastles when the surf was out, when it was at low tide.

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You'd make it in a spot where you know when the tide comes in it was going to wipe it out. And then you do your best to keep the thing up.

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But it didn't take too long before the tide would take over and smash your sandcastle. Every human being who despotically tries to build little monuments and kingdoms to themselves, where are they?

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How few people who've ever lived of the billions and billions and billions, even have their names written in history books?

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And even if they're written in history books, who today is reading them? Right? I think one of the root causes or at least a good motivator for people to be fascinated with the idea of immortality, specifically, this affects more men than it does women in regards to yes, you want to be remembered, have your name in the history books and something like be remembered forever.

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Because I think intuitively we as humanity understand that death isn't natural since we were not created to die.

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So the want and the desire to be remembered forever or to live into eternity is something that it's already innately within us.

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At least this is my personal opinion. And these people that don't have a right understanding of what eternity is or who

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God is wish to build it for themselves upon Earth. That's why. But they want to be remembered by humans.

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Right, but that's basically the closest thing they have to immortality aside from, you know, immortality.

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Out of all the god kings who ever lived in the Fertile Crescent, how many of them do you know the names of? Ramesses, Nebuchadnezzar, and Darius, who

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I may not have remembered until the sermon this morning, right? You don't remember their names at all.

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And see, that's kind of the fascinating thing. I don't care if people here remember my name.

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I care if God has my name written in his book. Because if my name is in his book,

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God doesn't remember me, I go into eternity without a name, that's a bad fate. And God only writes the names of those who have been humbled and given the gift of faith and repentance in his book.

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The proud, they don't get it. Luke 16 with the rich man and Lazarus.

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The rich man is in Hades and Lazarus is at the bosom of Abraham. What's the rich man's name again?

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He is nameless. That's right, nameless. Apart from me. I never knew you.

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Josh, men just have more of an eagle. I don't even care.

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It's such an eagle that they build giant monuments, statues, buildings, civilizations, you know.

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Alright, let's come back now to Exodus 24. God has called

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Moses up to the mountain and where we left off last week we were noting that God is about to give very specific instructions to Moses for the building of the tabernacle and God himself is establishing how

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Old Covenant worship is to take place. Man doesn't get to just invent their own worship practices.

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God says here's how it's going to go, here's how where it's going to take place, this is how it's done and these are the things that need to be made for it.

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And we also noted that God was going to require that people give out of their own heart freely and not under compulsion when it came to supplying the needs of this tabernacle.

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Nobody this wasn't a tithe, there was no exaction, there wasn't somebody coming along and say pony up your portion of this tabernacle construction project is going to be 10 % no make that 15 % you look pretty wealthy to me.

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It wasn't that at all. Everybody gave freely which in a very interesting way then parallels the giving practices of the

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New Covenant. In the New Covenant there is no tithe. There is no established amount of giving.

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People give as they want as they are able and so one of the things that I really really despise and loathe is that over and again

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I witness this across many of the megachurches people saying that Christians are still under the tithe in these big megachurches and the benefits of attending that church are only offered then to those who tithe.

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One of the common practice in certain wing of the megachurches is that they keep track of your tithing record even more so than your attendance.

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And so when it comes if you fall ill and you end up in the hospital and you need a pastor visit first thing they pull up is your tithing record.

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If you haven't been tithing you don't get a visit from a pastor. It's absolutely disgusting.

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And so over and again I think of Perry Noble and the quote that he gave years ago and this was not in church it was actually at a pastor's conference that he was holding at his church,

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New Spring in Anderson, South Carolina and I was in the audience that day and it was actually really fascinating to watch him behave and say the things that he said and he was actually kind of he knew

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I was there and he was speaking to me but he didn't know where I was sitting and so he ended up speaking into the camera.

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But one of the things he said he says people complain and he used a very horrible term

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I'll give a variant of it and you kind of figure out what the word was he said the jackball that's not the word he used the jackball in the church is the guy who's always complaining you need to go deeper in the word he literally said that at this pastor's conference and then he goes on he says he says deep deep let's take a look at your tithing record and see how deep you are literally what he said let's take a look at your tithing record and see how deep you are and then he said this

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I think that people are educated way beyond their obedience and so he basically said until you're more obedient I'm going to throttle the word of God and not give it to you in any deep meaningful way until your obedience gets up now of course surprisingly he flamed out in ministry and was removed on moral grounds from being a pastor doesn't surprise me that's a very tyrannical and despotic thing but scripture does not require

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Christians to tithe the tithe itself was an old covenant mosaic covenant tax because remember in the mosaic covenant there is no distinction between church and state they are together king and temple king and priest and prophet all work together it's a theocracy and so as part of that theocracy there was an obligation for a tithe and then as we read as I read out in the sermon last week as part of the tithe the people who brought the tithe to the tabernacle they were expected to eat it they were expected to enjoy it and so funny enough when you read about the mosaic covenant command regarding tithing portion of it went to supplying the needs of the temple and stuff like that that is most certainly true but a large portion of the tithe it was literally celebrated it became a meal with God which a lot of people kind of leave that part out because that messes with their theology so you have a lot of people who are literally putting their thumb screws down on Christians claiming that they need to tithe and then

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I also remember there was a fellow not too long ago and this happened a couple times now where a pastor literally kept tithing records on all the members of the church and if somebody fell short in their tithing he sent them a bill and tried to take some of them to court saying you're behind in your payments yeah not making that up either no we give freely so if you want to give

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God 5 bucks you give him 5 bucks if you want to give him more that's between you and God I would just remind you that God requires that pastors earn their living from the gospel so whatever your contribution is to that I don't care as long as you understand that the ultimate goal is being met and it is so I mean we don't have a problem like that there's a reason why

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I don't do these stewardship services right you know in these

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TV evangelists and megachurches and things like that people often ask for and you can explain this seed money are they starting the church no they're not the church is already built

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I always thought seed money was for like a situation where you've got something going like a project we need to put shingles on the roof yeah somebody wants to set an example quietly he can place a bill in the plate that's a substantial amount without his name on it

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I call that seed money that other people will owe somebody else did and pretty soon they got the roof so let's talk about that the seed money doctrine is a part of what's called the word of faith movement alright so this is part of a bigger heresy that's within the church and the concept goes something like this if you sow sparingly you reap sparingly so God wants you to give so that you can get back and by you giving it proves to God that you have faith that's proof to God that you have faith and then

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God will multiply your gift a hundred fold and it always turns out this way that God wants you to demonstrate that you have faith by sending the tele -evangelist the money you know rather than rather than saying you show

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God that you have faith you go down to your local soup kitchen and you give them money so that they'll be oh no you have to send it to the tele -evangelist who's jetting around the world in a 64 million dollar gulf stream yeah?

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yeah they are and the gas on those things is pretty outrageous yeah insurance and then don't forget maintenance on a gulf stream it's pretty expensive and so that's a scam okay and so you're not you're giving to prove to God that you have faith do you think if God gave you the gift of faith he knows whether or not you have faith or not yeah?

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okay why would I need to prove to God that I have faith by sending that yahoo a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks yeah see that these are people who are teaching for shameful gain things they ought not to teach may your money perish with you if you think that God's miracles can be bought this is not a doctrine taught in scripture alright coming then back to Exodus 24 we'll start at verse 12

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Lord said to Moses come up to me on the mountain wait there that I may give you the tablets of stone with which the law and the commandment which

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I have written for their instruction Moses rose with his assistant Joshua Moses went up into the mountain of God and he said to the elders wait here for us until we return to you and behold

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Aaron and Hur are with you whoever has a dispute let him go to them so he delegates authority for judging between people

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Moses went up on the mountain the cloud covered the mountain the glory of the Lord dwelled on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days and on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud now the appearance of the glory of the

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Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel Moses entered the cloud went up on the mountain

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Moses was on the mountain forty days forty nights chapter 25 then the

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Lord said to Moses speak to the people of Israel that they take from me a contribution from every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution from me and this is the contribution that you shall receive from them gold silver bronze blue purple scarlet yarns fine twine linen goats hair tanned ram skins goat skin acacia wood oil for the lamps spices for the anointing oil for the fragrant incense onyx stones and stones for setting for the ephod and for the breastplate and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all of its furniture so that you may you shall make it now quick question what was the occupation of the

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Israelites prior to the exodus slaves where on earth did these slaves come up with this stuff the plundering of Egypt this is kind of an important thing

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God said that he would positively dispose the hearts of the Egyptians so that they would give them these things and thereby plunder the

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Egyptians so the Egyptians basically said you guys are in the right your God is in the right

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Pharaoh is in the wrong please here here's my bank account ok that's kind of how that worked out and that happened prior to the exodus so now you've got all these really wealthy slaves in the middle of the wilderness that's the best way

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I could put it alright yep so that's where that's all coming from they shall make an ark of acacia wood and now we get the making of the ark of the covenant the ark of the covenant along with the tabernacle itself is this wonderful type in shadow of Christ so it's made out of wood covered with gold right keep that in mind the ark of the covenant covered with gold and this is a good picture of Christ who is

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God and man it's kind of a picture of the incarnate and on the top of this thing we'll see is a thing called the mercy seat and oddly enough the raiders of the lost ark people kind of got this right let me see if I can pull this up because I think they did a pretty good job

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I like the artistic depiction so they made this thing so that Harrison Ford can find it later alright so this is what we're looking at here let's see if I can find a that's a little bit bigger okay so this is what's being described here it's made out of acacia wood overlaid with gold and then this lid right here with the two angels facing each other that's the thing called the mercy seat and the mercy seat and we'll see this is going to become the place where on the day of atonement so the ark of the covenant is kept in the holy of holies in the tabernacle and only once a year the high priest goes and he takes the blood of the atoning sacrifice on the day of Yom Kippur and that is what gets poured on top of what's called the mercy seat so we'll talk a little bit more about the types and shadows of this but let me read some more of this out okay so two cubits and a half shall be its length a cubit and a half its breadth a cubit and a half its height you shall overlay it with pure gold inside and outside shall you overlay it and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it you shall cast four rings of gold for it put them on its four feet two rings on one side of it two rings on the other side of it you shall make poles of acacia wood overlay them with gold and you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them the poles shall remain in the rings of the ark and they shall not be taken from it and you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its breadth you shall make two cherubim of gold of hammered work shall you make them on the two ends of the mercy seat make one cherub on one end one cherub on the other end of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends and the cherubim shall spread out their wings above overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings their faces one to another toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be now see if you guys remember this then so this is the ark of the covenant inside of it will be placed the two stone tablets a jar of manna and the bud the staff of Aaron which budded that will happen later on those will all be placed in there but the very top is the mercy seat see if you all remember mercy seat is type and shadow of what has its fulfillment in the new testament in the gospels

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Jesus in the tomb that's correct so one of the accounts that we have of the day of the resurrection that when they poked their heads in to look in the empty tomb there was two angels one at the head one at the foot the mercy seat and so I am absolutely convinced that the mercy seat itself prefigures

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Jesus in the tomb because I mean that would be a perfect example what the mercy seat should be should it not so Jesus in the tomb and you get the idea here that while after they rolled the stone over the tomb there were the two angels guarding the body of Christ wing to wing while the corpse of Christ stayed there in the tomb it's this beautiful picture and it's just stunning when you kind of consider what's going on here all of this coming back to Christ in one way or another let me see if I can find that by the way angels better spell it right angels and I'm gonna limit this to the gospels and see if I can find the text itself

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I thought it was John so I'll go there is it John 20 yes yes it's

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John 20 verse 12 John 20 whoops

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John 20 verses there we go beautiful beautiful text here

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Mary stood weeping outside the tomb John 20 verse 11 as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain one at the head one at the feet and they said to her woman why are you weeping and she said to them well they've taken away my lord

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I don't know where they have laid him having said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing but she did not know that it was

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Jesus and Jesus said to her woman why are you weeping whom are you seeking supposing him to be the gardener what a great mistake right the second

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Adam now mistaken for a gardener in a garden tomb right she said to him sir if you've carried him away tell me where you've laid him and I will take him away and Jesus said to her

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Mary she said to him in Aramaic which means teacher and she said don't cling to me

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I've yet ascended not yet ascended to the father but go to my brothers and say to them I am ascending to my father your father my god your god so there you got it's such it's it's a little bit of an obscure text but you can see it one at the head one at the foot mercy seat is to be made this way with two angels facing each other one at the head one at the foot it's unmistakable scripture says the dwelling place of God is with men yes and here is the incarnate who takes our place in the tomb in our death and brings us to life yeah we were talking about your name in the book of life what does he say to Mary calls her by her name yeah he knows her name it's wonderful yeah it's absolutely wonderful and you're gonna note this then kind of an interesting feature of the gospels have you ever thought how is it that certain people in their events in the gospels we're not talking about the twelve disciples of the who become the apostles but like certain events you think of Zacchaeus Zacchaeus was a wee little man a wee little man was he right he's the guy who climbed up the sycamore tree why do we know his name huh because we sang it the reason we know his name is because his name is written in scripture okay which means he's a believer which means he's a believer because the church knew him alright and then you think what were the names of the

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Roman soldiers again don't know yeah yeah and then

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Simon the Cyrene why do we know his name everyone remember his contribution to the passion of Christ this is the guy who carries the cross for Jesus how can we know his name because he becomes a believer it's fascinating the early church kept track of themselves they knew who they were yeah there is one

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Roman soldier surely this man was the son of God we don't know his name that certainly is there as a confession yeah first Roman first true gentile convert to Christianity we know his name

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Cornelius we know his occupation Roman soldier he's a centurion so one of the reasons why we know the names of certain people in the gospels and we don't know the name of others has a lot to do with the fact that they were

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Christians and they were part of then the church the worship community of Christ and they if they were especially if they were eyewitnesses to the resurrection church kept track of these people alright coming back then to Exodus so making a mercy seat one cherub on one end one cherub on the other of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends they shall spread their wings above overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings and their faces one to another this is exactly this has got to be what was going on on Saturday morning all

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Saturday these angels guarding the body of Christ which means it wasn't the Roman soldiers who were really guarding

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Christ really you know you shall make a table of acacia wood two cubits shall be its length a cubit its breadth a cubit a half its height and you shall overlay it with pure gold make a molding of gold around it now a little bit of a note here we're going to hear a lot about the furniture the furniture of and the appliances and utensils of what will become the temple now here's an interesting thing so here we're hearing about their creation

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God ordering that they will be made do you know that there is a polaroid I call it a polaroid there's a terrible way of discussing it there's an actual depiction of these artifacts at their last appearance in human history are you aware of this okay a little bit of work here come back to Google we're going to look for the arch of Titus fine because I want to show you guys this what happened in 70

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AD destruction of the temple alright the

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Roman general at the time was Titus and he will become the emperor and after the end of the

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Jewish wars there was and this one's got the word Almi all over it let's see if I can find an

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Almi free version with the destruction of Jerusalem the victorious

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Roman army paraded through the streets of Rome and I want to show you what they paraded

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I think we can actually use this to kind of show it I'm going to open up image in new tab and you can see this in Rome today if you ever have an opportunity to travel to Rome of course

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I always travel there using other people's vacation photos we're going to note here so this is a depiction of the

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Roman parade after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple this right here is the menorah the golden lamp stand that God had

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Moses and the children of Israel make in the wilderness now it's a little tough to see over here but if you look at this, it looks like a box shape right here and there's silver trumpets in front of it this box shape is this table that we are hearing about it's being created there so these were the artifacts that were inside the temple of God in Jerusalem that were taken back to Rome and this is their last appearance in human history now you'll note that the

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Ark of the Covenant is missing by this time, we do not know what happened to it we do not know what happened to the

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Ark of the Covenant but here we can see that the Romans wonderfully took a

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Polaroid of their parade for us in stone and this shows you a depiction in human history of these things which kind of begs the question what does that tell you about the authentic claim of the

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Jews that they were actually in that land the Muslims today no no no, there were no

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Jews here they made that up well what's the menorah doing at the Arch of Titus yeah that's right a

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Jewish conspiracy so you've got the table of the showbread you've got the silver trumpets that God commanded to be made you've got the menorah and other things all depicted in relief in the

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Arch of Titus kind of a fascinating thing so here we're learning about their creation that God giving the instruction for their creation and then the

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Arch of Titus is the last that we ever see in human history isn't that more evidence of non of secular gentiles stating the truth of scripture that these actually did exist and it's an extra biblical source this is all history this is not myth, this is not legend this is straight up history and I love the fact that the archaeological evidence hiding in plain sight

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I mean you can go to Rome today and in part of the city where they've kept the city up so you can go and walk your way through parts of Rome that are authentic to the time of the biblical period all the way back to the

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Caesars and granted everything is derelict, everything is in devastation mode but still the

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Arch of Titus is there you can walk right up and you can look at that thing and go yeah that looks like a menorah to me and we know why this was built, because it says so in Latin you know so you shall make a table of acacia wood two cubits shall be its length, cubit its breadth a cubit and a half its height, you shall overlay it with pure gold, make it a molding of gold around it, you shall take a rim make a rim around it, a hand breadth wide of a molding of gold around the rim and you shall make of it four rings of gold fasten the rings of the four corners at the four legs and that was funny enough that the

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Roman soldiers were parading that table of the showbread on the poles that it was made to be carried by close the frame of the rings close to the frame the rings shall lie, holders for the poles to carry the table, you shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold and the table shall be carried with these and you shall make its plates and dishes for incense and its flagons and its bowls with which to pour drink offerings and you shall make them of pure gold and you shall set the bread of the presence on the table before me regularly what an interesting name for that bread hmm the bread of the what?

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presence could that possibly be type and shadow pointing to the

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Lord's supper isn't it funny what we describe as the doctrine of what we believe we receive in the

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Lord's supper it's called the doctrine of the real presence

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Christ is truly present in with under the bread and wine isn't that fascinating no it's not a symbol oh yeah yeah this is this is the bread of the presence of God since when does bread and God's presence go like this right you can even see it in type and shadow in the mosaic covenant and that's the whole point is that when you run everything back then through Christ you sit there and say man prophecy is so much more than God saying the virgin shall conceive and give birth it's a lot more than that and that's still amazing that God would give specific details but now over and again we're seeing pictures of Christ pictures of new covenant theology and important aspects of our own worship now being prefigured in type and shadow in the worship that is established by God in the old covenant you shall make a lamp stand of pure gold the lamp stand shall be made of hammered work it's base, it's stem, it's cups and it's flowers shall be of one piece with it and we got a pretty good idea of what that looked like because well there it is you see you can see what that looked like alright and there shall be six branches going out of it's side three branches of the lamp stand out of one side of it three branches of the lamp stand out of the other side three cups made like almond blossoms each with calyx and flower on one branch and three cups made like almond blossoms each with calyx and flower on the other branches so for the six branches going out of the lamp stand and on the lamp stand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms with their calyxes and flowers and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lamp stand their calyxes their branches shall be of one piece with it the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold that was made out of pure gold and the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it it's tongs and their trays shall be made of pure gold it shall be made with all these utensils out of a talent of pure gold talent seventy five pounds seventy five pounds of pure gold that is a lot of money and see that you make them after the pattern for them which is being shown to you on the mountain and you're going to note that God is reiterating this fact this pattern you've got to follow because these things that were made were copies of the originals the originals being in the tabernacle in heaven in the temple in heaven now this kind of begs a question we noted that that missing in the

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Roman parade was the Ark of the Covenant when was the last time this thing made an appearance in human history the

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Ark of the Covenant about when did it disappear somebody took it off huh the marauders take it they put it on a on an ox cart they literally sent it out into the wilderness it went back to the

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Israelites so the Ark of the Covenant disappears probably best guess time of Nebuchadnezzar it's not present at the time the

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Roman soldiers destroy the temple so we best guess we think it goes missing prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and there's all kinds of weird legends that are kind of creeping up one legend says that they absconded with it in the middle of the night a whole group of Levites took it and they went to Ethiopia they went into Africa and there's a whole legend around that but the one thing we do know and here's the interesting thing at the time of Christ was there an

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Ark of the Covenant for them to pour blood on the mercy seat of nope there wasn't so what are we supposed to make of that and that's kind of an important thing now years and years and years ago

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I kind of made a habit a career out of listening to bad preaching but I remember listening to the radio to one particular wing nut who literally claimed that when

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Jesus was on the cross remember there was an earthquake yeah there was an earthquake he said nobody knows this but I figured it out nobody knows but I figured it out that earthquake opened up a fissure and that the

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Ark of the Covenant is actually hidden somewhere it was buried on the Temple Mount somewhere and that Jesus in Golgotha just happened to be at the same spot and so when that earthquake hit a fissure opened up and some of the blood that was dripping off of the cross made its way through the fissure and touched the top of the mercy seat and there you go and you go do you have a biblical text for that I just heard that explanation about two weeks ago are you kidding me

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I'm a preacher chapter and verse is there any biblical text that says that now what we read actually let's take a look at this

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Hebrews and I think

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I want to go into 9 ok let me see if I can find this here it is

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Hebrews 9 now is the Ark of the Covenant the real thing or is it the copy it's the copy because remember

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God's saying it make it according to the pattern this is the copy so note here

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Hebrews 9 tells us where the blood needed to go Hebrews 9 11 when

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Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands that is of this creation he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinking of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living

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God according to what I just read where was Jesus his blood taken and on which mercy seat was it actually poured the real one the real one so this idea this fanciful crazy idea

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Don I'm so sad that you heard that somebody say that Hebrews 9 makes it clear that Jesus entered into holy places with his blood in heaven the mercy seat that his blood was poured on was on the ark of the covenant the real one not the copy and the fact that the ark of the covenant the copy goes missing it literally disappears off the pages of history about the time of Nebuchadnezzar you don't need the ark of the covenant in the temple because that's the copy the real one is the one that matters he entered into holy places the heavenly places the one the place where it really matters

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I would say that the two historically occur around the same time but they're not connected to each other one doesn't have to do with the other the

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Pharisees basically are an over reaction to the idolatry of Israel that led them into Babylonian captivity so always remember this the opposite error of an error is not the truth and we human beings have this really bad habit so somebody did something this way they did it wrong and so we're going to fix it we're going to fix that error and so they go and they all end up at the exact opposite error and so they do the ying to the yang thing and so the truth often times the truth lies between the two you got to hold them in tension for instance which is the word of God the gospel or the ten commandments the law the answer is yes yes both now they seem opposed to each other right but they're not so you hold them in tension and over and again you got two major errors that always seem to be a problem in Christianity on the one side legalistic pietism on the other side total antinomian licentiousness ok antinomian means anti means against and nomia nomos is law so against law and licentiousness means that Jesus died for all of my sins so that means

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I can do whatever I want see I've got my get out of free get out of hell free card so I'm going to you know

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I'm going to go live like the devil you know party at my house next week you know it's going to be nuts and so you got the opposite end of it yeah but not that kind of party yeah

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I mean I'll give you an example so last week I did some therapeutic emoting if you would about my time in the

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Nazarene sect and talked about their super legalism and their man made doctrines and their laws opposite to the

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Nazarene church that I grew up in would be like today's ELCA right yeah and here's the weird thing those are two sides of the same coin but that coin isn't biblical

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Christianity those are two opposite sides of the exact same coin biblical

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Christianity is a different coin all together so Christianity is not compatible with legalistic pietism but that does not mean that there is not a true piety that we are to have as Christians so you'd have to come to here but true piety is not

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I love to sin, Jesus likes to forgive sinners we're a match made in heaven man let's party like it's 1999 right that's the opposite end so the idea is that and what's really strange about this is there is a real weird legalism to antinomianism it's kind of a weird ironic thing about it, they're very legalistic about their licentiousness yeah we will not allow you to tell us that homosexuality is sinful but the bible says that no, we deny it and we're going to run you out on a rail if you keep talking that way, it's weird ok, so coming back so the point that I was making then is that the thing the ark of the covenant that mattered is not the one that Moses made the ark of the covenant that mattered is the one that Moses was making a copy of does that make sense that's the one where the blood of Christ was put and that fanciful idea that the earthquake caused a fissure to open up and blood to fall onto the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant oh boy yeah not so good this is a bad thing because no text says it in Hebrews 9 actually 8, 9 and 10 just blow that out of the water and that's in the bible so moreover, 26 you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twine linen, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them now a little bit of a note, remember the commandment that says that you shall not make for yourself a graven image and yet these are images of things in heaven these are not for the purpose of you worshipping them, so we have freedom to depict these things, and you're going to note then that angels having wings that is not a renaissance development angels having wings is a biblical revelation now they're not chubby little cherubim that look like you know no no

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I feel bad for the angels these noble creatures who can see the face of God always are depicted as chubby human beings with these tiny little wings this is horrible and that's the kind of stuff that makes it into the worst motels you know what