THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 2..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Exodus 26 from verse 1. Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine or fine twine, linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns.

You shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be 28 cubits and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. All the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and another five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outmost curtain in the first set.

Likewise, you shall make loops on the edge of the outmost curtain in the second set. 50 loops you shall make on the one curtain, and 50 loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set. The loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make 50 clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so the tabernacle may be a single whole. Verse 7.

You shall also make curtains of goat's hair for a tent over the tabernacle. 11 curtains you shall make. The length of each curtain shall be 30 cubits, and breadth of each curtain 4 cubits. The 11 curtains shall be the same size, and you shall couple 5 curtains by themselves, and 6 curtains by themselves. And the 6th curtain you shall double over at the front of the tent.

You shall make 50 loops of the one edge. or on the edge of the curtain that is the outermost in one set, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in the second set. You shall make fifty clasps of bronze, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be a single whole. And the part that remains of the curtains on the tent, or of the tent, the half curtain that remains, shall hang over the back of the tabernacle. And the extra that remains in length of the curtain, the cubit on the one side and the cubit on the other, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle, on this side and that side, to cover it.

And you shall make for the tent of covering of tanned ram skins and cover of goat skins on top. 15. You shall make upright frames for the tabernacle of acacia wood. 10 cubits shall be the length of the frame, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each frame. There shall be two tenons in each frame, the fitting together.

So shall you do for all the frames of the tabernacle. You shall make the frames for the tabernacle, twenty frames for the south side, and forty bases of silver you shall make under the twenty frames, two bases under one frame for its two tenons, and two bases under the next frame for its two tenons. And for the second side of the tabernacle, on the north on the north side 20 frames and there 40 bases of silver two bases under one frame and two bases under the next frame And for the rear of the tabernacle westward you shall make six frames, and you shall make two frames for the corners of the tabernacle in the rear. They shall be separate beneath, but joined at the top, at the first ring. Thus shall it be that both of them, they shall form the two corners, and there shall be eight frames, with their bases of silver, sixteen bases, two bases under one frame, and two bases under one another frame.

You shall make bars of acacia wood five for the frames on the one side of the tabernacle and five bars for the frames on the other side of the tabernacle and five bars for the frames of the side of the tabernacle at the rear west wood. The middle bar half way up the frame shall run from one end to the other you shall overlay the frames with gold and shall make their rings of gold and holders for the bars and you shall overlay the bars with gold then you shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan for it for it that according to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain 31 and you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen It shall be made with cherubim, skillfully worked into it. You shall hang it on four pillars of acacia, overlaid with hooks of gold, on the four bases of silver. and you shall hang the veil from the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil and the veil shall separate for you the holy place from the most holy. You shall put the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony in the most holy place and you shall set the table outside the veil and the lampstand on the south side of the tabernacle opposite the table and you shall put the table on the north side.

You shall make a screen for the entrance of the tent of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen embroidered with the needlework And you shall make for the screen five pillars of acacia, and overlay them with gold. Their hooks shall be of gold, and you shall cast five bases of bronze for them. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, as you're fully aware, last week we began our series in the book of Exodus from chapter 25, and I said then that we are taking, or the book takes us a turn, the emphasis changes, and it really is emphasizing from this point forward to the end of the chapter, there's 13 out of the 16 chapters that have their emphasis on the tabernacle.

The tabernacle in the wilderness and as we've been reading and we continue to read as as a corporate family we will see that there is much details there's intricate specific details that goes into every facet of the the tabernacle all the materials from the materials to the framework to the coverings to the furniture everything is detailed specifically by Yahweh to Moses And the reason for this is because the physical item itself is pointing to something that is far greater than the physical aspect of that item. Yes, it had an immediate purpose for the wilderness generation back then, certainly. However, this temporal dwelling place of God was teaching these Israelites, and in fact us here today, that everything in the tabernacle was pointing to something greater to come. And this is why Moses was instructed by God to follow his instructions to a T. He needed to do everything exactly as the Lord Yahweh had prescribed for him to do in the construction of the tabernacle.

And it's for that reason, beloved, because it's pointing to something greater. Last week we briefly looked at or examined together the four pieces of furniture that were found within the tabernacle. Two pieces are in the holy place. Now the tabernacle, there's a holy place and there's a most holy place. The two pieces in the holy place that we looked at last week were the menorah lampstand or the golden lampstand.

And also we looked at the table of presents with the bread upon it. And last week we looked at how it is, or what purpose those two pieces of furniture had for the people then and there, 15, for us, 3,500 years ago, and what it meant for them, and what purpose they served in that physical tabernacle. And we briefly, and very briefly, looked how, pointing forward, how the fulfillment is found in Jesus Christ, who fulfills all the elements in the furniture of The tabernacle. But then we also looked at two pieces of furniture. The only two, in fact, that are found in the most holy place.

The holy of holy. The place where the immediate manifest presence of Yahweh was to be. And if you remember, one was the ark or the box of the covenant, which contains the testimony of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord. And the other is the mercy seat. Beloved, if you remember, last week we said the reason that God is able to dwell amongst a sinful people was because of that mercy seat.

Because of the mercy seat. Because the Bible is clear that a pure, a good, and righteous, and holy God, His eyes cannot look upon sin. His wrath is constantly kindled against all unrighteousness. And that's the dilemma. How is it, we asked the question last week, how is it that a righteous God who cannot look upon transgression, upon a people who constantly transgress, break and disobey His law, the law that is found in that box in the Ark of the Covenant, how is it that He can dwell amongst sinners?

And the answer last week we gave was, it's because of the mercy seat. Beloved, that's why God is able to dwell among his people. Because it's on that seat we see propitiation and atonement is accomplished upon that seat. It's sin that is being dealt with. And God is showing how he will deal with that sin once and for all through the picture of the mercy seat in the tabernacle.

And so how is it that God's wrath can be turned away from the people who sin and poured on a substitute? That mercy seat shows us how that is. And we know, beloved, that it is not the blood of goats or bulls that is sprinkled upon that seat. And it's not that seat that's made out of or constructed from the gold that takes away the wrath of God, but rather what it pointed to. Because last week we saw that the mercy seat is in fact Christ.

The blood that sprinkled on the mercy seat was a picture, it foreshadowed, it prefigured the blood of Jesus Christ which would be spilled upon the cross of Calvary some 1,500 years later. We know that the priests would go into the Holy of Holies and that was a picture of the great high priest who would come once and for all, be the sacrificer as the priest, as well as the sacrifice, and give of his own blood, and turn away the wrath of God upon sinners like you and I. He bore that sin, he bore that wrath in his body, fully he absorbed it, so that people of God are able to be forgiven of their sins, so that propitiation can happen, but there's something more glorious. I shouldn't say more glorious, but something also very glorious that happened on the cross. That the mercy seat takes care of our sin problem insofar as the penalty and God's wrath being appeased.

But something else wonderful happened on that cross, which is typified or is pre-shadowed or foreshadowed or prefigured here in chapter 26. Something very glorious that we'll come to see this evening, I hope. So what does this chapter look like? First 30 verses of this chapter gives us a lot of specific details about the structure of the tabernacle. Now, in the previous chapter, chapter 25, we were told about the furniture that is within the structure of the tabernacle.

Now, more so, this chapter, the first 30 verses, at least, speaks about the actual structure, the framework. So from here we can see measurements, we can see the material that the actual tent was made from. And if you're looking here and you're thinking, what is a cubit? Well, that's the term of their measurement. If you can think of your elbow, your fingertips that's a cubit so in those days it's about 45 centimeters so when you say 10 cubits it's 10 times 45 four and a half meters so from that we can do with a little bit of mathematics we can figure out approximately how big this tabernacle was and beloved it wasn't all that big In fact, if we look at this room, it was probably around the same size as this room, four and a half metres by about 12, 13 and a half, but it was a bit higher.

The ceiling was actually double the size of this ceiling. It was about four and a half metres high. And it was nestled, we're told in the next chapter, in what they used to call the court of the tabernacle. which is the outer area, which is fully fenced with linen. And that was, the whole ground was about as big as an Olympic sized swimming pool.

And then you have a tabernacle, which is about the size of this, where this room we're in, that was just nestled right in there. And as we read the chapter, we go from really understanding the framework and the size of the tabernacle, and then we look at the coverings of the tabernacle, the fabric that was around the top and around the sides, so that it would be protected from the elements on the outside, and that you would believe or keep the things that were contained in the tabernacle within. And if you realize, as we read, it's very particular, the Lord is to Moses, that whatever material would overlap and fold down onto itself so there's no gaps, there's no peeking, you cannot see through. The Lord is very particular about keeping what's inside, at least the holy of holies, concealed. The first layer was made of linen, the second Leah was made of goat's hair, and then we have the ram's skin, and then on top of that we have the goat's skin.

So beloved, if you were there, and you would look back, and you're in the desert, and you're looking at this tent in the wilderness, a place where God has decided that he would be amongst his people, dwelling amongst his people, I think you would be able to say that he blended in with the desert landscape. So in other words, it was fairly bland. It wasn't much to look at. It had no form or majesty to look upon. But of course on the inside was a completely different story, especially the most holy place.

So who saw the inside of this tent? Well, we know that common folk didn't. They heard of, they heard Moses speak about what is contained on the inside, or they may have read his writings. But it's really the Levitical priesthood that were doing their work inside the tent. And most of their work would be on the outside grounds or in the holy place.

But the most holy place? Well, we spoke about this last week. It's only the high priest. It's only the high priest, and only once a year can he enter into that place. But the common folk?

The Israelites, the camp, the million-plus strong people who've been rescued from Egypt, they could not see what was going on inside. If they were able somehow, and the tribes were specifically organized, we know that as we move over to Numbers chapter 2, we see that the Lord tells them that He wants three tribes on the south, and three on the north, and three on the east, and three on the west. So when they were to look, if they could look over that fence, which is the fence that fenced out the courtyard of the tabernacle, which is about that high, about seven and a half foot. So if they had a vantage point where they could look over it, they still could not see what was going on inside the tabernacle. It's only the priest, the high priest could see the most holy place.

So you have to ask the question, why is that? Why is it that God would decide to live and dwell amongst his people? Yet they would not be able to enjoy His immediate presence. And you might say, what about the priests? And we said the priests, they couldn't see the Holy of Holies either.

Only once a year, the high priest. But the rest, they couldn't see. Oh, thank you. They couldn't see what was going on. Why?

Well, we're told here in verse 31, if you put your eyes down to verse 31, listen to how it reads. The instruction given, and you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and the fine twin of linen. It shall be made with the cherub and skillfully worked into it. And you shall hang it on four pillars of acacia, overlaid with gold, with hooks, gold and four bases of silver. Here it is.

And you shall hang the veil from its clasp and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate from you the holy place from the most holy place. What's the point? Not even the priests could look in there. What's the point?

And if someone tried to go into this place, they would die on the spot. We know that. And beloved, the picture was so clear to these people because they knew. The temple, the most holy place, the place where the immediate manifest presence of Yahweh was, where the ark of the covenant was, where the mercy seat was, they knew that there was a temple, there was a curtain that went from the top to the bottom, and they couldn't see within. And they knew that what was on the curtain, because it's told here, that on the curtain there's embroidered a cherubim.

And these people knew what a cherubim was. That reminded them of Eden. You remember when Adam and Eve sinned and the Lord then expelled them from the garden. You remember what happened? He placed cherubim at the entrance so that Adam and Eve would not be able to return into the immediate presence of God.

Because they'd sinned. And because the tabernacle, as we've said before, is a teaching tool to the people of Israel, of something greater to come, this is what these curtains were teaching. They were teaching that no matter who you are in Israel, No matter what tribe you're from or what vantage point you had, the message of these cherubim on the temple that closed off the whole world from the most holy place was this. You know that the Lord God Yahweh, His presence is here, but you cannot enter. You cannot enter.

Why? Because God is holy and you are not. Only perfection can enter into Yahweh's presence. Only perfection can enter into Yahweh's presence. You might ask, how about the high priest?

Was he perfect? The answer is absolutely not. But the Lord had made provision for one man a sinner, and only once a year, and only after he has offered a sacrifice for his own sin, then he will offer a sacrifice for the sin of the people, and only come into the presence of the Lord once a year, with blood in his hands, because he was prefiguring the true sacrifice to come. He was prefiguring the great high priest, Jesus Christ, who is to come. who would propitiate for the sins of His people, as we read in chapter 25.

But also, beloved, that what Jesus accomplished on that cross, our great High Priest, is also, through the cross, He has made it possible that every single Christian, every single person who believes in Him, is able to also enjoy the immediate, real presence of God. Let's look at Mark. The Gospel according to Mark, chapter 15, from verses 33-39. You don't have to turn there. You can if you would like, but for the sake of time, I'll start reading.

And it reads this way, and when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama shabachtani? Which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, wait, Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down."

And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Beloved, that curtain, that barrier that stopped every single human being from entering into the immediate manifest presence of God was torn from top to bottom, it's been opened. And what does that mean? It means the earthly dwelling place of God in a tabernacle or a temple is over. Physical temple, it's over.

For Jesus Christ, the greater tabernacle, the true tabernacle, is the immediate, is the true presence of God. And that tabernacle was only foreshadowing. It was only pointing to Jesus Christ. The immediate presence of God now is found in the body of Jesus Christ. You remember in John when he says that you can tear this temple down, but in three days I will build it up.

Speaking of his body. Eden, beloved, has been reopened. And God's people, those who trust in him, are able to go back in and enjoy the presence of God. Listen to how the author of Hebrews says it. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19 he says therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh speaking about the flesh of Christ And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a heart, with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Beloved, this is wonderful, wonderful news. And you ask yourself the question, okay, so now the Lord, now Yahweh, allows people, sinful people, to enjoy His presence The curtain has been torn. It's no longer forbidden. Those in Christ are able to enjoy His presence. Has Yahweh lowered His standards?

How is it that a sinful people who before would be destroyed upon coming into the presence of Yahweh, upon coming to His presence, how is it that now they're able to enjoy His presence without being completely destroyed? Hebrews tells us, the book of Hebrews tells us, it said, because of the blood of Jesus Christ. When we enter it's because of His perfect righteous blood that covers us. In other words, God's holy righteous standards have not changed. Brothers and sisters, you need to hear this.

The change has occurred to us. He's just as holy, but we are now identified in union with His Son, the perfect Jesus Christ, the High Priest who has given His life once and for all for the sake of many. Beloved, we are one with Christ. His perfection has covered us, and God looks upon His people in light of the perfect righteous Son. His Spirit now dwells within us and we enjoy the real, immediate, real presence of God and we can enter into His throne room boldly because of the life and the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is glorious news. This is wonderful news. But it is only for those who have truly trusted in Christ. And the work He has accomplished covers us. We will one day be like Him.

But until then, beloved, we know we are sinners. We know that we still sin. But when God looks upon us, we are justified, not because of who we are, but because of who our Saviour is and His righteousness that covers us, so that when the Lord God looks upon us, He sees His Son, and that is glorious. Let's pray.