THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 3..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Exodus chapter 35. We're reaching into the end of the book of Exodus, the last section of this book, and we're going to be reading the whole chapter together, and then we're going to be given a brief explanation of it before our brother brings the sermon and the word to us.

So, brothers and sisters and friends, let's read carefully, paying much attention to the reverent, to the holy, perfect, all sufficient words of God. Let's read it together. This is Exodus chapter 35, paying much attention to each one of the words and reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible. This is the word of God. Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do.

Six days' work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.' Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. Take from among you a contribution to the Lord.

Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution, gold, silver, and bronze. blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twine linen, goat's hair, tanned ram skins and goat skin, acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and stones for the setting for the ephod and for the breast piece. Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded, the tabernacle, its tent, and its covering, its hooks, and its frames, its bar, its pillars, and its bases, the ark with its poles, the mercy seat, and the veil of the screen, the table with its poles, and all its utensils, and the bread of the presence, the lampstand also for delight with its utensils and its lamps, and the oil for the light, and the altar of incense with its poles, and the anointing oil, and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the door at the door of the tabernacle, the altar of the offering with its grating of bronze, its poles, and all its utensils, the basin and its stand, the hangings of the core, its pillars, and its bases, and the screen for the gate of the court, the pegs of the tabernacle, and the pegs of the court, and their courts, the finally worked garments for ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons for their service as priests. Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred Him, and everyone whose spirit moved Him, and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments.

So they came, both men and women, all who were of a willing heart, brought brooches of earrings and signet rings, and amulets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord. And everyone who possessed blue or purple or scarlet yarns or fine linen or goat's hair or tenran skin or goat skin brought them. Everyone who could make a contribution of silver or bronze brought it as the Lord's contribution. And everyone who possessed acacia wood of any use in the work brought it. And every skilled woman spun with her hands, and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.

All the women whose hearts stirred them to use their skill spanned the goats' hair, and the leaders brought onyx, stones, and stones to be set for the e-foot and for the breastpiece, and spices and oil for the light and for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense. All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. Then Moses said to the people of Israel, See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Har, of the tribe of Judah. And he has filled him with the spirit of God, with a skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach both him and Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan.

He has filled them with a skill to do every sort of work done by the engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen or by a weaver. by any sort of workman or a skilled designer. That is the Word of God. Amen. Now, brothers and sisters, beloved of Christ, we are reaching a very important section of the book of Exodus.

This is the last section of the book. And in here, in this point, now we're going to see the construction or the building up of the tabernacle. Remember that Moses had received the instructions from the mouth of the Lord of how the tabernacle was going to be put together. And from this point onwards, we'll see how the tabernacle is indeed going to be put together. And if we go until the end of the book to chapter number 40, we will see that in the end of the book, the tabernacle is completed.

And then we have Moses standing outside of the Tent of Meeting with the glory of the Lord dwelling in the Tent of Meeting and him, Moses, being unable to enter into the Tent of Meeting. If you think about the name of the book and how the book started with the Exodus of the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt from slavery, the construction of a tabernacle is not a... a common or unexpected end for the book. If we didn't have the whole Torah and the whole Old Testament, if we only had the book of Exodus, that will not be the expected ending for a book that is called Exodus and that started with people that were in slavery and they were liberated by the power of the Lord. So that should tell us something very important on this book.

And that is, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, that the promise that the Lord gave to His people was not only that they were going to be liberated from the bondage in Egypt. That was not the only promise. The only promise was not that they were going to be taken from under the bondage of the land of Egypt, but rather, The promise was that in liberating the people out of that bandage, He was going to take them to a promised land. And in doing so, the Lord was going to enter into a relationship with His people, namely a covenant. This is very important.

The Lord was not taking the people of Israel out of Egypt only just for the sake of taking them under that bondage, but He desired to enter into a covenantal relationship with them. And in order to do so, as we have explained now many times, God, the Lord God of Israel, the one who visited down and came down to visit them and to liberate them, He gave them the law, He gave them the Sabbath, And also He gave them a place where to meet, namely the tabernacle. Those three things portrayed to us the diamond of this covenant in which the Lord enters in this relationship with the people of Israel. And now what we have here, beloved of Christ and friends, what we have here is the construction of that tabernacle as that place in which the Lord is going to meet with the people of Israel. Moses had spent already a long time face to face with the Lord, receiving all of these instructions, and now work needs to be done.

The tabernacle is going to be assembled. The tabernacle is being put together. And that's what we're going to be seeing in chapter 35, 36, 37. We're going to see the putting together of that tabernacle in which God enters and meets with his people. So what expects to us in the book of Leviticus is glorious.

because there we are going to see not a boring book as people think that Leviticus is, but rather the glorious and divine means by which God has instituted that people can meet God and atone for their unintentional sins. Now, my beloved brothers and sisters, The chapter that we have here in front of us, it's basically about the building up of that tabernacle, the construction of that tabernacle. So that means work that needs to be done. The construction of the tabernacle is about work that needs to be done. But the Lord, in his providence and in his wisdom and by the power of his spirit, is going to give us this work that needs to be done for the construction of the tabernacle in two sections.

The first section is the things that should not be done. And then in the second section, the things that should be done. So if you see in chapter 35, he starts with a loss about the Sabbath, which he has already given to us. So here we're going to learn about the construction of the tabernacle and the Lord to start, first of all, with the things that should not be done. And then he starts and says the things that should be done.

First, as I said, the Sabbath. Remember that the Sabbath was one of those very important elements of this covenantal relationship that God had given to His people. Not only the 10 commandments and the law and not only the tabernacle, but also the Sabbath was holiness unto the people of Israel. This portion allocated of time represented the rest from the works of the covenant that they were performing for over six days. And we've said many times that The law, the rest of the Sabbath and the tabernacle are shadows of the glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is to come to fulfill them.

But here we have the instructions given to us in three verses. And Moses is careful in reminding the people of Israel that a violation to the Sabbath was worthy of death. They were going to build and put together the tabernacle, but on this Sabbath day, the people of Israel were supposed to rest from the works. This was allocated time that was separate and was holy unto them. But for my heart, my heart unto you, my beloved brothers and sisters, is for us to focus on the second portion of this chapter in which the Lord speaks of the things that were supposed to be done in order to build and to construct the tabernacle.

And in that section, my beloved of Christ, God is going through Moses to request from the people of Israel contributions. Contributions for the building up and the construction of the temple. We have all the details of all of those contributions and the purpose of those contributions from verse 4 until the end of the chapter. Here, Moses explained to us what the contributions were going to be used for in a very detailed way. And we have explained all of those details and all of those sections of the tabernacle already.

But I want you to pay attention to a couple of things. First, to the nature of the contributions. The people of Israel are requested basically two things. The first thing that they are requested, it is money, monetary offerings in the way of gold or silver or bronze and all of that, the representatives on financial, if you want value for the people of Israel. But in that, I want you to think about the glorious grace of God, because not long before this, the people of Israel had collected all their gold and they had given it to Aaron and Aaron had built a calf.

That was the reason why the judgment of God came upon Israel and 3,000 people died and place came upon the people of Israel. Now the remaining of the gold, the Lord is going to take that as a contribution to build His holy tabernacle. Not because it's gold, but it's because the God of Israel is going to dwell in that place at His will. Now He is going to make the people of Israel participant in that glorious activity of bringing their possessions and contribute with their possessions for the building and the construction of the tabernacle. That is everything that they had.

Brothers and sisters, not only the things that they had were supposed to be brought for the construction of the tabernacle. Also, it says in verse 10, it says, Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded. It was their skills and it was also their time that the Lord was asking as a contribution to put together the tabernacle of which the Lord God of Israel had given detailed instructions. Brothers and sisters, these sinful people that not long before this had worshipped a man-made God are now being partakers of the glorious and gracious activity of putting together a divine tabernacle commanded by the mouth of the Lord. The Lord had not punished them with death or His wrath.

He could have done so. Moses hold up his wrath, but he has now decided to make them participant of the construction and the building and the putting together of this tabernacle. Not only that, but also as we are told here, and we have said it before, the Lord is going to fill a couple of men with His Spirit so that the details of the tabernacle that were not given to Moses will be brought together by the power of the Spirit in these two men. Brothers and sisters, I want us just to conclude here. I want us just to pay attention to a very important lesson.

The first thing or the first point of that lesson, my beloved brothers and sisters, is that the things of God are done God's way. We cannot invent, we cannot contribute with our sinful hearts, with our intentions, with our emotions, with our own wisdom. The things of God, in this case, the tabernacle is done in God's way. And when it's done God's way, God is going to be in charge of putting all people, all his people in alignment so that things will come up as he planned them to be. Because there's a glorious truth also, not on the side of God, but on the side of the people that is given to us in this chapter.

If you go to verse 29 of this chapter, we are told of the heart and of the issue of what is taking place here in chapter 35. It says, verse 29, All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering. to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, the glorious thing about this chapter and about the end of the book of Exodus is not necessarily the construction of the tabernacle, which the Lord could have brought to happen, but different ways. The glorious thing about what we have in front of us is that the Lord is still in His grace and in His mercy on those people on whom He should have poured His wrath and judgment because of His grace and love towards those people and the protection that He was going to give them.

He worked in their heart in such a way that their heart and their will and their mind were connected powerfully by the Spirit so that from their heart they will bring free will offerings for the construction of the temple or the tabernacle in this case. God, through His Spirit, moved these people so that they will bring contributions out of their heart, from their will, so that He will accomplish the purpose that He had for the people of Israel, namely, giving them the tabernacle in which He was going to meet them face to face. Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important because, as I have said to you many times, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says that the things that Israel went through and the things that Israel lived were written and were given to us for our instruction, for our example. And Israel, in a sense, is a shadow not only of the Lord Jesus Christ, but Israel is also a shadow of the people of God, the church. And Peter says in chapter 2, you remember that we are living stones and as we come to the living stone, Jesus Christ, we're being built up as a spiritual house, offering spiritual sacrifices as a spiritual priesthood.

Beloved brothers and sisters, if a person, by grace, through faith, has been united, baptized into the Spirit of Jesus Christ, that person is not a member of a church like this, of a man-made building, of a man-made community or congregation. If a person, by the grace of the Spirit and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, has been truly saved, that person has been inserted into the people of God, and God has poured gifts onto his people so that their gifts and His people were edified one another by the things that God has put and give them, not for the glory of their name, but for the edification of the temple of God, the spiritual temple, the church of the Lord, the Savior, Jesus Christ, because we are the body and He is our head. And then everything that is done by the members of that body, It is not the result of our strength, but our will, our wisdom, but rather, my beloved brothers and sisters, are the inner workings, the mighty workings, the ones that cannot be explained with human words of the Spirit of God in a sinful heart, transforming that heart. filling that heart with love towards Christ and love towards the brothers and sisters, so that the temple might be built, not with deceitful hands, not with deceitful words, not with deceitful presence, but with the perfect, pure and holy hands of Christ, with the pure, holy, seamless words of Christ, and with a pure, holy and perfect body of the Savior, Jesus Christ. So then when the saints gather together, they can claim and give praises to Him and say that to Him is the glory.

Amen.