Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:05 I have not the opportunity to meet you. My name's Michael fueling the lead pastor here at the village church. And we are closing today, our series on Exodus and the tabernacle. I want to invite you back next week because we're beginning of five week series on spiritual war. We're going to pull back the curtain of what scripture talks about is really the flesh and the world. And we're going to take a glimpse into the spiritual realm. Some of those dynamics, we're going to be talking about what it looks like for nations and warfare and personally, and individually, and what are actually spiritual weapons. How does this look? And so we're going to be doing a whole bunch of teaching and training on that level. And the hope is that even as the world goes crazy around us, that your confidence in Jesus Christ and the king of Kings and Lord of Lords would be greater than ever before.
Speaker 0 00:00:57 And that with confidence, you would be able to say greater is he who is in you than he was in the world. So really excited, five weeks starting next week, we'll invite you back to that today. Let's close up the book of Exodus. I want to talk about it. Literary technique that we are all familiar with. It is called foreshadowing and foreshadowing. Very simply. It means this it's something typically almost always hidden from the characters in the story, but it points the reader to a future experience. So when you're reading literature, the characters are often unaware of what's happening around them. But you, you start to get these hunches that the author is kind of up to something that there's a plan here, and you don't totally know how it's going to work out, but you know, it's going to, and so foreshadowing, it does a couple of things.
Speaker 0 00:01:43 Number one, is that it builds suspense and interest. It keeps you involved. You're wondering like, how is this author going to take these events, these scenarios, these circumstances, bring it full circle in a way that is logical, coherent and interesting. What foreshadowing also does is that it tells you the reader, that there is an author who has planned the beginning from the end. In fact, what you know about foreshadowing is that the author has to know how it's going to end before they write the beginning of the story. And so some of us think that when an author sits down and writes, they just don't know quite where they're going, which is how most people write, but that's not how really, really good authors write. But they do is actually start with the end of the book and they create a dramatic, interesting, awesome scenario that really captures it in raptures, the readers.
Speaker 0 00:02:35 And then what they do is they plot out an entire story from the end backwards and what they do in there as they start to implant different pieces that really draw you in. And then here's what happens when you get to the end of the book. You say it all makes sense. How did I not see it from the beginning? Have any of your lives ever worked like this? You're like, oh, I didn't know. I wish I wish I would have trusted you. And in scripture, God uses foreshadowing all over the place. And here's the reality of foreshadowing when you're in the middle of it. If you're the character in the story, you don't know that it's foreshadowing. Usually you don't know that this thing, this experience was actually designed by the author of your life for something actually much more intentional, much bigger than this.
Speaker 0 00:03:31 And it might be pain. It might be heartache. It might be a gift. It might be a celebration. We tend to think that this is about this, but in God's story, this is rarely ever about this. This is always about that. And when you get to that, unless it's heaven, that is typically about something else and the story unfolds. And what we find is that we have a sovereign God over history, and he knows exactly how this thing is going to end. There is a plan from the sovereign mind of God. And he goes back to the beginning and you see all throughout scripture, these shadows are these foreshadows. A simple illustration is the life of Abraham. And you remember Abraham and Isaac and God says, I want you to take your son, take him to this place. Now we get to kill him. And Abraham has this excruciating experience where he ultimately picks up this knife and he's about to kill his son and obedience to Yahweh.
Speaker 0 00:04:23 And then right as he does, y'all way stops him. And what's interesting for those of you who don't really know the behind the scenes part of the story, it's not that Yahweh is a terrible God like the Canaanite gods. In fact, what Yahweh was trying to instill in Abraham's heart is I am nothing like these gods. I am nothing like these terrible gods that make you sacrifice your firstborn child. In fact, so what Abraham does is he sees in the thicket, a substitute sacrifice. Now the entire time Abraham had zero idea what was going on. He is wrestling with these realities. And even, even when, by the way, he looks over and he has this incredible experience of relief. He has zero idea that a couple of thousand years later God is going to send his son Jesus. And he will be our substitute sacrifice.
Speaker 0 00:05:13 He has no idea that this story is going to be written in a book we're billions and billions of people throughout history are going to read and retell this story. And they are going to declare the Providence and the sovereign mind of God, putting these shadows and foreshadows in from the very beginning to give you and me the confidence that there is no wasted moment or story. Abraham has no idea. Every him dies. He goes to heaven and he's probably watching to a degree history unfold with the rest of humanity. And Jesus dies on the cross raises from the dead. And I could, I cannot wait. I hope God shows us a replay of the angels and the saints in heaven at that moment, when they realize what God was up to through all of these four shadows in the old Testament. And that's just one example, and you get to the end of this and inevitably the readers and even the characters end up saying it all makes sense. You ever have you ever wondered why people obsess over Harry Potter? If you have you noticed it's like a phenomenon phenomenon globally. I don't know if you've paid attention. So here's what happens when you start reading it. If you don't know anything about the books, you pick a book one and you start reading it and there is just tons and tons of setup. And at some point you you're, you're reading and, and each of the stories are interesting. Sure.
Speaker 1 00:06:40 But you're reading and you're reading. Here's
Speaker 0 00:06:43 My question for the first three quarters or more of the first Harry Potter book. What is J K Rowling talking about?
Speaker 1 00:06:51 Where is this going? How so is this all going to fit together? So I'm reading
Speaker 0 00:06:57 Correction, I'm listening because I have an audio book and I'm listening and I'm trying to figure it out. And there are all
Speaker 1 00:07:03 Of these weird seemingly
Speaker 0 00:07:06 Inconsequential, disconnected, little sub narratives. And these chapters, if you're listening to them, they're 30 to 45 minutes long. That's a long time to get through a chapter. One chapter can go from here to there and there. And I'm like, J K, if we could talk, what, what
Speaker 1 00:07:23 Are you, what are you up to? And here's the
Speaker 0 00:07:26 Deal. Once, once you read one book, you know, the whole little thing every single time, guess who wins Harry Potter, there's always a culminating battle between Harry and he who shall not be named. And you know that he's not going to die, right. You're reading and you're like, he's gonna make it. Now. I haven't read the last book. So don't tell me what happens there. So if he does die, I've watched the movies. So I'm not, not, I don't know, but here's what we do now. Every single book ends with the same culminating battle. And what's interesting is that you get to the end of the book and you say, oh,
Speaker 1 00:08:00 It all makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:08:02 Every single little caveat, every nuance, every side turn your, like everything was on purpose. And so what happened with Harry Potter is the first book did find the second book did better. And then all of a sudden she tapped into a literary framework. Apparently that humanity is desperate for really great foreshadowing that tells us that all of the seemingly pointless moments of our life are not accidental, but all weave together for a greater good we're good wins over evil. Apparently she's a smart woman that did a pretty successful job at tapping into, I don't know, a human inclination, a desire to read a story like that. I would say if she was successful, she got her cues from God who really designed all of life and all of scripture as one foreshadowing after another, the greatest author, the father, son, and spirit who has ever lived.
Speaker 0 00:08:59 Now, here's just a simple story. He has no idea. I'm gonna say this. Although we do our preaching prep together and pastor Mike Boyle, who preaches with me and pastor Craig who preaches a village church, east Eastern Carol stream. We were talking about this sermon. Mike, was it Monday? Is that when we did it Tuesday, if it all blurs together this week. So Mike is in his late sixties. I'm 41. Craig is I think 51. And so we're kind of in different life stages, if you will. And so I asked Mike a question. I said, as you, as you look back and you see how God has orchestrated events, are you able to kind of draw a line from your say early life to your twenties and thirties, to kind of like, like what God is doing and now, and it was interesting because his response was definitely, oh my gosh, like you could see how God had used different events earlier in his life and, and brought him to this place now.
Speaker 0 00:09:52 And God right now is probably preparing him for something else. And then I look at my life and I'm like, I'm only 41. I've got hopefully a long ways to go. And so I look at my life, but I look at my twenties and my thirties and I see, wow, it's like, you were up to something. And I look at each person I sit down with and I'm like, wow, the Lord is up to something in your life. Your life is not an accident. It's not some random thing that the Lord is just like, oh, I'm going to breathe life into you and your mother's womb. And then hope it all works out that every life has some sort of intention and purpose and plan and what you start to realize as you get older, I'm starting to just sort of put some pieces together.
Speaker 0 00:10:28 Oh, that's why that happened. But I've got a whole bunch of things in my life right now that I have zero clue how the Lord is going to redeem them or bring purpose out of them. I don't even see line of sight to it. But if I'm being honest, I'm going to say so far, he's been pretty faithful. And as I talked to brothers and sisters who are older than me, who have gone before me, as they walk with Jesus longer, the past makes so much more sense. The further away you get from it, that you're able to see the shadowing, the foreshadowing of God, even in your personal life. Now, I want to show you this Texas scripture on the screen. And I want to show you a little bit about we're going to dabble in with this morning, caution chapter two, verse 16 and 17.
Speaker 0 00:11:10 The apostle Paul is talking about a Jewish life. And here's what he says to the Christians. Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink things that you were allowed to eat or not eat under old Testament law. So you have these Gentiles they've come to Christ. And then the Jewish Christians were like, you've got to follow all of our laws. And Paul's like, no, they don't. Those laws are done. There's a new law. And so these Jewish Christians are like, you got to eat and drink. Like we do Gentile. And Paul's like, that's actually not how this whole thing works. And so he says, let nobody passed judgment, but he does tell you what you get to eat and drink. You're not under law anymore. Or with regard to a festival, right? These annual festivals that the Jews would celebrate, they would say, well, got to celebrate our festivals.
Speaker 0 00:11:54 And Paul would say, you don't need to celebrate their festivals. They're good, but you don't need to celebrate them or a new moon. And this was actually when the sacrifice of a certain sacrifice would happen at the monthly sacrifice or a Sabbath, right. Which is the sacred day in Jewish teaching culture. Here's what he says. Verse 17. These are a, what's the word shadow of the thing, things to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. What you find is that all of these things in the old Testament, sacrifices, holidays laws, how you can eat and drink
Speaker 1 00:12:41 Sabbath. All
Speaker 0 00:12:43 Of them, them were plants by God to do a whole bunch of things, teach, train, et cetera. But ultimately every single one was a shadow. And the substance that cast the shadow was only and ever Jesus Christ. So that by the time we get to the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews is trying to show the Jewish people at every single corner of the law. It was only ever in always about Jesus, that every single thing that existed was to point you as a big fat arrow to Jesus. And so you're obsessed with the day. You're obsessed with the sacrifice. When Jesus came, the whole reason, these things were even created, came to its conclusion of fulfillment. You're still stuck on the shadow. When the substance that cast the shadow is actually here in his name is Jesus. You're obsessed with laws, be obsessed with Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:13:39 And this is the author of Hebrews trying to teach and train these Jews who love the religion and their laws to say your love is in the wrong place. They only ever existed to point you prepare you for Jesus so that when you saw him the fulfillment of the foreshadowing, you would say it all makes sense. It would all make sense. Now in the book of Hebrews with me, open up to chapter eight, verse five, and we're going to watch as the author of Hebrews begins to make sense of the tabernacle and show us ultimately what this points to. And then we'll, we're going to actually do, is we're going to look through each of the furnishings of the tabernacle, and we're going to show you how each and every one of them point to and culminate in Jesus. And here's the hope that you're going to get to the end of this and say, it all makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:14:33 Now, Hebrews is walking through all aspects of Jewish law here in chapter eight. He's talking about the furnishings of the temple and the way the temple is laid out. And here's what he says. They, the layout and furnishings of the us are the tabernacle. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Wait a minute, but they're real things, right? But they're a copy. They're a shadow of something bigger in heaven. Is this weird to you? So you wonder why was God so meticulous about the measurements? Everything, because it was a copy. It was a shadow.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 Yes, it was real, but it existed to point to something bigger.
Speaker 0 00:15:26 Verse five goes on and says for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying, here's a reminder to him. See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain, this thing needs to be perfect. And there is a pattern that I laid out for you. And this pattern is somehow a copy of something in heaven. So that here's my imagination. I imagine when Moses died and he saw the throne room of God, whatever, that means, whatever it is, he went, something like this.
Speaker 1 00:16:05 Oh, it all makes sense now. Wow. That's,
Speaker 0 00:16:11 That's why you, you didn't want me to use that material. That's why the outer ones were bronze, but the inner ones are made of gold. That's why you wanted Acacia. Well, that's why you wanted these dimensions. That there's something about what we're doing here. That is actually a copy. Now we go forward one chapter into the book of Hebrews chapter nine and verse 23. And here's what we have thus. It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rights, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these, isn't this interesting that somehow, even though Moses, at the time, when he was getting some of the stuff didn't understand it. And inevitably God would say, there is a pattern and this is a copy of something. And when you see the substance, that's casting the shadow, this is all going to make a lot more sense than, than verse 24 goes on and says, for Christ has entered not into the holy places, made with hands, not a tabernacle, not a 10th, not this fleshly stuff, but crisis entered not into holy places, which are copies of the true things.
Speaker 0 00:17:21 Isn't it interesting that if you were a Jew and you're sacrificing bowls and goats and these rights and these rituals, would you not be tempted to think these are the ultimate things? All they ever were was a shadow. They had no power, they were purely shadows, but he says Christ is entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. So I debated a little bit, should we actually show you what the temple looked like at the beginning of the series or at the end we opted for end. I think if I could go back, I would do it at the beginning, but here we go. I want to show you just kind of a general picture of what the tabernacle might've looked like. And as we walked through this, I want to show you each of the major pieces of furnishings.
Speaker 0 00:18:08 And then at the end, I would just want to show you Jesus in every single bit of it. And so here is a CGI remake of this, but then there's some people who put this together. This is actually a pretty literal look at what the tabernacle might have looked like pretty close. It's perfect in specs. And so whether or not everything is as perfect, like I'd say, this is going to be about like 97% close, maybe to what you would've seen with some different materials, but here's the basic vibe of what they put together. And so this is giving you a kind of a general overview. And so we have about 150 feet by 30 feet. If you, I think in football terms, if you think of a 50 yards, a half of a football field, that's how long it was. And 10 yards wide.
Speaker 0 00:18:50 That's about 10 yards from the zero to the 10 yard line. That's about how wide it is. So we're not talking about a monstrosity, but everything in this is very intentional. Now, everything in here had a purpose. So let's walk through these. And then the first thing here is what's called the bronze altar. And this was a part of the outer court. And the bronze altar is the place very simply where the sacrifices were given. Now, what would typically happen is that before you walked into the outer court, meaning instead of the outer court is inside the actual walls of the tabernacle. And when you walk into this outer court, this outside area, typically the sacrifices would be made at the entrance of the gate. Then you would bring the sacrificed animal through the doors of the gate and you would put the sacrifice typically on the bronze altar.
Speaker 0 00:19:48 Now what we have next, it's called the bronze Laver. I guess this is where we get the word laboratory from the bronze Laver is very simply a basin it's filled with water and the priest would use this to wash their hands and to wash their feet. This was part of a ritual purification. And so you can imagine with me for a moment that if you are a priest and you are sacrificing animals, would you not greatly appreciate the bronze Laver? Right? And so for them, this was very important to cleanse them, et cetera. If you were on like the David Toma and you were the high priest and you would go make a sacrifice for the people, you would gather the blood. And before you could even walk in, you would stop at the bronze Laver and you would make sure that you washed yourself thoroughly.
Speaker 0 00:20:33 And they knew that this was so that when they began to get closer and closer to the presence of God, that they would be pure and that they would be clean. And these were metaphors for the spiritual realities that existed behind them. What happens is you get closer, you get to what's called next is the holy place. And this is what an entrance of the holy place might look like. You couldn't see in, but this was a place where only priests could go inside. And so you couldn't just be a Levi. You actually had to be a priest. It was very sacred. And again, the closer you're getting to the ultimate presence of God, the more purification cleansings and rights you would have to go through when you would walk in, you would look and you would see first what's called the table of showbread.
Speaker 0 00:21:24 And this was a table where the priest plays 12 special loaves of bread to represent each of the 12 tribes of Israel. And every single Sabbath, the priest would enter the holy place and they would eat and replace the show bread also called the bread of the presence, or literally the bread of the face of God, because you were just feet away from the presence of God, even then look in the only way that this place would be lit up would be through a lampstand or a menorah. And this lampstand provided light. And it was one solid piece of hammered gold that burned continually the branches. There were seven of them. They were decorative branches with almond blossoms on them, and it looked like a tree and it was reminiscent of the tree of life. And so when you walked in, you would see this and this would light up the entire room.
Speaker 0 00:22:18 In fact, it would be the only light in the place. Then you would look it, you would see what's called the altar of incense. It was made of Acacia wood. It was covered in pure gold. What you'll find is all of the elements in the holy place are made of Acacia wood in covered in gold, everything outside and the outer gate was made in bronze. So as you got closer, even the construction materials of the elements would, would change and they would get more valuable. So you have the most holy place. And then what you have is the veil. And this is really this, like in the temple you hear about when Jesus died, that the veil was torn from top to bottom, the, the temple veil was very different than this veil. That was much, much bigger, but this veil had cherubim on it to remind you of the garden of Eden, that when Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden, the chairman replaced to protect people from entering back in, into the presence of God.
Speaker 0 00:23:12 Because if you walk back into the presence of God, unpurified without a sacrifice for sin on your behalf, what would ultimately happen to you? You'd fall dead. And so, as an act of grace and mercy, God kicked Adam and Eve and their descendants out of the garden and guarded it with cherubim. And so God had embroidered on the veil that would enter into the holy of Holies, these cherubim. Well, once you get out of the simple furnishings of the holy place, you would go through this they'll and you would walk into the holy of Holies. And there would be one piece of furniture here. And it is the Ark of the covenant. Now, many people get confused because Noah had an arc, but was Noah's arc a box? No, his was a boat. This is a box. Israel had an arc, it was a box.
Speaker 0 00:24:01 Noah had an arc. It was about very different confusing. I think it was like 12 years old when it like clicked in my head. I'm like, whoa, there's two arcs. Okay. This is the Ark of the covenant. And it's a box that contained all the symbols of God's covenant with Israel on the top, the lid, it would typically be called the mercy seat. And there'd be two cherubim. Again, signifying that in the presence of God are cherubim and angels that guard and protect anyone from getting in. And what you find here is that this is again called the mercy seat in different sacrifices would happen. Blood would be put onto this. And in our brains, we have this notion that it's all neat, nice, tidy, and clean. And it actually doesn't seem to be that as we read scripture, as you opened up the lid of the mercy seat, there'd be three items in side.
Speaker 0 00:24:53 Number one would be the two tablets of stone for the 10 commandments. Number two would be manna, which God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. And the third would be Aaron, the priest, his rod, his staff, which blossomed. And so that was put in there as a perpetual reminder for the people of Israel. I want to read you a couple of paragraphs that one author wrote in this. I found it personally to be very helpful. The art contained the stone tablets as a witness against the people, a bowl of manna to remind the Israelites, how God provided and the staff of Aaron to remind them not to rebel against God. These items testified against the people like a witness in a courtroom. The people were sinful, they were guilty and they needed atonement. The mercy seat protected them against the condemnation of the witness.
Speaker 0 00:25:48 They were exposed to God's law with no atonement and no blood. They face condemnation and judgment. Once a year, the high priest entered the inner room called the holy of Holies for the day of atonement. Even the high priest, however, was sinful and needed to tone mint before he could approach God only after offering an animal sacrifice for himself. Could he offer a tone meant for the sins of the people dressed only in white, the high priest entered the holy of Holies with incense who smoke would fill the room, obstructing his view from the glory and presence of God. The Bible warns that the high priest would die. If he didn't like the incense first while the high priest was in the holy of Holies, he sprinkled blood on the mercy seat. This act brought temporary forgiveness of the people's sins until the next year when it would all happen again.
Speaker 0 00:26:44 And I think I actually forgot to show you the altar of incense and what would happen as the priest would go in every day. And they would light incense so that when you walked into the holy place, not the most holy place, but the holy place, it would always smell like incense. In fact, as you looked at the light in the room, it would typically be foggy and hazy, almost reminiscent of what the glory of God would look like. All right. That's a simple overview of the tabernacle. I want to pull back and give you one only one. So what this morning, you ready? Trust God, God, God has a history of not telling you the details. And these priests would get up every day and offer sacrifices. And they would offer these rights and these rituals, they would light the candle. They would make the bread.
Speaker 0 00:27:41 And they had zero idea, big picture as to the substance that cast the shadow. We don't even know if they understood that all of these things were actually just shadows. They weren't actually the point. Hmm. We don't know if they knew that even until they died or until Jesus came. We don't know when they actually understood the point. Big picture of all the things that were happening. We do. We didn't know this, that when each and every single one of those Levi's priests and high breeze get to heaven and they began to get answers. All of them would say, oh, it all makes sense now. So why on earth would God do it this way? Why would he hide so much of his plan? I'm going to be honest. It drives me nuts. I don't like it. I like to control things with information. I like to know what's going to happen so I can prepare anyone else feel that way.
Speaker 0 00:28:42 I want to know the outcomes. I want to know all the steps. I want a meticulous plan from point a to point B. And I want it to work out according to plan. Anyone else got a budget, head and logic. Yes. Praise you. I like your guys. Like this is fun. And yet God's like hilarious. That's so adorable. Cause I'm not going to do it that way. Every plan I make gets blown up always and it never ever goes the way I think it's going to go. And so like, I'll say, ah, how about we go this way? And then it's like, no, we're going that way. It's like, I mean, just constantly. And I think the Lord loves it. I think he loves it because here's what happens every time I get to this point where I can look back a little bit, I end up saying it all makes sense now.
Speaker 0 00:29:35 And then what happens? My confidence and trust in God grows a little stronger with a little bit deeper roots so that when the next mystery comes, the next frustration, that ex confusion, my roots go a little bit deeper and I can begin. As I grow in the Lord to look back and say, you have never failed me yet. I still don't have answers for how all of these things are going to come full circle, but doggone it, you've brought so many things full circle that it would be honestly embarrassing at this point. If I didn't trust you a little bit. And so God, I don't know how all of this, but I can look at a whole bunch of other things and say in scripture, you've been faithful in other believers lives. You've been faithful in my own life. You've been faithful. I don't know how it's all going to work out, but I know one day when I can see things through your lens, when you give me enough information, all of this is going to make sense.
Speaker 0 00:30:34 There is a concept in theology called progressive revelation and progressive revelation is not complicated. It's very simple, basically means this is the reality that over millennia, God has progressively revealed more and more about himself and his plan. If you were going to, if you were to go back to Moses day and ask Moses the following question, Moses, what happens when you die? Moses would not have a developed answer. Do you know why God doesn't reveal that for, for like, I'm just doing math a thousand years. And even then with haziness, you start to get to like the book of Isaiah and you start to get more clear glimpses of what happens when you die. But it's really with Jesus and the writers of the new Testament that we started to get the clarity that you and I have today. And we're like, how did he live without that kind of clarity that we have?
Speaker 0 00:31:33 And so this is the idea that all throughout history, God, didn't just dump all revelation of himself all at once, but he slowly, progressively revealed his character to his people. One generation at a time. And over time, his plan gets clearer and clear and clear. Now, if I were God, which no good sentence starts that way, I would have laid it all out at the beginning, right? Because I liked answers and I feel like everyone else does. So that's what I think God should do. But what is God doing? He was teaching every generation to trust him. He was teaching them his character, his trustworthiness. He was dismantling false notions. And this is really what he does with all of us. Our lives are living illustrations of progressive revelation. When you got saved, the God revealed everything you know about him now, all in that moment.
Speaker 0 00:32:28 No. And if he did, it would overwhelm you because each of these pieces needs to be kind of processed and took into yourself. And then you need to realize, oh, well, that's what that means. We don't have the ability to process the full nature and the character of God. In fact, whatever you think you know about God, he is not done revealing the depths of his nature. Character, beauty, love, magnificence, or plan to you yet. If you have a masters of theology, a doctorate of theology don't care, the Lord has not done revealing his heart goodness plan in scripture to you yet. In fact, we could spend the rest of our lives just studying scripture. And we would yet to really satisfy the full extent of what God could show us about himself through scripture. And so here's what we, here's what we know. We, we have a God who historically and personally progressively reveals himself. And then ultimately Jesus comes, and this is the fullness of the revelation of God. This is God in the flesh. This is the greatest revelation of the nature and character and heart of God in all of human history. And when people met Jesus and they saw his life, death, resurrection and Ascension, here's what sort of the happen? It all makes sense now.
Speaker 1 00:33:43 Okay. And the author of Hebrews writes
Speaker 0 00:33:45 This really complicated book. Why? Because they're just trying to put all the pieces together. And there's a lot of them, there are so many shadows and foreshadows and Jesus ends up fulfilling all of them. And here's this, I think this sentence that I love, some things just don't make any logical sense, but one day, all things will make perfect sense. There are so many things I'm like logically, there's no way God, you're going to make this thing, right. There's no way you're going to redeem this. There's no way you're going to turn it around. And yet here's what happens. I have said that about a handful of things. I don't know how you're going to make this thing. Right? And then I look back lo and behold, he's a genius. He did it again. It's like, he's in control and he's smarter than we are.
Speaker 0 00:34:27 And we forget. And then my confidence goes deeper. And the next time it comes, I find myself actually saying to people, I'm pretty confident. This is going to be okay eventually, but let's figure out how to deal with the thing now. But I'm fairly confident that God didn't lose control in this moment. I'm fairly confident even if it was at the hands of other people, that the Lord is going to bring unbelievable redemption. And you're going to see one day that he is up to something that doesn't negate sadness. It doesn't negate grief. It doesn't negate morning. Does it negate any of that? But we don't grieve like the rest of the world does. We don't grieve with hopelessness. We grieve with this confidence that this sadness and heartbreak and sin that one day, the Lord is going to bring this together. And it is going to make sense. So let's talk about Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:35:24 Every piece of this tabernacle would find its fulfillment in the atoning death of Jesus. When you imagine Jesus takes you by the hand and he walks you up to the gate of the temple and he to show you personally, how all of this, all of this design, all of this furniture, all of these practices, policies and procedures ultimately pointed to him. He would tell you, first of all, that he was the perfect lamb sacrificed outside the gate, outside the city for the blood, for the sins of his people, he would then walk you through the gate and he would take you into the outer court and he would take his own blood. And he would throw it against the alter because he is our atonement, not the blood of bulls and goats at the blood of a cute little lamb. The blood of Jesus is our atonement and he is our peace.
Speaker 0 00:36:21 And then he would walk us over to the bronze Laver and he would wash you. And he would tell you that I have washed you in my blood. And I have purified you from all of your sins. You are clean. And I want to invite you in with me now into the holy place. You are welcomed because I, by my blood, my life and death have cleansed you. So since he's not just a Levi, but a priest, he walks into the holy place. And the first thing he does is he walks over to the bread and he tells you, I am the bread of life. I am your sustenance. I am your provision. He walks you over to the candle, the menorah. And he says, I'm the light of the world. I am the truth. I am the vine. I am the branches in me, his life.
Speaker 0 00:37:14 He walks you over to the table of incense and he says, I have prayed for you. Cause we know that the incense represents historically the prayers of the people he says, I have prayed for you. I've interceded for you. I have gone before you and represented you to my father. He didn't go to the veil and you would see this veil and they were cherubim. And he would say, you don't need to be afraid of the chair of him. You're with me. You're a cleansed. You're purified. You're forgiven you because of me. You can go through this veil and you can do this with confidence. Then he would take you to the arc. And here you're getting now to the very presence of God. And he would look at you and say, my blood has given you full access to the very presence of God. He would then with an unusual confidence, remove the lid and he would show you what's inside. He would tell you that as he picks up the manna, that he is our provision, it was always him. It was always ever him. He would pick up the 10 commandments and say the, you broke them. I fulfilled them for you in your place. He pick up Aaron's rod and say, for all of your rebellion, I have paid the price for your sins.
Speaker 1 00:38:30 And he would tell you that you have
Speaker 0 00:38:33 Full access into the holy of Holies, as long as you're with him. And that is for anyone who has personally trusted in Jesus in all of this designed by God to show you when you meet Jesus, all of the things that he did for you and for your sin and your place. And Jesus blazes a trail right through the tabernacle, the outer gates, the holy place and the most holy place. And we get to follow him in his path because we were with him and we are covered and purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. And when you listen to Hebrews chapter 10, as the author of Hebrews makes sense of Jesus and his fulfillment of all of these things. He says this in 10, 19, therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, any Jewish priests rating this before Jesus would say, what does this mean?
Speaker 0 00:39:32 What does this mean? People everyday people are walking into the holy places. They would be shocked. It says, but somehow by the blood of Jesus, they able to do this by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, the veil that is through his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, here's what he says. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. With our hearts, sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Do you see how the author of Hebrews takes you through all of these aspects of the tabernacle right into the most holy place? And he says, let us hold fast. The confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.
Speaker 0 00:40:24 Here's my, my desire for you is we appreciate the book of Exodus. As we come to this conclusion, may you always remember? It was always, always about Jesus, that the story of the Hebrews and the 10 plagues and the 10 commandments and the wilderness and the tabernacle at the end of the day was written. These stories were all shadows and foreshadows. The substance of which is Christ. And they were written for us to show you that our God is the genius planner of history from beginning to end. And the, so what is, you can trust him because the end, as we see with anybody who writes a good book, the end is already planned and we already know how it's going to go. And you can trust him, even though you do not understand what this means right here. And right now, I want to, I want to close it.
Speaker 0 00:41:15 I want to read to you actually from the closing of the book of Exodus, and here's how it all culminated in the tabernacle, Exodus chapter 40 verse 34. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle throughout all their journeys. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out, but if the cloud was not taken up, they did not set out to the day that it was taken up for the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day. And fire was in it by night and the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all of their journeys. And now we have something even better.
Speaker 0 00:42:06 We have the fulfillment, we have the substance who is Jesus Christ, and now no longer do we need to be afraid to run into the presence of God. But the author of Hebrew says, we run into his presence to the throne of grace, with confidence because of Jesus. So now we celebrate communion here, and I think this is a fitting time to celebrate together. Because if you're a believer, may you be reminded today that it is through the blood of Christ that you get to worship here today. And the Lord hears your worship. They, you get to lift up in your mind or out loud, any prayer you want to God. And it goes directly to the father because of the blood of Christ that you have the ability to open up the word of God. And it's not just words on a page, but it has the ability to transform you because you were given a spirit of Christ.
Speaker 0 00:42:58 When you place your faith in the blood of Christ. May you remember that the sin inside of you or the heart struggles that you have fought so hard to overcome that God is helping you overcome them because of the spirit of Christ who has given to you when you placed your faith in the blood of Christ, that everything you have spiritually, all of the things that we take for granted this complete access into the holy of Holies, this freedom to open up the Ark of the covenant, to look inside full access to the throne room of God is only given to you through Jesus Christ. And if you're here and you're from a different church, if you have trusted in Christ, we want to welcome you and ask, would you celebrate communion with us? Because we are one in Christ through faith in his blood, maybe you're here.
Speaker 0 00:43:41 You've never trusted in Jesus and you don't know what to do, and you're not ready to trust in him. We want to ask that you not partake when we partake of communion, because the partaking is a proclamation that you believe in the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. But maybe today you're ready to trust in Christ. You're able to hear through through even somehow the tabernacle God's intentionality and love for you to provide a sacrifice for your sins. And if you are ready to trust in Jesus, if you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and your place and was raised from the dead, I want to invite you. When we partake of communion, would you partake with us and let this be your first declaration. And if that is a decision you want to make, would you talk to myself or anyone upfront or any of our greeters, we would just love to help you take a next step as you follow Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:44:30 And so to my left at the beam, there are communion elements also to my right at the beam. And then also in the back between the double doors, we're gonna have a time of silence and then we're going to sing together. And during the song, if you didn't grab elements on the way in, I want to invite you. You can stand up during the song, go grab elements, bring them back to your seat. And when the song is over, I'll read some scripture and then we'll partake together as a symbol of our unity in Jesus and through his blood must have a ton of silence together.
