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Good morning friends, today is Thursday July 25 and we’re in Exodus 26 together.
Moses is up Mount Sinai with God in the cloud. He’s receiving very detailed instructions, about the fabrication of something God has called a “Tabernacle”… a place of meeting with God.
My father was an architect, a builder, both here in America and on the mission field. He specialized, while a missionary, on building churches in Haiti, with cement block and tin roofs, that could accommodate hundreds of people and the strong winds that often came during hurricane season. I’ve been in many of those churches… but they were nothing like what we find in Exodus 26.
While you may find yourself glazing over a bit at the details of poles, curtains, skins, hooks and loops and other things, may I urge you to not overlook the detail, the precision, with which God explained this structure and its purpose. I don’t know what writing utensil Moses used to take notes, but we know that he had enough detail, that when the Tabernacle was finally assembled in chapter 40, it all fit together perfectly!
Buildings are designed and built with purpose, taking into account the environment in which they will stand, right? This remarkable ‘Tent’ was designed for desert heat, sand storms, blazing sunshine, and most important of all, dismantling, carrying to a new place, and re-assembled, over and over and over again. As we look ahead, this Tabernacle was assembled for the first time in Exodus 40. Then for 40 years it was dismantled, carried, and re-assembled all over the desert as this great throng of people wandered.
When it was brought into the new land, it was finally set up at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1), where it remained for about 300 years, until the days of Eli the high priest, and the disaster of the Ark being captured in battle by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4). It is not mentioned much again until the construction of the great Temple by King Solomon, and 1 Kings 8:4 says: “…and they brought up the Ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting, and all the sacred furnishings in it…” That would have been almost 400 years after Exodus 26! So this Tabernacle of curtains & skins, lasted almost 4 centuries in rugged use, before being retired into the Temple!!! Think about that friends! What building do you see in your town that could survive such use?
You understand that a ‘cubit’ is about 18 inches. Basically from your elbow to end of your fingers. Please note Ex. 26:1 “Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with a cherubim worked into them by a skill craftsman.”Where would the find such supplies? Who among these slaves could be considered a ‘skilled craftsman’? Have you seen pictures of what was discovered in King Tut’s tomb and other Egyptian burial chambers? Who do you suppose did that remarkably delicate and very sophisticated work? “skilled craftsman”… and it seems some of them were Hebrew slaves who had run out of Egypt, and now were given a chance to use those remarkable God given skills…for God Himself!
And the supplies? Well, we’ve already discovered where that all came from as “the Hebrews plundered the Egyptians” (Ex. 12:36) on their flight out of Egypt! God, in His foreknowledge and foresight, had gone before them and provided all they needed, to fabricate all that would be needed, for this unique, never before seen, Tabernacle of God! The only question now was, who had the heart to give what was needed, and do the work required, to fabricate this remarkable ‘tent’.
Exodus 40 is the chapter of construction, when this “Tabernacle” is assembled by Moses and consecrated by God Himself. Listen: “Then the LORD said to Moses: ‘Set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the first month. Place the ark of the Testimony in it and shield the ark with the curtain…” (40:1,2) God named this ‘tent’, the “Tent of Meeting”, written with capital letters, because when the day finally came and the cloud moved, the people left Mount Sinai, and this tent became like a traveling place of encounter. Moses no longer would need to hike up Mount Sinai to meet with God.
Look at this my friends… from Exodus 40 after this Tabernacle was completely set up: “Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it…In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out. So the cloud was over the tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all Israel during their travels.”
What’s happening here? My friends, do you see that the single most important thing for these 2 million runaway slaves in the desert was… to know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Almighty, Holy God was with them, right in the middle of their camp, and the cloud hovering over the Tent of Meeting was their visible, tangible evidence. Oh how powerful that must have been, day and night, for them to see that cloud.
So I have a question or two for us… First, what is your cloud of God’s Presence in your life? The tangible, visible, evidence of God’s Presence with you, His watch-care over you, His guiding in your life? For Dawn and me, it is many things, but one, is our well worn Bibles, all marked up with writing in our own hands. We have notes in the margins of our Bibles, about how God has worked in our lives. Often there are dates & locations written, to remind us of places & times, when God did what only God could do, in our situations. Some of your names are written there, as you were part of those experiences. My Bible is open beside me write now, as I write this.
Second question… where is your “Tent of Meeting”, the place you meet with God, in your sacred encounters of prayer and worship? I don’t mean your church, I mean your personal, special place, of meeting with God? How often do you go there? What happens there when God and you meet?
Third question…as people drive by your church, and you who are reading this, are scattered all over North America… as people look at your church building, what do they think? Is there a sense of awe, in your community, about the place God’s people gather to meet with God? Not because of the beauty of the building, but because “The Presence of the Majesty” is there!! As visitors enter for the first time, do they sense the Presence of God? When you enter your church, no matter what day, or how often, do you do so with reverence, and do you sense the Presence of Holy God there?
Finally, look at Exodus 26:31 “Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim worked into it by a skilled craftsman. Hang it with gold hooks on four post of acacia wood overlaid with gold, standing on four silver bases…and place the ark of the Testimony behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place . Put the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy Place…” This “Tent of Meeting”, this Tabernacle, was only two rooms… one twice the size of the other. In the larger room, the Holy Place, was the golden lampstand, the Table of Shewbread and the Altar of Incense. In the Most Holy Place, only one thing… the Ark of the Covenant. Daily the priests had various duties in the Holy Place, but only once per year did the High Priest enter the Most Holy Place, on the Day of Atonement, to pray for forgiveness for himself and the people, as he met with God (Leviticus 16).
Four hundred years later, when King David gave the blueprints for the great Temple in Jerusalem to his son King Solomon, the design of these two rooms, and the great curtain separating the rooms, was the same. But do you also remember, when Jesus hung on the cross, paying the full atonement price for the sins of humanity, something very significant happened in that great Temple in Jerusalem? Matthew recorded it for us: “And when Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split…” (Matt. 27:50,51)
What does it mean my friends?
God is passionate about a close, pure relationship, with the human race, that He has created. But our sin, our rebellion against God, our rejection of Him, keeps God at a distance. This tabernacle was designed by God both for function and as a symbol. The function, was so God could meet with Moses and others. The symbol, was to show all who could see it, even from far away, that God wanted to be among His people, leading them, protecting them, providing for them, loving them, and the cloud hovering above the “Tent of Meeting” was the evidence, of His Presence.
Jesus came, Immanuel, God with us. Humanity rejected Him and crucified Him. When the curtain in the temple tore, God Himself tore it, ‘from top to bottom’, and why? God was saying “no more restrictions“! Jesus’ death, paid the full sin price for any person, at any time, from anyplace on this planet, to enter into an encounter with Holy God. No more the need to go to the Temple or the Tent of Meeting, to meet with God…God is making Himself available everywhere.
No more need for a priest, representing the people, any longer. Jesus is our High Priest, and HE opened the access to God for everyone. Because Jesus paid the full sin price, Holy God is accessible, always, to all!
Here is how the author of Hebrews wrote it: “Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place, by the blood of Jesus,by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God, with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…”
Once again may I remind you, my friends, that as you read Exodus 26, and imagine ourselves standing on Mount Sinai, in the cloud, hearing the voice of God, give these construction details for a tent in the desert. . .God is looking down the corridors of time to the days this Tent will be set up in the new land at Shiloh. And further, to the day this Tent will be dismantled and brought into the great Temple. And further, to the day Jesus will hang on the cross, outside Jerusalem, and God will tear the Temple curtain opening access to the Most Holy Place, an encounter with Him, to anyone, anywhere.
And further, to 2019 and you and me, where we live, and our homes, our families, our churches and His consistent desire to be with His people, in this amazing God-people, blood of Jesus, reconciled, relationship of living worship. Oh my… I think it’s time to get on our knees, right where we are, in our ‘tent of meetings’, and worship.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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