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Good Tuesday August 6th to you my friends, today we’re reading in Exodus 38 together.
Yesterday we visited the work tents where Mr. Bezalel and Mr. Oholiab and other skilled craftsmen were fabricating the four sacred objects which God had designed for INSIDE the “Tent of Meeting”.
They were the Ark of the Covenant, which would be the only thing behind the veil, inside the “Most Holy Place”. Also, the Altar of Incense, the Table of Shewbread and the Golden Lampstand. All three of these would be placed in the “Holy Place” inside the Tabernacle. All four of these remarkable artifacts were covered in pure gold, including the gold covered poles which would carry the Ark, the Altar and the Table.
Today, in chapter 38, we visit another work site of tents. Here the work is done in bronze and silver. Here the large Altar for burnt offerings, the Basin for washing and the skeleton structure of the outer courtyard, are being fabricated. These items will be used OUTSIDE the “Tent of Meeting”.
Bezalel and Oholiab are the overseeing craftsmen, closely supervising this work, but I perceive much of the work in these tents is being done by other skilled craftsmen, as the work is not nearly as meticulous and delicate as the work on the worship artifacts going INSIDE the Tent.
Would you spend just a moment with me thinking through the leadership process involved in this remarkable project. Only one man had the blueprints… Moses.
He had heard the details of this project, verbally explained to him by God, in the cloud on top of Mount Sinai during his 40 day visit in Exodus 25-31. Somehow, Moses had to take what he heard and make design drawings, with great detail of size & shape dimensions. He also had to take care to remember which precious metal was to be used on each item. I can see why his Egypt palace training was so important, as history tells us he visited the work-sites of the Pharaoh’s construction projects, to evaluate the progress. Moses had evidently developed a trained eye to read construction blueprints and assess the accuracy of the work being done.
So, I envision regular design review meetings between Moses and Bezalel and Oholiab, as they sketched out these never before seen “Tent of Meeting” items, exactly according to details, that Moses remembered, from his cloud meetings with God. By the way, do you suppose whoever it was who came up with the modern day language of ‘cyberspace cloud’ was reading Exodus when they needed a new word to describe the vast, unseen storage place for data and communication?
Can you imagine the number of times Bezalel asked Moses…‘now tell me again, how long, how wide, what precious metal’? And I suspect Moses was a daily visitor, to every work site tent…both the men and women’s tents. Tomorrow we’ll look in on those women’s tents where priestly garments, and the Veil were being made.
My friends, this was not simply another work project for slaves… these carefully chosen, skilled men and women, were fabricating a God designed place where God had promised He would come down from heaven and “dwell among My people” and where He would “meet with you”!! (Exodus 29:41-45)This was a once in a lifetime privilege project! Have you ever been involved in such a project?
Now let me help you with one other thing… the gold, silver and bronze needed to accomplish this remarkable project. In my research I find they used approximately 2193 lbs of GOLD! Did you hear me? 2193 pounds!
We tend to measure gold by the ounce don’t we? Today’s gold market value is $1443.06 per OUNCE!! Do the math my friends… if I calculated correctly the value of that much gold in today’s market would be $50,634,089.30! That’s 50 MILLION dollars!!
They used 7545 lbs of silver and 5310 lbs of bronze. Today’s silver market price is $16.31 per ounce and bronze is much less valuable at $1.45 per lb. The value of the silver in today’s market would be $1,967,736. Nearly 2 MILLION dollars. And the bronze would be valued at $123,192.
All together that’s over 15,000 pounds of gold, silver and bronze!! In your mind, what do you see? Piles of jewelry, perhaps in three separate tents? Do you see armed guards standing around the tents? Do you see people coming all day long just to open the flap of the tent to look in and see what a pile of 2200 pounds of gold or 7500 pounds of silver looks like?
Moses does not give us any description of the management and security of these precious metal tents… but I wonder what you would have done if Moses would have assigned you the responsibility of head of security for all that silver, gold and bronze…day and night!?
Or maybe, because it was all voluntarily given, and all considered holy, to be used exclusively for worship of Holy, Almighty God… maybe there was no security at all? Maybe as people came to see, they also wanted so much to be part of this remarkable experience, as they stood and looked, they removed a ring from their finger and with awe and respect, carefully placed their offering on the pile, grateful to God for the privilege of giving to this great, God honoring project?
Today as we go about this Tuesday, may I invite us to consider one last thing. From the historical records we know slavery in Egypt in this era was brutal. Slaves were beaten regularly if they under-produced (Exodus 5:14). As they fled out of Egypt with gold, silver and precious stones in their pockets and around their necks, what attitudes do you think filled their hearts? Do you suppose they felt this bounty was owed to them and their ancestors, for all the decades of slave labor? Each time they looked at the booty in their tent, do you suppose they felt a sense that finally justice had been done? Not only had they taken a huge amount of Egypt’s wealth, but Pharaoh’s army had drowned in the Red Sea!
So what attitudes might have risen up when Moses told them, God was inviting them to bring an offering, from that Egyptian booty, and make a “Tent” for meeting with God? Today friends, as we step into Tuesday, do we consider it an incredible privilege to ‘walk with Jesus’, following the leading of His Holy Spirit today, where-ever He leads us?
And if He leads us to give of our resources to someone or something that HE directs us to. . .what will well up inside us? Privilege or Resistance? The answer will probably depend on whose it is right now. Is it all God’s that He has entrusted to you and me and He is expecting us to manage it well, using it as He directs us? Or is it ours, to use as we desire? Remember the key Scriptures about that, which I gave you yesterday. . .
* 1 Timothy 6:6-10
* Deuteronomy 8
* Matthew 6:8,21,24
So today I leave you with Matthew 6:25-34, as you peek into the precious metal tents at Mount Sinai, and ponder the BEST use of God’s gold and silver, that He has entrusted to you?
Click to read today’s chapter: Exodus 38. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
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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