Building the Tabernacle, Pt. 1

Why, when the church has fought about issues of all kinds, do we have 37 verses on the fabric and frame and furniture of the tabernacle, but no chapter on church government or the mode of baptism or the advisability of contraception? Brothers and sisters, God's ways are not our ways. God wanted to come and live with Israel, and all this material on His dwelling place is here because, well, it's His dwelling place and He cares what it's like. I daresay all of you spend a lot of time on and in your home. You don't talk about it much because you've found that most people really don't care about how you wired that snazzy new outlet or what color you painted your bathroom. But rather than the Almighty saying "Well, people don't care about my home so I won't say anything about it," His attitude is "People should care about my home." The most important point in this part of Exodus is that God has come down to dwell with us, and He did it first by moving into the tabernacle as a prefiguration of the day when the Word would become flesh and tabernacle among us. We will see that God came and tabernacled among His people, but the quadruple-thick covering under which He dwelt emphasized His inaccessible holiness.