what we deserve. Lord, bless us, we pray with your word, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, well loved by our Lord Jesus Christ, I chose this text in part because it is a passage that we were considering during a workshop on Exodus 22 through 40 at the Summer Institute of Linguistics Center in Mitla, which is in Oaxaca in southern Mexico recently. And as you can imagine, we spent a lot of time talking about the details of these passages. We were talking about the colors. How are you to render these colors into the three languages that were represented at that conference? How do you represent the clasps and all the little details of this tabernacle? Lots of detailed details, and I was grateful that we had quite a few pictures that were given to us from a friend who had pictures of tents and all kinds of things from the ancient Middle East that helped us, ancient Near East, that would help us to visualize what this might look like. There were three languages there, two of which were Aztec languages. Now, if you know something about the Aztecs, they were not exactly the most peaceable people back before the conquest of the Spanish by Cortes. But what a joy to see the care that Aztec people had in bringing the word of God into their own Aztec languages. But even as we work through the details of these descriptions of the tabernacle, it was striking to me, and I think to all of us, the more time we spent with these chapters, just how wonderful this material is, just how stirring and glorious, and the glorious things that it portrays for us. As we slog our way through the temptations and the sufferings of the weak in front of us, I dare say that if you will listen and grab what the Lord would say to us through this passage and through our time tonight, I think this can give you a sense of hope as you consider your future. I think this can give you a sense of bravery. and extra strength as you think about the temptations and the struggles that you have to wade through even in this coming week. So I'd like for us to ask three questions as we meditate on this theme this evening. The first is very simple, and that is, what is the tabernacle? What is the tabernacle that we're talking about this evening? The tabernacle, as we see from this description, has four layers, three basic layers. It has an inner layer of linen, it has a middle layer of wool, and then it has two outer layers of leather. It's a little bit like maybe how our forefathers dressed a hundred years ago. You have your linen, your fine linen, comfortable material, finely made. on the inside. Then you have your woolen material after that, as I'm dressing with something comfortable here and then something woolen here. And then on the outside you might have something leather, something to repel the weather, which is exactly the purpose of those two, as we see in verse 14. The two outer layers are to repel the bad weather. So, to answer simply, what is the tabernacle? The tabernacle is A tent. It is a tent. It's not all that different in form from the Bedouin tents that you might find by the Arabs who live in the desert nowadays, but of course it's much more fancy. This word here, Mishkan means a habitation, a place to dwell, an abode. It's that word mishkan from which we get shekhinah, which means shekhinah or the dwelling place, that place for the manifestation of the glory of God. We sometimes use that expression here. But in short, this is a tent. The Song of Songs uses this word to describe the shepherd's tent in chapter 1, verse 8. Isaiah uses this word to talk about Israel's habitations in chapter 54, verse 2. So this is a tent. The word tabernacle comes from Latin, kind of a fancy word. This is a fancy tent. But what is it that makes it special? It's not so much the linen, it's not so much the wool. It is that this is the tent of Yahweh. This is the tent of the Lord. This tent has a frame, it has coverings, as all tents do, but the frame is covered with gold and the bases are of silver. This tent has an inside screen and an outside screen that separates it into two sections. The Most Holy Place, which is a perfect cube of 10 cubits. Now children, if you'll look at me for a second, you'll notice the distance between my elbow and my finger, that is a cubit. more or less for an average Israelite man at the time. It's about a foot and a half. So it's about 15 feet in a cubic form, 15 feet long, wide, and high. That's the inner, the inside room. After that, there's a holy place. It's twice that large. It's about 30 feet long, and again, 15 by 15 high. And then there is an outer area. That outer area is what we call the court. Sometimes we use the word tabernacle for the whole thing. Sometimes the Bible uses it just for the tent itself. It's about 150 feet long and it's about 70 feet wide. It's separated from the outside by linen curtains to keep the people out. So let's imagine that you come in as an Israelite. You come into this complex. You first see the bronze altar. It's a place for not only offering of sacrifices, but for the cooking of meat. Then you see this basin, which is sometimes called the sea later on. It's a place for taking water for the ceremonial washings that are necessary. And then you pass through the curtain into this holy place. And on your right, you will see the menorah, which is a symbolic seven-lamp stand, symbolic tree. And on the right, you'll see a table of gold, which has 12, let's say, pita-shaped breads on it, representing the people of Israel. And in front, you'll see a small, short altar of incense, producing incense in front of the Holy of Holies, which is basically a sealed curtain. and it has cherubim on front, and it is basically sealed off except for the most holy person, the great high priest, on the most holy day of the year, who enters that room with the most holy actions, and to do the most holy actions, and wearing the most holy possible garments. And so now you've come into this room, this holy of holies, we sometimes say, most holy place, and there is something in that room that all the peoples of the ancient East would expect. So whether you're going into the temple of Diana in Ephesus or the god Anubis in Memphis, in Egypt, you're expecting something, and here you will not find it. What are you expecting? The idol. The idol. There is no idol here. Because this room is the symbolic dwelling place of the invisible God. The God who made all things, who cannot be represented with a picture or with a statue of any sort. He's far beyond that. But there is a construction in that room. There is a holy box, we call it the Ark of the Covenant. And it reminds Israel that the relationship that they have with God is based on his making a covenant with them, that is a marriage relationship with them, a contractual, a legal agreement with them to be their God. And the two copies of his covenant are in this box, along with some other things, as we read in Hebrews. And what is over top of that covenant? There is what we call the propitiatory or the mercy seat. And there is a statue there. And what is that statue, a double statue, what does it consist of? It consists of something that's quite similar. If you've ever seen Egyptian statues or inscriptions, you'll see a beast with its wings outfolded like this. with wings, one on one side and one on the other. It's all over anything Egyptian, you'll see it. As soon as you start looking for it, you'll see these. When you look for a winged animal, this is what you'll see. Now, what we call these in Hebrew is cherubim. Cherubim. Now, I don't know about you, if you go to the art museum and you look at the Renaissance paintings about the cherubim, what do cherubim look like? They're kind of cute. fat babies like you'd want to hug. But I'll tell you that these cherubim, the real cherubim behind the statue are beasts that are like dragons or something that would make you so afraid that you would fall down in absolute terror. They're multi-parted beasts. Think of something maybe like a sphinx or like a griffin. part lion, part eagle, something like that. But certainly terrifying. And what do they represent throughout the Middle East and in the Bible? They represent the guardians of the holiness of God. So basically when you see that, this is saying divinity is here. This is where the God is. So what does that say about this ark? It's saying that this place is the dwelling place, is the abode, it is the throne and, as it were, the symbolic even footstool of this great invisible God who is willing to come down and to make this his footstool. So this is the tabernacle. It is this special tent with three different parts. I'd like to ask a second question then. What is the symbolism of the tabernacle? What is the symbolism of the tabernacle? Well, there's much more than we can fully unpack, of course, here. And I may say some things that maybe you find strange or maybe you disagree with. I'd be glad to talk with you later on. Of course, there's some scholarly debate about exactly this or exactly that. But I'd like to challenge you to stimulate your thinking about the meaning of this, the symbolism of this, if I might. Let me put it this way for starters. The tabernacle is a mobile Sinai. The tabernacle represents Sinai that's movable. Let me explain that in part. Just like the tabernacle has three sections, it has the outer court, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies, the same is true with Sinai. So, for example, if you look at Exodus 19, 9 through 13, there's an outer area where the Israelites, all the Israelites can come if they are, if they've bathed, if they're ceremonially clean, they can come. If they're not properly prepared, or if they go any further, then they die. But there's a second area that we read about in chapter 24, 1 through 2 and 9 through 11. And only select individuals can approach that area. That is like the holy place. And in this case, it's the elders of Israel who go. We read about that. They go. They actually view the glory of God. They eat symbolic meal, a communion meal in the presence of God. And they live to tell the tale. But thirdly, there is the holy of holies, as it were, which is the top of Sinai. Who can go there? Only the one who's called, and that's just Moses. He enters into the top of Sinai, and what is the glory of that place? It is God himself. God himself comes down on Sinai, and he communes with Moses, as it were, face to face. This is the climax of Sinai, and this, if you'll turn to the end of Exodus, this is the climax of the tabernacle. God himself comes down and he makes his presence manifest there with them. It is a connection point between heaven and earth. It is a stairway to heaven. Sinai and the tabernacle are a stairway to heaven, a connecting point between God's realm, God himself, and we human beings and our earthly realm. But let me push a little farther. Not only do we see the levels of holiness and kind of how special and separated God is, And what an awesome thing it is to approach God by these three sections. If you listen carefully to the reading of chapter 26, did you notice the different metals that were used? What is the metal that's used exclusively on the inside and in the Holy of Holy? Obviously, it's simply gold. Even the clasps are made from gold. What are the clasps that's used in the coverings, in the wool coverings and beyond? What metal is the outer covering used in? It's bronze. What is the metal that's used in the court? What is the metal that's used for the altar, the big altar, and the bronze basin for the water? It's again, bronze. So you see bronze on the outside, silver as you move into the holy place, and then gold, and only gold as you move into the most holy place. It's distinct by its metal. Also, and I only learned this myself during our workshop, There are three levels of workmanship of the material that are used to describe this general material. So, for example, in verse 36, excuse me, in verse 31, it mentions that the inner veil is put together with skillful workmanship. And in 36, it mentions embroidered with needlework, which is a second level of quality workmanship. And then in other places like 27, 16, it talks about a third quality of weaving. All this shows the separateness and the preciousness of God. I would suggest that just like many of the other peoples of the ancient Near East, the temples of such peoples and this temple are microcosms of the universe itself. So the outer court is symbolic of the earth, the holy place is symbolic of the sky, and the Holy of Holies is symbolic of the presence of God beyond the sky. Now, we're short on time. But the outer court has not only, not only are many, the grain is offered there, wine is offered there, the products of the earth. Lots of animals are offered there. The, later on, the statuary underneath the laver, the basin, are bulls. It's called the sea. Things connected with the earth. As you move into the holy place, you see you're surrounded by the color blue. as it were, the sky and maybe suggestions of sunset or sunrise colors as well. You see the glinting of silver, maybe for stars. You see the glinting of gold, maybe for the sun. I think it's quite likely that as you look at the seven lamps, you'd consider the visible planets, the seven planets that are visible with the human eye that are marked out symbolically. But certainly as you go in beyond the level of the earth and the level of the heaven, you go through that final veil, through cherubim, and now you're entering, you're going beyond the glories of the created universe into the very presence of God himself. Everything you look at is gold. The cherubim, of course, are there, and the room itself is perfectly cubed, which shows the perfections of God 10 by 10 by 10. You've come into, as it were, the symbolic presence of the creator of the universe. If we had more time, it would be interesting to talk about the connections between the tabernacle going back to Eden, which is a separate place. It has its own precious area with holy trees. It's a place for meeting with God. It's oriented towards the east. It would be interesting to connect the tabernacle with the vision of the temple city of Ezekiel, where the whole complex is holy and the climax, just as the climax of Exodus, at the very end of Ezekiel in chapter 48, 35, the glory of that new Jerusalem, as it were, is Yahweh Sham, the Lord is there. That's the glory. So whether we're talking Eden, or Sinai, or the tabernacle, or the temple, or Ezekiel's vision, the glory is that God is there, that God comes down to establish a stairway to heaven, a place of connection between human beings and God himself. And if I may go one more, and we can talk of this further if you'd like, can you think of another place in scripture where the presence of God is expressed in a perfect cube? Think at the very end of the Bible. What do we see in a perfect cube? In Revelation 21-16 we see this new Jerusalem descending down from God. And it's expressed as a cube. You can't, I mean, it's like unthinkable to think of it physically. First off, it's about the size of a continent between maybe India and Australia. So it's huge, fine. But think of that vertically as well. Does it reach to the space station? It goes into the exosphere? I think the point is not to be, or not to think about how that's gonna upset the world. rotation or scientific questions like that that would not have been in the Apostle's mind when he wrote down this vision. But the point is that this is the very presence of God come down to be amongst us human beings. We read in Revelation 22, verse 3, the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads. This is the glory. The glory is the relationship between humans and God will come to its consummation like a marriage. The covenant will be fulfilled. No wonder they call it the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is the glorious thing that we're looking forward to. Now let me ask a third question by way of application. What does this tabernacle mean for you then? What does it mean for me? What does it mean for us? Well, let me start by asking you, why did the Israelites need a tabernacle in the first place? We have seven chapters, and then we have six chapters. What's in the middle of those chapters? One principle we wanted to use in our workshop was to interpret, unlike the old liberals who thought that Exodus was kind of a ham-handed stitching together of sources that didn't really fit, it's a beautifully integrated piece, one literary whole. We should interpret the narrative, the story sections, in terms of the instruction sections and vice versa. So let's think about that. What's in the middle of the instruction sections? What's the story? It's a terrible story. It's Israel committing adultery on its wedding night. The covenant has barely been made, and what? They break it immediately, right? Immediately. You see, Israel, as Hosea describes, Israel is like the son of God, is like a second Adam. And Israel, that second Adam, is just as weak as our first Adam. Our first Adam should have been like St. George, and he should have used his authority and cast out the dragon from the holy place, but he did not. And he, in his foolishness, his pride, self-sufficiency, he allowed his partner to be tempted and to bring our human race into sin. And you and I, we are no stronger, no wiser than him. or then the second Adam, as it were, Israel, in that sense. We're no better. We ourselves would have failed. And so the question ever since Adam has always been, how can we get back to God? How can we get back to God in a comfortable relationship, in a peaceable relationship? relationship that does us good? That's the great question. That's the question that all societies are asking and that all human hearts are asking. Those of you who are familiar with Led Zeppelin might appreciate the reference in the sermon title, A Stairway to Heaven. You younger people may not know that song, but the reference is Jimmy Page talks about a stairway to heaven and he says, there's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven. Now, of course, that's to be dismissed. You can't buy yourself a stairway to heaven and Jimmy Page realizes that. He, his heart, Led Zeppelin's heart, like every human heart, we are longing for that, and he can't get over it. He's still longing for it, and so he says, but if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll. Can you see he's longing for something? He wants it. He wants something good. Now we pervert that, we pervert this idea of a connection with God and we say to people, you just need to look inside yourself, you just need to do yoga and find the God within you. No, this is not it. Or if you come with me to Southern Mexico, perhaps you've been there. How did the ancient peoples of Southern Mexico make their stairways to heaven, literally? Have you seen Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza or the other? They're literally stairways to heaven. You walk your way up into the presence of God. Where do we see that in the Bible? Can you think of a structure that was made to get to God? That you go up to God? It's called Bab El, right? Now, in many ancient languages, Bab means gate. And El means, as you probably know, God. It is the gate of God. Babel is intended to be, it's a human way of getting to God. Was that pleasing to the Lord? Was that successful? What about the Aztecs? If you go to the very center of Mexico City, where Alice and I, Lord willing, will be living in a couple of months, There was a temple there, a double temple. It was designed as a stairway to heaven. But what did the Aztec priests do on the top of that stairway to heaven? They cut out human beings' living hearts and offered them to the god. You can still see the skulls of the victims that are arrayed in rows there in the temple. That's one human way of trying to make a stairway to heaven. No, no, no. We humans are confused. We will do it one way or another, but it will always be a perverse way and it will never satisfy. So what is the stairway to heaven? What's the fulfillment of these pictures? What does it mean for you? What does it mean for me? Well, thankfully, the Apostle John in his gospel, he tells us He tells us what this means for us. And he says in chapter one, verse 14 of his gospel, that it was the word, that is the son of God himself, who took on flesh, and it says, he became flesh and he became flesh. dwelt among us. He dwelt. He made his dwelling among us. And that Greek word has overtones of this idea of tabernacle. Some translations actually translate it that way. Jesus tabernacled among us. He made his dwelling place among us. Jesus himself does not shy away from using this language of temple to talk about himself. And he says in chapter two, he says, destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. His own body is the temple. So we see, friends, that the true stairway to heaven, the true connecting point for you and divinity is this one. This Jesus Christ is the connecting point for you. There's no other connecting point, no other possibility of you connecting with God. And when Jesus died, what happened to that beautiful veil that we read about? It tore in two, right? And did it tear from the bottom up? No, it tore from the top down. God himself made it possible for human beings to enter into his presence because Jesus Christ had taken that judgment of God in on himself and satisfied the wrath of God that was due to you and me for our moral failings. And God credits to us the righteous life and the record of Jesus Christ, his perfect obedience, when we're joined to him by faith, so that we can enter into the very presence of God. We can enjoy a relationship with God that is comfortable, comforting, and peaceable. We're no longer in fear of the wrath and damnation of God because of this connecting point between heaven and earth. And do remember, as Jacob discovered in his vision, in the first stairway to heaven, it was not that Jacob built the stairway, but that God built the stairway coming down from heaven to connect with him and with us who follow in his faith. The New Testament, and time again fails us, the New Testament uses all kinds of priestly language to talk about Jesus in fulfillment of these pictures. He's the mediator like Moses. He's the great high priest like Aaron. John, the baptizer, tells us that he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In other words, he's not only the priest, but he's the victim, the sacrifice himself. And all of this points us to Jesus. Jesus says of himself in John chapter 10 verse 9, he says, I am the gate. That Jesus is the true Bab El. He is the true connecting point with God. And so brothers, sisters, this is a tremendous invitation for you and for me. So we are speaking in English now. We may speak in some other languages if you stay for the presentation. But if you can understand the English that I'm speaking, then this promise is for you. This is for you, without exception, all of you who hear my voice tonight, all of you who hear me through the recording. We read, come, let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires take the water of life without price. No one is excluded from the invitation. Jesus offers himself to you as a connecting point with God. If you will embrace him by faith, if you will rest on him, if you'll put your hope and your trust in him, you, Each one of you this evening may be connected to God in a peaceful relationship, and all your sins are forgiven you, and you can have God as your Heavenly Father. And let me also just draw attention to a second thing, and that is for you who are connected to Christ by faith, this becomes your identity. Your connection with God through Christ is a new, your new nationality is that you are part of a holy nation. And you personally, as do we all, have a priestly calling. And so you can face the temptations of this week You can purify yourself because you have been set apart to be a priest, a holy priest. We read in Revelation 22, 14, blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have a right to the tree of life and they may enter the city by its gates. This story, this big story from Genesis to the end, you are a part of it. And this is your destiny, this is your nationality, this is your calling as a priest, because you have a stairway to heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ. Would you join me in prayer? Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the word, our Lord Jesus, who tabernacled among us and who is the fulfillment of all of these pictures from the Old Testament. We thank you not only for his death, but for his resurrection, that he entered into a physical life that was free from death, that was exalted beyond the limitations of this life. We thank you that he entered in his ascension into not the priestly, earthly tabernacle, but into the actual presence of God, the tabernacle in heaven, as it were, to present his own blood once for all, and that that once-for-all sacrifice puts us right and secures our welfare forever. We thank you for the work of the great Savior. So we pray, Lord, as we face things that just overwhelm us this week. As we face temptations that dog us and discourage us and make us think we'll never get the better of them, as we face suffering and perplexity and various types of discouragements, we ask, Lord, that you would infuse us with hope that we have a stairway to heaven. We have a connection with you, the infinite, powerful God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray now, Lord, as we prepare our hearts to eat to drink of this sacrament, this symbolic seal that guarantees to us that we are connected to Him and He's connected to us and that it is well with our soul. We ask that you would stir up our faith and that we'd find true consolation as we prepare to head out in our various missions in this world. This we ask in Jesus' name and for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's celebrate that using number 306, Jesus, my great high priest.