Latest / Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast / Autumn'26 Bible School- Exploring Exodus- Session 3- Phoebe Smith and Tim Dobson

Transcript

Autumn'26 Bible School- Exploring Exodus- Session 3- Phoebe Smith and Tim Dobson · Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to try and see some of the things that apply here.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And how are they useful for teaching, training, uh, rebuking, correcting, training righteousness?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: How do they help us in our navigating our relationship with God and uh and our understanding of Jesus?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh the first thing in chapter 24 there, um uh and earlier on uh as well that kind of there's uh there's a covenant that's being made between uh God and his people.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh now kind of we don't often use covenants uh today.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any any kind of uh places where you might a covenant might be made?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Will.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: House purchases.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: House purchases.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there can be some covenant kind of uh um restrictions around things.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that we can do no harm and like that's kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh a covenant is uh is like a contract, it's like an agreement between God and his people.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of God promises something and his people uh give their commitment to it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a kind of a two-way agreement, and um uh and we see uh these covenants in the Old Testament, they frequently involved blood, so um an animal sacrifice or circumcision, uh something kind of to be kind of given up.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh there's five covenants in the in the Old Testament.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know if you kind of know so the first covenant is with uh with uh Noah.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember after the flood there was a an uh rainbow and he made a covenant to say that he would never flood the earth and destroy humanity again.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh there's a covenant with Abraham that he was going to bless Abraham, and uh in blessing Abraham, Abraham was going to be a blessing to uh the uh rest of the world.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, within that, there was a again this fairly grim imagery of animals that are cut in sliced in two, and different kinds of animals.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's this like this two half half of a goat here, half of a goat there, half a bull there, half a half the other half's there.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you imagine that all the blood spilling out, and there's like a this uh passageway of blood that um the presence of the Lord and and again it's quite um things gave up their life to mark this covenant.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the the um on the eighth day, a baby to have their foreskin uh removed as as a sign, circumcision was a sign of the of the covenant, the agreement that that that's what they God promised this, and this is what they were gonna do for God.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were gonna show that we're God's special people because every uh every boy born was going to be circumcised.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was the covenant to Abraham.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's the covenant to Moses that we're looking at here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the covenant to David that there was um uh there was somebody who was going to always be on uh on David's throne, that there'd always be a descendant of David who would be a ruler.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also with Jesus we have uh uh the the new covenant.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh yeah, chapter 19 uh that we read last week um has has passed that uh now.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you uh so you it says, when Moses went to Magin, the Lord called to him from the outside side, this is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob, and what you are to tell the people of Israel.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You yourselves have seen what I did in Egypt, I carried your eagle's wings, bought you to myself.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be for me a treasure possession.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the kind of covenant.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you obey me fully, and if you keep my my commands and my covenant, actually, this is what I will do for you.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's this kind of this this deal, this agreement.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh in chapter 24, again, there's there's a reaffirming kind of he Moses goes down, he went and told the people all the Lord's words and the laws.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they responded with one voice here's here's the here's the contract, here's the small print, here's what kind of um God's wanting you to do.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel about that, folks?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they they said with one voice, everything the Lord has said, we will do.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses wrote down everything the Lord has said, and he got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stones, pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then he sent young Israelite men and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as a fellowship offering to the Lord.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so this covenant was kind of like a uh Moses goes, it seems to go up and down the mountain quite a lot of times.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you read through the narrative, he goes to God, God says something he goes to people, they say yes, he goes back to God, God gives them a bit more, we go back and say, Yes, we're gonna do it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of two is two and fro until they say, actually, yes, we will do.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and this the covenant is sealed with blood.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, even as we read through that, Moses took half the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then he took the book of the covenant and read it, and they responded, Again, here's the covenant.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: We will do just as the Lord said.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled that a little bit.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But how you would feel that kind of splat ego, but it's a bit of bull's blood to be thrown on you.
• 5:38
  unknown: What's the book of the covenant?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be some some of the kind of the the content which Moses received from God.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so um this was kind of uh so whether it was actually papyrus that was kind of inscribed, we're not totally sure.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not until later that he gets the two tablets of stone.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But on the two tablets of stone, there's just kind of maybe just the ten commandments.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there could have been some other way in which the law was was was recorded.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um not totally sure on that one.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Literate.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well Moses, I think, certainly would have been.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: He would have grown up in the Pharaoh's household, and and again, where you have riches, you often have education.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Moses being brought up in Pharaoh's court, he probably was literate and he probably could write.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so not everyone, not everyone could, but I think probably for Moses being a personal privilege, uh, he was probably literate.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so when we come to the new covenant, uh the new covenant is uh so there's echoes through those covenants in the Old Testament that um and he takes bread and he takes uh the cup.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, in the same way, I have a supper.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: He took the cup and says, This is the cup of the of the a new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there's this sense of that actually there's going to be a new agreement, a new deal.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually, this covenant involves blood as well.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's not the blood that you put over the Passover on the door, it's not the blood that of the balls that's sprinkled over you, but actually, this is the blood of Jesus that um that spiritually washes us and cleanses us.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, there's a there's a new covenant, there's a new kind of a new deal that's going on here.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, this deal kind of what you need to do is you need to believe and trust.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's your part to the to the deal.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then God's part is forgiveness, life, hope, love.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's a new covenant, which is why do this kind of uh frequently, actually, because this this is to remind us of the wonderful transaction of Jesus' death on the cross, of that sacrifice that was made once for all uh for us.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and a covenant that God can't He can't go back on.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That that's always the deal, that if we confess our sins, God's faithful and just He will forgive us.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of He can't go back on that that covenant agreement sealed in the blood of Jesus.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um does that make sense?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Any uh questions or cov uh uh around how, again, covenant is of the five covenants, this one here, uh Mount Sinai, uh is again quite a significant covenant that had both requirements of God's people uh and the the blessing from God towards his people.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um so I think covenants were happened between warring factions.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they would make a uh an agreement they weren't gonna fight one another, or there would be peace and and there would be a covenant that that could be made.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there are records of of covenants being made culturally uh at the at the time of this.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't just the Israelites or just God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so there were other kinds of covenants, and and again, quite often those covenants would involve blood.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it was an animal or whether it was your own blood, kind of that somehow blood and and that represented life and death kind of that's uh yeah, this this agreement is a matter of life and death, but was kind of the the deal there, I think.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think understanding the history is not as important as the understanding of Jesus and what Jesus has done.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the only way we can the Old Testament in the Old Testament of how much sense and how of the language we use about Jesus.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's why even if you read the Gospels, in some ways the Gospel cancer of Jesus as maybe slightly easier than what we read sometimes, but actually still you need to understand something of the nuance of what's being said, and and what the people who would have heard Jesus for the very first time, what would they have understood Jesus as as saying?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so even if you would say, well, oh to uh someone who's just investigated the well, just read the gospels, it's a great place to start.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: But in some ways, you can't really understand what's happening there unless you understand what's so when Jesus, some things we'll talk about this evening, when Jesus talks about that the the temple and his body being that the temple, destroy this body in three days I will rebuild it.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about this body.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, in some ways, you could just read that and think, well, well, what's what's that about?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you understood the story beforehand of what God's intention was for a temple or for the tabernacle.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so some of the some of the the backstory I think is is is important.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that is slightly nuanced because I think um uh John when he wrote his gospel, he said, I've just I've just chosen these few things because in these few things, just seven miracles, seven bits of Jesus teaching, kind of um, I think if you would look at these signs, there's enough here to convince you that Jesus is the Son of God.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you will find life, kind of.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he kind of condensed down his gospel uh in a way that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were just doing a biography of the life of Jesus.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think there's enough in there to understand salvation without understanding the story.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to go deeper into how you understand it, how you understand something of Jesus' teaching, what did Jesus really mean when he said certain things, you you probably need to understand that in the culture that Jesus grew up in, it was a Hebrew Old Testament biblical culture.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a bit like when Shakespeare writes his plays, kind of if you if you if you're going to understand Shakespeare play, again, the English language would have changed slightly, it's it's Elizabethan history, uh, their way their sensory human work was different to ours, the way that kind of the structure of story work is different to ours.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but if somebody understands the the way that history was working, what was going on in the culture, you can make more sense of a Shakespearean play.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think it's the same with scripture, the more that you understand about the culture.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you can if you don't understand the culture, you can still read Shakespeare or go, like myself, I don't know a lot.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go and watch a Shakespeare play because my wife loves that kind of thing.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'll watch it and I'll think, I kind of got it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But she probably got it a lot more than I did because she studied it and she understands it and she gets more of the nuance of what's going on.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I just think, okay, it's a story about this man, this woman, and this stuff, kind of, and um uh it's fine.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um we went to see the Tempest the other day with um uh Kenneth Brown.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and and again they my sister in Norm loved it, and I just thought it was great.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way that the stage moved at this point.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think sometimes the same with the Bible, you that you can understand about Jesus, but actually if you want to understand more about it, the Old Testament help.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I think when we look at the sacrifice at the moment, it it is a theme that goes through, like I say, right from the beginning.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when God closed them, he closed them with animals animal skin.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now that animal skin had to come from somewhere, it came from animals, presumably.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, in a fallen state to cover them, even in covering them, uh an animal gave its life for them to be to be covered.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that that even that is a is a slight imagery to some of the things that happens in the Old Testament covers covers sin.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not until Jesus sacrificed that sin's dealt with, but it kind of covers over sin so that we can encounter God.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think you're right when um Abraham is told to sacrifice Isaac, and they go up to the mountain, and uh maybe it's the same mountain um that Calvary is on those many centuries later, um, and he's about to kill his only son, and uh and he's about to do that.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: God says, No, leave the boy alone, there's a ram, and as the ram sacrificed, kind of ah, there's something gonna be sacrificed that a life is spared, and and somehow he saw Jesus' day.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: He somehow kind of he he he saw my day and rejoiced in it that that although he didn't know about Jesus obviously because he didn't arrive, actually there was something about just the symbolism of what he was asked to do and and and the ram that gave its life in this place for his son.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: That that symbolism he saw Jesus' day, saw what Jesus was going to do.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we're gonna just take some of the things that that we read and we're just gonna sort of unpack them a bit and say, uh, what what is it that um starts off here?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so in Genesis we we do have um a priest that appears, mug is the um uh but but this is the kind of the first time that um God says actually I want one tribe, the Levites.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to be the priests.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to have this particular task.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh Aaron and his children, children, his sons, they were part of the tribe of Levi, kind of um uh Moses was and Mirimov, so they were part of the same family.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um they were chosen to be to be specifically uh priests.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that there was a choice of this person, Aaron, uh, this family, this tribe, uh Levi, um they were to do certain things, perform certain tasks, they were set apart, they were freed uh from kind of the manual labor of farming, and and they earned their living by doing the the stuff of the sacrifices and and and um in some ways they had a task, they were to take the things of God and bring them to humanity.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were the Bible teachers, that they were the ones that knew the scripture, they would retell the law, they bought things from God to people, and and equally they bought things from people uh to God.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were kind of uh intermediaries between God and humanity, um, that uh they would take uh the sin of humanity and through the sacrifices bring it to God and take the forgiveness from God and bring it back to humanity.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the high priests were the intermediaries, kind of the the high priest once a year could actually go into the presence of God with the ringing bells and with a rope tied round his ankle in case he was a particularly bad sinner and he died in the presence of the Lord, and they could pull him out with the rope without having to go in themselves.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh so they had uh this function uh of being set apart that that you're not to have, they weren't allocated a particular piece of of um a tribal land, actually, they they were to uh be those that that served the purposes of God, and people would through they'd have uh parts of their uh the offerings they bought to God, the the Levites would would have.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um in some ways that the idea of priesthood, um uh specific people, so it it just had to be kind of the Levites.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: There was a a particular person, a particular group of people, that it was fine to do that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when when Saul, who's a king, offers sacrifices and he he wasn't, he was from the tribe of Benjamin, he he wasn't a Levite.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that was bad.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So why did God reject Saul?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is that actually he took on a role that was never supposed to be his.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was only supposed to be one priest king, and that was Jesus.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So here was Saul the king, and he did a priestly role, and at that point, it kind of um there was like a you're not going to be king anymore, Saul.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Although he was king in name, he wasn't king in in with any kind of authority uh from there.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it was supposed to be just a particular group of people doing a specific kind of task.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh, and in some ways, when we think of Jesus, actually there's one specific person who had one specific task, and and it was Jesus that that he came as as the high priest.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was the one that could take the things of God and bring them to humanity.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we see with his teaching, with his healing, with his deliverance, he took the stuff of God and brought it to people.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, he took the stuff of people and brought it to God.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the Raja Hebrew says we we now have a great high priest who is under able to understand our weaknesses.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's something in the Godhead post-incarnation that wasn't there before.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You think, could God, can God learn anything?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think God learned what it was to be human through the incarnation.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: God learned something that he didn't know before.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he learned what it was to be like you and me.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: He learned what it's like to be tempted.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: God didn't know what it was like to be tempted before because he wasn't human like us.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: He he didn't know what it's like to do a hard day's work and feel tired.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know what it was for his stomach to be hungry, he didn't know what it was for his eyes to cry.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and until Jesus, who was God, became this great high priest, came accepted into our world.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he's a great high priest who understands our weaknesses.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And God learned something that God didn't know before.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he created us and he had a uh uh a knowledge of us, but he'd never experienced it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's something about a high priest that takes things of God and and brings it to humanity, but actually takes the things of humanity and takes it to God.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So now Jesus is there and he's interceding for you and me.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's interceding for us.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's taking something of what he knows about the human condition, and he's he's pleading our cause on our behalf to God.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, there's that high priestly function is still going on.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's still doing that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the the images in the Old Testament of the high priest and what they did, the function they performed, the wisdom and the teaching they gave, the sacrifices they made on behalf of the people.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Jesus is personifies that that he's the great high priest.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's the final, he's the he's the one that is chosen uh to fulfil the role of being a priest king.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so for Jesus, uh, when we read these books of Exodus, actually on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is talking to these two followers of his.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's in this resurrected body, they don't recognize him, uh, and they're talking about oh, we thought Jesus was the Messiah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he says he takes the scriptures and he started to explain all about himself through scripture, starting from Moses, these kind of stories.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and and maybe it was kind of oh, remember the priesthood and remember the sacrifices.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, kind of the Messiah was always supposed to fulfil those roles, and and and and the sacrifice of a of a lamb.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's there was always going to be sacrifice somewhere along the line, and and we're not quite sure what how that conversation went, but I'm sure there'd be things like priesthood that would go in there.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, I don't know if you noticed in the contract in that covenant is that I will make you a royal priesthood.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, although Jesus is the great high priest, now we are together the body of Christ.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So somehow we now have that priestly role that Jesus.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus uniquely understands God and human beings.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, we understand a bit about God through Jesus, and we understand what it is to be human.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we are, so um, Exodus 19:4, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so into the New Testament, 1 Peter 2, verse 9 says, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that image of what was just for a few people, the Levites, one person here, Aaron, uh, through Jesus, the one person, now we who are many, we have the same function.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a priestly role, which is why we take the things of our world and we bring them to God in prayer.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we wrestle and then we winter seed.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, we take the things of God and and we see, let your kingdom come, you've been here on earth as it is in heaven, and and we witness to our faith, and we pray for the sick, and we care for the poor, and and we take the things of people and we bring them to God, and we take things of God and we bring them to people.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, we are a kingdom of priests, uh, uh, royal priesthood.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Does that kind of make sense?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, some of these images, so it's a bit like when you start in Genesis, it's like you've got um an apple seed.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you see an apple seed, and and and and that's got the full potential to become an apple tree and to bear apples, but it just looks like a little brine bit of something.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in the book of Genesis, you've got it's like a seed bed.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's the the seed of the full story of, it's kind of contained within that.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But as you plant the seed and the thing starts to sprout, it kind of starts to take the form of an apple tree.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of small and it's got no blossom or anything, but it's and in some ways, as you come to Exodus, Exodus, the kind of what was in the seed bed in Genesis, it kind of starts to sprout a bit.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so you get these things like sacrifice and priesthood and and covenant.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and it kind of it's not an apple yet, but it's kind of there's there's obviously something going on.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come towards the the prophecies in the old testament, it's a bit like the blossom.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's there's promise of something, there's promise of appleness, this blossom kind of is like there's a little hint, there's a little direction.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that there's going to, and obviously, when Jesus comes, it's like the apple is fully there, and we we totally understand.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, this is what an apple tree was for was to produce apples.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you see, you start and you go through the story of the Old Testament, and and I think uh Exodus is like when the apple tree starts to take a little bit of form.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have apples yet, it doesn't have blossom yet, but it has had some form.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the forms that we see here is priesthood, uh, and we see that fully in Jesus.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the intention is that we are to be priests as well.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And any any questions or or thoughts on priesthood and how, as we read about all those garments and what was going on, that it's kind of it's a again for me, I I won't go into microscopic detail.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know for some people will try and analyse exactly what's happening, and they'll attribute um uh significance to all the different things, and somehow there's this great constructive ah, and and I think some of those are at times maybe it's a little bit convoluted.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the overall picture we get is that actually here's somebody set apart, uh, taking the people of God on their hearts into the presence of God.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's something about dedication and commitment, there's something about uh um yeah, honouring the the role, uh there's something about duties to fulfil, there's something about regularity that they were to do things, and again the spiritual disciplines we're involved with.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think those things for me about the priesthood probably matter more than the intricacies of well, what did the bells and the pomegranates on this what do they really mean?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm not sure, apart from it's a jolly sound, and fruitfulness is to do with fruitfulness.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me, I don't know.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is that um any any thoughts or yeah?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_04: I think it doesn't matter about all that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: You still had the sacrifice going on because when the temple was built, they still had to bring the sacrifice in there.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so it didn't really matter about all that.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: They the heart of it was sacrifice by the same word.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_04: They could only come back by doing that still.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that was still going on in Jesus' time, didn't they?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_04: They were still sacrificing, yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: So that still went on.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, just that Jesus had taken that bit away from us by the sacrificing.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was still there.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and even it kind of in Passovers after Jesus' death and resurrection, the Jews would have still celebrated Passover until AD 70, when the Romans came in and cleared the temple.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: There still would have been Passover lambs still, even though Jesus had been, they still were doing the sacrifice kind of stuff.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll I'll what we'll do is I'll just do uh just a little bit on sacrifice and a little bit on um uh Sabbath.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh so sacrifice and covenant always went together.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um the this idea that that uh life is in the blood, kind of um uh that a a living sentient being dies and the blood of that creature somehow does something for us.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it couldn't do it uh for us eternally, but somehow it covers us in so that when we try to connect and relate to God, we're not incinerated.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it does something, but until Jesus came, it didn't kind of do it, do it all.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the idea of animal sacrifice, and and there's lots of it, and there's lots of uh again at times loads of animals seem to be slaughtered.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of uh again, we go, I mean, I don't know how many have anyone ever been to an abattoir?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we probably don't we don't see animals giving their lives for our pork chops or our our um our chicken skewers or whatever that's your we don't see that, but actually that they they would have they would have seen it.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been very visceral that uh this creature that was walking, uh a spotless lamb, kind of their life ceased, so that something about your life could be changed.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when it comes to to uh Jesus is our sacrifice, those images that maybe started, like you said, from the Garden of Eden, uh clothed with uh animal skins.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Those animals gave their life to cover them, whether it is through Abraham, whether it is through the sacrificial system that that came in uh in Exodus and the tabernacle and the temple, it was always pointing towards the fact that Jesus was going to come.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus came, he was going to be our our sacrifice.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was something about there was something about his sacrifice that was once for all.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was Jesus the spot the slam.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's the Lamb of God who's gonna take away the sins of the world.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be something here that's not just kind of uh one day of atonement for just the people of Israel, uh, it was one life given for all humanity.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a cross not just alive at the time Jesus died, but into into his terms and back in history.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, his sacrifice was a sacrifice that could change uh sin and guilt uh forever.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the idea of sacrifice does does come through to us as well.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we're to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this imagery of sacrifice that starts off that that Jesus who dies on our behalf, um we're asked to be a uh a living sacrifice.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um what do you think that means?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: If if the story of sacrifice, of uh animals giving their lives and blood covering sin, and it's Jesus his his sacrifice of his life, what's what does it mean for us to be uh living sacrifices?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_04: We give our lives to God.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_04: We give our lives to God.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: We give our lives back, so it's like an offering we give back to God?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: Dying to self, isn't it?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, dying to self, so there's a sacrifice that is somehow we're we're we're not going to die physically, but there's something about the life that's inside, the the flesh life, those internal passions and drives.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, something needs to happen to those, those need to die.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, there needs to be ego died.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your ego, your pride, your jealousy, your uh your bitterness, your unforgiveness, kind of all those kind of things that are here.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you need to die to self.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take up our cross daily and follow him.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, what's the cross war?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's for killing something.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Killing some it's for killing people.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: What why why would we want to take daily an implement that is used for killing?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Unless there's something that's going to die, and that's our ourselves, our self-life.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody else that's also a good thing?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something about living living sacrifice that's not a burnt offering.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes you can think, oh I'm gonna just give it all to Jesus and you end up slightly a burnt-out Christmas.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus actually he wants he's come to give you life in his fullness, but there's something about the offering of a a full life to God rather than um yeah, uh being burnt out.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think, and that's why a passage I think we read last week when we're looking at the Passover, and and um they said can ever every firstborn child needs to be redeemed, that there needs to be an animal that dies whenever whenever you have a uh a firstborn, when your a cow gives birth to their birth to their first calf, or when a uh a woman gives birth to their first child, actually that there's something that should be sacrificed in its place.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you're right in some ways, it's like that they are the living part of the sacrifice that that has has happened.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: That sacrifice happened and they're living now because they they didn't have to bear the consequences.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um just um just want to take one more thing and then um hand over to Phoebe.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh again, this uh the idea of tabernacle, it can just seem like a kind of strange.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why would God he's brought his people out of Egypt, he's given them a law to live by.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be God's people in God's world, doing God's things, God's way.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but why building a tabernacle?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: What is is that about?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and and for me, I think it's it's about it just it helps us understand one of the attributes and characteristics of God.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, God wants to be known, God wants to be encountered.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the the the God who is everywhere, if God is just everywhere, it's hard to know.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how do I meet with God?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: How can I encounter God?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the God who is everywhere decided to be somewhere.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he decides to be in the Holy of Holies.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: He decided that actually built this with all the intricacies that we've seen, and and and I'll come and fill that space.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the Holy of Holies will be the space that the God who's everywhere will be somewhere.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you come to this space, although you can't enter my presence, actually, when you come to the tabernacle, it's like you're coming to me because I want to be encountered, I want to be known.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's a it's a place where uh where um yeah the the the the the cloud and the pillar of fire rested, and and God wants to be with his people.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted the tabernacles to be when they when they camped, it was to be their the center of their national uh life.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh God wanted to be known.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when Solomon builds the temple, uh again, Solomon said to kind of, I know you a house can't contain you, God, because you made the whole deal, but but I'm gonna build this house and just so that the your again, your Shekai or your presence could fill because the God is everywhere, could be somewhere.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if however far away we're scattered, if we turn to your temple and remember you again, we we've we've got somewhere to look, we've got somewhere to go to express our repentance, to kind of we'll come to the temple.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do pilgrimage once a year or Day of Atonement, actually, we'll come to the place where we believe that you are, because we want to meet with you.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God is a relational God, which is why the temple there is is like a it's like an image of again when Jesus comes, the God who was everywhere was somewhere in the person of Jesus.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: The God who was unseen was now seen.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: The word was with God, and the word became flesh, and it dwelt amongst, tabernacled amongst them, kind of travelled among their lives and their problems, their difficulties, their pains, their disappointments, their sicknesses, uh kind of injustices.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: He kind of he tabernacled, he he kind of he dwelt amongst them because God always wanted to be known.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, a a Greek idea of God is that he's omniscient, omnipotent, uh kind of immutable, all these kind of things that he's so much higher than us, and and and and God, in one ways, God is God, but he doesn't want to be so much higher than us that we we can't encounter him because that's the very deal of why he that's why he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's a relational God.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: He defines himself through being able to encounter and relate to people, which is why the God who's everywhere is somewhere in Jesus.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and when this little bit in John chapter 2, kind of um, they're walking past the temple, uh, the physical temple that was built that was post-exile, and we're not quite sure if the presence of God dwelt there anymore.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: We don't hear that the glory of God filled that uh rebuilt temple.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: He passes the temple, and and Jesus says, Destroy this temple, and I'll raise it again three days.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: They replies it'd taken 46 years to build this temple, um, and you're going to raise it in three days.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And John says, But the temple he spoke of was his body.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, his body is like the tabernacle, his body is like the temple.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: His body is the uh the space, the container for the presence of God.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if at that point you wanted to go and meet with God, you just went out into the wilderness where Jesus was.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you and and and people flopped to him.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because he embodied, as Paul says, that the fullness of the deity dwelt in him.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was the temple of in a very visceral, very real way.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was the temple, he was the tabernacle, he was the container, he was the place where the God who was everywhere was somewhere.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Does that kind of make sense?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I suppose if that the tabernacle temple, Jesus uh, in in some ways, um, yeah, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the God who's everywhere is somewhere, the Holy Spirit whom you received uh from God.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: You are not your own, you're bought it to Christ, therefore honor God with your bodies.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, now this tabernacle image that we read about in Exodus that comes through Solomon in the temple, that comes to Jesus, that God is everywhere somewhere, actually.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now the God who's everywhere is still somewhere.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he's there and there and there and there and there and there and there.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the God who's everywhere somewhere, he's in you.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you are now a portable tabernacle, you are a portable temple.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you're the person that you go into your workplace, the place where you study.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, as you wander into there, you're taking the very presence of God with you.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: You are the temple.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're the you and so as you go to somewhere, kind of well, you you've got to remember that your bodies are holy and and you're bought into Christ.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Honor God with your bodies.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I think that some Christians have let Jesus down through their actions, through their words.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're not truly representing the temple that we should be.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's the wonder from X.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this first thing we read here about this, all these bells and whistles and kind of uh and the and and the beauty of that tabernacle.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, God looks at you and you're his creation.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you're not a mistake.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: One to be made by him, and you're his tabernacle, you're his temple.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you become Christian, you receive the Holy Spirit.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: The God is everywhere, is now somewhere.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when we meet together, somehow the God that's in you, you, you, you we're like living stones, uh kind of, and we're being built together, and together, kind of in him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in him, you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, 1 Peter 2 says, You come to him the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow, when we meet together in a home group with a few friends in a prayer trip at work, kind of when two or three are gathered together, there am I, in the midst.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: That somehow you your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but when we gather together around the person of Jesus, somehow the God who's everywhere is somewhere.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why quite often I'll welcome people on the door and they've got no church experience.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: They'll wander into the service and they just experience something.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: The God who's everywhere is somewhere.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's this there's living stones being built together, and and and there's something about the the the presence of God who's everywhere can be somewhere.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Does that and and and for me that's uh a brilliant challenge and a great privilege to think that the the tabernacle we read about in the Old Testament, fully fulfilled in Jesus, actually now the God who's everywhere is somewhere.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the God who wants to touch your workplace can touch your workplace because as you walk into the room, he's going there with you.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can depend on his spirit's strength and and wisdom and and hope, and you can bring your prayers and you can bring your love and your compassion, and and and you are the temple.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the tabernacle we read about in the book of Exodus becomes the temple in one uh one kings, becomes Jesus in the Gospels, becomes us now.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um great privilege.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hand to Phoebe because she's gonna um take this idea of tabernacle and just from a slightly different tack.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Again, there's some things that we look look at that are a bit more cerebral, and there's some things that are a bit more um touching our our hearts and and our emotions.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um, Phoebe, over to you if that's okay, to take us through this next little bit.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, just of the themes that we've begun to look at this evening, I wanted to just finish up on a bit more of a reflective note.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, looking at the theme of tabernacle, actually, um, and looking at it through a lens of um beauty, worship, and God's presence.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I don't know if you feel that you're particularly creative or whether you take much time to enjoy the arts, um, but I do love arts and particularly paintings and visual arts.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so the descriptions of the tabernacle that we read some of earlier this evening, um, I find they're quite beautiful to me.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I noticed the colours in them.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's a lot of detail um to describe the design of the tabernacle, which can sometimes feel quite dense when reading it all in one go, as we might have experienced a bit this evening.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's really incredible when we slow down, I think, and slow down our reading and consider what is being described, um, what it might have looked like, the time and the skill that we mentioned that it would have taken to make it all.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, when reading the passage, um it made me think of two sung worship events I went to last week, as well as my visit to one of the locations on the West Bristol Arts Trail towards the end of the week.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think there's a real link between beauty, artistic design, um, and worship that's important for building our relationship with God in both.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: The worship events and the art exhibition I went to that was filled with paintings and prints and stitches and jewellery.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: I experienced enjoyment, enjoyment of our world and enjoyment of God's presence.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we may see art as in the description of the tabernacle as maybe lavish and maybe question its necessity.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that was maybe among the questions that we had about it earlier this evening.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think this is a moment of huge recognition of the lavish goodness and beauty and love of our God for us, and our good God's amazing design work of us and this earth.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: God and God's redemption and kingdom plans are so good and beautiful that when we stop to acknowledge them, we surely can't help but respond with praise out of love.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: We enjoy, then we worship.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Beauty and art and song help me to take my tunnel-visioned eyes off my list of desires and needs and free me to see God and enjoy his presence and his sovereignty and the thought of his kingdom coming.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: We bring our worship then as a free will offering, like we talked about with the gold, and the Israelites bringing all of their gold and their jewels and jewelry, and we bring our worship as a free will offering to make something beautiful, like they made the tabernacle for God out of thanks and love and recognizing that God is worthy of it all.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: And God came to meet the Israelites.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: God filled people with his spirit to devise artistic designs, and he came to dwell with his people in the tabernacle.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Making, creating, and for many of us, singing songs on Sundays to God, like all those before us that we see in the Psalms as well, singing, and acts of lavish beauty, like the making of the tabernacle, are places and times when God's own beauty and character can be revealed more to us, when we can become aware again of his lavish goodness, and the priority of our lives and the need of our lives being Him.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are places and times we get to enjoy being in His presence, like a refuge for us, and they give us a taste of what heaven will be like.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Time filled with worship and praise and beauty in all forms.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll just finish by reading a bit a short bit of description about the tabernacle again.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry guys.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, if you if you're willing, just close your eyes.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, if you're happy to, um, and just try to imagine the colours and shapes if you can.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to read a shorter, shorter amount this time.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just yeah, I really want to read it more thoughtfully, and um yeah, just try and imagine those things.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or if you can't, just listen to the words.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I'll leave a pause after reading to make space to let God speak to you about anything he might have been highlighting to you this evening, and then I'll pray to wrap up.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: So this is from the passage from the blue and purple and scarlet yarns, they made finely woven garments for ministering in the holy place.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: They made these holy garments for Aaron as the Lord had commanded Moses.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: He made the ephod gold, blue, and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they hammered out gold leaf, and he cut it into threads to work into the blue, purple and the scarlet yarns, and into the fine twined linen in skilled design.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: They made the onyx stones, enclosed in settings of gold filigree, and engraved like the engravings of a signet.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: He made the breast piece in skilled work, in the style of the ephod, of gold, blue, and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they set it in four rows of stones.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: A row of sardis, topaz, and carbuncle was the first row, and the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond, and the third row, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst, and the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx and a jasper.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: They were enclosed in settings of gold filigree.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: On the hem of the robe they made pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: They also made bells of pure gold, and put the bells between the pomegranates all around the hem of the robe.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Between the pomegranates they made they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote on it an inscription like the engraving of a signet, holy to the Lord.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished, and the people of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for this evening and for learning more about the gift of the Bible that you have given to us.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you for your presence with us.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: That by your spirit you dwell with us now and in us now.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: I ask that we might all experience more of your presence this week, that we might be conscious that we are the living temple for you, for your spirit.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that we take that into our the places and the spaces that we go into.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I pray that we would be caught in awe at how wonderful and how good and how beautiful you and your creation are.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: May your kingdom come more and more in our lives and in the world around us this evening, tomorrow, this week, and in the weeks to come.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think we'll be sometimes just to have a just a change of gear, because in some way the word is uh a word that we can approach terribly sometimes, but actually sometimes it's to touch our hearts and touch our imaginations.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um so uh thanks for leading us uh kind of reflective thoughts on that.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just gonna tell you a little bit of homework before next week.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Having gone through kind of uh covenant, uh having gone through sacrifice, having gone through high priest, having gone through uh temple tabernacle, um the metaphor of Exodus uh and deliverance is one that obviously the the whole story's there, and some people say actually that that Jesus comes with a second Exodus.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um where does deliverance, that idea of deliverance from oppression, deliverance from slavery, deliverance from evil, uh, how does the theme of deliverance uh go through scripture and how's that fulfilled in the person of Jesus?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe how's that then part of what we should be doing?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: So okay, so so the same kind of process we followed with those other things, that metaphor, that image of Exodus, because quite often the people of God will always look back to Exodus, uh even though it was kind of hundreds of years later, they'll say, Oh, we remember when you set us free from Egypt.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can set me free back.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was a story that kind of was had significance to them.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to do that yourself, follow that through.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can do it.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um great, it's it's uh we've finished just before quarter past nine today, which is good last morning, we're a bit late.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: So uh uh