Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 21, 2021 | Exodus - We're Invited In!

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March 21, 2021 | Exodus - We're Invited In! · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: So this is it.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm aware in the last week of uh for four years in a row.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: We've done a January through Easter book read together and a study together.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh we are completed it.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I want to say congratulations, you completed the Exodus challenge.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have read the book of Exodus with me?
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, it's great.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And I saw those hands over in College Avenue.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: That was great.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: You read the book of Exodus.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of you completed 40 daily devotionals.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: How many of you did any of the devotionals?
0:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, followed.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Great credit.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Rewards and well, I can't say that.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: So anyway.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So uh, and this morning, so our theme for the whole series is breaking us out and inviting us in.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, chapter 40 this morning, the last chapter in the book.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, feel free to turn to it.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Grab one from under the pew ahead of you, open your cell phone, whatever.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Um so, and our title this morning is We're Invited In.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: If you read my devotional that I finally got published yesterday on chapter 40, um, you can tell that uh you won't be surprised if I tell you that this morning is work in progress.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: I am still being surprised myself, amazed, learning about what a phenomenal theme that the tabernacle and the presence of God in that way is and how it reflects through the Bible.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I hope I can communicate that to you, but let me start by just talking, asking you if you've ever been invited to some place that blew your mind, you know.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Did a president anybody ever get a pr uh invitation president to go to the White House?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me neither.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Um Governor, Senator, so into the home of royalty, maybe are there any royalty left?
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Celebrity?
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a celebrity.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So, or maybe not a celebrity, but whoever it was, you really felt honored, you know, to get invited to dinner or whatever.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: When I was young, you know, we never, almost never, ever got invited anywhere to anybody's home because for some reason people hesitate to invite families of 10 or 12 over for dinner, especially when six out of the first oldest seven are boys.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: So now when I was older, went away to college, a couple thousand miles, and then later seminary got invited occasionally into the home of a professor that I admired, you know, for tea or dinner, and once into the home of uh the president.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but we've some of us have visited castles.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: You ever visited a castle in Scotland or or or or England or Germany?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, this big beautiful castles.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody else been to any of those castles?
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And imagine what it would have been like when I'm there.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Sort of imagine what it would be like when it wasn't just 50 tourists, you know, but when the people were living there, so maybe that's part of the draw of the fact that Dalton Abbey is on most nights in my home, you know.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh or Victoria, Melody are watching uh another period show called Victoria by Queen Victoria.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: And so you've watched those, many of you have watched those, and and you imagine what it would be like to be invited to a place like that.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: It'd be beautiful.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: So today I'm gonna talk to you about the invitation that comes to us in the second half of the book of Exodus, the invitation that first came to the children of Israel, but now is made to us, and that's an invitation to get together.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: So um the real question is uh we kind of understand what breaking us out means, but what does inviting us in mean?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: This is uh a review of I think the very first week in January.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh I mentioned that the book is sort of divided in half.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: First half is breaking us out, breaking out Israel from the land of bondage, salvation, new birth, across the breaking of the waters of the Red Sea, rescued by God.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And the second half, the Paphora, and now they're uh they're now at the mountain of God.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: It's all about Christian life, we would say, about the way to live, new way of life, knowing God, sanctification.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: So we understand breaking this out.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: We understand what it was like to be saved, we understand what it's like to be broken out, we understand salvation, slavery, and so forth.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: But what exactly uh is this invitation?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: What are we being invited in to?
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And I want to make that crystal clear, and the best way to do that, I think, turns out to be, to my surprise, the last chapter of the book.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna tackle Exodus, uh, and by the way, again, let me re-remind you of this theme from the key verses of the book.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: And I showed you this three months ago.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Breaking us out, Exodus 6.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, say to the Israelites, this is God, I'm Yahweh, and I will bring you out from underneath the yoke of the Egyptians, I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I will take you, and now the second half of the book, as my own people, and I will be your God.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Then you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from the Ethiopian Egyptians.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is the part that believers need to apply to themselves if we've been broken out, which we have.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And this reminds us really quickly, some theology, and this will be, it won't even be five minutes, of the three phases of salvation.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Exodus reminds us of the first two: justification, being broken out, sanctification, being invited, and glorification is the future, it's heaven.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Or to put it another way in detail, you have these three phases.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Phase one, when we are justified, when we believe in Jesus Christ.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Now we're in the second phase called the spiritual life, if you trusted Christ, and the future of glorification.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: So uh back to um back to the uh the text for the morning, and how it shows us in picture what being invited in means.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: This invitation we're gonna get this morning from God Himself.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: This is the story about the Lord moving into his new home.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you ever moved in?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have built a new home or whatever, or you've moved into a brand new home.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening in Exodus 40.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: So let's work our way through about half of the verses in the chapter.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: It begins this way: Yahweh or the Lord spoke to Moses, you are to set up the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, on the first day of the first month of the year.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Now you know the history up till now, that God broke them out of Egypt and he brought them to his holy mountain, Mount Sinai, and from the top of the mountain, scaring them to death, he said, Would you like to make a covenant?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Yeah, we would.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, what I mean is a real covenant where you'll be my people and I'll be your God, and we're gonna exchange vows in front of God and everybody.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I just threw that in, which didn't make any sense at all.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: But because he's God.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: So, but but Israel says in Exodus 19, yeah, we'll go for it.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And God says, but there's gonna be stipulations on your side.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: You can't just, you know, live any way you want to, especially the way you've been living lately.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And they say, fine, we'll do it.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: He says it's law, and they go, yeah, we'll keep it.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And so he gives them the Ten Commandments from the top of the mountain and calls Moses up, and and Moses is hearing from God, and he's spending 40 days up there, and the people go crazy, they freak out, and they break the covenant.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: They're unfaithful, you know, like the groom going into the back room with the, you know, no, let's not talk about that.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, they're just unfaithful right away.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they build the golden calf.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: So Moses comes down, he sees the covenant's already been broken.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: There's infidelity.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: He breaks, crashes, breaks, breaks the sign of the covenant, the two tablets, the tablets of testimony or witness to the covenant.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: God says, you know what?
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I I mean, you know, before you leave the church, you're gonna be unfaithful.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I want these people as my wife.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And so as a result, uh, and he says, Moses, why don't we start over with you?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And Moses says, No, I'd rather die, I'd rather go to hell with them or whatever.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, It's is this pretty clear that I'm just sort of making this up as I go along?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: So this is pretty close to reality, but there's some words that are creeping in here that are making Lynn Harrison look down in absolute embarrassment.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: So, um, anyway.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: So, but but but so as a result of Moses' amazing intercessory prayers, four of them in chapters 32 through 34, and we spent the last two weeks on that.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: So, God says, Okay, okay, okay, I will forgive you, I will forgive you.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's here's again what what you need to do.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: You need to build me a house on earth so I can come live with you and I can invite you in and we can have fellowship.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: So now they build this house, chapters 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, according to the specifications that God gave, in chapters 25, 26, 27, and so forth.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And then uh the Lord now says, and Moses says at the end of the last chapter, I've inspected it.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It's all ready to go.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all ready to be set up.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord goes, okay, well then set it up on the very first day of the first month.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And so we and he tells them exactly how to set it up, in what order, and Moses does that.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: We read in verse 16, and Moses did everything exactly as the Lord had commanded him.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the theme phrase in this chapter.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Thus he acted.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: And it came about in the first month of the second year on the first month of the day of the month.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: So this is the second year after they got out of Egypt.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they've been at Sinai seven or eight months.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: On the first day of the month, the tabernacle or tent sanctuary was erected.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and here's how it happened.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And Moses raised the tabernacle and he set its bases in place, and he set its phrase.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: By the way, notice that Moses is the subject of every sentence.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's no possible way that Moses did everything himself.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, some of these things, like especially basically the carpet, four layers of curtain that were the top of the tent, expensive layers, those were heavy, you know, hundreds of pounds.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So he didn't do all this himself, but this is to show us that Moses is really the founder of Israel, and God respects Moses as the leader.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Moses, I'm sure, used help as he did all this, but he's the subject of every sentence, just to honor him.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And Moses raised the tabernacle and he set its bases in place and he set its frames and he inserted his crossbars and he raised its posts or pillars.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And then he spread the tent canopy over the tabernacle, and he put the outer covering of the tent on top of it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Here's, and by the way, you can visit this with me sometime down in the desert.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: This is a replica of the tabernacle close to the Red Sea in uh in Israel.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's not all that big, okay?
12:02
SPEAKER_00: This is all 45 feet long, 15 feet wide, 15 feet high.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is this was God's house.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: It was set in a compound that was about 75 or 150 feet long, 75 feet wide.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and this, and this is this is where you wash your hands here.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: But this is this is the holy place and most holy place are inside here.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And Moses, you know, didn't do all this himself, but it says that he did, okay?
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And he he covered it over and he set it up.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And he retrieved and placed the testimony into the ark.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: This is the single most important piece of furniture, and he attached the poles to the ark, and he put the place of atonement on top of the ark, a sort of platform made of gold, pure gold, and he brought the ark into the tabernacle and he set up the screening veil, and he screened off the ark of the testimony, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the ark, you know, a replica, okay?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, not that big.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: But it had three things, and here are the cherubim, and here are the poles, and it was just amazingly crafted by Bezalel, okay, and inside it had three things.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: These are the two tablets of testimony, ten commandments on each of them, okay, one Israel's, one Yahweh's.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: This is the uh, this is the clay pot that had the manna in it, had manna, and this is Aaron's rod that budded, okay?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Those were the three things inside, and this is where the Lord would be in between the cherubim, this was his platform.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the Ark of the Covenant.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: That was the first thing.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, here's where we start thinking, wow, there's so many, there's some similarities between this and the Garden of Eden.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Right?
13:40
SPEAKER_00: There's some similarities between the tabernacle and the Garden of Eden.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, remember who it was that stood uh that that stood in the Garden of Eden to keep the sinners out and so forth?
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were called cherubim.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what the cherubim looked like on the Ark of the Covenant.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: We don't even know what they looked like here.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, oftentimes they have four different faces, you know, body of the lion, you know, and so forth.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: But so we don't know what they look like, but here's one rendition that's really, really, really famous.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so we go, okay, cherubim there, cherubim in the Garden of Eden.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: That was the last time that God came down to walk and talk with people and invited Adam and Eve to walk and talk with them every afternoon, about three or four in the afternoon, translated in the cool of the day, but we don't know what it really means.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: But um, so we have similarities, and then, oh yeah, there was this tree of life in the garden in the Garden of Eden, remember?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Here's some cherubim, they say.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But and then we have this lampstand, which is called a tree in Exodus, and it has buff buds and blossoms on it, so there's a similarity.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you start thinking of these similarities between the Garden of Eden.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: There's some in the words that are small, but the most obvious ones are the tree of life with the menorah and the presence of God and the cherubim and the fact that it makes a big deal, that it has to be facing east, the entrance, just like in the building here.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: The entrance to the sanctuary is from the east, and that's the way it was.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Eden.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Garden of Eden was on the east, the cherubim were on the east, and the temple, the temple had to be, entrance had to be on the east.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Just the opposite, by the way, of sun worshippers in the pagan world.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Theirs faced west, you know, because of the setting sun.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: But God said it's gotta be east, and so that's why Topeka Bible Church has been so blessed by God through the years.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Because ours faces just the same way as the tabernacle and the temple and the future temple, because we read in Ezekiel and Revelation that God will, on that final day, when Jesus returns, he will enter through the eastern gate, right?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, so you have these similarities just to remind us that the tabernacle is the first time since the Garden of Eden that God's going to return to earth to fellowship with mankind and invite them in.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And then we read Moses put the table in the tent of meeting on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil, and he set the arrangement of bread in order on it before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: So, uh really quickly, if you can see this, there's there's the veil, which they've sort of cut away, the heavy veil.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: There's the Ark of the Covenant, but outside you see, at the, and this is on the north side, on the right-hand side, you see the table with the bread, sometimes called the show bread on it, which they replaced every week.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna see some of these other elements.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is called the holy place.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: This is where only priests could come.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: You and I, regular common folk, could never come in there.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Priests could come there.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Only the high priest once a year could come into the most holy place.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: So this is uh in the desert when you visit it, this is what it looks like.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So they have on the south side the menorah, and then on the north side you have the table with the bread.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And he placed the menorah lampstand in the tent of meeting opposite the table on the south side, and he put up the lamps before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking about this lampstand here, which reminds us of the tree of life in the garden in the past and in the future.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: And he placed the gold altar in the tent of meeting in front of the veil, and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: So we have an altar, and we have really pricey incense, which God said, I don't want this burning in anybody's home.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: This is a special arrangement, three different, you know, flavors from around the world, from India and Africa and Europe.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Mix these in just the right proportion, and he doesn't tell us, you know, the Kentucky fried chicken recipe, so we can't repeat that special smell.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: But um, and so that's what we have.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, looking from sort of the northeast, you can see you have the menorah and you have the table and you have the incense altar, and behind the veil, you have the Ark of the Covenant.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, uh, Moses goes out to the courtyard, and he set up the screen of the entrance for the tabernacle, and set up the altar of burnt offering at the entrance of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and grain offering.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: So now we're outside of God's house, we're on God's property, 150 feet.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: This is a barrier seven feet high, because this is a holy place, right?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: And God is holy and He sets up, He sets up barriers of holiness.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Which reminds me of the story, the social distancing story.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: She was mom was driving the car, the family Toyota, and she drives into the store, and her husband is in the right seat, and she keeps adjusting so that she's not too close to the cars on either side, and and and and uh she she parks it, and her husband goes, hey, great job of social distance parking.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: And but the teenage son says from the back seat, yeah, we wouldn't want that van to catch Corolla's disease.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, so that sort of relates a little bit to this social distancing.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: God socially distances himself from the tribes because they're full of they're full of sin, right?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why the first thing is that they do when they come in here is this is the altar of burnt offering that he just set up.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: This is the basin so that the priests can continue washing their hands.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: So this is to take care of the sin problem.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And he placed the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and he put water in it for washing.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And from it, Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: You get the picture here.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: God's kind of out for precise obedience.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: So again, here's just a quick summary.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: You have the Holy of Holies, you have the holy place, and then you have the courtyard, so you have three areas, and then the holy of holies, one thing, the ark.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: In the holy place, you have three things the table, the lampstand, and the incense altar.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And outside you have the labor for washing hands, and you have the altar of burnt offering, because the first thing you have to do when God invites you into his house is you have to clean your feet, you know, you have to wash your hands, you have to take care of your sin problem.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: God really wants to meet with you.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Come on in, but by the way, on the way, please take care of your sin problem.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And he still says that today.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: 33, 34.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: So Moses set up the court all around the tabernacle and altar, and he put up the screen for the entrance of the court.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: It was a 30-foot wide entrance to the, and it was made of the very elements, this curtain that everybody could only come in one way.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: It's only one way, even today, to God through Jesus Christ.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: One way, 30-foot wide curtain that was colored exactly like the, it's the only way they saw the inside of the holy place was to look at the curtain.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Expensive, same colors.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And he put up the screen for the entrance of the court.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And Moses finished the work.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: I know some of your Bibles have a period here, and they start a new paragraph.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: They're missing out, folks.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: There's no period.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: There's there's no paragraph.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: It's and the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacles.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: You get the picture?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: God could hardly wait.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, um it's like if if it's like if you built a house.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: You had a contractor building a house for you.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And the contractor calls you and goes, you know what?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna get done about 10 o'clock this morning.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's like you get all kids, and you get in the van and you drive over there and you wait at the entrance to the driveway.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And then you see, you know, the contractor puts the last bit of paint on the front door, whatever, and it gives you a thumbs up, and you're in.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Boom! You don't wait for a moment.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: This is how much, I think the Hebrew text tells us, how much God wants to come dwell among us and live among us and have fellowship among us, so that the very second, the very moment that Moses finishes the work, the watching God descends in a split second, beams himself down from the top of Mount Sinai, which, as far as we know, has been sort of his home on earth ever since the Garden of Eden.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: And he zooms down and his, and he, and how how how is an invisible God going to let his people know that he's arrived, that he's moved in?
22:55
SPEAKER_00: The answer is he's gotta make it visible somehow.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: So he uses the cloud, which always represents him, this pillar of cloud, which I don't think is just like a dark cloud.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I think it's got like lightning in it and so forth.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: And so it naturally sort of morphs into something at night that's fiery, okay?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And it covers the ten of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that glory of the Lord filled it so much, well, this is artist transition.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: It's weak.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: But again, notice God has all the tribes in a certain order around here, distanced from him.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Here's the 30-foot-wide entrance.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: You come in, you offer your sacrifice, take care of your sins.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Priests wash their hands, and and they and and they go in inside.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: And this is where God lives.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: This is his personal dwelling back there in the Holy of Holies, and and all of this is really like a royal residence.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It's uh, this is all bronze out here.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of silver and a little bit of gold in that in the in the holy place where the menorah is, and it's solid gold.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Everything's solid gold, royal residence in the Holy of Holies.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And Moses, but notice, the Moses was not even able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You go, well, hold it.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: You were in such a hurry to invite us in and to meet with us and so forth.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And now the glory is just so strong there that not even Moses can come in.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's as though I don't know why that is, but but my guess is that God's trying to tell us two things: one that he's friendly, and the other that he's holy.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Friendly is not the right word, but that's the only one I can come up with at 10 945 on Sunday morning.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he wants us.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: He really wants to spend time with us, he wants to walk with us and talk with us, like Jesus with Mary in the garden, and he tells me that I am his own.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: He really wants that kind of intimacy.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, he is holy, and this is a reminder that there's a social distancing until sin is taken care of, and even Moses is a sinner.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, by the way, so Moses isn't able to enter now, but remember that Exodus, and it doesn't say he's able to enter it in the last three verses of the book either.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: But it's remember that Exodus is just like it's a TV series where this is the second episode, Genesis X, Leviticus Numbers, Deuteronomy.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And the very first sentence of the third episode, the next episode, is and the Lord called to Moses.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: So this didn't last long.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Leviticus, the very first line is that Moses, he does call Moses in.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, he's reminding us there's distancing because I'm holy and you're sinful.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud rose up from over the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But if the cloud would not rise up, then they didn't set out, for the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:03
SPEAKER_00: This is so amazing.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: It's so cool.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Let me um let me just back up a little and talk to you about how we should think about this.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: There are basically three ways that people imagine the future.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, one is that we imagine people imagine heaven without earth, secondly, earth without heaven, third, heaven on earth.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: This first way is traditional, especially in the church.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: It's what leads us to say, I can hardly wait to get out of here, and and for our favorite song to be, I'll fly away.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: And the picture is that earth is so bad, it's so controlled by sin, so controlled by Satan, that we can one thing we're waiting for is the rapture and to get us out of here because God's gonna come down and he's gonna completely torch and burn this old earth, and it will never reappear, and it won't matter, we're gonna be on clouds, you know, forever and ever.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you know, heaven can wait and all that.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what the movies are about, that we're gonna be up there and and so forth.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's a very traditional view, even in the church.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: The problem, by the way, some of the implications of that view that are not really healthy, and I'm just telling you that I don't believe that's the Bible's view, the implications to some extent have to do with environmentalism and creativity and nature and beauty and and stuff like that.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Because if this earth doesn't matter, if it's just heaven that matters, then clearly we need not be concerned, you know, for picking up paper alongside the road, you know, or or cleaning the environment, or avoid, or and we need not care about animals, as far as uh I better not go there, I better not go there about animals.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And and and and and creativity and beauty is something that can wait till the future.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and and I don't agree with that, as you can see.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Now the second option is the dominant view of the world, and that is the earth without heaven.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as the Beatles sang, you know, uh uh uh so well and so biblically, imagine there's no heaven.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: It's easy if you try, no hell below us, and above us only sky.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh and the dominant view of this world is that is that you better grab for all the gusto you get because this is all there is, and you're the only one there is, and if you don't stand up for yourself, nobody else will.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And actually, really, yeah, we admire those people who go overseas to Africa or give their lives like Mother Teresa for poor people, but it really makes no sense.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: We admire them from afar because it really doesn't make sense.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: We should live for ourselves, and if you have any desires, how can it be wrong if it feels so right?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Might as well do it, because this is the only life you've got.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: There is no judgment day, there is no heaven, there is no future, it's just right now, this earth, so grab for whatever you can grab.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Money, pleasure, whatever turns you on, right?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: That's the dominant view of the world that we live in.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I came across a song I hadn't heard before, which expressed it so well.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: It's called Forget Tomorrow, and the words go, let's forget about tomorrow, and sounds like another song, which it isn't.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Because we're living for the night, let's forget about tomorrow because we're drinking all day, we're dancing all night, let's forget about tomorrow because we're living for tonight, let's forget about tomorrow, just live it up tonight.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: So those are brilliant lyrics, as you can tell.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Only uh only someone with a graduate degree could have come up with those lyrics.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: But but but you know, the point is this one of the implications of the second view is that self-centeredness is in and secularism is in, and sacrifice is out.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Makes absolutely no sense.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: But the third vision, which I believe is the biblical vision, is the vision of heaven on earth.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the vision that Exodus and the tabernacle point us to in the Garden of Eden, that God is always moving in this direction from heaven.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: He created earth, he created a beautiful garden of Eden.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a bit of heaven, it was clearly his home away from home.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: It was the place where he met with Adam and Eve, with man and woman.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And and uh and it was in the east, you know, just like, you know, the tabernacle, but humanity ruined this bit of heaven on earth with their disobedience.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And sinful Adam and Eve were expelled from God's perfect home.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And since then, God's goal has been to re-establish Eden on earth.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Working toward that end, he chose Abraham and Sarah to found a new nation called Israel that would be his earthly partner in Edenizing the world, of bringing back life as he designed it to be in warm fellowship with humanity, with him as our God, and we as his people.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: So, of course, he had to break his people, Abraham and Sarah's descendants, out of Egypt and bring them to himself at his new home away from home, Mount Sinai.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And here at the base of Mount Sinai, Moses had happened to be pasturing his wife's dad's flocks one day, not knowing he was standing on sacred ground because it was the perimeter of God's home, God's mountain.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: He saw a bush on fire, not being burned up.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: They had a conversation, and God said, I want you to break out my people, and he did with God's help.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, God, who traded in Eden for Mount Sinai, wants to leave Mount Sinai for a new earthly home among his people.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: So he designs this home all by himself in precise detail, including its walls and its rooms and its threads and its curtains and furniture and everything, and even the oils and the incense, and now it's finally finished.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: He's picked out a master craftsman to do the job, make it a royal home, though movable.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: And they've done it.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: It's completed, it's inspected, it's passed with flying colors.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, that seems to be the way the whole Bible goes.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Heaven's coming to earth.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: When you ask the question, where will heaven be?
32:39
SPEAKER_00: The answer is its headquarters is going to be right here on a new earth.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm borrowing this from a series I did called You Just Died, Now So What, or something like that.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So this is four, five, six years ago.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: But we read in Revelation, I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: This is God coming to earth, right?
33:07
SPEAKER_00: This is where God is establishing himself, verses three and four.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Then I heard a loud voice from the throne.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Look, God's dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Happened in Eden, God's desire for the tabernacle, it's gonna happen in the future.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Randy Alcorn writes, rather than our going up to live in God's home forever, God will come down to live in our home forever.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend his book, Heaven.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Many of you have probably read that.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Or as one theologian well known puts it, the new Jerusalem doesn't remain in a heaven far off in space, but it comes down to the renewed earth.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: There the redeemed will spend eternity in resurrection bodies.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: So heaven and earth, now separated, will then be merged.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: The new earth will also be heaven, since God will dwell there with his people.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: And what will the new earth look like?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: It'll look like the old earth, but it'll be made over.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: It'll be radically renewed.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: You see, the incredible implications of something like this.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it this is why the God who wants to bring heaven to earth, in my view, created things like the Matterhorn, which is called the Mountain of Mountains in the Alps, which, with no other mountains around it, is shaped like a jagged tooth, thousands of feet high, pointing directly at God.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: This is why the God, who again loves the earth and is planning to come to the earth, created things like the Niagara Falls in New York, where you can constantly see his rainbow.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: This vast waterfall of water.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And you it shows you God's power, it shows you, reminds you of his rainbow promise.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: This is why God created something like the Grand Canyon, the greatest gorge in all the world, where we're on the rim looking 4,000 feet down, down plunging cliffs in the red barrenness, the desert of Arizona, to see the mighty Colorado River that he placed at the bottom of it.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And this is why, in the greatest state in America, this is why God crafted out the flint hills, those rolling, beautiful, golden at sunset hills that used to be filled with bison and antelope, but even now are still filled with sandpipers and prairie chickens, you know.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is because God loves beauty, God loves nature, God loves the earth, and you and I should too, and we should care about this earth and the environment.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: It will one day be renewed, yes, but but this is why art and creativity and beauty and the earth are so important, because God's not gonna let Satan win on this earth and destroy the earth and say, okay, Satan, you won.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: No, God's say, I'm out to reclaim the earth.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna erupt back in and I'm going to take it for myself.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you think I'm putting it devotional.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: The links between Genesis 1 and 2 and the Tabernacle, finishing the Genesis 1 and 2 creation, completion of the tabernacle are just all over the place.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: And both, God saw that it was good, and both there's a blessing, and both, you know, uh anyway, uh I I won't go there.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Check out the devotional.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: But listen, this story goes even farther.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: My timing's perfect.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: So um there are five great themes that we've looked at during this inviting us in section.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: The tabernacle, glory of God, God's goodness and grace.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're here last week, is five goodnesses, which were compassion, graciousness, slow to anger, or patient.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, full of love, abounding in love and faithfulness or truth.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Those are the five.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Law, of course, and fifth, no one can see God.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Keeps getting repeated.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Can't see me, can't see me.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Those are the five great themes.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: There is one passage in the New Testament that has all five of those themes.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is it wants us to move that line from Eden to the tabernacle to a third place.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is it wants us to move that line to the Lord Jesus Christ.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: If we read, and the word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
37:54
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is the tabernacle.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: So the ultimate tabernacle was not Eden, and the ultimate tabernacle was not the tabernacle.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate tabernacle or the tent of meeting, the place of meeting between God and humanity is none other than the person of Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: And the word became flesh and tabernacle among us, and there it comes.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And we saw his glory.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: We saw his glory.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: The glory is of the unique Son of the Father.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: What kind of glory was it?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Was it radiant glory?
38:29
SPEAKER_00: Did he have a halo around his head?
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Did he shoot out ray beams of sunlight?
38:32
SPEAKER_00: No, except on the Mount of Transfiguration.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: No, it was the glory of his goodness, full of grace and truth.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And this is John's summary of the five goodnesses of God.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: He picks two of them.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: The last two, abounding, full of love, grace, and faithfulness or truth.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: And he summarizes the goodness of God and says, that's where the glory of God was in the Old Testament.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: That's where it was in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his wonder and in his goodness.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And just in case we missed it, he says, for the law was given through Moses.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, now we have the law theme, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: That's four of the themes right there.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: And the fifth theme comes in the eighth, and verse 18, and no one has seen God at any time but the unique one who is himself God, that is Jesus, sometimes translated, but the only begotten of the Father, who is himself God, has displayed him.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, all of a sudden we have this story that starts in the Garden of Eden, where God comes down and he wants to walk and talk with Adam and Eve.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And he comes down actually in the second person of the Trinity because no one has seen God at any time.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: So he came down in what we today call Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, and then comes again into the tabernacle in radiance as well, in the pillar, fire, pillar of cloud, but primarily he says, In my goodness.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: But then the ultimate tabernacle and the place of meeting with God is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, Garden of Eden, Tabernacle, and later the temple, and Jesus.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And the invitation that comes to you and to me today is not to go over with Jim to the desert of Israel, to the replica of the tabernacle.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: But the invitation, far more importantly, comes from the New Testament.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: That the tabernacle with the glory of God visible and displayed in him is in the person of none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: And this theme of the glory is carried by John throughout his gospel.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Remember when the water was turned to wine in the first miracle at Cana of Galilee?
41:03
SPEAKER_00: The text reads that the people who gave Jesus the water saw the miracle, but the disciples saw Jesus' glory.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: We keep having these little glimpses of glory, though there's no halo and no radiance, and all of a sudden you get to chapter 12, and John is unique among the gospels when he says in chapter 12, the summit and pinnacle of Jesus' glory was when they nailed him in shame up to the cross so that he could die for the sins of the world.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: There, hanging there, as we'll celebrate in 11 days on Good Friday, hanging there in absolute shame and near nakedness, bleeding, was when the glory of God shone forth most clearly displayed in his Son Jesus Christ.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Why?
41:59
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not a halo, because it's in his goodness.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, God's compassion and grace and patience, his grace and truth were shown in the Lord Jesus Christ, who says now to us, I'm inviting you to come and see me in the Holy of Holies.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Because the veil is down, and you can meet with me anytime.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: He says to us, I take it.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Come, child, come, but as you come, deal with your sin.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: In fact, John later writes an epistle whose theme is fellowship, coming to meet with God, and he says in verses one through nine of his first chapter, he says, you know, we apostles want to invite you into fellowship with God, our fellowships with him.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: You can join us, join our circle, fellowship.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: And then he immediately says, now, but God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: We got a social distancing thing going on until you deal with your sin.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: We got a seven-foot-high thing going around here.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: You can't really come to God.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: So, but if you confess your sin, it's all it takes.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: You don't need an animal now.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: If you confess your sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Would you come to God, please, in the person of Jesus Christ?
43:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting you.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting you to come.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: So many good songs about coming to Jesus, but I think my favorite is the one sung by Chris Rice.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not perfect, but it goes like this: weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, raise your head, for love is passing by.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus and live.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Now your burden's lifted and carried far away, and precious blood has washed away your sin.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: So sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus and live.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: And like a newborn baby, don't be afraid to crawl.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: And remember, when you walk, sometimes you fall.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: So fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus and live.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: So if your sky is dark and downpours the rain, then cry to Jesus.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus and live.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: And with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And then go in peace and laugh on glory's side and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the invitation today.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: My Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself fulfills the tabernacle, which itself was a bit of heaven, he says, Would you come to me and live?
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head with me, Heavenly Father, out of our sorrow, bondage, night, Jesus, we come to thee.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Into your freedom, gladness, and light, Jesus, we come to thee.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Out of our sickness, into thy health, out of our want and into thy wealth, out of our sin and into yourself, Jesus.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: We come to thee.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: We're coming home.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: Coming home.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Nevermind to roam.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Open now your arms of love.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're coming home.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this invitation from this ancient book.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Please accept us.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: As we deal with our sin and as we run into your arms.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, folks.