Exodus 25

And this is what God said to Moses.

So Exodus 25, verse 8.

And let them make me a sanctuary... which means it could be read like a holy place, a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

Now, can we imagine that? Then he says, according to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.

And so my message today is titled, Jesus in the Tabernacle.

And I want to begin with three portions of scripture, starting with Exodus 25, verse eight.

The Lord says, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

And when the tabernacle was finally completed, Exodus 40 verse 33 tells us, And so Moses finished the work, and then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

We fast forward to the New Testament in John 1, verse 14.

And the Word became flesh, speaking of Jesus, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

Now, we usually view the tabernacle as a collection of instructions, measurements, sacred furnishings, and yet woven in its curtains, the patterns and the sacrifices is a divine mystery.

Because long before Bethlehem, God was already painting the portrait of his son, Jesus, the fulfillment of it all.

"If Jesus were on Earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

Those priests, Aaron's sons, Aaron's descendants, serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things, for when Moses was about to build the tabernacle, he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'" Again, if you jot in your Bible next to verse five, you want to write Exodus 25:9.

Exodus 25:9.

And also Exodus 25 verse 40.

Exodus 25:9, Exodus 25 verse 40.

Because Exodus 25 is where God gives Moses the instructions on how to build the tabernacle.

And in Exodus 25 verse nine, God says to Moses, He says, "Build the tabernacle exactly like I'm showing you." And after He gives him the instructions on how to build it, at the end of that chapter, He says, "Be sure you build it exactly like I'm showing you." So Moses had to build the tabernacle according to the instructions of God because the tabernacle, this earthly tent of meeting that the priest would go into, is a picture, a shadow of heaven.

Now, understand this, please.

Fidelis said, The mercy seat upon the Ark of the Testament, which the Jews respected as the throne of God between the cherubims.

Exodus 25, verse 2.

Psalm 99, verse 1.

And he that sat on it was to look upon like jasper and sardine stone.

So that is what it probably looked like.

In Exodus 25.8, God states the core meaning.

Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.

A sanctuary, and I think this is how it's pronounced in Hebrew, mikdash, is a holy place set apart for worship.

The high priest of Israel appointed by God, at that time Aaron, would have to go through a process of washing themselves and putting on special priestly clothing and other rituals of worship within the tabernacle.

And this was all instructed by the Lord.

From Exodus 25 to 31, God outlined the same instructions seen in Exodus 35 for the construction of this tabernacle.

Every piece of gold, silver, fine linen, and wood used to build these sacred items came directly from the voluntary offerings requested in Exodus 35.

Back to the Bible.

Let's open our Bibles, uh, to Exodus 25 verse 10.

Here we go.

[upbeat instrumental music] Hallelujah.

So in the Old Testament, you see this.

Exodus 25, 40, look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount.

Exodus 26, 30, according to the fashion thereof, which was showed thee in the mount.

What is the mount? The mount is literally the mountain, the central mountain, the world axis, the world tree.

And then starting in Exodus, he spends about 50 chapters describing a tent.

Exodus 25 to 40, Leviticus, chunks of numbers, curtains, clasps, boards, sockets, what kind of yarn to use for a robe.

25 times more space on a tent than on all of creation, and 50 of those chapters hang on one sentence, Exodus 25, 28, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell with them.

that I may dwell among them.

That's what the tent was for.

Watch how relentlessly the Bible goes after this.

So in Genesis, Joseph is trafficked into slavery by his brothers.

And in Genesis 39, Genesis 39, the text will not repeating one sentence.