All right, so tonight we're in Exodus chapter 25. Last week we were together, we did kind of an overview of the tabernacle, where we took a look at the larger tabernacle complex and the smaller tent itself and talked about what it represents. And we pointed out that it represents three different things. It represents the universe, in the sense that as you begin in the Most Holy Place, that is God's throne room, and we'll see that again tonight in Exodus 25, and then you move out into the Holy Place, which represents the first and the second heavens, and then you move out into the outer court, and it's, the bronze altar there is obviously made of bronze, and it's very earthy. It also represents Eden, and the way being shut such that the curtains on the outside of the Most Holy Place are embroidered with cherubim, which harkens back to the end of Genesis chapter 3. We also noted that the tabernacle itself, all of its doors that Adam and Eve were expelled from their original garden and paradise. And so we see that the way back into the presence of God is due west, and the tabernacle represents that as well. And then ultimately we saw that the tabernacle itself represents the ministry of Jesus, the Savior. And we will see that, I hope, more clearly as we move through chapters. 25 through 31. If you'll just go to the end of Exodus chapter 24 for a second, if you remember that as Exodus 24 came to a close in verse 15, then Moses went up to the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain and the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days and on the seventh day he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud and to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop, verse 18. And Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. And so Exodus 25 through Exodus 31 gives us the vision of what Moses saw while he was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. And so the rest of the Israelites are not obviously on the top of the mountain, they're down at the base of the mountain, and we'll pick up with their story, a relatively sad story, when we get to Exodus chapter 32. But what we're about to see over the next several hours as we get together is the vision that God gave to Moses. And so we begin in Exodus chapter 25 verse 1. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Tell the sons of Israel to raise a contribution from me. From every man whose heart moves him you shall raise my contribution. And this is the contribution which you are to raise from them. gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet materials, fine linen, goat hair, ram's skins, dyed red, porpoise skins, acacia wood, oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and setting stones for the ephod and for the breastpiece. And let them construct a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell among them, according to all that I am going to show you as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it. So we see here that God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to provide a free will offering, and the contents of the free will offering will provide what is needed to establish, to erect, to machine and fab, if you will, the tabernacle. And so as we go through chapters 25 through 31, we will see that the things that are made for the tabernacle, the tents, right, the actual tents themselves, the structures upon which the tent will hang, and the furniture inside and outside of the tabernacle tent, right, are made of these things which God outlines here. And so we'll walk through those in the coming weeks, right? And so all kinds of different things, right? So we have precious metals, gold and silver, and then bronze, And then materials, so the blue, the purple, the scarlet, these will be for, for example, for the curtains of the tabernacle itself. And then you have goat hair and ram skins. And what's identified here is porpoise skins. The word porpoise is a very difficult word to translate in the Hebrew, so you probably have something different, I'm guessing, in your translation. But basically, these will be for the tent coverings themselves. And then the acacia wood. is what the furniture will be made out of, though that furniture will be covered, as we'll see in a little bit, with gold. So you would melt the gold and then cover the acacia wood. And then the oil for the lighting, and so we'll see tonight the lamp stand. which will have flames on it, spices for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense, which we will see for both the altar of incense, as well as the table of the showbread. And then the stones, and the onyx stones and the setting stones will be for the ephod and the breastpiece, which the high priest will end up wearing. And we will see also over the course of the next few hours and the next few chapters, the garments that the priest will wear. And then in verse 9, which I don't want to dwell on now because we'll come back to it at the end of the chapter, but Moses is commanded to make sure, make sure, Okay, according to all that I'm going to show you as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it. So what we will see is over and over again, God will tell Moses, make sure that you build the tabernacle and all of these other things, the furniture, exactly after the pattern that I'm about to show you. And again, that's because God is the one who has established the covenant with the people of Israel, which they have ratified, which we talked about. back in Exodus chapter 24, and the covenant itself has stipulations. So it has laws, which the Israelites are expected to obey, and it has worship, and that worship is going to be clearly defined by God. The Israelites must come to Him in a way that He prescribes. And a part of that is that the dwelling in which he will dwell, and the furniture through which they will worship him, must be according to the pattern. Which we find out later in the book of Hebrews, the preacher tells us is a earthly pattern of the heavenly dwelling of God. So it is an earthly representation, replica, of God's throne room in the third heaven. Right? Very, very important. Picking up in verse 10. So let's talk about the Ark of the Covenant. And they shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide and one and a half cubits high. And you shall overlay it with pure gold. Inside and out you shall overlay it. And you shall make a gold molding around it. And ye shall cast four gold rings for it, and fasten them on its four feet. And two rings shall be on one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. And ye shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. And ye shall put the poles into the rings on the side of the ark, to carry the ark with them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark. They shall not be removed from it. And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. And you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide. And you shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat, and make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends. And the cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another. The faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat. And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark. And in the ark you shall put the testimony which I shall give to you. And there I will meet with you. And from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandments for the sons of Israel. All right, so the first piece of furniture that God describes to Moses and shows to Moses as he's on top of the mountain is the Ark of the Covenant, or the Ark of the Testimony. So, we see already the God-centeredness of God. God is going to build the tabernacle, at least begin from the inside out. God's going to begin with his own throne, his own throne room. So we see the God-centeredness of God. It should be made of acacia wood. That is, the box itself, because there's two pieces here, right? The first piece is the box, or the arc. It's to be created out of wood and overlaid with pure gold, right? We said last time, I think, that a cubit is about 18 inches, so commonly from the tip of your middle finger to your elbow, that would be a typical length of a cubit, right? So 2 1⁄2 cubits by 1 1⁄2 cubits by 1 1⁄2 cubits is the box itself, again, of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Right? And the wood overlaid with gold actually makes it able to be carried. I mean, imagine this thing made of pure gold. It would be really, really heavy. It's heavy as it is. Okay? And it is overlaid inside and out. That's verse 11. Then in verse 12, It talks about, oh, and then also verse 11, it makes a gold molding around it. So this is an ornate box, right? This is no ordinary box. And so if you have a study Bible in front of you, in different study Bibles, they have different pictures of what it might look like. They are all similar. They're not the same, but they're all pretty similar. And you can see the Ark of the Covenant with the mercy seat on top. And you can see the molding, at least what an artist thought it might look like. Then in verse 12, there's four rings that are cast, right? And then in verse 13, you have these poles of wood overlaid with gold, and you put the poles into the rings on the side of the Ark to carry the Ark with them. The poles are never, verse 15, are never to come out of those rings. And the reason that is, is because God has prescribed a way to carry the Ark of the Covenant, and the Israelites were not allowed to touch the Ark of the Covenant. And for those of us who do our devotional reading or are familiar with Old Testament stories, we know that later in Israel's history, there's an incident where a man named Uzzah reaches out to try to stabilize the Ark of the Covenant. And he gets struck dead. The Israelites were never, first of all, they weren't supposed to be carrying the Ark on a on a cart being pulled by oxen anyway, so they were actually doing it the wrong way. But then Uzzah, of course, reaches out, stretches out his hand to stabilize the ark when the oxen stumble, right? And God strikes him dead on the spot, right? So the poles are there as a means by which for the ark and the mercy seat to be carried. Verse 16, what goes in the ark is the testimony which I shall give you, right? And so this is the stone tables or the stone tablets, which God will subsequently provide to Moses. And of course, we know that on those stone tablets are written the 10 commandments of God, right? So the law of God goes in the Ark, okay? And that'll be important here in just a minute or so, right? So what's in the Ark is the 10 commandments. Then verse 17, so now you have the Ark made of wood, overlaid in gold, then verse 17, you have the mercy seat of pure gold. So this is the lid of the ark. The lid of the ark is made of pure gold. So it's not wood overlaid with gold, but the lid itself is made of pure gold. Hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat. And then there's two cherubim on the mercy seat. And you see in verse 19, you shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends. So this basically, this is not like sort of your ornaments at Christmas that you set down on the table, right? These are all one piece. The cherubim travel with the mercy seat. They're all of one piece and they are all made of gold. And we see in verse 20 what these cherubim are to look like, okay, at least with respect to their wings. And different artists will render these differently. Sometimes the cherubs have lion's faces or whatever. We don't really obviously know what they look like. But what we do know is that these cherubim have wings, and the wings come up and they're pointed up, but they're covering their face as the cherubim are sort of prostrate, facing each other on each end of the mercy seat. And so the picture we should have in our minds, I think again as we do our devotional reading, is Isaiah chapter 6. We see these cherubim, these angels that are in the presence of God, they're very mighty angels. The angels in Isaiah 6 have six wings, with two they cover their face and two they cover their feet, and with two they flew. And so you can see that these wings cover the faces of the cherubim. God is too pure, too holy, even for the cherubim to look upon him. They're always prostrate in a posture of worship. And so we see that from very early on in Israelite history. And verse 21, you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony, that is the Ten Commandments, which I shall give to you. This is very important. So let's go all the way back now to verse 17. You shall make a mercy seat. So this word literally means a propitiatory. It's a seat of atonement. And we know from our studies, propitiation, which is a word that appears four times in the New Testament, It means appeasement of wrath, a satisfaction, a satisfaction. And when you look at the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, the word propitiatory appears over and over and over again here in this chapter. It's the same word that's used four times in the New Testament, and it means atonement, or satisfaction, or appeasement. And the reason why this is important is we see several things. First of all, this is the throne of God. You see that verse 22, and there I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from above the propitiatory, from above the satisfaction seat, the seat of atonement, From between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandments for the sons of Israel." So God is always mediating his relationship with his people from a position of atonement. God's always coming to his people whom he has called, whom he has chosen, whom he has redeemed out of slavery from a position of mercy. If God does not come to you from a position of mercy, that's bad. So that's number one. God's throne, God's seat, could be his footstool even, is always one of mercy, atonement, repetition. That's number one. Number two, it's also important that this is a lid. And so what we see is we see that mercy covers The law. Mercy covers the law. And so what may be ringing in your ears is James chapter 2 verse 13, where James says, mercy triumphs over judgment. Alright? And we can see that in the Ark of the Covenant. God, sitting on His throne, He's sitting on a seat of mercy. which is triumphing over the judgment of the law against his people. And this is a glorious truth of the gospel. When God calls us out of the bondage of slavery to sin, into redemption, into justification, into sanctification, into adoption, all of these are benefits which are provided to us from God's mercy. from a position of atonement. That is, judgment has been paid for. The law has been kept on your behalf. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, right here in the Ark of the Covenant, which is the very throne of God. All right? Very important to see. The Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, is in the most holy place. That is not a place where just anyone can go in the Israelite worship. And it's not a place that the high priest can even go, except once per year. except once per year on the Day of Atonement. So this is a very protected place. As I said last time, no one just waltzes into the throne room of God. The most holy place. Verse 23. And you shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long and one cubit wide and one and a half cubits high. And you shall overlay it with pure gold and make a gold border around it. And you shall make for it a rim of a hand breath around it. And you shall make a gold border for the rim around it. And you shall make four gold rings for it and put rings on the four corners which are on its four feet. The rings shall be close to the rim as holders for the poles to carry the table. And you shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold so that with them the table may be carried. And you shall make its dishes and its pans and its jars and its bowls with which to pour libations. You shall make them of pure gold and you shall set the bread of the presence on the table before me at all times. So now we've moved out of the most holy place and now we're into the holy place. And if you remember, the most holy place was a cube The holy place was not a cube, it was a rectangular place. And so now in the holy place, in the tabernacle, there are going to be three pieces of furniture. And they'll be arranged in the following way. The table of the showbread will be on the north side. Remember the door leading out of the holy place faces east. The table of the showbread will be on the north side of the holy place. And of course, because it's inside the tent, it's made of gold. It's made of wood, overlaid with pure gold. And the way the holy place is, it's not a perfect cube, but it's twice as long as it is wide, and so is the table itself. So the table is actually a little bit of a replica of the holy place itself. So you overlay it with pure gold, make a gold border around it, and then this has a rim, verse 25, and it has a rim that's about a hand breadth wide, and it has a rim because you're gonna place things onto it, okay? Including pouring out libations and incense, and we'll see that later as we walk through chapters 25 through 31. You're gonna place bread on it, okay? And so that's verse 25, the rim. And then, of course, like the Ark of the Covenant, it has four gold rings, and then two poles with which to carry it. And those poles are made of wood and overlaid with gold again. And then in verse 29, we see that there's going to be this daily ministry inside the Holy Place. And for that ministry, for that worship, you need dishes and pans and jars and bowls. And all of those things should also be made of gold. That's part of the worship, the regular worship of God in the holy place. Right? And verse 30, you shall set the bread of the presence, literally this is the bread of the face. The bread of the face of God on the table before me, says God, at all times. So, a few things here. So first of all, in the holy place, we have bread. Well, if this doesn't sort of ring in your ears, I don't know what to tell you, right? So first of all, what we've already seen in Exodus is what? We've already seen the manna. The manna is what God makes to appear six days out of the week, God provides his people with food to eat, they're to go out and to gather it, he gives them exactly what they need, they're to go out daily, except on Saturday, the Sabbath day, because he provides for them twice as much as they need on Friday, so that on the Sabbath day they can rest, right? So God has already given to us a picture of how he provides for his people bread. And that will be a motif that runs all the way through the Bible up to the bread of life discourse, which we've already previously talked about during the Exodus study in John chapter six, where Jesus proclaims himself to be the bread that comes down out of heaven. So this table in the holy place is a continual reminder to God's people that God is providing for them, sustaining them. on a daily basis. And this bread, okay, is called the bread of the presence, or the bread of the face of God. Now, why is that significant? Well, what the Israelites are to be reminded of in the table of the showbread, or the bread of the presence, or the bread of the face of God, is God's continual blessing of them. And how do we know that? We know that because the face of God, what the face of God means, is demonstrated to us in that great Levitical blessing. What's the great Levitical blessing? Numbers chapter 6. Sometimes we say it at the end of our church services on Sunday morning. What is it? May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you. Turn his countenance to you. May the Lord bless you. Give you peace. So the face of God shining on a person is literally God blessing a person. That's what the blessing means. Because in the number six, 24 through 26, you have three pairs. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you. That may he make his face shine upon you is a parallel to bless you. That's why we say that. That's why the Levitical priests would say that to the Israelites. That was a blessing. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you. That is a word of blessing. And so what we see in the Israelite worship, which God is prescribing for his people by the table of the showbread and the bread of the presence, is that God is continually, his grace, his mercy, is continually flowing out from his throne, out of the most holy place, and is manifesting itself in the blessing of his people. That's what the table of the showbread and the bread of the face of God is intended to continually remind the Israelites of. He's providing for them. He's sustaining them. He is blessing them. Okay? So you have the Father, the throne room in the most holy place. You have the bread of the face of God, which reminds us of the Son. And now we have the golden lampstand. Verse 31. Then you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand and its base and its shaft are to be made of hammered work. Its cups, its bulbs, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. And six branches shall go out from its sides, three branches of the lampstand from its one side, and three branches of the lampstand from its other side. Three cups shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower. And three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower. So for six branches going out from the lampstand. And in the lampstand, four cups shaped like almond blossoms, its bulbs and its flowers. And a bulb shall be under the first pair of branches coming out of it. And a bulb under the second pair of branches coming out of it. And a bulb under the third pair of branches coming out of it. for the six branches coming out of the lampstand. Their bulbs and their branches shall be of one piece with it. All of it shall be one piece of hammered work of pure gold. Then you shall make its lamps seven in number, and they shall mount its lamps so as to shed light on the space in front of it. And its snuffers and their trays shall be of pure gold. It shall be made from a talent of pure gold with all these utensils. and see that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain." So, in the holy place, we had on the north side, we had the table of the bread of the presence, and on the south side of the holy place, you have the lampstand. And again, if you have a study Bible, you can see some artist's rendition of what they believe it looks like a modern-day menorah, if you're familiar with a Jewish menorah, for example, is what most artists render it as. So this is a lampstand. It's intended to provide light, and it looks like a tree. It looks like a tree. It has almond blossoms on it. And because it's in the holy place, it's made of pure gold. And so there's a lot of detail here, but basically these are your, it looks like flowers, almond blossoms on a tree, which again, harkens us back to the Garden of Eden, which itself had a tree. And by the way, if you read ahead to the end, you also know that at the end of the Book of Revelation, there's also a tree, the tree of life reappears at the end of days, right? Its leaves are for the healing of the nations and it provides fruit, you know, every month for the people of God and that sort of thing, right? So the tree motif. is very prevalent in Genesis through Revelation as well. Trees appear in the Gospels. Jesus speaks to trees. There's all of these trees. There are trees in Jesus' parables, Matthew chapter 13, Mark chapter 4. But this particular tree is a special tree because this particular tree provides a light to God's people. Now imagine, this is a tent. This tent, as we will see, it has three covers on it. So, what does that tell you about what the holy place looks like? It's dark, right? It's dark. Which is also a symbol of the fact that humans should not be wandering into the throne room of God. The psalmist says that God exists in darkness. John says God is light. Both of those things are true. But the holy place is a dark place, except for the fact that God has provided a light for the priests to worship him on a daily basis. Later, he will provide oil for the lampstand. You can see this also in Zechariah, as well, with the lampstand. So, this should remind you, also, of Jesus himself, who declares himself to be the what? the light of the world, absolutely. He also exhorts his people in Matthew chapter five also to be the light, right? You don't hide it under a basket, right? That sort of thing, right? So light is a motif also that comes through very much in the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, especially in the Gospel of John. There's this contrast between day and night, light and darkness. And God is the one who's providing the light for his people. But not only does this remind us of the sun, S-O-N, but it should also remind us of the spirit. Okay? The Holy Spirit. And you can see this clearly in the book of Revelation, where you have seven lampstands in Revelation chapter one, which are the seven spirits of God. Not that we believe that there are nine persons in the Trinity, right? But God is trying to, Jesus is trying to reveal something to John about the fullness of the Spirit, right? The point here is that this lampstand reminds us of the Holy Spirit. We see that imagery in the Book of Revelation. And it's also true that in order for us to understand the Gospel, in order for us to understand God's Word, what must happen? Yeah, that's correct. We must be enlightened. We must have our minds and our hearts illuminated by the Spirit of God. The Bible itself, the Word of God, is theanoustos, it is breathed out by the Spirit of God. And so the Spirit provides God's Word, but then he also provides the ability for human beings, who are dull of hearing and hard of heart, to understand the Gospel. And he does that through his regenerating work, and then he gives us understanding as he teaches us, according to the promises of the New Covenant, by his illuminating work. And that's why we always say things like, look, yes, God raises up teachers, pastors, elders, but at the end of the day, none of us teaches anyone spiritual truth. It's the Holy Spirit who teaches God's people spiritual truth. And we also see the contrast of that in the New Testament. Paul will say things like, the minds of the unbelievers are what? darkened. They're darkened in their understanding. They don't have light. So God is the one. He not only provides us sustenance and blessing through the bread on a daily basis, but he also provides us light so that we might see him, fellowship with him, understand the gospel, understand his word. And so what do we see? Here in the tabernacle, even though it wasn't clear to the Israelites at the time. We have said this before, the doctrine of the Trinity, right? Although we see it now in the Old Testament, right? This is not something that would have been abundantly clear to a Jew. to an Israelite of the Old Testament. But as we see the entirety of the Scriptures, Genesis to Revelation, we can look back on these things, and in the most holy place, in the holy place, in the tabernacle tent, we see the three persons of the Trinity, because God has revealed that to us in His Word, the fullness of His Word in the New Testament. We see the Father in the throne room, we see the Son in the bread and in the light, and we see the Spirit in the lampstand, who's illuminating the world. It's an amazing thing. These are two of the three pieces of furniture in the Holy Place. And the Holy Place was where the priests would go on a daily basis. Again, the Most Holy Place, only once a year, and only the High Priest. Finally, as we wrap up Exodus chapter 25, what we see in, oh, by the way, in, let's see, verse 39, a talent, just so you know, is most probably about 75 pounds. So this would have been difficult for one Levitical priest to carry. So again, it doesn't have poles, but it is intended to be carried. It's all made of one piece. It's not like you took it apart. Finally, verse 40 of Exodus chapter 25 is an echo of what we already saw in verse 9. The exhortation from God to Moses, and see that you make them after the pattern for them which was shown to you on the mount. We will see this a couple of more times as we go through the vision here in Exodus 25 through 31. What we labored last time to emphasize, I'll just mention again, all of these furnishings, this tabernacle, this worship, is intended to teach us about who God is, about how a holy God is to be approached by sinful men, And about the life, death, resurrection, ascension, the ministry of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. It tells us of his ministry in terms of blessing and sustenance and light. And it tells us of his perfections. That's what the gold is for. The value of his life, his precious blood with which he has purchased a people, even sinners like us.