Alright, so we're gonna try to zip through the end of Exodus here And and I I think one of the things that we need to be aware of as we get into this We're going to start we finished through chapter 34 the last time we were together talking about Moses and his relationship with God and how he Had this this just intimate relationship with God where he spoke as men would speak to one another. And, but God never actually showed him his face. And so he, you know, declared himself, you know, in such a way that he had to go into the cleft of a rock and showed him the back of him and so forth. And so then in chapter 35 through chapter 40, we have a picture of Moses describing in very precise detail what God showed him and then he instructed the people to do. And I've always found that this section of scripture is fascinating because there are three basic things that he talks about here that are really important. The first is that he emphasizes the Sabbath. He puts the Sabbath first. And he talks about that first, and he reminds them that the Sabbath is about respecting the creation of God. That's really what the Sabbath is all about. That God is the creator. So before we get into this whole entire thing of building this great tabernacle and this place that we're going to worship God, we need to understand that God created the earth in six days. He's much more important. He is the one who created everything. And without his Input without his direction without his guidance. We're not creating anything So we want to remember the Sabbath every single week never work more than than six days a week to remind ourselves that it is God that is the Creator not us and That's I think very struggle. That's a real struggle for a lot of people People think that they really are in charge You are not in charge You are not in charge you go to the doctor the doctor looks at this little thing on your head and says oh You know you got a malignant growth now on your head It's just happened to a buddy of mine. I just had we just played golf together And he said I went to the doctor wasn't he had like they felt like a little something on his neck and the guy guys Oh, yeah, oh by the way you have a malignant growth on your neck. Well. What did I do nothing? How did I get it? No idea. And David, can you imagine someone coming to you and all of a sudden you're just like, okay, what? And that's the point. We don't have control over the things that happen in life because it's not our house. Where you get where I'm coming from it's his house, so so right off the bat Moses reminds the people it says Moses assembled all the people together and He says these these are the things the Lord has commanded us to do for six days You may work, but on that seventh day you have to take that as Chabad you have to take that as holy you have to take that as his and So you have to have that as as a holy sabbath of complete rest. I love that a complete rest now, of course the rabbis have taken and run with this over the years and Defined what complete rest really looks like and it kind of made a almost a sort of a mockery out of this whole idea of complete rest, but nevertheless This idea of we're not working. That's what he's basically trying to tell him You know, I don't want you taking your hammers and going over and knocking a few screws, you know Few nails and few screws in. No. You work six days, seventh day you just, you're not doing that anymore. You get completely away from that. And you do whatever. You do whatever you want to do, but you don't do the work. And so, that was the first thing. And it's to remind us that God is a creator. Now, he then goes into this whole entire spiel, which I love. where it says, Moses spoke to all the congregation saying, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded, take from among you a contribution to the Lord, whoever is of a willing heart, and I don't know that I've actually counted it, but I think it's seven or eight times, he says in this whole entire section, and they did it with a willing heart, and they did it with a willing heart, and they did it with a willing heart, or their heart was moved to do this, or whatever, but it was always about changing their intent. Their intent initially was, I'm going to use this stuff for me. There's so many interesting pieces in the tabernacle. For example, one of the things that's in the tabernacle that I think is fascinating is mirrors. Now, you have to understand, mirrors are different then than they are today. Today, the way we make mirrors, we take glass, we put this, you know, coating on the back of the glass, and that creates a mirror. But back in those days, the way they made mirrors, they would take brass, and they would lay it out, and they would make it super, super thin, put it into like a board, and stretch it, and then high shine it by hand until you could see yourself in it. It was a process, and it was not cheap. It was a hard thing to do. And the Egyptians actually had kind of made this into an art form because the Egyptians were the first people to do facial makeup, historically. Anybody that's ever watched their wife put on eyeliner knows that she can't do that without a mirror. I can see you going to your daughter and going, okay, now, honey, is this straight? No, so they had this mirror and they created these mirrors Specifically to put on and to take care of their own self. That's what the mirrors were all about The mirrors go and now into the go into the tabernacle to remind them that it's not about looking at themselves It's about looking at God So there's looking glasses is is to remind them of the fact that God is the one that we need to be looking at not ourselves and so there's this Just incredible analogies that are going on throughout this entire thing, but the most important thing we have to understand is that Whoever is a willing is of a willing heart God never commands us. This is fascinating as Much as we think God commands us like we are forced to give we're not forced to give I mean, the truth of the matter is that we could not tithe, we could not give offerings, and you're probably not going to get struck down by lightning. There's no like, you know, if you do this, you're going to hell. That's not what it is. Giving is an expression of your heart. Now, we do know that the Bible tells us that when we fail to give, that we're really robbing God. We're effectively robbing up and tells us that Malachi, but but we know that that that Everyone has the capacity to give at different levels And so if you remember the widow who gave her single penny that was all she had in her world To the offering and Jesus said she gives more than any of those other people that are bringing in you know multiple cases of pennies No, she's the one that's really the one that's doing it of the right heart. So in this, it says that this is a free will offering. This is being done. But I also think that it's really interesting. It says that everyone gave based on their capacity to give. And I also think the order here of the giving is fascinating because he doesn't start out with People gave riches and diamonds and all these things that went on the breastplate and so forth. No, he starts out with people gave of their contribution of wood. People gave of their contribution of being able to weave linen together and make the curtains. That's all discussed before he ever gets into the elders bringing in all their rubies and gold and crazy stuff. It's to me is is is really something that's that's very cool So I love verse 21 says of chapter 35 says and everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him came and brought the Lord's contribution to for the work of the tent of the meeting, and for all of its service, and for the holy garments, and then all those whose heart were moved." So the fact was, what he's saying here, effectively, is there were people that didn't give to the tabernacle. Did they get exercised? Did they get thrown out of the congregation? Doesn't appear to be. I don't see anybody getting, you know, excommunicated because they didn't give to the temple. Doesn't identify who gave, who didn't give. God knows who gave, who didn't give, and that's all that matters. But it really didn't matter if you gave out of an unwilling heart, if you gave out of the wrong attitude. Does everybody see where I'm coming from there? This is why Paul says it this way. Paul says, God loves a what? Cheerful giver well, that's what he's talking about He's talking about someone who is giving out of the out of out of heart not of compulsion. I remember back a hundred years ago when I was at Beth Yeshua I was Responsible I had no idea how I got this job by the way. It's this job was the worst conceivable job you could ever have I don't know but the job when described I Was I was given the job of? Tallying the collection every week You know where I'm gonna go with this, right? Okay. Yeah, David knows where I'm gonna go with this. You probably did this I'm sure what more than once oh Okay, so well, you know, maybe that was white, you know, so Ray Ray Ray comes to me one day and he says he says He doesn't ask by the way. It was so funny. He goes. Oh, by the way, you're gonna now do the collection and I was like Okay Here's what you need to do boom boom boom boom boom the person that was doing it so and such that they're not there They're not going to do it anymore. You're not going to do it. Okay, so I said so me being the person I am I Especially in those days. I just went okay, whatever. I just you know It really didn't matter. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I mean what could possibly be into it? I mean, I've been I've been I've been doing deposits, you know it at Work and so for my whole entire life. We were home. Whatever. What's the big deal? You collect the money you add it all up you put it in the bank deposit bag and you go and you drop the bank deposit bag in the overnight. That's basically what you do. Okay, that was the whole entire job. I don't know how they do it exactly now, but that was how we did it then. And everybody back in those days pretty much either wrote you a check, which was most of the contributions that we got were checks, but most of you either wrote you a check or they would put in loose dollars or they would have an envelope where they would put dollars or a check into an envelope and they would mark their name on it and then you'd record the fact that I got $20 from David or whatever. You did this job too. Yeah, you remember, okay. So there was this one fella that, who I love this guy, I just love this guy. And every week, and it was like every week, we would get a check. And the check would be for like, $13 and 47 cents $26 and I'm making numbers up, you know $26 and 48 cents I Just thought it was kind of odd, you know, it's like such a specific number. I mean literally right down to the penny, right? So I decided because I was an idiot those days, you know, I didn't know any better, you know 20-something years old I go to this guy and I go hey We'll call it. We'll call him Terry. Okay. It's not his name, but we'll call him Terry. Hey Terry Help me I so wish to understand why the specific numbers he said well, I'm on commissions and I said Okay, and so I get a commission check every he worked for some I don't know who he worked for to be honest. He sold something and So he hits his commission check every week evidently So he would get his commission check and the commission check was for One hundred and thirty seven dollars and forty seven cents he would give you thirteen dollars and forty eight cents He would round it up always right if that was James point he made a point to say that and I always round it up I Go And I said so why are you doing that this is all because I Malachi and he literally quoted to me. He said in Malachi chapter 3 verse 6 it says You are robbing God if you don't give him your tithe and I said really Is that what it says? I know I was in my 20s at this time But I'd always already been studying scripture already been teaching and so forth and so go to Malachi chapter 3 I'm going to show you what he showed me So he went over to Malachi chapter 3 he went right to it, man. He opened his Bible up, man He just said yo Malachi chapter 3 let me let me let me show you brother And so he goes and he turns right into verse 8 and it says Will a man rob God? verse 8 will a man Robbed God now literally the word robbed there means to defraud That's that's what it means. It's actually the word for fraud in Hebrew, so This is will a man Well, will a man defraud God yet? Did you feel crush? Oh, I saw you raise your hand. I'm sorry you were you Okay, no problem He was it was that's good He says will man rob God yet you are robbing me But you say how have we robbed you in tithes and offerings? You are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me the whole nation And then it says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that you may, so there may be food in my house and test me now in this, if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. So I said, well, I said, okay, so what's your point? He said, well, number one, I want to make sure I get blessed. I want to make sure that my commission checks each week get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I know that if I give God at least my tie, then I'm not robbing from Him. I say, okay, great. So your intent is to give your 10% of your commissions so that you'll get greater commissions. Yes, absolutely. Why? Because that's the blessing. I say, oh really? Is that what the blessing is? blessing is you get more carnal stuff and Because you gave away carnal stuff you get more carnal stuff so you can give away more carnal stuff And he goes yeah, that's it and I went that's the most ridiculous thing Terry. I've ever heard in my entire life And he goes what are you talking about I said have you not read 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 And he looked at me like he had never opened a Bible Like, what are you talking about? I said, well, in 2 Corinthians 4, it clearly says that we need to look for those things which are unseen, not for those things which are seen. Last time I checked, commissions were seen. Because the things which are seen are temporary and the things which are unseen are eternal. And he then goes on to tell us about the fact that we need to build our houses built around the fact that we are focusing on those things which are unseen. In other words, people's hearts. The reason you should be giving anything is because you want to see lives changed. That's the blessing. You want to see people resurrected from their earthly grave. You want to see people have a new life in Jesus. That's what you want to see. It's not so you can give so you can get more, so you can give more. For what? And he goes, so in other words, if I give like And he was really confused. He literally was just like, he couldn't grasp the idea that God didn't sit there and have an adding machine trying to make sure that he got it right down to, you know, this is not a golf score. I mean, this is crazy. What are we doing? I mean, and so the point of this whole entire thing is, and then he says, yeah, but you know, but what about this thing where it says, you know, test me in this. Yeah, what he's talking about there is test me this Test me that the Spirit of God is working in your life test me that that I will not Do what I tell you I'm going to do test me that I won't take in and make everything that you do Greater than what what it can be done. I mean test me in those that's what he's talking about He's not talking about you making more money So you give more money to us so you can make more money yourself. It's the most ridiculous thing. But you see, that was a mentality, especially four years ago. That was a mentality that was really running around. I remember there were people that were on TV back in those days because that was the first of the television evangelists, televangelists they used to call them. And these televangelists would get on and they would make these ridiculous appeals. Like, put your hand on your wallet, and your hand on the TV, and God will remarkably move that money from your wallet to the ministry of God. And they always said it in such a most ridiculous accent. And they're all like, what is going on? And I always think it's funny too because you for years because I did the God's money program People would always ask me to come and speak at their ministers vest me this all the time Don would you come and speak to our church? Do your do your? debt-free Talk and so forth on set and and take the sermon do the sermon for me on Sunday and talk about giving And I would say I'll be happy to do that. But why do you want me to do it? Heck? I don't want to do it That's like the last thing I want to talk about is people having to give money. That's like no way I'd much rather bring in an itinerant You know and you demand. I mean, it's just crazy um look It's a free will offering They needed stuff to build the tabernacle. They needed stuff to run the tabernacle. They needed stuff to outfit the the tabernacle So what did he do? He asked. He went to the people and said, look, hey, look, I don't know what you got, but look, there's a couple million people here. Most scholars believe that to house all these people would have taken an encampment of probably close to 500 square miles. This so this was a this was a huge place that they that he was basically You know kind of overlooking or excuse me looking upon it's it's no wonder that someone like Aiken thought he could just take it You know and and steal something from you know from one of the escapades when they were in you know Joshua's time Stick it under his tent like nobody's gonna find out Because it's like this is a huge. This is a huge town a lot of people and so He doesn't know what people have with him. He really he's never done an inventory like you know I don't know how much you know Andrew has over say what David has and then no one cared You're like you know all he said was look. This is what we this is what God has asked us to do We just need the raw materials you bring them our materials in and then the other thing I need is I need skilled craftman I need people that are going to be willing to give of their time and So we're going to have people that are going to give of their resources. We're going to have people that are going to give of their time. And we're going to have people that are going to give of their skill, which is really interesting. I love this guy that's talked about here. And if you go back to Exodus, I love the two guys that are talked about here in the book. This Bazaliel. I think that's how you say it, B-E-Z-A-L-E-L, which means the shadow of God. And then the guy Aholiab, Aholiab means, and this is really, to me, one of those things really great. Could you imagine naming your kid Aholiab because Aholiab means the father of the tabernacle, the father of the tabernacle. That's pretty incredible. that you would name your kid that? Now, was it his name originally or was it a name that they gave him? Was it more of a title? We don't know. I kind of lean towards the latter by the way because I'm thinking it would be virtually Ridiculous that somebody would name their kid the father of the tabernacle, but but whatever But these two guys were basically in charge and these two were evidently very skilled at what they did They knew exactly how to outfit things they knew how to put things together. They knew how to stitch things together And these are some humongous pieces like some of the curtains are 42 feet 45 feet high and In this thing, I mean, this is not a small, now to put that in perspective, just to give you how big 42 feet is, this building, the only reason I know this is because when we were doing the building, I actually was, we were up here and we were talking about how tall the ceiling was. You know, from the ground, or not the ceiling, but the roof. The roof on this building is 26 feet. From the base of the floor to the top of the ceiling is 26 feet. Now you've got to add 13 more feet on top of that, and that's how big this curtain was. That's humongous. I mean, just kind of put that in perspective. Oh, and it was 7 and 1⁄2 feet wide. Yes, five cubits wide. So each piece was 7 and 1⁄2 feet wide. Because a cubit is about 18 inches, by the way. A cubit goes from your elbow to the tip of your finger. Can't even fathom I Can't even fathom with that weight and some of it was a badger skins and goat skins and all this other kind of stuff So I mean it was it was just it was just that crazy, but everything Had to be perfect Now it's interesting because in Hebrew also in Greek same thing the word for perfect means complete it means finished and That's what perfect means. It means complete. It means finished. In Greek, it's the word teleos. And so we get this idea of something being totally done. And it says to us that the that the tabernacle had to be made so that it was completely done. In other words, there wasn't anything else you had to add to it. Once we got it finished, we weren't going to have to add to it. Now, we'd have to maintain it, we'd have to keep it, and so forth and so on. And by the way, since it was transportable, which is even more incredible. They transported this huge thing. So you had the brazen altar that was in there, and that was big enough. That was seven by seven by four and a half. Seven and a half by seven and a half. So five cubits by five cubits by three cubits. That was the brazen altar. That was the place of judgment. That was made out of brass, primarily. And brass in scripture is a place of judgment. They made that out of brass. They overlaid it with gold. And the thing that's really fascinating about this whole entire, and by the way, that's where we get the whole idea of the Ark of the Covenant and everybody chasing after it in Indiana Jones because it's worth so much because we had, you know, it overlaid with gold and the cherubim on top of it made out of solid gold and all this other kind of stuff, all of which was constructed By by these two guys, but it was done as as as as the spirit moved and and everyone brought what they were capable of Bringing and if you go over to chapter 36 and you you read in verse 5 something really remarkable It takes place look at what it says it says and they said to Moses and the people and I'm sorry, and they said to Moses the people are bringing much more than enough for the construction work Which the Lord commanded us perform so Moses issues a command and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp saying Let neither man nor woman any any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary Thus the people were restrained from giving for the material Had was sufficient and more than enough for all the work to perform it. Can you imagine a pastor getting up and saying? We're good guys Don't need any more money Don't need any more stuff. You guys are good. We have done it. We are more than we are we're more than take care no, and so so the idea here is that Because here's the problem with mankind, and really this is the problem of mankind. The problem of mankind is that we have an insatiable desire for stuff. Not only do we want stuff, but we want the best stuff. Right? So we go into the countertop place we go into real granite and we walk in there and we see the Gallo the guy that's working in the showroom and we will show me your stuff now Don't just show me your junk. I want to see your I want to see your I want to see that quartzite I want to see that what's that? Crystalline, okay. I want to see the crystalline. Yeah, right now whatever Because man, we're gonna we're gonna go for this. We're gonna do it, right? We have to go into debt to do it and so forth is a whole nother issue, but that's irrelevant okay, but but we have an insatiable desire for stuff by the way pastors and and elders and People that run churches are just human beings and they have an insatiable desire for stuff too in their church They really do I'm sorry, but it's crazy, and we have got all these ideas on what we got to do to make this place even more hip and Make it more fancy or make it more cleaned up or make it. I don't know fill in the blank whatever it is and folks That's not what the Bible tells us. We should be doing The Bible says we should build exactly what God tells us to build and nothing more and nothing less If he says build it and make that curtain 42 feet high he doesn't say make it 44 because you can't He says make it now. Why was it 42? I have no idea. I have tried to figure this out forever and I'm serious. I really have I've tried to figure out why the dimensions are what the dimensions are no idea Like for example the brazen altar being at four and a half feet. She's too high It just is why because most people back then were pretty short They weren't you and we know this because of entrances and so forth that we see into you know things that are Excavated and so forth the P Andrew you be sure you would not be a short person Moses time that's just that's just a reality so we make that we make the And we know that a cubit was from from the from the elbow to the tip of your hand Okay, which most? Scholars believe is roughly 18 inches. Do you know why they think it's roughly 18 inches? Because when the guy basically started figuring out that that's what they were talking about he measured his arm from here to here and When he was existing, it was 18 inches from the elbow to the tip of his hand. Was it 18 inches then? We don't know. Was a cubit actually 18 inches? Was it 16 inches? Could the elbow to the tip of the hand be longer or shorter? Everybody's different. I am the straight. I have the strangest Set of according to this one tailor when I was getting I was getting a suit made for me He goes man. He says you know you have unusually long arms for such short pinky legs and I was like what he goes. Yeah, he says you're in seems only thirty and a half I said now I always wear 32. He said well, then you're dragging on the floor, buddy He was right most of the time my pants drug on the floor that I had to buy 32s because you know I couldn't say how I only had had to buy 30, you know, and he says in your sleeves are 35 that should not be You should not have a 35 foot 35 inch sleeve and a 30 inch inseam. I that's just that doesn't make any sense. I There shouldn't be more according to him there shouldn't be more than two between between the two It's like he was really adamant about it. He was like you know. I'm like oh, I didn't create it. This is the way it is Everybody's different. That's my point and so this idea that a cubit is 18 inches is because somebody one day measured You know measured it out. It worked out to 18 inches on his arm, and it kind of stuck But measure from here to here on you and see if it's 18 inches by the way of me. It's not I've measured it It's 19 and a quarter inch. From here to here, it's 19 and a quarter inches. Okay, so what does all this mean? It means that we pay attention to the wrong stuff. That's my point. God is just saying, I want you to make it, I want you to make it the way I want it to do, I want it to be dimensional. And so that's what happened when we put the model together. When we put the model together, we found out that it really didn't matter how big a cube it was, Because when we did it, we just did it to the same specs, except we considered a qubit basically a quarter of an inch. That's how we made the model, or how Ray made the model. And he was an engineer, and the guy was amazingly organized, detailed, to the point of it being obnoxious. And it was crazy how it fit so perfectly into this model. Like the courtyard outside, when you came in, had to be 150 by, I think it's 75, and then there's the court, the general courtyard, and then the Holy of Holies had to be, and it all fit perfectly onto this board when you scaled it out. So the point was is it didn't matter, as long as we all knew what a cubit was, we had a piece of rope that went from whatever that size was, as long as everybody's using the same, it was the same. And I've often thought that that's why it's called a cubit, is because we don't, it doesn't need to be exactly some, it has to be, you know, the same, you have to be using the same form of measurement. Does everybody understand what I'm talking about? And whether it's this or that is almost kind of irrelevant. So he goes through this, they go through this whole entire construction, but one of the things that you find here as you go through, The book of exodus is that a substantial portion of the book of exodus back in the 20s We saw about three or four chapters they talked about and then of course from this point forward Is devoted to the description of the tabernacle and Moses is instructed in detail as to its construction the materials it uses the how are you going to worship in it and so forth. But the tabernacle, what I wrote in my notes here, is the tabernacle was enjoined by God to be central to Israel both in physical position and spiritual importance. And it was called the tent of the meeting. It was the place where God met with him. Now remember that last time we got together we talked about the tent of meeting that was outside of the camp. That's not the same as what we're talking about here. The tabernacle was the place that God dwelt, is the idea. And so they had another word that they used in Hebrew. It was called mishkan. And mishkan means house, really. But it's a sanctuary, actually. And so that's what they called the place where that was the holy of holies was called the mishkan. So it was this dwelling place where God dwelt. You could do all sorts of different stuff. We're not going to do it. I'm not going to get into all the details of all the different, you know, size of the court fence, was this many cubits and so forth. But everything about the temple was to lead us to an understanding that you only access God through the tabernacle. only access God through the tabernacle. That's your only way that you can access God and therefore the tabernacle is really a picture of the coming Messiah and that the only way that we ultimately can access God is through a relationship with the Messiah. And so we see that over and over throughout this whole entire thing. For example, judgment is kind of pictured throughout the tabernacle. We see things made out of brass. We see things made out of gold, which is done by conquering through conquering other peoples and so forth. And all of the the the con the the the convolutions that we see lead us to one thing There is a specific foundation which has to be laid That foundation has very specific pillars which are laid into that foundation upon those pillars are placed specific types of coverings and then the covering is then the place where God will worship with you and Paul and first Corinthians chapter 3 takes the description of the tabernacle and says there is no foundation that can be laid than that which is already laid, which is Christ Jesus. The foundation is Him. So all this foundation that we're seeing laid for the foundation of the tabernacle is to remind us that Jesus is our foundation. And then he says you have to be careful how you build upon that foundation, whether you build on that foundation with wood, hay, and stubble, or you build upon that with precious gems, gold, silver, and things that last. And because it's all going to be tested by fire. The one thing that you notice about the tabernacle is even the wood that they use was acacia wood, acacia or shitum wood, same thing. What is acacia wood? Acacia wood is the hardest known wood. It is virtually impossible to nail, put a nail in. It's virtually impossible. It makes the ash that we use in baseball bats almost, but it's too expensive to use for that kind of a way. But ash, of course, a very strong wood we use for baseball bets. You can snap a baseball. We've seen Bo Jackson snap one right over his knee, right? Try to do that with shittam wood. That's just not going to happen with acacia wood. That stuff does not move. It is solid. It doesn't bend. Well, why is that important? Because we're going to have to move this all the time. We're going to have to take it and we're going to have to relocate it and so forth. We need to make sure that none of that warps. And acacia wood does not warp. Even ash can warp. And so acacia wood doesn't do that. It doesn't lose its form, nor does it lose its shape. That's extremely important because the acacia wood speaks of the cross, the place where Jesus was ultimately nailed for our sacrifice. The acacia wood is what held up the whole entire sides of this entire structure and so forth. Be careful how you build upon it, whether you build upon it with wood hand stubble or precious gems. And that's exactly what the tabernacle was all about. It was meant, it was designed to last pretty much forever. And the other thing that's interesting is that there's colors that are used throughout the tabernacle. If I had the model, you'd see this because we actually had all the different colors in there. But there are four primary colors. There's purple, there's blue, there's red, and there's white. Purple is the color of the king, the color of royalty. That was the idea behind it. In fact, it's interesting because In Jesus' day, they actually had people that their entire business was to sell the little dye that came out of the snails and so forth around Greece to dye the garments for the royals purple, this kind of a purple color, because it was such a rarity to find that dye. That dye was the hardest dye to find. It was the most expensive dye to find. And that's why the royals liked it. And that's what Lydia did. So again, we see this idea of the color of royalty. Well, Jesus, of course, is spoken as the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He is the ultimate royalty. The second color you see throughout was blue. And the blue that they used was not like a royal blue. It was more like almost the blue of your shirt. Very similar to that blue. And kind of a sky blue was kind of the blue that you saw. So it was not this kind of a royal blue, dodger blue, as John would call it, right? You know, kind of like, more like a North Carolina tar hill blue. kind of more the color that we're talking about. And the reason for that is because that color blue reminded us of the heavens. And of course, one of the things that you get most of this from is from the Talmud. And so the rabbis basically talked about why these colors. And of course, the blue was to remind us of heaven. And it also is to remind us that God started the creation with the heavens. You start, again, this is all about creation. Everything in the tabernacles remind us again about creation. Of course, red, which was painted on all of the badger skins and so forth on the inside. This is a very interesting building because from the outside it would have looked like a really, like if they were invaded, no one would care about it because it would look like a storage building. It had all sorts of furs and all, you know, things. So the outside of it was very indescript. But the inside is what was really remarkable. And of course, isn't that exactly what Isaiah says about Jesus? He says that, you know, we looked upon him, you know, with without regard. We didn't think it was worth even paying attention to because on the outside, but they didn't see what was going on the inside. And that's that's it. But red, of course, speaks for the atonement of his blood. And red throughout History has always been to remind us that we need atonement, that we need the sacrifice for blood. The Bible tells us for the life of the blood is in the, or excuse me, the life of the flesh is in the blood. And of course, the Bible tells us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. So for it is the blood that makes the atonement of the soul, Peter tells us. So that color red is extremely important. And then of course, the final one, white, which we see Throughout the scriptures even into the book of the revelation white is a picture of Atonement in other words red it provides the atonement white is We are made clean and so we read in Zechariah chapter 3 for example when Joshua the high priest is is set before he's being accused by Satan before God He's there in his filthy garments It says that God took those filthy garments away from him and put on white garments pure clean garments so that he would understand that he is a new person. And so the white is to represent the fact that you've been changed, that you've been redeemed and so forth. The color of purity and righteousness and sinlessness and so forth. And of course that really is Jesus. Jesus is the perfect example of righteousness and sinlessness and so forth. And that's what we see. It also talks about that within the tabernacle you have to have menorahs. And a menorah is made up of six branches and a servant candle. And so each one of those branches represent, there's six specific things that the branches represent. And what's fascinating is that the prophets tell us what those branches represent. They tell us that those branches represent the king and the kingdom, So on this side, it's the king and on this side is the kingdom So on one side it represents the things of God and on the other side it represents things of man And you can't get the can't you can't have a kingdom without a king You can't have glory without being glory without glorifying God So it was just it's really interesting So these the different things but there were three basic things and then of course the servant branch the one that serves all of them in the middle But one was the branch of the king and the kingdom. The other is the branch of humanity and divinity. And the other is the branch of the glory of God and the glory of man. And in the middle of that, of course, is the servant candle, the shamus candle, we call it. And that represents, of course, the service that it serves. In other words, that's the place where you get the oil. That's where you put the oil, where it serves all those other branches. Everybody understand what I mean? So, why is that a big deal? Well, Isaiah says, he gives a prophecy about the branch, calls the branch the Messiah, and it's the same word that's used for the menorah branches, the exact same word. And he says that that branch is the branch of the king. You read this in Isaiah chapter, I'm sorry, Jeremiah. Jeremiah does the king. Jeremiah 23, and he says the branch is the king. And then of course we see in the New Testament that Jesus is that, well, we're going to be doing it here in the Advent, that, you know, he is the king. that they're worthy to bring, you know, presence to even at his birth. So that was pretty remarkable. We see in Zechariah chapter 3 that this servant candle, the one that's in the middle that kind of takes care of the whole entire thing, it serves both sides. And so that servant candle is fully on the side of God and fully on the side of man. Of course, that's exactly what we know about Jesus. Jesus was fully God and Jesus was fully man, and he was called the servant of God. I'll read that in Luke chapter six. And so we see this servant that the branch is called, and so he represents that center candle. And then branching off of that, the second candle out, or branch coming out, would be the branch of humanity versus, I'm sorry, that's the last one, the branch of glory and being glorified. And so we see this picture of God's glory being part and parcel, all coming out of the branch. To me, it's just an incredible picture that you don't see in any other... People don't talk about this. To me, it's just crazy to me that no one ever talks about this. I mean, we see the menorah all the time. We see it, you know, right now we see Hanukkah. Hanukkah, they add it to another branch. So we have actually nine branches. There's four on each side, plus the Shamus candle. But we don't realize that those connect. If you look at a menorah, which I had one on me, but if you look at a menorah, these branches come out of the servant, out of the Shamus, perfectly. So you don't get this side without this side you know the oil is always coming into this and it starts on the bottom and goes to the top and Each one of them is a way that God divinely directs us through this and that's all done in the you know in the the tabernacle, and so forth. I said, of course, we had this acacia wood, the hardest wood basically known to man. But what's really amazing is that acacia wood is famous because it resists corruption. Now you say, well, why is that a big deal? Well, let me tell you how big a deal this is. They're doing excavations throughout the region. And they've been doing these excavations now for over a century and a half. And they are finding actual parts of buildings that were made out of acacia wood, and they're still honed. Some of these are 5,000 years old. And it hasn't fossilized. And they're like, this was just blowing. Well, it did originally. It doesn't blow them away anymore, because they basically figured it out. I mean, OK, well, that's, I guess, what acacia wood does. We didn't know that, but now we know it. Why? Because, well, you don't know how long it takes for something to fossilize until it fossilizes, right? And then when you find wood that's not for, I remember early on, some of the early documentation on this that was coming from the early part of the 20th century, some of these explorers didn't think they were finding stuff that old. They were like, it can't be that old. It can't be five. This can't be from Abraham's time or whatever. I mean, everything around it indicates that. But this wood is, it doesn't make any sense. But that's what it did. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? It's 55% harder than European white oak. European white oak basically is ash. Same thing. 23% harder in Hickory. Yeah, Hickory is really hard. Okay, so it's also overlaid with gold, you know So they take the occasion that's that they overlay it with gold It's it's it's just so interesting but the one thing that they that I think is really big about you know what we're gonna end this tape because this is this I could just go next time we get together and I'm just gonna be adding to the same thing at the end of day it's really all about you know seeing the Messiah in this but Redemption that was made on the altar was made on a place of judgment and was made by a perfect blemlet unblemished lamb and of course That's Jesus He was that perfect unblemished lamb Lamb he was that that the lamb of God There are these gates that are that are on the tabernacle as well. There are four of them primary gate was what they called the East Gate, which was another thing that's interesting because They actually would point it whenever they set up the tabernacle They would always set it up based on the East Gate the so-called East Gate the first gate why because they wanted the Sun to come in and when the sun was rising would come through that gate. And the idea behind that was that God would come in and then God would exit. And so that was the idea of the sunrise and sunset kind of thing. So to this day, Jewish households even to this day have these things called mezuzahs and the mezuzahs put on the doorpost of your house and you point it to the east. so that God always rises into your home in the morning and comes to sit with you in the evening when, of course, in the Jewish way of thinking, that's when the new day is beginning, is at the end of that. So it's really incredible. But the idea, if you think about this, is that the light is not coming from any external source. It all comes from God. That's the point. There were no lights other than candles and so forth that were made in there, the candelabras. They had to be specifically made to the structure so that it always demonstrated that it was God that was providing the light. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. No one comes to the Father except through me. I'm the resurrection and the life. I'm the bread of life. All of these things are parts and parcel of the tabernacle. They had very specific types of bread. Jesus said, I am the bread. They would always have There was a section of the Holy of Holies that was designed so that it would be placed just on the spot that they thought was the hill of God, the place where God would ultimately come back. In fact, it's fascinating to me because the holy place, the place where the mercy seat of God and so forth. There basically were three artifacts that were in that room. There was the seven branch golden lamb stand, which I just described. There was the bread or the table of show bread, which is where the high priest would eat. And then directly in front of the third gate, which is that back gate is the golden altar of incense That's the place where the actual sacrifice took place The sacrifice always took place at the end of the day. And of course Jesus was sacrificed at the end of the day Just I mean, there's so many the parallels are are almost They're almost scary and so forth talked about the lampstand talked about the showbread Talked about the colors. The veil, oh yeah. So there was this veil. And of course, we said the veil was 42 feet high. When they built the new temple, they built it to the exact same specifications as what was originally for the tabernacle, which is kind of cool. That veil, it says that when Jesus died, actually, tore, ripped, from the top to the bottom. Now, you read that and you just sort of go, wow, that's pretty incredible. Let me just give you an idea how incredible that really is. The veil that was separated then was made out of multiple types of skins. So it was made out of goat skin, it was made out of badger skin, it was made out of all these different skins, and it was thought to be at least six inches thick. So we're talking about something that was six inches thick, weighed, I can't even imagine what that weighed, 40 some odd feet high, 15 feet wide, separating the holy place from the place where the people actually came that were not in the Holy of Holies. That was torn from the top to the bottom it it it it opened up the holy of holies when Jesus died The golden altar of incense was never available For anyone if you remember Jesus or excuse me Moses even Moses when when God says to Moses I want you to come up and visit with me. He says I don't want anybody even to touch the mountain I don't want anybody even on the, I don't even want Joshua on the mountain, which is what Joshua tended to do. He kind of, no, when you come up to see me, no, no one's even, because if anybody touches the mountain, I'm telling you, they're all going to die. And that's where this whole idea of if somebody went into the Holy of Holies, they would die. That's where it came from. And so we have this, this incredible thing, but the veil, which according to scriptures represents the thing that separates God from man Was torn asunder by Jesus death Think about that oh Man I can't yeah, I never thought about that it had to just be ridiculous. I mean yeah, I mean you know so I Mean you know you look at all of these things and we go you know all all of this is is that the only thing that I really wanted to cover which I'm I don't think it's really that big of a deal. You guys can look at it on your own. Remember the high priest is Aaron. It's not Moses. Aaron was specifically chosen by God to be the high priest. He was the most imperfect choice. He was the most imperfect choice. He represents us. He represents us. He represents those of us who are ministering on behalf of God, even though we're imperfect, even though we're capable of building a golden calf, even though we are capable of being the most ridiculous sinners that you can imagine. Okay, I'm trying to think of another way of saying it, but he represents us. We have a part. in the temple. We have a part in the tabernacle. And the function of the high priest in the Old Testament was to sanctify, to make holy that which is unclean. And that's really what we are asked to do as the royal priesthood. We are asked to share what we know. We're to share with people the truth of what God has given us. Does not mean that we are Jesus does not mean that we are sinless does not mean that we are Incapable of screwing up. I think the fact that God allowed Moses, excuse me Aaron to build that golden calf and Then still allowed him to be the priest. I is an incredible statement about what God does as far as who He chooses. The Bible tells us that God does not choose the wise. He does not choose the wealthy. He chooses the base things of the world, yea, those things which are not, the Bible tells us, is who He chooses. He chose us. I mean, you know, that just should be exhibit A, right? But the function of the high priest was to help people find a relationship with God. And that is the function of us. And that's why Peter says that we are a holy priesthood. That's what he was talking about. He recognized that. He understood what was going on. And so I've got other stuff in here. I'm going to post all my notes onto the website. So if you want to go through and you want to see all the crazy things that I've written over about this, you can. But really, This is all about one thing, and the one thing is simply this. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. That the sacrifice of God was given to us so that it would lead us to Jesus. That's what it was given to us for. It was not given to us for any other reason. It was not because it was a permanent solution. In fact, just the opposite. But I think when we end this book, when we end Exodus chapter 40, and we see this incredible statement here at the end of chapter 40, listen to what it says, and we'll end on this. We're gonna read at verse 26. It says, then he placed the gold altar in the tent of the meeting in front of the veil, and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. He's talking about Aaron here. And then he set up on the veil for the doorway, or he set up the veil for the doorway of the tabernacle, and he set the altar of burnt offering before the doorway of the meeting of the tents of the tabernacle of the tents of the meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the meal offering, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. And he placed the labor between the tent of the meeting and the altar and put water in it for washing. And from it, Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet when they entered the tent of the meeting. And when they approached the altar, they washed just as the Lord had commanded Moses. And he erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar and hung up the veil on the gateway of the court. And thus Moses finished the work. They finished the work. What was the work? It was the work that God had called them to do. Period. And I think that's, to me, the most important part. What I wrote in my notes here is, God's work is done in God's way, and that's what brings God glory. So, that's it. We're done with X's. We're going to have a couple weeks off. Then we'll we'll get together when we get back. I have an idea I'll send you an email as to what my idea is. I'm reading a book right now that Jacob gave me That I'm struggling with the title, but I'm not struggling with a lot of the content and So I'm thinking that we may just do that book as a guide and an outline It's called the the disciplines of a god godly man So anyhow, there we go, but I will see it. We'll see. I'll let you know how that Plays out and we'll bless the Lord to bless us. So father. We thank you for your word We thank you for watching over us this morning. Thank you for allowing us to to understand that your tabernacle was given us as a as a As a shadow of things that were to come that it was a picture of the Messiah that you gave us and We thank you so much for him. We bless your holy name In his name, amen.