[MUSIC PLAYING] The Bible from 30,000 Feet,
soaring through the scripture from Genesis to Revelation. So would you please turn in your
Bible to the Book of Exodus? We're beginning in chapter 19. And we're overviewing
the rest of this book. We're sure glad that you made
it for our midweek study. And as you are
getting comfortable, we begin at the
foot of Mount Sinai. I was reading an
article this week about weather phenomenon that
happens around the world. And they showed
different pictures of what these things were like. And one of them were
known as UFO clouds. And it seems that whenever you
have cone-shaped hills as part of a mountain range, you'll
have air that rises up on the slopes of that mountain. But then it is also compressed
by gravity from above. And it produces what
they call-- what meteorologists call lenticular
clouds that look like UFOs. And I saw a picture, looked
like a scene right out of Independence Day. I mean, it just
looked like these UFOs were dotting the landscape,
and they were just clouds. Then I read also in that
article about something called upward lightning. And whenever there's
a lightning strike around a city with
tall buildings, that you can get a
positive, upward leader. So lightning is
shot from the ground up to where lightning is
supposed to come from. So instead of
lightning coming down, it actually goes from the
ground upward, upward lightning. And then the third phenomenon
was called sea smoke. And sea smoke is a
familiar code word for when cold air
moves over warm water, it produces this
large fog bank that looks like a greenish,
purplish smoke. And it's almost like a wave. It looks like a tsunami of
clouds coming at a person or at a city along the coast. So with that as a
background, imagine what it must have seemed like
to be at the foot of Mount Sinai as God was thundering
and lightning and then speaking His
word to the people, the Giving of the Law. And that's where we pick
it up in chapter 19. Israel has been
delivered out of Egypt. They're safe. They're sound. Now God instructs them. Now God teaches them His law. And so the emphasis changes
in chapter 19 from narration to legislation, from what
happened in getting out of Egypt to what God has
to say to this new nation now that they are His. The Jews refer to this
section of the Bible, and in particular this part of
Exodus, the first few chapters, as the kernel and the
core of the nation's life. They realize that, as
Jews, they look back to and rely upon the
law, the covenant that God made with Moses. You might look at it this way. God's revelation is
their identification. They identify
themselves as those who have been given by God
the covenant of the law. Now just by way of review, if
you remember Genesis really quickly, there were four
events followed by four people. In the Book of Exodus,
we also have four stages of the birth of a nation. And we gave you four
words last time. I'm going to pick up
on them this time. Domination. That's chapters 1 through 12. Domination, domination by Egypt. Egypt is their Lord. It's their owner. They are slaves
of the Egyptians. So domination by Egypt followed
by liberation from Egypt. That's where we left it off last
time in chapters 13 through 18. Now we look at the
two final stages of the birth of a nation. That is revelation
and identification. God reveals His law to them. And the last section,
he has drawn them apart. And they identify as
God's special people in this covenant. So in chapter 19, verse
1, in the third month, after the children of Israel had
gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day, they came
to the wilderness of Sinai. So this is three months
after leaving Egypt. They're encamped
at this mountain. They're in the wilderness for
they had departed from Rephidim and came to the desert of Sinai. And they camped
in the wilderness. So Israel camped there
before the mountain. And Moses went up to God. And the Lord called him
from the mountains saying, "Thus you shall say
to the house of Jacob, and tell the
children of Israel-- you have seen what I
did to the Egyptians and how I bore you
on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself." God is jogging their
memory at this point. Remember who you were. Remember where you came from. Remember what I
have done for you. And know how much
I care for you. "Now, therefore, if you
will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant,
then you shall be a special treasure to
me above all the people, for all the earth is mine." Now, God here,
through Moses, makes a reference of eagles' wings,
"I bore you on eagles' wings." And the Hebrew word is nesher. And it is believed
that God was making a reference, a comparison, to
a special type of a bird called the griffon eagle. And what's unique
about this bird is that it will take
its young far away, or it will give birth far away,
usually in a wilderness place where it can be undisturbed,
and where the mother has to care for it in
a very unique way because there are no
natural resources. So in that place
sequestered away from all natural resource where
the young would be completely dependent on the
eagle, God said, I took care of you that way. God brought them out
to the wilderness where there were no
natural resources. He gave them water
from the rock. He gave them manna from heaven. He miraculously preserved
them for 40 years. And then God says,
you are to be-- "then you shall be"-- verse
5-- "a special treasure to me." I wonder how you view yourself. I wonder if you see
you like God sees you. I don't know that they felt
much like a special treasure with dust all over their
feet and all over their tents and all over their body and all
that they had been through, all that they were wondering about. But God says you're a
special treasure to me. And you are a special
treasure to God. Some people say, well,
I feel so worthless. What you need to know is
this-- the worth of an object is determined by
what somebody is willing to pay for that object. And if God sent His only
son out of heaven for you because you were that
important to Him, then you have no
right saying that you are worthless when
God says, you're a special treasure to me. If you follow down
the story to verse 8, all the people
answered together. And they said, "All that the
Lord has spoken we will do." And so Moses brought back
the words of the people to the Lord. Now, that's a bold
statement, right? Everything God says,
man, we're up for it. Bring it on. Give us the law. We'll keep it. We'll do it. We're all in. It's a wonderful thing to say. It's a very difficult
thing to do. To make this statement,
everything God tells you, we will do-- the problem with that
promise is capacity. We, as humans, don't have
the capacity to keep the law. That's why Jesus was sent. That's why the covenant
of grace will be unfolded as we continue the story. In Deuteronomy
chapter 5, verse 29-- and I'm getting a little
bit ahead of myself. But God said this,
really, about this promise that they're going to do it. He said, "Oh, that they had
such a heart within them that they would fear me and that
they could keep my commands." That was the hard cry of a
creator who gave the law, heard the promise of the
people to keep it, and said, you know, I wish they
could pull it off. I wish they had the heart
and the ability to do it. But he knew they couldn't. And Paul addresses this
later on in the New Testament in the book of Galatians. He talks about the
role of the law. And he says the law
was our school master. "Paidagogos" is the word. The tutor who would bring
a child from its home, walk it all the way to school,
would be the superintendent of that child in the early
phases of the child's development. So the law was meant
to lead us along until we got to the real
teacher, the real master, the real school master. And that is Christ. It was the school master
to lead us to the cross. It was the law that
said you need a savior. And once it pointed
out the savior, we came under a new covenant. That's a covenant of grace. In verse 16-- here's some of
that meteorological phenomena I told you about. It came to pass on the
third day in the morning that there were thunderings and
lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mountain. And the sound of the
trumpet was very loud. So all the people who
were in the camp tremble. Please mark that. The giving of the law was
not a beautiful sight. It was a dreadful sight. People were shaking
in their boots. They were terrified. Now, Mount Sinai was
completely in smoke because the Lord
descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like
the smoke of a furnace. And the whole mountain
quaked greatly. So if you were there and you
were looking at Mount Sinai, it kind of looked like a
volcano, like an erupting, fiery, burgeoning
volcano in the distance. Why all this phenomena? It's a demonstration of
God's perfect holy character, His flawless, amazing,
powerful character. The rabbis used to say of this
scene, "No mortal can gaze on unveiled the majesty of God." Now, God's going to say the
same thing in a little bit. You can't look on
Me and live, Moses. You can't gaze upon Me and live. So God did not let the
children of Israel see Him. But rather, God
let Moses hear Him. God revealed by voice His will
to Moses, His words to Moses. And Moses will then deliver
them to the children of Israel. God's voice here
is very dramatic. But you shouldn't look to this
as the model of how God speaks. Because if you're
thinking, yeah, man, this is awesome
to read about. But I've never had God,
like, shake my mountain or shake my vehicle or bend
down to me and go, hey, Skip, this is God. I never had an
experience like that. I never have either. More often than not
God, will speak to you like He did to Elijah who was
expecting some miraculous, earth-shattering,
fire experience. God heard him speak in
a still, small voice. And more often than not,
you'll hear God speak to you in His word, through His
word, in a still, small voice. In fact, if we fast forward
to the New Testament-- and this is one of
the big differences between the synagogue
and the church, between Judaism
and Christianity. Judaism makes it all
about the precepts and the principles of Moses. The New Testament says
that was good for them. But now it's not about the
precepts and the principles. It's about the person of
the Lord, Jesus Christ. All of that is fulfilled in Him. Now God speaks through
His Son primarily. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1-- "God, who in different
ways and in different times spoke to our fathers
through the prophets, has in these last
days spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed
the heir of all things." So the focus is not on
the precepts of the law, the precepts given
at Mount Sinai, the principles of the law,
but the person of Jesus. I'm going to read
what I think is a good commentary
from the New Testament on what we're
reading in the Old. I'm reading out of
Hebrews chapter 12 where the writer says,
"For you have not come to the mountain
that may be touched and that burned with fire"-- that would be Mount Sinai-- "and to blackness and
darkness and tempest, and the sound of the trumpet
and the voice of words so those who heard it begged
that the word would not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure
what was commanded-- 'and if so much as a beast
touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or
shot with an arrow.' And so terrifying was the
sight that Moses said, 'I am exceedingly afraid
and trembling.'" The writer continues, "But you have
come to Mount Zion." Not Mount Sinai. That was then. This is now. "You have come to Mount Zion,
to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
to an innumerable company of angels, to the
general assembly of the church of the
firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God,
the judge of all, to the spirits of
just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaks of better things than that of Abel." So a contrast between
the old and the new, between one mountain
and another mountain, between the covenant at
Sinai and the covenant in the blood of Christ
at Mount Zion, which took place just outside the walls
of the city of Jerusalem. When we continue on
and get to chapter 20, we have God's top 10. It's the beginning of the law. But the law will
continue several chapters after this, many
chapters after this. But basically, God condenses
all of his regulations into 10 big ones. And it should be
noted that God expects two things that can be seen
in the Ten Commandments, two things. Basically, God wants
supreme devotion to Him and sincere
affection for others. That's the Ten Commandments. Supreme affection,
attention, devotion to God, and sincere love and
affection for others. And so the law came in two
tablets, the Bible says. Two tablets, why? Because there's two
parts of the law. There's the first four commands
which are vertical commands. They talk about our
relationship with God. It goes this way on this plane. The second six commandments
are on the horizontal plane. It's person to person. It's man to man. So the Ten Commandments-- you
shall have no gods before Me. You can't make any
images that represent God for the purpose of worship. You are not to take
God's name in vain. You are to keep the Sabbath day. That's the fourth commandment. Fifth commandment, as
you saw in the video, was honor your father
and your mother, followed by, you shall not
murder, followed by, you shall not commit
adultery, followed by, you shall not steal, followed
by, you shall not lie. And followed by the
last commandment, which Paul said, when he
read that one, it slayed him. And that is, thou
shalt not covet. And the reason that
slayed Paul is he realized for the first
time the law doesn't just deal with outward actions,
but with inward attitudes. Because if you lie, if
you steal, if you kill-- those are outward actions. But if you covet, you're
doing that internally. You have a desire,
an inordinate desire for something you don't have. Nobody sees that. But he realized that's
an attitude of the heart. And God cares about the
attitudes of the heart. So, the two tablets of the
law, as one person put it, the Ten Commandments were
given in tablet form. And obeying them will save
a lot of other tablets. A lot of people take tablets-- tablet, tablet,
every day, tablets. Settle their stomach. Get them to sleep. Get them up in the morning. But you just stay
close to the Lord and take these two
tablets of the law to govern your actions
and your attitudes. In verse 24 is
something that I just want to fly a little closer
to the ground on this one. In fact, it has to
do with the ground. Notice, "an altar of earth," God
says, "you shall make for me. And you shall sacrifice
on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings,
your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record
My name, I will come to you and I will bless you. And if you make me
an altar of stone, you shall not build it
out of hewn stone"-- carved up, nicely
fitted and adorned-- "for if you use your tool on
it, you have profaned it." It's an interesting text to me. It's actually one
of my favorites because it shows
me that God was not into ornate, detailed
worship structure. He did not want worship
to be distracted by something man did. He wanted the focus to be on
Him, undistracted worship. He didn't want anybody going,
now, that is such a cool altar. Look at that altar. Man, they must have-- who was
the architect of that altar? See, now the focus is on the art
and architecture of the altar rather than on the one who
gave the talent of art. And that is God Himself. Not that God is opposed to art. I'm going to show you
that in a few minutes. But when it comes
to worship, God seems to just love that
pure, unadorned, unhewn stone as an altar of sacrifice. What is the principle? Simply this-- art must
never supersede heart. It's all about the
heart more than the art. Art is OK as long as you
have the heart in it. If you have art and no
heart, it's just empty. It's like, so what? That's why the highest
form of artistic expression is that of worship to the Lord. Remember the Samaritan woman
who was talking to Jesus and the conversation
got a little too close to home for her? And so she gets all religious. And she said, "Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain"-- that is
Mount Gerizim up in that area. You Jews say Jerusalem is
the proper place to worship. And Jesus said, it doesn't
matter where you worship. It matters that you worship
and how you worship. You have to worship
the true God. And you have to worship
Him in spirit and in truth. So heart always
supersedes the art. Chapter 21, 22, 23, and 24-- this is where, for
a lot of people, Bible reading bogs down. They get all excited going
through Genesis and Exodus as long as the
story is fast paced. But now we get to the
nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts laws of everyday life. We go through social law,
that is, property rights. We go through moral law--
what you can and can't do, what is morally acceptable
before God in practice and precept-- and spiritual laws. Chapter 21, verse 1-- "now
these are the judgments which you shall set before them." And the laws that fill
this book of Exodus are strikingly similar
to many laws that came after it that were
based upon the premises given in the laws of Moses,
including our own nation. Verse 2, "If you buy
a Hebrew servant"-- I just want to touch on this. "If you buy a Hebrew servant,
he shall serve you six years. And in the seventh, he shall
go out free and pay nothing." I'm having you look at this
because there is a pattern. You've already noticed it. You're going to notice it
again throughout the Bible. And that's a pattern
of the Sabbath or the pattern of
the six and one. You'll work six days. You'll be off the seventh
because God created the heavens and the
earth in six days and he rested on the seventh. There is also the same law
in their farming practices. They are to work the
land for six years. The seventh year, they
let it lay fallow, and just whatever
grows of itself they take and they partake of. And here, a servant
would work for six years, but then go free. Now, the reason a servant would
work for a number of years is because he had to work. He needed to pay off some debts. But there's also
stipulations, as we-- if we were to continue reading
this, where the servant says, I don't just have
to work for you. I want to work for you. And there was this
special little ritual where an awl was driven through
the earlobe of the servant. They would take his ear,
put it up to the door, and take this little nail
and puncture his ear. And you go, ouch! And I say, ouch? You girls have done that for
generations upon generations, called earrings. And it would mark a servant-- as he would wear that-- a
servant of that person by will. So back to this
six-and-one pattern. It didn't just work in days-- like six days and the seventh
day, you have a Sabbath. But it worked in years
for their agriculture. Six years, as I mentioned,
you work the land. Seventh year, it lies fallow. Israel did not keep
this for 490 years. And one of the reasons
God allowed them to go into Babylonian captivity,
among many other sins, was their neglect of letting
the land enjoy its Sabbath rest. And 490 years would
be how many Sabbaths? 70 Sabbaths. That is why God said, you're
going to go to Babylon and be in captivity
for 70 years. Because you didn't let
the land lie fallow for 70 Sabbaths, or 490 years. Something else-- some
people see a reference to the millennial kingdom
with this six-and-one pattern. And I'm just bringing this
up because some people get really interested in this. I am mildly interested in it. But what they will say is,
we have been in bondage-- this earth has been
in bondage to Satan after the fall for 6,000 years. Now, I'm not going to debate
the age of the universe or talk about when that
fall actually happened. But it is interesting that this
year in the Jewish calendar, it is the year 5,778. That's the traditional
reckoning from creation. So they will say that it's
like the six-and-one pattern. The millennial kingdom
is a thousand years-- Revelation chapter 20-- of Jesus
Christ reigning upon the earth. Could it be that the
6,000 years before the seventh or millennial
thousand years is about up? And some get all hyped up
and interested about that. It's, as I said, mildly
interesting to me. I say "mildly"
because I'm always leery of people who want to
set dates on anything at all. Because as soon as it
doesn't happen, then whoever made the prediction
gets egg on his face. And then the whole church
suffers because, see you crazy Christians always come
up with these dates. It never happens. So I stay away from that. I just thought, of interest,
you'd want to know that. If you keep going down a few
verses, down to verse 12, and capital punishment
is introduced-- it's already been
introduced in Genesis, but it's articulated here. Verse 12, "He who strikes
a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death." Now, this has
bothered some people. Capital punishment continues
to be a lightning rod issue in our culture. And among Christians,
it is debated. Back in Genesis 9,
there was the principle where God said, "whoever
sheds a man's blood, by man, his blood shall be shed." Here, this is basically
repeated again. "He who strikes a
man so that he dies shall surely be put to death." If you follow the
Old Testament, there were at least 10
reasons why people could receive the ultimate
punishment-- taking away their life, capital punishment. They are murder-- stated here-- number two, child sacrifice,
number three, kidnapping, number four, sexual immorality
of certain kinds, number five, cursing your parents. There'd be a lot less
population these days. [LAUGHTER] Witchcraft, magic,
astrology, idolatry, and being a false prophet-- all
of those were capital crimes. What bothers people about the
idea of capital punishment is they say, well, it's murder. God says if you murder somebody,
you should murder that person. It was never regarded by
the Jewish nation as murder. Capital punishment and
murder were two completely different entities. To the Jewish nation,
capital punishment was simply righteously
administered judicial execution. That's how they saw it. Righteously administered
judicial execution, not regarded as murder. But then it's fleshed out. If you go down a little further,
verse 24, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for
a hand, foot for a foot." Sounds pretty gross, right? "Burn for burn, wound for
wound, stripe for stripe. And if a man strikes
the eye of his servant or the eye of his maid
servant and destroys it, he shall let him go free
for the sake of his eye. And if he knocks out one
of his servant's tooth or maidservant's
tooth, he shall let him go for the sake of his tooth." This section is known
as the "lex talionis." And it is the law
exact retribution. That is, the punishment
for the crime must match the crime
that has been committed. This goes way back to early
law, some of the earliest laws, the Code of Hammurabi, the
Babylonian annals of the laws that were given. The same kind of thing
is included in that. Now, why does God include this? It's not so that people
can exact vengeance. It's meant to limit vengeance. God knows human nature. God knows human nature is, hey,
you took out one of my teeth. You're going to wear dentures. I'm taking all your uppers out. You took out one of my eyes? Thou shalt be blind
in both thine eyes. That's human nature. So to limit a retribution,
to match the crime, the lex talionis was given. By the way, if you
remember Genesis, you remember this was a guy's
problem by the name of Lamech. And Lamech said
this in Genesis 4-- "I have killed a man
for wounding me." See, that's human nature. You wounded me? I'm going to kill you. "I have killed a
man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be
avenged sevenfold, then Lamech shall
be avenged 77-fold." So in ancient tribal
societies, they had a special person
who was designated by the title, the
Avenger of Blood. So that if somebody
of their tribe was hurt or maimed or
killed, that person's duty was to administer
the lex talionis, and especially when it came to
property or certain injuries. And the next chapter, chapter
22, deals with property rights. Now, Exodus chapter 23. We discover as we read
Exodus 23 that God is really big on fellowship,
that God wants His people, who are scattered through the
land of Canaan eventually, he wants them to come
together a few times a year to have-- let's just
call it holy parties. He wants them to have a good
time, a time of celebration, and to commemorate
their history, especially as God
was in control. So there are three
feasts that are given. Verse 14 of Exodus
23-- "three times a year, you will keep a
feast to Me in the year. You shall keep the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened
bread seven days, as I commanded you,
at the time appointed in the month of Abib." That's the first month
in their calendar month. Later on, it will
be changed to Nisan. I'm just throwing that
out because if you read Nisan later--
know that Nisan was not the car manufacturer, but the
month that used to be Abib. "For in it, you
came out of Egypt. None of you shall
appear before me empty." Verse 16-- "and the
Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of
your labors which you have sown in the field, and
the Feast of Ingathering, which is at the end of
the year when you have gathered in the fruit of
your labors from the field. Three times a year,
all your males shall appear before
the Lord, God." Why did God do this? Because He knows that
when we fellowship, it's a uniting exercise. It's why the New Testament in
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25 says, "not forsaking the
assembly of yourselves together." But you do it more frequently
as you see the day approaching. So three feasts-- Passover, Pentecost,
Tabernacles. Passover celebrates redemption. Pentecost celebrates provision. Tabernacles
celebrates protection. The Feast of Passover
celebrated their deliverance from Egypt, the
bondage of Egypt. That took place by
the blood of a lamb. A lamb was selected on the 10th
day of the first month of-- what's the first month name? [INTERPOSING VOICES] Nisan or-- Abib. Abib. Look at you scholars. [LAUGHTER] So that little lamb was
selected on the 10th day of Abib or Nisan. It was slaughtered on the
14th day of the month-- that was the Feast of Passover-- which would mean you'd select
some cute, little lamb. You'd take it home. The kids would love it. They'd probably name it. You'd think it's the
cutest little pet. Four days later,
you have to kill it. You say, that's cruel. It reminded everyone this is
the cost for atoning for sin. An innocent victim has to die. Blood must be shed. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. That's Passover. Pentecost took place 50
days after the first fruit. The first fruits of the harvests
were brought in 50 days later. It was this celebration
called Pentecost. They celebrated
provision, grateful to God for the harvest. It was the only
time, interestingly, leavened bread could be used. It's the only feast in which
leavened bread could be used. Why is that significant? Later on, the church is born
on the day of Pentecost. And the church will include, as
it continues through history, not just Jews, but
unleavened people, gentiles, combined in a simple
faith in Jesus Christ. He will bring them together. Then there's the Feast of
Booths, or Tabernacles. That celebrated God's
provision in the wilderness wandering that
we're going to get to in next week
and the week after. And what's cool about this feast
is the whole family camped out for a week. They put up a tent. They looked at the stars. They were just-- the kids
loved the Feast of Tabernacles. They still do. You ever go to Israel
during this feast, the kids love it
because they get to camp outside every night for a week. Chapters 25, 26,
and 27 gives to us the pattern of a very
interesting structure that is prominent during this
wilderness march called the tabernacle. The tabernacle
was simply a tent. It was made out of cloth
material for the most part, though. There was some wood. And there was some
gold and metals. But mostly, as you looked at
it, it was a tent structure. So think of it this way-- God was camping out with
them 3,500 years ago. Now get this-- one fourth of
this book, the Book of Exodus, is all about the tabernacle. One fourth, 11 chapters outline
the commandments or the making of the tabernacle. That's significant. I'm going to get to
that in a minute. But go down to
chapter 24, verse 18. So Moses went into
the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain
40 days and 40 nights. Verse 1 of chapter 25, "Then
the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel,
that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it
willingly with his heart, you shall take My offering." Verse 8, "And let them
make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." If you've ever
traveled to Europe, one of the most amazing
architectural features is the abbey, or the cathedral,
these incredible edifices that have been built throughout
history for the worship of God. If you go to Egypt,
one of the landmarks as you're flying into
the city of Cairo-- I remember my flight into Cairo. Off the left side of the
airplane were the pyramids. Incredible just to see them. It's like, wow, I've
seen pictures of them. There they are. When you get to God's
house, the real God's house, it's like a hovel. It's a hut. It's a tent. Again, it's not fancy at all. You would look at it. I've seen models
of the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai. And you look at it in real time. You go, not all that impressive. But that's the place
God chose to dwell, at least during this time. And here's what's important. What made the tabernacle so
stand-out was the occupant. That's where God hangs
out, enough said. Doesn't have to be about
all the other accouterments for worship. It's about its chief
occupant, which is God. It's God's throne. And it was the place
to behold God's glory. So let's take a quick
tour, without reading all the chapters,
of the tabernacle. As you would approach
the tabernacle, you would see a fence that
is 7 feet tall, approximately made out of cloth. It had one gate, one narrow
opening, only one way to get in. And you had to get in by
bringing basically an animal to be sacrificed. And the priest got in for you. He would take it in
and sacrifice it there. So the only way you
could approach God was at the tabernacle with an
animal for a blood sacrifice. As you-- if you were
a priest, as you would walk through
the courtyard, you would see that you are
surrounded by a perimeter fence 75 feet wide, 150 feet deep. That is the courtyard
of the tabernacle. You would immediately be struck
by a visual of a large brass altar in front of you
where sacrifices were made. And you would see a big laver,
or a pool, a brass container where water was used to wash
the animals for the sacrifices. Then you would see in
front of you a tent. So far, you've seen just a dirt
courtyard and a cloth fence, 150 feet by 75 feet. But you would notice that toward
the back right in the center was a tent structure. And that tent structure was
15 feet wide by 45 feet deep. It was divided
into two sections. The first room is
called the Holy Place. The Holy Place was 15 feet wide,
15 feet tall, 30 feet deep. If you were a priest
and you were walking in, on your left side, you
would see a menorah, a seven-branched candlestick. And the priest would have
to keep those lamps burning and trimmed every day. On the right-hand side-- so for you, it
would be this side. There is the picture--
left-hand side, that menorah, right-hand side, the table
that had 12 loaves of bread, each representing one
of the tribes of Israel. And right in front of
you, in front of a veil, was a little, tall altar
where incense was burned called the Altar of Incense. Then beyond that
veil was a cubicle that was 15 feet square,
15 feet wide, 15 feet deep, 15 feet tall. That's called the
Holy of Holies. Nobody ever went into that room
except one dude one day a year. That was the high priest. On the Day of Atonement,
he would walk in. If you were a priest, you
would replenish the bread. You would put oil in the lamps. You would burn incense
on the Altar of Incense. In the Holy of Holies
where the high priest would go once a year-- doesn't say so in
the biblical text, but there are lots
of rabbinic writings that say that it was
such a fearful thing. You would approach the presence
of God with such trepidation, even as a high priest, not
only with elaborate sacrifices and cleansings for
yourself, but even then, according to the
rabbinical tradition, they would put pomegranate bells
on the hem of the high priest garments. And so the other priest could
be outside on the other side of the veil, kind of going
like this-- listening. And they hear a-- [CHIMING] Little tinkles, kind
of little motion going on, all is good. But if they hear a-- [BOOM] and then
no tinkling bells after that, they know the high
priest just keeled over dead. So they, according to
the rabbinical writings, not only had bells, but
a rope attached to one of the feet of the high priest. They would drag him out. They're not going to
go in and get him. [LAUGHTER] So they drag him out. Now, inside that room,
the Holy of Holies, was the most important
article of the tabernacle, called the Ark of the Covenant. I don't have to
describe it to you. You've all seen
Raiders of the Lost Ark so you've got a good visual. They did a pretty good job. Only about 45 inches
long by about 27 inches tall, 27 inches wide. It was made out of
wood, covered with gold, except the top of it, the slab-- was called the mercy seat. Solid slab of gold. Inside that Ark of the Covenant,
there were three things-- two tablets of the law-- I should say the second copy
of the two tablets of the law because the first
ones Moses breaks. He has to make a new
section, a new copy of them. Those are placed in the Ark-- a golden jar of manna
from the wilderness commemorating the manna,
and Aaron's rod that butted, that distinguished him as being
the guy above all the rest. So those three things were kept
in the Ark of the Covenant. The law that was in there was
the law the children of Israel said, we'll do it, man. Whatever God says, we'll do it. But it was the very
law they kept breaking over and over and over again. So, what was in
the tabernacle was symbolic of their failure
in the wilderness. But God says, I'm
going to meet with you between the cherubim
on the top of that slab because that's where
the blood was sprinkled. And when the blood was sprinkled
on the top of that Ark, it became the mercy seat. It's a place where God could
apply mercy and withhold his judgment based
upon the blood that was between the broken
law and the perfect God-- all a picture of Atonement. Now, in Exodus 25,
verse 21, the Lord says, "You shall put the
mercy seat on top of the Ark." And here it is-- "there,
I will meet with you. And I will speak with you
from above the mercy seat from between the two
cherubim which are on the top or which are on the
Ark of the testimony." So the tabernacle becomes to
us New Testament believers a picture, a picture of Christ. There was one door
into the Tabernacle. And there is one
way into heaven. Jesus said, "I am the door." The entrance to
the tabernacle was on the east side of
the tabernacle, which means whoever wanted
to go to it had to pass through the tribe of Judah. And Jesus Christ was born
from the tribe of Judah. From the inside, the
tabernacle looked splendorous, beautiful, ornate. There was gold
that covered wood. There were panels. There was artistry and
beautiful architecture and four different layers
over that Holy Place. But from the outside, it
looked plain, even ugly. It was prophesied in Isaiah
chapter 53 concerning Jesus-- He has no form or comeliness. There is no beauty in Him
that we should desire Him. But the value was who He was,
His person on the inside. Then there was a menorah, as I
mentioned, in that Holy Place. It was the only source of
light in the tabernacle. Jesus said, "I am
light of the world." There was one section called
the table of showbread. Jesus said, "I am
the bread of life." There was the Altar of Incense. The priest would
offer the incense. That's the ministry
of Jesus Christ today. He is our great high priest. Incense going up was a symbol-- used symbolic in the Old
Testament-- of prayers going up before the throne of God. And the veil limited the access. Nobody could go into that veil. Nobody could go through
into that Holy of Holies except the high
priest one day a year. When Jesus died on the
cross, interestingly, the veil of the temple
was ripped in two from top to bottom, right? Matthew 27, from top to
bottom, the veil of the temple. God was going,
[RIPPING] come on in. You can have access to Me
any time, day or night. You don't have to go
through a priesthood. You don't have to
go through rituals. You come by faith in
what My Son did for you. It's a finished work. So that's the tabernacle. Also, we should just make
this statement quickly-- It's also a model of heaven. When you stepped into the
tabernacle in the wilderness, it was like stepping
into a scaled-down-- really scaled-down
model of heaven. Hebrews chapter 8
says, "They serve"-- the priests-- "at
a sanctuary that is a copy and a shadow
of what is in heaven." That is why Moses
was warned when he was about to
build the tabernacle, see to it that you
make everything according to the pattern that
is shown you on the mountain. Now we understand why so many
chapters and so much detail was given to the building
of the tabernacle. It was a model of heaven. And if you read Revelation,
the sea of glass, the throne of God, you
see the correspondence of the tabernacle to
the throne in heaven. By the way, I said one
fourth of this book is devoted to the tabernacle. Guess how many chapters
in the whole Bible are? 50. 50. Now I bring that up
for this reason-- there's only two
chapters in Genesis that deal with creation. There's 50 chapters
in the Bible that deal with the tabernacle,
worship, approach to God, et cetera, et cetera. So the way God-- what God views as
important can be seen by how much literary
real estate he devotes to a particular subject,
and in this case, to the tabernacle,
an awfully lot. Chapters 28 through 31
speak about the priests who minister in the tabernacle,
what clothes they wear, what they're to do. This is, of course,
for Aaron and his sons. That's the priesthood. You know, when I was a boy,
I grew up in a Catholic home. And I was the
fourth of four boys. So my mom and dad were
hoping that my oldest, Jim, would be a priest. And that's, by the way,
if you're not Catholic, that's always the hope
of a Catholic family, is one of their boys
would be a priest. So Jim was like
their first hope. And he did go to seminary. But he got married. So that kind of nixed
their hopes of a priest. Then Rick, the second-born-- he also went to seminary. He didn't become a priest. He became a philosopher. A lot of question marks going
on with Rick after that. Bob, the third-born
didn't go to the seminary. He joined the Hells Angels. [LAUGHTER] And then I was their
last hope, fourth boy. And then I got saved. So my mom was
awfully disappointed. [APPLAUSE] And she said to me-- she said, oh, Skip,
I always wished that you would become a priest. And I remember the day she told
me that, after I was saved, I said, Mom, you got your wish. I am a priest. All believers in Christ,
the New Testament says, are priests of God. We're a nation of priests. You've got your desire. [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE] She wasn't all that
excited about my answer. [LAUGHTER] Chapter 31-- I want to just
dedicate the next couple verses to my artist friends
just to show you that art does have a place. Verse 31, verse 1, the Lord
spoke to Moses saying, "See, I have called by name Bezalel,
the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him
with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in
understanding, and knowledge and in all manner
of workmanship." Bezalel was already
a recognized artist. This is God's special
empowering upon him. Verse 4, "to design
artistic works, to work in gold, and
silver, and bronze, the cutting of jewels for
setting, in carving wood, and to do work in all
manner of workmanship." So his job was art,
jewelry, and carpentry. To which you say, OK,
but where's his ministry? Answer-- that's it. That's it-- art,
jewelry, carpentry. God called him to that. I'm bringing this up
because we, in our age, have a very warped and
narrow view of ministry. I'm going into ministry,
meaning I'm going to seminary. And I'm going to become
a scholar and a preacher or a worship leader. You can be a doctor and
called into ministry. When I was working in
the medical profession in radiology, and I would
bring books and I would read and I would share the
gospel with people and what I'm learning. And somebody said,
you never think about going into the ministry? I said, I am in the ministry. I'm talking to you right now. And if I wasn't here, maybe
you'd never hear the gospel. So God put me here to talk to
you and have this conversation. I am in the ministry. I'm in full-time ministry. Start seeing what you do as
the call of God upon your life. And God will empower
you to do what He's called you to do that. I had a friend
named Barb who God called her to be a pool player. I mean, she was a pool shark. And she could beat anybody
I met, I ever knew. Her style of evangelism was to
go into a bar or a pool hall and challenge the best guys
in there to a pool game. And if I win, she said,
you have to give me an hour of your time to listen
to what I want to tell you. They said, deal. And she would always win. [LAUGHTER] And she would always
share the gospel and lead some of those
other pool sharks to Christ. That's what God
called her to do. I love that. Chapter 32 through 40 is the
last section that we skim over. This deals with their identity
or their identification. The children of Israel
have the covenant God made with them renewed. Why renewed? Because they broke it. As soon as Moses was getting
the law from the mountain-- notice he hasn't even come
down yet to give them the law-- they're already breaking it. Now remember, they
said, whatever God says, man, we'll do it. We'll do it. We're all in. Moses isn't even down yet. And they have what I
call their uh-oh moment. Moses is away. The children will play. And it's like, uh-oh. Verse 1 of chapter 32--
"when the people saw that Moses delayed coming
down from the mountain, the people gathered together to
Aaron and said to him, 'Come, make us gods that
shall go before us. As for this, Moses, the
man who brought us up out of the land of
Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." So they broke off
their gold earrings and their other jewelry,
brought it to Aaron, verse 4. He received the gold. He made a molded calf. They said then
after that, "This is your God, oh Israel,
that brought you out of the land of Egypt." Please remember this. It took one night for God
to take Israel out of Egypt. It took 40 years for God to
take the Egypt out of Israel. Their culture is so much a
part of them, their background, that worldly way of
thinking, that they construct an image of a bull that would
have reminded them of a God in Egypt called Apis,
the god of strength the bull god, as the
symbol of worship. Now, Moses comes down the
mountain, comes to Aaron, gets in his grill, verse 22. Aaron said, "Do not let the
anger of my Lord become hot." Like, don't get all hot
under the collar, Mo. [LAUGHTER] "You know the people, that they
are set on evil, for they said to me, 'Make us gods
that will go before us, as for this Moses, the
man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not
know what has become of him. And I said to them, 'Whoever
has any gold let them break it off.' So"-- get this part-- "they gave it to me, and
I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out!" [LAUGHTER] Dude, Mo, it was amazing! We just threw this
stuff in there. And it was like,
poof, instant cow. And it walked out. Seriously, Mo, you had
to have been there. [LAUGHTER] It is amazing the lame
excuses that people have for stupid behavior. I was given a list of
excuses, real excuses, that people give police officers
when they get pulled over. Just a couple of them--
man ran two red lights. Ran two red lights--
police pulled him over for running the red
lights, going too fast. And the man actually
said, it's a V8, man. You try stopping it. [LAUGHTER] And then he pulled over--
somebody else was pulled over for speeding and the man
said, I had to speed-- he said this to the officer. I had to speed to
get in front of you. [LAUGHTER] What, so he could pull you over? I don't get that. Another one said, I'm hurrying
to the service station because I'm running out of fuel. And the classic is,
I'm late for a funeral. Now, that last excuse-- a police officer,
friend of mine, told me about this one, to which
the police officer responded, the next time you
go to a funeral, you might be riding in
the back of the hearse. You be careful. Question is this, as we're
drawing this toward a close-- what excuses do you have
for not accepting Christ? Because I bet if
they were examined, they wouldn't be much
different or better-- let's say better than
Aaron's excuse to Moses. Now, I'm going to take it to
chapter 33 and 34 real quickly. Moses has a personal
encounter with God. This is right before they
start obeying the Lord. This is sort of the renewal
of the covenant, after that uh-oh moment, chapter
33, verse 11, the Lord spoke face-to-face to
Moses as a man speaks to his friend, one of my
all-time favorite verses in the Bible. Verse 18 is a highlight. Moses said to Him, "Lord,
please show me your glory." And then He said, "I will
make all My goodness pass before you and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before you. And I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. And I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. But He said you
cannot see My face, for no one can see
My face and live." So God takes Moses, puts him in
a cleft of a rock, hides him, and God says, I'm
going to pass by. And you will see My back-- that is the back of My glory
when I take My hand away-- but My face shall not be seen. This is where the concept
of the afterglow comes from. God basically says,
you can't see My face. But I'm going to pass by. And you're going to look
and just see the afterglow. You're going to see Me pass by. Moses says, I want
to see your glory. Now, if I'm there, I'm
thinking, Mo, dude, when are you going to be satisfied? I mean, you've seen
miracle after miracle after supernatural
manifestation, et cetera, et cetera. That would be enough
for most people. Let's see-- you've
heard the voice of God, God meets with you
privately in your tent, you've seen a Red Sea open
up, you've seen water out of a rock, you've seen
man out of the sky. That'll be enough. But it's not enough for Moses. He wants to see the Lord's face. And I contend that no
matter how well informed you are religiously,
spiritually, you're not going to be satisfied until
you see the Lord face to face, which means all of our worship
experiences on this earth, as good as they might be, were
never meant to satisfy you, but meant to whet your appetite
for that full, unveiled, face-to-face,
transformative moment when you're in the presence of God. Chapter 35 through
40 is take two. Israel starts obeying the Lord. They bring supplies. They build the tabernacle. Chapter 40, down to
verse 34, "Then the cloud covered the
tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to
enter the tabernacle of meeting because the cloud
rested above it. And the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken
up from the tabernacle, the children of Israel would
go onward in their journeys. If the cloud was
not taken up, they did not journey until the
day that it was taken up, for the cloud of the Lord was
above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it
by night, in the sight of all the house of
Israel throughout all of their journeys." So, we close at the appropriate
place of the house of worship becoming the center
of their community. God was at the
center of the layout of the mapping of their
tents in the wilderness. It was at the center
of the nation. Why? They were to be a
God-centered people. So the book opens with
the brickyards of Egypt. The book closes in the presence
of God before Mount Sinai. That's the message
of Exodus to us. God wants to redeem
you from bondage and be at the
center of your life, camping out with you,
tabernacling with you. John 1:1, the Word became
flesh, and literally tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory. I have a question I want
to ask you as we pray. Everyone in this room
has had a genesis. I know that because I'm
looking at you right here. You had a beginning. You're alive. You've had a genesis. But not everybody in this
room has had an exodus. Not everybody has been
delivered from the bondage of a past life, of a life
of sin, of wandering away from God. And they're not walking
in present redemption. God wants to change
that tonight. He wants to rescue you. He wants to deliver you, break
the shackles of the bondage that you've been
struggling with. And He does that by knocking. [KNOCKING] Knocking, He said,
"Behold, I stand at the door and I knock." If you'll open the
door, I'll come in. But guess what? You have to open the door. Consider that as we pray. Father, we close this
evening, in considering the second part of
the Book of Exodus, as these people were
celebrating your deliverance, committed to your
revelation even though they failed and broke that. Also, Lord, tuned into
your revelation to them and their identity
as people of God, you were dwelling
in their midst. Having been delivered
from the bondage of Egypt, you were dwelling
in their midst. They could approach you. And I pray for anyone
here who has not had an exodus,
had a deliverance, from a life of sin, from
a past life of bondage, where they could enter into
the freedom that is in Christ. Pray, Lord, that they would. They would surrender their
lives to Jesus right here at this moment. With eyes closed, heads
bowed, if you're here tonight, you've had that genesis. I know. I see you. You're here. But you haven't had an exodus
where the blood of the lamb has caused God's judgment
to pass over you, which means you're still in line
with his future judgment, which means you'll
experience it one day. But you don't have to. You can say, I would
like it if Jesus would take all of my sins. And I understand that
He came to do that. I'm going to let Him do that. I'm going to let Him
take the rap for me, the punishment for me. And I am going to ask
Him to forgive me. And I'm going to give my
life to Him, to follow Him. That's the exodus God
wants to give you. And if you've never
done that before or if you've wandered away
from Him and need to return, would you just raise your
hand up right now in the air? Keep it up so I can
acknowledge you. I want to pray for you. I need to know who
I'm praying for. God bless you to my left
and you toward my-- yes, sir, toward my left
in the back corner. Right there in the middle. Anyone else? Just raise that hand up. Just slip that
hand up in the air. God bless you. Who else? You're among friends. God bless you. Awesome. You just make an admission. I need God. I need help. I need His love. I need His forgiveness. I want a second start. God bless you and
you to my right. And to you, right
over here to my right. Father, we want to thank you. Strengthen them. Live your life
through them, we ask. Give them victory
in Jesus's name. Amen. Let's all stand. [APPLAUSE] As we sing this final song,
I'm going to ask those of you since we're going
to sing this anyway, we'll use this
time appropriately. As we sing this song,
if you raise your hand, I'm going to ask you-- you're among friends-- to get
up from where you're standing, find the nearest aisle,
and come right up here, where when you come,
I'm going to lead you in a prayer of receiving Christ. So you'll walk away
knowing this is the night I prayed to receive Christ. This is the night my
sins were taken away. This is the night I started
a brand-new life with him. So as we sing this song,
if you raise your hand, just get up from
where you're standing and stand right up here and
come right now as we sing. (SINGING) Oh come to the altar. The Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, come to the altar. The Father's arms are open. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Come right on up. Yes, sir. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] We're going wait just
another couple of moments. We do this because Jesus
Himself called people publicly in the New Testament. There's something about
making a clean break and making a public confession
of Jesus Christ that settles it in a person's heart. That's why we ask
you to come forward. Glad you wrote raised your hand. Glad we could pray for you. But now come as
we sing this song. Let us rejoice with you. (SINGING) Oh come to the altar. The Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Oh come to the altar. The Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, come. Oh, come, yeah. Hey, those of you
who have come-- I'm going to lead
you in a prayer. I'm going to ask you to
just pray this prayer out loud after me. Say these words
from your heart, OK? Say, Lord, I give you my life. Lord, I give you my life. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. I place my faith in Jesus. I place my faith in Jesus. I believe He died on a cross. I believe He died on a cross. I believe He rose from the dead. I believe He rose from the dead. I turn from my sin. I turn form my sin. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. I want to follow him as my Lord. I want to follow him as my Lord. Help me. It's in His name I pray. It's in His name I pray. Amen. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] We hope you enjoyed this message
from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Church. For more resources,
visit CalvaryNM.church. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from The Bible from 30,000 Feet.
