(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And Exodus chapter number 25, we're entering a new phase in the book of Exodus. If you remember, Moses went up into the mount. The 10 commandments came to all the people audibly. They didn't want God to speak to them anymore. So then Moses goes up into the mount alone and we got several chapters of commandments from God in chapters 20, 21, 22, and 23. And then those commandments were written down in the book of the covenant. In chapter 24, we had that interlude where Moses comes down from the mount, he sprinkles the blood on the people, he sprinkles the blood on the book, they eat and drink before God and basically initiate the old covenant. Now Moses is going back up into the mount in chapter 25 and he's going to start to get the instructions on building the tabernacle because the commandments in chapters 20 through 23 had more to do with morality, civil things, criminal things, and right and wrong, those type of things. This is getting into the ceremonial things of the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, et cetera. So it starts out in verse number 1 of chapter 25, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel that they bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my offering. So it's going to be built, the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, all the different clothing for the priest based on this offering where people give a free will offering, they willingly bring goods. And it says, this is the offering, verse 3, which ye shall take of them, gold and silver and brass and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goat's hair and ram skins, dyed red, badgers skins and shit and wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. So there's all of these valuable textiles and gold, silver, precious stones. And he says in verse 8, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. So sanctuary, the word sanctuary simply means the holy place. And you can get that just comparing scripture with scripture. Because in the New Testament, we'll call it one thing versus the Old Testament. So you'll have the most holy place being called the holiest of all in the Old Testament. And you'll have the holy place being called the sanctuary. So sanctuary just simply means holy place, okay? And when we think of the church, people will often refer to the church auditorium as the sanctuary. You might have heard that terminology in a church like, you know, here's the foyer and then here's the sanctuary. And obviously in the New Testament, the building where we hold church is not literally a sanctuary. It's not literally a holy place. There's nothing holy or special about the building itself. But the reason why people are using that terminology of calling it the sanctuary is that the congregation itself or the church or the people assembled here, we do make up the sanctuary in the New Testament as far as the house of God, the holy place, the congregation. That's what this is in the New Testament. The Bible says that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. So in the Old Testament, the house of God at this time was the tabernacle that's being built. In the New Testament, it's the local church. So when the Bible says here that you're going to make a sanctuary that I may dwell among them, we apply this in the New Testament to the church. The things that we see here in this chapter, we don't want to just think about, oh, this is a great tent that they built back then or, oh, they built this box or they built this table. The point of this scripture is to teach us spiritual truths in the New Testament. Now some people, they will say this, hey, you got to be careful when you're reading the Old Testament not to read Christ into it too much. But that's impossible because Christ is the centerpiece of everything in the Bible. To him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive the remission of sins. So you can't read Christ too much into the Old Testament because Christ is on every page of the Old Testament. That's the right way to interpret the Bible is to read it and get the figurative, symbolic, allegorical pictures of Christ. Now where people get upset or put off by that term allegory or symbol or figurative is when they say, oh, none of this actually happened. It's just symbolic. Wrong. This stuff actually did happen, but it's also symbolic. So we're not taking away from the fact that this literally happened. They literally took this offering. They literally made this tent. Moses is literally on the mount right now with God. That all happened literally. But the most important thing is not what actually happened, but how it pictures Jesus Christ and the Gospel and the spiritual truths of it that actually still affect us today. So when we're reading the Old Testament, anytime we read sanctuary, tabernacle, holy place, the temple, our mind should be going to the local church in the New Testament and bringing that forward into the New Testament so that we can make application today. Just like anytime we're reading about a battle in the Old Testament and we think about the Israelites fighting the Philistines, our mind should be immediately going to a spiritual battle because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but when we see things like swords and spears and shields, we should be applying that to the whole armor of God. We should be thinking about the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So we should spiritualize that which we read in the Old Testament and not just only get the carnal application of what's on the surface. We need to get the most important application, which has to do with what does this have to do with Christ? What does this have to do with the Gospel? How does this apply in the New Covenant? How does it apply to us today? And folks, there's no mystery that Exodus 25 is pointing us to Jesus Christ and the local church because the New Testament explicitly tells us that. And if you would, let's flip over there quickly to Hebrews chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine. And of course the whole book of Hebrews is replete with examples of this. And there are other scriptures like first Corinthians 10 telling us that all of the things that are written in the Old Testament are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Those things are written for our benefit. All scripture is profitable for us today, for our instruction. So in the book of Hebrews chapter nine, it says in verse one, then verily the first covenant and remember covenant and Testament are used interchangeably, okay? So the first Testament or the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, watch this, and a worldly sanctuary. So what we're reading about in Exodus 25 is the making of the worldly or earthly or physical on this earth sanctuary, which the pattern of the sanctuary in heaven, which also symbolizes this sanctuary right here of God's house, the local church. So it says in verse number two, for there was a tabernacle made, the first wherein was the candlestick and the table and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. So the portion of the tabernacle that you would first enter when you walked into the tent is called the holy place or the sanctuary. And in that sanctuary, you have the candlestick, the table, and the showbread, and that place is called the sanctuary. And then it says after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid roundabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron's rod that budded and the tables of the covenant and over at the cherry bims of glory, shadowing the mercy seat of which we cannot now speak particularly. And then jump down, if you would, to verse number nine or verse number eight, actually, it says the holy ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. Watch this, which was a figure. This is what we mean by things being figurative, right? Which was a figure for the time then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertain to the conscience. So everything that happened back then was being done figuratively and it was pointing them to Christ. So when they would do an animal sacrifice, the Bible says it's not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. But it pictures the blood of Jesus, which does take away our sins. Jesus Christ is the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. So let's go back to Exodus 25 with that in mind. That's the right way to read the Bible. The right way to read the Old Testament is to constantly be thinking of Christ, constantly thinking of the New Testament, constantly applying those things. Now look, that's not en vogue today amongst the scholars of this world and the academics of this world. They want to de-Christianize the Old Testament and call it the Hebrew Bible and not talk about the Old Testament and they want to talk about dates like BCE and they don't want to put Christ in his proper place. But honestly, if you're going to take Christ out of the Old Testament, you're going to fail to understand the Old Testament. It becomes actually meaningless. The Old Testament becomes meaningless and totally devoid of any significance if you remove Christ. What is all this? What are all these animal sacrifice? What is this tent? What is this candle? What's the point? There's no point without Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the key to understanding the Old Testament. If you don't believe that, you will fail to understand it as the Jews today consistently fail to understand it. The Bible says they're blinded. They can't read Moses without having a blindfold over their face. That's what 2 Corinthians chapter 3 says. So keep that in mind. Verse 8, let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. What we ought to think about there is the fact that when two or three of us are gathered together in Christ's name, he's here in the midst. So the sanctuary for him to dwell in is the house of God. We come together, we gather together, we assemble here, and Christ is in the midst. When two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, he's there in the midst. That's what the Bible says. And we've got more than two or three people here. Here we are. We've come together, and Christ is in the midst. Verse number 9, according to all that I show thee after the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. So again, we can make application here and say, hey, we need to pattern our local church according to the pattern set forth in the Bible, the pattern of the New Testament, the pattern in Psalms, the pattern in the Old Testament. We need to read scripture in order to know how to have church, how to have a sanctuary in the New Testament. Let's make it according to the pattern that he has showed us. Verse number 10, and they shall make, so we're going to make the sanctuary, we're going to make the tabernacle. What's the first step? Step one, are we going to start hammering tent stakes into the ground, or are we going to start setting up poles and pitching a tent? What does the Bible say is step one in verse 10? They shall make an ark of shittim wood, two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Isn't it interesting that when we get the instructions on how to build the tabernacle, basically he starts on the deepest section of the tab, he starts on the inside, and he tells them you're going to build the ark of the covenant, and then he's going to work his way out from there. And the picture that we get here is the fact that we need to cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. What's inside is most important. When it comes to the tabernacle, you have the courtyard, and that has significance. You have the brazen altar, you have the labor, you have the incense altar, you have the holy place, you have the most holy place, right? But what's inside is the most important, just like us. And in some ways, the tabernacle pictures us, because the Bible says our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in us. So not only does the church picture this, also, we individually also in a sense are a tabernacle, with the Holy Ghost dwelling inside of us, and it's what's on the inside that counts the most. Now, the outside matters, but the inside is paramount, and that's what we see here with this. He's saying start with building the ark, and you know what's interesting? Something in this chapter, what's this chapter about? First he explains how to build the ark of the covenant, and that's a big part of this chapter. But then as we go a little bit further, he explains to them to make the table for the showbread. And then a little bit further, he explains that they're to make the candlestick. What do all of these things represent? We've got the ark of the covenant, this is chapter 25 in a nutshell, you've got the ark of the covenant, then you've got the table for the showbread, and then you've got the candlestick. What does it mean? Well, think about it. The ark of the covenant, the ark of the what? The covenant. What goes in the ark of the covenant? Well, the stone tablets of the law of God. So God's word goes in the ark of the covenant, his covenant with man, his word, his commandments. Then what do you have next? You have the table with the showbread. What does bread liken unto in the Bible? But the word of God, right? The Bible says that he suffered them to hunger and fed them with manna that they might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God does man live. So the bread on the table, the showbread pictures also the word of God, that spiritual nourishment. Yes, give us this day our daily bread physically, but also we need our daily bread spiritually of being nourished by the word of God. And then when we have the lamp, the candlestick, right, with the seven branches on the candlestick, six branches and one central shaft making seven in total, the Bible says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. So one of the things that we can take away from this chapter is that building the house of God starts with the word of God. What's the foundation of the house of God? It's the word of God. If we're gonna be building on the rock, if we're gonna build the church upon the rock, it has to be built on the word of God. Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus said, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, the sayings of mine and doeth them shall be likened unto a wise man that built his house upon a rock. So the house of God begins with the word of God. That's why he doesn't start out by explaining to make tent poles or you're gonna make curtains, you're gonna make the actual tent itself. He starts out by saying, hey, it starts with the word. It starts with the ark of the covenant which represents the word of God. It starts with the showbread which represents the word of God. It starts with the candlestick which represents the word of God. But what's interesting is that these things like the showbread and the candlestick, they can also represent the Lord Jesus Christ himself because Jesus Christ said, I'm the light of the world. Jesus Christ said, I'm the bread of life. And he said, if you eat of this bread, you'll never hunger. If you drink of the water that I give you, you'll never thirst. It's so much for people saying you can lose your salvation when the Bible teaches you eat this bread, you're never hungry again. You drink this water, you're never thirsty again. So how could you ever need to get resaved or lose your salvation when Jesus Christ said, I will never leave you or forsake you. And that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And once you drink that water, it's not something you have to drink every day. Physical water, yes, but the water of life you drink at one time. You never thirst. Because that water springs up into a well of everlasting life, an endless source of life within us. And so why do these things represent both the word of God and Jesus? Because Jesus is the word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, and then he said the word was made flesh and dwelled among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ is the word incarnate, the word made flesh. So Jesus Christ is the word and so therefore, you know, these things represent both the word and they represent Jesus, okay, because those two are so closely related. The Bible even goes so far as to say, you know, the Father, the word, and the Holy Ghost when describing the Trinity, calling Jesus the word. So we see here that it all starts with the word. You know, what's the church founded on? What's our life supposed to be founded on? It's supposed to be founded on the Bible. Now let's talk about the Ark of the Covenant. This is a really interesting subject. Let's jump into this. He starts out by saying they shall make an ark. Now what is an ark? The word ark here simply means like a box or a chest or something of that nature. It's basically just a box or a chest made out of wood but it's overlaid with gold, okay. And he gives the dimensions of it. He says it's two cubits and a half in length and a cubit is a foot and a half. A cubit is basically the distance between the end of your finger to your elbow on an adult man and it's approximately 18 inches. So this is a cubit. So two and a half cubits would be, what, three and three quarters, how am I doing on math there, feet in length, you know, a unit that we would be more familiar with. And then, you know, one and a half shall be the length thereof. So it's like two and a quarter feet and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. So that gives you an idea of about the size of this box, just a small little chest or box. That's what it means by ark. It says thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, so it's made out of wood but it's gold-plated. You know, otherwise it would be much too heavy to carry because they're supposed to carry this on their shoulders. If it was made out of solid gold, these guys would have to be some really strong guys to carry this thing. So it's just gold-plated. And he said, thou shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. So it's plated in gold and then it has like a little rim or a crown or battlement around the edge of the top of the box. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it. So on this box, it has four rings so that you could slide two poles through it and so they could carry it on their shoulders, okay? And the staves themselves, those rods were made out of wood, of course, and they were also gold-plated and they slid into those rings. This is how it was to be transported. It was meant to be portable. Isn't that interesting how God's house was originally meant to be portable? Part of that is because, again, it represents two things. It represents the local church and it also represents us as an individual. We're to take this with us everywhere we go, basically. It's not like, oh, well, only when I'm at church am I in spiritual mode. No, you know, we're supposed to be walking in the Spirit, have God's Word in our heart, worshiping the Lord Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And not only that, but the church itself is not married to a certain location or a certain building. It could be moved somewhere else. It could move from this building and it's still faithful, we're a Baptist church, wherever we meet because it's the people, not the building. So he says that you put the rings, two rings on one side, two rings on the other. Verse 13, thou shalt make the staves. What's a stave? Well, the singular of this would be staff, right? Staff, staves. This is just an old-fashioned plural. And so these are just long wooden rods or staves. And the staves are made of shit and wood, overlaid them with gold. Verse 14, thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark that the ark may be born with them. Born is the past tense of to bear something. To bear something means to carry it, right? So if I'm, you'd say this around Christmas time, I come bearing gifts, right? So bearing means to carry, and I'm just explaining these words. Some of you are like, pastor, why are you explaining these words? But you know what? Some people might be new to church, they might be new to the Word of God, and they might not be familiar with these type of archaic words that we don't really use as much today. So I want to just make sure everybody understands what we're even reading. It's easy sometimes for us that grew up in church to just assume everybody knows what the ark of the covenant is, everybody knows what staves and born and, you know. But we need to explain this to make sure everybody actually grasps what we're talking about here. So it shall be born means it's going to be carried by them. They're going to carry the ark with these staves. The staves shall be in the rings of the ark, they should not be taken from it. So the staves stay in it all the time. And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold of beaten work, shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat. Now this is so fascinating. This one object is so fascinating, the ark of the covenant, okay. What's going on with this box? Well, what goes inside of it is the covenant. God said we're going to put my testimony in there. There's another word for his word or his law. And if you remember, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 teaches us that that which was engraven in stones, the 10 commandments, is known as the administration of death, okay. The old covenant. Why is it called the administration of death? I mean it sounds great. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, all the different commandments. Here's why. Because it condemns all of us. Because we've all broken something. You know, even if we haven't murdered, we could have stolen or committed adultery or borne false witness or not honored our father and mother or taken God's name in vain. So we could have just even coveted in our hearts. So the bottom line is every single person here has broken God's law. And so this law of God in the 10 commandments and in the rest of the law is damning unto us. It damns us. It condemns us. Because we look at that and say, I've done that. I'm guilty, right? All the world is guilty before God, the Bible tells us. And why are we guilty? If there were no law, there'd be no transgression. There'd be no such thing as sin. So the law is that which condemns us because it points out our sin, okay. So what is in the box is that which is condemning unto us the law of God, the covenant, the old covenant. But then the mercy seat is placed on top of this box, okay. And then the high priest enters once per year into the most holy place and he sprinkles blood upon the mercy seat seven times. And that blood being sprinkled on the mercy seat is a picture, of course, of the blood of Christ. And not only that, I'll take it a step further, Jesus Christ literally, literally after Jesus died on the cross and was buried and rose again, he literally took his blood, his physical actual blood, and he actually went up into heaven, into the holy. The Bible says Christ entered into the holy place in heaven. He didn't enter into the tabernacle made with hands. He didn't go to the temple in Jerusalem. No, no, no. He went to the real thing. He ascended up into heaven and he actually physically went in there as high priest because not only is he the lamb of God, he also acted as the high priest after the resurrection. He took his blood and he went into the holy of holies in heaven and he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat in heaven. But he only did it once. It's not something he does on a yearly basis. One time he went into the holy place in heaven. He sprinkled the blood seven times and the blood is still there right now. That blood in there, the Bible says, speaketh better things than that of Abel. Abel's blood cried under the ground after he was murdered by Cain. Crying out for vengeance. Crying out for justice. Crying for punishment. The blood of Christ is the exact opposite. The blood of Christ is crying out for redemption, forgiveness, and what's the lid of the box called? It's called the mercy seat. We have God's wrath pictured by the covenant, the law, the administration of death, and then the mercy seat covers that. We're covered by God's mercy and it's only made possible by the blood of Christ. Because God cannot, and we talked about this a few weeks ago, God can't just say, hey, I forgive everybody because I'm just a loving God. Because that would violate God's justice. That would make God unjust and unholy. God's holiness and justice is who he is. He can't stop being holy or just. He wouldn't be him anymore. That's who he is to the core. Just like he is loving. The Bible says God is love. The Bible says holy is the Lord. So he's both. These are just intrinsic to him. In order to satisfy the wrath of God, you have to have the blood. The blood of Christ. False religion downplays the blood of Christ. There's an attack on the blood of Christ. You know it's coming from a wicked place. You know it's coming from a false prophet. Because the blood of Christ is something we emphasize. This is why so many songs in the hymnal are about the blood of Christ. Not only just the ones we might think of right away, power in the blood, nothing but the blood, when I see the blood. I mean, there are a lot of those blood songs, but even the non-blood songs, they still throw in the blood, don't they? I mean, it'd be interesting to count how many songs in the hymnal have the word blood in them. Because I guarantee you it would be a pretty high number. Because that is something that is central to Christianity. Central to the message of the Bible. Without shedding of blood, there's no remission. Our sins can't be forgiven without the blood of Christ. We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And so the blood on the mercy seat, God's mercy is made possible by the blood of Christ. And without the blood of Christ, we're not going to experience God's mercy. We're going to be condemned by what's inside the box. Which is the covenant. The ministration of death, the law of God. Which condemns all of us because we cannot attain unto it. So this is a fascinating object. There's so much to learn, even just from this one object. And this picture of the mercy seat is a beautiful picture of the fact that our sins are covered by God's mercy and by his blood. But let's keep reading. Before we go on, what is on top of the mercy seat? You have the cherry beams. Now what are the cherry beams? We would commonly refer to these as angels. But you've got to be careful with the word angel because the word angel is pretty misunderstood because of the fact that the word angel can simply in the Bible just mean messenger. Sometimes it just means messenger. That's why I did a couple sermons a couple years ago. I did two sermons. I did one in the morning and one at night. I did a sermon called angels which are human and angels which are not human. So if you're confused on this subject, I would encourage you to go back and listen to those two sermons on our website or on our YouTube channel, angels that are human, angels that are not human. Because you need to understand that there are men in the Bible that are called angels that are just a human being frequently and there's tons of scripture on that. But then you have these other angels that are not human where you have them known as living creatures or beasts. These are the ones that have wings, folks. You're not going to get wings when you get to heaven. So these angels that have wings are different. They're not human. You have the seraphims and the cherubims and they have four wings or six wings but they're not human. They've never been human. They're never going to be human. They're another kind of creature. That's why the Bible calls them living creatures or even beasts. We hear the word beast. It's kind of weird to us but it just means animal. It's just an old word for animal. So basically why are there these two cherubims on the mercy seat and they have their wings outstretched over the mercy seat shadowing the mercy seat and this is even brought up in Hebrews 9 where he says, you know, over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat. Well, these, you know, there's the answer right there, the cherubims of glory. You know, this represents the glory of God. Okay. Why? Because these type of creatures, the cherubims and the seraphims, they often have a capacity of glorifying God. The Bible talks about, for example, Revelation chapter 4. You have these four beasts, the Bible says, and they have six wings and they're basically just day and night saying holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come. They just glorify God constantly all day, all night, 24 hours a day. They're just basically just glorifying Him and singing His praises. Okay. Not only that, you see the same thing in Ezekiel chapter number 1 and Ezekiel chapter number 10 where you're confronted with the cherubims when Ezekiel has a vision of the glory of God. When he sees God's glory and he sees God on his throne and the wheels and the fire and the cherubims, you know, in chapter 1 it calls them the living creatures and in chapter 10 it calls them the cherubims and it's the same thing. Okay. So we see it in Isaiah chapter 6 where we have the seraphims that are there when Isaiah is there. And again, what is the message in Isaiah 6? God's great holiness, His power, His glory and so these are the cherubims of glory. I think another significance of this is that if you remember when Adam and Eve are thrown out of the Garden of Eden, God has the cherubims guarding the tree of life. So they're thrown out and they don't have access to the tree of life. The cherubims are there guarding access to the tree of life. What gives us that access? The blood of Christ. You know, being saved gives us, but without that we don't have access to eternal life. The Bible says by faith we have access into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So we've all come short of the glory of God, okay, and these cherubims who seem to be the guardians of God's glory or the proclaimers of God's glory, they also were the ones who basically guarded the tree of life saying, hey, you've come short of the glory of God. But being justified freely by His grace, we have redemption in Christ Jesus. So let's keep going here. So we've got the cherubims stretching forth their wings. Verse number 21, thou shall put the mercy seed above upon the ark, basically it is the lid for the ark, and in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. Verse 22, watch this, and there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. So there's fellowship or communion on the mercy seat, but here's the thing about it though, does everyone have access to this? No way. Because this is something that only a very select few, only the high priest, Moses is going to have access to this and receive word from God. The high priest is going to go in there once per year. But in the New Testament, through the blood of Christ, through God's mercy, we all boldly have access to have fellowship with God, to have communion with God. So that's what's pictured there. So he says in verse number 23, thou shalt also make a table. So that was everything for the ark of the covenant. Look at verse 23, thou shalt also make a table of shit and wood. Two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof, and thou shalt overlay it with pure gold and make thereto a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt make unto it a border of a hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about, and thou shalt make for it four rings of gold. So again, it's very ornate. It's gold plated. It has the four rings so that it can be carried the same way. The staves are there. And then he says in verse 29, thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, covers thereof, bowls thereof, to cover withal of pure gold, shalt thou make them. And thou shalt set upon the table showbread before me always. All the time you've got the showbread on the table. Verse 31, and thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work, shall the candlestick be made. His shaft and his branches, his bowls, his knobs, and his flowers shall be of the same. So the candlestick, again, is representing the word of God, giving light. Now think about this. When you're in the tabernacle, there's no outside light. There's no window. There's no skylight. So the light inside of the tabernacle is not natural lighting. It's only coming from the candlestick. I mean, that's what lights it up. And if you think about that, that's a picture of the illumination that comes from God's word, which the natural man can't receive. So there's no natural lighting here. It's all lit up by the candlestick, which represents the word of God being a light to our feet, a lamp to our path. And so the candlestick has these seven branches, and it's basically burning olive oil. And this is a picture of the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit is pictured by the oil. It's called the oil of gladness in Hebrews chapter 1, for example. And there are seven branches, and then the Bible talks about, of course, in Revelation the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. So the seven spirits of God are pictured by the seven arms of this candlestick. Now the Jews use this symbol. This is one of their biggest symbols, right? Their number one symbol is, of course, the Star of Remfan, and then their second symbol is they use what's called the menorah, right, which is this seven-stemmed candle. Now the other symbol that they use, though, is a menorah with nine stems. Does everybody know what I'm talking about, the one with the nine branches? And you wonder, like, what's going on? Why don't they do it with seven? Why are there nine? Well, the nine branches have to do with their holiday, Hanukkah. Now let me just stop and say that Hanukkah is the most ridiculous holiday for anyone to be celebrating in the world. It's stupid and ridiculous, and if you celebrate it, you're not right with God. There, I said it, okay? Because you know what? We shouldn't be Judaizing and celebrating their Christ-rejecting holidays. And let me tell you exactly what Hanukkah is celebrating. Hanukkah is called the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple that God destroyed. So what kind of ridiculous celebration is this, is, hey, we're celebrating when the temple got rededicated. Because you remember Antiochus Epiphanes, okay, the Greek ruler came in and he desecrated the temple and he offered a pig and sacrifice in the temple and he set up an idol and basically he just completely corrupted the temple. This is in the second century B.C., before Christ, okay? Antiochus Epiphanes did this, set up the abomination in the house of God, and then after they threw him out and cleaned the temple, they rededicated the temple, that's what they're celebrating with Hanukkah. But what's so dumb about that is that the temple's no longer around because God destroyed that temple. God brought the Roman soldiers there as a punishment. Jesus predicted that it would happen while Jesus was on this earth. He talked about, you know, all these parables about how, you know, the master of the vineyard, he sent his servants and they mistreated his servants, which represents the prophets. And then last of all, he said, I'm going to send my son, they're going to reverence my son, and of course they killed the son. He's basically predicting his own death, you know, they're going to kill me, I'm the son of God, I'm going to be killed. And then he says, what do you think he's going to do to those people? And he said, oh, he's going to miserably destroy those murderers and he's going to give the vineyard to somebody else. And then he said, hey, have you not read the scripture, the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner? He said, therefore, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And then he gives another parable, same line of thinking, same idea, and he talks about how the king, to punish the people that didn't want him to rule over them, his nation, his people that refused his rule, he said that he burned up their city, he destroyed their city and he killed them, and that's what happened. I mean, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, it was burned up, the temple was destroyed, that was the wrath of God that destroyed that temple. That's why it's so bizarre when Christians want to rebuild that temple. If God wanted it there, he wouldn't have destroyed it in the first place. He destroyed it because he wanted it gone. You say, well, the Romans did that. God did it. The Romans were just the tool that God used to destroy that temple and punish the Jews. The Romans were God's instrument of wrath to punish them because if you look at the parables of Jesus, it's God who sends that punishment for rejecting Jesus. And they had time to repent because Jesus died around what, 33 AD? And the temple was wiped out in 70 AD. So they had 37 years of the gospel being preached and hearing the gospel and whoever's still there and rejecting Christ and still hanging on to Judaism, at that point, there's no mercy. I mean, they got wiped out hard. And I'm not going to go into that because that's a different sermon. But basically, you know, what we see is that Hanukkah is celebrating them getting something back that was, again, taken away from them. That's been taken away from them to this day. So what are you celebrating? Hey, let's celebrate that we got something back that later was taken away again. Woohoo! Let's see. Should I celebrate that or the birth of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Son of God? And you know, all the anti-Christmas crowd, you know, they come out in force this time of year. All the, you know, the grinches of Christianity. And you know what their end game is, friend? You know who's behind this anti-Christmas movement? If you start kind of following the links back and tracing these websites that are against Christmas and Christmas is pagan, it's so wicked, how dare you celebrate Christmas? You go down that rabbit hole and you know what you find at the end of it is Judaism. You'll find that it's actually Judaizers and Hebrew roots types that are trying to get us to just hate Christmas because, you know, what they want us to do is they want us to celebrate Hanukkah. Because if they can get you celebrating Hanukkah, now they can get you doing the Sabbath, the new moons, the feast days, they can get you on the Passover, they can get you on all these things and next thing you know, they've got you all Judaized and you're the exact people that Galatians warned us about at that point, right? So beware of this. This holiday Hanukkah, it's garbage, okay? It's not, you say, well, you know, but what about when Jesus went up to the temple at the Feast of Dedication? Folks, Jesus went up to the what? At the Feast of Dedication, what did he go to? What did he go to? He went to the temple at the Feast of Dedication. See, it actually made sense back then to talk about, hey, isn't it great that we have this temple because we have this temple, but how stupid is it to be like, oh man, it's so great we got the temple. Where is the temple? You know, hey, I'll tell you where the temple is right here. Here's the temple. My body's the temple of the Holy Ghost. Hey, you wanna know where the temple is? It's right here. It's the local church, okay? We have something to celebrate Christ in you, the hope of glory. I'd rather sing songs about the birth of Christ than, you know, La la la, nagila hava, nagila hava, you know. Celebrating some building that got wiped out like 2,000 years ago. It makes no sense. So, you know, that's where they're getting that nine stemmed situation, okay? And you know, you say, well, at least sometimes they do it with the seven, but you know what? They're in darkness. They can light up as many candles as they want in spiritual darkness. Say, why don't we have a menorah here? This is the menorah right here. Here's, this is the candlestick right here, okay? The candlestick is in here. We've got the candlestick. We've got the light of the world. We got the day star arising in our hearts, amen? So what do we need a candlestick for physically? Oh, let's all light a candle and genuflect and everything. Folks, the candle of the Lord is inside of us. The candle is right here in the Bible. So we've got the lamp that we need. So that's what this represents here with the candlestick. And it goes into great detail about the shaft, the branches, the bowls, the knobs, the flowers. You say, what is that? The bowls, the knobs, the flowers? Basically what's going on is that you have this shaft in the middle and that represents one of the lamp stands. And then you have basically the three arms coming out each side for a total of seven, okay? And at the top of each of these, you have basically the part that actually emits the light. And at that point, when it talks about the flower, you could picture basically the shape of the end of it is like a flower blossom, like a flower has petals, right? So think about, you know, you even see this, you know, today with candles or candlesticks or lamps or something where they'll have these kinds of parts hanging off the edges like flower petals. So that's what this is. This is just explaining, you know, how to do this with the, you know, the almonds, knobs, flowers, it's just describing the shape of the end of each branch. What is it shaped like? It's shaped like an almond, it's shaped like a flower, it's shaped like these different things. Now you say, well, you know, how do I make one? You can't make one because of the fact that you had to see the original. The reason that Moses was able to make this stuff, because what did God keep saying? See that they'll make all things according to the pattern that was showed in the mount. So the book of Exodus is not gonna work for you to recreate the tabernacle. You can't just read the book of Exodus. And you know, I know some well-meaning people have like built little models. Who's ever been to a replica of the tabernacle? I went to one, it was pretty cheesy, the one I went to. That's why my wife's laughing so loud back there. We went to one of those little cheesy, but it was like a traveling show of the tabernacle. So we're like, okay, you know. And you put on these little headphones and it like guides you through the tabernacle and everything. And then they wanted us to like burn incense and do all this stuff. I was like, I don't know if we should be doing this, you know, it's kind of weird. But anyway, we were kind of hungry. We kind of just ate the showbread, you know. Did you read what David did, you know? No, but anyway, what I'm saying is we basically, you know, saw this kind of replica, but here's the thing. If you can't really replicate it, the information in Exodus is not enough. So what's the purpose of it? If Exodus is gonna spend chapter after chapter telling us how to make a building, but then it doesn't even give us enough info to make that building, because that's not the point. You're not supposed to have this book in 2019. Like, all right, let's get to work. Let's start sewing. Let's start beating that candlestick. It's not gonna work because you have to have seen the pattern. What is said over and over again? See that thou make all things according to the pattern which was showed in the mount. So for Moses, he looked at the tabernacle. He saw an image of what the tabernacle was supposed to look like, what the ark was supposed to look like, what the candlestick was supposed to look like, what the table was supposed to. So he saw all that, and then this is just a verbal representation. Why do we have it? Not so that we can make it so we can get the symbolism. So the purpose is to read it and think about Christ is the light of the world. Christ is the bread of life, and understand that God's house is based on God's word. It's all the spiritual significance. And folks, I'm running out of time. We're scratching the surface here. You could spend days and weeks and months and years just expounding the ark of the covenant, just talking about the showbread, talking about the candlestick. Okay, that's the purpose of the book. It's not so that we can build it because the only way to build it is to have the book and to have seen the image, and then use this as a reference. Like, you know, you've seen what it looks like, but then you go to the book and be like, okay, exactly what is the length of this thing? Two and a half cubits, you know? Because just seeing something, you're not necessarily gonna know that. So it has information here, but there's missing information of actually seeing the items. Then when God has them actually build this stuff, there's a guy named Bezalil that God actually spiritually moves upon him, and he's filled with the spirit of God so that he'll know how to make these things accurately and properly. So God actually has a special artisan prepared to make this stuff, and Moses has seen what it's supposed to look like so he can guide them and say, hey, no, it needs to look like this, plus the book. Okay, so we have to understand that. And then at the very, he talks about, you know, all the different accoutrements to go with it, the tongs, the snuff dishes, you know, for basically putting it out, lighting it, maintaining it, keeping it oiled, and so forth. And then here's the key verse, verse 40, and look that thou make them after their pattern, which I'm attaching, you know, exhibit A here. Unfortunately, we've lost the exhibit B that was supposed to be attached to the book of Exodus. No, there's no exhibit A or exhibit B. It's look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount. This is why it's impossible for anyone to truly recreate this, cannot be recreated. Only God could make this, and he basically showed them how to do it. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, which truly is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path, Lord. Thank you for the daily bread that we get every single day, the manna from heaven that we get when we study your word. Thank you so much for that mercy seed. Without it, we'd be doomed by the laws. It was such great laws in the Bible, but they're also gonna condemn us, except thank you for your unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice for our sins and his blood that cleanses us from all sin, because without him, we would all be doomed. And so, Lord, thank you so much for the things that we can learn from this passage, and help us to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in his name.