Face to Face with God
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
GoToMeeting is a very popular web-based conferencing service that a lot of people use today. It helps businesses and organizations have face-to-face meetings from anywhere in the world. How many of you have ever been on a GoToMeeting conference? If you haven’t used GoToMeeting or some software like that, maybe you’ve used another service called Skype. Skype is another digital-based technology that lets us have face-to-face meetings when we’re not in proximity to one another. The one that Cathryn and I use quite often with our kids is called FaceTime. It’s an Apple produce, I believe. It’s on my iPhone. That’s what I know. And I can get it on my computer as well. And we use it to communicate with our kids who are in college. We have two kids in college, and I can’t imagine doing this parent thing with kids without FaceTime. What a great technology today. And oftentimes when we talk to our kids during the week my wife will say, “Oh, it’s so great to see your face.” And it is. It’s great to see our kids face, even though we can’t hug them. Face-to-face encounters are always preferred, are they not? They’re preferred to a phone call. They’re preferred to an email message or a text message. We have all this technology today, but there’s no substitute for a face-to-face encounter. Anything less than a face-to-face encounter and we miss those nonverbal cues that we often use to help understand what the other person is saying. So we love to get face to face with one another. Well, long before we had the modern technology that we have today—before GoToMeeting, before Skype, before FaceTime—do you know that a guy named Moses met face to face with God. You heard that right. And I read the verse just a moment ago from Exodus 33. Let me read it in again in case you didn’t get it. “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to a friend.”
0:02:27.1
Now, I admit my curiosity about that verse. I’m, like, what exactly does that mean that Moses spoke face to face with God and God spoke face to face with Moses? How did that happen? And what did God’s face look like when Moses met with God and spoke to Him face to face as a man speaks to his friend? I have great, great curiosity about that verse, just about how it all happened and what it all means. But I also have curiosity about why God, why the God of the Bible, why the God who created the heaven and the earth would lower Himself, if you will, to meet face to face with mere human beings like you and me. That question echoes what the psalmist said many centuries ago in Psalm 8:3-4. “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you even care for him?” I mean, who are we that the God of heaven and earth, that almighty God would want to meet with us, would want to have a conversation with us, would even want to meet with a guy like Moses? I don’t completely understand that. From the beginning God has always, always desired to dwell with His people. And to get answers to the psalmist’s questions and to other questions that we have about Moses’ encounter with God, we really have to go back to the beginning. And I’m talking about, yes, in the beginning with God created the heavens and the earth. I’m talking about the creation story in Genesis 1. And as we read Genesis 1 and the creation story, God created the heavens and the earth in six days. And on the sixth day after He had created everything and He said that it was good, He created man in His own image. And He said it was very, very good. And we hear these words and read them in Genesis 1:26 that says, “’Let us make man in our image.’ And in the image of God he made man, male and female, he made them.” That’s what the scripture tells us.
0:04:38.1
I’m not the first to point out the plural pronouns there. Let us make man in our image. Who is the “us”? Who is the “our” in Genesis 1? Well, theologians refer to this as one of the early references to the triune nature of God. That God is one God in the Bible but He expresses Himself in three distinct persons and personalities—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And what we understand about the mysterious trinity, the triune nature of God, is that, well, that is says something about His desire for relationship and fellowship and community. There is perfect fellowship, perfect relationship, perfect community between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Even in the mystery of all of that, one God and three distinct persons and personalities, what we can say is that the God of the Bible who introduces Himself in Genesis 1, He is a relational God. And when He said, “Let us make man in our image,” well, there’s a lot to talk about there. But one of the things that He did when He created us is He created us as relational beings. We are hardwired for connection and for community. We are not meant to be lone rangers in this world. And that’s why we desire a face-to-face encounter in our communication. Oh, we put up with email and text messages and something less than that, but at the core of who are we, we’re created in the image of God. We love the face-to-face communication and the sense of deep, authentic connection and community that that provides.
0:06:16.4
But you know the creation story. By Genesis 3 everything went south. Adam, who once walked in the cool of the day with God…I mean, just imagine the sense of intimacy and fellowship, the audience that Adam had with the Almighty every day in that perfect paradise. But when Adam disobeyed God, well, life was never the same on this earth. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden paradise. We live not in paradise, but in paradise lost. And life on this earth has never been the same. We live in a fallen world where even our own human connections with one another are stained and marred and made more difficult by sin. And this holy, righteous, morally pure God who is totally other than the humans He created in His own image, well, we now have a problem with Him. Thus, the psalmist who understood his own human frailty and sinfulness says, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you even care about him?” But God has always from the beginning desired to dwell with His people because He’s primarily a relational being. Now, if you fast forward from the early chapters of Genesis to the end of His story, to the book of Revelation and to the description in Revelation 21 and 22 of the new heaven and the new earth, here is what the Bible tells us. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” Now, just stop right there. That is the most profound thought you will ever think in at least these next five minutes. “The dwelling place of God is with man.” Are you kidding me? “He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Now we’ve gone from paradise lost, Genesis 3 forward, to Revelation 21 and 22, paradise regained. And, again, God is making it possible not only for man to dwell with Him, but for He to make His dwelling place with God. He wants to hang out with us, friends. And He has from the very beginning, but sin caused a problem there.
0:08:31.5
And in between paradise regained and paradise lost, let’s stop off at John 1, when Messiah Jesus shows up. And John in his Gospel introduces Jesus this way. “In the beginning,”—echoes of creation there—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the same was in the beginning with God.” And then you scroll down to verse 14. Here’s Christmas. “And the Word became flesh,” say it with me, “and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Again, a mind-boggling profound thought, that God put on human skin and became man. “The Word became flesh.” This is the mystery of the incarnation. And He dwelt with us. The same word translated “dwelt” could be translated “tabernacle”. This verse could say, “The Word became flesh and tabernacle among us.” This is an echo of something in the Old Testament, which is a word picture, an object lesson of the person and the works and the nature of Jesus Christ Himself. I’m talking about an Old Testament, sort of, crudely built worship facility called the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant that was at the center of all of that represented so much of the worship experience and religious life of Old Testament Israel. And that is the focus of our study over the next several weeks. That’s an Old Testament object lesson, which is a picture of how God desired to dwell with His people and how you and I, as sinful human beings, on God’s terms and on God’s terms alone, can enter into the holy presence of God. Because of sin, we have a problem with Him. God doesn’t have a problem with us. We have a problem with God. God solved it in the person of Jesus Christ. But He showed us a picture of it in the Old Testament.
0:10:53.1
Now, what is this Tabernacle? The description of it is found in much, much detail in Exodus 25-40. It’s one of those sections of scripture—let’s just be honest—when you start reading through it and all the detailed architectural descriptions of how Moses was to build this and all the…you know, we just know gloss right over it. But let me just tell you what the Tabernacle was and then a little bit of brief history. The Tabernacle was the portable worship facility that God commanded Moses to build. After the Israelites came out of Egyptian slavery, they went into their journey toward the Promised Land. That journey took them 40 years to get there. There was 40 years of wilderness wanderings. By the way, it would have only taken them two weeks to get to the Promised Land. But their disobedience lengthened the time that it took to get to where God intended them to be. And what a lesson for all of us there. Far too many of us are wandering around in our own wilderness, as it were, on our way to a destiny for which God has created us. But because of our disobedience we can’t get there in the time frame that God wants us to get there. That’s the story of the Israelites. But shortly after they came out of their Egyptian bondage experience, God met with Moses on Mount Sinai, gave him the Ten Commandments, and also gave him the architectural plans and drawings for a portable worship facility where God would, yes, dwell with His people, because that is the deep, deep desire of His heart. And those detailed architectural plans and descriptions are found in Exodus 25-40.
0:12:31.8
By the way, years ago the first church that I ever served was in Houston, Texas. And it was a restart of a church that had gone through a really rough time. And we renamed it. We relocated it. We re-launched it. We took it through a church-planting process. And as we did that, we teamed up with an organization out of Detroit called Portable Church Industries. And this organization helps a lot of church plants around the country today build efficient, portable systems, because we were now in a school, a middle school, if I remember. And we had to move in and out every week. It was the equivalent of moving a four-bedroom house every week. So you had to have efficient systems—transportation systems, how you packed it up, all of that. And Portable Church Industries helped us with that. We had something called a portable church team of volunteers that got there very early in the morning to set up and stayed late to tear down. And I remember encouraging our portable church team all those many years ago, saying, “Listen, this is not the first time God’s people have been portable.” And we talked about the Tabernacle. And in my sanctified imagination, I imagine Moses saying to Aaron, “Aaron, the cloud is moving.” Remember in the Old Testament God moved the people of Israel with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? I imagine Moses saying to Aaron his brother, the high priest, “The cloud is moving. Let’s go.” And Aaron would get up and, wide-eyed, say, “Again? You’ve got to be kidding me.” And they’d have to pull up those tent pegs, pack up the Tabernacle, and move to next location. They did that for 40 long years, until one day the temple was built. And it was a more permanent facility that had all of the pieces and parts of the original Tabernacle. But for many, many years the people of Israel, God’s people, were portable. That’s the Tabernacle.
0:14:34.9
And here’s a little bit more of the brief history. Obviously, God gave Moses the plans to build it. And they lived in that facility and worshipped in that facility for many, many years, all the way through the time of the judges. By the time we get into the time of the kings…the first king you remember was Saul. Saul was kind of a scoundrel. Not God’s choice, but okay, the people’s choice. Saul lost the Ark of the Covenant in a battle. Are you kidding me? I mean, that’s like the Dallas Cowboys losing the Lombardi trophy 20 years ago. They’ve never been able to find it since then, right? I mean, how do you lose the Ark of the Covenant? But Saul lost it. It wasn’t until King David came along that he recovered the Ark of the Covenant, brought it back to Jerusalem. David’s son Solomon was the one that actually built the temple, the more permanent structure and brought the Ark of the Covenant and all of the furnishings into that temple. And then the Ark of the Covenant disappears again during the Babylonian captivity. When the Babylonians came and besieged the city of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., they grabbed hold of the Ark of the Covenant. And we’ve never seen it since. Even when the second temple was built under Herod in the early 1st century and around that time, it was built with a Holy of Holies. But it was an empty room because they didn’t know where the Ark of the Covenant was. Fast forward to our day and age, and a Hollywood director named Steven Spielberg thought this was a pretty exciting adventure. And he came up with his movie trilogy or whatever it was called Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, because everybody’s been wondering, where is the lost Ark of the Covenant? We don’t know where it is. The Apocrypha tells us or suggests that it was hidden in Mount Nebo sometime before the Babylonian captivity because the religious leaders read the scriptures and the prophecies concerning the coming Babylonian captivity. They took the ark. They hid it, they say, in Mount Nebo. So nobody knows where it is. Most scholars today believe it’s possibly hidden under some cave beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And there were some excavations going that direction to try to find, you know, is the Ark of the Covenant found there. And, of course, the Muslims control the Temple Mount today. That gold dome-shaped building called the Dome of the Rock is a mosque. And when the Jews got a little bit too close with their excavation and it began to upset some of the things beneath the Temple Mount there, they stopped it real quickly. But today we don’t know where the Ark of the Covenant is.
0:17:13.8
Now, I said something to you awhile back that I think it’s important for me to say again because I don’t want to be misunderstood by all of this. And maybe when I said it the first time there was some misunderstanding. I was born in Indiana and my name is Jones. I am Indiana Jones. And I am on a hunt for the Ark of the Covenant. Okay? Are we clear on that? And I know where it is. And this part I’m serious about. Some of you are thinking, you’re a whack job, Pastor. We need to get some help for you. But Revelation 11 tells us that the Ark of the Covenant is in heaven. And there’s a reason for that. Because the detailed architectural plans that God gave to Moses were to replicate something that was already in heaven. A little bit of heaven on earth in terms of the worship experience that God’s people would have. We don’t know where the physical ark is. We do know from our study of Bible prophecy that the temple will be rebuilt during the Tribulation period. And one wonders if all this mystery around the missing Ark of the Covenant may come into play. And maybe somebody will find it between now and then. We do know the temple will be rebuilt. We just don’t know whether the ark itself will be discovered. I think it’s very important for us, in order to get the most out of our study over the next seven weeks, for us to visualize the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant. You’ve got to get a picture in your mind, because we’re gonna go into some detail into the various furnishings and the pieces and the parts and the spaces, the outer court, the Holy (0:19:00.1) Place, the most Holy Place, all of that. But it’s good to have a visual picture. Just reading through Exodus 25-40—which I encourage you to do over the next seven weeks—it’s hard to really visualize what’s happening here because there’s so many details in there. But with the help of some artists’ sketches and some pictures and a description here, I think we can get there.
0:19:21.0
So I went to A.B. Simpson’s classic book called Christ in the Tabernacle. And I found a very good description of the Tabernacle. And I want you to listen to it. It’s a little bit lengthy, but we’re gonna layer in some images here that will help us all get an image of what we’re talking about here. Simpson says, “The Tabernacle was an oblong structure about 45 feet long and 15 feet wide. The Tabernacle itself, also known as the tent of meeting, was divided into two chambers of unequal size by a magnificent curtain called a veil. The larger division was 15 by 30 feet. It was called the Holy Place, open to the ministering priest only, not (0:20:00.1) to the common people. The Holy Place was protected from the outer court by a curtained door of blue, purple and scarlet, past which none but cleansed and consecrated priests might go. Its articles of furniture were three. There was the golden candlestick, which was its only light because there were no windows in the Tabernacle. There was the table of showbread—12 loaves fresh-baked for each Sabbath, crowned with pure frankincense, that remained displayed for one week and then were eaten by the priests. And there was the golden altar of incense, with its accompanying censer, where pure frankincense was continually offered. From that altar once a year on the great Day of Atonement the high priest with the golden censer and burning coals and smoking incense in his hands, passed through the mysterious veil and entered into the Holy of Holies, and there made atonement for the people in the immediate presence of God.” Simpson goes on to say, “The inner Holy of Holies was a perfect, 15 feet square. It contained the Ark of the Covenant, over which the mercy was place. The mercy seat was the ark’s top, and it consisted of a solid plate of gold. Springing from this and formed of the same piece of gold, hovered the cherubim, symbolic figured representing the faces of the four typical forms of the animate creation—man, ox, eagle and lion. Between the meeting wings of the cherubim figures shone the Shekinah or visible divine glory, a luminous cloud of transcendent brightness that perhaps arose and expanded into the pillar of cloud and fire that hovered above the Tabernacle, leading the march of Israel. This Most Holy place was God’s special presence chamber and throne of grace and glory. None ever entered it except the high priest, and he only once a year.”
0:22:01.1
“Surrounding the Tabernacle was a court, an enclosure 87 by 175 feet, with an opening or gate on the eastern side. Into this court all the people might come. Two objects of ceremonial worship stood in the court. Near the gate was the brazen altar of burnt offering. There the sacrifices of burnt offering were presented, the blood sprinkled and the fire kept ever burning, from which the altar of incense was supplied. All part of the Tabernacle had to be sprinkled with blood from that altar. It was the only way of access to the presence of God. Farther in was the brazen laver, a vast basin made from the metal mirrors of the women of Israel. Perhaps the exterior was polished, forming thus a mirror as well as a fountain. If so, it would have enabled the priests at once to see their uncleanness in the metal and then to wash it away in the water it contained. The laver was for the purification of the priests as they entered the sanctuary, and no one could pass through the door until he had washed in the fountain.”
0:23:05.0
“The gate to the outer enclosure was always open. It had no hanging as did the two inner doorways. All mighty go freely into the Lord’s courts and bring their offerings for sin and uncleanness. Outside the outer gate was the camp of Israel. It formed a vast square around the Tabernacle. Three tribes were on each side. The tribe of Judah was on the east side, opposite the Tabernacle entrance. Out beyond the camping tribes of Israel there continually burned the fire without the camp, where the bodies of the sin offerings were consumed and the refuse of the camp burned.” Simpson says, “Such was this simple and wonderful structure—God’s first sanctuary and the type of all that is sacred and precious in the person and work of Christ and the privileges of our heavenly calling.”
0:23:58.6
Got the picture? Is it firmly in your mind? In one sense, it’s a very simple structure. But God gave Moses very detailed instruction, even down to where the entryway into the outer court area, the single door through which you passed, was across from the tribe of Judah, a prophetic reminder that Messiah would come from Judah. God was that careful in the details of the Tabernacle, because He was painting a picture for us that would be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
0:24:41.9
Here’s something else we must learn about the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle answers the question, how can sinful humans enter the presence of the holy God? You see, as I said, the creation story and all that we learn there kind of interrupted our relationship with God. He desires to dwell with us, but sin has separated us. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” And so the question is, how can sinful human beings like you and I enter into the presence of the holy God? Or to turn around that question, how does a holy, righteous, morally perfect God hang out with human beings like you and me? Well, the Tabernacle is gonna help answer that question.
0:25:38.0
The third thing it does is to point us to Jesus. The Tabernacle is the greatest Old Testament picture of Jesus Christ. Theologians refer to it as a type of Christ. There are all kinds of types of Christ in the Old Testament, object lessons, pictures that point us to the fulfillment of the spiritual reality that is illustrated in some type in the Old Testament. There’s no greater type, no greater picture, no greater spiritual fulfillment of a reality than Jesus Christ who is seen in every detail, every facet, in every furnishing that is found in the Old Testament scriptures. I mentioned that to enter into the outer court area that there was one door. Why do you think there was only one door? Well, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. I am the door of the sheep.” He also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Me.” The Bible later in the New Testament says, “There is one mediator between God and man, and it’s the man Christ Jesus.” To get into the outer court of the tent of meeting there was one door that you went through. Again, an important detail, but an illustration of a spiritual reality that would become even more crystal clear to us in the New Testament.
0:27:01.9
There are a number of different furnishings and pieces that we’re gonna walk through over the next seven weeks: the bronze altar, the bronze laver, the golden lampstand, the table of showbread and so forth. Each of them, again, detailed in their orientation and a picture of who Jesus is. If all we did over the next several weeks was just go back into the Old Testament, Exodus 25-40, and engage in a history lesson and immerse ourselves in all the detail of this architectural structure…if that’s all we did we would miss the whole point of a study of the Tabernacle and the whole point of God giving to Israel this worship experience and the illustration that it was for future generations like us. We have to build a bridge from the Old Testament Tabernacle to the New Testament realities in the person, the work and the blood of Jesus Christ. We’re gonna spend as much time in the book of Hebrews as we do in Exodus because the writer of Hebrews takes all of these elements and brings New Testament realities to them because they point us to Jesus Christ. For example, you go through the one door. We know what that’s all about. The first thing you come to when you walk into the outer court is the brazen altar. The first thing that strikes you is, if I’m going to enter into the presence of a holy God, something or someone needs to make a sacrifice. It was a bloody scene. And this was the scene to which all of the Israelites would bring the blood of bulls and goats and unblemished lambs. A sacrifice had to be made. You didn’t get beyond further into the outer court or even the priests into the Holy Place or the Most Holy Place until a sacrifice was made. Well, you understand the bridge we build into the New Testament. This is why John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus coming to the Jordan to be baptized, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” He was the once-for-all sacrifice. He fulfilled and the pictures that were made through years and years of sacrificing the blood of bulls and goats and so forth. And we’ll find all kinds of pictures that begin to make sense to us as we work our way through the Tabernacle.
0:29:29.4
Now, I want to go to one other place before we wrap it up today. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Exodus 33. Remember, the details of the Tabernacle are found in Exodus 25-40. I’m gonna encourage you to read this section as scripture, as detailed as it is, but to read this in your personal study over the next seven weeks. But right in the middle there we find an interesting narrative. Exodus 30 beginning in verse 7. “Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent.” And now we’ve come full circle. Verse 11 says, “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” So you get the picture here. There were three spaces in the Tabernacle. The tent of meeting or the Tabernacle itself had two of those spaces: a Most Holy Place, known as the Holy of Holies, then outside of that was the Holy Place. Then outside of that was the courtyard surrounding the Tabernacle. Only the priest could go into the Holy Place. That was Aaron, the high priest, Moses’s brother, the Levites. Only the priest could go in there. Only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place, and he did that only once a year on the Day of Atonement. But everybody could come to the outer courtyard. That’s where you’d bring your sacrifice. Did you listen carefully to the narrative I just read? It said when Moses would go out to the tent of meeting, everybody would pay attention and rise up. And they’d watch Moses go meet with God. And they’d all come to the edge of their own tents and watch Moses off in a distance. They would see the cloud forming. And they would stand here at the edge of their own tents. And let’s read it again. The Bible says there in verse 10, “And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his own tent.”
0:32:38.8
Here is my question. Why did they stay so far away? Why did they stay at the edge of their own tent? Why didn’t they go further? Why were they content worshipping God from a distance when they had every right to go out to that tent and even step through that one door and at least mingle around the courtyard? No, they weren’t priests, the common people weren’t. They couldn’t go into the Holy Place or the Most Holy Place. This was a representative form of worship and atonement. But they were at least invited to the courtyard back then. Why were they content standing off here at a distance, watching old Moses do his thing with God? And to me it’s a picture of so many people in the Church today. We’re fine, just fine, worshipping God from a distance, watching the professionals do their thing, and missing out on the intimate audience with the Almighty for which you were created, for which Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross to give us access to God. You’re where…I’m going from the Old Testament to the New Testament now. In the New Testament we learn about a concept called the priesthood of the believer. As believers in Jesus Christ we are all priests. And the Bible tells us when Jesus Christ died on the cross—now we’re at the temple in the 1st century—the veil, that thick veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, was torn in two from top to bottom, something only God can do. Because now everybody has access to the Most Holy Place.
0:34:37.9
But my experience over these years is that there are a lot of people who are just fine hanging out at a distance, maybe showing up in church once in a while, watching the professionals meet with God, watching other people have a close, intimate relationship with God. But either being too scared or too lazy or too indifferent to make a move toward the Lord, to move toward that place of access that He’s opened up for us. He desires so much, friends, to dwell with us, to have intimate fellowship and community with us. Sin interrupted that relationship. We had a problem with God, but God fixed it like only He can do. And that’s the person and work of Jesus Christ illustrated beautifully in this Old Testament object lesson. And we’re gonna go through this in detail.
0:35:36.8
But before we do, I’ve got to know something from you. Are you willing to stop doing this, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll keep my distance from God. I’m content worshipping Him, letting other people have a really close relationship with Him. But I’m just gonna hang out over here and watch others do that. Ever since Genesis 3, as human beings we have intimacy problems, don’t we? I know a lot of married couples and they end up in counseling because they have intimacy problems. Sometimes just in our friendships and in our human relationships we have intimacy problems. Sin has made it more difficult for us to experience authentic community and fellowship and that deep sense of connection for which we were created. Remember, we were created for connection. We were hardwired for community. But sin makes that more difficult in our human relationship, and even more so in our relationship with God. A lot of Christians I know have intimacy problems with God. They’re content right back here. Oh, they’ve come in. They’ve experienced the bronze altar. They’ve become a follower of Jesus. But everything beyond it that we’re gonna talk about, they never get beyond the bronze altar to the bronze laver, into the Holy Place where they learn that Jesus is the light of the world and how to walk by light. Where they learn that Jesus is the Bread of Life and how to feast on Him every day. To the altar of incense, where we learn about prayer and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let alone to even get into that Most Holy Place where God dwells and you say, “Wow, my relationship with God is so tight and so transforming.”
0:37:25.7
My desire from this Old Testament picture and this narrative from chapter 30 is there is something that God stirs in your heart that looks like a deeper, deeper desire to move closer to Him. We had a problem with Him. He solved it. He opened up the access way. And the Bible says in James, “Draw near unto God, and watch Him draw near unto you.” He misses His time with you. He misses that intimacy with us. He’s gone to great lengths all throughout His story to give us an opportunity to have an audience with the Almighty. The question is, are you just gonna be one of the bystanders back here watching somebody else go? Or are you personally gonna make the journey over these next several weeks? That’s my invitation to you and my prayer for you as it’s a prayer for me. Let’s pray together.
0:38:25.8
Father, thank You so much for Your Word. Thank You for this picture in the Old Testament. Thank You for helping us to visualize. Thank You for giving us simple object lessons. Thank You for fulfilling important spiritual realities in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I pray that the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart and meditations of all of us this morning are pleasing to You. I pray that You would drop inside every one of our hearts this morning a deep, deep desire to move closer to You. To move away from our own sinfulness, our own selfishness, our own worldliness and draw closer to You. You’ve promised, Father, that if we draw near unto You, if we take that first step, You will draw near unto us. What is man that You are mindful of us? And when my heart is so prone to wander and to leave the God I love, Father, You keep running after us. You keep saying, “No, this is the way. I’ve made access. Come. Come into a more holy place.” Father, I pray that if there is anybody here that has the ultimate intimacy issue where sin is separating them from God—either because they’ve never come to the cross of Christ to receive cleansing and forgiveness for their sins, to receive that once-for-all sacrifice that was made for them—I pray that today, right now, You would give them the faith to believe in this Jesus, who fulfilled every Old Testament picture and foreshadowing of the spiritual realities. Give them the faith to believe right now, to say yes to Jesus. For others in this place who are follower of Jesus…maybe they made the trip to the Tabernacle once in their life and stepped inside that outer court. They came to the bronze altar. They’ve seen the sacrifice that Christ has made. Their sins are forgiven, cleansed, but they’re kind of stuck there at the bronze altar. They’ve never made it further into that Most Holy Place. Oh, Father, whet our appetites, our desire, our taste for an intimate audience with You. Do this now, Father. We’re desperate for You. Change us by an experience with Your holiness. And I pray this is Jesus’s name and for His sake, amen.
0:41:35.3