Don't treat God so casual

Our goal is to look at both perspectives that God intentionally shares with us because He wants us to know these things about himself. 

This week we are going to look at the tabernacle the temporary place of worship, and How he prescribed his people come into his presence, in the coming weeks we will look at the temple and God instructions for coming to him and then we will begin to explore various characters in the narrative of Scripture and how they came into the presence of God. 

For example, Priests who mishandled fire, Jesus telling the disciples to let the children come to him because we are all to seek after him like a child does, Uzzah who touched the arc of the covenant and was struck dead, or when God tells Moses to take off his sandal's because he is on holy ground, or the throne room of God in Revelation where angels perpetually sing Holy Holy Holy is the Lord almighty, or how about the woman who washes Jesus feet with her tears.

But this morning I want to start with the word AWE In a moment I am going to show you some breathtaking pics of nature

Because many times we will see something and be filled with AWE/Wonder>>captivate you, stop you in your tracks, they arrest you into being still and receiving the awesome beauty….which leads you to being in awe of the one who created it all!

So let me show you a handful of pictures here.  Joe please pause on each slide for 10 seconds or so to let folks soak in the scene and the beauty of the Solar poetry of a Sunrise/Sunset; the peace and stillness of winter, or the majesty of the mountains

The word translated as “awe” throughout the Bible is the Hebrew word “yirah” which also means respect, reverence and worship. 

But “yirah” also means fear.  Some of you may have grown up thinking to “fear the Lord” meant being scared of Him…but when we experience things like these sunsets or mountains or wintery bliss, we do not experience fear.  

We feel awe and reverence.  We feel “yirah”. 

Having this type awe and reverence for God will motivate you to do His will and Scripture tells us in Proverbs 9:10 that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”.

So lets dig into what the OT has to say about the example of the Tabernacle as as way to understand his presence and the expected reverence.

So Israel is fresh out of slavery in Egypt and has no idea how to be a country a community and God drops the 10 commandments on them (see Exodus 20) He covenants with them so that they understand how to maintain a society or a country.

Then notice in Exodus 23:20-23 READ…..I'm gonna drop this not push it meaning make note of this and go back and look for yourself because God was clearly stating my presence will be with you and you need to be careful to obey.  If you do so I will clear the way for you, where I guide you I will provide for you, but you cant mix it up with all these other Gods you gotta take following me seriously.

In chapter 24 Israel accepts and joins the Lord in this covenant.  Then in chapter 25 the Lord instructs Moses to take up a sacred offering i.e. the spoils of Egypt that God put in your pocket were put there because I now want you to use them to build a dwelling place for my presence.  So chapter 25 goes into incredible detail about the materials and the artisans required to construct this tabernacle.  As a recovering architect I clearly see the detailed construction documents for His house and the items that the what we used to call FF&E the furnishings, fixtures and equipment that are to go inside it.

Now you and I tend to want to skip over these meticulous details, but God is very specific about sizes, dimensions, materials and how things were to be used.  WHY?  Well because the tabernacle of Moses was the temporary place of worship.  The word tabernacle is a translation of the Hebrew mishkan, which means “dwelling-place.”

The overall shape of the tabernacle followed traditional structures of the time. It consisted of an outer court, approximately seventy-five feet wide by one hundred and fifty feet long, with a fifteen-foot by forty-five-foot structure in the back (Exodus 27:9–19).

The court walls consisted of linen curtains attached by bronze hooks to a series of pillars. The pillars were supported on the bottom by bronze sockets and possibly held in place with rope that attached to bronze rings. The gate, always facing east, was about thirty feet of blue, purple, and scarlet woven into a curtain of linen. The altar of burnt offering and the bronze laver that the priests purified themselves in sat in the courtyard.

The tent was divided into two rooms: the Holy Place, where the table of showbread, the golden lampstand, and the altar of incense sat; and the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed. The rooms were separated by a veil, similar to the entry screen, embroidered with cherubim and hung from four gold-covered acacia posts by gold clasps.

The purpose of the tabernacle was to provide a place where the people could properly worship God. Priests sacrificed animals on the altar in the outer court. The bread of the presence, the continually burning lampstand, and the offering of incense were all in the Holy Place. And once a year, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies as part of the ceremony of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). 

The phrase tent of meeting is used in the OT as the name of a place where God would meet with his people this is the place where the cloud and the pillar of fire would hover over and then begin to move which was their clue to pack up and follow him

As you can see this process for meeting with God was incredibly detailed including God being a fashion designer by outlining the garments the priests were to wear when coming into his presence. 

There are dedication or ordination ceremonies for the priests that included being consecrated and dressed at the entrance to the tabernacle, bull sacrifices at the altar and outside the camp, washing of hands/feet in the bronze laver before approaching the incense alter or they would die, daily/ongoing maintenance of the incense on the altar and oil in the lampstand and  anointing the tabernacle with oil and consecrating the utensils used so that they are holy and all that they touch become holy.

The lampstand was to be placed in the first section, called the Holy Place.  The lamp was to be tended by Aaron and his sons so that its light never went out. The lampstand was to give forth light day and night (Exodus 27:20–21). The lampstand’s being the only source of light points directly to Christ as being the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5). Jesus is the “true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9) and the only way anyone can come to the Father (John 14:6).

The bread of the Presence (also called the showbread or shewbread in some translations) was special bread always present on a table in the tabernacle (and later in the temple). Leviticus 24:5–7 describes this bread:

The Old Testament showbread placed on the table in the tabernacle provides a wonderful picture of Jesus, the Bread of Life. Jesus is holy before God, He provides true sustenance, and He is always present. “Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry’” (John 6:35).

The one time a year when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies was on the day of Atonement, which was when special sacrifices were conducted for the sins of the nation which culminated in the both the holy place and holy of holies being filled with incense (prayers of his people) and to shield the priest from the holy presence of God. 

The High Priest who had a rope tied around him would go into the holy of holies and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the arc of the covenant, thereby covering the sins of the people.  The reason he has a rope around him is because if he were to to die form coming into the presence of the holiness of God they could pull the body out, because no-one else can go in.

No let’s zoom back out from the details upon details and the rules and pomp/circumstance of how God very clearly prescribes for his people to come into his presence at this time in his Story.

The first covenant had regulations for worship and the place of worship, but Jesus who is the mediator of the new covenant has become the high priest.  And I encourage you this week to go and read Hebrews 9 that shows that these important aspects of the Jewish law are no longer necessary since Christ has become the High Priest once and for all, he became the sacrifice that secured our redemption forever.

This being said, what would God have you and I understand about his holiness, about us coming into his presence? 

What Biblical principles in Exodus and the Tabernacle are transferable to us today?  Not as legalistic must do’s, but rather as markers that inform us about who this God is that we are approaching and worshiping?

Remember the point of this series is for us to better understand reverence for God, regardless where we are, so that we model that, teach this approach to God to our kids and to those who come to faith in Jesus and are learning how to walk with God.