Furnishing The Tabernacle Series

Furnishing of the Tabernacle

The Ark

The Table

The Lamp stand

Exodus 25:10-40

DBF, Sunday Sermon, 2/2/03

Furnishing is important, ask any newlywed couple and they will tell you it is very important.

Last week, brother Voddie Baucham spoke of the joy of having even hideous furniture as a newlywed.

He explained how much they loved this one couch that was given to them by his mother and how it was such a blessing when he first received it.

Initially it fit in really well, because there really wasn’t any furniture around it, then as they accumulated more and more furniture, the old couch started looking out of place.

Because it represented the first piece of furniture that he and his wife owned, it was moved around the house from various rooms to the study, then one day it’s usefulness was gone and they had to take it out.

Because of the place this furniture played in the very important framework of their life and marriage, Voddie did not want to leave the furniture out overnight before the trash man would pick it up.

So he waited until he heard the garbage truck, then piece-by-piece he carried out this furniture of great value in their lives.

You see it had outlived it usefulness and as the family grew and acquired more and more things, this object of great worth in their early years of marriage, lost its place of appeal and usefulness.

In this weeks lesson we will look at the furnishing of the Tabernacles Inner Sanctuary or the Holy of Holies, and see that God understands that furniture is not needed to make a place a home.

He simple required the ark, a table, and a lamp stand for the home HE would make with man.

I look at this as a challenge in my life and it should be a challenge to most of us today. When we go into our homes in America, we see lavish furnishing even in the homes of our most modest brothers and sisters.

What is the furniture in our lives? What are the furnishings we could do without?

Let’s explore these issues today as we walk with Moses as he continues to receive instruction on God’s Home among the nation of Israel.

The Ark

Exodus 25:10-22 (KJV)

And they shall make an ark…overlay it with pure gold…make upon it a crown of gold round about…cast four rings of gold…in the four corners…make staves…put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them….they shall not be taken from it…put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee…make a mercy seat of pure gold…make two cherubims of gold…ends of the mercy seat…toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be…put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee... And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat…

Remember last week we spoke about the glorious placement of God’s word in the midst of the Tabernacle.

We asked if you think that God was serious about the placement of HIS word in our lives?

God set up everything upon and around the word of HIS testimony given to Moses.

Was this important to the nation of Israel?

Do you think this should be important to us as under the Covenant of Grace in and through Jesus Christ our Lord?

Absolutely, it is God’s immense pleasure to let us know that HIS word should be centermost in our lives. How else are we truly able to come to know and do the “Good and Perfect” will of God?

We can plainly see that in HIS requirements around the Tabernacle God sets HIS “word” apart.

Do you think this was just something God arbitrarily?

Did you notice that the word of God was always ready to move? Is it moving in your life today? Are you yielding it to stop the fiery darts that are hurled your way? I pray that you are using it in the manner that God shows us is HIS intent, both for Israel and for you and I today.

NO, God knows as HE shows us throughout HIS word the value and center place of the “Word of God” and where HE seeks for it to be in our lives if we are to truly be witnesses for HIM.

You see, as we have often said, God shows us through the life and walk of Moses the pattern for the better Covenant, tabernacle, and Word to come in and through Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

Jesus is the means by which we receive the merciful grace of God. Jesus has become for us the living Word of God.