Well, you know, we are involved in a study of the life of that great man of God, Moses, and we've reached the point where the Israelites camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, have completed the construction of the tabernacle. And so today we want to talk a little bit about the tabernacle.
And you know, there are many ways that we could approach this study. For example, we could look at every ring and every socket and every loop and every board and every curtain in the tabernacle and talk about it. Or we could examine every piece of furniture and every utensil in the tabernacle. Or we could describe every kind of sacrifice that was carried out at the tabernacle.
But I don't want to do it that way. I want us to take a much more global look at the tabernacle because there were two fundamental spiritual truths that God was trying to teach the human race in the operation of the tabernacle. And what I want us to do is focus on, identify what those two spiritual truths are. And then I want us to talk about what difference they make for our life today.
And so that's our plan of attack for this morning. And let's begin by talking about the actual tabernacle itself. Remember I told you in the past that the tabernacle was merely a portable temple where the Israelites worshiped God and where they sacrificed to God until the permanent temple was built in Jerusalem some 500 years later. Let's start by looking at the physical layout of the tabernacle if we can. The tabernacle compound consisted of a large rectangular courtyard surrounded by a wall of linen curtains. And in this outer courtyard there were two objects. Number one, a bronze altar where the priest offered sacrifices for sin every day.
And number two, a large bronze wash bowl or a laver where the priest would wash their hands after killing these animals for sacrifice and handling their blood. The tabernacle building itself consisted of two rooms, two sections if you will. The outer section, the larger section, about two-thirds of the building was called the holy place. And the priest would go in and out of this section of the building every day doing their daily ministries.
There were three items located in this outer room and they were number one, the incense altar, number two, the table with the showbread on it, and number three, the golden lampstand or the golden menorah that was there in the temple. Now you know it's interesting if you go to Rome and you go to see the Colosseum, right by the Colosseum there is an enormous ceremonial arch called the Arch of Titus. This arch was built to honor a general, later Emperor Titus.
Titus was the commander of the Roman army in 70 AD that conquered the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple to the ground. And on the side of this great monumental arch is a depiction, a relief of soldiers that marched in the great victory parade Titus held when he returned to Rome. And in this relief we see some of the actual furniture of the Jerusalem temple that they brought back to Rome after they had conquered Jerusalem.
And one of the more conspicuous items as you see was this big gold menorah, this big candlestick that the Roman soldiers carried through the streets of Rome in their victory parade. And when you get there, you actually, there's lots of other things. There's furniture, the showbread table is pictured, trumpets. Anyway, if you ever go or if you ever go with me, we'll show you that.
It's really worth seeing. This is the only picture in existence of what the furniture in the Jerusalem temple actually looked like. Well, the inner room, the smaller room in the tabernacle building was called the Holy of Holies. This room was separated from the larger room by a thick opaque curtain or veil. In fact, the Mishnah, the Jewish writings of the rabbis tell us that this curtain was the thickness of a man's hand from the end of his middle finger to the end of his thumb.
So about six inches thick of solid cloth. We'll talk more about the veil next week. And into this inner room, the high priest would go alone once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and he would take blood into this room. This room was the most sacred place in all of Judaism because it contained the most sacred item in all of Judaism, and that is the Ark of the Covenant. And everybody has an idea what the Ark of the Covenant looks like because we've all seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so we all have a good idea. But the Ark was basically a box made out of acacia wood that was native to the Sinai desert, and then it was overlaid by pure gold. Inside the Ark, there were three items. Number one, the two tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written.
Now, remember, these were the second set of tablets. Moses broke the first set. Second of all, there was a golden bowl full of manna, the supernatural food that God had fed the Israelites in the desert. And finally, there was Aaron's rod. Aaron, the brother of Moses, his rod that budded, and we'll talk more about that in number 17 when we get there. The top of the Ark, the lid of the Ark, was known as the mercy seat.
It was made out of solid gold. It had two cherubim, two angelic figures with their wings outstretched pointing towards one another. Friends, this is the layout of the tabernacle, but we want to go on now and talk about how the tabernacle operated.
What really went on there? Well, the operation of the tabernacle went like this. Every day, the priest would offer sacrifices for sin in the holy place, in the outer room of this building, and the way it worked is that if you were an Israelite and you knew you had sinned against God, you would come to the tabernacle and bring an unblemished animal to the priest, a sheep, a goat, a lamb, and the priest would kill that animal. He would put the blood on the altar, and in response, God promised to forgive the sin of the person who had brought the animal, the worshiper. Leviticus 17 11 says, For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given you the blood to make atonement for your sin on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement. In the New Testament, Hebrews 9 22 says, For without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. But then once a year, as I said earlier, the high priest himself alone would actually go into the inner room, the Holy of Holies, carrying with him the blood of an unblemished goat that he had sacrificed outside, and he would place this blood on the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in response, God promised that he would forgive the sin of the whole nation for the entire year. Leviticus 16 15, Then the high priest shall kill the goat for the sin offering for the nation, and bring its blood inside the veil and sprinkle it on the mercy seat.
Hebrews 9 7, And into the Holy of Holies went the high priest alone once every year, but never without blood which he offered for his sins and for the sins of the people. Now friends, this is the tabernacle and its ministry, and what we need to understand is that when King Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, five hundred years later, all he did is take the layout of the tabernacle and make it permanent instead of portable. All he did is take the operation of the tabernacle and place it in one permanent place, and in a portable place, but nothing changed. The Jewish temple operated and looked just like the tabernacle looked.
Now before we go on and ask the question, so what? There's one other interesting thing I want to tell you and show you about the tabernacle. Hebrews 8 verse 5 says, When Moses was about to build the tabernacle, God sternly warned him and said, Moses, see to it that you make all things exactly according to the model I showed you on top of the mountain. You see, apparently up on the top of Mount Sinai, God showed Moses a heavenly model of the tabernacle, an exact life-size working model of the tabernacle that was already in existence in heaven before the tabernacle on earth was ever built. He said, Lon, are you sure about that?
Watch. Hebrews 8 verse 5, These earthly priests, that is the ones who served the earthly tabernacle, serve at a sanctuary that is, look now, a copy and a shadow of the one that is in heaven. Hebrews 9-11, When Jesus came as the high priest of the good things to come, he went through that greater and more perfect tabernacle, the one that is not man-made, that is the one that is not part of this creation, the one in heaven. Hebrews 8-2 then talks about the true tabernacle, the one in heaven, which was built by the Lord and not by man.
You say, wait a minute, Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute. You're telling me that there's a working tabernacle in heaven? Friends, I'm not telling you that. That's what the Bible's telling you. The Bible says that there is a heavenly tabernacle with heavenly furniture and a heavenly holy of holies and a heavenly ark and a heavenly mercy seat. And the Bible says this is what God showed to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. And this is what Moses was ordered to copy to make an exact replica of and a scale model of down here on earth. Very interesting. Yeah?
Yeah? Now, I want you to hold on to that fact that there's this heavenly tabernacle. We're going to come back to that in a moment because, friends, this fact plays an enormous role in our understanding, the plan of salvation that God offers the human race. So hold on to that. We're coming back. But right now we're going to stop and we're going to ask our most important question of the morning.
And you know what it is. So are you ready? All right.
Nice and loud. Here we go. One, two, three. Ah, yeah. You say, Lon, so what? You say, ah, heavenly tabernacle and killing animals and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, what difference does any of this make to me? Well, let's make that connection show. We remember we said that the tabernacle was given to mankind by God to teach us two fundamental spiritual truths. Let's see if we can identify what they are, huh?
Truth number one is truth number one, all the tabernacle was intended to teach is the truth of substitutionary atonement. You go, wow. Now there is an SAT word. Okay, now wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't let the length of that thing throw you. It's really a very simple concept.
Stick with me and I'll explain it to you. Remember we said that if the earthly tabernacle, a sinner who wanted God to forgive him, what did he do? He brought an innocent animal. He brought an innocent substitute, yes, to the temple.
And the priest would kill that animal and put its blood on the altar. And in response, God promised to forgive that person sin. He promised to grant atonement to that person. To put it another way, friends, God agreed to accept the death of an innocent substitute in place of the sinner's death who really deserved it. Because this is all substitutionary atonement means.
It means that God agrees to grant atonement, forgiveness to sinners based on the death, based on the shed blood of an innocent substitute. And friends, God designed the entire operation of the tabernacle to teach, to drive home this one truth to all of mankind. And that's why in the earthly tabernacle, the blood of an innocent animal, the blood of an innocent substitute was the central element in every single sacrifice for sin. So truth number one is that substitutionary atonement is the basis, the only basis God has established upon which he agrees to grant forgiveness to sinners.
Substitutionary atonement is the foundational principle of God's plan of salvation for the human race. Now, that leads us to truth number two that the tabernacle was designed to teach mankind and that is the all sufficiency of the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, the tabernacle was also designed to teach us that animal sacrifices were insufficient to fully deal with sin. That's why the priest in the tabernacle had to keep offering the same animal sacrifices over and over, day after day, year after year.
Why? Because these animal sacrifices never dealt with sin permanently. I mean, Hebrews 10 one says these same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year could never make perfect those who offer them. The next verse says if they could have, if they could have made the offerors perfect, people would have stopped offering them because the worshippers would have been cleansed from sin once and for all. Think about it, friends, after all of your teeth have fallen out.
All right, pay attention. After all of your teeth have fallen out, there's no need for you to go buy dental floss anymore, right? And friends, by the same token, after all of our sins have been permanently forgiven, there's no need to offer animal sacrifices anymore. But the point is, these people did have to keep offering animal sacrifices. The Israelites had to keep bringing them. The priest had to keep offering them.
Why? Hebrews 10 four, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to permanently take away sin. The blood of these animals was just a temporary covering. It was just a temporary solution. But don't miss this.
Don't miss this. Now, the permanent solution, the ultimate solution, the final solution for the sin of mankind had to come in the heavenly tabernacle, the one that God showed Moses up on top of Mount Sinai. It had to come in the heavenly tabernacle where heavenly substitutionary blood had to be put on the heavenly mercy seat to achieve permanent forgiveness of sin. Hebrews nine, verse 23. Therefore, the Bible says it was necessary for the copy of things in heaven.
What's that? That's the earthly tabernacle. It was the copy, right? The copy of things in heaven. It was necessary for that to be cleansed with the blood of animals.
Watch now. But the heavenly things themselves had to be cleansed with better sacrifices than these, with blood that was far superior to animal blood. And thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. This is exactly why Jesus Christ died on the cross so that he could take his heavenly blood and go into the heavenly holy of holies and put it on the heavenly mercy seat.
And by doing that so that he could accomplish for us what generations of Jewish priests could not accomplish, so that he could do for us what millions of Jewish sacrifices could never do for us. And that is forgive our sin permanently and forever. Hallelujah. Amen. Yeah. All right. You say, Lon, you sure you got this right?
I mean, I don't know. Hey, listen, Hebrews chapter nine, verse 12, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. Jesus entered into the heavenly holy of holies and obtained eternal permanent redemption for us. Chapter 10, verse 14, because by one sacrifice that is himself on the cross, he, Jesus, has perfected forever.
Look at that has perfected forever. Those who believe in him. Verse 18. And where there is forgiveness like this, what do you mean like this? Where there is forgiveness that is permanent, where there is forgiveness that is ultimate, where there is forgiveness that is eternal.
Watch now where there is forgiveness like this. No further sacrifices for sin are needed. Praise God.
You know why? Because as followers of Jesus Christ, we are perfected forever by the blood of the ultimate innocent substitute. That is the sinless son of God himself. This is the plan of salvation, friends. It's all based around the blood of an innocent substitute, but not some animal. Oh, no, no, no, no.
The sinless son of God was the substitute. You know, next to my name in heaven are written a couple of dates. If you were to go to heaven and look my name up in the book there, you would find my name, Lon Solomon. You would find the first date would be physically born. And next to that, you would find August 1948. I'll save you the trouble.
I'm 59. Now pay attention. All right, now pay attention. The next date you would find entered under my name is you would find perfected forever by the blood of Jesus Christ. And you would find there March 1971. And you know, folks, I'm so glad there is no footnote next to that second date. There is no footnote that says perfected forever by Jesus's blood plus Lon's good works, perfected forever by Jesus's blood plus Lon's religious activity. Oh, no, that's not there. It's not there perfected forever by Jesus's blood plus Lon's being bar mitzvahed or Lon's being a church member or Lon's being baptized or Lon trying to drive the speed limit on the bell way. None of that's there. You know why there are no footnotes? Because, friends, the blood of Jesus Christ is utterly sufficient to do it itself.
You don't need any plus. It's utterly sufficient. And one of these days, God's going to write a third date next to my name. And that third date is going to be admitted to heaven for all of eternity. And when that happens and I arrive on the shores of heaven, you know what?
I'm going to join with millions of other saints who are there and I'm going to enjoy singing for all of eternity. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Sing with me.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Give yourselves a hand.
That was good. Friends, the point is that the blood of Jesus is utterly sufficient to do it all. It is utterly sufficient to do for us what millions of animal sacrifices could not do over thousands of years. And that's why the Bible says First John one seven, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son cleanses us from all sin. It's why the Bible says Romans five nine.
We have been justified. We have been declared not guilty in God's sight by Jesus's blood. This is why Colossians one fourteen says in Jesus Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. This is why Revelation chapter one says that Jesus Christ washed us from our sins in his own blood. And finally, while Revelation five nine calls Jesus the one who loved us and freed us from our sins by his blood. Listen, it's still substitutionary atonement.
That's still the principle. It's just that now the innocent substitute is not some animal. It's the sinless son of God himself. And it's just that now the atonement is not just temporary, but it is permanent and it is eternal. Hallelujah and amen.
Huh? If you can't say amen to that, come on now. Amen.
You can't say amen to that. I don't know. I don't know what to do with you.
That's all I got to say. You know, Isaac Watts, who wrote many great hymns. We know him for writing When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. He wrote another hymn that we've never sung here.
And I don't know if we ever will. And I don't even know the tune, but I love the verse. Here's what it says. It says not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give my guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly lamb.
Ah, there you go. Takes all our sin away. A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they and how right he is. And so, friends, let's conclude and say there are two lessons that God intended the tabernacle to teach mankind. Lesson number one is that God offers to forgive sinners based on the shed blood of an innocent substitute.
We call it substitutionary atonement. And principle number two, truth number two is that the substitutionary blood of Jesus Christ is the ultimate, the final, the absolute solution for all the sin of the world. And so as we conclude today, I'd like to just ask you one question. My question is, when you come to the end of your earthly life and you stand before God and God, you know, looks your name up in the ledger in heaven, I wonder what's going to be written next to your name, my friend. There's only two options written next to your name will either be perfected forever by the blood of Jesus Christ or written next to your name will be payment due by account holder. Now, let me just tell you, if that second phrase is written next to your name, friend, you're in big trouble.
I mean, you're in deep matzah. You understand what I'm trying to say to you? Because somebody, the justice of God requires somebody has got to pay for your sin and for my sin. And it's either going to be an innocent substitute whose blood went on the mercy seat for you and me, or if that's not what we're trusting and presenting to God to pay for our sin, then friend, the only person left to pay for it is guess who?
Us. And that will be a really ugly situation if that's the situation you find yourself in. And so I want to challenge you here today. If you're not 100% sure, 110% sure that perfected forever by the blood of Christ is written next to your name, my friends, I want to give you some good news today. The good news is that God's prepared to write that next to any sinner's name, anybody who will simply come and reject every other remedy they've ever trusted to pay for their sin and cast themselves instead 100% without reservation on the blood of Jesus Christ plus nothing. That's the great news of the Bible.
And God's got his arms wide open saying whosoever will, whosoever will. But friend, you got to decide whether you're the person who wants to do that. I don't want you to leave here today without an opportunity to do it. And so we're going to give you that opportunity in a moment. But let me close with a sentence from Robert Murray McShane, the great Scottish preacher. He said, and I quote, how many worlds, he said, worlds would every lost soul in hell give for just one chance to cleave to the blood of Jesus?
Well, you know what? Those lost souls in hell, they don't have that chance anymore, but you do. And so I'm here to urge you, don't waste that chance.
Take advantage of it today. Let's pray together. And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed and nobody looking around, if you're here today and you are not 110% sure that perfected forever by the blood of Christ is written next to your name in heaven, then here's what we're going to do.
We're going to give you the chance to change that right here today. We're going to have a little prayer. We're going to pray one phrase at a time and I just want you to pray silently right behind me. And what we're going to tell God is today you are going to give up every other remedy you've ever trusted to pay for your sin and you are going to embrace the blood of Christ plus nothing as your only hope and your only remedy.
So if you're prepared to do that, here we go. You pray silently. I'll pray out loud. Jesus, I come to you today because I want perfected forever to be written next to my name. Today I give up every other remedy for sin that I've ever trusted and I cast myself on the blood of Jesus plus nothing as my only payment for sin and my only hope of eternal life. Father, grant me atonement today because I'm trusting the blood of the heavenly substitute. Come into my life today, forgive my sins, grant me eternal life as I trust the blood of Christ and surrender my life to you as my Lord.
In Jesus' name I pray. And Father, I want to pray for the folks who prayed that prayer. That right now you would confirm in their hearts that a great transaction has taken place in the heavenly places that they have passed, John 5-24, from death into eternal life, never to go back. And Father, for all of us here who have already done that, I thank you so much for reminding us today how the plan of salvation really works and reminding us today what it took for the Lord Jesus to purchase for us that plan of salvation, His very blood.
And that He took it into that heavenly holy of holies and put it on the mercy seat for us. And that Lord Jesus, because of that, our forgiveness is permanent. Our forgiveness is eternal. And that nothing, nothing can separate us from the forgiveness and the love of Christ. Lord, help us walk out of here rejoicing today as followers of Christ in the incredible plan of salvation you put together and most marvelously, Lord, in the fact that you made it work with your very own life. Lord, how can we say we love you enough for what you've done? Help us show you our love and our devotion and our loyalty and our obedience every single day. We pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen.
