What the Tabernacle Reveals About Christ Most People Miss

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, good evening, good to have everybody with us. And for those of you joining us on television, we always like to remind you that this is just an informal class. We trust that you can just be a part of it and take your Bible and follow these references with us because we don't want anyone to go by what we say. We just trust that you'll be able to see with your own eyes what the book says. And after all, it is the most thrilling piece of literature on the planet. And we just encourage people to get it off the shelf, if you haven't for a long time, and start reading it and studying it. 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When we left off with our last program, I got as far through the tabernacle as the labor of cleansing, but in the break time, we had a gentleman come up and said, well, now, he said, you've got 12 tribes around the perimeter, and you haven't got Levi. That's 13. Well, he's so right, and I didn't make a point of it. You want to remember that as the 12 tribes came together, Joseph, of course, was in the 12, but you'll see that Joseph isn't up here. So what happened? By the time that the tribes came out and got stationed around the tabernacle, we have the two sons of Joseph called the two half-tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, and they take the place of Joseph. So that's 12 plus 2 would actually be, what, 14. But you see, Joseph is left out because the two half-tribes take his share. Levi is then left out, so then instead of 13 around the perimeter, how many have we got? Now, I hope that isn't gobbledygook to you, but rehearse it again. The 12 tribes around here include the two sons of Joseph, but not Joseph nor Levi because Levi was the priestly tribe, and even as they went into the Promised Land, you remember, years later, Levi does not have an inheritance. They have a central area around the area of Jerusalem for the priests to live and so forth, but they did not have an inheritance. They were entitled to that which came in from all the other tribes, and it's, I guess, much the same as God's servants today. They pretty much depend on the offerings and the tithes and gifts of their believer friends. All right, now as we will continue this before we go into Leviticus, we left off at the labor of cleansing, and remember now, all of the materials and all of the aspects of the tabernacle are picturing Christ in some aspect of His finished work of what we call the cross. Now as He would leave the labor of cleansing and come on, and again, the little curtain that comprised the opening into the little tent, which of course is 45 feet long by 15 feet wide. Now remember, that's not real huge, but again, all the numbers in the tabernacle are divisible by 5, the number of grace, so keep that in mind. And again, we've got the little back room then, the Holy of Holies, 15 by 15, and then the front, which they call the sanctuary, was 30 by 15. And then as you came through, again, that curtain of the same colors as this out here, linen of white and blue and red and purple, and then they would come into this sanctuary in which there were no windows, and I think the other interesting part is there were no chairs. You ever thought of that? There was not a single place to sit down. Now I'm going to ask you, why? No. When Christ finished His work, what did He do? He sat down. You ever thought of that before? Hebrews chapter 1 says, and after He had finished the work, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, because His work was finished. How about the work of these priests? It was never done. It was never finished. And so that's an important. Another thing, there was no windows within this whole complex, because who alone can be the light? God Himself or Christ, again, as the light of the world. So as you came in then to this sanctuary, now I think we'll go again to how this little building or this little tent was constructed. We covered it pretty much a program or two ago, but remember the wood frame, and it had to have a frame, you know, in order to hold all the cloth. The wood frame was made of wood, the same old desert tree, the acacia wood, which spoke of Christ's humanity in His flesh, and then it was covered with what? Gold, and that spoke of His deity. He was man and He was God. Now, you'll see that throughout the whole construction of the tabernacle, wood covered with gold, speaking of His humanity and His deity, except, of course, the brazen altar, which was covered with brass. Now then, as we see this frame, and I'm going to start with the inside first and then work out, because after all, that's probably the way they would construct it. After the wood frame was set up, then on the inside, that which we saw as they came in, was this beautiful hand-woven linen, and woven throughout it, not only were the colors again of the blue and the purple and the red and the white, were little cherubim-like creatures, in other words, angelic beings, woven, now not embroidered, but one commentary that I read long ago thought that it was constructed in such a way that those cherubims could be seen from either side of that material. In other words, it was just woven right into the fabric of all that beautiful linen. Now, if you can just imagine a little bit that the light coming from that candlestick, those seven candles, reflecting off of all this gold, and then against that pure white linen with the other colors running through it, and these cherubim, these little angelic beings, and it must have been beautiful beyond description, it had to be. But you remember what I told you a couple of weeks ago? As you went in that sanctuary, you saw the beauty from the inside, not from the outside, but from the inside, it was tremendous beauty, and you remember what I likened it to? When you and I as believers come into the body of Christ, and we are in Christ, we see a beauty and a loveliness that the world knows nothing of. See how this is all just so intricately a picture of Christ? All right, then after the inside linen had been hung, and again that was hung on golden hooks, whereas the outer fence was hung on silver, this will be hung on golden hooks, and the wood frame was set in blocks, not of brass, but of what? Silver, huge blocks of silver. I read one time that somebody tried to contemplate or interpolate a little bit, and they came up with several tons of just silver. Now, I'm not going to say that that's true, but nevertheless, the whole framework was set in blocks of pure silver. Then as you began to cover this framework, right next to the wood frame itself was the first covering of goat's hair, and then the next, of course, was the ram skins dyed red, and then the outer covering were those badger skins, as called in the King James. They were seal skins, which was a sea animal, and it was a real tough material, had no beauty to it, it was very plain, but it was also capable of withstanding the weather and the heat and the rain and so forth. Now that was the construction then of that little tent. Then, dividing it, of course, was, you all know what that was, what do we call it? The veil. That depicted the very body of Christ Himself, because you see, this veil kept even the priests from any approach to the Holy God, who is back here now, represented in that Shekinah glory, that cloud by day and the fire by night. In other words, if we could just lift this up on a plane, then the cloud would be directly above the Ark of the Covenant back here, and it was this veil, this heavy curtain comprised again of all this beautiful linen, that kept any approach from anyone but the high priest once a year. I've already got you here in the studio audience in Leviticus 16, we'll be going there next, and we'll see how the high priest comes behind the veil only once a year. All right, but let's come back now to the sanctuary, and we have only three pieces of furniture, just three. I already mentioned no chair, but over here on the right, or on the north, there we had the table of showbread. Now the table of showbread, again, was constructed of wood, covered with gold, and upon it then were twelve loaves of unleavened bread, six on this side and six on this side, and they were changed every day. And of course, the showbread, again, is indicative of Christ, the bread of life. Then over on the south side of the tabernacle, next to the wall and fairly close to the curtain, was the golden candlestick, and again, you go back to John's Gospel, Christ claims to be the light of the world. He is indeed the golden candlestick. And then in the center was another little altar, also constructed of wood, covered with pure gold, had a grate, and then as the priest would get ready for especially the Day of Atonement, I'm sure it was also during the year, but especially on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would take coals from off the brazen altar, and he would carry them into this little altar inside, only he would not burn animal fat or anything like that on this one, but what would he burn? Incense. And it would literally, the smoke of that incense would literally, you might say, obliterate the very presence of God from even the high priest. The smoke of that incense would just cover this little room. And so all of this, of course, speaks then of, again, Christ's finished work. I think the altar of incense, the book of Revelation tells us that the sweet odor of the incense in reality is what? Who remembers? It's the prayers of the saints, see, so we're also involved in that. Then after you got behind the veil, of course, into that final little 15 by 15 foot room, we have the Ark of the Covenant. Now, thanks to Hollywood, everybody has now heard of the Ark of the Covenant over the last few years, and so on and so forth, but you see, the Ark of the Covenant was, again, wood covered with pure gold, and it was just a box. Same word is brought out of the Hebrew as coffin. It was just a little box, hollow, and in it, now I've got a question for everybody, even my TV audience. I can't find it, and I'll bet somebody can. As we begin here in Sinai, and in the early goings of, I think, even the wilderness experience, who can tell me what is in that Ark of the Covenant? What's in that little box? All right, the Ten Commandments on the stone, the rod that budded, and a sample of what? Manna. But, you get on a little later in Israel's history, and it's just as plain as day that the only thing in the Ark of the Covenant were the tables of stone, including the Ten Commandments. Now, my question to anybody that can answer, when did it stop containing the rod that budded, and the sample of the manna, and have only the? Yeah, I've got some of you questioning, but anyway, maybe I'm just missing something that's real obvious, but I have looked, and I've looked, and I've looked, and I cannot find. The other thing I've got a question on, and it's for anybody that can answer me, when does the Ark of the Covenant disappear from view? Now, I know it was there at the time of the Babylonian invasion, but I can't find anything in the record that the Babylonians took, that is, under Nebuchadnezzar, took the Ark with them. So, I'm going to leave you with some Bible study. You do some searching of the Scriptures, and same way with the Jews on television. If you can give me a hint, I'm just more than willing to listen. There's two good questions for you. Well, anyway, this Ark of the Covenant, then, as we began, contained the three items, the tables of the Ten Commandments. It contained the rod that budded of Aaron's, as well as a sample of the manna, and then above that little hollowed box was the mercy seat. Now, the mercy seat was pure, beaten gold, because this is strictly the area of the Holy God Himself, not Christ and His humanity, but God in His holiness. And it was beaten gold into what shape? What overshadowed the mercy seat? Well, the cherubim, two angelic-like beings, and their wings literally met over the middle of that little box, pure beaten gold. And those cherubim, of course, indicated, I think, a covering of God's mercy, and God's mercy is the only thing that could answer to that which was in the box, and that was the law. The law is so demanding, and there's only one way that we can even come close to satisfying the demand of the law, and that's where? In God's mercy. And so that's why we have the mercy seat. Now, in order to wrap all this up, and hopefully I can do that yet in this half hour, I want you to go back with me to Romans, Romans chapter 3, because I've had a lot of people tell me, well, Les, don't spend too much time on that tabernacle, because after all, you know, that's not all that interesting. Well, I found that the more interested you are in real Bible study, the more glorious this tabernacle becomes. And here's the reason. In Romans chapter 3, beginning with verse 23, where Paul, by the Holy Spirit, is brought to this conclusion, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every human being, going all the way back to what man? All the way back to Adam. We have all, Jew and Gentile, come short of the glory of God. Now, verse 24, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, here's the verse I want, verse 25, whom God hath set forth. Now, watch your grammar here. Who's the whom referring to? Christ Jesus in verse 24. It's Christ Jesus that God hath set forth to be a, that's a great big word that everybody just stumbles and then goes on and hopes they never have to deal with it again. But it isn't that kind of a word. It's propitiation. And it is probably, in my line of thinking anyway, the most inclusive one word in your whole New Testament. For Christ is our propitiation. And how does He become your propitiation and mine? By what? By faith. See? So, He becomes then the propitiation through faith in His, what's the word? His blood. See? Well, not His life, not His three years of exemplary miracle working and so forth. But He can only become the propitiation through faith in His blood, whereby then He can declare His righteousness, not yours or mine, for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. And then I love verse 26, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, whose righteousness? Christ, the propitiator, that He, Christ, might be, what's the next word? Just. And what does that mean in plain English? Fair. That He might be just, that He might be fair, and that He might be the just of fire of Him that repents and is baptized. Oh, that's what I love about my classes. Boy, they're catching on. They do say, ha, ah, that's not what it says. What does it say? To Him that what? Believeth. And what's believing? Faith. What's faith? It's believing. You see, you can't escape it. All right, now let's put this into perspective. If Christ is the propitiation, then I like to have it, and I've read all kinds of commentaries, and usually it ends up, at least to me, gobbledygook, and I don't know what they're talking about, but I'm going to make it real simple. The word propitiation is only used one more time, and I might as well have you find that it's in the little first letter of John, way at the back. First John, chapter 2. As far as I know, these are the only two places the word is used, and it comes from the Greek word halasterion. I think that's the way it's pronounced. That doesn't mean anything to you, but I think I can show you in just a minute or two here what propitiation is all about. In first John, chapter 2, beginning of verse 1, My little children, these things I write unto you, that you sin not. Naturally, God doesn't want us to sin, but what does He know? We're going to. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the what? The righteous. See how that word popped up over here in Romans, and here it is again? He is the righteousness, see? Alright, Jesus Christ the righteousness. Now verse 2, and He is the, there's that big word again, propitiation. Who is the propitiation? Christ is, see? And He is the propitiation for our sins as believers, but not for ours only. For whom has He finished all this? For everyone, the whole world, see? That's where I am not a dyed-in -the-wool Calvinist. A lot of Calvinists maintain that His redemption was only for those who would believe it. They call it limited atonement, and I can't buy that because the Scripture is so plain that His death potentially was enough for every human being who was ever brought into the scene. Alright, propitiation, what is it? All of this, not counting the tribes, but the outer wall, the court, all the elements in it, from the gold and the silver and all the beautiful materials, to the wood, to the brass, everything that you can think of within the confines of this tabernacle and its court, all the way in behind the veil to the very presence of God, resting in mercy above the law, every jot and tittle of it is a picture of Christ's finished work. That's propitiation. Now let me construct again. He became our sacrifice at the cross. He fulfilled everything that the brazen altar could ever speak of. He became our labor of cleansing. It's His Word that shows us our need as well as cleanses us. You move in and He is indeed the table of showbread. He is the bread of life. He is the light of the world. He is the very sweet-smelling incense. He is the mercy seat. He is the God of the Shekinah glory. But not only that, we're going to look at the Day of Atonement here in just a little bit. He is also the high priest that comes in once a year back in Israel's history to present what? The blood upon the mercy seat in the very presence of God. I don't know how much time I've got left. Let's hope we've got enough. Turn back with me now to John's gospel and see how he completely answered all this in what I do call the finished work of Christ. I'd like to have you come, and I think it's in chapter 20. As most of my class people know, I never know where I'm going to go next, so I can't give you any fair warning. But John chapter 20, and you all know the account how that Mary Magdalene had gone early to the sepulcher to anoint the body as was the custom. When she got there, the tomb was empty. The stone was rolled away. And she ran and told Peter and John, and Peter and John come running. You know the account. And they suddenly realized that, yes, Mary was right. He must have indeed risen from the dead. And then I always like to point out verse 9, just to back up a good portion of my teaching, which sometimes shakes people up when they first hear it. And that is that Jesus and the 12 never preached our gospel as we know it. They didn't preach death, burial, and resurrection. They didn't even believe any of it themselves. How could they preach it? And then verse 9 makes it so clear. Chapter 20, verse 9, when they suddenly realized that something had taken place, and they knew that he must have been raised from the dead. Then in verse 9, for as yet they, that is Peter and John, they knew, what's the next word? Not. See, they didn't know. They knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Well, it's obvious. Had they known that he was going to rise from the dead, where would they have camped out that night? Well, at the tomb. And so would have all of his followers. But they didn't. They all went home, and they thought it was all over. Now I've got to come quickly down, or my time will get ahead of me again. All the way down to verse 15. And you know the account, how that Mary sees this man standing there, didn't know it was Jesus, assumed it was the gardener. And then verse 14, when she had thus said, she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, knew not that it was Jesus. And he said unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? And she, supposing him to be the gardener. You know what I'm going to have to do? I'm going to have to do just like the comics used to do on Sunday. I'm going to have to just leave this hanging by a thread. And for you people are going to have to wait a whole week. But for you here in the studio, we're going to have to pick it up next hour. I'm not going to be able to finish this. I got into something that I shouldn't have started. All right, but here Jesus is appearing to her, and she thinks he's the gardener. Now, when you read something like that, I'm always telling you, ask yourself some questions. Does a gardener look like a ghost? Does a gardener look like some fog, you know, like they see on, when they beam people up and so forth? No, a gardener looks how? Very human, very ordinary. Now, don't miss that. As Jesus is standing there, now I know it's probably in the pre-dawn semi-darkness. And again, I always have to point out the last view that Mary had of Jesus was on the cross, remember, and was that a very pretty sight? That was awful. The book of Isaiah says what? No man has ever been so disfigured. That's in Isaiah, what, 52, the last verse or two. No man has ever been so disfigured as Jesus was. Well, now, naturally, that was the last view that Mary remembered of Christ. Now, in that pre-dawn darkness, she sees a very normal human being thinking it's the gardener. I want you to get that straight because I want you to understand that Jesus in his resurrected body from all outward appearances didn't look any different than anyone else. Witness the people on the road to Emmaus. Man, he fell in step with them and in spite of all their tears and their gloom and their doom, did he look so much different to them that they caught on that some kind of a ghost was walking with him? No, uh-uh. And he said, well, what's troubling you? Oh, and they began to rehearse, everything happened. They didn't catch on. He walked in the house and he sat down at the table with them. He must have partook with them. They still didn't know who it was. And then all of a sudden, what? He was gone. So now all these things are what you've got to gather here from just a few little words. Mary supposed him to be the gardener. See, my time is gone. We'll pick it up next week. Sure as the world will start right here. Sure. 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