1448 - "The Pattern is given at Sinai for the worship center on earth" Exodus 25:1ff; Hebrews 8:5

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1448. Today we're going to look at the tabernacle and the materials that went into construction of this great tent of meeting, where God would meet with his people as they came out of Egyptian bondage, and God led them to the land that he promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And when they went out of the land, they brought the bones of Joseph. And Joseph had said, please, God is going to fulfill his word and his promises to his people. And when he does that, not if he does it, but when he does it, please take me and bury my bones in the land, bury my body what's left of it in the land that God said he would give to our people. And so as God brought them out, he brought them to Mount Sinai, and these were the instructions for this great worship center that God was going to build, where he would meet with his people and have fellowship with them. Chapter twenty five says, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering. Now this offering was to come from everyone who gives willingly, that is, gives over and above the ties that would be discussed in the future with the children of Israel, and their ties of every sort. But this was to be from those who wanted to give, those who were willing to give, the over and above offerings so that the building that God was going to instruct Moses to build would have all the materials needed. And it was to be from the heart. That's why it says with his heart he was to give willingly. And he says, You shall take my offering, that is, what the people bring to me, and this is the offering which you shall take from them. This is what I'm needing, Moses. Please tell the people to be very specific, because I don't want just anything, I want them to bring what you will need and the artisans would need to fashion this portable worship center that will be taken from Egyptian bondage all the way into the promised land. Verse three says, and this is the offering which you shall take from them gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet material, fine linen and goat's hair, ram skins dyed red, badger skins and acacia wood, oil for the light and spices for the anointing oil for the sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the effid and in the breastplate. Now listen to verse eight, especially. And let them make me a dwelling place, a sanctuary, a sacred place, that I may dwell among them, according to all that I will show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it. In other words, just in the way that I want you to do it. Now this is fascinating. And when we turn to the New Testament to the book of Hebrews chapter eight, we can understand why he used the term that he did that is translated pattern from the original text. In Hebrews chapter eight, which shines light on this and explains the Old Testament passage, and remember just from a Bible study standpoint, that the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed. And as you read through the Old Testament you will see that it was in shadows and types and in shades and nuances of meaning and patterns that God was getting his people ready to understand more fully of who he is and what he's going to do for them, not only in the days in which they were living, but in the days that would come, when Messiah would come, and even when the Messianic era would take place on the earth, when the son of David, who's not even been mentioned yet because he's never been born, would reign over all of the earth and all the nations of the earth, and that's still for the future. In chapter eight, in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, the Scripture says those who serve, now this is in verse five, those who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle, he said, That is, God told Moses, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as he, that is Jesus, is the mediator of a better covenant, better than the one that came down from Mount Sinai, which was conditional. This is an unconditional covenant that the Messiah made, which was established on better promises. It doesn't mean that the promises that God gave to Moses were of none effect or did not have meaning. But they were based on conditions. God said, I will bless you if you live like this, I will curse you if you live like this. But the Messiah and the Messianic covenant, the new covenant, was one that was unconditional. That is, God said, I'm going to do this for you, not because of who you are or what you do, but based on the emphasis of who I am and what I do. And so when we come to chapter 8, and the writer of the book of Hebrews is talking about the Messiah, he begins to just from a side note talk about the tabernacle and the worship center of the Old Testament. And he makes some amazing claims, astonishing claims. He says what was echoing in chapter twenty five of Exodus using the same kind of language, he says that these things were but a shadow. They were only a type, they were made from the pattern that Moses was given on Mount Sinai, a pattern of the heavenly things that are real. Now this is not the only place this is mentioned, but I wanted to bring that to your attention. So what is that saying to us? In the book of Hebrews, it is talking about shadows, types, patterns. And when you open up the book of Hebrews in the Greek text, the word shadow is the word skia. It is a shade. It's a place that you can't see very well, but you can make out a shape. You can know something of that. The word tabernacle is the word scanane. That is, it is where we get our word schematic, something that we can just see. It's kind of sketchy. And then the word pattern is the word tupos. That's right, tupos. Now T-U-P-O-S is the word that I just said in Greek, but the ending OS is just that. It's an ending, it's an inflection. And unlike English, which is an analytical language based on word order and sometimes spelling, but not as much as word order as to what is the noun, what is the subject that is, what is the direct object or the indirect object, or a subject complement, those kinds of things that we learned in our own study of English grammar. No, in many languages, and certainly in Greek and Hebrew, the more ancient languages, that OS tells you that this is more than likely the subject of the sentence. It is nominative for those of you who know something of language. Now I'm not trying to get in the weeds, I'm trying to help you to understand something here. The word tupos, the base word is tube, T-U-P. Now that U is changed to a Y in bringing it over into English. So it would be T Y P. All we do is add an E on the end, and we have T Y P E type. Yes, that's where that word comes from. What is a type? It is a pattern. The ancient word, the ancient Greek word, type or toop is the word to beat, as in hammering something. That's the idea of an ancient smith taking something and making it into a shape, beating from the fire metal into a certain shape, hammering it and making it so that that metal pattern, that metal outline, can be something where it can be traced, it can be formed, and something can be made over and over and over again from that. And we call that a type. You see, the pattern that Moses was given on Mount Sinai for this great worship center in the wilderness was just a shape of the one that is in heaven, the heavenly one. Because in heaven there is a worship center. Now I didn't say that. That's what God says, and you can look it up. You can Google it, you can ask any one of your programs, you can uh go to AI, it'll tell you the same thing. I'm not making this stuff up. There is a worship center in heaven, and the symbolism is throughout the Word of God that Moses made a small miniature, a model of what is really in heaven. When Moses was asked by God to bring in all of these materials and so forth, that was so that he could design this worship center so that the people would understand how to approach God. And everything had symbolism to it, all the colors, all the materials, all of the shapes, the way you came in, the way you approached certain areas. All of that is instructive for us in how to approach God, how to know God. So when Moses was getting the materials together, God was saying, You make sure you follow this and follow it closely. Now, an additional insight to this is when David was giving instructions to his son Solomon how to build the temple, the more stable building that would be built on Mount Moriah, Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, on that sacred place where the binding of Isaac took place, David said to Solomon, You follow my instructions meticulously, because God gave those to me. Just like he did Moses for the tabernacle in the wilderness that was at Shiloh, at Shiloh for three hundred and sixty-nine years, he said, I want you to build this more permanent worship center, and I want you to do it according to the pattern that God gave me. Now, where did God get those from? God had designed a worship center in heaven, and he said, Moses, I'm going to give you a small miniature of that. It's not the real thing, it's just a miniature. David, I'm going to give you a more grandiose pattern of that, but it is the very same concept, and it is. And that's what we're going to be looking at. And I want you to remember this, that God gives us on this earth only what we can take, only what we can stand. And that's why when John pulls back the curtain and he unveils the worship scenes in heaven, it takes our breath. You see, the apocalypse, apo, calypto, where we get our word apocalypse, the Greek word apocalypse, it means to unveil, to uncover, to pull back the curtain. Apo means away or away from. That preposition is consistent throughout the word of God. Calypto means to cover or to veil. And so to take away the veil, apo calupto, apocalypse, means the unveiling, the pulling back of the curtain. In other words, the future is seen on the island of Patmos by John. And he pulls back the curtain on the future and says, here's what heaven's going to be like. It's going to be this place where Jesus, the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the lion of the tribe of Judah, is going to be unveiled. We're going to see him as he is. And you can look at that worship scene in Revelation chapter 4 and Revelation chapter 5. But Moses and the children of Israel couldn't take that. And so God gave them just a shadow and a type of what it was going to be like to know God and to walk with him. And so that's what it is. And David giving Solomon the instructions was just another level of the same thing. As magnificent as the great Temple of Solomon was, and over a billion dollars in today's money to build that. Yes, just that what would be relatively a small building and a small area. Over a billion dollars in today's money. It was magnificent, but it is shallow and hollow compared to what we're going to see when we worship before the Master in Heaven at the great throne of Almighty God. You must not miss the days to come as we study this together. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.