Blessed Beyond All Measure (36: 2-38)

 
Do you ever read passages in the Bible and think, "That was boring?" I mean, have you ever started reading the Bible and come across a long list of names, and you think, "What is this about?" The first occurrence of that is in Genesis chapter 5, and you get past that and don’t get drowned in the flood. And as soon as you get out of the flood, you're plunged into Genesis chapter 10, and you're right back into a long list of names. And those are just the beginning chapters that have long lists of names. In the Bible, the Book of Numbers has chapter after chapter of names, and so does Chronicles, as well as Matthew chapter one and Luke chapter three. And those are just plain boring portions of Scripture. 

Well, let me tell you, the passage we're going to study today rivals those long lists of names. Some say this is about as interesting as reading the terms and condition on your smart phone and I'm semi-serious. On the other hand, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and according to Paul in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, it is profitable. So, I take those verses in Timothy very seriously. That all scripture is profitable. I'm going to have to address Exodus chapter 36. 

According to Paul, this is profitable. So, the question is, what is the profit? Alright, let's look at Exodus chapter 36, beginning at verse 2 and try and find what the profitable part of this is. We looked at verse 1 in connection with chapter 35, yesterday. So we start at verse 2. 

Then Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work.

(Exodus 36: 2)

Alright, he called these men, two named as sort of the supervisors. They had the oversight of the gifted workers and artisans. The idea is, that many people are going to work on the Tabernacle. They're called here gifted artisans. But the point is, they were also willing because it says, "Whose heart was stirred." That's the key. These were gifted, artisans willing to build the Tabernacle. So, the emphasis on this opening verse is the willingness of the people to participate by giving materials and doing the work as an act of service to the Lord..

So, the opening verses are describing the workmen. And then in verses 3 down through verse 7, we are given the materials that were given to build the Tabernacle. 

“And they received from Moses all the offering which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of making the sanctuary. So, they continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning." 

(Exodus 36: 3)

Now, if you were here when I talked about the previous chapter, about the fact that they all gave gifts, the emphasis in the previous chapter was that they did it willingly. And that is still true. They're still coming every morning, and they are freely giving. Tithing has not yet been introduced. Tithing was not a requirement at this point. This was all a freewill offering. 

4 Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work he was doing, 5 and they spoke to Moses, saying, “The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded us to do.”

(Exodus 36: 4-5)

'The people bring more, much more than was needed. What? The people brought too much? Have you ever heard of such a thing in your entire life? Have you ever been in a church and been told that the offering was too much? I've never been in such a church. Well, as if that isn't interesting enough, it gets more interesting. Look at the next verse. 

So, Moses gave a commandment, and they proclaimed it throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much.

(Exodus 36: 6-7)

You have probably never seen a passage of Scripture like that in your whole life. The people were giving too much, and Moses instructed them to stop giving. As a matter of fact, I considered calling this episode “Stop Giving," just for the shock value.

One of the greatest criticisms I hear from people who are not believers  is that the church is always after people money. Sometimes it's to pay the bills, and sometimes it's to build the building, but it a real put off to visitors or new believers when they go to church, and they hear about the people at the front  asking for money. My advice would be to communicate the needs of the church to the membership by all means but not through the morning worship service.

Anyways that's of the  first 7 verses which form a sort of introduction to the chapter. But as I mentioned, this chapter is about the construction of the Tabernacle. So, these opening verses tell us about the artisans and the people bringing the material. They didn't bring money. That didn't develop until much later in history. But they brought the material. Remember, in the previous chapter, they brought their jewellery for the gold and that sort of thing. But now, beginning in the next verse and going to the end of this chapter, and for that matter, the next several chapters, what we have is the construction of the Tabernacle. Now, I mentioned that in chapters 25 to 31, Moses was given the blueprint, the house plan. Now, in chapter 36, verse 2, all the way through chapter 39, is the building itself. So, in the first part of the passage, the passage starts with the furniture—the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, and the various pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle. This time, he starts with the—well, look at verse 8.

8 Then all the gifted artisans among them who worked on the tabernacle made ten curtains woven of fine linen, and of blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim they made them. 9 The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits; the curtains were all the same size. 10 And he coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to one another. 11 He made loops of blue yarn on the edge of the curtain on the selvedge of one set; likewise he did on the outer edge of the other curtain of the second set. 12 Fifty loops he made on one curtain, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain on the end of the second set; the loops held one curtain to another. 13 And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps, that it might be one tabernacle.

(Exodus 36: 8-12)

So, what's going on? Well, it's really simple. The covering was made in panels, and it was joined together to make one piece. That's what those verses are adding up to.

14 He made curtains of goats’ hair for the tent over the tabernacle; he made eleven curtains. 15 The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits; the eleven curtains were the same size. 16 He coupled five curtains by themselves and six curtains by themselves. 17 And he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in one set, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain of the second set. 18 He also made fifty bronze clasps to couple the tent together, that it might be one. 

These verses describe the second covering. The second covering was made out of goat's hair, and that's all these verses are doing is giving us the details of how they were put together, but it just comes down to a second covering for the roof. Then, in verse 19, he describes the third covering. 

19 Then he made a covering for the tent of ram skins dyed red, and a covering of badger skins above that.

So, there is a third and fourth covering. So, all we've seen in this passage so far is the detail of how they made four huge coverings that go over the top of the Tabernacle. Four coverings lay over the top of the Tabernacle itself. The first was made out of linen. The second was goat's hair, the third was ram skin dyed red, and the last was badger skin, and it was black. The building process starts with the roof. I have never seen anybody build the roof of a property first. The way we construct buildings, you can't start with the roof because you got to have something to hold it up first. But this is cloth and skins, so you can make them first. So apparently, they made the roof first. Why? I don't know. I also  know that's what I the second thing they built was because it was described in the next verse.

20 For the tabernacle he made boards of acacia wood, standing upright. 21 The length of each board was ten cubits, and the width of each board a cubit and a half. 22 Each board had two tenons for binding one to another. Thus he made for all the boards of the tabernacle. 23 And he made boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side. 24 Forty sockets of silver he made to go under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons. 25 And for the other side of the tabernacle, the north side, he made twenty boards 26 and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under each of the boards. 27 For the west side of the tabernacle he made six boards. 28 He also made two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle. 29 And they were coupled at the bottom and coupled together at the top by one ring. Thus he made both of them for the two corners. 30 So there were eight boards and their sockets—sixteen sockets of silver—two sockets under each of the boards.

(Exodus 36: 20-30)

So, he says in verse 20 they used Acacia wood, Now, I need to tell you that the Acacia trees flourish in dry places, and it is a beautiful grained wood, but it is also a wood that was virtually indestructible by the standards of the day. This was a very durable piece of wood. Then we are given the dimensions again. There's one more thing in this chapter. He calls it the curtains, it's the veil.

31 And he made bars of acacia wood: five for the boards on one side of the tabernacle, 32 five bars for the boards on the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle on the far side westward. 33 And he made the middle bar to pass through the boards from one end to the other. 34 He overlaid the boards with gold, made their rings of gold to be holders for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold. 35 And he made a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen; it was worked with an artistic design of cherubim. 36 He made for it four pillars of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold, with their hooks of gold; and he cast four sockets of silver for them. 37 He also made a screen for the tabernacle door, of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver, 38 and its five pillars with their hooks. And he overlaid their capitals and their rings with gold, but their five sockets were bronze. 37 He also made a screen for the tabernacle door, of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver, 38 and its five pillars with their hooks. And he overlaid their capitals and their rings with gold, but their five sockets were bronze.

(Exodus 36: 31-37)

What he's describing here is this Tabernacle, this building itself that is made out of boards held up by bars and sockets, it has two rooms. There was the holy place, and in that room was the table of showbread, the lampstand, and the altar of incense. Then there was a large curtain called the veil, and inside that partitioned-off rectangular building, and in the smaller part which was square, there was the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.  So, what he's describing here is the veil that divided the two rooms into two halves, and the entrance through the curtain from the holy place, into the holy of holiest places.

So, what are we supposed to get out of this?

Well, I can tell you I scratched my head on this chapter. I looked at it, and I thought, well it clearly divides into two parts. First, the people brought so much material for the building of the Tabernacle, that Moses told them to stop. Well, I didn't want to emphasize that too much, you know, I didn’t want to put any pressure on you to stop giving in case you church leader got a bit stressed about that. I think one of the things that this situation draws attention to is that they did it all willingly. As their heart was stirred, that's mentioned back in those early verses. And it was said to be a free-will offering. I think we can make a lot out of that. 

I want to make two applications to this chapter.

It seems to me that if you compare the instructions given the earlier chapters 25 to 31 with the construction that’s given beginning in this chapter you will discover that they followed the instructions that they were given. They did exactly what they were told to do. It seems to me that one of the just blatant lessons in this chapter is that maybe we ought to follow their example and just do exactly what God has told us to do. But this thing called the tabernacle is today just part of the history of Israel, it doesn’t even exist today within modern Judaism. What in this corresponding to the New Testament, or for a matter of fact even to us today in our modern expression of faith communities gathering together in buildings. Listen to this, this is Jesus’ speaking, this is the last thing he said after he had walked the earth.

18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

(Matthew 28: 18-20)

That is often called, ‘The Great Commission.’

The passage is about going to all the world and making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them. What I discovered is that there’s only one verb and one command in that passage, which is "make disciples." The command is to make disciples. The three participles that follow on from that command are, baptize, and teach, they expand on how we are to go and make disciples. In Mark 16, it further emphasizes the "go" by saying "go into all the world" using the same Greek word and preaching then. Then, those who respond, you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And once they are baptized, you teach them to observe all things. This is known as the Great Commission.

This passage changed my perception. We're not just to win people to Christ, but to disciple them as well. These were the instructions given to the apostles, and that's exactly what they did. In Acts chapter 2, Peter preached the gospel, the Holy Spirit descended, and the people asked, "What must we do?" And Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins." The word "for" in this context does not mean "in order to get" but "because you already got, in other words in response to it, you get baptised."  This passage is not teaching that you have to be baptized for the remission of sins, but rather that you should be baptized because you've already received the remission of sins. Which is why I believe and teach believers baptism.

If we look at what they did in Acts 2 and beyond, they preached the gospel, baptized converts, then gathered people together in a group, and taught them and at by the end of the book of Acts the word "church" is mentioned for the first time in the bible. It says, "And the Lord added to the church (their community) daily, as many as should be saved." As I studied Acts, many years ago I realized that the Great Commission essentially says, go and start communities. We are to follow the instructions exactly, preach the gospel, baptize converts, and teach them group setting. That's exactly what they did after Acts 2 and throughout the rest of the book. It's given in some detail but in summary, they started churches/communities, preached the gospel, baptized believers, and taught them. I really think that ought to be doing exactly what we should still be doing today, just as God told us to do. If we want to follow God's tabernacle instructions today, we need to be involved in a community of believers, a church. We cannot follow God's instructions if we're not involved in this work with other people. That is one of the things I got out of Exodus 36 today.

God wants us to win people to Christ, baptize them, and put them in a church where they can receive the Word of God. 

Another thing I realized is that they were blessed beyond imagination by doing what God told them to do. Who could imagine that they would collect so much that they had to be told to stop giving? That's beyond imagination. If we do what God told us to do, like they did, we will be blessed above measure. If a church is doing God's work in God's way, then God will supply them with everything they need. We don't have to resort to gimmicks and pressure to get people to give. This applies to a church and individuals. If we just do what God tells us to do, we will be blessed beyond measure.

We often take these things we do as Christians for granted, but people can be abundantly blessed beyond imagination, and can be taken off a road that leads to destruction. If we just do what God says, we will be blessed beyond imagination. I prayed for that man that night that he night come to know the Lord, but I could not reach him, instead a few weeks later I was praying for a family torn apart by the death of their innocent husband, father. The murderer had been living on the street for 20 years when I met him. Better we try and grab them earlier and bring them to that place of peace, the tabernacle of the Lord, the place where God lives with his people. The church, the community of faith and that we all may be blessed beyond all measure.