We are talking about the presence of God, the physically manifest presence of God throughout the Bible. It's a whole story. It's not as simple as one might think. Where you're like, well, I just, you know, God was probably there sometimes in the Bible. Uh uh-uh. There's a whole thing here. And we got a sense of some of that whole thing yesterday by looking at John one, the fourth movement in the prologue of John one, where it takes us from movement one, which is the word, the logos, Jesus is God, to movement two, which is the word, the logos, Jesus is responsible for all of creation, to movement three, which is the word, the logos. Jesus is the light of the world, the revelation of the truest, realist stuff, the revelation of God. And about the time that you're like, man, that is just too impressive. I guess I'll never get to be around a being like that, because I'm down here and that God is up there. But then you get to movement number four, and you realize now the word, the Logos, Jesus, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. So we started there yesterday, and then we went on this quest to go back through the Old Testament and try to cobble together this, the story, the through line narrative of the presence of God and where it is and where it isn't, and what happens when the presence of God is physically around people. And I think as we understand that story better, John 1 goes from being amazing on its own to just imagine I'm saying amazing, but even better and louder, and even more like I mean it. It's even better yet when we consider Sean in light of the story of the presence of God throughout the rest of the Bible. So here's what we got. In the beginning, God is present. Then fellowship with God is broken. There's sin in the world. God isn't with people like he used to be, but he's still making an effort. He's still clearly around and redeeming things, but sin has created this division. God shows up at the Passover. These are physical manifestations of God. He shows up as we looked at yesterday on Mount Sinai as the Ten Commandments are being given. He shows up in the early days of Moses' tent of meeting, where the presence of God from the crossing of the Red Sea and from the mountain is still kind of there around the tent and is engaging with Moses. But by the end of Exodus, where we left off yesterday, the tent is consecrated as the tabernacle, this holy place set apart for God. And all the arrangements are made at the end of chapter 39 and into chapter 40 of Exodus. And then right at the end of Exodus, boom, God physically, inarguably, tangibly shows up and occupies the tent among the people. He tents with the people who are tenting in the camp. He tabernacles among them. But that is far from the end of the story of God's presence with his people and with the world in a physical, tangible way. Leviticus, as we talked about a few days ago, is a book that seems like it doesn't have a plot, but it actually has a plot because at the beginning of Leviticus, Moses can't go into the tent. God's in there, his presence is there, he's just too holy. Throughout the book of Leviticus, we get a dialogue between God, or in a lot of ways, a dictation from God to Moses that is meant for the people about what it's going to take for them to live in a way that is ritually and ethically pure, so that they can present themselves, still flawed, but in a way that is ritually pure to go into the presence of God. And at the end of Leviticus, Moses is able to go into the presence of God in light of this covenant, this the specifics of this deal that God has made with his people. And long story short, God keeps showing up in physical, tangible ways throughout the next several books of the Bible, throughout most of the narrative of the Old Testament. Now, this kind of exists in three eras. Well, really, four. The first era is the one I told you about. God with unbroken fellowship with his people there in the garden. Era number two of God's presence is him showing up from time to time in tangible ways with the patriarchs, that is, the early forefathers of the family of the God's chosen family, the descendants of Abraham. Then this third era of God's presence is him showing up related to the era of Moses, whether it's showing up in the burning bush, showing up at the Passover, showing up at the Red Sea, showing up at Mount Sinai on the mountain, showing up at the tent of meeting, showing up in the tabernacle. And then the fourth era of God's presence is one that is more permanent, and it happens like this. God basically lives in a tent with his people for ages and ages, hundreds of years. This is the deal throughout Leviticus. He shows up all over Leviticus. This is the deal and how God manifests physically in numbers. He shows up in cloud and spirit, in fire. He shows up in judgment. He straightens out bad behavior with personal appearances out of that cloud in numbers. God operates out of this tent and the physical fire and cloud presence surrounding the tabernacle during the conquest recorded in the book of Joshua. But then God stays in this position, continuing to dwell among his people in this tent, and particularly in an artifact that was built to be connected with the presence of God called the Ark of the Covenant. I mean, even if you've never read the Bible, you've heard of the Ark of the Covenant. It's like a box, like almost a portable sarcophagus, but the God who's in there isn't dead, he's alive, melts faces of Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. All through this era of God dwelling in a portable way with his people in the ark and in this portable tent, God's glory is still profound. You do not want to be flippant with it, you do not want to mess with it, whether your intent is good or your intent is prideful. Either way, to get too close to the glory of God on anything but the perfect God ordained terms is at your own risk. Well, finally, after an age of hundreds of years of chaos, we finally get some kings. And the first of these kings comes along around roughly 1100-ish BC. His name is Saul, he's up and down. His successor is a guy named David, and David is characterized as being a man who was after God's own heart. He had serious problems still, but David thinks about God. He's in communion with God, and something occurs to him in the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 7. He realizes that it's ridiculous that God is continuing to have to live in this portable tent when he has established a kingdom and when David lives in this great house. David says the following Here I am living in a house of cedar, which meant really nice back then, while the ark of God remains in a tent. And God responds to him through the prophet Nathan. This is what the Lord says. This is 2 Samuel 7, verse 5. Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I've not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I've been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I've moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now then, tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says, and then he gives him a series of blessings, and this is huge. This is so important to the whole Bible, right here, starting in verse 11. The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And he goes on to say, Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever. Fancy Bible people call this the Davidic covenant. But the bottom line is this this prophecy is a double fulfillment kind of thing. Some of it is fulfilled in David's son, Solomon, who had wisdom beyond belief as a gift from God, but as a product of from the depths of his own soul, this Solomon also had appetites beyond belief, and that proved to be his Achilles' heel. But in this prophecy that has a double fulfillment here in 2 Samuel 7, God is saying, big time paraphrasing here, David, nice of you to think of the house, but I'm going to have one of your descendants build this house for me to dwell in. And it seems like God is interested in dwelling in that house. But the second thing he says is, I'm going to establish your throne forever, and there's going to be one who's going to reign on it forever. And that gets clarified more and more as we go throughout the Old Testament. And of course, the one who's going to reign on the throne of David forever is Jesus, the word, the Lagos. That's part of the payoff of the book of John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, all of them. They're all celebrating that Jesus is the completion of this very important prophetic storytelling arc from the Old Testament. Well, after that, David has some good times and some bad times, and he dies, and his son Solomon, who I mentioned a second ago, takes over. And then in 1 Kings 8, and again in 2 Chronicles 5 through 7, we get the account of Solomon doing exactly what God said a descendant of David would do, which is that Solomon, with all of his great wealth, commissions and builds this incredible temple. It's the first temple. And that temple is going to stand for hundreds of years. And God's physical presence is going to move out of the tent when that temple gets dedicated and into this permanent fixture that is Solomon's temple, the first temple. God's presence is there. And next time around, I will read you the account of what it looked like when God's presence showed up at the dedication of that temple, and how inarguably obvious it was that once again, God was making his dwelling among his people. God made his dwelling with humankind in the Garden of Eden. He continued to show up and be present with the patriarchs through Genesis. God made his dwelling with his freshly liberated, freshly established people in the book of Exodus at Mount Sinai, and he continued to make his dwelling among his people, even as the only place he had to do that was a modest, portable tent. But now finally, roughly a thousand years before Jesus, Solomon has built a temple that the Lord accepts and he is going to dwell among his people there. The passage I'm going to read you tomorrow is very dramatic, and it's all very cool, all of this God dwelling among his people stuff from the Old Testament. But all of this God dwelling among his people stuff in the Old Testament pales in comparison to the way God dwelt among his people, as described in the Gospel of John, where it says the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And that punctuation mark to the Old Testament story of God making his dwelling among his people is what we're going to keep working up to tomorrow. That's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.