March 28, 2026 - Exodus 25 & Psalm 70

We recall the ways that Yahweh provides for the specific construction described in Exodus 25. Next, we examine why He commands costly, detailed, and ornate work to build a sanctuary where He will dwell among His people. Then we reflect on Psalm 70 and talk honestly about waiting, fear, and learning to trust the God who is never late. 

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Saturday, March 28th, 2026. Here's a quick summary of Exodus 25. Now there are beginning in the first nine verses, contributions being requested from the nation of Israel for the sanctuary, otherwise known as the tabernacle. And so they begin the process, or at least God has given the instructions to Moses for the process of constructing things, like the Ark of the Covenant. That's verses 10 through 22, and the table for the bread that goes uh inside the tabernacle, um, and then the golden lampstand that also goes on the table next to the table next to the bread and other various things, and how all of it is to be constructed with uh acacia wood and uh lots of gold and um all of the dimensions and all of those things. So we see in Exodus 25 some very specific instructions that God is relaying to Moses, then of course He will relay to the people of Israel to construct the uh the tabernacle that would ultimately become more of a permanent building built by Solomon, the temple.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Listen intently to God's written word. Psalm 70. Make haste, O God, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor, who delight in my hurt. Let them turn back because of their shame, who say, Aha, aha. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great, but I am poor and needy. Hasten to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer. O Lord, do not delay.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Tyler, what is the current price of gold per ounce? Do you know that off the top of your head?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I don't know what the the price per gold is, but I did I did look up what uh 75 pounds of of gold would be worth. What would 75 pounds of gold be worth?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I I believe it's just shy of five million dollars. Five million dollars. And why why were you thinking about that in connection to Exodus 25 today?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I'm trying to connect and I'm trying to connect to see how much how much uh gold is being used and how much it's worth in today's economy to to build these things that are found uh in our our chapter in Exodus today.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, and needless to say, it's quite a bit of gold. I mean, everything that is talked about from the Ark of the Covenant to the table for the bread to the mercy seat to the seraphim to the golden lampstand. I mean, all of it is covered with gold. And even at the end, uh talking about the lampstand, it says in verse 39, it shall be made with all these utensils out of a talent of pure gold, and see that you make them after the pattern for them which is being shown you on the mountain. So lots and lots and lots of gold. Now, Tyler, where did this gold come from? If they're in the wilderness, did they find the gold mined?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

They're not they're not out there with their pans, they're not, they're not prospecting, they're not, they don't have metal detectors, they don't have uh any kind of um any nuggets they're picking up off the ground, probably though. It's all from Egypt. And it was given to them.

Why God Wants A Sanctuary

SPEAKER_00 3:55

All from Egypt. Now think back with us if you're listening to the Exodus event right before they get delivered from Egypt. The Israelites start asking the Egyptians for their golden jewelry, and it says that they give to them very freely and very, you could even say generously. Of course, there was some sense in which they felt like they had to because of the plagues, uh, but in terms of amount and quantity, it was a generous amount of gold, and that gets here repurposed for this sanctuary that God is instructing Moses on the mountain that he is to construct. And he gives some very specific things uh of the materials that are to be used, even beginning here in verse three. And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them from the nation as a whole, they're to give these things for the building of the sanctuary: uh gold, silver, bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine-twined linens, goat's hair, tanned ramskins, goat skins, acacia wood, oil for the lamp, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones, stones for setting for the ephod and for the breast piece. And then it says, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. So there are all of these precious materials, very expensive materials, uh, very um beautiful materials that are being instructed by God. Moses is to go and say to the people, hey, we're going to collect these things from you. You're to give them for the sake of building this sanctuary. For what purpose? It says in verse 8, that I may dwell in their midst, that the Lord may dwell in their midst. So the tabernacle and then the temple uh really become the dwelling place of the Lord, and it signifies that God is with his people, uh, which is why, even in the instructions for uh the Ark of the Covenant, the table for bread, there's uh those rings that are to be built into it, and then inlaid with gold, of course, that are for the purpose of being able to be mobile and carry them. So they're gonna make these poles, they're gonna put them through the rings, and then they're gonna carry these things from place to place. And uh, Tyler, you were talking about earlier. I don't know what when we were getting done with lunch, how how strong you would have to be.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I mean, surely the guys that are tasked to carry the Ark of the Covenant to move these things around. I mean, what they're not they're not distance runners, they're they're not they're not marathonners, they're not they're not uh professional horse racers, they're they're big, strong men, most likely, who are carrying these um these enormously heavy items around.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, they're made with acacia wood, and then they're lined with with gold, and there's very specific ways in which they are to hammer out and uh the craftsmanship that is to be uh done with great care and concern. Of course, if they're building a sanctuary for the Lord for him to dwell in their midst, it ought to be the most precious materials, it ought to be the most luxurious, expensive, uh, even rare materials that our our Lord deserves, right? Right in that sense. And so uh we have the Ark of the Covenant where eventually uh the tablets of stone, uh the Ten Commandments get placed in there, other things. Um we have the table for bread, which goes inside uh with the the lampstand, and uh there's other instructions that we'll continue to read in Exodus 26. Um, but we see just all of the the specificity, we see the intentionality, uh, and of course, today, you know, the application is not go out and find gold so that you can build an ark of the covenant or you can build a sanctuary. But what I think you should kind of take away from a chapter like this uh is the the shadow of the the temple and the tabernacle that ultimately will find its substance and fulfillment in Christ. Uh where now in the New Testament we are said to be the dwelling place of the Lord. Uh that's what Paul says in Ephesians chapter two. We are being built into a holy temple, a dwelling place for the Lord. And even individually, as Christians, uh, our bodies are said to be temples of the Holy Spirit. And so the tabernacle and the sanctuary and the temple uh point forward to ultimate, ultimately their fulfillment in Christ. And so I think you you should see just God's providence, his sovereignty uh in all of these things in a way to kind of set the table for us uh to make sense of the significance of these things in the New Testament to give us a greater understanding and sort of backdrop to what all of that means for us as New Testament, New Covenant believers. And so uh, though we're not constructing a uh tabernacle, though we're not, you know, taking up on Sunday mornings bronze and silver and gold, blue and purple, scarlet yarns and all of those things, uh, we can nevertheless see just God's good plan of salvation that he is working out uh progressively. And at this stage in Exodus 25, how he wants to be among his people. I want to dwell in their midst, God says, and so construct a place where he could do that, where uh the the truth that God is with his people uh could be shown from an from a physical perspective uh through the sanctuary. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

As we look to our psalm today, Pastor Josiah, I'm my mind is brought back to the Exodus account as we're reading in the Old Testament and uh God being his people's help and deliverer. And surely the people who are waiting, the people of Israel on the banks of the Red Sea, are looking back and thinking, God, Yahweh, if you're going to do something, please don't delay. Don't let them uh surround us, don't let them lay hands on us. And this is the cry of David today, as he's looking for God to be his deliverer, and he's thinking about surely the time that he is waiting between uh a threat and when that threat arrives to him, um, we see him calling out to the Lord and uh and and thinking about the people of God. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great, may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. He's saying these things right after he's speaking about people who are um seeking his life. We look at that uh that phrase we commonly see uh those who seek my life, um, he's asking for God to let them be put to shame.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, and we see ultimately, and even in verse four, this contrast may all who seek you rather than oppose you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great, but I am poor and needy. Hasten to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer, O Lord. Do not delay. And so there's this sense of David uh praying for the perfect timing of the Lord. And that's something that we can struggle with. We can struggle with trusting in God's timing, trusting in his providence, trusting, as Romans 8.28 says, that he truly is working all things together for our good to those who love him. We struggle with kind of the the in-between. Uh, so often it feels like in the Christian life, we can only see the next step. And oftentimes we want to see the next 10. We want to be able to plan the next 15, 20 years of our life and to do it with great precision and have it go according to plan. Um, but unfortunately, that is not really how it works. And a lot of times God just gives us exactly what we need to take that next step. Uh, and then he continues to do that so that we trust in him and we continue to believe that he will provide, uh, that he will be the one that makes clear, makes our paths straight, as Proverbs says. And so our response should be to rejoice and be glad, uh, to say evermore that God is great and to trust him with the timing of our lives, to trust him uh in this situation with the deliverance, whenever it would come, however it would come, and to continue to move forward in faith, trusting in the Lord along the way.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, I was thinking about this work that God often does when from our side, our perspective is God's delaying. God, God is He's delaying, He's not on time. Uh where is he? He's late.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

We're looking at the watches, and we're like we're sitting in the concourse A and we're going uh flight delay. It's late.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

We're gonna miss our connecting. No, no, yeah. God is God's never late, he's always on time. His his syllabus uh for our lives and how how the things that go on in our life uh are are going exactly to his plan. And and we can look even um to the people of Israel a little fast forward here to um to Exodus 32, and we see in the first verse the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, and that's the the chapter with the title The Golden Calf. And and there's room for us um as people that can uh can fall into temptation to worry, to be anxious. There is uh a great fight to be had to just trust and cling to the Lord and say, God, not my timing, not my preferences, but yours. Help me to help me to rest in this time of waiting, um, this time of uncertainty. And God help me just to continually continually seek you and be glad in you while I wait. I know for me that is that is something that I'm I'm growing in. I'm definitely been encouraged in as people around me are encouraging me to say, Hey, it's good to wait. It's good to wait, continue to trust Him, continue to work heartily unto the Lord uh as the future for all of us is to some degree uncertain because we don't have it all. Uh we don't have the syllabus laid out for our whole life. So um we do have this unknown, but we have a we have a God that knows all. We have a God that is so kind and so loving and that is always working things out for our good and his glory.

Closing Encouragement And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, that reminds me, Tyler, of we'll get to this later in our our reading plan later this year, but in Lamentations, I believe it's chapter three, it talks about it is good to wait upon the Lord. It is good to cry out to him for mercy, and that's where we see the Lord is our portion, he is our help. Uh, we see that in Lamentations three. And sometimes we we feel like waiting is anything but good, right? I mean, even think about the Israelites who are on their way to Canaan, um, you know, as if we would do any better. Uh, but then they wander. We wouldn't. Uh they wander and you know, for many more years, and uh, there's just uh a lot of um waiting, and um we we need to learn to trust the Lord in the midst of just the details of our life, and uh, along with David to say, may all who seek you rejoice and be glad. May those who love your salvation say evermore that God is great. So hopefully that's an encouragement to you today, and hopefully you can see uh just even God's uh intentionality with something like the tabernacle being constructed and all of the dimensions and the materials and the gold and how that points forward uh to us today as New Testament Christians. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass bible sv.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.