Good morning, brothers and sisters.
We are discovering from Moses a vision he saw on the mount, which became the pattern of the tabernacle constructed for the children of Israel as they went through the wilderness.
Last time we saw that this tabernacle was a pattern of the new and living way that we have in Christ Jesus. We can see in the tabernacle the picture of the way of salvation and of the way of life for Christians.
So, in Hebrews, it says:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with pure water.
Thank God for the new and living way. After we are saved, we find it is the way for us every day of our life: the way of cleansing, the way of devotion, the way of consecration, and the way of service. All of these things follow the same pattern: through righteousness and sacrifice, through holiness and sanctification, into the presence, mercy, and fullness of the throne of God.
So this is what we looked at in a simple way last time. We said that the tabernacle showed the pattern for the new and living way.
Now today we want to take up the second matter, which I entitled, “The Tabernacle: The Revelation of Truth in Glory.”
For this, we are going to turn to Exodus 33. We are going to begin reading at the point where Moses asks to see God’s glory: Exodus 33:18.
Then Moses said, “I pray Thee, show me Thy glory.”
And the Lord said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
But He said, “Thou canst not see My face; for no man can see Me and live.”
Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put thee in the cleft of the rock and cover thee with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away, and thou shalt see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”
Then, in Exodus 34, the Lord tells Moses:
Cut out for thyself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which thou shattered.
So be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to Me on the top of the mountain.
No man is to come up with thee, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain.
Then the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him, as he called upon the name of the Lord.
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin;
yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.
Then, in Exodus 34:29:
And it came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.
Then, in Exodus 40:34-35:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
And then, in John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us,
and we beheld His glory,
glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
Oh, Father, we thank You that, as we look at the record, we go from glory to glory to glory to glory: from the prayer for glory, to Your revelation of glory, to the face of glory, to the glory filling the tabernacle, to the glory seen in Jesus Christ.
Now, Lord, we ask that You would help us to understand the truth in glory as a result of Moses and his faithfulness in serving and constructing the tabernacle. O Lord, do quicken our bodies and help us to be attentive in this time. Especially attune our hearts, because we know that in matters of revelation, it is not a matter of intellectual acumen, but of a hearing heart.
And so we pray that the Holy Spirit would give us wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. We depend upon the Holy Spirit. We take His anointing. We thank You for Your life. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.
We see here in this record in Exodus Moses crying out, “Show me Thy glory.” Now, actually, we need to go back, because it was subsequent to his seeing the pattern of the tabernacle on the mount.
We remember it was in Exodus 24 that the Lord called Moses up into the glory, up into the cloud, and there He revealed to him this tabernacle, this pattern. As we talked about last time, it was a heavenly vision that Moses saw there on top of the mountain.
When he came back down the mountain, he had the details in his hands. Over forty days and forty nights of fellowship, he had the size of each piece of furniture, how it was to be constructed, the order in which it was to be constructed, and the colors involved. He had all the details.
But something happened on top of that mountain. He saw something there.
Then Moses had to come down because the children of Israel were worshiping an idol. They were already disobeying and breaking all of the Ten Commandments within forty days of their inception. God told Moses, “You’ve got to go down.”
Moses went down to the base of the mountain. Oh, the confusion. Oh, the arguments. Oh, the divisions. Oh, all of the reveling that goes on at the base of the mountain among the people of God.
Moses found himself in a strange place of intercession, interceding for a people he did not even understand. But while he was interceding and wrestling there down in the valley, something came back to him.
He started saying, “Lord, now if I have found favor in Thy sight, would You show me Your ways so I could know You?” He was in the middle of interceding for the children of Israel, but suddenly something very personal emerged. He saw something on the mountain, and he wanted to respond.
Then he said, “Lord, if Your presence does not go with us, I do not want to go. You say You will send Your angel up. I do not want to go with the angel. I want to go with You.”
And then Moses said, “Lord, show me Your glory.” This was definitely a death wish. But he saw something on the mountain that was more precious than his life itself. Eighty years old—what do you have to lose?
The Lord responded and said, “I will have to show you a little bit. You cannot see the glory on My face. No man can see that and live—until Jesus does something. But I will put you in the cleft of the rock and protect you. I will let you see My back, and I will let you see something in My glory.”
You know what is in His glory? His name: the Lord, the Lord God—merciful, compassionate, full of lovingkindness, full of forgiveness.
Moses was seeing things up on the mountain that the children knew nothing of down at the base. Down at the base, they were all afraid of God. They were trembling as they watched that glory cloud in the sky. “Oh, God, He is holy. Oh, God, He is a terror.”
Moses knew this God as well. He is holy. He is righteous. But upon the mount God said, “I am compassionate. I am merciful. I am full of lovingkindness. I am full of forgiveness. But it is a secret that I am telling you right now.”
Moses got hold of something. He went back up the mountain, and God showed him His back. Then they wrote out the commandments again and talked some more. Next thing you know, Moses was coming down the mountain, and he shone. A little bit of that glory just rubbed off on him.
Everybody noticed the glory on his face, and they became afraid of Moses.
Then they began to construct the tabernacle. The people gave willingly, and at the base of the mountain they built the tabernacle. When the tabernacle was built, the glory of God came down on the tabernacle. Oh, what a wonderful experience.
After the tabernacle was built, the Lord said, “You have been at this mountain too long. It is time to strike out.” The children of Israel began an eleven-day journey that took thirty-eight years. They wandered in the wilderness because of disobedience.
Now my question regarding all of this is this: Moses caught the vision on the mount. How did he keep the vision?
No, that is not it. The question is not how he kept the vision; it is how the vision kept him for thirty-eight more years. There is the interesting aspect of vision.
Did Moses merely hark back with nostalgia? “Oh, remember the cloud on the mountain? Remember when my face was all shiny? Oh, for the good old days.” No. Moses was not saying, “We need a mountain that follows us so I can keep going up.”
What happened for thirty-eight years? How did this vision keep him?
He saw the heavenly vision, the governing vision, the overall vision, up on the mount. He came back down, the glory filled the tabernacle, and you know what he did? When the vision has apprehended you, you abide in the house of God.
Having seen the heavenly vision on the mount, he abode in the house of God for thirty-eight years. They wandered through the wilderness, but he stayed in the house of God. Of course, he had to travel through the wilderness—I am not saying he never went outside—but he lived his life before the Lord there, in the tabernacle of meeting.
Turn to Exodus 29. We see God’s promise, and we see its fulfillment. In Exodus 29:43, the Lord says:
I will meet there with the sons of Israel, and it shall be consecrated by My glory.
I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar.
I will also consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister as priests to Me.
I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God.
They shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
This God of Israel was so unique. Who could understand this kind of God? This God is so unlike any other god. Do not ever say this God compares to the gods of Egypt, Babylon, or the Canaanites. There is no comparison. This God is so other, so holy.
Imagine giving commandments: “No other god but Me. I do not want any pictures of Myself.” All the other gods wanted images everywhere—shrines, models, pictures, high places. “I love me, me, me, me.” But God said, “There are no pictures.”
Another law, just for starters: “I want you to take one day off a week.” Have you ever heard a god say this? Most gods say, “Work for me. Work for me. Die for me.” God says, “I want you to trust Me that I can provide for you one day a week. Rest for a day.”
He wanted sacrifices, but not like those other gods who demanded sacrifice because they were angry. God says, “Yes, I want sacrifices, but it is for your sake, so you can approach Me, and I can dwell with you, and you can dwell with Me.”
There is need for sacrifice because of righteousness, but it is so that we can dwell together. “This is My heart. I want to dwell with you.”
Moses came down from the mountain, and rather than the vision shriveling away, he continued to be more and more captured by the vision he saw on the mount. How could this possibly be? By abiding in the house of God, by looking at its furniture.
Moses had thirty-nine years to inspect the furniture. “Why is there a crown around this furniture? Hmm, it must mean something.” He looked around, and not only that, just as God promised, once His glory came down on the tabernacle, He began to speak to Moses.
What is the next section after the end of Exodus, when the glory comes down? Leviticus 1:1:
Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.
Did you ever catch that? From between the cherubim, God began to speak to Moses. Chapter after chapter, again and again: “Then the Lord spoke to Moses.”
Thirty times in twenty-seven chapters of Leviticus, the Lord says, “Then the Lord spoke.” Then in Numbers, forty-nine more times. Numbers and Leviticus may look like lists, censuses, rules, and laws, but to Moses it was, “I am hearing God above the wings of the cherubim. He is speaking out of the tent of meeting to me.”
For thirty-eight years, Moses knew where to go. He knew where the word was. He knew where the command was. He knew what the will was. No wonder he went from glory to glory to glory. He was abiding in the house of God. He was hearing the word of God. He was a faithful servant.
Turn to Hebrews 3.
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house.
For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later.
Moses was faithful because he was in His house. Moses was faithful in all His house. Moses was an important man, but he was just a servant in the house. He was faithful to abide in the house of God. He was faithful to obey the commandments.
As Moses watched, lived in the tent, heard God, and watched the children wander through the wilderness, he wrote Psalm 90:
Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Somehow, in this glory and heavenly understanding, by abiding in this house over these years, Moses began to understand that he was connected with the purpose of God through all generations.
Some people say Moses was writing this while the generation of unfaithful children was dying out. He was watching a generation die. But something had got hold of him: the purposes of God cannot be denied. Throughout all generations, He has been our dwelling place, and He will continue to be.
How else could Moses have taken all the murmuring and complaining? They made Moses the scapegoat all the time. He just went into the tent, fell down on his face, and met with the God who was faithful. He was faithful in the house.
But Moses was also faithful because he constructed the tabernacle exactly according to the details. Both Acts 7:44 and Hebrews commend Moses for building the tabernacle exactly as he was shown on the mount.
God warned him, “Build it exactly as I want.” Why did it have to be so exact, especially since Moses had a degree in architecture from Alexandria University? Moses could have built a tent. God said, “No, no, no, no. This is My tent. I want it done this way.”
There were sizes, colors, materials, an order of construction, and even an order of deconstruction. Moses did the whole thing right down to the detail.
These details must have been largely a mystery to Moses. “Why does God want four different coverings over the tent?” He meditated on these things. He gained a lot of ground and some insight, but Moses only saw this heavenly tabernacle from afar. Yet he was faithful to the details.
Thank God he was faithful to the details. When we know the Lord, anything we do in our life that has any value has some correspondence in heaven. We are walking through this life on earth, but it is doing things in heaven that we do not even realize.
Job had no idea of the correspondence with the great battle in the heavens between God and Satan. It was so important that Job remained faithful. It meant everything to God’s testimony.
David was tested over and over—by King Saul, by enemies, by friends, and by family. He was tested when God said to the one man who wanted to build the house of God, “You cannot build it.” Think about how Moses, the one man who understood the dwelling place, was not allowed to go into the promised land.
These were heartbreaking experiences, and yet these men stood faithful. Something happened in heaven. There was a testimony, a faithfulness to God.
The faithful stand of every brother and sister to the death is recorded in heaven. They are a martyr, though we cannot see it down here. We need to be faithful.
God had a very big secret hidden through the ages in heaven. There was a focus in heaven, a center in heaven, an object in heaven, a Person in heaven who at that time was a secret to those upon the earth.
Whenever God found a vessel faithful to do in obedience according to the pattern shown, those patterns turned out to be pictures of the One who was in heaven, yet to be revealed.
Moses did not know he was recording exactly a picture for us of Jesus—the Son, the center of heaven, the focus, the heavenly sanctuary.
The tabernacle testified to the nature of God: righteousness, holiness, and love. It showed us the way of salvation because the details were all set in a row. The way into the holy place is a picture of the cross. When that final veil was ripped open, it was a cross: the new and living way for Christians.
But it is even more than that. Moses testified to Jesus in such a way that, when Jesus came down to earth and was examined by His opponents, He could say, “Moses testified of Me.”
Faithful servant. How did he ever know, by simply doing what God told him to do in the details, that he was testifying to Christ not only in the tabernacle, but in the Word and in his whole life?
In the Old Testament, I think the three clearest pictures of Jesus in type were all seen by revelation through Moses.
In Leviticus 1, Moses received the instructions for the five offerings, the five sacrifices that all speak of Jesus in His perfect sacrifice. Every one of those sacrifices was fulfilled in Jesus.
Then there were all the priests and their details—the heavy garments with gold thread. Every aspect of those garments is a picture of Jesus, our High Priest.
Then, of course, there was the tabernacle. John could say, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” Everybody understood. “And we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.”
Because Moses was faithful in those details, the Son of God was seen.
There is a saying in the business world: “The devil is in the details.” But in the things of heaven, the glory is in the details.
Jesus is the sacrifice. He is also the priest. He is the tabernacle, the whole tabernacle. He is the throne, the mercy-seat throne. Keep pulling those layers out: this is all a picture. Moses drew the picture for us.
In Matthew 13:16-17, Jesus said:
But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
I cannot help picturing Moses living in the tent—this is my imagination, I know—roaming around, looking at the furnishings and curtains, wondering what it all could mean, but sensing that it had some correspondence with what he saw in heaven.
But all the details were left to us, who today see not the shadow, not the copy, but the reality. We put the reality in front of our face: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” If we look at that glory, then all the little details suddenly make sense.
Once you see that Christ is the reality, the secret of heaven, the King of kings, and that He is all and in all, then everything begins to open up. You find yourself walking around the house of God, looking at the details, and all of the details go back to the One.
The Gospels are like the outer court, where we see Jesus dying for our sins and rising in resurrection to save us. Then we go into the Epistles, where we see the Lord building His house.
Ephesians 2:19-22 says:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,
having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone,
in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
The Epistles are all about building the church. Jesus said, “I will build My church.” But we also see something else quite amazing: the house is Jesus Himself. He is what is being built, and we are the members of Him.
Then you get to the book of Revelation. There is the Holy of Holies. The High Priest comes out to inspect the lampstands, to see whether they are maintaining the testimony. Then the curtain opens, and we see the great conflict over the throne, the scroll, the ark, and the testimony.
Who is going to own this world? Who holds the covenants? Who is worthy? We read the end of the book. We know Jesus wins. He is made King of kings and Lord of lords, and He establishes His kingdom.
In Revelation 21:3:
Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.
He is the tabernacle, and He is dwelling among His people. Then Revelation 21:22 says:
I saw no sanctuary in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its sanctuary.
When the whole thing comes down and God meets man and dwells with him forever, in the ages to come, He is going to be the temple. You say, “Let us go down to the sanctuary.” You mean, “Let us go into God.”
The whole New Testament is a picture of the tabernacle. It is a picture of Jesus: the outer court, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies.
When you see the Gospel of John, you see the tabernacle. “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory.” There is glory on that tabernacle, full of grace and truth.
Then the Gospel opens up: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” There is the brazen altar and the sacrifice. In John 3, Jesus says that as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so He must be lifted up.
In John 4, He speaks to the Samaritan woman and washes her by the water of the Word. In John 6, He says, “I am the bread come down from heaven.” In John 8, He says, “I am the light of the world.” In John 17, we see Him in intercessory prayer before the altar of incense.
Then we see Him on the cross saying, “It is finished.” That was His hour of glory. Even in the Gospel of John, you can see little shades of the tabernacle.
John always starts from the Holy of Holies: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In 1 John, he begins with the fellowship between the Father, the Son, and us.
Now, when you look at the tabernacle, you see Jesus. There is the outer court, where Jesus sacrificed Himself on a cross for us. You see the laver, where Jesus washes us by the water of the Word.
Let us look at the coverings. There are four layers. The top layer is the brown one, then the red one, then the goats’ hair, and then the innermost layer with the Gospel colors.
When I look at these things, I think about the character of Christ. When you see Him from the outside, you see that first skin—badger skins, porpoise skins, whatever skins they were. We know they were waterproof and impervious.
When we see the character of Jesus upon this earth, His face was set toward Jerusalem. He was impervious against sin and against Satan. In the wilderness, He stood His ground. Satan came to Him, but had nothing in Him.
Underneath that was rams’ skins dyed red. Jesus’ character was based upon the fact that He had the sentence of death upon Him throughout His ministry. From the waters of baptism onward, He was a Man destined to die. His whole ministry was based upon the hour of glory when He would die on the cross.
Then there was the goats’ hair. The goat speaks to us of something very clearly because, on the Day of Atonement, they used goats—a scapegoat. Jesus was the scapegoat for Israel: despised and rejected of men.
They took two goats on the Day of Atonement. They killed one and took its blood into the Holy of Holies. They laid their hands on the other goat, placing the sins upon it, and sent it out into the wilderness.
Underneath the sternness and impervious dedication of His life, underneath the sentence of death that drove Him to the cross, underneath His sense of rejection, there was this beauty—the most beautiful Jesus.
When you look at Him from the inside, this is all you see: royalty, sacrifice, purity, and all of the wonderful aspects pictured in the curtains. Once you see Jesus, you can go back and look at the curtain and say, “Oh, it makes sense now.”
In the holy place, we see the table of showbread, the lampstand, the altar of incense, and, of course, the ark.
The ark, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense are all wood overlaid with gold. Acacia wood is tough desert wood; it does not rot. But we know this is a picture of the incarnation.
Jesus was both human and divine. The wood stands for humanity, and the gold stands for divinity. He was God and He was man, and He tabernacled among us.
The lampstand, or the light tree, is different. There is no wood in it; it is just gold. Though Jesus was the Word made flesh, His testimony was of divine life. His testimony was, “I am the light of the world.” Everything in His testimony was divine, heavenly life.
Then there is the mercy seat, the covering over the ark. It was also all gold. Jesus, in His death upon the cross, became the propitiation, the mercy seat, for our sins. Only the Son of God could be the sacrifice for us. No human can redeem us.
Inside the ark were the two tablets of stone, Aaron’s rod, and the golden pot of manna. Jesus fulfilled the law of God. He preserved the law, and He fulfilled it.
Aaron’s rod speaks of Jesus’ resurrection life, resurrection power, authority, and fruitfulness. The golden pot of manna speaks of incorruptibility. The manna that normally lasted less than twenty-four hours was preserved in the golden pot.
However you see these things, they are all pictures of Jesus. Do you not want to climb into the ark and pull the lid down over you? It is all a picture of Jesus.
Now, what is the point of all this? Why is there any need for us even to look at the tabernacle anymore? We have the reality.
Hebrews 8:1-2 says:
Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a High Priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
Hebrews 9 tells us that the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and an earthly sanctuary. But then it says:
But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.
And Hebrews 9:23 says:
Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
The Hebrew Christians did not have a vision of the overall fullness of Christ. They did not see that in Christ all the fullness of God dwelt in bodily form and that in Him they had been made complete.
They were Christians. They believed in the Messiah, and they paid a great price for that belief. But they were standing at the bottom of the mountain, and it was the wrong mountain: Mount Sinai.
They were still holding onto the copies, even though they were Christians. Their parents and relatives said, “It is feast time. It is time to go to Jerusalem and make our sacrifices.” They thought, “Jesus is my sacrifice, but I had better do this because it is necessary for my life.”
The writer is saying, “No, no. Now that you have seen that Christ is the sacrifice once for all, do not go down to Jerusalem anymore and make those sacrifices. Do not live by the Jewish ordinances anymore. Now that you have seen the reality, how can you live in the shadows and the copies?”
You are not at Mount Sinai. You are at Mount Zion. You need to go up another mountain.
If you hold onto copies and shadows, they are going to be shaken right out of your hand. Hebrews was written just before 70 AD. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and the whole system was shaken.
The writer is saying, “Let go of it now. There is a shaking coming. That whole system is going. Do not depend on it. Take Christ as your fullness, as everything. Consider Him. He is your Apostle. He is your High Priest. He will bring you through to maturity.”
We would like to say this is just a Jewish problem, but Christians today can be standing at the foot of the wrong mountain, not seeing the whole picture, and holding to a copy or a shadow.
What is a copy? What is a shadow? It is anything less than Christ being all and in all. Anything less than that is a shadow; it is a copy.
Paul said in Galatians that if someone gives you a gospel that is not the gospel that Christ is all and in all, let him be accursed. Do not believe that gospel. You are saved by grace through faith and by the Holy Spirit. Accept nothing less.
Holding onto a teaching is holding a copy, holding a shadow, rather than holding onto Christ. It would be like saying, “One piece of furniture is everything. I believe in showbread. I believe in lampstands. That is everything.”
But the writer of Hebrews says, “Believe in Christ, the whole tabernacle. That is your fullness.”
Holding to a teacher is also holding to a shadow. Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Who is Peter? They reflect the perfections of Christ. You can see Christ in them, but they are just a copy, just a shadow.
How can you hold on to one man and say, “I am of Peter. I am of Apollos. I am of Paul”? No, no, no. You are of Christ. There is the fullness. He is the all. Everything else is a copy or shadow.
There is only one thing that abides as a dwelling place through the generations: Christ is all and in all. This is where we find our rest.
I was one of those many people who was serving the house until the Lord set me free to be a servant of His.
At one time I was a missionary. I had to fill out forms every month: how many people I visited and witnessed to, how many got saved, how many were baptized, and how much money the church gave. I had to send it into headquarters every month. I was serving the house.
It was tough. I had to make up little fibs. If I stopped for gas and the attendant said, “Good morning,” I said, “I witnessed to him,” because I had to witness to so many people, lead so many people to Christ, and baptize so many people. This was my job. I was serving the house. Oh, I got so tired.
Eventually, I left that group and ministry. I started driving a school bus. That was my ministry: driving kids to school in the morning, going home for lunch, coming back in the afternoon, and driving them home. Sixty-five dollars a week back then—all the kids I could eat.
I would get up at six in the morning, drive the kids to school, come home, and have time from about ten o’clock until one o’clock. I did not know what to do. I used to serve the Lord, you know. There is something addictive about serving the Lord, because you sense the Lord working through you, you see lives changed, you see fruit, and you feel you have some value.
But then I was driving a school bus. Anybody here who is a school bus driver, please excuse me, but there did not seem to be much value in that job.
I will never forget the day I went down into the basement. I was living in my parents’ house with my wife and three children. I was frustrated. I went down to have my morning devotion, and I said, “Lord, I have nobody to minister to.”
And I heard Him say, “Minister to Me.”
He pushed me past the brazen altar, through the holy place, and He said, “Satisfy Me.” I said, “What can I do?” He said, “Sing.”
I had written some gospel songs by that point, but I had never written a song and simply sung it to Him. I had never considered that I had an audience of One.
I started looking through the Bible for help. It was 1971, when the first song of praise I ever wrote came from Revelation 5. I looked up, and I saw God sitting on His throne, holding a scroll. It was the first song I ever wrote to God.
It set me free. It put me right in there.
I got spoiled. I cannot serve the house anymore, because my Boss does not expect anything more out of me than to come to Him and be who I am.
So I write songs that are not classical enough, not very good, but He seems to like some of them. I started writing songs and singing them to Him. Really, I had no audience—oh yes, One.
And it started to set me free. I started to see that Jesus is all and in all.
Within one week, somebody called me and said, “Did you know Norman Grubb on Long Island?” I had met him several times. He was involved with WEC, a great mission society, and he was a wonderful man.
I went to see him, freshly without a job or ministry. I poured out my complaint. I said, “I left this denomination. I have left the ministry. I am driving a school bus, and I do not know how I am going to provide for my kids and family.”
He listened to me, and when I got through, he said, “Praise God.”
I was so shocked. I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Praise God. Don’t you understand? Now you are His. You are His. You do not belong to anybody but Him. You are His. Rejoice. He will lead you.”
And He has led. I am free just to be who I am in Christ. I want to be Christ in me, minus me. There is some minusing going on. But nevertheless, I have a Boss who is altogether lovely.
Once you see the picture, all you do is go looking around. Everything you see in the Bible—those lists are not merely lists. This is the height, depth, width, and breadth of Him.
He has been made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is the wisdom of God. He is righteousness. Oh, I see the outer court. He is sanctification. Oh, I see the holy place. He is redemption. Oh, there is the Holy of Holies.
Once you see that Christ is all and in all, everything else starts to feed that. But you have to see the overall. Then you read the list and say, “What does this mean? What is this furniture? How about that? Do I have to abide in this house?”
May the Lord keep setting me free from many traditions and many things. But Christ is all and in all.
We sang the song:
Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord;
All in all forever,
Christ is all I see.
Everything in Christ—in Christ is everything. This is the glorious truth behind the tabernacle. It was picturing the Son of God, the One who was all, heaven’s mystery revealed to us.
What a wonderful life it is in the house of God. When we see problems in the house of God and things going awry, I do not even know what to say about it except this: hold on to Jesus.
If you see brothers and sisters going awry, hold on to Jesus. There is nobody you can trust but Jesus in the end. All of us are wood, but hold on to Jesus.
He is the One who has been the dwelling place through the generations. What He started, He is going to finish. So let us keep looking to Him. He is all in all.
Lord, we give You praise and thanks for the testimony of Moses, that he was faithful and that You have been able to say, “He testified of Me.” May that be so in our lives as well.
Lord, could we see the heavenly vision in such a way that abiding in the house of God opens up our eyes through all of Your perfections? May we go from glory to glory, from the outer court to the inner, and then back out through the holy place.
Oh, let us be diggers in all of the wonderful truth. We see the Old Testament as a complete picture of Christ. We see all the prophecies as the testimony of Jesus.
Oh Lord, we thank You. You are all in all. You are everything. We give You thanks and praise. Bring us to the mountaintop so that we see the overall, and then enhance it as we abide in the holy place. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.