Lenox Federated Church - Firm Foundations, Creation to Christ

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Firm Foundations

Creation to Christ

Lesson 26 - The Tabernacle

Questions for the LFC Firm Foundations Coordinator may be emailed to firmfoundations@lenoxchurch.org

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REVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. Does God care if people worship or serve anything or anyone else besides Him? Yes, that is sin against God. God will not share His position as God and supreme ruler with anyone or anything else.

2. Is it all right to make an image of something or worship anything else we have made or which God has created? No, this, too, is sin against God. We do not know what God looks like, so we must not try to make anything which we think looks like Him or worship any creation of his or anything we have made.

3. Does God care what we think about Him and what we say about Him? Yes, God will punish all those who do not always honor Him in their thoughts and by their words. It is sin to use God’s name in vain.

4. Why did God command the Israelites to rest on the seventh day of the week?

a. Because God created all things in six days and rested on the seventh day.

b. Because God wants us to always remember that He is the Creator and everything that we have comes from Him. We must not give Satan or anyone else the praise for all the things in the world.

5. Does God care if children disobey or are disrespectful to their parents? Yes, God will punish all those who do not obey and respect their parents.

6. Why does God punish all murderers? Because God gives life to all people, He is the only one who has the authority to take a person’s life.

7. What does God say about a person who hates someone else? God says that person is a murderer.

8. What is God’s attitude toward adultery? God condemns all sexual relationships except between a man and his wife.

9. Why will God punish all who steal? Because God gives people the right to own things.

10. Are people guilty of stealing if they plan to steal but then become afraid and do not do it? Yes, they are guilty because God saw that they had planned in their hearts to steal.

11. What is God’s command about telling lies? God said that lying to anyone is sin against God because He always speaks the truth and hates lies.

12. Does God care if we are envious of other people and want what they have? Yes, that is also sin against God. That was Satan’s sin. He was envious of God and wanted His position.

13. Can anyone obey the Ten Commandments? No.

What is mercy? Who needs it? Could the Israelites keep their promises to God? Can you keep your promises?

Today’s lesson is about God’s holiness and His mercy.

God spoke to the Israelites from Mount Sinai and told them His Ten Commandments. The Lord did not want the Israelites to forget His commandments, so He told Moses to come up into the mountain once again

- The Lord Himself planned to write His commandments on two pieces of stone so Moses could teach them to the Israelites.

- They had heard His Law, but God intended to give them a permanent, written record of His holy standard.

Moses obeyed the Lord and went up into the mountain.

A young man named Joshua accompanied Moses. Joshua was Moses’ assistant.

While Moses was on the mountain, the Lord gave him the Ten Commandments written on two tablets of stone. The Lord also explained to Moses other rules and customs that He commanded the Israelites to follow.

- God was their king.

- He told them everything that He wanted them to do. The Lord also wanted Moses and the people to do something very important.

- Explanation.

The Lord had given Israel His Ten Commandments. The Lord had agreed with Israel that, if they obeyed His laws, then He would be with them, protect them, and give them all that they needed. But, if they disobeyed His laws, then the punishment was death. The Lord knew that the Israelites were sinners and would not be able to always obey His commands. God knew that they would disobey Him and that, unless they had some way of escape, He would have to punish all of them

However, because the Lord loved them, He did not want to destroy them. Therefore, He told them to build a special place where He would live with them. The people would learn how to approach their holy God without being destroyed.

- Note:

This didn’t mean that God would no longer be everywhere. Even when He came to live in the tabernacle, God would continue to be everywhere. This special place was built so man could learn how God must be approached.

The Hebrew word used for tabernacle means tent, dwelling place, or home. Everything in this place had to be built exactly as the Lord told Moses when he was up in the mountain.

- It all had to be done God’s way.

- Remember that Cain refused to come to God in the way God had said, and so God would not accept him.

- But Noah believed God and built the ark exactly as the Lord told him. God accepted and saved Noah and his family.

- We cannot tell God how we will come to Him.

- We must come to God in the way He teaches us through the Bible.

Because the Israelites were walking back to the land from which their forefathers had come, the tabernacle had to be lightweight and portable.

- Therefore, the Lord told them to build most of the tabernacle with materials made from animal skins and goat hair.

- Their tents were also made of these types of materials.

God told Moses that the tabernacle must have two rooms.

- The first room, which was entered from the outside, was called the holy place, or the separate place.

God is holy, perfect, righteous—set apart from sinners. It was a room set apart by God to be used only for Him. It was only to be used by God’s chosen priests when they were serving God. We will study more about the priests in a little while.

- The second room, the inner room, was even more important. This was called the most holy place or the holy of holies, that is, the most separate room in God’s house. This room was set apart just for God except for once a year when the high priest, whom we will study about shortly, was allowed to enter. God’s presence would be in this inside room. This was the special room in the tabernacle where God promised to live in the center of the Israelites’ camp.

The Lord also directed Moses to make a box which was to be placed inside the second room, the most holy place where God was to live.

- The Lord told Moses that this box, called the ark of the covenant, must be made from the wood of a particular tree which was chosen by God.

- After they made the ark of the covenant, they were to cover it with gold.

Moses was told to make a lid of pure gold and place it on top of the ark in the inner room.

- The lid was called the mercy seat.

- The mercy seat was the most important part of the whole tabernacle. This was the place where God promised to live with the sinful Israelites and show them mercy.

Mercy is God’s provision for sinners to escape the punishment they deserve for their sins.

The Lord told Moses that he was to make two gold cherubim at either end of the mercy seat.

- Recall:

Do you remember when we last heard about cherubim? God put cherubim outside the garden of Eden so that Adam and Eve would not be able to return to the tree of life. The cherubim outside of the garden of Eden were real live cherubim, but these which Moses were to make were obviously just made from gold.

- The two cherubim were to be placed facing one another at either end of the mercy seat.

- The cherubim’s wings were to be made so they would stretch out toward one another over the lid, which was called the mercy seat.

- Their faces were to be looking down at the cover of the box.

The ark was to be placed in the inner room just inside the curtain.

- The Lord told Moses to place the two tablets of stone inside the ark of the covenant, under the mercy seat. These were the two tablets upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments. God promised that, when everything was finished just as He had commanded, He would come into the inner room. His presence would be evidenced by a very bright light between the cherubim. This bright light is referred to as the Shekinah glory—the radiance, glory, or presence of God, living with His people Israel.

God told Moses that he was to hang a beautiful, thick curtain as a divider between the two rooms. This curtain was to remind the Israelites that they were separated from God because of sin.

God also told Moses to make a fence of cloth curtains held upright between posts and to place it around the two-roomed structure.

The two-roomed tabernacle was covered over with dyed animal skins and a final covering of animal hides to form the roof of the tent. Just inside the entrance of the curtain fence, they were to place an altar which God said was to be made of wood covered with brass.

When a person wanted to approach God, his first step was to bring a burnt offering to the Lord. He was to bring it to the brazen altar, just inside the gate.

- Note: “Brazen” means made of brass. He was to place his hand on the head of the animal and then kill it.

- By doing this, he was admitting to God that he was a sinner and deserved to die.

- By placing his hands on the animal, he was identifying himself with this animal that was to die in his place.

- But he was asking God to accept the animal’s death instead of his.

- God allowed sheep, goats, bulls, and birds as sacrifices.

- The animals were to be perfect males.

- The animal’s blood must be shed.

- Remember what we read before:

Hebrews 9:22 says, “...without shedding of blood there is no remission.” But could the blood of animals pay for sin? No! The blood of animals was only a reminder, or illustration, or pattern, of the punishment demanded for sin. Separation of the sinner from God is the only just payment for sin. Obviously, God doesn’t ask us to bring animal sacrifices to Him today, but that was the provision He made for the Israelites. God was going to make a better way to take care of sins.

The Lord appointed Aaron to be the high priest. His sons were also to be priests.

Only Aaron, the high priest, was allowed to go into the inner room, the most holy place where God was.

- If anyone else had gone behind the curtain and entered the inner room, he would have been killed.

- Aaron could only go into the most holy place once each year, on the Day of Atonement, which means the “day of covering.”

- The only way he could enter was to come with the blood of an animal which had been sacrificed.

Before Aaron entered the holy of holies, he had to kill an animal and catch its blood in a basin. Then, after he passed behind the heavy curtain which hung between the two rooms, Aaron was to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, the pure gold cover of the ark of the covenant.

If everything was done the way the Lord had told Moses, then God promised to forgive the sins of Israel for the past year. Could the blood of animals pay for their sins? No! The blood of the animals could not pay for their sins.

- The punishment for sin is death, and that includes the separation of the sinner from God forever.

- Sin must be paid for in full. Nevertheless, God promised to hold off the judgment they deserved and forgive their sins for the past year, if they came to Him in the way He had told them. They must come to him believing Him and bringing a blood sacrifice for their sins.

God will only accept those who come to Him in the way He says in the Bible.

God had told Moses that the Israelites were to build the tabernacle so that He could live with them. The Israelites built the tabernacle for the Lord and erected it exactly as He had instructed Moses.

If they had not made it exactly as God told them, God would not have come to live with them. But because Moses and the Israelites did everything the way God instructed them, God came to live in the center of the Israelites’ camp in the most holy place of the tabernacle.

The Israelites could now come to God in the way that He had taught them. Each year, Aaron, the high priest, could enter the most holy place and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat under the cherubim. Why did the high priest have to repeat this every year? Because the blood of animals cannot pay for sin. Hebrews 10:4 says, “...it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”

In His mercy, God was simply holding off for another year the punishment the Israelites deserved. The Israelites, like us, were sinners. They needed God’s mercy. And God made a way for them to come to Him. We cannot decide how we will come to God. He is perfect, and He will only accept us if we come to Him in the way He tells us in His Word.

QUESTIONS:

1. On what did God write His Ten Commandments?

2. What did God tell Moses that he and the Israelites must build?

3. Why did God tell the Israelites to build this place?

4. How were they to make everything?.

5. In which room was the bright light, or Shekinah glory, which showed that God was there?

6. Who was the only one who could go once each year behind the large, heavy curtain into the inner room?

7. What must he take with him?

8. What was the high priest to do with the blood?

9. What did God promise He would do if the high priest did this

10. Did the blood of animals satisfy God as a payment for sin?

11. What is the only payment for sin?

12. Would God have come to live in the tabernacle if they had not done everything exactly as God had instructed Moses?

13. Can sinners come to God in whatever way they wish?

14. How can we know the way to God?

Suggested Daily Bible Readings:

Day 126: 1 Samuel, Chapters 15 and 16

Day 127: 1 Samuel, Chapters 17 and 18

Day 128: 1 Samuel, Chapters 19 and 20

Day 129: 1 Samuel, Chapters 21 and 22

Day 130: 1 Samuel, Chapters 23 and 24