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continuing on our study of the nature of God as Creator and following the concepts that we have
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we've talked about the sort of stages in the Biblical timeline if we look at what we typically think of as creation
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the world the heavenlies all of those things being brought into existence the Tabernacle
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the temple and I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of first second temple very much with this suffice to say the temple distinct from the Tabernacle
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we can look at these as basically the sort of five stops if you like on the Biblical timeline wherein God dwells places that
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he has made his name dwell explicitly stating that his intention is to do so and and we see his his creative action in this and we have been speaking for the last several weeks about the
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Tabernacle and today we're going to sort of move from Tabernacle to Temple on the sort of we are here timeline on our map or or Waypoint on our map this is where
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we're going we're going and as we think about the the Tabernacle and the things that it it did and we've talked about talked about the way we see God's plan the way we see God's pattern specifically that he
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reveals it to Moses on the mountain and Moses's charge was to see that everything was done according to the pattern and he does so he follows through in this
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in the garden post sin we find God confronting Adam's sin don't we we find God pursuing them pursuing them in their wickedness in a sense saying where are you calling them out looking for them at the
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Tabernacle God is pursuing them in the early initiations of what we might call the the process of reconciliation when he makes a place that they can come together as a people as he's
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consecrating a people for himself by dwelling and moving with them in the Tabernacle the Tabernacle becomes a physical expression it becomes an expression of
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goodness and mercy pursuing us all of our Lives as we read in Psalm 23 surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever
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so the Tabernacle with its Mobility is pursuing the people of Israel as they move through the Wilderness and then as they move into the conquest of Canaan his goodness travels with him his
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dwelling goes with his people on the way to the promised land God pursues his sinful people with his presence and we've talked about the the weight that comes with the Tabernacle the idea
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of the intensity of the rituals to be observed there the Washings the sacrifices the atoning all of those things that have to be done I may have told this anecdote before but
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in a couple of years ago when I was thinking about some of these things and and working through it I I'm used to my wife as I as I sometimes do and I said I
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don't think I would get anything done he's thinking about my own sinfulness my own wickedness how many times I would have to stop what I was doing during the day and go and do one of the and she said I think that's kind of the point
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actually the point is to remind them of their need their constant need for atonement for forgiveness for cleansing and so the the visible symbols put into
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the Tabernacle go with that the Tabernacle and its charge is then committed to Joshua to lead the people into the conquest of Canaan and we reflect for a minute on what that
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means for them to conquer these lands under God's command we talked a little bit as we talked about the structure of the Tabernacle and the things we saw there the similarities that have been
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found in archeology to the Egyptian tents the specifically the the war tents of the Pharaohs having a very similar layout that Pharaoh in theory was going in the midst of his people leading them
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into battle going to war and the way they deified pharaoh and all of those sort of things and that in some respect the Tabernacle is is an argument is a is a rebuttal of
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that in the way that it reflects a similarity it is putting God above all other gods it is putting God in the reality of those things the quote unquote deity of pharaoh frequently did
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not go with his people nor was he always successful in his campaigns but the charge given to Joshua is that your God is with you he dwells with you in in your midst he is in his headquarters he
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is going to war with his people in this Conquest Additionally you think about it as a very striking object lesson in some respects for Joshua isn't it Joshua was
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one of the only ones who got to go ahead of time and see Kanan the time that they were spying out the land and what were the objections of his fellow spies about Kanan why didn't they go in first time
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the city is great and Tall everything's big everything's powerful we're just this little ragtag band of people that barely made it out of Egypt alive Joshua then is told to take this quailing people and go in there he knows
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what's ahead of them he's seen it he's looked at it but he was appointed to do these things because he had Faith because he had trust and we see of course through the conquest those times when Joshua relies on the
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Lord they prosper in those moments when he takes on his own wisdom and considers something well in hand they get beaten
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so we have the sort of object lesson additionally we're going to see the um the use and and I think next week hopefully we'll focus a little more on
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the use of the other prophets and the psalmists and the other things using these but we have here in Psalm 96 he says great is the Lord and greatly to be praised he is to be feared
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above all gods for all the gods of the people are Idols but the Lord made the heavens Splendor and Majesty are before him strength and
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beauty are in his Sanctuary he's asserting God's power his ability to defeat all of these so-called Gods because of his Mastery because he is the one who created all things
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similarly in Jeremiah obviously much later in the prophecies but he says thus you shall say to them the Gods the Gods that did not make the heavens and the
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Earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens it is he who made the Earth by his power who established the World by his wisdom and by his understanding he has stretched out the
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heavens and so it is the god who made all of these things that is in their midst that is telling them to go in and to root out those who did not those who made nothing effectively those who in
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real terms were made by human hands we come then as we move here to the promise of the Temple
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we have the promise of the temple given to David
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now it came about when the king lived in his house his house and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies that the king said to Nathan the prophet see now I dwell in a house of Cedar but the Ark of the Lord of God dwells in a tent with
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intent curtains and Nathan said to the king go do all that is in your mind and the Lord is with you and we have of course the Lord telling David not you you are a man of blood it will be your
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son who builds this house and we talked a little bit about this idea of the promise and of the of the direction given by God and the way these
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things um tie in here we see the the building of the temple um in First Kings five through eight and I'm not going to read all of the
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specifics all the details of the building of the temple this morning in the building of the Tabernacle and we talked about this fairly extensively we see God repeatedly
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very explicitly bringing Moses showing him the pattern we see Moses reiterating the fact that the Tabernacle was built according to the pattern and here's the model it's actually a little
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bit buried in the narrative as to the fact that David is given a model that God in fact has his own Direction I was a little surprised as I was going through that it is not more up front in
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the construction of the temple the facts but we read here I'm going to read out of First Chronicles 28. Chronicles 28. it says David gave to his son Solomon the plan of the porch of the temple its
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buildings its storehouses its upper rooms its inner rooms and the room for the mercy seat and the plan of all that he had in mind for the courts of the house of the Lord and for all the surrounding rooms for the storehouses of
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the house of God and for the storehouses of the dedicated things also for the divisions of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the utensils of service in the house of the
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Lord for the golden utensils the weight of the gold for all the utensils and for every kind of service for silver utensils the weight of the silver for all utensils for every kind of service and the weight of gold for
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the golden lamp stands and their golden lamps with the weight of each lamp and its lamp stand and its lamps the weight of the silver for the silver lamp stands with the weight of each lamp stand and its lamps according to the huge use of
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each lamp stand and the gold by weight for the tables of showbread for each table and silver for the silver tables and the forks the basins and the pitchers of pure gold and the golden
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bowls and the weight of each bowl and the silver Bowls the weight of each bowl and for the altar of incense refined Gold by weight then gold for the model of the Chariot even the cherubim that spread out their wings and covered the
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Ark of the Covenant of the Lord all this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me all the details of this pattern
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then David said to his son Solomon and be strong and courageous and act do not fear nor be dismayed for the Lord God my God is with you he will not fail you nor forsake you until all the work
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of the service of the house of the Lord is finished is finished there's a danger I think and I would admit the last couple of times I've gone through Chronicles I probably went right by this without really recognizing it's
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kind of in the middle of all right you're going through the the reiteration of the weights and the golds and the silvers and and David says God made me understand this he made me write this
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down we talked last week about the idea of the the link between God's intention communicating to men his pattern for the Tabernacle his pattern now for the temple and finally his pattern for the
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church that he has entrusted to men to be carried out there's a corollary there with the with the um the writing of scription in fact David seems to give some hint here that was inspired in some way perhaps
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analogously to the scriptures in the fact that God made him write this is his writing of it down was was a communication from God and so we have
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furthermore the the charge the command I think by analogy that the Elders of the church those who are in charge of the building of God's house in the age in which we live are to
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do exactly the same thing that is commanded of Moses that is commanded of David that David is charging Solomon with here be strong and courageous do not fear for the Lord God my God is with
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you he will not fail nor forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished I think you could easily take that up as a charge as a as an encouragement for
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those who are in eldership or in in charge of the churches that he will not fail to build his church he will not fail but we must
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do all according to the pattern that God has displayed the pattern that he has laid out frankly the pattern that he has communicated to us in writing we have the plan for it
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I'll put in a plug here that if you aren't listening or attending the Thursday night studies now would be a good time to pick up because Chuck's taking on that question in large measure the the church in the world and what is the the pattern the model that is shown
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we also talked about this notion that we see here in the promise given to David of rest of rest that God does not set out to build God does not do these things either in the Tabernacle or in the temple until his
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people are at rest from their enemies in the case of the Tabernacle he brings them out of Egypt he has put down the Egyptians the threat is behind them and they have come to a place of some peace
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some ability to relax in in a sense at least enough to have built the Tabernacle before the conquest begins and then with David it is David who
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finishes if you go through the the history of Israel and follow that down it can be a little hard to dig out sometimes but if you read the the extents the description that Joshua has given this is the land
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you are to conquer it is not until David it does tell us in in second Samuel he helps you remind you but it is not until David that those boundaries and extents are in fact fully secured according to
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the pattern given to Joshua the land is finally according to God's pattern under David it is with David that he has given his people rest and David says as much
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before the promise is given to him the Lord has given me rest for my enemies on every side it is then that the pattern is communicated the plan is given to him if we extend that then to the church
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it is not until Christ has subjected the powers the authorities that he has conquered death that his enemies are subdued on every side that he sets out
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to build the church now just as the Tabernacle just as with the temple there are still enemies there are still opponents there are still things that we face but there is a major Milestone
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crossed before God says there is rests there is space there is now the proper order and timing for building this habitation this place wherein I
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will dwell I'm going to pick up now with um as we talk about the temple and we hone in on some of its details
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GK Bo in his book uh the the temple and the church's mission says of his thesis which is that the Tabernacle or
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not the Tabernacle the temple that we see in Revelation 21 the the paradise that descends upon the Earth the reason why he conceptualizes that as
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the entirety of the world that it is not one specific element his his charge is in fact that the entirety of the new Earth fits into this he says the rationale for the worldwide encompassing
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nature of the paradisical temple in Revelation 21 lies in the ancient notion that the Old Testament Temple Where We Are was a microcosm of the entire Heaven and
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Earth so we're going to follow along with him here and see if we agree Psalm 78 he says as he's um
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David talking about these things but he says chose the tribe that that the Lord chose the tribe of Judah Mount Zion which he loved and he built his
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Sanctuary like the Heights or like the heavens even heavens even like the Earth which he has founded forever he also chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds so the charge here is
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we talked about this a little bit when we were talking about the Tabernacle the idea that those three-fold pieces the pattern that Moses was shown were not really told there's enough ambiguity in the language there to know exactly what
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that pattern was whether or not he was shown some kind of model or if he was perhaps shown the original concept and then translated into the Tabernacle according to the the word God gives to
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him but the idea here is that his Sanctuary that again as we look at this starting with the Tabernacle the temple the church in these three
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sort of middle elements God has deemed it deemed it appropriate to use the labor of men to build his dwelling but it is still God who is building his
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dwelling unless the Lord builds the house and so with the temple here the the pattern is shown that is writing given to David to build it but it is still God ultimately
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who is in charge of these things who is building his his Temple drawing a parallel to the pattern shown on the mountain and I have to give credit to to Aaron for this because it
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hadn't occurred to me initially but he mentioned to me uh after after class last week when we see in Matthew 17 what is typically called the amount of
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transfiguration first couple of verses there it says six days later Jesus Took with him Peter and James and John his brother and led them up on a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and
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his face Shone like the sun his garments became as white as light and behold Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him Peter said to Jesus Lord it is good for
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us to be here if you wish I will make three Tabernacles here one for you one for Moses one for Elijah his immediate impulse in seeing the glory of God is I'll build a place for you to dwell
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you know the the word here Tabernacle don't get held up on that one specifically it could be translated booths it frankly could even be translated tense but his the point is he looks at it and he says I've got to build you a dwelling seeing the glory of
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the Lord he is impressed with this I need to do this his impulse is to build is to make a dwelling for the Lord the plan of both the Tabernacle and the
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temple come from the Lord the thesis then on this as we follow this down I'm going to erase this for now I might regret it
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and it's built of three parts that part's not so much a thesis that part's fact those three parts correspond to three portions of the cosmos the first one the outer Court
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of course is where the general population could come could enter in it is uh the least exclusive of the three areas the idea there is that mankind is welcome in this outer court
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and Mankind dwells here on the earth the second one being the holy place
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and that this corresponds to the heavens or the visible celestial bodies
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meaning of course the planets the Stars the things that we see outer space and finally the holy of holies I'm going to go over here so everybody can see
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corresponding to the invisible Realms the place where God himself was when we think of Heaven hopefully you're not thinking clouds and harps and all that but that there is some realm beyond what is visible wherein the Heavenly Host dwells
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so this is the idea this is the the outlay okay this is there's these three elements of the Temple we read the description of some of these things here
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no I was on it the argument made for the Earth if we read the description here in First Kings of the creation of the wash basin it is called in the in the original in
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the Hebrew the word is C it is called the sea says now he made the Sea of cast metal 10 cubits from brim to brim circular in form and its height was five cubits and 30 cubits in circumference
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under its brim gourds went around it encircling it 10 to a cubit completely surrounding the sea the gourds were in two rows cast with the rest it stood on
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twelve oxen three facing north three facing west three facing south and three Facing East Facing East the sea was set on top of them and their rear Parts turned inwards
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it was a hand Brett thick and its brim was made like a brim of a cup as a lily Blossom it could hold two thousand baths so this thing is enormous
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but it is the sea as we read um again in in Exodus when he initially gives them the command to build the Altar for the Tabernacle he says you should make an altar of Earth for me and
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you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings your peace offerings your sheep your oxen in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you if you make an altar of stone for me you shall not make
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it of cut stones for if you wield your tool on it you will profane it so he asks them to find a stone take out of the earth a stone of the earth so this
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is in the outer Court both the Sea and the altar I'm gonna put those here as points for us
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in fact in ezekiel's Vision as he is given these visions of of temples Celestial in Ezekiel 43 14 many of your translations will say something like from up from the ground literally it's out of the bosom of the
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earth that he the the phrasing there so the altar that Ezekiel sees there is literally out of the bosom of the earth out of the the very depths of the ground this altar is arising
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um so we see then the Sea The Altar Cosmic symbols and there is evidence and I'm not going to go through all of these because we don't have time this morning but if you're interested Gabriel's book
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is is worth reading he also has a shortened version of it if you want the 150 page version instead of the 350 page um but he he goes through some of the
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rabbinic and and um inter-testamental writings about the temple and the conceptualization that they had in the in the mind of Israelites at the time that these were
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Cosmic symbols Cosmic symbols um if you if you want to know more about that I can I can go through some of it with you but the long and short of it is that it was associated in the minds of the Israelites with the Seas and with
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the Earth so you have these two elements again corresponding the outer Court the physical world physical world again we read some of it there in in First Kings but again First Kings as
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he's doing these other wash basins he made ten basins of bronze one Basin held 40 baths each Basin was four cubits and on each of the ten stands was one Basin
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then he set the stands five on the right side of the house and five on the left side of the house and he set the Sea of cast metal on the right side of the house Eastward toward the South um there's more description further on I
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don't think I put it there for you but you have also on these altars we have
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or not altar sorry on the on the basins we have the gourds lilies and the basins are supported on bowls
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it tells us so the wash basins are supported on both so you have this idea of of life and of lands surrounding the Seas um in the mind of of those who go in these things the idea then is is you
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have the the lands the the life the things that we see walking about on the earth surrounding arranged around the Seas as we do in the visible natural world
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um a second chronicles is he is describing similarly he says he made uh the cast metal C 10 qubits from brim to brim circular and form its height was five cubits and its circumference 30. now
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figures like oxen were under it and all around it 10 cubits entirely encircling the Sea The Oxen were in two rows cast in one piece it stood on 12 ox and three
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facing the north three facing west three facing south and three Facing East the sea was set on top of them and all their hindquarters turned inwards it was a hand Brett thick then its brim was made
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like the Brimley cup like a lily Blossom it could hold three thousand baths so you have then a very distinct call out of the four cardinal Compass points
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which I don't think is a stretch to suggest the four corners of the Earth right when we how far is East from the West you know we have then the four corners of the Earth
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nobody can see that through the podium can they
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we see in there the seven lamp stands the argument made here is that these seven lamp stands correspond to the seven visible light sources the five planets that are visible from the earth with the naked eye and the Sun and the
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Moon is the argument made here additionally there's some support there that the seven lamp stands that we see here I'm going to do it this way
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if you cast your mind back to all the time we spent in Genesis 1 talking about lights and the governance that is given to the celestial bodies to govern the passing of time to govern the light
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that God makes the light first and then places it in vessels we are given a place where it calls out the Sun the moon the stars we are also given a place
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that it just refers to them as lights seemingly encompassing both the Sun the moon and the the other celestial bodies just described lights generally so so
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wrapped up in one word there in fact that word is only used ten times as this description of Lights is only used 10 times in the pentateuch there is one
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place in the Psalms where it is used to describe the light of God's presence otherwise besides Genesis 1 it is always in the context of these lampstands
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has been traditionally at least in Jewish and and medieval Christian the seven visible Stars as far as without a telescope right you
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have five planets the Sun and the Moon correct as often seen representing what was visible to the naked eye which still is visible to the
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naked eye naked eye those planets in the southern Moon yes yes um right so that's the idea is that the seven light sources then are are corresponding to those seven visible
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sources additionally sources additionally um in his commentary on Genesis Walton who we've we've discussed a couple of times sort of picks this up as his first clue in his argument that the entirety
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of the cosmos should be conceived of as a temple a place wherein God dwells is the correspondence between these light sources and the use of the word light in Genesis I'll throw that out there I do
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think there's a there's a connection for us we read revelation chapter one as John sees the the
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person of the Lord who is speaking to him I'm going to read a couple of verses here I've I've ellipsed the middle for the sake of of time this morning
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but in Revelation chapter 1 beginning in verse 12 I turn to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands and in the middle of the lamp stands I saw one like
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a son of man in his right hand he held Seven Stars and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword and his face was like the sun shining in its strength as for
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the mystery of the Seven Stars this is the Lord speaking to him as for the mystery of the Seven Stars which you saw in my right hand and the Seven golden lampstands the Seven Stars are the Angels of the seven churches and the
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Seven lampstands are the seven churches so we have again the Lord very specifically calling out seven visible lights and holding them up using them here as as the churches there
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um I don't know how many of you are familiar with the philosopher Vern poitris I think I'm saying his name correctly and we'll probably talk a little more about some of his ideas next week but in his
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um wrestling with these things he has this to say the lamp stand is placed on the south side of the Holy Place perhaps this placement is intended to correspond to the fact that from Israel's point of
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view north of the equator the Circuit of the Heavenly lights would be primarily to the South the South that there are seven lamps correlates not only with the seven major Lights of the heaven but with the general
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symbolism of time within Israel the heavenly bodies were made in order to quote serve as signs to Mark seasons and days and years as we've just talked
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about from Genesis 1 14. the whole cycle of time marked by the sun and moon and stars is divided up into sevens the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath day the seventh month is
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the month of atonement the seventh year is the year of release from debts in slavery the seventh of the seventh year Cycles is the Year of Jubilee and finally the lampstand contains the same
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Sevenfold division symbolizing the cycle of time provided by the Heavenly lights so we have again 777 you have the the seven days of the week and so on
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I don't think we're stretching our numerology here to to suggest that that's a reasonable way to look at these things all right let's move into the unless there's a question there I'm going to move into the holy of holies
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I don't have more comment on the bread fitting to this Paradigm than I do from what I said out of the Tabernacle the sense of it being Hospitality the sense of God of God giving some place of importance to the
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sustenance that man needs to survive to live and that it is the priests are invited into God's house to to eat that meal on the Sabbath and to Fellowship in that way as far as the
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cosmic symbols of it I don't have much to to say about the bread in that respect
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to us in the physical creation it's the it's the spec it seems to be a special addition to the perhaps I mean you could look at it in terms of man in the garden in the original state man did not have to work
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by the sweat of his brow for food the food was there in the garden provided for him not the man did not have work but it was not cursed the way that we see it now God had provided everything in fact we specifically see him calling
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out in the Genesis narrative everything that is there I have given as food for man to eat and so in this place it's in the heavens I don't know what I would do with that
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on that sense the model of the cosmos the point here is is a fellowship between man and God
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not coming in between Earth and Heaven right
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holy place that don't necessarily correspond to the cosmos physically right if they correspond to the relation
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approaching the Holy Holy so this is the other concept and we won't have time to go through it today but the other way to conceptualize or think about these three pieces I'm going to write it here and then and erase it is if you go from the
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outer to the holies it is an increasing scale of Holiness right that there is a there is a gradation that when you get here
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it's very limited exclusive access we're going to talk about that in a moment but it is also that as you're approaching it's getting Holier I think Chuck makes an excellent point and I appreciate that additionally I would say that to the
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extent that the incense and the bread and things that we find them in this model is that they're in between they are between the Earth where mandwells and the holy of holies it is
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be with me and journey that I take and garments to wear like that was his recognition
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right was the provision provision right yeah and you know there's there's probably a whole other thing to be said about God's provision um and the way he provides for his
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people I'm gonna try to get us in through some of the holy of holies I don't know if we'll get everything today but we're gonna try um so the holy of holies
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corresponding oops corresponding oops done that
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so the correspondence we have here the first thing that sticks out is the cherubic guard
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in the Revelation again we see in chapter 4 as he's looking on the throne room and we see the the Lord seated there in John's Vision he sees these creatures the cherubim as we understand them surrounding the throne the first
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creature like a lion the second creature like a calf the third creature had a face like that of a man and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle and the four living creatures each of them having six wings are full of eyes around
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and within and day and night they did not cease to say holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and who is and who is to come and when the living creatures give glory and honor and
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thanks to him who sits on the throne who lives forever and ever in fact he will go on in that particular Vision to describe God's as Creator and we'll come
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back to that hopefully in next week we then read of course in the the description of First Kings I'm not going to read all of this uh this morning but suffice to say that in the model in the
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pattern given to David to give to Solomon those Cherry of them are there both in the heavens in the Unseen dimension
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and he is told to create these either like two stories tall
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at the entrance and additionally we've already talked about those Cherry of them on the on the ark itself that are on the cover of The Mercy Seat
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um again you think about this sliding scale we're talking about the approach to God we're told in Leviticus before we even get here that incense that the priest is supposed to take with him is not just to
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perfume his presence says he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense May cover The Mercy Seat that is on the Ark of testimony otherwise he will die it is meant to block it out from his vision he
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is to approach the throne of God not seeing okay so it is in some respects underscoring that unseen Dimension no human is able to enter and look upon the
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glory the high priest has to offer this incense cloud and then the ark when David stands up and um well I've missed
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um in first Chronicles 28 I thought I had it on here David speaking to the the people of Israel as he's excited about this vision of building the Temple says I will build
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a place for the Lord to dwell for the Ark of the Covenant for his footstool and we talked about that previously talking about God's dwelling God's resting the Ark of the Covenant is symbolized several places as the
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footstool so the Ark part of God's Throne Room the space above it is what it's empty there's nothing in it in this towering space in the Ark of the Covenant above it is empty
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God cannot be seen there are no images placed there the invisible God is dwelling there so it is specifically and symbolically left that way the holy of holies is a representation of God's
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unseen heavenly unseen heavenly dwelling in his Temple and amidst the ministering angels and spirits there's another aspect here and we may have to pick this up next week of the
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idea of reflecting Beauty And Glory we see in the command given to make the garments for the priests that God says
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that these things are for beauty and for Glory and we'll pick this up next week when we talk about the prophets and the way the prophets and the psalmists use these elements and think
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about them that there is a there is an extent and we're going to read in in Isaiah 60
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I was even thinking about it I was opening in prayer this morning he sees the glorified Zion and yet God is describing people coming bringing offerings to it increasing the
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beauty of that house there is some sort of magnification of the beauty magnification of the glory going on um again I guess save that for next week but the question could be asked why are we
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doing all this okay so it so it's a model of the cosmos so what
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Clements um another writer who who went through some of these elements here he says not all of the supposed symbolic references of features of the temple are convincing but its essential claim that
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the temple and its Furnishings did possess Cosmic or naturalistic symbolism must be upheld such features were designed to stress the divine power over the created order
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and to establish the temple as a source of blessing for the land and for the people of Israel the underlying idea was that the temple was a microcosm of the macrocosm so that the building gave
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visual expression to the belief in yahweh's dominion over the world we do not need to suppose that every Israelite worshiper was conscious of this but the temple building signified the cosmic
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rule of The God Who was worshiped there so the argument is basically this why do we care that the temple is a microcosm or a
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model is to say that man is dwelling in the world in outer space with the Unseen Dimension around him and God has placed his Temple I know I'm getting too small
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for anybody to actually see this now as a microcosm there yeah not to scale maybe in Revelation now
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exerting his Dominion even as we have seen his intention in creating it
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creating it happening inward and the prophets will make use of this continually we talked about just a couple of them this morning but the exertion of God's dominion over his
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creation and his dominion over all other supposed Powers because he is the one who created him um I wish we had time to get to it this morning but in Isaiah he says you know you are the Lord you willed all these
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things into existence do we think about that as we walk about on the earth do you think about that about yourself you're you yes okay God put natural order into the world and you
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were conceived in a natural way and born naturally but the fact that any of this exists at all you were willed into existence by God no less than the world
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no less than the Stars no less than all of those visible things you are an exertion of God's will in your being if that isn't a cause for us to glorify
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him to call upon his name and to worship Him I'm not sure what is so let's take that thought and and go before the Lord in worship this morning and I'll entertain any questions
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afterwards I suppose Our Father we do thank you we do praise your name your will is perfect and it is awe-inspiring to us to realize
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we are we are links in that chain we are part of your expression your will your glory your beauty that you have put into existence
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father we ask that you would light that flame in our hearts that we would be would be full of the reality of what you have done and what you are doing and what you
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will do will do father we ask that you would perfume our sacrifice this morning that the incense would rise before you mingled with our prayers interceded by the Holy Spirit an
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acceptable sacrifice before you that you would be magnified you would be glorified and that we would be fed according to your will and to your way we ask all of you
