I think to start at the beginning we should look at the tabernacle, or Temple in the Wilderness, as a road map of the simplest, total expression of Christianity, to be found in the Old Testament. Christianity from beginning to end.

The Tabernacle was the shadow cast by the word of God to be fulfilled in the time of the promised Messiah. Beginning in the time of Moses, it’s rites and rituals have pointed the people of the tribes of Israel directly at the Messiah. After the rejection of Jesus, the Jews continue as they were, under the law, awaiting their Messiah right into the present day.

It wasn’t until that time that God revealed His “fail safe” program, the Church, to whom He passed along the meaning of the rites and rituals of the Jews, as promises to a whole new breed of civilization; neither Gentile nor Jew, but new creatures in Christ, that make up His body, the Church, whom against not even the gates of hell shall prevail.

Since those rites and rituals, better known as the feasts, were passed along to us, the Church as promises, I think that it’s an important thing for Christians to know and understand. It is the basis for our Christian beliefs on the one hand, and a trail to follow, leading from the past, directly into the future. And, since we are in the future now, because we have arrived at the time described in Daniel, as the end time, we can use hindsight to view the Christian promises, through the substance and shadow of their original Jewish meaning and see our way even more clearly than were able the Jews. But, the structure itself is a lesson in the geography of the landscape of Christianity.

So, for the serious student, and the seekers of truth, it’s paramount to understand the roots of our Faith, which really all began with the Temple in the Wilderness, The Tabernacle. It is the simplest, total expression of Christianity, to be found in the Old Testament. Let’s start with the building itself.

The Tabernacle

The Temple in the Wilderness.

You don’t have to be confused about what it means to come to God if you pay attention to the simple road maps that God’s given.

If you wanted to come to God, in the Old Testament, you met him where He said you could meet him. The tabernacle is both a type of Christ and a type of the total Christian journey, which takes us from outside of God’s presence, into his presence.

Now, Christ is that meeting point. But from the Old Testament type of Christ, the meeting point, you can get all you need to know to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

But, if you wanted to get to God, then you met him where he said he was. Here and here alone, in that tabernacle, hidden behind, at the outset, on the outer fringe, a white linen fence, seven and a half feet high. And, God was there, and that’s the only place you could meet him. Inside that court yard, was a tent. And the tent consisted of a holy place and a holy of holy’s. Three pieces of furniture in the holy place, one in the holy of holy’s, two in the outer court, and one door.

Now, if you wanted to come to God, that’s where you went. And the drama of what God was communicating, made clear, geographically, that every man starts outside, away from God. Separated from His presence. And the only way you could meet him was to meet him where he said he was.

Now, you came to this place, and the first thing you were confronted with is this white linen fence, the symbol of God’s holiness, without which, scripture says, no man will see God. You can’t get to him, without holiness.

The fence was supported by oblong blocks of brass. And, there was a brass chain from each post running to a brass peg in the ground outside. From youth on, every child of Israel was taught that brass symbolizes judgment. It was on the horns of the altar, where death for sins occurred. The picture was graphic. Everybody starts outside, and the brass pegs and the brass blocks taught a simple truth: remain outside, and judgment was your lot. Look up, the top of each post was crowned with silver, and from post top to post top, all the way around this fence, no matter which direction you went, ran a silver chain.

Now, all the silver in the tabernacle was made from the silver half shekel, given as redemption money, by the males in the tribe, every year. In contrast to brass, which always symbolized judgment, silver, symbolizes redemption. The price being paid to redeem lost inheritance, restore freedom, and restore life was paid in silver.

Follow that silver chain, either direction, it led to one door, only one, through which you could walk. The curtains of that door had four colors in it. Blue, scarlet, purple and white. Blue, for the eternal nature of Christ, as revealed and founded in the gospel of John, who began at the beginning. Purple, the kingly role of Christ. The purple, as unveiled by Matthew, who wrote to the Jews, that indeed, Jesus was the King of the Jews. White, the purity of his perfect manhood, as revealed by Luke, who as the historian, put together the perfection of our Lord. Scarlet, or red, for the suffering servant Messiah, portrayed in Isaiah, but expounded by Mark in his gospel.

Those scriptures, written centuries before Christ came, contain all the clues. One silver chain, led to one door. Walk through that door, which is Christ, and you’re on the inside of the fence. Immediately you are confronted by an alter, which is the alter of burnt offering. At this alter, two kinds of sacrifices were offered: the sin, and the trespass.

Trespass, is where man usually starts when he talks about sin. A trespass, by definition, is a thing you know about. I robbed, I stole, I killed, or the more spiritual derivative of that, I hated, I desired what was not mine. Sins that the church has been hung up on for years, were considered trespasses by God.

Man has always started out on the periphery, but the closer you get to God, the more you are aware that you are not a sinner because you sin, but rather, you sin, because you are a sinner. There’s something wrong with you. You’re born out of fellowship with God, which is why I get angry with Adam, who caused that, we inevitably find ourselves alienated and against God. A condition of separation from God, that before the temple in the wilderness, we couldn’t do anything about.

The sin offering was for that condition. The trespass offering was for the deed. And the sin offering even embraced the sin of ignorance. Even in the Old Testament, they had a sacrifice for the sins they didn’t know about. But, the message was the same in both cases. You were to bring a sacrifice, and stand it in front of that alter. It had to be a pure animal from out of the flock. Then you would lay your hands on it, because God decreed that when you did that, all of your sins and trespasses would transfer to the animal, and in so doing, you were recognizing, as close to what the New Testament calls, that recognition and request for forgiveness of sins. You recognized that it was your sins that was going to go onto the animal, and it will be treated as we deserved to be treated. For sin comes death. Blood contained the life, so immediately after the transfer of sins, by the laying on of the hands, the knife was drawn, the animal was slain, and in the sin and trespass offering, the blood, containing the life poured on the ground, and the carcass of the animal was taken outside of the camp.

At that instant, even in the old testament, the believer stood justified. God looked at him as though he was just like the dead animal with the life blood poured on the ground. Payment by proxy or vicarious substitute had been made for his sins. It’s as simple as that.

Now, obviously, the question is raised, how can the blood containing that life of an animal stand in for a man? The same way paper money, worth nothing, can be spent, and stand in for hard money, gold. Because the power that redeems the money has on reserve, used to be, the hard money to buy up the paper from the challenger who says intrinsically, that it has a less than adequate worth. And as Romans says, in the counsels of heaven, when man was created, God had his “fail safe” plan: The lamb slain from the foundation of the earth, drawn from the bank of heavens life, one worth enough to stand in for all of us, would one day, offer himself, and buy up all this paper money, so to speak, because the surety was there and the absolute commitment in the fullness of time to pay that surety had been made.

God redeemed that man with the life of that animal. You walk out now, redeemed, paid for, with your sins laid on the animal. He dies, and all you have to do, to effect the transaction, is to do what God said, if you did, the transaction was complete. In the New Testament, it’s not the blood of animals, it the blood of one Christ, Jesus is the propitiation, the one who paid the price. In the New Testament, we don’t lay hands on the head of the sacrifice, we don’t, Romans 9 says, ascend up and get him, and bring him down, we don’t have to descend down and get him and bring him up. The words already nigh you, it’s in your mouth, speak it forth, for with the heart man believeth and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

As God decreed a plan involving the laying on of hands, for Old Testament transactions, all you have to do, where ever you are, is believe that God laid on him the iniquity of us all, and you step out from underneath, and stand redeemed, by simply believing, and hanging the body in a act of using the tongue. With the heart, man believeth and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Now, you’re inside! Inside the fence, covered with the righteousness of Christ. The penalty is paid, and the carcass of the dead animal is taken clear outside the camp. The one that remains is now covered. The substitute paid the price!

But, service is involved, as the priest stays in the tabernacle area. There is a Laver of cleansing there, which is the next piece of furniture. It’s a golden fount of flowing water in that outer court. You’re already covered, but as you serve God, and dust gets on the hands, and feet, you are to bring yourself to this Laver, and look at yourself in the mirror, and check out your spots.

It was made from the melted down mirrors and jewelry of the ladies in the camp, and it was burnished and polished, and shaped in such a way that it would magnify your image when you stood in front of it. It was the duty, of all who worked in this outer court, to come to this Laver, repeatedly and consistently to examine themselves, and wash and cleanse themselves in it’s water.

Notice that it was strictly their responsibility to come to the Laver to check themselves. There was no one assigned to put the Laver in a wheelbarrow and bring it around to any one who he thought might need to be cleansed!

You can’t come to God, and stand here, knowing that you ought to be a dead man, and he died for you, and not want to please him, and his word clearly says, that you, are periodically to bring yourself to the Laver. My Lord is never against any individual who wants to bring himself to the Laver and deal with his spots. That’s why I get upset when some bone head starts telling me, or anyone else, to deal with my spots.

Repeatedly I have taught, from this example, of the Laver, live your convictions, but preach Christ! Get out of my face about my spots! Me and the Laver are working it out! And, I know exactly where it’s at, I don’t need a road map form a casual observer. My job is to bring myself to the Laver. It doesn’t have a built in recording system that says, “Hey Brother Sal, you haven’t been here for a while, better get over here. It doesn’t leave much room for our fellows to say, “have you noticed that Brother Sal hasn’t been over to the Laver lately”. That’s my business, and yours is your business, not my business. My business is to preach Christ, and go to the Laver to get my spots cleaned, not to get your spots cleaned.

The Laver is there, and no one is going to get a special reward for bringing it to me and beating me over the head with it. It stays put! You go to it!

And, what is the Laver? Christ, the revelation of God’s will. The gold. Gold is the symbol of spirituality, always, as brass is the symbol of judgment and silver symbolizes redemption. You go to the Laver, and there is only one measure, God. He has revealed his word, and the culmination of that word is Christ. You bring yourself to that Laver, and standing along side Christ, you let it measure you, not a fellow Christian or priest. It, and it alone is the measurement. And when you go before the Laver, you’ll see some spots, you can’t live without them, you can’t move around without picking them up. But, there is water in the Laver. A fount of flowing water. Well, who does the cleansing? You do, by dipping your hands in the water. What’s the water? Peter, Paul, and even James says the water is the Holy Spirit.

No prophecy of scripture is for private interpretation. How do you get the Holy Spirit in you to do the washing? Faith! Simple as that!

Well, I don’t know how to put my hands in the water. God gave you the formula. Faith and he puts his spirit in you, and puts you in Christ! Only one way you get the water to wash in regeneration. Having seen the spots in the word of truth! It’s a dry rub if you try to cleanse yourself. If you want the water to wash you, you no longer go to a place. You Faith. Paul said it to the Galatians. Receive you the spirit, by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Effort won’t get it. As in the Old Testament, it was simple, plunge your hands into the water. In the New Testament, start Faithing! - Receive you the spirit, by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?, it was a rhetorical question, it was the hearing of Faith. Water does the cleansing. You deal with the Laver about your spots, alone.

Next comes the curtain. We are in the Tent area, where God’s presence is going to dwell. It consisted of four layers of fabric and skins. On the outside, was badger skin, that ugly earthly animal. The best illustration of how Jesus clothed himself in the tent of earthly human flesh. And working through the skins, all of which teach the proof of his redeeming work, and on the inside, looking out, again you see the pure linen. The point being, once we go through this door, and the sacrifice is offered, and the body carrying your sins is outside the camp, we are encircled by the linen cloth quality of the fence, and here we are totally encased with the nature of Christ. God looks at you now in Christ and sees past the badger skin to the linen, as we are now totally encased in Christ. We’re now inside that area where the service of God is being performed. The dead animal carrying the sins is outside the camp where it’s never seen again, symbolizing that those forgiven sins are never see again by God.

Enter the tent, and over on the left is the golden candlestick. It consisted of a stem and three curving branches on each side, making seven arms, and on each a cup and a knop. And they were designed as flowering branches with a cup at the top of each one of them, and a wick in each cup.

Early in the morning, everyday, the priest would go and trim the lamps and fill them with fresh oil to overflowing which made the lamp burn brightly. And, we’re not left in doubt as to what that golden candlestick symbolizes, it’s the Church, you and me, in Christ. And, what it teaches, is that we have a light to shine. As He was the light of the world, He left the task to us. But something very interesting, and too often forgotten by those who would be a witness by standing in your face and lassoing you. It was as a natural function of the branch in the vines. It flowered a cup and knop at the top these cups were flowering with a wick.

Once the fresh oil was in, the trimmed lamp, burned brightly, bringing light automatically. Simple truth; you don’t witness by knocking people down, you witness by the out growth of Christ’s nature in you. This implantation, to use a Biblical phrase, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which God gives us by Faith, burns the dross. But, you’re not as aware of it, you’re busy faithing. But as you begin to see desires change, the Holy Spirit, is burning, as the scripture says, the dross. In addition, that life in us maintained, which is maintained as long as we have faith, causes growth.

Some of you have probably changed more than you ever believed you could change, and you didn’t change because you shook yourself and said, CHANGE. You started the life of faith and change outworked through you. Now why did it burn brightly? The oil of the Holy Spirit. As water typified Spirit in one context, oil typifies it here.

Everyday, early, fresh oil in the cup. If the oil was there, the light was bright. Didn’t have to work at it. People noticed something. You talk about charisma. Do you know where the word comes from? The gift of God’s spirit. Some people can walk in the room and you feel their presence. I firmly believe that if the Holy Spirit is abiding, it creates it’s own chemistry! And that promise of God that He will abide is to a faither, There is something different about the uncommon faithing man, placed in him by the Holy Spirit. Let it firmly be established that when you dwell in Christ, and his word abides in you, and the vine and the branch are together, and the light of the Holy Spirit is there, you are a witness. You don’t have to work at it. You will be.

Well, how do I get the oil in every morning? Same formula - FAITH gets the Holy Spirit in you!

God won’t give it to you for anything else! I repeat, “receive you the spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Now, there is another piece of furniture. The table of show breads. It consisted of a table and twelve loaves of bread. And, they had to be replenished every week. One loaf from each tribe, with frankincense. It’s not Christ, the living bread. He was the living bread from God out of heaven. That was the manna, that came down from heaven.

Someone once calculated that God gave them fifteen tons of manna every day. But, out of what He gave them, He expected they bring Him a loaf from each tribe every week. It was an offering from the people out of their store to Him. And, it had to be brought with frankincense. The symbol of joy, cheerfulness and sweetness. They gladly would bring it every week.

Now to me, the mystery is, when God rained down fifteen tons of bread, what did He want with twelve loaves from them? Obviously, He didn’t need it. But, He wanted that frankincense demonstration that they recognized that He was the provider. And, they gladly built a table, and provided it for Him in His house.

By the way, it was inside the curtain, and nobody but the priest could see it. If a government agent came in to check on the use of the bread, God killed him deader than a stone. Once when Caesar’s worm went in there to see what those priests do with those offerings, God killed him dead on the spot! If you wanted in there, you had to become a priest, and qualify according to God’s standards. And, if they were a spy, He’d kill them too.

God’s not as openly brutal today, but spiritual death is much worse. The point I’m trying to make is that this was a secret place. So, when some bureaucrats come sniffing around, and asked, don’t you want to know what happened to your bread? That offering was given to God! That bread belonged to the priests. The point is that there are a lot of people that outline the Christian journey. You come to Jesus, and let Him bear your sins. Come to the laver and get clean. Be a witness, the golden candlestick. Go over to church and pray, but just don’t bother me with that table of show breads. But, God put in very high cotton, the table of giving.

That’s why I say, that if I could ever get set free in the budget, I would still teach one seventh of my time on giving. That’s God’s choice! Seven major pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle, and one of them has to do with giving! But, I would teach it from the frame that God was able teach it. He didn’t need their bread. I repeat, He gave them fifteen tons everyday! They needed to give! It was part of His testament for sharing in His inheritance.

Next to the curtain, that was the equivalent of a veil before the holy of holies a third piece of furniture. The alter of incense. The Psalmist said, let my prayer be said before thee as incense O Lord. Jesus said that when you pray, go to the closet and shut the door and pray to your father, who heareth in secret. Nobody outside of that holy tent saw that alter, God saw it.

Now, the laver of cleansing had to have a fire burning on it constantly as a symbol of prayer. It was lit every morning with fresh coals. But, you could only light it with one fire. Two of the Old Testament characters were struck dead, because they brought, what the Bible calls, strange fire. You couldn’t just take a coal off someone’s campfire, and light this alter. You could only take a coal off this alter where the burnt offering, another type of sacrifice, offered at the alter in the outer court, was burnt, and the word is a liturgical word in the Old Testament, which means to ascend for God’s pleasure.

You had to take a coal from that alter, and only that alter, where the sins were taken care of, where the substitute paid the price, and the literal life of the burnt offering was ascending to God. You took a coal from that alter and lit this fire.

You don’t just charge into God’s presence and say, give me this or that. You go back and you stand for a minute in front of Calvary, to use New Testament language, and you remember the basis by which you approach God. He died for me. I’d be dead otherwise. You take that coal. That kind of hard attitude. You’ve got to know you’re a sinner to be able to understand forgiveness. Just as that woman they criticized for the ointment in the alabaster box, she said she’s been forgiven much, that’s why she loves much.

You start your prayer life as a reminder, that my access to God is because while I was yet a sinner, God commendeth His love toward me. And, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That’s why I say, send every sinner to me. Because I grew up in a Church where God would like you IF you were perfect. All imperfection was embraced in His death. He loves you and me as we are! Not our souls, you and me! He died for me. I don’t have to work too much to get to feel good toward God when I remember that. That lights the incense. You light it in the morning, and it burns all day. And that incense, which is an attitudinal frame of thanksgiving to God for what He did for us is closest to the very presence of God Himself.

Once a year, on the day of Atonement, you could part this curtain and enter in where the Ark of the Covenant sat, in the holy of holies. The Ark of the Covenant consisted of an oblong box made of acacia wood, a root out of the dry ground, as the symbol of our humanity, covered with gold, as the symbol of divinity, and the mystery of the incarnation is portrayed in that type. The divine and the human merged into one.

In order to make very clear that the box symbolized Jesus, inside the box were the unbroken tablets of stone. The popular movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, should have done their research. The tablets in that box were not broken! Moses broke the first commandments, the second ones were unbroken, and were placed inside this box to prove that at the first giving of the law, man broke it. Only in Christ was the law unbroken. Also in the Ark was the high priestly rod of Aaron, which to prove his priesthood, God worked a miracle. As that rod, through the darkness of the night, from it’s deadness as a staff that had been used to walk with, budded in the morning became the symbol of death and resurrection. The rod was a symbol of the high priestly work of redemption, and the rod that budded as a symbol of Christ was also kept therein. Thirdly, there was a cup that kept the manna, the symbol of the living bread. Each of those three thing were God’s exclamation points to say, if you can’t get it from the dimensions (which I haven’t explained), if you can’t get the message from that incarnate union of acacia wood and gold, let me make it clear, the unbroken tablets, the budding rod, and the cup of manna is to say once and for all, that is Christ!

On the top of the box was a solid block of gold. Carved into it, the Cherubim. When man sinned, the Cherubim with flaming swords, were stationed at the entrance to kill all that came into the garden of Eden. Eden means heart of God. All who came into God’s presence were to be slain. These Cherubim now sit with folded wings beholding this area of the solid gold block, no longer with swords, they’re at peace. And the solid gold block is the symbol, as gold always is, of divinity. It was that work of Christ at Calvary, where He atoned. Cappereth is the name of this, called the mercy seat sometimes. It literally means covering. We are covered!

In a terrible old picture in the Old Testament when the Ark came back from the Philistines it went to a village and they lifted the gold lid and peeked in and God instantly killed 50,000 in that city, to teach drastically the point, that any man who looks on God’s standard of unbroken law, without the covering atonement, with nothing between us, you die. But between us, and the perfect law of God, kept by Christ, is the mercy seat, the covering atonement, that which Christ did which covered us.

And the high priest would stand in front of that Ark of the Covenant, and what was called the Sheckinah, a bright light of God’s presence would settle down on the mercy seat, and the high priest would then talk with God, represented by the Sheckinah, and bring all the sins of the people before him, and they would be forgiven, in that case for a year.

Before the high priest went in and parted the curtain he brought the blood from the sacrifice for sins. He would sprinkle it seven times on the ground where he would stand. He only stood in

God’s presence because the life of the substitute had been spilled and he stood on the merits of that price having been paid and he sprinkled seven time on the mercy seat. And, if the blood of the sacrifice that was given was acceptable, he was not slain.

He had bells sewn on the bottom of his robe, and a rope tied around his ankle leading outside the holy of holies, and if they could hear the bells still tinkling, then they knew that the propitiation had been accepted and they had a year of grace by which God had forgiven all their sin, there was a new beginning. If the blood was not acceptable, the priest was slain, and then, not hearing the bells, they could use the rope tied to his ankle to drag him out of there.

Hebrews says, Christ sat down after doing it, and once for all, past, present and future, He covered every sin. His sacrifice was that sufficient. The high priest stands there on the merits of the slain lamb, and God and the priest commune without barrier.

Now, there is no clearer roadmap of Christianity than this. I don’t care what our background is, we start outside. There’s only one door, Christ; One Sacrifice, Christ; One Laver, Christ; One Life, anointed by the Holy Spirit, Christ. He accepts our gift and we bring the recognition of his sacrifice and from a heart of gratitude can praise him in our own private prayer life and fill the atmosphere with thanksgiving that if God never does anything else for me, He died for me. We stand in His presence on the shed blood of the outpoured life and between us and God’s standards is the covering atonement, and our faith in Christ’s shed blood covers us! What else is there? God says, that’s all we need.

Isn’t it amazing how we can stand here today, and with 20/20 vision, look back and see exactly how God built Christ into the scriptures, just so we could verify for ourselves that Christianity was part of the plan created before the foundation of the world.

Do you have any doubt that God also built into that plan of Christ, the completion of the Age of the Church? But, just as the knowledge of the Church wasn’t divulged until it became necessary, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there, just waiting for it’s time. Because it was. And now, in these last days, the plan for the closing of the age that became necessary by the Jews rejection of Jesus, is revealed in all it’s glory. The Rapture is written into the plan, just as surely as Christ was written into the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. God gave us His word on it.

Go on to Class I of the Rapture Series
Shadows of things to come