Examining the pictures and sculptures in cathedrals around the world give us an idea of how illiterate people in ancient times remembered the stores and people in the Bible. Though they are helpful aids, they are not the real thing. Similarly, the tabernacle is only a pattern of heaven and of Jesus and of God's promises
The Pattern of Heaven
Exodus 25:1-9
Introduction
A trip through cathedrals – illiterate people and keeping the faith by art and sculptures.
A lot of history in these amazing structures: major events, burials, events that moved the world to remember: Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg that began a reformation! Or the move in Leipzig that brought down the Berlin Wall? Or the simple pastor in Timisoara, Romania that brought about the downfall of the government there. The many small chapels across England as John Wesley preached up and down the land.
Show pictures:
Sistine Chapel at the Vatican- Italy
Cathedral in Krakow, Poland
Cathedral in Milan
Cathedral in Salisbury – a worker who loved Jesus
Cathedral in Wesel – Peter Minuit who bought Manhatten from the Indians
St. Paul’s Cathedral London – taken into the Holy of Holies
But all of these do not compare with what God gave to Moses!
Then the Tabernacle – above all the others
Read Text
The Character and nature of God is revealed
Through the blood of Jesus
The courtyard for sin, and the Holy place leading to the Holy of Holies.
46x23 meters (150 feet X 75 feet) cf Biltmore is 175,000 ft2 CFNBC 11,250 ft2
Outer Court and Inner Court
Holy Place – 10 X 5 meters 48x24
Holy of Holies – 5 X 5 meters 24ft
Worshiper could not go any further than bringing sacrifice to altar. Only priests could go farther to laver. Worth – Over 100 billion USD equivalent.
See the Revelation 21 for the New Jerusalem
Prayers of incense Revelation 5:8 and 8:3,4
Assumptions and shadows. Solving the mystery and wanting to know all things.
But there are issues that can develop because of this: the presence and leadership of God is replaced by dead works and dead traditions. Where there. Is no life being infused, but the very condemnation that does not come from the Father: ignoring him can lead to lifelessness.
See what happens in Exodus 32.1
See what is in Cebu or in Chichicastenango.
The tents in the wilderness were facing the tabernacle.
When we look forward to what Father intends for us both individually and collectively as a church, we can do a lot more moving forward in unity.
“Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding firmly to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.”
Colossians 2:16-19 “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
James 1:14-17
“For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
Hebrews 10:1-4