Exodus 37:1-9 Bible Study | Episode 636

March 18, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Exodus 37:1-9  Bible Study | Episode #636

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you.

And allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name. Good morning. Welcome back to Lake community churches. Morning Bible study been gone for a. A few days got off away for a trip with my son in law and daughter and wife to Canada.

It was a great time beautiful place, a majestic place. Glad I got to go, it's one of those things you do in, in, in this time of your life and you realize I probably will never be back here again. But wow, what an opportunity to go and see it. So excited to be back for morning Bible study.

Sorry that planned on doing Bible study yesterday, but the truth is that all the computer, all the equipment wasn't working exactly right. And by the time I got to, got it working, it was, 10 12 after and so I decided to not try to force it in, but to start this morning. And so we're here in chapter 37 of the book of Exodus.

Surprisingly, shockingly, we're we're real close to the end of the book of Exodus. That is that's an exciting time for us. We've been through Genesis and now Exodus. And we started out with the book of Psalms way back during the pandemic, right when the pandemic hit. That's when our morning Bible studies begin and now that we're a few years past that we're moving through the Bible and and I'm excited to do it.

We get to chapter 37 and remember God told them how to make all the things that go along with the tabernacle. Now they are actually making it and made made had people come in artisans people who were gifted, people were wise in making all the things that were required to make in order to have the have the tabernacle made.

And so now he is going to make what we call the Ark of the Covenant. And for you movie buffs, that's the that's the thing the that Indiana Jones was trying to find. It's In the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Indiana Jones movie, they're trying to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis get it because any army that marches out with the Ark of the Covenant in front of them can't be defeated.

Or at least that's what the Lurie is. That's not actually what scripture teaches us. It has to be an army of faith. It can't be just an army. Okay, it has to be someone who trusts God and and marches out with God as their head or as head of their army. It is not a magic box that causes any army to be undefeatable.

It is a box that represents something very important and what the box represents is God's people in worship. And that is exactly what the box stands for. And obviously, because it is the preeminent item in the tabernacle is where God's people meet with him. The ark is a picture of God's people.

In worship. It is a picture of exactly what God sees. Not exactly. It is what God what God uses as a picture of us. In worship in we are if you if you'll notice, we start out in a position and that position is the Holy of Holies. That's where the Ark is. Now, do we get there at worship right when we get into worship?

No, you have to go through the process of entering his gates with Thanksgiving of washing and being cleansed by the Holy Spirit of offering yourself as a living sacrifice, going in and having the Holy Spirit, which is a menorah. Show the Bread of Life to us. Reveal God through his son, the physical manifestation of God through his son Jesus.

So you have the menorah unveiling the show bread and teaching us about who he is. And then once we've heard who he is and heard how that affects us, what that makes what that means for us and our lives. Because Jesus came to make us and give us life. Once we have that we can enter into the Holy of Holies and once you've gone through that process and that should be done during your morning Bible studies, during your time with God in the morning, it should be done, it should be done when you're coming into worship every Sunday morning, you should work your way through that process with God.

It's a personal thing, even though we're doing corporate worship, you should work through the process of excitement about entering His gates of allowing the Holy Spirit to wash you of the world as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, washed the world off the feet of his disciples. You ought to let let yourself give way to God as a living sacrifice.

You ought to allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten you and reveal. who Jesus is and then you enter in the Holy of Holies and you're prepared for worship and that is exactly what the Ark of the Covenant is. He made the Ark, and notice it starts out, he made the Ark of Acacia Wood. So ultimately, the Ark is made of Acacia Wood.

Everything that goes on after the Ark is made of Acacia Wood, everything that goes on after that is, is, God adding to us as we worship. And so the Acacia wood is a picture of us. It is it's also called gopher wood. Sometimes it's translated in the King James version as gopher wood. It is a very porous wood.

It is very sturdy and strong wood. It's not a very thick wood. It is a wood that could be used to make boats. And by the way, boats is a picture of salvation. It is a, it is a. It is a wood that was very prevalent in the desert areas or the dry areas in which the Israelites lived both in Egypt and in the desert and in the promised land.

It is a common wood. It's not something that is very prevalent. expensive. It's just regularly wood, but it floats really well because it has a lot of pockets of air. It is very strong. And God made it in order to place his presence upon it and in it. And as you see, you as we're going to see is a perfect picture of our relationship with him and us being totally prepared for his service.

It says it's two and a half cubits was its length and that now that's a that's an important number because it really is about four or four and a half feet. Some people would say it would be five feet long. And back then that would have been about the average size of a human. Now, now we have giant humans lot bigger than I am and I'm six foot four, but there are that we've definitely grown in size.

I think they put in stuff in our chicken. And a beef, but we were, we're a lot bigger than we used to be, but we're still, the average human beings about five five and a half foot tall women being much less than that. And some men being a little bit more than that. And it was overlaid in pure gold.

Now notice once we're there and once we're in the presence of God. We're overlaid or, I like to think of it as as the prodigal son came home. We're a row were robed or arrayed in God's salvation. He is covering of our sin and. When we're in the middle of worship, when we're in his presence we're overlaid with pure gold.

We're overlaid with the with the royalty of God. And that's what, that's who we are when we're, when we are truly seeking him out in worship. When we enter into the Holy of Holies, we're overlaid with pure gold. We're a royal priesthood. We're co heirs with the King of Kings.

And when we enter into his Holy of Holies, we have all that upon us. And it's in power. He says he cast it He'll overlay it with pure gold. Notice inside and outside. Now we're going to talk about what's outside and what's inside because those are important things. Outside is the manifestation of God and his presence when we walk by faith.

The inside is what God is putting inside of us to strengthen, to direct, and to lead us by faith into the things he wants us to do. So the inside is God's. God's equipping and directing the outside is God's presence and power moving forward. Notice his equipping and his filling is royal and his directing and his teaching and leading us by faith is also royal.

It is inlaid both on the inside and the outside of pure gold. It says he says, and he cast it with four rings of gold to be set on four corners. Now the Ark of the Covenant was not to be carried by any animal, it was not to be placed on a cart, it was to be carried by men. And in this regard, as they carried it, they were to carry it on the shoulders of four men.

And it was supposed to be a picture of God's presence being upon. Humanity and that is the picture is it's when it was moved from place to place. It was moved. God's presence was not moved by a human invention, and it was not moved by anything other than the being that God made in the garden to be his representation in the garden.

And that is humanity. And so it was to be carried by human beings. On their shoulders, the presence of God and the two rings were on one side, two rings on the other, and he made poles of acacia wood. Notice what we carry it with is not not something else, but it is us. It's the the wood that represents really just us.

By the way, trees in the Bible represent people too. Anytime you see trees or fish, it just represents. People in general, a large group of people, and and so you, whenever you see trees or forest, and whenever you see fish or a multitude of fish, it always represents humanity. And so it's being carried by humans, being carried by humans represented by the acacia wood again.

And it says he made poles of acacia them with gold. Notice, these poles are made of acacia wood. And they're overlaid with gold. They're inlaid with gold when God fills us, equips us gives us his direction, that's on the inside, and then when we act it out by faith on the outside, it's covered with gold also.

And so all the wood that was Acacia wood is overlaid with the royalty of God, and that is who we are when we when we walk with him, it says, and he put the poles into the rings at the side of the ark to bear the ark. So he put these poles in these rings and they were to carry the ark. And let me say this.

That was a that was a great a job to have is to carry the presence of God is also an important God is important job because if you didn't do it right things didn't work out right well for you, but when we did, we do it right, it is a powerful it's a powerful position to be in to be carrying the presence of God and you do that each and every day you're inlaid with gold and you're outlaid with gold.

But sometimes we don't act like we are, he says. He says he also made the mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits was its length, and a cubit and a half was its width. So the mercy seat is basically on top of this box that has a cover over it, and on the top of the on top of the lid to the box is the mercy seat is it fills the whole top of the lid.

The mercy seat is an important place. The mercy seat is the propitiation spot. That's what we learn. It's the, it's where the divine or the eternal meet the physical and it met them, met the Israelites right there at that spot in the holy of holies. at the tabernacle, and then later on at the temple, it is the place where the very divine presence of God, the eternal presence of God, met the physical world, humanity and it is called the mercy seat is the place where God's mercy and his grace rain down for humanity so that they might, so that we might know him and that we might be his and walk with him.

And so that's an important spot is the place where The blood was sprinkled and sin was atoned for. And I want you to notice it's on top of us. It's it when God comes, he anoints us he he pays for us with the blood of Jesus. He washes us in his blood. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness in his blood.

His blood makes us white as snow, makes us new, makes us it makes us holy. And when we are when the blood of Jesus is placed upon us, he atones for our sin. And it says he says he also made the mercy seed of pure gold, two and a half cubits with its length and a half cubit in width, in its width.

He made two cherubim. Now cherubim cherubim in the Bible if you find, if you look, They're mentioned several times in scripture, but when you look into what their purpose is, what they actually do, or they may have many jobs probably, but the one job that really stands out when you're studying scripture about cherubim is they regard the holiness of God.

There are four cherubim that stand around the throne. They're really big. They have eyes all around them. They have a six wings. They're powerful beings. Each one of them has a different animal head, a different picture of God's creation. And they got the holiness of God against the sin that is pervasive or the sin that plagues his creation, but they are, they they represent the presence of God.

In his creation. And these cherubim are a picture of God's not only covering of sin, but they're a picture of God's provision for humanity. And we know that because angels are ministering spirits sent to minister under the saints of God. And the angels. Minister to us and the cher of them, they minister to us also.

When we worship when we when we come into the presence of God, when we are the ark that God has for us. When we're that the angels are there and they are ministering to us and they are they're enjoying the presence of God in our worship, and these chairs are made of beaten goal.

Know that notices the royalty of God. Anytime you're in the throne room you're gonna deal with the royalty. He made them of one piece. At the two ends of the mercy seat so this is one whole piece of gold that was beaten into these this two cherubs that one share, but one side and the other chair, but the other, so we got two chairs on each end of the box on really each end of the lid and He made the cherubim at the two ends of one piece with the mercy seat and you say what's the mercy seat?

The cherubim spread out their wings above and covered the mercy seat with their wings. So it looked like these wings sticking out above the cherubim as they bow, they bow down and you have these wings out and they the two wings. of each cherubim touch each other. They don't just touch each other.

They meld into each other because they were made of one piece of gold. And and it says the face, they faced one another. The faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat. Notice everything is looking toward the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ made for us. That is the place where God meets us through Jesus at the mercy seat.

And you go How do we know all this and what else do we get out of this? Let me give you some more information about the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark of the Covenant would have been the staff that Moses used to deliver them out of Egypt. That is a picture of God, Moses was given the staff, he was given the power of God, and he acted upon that power in faith, and God used Moses to deliver his people out of Egypt.

It's a picture of the power of God. at work when humanity or mankind chooses to trust him. So you've got that in the ark. You've got the Ten Commandments in the ark. You've got the Word of God the message of God. You've got the the laws of God inside the ark. So you've got the power of God that is active when humanity walks in faith.

You've got that inside of us. You've got the Ten Commandments that are inside of us. The word of God written on the hearts of man, and then finally, you've got the showbread, and that's a picture of Jesus who we consume, how we actually consume and know God. Is through consuming who he is, Jesus Christ, taking him in, learning who he is, and walking with him.

And he's the blood of life, he's the word made flesh, and walking among us. And we have inside of us the power of God when we walk by faith. The word of God written on our hearts. And the literal word of God that we consume and man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, we have literally the word of God inside of the Ark of the Covenant.

And that is what's inside. And when we walk by faith on the outside. We are undefeatable. The ark, when it goes in front of God's people who walk by faith with him we cannot be defeated. We cannot be stopped. And as you're studying God's word and you're, as you're thinking about every time the ark is mentioned, you think I am the ark.

I'm the ark. That's a picture of me. It's a picture of the presence of God upon me. It's a picture of the atoning sacrifice and the presence of Jesus. On top of me and then Jesus himself, his word inside of me his power inside of me and his laws and decrees his directives written on my heart.

And if you think about that as you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope. And peace today in Jesus name.