Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. What's up? It's the fly apocalypse edition I think we're suffering the plagues that we're reading about here because there's gnats all over the office Lord only knows why they're here, but we are being judged. I have a suspicion that it's not to do with the plagues But to do with the plants that are actually in the office one can't know for sure. That's fair. I mean it's possible that That the plagues are here. Did you do something that God told you don't do this or else the plagues are coming. Not to my knowledge. Okay. I have not harbored his people Unlawfully we've I don't know. This is scary stuff, man. Mark Hogan. Maybe it could have been Mark Hogan. Yeah, who knows? Anyways, it's friday. Happy friday. Everybody. We hope that you're enjoying your End of the week as you prepare for the weekend. In fact, something that is going out these days these days is in the last two weeks and we're going to do it again. You'll get it in your inbox today. We're doing it this weekend at compass prep email that's going out. So that's for those of you that are part of our local church here in North Texas. And the aim of this email really is not announcements or anything else. It's really just to help you prepare for the weekend. And so you're going to get a brief synopsis, kind of overview of what the sermon is going to be. And then there's a reminder of our link to our Spotify playlist, which has the worship songs that we're going to be singing this weekend that are on there and you can download the bulletin as well. So it's a good way for you to get ready for the worship service on Sunday before before you get there. A lot of times you've probably heard it said, Sunday morning starts Saturday night. And there's something about preparing our hearts to, to know what we're going to encounter when we show up at church on Sunday, rather than showing up and being like, surprise, here's this passage or what, whatever it may be. Yeah, you should totally come to church prepared. That would be such a, such a small and yet meaningfully significant thing to do, because then you come and you're ready. Your mind is ready to get there. Sometimes we get there and we're just. We're just not physically like physically we're present, but we're not mentally ready or emotionally ready. I mean, there's just so many pieces that have to fit in place for us to kind of really click in. It'd be such a good thing for you to do. It would be. In fact one of the things that we're talking about this morning, and so it's too late unless you get up and listen to this super early. But this morning in our men's breakfast, we meet over at IHOP is the discipline of church and being engaged in church and in men leading that. So one of the things that, that They talk about here that Hughes, our Kent Hughes is the author of the book talks about is that taking this from the book of Hebrews, the idea that we encounter the angels when we're at church, which is unique something that we don't often think about, but he talks about how the angels are present in our singing and he quoted somewhere. I'm looking for it here and I'm struggling to find it. If you had this on Kindle, you could just. Command F. Boom, I've got it, George Herbert, the works of George Herbert, everybody's favorite author. Anyways, he has this quote, and he wrote back in 1838, he said, Sundays observe the angels music, therefore come not late. The angels music he's talking about when we're worshiping God on Sunday mornings, that there's angels present with us. Is that what he said? That's what Herbert said. Say that again. Sundays observe the angels music. Therefore come not late. Sundays observed the angels music. Yeah. So are they singing with us? Is that what he's saying? Yes. And he's talking about that. When we come to the body of Christ, we come to enumerable angels and festal gathering that the quote from Hebrews there. And so he goes on to talk about how angels are present in the, in our midst as we're worshiping, which is something that is a little different. We don't often think about there being angels in our midst as we're worshiping the Lord, but. You sound like a charismatic right now. Hey, speaking of You should show up on sunday and see what we're going to say about some of that Wow, are you going to open up the floodgates? All I was trying to say was hey show up on time And show up on time because you don't want to miss what he's about to say. We're going to be a whole different church Guys, we're joining the assemblies of god. We're just going to tell you now. Hey, you know, that's where I started. I guess that's what i'm finishing you know the song who is it matthew west he's got the song don't stop praying You I don't know that song. Okay. I know the gobble gobble song. Yeah. So he wrote a spoof on his song. Don't stop praying. That's don't stop slaying. And it's written at the younger generation, but we could just use that as don't stop slaying in the spirit as we're going to go charismatic all of a sudden. All right. Yeah. Anyways, all I was trying to say is, Hey, be a church and be a church on time. Sometimes we think being a church on time means showing up by the time the sermon starts. That's not being a church on time. Being a church on time is, is getting there in time to be able to get, if you've got kids, get your kids dropped off over in our kids ministry. Getting into the auditorium, grabbing your cup of coffee, whatever it is, sitting down and being ready to go. When our service starts, that's, that's important. We need you there. And it's not just important because pastor Rod doesn't want to play guitar and sing to an empty room. He doesn't, but it's, it's more than that. It's. The corporate gathering is important. It's just that it's the corporate gathering and you have a place in that. And when the room is, is full and when people are there, when people are singing together, like you probably notice a difference in the way it feels in the room from the first song, when people are still kind of trickling into the song right before the sermon, when everybody's there and they've had a moment to kind of engage and focus. When people are singing it makes a huge difference and I'll even add to this I was just talking to some of our true north student ministry leaders a couple days ago now when this airs that it matters even where you sit that we like having people closer because we can see you and we can gauge better how you're reacting to what we're saying and You know, there was a time when the first two or three or six rows of our setup were basically empty. Yep. That's hard. That's really hard to do. So, I mean, not only showing up on time, but even where you sit, where you posture yourself is also going to be something helpful as well. So I would keep those in mind as you prepare to show up to church to Sunday. Yeah. And my wife was super lonely because she would sit up in the front row by herself. But some other people have joined up front, so that's good. And we appreciate that. Yeah, we do. Hey, let's jump into our reading today. Exodus 27 25 God here gives Moses instructions regarding the tabernacle and its contents. First section here in chapter 25 gives instructions on receiving offerings from the people for the construction of the tabernacle. Second section then deals with the Ark of the covenant, what it was to look like, what it was for. And then the third section really dives into the table for the bread of the presence. And then the final last part there deals with. The lamp stand that was going to illuminate the tabernacle. So a lot of of measurements, a lot of details here, but a couple of points to to note here, X is 25 to, this was a free will offering in the sense that whoever's heart was to move them. That was the one that should bring the contributions for the tabernacle. So this was not laid upon the entire nation as you have to bring these things. This is. Those who desire to contribute to what we're doing here, bring it, bring it forward. And that's, that's different. And I think it's, it's worth note here. That's different than what we do on Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings, what we do is, is not a free will offering as much as it is obedience to what God commands us to do as, as believers, followers of Christ. We are called to give. And so we do that. And we do that because it's, it's part of the way that God has laid out the parameters for worship. This is unique. This would be akin to, you know, you know, If we were at some point in time to do a building campaign and we would say, Hey, we want you to continue to give like you normally do on Sunday mornings as part of your worship. But then we're going to do a building campaign because God has secured this land for us or whatever. And so as, as your heart moves you, we would love for you to give above and beyond your normal giving to be able to support this. But that's not something that God is going to lay on every single person and say, you have to give towards the building campaign. Would you say then that second Corinthians eight, seven applies to this? To the Christian that is each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. Therefore, if I do not feel cheerful in my giving, I should not do it because God loves a cheerful giver and I'm not supposed to give under compulsion. So you're telling me I'm supposed to give you just told me this is not the same thing that I'm reading in chapter 25 here. This is a free will offering. So should Christians give when they don't want to? Yes. Yeah, and that's I think you said second Corinthians eight, seven, I think it's nine, seven. That's what I said, nine, seven. You just, you just heard eight. I was looking forward and you heard eight, seven. That's not what I said. Yeah. So this is talking about an offering that they were taking out for the support of the other churches. This is not talking about the same thing that's, that's taken place. And again, on a weekly basis on Sunday mornings, when we give to what the Lord is doing in the church. And so here this is, yeah, this is, Hey, if, if, if we've got a building project building campaign, something like that. You know, we want your motives to be right in your giving. And that's what I think Paul's really driving at here. We don't want you giving so that you'll be noticed by someone else or giving so that the pastors will glad hand you or giving so that this, that, or the other thing will, will take place. But our weekly worship, just like when you show up, it's, we don't show up at church and go, well, my heart's not really in it. And I don't feel like it. So I'm not going to listen to the sermon today. I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to sing the songs today. I'm not going to, it's part of our worship. It's part of what we do. There are times where we have to examine our hearts and figure out what's going on. But it's always going to be better for you to show up at church than not show up at church. Even if your heart's not in it, it's better for you to be with God's people and in the way of him working on your heart than to not show up at all. And I would say the same thing when it comes to the obedience of the act of giving is better to give than to not give because again, an expression of our worship. I agree with that. Well, from there he goes into the, the arc. So this arc is, is basically a rectangular box about four feet long, two feet deep, two feet tall. It's set aside and set apart. And this is going to be a common theme with a lot in the tabernacle as holy or consecrated, which is what that word means. Set apart, made holy. It was not to be touched or carried where it's going to be, you know, Transported by poles. And that's going to factor in much later on with King David and Uzziah and a bunch of other things as well. On top of the ark, you have the mercy seat. That's the place where God's God's presence would show up. The glory of God would meet with the priest. They're at the mercy seat between the wings of these churban, these angels that are also going to be adorning the top of the ark as well. So the ark is made here and the ark is going to reside there in the in the tabernacle. The, the bread table in verses 23 through 30. This table just there to hold the bread was impressive in and itself. In fact, so much so. It was taken by Anta as the fourth in the Romans in 70 AD when, when Anta is conquers Rome in 70 Ad they, they spare this table because of how ornate and beautiful it was. And the show bread that's placed on top was an offering, but also would be eaten by the, the priests throughout the the week there. The Menorah then, or the lamp stand versus 31 through 40 provided light for the tabernacle. So chapter 25, kind of giving these instructions for the, some of the components in the tabernacle. I haven't seen any recommendations on my timeline for this. That is Facebook or something like that, where, what we experienced in Aliso Viejo, well actually it wasn't Aliso Viejo, it was in San Diego. We had the tabernacle experience where they set up a life size tabernacle and they put the furniture together in there. That was obviously not exact, but an approximation of what they think it looked like. If you ever have a chance to do that, that is so cool. So helpful because you get the size, the scope of it, and there's a walking audio tour. So you wear some headphones and they take you through each of the furniture in the tabernacle. They take a little, a little bit of Liberty with how they describe some of the furniture and what they represented. For instance, we're not talking about. What the table of the bread really symbolized probably some kind of communion with the 12 tribes. There was 12 pieces of bread there. So that's what we assume is taking place there. Now, but it's really cool. If you ever have the chance to do something like that, the tabernacle experience, I think is what it was called. If it's ever in the area, you should totally go. So it appears as I'm Googling about that, that it. It's permanent location is in Utah. Oh, they've got it set up in Utah. Let's take a trip to Utah It's probably the Mormons that might be behind it. That would be interesting I don't think they were because when they were walking us through the audio to one that yeah They never once quoted the Book of Mormon. Okay, and they never they're not wearing name tags like the Mormons They have a very distinct branding. So I don't think it's those guys. Okay Well, there's one in Utah at least so maybe it was on a traveling Yeah. Traveling schedule. Wow. I was mad about that. Huh? That doesn't look like the same website I went to, but if, yeah, if anything like it comes nearby, you should go, you should go. I don't, it was like a, I don't know, took my son's, it was probably, I don't know, maybe under a hundred bucks. Yeah. It was worth it. Yeah. Helps the Bible come alive. It does. Chapter 26. Then we get in this chapter instructions for the constructions of the tabernacle. And so it includes instructions regarding materials, dimensions, layout. It also includes directions for the veil, which would separate the Holy place from the most Holy place where the arc that we just talked about would be placed. And so a lot of times you think the temple and the Holy of Holies. Well, that Existed in the tabernacle as well. The veil was there in the tabernacle as well. And the veil, anytime you read about the veil, it should throw our minds all the way forward to the new Testament and the cross when Jesus dies in the veil, that's in the temple at the time. tears from top to bottom as a symbol of God opening up the access between humanity and him through Christ. Because as the writer of Hebrew says, he is our faithful high priest who holds his priesthood permanently. And therefore he's able to save us to the uttermost since he always lives to make intercession for us. So the veil, all of these things, as we get in here, we're going to get into more of it, even in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, when you feel Man, this just seems to be separating me so far from God. As I read all of these rules and restrictions and regulations, let it make you that more grateful for the cross and for the access to him that you have today. And then ask yourself, am I taking advantage of that? If, if somebody like the, these Israelites during this time period, if they had the same access to God, the same freedom to pray, the same freedom to worship in the same freedom to, to have his word in their hands. What would they do? How would they're there? They interact with those things. I'm often convicted by that. Just the weight of the privilege that we have in where we are in even just history right now and how good it is for us to be able to have access to the word of God. Yeah, you probably would do well to read through some of these chapters more slowly than you would otherwise want to. I understand that as you read some of these things, you're like, what is a cubit? How long is that? Why are we reading all these construction instructions, construction instructions? Say that 10 times fast. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard on the reader. It's hard unless you have an insight into what's happening here. And I think one of the things that you have to constantly feel is that God is setting up obstacles between the common person and the holy person. Yeah. There's a, there's a series of things that have to take place between someone who wants to meet with God and the person who actually does meet with God. In this case, the high priest and him only once a year. So all these things are interesting. In fact, one of the things I'll point your attention to is in verse one of chapter 26, you have the cherubim skillfully worked into these tabernacle tent curtains, the cherubim you first get introduced to in Genesis chapter three, you might recall that God establishes these. centuries To guard to guard people in the garden of eden from getting back to the tree of life. This was his mercy So the cherubim first appear in genesis chapter 3 where they're guarding the tree of life and here they are again In exodus chapter 26 where they're guarding God's unmitigated holy presence and so you see a theme The theme develop and emerge with the cherubim and you'll see that all throughout the scripture. So pay close attention to things like that. The cherubim, there are a class of angels and we don't know all about these guys, but what we do know about them is that they play a very special role in God's economy. I think this is what Paul has in mind when he talks about the rulers, principalities and powers in the same way that there are classes of demons. Not all of which that we have names for we don't know all their all their different classes and all our different rankings But we do know they're organized in a similar way God has organizational structures in the angelic realm and the cherubim are one of them You're going to also read about the seraphim later on isaiah chapter 6. There's different classes This is an interesting conversation, but it seems like there's different classes that have different jobs within god's economy So pay attention to those Clues, dig deep in a few of these things, if you, if you so wish, and let the spirit teach you a couple of things about some of these chapters that you might be tempted to look past. By the way, if you have the ESV study Bible and you have it digitally even better, but even if you don't have a digitally, if you go to Exodus 26, one in your ESV study Bible there will be a great graphic diagram of the tabernacle. And so you can take a look at that and kind of see the artist rendition rendering of what it looked like in it. Cause it's hard to picture these things. It is not only the distances, but okay. But what was the shape and what was covering what and everything else? And there's like a cutaway of it. That's just super helpful. So X is 26 one. If you go there in the ESV study Bible, you can get to that diagram. chapter 27, then we get to the construction of the bronze altar. The bronze altar is, this is where the burnt offerings are gonna be offered. This is where we have the, the the, the aroma that would go up to the Lord, that the Lord would find soothing. This is where all of the, the good smells would've come from as these animals are being offered on a regular basis there. The sin offerings, the offerings of atonement, the, the burnt offerings, all these taking place on this bronze altar. So here's the instruction for this, by the way. This was. This was not small. And that's why it's outside of the actual tent itself. Because this is a large edifice. In fact, when we were in Israel, we got to see a, just a rough outline of the frame of it. It's big. You had to, to get up to it, you would have to walk upstairs to get to this altar. It's not like it's waist high. It's not like your kitchen Island. This thing is, is massive. And it was was on that, that they would offer the burnt offerings as well. It says here it's hollow. Yeah. Does, is there any, so, okay, I guess here's a, here's a question generally speaking about chapters like this, how much significance do we put into this symbolism of it all? For instance, it's, it's hollow. God goes out of his way to describe to Moses that it's a hollow altar. Earlier on in the book of Exodus, he talks about building an altar of earth for him so that it's not, that it's not, Tainted by their human hands Should we look into stuff like this should we begin to make connections? That maybe the bible doesn't explicitly make for us. You sent me one recently about the book of esther, right? How much effort do we put into those connections? And how do we know that we're off course when we are? Yeah, I think we need to Be careful not to press things that your safest places when the New Testament makes the connection for you. When the New Testament looks back at the Old Testament and says, Hey, here's the connection. There's more than that, but that's where we're on the most solid ground regarding the altar. I think it's hollow because this was meant to be a mobile edifice. So if you take a bronze altar and you don't make that thing hollow. That nobody's going to be able to lift that up unless everybody Samson with the strength of, of the, the massive, you know, muscles and everything else like that, to be able to move it, this had to be hollow in order for it to be transported with the Israelites as they, they went along. And so I think for the purposes at hand, that's why this bronze altar is hollow. Totally. I think there's a bit of art and science described here where God gives them instructions, specificity about what he's looking for, but there seems to be a great deal of freedom in how they designed it, even though there's specific instructions. Yeah. Yeah. In the playground in the sandbox, God gives him a lot of freedom to artistically design it, which is where a holy ab and bezel. I'll come into play. Who will come into play soon. And by the way just in case you're not prepared to see this and just a few chapters, basically everything you're reading here is going to be restated because they're going to do exactly what he tells them to do. So you're not going to be. You're not experiencing deja vu. It's there on purpose. Yep. Yep. Yeah. The, the illusion that you were talking to, no pun intended was pointed out by a guy that I follow on, on social media. It doesn't matter who. He's, he's a brilliant mind and a great theologian, but he, he, I think goes too far. And here's the example. He's, he went back to Esther, and when it talks about Haman and the i, the idea of the, the shout to hang him regarding Haman and, and, and then he. It makes the point that in the Septuagint, the word for hang there is comes from the Greek word. That is the word for crucify. So in the new Testament, when you get people shouting out at Jesus, crucify him, that there's an illusion somehow there in Esther to that as an event that is going to be a fulfillment of this shouted at Haman to say, hang him. And the point he made is, is Haman was ironically hung on gallows that he prepared himself or that he made himself. And in the same way, Christ would be crucified on a gallows. On a cross that he was as the creator of all things instrumental in making the tree itself that produced the wood that produced the cross. And so there's a parallel there, but pointed to Jesus as the greater reality because Jesus was sinless. Whereas Haman was guilty for that, that reading with that level. That's why people get paralyzed when they come to the Bible and they go, well, I, there's no way I would have ever seen that. So why bother even trying that? Right. Right. That's going too far. I think that's, that's trying too hard to find something with one word in a translation of the Hebrew, not even in the original itself. And to make it a connection point like that. So I think when you look at something like this, I think that the Occam's razor, the simplest interpretation is usually the best interpretation. I think we look at this and give it their mobile and they've got to be able to carry this thing. And otherwise it'd be massively heavy and unbearable. Rest of 27. Then we find the command for the, the court of the tabernacle and then the final command that the people were to bring all of oil to provide fuel for the lamb stand. And so again, that the people are to participate in this, this is ownership that God wants his people to have. And so the court of the tabernacle is going to be set up around the, the, the holy building in the middle there. And all of this again is, is meant to be mobile. And so they're, they're going to be carrying this and, and taking it with them throughout the, the wilderness wanderings. Let me pray and then we'll be done with this edition. God, thanks for your word. Thanks for its simplicity in so many ways. We when we do bump up against things we can't understand, which does happen and it happens even often, especially in this portion of the old Testament, it's hard sometimes for us to understand this. Give us Perseverance and endurance. I pray for our people as we are doing this Bible reading plan that nobody would tap out, that nobody would grow weary of reading through these instructions and that they would even say, okay, God, why do you have these here? What are you trying to show us here with the detail and everything else that you have? And so help us to have mind sharp enough to be able to grasp some of these contexts or, or even to go to our resources that we have, whether it's a study Bible or to write in a question Lord help us to, to dig and not grow weary and just give up. Because we want to continually be growing and through your spirit, as we even talked about last weekend, you will help us and enable us to understand more things. And so God, we pray that you would do that in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Speaking of men, don't forget to register for men's Bible study tomorrow morning. There's still time and join us tomorrow morning. Cause we're talking about being above reproach, irreproachability, irreproachability. That's more fun to say. There you go. Tomorrow morning, be there, man. Keep reading the Bible's tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Bye.

Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a like, leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.