Listen to the audio above while reading the transcript below (also available to download in Word at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com)
As we come to look in the word let me share a Bible verse. Psalm 119:25, “Quicken me according to Thy word.” I want to call attention to the fact that it’s “quicken me” and it’s not “quicken the word”. The Word is already alive, and it’s quick and it’s sharp and it’s powerful. The Word is already alive, but we need the Lord to put Life in us, and we are the ones that need to be quickened and made alive. No matter how long you’ve walked with the Lord, I know it will be your testimony as it is mine, often there is a lot of spiritual deadness. Sometimes He gives revelation, and that’s when you learn a new truth about the Lord. Sometimes He gives quickening, and that’s when He revives an old truth. Whether we need revelation or quickening or both, let’s commit our time to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we thank You this morning that You’ve put into our hearts the indwelling Holy Spirit. We know it’s His ministry to ever turn our eyes to the Lord Jesus. We thank You, Lord, that we have such a Bible Teacher living in our heart. We ask You to unveil the Lord Jesus in a fresh way and quicken us according to Your Word. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We welcome you to our meditation on our Lord Jesus in the record of Exodus through the book of Exodus. I’d like to review what we’ve been looking at for the past couple of sessions. We’ve begun our look at the tabernacle which is the last picture in the book of Exodus. Although we’re studying the tabernacle section, I called attention to the fact that God says now in chapter 25, “Let’s begin the tabernacle, but let’s not begin with the tabernacle.” I called attention last time to Exodus 25:10, “They shall construct an ark of acacia wood, 2 ½ cubits long and 1 ½ cubits wide and 1 ½ cubits high.” God did not begin the study of the tabernacle with the building of the tabernacle. He began with a piece of furniture called the ark, the Ark of the Covenant. The sanctuary, which is the building part of the tabernacle, with its holy place and it’s Holy of Holies, was to be built around that one piece of furniture.
Why is that? It’s because that piece of furniture was the symbolic picture of the throne of God. The ark was a picture of the throne of God. It was patterned after an oriental throne. It had a seat. It was a box, and it had a golden seat on it, and on the sides made from that same piece of gold was hammered out on each end a cherub, an angelic being. Over the top of the seat the angelic beings, the cherubim, joined their wings, and that became a picture of the throne of God with the beautiful arms and the canopy over the top. It had to be carried by a pole overlaid with gold, and only by the holy priests. No one else could touch the ark, or even look into it. It was a picture of the throne of God.
Let me give these two verses from Psalms, Psalm 80:1, “Give ear, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth.” He’s enthroned above the cherubim, beneath the actual King, is the picture of His throne. And then Psalm 99:1, “The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble; He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake!” It was fitting in the mind and purpose of the Lord that everything be constructed around the throne of God. If you take the reality, everything is built around the Lordship of Jesus Christ, His Kingship. He’s the King. We discussed how in the throne there were those three items. There were the Ten Commandments, because in the Lordship of Jesus there’s everything I need for obedience. In that throne there was the golden jar of manna, illustrating provision. Everything I will ever need for provision is found in the Lordship of King Jesus. In that throne there was the budding rod, twig, dead stick of Aaron, and it pictures fruit out of death. Everything I ever need in my life to be fruitful is found in Jesus in the Lordship of Jesus in the Kingship of Christ.
Last week we looked at the ark of God, the throne of God, and we took you on a little journey because the throne of God was on the move. The Ark had a destination; it was heading someplace. The ark had a goal. We need to keep going from the picture to the reality. The ark was on the move and had a destination. The ark is a picture of the Lord. The Lord is on the move, and He has a destination. The same destination that was pictured in the ark is pictured now in the Lord. Exodus 25:8 just expresses the Lord’s heart, “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.” Right away you see the heart of the Lord. He wants to dwell among His people.
This is the first time in the history of the world that the Bible has expressed God’s desire to dwell with His people. In the Garden of Eden, and don’t forget now at this point we’re about two thousand five hundred years into human history. Man has been on this planet a long time, and God never said, “I want to dwell with man,” not in all that time. In Genesis 3:8, “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” but that’s not dwelling. That’s just showing up in the afternoon. Then we read in Genesis 18:1 about Father Abraham, “The Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heart of the day.” The word is, “visit.” The Lord visited His people many times, but He doesn’t want to just walk in the cool of the day, and he doesn’t want to just visit you from time to time. He said, “I’m going to build a sanctuary so I can abide, so I can dwell. I want to live in and with My people, not just once in a while, but I want to live in a house made out of skin, and I want to fill that skin with My glory, and I want to establish my throne, and I want to rest in that house of skin.”
It’s wonderful that the goal of the ark, that the Lord Jesus wants to abide with us, but as we began to see last week, to arrive at that goal, God abiding in man, manifesting Himself through man, there was a process, a journey, and God in picture form pictured by the ark moving, God took us on that journey. In order for God to abide with His redeemed people He’s going to work in their lives to bring them to rest. They are going to have to rest, and He’s going to work in their lives so He can find in them a resting place for Himself. Numbers 10:33, “They set out from the mount of the Lord three day’s journey, with the ark of the covenant of the Lord journeying in front of them for the three days, to seek out a resting place for them.” That’s part of the journey; God wants you to rest in Him.
And then the ark was moving toward the second part of that journey. Psalm 132:8, “Arise, O Lord, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength.” And then He expressed it Himself in Psalm 132:13-14, “For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. ‘This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell for I have desired it.’” That’s the Lord speaking. He wants us to rest in Him, and He wants the privilege of resting in us. As I showed last week, for God to reach that goal, that ark didn’t arrive at the resting place overnight. It took a long time, and as I expressed it last time, a very bumpy road for the ark.
I think many of you have heard my testimony. I’m not going to give it now, but just to say that I came, I always want to say that I came to know the Lord, but when did He start knowing me? It was before the foundation of the earth. It was discovered to me in 1958 and how patient the Lord was in my life. As I look back over those early years, my, my, I certainly was not at rest, and I’m quite sure the Lord was not at rest in my life, but He didn’t give up on me. At that time, I was the Lord of my life; I was king, and it was my kingdom. I had my own plans. I had plans for my life and for my vocation and for my family, and my will was a million light years removed from thinking about, “I wonder what God has for me.” I wasn’t thinking about the will of God. I had no problem about being religious. I was going through the forms and singing the hymns and going to church and passing out tracks, and all of that kind of thing, but the whole idea of God abiding in me, living in me, a tent made out of flesh and that God would want to live in us, I had my own will. But God was patient, and it seems like the history of my life followed pretty close to the history in the Bible of Israel when that ark had a very bumpy road. Before I ever offered Him crown rights in my life, He was already King, but He was waiting for me to acknowledge it.
I’ll tell you, I had my high places, like they had their high places, and I presumed on His goodness, as they presumed on His goodness, and I neglected Him, and there were seasons when I lost Him altogether, at least the sense of His indwelling presence. I treated Him irreverently. I thought that I could help Him. I thought He needed me. I was there to support His throne and to take it forward. I went through all of those things. I went through the motions and mechanics and so on, and for a long time I lived under Philistine mentality, and I tried to do things man’s way. But the Lord persevered, and since 1958 He finally began to open my eyes to the absolute futility, or stupidity, of ruling my own life. If you haven’t seen that yet, the Lord is in for a bumpy ride.
The great change began for me, I’m not going to say I arrived, because I haven’t arrived. God is still working and often has a bumpy road, but I began in 1965 to recognize the importance of letting the One who purchased me, who bought me, who owns me, to yield up to Him His own property. You are not your own; you belong to Him, and He has the right. 2 Chronicles 5:14, “So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.” I remember in 1965 when God graciously brought someone into my life to explain the indwelling Christ, how the glory of God filled me, and for the first time I went out, the glory came in and I went out. At that time, I just settled it, “Lord, I just want Your will, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I just want Your will.” And I’ve been back and forth since, and I think we all have. I think I gave the Lord a lot of grief before I came to that place.
The question might be asked, since God has an ark and He won’t start building until that ark is in its place, do I have to wait until God brings me to rest, or until God comes to rest in me? Do I have to wait until then before God starts building in my life? Was He building from 1958 to 1965? Do I have to wait? The answer is no, you don’t have to wait. Here’s why. Colossians 2:6, “Therefore, as you’ve received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” As you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, the King, the ark, when you got saved you received a Person, you received King Jesus. You didn’t receive primarily a church. You didn’t receive a religion. When you accepted Christ, you didn’t a philosophy of life. When you received Christ, you didn’t receive some system of theology. In a real sense you didn’t even receive the Bible when you received Christ.
Of course, you got a new Bible when you received Christ, but you received a Person, and He came into your life as a Person, not a pie. What do I mean when I say that you didn’t receive Jesus as a pie? Some people really forget that Jesus is a Person, according to Colossians 2:6. Some people divide Him up as they would divide pie. I’ve heard people say, “I know Jesus as my Savior, but it was years before He became Lord.” No, no, when you received Him you received Jesus Christ, the Lord. You received a Person. Some would say, “Well, I know Him as Lord, but He’s not yet priest or counselor.” He’s a Person, and He’s who He is. When you received Jesus, He came into your heart in the fulness of deity, all that He is you have. You have Him as Savior, you have Him as Lord, you have Him as priest, you have Him as Counselor, you have Him as the head of the church, you have Him as a smelter, you have Him as a Potter, you have Him as the Vine, you have Him in all His fulness. Now, you might not be enjoying all that you have, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have it, and I have it. He has become unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. When He came into your life, the moment you said yes to the Lord and He came in, in that moment He started to build. It has to be built around Christ Jesus, the Lord, and then He begins to build. And now He builds your life around the ark, around the throne, around His Lordship.
Hopefully, as we go on, God is opening our eyes so that we realize all that we have when we received Christ. He cannot give you more than He gave you the moment you got saved. The moment you trusted Christ you got everything except one thing, eyes to behold it. You have it all, and the only thing He can give you now is eyes, revelation, show me more of Christ. My Children constantly ask me, “Anything we can pray for?” I always give them the same answer, “Pray that God would open my eyes, that I might see Jesus more clearly.” That’s my only request. Everything else falls into place. As you receive the Lord, so walk in Him, and eventually I promise you this, your eyes will be so opened that you will want to get rid of your own throne and choose His. You’ll come to rest, and eventually He’ll find that He can have a resting place in you, and at that moment you will enter into God’s purpose for you in the history of redemption, because when you’re at rest, and He’s at rest, then begins ministry. That’s when He begins to manifest Himself. All of that is pictured in the tabernacle.
I said as I was meditating on these things I took a slightly different direction, so I think the next one on the sheet that I’ll quote is Exodus 25:12. I’m not going there or to 13 and 14 or 1 Kings 8 or to Jeremiah 3 and I’m not going to Revelation 11. That whole section I’ve rethought, and so we’re going to pick up from there. Two passages are not included; one I’ve already quoted, Colossians, and the other one is Philippians 1:6, “I’m confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” He began a work and He’s going all the way, no matter what a bumpy ride you give Him. I’ll tell you, if you don’t learn it the first time, He’ll drag you through it again. You are going to learn it; we’ve got to rest in Him, and He’s got to rest in us, so that He can fulfill His purpose. He’s going to set up His Kingdom in our life.
That’s where we ended last week in the picture; the ark arriving at the temple in the inner sanctuary, the temple was filled with glory, and everyone was drawn out. As I wrap up this whole idea that He builds around you, I want to give you the testimony of a man. I’m sure you are familiar with him, or you might be. His name is Albert Simpson. He’s associated with the Missionary Alliance Church, him and A. W. Tozer. Anyway, this is his testimony. I’ll read a couple of the verses. This is his testimony on how God brought him.
Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord
Once it was the feeling,
Now it is His Word.
Once His gift I wanted,
Now the Giver own,
Once I sought for healing,
Now Himself alone.
I’ll tell you, he went through a bumpy road to get there…
Once was painful trying,
Now ‘tis perfect trust.
Once a half salvation,
Now the uttermost.
Once ‘twas ceaseless holding,
Now He holds me fast.
Once was constant drifting,
Now my anchor’s cast.
Once was busy planning,
Now it’s trustful prayer.
Once was anxious caring,
Now He has the care.
Once was what I wanted,
Now what Jesus says.
Once was constant asking,
Now ‘tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working,
His it hence shall be.
Once I tried to use Him,
Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted,
Now the mighty One.
Once for self I labored,
Now for Him alone.
All in all forever,
Of Jesus I will sing,
Everything in Jesus,
And Jesus everything.
You get the idea that we’re on a journey and God is on a journey, and we need to enter rest, and He needs to enter rest, and then the work really goes on.
This morning I’d like to get a little closer to the tabernacle. I don’t want to miss the awe of this final picture. I pointed out that in the book of Exodus the story of the tabernacle actually takes up one third of the entire book of Exodus. It’s a book of redemption. As you go through your Bible you are going to study redemption. There is not one thing in any part of your Bible, Old or New Testament, about redemption that is not somewhere included in the picture of the tabernacle. This is all the eggs in one basket in picture form.
As we saw in the first part, the Lord has a passion to bring you and me to rest, and to bring Himself to rest. The second part of His passion, looking at the tabernacle at a great distance, is this; this is the final picture of redemption. Every truth of redemption is in the tabernacle. Why is that important? It’s because you’re the tabernacle; I’m the tabernacle, I’m the temple, I’m the house made out of skin, and it’s God’s plan to put every truth of redemption in your temple; in me. That’s why it’s so important, or else I’ll never be able to say, “I’ve presented the whole counsel of God.” He’s got to put the whole counsel in me first, and that’s the process we’re going to see as God puts redemption into His temple. Finally, after a couple of weeks or however long, once all that’s done, then God said, “Now that everything about redemption is in My temple, let’s show the world,” and then we’ll look at that.
One illustration of how awesome these final chapters are is how many chapters He takes just for this final illustration, one third of the whole book. I speak as a fool, but if
God called me instead of Moses to write Exodus, it would have been at least seven chapters shorter. I’ll tell you why. This was amazing to me. In Exodus 25-31 God gives the details of the Law, the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial laws and all of that. Then there was a little interval of the sin against God with the golden calf. And then picking up again at chapter 34 all the way to the end He goes back to Moses obeying the commands of God. When God gave the commands, great detail about the hooks and the rods and every detail, He gave intricate details chapter after chapter. Then when He comes to Moses obeying, He doesn’t just say, “And Moses obeyed God.” He repeats the details. It’s amazing. Those last couple of chapters, in chapters 39 & 40, the last two chapters, you’ll see on your page how I tried to put it out, sixteen times we have the expression, “just as the Lord commanded Moses.”
I’ll just read the references. Exodus 39:1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 27, 31, 32, 42, 43, chapter 40:16, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32. He gives the detail command again and says, “Just as the Lord commanded Moses, so He did.” I would have seen all the commands with all the details and said, “And Moses obeyed God.” That’s seven chapters. But He repeats the same blueprint, “And Moses obeyed all of the details.” God lays great stress on the tiny details by repeating them twice. I’ve got to admit that it’s tedious reading, and I don’t want to use the word boring. I’ve already confessed to the Lord some parts of His Bible are boring, and He didn’t receive that very well. We ought not to skim through chapters. It’s a temptation to do it. If they meant enough to God to inspire them twice, once in the command, and once in the obedience to the command, it’s important to the Lord. Obedience, by the way, is not general, “I’m generally doing what God said.” Obedience is specific, and here you have it. In that connection, and I don’t think this is on your sheet, Proverbs 16:11, “All the weights in the bag are His concern.” So, God is very specific.
We come now to the second part of the revelation of God’s heart. Now we’re going to begin where He begins to put the truths of redemption into His temple, His tabernacle. There’s not one detail, as I said, that’s going to be omitted in this, either in the structure, or the furniture, or the ministry of the priests, or the clothing, or the annual feasts, or the sacrifices, everything about redemption is here. When I say full redemption, that can become doctrine, so let me say it the right way—Jesus. That’s full redemption. Everything about redemption is in Jesus. Though I might break it down to look at the doctrine, remember this is all in Christ. Every inch of this tabernacle just says, “See Jesus, see Jesus, see Jesus, see Jesus.” He is all through the tabernacle.
What I’d like to do before we go into a detailed look is what I’m going to call a fly over. In other words, I just want to get into the plane, bird’s eye view, and just fly over the whole construction and see what we see. I’m going to fly over this morning and I’m going to fly over, Lord willing, next week, and then we’re going to land the plane, and we’re going to walk through. We’ll look at each piece of furniture, but right now it’s just the fly over. What I’m going to try to show you this morning, begin to show you is in picture form the truth of Romans 3:26, “For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” That the Lord would be just and justifier. Psalm 85:10, “Lovingkindness and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” It seems sometimes like the attributes of God are against one another. God is holy, God is love. God can bring them together. He can be just and at the same time justifier. So, in this first and second flyover I want to just call attention to those two attributes of God. As I fly over, I see God is holy, but the same thing that show me He is holy also tells me that He’s love. So, I want to fly over and show you that He’s holy and He’s love, no contradiction whatsoever. There can be no redemption, and when He puts redemption in your temple, you’re going to see the character of God; He is holy.
It’s not an accident that Exodus 20-24 is a record of the giving of the Law, because Romans 3:20 says, “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” Now through the tabernacle, not only comes the knowledge of sin, but the knowledge of salvation. So, He begins with the Law, but then He moves to this.
The first illustration in our flyover, we’re in the plane and looking down, and the first thing we see all around the outer court is a great fence. I would like to show you that fence. I want you to picture, how large or small, it depends how you look at things, but the outer court, the length of the outer court according to the Bible was 100 cubits. If you take the smaller cubit, it’s about fifty yards, in other words half a football field. So, if you just get that in your mind, a half of a football field. All around the court was a fence. What was that fence made of? Exodus 27:9, “You shall make the court of the tabernacle. On the south side there shall be hanging for the court of fine twisted linen one hundred cubits long for one side.”
That fence was made from fine twisted linen. Don’t read that la, la, la. There’s a word used to describe the tightness of the weave in the flax that was used to make fine twisted linen. The word is pronounced lease, and it’s actually spelled the same way, like a lease on a house or a lease on a property. It’s spelled that way. The singular would be lea, but it’s the word lease. It’s the thread count. The more thread the tighter the weave, the tighter the weave the more valuable the linen.
Let me give an illustration. I read that Queen Victoria’s linen sheets were 600 lease. Now, that’s a very fine linen. You know she would choose the best. Money was no object for Queen Victoria. I also read that the linen of ancient Egypt was 1200 lease, in other words, twice as fine as Queen Victoria’s linen. What did they use this linen for? It was tedious work to spin and to make these linens. It was used for a fence around the outer court. Imagine using for a fence. Before God described the tabernacle, He told the people what it would cost them. Exodus 25:3, “This is the contribution you are to raise from them: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet material, fine linen, goat’s hair, ram skin died red, porpoise skins, acacia wood, oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones, setting stones for the ephod and the breast piece; let them construct a sanctuary for Me that I might dwell among them.” Exodus 35:23, “Every man, who had in his possession blue and purple and scarlet material and fine lien and goats’ hair and ram’ skins dyed red and porpoise skins, brought them.” Verse 25, “The skilled women spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue and purple and scarlet material and in fine linen.” Verse 29, “The Israelites, all the men and women, whose hearts moved them to bring material for all the work, which the Lord had commanded through Moses to be done, brought a freewill offering to the Lord.” It was all freewill; nobody had to do it. They were not forced. They did it because they wanted to. And word came to Moses in Exodus 36:5, “And they said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing much more than enough for the construction work which the Lord commanded us to perform.’” Can you imagine much more than enough? Then in verse 6, “Moses issued a command, and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp, saying, ‘Let no man or woman any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary,’ Thus the people were restrained from bringing anymore.” They wanted to bring even more, not only willingly, but more than enough. They had to be stopped, they were bringing so much stuff.
I wonder if they scratched their heads when the command was for the women to spin and to get that linen, that precious linen, and God said, “Alright, let’s use it for the fence.” Imagine going through that, the work it took to make those things, and use it for the fence! I would think there would be a better use for such fine linen, but they didn’t question it, they didn’t count it a waste. Whatever is given to the Lord is not waste. You remember Judas accused Mary of waste when she poured out that ointment on his feet. They willingly gave fine linen, fine twisted linen for the fence.
I want you to notice how high that fence was. Exodus 27:18, “The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, and the width fifty throughout, and the height five cubits of fine twisted linen, and their sockets of bronze.” The height was five cubits. I think last time I told you if you go in one Bible dictionary and look up cubit you might have one number and you go to another you might have another number. That’s because it was a general measurement. The cubit was a measure from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow, about eighteen inches. That was a cubit, a foot and a half, eighteen inches. The sanctuary cubit was from the tip of the finger to the elbow plus the palm. So, it was a little larger, twenty-one or twenty-two inches. The point I’m trying to make is this, that the fence, depending on the cubit you use, is at least seven and a half feet high. If you use the sanctuary cubit, and my guess is that the ordinary cubit, perhaps they used it, but the sanctuary cubit probably so, because this is the sanctuary, was more than nine feet high.
Picture that fence of white fine linen nine feet high. You couldn’t look over that. No one was that tall. You couldn’t stand on the outside and look in. Nobody was that tall. Why is it pictured in pure white linen? When you think of linen you can’t help but think of Revelation 19:8, “It was given to her,” this is the bride, “to cloth herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” You know there is no contradiction in the Bible, so let me give you another verse describing the righteous acts of the saints. Isaiah 64:6, “All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.” There’s no contradiction there. The righteous acts of the saints in the balance of scripture are the righteous imputed righteous acts of the saints. It’s the righteousness of Christ. That’s what He’s talking about, and that’s what is being pictured by this fence, a huge fence, maybe nine feet high all around, and it’s picturing the righteousness of God, so that you can’t even look in, or if you’re in you can’t look out. It’s a picture of how pure God is.
If that fence had any message, it would say, “Stay out, God is holy. You’re a sinner; don’t you come in here. Just take a look at the fence. It’s white and pure and it’s linen and it’s precious. You can’t come in here. Stay out.” That’s what the fence said, but I want to show the other side of that. The fence had a gate. Let’s look at the gate. The gate, according to the Bible, always faced eastward. In other words, toward the rising sun. No matter where they camped or how many times they took it down, when they set up the gate of the outer court, it had to face east. I’d like to share three truths about the gate, and then we’ll wrap it up. Each one, I think, sheds more light on the other side. God is holy. That’s the fence. God is love and that’s the gate.
First of all, I don’t want you to think about the gate in our mind, we think of a gate, and I think of a wooden gate. My son next door put up a gate. It’s a wooden gate and works on hinges. You open the gate, and you close the gate. Or a door works on hinges. That’s not what this was. You know the door was made of linen. It’s called a screen, and it’s called cunning work. Exodus 27:16, “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen of twenty cubits of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of a weaver, with their four pillars and their four sockets.”
You may wonder if the door didn’t swing on hinges, and if it’s a curtain held up by pillars, it sounds like a shower curtain that could be drawn back and forth, and if it’s a curtain and just hanging there, how did you get in? Why is it called a gate? Well, you aren’t going to find the answer in the Bible because the Bible doesn’t say, so we’re stuck with the commentators. What they think is that the only way in was to lift the bottom and crawl in from underneath. I don’t know if that’s so or not, but you can think about that, and it would be interesting that you have to bow down low in order to enter in.
The first thing I want you to notice is how wide the gate is. The full length of the outer court, according to chapter 27:13 on the east, in other words where the gate was, “The width of the court on the east side shall be fifty cubits,” in other words, seventy-five feet long, if you take a foot and a half, depending upon which cubit you use, it was at least seventy-five feet long. How wide was the door? Exodus 27:16, “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen of twenty cubits of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of a weaver, with their four pillar and their four sockets.” In other words, thirty feet wide. I want you to get the impact of this. The whole wall is seventy-five feet and thirty feet of that is just the gate. That’s out of all proportion of how you build a house. You wouldn’t have a gate take up more than a third of the wall.
Anyway, it’s not accidental that the gate was wide. You have a high wall and a wide gate. The high wall was God saying, “Stay out, I’m holy, you’re sinful.” The wide gate says, “Please come in. I invite you to come in.” That’s why the gate was so wide. One part of the gospel says, “Stay out; God is holy.” Another part of the gospel says, “Please come in; God is merciful, God is love.” We weaken the gospel if we don’t give both parts. We need to give both parts.
One illustration to drive the wideness of that gate into your heart is to contrast it with the door that goes into the holy place. You see, you came through the gate, the big gate, the wide door, and now you’re coming to the holy place into the building. How wide was that door and how high? We have an answer but it’s not in Exodus. You have to do a little moving around. I’ll save you the donkey work and I’ll tell you how we arrive at it. We don’t know how high the curtain was, but the Bible says that the door, the boards that held the curtain were ten cubits. In other words, that door is fifteen feet high. From the outside you couldn’t see over the fence, but you could see the beginning of the building. That was fifteen feet high, and not seven and a half feet high. We know that the width of the door was also the same width. How do I know that? Well, Solomon doubled the dimensions. Solomon gives us the dimensions, twenty cubits. He doubled it, so then we come back and say it was half of that. So, that’s how we know how wide the door was. The door was fifteen feet high and fifteen feet wide. That’s over against the gate, thirty feet. It’s a wide, wide gate. Figuratively speaking God was standing at the entrance of that gate, the tabernacle, the outer court, saying, “Please, come in. I invite you in, if you come in the God-appointed way. Now, in the outer court, as we’ll see in our next fly-over the whole sin question was dealt with. You’ve got to get in first, and then the sin question; we’re going to fly over the altar, and so on. That’s where the sin question is dealt with.
I want to show you something else about the gate. It wasn’t only wide, but it was in contrast to the wall. It was very beautiful. Exodus 27:16, “For the gate of the court there shall be a screen of twenty cubits of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of a weaver, with their four pillars and their four sockets.” The work on making this screen, this gate, this wonderful gate is called the cunning work, and God had to give special gifts in order to make this gate. It was a combination of embroidery and tapestry, not only a spinning of the yarn, but there was needlework involved. There’s a nuance in the original language that would imply stripes, so some people think these colors were just stripes going through this beautiful linen gate. Actually, this is more precious than the very precious linen wall because where did they get the colors? You say they got it from Egypt. Yes, but where did Egypt get it? The answer is that these are the dyed colors from Phoenicia. These are very precious colors, the blue, the purple, the scarlet, the royal colors.
I just want you to use your imagination. How beautiful must have this gate appeared in the rising sun, facing east as the sun came out, this beautiful gate with these beautiful colors interwoven and tied into this. What a beautiful thing it must have been! God is just saying, “Please come in. It’s wide enough for the worst sinner; you’re invited to come in. Come into this beautiful gate. My love is beautiful, and my gospel is very beautiful. Come in and I’ll show you how the sin question has been everlastingly answered.” So, I say that the fence shows His holiness, but it also shows His love. The door was wide, the door was beautiful.
One more point. There’s only one door. There wasn’t more than one gate; only one door, and you know there’s only one door into the reality, and our Lord Jesus, of course, said, “I am the door,” and you can’t enter any other way. I want you to notice, please, that whether you crawled under or moved it aside or however you got in, once you were inside, you were encircled by that which pictured the righteousness of Christ. What once said, “Stay out,” now shuts you in. You’re on the inside surrounded by this wonderful picture of the righteousness of Christ. In a single moment that took place. Being surrounded by the righteousness of Christ is not the work of an hour, or a day or weeks or months or years; it’s immediate.
You’re familiar with the fact that the outer court had no roof, it had no ceiling. There was no skin covering it, so the only source of light was natural light, the light from above, the light from the sun. Once you got into the holy place there was a different source of light; that was all closed in, and there was a seven-pronged candlestick; that was that light. Then when you went beyond the next veil, there’s another source of light, the glory of God sitting on the throne of God. But in the outer court you have entered a place where there’s only natural light. When you first come to Jesus and you crawl under the wide, beautiful gate at His invitation, you’re still thinking like you did before you got saved. It’s all natural like. You can be logical, you can think, but the carnal man cannot understand the things of the Lord. In one sense the outer court as you enter in just pictures justification, and we’ll see going into the holy place it pictures sanctification and going into the Holy of Holies pictures glorification. You’ll see that the outer court, Jesus said, “I am the Way.” In the Holy Place He said, “I am the Truth.” And in the Holy of Holies He said, “I am the Life.” It’s all about Jesus, it’s all about the Lord.
Let me retrace my steps and go back to this. When a person enters that wide gate, that beautiful gate and comes in, he finds himself under natural light. He’s ignorant and he knows nothing. At this point when you first get saved you don’t have a clue about anything spiritual. That doesn’t change the fact that you are surrounded by the righteousness of Christ. It may take years before you come to discover what imputation means, and that you’re imputed with His righteousness, but it doesn’t change the fact that even though you don’t get it, even though you don’t understand it, even though you are living and walking under natural light until you learn these things, you have no power of discernment. All you know is, “I look all around and all I see is holiness, holiness, holiness.”
That’s our first flyover. I wanted you to see the fence, I wanted you to see the gate. The fence, God is holy, stay out. The gate, beautiful, wide, come in, come in, and once you’re in just stand there a moment and look around. You can’t see out there anymore. Everything is new. All you see is the righteousness of Christ. May God help us in this first flyover. We’re going to get back in the plane and we’re going to keep flying and we’re going to fly over the altar and over the laver. I want you to see the big things first. Then we’ll come back and land the plane and we’ll take a walk and go through it step by step.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your precious Word. Lord, we always have to remind our hearts that we may not get it right, and we may just think these things are so, but everything You’ve inspired is so, and so quicken us according to your Word. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.