Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it. Exodus 25:8-9.
They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” Hebrews 8:5.
“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:14-17.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Let us go back to the design of and detailed plan I gave Moses for the tabernacle in the wilderness. And for you now it will be like an Emmaus walk so you can be revived anew. Revival.
I gave very specific and strangely wonderful plans to Moses for the meeting tent also called My dwelling place, sanctuary, and Tabernacle. I told Moses to be very careful to construct it in exactly the way I showed him for every detail of the structure and its furnishings. And I told Moses the reason behind it all: “I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar; I will also consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister as priests to Me. I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God. They shall know that I am the LORD their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them; I am the LORD their God.” Exodus 29:44-46.
Look at the plan of the Tabernacle (dwelling place) and you will see the plan of every person’s life since the fall of Adam from grace, from his birthright. He pulled all of you into the valley of death. But Jesus takes you out as your good Shepherd. Psalm 23:4-6. But the only way your Good Shepherd could get your out, was to lay down His life for you. An eternal life given for the eternal life lost. The burnt offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and He had to take flesh and blood to do it for you, hence the grain offering.
And so it begins: “The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1.
So you start at the only entrance to the outer court of the tabernacle in the wilderness situated at the east side Gate Facing East. There is only one entrance. Jesus is the door. There is no other way to Me than in, through, and with Jesus.
“For the gate of the court there shall be a screen twenty cubits long, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver. It shall have four pillars and four sockets.” Ex 27:16.
There was a wall of white linen around the entire tabernacle area forming a barrier all the way around for 300 cubits (450 feet) except one stretch of 20 cubits (30 feet) that was different. It was known as the Entrance Gate. It was not formed of white linen but was multi-colored in woven white, blue, purple and red and the curtains hung on four strong pillars. The entrance gate clearly marked out the one way by which a sinner could gain access to the court of My house.
You enter through the beautiful tapestry of blue, red, purple and gold, and please note that everything has meaning, the blue represents Heaven, red represents man (“Adam”), and purple is the color of royalty. When the Word became flesh and tabernacled among you, He united God with Man in His perfect being as the God-Man, blue mixed with red and became purple, and the same happens for you, when you receive Jesus as Lord, the Holy Spirit joins with your spirit and you are born again as a new creation in Christ as a royal priesthood, hence represented by purple color. And gold represents My righteousness.
Adam put you all into the valley of death and separated you from Me by the dividing wall of sin. But I promised Adam a redeemer who would crush the devil’s head (authority) over men. And He would have to be born not of Adam’s seed but from the imperishable seed of My Word. “A virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and His name shall be called “God with us.” Isaiah 7:14. The sign of Salvation. He had to have eternal life in His blood to atone for the eternal life you lost. Leviticus 17:11. But to have blood He had to take flesh as Adam did by My Word, so that His flesh was not subject to death, but was the beauty of an indestructible life—an eternal life that He would choose to lay down to pay your debt to divine justice and cancel your sentence of eternal death. “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an indestructible life. For it is attested of Him, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” Hebrews 7:14-17. And Jesus told you the same, after He told you He was the good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep, John 10:14, He said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:17-18. The power and the beauty of an indestructible life (in Greek, ἀκατάλυτος, “akatalutos” which means “indissoluble; not subject to destruction, endless”, no one could take it from Him, He had to lay it down freely).
Do you see why Paul who had divine revelation of the unfathomable riches of Christ wrote, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” Galatians 2:20-21.
And the life is in the blood, so to lay down an eternal life for the eternal life you lost, “Therefore, since the children share in blood and flesh, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Hebrews 2:14-15; Leviticus 17:11 (“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”)
And what was the requirement to enter the outer court of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, My dwelling place? You had to bring an unblemished lamb or other designated clean, unblemished animal from the herd or the flock. Otherwise, you could not enter for as you stepped in you faced the bronze altar, the metal of judgment and the place of atonement. There you would present your unblemished lamb to the priest and he would inspect it to make sure it was unblemished and then you would lay your hand on the head of the lamb and your sins would transfer to him and his purity to you. You then cut the throat of the lamb and drained the blood into a bowl to be poured on the altar and then the lamb was offered on the bronze altar as a sweet-smelling aroma before Me. And if it was other than the burnt offering, which was turned entirely into ashes, the priests could eat the roasted flesh.
Do you see? As written by My prophet Isaiah, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.” Isaiah 53:5-7.
Christ your Passover has been sacrificed. You have been redeemed by His Blood. As it is written: “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1:18-19. And, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:24-25.
But let us journey on with your good Shepherd into the outer court beyond the bronze altar.
Next you come to the bronze laver. To enter further, that is through the next gate into the inner court, you first must wash in the water in the bronze laver. I told Moses, “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base of bronze, for washing; and you shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it. Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it; when they enter the tent of meeting, they shall wash with water, so that they will not die; or when they approach the altar to minister, by offering up in smoke a fire sacrifice to the LORD. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they will not die; and it shall be a perpetual statute for them, for Aaron and his descendants throughout their generations.” Exodus 30:18-21.
Let Me take you back to the night before Jesus laid down His eternal life for you. Are you remembering something? Is the Holy Spirit reminding you? “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.” John 13:3-8. How do you betray Him? By not keeping His Word. Just as Adam did. “For I delight in faithful love rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against (betrayed, acted faithlessly) Me.” Hosea 3:6-7.
Here is the laver and the washing of the feet before you can enter to the inner court, the Body of Christ. But what did He mean that they were already clean? He tells you, just read on, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:3. The Word! “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25-27.
The Laver. The water. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” But Nicodemus replied, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” And Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” John 3:3-6. Jesus is My Word, and the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among you, and you saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from Me, the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14. And “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were begotten, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:12-13.
You see, when Adam turned away from Me to the devil he transferred his citizenship to the kingdom of darkness and the devil became his master, but not only his master, but his adoptive father. Like Esau, he gave up his birthright and his spiritual birth certificate now listed the devil as his father. Jesus told this to the Pharisees who thought that by keeping the rules of the law they were the holiest of men. “They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:41-44. And that is why He told the Pharisees, “You will die in your own sins, unless you come to believe that I AM.” Until you are born again by receiving Jesus as Lord and believing in your heart I raised Him from the dead, the name on your spiritual birth certificate is that of the devil, and that will be your inheritance and your blood line as in all legal adoption. But if by the Spirit of adoption you are born again and My Name now is on your spiritual birth certificate, your vital records will be found in the Lamb’s Book of Life and your entrance to My eternal Kingdom secured. Not by your works but by the finished work of My Son. You have an eternal redemption.
Yes, Paul wrote, “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:3-7. And further, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:27.
You now have the Blood. You have the water. What do I say the three are that testify that you have eternal life? The blood, the water and the Spirit, that is the order of the plan of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, but from the Holy of Holies I see it in reverse order. You come in Spirit and truth to worship (to fellowship with Me in the continuous flow of knowing and honor) but before that came the water and before that the Blood. “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” 1 John 5:5-12. Simple. Just like the plan of the Tabernacle. There was no clutter in there at all. Very few pieces of furniture and you will notice there are no chairs. You are not to stay stuck in any one place, it is constantly moving forward, walking with Me to the promised land of rest. The Israelites got stuck forty years in the desert. Why? They refused to go forward. They did not follow the lead of the Spirit who always guides you to the truth of My Word, and My Words show My way. They saw My works but they never learned My ways. Psalm 95:9-10. They never understood the plan of the Tabernacle.
But you must not be like them. Blessed are your ears because they hear and your eyes because they see, for the mystery of Christ has been revealed to you.
Next stop on the path of the Tabernacle is the Inner Court, and again you enter through a gate with the curtain with blue, red, and purple. You cannot enter without having offered the blood of the lamb and having be born again of water and the spirit. But how can you enter? Enter My gates with thanksgiving, My courts with hymns of praise. Psalm 100. It is the narrow gate of praise and thanksgiving. Adam fell for two reasons: Lack of love and lack of gratitude. He did not love Me which leads to honoring My Word. And He was not grateful for the abundance of things I had given him and the majesty and glory I clothed him with. He heard My Word every day as we walked together in the Garden, but he did not guard it in his heart. He threw it aside as cheap for the word of another. And then what happened next was the result of no love and no gratitude, he blamed others for his unloving and ungrateful behavior. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Genesis 3:12. Be careful about this. “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and he (the enemy) will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.” Deuteronomy 28:47-48.
And now you enter the inner court that only the priests could enter. Your good Shepherd, who loved you and gave His life for you, released you from your sins by His blood and made you a kingdom of priests unto Me, your God and Father. Revelation 1:5-6. “For you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5.
And just as the sons of Aaron to be consecrated as priests had to first lay their hands on the ordination ram and offer its blood on the altar and have it sprinkled on them, and then be washed in the water of the laver, then be clothed in the priestly garments, and then be anointed with the sacred anointing oil and so it is the same with you. Jesus has released you from your sins by His blood, and then the Spirit has baptized you into Jesus by the regeneration of the washing of baptism and the Word, and I have anointed you with the mind of Christ and Jesus has baptized you with the Holy Spirit, and by your baptism you have been clothed in Christ! Galatians 3:27. The garments your great High Priest! And sharing His anointing. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:9-10.
And what do you find in the inner court which signifies Christ’s Body, the Church? The golden menorah and the table of the Bread of the Presence.
But I will speak more about these amazing and strangely wonderful furnishings and what they reveal to you of Christ on another day.
I love you. Learn the lessons of the Tabernacle and you will begin to understand the mystery and the unfathomable riches of Christ. You will come to know your great good Shepherd and your great High Priest for both are revealed in the plan of the Tabernacle.