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.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Have you ever considered how carefully I craft things with My Word? By the Words of My mouth the heavens were made, and by My breath their host. I framed the world with My Word and everything in it and beyond it also. And I watch over My Word to perform it. I tell you to meditate on My Words day and night and not to them depart from your sight. You know that My Words, therefore, must be important. They are not idle words, but your very life. There is life in My Word.
I gave you a divine timeline and I gave it to Moses, who, in turn, has shared it with you. Leviticus 23. And I would like to share with you how it exactly fits to the Tabernacle, My dwelling place among the Israelites as they came across the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land. I took them out of Egypt that I might dwell among them, out of the place of slavery to the freedom of covenant connection. I had planned for the construction of the dwelling place for many years, I told Abraham (then Abram), “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.” Genesis 15:13-14. And I told Moses the same: “I will grant this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house, articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and daughters. Thus you will plunder the Egyptians.” Exodus 3:21-22. And that is exactly what happened. Exodus 12:35-36. And they came out laden with silver and gold and not a feeble one among them. Psalm 105:37. All healed, free, and blessed. But what was all that wealth for in the desert where actually they got stuck because of unbelief for the next forty years? It was to build My dwelling place. For what I ask, I provide. I gave them the supplies, in fact an overabundance so that they had all sufficiency and enough for every good work, and I gave them skill to make a structure and its furnishings that was patterned on the tabernacle in Heaven and was of such creative design and beauty that it has never been equaled again. And they constructed it in nine months. I bring to birth what I have spoken if you will agree with Me.
I revealed so many things to Moses that he went periods of forty days and forty nights so fascinated and filled with the radiance of My presence that he never even thought of eating or drinking. And I gave him a most amazing revelation that you do well to ponder and learn from.
Let Me begin with the appointed times and walk you through My Tabernacle and it will not even begin to touch all the treasures you can find buried in the plan, but let us start at the beginning of the appointed times.
First comes Passover. This is the entrance, the entrance to the outer court of the Tabernacle, for you can only enter by bringing the unblemished sacrificial offering that sets you free from the slavery to sin and death as your sins transfer to the unblemished lamb and his purity to you. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. That was what broke the yoke and slavery of Egypt and that is the same for you, and it was the same for every person who entered the Tabernacle. There was no other way in and there was no other way to come than to bring a spotless lamb or other designated clean animal as an offering to for your sins and to make peace and reconciliation with Me. It was not your works; it was your unblemished lamb that qualified you; that allowed Me to sanctify you.
So the first appointed time on My divine calendar of your life of salvation is redemption and satisfaction of the divine sentence for sin against you by the blood of the Lamb. It makes you My child and removes the dividing wall of sin that separated us.
The bronze altar at that is at the entrance of the tent is fulfilled in the Cross. On this altar the blood of the sin offering, the peace offering, and the guilt offering were poured and the grain offering burned in fire. Jesus made peace through the Blood of the Cross.
But don’t stop at the cross, enjoying forgiveness, move on toward the Holy of Holies by the new and living way that tore the veil in two from top to bottom and opened to you the way to intimate union with Me. So do not get stuck in guilt and shame at the Cross, move on.
The next feast on the divine calendar starts the very day after the Passover lamb is sacrificed and the blood poured on the altar, it is the feast of Unleavened Bread that goes for seven days, the number of rest. It signifies your new sinless life in Christ and that all your sins are cleansed away by the blood of the lamb and then the washing of water by the Word. This takes you to the bronze laver at the entrance to the Holy Place, the inner court. It is a celebration of redemption and the removal of the yeast of sin that puffed up mankind and filled them with iniquity. But don’t get stuck there, “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” 1 Corinthians 5:7. And what makes you clean after redemption has washed you in the Blood? Jesus told the disciples what cleaned them was the water of the Word. The renewal of your mind by My Word. How do you keep from sin? You walk according to My Word and treasure My Word in your heart.
The next appointed time on My calendar is First Fruits. This is three days after the Passover lamb is sacrificed and during the feast of unleavened bread. When Christ was raised, I raised you with Him and seated you in heavenly places in Him. And on this day, you brought in to the Tabernacle outer court the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He then waved the sheaf before Me for you to be accepted. “And until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. where the grain offering is brought when you bring in the first fruits of your harvest.” Leviticus 23:10-14. It is time to put your mind above where Christ is seated at My right hand and move on to the Holy Place, “but now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:20-22.
The next feast is fifty days after First Fruits and it is Pentecost. It is the day I gave the Law on Mt. Sinai but it was fulfilled in the day the Holy Spirit was poured down from My throne by My risen Son upon the believers. The Holy Spirit is My gift to the church, to those who have received My Son as Lord and received redemption by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus is My gift to all, but the Holy Spirit is My gift to those who have received Him as Lord, His Body, the Church. Why? If you have not been born again your spirit is still dead—of stone—and not a living heart and it is only to a living heart that I can unite My living Spirit. Ezekiel.
But don’t stop in the Holy Place, the inner court. For there you have the Menorah, that is, the Light of the World, and the Bread of the Presence to eat, but it is only in the Holy of Holies, beyond the veil that divides it from the Holy Place, that you hear My Voice and share My life to the full.
The next feast is Trumpets, the blowing of trumpets. What is it about? A call from above to come to Me. An ingathering. You are in the world but not of the world now that Jesus is your Lord and you have become a citizen of Heaven by your adoption to the firstborn. Trumpets announce My feast days. The feast of Trumpets is about a catching away in Me, to meet Me in heavenly realms, entering into it with Jesus Christ. He went to prepare a place for you, He is your forerunner behind the veil into the Holy of Holies. And it is here, at the entrance to the Holy of Holies you find the golden altar of incense where prayers go before the throne in Heaven. But here there are two requirements to enter the Holy of Holies, in the Tabernacle, you could not enter the Holy of Holies without two things: the cloud of incense burning from the golden altar and the blood of the sin offering. Yes, here is the blood and the offering again to sprinkle on the propitiatory—the Mercy Seat to enter. What is this?
This is the appointed time of the Day of Atonement. On that day, the people humbled themselves in repentance for sins committed during the year and the High Priest took the blood of the sin offering into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat seven times to make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. These are believers who were redeemed out of Egypt by the Blood of the Lamb already. But this is what you find in the letter of John, written to believers who have sinned after being born again, for all fall short of My glory, as you well know when you are still in the flesh, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10. On that day also the scapegoat, after the High Priest placed all the sins of the people on its head, was released into the wilderness to die outside the camp. Jesus took your sins, failing, ills and faults on His head and took care of it for you by His death, it is not your fault anymore, it is His, the scapegoat. If you do not believe in Him, you are still in your own sins. Atonement tells you that even if you fall seven times a day, I lift you up again as soon as you repent and return. Proverbs 24:16. If you walk in the Light as I AM is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin. 1 John 1:7.
Passover is being saved and born again. Atonement is what you do after you are born again and fall into sin to stay in the Light. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Romans 5:9-11.
And the Blood of the atonement is sprinkled on the Mercy Seat. It does not stop at the bronze altar.
You are now in Christ Jesus who saves you from the wrath to come.
And now, five days (the number of grace) after the day of atonement comes the joyful feast of Tabernacles. Where you and I dwell together forever and I wipe every tear away from your eyes. It recalls how My people camped around My dwelling close to Me on the way to the Promised Land as we spent the years in the desert. But soon it will be much more glorious a dwelling. Behold My dwelling shall be among you forever as My Heavenly City descends to join Heaven and earth, new heavens and a new earth free from the curse. But even now, you, with your High Priest Jesus and His eternal blood on the Mercy Seat, in the cloud of prayer, are ready to come with confidence to the throne of grace and receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16. And there you will worship in the peace of the Holy of Holies where we can fellowship undisturbed in heavenly places in Spirit and in truth — WORSHIP IS A CONTINUOUS FLOW OF LOVE AND HONOR BETWEEN US WHERE WE VALUE EACH OTHER AND EACH FINDS THE OTHER PRECIOUS. Welcome to life beyond the veil.
I love you. I show you things, treasures hidden in the Tabernacle. And now you are My Tabernacle where I dwell. The Kingdom of God is within you, accessed by the Spirit.
Now even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place. Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat; but of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
Now when these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle performing the divine worship, but into the second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:1-12.