Well, one of the ways in which Christianity has been attacked has involved its truthfulness. Many are trying to claim that the Bible is not really true, that it isn't verifiable, that it isn't accurate, that it is essentially a book of religious fables and legends.

But those who say such things must then explain away many clear evidences for Christianity, including how it is that the person of Jesus Christ is presented in such a striking, detailed way throughout the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, in every one of the 39 books, books that were written hundreds of years before Christ was actually born.

There are over 300 Old Testament verbal, detailed, prophetic descriptions covering all phases of our Lord's life and ministry. And in addition to the verbal prophecies, the Old Testament is packed with three-dimensional pictures, objects, events, and personalities that prefigure the coming Messiah in remarkable ways.

Bible teacher A. T. Pierson said that the Old Testament writers added feature after feature and touch after touch and tint after tint, until what was at first a drawing without color, a mere outline or profile came at last to be a perfect portrait with the very hues of living flesh.

When the religious leaders of his own day questioned Christ's identity, He challenged them to search the (Old Testament) Scriptures, for, He said, "they testify of me." Beginning with Moses and the books of Genesis and Exodus, Jesus explained to his followers the things contained therein about himself.

Remember that Exodus was written 1400 years or so before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. What if I wrote a book and tried to describe someone who would live 1400 years from now? I can't even imagine what the world is going to be like 100 years from now, in the year 2100. I can't imagine what the world will be like in 500 years, should the Lord delay his coming. Will the human race still be alive? Will we be populating other planets? Will we be traveling through space? The year 3400—1400 years from now—is beyond even the imagination of most writers of science fiction.

And yet 1400 years before he showed up, Jesus Christ was portrayed in incredible detail by Moses in the book of Exodus. Thus far in this series, we have seen how Christ was seen in advance…

• In the very theme of Exodus itself—redemption

• By the angel of the Lord in the burning bush

• By the man Moses, for God predicted that He would raise up a prophet like Moses from among his brethren, who was to be obeyed

• By the Passover Lamb

• And the Tree that made the bitter pool better

• And the Manna in the wilderness which portended the Bread of Life coming down from heaven

• By the Rock that yielded water when struck by the rod of the lawgiver

• By the High Priest who served as a forerunner to our Great High Priest

Today in this final message, I want us to look at the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Here is a study that could take weeks and weeks to complete, because the ancient Tabernacle is one big, multi-faceted object lesson pointing to Christ. It deserves a much fuller study. But at least today we can hit the high spots, beginning with our Scripture reading from Exodus 40:

All in all, the Bible devotes 2 chapters to the creation of the universe, 4 chapters to the birth of Jesus Christ, but 50 chapters to the planning and erection of this wilderness Tabernacle. The entire latter part of Exodus is devoted to it. There are 13 chapters in Exodus, 18 chapters in Leviticus, 13 chapters in Numbers, 2 chapters in Deuteronomy, and 4 chapters in the book of Hebrews—all related to the Tabernacle.

Why so much emphasis? Because of the way in which every detail of this tent points to Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews says that the Tabernacle served as a pattern for heavenly truth. One scholar said, " Every detail of the Tabernacle points to some aspect of the Person and work of our Savior." Another wrote, "There is no portion of Scripture richer in meaning, or more perfect in his teaching of the plan of redemption, than this divinely designed building."

And John the Apostle himself put it this way: The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we have seen His glory."

Today I would like to conduct a brief tour of the Tabernacle, and then show a few of the more obvious ways in which the life and ministry of Jesus Christ is foreshadowed in this ancient tent.

Going through the gate, you found yourself in a courtyard. Your feet were on sand, for there was no flooring to the Tabernacle, perhaps to remind the people that they were on pilgrimage.

The first thing you would come to would be a huge brass altar where animals were sacrificed and burned. Behind the altar was a brass basin, filled with water for the priests to wash their hands and feet before entering the Tabernacle.

The Tabernacle was portable, so it could be packed away and carried with the children of Israel; but it wasn't an easy job. The Tabernacle itself was made up of three tons of gold, five tons of sliver, four tons of brass, and an assortment of jewels, fine wood, and heavy tapestries. It took 8500 people to transport it. To be perfectly reproduced today, it would cost millions of dollars. I have a book on the Tabernacle published in 1976 which said that the equivilent cost of the Tabernacle would be $10 million, so I suppose today, considering the inflation of the 70s and 80, we'd be looking at $30 or 40 million.

Where did the Israelites get such money? The Egyptians gave it to them as they were leaving. The Bible says that the children of Israel spoiled the Egyptians.

Now what does it all mean? In what way does this Tabernacle teach us of Jesus Christ?

Well, this is where we could spend the rest of the summer. For the sake of brevity, I'd like to point out three things:

First, the purpose of the Tabernacle was provide God a dwelling among men. Exodus 25:8 says, And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. Likewise the great purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ was that God might dwell among men. The angel said, "His name shall be called Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, means "God With Us." And John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt (or Tabernacled) among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." But for God to dwell among us, there had to be a reconciliation made at the cross. So that leads us to the second point of comparison—the placement of the furnishing in the Tabernacle.

Suppose you flew over the Tabernacle and looked at all the items in it. You would find them so arranged as to form a cross. Running East to West would be the Gate, leading to the Altar, leading to the Basin, leading to the door into the Tabernacle proper, leading through the Holy Place and into the Holy of Holies, ending with the Ark of the Covenant. Running perpendicular or crosswise would be the table of showbread on the right and the Menorah on the left. It formed a perfect cross, as though a shadow or silhouette of Calvary had been cast across the very arrangement of the furnishings.

Third, there is the poignancy of each item of the Tabernacle, for each of the furnishings represents a different aspect of Christ's life and ministry. There are several of these that I'd like to briefly point out today.

If you were standing outside the Tabernacle, all you would see surrounding the dwelling place of God's presence would be a sea of white linen. The fence around the Tabernacle courtyard was made of white linen suspended from silver rods attached to sturdy poles that were set into brass sockets. This expanse of white purity surrounding the presence of God represents the Lord's stainless holiness and purity. We are all on the outside of that, and we are separated from God by the blinding purity of His holiness, compared to which all our righteousness is but filthy rages. How, then, can we ever come into God's presence? How can we ever know him as our friend and helper? We cannot climb over the fence, we can but enter through the one and only door or gate.

And Jesus Christ represents that door. He said in John 10: "I am the door." The more modern translations accurately say, "I am the gate." He said, "The one who does not enter by the gate but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber… I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved."

Now, if we had been among the Israelites when the Tabernacle was standing in the desert, and if we had gone through the gate, we would have noticed that it was actually a thick, rich, multi-colored curtain, and thus set apart from the white fence on either side of it. Exodus 27:16 says, For the entrance to the courtyard, provide a curtain twenty cubits long, of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and finely twisted (white) linen…

These four colors have obvious meaning. The white, as we have seen, represents the purity of Jesus Christ, he was sinless and blameless, the perfect man. Purple was the color of royalty, representing the Kingship of Christ. Blue is the color of heaven, representing the Lord's heavenly origin. And scarlet… what do you think the scarlet represents? The blood of Christ, shed for the remission of sins.

Entering in through the gate, the first thing you noticed was the huge altar for the burning of the sacrifices. Just to help see the dimensions of it, it was a little larger in size than a king-size bed, being 7-1/2 feet square, and 4-1/2 feet high. It was raised up over an area for the building of a fire, and in the middle was a grate to hold the sacrifices under which the fire burned. It was a little bit like a large, elaborate grill. It was here that the lambs were slain as burnt offerings for sin.

This points, of course, to Jesus Christ who offered himself as the Lamb of God, slain as a burnt offering for the sin of the world. We've never lived in a time of so much sin. I read a review the other day in a London newspaper about a new, filthy, pornographic movie titled "Eyes Wide Shut" starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and I was amazed at how lewd and lustful and evil it was. The director was a man named Stanley Kubrick who died in his sleep while making this movie, and I thought to myself, how terrible to be flung into eternity to face God having just made something like that.

But all of us have lewd and lustful and evil tendencies. All of us produce unholy movies in our minds. All of us are sinners by nature and by choice. Jesus Christ came as the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice, to atone for our sins and to bear our guilt and punishment. That is the first stop along the way into God's presence.

After walking around the huge burnt altar, we come to a large basin, made of brass and filled with water. It was a place of washing. The priests were commanded to wash their hands and feet here before entering the holy place. This is a picture of the mercy and blood of Christ in cleansing the believer from the sins he commits after he is saved. It is a picture of daily cleansing. Do you remember when Jesus was washing his disciples' feet in John 13, and Peter said, "Lord, wash me all over." Jesus said, "He who has had a bath does not need to be washed all over, but only his feet." In other words, when we come to Christ we are bathed in his blood and forgiven of all our sins. But as we make our way day by day through this world, our feet get dirty. That is, we fail and falter sometimes, and we disappoint God with our attitudes, activities, and words. This doesn't jeopardize our salvation, but it does hinder our fellowship with God. And so we daily confess our sins and find daily cleansing. 1 John 2 says, "My dear children, I write these things so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one."

There is one very interesting added detail about the basin. According to Exodus 38:8, it was made from the brass looking glasses (mirrors) given by the women as freewill gifts. The lesson seems to be this: We tend to be very concerned about the way we look, spending millions of dollars on makeup and matters relating to our outward appearance. But by asking the women to give up their mirrors, God was perhaps saying, not that we should become unkempt and untidy, but that we should be much more concerned about our spiritual cleanness and beauty before the Lord. Someone said, "If we gave us just a little of the time spent in washing and beautifying our skin, and spent that time washing and beautifying our souls, we could see lives transformed overnight."

Passing by the laver or basin, we next come to the tent itself, the Tabernacle. Entering the door, we come into the first room—the Holy Place. Here the priest saw three pieces of furniture. On the right was a table on which were twelve loaves of bread. This represented Christ as the Bread of Life that came down from heaven to sustain and nourish his people. Across the room on the left was the seven-branched candlestand, representing Christ as the light of the world. And directly in front of him was the altar of incense. Here incense was burned, the smoke mingling with the prayers of the priests. This represents Christ's role as our High Priest, making intercession for his people as we talked about last week.

Beyond the altar of incense was thick curtain, a veil, and beyond that veil was the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place where only the High Priest could enter, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement. It was shaped as a perfect cube, 15 x 15 x 15, representing God's perfection. You might recall that in Ephesians 3, Paul speaks about the perfect cube of God's love, its height and breadth and length. In Revelation 21, the city of New Jerusalem comes down out of the new heavens and it is in the shape of a perfect cube, 1500 miles in all directions.

This represented the dwelling place of God on earth, and inside this Holy of Holies there was only one piece of furniture—the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the ark was the broken law of God, and the lid to the ark was called the mercy seat. Rising up from the mercy seat were the images of two angels. And we're told that the presence of God dwelt between those angels.

Once a year, the High Priest of Israel entered the Most Holy Place and sprinkled the blood of the Passover Lamb on the mercy seat that separated the broken law from the holiness of God, and thus made atonement for the sins of the people.

The book of Hebrews, in explaining the typology of this, wrote: When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption… (Hebrews 9:12).

This is why the moment Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple was suddenly rent from top to bottom, allowing us access through his blood into the presence of our Almighty Friend.

We've only scratched the surface of the teachings about the tabernacle. There are a thousand details here, and lesson upon lesson to discover. But it all comes down to this. God has told us in every way imaginable about his love for us. He has pictured it for us in picture after picture and in type after type. He even constructed a tent in the wilderness to outline for us the whole redemptive process. It only remains for us to believe and receive. Someone once put it like this: