by David Scott Robertson
"Set up this Tabernacle according
to the design you were shown on the mountain….Be careful to build it just as you were shown on the mountain." (Exodus 28:30; 27:8)
I love my One-Year Bible. I usually read the Bible through each year and have done so for many years. (This year I'm reading the New Living Translation and it is wonderful!)
I'm making my way through Exodus and today's passage describes, in great detail, the dimensions of the tabernacle. On the surface, it may appear to be tedious reading.
Case in point is the book of Exodus which often reads like a technical manual listing exhaustive directions on precisely how to construct things, like the Tabernacle or the Ark of the Covenant.
As a modern-day Gentile reader, the temptation is to "scan" the text and dismiss it as meaningless detail. For example, how does a Christian in the year of our Lord 2004 benefit from knowing the following information:
"So the entire courtyard will be 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, with curtain walls 7 ½ feet high, made from fine linen. The bases supporting its walls will be made of bronze." (Exodus 27:18)
I think I have a hunch as to why this is relevant to you and me.
The overarching principle that I see in God revealing His plans for the Tabernacle (or the Ark of the Covenant, or the three annual Feasts of Israel, or the special clothing worn by Levitical priests, etc.) is that God reveals His plans to man!
This is a magnificent truth! When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this:
"Across the inside of the Tabernacle hang a special curtain made of fine linen, with cherubim skillfully embroidered into the cloth using blue, purpose, and scarlet yarn." (Exodus 26:31).
The glory of God is embedded in the details! Aren't you glad He paid attention to details when He made your body?
King David knew about details.
"Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things. He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the LORD, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service." (1 Chronicles 28:11-13)
King David was inspired by God to provide the blueprint for God's temple precisely the way God intended.
Cornelius knew about details.
"Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea." (Acts 10:4-6)
Send who? Some of your servants.
To where? To Joppa.
To do what? Bring back a man.
What man? Simon, who by the way, is also known as Peter
He's staying where? With Simon (who by the way, is a tanner)
Where does Simon live? In a house by the sea.
Let me ask a key question again: When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this?
If you want to undertake something great for God, don't you want details like Moses, David, and Cornelius received from the Spirit of the Lord?
Again, God's glory is revealed in the details! He is a great Architect. He is a Master Builder. He is an ingenious Planner.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)
Is God in the business of hiding His plans from hungry hearts desiring to know and do His will?
"Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7)
How, then, do we receive plans from God like Moses, David, and Cornelius did?
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." (Proverbs 25:2)
If we truly want to know the Lord's will concerning a matter, then we can surely obtain it by following the prophet Jeremiah's sound advice:
"Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen here." (Jeremiah 33:3 NLT)
Conclusion: As you read the Bible and start to get "bogged down" wading your way through descriptive passages about civil laws and dietary regulations and territorial boundaries and sacrificial rituals and so on…consider this:
- The details you are reading were extremely important for those whom God was directing to do it at the time to bring about God's will in heaven to the earth on a matter.
- The details provide necessary "types" and "foreshadows" representing things to come for New Testament believers like the "Passover Lamb" in the Old Testament (Exodus 12:21) being revealed as Jesus the Messiah in the New Testament as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
- The details encourage us that God can and will give us explicit instructions of what and how to do something He desires in our lives if we will seek Him for the details.
Finally, and most importantly, know that no detail listed in the entirety of God's Word, no matter how insignificant it may appear, is insignificant. To be sure…
"All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right." (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT)
DSR
2/9/04