Exodus 31:12-18 – Sabbath, a day to seek to know God

In the account of creation, we learn that God created everything in six days. On the seventh day, He ceased creating and rested. God honoured that day. This day is referred to as the Sabbath day. We see its importance when at Mount Sinai, God gave it in the Ten Commandments. It is in the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20:8-11 God said, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” If there is one commandment that most people ignore today, it is the failure to keep the Sabbath day holy. It is true that Christians will go to church and join in to celebrate God’s goodness thinking that they had kept the Sabbath. Generally, there is a failure to treat it as a holy day where we cease from needless activities. If there is one day that most people are busier, it had to be on Sunday, which we consider the rest day.   

God attached great importance to the Sabbath. In the book of Exodus, He had repeatedly reminded the people to observe it. In Exodus 16:13, when he gave the Israelites the manna, He commanded that on the Sabbath day no manna would fall for it was a rest day.  Then in Exodus 23:12 this was His words, “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.” Here in Exodus 31, God had put in the Sabbath rest, even as He appointed Bezalel and Oholiab to lead the work of constructing the Tabernacle. Even in the building of His dwelling, God wanted them to observe the Sabbath. If anyone had any excuse why they could not cease from working, it had to be these two artisans. We can see that God’s intention was to ensure that this day is kept holy regardless of the work we are doing. No one should use his or her service to the Lord as an excuse to break the Sabbath. We know that there are important things that must be done on Sunday such as preaching, ministry etc., but they should never be an excuse for us not to keep that day holy.  

In Exodus 31:12-13, we see a new purpose for the Sabbath. God said, “You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” In this verse, we see that keeping Sabbath is a day to promote the knowledge of God. It was a day the people set aside time to know Him.  God is serious about the Sabbath so in verse 14, we see the severity of the punishment He had prescribed for those how broke the Sabbath. Though we don’t put people to death for failure to keep the Sabbath, we can see the seriousness God had attached to keeping the Sabbath. There is an unspoken truth about breaking the Sabbath. It is a subtle way of signalling to God that He is not worth the time. Failure to keep the Sabbath to know God is as good as saying to Him, “You are not so important in my life that I should make that special day to spend with You.”

The reason why Christians consider Sunday as the Sabbath is because it was on that day that Christ our Lord rose from the dead. Hence, Christians have made it a holy day where they will go to church and worship God.  Let us remember to keep the Sabbath holy and to spend it to know God.  

Exodus 31:1-11 – Be enlisted and equipped to build His community

In Exodus 31 we see two persons uniquely called and gifted to be the official artists for the construction of the Tabernacle and all its furnishing. Their special gifts came from God. And besides, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Their names are Bezalel, the son of Uri the son of Hur, and Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach from the tribe of Dan. While Moses was given the pattern for how the Tabernacle and its furniture should be made, he was not the one that would be tasked to do it. He didn’t have the gifts needed to do it. Bear in mind the amount of sewing, embroidery works, building, casting, metal beating, stone cutting, and engraving. Just imagine the skill required to make the golden lampstand that was beaten and made out of a single piece of gold. God wanted the work to be done skillfully. God’s dwelling place must not only be built with the best material, but it must also be built by the best artisans. So Bezalel and Oholiab were the personal choice of God for the job. Not only were these two unique, but their names also bear out their calling. Bezalel means “in the shadow of God” and Oholiab means “my tent is the Father-God.” The former tells us that God guides and overseas his handiwork. The latter suggests that the tent was to be designed to reflect that God would be the shelter of His people.

God could have made everything He had instructed Moses to do by Himself, but He didn’t. Why? because He is a gracious God. He allowed His people to participate in His work. Remember the primary ministry one is called to fulfil is the ministry where he or she is gifted. The secondary ministry would be one where he or she is needed. However, we must always ensure that the best gifted should be enlisted for the best job. People always think that when you can’t make it to be a lawyer or doctor, then try fulltime ministry. Shouldn’t the reverse be the truth, that the best should be entrusted to do the work of God?  However, we must always remember that the primary qualification, regardless of what area one is called to serve the Lord, is for the person to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

One excuse people give for their unwillingness to participate in a ministry is their lack of experience. Think of Bezalel and Oholiab. Did they have any experience? Of course not. No one had seen the Tabernacle or any of its furniture yet. The issue is not about experience but one’s willingness. The Bible tells us that we are all gifted with different gifts. God expects us to actively exercise our gift for the building of the fellowship, the community of believers. God gives gifts to every one of us, just like he also gifted a group of people besides Bezalel and Oholiab. Verse 3 tells us that God had also put skills in the hearts of all who were skilful to do the work. So, the work of building the Tabernacle, its furniture and the priest garments, were entrusted to a group of skilful men.  

Beloved, God will equip us for the task He has entrusted to us to do. The leadership of the church only calls us to be committed to the building of God’s dwelling. We are the people whom God has given the diverse gifts for the work of the ministry. Yes, the Lord has given some to be Apostles, some Prophets, some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers. It is true that not all of us are called to those roles but we are all called to the work of the ministry. Let us be found willing to answer the call to commit to building the community of God. Let us be blooming where we are planted!

Exodus 30:22-33 – We are anointed to serve God

Having had the priest cleansed, consecrated, commissioned and ordained, Moses was instructed to prepare fragrant sacred anointing oil. It was to be a mixture of the finest of spices. It was to contain “of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, two hundred and fifty, and of fragrant cane two hundred and fifty, and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin….” Essentially all these were expensive ingredients carefully distilled in olive oil to produce a sacred perfume.   

When the anointing was produced, it was used to anoint “…the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the laver and its stand.” They anointed the identified items probably by sprinkling a few drops of the anointing oil upon each. What the purpose of this anointing? Verses 29 says it was to “… consecrate them, that they may be most holy; whatever touches them shall be holy.” This meant that those things that were anointed were set apart for service unto the Lord. Not only were the tabernacle and the furnishings within and without anointed, verse 30 tells us that the priests were also to be anointed. God specifically said that the anointing oil was to be worn by the priests only. No one else was allowed to wear it.

In the New Testament, we are all priests, and the anointing we have received is the Holy Spirit, the special oil of God. We are set apart for the service of God to do His work in the world today. What a high calling! Let’s consider this implication. We are bought at a great price and we belong to God. He has drawn us out of darkness to serve Him as a priest in the Kingdom of Light. We are to be set apart for His work and to help us be His set apart vessels, He anoints us with His Spirit. All that we are and can be potentially and all that we do and will do in life must be done with the purpose of honouring Him. We cannot fully fathom how God will be glorified when all that we all and all that we do flow from a heart and a life totally consecrated and set apart o for God. This is a call to be totally surrendered in sweet abandon to the Lord, yes even the very last thing that we have.     

Exodus 30:17-21 - We need to be sanctified

In verses 17-21, God gave instruction to Moses to make the laver, the final piece of furniture to be placed at the courtyard between the Brazen Altar of Sacrifice and the doorway of the Tent of meeting. This laver would be made of bronze since it was a piece of furniture outside the Tent of meeting. It would be made of two parts: a basin for water and a pedestal to hold the basin. It was for the priest to wash their hands and feet after performing the sacrifice before he enters the Tent of meeting. In fact, the priest would also wash himself before he performed the sacrifice. Hence, whether before or after he had to stop by the laver for cleansing.  That’s the implication of David’s Psalm 24:3 when he said those who can ascend the holy hill of God and stand in His holy place are to those who have “clean hands and pure heart.”

A priest must prepare himself before he went into the Tabernacle to worship. After the sacrifice. His hand would be bloodied and had to be washed. The physical cleansing is a symbol of spiritual cleansing. A Priest’s sin would have been dealt with at his ordination where seven bulls were sacrificed to atone for his sin. Though cleansed yet each time when he was scheduled to serve God, he still had to purify himself again. He still needed to be cleansed of his sin and this was seen by the washing with the water in the laver before he went into the Tabernacle to serve God. The Brazen Altar of Sacrifice is a symbol of justification and the washing done at the Laver is a symbol of sanctification. As Christians, we also need both justification and sanctification. 

The layout of the Altar of Sacrifice and the laver gives us a picture of these two processes in our Christian walk and experience. We have been justified by the death of Christ at the cross and we still need to be sanctified and cleansed in our daily walk. The process of sanctification tells us that in our Christian journey, we need to be continually cleansed in our walk.  This is what Paul also called us to do in 2 Corinthian 7:1. He said, “Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God”   

How are we cleansed in our daily walk? Without a doubt, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. So In Ephesians 5:26, Paul implied that we are washed with water through the Word. Water is an emblem of the Holy Spirit. And He uses the Word of God to transform us and change us from one degree of glory to another progressively. To make roads in our journey towards wholeness and holiness, we must study, contemplate, memorize, assimilate the word of God and seek the sanctification that only the Holy Spirit can bring about.

Exodus 30:11-16 - Our worth is on Christ

In Mark 10:45 we are told that “For even (Jesus) the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Every one of us can become a child of God because of Jesus Christ who gave His life as a ransom for our life. Clearly, the Bible teaches us that our salvation was brought about because Christ paid a ransom to rescue us. So, many of us think that this theme of redemption is only taught in the New Testament. But the truth is that in the teaching of the Tabernacle, we also find the theme of redemption. So Exodus 3:11-14 read, ^“The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying, “When you take a census of the sons of Israel to number them, then each one of them shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them so that there will be no plague among them when you number them.  This is what everyone who is numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as a contribution to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the contribution to the Lord.”

Taking a census is a common thing. Most democratic nations would take a census before their election to ascertain who has the right to vote. Here we see God telling Moses what to do when he conducted a census or a head count. Notice in verse 12 that that headcount was only taken for the sons. In other words, they took a census only for the males. It was undertaken to ascertain the number of men they could muster for battle. That’s why verse 14 stipulates that only those 20 years and above could be counted. They were counting the men who were old enough to fight.  

It is interesting to note the particular way God wanted the census to be taken. First, all the men of Israel were gathered in one place. Then they would be counted one-by-one. A person being counted would move to join a pool of people that had already been counted. Soon, there would be two groups of people: one for people who were counted and one for those yet to be counted. And as a person was being counted, he would move across to join the pool of people who had been counted. And as he moved to join the counted group, he would pay half a shekel made of silver. The shekel was called atonement money in verse 16. It was not a coin but a unit of measurement they paid. So, by the time everyone had been counted there would be a big pile of silver belonging to God. The collection was to be used for the service of the Tabernacle. They were essentially used to maintain the silver foundation which was used to hold up the poles of the Tabernacle. Every time the Israelites saw the foundation, they remembered that their house of worship rested on the price that was paid for their redemption. The failure to pay the ramson was severe. He would be afflicted with one of the plagues that God had sent to afflict the Egyptians in order to free them. Taking a census without paying the ransom was a risky business.  

Why was the ransom known as atonement money? For, after all, no one could pay for his sin or salvation. Their acceptance by God was not based on the half a shekel each of them paid. It was based on the blood of the sacrifice. God called them atonement money because they paid to rescue themselves from the punishment of the plague. It also served as a reminder to them that they belonged to God. The atonement money also serves to remind us that we are not our own we are bought with a price. For us, the price for our ransom is not gold or silver but the precious blood of Christ. By His death on the cross, He paid to own us. We belong to God two times over and He owns us. First, we are His by creation and then we are His again by redemption. We owe all that we have and are to Him. Hence, we must live for Him and not as we like. Our worth is found on the fact that we belong to Him, and apart from Him, we don’t worth much. We know how much God values us when we see the price He has paid for our redemption. No one will ever be able to measure the degree of God’s love. All we know is that He has proven it by sending His Son to redeem us by His death. Our worth is not measured by what we have and own, our worth must be seen in the light of Calvary. For we are all equally worthless without Christ!    

Exodus 30:1-10, 34-38 – Pray without ceasing

Immediately after explaining how the priest should be ordained, God turned to talk about the Altar of Incense. This is the third piece of furnishing in the Holy Place. In Exodus 25, He gave instructions on the construction of the furnishings in the Holy place, He described how the Table of Shewbread and the Golden Lampstand should be made. He left out the Altar of Incense. Here in Exodus 30, He began by giving instruction on how it should be made. Why did God wait until now to talk about the production of this piece of furniture? The possible reason is that He would be dealing with worship and this is a good focal point to begin to talk about worship in the Tabernacle.

   

The Altar of Incense was a one and a half feet square table that was only about three feet tall. As the Table of Shewbread, it was to be made of Acacia wood and overlaid with gold, complete with golden rim and border. It was to be made of gold because it would be in the Tent of the meeting where God’s presence would be. It was also made with four horns at its four corners. It was also a portable table hence two rings of gold were made, on two side walls—on opposite sides. Two poles of acacia wood overlaid with gold were also made for transporting the table. This table was placed in front of the curtain that separated the Holy place from the Holy of holies. Bear in mind that only the high priest was allowed into the Holy of holies. This was the place the other priests, other than the high priest, could come closest to God. It was on this altar that the priest would burn incense to God every morning when he came in to tend to the lamps. In the evening the priest would again offer incense when he came into the Holy Place to keep the lamp burning. In verse 9 God specifically instructed, “You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar, or burnt offering or meal offering; and you shall not pour out a drink offering on it.” They could not use the altar anyway they desired.

In verses 34-38, God gave instruction on the kind of spices to be used to mix the incense. He said to Moses, “Take for yourself spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each. With it you shall make incense, a perfume, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. You shall beat some of it very fine, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I will meet with you; it shall be most holy to you. The incense which you shall make, you shall not make in the same proportions for yourselves; it shall be holy to you for the Lord. Whoever shall make any like it, to use as perfume, shall be cut off from his people.” God is serious about anything that has to do with Him. Moses was to ensure that everything that had to do with God would be holy and not to be abused. Leviticus 10 attests to this when God struck both Nadab and Abihu dead for failing to carry out the instructions concerning the Altar of Incense.

What is the purpose for the Altar of incense? This was an altar of prayer. Alluding to the service at the Altar of Incense, David in Psalm 141:1-2 affirmed this. David was referring to the service at the Altar of Incense when he  said:

O Lord, I call upon You; hasten to me!
Give ear to my voice when I call to You!
May my prayer be counted as incense before You;
The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.  

Prayer is every believer’s privilege, once we have our sin atoned for by Christ at Calvary. Today, as a member of the royal priesthood, we can boldly come into the presence of God and offer our prayer through Christ. Let us not waste the privilege we have by neglecting prayer. Jesus taught us what prayer in Luke 18 in a parable. In contrast to the unjust judge in the parable, our Heavenly King is the Just Judge of the universe. It is His desire to hear our prayer and attend to our pleading. So, Jesus urges us to always pray and not grow weary of doing it. Therefore, we must come boldly and confidently. God awaits us. Like the incense offered up morning and evening at the Altar of Incense, take instruction from Paul, who instructs us in I Thessalonian 5: 17 to “pray without ceasing.”  It must be one of our imperatives in life.  

Exodus 29:43-46 – Let us reflect His glory

Exodus 29 points us to Christ and shows us the heart of God. He loves us so very much that He makes all the provision for us to experience His presence with us. The Tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices are all there to show us how much He wants to speak with us and be with us. Exodus 29:43-46 give us the reason why He wanted the Tabernacle built. The phrase that is key in this passage is: “I am the Lord their God.” The Tabernacle was all about God wanting to dwell among His people. He wanted the Tabernacle built so that He could have a place to meet and speak to His people, and give them His direction. It was the place where His presence could always be felt. Know it or not, the Tabernacle, the priests and their apparels as well as the sacrifices, all point to how God desires to make his people holy. He wanted them holy so that they could be set apart to serve Him. It was about God making known that He was their God and they were His people. Here God was completing the salvation process which He started when he sent Moses to deliver them out of the hand of Pharaoh of Egypt. The Tabernacle was the place where God would reveal His glory.

We get to see how pivotal the Tabernacle, the priesthood and the sacrifices were. All these serve to point to God’s salvation plan for His people. The Tabernacle was the place that He would come down in all His glory. Studying the construction of it helps us to understand why God would take so much time to elaborate and to prepare the place for His dwelling among His people. Everything was to be made holy, the tent and all its furnishings. Every piece of furniture was to be crafted to reveal Him and His divine nature. He also ensured that the priests would be washed, cleansed anointed and consecrated and be made holy to serve Him. God even had a label that said “HOLY TO THE LORD” attached to the turban of His priest. Aaron and his sons were consecrated as priests to serve the holy God.

When we come over to the New Testament, we can see that in Christ God is building a new place for His dwelling. He calls us out of the world so that with us, He can build a place for His dwelling, a place where His presence can be experienced. We are each a lively stone, being fitted to become God’s temple. In the midst of all our daily activities, we must never lose sight that we are a piece of God’s building for His holy dwelling in the world today. So that corporately we, the people of God, become the reflection of His glory in this lost world. What a privilege and a responsibility!