Exodus 25:31–40

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we go ahead and have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll keep exploring the tabernacle together.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to come before you to worship you. to sit at your feet, to hear from you. Lord, we pray that you would teach us that we would understand the heavenly realities of what this points us to in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay, so we're at Exodus chapter 25. Exodus chapter 25. We'll begin at verse 31. Let me grab my glasses here. Exodus 25, beginning at verse 31. Here we go.
You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs and flowers shall be of one piece. And six branches shall come out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out on one side and three branches of the lampstand out on the other side. Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms, one on one branch. with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like three almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower. And for the six branches that come out of the lampstand, on the lampstand itself, four bowls shall be made like almond blossoms, each with its ornamental knob and flower. And there shall be a knob under the first two branches of the same, a knob under the second two branches of the same, and a knob under the third two branches of the same, according to the six branches that extend from the lampstand.
Their knobs and their branches shall be of one piece. Of all of it shall be of one hammered piece of pure gold. You shall make seven lamps for it, and they shall arrange its lamps so that they give light in front of it. And its wick trimmers and their trays shall be of pure gold. It shall be made of a talent of pure gold with all these utensils. and see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain." Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? Well, this morning we have the instructions for the lampstand, right?
And like we talked about before, in the Holy of Holies, the only thing there is the Ark of the Covenant. Right outside though, we had the altar for incense, and the table for the showbread, and now we have the lampstand. Right, and the lampstand is, like everything else, you know, hammered pure gold, the sign of royalty. But there's also in this, in this lamps and another imagery, right? It looks like a tree with blossoms and flowers and, and, and there's, there's, there's this beauty to it, right? And it's supposed to be lit all the time, giving light to the inside of the tabernacle, burning at all times, right?
This is this idea of God's presence being with his people. I think immediately to the book of Revelation where there's seven different lampstands and God walks between amidst the lampstands. This is the Lord's house. It's his palace. It's his tabernacle. It's his temple.
And so as he's walking around, This is this picture here, that God is restoring his people, that God is with his people, that God loves his people, and that he is the light of his people. And that as we come to this tree, it's really, I think, pointing us back to the book of Genesis with the tree of life. That in God's presence, there is life. In God's presence, there's fullness of joy, and there's light.
So, what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I don't know, I'd probably just underline verse 31, you shall also make a lampstand, right? The rest of it is the details of that lampstand. Interestingly, Hebrews chapter eight, verse five, is where this lampstand is actually pointing us to something greater. Everything in the tabernacle was pointing toward a heavenly reality. These were just patterns of heavenly realities.
And so this is what God is pointing us to is that he is the God who dwells in heaven and he brings people to himself. And so how does this apply to us? We have hope. that our high priest, Jesus Christ ministers, not in a tabernacle made by human hands, but our high priest, our prophet, our king dwells in heaven. And there he ministers and someday we will be with him again. And the light never goes out because he is a light. There's no need for sun or moon. There's no need for the lamp stand for the lamb is our light. And so we have hope.
We have hope for all eternity that these things are true, even for us today. Brothers and sisters, the temple veil has been torn and he brings us in as a royal priesthood to dwell with him forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that we get to dwell in your light. We thank you for the radiance of the glory of Jesus Christ and for the light that you have shown into our own hearts. Lord, we pray that we would walk in the light, that we would love the light, that we would truly live our lives next to the tree of life. We thank you for giving us a lampstand, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. May you walk in the light of Jesus Christ. May you be children of the light. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.