The Presence of God: Understanding The Tabernacle

From the Paula White-Cain sermon, June 13, 2021

Over the last few months we have discovered as I have been teaching on “The Church and Revival,” we discussed that only around 4% of Evangelicals, Charismatics, Pentecostals, Catholics, mainline Protestants actually have a “world biblical view,” meaning they see the Word of God as the inerrant, authoritative scriptures, believing that the Holy Spirit inspired men to write the inerrant Word of God. We saw that only 19% of Evangelicals that came to church had a biblical worldview.

We know that according to the book of Ephesians, we’re not peripheral to the world, but the world is peripheral to the church, to the body of Christ. And it says that Jesus Christ rules over all things, that He is the head of all governments, He is the head of everything and He has the final say, the final word. And if He has the final say, and the final word, he’s the head of everything, then we have to look and ask, “why are things so messed up? Why are our family’s messed up? Why are our marriages messed up? Why is society so messed up? Why do things seem upside down?”

It says at at the end of this, that He is the head over the body, in which He acts and He moves and He speaks, and that the body or the Church is not peripheral to the world, but the world is peripheral to the church. Unless the church raises up, we’re going to always have problems.

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We looked at the early church. And we saw how when Jesus was crucified, things did not turn out the way the disciples and those around Jesus wanted. They thought that Jesus was going to come and overthrow a Roman government, and that He was going to basically take it over. And that He was going to position these 12 people that He had hand picked, his protégés, these ordinary guys that had all kinds of problems and issues.

Remember, Andrew’s mom was even was sitting there worshipping and bowing down, and she looks at and says, “Hey, by the way, who’s gonna sit at your right hand? Who’s going to be next to you?” Because she was afraid. She was afraid that her retirement, her way of living had to be secured. How is she going to make it if anything ever happened to Jesus? And so when all this culminates and Jesus gets crucified, they’re afraid, and they go into hiding.

Have you ever served God and things didn’t turn out the way that you thought they should?

Just remember though, the rest of the story has not yet been written. God often shows you the end from the beginning. And then you’ve got to walk out all the mess in the middle. He doesn’t always give you the details to your destiny.

We begin to relate and understand how God chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Sometimes maybe they don’t even see it during their lifetime. Sometimes what you do for God will even outlive your lifespan.

Has anyone reading this ever served God with fear? I know we’re all like, “I’ve got so much faith.” Well for me, I have been like, “there’s some things I’ve done, and I can’t do anything but look at his face. Because if I looked down right now, I’ll sink.” And maybe you have all this other weight and people in your past, or who knows what? We all have a past. You want to pull the boat along and get to get to the other side.

Peter would be the one that would be the bedrock of the church. Jesus said, “upon this rock I will build My Church.” That means the revelation of Jesus Christ. Well at least Peter was trusted with the revelation of Jesus Christ, that God would build His church…

Through the recent series, we started breaking down The Tabernacle and we have been going into the Holy of Holies. It is in the presence of God that everything gets resolved. If we could just always be in God’s presence, and we wouldn’t be so confused, we wouldn’t be so afraid, and we wouldn’t be trying to manipulate God’s agenda. That’s the place where deliverance comes. That’s a place where healing comes. That’s a place where wholeness comes. That’s the place that in one moment, everything can transform in your life. That’s the sweet place. The goal should be to get every aspect of our life- emotionally, physically and spiritually, in God’s presence, and that is where that Ark is- that’s His presence.

So is this teaching all about the tabernacle? No, but we are showing through every part of The Tabernacle that God wants relationship with you, He wants to dwell with you. God wants you in His presence! That is the whole reason we’ve spent all this time dealing with the tabernacle, and dealing with this temple and the layout of His way of doing things.

We have looked at it from an aspect of man’s personality and persona, we’d done it from body soul spirit. We have looked at the outer court as the body, that’s the altar, burnt offering. the Bible says, “present your body.” You have to put your body on the altar, it starts in the physical realm.

Then we go through the Laver, which is sanctification, and that’s the washing of God’s Word. It’s the washing of the Word that cleanses our soul. So without first going through the Altar of Sacrifice and the Laver, we can’t even go through that first veil, which represents Christ’s resurrection, that He died and He rose again, and then get into the Table of Showbread, which represents our will, and then go over to the Golden Lampstand, which represents our intelligence and our mind. We have to have the mind of Christ. Then we go to the Golden Incense (or Altar of Incense), which represents our emotions…

After that we go through that next veil, which we did this past Wednesday. That second veil represents the ascension of Christ, He got up so you can get up, He got up so I can get up. And then it went into this place called the Holy of Holies. And this is a smallest place there. That is where we’re gonna end up because that’s the presence of God. If we could just stay in the presence of God, how great life would be right? If we could just live in that presence all the time.

As Believers we have a heart to be in God’s presence. This is why there even is any Paula White-Cain sermons to begin with. Remember we have to constantly contend with this flesh and with a soul. The Apostle Paul says, “we’re to bring our body under subjection to the Holy Spirit, we’re to renew our mind.” The word is constantly teaching us how to walk out this progressive walk. We want to be in that presence…

“And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them,” Exodus 25:8. This strategic statement in Exodus 25:8 articulates the very heart-throb of The God who has chosen to reveal Himself to humankind. This is the thought of all that pertains to the Tabernacle. God’s desire has always been to tabernacle with His people!

God’s desire is to dwell in the midst of His redeemed people on His own terms and His own grounds. That is, Divine holiness having dealt with man’s sinfulness. 1 Peter 1:14-16 (NIV), “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

The word “Holy” in Greek means, “sacred” (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, consecrated). Remember that within the Holy of Holies there was no light except for the manifest, visible, personal Presence of God. This is the “Shekinah” glory. That is where worship takes place! We don’t need any other source of illumination when we are in the presence of God. Here we experience the privilege of direct person-to-person, spirit-to-Spirit relationship with God!

Man’s spirit is dead unless it is united with God. Your body and soul can operate without direct relationship with God, but the spirit only comes alive in contact with the Creator. When your spirit is separated from God, it is dead, darkened, and blind. So, all the activities of the spirit have meaning only in relation to God Himself!

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT:

The ark IS CHRIST, revealed to the spirit, or Christ revealed within your spirit, since in our way of interpreting the temple, the Holy of Holies represents man’s spirit. An ark in the Bible is always a type of Christ. The ark of Noah typifies you in Christ, The ark of Moses typifies Christ in you. But both symbolize New Testament relationships.

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