Showbread and Lampstand

The Tabernacle — Steve Gregg

Next in this series

The Structure (Part 1)

00:00

Showbread and Lampstand

The TabernacleSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg delves into the Tabernacle and its significance in the Christian walk. He highlights the intricacies of the Showbread and Lampstand, emphasizing their symbolic representation of God's communion with mankind. By exploring the biblical patterns and parallels, Gregg unveils the deeper meaning behind these tabernacle elements and their relevance in the life of a believer. Through this enlightening study, he encourages listeners to seek fellowship with both God and fellow believers, while emphasizing the supernatural nature of God's presence in the midst of such connections.

Transcript

I do believe that this is our third session on The Tabernacle, isn't it? And we had only two so far? Yeah, we've been in Chapter 25 for the past two sessions. This is our third and I hope final session in this chapter. There are more chapters about The Tabernacle besides this one.

What we studied a couple of sessions ago was the purpose of The Tabernacle in general, and we had an introduction to the subject of The Tabernacle. And if you weren't here for those sessions, I would just like to briefly say that God gave Moses a pattern of this building, which was actually a tent, that was to be built according to very specific details. And these details were to portray some spiritual reality.

In Hebrews Chapter 9, we are told that the earthly tabernacle and the furniture of it was a pattern of the heavenly, of things in the heavens, of spiritual truths. And so we need to, as we study The Tabernacle, realize that this is not just a boring, dry, long, and drawn-out, oft-repeated description of how certain curtains should be trimmed and what color they should be dyed, and these things without purpose. These things may be dry.

If we don't understand what they're all about, a man in the natural mind can read this six chapters or so of Exodus and say, why in the world would anyone want to study this? Just reading about this little table that's overlaid with gold and the candlestick and the various furniture there and the altars, and say, well, that sounds so archaic and far removed from my interests, I don't see why half of the book of Exodus is given to this subject. But that's the man in the natural. The Bible says the man with the natural mind cannot receive the things of the spirit.

So when we approach the word of God, which is spiritual, we need to approach with a spiritual mind, and we need to understand in the spirit what things are there. And this is why we pray at the beginning that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes, because we don't have the power in the natural to understand what this is about. But when we begin to see by the spirit what the tabernacle is about, suddenly this dusty old tent, which eventually decayed and fell apart and was replaced by the temple, it becomes a source of tremendous spiritual understanding and light for us, and it enhances our ability to approach God in the way that He is prescribed.

And this is very important, that if you're going to approach God, you have to do so in the way that He is prescribed. We often hear people say, well, I can be a Christian and not go to church, can't I? Or can't I be a Christian and still do this? Or can't a person become a Christian without really believing these certain things about Jesus? Or does a person have to believe the writings of Paul to be a Christian? And all these people that we talk to are full of questions about, can't we somehow modify the way that God has given and still come to Christ? Can't we do it our way? Can't we have our own reservations about certain things in the Bible and still be Christians? And I'm not saying that a person who has some doubts about Paul's writings or some person who doesn't attend church regularly, that that person can't possibly be saved. I'm not saying that.

But I would say that if we're going to approach God at all, we ought to approach Him in the way that He is prescribed. After all, we are seeking a God who is invisible to us. We don't see Him with our eyes, and therefore, we need for Him to draw us to Himself.

Jesus said, no man can come to Me except the Father who sent Me draw him. So, except God draws to Himself, our chances of finding Him are very slim. Well, they're negligible.

Because we don't know where to look. The Bible says, seek the Lord, but where do you look? For God, you know. Where do you go to look for God? Well, you go according to the steps that He has laid out.

And He has given us a pattern in the tabernacle, showing us how He is approached. Now, you remember, the outer part of the tabernacle had no roof. It was simply an enclosure with curtains.

And in it, there were two pieces of, well, two items, I guess we'd say. One was an altar overlaid with brass. The other was a laver or a basin of cleansing full of water.

And then, as you progressed past these things, you came to an enclosure, a tent, called the sanctuary or the holy place. And that tent was in two compartments. The larger of the two was what you would enter first.

And that was called the holy place. You would come in there and there were three pieces of furniture, two of which we are going to read about today and talk about. They were the table of showbread and the golden candlesticks.

And then, as you went further, you came toward the entrance to that third compartment. That third compartment being a 15-foot cube or 10-cubic cube. And that area was separated from the rest of the tent by a thick veil.

According to rabbinic tradition, it was the thickness of a hand breath, which is about four and a half inches. That's how thick the woven material was to be. It was to effectively hide the contents of that room from those outside.

It was not to be seen by any eyes, except very rarely, once a year. One man was able to go in there. Now, as you approach that entrance, that veil, as it was called, this curtain, which kept most men from seeing what was inside that little compartment called the Holy of Holies.

As you came right to the entrance there, before you would go in, and as I said, only one man could go in once a year, the high priest, you would find this little golden altar. And there, incense would be burned. Now, that was done every week, by the way, incense was burned there.

It wasn't done just once a year. But then once a year, the high priest would go on in to the Holy of Holies, past this thick veil. And there was one piece of furniture, which we've already studied, the Ark of the Covenant, with the mercy seat atop it.

And that was the place where God would commune with men. And I want to show you in verse 22 of chapter 25 here, Exodus 25-22. God says, and there I will meet with you, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.

Now, we need to see that the whole purpose, the end of the whole thing, was communion with God, where communion means fellowship. Intermingling, sharing together of common concerns and of common life. And so the high priest would go behind the veil, and there he would commune with God.

Now, this is an amazing thing, that God would commune with men. That we, who are so filthy, by our own rebellion against the laws of God, and constantly, even after we're converted, we still have instances, as you probably can attest, of rebellion against God, of just flying in the face of his divine mercy. And yet, that God would say, I want to meet with you, and I don't want to meet with you to call you on the carpet and slap you around.

I want to meet with you so that we can have some intimacy. I want to show you some secrets. I want you to know me.

I want you to love me. I want to love you. I want to make my mercy pour forth to you.

And for God to have this attitude toward us is an amazing thing. God initiated this. God is the one who said, I want to commune with you.

You make the mercy seat. You make the tabernacle. You build it all.

And I will show you how to come to me. And the end of it all will be communion with God. Now, this is, of course, what we desire.

In the opening verses of the book of 1 John, it says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it. And bear witness and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that she also may have fellowship or communion with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. So John says that he and the other apostles had had an intimacy with Jesus.

That was, of course, they had seen him, they had heard him, they had felt him. They had had actual contact with him in such a real way, in a real human sort of way, actually. And he said that he is writing to us so that we also could have fellowship with them, with the apostles and with the communion that they shared with God.

In other words, the purpose of the written word, then, is to bring us into this communion also. And part of the written word is this description of the tabernacle. The tabernacle is one of many patterns that God gives us.

The Bible says, for instance, that the 40 years that the Jews wandered in the wilderness, these were an example or a pattern to us of our Christian walk. And so many other things in the scripture are a pattern, the tabernacle being one. The tabernacle, particularly, is a pattern of the steps through which we enter into that deep place with God.

Now, on the outside are these two things that we haven't talked about yet too much, except we've alluded to. We haven't come to the place where they're described yet in Exodus. But that is the first thing you would come.

When you walk into that curtained enclosure, that open air section there, the outer court, you would come to the brass altar, or the brazen altar, as it's called. There would be bloody sacrifices offered, and this was to atone for sins. This was corresponding to the cross of Jesus, where he offered his blood and made a new and living way for us to approach God.

From there you would go on to the labor of cleansing, which was a brass basin of water where, after the priest had offered the sacrifice, he would wash himself up. And this corresponds to being baptized in water. Now, once you've gone to these two points, you still have not really entered into the holy place yet.

You were only eligible now. And many people have been born again, they've been to the cross, they've received the forgiveness of their sins, they've been through the waters of baptism, but have never really entered in behind the first veil. There's two veils.

There's a veil that separated the outer court from the holy place, and then there's that second veil, after which you come into the Holy of Holies. Now, God has desired for us to penetrate these two veils, and especially this is evident from the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, the veil to the inner court, to the Holy of Holies, was rent, was torn. So that God was saying, you can all come in now, if you come in in the prescribed way.

So we must understand the tabernacle, and understand what the prescribed way is. We can't just say, well, I'll modify it in any way I want to. God said to Moses, make sure that you make it according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mount, because this is the way in.

And we know that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He said, no man can approach the Father. No man comes to the Father.

And this is what our whole life should be, an approaching unto God. And no one can really make this approach, except through Him. So He is the tabernacle.

And the scripture even says that in 1 John 1.14, where it says, The Word, which is Jesus, was made flesh and tabernacled among us. King James says, dwelt among us. The Greek says, tabernacled among us.

Showing that the tabernacle is a picture of Jesus. It was a foreshadowing of what would take place when Mary would conceive and bear a child, and He would be God dwelling in a tabernacle of human flesh, in the man Jesus. And we said that the Church, the body of Christ, we, our bodies, in whom God is dwelling and embodied, we also are a fulfillment of the picture of the tabernacle.

Well, let's look at this furniture that's in the holy place. Once you go past the waters of baptism, the next logical place to go is through that first veil, into the sanctuary, into the tent area. And in there, this corresponds to fellowship with the saints.

I'm convinced of this from my studies on this matter. And then, of course, the fellowship with the saints has many features that are symbolized by the pieces of furniture in there. And then, beyond the second veil, is something even deeper.

You know, many people, after they're converted, never enter into the fellowship of the saints. They say, well, I can be a Christian without going to church. And they never really have a desire to be integrated into what God's doing in the people of God.

They just want to be on their own. So, they miss out on what's going on inside that holy place, inside the sanctuary, which is us. The Bible says very clearly that we are the sanctuary, we are the tabernacle of God, and we are the house of God.

So, the church is what goes on here. But even beyond that, beyond the fellowship that we enjoy in the fellowship of believers, there is a deeper place, which is only you and God. See, when you're in the holy place, not the holy of holies, but when you're in the holy place, you are enjoying an intimacy with God through the fellowship of the saints that cannot be experienced by those in the outer court, by those who are not in the church.

But, there is a deeper place still, which you alone can enter, and none of the other saints can enter with you. And that is the intimate, secret place with God. And we talked about that when we talked about the Ark of the Covenant, I think, in our last session.

Well, let's read from verse 23 to the end of the chapter. We're in Exodus 25, 23. Thou shalt also make a table of shinim wood, two cubits shall be the length thereof, a cubit the breadth thereof, a cubit and a half the height thereof.

Now, a cubit being about 18 inches. You can figure out how that works out into our measurements. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make there a crown of gold round about.

We saw the same on the Ark of the Covenant, a crown of gold. And thou shalt make unto it a border of an hand breadth round about. And thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.

So, the border of it, we don't know exactly how this looked, but about four and a half inches, roughly, around the whole thing was a border and another crown around the border. So, the thing had a double crown on it. Now, it says, verse 26, And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof, over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves, or staffs, to bear the table.

So, these four rings were designed to have two staffs shoved through them, two poles, which were also overlaid with gold, and they were used to carry the table. Verse 28, And thou shalt make the staves of shiddom wood, and overlay them with gold, and the table may be borne with them, or carried. And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and the spoons thereof, and the covers thereof, and the bowls thereof, to cover with all of pure gold shalt thou make them.

And thou shalt set upon the tables showbread before me always. We'll talk about this in a moment. And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold.

This is the second bit of furniture here. Of beaten work shall the candlestick be made. His shaft and his branches, his bowls, his knops, his flowers shall be of the same.

And six branches shall come out from the sides of it, three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, three branches of the candlestick out of the other side. Three bowls made like unto almonds, with the knop and a flower in one branch. Three bowls made like almonds in the other branch, with a knop and a flower.

So in the six branches that come out of the candlestick, and in the candlestick shall be four bowls made like unto almonds, with their knops and their flowers. And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick. You can see how someone without spiritual understanding might find this difficult to wade through.

The knops and their branches shall be of the same. All it shall be one beaten work of pure gold. And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof, and they shall light the lamps thereof, that they may give light over against it.

And the tongs thereof, and the snuff dishes thereof, shall be of pure gold. Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it, with all these vessels. And look that thou make them after the pattern which he showed thee on the mount.

God again warns Moses not to deviate. Okay, so we have these two items. We have the table of showbread, which was, as you entered into the tent, you'd have the table of showbread on one side, and I believe it was on the right-hand side, and then the candlestick on the other side of you.

And right in front of you is the veil into the Holy of Holies, with the little golden altar in front where the incense was burnt. Now the table of showbread, we find later, had twelve loaves upon it, and the description of the making of those loaves is found in Leviticus 24, verses 5 through 9. We don't have to look there right now, we made before we're finished here. But Leviticus 24, 5 through 9, describes the making of the bread.

It had to be specially made. It was mixed with frankincense, and it was unleavened. There were certain specifications it had to be made with real fine flour.

These twelve loaves probably represented the twelve tribes of Israel, though the real meaning of this has very little to do with Israel, in my opinion. I'm sure that to the Jews, the twelve loaves on this table of showbread represented Israel, and these loaves were kept out on the showbread table for a week. They were put out there on the Sabbath, as I recall, and then they were kept there for a week, and then they were replaced, and the old ones were eaten by the priests.

So this is the way this was practiced, and this table of showbread was made similarly to the Ark of the Covenant, though not exactly. The dimensions are slightly different. It's the same height, it's a cubit and a half tall, as was the Ark of the Covenant, which is 27 inches, two feet three inches tall.

And then the other dimensions were about a half cubit less, nine inches less, than the Ark of the Covenant. Instead of two and a half and one and a half cubits being the depth and breadth, it was two and one. So it was slightly smaller than the Ark, and it had these crowns around it.

It had a border around it, and it had a crown, too. It was doubly crowned. Now it was made, as was the Ark of the Covenant, out of shidim wood, which was overlaid with gold.

The Ark of the Covenant, you remember, was overlaid inside and out with gold, because the Ark of the Covenant was an actual box or a chest that had an interior surface and an exterior surface, and both surfaces of the Ark were overlaid with gold. In this case, we just have a table, so there's not an interior surface, so it's just the outside overlaid with gold. Now I brought out before, when we talked about the Ark, and if you're interested, you can get the tape on that for the documentation, but the wood, I believe, represents humanity, as trees and wood often do in the Scripture, especially in the prophets' and symbolic writings of the Scripture.

The wood represents human nature. Gold represents the divine nature, the divine character. In fact, the Bible indicates that our character is being transformed into that same divine character, even as gold is tried and fired.

We have the two natures of Christ, I believe, represented here in the Shiddim wood and the gold. He was overlaid with gold, but he had humanity also. It's interesting, I did some more research since last week on Shiddim wood, and it's believed to be the tree of the occasion.

It was a native tree of the desert regions where the Jews were wandering at that time, you might recall. They spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, and this type of wood was growing there in profusion, very large trees from which large boards could be made, as you'll find as we get to study the boards of the Tabernacle, too. They were also made of the same kind of wood.

But it's interesting that a table doesn't look very much like a tree. I have before me a wooden table. I can see this is real wood.

I can recognize it as wood, and I can see that it was made from a tree, but it really doesn't resemble a tree very much at all. The general shape is totally different. It's been plain smooth.

It's got human craftsmanship written all over it. It's not in its natural state. If this table had remained a tree, of course, it wouldn't be able to serve mankind in the same way that it does now.

We wouldn't be using it as a piece of furniture in the house, and it wouldn't provide the function that it now does. For Jesus to become a servant for us, to become useful to us, he had to be changed from his original form also. You see, because the scripture says in Philippians chapter 2 that he originally existed in heaven in the form of God.

But in order to help us and to serve us, he took upon himself the form of a servant. Just as this table has the wood from the tree that this was made from, has had to change its form in order to serve us. And so the table and the ark and the other things that were made of shinning wood, I believe, are a picture of how Jesus had to change his form.

His original form. He was originally in the form of God. He didn't think it robbery to be called equal with God, but he took upon himself the form of man, the form of a servant.

And the humanity of Jesus is spoken of in the building of these pieces of furniture from the shinning wood. But the overlaying of gold represents, of course, the divinity and purity of his character, so that he stood apart. This was probably the only gold table in all of Israel, gold-overlayed table.

It's not really necessary to overlay tables with gold for most practical purposes. But in order to represent the divine character of Christ, it was overlaid with gold. And there were two crowns on it.

Jesus also is doubly crowned. His first crown was a crown of thorns, you might remember, a crown of humility, a crown of suffering. His second crown is that with which he is now crowned as he sits at the right hand of God and the majesty on high.

And he is crowned with many crowns, the Bible says, now. But of course, basically there were two crownings of Jesus. The one, the crown that man gave him, which was a crown of humiliation and suffering, a crown of thorns.

And there was also the crown that God gave him. And this piece of furniture also had two crowns. And I believe that it represents Jesus, but not anywhere near as much as the bread does.

Now, this table was designed basically for one purpose, and that was to hold the bread. To hold out the bread, to offer the bread to man. It was that which man must come to in order to eat the bread.

Now, Jesus at one point said that he was the bread of life in John chapter 6, verse 48. He said, I am the bread of life. And he was talking mainly in the context about the manna that was given in the wilderness.

Now, we shouldn't confuse the manna with the show bread, although there may be some similarities and some corresponding aspects in the typology there. But Jesus nonetheless spoke of himself as the bread of life. He said that people must eat of his body and drink of his blood to have eternal life in them.

And the Jews misunderstood him because, of course, they couldn't eat human flesh or drink blood either. They couldn't do either of those things according to their law. And so they thought that was strange that he would offer that.

And he said, well, the words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. So he was indicating that you don't literally eat his body or his blood. He's talking about something spiritual.

You become a partaker of his life, of him. Now, bread is an interesting thing, and I want to talk more about the show bread itself than about the table of show bread. We've said enough about the table probably.

But the bread itself, in the scripture, bread has an interesting relationship to human life. It sustains it. Bread, of course, was the main staple of the people in those days, especially in the wilderness.

They ate manna almost entirely. But, of course, they did have some wheat and stuff that they carried out of Egypt, which was, I suppose, used for the show bread after it was ground real small. But bread, really in the scripture, bread is used symbolically in all areas.

The Bible speaks of the bread of affliction, or the bread of suffering, or the bread of sorrows, or the bread of idleness. The virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 says she doesn't eat the bread of idleness. And it seems that bread is used to represent certain characteristics and qualities of character.

Now, that shouldn't be surprising that bread should be used symbolically that way, because food actually does impart life. Food is basically what makes you. You are what you eat.

You really are. The things that you eat, the thing that made you grow from seven pounds at your birth to 130 pounds or more, as an adult, if you're a man, was the food you ate, basically. Certainly your cells reproduced themselves, but they had to do so on the nutrition that came in the food you ate.

The actual atoms of the food that you ate had to be translated into human life, into living tissue. And so it's not surprising that food then might be used to symbolize life, because it makes up you. And so Jesus, speaking of himself as the bread of life, and how we have to eat of him, and this is all a picture of taking on his life and his quality of life.

And speaking of the bread of idleness and such, these are all just further manifestations of this kind of use of the word in the scripture. Now, the bread for the showbread, according to Leviticus 24, in verse 5, had to be made from very fine flour. Not just any flour.

It had to be sifted repeatedly until it was really divided up from all the coarse flour. It had to be super fine. That was just one of the requirements.

Well, why is that? I believe that's symbolic also of the Lord, because he is the bread of life. He had to be sifted also. The Bible does speak of God sifting and also of Satan sifting.

In the Old Testament, the Bible talks about God sifting Israel and also sifting the nations. In the New Testament, Jesus spoke to Peter and said, Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you. Now, sifting, of course, refers to the separation of the good wheat from the chaff or whatever, and that which is useless.

And God uses Satan to do this to us. Satan tries to have us, and he comes before the throne of God and suggests all kinds of proposals of how he might afflict us. And the Bible tells us in the book of Job that God apparently considers these proposals, and though Satan means it for our harm, God considers whether it will do us good or not, or whether it is to his purpose for these things to happen to us.

And if it is, then he gives Satan permission to do it. Remember the book of Job. Satan said, let me take everything he has away from him.

So God said, well, okay, but don't touch his life. And then later on, when Satan didn't accomplish his desired ends, but God's ends were accomplished through that, then Satan came again and said, well, let me touch his body, skin for skin, all that a man has will he give for his life. And if you just let me afflict his body, then I know he'll curse you.

God considered that and said, okay, go ahead, but don't kill him. And so God put the restrictions, God would listen to Satan's proposals, I believe in more cases than otherwise. God denies Satan his requests.

Satan cannot do anything without God's permission. But there are times when Satan's proposals, unbeknownst to Satan, Satan doesn't realize it, but God realizes that if they are carried out against us, that they will really purify us and perfect us. And so we see God sifting in the Old Testament, and Jesus portrays the sifting process as being done by Satan.

Satan is the agent used by God in these cases. Satan doesn't want to consider himself in that role. I'm sure that Satan would scoff at the idea of being God's servant, but he has nothing to say about it.

God is sovereign, and Satan basically just has to play into God's hands to a large degree, because of these restrictions that God places upon him. But Jesus told Peter that Satan desired to sift Peter, and that Jesus himself had interceded for Peter to keep him from falling out. But the testing of our character that comes upon us, of course, comes from the hand of God, mostly indirectly, and more directly, from the hand of Satan.

As I said, Satan gets permission and then goes for it. And if we are tested, if hardships do come to us, they come at the hand of our enemy, but by permission from our Father, because he sees that these things are going to bring us toward the desired end. Now Jesus had to be sifted, and he was tested probably more than any of us are.

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness we can read over very casually without feeling too much, but if we realize the circumstances he was in, having fasted for 40 days, starving to death and being offered the opportunity to feed his own self with bread. Now the show bread was properly to be eaten by priests alone. Now that shouldn't concern us, because we are said to be a kingdom of priests in 1 Peter 2. It says we are a holy priesthood in the book of Revelation.

It says we are a kingdom of priests. And that's chapter 5 of Revelation, by the way. In the King James it says kings and priests, but in the literal Greek it's a kingdom of priests.

So we are a kingdom, and we are all priests. We have a priestly function, which we will discuss in detail when we study the priesthood, also in the book of Exodus. We will see what our role as priests before God is.

But we are partakers of this bread, the bread of life, this nourishment that comes from Jesus. Now, it is possible for anyone to eat of it, though, if they are determined enough and willing to press in to know the Lord, to follow on and to know the Lord. In fact, David, who was never a priest, and the men that were with him when he was fleeing from Saul, his enemy, he came to the tabernacle, and he and his men were hungry and had no food, and he spoke to the priest there and said, Do you have any bread? And the man said, No, we don't have any common bread.

We only have the show bread, and that's not lawful for anyone to eat but the priest. And David said, That's good enough. We'll take it.

And he pressed in to that place which was not lawful for him to press into, and he took the bread and he ate it. And Jesus, in speaking about this in Matthew chapter 12, indicated that David was perfectly justified in doing this, because of the hunger of him and his men, it was justifiable and, in fact, almost commendable for him to press in. The Bible says, Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled.

And I believe that the bread is for the priesthood. The Bible says, Whatsoever toucheth the altar is holy. See, the instruments of the temple and the tabernacle were holy, and if you touch them, then you are devoted to the Lord too.

In essence, David, in eating the show bread, made himself a priest. He took on himself the role of a priest, though he wasn't a Levite, and he wasn't called to be a priest in that sense, but he pressed into the place of priesthood. And often, it is so that people will be so hungry for God that they will press in and come to eat of that bread of life too.

I believe they cannot do so without coming to Christ. But there are some people who, by natural birth or by natural circumstances, would not have the same opportunity we have. It's so easy for us, really, to come into the church and feast on the Lord, because there's churches on every corner, and there's Bible in every house, and if you don't have one in your house, there's plenty in the library.

You can get a hold of one anywhere you want. And yet there are some people who are not in this natural place where the bread is so readily available, but if there is a hunger and a determination to press on and to follow on to know the Lord, they can press in too. And they can become priests also by virtue of their very hunger and their determination to press in.

Now, the bread of the presence is the literal meaning of the show bread. The show bread actually means the bread of the presence of God. And this is what we experience when we come into the fellowship of the saints.

This is one of the two things. We also see the candlestick here, which we'll discuss. But the bread of the presence is what we partake of.

When we come together as a fellowship, the presence of God is there. Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. The manifestation of the presence of God in the fellowship of the saints.

This is the value of going to church. I recently had one of the brothers, who's highly respected in our church, actually, tell me that he sometimes thinks about not even going to church at all, because he's got some conflicts with some of the people there. He was just saying how sometimes he feels like he'd do better if he didn't even have to deal with these people.

And the scripture indicates, Jesus said, inasmuch as you do it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me. And it also says in 1 John, if any man does not love his brother, he walks in darkness and doesn't know where he's going. But he that loves his brother walks in the light, and there's no occasion of stumbling.

A person who does not have a love for the brethren doesn't really love God, even though they may talk like they do. The Bible says, if any man say, I love God and hate his brother, he's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? In this commandment have we from him that he that loveth God love his brother also.

So you may talk profusely and religiously about how much you love Jesus, but if you don't love the brothers and sisters, even the ugly, homely, offensive ones in the fellowship, you don't love Jesus anywhere near as much as you think, because that's him. That's his body. You have not discerned the body of the Lord.

And when we do discern the body of the Lord, we come into the fellowship the same. There is the presence of God, and though all I see around me are some very homely, uncouth, inconsistent, half-devoted, lukewarm people professing Christians, if that's all I see around me, nonetheless, there is he in the midst, because they have gathered in his name. And I'm to love them as I love him, and if I don't love them, I don't love him, because they may be the least of his brethren.

They may be what I call nominal, but if they're the least, he says, if you do it to the least, you've done it to me. So you have to love them, or you don't love him. And that's because when they are gathered, he is there in the midst, the bread of the presence.

A person does not experience this same sense of the presence of God alone. There is a deep place of fellowship with God and the Holy of Holies where the presence is there, but there is a different and special presence of Christ where his body is gathered. And so the bread of the presence is the portion of the priests who minister in the holy place, that is, in the body of Christ.

We are the priesthood of the body of Christ. We are in the sanctuary, which is his body. We are in the fellowship of the saints, and there we partake of the bread of life.

It is there that we are ministered the bread. And this often comes through the hands of ministers, for instance, prophets, evangelists, teachers. But nonetheless, it is Jesus who is dishing it out.

It is Jesus who is the table holding it out for the priest to eat of. And that is the bread of the presence. And it's no mistake that the early church took communion at the table of the Lord every time they gathered.

It was the center of their worship service. They would come to the table of the Lord, which is a New Testament counterpart of this table of showbread. And also in the table of showbread, there was a wine offering that was poured out, a drink offering that was a poured out offering.

So the bread and wine were both at this table, but the bread is the main thing emphasized. The reason that in the communion table we take both the wine and the bread, though this only really corresponds to the table of showbread, is that in the tabernacle, the blood was offered outside on the brazen altar, and the bread was partaken of inside. With us, it's the same thing.

Jesus suffered outside the camp, and when we come in to the fellowship of the saints, if we come on Sunday morning, for instance, or Saturday, or whatever time we gather with the saints, as we sit at the table, we don't offer a blood sacrifice. We remember the blood sacrifice that was made outside the camp with the wine, but we do partake literally of the bread at that time. We're not offering a blood sacrifice at that table.

Never was it offered at the table of showbread. We're only commemorating the blood sacrifice at that point, but there is a partaking of the body of the Lord. Paul indicated that the love feast, where they took this communion at the meetings of the saints, this was something that you could lose the value of.

In fact, you could truly offend God and bring the wrath of God on you if you failed to discern the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 11 talks about this, that some people thought it was just an ordinary meal, and they were eating just like gluttons and not looking out for each other, and they weren't discerning that they were in the presence of Christ. This was His body here.

They weren't discerning it, and therefore the judgment of God came on them. The bread of the presence. When we eat at the communion table, we are experiencing with the saints the presence of God, and that's what this showbread was all about.

It was the bread of the presence of God, and the priests partaking of that was a symbol or a picture of what we experience among the saints as we gather and we break bread also. Then there was the candlestick. Now also when you're in the fellowship of the saints, there is illumination to be had, and that comes largely through the word.

And by the way, both bread, that is food, and light are symbols of the word of God, as well as symbols of Jesus. Jesus is the word made flesh. So we shouldn't be surprised if corresponding statements can apply both to Jesus and to the written word.

Of course, at this time, the written word was only the law. But there is a correspondence between eating of the Lord and having your eyes open, being able to see. You see, in the fellowship of the saints you can experience something that you cannot experience outside the church.

Even if you've been saved and baptized, if you're not in the fellowship of the saints, you are going to miss out on the benefits of the table of showbread and the light of the lamp. Because there is a correspondence there. We take these two pieces of furniture together, and we don't even get into a description of the altars or the labor of cleansing until several chapters later, and next we get into the tent and stuff.

But these two things are mentioned together because they go together. The Bible says, taste and see that the Lord is good. You eat of the Lord and your eyes are open and you see.

You taste and see. If you don't taste, you won't see. If you don't eat of the showbread, you will also not have the benefits of the lamp that is in the same room with the showbread.

You have the benefit of the light of the candlestick if you are in the same room where the showbread is. In 1 Samuel 14, 27, the story of Jonathan chasing his enemies and being hungry is described, 1 Samuel 14, 27, where as he was running after his enemy, he was becoming faint and tired, and he saw a honeycomb in a fallen tree, I believe it was, and he had his spear with him, or his staff, and as he ran by, he stuck his spear into that honeycomb and just kept running and began to eat the honey off the spear. The Bible says when he tasted it, his eyes were enlightened.

There is an enlightening of his eyes when he tasted that honey. The Bible indicates that the scripture, the word of God, and of course this applies to Jesus also, is sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. It says, more to be desired are the words of God than gold, and sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb.

So he tasted and he saw. There was an eating and a seeing that took place together. In fact, the same is said about Jesus Christ himself in John chapter 1 and in verse 4, where we read about in the beginning was the word, etc.

And it says that in him was life, and that life was the light of men. Now life is what we are imparted when we eat. We said that food imparts life to our bodies, it imparts natural life.

And as we partake of the life, at the same time we're getting the light. Because in him was life and that life was the light of men. If we eat of the bread of life, we also will be receiving the light.

If we eat of the word, we will be enlightened. So the candlestick, the ministry of the candlestick, and the ministry of the showbread correspond. They're not identical.

They're not synonymous. But they are related. You taste and you see.

You eat of the Lord and you are enlightened by him. Now the candlesticks clearly represent the church. I said that everything in that little compartment in that tabernacle represents the fellowship of the saints.

That's one of the few places, this is one of the few pieces of furniture that the Bible actually tells us what it represents. That's in Revelation chapter 1. I want you to look there. And by the way, while we're looking there, I want to make some mention of the candlestick itself and what it was.

The word candlestick calls to our mind wax candles with wicks, and that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about actual lamps. Golden lamp.

It was like a candelabra, but not very much like the menorah that you see at Jewish celebrations. You know the menorah is somewhat like it. It's got the main shaft coming from the base all the way straight up to the first lamp or candle.

And then you have the curved branches coming through, three curved branches going all the way through, so it makes a total of seven lamps at the top. That was probably the general shape of this thing, but it was much different than the menorahs that you see today because it had special bowls attached to it and almonds and pomegranates, such as the word nops probably refers to according to Josephus and the rabbinic writers. The nops referred to pomegranates, and it had all kinds of carved work about it.

And what I shouldn't even say carved, it was beaten. It says it was a beaten gold. It wasn't something that was cast in a mold or anything like that.

They'd take a block of gold and they'd start beating it into shape, and they beat this candlestick into shape. It was born through beating. Even as Jesus, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

And the church is the expression of his body. But here we are in Revelation chapter one. And these candlesticks had seven lamps that were basically fed and burned oil.

And I want you to look at verse 20, first of all, and then we're going to go back and look at an earlier verse in here. Verse 20 says, The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, this is Jesus speaking to John, and the seven golden candlesticks. There it is, the candlestick.

Seven stars are the seven angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. Now, the word seven, the number seven, is symbolic in Scripture in many times, and I believe in this case also. And the number seven is used an awful lot in the Book of Revelation.

In the tabernacle, actually, the number seven is only used once, and that's with respect to the candlesticks. You do have the number 12, with the 12 loaves of showbread, another symbolic number. But the number seven is used only once, and that's with respect to the candlesticks.

And here in the Book of Revelation we find what they represent. The number seven represents completion, perfection, fulfillment. And to speak of the seven churches, I think it's just to take a representative sample representing the complete church, the whole church.

You know, God could have said, well, in the days of John there might have been 400 churches throughout the world, 400 congregations. He could have had 400 candlesticks instead, but the number seven just represents the whole thing. It's fulfillment, completeness.

And the candlestick represents the church, the whole church. Now, if you look earlier in the chapter, verse 12, when he first saw the candlesticks, it says, I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks, verse 13, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with the garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. Now, the garment that Jesus is wearing is reminiscent of a high priest's garment.

Jews in those days didn't usually, the male Jews didn't necessarily wear garments down to the foot. They were mainly, maybe knee-length garments, and it wasn't very practical to wear down around your ankles if you were going to do any practical work. And yet the high priest did have garments that went all the way down to his foot, and they had bells and pomegranates attached, and we'll see that later when we study their garments.

But Jesus is here portrayed in the role of a high priest, or of a priest, and he is moving in the midst of the seven candlesticks, apparently tending them. Now, the candlesticks, of course, in the tabernacle had to be tended, the oil had to be replaced, the wicks had to be clipped and trimmed and replaced at times, and so there was maintenance to be done on the candlesticks to make sure that their light was pure and bright and unhindered and that none of them went out. And we can see that Jesus is present.

As he was present in the showbread, so is he present in the midst of the candlesticks. The candlesticks are the church, the fellowship of the saints, which we experience. The light from the candlesticks is the light that comes from the joint corporate expression of the people of God gathered in the community of God.

So in the fellowship of the saints there is a light that is experienced. A person can have natural light outside the tent, the sun, of course, illuminate the outer court because it had no roof on it, but once you were inside the court you didn't have natural light, you had only the light of the church, only the light that came from the people of God. And then, of course, as you go into Holy of Holies you don't even have that light, you only have the light of God's own presence, even as the city of God in Revelation 21 has no sun or moon to light it, no lamp, but the glory of God is the light of it.

So there are various lights that we come into, illumination levels, phases of illumination. At this point we're talking about the special illumination that comes from being in the church. I don't know about you, but I have been in the Lord for a number of years, and I've gone to some churches for many years where I knew everything already that the preacher was going to say.

There's one church in particular I was in for five years, after being under him for two or three years I'd heard everything he had to say. And often I'd say, well, I don't need to go hear him today, I know what he's going to talk about, he's on this passage of Scripture, I know what he's going to say, I know the illustrations he's going to use, I know the cross-references, I know everything he's going to say. And it was true, I did.

But there were times when the Holy Spirit said, no, go anyway. And I would go, and as I read along, even though the man in the pulpit said nothing that I had not heard before, the Lord was revealing things to me in his Word which I would never have gotten if I was just sitting at home with my Bible. I don't know why it is, it's supernatural or something, but this has not happened once or twice, this happened every time I went to the Fellowship of the Saints.

It didn't matter if the man in the pulpit had anything new to say to me, often what he said to me contributed nothing to me. But there in the Fellowship of the Saints, the Spirit was moving and illumination was coming, and I was reading passages, my eyes were being opened. Sometimes my thoughts would be directed by something the man said, something I was well familiar with, but something he said would just kind of spark something in my mind, and the Spirit would just take me off and lead me to another Scripture.

I'd be having my own little Bible study going on there in the pew, and there was light in the Fellowship of the Saints that I wouldn't have had outside the Fellowship. You might say, well, that's just your experience, that's not so, but I think I've heard testimonies of other people that say the same thing is true, and I would venture to guess that this is the common experience of Christians, that God illuminates, God feeds in a special way that he does not do when you're alone, when you are honoring him and gathering together with his people, and the Spirit of God moves among his people. Jesus is moving among the candlesticks and tending the lamps.

Now, many of us need help to burn brightly and to burn purely, because all of us do, of course. Some of us need more help than others. Some wicks are a little more sooty than others, or need more trimming and need more attention.

Some are flickering on the way out. The Bible says in Proverbs, the Spirit of the man is the candle of the Lord. Your spirit is the candle of the Lord, an interesting concept which we can get into some other time.

But the thing is, some of us have very faint, flickering spirits, just about ready to go out. We're weak and need a lot of attention, and the promise of God is that Jesus gives special attention to those lamps that need the most attention. Even in describing him as a shepherd, it says he shall lead his flock like a shepherd.

He shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. The strong ones don't need as much attention. The ones with young need to be gently led along.

The lambs can't even walk themselves, so he just gathers them and carries them. He gives special care and tenderness to those that require it, the weaker ones. The one that wanders off is the one that gets his attention, not the ninety and nine.

So we see Jesus gives special attention to the lamps. Now the Bible speaks of Jesus in Isaiah 42, and it's quoted in the New Testament also, as being the servant of the Lord, he shall not strive, he shall not lift up his voice in the streets. It says, a smoking flax he shall not quench, and a bruised reed he shall not break.

A smoking flax refers to a wick. The wicks were made out of flax. And a smoking flax is obviously one that the flame has just gone out, and now this little spiral of smoke is coming up, and it's just about ceased to have any warmth at all to it.

It's just about gone. It ceased to have any function at all. Just about.

But the Bible says, when Jesus sees a smoking flax, he doesn't say, ah, this one's about gone, might as well snuff it, you know. Instead, he nurses it back, he relights it, he tends it. He doesn't snuff a smoking flax.

He sees a bruised reed and he doesn't say, ah, this is a useless thing, let's mow it down. He doesn't break it. He puts a splint on it.

So, we see Jesus, the high priest, moving among the candles, extending the lamps as necessary, making sure that each has enough oil, making sure that the wicks are trimmed appropriately, and that there's proper care given so that this lamp burns brightly. This is the function of Christ experienced in the fellowship of the saints. Your wick will not be trimmed effectively if you are not in fellowship with other Christians, because God uses your fellow Christians as the tongs, and the scissors that he trims you with, you see.

They are the chisel. They are the tools in God's hands. The Bible speaks of his people as his battle axes, weapons of war, and also as his saw and as his tools.

And so, we see then that God does trim his lamps. Jesus is there tending, but through us, through each other, you see. We are the tools and the implements through which he tends the others.

So, the fellowship of the saints, this mutual dependence that we have, is seen here in the tabernacle, and this is part of the prescribed way of approaching God. People may try to do it without going the prescribed route, but the way, as Jesus said he was, is prescribed and laid out for us in a pattern in the tabernacle. And these things are something that we can't avoid without damage, without forfeiting some benefit.

Okay, I wanted to say finally, if you look at Zechariah chapter 4, Zechariah is the second to the last book in the Old Testament. Zechariah 4, we'll look at the only verses. Now, Zechariah was a man who had many visions.

I think even in one night he had them all. I'm not sure about this. He had ten visions in the book of Zechariah, or dreams or something.

And some of them, like the visions of Isaiah and Jeremiah, some of them are kind of hard to discern. He didn't actually describe them in as much detail as I would like him to, although I suppose as much detail as we need is there. But if you look at the opening verses, it says, And the angel that talked with me came again and waked me, he was waking from sleep, verse 2, and said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold, a candlestick, all of gold, that's what we're talking about here, he saw the candlestick, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereupon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, apparently from this bowl which held the oil there were seven pipes going to each of the seven lamps.

Although this is why I said it's kind of hard to know exactly how this looked, because he didn't describe it quite as thoroughly or clearly as I'd like. Seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof, and two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. So I answered and spake unto the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Now Zerubbabel is the man who had the ministry of building the house of God. All right? Zerubbabel had led a group of people out of Babylon, seventy years earlier, Jerusalem had been burned to the ground, the walls were broken down, the temple was burned.

Zerubbabel was sent back to build the temple again, to build the house of God. This project of Zerubbabel is a spiritual type of what is happening today. Jesus is building his house, his people.

We are living stones being built up as spiritual habitation for the Lord God. The people of God are his house, his habitation. So the building, the ministry that Zerubbabel had, corresponds to the ministry of those who are sent by God to build his house in this day, to build up the church through teaching and prophecy and evangelism.

The Bible says he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the edifying of the saints, for the perfecting of the saints, that is, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying or building up of the house of God, of the body of Christ. So these ministries are given. And like Zerubbabel, his project was to build up the house of God.

So is the ministry of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. These are to do the same thing. Now the message was to them.

The candlestick with the two olive trees had a message for a man in this position. And if you look at verse 11, it says, Then answered I and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again and said unto him, What be these two olive branches, which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? Now this wasn't described earlier in the chapter, but apparently in his vision, he saw the candlestick with a bowl and seven pipes going from the bowl to the seven churches. And the two olive trees, one at each side, had pipes going from them into the bowl.

So the olive trees, they burned olive oil, the oil that was burning them was olive oil. So the olive trees were the sources of a never-ending supply of oil. Because as long as they had their roots down and they were growing trees, they'd be producing olive oil all the time.

So a never-ending supply of oil was coming through these tubes into this bowl that fed these seven lamps, through seven tubes. Do you have that picture in your mind? Okay, that's what he was seeing. Now he said, What are these olive trees? What does this all mean? And verse 13 says, And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? Boy, that could get annoying.

And I said, No, my lord. I asked what they were, what do you say that I know? Verse 14. Now this is interesting.

He said, These, now the olive trees, these are the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. Anointed means ones who have the oil upon them, of course. The anointing was the pouring of oil over a person.

The ones who were sent by God, who have his anointing, his ordination, that they stand by the Lord of the whole earth. They are the people who stand in the presence of God and they are anointed by him to supply the oil to the churches. Now in this case, the two anointed, anyone know who the two anointed ones were in this case? One was Zerubbabel, the other was, you don't know? Okay, the other was Joshua.

Joshua was a high priest. Not the same Joshua from the Book of Joshua, another one. There was a high priest named Joshua and Zerubbabel was the governor who was overseeing the project.

So the religious and political side of the kingdom of God is seen because the kingdom of God has a political and a religious aspect. But the men, the priest and the governor, the two men who God had anointed for this project, were like olive trees supplying oil to the lamp. And God interpreted this in verse 6 and said, what this means is, this is the message to these men, especially to Zerubbabel.

The message is, it's not by might, not by human strength, not by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. The oil represents the Holy Spirit. And while the tabernacle lamp had to be fed again and again with oil, because it would burn down the oil.

It had to be fed repeatedly, but not so in the project of God's building of the church. Because the oil is supplied on a continual basis as long as the supply lines are kept clear. As long as there is still a connection.

Now, the sources through which God supplies the needed oil, apparently, are the anointed ones. There are those who are anointed for the kind of ministry that supplies the spiritual life to the church. The pastors, the teachers, the evangelists, the apostles, the prophets.

Those who have the word of the Lord and present it and minister the spirit. Paul said in Galatians, I think three, he that ministereth the spirit unto you. Does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? So there were those who ministered the spirit.

There are those who minister the oil, those through whom the oil flows to the church. Jesus is tending the lamp, but he supplies the oil through his ministers. It's our own American individualism that makes us say, I don't need the other brothers and sisters.

I can grow just as well in my prayer closet with my Bible. And I have the highest revelation around anyway. So people reject the body of Christ and say, I will get my enlightenment from God.

But that is not the prescribed way. According to the pattern, you come into the holy place where you partake of the light of the church. You come into the bread of life.

You come into the presence of the Lord.