Exodus Offerings

Exodus — Steve Gregg

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Exodus Offerings

ExodusSteve Gregg

In Exodus, the people of Israel showed eagerness to contribute to the building of the tabernacle, giving both free will and mandatory offerings to support construction and maintenance. The offerings included precious materials and were used to construct furniture and garments for the priests. Despite the emphasis on giving, the ultimate goal was for the sanctuary to be a place for God to dwell among His people, and gifted artisans filled with the Spirit of God were chosen to design and create the items. The building of the church is a spiritual act made possible by spirit-filled workers, and everything that contributes to building the body of Christ, including ordinary gifts, is cherished by God.

Transcript

All right, we only have a little bit left of Exodus. Kind of, one might say, fragments to cover. We talked about the tabernacle and its details yesterday in detail, but there were a few items that the chapters covered are concerned with that we didn't talk about.

One of the things that is brought up a lot in the discussion of the tabernacle is the donations that are made for the tabernacle, and the eagerness of the people to contribute. Now, these were not particularly spiritual people most of the time. As we know, they worshipped a golden calf and so forth, but they were also kind of untrained.

They had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years and had very little experience with Yahweh. They had received his laws, but they had been foolish and succumbed to the temptation of building an idol, which had been a big problem. But that got resolved.

And as it turns out, the people, for the most part, were enthusiastic about cooperating and worshipping God appropriately. And this was going to require that they build the tabernacle and its furniture and have priests and so forth, and they needed clothing for the priests and materials for the tabernacle and its furniture. And as you observed, I'm sure in reading it, this took a lot of gold and a lot of silver and a lot of wood, a lot of material, including linen and leather and things like that.

And so contributions were taken for it. And we have several places in Exodus that talk about the contributions. And you might think, well, do we really have to cover that? Maybe not in grueling detail, but since so much attention is given to it, it apparently has its value to us.

In chapter 25, verses one through nine, it says, Then Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart. You shall take my offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them.

Gold, silver and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarn, fine linen thread and goats hair, ram skins dyed red, badger skins and acacia wood, oil for the light and spices for the anointing oil for the sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings.

Just so you shall make it. So he actually speaks about these items as if people are familiar with them, like he mentions the ephod and and he mentions the oil for the light and so forth. And yet he's not really at this point described any of those things.

Those things are described later in the following chapters. But we can see that the donations are not just. This isn't Moses asking for his honorarium for being the leader.

This is asking for actual materials that are needed for the ministry. These materials for the building of the sanctuary, without which they're not going to have one. And we skip over a little bit over to chapter 30 and verses 11 through 16.

It says, then you always spoke to Moses saying, when you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself of the Lord when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. This is what everyone among them or those who are numbered shall give half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary. A shekel is 20 giraz.

The half shekel shall be an offering to the Lord. This will be a silver shekel. Everyone included among those who are numbered from 20 years old and above shall give an offering to the Lord.

The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel. When you give an offering to the Lord, you make atonement for yourselves and you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting that it may be for a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord to make atonement for yourselves. Now, this is different from what was described in Chapter 25, because in Chapter 25, it was free will.

It was stated specifically in Chapter 25, verse two, from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, you shall take my offering. That was one kind of offering that was a free will offering. This, however, is a mandatory offering that was sort of a poll tax.

Uh, the census would be taken eventually here. It was not taken yet. It was taken in the book of Numbers, and they would find that there's over 600,000 males over 20 years old.

And those were to each give half a shekel of silver, which would mean they'd have something like 300,000 shekels of silver when they're done. This silver is for the sanctuary. Also, this is also going to be used probably for such things as the silver sockets that that stood under the boards that made up the building of the sanctuary and other uses of silver.

And it was kind of like a tax. It was the temple tax. It became customary of the Jews after this to every time they had a census, take the half shekel.

And so the half shekel of silver became an ongoing tax, even in the time of Jesus. But it was considered at that time more or less voluntary. At this point, the first half shekel was almost like a ransom for themselves, saying, you know, God's saying, well, I delivered you out of Egypt.

You kind of owe me for that. And to show that you are indebted to me for that, you can give you can sort of pay a ransom for yourself, which is pretty cheap, by the way, is about 50 cents, probably, I suppose. And I don't remember it is a small amount.

It was affordable. Even the poor could get it and the rich would get no more. And there's a sense in which that principle is probably significant that the poor will not be less than the rich and not pay more.

There's some ways in which all people are equal before God. Everyone kind of has the same value before God, rich or poor, and has the same indebtedness to God. And so that is seen by the fact that everyone gives this set amount.

Now, in Jesus day, he was once asked by the Jews whether he or it was actually Peter was asked whether Jesus paid the temple tax. It was this half shekel that we're talking about here. We find that in Chapter 17 of Matthew, Matthew 17, 24 through 27, says, and when he had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax, that would be the silver half shekel, came to Peter and said, does your teacher not pay the temple tax? And Peter said, yes.

But then he began to wonder if he said the right thing. He wasn't sure. And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him saying, what do you think, Simon, from whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes from their own sons or from strangers? And Peter said to him from strangers, Jesus said to him, then the sons are free.

Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea and cast in a hook and take the fish out that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money. Take that and give it to them for me and you actually find a shekel.

And that would be enough for two people. Now, he didn't find enough for all the twelve disciples. Jesus seemed to be ambivalent about paying this temple tax.

He said, basically, we're out. We're exempt from it. This is my father's house that's being supported with this.

This is for the maintenance of the temple. And I'm one of his kids. And the kings don't ask their children to pay tribute to them.

They actually exact tribute money from conquered people, from foreigners. Kings of the earth don't ask their sons to pay their expenses. The sons are free because of their royal status.

Strangers and conquered peoples have to pay tribute to the king that conquered them. And so Jesus is essentially saying this money is for the temple and this is God's house and we're his kids and we don't you know, this is something that he's not expecting us to pay. But we don't want to offend these people, so go ahead and pay it.

But he didn't take it out of the disciples treasury. He said, go catch a fish. And it's a very strange story because it appears to be a miracle that Jesus caused this fish to be caught that had the coin in his mouth.

But exactly what it's saying is hard to say it hard to as far as its application to us, because the temple isn't standing today, that temple and Jesus seemed to be thinking that the maintenance of the temple at that time was not going to be a priority for God or for God's kids, perhaps because Jesus was already thinking in terms of there being a new temple made up of the disciples and therefore, he and his disciples not really have any commitment to supporting the old temple. But he said, we don't want to offend them, so we'll go ahead and pay it. But you see, it was voluntary.

That's why people said, does your teacher pay the temple tax or not? Because it was kind of you could or not. But in the days of Moses, it was mandatory here. It was the only part of the offerings for the tabernacle that was mandatory, and it was not very expensive.

God didn't lay a heavy price mandatory on Israel, but there was a lot needed. But he was holding out for free will offerings for almost all of it. And so if you turn now to Exodus 35 verses four through twenty nine, we find just the description of the things that were offered by the people.

And it's going to be familiar stuff to us by now. In Exodus 35, for Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, this is the thing which Yahweh commanded, saying, take from among you an offering to the Lord, whoever is of a willing heart. Let him bring it as an offering to the Lord.

Gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet, yarn, fine linen, thread, goat's hair, ram's skin, dyed bread and so forth. The same things we read before. Notice, of course, among the things that were offered, it mentions gold.

Which there'd be a lot of and silver and bronze, so there was an addition to the half shekel silver. There was this additional silver they're going to be taking. There's really a lot of silver.

And then it says in verse 10, all who are skillful among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded the tabernacle, its tent, its coverings, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars and its sockets, the ark and its poles with the mercy seat and the veil of the covering the table and its poles and all its utensils. Then they show bread also the lampstand for the light, its utensils and its lamps and the oil for the light, the incense altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense and the screen for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle, the altar burnt offering and its bronze grating, its poles, all its utensils and the labor and its base, the hangings of the court, its pillars, their sockets and the screen for the gate of the court, the pegs of the tabernacle, the pegs of the court and their cords, the garments of ministry for the ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron, the priest and the garments for his sons to minister as priests. And so we read that the articles were presented in verse 20.

It says, and all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. Then everyone came whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing. And they brought the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting for all its service and for the holy garments.

They came both men and women, as many as had a willing heart and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold. That is every man who offered an offering to the gold to the Lord and every man with whom was found blue and purple and scarlet, fine linen, goats hair, skins of Rams and badger skins brought them. Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought the Lord's offering.

And everyone with whom was found Acacia wood for any work of the service brought it. Now again, where did these people get this stuff? They got it from the Egyptians, some people had badger skins, some people had Rams and some people had Acacia wood. Apparently, before they left Egypt, as everyone went and, you know, hit up their Egyptian neighbors for stuff, different people receive different things.

You know, one Egyptian had a pile of lumber. And so the guy from the juice, OK, I think that someone else said, I got this stack of badger skins here. The guy said, I'll take that.

So different Jews, different Israelites had different things. And so those who had this brought it and those who had that brought that. And it says in verse twenty five, all the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands and brought what they had spun a blue, purple and scarlet, fine linen.

And all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn for goats hair. The rulers brought onyx stones and the stones to be set in the aphod, which we haven't read about yet, and in the breastplate and the spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil and sweet incense. It says the children of Israel brought a free will offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material up for all kinds of work, which the Lord, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.

And so, you know, we just read of all this that is presented. As it turns out, they brought more than was necessary. In chapters thirty six verses two through seven, it actually is reported to most that there's too much stuff being given.

So then Moses called Bezalel and Aholiad and every gifted artisan in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred to come and do the work. And they received from Moses all the offerings which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of making the sanctuary. So they continued bringing to him a free will offering every morning.

Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came each from the work that he was doing, and they spoke to Moses saying the people bring much, much, much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded us to do. So Moses gave a commandment and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp saying let man or woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. And the people were restrained from bringing for the material that they had was sufficient for all the work to be done.

Indeed, too much. That's a nice problem to have when you've got an expensive project and people are more than willing to help and so that the money actually exceeds the need so that the leaders have to come and please don't bring any more. I don't know if I've ever heard a pastor do that.

I don't know if I've ever heard a pastor say please folks, your offerings are too generous. We don't need that much. We've got all the expenses covered.

Please don't bring it here. Now, of course, I don't think you can give too much. And one reason the pastor of a church would never say that is because even if there was more than is needed, most churches have some vision for expanding, putting another wing on the building or at least they could support some more missionaries or something.

There are good things can be done with the money. But it's nice to see that the people were more that God moved people's hearts to the point that although there needed to be probably hundreds of millions of dollars worth of materials, the people just kept pouring it on, keep giving it. I remember when I first came to Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, I'd just come from a traditional church and this was at the beginning of the Jesus movement.

And so nothing very untraditional was familiar to me. And Calvary Chapel had meetings every night of the week, but they had a Sunday morning meeting, which was a lot more traditional than their other meetings. The Sunday morning meeting was sort of like a regular church meeting where the other evening meetings were more like revival meetings and teaching services.

But the first time I went to Calvary on a Sunday morning, first time I saw people dress up to go to Calvary Chapel because it was more of a conservative service. But when it came time for the offering, Chuck Smith got up and I found out later, he said this every week, but he said, the Bible says that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. And he said, the word cheerful in the Greek means hilarious.

It's actually the word from which we get our word hilarious. And he says, when we worship God with giving, it should be a hilarious experience. We should be overjoyed.

And he said, if you can't give into the offering with a hilarious spirit, please don't give it all. He says, God doesn't need your money. And if you can't give cheerfully, please don't give.

He said, don't stain God's treasury with your begrudged money. And I was stunned when I heard that because I'd never heard my pastor at the Baptist Church ever try to dissuade people who were not eager to give from giving. But, you know, the amazing thing is that Chuck, that really was his attitude.

They had evening meetings every evening of the week. They didn't take an offering in any of those meetings. The only meeting they took an offering in was Sunday morning.

And he always gave that kind of disclaimer at the beginning. And yet, that ministry just grew and there was abundance of resources so that they expanded into all kinds of areas of ministry because people just kept wanting to give. And I remember Chuck said that sometimes other local pastors would talk to him during the week and say, well, what are you doing to get these people to contribute so well? Our church over here is not, you know, we can hardly pay our bills.

And they thought Chuck must be doing something to manipulate people to give. And he didn't know what to say. He just said that people just love to give.

And that's what Moses found here in this particular case. These people just wanted, they were just eager to give and they had to be told to stop giving. That was true also when the collection was taken for the temple later on in the time of David.

The people were enthusiastic about the project, obviously, and because they had a vision for it, you really couldn't keep them from giving a lot to it. The last section about the donations is in chapter 38, verses 21 through 31. It just tells us of the materials that were brought.

Chapter 38, verse 21 says, this is the inventory of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the testimony which was counted according to the commandment of Moses for the service of the Levites by the hand of Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest. Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah, made all that the Lord had commanded Moses. And with him was Aholiab, the son of Ahithamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer, a weaver in blue and purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen thread.

All the gold that was used in all the work of the holy place, that is, the gold of the offering was 29 talents and 730 shekels. Now, a talent of gold, I believe, is 60 pounds. So almost 30 of those would be, what am I thinking, is it 1,800 pounds? I'm thinking, am I thinking wrong here? If it was almost 30 times 60, that'd be like 1,800, right? So almost a ton, you know, falls a little short of a ton of gold was used.

And 730 shekels in addition to that, according to the shekel of the sanctuary and the silver from who, from those who were numbered in the congregation was 100 talents, 1,775 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. A beka for each man, that is a half shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. That's what a beka is.

For everyone included in the numbering from 20 years old and above for 603,550 men. Now it's interesting that the census has not been recorded yet. That comes up in the book of numbers, but it gives us already the number that comes out in the sentences later on.

They could have deduced without taking the census by counting up the half shekels, how many men there were paying. And so that's, it came out to the right amount. And from the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil, 100 sockets from one from the hundred talents, one talent for each socket.

So these were the bases for the boards of the sanctuary. Remember the tall 15 foot tall boards that were overlaid with gold. They'd be very heavy, of course.

And the base that they sat on that secured them was of silver and that each one was 60 pounds, a 60 pound base socket. Then from 1,775 shekels, he made hooks for the pillars, overlaid their capitals. That's the cap on top of the pillars and made bands for them.

The offering of bronze was 70 talents and 2,400 shekels. And with it, he made the sockets of the door of the tabernacle of meeting the bronze altar, the bronze grading for it and all the utensils of the altar, the sockets for the court all around the basis for the court gate and the pegs for the tabernacle and all the pegs of the court all around. Now, admittedly, all this detail is a bit tedious, but God saw fit to record it all.

So we're, we, uh, it's not ours to decide that it's not important enough to cover. Now there's one other thing or two in this whole section that needs to be considered. One is that the artisans, the ones who actually did the artwork, making the cherubim in the furniture and stuff like that.

There's a lot of graven work on the candlestick or the lampstand, I should say. And on the, on the, the gold table and the gold altars and so forth that had to be done by skilled workmen. And their names are mentioned, but not only their names, but also the special qualification that they had.

And this is something I think worthy of consideration in chapter 31, verse one says, Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, see, I have called by name, Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding and knowledge and in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze and cutting jewels for settings in carving wood and to work in all manner of workmanship. This man was an all around artisan working in just about every kind of materials that you might wish any medium.

And I, indeed, I have appointed with him a holy ad, the son of a Hesamach of the tribe of Dan. And I put wisdom in the hearts of all who are gifted artisans, that they may make all that I commanded you, the tabernacle of meeting the ark, the testimony, the mercy seat that is on it, all the furniture of the tabernacle, the table and utensils of the pure lampstand with all its utensils, the altar of incense, the altar burns offering with all the utensils and the labor in space, the garments of ministry, the holy garments of Aaron, the priest and the garments of his sons to minister as priests and the anointing oil and sweet incense for the holy place. According to all that I have commanded you, they shall do.

Now, the important thing here is that God, of course, needed special workmen to be able to do the sacred work. And it wasn't just people who had skill. It was in the case of the foreman, at least the leader of the group of artisans was Basilio.

And he specifically said, I have filled him with the spirit of God. Which was, of course, the reason he had the talent that he had. Now, he could have just said, I have found this gentleman to have a lot of skill in this area.

I mean, in a group of six hundred thousand men, there'd be men of various degrees of competence. God could just found the guy who is the best metal worker and just said, this guy's good. I'm going to have him do the work.

But he says, I put the spirit of God in him for this, because God's work has to be done by God's spirit, or at least through the enabling of God's spirit. It's not enough that a man has natural ability. He has to be anointed by the spirit of God for the task.

And this is very important principle that we find throughout the scripture. God did his work, provided leadership and so forth in the Old Testament through men who were spirit filled prophets that the spirit came upon when the kings were anointed. When Saul was a king, the spirit came upon him when he was rejected.

The spirit left him and came on David so he could lead the people. Moses had the spirit upon him when the leadership was shared with 70 elders. The spirit came upon them.

The judges apparently had the spirit of God come upon them. It's not always mentioned, but it is in some cases, especially with Samson, the spirit of God would come upon him. And so, you know, to lead the people of God or to do the ministry in any way requires a person to be anointed or filled with the spirit of God.

And there are people who are not Christians and therefore who are not filled with God, but who are very gifted naturally in many areas. But God's not impressed with natural gifts. He's not interested in just finding the most gifted.

He wants to find the one who's the most spiritual, the one who has the greatest endowment that he has put in them. God really only receives service, but he himself provides the ability to perform. And so we find Peter, for example, in first Peter, chapter four, addressing the Christians about their gifts, their spiritual gifts.

And in first Peter four, verses 10 and 11, Peter says, as which as each one has received a gift. Now, the word gift here is the word. Charisma, charisma, charisma, charisma means gift of grace, the word gift is charisma.

And charisma is the root of that, which means grace, but the gifts of grace are the same things that Paul elsewhere calls the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And he says, as everyone has received a spiritual gift, in other words, it says minister it to one another. Now, minister means serve.

So you've received a gift, use it to serve each other. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, God has given you the grace of this gift or the grace of that gift through his spirit of grace that's given you. And that enablement that he gives you.

Is that which you have to steward, you steward that gift, if you use it to minister to each other, that's been a good steward of that gift of grace that God has given. Then he says in verse 11, if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. It means like a prophet of God.

Let him speak, in other words, by the Holy Spirit's guidance and inspiration. If anyone ministers, that means serves. Let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Now, Peter is talking about gifts, the spirit in general. In verse 10, then he separates it into two classes of gifts. In verse 11, there are those gifted people who speak and there are those gifted people who serve.

They don't speak, they serve. Of course, speaking should be a service also, but he's talking about the difference between those who provide ministry to the spiritual needs by speaking the words of God and those in the other ministry to the physical needs through service. And when Paul lists different gifts of spirit, there are both kinds there.

The gifts that Paul mentions most of the largest number of are the speaking gifts. He talks about word of knowledge, word of wisdom, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, teaching, exhortation. These are all gifts that involve speaking and they address the spiritual needs of the body of Christ.

But they're also listed the gift of showing mercy, the gift of help, the gifts of giving. And these all provide for physical needs of the body of Christ, the body of Christ made up of people who live in both areas. They have needs physical and spiritual.

And so there are both kinds of gifts. Some people are primarily speak and therefore their contributions to the spiritual needs of the church. Other people serve, have gifts of helps and so forth and giving.

And so the important thing that Peter says is whichever category it is, don't do it in your own strength. Do it as according to the gift that God gives. If you're someone who speaks, then speak as the oracles of God speak.

That is through God's spiritual gifting. Not because you're eloquent by nature, not because you've been trained as an orator. Not because you've been formally educated, and so therefore, you know, stuff that other people don't know, don't speak from those qualifications, speak from the only qualification that matters.

That is that the Holy Spirit has made you a spokesperson. The Holy Spirit gives you words to speak because it is the words which the spirit gives that will feed the spirits of people. Other words that are not from the Holy Spirit may feed the minds of the people or even the egos or the ego of the speaker.

But if it's the words the Holy Spirit is giving. Well, then the Holy Spirit gives words that will minister to the spirits of those who are hearers, that it may minister grace to the hearers, as Paul says in Ephesians four. But then there's other gifts that are just serving gifts.

And Peter said, if you are, if you have those kinds of gifts, well, the ones who serve, let them do it as of the ability which God supplies. Not natural ability, necessarily, merely, but that which God supernaturally supplies. Now, you might say, well, if my service to the body of Christ is fixing cars for people, how am I going to distinguish between the ability that God supplies and my natural abilities in that area that I've been trained in or I have natural knowledge of this field? Or if my ministry is in cooking for people or my ministry is in setting up chairs, how in the world do I do that according to the ability that God supplies, as opposed to just the natural ability that anyone would have to cook or to set up chairs or to mow lawns or do anything like that? Well, I believe that the gifts of spirit, like the gift that Oholia here had and Bezalel, I believe these men probably had what most people would consider natural talents, artistic talents.

And there were probably a lot of people in Israel besides them who might have talents of a similar degree. We don't even know that these were the most talented men in their field, but they were the ones that God put his spirit upon and therefore authorized and anointed them and enabled them to work as a spiritual work. You see, a person who has no gift in teaching or prophecy or special, you know, doesn't have the gift or the calling to speak to the church might be a great speaker, might be well educated.

But when they speak, they speak from human ability merely. And there's no spiritual blessing that comes with it, there's no God's not working in it because it's not from his spirit. And the same is true when it's not a speaking thing, but it's cooking or cleaning or fixing or maintaining or.

Any practical help that someone's giving, if that's their gift, then they do it, of course, what they do looks like the same thing that a person would do is not a Christian doing the same work, but there'd be a different there'd be a spiritual blessing in it. And I don't know how to explain this, except to say that I imagine many of you have known of cases of, you know, let's say a church having a janitor who is, you know, just doing it as a job. You know, he doesn't seem to have any gift of helps, but his job is to help.

And, you know, he just he's just feeling a function, might even be grumpy about it. You know, it's not he's not doing it as of the ability that God gives. He's doing it just as something that he can do and that he can make a living at.

But then there's other people who serve and when they serve, it's just a blessing. I see that particularly, for example, with the gift of hospitality, almost everybody will have someone over their house sometime and try to make them feel at home. But some places you really do feel at home.

Other times you don't. They're doing their best, but you kind of feel like you're an intruder in somebody else's space. Other people, you walk into their house and you just feel that like like you really do belong there.

Like there's a there's just a spirit of of welcome. There's a there's a spiritual aspect to what they're doing that is that ministers. And Peter is saying that giftedness.

The spiritual gifts. Sometimes they may look like the same kind of behaviors that ungifted people have, but a spiritual gift is something that when it is done, God gets the glory. There is blessing to the people being ministered to, and that blessing is coming from God through the Holy Spirit.

That's what makes it a spiritual giftedness is that God is ministering through it. It's not just something that's being done. A man can give a speech, an inspiring speech about a religious topic, one that educates people and people get a lot more information that they didn't have before.

And yet there may be no spiritual blessing at all. God's not using it at all to transform the hearers. And likewise, people may do various forms of service or even giving.

And. You know, it doesn't really promote the kingdom of God because it's not it's not God leading them, it's not God enabling them, they're not doing it as of the ability that God gives or just doing it because that's the ability they have. It's not they're not conscious of God being the one that's empowering and enabling and working through them.

And. God has always insisted that his church be built by people who are who have the spirit of God and have the gifts for it. The tabernacle had to be built and it's for sure to be built by someone not just who is a skilled worker, but who the spirit of God had gifted him to do the work of God.

And, you know, Jesus trained his disciples for three years approximately, perhaps before he was crucified, before he left. But when he was all done with them and he was going to be leaving, he said, now, wait here in Jerusalem until you are endowed with power from on high. And then you'll go out and be my witnesses.

Well, they were quite capable of bearing witness to Jesus without that. They bearing witness just means you tell people you saw they could have written those gospels without being filled with the spirit, couldn't they? I mean, after all, they're just telling a story about something they saw. Lots of lots of non-Christian people write, you know, their memoirs or write biographies of people they knew.

Why? Why did they have to wait to be endowed with powerful on high before they go out and bear witness to Jesus was because even though they'd had their full training from him, they still did not have the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the building of the church is not to be done by natural ability, no matter how qualified a natural person is in his ability to communicate or do whatever it is he does. It doesn't build the church because the church is a spiritual thing and it has to be built through the work of the spirit of God.

Therefore, those who work and who build and who minister have to be filled with the spirit of God. And Jesus would not let his disciples, though he had finished training them by this time, he would not let them go out and do any ministry without first receiving the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. After that, of course, their ministry had great power and great anointing.

And so we see in the building of the tabernacle, God's concern for this same thing, the building of his church, the building of his building has got to be done through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And this man, Basil was the gifted one who apparently oversaw the other workers and even apparently taught them. There's more about him and them in chapter thirty five, verse thirty, up through chapter thirty six, verse one.

It says, and Moses said to the children of Israel, see, Yahweh has called by name the son of Uri, the son of her of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to to work in gold and silver and bronze and cutting jewels and setting and carving wood and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship. And he has put in his heart the ability to teach. That is to teach other artisans to train the others, because this man wouldn't do all that work with his own hands.

That would take way too long. To build each to carve each board individually and play it with gold and so forth, he had to have helpers, but God gave him the ability to teach and to disciple others in his in his trade and in his gifting. And so he has put in his heart the ability to teach in him and a holy on the son of a house, of the tribe of Dan.

He has filled them with the skill to do all manner of work of the engraver, of the designer, of the tapestry maker in blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and of the weaver. Those who do every work and those who design artistic works and Bezalel and holy up and every gifted artisan in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to do all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary shall do according to all that the Lord has commanded. So that's the last we hear of them.

But the point here is that one thing, as I mentioned, is that the work of God has to be done through spirit filled workers. And even when it's something manual. Like making something.

Another thing we see about this is that these guys had a lot of trades that we would consider to be secular in nature, a diamond cutter, a carver of wood, a weaver of cloth. A sculptor, these these skills these guys had, we would normally consider to be just kind of secular abilities they were given by God. But the interesting thing is that a person can do these things as gifts from God as an offering to God.

Now, a person who doesn't have a gift to preach or teach or prophesy or do some kind of public ministry might have a trade. That's just really what we call a mundane secular ability to do something. Like I said, to cook, to sew, to fix cars, clean windows, whatever.

These are ordinary things, but it's clear that people with those ordinary gifts, if that is what God has given them to do, can offer it to the Lord. And in this case, they offer to the Lord by building an actual building for him that he wanted built. But everything we do should be contributing to the building up of the body of Christ, which is people living stones built together into a holy temple.

Everything we do should be building up each other. Remember, Paul said, let all things be done unto edifying. Edifying means building up the word edify comes like the word edifice, a building.

Edify means to build up and we're to edify one another as these builders built a building for God. So all of us are building a building for God. We're all building up the body of Christ and each other who are the components of that building, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

One other thing I need to bring out before we take a break, and that is that there was special formula given for the oil that would be used for anointing the priests and other things. And for the instance that we've burned these, they weren't just supposed to go down to the store and pick up some name brand. They were supposed to make a special, a unique formula that couldn't be used for anything except for the sacred anointing and the sacred incense.

We see this in Chapter 30, verses 22 through 38. In Chapter 30, verse 22, it says, Moreover, the Lord said to Moses saying, spoke to Moses saying, Also, take for yourself quality spices, 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much sweet smelling cinnamon, 250 shekels, 250 shekels of sweet smelling cane. A shekel was a weight measurement.

When we talk about the half shekel, there's not about that much weight of silver was a half shekel of silver. But this is now the same increment of measurement, but they're measuring now spices. So they've got liquid myrrh.

They've got sweet smelling cinnamon. They've got sweet smelling cane. Verse 24, 500 shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary and a hint of the olive oil.

And you shall make from these holy from these a holy anointing oil and ointment compounded according to the art of the perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing oil. With it, you shall anoint the tabernacle of meeting and the ark of the testimony, the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and utensils, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils and the labor in its base.

You shall sanctify them that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them must be holy as only the priests who are holy unto the Lord can touch these holy items. An ordinary person cannot.

And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons and sanctify them that they may minister to me as priests. And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying this shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations. It shall not be poured on the man's flesh, nor shall you make any other like it.

According to its composition, it is holy and it shall be holy to you. Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people. Now, the point here is that the anointing oil, of course, represents the Holy Spirit, and therefore it has to be of a different composition than other oils that are used in other applications, because the Holy Spirit is well different than other spirits, human spirits, demonic spirits.

God is a unique spirit, and that's what the word holy means. Set apart, different, unique, not regular, not ordinary, not for common use. And so the oil had to have its own distinctive properties that nothing else would have.

And if they tried to duplicate it for other applications or put it on people who were not the priests, then this would be an offense so grievous that they'd be cut off from Israel as far as God was concerned. And then the incense, likewise. Remember, the incense was offered as an emblem of prayer on the infant's altar.

Verse 34 says, The Lord said to Moses, take sweet spices, stacchi and Anika and Galbanum or Galbanum and pure frankincense. With these sweet spices, there shall be equal amounts of each. You shall make these with of these and incense a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure and holy.

And you shall beat some of it very fine and put some of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of meeting where I will meet with you. It should be most holy to you. But as for the instance which you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves according to its composition.

It shall be to you wholly for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to smell it, he should be cut off from his people. So the oil for anointing and the incense were both of special formulas because they were said to be holy and holy means for one use only.

And so using it for any other use was considered to be inappropriate, not permitted. And thus, we have only two things to consider, which I think we can consider both of them in our next session and then we'll be done with this. One of them is about the priests.

We have the description of the priest garments as well as the description of their ceremony of consecration. The actual consecration of the priest did not occur until Leviticus chapter eight, but we have the description of that consecration ordinance or right in chapter twenty nine. Their garments are described in chapter twenty eight and their garments, like everything else related to the tabernacle, are symbolic in their features.

So we'll look at that in our next session. And then the only thing I've read is chapter 40, which is when they actually set up the tabernacle. We've read about the description of everything.

We've read about the taking of the collection of the materials. We've read who's been assigned and anointed to do the work. And so after we've looked at the priests and their garments, we will and their consecration.

Right. We'll look at the setting up of the tabernacle itself in the last chapter, and that will bring us to the end of this book. But we'll take a break at this point and we'll come back to finish it up, I think, in the next session.