This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, I want to welcome you to day two of our look together at
Hebrews chapter 8. We're going to look at verses 3 to 5 today. In fact, I'd like
to begin by reading those verses.

Hebrews chapter 8, 3 to 5. "Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts
and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to
offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men
who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.

They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven. This
is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle. See to it
that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

" Now I want to focus today on those truths in verse 5. The sanctuary that's a
copy, a shadow of what's in heaven. Just as we've learned this last week that
the priesthood of Melchizedek preceded the priesthood of Aaron, and so Jesus is
a better, a higher priest, we learned this week that there is a tabernacle of
heaven that preceded the tabernacle of Moses.

And so Jesus serves at a greater tabernacle, one that even preceded that of
Moses. Now in these verses we are told two very deep and very significant truths
that you and I need to know about this tabernacle. We're told that the
tabernacle both foreshadows and it shadows.

It foreshadows Jesus. It is a type, it is an example, it is an object lesson in
essence of Jesus who is to come someday. All that's in this tabernacle, the way
that it was built, the things that were placed into this tabernacle foreshadows
the fact that Jesus is going to come someday.

The tabernacle foreshadows Jesus, but it's also a shadow of what's in heaven.
We're told here it's a shadow of this dwelling place of God in all of eternity
in heaven. Let's just dig into this a little bit, the importance of this.

First the tabernacle foreshadows Jesus. This tabernacle foreshadows the fact
that Jesus Christ is going to give his life for us. The tabernacle was the place
where the sacrifices were made and Jesus sacrificed his life for us.

The tabernacle was the place where God's dwelling place was in the Ark of the
Covenant behind the curtain in the Holy of Holies and Jesus has brought God's
dwelling to us through giving his life for us. Even the specific items in the
tabernacle point to Jesus. The light of the candles, the spiritual food of the
bread.

We're going to go into this more next week as we, in chapter 9, see this laid
out for us in detail. He's going to come back to this in chapter 9. By the way,
this is a good opportunity to note what a great teacher the Holy Spirit is
through the writer of the book of Hebrews.

Throughout this book, and you've probably seen this throughout this book, he
tends to tell us what he's going to say a chapter or two before he says it,
maybe just a sentence or two. And later he says, "Oh, by the way, it's still
coming. " He builds our anticipation and then he lays it out for us.

So here we're told about this tabernacle and in the next chapter we're going to
get some more detail on this tabernacle. He does what any good teacher would do.
He says what he's going to say, he says it, and then he says what he said.

Now that has to happen because none of us get it the first time. None of us
understand the truth just hearing it once. So he says it in different ways, in
different times, so we can get this truth into our lives.

Here, for instance, he talks about the fact that it was necessary for this
priest to have something to offer. What's he talking about there? He's building
anticipation.

In a couple of chapters he's going to talk about what this priest offered, the
fact that Jesus Christ offered himself. He's just getting us ready for the truth
that's on the way. He's getting our hearts ready.

The Holy Spirit's a great teacher and we see it in powerful ways throughout the
book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is a great object lesson model for you and
I as teachers. And one of the things that it teaches us is that the tabernacle
foreshadowed Jesus.

There's another truth here, and that is that the tabernacle shadowed heaven. We
talk more probably about the first of these two truths, but it also shadowed
heaven. It's a copy.

It's a shadow of what was in heaven. Now heaven is the place that God dwells.
And so when you talk about the tabernacle shadowing heaven, we're talking about
the dwelling place of God.

You can see this all the way to the end of the Bible. Revelation 21. 3 talks
about the fact that the dwelling place of God will be with men.

That's the Greek word "skeene" and that word is literally the word "tabernacle.
" If you read Revelation 21. 3 literally, it is the tabernacle of God is with
people, with his people, and he will tabernacle with them.

He will dwell with them. To tabernacle is to dwell. To dwell is to tabernacle.

So when we read about the tabernacle shadowing heaven, it's this incredible
truth of Moses getting a sense of the dwelling place of God in heaven and
building an expression of that on this earth in the tabernacle. And in that
tabernacle as he builds it, there is an expression of the fact that Jesus is
going to come someday and he's going to open the door so that you and I can be
in that dwelling place of heaven. We serve an awesome God.

He's tied this story together from beginning to end in ways that we sometimes
see and many times miss. It's an awesome way that he has told us the story of
salvation. Now this talks about a shadow, a copy of a tabernacle in heaven.

Is there an exact tabernacle in heaven, some people ask, just like the one that
Moses built? I suppose there could be. There certainly could be.

I mean, heaven's a pretty big place, except that there'd be no curtain shutting
off the holy of holies, the holy place from God's presence. It would be an open
temple. In fact, we get an expression of that in Revelation 11.

19 which says, "Then God's temple in heaven was opened and within his temple was
seen the ark of the covenant. " Well, the only way you could see the ark of the
covenant is if that curtain wasn't there any longer. So it would be different.

So yes, there could be an exact copy. That's what Moses saw. That's what he
copied.

But there's a bigger idea here also. And if you miss this bigger idea, you miss
what it means for there to be a copy, a shadow of a tabernacle here on this
earth. And that is the idea that all of heaven is, in a sense, a tabernacle.

All of heaven is a place of God's dwelling. All of heaven is a holy place, a
holy of holies. And there is this picture here that you and I, we are in the
outer courts now.

We're on earth. We're worshiping God. You might remember in the temple, they had
outer courts.

You didn't get into the building, but you could be in these courtyards that were
outside where you could see the building. You could see the place of God's
presence. And in one sense, being on this earth now, we're in the outer courts.

We sense God's presence. We have God's presence in us through the Holy Spirit.
We haven't fully yet experienced it, though, like we will in heaven.

We look forward to that day. And someday, we will all enter into the tabernacle
of heaven. And in that tabernacle, we will all experience this sense of the
dwelling of God is with his people.

Now, as we pray today, I'd like to take a few minutes to pray, because the
tabernacle is all about God's presence. So I want to invite you just for a few
minutes to sit with me in God's presence, to sense the presence of God through
his spirit in your life, the presence of God through the fact that he is
anywhere and everywhere all at once. God is right there.

And in sensing his presence, just get a deeper sense maybe than you ever have
before of the of the story of salvation, how God built into this world a
tabernacle that expressed the dwelling place of heaven, but also looked forward
to the coming of Jesus. And then in the coming of Jesus, you and I are invited
to dwell with God forever. In your mind, just for a moment, recognize the truth
of the Old Testament, that Moses was told to build a tabernacle.

And in that tabernacle, he was told to put an ark of the covenant and in that
ark of the covenant, there would be the presence of God and the glory of God's
presence was shown to his people in that tabernacle as they saw a cloud, as they
saw a pillar. But then go to the New Testament and remember that Jesus, when he
was here on this earth, told us that he wanted us to dwell with him forever. In
John 14, he says, I want you to be with me where I am.

This tabernacle in the Old Testament that foreshadowed Jesus, Jesus in the New
Testament says, I want you to be with me where I am, the dwelling of God once
again. And then fast forward to the book of Revelation, where we are in heaven,
where it's revealed to us that we're in the tabernacle of God forever together.
And God says to us, I will be with my people, my people with me, I will dwell
with my people, my people will dwell with me.

So even though we don't fully dwell there yet, we have the promise of it in
Jesus, we have the promise of God's spirit. And because of these truths, you and
I can, in a sense, dwell in God's presence today. We can have that sense of who
we really are, dwelling in God's presence like maybe you never have before.

Enter into his presence right now. Live in his presence this day. Our Father,
that's our prayer, that we would live in your presence this day, in Jesus' name,
Amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to look together at a new and better covenant.