First Presbyterian Church
of Inglewood
Telephone
numbers: (310) 677-5133 Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic
mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sunday,
January 10, 2010
Rev.
Dr. Harold E. Kidd
Exodus 40: 34 - 38
WHEN
GLORY COMES!
“Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of
meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” Exodus 40:34
In the final chapter of Exodus, which chronicles the
deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt captivity, Israel, as you know, had now
come nearly to the end of her journey. Forty years earlier at the urging of a
man know grown old with age, named Moses, the Hebrews had forsaken the fields
and fleshpots of Pharoah in search of freedom and a
land that metaphorically was said to floe with “Milk and honey.”
While on this journey, Israel had constructed a
tabernacle, a tabernacle built according to the specifications of God who is
the Chief Architect of all creation. Amen. A tabernacle designed to God by God,
given to Moses, for the Hebrews to build, whose purpose it would be to be God’s
dwelling place amidst His people. The building of the Tabernacle preceded the
building of the Temple, 100’s of years later under King Solomon.
In Exodus 25 God gives Moses the exact specifications for
the building and furnishings of this tabernacle. For all intents and purposes,
the Tabernacle was a portable tent, that the Hebrews would carry with them from
place to place during their 40 year wilderness wanderings, whose purposes was
to be God’s dwelling place wherever they made camp. The tabernacle represented
God in their midst, God with them, God their protector and their provider.
Much of the
remainder of the book from chapter 25 – 40 deal primarily with God’s
instructions for building of the tabernacle, and its actual building. In
Chapter 40 upon the completion of the tabernacle, and Moses inspection of it, a
miracle occurs, The cloud covers the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord
filled the Tabernacle. And as Moses records their history of having lived 40
years in the wilderness, “In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the
cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out, but if the cloud
did not lift, they did not set out – until the day it lifted. SO the could of
the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in
the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels.”
This tabernacle did not have the elegance of the Egyptian
pyramids. Not the haunting grace of the Sphinx of Gaza. It would have appeared
as a mole hill adjacent to the Cathedral of St. Peter’s in Rome. It was just a
hand made, temporary tabernacle. We too often are tempted to compare the beauty
of outward Houses of worship in our own day, call them temples, Cathedrals,
Churches , Storefronts, Mosques or Synagogues if you will, But for all intents
and purposes what really matters most is not what the temple looks like but who
occupies its inner Sanctuary. And prayerfully this person is God.
This one little verse, verse 40 tells us a whole lot,
“Then the cloud covered the Tent of the Meeting and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle.” Firstly it tells us that glory comes in the midst of
our willingness to make sacrifices for the Lord. Way out there in the
wilderness, God required of them a sacrifice.
He says to Moses, in Exodus 25, “Tell the Israelites to
bring me an offering.” You are to receive an offering for me from each man
whose heart prompts him to give. These
are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze, blue,
purple and scarlet yearn and fine linen; goat hair, ramskins,
dyed red and hides of sea cows; acacia wood, olive oil for the light; spices
for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; and onyx stones and other
gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastplate.”
“Then,” said God to Moses, “have them make a sanctuary
for me and I will dwell among them.” They were A Nomadic people, a poor people
whose primary wealth had been that with which they had left Eygpt.
The tabernacle had been built because these people had a willing spirit.
Churches exist because of willing spirits. O they didn’t have much, living out
there in the wilderness for 40 years, but what they had, they willingly gave
for the building of the tabernacle. And because of their sacrifices, God dwelt
in their midst.
The church does not exist because we have the best well
thought out financial programs, or management systems, or a fully paid staff,
(much of what is done in the church is done predominantly by volunteers of who
love the Lord), what would the church do with you! But even more so the church
exists, because of soldiers of the cross who have a willing spirit.
The church is built by those willing spirits who gather
together to study God’s word in teaching and example. The church is built by
those willing spirits who spend time to lift of the needs, challenges, and
thanksgivings of the congregation in prayer. The church is built by those
willing spirits who give God the praise in worship because when the praises go
up the blessings come down. The church is built by those wiling spirits who
sacrifice their time, talent and finances, in greater service to God and His
people.
Just because we may be living through a difficult economy
don’t believe that God will still not ask of us, as He did Israel, our very
best, because God knows that His presence with us is far more important to your
future, than the silver and Gold in our pockets. “Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you.” When the
spirit gets right, a cloud of the presence of God will be manifest and the
glory of God will fill the tabernacle.
A second theme coming out of this text is that God dwelt
in their midst because they had prepared a dwelling place For Him. It is to the
abiding credit of the children of Israel that they prepared a place Him. Yes,
they were in a wilderness. Yes, they were plagued with limited resources, and
haunted by doubts, Yes, they had taken their eyes off of Gods and had once
gotten caught up in a swirling social order of idolatry and iniquity, and made
a golden calf as the object of their worship; but they did prepare a place for
Him.
And In the midst of all their failures and shortcomings
they still had a God-presence in their lives.Which
leads me to say, if there is no place for God in our lives, if there is no
dimension of the divine in our lives, then a sense of the nearness of God and
the presence of God will not come. We must ever be preparing a place in our
hearts that welcomes the presence of God. Maybe that’s why David prayed in
Psalm, 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me.” Or why he declared in Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.” God dwells in temples that welcome His holy
presence!
Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians ch.
6, “Do you not now that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in
you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with
a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are
God’s.” We are the earthly tabernacle
that God now dwells in through the Holy Spirit. One translation read of Jesus
becoming human, “And the word became flesh and tabernacled
among us.” His body was a dwelling place of worship.
So that wherever we go, wherever we are, God is present!
Realizing that we are the tabernacles of God, realizing that we like Israel are
on journey through life, realizing that we know where we’ve been but do cannot
see where we are headed, we do well in 2010 and beyond to prepare ourselves to
be a dwelling place for God, a tabernacle, “Lord prepare me to be a Sanctuary,
pure and holy tried and true, with thanksgiving, I be a living Sanctuary for
you.”
The level of our sensitivity to God, awareness of God,
ability to discern the movement of God at work in our lives, has a lot to do in
relationship with our preparing a place for Him in our hearts. They prepared
the tabernacle, and the Glory of God came down.
Ah, but someone will ask, “What is the glory of God?”
Glory is a word that is part of our spiritual vocabulary we use often in our
hymns and our praise. And yet, for all the commonality of its usage, glory
somehow defies its own definition. Just as no man has seen God, no man has
beheld His glory. Even Moses, the servant of God, in our text, could not enter
into the tabernacle because the glory of God filled the tabernacle.
To speak of glory is to speak of God and the heavens
which are His habitation. The psalmist says the heavens are telling the glory
of God.” Glory then in its multifaceted meaning denotes, honor, splendor,
radiance, worth, dignity, splendor, beauty, wealth, exaltation, pomp and power.
The glory of God
may be the feeling that comes over one in beholding a sight and sounds of the
majestic waters of Niagra Falls. In this sense glory
becomes something indescribable by words alone. But it is the feeling of an
overpowering presence. That one is in the presence of the divine.
This passage is silent when it comes to telling us what
happened when God’s glory filled the tabernacle. But we do know that something wonderfulhappened when Glory came down. Bible scholar
Theodore Epp suggests that God’s glory is the
manifestation of His eternal goodness. God had been mighty good to Moses and
the Israelites. SO that when Moses asked to see God’s glory in Exodus 33:19;
God showed Him His goodness.
And Moses said, “Show me your glory”. Moses, you see
desired a more intimate fellowship with God. God replied, “I will make all my
goodness pass before you.” “But”; said God, “You cannot see my face; for no man
can see Me, and live.” Then he set Moses in the cleft of a rock and passed by,
but God only allowed Moses to see His backside. But the dace of God was not
seen.
So that when the Psalmist declared the heavens are
declaring the glory of God, what he meant was the heavens & all creation bear witness to the goodness of
God. When the glory of God comes down, we are overwhelmed with a sense of the
goodness of God. That God has dealt mercifully with us. That like Israel, when
the glory comes, we are made all the more aware that God has done so many
things for us out of His benevolent love and grace. Testified the hymn writer,
“He’s done so much for me I can’t tell it all.” Being covered by the goodness
of God invokes our praise and thanksgiving.
“How can I say thanks for the things that you’ve have
done for me, things so underserved, Yet you give to prove Your love for Me? The
voices of a million angels could not express my gratitude, All that I am and
ever hope to be, I owe it all to You. To God be the glory! To God be the
glory! There they were, out there in
that wilderness desert, but when the Glory came, basking in the goodness of the
Lord, that reminded them of God’s protection, His provision of the Lord, and
His guidance, the glory of God which is manifested in His goodness made them
forget all about their troubles.