Where is your Holy Place?  Where is that special place where you and God can commune each day?   Where is that place where you can be quiet and listen to Him with a heart that waits in anticipation for what God has to say to you?  Who begins each day with you then sings over you as you lay your head on the pillow at night?  Who is with you throughout the day?  All these questions to ponder are related to our heart condition as we call on God, in Jesus Name.  God may be calling us even now to come and meet with Him! 

Are we listening for His invitation to join Him?  Are ready to enter into close communion with the Holy of Holies?  Jesus, His Son made it possible for us to come boldly to God with anything standing in our way.  Jesus torn down the curtain that stood between God and man when the One and Only rescued us and brought us out of evil’s hold on our hearts, minds and souls by taking our place for our sins. 

Remember Jesus.  Remember, pausing to think about what He did for us as God tells Moses the specifics of building a place for Him to dwell with His Chosen in the wilderness.  Today we are the dwelling in which God, Jesus and His Holy Spirit reside. God tells us exactly how to build our lives as the Sanctuary where He dwells in us.  All because of Jesus.  Today, we who believe are His Chosen.  Hold that thought.

Exodus 26, The Message

The Dwelling

^1-6 “Make The Dwelling itself from ten panels of tapestry woven from fine twisted linen, blue and purple and scarlet material, with an angel-cherubim design. A skilled craftsman should do it. The panels of tapestry are each to be forty-six feet long and six feet wide. Join five of the panels together, and then the other five together. Make loops of blue along the edge of the outside panel of the first set and the same on the outside panel of the second set. Make fifty loops on each panel. Then make fifty gold clasps and join the tapestries together so that The Dwelling is one whole.

^7-11 “Next make tapestries of goat hair for a tent that will cover The Dwelling. Make eleven panels of these tapestries. The length of each panel will be forty-five feet long and six feet wide. Join five of the panels together, and then the other six. Fold the sixth panel double at the front of the tent. Now make fifty loops along the edge of the end panel and fifty loops along the edge of the joining panel. Make fifty clasps of bronze and connect the clasps with the loops, bringing the tent together.

^12-14 “Hang half of the overlap of the tapestry panels over the rear of The Dwelling. The eighteen inches of overlap on either side will cover the sides of the tent. Finally, make a covering for the tapestries of tanned rams’ skins dyed red and over that a covering of dolphin skins.

^15-25 “Frame The Dwelling with planks of acacia wood, each section of frame fifteen feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide, with two pegs for securing them. Make all the frames identical: twenty frames for the south side with forty silver sockets to receive the two pegs from each of the twenty frames; the same construction on the north side of The Dwelling; for the rear of The Dwelling, which faces west, make six frames with two additional frames for the rear corners. Both of the two corner frames need to be double in thickness from top to bottom and fit into a single ring—eight frames altogether with sixteen sockets of silver, two under each frame.

^26-30 “Now make crossbars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of The Dwelling, five for the other side, and five for the back side facing west. The center crossbar runs from end to end halfway up the frames. Cover the frames with a veneer of gold and make gold rings to hold the crossbars. And cover the crossbars with a veneer of gold. Then put The Dwelling together, following the design you were shown on the mountain.

^31-35 “Make a curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen. Have a design of angel-cherubim woven into it by a skilled craftsman. Fasten it with gold hooks to four posts of acacia wood covered with a veneer of gold, set on four silver bases. After hanging the curtain from the clasps, bring the Chest of The Testimony in behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Holy-of-Holies. Now place the Atonement-Cover lid on the Chest of The Testimony in the Holy-of-Holies. Place the Table and the Lampstand outside the curtain, the Lampstand on the south side of The Dwelling and the Table opposite it on the north side.

^36-37 “Make a screen for the door of the tent. Weave it from blue, purple, and scarlet material and fine twisted linen. Frame the weaving with five poles of acacia wood covered with a veneer of gold and make gold hooks to hang the weaving. Cast five bronze bases for the poles.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

The Dwelling is full of meaning.

“Honor and majesty are before Him,” wrote the psalmist. “Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary” (Ps. 96:6). The tabernacle was a tent, but it was a tent like no other! The strength of His sanctuary is revealed in its construction, and the beauty is revealed in its adornment.

The curtain and furnishings are significant. 

What Old Testament believers had in the tabernacle, and later in the temple, God’s people today have in Jesus Christ. The furnishings and the ceremonies point to Christ and reveal the many glorious aspects of His character and the salvation He gives to all who trust Him. Every spiritual need of the Israelite people was met in the provisions of the tabernacle, and in Jesus Christ we have everything that we need for “life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3).

Between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, the inner curtain (veil) hung from gold hooks supported by four pillars. It was embroidered with cherubim in white, scarlet, blue, and purple. Hebrews 10:20 says that this curtain typifies the body of Christ, for when His body was offered on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom (Mark 15:38).

“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split,” Matthew 27:51

Matthew, Mark, and Luke documented the tearing of the veil in the temple after Jesus’ death on the cross. 

• “The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,” Mark 15:38 reads. 
• Luke wrote, “for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two” (Luke 23:45). 
• John simply records Jesus’ last words, “It is finished,” and “with that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).

The Apostle Matthew left a historical trail of Jesus’ death by recording the events that immediately followed. John, perhaps tied in knots of emotion as he remained at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother as He died, can only move on after mention of His Savior’s last earthly breath before the crucifixion. 

This is proof that the curtain that separated mankind from the space where God met to hear and atone man’s sins in no longer a barrier to the Holy of Holies.  Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for us to come boldly to the throne of God and talk with Him.  Anytime, day or night.

We cannot emphasize this enough! Jesus, who is God the Son, went to the cross by His own free will in submission to God the Father. He came to earth to save us from the sin that separated us from the presence of God. “The tearing of the curtain that separated the sinful people from the holy presence of God signifies what happened when the flesh of Jesus was torn,” John Piper preached, “The tearing of Jesus’ flesh secured the reconciliation between God and his sinful people. That is what the tearing of the curtain signified.”

Could this be why God is so specific in the design of His Dwelling place?  God knows who is to come!  For now, it is a sturdy, designated place that will travel well with His People.  The Dwelling and the contents will remind His people that He is with them wherever they go as well as what He has already done to rescue them.  Everything inside points to Jesus!

God will train priest from the tribe of Levi to be his representatives in the Dwelling. Jesus is our High Priest who not only reconciled our sins, making us right with God by His own sacrificial blood, but cleared the way to God’s Holy Presence!  No curtain stands in our way to God!  Now all who believe and are redeemed have been designated as Christ’s representatives, (priests of the Good News) who tell His story of salvation, pointing the Way to Him!  (2 Corinthians 5:20)

The old has gone, the new has come.  Believe and be saved for eternity!  The risen King is building a new temple—not a tomb of cold, lifeless stones but a spiritual house of living stones. Jesus is assembling a people from the four corners of the earth, “all nations”, washed clean and taught to follow him.

The best news is this: we are his temple, His Dwelling place.  He goes where He sends.  We are his planted garden multiplying and filling the earth. His Presence will never depart from this living temple, for Jesus promised: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

Lord prepare me
To be a sanctuary
Pure and holy
Tried and true
And with thanksgiving
I’ll be a living
Sanctuary, oh for You…

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen!