15 - STUDIES IN THE TABERNACLE
January 20, 1965
Pastor Henry F. Kulp
Acts 7: 44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
As Stephen was speaking to the Nation Israel, there sat the leaders of Israel to judge him, but this devoted servant of God spake the words that judged them. And as he spoke to them he said you are just like your fathers. But the thing that is important in our study tonight is, he spike of the Tabernacle of Witness in the wilderness. What does he mean? Tabernacle of Witness.
For a long time I thought and wondered just what the Lord meant by that. He called it a Tabernacle of Witness. I have been wondering just what that witness was, and as I study the Tabernacle, I believe it is a witness to the blood. When you went in the front door of the Tabernacle, you came to the star of burnt offering—the altar of sacrifice, and there was flowing blood There the fire was always burning and the animals were always being killed. He said the fire shall ever burn—it is not to go out and the blood was always flowing.You were always conscious of blood. You went into the Holy Place, blood was sprinkled on the altar of incense, the Table of Shewbread, the lamp stand, the beautiful veil, the world’s most wondrous piece of tapestry. All this was sprinkled by blood. Blood was everywhere.
Then you brushed aside the Veil and you went into the ark of the covenant where God came down in Shikinah glory to meet with His people, and there was blood— right on the mercy seat. I believe our witness today is to the blood of Christ. I believe our preaching but be centered in the blood of Jesus Christ. I don’t want you to get away from witnessing to the blood of Christ.
1/ Revelation 5: 9 - 12 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
Notice, the song in Heaven before the throne of God is the song of the blood. If you believe in the blood, you will be perfectly at home in Heaven, for in Verse 11 millions and millions of angels are saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Now they don’t say for us—for them—but it is for humans on earth. This is the theme of Heaven, and it should be the theme on earth for all who are redeemed, by the blood of the Lamb. To be in tune in Heaven, you have to have Heaven’s tune in your heart about the blood of Christ. How could anyone who does not believe in the blood of Christ, who does not love the blood of Christ—ever be happy in Heaven? Where everyone is saying, we got here by the blood.
2/ You are to be a witness to the blood—you must testify that Christ shed His blood for you and for me.
3/ Again, we come to the building itself. It was made up of boards.
Exodus 3: 29 And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold, and make their rings of gold for places for the bars: and thou shalt overlay the bars with gold.
The tabernacle was enclosed with these boards of shittim wood, and they were covered with gold. They formed the sides of the tabernacle. The tabernacle, roughly, was about 15 ft. high, 15 ft. broad, and 45 ft. long. These boards composed the sides and the end of the tabernacle. As we told you last week, these boards represent believers, and it is Christ dwelling in the believer, and as we told you, they are to stand upright, and every believer ought to stand for the Lord Jesus Christ.
4/ If these boards are types of believers—wood overlaid with gold, we have the same thing for the Lord Jesus Christ. He is represented by wood —His humanity, and gold— His deity. Here the wood stands for our humanity, and gold for deity in us, and you will recognize we are just like the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer is to be like the Lord. So Christ and His church are one.
Let us notice, Galatians 2: 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
It is not that we are trying to crucify ourselves. You have been crucified and you are dead, because if you have been crucified, you can’t help but be dead. Then it isn’t “I” any more, it is Christ. Christ has covered the believer. Not I, but Christ. I don’t like the word, unity. It is a good word, but it has been misused by religionists. It is used in the world in a false sense. You have heard of the sect called Unity, and it is satanic. I like the word, identity. I think it is much better. Let’s use that one. We are identified with Christ. Christ and the believer are one, not two. Paul says here—it is not I, I am crucified. I have passed out of the picture, but it is now the Lord.
5/ Another thing that we must see, these boards are visible in the tabernacle and they are only visible under the light of the golden candlestick, which is a type of the Holy Spirit, and all you could see was gold. You couldn’t see any of the wood. Is that the way you see other Christians? We are so apt to look for the wood, you know. We see all the flaws, but when you are in the tabernacle, when you are in Christ, under the Light of the Holy Spirit and you look at believers, all you should see is gold. We ought to see every Christian as in Christ. This is the great question of how we are to treat believers. Real believers that we know are saved.
Ephesians 1: 15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
God doesn’t ask you to have faith in the saints—don’t get that mixed up, or don’t get it backwards. God doesn’t ask you have a faith in the saints you have a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for the saints, and that is different. You can even love saints that you don’t have any faith in, and you have to love the saints, because they are gold before God, they are all gold—that is why the Holy Spirit lights them up. When you see them in their flaws and all their humanity and their old nature, you are not looking at them in the Holy Spirit. You are looking at them in the flesh, apart from the Holy Spirt, because as God looks down that is all He sees—His pure gold. He sees Christ in every believer.
6/ Colossians 3: 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Now notice this—for you are dead and your life is hid. When that board was overlaid with gold, it was dead, you couldn’t see the board. The board was never to be seen again. So the believer is in Christ—he is hid in Christ, and when God looks at you, He sees Christ, for you are hid—where? With Christ in God—hidden in deity. That is a glorious position of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
7/ YES, GOD DOES NOT SEE YOU. HE SEES CHRIST. THAT IS WHY HE IS PLEASED WHEN HE LOOKS AT YOU, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T SEE YOU, HE SEES ONLY CHRIST, AND I AM SO GLAD THIS IS TRUE.
8/ Now let us turn to Exodus 36: 31 - 33 And he made bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, And five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle for the sides westward. And he made the middle bar to shoot through the boards from the one end to the other.
There were five boards to be across the back. All these five bars were around the boards of the tabernacle, to keep them standing straight. The Lord’s people have a tendency to lean, but a Christian is not to lean—these bars are given that the boards might stand upright. And that is what we are called to do—to stand upright, and they are all bound together. God has given us a binding. First of all, I want you to notice there are five and five is the number of grace, but what does five stand for here. I notice that different men who write on this try to suggest that these bars might be as types, but I believe that God has given to us definitely in the book of Ephesians just what they are.
Ephesians 4: 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
This passage in Ephesians tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended up on high and took His place at the right hand of the Father, the Majesty on high, He gave gifts to the church, and these are the gifts, and there are five. There were five bars binding the words together in the tabernacle, and God has given us five things here that bind the Lord’s people together right now.
Verse 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Verse 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Verse 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
They are given to unify us—to give unity, not to separate us. One of the sad things today is that these five gifts are separating, not unifying, believers in Christ Jesus.
9/ Notice that apostles come first. They are missionaries, for Apostle means “sent one.” Jesus is called an Apostle.
Hebrews 3: 1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; God sent Him from Heaven to earth—Jesus said, I came not of Myself, My Father sent Me.
He is an Apostle and He was a missionary. First in this list, then prophets, they are preachers—a prophet is one who speaks out a message for God. It does not mean that he foretells anything. The original meaning of the word, prophet, is to tell for another. God has prophets in these days. I believer there were men in days gone by who were great prophets. Men like Dr. Haldeman of New York City at the First Baptist Church. For 40 years he spoke out the doctrine of the Lord’s coming when the world was set against it—I mean the Christian world. He foretold the truth of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He wasn’t an apostle, he wasn’t sent anywhere for 40 years he stayed in New York City and proclaimed that truth. And there have been men just like that, telling forth truths. Then, of course, he says some are pastors, some are evangelists, and some are teachers. These five gifts God has given for the binding together of he church in this day.
10/ This proves that one who loves the Lord Jesus Christ should be part of the local assembly, where the five can minister and work and unify believers.
11/ But let’s not make a mistake and think about these spiritual sign gifts that are in I Corinthians 12: 10 - 13 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
These spiritual sign gifts have passed away, when the Word of God was completely delivered to the Apostle Paul. These sign gifts corrupt and they separate believers, for these sign gifts are not men. The sign gifts of Ephesians 4: 11 - 13 are men, doing their job for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 4: 11 - 13 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
12/ It is necessary to see that believers will not always agree—not every evangelist will always agree with everything with another evangelist, or with a teacher, or with a pastor, or with a missionary, or with a prophet, a preacher—of course not—but there must be unity. Someone said to me the other day—what is the difference between having unity in Christ and where does compromise come in? Compromise comes in when someone tears away the very basic foundation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ —when one denies the Virgin Birth which is absolutely essential, and those who are believers cooperate with one who denies the Virgin Birth, that is compromise. When one denies the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who believe in the blood of Christ, seek to have evangelistic services with those who do not believe in the blood of Christ, that is compromise. There can be no question of any difference in believing about the Person of Jesus Christ, that He is God manifest in human flesh, that He was born of the Virgin, that He died a vicarious death, suffering for our sins. There can be no compromise with these facts.
13/ But there must be unity among those who believe these basic facts. They may not see everything alike, but this is nothing to fight and scrap over and call another a heretic. Unity is what God wants among His believers. We are bound together—we are in Christ, and we are brothers in Christ—we are saints in Christ.
AMEN
1/20/1965 / 15 - STUDIES IN THE TABERNACLE / 4/30/2025
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