The Golden Lampstand: Light in the Tabernacle

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, good morning, welcome to the Bible guys. And today, if you're listening day by day is Friday. That's cract t G I f yay, yes, and we love Fridays. Hey, you haven't sung good morning to us? And forever good morning, good morning. We talked the whole night through good morning, good morning to you. Nothing could be wait, nothing could be nothing could be something than the being Louisiana. Nothing. Yeah, I don't I don't know what he says, because because it's the two guys. Yes, nothing could be greater than being Louisiana. And then Debbie Reynolds comes in in the morning. In the morning, Yeah, yep, it's so funny. It's so funny that you take it so seriously. That's that's the Hey, Well, did I tell you that my son is he's dating girl and he sends her a little Jeff that says good morning, and it's a little clip from you know, singing in the Rain, And she says, where is this from? And so last night he tells me, he goes Dad, he goes, we're gonna go out to dinner tomorrow night, which will be tonight, and he says, and I'm gonna come back and he goes, we're gonna watch Singing in the Rain. And I said, oh cool, why why that movie? And he told me the story about the Jiff and he said, he goes, when she told me, where's that from? He said, this is unacceptable. You have to know, he said, I can't have that if you're going to be a part of this family. Around this family, that's right, which means he is definitely my son. Right, he's a part of my family. That's right. Because I love those old movies. Yes, And and by the way, if you're if you're a person who hasn't watched old movies, let me encourage you listener to not only watch sing in the Rain. But there's a hidden gem that I want you to look up. And it's a it's a movie from it's completely black and white, and it's Gene Kelly, same guy, but it's also with Judy Garland. This is young Judy Garland, like right outside a Wizard of Oz early nineteen forties. It's called for me and my goal. Oh yeah, the bells are for me and my goal. There you go. I remember that one, and I'm telling you what. It is a great, great movie for me and my gal. Okay, well yeah that was That was two minutes of bonus material for our listeners. I'm sure they were riveted. So oh good. I was hoping he talk about old movies. I said, no, whatever, a black and white one. Wow. Wow, let's just keep on. So hey, you know, our listeners, our longtime listeners, know that I was wishing to do that, wishing upon a star. So our longtime listeners know that we only bring the most important news from the finest sources and sometimes commentary as well. Well this one. You know, we're really into health too. The ones that are watching can tell we're really into health. Are you a runner, Chris? I am not a runner. I'm against running. You're getting ready to sponsor a run? Yes? What is it? It's a five K Yeah for what. We just adopted a new global partner called Transform one, which is an anti sex trafficking ministry in the Dominican Republic. It's the fourth largest trafficked place in the world, and we are partnering with them. And so the first Saturday of October, we're doing a five K. We're announcing it, by the way, in July fourteenth Heritage and we're going to be asking I'm praying for at least five hundred people to run in to raise one thousand dollars each and I'm praying for half a million dollars, which is five hundred thousand dollars. And we're trying to plant a church in one of the sectors. And by the way, once we do this, we're going to do it seven more times right in the seven sectors. So we want to build a building, buy a plot of land, build a building, and this church can be the epicenter where all the children come and we do our helping hands community where we actually you know, give away food and have fun with the kids because we're looking for a holistic change in the next generation. And also it could be a center for a safe house and different things. And not to mention. So one of the best things we can do is prevent, Yes, prevent, so you can watch on TV the anti trafficking things and they you know the movies, they kick in the doors and all those kinds of things. But even better than trying to rescue somebody from it, which we want to do and which this organization does even better to prevent it before it ever happens, right before the life is that it's ruined, right, And so that's really what we're looking at investing in. And so you're hosting an event coming up. Yeah, yeah, it's a five k it's a run walk run walk. Yeah, So are you running it or walking up? I'll probably do a little both, yeah, right, And honestly, you know what I plan on doing. You know, like when you show up an event as an event, as a pastor, you should walk around and just say how to all the people. I think what I'm gonna do is, as people are running, I'll run with them and talk, and then I'll slow down and I'll walk with the people who I'm thinking about buying an electric scooter. That's not each one. You're not gonna take my money, No, no, you won't take my money for that event. I'll take the donation. Right by the way, since since you've brought me this far, let me just say this. I know that prostitution, of course is it exists in every part of the world right just about. But in the Dominican Republic it really has in many ways taken over the entire country and it's really destroying the whole country. And it's a very big thing, and so so much of the tourism is built around it. The economy is built around yeah. And so so let me just say two things and then this is what I want you to hear, because I need to remind myself that people are listening from around the world. And that is two things. Number one, Transform one is the name of the ministry. Transform one focuses on rescuing children, which is underaged girls, right who are traffic boys? Forty percent boys. So far we've focused on girls, but we're not against rescuing boys. And then so that that's a big part of the ministry. And then the second thing is this, I would absolutely love it if you would take a moment to make a donation, and it would be wonderful for me to see because I'm on the board to see if a donation comes in from around the world. Hey, we get a donation from Australia or from Hungary, or we get a donation from Germany. Would you take a moment and go to Transform one dot org Transform And then it's the number one one word, transform one dot org and just hit donation and if you want to, you can even list it as a Heritage Church partner, which is a pull down as the pulldown menu, but any donation anywhere. It could be anything ten dollars, you know, up to whatever. Can they make a note on this? Yes, yes, you could write it. Yeah right, Bible guys, I believe you can write a note. If not, then as long as you select Heritage Church partner, then we'll know it comes from this podcast. If it's around the world, sure, but man, wouldn't that be cool. I'm excited now because we've never done this and thank you for asking me about that. So there you go. So the reason why is because again back to full circle, back to only the finest information that we get out that we bring to our listeners. This is from the Babylon b Yes, and as you start working out here pretty soon running in order to build up your ability to run walk half of your five k here's the headline. Half hearted jog turns into all out sprint whenever car drives by, whenever car drives when you know people are watching your runs. So Raleigh, North Carolina local man Sam Williamson's listless, apathetic jog instantly transformed into a full on sprint whenever a car drove by. This morning, according to sources, Williamson had set off at a decent pace, but within thirty seconds settled into a gate that barely met the dish definition of a jog. That's me. He intermittently took a step that was more like a power walk than would ramp back up to an umbling, languid jog. Then, at the sound of a car engine in the distance, Williamson's drooping head snapped to attention. He leapt deer like into a respectable jog. Dear like. Not seeing any car, Williamson began to relax his pace, but then around the corner a block ahead, a white expedition with what appeared to be a female driver appeared like a flash of lightning. Williamson launched into an all out sprint, bolting down the sidewalk with a ferocious determination. There his body cried out in pain. A jolt of adrenaline searched through Williamson's veins, pushing all thoughts of slowing down aside. He locked his gaze straight ahead to ensure no eye contact to be made with the expedition's driver then chose a tree three houses past his target line. Williamson sprinted like the wind, then with the expedition sufficiently. In the review, Williamson stumbled back into a half walk half jog, sucking air desperately, his lungs of fire and side cramping. Williamson resigned to a brief walk before reassuming his sluggish jog. At publishing time, the same exact scene had repeated itself nine more times. That's so good, and you know what I mean. I made a joke that I was against running, but I used to run a little bit. And every runner they know that if you run, you know that this is really true. All of it is true, right, and it's it's so great. And by the way, it's also a weird thing to run and then have people watch you. It is. Yeah, when you run in like a really really public place, you know everybody, the stop lad's looking at you and you're just kind of flailing along. Hey, I wanted to say, as we jump into this, because we're still in the tabernacle here and now we will for a couple more days. If you are interested in reading more about these things. One life application study. Bible is great. It has a lot of notes in it. But I also say Warren Wiersby has a really good small commentary on this, and it's in his b series. He wrote a whole bunch of books, be this, be that, and this is from Be Delivered, and it's the whole Book of Exodus. Oh those are those are decently small book. Yeah, yeah, they're not. It's not too heavy. It's easy to read. And Warren Wearsby incredibly intelligent man, but it was able to write on a very very simple level. And so I just really appreciated his notes on those things. So yeah, so that whole thing is published by David C. Cook. So it's just Warren Weiersby Be Delivered, It's the Book of Exodus, finding freedom by following God. You know, we should probably do that more, recommend resources like that, because well, we're just scratching the surface, and you know, the twenty minutes we get to talk about these things. So okay, so we're today, we're talking about plans for the lamp stand. So we've already talked about the Ark of the Covenant, We've already talked about the present of the Table of Presents, the showbread. And then here's the lamp stand. And you'll recognize this because of the manora, right, So the manoras that are that you see around. It's very simple. Similar Jesus or God says in Exodus chapter twenty five or thirty one. Make a lamp stand of pure hammered gold. Make the entire lamp stand and its decorations of one piece the base, center stem, lamp cups, buds, and pedals. Make it with six branches going out from the center stem, three on each side. Each of the six branches will have three lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and pedals. Craft the center stem of the lamp stand with four lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and pedals, and there will also be an almond bud beneath each pair of the branches where the six branches extend from the center stem. The almond buds and branches must all be of one piece with the center stem, and they must be hammered from pure gold. Then make the seven lamps for the lamp stand and set them so that they reflect their light forward. The lamp snuffers and trays must be also be made of pure gold, and you will need seventy five pounds of pure gold for the lampstand and his accessories. Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I've shown you here on the mountain. Wow, there you go. And the lamp stand represents the light, right, so it represents the light that God gives. And also from a very practical sense, it was the source of light in the Holy Place. That's correct. So the golden lampstand in the Wilderness Tabernacle provided light for the Holy Place, but it was also a steeped and religious symbolism, with all the elements inside the tabernacle's tent of the meeting were overlaid with gold. The lampstand alone, known as the Minora Golden candlestick and candle Lebron was constructed candelabra. Oh, that's how you spelled candlelabra. Wow, was constructed of solid gold. According to this one. This this gold for sacred furniture was given to the Israelites by the Egyptians when the Jews fled Egypt, which is pretty cool. And it represents the life and the light that God gives to his people. So it's interesting. Jeff and I were talking about some photos that we were looking at right before we started the podcast drawto photo that said photos we approove no the drawings. And I've seen it before where the lamp the lamp a stand. In other words, this manora was probably maybe a couple of feet high, and it was made of solid gold, and it was placed on a table. I've seen that probably more times than not. But this particular picture had it larger than a person. In fact, I would say quite larger than a person. This one right here, I mean it's twice the size, right, it's probably twelve feet high. In this case, that would have to be like some kind of wood, you know, with a gold overlay. But we know it's interesting about this. The instructions of this is that even though that pure is different than solid, what's interesting about it is is God had just given instructions about the ark of the Covenant and very specifically said wood with an overlay of gold, and then he gave instruction about the press the table and said wood with an overlay of gold. So I have to believe this is solid gold, and other way is hammered pure gold, hammered pure gold. But I have to believe it's solid and only gold, because otherwise God would have said, would I'm not against it, Yes, I'm not against yours. Although there's room, there's room for wood with an overlay of gold. But it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, as I was pointing out, was was pure gold doesn't mean solid gold? Yes, And I agree, right, But he doesn't have any other wood mentioned in here, and he says he wants it all of one piece, right, And when you compare it to the other scriptures, it doesn't make any sense if there would have been wood included in here, right, So, so, so chances are it wasn't twice as big as this man has shown right here, because that would be way more than seventy five pounds. If this was solid gold, that's correct, this would be like six hundred pounds, seven hundred pounds. So chances are I was like I was, I was referring to think think of a weight. So I went and worked out ye yesterday, and I wouldn't tell you are so ripped today? Can you you are so buff? Can you so buff? Yeah? So I went and worked out yesterday, and I went up to the rack of weights and I grabbed the ten pound weight at least I was guessing. Yeah, man could have done twelve pounds. Yeah, if I want to do you could be drinking home if you wanted to. But fulling down right. So, But but on this rack of dumbbells was a I think the largest one was one hundred pounds, right, And so there's there's like a seventy five pounds weight. Well, the thing's only this big, I mean it's it's it's not much bigger than a massive loaf of bread, you know. And so the candlestick, if it was you know, thin, and the manora having these branches that fanned out, it could have probably been you know, a couple of feet high, you know, maybe maybe two two and a half feet high, I would imagine, And seventy five pounds is quite heavy. Yeah, But what I love about this is that this would have taken probably way longer to make because each leaf being hammered out. And so these guys were slaves, and so chances are they were master craftsmen, right, I mean, there's no lack of trade here, right, so you can imagine that there would have been this thing would have been beautiful, and they would have called you know, the best craftsmen together to work on this. You know, in fact, probably there's no shortage of multiple people right, right, which means this thing could have been constructed pretty quickly. Yeah, So it would have been a pretty substantial thing. It would have been across the room, so this is in the holy place, right. This would have been across the room from the from the table that we talked about yesterday with the bread on it, right, and it was very substantial. It would have been on the south side, which is kind of because there's a very specific way to set up the tabernacle. And it symbolized a lot of different aspects with their relationship with God. One, it symbolizes God's eternal presence and guidance, right, that God will always guide them, always give them light. David talks about how your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, right, and how God is going to provide that light. The oil was supposed to go. The flame on all seven of those lamps was supposed to go perpetual. It's always, so they were always keeping it burning from night till morning always, and it was supposed to represent the fact that God never leaves his people, that God's leading, God's guidance, God's illumination never leaves his people. And then it also, just as everything else, if we forgot to mention how Jesus was represented in the table Yesterday's right, So the wood this is where they would view it is that the would represented the earthly Acacia is a very common wood there, it was a very common thing, very earthy in gold being very transcendent, right, So the humanity of Christ and the transcendence of chrisis is where that would have been. Well on this one. The lampstand also represents Jesus. He's referred to as the light of the world. Jesus, I'm the light of the world, right, and John mentions that and so many other passages, and then he goes on and says, and you are the light of the world. So it talks about how if we are people of love in God, then we also are people of light, and His light is in us, and so that's a big part of that. So this represents both that God's presence would be with them and that God would show them the way and his illumination would always twenty four hours a day be available to them. But then also that they were also supposed to be light to the dark world around them, which was one of the commissions that God had given the people of Israel. Even though they did that they kind of retreated from society, they were supposed to be light in society. And so that was the I reader that I remember teaching a message one time where I talked about how you know, I know that the light of the Holy Spirit. You know, if we're Christians, we have the holy power of the Holy Spirit in us. And so when it says let your light so shine Matthew chapter five, right, it says, let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. I actually thought to myself, even though that there's a light inside of us, I thought, the best way to visualize it is to think about you standing here, and so for those watching you could you can see I'm using my coffee cup. So if you're standing here, and let's just pretend that Jesus is behind you, right, So even though the light comes inside of you, just think of it this way and then think of the world in front of you. Right in order for the light to shine through you, you have to have a transparent posture, right, transparent of sin, you know. And so when we're clogged up with all the dirt in our lives, nobody can really see the light of God coming out of our lives. So to think about, you know, this, this vessel of yourself being filled with a bunch of gunk, you know, a bunch of darkness and blackness and dirty, dirty, rotten stuff in our lives. Well, the light of God can't shine from us or through us. But if the more that we empty ourselves of pride and empty ourselves of our own will empty ourselves of sins or bad habits, the more transparent we become, and then the light shines through and then the world can see the light, you know, looking back at it, I taught that in college. I probably wouldn't teach that today because technically the light comes from within, right, But still the light comes from Christ. Yeah, the Holy Spirit inside of us. We should, yeah, we should reflect him, right, that's right, that's right. So but either way though, it's the idea of the light shines when we are submitted to God and we don't have all that stuff that's blocking it, right, like the blockage, And I also love how he says in that same passage by the way where he says, men don't light a candle and put it under a bushel, right, he says, because that would defeat the purpose. He says, they don't do that. He says, they what do they do? They stick it on a candlestick, and they put it up high where it gives light to the whole house. And he says, a city that has said on a hill cannot be hidden. And so he says, you know, so therefore let your light so shine so that everybody can see it. So then this thing being made likely of solid gold, pure gold, like the value of God making this a part of his worship, the light being part of his worship. You know, Jesus came to take men out of darkness and into the light that was his whole You read that in John. And so we have to be aware the same thing that it's the value that God places on allowing Christ's light to shine in the world around us is of highest importance. And sometimes instead we do cover it up. We don't hide it. I mean, we don't let it shine, We hide it. And so you know, again I was talking about all these things are made of gold that God gave them from pillaging Egypt, and they didn't even need it out in the desert, right, But a bunch of they're lugging all this heavy gold around with them and it is useless. I think a lot of times we lug around all the things that we think are so important, and then we hide the things that are most important. And I think that would be a temptation as well. Here with the lamp stands, so hey, let your light shine this week. That's really the idea that God's going to. God's word is the lamp to your feet to show you the way. And then you are supposed to be the light in the world because of Jesus light in you. And first John tells us to walk in the light. That's right, as he is in the light. Yeah. I want to be in the light as you are in the light. I want to shine like the stars in the heavens. All right, Yeah, that's right. So hey. And then there's also what you talk. You know, how old are when you're when you're singing uh DC talking. Hey, Well listen, that's about our time. So we will see you next time on Monday. As we continue this series, on the Bible guys mhm h mh