INTRO: We have now looked, at least briefly, at the tabernacle. I have proposed to you that it is a picture of heaven. In my view, construction of the tabernacle in heaven got under way when man sinned. Sin had created a barrier between God and man, a barrier that had to be breached if God would have man to be with Him. And when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, when they had crossed the Red Sea, they came to Mount Sinai. There God gave Moses the law of God and instructed him on how to build the tabernacle. We saw that it was a replica of the real tabernacle which is in heaven, a tabernacle that God Himself had made.
We looked at the fence surrounding the tabernacle and its furniture. We looked at the tabernacle itself and the furniture in the Holy Place and in the Holy of Holies. When you take a straight path through the gate into the holy of holies, and then look at the Candlestick on one side and the table of showbread on the other, you have the cross.
And now let me read Revelation 6:9 once more: “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.” We are back at the altar. I have proposed to you that this altar was the first piece of furniture inside the white fence, just inside the one gate, so it is the first place we come to in heaven.
This morning we want to see what happens before one ever arrives at this altar. You see, by far the majority of people who ever live never arrive here. Why not? Well, our text does tell us why. So we want to look at what happens before a person arrives here? |
