Daily Lesson for Sunday 18th of May 2025
When Moses oversaw the construction of the tabernacle, he was not permitted to use just any design he wished. God gave him a blueprint to follow. “ ‘See to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain’ ” (Exodus 25:40, NKJV). We discover in the book of Hebrews that the pattern used was that of a higher reality, the heavenly sanctuary.
Read Hebrews 9:11-15, about Christ as our High Priest in heaven’s sanctuary. What does this teach about what He is doing for us?
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The earthly sanctuary foreshadowed Jesus in astonishing detail, from the priest and the offerings to the furniture and other design details. _All _of it speaks of Jesus.
The book of Revelation, of course, is very rich in sanctuary imagery. We find the sanctuary lampstand in the opening verses, the ark of the covenant explicitly mentioned in chapter four, and numerous other allusions to the temple. Without an understanding of the Old Testament sanctuary, it becomes impossible to grasp what John is driving at in his descriptions of his visions. The experiences of Israel, Paul writes, “happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11, NKJV).
There is much we can learn from studying the details of the temple. In the book of Psalms, we find an important component for understanding some of these details: how God’s people personally related to the temple. We catch glimpses of how David related to the sanctuary and its services, and we see the heart response of God’s people to what the Messiah would do for them. It is not just the patterns that help us see Jesus; we also can mine the personal experiences of those who understood what God was teaching us through the sanctuary and draw lessons for ourselves and for our own experiences with God.
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Read Psalms 122:1-9. Though we cannot go literally to the earthly “house of the Lord” (it’s not there, and even if one were built in the same place, it would be meaningless), what elements are found in this psalm that can encourage us about what Christ has done for us? Notice the themes of peace, security, praise, and judgment. |
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