Not just an Old Testament Idea, The Tabernacle is an Eternal Reality.

When I first started out with the Tabernacle prayer, I stumbled over praying through something in the Old Testament. I’m not alone. Many Christians look at the Tabernacle in the Wilderness as Old Testament history that’s a story about the Israelites in the Wilderness.  In Exodus we are told of how Moses was up on the mountain and was instructed by God to build a sanctuary where God could dwell with his people.  But… it had to built according to a very specific design and pattern.  

Every detail was communicated to Moses from God.  And Moses did what he was told.   As most read the Old Testament, especially Exodus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy, they stop at the historical presentation of what happened.  In years past, I would glean a lesson or two from a chapter, and move on, because those books are so tedious in their detailed explanation of how God prescribed worship to happen for His people.

But What does that really have to do with me today? And besides we are not under the law anymore right?  The thing I didn’t realize is that the pattern that Moses received from God was a replica of the actual Temple in heaven.  And that changed everything for me.

So what Moses built was a portable replica using the materials and technology he had at his disposal in 1500 BC.  Moses Tabernacle was a replica of what has existed in heaven for all eternity, It’s the same Temple that exists today in heaven and it’s the same Temple that we may see one day when we enter eternity.  The Tabernacle or Temple is a heavenly reality.  It is not just an Old Testament idea.  Get your mind around this.  

Before the earth was created….the Temple was.  Before the physical realm described in Genesis 1 happened, the Temple was functioning as God’s house in heaven.  When Jesus ascended in Acts 1 he went to prepare a place for us in his father’s house, the Temple in Heaven.  When Hebrews describes Jesus as the High Priest who actually carried his own blood to the Mercy seat in real Temple Heaven, he’s talking about Jesus putting his own blood on a real Mercy seat on the real Ark of the Covenant in the Permanent Tabernacle in Heaven.   When Paul says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places….he means in the Throne room in the Temple in heaven.  When John describes the Throne room in Revelation 4 … he’s talking about the Holy of Holies in the eternal temple in heaven that Moses saw when he built the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.  Are you getting this?  

What about today? Today we have temples built by God and not by the hands of men. As a faithful believer in Jesus Christ, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit today, another replica of the Temple in heaven!  And you need to understand the implications of this reality. The principles of Temple or Tabernacle worship are to be practiced in my temple (my body) today. In John 2 Jesus said his body was the temple. Today the scriptures tell me that I am a Temple of God.

The Temple is the original house of worship, it’s permanent, and is the source of all things in the physical universe and the center of all things in the spiritual dimension.  It’s where God, the Father lives.  It’s the House where Jesus hangs out.  The Holy Ghost has his own wing there.  Anything in the Bible that refers to the Temple, the Tabernacle, Throneroom, Tent of David, Tent of Meeting, Bethel, Secret place, etc. is ultimately pointing out some aspect of worshipping God according to pattern permanent established in the heavenly Temple.  And this is good news for you.  Because these principles of worship are keys to you worshipping God fully today.

Today as Evangelicals, we totally focus on Jesus Christ.   We want to know Jesus.  We want to love Jesus.  Jesus called his own body the Temple. And we are made in that image. We worship Jesus in our temples.  Do you want to really study Jesus and his ministry?  Then pray through the tabernacle prayer because it’s a picture of who Jesus is, and what he did for us, so we would be prepared to “come boldly before the Throne of Grace.” By the way all this I’m writing to you came not through bible study per say. Nor was I told it by a bible teacher. This is an example of what the Holy Spirit teaches you as you pray the Word, the Scriptures, according to the Tabernacle worship pattern or tabernacle prayer.