IF YOU BUILD IT, I WILL COME!

“The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called to Moses from the cloud. The appearance of the Lord’s glory to the Israelites was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop. Moses entered the cloud as he went up the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights” (Exodus 24:16–18).

Read that again. Slower this time. Meditate on it. Listen as God’s thundering voice invites His servant to come closer. Imagine the “consuming fire” of “the Lord’s glory.”

What did God say to Moses? It must have been critically important!

“The Lord spoke to Moses: ‘Tell the Israelites to take an offering for me. You are to take my offering from everyone who is willing to give … They are to make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them. You must make it according to all that I show you—the pattern of the tabernacle as well as the pattern of all its furnishings’ ” (Exodus 25:1–9).

“If you build it, I will come!”

“On the mountain forty days and forty nights” God provided detailed blueprints for His dwelling place; the mobile temple, the tabernacle with its courtyard, bronze altar, bronze laver, two-room tent, and each piece of furniture (Exodus 25-30). “You must make it according to all that I show you!” Perfect obedience was demanded, and God’s glorious presence was promised.

God dwelt with Adam and Eve in the Garden. God dwelt with Isreal in the tabernacle and the temple. God dwells with born-again believers today. Paul wrote, “Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). And John wrote prophetically, “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God” (Revelation 21:3).

Why would Moses devote nearly half of the book of Exodus to describe the tabernacle? Why? Because God wants to dwell with His children.

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).