Rabbi Schneider - The Tabernacle: The Table of Showbread
It's not like he loves you this hour but he may not love you two hours from now. It's not like he's going to help you right now but in a few hours he has some other business that he has to take care of. Ones. Isn't it an awesome thing that the Scripture says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has given to us, to you and I, that we should be called the children of God? Did you know that the Father loves us with the same strength that he loves Yeshua with and that he'll never love you anymore than he loves you right now? We're looking today, Beloved, as we continue our study in the tabernacle at the Table of Showbread, the tabernacle, Beloved, is God's blueprint for having intimacy with him today.
The Lord told Moses to construct the tabernacle, he said, that I might dwell among you in Exodus 25. In other words, the tabernacle was given to us because of God's love. It could actually be called The Tabernacle of Love because the tabernacle shows us how God wants to relate with us and what we need to do to position ourselves in a way to be able to receive his love. I encourage you to get this entire teaching. You can get it on our website, discoveringthejewishjesus.com or by calling the 800 number at the end of the broadcast. Beloved, we're going to be looking today at the Table of Showbread. I'm going to read now from the Book of Shemot, the Book of Exodus, chapter number 25, verse number 30. You shall set the bread of Presence, that's another name for the Table of Showbread, it's called the Table of Showbread, the bread of Presence, and the bread of face, and we're going to talk about these three titles that Scripture uses to describe the Table of Showbread in just a few moments.
Once again, Exodus 25, verse 30, hear the word of God, and you shall set the bread of Presence on the Table before me at all times. In the tabernacle, Beloved, in the Holy Place there was this piece of furniture that housed twelve loaves of bread, called the bread of Presence, or the bread of face. Each one of the twelve loaves represented one of the tribes of Israel. It was replaced every Shabbat, every Sabbath and the priest ate the old bread every Sabbath. In fact we read in Scripture about David one time, how he was allowed to eat the Table of Showbread, Yeshua actually referred to that in the New Testament. What is in this Table of Showbread? What is the prophetic application for us today? Let's talk about some of the meanings.
Number one, remember each loaf, there were twelve loaves, and each loaf represented one of the tribes of the children of Israel. It's also called the bread of Presence or the bread of face. Why is it called the bread of face? Because the Lord, Beloved, listen now, he was always looking at it. God is telling us that this tabernacle that's designed for me to dwell with you, the heart of it is because I love you and so inside the tabernacle he has the twelve tribes of Israel represented by these twelve loaves of bread and it says that he's always looking at them. In other words, God is not like a sometimes lover, it's not like he loves you this hour but he may not love you two hours from now. It's not like he's going to help you right now but, you know, in a few hours at 3 o'clock he has some other business that he has to take care of. No, when we're in a relationship with Lord, Beloved, it's like this, Yeshua saying I will never leave you or forsake you.
God's face, Beloved, is always upon us. The Scripture says, his beloved are the apple of his eye and so God wants to build a confidence in our life, Beloved, that he's always looking at us, and he's always looking at us, listen now, through eyes of love because the whole purpose of the construction of the tabernacle was because of God's love and that he wanted this relationship with with Israel and of course this same relationship that he desired with Israel is applicable, obviously, to those of us today that have come into relationship with him through Messiah Yeshua Ha Mashiach in which everything climaxes. We are in a world today where there are so many horrible atrocities that are happening around us, sometimes we wonder, is God real? If God's real and God's a God of love, why did he allow these things to happen?
And we look around and we see so much suffering and so much darkness that the devil tries to blind us from recognizing that God is with us, that his presence surrounds us, that's why it's also called, listen now, the bread of Presence in Exodus 25:30. His presence always surrounds us, he's always looking at us with eyes of love, he's always here for us but the devil tries to separate this knowledge from us. He wants to make us think we're isolated and we're alone. For example, when you think about it, when you dream at night many of you, have you ever noticed how oftentimes in your dreams at night you're alone and you wake up and you think, boy, God, God wasn't with me in that dream. I didn't experience God's presence in that dream. That's because of this world of darkness that we're living in in which Satan is trying to make us feel that we're orphans in this world instead of realizing that the Lord is with us always, again, this is called the bread of what? Presence, Exodus 25:30.
Yeshua says I am with you always and what God wants us to do is he wants us to begin to affirm by faith and with our wills that he is with us always, that the bread of Presence, Beloved, is for us today, that God's presence is always with us, he's always looking at us, again, it was called the bread of face, and we need to cultivate this. Do you know, if you think about this, every breath that you breathe, every time you take in a breath, and go like this do you know what you're actually doing? Is you're taking in, Beloved, the love of God because the only reason that that air surrounds us is for us to be able to live and to breathe so every time you breathe you're actually receiving the love of God. It's the kiss of God to you.
That's why air is created. And if we're going to grow in relationship with God, we need to grow in our comprehension and understanding deep down in our kishkas, that's a Yiddish, Jewish word for deep down in our gut on the inside, that the Lord loves us and we need, Beloved, to begin to affirm it, and we need to recognize that when people love us, if you have a spouse that loves you for example, you need to understand that it's the love of God that's coming through your spouse and it's God's gift to you.
And Father, we pray right now that'll you have mercy on us and open up our spiritual understanding, our spiritual senses Lord, that you'll open up our heart, God, and open up the eyes, Lord, of our spirit man, be able to know how much you love us. We confess right now, Father, that we need your help in this area because so many times in life, Lord, we feel like we're alone and we see so many things happening around us that, Father, it appears that you're not involved in some of the details of life with people, Father God, getting into all types of accidents, and sicknesses, and sufferings, and hatred, and wars, and all these things, and so Father God, we pray that you'll help us to know that even though we're living in a world where Satan dwells, that your love is still here for us, Abba, in abundance, that, Lord, your love, we pray, surrounds our life, you'll help us to understand it Lord, even as this was called the bread of Presence, that you'll help us to understand, Father, that your love, Father, is present all around us and that your eye, Father God, is always upon us, the bread of face, in Yeshua's name. Help us, Lord, to comprehend your love. You know that the Scripture praise we're going to look at this when we study the next piece of furniture in the tabernacle, the Altar but you know that one of the prayers of the Scriptures is that we would comprehend the love of God and that's what we're asking for right now, Father, we're asking you to help us comprehend your love.
Well, Yeshua said that he was the bread of life in John, chapter 6, he says I am the true bread of life and as we feast on Yeshua, the bread of Presence, as we feast on his presence, not on the flesh because when we feast on the flesh, Beloved, we weaken our ability to discern what's going on in the spirit. If we feast on the flesh we're going to become conscious of fleshly things. If we learn how to master our flesh, Beloved, and keep our bodies in control in all ways, all our senses, if we learn how to keep our eyes disciplined by the spirit of God, we need to... if we learn how to keep our appetite disciplined by the spirit of God, if we learn how to keep our sexual appetites disciplined by the spirit of God, what's going to happen, Beloved, is we're going to become conscious of the spirit of God and Yeshua said I am the bread of life, he is the bread of Presence.
We're going to become conscious of him; we're going to be conscious of his love. We're going to become conscious of the fact that it's in him that we live, and move, and have our being but if we feast on the things of the flesh, if we overeat, if we overindulge our self, if we don't discipline our eyes, if we watch whatever we want to watch on television or listen to whatever we want to listen to on the radio, what's going to be happening, Beloved, is we're going to be brought into darkness and captivated by spirits of darkness in the flesh and lose our consciousness of the bread of life or the presence of the Messiah and the love of God, and so that's why Israel, they were given a promised land, they were given the land of Israel, but listen Beloved, they had to drive out the Amorites, they had to drive out the Hittites, they had to drive out the Jezubites, they had to overcome the Philistines, they had to overcome all these enemies to be able to enter the promise land and it's the same way today.
God's love is real but we have to drive out the enemies of our life to be able to comprehend that and be able to live in it and experience it, and so the enemies that we're conquering, Beloved, are enemies of our soul. That's why Yeshua said he that overcomes seven times, in the Book of Revelation chapters 2 and 3, shall inherit these things, we need to overcome our flesh, we need to overcome, Beloved, undisciplined appetites, we need to overcome the lies of the enemy. When the devil comes and says God doesn't love you, God doesn't care, we can't be passive, we need to affirm the word of God. God, you do love me, and I'm going to affirm that you love me, and I'm going to stand in truth and I'm not going to be defeated by the devil, by your grace, and Beloved, when we do this, this pleases God because without faith it's impossible to please God but when we exercise faith in the truth and overcome darkness and dispel it by facing the truth and exercising faith in the truth, then we overcome darkness and, Beloved, we apprehend the promised land of his Spirit even as Israel drove out the Amorites, the Hittites, the Jezubites, the Canaanites, the Philistines and were able, eventually, to enter in, hallelujah, to the Promised Land.
And so, you may be sitting there right now and hearing this message and thinking yeah, yeah, you know, but I don't feel God's love and what I'm encouraging you to do is to stop agreeing with the devil and stop saying God, you don't love me, and stop saying Lord, I don't believe you love me, and stop saying Lord, I don't feel accepted, and stop saying, Lord, I don't know if my sins are forgiven, and instead begin to affirm the truth because it's only by affirming the truth that you're going to overcome and start saying instead, "Lord, I believe that you love me, Lord, I believe that you've forgiven my sins, I believe that I'm accepted in the Beloved, I believe, Lord, that your love is all around me, I believe, Lord, that you answer my prayers, I believe, Lord, that you go with me wherever I go, hallelujah, and I believe, Lord, that you made me more than a conqueror in this life through Messiah Yeshua".
Let's start exercising faith in the truth, Beloved, and we're going to come into a greater relationship experiencing the love of God. The other thing that's so important to understand is, is that when we sin, Beloved, when we live lives of, when we live undisciplined lives, and when we live lazy lives and passive lives, in other words, when we don't put forth a willful effort to be living in obedience, to, to be, to be very careful about what we say, and what we think, and what we watch on television, and what we listen to, and the relationships that we have, and the way that we treat people when we pay great attention to these things, and try to bring every thought captive to the knowledge of God. In other words, our whole life becomes about making Yeshua lord of our lives.
When we discipline our self in every way, trying to make Messiah lord of our lives by becoming obedient to him in every area of our life, what happens, Beloved, is we begin to experience the love of God in a whole other realm and it becomes fuller, and fuller, and fuller, and fuller as time goes on, and this is the reward, Beloved, for obedience because Yeshua said in John 14:21 and 23, if you love me, you'll keep my Word, and I'll come to you and release the love of the Father to you, and Yeshua said, and I'll disclose myself to you, I'll reveal myself to you, and I will make my home with you. And so, as we discipline ourselves to put him first, listen, he draws near to us and we begin to experience his presence, we begin to experience the bread of Presence that was seen in the tabernacle as a type and a shadow. That's why the Lord said, draw near to me and I will draw near to you, and the Lord said, come out from the world and draw near to me and I'll receive you to myself and I will be your God and you will be my people.
You see, Beloved, God's love is real but like the Israelites; we have to overcome to enter into the experience of it. We're in a fight Beloved, we're in a war, that's why Ephesians tells us our fight is not against flesh and blood but we wrestle against principalities and forces of spiritual wickedness and spiritual darkness. You know, we've been taught today that all we need to do is, you know, go to some church somewhere, or read some pamphlet, and say some sinner's prayer, Lord Jesus forgive me, I'm a sinner, come into my life, and... no, Beloved, what Yeshua called for, Beloved, was people to make him Lord. Remember, he said in Revelation that he spits the lukewarm out of his mouth, sure it begins, Beloved, the entrance way begins by having our sins forgiven but if it's the real thing that's taken our place in our soul, it's not going to be enough to just say a sinner's prayer.
If Jesus has really come into our life, Beloved, we're going to have a hunger for him and a thirst for him that's going to drive us and compel us to love him, and to learn how to obey him, and to seek him, and to do whatever we can do to experience his reality in our lives in greater and greater ways. You see, Yeshua didn't tell us just to pray a sinner's prayer but what he said was that we need to follow him and make him Lord, and when we cultivate him, hallelujah, as Lord in our life, Beloved, we're going to experience the mystery of the bread of Presence, we're going to experience the mystery of his presence around our life. That's the reward. Jesus, John 14:21 and 23, I'm going to come you, he said, and make my home with you when you love me and keep my Word. It's going to become a reality to us, not just a Scripture we can quote or a sermon that we listen to, but Jesus is going to become real to us. We're going to need to experience him in our life. We're going to begin to sense him in our circumstances. We're going to begin to see him going before us. We're going to begin to experience him, Beloved, in our dreams.
Jesus, hallelujah, is real and when we make him Lord and crown him as the Lord of our lives, he makes himself real to us, he discloses himself, hallelujah, to us, and so I want to encourage today, don't let hearing about Christianity be sufficient for you, make the goal of your faith to be, Beloved, to experience God personally every day, hallelujah, of our life. Now I know that sometimes we go through seasons and we can't necessarily perceive him as significantly as we may be able to perceive him at other times. This is part of the, part of the process. Remember that Israel was in the wilderness but the point is that your life will keep on ascending in intimacy with him and that more and more you're going to begin to see his reality in your life in greater, and a greater, and greater way.
Well, I want to move on from here, Beloved, and I want to talk about the next piece of furniture in the tabernacle, in the mishkan, which is called, hallelujah Beloved, the Altar of Incense. Now the Altar of Incense, Beloved, was a... the priest trimmed it and they were... continually, Beloved, they were offering incense to the Lord. The Scripture tells us there in the Book of Exodus chapter number 25, once again, that the priest would perpetually be burning, hallelujah, this incense unto the Lord. I'm going to read now from the Book of Exodus, chapter number 30, verse number 1, again, Yadid, Beloved one, the grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of God abides forever. Moreover, you shall make an Altar as a place of burning incense. You shall make it out of acacia wood.
And then we go on to read a little bit later that the priest would continually, Beloved, be putting fresh incense on there, and this speaks to us about the fact that if we're going to be walking in communion with God, because remember the tabernacle was all about the Lord dwelling with us, that prayer, listen, is going to have to be central in our lives. I think the problem for some of us is that we have a perception of prayer that is faulty. I mean all of us are lacking in the full revelation of prayer, but for many people they think prayer is only when you're praying something out loud but, Beloved, prayer is not just when you're praying with words out loud, prayer is just when you're thinking about God, prayer is just when you're reaching out to God in your spirit in your inner man.
Remember when Yeshua was about to raise Lazarus from the dead and the Scripture says there that, that they were all crying because they said, you know, if you would have been here, Lazarus would not have died and Yeshua said, you know, you know, bring you know... the point that I'm trying to make is that Yeshua, Yeshua said Father, he said when they began to cry, he said Father, I thank you that you hear me. I know that you hear me always but because of the people standing around I said it, and then all of a sudden he cries forth with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth! And so Yeshua, once again, right before he raises Lazarus from the dead he says, Father, I thank you that you hear me, I know you hear me always, but because of the people standing around I'm saying it out loud, and then he calls forth a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
What we see revealed here is that Yeshua's prayer life, Beloved, was much deeper than just a prayer life that existed on the surface. In other words, he considered that he was praying to God, not just when he was praying out loud with words, but he considered the fact that just knowing that God always heard him and walking in the awareness of knowing that God always heard him, he was walking, Beloved, in that state, hallelujah, of continual prayer, and, and when we think about, about prayer, we think about the types of prayers that so many Christians pray today and, you know, a Christian may be going through the most horrendous circumstances in their life, I mean, they may be having a serious health issue, they may be having a serious relationship issue, they may be, you know, just really struggling in their relationship with God involving some really gross and moral sin but yet it seems so oftentimes when Christians come together and pray they pray about all the superficial things without ever really getting to the things that we need to be praying about which are the things, Beloved, that are issuing forth from deep inside and on next week's broadcast, I really need to encourage you to tune in because we're going to be looking in next week's broadcast at the types of prayers that we should be praying to ascend in our relationship with God.
If you and I, Beloved, want to ascend in our walk with God, if we want to gain victory in this world, and I believe that God has called us to victory, even as God gave Adam dominion over the earth, the Bible says that we've been restored to walking in dominion through Messiah Yeshua, that we can reign in life through him. If you want to have victory in your life and learn how to be a master over your circumstances and have freedom of mind and freedom of thought, Beloved, prayer is going to have to be your constant portion even as the priest were continually, the Scripture says, perpetually offering up incense to the Lord.
And the Bible tells in the Book of Revelation that the incense, Beloved, represents, listen now, the prayers of the saints, and so if your prayer life is going to go deeper, two things are going to have to happen right off the bat, number one, we're going to have to break free from traditional prayers, prayers that yield little fruit, you know, we're always praying about the superficial things, and get to the crux of the things we should be praying about, we're going to study that on next week's broadcast and you're also going to need to cultivate a sense that just thinking about the Lord, Beloved, is walking a state of prayer.
So Father, right now I pray that you will release into your people, Lord, the knowledge that you hear, Father God, their slightest whisper. That, Father, every thought that they think about you is a prayer. That every time, Father God, their soul reaches out to you in any way they're praying. I pray, Father, that you'll give to your people the knowledge, Lord, that you always hear them. And that, Father, if we ask anything according to your will, that we can be assured that we will receive and have received, Father God, the things that we've asked for. I pray that you release faith in your people to know, Father, as they reach out to you, Father, in prayer. That, Father God, something is changing in their lives, something dramatic is happening.
I bless you now, Ha Chaverim, I look forward to being with you next week for the next addition of Discovering the Jewish Jesus.