Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 40:34–38
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.
CONSIDER THIS
And so we come to the end of the Epic of Exodus, with the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle.
Do you remember how we began? I was with my friend Mike on the anniversary of a tragic day in his past and all it had led to when he said, "I guess my life is now on plan B."
The movemental journey from the land of slavery to the land of promise must pass through the wilderness. The wilderness is a place of teaching, testing, and transformation. And through these processes, it is a place of divine deliverance. All the old means and modes of the control matrix of slavery are gone. The outward shackles fall off only to reveal their inner strongholds in our hearts and minds.
The wilderness teaches us a whole new order and a completely new and different way of life. We have been delivered from the empire of Pharaoh to the kingdom of God. We must learn the gracious intricacies of covenant-keeping rather than the onerous yoke of rule-following. Our relationship is not with the rules but the Ruler himself—following him via cloud by day and fire by night. The wilderness teaches us the trust of daily bread—manna in the morning, quail in the evening. Indeed, the wilderness teaches us when we follow the Ruler, seeking his kingdom and his righteousness, everything else falls into its place.
Finally, we come to the end of Exodus, which is really only the beginning. Everything so far has led to this point. From the day the presence of God fled from our forebears in the garden of Eden, the slow gears of redemption have rolled on, leading us to this encounter in the wilderness: the tabernacling of God in the midst of his people.
The eternal will of the Father in the garden is now being revealed in the untamed wild of the wilderness. We are now delivered from Plan B back into Plan A. It will not be all smooth sailing from here. We will need ongoing deliverance, but God who delivers us dwells in our midst—indeed, in our very bodies.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
In like fashion, in the fullness of time, Jesus Christ, the Word of God, comes into the wilderness of this world. There could be no less profound revelation in the entirety of Scripture than John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
“Made his dwelling” fails to capture it. The Greek word is skay-no-o (phonetic spelling). It means, quite literally, “He pitched his tent and tabernacled among us.” Jesus is the tabernacle of God—in human flesh, just like you and me. And do you remember his calling to us? “Follow me.”
In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted.
And then came the day of Pentecost, when the glory of the Spirit of God—the one who filled the tabernacle, the one who filled the Son of God in perfection—now fills the followers of Jesus in fullness.
Yes, my friends, you are the tabernacle of God—the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit—personally and communally.
May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ awaken us more and more to this reality and lead us into the destiny for which we were made.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I receive your deliverance from Plan B back to Plan A.
I receive your deliverance from burned out to on fire but not burning up.
I receive your deliverance from a distant sense of your presence with me to an abiding sense of your presence tabernacling with-in me.
Thank you for the glory of the Exodus and the goodness of deliverance and the greatness of Jesus—joy of every longing heart.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
