Exodus 37: Building The Vehicles For Worship

The most powerful parts of Exodus are not always the dramatic moments, sometimes they’re the quiet details that show us how to draw near. We’re in Exodus 37 with Pastor Brandon, watching Bezalel build the sacred “vehicles for worship” inside the tabernacle, and we slow down long enough to see what those objects are really saying about God and about us.

We sketch a simple, listener-friendly picture of the tabernacle so the chapter doesn’t turn into a blur of measurements. Then we explore the Ark of the Covenant as a symbol of God’s presence, the table of showbread as fellowship and the Word of God, the menorah as light that points to the Holy Spirit, and the altar of incense as the prayers of God’s people rising before him. If you care about Bible study, Christian worship, and how Old Testament patterns connect to New Testament faith, this chapter is a goldmine.

The moment it all clicks is the invitation: because of Jesus, worship is no longer locked behind a veil or limited to a priesthood. Reading Scripture becomes an act of worship. Singing becomes a way to let God’s light illuminate the heart. Prayer becomes real-time access to the throne of grace, not a once-a-year event. Listen through to the closing prayer, then take two extra minutes to talk to God with fresh confidence. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a five-star review.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Exodus chapter 37. Today's title is Building the Vehicles for Worship. Building the vehicles for worship. Yesterday we saw how Basalel and the different guys started building the infrastructure, you know, the outer tents and the coverings that were going to kind of house where the people would worship. Well, now we get a little bit closer and we're talking about the different tools, the vehicles that the priest would use to actually interact and worship God. And we're going to look at these and see how we still worship God in these same ways today, only we don't have to go to the tabernacle anymore, but we can worship God with our hearts, with our hands, with our voices, with our prayers. We're going to get all that in just a moment. So make sure you get your Bibles out, get your Bible journals out. We're going to be reading in the New Living Translation. Also, make sure you take just a moment, like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. You guys are always going to be the OGs. You're going to be my favorites. Y'all are the ride or dice for we ever had the YouTube channel. Just throwing it out there. Also, make sure you go to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. That's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job, writing devotions for us every single day. And you can get all that information at the Biblebreakdown.com because the more we dig, the more we find.

A Simple Map Of The Tabernacle

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Well, as I was saying yesterday, we started looking at how the Bible is laying out how people were going to worship. It's going to say, okay, this is what the house of God needs to look like. And I want to show you a graphic. If you are watching this on uh the podcast, you will see this. What we are building here, or watching and getting them build, is I want to use my pen here and say, okay, so this white area here. And if you're doing this in the podcast, just use your imagination. There is this rectangle, rectangle that is happening all around here. This is what they were building. They were they were building all of these, uh oh, all of these different uh areas. I just lost my, hang on just a moment. I cannot believe I did this. This is why we are live and the Lord is good. Here we go. All right, so they were building all of these, you know, these posts, and this white area represents curtains. And so they would do this and they would build them in such a way so that they could tear them down and they could take them to the next place. Remember, this was a tent. It wasn't intended to be forever, right? Well, now they're going to build the vehicles they would use in the holy place. So you had the outer court, which is, you know, the area where they would do, you know, the offerings on this is called the brazen altar, and then they had the laver, that's where they do all the washing. Well, now they're in the holy place, and it's in the holy place where they would do worship of they call the table of showbread, which was a representation of the word of God. Then you have the menorah, which was the seven-branched candlestick, which illumination, which would represent, you know, the Holy Spirit, how he illuminates our hearts. Then you have the altar of incense. This is where they would put the incense on the altar. And according to Hebrew tradition, the cloud or the smoke of it will go straight up as a prayer before God. So you have the word of God, you have the spirit of God, and you have prayers and worship going before God. Then there is a veil right here, and this is the Ark of the Covenant. So I want to kind of give you a little bit of an idea. So I know we're talking about a lot of these different things, and if we're not careful, it can kind of get lost in the mix. So, what we're doing is today is we are talking about this center piece right here, the holy place. Okay, so if you're ready, let's read about the holy place as we get into God's word together. So here

Reading Exodus 37 Build Details

SPEAKER_01 3:58

we go. Chapter 37, verse one says this. Next, Basalel made an ark of acacia wood, the sacred chest, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high. So this is the Ark of the Covenant. He overlaid it inside and outside with pure gold, and ran a molding of gold all around it. He cast four gold rings and attached them to its four feet with two rings on each side. Then he made poles from acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. He inserted the poles into the rings at the sides of the ark to carry it. Then he made the ark's cover, a place of atonement of pure gold. It was forty-five inches long and twenty seven inches wide. He made two cherubim of hammered gold and placed them on the two ends of the atonement cover. He molded the cherubim on each end of the atonement cover, making it all of one piece of gold. The cherubim faced each other and looked down at on the atonement cover. With their wings they spread above it and they protected it. Then Basalel made the table of Acacia, that's also called the table of showbread, thirty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, and twenty seven inches high. He overlaid it with pure gold and ran a gold molding around the edge. He decorated it with a three inch border all around, and he ran the gold molding along the border. He then cast four gold rings for the table and attached them to the four corners next to the four legs. The rings were attached near the border to hold the poles that were used to carry the table. He made these poles from acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. Then he made special containers of pure gold for the table, bowls, ladles, jars, and pitchers to be used in pouring out liquid offerings. Then Basalel made a lampstand of pure hammered gold. He made the entire lampstand and its decorations of one piece, the base, center stem, lamps, cups, buds, and petals. The lampstand had six branches going out from the center stem, three on each side. Each of the six branches had three lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and petals. The center stem of the lamb stem was crafted with four lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and petals. There was an almond bud beneath each pair of branches, where the six branches extended from the center stem, all made of one piece. The almond buds and branches were all of one piece with the center stem, and they were hammered from pure gold. He also made seven lamps for the lampstand, lamp snuffers, and trays, all of pure gold. The entire lampstand, along with his accessories, was made of 75 pounds of pure gold. That's a lot of gold. Then Basalel made the incense altar of acacia wood. It was 18 inches square, 36 inches high, with horns on each corner carved with the same piece of wood, the altar itself. He overlaid the tops and sides and horns of the altar with pure gold, and he ran gold molding around the entire altar. He made two gold rings and attached them on opposite sides of the altar below the gold molding to hold the carrying poles. He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. Then he made the sacred anointing oil and the fragrant incense using the techniques of skilled incense makers. So

How These Items Shape Worship Now

SPEAKER_01 7:30

what we have here is we have where in the last chapter they built the infrastructure, the outer curtains and the coverings, so that it would give form and space and boundaries to the house of God. Now he is now working on the instruments of worship. And it talked about four different instruments. First was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the very presence of God. Now, once again, remember, they weren't worshiping the Ark of the Covenant. They were worshiping God, and the representation of God was the Ark. It's just my much like today, if you go to a church and you see a cross on the wall, they're not worshiping the cross, they're worshiping who the cross represents, right? So that's kind of the same thing. But then it said the table, which we call the table of showbread, the menorah, and then the altar of incense. And what people would do is as an act of worship, they would light the candles on the menorah, and it was a form of worship. They would bake and lay out this bread as a symbol of fellowship with God, and the bread being the very words of God. The Bible says we don't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And then you had the incense altar, which represented the prayers of the people of God going up before him. And that's how they would worship. And this was a type and shadow of us now in the New Testament that we can worship in the same way. And this is the amazing thing that we get to do, that this is why this is so very important, is because then if you wanted to worship God in this way, you had to go to the tabernacle, you had to go into the holy place, which only the priests could do, and then you had to do it in this specific way. But now, because of Jesus, the Holy Spirit living inside of us, the four things we can do. We can we can light the menorah spiritually, that is the power of God through worship. We can, as we sing our songs and as we worship, it illuminates our heart so we can see God more clearly. Then we can break the bread of God's word. When we read God's word like we're doing today, it is a form of worship. When we pray, it's as if we are putting incense, go straight up before God. We can pray at any time. And in doing that, the Bible says that we can now, because of Jesus, the book of Hebrews says, go boldly into the throne of grace because of Jesus. We can enter into the Holy of Holies. Did you realize that's what you're doing when you take time and you worship God? Every time you read God's word, you are worshiping him in much the same way as the priest would do. When you are praising God and you're worshiping him through song, you are worshiping God in much the same way the priest would. When you are praying, you are doing that. And because of Jesus, realize that before Jesus, the high priest could only go into the Holy of Holies to be with the Ark of the Covenant, to offer sacrifices for forgiveness. He could do that one time a year. And he would have to spend seven days of purification before him because he had to be holy before the Lord before he could represent the people before God. If he wasn't holy, he would die. But now, because of Jesus, anytime you want to, you can spiritually enter into the throne of grace. What would it do for your prayer life if you realized that what the holiest man in the camp could do one day a year right now, if you and I got quiet before God and we just said, Jesus, okay, I come before you, my King, and right now you can spiritually be in the very throne room of God. You don't have to wait once a year. You don't have to to purify yourself for seven days, but because of Jesus, you have instant access to the very throne throne throne room of God. What would it do to your prayer life to realize that you're in the very presence of God? And you didn't even have to wait seven days. You could do it. Think about that today as you pray and you talk to God. I know some of you listen to this on your way to work, and I pray that when you're done with this, you'll have a couple minutes left to pray and talk to God before you go to work. What if before you did that, you took just a moment and you thought about yourself going through the outer court, going through the inner court, and just before opening up the curtain and going into the Holy of Holies, you remember that you only have access because of Jesus. And in that moment, Jesus, I come running to you and you enter into the holiest of all. Thank you, Jesus, for that opportunity.

Guided Prayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Let's pray right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you're with us and you're for us. I'm thankful, God, for the way that you have made so that we could enter your very presence. I'm sorry, God, that we don't take advantage of it more. That you created a way so that we could use that way to come before you. I pray you will help us, God, to constantly and consistently know you more. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Freedom Promise And Tomorrow Preview

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Amen. Well, God's word says in Exodus 6, verse 6, he says, I will free you from your oppression and I will rescue you from slavery. I am so thankful to serve a God of freedom. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Exodus chapter 38.