Exodus 38: The Outer Courts Of God's Glory

A portable worship space built with bronze bases, silver hooks, and curtains measured down to the foot sounds like ancient trivia until you realize what it’s really doing: turning faith into something you can picture, test, and live. Pastor Brandon takes us through Exodus 38 and the tabernacle outer court, explaining how the altar of burnt offering, the bronze laver, and the courtyard design give “time and space” to Israel’s worship and point forward to Jesus as our great high priest. 

We talk through the practical genius of the build, like why the courtyard posts sit in heavy bases so the tabernacle can be set up quickly on changing terrain. We also slow down on one striking detail: the wash basin made from mirrors donated by the women, a vivid picture of cleansing that also invites reflection. Then Exodus gets even more specific with a full inventory of gold, silver, and bronze, reinforcing that God’s work happens with real resources, real craftsmanship, and real accountability. 

From there, the chapter’s generosity theme opens into a challenge for the modern church. When we give, God turns ordinary gifts into ministry that reaches people, equips worship, and builds a community rather than a crowd. If you’ve ever caught yourself treating Sunday like a concert, this conversation reframes church as a family gathering and asks a direct question: what changes when you show up looking for a place to belong and serve? Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a five-star review if it helps you see worship and community with fresh eyes.

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.

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Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Exodus chapter 38, and today's title is The Outer Courts of God's Glory. The Outer Courts of God's Glory. What we're doing is we're building onto each other the construction of the house of God. Two chapters ago, we were talking about curtains and coverings over the house of God. Yesterday we were talking about some of the instruments of worship. And today we're going to talk about the instruments of the outer court and more of the outer court coverings. And the reason why this is so important is because I know that it was a long time ago, right? And after the tabernacle, we had the temple, and now we are the house of God, the Bible says. But the reason why this is important is this puts dimensions and framework and spatial recognition to the house of God, to the place of worship. And it gives us the opportunity to be able to see. This wasn't just some random story. This actually happened. And it puts this in time and space in 3D so that we can see what it looked like for people to worship. And that this is a type and shadow of eventually what the Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus is the great high priest who made a way for us through all of this. We're going to get started. Make sure you get your Bibles, make sure you get your Bible journals. We're going to be looking at the outer court. 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 view on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And as always, the more we dig,

The Tabernacle Layout In Plain Terms

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the more we find. Well, if you've been with us over the past several days, we are building the house of God. That's what's going on. Is Moses had gone up on the mountain, he had seen all the things and stuff. He comes back down and he says, Here's the plan. And this guy named Basalel, Aholiab, and a slew of folks, they're starting to build. And the people bring all of this stuff until they finally say, That's enough. Stop bringing stuff. And so they brought, stop bringing stuff and they start constructing the tabernacle. And the tabernacle is in really three different sections. You have the outer court, which we're going to be talking about today. You have the holy place, which we talked about yesterday. Then you have the holy of holies, which houses the most sacred object, which is the Ark of the Covenant. Now remember, they didn't worship the Ark. It the Ark symbolized the very presence of God. And then, but on the holy place, you had the altar of incense, the table of showbread, and you had the menorah, which represented different forms of worship. Well, today we're going to talk about the altar, which is where they would sacrifice all the things and stuff. Then you had the labor, which would be cleansing. They would wash the different things and all this different stuff. But then also we're going to look at the different curtains that still have yet to be constructed because you had to be able to carry all this someplace. So let's read God's word and see what it'll teach us today. God's Word says this in Exodus 38, verse 1. Next, Basalel used acacia wood to construct the square altar of burnt offering. It was seven and a half feet wide, seven and a half feet long, and four and a half feet high. He made horns on each of its four corners so that the horns and the altar were all one piece. He overlaid the altar

The Bronze Altar And The Laver

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with bronze. Then he made the altar of utensils of bronze, such as ash buckets, shovels, basins, meat forks, and firepans. Next he made a bronze grating and installed it halfway down the side of the altar under the ledge. He cast four rings and attached them to the corners of the bronze grating to hold the carrying poles. He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with bronze. He inserted the poles through the rings on each side of the altar, and the altar was hollow and was made from planks. Basalel made a bronze wash basin and the bronze stand from the bronze mirrors donated by the women who serve the entrance of the tabernacle. And I'll pause in case we got lost there. He just got through building that the ark, or excuse me, not the ark, but the altar there of offering, and it was seven and a half feet tall. Man, that thing is huge. And then this was what's called the wash wash basin, the laver. And it was made from mirrors so that when you look down in it, it was a reflection of yourself. We could talk about that all day long and how cool that is. So he made the altar of incense, he made the laver, and now we're going to talk about building the actual courtyard. Verse nine. Then Basalel made

Courtyard Curtains And Portable Design

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the courtyard, which was enclosed with curtains made of finely woven linen. On the south side, the curtain was 150 feet long. They were held up by 20 posts set securely in 20 bronze bases. He hung the curtains with silver hooks and rings. Now pause. Now the reason why that was important is the reason why they had bases is they didn't necessarily know where they were going to move to next. And so they didn't know if they were going to move to an area where they could dig down in there. And they wanted to set it up pretty quickly. So if you have bronze bases, you can set those down and then set the temp poles on top of it. Therefore, it doesn't really matter what kind of terrain you have, as long as it's relatively flat, you can set it up. That was the genius behind that. All right, here we go. Verse 11, he made he set similar curtains on the north side, 150 feet of curtain held up by 20 posts, also set securely in bronze bases. He hung the curtains with silver hooks and rings. The curtains on the west end of the courtyard were 75 feet long, hung with silver hooks and rings, supported by 10 posts and 10 bases. All that makes a rectangle. The east end the front was also 75 feet long. The courtyard entrance on the east end flanked by two curtains. The curtain on the right side was 22.5 feet long and was supported by three posts set into three bases. The curtain on the left side was also 22.5 feet long and was supported by three posts set into three bases. All the curtains used in the courtyard were made of finely woven linen. Each post had a bronze base, and all the hooks and rings were silver. The tops of the posts of the courtyard were laid overlaid with silver, and the rings to hold up the curtains were made of silver. He made the curtain for the entrance of the courtyard of finely woven linen, and he decorated it with beautiful embroidery in blue, purple, and scarlet thread. It was thirty feet long, and its height was seven and a half feet, just like the curtains of the courtyard walls. It was supported by four posts, each set securely in its own bronze base. The tops of the posts were overlaid with silver, and the hooks and the rings were also made of silver. All the tent pegs used in the tabernacle and courtyard were made of bronze. This is an inventory

The Inventory That Makes It Real

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of the materials used in the building of the tabernacle of the covenant. The Levites compiled figures, as Moses directed, and Ithamar, son of Aaron, the high priest, served as recorder. Basalel, son of Uri, grandson of Hur of the tribe of Judah, made everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses. He was assisted by Aholiab, son of Ashmach, the tribe of Dan, the craftsman expert at engraving, designing, and embroidering with blue, purple, and scarlet thread on fine linen cloth. The people brought special offerings of gold totaling two thousand one hundred and ninety-three pounds, as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel. The gold was used throughout the tabernacle. The whole community of Israel gave 7,545 pounds of silver, as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel. This silver came from the taxes collected from each man registered in the census. The tax of each one Becca, which is half a shekel, was based on the sanctuary shekel. The tax was collected from 603,550 men who had reached the aid their 20th birthday. The hundred bases for the frames of each sanctuary wall and for the post supporting the inner courts required 7,500 pounds of silver. That's a lot of silver, and 75 pounds for each base. The remaining 45 pounds of silver was used to make the hooks and rings and to overlay the tops of the posts. The people who brought the special offerings had 5,310 pounds of bronze, which was used for casting the bases for the posts at the entrance of the tabernacle, for the bronze altar with its bronze grating and all its altar utensils. The bronze was also used to make the bases for the post that supported the curtains around the courtyard. The bases for the curtain at the entrance of the courtyard and all the temp pegs for the tabernacle and the courtyard. Now, what I love about this is first of all, once again, it firmly establishes exactly what the tabernacle looked

Generosity That Builds God’s House

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like. Like we don't have to have paintings or drawings or whatever. We can get an exact replica. As a matter of fact, people have made exact replicas of this by using these dimensions. These are real dimensions. But we know what I love too is the Bible is quick to say at the end of this chapter, all of this was made because of the generosity of the people. That when they gave, it was able to be turned into a base or a curtain rod or a curtain or this over here, that they gave earrings, you know, because that's that's what they had at the time. They gave, you know, a gold piece right here, or they gave, you know, this over there, but then God turned it into something amazing. And you know, that's one of the things I love about doing life as a church community. When we give of our finances, when God tells us to give 10% of our finances to go toward the work of ministry, we give a dollar amount, but then God takes it and we're able to do ministry all over the world. We're able to buy curriculum for our kids. We're able to buy, you know, equipment that we use in our worship time. We're able to do just all these other kinds of things with it that when we give and we honor God, then it's able to be used to create something awesome. And it only happens as we as a church community come together. And that's what I love about being a community. It's one of the things that we say at RLC all the time. And that is that we say that we don't want to be a church of consumers. We want to be a church of contributors. We want to be part of this. You know, when we go to church on Sunday morning, we're not going to a concert. We're not going to a place where your job is to, you know, entertain me. We're going to a family gathering once a week. And guests are invited. Guests, honored guests are invited, but it's a family gathering where we come and we worship God together. That's why a lot of times when you know people will say, well, you need to do this, that, and the other, because I give my tithe around here. I'm like, dude, you don't give your tithe to us. You're giving it as an act of worship to God. And then we take that tithe to which, by the way, we're accountable for. We're gonna have to answer to God one day for every single dollar that was given. So that that there's that that weighs on us all the time. But then we take it as an instrument to use in the creation of the house of worship. And so it takes all of us together. But when that happens, we are able to then create a space, not just a building, but a community where we are able to worship God together. That's what I think of when I think of a church on Sunday morning. You know, my girls have told me before, they say, Dad, you just act different when you're at church on Sunday. I'm like, what do you mean? Because I always try to be the same person, you know, when I'm on stage, when I'm off stage. And I remember one of my daughters saying, No, no, no, Dad, I'm not talking about when you're on stage.

From Consumers To Spiritual Family

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I'm talking about just when you're talking to people, just extra happy when you're at church. And I didn't realize that. But I truly love being around the people of God. And can I tell you, I didn't always, because it was a time when I thought of the church as a place of people. We had to figure stuff out and do whatever and all this kind of thing. But I love going home, you know, because then I go home, I get to be with my family and this kind of stuff. And one day someone said that to me and they said, You do realize that the people you see on Sunday, by God's grace, you're gonna get spend eternity with these people. This is your spiritual family. And I started thinking of Sunday morning as being around my spiritual family. It changed how I saw it. So no longer am I trying to look for a place to be served, I'm trying to be part of the team because it takes all of us to make the house of God. So here's my question for you What would it do on Sunday morning if you didn't go to church looking for a place to serve you, but for a place to be part? I want to I want a family to be part of. Would it change how you approach Sunday morning? Would it change how you approach life groups? Would it change how you engaged with your neighbor when you realize this place isn't here to serve me? This is a place for me to be part of. If you did that, I guarantee you, it would change your life. Let's pray together

Prayer And A Freedom Reminder

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right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you see us and you know us and you love us. And Lord, you are building your house even right now, no matter where we are all over the world, Lord, you you have a place for us to connect to. I pray you help us to find that place, get connected to that place, and become part of a spiritual community. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And amen, what God's Word says in Exodus 6, verse 6, it says, I will free you from your oppression and I will rescue you from slavery. I'm so thankful to serve a God of freedom. I'll see you tomorrow for Exodus chapter 39.