We can't stay where we are. The Sinai desert is a frightening wilderness. The only reason we do not have to fight to hold our ground at Sinai is that no other tribe wishes to live in such a barren furnace. We are God's own people, down here at Sinai, but it is no place to stay after God moves on. The only neighbors here are the wild animals.

There is a major problem with going forward and occupying the land of promise. It is inhabited already, and with fierce warriors. The Egyptians are occupying the land of Egypt, and the Canaanites are warlike people and resolute concerning their possessions. Perhaps we should unpack and live in the Sinai desert. Nobody will bother us in this area. It is a good place for people who have no heart for a fight.

But God will not take this attitude or remain here with us. God will find His Joshuas and His Calebs and will bring them up into His promised land, His rest and inheritance.

The way of God is a supernatural way. This is underscored by the fact that the Holy Place was lighted by the Lampstand, not to any great extent by the daylight that illuminated the Courtyard. When we come into the Holy Place with God we are one step removed from the life and understanding possessed by the world. Not that we no longer are of service to the world. Paradoxically, the deeper one goes with God the richer one's service to the world becomes. Service to mankind is a fruit of obedience to God.

The promise of God to Abraham is that in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. The promise was given after a terrible act of consecration. The best way to serve and bless mankind is to seek God with the whole heart as did Abraham.

No other man has ever served mankind as effectively as did Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, He is the embodiment of holiness and total consecration to God. He is the living fulfillment of the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.

If we desire to move past the first steps of salvation we must enter the "Holy Place." When we go past the heavy curtain of the door of the Tabernacle we leave the world and much of the daylight (direction by the human mind) outside. Not that we ever forsake our common sense, but we do learn to commit our way to the Lord and not to lean on our own understanding.

As we enter by the door we find ourselves in the Holy Place. The light shining from the golden Lampstand (the manifestation of the Holy Spirit) is revealing the Table of Showbread (Christ, the living Bread from Heaven). We are close to the Presence of the Holy One of Israel. There is no place here for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. We have left those things with the world.

The Lampstand in the Holy Place represents the communication of God to mankind through the Holy Spirit of God. The twelfth and fourteenth chapters of First Corinthians describe the spiritual counterpart of the Lampstand of the Tabernacle, as far as gifts and ministries are concerned.

Christ Himself, the Servant of the Lord, is the Lampstand. In this sense, the four Gospels are pictures of the Lampstand in action. In the Epistles of the Apostles to the churches we begin to understand how we as individuals can enter into and become part of the shining of the Lampstand of God.

To be continued.