Last week we looked at Part 1 of the 100th Psalm and we examined the tabernacle from the plan that God gave to Moses in order to set it up.  You'll remember there were 3 areas in the tabernacle or temple.  There was the Outer Court, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.  Those were the 3 specific areas in the tabernacle, as we read about it in Exodus 26 and Hebrews 9.  Today those 3 specific areas of the tabernacle also represent for you and me the body, the soul and the spirit of man.  The Outer Court represents the body.  The Holy Place represents the soul, the mind and the emotions, and the Most Holy Place represents our spirit.  Just to recap, you'll recall that we saw that there was a gate into the tabernacle.  Opposite the gate was the bronze altar and just ahead of that was the laver.  The priests made the sacrifice on the bronze altar - the lamb, the bull or whatever it was - and the high priest took the blood from that and went in on the Day of Atonement to the Most Holy Place.  He went in just once a year and he went in with a rope tied around his ankle (if he didn't behave correctly between the gate and the Most Holy Place, he'd drop dead immediately he came before the Ark of the Covenant.  The other priests, unable to enter the Most Holy Place, would have to drag him out using the rope attached to his ankle).  And so it was important that they took note of the way in which God had set up the design of the tabernacle for them in those days.  Next, we saw that as you entered into the Inner Court, or the Holy Place, there was a Table of Shewbread on the right-hand side.  On the left-hand side was the Golden Lampstand and just ahead of that was the Altar of Incense and, beyond all these, was the Most Holy Place in which resided the Arc of the Covenant.
 

The Most Holy Place (The Holy of Holies)     The Inner Court (The Holy Place)       The Outer Court

When God gave the plan for the tabernacle He gave it not just for the people in those ancient days but He gave it with a design in mind and clearly relevant to you and I today because within that design of the tabernacle of the Old Testament was built the Cross!  For you and me today the only way that we can get into the Most Holy Place is through the Cross.  What Jesus Christ did on the cross dealt with the sacrifice that was required under the old covenant.  It dealt with the washing required at the Laver, it dealt with what the Table of Shewbread stood for, and it dealt with the Golden Lampstand and the Altar of Incense.  There is only one way that you and I can come into the Holy Place and it is through the Gate, through the cross, progressing into the Most Holy Place, the presence of God.

We've looked at the tabernacle in terms of history and the Old Testament and how God designed the tabernacle for worship, and we've seen how Jesus fits into that divine design.  Now let's examine the 3 areas in terms of man - the body, the soul and the spirit - and the progression blueprint for thanksgiving, praise and worship which is, of course, the part that's linked to Psalm 100:4.  "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His Name".  In the 100th Psalm God has given us His pattern or blueprint for praise and worship.  Through this you will see the truth of the statement: "The new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed".  The cross was hidden, concealed, in the tabernacle that God gave to Moses and the depth of the Old Testament was revealed whenever we look at Jesus and His coming.

Man is a triune being.  He has 3 parts (body, soul and spirit) because we are made in the image of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  The Outer Court represents the human body.  The Inner Court or Holy Place represents the soul of man and the Most Holy Place represents man's spirit.  We've also seen the 7 focal points in the tabernacle:-  the Gate, the Bronze Altar, the Laver were part of the Outer Court;  the Table of Shewbread, the Golden Lampstand and the Altar of Incense were part of the Inner Court or Holy Place; and finally the Arc of the Covenant was in the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies.  Let's go a little deeper now and examine the relevance of the tabernacle's design and furnishings for us today.

THE OUTER COURT = BODY
The Outer Court represents the body of man.  It stands for thanksgiving and it relates to our body - the body part of you and me whenever we come into praise and worship.  Psalm 100:4 says "Enter his gates with thanksgiving".  In other words remember your salvation.  Remember your baptism in the Holy Spirit.  Remember healing.  Remember God's provision.  Remember the things that God has done for you and thank Him for it.  We begin to come into God's presence in thanksgiving.  If we start with praise, then we've got it the wrong way around.  We must begin with thanksgiving because this is God's blueprint for our worship.  Yes, we can choose to ignore this and do things our own way, but if we truly desire to get to where God wants us to be, then we have to do it His way.

The thanksgiving praise in Psalm 100:4 comes from the Hebrew word touda, which means raising our hands in an act of humility and surrender of our flesh.  Our bodies must be brought into submission in the Outer Court as we come to worship.  When we come into the presence of God, into the Holy of Holies, it is not just our spirits that come, it's not just our souls that come, it's not just our bodies that come, but it is all of us - our entire being.  Each part has therefore got to be prepared for coming into God's presence.  There is protocol to be followed.  In thanksgiving we raise our hands, we clap our hands, we dance, we shout, we play instruments and we involve every part of our body.  We bring our body parts into submission to God as we come to worship Him.  Our body is the first part of our being that we bring into submission.  Now I know there are those who will say that they are not going to listen to anyone who tells them that they should raise their hands to praise the Lord, or clap or anything else.  They will say that they can praise the Lord quite well without raising their hands etc.  That is their decision and their choice, but I would simply say this  - when God lays it down in His Word that this is a part of what He requires, why would you want to set it aside and say "No Lord; that may be what you want, but this is what I'm going to give you".  Why will we not recognise what God wants and give it to Him gladly?  This is what pleases Him.

So we bring our bodies into submission as we enter into the Outer Court.  The first point we see is the Gate.  There is only one starting point on the pathway to the Holy of Holies and that is the Gate.  Jesus said "I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved.  He will come in and go out and find pasture" (John 10:9).  Friends, we cannot hope to worship God in the way that He wants us to worship Him if we have not entered in through the Gate.  If we have not come to Him through Jesus, through the Cross, we cannot enter into the Holy of Holies.  If we think we can enter by some other way we are nothing more than thieves and robbers.  There is only one way to come to praise and worship the most High God and that is through His Son,  Jesus Christ.

The next focal point in the Outer Court of the tabernacle was the Bronze Altar.  It was big piece of metal, 7.5 feet square and it was opposite the entrance Gate.  It was here that the priests shed the innocent blood of the sacrifice.  It was from there that the High Priest carried the blood into the Holy of Holies.  Again in Hebrews 9 we read "He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood".  Jesus has paid all the sacrifice that has ever been needed so that you and I can stand righteous before God.  However we can only stand righteous before God if we come and accept and receive and appropriate for ourselves on a personal basis the sacrifice that He made at Calvary.  If we have not received Christ and asked Christ into our own lives then we have never put our lives on that Altar.  We might think we have a toe through the Gate but coming fully through the Gate involves us in accepting the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us at Calvary.  God doesn't ask us to sacrifice ourselves in the same way as Jesus did, but he does ask "... offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1).

The Laver was the next piece of tabernacle furnishing to be seen.  It was the large, polished, bronze basin filled with water.  It was so highly polished that when you looked into it, you saw your own reflection.  As far as you and I are concerned, the Laver refers to the Word of God because when you and I look into the Word of God we see where we are, we see how we measure up.  The image we see is how we look in line with the Word of God.  We see our faults and sins because we have the measuring standard of the Word of God and it helps us to change and become the way that Jesus wants us to be.  Ephesians 5:26 and Hebrews 10:22 talks about "the washing with water through the word".  The thing that keeps us washed clean is staying in the Word of God.  Reading His Word, letting His Word renew, refresh and change us.  In this whole area in the Outer Court, therefore, all of our songs should be thanksgiving songs that relate to the power of God's Word.

THE HOLY PLACE = SOUL
The second area of the tabernacle was the Holy Place (or Inner Court) and it represents man's soul.  The soul is made up of will, mind (intellect) and emotions.  We're now moving out of the Outer Court into that Holy Place and this is where we "come into His courts with praise".  Do you begin to see the progression of where we're going in our praise and worship?  We start with thanksgiving and then as we move into a closer place with God, into the Holy Place, we come there by our praise.  The word here for praise is a different Hebrew word - it is not the touda that was out in the Outer Court, but rather tehilla, which means to sing hallals, to sing praises extravagantly and to celebrate with song and it is an act of your will.  You cannot praise God unless it is an act of your will.  As David said so often in the Psalms: "I will bless the Lord".  I take a decision to come into His presence. I take a decision to praise and worship Him.  Do you see where we've come from?  We've come from a place where our problems were the most important things to us.  Do you recall the Psalms of Ascent (Psalm 120 to 134) the children of Israel sang as they journeyed to the temple?  They began thinking of themselves, then they began to focus on God and on the great things God had done for them and by the time they had arrived at the temple in Jerusalem, They had forgotten all about themselves and were simply intent upon praising God.   And that is how we should move too.  We should progress from songs of thanksgiving to songs of praise.  However the fact is that very often we mix-and-match and flit back and forth between thanksgiving songs, praise songs and then back to thanksgiving again.  Basically in doing this, we're doing a U-turn.  We've come from the Outer Court into the Holy Place and then we turn around and go back out to the Outer Court!  Regrettably, in most of our churches today that is exactly what happens.  In most of our praise and worship, we never get beyond the Outer Court.  We seldom get to the Holy Place and we very rarely, if at all, get to the Holy of Holies.

In the Holy Place we begin to focus upon who God is and His goodness and it takes us one step past the great deeds that He has done in the past and helps us to focus on what God is doing here and now.  What has He done in your life today?  At this stage we're in the place where God can begin to move amongst us and do miracles. It's a place where we come into the NOW presence of God.  We bring our soul - our will, our mind, our emotions - into submission to God in the Holy Place.

The Table of Shewbread is one of the items of furniture in the Holy Place.  On the Table of Shewbread there were 12 loaves of bread, laid out in two rows of six.  This shewbread represents the will of man.  Whenever you bake bread, one of the first things you do is grind the flour and after you mix up the dough, you subject it to the furnace to heat.  And basically that is what God does with you and me.  He has to grind the human will, until we voluntarily bring it and submit it to Him.  Then very often we'll go through the heat of testing to make sure that we know where we're going with God.  He loves us too much to leave us sitting without testing us, and so He will test us in situations and circumstances to see if we will stand with Him, rather than slip back into our old fleshly ways.  The Table of Shewbread is representative of our will being ground and brought into submission to God.

Jesus had a decision to make; to do something in His own will, or do what the Father had sent Him to do and He said "Not my will but Your will be done".  Whenever you and I say to ourselves "Lord, not my will but your will be done"; whenever you and I take the decision that we will praise the Lord, no matter what anybody else thinks; whenever you and I simply begin to obey the blueprint for praise that God has given us, we come into the Holy Place.  Habakkuk 3:17-18 says: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour".  He knew his circumstances and yet he took a wilful decision to praise the Lord.  And it's at this point we move to the sacrifice of praise.  Praise becomes our sacrifice.  It is something we want to do freely and it comes from deep within us.  It's not merely words written on a page that we sing, accompanied by music, it comes from deep within us.

The Golden Lampstand was the other piece of furniture in the Holy Place of the tabernacle.  It had 7 branches on it and each one of these held a bowl of oil.  It was the only means of light in the old tabernacle.  There was no other light apart from the light shed by the Golden Lampstand.  This Golden Lampstand represents the human mind that is renewed by the Holy Spirit.  Romans 12:2 tells us "... be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will".  Only the Holy Spirit can renew your mind, your intellect, your understanding, and bring you into the light, illuminating the Word of God to you.  When we have submitted our bodies to God, when we have submitted our soul to God, then it is at this stage that the Holy Spirit begins to function within us in our prayer language.  A congregation singing in the Spirit is at a place where spiritual warfare begins.  We talk about spiritual warfare but we can never truely do it until we get into a place with God where that can happen.  "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds ..." (2 Corinthians 10:4).  The weapons of our warfare only become effective when we are moving by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Praise comes from a man's soul.  It involves his will (taking the decision that he will praise the Lord), his mind (or intellect) and also his emotions.  Some people criticise praise and worship as something that they see as merely designed to whip up peoples' emotions.  Show me any form of music, pop, classical, whatever and if it's any good it will always affect the emotions.  Hitler discovered that if he could take over a country's music, he could take over a country's people, and that is what's happening today with our young folk through the music they are exposed to.  Why, therefore, should our praise and worship be prohibited from affecting our emotions.

The Golden Altar of Incense is the next item of furniture and it represents human emotions.  When our will has been submitted to a sacrifice of praise, our mind submitted to the Holy Spirit, then there is a powerful flow of emotion.  Out of our innermost being flow rivers of living water.  It is this emotional surge that brings us through the veil into the act of high praise and worship.  This is the fragrance that rises to God and makes Him well pleased.  This aroma or fragrance rises to God from you and me - for we are to God the "aroma of Christ in those who are being saved" - God's people coming into the place of praise and worship that God has ordained for us. Real incense is costly and highly valued and so is the aromatic incense of our worship as we submit our emotions and lay them on the Lord's altar.

THE MOST HOLY PLACE = SPIRIT
Now we come to the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies.  It represents the Spirit part of man and it is the ultimate place of worship because, here, we are in the presence of God Himself. In the Most Holy Place we must extravagantly pour ourselves out at His feet just like the woman who broke the alabaster jar. Being in His presence is the greatest miracle of all. When Jesus was crucified on the cross "it was now about the sixth hour and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour for the sun stopped shinning and the curtain of the temple was torn in two and Jesus cried out in a loud voice: 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit' When He had said this, He breathed His last" (Luke 23:44-46). That was the point in time when the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, or temple, was opened up to us.  No longer is access granted only to a high priest. The veil was torn in two so that you and I could come and approach the dwelling place of God.

As we've seen, we cannot come to God by singing one hymn.  It is a progression, starting (as we observed with the Psalms of Ascent), before we even come into church.  We've come through the area of thanksgiving, we've come through the area of praise, through the area of high praise, and now we're in the place where we can worship God in the way that He desires.  It's the 'now' moment with God's Holy Spirit and we move only at God's invitation.  It's where the awesome presence of God is so great that nobody can say or do anything.  We are simply standing in His holy presence, and it demands from us, and the person leading the service, extreme sensitivity.

The Ark of the Covenant resided in the Most High Place and it represents the divine presence of God. In 2 Samuel 6:6 we learn how Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark of the Covenant when the oxen that were carrying it stumbled.  "The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the Arc of God".  Uzzah acted in the flesh and paid the consequences.  King David discovered that there was only one way to move the Ark and that was in the way ordained by God.  Likewise we too must follow God's ordained pattern if we desire to come into His presence. When Moses asked God what His name was, God told him "I am who I am" and He is still I AM.  He is the I AM God.  The God of now.  He's not the God of yesterday, although He was there yesterday.  He's not the God of tomorrow, although He'll be there tomorrow.  He is the God of today - the I AM God.  God descends amongst us when we worship Him as He desires. And then, by the sensitivity of the person who is leading the service, we are taken back out into the Outer Court once more, to hear the ministry of the Word.

So what about today?  God is rebuilding His temple today.  We'll see the temple resurrected in Jerusalem as part of the end-time things that God is doing, but God is also building a temple today with His people across the world.  "You are no longer foreigner and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.  In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit" (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Acts 15:16 records "After this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent.  Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord who does these things that have been known for ages".  and in John 4:23-28 "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.  God is Spirit, and His worshippers must worship Him in spirit and in truth".

Can I ask you a question?  Do you worship God in spirit and in truth?  In my lifetime I would say that there have only been perhaps half a dozen times when I've experienced what I've talked about tonight - when I've gone from thanksgiving to praise, to high praise and into the Holy of Holies in real worship.  And when it happens it's the most wonderful thing you could ever wish to experience.  Standing in the presence of God.  Nobody saying anything.  Everyone worshipping.  It's something we need to re-consider very seriously if we want to be the people that God wants us to be.  The tabernacle plan.  God's way of worshipping.  God's blueprint - Psalm 100 - for you and me. "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and  His courts with praise".  Are we prepared to worship the way God wants us to?  Are we prepared to be worshippers who must worship Him in spirit and in truth?  Can we honestly say that when we come to church we always worship in spirit and in truth?  Worship is the pathway that brings us into the very presence of God.  When we refuse to worship God's way, we are effectively saying to Him we don't want His ways or to obey what He has set out in Scripture for us.  If we want to see God moving in our midst then we need to obey His Word.  Only a church that listens to the Holy Spirit and does things God's way will see results.  And it's not just a corporate thing - in our personal worship too you and I can follow Psalm 100's pattern in our quiet time with God.

As I said last week, the ultimate aim of ever single service of worship is to take the people into the presence of God - into the Holy of Holies.  If we, in the church, could grasp that worshipping God in His way is vitally important, that it's the way by which to demonstrate the presence and power of God, then life in both the church and the secular world would be very different.  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.(2 Corinthians 2:11).