Perfection Revealed in the Tabernacle of Moses 2
(week 43/06)
Olubi Johnson
In our article last week, we began to see how to grow into perfection revealed in the Tabernacle of Moses.
We continue this week, by looking at what it means to operate in the outer court:
The outer Court
The outer court has only one entrance and it represents the place where you start as a Christian:
John 14:6 KJV: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
The entrance door of the Outer Court represents Jesus, the only way into the household of God. Sadly many Christians live at the door, like the man Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 5:1-5. Such people do not have a prayer life nor have they learnt the principles of operating in the things of the Spirit. Because they live careless spiritual lives: they are constantly backsliding and repenting. When the door is finally shut, many of them may find themselves on the wrong side. It is a very dangerous place to live.
1 Corinthians 5:1 KJV: It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
1 Corinthians 5:5 KJV: To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Still in the outer court, the next item you will meet is the Brazen altar where sin offerings were made. The Christian who lives around this altar is only slightly better than the one at the door. The Brazen altar Christian is a nominal Christian who lives a carnal fleshly life. He does not know the Word of God and he is not ready to tax himself to move further up in spiritual things because they are difficult initially, requiring discipline. One thing you need to understand is that there must be constant motion in the Christian life, and you are either pressing forwards, sliding backwards or oscillating backwards and forwards, making no progress at all. Many of these people live in sin constantly only to repent, because of God’s great mercy, moments before they die, while others may not be so fortunate.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 KJV: And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
The last item in the Outer Court is the brazen laver where the Priests cleanse their hands and feet. This represents the experience of the born again Christian who loves God, does not live in habitual sin, and knows the Word of God, but is not baptized in the Holy Spirit, or even if he is, he does not pray much in the Spirit.
They use the water of the Word in the brazen laver to wash their feet or their conduct enough to have some Christian witness by not living in habitual moral sin but do not operate the spiritual law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:2) to any appreciably effective degree to dominate the satanic nature in the flesh.
John 15:3 KJV: Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
This is because such a person only sees the Word of God in its natural context: literal and historical understanding alone: he does not understand the manifold wisdom of God; in fact he will call the hidden wisdom in the Word error or heresy. This is because the person in the outer court looking in the brazen laver cannot see the shewbread, or the candlestick, hidden from his view in the Holy Place.
Many Christians are like this: in fact the majority of the evangelical, and Pentecostal Church falls into this category. The nature of God: eternal life, living water operates primarily only in their spirits but does not have much influence in their soul: the mind, will and emotions or body. So they keep the moral law of the ten commandments to a certain degree but under pressure they will succumb to the satanic nature in the soul and the flesh.
Next week, we will begin to see how to operate in the Holy Place
