Called To The Task
Notes
Transcript
This chapter is concluding this section which began in chapter 25, the construction of the Tabernacle and the holy garments for those who would serve there. Now the LORD turns to those who will do the work
I. God provides workers for His tasks, 31:1-11.
I. God provides workers for His tasks, 31:1-11.
A. God calls individuals
A. God calls individuals
Moses did not call others to do this work—God is the one who does the calling. And He decides who will do what .
Our danger to avoid: do not presume a calling.
God knows those whom He calls by name
Bezalel - “in the shadow of God”
He is not a Levite but is from the tribe of Judah.
He did not have to be a priest to serve God. Even so, we do not have to be a pastor to serve God; BUT if God has called us, we better be ready to do the work.
B. God prepares individuals to do His work
B. God prepares individuals to do His work
God will give Bezalel more than adequate capability to do his task. The LORD has already done this: “I have filled him with the Spirit of God...”
Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Commentary)
This wonderful phrase is indicative of the work of the Holy Spirit during OT times. We are familiar with the “filling of the Spirit” that came upon the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2) and brought into being the new community of faith, the church. But we often neglect the work of the Spirit among the Israelites. Passages such as this one help us to see the continuity of God’s work among His people through the ages. In this case, the Spirit empowered uniquely gifted people to design and build a tabernacle befitting a holy and magnificent God.
Whom God calls, He also endows with ability to do what He has called them to do. He filled them with His Spirit so they would make choices consistent with His will.
The work Bezalel was to do would seem not to be a “spiritual” work, but it required God’s Spirit in order to do the task he was called to do ...
Exodus—Saved for God's Glory The Artist’s Calling
According to John Durham, Bezalel was “specially endowed for his assignment by an infilling of the divine spirit, which adds to his native ability three qualities that suit him ideally for the task at hand: wisdom, the gift to understand what is needed to fulfill Yahweh’s instructions; discernment, the talent for solving the inevitable problems involved in the creation of so complex a series of objects and materials; and skill, the experienced hand needed to guide and accomplish the labor itself.”
Here the text clearly emphasizes that the building of all the parts of the Tabernacle was to be done by God’s Spirit.
Just as God gave Bezalel all that he needed to do the task, we will be given all we need to fulfill our calling.
1. The LORD fills for a distinctive purpose: for the labor to be done for Him.
1. The LORD fills for a distinctive purpose: for the labor to be done for Him.
He provides the skills necessary to fulfill Bezalel’s calling.
2. God gits according to His calling.
2. God gits according to His calling.
There are some who demonstrate disobedience and presumption in their calling by a lack of the appropriate gifting to perform the tasks of their position.
3. God appoints those who will help
3. God appoints those who will help
Oholiab - “The Father is my tent”
He is not a Levite but from the tribe of Dan, given by the LORD to help Behalel.
4. The Lord places individual skills in each person.
4. The Lord places individual skills in each person.
There are others The LORD has given to Bezalel as well; not everybody, but many.
God provides helpers gifted in the same areas so they could give true help and assistance to Bezalel and Oholiab in the building of the Tabernacle.
God always gives us the help we need — sometimes in the form of skills, sometimes in the form of associates and assistants to help us fulfill our calling.
God gave Adam Eve — a helper suitable for him to help him fulfill his calling from God.
The service to be rendered by these skillful laborers is described in verses 7-10. Bezalel was enabled to work in a wide variety of media. He was a metalworker, stonecutter, and woodworker, with skill in all kinds of craftsmanship. Oholiab was equally versatile in his work. Exodus 38:23 tells us he worked as an engraver and skillful workman, as well as a weaver.
These abilities were helpful because of all the many different parts of the Tabernacle as well as the priestly garments and that which would require the art of a perfumer. They were doing a holy work, executing God’s design on His Tabernacle.
But this brings us to this: The LORD’s work is to be done as He commands, but this work does not take precedence over time set apart for the LORD Himself...
II. God reminds Israel of their Sabbath covenant, 31:12-17
II. God reminds Israel of their Sabbath covenant, 31:12-17
Verse 12 begins with a Hebrew particle which carries a sense of emphasizing what immediately follows as something very important or exceptional in relation to whatever has just gone on before. As such, it functions as a warning to all Israel not to let the urgency and busyness of working on the Tabernacle compromise their observance of the Sabbath. Even in the midst of that holy work, they must cease and rest on the Sabbath day. We could say, “Sabbath trumps Tabernacle.”
The Sabbath was part of the Ten Commandments, which Israel was to keep to distinguish their special relationship with God as a theocracy.
Exodus 1. The Command for the Sabbath Day (Exodus 31:12–14)
“No other nation adopted it. It continued to Roman times the mark and badge of the Jew” (Rawlinson).
It was a test of the nation’s commitment to the LORD. It was a serious business for failure to keep it resulted in death for the offender. Keeping it benefited Israel’s spiritual knowledge of the LORD.
Obeying God’s commands always helps our spiritual knowledge . When we obey God, we can know and appreciate the things of God. Much of our spiritual ignorance is due to disobedience, not lack of opportunity.
Israel needed to learn that there is a time for the LORD’s work and there is a time to rest before the LORD, to be refreshed in our body and our spirit. This characterized the Sabbath and was a permanent order for Israel.
The is associated with the LORD in His creation work, and is the example: the LORD worked six days, The LORD ceased from labor on the seventh day, the LORD was refreshed. Because Israel was in a covenant relationship with the LORD, the people were to do as He had done. Observing the Sabbath showed that the Israelites were set apart (or holy) to God.
God completes His instructions, 31:18
God completes His instructions, 31:18
God now finishes His time with Moses on Sinai. He fulfills His promise:
Now the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction.”
The tablets of the testimony, containing the ten words/commandments (Exodus 34:28) spoke of man’s relationship the God and man’s relationship to others. How these were broken up to be on the two tablets is more conjecture than being actually given to us. These tablets were to have a special place within the Tabernacle.
Exodus 25: 16, 21
“You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you.
“You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I will give to you.
These tablet were a gift from God personally written supernaturally by the LORD., displaying divine authorship and emphasizing divine authority. In this we see God’s interest in the people of His choosing, Those He seeks to Tabernacle with as His own.