Abba Father

Look! A fire! Just outside the camp you spot a fire that is burning wildly with flames leaping into the air. As you approach the smoke….what is that smell? It is awful! It smells like a combination of burning carcasses and burning animal dung. An odor you won’t easily forget.

Before the smell dissipates and before you actually get to the camp, you decide to land and hide the DeLorean. After all, you don't want it to be seen. You land the craft and hide it behind some rocks. You walk away from the vehicle and gaze toward the long line of tents. You observe people going about their business. Kids playing. Men tending to animals. So many tents. You cannot help but stare. As you walk along the line of tents, you spot someone walking toward you. A young man, neatly trimmed beard dressed in a blue and white costume. He was not dressed like anyone else.

He introduces himself as Eleazar, oldest surviving son of the High Priest, Aaron. Eleazar is a priest of the Most High God. Aaron and his four sons were hand-selected by Jehovah to serve Him as priests. He explains that since the death of his older brothers, Nadab and Abihu, he is next in line to be High Priest so that makes him High Priest in Training, or H-PIT for short. He has one younger brother that also serves as a priest.

Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, Eleazar exclaims. How many gods are in your system of worship? He asks.

One, you reply.

Is it Jehovah? Is He your God also?

Yes, He is my God also, you reply. And Jesus answered him, [The] first commandment of all [is], Hear, Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; (Mar 12:29)

What is your system of worship like?

What do you mean, what is it like?

Well, our system of worship has been dictated by Jehovah to my uncle, Moses. Uncle Moses went up on the mountain for something like 40 days. While he was there, Jehovah gave him all kinds of details, details about how we are to worship Him. Uncle was given a pattern, a pattern of a specified place of worship, the tabernacle. The tabernacle is where Jehovah dwells among us. Does Jehovah dwell with you?

You ponder without speaking… Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and [that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which [temple] ye are. 1Cr 3:16-17

Just as you finish, you hear someone call Eleazar’s name. Yes, Abba, Father, Eleazar replies. Abba, Father…that’s the term that Jesus used when talking to His father in the garden when He prayed Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee: take away this cup from me; but not what *I* will, but what *thou* [wilt].Mark 14:36. Abba Father… Doesn’t that have something to do with our relationship with God, the Father? For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Rom. 8:15. And …But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Gal. 4:6.

No Explanation Needed

9-11. All one has to do is mention the phrase 9-11. We all know what year it was, we don't need an explanation. We know what happened on that day, we don't need an explanation. Depending on how old you are, you remember exactly where you were when you first heard, you don't need an explanation.

Reason number 9 that the study of the tabernacle should not be neglected is that in days of biblical writing, from Moses to John, people were familiar with the tabernacle/temple form of worship. Since they were, some things did not have to be explained.

For example, when Zacharias saw his vision of ...a lamp-stand all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon, seven [lamps] and seven pipes to the lamps, which are upon the top thereof...or when John wrote ...having turned, I saw seven golden lamps. They knew that the lamp in the tabernacle was made of gold, burned olive oil and had 7 lamps.

When they read that Abraham was to offered up Isaac as a burnt offering, they knew that a burnt offering was to be filleted and totally consumed on the altar.

When David said Jehovah reigneth...He sitteth [between the] cherubim, they knew that in the holiest of holiest, on the mercy seat that covered the ark, were two golden cherubim. God made His throne and met with Moses on the mercy seat between the cherubim.

When John wrote in the opening of his first epistle, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life; they may have realized that this sounds like the burnt offering, that had to be examined for perfection and handled and cut up and placed on the altar.

They even told time by the activity in the tabernacle/temple. When Ezra writes ...at the time of the evening oblation (or sacrifice)..., they knew what time he meant. It did not need explaining.