In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of meeting God's needs through love and grace. He uses the example of the Israelites building the Tabernacle to illustrate this principle. The people willingly gave their offerings with love and dedication, and as a result, the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. The preacher highlights that when God has a need, only his chosen people can meet that need, and it is a privilege for believers to be able to do so. However, he also emphasizes that meeting God's need requires both grace and love, and without love, our efforts are meaningless.

From the book of Exodus. So will you please turn to Exodus. Exodus chapter 11 verses 2 and 3. Exodus chapter 11 verses 2 and 3. Speak now in the ears of the people, that they ask every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, utensils of silver and utensils of gold. And Jehovah gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. Chapter 12 verses 35 and 36. And the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked of the Egyptians utensils of silver and utensils of gold and clothing. And Jehovah had given the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they gave to them, and they spoiled the Egyptians. Chapter 25 verse 1. And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a heave offering of every one whose heart prompted him. Ye shall take my heave offering, and this is the heave offering that ye shall take of them, gold and silver and copper and blue and purple and scarlet and vices and goat hair and ram skins dyed red and dager skins and acacia wood, all for the light spices for the anointing oil and for the incenses of fragrant drugs, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. And they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shall show thee, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the utensils thereof, even so shall ye make it. Chapter 35 verse 4. And Moses spoke to all the assembly of the children of Israel, saying, This is the word which Jehovah hath commanded, saying, Take from among you a heave offering to Jehovah, every one whose heart is willing. Let him bring it. Jehovah's heave offering. Verse 20. And all the assembly of the children of Israel departed from before Moses. And they came, every one whose heart moved him, and every one whose spirit prompted him. They brought Jehovah's heave offering for the work of the tenth of meeting, and for all its services, and for the holy garment. And they came, both men and women, every one who was of willing heart brought nose rings, and earrings, and rings, and bracelets, all kinds of utensils of gold, every man that weighed a way offering of gold to Jehovah. And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and vices, and goat's hair, and ramskins dyed red, and bagerskins brought them. And all they that offered a heave offering of silver and copper brought Jehovah's heave offering. And every one with whom was found acacia wood for all manner of work of the service brought it. And every woman that was wise-hearted spurned with her hands, and brought what she had spurned, the blue, and the purple, and the scarlet, and the vices. And all the women whose heart moved them in wisdom spurned goat's hair. And the principal men brought the onyx stones, and the stones to be set for the ephod, and for the breastplate, and the spice, and the oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the incense of fragrant drugs. The children of Israel brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah. Every man and woman whose heart prompted them to bring for all manner of work, which Jehovah by the hand of Moses had commanded to be done. Chapter 36, verse 3. And they took from Moses every heave offering that the children of Israel had brought for the work of service of the sanctuary to make it. And they still brought him voluntary offerings morning by morning. And all the wise men that brought all the work of the sanctuary came. Every man from his work which they brought, and they spoke to Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work that Jehovah commanded to be done. Then Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the heave offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing, for the work they had was sufficient for all the work to do it, and it was too much. Chapter 40, verse 34. And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. And Moses could not enter into the tent of meeting, for the cloud abode on it, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. Shall we pray? Our Father, we do commit thy word into thy hand, and ask thee to bless it and give to us. We pray that as thy word is broken, that we may be given understanding. And we pray that thy Holy Spirit will complete thine own work to thy own glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen. I believe we are all familiar with the story of redemption as given in the second book of Moses. How God delivered the children of Israel who were slaves in Egypt. How God delivered them out of death, out of Egypt, and brought them to himself, until he was able to dwell among them in the tent of meeting. Now this is the story of redemption, but it is not my intention to share with you the story of redemption. But I feel in my spirit to share with you just one faith in that story of redemption. It is a wonderful faith in the work of redemption, and something that we ought to know. When God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, we must remember their conditions. They had been slaves for a long time. And as slaves, they owned nothing. Even their lives belonged to Pharaoh. They were a destitute people. God delivered them out of Egypt. God not only saved their lives, but before they left Egypt, God told Moses to tell the people to ask everyone of his and her neighbor of gold and silver and clothing. And when the time came for them to march out of Egypt, they did not march out as a poor people. They marched out as a people with nothing. They marched out with gold and silver and clothing to such an extent that they spoiled Egypt. Now remember, Egypt was the richest country in the world at that time. When God delivered them out of Egypt, they came out with all the riches of Egypt. Not only the people were redeemed, but all these things were redeemed together with the people. Now humanly speaking, we will say, certainly God will not do anything unjust. He is the just God. And how could God tell his people to ask all the Egyptians of gold and silver and clothing and spoil them of everything? Now that would be unjust. Not so. From the human standpoint, the riches of Egypt belonged to the Hebrews. Why? Because they labored as slaves for years. They made Egypt rich. So being a just God, God spoiled the Egyptians and repaid the Hebrews. But this is only the human standpoint. Now is it God's will to make us rich? Is it God's will that the redeemed people should be very rich? We know riches can be a great snare. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evils. And God said, certainly we cannot serve two masters, God and lemon, which is money. God does not want to make us rich in order that we may fall into a snare. But here you find God spoils the Egyptians, spoils the Israelites. Now is it for their sake? Is it just a matter of human righteousness, justice? Is there anything more involved when God commanded the children of Israel to do such a thing? In other words, God gave these riches to his redeemed people. Why? We do not know until they came to Mount Sinai. And there at Mount Sinai, God gave them the law. God made them a people covenanted to him. And it was at that time that God said, make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you. Now you know, when God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, he did not lay down any conditions. That is to say, he did not say, now you must do this and this and this and that for me. Then I will deliver you out of Egypt. Not at all. God delivered them out of Egypt. It was a matter of pure grace. How can it be other than pure grace? They were not redeemed because they were better people. They were not redeemed because they did something good. They were not redeemed before they fulfilled certain conditions for God. They were not redeemed because they earned it. Not at all. They were redeemed without any condition. God did it all for them. It was pure grace. But in chapter 13, after they were delivered, the first thing God told them was, set apart the firstborn for me, because the firstborn belonged to me. Now what is that? God did not make that requirement before the firstborn were delivered. God just delivered all the firstborn of the children of Israel without saying anything. It was great. But after they were delivered, then God said, hallow all the firstborn for me, because they belong. In other words, God gave grace. After grace was received, there ought to be a response to God in love. Why should all the firstborn be hallowed, be set apart for God? Because the grace of God had come upon them, and the natural consequence of the grace of God was loving. Offer themselves to God as a heave offering. And the same thing was true with the gold and silver and the clothing. God gave them the gold and the silver and the clothing without any condition. God just gave these things to them. But after God had led them to Mount Sinai and made them a covenant people with him, then God said, I have a need. Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you. Dear brothers and sisters, in the beginning it is always our need. We will never think of God's need. And God condescends himself to meet our need. God does not say now, you have to do something for me first. No, God just condescends himself and meet our need. But after our needs are met, and we become God's people, God's covenanted people, then God will begin to share with us that he too has a need. And what is his need? He wants to dwell among his people. And in order to dwell among his people, he wants his people to make him a sanctuary. God who made the heavens and the earth couldn't make a sanctuary for himself. Isn't that strange? If God wanted to dwell in a tent, surely he could make it right away. But in one sense he couldn't. He couldn't. He could make the heavens and the earth, but he couldn't make for himself a tent in order to dwell among his people. Because that tent must be made by his people. It must be a love offering. God gave grace. But after we have received the grace of God, God wants us to bring back to him an offering in love. And with that offering in love, a sanctuary. Now, dear brothers and sisters, of course we know today God does not dwell in earthly house. There is no place that we can call a sanctuary, that God really dwells there. In the Old Testament time it is a matter of types, therefore it is physical. When it comes to our time, it is a matter of spiritual reality. God does not deal with physical type anymore. God deals with spiritual reality now. And in spiritual reality, where is his sanctuary? His sanctuary is not in a physical building, it is in his people. We no longer worship in Jerusalem in the temple, nor do we worship in among garrison. But today we worship God in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. It is the spiritual reality, not the physical type anymore. So we are not talking about we are going to build God a house that is a physical house as a sanctuary for him to dwell. Not at all. That's the Old Testament. But what we want to share together is a spiritual principle. And the spiritual principle is God has need. Do not think that our God does not have any need. He does, especially in this matter of dwelling among his people. He wants to have a permanent home. God does not have a home. He wants to have a home, and he wants to be at home with his own people. But this home has to be made by his grace with the love of his people. There is something that even the grace of God alone cannot do. God can give grace, but this grace has to be responded with love. And when these two things meet together, then God's need is met. Then the house is built. And this is the principle we have to realize. This is not only in the matter of making a building, but you're finding all the work of God, in every service of God, in anything that touches the purpose of God, in anything that is building, real building, in God's sight, you find it has to be done according to this principle. First, grace is given. Without grace, there can be nothing done. How can we do anything? Nothing. God does it all. It is grace. But as the grace is given, there ought to be love. Love as a response to that grace. Love as an expression of grace received, of grace appreciated. Now remember that love, we don't have that love. Even that love is grace. It is grace that draws out from us a love, that creates in us a love. And when we express our love, we are only giving to him a little bit of that which he has given to us. God spoiled the Egyptians for the Hebrews. Not just they can enjoy their riches, but God has a purpose for his redeemed people to fulfill, to make him a sanctuary, that he may dwell among them. And that sanctuary is to be made of gold, silver, and clothing. Satan knew that. In the beginning, he tried to make God's people poor in Egypt. They did not have anything. Not only they were poor, but they had no liberty, they had no freedom, they were slaves. So they couldn't do anything for God, they could only do everything for Pharaoh. And that was what Satan did to the people of this world. He tried to deprive God of everything. Not only the riches, but the people. But thank God, God overcame Satan. God delivered his people out of Egypt. Satan not only could not forbid, could not hold back God's people. You remember how Pharaoh tried to hold them back? If you want to worship God, worship God here. He tried to, all right, then you men go, but women and children remain here. All right, you and your people can go, but your herds and flocks remain here. And Moses said, no, no, no. If we want to worship God, we have to go, our children have to go, our women have to go, our herds and flocks have to go, because we do not know what God wants yet. We have to prepare, everything must go to serve God. And Satan even could not hold back the gold and silver and clothing. God robbed us all the redemption of everything. God redeemed all these things out. But what is the purpose of redemption? That you may enjoy heaven, that you may serve him and serve his purpose. And his purpose is that he may dwell among his people, that a permanent home may be built. With what? Grace and love. Oh, but Satan, how he tried. When Moses was at the Mount receiving the revelation that God had a need, that God wanted his people to build him in sanctuary, that he might dwell among them. When Moses was receiving that tremendous revelation on the Mount, Satan did something under the mountain. Oh, how he enticed people and said, let us make a God. We do not know what happened to Moses. Let us make a God. They went to Aaron and Aaron said, everyone that had gold, give it to me. And he used the gold to make a golden cow and they worshiped the gold that belonged to God. God spoiled the Egyptians with the gold for his people, that his people may use the gold to build him in sanctuary. And here Satan stepped in and robbed the gold. How many earrings, how many bracelets, how many nose rings, how many of these things were melted and made a golden cow. Instead of this gold redeemed to serve God, this gold became a God to the redeemed people. That is idolatry. Brothers and sisters, you do not know all the depths that God's people had fought. But this is not only, this was not only true with the Israelites. Think of ourselves. How often, instead of seeing that the gold is redeemed for a purpose, that God may use it to glorify himself, to fulfill his purpose, how many just turn and make it a golden cow. As if this is our God. We depend on him. We depend on that. You know why they make a golden cow? Cow give them milk, sustain them. In other words, they try to find their sustenance, dependence upon gold instead upon the God who gave the gold. Moses came down, you remember the story? The two tables of law were broken. And Moses melted, ground it into powder, scattered it on the water and asked the people to drink it. They drink their own sin. But what a waste. Lots of gold were wasted, were wasted. But thank God, when God brought his people out, God gave them more than abundance. Even after lots of gold were wasted, they still had gold, silver and clothing. Now isn't that marvelous? So after they repented and after God forgave them, God gave them a second chance. God gave them a second chance. Now that is grace again. Second chance. And in chapter 35 you find Moses said, God commanded Moses to tell the people to bring a heave offering to him. Now what is a heave offering? A heave offering is the same as a wave offering. It is something that you lift it up, wave it before God. In other words, it is a love offering. It is not something compulsory. It is not something regulated by law. It is something that you offer with whatever God has given you. And it must be offered with a willing heart and as prompted by the Spirit. Now that is a heave offering. It is a love offering. Whenever a person is prompted in his spirit. In other words, whenever a person is moved, constrained by love. And he does it willingly and cheerfully. Now that is a heave offering. And God said, take it from them. How majestic is our God. He never begs anything. He has everything. All belong to Him. But He gave us a privilege. He gave us a privilege to express our love to Him. Therefore He said, only with a willing heart and prompted by the Spirit, take it. In other words, if it is not, whoever is moved, whoever has a willing heart, not of what he does not have, but what God has given him and what he has. Then come and bring these heave offerings. So the people departed. They all went back to their own tent. It was nothing forced. It was nothing emotional. But here you find after the people heard this, they all went back to their tent. And the next morning, all who were prompted in their spirit, all who had a willing heart, they brought to God what the Lord had given them. Gold, silver, clothing. The woman used her hand and spun. The man went out and cut the acacia wood. They didn't bring the acacia wood out of Egypt. Acacia wood were in the wilderness. So you need some work. You go right out and cut and got the acacia wood. And the chief men, of course, they have all next stones and all these precious stones. And they all came as the Lord had given, as they were prompted, men and women. They did all that they could and they brought the heave offering to God. That's love. Dear brothers and sisters, you know, the principle of giving is love. It is love. Because the grace of God is so great that you are constrained and you express your love. And that is the principle of giving. Not of that which you do not have, but of that which God has given you. Not by force, but willingly. It's a voluntary offering, not by impulse. But after you have considered before God, but of course prompted by the Spirit. It is not in the flesh. It is as you are prompted by the Spirit. Brothers and sisters, when anything is offered in that way, there is blessing. It is not the gold and the silver or the clothing. You remember when the Lord Jesus was on earth, he was there standing in the court of the women. And in the court of the women they have offering boxes there like trumpets, you know. And people will come in and put money in it. And probably because the Lord was there, so people will lift their money very high and let it drop down and make a loud noise. And so that the Lord might know how much. But the Lord did not say anything. A widow came in with fear and trembling. She just quickly dropped two pennies in it. And the Lord immediately said, He gave more than all the rich people gave. It is not in the amount. It is in the Spirit. It is in love. It is in that willing heart. It is being that prompted by the Spirit. Oh brothers and sisters, oftentimes we think, well I have just a little, what can I give? It is not the amount. It is the heart. It is the heart. So here you'll find the men and women, they all came and gave. Morning after morning they came and gave. Until the workers had to come to Moses and they stopped them. Stopped them. We have more than enough for all the work. And Moses had to give the word that they don't bring anything anymore. And the people were restrained. Oh brothers and sisters, when the Spirit of God is moving, we had to be restrained, not to be constrained. Too much. It is just too much. And that's the way God works. That's the way God works. And the result was, the work was done. And when the tabernacle was put up, the glory of the Lord healed. Was there any doubt that after they finished the work and they put up the tent, they stand by and wonder if the glory of God would take His possession? No doubt. If a work is done in this manner, if the things were offered with love, if every work was done in love, when it was done, the glory of the Lord healed it right away. There was no delay. No delay. God came and took up His abode among them. The work was done. God's purpose. That is the glory of the redemption. Dear brothers and sisters, I just want to bring out this principle. This principle. When God has a need, I say when. That is to say He not always has a need. He does not always have a need. But when God has a need, there is no one that can meet that need but His own redeemed people. The angels cannot meet that need. Nobody can meet His need. When God has a need, His own redeemed people are the only one who could meet that need. Now we must remember this. If we do not meet that need, then God will be in lack. Then God's purpose will be postponed. God expects His people to meet Him. And you know that is a tremendous, I do not have the English word, I can only say is a tremendous privilege. Now think of that. Three tiny people. Nothing. Sinners saved by grace. And yet we are the only people in the universe that can meet God's need. Isn't that marvelous? That should break our heart. That should humble us. But how? How is that need to be met? By His grace. It is His grace. Remember that. It is not by us. No. It is His grace. His abundant grace. Even after we have wasted so much of His grace, there is still enough grace for the work to be done. But in returning, there must be love. There must be. If there is no love, it is nothing. It is nothing. If the children of Israel come and just throw some pennies, or even throw gold coins, or throw their nose rings, and just throw them, throw them, they can be made into a golden cow, but not us. It has to come out of love. And the working together of grace and love builds. And the glory of God fills the tabernacle. Brothers and sisters, this is the story of redemption. And this is one face of one aspect of the story of redemption, which is very beautiful and very practical. So I will just leave this with you. Shall we pray? Our Heavenly Father, our hearts are humbled before Thee, thinking that we are called to meet Thy need. Not because we have anything. It is Thy grace given, but grace respond with love. O Lord, we do desire to respond to Thee with love, that Thou mayst be able to build Thy house for Thy eternal dwelling, and for our dwelling too. We just commit Thy word into Thy hand, and may Thy Holy Spirit, in Thy precious name,