1. The tabernacle was a beautiful building. It was a picture and type of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. The tabernacle was to be the center of Israel’s life because it was there where man met God.
3. Please allow me to make an application. Today we do not have an earthly tabernacle in the wilderness, nor do we have a temple in Jerusalem. But God has given us something infinitely better – the local church.
4. God has raised up this local church and now it appears that He has given us a building. Remember the church is not a building; the church meets in a building.
5. In our text today, we see that God challenged the Israelites to give in order to build the tabernacle, and the people responded in a wonderful way.
6. Today God is challenging us to give so that we can turn a fish store into a tabernacle – a place where we can be better fishers of men!
7. Brethren, let us rise to the challenge.
8. Let me emphasize that this was a free-will offering. By this I mean that these contributions were voluntary. There was no demand put upon them at all.
9. These were not tithes. God commands us to tithe but these were voluntary offerings over and above the tithe, given out of a heart full of love for God. I want to emphasize that word "heart" because it is the key to this passage. I want to challenge you to have:

1. A WILLING HEART (35:5,21,22,29)
2. A WISE HEART (35:10,25,30-35; 36:1-4)
3. A STIRRED-UP HEART (35:21,26)

I. A WILLING HEART.

1. Moses told the people: "This is the thing which the LORD commanded, saying, Take ye from among you an offering unto the LORD: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the LORD; gold, and silver, and brass" (Ex.35:5).
2. Please note those words, "whosoever is of a willing heart." Beloved, God wants us to serve Him with a willing heart, not grudgingly. And God wants us to give out of a willing heart, not grudgingly (cf. II Cor.9:6,7).
3. We are told in Exodus 35:21,22 that the people were "willing hearted." Therefore, they gladly and willingly brought their offerings to the LORD.
4. God wants a "willing offering" (Ex.35:29). Too many Christians are singing "I Surrender All" but they really do not mean it.
5. Think of the words:

All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.

6. If some of you were really honest, you would sing "I Surrender Some." Bro. Bickel sent me a list of hymns. He said, "The way we might sing some well-known hymns if we were being honest."

• I Surrender Some
• There Shall Be Sprinkles of Blessings
• Fill My Spoon, Lord
• Oh, How I Like Jesus
• He’s Quite a Bit to Me
• I Love to Talk About Telling the Story
• Take My Life and Let Me Be
• It is My Secret What God Can Do
• There is Scattered Cloudiness in My Soul Today
• Onward, Christian Reserves
• Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following
• Just As I Pretend to Be
• I Have Decided to Follow Jesus (for awhile)
• I Shall Not Be Moved…at the invitation
• I Would Be True…sometimes
• Sweet Minute of Prayer
• Let the Redeemed of the Lord say "no," say "no"
• Have Mine Own Way Lord
• Turn Your Eyes Upon Money
• Jesus Saviour Pilot Someone Else
• Jesus Keep Me Near the Back Pew
• Jesus Calls Us, We Don’t Answer
• I’ll Live For Him…if it fits me
• Tis so sweet to trust in myself
• Count your problems
• Standing on the Premises
• King of My Life I Crown Myself
• My Faith Looks Up to Me
• I’ll Tell the World That I’m A Good Guy
• Stand Up, Stand Up, For Dismissal
• My Jesus I Love Me
• Seek Ye First the Kingdom of Self

7. A long time ago, a Baptist church in Philadelphia outgrew their facilities. A little six-year-old girl named Hattie May Wyatt visited the Sunday School but someone told her their was no room. The problem was the people had no vision and were not willing to give. They did not have willing hearts.
8. Soon the little girl became sick and the pastor, Dr. Russell Conwell, went to see her in the hospital. She gave the preacher 57 cents and told him she was saving it so the church could build a bigger church building so little boys and girls could go and hear the Gospel. Then she died. Dr. Conwell was touched by her dying testimony and told the story to his congregation. The members were greatly moved – now they had willing hearts – and they gave $250,000 (a lot of money in the 19^th century). The Baptist Temple built a huge auditorium seating 3,300 people, a huge Sunday School building, Temple College (unfortunately, no longer fundamental), an orphan’s home, three hospitals, and a rescue mission.
9. All because of the testimony of a dying girl. God used that to change their hearts. God wants willing hearts!

II. A WISE HEART (35:10).

1. Most of us are very familiar with Moses and his successor Joshua, referred to in Exodus 24:13 and Joshua 1:1 as "Moses’ minister." But I wonder how many here today know about Bezaleel and Aholiab?
2. Many parents name their sons Moses or Joshua, but how many name them Bezaleel or Aholiab?
3. And yet the Bible tells us that these two wise-hearted men were in charge of building the tabernacle (Ex.35:30-35; 36:1-4). This was a very important project – a project so important that 14 chapters of the book of Exodus concern the tabernacle.
4. Please remember that it is not just leaders like Moses and Joshua that God uses. He uses men like Bezaleel and Aholiab. Let me challenge some of you men here today to get involved in God’s work. God has a place of service for you.
5. God wants to raise up a Bezaleel and a Aholiab here in our congregation, but you must make yourself available. Don’t make excuses; don’t hold back; get with God’s program!
6. Do you know what the difference is between Bezaleel and most of the men in our churches today? Bezaleel was filled with the Holy Spirit and most men are not (cf. Ex.31:1-6).
7. Why does God fill certain people with the Holy Spirit? Because they are yielded to Him. Beloved, you need to yield to God.
8. And it’s not just wise-hearted men that God is looking for. He is looking for wise-hearted women also (Ex.35:25,26). There would be no Bible Baptist Church today if it were not for faithful wise-hearted women – women who teach Sunday School and work the nursery and show up at prayer meeting and tithe and support this church in any way they can.
9. Unfortunately, not all of the Israelites were wise-hearted. God instructed them all to take gold from the Egyptians when they left that wicked land but some of them fashioned it into a golden calf (Ex.32:1-6).
10. The foolish wasted their wealth but the wise-hearted were able to invest it in building the tabernacle (Ex.36:2-7).

III. A STIRRED-UP HEART (35:21,26).

1. I love to see Christians stirred-up about the things of God. Worldly people are all stirred-up over their sports and money and rock music and movies and television. But most Christians lack zeal for God.
2. The apostle Paul told young Timothy, "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee" (II Tim.1:6).
3. Peter wrote, "Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance" (II Peter 1:13).
4. Again Peter writes, "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance" (II Peter 3:1).
5. Notice also the emphasis in all three Scriptures on "remembrance." God wants us to remember. He was always reminding the children of Israel about how He delivered them from bondage in Egypt.
6. We need to remember where we were before God saved us, where we would be today if it were not for the grace of God, and where we would spend eternity!
7. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell the British government ran out of silver to make coins. Cromwell sent his men everywhere to see if they could find some silver. They returned and told him that the only silver they could find was in the statues of the saints which were in the big Anglican and Catholic cathedrals. Cromwell said: "Good! We will melt down the saints and put them into circulation!"
8. Beloved, God wants to melt your cold hearts and put you into circulation! Ask God to stir you up.
9. In Acts 17:16 we read that when Paul visited Athens, "his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." Is your spirit stirred when you see all the idolatry here in our NYC area?
10. Are you stirred up about the need for a good Bible-preaching church in this community as well as the need for a good Christian school?

CONCLUSION:

1. General Charles George Gordon was born near London, England in 1833. He distinguished himself as a great soldier during the Crimean War (1853-56) and then he volunteered to join the British forces in China.
2. He was present at the occupation of Peking in 1860 and defended Shanghai during the Taiping Rebellion. He returned to England in 1865, where an enthusiastic public had already dubbed him "Chinese Gordon."
3. When the British government tried to reward him for his magnificent service in China, General Gordon declined all money and titles, but did accept a gold medal on which his name and a record of his 33 engagements were inscribed.
4. After he was killed by Muslim rebels in Sudan, the medal could not be found. Finally it was discovered that he had sent it to Manchester during a famine, with a request that it be melted and used to buy bread for the poor.
5. In his diary he recorded that the medal was the only earthly thing he valued and that he had given it over to the Lord Jesus Christ.