Now, we’re the table of shewbread, okay? The table of shewbread literally means the bread of presence, the bread of the presence. In the King James version, it’s called shewbread. In a Biblical or Jewish context, it refers to the cakes or loaves of bread that are laid on top of the table, shewbread. This is the table of shewbread. This is the table of shewbread, and before I get to the bread, I want to make the table ’cause table has to be made. A table has to be made. Say that with me. Ooh. When you get in the car, and you’re halfway down 408, that’s gonna hit you. That’s what children don’t know. They just come and eat. They don’t know a table has to be made. A table has to be made. They don’t just, “Thou preparest,” so the table had to be made.
Acacia wood is a wood that is, that grows in dry climates that exist in desert places. It is strong. It is resilient. It is tough. Because there’s little to feed it, it naturally has a propensity to withstand the elements. It is strong. It is resistant. It is tough, but it is wood, and it can be cut, and it can be shaped, and it can be sanded, and, before the table was gold, it was wood, so it was made out of wood and then overlaid with gold. It’s getting down to the good stuff now. Excuse me. This is the good stuff now, see, ’cause we’re coming into covenant. We’re coming into covenant. We’re coming into the strange paradoxical covenant relationship that is established in this table between the wood, a perishable substance.
See, if the wood would’ve went through the fire, the wood would’ve burned up, so you’re taking a perishable substance, and you’re marrying it to an eternal substance, so the wood represents humanity, and the gold represents divinity. Oh, we’re gonna dress this table out in a minute, and the wood would have perished, but it was covered, yeah, by the gold, and this table, this table, this table of wood and gold, this table that was wood and gold, this table that was humanity and divinity is made to be mobile. It’s made to move. This wood and gold, this human and divine, this man and God, this God-man, this God/man is made to move, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld the wonder of his glory. Are you hearing what I’m saying? We’re at the table of shewbread. We got bread moving.
Somebody holler, “The bread is moving”. The bread is moving. The bread was to never leave the table. The bread was to never leave the table. It is stacked on the table, 12 loaves of bread, 12 round loaves of bread to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Are you hearing what I’m saying? To represent the 12 tribes of Israel. There we are. That’s the picture I want, that one right there. It’s stacked up there. God gave specifications on how everything was to be made. Even the crown around the table has symbolic value and worth, crowned with honor and glory. It has power. The artifacts were preserved, the plates, the cups, everything.
Can I go deeper with this? Now, this is where, to me, it gets really good. It gets really good because this thing about bread is not new. Jesus is born in the house of bread. This thing about bread is not new. He is the true bread. He said, “Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and perished. I am the true bread. I am your provision”.
Now, the provision of God was so strong that, when the children was Israel were going through the wilderness, and they ate manna, the provision was so strong that it protected their clothes from wearing out. They went through the wilderness, 40 years in the wilderness without a new dress, 40 years and never needed a new pair of shoes. I’m gonna say it again, 40 years walking in the wilderness, and the soles of their shoes never wore out. I want to talk to somebody that God is sustained it. It might not look like you getting ahead, but you aren’t got down either. You might not have got out, but you never went under. I wish I had a witness. Won’t God keep you in your wilderness?
You must understand this bread wasn’t made ’cause they went down to Wal-Mart and picked up to flour. This bread had to be made by the thrashing, by the growing of wheat and then the crushing of wheat. Now, y’all don’t want to make homemade bread when you buy flour. These folks are in the wilderness. They don’t have no dough maker, and here’s the criteria. The bread is to be presented before God, and the criteria in the recipe, now, I cook. How many people cook in the room? The criteria in the recipe is not just that it might be flour, but it must be fine flour. In order to be in here, it has to be flour that has been pulverized, totally crushed. There’s a difference between all-purpose flour and cake flour. Cake flour is finer. If you know anything about cooking, you know what talking about. It weighs out different. God says, “Make this bread from fine flour”.
Let me show you what fine flour is. Paul writes to Corinth, to a brother who has been sleeping with his father’s wife, and the Corinthian church was in trouble because his brother’s having an affair with his father’s wife, and Paul sends a letter of judgment condemning this brother and telling them how to handle him, and they bring him down. They humble him because he wouldn’t change, and he wouldn’t stop, and he wouldn’t repent, but when he repented, he says, “If a brother be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such one”. You’re not supposed to keep your foot on nobody. I don’t care what they did. You are not supposed to keep your foot on nobody because of what they did. If a brother be overtaken in a fault, “overtaken” means all of us got fault, but that means that fault has taken over, then ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, you said it, considering yourself, so that means, in order to be ye which are spiritual, you have to…
I don’t understand how you can be so judgmental and self-righteous, and you have forgotten yourself. That’s why you need to be beat some more, ’cause you’re still hateful and judgmental and self-righteous, but, when God gets through beating your behind, you’ll give mercy ’cause you got mercy. I would rather get to heaven and hear God say, “You was too merciful,” than to get to heaven and hear God say, “You was too judgmental,” ’cause I don’t have a right to be judgmental. God is beating us to fine flour. Now, that’s who’s spiritual. That’s who’s spiritual. People who have been beaten to fine flour can be trusted to make judgments ’cause they consider themselves.
“Hear ye the Word of the Lord. I have not taken you through this test to destroy you. I have taken you through this test to refine you. Many shall come and eat from your wisdom because of the crushing I allowed you to suffer. Hear me the Word lot of the Lord. Despise me no longer. Put away your bitterness toward me. It is true I have beaten you, but I beat you to make you bread. I will draw people to you that I could not draw before because I could not trust you, but, because you are now fine flour, I will draw people into your life for you to feed and not meed. I feel the glory of God.
So, when the 12 loaves were laid on the table of shewbread, it was from 12 tribes who had been walking a year in a desert, and they presented the bread before God, so this is what I want you to see, and I will stop. The thing that amazed me is that it is not just God presenting bread to us. It is that we present ourselves to him. I present myself a living sacrifice, so the first thing I want you to understand is, you’re on the table. You’re on the table of the Lord, and every crushing and every breaking in your life made you eligible to be meat for the Master’s use. There was never to be a time that the table was to be without bread. The bread was laid up before God all week and changed out on the Sabbath, and, on the Sabbath, in the incense of prayer, the bread was exchanged, and the priest ate the bread in the most holy place, but the table was kept with bread on even when it was moving. You better believe it. The table was never to be without bread. Lord, don’t let my table ever be without bread.