O That The Church Would Have This Problem

Tonight I was doing a little reading in the book of Exodus and came across Bezalel, Oholiab and the "skilled workmen" who built the Tabernacle, the Ark of The Covenant, and all the other cool stuff God told the Israelites to build. Now I could go into a whole rant about how skilled people were giving their best to God, but we'll leave that for another time.

Instead, let's focus on the task at hand. These guys have to build this stuff for the isarelites. one small problem, they haven't arrived in the Promised Land yet, all the Israelites are still living in the desert which means no jobs, no resources, etc. So how did these guys build all this stuff? Donations. That's right, the people of God were to donate to the cause, donations from people who are living out of tents, have no permanent homes, have no jobs, have no source of income other than what they left Egypt with.

So you have skilled craftsman building incredibly ornate objects of worship for God, mostly made out of gold given by homeless people. What a surprise, they ran into a problem. The amazing part is, it's not what you think it would be.

Finally the craftsmen who were working on the sanctuary left their work. They went to Moses and reported, “The people have given more than enough materials to complete the job the Lord has commanded us to do!” So Moses gave the command, and this message was sent throughout the camp: “Men and women, don’t prepare any more gifts for the sanctuary. We have enough!” So the people stopped bringing their sacred offerings. ~ Ex. 36:4-6

Yeah, that's right, in the desert, these unemployed people were giving too much to God! What a horrible, horrible problem to have. "Sorry everyone, thanks for your donations out of the tiny amount that you have, but it's too much so we need you to stop giving to God for a while..."

And here we are, roughly 3500 years later, probably in a rich first world country if you have the internet to read this, but for me, in one of the richest countries in the world, in what was once in the top ten richest counties in America, and churches are struggeling financially. Almost every family in my church has a job, many above the national average and our church has financial problems. Homeless Israelites need tons of gold to build stuff, and have too much. How does that work?

Luke 6:38 ~ "Give, and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.”

T