1. The tabernacle was the center of worship for the Israelites during their journeyings through the wilderness.
2. The tabernacle was designed by God Himself, and it was patterned after the temple in heaven (Ex. 25:40; Hebrews 8:1, 2, 5; 9:11; Rev. 7:15; 11:19; 14:15; 15:5).
3. Therefore, the tabernacle in the wilderness was a perfect replica of the temple of God in heaven.
4. I have had the good pleasure of seeing a life-size replica of the tabernacle at the Mennonite Center in Lancaster, PA.
5. The tabernacle was a picture and type of the Lord Jesus Christ.  John 1:14 says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt (“tabernacled”) among us.”
6. Therefore, every detail is very important because it points to some aspect of the person and work of Christ.
7. This morning, I would like for us to look at the golden candlestick (Ex. 25:31).   The Hebrew word menorah literally means “lampstand;” therefore, many Bible teachers prefer to use the word “lampstand.”

I. CHRIST IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

1. The word “light” appears many times in the Bible, and often in reference to Christ.
2. First John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
3. Notice the personal pronouns – “his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers…” (25:31).
4. The Word of God uses personal pronouns because the golden candlestick symbolizes and pictures the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. Our Lord said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
6. And He said in John 9:5, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
7. Our Lord said in John 12:46, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.”
8. Once a Christian named Dr. Earl S. Tay­lor was in Cal­cut­ta dur­ing an eclipse of the sun. For days be­fore the eclipse he saw the ci­ty’s streets crowd­ed with pil­grims on their way to var­i­ous sac­red places, where they hoped to wor­ship and bathe in the Hoog­hly Ri­ver just be­low the Gan­ges River. They thought if they did this dur­ing the time of the eclipse, their gods would protect them from evil. When at last the fate­ful hour of dark­ness ar­rived hun­dreds of thou­sands of na­tives thronged the sac­red wa­ters, ter­ror­ized by the eclipse.
9. The frenzied Hindus started mak­ing a great cla­mor be­cause they feared a great pow­er of evil in the form of a snake was about to swall­ow their sun-god. As Dr. Tay­lor, look­ing from the YMCA Build­ing, wit­nessed this ter­ri­ble display of fear and heath­en su­per­sti­tion, he heard group of na­tive Christ­ians sing­ing in their meet­ing house:

The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin;
The Light of the World is Jesus
Like sunshine at noonday,
His glory shone in.
The Light of the world is Jesus!
 
Come to the light, ’tis shining for thee;
Sweetly the light has dawned upon me.
Once I was blind, but now I can see:
The Light of the world is Jesus!
 
No darkness have we
Who in Jesus abide;
The Light of the world is Jesus!
We walk in the light
When we follow our Guide!
The Light of the world is Jesus!
 
Ye dwellers in darkness
With sin blinded eyes,
The Light of the world is Jesus!
Go, wash, at His bidding,
And light will arise.
The Light of the world is Jesus!
 
No need of the sunlight In Heaven we’re told;
The Light of the world is Jesus!
The Lamb is the Light
In the city of gold,
The Light of the world is Jesus! — PP Bliss

10. In­dia’s spir­it­u­al dark­ness is due sole­ly to the eclipse of Je­sus, the Light of the world. And even here in our great nation, the darkness is getting worse day by day.
11. There is darkness in Washington DC, darkness in Hollywood, darkness in the school rooms, darkness in the court rooms, and sad to say – darkness in many churches today.
12. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) just recently voted to approve of homosexual pastors.
13. “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5).
14. The Lord told the apostle Paul, “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts 26:18).
15. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

II. WE MUST LET OUR LIGHT SHINE (MATT. 5:14-16).

1. In Revelation 1:20, our Lord says, “the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”
2. Then in Revelation 2:1, we see that the Lord is walking about in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
3. The Scofield Study Bible says, “The ‘greater light’ is a type of Christ, the ‘Sun of righteousness’ (Malachi 4:2). He will take this character at His second advent…Christ is that light (John 1:4, 5, 9) but ‘shineth in darkness,’ comprehended only by faith. As ‘Son of righteousness’ He will dispel all darkness. Dispensationally the Church is in place as the ‘lesser light,’ the moon, reflecting the light of the unseen sun. The stars (Genesis 1:16) are individual believers who are ‘lights’ (Philippians 2:15, 16; John 1:5).”
4. “The Church is in place as the ‘lesser light,’ the moon, reflecting the light of the unseen sun. The stars (Genesis 1:16) are individual believers who are ‘lights’.”
5. Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun during the night when everything is dark, so too we must reflect the Gospel light in these dark and stormy days.
6. I was listening to the radio the other day and some man said he worked for a cable company and they recently sent him to do some work for a church.  He said he was offended by anti-homosexual literature he saw in the church building, and he was going to complain to his employer.
7. Jesus said in Luke 17:29, 30, “But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
8. Do you know that under the president’s new health care legislation, the government (taxpayers) is supposed to pay for abortions and sex-change operations?
9. Politicians refer to it as “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID), and the current cost for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.00.
10. It is a “disorder” all right, but why are they promoting it?  And why do we have to finance it?
11. We Christians must let our light shine because this world is plunging deeper into darkness.
12. “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).
13. Jesus said, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
14. “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light” (John 12:36).
15. Ephesians 5:8 says, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”
16. The word “light” appears six times in John 1, and five times in John 3 (1:4-9; 3:19-21).
17. First Thessalonians 5:5 says, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.”
18. First Peter 2:9 says God has called us “out of darkness into his marvellous light.” 

III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GOLD AND THE OIL.

1. The “pure gold” (Ex. 25:31) represents the deity of Christ, and also signifies the purity of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
2. “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Proverbs 19:9, 10).
3. Just as the candlestick lighted the tabernacle (there were no other lights, and there were no windows in the tabernacle), the Holy Spirit illuminates the things of God.
4. Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
5. More about Jesus let me learn,
   More of His holy will discern;
   Spirit of God, my teacher be,
   Showing the things of Christ to me.
   More, more about Jesus,
   More, more about Jesus;
   More of His saving fullness see,
   More of His love Who died for me. — Eliza Edmunds Hewitt
6. We have here a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit bringing the light of the Gospel into this dark, sin-cursed world.
7. In Zechariah 4:2, an angel said to the prophet Zechariah, “What seest thou?”
8. Zechariah replied, “I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof” (4:2).
9. Zechariah did not understand the significance of the vision, and so he said, “What are these, my lord?”
10. The angel told him, “This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (4:6).
11. There were seven branches on the candlestick (Ex. 25:37) – there was the central upright stem, and there were three branches on each side (Ex. 25:32). 
12. The seven branches of the candlestick represent the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  That is why Revelation 1:4 and 3:1 and 4:5 and 5:6 refer to “the seven Spirits” which are before the throne of God.
13. The candlestick was fed by oil, specially ordered and prepared by God (Exodus 27:20).  This pure oil olive caused the lamps to burn continually (Lev. 24:1-4).
14. God is always working.  The Holy Spirit is always working.
15. Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).
16. “Beaten work of pure gold” (Ex. 25:31, 36) symbolizes Christ’s suffering death on the cross for our sins. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).
17. The lampstand was big – “of a talent of pure gold” (Ex. 25:39).  A “talent” was 120 pounds.   That’s a lot of gold!

CONCLUSION:

1. The Battle of the Java Sea took place in February 1942, during WWII.
2. The Japanese torpedoed a Dutch destroyer, which then broke in two and sank almost immediately.  There were 116 men struggling for their lives in the waters, swimming about and clinging onto rafts.
3. They cried out for help, and someone from the American ship USS Houston threw them an illuminated life preserver.
4. The light attached to this life preserver guided a British destroyer to their eventual rescue.
5. An American newspaper reported, “Regulation American navy life belts, with a floating light attached, tossed overboard from the cruiser Houston” were the means that saved the lives of these men.
6. That story serves to remind us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world.  He will save anyone who responds to the light of His glorious Gospel.