The brazen altar. The brazen
altar. And this is what it looks like.
That's what it looks like right there. All the books and things
is out there on the table, up front, so you know if you want
to get them. But here in 1st David verses it says this, And
thou shalt make an altar of sheetum wood, five cubits long and five
cubits broad, The altar shall be four square, and the height
thereof shall be three cubits. And thou shalt make the horns
of it upon the four corners thereof. His horns shall be of the same,
and thou shalt overlay it with brass. And thou shalt make his
pans to receive his ashes, and his shovels, and his basins,
his flesh hooks, and his fire pans, all the vessels thereof
thou shalt thou make of brass. And thou shalt make for it a
great of network of bass. And upon the net shalt thou make
four brazen rings in the four corners thereof. And thou shalt
put it under the compass of the altar, beneath that they may
be even in the midst of the altar. And thou shalt make staves for
the altar, staves of sheet and wood, and overlay them with brass.
And the stave shall be put into the rings, and the stave shall
be upon the two sides of the altar to bear it. Hollow with
bored, shalt thou make it, as it was, showed thee in the mount,
shalt thou make it. God gave Moses the pattern for
everything that was going to be in the altar. Everything.
Clothes to wear, the hangings to do, every altar, everything
that was in it, God gave it to Moses upon the mountain. And
he told him to make an altar. make an altar. He made an ark,
now he tells him to make an altar. An abrasion altar, it's going
to be made out of wood covered with brass. And an altar means
a high place, or that which lifts up. And I tell you that when
you're talking the altar was with was to give sacrifice to
Saul. And as the sacrifice was lifted
up and put on that altar, our Lord Jesus Christ was lifted
up. He said, if I be lifted up, I'll
draw all men unto me. But he was lifted up in the most
high place after he offered a sacrifice. But so when you go into the offer
your sacrifice on this brazen altar. You had to come in contact
with the altar like you had to come in contact with the Lord
Jesus Christ before you could have communion and fellowship
with God. And before you ever come to that
altar, and when you saw that altar and you saw Christ on the
cross, you had to come into contact with the claims. with the just
claims and the character of an infinitely holy God. And the
only way you can do that and approach Him is through a sacrifice.
It would be impossible to approach God apart from a sacrifice. And
that's the way it was in the Old Testament and it's sure enough
that way now through our Lord Jesus Christ. And at the cross,
that's where sinners come in contact with the goodness and
severity of God. The severity of God in sin being
put away. The justice of God that will
not allow God to let anybody induce presence till sin is put
away. And then the goodness of God
is seen there. When sin has been put away, God
can now show grace, can now show mercy to sinners. Now let me give you several things
about this brazen altar if I can. First of all, let me give you
the purpose of it. The brazen altar, when you went into the
outer court, when you went through that door, in that gate, those
hangings that were there, when you went behind there, the first
thing you saw was an altar. It was four square, seven foot
square, four and a half foot high. And when that's the first
thing you saw when you entered that gate, And when you saw that,
the first thing you think of is it represented the claims
of God. God has a claim. Nobody can go
any further into that holy place. They can't go any further, even
into the outer court, until you first meet that altar. And when you see that altar,
you understood that there had to be a sacrifice on that altar
that the claims of God, holy and righteous, and his claims
must be satisfied before you can ever take another step, before
you can ever come any nearer. And I tell you, God's got to
be satisfied before he can even meet with a priest or anybody
else and meet with a sinner in mercy. And the altar must be
filled with a sacrifice. Filled before with a sacrifice
before man can approach God in peace. When they lifted up that
altar and put it on there, that's the only way because that sacrifice
on there is the only way in the world a man can approach God
and have peace at all. And have peace with God and have
peace of heart and peace of conscience. And all the demands, all the
demands of God's holiness, all of God's demands were fully met. When our Lord Jesus Christ cried
out, it is finished. God said, I'm satisfied. I'm
satisfied. Now we can approach God. in peace. God said peace with us, we're
at peace with him and all because of what our Lord did on that
blessed cross. But they took that altar, when
they put that burnt, that offering on there, we'll look at the burnt
offering here in a little minute over in Leviticus. But when they
put that burnt offering on there, that sin offering on that brazen
altar, the first thing they had to do is they had to slay that
sacrifice. and they took that blood that
come from that sacrifice and they poured it out at the bottom
of that altar as they stood before that altar they poured it out
before that altar and the only value of that sacrifice on that
altar what gave value to it was the blood Without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission. The life is in the blood. And
so they would slit their throat, offer that sacrifice, catch his
blood and pour it out. They stood on blood spattered
ground. And beloved, we stand on blood
spattered ground. And I'm grateful we can stand
on blood-spattered ground. I'd hate to stand any other way,
wouldn't you? People think about, when they
think about religion and people having priests and that, they
think about these Lutherans and Catholics and those fellas in
these real pretty, beautiful robes. But these fellas, they
put on their white linen breeches and their white linen vest over
them. And when the first thing in the
morning, they got those white linen clothes, bloody! There wasn't nothing pretty about
it. What nothing to stand there wasn't nothing pretty. I mean
they come out there, there's blood splattered everywhere.
And then the blood was poured out and they had to stand there
in that blood on that ground. Because the only way that God
can be satisfied is standing on blood stained ground. The
only way God can be approached and there's peace is for God
to have blood. And I'll tell you what, that was
left at the full altar. That was laid down before God.
And you know what the Scriptures tells us? That God made His soul,
made Christ's soul an offering for sin. He poured out His soul,
an offering for sin. And that burnt offering represented
our Lord as one completely, and the burnt offering went wholly
and completely to God. And our Lord Jesus Christ was
wholly and perfectly and completely devoted to God Himself. I know I've offered, I've told
you this before. Before God, and you've heard
Scott say this, before God can do anything for anybody. He's
got to first do something for Himself. Before He can do anything for
anybody, He's got to do something for Himself. He's got to have
His just claims, His just demands, His holiness and righteousness
upheld. Well, who can uphold that? One
person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now God can do something for
us. He's satisfied. And all that position of that
brazen altar is right in front of the gate. Right in front of
the gate. And this tells us that atonement
and sacrifice for sin is the first thing necessary to approach
God. Necessary. And I tell you what,
this is something this generation and preachers don't know a thing
in the world about. Don't know nothing about it.
They use the word atonement. They don't know what it means.
They use this word sacrifice. And they think about their sacrifices.
They talk about denial. They talk about their denial.
But when you saw that altar, you understood that the first
thing had to tell us that an atonement for sacrifice for sin
is the first thing necessary to approach God. And the first
blessing, the first blessing that God gives us in His blessed
grace is the forgiveness of our sins because atonement. But you read it tonight. Christ
our atonement, if we were saved by His death, much more than
if we were reconciled by His death, much more than we should
be saved by His life. And the first blessing God gives
us in grace is the forgiveness of our sins. That's the first
thing. When you think about this, you
look back on it. And you look back on the first
reason you started seeking God, started calling on God, was because
you had sinned. And you felt the guilt of your
sin. You felt the burden of your sin. You felt the shame of your
sin. The condemnation of your sin.
And the first thing you ask is, God have mercy on me and save
me. Forgive me. Forgive me of what? Sin. And that's the first blessing
God gives us. And without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sin. How in the world is a man made
conscious of his sin? When God makes us conscious of
our sin, Conscious in our heart. We're like Job. We need somebody
to go between me and God. Job said, I need a daisman. What's a daisman? He can lay
hands on both. He can lay hands on God and lay
hands on the sinner. And we need a daisman. We need
somebody to go between us that can touch God and touch us. And
the only person that can do that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Oh, we got to have someone that
can reach into heaven and reach to earth at the same time. Who
else can do that? Without Christ, without His cross,
without His substitutionary death, no access. No access to God. No access to God. To approach
God and disregard this altar. that tells us we have to have
an atonement. We have to have blood shedding
if we're going to have forgiveness. To approach God and disregard
the altar meant death. You know the first two men in
the Bible that made offerings, the first two men were brothers.
Come from the same mother, come from the same father. Cain was
the first one born. We got him. We got the Redeemer. Abel was born. They both come before God. Both
of them come before God, like the Pharisee and the Publican.
They both come to the place, the right place. Come to God, come with an offering.
They understood that they haven't had an offering. Abel, he came
with a lamb. He came with blood. He came with
a sacrifice. He came with an atonement. Why
did He come with a sacrifice? Why did He come with a lamb?
Why did He shed the blood? Because I'm guilty of sin. Now old Cain, old Cain, he never
knew anything about sin. He didn't know anything about
guilt. He didn't know anything about needing an atonement. He
didn't know anything about that. So what did he do? He come to.
But what did he bring? The works of his hands. The labors
of his hands. The fruit of the ground that
God had already cursed. And that's the way it is. You
come to God without Christ, you're coming like Cain. You're coming
like Cain. And oh, if you look here at 27,
let me give you the materials. that's in this brazen altar. It says there in verse 1, Thou
shalt make an altar of sheetum wood, five cubits long, five
cubits broad. And then Thou shalt make in verse
2 four horns upon, make the horns upon the four corners. And then
it says here, Thou shalt overlay it with brass. Everything after
that is made of brass. He put brass over that sheetum
wood. Two things. Two distinct things
was in this altar. Wood and brass. Wood and brass. Two distinct, different elements.
Two distinct, totally different things. Wood. Who in the world would think
of putting wood in an altar? Would you build an altar out
of wood and then try to offer a sacrifice on it? But they had
to have wood. Then they put brass over top
of that. Two distinct things. But that's
what God told Moses to do, get you some wood. But it had two distinct things
in it. It's like our Lord Jesus Christ. Two distinct things about
our Lord. Like that wood, sinless, perfect,
won't rot. Holy man, sinless, high and holy. And then he's got two natures.
He's got the nature of a man and the nature of God. Two distinct
natures in him and yet he is one person. You couldn't tell where the man
left off and God took up or where God took up and the man left
off. You couldn't tell. Because when you seen the man,
you seen God. When he acted as a man, he also
acted as God. As a man, he'd get tired, go
to sleep. As a man, he could wake up and
calm a storm, as God. And our Lord Jesus Christ, in
his humanity, like that wood, being able to touch with unfirmities,
identified with us. And the back grass speaks of
his power and his strength of his being God. Two elements in
one. God and man for the salvation
of sinners. That the human nature of our
Lord Jesus Christ, this is a mystery to me, always has been. Our Lord
Jesus Christ was a man when he hung on that cross. They nailed
a man to that cross. A man's body that bled. A man's
body that hurt. A man's body that got thirsty. A man's body that was in misery. That body was beaten and mangled
as a body. A man's body, a human body was
on that cross. Why was that man not consumed? He's a man! A man! Why, when God put him on that
cross, why didn't God consume him? I know that wood would have been
consumed if it hadn't had brass on it. I'll tell you why God
didn't consume him. No more than that wood was consumed
on the altar. It never was called a wooden
altar, it was called a brazen altar. And our Lord Jesus Christ
was not consumed because He, Beloved, was God and He was able
to bear the burden of God Himself against Himself on that cross. He offered him Godhead, his divinity,
his deity, his gold, his rations, all that he is. He offered that
on the altar of his humanity. The cross was not an altar. Christ
is our altar. He's never called an altar in
the scripture. I mean, Christ is never, the
cross was never called an altar. Never. And so he wasn't offered
on an altar. He himself was the altar. He was the sacrifice on the altar. He was God who punished the sacrifice
on the altar. He was the God who received the
sacrifice on the altar. He was the God who went to glory
and accepted that sacrifice. You figure that now if you can.
That's why we stand in awe and wonder. I tell you, people think,
they think Jesus is just somebody standing around waiting for somebody
to do something. Oh my soul, do you understand
what took place? God and man in one person? What would make God not consume
Him? Not just consume Him. You know, that's what He would
have done with us. Our God's a consuming fire. But oh my, when that sacrifice
was offered on that brazen altar, it was strong, it was mighty.
And over in the psalm it said, and help, help, who? Who said help? But help was laid
on one that was mighty. Who did that? God did. He laid
help on him who was mighty. I'm telling you, all the mysteries,
the mysteries, all the things that we believe that we can't
explain. And all those vessels All those,
you see, all those vessels it talks about and you go over here
later and when it talks about the Day of Atonement, you know,
in Leviticus it talks about everything being sprinkled with blood. And
we went through that here in Exodus where Moses sprinkled
the book, sprinkled the people, sprinkled the tabernacle, everything
with blood. And all the vessels were sprinkled
with the blood off the altar. And all the blessings, all the
blessings, came from that blood, Pittsburgh. Bit identified with that sacrifice. Oh my, God spared not his own
son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not also
with him freely give us all things and all spiritual blessings. are given us in the Lord Jesus
Christ, who sits in the heavenlies. Now let's look at the horns.
There's four horns on this. Thou shalt make horns upon the
four corners thereof. The horns shall be of the same,
and thou shalt overlay it with bronze. The horns. The horns are four square. The
altar was four square. And on every one there was a
horn. And they stuck out like this. They didn't stick out this
way. They stuck out from corner to
corner. Corner to corner. They didn't stick out from this
way and this way. They stuck out from the corners.
Four corners. And in each corner there was
a horn. And the horn in the scriptures is a symbol of power. Power. And them horns pointed in every
direction. They pointed that way, that way,
that way, and that way. Pointed in every direction. And our Lord Jesus Christ's death
was good for every point on the compass. It was good for the north, the
south, the east, and the west. And He upholds this world by
the word of His power. And the sacrifice was bound to
the horns of the altar before it was ever even slain. They
would bind it. And then they would sacrifice
it. You keep this and look with me over in Psalm 118. Let's look at this. Psalm 118. In verse 27. God is the Lord which hath showed
us light bind the sacrifice with cords even unto the horns of
the altar. Joab when David was after him
he ran into the temple and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar
to try to save himself and they put that sacrifice there
And it binds it by those four horns. And what bound, what held
our great substitute, our great sacrifice, our blessed Master,
what held Him to the cross? Was it the nails that held Him
there? Did the nails hold Him there? No, the nails didn't hold
Him there. You know what held Him there? He told us before he went. He
said, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will
of him that sent me. And his father, he loved for
his father's will, put him on the cross and held him there.
And then his love for his elect held him there. He said, no man
takes my life from me. I have the power to lay it down.
I have the power to lay it again. And as those horns looked every
way, our Lord's cross For the world for the sinful world and
now let's look at the great. There's a great Let's see. Where's that at down here? It's
a Down in verse four and thou shall make a great a Great everybody
knows what a great is. This is to catch ashes in it
Catch ashes is the great It was right in the middle of the altar
got down and you know halfway down there was a great down there
and And first thing they'd do, they'd put wood on it and then
they had a pan under it and then the pan would catch the ashes. The wood and offerings were laid.
Offering laid on the altar, wood laid underneath it. And the ashes
would fall through that grate with the pans underneath to catch
that ashes. And let me give you a little
thing that I saw the other day and I don't know if it means
anything, but the grate was half way down in the altar. Half way
down. That altar was about, it said
it was how many, it was four square in the height there, should
be three cubits, three, four and a half foot. So this
thing stood four and a half foot. This is 45 inches right here.
This right here, where I'm standing is 45 inches. So you go up three
and a half feet. And down there, that grate was
where the ashes were caught. And when the wood was burned,
it was right on level with the mercy seat. The mercy seat that was behind
the veil, it was one and a half cubits high. And that's what
this was. And who would have thought of
that? That the mercy seat and the ashes and the burnings would
all be in the same place. Could an atoning sacrifice be
below the level of the mercy seat? Meet the needs of a holy
God? Because that mercy seat was where
God's throne was. So the sacrifice had to be equal
with where the mercy seat was. And our Lord Jesus Christ. God
had to have a sacrifice equal to himself. And the only sacrifice
equal to himself was himself and his son. He met the demands of God's holy
law and the just claims of God. And then the blood, look over
here in Leviticus 17. Look what it says in verse 6.
And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the
Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burn
the fat for a sweet savor unto the Lord. Now down here in verse
11, look what it says. For the life of the flesh is
in the blood, And I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh
an atonement. And as that blood was poured
out at the bottom of the altar, our Lord offers his blood to
God. And Dirk asked me this morning,
you know, when he said, today thou shalt be in paradise. When
our Lord Jesus Christ gave up the ghost and said, Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit. I personally think, personally
believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, the moment His flesh left His
body, life left His body, His spirit went into the presence
of God. And I believe that He had an
offering to take with Him when He went. I believe He entered
there into that holy place with His own blood. That's what I
believe. That's what I believe took place. And he went into his own eternal
blood. And God as he offered that blood
upon that altar to make an atonement for our soul. Our Lord Jesus
Christ entered once into the holy place. Not with the blood
of bulls and goats like these priests did. He went in there
once with his own blood. And he obtained eternal redemption
for us. And I tell you what, Job said
it like this, Satan said it to this way, when he asked God if
he could go after Job. And he told God, he said, if
you let me go after Job, all that a man has will he give for
his life. You let me have him and everything
that he has he'll give for his life. And that's true in the
natural realm. Man will give everything he's
got if he can live just longer and longer and longer. Queen
Elizabeth said I'd give all my crown, the first one said I'd
give everything I own to have another day. To have another
day. But all that a man has, he will
give for his life. Now when a man gives his life,
he gives everything he has. He ain't got nothing else he
can give. Ain't nothing else he can give. If he gives his
life, he can't give his... And Christ our Lord gave His
life. Gave His life. Poured it out
before God. He gave all He had to God. And the death of Christ had a
double effect. to satisfy a holy God and to
cleanse a guilty soul from his guilt. Cleansing. Kill the guilty
man. Cleanse a guilty man. The word
atonement has three meanings. It's used in three different
ways. First of all, it's used to cleanse. To be cleansed from all their
sin. Secondly, it means to cover. As that atonement, as that pitch
was put in the ark, it said that was an atonement, cover. And
thirdly, it's to appease. And our Lord Jesus Christ did
all of those things for us. He cleansed us from all our sin. Covered us, not with his blood,
but with his righteousness. And he appeased the anger and
satisfied the anger of God Almighty. And our Lord did all these things
by His death. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord entreath not iniquity. Blessed is that man. And then
I want to give you this real quick. There was a fire. Now we need to look over here
in Leviticus chapter chapter 9 in verse 24 you know it told
us over in Leviticus I never did show you that in Leviticus
I think it's I think it's chapter 6 let me look real quick before
you before you do anything else let me look over here in chapter
6 yeah Let's look at chapter 6
first. Let me give you a couple things
here in chapter 6. I'm going to wind this thing up for you.
Look at verse 8. Leviticus chapter 6 and verse
8. Talking about the fire. The fire was to never go out.
It was to burn continually. Command Aaron and his sons, saying,
This is the law of the burnt offering. It is the burnt offering,
because of the burning upon the altar all night until the morning,
and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. And the priest
shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall
he preach upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire
has consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put
them beside the altar. And he shall put off his garments,
put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp
unto a clean place. Our Lord Jesus Christ took down
off the cross and put in a grave. And the fire upon the altar shall
be burning in it, it shall not be put out. And the priest shall
burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in
order upon it, and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace
offering. The fire shall never be burning
upon the altar, it shall never go out. Oh my, never go out. God's fire in heaven went out,
but I'm gonna show you something over here Leviticus 9 20. Where
does where does this? Did this fire come from we're
talking about eternal fire? Luke 9 24 Leviticus 9 24 Eternal
fire Down in verse 24 And there came a fire out from
before the Lord and and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering
and the fat which when all the people saw it they shouted and
fell on their faces. You know our God is a consuming
fire. And fire represents God's judgment. Abraham went with fire and a
knife when he went up to offer Isaac. And every sacrifice that
came into contact with the priest, first he had to come in contact
with the knife of the priest, and then the fire. And our Lord
Jesus Christ faced not the mercy of God, but the judgment of God,
the fire of God. That's what he faced. But the
difference is that when our Lord Jesus Christ came in contact
not with the mercy of God but with the fire of God on that
cross. Instead of the fire consuming him, he consumed the fire. Fire come out and fell on him
and we all said amen and fall on our faces. And that continual fire on the
altar taught us that God had a place to receive sacrifices. Right here, where the fire is
burning all the time. This is where the burnt sacrifice,
burnt offering is going to be. Where God takes it all. No other
way. And our Lord, they had to do
that over and over and over every day. But our Lord Jesus Christ
was sacrificed once. Once. For all. Never to be offered
again. And we face God in Christ, our
eternal sacrifice, who obtained eternal redemption for us, our
middle face God, as the God of fire, the God of judgment. Thank God that we face Him in
Christ. Face Him in Christ. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you and thank you for
your great mercy and grace. We're with you, loved us, even
when we were dead in trespasses and sins. And Lord, we stand in wonder. We stand
in awe. at the mystery of the Godhead. So many things that we believe
that we can't explain in a rational way. But Lord, we
believe. Oh, we believe. God bless these
dear saints of God. Keep them, preserve them. Keep
them in peace. Keep them in harmony. And meet
the needs of every heart. Meet the need of every home.
And oh God, meet the needs of those who are in great, great
need right now. With great troubles, great heartaches,
and great sorrows, and great burdens. God bless them. Meet their needs. We ask in your
holy name. Amen. Amen. turn your eyes upon
Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth
will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.