If you would turn to Exodus chapter
20 Exodus chapter 20 I'm already like the last four verses beginning
in verse 22 Exodus chapter 20 beginning in verse 22 and the
Lord said unto Moses Thus shall Thus thou shalt say unto the
children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from
heaven. Ye shall not make with me gods
of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. An altar
of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon
thy burnt offerings and thy peace offering, thy sheep and thine
oxen, in all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee,
and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone. For if thou
lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt
thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be
not discovered thereon. What I want to talk about here
is God's instructions for sacrifice and two results of sacrifice. The beginning of this chapter,
chapter 20 of Exodus, is the Ten Commandments. Now, I purposely
skipped over that, and I'm not going to deal with that today,
but I do want you to know that's where it is. Before you get to
this sacrifice, you'll see these commandments. Before you get
to this altar, you'll see these commandments. The scriptures
are never laid out randomly. There's a reason the Ten Commandments
were spoken here by God before the instructions for sacrifice. Part of it is you have to know
a little bit about God, and you've got to know a little bit about
yourself before the sacrifice, before you offer a sacrifice,
before there's a sin offering, definitely before there's a peace
offering. You have to know that sacrifice
is necessary before you'll offer a sacrifice. The commandments
were spoken to Moses, but then the Lord specifically gives Moses
this message here for the congregation of Israel, which deals with approaching
God, worshiping God. There is a way given here to
approach God. And this was the way in the Old
Testament. Here we find man not in the position
of a doer, but in the position of a worshiper. This message
of sacrifice comes directly after the Ten Commandments, and make
no mistake about it, where we are in the book of Exodus. This
is after the Passover. This is after they have left
Egypt. This is after they have been
eating the manna. God gives them here these commandments,
and then he says here's the sacrifices The God who created the world
and everyone and everything in it has given instructions how
he is to be approached It is not up to us to create
a way of sacrifice He gives instructions he tells
you how Man was not asked to design, to contribute, to advise,
suggest, or choose. He's told this is the way it
is. There is no committee on worshiping
God. There is no committee on how
to perform the sacrifice. We don't get to pick the way.
I know a lot of people hate that. The way's been given. The way's
been made. In our time, the way came. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man approaches the Father
but by me. There always has only been one
way, and that's His way, through Christ. The only way man is allowed
to approach unto God is shown here Sacrifice. Blood has to be shed. There's
no coming to God without blood having been shed. He starts off in verse 22, he says,
thus shalt thou say. The Lord said unto Moses, thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel. God spoke to Moses face to face.
But again, God spoke to the people through Moses, through a man. There's a message for the people
of God. But that message is going to be delivered by a man. There
are some people who don't like that. There are some relatives
who don't like that. But that's too bad. That's the
way God works. That's the way God's always worked. He's not changing his way for
anyone Christ said this Moses wrote
of me God is not bringing to man a new and different exciting
way to God There's only one way Jesus Christ That's the message
that we have here in Exodus. There's only one way and This
message was delivered unto the children of Israel The instructions for sacrifice are only given to the people
of God, to the congregation of Israel in this case here. And
here's the message today. It's for you. It's for you. It's not for the world. It's
not for Egypt. In Christ's time, it wasn't for
the Romans. It wasn't for the Gentiles, but the Gentiles weren't
left out. God has always sent his particular
message to his particular people by his particular man. He said, I've talked with you
from heaven. Looked at this Walter, and then
I looked back At verse 18 And all the people saw the thunderings
and the lightnings and the noise and of the trumpet and the mountain
smoking and when the people saw it they were moved and Stood
afar off God said tell the children of
Israel, you've seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
God spoke and people backed up. That's what happens when God
speaks. I was watching a video yesterday. It's actually pretty good. And
they quoted a fellow in the middle of it. And this one fellow wrote
this down, and they were quoting him. He said, most services are
designed nowadays, in most churches, most services are designed nowadays
to remove the fear of the Lord. Not to prompt it, not to teach
it. That's what most services are
designed to do today. Here, God spoke people back up. He says, you tell those people,
I've spoken. Thus saith the Lord. People will back away from that
every time. If it's of themselves, they will back away from you.
They'll back away. They will remove themselves.
You don't have to sometimes separate yourself from anybody. They'll
separate themselves from you. But here are the instructions
of the one whom these people feared, the God of the Bible.
He had spoken. Verse 23, ye shall not make with
me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. These instructions start with
a negative. Don't. Don't. Whatever you do, don't
make gods of silver and gods of gold. Now, why would God say
this first? Well, in just a few chapters,
they're fixing to break it already. He had just given the Ten Commandments.
Thou shalt make no graven image of anything, or bow down thyself
to worship to it. Then his first thing he tells
Moses to say to him down here, don't make gods of silver and
gods of gold. In fact, like I said, it sounds
suspiciously like verse four. I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt
not. These people had just come out
of Egypt. And they had been surrounded by and ruled over by a bunch
of people who had gods of silver and gold. They did make gods of silver
and gold. They knew about that sort of
thing. And guess what? Once Moses goes up on the mountain
and he's gone 30, 40 days, the first thing they do is they have
Aaron make us a golden calf. After verse 4, thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that
is in the heaven above, Or that is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth, thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God. And then in verse 23, ye shall
not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you
gods of gold. I said it twice. What's the first thing they do?
They make one. They start with the negative.
Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. That's the negative. Where's
the positive? The positive is, verse 24, an
altar of earth thou shalt make unto me. Unto me. The positive is the altar. And the Hebrew definition of
this word altar is altar. That's what it is. I looked it
up. Now, it is derived from the primitive root meaning to slaughter
an animal, usually in sacrifice. After these commandments are
given, after the admonition, again, don't make gods of silver
or gold. The next thing that comes up
is the altar. And he doesn't say, you can. No, he says, an altar of earth
thou shalt make unto me. Approaching God, they backed
up when they heard it. To approach unto God, you start
with an altar. And that altar, by definition,
is a place of sacrifice. The worship of God, approaching
God, starts with blood being shed on an altar. The worship of God continues
with blood being shed on an altar. Because the worship of God, the
approach of God, demands an altar, a place of sacrifice. Thou shalt
make an altar unto me. Notice carefully, the altar is
spoken of before the making. And notice carefully that the
altar is unto me. It's not your altar. his These are his instructions because
it's his altar Thou shalt sacrifice Thou shalt
make unto me and shalt sacrifice there on thy burnt offerings
and thy peace offerings Halter first sacrifice second
and thou shalt Thou shalt! Why? The burnt offering is a
sin offering. The Ten Commandments have been
given at the beginning of this chapter. The transgressions have
already started. You know Christ boiled those
Ten Commandments down into two Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, and all thy
strength. They already were not honoring God. The sacrifice is ready. It's
time for a sacrifice. The other commandments, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. They already broken those. The reason the altar is spoken
of, the sacrifice is spoken of, is because the altar and the
sacrifice are necessary because of transgressions. The offering, the altar, put it this way first,
the altar of earth thou shalt make unto me. The altar is mine. But it does say Thou shalt sacrifice
there on what? thy burnt offerings and thy peace
offerings the offerings Are ours are yours? The altars he is But
he gives this to us the burn offering is a sin offering now
the burn offering From way, I understand it The burnt offering is the one
where you put it on the altar and it gets burnt up entirely. The blood is shed, it is put
on the altar, and it is burnt to ashes. It is an atonement
for sin. That's what the burnt offering
is. Now the peace offering can be for three reasons, they
say. for the peace given, not to get
peace, upon payment of a vow, or just
as simply as an expression of worship of God. That's what a
peace offering is for. Now that one, if it's a voluntary
offering, the priest, talking in the tabernacle, the priest
and the person offering it actually do get to partake of that sacrifice.
But of the burnt offering, Nobody takes any partake of that. No
one takes any partake of that. Not one. That offering for sin
is burnt up completely on that altar and the ashes are disposed
of. When that sinner laid his hand
on that goat, bull, sheep, whatever it was, as a burnt offering,
That offering stayed on that altar until it was burnt to ash.
The blood was shed and that offering was burnt up completely. Atonement. Forgiveness. It's not saying you're not going
to sin again. But this is how you approach unto God. There's
no way you can come to God without an offering. There's no way to
approach unto God without blood being shed. And that's as for
an atonement or for a peace offering. Both of them require the death
of the substitute. on the same altar. There's only one altar. There's
only one altar. Now you have different aspects
of it. You have the burn offering and you have the peace offering,
but they're both on what? My altar. The burn offering was brought
and the one who brought it laid his hand upon that burn offering
and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. The peace offering was given
sometimes just as an expression of worship or of thanksgiving
to God, but it still came to that same altar and still the
blood was shed, still the substitution was made. Then this one little statement
here. An altar thou shalt make me,
and shalt sacrifice thereupon thy burnt offerings, and thy
peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen. What? In all places
where I record my name. Atonement and peace have the
same source. mine alter. They are both only found in the
sacrifice, because if there's no sacrifice, there's no atonement. And if there's no atonement,
then there's no peace. And this is to happen in all
places where I record my name. This is more than where God is.
God's everywhere. God is omnipresent. This is where
God records his name. And I looked at the word record,
and it means to mark. In all the places where I mark
my name. This is an act of God, not an
act of man. God did create everything. God
does own everything. But there are certain things
that God has marked with his name. And wherever God has marked his
name, there's to be an offer and there's sacrifice. Revelations 3 and verse 12 put
it this way. Him that overcometh will I make
a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more
out. And I will write upon him the
name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which
is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. And I will write upon him my
new name. God marks his own. He gives you a name and he marks
you with his name. And everywhere that he has marked
his name, that he records his name, there's an altar and there's
sacrifice. There's a burn offering and there's
a peace offering. In all places We call it particular redemption. Limited atonement. They don't
like the word limited atonement. They don't like that term. They
don't like the word limited. Don't worry, God's not limiting
himself. He's just limiting the expression
of who it's on. The atonement's complete. It's particular in who it's applied
to. And I'll tell you, it's applied. Particular redemption is to all
those God has marked with his name. All those written in the Lamb's
book of life from before the foundation of the world. I will
put my laws into their mind and I will write them in their heart.
Guess what? They will be marked. There's
a record of God's name in God's people. We are now to recognize the sacrifice
of Christ, and we are now to offer the sacrifice of praise. But none of this was possible
without the altar, without the sacrifice, without the blood
being shed. None of it. Then there's two results of sacrifice, spoken of right here. There's
two results. I will come unto thee, and I
will bless thee. I will come to thee. I, this
is God speaking, To Moses, tell the people, I will come unto
thee. That has got to be one of the greatest
statements ever written down, ever uttered to man. How do you top that? I will come
to thee. You can't go to him. You can approach only through
sacrifice. But when the atonement is made,
when the redemption is purchased, I will come to thee. We can't go to him. He's going
to go into that in more detail, but we can't go to him. God had
respect unto Abel and to his offering. But God had respect
unto Abel and his offering. A lot of people want to lay that
down. Oh, no, the difference here was
just between their offering. No, God had respect unto Abel. God had marked Abel with his
name. And God had respect unto Abel
before that sacrifice, and God had respect unto Abel after that
sacrifice. Because he's the God that never
changes. I will come to thee. You can't come to me, I'll come
to thee. And it is only because of the
substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we are accepted
in the beloved. And that's all according to His
will, His purpose, and His power. I'll come to Thee. Why? After
the sacrifice. After the offering. After the
blood's been shed, I'll come to Thee. Now how can you top that? That
next thing, I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. That's the second result of sacrifice.
I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. You know, as if his
coming wasn't enough. Not only am I coming to you,
I'm going to bless you. Who does the blessing? He does. Who gets blessed? All those marked with his name.
In every place where his name is recorded. Where he has recorded
his name. Who gets blessed? Those that
have been passed over. Those that have seen the salvation
of the Lord. those that have eaten the manna,
and those who make offerings to God upon His altar. We are
blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. And say, blessed is the man who
doesn't sin. Of course he's blessed. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will impute righteousness without works. Guess what? All that's the result
of the blood being shed. All that's the result of the
redemption, of the atonement, of the forgiveness. the work
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I Will come unto thee
I will come to thee and I will bless thee We are blessed with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenlies in Christ You can't leave out that
last part in Christ There are no blessings outside of Christ
I The rain may fall on the just and the unjust alike. That ain't
a blessing. Too much rain falls, it's a curse.
Not enough rain falls, it's a curse. Outside of Christ, there is no
blessing. There's existence. They're there. But they're not
recognized. They're not marked. He has not
recorded his name in them. I will bless. The father blesses
and his blessings are only in Christ and the blessings come
because he will come to thee After the offering after the
blood is shed He will bless Because he gives life and peace Just
a couple of quick things here You make that altar of the earth,
or if you want to, if you can't, you make it of stone. There's
some rocky places over there where there is no dirt. You can
make it of stone, but you don't cue the stone in any way. OK? The offerings, it says, are yours.
But the altar's mine. The offering's not to you. The
offering's not to us. The offering goes to God. And
it's going on his altar. An altar stone is allowed, but
not hewn stone. Don't use any stone that man
has altered. Spelled differently. Because
it says, if you use a tool on the altar, you have polluted
the altar. You can't make an altar good
enough for God. Because our efforts pollute everything
we touch. Especially anything toward God. Isaiah said it. All of my righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. every single one of them. Your efforts would pollute His
altar. And guess what? He, the Lord,
will not have it. Then I looked at this and I read
this and it says, Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto that thy nakedness be not discovered
thereon." Man cannot ascend one step toward
the sacrifice on his altar, on God's altar. Yes, it's your offering. Yes,
it is Thy peace offering, thy burn offering, it is for you. But the offering is to God. And
you don't take one step up to make that offering in this type. This is a type. Now it really
happened, and this is the way you did it. But in type, it's
figuring out the work of our Savior. You take the first step and God
will meet you there. You can't take no steps. And
God forbid here, you can't take a step up. No, it's level. It says that
thy nakedness be not discovered. Well, literally that means nudity.
Figuratively, it means your uncleanness. Anything we touch is polluted. Even if we tried to step up to
God, He's already said, I'll come to you and I'll bless you. That altar is level. There's
no steps up to it that we can make to make an offering, whether
a peace or whether a burnt offering. Thou shalt not go up. I'll come to you. I'll come to
you. The burnt offering and the peace
offering are on the same altar. What does that mean? What is
the Lord saying here, giving instructions about this altar
and these offerings? This is the way it was given
at that time to approach God. There is no other way given.
This is given before the instructions for making the tabernacle. The
tabernacle goes into much more detail. This is given before that. You don't approach me any way
you want. That's what God said. You will approach in this manner,
and I will come to thee, and I will bless thee. It's mine altar. The offering,
the burnt offering, and even the peace offering go on his
altar. The offering is to him, to God,
the offended party. Hebrews 10 and verse 13, I think
it is. It says we have an altar. I'm
going to read it and make sure I get it right. Nope, sorry, 13.10, not 10.13. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat what which serve the tabernacle." Christ is the altar. Christ is the sacrifice. Christ
is the altar. Christ is the offering. Christ is the high priest that
makes the offering. Christ is the high priest that
sprinkles the blood on the mercy seat. That tabernacle from beginning
to end is a picture of Christ. From that altar where the burnt
sacrifice was made to the labor where you cleanse. Then when
you go inside, you've got the golden candlestick, the table
of showbread. It's all Christ. The bread that's on the table,
that's Christ. We have an altar where those
in that tabernacle that are there now, Paul's writing, I do believe
this is Paul too, whoever's writing Hebrews, they're in that altar
offering the sacrifices. And they have no right to eat
of where the altar that we get to eat, which is Jesus Christ. Verse eight of chapter 13 started
this way, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. Verse nine, be carried be not
carried about with diverse and strange doctrines. For it is
a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with
meat, which have not profited them that have been occupied
therein. We have an altar, whereof they
have no right to eat which serve in the tabernacle. Christ told us that the Father
seeketh such to worship Him that worship Him in spirit and in
truth. How is this worship? It's in
spirit and it's in truth. It is in the One who sent the
Spirit. The worship of God is in the
One who is the truth. Christ Jesus the Lord. The approach
and the worship of God is all through Jesus Christ. He's the altar. He's the offering. It's His blood that shed for the remission of sin. for our forgiveness, for our
righteousness, for our justification. Why? I will come to thee and
I will bless thee. There's a result to the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ upon that altar. That's the point. There are results. And don't
let anybody tell you any different. And none of those results have
anything to do with what you do. You can't take no step up. God speaks, you'll step back.
But I'll come to thee. I will come to thee and I will
bless thee. Why? Because of what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done. I'll come to thee and I'll bless
thee." And every single one he performed that for, he will come to him and he'll
bless him. That's the promise. There wasn't
any qualifiers in those statements. I will come and I will bless. He always blesses His work. The Father always blesses His
work. Christ's work. The Spirit always
blesses Christ's work. His work is just like His word. It's not going to return unto
Him void. It's going to accomplish what I sent it forth for. where unto I sent it, it's going
to be accomplished. I will come to thee, and I will
bless thee. It's a guarantee from Him. Our
Heavenly Father, we are thankful again for this time and this
place. Thank you, Lord, for your complete salvation. We still only know part of it
here, and there's more to come, and we are looking and hastening
the day, if we could. Come, even so, come quickly. Thank you, Lord, for all you've
done. In Christ's name we pray, amen.