I invite your attention to the
epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 13. Thirteenth chapter of the
epistle to the Hebrews. It has been said that the epistle
to the Hebrews was written to the Hebrews to tell the Hebrews
to quit acting like Hebrews. There is truth in that. This epistle was written to Hebrew
people, letting them know of the fulfillment of a new covenant,
a greater covenant. There is a greater prophet now. There is a greater priest. There
is a greater King, and there is a new Israel. And there are many exhortations
regarding this truth that are written in this epistle. But
I want to bring this one to your attention, found in my text,
Hebrews chapter 13. Did I tell you chapter 10? Okay,
chapter 13. I'm sorry, chapter 13. Verse 10 is my text. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. Now before I begin my exposition
of this text, let me just say one word. Brother Mitch, I was
greatly blessed by your message, and I was blessed by the fact
that Jesus prayed to his Father, and
his Father answered every prayer affirmatively that Jesus prayed. And everyone for whom Jesus prayed
in that prayer, Father, forgive them. He forgave them. Some of them on that very day
and some of us 2,000 years later. But God always answers the prayers
of Jesus. And I am so glad that right now
I have an advocate in heaven with five bleeding wounds, standing
before God, pleading for me. And the Father is going to hear
those prayers, pleading for me. But back to my text. My subject
is, we have an altar. Some years ago, when I was pastoring
a previous church, On a certain occasion, a gentleman visiting
in the church building took a look around the auditorium and he
then asked me, why do you not have an altar? I replied, quoting
my text, Hebrews 13.10, we have an altar. He took another look
around, at this time in greater detail, and then he said, I do
not see it. And I replied, you are right,
but we have an altar. He asked, where is your altar?
And I replied, Jesus Christ is our altar. Now he did not understand,
and many folk today will not understand, that Jesus Christ
is our altar. For to many people, an altar
is a piece of furniture, a grand piece of furniture, probably
the central point of focus in their church buildings. And at
that altar, a priest stands every day doing what the writer to
the Hebrew says, offering daily the same sacrifices that can
never take away sins. These priests have been doing
this now for 1,500 years. Think about it, folks. For 1,500
years in thousands of places across this earth, every day,
Priests have been offering those same offerings and never was
a sin taken away. Jesus Christ manifested Himself
as our altar on the cross of Calvary. There He was the altar
and He was the Lamb And he was the priest. And he made that
one sacrifice for sins that satisfied God's justice forever. And in just a few moments later,
another priest went to another altar in Jerusalem and made another
sacrifice. And they did it for another 40
years until the Lord destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and
took their altar away from them. But the writer of the Hebrews
is writing about them when he says every priest stands daily
offering the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. That's the altar for many people.
It's not ours. It's not ours. For some people,
an altar is a piece of furniture to which you may resort at the
end of a worship service if you desire salvation or whatever. That's not our altar. That altar
has only been around for less than 200 years. Our altar goes
much further back than that. Our altar is not a piece of furniture. Our altar was not made by man. Our altar is Jesus Christ made
by God. Let me talk to you today a little
bit about this altar. And I'm going to do so by applying
what is written concerning God's altar in Exodus 27, verses 1
through 2. You do not need to locate the
text. You may if you wish, but I'm
going to be quoting it appropriately as we get into the message. And
we're going to be looking at every part of that text, Exodus
27, verses 1 through 2. The writer to the Hebrews is
speaking about that altar that God told him to make in Exodus
27, verses 1 through 2. And I'm going to describe that
altar today and let you see that it typified Jesus Christ. How does it do so? First of all,
Christ, our altar, is a man. And he is typified in his humanity
by the wood that was used in the tabernacle's altar. The Lord
told him to make this altar of wood. He furthermore told them
to do it of a certain specific type of wood. He told them to
make it of Acacia wood. The word is Shittim in the King
James Version. This wood was the only wood that
can be used because Israel was in the wilderness. And in this
wilderness there is very little vegetation. and even fewer trees. Yes, there were palm trees around
the Oasis that Israel visited, but this palm tree is much too
spongy to be used as an altar. So the Lord said, ìMake it of
acacia.î Thereís not a whole lot of acacia around here, but
thereís enough. Now why is acacia the perfect
wood for the altar? Because it is hard, it is durable, and it is resistant
to insects. And it could be found. And so they went looking for
this acacia wood They brought enough in to make this altar.
But this acacia wood, growing in an arid, dry place,
typifies Jesus Christ in the fact that he is, according to
Isaiah 53, verse 2, as a root out of dry ground. That's what
Akasha was, a root out of dry ground. That's what Jesus Christ
is, a root out of dry ground. Second, Christ our altar is divine
and his deity and his divinity are typified by the fact that
there was bronze that was used in the construction of this altar
It was not only of the wood, it was also the bronze. Now, an altar made of wood only? It ain't gonna last, folks. And this altar was not to be
made merely of bronze. Rather, it was to be made of
wood that gave it support, that made it firm. And it was covered
with bronze plates. And this was the kind of altar
that the Lord told Israel to make. Now, bronze here typifies
Jesus Christ's deity. On that cross of Calvary, remember,
the wood typifies His humanity. For three hours, He was stricken
and smitten and afflicted by God. He suffered the hell and damnation
that all his people deserve. And if each of them received
what he or she deserved, we would, my friend, perish forever and
never pay the bill. But Jesus Christ in three hours,
in his humanity, suffered the wrath of God, and at last, shouted
in glorious victory, it is finished. How could he do it? And we could
not, because he had the power and the strength of the divine
nature. God is protecting his Son there
on Calvary. Christ, our altar, is of wood,
that gives it support and he is of bronze because that makes
him able to withstand the wrath of God. The scripture declares
he endured the cross. It did not overcome him. He endured
it and he conquered. Third, Christ our altar is the
God-man. His dual nature is typified by
the bronze covering the wood. It was not of wood alone. It
was not of metal alone. It was of wood and bronze made
into one piece of furniture. And likewise, Christ does not
possess the human nature alone. nor does he possess the divine
nature alone. Rather in him are combined perfectly,
joined together, two natures in one indivisible person. Fourth, consider that Christ
our altar is our only altar. And this is typified by God saying
to Moses, pardon me, you shall make THE altar. And yes, there is the definite
article in the text. You shall make THE altar. He did not say you shall make
altars. No, no, no. One. You shall make only one altar.
He called it my altar in Exodus 20 verse 26. That means he had
only one altar. Now the construction of another
altar, that was done by King Jeroboam. You've heard me speak
of him in recent weeks. Jeroboam split the kingdom of
Israel and Judah. He took the northern portion
in order to keep his people from going down to Jerusalem to worship
He started his own system of worship, including his own altar. Down in Jerusalem, there is the
altar that God had called my altar. And there, in Samaria,
was the altar that Jeroboam could call my altar. Well, I can speak
to you today on the subject that as I look at Jesus Christ I'm
going to say, that's my altar. Others may point to a piece of
furniture and say, that's my altar. Let them do so. Let them
do so. We're saying that Jesus Christ
is God's only altar. God had only one altar in Israel. He has only one altar for God's
people today. Number five, Christ our altar
is for the whole world. Now this is typified by the fact
that the altar of the tabernacle shall be square, four square. It had four corners pointing
north, east, south, west. The four corners of the earth,
the four corners of the world, and Christ, our altar, is for
the four corners of the earth. John the Apostle declares that
he is the propitiation for our sins. He's a Jew. He's speaking
for Jews. He is the propitiation for our
sins or the guilt-removing sacrifice, and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world. Now this does not mean that he's
the guilt-removing sacrifice. He's the altar for everyone without
exception. The text does not say He's the
altar for all without exception. It says He is the altar for the
world and the world does not always include all without exception. It simply means that He is the
altar not only for Jews, but for people in the world. For some of you descending from
Norwegians, me descending from Scots and
Germans, and others descending from here and there and yonder,
our Lord Jesus Christ has become the altar for people across the world.
Now let me tell you about the high priest. that our brother
Mitch mentioned a little earlier, a high priest by the name of
Caiaphas. You know, sometimes the devil
tells the truth. Caiaphas hated Jesus Christ,
was a great enemy of Jesus Christ, but he said something that was
very prophetic when he said that Jesus would die for the nation,
that is the Jewish nation, and not for that nation only, but
also that he would gather together and run the children of God,
God's elect, who were scattered abroad as far as the four corners
of the earth. And that man prophesied of the
death of Jesus Christ and declared the gospel. When he did so, unbeknownst
to him and most certainly unintentionally, But it's true! Christ, our altar,
has become an altar for people from all the seven continents
and the islands of the seven seas. This, our altar, is also
sufficient, is my sixth point. The sufficiency of Christ, our
altar, is typified by its size. Exodus 27, verse 1. The Lord
specifically said you shall make it five cubits long and five
cubits wide. What is a cubit? Roughly 18 inches. It is the distance from the elbow
to the tip of the finger. That's how they measured in those
days because Craftsmen had not yet invented rulers and tape
measures. And so they had to have something
to measure. And so, you know, most every carpenter's arm would
be roughly the same distance, although it might be best to
keep one man on the site at all times so that you can use him
as the standard. But that was what the Lord said. Make it five by five. Lord, Akash
is not really a big tree. How about three by three? No!
That conversation did not take place, by the way. No! It will
be five by five. There's a reason for that. Five
by five. Five cupids. What is that? in feet. I believe that's about 7 1⁄2
feet by 7 1⁄2 feet more than 49 square feet. That's how big that altar was
across the top. Why so big? Because Israel sacrificed
not only wee lambs, but big bulls. You have to have an altar big
enough to carry the sacrifices that would be put on it. And
here is Christ our altar. He also is sufficient in size. Christ our altar can hold the
sacrifice not only that's big enough to obtain salvation for
the biggest sinner, but Christ our altar is sufficient in size to hold the sacrifice that will
forgive the sins of the millions of gods elect. Consider it. He is sufficient. There is no
insufficiency in Jesus Christ. He is sufficient as the altar
before God. Number seven, Christ our altar
is high. He's high. How high? The Lord said, you shall make
this altar not only five cubits by five cubits, but it will be
three cubits high. Three cubits high. That's four and a half feet. Four and a half feet. It's going
to be close to the height of this pulpit. Four and a half feet. Lord If I make this altar four and
a half feet, how is that priest going to make a sacrifice? He
can't reach high enough. Make it, what I said, three cubits
high, four and a half feet. Okay, we'll need to put some
steps around it. No! No steps. There'll be no
steps on my altar. Well then Lord, how will we make
the sacrifices that are put upon this altar? And did you notice
that when the priest made an offering, we read that he came
down from the altar. There were no steps, but he came
down from the altar. It's high, it's four and a half
feet high, three cubits. The answer to the question is
found in Exodus 27, verse 4. I want you to notice, God leaves
no detail out. When Moses would get ready to
ask, what about this or that? And the Lord would say, well,
I'm not through telling you about it yet. I'm getting ready to
come to that. The Lord had all these details
that He gave to Israel. And we read in Exodus 27 verses
4 and 5 that there was a network of bronze midway up the altar. A network of bronze that went through and around
the altar. And on the inside it served as
a grate to catch the ashes that would fall. And on the outside
it served as a platform where the priest, who probably on some occasions
had others helping him, could walk around that altar and do
the sacrifices before God. I'm letting you know, my friend,
that this was a high altar. Jesus Christ is a high altar. Notice that the priest would
ascend the altar to make a sacrifice. Jesus Christ ascended the altar
to make a sacrifice on Calvary, walked up that hill as a high
priest, leading the land that was to be sacrificed, and there
on Calvary he became our altar, our high altar. Furthermore,
this altar is representative of God's grace. And this is typified
by the dimensions of this altar. It is, as I said, five by five
by three. And those numerals are very instructive
to us on their typology. Three is a number in Scripture
denoting God in the three persons of His Holy Trinity. Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Five is a number in Scripture
associated with grace. And by the way, this was a few
centuries before the five doctrines of grace. Five was associated
with grace even in the Scripture. Because did you note that in
the sacrifices that were to be put on this altar, they were
five in number? A burnt offering, a meal offering,
the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering. And then
the numeral five appears twice in the altar's dimensions. This
indicates to us that God's grace is multiplied to His people. Multiplied to His people. God
is not gracious to us only once. No, no, no. He never ceases to
be. And do we not read that where
sin abounded, I can tell you it abounded in here. Where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound through Christ our altar. Then consider that Christ our
altar is powerful. His strength and power are denoted and represented
by the four horns on the four corners of the tabernacle's altar. You shall make the altar four
square and you will put a horn like that of an animal. You'll
put a horn on each of the four corners. These symbolize strength
and power. You may remember that a priest
stood before a king of Israel one day and the king of Judah
who was with him and put horns on his head and said, I signify
by this, you will push your enemies away. When you read of horns
in the scripture, they denote power and strength. And here
on Christ our altar, there are four horns, one on each of the
four corners of this altar. Furthermore, the Lord said, after you put
those four horns on that altar, smear them with blood, smear
them with blood. The blood that was shed on these
altars that smeared the horns of the altar pointed to Jesus
Christ in his death for us in the shedding of his blood. He
is even more powerful than the tabernacle's altar The altar of the tabernacle received
its offerings beginning from the year 1440
B.C. until 70 A.D. with the exception
of the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity. So we're talking roughly
1,440 years. The priest of Israel made a daily
sacrifice for the sins of Israel, two sacrifices every Sabbath,
another sacrifice every new moon, and on every festival, sacrifices
for 1,440 years Every day that priest made those sacrifices. Not only the national sacrifices,
but for the sacrifices for the sins of the people. Here he comes. That sinner, he desires forgiveness. He has brought his offering.
Here she comes. She has sinned. She has brought
an offering for her forgiveness. And that priest would rise early
in the morning and make a sacrifice before God and then stand there
all day long, covered in blood, standing in an ocean of blood,
covered in perspiration, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices
that God required, but never was a single solitary sin ever
forgiven. The judgment was simply postponed.
The conscience of sin was still in the heart until Jesus Christ
became our altar. until Jesus Christ became our
sacrificial lamb on that altar, before Jesus Christ became our
sacrificing priest at Christ our altar. And with one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down, the only priest who sat down. after making a
sacrifice for sins. I got to tell you, folks, this
is one powerful altar. Forgive me. At Christ my altar,
I found forgiveness. Last point, number 10. Christ
our altar is a refuge. This is also typified by the
horns. Remember, the four horns on the
altar. It's a place of refuge. It was used on various occasions
as a refuge. Adonijah committed a grave offense and was about to be killed. He knew there was only one place
of refuge. He ran to the altar and grabbed hold of the whore. Grab hold of the horn. You're okay if you got a hold
of that horn. As long as you are there holding on to the horn,
you're okay. You're safe. Well, sinner, You have offended God. That's worse than offending the
king. Justice is looking for you right
now. There is only one hope for you. Run to Jesus Christ the altar. and grab hold of him. Justice never dragged anybody
away who was holding on to Jesus Christ. Here is a place of refuge. There
is no refuge to be found anywhere else. Come to Jesus Christ, lay
hold of him, and say, As Jacob did, I will not let
thee go except thou bless me. Grab hold of Christ. He's your
only hope of salvation. And if you have laid hold of
him, never let go. Never let go. What an altar we have. Some have an altar where their
priest is making a sacrifice at this very moment, the way
they've been doing for 1,500 years. They're welcome to it. They're welcome to it. Some have
an altar to which they come at an invitation in order to be
saved. The Lord never said, go to a
piece of man-made furniture for salvation. This preacher is going
to exhort you, go to Christ. Is He not sufficient enough an
altar? God calls Him my altar, and I
hope that you can do it as well. If you've never come to Christ,
come right now. O God, our Father, Be pleased,
we pray, to bless this Word, to the glory of your Son, to
the salvation of your people, to the edification of your Zion. For in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.