Kaye's good CLS, see? Remember
those requests of prayer? I heard a thing about Kaye's
daughter, Kaye went out with her half-brother, Bob Morrell,
called a tune about that. Praise the Savior, we adore Him. Couldn't tell how much we owe
Him. Then He led us under to Him. Are we all at hand? Jesus is a name that charms us,
He works on our lips and arms us, Nothing moves and nothing
harms us, While we trust in Him. Trust in Him, He says for real,
He is capable of change and fear, He can force us around Himself,
? Not a thought from the air ? ? And I'm sure I'll keep on
screaming ? ? Till I still manage to believe me ? ? Till the end
of my wish to be ? ? From a choice within me ? ? And I shall be
where I would be ? ? And I shall be what I should be ? We're now
at 242. Jesus, I come to you. Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come. Into Thy freedom,
vanquish and bind. Jesus, I come to Thee. Shall
I sin? There's a sin in Thy name. Jesus, I come to thee. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus Christ. Jesus I know. ? How to be spared when it's all
done ? ? Oh Lord, I don't think I know ? ? Jesus, I come to Thee
? ? Out of fear and fear of sin ? Jesus. You are the creator, consummator, and sustainer of
all things. You're moon in heaven. And among
the heavens to the earth, you do your will, and none can
stay in your hand. You declare the end of the beginning,
Things that are not yet, you prepare to be. You speak and it shall be done.
Purpose and it shall come to pass. You do all your pleasure. We are thankful that in your
great and glorious scheme of this thing called time, you chose
people for yourself, not a race or form of community. Your son became their shield
before the world became, assuming their sin did. And coming into this world, being
born of a woman, born of a cloth, to redeem them from their unbelonging. To die in the womb, instead of
those who have been chosen, to redeem them by His blood, and
to be made unto them wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification. We are thankful, Father, that
all that you have given him, of all of them, he has lost nothing,
but it will raise them all up in the last day. Father, we ask tonight that you
might be pleased to bring the honor and glory to your name.
We remember our shut-ins, we remember also those who are sick,
those who have lost loved ones, It might be the true desire of
our hearts to fall down before you in thanksgiving and praise
for all you've done for us. We don't deserve anything but
wrath. You have shed your grace upon us. Your love shall broaden
our hearts. We thank you for Jesus Christ's
sacrifice for the way our church is. And made it possible for folks
like us to actually quote the throne of grace momentarily. To make our predictions stronger
in our games. We thank you that you know about
it before we do. Help us now all, we pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Now I just read to you
the record the Lord requiring an altar being made unto him
whereupon sacrifices were to be offered. And the sacrifices
to be offered were burnt offerings and peace offerings that are
to be offered in worship of the Lord. So when you see the word
term altar in scripture, it has to do with worship, whether it's
idolatry or whether it's true worship. It always has to do
with worship when you see the word altar. The two offerings
designated are important the way they're set up in scripture,
illuminated in Leviticus chapters 1 and 2, these two offerings.
The burnt offering is the first mention, in fact it starts out
in I think verse 2 of Leviticus chapter 1, and is a kind of introduction
to the numerous offerings that follow in Leviticus. The peace offering is the second.
and the Leviticus follows the same course as presented here.
First you have the third offering, the peace offering, which is
called the burnt offering, and the peace offering, that's the
chronology in which they're set up. The burnt offering represents
the propitiation of God concerning His law and justice. The sacrifice
was to be flayed or divided into different parts, It pictured Christ being consumed
by God's wrath and being made sin for His elect. As the psalmist
said in the words of Jesus, I am consumed with the blood of thy
hand. It pictured the ultimate sacrifice,
His death, which was the payment for the sin and death of all
His elect. And when the sacrifice was made, the offerer placed
his hands on the sacrifice, but did not confess his sins. laying
on the hand signified that the man's sins had already been transferred
to the sacrifice. And what followed was a transaction
between God and the sacrifice. The offering being consumed signified
that God was satisfied, completely satisfied, and that man's sins
were put away. That was the burnt offering.
The second sacrifice offered was a peace offering. It was
the second, because there is no peace when the issue of sin
has not been settled. First the sin must be settled,
then this peace can come. The error of false religion is
that Christ died for everyone and paid everyone's sin debt,
and that God loves everyone. This gives men a false sense
of peace. Slightly healing the dollars of his people, as he
said, the prophets preach peace when there is no peace. In Proverbs
chapter 7, we want to turn there. An enticing holler, used as part
of her vows, that she has peace offerings in her own portfolio. But her house, according to this
passage, describes the way the hell caught God's attention.
Proverbs chapter 7, verse 6, it says, For at the window of
my house, I looked through the casement, Behold, among the simple
ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man, boy to understand.
Passing through the street near her corner, and he went away
to her house, in the twilight of the evening, of the black
and dark night. And behold, there met him a woman,
with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart, She was
loud and stubborn, her feet about out of her house. Now she is
without, out in the streets, lithe and wavy in every corner. So she called him and kissed
him. And with an unimprudent face,
or impudent face rather, said to him, I have peace of mind. I have peace of mind. have I
prayed by paying my vows. Therefore, came I forth to meet
thee, diligently, to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, and carved works
with fine linen of each kind. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh
and aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of
love into the morning. Let us solace ourselves in others.
For the good man is not home, he's gone away for a journey.
He has taken a bag of money with him that will come at the day
appointed. With her much fairer speech,
he draws a new needle. In the platter of her lips, she
hooks it. He goes after her straightaway as an opposite, going to the
slaughter of the food, to the correction of the stocks. till
a dark strike through his spirit, and a bird hastened to snare
him, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hark unto me
now, O ye who chew wood, and tend not the words of my mouth,
that not thy heart decline to her ways, nor go astray, nor
catch her. For she hath cast down many wounded,
and many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the
way to hell, going down to the chambers And this woman, her first thing
she says to him is, I have peace offerings. That means she says,
everything's all right between me and God. Everything's OK between me and
God. She is indicative of the great old Babylon, who has deceived
all but the elite with her delicacies and her promises of peace. The
peace offering was made for one reason. because sins had been
forgiven. The peace offerer laid his hands
on the head of that offering also. Again, he did not confess
his sins. The hands laid on the sacrifice
symbolized that God had given him faith to believe that his
sin was put away by the sacrifice of the burnt offering. In each
offering, the sinner was trusted solely in the work of God. This is salvation. We know that
it says of the Lord's sacrifice that He made peace through the
blood of His cross and reconciled us unto God and will present
us holy without blemish and without spot, unreproved in the sight
of God. Now the Lord has specified that
the offerings were to be made on an altar. He said, make me
an altar. and the altar was to be made
in a particular manner. Every altar up to this one, and
there are many, are temporary, and were realized and revealed
at the brazen altar, set outside the tabernacle at the time the
tabernacle was erected. Its elements, therefore, are
temporary, but nonetheless specific in their design. God is very
specific about this altar. Now, He's not been specific about
other altars, but we can take from this one. This was how he
directed the others to be built also. We know Abraham offered
Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham offered other burnt offerings. Joseph offered a burnt offering,
but he got back with his brethren. You see, the altar is about worship,
and it's singular in its object. The object of worship is God
alone. The altar was made unto God.
Make an altar unto me, he said. It is God alone that is to be
worshipped because he's worthy, and by himself, he said, it's
not his own requirement to sin. What does God require of me?
A righteousness I can't produce. Faith I cannot produce. He requires
my sin to be put away. I can't put him away. I can't
stop myself from sinning. I'm a sinner, saved by grace. But according to Romans 7, everything
I do is tainted with you. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. When I would do good. We try
to do good. Remember, we do it, evil is with
us. Evil is present with us. He says there, he will record
his name. What does that mean? Remember many years ago, Scott
Richard was preaching. He said, I'd like to preach one
message in my lifetime where I feel like God could come down
and sign his name. God says I'll sign my name to
this. Do it this way. Offer these offers
to me and I'll sign my name to it. When I sign my name to you,
blessings will come your way. He will bless his people. Now
we know that because he's accepted the burnt offering, and we when
we worship God offer the peace offering. Because the burnt offering
is already been offered to God. And we offer the peace offering.
the peace that God has established by Jesus Christ over us. And
he has given all spiritual blessings to his children. That's what
he says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus according as he has chosen
us from the foundation of the world. Now the altar can be made
of earth or stone. He said make the altar of earth. And then he says if you make
it of stone What that said to me, wherever
you were, if it was an earthly place, you'd use earth to make
an altar. If it was a rocky place, you'd
use rocks to make an altar. But he specifies some things
here. He says the altar cannot be made
of earth or stone. If an altar is made of stone,
there is not to be made of fumed stone. Fumed stone. Now this is a direct reference
to the idolatry that's going around. If you know anything
about The altar was made of stone. It was not to be made of hewn
stone. In other words, no two-roomed man was to touch it. That's what
he said. Back in our text, in verse 25,
it said, If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt
not build it of hewn stone. For if thou lift up the tomb
upon it, thou hast polluted it. If you lift a tool up upon it,
you have polluted it. That's pretty specific there.
No tool of man has been used to mow or form it. The worship
of God. What does that mean? The worship
of God has nothing to do with the work and the skill of the
man who worships God. Nothing to do with his feet.
Nothing to do with your works. Nothing to do with your will.
The worship of God has nothing to do with that. The altar is
erected by ideology. This is never the case in the
worship of God. God is to be worshipped alone.
Twice in the Revelation, John the Apostle bowed down to an
angel and the angel said, don't bow down to me, I'm just a man.
Worship God. If you want to worship, God is
to be worshipped. True worship is confession. about the preaching of the gospel,
taking up the Lord's table, baptism, pre-ordination, God's gift to
His church, all of them have to do with the confession that
we have nothing to offer God save what He has ordained to
be offered to Him and what He has provided in the manner in
which He has approved. How is God to be worshipped? We worship God through Jesus
Christ. We worship God in Jesus Christ. We worship God with a
perfect sacrifice. The sacrifice is earned and offered
Accepting and appreciating God. That's how God is worshipped.
There's no worship any other way. No man can come to the Father
but by me. That's how it's done. No other
way. I know a lot of stuff passes
from worship in this day. They've got people that buy clothes,
a bunch of singers, and a bunch of instruments that they put
up in a chamber. and people are entertained and
people think that's worship. No, worshiping God is about God.
It's about you honoring and praising and thanking God. That's what
worshiping is. And it's a confession. When you
do that, when you honor God and thank God and praise God, that
means you can't honor you, you can't thank you, and you can't
praise you. It has to be outward and toward Him. What is He providing? He's providing His Son. Christ
is the altar, Christ is the sacrifice, and he is the God to whom the
offering is made. In him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead Father. Colossians chapter 2 verse 9.
And the altar also was not to have steps. That's what it says. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. Now
the reason given here is that the nakedness will not be uncovered
or discovered. Well, what does that mean? Well,
those big altars built by idolaters, those big altars, people back
then wore robes. Sometimes people that worshipped
wore flimsy garments. What that said to me, you know,
you don't go up on the stairs because people will be down there
looking at you. That's the natural interpretation
of what that means. It means that man is to worship
God. If man is to worship God, he
will not be by an effort of ascending to the presence of God. He ain't
going by steps to get there. Men think that. That's why people
talk about living on a higher plane. Why do they say that? Because they're talking about
somebody that's lower than them. That's the only way they can
get higher. If there's a higher, there must be a lower. Isn't
that right? If there's a high, there must
be a low. God says, there are no steps on my way. You don't
climb up to this place. Not by me, my man's effort to
ascend to the presence of God. If he is not already in the presence
of God and in heavenly places in Christ, as Scripture says,
worship is impossible. If you're not already in Christ,
if you're not already in heavenly places in Christ, you can't worship.
You must be in Him. If you don't ascend to that,
He condescended to you. He condescended to you. This also indicates that worship
is not a progressive thing. Not a step-by-step thing. Where a believer reaches to a
higher plane of spirituality, any such effort will reveal me.
What does that mean? Unclothed. The Lord said, none
shall appear before me naked. Why? Because you may be covered.
That means they are not robed in the righteousness of Christ.
They pollute the altar. They pollute the altar. And her
worship is absolutely specified. Absolutely specified. It is based
entirely on the finished work of the Lamb. The burnt offering
and peace offering. No eunuchs. No staves. Only Christ. That's what this
passage is teaching. Paul said in Galatians, in the
Galatian church, because they were listening to men who were
talking about salvation by grace but y'all also got to do this
kind of stuff. He said you've left the gospel.
Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1 verse 67. He said I marvel. Now he's not
talking to infidels. He was talking to believers.
Church of Galatians. which are the gospel from him. I marvel that you are so soon
removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel. Now notice, the gospel is a persona
back here. It says this, you are removed
from him to another gospel. The gospel is a person. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. But that gospel that you've removed
from him, what was that gospel? That person was also the merit
of righteousness before God by his own works, along with the
righteousness of Christ. I've told you this story many
times, but that time I was in Kentucky preaching, and this
pastor wanted to split the church. We didn't know that, but that
was his desire. He wanted to split the church
so he could take part of the church with him and leave part
of the church behind. Now the way he's going to split
it, he's going to have preachers up there that can preach one
preacher who can preach grace, and one preacher who can preach
the other one. And that way, once the people that believe
in grace will follow this man, and since he was a law keeper,
he believed that people would believe the law that would follow
him in this new church. And there he had a man up there,
a preacher, supposedly a preacher of the gospel. And that man said,
we're on a tightrope. He said, the Christian life is
on a tightrope. He said, you know, people on a tightrope have
this long boat, and it balances them. So there's got to be a
balance. He said, on one end of the pole is the righteousness
of Christ. On the other end of the pole is your righteousness.
If your righteousness I was really angry with myself. She held me forward and was sitting
behind me and I was like, my face got red, my neck got red,
my breathing kind of evil. I really was about to climb a
tree and walk over. She said, you got any gum?
No, she said, you want some gum? No, I said, you got a gun? I'm
Marvel. I'm Marvel. That gospel that you read through
such works you go along with it, that gospel is not another
gospel. It's not really a gospel at all.
But there are some that trouble you and would prefer to have
you pollute the gospel of Christ. How do you pollute the gospel
of Christ? Preaching anything other than Christ? That's a salvation
center. How do you pollute it? I'd like to add a drop of cyanide
to a cup of tea. It's not tea anymore. It's poison. The minute you add your work
to the gospel, you're prohibited. So the Lord said, you're in off.
I'm going to worship you. Burn off, satisfy me. Peace off. Don't make it a huge stone. Don't
have no sense of dignity. Worship me. Worship me as long
as I can.
About Tim James
Tim James currently serves as pastor and teacher of Sequoyah Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Cherokee, North Carolina.
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