Now back to Exodus 25. That passage that Art read, by
the way, I think I preached a message on that one time called The Holy
Seed and the Leafless Tree. And it was about the subject
we were talking about this morning. So if you get a chance to go
listen to it. I don't remember the message. I do remember that
about three quarters of the way through I totally abandoned my
notes. I remember that. But anyway. Alright. Exodus 25. And I want to preach
to you with the utmost simplicity. You know there's on the New Word
program after you've written a document and you can hit check
document and it'll go through and spelling check and check
your grammar and all that. And when you get done, it'll
tell you what the Kincaid reading level is. So when I send my sermon
notes out, almost every time the Kincaid reading level is
seventh grade. And that's way too high. I'm
trying to get it down to about a third or fourth grade reading
level. Because I want it to be simple. I want it to be that
simple. And that's one reason God gave
the tabernacle. It was so that you would have
these simple pictures. These simple pictures that are
easy to see and they're simple and we can understand it. You
know what a table looks like. You know what bread looks like.
And so we have these simple pictures here to show us Christ. That's the purpose. That's the
purpose of all the scriptures. The Lord said Moses wrote of
me. and everything in this tabernacle
is written of him. Now, as the priest came into
the first room of the tabernacle, the tabernacle's, you know, got
the sheets up all the way around, and you enter a veil, and it's
open, and there's just that first court that you enter into, and
then you pass through that court, and you enter into the holy place. And when you enter into the holy
place, the first room you entered into When you enter, you're looking
and there's curtains hanging and that makes up the holiest
of holies. And against that curtain right here, at the very front
right there, the first thing you would see would be the golden
altar of incense, burning incense. And then to your left, you're
going to see the golden candlestick burning. And then to your right
is going to be the golden table of showbread. And that's what
we're talking about today, this golden table of showbread. Now, the Lord gave these exact
measurements of it here. We don't know the exact measurement
of a cubit now. A cubit was from your elbow to
the tip of your ring finger, was a cubit. Roughly 18 inches,
so that means this table would have been around 13 feet long,
I mean 3 feet long, 18 inches wide, and about two and a half
inches high, is about how big this table would have been. I
mean, two and a half feet high. So, it's just a little golden
table. And he says, tells all about
it there with the crown of border around it so the bread wouldn't
fall off the table. But the point down here at the
bottom, verse 30, Thou shalt set upon the table showbread
before me always. That was the important thing.
This bread was before God always. Now go to Leviticus 24 and I
want to show you something about the bread. Leviticus 24 verse
5. He says, Leviticus 24 verse 5,
Thou shalt take fine flour and bake twelve cakes thereof. Twelve cakes. two-tenths deal
shall be in one cake. I think that means each cake
weighed about four pounds. These were sizable cakes. It
was a lot of flour. And thou shalt set them in two
rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. and thou shalt put pure frankincense
upon each row. Now this was not, this frankincense
wasn't part of the meal and part of the bread, it was just on
top of it. And it said that it may be on
the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire unto the
Lord. Every Sabbath he shall set it
in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children
of Israel by an everlasting covenant." He took this bread from them
and this flour. And it shall be Aaron's and his
sons. They were the priests. Every
week after the bread had set there, they took it off, they
put fresh bread on. Aaron and his sons got that bread.
That was the holy bread. And it said, ìThey shall eat
it in the holy place, for itís most holy unto him of the offerings
of the Lord made by fire by perpetual statute.î So today I want to
show you Christ in the table of showbread. This golden table
and this bread upon it typified the Lord Jesus Christ who is
life. Heís life. Heís life. Heís before God our Father. and
he's the one in whom we live and are accepted. The Lord Jesus
Christ. It's like you have to have bread
to live. Christ is the bread we have to
have to live eternally. Now first, this table is a type
of the Lord Jesus. We see it's called the table
of showbread. It could be called the table
of the bread of presence because this bread was ever present before
God. He was present. You remember
He said last week, I'll meet with you above the mercy seat.
He was in the holiest of holies. This bread was right there in
front of Him always, before Him, before His presence. So when
it says table of showbread, it was to show Him. It was before
His presence. Now, before this world was made,
brethren, God chose, by free and sovereign grace in Christ,
a people who God would save. chose His people in Christ. I
say that to you every time, but the reason I want to be simple
is this, and I love it when folks come who maybe I've never preached
to or they've not heard the gospel preached. I love it because it
makes me go back and be simple. And that's what I want to do.
And so I want you to look now at Ephesians 1, very familiar,
but I want you to see it. Verses 3 and 4, talking to believers
here. been called by God's grace, He
tells us why we've been called. He says, Ephesians 1, 3, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings. That means there's not one left
out that He didn't bless us with. Where? In heavenly places. That means before the world was.
In Christ. in Christ, according as He had
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. You know why I would
pay close attention to this? You know why it would strike
me that this is the true God? Out of all the gods men have
made up, this is the true God, and here's why. The history of
this book is exactly according to world history. There's only
two people in the world, Jew and Gentile, make up the entire
world. And everything, you know, right
now, the problem between the Muslims not liking the Jews or
the Christians, you know what that's about? Because Isaac and
Ishmael, these two sons of Abraham, And God said, Isaac is my chosen
son. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And Ishmael has to be cast out. Ishmael was the work of Abraham's
hand. He pictured salvation by works. Both of them were Abraham's
sons, but he cast Ishmael out. And Isaac was the son through
whom the Jews were formed. And Christ came. Ishmael was
the father of the Muslims. That's why they hate each other.
This book is exactly according to history. And we're reading
here, God chose a people to save before the world was made. And
He chose them in Christ and He blessed them with all spiritual
blessings. And so everything God's been doing in time, He's
been doing for the sake of His Son, for the sake of this elect
people, to save this people by His Son. everything. And therefore
the Lord Jesus Christ, because He chose His people in Christ,
the Lord's always been ever present before God our Father. That's
the picture here. This showbread was ever present
before God always. Christ has always been ever present
before God the Father. Go to Proverbs chapter 8 and
I'll show you this. And let me tell you this, I know
people I've heard this argument. People say, well, he's just picking
and choosing scriptures and all this. Well, sit here a while. Sit here a while. Give it some
time. And you'll see. I'll pick and choose enough scriptures.
Before long, I'll have read all of them to you. And you'll see,
this is what the whole book says. He's not just picking and choosing
to support his point. This is what the whole book says.
And I'm just trying to, I can't read the whole book to you, so
I have to pick out something to show you, but I'm showing
you here. Look, Christ here has presented His wisdom, and He
says here in verse 23, He says, I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, wherever the earth was. Look down at verse
30. He says, Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and
I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing
in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with
the sons of men. Christ has always been before
the Father. He's always been the mediator.
Scripture tells us He's the one who created the world. He did
it. God the Father gave His people
to Him, trusted His Son to redeem them, and gave the work to Him.
And Christ made everything that's made. Colossians 1 says, Of Him,
and through Him, and to Him, by Him are all things made that
are made. They are made for Him, by Him and for Him. He made it
all. He was the voice walking in the
garden, speaking to Adam. He's always been the mediator,
one mediator between God and man. He was the one talking to
Moses on the mountain who gave Moses the law. He was the one
in the burning bush. He's always been before God representing
His people and working amongst His people. And we saw this before
about this shidom wood covered in gold, but let me tell you
something. You read this and God put it
in there again that this tabernacle, I mean this table, just like
the ark was made of shidom wood, poured over with gold, so were
the staves. And we already read that, didn't
we? We read that in about the ark. Now he says it again about
the table. And our natural thought is, well
we'll just skip over that since we've already covered it. It
wouldn't be there twice if it wasn't twice important. It wouldn't
be there two times if it wasn't really important for us to look
at it. And I guarantee you, what I said last week about the Shittum
wood and the pure gold, we done forgot it this week. We need
to be told it again anyway, don't we? This pure Shittum wood was
imperishable wood. It was covered in pure gold.
It typifies the Lord's two natures as the God-man mediator. Now, I am trying to be simple
today. God made Adam the head of the
whole human race and He made Christ the head of His elect
people. There are two heads. There is
Adam and there is Christ. All men are one day going to
stand before God and we are either going to stand in Adam or we
are going to stand in Christ. One of the two. Adam was the
head and he was representative of everybody who would be born
of him. Christ represents everybody who
shall be born of Him. That's who they represented.
Adam made one transgression in the garden. God said there's
one tree here you can't eat of. He ate of it. And eating the
fruit wasn't that big a deal. The big deal was he sinned against
God. God told him not to do it. And he did it anyway. And so,
he died. Spiritually, he was guilty. He
died. He lost communion with God. So
when he had children, his nature is corrupt now. When he had children,
they were corrupt. And so on and so on right down
to you and me. So we come forth guilty before
the law of God and we have an unholy nature, a sin nature. So we come forth literally with
two strikes against us. We are guilty and unholy, unrighteous
and unholy. Now listen to Romans 5.12, and
I can't have you turn to all these scriptures, we'll be here
till this afternoon, but write these down and look them up,
or see me and I'll send you my sermon notes. Alright? Romans
5.12 says, Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world,
and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sin. So we all became sinners in Adam.
In Adam. Christ is the head of all that
people God chose. And He always was ever present
before God. God always looked to Christ.
He never looked to His people. He's always looked to Christ.
He's been the showbread, ever present before God. And Christ
came forth into this world to represent those elect people
God gave Him before this world was made. And so the Son of God
took a body like His people. He's God, He's Spirit, He takes
a body of flesh. He had to be holy, that's the
whole purpose of Him being born of a virgin. Because you and
I were born from our Father, which means we're corrupt. He
wasn't born from Joseph, so a body was formed in Mary of the Holy
Spirit, and He assumed that body, so that He comes forth holy and
without sin, so He can represent His people. That's why that was
necessary. He had to be holy to represent
his people. So he walks before God holy,
holy, without sin. And that's what's pictured here
by this shidum wood covered in gold. He's a man who's God. A pure, holy, spotless man who's
God. Everything he's doing as a man,
he's doing for his people. And because he's God, it's eternal.
So, though he went to the cross and was made sin for his people,
just like this shit of wood was imperishable wood, though he
was made sin for his people, he was never corrupted. He never
became a sinner, a rebel, lost, dead in sin. He never was corrupted. And though he was buried, he
saw no corruption. He came out of the grave because
sin couldn't hold him. He put sin away by the sacrifice
of himself and because he's eternal God, everything he accomplished
for his people is eternal. So, he comes out of the grave. He was before the Father as the
showbread, ever-present, before the world was made. He all through
Old Testament Scriptures He's before the Father. The Father's
beholding Him as He created the world, as He's been calling out
His people and saving His people. Then Christ came forth into the
earth incarnate so we can behold Him as a man. And He worked out
a salvation for His people, a righteousness so that we're holy and righteous
before God. And then He was buried and He
rose again. And now He's ever-present before
God at God's right hand. The Scripture says here this
table had a crown of pure gold around it. And that speaks of
Christ's exaltation. Our Lord Jesus Christ was raised
and it's not like He's wearing a literal crown. The point is
He's crowned with all power over all. Now as God, He had that
power over all. But now He has it as the God-man. He has it as God and man in one
person. And so seated at God's right
hand, there's a man who's Lord and Christ, who has all power
over all, supreme power in heaven, earth and hell. He controls,
he's the Lord of hosts. That means everything he's ever
created is his and he's controlling it. The weather, everything,
the climate, everything is being controlled by him. You're not
going to save the climate and I'm not either. You can't save
yourself, much less God's creation. God's in control of the climate
and He's controlling it, He's controlling His people, He's
controlling kings, He's controlling everybody in the world. We don't
get upset, fuss and argue and carry on and protest when some
president gets elected that we don't care for because Christ
put him there and he can't wiggle a toe except for the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords lets him wiggle a toe. And whatever
he's doing, if it's bad and you don't like it and you think it's
going to go to hell in a handbasket, just know this, Christ made the
handbasket and he made hell too and he's controlling the whole
thing. and it's going to work out right. We don't have to worry
about it. Same is true for our preacher. I tell folks all the time, you
have a preacher and folks will get out of shape over something
he's done. Well, do you believe God's sovereign? Do you believe
God's controlling him? Just like he is you? Wait on
the Lord. Pray for him. The Lord will correct
him and He'll bless you and him through it and bring more blessing
to you through his error than he would have if he hadn't committed
the error. I'm telling you, I'm just saying Christ is King and
He's working everything and He's doing it right and so He sends
the gospel to every single person He redeemed. Now, what He did
on earth, what He did on the cross when He said it's finished,
that was before the law of God making us righteous. And He's
our sanctification in that He is the holiness God looks to.
He's the righteousness and holiness God looks to and says, there,
I accept my people, they're perfect. But because you and I are sinners,
the only way without faith it's impossible to please God, we're
going to have to be brought to believe God. We've got to eat this bread. If you don't eat the bread, you're
going to die. So we have to eat the bread. But the problem is,
we don't like the bread. We'll eat anything else but not
the bread. because we don't like Christ. We don't want to eat
Christ and believe on Christ and rest in Him alone. So He
has to give us a new heart and a hunger to want to eat Christ
the bread. And I'm saying believe on Him.
That's what I'm saying. That's what is pictured in Scripture.
So He comes to you and He makes you to be born again. He makes
you to be born of incorruptible seed so that you can believe on Him.
Go to 1 Peter 1.23. I'll show you this. First Peter 1.23. Let me get
there because I want to show you. Look
there. Look back in verse 18. You know you were not redeemed
with corruptible things of silver and gold from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers, but were with the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,
who verily was ordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times for you. Now, to be redeemed
means he bought us out from the curse of the law by being made
a curse in our room instead and paying the debt we owe to the
law. So He redeemed us out from that. Now watch this. Who by
Him do believe in God. It's by Him that we believe in
God. God raised Him up from the dead, gave Him glory, gave Him
all power that your faith and hope might be in God. And here's
how you've purified your souls in obeying the truth through
the Holy Spirit. He sent the Holy Spirit. and
gave you unfeigned love of the brethren. He says, see you love
one another with a pure heart fervently. And here's how Christ
did it. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, that's how
He was born of our father Adam. So we had a sin nature. But of
incorruptible by the word of God. That's the incorruptible
seed. The word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Look at
verse 25 at the end. This is the word which by the
gospel is preached to you. But what I'm doing right now,
if you're here, I would give this some serious consideration
because Christ brought you here. And it's through this preaching
that He's going to cause this Word to give you life within,
if you're His. And you'll begin to find yourself
believing what you're hearing. You'll start seeing everything
the preacher's showing you in Scriptures right there, in black
and white, but whereas before you couldn't believe it, Now
you'll start believing it. What's happened? He's made you
to be born of this incorruptible seed through the preaching of
the gospel. There's life in you that wasn't there. There's a
new nature in you that wasn't there. The Spirit of God has
entered in. Christ has entered in. He's made a holy man within
you so now that you can behold Christ Jesus, He's all in all.
Now this is all... Go to Galatians 4 and verse 4
and I'll show you this is all summed up right here. Everything
I just told you. We'll see it all together. Galatians
4.4, he says, When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. That is, that we might be born
again and given faith in Christ and brought into the family of
God. And because you are sons, our faith didn't make us sons,
because you are sons, even when you were dead in sins, God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, and that
made us cry, Abba, Father. Wherefore you're no more a servant,
but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ
Jesus. So that's everything I just showed
you. Now go to Romans 5, and this
really sums it up. Romans 5 and verse 17. This begins
with Adam, goes all the way to Christ, right here, just a few
verses. It says everything I just said to you. Romans 5.17 says,
If by one man's offense death reigned by one, that means by
Adam, much more they which receive or are given abundance of grace
and of the gift freely given of righteousness, they shall
reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men, and that's all men who Adam
represented, to condemnation, even so by the righteousness
of one the free gift came upon all, all men who Christ represented
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, You didn't have to do anything for Adam
to make you a sinner. He did it. He succeeded. Well,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. You don't
have to do anything to be made righteous. Christ did it for
his people. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might
have managed, you might see you are a sinner. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. So, Christ Jesus is the bread. He's the bread pictured on this
table, or He's the one pictured on this table who is God and
man, the shed of wood covered in pure gold, ever present before
God. Now, in our text, secondly, the
bread, in the bread, we behold the bread of life. That's what
bread represents, is life. He's the table, He's the pure
table, and He's the bread of life. He says, Thou shalt set
upon the table showbread before me always. Well preacher, you
are going to have to convince me now. Show me, I want to see
in scripture that Christ is the bread. Go to John 6, John chapter
6. And look here with me. John chapter
6. He just got through feeding that
multitude, the fish and the loaves, picturing Him feeding His people.
He had all these people following Him because they just wanted
more miracles to be worked. And Christ told them this. Here
was His point. Verse 35, Jesus said unto them,
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Look at
verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. Look at verse 44. No man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him, and
I will raise him up at the last day. It's written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, by the Father,
cometh unto me. Verse 47. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. The table upon which was to show
bread, the bread of presence, it stood in the holy place in
the tabernacle before the presence of the Lord God Himself continually. Christ has always been before
God. He's fit for God. God receives Him. God's pleased
with Him. God's accepted with Him. He's
honored God's law that we broke. He's purged the sins of His people
so that Holy God can receive us. He's made a robe of righteousness
to be placed upon us so that we can be received of God and
be regarded by the law as having totally fulfilled the law. He's
done everything God sent Him to do. Now, look here in Leviticus 24,
go back there in verse 5, and we learn about the cakes. And
this is all about Christ now. If you want to be accepted, I'm
telling you this, believe on Christ. He delights in His Son. That's the only way He's going
to receive you and me. And one of these days, when He
calls the last one and we all stand before God, it's going
to be too late then. You know, our Lord talked about
the ground where the seed is sown and just immediately the
fowl and the birds come and they take the seed away. And that
word sown, that seed is the word He said. And He said those fowls
come and take it away. I was talking to Will just last
night. I said, you know, you come in
here, we hear this gospel preached, If we go out of here and just
immediately we take off with our friends and go do something,
whatever, immediately the word, the seed is just taken away.
And we get nothing from it because it's gone. It's just taken away.
And if we just do that every day of our life, And I can promise
you this, whatever right now appeals to you as a young person
that makes you want to go do it and it's exciting and it gets
your mind off everything, whatever that is right now that's fun
to do, it's just going to get more and more and more and more
tempting the older you get. And if we just every time go
and do and the word just takes off and leaves us, we'll never,
it'll never take root. He said seek the Lord. That means
diligently seek Him. That means take this Word and
go try to learn about Him. Look into the Word and see if
these things are so. Read the sermon notes that are
sent to you. I'll send those sermons. Most
of you all get the sermon notes. I'll send them to you every time
if you want them. And try to put them in a readable format
so you can read them. read them and study them and
I put the scriptures in them so you can look them up and see
it, but apply yourself. Because the only way we are going
to be accepted of God is believing on Christ. I want you to eat
the bread. Now look here now, we are told
here in Leviticus 24.5, Thou shalt take fine flour and bake
twelve cakes Two-tenths deals shall be in one cake, that is
in each cake, and thou shalt set them in two rows, six on
a row upon the pure table before the Lord. There were twelve cakes. You know why? Because there were
twelve tribes of Israel. That tells us each person in
Israel was represented by these twelve cakes. None outside of
Israel was represented. Now don't miss that. Only the twelve tribes of Israel
were represented by these twelve cakes. There was a lot of other
nations, they weren't just these twelve cakes for those twelve
tribes. But all within Israel were represented. The Lord Jesus Christ represented
all God's elect. He did not represent anybody
but God's elect. Those God chose freely by grace,
but He did represent all God's elect. He represented all of
them. And He shall give life to all
His elect. But preacher, now you said the
bread typified Christ. Now you're telling me this bread
typifies God's elect. That's right. It's because Christ
and His elect are one bread. We're one. We're one and you
and I, all his elect who are called to believe, we partake
of that one bread of Christ. He's our life. We have no other.
We're looking to nobody else but Christ our life. He said
there was two-tenth deals of flour in each cake. That's two
omers. That's around four pounds of
flour that was used to make these cakes. So, that's twice as much
You know, in the wilderness, when the manna came down, the
bread from heaven came down, they each went out and gathered
two almonds a day. So, this bread and each cake
had twice as much as they had in the wilderness. Twice as much. Christ only redeemed His elect,
but for His elect, He is full of abundant grace. Are you the chief of sinners?
Are you at a place where you say, I am so sinful and so wretched? Well, let me tell you, in Christ
is abundant grace to cover all the sins of all His people and
not any are going to be lost. We just read where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. Now, here's the question, sinner,
are you hungry? for Christ? Are you hungry for
righteousness? Are you hungry for acceptance
with God? By nature we are not. That is the problem. God has
to give us new life and faith because without that we just
don't see ourselves as sinful. We don't see ourselves as having
a need and so we don't hunger for Christ. We don't hunger for
righteousness. Now let me tell you something
to you who who are seeing and believing and trusting and yet
you've not professed faith in Christ yet. Listen to me carefully. To think that I have to get a
certain level of knowledge before I confess Christ is really just
self-righteousness. Listen, I've been believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ since sometime in the mid-eighties and I just
barely know anything at all about Him. Just barely. There is a
lot more about Him that I don't know. People will say, well,
there are certain things in the book I don't understand. There
is a whole lot in the book I don't understand. There is a lot more
in the book I don't understand than I do understand. Don't think
you have to get to a certain level of knowledge to be saved. and confess Christ and follow
Him. That's not it. If you were hungry and somebody
set bread before you, would you say, well, I'm just not going
to eat the bread until I know exactly how it was made? I'm
not going to eat the bread because I don't feel like yet I know,
I don't really know the people who prepared it that well and
I don't know what all ingredients they made it and I don't know
what kind of bowl they used and flour and you know, I just don't
know everything about how it was made. You ain't got to be
a chef to eat. Just eat the bread and if you're
hungry, you'll eat the bread. And that's the thing, you don't
have to know everything about Christ. He said, come to Me. I'll teach you. I'll teach you.
And we're going to be in eternity in heaven with Christ and Him
teaching us. That's how big our God is and
how great our God is. It will be eternity of us learning
about Him. It's just that much to know.
So don't think there's, you know, you have to come to a, I have
on occasion, I think maybe one time, maybe twice, turned somebody
down and asked me to baptize them. And I did it because they
were talking about knowledge and they weren't talking about
Christ. I wasn't trying to set a bar for you. I'm not trying
to say you have to get a certain level of knowledge. That's not
it at all. I was saying to you, don't come
talking about thinking you have to have a certain level of knowledge.
Come telling me about what you think of Christ. He's the Savior. And if you trust Him and you
believe on Him, you don't have to have a PhD in theology to
cast your care on Christ. That woman came with the issue
of blood. All she knew is if I can just
touch his garment, he'll make me a whole. And she just reached
out and touched him. We're told here that there was
pure frankincense, verse 7, pure frankincense for a memorial,
an offering made by fire unto the Lord that was on all these
loaves. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord
continually, taken from the children of Israel, by an everlasting
covenant, and it shall be Aaron's and his sons, the priests, they
shall eat it in the holy place. It's most holy unto him of the
offerings of the Lord made by fire by perpetual statute." He
said this is most holy to him. Now let's put all that together
and we see a picture of every believer before God in Christ. Here it is. The frankincense
was burned, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a memorial.
Christ is the constant sweet saver. He is the memorial before
God so that God accepts all who believe on Him. And this was
done in the Sabbath before the Lord continually. Christ is our
Sabbath. Not a day. Christ is our Sabbath. We rest in Him before the Lord
continually. This was taken, the flower was
taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant or
for an everlasting covenant. It was an offering taken from
the children. We willingly believe on Christ
the bread like as they willingly brought this flower. God gave
it to them. And they gave it back to God.
God gives us Christ, we give Christ back to God. That's the
only offering we come with. And in Christ, God's made with
us an everlasting covenant. Ordered in all things and sure.
That means Christ fulfilled everything. And that's all our salvation.
We trust Him to have fulfilled everything. Now look, it was
Aaron's and his sons. It was the priests. and they
ate it in the holy place, and it says here, it was most holy
unto them of the offerings of the Lord made by fire perpetually. Go to 1 Peter 2, we'll end with
this, and this sums it all up. Here you have these priests,
they're in a man-made tabernacle, and they're offering up these
physical, literal sacrifices of bread. Now, when Christ has
brought you to faith, Here is what you are. Look here. Verse
5. You also, 1 Peter 2.5, you also
as living stones are built up a spiritual house. You are the
temple of God. You are the tabernacle of God.
And it says, a holy priesthood. We're the tabernacle and we're
the priesthood. Christ has made us priests to
God so that we can partake of Christ our bread. And look, He
made us priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices. We didn't see anybody
this morning bringing in fine flour or a lamb or any of those
offerings, those physical offerings. Today we came in here and we've
made some offerings. We sang to the Lord. We sang
His praises. We've worshipped Him right here
in His Word, in His Gospel. We've prayed. We've offered our
prayers up to Him. These are all the spiritual sacrifices. And then when we do labors of
love and works of faith for one another, for His people, for
the cause of Christ, for the furtherance of the Gospel, those
are all considered spiritual sacrifices, just like that fine
flower was a sacrifice. And all of this is acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. Just like that frankincense went
up and God smelled a sweet smell and said, I accept Him. God smells Christ and He accepts
us. And that's what this whole thing
is about. He's the bread and just as this
bread never grew stale, It was always continually before the
Lord, always there for the priests to eat. Christ never grows old
to a believer. God keeps Him ever fresh. He
keeps His Gospel ever fresh because Christ is before God and He is
before us. And it's Christ who we both feed
upon, who God delights in and says, this is life, and who we
delight in and say, He's our life. And we have to have Christ
to bread for life. And I pray He'll make you hungry
and make you eat Christ. He said, he that eats my flesh
and drinks my blood, believing on me, that's what he means,
he'll live forever. You won't ever hunger for righteousness,
holiness, redemption, wisdom, nothing you need. You won't thirst
or hunger for it ever again. I pray God will bless that.