Let's open our Bibles. I'm going to go first of all
to the book of Exodus, and we'll go to Exodus chapter 27. Exodus
chapter 27. We've been dealing with the subject
in general of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and I want
to continue that subject this morning as we consider that our
Lord Jesus Christ is our altar. He is our altar. So our subject is the brazen
altar. The brazen altar. Before I go
into the message, let's see God's face again. O great and glorious God, the
God of our salvation, the God of covenant, love, grace,
and mercy. We draw near to you again through
the blood of your dear Son. We ask that as we go into the
message that you will reveal to us the beauties and the wonders
of our Savior. that we may again rejoice in
Him as we behold Him who is the altar of our salvation. We thank you, O God, that He
was indeed wounded for our transgressions and He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was on Him, and with His stripes we are healed. And we look forward
to the day when with perfect voices we shall sing His praise,
and with perfect hearts we will render glory unto His name. Lord, bless all who sit before
me. Oh God, You know how we all need
Your help right now. The speaker and these who hear. And those who are watching. Lord,
we can receive nothing except it be given to us from above.
And so open unto us, O God, the things of Christ. Let us see
Him as our Savior, as our substitute, as our surety, and as that sacrifice
that you provided for your people. And may we go away from this
building in a little bit. rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that one whom to know is life everlasting. In His name and
for His sake, I ask these things. Amen. In the days of Moses, if you
wanted to worship God, if you wanted to draw near to the Lord,
God had given to Moses instruction pertaining to a meeting place
between the Israelites and a holy God. And that was indeed the
tabernacle in the wilderness. It didn't look like much as one
would behold it. There was the tabernacle itself,
covered with badger skin looked very much like the other tents
of the more than a million Israelites gathered around it. But there
was within that tent a marvelous beauty. And of course that tabernacle
speaks to us of our Lord Jesus who outwardly He appeared to
be like any other man. There was nothing special about
Him. In fact, Isaiah says no beauty
about Him, that we would desire Him. But there dwelt in that
man of Galilee God's glory. This is God Himself. The tabernacle pictured Him.
And if you wanted to go to the tabernacle, if you wanted to
worship God, had you lived back then and had you been a member
of the Jewish nation, you'd come to the gate of the tabernacle.
In fact, everybody who would draw near to God had to go by
way of the gate in order to worship God. Didn't matter who you were.
An ordinary Israelite, not of the tribe of Levi, nothing special
about you, but you had to go to the gate of the tabernacle,
as did all the priesthood. And even Aaron, who was the high
priest of Israel, if he would go in to do business with God,
that's the way he had to go. Everybody who would do business
with God had to go in exactly the same way. Do you not see
Christ Jesus as the gate to God? He's the way by which we approach
God. Here we are this morning, a goodly
number of people in this building, and those of you who are watching
by way of the internet, if we would do business with God, if
we would worship God, if we would draw near to God, indeed, throughout
the week, if we would seek to do service for God, If we would
want to ask God for anything, if we would want to thank Him,
if we would want to bless Him, for whatever reason we would
draw near to God, we've all got to come one way. And that one
way, that one gate, is our Lord Jesus Christ. No exceptions.
Doesn't matter who you are. Be the preacher, a deacon, an
elder, a member of the congregation, a visitor, doesn't matter who
you are, doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how
far you've climbed up the ladder of success in life. We all come the same way. If
you're going to come to God, you've got to come to God through
Christ Jesus. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, I'm the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. We all come the same way. You
want to come to God? You need grace? Are you a mercy
beggar? Are you one who needs forgiveness? Are you one who needs righteousness? You've got to come to God the
same way everybody else has come to God through Christ Jesus the
Lord. That must be understood. And if you had lived back in
these days, and you had been a member of the nation of Israel,
and you wanted to thank God, to worship God, to bless God,
to ask God for some particular mercy, you came to the gate of
the tabernacle. And then you'd pull back the
curtain. And there, right position, right
in front of you, was the brazen altar. biggest piece of furniture
in the tabernacle. That's the first thing that met
you. Seven and a half feet long, seven and a half feet wide, four
square, four and a half feet high. The biggest piece of furniture
in the tabernacle, which by the way, in later Solomon's Temple,
that brazen altar was four times as big as this one. So that was
a really big brazen altar in the temple because it wasn't
moved. But this one, you see, has got
to be portable. It's got to be moved. So if you
wanted to do business with God, you wanted to approach God, you've
got to come to God by way of the brazen altar. And everybody
did. And I want you to understand
right from the beginning of this message, that brazen altar is
not the cross of Christ Jesus. It is the Christ Jesus of the
cross. The brazen altar is not the cross. It's Christ crucified. It's our
Lord Jesus who was wounded for us. Who was sacrificed for us. If you want to come to God, you've
got to come to God by way of our Lord Jesus who was wounded
and bruised for our transgressions. We all come the same way. And every day, like those who
are of the priesthood. They're going to minister inside
the tabernacle. They're going to maybe trim the
lamps, or they're going to put oil in the lamps, or they're
going to burn incense, or they're laboring on behalf of other Israelites. Whatever their business was,
every day the priest had to go by the brazen altar. It's the
most obvious thing. It's the biggest thing. It is
indeed the object of full attention. And this must be the doctrine
of Christ and Him crucified, that is, our redemption by the
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. This must always be first and
foremost in our minds and in our hearts. You can't worship
God, you can't serve God, you can't thank God, you can't ask
God for anything except through Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
We've got to understand that this is the most prominent thing
in the tabernacle. This is what every eye beheld.
Only one man could go back into the Holy of Holies, and that's
the high priest, and he only one time during the year. You're
just an average Israelite who lived back then, you'd never
go back there. You're not going back there.
And in the holy place, with a table of showbread, twelve loaves of
bread, and the golden candlestick, and the altar of incense, you're
never going to go in there. That's not for you. Oh, the priesthood
will do business for you in there, but you're not going to go in
there. All that you'll ever behold is when you pull up that curtain,
that gate, and you look at that brazen altar, that's all you'll
ever see. The sacrifice. And this is what
we've got to keep our eyes on. The sacrifice of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It's the very first thing the
ancient worshiper would see. Let me read here just a few verses. Chapter 27. Are you there? Chapter 27 of Exodus. Look at
verse 1. And thou shalt make an altar
of shittum wood. That's acacia wood. This is a
very durable wood. It wouldn't rot. It couldn't
be corrupted. Just lasted a long, long time. It pictures the body of our Lord
Jesus, his earthly nature. Couldn't be corrupted. Five cubits
long, that is seven and a half feet long. Five cubits broad,
seven and a half feet broad. The altar should be four square.
Very stable. Now listen, the only stability
For you, your salvation, your acceptance with God, the only
stability, Christ crucified. You can't stand any other way.
There's no standing before God. You don't want to go before God
upon the basis of your works, or your efforts, or your tears,
or your prayers, or your Bible reading, or your giving, or your
church membership, or your baptism, or your taking of the Lord's
Supper. No, you need to go before God with some confidence of a
foundation before God. And that foundation is our Lord
Jesus and Him crucified, buried and risen again. Risen again
because God accepted the work that he did. So here it is. It's an altar four square. Here's
stability. I like that. Stability. Here's a good foundation. We've all marveled and our hearts
have been broken. As we've seen that toppled building
down in Miami, souls of people going out into
eternity, people have died. Sad, sad sight. And they're talking
about the foundation, the foundation of sand. But let me tell you
something, if you build all of your hopes for salvation, for
acceptance with God upon something you do, you're destined for a
fall. Now that house is not going to
stand. Our Lord Jesus gave that story
in Matthew chapter 7. Wise man, he built his house
on a rock that's firm foundation. That's like a foundation four
square. I build on Christ and Him crucified,
His blood, His righteousness, His faithfulness, His person,
all of Him. I tell you what, you build all
of your hopes for salvation and everlasting life on Christ the
Lord and on Him alone, that's a solid foundation. A wise man
built his house upon the rock. The rains, they fell. God's people have to go through
the storms of life. But you know, even the storms
of life can't destroy a firm foundation. We're built on a
rock. But then there's a foolish man. He wanted a house too, so he
built him a house, but he built it on sand. There's no foundation. There's no rock. There's nothing
that offers any stability. Oh, it looks good. Looks good. Well, let's see if
it'll endure the storms. The storms come. beat upon that
house, the waves and the winds. It falls. Great was the fall
of it. How foolish. Let me ask you a question. Are
you wise or are you foolish? You're foolish if you're building
your hopes upon anything that you have ever done. You're foolish. Won't stand. Won't stand. You see, God says,
it shall be perfect to be accepted. There is but one perfect foundation. There is but one perfect Savior. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alright, read on, verse 2. And thou shalt make the horns
of it upon the four corners thereof. These horns, horns speak of power
and authority. You read of some in the Old Testament,
this is a place of safety. They took hold of the horns of
the altar. Four horns. North, south, east,
and west. The Lord's got a people from
everywhere. From everywhere. And He's the
Lord of the north, the south, the east, and the west also.
He's sovereign everywhere. And these four corners. This
is where these four horns, this is for tying the animals that
were killed. The animals, when they stuck
the knife in them and the blood was being shed and they put it
up on that, they tied the hoofs of that animal to the horns of
the altar as it kicked and thrashed around, struggling to live, struggling
for its last breath. But our Lord Jesus, when He offered
Himself a sacrifice to God, He didn't have to be tied to the
horns of the altar. He went there willingly. He said,
nobody takes my life from me. I have power to lay it down.
I'll lay it down on myself. And I have the power to take
it again. Who can take the life of the
God-man? Nobody. Nobody. Therefore, we
read that when He had finished the work of redemption and reconciliation
and establishing righteousness for His people and putting our
sins away, He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. He died
willingly. You know what held Him to that
cross? Not the nails. Not the nails. It was His desire
to fulfill the Father's will. It was His love for you and me. That's what held Him to that
cross. It says, His horns shall be of the
same and thou shalt overlay it with brass. Can't be destroyed.
Can't be destroyed. The brass pictures His divinity. The wood pictures His humanity. Behold a mystery, God manifest
in the flesh. Look at verse 3, Thou shalt make
His pans. And I like the way it always
uses the word His. The Spirit of God put the word
His in there because this altar is it pictures somebody, our
Lord Jesus. Thou shalt make His pans to receive
His ashes and His shovels and His basins and His flesh hooks
for moving the animal around and His firepans and all the
vessels thereof. Thou shalt make a brass And thou
shalt make for it a grate of network of brass, and upon the
net shalt thou make four brazen rings in the four corners thereof,
and thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath,
that the net may be even to the midst of the altar. And thou
shalt make staves for the altar, staves of shittum wood, and overlay
them with brass. and the stave shall be put into
the rings, and the stave shall be upon the two sides of the
altar to bear it, because this must be portable. And then in
verse 8, hollow with boards shalt thou make it. In other words,
it is hollow in the middle, this altar, it is hollow in the middle
except for the great. It isn't altogether brass, it'd
be too heavy for them to carry. So the Scripture says it is hollow
in the middle, because they've got to transport it. Every time
they broke camp, the Levites would prepare everything here,
and then they'd set on their journey until the pillar of clouds
stopped, and then Moses would indicate, let's stop, we camp
here for a few days. It's got to be portable. Our
Lord Jesus had a body to move about. He's one of us, you see. Psalm
89, the psalmist said of the Lord, Thou hast laid help upon
one who is mighty. Thou hast chosen one of the people. Our Lord Jesus is one of us. He's bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. You understand that? He's a real
man. As real as any man here this
morning. except..." Oh, what an exception. He had
no sin. But that man is more than a man. He's the God-man. The God-man. It says, "...hollow with bored,
shalt thou make it as it was shewed thee in the mouth, so
shall they make it." And then go over to chapter Chapter 29. And let me read you a couple
of verses over here. Chapter 29. And this is what
they did every day. I know that a lot of people believe
that we put too much emphasis on the substitutionary sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that just can't be. You
see, every day at the tabernacle, every single day, if you went
to that tabernacle, here's the very first thing you saw. This
was always the object, the largest object of the tabernacle that
focused, that grabbed your attention and you focused on it. This is
the place of sacrifice. This is the brazen altar. We
can't put too much emphasis on the doctrine of salvation by
a crucified, buried, risen, exalted Savior, can we? Can we emphasize
that too much? Can we preach this subject too
much? Well, here's what the Apostle
Paul said to the Corinthian church. I was determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He
said, that's all I know among you. You want to serve God? You can't serve God apart from
honoring Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You want to ask God
for something? A special petition? You can't
ask God for anything except you come to Him through the bloody
death of our Lord Jesus. This is always the focus of attention
for the people of God. So here in chapter 29, of Exodus verse 36, thou shalt
offer every day a bullock for a sin offering. Chapter 29 of
Exodus verse 36, thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin
offering for atonement. And all of Israel would come
out to watch this. And one of the kids had tugged
on daddy's jacket and said, didn't we do this yesterday? Yeah, we
sure did, and we're going to do it tomorrow too. And we're
going to do it the next day too. And then it says, watch this,
and thou shalt cleanse the altar. Wash or cleanse the altar when
thou hast made an atonement. You've got to make an atonement
for the altar. and thou shalt anoint it to sanctify it. Now
there was no sin in the altar because there's no sin in things. Understand that, right? There's
no sin in things. Take a bottle of whiskey. There's no sin in there. What
is the sin? It's when you partake too much. There's no sin in things. And
there was no sin in this altar. And there was no sin in our Lord
Jesus either. Well, if there was no sin in
this brazen altar, how come it had to be washed or cleansed
every day? Because every day it bore the
sacrifices of Israel, which pictured the necessity of their sins being
washed away. In other words, this thing of
sin was always uppermost there. That's the reason they went there.
That's the reason there had to be a sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus,
in Him was no sin. He did no sin. But our sins were
transferred to Him, or imputed to Him, or reckoned to Him, and
therefore He Himself had to suffer the consequences of sin. He had
to endure the wrath of God. And He did that. He satisfied
God. And the Scripture says He was
justified by the Spirit. And we were justified by His
death as well. And look at verse 37. Seven days
thou shalt make an atonement for the altar and sanctify it.
It shall be an altar most holy. Whatsoever toucheth the altar
shall be holy." That's very important. Whatever touched that altar was
holy. Our Lord Jesus is this altar. If I touch Him, you know what
that means? I'm holy. That's the only way
you can be holy. You've got to get to Him. He
is the Lord, our righteousness. He is our holiness. 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. Who of God, Christ of God, has
made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, that's holiness,
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. We come to Him. He is our holiness. You understand that? And when
we touch Him, when we come in contact with the Savior, we receive
of His holiness. We're holy too. We're holy in
the Savior. Isn't that amazing? We're holy. Whatever touches the altar shall
be holy. We sometimes sing that chorus,
reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You touch Him,
you touch the altar, you touch Christ Jesus, you're holy. You're holy. So you can't be
holy any other way. You say, preacher, how holy has
a man got to be before God will accept him? As holy as God. Or how can that be? Reach out
and touch Him. Lay hold of Him. You're
holy. Whatever touches the altar, made
holy. And that means our worship. Our
worship to God, of God. Through Christ Jesus, He makes
it holy. and all of our gifts. Everything
we do for God that goes through Jesus Christ, our crucified,
buried, risen Savior, everything is made holy through Him and
fit for God. Isn't that something? Fit for
God. Here we are gathered together
this morning, just a body of sinners. That's all we are. We're
lawbreakers before God, but we look to Christ crucified. He's the satisfaction of God's
justice. Justice demanded death. Christ
died for us. He died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. And in Him, we're made holy. There are no degrees of holiness. You're either holy or you're
not. And I'm telling you, by the grace
of God and by the work of the Spirit, you're looking at a holy
man. That's hard to believe, preacher. Well, yeah, it is, isn't it?
Unless you understand the gospel of redeeming grace. And you're
holy. You're holy. And you're worshiped. is made acceptable to God through
this one who is the brazen altar. Well, read on. So whatsoever
toucheth the altar shall be holy. You grab hold of that. You take
that home with you. That's a rich morsel right there,
I'm telling you. We've gone into the mine of God's
grace and we've mined another golden nugget there. Whatever
touches the altar shall be holy. Yeholy. Read on, verse 38. Now this is that which thou shalt
offer upon the altar. Two lambs of the first year,
day by day continually. And then he goes on to describe
this and go into detail, one in the morning and one at night.
Verse 39, the one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning on that
brazen altar now, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at evening.
and with one lamb a tenth deal of a flower mingled with a fourth
part of an hen a beet and oil, and the fourth part of an hen
of wine for a drink offering. The other lamb thou shalt offer
at evening, thou shalt do thereto according to the meat offering
of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof,
for a sweet savor and offering made by fire unto the Lord."
In other words, here's what the Lord tells Moses to tell these
people. That offering unto God It is
to him a sweet savor. It smells good to God. It's pleasing
to the Lord. And you read in Ephesians chapter
5 and verse 2, our Lord Jesus and His sacrifice to God, it
was a sacrifice for a sweet smelling savor. There's nothing so delightful
to God as the sacrifice of His dear Son. Have you come to God
by means of that sacrifice? All is well. But you dare try
to come some other way? Oh, how you're disgracing the
work of Christ Jesus. That's an awful thing. An awful
thing. God won't deal kindly with you. He will not. He will not. Verse 42. This shall be a continual
burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, where I will
meet you to speak there unto you." That's where I'm going
to meet you, God says. I'm going to meet you at Christ
crucified. That's where I'm going to meet
you. I'm not going to meet you anywhere else. He says, verse 43, and there
I will meet with the children of Israel. The tabernacle shall
be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the tabernacle
of the congregation and the altar. I will sanctify also both Aaron
and his sons to minister to me in the priest's office. And he
says in verse 45, and I will dwell among the children of Israel. I'll be their God. You come to
God the right way. He said, I'll dwell with you.
I'm going to stay with you. And you may not have an easy
life. You're going to have trials anyhow,
tribulations and troubles. I wrote an article about that
in the bulletin this morning. But God says, I'll dwell with
you. I'll dwell with you. David said,
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil. Why not, David? For thou art
with me. That's all the difference in
the world. Thou art with me. Now, I've got one more passage
I want you to turn with me. And that's back to the book of
Hebrews, to that passage that Ron read to us. The book of Hebrews, go to the
very last chapter, Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 10. Hebrews 13 verse 10. We have
an altar, that's what he says. We have an altar where they have
no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. That is, those who
want to go back to legal dispensation of rules and laws and ceremonial
actions, those who want to go back to that, they have no right
to this. But we have an altar, and the
altar is Christ Jesus himself. And let me give you three things
to close this message. And it's going to be so simple
even the children in here this morning can understand this.
And if the children can understand, maybe you adults will get it
too. Okay? Here we go. Three things. Three
things were necessary when you came to God. Number one, have
somebody Number two, you have to have something, something,
somebody, something. Third thing, somewhere. That's
very simple. And here we go. What's the somebody? You've got to have somebody to
act on your behalf. You've got to have a priest. That's Christ the Lord. See,
an Israelite, when he came to the gate of the tabernacle and
pulled up that curtain, and there's that big brazen altar, do you
think he can go up there and work there and labor? Oh, no,
no, no, no, no. He's got to have somebody acting
on his behalf, his mediator. That's Christ the Lord. You got
that? That's somebody to act on your
behalf. You got to have Christ the Lord.
Here's the second thing, and it's something by which to draw
near to God. You've got to have a sacrifice.
You've got to have a sacrifice. Well, our Lord Jesus is not only
the somebody who acts for us, you know what? He is the sacrifice. Look with me back in chapter
8 of Hebrews. Look at chapter 8 verse 3. Just
real quick. Chapter 8 verse 3. For every
high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, and he
said, for it is necessary that this man, Christ Jesus, have
somewhat also to offer. He's got to offer something himself. Well, what did he offer to God?
Himself. That's the sacrifice. Himself. We've got to have somebody. That's
our Lord Jesus. We've got to have something.
He's got to have something by which to draw near to God. That's
the sacrifice. And we've got to have something
by which to draw near to God. That's the sacrifice of Christ
Jesus. Here's the third thing. We've
got to have somewhere to meet God. I have somewhere to meet
God. Where is that? The altar. The altar. You say, how is Christ
the altar? Well, He offered His own humanity
on the altar of His deity. He offered His humanity on the
altar of His deity. Gotta have somebody. You gotta
have something. Gotta have somewhere. And you
can remember that, can't you? You can remember that. Somebody,
something, and somewhere. And the answer to all of them
is Christ the Lord. Christ crucified. Christ our
Savior. Oh God, give us an understanding
of the brazen altar. Christ the sacrifice for sin. Let's bow together. Father, make
these things understandable to us. Give to us the gift of spiritual
life. And give to us the gift of faith
to lay hold of the horns of the altar. Oh God, we're in trouble. Where can we find help? We run
to the altar. We grab hold of that one who
has all power in heaven and in earth. Our Savior. Oh, He's the mediator. And He's the sacrifice. And He's
the altar. In other words, He's all we need. when we rejoice in Him and give
thanks, O God, for Him. So bless us with the faith to
believe the glorious gospel of Your free grace. For Jesus' sake
I pray, Amen.