All right, Exodus 27. We've got
the instructions for the brazen altar is what we're going to
look at this morning. And thou shalt make an altar of Shittim
wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall
be four squared, and the height thereof shall be three cubits.
And thou shalt make the horns of it upon four corners thereof. His horns shall be of the same.
And thou shalt overlay it with grass, and thou shalt make his
pans to receive his ashes. and his basins, and his flesh
hooks, and his firepans, all the vessels thereof, thou shalt
make of brass, and thou shalt make for it a great 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 in the midst of the altar. And thou shalt make stays for
the altar, stays of shittum wood, and overlay them with brass,
And the staves shall be put into the ram's, and the staves shall
be upon the two sides of the altar to bear it, hollow with
boards. Thou shalt thou make it, as it
was shewed thee in the mount, so shalt thou make it." Now the
brazen altar, when you first, as soon as you come in the gate
of the fence, we looked out a couple weeks ago, first thing that you
would see is the brazen altar. The Brazen Altar is the largest
piece of furniture in the Tabernacle. It was square, all the four sides
of it were seven and a half feet. It was a large altar, four and
a half feet high. And it was made of incorruptible
wood covered with brass. And we've seen this over and
over and over again in our study of the Tabernacle. That wood
and the brass, there's two different elements put together. Our picture
of Christ, the God-man. It was made of incorruptible
wood, and that incorruptible wood is a picture of the sinless
humanity of Christ, the perfect man. You know, Christ didn't
die for sins of his own. He had no sins. So if he's going
to die, he had to lay down his life, because he had no sins
of his own. He died for the sins of someone else, the sins of
God's people, imputed to him. And even in death, our Lord's
body doesn't decay. When we die, our body starts
to decay right away. The body of our Lord didn't,
because He had no sin. And the sin that was laid on
Him was gone, under His blood. So His body never decayed, just
like this wood that made the altar. It was incorruptible.
It would never decay. And in that wood was covered
with grass. And grass, we've seen it in the
post of the fence, is known for strength. Now look in Psalm 89. And brass is known for its strength,
and that brass is a picture of Christ who's mighty to save. In Psalm 89, verse 19, do I have a volunteer? I have laid help upon one who's
mighty." Salvation is a great work. God didn't send a boy to
do a man's job. He sent one who's mighty to save. And that's what this brass is
a picture of. That brass will stand up to the
fire that's always burning in this There's always fire burning
in there. They had so many sacrifices to
offer, they just kept fire burning in here constantly. The fire
consumed the sacrifice, but it never affected the grass. It
didn't consume the grass. If Christ is going to bear the
fire of God's wrath against the sins of his people, he's got
to be the God-man. He's got to be a man so he can
be our sacrifice. He's got to be a man so he can
die, but he's got to be God. So that sacrifice can save, and
that's what the brass is a picture of. They wouldn't have a very
good altar if this altar was only made of wood, would it?
If they didn't cover the wood with the brass, this would have
been a very poor altar, because they would have put fire in it
to consume the sacrifice. It would have consumed the sacrifice,
but it would have burned up the altar, too. So if it's just made
of wood, that's not a very good altar. It's got to be covered
with brass. And that's why Christ, the Savior,
must be the God-man. God's justice would have destroyed
the humanity of Christ if he were a mere man, if he was just
a man. But the Savior, the Lord Jesus, is no mere man. He's the
God-man. That's what this brass is a picture
of. God will not be destroyed in
the fire. That's what the brass is a picture
of. When that sin is laid on him, He won't be destroyed. He's unaffected. Now look in
Revelations chapter 1. This is brass as a picture of
Christ. Revelation 1 verse 13. Now I need three volunteers. Maggie,
Lucy. I know you're volunteering. I
can see it in your eyes. And one more. You want to do it,
Syd? Okay. Start with verse 13, and
then Lucy, you do 14, and Sydney, you do verse 15, okay? Good. His feet were likened to
fine brass. Why were his feet likened to
fine brass? Because he walked through the fire of God's wrath.
Just like the brass, when you put it through the fire, it shines,
it becomes more brilliant and beautiful. The strength of Christ. God. He's got all strength, all
power. But that power became most beautiful
when He used that power, His everlasting, eternal strength,
to save His people from their sins by suffering the fire of
God's wrath that our sins deserve. Christ is mighty to save because
He's mighty to endure God's wrath that gives sin. If you look in
Hebrews 13, I'm not just making this up when I talk about the
being a picture of Christ. Scripture tells us very plainly
that the Lord Jesus Christ is pictured by this altar. In Hebrews
13, verse 10. Do you want to read again? Okay, 90, verse
10. We have an altar. The believers
have an altar. Now, the priests, they ate the
meat that was offered as the burnt offering on this altar,
but only the priests. No one else could eat the meat
that was offered on this altar, just the priests. Well, believers,
Scripture says, are kings and priests unto God. Believers have
a right to eat of the altar, the altar of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is the altar. Christ is the sacrifice offered
on the altar, and Christ is the high priest offering the sacrifice
on the altar. Christ is all, isn't he? He's
all of it. The whole, the Jewish system,
what we call the Levitical system, the system that they operated
under the law, the whole Levitical system revolved around this altar
and the sacrifice offered on the altar. Well, Christ is all. The believer's life doesn't just
revolve around Christ. Christ is our life. He is all
to the believer. Now the very first thing you'd
see when you came inside the gate of the tabernacle was the
altar. That's the first thing you saw
and you couldn't go past it. You couldn't go any further without
a sacrifice. Christ didn't die for the sins
of the whole world. All the other tribes, all the
other nations that lived around Israel, they didn't see the altar
because they weren't allowed inside the gate. This altar was
only for the nation Israel, which is a picture of Christ. His sacrifice
is only for spiritual Israel, for the people that God calls.
And we'll see that in the message here in a few minutes. But the
very first thing you saw was this altar showing us how important
the sacrifice of Christ is. It's so important. You couldn't
go past this altar without offering a sacrifice. And no sinner, no
sinner, can come to God outside of the sacrifice of Christ. We
must have the sacrifice. Now, salvation is never through
the law. It's always through the sacrifice.
And I'll prove it to you, or show that to you, by telling
you this. You think about this. God already given the law, didn't
he? He gave Moses the law. If you keep that law, you do
what God says, you'll have everlasting life. God will be pleased with
you. Isn't that right? God gave them the law. You've
got to just keep the law. You've got to be pleased with it. You've
got to accept it. Now, why did God give instructions to build
and raise an altar? Because we can't keep the law.
God gave the law to show us our need of the sacrifice offered
on this altar. That's exactly why God gave the
law. None of us can keep the law, so we need a sacrifice to
pay for our sins. And that's what this altar is.
It's a place of sacrifice. Now it was a bloody, smelly place,
a glorious place. They kept continually slaughtering
animals around this altar, carving up their bodies and putting that
meat on this altar, offering it as a burnt offering to God. The word altar is taken from
the Hebrew word that means slaughter. It was a place of slaughter.
You know, we read earlier about the instruction. Remember I read
to you about the flesh hooks made of brass? Why'd they have
to have flesh hooks? Because they're constantly putting
flesh of animals on this altar, and they're moving them around,
moving it aside so they can offer the next sacrifice, moving it
aside so they can offer the next sacrifice. If they couldn't move
it with their hands, they had to have a brazen flesh hook to
move it off. It's a bloody place. And that
was the main activity of everything that went on in this tabernacle.
It was the sacrifice. It was the blood. They're continually
offering sacrifices. You think how bloody it became
around this altar after they offered sacrifice after sacrifice
after sacrifice. You know, people might get all
amazed, and we'll see this as we go through the study of the
tabernacle itself. All the gold and the silver and
the precious stones, I mean, it was spectacular. They'd get
amazed with all the gold and the silver and all that, and
boy, what a, how precious all that was. But you know the most
abundant thing in all the tabernacle was blood. Rivers of blood, animal
blood, shed before God as a sacrifice for sin. And all those animal
sacrifices, they kept offering them over and over and over again.
Kept telling the children of Israel, the bulls, the lambs,
the goats were offering on this altar. That's not putting away
sin. Because the king had to offer another one, and another
one, and another one. That was showing, the whole tabernacle
was showing us someone's coming. Someone's coming with the sacrifice
that will put away sin. That's what all this is picturing,
pointing us to. Someone's coming to offer a sacrifice
who will put away sin. And that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He came in righteousness, perfection,
and His blood. put away all the sin of his people
once and for all. Hebrews 10.14 says, for by one
offering, it just took one, by one offering, he hath perfected
forever sins that are sanctified. Because of the sacrifice of Christ,
the Father says, there's sins and iniquities, why remember
no more. And we don't offer sacrifices anymore, not blood sacrifices,
do we? You've never seen an animal slaughtered and its body cut
up and put on an altar and burned. You've never seen that. Why?
We don't need that anymore. The sacrifice of Christ has already
been offered. That sacrifice put away sin once
and for all. You don't need another sacrifice,
because Christ has come. But now the sacrifice must be
offered. You can't just have an altar
and say, look how pretty the altar is. Well, we've got us
a great altar and we talked about what we could do with the altar.
The sacrifice must be slain and his body must be roasted in fire
on this altar. The very reason that Christ came
incarnate, the reason he became a man, the God-man, was to die. That's the only reason he came,
was to work out a perfect righteousness for his people and to shed his
blood before the Father. You know, just like people can
get caught up with all the gold and the silver and the precious
stones of the tabernacle, people get caught up with the miracles
and all the different things, the healing and the good deeds
our Lord did. They get caught up in all that.
But you know what the most precious thing of Christ is? His blood. His blood is so precious. The Father said, there's sins
and iniquities on every level. His blood is so precious, it
pays for the sin of a people nobody can count. That's how
precious His blood is. And our Lord Jesus Christ became
a bloody sacrifice. He was slaughtered. You know,
do you see these pictures of a person, you know, the man that's
supposed to be Jesus, hanging on a cross? Those pictures are,
it's an idol, for one thing. It cannot show how awful the
suffering of Christ was at Calvary. You know, this dainty little
picture of this man's long hair hanging on a cross? That's not
how our Lord looked. Scripture says He was slaughtered. His visage was marred more than
any other man. He didn't look like a man hanging
on that cross. He was slaughtered. He looked
like a bloody piece of meat hanging there. Now that's disgusting,
isn't it? Doesn't that just, ugh? It ought
to, because that's what sin is. That's what sin requires. We
don't know what sin is until we see Christ at Calvary. Then
we know what sin is. That's what it took, the slaughter
of God's Son, to put away our sin. That's when we see what
sin really is, and how awful it is. But you know, this bloody
altar is called Most Holy. Look in Exodus chapter 40. It's
called Most Holy. Exodus 40 verse 10. Do I have another volunteer? It should be an altar most holy.
Now, the only other piece of furniture that's called most
holy in all the tabernacle is the golden altar of incense.
We'll look at that in a few weeks. But this altar is most holy.
This altar is the place where we get a clear picture of God's
holiness. God's holiness. He requires death
for sin. He requires a sacrifice for sin.
And at Calvary, that's the place that we get a clear picture of
man's hatred of God. How depraved is man? So depraved,
we kill God's Son. At the cross, we also see God's
holiness, God's hatred of sin. God hates sin so much, he killed
his own son, even his own son, when sin was found on him. Just
look at all the death and the blood and the smell of the place
around this altar. God must hate sin. He slaughtered
his son for it, and that's what the slaughter of all the animals
offered on this altar is a picture of. God's just. He'll punish
sin because he's holy. But this altar is called Most
Holy. Not only does it show us God's
holy, it shows us how sinners like you and me can be made holy.
Everything that touched this praise and altar was made holy. God says holy when it touches
this altar. And that's a picture of anyone
in Christ. I don't care who you are. If
you're in Christ, I don't care what you've done, what your past
is. If you're in Christ, if you've been touched, by the Lord Jesus
Christ, you're made holy in him. May the righteousness of God
in him because of his sacrifice that was offered on the altar.
Now these sacrifices, they show how God can be just and justified. Now that's a term, that's a biblical
term, just and justified. It's a term I use a lot, just
and justified. You know what that means? You
know what that means when somebody says just and justified? It means
that God can still be just. He remained just and holy as
He is. And He can still justify sin,
just like He remained. This altar shows how that happened.
When a person would bring their sacrifice to the altar, they'd
lay their hand on the head of that animal. And that was just
a symbol. It was a picture of them putting
their sin on the head of that animal. It's going from me to
that animal. After that person did that, they
put their sin on the head of that animal. What do you think
happened to that animal? It died. They slit its throat, they cut
its body in pieces, and they roasted its body on the fire
in this altar. Why? Because sin was put on it. There has to be a sacrifice for
sin. And once that was done, that
person, as sinful as they were, are accepted because of the sacrifice
of a substitute. That's exactly how Christ died,
as a substitute for sin. The Father made all the sin of
His elect meet together on His Son. He put that sin on His Holy
Son. I don't know how, but that's
what He did. Only God can do that. And God
made His Holy Son to be guilty of that sin. Well, then what
did God do? roasted his body with fire as
a substitute for sinners. And now sinners, everyone that
Christ died for, can live, and they're made holy. Christ was
made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him, made holy in Him because of His
sacrifice for His people. If you look in Exodus 29, here's
the place that this author where God can meet with men, and he
can meet with them there because of the sacrifice. Good, thank you. This is where
I will meet you at the sacrifice, because of the blood. That's
a picture of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only place God will meet with sinners in mercy. He doesn't need blood. He willingly—those
animals didn't willingly—somebody brought Him. They didn't know
what they were doing. Christ knew His doing. They didn't drive
Him to the cross. He went willingly, shed His blood,
offered Himself, body and soul, a sacrifice to God that His people
could live. You'll never hear better news
than that. You'll never hear of greater love than that. This
is the place God will meet with sinners because of the sacrifice,
the blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people.
Now, this also is a picture of Christ. It's also a picture of
his sufferings. Remember we read it's hollow,
four and a half feet high. It's hollow down in there. That's
a picture of the sufferings of Christ. They built a fire down
inside this altar, and that fire burned inside the altar, inside
the walls of it. Well, that's a picture of the
sufferings of Christ. You think what they did, what
those Roman soldiers did to the body of our Lord. They beat him. They break the skin off his back
with a pad of nine tails. They throw that crown of thorns
down in his head. They nailed him to a cross. They pierced his body with that
spear up through his side. I wouldn't want to suffer that.
I mean, that's horrible. And that's nothing compared to
the sufferings of his soul. See, you and I are depraved.
And our depravity, our sin, is not so much what we do, it's
what we are. From in our soul, in our heart,
it's depraved and vile and wicked. We sin. We commit outward acts
of sin because that's what we are inside. Christ, scripture
said, made his soul an offering for sin. He suffered internally,
because that's where our problem is, internally, in our heart
and our soul. He made his soul an offering
for God. The fire of God's wrath burned
in his soul, because that's what seeing requires. But then this
author also has four horns. Horns are a picture of power
in Scripture. That's Christ's power, to say. You know, that crowd mocked him.
He's hanging there. They say, he saved others. Himself
he can't save. You're making fun of him. Come
down from the cross now. We'll believe you. They thought
it was proof the Lord was an imposter, because he didn't come
down from the cross. They said, see, he doesn't have
any power. He didn't come down from the cross and impress us.
They got it all wrong. The truth is, Christ showed his
power to save by hanging there. It was his power to say that
held him to the cross. It wasn't his Roman soldiers
driving those nails to his hands that made him unable to come
down. He had the power to come down if he wanted to. But what
would have happened if he'd done that? He wouldn't have died. If he doesn't die, there's no
salvation for those people that he loves. So it was his power
to say that held him there. so that he could redeem his people
from their sins. If he doesn't hang there and
die, his people can't be saved. Now, Jewish tradition was that
if a person would run, they were in trouble. They ran and grabbed
hold of the horns of this altar. Tradition was that person would
be safe from justice, because they're pleading mercy. They're
pleading for mercy in the power of the sacrifice that's offered
there for their sins. Every sinner that comes to Christ
has salvation. And they can never lose it. Their
faith is weak. They'll still do things wrong.
They're still in embarrassment for the things they do wrong.
But they'll never lose that salvation. Not because they did anything
good. Because of the power of Christ to save. That's what these
horns are a picture of. His power to save. Now this altar
also tells us, who did Christ come to save? Who's he going
to die for? This altar had four sides, pointing
to all four corners of the globe. Now it was inside the tabernacle,
only the nation Israel could come see it. But the Messiah,
who comes, is going to be a fulfillment of this. He's not just going
to save the nation Israel. He's going to save sinners from
all four corners of the globe. Not just Jews, but Gentiles also. I want you to remember this.
Listen to me. You don't ever have to be afraid, ever, to come
to Christ begging for mercy. Ever. You don't ever have to
be afraid to come to God begging for mercy for Christ's sake.
Because Christ came to save all sorts of sinners from all four
corners of the globe. you'll ever have to be afraid.
Don't ever let your sinfulness stop you from coming to Christ.
Don't ever think, oh, I've got to start acting better. Once
I start acting better, you know, this thing of whatever thing
I do, you know, that's awful. Once I quit being a man, then
I'll come to Christ because it'll be easier for Him to accept me.
Don't do that. That's self-righteousness. Don't
do that. Don't let your sin ever stop you. from coming to Christ.
You know what? Christ can't save sinners. Well,
I'm a sinner. Maybe He'll save me. Come to
Him because you're a sinner. Don't let your sin stop you from
coming to Him. The blood of Christ is a fountain open for sin. That's what Scripture says, a
fountain. That blood is still as power. It's a fountain, continually
That blood is just as powerful to save today as the day it was
shed, just as powerful. Never be afraid to come to God
begging for mercy based on the sacrifice that this altar is
a picture of. The Father always, always accepts
people who come to Him in Christ, always, pleading the sacrifice
of Christ. Now, lastly, this altar is given
to show not just the sacrifice of Christ, it also shows the
person of Christ. But you know, it also shows the
kingship of Christ. This one who's coming to offer
a sacrifice for sin that will put away sin, he's king. And I'll show you that in Numbers
chapter 4. God's going to send the king
to save his people from their sins by sacrificing himself. Numbers chapter 4. This is when they're getting
ready to move the tabernacle. They move from place to place.
When they're getting ready to move, they shall put upon it
all the vessels thereof, when they shall take away the ashes
from the altar, and spread a purple cloth thereon. And they shall
put upon it all the vessels thereof, wherewith they minister about
it, even the censers, and the flesh hooks, and the shovels,
and the basins, and all the vessels of the altar, and they should
spread upon it a covering of fadreskin, and put to the stays
of it. When they would move this altar,
they'd take away all the ashes, you know, put out the fire, take
away all the ashes, and they'd cover it with purple. Now, remember,
we looked at the different colors of the gate. Remember purple?
That's a royal color, the color of the king. This king is coming
to offer a sacrifice for sin. The king is going to offer himself. And the king is going to be a
man. After they put the purple on it, then they covered it with
badger skin. Remember badger skin? Look at this. A couple weeks ago was what covered
the whole tabernacle. We looked at this badger skin
picture of humanity. When you look at it, you think,
that's kind of ugly. I don't want to go in there.
That's a picture of humanity of Christ. People saw Him and
thought, I'm not special about Him. We know Him. We watched
Him grow up. We know His Father and His Mother.
We know Him. We're not special about Him. Isaiah said, there's
no beauty about Him. We should desire Him. Well, there
is if you see past the badger skin, isn't there? In the tabernacle
of riches untold, the Shekinah glory of God dwelt under them. You couldn't see it unless you
went past the badger skin. You can't see the kingship of
Christ before you see the man. Before you see the prophet, before
you see somebody come do good deeds, you don't see his true
glory. But you see past that humanity.
God gives you eyes of faith. You see past that humanity, you
see Christ the King. And everyone that God saves,
that's what they see. Christ is King. He's Sovereign. Now, if He's King, He's Sovereign,
what that means? He can do what he pleases. He's
the king. Every person God saves sees that.
And I'll give you a perfect example of it in closing. Thief on the
cross. Our Lord was crucified. Both
those thieves hang on either side of him, making fun of him,
railing at him, telling him, come down from the cross and
bring us with you. You know, they're making fun of him. Something
happened. One of those thieves stopped. He said, Lord, would you remember
me when you come into your kingdom? The only king who comes into
his kingdom, that thief learned, this man hanging on this cross,
suffering and dying for sin, he's the king. The miracle of
God's grace, maybe the miracle that we see of all the altars,
all this praise You want to hear amazing grace? The King of Kings
came to suffer and die as a substitute for sinners. That's amazing grace. All right, the Lord bless you.
Till next time.