So that's Exodus chapter 27,
and we're reading from verse one, and I just want to read
the first eight verses. So the Lord is speaking to Moses,
and this is what he says. And thou shalt make an altar
of shittum wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be four square,
and the height thereof shall be three cubits. And thou shalt
make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof, his horns
shall be of the same, and thou shalt overlay it with brass.
And thou shalt make his pans to receive his ashes, and his
shovels, and his basins, and his flesh-hooks, and his fire-pans,
all the vessels thereof thou shalt make of brass. And thou
shalt make for it a grate of net-work 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 upon
the altar, staves of chitin-wood, and overlay them with brass.
and the staves shall be put into the rings, and the staves shall
be upon the two sides of the altar to bear it. Hollow with
boards shalt thou make it, as it was shewed thee in the mount,
so shall they make it. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Now we've previously spoken about
the tabernacle or what is also called the tent of meeting that
God instructed Moses to build as a dwelling place for the presence
of the Lord amongst the children of Israel. God had said that
he would presence himself with the children of Israel in this
tabernacle or this tent of meeting. And it was a large movable construction
that could be built up and taken down in a day. and it was carried
with the people and it was erected wherever the people camped and
then it was taken down and moved again when the people moved on
following the cloud of the presence of God. It would be at this tabernacle
that the Lord would meet with his people all through their
wilderness journey and into the promised land. And as we have
seen, God was the architect who gave Moses the design of the
tabernacle. He provided him with the dimensions. He gave him information about
the shape and the structure and the materials to be used. He
supplied craftsmen and craftswomen. And he specified the overall
pattern of the worship that was to take place and that was to
be followed in the tabernacle. But God also directed what furniture
or instruments were, instruments is the, not musical instruments,
but instruments in the sense of pieces of furniture or pieces
of equipment that were to be located in the tabernacle and
its precincts. He directed what instruments
were to go inside the tabernacle and the surrounding courtyard
and also travel with the tent, the tabernacle, when it was dismantled
and moved and reassembled. And there were seven main pieces
of furniture in the tabernacle and each of these was symbolic
of the way of salvation and principally of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It was symbolic of the way that
men and women and boys and girls would come to God to worship
Him. So God gave this tabernacle and
He gave the pieces of equipment that were in it as a picture
and a symbol to show us how we are to worship God. Because we
can only come to God by the Saviour Jesus Christ. As the people approached
God, employing these seven pieces of furniture, it typified or
signified the true worship that God requires and how we are to
approach God by the blood and by the merits of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now these seven pieces of equipment,
or once again, these seven instruments, as the Lord calls them, were,
firstly, the bronze altar, and we read about that today. There was also a bronze laver,
and that was for washing in, and we'll come back to that another
time. There was a golden lampstand. There was a table of showbread. There was an altar of incense. There was an Ark of the Covenant. and there was a mercy seat. So
these seven pieces of equipment, we're going to mention them,
or I'm going to mention each of these separately over the
next few weeks and try to point out how believers in the Old
Testament days were able to understand God's plan of salvation in the
symbolism that was supplied by each of these items. Today we're
going to think about this first piece, The Bronze Altar. And this first item was the instrument
that the people saw and that the people came to first when
they entered through the gate of the tabernacle courtyard. So there was a tabernacle which
was like a large tent and it was surrounded by curtains all
the way around to make a great big rectangle. And then there
were curtains at the front of this curtained area, this curtained
courtyard. And when these curtains were
opened and the people passed through into the courtyard, the
first thing that they saw before them was the bronze altar. And the tabernacle was set towards
the back of the courtyard. So the bronze altar was what
they approached first of all. and we read about it here in
Exodus chapter 27. It was a large box, basically. It was made of wood, it's called
shittum wood, which was a particular type of wood that was available
there. It was made of shittum wood and
it was covered with bronze metal. Now, it was about seven and a
half foot. By seven and a half foot, it
was a big square or a big cuboid, and it was seven and a half foot
long, seven and a half foot wide, and about four and a half feet
deep. Or if you're a little bit younger
than me, that's 2.3 meters by 2.3 meters by 1.4 meters deep. And it had a grate or a network
of bronze on which coals were placed and in which a fire burned. And so this was an altar with
a fire and a grate. And there were various pieces
of equipment. There were trays and shovels. There were forks. There were
pans to collect the ashes that burned from this bronze altar. It had four rings through which
carrying poles were placed when it was transported. And this
altar was the place where animal sacrifices were to be made. Now, the animal sacrifices in
the Old Testament were very important because the altars of the Old
Testament, and this altar in particular, taught men and women
about God's holiness and about how we must approach God and
how approaching God because of our sin and because we are sinners
is only possible by a pure sacrifice and shed blood. Punishment for
sin requires that blood be shed to remove guilt. And this goes back right to the
time of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, where God slew
animals in order to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness following
their sin and the fall. So when the skins were made to
cover Adam and Eve, the animals that provided the skins, they
had to die. And this was a picture of this
sacrifice that was made because of sin. The book of Hebrews tells
us, without shedding of blood, there is no remission. And that
is telling us that we cannot approach God until our sin is
taken away. And sin can only be removed or
remitted, which is to send it away. Sin can only be sent away
from us and cleansed in us by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's
perfect sacrifice for sin. However, until the Saviour came,
animal sacrifices were accepted by God as a substitute and as
a picture to atone for sin and to serve as a temporary picture
of Christ's death. Now what we discover if we read,
and if we were to read Leviticus chapter one, that's another important
chapter in the context of this altar. I didn't want to take
the time to read it all today, but you're welcome to do that
if you would like to do so. But Leviticus chapter one tells
us about the animals that were to be offered. And only the finest
animals, perfect specimens if you like, were to be brought
to God for sacrifice. Now, of course, the animals did
not themselves deserve to die. They had not broken God's law. It was the people that had broken
God's law. However, the sacrifice of that
animal prefigured the perfect, innocent life of Jesus Christ,
who himself, having done no wrong, did not deserve to die. but because
he loved his people. he chose to carry their sin and
bring them to himself, reconcile them to himself after they had
been separated by the fall and by sin. And so this love of the
Lord Jesus Christ shows us how he came and died as our substitute
in our place and instead of us. and before he came these animals
were used as a picture of his death. Now these animals were
costly and Christ paid a high price for our redemption and
the animals were valuable as is the precious blood of Jesus
Christ that is offered for our sin and the people brought their
sacrifice and they placed their hand on the animal's head while
it was killed. It was to be killed by the priests,
we'll come back to that another time. But the people who brought
the animal sacrifice had to place their hand on the animal's head
while it was being killed. And this pictured their sins
being placed on the animal before it was slain. I'm sure it must
have made a strong and lasting impression on anyone who was
touching the creature and then watching as it suffered and died. There was nothing pleasant about
this act. It was a bloody and a gruesome
thing to behold and it shows how evil sin is. and the terrible
things that Christ would suffer for his people's freedom. Now because this animal sacrifice
was temporary, men and women had to repeat the process regularly
and frequently. So over many years, Many, many
animals, bullocks and lambs and goats and pigeons were killed
in this way. Now today we do not have animal
sacrifice, we don't sacrifice animals anymore because the Lord
Jesus Christ has come and we look to him as the fulfilment
and the reality, the anti-type of this system of sacrificing. Nor do we have a bronze altar
anymore because the Lord Jesus Christ is also the altar on which
this sacrifice is made because he offered his own body, he offered
his own blood when he died for our sins. However, these animals
in past times were killed in their thousands and their tens
of thousands for hundreds of years. and the awfulness of the
practice speaks of the awfulness of sin. The writer to the Hebrews
tells us Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself and as it is appointed unto men once to die but after
this the judgment so was Christ. once offered to bear the sins
of many. For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. But now we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. So that one offering of the Lord
Jesus Christ, which the animal sacrifices and the brass altar
in the tabernacle were pictures of, has now taken place and instead
of us bringing animals to be sacrificed, we look by faith
to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and we trust in that one
perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ to be effective for all time,
for all people who come by faith and trust in him. So here is
the first item or instrument in the tabernacle, the altar
of bronze for the sacrifices for sin. And perhaps I should
just mention also, in closing, that the Old Testament believer
did not think that the animal purified him from sin, or at
least he shouldn't have had thought that. But he looked beyond the
animal sacrifice and he sought grace with God on the basis of
God's mercy and on the basis of a better sacrifice yet to
come. Both Old Testament and New Testament
believers, that's us, we're the New Testament believers, we look
to the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice and death as the
ground of our forgiveness. The Old Testament people look
forward and we look back. but we come by the same way in
the same means. Before we can approach God, before
we can worship God, before we can ever live with God in heaven,
our sins must be carried away by the Lamb of God and our souls
must be cleansed in His blood. By faith, the Old Testament believers
thanked God for the deliverance by the death of a sacrifice.
and by faith New Testament believers look to Christ and thank God
for their salvation by the death of their perfect sacrifice and
substitute. May the Lord give us all such
faith. Amen.