Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Exodus chapter 27. And thou shalt make an altar
of shitham 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 firepans, all the vessels thereof, thou
shalt make of brass. And thou shalt make for it a
great 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 for
the altar, staves of shidom wood, 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. Hollow with boards
shalt thou make it, as it was shewed thee in the mount, so
shall they make it. And thou shalt make..." Well,
we won't get into that. We'll just go to the eighth verse. Now, we've got quite a few here
tonight that's not been following our study. in the tabernacle,
but Israel in the Old Testament was commanded of God to build
a tabernacle. And that tabernacle had a courtyard
that went all the way around it, some 450 feet around, 7 feet
tall, almost as high as the ceiling, with pure white linen. hanging down from that fence
all the way around. And there was just one entrance
into that courtyard. And that entrance was about 30
feet wide. And it had a hanging that hung
down from these columns that the Lord gave them instructions. And then when you came through
that door, the very first thing you come in contact with is this
altar that I'm reading to you about tonight. This altar is
the altar upon which the lambs and goats and heifers and all
those sacrifices, pigeons and doves and whatever it was that
the Lord commanded them to sacrifice, was taken in and dressed a certain
way and laid upon this altar. And all of these sacrifices were
for different purposes and different reasons, done at different times
of the year. But the main sacrifice on this
thing was on the Day of Atonement. And they were to take two goats.
And these two goats, one of them was a scapegoat. And the high
priest of Israel would confess all the sins of Israel upon the
head of that scapegoat. And then a strong man would take
that goat all the way out and turn him loose into the wilderness.
And the high priest also would They had stones that they used
to determine the will of God. And they would cast those lots
and whichever one the Lord's lot fell upon, that was called
the Lord's goat. And they were to slit his throat
and pour his blood out beneath the altar and catch some in one
of these basins that we read about here tonight. And they'd
take that blood and they'd go from that altar Inside, the next
part was a building, 45 feet long, 15 feet wide. And they
go through the first part of that building, and then there
was a heavy veil that covered the back side, and inside that
was the Ark of the Covenant with the mercy seat that sat on top.
And He'd take that blood in there and pour it out on that mercy
seat before the Lord. And nobody else could be in that
tabernacle except the high priest alone. Now I'm going to take
a few extra minutes tonight and I want to read you something
here from Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9. He begins and says, then verily
the first covenant, that's what we're talking about, that old
mosaic covenant in the Old Testament. Verily the first covenant had
also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary, that's
that building I was telling you about, where there was a tabernacle
made. The first wherein was the candlestick,
and the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary.
And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the
holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the Ark of
the Covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was a golden
pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded in the tables
of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. and over it the cherubims of
glory shadowing the mercy seat of which we cannot now speak
in particular. Now when these things were thus
ordained, the priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God, but into the second went the high priest
alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself
and for the errors of the people. Now watch this. The Holy Ghost,
this signifying that the way into the holiest of all, that
is, the way into the presence of God, the way into heaven itself,
was not yet made manifest while this first covenant yet stood,
which was a figure for the time then present. This was a figure. Something for men to see, to
lay the foundation for the coming Redeemer, to lay the foundation
for what we practice today, for what faith is today, for that
manifestation of Christ when He came into the world and when
He lived a righteous life. And when He died, that death
on the cross, and when He was resurrected and ascended back
into glory. That's what these things all
typify back here in the Old Testament that we're studying. These are
pictures. They're just pictures is what
they are. And we look at them and we can gain some foundation,
some basis for the things that we teach. It's a lot easier to
teach something if you have a picture. if you have a picture. And that's
what Paul said these were. They were shadows of good things
to come, he tells us in Hebrews chapter 10. Figures for the time
then present. So when we look at this altar
that we're talking about tonight, That's what we're talking about.
Paul said, we have an altar. And these Jews who eat the meat
from that old altar and who worship at that old altar, they don't
have any right to eat at this one. Because Jesus Christ is
the fulfillment of that. He took that first covenant away
and fulfilled it. We don't bring lambs to church
now and we don't slit their throat and put them on burning coals
and offer them up to God. We don't go to a brazen labor
and wash ourselves with water. Or like the Catholics, they dip
in what they call holy water in the back. All of those things
that lots of religion practice today with the capes and the
gowns and the crowns on their head like you see the Pope with
that big Easter egg looking thing on his head and all that. That's
all a carryover from that Old Testament covenant. You look
back in there and read and study back there in the book of Exodus
and you'll see how all of those things were ordained. And then
Paul tells us all the way through the book of Hebrews what each
of these things had to do with Christ. Each of these things
had to do with Christ. Now, we've studied about the
table. There was a golden table in there
that had showbread on it. And we studied about the candlestick
and the light from that candlestick and the golden altar that stood
before that veil. And then the Holy of Holies and
the mercy seat and all of those things. But there's one, or actually
two more that we haven't talked about, these furnishings in the
tabernacle. And one of them is this altar.
And this altar is by far and away the biggest piece of furniture
in the tabernacle. First thing you faced when you
passed through the door was this huge brazen altar. And the basis of the whole Levitical
system of worship was this altar. You couldn't cleanse yourself
in the labor. You couldn't serve God in the
tabernacle. The blood could not go into the
Holy of Holies. Nothing could happen until you
came through this altar. So what's this telling us? This
is telling us in order for the sinner to come to God, there's
no other way to come except through that sacrifice, except through
that altar. There has to be a substitute. There has to be a reckoning for
sin. God doesn't just take a big eraser,
and here's your sins, and He goes back here and just erases
them off, and that's what they call forgiveness. God doesn't
forgive sin that way. In the New Testament, you're
going to run on to this word, propitiation. And what that means
is that God commanded His Son to die on a cross. that He might
be propitious, that He might be merciful to us. There's no
other way for Him to be merciful. There's no other way for Him
to show mercy except that His justice be satisfied and His
righteousness be manifested. Has to be. Well, where was that
done? It was done on that altar. Done
on that altar. That's the picture. That's the
figure. And I don't care what it was you were doing, you can
go through all the different days and the festivals and all
the different times and all the different things that you did.
You can go through all of these things. But in every one of them,
they had to go to that altar. Every one of them. And then they
could go do whatever else they were commanded. But you couldn't
do anything acceptable to God apart from going to that altar. Now there's ten things to consider
about this altar and its relationship to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And these things are so important
if we can just get a hold of the basic things that I'm telling
you tonight. And the first of these ten things
is its position. It's first. It's first. You're going to deal with Christ
on the cross before you deal with anything else. There's no
other way of coming. You're going to have to deal
with His death on the cross. Now, folks, they tell me all
the time, because what we preach here is a little different than
the mainstream. It's a lot different. And they
tell me all the time, well, so you all really believe this,
or you all really believe that. And I say, well, let's just lay
all that aside for now. Tell me this. Why did Christ
die? Tell me that. Let's start there.
If we can figure that out, the rest of it will find its spot.
Tell me why he had to die. Why must the Son of God become
a man, appear on this earth, live as a man under the law? This is the lawgiver. This is
the one who gave the law. This is the one who appeared
to Moses and took his finger and wrote those commandments
in those tables of stone. Why must he come as a man Not
as a spirit, not as an angel, but as a man. Be born of a virgin,
raised up to adulthood, live his whole life under that law,
and then go to that cross and die such a death as he died on
that cross. Why? Why? Because our God is
a just God. Now He's merciful and gracious
and He's going to show mercy and He's going to be gracious,
but not apart from satisfying His justice. Now you write it
down. If you've got any kind of thought
about approaching the living God or any kind of thought about
worshiping the living God, and this God that you worship and
this God that you approach and this God that you pray, some
of you young people, you're going to get in trouble if you're not
in trouble already, and you're going to You're going to resort
back and you're going to close your eyes and you're going to
try to pray. But if you don't pray to this God, you're not
praying to God. You're praying to an idol. Our
God is a just God. He's a just God and a Savior. And you'll find out that the
position of this altar was most important. It faced the door
of the courtyard. Now Christ is everything in this
tabernacle. He's the door. He's the courtyard. He's the tabernacle. It said
the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us. He's the tabernacle. He's the ark inside the tabernacle. He's the mercy seat. He's the
sacrifice upon the altar, and He is the altar. This brazen
altar, it lay just within the door to the courtyard, and it
was placed within the courtyard of the tabernacle to show that
this substitutionary sacrifice that took place upon it was particular. It was for Israel. Somebody,
one of the old writers, said if the sacrifice of Christ was
universal, if His death was for everybody, if God loved everybody,
and God wanted everybody to be saved, and God sent His Son to
die for everybody, then that altar would have been outside.
But it wasn't. It was on the inside. It was
on the inside. It was for Israel. And when that
high priest came, and he took that sacrifice that God ordained
to offer for sin, when he took that sacrifice, on his shoulders
were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. When
he went into that tabernacle, he went in there for Israel.
On his shoulders and over his heart was their names written,
the twelve tribes of Israel, to show that that sacrifice was
for the whole house of Israel. Now, we know today that Israel
is spiritual Israel. It's for all God's elect, all
God's chosen people. The blood of the sin offering
was carried into the Holy of Holies by priests bearing their
names. And set before the door of the
tabernacle, this altar stood unchangeably connected to access
to God. There is no access to God except
through this altar, except through the sacrifice. And blood shedding
is the basis of approaching the living God. He tells us in Hebrews
chapter 9, if I were to have read on a while ago, without
shedding of blood is no remission. No remission. I remember years
ago, this Jewish lady got in an argument with Brother Mahan
about his setting the Jew as a legalist and as an unsafe person,
an unrighteous person, and she was Jewish. And she was arguing
back and forth, and he was trying to tell her about the Lord Jesus
Christ. And she said, well, we rejected
Him. Us Jews, we don't believe that
He was the Messiah. We don't believe that He was
the Son of God. And it went on and on and on. And finally, Henry
said, alright, let's just take that and put it aside. Let's
just take the Lord Jesus Christ for now. Let's just set Him aside
over here. Where is the Lamb? You're a Jew. You said you're
a Jew. You've rejected the Savior. Where's your lamb? God plainly
told them in the Old Testament they couldn't worship Him. They
couldn't approach Him. They couldn't serve Him. They
couldn't do anything apart from a lamb. Lamb had to die on that
altar. The blood of the sin offering
was carried into that holy of holies by one bearing their name. And it's the basis of approaching
the living God. Alright, and then the second
thing we need to see is the materials used in this altar. Shittom wood
and brass. Now that shittom wood I told
you before was an incorruptible wood. It just would not rot.
They say it was an acacia tree. But it had the properties of
a red cedar or a locust tree. It was incorruptible wood. But it was covered with brass.
Not gold, but brass. All of the minerals and materials
used in the tabernacle are important and they all have a definite
meaning. Gold symbolizes the glory of
God. Silver speaks of his redemption
and brass speaks of judgment. When we talk about this altar,
we're talking about God's judgment. You go back in the Old Testament
and you find there, maybe some of you all have heard the story
how Israel going through that wilderness rejected God, disobeyed
God, and God caused fiery serpents to rain down from heaven. And
they were biting those children of Israel, and they were dying
like flies. There were some two or three
million of them out there in the wilderness. And down come
these fiery serpents, and these men were just falling like flies
everywhere. And so Moses approached God,
and God told Aaron to go and make a brazen serpent. and raise
it up on a pole. And he said, everybody that looks
on that serpent, looks up to that serpent on that pole, will
live. And so he did that and he ran.
I'm going to say he ran around. I don't think he stood still,
but he got on a high place and he went around and held that
thing up. Everybody looked and lived. In John chapter 3, He
tells us what that serpent was all about. Even as that serpent
in the wilderness was raised up, so must the Lord Jesus Christ
be raised up. Be raised up. It's a picture
of judgment. And how often did our Lord speak
in the Scriptures of the heavens being made brass when He's talking
about His judgment? Speaking of the gospel age when
the remnant of Israel was brought to repentance and faith in the
last days, the Lord said, for brass, I'll bring gold. I'll bring gold. And for iron,
you remember that old iron furnace down there in Egypt showing the
wrath of God? For iron, He said, I'll bring
silver. I'll bring redemption. And then the Shittim would That
had to do with the sinless humanity of Christ. Christ was both God
and man in one person. One person. Only the God-man
could be a sufficient sacrifice for sin and please God. And so
that Sheddenwood speaks of his humanity in that brass of God's
judgment. And then the meaning of this
altar of burnt offering. Here is the third thing. That
brazen altar is a picture of the cross. Christ alone could
bear our sins in his own body on the tree, and endure such
a judgment, and then rise from the dead. You ever thought about
that altar? The first time I read that, I
thought to myself, now this is something he's going to burn
hot coals, enough to lay an entire cow on top of this thing. A heifer
is going to lay it up here. Spread it all out on this big
altar. It's five cubits. A cubit is from the tip of my
finger to my elbow. That's a cubit. It's five cubits
wide. He had to lay this thing up there.
Well, what's going to keep that wood from burning up? It's sealed
in brass. Sealed in brass. It wouldn't
burn. It wouldn't burn. And that sinless
humanity of Christ wouldn't burn. It wouldn't burn. The brazen altar is a picture
of the cross. It's a picture of God's judgment. I don't know how much you know
about these things, but the fall of Adam is called judgment in
the scriptures. God's judgment. God's judgment
is on this world right now. That judgment came by one man. He said by one man, sin entered
into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men. What's he talking about with
this death and sin? What's he talking about? He's
talking about the judgment of God. He that believeth not Him,
the wrath of God abideth on Him. Ain't that what it says? By the
offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation. And even so, the death of the
substitute was the judgment of God instead of all those represented
by him. God's holiness, righteousness,
and justice all manifested on this altar. And then fourthly, he gives us the measurements
of this altar, five cubits square and three cubits high. And I'm
not going to take a lot of time to show you these things. It'd
just probably confuse you anyway. But five is the number of grace. Grace. This altar was an altar
of grace. And no matter which direction
you looked at this altar, it spoke of the grace of God. It
was four square. It was five cubits this way and
five cubits that way and five cubits this way. It was grace,
John. I don't care what direction you
looked at it. It spoke of the grace of God.
And so it is with us. Whether we're believers or unbelievers,
we look at that death and it speaks grace. Grace. And its manifestation was altogether
grace. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. Grace, it said, just dripped
from His lips when He spoke. Gracious words. Wonderful promises. And it was manifested not only
with His mouth, but it was manifested in His feet as He came to need
His sense. His grace that brought Him to
that man. He had been down there for how
many years? 27 years down there at that pool. He laid down there. Couldn't move. Nobody to take
Him and put Him in the water. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
Him, didn't He? And how often He came. He said,
I must need to go through Samaria. He had one of His own there.
And He went there and redeemed her. And it was manifested in
His hands. Not just His mouth and His feet,
but His hands as He touched the dead and dying and gave them
life. Took the hand of that young child, that young girl, Tabitha,
arise. And she rose, didn't she? He
took those hands and touched the eyes of that blind man, and
he saw. Nothing but the free and sovereign
grace of God could bring the Son of God to such a place as
this, standing in the room instead of chosen sinners, bearing their
sins in His own body on the tree. And nothing but the grace of
God could bring God's darling Son to such a place as the cross. You think about that. This is
the Son of God. This is the brightness of the
Father's glory and expressed image of His person. And here
He sits on the cross, crying out to God, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? Why? You find out the answer
to that, you'll find out what salvation is. And then its height, three cubits,
speaks of the resurrection. The blood of the substitute is
of little value if there is no one to carry it beyond the veil.
It wouldn't have done a bit of good. Blood poured out does not
constitute atonement. Atonement is accomplished within
the Holy of Holies. And it has to be carried in there
by the high priest himself. And then something else about
this four square altar. The grace manifested upon this
altar was particular, and yet the particular doctrine of the gospel and the
grace of God in the death of Christ faces all directions. You know why? Because He got
a people in every nation, kindred, tribe, and people under Him. God's elect are from all over
this globe, and so that altar faced north, south, east, and
west. And that grace was shown equally
north, south, east, and west. And then fifthly, this brazen
altar had horns. It had a single horn. You can
look this up on the internet. When I get home, I show my grandkids
pictures of it there on the internet, this big old thing. But it had
horns, brazen horns that stuck out. And they'd take that blood
with his fingers and he'd put it on the horns of that altar. But what were these horns all
about? Now these horns, David says in
Psalm 118.27, that's a Psalm I just never paid any particular
attention to before. But in Psalm 118.27, he tells
us what these horns were about. They were used to bind the sacrifice
to the altar. That's what he says there. And
horns typically mean power and purpose and strength. And so
Christ was bound to that altar, not by the nails in His hand,
but by the purpose of God who put Him there. He bound, bound. Let this cup pass from me, said,
nevertheless, not my will, thy will be done. And then if you look at those
horns of sovereign power, and stay in the context of our subject,
we're looking at sovereign love, and sovereign grace, and sovereign
mercy. Paul said we look unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before Him endured the cross. The joy, the joy, that love and
purpose and glory of God. And then one of the greatest
sources of assurance in the Bible is Romans 8.28 through the end
of the chapter. And there it tells us that Christ
loved us and gave himself for us and nothing can break those
cords of love, not even the cross. Not things present or things
to come, nor life, nor death, nor any other creature. And then
sixthly, this altar is an anointed altar. The holy anointing oil
was poured upon it. And it was thus sanctified and
became most holy in God's sight. There are very few things about
the tabernacle. They are holy, he tells you.
But this altar, he said, is most holy. Most holy. And it was anointed and sanctified
and holy in God's sight. Of how much greater purity was
Christ set forth under the anointing of the Spirit without measure.
And he tells us also in Exodus 29-37, listen to this, he said,
seven days shalt thou make an atonement for the altar and sanctify
it. And it shall be an altar most
holy, and whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. Shall be holy. I wonder if the
woman with the issue of blood who pressed through that crowd,
and said, if I could just touch the hem of his garment. I wonder
if she knew that scripture. Huh? She was a Jew. She was schooled
in the Old Testament scripture. Whatsoever toucheth this altar
shall be holy. If I can just touch the hem of
his garment. Huh? And then, savingfully, this
altar, or maybe it would be better to say its antitype, was and
is a spiritual altar. Peter says we are a holy priesthood
set apart of God to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. Not only was everyone who came
into the tabernacle had to come past that altar, but everything
had to go past that altar. And innately this altar was a
burning altar. Its fire never went out. It was
ever-burning, ever-consuming the sacrifices laid upon it,
showing us that as long as it burnt, the true sacrifice of
God had not yet been manifested. And upon the Jewish altar, the
fire consumed the sacrifice. It consumed sacrifice after sacrifice. But the sacrifice of Christ consumed
the fire. Now, you think about that. That
old fire back there consumed the sacrifice, but Jesus Christ
consumed the fire. And then lastly, this altar was
the sinner's altar. No other reason to have an altar
except that those who were chosen of God were sinners. As plain
as words can be used, our Lord said, I came to save sinners. I came to save sinners. I came
not, he said, to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He said they shall call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." If there
were no sinners, there would be no need of an altar. They
could just go into the presence of God. And then lastly, this
altar was a nourishing altar. A portion of the sacrifice was
divided among the priests. for food. They ate the food that
was sacrificed upon this altar. And what did Christ tell us about
His flesh? He said, except you eat My flesh
and drink My blood, you've got no part with Me. It was a nourishing
altar. Because of their sanctification
and calling, those Jewish priests had right to eat the meat of
the altar. And listen to what Paul said
about this. He said, We have an altar whereof they have no
right to eat which serve the tabernacle. We have an altar. We have the fulfillment of it.
And that's what we eat. And then about the only thing
I've left out here is these utensils. And the utensils The pans, he
said, to receive ashes, and shovels, and basins, and flesh hooks to
arrange the sacrifice out on there, and flesh hooks and fire
pans. There's no doubt that these things
can be looked upon as the means necessary in order that the altar
might be used in a suitable manner. And so what's the antitype of
that? Preaching. Preaching. And these means can
be applied to every detail of history, and providence, and
men, and angels, and nations, and kings, and preachers, and
prophets, and apostles, and missionaries, and especially to the eternal
Spirit by which He offered Himself without spot to God. Well, I
hope it's been of some help to you. These things are pictures.
They're foundations. There is no worship. You can
gather in a building and sing songs. And men do. You can play the piano and you
can get a choir and you can get a big old cathedral with a big
steeple and stained glass windows and all that and you can get
in there and have a big time. You can get in there and clap
your hands and sing and run up and down the aisles and testify
and do all kinds of things. But you can't worship God without
an altar. And Christ is our altar. Christ
is our altar. And if you have Him, you don't
need the cathedral. You don't need the witness. I
don't need any of those things. I have the fulfillment of those
things. I have Christ. And that's what I'm here to do,
is to point men to Christ. This is salvation in Him. Not in doing, not in running,
but in looking to Him as God has set Him forth in His Word.