Take your Bibles now and turn
with me to Exodus chapter 30. In verses 1 through 10 of Exodus
chapter 30, God gives Moses instruction concerning the third piece of
furniture in the holy place or the sanctuary of the tabernacle. Exodus 30 verse 1. And thou shalt
make an altar to burn incense upon. Of shittum wood shalt thou
make it. A cubit shall be the length thereof,
and a cubit the breadth thereof. Four square shall it be. And
two cubits shall be the height thereof. The horns thereof shall
be the same. And thou shalt overlay it with
pure gold. the top thereof, and the sides
thereof round about, and the horns thereof, and thou shalt
make unto it a crown of gold round about. And two golden rings
shalt thou make to it under the crown of it, by the two corners
thereof, upon the two sides of it shalt thou make it. And they
shall be for places for the staves to bear it withal. And thou shalt
make the staves of chitinwood, and overlay them with gold. And
thou shalt put it before the veil that is by the ark of the
testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where
I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon
sweet incense. Every morning when he dresseth
the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lighteth
the lamps at evening, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual
incense before the Lord throughout your generations. You shall offer
no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering,
neither shall you pour drink offerings thereon. And Aaron
shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year
with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. Once in the year
shall He make atonement upon it throughout your generations.
It is most holy unto the Lord." Now there was two altars actually
used in the ministry of the tabernacle. There was the brazen altar, which
was located outside the tent door, outside the tabernacle
building itself, out in the courtyard. The first thing you met when
you came into that courtyard was that brazen altar. And then
from there, there was a laver, and then the door into the tabernacle.
The brazen altar and then what I've just read to you tonight
about the golden altar. Now the brazen altar was outside
the tent just before you entered into it, before the labor. And the golden altar was in the
holy place just before the veil that went into the Holy of Holies.
The brazen altar was called the altar of burnt offering. That's
where the offerings were brought and burnt upon the fire. out
on the brazen altar. The golden altar was called the
altar of incense. The brazen altar was the place
of sacrifice. The altar of incense was the
place of worship. And both of these altars are
needed to set forth Christ who is our altar. And this is why
Pink and many of the other writers decided to put off this piece
of furniture until after they talked about the hangings and
all these things because they had not yet talked about the
brazen altar. And you can read about the brazen
altar in the chapters leading up to chapter 40. After the death and resurrection
of Christ, when the church was still being established in this
world, Many of the Jews joined these congregations of Christians,
professing Christians. But they attempted to bring with
them a lot of things from Old Testament type of worship. This was their tradition. This
was all they'd ever known. And they couldn't understand.
They couldn't see any harm in bringing a little bit of this
and a little bit of that. And in fact, everything that
you see today in the way of religious pageantry and ceremony is just
a carryover from the Old Testament. And nobody can compete with the
Catholics in this. Their entire congregation, their
entire so-called church is made in a priesthood. It has a priesthood
type of government. It has high priests, and it has
common priests, and so on all the way through. Well, what I
want you to see and the reason why I read Hebrews chapter 8
to you a few moments ago is because Christ has fulfilled every Old
Testament type. There was a fault with those
types. Those types were not the very thing. They were types.
They were just pictures. They were things for the people
of that day to look at and see the coming Redeemer and see the
way of redemption and see these things that God had prepared. And they were the foundation. We're built on the foundation,
it says in Ephesians chapter 2, the last verse there. We're
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus
Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. These foundations
were laid back here. We've got no reason now to speculate
about what a sin offering was. We were shown what the sin offering
was. or what a propitiation is. We
can go back and see what a propitiation is. God set him forth in the
Old Testament. And today there is no priesthood
except the church which is a spiritual priesthood. And we are no longer
to look to symbols and figures but to the Son of God Himself
who is our High Priest. Now watch this here in Hebrews
chapter 13. He says in verse 9, be not carried
about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace, not with meats which
have not profited them that have been occupied therein. We have
an altar. We have one. They have one. They
have two. And we have one. We have an altar,
whereof they have no right to eat. which served the tabernacle. Those who still insist on serving
that old tabernacle, serving that old priesthood, ministering
in the same ways and the same fashions went on by, they don't
have any right to eat of this altar. This altar is the fulfillment
of those altars. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat what served the tabernacle. By Him, therefore,
by Christ, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. Numbers chapter 16 gives a striking
illustration of this. Now, here's what we're talking
about. We're talking about these two
altars and how they tie together. That old altar. back in the Old
Testament there when they put it out there in the courtyard.
That's where the sacrifice was offered. In here is where worship
took place. But there couldn't be any worship
apart from the blood of that altar being carried in and put
on the horns of this altar. It was done once a year to show
that that sacrifice of Christ is once for all. And then in
Numbers chapter 16, this is kind of illustrated in this story,
and I brought it up to you once before. And Korah was kind of
the ringleader. I can't read this entire chapter
to you. It's 50-some verses. But let
me just kind of describe it, and then we'll look at some things.
This man named Korah, K-O-R-A-H, he was the ringleader and his
two partners, Dathan and Abiram. And they were game-sayers against
God's prophet and against God's priest. They went from tent to
tent to tent, all the way through the congregations of Israel,
trying to gain support in their arguments and in their complaints
against Moses. And the gist of their accusations
was that the whole house of Israel was equal in authority and in
holiness and in position with Moses and Aaron and ought, therefore,
to be able to do what God had separated them to do. They couldn't
see any difference in the people of Israel and in these men. However,
God had sanctified these two men. There wasn't any difference
as far as men go between men. But when God sanctifies a thing
and sets it apart for His own use, it's sanctified and it is
to be considered holy. And He set apart Moses and He
set apart Aaron to do certain things for him. And these men
said, well, you take too much on yourself. They approached
this thing like Moses made himself the prophet and Aaron made him.
And then he was kind to his brother. Since he was his brother, he
just made him free. And so they went tent to tent
and they said, this thing ain't right. He's got too much on him. He's taking too much on him.
He's getting the big head and we need to have part of it. And
that's what it was all about. Korah wanted that authority. He wanted that power. He wanted
those things. And so he made it out to be an unholy thing. And this man Korah, he went tent
to tent and he found 250 You can read about there in Numbers
16, verse 2. 250. Now listen who these 250
were. Princes of the assembly. Famous in the congregation. Men of renown to stand with them. They got the highest renowned,
reputable men in that whole company. 250 of them. And they said, now we got it.
We got the leverage. Now we're going to go up before
Moses. And they agreed to stand with him. So Moses told them
and the 250 men to bring censers and put fire in them and burn
incense before the door of the tabernacle. If you have this
holiness, if you have this sanctification, then you offer the incense. You
bring the censer, you put the fire in it, you pour the incense
on it, and you bring it. All of these things contrary
to the commandment of God. Every one of them. And when they
did, God told Moses, He said, get out of my way. He said, I'm
going to kill them all. I'm going to kill the whole outfit.
And Moses fell on his face, pleaded for the people, And so Moses
got up with God's direction, and he told that congregation
to flee. He said, you get away from the
tabernacle. Now he's not calling it the tabernacle,
God, now. Listen to how he says it. You
get away from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
You head for the hills. You separate yourselves from
them. You get as far from them as you can get. And then God
opened up the earth and He dragged them down into the pit, is the
word He uses there, number 16, with their shoes on. I mean,
Moses said, here's how this thing is going to go. He said, if you
just die a regular death, if you just die of old age or something
like that, he said, then you'll know that I'm just telling a
story. But he said, if God does some new thing and kills these
people, He said, then you will know that I am telling you the
truth. And nothing like that had ever been seen before that
day. God opened the earth and swallowed them up and their families
and their tents and their cattle and everything that was with
them. And then a fire came from the
Lord. You remember the Lord It says
there in Numbers 16, His presence come down on that tabernacle
and filled that tabernacle in the glory of God. And fire came
out from the tabernacle and consumed all 250 of these renowned men. He burned them to cinders right
there on the spot. Cinders still in their hands.
Burned them to cinders. And then the congregation that
Moses had pleaded for and told them to flee from these men,
they got mad at Moses because God killed these men. And they
got angry over the judgment of God against these men. And they
come with their complaints again to Moses and begin to ridicule
Moses and talk angry at Moses for the death of these men. Anger
over the judgment of God. And God caused a plague to fall
on them. And they began to die. And Moses
told Aaron in Numbers 16.46, he said, take a censer. This
was who was supposed to do this to start with. You take the censer. And you put fire therein from
off the altar, as you was commanded, that brazen altar, and put on
incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make atonement
for them. For the wrath of God is gone
out from the Lord. The plague is already begun."
And Aaron took Moses as Moses commanded. And he ran into the
midst of the congregation, and behold, the plague was begun
upon the people. And he put on incense and made
an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead
and the living, and the plague was staged." Now turn with me to Hebrews chapter
7. Christ is our intercessor. That's
what this golden altar is all about. He's our intercessor.
And it is his lofty intercession that maintains our communion
with God and our presence and our fellowship with him during
the whole of our wilderness journey. It's his intercession. The only
reason why God don't burn us alive tonight is because we have
an intercessor. He can take this humble effort
that I've made here to, God has burned me to cinders over this,
but I have an intercessor. I have one who is able to take
this and make it acceptable to God. And that whole outfit would have
been burned up except for this censer and this incense in our
high priest. That is showing that intercession
of Christ on those who are just prone to error, prone to wander,
prone to rebellion. But we have an intercessor. We
have an intercessor. Watch this here in Hebrews 7
verse 19. For the law made nothing perfect,
but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw
nigh unto God. And inasmuch as not without an
oath he was made priest, for those priests were made without
an oath, but this with an oath, by him that said unto him, the
Lord swear and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek, talking about Christ. By so much was
Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were
many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason
of death. But this man, because he continueth
ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to
save them to the uttermost who come unto God by him. seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for us. You see the necessity
of that golden altar there in that tabernacle of worship. This
was to maintain fellowship. And God's not going to have anybody
do this except His high priest. Aaron the high priest. When King
Uzziah died, that man that Isaiah worshiped, you know what it was
over? You know what the issue was over?
He took this incense and went in and was going to burn it on
this altar. And God smote him with leprosy and he died outside
the camp a leper. This intercession is not done
by you and I. This intercession is accomplished
by our Lord Jesus Christ. And this thing is most holy,
he said before God. Most holy before him. So the
significance of the golden altar was the incense poured out upon
the fire of the altar. The coals from off the brazen
altar where the sacrifice was offered, the coals that had fed
upon the sacrifice was taken in this little shovel of a thing
that they had and they brought it in here and they put it on
that golden altar and then they'd pour out that incense on top
of it. It was incense poured out upon
the fire of the altar of sacrifice, mingled with the blood of the
atonement, and it filled the whole tabernacle with the sweet
incense of Christ. And everything we do is offered
to God and made acceptable to God by the blood and righteousness
of our great High Priest. There is not one thing that you
and I can do that would be acceptable to God apart from Jesus Christ.
Nothing. Nothing. Not the best prayer
you ever prayed, not the best deed you ever did, not the best
thought you ever had. It's filthy rags. All our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. And then, secondly, let me give
you just a few things about the materials in this golden altar. It was like the table and like
the Ark of the Covenant. It was made from Shittam wood.
And I pointed that out to you before, that's an incorruptible
wood. And it has other values, but
basically what it's showing us here is the two natures of Christ.
And He shows us that in the ark, and He shows us that in the table,
and now He's showing us that in this altar. And even the brazen
altar was wood, covered with brass. So we see the two natures
of our Mediator, and we see their necessity. in his offices and
in his work. In Hebrews 4, verse 14, all of
these things here in Hebrews allude back to that tabernacle,
allude back to there. So I'm not stretching anything
when I'm reading these verses to you here in Hebrews. Hebrews
4, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest who's
passed into the heavens. Now watch this. Jesus But He
don't stop there. That's talking about His humanity,
Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Son of God. That's His deity. He's Son of Mary and Son of God. Now, He said, let us hold fast
our profession. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need." That coming to the throne of
grace just on the other side of that veil. Here hung the veil
just like this was the veil. Here hung the veil. Here sat
the altar. You approach that Throne. That's
God's throne in Israel. That mercy seat back there. Throne
of grace. You approach that thing, the
first thing you come to is that altar and His intercession. And that's why we can come. We
might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And then this altar had some
similarities with the other things. And then it had some oddities. One similarity, as I've already
mentioned, was being made out of wood and overlaid with gold.
And then the second similarity is that it had a crown. Did you
notice that? Did I point that out to you in
one of the other studies? The Ark of the Covenant had a
crown around the top, and the mercy seat sat right down on
top of it. The table had a crown all the way around the top of
it. The only piece of furniture in that Ark that didn't have
a crown was the lamp. the light, which was a picture
of the church. Four pieces of furniture in the
tabernacle, and all of them except the candlestick had crowns. In Revelation chapter 14 and
verse 14, John saw a white cloud, and he said, And one who sat
upon it like unto the Son of Man, having on his head a golden
All of these things were gold. All these crowns made out of
solid gold. And all His glorious offices
and work, our great Savior never ceased to be Lord. He is King. He is God's mediator or King,
doing the will of God, accomplishing the will of God, all power given
unto Him. And then the oddity about this
altar was its horns. This altar had horns. None of
these other things had horns on them. But this altar had horns,
had horns proceeding out of each corner of the altar. And one
time a year Aaron brought the blood of the sin offering unto
the holy place and poured it over the horns of the altar.
And to me this points out Christ our propitiation who can righteously
intercede for those for whom he was made sin. He can do this
and do it righteously. He can make intercession, but
his intercession is justified. That's something we really need
to learn. Because we've got this idea that you can just rush into
the presence of God. You don't rush into the presence
of God apart from this intercessor. And I don't know how many people
he killed in Israel because they didn't pay attention to this.
And I don't know how many spiritually are dead because they don't pay
any attention to this. You can't approach Him apart
from Christ. You can't do it. He cannot be approached apart
from Christ. But all those things in Christ
are justified. They're justified. His intercession
and authority are justly accepted and His benefits rightly dispersed. And these horns also tell me
that our high priest has God's full consent to gather His elect
from all the four corners of the earth. These horns were on
all four corners. of this sign. All four corners. He represents not just a Jewish
nation, but a people out of every nation, kindred, tribe under
heaven. And then another oddity about
this altar is that it was square. Four square is the language of
the Holy Spirit. Was it a cubit I read to you
a while ago? I've already forgotten. A cubit on all sides. All the same. And so in Revelation
21, when John saw the holy city coming down from God out of heaven,
he said, the city lies foursquare. Foursquare. Equal on all sides. All of the body of Christ is
represented in all His offices and work. All His people are
Jews. They are spiritual Jews. Circumcised,
listen to the language of the New Testament. Circumcised with
the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body
of sins, the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.
We are the circumcision, Paul said, which worship God in spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
That's Philippians 3. And then in Romans 2, verse 28,
he said, For he is not a Jew which is won outwardly, neither
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. But he
is a Jew which is won inwardly, and circumcision is that of the
heart in the Spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not
of men, but of God. And then let's look at where
this altar was located in the tabernacle. was positioned directly
before the veil between the Holy of Holies and the sanctuary.
It's the last vessel in the tabernacle that the high priest attended
before going within the veil. What a solemn thing that must
have been for him one time a year. If you didn't obey God in every
jot and tittle, that high priest, when he went beyond that veil,
he was a goner. And that's what we see in our
Lord. You know there in Hebrews chapter
9, it works all through the priesthood, and then he gets down there to
the end of it. He said, this man, one time in the end of the
world, offered himself for the sins of his people and unto them
that looked for him. Don't you know that all Israel
looked for that high priest on that Day of Atonement? See if
he was going to come back out. See if he was going to come back
out. And we look for Christ. We look for Him. God our Savior has passed into
the heavens, having secured for us everlasting life. And even
now He sits upon His Father's throne, interceding for us, who
by nature are just prone to wander and sin against God. And this
is the very basis and heart of our worship when we come into
this place. Our High Priest pleads Now, I want you to hear me with
this. I'm going to come back here to something that I talked
about a little bit ago. Our high priest pleads for no
blessings, which his blood is not first bought and paid for.
He doesn't plead for a single thing that doesn't belong to
him, that he don't have a right to ask. He asks for those things
that he has a right to ask for. And no pardon. He'll ask no,
he won't plead for no pardon for sins that he did not atone
for. But those he atoned for, he pleads
for. And he gets what he pleads for.
In our Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17, before he had anything
to say about the people, listen to what he says. He says to the
Lord, he said, I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do." And this was the basis
of all that he prayed for. I did what you sent me here to
do. I accomplished everything that
you sent me here to do. Now, can you see this? Just think
in simple terms with me. It's the simple things. I was
talking to a man on the phone a while ago, a dear friend of
mine up in Kentucky, and he said, I've been listening to your Exodus
messages. And I said, isn't it funny how
the simplest things in there are the things that give you
the most blessing? I mean, I know there's a lot of things in here,
and I want you to see them and to know them and to recognize
them, but it's the simple things that really blesses your heart.
And the simple thing is this. He took that offering, that substitutionary
offering, and he brought it in there, and on the basis of that
offering and the fire that fed upon that sacrifice, He poured
out that sweet incense and it filled that whole tabernacle
full of sweet savor. Sweet savor. God looked in there
on those priests. He looked in there upon the bread
and upon all the things inside that tabernacle and he was well
pleased. He was well pleased on the basis
of that sacrament. Arthur Pinck made this observation.
The two altars of God are to be seen as connected, though
they are different in their work. And so the psalmist sang this
psalm. Listen to this. The sparrow hath
found a house, and a swallow a nest for herself, where she
may lay her young, even thine altars. Think about that. O Lord of hosts, my King and
my God. These two altars together form
an abiding rest for the poor and needy soul. That's what that
psalm is all about. And then last of all, let me
give you three things about the incense that they put on this
altar. Now, we may come back to that
another time. This incense is something all
on its own. They had an anointing spices
that they put together to anoint the tabernacle and they anointed
everything. All the priesthood and everything
they anointed with this oil. And it was to be used for nothing
else. And then they had incense that they burned on this altar.
And it was to be used for nothing. Now nobody could just make this
and use it for themselves. But I'll give you three things
about that incense to think about. First of all, he said it was
sweet. It was sweet. I'll tell you when
it becomes sweet to you when you're able to enter in that
tabernacle. I don't know how sweet it was to anybody outside,
but to that man inside that tabernacle who experientially knew something
about that incense, it was sweet. It filled his nose and his eyes
and filled the aroma of that whole room around there. It was
sweet to him and it was sweet to God. How sweet must the intercession
of Christ be to the beloved Father, who is well pleased with His
Son in all things. And then secondly, he says this
about the incense. It was pure. It was pure. You think about that. I tell
you, I look back on the prayer I prayed here tonight before
you, and I see flesh. I hate myself when I pray. Most people, they know when it's
time to pray, and I start looking around. Everybody starts looking
down, looking up. Don't call on me. That's why. Because we're full of flesh.
But boy, not Christ. Not Christ. We have to look down
at the ground with the publican when we pray. It said there in
John 17, when our high priest prayed, he looked right up into
heaven itself. Looked right up into the eyes
of the Father and prayed. Why? Because his prayers are
pure. Pure. Things he asked for are
pure. Pure of all sin and ungodly motives
and nothing of the flesh to pollute it. And then thirdly, he tells
us this about this incense, it was holy. It was holy. And for using this incense for
anything other than what God designated it to be used for,
deserved the death penalty. It deserved the death penalty.
You just like the smell of it. You say, I'm going to make me
some of that. It's right here in the law how
much of this to use, how much of that. You can make it. Make
it up. Make it up if you want to die.
Make it up if you want to die. And that to me, that's just men
entering into the work of Christ, trying to say, I'm the one who
intercedes, or Mary's the one who intercedes. All that kind
of nonsense carries the death penalty. It's holy. He's the brightness,
he tells us in Hebrews 1, of the Father's glory and the express
image of His person. Christ, when He went in, to that
holy place and when He was born on this earth and walked on this
earth and accomplished all that He came to do, He manifested
all the perfections of God's character and never compromised
one of them, not one whit the whole time. That's what holiness
is. All of these things in union with each other.