Would you turn with me to the
27th chapter of the book of Exodus? I've entitled this message, Christ,
our altar. Christ, our altar. I'd like us to read these first
eight verses of Exodus 27, and thou shalt make an altar of chitinwood
Five cubits long and five cubits broad, and 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 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 shiddom wood, and overlay them with brass. And the stage should be put into
the rings and the stage should be upon the two sides of the
altar to bear it hollow with boards, shalt thou make it as
it was showed thee in the mount. So shalt thou make it. Christ,
our altar. Now, what is the purpose of an
altar? Let me give you a hint. Doesn't
have anything to do with a wedding. You've heard people refer to
getting married as going to the altar. It doesn't have anything
to do with what they call an altar call. An altar has one
purpose. You know what that is? Death. Sacrifice. No other purpose. The Hebrew
word is taken out of another Hebrew word, which means to slaughter,
to kill. To slay, to sacrifice. Turn to Genesis 22 for a moment.
You'll see what is meant by an altar. Verse 6 of Genesis 22, And Abraham
took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. And he took the fire in his hand
and a knife. And they went, both of them together,
and Isaac spake unto Abraham, his father, and said, My father.
And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold, the fire
and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burned offering? And Abraham said, My son, God
will provide himself a lamb for a burned offering. So they went,
both of them together. And they came to the place which
God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there, and laid
the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on
the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. Now, that's what an altar is
all about. It's about death. Now, when you entered the courtyard,
what is the first thing you saw in the tabernacle? What's the
first thing you saw? The altar. The altar that we
just read of. Now, look back in our text. There's
something very unique about this altar. Look once again in verse
two. And thou shalt make the horns
of it, which represents power. Thou shalt make the horns of
it upon the four corners thereof. But notice this switch. Its horns,
no, 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." Now notice, personality is attributed to
this altar. Not it, but him. This material altar represents
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the altar. Now let me show you another scripture.
Turn to Genesis chapter 33. This is when Jacob reared up
an altar and we read in verse 20 of Genesis chapter 33. And he erected there an altar
and called it, L-L-O-E, Israel, God, the God of Israel. He called
that altar God. the God of Israel. Now, we know that the altar represents
the death of a sacrifice, but my dear friends, I want you to
listen to me real careful. Zero in on what I'm getting ready
to say. True faith is always in a person. That sounds simple enough. True
faith is always in a person. Abraham believed God. I do not trust the death of Christ. That's an event. The death of
Christ, that's an event. I trust Him who died. There's all the difference in
the world. I don't trust the finished work
of Christ. I trust him who finished the
work. You see, what we believe is completely
determined by who we believed. Now, when do you believe Christ? Is it when you see He died for
you? No. You can believe He died for
you and He didn't because He didn't die for everybody. There's
all kinds of people who believe He died for their sins who He
never died for. You don't believe in Christ when
you have some assurance that He's died for you. You believe
in Christ when you see who He is. That's when you believe. You know when you love Christ?
You love Christ not when you see all that He's done for you.
You love Christ when you see that He is lovely. That's when you love Him. Not
when you see what He's done for you. You're grateful for what
He's done for you, but you love Him. Your heart goes out in love
to Him, not when you see what He's done for you, but when you
see that He is altogether lovely. Let me give you a New Testament
scripture for this. Turn to Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6. As a matter
of fact, I'm going to quote this passage of Scripture several
times in this message for various reasons. Verse 14. But God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ By which the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world? No. By whom? By whom the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world? The altar is not an event we
trust. It's not a doctrine we understand,
but a person, so much so that the personal pronoun is used
with regard to this altar. Now, before this altar that was
part of the tabernacle, there were other altars built from
which we received much instruction. The first time the word altar
is used is found in Genesis chapter eight. Would you turn with me
there? Genesis chapter eight, this is when Noah gets off the
ark. And here's what he did when he
got off the ark in verse 20. And Noah, Genesis 820, and Noah
built an altar unto the Lord and took of every clean beast
and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar. That's the first thing he did
when he got off the ark. And what took place? Verse 21,
and the Lord smelled. The Lord's got a keen sense of
smelling. The Lord smelled a sweet savor
through this death on this altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. And my marginal reference says
a savor of rest. Does your margin say that? A
savor of rest. It has something to do with rest,
a smell of rest, a smell of satisfaction. So much so that the Lord said
in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for
man's sake. For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his
youth. Neither again will I smite anymore every living thing as
I've done. Now he makes that promise because of that smell
of rest, that smell of satisfaction. Something about that, the death
of those clean animals on that altar. And if you know it pointed
to the Lord Jesus Christ, it doesn't have anything to do with
any saving merit in those animals. God said, I'm satisfied. I'm
satisfied. I'm satisfied with this. Now,
I want you to think about this, this concept of distorted satisfaction. What hell is eternal? Eternal punishment. Why? Because
God can never be satisfied. He can never be satisfied. Now,
let's try to put this in human terms. Kelly, What if somebody
killed one of your kids? That'd be horrible to think about.
Think of your kid. What if somebody killed one of
your kids or your only child or whatever? What if the law
said, well, they need to pay $100? Would you be satisfied? Well,
let's take the price up to $10,000. Would you be satisfied then?
All right. What if they gave a million dollars?
Would you be satisfied then? Well, for a million dollars,
I can take the debt. You'd never be satisfied, would
you? You'd never be satisfied. Now, do you think God can ever
be satisfied with the payment that the person who was guilty
of killing his son? No. That's why hell is eternal. Sin is an infinite evil and God
could never be satisfied with any payment I could make. It
would never make up for what I did. It can't do it. Because
it's me, I can't make the payment. But the Lord Jesus Christ, there's
such infinite worth in His death that God said, I'm satisfied. And He raised Him from the dead
because He was completely satisfied with what He did and He's completely
satisfied with everybody He did it for. Isn't that wonderful? God's satisfied with me. God
looks at me and He's satisfied. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. God is satisfied. I'm not satisfied with myself.
God is. God is. And I'm satisfied with
what God is satisfied with. Turn to Isaiah 53 for a moment. Isaiah 53. Verse 10. Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him He hath put him to grief, when thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, the
people he's dying for. He shall prolong his days, and
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall
see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge. Shall my righteous servant justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquities? Now I want you to
think about what his death did. satisfied God. And by his death, he actually
justified. He justified many. Now, here's
what I get out of this. My justification. My complete
salvation. My perfection before God. was
accomplished completely outside of my personal experience. You know what that does for me?
It gives me confidence and it gives me joy. If I had to look
within for any reason as to why God has saved me, I couldn't
find a reason. Not something that would measure
up to God's standards. But seeing my salvation accomplished
outside of me, I rejoice. Do you find rest in this? His
death justified. I find such rest in that. God
smelled the sweet savor of rest. And I do too. They that have
believed do enter into rest. Now, did you notice in our text
that that altar had horns? There's several references to
the horns of the altar. As a matter of fact, several
times in the Old Testament, when people were seeking for refuge,
they get between the horns of the altar and they were protected
between the horns of the altar. Now, what do these horns have
to do with? Well, horns signify power and
strength. That's what they represent, power
and strength. Now, I want you to think of the
power and the strength of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that altar has to do with death. You know one of the glorious
things about Christ? In Old Testament worship, you
had to have three things. You know what they were? First,
you had to have an altar. You couldn't worship without
an altar. And then you had to have a sacrifice. And then you
had to have a priest. You could not worship without
all three of these things. Christ is our altar. Christ is our sacrifice and Christ
is our priest. Isn't he glorious? Now, the power,
the strength of this sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He on the altar, he as the altar,
drank the dregs of all of the wrath of God completely dry. And there was none left. God
said, there's no fury in me. God doesn't have a reason to
be mad. He really doesn't. Christ had such power that all
of the wrath of God could come upon him, and he drank it completely
dry to where there's none left. His sacrifice made sin not to
be. Hebrews 9, 26 says he put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself. And in 1 John chapter 3, verse
5, in him is no sin. Now what about my sin? What about
my sin? It's very real. It's most real.
What about my sin? Is it really gone? Yes. Yes. What sin? There is no sin. That's the power of His sacrifice.
His sacrifice actually put away sin. I have no sin. That's why
I've become bold in God's presence. Now, I come as a sinner. I realize
that. I always come as a sinner. I don't come saying, I have no
sin. I come as a sinner. But you know what? I have no
sin. I come through the sacrifice of my great altar, the Lord Jesus
Christ. His sacrifice made all believers
to be perfected forever. By one offering, His sacrifice. He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. Listen to this scripture, Hebrews
10, 11. By the which will we are sanctified. Now somebody
this week said, don't you grow in sanctification? Don't you
develop in sanctification? No, you don't. You can't get
any more sanctified or less sanctified. You are sanctified, holy in Christ
Jesus. Now the scripture teaches we
do grow in grace, we grow in faith, and all of those things.
But my holiness is Christ Jesus himself. And I can't get any
more holy than I am. I've been perfected forever.
Perfectly completed, never to be repeated. That's what the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ did. I'm holy before God. His sacrifice has such power
over all for whom he died that everyone must say this. Can you
say this? God forbid that I should glory. Save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ by whom I see this world a crucified thing. In light of the cross, this world
seems to be nothing more than an empty soap bubble. And this
world views me the same way, too. Now, this is the subject
of the eternities, his sacrifice. The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, that was the song of eternity past and the song
of eternity future is worthy of the lamb that was slain. And here's another interesting
fact, would you turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 12. Deuteronomy
chapter 12. Verse 13. Take heed to thyself. that thou
offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest.
Don't just think I can just go anywhere where I can offer this
burnt offering. No, but in the place which the
Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer
thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command
thee. You couldn't just pick any old
place to put this altar and offer up this sacrifice. Only in the
place where God said, I put my name, and nowhere else. But in
the place where the Lord should choose in one of thy tribes,
there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there shalt thou
do all that I command thee. That's not saying what I thought
it said. There's one in there that, well, he says the only
place you can do it is where I put my name. I've got the wrong
scripture. I'm sorry. You can look it up
for yourself. But it says the only place you can put it is
where I put my name. Where's the Lord put his name? The Lord
Jesus Christ, that's a weak point because I don't have scripture
to go with it, but I don't know how I missed that. But the Lord
Jesus Christ is where he puts his name. And the next point
flows from that. Look at Exodus chapter 17. Exodus chapter 17. Verse 15. And Moses built an
altar. and call the name of it, Jehovah
Nisi. Jehovah Nisi. Jehovah on this
altar. He called this altar, this place
of sacrifice, Jehovah Nisi. Jehovah, our banner. Jehovah,
our message. Here's what the New Testament
says about that. Here's our banner. Here's our ensign. Here's our
message. We preach Christ crucified. That's the very message of the
church. Christ our altar. Christ our
sacrifice. Christ crucified. And Paul said
this. He said, I've determined not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's Jehovah-Nissi. Christ
our banner. This altar. This altar. I've
never really seen it. I've always known what Jehovah-Nissi
was, but I never thought of it being an altar. He called the
altar. Jehovanise, Christ our banner,
the sacrifice of Christ, our very message, what we delight
in, what we glory in. Now, if somebody cannot understand
why Paul said, God forbid that I should glory in the cross of
Christ, and somebody can't understand why Paul said, I'm not even interested
in preaching anything else but Christ being crucified. Somebody
can't understand that because they've never seen the glory
of the cross. This is the message of the Christian Church. Christ
our banner. Now, let me show you a scripture
that shows how factual this altar is. Turn to Exodus 36. I love
this. Exodus 36. This is talking about the altar
that we read of in Exodus 27. Verse 37. Well, I messed that one up, too. Let me see if it's a 37. Well, let
me tell you what it said. Let me tell you what it said. I'm sorry. This is not good. I don't know how I managed this,
but I messed up something, you know. I'm sorry, Flash. But let
me tell you what this scripture said. It said this altar is most
holy. And anybody who touches it and
anything who touches it is holy. That's what the scripture says.
It's in Exodus 36 or 37 somewhere. You couldn't defile that altar. You couldn't do something to
make it unclean. You couldn't mess up the holiness
of this altar. You see, holiness is immutable.
And anybody who comes in contact with this altar, they're called
by God holy. Isn't it a blessing to know that
you can't defile the altar? It can only make you holy. That's
all it does. Now how? Do we come into contact
with this altar if this altar makes us holy? How in the world
do we come in contact with it? Well, turn with me to Genesis,
Chapter 12. I know I got these scriptures right. Genesis, Chapter 12, verses seven
and eight. And the Lord appeared unto Abram,
and said unto thy seed will I give the land. And there builded he
an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed from
thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his
tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hyde on the east. And there
he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name
of the Lord. Look in chapter 13, verse 4.
He came unto the place of the altar where he made there at
the first, And there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord. Now what did he do upon coming
to that altar? He called upon the name of the
Lord. Now what does that mean, to call
upon the name of the Lord? Well, his name is his attributes. His name is the person behind
the name. His holiness, his justice, his
sovereignty, his wisdom His mercy, His grace, His power, all of
His wonderful attributes. That's who He is. The name of
the Lord is who He is. And when I call on His name,
it doesn't just mean I'm saying, Jehovah, save me. No, I'm saying,
Lord, save me by Your sovereignty, by an act of Your will. Save
me by Your justice in a way that Your justice is honored and my
sin is put away. Save me by Your kindness and
Your mercy. Save me by your wisdom where
you've made a way to be just and justify the ungodly. When
I call upon the name of the Lord, I'm calling on who He is. And
I'm asking who He is to save me. That's what it means to call
on the name of the Lord. I'm calling on the name of the
Lord right now while I'm speaking to you. Lord, save me by your
grace. Lord, save me as an act of your
mercy on me. Lord, save me by your justice.
Save me by your kindness. Save me by your power. Every
one of your attributes. Save me. What a wonderful scripture. Whosoever, don't care who you
are, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. You know, that's always true.
And you know, quite often, that's the only thing I got. That's
the only thing I've got. But that's plenty, isn't it?
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Verse 10. We have an altar. where they have no right to eat
which serve the tabernacle. Now, if you believe in salvation
by works, you have no right to eat from the meat that comes
from this altar. And remember, the priest would
eat the sacrifices. Now, you have no right to eat
of this sacrifice on this altar if you believe in salvation by
works. But if you believe the gospel, This is for you. You have an altar and you have
the right to eat. If you believe on Christ, Christ,
our altar, Christ, our sacrifice, Christ, our priest, this is all
our food and what a good meal he is. You can have complete
confidence and joy in his sacrifice. Look, look at Romans chapter
five with me for a moment. I'm going to show you a few other
scriptures. I'm going to quit. Is it my imagination or has it
been very hot in here? That's been that way last several
Wednesday nights. We need to address that. I'm
sitting here. Matthew, chapter 23, verse 16. Woe unto you. You blind guys
would say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, it's nothing.
But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he's
a debtor, you fools and blind. For weather is greater, this
is Matthew 23, verse 17, you fools and blind, for weather
is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. And
whosoever shall swear by the altar is nothing, but whoso swears
by the gift that's upon it, he is guilty. You fools and blind,
for weather is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies
the gift. Now, what they were saying is
here's what lends credibility to our gift. If we swear by the
gift, if we if we swear by the altar, it's non-binding. It doesn't
matter if we don't do what we said we're going to do. But if
we swear by the gift, if we swear by our contribution to that altar,
then the promise is binding. But the Lord says, you fools.
What's more important, what's greater, your gift or the altar? that sanctifies the gift. You see, it's the altar that
sanctifies the gift. Our little pathetic attempts
at worship. They're pathetic, aren't they?
You know what? The altar sanctifies that worship. And it's holy to God. It smells
good to God. That prayer that you prayed that
had so much unbelief and so much wandering and so just you just
thought this didn't even get past the ceiling. What a pathetic
prayer. The altar sanctifies the gift. And it comes up before God and
it smells good. That gift that you gave, you
didn't give it as willingly as you should. You know that. You were doing it out of duty
far too much. You weren't doing it as joyfully
as it ought to be. But the altar sanctifies the
gift. And everything that a believer
does is sanctified by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that fire upon the
altar. That we just read of was continual. There was a morning
sacrifice. And there was an evening sacrifice,
and that fire never went out. That fire was always burning
at the altar. And you know, the power of the
blood of Christ never goes out. It never gets old. It never gets
stale. It's new every morning. Now,
one final scripture. Turn to Exodus 20. Here's some
more instructions regarding the altar. Verse 25, And if thou wilt make me an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of ewestone. For if you lift up your tool
upon it, you have polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon." Now, works are excluded. You put your tool through it,
if you have anything to do with it, it's no good. It's His sacrifice
alone. Even the altar that the sacrifice
is laid. He said, no ewe stone. If you
worked it out, it's unaccepted. It's polluted. But I love the
way He says this. There are no steps to this altar. You don't have to go through
this step, the seven different steps, or you need to go through
conviction of sin and mourning. No. No steps to this altar. I come to this altar just as
I am. I don't try to make myself ready.
I don't try to make myself fit. I come to this altar just as
I am. That's the only way I can come.
And if I try to make myself fit, all I do is make myself unfit.
Like we sing in that song, let not conscience make you linger,
nor fitness fondly dream. The only fitness he requires. You know, the song says, is to
fill your need of him. But I've got a better way to
put it. to have a need of Him. Because sometimes you feel your
need, sometimes you can't feel a thing. It's not just to feel
your need, but it's to have a need. And you know something I always
have? I always have a need. I always have a need. Christ our altar. Let's pray together.