Going to read from the Old Testament from Exodus, Chapter 27, Exodus, Chapter 27, reading the first eight verses of this chapter, Exodus, Chapter 27. You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits. And you shall make horns for it on its four corners. Its horns shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze. You shall make pots for it to receive its ashes, and shovels and basins, and forks and firepans, You shall make all its utensils of bronze. You shall also make for it a gridding, a network of bronze. And on the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners. And you shall set it under the ledge of the altar so that the net extends halfway down the altar. And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. and the poles shall be put through the rings, so that the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it is carried. You shall make it hollow with boards, as it has been shown you on the mountain, so you shall make it." Amen. May God bless the reading of this word. Let's pray. Our Lord and our Father, we pray for Your help to be given to us today in the hearing of Your Word. We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to understand the nature of an altar and all that is signified there, so that we might turn ourselves to You and find grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear us, because we pray this in His name. Amen. Now altars are not what we would call pretty pieces of furniture. You might have been attracted by the table that holds the showbread. You might be attracted by various other parts of the furniture of the tabernacle, but an altar is not kind of furniture you set up in your living room. If you did set up an altar in your living room, I think there'd be something to worry about. Their function, the function of an altar is very simple, that it was a piece of furniture, a piece of material that was used for offering up a sacrifice to God. And that sacrifice usually involved death. Not always, because there were some aspects of the sacrifices that involved grain or food offerings, but for the most part, the sacrifices involved death. And so, an altar is a piece of furniture that, if you reflect upon it for a little while, troubles your mind. And some people are troubled by it when they see it here in the Old Testament, because they know that from the ancient Near Eastern cultures and many other ancient cultures that Altars were often used for human sacrifice and indeed sometimes for child sacrifice. And if you subscribe to National Geographic, every now and then you'll get a picture, not a photograph, but an artist's impression of some ancient culture and somebody being killed on an altar and blood flowing down it. Altars are not pretty pieces of furniture. And so they trouble our minds when we look at them. And rightly so. They should trouble our minds because the issues that an altar raises are serious issues. The things that it was involved with, the things that it functioned in, were serious issues. Matters of life and death before God. life and death in the very presence of God, and you can't really turn your back on it, though we try to. We try to turn our back on the whole principle of what is revealed on an altar when we turn our back upon the cross and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on that cross. The cross is, in a sense, an altar. Or is the fulfillment of the altar that set out for us here. And that's where many people struggle with Christianity. They struggle with this whole business of the cross and the death of Jesus Christ and his blood being offered up in that way because they find it offensive. A scandal of Greek word scandalous is the word for offense. The altar yet we have to grasp is at the heart of Christianity because the cross is at the heart of Christianity. We need to listen carefully to find out what God is saying to us. We need to make it very clear that God did not command human sacrifice and that God did clearly forbid child sacrifice. And yet, in time, God offered his own son as a sacrifice for sin. and that Jesus Christ was offered up as a sacrifice for sin as God and man, and that a man did die in our place, and that blood was shed of a human being in our place, and that that man was God's own Son. You need to be very careful when we look at the nature of an altar and what's being set out to us in an altar, because we need to understand that it's at the heart of the work of God. In saving sinners, it brings us face to face with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. So let me ask a couple of questions. First of all, what did this altar look like? And it's described for us here very clearly. It's called the Bronze Altar because it is being distinguished from another altar, an altar that is described for us in Chapter 30, which is called the Altar of Incense. And if you see from your diagram on the back of your bulletin, The bronze altar is this big one here. The first thing you'd see is you would come through the tabernacle curtains into the courtyard. There it is, five cubits by five cubits, seven and a half feet by seven and a half feet, and four and a half feet tall. The other altar that's just described briefly in chapter 30, the altar of incense, is in here, the smaller altar in the Holy Crisp. So what we're looking at is this large, it was made of wood, it was hollow, and it was covered in bronze, 7 1⁄2 feet by 7 1⁄2 feet square, and 4 1⁄2 feet tall. Probably there was a little mound of earth underneath it, and it may be the case even that there was a little mound of earth coming up to the surface of it, but 4 1⁄2 feet tall. Where was I? And there were four corners, of course, to the square surface, and the four corners each had four horns. They're not described. Were they shaped? So were the horns coming out curving up? Or were the horns coming out curving down? Or there are some who argue that horns is just a generic word and that they weren't horn-shaped at all, but that horns just means like posts in the four corners. We do have a clue from one of the Psalms, Psalm 116 or Psalm 118, that talks about binding the sacrifice to the altar with cords. And these horns, these corners then, were probably part of the way in which you put an animal up onto the to the altar and tied it there by the four horns that were put out. The altar itself was a box shaped with the inside of it hollow, acacia wood covered in bronze. Set somewhat down from the gap was what we would call a grate or a grating, a grate, a grate, a grate, a grating. And then there were these five sets of utensils that were used in the function of the altar. There were pans for clearing away the ash. There were forks for pushing onto the meat. There was a pan for carrying Live coals because live coal from this altar was carried into the altar of incense in the holy place And so this this one was always lit and always used there were various other instruments that were used for clearing it and cleaning it and Keeping it functioning. It was a very simple looking large bronze covered box of a Grill that's what Riken calls it in his commentary. It was like a large grill and Now, the problem with using the word grill is that it conjures up for us, well, barbecues. And in a certain sense, there were times when that's exactly what it did. It roasted the meat. Sometimes the sacrifice that was being made, whatever that particular sacrifice was, the priest got some of the meat or the worshipper got some of the meat. At other times, when it was a whole burnt offering or a holocaust, which means a whole burnt offering, No one got any of the meat and the whole thing was consumed. It's in one sense helpful to view it as a grill and in another sense not helpful to view it as a grill because it would take us off on the wrong track altogether. So that's the description of it. Really a very simple thing. And as you come through the first tabernacle in the first place, that was what you saw. Face to face with this altar. Well, what was its significance? What did it mean at that time in the Old Testament? What was being set out to the people? What was God teaching them in a symbolic way? Well, I think there's three things that are clear from the Old Testament with regards to the altar. First of all, clearly, obviously, first and foremost, it was a place of sacrifice. And as such, as a place of sacrifice, that meant that it was a place of reconciliation with God. And so, in one sense, the altar forms as a kind of mediator, functions as a kind of mediator. It mediates between a sinful man and a holy God, and it stands between them and deals with what needs to be dealt with in order for reconciliation to take place. So the altar was a kind of reconciling place. A place of reconciliation with God. I remember way back in Exodus chapter 20 when we started to look at some of those case laws. One of the first laws was about alters. Exodus 20 verse 22 and the Lord said to Moses that you shall say to the people of Israel. You have seen for yourselves that I talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourself gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen." Listen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. An altar was the place where God would cause his name to be remembered and come to bless the people. And so it's a very important piece of furniture in the tabernacle. It's a place that says, when you come here and you bring your offering here, God himself will be here and God himself will bless you. The altar was the place where fellowship with God was secured for sinners and fellowship and blessing from God was secured through that offering. We'll come to that a little bit more detail in a moment. So the first thing that it symbolizes is that it is a place of mediation between a holy God and a sinful man. It's a place of reconciliation between a holy God and a sinful man. Secondly, and obviously then, throughout the course of the Old Testament, the altar becomes a place of refuge. I should have checked the language. Sometimes when children are playing a game of tag, at least in Ireland when I was small, you would establish a certain part of the playground, the recess yard, as being what we called den. And Dan was a place that was safe. So you couldn't be tagged if you were in Dan. What do you call that here? Home. That's so unoriginal and boring. Home. The altar functioned like that. There were certain times if you thought yourself to be at risk and in trouble where you could where you went to the altar and laid hold of its horns as kind of like being in Dan or being home. It was a place of refuge. I can give you two examples of this one that worked and one that didn't in First Kings. If you turn to 1 Kings 1, Solomon has just become king, and his half-brother Adonijah was troubled by that. And remember, he went through this political scheme of trying to arrange that he could marry somebody. It didn't work very well. Anyway, Adonijah has heard that Solomon has been anointed as king, and 1 Kings 1, verse 50, Adonijah feared Solomon, so he arose and went and took hold of the horns of the altar. Then it was told Solomon, Behold, Adonijah fears King Solomon, for behold, he has laid hold of the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon swear to me first that he will not put his servant to death with the sword. And Solomon said, If he will show himself a worthy man, not one of his hair shall fall to the earth, but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die. So King Solomon sent and they brought him down from the altar, and he came and paid homage to King Solomon. And Solomon said to him, go to your house. So he sought refuge at the altar. And indeed, that's what he found. It was it proved to be a place of safety. Now, maybe what was going on in that culture and at that time was that Adonijah was saying, look, see, I'm laying hold of this holy place. Don't just put me to the sword here, which was often what happened if half brothers took over a a throne that everybody else that might be a rival was put to death. And maybe that's what Adonijah had been planning to do with all his brothers and half-brothers had he been crowned king. But events overtook him, Solomon has become king, and so he goes to a place that he hopes is a place of safety and refuge, and indeed it proved to be. He gets in trouble later for something else. But let's not worry about Adonijah. A little later on, in chapter 2, We have an example of another man who decides to try to lay hold of the altar. This man was Joab. He was a bloodthirsty general in the army. And when he hears that Solomon has become king, that David is dead, you see in 1 Kings 2, verses 28 and following, when the news came to Joab, for Joab had supported Adonijah, although he had not supported Absalom, Joab fled to the tent of the Lord and caught hold of the horns of the altar. So he's trying the same thing. When it was told King Solomon, Joab has fled to the tent of the Lord, and behold, he's beside the altar. Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, go strike him down. Wait, wait, what? Go strike? Wait, he's holding on to the altar. It's a safe place. Doesn't matter. So Benaiah came to the tent of the Lord, said to him, the king commands, come out. But he said, No, I'll die here. Then Benaiah brought the king words saying, Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. See, Benaiah doesn't want to have to kill him while he's holding on to the altar. King replied, Do as he said. Strike him down and bury him and thus take him away and from my father's house. The guilt for the blood that Joab shed without cause. The Lord will bring back his bloody deeds on his own head, because without the knowledge of my father, David, he attacked and killed with the sword two men more righteous and better than himself. Abner, the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amas, the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. You remember that Joab had met them and pretended that they were going to talk in a truce and had just kind of sidled up to them and knifed them. There was nothing David could do about it. David was distressed at the behavior of Joab. So now Solomon is going to execute justice. So shall their blood come back on the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever. But for David and for his descendants and for the house and for his throne there shall be peace from the Lord forever. Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and struck him down and put him to death. And he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. So it was a place of refuge, but it didn't cover you if your sin required your execution. And so it was looked upon as a place of refuge. But you need to understand that when you got to that dam, you weren't always as safe as you thought you were. In a certain sense, I wonder if what was happening over time was that they had come to treat the altar itself with some form of superstition. that just by touching it meant that you couldn't pay for your sin. Which of course is to miss the whole point of what the altar was about because it was the place where your sin was paid for. But they've come to view it in a kind of superstitious way. But it was viewed as a place of refuge and in a certain sense its true meaning is seen in that it is a place of refuge. Refuge from the consequences of your sin in the face of an angry God. A third thing in terms of the significance of the altar, not only a place of sacrifice and thereby reconciliation with God and a place of refuge, but also a place that symbolized the strength and the power and the might of God. By putting four horns on the altar, it wasn't a symbol really of the fact that animals are going to be sacrificed here. The horn in the Old Testament in particular is always spoken of as a symbol of strength. And the horn of salvation means God's strong salvation or God lifting up the horn of his strength. And it's a picture of an animal that's a strong animal and a threatening animal. And so by putting horns on to the altar, it was an emblem of the strength of God and of the power of God and all that God could do in a very straightforward way. The altar said, this is where you're going to be reconciled with God, because this is where God will provide refuge through this sacrifice, because God is strong and powerful and able to save all of these things were being conveyed to the people of God in the Old Testament. But now let me move in a third way, what it looked like, what it signified to them to ask, well, what what is God saying to us? And some of the things that I want to say here, I think were very clear to the people of God in the Old Testament as well. But of course, to us, it's become more clear in and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want to spend the rest of our time looking at this. There are four things I want to say here. What do you need to know? What does the altar say to you? This piece of furniture in the tabernacle. It says four things. It says, first of all, that you are a sinner. That's, of course, what it said to everyone who walked through the curtains into the courtyard of the temple at the tabernacle. It said you are a sinner. It does not matter who you are. You walk through the curtains. There it is. Alter. Sacrifice for sin is necessary. You can't go around it. You can't get in behind some other way. You can't climb over the gate or the fence or climb under the curtains in some other way. The first thing you see is an altar, which is where sacrifices for sin have to be made. Doesn't matter if you were the high priest. Doesn't matter if you were Moses. Doesn't matter if you were one of the children skipping about outside and coming into the tabernacle on that particular day, every single person, you are a sinner. And the altar in the tabernacle said that to the people of God in the Old Testament in two ways. It said to them, you personally, individually are a sinner and you are part of a sinful nation. The whole nation of Israel The whole people of Israel and indeed all the peoples of the earth are sinners. Now when we get to Exodus chapter 40 what will happen at the end of the chapter is that essentially here we are reading the plans and by chapter 40 they'll build it. So we get the plans and then we'll build it. And so when it's all built and completed at the end of chapter 40 what happens next in the word of God. Next page you turn takes you from Exodus chapter 40 to Leviticus chapter 1. And in Leviticus chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, God will describe and detail the various kinds of offerings that are to be made on that altar in order to deal with the sins of each individual who would appear before him. And it's given in great detail. The book of Leviticus would be a wonderful book to preach through, but not yet. But it is a wonderful book to study and to think about and to ponder in terms of what's being said in terms of the gospel. And it was made very clear that each sinner coming before God, he has to have his sin dealt with. That's what God is saying to you. God is saying to you, you're a sinner. By the time you get to Leviticus chapter 15 to 16, Moses outlines what's called the day of atonement. Once a year in which God is saying to the people, you are a sinner and you are all every one of you sinners. And the sacrifices of that day begin on this altar and then move through until they reach the Holy of Holies. And the blood is splattered into the Ark of the Covenant on that one day in every year. Now, you know, it doesn't really make you feel good about yourself that the first thing that God says to you when you try to come near Him is that you're a sinner. And that you better stop in your tracks or he'll consume you. It doesn't really make you feel very good about yourself. You want to approach God. You want to know God. You want to have a good relationship with God. And here he is saying stop. Here he is saying you can't approach. Here he is saying you're not right. Here he is saying you've sinned. Deal with your sin and then we'll speak and be in communion and no fellowship together. If your sin dealt with. In the very presence of the living God. Or do you still dare to approach him not having paid any attention to the fact that he's saying to you. You're a sinner. You're a sinner. You're a sinner. And the people amongst whom you dwell, all sinners. That's the first thing. The second thing I think that we're being told in the altar is that in light of this sin, God demands life and death from you. In the light of your sin, He indicates and all of the various offerings that could be made upon the altar all indicate one or other of these two things. And in fact, I don't think they can be separated. One leads to the other. That the whole of your life. Should be consecrated to God and that the wages of your sin is death. And in a certain sense, those are the two boundaries that are set for us by the altar and by the kinds of gifts that are placed upon it. That God demands the whole of your life. And of course, you haven't given it to him. And that because of your sin, God demands your death. And of course, you're not keen on that one either. These two things are are very important because they remind us that the nature of our sin runs in two directions. You see, he said, you're a sinner. And now he's saying in the light of that sin, he demands your life and your death because you're being told that that we've sinned against God in two ways. That first of all, we've sinned against God by failing to live up to the standard that he set for life. And then secondly we've sinned against God because we have broken through the boundaries that he has set for us. We've done both of these things. We fail to live up to the mark that he set and we break out the boundaries across the boundaries that he has set for us. We fall short of the glory of God and we break the law of God. And what happens in the nature of both of these things is that by such sin we shatter any relationship there is with God. Failing to live up to the standard that God has set means no relationship with God. Breaking across the boundaries that God has set means no relationship with God. Severed, burst, broken. And he's saying, you've sinned. And in the light of your sin, I'm asking for your life and I'm asking for your death. You know that what God is saying to us is very straightforward. You are not what you should be. And you have done what you should not have done. You are not what you should be. You have done what you should not have done. And the altar is the place where both of those things are taken care of. That you are not what you should be, but you bring your offerings in dedication to him as a symbol of the consecration of all, because by his grace, he renews you in these offerings. And you bring the offering of a sin offering and a death because that is the substitutionary atonement and what you find at this altar. is that you who are not what you should be are accepted and forgiven and that you who've done what you ought not to have done are accepted and forgiven because that's what he does at the work of the altar. So you're a sinner. You're a sinner before God who demands your life and your death. The third thing in terms of what God is saying before us is that he shows us how he deals with our sin. Let me read for you just one of the examples of one of the offerings Leviticus chapter one and I'll read the first nine verses. So you get a sense of what happens. This is a blood sacrifice. So this gives you a sense of what's going on. Listen carefully to this and the children should listen to this as well. The Lord God called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a meal without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burned offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord and Aaron's sons. The priest shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron's sons, the priest, shall arrange the pieces, the head and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. But its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma. to the Lord. When you come to this altar, God is saying, you're a sinner. You stand before this altar. God is demanding your whole life and your death because you broke his law. And so you bring an animal. It, first of all, had to be the very best one you had. You didn't go out to your flock and find one that was born without an eye and a gammy leg. not in a gammon sense of a gammy leg, but weak or sickly and say, oh, that one will do because it's not going to get you. You take your prize bull. Your prize bull, which is worth a lot of money. You think to yourself, I wanted to keep that one to breed. That's the best one. That's going to make me millions throughout the next several years as a farmer. You take your prize bull, without blemish. And then you go to the priest. You put your hand on its head as the priest slits its throat. The blood comes spurting out. The animal will fall. Priests are catching blood in some of those basins that were part of the implements they had. But your hand was on its head when it died. You felt it. You felt it. It was a symbol that it was a substitute. It was a symbol that it was in your place that was that beast was dying. And then on this particular offering, it was arranged and it was put up on the altar and it was all burnt. And in a couple of places reading through Leviticus chapter one, you heard it said, and he shall be accepted. The man, the person, God accepts the person, God takes what comes and he says it's a pleasing aroma to his nose, the nostrils, the blood has been spilled on the altar, a life was given in your place. And so sin. Is dealt with. In the eyes of God and the sinner now stands in favor before the Lord. That's what happened. when you brought your sacrifice, when it was one of those animal sacrifices. Gruesome, bloody, violent, probably sickening. The smell must have been horrible. And as you watch, the priest is taking blood and splattering it on the side of the altar. You've seen blood splattered about? It's not pleasant. It would be like reading a murder mystery. Watching a murder being carried out here as this beast is slain. But it's your substitute. And it's an emblem of your death and of the whole of your life being given over to God. You're a sinner. You're a sinner and God demands your life and your death. And God has set up a way to grant you pardon through the sacrifice. And then the fourth and the last thing in terms of what this is saying to you is really very simple. All of this points forward to Jesus Christ. Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. And let me read for you there. how the altar proves to be a temporary measure. Because what God was really setting out is what Jesus was willing to do for us. Hebrews chapter 10. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers have once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these offerings, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings. You have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting for that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant I will make with them, after those days, declared the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. And then he adds, hear the words now. Hear the words. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. This is what Jesus did. He himself was the priest. And he himself was the sacrifice. And he offered up himself so that we might hear these words. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Have you heard those words? Has the Holy Spirit brought those words like a burning, searing, hot joy into the depths of your heart that God, through Christ's life and death, has said to you, I will remember your sins and your lawless deeds Brothers, sisters, I was thinking about this week that in my preaching, I never seemed to get away from the cross of Christ. One of our preaching professors told us that we should periodically look at the subject of our sermons to be sure that we're preaching the whole counsel of God. And so I looked a little at the content of my preaching and realized that I keep preaching Christ crucified to you. And I'm not ashamed of that. Because it is what you need to know. To know Christ and him crucified. And to know that not only if you are not a Christian, but if you are a Christian. For this is where your faith will be strengthened. And it's where your joy will grow. And it's where your assurance will continue. And it's where your witness will be strengthened and made more faithful. Christ Himself has lived for us and died for us. Now then, you can live for Him. Because no penalty for your sin is to be paid. It's all done. You're free. You're forgiven. You're alive. So, get on with living for Him. With the joy of the Lord upon your soul. Let's pray. Gracious Lord, be near to us, Your children, this day, that in the hearing of the Gospel, we shall rejoice in Jesus Christ, and that we shall know Him whom to know is life eternal. Hear us, because we pray this in our Savior's blessed and glorious name. Amen.