Exodus 30. Let's read the beginning of verse 17. Exodus 30, verse 17, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Thou shalt also make a labour of brass, and his foot, or the pedestal, or the basin, or the bottom of it, also of brass, to wash with oil. And thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and thou shalt put water therein. For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat. When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water that they die not. For when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord, so shall they So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not. And it shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generation. And I continue to be amazed at the wisdom and the genius of God as I study this tabernacle. just absolutely amazed at the design of this tabernacle and the picture and the type of Christ that it is. As the writer put it, oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God is how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways of past finding out. There's no way we can plumb the depths of this ocean of knowledge concerning this tabernacle. Every symbol, every instrument is a marvel of the master architect and the builder of this thing, the tabernacle. Even the most simple objects in this tabernacle, like the gate that we looked at before. It's not there. The gate and the fence. and things like that, even the simplest of things. And now the labor. We're going to be looking at the labor, the brass labor this evening. Every one of them have infinite depth of meaning. Last week, we looked at the altar where the sacrifice was made. The altar was where the blood was shed, and now the labor is where the water is poured. and water right as Christ hung there on the cross you remember when the centurion came by the soldier came by with a spear pierced his side what came out blood and water blood and water Christ is both the altar and the sacrifice on the altar and the priest who makes the sacrifice and who takes it into the tabernacle. He's the tabernacle, and he's also the laser, and he's the water in the laser. He's everything. He is blood. It's Christ's blood that redeems our very soul for justification. It is his water, the water of his Word, of himself, that sanctifies us. He said, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified. I become poured out as water that they might be sanctified. Now I want you to note as we go along in this study. Not just tonight but throughout the study of this tabernacle. I want you to note the progression of the careful. Steps of the life of a believer or the gospel the steps in this thing of the gospel and the life of the believer. It's God ordained this thing when you come in the gate and you come to the altar and you come to the water and you go to the bread and you go to the light and you go to the incense and you go in the Holy Ghost. He didn't just randomly throw those things out there and say, well, let's see what we're going to do first. No, it's a perfect picture of how we are made to be glorified, come into God's very presence. We come to the altar. We come to Christ, come to the cross, come to the Christ. the cross and have our sins removed. That's one great need that we have is to have our sins forgiven. We come to Christ as our substitute, our redeemer, our savior, our sin offering. We must first come to God with blood because without the shedding of blood there's no remission. And without the shedding of blood and without the washing of water there's no admission. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. Without the washing of water, there's no admission into the Holy of Holies. Without redemption, we have our sins still, and God condemns it. Without sanctification, we're dirty. We can't go into the holy place. We have to be made like Christ. So the blood is what saves us. The blood, the sacrifice at the Eastern Gate is what saves us. That settles our salvation once and for all. That settles it. It starts right there. Salvation begins at the cross for everyone. Everyone must begin at the cross, not the labor, not the table showbread, not the holy book. You got to begin at the cross. You got to come sit at the foot of the cross like we did last Wednesday and just behold, behold the Lamb of God, which takes away your sin and be washed Sit under that cross and let that blood cover you, OK? That's our first need. Before we're sanctified, we have to be justified. Because when he called, he justified. When he justified, he fortified. He sanctified. Sanctification. And this is the order. This is the order of this thing. You don't wash and then come to the altar. No. You come to the altar, and then you come to be washed. You come to be washed. You don't clean up your life and then come to Christ. No, you come to Christ to be cleaned up. Christ said it. He said, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter. And we can't do that, can we? God must do that. And the outside will be clean also. The outside. I want you to stay with me tonight. I'm going to give us several, several passages of Scripture. I've just filled this message with passages of Scripture because everything is so pertinent, so applicable to this labor and to this message. Now, you go from the cross to the labor, from the labor to the table of showbread, from the bread From the candle to the altar of incense, and from the altar of incense into the Holy of Holies. And this is a perfect picture of the life or salvation itself. We're justified. We're sanctified. We're given communion with God, partakers of him. We're given discernment. He increases our discernment. We're given a spirit of intercession. to come into His very presence, and then finally, glorification. We go to be with Him. From altar to ark, it all speaks of Christ. A-X. It all speaks of Christ. From the altar to the ark, from the sacrifice glory to the Shekinah glory, it's all speaking of Christ. All of it. Salvation is of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Salvation. Salvation is of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I said before, the last couple of times I mentioned this, a stranger, a mere stranger or a common person could not enter into that tabernacle. Not even into the outer court of that tabernacle. You remember the courtyard is surrounded by the fence that's called the outer court. A stranger and not even the common people could go in there. Only the priests. Except like old, oh I forgot his name already. But that fellow that ran in out of desperation and grabbed ahold of the horns of the altar. It was his last ditch effort to be said. He had to. He had to get in there. Then he couldn't stay. They drug him out of there real fast. He said, we'll save you, but you can't stay here. You can't stay in there. So a stranger, a mere common person, couldn't go in that tabernacle. Couldn't be in there. Only a priest, right? And yet we being strangers. Scripture calls us strangers. Yet we being strangers, as Scripture says, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Made nigh. Listen to this verse, Revelation 5 says, this is what we are going to sing to Christ when we get up there, thanksgiving to him for bringing us so close in that. Thou wast flame, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, tongue, and people, and nation, stranger, Gentile, and hast made us unto our God kings and Priest. Priest. And then Paul said over in Hebrews 10, he says now, having therefore brethren boldness, liberty, the freedom to enter into the holiest of holies, the holiest by the blood of Christ, we are actually granted access. This is what Paul says here in Exodus 2 verse 18. Look at it. For through him, that is Christ, Through Christ, we both, that is, Jew and Gentile, stranger or promised people, we both have access by his Holy Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, verse 19, now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. God lets you in the very courtyard. like a priest he's made them were made under him kings and priests and the only way that we have access is through the blood of Christ through his blood through him and we have access we have entrance we've been granted entrance into this this holy of holy the people. The Holy Spirit will have to give us an understanding of what this means But if you could, if you could talk to one of those people back then about this tabernacle, they were wholly taken up with this place. And they long, don't you know they long to get in there and look at this thing? They didn't know much about it. It was a mystery to them. Even the inside, nobody got in there. If you could ask them, would you like to go in? Oh, would I? Come on. What if a high priest himself came up and said, Terry, listen, come on, I'll take you in and show you around. Really? They would have been thrilled. And I wish this thrilled me more. I wish this thrilled us more. The fact that we have access, we have entrance into the deep mysteries of God and able to fellowship fellow citizens with the saints of the household of God, we're made partakers of that heavenly calling. We're on the inside. We're on the inside. Well, look back at Exodus chapter 30 again with me now. Exodus chapter 30. Now, what I've been talking about to begin with is salvation being totally in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. That he is the altar, he is the labor, and true understanding of the gospel. is just that. That salvation is all in Christ. This is what you would call the doctrine of Christ. If any man transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, that is that salvation is totally, 100%, completely in and of and by and through and in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not within us, it's in him, totally. That's the doctrine of Christ. That's the principle, theme, and story of this whole book. Salvation in the hands of our high priest. And that's what this tabernacle speaks of. Now, Paul said this. Paul said over in Hebrews, he said, now, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ. Remember when he said that? Let us go on, therefore. Let's go on unto perfection. He's not talking about going on to something better. He's talking about, let's see the whole picture. We see how the salvation is in Christ from start to finish. It's in Him. It's totally in Him. He is our salvation. He's the blood. He's the water. He's the bread. He's the light. He's our high priest who prays. He's the ark. Now, having that established, firmly established in our mind and in our hearts, not wavering, but firmly settled in our mind. Paul said, now let's go on and see the whole picture of how this thing is wrought in us, through us, to us, in us. Established in our hearts and mind, Christ is all in all, in justification and sanctification. Now let's talk about the work of Christ and His Spirit in this thing of sanctification. Now, I started to, I wanted to to ground us, to start us out on the right foot here. Every message should start with Christ and end with Christ, just like the tabernacle did. So we started right there. I hope there's no doubt in your mind. I'm not leaving any room for doubt here that this thing of salvation has anything to do with us. OK? That's settled. All right? I hope so. Now, it's providential. To me, it's very clearly Providential that we've been studying through the book of James. I didn't plan this thing. Well, I did. I did tell you that we were going to do this, didn't I? But I felt led to do this, go through Hebrews and Tabernacle and James. But I really, before I started studying the book of James, I didn't really understand just how closely that book fits in with everything else. We've been studying James, which talks about the believer's walk. Talks about the believers, well, now look at verse nineteen with me. Now he says that this labor of brass are for Aaron and his sons to wash their hands and their feet thereat. Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat. When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water. that they die not. That's speaking of being washed in the blood of Christ. You can't come to God except by Christ, except you're washed in the blood of Christ, washed from your sins, your sins washed from you by the blood of Christ, or else you'll die in the white, hot, holy presence of God Almighty. You can't come to Him except you be washed. But you notice these priests, Aaron and his sons, the high priest and his son were to wash their hands and their feet in this pedestal. Now they are in this labor of brass. You'll notice if you have this with you, I'm not sure that this is an accurate rendition or a portrait of what the labor really looked like, but it'll serve the purpose. I believe this thing was removable right here, and this was big enough to where a man could stand in this put his feet in this pedestal or this basin here and so wash his feet and his hands at the same time he removed his top be washing his hand while he's washing his feet down there stood in there because. If he stood out on the ground he no way to get his feet completely clean so it stand in this this water but it was his hands first of all. Now I want you to turn over to Hebrews chapter 10 with me. Hebrews chapter 10. Does sanctification, now we're talking about sanctification, this labor and the water is a picture of sanctification. Does sanctification start with our hands? I mean these actual, our hands with the outer man, does that word sanctification start? No. No, not at all. Look at Hebrews 10, verse 22, or look at verse 19. Hebrews 10, verse 19. Now, he says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Christ. There he starts at the altar. By a new and living way, how's that? Himself, Christ himself, the living sacrifice, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having an high priest Who takes us in there? We are in him. We go in in him. He takes us in to the house of God. Let us draw near with a true heart. See that? A heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure Well, heart, it starts in the heart. Remember I quoted back there, Christ said, cleanse first that which is within. Because why? Because God doesn't look to see his man seed on the outward countenance. God is not first looking at the outward countenance. God looks on the heart. That's where he looks first of all. He looks at the heart. And then, who must give us a new heart? God himself must give up, take away the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh, a heart that beats for him. And the hands here in the text in Exodus 30, our hands, I believe, are symbolic of the heart, the heart. The Jews asked Christ this. The Jews were confused about this thing. And they asked Christ and said, what must we do to do the works of God? We want to do something for God, and isn't that the religious Jew of our day? What must we do to get to God, to work the works of God? We want to do something for Jesus, you know. We'll do something for God. We'll serve the Lord, brother, you know. What did Christ say? Oh, this is the work of God. It starts right here. The work of God starts right here. Not here. Not here. It starts right here. Because, listen to these verses, with the heart. Man believeth under righteousness, and then with the mouth, or the life, the walk, confession is made. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the foot moves, the hand works. It starts right here. Out of the heart, because out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft. So this thing of sanctification has to start in the heart, not in the hand. heart. Okay, so we'll put our hand over our heart when we talk about this. David said this, David said this, I will run the way of your commandments. It doesn't matter where my feet, I'll walk, I'll work, I'll serve. I'll run the way of your commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart. Isn't that good? Who shall stand in his holy place? Who's going to walk with Christ? Who's going to walk with God? Who's going to be in God's holy presence? Who shall stand in his holy place? Well, it says, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. A pure heart. Who's that? That's Christ alone. Christ. And us in him. And we're considered by God in Christ. We have clean hands. Our works. Even though our own works are filthy rags, in Christ they're acceptable to God Almighty. Even though we've got the blood of God's Son on our hands that renders us guilty before God, yet the blood of God's Son on our hands renders us acceptable to God. Let his blood be on us and our children. That was a cry of evil intent, but now it's our cry of praise. So by him, by Christ, we are inwardly washed first, inwardly and outwardly. We come to Christ for our sanctification, the same as our justification. He's the altar and the laver. So keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. We come to Christ for both our sanctification and our justification. Now, secondly, turn to John 13 with me. He commanded that those priests, the high priests and the common priests, he commanded that they wash their feet as well. Their feet. Now the feet is, as you already know, is the lower part of the body, the lowest part of the body. And even so, the feet denote the life and the walk of a believer. That the highest part of our being is our soul, our spirit, the inward man, the new creature that's been created in the image of Christ. That's the highest part of our being. The lowest part is this body of death, this lowly, looks like a big foot, big foot. Now, John 13, the priest, the priest, before he went into that Holy of Holy, before he went into the courtyard, before he went into the gate he was given a bath a complete bath before his induction into the priesthood before he could become a priest he had to be given a bath all over and you know what they practically bathed him in blood blood the high priest took his sons and I practically gave them a blood bath, literally. If you'd have been there, you'd have thought, this is the glorious, awfulest, grossest thing I've ever seen. They were covered in blood. They were sprinkled with it. Big blood in your eye, you know. Blood all over them. Blood sprinkled all over them. But especially, I will not turn over there, but especially the blood was applied to the ear. Remember us reading that? The blood was applied to the ear, and what does that imply? The hearing ear. We have to have a hearing ear, discernment. Christ has to anoint our ear, doesn't he, to hear the gospel. To hear, that's where the gospel enters in, the ear gate. And then the blood was applied to the thumb, to the right thumb. works or service were made servants of Christ. And it's applied to the toe of the right foot. And that's our walk and our way and our character were made like Christ, were conformed to his image. But after they got this blood bath, covered all over with blood and certain parts of their bodies specifically applied with blood, then they got a good water washing. Got a real good, it wasn't a spit bath, they really cleaned up. with water, pure water, running water. And this is what admitted them into the tabernacle. That's what got them in. They had to go through this ceremony to get in. And Paul said this about us. He said, you used to be dirty, no count, low down, no good, worthless, sinful, scoundrels, but you've been washed. You're washed. You're justified. And John said this even. He said the blood of God's Son cleanses us from all sin, cleanses us. Now, here in John 13, 10, now we've been cleansed. Now, make no mistake about it, the believer, every believer that comes to God by Christ, who comes to Christ, to Him, to Christ and Him crucified, gets bathed in that blood, and his sins are washed away, and God considers him holy, righteous, spotless. just, lovely, holy, unblameable, unapprovable to God Almighty. Washed! We've got that blood back. We've been immersed in the blood of Christ. OK? But we need a good foot washing. Christ said here in John 13, 10. Christ said, now he that is washed doesn't need to be washed all over again. He that is washed needeth not be washed save to wash his feet. He's clean ever wit, but your feet get dirty. Your feet get dirty. We need a daily foot washing. Now, like I said, I tried to make it very clear, the washing of regeneration of salvation is forever. It's forever. You cannot dirty your soul. As much as you feel dirty, you're considered holy to God Almighty. Now, that's good news, my soul. Now, we had no part in that whatsoever, no part at all. We'd been washed by the high priest in the very blood of God's Son. But we must come daily to the fountain. We must come daily to the throne of grace, the Scripture says, to obtain grace, to find help, to obtain grace and help in time of need. Now, what time is that? Every day, every hour. We sing the song every hour of every day. I'm leaning, I'm trusting, I'm looking to, I need to be washed in the blood of Christ. Every day, we must come daily to the fountain, the throne of God's grace to be washed. Now listen, the tabernacle, these high priests, these priests in the high walked around on a dirt floor. We asked, somebody asked me this, what the floor of the tabernacle was made out of. Nothing. It was dirt. There was no floor in the tabernacle. It had no floor in it. And the priest's feet were constantly in need of washing. Constantly in need. Every step they took was defiled. Every step they took became defiled. And they were constantly in need of washing. constantly. They must have kept coming back to this labor time and time again. Whenever they'd go over here, they'd wash, and they'd go over and do this, and then they'd go back over and wash again, and they'd go over here and do this, and they'd go back and wash again. Feet getting dirty. Feet getting dirty. And did you notice over in Exodus how that God gave no dimensions for the labor? No dimensions. He didn't say make it so big. Make it so bad you didn't say that. Why? Well, because it illustrates the Word of God itself. It's too big, it's too vast. You can't put any limitations on the Word of God. You can come as often as you like, you can put as much water in there as you like. Those fellas could have made that thing as big as they'd like to. Just get in there, clean up. Just stay in there as much as you want to. And the word of God is like a vast ocean, and there's no dimensions to it. There's no limit as to what we can get from the word of God. And we're to daily resort to it. Now, that's what this labor and this water is a type of now, the word of God. The believer, like these priests, We're not walking on the streets of gold yet. We're not walking on the streets of gold. We're walking through this earthly house of this tabernacle and it's defiled.