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Well, we'll make a start this
morning. Others will join us. I see other vehicles still coming,
but we'll start and they can join in as we begin this morning. Let's turn in our Bibles to the
Old Testament and we'll turn to Exodus 27. We'll read the first eight verses
and then ask for the Lord's help in our study of His Word this
morning. Exodus 27, verse 1, And thou shalt make an altar
of scythe and wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The
altar shall be four square, and the height thereof shall be three
cubits. And thou shalt make the horns
of it upon the four corners thereof. His horns shall be of the same,
and thou shalt overlay it with brass. Thou shalt make his pans
to receive his ashes, and his shovels, and his basins, and
his flesh-hooks, and his fire-pans, and all the vessels thereof thou
shalt make of brass. And thou shalt make it for 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 chitin wood, and overlay them with brass.
And the staves shall be put into the rings, and the staves shall
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 shall they make it." Amen. Word of God opened before us.
Let's now ask for the help of the Holy Spirit in our time together
this morning. Gracious Father, we are thankful
that we have opportunity of gathering together on thy day. Lord, we
truly need the help and power of thy Spirit as we would come
to minister thy Word. Lord, we come to seek thee. We
come to hear from heaven. We come to have the Holy Spirit
take the things that are revealed in thy Word and illuminate them
to our hearts Lord, we would come and ask at the very outset
of our gathering that we would know a fresh cleansing of the
blood of Christ and that we would know the ministry of the Holy
Spirit, teaching us the Word of God and helping us to understand
all that we have in Christ and all that is required of us as
thy people. Lord, come and help us this morning.
Help our other cyber school teachers as they labor in thy Word. We
ask, O Lord, that you would give them unction. We ask that the
students, children would hear affectionately, that they would
have their hearts open to the Word as you opened Lydia's heart,
and that, Lord, we would have a day today whereby we are not
merely hearing thy Word, but doing thy Word, where thy Word
is indeed having a powerful impact upon our souls. Lord, come and
help us. Come and give us grace to focus
upon thee and to glorify thy name. For we ask these things
in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning we're going
to begin looking at, for lack of a better term, one of the
pieces of the furniture in the Old Testament. Now, I've given
you a two-page handout, if you count the fact that it's on front
and back, a four-page handout. But on the second page, you're
going to see a picture of the bronze altar. It's also called
the altar of burnt sacrifice, burnt offering. That's the title
given to it later on in Exodus chapter 38. These pictures and
the description that's given there come from a book put out
by the company of Bristleworks Rose Publishing. I am not breaking
copyright by copying this and giving it to you. You'll see
at the bottom of the page, they say this may be reproduced for
classroom use only and not for sale. So this is classroom use. We're right within our rights
to use it this way. And this is a hint that this
is a good book to go and buy. You can purchase it online. You can also buy this where I
bought it, which was out at the Tabernacle in Lancaster, they
have a mock-up of the tabernacle, and in the bookstore they have
this particular book, A Rose Guide to the Tabernacle, they
also have one for the temple. Now, we don't know exactly what
the bronze altar looked like. What we have is a description,
and the description is followed by the design here that you see
in the pictures, both in the front and back. But, the ornate
making of this bronze altar is not necessarily exactly what
you see in the picture. We don't know whether it had
the certain designs. We do know that it was four square.
We know how high it was. We know how wide it was. We know
how far across it was for the men to work on it. We do know
there was a grate halfway down. which was probably for the sake
of the fact that the animals would be put there. An animal
is a big animal. You don't want it rolling off from the altar. You had horns on the altar. We'll
give a suggestion as to what that actually may mean, at least
from a practical standpoint. But I give you some pictures
here so that you can see that this was a large piece of furniture
or an object in the tabernacle. In fact, when you actually look
at the other pieces of furniture, this is the largest, by far the
largest. That's probably why it was said
that it had to be hollow with boards. You wouldn't want something
this big, solid, made out of bronze. If you had it that way,
it'd be too heavy to transport, and they were in a tabernacle,
the tents of Israel were moving and moving and moving. And so
was the temple of the Lord, or the tent of the Lord. It too,
at this point, was moving. And so you had this, from a practical
standpoint, hollow altar. And it was overlaid, the wood
was overlaid with bronze. If you go to the notes I've given
you, you can look at the pictures again later. We'll begin there
this morning. You'll see that it's described
in actually two places. We read chapter 27 verses 1 to
8 of the book of Exodus, and that is the description given
to Moses as to what he was to build. But when you come to chapter
38, after they build it, it tells you how they built it, and you
have almost a word-for-word description again of this altar. Now, the
description in chapter 27 and in chapter 38 are descriptions
of the whole tabernacle, that is, the curtains, the altar that
we're looking at here, the laver, the other pieces of furniture
inside the holy place and inside the most holy place. The tabernacle,
as we have said, was a place of order, separation, salvation,
and communion. It was a place of order. God
was the one who established where that tabernacle was to be placed
and where you were to be in relationship to that tabernacle. You just
couldn't live anywhere you wanted in the nation of Israel. If you're
of the tribe of Reuben, you had to be on a certain side and living
there. If you're of the tribe of Judah,
you had to be at a certain side and living there. God ordered
how they were to live and He ordered then how they were to
worship. And this is important for us today because we are not
here called upon to try to dream up ways of worshiping. We have
God's orders given to us, His ordinances, His word, and we
are to follow that. It was separation. It was to
teach the people that God was holy. There was a holy place
that no one else could go into except those who are descendants
of Aaron. You just couldn't go in there.
And when a king tried to go in there, a king who had been a
very powerful king who had ruled for a long while. When Uzziah
tried to go into the holy place, God smote him. God was indicating,
this is my place, this is the way that you approach me and
you do it my way. When the sons of Aaron, the two
oldest sons of Aaron, decided to do what they thought was okay
in the tabernacle, God smote him. And what God is telling
us is, he is a holy God and he determines the way that we approach
him. So, this was a place teaching the people about God's holiness.
Obviously, it's teaching about salvation because it's teaching
about blood atonement. I've said all of that to get
to the last point. It was a place of communion. And for the nation,
for the people, the individuals in that nation, this was its
primary focus. It was teaching the people how
to commune with the Lord. And when you came into the tabernacle,
everything in that tabernacle, had significance as to the walk
you had with the Lord and what the Lord was doing in heaven
and how the Lord was going to receive you. The first piece
of furniture you met as you came in through the opening of the
curtains was this piece that we're looking at this morning.
It was the altar of burnt offerings. Now, there are really six pieces
of furniture, if you add them up. And if you put the curtains,
as it were, as another piece, there are seven divisions that
you could make to the tabernacle that you would have to study
to have a full picture of what was going on in this place of
communion. But the first thing God wanted
us as Israelites, if we were living in that day, the first
thing he wanted us to note was that you cannot approach me apart
from the blood. There must be a blood atonement.
Even if you have not sinned and your life is dedicated to the
Lord, there is still a need of a blood atonement day after day
after day. That is what was being declared
to Israel through this altar where there was a sacrifice burning
continually. Now, this obviously, as we'll
see in the New Testament, pictures and portrays for us the work
of Christ. We can't approach God apart from
His sacrifice. And Hebrews 10 makes much of
that. So this morning, you do have
a blood atonement, not an atonement that continually is offered.
It was offered once, but atonement that continually has power before
God so that you can come to God on the basis of that atonement. Now, this first piece of furniture
that the people met as they came into the courtyard is called
the ultra burnt offerings. It's called that because of what
was put on it. One of the sacrifices was called the burnt offering
and it's also called the brazen altar It was overlaid with brass
bronze So as the Sun would reflect upon it, this would truly have
a beautiful Significance as you were looking at it That's why
it's called the brazen altars because it was overlaid with
brass. I On this altar, the nation continually
offered different sacrifices depicting the future atonement
of Christ. These different sacrifices helped
to define the purpose and the importance of this piece of furniture
to the people. It wasn't just that God put this
there and they came in and they saw what a nice piece of furniture.
It had a purpose and it was that purpose that really defined what
this altar was all about. Now, we're going to look at both
the description and the design of this altar as it relates to
the communion that God's people had with the Lord. In its description,
as we have already said, the altar was the largest of the
objects in the tabernacle. The altar was square. Now, when
you come to chapter 38, that's what we meet there when it's
described. When you come to chapter 27,
same thing right away. It says that it was four square.
You see that in verse one, the altar shall be four square. The altar was five cubits on
its side. Each cubit, each side was five
cubits, five in its breadth, five in its width. What is a
cubit? Most authors feel a cubit would
be about the length from a man's elbow to the tip of his finger,
which would be around 18 inches. So you had your measuring stick
with you from the elbow to the tip of your finger, 18 inches.
Foot and a half. If it was a foot and a half,
18 inches, then the sides of this were seven and a half feet
long. That's a fairly good sized piece
of furniture. seven and a half by seven and a half feet. But
then again, you're going to be putting big animals on this piece
of furniture, not just little lambs. You're going to have some
larger animals, full grown sheep, full grown rams, oxen that will
be put on the altar for burning. It was three cubits high. Again,
using 18 inches, we're talking about something four and a half
feet tall. I'm not quite six feet, a little
bit two inches under six feet. So you're looking at something
that would come up to almost here on me. And in the picture
that I've given you, you see that that is indeed the height
of the altar. This meant you're going to have
to lift the animal. And there was, as it were in
the lifting, a presenting almost to the Lord. You're lifting it
up to him and putting it on the fire. It's an offering. It's something given to the Lord.
It also had four horns on the corners. In Scripture, horn was
often symbolic of power. For many animals, it was their
only defense. And the horn then became symbolic
of power. Well, obviously, there's great
power in the altar in that it's making an atonement before God.
It's only a picture, but it is picturing the real atonement.
Some would also say that the significance of the horn was
a practical significance. And if you look here, I gave
you the verse in Psalm, but look at what it says in verse 27 of
Psalm 118. Psalm 118, verse 27, God is the
Lord, which has showed us light, buying the sacrifice with cords,
even unto the horns of the altar. It is thought by this description
that one of the things the horns was used for was to take that
sacrifice and keep it from moving or rolling, and they would bind
it to the horns. What was it that bound our Lord
to the altar? It was cords of love. And you'll
hear that expressed at times in poetical form as we sing about
His love. And obviously, there are those
who speak about the cords of love binding us to Christ and,
of course, binding Christ to the altar. The material, the
frame, as we have said, was chitin wood, acacia wood is what would
be the terminology used today. It was overlaid with bronze or
brass, and then the utensils that were used for this altar
were also made of the same substance. Now, the altar itself is a picture
of Christ. We have that in the New Testament
from Hebrews chapter 13, verse 10, where the apostle says, We
have an altar. Who is our altar? Christ is our
altar. Where they have no right to eat
would serve in the tabernacle. Just serving in the tabernacle
doesn't give you a right to eat at this altar. This altar requires
faith in Christ and his finished work. Now, it's obviously a picture
of not merely a piece of furniture, but all that transpired on that
piece of furniture, in this case, the atonement. And so the altar
we have had a sacrifice on it, and the sacrifice was of Christ. And we can come and eat at that
altar. Now, there was a peace offering,
and we'll get to that in another Sunday, but there was a peace
offering whereby you could come and eat at the altar, as it were.
Part of what was sacrificed was given to the Lord and burned
up. Part of it was given to the priest. Part of it was given
by the worshiper. And therefore, you had a communal
meal indicating all was at peace, all was at fellowship. God has
made a complete atonement, a complete at-one-ment. And everybody is
now satisfied. God satisfied. The mediator is
satisfied. And the one worshiping is satisfied. What a beautiful picture. of
your reconciliation. So, we do have an altar where
we can eat, where we can feast. We're feasting on Jesus Christ,
our sacrifice. This is the description of the
altar, briefly given. And you have that description
given to you in chapter 27. And then again in chapter 38,
where in chapter 38, Moses is telling us what was done. What
is the design of the altar? Why was it made? The altar was
the most varied portrayal of Christ's Atonement. Now, obviously,
the Ark of the Covenant was also a picture of Christ's Atonement.
That Day of Atonement pictured for us the once for all finished
work of Christ. But on this burnt altar, on this
altar burnt sacrifice, you had picture after picture after picture
of what Christ was doing for his people. You had the burnt
offering. You had the meal offering. You
had the peace offering. You had the sin offering. You
had the trespass offering. I'm giving you that list in the
order that it was given in the book of Leviticus. We'll turn
to Leviticus here now to the first chapter. Because for us
to understand about this piece of furniture, we have to understand
all that was done on it. And perhaps on this piece of
furniture, more was described about this piece of furniture
than any other piece, because here was all the sacrifices laid
to make atonement for the people on a day-to-day basis. Leviticus
is named obviously after the idea of a Levite. You see that
in the name. And it's thought to be the manual,
at least in some portions of it, the manual to the Levites
as to how to conduct their office. It is perhaps that reason why
you have the different sacrifices listed in this order. This is
not the order. And we're going to see the order
that you would actually give the sacrifices if you had sinned.
But you have here the sacrifices being grouped together. And in
being grouped together, it would seem that this is the easiest
way for a Levite to master the list and to master the material
that has been given to him as to what he was to do on a daily
basis. We're not going to go through
every verse on the different sacrifices, but we want to just
touch some of the highlights, and I've listed them for you
here. As concerning a personal burnt offering, and we'll touch
on the meal offering, and the peace offering, the sin offering,
and the trespass offering. But this morning, let's just
look at the burnt offering. First of all, in chapter 1 and
verse 3, You are to bring a male without blemish. Now, we readily
see what that has reference to. It was the man Adam who stood
on our behalf and sinned and plunged the whole human race
into darkness. There would be another man of
the seed of the woman and he would come and he would crush
the head of the serpent. And this man who would stand
on our behalf would be the Messiah. He'd be the anointed of God.
He would be the one who would be our mediator. He had to be
male and he had to be without blemish. Now almost all the sacrifices
are that way. There are a few where the female
animal is allowed to be sacrificed, perhaps because the imagery is
not so much of male versus female, but merely sacrifice and substitution. At that point, the Lord is allowing
other animals to be given because the fact that it's a male without
blemish has already been established, both in the Passover as well
as in these other sacrifices. It was a voluntary offering. It was not for sin. You sinned. There was no volunteering. You
had to give sacrifice. But you could give a burnt offering
indicating your dedication to the Lord anytime you wanted,
whether you had sinned or not. And so you have been in this
sacrifice, dedicating to the Lord. This reminds us then of
Romans chapter 12, where in the sacrifice of Christ, because
of the sacrifice of Christ, you and I are to give ourselves a
living sacrifice. Paul says, I beseech you, therefore,
brethren, based on the mercies that you and I have received
that is talked about in the earlier chapters. He goes on to say that
he presents your bodies a living sacrifice. You're presenting
your body a living sacrifice based on the sacrifice of Christ
and all the mercies that are flown to us because of that sacrifice. And so, when you came with the
burnt offering, that was what was being depicted in the book
of Leviticus. Now, make that qualification.
Because before the book of Leviticus, the burnt offering seemed to
be the offering that was made for everything. They didn't have
a burnt offering, meal offering, sin offering, peace offering.
They just had one. It was called the burnt offering.
So everything that we are looking at in these five offerings was
done before the tabernacle was set up in the one offering that
is the burnt offering. And it's as if God is saying,
right, you've been offering a burnt offering all this time, but I'm
going to now show you all the different facets of Christ's
offering by giving you five offerings to help you understand His one
offering. Before the tabernacle was built, the offering was called
the burnt offering. And afterwards, the burnt offering
became one of five. What was it symbolizing? It was
symbolizing the consecration of the worshiper to the Lord,
the dedication and how that that dedication needed atonement. Because you see, in verse four,
atonement certainly is being mentioned as you start in verse
four and read down to verse five. He put his hand upon the head
of the burnt offering. Now, why did you put your hand
on it? It was an indication you were laying upon that animal.
your sins, that animal now was representing you as atonement. And as you go then, in verse
4 it says, "...he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt
offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for
him. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord, and the priest
and Aaron's sons shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood
around upon the altar. It is by the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. They take that blood and they
sprinkle it. Now, the dedication you're giving
to the Lord isn't perfect. And so that dedication needs
to be cleansed with blood. None of us have ever dedicated
our Lord perfectly. I'm not saying that when you
dedicated yourself that you were thinking that I'm leaving this
out. I'm going to keep this sin. I'm going to hold this to myself.
That's not dedication. What I am saying is that when
you and I have dedicated ourselves fully, give yourself another
day or two and you're going to look back on that and you're
going to say, you know, my heart wasn't right in this. My heart could
have been full of more love toward Christ when I did this dedication. In other words, even with our
greatest dedication, it's tainted with sin. It needs atonement. And that's what the burnt offering
was all about. You're coming and you're giving
the Lord back your body. Your mind, all that is you, you're
giving it to him to use for his glory. And in doing that, you
need cleansing. Cleansing. I'll show you a verse,
I believe it deals with this in just a minute. But the imagery
is that you need cleansing. Now, as we're going to see in
a minute, the order of sacrifice, if you had sinned, was not burnt
offering. The first offering was the sin offering or trespass
offering where you were confessing your sin. After confessing your
sin, something else has to happen. You have to give God back the
instruments, the body that was being used for your sin. And
so when we come to God for cleansing, Can you then say, Lord, I want
cleansing, but I'm going to continue on in this sinful way. I'm going
to continue on speaking the way I speak. I'm going to continue
on living the way I live. I'm going to continue on. If
the sin I'm confessing is stealing, I'm going to continue on stealing.
I'm going to continue on lying. I'm going to continue on. No,
you can't do that. So in our confession, part of
our confession is doing what? It's giving back to God what
belongs to Him. The mind, the hands, the feet,
that we used in the sinning. Because when you sin and when
I sin, we do use our bodies. We do use our minds. Whether
it's the immaterial part of us or the material part of us, it's
being used in the sin. And to write what has been now
used in a wrongful way means, yes, the record has to be cleansed,
but it also means that we have to give back to God that which
rightly belongs to Him. Our minds, our hearts, our hands,
our feet, whatever it was that we used, it goes back to Him. That was being depicted in the
burnt offering. As I said, it was not the first
offering that was offered if you had sinned. So this burnt offering did have
a measure of atonement in it. It was depicting your consecration
to the Lord and the fact that the blood covered that consecration.
When you come to verse 6 and 7 on the back page, if you flip
it over, it spoke of the burnt offering being all burned on
the altar. The burning of it all, again,
was symbolic of consecration. You're giving to God everything.
Everything. Now, that's the way it's described
in verses 6 to 9. We find later that there was
one thing left out. The skin was taken from the burnt
offering and given to the priest. Now, where do you see that? Well,
you have to actually read all that is given to the Levites.
Again, if this is a manual, that would not necessarily be needed
at that point. But when you come to verse 8
of chapter 7, And the priest that offereth any man's burnt
offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the
burnt offering which he had offered. Skin went to the priest. Now,
how would the priest use that? If he used it for a garment,
you have here then a picture of the imputed righteousness
of Christ. It's hard to picture the imputed righteousness of
Christ. When you look through the sacrificial system, it's
hard to get the picture that would actually depict that you
have had imputed to you righteousness. Yet that righteousness that is
imputed to you is described in Isaiah as a robe, a robe of righteousness. And here you would have, in the
dedication, it's not perfect. The blood is covering you. That's
why the atonement is being made. But there is given to the priest
that which will cover him. Now, we're all kings and priests,
as we looked at last week. And you have been given to you
a robe to cover you through this burnt offering. The fire on the
altar obviously is symbolic of wrath. You have that in chapter
9 where the Lord sends out fire and it consumes the sacrifice.
And then you have right after that, if you look at verse 24,
there came out fire from before the Lord. This is chapter 9.
Consume the altar of the burnt offering. consumed upon the altar
the burnt offering and the fat, which when the people saw, they
shouted and fell on their faces." Right? That's not the only time
fire came out. Two verses later, the sons of
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, are giving a strange fire. And what do you
have? There came out fire from the Lord, devoured them, and
they died before the Lord. Clearly, our God is a consuming
fire. Fire is symbolic of wrath. And
so you have wrath, as it were, being used with this animal.
You just didn't kill the animal, slay and drain the blood and
then go bury it. You put it on this altar where
it was burned up. Picturing, again, the work of
Christ on our behalf. Now, our God is said to be a
consuming fire. We have that in Hebrews chapter
12 and verse 29. And those who will not take Christ's
atonement, that was consumed, as it were, on the altar, consumed
on the cross of Calvary, they then will go to a lake of fire.
Again, symbolic of his eternal punishment. A lake of fire held
forever. Now, it's said to be a sweet
savor. We have verses that deal with that. We'll have more to
say about that later. But a sweet savor was something that indicates
that in the nostrils, this is pleasing to the one who is smelling
it. It's placating the one who is
smelling it. It is making him happy where
once he was angry. And so we have then these descriptions
of the burnt offering. We can also say at this point
that the meal offering was always joined to the burnt offering.
The meal offering had a symbolic significance for helping us understand
the perfect human nature of Christ as it was offered there. Meal
offering never was offered by itself. It's called a meat offering
in our authorized version. They understood meat as referring
to more than just what we think of as flesh, the whole meal. Some would say it was a grain
offering because that is indeed what it was made of, the grain
that came out of the ground. You remember that Cain, when
he offered the fruit of the ground, was not accepted. There was no
blood atonement. Abel was accepted. There was
blood atonement. But that didn't mean that the
Lord couldn't use something coming out of the ground as help for
our understanding as to the atonement of Christ. And so the meal offering
was offered. It had no blood in it, but it
was always joined to an offering that did have blood. That is
the burnt offering. And in doing so, it helped, again,
give a bigger picture, a more complete picture of the work
of Christ. the meat offering or the meal
offering was very much like the bread put on the table of showbread.
It was symbolic of the fact that we feast on Christ. And it's
His perfect humanity, His perfect atonement that satisfies God
on our behalf. Now, when you come into the order
of sacrifice, I have said that the first sacrifice given was
the sin offering. And then it was the burnt offering.
And then it was the peace offering. Peace offering sometimes is broken
down itself into an offering of vows. If you're making vows,
everything is at peace. And now you vow to God, indicating
you're not trying to, by the vow, purchase blessing. It's
already been purchased. The sin offering, the burnt offering,
the peace offering have been given. You now are in favor with
God. God has been reconciled to you.
Then you would offer the offering of vows to the Lord, which often
was grouped as part of the peace offering. Also, Thanksgiving.
Your praise was not some way of trying to merit God's favor. You already had His favor. You've
already done the sin offering, the burnt offering. And now,
as part of the peace offering, Thanksgiving was given. Turn,
if you would, then, to 2 Chronicles, where you'll see this order being
given. 2 Chronicles 29. Dealing with
Hezekiah, you remember Hezekiah's father was a very, very wicked
king. When you read about Hezekiah's
restoration, he was going against the family he was raised in.
His dad was so wicked, he actually shut the doors of the temple
when he just got bored with it, after he'd already corrupted
the temple in his worship. Ahaz was his father's name, a
very wicked king. So when Hezekiah comes, he's
got to restore everything. He's got to go back into the
temple and put things in their rightful place. He's got to remove
things from the temple that his father put in there. He's got
to reestablish the worship of the priesthood because his father
had destroyed that. All these things had to be put
back in place, and the people then, in their own personal lives,
had to be made holy. That is, they had to get rid
of sins, idols, and things that Ahaz had allowed and brought
into the nation. The people now had to get rid
of those things. And when you say Hezekiah had a reform, you
can say that very easily. But when you actually start looking
at what happened, this was a national reform that took time, took effort. And there was probably a lot
of people that may have said, what in the world is this king
doing? He's upsetting everything. Well, it needed to be upset.
And the reason why things needed to be rectified was because God
was upset. So when you come to chapter 29,
you have then Hezekiah cleansing the temple and then offering
sacrifice for the sins of the people. Turn to verse 27. Well,
why don't we start with verse 21. Then Hezekiah the king rose early
and gathered the rulers of the city and went up to the house
of the Lord. And they brought seven bullocks and seven rams
and seven lambs and seven he goats for a sin offering." You
see, that was the first thing offered. Sin offering. Now, we
haven't gotten to that in the book of Leviticus yet. It's not
listed that way in the book of Leviticus. As I said, it's a
different listing, perhaps, grouping of the sacrifices for the things
that are similar, so it would stick easier, perhaps, in the
mind of a Levite. Be that as it may, sin offering
is given, and verse 24, the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation
with the blood upon the altar. All right, there's the sin offering.
Then you come to verse 27, and Hezekiah commanded to offer the
burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began,
the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets and the instruments
ordained by David the king. And all the congregation worshiped,
the singer sang, the trumpet sounded, all continued until
the burnt offering was finished. Now, in verse 31, then Hezekiah
answered and said, Now you have consecrated yourselves to the
Lord. We have said that the burnt offering has to do with consecration,
dedication, giving yourself back to the Lord. It ought to be a
joyous thing, giving yourself back to the Lord. You ought not
be coming to the Lord and saying, Lord, you know, I used this mind
in sin, and I'm really begrudging the fact I'm giving my mind back
to you. Well, Lord, I used my tongue in sin, and I'm begrudging
the fact that I'm giving it back to you. No, no, no. He has now
made an atonement for you, a sin offering. Now you're coming to
the Lord and you're saying, Lord, I freely and willfully and joyfully,
Give myself back to you. My mind, my tongue, my eyes,
my hands, my feet, whatever it was that I've used for doing
my will, I'm giving it back to you for your will to be done.
After the consecration and the burnt offering, you then had
the peace offering. You see that in verse 35. And
also the burnt offerings were in accordance with the peace
offering and the drink offering and every burnt offering. So
you have everything done here. The thank offering is also mentioned
in verse 31. As I have said, the thank offering
was part of the peace offering. So after they had consecrated
themselves in verse 31, it says they came near and brought sacrifice
and thank offerings into the house of the Lord. Thank offering
was part of the peace offerings. And so it says in verse 35, they
also brought burnt offerings in abundance with the fact of
what? The peace offerings. The fat of the peace offerings
is what was burned to the Lord. The other part of the peace offering
was divided between the priest and the worshiper according to
what God dictated. Now, you can see this order of
sin, burnt, and peace offerings in the consecration of Aaron
in Exodus 29. And you can see it again in the
people's consecration as it's spelled out in Leviticus chapter
9 and verse 15. So, that is instructive to us. When you come to confess your
sins, you are indeed turning from those sins while you're
confessing it. You're actually giving back to God that which
rightfully belongs to Him. And you're pleading the blood
over your imperfections even there, your confidences in the
blood. Now, is there a sacrifice? Is there a picture of the sacrifice
in the New Testament that actually deals with this? I believe there
is. Turn, if you would, to 1 John chapter 1. And verse 7, verse 6 says, if
we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness,
we lie and deny the truth. You can't walk in darkness and
fellowship with Him. But if we walk in the light,
there's consecration. You're walking in the light.
This morning, I am walking in the light as I am teaching this.
And yet, when I get done, I'm going to analyze what I have
done today, and perhaps I'll see, well, I didn't love God
with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength when I taught that.
Perhaps there was something in my life that wasn't completely
given over to the Lord. As I go back and analyze, I'm
not conscious this morning of sinning in any way, as I teach
you. But am I doing it perfectly?
If I am not, then I need cleansing. So if I take an exam, and it's
a theological exam, and I get all the answers right, but I'm
not loving the Lord when I'm answering those exam questions,
I'm still in sin. There's still imperfection. And
so here, you're walking in the light. You're not conscious this
morning of sin. You've come to the house of God.
You're trying to worship. You're trying to give the Lord
the glory that's due His name. And the blood is cleansing you
while you're doing that. All of your worship is being
cleansed by the blood as you're walking in the light. Now, what
happens when you do know you've sinned? When it comes to your
mind, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have thought that,
I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have... What happens when it
does come to your mind? Now you're dealing with the sin offering
and you're dealing with what is described in verses 8 and
9. When you know you've sinned, if we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. So there's a cleansing going
on that's cleansing all of your service as you're walking in
the light. And then there's a cleansing when you confess your sin as
well. The burnt offering, the sin offering. Interesting enough, the burnt
offering was being used every day in the nation. Why? Because
the nation was to be under the blood. Every day, burnt offering
was being offered, not in connection with sin offering and peace offering.
Just by itself, it was being offered for the nation. Why?
They were a people consecrated to the Lord. That is, again,
symbolic of 1 John chapter 1 and verse 7. We're walking in the
light and the blood is cleansing us. And so you had in the morning
the daily sacrifice, morning and evening, that was indeed
a burnt offering. And you see that described in
Exodus 29. It's also described in Numbers 28. And then the morning
sacrifice was also mentioned in Leviticus chapter 6. So every
day, regardless, if nobody sinned in the nation, nobody had to
come with a sin offering. Every day they were still offering
being burnt. What was being burnt? The burnt
offering for us, the sins of an imperfect people. The nation
was the Lord's, they were to walk in holiness and the blood
was cleansing them every day. You have on the Sabbath, then,
that offering being doubled, and you see that as you go to
Numbers 28. Rather than one offering in the
morning, they had two. Rather than one offering in the
evening, they had two. It was a day dedicated to the
Lord. It was His day. It was a day
where more worship would go on. If you lived in the surrounding
community, you could actually come and not have to worry about
your labors in the field or your harvest, because that wasn't
being done on this day. You could come and worship. You
could come and focus on what was being done at the temple.
And in doing so, God made sure you didn't miss the picture of
the blood. The blood atonement ought to be a part of our preaching.
And as you go through preaching, there are times you're dealing
with a passage and perhaps it's not clearly stated there and
you're expounding that passage and the blood doesn't get much
mention. But God put a communion table in our midst where the
church has to come and see the blood and think on it, has to
meditate on it. The communion table brings us
back to the blood. Preaching should take us back
to the blood. Our singing ought to have hymns
about the blood. Why? You need the blood every
day. But as you come to worship, it ought to be the main focus
of our worship, the blood atonement. And so you have that. And the
people would meditate on that throughout the day. It was something
they could not miss. And then in the festive, you
have festival burnt offerings. where the order was burnt, sin
and peace. And again, in this reversing
of the order, it was indicating that at that particular festival,
that particular celebration, the most important thing that
was going on was their dedication. Did they need a sin offering? Yes. There would be imperfections.
Did they need the peace offering? Yes. Peace was the final result
of all the offerings. But they started with the burnt
offering. because that was the focus of that particular feast. Now, Passover, it's obviously
in the Passover picture of atonement, but Pentecost is dedication.
Tabernacles is dedication. And when you look at the burnt
offering in the Feast of Tabernacles, wow, what a burnt offering. I say that to say, Tabernacles
is a picture of a perfected state when you and I, this was in the
seventh month, seven, the number of perfection. In that perfected
state, you and I will be in our tabernacle, using the imagery
even of Revelation 7. We'll be there looking back at
our wilderness wandering, thinking of God's provision, and rejoicing
in the blood that got us to where we are. And in the time of tabernacles,
they offered 70 bullets. fourteen rams, ninety-eight lambs. Blood was flowing during that
week. And then the day after, they
offered one more bullet, one more ram, and seven more lambs. It shows us that when we get
to glory, the lamb will be all the glory in Emmanuel's land.
And you go to the book of the Revelation, what are they crying?
Worthy is the lamb that was slain. We say that now. We sing that
now. But when we get there, you and I will then understand perfectly
how much we owe to the blood of the Lamb. The Burns Offering
was helping the people understand that they were a dedicated people
to the Lord and that that dedication was cleansed in the blood. Well,
we'll try to look at some of the other offerings offered on
this altar and what they pictured as well. Let's bow our hearts
in a closing word of prayer. Father in heaven, we are thankful
that there is a blood atonement to take away our sins. There
is a blood atonement whereby we can come and present ourselves
back to Thee. It is the one finished work of
Christ. And Lord, we're thankful this morning that we have been
reconciled, that we are at peace with Thee. Even though at times
our memory would smite us, our conscience would smite us, yet,
Lord, we are thankful that the sins that have been confessed,
the sins that have been turned for, truly have been put under
the blood, and your people have a right into your presence to
worship and to praise thee and to glorify thy great name. Help
us today to sing and to glorify thee even as we come to worship.
May we know your help and power and ministry in the midst of
your people. May we know great liberty even as we are here,
singing to Thy name. For we ask these things in Jesus'
name. Amen.
The Bronze Altar
Series Biblical Typology
| Sermon ID | 1028121044414 |
| Duration | 48:24 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Exodus 27:1-8 |
| Language | English |
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