All right, well, thank you for being here again. I know we're experiencing a few storms. I don't suspect that they're going to be really bad. Nobody knows for sure, but just remember that if some people don't come when it's storming, we're not mad at them. Maybe they're watching online. there's a lot of people walking online when you look around in this room and you say man I wish all the seats were full just remember there's people watching in the majority of the states of America if not right now sometime within the next few hours or few days and countries around the world so we have a much bigger audience than what we see in this room I was talking to another preacher today And he was asking me questions about that. And he said, man, I want to do that. I can't imagine getting the message out to all the states and around the world. And it is amazing. And I'm thankful that the Lord has given us that kind of technology and the people who handle it. By the way, you did a good job getting that screen in the back working for me. It was excellent. No problems. That last song, great. Love it. Now I can kind of see what's going on on these screens. I don't like to turn my back on the audience to see what's on the screen, so if we've got this one working now, that's going to help me a bunch, and anybody else that happens to be on the platform is going to be able to see what's being shown on these. It takes a little more work for the guys in the sound booth, they have to be on their toes a little bit more because it's not all synchronized automatically, they have to make it happen. If they go to sleep, we'll know it. The Brazen Altar, we're in a series of messages on Wednesday night and I'm excited about it. This is a great study. The Tabernacle, Mercy and Judgment is going to be our subject tonight. The Brazen Altar, Mercy and Judgment. the atonement took place in the Old Testament tabernacle system of worship. And we'll be in Exodus chapter 27, verse 1 through 8, and we'll read those verses, Exodus 27, 1 through 8. We'll read the verses, and then we'll talk a little bit about the brazen altar tonight. We'll review a little bit about the other. People generally don't pick everything up the first time through and I'm included in that group and so if things are repeated a little bit I begin to piece it together little by little and I learn it a little bit better and so I won't bore you with a lot of review but we need to do enough of it that we can kind of get it anchored in our mind how that altar and that tabernacle operated. Exodus 27 and verse number 1 Thou shalt make an altar of Shittim wood, five cubits long, 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 and thou shalt make his pans to receive the ashes and his shovels and his basins 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. The reason for that being, brass is very durable, enduring in hot fire more than maybe some other metal. Verse 4 says, and the vessels thereof shalt thou make of brass, and thou shalt make for it a great of network of brass, and upon the net thou shalt make four brazen rings in the four corners thereof, and thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net might be even to the midst of the altar, and thou shalt make staves for the altar, staves of chitim 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. Father, I pray that you'd bless in the few minutes to follow that we can put together in our minds the most necessary things tonight that we can learn and associate with these shadows, associate them with the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, this is not just fanciful thinking, but are types that are verified by the Bible itself. Lord, help us to see how much of Christ we can see in this Old Testament tabernacle. And Lord, may we love Him more because we've learned more about Him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So the study of the tabernacle is important. It is important. We've had a whole message on why do the study about the tabernacle. Think about this, there's two chapters in the Bible on creation. Guess how many there is on the tabernacle and the things associated with the tabernacle worship? More than two, 50. Wouldn't that make it pretty important to study if God put that much in the Bible? Why do we need to know more about the tabernacle? Well, for understanding God's redemptive plan. God had a plan before man ever sinned in the Garden of Eden. God had a redemptive plan and it's unfolding, dispensation to dispensation, and this dispensation of the law, it is big time revealing about Jesus and God's redemptive plan. You remember in the scriptures it says that without the shedding of blood there is no redemption and so this was a bloody altar, this was a bloody system of sacrifice But the Bible says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. So it's important that we study it. And it's important that we study it because we can see in it the sinfulness of God's people, the sinfulness of people in general, and we can see God's holiness standing out. And how God, a holy God, we begin to see in this tabernacle worship how a holy God who is perfect himself can be approached by a sinful human being. And that becomes a living lesson to us as we go through this. It's foundational to the study of the tabernacle, foundational to understanding how Christ fits in and becomes the centerpiece of revelation and the redemption. And it's necessary for grasping God's mercy God's merciful to us. You hear me? God's merciful to us. We're sinners. He's holy. And how do we reconcile all of that? Well, by understanding more about the altar and how Jesus fits in to those shadows, we can understand more why God can allow man, sinful man, to approach Him even though He is a holy, sinless God. Another reason we study about the tabernacle because without it you'd have a hard time understanding much about the book of Hebrews in the New Testament because the author of Hebrews approaches his subject from the standpoint of the tabernacle worship. Learning more about Jesus invites more love from us for Him, and we see how He has fulfilled His role in God's redemptive plan. It makes us love Him more. You know why I think we live in a time, and always have, I guess, when people, for one reason or another, don't care about God, or maybe they've known Him in salvation and draw back and go back into the world. Well, there's a lot of reasons for it, but I think the one thing that can prevent that from happening is if we love Jesus enough. Hello? It's okay to say amen. What sight those Israelites must have seen when they were camped out going through the wilderness. Remember, we got like three million people or so going through the wilderness. God said, I'm going to dwell with you. I'm going to dwell with you and my presence is going to be in that tabernacle. And as they observed that tabernacle and the camps, the 12 tribes of Israel camped all around about, can you just imagine a sea of tents, as far as you could see, tents of all of Israel around that centerpiece of the tabernacle. And they could see that cloud, the pillar of cloud, going up above that tabernacle in the daytime. And at nighttime, what did they see? Too dark to see a cloud, but they could see the fire. And you know what they must have realized? As they saw that pillar of cloud or that pillar of fire at night, they must have said, man, we are one blessed people. We're out here in the middle of nowhere. We're journeying out of slavery and God, the real God, the one God of all of the universe, that one true God is dwelling right here with us. There's his smoke going up above the tabernacle. There's that pillar of fire. His presence is with us. That must have been some sight for them to see. Well, it was the centerpiece. The tabernacle was the centerpiece of their worship and it was the physical centerpiece of their camp. I think I mentioned this last week that their camp, one author surmised that their camp surrounding that tabernacle probably covered somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 square miles. Now, this is a rough picture, but it might help you get it clearer, a little bit clearer in your mind. Just imagine, from right here at Liberty Baptist Church, a camp, a sea of tents that go all the way over to Kinset. And from this church, looking southward, you see a sea of tents all the way to the airport. You'd have something the size of Searcy or a little bigger of tents of God's people. Two, three, four million? I don't know. The closest estimate, I'm going to settle on three million just because it's a good round number and it's close. I don't think anybody but God really knows. But here they are, they're camped and they're all focused on that centerpiece, that tabernacle. Now the tabernacle, as we pointed out a little earlier, that tabernacle was, it was a long, narrow place. You can see the diagram on the screen where the fence around it was made of fine twined linen and that was called the court. And then the tent, there's a, sometimes we refer and the Bible refers to the tabernacle as that whole shebang. the fence, the furniture in the outer court, and the tent inside. All of it together made up the tabernacle. Now if you hear somebody say the tabernacle proper, they're probably talking about that tent at the end, at the western end of that tabernacle. And so the tabernacle itself was 50 cubits wide, the fence and everything, 50 cubits wide and 100 cubits long. Now I'm going to correct something I said last week. I went back and watched the video and I'd recommend all preachers if you want to find your mistakes and correct them or maybe find some ways to fine-tune your preaching, go back and watch your videos. It's embarrassing, and you'll probably get mad at yourself, but it helps you. And so I went back and watched the video, and I misspoke last week because this tabernacle, the fence, the fine twine linen, the court, was 50 cubits wide. And in one place I said it was 50 feet wide. It's easy to get those things mixed up. I had the 50 right, but I shouldn't have said 50 feet, I should have said 50 cubits. Now what that means is that it was twice as long as it is wide. So it's 75 feet, if you want to get it in feet because there's a variation, different people think that a cubit is equal to 16 inches, some think 18 inches or even different numbers. But basically a cubit was the length of your arm and so everybody's arm is not the same. If Brother Paul and I measured arms we'd come up with a different measurement, wouldn't we? He's always been short that way. And so a cubit is accurate in the Bible but when we, in modern times, try to measure it out, the best we can come up with, in my estimation, is that the tabernacle was 50 cubits wide, which would be 75 feet, and it's 150 feet long, or 100 cubits long. So 75, in our modern measurements, it would be 75 wide, 150 long, twice as long as it is wide. The gate at the front of that typified the one and only way to God. This gate, we went through it last week, and another mistake I found is when I was going through the video, I found out that when I went over there against that wall, I wasn't in the camera anymore either. Am I in the camera now? I'm in. All right, so we say, if that gate to the tabernacle going into the outer court is right here, then we go forth and then we come to a brazen altar and then we go further in that court and we come to the laver, the brazen laver where the priest would wash their hands and feet and symbolic. Coming through the gate would signify that there's only one entrance to fellowship with God and by the same token, there's only one way into salvation and that's through Christ. He is the door. He is the gate. And then at the brazen altar we find out that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins and that's where the atonement was made. The blood was shed. Somebody, I should say something in the Old Testament had to die, some living thing had to die in the place of the sinner and then The priest would go over and wash his hands and feet in that brass lavatory, huge, big, not as big as the altar. The altar, the raised altar was the biggest piece of furniture in the whole tabernacle. But as he went forward then he would go to the curtain that allowed him to walk into the holy place. Now the tent, tabernacle proper was a tent and you remember it had four coverings we talked about. There was a curtain on the front and you'd go into that tent and it was a two compartment tent and the front compartment was a holy place. The next one was the Holy of Holies. When the priest would go through this curtain into the holy place then you would have the the table of showbread over here and the seven-pronged candlestick over here and then as you approach the Holy of Holies there would be a veil there that only the high priest could go through and just before that was the altar of incense symbolic of the prayers of God's people going up, a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord. So as we go through this you can kind of picture in your mind what that looked like and it's always good to have a diagram too, isn't it? Kind of get it anchored in your mind. And so this is what the Bible tells us about the tabernacle in general but there's a lot of detail that goes into it. If you think about 50 chapters talking about the tabernacle and its system of worship. That's more than what we could go through in one little demonstration in this room tonight, isn't it? Well, inside that Ark of the Covenant or inside the Holy of Holies was only the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat on top. The Mercy Seat and the Covenant. The Mercy Seat was representing the dwelling place of God where He dwelt among his people inside the ark." Now the mercy seat was covering on top of the ark and the ark's not a boat but it was just a little cabinet and down in it was, who remembers? What's inside of it? Tell me one. Ten commandments was in it, what else? Manna, pot of manna and one other thing. Aaron's rod that budded all miraculous things to represent God and we'll get into each one of those as we go through this. When that high priest went into the Holy of Holies once a year, he would make an offering for the nation of Israel on the brazen altar, and then he'd go through the laver and wash, and then he'd go through the curtain into the holy place, and then he would go into the Holy of Holies through the veil, and everybody on the outside, this happened once a year, this was a big event, And so when he goes into the Holy of Holies, everybody's listening to hear those little bells on his garments to see if they're still tinkling, if he's still moving around. And if he went in, he's the only one that could go. And he's making atonement for Israel. And they're listening, they're watching. If he reappeared, they knew that God accepted the offering. He came back out. Think about this, when Jesus made that one-time sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, His blood was shed on the brazen altar, He was taken to a tomb, and when He reappeared, we knew everything was okay. God accepted the offering once, for all, forever! We see a bunch of stuff in here that's going to remind us of Jesus. And as we step into the courtyard, we're going to talk about the brazen altar now. When we step into the courtyard, the first thing that was seen was that brazen altar. The brazen altar itself, and there we learn about the necessity of atonement. Exodus 27, 1 through 8, the passage we read is very descriptive about that. And that altar would remind those people of Israel, you don't just walk into God's presence in your sinful state. There has to be atonement for sin. And so the first thing that that Israelite would see stepping into the courtyard would be that brazen altar. There's fire on the altar and the fire never goes out and it's there all night long. The next morning they go in there and they build it back up again and nobody approaches God without going through the outer court first and taking care of that sin problem. And there are a lot of people in the world today that thinks they can find some way to God that doesn't include Jesus. It's not going to happen. There's a lot of, even Christian denominations and churches teach that if you just do enough good you'll make it to heaven. You can be in God's presence if you just do enough good. No, God's not satisfied with that. Not by works of righteousness which we have done. We have a sin problem. It doesn't matter how much good we've done, it's not going to fix things. We've got to go to that brazen altar and that sin has to be atoned for. That's where Christ comes in. He took care of the sin problem for us. I had a, well, a different denomination, which claims to be not a denomination. One of their preachers told me that You absolutely had to get in the baptistry to be saved. No way to be saved without getting into the baptistry. And I countered him with the blood of Christ. Saved by the blood of Christ. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. And he said, well, yeah, but you come in contact with the blood in the baptistry. Man, I don't know of anybody that puts blood in their baptistry. It looked like clear water to me. Now, the scriptures are pretty plain about this. In Romans 5 and 9, it says, much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Ephesians 1, 7, in whom, Jesus, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. In 1 Corinthians 1, 17, is one that you can use quite often when you have someone that cannot understand about baptism and baptism not being the way to be saved. If you'll go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17, this one is important. Paul said, for Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15 we're told that The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we're saved by the gospel, and Paul said, the gospel and baptism are two different things. And if Paul said, God didn't send me to baptize, he sent me to preach the gospel. Well, if the baptistry was the way of salvation, Paul would be saying, in effect, God didn't send me to save you, he just sent me to preach. You see, there's a distinguishing between the gospel and baptism there. It's not baptism that Paul was the most interested in. Now, baptism is important, but it doesn't save. It's the blood of Christ. And Paul said the most important thing is to preach the gospel and get people saved. Well, in Titus 3, 5 it says this, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. And what we're talking about tonight is this brazen altar in the tabernacle and this is God's mercy. Those Israelites, they followed God but they were sinful. They were made out of the same sinful flesh that you and I are made out of and they wanted to approach God. There had to be a brazen altar right at the beginning of that tabernacle. They had to take care of the sin problem first. There had to be an atonement first. And in Christ's work, it doesn't matter if people follow Him as a great teacher. It doesn't matter if people look upon Him as a great moral man, a good man. What is most important is the fact that he sacrificed himself on the cross of Calvary, which is pictured in that brazen altar. It's where the blood was shed. For Christ, it was on the cross of Calvary where he said, it is finished. It's finished. No more offering of sheep and oxen. and bullocks and goats and doves on that altar. Never again will you have to do that because Jesus said it is finished once for all forever. Boy, doesn't that make you fall in love with Jesus all over again? Man, wouldn't it be burdensome if we had to come here every week and we had an altar and we had to bring in our animals and slay them right here and let their blood run everywhere and we had to just do that over and over and over and over. That would be burdensome. But that was necessary. It wasn't that those Israelites were doing the wrong thing by doing that. What they were doing was God was teaching them that This is their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. They had to understand sin has to be dealt with and that blood that was shed on that altar, it didn't take away their sin. It rolled it over for another year. And then every year they had to do this all over again. And they did that for 500 years and beyond until Christ died on the cross of Calvary. And then when He said it's finished, there was no more rolling sin ahead of us to take care of it a year at a time. It was done forever. Doesn't that make you love Him more? Man, He finished it for us. He finished the work. Let's look at the design of the brazen altar and the symbolism of sacrifice. In Exodus chapter 27, Again, in our text, verses 1 and 2, we see how that altar was made. It was made out of acacia wood, which is a very durable wood. It was grown there in the desert where they were wandering in the wilderness. And this kind of wood, man it would make a good wood to build our decks out of on our house because it was durable. One of the best woods you can get in this part of the country is cypress. It's very water resistant, rot resistant, it's durable. But this acacia wood, they used it because It was durable and then they overlaid it with brass in this altar and that brass would endure the high temperatures of that altar day after day after day of hot fire in there. And inside that altar there was a grate. forgive me Lord, but it's kind of like a barbecue grill and that grate was a network of brass and it was down inside that altar and so they could lay the sacrifice on that grate, that network, brass network, and they could secure it to the horns, those four horns on the altar they could secure their offering to the horns of the altar and so then they'd leave it there, the pieces of the meat would lay there until they burned completely up and the sacrifice was finished. But that acacia wood symbolized the humanity of Christ. He was a branch, right? And the Bible said He was a branch of the root of Jesse. and that was his humanity in that wood Jesus was fully man and then that brass represented his judgment and God's demand for holiness so Christ is represented by that altar and both his humanity is there he never sinned in his humanity and in his deity. That brazen altar is seen as enduring the heat. Jesus endured the heat. He endured the heat that was put on him by those who crucified him that day. And so you see the Lord Jesus Christ represented in several ways in that altar. It was five cubits square. three cubits high that was about seven and a half feet so it would be about as big as this window square it would be twice as big as that baptistry seven and a half feet square and then about four and a half feet high so for the sacrifice to be accepted by God it had to be lifted up And so that was the reason the altar was built up higher so they could lift it up and put it on the altar. And Jesus said if he'd be lifted up, he would draw all men to him. Remember that? and so when Jesus was lifted up as the serpent was in the wilderness remember that serpent when the Israelites sinned and they were all dying and God told Moses to make a pole and put a brass serpent on the end of it and all who would look to that brass serpent being lifted up they lifted it up high enough that all could see it by the way, all who can see Jesus can be saved whosoever will We don't have everybody that wants to be in our kind of church because we don't preach Calvinism and that God saved some before the beginning of time and condemned others to go to hell without any choice of their own. And so we believe that whosoever will is the Bible way, whoever looks to the pole, to the serpent can be saved. And when Jesus was lifted up like that pole in the wilderness, Jesus was lifted up and nailed to a cross and he was lifted up and God accepted that sacrifice. Well, the materials and the dimensions of the altar remind us of the comprehensive and sufficient nature of Jesus Christ. Let's talk about the function of the brazen altar, the substitutionary sacrifice. We're going to look at Leviticus. We'll read several verses there. In Leviticus chapter 1, the very first chapter of Leviticus, we want to see this from the scripture itself. How does this thing work? Leviticus 1, verses 3 through 9. Verse number 3 says, If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and 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 priests. Aaron's sons shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. flay the burnt offering and cut it into his pieces. And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall put fire upon the altar and lay the wood in order upon the fire. And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar but his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water and the priest shall burn all on the altar to be burnt to be a burnt sacrifice an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. So the worshipers would bring an unblemished animal to the altar. They didn't just pick an old sick animal that was going to die anyway. They didn't pick one that was ugly. They didn't pick one that was just a discard or a cull. They picked an unblemished animal representing the unblemished nature of Jesus Christ and they would bring that animal and sacrifice it on that altar and they would cut the animal up into pieces after its blood had been sprinkled on the altar and the remainder of the blood would be caught in a basin at the base of the altar and then they'd put the pieces on the altar, the pieces of meat, and they would be burned completely and that was a sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord. When Jesus died on the altar He fulfilled this prophecy. How did that fire get started in the first place in the altar? It's an eternal fire, but who lit it to begin with? You know who did? God did. When they first anointed the altar and the sacrificial system of worship, when they got everything in order at that very first service at the tabernacle, God sent fire down from heaven. set the wood in the altar on fire. So where did the fire come from? From heaven. The heavenly fire kindled that wood in the altar and the priests were to never let it go out. So in Leviticus 9.24 it says, And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat, which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces. They obviously weren't Baptists or they wouldn't be shouting. So God ignited the altar's fire which was to burn continuously. Do you know they never let that fire go out? They didn't let it go out. They kept it going because that was God's fire. They were not to introduce strange fire into the altar. I think a lot of religion today has got a bunch of strange fire in it. It's not God's fire. It's fire, there's activity, there's excitement, there's zeal. But maybe it's not the zeal of the Lord. What was the daily routine like? Let's see if we can get that in our mind before we quit. What would it be like to be in that camp with three million people, as big as the city of Searcy, and you wake up early in the morning, maybe the sun's not quite up, but it's beginning to dawn and if you were there with them you would look out across the camp towards the tabernacle and you'd see the pillar of cloud ascending up over the tabernacle indicating that God's presence is there and you'd maybe walk over to the tabernacle And if you looked inside, you'd see some of the priests got there real early and they went in rotation because there were a lot of sacrifices. Can you imagine three million people offering sacrifices? Now they didn't do that every day. When did they do it? Well, there were all kinds of special occasions when they had different offerings and sacrifices on the altar. But just an ordinary guy, if he sinned, then he needed to go to the tabernacle and maybe offer an offering, a burnt offering for his sin and get that thing taken care of. And so early in the morning you'd see a few of those priests who rotated out because it would be a pretty tiring job. Can you imagine being there from daylight till dark and sacrificing one animal after another? Those animals, some of those animals, especially if they were oxen, those things are pretty heavy. They might weigh a thousand pounds. And so they had to heave those things around, get the meat up on the brazen altar and it would wear them out. So they rotated. And so you would see the first rotation of men, those priests, they're down there getting that altar ready for the day. Now they don't let the fire go out but there's ashes, a lot of excess ashes because yesterday's ashes accumulated. And so you can't just let the ash build up. I remember as a boy we had wood heat in our home and dad would get up early every morning and while the fire was burned down low, the coals were still in there and it was still warm, but he'd take the fire shovel and shovel out the ashes and put them in an ash bucket and carry them out behind the house somewhere and dump them. And they would do that with that brazen altar. Those priests would be out there, they'd be shoveling out the ashes. Now what does those ashes represent? Those ashes represented the finished sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The offering that had been laid on that altar, everything was burned up, there was no substance, only ashes left. And so they would scrape up all those ashes and they would carry them outside the camp to a clean place, the Bible says, to a clean place and they'd put the ashes there. The ashes to the offering, the burnt offering that was accepted by God, they're not just taken out there and just thrown around. They're put in a clean place. Remember when Jesus died on the cross of Calvary and He said, it's finished? Well, that was His burnt offering on the cross of Calvary and they took His body out to a clean place and laid Him in a new tomb, the clean place. And then he emerged from it later. So you'd see those priests down there cleaning out the ashes every morning and another set of them might be out gathering up wood and getting all the wood into the court ready for that day's offerings. So they're gathering up wood and piling up wood, getting everything ready for action. And the new wood's in place. Now some offerers are coming up to the gate of the court they've got their sheep or they've got their goat or they've got a bullock and the first guy brings his offering through the gate and the first thing that the offerer would do then when he met the priest he would lay his hands on that live offering This was something God would accept by laying his hand on the offering, that animal still alive, and so laying his hand on there was symbolic of that live animal giving life to the sinner who was dead. Life transferred to the dead. What did Jesus do when he died on the cross? He took dead sinners and quickened them. When you come to Christ for salvation, you are dead in your trespasses and sins, the Bible says. You're dead! And when you lay hold of Christ as Savior, you put your trust in Him, His death is transferring life to you. And so that offerer would lay hands on that animal and then he would slay the animal and then it would be offered upon the altar and so that went on day after day after day and then on special occasions there'd be special offerings made that incorporated that altar as well the priest then once that offering was once the animal was slain the priest would sprinkle the blood on the altar Remember, a sinner came and he's offering his sacrifice on the brazen altar. The priest would catch that blood and he'd sprinkle some on the altar for the atonement. The rest was caught in a basin that would be poured out around the base of the altar. And this went on and on and on. Then the pieces would be put on the altar and it would be burned up completely. And God was satisfied. because the offering had made atonement for man's sins and he was alive again until he needed to go back to the altar again Christ is pictured in that because when he was offered on that cross that was the brazen altar for him we come to him once and put our trust in him never ever to have to do it again Thank God we don't have to make offerings over and over again. Do we need to come from days of cleansing? Do we need to go into that place where the laver is, where the priest would cleanse, the priest would cleanse his hands and feet before he'd go into the Holy of Holies, where he'd have close relationship, close fellowship with God. Before you and I can have close fellowship with God, we don't have to be We don't have to have a new sacrifice to atone for our sins. That was once for all in Christ. But in daily living, our feet's going to get dirty walking in this nasty world. And those priests had to wash hands and feet. But remember in the Gospel of John, when Jesus washed the disciples' feet, and Peter said, no, you're not washing my feet, Lord, no, no. And Jesus said, if you don't let me wash your feet, then you have no part with me. Peter said, well, in that case, he's always sticking his foot in his mouth. He said, in that case, go ahead and wash my feet and my hands, I mean, my head, everything. Just wash me. And Jesus said, no, you don't need just your feet. You don't need to have this ongoing atonement for sins. That was handled one time on the cross. He said, Peter, what you need is daily cleansing because you're walking in this world. If he's going to have close fellowship with God, he's going to have to have that cleansing at the laver. Our laver is Jesus Christ. We can go to Him and confess our sins daily. We don't have to get saved again, thank goodness for that. But we need that constant washing of the world. I think a lot of folks today are living without getting washed. without being cleansed daily, and they're tampering with the world. Oh, just a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and we have to be careful. If we tamper with sin, we can tamper with it and say, I'm going to keep my distance. I'm going to touch it, but I'm not really going to embrace it. When you start touching it, it has a magnetism to it, and it'll suck you in, and you'll be dirty all over, and you'll lose your fellowship. You won't lose your salvation, but you can lose your fellowship. with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we need daily cleansing. We see Jesus in all of this. The Brazen Altar serves as a profound illustration of the necessity, provision, and acceptance of atonement through sacrifice. It points us directly to Jesus Christ whose death fulfills the requirements symbolized by that altar. As believers, we're called to recognize our need for His sacrifice. I said we'd fall in love with Him more the more we learn about Him, when we realize what He went through. That brazen altar, can you just imagine that brazen altar was pretty hot? What Christ suffered was much worse. I don't know, and we can't know, what He must have felt, what He must have endured on the cross. Some say that He endured all the pain of hell for you. All of eternity's hell for you so you could be saved. I don't know how that would feel. I can't imagine, and you can't either. But just the statement about it, ought to make us love him more. However terrible pain, anguish he went through and being separated from his father, his father couldn't look upon the sin. He endured all of that and when we realize what he did for us it ought to make us love him more. It ought to make us want to fellowship with him more. It ought to make us want to live for him and walk with him and serve him more. We live in a faithless generation. He asked the question, Jesus asked the question that when He comes will He find faith in this world? I don't think there will be a lot. The Lord wants fellowship after your salvation. Those who have turned their back on Christ and have never accepted Him as Savior, oh, if they could only know what He went through. the love he exhibited for them, knowing that they would despise him, he went through a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, making himself a burnt offering. Oh, if the lost could only see that, would they love him enough to come to him? Do we love him enough to fellowship with him and to serve him? And there are several things that cause people to draw back from the Lord after they're saved? Some of it is ignorance of His Word. You say, Preacher, I don't know if I even enjoy this altar business and the tabernacle business. I don't even know if I want to study about that. That's probably a sign of a coldness. The reason we study this is so we know more about Him and what He has done and is doing for us so that we can love Him more. Sometimes it's a lack of commitment. Some people got their fire insurance, they trusted the Lord and said, well I'm not going to hell so I don't need to worry about serving Him. I don't need to worry about going to church. I don't need to worry about doing all this stuff in service for Him. Lack of commitment. Some it's just apathy. They don't bother to think about it. They don't care about it. For some it's a besetting sin that only they know about maybe. But because of that besetting sin, it keeps them from the closeness that they ought to have with the Lord Jesus. Could be that they've just forgotten what He's done for them. We need to remember what He did for us. Could be that our flickering, faltering flame of love is just dying very, very low. If we seek to know Him more, we'll learn to love Him more. And if we love Him more, we'll walk with Him more. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that you'd help us just to love you the way we should. Lord, thank you for all the pictures and shadows in the Old Testament in this tabernacle worship that points to the Lord Jesus. Help us to embrace those shadows and we'll understand the Lord Jesus more in the New Testament. Lord, help us to love him like we should and to serve him and walk with him like we should. Our heads bowed and eyes are closed. If you'd like to pray, we'll have a few minutes of music before we dismiss.