I invite you to turn tonight in your Bible to the second book of the Bible, returning to our study in the book of Exodus. Tonight we come to this last sort of great piece of furniture. There's one more here, the bronze basin, but we're going to look at the altar of incense inside the holy place. So tonight we'll be considering together the first 10 verses of Exodus chapter 30. This is the word of the Lord. of it you shall take them and they shall be holders for poles with which to carry it you shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold and you shall put in front of the veil that is above the ark of the testimony in front of the mercy seat that is above the testimony where i will meet with you and aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it and when aaron sets up the lamps at twilight he shall burn it at regular a regular incense offering before the lord throughout your generations you shall not offer unauthorized incense on it or a burn offering or a grain offering and you shall not pour a drink offering on it aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations it is most holy to the lord may the lord bless the hearing of his word well tonight uh we're studying in exodus we've gone made it through quite a bit uh so far in our study and tonight we come to the altar of incense what was this piece why was it so important and why after the description of the ordination of the priests did God now command the construction of this altar of incense? What I want to do tonight and jump right into this is simply explain its design, have us think about its purpose, and then apply it in the way that the scriptures do that it might encourage us all the more and understand how important its place was in teaching Israel about something very important for their life. Let's begin tonight at verse 1. And you'll notice there in Exodus 30, it says, You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. You shall make it of acacia wood. A cubit shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth. It shall be square, and two cubits shall be its height. Its horn shall be of one piece with it. It wasn't a very large piece of furniture, a rather small piece of furniture, About three feet high, about a foot and a half is a square. Interesting, the place is. You'll notice the detail is the same as the other pieces. It was made of acacia wood and covered with gold and had rings and poles for it to be transported and carried. What's important in verse 6 is its placement. The placement of this particular piece was communicating something very important to Israel. You'll notice there, you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the testimony. You'll see that in verse 6. Before the mercy seat that is over the testimony where I will meet with you. Very important instructions tonight on where this piece was to go. Its placement was crucial. Remember the sort of structure and what we've been learning about the tabernacle. You had these two rooms. You remember, beginning from the outside, you remember there was the courtyard, and we spent our time studying the courtyard. You would then come to the first veil door, and the priest would enter, and on one side was the table of showbread. And remember, the bread was placed there, and Israel learned a lot about their dependency upon the Lord to supply bread in the wilderness. The bread from heaven, we looked at all that. And then it always had this fresh bread for the priests. The Lord was teaching Israel about these things. But across the way in this first room was the candlestick, remember? The golden candlestick, the beautiful candlestick that was always to be trimmed and always to be lit. They were constantly serving and preparing this candlestick, ensuring that the wicks were trimmed and that the thing was lit up, burning brightly in the holy place. And that piece, God remembered, was teaching Israel that He is the light. He is their light. This is how Jesus understood it when He stood right up that day in the temple. And there were those two giant lights there. And Jesus said, I'm the light of the world. I'm the light. Now we come to the altar of incense. The altar of incense. To the back end of the first room, enter courtyard, veil, back end of the first room, right in front of the veil to the most holy place is this altar of incense. Notice how the Lord described it here. It was to be put in front of the ark and before the mercy seat as a testimony. What was this? Symbolically, Israel understood This piece is right before God. They got that. Remember, the second veil shielded the altar from the most holy place, the altar of incense. So this beautiful design of all the cherubim are up on that veil. There's cherubim everywhere, in fact, when you walked in the first room, depicting something very important that we looked at. But the Lord said, I want this right in front of me. right on the way right here why remember that uh the ark was the mini sort of throne of god the priests would go in there and and sprinkle blood on that didn't he the high priest didn't he so that the whole construction and we've looked at this in in exodus the whole construction uh the lord kept telling moses i wants you to pattern this just like the pattern on the mountain. Remember, this was a, I've called it a shadowy sketch of something in heaven. Building plans were handed to Moses from the Lord. And what we considered is that this sort of tabernacle structure had kind of three levels, if you will, in correlation with, well, I believe what Paul was talking about in the third heaven. But the first being the outward courtyard, you remember, where Israel was sealed off and could enter, and a people set apart to the Lord in the world. And the first veil, so beautiful, with colors on it and images on it, as we know from the history of Israel, correlating with the visible heavens. We look up, we see certain things, don't we, in the heavens. We see the sun, and we see the moon, and we see the stars, and we see the blue, all the beautiful colors that are constantly when we look up all around us well the second veil had the cherubim remember and corresponding to the throne room in heaven the most holy place that place is surrounded by the cherubim and the seraphim and the angels of god on fire in god's presence remember because God is on fire sealed off so that none of his glory would would consume people but what a piece of furniture this one gets put right in front of entering the most holy place what was done on this piece what was so important about this piece well notice in verse seven that Aaron you shall burn Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it and when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight he shall burn it a regular incense offering before the Lord throughout your generations a fascinating fascinating piece that Aaron was constantly morning and evening burning burning incense on this not just any kind of incense could be burnt on it. You'll notice verse 9 states that it was only a specific kind of incense that nobody else could ever make, nobody else could ever smell, only the Lord. You'll notice at the end of this chapter, in fact, chapter 30, that there's a formula for some of this incense and there's these strange names there that no one knows to this day exactly what this all is. I assure you, if you were really into burning incense, oh, about 50 years ago, the 60s, this was not it. This was not it. This incense was for the Lord. That's being made really clear here. It's for the Lord. Why? What's curious here is how specific God is in commanding this. Look at verse 37. But as for the incense which you shall make, you don't make any of this for yourselves. It's mine. According to its composition, it shall be to you holy for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it, even to smell it, cut off. Cut off. whatever this was pretty special wasn't it it's the lord's in fact it was so specific verse 9 gave a command don't offer anything strange no strange incense on this altar no strange nothing weird nothing out of what i've commanded it was immediate judgment for anyone everyone who broke this basic rule of worship. Now, built into this altar were horns. You'll notice in verse 10, Aaron is commanded to make atonement on the horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering. So they'd take blood in a bowl and they would bring it in and then they would dip it on the horns of this altar from the altar in outside. Remember, outside, right outside the door in the middle of the courtyard was that big bronze altar and the sacrifices and the sin offerings were made. And once a year, he would make atonement upon it throughout the generations. It was most holy to the Lord. So two things to sum up what's being described here. Two things would happen. He would take blood into the most holy place from the sin offering and put it in a bowl and sprinkle it on the horns of the altar to make atonement on the altar of incense. And then every morning and evening the priest would take that special blend of incense in a big bowl and he would take burning coals from the altar in the courtyard. And after he put those burning coals on the altar, he would then pour the special blend of incense over the burning coals and all of this big puff of smoke would go right on up into the most holy place. Getting the imagery? A thick cloud of smoke would appear in the holy place and head right on into the most holy place. Filled with a sweet-smelling aroma, says the Lord. Sweet. What's the meaning? What does all this mean? What is all of this? Well, the Scriptures make it really clear what this was for. I want to start with the fact that the Lord called for blood to be put on it. Very interesting, isn't it? It's just curious because it's called an altar of incense. Blood sacrifices were not made on it. God was teaching them something very important. There is a direct connection between, he linked it up, what happened on the altar outside in the courtyard, and what then would come before the Lord in the most holy place. He's drawing a connection. He's telling you to see the link. This is where atonement was made for sin in the courtyard. So when the blood from that was taken every year by the high priest and sprinkled on the mercy seat, it was also put on these horns of this altar of incense. He's tying it back to the bronze altar out in the middle of the yard. And what is communicated is that the sacrifice, notice, made, Out in the yard, out in the courtyard, ultimately pointed to, for once a year, that blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. Well, you know what this has taught us. We've looked at what this all taught us. It has everything to do with the sacrifice of Christ, doesn't it? This is how the book of Hebrews applies all of this. Well, this is where atonement was made. was a sweet-smelling aroma to God. Nothing else could please Him. And that's why this specific command and blend of incense was only for the Lord. But what did Israel understand about this altar? That's what I want you to take with you tonight. Why was this so important? Israel understood that as smoke was constantly going up in the courtyard, think of it, in the courtyard, all you would see all day long is smoke going. I saw a fire today out here. And you see a little fire and all the smoke's going. Courtyard smoke constantly. That thing was always burning. That smoke constantly in the courtyard, if we understand the structure of the tabernacle, now it's rising up to where? To heaven. Before God, smoke was always burning in the holy place. Smoke was always coming up to him. That when these things were believed and received in faith, God was sending a message to his people. Something very sweet was coming up before him into his nostrils, if you will. So then think of the picture presented. The altar of incense just before God's face, The priest would enter. He would come before the throne of grace. Remember what's on the priest's shoulder. He's decked out. He's got the names of the people. He's bearing them up. He's carrying them. He's got them on his chest. They're close to his heart, the 12 tribes. On the breastplate, beautiful stones are the names of God's people. They would come before the altar and stand there. And on behalf of the people, they would stand there and then serve at the altar of incense. Think of the importance of this. No sacrifices on that altar. Incense. What did Israel understand? What was He doing for them at the altar? What were the priests doing at the altar of incense? Well, carrying their names, I want you to listen to how David understood this. This is Psalm 141. This is David. Here he writes, O Lord, I call to You. Come quickly to Me. Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense. May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. What's David thinking about? He's linking it all together, isn't he? He's directly speaking of the daily work of the priests in the tabernacle, which included standing of the priest in the very place that God meets his people and the priest offering up incense on behalf of the people to the Lord that rises up as a sweet-smelling aroma. David says, may my prayers be like that for you, to you, before you. He's asking, Lord, would you receive my prayers? Would you receive them? in direct connection with how God received the incense that the high priest would offer. Would you receive my prayers like that incense that you received from the high priest? So David's on the outside, high priest on the inside, ministering before the altar, the closest piece to the throne of God, and what does he compare the incense to? The prayers of the saints. It's pictured very powerfully in Luke's gospel. this will help you if you want to turn there i think you'll really see the connection of what's going on um when zachariah was performing his duties and you'll notice in luke 1 verse 8 listen to this language and hopefully this all becomes clear so it was while he was serving as priests before god in the order of his division according to the custom of the priesthood his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the lord so he's serving his priest his turn to go in and offer up the incense in the temple and the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense see the connection then the angel of the lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the altar of incense when zachariah saw him he was troubled and fear fell upon him see the connection high priest offered up incense at the very hour it was known as the hour of incense all the people are outside praying when did this happen morning and evening every morning and evening they're praying the people of god were called to pray and then the the high priest would go in and offer up the incense right at that moment early in the morning and evening there would be massive prayer by god's people they understood this so the offering of incense was the time for the high priest to intercede on behalf of the people you see that he's interceding they're praying he's before the throne of god interceding that's the imagery well maybe some of this starting to come together i've worked hard likewise the spirit what does he do helps us in our weaknesses for we don't know what to pray for as we ought you guys are constantly struggling with prayer i know you're struggling with prayer because i struggle with prayer if dominie gordon struggles with prayer you struggle with prayer You often don't know how to pray. You often don't even know what to pray for in the circumstances that you're in. You don't know if you should pray that I go here or there. You don't know the will of the Lord in certain things. You know his revealed will. So we pray and we cry out according to everything he's commanded, as the Heidelberg says, and the Spirit intercedes with groanings that can't be uttered. He prays perfectly for you interceding. Revelation calls the prayers of the saints something very special. I want you to listen to two passages from Revelation. Now, when he had taken the scroll, and this all comes from Exodus, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. So notice this. These creatures have the bowls of incense, which are your prayers. Then another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar. That's Revelation 8. He was given much incense to offer along with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. See it? Hear it? And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose up before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it back to the earth. There were rolls of thunder and rumblings and flashes of lightnings in an earthquake. What just happened? God answered the prayers of His saints. The imagery there is His saints are crying out to Him and His angels fling back fire on the earth. He wants you to know He's hearing and He's answering. And He's defending you. And He's going to protect you. He wants your prayers to ascend before the throne and they are provided intercession. Well, I say all that knowing that there is no doubt that the greatest struggle for the Christian is prayer. I know it. Sad to say that, isn't it? I mean, really. So sad to say that. Prayer is something vital to our well-being as Christians. And yet, if we're honest, we are neglectful in this duty. What kind of place should it have in our lives? I was reading Phil Reichen. He made a striking statement. Do with it what you will. If we neglect prayer, we should not expect things to go well for us in the ministry or in our lives. But when we pray, our petitions rise to heaven and God is pleased to bestow His blessing on us. Is that true? Of course it's true. If it's true, how much more do you think we suffer in our lives bringing on our own hardships on ourselves because we're trying to do it ourselves, not praying? Think about it. In our churches, it's the greatest privilege. We call this, Jesus said, the house of what? Prayer. Putting it another way, what are the implications of Jesus' challenge you don't have because you don't ask? Let me roughly paraphrase. You're going through all kinds of things in your life and you never come and talk to me about it. You never come when I've opened it up and I'm your father and I love you and you don't come to me in time of need and talk to me in... Well, couldn't I say you're always on the phone telling everyone else, right? I hope Exodus gives you a renewed perspective tonight about the benefits and the blessings of prayer. That's my goal. How could they be sure that their prayers were heard? What was the basis? I mean, I know how I feel often. my prayers don't get past the roof they feel powerless they feel empty they feel cold they feel dead i know that i know you struggle with that the basis that god heard their prayers was that there was a wonderful priest making intercession but all also that a sin offering had been placed on the altar's horns which outside where the offering was made teaching us something very important that God wanted Israel to understand. God doesn't accept prayers unless there's atonement for sin. That is really important. God is to hear the prayers of everyone. Yes and no. If you don't have forgiveness in Christ, His face is turned away from you. Now that's really important tonight. Because who does the high priest ultimately represent? We've been looking at the failure of the Levitical priesthood and we've been looking at the necessity of another priest according to the order of Melchizedek. We are looking for a faithful high priest. A faithful high priest who would come in the fullness of time, ordained as a priest, would offer His body outside the gate. See? Offer it outside the gate. On the cross, that blood, He says, would purify the worshipers of God once and for all. What's He doing for you now? This is where I always like to challenge the young people when they come before us for profession of faith and to say, well, what has Jesus done for you? We always say, well, he lived a righteous life and he died. But I don't know that we think a lot about the fact that Jesus is praying for us right now. It's intercession. That he's in the holy place, most holy place. You're intercessor, you're mediator. Think of what he's doing. He's helping you. I think this also helps a lot with the principles of worship. You know, I often try to tell people, some people look at us and say, well, are you so strict about worship? Why are you so strict? We can do whatever we want, right? And the answer is, of course not. But I don't know how always to communicate that. We believed in this thing called the regulative principle. You do only those things that God has expressly commanded in his word. But I don't know that we've done a really good job of helping people to see that as to why. We throw that around a lot. But God's people have to know why. Well, who messed with this altar of incense? Nadab and Abihu. And they were having a wow worship service, let me tell you. Everyone's shouting. They're all having a great time. Nadab and Abihu got caught up in the moment, and then they went and tampered with this altar of incense. Did you know that? Now, Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and offered an unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said. Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified. Well, they took their censer and they said, we can do this a little bit better. We can make this happen a little bit more. And they interjected something God did not command on the altar of incense and added to the worship. And when God had given great detail about what he wanted on it, right here, Exodus 30, they didn't listen. Oh, don't be so legalistic. And fire came out and consumed them. Why? Because you're shoving out Christ. Does that help? There's a reason it's all specific. Worship that left out Christ was approaching the people to represent them at the altar of prayer with a strange fire. Outside of it, you can't get to God with your fire. In trouble. The specific blend was declaring that only those prayers are heard with the atonement of Christ's blood. Any other sacrifice was a foreign sacrifice. It couldn't perfect the worshipers. The prayers were not heard. And that's why God got very zealous for Israel. That's a start, I hope, to help us more clearly understand why worship matters. It's not a neutral. It's not a neutral. What we're seeing that God was so specific in all this instruction about worship in Exodus is because worship was only possible through the provision of His Son. All attempts to do something outside of that and do something that tampered with that removed Him from the equation. We've got to understand that it's always based on Christ, His Gospel, His atonement. When that's not central and that's ripped away with our own methods and our own things, this is where it goes wrong. And that's what the Heidelberg is saying to us on page, you don't have to turn there, but page 59, it says this very thing. How do we know that, how does God want us to pray that he will listen to us? Well, there's a few things we have to take seriously about that, don't we? That we pray from the heart to none other than the true God who's revealed himself in his word, that we ask everything that He's commanded us. Notice it's even there. That we acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing and humble ourselves in His presence. That we rest on this unshakable foundation, even though we don't deserve it. God listens only because of who? Christ. That's it. That's the only basis He hears you. It's the perfect life of His Son. That God, through Christ, has become our Father. And when we understand that, well, you understand how beautiful prayer is then and how precious. It was Jesus himself who said, in that day when I'm exalted and lifted up, listen to John 16. You will ask in my name, and I do not say that I shall pray to the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you. You hear that? the Father loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. I didn't have to continually go and now after I've given my sacrifice in life, try to calm down my Father and appease Him. I don't need to do that. I don't have to continue to go to try to make you accepted. You need to know you're accepted. You're received because of my body and my blood. It's the only basis. you're forgiven and when you pray now now by the way this is really important why we do say in jesus name when you pray in my name your prayers are directly received in love by my father you need to know that you need to know that jesus is our eternal high priest and because your relationship is one of an adopted son now, God has promised you your prayers are heard. Being answered according to His perfect will. So we should always remember, we pray with a recognition that the ground by which we come is the person in the work of Jesus. And we always say in Christ's name, it's in Jesus' name that we're able to come. Hebrews says, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Do you? You know this is your privilege? You know he's inviting you to that? Do you know the Israelites probably could never have imagined in fullness what this would be like to be able to say to people, you get to come in the most holy place because of Christ and have direct access. and pray. You get to talk to your Heavenly Father. You understand the privilege of that? You'll never, none of you, get to go up and talk to Trump. That's not in my notes. Darcy always tells me don't say those things, but it's true. Think he's interested in you that much? Your Father is. You get to come to the most holy place. You get to talk to Him. And He promises you help in time of need. Whenever you have a need, you're in despair, you're lonely, you're depressed, you're hurting. He says, come to me. Talk to me. I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I'm not going to abandon you. If prayer was offered and the Jews understood this early in the morning and in the evening and all the people knew that the priests were in there ministering at the altar on their behalf, they knew they should pray because that was going on. Do you think you should pray when you know Jesus is there interceding for you? Your eternal high priest? Can you take any time out of your busy day to talk to Him? Think it's an insult if He never hears from us? Ever? Day and night is not putting a legalistic yoke on you. That's not legalism. He's calling you to come to Him from the heart. It's your chief way of thankfulness, we say. He wants you to come to Him for any reason that is right and good. And He said men ought always to pray and not lose heart. I don't want you to lose heart in this life. I made a decision last night to get rid of my smartphone. It's consuming. It's consuming. And just go back to one of those little flip things. I say that only to say, I'm so busy often with all the wrong things. Do you praise Him? Do you ask for His kingdom to be advanced? Do you pray for the Escondido United Reformed Church? Do you pray for your brethren here who are hurting? Do you pray for the lost in the world? Do you stop and ask Him, you've made us a part of a glorious salvation and a plan going to the ends of the earth safe, Lord? I wonder how much we stumble and how much we continue to give in to sin. Not under any condemnation anymore, but still struggling with real sin in our lives because we never come to Him and ask for help. Christ has loved you. He's given you access to the Father. May your life be thankful in prayer. 1 Thessalonians 5, and I close with this. Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you for the privilege, Heavenly Father, of prayer. you just told us ending the sermon it's your will for us that we would pray continually we're guilty i am guilty and we ask for forgiveness we're all our own little prima donnas trying to do our own thing trying to build our own names trying to run around and seek our own happiness apart from you and it's evidenced by a lack of prayer in our lives and yet in this you don't condemn us you invite us to come and enjoy you so may lord we take this more seriously as a church and as a people may we call out upon the name of the lord and may we always give thanks in every circumstance and would we be joyful always since this is your will for us in christ jesus and we can say in confidence tonight that you heard us because in his name jesus name do we pray? Amen.