Exodus 27:1–8

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we get into God's Word, we have a little bit of coffee, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll jump into God's Word. Let's pray.
Oh, Father, we thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this day. We thank you for your word. Father, we pray that as we read your word this morning, you would instruct our souls. Teach our hearts. Turn us toward you. Let us love you in Jesus's name. Amen. OK, so we are at Exodus 27. Let me put on my spectacles here, grab my Bible. Exodus chapter 27, we'll read the first eight verses together this morning. You shall make an altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide. The altar shall be square and its height shall be three cubits.
You shall make its horns on its four corners. Its horn shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze. Also you shall make its pans to receive its ashes, and its shovels, and its basins, and its forks, and its firepans, you shall make all its utensils of bronze. You shall make a grate for it, a network of bronze. And on the network, you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners. I'm guessing you know what those four bronze rings are for its four corners.
Let's see. You shall put it under the rim of the altar beneath that the network may be midway up the altar and you shall make poles for the altar. Poles of acacia wood and overlay them with bronze. The poles shall be put in the rings and the pole shall be on the two sides of the altar to bear it. You shall make it hollow with boards as it was shown you on the mountain. So you shall make it so.
Moses again here is now being instructed right we got the table and we got the ark of the covenant we got the lampstand all that went inside the holy place and the holy of holies now outside the veil we have a courtyard right on there's the perimeter of the tabernacle and in between the holy and the holy of holies is this courtyard and in that courtyard the first piece of furnishing to be in there that it's describing not the closest to the to it we'll get to the uh basin later but now it's talking about the altar And so this altar, let's see, I had a little bit of math written down here, so three cubits high, five cubits by five cubits, so about 7.9 feet, eight feet-ish wide and long, and then about 4.7 feet high, so four and a half feet high. And so, You have this thing, and what is it for? It's got these horns on each of the corners, it's got the rings for the poles that the priests could carry it around, or the Levites could carry it around on their shoulders, specifically the family of the Kohathites, but they have this thing. What is it for?
This is a barbecue. That's literally it. Put the grate on it. Make sure you're able to catch the ashes. This is to burn sacrifices. But not all sacrifices, we're gonna find out, are whole burnt offerings. Some of the sacrifices are peace offerings. And some of them are thanks offerings. And so Aaron and his sons would eat, and even some of the people who brought the different sacrifices would eat. So sometimes it was used as a whole burnt offering, everything is consumed. Other times there's different ways in which the sacrifice, but no matter what, you need an altar for that. And to come into God's presence, you needed to bring sacrifice.
Right? And so this is that piece in the tabernacle that the majority of the time would actually be used. Right? The Ark of the Covenant isn't for the people to use. That's God's throne. The lampstand is to be continually capped, right? The light's always going, but it's not actually for the people, right?
They would use, they would maintain it every day. The showbread would be once a week. They'd go in there and they would make sure that the, there was fresh bread on the table, but the altar, The altar was every day, regularly, throughout the day. By the time we get to Solomon in the temple, I mean, it's going to be a huge altar, right? It's going to be almost like this consuming part of the life of Israel, this constant making of offerings to God.
Is it because God is hungry and needs food? No, it's not because God is hungry and needs food. It's because without sacrifice, there is no remission of sins. It's that when they have a firstborn animal, He is the one who redeems that animal. It's that He is the one who is to be approached as reverent and holy.
So we find that in even the tabernacle, this was a place of refuge for people, right? When Adonijah tries to flee from Solomon, he goes and he grabs onto the horns of the altar, right? And you have to pull them away, right? People think that this is a safe place to go, but this is where people would go into the sanctuary to find safety, security at times, but this is where the Lord is saying, this is how I must be approached.
When you come into my courtyard, there's to be Thanksgiving. There's to be, there's to be grain offerings and there's to be sin offerings, right? You come before me with your harvest and, and you show that you believe in me. You come into my presence and you bring your vows and you burn them on the offering.
When you come and you redeem the animals and you break their neck and you put them on the altars to show that you trust that I am the King who really did redeem you out of Israel, that you believe in my covenant, that you follow after me. What's the best verse to summarize all this? Um, let's see. Why don't we just say verse one, right?
You shall make an altar of Acacia wood. All right. So that altar is, is that bronze Acacia wood, right? Acacia wood hollow, and then overlaid with bronze with all of its bronze utensils was meant for this function of sacrifice. Okay, great. Wonderful. What's that mean to us? Right? How does it point us to Christ? How does it tell us how these things apply to our lives?
Well, it's once again, that we come to God with the sacrifice of praise. We don't need the altar at a physical temple anymore because we lift up our voices with thanksgiving to praise God with a sacrifice of song. We come to him with the sacrifice of prayer. We come to him now with sacrifices of first fruits in our lives. Not in the sense that the Israelites, that's not what this is getting at, but we come to him as cheerful givers, dedicating to his service, loving him and loving others. But we no longer have to bring a sacrifice for sin.
Because Jesus was a perfect sacrifice. Because our high priest offered up of himself to be the lamb who was slain. So we don't need this altar. But I actually kind of laugh at times when people talk about an altar in the church, right? No, there's no altar in the church because there's no more sacrifice. The book of Hebrews is clear about this. There was a final sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on that cross. And that this was only meant to point toward that ultimate sacrifice.
And what is it done in heaven? So cling to him. Offer to him the sacrifice of praise. Go to him with the fruit of your lips and worship him in spirit and truth. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have cared for us and loved us. Father, we thank you that you have given us an altar in heaven. and that Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world, is the one who has redeemed us and who is a constant mediator for us. Our high priest, Lord, we thank you. We pray that you would teach us to trust you, to have faith in you, just like these Israelites had to have in you as their covenant king, for you indeed still are our covenant king. In Jesus' name, amen. May God's face shine upon you. May you enjoy the peace that His Holy Spirit gives you. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.