Exodus 30:34–38

All right, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I and Deborah is always with us. No, every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. Deborah has been awake since before the sun was up.
And so I asked her to come join us for Coffee and Devotions. So why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll finish out the tabernacle. You ready to pray? Okay. Father, we thank you so much for the blessing it is to get to read your word. And we pray, Lord, that you would please help us as we read it to understand it. Lord, we pray that you would apply it to our hearts. Thank you so much for another day. It's a blessing from you to get to wake up.
In Jesus's name, amen. Okay, I'll get my glasses here. We're at Exodus chapter 30. Now, the reality is, I already did this, but I forgot to hit the record button. So I went through all through coffee and devotions, and well, now we're doing it again. Here we go. So, Exodus chapter 30, we'll begin at verse 34. Deborah, you wanna read this? All right, go for it.
And the Lord said to Moses, take sweet spices, satay, Yeah, that's hard, isn't it all these weird words go for it there's only three weird words in this And pure frankincense with these sweet spices there shall be equal amounts of each Mm-hmm You shall make of these incense a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. And you shall beat some of it very fine and put some of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of meeting, where I will meet you. it shall be most holy to you. But as for the incense which you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves according to its composition. It shall be to you holy for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people. Okay, so we have three questions. What are our three questions?
A, what is this? About. About. What's the best verse to summarize this, Sam? Do you remember what C is? How. What are we called to do? Right. What are we called to do? All right. So, uh, what do you think this section was about? They're making incense. Yeah. Incense, right? Um, you want to hand me that Bible? The one with the white cover here, let's move this. Yep. You want to grab that one and I'll show it to you. What they're, what they're talking about.
It's a tabernacle. You've heard that word before, haven't you? Yeah, so the tabernacle was a tent, right? And so if I jump over here to Exodus, there's a tabernacle. And earlier in Exodus chapter 30, we had talked about how in the tabernacle, you have the courtyard, you have an altar, you have a basin, and you have the holy place. And inside the holy place, you see how there's two different parts.
There's the veil. That's what is ripped when Jesus dies, right? You have the Ark of the Testament. This is the Holy of Holies. But then out here, you see this little thing? That's called the Altar of Incense. And on the Altar of Incense, you got a picture of that guy over here. Now in the passage we're looking at, what do you think they're talking about for this? That's right, they're gonna put incense on the top and they have all these funky words for the incense, right you you read those like a champ Right.
The only one that we actually know is frankincense. Oh Right, that comes from a certain tree, and typically in places like Somalia, which is a very, very poor area in Africa right now. But frankincense, and then there's others of them. Do you wanna know what one of them they think it is? They think they take clams or sea snails and they scrape them. And it makes some type of really poignant, powerful smell. Yeah.
And then, but one of them just means drop. We don't know exactly from what type of plant, maybe this is from, but the point is you take all these four, these three different spices and salts of four ingredients. You put them together and then you would put them in a pestle and you would grind it up. So, uh stack tate annika Goblin and frankincense. You're right. Yeah, so five Good job High five. Yeah All right. So these these five different things with a little bit of salt You grind it up and then what would you do with it?
Yeah, and what do you think you would do with it then Light it on fire. Yeah, so it's like smoke that would come up. Yeah. And then what do you think would happen with that smoke? So you would smell it and would have a very certain smell to it. It's kind of like when people put on perfume or cologne. Have you ever smelled someone who burned incense before? Yeah, we don't really do that. Well, it's kind of like, you know how mommy has some scented candles? Yeah. It's kind of like scented candles, but they have a certain scent in them. Except that I don't really smell them.
Yeah, and so the idea is that, right, in God's tabernacle, in God's tent, that's where he is dwelling with his people in a tent. And so when they would walk up to the tent, what do you think they would start smelling? Yeah, right they would maybe smell that before this they would talk about anointing oil that had all sorts of smells to it And then there would be the smell of the incense also, right? So it would have this this really great smell now What does God say about this incense? that if anyone takes the incense or makes it for himself just to smell, that he shouldn't, he should be cut off from his family. Doesn't that seem a little bit harsh?
Why do you think I ought to do that? I don't know. Yeah, so God is the king, right? He's the king of the people of Israel. Does that make sense? Yeah. He redeemed them, right? He's their king. And the, the tabernacle is in the middle of all the different camps of Israel. So the king is in the middle of all of his people, but he's also their God. So it's a, it's kind of like a movable temple and it's a movable palace. And so as he's there, as their king and as their god, this is his royal place. And so are they supposed to take his royal stuff and use it for common things? No. No, right?
This is one of the things that says it marks off God. It's like, I'm not like you all. Now what do you think people might be tempted to do? Just take a little bit. Right? I kind of, in my heart, whenever I'm reading about this stuff, I'm like, oh, that'd be really cool to smell that. Do you think I should start mixing stuff up in the kitchen and try to make it like that? No, I don't think so. Do you think in, did you know that in some churches they actually try to do this and they'll actually burn incense that they think might smell like this? Yeah. But did you know that all of this was meant to point to something? Nope.
Yeah, the book of Hebrews tells us that all of this was meant to point us towards the heavenly tabernacle, where Jesus ministers now. Remember how we were talking about Jesus as our prophet, as our priest, and as our king? Well, Jesus is our priest now in heaven. And do you know what Revelation says, the instances?
Nope. the prayers of the saints. The incense isn't meant to be like just a sweet smelling stuff by itself. It's meant to symbolize when you pray. So do we need to be burning, do you think at church I should start having someone walk around with incense? Maybe as I walk up to the pulpit I should kind of like start spraying incense everywhere? Nope. But instead, can people be praying?
That's what it was meant to symbolize, right? We aren't chained to the symbols anymore. Now God has told us what they mean. And we have a high priest in heaven who makes our prayers perfect. Jesus, right, the temple veil is torn. Jesus is able to take our prayers right to the Father. And they're holy. So when you pray, Your prayers are pure and holy, just like this instance was pure and holy.
Is that pretty cool news? But you already knew all this, didn't you? No. Yeah, right, this is cool stuff. So, what do you think this, how does this change your life, or what do you think is interesting about this passage? that it had three weird things.
Okay. Yeah. I think it reminds me that my prayers are special, that God actually does hear my prayers and that he's a father willing and able to help. Okay. You want to pray with me now? All right. We're going to, how about we pray the Lord's prayer? I'll pray and if you can if you remember you can pray too. Okay.
All right Well our father who art in heaven hallowed be your name Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Thank you for being our king and for hearing our prayers. In Jesus's name, amen. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. You wanna say bye? Bye. High fives. Very good. Great job, girl.
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 in 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.