Exodus 30:1–10

Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions. This is where 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, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. Maybe I'm getting behind. We'll see how it goes. Bub Chubb is here with me today. We're recording a little late because he and I were out late last night doing hunter safety education. And so we were Well, we got in late, so I woke up late.
That's life. But. It's OK. You miss you mess up. Not a big deal. Just get back on the bike and keep on moving. That's right. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's words. I'm good. What's that? Can I have air? What do you want my coffee instead? OK. We'll see if he likes black coffee. I give up. You give up. I do not. All right, let's go ahead and pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for this day and we thank you for your word. What a blessing it is to get to come to you, to read your word. Lord, we thank you that every morning your mercies are new. Your faithfulness endures from generation to generation. We pray that you would please help us to read and understand your word in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay, so we are at the book of Exodus.
And even though my Bible plan said we were supposed to read chapter 30 verses 1 through 16, as I was researching and reading and thinking and praying about this, I thought, no, we're just going to do the first 10 verses, right? Because it's really two different sections. So I'm going to let you read verses 1 through 6, and I'll read 7 to the end, right? So 7 to 10. Go ahead.
You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood. A cubit shall be its length, and a cubit its width. It shall be square, and two cubits shall be its height. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. and you shall overlay its top its sides all around and its horns with pure gold and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around two gold rings you shall make for it under the molding on both sides both its sides you shall place them on its two on its two sides and they will be holders for the poles with which to bear it. You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold and you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the testament before the mossy seat that is over the testaments where I will meet with you.
Aaron shall burn incense on it, it being this altar. Aaron shall burn incense on it, sweet incense every morning. When he tins the lamps, he shall burn incense on it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.
You shall not offer strange incense on it or a burnt offering or a grain offering, nor shall you pour a drink offering on it. And Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. Once a year, you shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.
So we got three questions. What are they? A, what is it about? Good. C, what are we called to do? And B, what is it about? Oh, close. Oh, best verse to summarize. Oh, the best verse to summarize. Man, you're out of practice. You and A, C, B. So the A, B, C, but that's okay.
So what is this about? I think it's about, it's about the altar. Yeah, that's right. The altar of incense. Actually, I'm going to move this book here, that Bible, pull up this study Bible. This is a really helpful one. I really enjoy the notes in the ESV study Bible. And right here, you see this? This is what a picture of the altar of incense is, kind of like their artistic rendition, what it would look like. What are some things you notice about it?
I thought it was supposed to be almost square, it wasn't supposed to be. Yeah, so interestingly it's a cubit by cubit, so about 18 inches by 18 inches, but then it's 36 inches high, so about three feet high. So it's more like a rectangular thing than a cube. Yeah, good. What else do you look at it and see? I see the horn, what you were talking about. Yeah, right, so there's horns that are coming out. I just learned last night the difference between horns and antlers. You did just learn last night the difference between horns and antlers.
Do you think that these are solid or do you think that they're hollow? Hmm That's interesting right because they're there in the inside of them. It's either pure Maybe they're hollow gold or maybe the horns are also made of acacia overlaid with gold Yeah, I'm just like a horn horn. That was like the mold of it oh maybe yeah and then it's got the four rings and of gold and the acacia the acacia wood overlaid with gold right almost everything in the temple is or the tabernacle is Yeah, exactly, right?
So this is, I wish I could show you the picture of this, but there are copyright laws. I can't do that. But I would encourage you to pick up a study Bible or like a Holman Illustrated Dictionary of the Bible or something like that. And it will show you kind of pictures of these things. So now, so that's just the object, right? But here's where things get interesting.
Why did Aaron every morning and every evening when he had to go in there and he had to make the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice and make sure the lamp was still burning? Why did he have to burn incense? What do you think that that meant? Does God just like sweet smelling smells? Well, grandma does, that's right. But this is actually very interesting. I think the book of Revelation tells us about this. Revelation chapter 8. It's also in chapter 5, but I'm going to read chapter 8. And then we'll begin at verse 4. Nope, verse three, sorry.
Then another angel having a gold censer came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he might offer it. that he should offer it, with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God from the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and earthquakes.
So the book of Hebrews tells us that the tabernacle that God made, Was a picture of what was going on in heaven and here God tells us about what's going on in heaven. So this angel, what is he? What is he doing as he's attending in the tabernacle? He's burning incense and what is the incense representative of?
The prayers of the saints. That's right. The prayers of the saints. But this is in heaven. What they're doing on earth is meant to be a type, a sign, something similar to what's going on in heaven. And so there's almost like in the tabernacle, this constant prayer vigil. representing all the prayers, right? Aaron is offering up this, this sacrifice of sweet smelling aroma. And now we are called to live our lives as a living sacrifice, a sweet smelling aroma, offering up our praise, our thanks, right?
And so what do you think that that, so we've talked about all this stuff. So what do you think you should be called to do? How does this teach you about Jesus? How does this lead you to Christ and call you to live? Pray at all times without ceasing, right? Who's our high priest who makes intercession for us? Jesus. Jesus is the one better than Aaron who's in that tabernacle in heaven. One made without human hands who takes our prayers to the Father and makes them perfect forever. Yeah, it's pretty awesome, huh?
Okay, so, but we weren't in Revelation, we were in the book of Exodus. So, in Exodus chapter 31 through 10, what would you underline? You would just underline it in Revelation? Well, maybe you can write it in the margin of your Bible, huh? I don't know. Oh, you're going to put it back on me, huh? I'd probably say verse seven or maybe verse eight. Yeah, probably seven or eight. There's also the prohibition, right?
Is Aaron allowed to do whatever he wants? I hope he's got to do it exactly how God commands. And every year he's got to go on the day of atonement. You know what that word is in Hebrew? I do know what the actual Hebrew word. I bet you've heard me say it before. Okay, that's fine.
So a day in Hebrew is Yom. Can you say Yom? And then atonement is Kippur. Right, so Yom Kippur. Even Jewish people today, right, their biggest celebration of the year is Yom Kippur or Yom Kippur. Right, so Yom Kippur. Day of redemption. Day of Atonement. Right. So this is when the sin offering would be offered every year. And on that day, there's two different altars, actually. There's the one that's out in the courtyard where the normal sacrifices happen. Right. That's where the bronze altar is. But this is the gold altar. This is the one right outside the veil in the holy place. Do you want to have your little tiny copper coin? Do you want to have it? Well, yeah, but this is bronze and gold, right? And so this is a smaller one, but it's also overlaid. But instead of overlaid with bronze, it's overlaid with gold. And here it's used as an offering of incense. in Revelation it says he was like doing it before God. What I thought was interesting is that you would have this and then you would have the, wasn't it the Ark of the Covenant behind that?
Mm-hmm. And basically God's done like basically just representing. Yeah, right, so the Father takes Or the the son takes our prayers and it makes them perfect to the father, but is there any more veil now? Nope, it was That's right. All right. Let's go ahead and pray. Yeah father.
We thank you so much that you are the one who has Given us access into your tabernacle We thank you for our high priest jesus christ and for hearing our prayers always. Lord, we pray that you would please let us look to you and trust you. In Jesus's name, amen. May God bless you. May you pray at all times and all seasons. We'll see you next time. You wanna say bye? Bye. 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 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.