We are the Tabernacle (Entering the Holy of Holies Part 3)
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We are the tabernacle(Review)
We are the tabernacle(Review)
Tripartite in nature
God is 3 in one (We are created in His image)
The Tabernacle represents the tripartite nature of the believer soul, body and spirit
The Tabernacle gives us a path through to the true worship of God
Salvation is all encompassing involves all aspects of our being (Body, Soul and Spirit)
The Tabernacle helps us understand our identity
As you walked into the tabernacle the first thing you see is The Bronze altar.
The bronze altar represented the sacrifice of Christ
All the animals in the Old Testament had to be put on that altar
Now we are the ones on that altar as the living sacrifice.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
God The Father needed Jesus’s body to accomplish His will on earth.
Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.
Now He wants our bodies to do the same.
The 2nd piece of furniture you see in the outer court is the brazen laver which held water
the brazen laver was made of bronze like material which was reflective. it looked like a mirror
We see that The Word of God is a mirror to us, it truly shows us the condition of our hearts.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
The brazen laver contained water.
Every time the priest would go from the outer court to the holy place they had to wash their hands and feet, If not it was death
The water in that Brazen laver symbolizes The Word of God(The Bible)
that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
If we as Christians think we can ignore reading, studying or meditating on Gods word we will eventually die spiritually. We will become malnourished
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
Hunger is a sign of health. Just the way hunger for the things of The Spirit is sign of Spiritual vibrancy
The Holy Place (Our Soul)
The Holy Place (Our Soul)
psuchē: refer to various aspects of human life and existence.
We want to look at one area of this meaning which is the inner self
And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,
Mary’s soul psuchē is equated with the depth of her inner life — not just her physical existence, but her whole being directed in worship
And that is the place we are heading into the Holy of Holies that our whole being (soul, body & spirit) is directed in The Worship of God
But first we must pass through the Holy place to renew our minds
The Holy Place represents that part of our soul which is the part that gives most Christians difficulties
Each piece of furniture in Holy Place represents an aspect of our soul
Our soul consist of our will, our intellect and our emotions
It is the part of you that says I will, I feel and I want.
The Holy place had 3 pieces of furniture and these pieces represent the 3 areas of the soul
Then Lampstand represents Gods illumination of our intellect
The shewbread represents how God shapes our will
the altar of incense represents our emotions
God must renew our minds which is part of our soul life so we can be fruitful in the things of God.
and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
The mind is the front line of spiritual warfare
Every lie of the enemy has to come against your mind first
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
Last week we dealt with the lampstand which the Holy Spirit illuminates our intellect
and then we looked at the showbread which is how God shapes our will to do His will.
Our will, usually will stand against the will of God if not shaped and molded after Gods will because it is how God applies death to our old nature so He can have full expression through us.
Self will has to be put to death in us so Gods will may be worked out in our lives. This sometimes can be a painful process but once complete this is where we start to bear good fruit, the fruit that remains
Jesus spoke about the ones who do the will of the father
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
And the world passes away and disappears, and with it the forbidden cravings (the passionate desires, the lust) of it; but he who does the will of God and carries out His purposes in his life abides (remains) forever.
When we look at these 2 verses it shows us that self will can be a danger to us. Just as the showbread had to be grounded, then shaped, & but into the fire for baking
We too as God people must have our self will grounded down, shaped and tried in the fire to truly do Gods will.
The next piece of furniture were looking at today before we head into the Holy of holies is the altar of incense which is our emotions.
This altar had horns on top at each corner of the altar.
The altar itself was four sided and square; it was equal on every side. This signifies that our emotions must be balanced, not given to one type of emotion or another.
You can have full control over your emotions once your intellect and your will have been dealt with by God.
This is where maturity starts to be displayed in our lives by the way we start to react to things, especially difficulties & trials in our lives.
As the saying goes you squeeze a person hard enough you will see what truly comes out.
The altar of incense in the Holy place wasnt where animals were sacrificed but where a fire burned.
The only item placed in this fire was the special incense, created from a certain formula that was unlawful to ever be copied or used in any other situation but on that one golden altar. In other words, the altar of incense represents the place of worship in the life of the believer.
The fire burning on the altar of incense symbolizes intensity, purity, and the passion of the soul. Far from wanting us to be unemotional, God wants us to be passionate people. But it is a controlled, purified, and directed passion.
A zeal that isn’t unstable, but a zeal that is controlled and directed, because our intellect, our will & our emotions have come under the government of The Holy Spirit
Once that special incense was put into the fire a white smoke would arise from the altar.
That white smoke rising up beautiful and fragrant, symbolizes adoration we express in praise and worship.
Finally this altar is the transition from the soul to the spirit, from the holy place to the holy of holies which is our spirit.
There is no other appointed way but the way of praise, adoration, and worship of God but by the spirit.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The Holies of Holies
The Holies of Holies
Last area of the tabernacle
Represents our spirit
The High priest went into this area once a year (Yom kippur day of atonement)
We enter this area of the tabernacle with worship praise and adoration
Without worship, we have no access beyond the Holy Place. Until we learn true worship, we are confined in the realm of the soul. The only way out is through worship sanctified by the blood.
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
Now because Jesus entered into the tabernacle in heaven with His own blood we have access into the direct presence of God by The Blood of Jesus.
Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
This is the place where God wants to meet us in the holy of hollies. Face to face.
Within the Holy of Holies there was no light except for the, visible, personal presence of God—the shekinah glory. That is where worship takes place. We don’t need any other source of illumination when we are in the presence of God. Here we experience the privilege of direct person-to-Person, spirit-to-Spirit relationship with God.
Within the Holy of Holies were two items of furniture that occupied the same space. First, there was the ark of the covenant. And above the ark was the mercy seat with cherubim, one on each end.
The ark is a representation of Christ, revealed to the spirit. This is Christ revealed within your spirit, Christ in you the hope of Glory.
In our way of interpreting the temple, the Holy of Holies represents man’s spirit. An ark in the Bible is always a type of Christ.
Now that we have dealt with the ark, we look at the mercy seat, which covered the ark. . Outside of Christ, there is no mercy, no acceptance, and no life. If you are in the ark, you are under the mercy.
if you are under the blood you overcome the enemy of your soul
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
The Mercy seat was above the ark. Exodus 25:20–22
And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.
This How God wants to meet you face to face in the Holy of Holies through the spirit, in your spirit, and by The Spirit.
