Spiritual Pattern Part 7

"Using acacia wood, construct a square altar 7½ feet wide, 7½ feet long, and 4½ feet high.

Make horns for each of its four corners so that the horns and altar are all one piece. Overlay the altar with bronze.

Make ash buckets, shovels, basins, meat forks, and firepans, all of bronze.

Make a bronze grating for it, and attach four bronze rings at its four corners.

Install the grating halfway down the side of the altar, under the ledge.

For carrying the altar, make poles from acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze.

Insert the poles through the rings on the two sides of the altar.

The altar must be hollow, made from planks. Build it just as you were shown on the mountain.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening, Southpointe! We are back on the study of the Tabernacle. Tonight we are going to be talking about the Brazen Altar.

Show the picture of the Tabernacle.

Let’s look at the picture of the Tabernacle last week, I talked about the gate and that there’s only one gate into the Tabernacle. And that the Bible declares that Jesus is the gate.

Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through Me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.

Jesus also said this:

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.

But if you notice the first thing that at the entrance of the gate is an altar. What we know as the Brazen Altar.

Through out history we find that the altar keep showing up.

Show the picture of the ancient altars.

Web definition of altar: A raised structure (as a square or oblong erection of stone or wood) on which sacrifices are offered or incense burned to a deity.

Wordnet definition of altar - the table in Christian churches where communion is given or a raised structure on which gifts or sacrifices to a god are made

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Altar

While scholars speak of altars in connection with a variety of phenomena, the primary term for altar in the Hebrew Bible is mizbēaḥ (400x) which is derived from the root zbḥ, “to slaughter.”

For one to enter into the presence of God, we are confront with a sacrifice, something had to be slaughter.

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Altar

Although all temples had associated altars, it appears that not all altars were part of a temple complex. Altars were constructed at places which were considered to have a sacred character, points where contact between the human and the divine could occur.

Through out history we have seen altars, some made of wood, stone, and metal.

The word “altar” means simply “high place” or that which lifts up.

The altar, with its sacrifice is profoundly significant of Christ on the Cross.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

It was through the altar Israel was lifted up into fellowship with God.

The Cross of Christ is a ladder reaching unto Heaven. Just like the ladder Jacob saw, it is the way of God, to God, set up on the earth.

It lifts us up into communion with the Father. To come into contact with the altar was to come into touch with the claims and character of a Holy God through sacrifice.

At the Cross, the sinner comes into contact with the goodness and harshness of God. We see condemnation of the sin, but mercy for the sinner.

This altar of burnt offering lifted up all that was laid upon it. The sacrifice was lifted up in the form of smoke by the consuming fire that burned continually.

It is a continual burnt offering, which was ordained in mount Sinai for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD

This is where we must make a heart searching truth! Are we willing that our bodies should be turned into smoke for the glory of God?

In other words, Have I been lifted up, crucified with Christ?

Is the fire of the Holy Ghost feeding upon my life? Am I wholly giving up to Him?

And is He causing my whole being to ascend as a sweet savour unto God?

So basically this is all saying that we must be changed to enter into God’s presence.

This brazen altar standing at the gate of entrance, represented the claims of God.

As a Holy and righteous God, He has claims that must be satisfied before He can, in mercy, meet with man and bless him.

The altar must be filled before man can approach God in peace.

Man before the cross, had to bring their sacrifice to be laid down on the Brazen altar to roll man’s sin back for a year and every year this had to be done.

But the altar was filled and all demands of a Holy God was fully met when Christ cried on the Cross.

When Jesus had tasted it, He said, "It is finished!" Then He bowed His head and released His spirit.

The great purpose of the altar was to burn sacrifices. When the sacrifice was brought to the altar, here the sin-offering was slain, then carried without the camp, but its blood was poured out at the bottom of the altar.

The value of the sin-offering lay in the blood.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

The blood is the life or the life is in the blood. This blood was left at the foot of the altar, laid down before God.

But what Christ did on the cross, Christ became the sinner’s substitute, pouring out His soul unto death.

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.

The burnt offering also represented Christ as the wholly devoted One and He was entirely consumed upon the altar.

The burnt offering that was placed on the brazen altar only the skin was saved, and that was given to the priest for a covering, here the covering through the sacrifice.

Think about this Adam and Eve were naked, clothed themselves with leaves after sinning, then God made for them coats of skin.

A sacrifice was made and skin was saved to cover their nakedness.

We are all naked till covered with the righteousness of God.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Now let’s look back at the position of it again.

It stood right in front of the gate. this reminds us that atonement is the first necessity in our approach to God.

Atonement is simply talking about Jesus’ sacrifice brought man and God back into relationship.

So we find that the first blessing that our gracious God desires to give us isn the forgiveness of our sins.

In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Those who refuse Christ and Him Crucified as their sin-atoning substitute have no liberty of access to God.

To approach God disregarding the altar meant death.

Let all the world look to Me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other.

Now let’s look at the final thing for tonight>

Show the picture of the brazen altar

Let’s look at the material that it was made out of:

It was composed of two different materials, Shittim wood and brass.

Two very different elements. Man would never have thought of putting wood in an altar had it not been revealed to Moses on the mount.

The altar, like Christ has a twofold nature.

The wood speaks of the truly human side of Jesus, while the brass reveals the strong, enduring character of the Divine One but these two elements are in One.

This is what we should wonder, how did the human nature of Christ not be consumed in coming into such close relationship with the divine.

That’s a mystery as great as that the wood in the altar was not consumed by the fire.

The wood speaks of the truly human side of Jesus, while the brass reveals the strong, enduring character of the Divine One but these two elements are in One.

There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn't burn up.

If you notice something the altar was partly wood, but it was never called the wooden altar.

But the brazen altar, the one that was strong and mighty, so that when the sacrifice was laid on it, it handle the load.

"For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.