Vian Baptist Church
Hebrews 9:1-6 “Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aarons rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.” The duties of the Priest when ministering in the tabernacle or the temple were symbolic. Each represented a necessary fact that God wanted man to know. Daily the priests would go into this first part of the tent. Once a week they would change the loaves of bread on the table of showbread. Daily they would change and fill the oil in the cups and trim the wicks, and so forth, because God wanted that this light should burn before Him continually. Then they would come and offer the prayers of the people, these little golden bowls that they would have incense in. And when they had lit the fires and all for the sacrifices outside, they would take live coals, or burning coals out of the fire, put them in these little bowls of incense. And then they would go in, and these little bowls were on chains and they would go in and they would swing this incense before the altar there. It was a symbol of the prayers of the people ascending before God. And this they did daily. So what symbolism did God attach to each. Lets look at the tabernacle. We start in the outer court with the brazen altar and the brazen laver. When approaching God there was only one entrance. This corresponds to the truth of John 14:6 -“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
The first piece of of furnature is the brazen altar. Brass is almost always a picture of judgment. The brazen altar was for the sacrifice for sin, a picture of man asking forgiveness for his sin. Hebrews 7:27 “Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the peoples: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”
The offering in the Old Testament was a young bullock, which is another picture of Jesus Christ and His scrifice on the cross. He was judged for our sin and by His sacrifice we can gain access to God, the Father. Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Next is the brazen laver. It had two basins to wash in. In order for the priests to enter into the tabernacle and serve before God, first of all they had to wash their hands and their feet in the laver of bronze. It is symbolic of mans need to cleanse his hands and his feet daily in order to have a relationship with God. Our hand are our works and our feet are our walk before God and men. Both need to be cleansed daily before we can enter into a close relationship with God. Today we pray to be cleansed from our wrong doing of the day before and in so doing we secure an ability to come into the presence of God by prayer.
David as part of his prayer prayed like this, Psalms 19:12 “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.” He asked for cleansing for even those things he had done ignorantly or things he had no knowledge of as being sinful.
It looks like this will need to be continued next week, so I will write of the Tabernacle of God then. A recap of what we talked about today is #1 There is only one way to enter the place of worship, the gate. #2 The first thing that we see is the brazen altar, the place of sacrifice for sin. As we come through the gate (Jesus) we must confess and repent of our sin. #3 Then in our daily life we must pray and cleanse our work and our walk. Only then, we might come into the holy place or the first part of the tabernacle.
Next week we will talk about the inside furniture and what it represents. Come visit us at church this Sunday if you have questions of any part of what we have already (briefly) talked about.
