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Exodus, first in chapter thirty. Exodus thirty, verse one. And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon, of acacia wood shalt thou make it. A cubit shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof. Four square shall it be, and two cubits shall be the height thereof. The horns thereof shall be of one piece with it. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof round about, and the horns. And thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about. And two golden rings shalt thou make for it under the crown thereof, upon the two ribs thereof, upon the two sides of it shalt thou make them. And they shall be for places for staves to bear it withal. And thou shalt make the staves of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon incense of sweet spices. Every morning when he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn it. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering, and ye shall pour no drink offering thereon. And Aaron shall make atonement upon the horns of it once in the year, with the blood of the sin offering of atonement, once in the year shall he make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy unto the Lord. Then some verses in chapter twenty six. Chapter twenty six and verse thirty one. And thou shalt make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen, with cherubim, the work of the cunning workman, shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be of gold upon four sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the veil under the clasps and shall bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony, and the veil shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy. And thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark of the testimony in the Most Holy Place. And thou shalt set the table without the veil and the candlestick over against the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south. And thou shalt put the table on the north side. And thou shalt make a screen for the door of the tent of blue and purple and scarlet and fine, fine linen, the work of the embroiderer. And thou shalt make for the screen five pillars of acacia and overlay them with gold. Their hooks shall be of gold, and thou shalt cast five sockets of copper for them. And may God give us good understanding of his word. We continue this morning with our journey from the outside place in towards the presence of God. And we found in our previous two studies that if the Israelite wished to come and draw near to the presence of God, then a part his road in towards that presence was studded with various pieces of tabernacle furniture, the first of which was the altar of burnt offering, where he might obtain cleansing from the guilt of sin through the blood of the sacrifice. Then for the priests who came near, there was this second article of furniture called the laver, where they might obtain cleansing by water. And both those vessels and the cleansing they offered spoke vividly to our hearts of the work of Jesus Christ, our Lord, whose blood cleanses our conscience from the guilt of sin, and who by his spirit performs in us the washing of regeneration when first we trust him, and thereafter, by his word and spirit, does he wash away the defilements that we contract on our journey through life. Now, this morning, we are to move on into the presence of God yet further, and to do so, we pass by the door of the tabernacle, which hung, as you see, upon five pillars, and we shall enter in, pursuing our direct line of approach, neglecting for the moment the vessels that stand to left and right, and pursuing our direct approach in towards the presence of God, finding here the third sacred object called the altar of incense, or the golden altar, and it stood inside just in front of the veil, which in turn stood in front of the mercy seat. Let's look, therefore, how that would appear to us when we entered the most holy place. If for a moment you care to look at the model here, if we come in and we take away this, um, curtain, if we can take it away, yes, we can. We hope we can. Mm, here it comes. If we take away the curtain so that you can see in, it's not behaving as a good curtain this morning. So I'll have to call the expert to do it for me. So come and remove that curtain, would you please? There we are. That's how it should be done. If we come in through the doorway here and the curtain that normally hung there, we shall find ourselves in the first division of the tabernacle, technically called the Holy Place. What it would have looked like, you see here i- in the film. The sides of the tabernacle were made of open ladder-like work of acacia wood overlaid with gold. And this curtain here, the tabernacle itself, the ten beautiful linen curtains hanging down the sides, with their beautiful colors and their cherubim, would have appeared before the through, uh, appeared through the framework, giving us this effect as we entered into the presence of God. As you will see, the effect was one of tremendous and breathtaking beauty. We now then, uh, forge our way ahead. And we're coming in, we've come in through this door. Neglecting the lampstand on the left and the table on the right, we're coming in towards the presence of God to this, um, golden altar of incense, which stands just in front of the second veil, technically called the veil, and stands in turn in front of the ark and the mercy seat. You will see, therefore, that the golden altar of incense belonged to the most holy place. In the sense that when the priest came to minister at this altar and burn his incense at the time of prayer, he would be standing here and addressing himself to the God who presenced himself upon the cherubim that were upon the mercy seat, that were upon the ark. And you who are experts in tabernacle and have read it many times will have found here, of course, the secret to the statement in Hebrews chapter nine where, in giving the details of the tabernacle furniture, the writer says that in the, in the first division, the holy place, there was the lampstand and the table. And then he says, after this second veil, for this is the first veil and this is the second, after the second veil, he says, is the most holy place, which had a golden altar of incense. And that has puzzled many people. They have said, how could he write us say that it was the most holy place, the second division, that had the altar of incense? When we know from other scripture that the altar of incense stood outside the holy place. How can you say the most holy place had the golden altar of incense? Well, my house in Northern Ireland has a garage. Ah. Where do you suppose the garage is? Inside the house or outside the house? Well, you say it's outside the house, surely. Yes, it is indeed, but it belongs to the house. It stands outside the house. In the same way, the Most Holy Place had an altar of incense, but the altar of incense stood outside the Most Holy Place, even though it belonged to it. It belonged to it because, as I say, in function it belonged to it. Because when the high priest came, I repeat, to stand here to offer the incense and to pray, he was in fact addressing the Almighty who presenced himself upon that throne. And in those far off days, he couldn't look straight upon God, but had to have a mediator between him and God. And in the function of the literal tabernacle, that veil acted as a mediator between man and God. More of that subsequently. But first now to the veil, to the altar. Let us turn to the altar itself and consider its function. Wrong way round. It It was was for burning incense upon at the hour of prayer. And you may remember that in Luke's Gospel chapter one we read of the priest Zechariah, whose lot it was on that particular day to burn incense in the holy place on the altar of incense at the time of prayer. And when the angel appeared, he said to Zechariah, thy prayer is heard. You say, why, when they prayed, did they offer incense? For we don't offer incense today when we pray, or at least we shouldn't, even if we do. I suspect it was for the simple reason that when Israel came to pray before God Almighty, they realized in their heart that they could not come and pray and make their request on the basis of their own merit. And therefore, when they prayed, they burned the incense at God's command, that their prayers might come up to God, enshrouded in the sweet smelling fragrance of the incense. Of course, you see at once that the burning of that incense was only a symbol. Nobody, even in Israel, imagined that when God smelled the lovely smell of the incense, God said, oh, that's a beautiful smell, so I'll give what they, the people, what they ask, because I rather like this smell. Of course not. It was only a symbol, wasn't it? But a symbol of what, we say? And the answer is obvious, just as that blood shed from many animals pointed on to the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, so the incense pointed on to the merits and the fragrance of the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. He taught us, did he not, that when we come to pray to God, we cannot come and ask on the basis of our own merit, saying, God, please give me this because I deserve it. You know I deserve it, and look how well behaved I am, and you ought to consider these things and grant me what I ask. Of course not. Our blessed Lord taught us that when we come to pray, we are to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, so that all the fragrance and delight of the person of our Savior coming up before God forms the basis on which God responds and listens to our prayer. This morning, however, I want to think about that altar and the ministry of intercession as a direct pointer to the ministry of Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that if you will care to look to the model for a moment, and you will see that we have here a sequence. We had last night the altar, and it spoke to us of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins and died the just for the unjust at Calvary. Then we moved on, and we thought of this laver with its water, and we remembered how that after our Lord had suffered for our sins at Calvary, he rose again from the dead and ascended into glory, and he poured out the Holy Spirit to baptize his people in the Holy Spirit. And we noticed last night how exactly in order these two vessels are. This speaks of our Lord at Calvary, and this speaks of our Lord at Pentecost. Suppose we move in further to this little altar here, the altar of incense, and what will that tell us? Why, historically, it will tell us of what our Lord's ministry has been ever since Pentecost and still is to this present moment. It tells us of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that's Calvary, who is risen, who is also at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Isn't that a delightful picture? And how remarkably exact is the order in which Moses ordained that these vessels should be put. And I ask my question again, how do you know, how do you think Moses knew how to put them in the right order? But then you may ask me a deeper question. Suppose that altar reminds us of the intercessions of our Lord. Why do we need a high priest to intercede for us anyway? I mean, if we have been cleansed from the guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, we have been washed by that washing of regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Are we not already saved and saved eternally? Why should we need a high priest to intercede for us? Ah, but here surely we come to another exceedingly practical measure. Yes, of course Christ died for us. Yes, of course he regenerates us by his Holy Spirit. But how do we receive these magnificent gifts of cleansing from the guilt of sin and cleansing from the defilement of sin? You answer that is very simple, Mr. Preacher. We receive these gifts, both of them simultaneously, the very moment we repent and put our faith in the Savior. Once we have put our faith in the Savior, we are eternally secure. I hope you believe it, for that is what scripture teaches, the eternal security of the believer. Let's remind ourselves of some of those delightful verses. I give unto my sheep, says Christ, eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. The Father who gave them me is greater than all, and none of the- no one shall pluck them out of my Father's hand. Every believer, every true Christian man and woman believes in the eternal security of the believer. They don't have any option, do they? Because the scripture states it. He who believes has everlasting life. Oh yes, that's totally true. The eternal security of the believer. But what should happen if one of these days such a tempest of trial and tribulation and persecution came our way that broke our faith? So we left off believing. Could we still be secure? You see, the Bible says the believer is secure. He who believes has eternal life. I can't think of any verse in the Bible, can you, that says, he who once believed in the Lord Jesus has eternal life, and even if he or she no longer believes, nonetheless, they are still, they still have eternal life. Do you know of a verse like that? You don't, do you? Now, what shall we say? I remember in the town where I used to live at one stage, I was introduced to a gentleman who lived the other side of the road. He had been an atheist for many years, and during the last world war he was on the convoys from Britain to Russia and saw life hard and cruel. He was in his drawing room one night and listening to the radio, and Billy Graham, your evangelist, came on preaching from that glorious text, How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? And this good man told me subsequently, he said, David, as I listened to him preach, I was overwhelmed with the sense that God was offering me something, and if I refused it, I might never get another opportunity, and I knelt by my radio, and I received Christ as my savior. His atheism gone bang out of the window. Lovely. He said to me, David, he said, there's just one thing. He said, I do really believe, you know, but sometimes I get a bit worried, you see. I say to myself, suppose one of these days a lorry came down the road and ran over my two little girls and killed them. He said, I don't know whether I could still believe in God and in the love of God, and what would happen then? What is the answer to this question? If our salvation depends on our believing, can you be utterly sure that once you've believed, you will always go on believing? That's a very vital question, isn't it? And the answer is to be found in the blessed ministry of our Lord Jesus as our great high priest. We are told that he prays for us that our faith should not fail. And the matter is such, is of such fundamental importance. Let us read together the exact words that discuss it with an illustration, and they are found in the Gospel of Luke and chapter twenty two. Gospel of Luke, chapter twenty two. The example that settles the matter is the example of Peter himself. Luke twenty two and verse thirty one. Let's read the passage. Simon, Simon, said the Lord, behold, Satan has asked to have you, that is you plural, all twelve of you apostles, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have made supplication for thee, singular, Peter, that thy faith fail not. And do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day until thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. We can afford to spend a few moments on the pattern. And first of all, our Lord announces to his twelve apostles the onsen- uh, the onset of a malicious and deliberate attack of the devil. Satan has asked to have you twelve men, he said, that he may sift you as wheat. And why, pray, do you sift wheat? You sift wheat to get the chaff out of the wheat. When corn is roughly, uh, gathered and thrashed, you will find there's a certain amount of chaff in with the wheat. You sift the wheat to separate the chaff from the wheat. Satan, says our Lord, is intent on sifting you that he may expose those that are mere chaff and are not genuine. Notice in passing the comfort that our Lord gives us. God in his wisdom does allow Satan from time to time to attack God's people. But notice what our Lord says, Satan has asked to have you, which tells us that Satan is not at liberty to do what he like and to attack when he will. He has to ask permission to attack. The same thing is said in the book of Job, isn't it? When the sons of God came before God and Satan came among them and said God to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? Precisely, said Satan, I have indeed, and I've been watching how you've blessed him, God, you'll see, and he has houses, and he has children, and he has bank balances, and he has cattle, and he has prosperity, and oh, how lustily he sings, praise the Lord, and what peace we've got I have, and how marvelous God is, and says Satan to God, the whole lot is cupboard love, you know. Easy to praise the Lord and protest, how I do trust the Lord, when you've got five Cadillacs, an ocean-going yacht, a lovely beautiful wife, and are in health and not a twinge of pain. How easy it is to trust the Lord, said Satan to God. But you see, if you'd give me permission to touch him, I could alter his tune, you know. Mm. I could make Job curse you to your face, God. All right, says God, you have a go, Satan. But be careful, you may touch his goods, you mustn't touch his life. When that didn't work, Satan came and asked permission again. All right, said God, you can go further. You may touch his health. But don't you touch his life. Satan had to ask permission. It is for that reason our blessed Lord taught us to pray that we may not enter temptation. We should never approach it with undue boldness, should we? We should pray to be spared it, for how weak we are when the flood tides of Satanic opposition come our way, and how cruelly sifting are the trials that come. Yes, when you're in good psychological health, when every bone in your body is fit and life shines with a full delightful sun, how easy to trust. When health has given way and emotions are confounded, how can you go on trusting and praising? Satan has asked to have all twelve of you, and obviously had been given permission. Now, says our Lord, with tremendous exactitude and precision, I have prayed for thee, singular. Why so? Because with his divine omniscience he saw the weakness that Peter had, and how sorely Peter would need his intercession. I have prayed for thee. You see, unknown to Peter, Peter had a weakness. He would have faced a whole battery of soldiers. He had enough animal courage for that. Single-handed with a sword, as he subsequently did, he took on the whole squad that had come to arrest our Lord Jesus and tried to fight them with a sword. Brave man was Peter. But put him in a room where he hadn't any sword, amidst people that were critical and hostile, ah, and he had a weakness inside, a psychological weakness, and he would crumple up, overcome with fear. Can't help our physical makeup, can we? And pray don't say, will you, too we- too loudly that after Pentecost he was better. Well, he was better. And Peter, who was so weak that before Calvary he denied the Lord Jesus, on the day of Pentecost stood up like a lion let out of his cage and faced the murderers of Christ, thousand, five thousand, ten thousand of them, and charged them with the murder of the Lord Jesus and brought them to repentance. You say, behold what a difference the Holy Spirit makes. Yes. And some years later he was at a conference. Aha. And he'd been eating along with the Gentile Christians until certain brothers came down from James, and they said, you're not eating with the Gentiles, are you, Peter? I mean, this is terrible. They're not even circumcised, you know. You carry on eating with these Gentiles, we shall tell it to James. There's no knowing what James would do to you, Peter, when you get back. I cut off your commendation. And all of a sudden, Peter got that same kind of panicky feeling inside, didn't he? Fear of rejection. And he gave way to hypocrisy, pretending not to believe what he did really believe. Yes, some of us will carry that kind of weakness to the grave. We shall ever need the gracious strengthening of the Lord and the power of his mighty intercession. I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail. You will notice, won't you, the precision of our Lord's intercession. Didn't say I prayed for you that your courage shall not fail. Peter's courage did fail. Didn't say I have prayed for you that your testimony may be kept intact. Peter's testimony was blown sky high. I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. You see, without faith, what are we? If Satan could destroy your faith completely, would you still be a believer? I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And we know from the subsequent history that while everything else went, Peter remained a believer. You'd have scarce credited it yourself, wouldn't you? If you had been standing in the high priest's court there when Peter was using every swear word he knew, and he knew a few, when he was using every swear word he knew to prove that he wasn't a believer. If you had heard him three times over say as clearly as he could say, get this straight, I'm not with him, I'm not with Jesus Christ, I don't know what you're talking about. And somebody had asked you, is that man a Christian? I thought he was a Christian. Is he a Christian? What would you have said? Is he a believer? How could you have stood there and said, oh yes, he's a believer, when he himself was saying, I'm not a believer. But underneath his faith didn't fail, did it? And you can see it in the story. When for the third time he had, he had denied the Lord, the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and somewhere out in the darkness, a cockerel crow. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord Jesus. Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. He rushed out, convulsed in emotion, out into the darkness. Oh, how dark it was. And in all that darkness, there was one solid ground of hope, for now he believed the Lord Jesus more than ever he did, didn't he? Ah. You see, when the Lord Jesus was in the upper room saying to Peter, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice, Peter didn't believe him, did he? He said, no, Lord, pardon me, but that bit you've got wrong, you see. Peter was of that view from time to time that on the whole the blessed Lord was good, but sometimes the Lord got things wrong, and Peter felt obliged to help out and correct him. And as for this thing that, uh, Peter would deny the Lord Jesus, no, certainly not, he said. It might be true of the others, but not of me, Lord. You don't know how to read character, actually. I'm the strong man of this group, and I would follow you wherever you went, uh. Pity, wasn't it? Because if the Peter had had better sense, he would have said, well, this shatters me, Lord. I didn't think I was a man like that, but if you say so, I am. If you say I got this hidden weakness that I didn't know about, well, well, Lord, that is so because you see. Well, well, Lord, how can I overcome this weakness and give me your strength to overcome it? And he need never have fallen neither. But at that moment, he wasn't believing the Lord very well, as he should have done, and thought he knew better. Went into the struggle, all unprepared. And the blessed Lord stood by him. Not only had he interceded for him that his faith should not fail. Ah, but how wisely he had act. And he gave Peter the promise, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when it all happened, the Lord turned and looked, and Peter remembered the word. And he went out, and through his tears he said to himself, well, what Christ said was true after all. That's faith, isn't it? So now Peter believed the Lord Jesus more than he did before. How marvelous our Lord is in taking steps to go before us, that even in our biggest catastrophes, our faith is strengthened. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And then notice the delightful confidence of our Lord. He didn't say, and if Peter, if ever you are restored, well, I might consider using you, but, uh, well, that all depends, of course, if you're ever restored. No, no, no. And when you are restored, for in our Lord's mind, there was never any doubt that the man would be restored. When thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren. You know there are two special apostles in the Christian church, and one is Paul and the other is Peter. And Paul tells us in one Timothy chapter one that his conversion was arranged by God in such a fashion as Paul would be an example to all those who followed him and believed on the Lord Jesus. And how often Paul's conversion has been used, hasn't it, in the gospel? I expect you've used it yourself. You'll say, and you've heralded it forth to sinners. Look, this is the pattern conversion. He was an utter rotter of a persecutor of the church and openly admits I was the chief of sinners, and if God saved me, he could save you. Peter also is an example, but an example to believers, isn't it? Of a man who really trusted the Lord, was tested and failed in all other respects, but by the intercession of Christ was maintained as a believer, came through, and with his experience was used of God to strengthen his presence. Not merely the other apostles, but millions upon millions upon millions of believers, and plus them me, have been strengthened in our times of depression and difficulty and trial. Even though we seem to have blotted our copy book completely and ruined our testimony, to hang on and believe still and come through to be used of God to strengthen our breath. Oh, thank God for this third ministry of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Yes, he died. Yes, he has given us his Holy Spirit, but praise God this morning, he ever lives to make intercession for us. And you will observe, if you read carefully the New Testament, that therein lies the confidence of the early believers. Listen to Paul in Romans eight again. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect, when it is Christ who died, yea, rather who is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of God? Or as we read in the Epistles of the Hebrews chapter seven, he has a priesthood that is unchangeable. He never dies. He never has to ha- hand on his priesthood to another priest because he ever lives to make intercession. So what? Oh, my brother. But he is able, says the writer, to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, because he ever liveth to make intercession for us. You will understand, therefore, why, in the course of his letter, the writer to the Hebrews urges the folks to whom he writes not to cast away their confession. They too were under tremendous pressure of persecution, were they not? The tendency of them to give up and say, it's no good, I have not been consistent, I have compromised the Lord Jesus, no good, my trying to carry on and profess to be a believer. And surely Satan was whispering it in their ears, wasn't he? Yes, you compromised the other day, you went up to that old temple and took part in that sacrifice, and you didn't ought to, did you? And you've gone and done it. Well, now, it's no good you're professing to be a believer. Give heed up, man. No, says the writer, you've no need to cast away your profession. There is a mercy seat to which you may come. Come boldly to the mercy seat because you have a great high priest who knows what temptation is and can succor those that are tempted. Come to that mercy seat to find mercy for the past and grace to help in your present situation of difficulty. We think then for a moment, for a brief moment, of this altar of incense and of s- of its materials. Let's look at it again up on the screen. That altar was made of wood, just as the big altar in the court was made of wood. But whereas the altar in the court was made of wood overlaid with copper, this altar was made of wood overlaid with pure gold. But being made of two materials, it may be allowed to point us to the two natures of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was both man and God. And if it is that you can't bring yourself to believe that the Old Testament was a type, this particular object with its two materials was a type of the two nature- natures of our Lord, well, don't try too hard to do it then, if you can't believe it. But you'll, uh, allow me to point out that the New Testament, when it comes to discussing our Lord as an intercessor, insists, doesn't it, that he did have two natures, and not only had two natures, but had to have two natures if he was going to be an effective high priest for us. Is that not so? Yes, he couldn't simply be God, could he? For God cannot be tempted. But of our blessed Lord it is written that he was tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart, of course. There was no sin in him. He knew no sin, and he did no sin. His temptation was real, and he suffered when he was tempted. Just imagine he had suff- he had been without food forty days. Do you suppose his stomach was different from our stomachs? When the tempter came and said, make these stones bread, say, don't be silly, I can't make them bread. You know what? I've never been tempted to make stones bread, have you? Thank God there are some limits to my temptations. I've never been tempted to turn stones into bread. Because if Satan were to tempt me with that one, I would say, with due respect, don't be silly. I haven't the power to make stones into bread. You have to have the power to make stones into bread before you can be tempted to do it, don't you? Ah, Satan's temptation shows at least Satan believed in the deity of the Lord Jesus. That's more than some modernists do. Satan believed it. But while he had the power, he refused to act independently of his father, didn't he? And replied, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And he refused to eat. Do you suppose that when he refused to eat, the hunger pangs went away? That would make temptation a very easy thing, wouldn't it? The hunger pangs, of course, continue, and he suffered being tempted. He is able, therefore, to help those that are tempted. For we don't come to a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity. One who, being tempted and suffering, is able to understand and to suffer. He had to be man, therefore. But he couldn't only be man, could he? He had to be God, and thank God he is. For, says Hebrews chapter seven, the law, the Levitical law, appointed men high priests who had infirmity, and after their little lot of years, they grow- grew weak, died, and passed away. But the word of the oath by which our blessed Lord has been appointed high priest ordains one of priests as a priest who is the very Son of God. He shall never die, lives by the power of an endless life, and ever lives therefore to make intercession for us. The writer also reminds us that when it comes to our intercessor, he was appointed by God and was appointed with an oath. Says the writer, you know, not even Aaron was ever appointed with an oath. But when our blessed Lord Jesus was appointed high priest, God himself used an oath saying, the Lord has sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He was appointed with an oath, says Hebrews chapter seven. And what significance does that carry? Because he was appointed priest by an oath, he is the guarantor of the new covenant. He's not only then the mediator of the new covenant, he is the guarantor of the new covenant. You say, what is the difference? Well, a guarantor in business, at least in our part of the world, is a man who, if you should a- a- a- enter a business enterprise costing a lot of money, the bank might ask you for some guarantees. You might possibly have a friend who's prepared to go down to the bank and sign his name to a guarantee that he stand beside you in all the expenses of your business, and he will pay the price and guarantee for the bank that the project will go through. Happy if you've got a friend like that. I never did have too many myself. Ah. Come the question of our salvation. Our blessed Lord is not only mediator of the new covenant, he is the guarantor of the new covenant. Cost what it will to bring the many sons to glory, our blessed Lord has gone guarantor, guaranteed to pay the cost of it to the very last farthing. So the altar with its two materials witnesses to us of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ and his dual nature. Look now to the, uh, to the altar once more, and from where you sit, you can see on the film, perhaps, that it has horns at the four corners of the altar. Now, in Hebrew poetry, horn is a metaphor frequently and is used to indicate power. You will remember perhaps that when Zechariah was singing his psalm of praise over John the Baptist, he observed that God had already raised up unto Israel in the house of David a horn of salvation. And what do you think he meant by a horn of salvation? Well, he meant, of course, that God had raised up a powerful savior, a horn of salvation. So when we come to think about this altar and its horns, if the altar points us to our Lord as intercessor, the horns point to the power of his intercession. And wherein lies the power of our Lord's intercession and its effectiveness? In the ancient ritual, it lay here that on the Day of Atonement, and also after the offering of certain sin offerings, the blood of atonement would be put on the horns of the golden altar of incense. And we come across to the New Testament and ask ourselves, wherein lies the power of our blessed Lord's intercession? And John answers the question for us. He says, you know, these things I write unto you that you do not sin. Nothing in scripture is ever an encouragement to us as believers to sin. Nothing is ever intended to make us feel that sin doesn't matter and it's all right if we sin. I write these things so that you do not sin, says the apostle. But then, if any man sin, and sometimes we do, don't we? What happens then? If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Then John adds, he is the propitiation for our sins. Notice, if you will, the term that John uses. He says our Lord is the propitiation for our sins, and the very term takes us to the great day of atonement when propitiation was made, not only for the people, but for the tabernacle itself. That God to Moses, as he gave him the rules and regulations for the Day of Atonement, when you slaughter those animals and atonement is made by those, by their blood, you must make atonement for the tabernacle building itself. Why is that? Why, says God, my building being surrounded by unclean Israelites, the very building of the tabernacle gets defiled. It would be impossible for God to carry on dwelling in that building amongst the defilements of Israel, his people, unless once in a year the tabernacle itself was atoned for, and its clean uncleanness is washed away. That is atonement that made it possible for God to continue with his people in spite of their failings and fallings. And you know, as believers, when we sin, God doesn't say it doesn't matter, does he? Our sin matters the same as our, it did when we were unconverted. It is a repulsive to God, obnoxious to God, repugnant. How could God continue even to dwell with us as believers when we sin, if it were not for the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord? For often you and I sin, and we haven't even realized we've sinned. Isn't that true? And we're going along happily. We're in happy fellowship with God, we tell ourselves, because, yes, we've sinned, but we haven't realized we've sinned. If it were not for the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, the very moment we sinned, whether we realized it or not, that would be the end of all fellowship between God and us. The Blessed Lord, as a propitiation for our sins, makes it possible for God to continue with us, weak and falling and failing and sinful as we so often are. Gives us time, therefore, during the which the Holy Spirit may being- begin to bring us to repentance and to confession of our sins and to the adjustment of our relation with the Lord. And we notice the ground of his intercession. He is Jesus Christ the righteous. Doesn't attempt to minimize our sin. He is righteous and confesses everything and confesses the worst. Confident in this, that his holy blood answers all the guilt of our sins and is sufficient to maintain us eternally in fellowship with God. Finally, therefore, let us come back to where we started and notice this altar of incense, its materials, and its staves. For it had two rings, and through those rings two staves, that wherever Israel went, they might carry the altar with them to meet them in their need. Our blessed Lord is now in glory, and we are confidently told that he is ever available to our need. And though we see him not, yet says Scripture, consider him the apostle and high priest of your confession, being faithful to you, way up there in the presence of God. A story is told in Exodus how that on one occasion Moses had gone up the mountain to meet God, when Israel sinned such a violent sin that God said to Moses, Moses, get out of the way, Moses, stand clear, and I will destroy this people, and I'll make of you another nation. And God could have done it, couldn't he, and still have remained faithful to Abraham, because Abraham had been promised that it was through Abraham's seed that the nation would be developed, and Moses was Abraham's seed. And if God had destroyed all the rest of them but preserved Moses, God could have started again through Moses and fulfilled the promise that he had made to Abraham. Stand clear, said God to Moses, and allow me to destroy the people, and I'll start again with you. Thank you, said Moses, but no, God, I'm not standing clear. You destroy them, you destroy me, for I refuse to be taken separate from them. Wasn't that magnificent? Because he was up the mountain and Israel couldn't hear what he was saying, and they chivied him and criticized him and denied him and rebelled against him and done every ugly thing they could think of against him. Now he was up the mountain. I tell you what I would have done if I'd have been Moses. I'd have said, thank you very much, God. I got tired of them down that mountain, their endless complainings and murmurings. This is what I've been looking for. That's right, God, destroy them. They'll never know what I said anyway because they can't hear. They'll never live on to reproach me. And, uh, carry on, Lord. Not Moses. Even though he was out of sight of the people and the people couldn't see him, he remained faithful to the people and won by his intercession that God continued with them and took them further. Oh, my brothers, my sisters, consider him. You can't see him in glory, can you? You can't hear what he's saying this minute about you either. But this you can be sure of, consider him being faithful to you, even though he, though he is now crowned with glory and out of sight. The incense altar stood. Let's draw the veil aside just for a moment. The incense altar stood right opposite the ark and the mercy seat. Because the intercessor stood facing God, who presents himself on that mercy seat. And gives force to the exhortation of the epistle to the Hebrews. Wherefore, come boldly to the throne of grace. Because we don't have an high priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmity. We have an high priest who is tempted in all things like we are, but utterly without sin. Through him, therefore, let us come to God. Or, if you will have it as we conclude, let's sum up what we have learned so far. We draw near, says Hebrews chapter ten, boldly through the veil we draw near to the mercy seat and the very throne of God in the holiest of all. How do we draw near? Our hearts sprinkled, that is by the blood of Christ, from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, that is the regeneration by his spirit, and having a high priest over the house of God, oh, thank God for him and his intercession. Let us draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we might find mercy and grace to help in time of need. Shall we pray? O Lord, we do praise thee for a salvation that is full and complete. We thank thee that thou hast thought of everything. There is not one weak link in the chain, because all the steps by which we come to God, thou hast provided utter and complete salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. And therefore, like David of old, thy servants find it in their hearts this morning to thank and to praise thee through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.