Welcome to another Exodus study. This is study number 61 Exodus chapter 30 we plan on covering verses 1 through 21 Lord willing and the church don't rise as we send out a hillbilly holla to brother Byron pulling Barrett down in Virginia Down in Virginia, brother in Christ, we've known for a number of years now. And I don't know, as I look at, I actually keep a list of the hillbilly hollers we send out, because I don't want to duplicate when there's so many people we haven't sent them out to. And recently, I've just realized there's a few people that we just never sent one out to, maybe because I've talked to them more often and I forget. Regardless to my fellow hillbilly brother in Christ down in Virginia brother Byron appreciate you and You got your holler now So we'll start with a word of prayer and get into our study of Exodus chapter 30. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this time in your word again. Every opportunity to teach is an opportunity that I have been able to learn as I study in preparation. Thank you for everything you've taught me, everything you've taught others. There's much you teach that I would never even think of. So thankful for the Holy Spirit. who can take what we're doing now and use it to build upon in the lives of those who are listening and studying along with us. You continue to teach them where they are. And so we thank you for that in Jesus name. Amen. So the first 10 verses of Exodus 30. give thorough instructions regarding the altar of burnt incense. We're in a section of Exodus where there's a lot of information and instructions that people just skip over. And it's a shame because there's a lot of good stuff in here, especially if you love the Word of God, you love this stuff. So verse 1 in Exodus 30 says, And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon, of shittum wood shalt thou make it. So the altar of incense. The word incense refers to the word frankincense. It's basically a short use of that word, shortened. My name is Gregory. People call me Greg a lot. I prefer that. But we're going to see in our next study that other spices are added to frankincense to make this incense used in the Tabernacle and Temple. It comes up in verses 34 through 38 and it makes a very specific aroma. I love how it's referred to the confection after the art of the apothecary. And we're going to see that you weren't allowed to make this news around the house or just use For your own purposes. This was a special recipe And it was not only forbidden for anyone but the Levites to make this But It would cause death it would be a call for death and we'll get more into that later as to why but it would burn and mix with the sweet savor smell in the tabernacle and temple so It would give the tabernacle and temple a distinct aroma that you would not smell anywhere else and that's important to keep in mind now it's described in verse 2 and The altar is described here. A cubit shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof. Four squares shall it be, and two cubits shall be the height thereof. The horns thereof shall be of the same. And verse three continues and says, And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof, round about, and the horns thereof. And thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about. Now, you can find artistic representations of this. You can find them in books. You can find them online. And I'm not going to try to paint a mental picture of this any more than you've already just heard me read. But it continues in verses four and five. It says, in two golden rings shalt thou make to it under the crown of it. By the two corners thereof, upon the two sides of it shalt thou make it, and they shall be for places for the staves to bear it withal. And thou shalt make the staves of Shittemwood, and overlay them with gold. So just like the Ark of the Covenant had rings, and these staves would go through the rings, and that's how you would carry it. And it wasn't supposed to be touched, it wasn't supposed to be just carried around like any other piece of furniture. And we're going to see that God warned people about touching these things and not carrying them carelessly. And Uzzah later on dies. I think we've referred to that before. We'll see it again in our future studies. And David got upset with the Lord. You know, we're going to, well, we're going to talk about in just a minute when it comes to these things, when God says something, he means it. And not only does that explain why, you know, you disobey, you die, but it also serves to reassure us. God's word is sure. It is true. now we're told where they're gonna put it in verse 6 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 there's those words again I love that this will picture Something and we'll be able to know exactly what this picture is by comparing scripture with scripture but we'll come back to that as we continue in verse 7 and 8 and Aaron shall burn there on sweet incense every morning when he dresseth the lamps he shall burn incense upon it and And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. We mentioned this before, you start your day how? In the word and in prayer. And we're gonna see that this incense is a beautiful picture with the smoke and aroma going upward toward heaven. And when we studied Revelation chapter eight, We saw this, and I believe this is exactly what Exodus 30 is picturing, beginning in verse one of Revelation 8. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Verse 3, and another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden censer and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. We've said over and over what we see built in the Old Testament was based upon the real thing in heaven and you have these teachers claim that it's only symbolic and there's not nothing in heaven like this and I just say nonsense right here it's telling us what John saw, and it's not symbolic in the sense that he really did see what he saw. Now what he saw has meaning and can be, you know, we can extrapolate that information from it, but it actually happened and happens in heaven. And then Revelation 8 4 describes this says and the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints Ascended up before God out of the angels hand so that's exactly the same thing we're seeing in the tabernacle and later the temple and during the Old Testament period of Mosaic Law, the dispensation of Mosaic Law. And I just can't go on without making this comment about how amazing that scene is just in our imaginations. But we are going to see this. This is a real picture of our future, something we're going to experience in our future as saved Bible believers saved children of God when we get to heaven those who have already gone before us those who have died with Christ the body was buried in the grave but the person himself herself immediately went into the presence of the Lord and they're seeing these kind of things there and when the rapture happens we will go up and we will be in heaven and we will see these things and it's just an amazing thing to think about I just want to go now and the Lord hasn't asked me but if he asks I'm saying now when would you like to go now But once again, we also see there's a positive and a negative balance to scripture. So this wonderful picture that comparing scripture with scripture, we see what it is telling us about our future, about the future of God's people, and the temple in heaven, and all that. But verse nine says, ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering, neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon. In other words, you must approach God on his terms. It's just a sad thing how many people today, even those who claim to be Christians, just make up their own religion. They make up their own God in their own imaginations. They make up their own right and wrong. How many Christians today? Well, it's been going on throughout church history, but especially in the last 150 years or so, the ecumenical movement. and people holding hands with those who preach a false gospel, have a false Jesus, they deny the virgin birth, they deny the sinlessness of Christ, they deny the substitutionary atonement, they deny the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. And a lot of Christians are really clueless about this. They don't realize there are many, many preachers and churches and even whole denominations really who are totally given over to a Naturalistic interpretation of everything they reject the miracles they reject what the Bible says about all these things but then Christians who make a profession of believing what we believe and Believing the Bible they hold hands with these apostates these false professors these fakes And then they join in and they have supposed worship services with them. And they take part in this false fire, this false incense, this strange fire, strange incense. These different words are used to describe the same thing. If it's not what God says, it's false. If your God isn't the God of the Bible, if you tell me something about your God and it's not true of the God of the Bible, then you have a false God. People will say, well, my Jesus would never send anyone to hell. Well, your Jesus is Lucifer, but my Jesus is the Jesus of the Bible. And he talked more about hell than anybody else in the Bible. And my Jesus was born of a virgin, sinless. My Jesus is what the Bible says about Jesus and yours should be too. But if you go off and start making things up and, um, uh, religious rituals that are made up, um, the Bible never says to sprinkle or pour water on a baby and call it baptism. And especially when they tell those babies, that means they're saved. They're now in the church. It's false. And there are people, Christians, professing Christians getting involved in things like yoga and hypnotism and Christians, professing Christians who do hallucinogen drugs, claiming it brings them closer to God and all that. It's strange incense, strange fire, and God hates it. So, we see that in Leviticus 10, we'll come across that if the Lord tarries as we continue our studies. Aaron's two eldest sons disobeyed this commandment. In verse nine, ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering, neither shall you pour drink offering thereon. In Leviticus 10 1 it says in Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire thereon and put incense thereon and Offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not what happened verse 2 and there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and They died before the Lord Now these kind of events cause the wicked to accuse God of being hateful and a mean tyrant, especially they'll say the God of the Old Testament. What they mean is just what I was talking about. They've made up a false God, a fake God in their own image and their own imagination. And they don't like a holy God who keeps his word. That's what they don't like. And, you know, as a good dad, a good parent, you know, I told my, I tried to be a good dad. I told my kids not to put things in the electrical outlet. And I told them, if you do, you grab a, especially like scissors or a coin or something, you put something in there, you'll die. It'll electrocute you. Now, I told them that because I loved them, didn't want them to do wrong and die. Now, if they hadn't listened to me and they went and stuck something in there and got electrocuted and died, would that make me a bad dad? I just told him the truth and they ignored it. Stuck something in there and died. Would that make me a bad dad? No. God has said, don't do this. If you do, you'll die. And people do it and die. Does that make God a bad God? No, it doesn't. You know, uh, Some, the word for it really is idiots. And some idiot does something like that and dies. Don't get mad at God. Nadab and Abihu were idiots. Don't get mad at God for them doing what they knew they shouldn't do and them dying. But, like I said, this strange fire, it's exactly what we see in the false gospels, the false religions, the pseudo-spirituality, all this people claim to be spirit-filled Holy Ghost Christians and barking like dogs and flopping around the floor and vomiting and all that stuff. And the whole apostasy that's taken place and the ecumenical movement as a whole, all this stuff. God hates it. You know, Judgment Day is a very bad day. for all those involved in this strange fire and all these false cults and movements. And people, they'll, you know, they talk about God, they talk about Christians and people said that about me, that I'm mean, I'm hateful because I, I tell the truth. And, uh, I, this whole LGBT sodomite, Thing every June they call it pride month and even Christian professing Christians. I don't think they're Christians they don't have the same spirit I have but they claim to be Christians and they go along with that stuff and You God hates it God hates pride. You don't even have to be talking about a particular sin like sodomy you can just be talking about pride They call it pride month every June God hates pride and if you love God you'll hate pride But there is this strange fire in people. They're not just offering strange incense and strange fire. They are possessed by it. It's a spirit that's got a hold of people. Now, we continue in verse 10, it says, and Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements. Once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy unto the Lord. Now, only through the blood can your prayers be heard. Through the years, I've seen Christians get on the hot seat, or at least they think it is. when they become big timers and they're interviewed by the press or whatever. I saw a guy on Phil Donahue's show years ago. He was the Oprah Winfrey of the 80s. And he said, are you saying that God does not hear the prayers of Jews or anyone else who's not a Christian? And, you know, the answer is easy. First of all, God hears everything. So, you know, first of all, let's lay that out. What we're saying is that if you want God to respond like a father, he must be your father. That's the easy answer. Now, if you're doesn't matter if you're Jew, Hindu, black, white, rich, poor, doesn't matter. If you are born again and you become a child of God, then God will answer your prayers the way a father answers a child. Otherwise, he hears your prayers, but he's not going to answer you the way a father does a child. So with that, now we move to a section that it'll seem like what you might call housekeeping. It looks like we've jumped from this interesting stuff about the incense and the strange fire and all that, and jump into verses 11 on a few verses here down to 16. It just seems like it's boring, doesn't really have a lot of impact. I'll be honest with you, for a while there, that's how I saw it when I read it. But trust me, this is another one of those sections in the Pentateuch that's going to stand out once you grasp its importance when comparing Scripture with Scripture. So if you're reading through your Bible the way you ought to be, then you're going to come across some passages where knowing this text will keep you from having a real problem. Put it this way, ignorance of this text has caused many to stumble. I kid you not, as we read, verse 11 says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them when thou numberest them. Are you yawning yet? It just seems kind of, you know, like I said, accounting housekeeping. But what does God say here? He says that if you disobey this commandment, you get what? A plague. So let's continue and we'll lay the whole thing out and then we'll look at the big picture. We pick up with verse 13. This, they shall give everyone that passeth among them that are numbered half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary. A shekel is 20 giras and half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Verse 14, everyone that passeth among them that are numbered from 20 years old and above shall give an offering unto the Lord. Verse 15, the rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for your souls. That is a good, nice little picture of how that before God we all stand equal, equally in need of his mercy and grace. And then verse 16 says, and thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord to make an atonement for your souls. Now you may think, well, he's going to turn this into a thing about Christians giving money to the church and that sort of thing. Well, okay, let's get that out of the way. Yes. Unless you're an infant you should understand that your local church if you're going to meet someplace and have a place with air conditioning for the heat in the summer and heater for the cold in the winter and if you want to have things like refreshments and you want to you know have a pay the electric bill and pay the water bill and all that sort of thing it takes a little thing called money and And I just get tired of all the cheapskate Christians who come up with all these spiritual sounding excuses for being tightwads. You should support the work. And I just have always felt that if I don't, then I'm being a thief. I'm stealing. I'm not doing my part to help support the work. But at BBF we have no complaints. We have some very generous givers, supporters who give with a cheerful heart. But a lot of churches I know hurt and are hurting and will continue to hurt because of this kind of thing. So now with that out of the way, I want to look at the big picture with this thing. Later on, as you continue reading through the Bible, you're gonna come across two sections, one in 2 Samuel 24 and another in 1 Chronicles 21, where we see that King David numbered the people of Israel and God punished the nation. And if you don't get this section that we've just read in Exodus 30, verses 11 through 16, then you won't understand that David disobeyed God's word. And ignorance of God's word is no excuse. Just like when David had them bring up the Ark of the Covenant and they didn't use the staves and they didn't carry it properly, they didn't have the Levites carrying it and all that, Uzzah died. And the same sort of thing happens here. David in his pride, pride again, calls for the numbering of the children of Israel and Satan moved David to do this and when God saw David obeying Satan he basically Handed him over to it and moved him to go ahead and do it so that God could use David's disobedience to punish Israel It's the same way he did with Pharaoh Pharaoh hardened his heart and then God hardened his heart and we see that over and over Judas hardened his heart and then God hardened his heart and And so if you look in 1st Chronicles 21 1 & 2 you see Satan moving David to do this and then in 2nd Samuel 24 1 the Lord then moves David to go ahead and do it so he can punish the nation. You'll see people bring that up as some kind of contradiction or real bad issue in the Bible, and it's not. We just explained it there. So we'll go on. And if you read both of those chapters, 2 Samuel 24, 1 Chronicles 21, there's no record of the half shekel being given for each soul as they were commanded. And it says right here in Exodus 30, verse 12, if you don't obey this requirement, It says, if you do, you do so that there be no plague among you when thou numbers them. If you don't, there's going to be a plague. And that's exactly what happened in response to King David's sin. We don't have the time to get into details with that. You can go read that on your own. We'll come to it later in our own studies. Why? Why did this happen? Why when you read this happening under King David? Because God keeps his word. And yes, it can be a very fearful thing, but it also is an encouraging thing. We know that God keeps his word. And so with that, we close beginning verse 17. with the laver laver of brass however you want to pronounce that verse 17 says laver my wife says and the Lord spake unto Moses saying thou shalt also make a laver of brass and his foot also of brass to wash with all and thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar and thou shalt put water therein And we'll go ahead and read 19 through 21, closing out this section for this study. Verse 19, for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat. When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water that they die not. and when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not, and it shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his seed throughout their generations. So I want to note two things. First of all, I just want to say don't get this confused with the thing called the mikvah. The mikvah was something where people would actually be immersed in water. And that was a ritual washing for the people in general, the general population. and it does compare to the baptismal and Bible-believing churches today. But what we're seeing here in this labor of brass is a picture of the love of Christ for his church and the water of the word, which is the daily consistent cleansing effect that God's word has on the Bible-believing Christian, described here as Paul is addressing marriage, Ephesians 5 25 to 27 which I normally read and pretty much any wedding ceremony I've done. Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish. It's a beautiful picture fulfilled in Christ and in his church. And we'll pick up there next time with actually more info on the incense to be burned at the altar of incense.