I believe the Lord wants to open us to certain things as we go through this teaching.
So, open question, What is an Altar?
Queen: A place of encounter with God, a place of fellowship with God.
Ngozi: A sacred place of prayer.
Ruth Olayinka: An altar is a place separated unto God.
Ruth: The altar is a place where covenants are made and upheld.
Jane: A meeting point to offer sacrifice.
I will add to what we have shared.
To explain what the Altar is properly, I will start with the tabernacle and the temple.
First, what is the Tabernacle?
The Tabernacle is a mobile sanctuary commanded by God and built by Moses for the Israelites during their journey to the promised land.
Israel had left Egypt and there had to be a meet point between God and them to sustain them until they got to their destination. The tabernacle was how God dwelt with the Israelites in the wilderness.
"And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it." [Exodus 25:8-9]
THE TEMPLE
The temple was a grander expression of the tabernacle. It was a permanent building/central place of worship for the Israelites.
The temple was built by Solomon but first desired to be built by David.
I will come back here.
Let's go to the structure of the Tabernacle;
The tabernacle had 3 layouts (we can see this in Exodus chapter 25-28)
The Tabernacle Structure:
- Outer Court
- The Holy Place
- The Most Holy Place
THE OUTER COURT
The outer court is the first place you come in contact with as you enter the tabernacle. It was a place of public approach. Everyone could come in.
And in this outer court, there is an altar; a BRONZE ALTAR (made of acacia wood.)
This altar was the Altar of burnt offerings. It is where sacrifices and offerings were made to God. The Israelites made sin and peace offerings here.
Remember we said the Tabernacle was a place for meeting God, but the first point of encounter is an altar where sacrifices were made on the bronze altar.
Why? Why first the sacrifice?
"therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.." [Genesis 3:23-24]
God sent Adam out of the garden. Adam was banished from the presence of God.
Why? Because of Sin.
God is holy and cannot behold sin so for man to approach God, something else needed to pay. It is a righteous demand. Even God couldn’t bypass this process, so much that His own son had to die.
The bronze altar is where sacrifices of blood are made for atonement.
So the first altar is in the outer court and it is called the The Bronze Altar.
For anyone to come to the meeting place of God aka the Tabernacle, they needed to first make use of this altar by sacrificing. Blood had to be spilled so they are clean.
But something happened.
"For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." [Romans 5:10 NKJV]
"By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." [Hebrews 10:10 NKJV]
When we were God’s enemies!
This is what we were before the Bronze altar, enemies of God. For every man that approached the tabernacle, they were first enemies of God until something was sacrificed at the bronze altar.
How does an enemy come to a designated meeting place for friends? You are trespassing.
But see what Jesus did,
He came and died for us, everyone of us, Once and for all!
It was a one time sacrifice.
It is that everyone that draws near to the tabernacle (the place of meeting) can now do so as friends because only friends come to this zone.
Back to the structure of the tabernacle:
- The Outer Court
- The Holy Place
- The Most Holy Place
I’ve explained the outer court and the altar on it.
Now there are 2 altars actually in the tabernacle, the first one is what we see in the outer court for peace and sin atonement, the second one is in the holy place.
THE HOLY PLACE
This is the second chamber of the tabernacle.
It is the first inner room after the outer court. It is where you enter into after forgiveness of sins.
This room had no natural light and had 3 things in it:
1. The Golden Lampstand
"This golden lampstand had 7 branches each with a lamp on it. So basically the golden lampstand had 7 lamps that provided light for everyone that made it into this part of the tabernacle." [Exodus 25:31-40]
"And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God." [Revelation 4:5 NKJV]
Seven lamps were burning before the throne which were the seven spirits of God.
We see that the tabernacle actually mirrored Heaven.
"The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." [Isaiah 11:2 NKJV]
The spirit of God!
Present in the tabernacle
The spirit of God!
Light in the tabernacle
No external light needed. The Holy Spirit was enough light
PS. I hope we are following closely and understand so far?
Because I will tie all of this back together at a point.
2. The Table of Showbread
The second thing in the Holy Place is the table of showbread. 12 loaves of bread representing God’s covenant with Israel is placed here. The bread was also called the bread of the presence.
The priests were to eat from this bread at the sabbath day as a form of intimacy and fellowship.
3. The Golden Altar of Incense
The third thing in the Holy Place is the Golden altar of incense.
This altar is the second altar in the tabernacle. The first was for atonement. The second is for fellowship; for incense rising before God daily.
Now, the Golden altar of incense is placed directly in front of the veil separating the Holy place from the third room which is the most Holy place.
The people that made it into this part of the tabernacle at this point were just the priests by the way. The priests were the only ones allowed to burn incense on the altar of incense and they were to do it daily.
"And you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the Testimony, where I will meet with you." [Exodus 30:6 NKJV]
The altar of incense is just at the entrance of the veil separating, and what the veil is hiding behind it is the ark of the testimony also called the ark of covenant, where the glory of God resides.
God’s throne!
So basically, incense offered is what stands between the holy place and the most holy place.
Again, I hope we are holding the thoughts and piecing them together slowly.
Back to the structure...
THE MOST HOLY PLACE
Also called the Holy of Holies, this was the final point of the tabernacle.
The innermost room, just behind the thick veil. It housed the Ark of Covenant and the Mercy Seat.
It was where God dwelt in the temple; His Shekinah Glory was here!
Only the High priest could enter here once a year.
This was the real meeting point of the tabernacle, this is where all of The outer court and Holy place was leading us to.
Now that we’ve seen the tabernacle and everything inside of it, what is it meant for?
I’d like to move to us
How does this apply to us in our world today?
The Tabernacle, Its Structures and What They Mean for the Believer in Christ Today.
"who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” [Hebrews 8:5 NKJV]
These things serve as a copy and shadow of heavenly things!
Everything we’ve seen here is a pointer to something more; It is a pointer to Heaven!
Now we say that Heaven has come and Heaven is in the heart of the believer in Christ, so we must understand this copy and shadow of that which is within us. It’s a guide sort of, a template to follow.
Back to the tabernacle, we say that the tabernacle is the place where God and man meets.
What is then our modern day tabernacle?
"And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” [II Corinthians 6:16 NKJV]
Now, we are the temple.
Remember I had explained the temple is a grander and permanent version of the tabernacle.
The tabernacle was the first copy released to man. Until one day, David thought to build a temple; he thought to make that dwelling permanent. Like he desired it, God did not ask him.
Again, David was a man ahead of himself!
Back to the temple.
Everything I have explained about the tabernacle is now us!
The place of meeting is now inside of us.
It is not a physical building,
That building is now you and the same rules apply.
You are the meeting place!
Say it to yourself.
You don’t visit the tabernacle anymore, it is eternally resting inside of you.
So let’s go to the structure of the tabernacle that is now you.
1. The outer court
I had explained the Bronze Altar and how sacrifices were made for the atonement of sins.
For the believer in Christ, Jesus became the sacrifice. He did not just make a sacrifice, He became the sacrifice. He is the one offered on the altar day in day out as we approach the outer court. He is the how we can approach.
"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." [Ephesians 5:2 NKJV]
"By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." [Hebrews 10:10 NKJV]
Christ gave Himself as an offering and a sacrifice
A sweet smelling one. Acceptable.
And through that offering, we are sanctified.
Through that offering, we move from the outer court to the inner room.
Now that we have fulfilled the requirement of the outer court, what then is our own reasonable sacrifice?
Is there even a need for one?
What do we bring to the outer court since Christ has done it all?
1. Ourselves
“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.” [Romans 12:1 NKJV]
The word“reasonable” here is logikēn (logical/spiritual). In light of what Christ did, it only makes sense to lay ourselves on the altar in response.
We offer ourselves: fully surrendered, daily, consistently.
This is your first duty to the outer court, yourself in response to Christ giving Himself.
2. Our Praise and Thanksgiving
While Christ has indeed paid (become) our sin and peace offering, we have a response.
“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.” [Psalms 100:4 NKJV]
“Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” [Hebrews 13:15 NKJV]
This is how we enter the courts of the tabernacle; With PRAISE.
You don’t have what to praise for?
That there is a sacrifice on the altar is enough reason to praise! That you do not have to be thinking everyday about the bull to bring to the altar is enough reason!
Therefore by Christ we also must now continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God.
See, in the tent of meeting with God, how we enter is praise and thanksgiving.
Not complain, not grumbling.
This is how we come before God to meet with Him;
We throw away everything on our heart,
We keep aside the things bothering us,
We focus on the lamb on the altar and we enter with thanksgiving.
Minister Dunsin once shared something profound that stayed with me; he said that, if he comes before God and he has a lot of things on his mind, he stays in Thanksgiving and worship for hours until those things dissolve and it is only God remaining.
In pain, in confusion, in waiting,
This is how we enter the outer court: With praise!
3. Good Works and Generosity
One of the things the Israelites brought to the outer court was their grain and drink offering.
This wasn’t to atone for sin, rather it was from a place of being blessed.
"But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." [Hebrews 13:16 NKJV ]
From our time to caring for other people genuinely, giving in church and, to people around us, with such sacrifices as this, God is well pleased!
And my question to us is this, when was the last time you randomly gave? (Without grumbling)
How often do you give?
Some of us, it’s the same #500 you’ve been giving as offering since 2021 you are still giving.
Have you not been blessed by God?
Your spending is going up but your giving hasn’t gone up,
You are short changing yourself.
Some of you have never given your pastor anything.
Their birthday? Save towards it and buy something.
Random, just because, giving
Christmas period, pack something for their family and honor them.
It is part of your sacrifice and offering to God.
Your friends. the people around you, people you know, people you don’t know, Give!
It is your goodwill offering and sacrifice.
4. A Broken and Contrite spirit
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.” [Psalms 51:17 NKJV]
This is the posture we enter with!
A broken spirit
A broken heart
A contrite heart
Surrender. Humility. Repentance.
This is how we enter the outer court.
Ruth Olayinka: Please ma, I have a question, how do we focus on the lamb while praying ?
This is a great question.
The Lamb here is Jesus Christ
John 1:29 says Behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
To behold is to fix your gaze
Pay attention to Him
Pause every other thing and look at Him
Don’t be in a rush to look away
Meditate on who He is
Magnify the lamb in the place of worship
Lift Jesus and exalt Him
Don’t focus on asking
Don’t be focused on your worries
Let all that fill your heart and eyes be the lamb (Jesus)
A great place to always start is His sacrifice
Think of what Jesus dying means
Do the maths
Calculate the price of goat and check how many you’d have sacrificed if Jesus did not die
Think on His greatness and all that He is
Just allow yourself to be immersed in God alone
This question you asked is also one of the reasons I encourage us to sometimes not sing when we are worshipping and giving thanks, learn to use your words
To help you understand better, please CLICK HERE to see a previous teaching where I taught comprehensively on 'WORSHIP.'
There are people that don’t know what to say to God outside of music and it is because we don’t know God
We’ve not settled long enough on Him to express from our heart.
If you are here and you struggle with words, reduce the music when praying
Deliberately use your words
During the day, write the things you know and can remember about Jesus
Allow yourself to meditate on these things until your prayer time
I hope this helps and answers your question.
2. The Holy Place
After the Outer Court which was open to all of Israel, the next structure is the Holy Place.
Like I mentioned previously, there are 3 items in the holy place (the showbread, the golden lampstand and the golden altar of incense.)
Only the priests are allowed inside of the Holy place.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” [I Peter 2:9 NKJV]
“and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” [Revelation 1:6 NKJV ]
See what Jesus becoming our sacrifice on the Bronze Altar translated to?
We are now priests! We too can come in like the levites to the Holy Place
The garment of holiness is already on us so we will not be struck dead when we do.
What then are the implications of the 3 items in the Holy Place now that Christ has died:
- The Golden Lampstand
I already explained that this represents the Holy Spirit. There is no natural light in the Holy Place which means for us that we do not try to make sense of things from our natural mind. We follow just the leading of the spirit. This signifies us walking only in the light of the spirit. .
“We get our new life from the Spirit, so we should follow the Spirit.” [Galatians 5:25 ERV]
“If the Spirit is the source of our life, we must also allow the Spirit to direct every aspect of our lives.” [Galatians 5:25 TPT]
- The Table of Showbread
The priests eats from the bread spread on this table. Like I explained, the 12 loaves represented God’s covenant with Israel. The priests comes in and feeds on this covenant reminder bread.
What this represents for us is, The Word of God
“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." [Matthew 4:4 NKJV]
Infact, I will take this further a bit;
What it represents for us is Jesus
Because Jesus was the promise and that covenanted to Abraham and reiterated to Israel. It is why when we read the word, we must do so from the lens of Christ.
What we are taking in as we study the word daily should be more of Jesus (more of God, for the son of man is God.)
- The Golden Altar of incense
I had explained that this altar was right before the veil which separated the Holy place from the most Holy place and on it the priests burned incense morning and night to God.
See if you’ve been looking for a template for your devotion/worship/fellowship, pick from here!
Morning and night!
Show up daily.
The secret place is not a place for excursion
This is how we come to God
In fact, the instruction to the priests is that the altar must be kept ablaze and its fire must never go out.
They had one job, keep burning incense
We have that same job now
And we must remember that we have it easier than the people of old
Oh! We have it so easy
A lot of things Christ has bypassed, we just need to show up and burn incense on this altar.
Our prayer must be set before God as incense as in Psalms 141:2
"Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." [Psalms 141:2]
And here is the thing, you cannot bypass the altar to reach God.
Everybody must pass through here!
All of us must be given to devotion, prayer, worship and constant fellowship.
This is the template!
We are in a really busy world and it’s so easy to forget these things,
It’s so easy to go 1 week without studying the word (until Sunday service)
And here is what I have seen in our generation:
Many of us want deep
We want to access the Holy of Holies but yet we want to bypass the altar.
The altar stands right in the way
You see that incense? It must rise before we pass through!
So yes, the holy place is our place of devotion.
3. The Most Holy Place
I explained yesterday that this is the innermost court where only the High Priests (the descendants of Aaron) could enter.
It was separated by the veil.
Quick question,
Can the believer in Christ have access to the Most Holy Place ? If yes or no, share why.
Ngozi: Yes, believers in Christ can access the Most Holy Place, because Christ has sacrificed himself for us.
Debbie: I will say yes the veil was torn after Jesus’s death on the cross and we are co heir with Christ so we can.
"Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,” [Matthew 27:51 NKJV]
See, we need to give it to God,
Very intentional
Jesus did not just die and become the sacrifice for us, He tore the veil as He did.
He tore it so He could go in as our High Priest but He did not stop here
He could have gone in and brought back the veil then remain there as our high priest.
He went in and took His place as our mercy seat, then left the veil torn so we too can now enter!
What a God! What a sacrifice!
When we sing Yes Jesus loves me, we need to understand just how much by how far He went for us.
You and I can now access the most holy place,
Because He went in, we too can
No gatekeeping here!
And now, we can dwell there
The high priest could enter once in a year
How can you enter periodically what was built inside of you?
The ark was the dwelling place of God. You are now the dwelling place of God
“And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order on it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out.” [Leviticus 6:12-13 NKJV]
We began this teaching with the altar, and we must end it there.
“I will not rest until I find a place for the Lord, a sanctuary for the Mighty One of Israel.” [Psalm 132:4–5 NLT]
Look at David. King, warrior, poet! He had everything.
Yet, the one thing he couldn’t rest without was this:
A permanent place for God to dwell.
David desired this place on his own accord o. God never told anyone to build a temple for Him. Go and study the Bible.
David on his own thought of it and desired it not knowing that God also desired this. His son Solomon eventually built a magnificent temple for the Lord.
We’ve walked through the tabernacle.
We’ve touched every part—from the Bronze Altar to the Ark of the Covenant.
But here’s the truth I don’t want you to miss:
The tabernacle is a waste if you don’t use the altars.
The essence of the tabernacle is because God wants to meet
“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” [Exodus 25:8 NKJV]
He doesn’t just want to dwell as furniture taking space, He wants to commune with you
We can admire the beauty of the tabernacle, we can study all of its gold furnishings from now till next year, but the power of the tabernacle is not in how it looks.
The power is in how it leads us to God!
How it fulfils God’s desire to be resident with us.
I know you have read a lot about the altar fire not going out but I have taken time to break it down in a much different way because I want you to see the moving parts.
To know the weight of what was sacrificed just for you to have that altar you’ve been neglecting.
So you could come to that place of prayer you now treat as optional,
So you could open that Bible that’s been gathering dust,
So you could live in the very glory that once killed men who touched/came close
My dear siblings in Christ, The fire must never go out on the altar wasn’t just about the fire, it was about the meeting!
It is the meeting that must never be aborted
Our lives are thrown into chaos when the meeting is affected
And the meeting is powered by the fire!
The blood,
The cross,
The veil torn,
All of it was so you could meet with God daily
In your car,
In your room,
On your knees,
In the toilet,
Even in your silence!
Again, the tabernacle is a waste without its altars.
And this is because the altars were the gateway to the Presence.
Your God paid in blood, not just for a visit but for dwelling. We must stop the spiritual excursions. The secret place is not a place for 2 days holiday/vacation.
Every time we skip prayer, every time we neglect the word
What we are really neglecting is a Most Holy Place that cost Heaven EVERYTHING to open.
It cost Heaven God Himself
So why did I teach this?
To wake you up
To show you that your prayer life isn’t “just prayer.”
That your Bible reading isn’t “just quiet time.”
It is you a priest of the Most High God stepping into the Most Holy Place (Go and Ask Aaron the honor it is to have been a priest to God 😭. God and ask)
It is a fire burning on the altar of your life.
It is a God who paid in blood just so you would meet with Him.
The place that only one man could enter once a year, is now open to us; Daily
Yet we neglect it?
How come? 😭
Access means nothing if we don’t respond by entering.
What is the use of a key to a door of riches if we never open the door?
“I will not give sleep to my eyes Or slumber to my eyelids, Until I find a place for the Lord, A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” [Psalms 132:4-5 NKJV]
Again, look at David,
What this King wanted to lose sleep for is what we now have on a platter!
I will end with this:
God still honors the tent of meeting.
He still desires a people who say;
“I will not rest until I make room for You oh God”
WILL YOU BE THIS PERSON?
