Exodus 30 Bible Study (The Altar of Incense/The Census Tax) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Exodus 30 beginning in verse one. You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. You shall make it of acacia wood. A cubit shall be its length and a cubit its breadth, and it shall be square, and two cubits shall be its height. Its horn shall be of one piece with it.

You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and around its size and its horns. And you shall make a molding of gold around it. And you shall make two golden rings for it. Under its molding on two opposite sides of it, you shall make them, and they shall be of holders for poles with which to carry it. You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.

Verse six. This is where things get unique. And you shall put it in front of the veil that is above the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is above the testimony where I will meet you. And Aaron shall burn frank fragrant incense on it. Every morning when he dresses the lamps, he shall burn it.

And when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it. A regular incense offering before the lord throughout your generations. You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it or a burnt offering or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement, you shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations.

It is most holy to the lord. Father, we come before you tonight with a heart that chooses to hunger, and we ask, lord, that you would meet us in this place because you promised that you will not leave us hungry when we seek for righteousness and thirst for it. And so, Lord, we just put aside all our little issues. Compared to the rest of our brothers and sisters around the world, we do not have to worry. And so, Lord, we trust in you, and we come with that desire.

Would you meet us here? In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Here we are. We are almost finished with the different furnishings of the temple, rather the tabernacle, and we find ourselves at the altar of incense, which seems to be the most obvious one concerning application and prophetic insight.

What does incense represent in the Bible? Prayer. Prayer. Psalms one forty one verse two. Let my incense let my prayers rise before you as incense and the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

That was the prayer of the psalmist. Let my prayer be like that incense that is there in that tabernacle. Let it come up to you. Let it rise up to you with that fragrant offering. But there's plenty of other verses.

There's another one. It's very popular in the New Testament concerning the prayers of the people of God and how they relate to incense. Do you know which book I'm speaking of? Yes. Revelations five and eight.

Speaking of the prayers of God's people, the saints being held in what? Specific material, specific vessel.

Golden bowls.

Golden bowls. That says something. And if you read on later on in Revelation eight, there's a point where an angel actually takes some of that incense and brings it before God, and it says it was before his throne. And that tells me something. Verse one tells me something.

You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. And when I'm familiar with the landscape of scripture, I understand that incense equals my prayers. Now the Holy Spirit did that on purpose. Why would the Holy Spirit wanna wanna share that? That your prayers and mine are like incense to God?

What does that say about God in his view of you and I when we come before him in that posture? Do you think it was a repulsive smell? No. The fact that the Bible tells me that my prayers are like incense tells me that whenever I come to him, it is like somebody spraying that sweet smelling perfume only to arrest the attention of those that are caught up in its environment. And my prayers when they come before God, they rise and ascend before him in his throne only to create a sweet aroma.

It tells me that when you and I pray, God says, I value your prayers, and I enjoy your prayers as much as one would an expensive ointment. It tells me this too that to describe my prayers as incense is to say that every utterance of dependency is delightful to him. Incense. Your prayers, my prayers are like incense unto God. There's something of joy, there's something of pleasure, there's something of being drawn.

You know, if there's a smelly smell, I don't wanna be near it.

But if there's something that is attractive, I wanna be near it.

It it catches my attention. It woos me in. I was with my brother last weekend, and before we went out, he sprayed this cologne. And every time he sprayed it in the room, it's like whatever I was doing to get ready, I just stopped and smelled it and says, that smells good. That smells good.

I wonder if God feels the same way whenever he sees one of his people getting on their face before him and saying, God, I need you. What is that smell like to him? Well, the bible tells us it smells like incense. So that tells me something else. When I come before him in prayer, if the ingredients are right, as we're about to read, if the ingredients are right in my incense, he'd he's not annoyed with me.

He's not turned off by what he sees. He's drawn to it. He enjoys it. He delights in it. So why would I withhold that from him as an act of worship?

Think of it that way when you don't pray. You are holding back something so sweet to him, and you're keeping it to yourself. You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. Now we have to remind ourselves that this is bible studying. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.

So I can keep going on and on and on, but I just wanna stop here and ask, with this specific furniture, what applications come to mind with the verses that we just read? We read all that needs to be read in this chapter about the altar of incense. What comes to your mind as we're reading these verses, especially in light of the fact that they represent the prayers of God's people? Yes, Sofia? Say it again?

Your prayer closet. Your prayer closet. So we're gonna learn a lot about prayer tonight. Yes. Absolutely.

The details matter, brothers and sisters. The details matter. Can we put up a map of that tabernacle and that illustrative version of it? Consider the position of this specific piece of furniture and where it's laid out in the tabernacle itself. It's not it's not random.

And if it's not gonna come up, that's fine. There it is. Where is it? Do you guys see it, that little square? Where does it find itself?

In front of the veil.

In front of the veil as we read of. You know what that tells me? Because that's not there, again, randomly. That's strategically placed because there's a message even in the position of that altar of incense that those who pray are nearest to God. Let me say that again.

Those who pray find themselves nearest to God. The holy of holies is right there. The ark of the covenant is right there. And those who avoid the altar of incense find themselves at a distance. But those who pay attention to this practice and to this act of worship will find yourself you will be in close proximity with God as close as possible.

And that's why if you don't pray, you're not near to God. I don't care how much you know. I don't care how many conferences you get invited to. I don't care what people say about you. If you don't pray, you won't find yourself near his presence.

In fact, in Hebrews nine four, there's a very controversial verse. It talks about the fact that the holy of holies as the writer of Hebrews discusses the different places in the tabernacle and the temple. And it says something that might seem like a contradiction that the what? Let's read it. Having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron slapped that butted.

If you go back to verse three, it tells us where it was positioned. Behind the second curtain was the second section called the most holy place. So in the holy of holies, we've learned up to this point what? That there's only one piece of furniture in the most holy place, and that's the ark of the covenant. But Hebrews tells us something different.

Hebrews tells me in verse three and four that there is the golden altar of incense in the most holy place. So you read that and you come to an understanding of your Bible in Exodus 30 and Hebrews and you think there's a contradiction here. How can it be that the author of Hebrews who was so skilled and mastered obviously in his understanding of the priesthood and the tabernacle and the sacrificial system, mess up on that one. There are many theories out there. There are many arguments for this, but I believe it's a message.

It's a message, and we're gonna unpack it that you can't separate the presence of God and prayer. You can't separate the presence of God and prayer. Prayer and the presence of God are hand in hand. Knowledge of the nearness of God, knowing that for yourself is totally dependent upon how much attention you give to the altar of incense. And you might be thinking that's a nice message, but that still doesn't answer the fact that there's an apparent contradiction.

And so here's a possible solution. When you go to Leviticus sixteen twelve, it talks about how once a year, there's a relationship between the altar of incense and the most holy place. And it says here, and he being the high priest shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil. You have to read that slow. So this is Leviticus 16, which is a chapter dedicated to what?

Feast. The day of atonement. Once a year, the high priest would go in and to offer that sacrifice for the nation of Israel. But he would do something. He would take coals of fire.

Now where do you think that came from? Where did the coals of fire think about all the rest of the pieces of furniture. Where where could it come from?

The fireplace.

The fireplace in more detail. What's the name of it? The altar. The altar of burnt offering, not the altar of incense because the altar incense is is what we're discover is gonna be just purely incense. And so this is what would happen.

The high priest would go and take coals out of the burnt offering, the altar of burnt offering, the bronze altar, and would bring it and would use it to to ignite the incense and to stir it in order for it to bring that fragrance and to create a cloud. So when that high priest would go in to the most holy place, you read on in Leviticus 16. That cloud would cover the glory that would come from the mercy seat, lest the high priest dies. And remember, Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire. What's that altar of burnt offering represent again?

It represents the ministry of Jesus in one particular way. His what? His sacrifice on the cross. And you take the coals from that altar and you mingle them with the incense of God's people, and only then can you come into the presence of God. There are so many arguments of why Nadab and Abihu died when they brought strange fire, But we're gonna read that there is such thing as strange incense, and there's something called strange fire.

And I believe one solid argument is that they brought in a different source of coals of fire, and they mingled it with the incense, and that was a no no. Why? Because to take the coals of fire from that altar is to say that my prayers are only acceptable to God when they are mingled with the sanctifying work of Christ. Do you guys catch that? To take it from the altar of burnt offering is to say that my incense is only acceptable to God when it sits upon the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ.

Only then can I come into the presence of God? And the same way the high priest would die unless his source was from that altar alone. The same way you and I can have no life in God if we try to come before him even if you pray religious person apart from Christ's blood sanctifying your approach to him. This is prophetic. This is this is so gospel.

It's so loud here. So I believe one reason why Nadab and Abihu died in Leviticus 10 is they brought a different source of fry fire. They did not come from a place of the sanctifying work, the prophetic picture of the sanctifying work of Jesus. They came with a different source to try to approach God. And that was an insult to God because it was marring the work of Christ.

It was marring the message that God was supposed to bring through the tabernacle that only through the sacrificial work of my son can you enter into the holy of holies. And your prayers are futile. They are pointless if they are not married to the reality of what Jesus Christ has done for you and me. That's the that's the message that we have to get from that. And so there is an awesome privilege here, and the fact that they could go in once a year was a privilege, but we can come in every day.

And you and I can, wherever we are, seek God because we have a source, and it's not coals of fire. It's the precious blood of the lamb of God. Don't forget it next time you have a need and you need to come before God. He has supplied his blood for all time, for all people, at any place, any moment. I hope that still excites us.

It excites me. But there's a practice of this altar that is very important for us to understand. What does it say here in verse seven? And Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it when? Every morning when he dresses the lamps, he shall burn it.

And when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a regular incense offering before the lord throughout your generations. That's plain. Every morning, every night, continuous, consistent all the time. It's a it's a obvious command for the people of God to be in a place of prayer at all times. But you know what?

The priests face the same temptation that you and I do. And there's one place that shows it so obviously, and it's in a chapter in second Chronicles, chapter 29. When Hezekiah was in reign, when he was the king, he came to bring revival. He came to bring a reform. And he comes to the house of God to open the doors, and it says to clean all the filth in the house of God.

And it says something in verse seven of second Chronicles 29, if we can put it up. It it described the condition. Now remember, Israel under Hezekiah's reign, at least in the beginning, was in a backslidden state, compromising, living in a double standard. And this is one of the ways that the Bible describes the people of Israel. And the main reason why the people of Israel weren't compromised is because the leadership weren't compromised.

But look what it says in verse seven of second Chronicles 29. They also shut the doors and the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. Here's one great indication that a church has fallen into compromise. I don't care what they do. I don't care how many people go in there.

I don't care how special they are to the eyes of people. If there is no, at least one thing here we see, no burned incense, they're in a state of compromise. Disagree with me, but you're disagreeing with the Bible. If there's no prayer, doesn't matter what they're producing, they're missing a vital element for God to receive what is due unto him. Burned and and listen.

That's not just for the church. That's for the the individual too. The individual as well has to understand that if I neglect my own personal altar of incense, that's a great indication that something is going very, very wrong. So I have a question for all of you tonight. Is your altar of incense still warm from this morning's offering, or is it cold?

If I were to put my hands on that that little piece of furniture, if somebody were to put their hands on it, would it be cold? Would it be still? If I peeked into it, would I see cobwebs? Or could I could I still get a smell of that fragrance because it's been recently attended to? So you know what Hezekiah says to the priest?

In verse 11, he says something so powerful. I was chewing on this all week. My sons, do not be now negligent, for God has chosen you to stand in his presence and to be his ministers, to minister unto him, to be his ministers, and to make offerings to him. He goes, Levites, priests, don't be negligent now. Don't be negligent.

Why? Because God has chosen you to stand in his presence. There is an aspect of honor there. There is an aspect of responsibility there. There is an aspect of invitation there.

Don't be negligent now. What does that word negligent mean? To be easy, to be relaxing, to be to be casual with this thing. And here's a wonderful leader that looks at his people and he says, don't get lazy in this area. It's so easy to do it.

Listen. If it was possible for the priest, how much more for you and I? Don't avoid it. Don't don't skip out on it. Don't be negligent.

Attend to it. Keep it warm. Keep it burning. Protect it. Don't don't let it just don't let it just sit there.

But here's my conviction and the Bible's conviction as well is that it's not just attending to it. It's not just coming to a place in which, yes, we do it on a regular basis. It's doing it the way God prescribed us to do it. How do we know that? Well, look at verse nine.

You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it or a burnt offering or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. You know what that tells me? That I can have my altar of incense in place, and I can even use it. I can I can regularly attend to it? But all of it can be in vain because I've placed a different type of incense on it, and God is getting a different fragrance to which he actually prescribed.

You You know, there are people that can preach on prayer and the importance of it. There are people who can hold prayer conferences. There are people who even pray regularly, but all of it is corrupted. All of it is contaminated. It's polluted.

So even the priest could come to a place where they have it, they tend to it, they bring incense, but because it's the wrong type of incense, God does not accept it. It's unauthorized incense. It's not acceptable to God. And that solves a lot of problems for me theologically. I don't know about you because perhaps you've met some people who seem to be prayer warriors, but their character stinks.

Who can boast about how much they pray, but they're rotten with their lips. Who might have a reputation of fasting and praying and gathering people to pray, but nobody gets along with them. You know why? I'll tell you why. Because they're giving giving unauthorized incense.

It's not just praying. It's not just giving words to God every morning and every night whenever I can. That doesn't mean anything if the incense isn't right. If the recipe has not been met according to God's standard, it's a waste of time. What a shock people are gonna get at the judgment seat of Christ.

What a shock to realize that their prayers had come up and they only hit the ceiling just to come back down. There is a type of incense that God required. It's in the very same chapter in verse 34. Chapter 30 verse 34. Can somebody read it nice and loud and crisp?

Take sweet spices, stacked in almond, tonica, and galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices, and there shall be equal amounts of each. You shall make of these an incense, a compound according to the art of a humor, salted pure and whole.

Stop there. So it gives these different ingredients, but I I like the summary there at the last part. Pure and holy. Pure and holy. Hey, Levites.

I want something pure and holy when you put on that altar of incense. Keep going, brother.

And you shall beat some of it very fine. And put some of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of meeting, or I will meet you. It shall be most holy to you. But as for the incense which you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves according to his composition. It shall be to you holy for the Lord.

Whoever makes whoever makes any of it, to smell it, he shall cut off from his people.

So with the priesthood, they had to be attentive to the physical ingredients to that incense in that place. But priesthood, royal priesthood, you and I have been given spiritual ingredients to the incense that we give unto God, and we have to be just as attentive to it, lest we deceive ourselves and we pray prayers that are ineffective. I'm sure you're familiar with some scriptures and maybe some scriptures are coming to mind to how incense can be unauthorized before God. Is there any verses or any ideas that you know from the scripture that can take a person who actually prays but is not receiving it from God as a return. Yes.

You mistreat your wife. You mistreat your wife. That's a very specific one. First Peter three seven. Absolutely.

You know, you bark at your wife all day and then you come to the prayer meeting and you hit her and you push her around and you think God's gonna hear you. You're in trouble. There's some pollution in your incense. What else? When you regard iniquity in your heart.

When you regard iniquity in your heart, that's

a strong one. Psalm sixty six seventeen and eighteen. Yes. Yes, Mariana.

First Peter four seven, where it talks about therefore be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.

Self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Yes, Sandy. As they say,

when Jesus mentioned not to pray where you can be seen, but hide in your mouth.

Praying for the praise of man. Yes. Unforgiveness. Unforgiveness. So we're a priesthood that knows the ingredients.

I'm so happy to hear this.

Repeating prayers like pagans.

Praying like the pagans. Empty phrases and and just the string of words. Absolutely. And you guys touched on all of them. I'm sure there's more.

And so we're gonna we're gonna read these verses, and we're gonna unpack them a little bit. The first one is regarding or cherishing iniquity in my heart. Can somebody read Psalm 66 verse seventeen and eighteen? Psalm 66 verse seventeen and eighteen. We wanna know how we can give pure incense onto God, and we have to regard these specific ingredients because we don't wanna corrupt that incense.

We want it to be pure and holy. Psalm sixty six seventeen and eighteen, if you have it, just please declare it.

I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.

Stop there. That sounds like prayer, doesn't it? I cried out with my mouth and a high praise with my tongue. Go ahead.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

What do you guys think that verse means? Because somebody can take that to the extreme. Because remember, the devil is a deceiver, and many times he deceives Christians by making them think that their temptation is actually a sin. As long as you're in this body, you and I are gonna experience temptation. Doesn't matter what level of spirituality you reach, as long as you're in this flesh, you will have some weird thoughts popping up into your mind.

You will have visitations from wrong motives knocking on the door of your heart. As long it doesn't matter how much you graduate and grow in God, you always have that. And you and I need to be able to discern between temptation and sin. And as I believe Luther said it, you can't help the birds flying over your head, but you can do a lot about them planting a nest on your head. Makes all the difference.

Birds will fly over your head all the time. It's what you do with those birds. You're gonna let them sit on your head and build a nest and have eggs. It's the same thing with a thought. When a thought comes to your mind, what do you do with that thought?

And what you do with that thought determines whether it's an internal sin or whether it was just temptation. But what does it mean to cherish iniquity in my heart? Because if I cherish it, God's not gonna listen to me. And listen, nobody around me can see sin, but that's something that God can see. So I can fool everybody, but if I have this in my heart, God sees it, and he's not gonna hear me.

So I wanna know what cherish iniquity in my heart means.

Do we

have any ideas? Unforgiveness. Unforgiveness? That's part of it. Absolutely.

Yes.

It's like what you have said and you just say, this is who I am and it's part of my life and I'm just gonna live with that said in my life and still worship God.

Would you guys agree with that? Yes.

Finding no conviction over a particular sin.

Okay. Unrepentant. Unrepentant. That's a big one. Unrepentant.

Were you gonna say that? Any other ideas?

I think it's hiding and delighting in a private sin or a sin in your life.

Yes. I believe it's all of those things. It has to do with something in my heart that I know is there, but there seems to be no conviction, no sorrow over it. There seems to be no fight over it. There seems there seems to be a justification of it.

And I believe it's as simple as this, that if I love anything that God hates, he's not gonna hear me. It's just as simple as as that. So I have to make sure that as as I learn about God that I love the things that he loves and hates the things that he hates. And you know, we always pray and ask God, Lord, help me love you. Help me love the way you love.

Help me love people the way you love people. But very rarely do you hear people saying, help me hate the way you hate. Help me hate the way you hate. You can pray that prayer. I want to hate the things that you hate.

Lest I have one hand in something that you despise and one hand holding on to you and think that this thing is gonna work. And so you and I always have to as long as you have this, you're in a safe place. You are continually examining your heart and making sure that there is nothing in there challenging Christ from sitting on the throne of your affections. He's there alone. He belongs there alone.

Anything that would try to push him off, I'm gonna push away. You have no right in there. And so this this is what it looks like, continuous repentance. Not this introspection in which you slave over yourself always and you mix up temptation and sin and you got the wrong idea. But it's being able to discern when your heart begins to be attracted to something that is obviously not attractive to him, and being able to fight it off, and being able to reject it.

You know what that looks like in prayer? It looks like, Lord, I want nothing but you. There is nothing in heaven I desire beside you. There's nothing on earth I want but you. Lord, if there's anything in my heart, the psalmist says, who can discern his errors?

Declare me innocent from hidden faults and keep back your servant from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Psalms 19 verse twelve and fourteen. Then I shall be innocent or blameless and innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

You know what he says there? Lord, the things that I don't even see, would you put your light on it and show me? And if I see it, I'm gonna boot it out the door because I don't want nothing in me that would keep me from you. That's what that prayer looks like. And that's not up that's not again the slavish whipping yourself and saying, oh God please And always introspect.

No, no, no. It's just you come honestly with that kind of heart saying, Lord, if you ask me to let go of anything right here, right now, I'll do it. Here's my laptop. Delete it. I'll do it.

Here's anything. I'll get rid of it in any moment because because I cherish you and I cherish this more than anything else. But if I cherish it and I try to justify and I try to compromise and if I love the things that he hates, guess what's gonna happen? You got some polluted incense and you won't accept it. I needed somebody else to read Isaiah 58 verse two to verse five.

Isaiah 58 verse two to four rather. It's pretty lengthy. Thank you. But it's another insight. And the reason why I do this is because it's so it's so important to bring your own bibles guys.

Because when you come and we come to these scriptures, it's like you're you're able to map it out in your bible. So don't be dependent upon this too much. I'm so glad. I love to hear those pages flipping. It's so important.

So keep that in mind. Isaiah 58 verse two to four.

Approaching God.

Okay. Stop there. That sounds like an awesome group of people. I don't know about you. They delight to know my ways.

They draw near to me. They wanna know my righteous ways. Anybody would pay sometimes for people to be like that. This sounds like a very holy people. This sounds like a very good group of guys, but we have to keep reading because they have a complaint.

Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls and you take no notice? In fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit all all your labors. Indeed, you fast for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high.

You can stop right there. So we have a description of the behavior of the people. We have in verse three a complaint from those people, And then we have God after this verse describing why he is not going to answer them. Though they evil mingled not just their prayers, but fasting and prayer. That's an intense devotion.

And they express and they're obviously displaying some kind of pursuit towards God. But you know what God said? This type of fasting, I'm not gonna hear your voice. You have to read on to see why. It's because they're oppressing others and they're beating other people up and they're punching other people.

And he's like, what is this? Is this a fast that I've ordained? Is this a fast that I've called you to? So that tells me something else about unauthorized fire. It tells me this, that if I treat other people like garbage and think that I can have a prayer life that's gonna be effective, I'm fooling myself.

One preacher said it this way, you can't live wrong and pray right. So many people think they can. As though God is like some vending machine that if I just push the right buttons, I'm gonna get what I'm asking for, though I can live however I want. And God says, you completely missed it. This is not a fast that I've asked for.

You thought that you thought that fasting was just starving yourself and making some time of of seeking me and humility and having some dirt on your head? He goes, why don't you go and feed the hungry? And why don't you treat each other with love? This is the fast that I'm asking for. And so you and I, if we wanna bring authorized fire, authorized incense before God, have to continually be in a place of examining how we're treating others.

Our brother mentioned it, unforgiveness, treating our wives right, being in a place in which there's harmony at all times, examining to say, is there is there anybody that I'm not at peace with? The Bible tells us to strive with peace and for peace with all men as long as it's possible. And so I I can't expect and you would be amazed of how many people have convinced themselves that they can just talk how they wanna talk and and just do what they wanna do and do shady business deals and do all these other things and think they can come before God and God's gonna say I've been waiting for you. God says, go and clean your act up first and then we can have this conversation. And then we can actually I'm willing to answer you, but not at the expense of you living how you want.

How would that look like to the world? He's a person treating other people like junk, but God answers his prayers. God hears this man's prayers, but he treats anybody like animals. He goes, no. So you and I also, whenever we come to that place, have to realize, is there something that I've done to others, or is there something that I said that I shouldn't have said?

Is there unresolved issues? Now I know this isn't as black and white as we would like it to be, but all it is is a call to look at my hands and and look at my record of speech and and be able to just simply examine and say, okay, Lord. If there's something that I need to deal with others before I come and deal with you, just show me. This is powerful. This shows something about the privilege of prayer.

As much as it is a privilege, it's not automatic. It gets even more nitty gritty than this. Oh, God has a recipe for his incense. Can somebody read Matthew chapter six verse five? Matthew chapter six verse five.

When you pray, you should not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues, down the streets, that they may be seen and met. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their word. With you, when you pray, go into your room.

And when you have, shut the door.

Pray to your father who is in the secret place, Your father who sees in secret will warn you openly.

Verse five. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love they don't love to pray to know God. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues, why, and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. This this is a scary sentence. Truly, I say to you, they have received the reward in full.

That them being seen by others is actually their reward. Because that's why they're doing it in the first place and because they've done it for that reason, God is fully aware for us. So he goes, you got what you asked for. And we have to we have to read this slow. We have to divide this in two here.

Well, we're gonna divide it in Matthew chapter six seven as you read it. But when you go back to Exodus 30 verse eight 38, as we read about the incense, the physical incense, there is that last instruction. It says, whoever makes any like it we're talking about the physical incense. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people. I find that astounding that those who would take what belonged to God and use it for their own gain have stepped out of line.

Why else would you put on perfume other than for other people to recognize it? And you relate that to prayer, I believe that is an insight to Matthew chapter six verse five that there are some people who take their own incense and they use it only for others to smell it. When God said this belongs to me alone. And so when I take that incense and I implement it for other people to recognize it and not for God to recognize it, I've received my reward in full. So here's some practical advice when you come to corporate prayer or even private prayer because there are some people who pray privately only, only for others to know that they pray privately.

You're saying, are you serious? I'm serious. When you pray in any setting, would you do this exercise in your heart? Would you just be still my soul and just inwardly gaze at him and realize that your words right now are being said to him. How how much does this happen during worship services?

Where there are things on the screen that people may not even know about, but they just say it anyway. It becomes robotic. It becomes mechanical. And and it just proves that sometimes we can just get into this thing of just doing it for the sake of doing it. But to be honest, sometimes if I read a word or if there's something on the screen that I don't agree with, I'm not saying it.

Because I'm not saying it for other people, I'm saying it to God. And so if there's something there that I don't agree with, I remember my teacher said this. He goes, you know, many times I find myself with my hands folded and just silent, not because I don't wanna sing, because I don't agree with the theology on the screen. And so I think that's a mature way of handling it because you are realizing that your words are you're not just saying things. You're saying it to him.

These words are channeled to him, and I wanna make I wanna make sure I'm saying the right things to him. Now, when we think about it this way, we it's really convicting, isn't it? When we really think about it this way, what Jesus asks us for, he this is what he's saying, lest we take the perfume and we put it on ourselves so that other people can smell it. But this incense is not for you to smell good. It's not for people to praise you or acknowledge you.

This incense belongs to him. And so remind yourself of that privately and corporately. Lord, I'm here and I'm giving you this for you. I'm not putting this on myself. I'm not taking this so I can I can I can step out and everybody can oh, wow?

You're a prayerful person. I could care less. If that's my reward, what a waste of time. What a waste of energy. But you know what?

Believe it or not, there are some people that love it, and that's why that's all they get. They are so bound by the praise of man that when they pray publicly, they pray so that people can recognize how spiritual they are. And you and I have to catch ourselves in that. You know what that thought process looks like? I'm gonna say this next thing, and it's gonna impress people as you're praying.

I'm gonna say this so that when after I say it, people go, mhmm. Yeah. Amen. So deep. You know what Jesus says?

You received your reward in full. Now if people do that while you're talking to God, that's completely up to them, but you stay focused on him. Lord, I'm here to worship you. I'm here to pray to you. And you know what happens to your words?

They become weightier. You know what happens to your words? They're careful. That doesn't end there. Verse seven.

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. There's two things here. There's empty phrases, and there's prayers that are purposed for length. Empty phrases. You know what that's like?

That's like going to the physical incense, and when God is asking for rich ingredients, you come and you give fake ones. That's like coming to God in the physical with these incenses and you're and you're bringing before plastic plastic stuff. It's hollow. It's fake. It looks it looks real, but it has no value and it doesn't produce true fragrance.

Empty phrases. What what does that mean? It can mean so many things, but I think one of the things it means is you're not thinking what you're saying. You're just rambling and rambling and rambling, whether privately or corporately, it's just words. The heart is not connected to the to the speech.

The mind is not connected to the heart and it's not connected to the words. It's just heaps of phrases for the sake of saying it. God says, please don't do that because pagans do that. Pagans think that if they just say anything before God, that God is so lonely, that God is so needy that he'll say, oh, yes. I need to hear that.

Thank you for giving me attention. And God's saying, you know, I'm a person and I'm real and you probably bumped into somebody or you had a conversation with somebody, and you can tell that they are not engaged at all. And you think to yourself, this isn't gonna go far. And god says, I don't want fake ingredients. I want real ingredients.

I want true genuine language from you, not just empty phrases. We should make sure that our incense is not polluted with such things or contaminated. This is a scary one here in verse seven. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. There are some people that think that the longer they pray, the more spiritual they are.

Many people think that. And they've convinced themselves that the quantity is of more value than the quality. And so this is where their attention is. My attention is that I'm gonna give my time of prayer to meet that time. And it's about meeting that time, making sure that alarm goes off so that I can walk out knowing that I hit that forty five minute mark or I I hit that one hour and a half mark.

All the while and I I am not against please hear me. I'm not against disciplining your time, especially if you have a busy schedule and you say, I'm gonna give an hour to pray. I'm not against that. What I am saying and what the Bible is saying is that when you think that that God is looking for that or that you just giving time to him, but all the while you're disengaged, you're distracted, you're heaping up empty phrases, but you leave satisfied because you hit a specific time, God goes, I'm not in it for that. And I believe God's heart is this, that I'd rather have you pray five minutes that means something to 50 that means nothing.

Now that that that bothers us. Because we think spiritual giants pray for x amount of hours. And listen, if you pray x amount of hours, but all of it is meaningful and engaging and true, pray as long as you want. But if your ambition is just to pray for a certain time just so you can pray for a certain time because God is only gonna hear you if you pray for a certain time, you don't understand who God is. God is not looking for that.

Now this also isn't a call for minimum time for God because God isn't listen. God is not a vending machine. He's a person. Give to him what you can give to him. I love what brother Keith said.

He goes, why pray for two hours if you keep falling asleep on your knees? Why? What's the point of that? He goes, give him time in which you give him your attention. Not so you can just say that you cross the line of two hours, all the while you have drool dried on the side of your mouth, and you leave there not knowing what you even said.

He goes, the pagans do that. Don't be like the pagans. You're offering unauthorized incense. Be real with him. And I get it.

I can testify it too that sometimes you gotta snap yourself back into it. That's fine. But you know what? You and I have to be focused on the content of our prayer, not the length of it. So Lord, I'm here because I have I have some specific specific needs, specific people that I need to touch on.

And you know what a great thing to do especially if you have free time, whether this is on a weekend. I know weekdays you have met have to be a little bit more, you know, strict with your time. Put away the clock. Put away so you're not saying, oh, it's only been forty five minutes. I prayed for everything, but I need one hour so so people can know that I prayed for an hour.

Who cares? If it was forty five minutes and you felt like you and God had your time together, that's it. If it was an hour and a half, that's great. But God is looking for a heart connection. Can you imagine meeting with somebody and just saying one hour?

Again, this is not I'm not I'm not against you organizing your time and saying from six to seven in the morning, I'm gonna give devotion time. I'm saying if you keep looking back at the clock and you have no idea what you're saying just to say that you did it for an hour, you've missed it. We've all missed it. It's amazing how even our prayers can become corrupt. And that's why when you go back to Exodus 30, verse 10 is there.

What does verse 10 say of Exodus 30? Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement, he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the lord. You know what I get out of that?

Even our prayers need to be washed in the blood. You know, we think that we need to repent and ask for forgiveness for our lack of praying. That's true. But there's another seeking of forgiveness that we need, and that's the way we pray. He says take some of the blood and put it on the altar of incense.

Why? Because even your prayers need to be sanctified by his grace. Even your prayers can become corrupt and contaminated. And you and I not only need to come to him and say, god, forgive me for not seeking your face, but god, forgive me for the way I've been seeking your face. Forgive me for giving you empty phrases.

Forgive me for giving you a faulty devotion when I really want the praise of other people. Cleanse my prayer life in the blood. From time to time, we have to examine ourselves and say, man, is there contamination in my prayer life? If so, Lord, wash me in your blood. Here's my altar of incense.

It needs to be cleansed, not for my lack of attention to it, but because of the way I've been putting incense on it. And you know what? He's more than willing to. This is how sinful we are. I know other places will tell you and I how awesome we are, but we're not awesome.

The only awesome thing we have is Christ Jesus in us and what Christ has done for us. Yes. God loves us. I praise him for that. But isn't it isn't it amazing that even our pursuit of holiness can be contaminated?

Even our prayer life can be tainted. So I'm only I'm saying, Lord, I want my prayer life to be holy and pure. I'm not satisfied with just doing it. I'm not just satisfied with the altar itself and just putting whatever I want on it. No.

No. No. Give me the ingredients. And you know how you know the ingredients? You get familiar with the word.

This is the road map into the presence of God.

You and I can't just choose how we wanna handle that altar. There are specific instructions how we do it.

And there's one more thing worth mentioning because there's another way of mishandling the altar of incense. It's found in verse nine. You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it or this is powerful. Or a burnt offering or a grain offering and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. What do you get out of that when you see that?

Our other works cannot substitute prayer.

Bingo. You know what he said? You know what God is saying here? This altar is exclusive for incense. Don't try to put burnt offerings on it or a drink offering or a grain offering.

Meaning, don't replace this with other acts of worship. All those other things have the respective times and the respective purposes, but I want you to block out. I want you to have your own altar of incense and don't justify your lack of using it by trying to supplement it with other ways of serving me. So many do that. Well, I don't pray and the our church doesn't pray.

Why? Oh, we're so busy with evangelism. We're so busy with choir, and we're so busy with the teaching ministry. Really? Because my Bible tells me not to supplement it or to cover it with other offerings.

He doesn't say don't offer those things. He says don't let those other things bury this. Why? Because it means so much to him. And we eliminate that incense coming before his throne by giving giving him something else.

And he says, I want those things. We've read about those different things but don't let that thing be buried by other acts of worship, other ways of serving me. That's why you hear all the time from here that Wednesday is of great importance. Because it's my opinion. No.

It's because the Bible says don't put any other offering on it. Guard it, fight for it, and that's the temptation. The temptation is to say, you know what God really wants? God really wants sacrifice. He wants burnt offerings.

He really wants grain offerings and drink offering. He goes, I just want some incense. I want some incense. And it seems so little. Right?

I mean, it's a little thing. If you measure it compared to the other furnishings, it seems so small, so insignificant, and God says don't replace it. I love it when my people pray.

I'm drawn to my people when they pray. I want to be with my people when they pray.

And that's the great temptation in your life. Realize that. Realize that. Remember, preacher said that it takes greater discipline to pray than for him to study the word of God. Studying the word of God is doesn't require really much discipline for him, he said.

I love to find new information. I love to find new truths. I love to find myself facing the scriptures, but it's a whole another thing when I wrestle with God in intercession. Isn't that amazing? We we we can all we probably can even sense it in our hearts if we were to list the things of importance.

Prayer is probably not top. I'm talking in a corporate setting. But you know what happens when you pray? Though you don't enter heaven, your prayers do enter heaven. We will enter heaven one day, but our prayers from this side of eternity, they actually come before his throne.

And he gathers it, and he keeps them, and he collects them. He treasures them. That's what happens when you come here on Wednesday. That's what happens from this church. There's incense rising before heaven.

That's what happens when you're in your room by yourself. So he goes, I'm not saying don't do burnt offerings. I'm saying don't take care of the table of showbread. I'm not saying don't take care of the lamp. I'm just saying don't let those things bury this thing.

Remember that next time you're faced with a temptation to neglect it. And remember second Chronicles twenty nine eleven, do not be negligent now, my sons, for God has chosen you to stand in his presence. God chose me to stand in his presence. And all you and I have to do is make sure that we're giving him the right type of incense saying, lord, help me believe that this pleases you. Help me believe that this is a delight to you.

Help me believe that this is worship to you. Help me give you something of worth. Let me not think that if I just give you anything, you're you're satisfied with it, like some needy person, but that you want authenticity and genuine conversation. And if you find yourself, brothers and sisters, doing that into and you feel like it's I'm just giving random time. Two hours and you feel like it's going nowhere, maybe you should spend less time.

I'm sure you will not hear that a lot.

Less time, more value. If that's if that's how it's gonna result, that's fine. You go for it because that's what Jesus asked for. Because the pagans thinks that if I give

a lot of time, I'm gonna get God's attention. And God says, I'm not like those pagan gods. I want real conversation.

I don't want noise.

I don't want just words. I don't want just a time slot to be filled. Would you just open your heart to me?

Would you just not look at the time? Yes. If you're if you're in a busy schedule, that's fine. It's amazing you talk to some people that are very busy, and when they really engage with God, they go, man. I don't have enough time to be with God.

I might have to wake up earlier because I'm just enjoying his presence so much. Yeah. Some days are harder than others. I'd be lying to you to say that we can't fight the flesh and we have to fight the flesh sometimes, fully aware of that. I'm talking about just this ritualistic mechanic, just checking off the list, and you left not knowing that you poured your heart out before God.

You left knowing that you checked off forty five minutes. God is asking for his people to come back to prayer. I sent I sent Phoebe a picture, though. They popped up on my laptop somehow. It was one of the it was one of the Fridays it was one of the Fridays here before we had anything.

It was when we still had that PowerPoint thing, the screen there that was taking the projection, and it was just one picture. It was that Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving one. Right? And this room was packed with people praying. That's what the picture was.

And I looked at that picture. I sent it to Phoebe, but I looked at it and I said, Lord, don't let this die. Don't be negligent now. God has chosen you to stand in his presence. How's your altar of incense looking?

And even if it's there, what kind of incense are you putting on it? Let's pray. Let's put into practice what we just heard. You know, David said in many times, I'm paraphrasing, but be still my soul. I set my heart to seek the Lord.

You know what that means? I'm not letting it do what it wants. I am posturing myself to seek God, whether corporately or privately. And just do that, would you, in this place? How can we hear bible study on prayer and not pray?

What an oxymoron. What a contradiction. Let's practice what we learned. Here's my heart, lord, and here's the right incense on it. I believe that this pleases you, Lord, according to your word.

Would you find it within yourself to even pray for this house that the altar of incense of this temple would not be neglected by God's people, but that it would be regularly attended to. This might sound very childish, but I sometimes look at scripture like this and I always try to visualize it. What does it look like spiritually when God's people pray? I could be way off and I'm not saying this is bible. I'm just being transparent with you.

Is there like a is there incense? Does it look like incense before God? And when a house like this prays, is there like a cloud of smoke that comes before him? What does it look like? I'm not trying to be silly.

I'm just I'm just trying to give some imagery to what we're doing here. But he makes a clear picture that he gathers them in golden bowls. He values it so much when his people pray. Would you stand before we sing and just let's pray together? Let's attend to this altar of incense and put pure incense on it.

Lord, we come before you, and we're praying not for others to hear, Lord. We're we're praying to you. We look to you, God. We believe that you are on your throne, that your son is sitting at your right hand, and that your spirit is in this place. And God, as we look to you, we say, would you help us not be negligent, Lord, towards our own personal altar of incense, God.

Help us look at it that way that every time we wake up it's like coming to that piece of furniture and putting fresh incense on it and for it to rise up before you. But Lord, this is of so much more value. You desire for it to come from our hearts and Lord, we come before you and we say, would you be pleased with what you smell in this place? That what comes and ascends from this house to heaven would be authorized. It'd be something that you would be pleased with.

Thank you for prayer. Thank you that we just learned it's an act of worship but there are so many other things that are involved with it. But Lord, for now we want to make sure that you are pleased with what you hear. And we say, Lord, give us the discernment and the wisdom to be able to know how to examine the incense that we bring to you, Not to be overly legalistic and introspective but also not to be so loose with it that we have no idea what we're doing. Help us be real.

Help us be like your children who call you father and to really believe that we're talking to our heavenly father when we speak. Help us believe that you put a premium on quality and not quantity. If that's been a burden on anybody here, Lord, may that just lift off tonight That they measure their spirituality or the effectiveness of their prayer life based on the length of time when there is no substance to it. Lord, we pray that the time would come and would expand naturally as the substance is given attention to. That the length of time will will just naturally blossom when we just give you what you're asking for.

That the reason why we would even give more length of time is because we're so engaged and we're so involved and we're so caught up with you that we want to we want to stay in longer, not so we can say that we spend a specific amount of time. Lord, would you receive our worship? Would you receive our worship in this place? Thank you for sanctifying us. Thank you that even not just in our absence of prayer but in the way we pray we can actually have assurance that your blood cleanses it and makes it white as snow.

So Lord, cleanse all of our prayer lives. May it be free from contamination, and may you show us what needs to go, what needs to stay, whatever needs to happen for it to be a sweet smelling sacrifice. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, who apart from him, we cannot enter into the holy of holies even if we do pray. Amen.