Transcription
Hey my friend, welcome back to part four in our series going through the Old Testament Tabernacle of Moses in 3D.
Now, in the last video, we took a look at the bronze altar of sacrifice. This was where the Old Testament worshipper would bring an innocent animal, and that worshipper would lay their hands on the head of that animal, identifying with that animal, thus transferring the guilt of their sin onto the innocent animal so that they could experience forgiveness and atonement. This was symbolic of the finished work of Jesus Christ as he offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins once and for all.
So just to be clear, the bronze altar of sacrifice was symbolic of our conversion. But now, as we travel a little bit further, the next piece of furniture that we encounter is called the bronze laver. That, my friend, is symbolic of our cleansing, which is essential before we come into the presence of God.
Now why is this important? Because as the priests were going about their work, they had hands stained with blood, and their feet were dirty and dusty from the dirt in the tabernacle's outer court. They couldn’t go into God's holy presence in that shape. As a result, God placed a basin of water in between the altar of sacrifice and the tent of meeting—or the holy place—where he said, “Hey, before you come any further, you have to wash yourselves up before you get into my presence.”
And my friend, in the same way, whenever we go through life, we’re going to get dirty. We’re going to have a lustful thought, we’re going to have an angry thought, we might go off on people, and we may even curse some people out. We may have unforgiving thoughts in our hearts and minds; we may think things that we shouldn’t think.
The question is: how do we experience that cleansing power so that we can have fellowship with God? So I’m going to read about this bronze basin, and then I’m going to give you a 3D tour to show you exactly how it may have looked at that time.
Notice it says here: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a bronze wash basin with a bronze stand; place it between the tabernacle and the altar, and fill it with water.’” So once again, as you're going to see in just a moment, you have the bronze altar of sacrifice, then you have the washing bin, and then after that was the tent of meeting or the tabernacle proper, where you could actually go into the holy place.
Now let’s keep reading: “Aaron and his sons will wash their hands and feet there. They must wash with water whenever they go into the tabernacle to appear before the Lord, and when they approach the altar to burn up their special gifts to the Lord, or they will die.”
Now this is obviously very important to God because God said, “If you don’t do this, you are going to die.”
Now let me show you a 3D tour of this bronze laver. As you can see here, you have the bronze altar of sacrifice, and after they left there, the priests would then go and wash themselves in this bronze laver so that they could be cleansed before they were to actually enter into this holy place, which is what we’re going to talk about in the next video.
Now once again, if you were an Old Testament believer, the furthest that you could go would be the altar of sacrifice. Only priests were permitted to go any further in the tabernacle.
Now I bring that up because in those days there was a distinction between the priests and the individuals. In our day, the Bible says that we are all priests, which I’m going to show you in just a second. Why do I bring that up? I bring that up because so many Christians will use the excuse and say, “Well, I’m not a pastor. I’m not a preacher. I’m not a leader,” and therefore, they think they can do things or get away with things that a pastor or preacher can’t.
And my suggestion today is, my friend, we are all priests, and God holds us all accountable. Notice what it says here in 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people, you are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
Revelation 1:6 says, “He has made us a kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever. Amen.”
That means that God holds us all accountable as priests, and we are all able to equally enter into the presence of God because he’s called us all out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Now with all of that out of the way, how can we as believers not just be content with conversion, like most Christians, but how can we actually experience the cleansing power of our sin as we enter into the presence of God?
Well, I’m going to give you three steps in this video.
Step number one is examination. We have to examine ourselves, and I want you to notice this: notice what it says here in Exodus 38:8. It says here: “Bezalel made the bronze wash basin and its bronze stand from bronze mirrors donated by the women who served at the entrance of the tabernacle.”
You know where I’m going with this? Check this out. Many scholars believe that the priests were able to see their reflection in the water and in these mirrors, so that as they looked at themselves, they were able to see the dirt on their face; they were able to see that their hands and their feet were dirty because they were looking into these bronze mirrors.
In the same way, if we are going to experience the cleansing that God desires, we have to first understand where we are dirty. The only way to understand that, my friend, is through the Word of God.
Let me show you what James says, and you're going to see the parallel between the New Testament and the Old Testament. James says this: “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey it, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.”
Oh, let’s just stop right there! Do you see that? Right here is the same word being used, and the imagery and the symbolism is the same. In the Old Testament, the priest had to look at himself and examine himself in this bronze basin made with mirrors, and they were able to see the dirt on their hands and on their feet and more than likely on their face.
James comes back and says, “Hey, if you want to really see how dirty you are, you need to look into the mirror, which is the Word of God.”
Let’s keep going. “You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
Now, James isn’t the only person that compares water and the cleansing power of water to the Word of God. Paul also says this: “He says, for husbands, this means love your wives just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean. How did he do that? He washed by the cleansing of God’s Word.”
Why did he do that? “He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.”
You see, the Word of God reveals the areas in our life where we need to experience cleansing. This is the main reason why most Christians don’t experience the cleansing. Because they don’t look into the Word of God enough as a mirror. The Word of God holds up a mirror for us to see our lust, to see our unforgiveness, to see our anger, to see our bitterness.
Listen, whenever we get saved, God shows us the sins that look like stones. But whenever we become sanctified, God begins to show us the sins that look like sand. That’s the big difference between somebody who's just converted and somebody who is experiencing cleansing.
When you’re just converted, God shows you the big sins, right? The adultery, the murder, the stealing, the lying, all that stuff, sex before marriage, pornography. But whenever you become sanctified, he begins to show you those sins that look like sand.
Oh man, I need to forgive somebody today. Oh, I should have asked for forgiveness. I should have apologized to that person. I should have kept my mouth shut when the Holy Spirit was prompting me. All of those different things are what we can experience when we look into the Word of God.
But step number two is probably one of my most favorite. Not only do we need to examine ourselves in order to become cleansed, but here it is: don’t miss this—we have to take action. We have to take action.
I want you to notice something here. God did not make these priests wash themselves; he told them that they had to wash themselves. God didn’t do it for them; they had to do it for themselves. He says, “I’m going to provide the water; I’m going to provide the basin; I’m going to provide everything that you need in order to get cleansed. But at the end of the day, Mr. Priest, you have to cleanse yourself.”
In the same way, the New Testament teaches us that if we’re going to experience cleansing, we have to rid ourselves of those things that are causing us to be dirty.
Notice what it says here: “Now in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.”
Man, I could unpack that for like the next 10 minutes, but I’ll just say this: in the same way that the priests were not able to go about their priestly duties with blood-stained hands and soiled feet, you and I aren’t able to do our ministry—whether it’s evangelism, discipleship, teaching, encouraging, whatever your gift is—we're not able to do it effectively when we have blood-stained hands and dirt on our feet and we’re just basically dirty.
This is the reason why God says, “I want to use you as a vessel, but you have to cleanse yourself. He says, ‘I’ll provide the water of the Word of God, but this is something that you have to do.’” Many of us are praying and waiting for God to cleanse us when God is waiting for us to cleanse ourselves of the filth that we allow ourselves to get involved in.
Now, number one, you’ve got to examine yourself if you want to experience cleansing. Number two, you have to take action; you have to do something to turn away from whatever it is that is causing you to be dirty.
And number three, you have to receive the cleansing of Jesus Christ over your life. My friend, many of us are walking in darkness because we don’t believe that the Lord wants to cleanse us.
Notice what Jesus says in John chapter 13, which once again is symbolic and points back to the Old Testament. It says here, “And poured water into a basin.” Now what’s the word that we saw in the book of Exodus that represents the bronze laver? A basin, a wash basin.
Notice it says this: “Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.” When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but someday you will.”
No, Peter protested, “You will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”
Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash except for the feet to be entirely clean, and you disciples are clean, but not all of you.”
Now I need to unpack that because that’s very confusing. Here’s what Jesus was basically saying. Let’s say you take a shower in the morning, and you go out and you get some dirt on your hand or you get some dirt on your face. Do you go back home and take a whole shower again? No, you go to the bathroom and you wash your hands off. You wash your face. Why? Because you’re already clean.
In the same way, Jesus says, “Look, Peter, I don’t need to wash your head; I don’t need to give you a full bath because you’re already clean. I’m washing your hands and feet—or, excuse me, I’m washing your feet—as a symbol of just the cleansing that you need to have.”
In the same way, God says, “Look, whenever you sin, whenever you lust, whenever you look at something that you shouldn’t look at, whenever you have sex before marriage, whatever it is that you’re struggling with, you don’t have to get saved all over again. You’re already clean; you’re already washed. You just need to wash your hands and your feet. You need to receive the forgiving power that I’m giving you as a result of the bronze altar of sacrifice—the sacrifice that I made on your behalf.”
That’s why I said you’re already clean, right? You just need to experience confession and repentance of your sin so that we can have fellowship again.
Now the last thing I want to look at is this: notice it says that if they didn’t do this, that they would die. My friend, that is how important it is for us to experience the cleansing power of God in our lives. Because when we don’t, we experience death. Our dreams begin to die, our relationships begin to die, our ministries begin to die, and the anointing that God has on our lives can be greatly diminished when we don’t experience the cleansing power.
But the good news is this: for many of the other pieces of furniture in the tabernacle, they gave dimensions for how big to make these pieces of furniture. The interesting thing about the bronze laver? No measurements and no dimensions were given.
My friend, that is symbolic of the fact that there is no measure to God’s cleansing power. There is no limit to what God can or cannot cleanse you from. No matter what you’ve done, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter where you’ve gone, no matter how dirty your feet are (which represents where you’re going), no matter how dirty your hands are (which represents what you’re doing), there is no limit—there is no measure—to what God can do to cleanse you of your sin.
So my friend, hopefully, you found that video helpful. In the next video, we’re going to now go into the holy place for the first time, and we’re going to take a look at the golden lampstand. You do not want to miss that video; it’s coming up next in two days.
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Thank you so much for watching; I’ll see you next time on The Beat.