The Incense

“And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon; of shittim wood shalt thou make it. A cubit shall be the lengtn thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof: foursquare shall it be: and two cubits shall be the height thereof: the horns thereof shall be of the same. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof round about, and the.horns thereof: and thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about. And two golden rings shalt thou make to it under the crown of it, by the two corners thereof, upon the two sides of it shalt thou make it; and they shall be for places for the staves to bear it withal. And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning: when he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it; a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon. And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it, throughout your generations: it is most holy unto the Lord.” ‘ And the Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices. with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like weight: And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together. pure and holy: And thou shalt beat some of it very small. and put it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy. And as for the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord. Whosoever shalk make like unto that. to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.” Ex. xxx: 1-11 and 34-end.

HIS is an account of the altar of incense, the golden altar. It was the

third article of furniture in the sanctuary, and stood at the farther end of the Holy Place, as you enter the inner shrine, the Holy of*Holies. There, over against the costly curtains, stood this altar; and when the incense was burning upon it, it filled both chambers and made them fragrant

with its perfume. It was very simple in its construction; three feet in height, and eighteen inches in breadth; made of costly acacia wood, and covered with a crown of gold around to keep the incense from falling off. The incense itself was most costly and precious, possessing special sacredness, and preserved by Divine sanctions from being counterfeited, or even ordinary use.

What was the special symbolism of this little altar in the ancient worship

First, it represented Christ’s intercession for us; and also our intercession in the name of Christ. It is expressive of prayer and communion with God. There is something in the sense of smell, which is perhaps finer than any other of the senses. The perfume which this sense appropriates is almost like the breath of Nature, expressing, it would almost seem, the finer sensibilities of the soul of the natural world. And so fragrance has become the expression of the very outbreathing of prayer and love. The sweet breath of burning spices speaks. of the sweeter breath of prayer, and is the chosen emblem of the heart’s homage to our heavenly Father.

But, as the very highest example of prayer is the Son of man, so first it stands for the prayers of Jesus Christ. All through His life we see Him praying; and as His life is closing, it becomes the culmination of His ministry. As He crosses the brook Kedron, He is in prayer. In the garden |He prays; on the cross He prays ;and as He passes from earth, we know He is exalted at God’s right hand, there to engage in the unceasing work of intercession; for He ‘‘ ever liveth to make intercession for us.”

So, on this ancient altar, the ascending incense continually filling the sacred chamber, was the type of Christ. His whole being was one breath of love, sweetness and consecration to God, and remembrance of us His dear children. And, expressive thus of His intercession, it fittingly becomes the example for our imitation and the pattern of our prayer; of our communion with God; of that sacred place where ‘“‘spirits blend, and friend holds fellowship with friend,” and where every heavenly blessing can be brought down by the prayer of faith. Let us think in connection with this altar of these two things, of Christ who at God’s right hand is remembering you and me, and on His uplifted hands presenting our names for acceptance with God; and also of our spirit’s communion with God. Sweeter than the air of that ancient tabernacle may your whole spirit be baptised, your inmost being perfumed with devotion until God will come down to dwell in the delightful place; and they shall gather, as we read in the book of Revelations, in phials, the prayers of the saints, as sweet odors with which He refreshes even His own heart, amid the glories of the celestial courts.

Now, then, all the lessons connected with this ancient altar may be applied to these two thoughts — Christ’s intercession for us, and our prayers and intercessions in His name.

1. The altar was of incorruptible wood and incorruptible gold.

Our blessed Lord has a two-fold nature. He is divine, and yet he has a perfect humanity. The wood represents His. humanity; the gold His divinity. So the believer has a human and a divine nature; human, and yet a partaker of the divine nature. If you have received the cleansing and sanctifying nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, you may claim participation in this double life. It is indeed a great mystery. It would be an awful blasphemy, if not founded on His Word. But every Christian is born of God. His new nature, like that acacia wood, is incorruptible, and like that more precious gold, he possesses the very life and spirit of the Deity Himself.

2. Again, the altar ‘was the highest object in the tabernacle, several inches higher than the table of shew bread, than the laver, or the brazen altar of sacrifice; showing us that prayer is the most exalted ministry in the universe; and that you get higher when you get down on your knees, than at any other time in your existence.

38. Again, this altar was crowned. We observed how the table was crowned. So was this altar. It means that Christ as our High Priest, is a crowned Priest. He is not pleading with uncertainty, but with victory. He is not saying: ‘‘I wish it might be;” but: ‘‘ Father, I will that those which thou has given me be with me.” Father, I will that Peter’s faith fail not. Father, I will that this child shall

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overcome to-day. And they shall; it isa royal priesthood and it is for you to day, beloved. So, dear ones, you too have a royal priesthood.* You can come into the presence of God, crowned. You can feel you are so near the King that you can ask special favors, and thus your prayer be a constant ministry for others. Oh, that you might realize this, and, like Esther before Ahasuerus, know that you have the power to claim blessing for those who have not the power. Lord help us to be true to this ministry; this authoritative asking; this crowned priesthood of which the Master says: “‘When ye pray, believe that ye receive the things that you ask, and ye shall have them.” ‘‘ Thus saith the Lord concerning my servants, Command ye me.” ‘‘ Whosoever shall say unto this mountain: be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” It is the royal scepter of intercession, and Jesus says to us: ‘‘ [have ordained that ye shall go forth and bring forth fruit, and that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name He may give it you.” He expects you to triumph in this ministry, to take up the crown of prayer which He wears, and shares with you.

4, Again, the next thing about this altar was the horns. It had four, one on each corner, pointing to the four points of the compass, and to the different camps of Israel. There were four great camps; and so the prayer of our Lord reaches north, and south, and east and west. It is for all His people, and for all the ages of His church; and for all the quarters of the globe where they may be; for nowhere can we be isolated from His sympathy, and His victorious help. It reaches us this morning; it is pointing this very moment to your need, and saying, ‘‘ Father deliver!

Father give the victory! Oh, think of that. horned altar, the symbol of victory over your enemies? and claiming triumph for us. Rise up, and praise and trust Him for it.

So should it be with our prayers: we must be very wide in the circle of our prayer; keep out of the ruts of selfishness. We must enlarge our souls. A brother said the other afternoon: ‘‘I have found the outlet — to pray for others.””» When your heart is pent up and likely to burst, this is the outlet — pray for somebody else. Let your sympathy be very wide; let it have its objects in every land and on every continent. You can have souls in Africa, as well as here, and if every moment of your life is spent in prayer, you shall find when you get home that you have multitudes of souls. Prayer is the greatest of our ministries. It is much more than preaching. Your position in the pews is not less important than mine. Iam sure that even in our work, that is the best thing we do

for God. Iremember a service in the West from which I saw no fruits. I had prayed so much for this particular work and yet it seemed vain. In rather a tired moment yesterday, I took up some letters, and I found such wonderful testimony from that meeting of one and another that had been saved there; had gone from that place stricken with a sense of guilt, and spoken to others, and, they too had been saved. Then I felt, in the work of the Gospel there is no power but God; we must trust Him, and expect the things we ask. The great question is — what is God going to do? It is very little matter how you are going to be impressed by what man may say, whether it seems very bright or very dull; but how is the Holy Ghost going to make you feel your need, and arouse you to victory? It is the Holy Ghost claimed by prayer, that is the secret of success, 5. Again, there were rings on this golden altar by which it was carried from place to place. Iam so glad of that. It was not stationary at one point so that people had to make pilgrimages to it, but it went with the camp. So it is with us. There is not a place on the journey where our altar does not come, and turn Jacob’s stony pillow into a ladder up to heaven. Do you carry your altar with you, beloved? Have you rings in your altar of prayer? Do you take it with you to business? Do you take it with you on your visits and holidays and picnics? God expects you to be just as near Him on your half-holiday as He does this morning. Have you the rings? And have you the staves in the rings? Can you pray anywhere? Have you learned to let the curtains down and get alone with God at any time?

6. Again, the fire on the altar was always burning, and the sweet spices, too, and the incense were continually rising. And so the Lord Jesus is all the time praying for you. You slept all the night, but all the time He .was praying. You awoke, but He was there. It is one of the sweetest experiences of my life to awake and feel Him so near. It is delightful sometimes to have something brought to your mind by Him, that you would have forgotten, and realize that He is ever remembering you. And how often our hearts get so oppressed with the burden that presses us to pray. It is Jesus praying for us. The fire is burning; the incense ascending. You may not say words all the time, but the incense can rise. Evaporation is going up to the heavens all the time in nature, even when you do not see it go; you see the mist in the morning, and not at noon, but there is twice as much then, because there is more heat, yet you don’t see it. So you can all the time be breathing up to God the homage of your heart. You say — how can I put my whole heart in my business and pray? You can. I used to be very fond of gardening. I could work in the garden and yet smell the roses ;- they did not keep me from my husbandry; I had my sweet flowers every second; they did not hinder the work a bit. So you can be busy all the time, and have the breath of heaven; it will not hinder you. It is like working in a perfumed room, every sense exhilarated. It is something deeper than prayer — communion. It is like the mother and child, or the friends sitting together as I have seen them for hours, and nota word said, but you feel their presence. So Christ is with you; you do not talk, but there is communion. This is the right. state of heart to live in. Oh, it will make

the tenement house a sweet place to you. — It will put zest in the hospital work for you, dear sister, and even in the nastier work; as you go to the wash tub, my dear woman, it will make the kitchen a palace chamber. And as we meet with the precence even of sin, it will be like a heavenly disinfectant; we can work in any atmosphere. We feel as we go down to our mission work as if we would choke from the evil atmosphere around us, the filthiness of men’s hearts and the grossness of sin. But if we have the golden altar with us, and the sweet incense of prayer, we shall be lifted above it and the desert shall blossom as the rose.

7. Again, we read that there was no incense, without the fire. And so Christ’s intercession for us had to be preceded by the fire of suffering. It is not the prayer that saves us, but the death. It is because He died to make the atonement that now He claims the blessings to be delivered. So we read here that Aaron was to make an atonement upon the horns of the altar once a year. Prayer is not enough. There must be fire. Dear friends, all the seclusion of the Buddhist, or the prayers and scourgings of the ascetic will not save without the fire. So the fire of suffering was the first preparation for the intercession work of the ancient priest.

Then this fire also represents the Holy Spirit; the Holy Ghost is represented to us as the Spirit of prayer. It is the Holy Ghost that brings down to our hearts the desires that God would make us feel, and prompts in our souls the inclination,and the sense of need. Oh, how easy it is to pray when we are just carried on His wings; when our souls float out on the breath of God, and we feel that God must give, be- — cause God Himself has already asked. It is He that breathed it up to heaven, and He will pour it back. Blessed Spirit of prayer! Do not discourage Him; listen, and Jie will come and come until He will do all your praying and it will be divine. Blessed prayer! it will not be the cold form of nice words, but the burning incense of a heart that cannot keep it back.

8. Again: I come to the most beautiful of all these symbols; that is, the incense itself. It consisted of four parts. Three we do not know. Onewedo. The frankincense is the gum of an Arabian tree and an object of commerce. The other three we do not know. And so we are taught that in the intercession of our Lord, there are some things we do not know. There is His human nature which we understand, which may stand for the frankincense; but there are the divine - things like the unknown spices; we cannot measure their depth or height. And then, it may teach us that in our prayers there are things we know and things we don’t know. There ought always to be definiteness in our prayers; often we may know what is according to His will and expect it. But perhaps the largest part of our praying ia the Holy Ghost, will be like the three unknown spices; we cannot tell just what the cry means; but we will be conscious of a cry that cannot be ao CHRIST IN

articulated; we will feel — God knows it, it is articulated in His ear, and He will give us the answer, and show us in due time. This will perhaps help you to understand many of your perplexing burdens of prayer. Sometimes God lets you know, but many times you cannot. There has been that unutterable outreaching which seemed incapable of interpretation or understanding: a prayer that you did not comprehend, and did not need to know. Sometimes you feel God is averting some danger, or saving some dear one, or blessing some special work, or carrying something through a crisis. There are days that will come that you feel if you let go, something will give away, and be lost to the cause of Christ forever more. In yonder battle field the officers and the privates do not understand the plan of the battle; but the commanding officer does, and when the battle is over, they too shall understand it. So let us trust it all to our Captain; and although we do not know it all now, we shall hereafter. And God will bring us many an enraptured soul and say; ‘‘ that was the soul born of your prayer;’ or show us many a glorious issue of His work and say ‘“‘that was the work you held up to me.”

9. But there is this most beautiful thing I want you not to miss. He says: ‘‘Take some of this perfume and beat it very small, and put it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee.” Some of these grains of frankincense, and galbanum were to be pulverized; then they were to be burned in the little grate and go up so sweetly, not one grain lost. Oh, beloved, there is no little petition; there is no little heart ache; there is no little desire too small for Jesus to pray about or you to pray about. Thatfinely powdered incense just means the needs of your life all broken up, and yet each one gathered by Jesus Christ in their minutia and present-. ed to the Father with the same care as though it were the fortunes of a Kingdom. It cannot be trifling; nothing that is passing through your thoughts is too ‘ small for Christ to pray about, or for you to go to God about; that is the way to make God familiar, and to make common things real, by burning them on God’s altar. God help us to bring the little things of life to His mercy seat.

10. Finally, the position of this altar was significant. It was between the two chambers. It was in the earthly, but it touched the veil, and its incense went into the heavenly. Those two chambers represented earth and heaven. The outer chamber was the believer’s life in its earthly experience, and the inner chamber was the Holy of Holies beyond. Prayer brings us to the very gates of heaven. When we are at the mercy seat, we are partly on earth, and partly in heaven. Our prayers are there already and we are breathing the very breath of heaven. It is all open; it is one blessed chamber where we have fellowship not only with our brethren below, but with the hearts that wait for us above. So it was that while Jesus was praying He was transfigured before them. And so it was that while Stephen was praying, his face became like the face of an angel. And so it is that while you wait upon your Lord you shall change your strength; ‘‘you shall mount up with wings as eagles; run and not be weary; walk and not faint.”

The effects of this incense and of this altar were very beautiful. We have a description of them in the eighth chapter of Revelations, where we read of the angel that came down and gathered up the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar that was before the throne. And then we read of a mighty angel (lam quoting from two passages), there was given him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of the saints upon the altar before the throne. It is an old interpretation that I do not care to dispute, that this angel was the Lord Jesus; that the incense was the prayers of the saints and His intercessions mingled with the prayers of the saints. And the meaning ‘is that when you send up your prayers before God, although you may feel there is much that is unworthy in them; yet the hands of the blessed angel take them before they get to God; and I believe He drops from them every grain of impurity, and only keeps that which is acceptable to the Father, and with that He mingles His own interces: sion, breathes His own breath upon your purified petitions, and with His holy hands, offers them at His Father’s feet, until there comes the sweet answer of His love, and we are accepted in the Beloved. Beloved, what is all this to you?

There is an awful contrast here between the true fire and the false fire that some of the priests presumed to bring to God, and we know the consequence was most fearful vengeance. Anybody that should counterfeit this perfume,should be cut off. To counterfeit was death; to counterfeit is death still. May I ask you, are youapproaching the most holy Presence through the blood of Jesus? Or are you coming with your own natural thoughts, self-righteousness, and self-will? If you are doing the latter, you are bringing strange fire, and it will be death. Are you counterfeiting God’s holy incense? Are you making feeling or sentiment take the place of true devotion, delightful music, or sacred eloquence, or poetic rapture,or anything bu‘ the spirit of God? Oh, if it is not in the name of Jesus, it is strange fire; it is counterfeit, and it is death. Or, is anybody using the ministry of God to tickle the fancy of an audience; using this sacred desk to play with people’s sentiments; using sacred song and holy worship, and the very church of God just to entertain or amuse the esthetic tastes of people: even using God’s incense for man’s mercenary purposes? It is the counterfeiting of which he said of old, ‘‘it is death.” Are you coming to God through any other means than Christ alone? Are you looking for salvation in any other way than through His death? ‘‘ There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.” Are you living this life of communion with God? Do you know this heavenly way? Have you ever experienced these divine communings? Is this figure of frankincense anything to you / Is your heart anything like this sweet place? Or is it a place of rank and unclean things with the smell of earthy carrion, and the unclean sewerage of your own sins? Oh, come to Him to cleanse you, and in the place where the dragons crawl, and where serpents find their slimy haunts, He will dwell, and the wilderness and the solitary place shall blossom as the rose, and your poor heart shall become like the very gates of heaven, where angels will love to gather; where the dove of peace will fold His wings and rest, and where you shall say even in the darkest hour, ‘This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Beloved, have you this little perfumed sanctuary? ‘‘I will be to them a little sanctuary,” says God. There are some of us, as we walk through this wilderness, are so sweetly conscious that we are carrying our tent along; and it folds around us every hot mid-day; and every dark night the lamps are lighted within; and the air is allsweet with the very breath of heaven. ‘‘ Blessed is the man that thou choosest and causest to dwell in thy presence.” Beloved, come and walk in the light of the Lord until He shall say: ‘‘ Come, ye blessed of my Father enter now,” not the shifting tents of the wilderness, but the palace of the King.