Good morning and Happy Sabbath. Welcome to central this morning for our study hour with Pastor Doug. A very special welcome to the people that are joining us in our sanctuary this morning; they're literally coming from across the world today. We have people from jamaica and the Philippines, everywhere, so a very special welcome to you. A very special welcome to you that are joining us from across the country and around the world, live on internet this morning.
Either on radio, television, however you're joining us, welcome and we pray that you will be blessed. Our first song this morning is "take the name of Jesus with you," hymn number 474. And this comes as a request from jemima in england, cassandra in honduras, edinal in the Philippines, leonardo in taiwan, and dr. Chinedum in California. Now, we're gonna sing the first, the second and the fourth verse of hymn 474.
[Music] If you have a favorite Christmas song that you'd like to sing with us in the coming up weeks, in the holiday season, I invite you to go to our website at www.saccentral.org, and click on the "contact us" link, and there you can request any of your Christmas favorites out of our hymnal that you would like to sing during the holiday seasons. And we would love to celebrate Christ's birth with you as we sing. Our next hymn this morning is hymn 522, "my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." And this comes as a request from Moses and saccula in australia, carmetta, charles and veria in the bahamas, bertanol and marilyn in the british virgin islands, Daniel in guyana, claude in jamaica, rosalinda in Mexico, dofur in morocco. Pedro in puerto rico, adrian in singapore, dr. Chinedum in California, brody in Michigan, bob in Washington.
Jim, diane, jamie and buffy in florida, John in Virginia, diane and howard in Mississippi, larry in Arizona, and ian in vanuatu. I don't know where that is, but it's somewhere not around here. Anyway, hymn 522 verses 1, 2 and 4, "my hope is built on nothing less." [Music] Amen. What a blessing it is that we do have a solid rock to stand on when we see our earth hurtling towards the very end, we know that we can stand firm in Jesus. Let's pray.
Dear Lord, we thank you so much for this beautiful Sabbath day. We thank you that we can humbly come before you and worship you. And that we will worship you for eternity if we stand on the rock that is Jesus, and that we hold on with our faith to the end. We ask you to please, Lord, bless Pastor Doug as he brings us your message. Please help us to take His Words to heart, Your Words to heart.
To others around us as we go through this next week, to spread the good news of the everlasting Gospel, that you are coming soon and that you have died to save us. Thank you, and we are humbled and in awe of what you've done. We pray these things in your name, Jesus. Amen. Our study this morning will be brought to us by Pastor Doug Batchelor, senior pastor here at Sacramento central.
Amen. Thank you very much for the music. And I want to welcome everybody here to central church. We have visitors from all over the world. And it's good to see each of you here and we're glad you could study.
Again, we always want to welcome. The bulk of our class we know is on the other side of that lens. We hear from you, thousands of people all over the world, who are studying. And many of you are actually part of the extended central church family, because of satellite there are folks who are isolated from any church; there's no local church they can attend or maybe they're shut-ins. And they said, "we want to be part of a church," and they've actually joined the central church family.
If you're one of those people and you'd like to know how you can do that, just go to the website, it's saccentral.org. And we are a family here; we keep in touch with the people who are part of the internet church membership. And you can download just about everything but a potluck and a hug. And so, and that's coming, we're working on it. But, you know, we've had a lot that's happened since I saw you last.
One thing we'd like to announce, we don't normally do this, but I think for the last 11-12 years, debbie, used to be debbie thompson, and you watched her become debbie thompson kippel. And now she is a proud mommy. I think you saw her swelling with joy over the recent months. And that bundle arrived, and this is little-- I'm gonna mess this up, it's jack richard Michael kippel. Is that right? And he's somewhere between and 70 pounds, I forget what it was.
But they're very happy parents, and I don't know if they're gonna be here today. I saw, oh, grandpa's out there, he's just beaming, pastor mike. And so--are they coming today, pastor mike? Wantin' to keep him nice and sterile that first week, right? I think you need to expose 'em as much as possible, help build up their resistance. But anyway. So you'll, I'm sure they'll bring him in person.
So we don't normally do that, but debbie's sort of been leading songs here for over years now and we thought you'd want to see the little baby and the good news. And they're very happy for a healthy baby. Anyway, I'll let her tell more of the story herself. Now, since I saw you last, some of you may have noticed, you may not have noticed, I haven't been here the last two Sabbaths. It's because I was down at our university in Mexico.
And the Seventh-day Adventist Church has an outstanding university in Mexico called montemorelos. And we did a week of prayer down there, and I think I've got a couple of pictures of that. And it was just an inspiration for me. There's over 2,000 students on the campus, they've got the medical training and the hospital, and the dental training and obgyn training, along with all of the other studies of a university. And we had a week of prayer, record attendance, standing room only, people standing up in the back.
And a real revival on campus, it was very inspirational. At the end of that they had baptisms, and so it was very, it was kind of a--it turned into an evangelistic program. And those folks down there are real dedicated. We spent 3 hours during the baptism in the afternoon. They'd baptize a person, say something about 'em, sing three verses of another song and then they'd baptize the next one.
But it was really a rich day and a potluck on the campus there. Another reason I thought I'd share that with you is while I was there, they also had built a life-sized model of the tabernacle, the sanctuary. And that's a little picture of it there. It had rained the afternoon or the day before, so some of it was covered up. And but that was the best picture I could get.
They had the golden altar and the laver was out, but they've put that back in the tabernacle. But they do this so people from the community, they come in and they do studies and lectures. And they walk them through and they teach about the Bible and remnant church through this three-dimensional model. Now, I thought that would be a good segue into our lesson today, because our lesson today, coming from the studies on the atonement and the cross of Christ, is dealing more specifically with atonement in symbols. And it talks about the sanctuary and its services.
And that's why we've got a special offer today, we always like to offer something to help expand and enhance your study. The free offer today, you just need to ask for it, is offer number 768, 768. And it's called, "Jesus and the sanctuary," it's a study I did going into a lot of the symbols. It covers more than I'll have time to cover here, but if you'd like a free copy of that, "Jesus and the sanctuary," some of you who are watching on the internet, you'll have time to order it before the regular world church presents this. Just call the number, -788-3966.
We also have a study guide and you can find out more about this at the "Amazing Facts" website, it's called, "God drew the plans." It talks about the design and the plans of the earthly tabernacle. Now, I'm very excited about this study, because it says so much about the plan of salvation in these symbols, and it's something that I have a real special interest in. The lesson once again is called "atonement in symbols, part two." And we have a memory verse, psalm 32:7. Psalm 32--I'm sorry, psalm 132:7. That happens when you've got these bifocal glasses.
Psalm 132:7, I'm hoping you found that and I'm gonna read that to you from the new king James version. I hope you'll read along with me and it will sound similar in your version. Are you ready? "Let us go into his tabernacle. Let us worship at his footstool." They referred to the tabernacle as the footstool of God. Do you remember when Solomon was dedicating his temple, there were three temples in the old testament, the tabernacle portable one, that they built in the wilderness with Moses.
That's when God gave him the plans. That's why we have this lesson called, "God drew the plans." The design came from God, it's very important. Then they built a permanent one during the time of Solomon. And when Solomon prayed and he dedicated that one, he said, "no house can hold you." We call the church "the house of God." But could this building really contain God? It was a symbol of like the footstool on earth. Then the third tabernacle was the one they built when they came back from the Babylonian captivity.
That was the one that Jesus actually taught in. It had been embellished by king herod the great. So they had one during the time of Moses, one during the time of Solomon or Elijah, and one during the time of Jesus. Three individuals appeared on the mount of transfiguration, Moses, Elijah; Jesus. They represent the three different tabernacles, three different parts of salvation, justification, sanctification, and Jesus would be the glorification.
Just, there's a lot there I want you to think about. So Solomon, when he dedicated, he said, "this temple is just like a footstool." Now, in the Bible, when there were Kings, Kings would issue judgments and people would come before the King and they'd often bow at his footstool. And so you just almost picture that, you know, where God's feet touched this world, that temple was it. It is true that one of the places where God himself did touch this planet was in the temple when Jesus taught there. And that's why they said the glory of that third temple would even surpass the glory of the first two.
So the key thought in our lesson today is to look for the atoning work of Christ as revealed in the sanctuary and the day of atonement. And hopefully we'll have time to cover all of that. Now, I may wander a little bit from the lesson, but--tell you what, let's do this; under section number 1, "sanctuary and atonement," there's a verse I'd like somebody to read, I think I may have given it out, Psalms 77:13. "Your way, o God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great, our God or your God?" Your way, o Lord, is in the sanctuary." The way of God, the way that he saves us, is revealed in this. Now, mike, why don't you look up Exodus 25:8 in the Bible.
And we're also gonna read verse 22, Exodus 25:8 and 22. "And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." Verse 22. "And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cheribums which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." All right, "thy way, o God, is in the sanctuary." It says here, "where I will meet with you, here is where I will commune with you." This was a place where God was going to communicate with man. Now, I've got a slide or two I'm gonna put up on the screen. And this is gonna help us illustrate some of the things I want to teach.
This is a rough layout of what the first tabernacle looked like, but all of the other temples still followed the basic dimensions and pattern of this. It was a square, rectangle, rather, and on door, one entrance. The center of the temple was a room called "the holy of holies" that represented the meeting place where God met with Moses. The shekinah glory, the glory of God, would hover above the tabernacle. You remember when they went through the wilderness, at night there was a cloud of fire, it would hover above the sanctuary.
And in day it was a pillar of cloud that would shade the camp, like a big mushroom cloud or something. This represented a portal to the divine. This--the pattern of the sanctuary, the design of the sanctuary, it is so filled with lessons to help us understand the plan of salvation that it's phenomenal. First of all, there was one way; man is separated from God, we're outside. When they'd approach God they'd come through the door.
There's only on door. Who does Jesus say the door is? He says, "I am the door." There's only one door. Thieves and robbers try and climb in some other way, but there's only one door. There was only one door in this sanctuary that would probably not meet fire safety standards in a building today, would it? But back then there was a reason there was one door, there was only one approach to God. The first thing you saw when you came into the sanctuary was what article of furniture? What was it? When you walk in the door, what's the first thing you see there? You go through the gates.
It was the altar. Now, that altar was the altar of sacrifice, that's where sacrifice took place; they would sacrifice the lamb there. The first thing in the plan of salvation is what? Behold the lamb, the first thing you see is the lamb. The sacrifice of Jesus must be the first thing. Now, go back to that first picture again for a moment, cheryl, of the courtyard that we had.
You notice that before you get into the holy place--now, in that tented area there's two rooms: holy place, most holy place. Before you get in there, you begin this journey. There are three rooms in the sanctuary. You've got the courtyard, the holy place, the most holy place. There are three parts to salvation; you've got Egypt, you've got the wilderness, you've got the promised land.
It's called justification, sanctification and glorification. There's these three phases, it's like God The Father, son and Holy Spirit. This--triune parts you'll see all through the sanctuary. The first thing in salvation is you get to the altar, that's the cross. Before the children of Israel could leave Egypt and cross the red sea, what did they have to do? What very famous Jewish celebration commemorates that? It's the passover.
Why? What happened? They sacrificed the passover lamb before they got to the red sea. The laver, let's suppose, is a symbol of the red sea or baptism. And I'm not making up these symbols. If you look in 1 Corinthians 10, it says they were baptized in the cloud and in the sea. That pillar of cloud, fire, and the sea, the red sea, that was a symbol of baptism, two kinds of baptism.
You've got the baptism of the Spirit, and you need both baptisms, and the baptism of water. Jesus said, "unless you're born of the water and born of the Spirit, you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven." The children of Israel, they sacrificed the lamb, that's the altar; then they went through the red sea, that's the laver. Two baptisms: baptism of fire, baptism of spirit. There was fire on the altar, there was water in the laver. It represents the two kinds of baptisms you need before you crossed over.
And in the old tabernacle they also even had a pillar of fire and smoke there. And so this represents then, the red sea, it represents baptism. And after they washed at the laver--now, you realize the priests, they would wash their hands and their feet; they had to be holy before the Lord. You see, there was a place for them to dip their feet and they had something clean they would stand on before they put on their sandals again. And they would wash their hands there, because there was a--and their clothes were all washed when they went in to the holy place.
You had to be cleansed before you went into the holy place, this was a symbol of baptism. Now, if you go into the next room--you've seen the courtyard, the altar, the cross of Christ, laver, baptism-- the next thing you go into is this room that had three articles. Now, this actually is not the one in montemorelos. This was, a number of church groups have put together life-sized tabernacles, and I forgot where I got this picture, but this is another one of the life-sized tabernacles. They had one right out here in rockland a little while ago, some of you maybe went and saw it.
They make great youth projects, 'cause it's a good 3-d teaching device. Three articles of furniture were in the first department or the holy place. Let me ask you, what were they? You're looking at 'em, but what did you call 'em? You the table of shewbread; the candlestick, we call it the menorah; and the incense, the altar of incense. They represent the three most important disciplines in the Christian life. This second room represents sanctification, they were justified in the courtyard, sanctified in the holy place.
For us to experience sanctification, we need bread. What does the bread represent? Jesus. When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, did miraculous divine bread come down from heaven? What did Christ say about that bread? He said, "Moses gave you bread, but I am the true bread that comes down from heaven. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." So Jesus is the bread, but that's a symbol for the Bible, the bread of life. If you want to make it in sanctification, you need to gather that manna every day, that's the Word of God.
You need to read your Bible. You cannot experience sanctification without the word. It says it's through the reading of the word we are purified; it has a purifying influence on us. And I don't want to rush through these, these are very important points, but want to get all the way through the sanctuary. Across from the--and you can barely see it in this picture, but matter of fact, if you go to the next picture, I think we've got individual pictures of the articles of furniture, cheryl.
There you go. Across from the bread you've got the candlestick. Now, what does it represent? Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." But he said, "let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works." So how do we reflect the light of Christ? We live a life like his life, we are witnesses. Let your light shine, be a witness. So one part of the Christian discipline is you've got to study.
Second part is you've got to share what you studied. You've got to be able to share your faith, you've got to live the life, you've got to be a witness, let your light shine. If you're not involved actively in living out your faith, it'll die. And then, well, and I think I've got a picture of the table of shewbread, go ahead and show that. I already talked about it a little bit.
How many loaves were there? Twelve loaves, two stacks of six, it represented the twelve tribes or the twelve apostles. And of course the Bible is, you've got the writings of the patriarchs; in the old testament there were 12 Judges. You've got the writings of the apostles in the new testament, and so once again that's the bread that we read. And I showed you the candlestick, let your light shine. Jesus is the light of the world; Jesus is the bread of life.
And then there was the third article of furniture that you'd find in the holy place, and that was called the altar of incense. They would take this sweet-smelling special mixture of incense, they'd put it on there, it would wash over into the presence of God. And it represented--you know, smoke is kind of ethereal, isn't it? It's hard to grab and hug and hold smoke, even though we know with microscopes it is tiny particles. But it's a little ethereal when you look at it. It's a symbol of the prayers.
And you don't see prayers, it's something real, you can smell it so to speak. God, it has an essence to it. And so this altar was representing the priest would put incense on the altar, it would go over into the presence of God and it was a symbol of Christ and the Spirit burying our prayers before The Father. The mercy seat, the ark, is where you can ultimately find him. So who is our intercessor? Jesus is the one.
We pray in who's name? The name of Jesus. So, so far notice what we've seen about the sanctuary. There is one door in, who is the door? Does Christ say, "I am the door?" Does he say, "I am the way?" He's the only way. Then you go in and there was the altar where the lamb was sacrificed. Who's the lamb? Christ is the lamb.
It was offered by the priest. Who's the priest? Jesus. We have such a high priest. Hebrews says Christ is the priest. And there you've got a laver of water.
Who is the living water? Jesus says, "I am the living water; whoever thirsts, let him come unto me," right? He says to the woman at the well, "if you drink this water, you're gonna get thirsty again. You drink the water that I give, it'll be an artesian well within you springing up forever." Then you go into the holy place, there's a candlestick. It's a light, who's the light? Who is the bread? Who is the high priest that-- or the incense, the one who bears our prayers? See, the whole sanctuary is teaching us about Jesus, but we're not done yet. In the temple there were--matter of fact, I think I gave these verses out. Did any of you get any slips of paper with verses? Have you got some here? Who has Numbers 18? You got that? Why don't you read verse 1 for me there, andrew? And we'll wait until you get a microphone.
"And the Lord said unto aaron, thou and thy sons and thy Father's house with thee, shall beat the inequity of the sanctuary. And thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the inequity of your priesthood." All right, so it says that aaron and The Sons of aaron, they were to serve as priests, but they were not the only ones that were to minister in behalf of the sanctuary. Andrew, do you also have verse 6 and 7? "Behold, I myself have taken your brethren, the levites, from among the children of Israel. They are a gift to you given by the Lord to do the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Therefore you and your sons with you shall attend your priesthood for everything at the altar and behind the veil, and you shall serve.
I give your priesthood to you as a gift for service, but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death." All right, now this is really important to think about. There were only three that were really allowed to go in and serve in the tabernacle; three groups. Remember we've got three places? You've got three parts of salvation, you keep finding this. You had The Sons of aaron-- they were the priests-- you had the high priests, and you had the levites. The levites would come in and they would put water in the laver; they would put wood on the fire, but they could not do the sacrifice.
Only the priests, The Sons of aaron, could do that. And among the priests, only the high priest could go into the holy place. So it's interesting, when you look at the three places in the sanctuary, levites could go into the courtyard, priests could go into the holy place; only the high priest could go into the holy of holies. See, it was just very interesting the way things were divided so perfectly. And he said, "I give it to you as a gift for service.
" Now, why is that important? Is it a burden to be a servant of the Lord or is it a gift? If you read in Revelation 5:10, I don't think I gave this one out, but I'm gonna have somebody read that. Revelation 5, you got a hand over here, barry, hold your hand up. Revelation 5, and I want you to read verse 10. Revelation 5:10, "and hast made us unto our God Kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." That's good. That's the part I especially wanted.
Who are priests now? Doesn't Peter say that we are a royal priesthood? We are a nation of Kings and priests. You know we believe in the protestant churches, in what they call the priesthood of all believers. We don't need to now go confess our sins to a specific man. The sharing of the Gospel is not reserved to a certain caste. Everybody now is called to share the Gospel, to be a believer, to share with others.
And so in that sense it is a gift that everybody who is a believer now has. We're called into this special privilege. So now we'll go back to the sanctuary, I didn't finish taking you through the sanctuary. So we found out about Jesus is the door, Jesus is the lamb, he's the sacrifice on the altar. Jesus is the living water, Jesus is the holy place; we are to abide in Christ.
And in the holy place there is the bread, there is the light, there is the altar of incense. Now, before we leave the holy place and go into the holy of holies, everything that Jesus is there, you are too. Not only does the Bible say Jesus is the light of the world; doesn't it say you are the light of the world, as we reflect his light? So it also talks about the church. Not only is Jesus the bread of life, but did Jesus give the bread to the apostles to give to the others? Yeah, we're to share the bread with others. Not only is Jesus the one who is our intercessor, you are a nation of priests.
We are also to make atonement, and that's why we're talking about all of these symbols here. The whole lesson is about the atonement and the cross of Christ. All right, if you keep going on your journey, you notice there's a straight line in this journey? The next room, what did it contain? The ark of the covenant, which was in the holy of holies. Now, in the ark of the covenant-- it was a golden box, it was wood overlaid with gold. And inside that golden box, the box was really just a receptacle; the box is protecting the most important thing.
What is inside that box? The Ten Commandments were in there. What are they made out of? Who is the rock? What's written on that stone? The Word of God, right? The law, the Ten Commandments. Who is the word? That's Jesus. Now, this is a straight line. You notice that when you-- I don't want to mess up the cameramen, 'cause I don't often walk away from the pulpit during Sabbath school--but when you first walk through the door, you walk through the altar.
And then you go to the laver, it's baptism. The cross, baptism. After baptism you enter a new room. After baptism you enter the church. Some people say, "I'm baptized, but I'm not part of any church, I'm too spiritual for that.
" It doesn't work that way, you're baptized into Christ, into the body of Christ. So you then go into sanctification, the next room. Now you're part of the church and it is a growing process. Reading the word, letting your light shine, sharing the word, that's the bread. Letting your light shine, that's the menorah or the candlestick.
A prayer intercession that we pray to God and we pray for others. You know, it's interesting that the apostles, when the church began to grow, Peter said, "we've got a problem here." He says, "we're getting so busy taking care of the management of the church, we're neglecting the weightier matters." He said, "we're gonna appoint deacons that'll take care of some of the business, but we are gonna give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word." That's the incense and that's the bread, they said these are priorities for the church. So that's the holy place. If they keep going straight through there, they enter into the holy of holies, now they're in the presence of God. The purpose of the plan of salvation is to bring us back to God.
We're separated, we're outside the sanctuary. The sanctuary sort of becomes a portal getting back to the holy of holies, the presence of God. Where will we ultimately be in the Kingdom? God himself will be with us and we will see his face. So that's sanctification-- that's glorification, rather. Whenever we're in the presence of God, we're gonna have to have our new bodies then, right? We're glorified, you're in the presence of his glory.
So you've got you're justified, you're forgiven, you come just like you are into the temple, the sacrifice; then learning the holy life; you go from Egypt, that's the courtyard; the wilderness, that's the holy place; the holy of holies was when you get to the promised land. When we get to canaan, we're in the holy of holies in the presence of God, right? So they have those three locations, you've got the three parts of salvation. So the ark represented the presence of God, it's where he spoke to them. Now, suppose--does the Bible say your body is like the temple of the Holy Spirit? Have you ever thought about that? The sanctuary is even like the body, that temple, that design. They had, there was an altar burning and they kept it burning, they kept a fire going all of the time.
So your body is constantly burning energy. There's a fire going on inside your body; it's constantly burning energy. If it stops, you die. There was fluid there for cleansing. Does your body, 98% water, is there cleansing going on in the body? Even when you cry, your eyes are being cleansed by tears, it's a natural response.
Then you go into the holy place, there was bread; they had food stored there. Does our body store food? I mean, you know, some people have gone 40 days or even longer. Some of us store more than others, but we have storage there. There was light there. Jesus said, "the light of the body is the eye.
" So we've got a light, there's an illumination for the body. There was this altar of incense that was sort of like representative of the Spirit of man, you know, that can commune with others. And then when you go into the holy of holies you've got where God spoke to them, that would be like, "thy word I've hid in my heart," which is really your mind. That's like the mind of man. The holy place was the brain; it's where God met with him.
It was the ark of the covenant. Your head, that's the golden box. The gray matter inside, that means you've got rocks in your head. That's talking about the Word of God hidden in our heart. And so I know that may sound like a stretch to you, but even a cell, do you know a cell of life is arranged like the three parts of the sanctuary? Every cell of life.
You've got the wall and the plasma and the nucleus, it's like an egg. So there's just so many things about the sanctuary that are just really marvelous, when you think about it. Now, the sanctuary is like Christ's body. Am I making that up or did Jesus say it? You remember when he said, "destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will make one without hands." And the Gospel of John, that reference, he said, "he spoke of his body." They said it's taken 42 years to build this tabernacle and you're gonna raise it up in 3 days?" And the Bible says, "he was speaking to them of his body." You remember when nathan the prophet came to David? I think it's in 1 Chronicles 17. And he said, "you're not gonna build me a temple, because you've been a man of war, you're a bloody man.
But your son, who shall arise after you, he will build me a house that's going to last forever." So who is The Son of David that built the house that would last forever? Well, Solomon did build a temple, but that one didn't last forever. So there, that's an example of a dual fulfillment of a prophecy in the Bible. Solomon, The Son of David, did build a temple, but Jesus, The Son of David, Jesus was a carpenter; he came to build a house. You are the house that Jesus built. See? The church is the temple of God here on earth.
Now, this is very important in the rest of our study about the day of atonement. Don't forget the temple that Moses built on earth, and Solomon, and Ezra and Nehemiah, were all modeled after a very real temple that God has in heaven. God has a dwelling place in heaven. The temple on earth is a microcosm of a very real temple in heaven. In the temple on earth they had two golden angels that were modeled on the top of that golden box.
That was a type of what? Does God have golden angels beside him in heaven or are they real angels? Real. That's, well, the ark of the covenant on earth, they're very real. You remember the vision of Isaiah? In Isaiah 6 he said, "I saw God sitting on his throne. On the right and the left were these angels with six wings." And they flew. These are living beings and they're crying out, "holy, holy, holy.
" The two covering cherubs in heaven are very real angels. And so it says in the earthly tabernacle they were to engrave angels on the walls, golden wallpaper, and even on the veil. When you get to heaven, does God have a big linen curtain hanging there in the courts of the cosmos, made out of some kind of earthly fabric? Or is it a living wall of angels? God has got--how many angels does God have? Well, you better think billions, because if he's got at least one guardian angel for every human and there's 6 billion people on the earth, right? And we know that, you know, the devil, it says about a third follow lucifer. And he's probably got angels that watch you, too, fallen angels that keep an eye on you, try and tempt you and study your weaknesses. So, I mean, there's billions of angels, these are the ministering spirits of the almighty that not only go to earth, but they go through all the cosmos, billions of 'em.
And so I believe God is surrounded with a living, moving wall of these shining burnished angels. And so the closest thing on earth they could get to model that is let's engrave some on the walls. So when you think about the earthly temple, it calls it his footstool. Solomon said, "the heavens of heavens cannot contain you." So start thinking about something in heaven that could be about 6 light years across. You know, think big.
This is the dwelling place of God surrounded by a room of angels in heaven there. And you begin to capture what's going on. So God has a sanctuary on earth; got a sanctuary in heaven. And the sanctuary on earth illustrated the plan of salvation. Every day through the year they would offer a sacrifice in the holy place, I mean, in the courtyard on earth.
They had the daily sacrifice, morning sacrifice, evening sacrifice. And the priest could be involved in that. But once a year--and when they offered sacrifice, the priest would take some of the blood of that sacrifice, it could be for an individual who brought their lamb. And they'd bring it into the holy place, they might anoint the corners of the altar or they might bring it into the holy place and anoint the altar of incense with the blood. But on the day of atonement something unique happened, you read about this in Leviticus 16, they had yom kippur.
It was a once a year occasion at the end of the Jewish year. Ten days before that they blow the trumpets, silver trumpets. That represented, this was a time--it wasn't like some of the feasts, which were times of rejoicing and festivities, like the feast of tabernacles and others-- this was a time of separating the people from their sins that had been symbolically stored in the sanctuary through the year. It was a time of repentance, contrition. They would put away their differences with one another, they would pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.
And it was a time where God would judge the whole nation and extend his mercy to them. So the priest, the high priest only would go through this special service. They had two goats that they would pick. Matter of fact, if you turn in your Bibles to Leviticus 16, you can read about the day of atonement. Verse 1, "now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of aaron, when they offered profane fire before the Lord and they died.
" That's another story. "And the Lord said to Moses, tell aaron your brother not to come at simply any time into the holy place inside the veil," that meant the holy of holy, "before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, lest he die. For I will appear in a cloud above the mercy seat, and thus aaron shall come unto the holy place with the blood of a young bull as a sin offering, and of a ram as a burnt offering. And they'll put on the holy linen and the linen trousers." He was to dress again with clean vestments and he was to wash his body. He was to take of the congregation, I'm in verse 5, two kids of the goats as a sin offering, and one ram as a burnt offering.
And then you go down to verse 8, or verse 7, he was, "to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle, and cast lots for the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat," or the aziel. Now, this is very important, and the Lord-- "and aaron shall bring of the goat on which the Lord's lot fell and offered as a sin offering." One of these goats was chosen, the Lord's goat, as a sin offering. Meaning the other goat is not a sin offering. One goat died, representing the Lord's goat, the other goat does not represent the Lord's goat; it's different. And this really can confound some people.
This service, at the end of the year, represented a special day of atonement where God's people were separated from their sins. This second goat was called "the scapegoat." After they went through the cleansing of the temple and the service there, through the offering of the bull and the ram, the offering of the Lord's goat, he would go in and he would anoint this, the articles in there. And it was a time of cleansing the whole sanctuary and all of God's people from their sins, to permanently separate them from the sins that had been stored there during the previous year. So basically they entered the new year purified, the sanctuary was pure, they were pure. Now, when Jesus comes again, is he still bearing sin? Or does the Bible say he's coming the second time without sin unto salvation? Is Christ going to be burying our sins through eternity? Or does he pay--is he gonna be languishing under the punishment of sin forever? Or is sin gonna finally be separated from God's people and God's Savior; the Savior of God's people? This final service illustrates what happened.
When the priest came out then, he's now bearing the sins of all of the people. He would then place his hands on the head of that scapegoat and symbolically transfer the sins that he had been bearing. Aaron, remember, we just read aaron and his sons, they had been bearing the sins of the people all through the year. They had been symbolically stored in the blood, in the sanctuary. Now, they go through this sacred service and he is bearing the sins.
He then would place them on the scapegoat. And that scapegoat was taken by the hands of a fit man out into the wilderness, long and far from the people of God, and released and abandoned in the desolate wilderness. A lot of theologians have argued what does that scapegoat represent? Now, Seventh-day Adventists believe it represents where ultimately an element of sin-- who is the instigator of all sin? With who did it originate? Is satan gonna suffer for just his sins or does he also get to suffer for the sins he instigated? I mean that's true with everybody. I mean you're not only responsible for yourself, you're responsible for your influence. So when satan is cast into the lake of fire, that is the ultimate punishment for sin.
He is punished and he is separated from God's people; we will never be tempted again. And keep in mind, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, who does the goat represent? The saved or the lost? The lost in that story. And so--and even in, one of the words for "aziel," it meant, "devil," or, "demon." Now, matter of fact, I've got something here in my notes. Let me see here. Someone read for me Matthew 12:43, does somebody have that verse? "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none.
" That unclean spirit out in dry places is a symbol for the devil wandering in the wilderness. You remember when Jesus crossed the sea and he went to the wilderness of gattera. And the demons, this is Luke 8:31, "and the demons begged him that he would not command them to go out into the abyss." So when that fit man took the scapegoat out into the wilderness, it was a symbol for the devil being sent sort of into this bottomless pit, being separated from God's people. And God's people were now pure, their priest was pure; and this represents what's gonna happen in eternity. Some people struggle that, they say, "well, if that goat is carrying sin in any way, it must be a symbol of Jesus.
" But wait a second, the lost, when they go to the lake of fire, whose sins do they pay for? Their own. Are they burying some sin? Yeah, their sin. And so it's a lapse in logic to think that just because somebody's suffering for sin that it must be a symbol of the Lord. No; the lost also suffer for sin, their sins because they don't get credit, they're not accepting the credit that Jesus is offering. Does that make sense? All right, now this, I'm racing here, 'cause there's so much to share with this.
On the day of atonement, this special service, something else was signified prophetically. You read in Daniel 8:14, "unto two thousand three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Not only was there a temple on earth that was cleansed, but God has a temple in heaven. At the end of the Jewish year they cleanse the earthly sanctuary. God has got a heavenly timetable of what's happening in the heavenly temple. Now, granted, things in the heavenly temple we've already said are a little different than what's here on earth; for one thing, they're a lot bigger, they're more real than what's here on earth.
But is Jesus really our high priest? Is he really ministering in a real place in heaven? Interceding before The Father, pleading his blood? It's very real, the Bible tells us that. It says he's entered into a temple not made with man's hands, but the divine temple in heaven. For 2,000--for, over the history of the church, the truth of God had been cast to the ground. God's church had been defiled by false teachings. There was something that was gonna happen, and it said from-- there would be 2,300 days then the sanctuary would be cleansed.
From the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, when God's people and temple was built up back there in the old testament, up until when God began his heavenly work of judgment. Two thousand three hundred years, going from 457, comes to 1844. God entered his last phase of atonement as our high priest in heaven. Now, a lot of people have struggled with what that means and what happened. But not only did Christ begin cleansing the sanctuary in heaven, he began cleansing his sanctuary here on earth.
Does God still have a temple? Does he have one in heaven? Hebrews says very clearly. Does he still have one on earth? What? "Know ye not, ye are the temple of God." What happened in 1844? Did God begin a new movement? Was there a lot of confusion among Christianities up to that point about what the truth was? They were confused about baptism, they were confused about salvation by--they believed it was by works. They were confused about the law of God and the Sabbath in particular. They were confused about their body and the care for the body. I mean there's just a lot of darkness had come into the church.
They started confessing their sins to a priest and praying to idols, and you just go on and on. The truth had been cast to the ground and trampled. In 1844 God poured out his spirit. A bunch of people thought Jesus was coming back then and they misinterpreted what the event was, just like when Jesus came the first time. When Christ came the first time, did God's people misinterpret the event? Did the apostles misinterpret the event? Well, God's people did that in 1844, too, and they were disappointed 'cause they misinterpreted.
But what really happened is Christ, he entered the last phase, he began cleansing the sanctuary in heaven, representing he was about to come. And we entered a time of judgment and he began cleansing the sanctuary on earth. Do you know before the year was up in 1844, the truth about God's law came out. Did they discover what day was the Sabbath? They were Christians from all different backgrounds, they were catholics, there were actually even some jews in the group, they were baptists, they were presbyterians, they were methodists from all different backgrounds. They said, "let's put aside all of our differences.
Let's find out what the Bible really teaches." And they came together and did their best to objectively read the Bible. And they said, "boy, we've missed a lot of things." They learned the truth about baptism by immersion, salvation by faith, about obedience because of faith, including the Sabbath commandment that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And I'm just naming a few; the second coming being literal, the priesthood of all believers, all of this stuff. The gifts of prophecy were still alive that had been lost, all of these doctrines, these beautiful truths that had been cast to the ground. The sanctuary was cleansed on earth.
It's hard to prove what's going on in heaven. Anyone have any video? We can't prove that, but can we prove something happened here on earth? That was the beginning of a movement called "the Seventh-day Adventist Church" that has been sweeping around the world ever since that time. And so you can show what happened in 1844 by what we see prophecy being fulfilled right here on earth. And so what they did then in the old testament with the systems and the sanctuary, was full of symbolism. And we've just only taken a small look at some of the symbols.
All of it points to Jesus. Jesus is the lamb, he's the living water, Jesus is the door, Jesus is the--he says, "my body is the temple." You are baptized into the body of Christ. He's the light, he's the bread, he's our high priest. He's our rock that was in the ark. Everything about the sanctuary is teaching us something about Jesus.
He is now in heaven as our mediator, our high priest, and we are living in that last phase of the plan of salvation. Matter of fact, I think we're living in the time of delay the Bible speaks of, where they say, "behold, the bridegroom comes." Just before the Lord comes it seems like there's an apparent delay." Those ten virgins, it says, "while the bridegroom tarried." Jesus said, "if that evil servant says in his heart, my Lord delays his coming," there seems to be a delay. When the children of Israel waited for Moses to come down, it says, "when Moses delayed coming down." And in the book of Habakkuk it says, "while it seems like the vision tarries, it will surely come." We're living in that time right now. You would have thought, "the Lord should have come by now." I mean now we've had 6,000 years and then there's a thousand-year millennium. All of these things are kind of revealed, they're communicated through the whole sanctuary study; it's a beautiful study.
Oh, I wish I had more time. I hope you'll take advantage of the things we're sharing. First of all, don't forget the free offer, "Jesus in the sanctuary." We go into these things in more detail in this free dvd. I think it is a dvd, yes, and that's number 768; if you ask for that, we'll be happy to send it to you. Or go to amazingfacts.
org, call the phone number, 866-788-3966. Or friends, we also carry this study guide called, "God drew the plans." And it also illustrates some of these symbols that we've been talking about. Wow, there's so much there in the symbolism in the sanctuary that, if nothing else, it reminds us how incredibly accurate and divine the Bible is. It is a unique book that it has all of this knowledge that perfectly fits together teaching the plan of salvation. We've run out of time for today's study.
God bless you friends who are studying with us. Don't forget that you can keep in touch with us by going to saccentral.org. And if you need one of our study guides, visit a nearby Seventh-day Adventist Church and they'll be happy to share that with you. 'Til next week, God bless you. Hello friends.
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