The Sanctuary

Frank Fournier

Eden Valley SDA Church

6. Life Line to Heaven

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Psalms 141.

But anyway, we're studying Lifeline to Heaven.

That's the title that we're looking at, Lifeline to Heaven, Psalms 141.

And the thing that I've been emphasizing, the thing we want to continue to emphasize, is that salvation is found at the cross of Calvary.

There's no other way to find salvation, but through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Don't go looking for salvation anywhere else.

But once you've found salvation at the cross of Calvary, don't go thinking that you've arrived because you haven't arrived.

And if you study the sanctuary's service, you'll find out that after the cross there is a labor demanding that we make a commitment to the Lord by baptism.

And after the labor, we go into the sanctuary by faith, which represents heaven.

And in that sanctuary, God brings us to the place where we need to do 3 things.

Now it's amazing to have to say that, that we need to do 3 things, but he gives us exercises to do.

3 exercises in the holy place of the sanctuary by which we can be sanctified, by which we can grow in strength spiritually, by which we can be witnesses in this world.

And by the way, if we are just like the world, we are not witnesses.

And so God is bringing a people to salvation and then he is working himself into the people so that more and more and more and more we become like Jesus.

And as we become like Jesus, we become different from what the world is.

And so, 3 exercises, that's what we want.

Okay, in that holy place of the sanctuary, we find a table of showbread, we find the altar of incense, and we find the beautiful candlestick there.

You remember what the table of showbread was all about?

And in Matthew chapter 4, verse 4, he says, Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

As we eat to sustain life, so we need to feed daily on the Word of God so that we can become more and more like Jesus.

Well, this morning, this evening, depending what time we're at, we want to look at the altar of incense today.

And this is David, says, Lord, I cry unto thee, make haste unto me, give ear unto my voice when I cry unto thee.

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

The altar of incense is teaching us not only that there is a necessity in prayer, we need to pray, but the other thing that is more specific that it's trying to teach is that our prayer is not acceptable to God.

Sinners' prayers are not acceptable to God.

And you and I are either lost sinners or saved sinners.

Either way, we are sinners and our prayers are not acceptable to God, except they be mixed with the incense of Christ's righteousness.

And you can pray, and I don't care if you're a Christian, and I don't care if you're a heathen, you can pray until you're blue in the face.

Those prayers are not accepted, not even from Christians, unless we know that our prayers are mixed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, Because we don't have a righteousness.

Even though we have salvation, everything we do becomes defiled because we do it.

Do you know that your righteousness is not your own?

That it's the righteousness of Jesus Christ?

Do you know that if you're a Christian, it's based on what he has done and not what you have done?

And do you know that whatever you do is defiled?

I could prove it to you, but I'm not going to take the time.

If anybody here wants to question that thing, come and see me.

I've got a quotation for you that will blow all that away.

Now, the altar of incense is called the golden altar also.

And the reason it's called that is, first of all, it was made of acacia wood, which represents humanity, and it was overlaid by pure gold, which represents the divinity of Christ.

Therefore, humanity and divinity were combined there at that altar.

Jesus, being divine, came down to this world, set aside his divinity, set aside his godhood, and took on our humanity, And in him, humanity and divinity were combined.

Well, we are human and the only way to gain anything is to receive the divinity of Christ.

So, that divinity and humanity must be combined also.

And there are some people who would like to say looking at the standard that God has set before us, no way, there's just no way we can do that.

And the argument is, after all, I'm just human.

Well let me tell you something, If you are just human, you are not a Christian.

A Christian combines his humanity with God's divinity and it is God's divinity that gives us the power to go ahead and reach the standards that are absolutely impossible for humanity to reach.

Go to 2 Peter chapter 1 and we have a text There that shows us how this works.

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.

Well, That by these, this precious word of God, all inlaid in promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through us.

And by the way, that's the only way to escape the corruption that's in the world, is to receive God's word.

The power that exists in God's word gives us the strength we need to escape the corruption that's in the world.

Now, do you know that Jesus of course does the opposite, right?

He came down to this world, he had divinity already, and he set it aside to take our humanity and to live life as you and I have to live it with the same equipment we have so that he shows us how it is possible for us to succeed as he succeeded.

Have you turned with me to John chapter 5?

Actually, this concept, in spite of the fact that I'm teaching it again, always excites me because it leaves us with a promise that if we would believe it, we would accomplish amazing things.

We're going to go through a little series of Bible verses that are, in the end, very exciting.

We're looking at John 5, the beginning of verse 19.

It hardly makes sense what we're reading.

Then answered Jesus and said to them, Verily, verily, seriously, seriously, I'm telling you, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself.

Well, it is to me that God could come down and say, I can't do anything by myself.

You know, if you have children, by the time they reach about the time when they can say anything, by that time they can do just about anything, they think.

Yeah, well here comes God from heaven and He takes Himself, puts Himself in a position where he can say, I can do nothing of myself.

Look at verse 30, I can of mine own self do nothing.

We don't have to turn to John 15, but you can turn to John 14.

In John 15, we have that famous verse, verse 5 in John chapter 15, that says, Without me you can do nothing.

Ah, friends, listen, it's more than true.

And I have proven that verse true many, many times.

And He said that to us, and it's true about us.

And the reason He says about himself, I can do nothing, is because he came down to take life as we have to live it.

And if we can do nothing without God's help, then he put himself in that position where he could do nothing without his father's help.

In John chapter 14, we're looking at verse 10.

Do you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

14. America in Prophecy

It's page 1026 for those of you who would like to have the page number.

A man by the name of Albert Einstein, and I suppose nobody's ever heard of Albert Einstein, a pretty smart fellow around the turn of the century.

This is a saying that came from Albert Einstein.

And let me tell you what, very few, Probably just in reading this thing, probably very few people will grasp the depth of what he's trying to say here.

Albert Einstein, the single most important decision.

Now he's figured out what is the single most important decision.

The single most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not to believe the universe is friendly.

I wish I had time to develop what he's trying to say here.

It's amazing that he could come to this conclusion because Albert Einstein was not a Christian, by the way.

He was Jewish, but he was not a Jew-Judaizer either.

And in his writing, I happened to read a book on Albert Einstein, a biography.

In any case, in his book he refers to God a lot, but not because he knows who God is.

He didn't know what God was or who God was.

He was what you'd call, I think, an agnostic.

The single most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.

Now, if he had been a Christian, he might have framed that just a little bit different.

But we would ask the question, upon what is the universe built?

Is it built on force or is it built on love?

Is the universe friendly or is its basic premise arbitrary or beyond feeling or exacting and cold?

If you happen to be a scientist, I'm not talking about If you happen to be a scientist, and I'm not talking about if you happen to be a scientist, because I believe there are Christian scientists, and a Christian scientist will be able to blend in his heart and in his mind that the universe and all the scientific facts are not just cold facts.

But scientists, as it is in the world, look at science as a cold fact.

And they can prove it by test tube or however else they prove it.

And it's just a fact and it has nothing to do with emotions and stuff like this.

But the truth of the matter is, we live in a universe, and if you're a scientist, it's a cold universe.

And Albert Einstein was able to think like, wait a minute, is that true?

And the most important question, the most important decision you'll ever have to make is to decide whether the universe is friendly or not friendly.

Now we need to realize that how we relate to the universe demonstrates what we think of God or the universe for that matter.

If we are loving, then we have a loving God.

If we are demanding, we have a demanding God.

If we're forgiving, we have a forgiving God.

Because what we do is measure who we are, or try to ascertain who we are, and we attribute to God what we are, mostly.

So, if you're a cruel person, Usually you have a cruel God.

If you're a permissive person, you have a permissive God.

If you're an exacting person, you have an exacting God.

Do you know that if you take the Scriptures and you read the Scriptures every day, every day, every day, that it has an influence on who you are and who you become?

And so God says we ought to spend an hour each day just contemplating the life of Christ in the Scriptures.

It's all about Jesus, so that we can become more and more like Jesus.

By beholding, we become changed and we become like Jesus.

Yeah, and so are we softening or hardening?

Yeah, We're becoming more and more loving.

That's what Christians should be known for.

Anytime I get to preach on the topic of religious liberty, this is my key text.

Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

God never uses force to compel conscience.

God never uses force to compel the conscience.

God takes no pleasure in forced obedience, and anyone who forces themselves on other people is antichrist in spirit and in character, in principle.

I have a couple of quotations here in my notes that I wrote down from a book I was reading, watch now.

Force is the last resort to a dying cause.

Even the most cruel people in the world, even the greatest dictator would rather not use force if he didn't have to use force.

He's going to use flattery, he's going to use smooth talking, he's going to use bribery, he's going to do everything he can to get you to do what he wants you to do.

And if that doesn't work, last resort, what?

Well, I have another quotation And it says the same thing, however it's aimed at somebody else.

Force is the last resort of every false religion.

I mean, they're all sweet and they're all tender and they're all...

Well, have you ever heard of religious wars?

Have you ever heard of religions using force?

Do you know, I don't think that Christianity has ever done itself a favor when it started using force to try to get somebody else to do what it wants to do.

No, we undermine Christianity when we use force.

12. Sealed or Marked- Part 1

Have you turned in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 3?

Daniel chapter 3, and that's page 782, if you have 1 of the little Bibles that we're supplying.

I did mention at 1 point what happened in Daniel chapter 2.

We never did take time to look at Daniel chapter 2.

It's a long study and it's well worth doing, but we've had a short series and we can't do that.

In Daniel chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and in his dream he saw a great metal image.

And in the great metal image, the head of course was of gold, and the breast, the chest and arms were of silver, and the bellies and thighs were of brass, and the legs were of iron.

And all these various medals signified successions of world empires.

Babylon is the head of gold in Medo-Persia and Greece, and then pagan Rome, which is the Roman Empire.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar was told that he was the king of the golden, of the head there of Babylon, the Golden Kingdom.

He was probably the most glorious king and he was probably the king of the most glorious kingdom and I think that was quite flattering for him to hear and it had quite an impact on him but he was also told not to expect his kingdom to last forever that it would be replaced by another.

Now You know that following Daniel chapter 2 is Daniel chapter 3.

And you have kind of the idea that he had the dream and next week he decided what he was going to do.

The dream that he had in Daniel chapter 2 had quite an impact on him.

As a matter of fact, the impact that he had about the God in heaven lasted with him for several years, many years actually.

But as the years went by, the influence kind of wore down little by little, and then he began to think to himself, Now why shouldn't my kingdom last forever?" And so, in Daniel chapter 3, he decided, in defiance, to order his servants to replicate the image, but this time make the image all of gold and put it in the valley of Dura, and this image was going to be 90 feet tall, all of gold, signifying that his kingdom would last forever.

That's in defiance of the word of God, by the way, because God had said opposite to that.

Then he summoned all the delegates of his kingdom to come and bow down to this image as soon as there would be, of course, all kinds of music.

Now, we have already, I mean, this is what you would call a man-made religion.

He just invented a little religion right there on the spot because he didn't want his kingdom to ever be erased.

So, at the command of all kinds of music, people were to bow down.

Daniel 3, we're going to read verses 4-6.

Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, That at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackcloth, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye shall fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up.

And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

And so all of a sudden the trumpets blared and there was all kinds of music and all the people bowed down.

There were 3 men, 3 Hebrews, who refused to bow down.

That was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And do you remember why they refused to bow down?

There are 2 commandments in the Bible that forbid them bowing down.

First of all, the first commandments in the 10 Commandments says, Thou shalt have no other god before me.

And so they weren't allowed to bow to other gods.

And the second commandment is, Thou shalt not make any images nor bow down to them.

And so they were not going to do that either.

And so they wouldn't dishonor God by breaking the first and second commandment.

They wouldn't disgrace themselves by sinning.

And they refused to jeopardize God's cause.

Do you know that when you sin, you actually put a stain on the cause of God.

Do you know that when you sin, you actually put a blot on Christianity?

These men had amazing experience with God, to the point where they were willing to face the fiery furnace, as it were, rather than to bow down.

Would you have been true to God that day?

Or would you have thought it a good time to tie your shoelaces at that point?

Now let me point something out here that's extremely relevant to what we're studying.

The king and his kingdom was a political entity.

It was a worldly government, an earthly government.

This political entity used its political powers to enforce a religious act of worship.

Don't lose sight of this because it plays in.

It's central to the whole story that we're reading.

There's a political entity, there's an earthly government, there's a kingdom, there's a king, and he's using his political powers to enforce an act of worship.

The issue in Daniel chapter 3 is that of worship, and the power used to force the people to worship, of course, is his political power, his military probably he would use, or his state police.

When the king was told that there were 3 men who refused to bow down, he was furious.

But the problem was, of course, he knew these men.

They were some of his most productive people.

So, he decided, where he would not have done this Normally, he decided that he would give them another chance.

So, if you're still in Daniel chapter 3, look at verse 15 in Daniel chapter 3.

Now if ye be ready, he says to them, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sagput, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made well.

But if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" Now I love that last phrase.

Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?

You know I often think anything can happen to anyone.

Many things have happened to many people.

I often think if I get into real trouble with some really bad people I'm I'm going to goad them on to to to defy the lord Because if you read the bible through and through you will see that every time somebody defied the lord he rose up and dealt with them.

So if you ever get caught by some bandits or some drug dealers or whatever it is when you go to Mexico and something like that happens, just tell them you're a daughter of God.

Well, you tell them He is your God and you can't do anything that He won't allow you to do.

And as soon as they defy God, he's on your side and the battle is won.

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All Teachings

6. Life Line to Heaven

58m

14. America in Prophecy

49m

12. Sealed or Marked- Part 1

54m

13. Sealed or Marked- Part 2

43m

7. What are You Doing Under a Bushel

37m

16. It’s Your Call

56m

15. The Second Coming & The End of the World

45m

Sound Doctrine