WYC 2008: Something Better

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GYC West

WYC 2008 Morning Devotionals

Cosmin Ritivoiu

The Courtyard: Better Than Genius

Tim Taylor

The Holy Place: The Better Lifestyle

Eric Nelson

The Most Holy Place

This morning, I need to talk to you about the most holy place.

And I suppose that the obvious thing to talk about would be the Ark of the Covenant.

We could learn some lessons from the fact that the law of God is the foundation of his character.

We could talk especially in this group about the day of atonement, excuse me, and the many lessons that are especially applicable to us from that day.

We've talked a lot about many of those things this weekend already, haven't we?

The blotting out of sins, the day of atonement, how we are living in that day, and this is a special serious time for us.

But this morning I wanted to talk about something a little bit different.

Something that it's likely many of you have never heard a sermon or a Bible study about.

Nevertheless, this object in the sanctuary that I would like to talk about this morning, I feel is extremely important.

This object, unlike many other parts of the sanctuary, the symbolism is explicitly interpreted in the New Testament.

The New Testament says this is what it is.

This object also ties together, in my mind, the services of the daily with the services of the day of atonement in powerful ways I believe this object is so important that in the Old Testament times specifically in the book of Daniel an understanding of the symbolism of this object in the sanctuary divided between true and false prophets.

And in the New Testament, an understanding of the symbolism inherent in this object, the use expanded.

It not only separated between true and false prophets, but between true teachers and false teachers, the spirit behind teachers, true pastors, false pastors, and a misunderstanding of the symbolism of this object is even in the New Testament stated to be a sign of the Antichrist.

The object I'd like to talk with you about covered the Ark when it was being transported from place to place.

This morning I'd like to talk with you about the veil.

Now for those of you who take notes, our devotional this morning has a very simple outline.

We're first of all going to look at 3 literal uses of the veil.

Then we're going to look at that New Testament passage, which tells us what it represents.

And then we're going to, again, look at those 3 uses of the veil with the understanding of what the veil represents.

Okay, before we do that of course, let's all kneel for prayer.

Dear God, I ask that the Holy Spirit would be present with us here this morning as we consider your sanctuary again.

You set up these symbols and in some cases you tell us what they represent and I ask that through our time together we will understand Jesus better.

Now there are undoubtedly more than 3 functions to the veil in the heavenly sanctuary, but we're only going to look at these 3 for sake of time.

If you look at the surrounding verses, you find that this passage is describing when the tabernacle was put together.

And during the time that the tabernacle was being put together in Exodus 40 verse 3, what do you find the veil doing?

In Exodus 40 verse 3, not a rhetorical question, feel free to respond.

Yeah, it was used to cover the Ark of the Covenant and I believe it's probably fairly obvious to all of us why that was.

The Ark was covered to provide separation between the glory of God and the priests who were ministering there to set up all the various things in the tabernacle.

If you turn back a few pages to Exodus 26 and verse 33, talking about how the tabernacle was finally going to be arranged, we find that the veil was to be hung up under the tax that you may bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony.

It shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy place.

The veil was there for division, for separation.

I already mentioned it was used to cover the Ark of the Covenant when it was in transport.

So the veil separated between the holy place and the most holy place, which begs the obvious question Why would God want separation?

And I believe the answer to that is likewise fairly simple.

You all probably know the passage from memory in Exodus 25 verse 8.

Why was it God set up the entire tabernacle system?

Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

God wanted to be with his people and yet sin had separated between you and your God and all the veils of the tabernacle, the entire tabernacle, but especially the veil between the holy place and the most holy place was for separation, but that separation was for the purpose of nearness.

God wanted to be extremely close to His people.

He wanted to be near them, but He needed something to separate a little space between He and His people.

Now in the sanctuary, you recall, the veil didn't reach all the way to the ceiling.

It hung down between the nails on the pillars that were supporting it.

And as the priest was ministering in the holy place, he could catch glimpses of the glory of God coming over from the most holy place.

This wasn't true in the tabernacle in Jesus' day, But of course the Shekinah glory wasn't there.

But in the veil of the sanctuary, you could have caught small glimpses through the warp and woof of the fabric, lighting up the intricate embroidery, just small points of the glory of God shining through the veil as well as the glory coming over the top.

So to summarize, the purpose, the first purpose of the veil was for separation but nearness, separation but nearness.

Second, the veil contained a record of sins.

Now this may be a little bit more obscure.

Turn with me to Leviticus chapter 4 and verse 6 describing the way many of the sacrifices were dealt with.

The priest who has already helped the sinner through the sacrificial process in the courtyard now is bringing the blood into the holy place.

And you remember that the blood was going to be placed on the altar, it's there in the passage as well, on the horns of the golden altar, but also the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle of the blood 7 times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary." You understand the pattern.

The blood of the sin offerings, the sacrifices, was transferred, the sinner was forgiven, and the sin, the record of sin, was transferred from the sinner to the sanctuary itself.

The priest would place a bloody fingerprint on the horns of the altar in the most holy place, but also he would sprinkle the blood before the veil.

The Hebrew word is pah-neem, and it can also be translated on.

It's probably not true that the focus was on the veil.

Where was the priest to sprinkle the blood according to this passage?

The focus was probably on sprinkling the blood by faith toward the Shekinah glory that was seen by faith behind the veil.

The priest was sprinkling the blood before the Lord, but also before the veil.

Regardless of how you understand the passage, we know that the blood would have gotten on the veil to serve as an accessory record of sins.

Historical sources tell us that the Jews understood they were to sprinkle the blood on the veil.

I highly recommend the book, With Jesus in His Sanctuary, by Leslie Harding.

And he also quotes historical sources, Jewish scholars that saw the veil of the sanctuary that Titus captured in AD 70 and carried off to Rome.

And that veil was 4 inches thick, incredibly intricate embroidery, and it was smeared with the blood of many sacrifices.

And I don't know how he could tell, but the Jewish historian tells us it was from both the daily and the yearly sacrifices that he saw the record of sins that had been transferred to the sanctuary through all the sacrifices.

So the second purpose of the veil, It had a record of sins.

It had a record of all the sins that had been transferred to the sanctuary by sprinkling.

I don't have any specific passage for this, but I encourage you to, if you have a computer with a Bible on it, do a search for the word veil And notice the number of times the veil serves a geometric purpose.

Notice the number of times you find phrases such as within the veil, without the veil, before the veil, through the veil.

All of these things indicate the veil was a point of reference.

You know, of course, that on 3 sides, the most holy place was a solid wall.

If you wanted to go into the very presence of God, your only option was to go through the veil.

So 3 purposes of the veil, what are they?

Number 1, separation for the purpose of nearness.

Turn with me in your Bibles now to Hebrews 10 verse 20.

We're studying the book of Hebrews this weekend.

Hebrews 10 verse 20, Paul unequivocally tells us what the veil represents, and that's very helpful if you want to understand the sanctuary.

Series

WYC 2008 Morning Devotionals

The Most Holy Place

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Cross and the Most Holy Place

1h 34m

The Rent Veil

40m

Living in the Day of Atonement

1h 1m

The Sanctuary

01 The Sanctuary: Designed for Eternity

54m

Seminars

Righteousness by Faith in the Sanctuary- Part 2

1h

Present Truth in the Sanctuary

Session 2: Symbolism in the Sanctuary

51m

Plenary Sessions

He Lives!

1h 32m

Talking Points, 2nd Quarter 2021: The Promise, God's Everlasting Covenant

11 The New Covenant Sanctuary

31m

War of Thrones

The Map to the Throne Room

1h 7m

The Sanctuary

One Day at a Time

58m

In Such a Time as This

The Sanctuary: A Model for Prayer

58m

His Crowning Miracle

41m

Sound Doctrine