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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior

David Shin

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior: Back to the Father’s House

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior: It’s All About Jesus

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior: Justified in the Courtyard

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Sanctified in the Holy Place

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Glorified in the Most Holy Place

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Burnt Offering

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Cleansed at the Laver

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Fed at the Table

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Altar of Incense

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: The Lampstand

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: The Law in the Ark

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Sabbath and Sanctuary

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this opportunity to come apart and to rest in you on this Sabbath day.

And we recognize our need of the Spirit today to guide our thoughts as these words from scripture are reflected upon as we look at the labor in the sanctuary.

Bless us we pray with your presence for we ask these things in the precious name of Jesus, amen.

A team of Michigan State University researchers trained a dozen students to inconspicuously observe and collect data on hand washing behavior in restrooms, bars, restaurants, and other public places in a college town.

In all, 3, 749 people were observed, and this is what they found.

After using the bathroom, 95% of people failed to wash their hands long enough to kill harmful bacteria, a new study finds.

Among men, this is kind of disheartening, only half use soap and 15% didn't wash their hands at all, compared with 78% of women who did use soap and 7% of women who didn't wash their hands.

Charles Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, swabbed close to 5, 000 surfaces in several office buildings with at least 3, 000 employees.

And 1 of the places that ranked the highest for bacteria was the drinking fountain button.

What do people do after using the bathroom?

And so this researcher counseled to use your shirt sleeve instead when you press the drinking fountain button.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, recommends that you wash your hands vigorously using soap and water for 15 to 20 seconds or the time it takes to sing or hum Happy Birthday twice.

The CDC says hand washing is 1 of the most effective ways to cut the spread of infectious diseases.

Dirty hands are estimated to contribute to 50% of all foodborne illness outbreaks.

Now today's sermon is not about personal hygiene, but there is a spiritual correlation between washing physically and washing spiritually, and this is evidenced in the laver, which is the focus of our study today.

This is the second article of furniture you come to in the sanctuary.

And this was a basin that was located in the sanctuary.

The priest would daily, and likely multiple times a day, wash their hands and their feet before they would enter the holy place of the sanctuary.

This is a scale model or a bird's eye view of the sanctuary.

You can see that the second article of furniture that you come to after the burnt altar, or the burnt offering, is the laver.

And as we noted in our earlier presentations, the most holy place represents the presence of God.

And this was the place where Adam and Eve were prior to the fall.

They were able to have a face-to-face communion with God.

And Because of sin, we were not able to have that communion with God and we were placed outside of the gate.

And then the plan of salvation, as illustrated in the sanctuary, is God's plan of restoration.

He wants to bring us into the courtyard, into the holy place, and into the most holy place, back to the relationship that he had with Adam and Eve before the fall.

So you come into the sanctuary, and as we illustrated last Sabbath, we experienced the love of God at the altar of burnt offering.

We accept Jesus as our Savior and we're saved.

After that, Jesus brings us to the laver.

Now the laver, when you use that word in some languages, like Spanish I believe, you can correct me afterwards if I'm wrong, it literally means to wash.

And in the Hebrew this word laver is to wash.

And so this was a place of cleansing that was there.

Now this is an interesting observation from John chapter 19, verse 34, and this is in your study guide, which is an insert in your bulletin if you wanna follow along and take some notes.

It's John 19, 34, When Jesus was pierced by the soldiers on the cross with a spear, the Bible says, there was bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

Blood and water flowed from the side of Jesus.

And there's blood and water in the sanctuary.

We are saved and cleansed by the blood of Jesus, and we are washed by the Spirit and cleansed as well.

And Jesus provides both of these entities, blood and water, flowed from the side of Jesus.

And the gospel is about forgiveness and cleansing.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Jesus gives us the complete package, forgiveness and cleansing.

If you find a baby that's naked and dirty in Anchorage, what is the first thing you're gonna do?

You're gonna cover the baby, and then by the grace of God, you're gonna bring that baby home, and give the baby a bath.

You're gonna cover, and then you're going to cleanse.

Jesus covers us, He forgives us, and then He cleanses us.

And we'll see, according to the sanctuary, it's in this specific order that He does these things.

I will cleanse them, Jeremiah chapter 33, verse 8, I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and forgive all their rebellion against me.

So we're forgiven at the altar, we are cleansed at the laver.

We come to Jesus, He forgives us, He covers us with His robe, and then He proceeds to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now this is spiritually speaking, but they had these physical things in the sanctuary to illustrate what Jesus wants to do to us spiritually.

They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the tent of the meeting.

So they had mass donation and the women were so touched and moved by the love of God that they said, you know what, I'm going to donate my mirror.

So They gathered all these mirrors and they made this bronze basin from the collection and these donations, these offerings that these women gave to the tabernacle.

And it was made from these bronze mirrors.

Now a mirror is many times in the bathroom.

And there's also water in the bathroom as well.

And the mirror provides a moment of self-awareness.

I remember 1 time I went through an entire day and I looked in the mirror, you know you just want to do a check just to make sure everything's okay.

I looked in the mirror and there was a big old olive chunk stuck to my tooth right here and I looked like a pirate.

And I went through my entire day looking like that, smiling, and no 1 had the heart to tell me.

And it was in that moment that I said, oh, I need to make a correction.

It shows us our need and the Bible tells us the law of God is like a mirror.

The mirror doesn't cleanse us, but it reveals to us our needs.

So it's interesting that here at the washing station is also a mirror signifying, I believe, a moment of self-reflection, because if you don't know that you are dirty, you don't realize the need to be cleansed.

And here's the biblical support for this notion of washing at the labor.

Make a bronze basin with its bronze stand for washing.

So the labor was for a washing station, place it between the tent of the meeting and the altar and put water in it.

The Bible tells us that every time the priest would enter into the second compartment of the sanctuary, the holy place, he would wash his hands and his feet.

Scholars believe that there was a ladle there, that they would ladle the water out for this washing process.

They would also wash their hands and their feet before they would participate in the sacrificial services as well, and this was a daily, regular occurrence.

It was not washed once and then cleansed.

It was not like the inauguration of the sanctuary where they only did that once.

But this was a regular daily occurrence of washing symbolized by the labor.

In the Bible, it uses this metaphor of washing to symbolize spiritual cleansing and this is from Psalm 51.

This was after David had committed his great sin of killing Uriah and then taking his wife and Nathan the Prophet went in before him and he had this profound moment of self-awareness and he penned this psalm and notice what he says in Psalm 51 verse 2, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

He asked God to cleanse him, to wash him of his sin and this only came after a moment in which he realized his need.

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Series

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior

Sanctuary, Salvation and Our Savior: Cleansed at the Laver

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

How Jesus Treats the Untouchables

55m

AMEN 2009 Plenary Sessions

Is It A Time?

56m

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior: Justified in the Courtyard

41m

Preparing for the Crisis

01 Lessons from the Coronavirus

35m

What Soap Can Never Clean

28m

Lessons from the Great Physician

Cleansing the Defiled

1h 6m

Prayer by Gem Castor

Gentle Healer

54m

Who In the World Would Want Us?

46m

Jesus: The Healer

47m

Strong Delusions

50m

Sound Doctrine