July 7: FAITH FULLY INVESTED
And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. Revelation 8:4
To revisit the temple services in a general sense brings to mind the daily and the yearly. In the daily offerings of incense at the tabernacle, there were morning and evening prayers accompanied by incense (Exodus 30: 7,8), a simple reminder of our daily need to walk with the Lord. In the yearly, which pointed to a one-time, future event, the incense was handled differently. This act preceded the typical Day of Atonement, its antitypical fulfillment being the return of the Lord.
The present work of the risen Christ as our High Priest is typified by the angel’s hand. In the Old Testament, the ten days—ten signifying a time of testing—which led up to the Day of Atonement was an intense time of spiritual preparation. It was a time of examining one’s own life in light of the Standard of judgment (the Ten Commandments). It was a time for making sure of confessing and forsaking sin. The confessed sins of the people, all year long, were “recorded” in the sanctuary (in blood), and the final yearly symbolic act of separating the people from their sin was signified by the cleansing of the sanctuary. Then the record of confessed sin was removed from the sanctuary and placed squarely upon the head of the scapegoat, representing Satan.
The tabernacle was filled with symbols of the LORD’s divine work to separate us from sin and its sticky residue. By faith, we are to accept that He is able to completely extricate us from the tangled web of sin. Otherwise, we could not believe His statement: “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:17 - see also 8:12 and Jeremiah 31:34)
The period of testing, which runs parallel to the Old Testament feast of trumpets (see Leviticus 23:24,27; Numbers 29:1,7), led up to the cleansing of the sanctuary. According to the time prophecy given to Daniel (see Daniel 8:14), the antitypical cleansing began in 1844.
The handling of the incense leading up to the Day of Atonement by the earthly high priest tells us something of what is happening in the heavenly sanctuary; he filled a golden bowl, a censer, with coals of fire from the altar of incense (Leviticus 16:12). His other hand held the precious incense. Then, he would pull back the veil and step from the Holy Place into the Most Holy Place where the mercy seat, representing God’s earthly throne atop the ark of the covenant, was kept. He would add the incense to the coals of fire in the golden censer “that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testimony [the Ten Commandments], lest he die” (v.13). This cloud of thick smoke kept the high priest, who was a sinner just as the rest of the people, from actually seeing the presence of God over the mercy seat. Outside in the courtyard, the praying people could see neither the high priest nor the presence of God—yet they trusted that their prayers were lifted up by the high priest to God.
And now, by faith, I am to trust my sinless Great High Priest to connect every prayer of faith with His heavenly Father. Have I faithfully sought the aid of Jesus in preparing for His soon return? Am I willingly allowing His word to override my “common sense”? I must decide today, and every day, to be among the few (Matthew 7:14) who fully invest their faith in the character, the name, of God.
“O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:25-26