Exodus 38.
NOW comes the account of the making of the altar of burnt offering. It, as we have seen before, was made of brass (or copper), which is always a “type” in the Bible, of God in judgment. After this large altar, they made the laver. where the priests, who attended the tabernacle, were to wash. This also was of brass.
These two pieces of furniture remind us that we were born sinners, and have sinned many times, and cannot be in God’s house in the sky, unless the precious blood of Jesus has covered our sins, and we ourselves made clean, not so much as to our bodies outside, as in our hearts, with all the badness that is in us confessed to God., Every time the priests came in, they had to wash, as you will see from the last chapter of Exodus, verses 30-32.
Not a brass lavatory, or wash basin. but the Word of God, the Bible, (Eph. 5:2626That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, (Ephesians 5:26)), is what Christians have to use often, every day in fact, to be going on with God, for this is a dirty world, as a friend said in a letter I received a few days ago. We need if we are God’s children, to read His Book constantly, and think about what we read there so as to keep our bad thoughts and words and ways confessed to God, and it is in this way that the Holy Spirit teaches us to hate everything in our ways that does not please Him.
None of us, I am sure, think enough about what we are doing and saying and thinking every day, that these should be only what God Would be pleased with.
When the day is over and we go to our rest, how many of us think about how we have spent the day, and include in our prayers to ask that we be given strength to spend the next day better?
This chapter tells of the finishing of the tabernacle, the outer, open part of it, about which we need say no more at present. We shall just notice that little word “all”—all that the Lord commanded (verse 22), Bezaleel and his helpers did. What a word for us to treasure in our hearts; and use for ourselves! all that God’s Word tells us that He wishes for us, we shall try with His help, to be and to do, won’t we?
Then they counted up the gold, and the silver, and the brass, (or copper); silver enough, we read in the 25th and 26th verses, to allow half a shekel for each man, twenty years or older in all that big company. It was as we said in the 30th chapter, verses 12-14, the ransom price. The precious blood of Jesus is our ransom price; it is enough for all, but it is not every one who will believe it.
Have you, young reader, believed what God says about that precious blood?
ML 10/22/1922