The Sweet Aroma of Prayer: Understanding the Altar of Incense

Show Notes

Episode 462: 
In this episode, Chris and guest co-host, Wesley, also delve into a meaningful discussion about the Altar of Incense from Exodus 30:1-10. They explore its significance in the Old Testament and how it symbolizes the prayers of God's people ascending to Him. They also share personal stories of answered prayers and the importance of trusting in God's faithfulness.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Well, hey, everybody, good morning, good morning, we talk, good morning, good morning. You missed your Yeah, that's me. That's me. Uh hey, I am Chris Zarba and next to me is Wesley Woods. Yes, and this is the second day that you're joining us because you're filling in because Jeff's out of pocket, and uh, we are the Bible Guys today. And it's been a great segment so far. Yesterday was great. Today's going to be even better, don't you agree? Yeah, I think it's going to be good. You got some good stuff playing, that's right. So today we're going to dive right into it with a segment that Desiree has given to us called Dad Joke Competition, which, by the way, I think I think remains is my favorite. Yeah, I think, but but it all depends if the joke is like really wamp womp. Yeah. I think I got some good ones. Yeah, Okay, I haven't read mine yet. I always read myn in real time. So here we go. I'll start with the first one. Then we'll go. We'll take turns today I had someone knock on my door asking for small donations towards the local swimming pool. I gave him a glass of water. That was actually pretty good. I love it. It's actually so clever. That was so good. All right, do you want me to go? Yes, okay, here we go. That's so good. My inflatable house got a puncture last night. Now I'm living in a flat. Oh that's a bad joke. That's a dead joke for sure. Ye Oh, here we go. Okay. Uh. Walking home last night, I passed a slice of apple pie, a hot fudge Sunday, and a lemon cheesecake. I thought to myself, the streets are strangely deserted tonight. Oh that was okay. I guess that was okay. I like this one. My daughter would like that one. Yeah, she loves these dad jokes. I was abducted by aliens. They made me wash my hands, clean my room, and eat my vegetables. Turns out I was on the mother ship. O. Wow, you know that's that's that's okay, that's okay. You know these ones so far we're doing we're doing a three play of words kinds of things, right. Yeah, the glass of water. Wasn't a play of words? That was just clever? All right? Here we go. Number three? Uh, my wife and I laugh at how competitive we are, but I laugh more. That's so good. I like that one really a lot. That's good. I told my waitress that my coffee tasted like mud. She said it should it was fresh ground this morning. Oh. I like that one though. It was fresh ground to me. That's better than the other way. Yeah, that's funny. Although that's a play on words one as well, right, isn't it? All right? Here we go? Oh, talk about a play on words? Holy cow? Ready, what do you call a dinosaur that crashes his car? I don't know, Tyrannosaurus rex. They're thinking like what could that be? Yeah? Okay? What do you call a medieval spy a spy? Yeah? Okay? What sir? Valence? Oh wow? Bad? That is really that's the can we deem? That is the worst one so far. That's really bad? All right? Number five and the final one from me here it is singing the shower is all fun and games until you get body wash in your mouth. Then it's a soap opera. Geez I like it too. I like it too. Okay, last one, a sweater I bought was picking up static electricity, so I returned it to the store. They gave me another one free of charge. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. So wow, talk about playing words. We gotta blame Desiree. I by far, that's vote the best one. I don't know what you think is the best one. I think the glass of water one is the best one. Yeah, that was pretty good. Today I had someone knock on my door asking for small donations toward the local swimming pools. So I gave the donation. That's so funny. I don't know where she finds these as A guy is gonna take the glass of water all the way back in down. He's gonna do that until he fills it. Oh my goodness, that's funny. Pretty good. Yep, So Dad Joe competitions. We hope that that brightens your day so far, And if it's in the morning, then hey, what a great way to start the morning. Yeah. Today we are continuing on with is our series that we're in called Milestones of the Old Testament or Highlights of the Old Testament, and we're just really sort of skipping around and we're just doing the main what is it the essentials, right, and right now we're walking through all the different important elements of God giving instructions about the temple. And so we last yesterday we covered the instructions on the sacrifices, and we forgot to mention by the way, because we ran out of time. But the remember I mentioned yesterday that it was the tamid sacrifice or the perpetual sacrifice that happened once in the morning and once in the evening. It was also the only sacrifice mentioned in all the types of sacrifices in the Bible that has a sweet aroma to God. And so later on in the Book of Hebrews, it actually talks about how Jesus when he died in the cross, was a sweet aroma to God. Right, so he was also connected to perpetual sacrifice. Yeah, and he was even anointed too, So they are all kind of oh yeah references you can tie in there. Yeah, right, so that's really cool. All right, Well, today we're reading from Exodus chapter thirty, and we're going to be reading from verses one through ten. Yeah, so it says, then make another altar of acacia wood for burning incense, make it eighteen inches square and thirty six inches high, with horns at the corners, carved from the same piece of wood as the altar itself. Again, we're dealing with that thing of being very specific here. Verse three. Overlay the top sides and horns of the altar with pure gold, and run a gold molding around the entire altar. Make two gold rings and attach them on opposite sides of the altar below the goal molding. To hold the carrying poles, make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Place the incense altar just outside the inner curtain that shields the arc of the covenant. In front one of the arcs, cover the place of atonement that covers the tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. I will meet with you there. Verse seven says every morning, when Aaron's aaron maintains the lamps, he must burn fragrant incense on the altar, and each evening when he lights the lamps, he must again burn incense in the Lord's presence. This must be done from generation to generation. Do not offer any unholy incense on this altar, or any burnt offerings, grain offerings, or liquid offerings Verse ten. Once a year, aaron must purify the altar by smearing its horns with blood from the offering made to purify the people from their sin. This will be a regular annual event from generation to generation, for this is the Lord's most holy alter. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot there. You know, I was always a little bit infused by that claim. This is the Lord's most holy altar. You know, you would think that the altar because there's two altars in the temple, right, So one altar is an altar of sacrifice, right, and then this altar is designed only for burning incense. So the other altar is you know, you pour out drink offerings, burnt offerings. And in this altar here the incense alter. There's a little note here that has a little read about it and the Life Application Study Bible, and it says the Tabernacle and Temple, So in other words, it's covering that this takes place also in Solomon's temple as well. Right, the Tabernacle and temple contain two altars, one for burning sacrifices and one for burning incense. The incense alter was placed in front of the veil between the holy Place and the most holy Place or the holy holies, the Inner Sanctuary. The incense altar was made of cedar wood and overlable gold, and it was about eight you know, blah blah blah blah blah. This altar was used to burn incense before the veil, and the burning incense symbolized the prayers of God's people ascending to God. The Heavenly Temple also has an altar of incense. If you read in Revelation chapter six, verse nine, chapter eight, verse five, Chapter nine, verse thirteen. So the next time you pray, think of your prayers as an ascending or as ascending to God like incense. So this is why the more traditional religions and practices and faiths still burn incense right now, even though that we know that we're under the New Testament, you know, nothing that we you know, that is required to you know, to go through going through priests for forgiveness, you know, burning incense for prayers, those kinds of things. There are things, there are people that still practice that. But we also know that we're not under the law and anymore well we're not under the you know, this type of obligation. And so therefore at our church. We don't do any of this right because it was given for a time, for a specific purpose, and Jesus was the fulfillment of the symbol symbolization of all of this. Yes, right, and Paul clearly tells us we're not under the law. Now. Is there anything wrong with burning incense the symbolized prayer? Absolutely not. So my brother is a devout Catholic, and and so the rest of us in the family. I have four older brothers, five boys in all, So the rest of us we all grew up sort of non practicing Catholics and we sort of shifted over to sort of a non denominational type type, you know, faith. But he just absolutely loves tradition. You know what's interesting is that he is not only that way in his faith, he's that way in his life. He like, he's like, he's like, Chris, don't you love to get up and have the same bullet cereal every single day? I'm like, I'm like, he's like, don't you love a routine? I'm like, I'm like, I would rather die than have a routine in my life, right, I mean the idea that like you have to go to bed at the same time get up at the same time, eat the same thing, do the same thing. I can I promise you that that actually scares me. I would think to myself, I would I would not enjoy life now. Routines are great if you're going towards a goal. I think of like an Olympic athlete. You know, they have a regimented diet, a regimented wake up, go to sleep. They need so much protein and you know they have a regimented I think so. Yeah, but just in a normal everyday life, well, and again there's nothing wrong with it. I'm just I'm only speaking for me right now. For my brother Tom, I would think that he, you know, if he's straight from his routine, he'd be like, I'm off today, I'm not on my game. Something's just not quite right, you know. And it's like it's like, man, I can't believe I'm just thrown off all day. And so therefore, like so I visited, you know, a church with him, and and they walk down the aisle and they have the incense, right, and then they're they're they're waving this thing and and it's you know, it has that really strong scentse and everything else. And he looks at me and he goes, he goes, oh man, he goes, isn't that Isn't that just unbelievable? He goes, isn't that awesome? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, you know what that symbolizes, right, I'm like, well, yeah, I do. It symbolizes the Holy Spirit. And he's like, isn't that amazing? I'm like, but don't you do it every week? Right? Like, like if you've seen it your whole entire life, what's so interesting is it's amazing to him? Right, And so there's nothing wrong with that, right, nothing wrong with burning incense for the symbolism, right, as long as you don't ascribe power to the incense, Like without the incense, my prayers can't reach God. That's not what he's saying, right, like without this. So just let's be clear. Jesus came and he fulfilled everything, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with tradition. There's nothing wrong with reciting prayers word for word over and over. There's nothing wrong with those things. We're just not required to do this, yes, right, because Jesus, you know, has fulfilled all that. You know, what's so great is that It also mentioned that there's a reference of this, you know, tradition that carried from the time of Exodus all the way up until the time of Jesus. So if you fast forward to Luke chapter number one, do you remember the story of when John the Baptist was announced? Yeah? Right, and you remember what happened to Zachariah. And Zachariah had walked into the Holy Place, and what he was doing was he was burning incense. So listen to this, and it says in verse number ten. Well, actually, I'll back up, and it says once when Zachari's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, right by straws, and according to the custom of the priesthood priesthood, he was the going to the Temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time of the burning of the incense came, all the assembled worshippers were praying outside. Then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zachariah saw him, he was startled and he was gripped with fear. But the angel said, do not be afraid. Zachariath, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you were to call him John. So think about this. So the entire family, you know, John and his wife Elizabeth, have been praying over and over and over for a child. So he goes in, he lights incense, and what does he do. He prays, Yeah, And in his prayer, what does he do he prais the same thing that his family has been praying for, the yearning of his heart and his home and his legacy, right and everything else that was he wanted a son. And so the angel shows up and says appropriately at the altar of incense, Yeah, isn't that amazing? Yeah, so funny thing about that, Chris, As you were talking about that, I was thinking of things that my wife and I have prayed for, and that's one of the things that we prayed for in the past, was for a child. So I remember we got married and it had been i don't know, like four years five years and no kids, and we were praying and praying and praying, and then my wife finally got married and then she had a miscarriage and then we were just like deflated, like man, you know, this is really tough. But we kept praying because we knew that God was faithful, So we kept praying, kept praying, kept praying, and eventually my wife did get pregnant, but it didn't go exactly how we plan but God was still in the mix. And I think that's something for everyone our listeners to realize that even when things don't go according to your plan, God is still in the mix of everything. So my wife gets pregnant at about I don't know how many months this would be, like week twenty eight. Her water breaks. So for those of you who know, you know babies take nine months. That's way too early, right, So how much is twenty eight weeks? You're gonna make me do math live now. So my daughter, her birthday is on July eighth. She was supposed to be due in September. July, okay, so July August September, so eight weeks early. Yeah, so she was super early. So when she was born, well, I got it back up a little bit. She decided she wanted to get free foot first. Oh wow, literally foot first. So the water broke and she was breathing. Yeah, she was like, I'm getting out of here. One way or the other. So we had to do an emergency surgery. I still remember that like it was yesterday. The doctors get her out. She's two pounds. Literally, you could hold her with one hand. They let us see her for a quick second, whisked her away to the nick you for babies, the ICU, and I had her hooked up to everything and she's perfectly healthy, fine now, doing fine, no issues, no problems. But the point is we pre now. Yeah she is driving now. I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready for driving and dating. I remember those those days, man, those are good days. Yeah, those are good days. But the point is we lifted our prayers unto God. Like people here who were praying and burning incense. We lifted our prayer unto God, and God answered the prayer. Even though things along the path didn't. They didn't unfold like I thought they would unfold. Even in the midst of all that, we had great doctors, we had great nurses, We were able to share our faith in the hospital, like so many amazing things happen out of that that it was just amazing. Yeah, and uh so I'll share a quick prayer story too. And I might have mentioned this like so long ago, like maybe even a couple of years ago on the on the HC Daily, I think. But my wife had prayed when we moved houses from Atlanta to Michigan. And the story was, you know, we were still paying house payments in Atlanta and we're having to pay house payments in Michigan, which is not fun. It's not been the two mortgage game for a couple of months and it's not funn No, it's it's really bad, especially when the church who hires you only gives you pennies, right, and so we're making pennies moving up to Michigan, and I took a pay cut and the cost of living was like like fifty percent higher here. Yeah, and I took like a forty percent pay cut. It was just unbelievable. It's not good. So we're paying and goodness, thank goodness, our our house payment wasn't up here. Of the rent wasn't that bad because we were staying in a house that was trying to be sold as well. Okay, because there was a family who actually was trying to sell their house in Michigan and they went to Salt Lake City, Utah to start a church. So their house is literally for sale, but it was just sitting there. So they were like they were being kind, and they said, you know what our house is, you know, sitting there for sale. It has nobody in it. Why don't you guys stay there until you can you know, sell your house and buy a house. But they charging us, so we're paying and uh and then all of a sudden, you know, we're making these payments, and so my wife is like, goodness, gracious, we need to pray hard at our house in Atlanta cells because we're making this payment. But at the same time, she had compassion on Christa's house that we were staying in, right, and she says, I need to pray that this house will be sold too, because it's been a year and nobody's been on this house at all in Michigan. So my wife says, but if there's a conundrum, because if if our house sells first, great, then we'll leave, but it's gonna hurt them financially. But if their house goes first, then we're really out of luck because now we get to like, you know, do a rent a house, and then we're messing with schools and you know, and all these kind of things right, and so, and so my wife says, Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pray that the houses sell and close the no no no on the same day. Oh wow. So she goes, God, I want the house house specific. That's specific, right, But you said praise specific. She says, I want them to sell on the same day. Then I want the closing dates to be in the same day. And she goes, God, they I don't know you're in this. You know, we just upproved our family. We just moved to Michigan from Atlanta, by the way, sunny Atlanta to the tundra of Michigan. And so anyway, so she prays, and then what turns out is that they sell on the same day. Wow. And then they close in the same day. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. And it's like, what are the odds? Try and calculate that. Here's the funny thing. And I do this sometimes too. We'll pray for something and then I will literally be shocked when God does it right. It's like, well, this is what you asked for. Yeah, but that's awesome. On the same day to have both homes sell, that's more than a coincidence. Well, I think about it. It's it's one of those things where when you ask for in advance and it happens, and the odds are like probably trillions the one I mean, I bet you some. I think in the USA, the fact that these in separate states, well, you know, and then think about the unreliable predictability of closings. Right, Oh we have to reschedule closing, we have to do be a paperwork issue. Oh we got a bump in a day or so in the same day. It's just incomfortable. It's got to be trillions the one. It really does. And so anyway, the point is is that when that happens, it's those times in our lives where we when we do pray, we don't get what we want. We look back at God's faithfulness and we say, well, we know God, here's our prayers. We know God is listening. We know God is going to do what he's going to do if he wants to do it, and we have to just trust and a good God who wants what's best for us. Because God's been faithful in the past. So when we struggle and God doesn't answer, we just have to trust that that's something, no matter how good or bad it is that we're going through, something is going to be you know, used to glorify God. And uh, and good's going to come from even even you know, the bad things. So let me just say that as well. Uh. The idea that that the alter of incense is referred to by God as his most holy alter. So think about that. Not the altar of sacrifice for sins and not where the drink offerings are, you know, which is the same alter, but this alter of prayers, that's the most holy alter, you know. And I think, I think, I think, I think I know the reason why because the other alter and this is just human logic, but the other alter is an altar that represents something that was outside of God's design. Think about when God created humanity. He created humanity for relationship, right, he created humanity for for worship, and he gave us free will because true love cannot exist with that free will. And and then and then outside of God's design there is sin that comes into the world. So God then has to put into place a system in which we are able to approach him. Again, that system outside of God's design is sort of represented by the altar of sacrifice. But the system of incense represents God's original design at all, or or you know, at the beginning, God's endgame, from the very beginning was a relationship with him. So even even the New Testament says that Jesus Christ comes as a mediator so that our relationship can be reconciled with God the Father. The altar of incense is so important because it represents, I believe, you know, just connecting the dots in the scripture. It represents God's original desire, which is us coming to him, you know, in a repentance form and a worship form and a loving form, praying, talking, asking, depending, And that's what God wanted from the very beginning in the first place. And so that's that's a great thing to be reminded of. What a great thought. Every time you bow your heads and close your eyes. Number one, you're in the Holy of holies, right, you're in the holy place and the most holy place. Think of your prayers as an incense, and think of this that even in heaven, the Book of Revelation tells us God still has an alter of incense. Yeah, but did you notice though there's no alter of sacrifice, right at least, I don't think so. Unless I'm wrong, I'm open to being wrong, but I'm pretty certain there's not an alter of sacrifice in heaven, but there's an alter of incense because God wants our relationship with him. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I think we're out of time. Yeah, this is a really great topic here. Yep. So we're going to continue on and hopefully you'll join us next time on the Bible. Guys,