Every Monday night the Lord has been leading us into the Tabernacle as we pray and seek His face. Below is a summary of what it's like to go on this journey.
You are most welcome to join us from 7-9pm every Monday night in the chapel at South Church or you can join us on Zoom.
ZOOM LINK TO JOIN:
https://zoom.us/j/970879276?pwd=T2I2cEc0MThJSXRSOHNHaE5qamdNUT09
Meeting ID: 970 879 276
Password: 168792
Over the last 3 years the Lord has been leading us in HOGH through an incredible journey through the Tabernacle. We’ve to the realization that this is the original House of Prayer described in the Bible, all of this was designed by the Lord God Adonai, never man’s idea. We’ve come to realize the Tabernacle is a blueprint for an incredible journey into the Throne Room of the Great I AM, into the very heart of God.
As we go through the GATE, we’re learning how joyfully praise God for all that He’s done for us. This is not about singing our favorite praise songs that we love. Praise has nothing to do with that. We do sing, in fact we shout our favorite praise songs. As we do, we declare the goodness of God and all the miracles He has done for us. We express our passion for Yeshua with wild joyous dancing, waving our flags, even making a loud noise with instruments. It’s not at all about how good we sound. It’s all about declaring and praising God for His involvement in our lives.
The OUTER COURT is a place of preparation. As we praise and glorify the Lord’s name, we hear the voice of the Lord calling for us to come closer. Adonai wants to share His secrets with us. But, like Esther, we must submit to the “beauty treatments” before we are allowed to enter into having face-to-face encounters with the Great, I AM, the Creator of the Universe.
The ALTAR OF SACRFICICE is a place of surrender. This is a place of letting go, giving our all to our Savior. We’re learning this is a continual thing, not just a one-time salvation experience as practiced in our churches today. The significance of what Yeshua did for us on the Cross has become increasingly and painfully real to us. We’ve realized that if the Lord gave His all to us, what right do we have to hold back on God? Many of us carry burdens. Through our learning to surrender, we surrender all of our cares and concerns to the Great I AM, He and He alone is our burden-bearer. We’ve come to realize the Lord never called us to carry many of the burdens we carry. We learn to trust the Lord with all of our worries, our concerns, our responsibilities. There are so many issues, so many prayers, but they all have to be left at the Altar of Sacrifice. All of the concerns for the world around us must be left behind. All of our prayers for the world around us must be left at this Altar of Sacrifice. If we are so full of our own stuff, we will be deaf to what the Great I AM wants to tell us, what He is about to impart into us. We have to learn to let go of all that concerns us and come to the Lord free and empty-handed.
At the BRONZE LAVER we surrender to the washing, the cleansing. We allow the Lord to go through our closets and wash us free from all the junk that has been buried within us, long forgotten. We now take on our new role as part of the “kingdom of priests” (I Peter 2:9), We receive our new roles as “new creations in Christ”. We begin to understand our roles as “co-heirs” and “co-rulers”, learn to walk in the authority the Lord has given us. As we allow the washing to take place here, we come to understand we are not ordinary people. We are not how others identify us. We see that we are a unique creation of God, made for a specific purpose, called to a specific ministry.
As we allow the Great I AM to strip us bare of all of our thoughts, mindsets, agendas and prayers – empty of everything that smells of our flesh – we are now ready to enter through the DOOR into the INNER CHAMBER. Or, as some identify this as the Holy Place. 1We learn to leave all of our preconceived thoughts, issues, and mindsets behind and learn the ways of God. What is on HIS heart?
Inside the Inner Chamber, the first thing we see is the GOLDEN LAMPSTAND. This special place is not a dark room with shadowy corners. No, the room is brilliantly lit with the Light of God. “God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all”. (1 John 1:5) No shadows, no darkness. No secrets. The walls are covered with gold and reflect the brilliance of the light. We see there are 6 branches connected to the center shaft, the name is the Lord. Six, the number of man connected to the center makes seven, which is the number of fulfillment – completeness. Man is never complete without his connection and dependency on the Great I AM. The Golden Lampstand is hollow, there is a fragrant oil-soaked wick floating in each branch. Twice a day the priest is commanded to trim the wicks from previous fires and fill the center shaft with oil, so full that each branch is then filled. But it is filled only through the center shaft. The burnt wicks are of previous fires, previous encounters we’ve had with the Lord. We have to let go of all previous fires in order to receive a NEW fire, burning bright and clean within us. We have to wait, allow the Oil of the Ruach haKodesh, the very Presence of God to saturate us. We must not run off the minute we feel His Presence. We must learn to wait, be saturated in His Presence. We ask for the seven-fold Spirit of God to marinate in us (Isaiah 11:2). For those of us who like to work, this is the most difficult for us. Learn to wait on God. Remain here until you are fully saturated with His Presence, so saturated that you leak and drip of His Presence.
On the other side of the chamber is the TABLE OF SHOWBREAD. In Hebrew, the actual word is the Bread of His Presence, or the Bread of His Faces. This is the Word of God. This is where we learn the art of covenant. We serve a God Who is always faithful to keep His promises. We must learn to keep our promises. Here we learn through God’s Word the art of fellowship – fellowship with the Lord through His Word and fellowship with each other. Here we begin to see our oneness with each other, how we in our uniqueness are called to fit with one another, work with one another for the sake of the Kingdom of God. At the Bronze Laver, the revelation of our specialness and uniqueness is revealed to us, here at the Table of Showbread we learn that none of us are higher than another. We learn to be together as His Bride, as His Body. We learn to commune with the Lord and commune with one another.
All of this prepares us for our chief task, our chief priestly ministry: to offer the incense of our worship and intercession at the INCENSE ALTAR. This is a place where we do not praise God for all the great and magnificent things He’s done for us. Instead, this is a place of recognizing the Creator of the Universe, the Alpha & Omega, the One who we never would have existed without His creating all that we see and all that we are. Here at this Altar our eyes are off us and onto HIM. We are not the “center of our universe”, HE IS. We extol and exalt the Lord of Lords and the Kings. Our mouths are filled with songs and declarations to the King of the Universe. We bow before the Great I AM. We prostrate ourselves in worship before the Most High God, El Elyon.
We also offer the incense of intercession to the One Who created us. What is on HIS heart? We as intercessors stand in the gap on behalf of our world. How can we release our intercessions to the Lord? What is concerning HIM? It’s not about what concerns us. We are called to be His ministers, His priests. We offer our prayers to the One Who created us. What is on Your heart Lord? What is breaking Your heart?
All of this fills up the incense bowls in heaven. Not our self-centered prayers that were left at the Altar of Sacrifice. The Lord may call us to pray the same prayers that we prayed out there, but now these prayers have gone through the fire. They’ve been refined. We reach out to discover the Great I AM’s heart, then pray that back to HIM.
As we worship and intercede, we may look up and see the VEIL has been ripped! The very Throne Room of the King of the Universe is now open! The sacrificial blood has been poured out upon the Mercy Seat and we now can enter into the Holiest Place of all, the HOLY OF HOLIES! Through this whole process we’ve come to the realization we cannot run into this place stinking of the world. When we do that, we miss the incredibly powerful encounter of meeting the Creator of the Universe face-to-face. Whenever we meet a king, we must follow protocol. The Tabernacle is the protocol, the journey we must take to enter into this place. This is a place where we enter by invitation only. The invitation may not be there every day, but eventually this invitation will come. And when it comes, what powerful encounters they will be!
