There are two or three points in regard to its position which it is no
fanciful spiritualising, but simply grasping the underlying meaning of
the institution, if we emphasise. First, let me remind you that there
was another altar in the outer court, whereon was offered the daily
sacrifice for the sins of the people. That altar came first, and the
sacrifice had to be offered on it first, before the priest came into
the inner court with the coals from that altar, and the incense kindled
by them. What does that say to us? The altar of incense is not
approached until we have been to the altar of sacrifice. It is no mere
arbitrary appointment, nor piece of evangelical narrowness, which says
that there is no real access to God, in all the fullness and reality of
His revealed character for us sinful men, until our sins have been
dealt with, taken away by the Lamb of God, sacrificed for us. And it is
simply the transcript of experience which declares that there will be
little inclination or desire to come to God with the sacrifice of
praise and prayer until we have been to Christ, the sacrifice of
propitiation and pardon. Brethren, we need to be cleansed, and we can
only be delivered from the unholiness which is the perpetual and
necessary barrier to our vision of God by making our very own, through
simple faith, the energy and the blessedness of that great Sacrifice of
propitiation. Then, and then only, do we properly come to the altar of
incense. Its place in the Christian life is second, not first. 'First
be reconciled to thy' Father, 'then lay' the incense 'on the altar.'
Again, great and deep lessons are given to us in the place of our altar
in regard to the other articles that stood in that inner court. I have
said that there were three of them. In the centre this altar of
incense; on the one hand the great lampstand; on the other hand the
table with loaves thereon. The one symbolised Israel's function in the
world to be its light, which in our function too, and the other with
loaves thereon symbolised the consecration to God of Israel's
activities, and their results.
But between the two, central to both, stood the altar of incense. What
does that say as to the place of prayer, defined as I have defined it,
in the Christian life? It says this, that the light will burn dim and
go out, and the loaves, the expression and the consequences of our
activities, will become mouldy and dry, unless both are hallowed and
sustained by prayer. And that lesson is one which we all need, and
which I suppose this generation needs quite as much as, if not more
than, any that has gone before it. For life has become so swift and
rushing, and from all sides, the Church, the world, society, there come
such temptations, and exhortations, and necessities, for strenuous and
continuous work, that the basis of all wholesome and vigorous work,
communion with God, is but too apt to be put aside and relegated to
some inferior position. The carbon points of the electric arc-light are
eaten away with tremendous rapidity in the very act of giving forth
their illumination, and they need to be continually approximated and to
be frequently renewed. The oil is burned away in the act of shining,
and the lamp needs to be charged again. If we are to do our work in the
world as its lights, and if we are to have any activities fit to be
consecrated to God and laid on the Table before the Veil, it can only
be by our making the altar of incense the centre, and these others
subsidiary.
One last thought--the place of prayer in the Christian life is shadowed
for us by the position of this altar in reference to 'the secret place
of the Most High,' that mysterious inner court which was dark but for
the Shechinah's light, and lonely but for the presence of the
worshipping cherubim and the worshipped God. It stood, as we are told a
verse or two after my text, 'before the veil.' A straight line drawn
from the altar of sacrifice would have bisected the altar of incense as
it passed into the mercy-seat and the glory. And that just tells us
that the place of prayer in the Christian lift is that it is the direct
way of coming close to God. Dear brother, we shall never lift the veil,
and stand in 'the secret place of the Most High,' unless we take the
altar of incense on our road.