Thunder in the Holy Land

Symbols Of Salvation

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Charles Byrd (Host), Andrea Endries, Levi Longoria, Stephen Fowler

Home

Series Code: THL

Program Code: THL000019


00:05 If you visit the old city of Jerusalem today,
00:07 the purchase of a kilo of rice, bananas or nuts,
00:10 don't be surprised if you find that they use an old fashioned
00:14 scale and weights to measure your order.
00:18 This scale and these weights are important
00:20 as they will be the judge,
00:22 the arbiter of whether or not you get your full kilo.
00:26 After all, if you're paying for a kilo,
00:30 you will be wanting what you paid for.
00:32 And speaking of scales,
00:34 the legal system in America is symbolized by a woman,
00:38 a Roman goddess actually named Themis.
00:41 With a scale in her hand she seeks to weigh the truth
00:44 and so dispense justice in a fair,
00:47 balanced, and impartial way.
00:49 But some 1300 years,
00:51 before the Roman bestirred themselves to become a nation,
00:54 God made it clear that judgment and justice
00:58 were very important qualities
01:00 in those He chose as his friends.
01:02 In fact, His whole kingdom,
01:04 the very foundation of His throne
01:06 is built upon judgment and justice.
01:10 Thus saith the Lord says the prophet Isaiah,
01:13 "Keep ye judgment, and do justice
01:18 for my salvation is near to come,
01:20 and my righteousness to be revealed."
01:23 So it should be no surprise that Emmanuel,
01:26 "God with us" made judgment
01:28 an important part of His doctrines and teachings.
01:32 His teachings fly in the face,
01:34 of the now almost universally reinvented Jesus,
01:38 the Jesus who has been emasculated,
01:41 the Jesus who accepts everyone, as part of His kingdom.
01:44 No matter their choices.
01:47 But the universalists message
01:49 that everyone will be saved in the end,
01:51 does not balance in the scale of truth
01:54 when compared to the teachings of Christ.
01:57 Some 2000 years ago,
01:59 the teachings of Jesus regarding the judgment
02:02 caused a great deal of thunder in the Holy Land.
02:05 And based on the current social pressure
02:08 to create and enact laws that silenced these teachings.
02:12 I would say they are still causing thunder today.
03:08 The question may be asked, why does God need a judgment?
03:11 Why can't He just let everyone alone?
03:14 After all, we're all basically good or are we?
03:20 Since 1922, the worldwide statistic
03:23 for abortions of convenience is nearly 2,300,000 per year.
03:29 Each year 15 million people starve worldwide
03:34 while there is enough grain to supply every person
03:37 on this planet with two loaves of bread per day.
03:41 In the US alone, we experience
03:43 1,300,000 reported violent crimes per year.
03:48 While at the same time
03:49 we open the door to the "entertainment" industry
03:52 inviting them to saturate our minds
03:54 and those of our children with acts of violence.
03:58 No, I don't think this basically good sentiment
04:01 would pass the judgment bar of God,
04:04 since He already has judged our hearts as desperately wicked.
04:09 In fact, Jesus' comment in Luke 11:13 could be understood
04:12 to be basically good means actually evil.
04:17 And all the while our sins are causing more pain,
04:20 sorrow, sadness, heartache, sickness, and death.
04:24 If we want all these bad things to go away,
04:27 then sin needs to go away.
04:31 And to help accomplish that goal,
04:33 God has convened a judgment.
04:37 in vision Jesus told John, his last living apostle
04:41 that there would come an hour that the judgment would begin.
04:45 With the encouragement of Jesus to study
04:47 and understand the Book of Daniel,
04:50 we learned in our previous program
04:52 that the judgment hour started in 1844 as the final event
04:57 of the longest time prophecy in the Bible.
05:00 Let's look at that verse once again.
05:04 Daniel 8:14, "And he said unto me,
05:07 Unto two thousand and three hundred days,
05:10 then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."
05:13 But what does it mean to cleanse the sanctuary
05:16 and why would it need cleansing?
05:19 If we want to really understand the judgment,
05:21 then we need to really understand the sanctuary.
05:24 So our reporters have teamed up in Timna,
05:27 deep in the south of Israel
05:29 at a replica of the ancient tabernacle.
05:32 Hi, guys. Hey. Hello.
05:35 Looks dry there? It is Charles, and hot.
05:39 Well, it's only supposed to get up to 112 today,
05:42 45 degrees Celsius.
05:45 Well, let's get moving before it gets too hot.
05:47 Too late, we've already passed that point.
05:49 I'll tell you one thing though.
05:51 Being here makes me a lot more sympathetic
05:53 towards the children of Israel
05:54 who wandered in the desert for 40 years.
05:56 Now the reason we're here is
05:58 because of two passages of scripture.
06:00 The first is the teachings of Jesus.
06:03 He said in John 5:39 "Search the scriptures,
06:06 for in them ye think ye have eternal life,
06:09 and they are they which testify of me."
06:13 It is the doctrine of Jesus that the Bible points to Him
06:15 as our Savior and Messiah.
06:17 Today, I believe you see that in a profound way.
06:21 The second verse is found in Psalm 77:13
06:25 "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary,
06:28 and who is so great a God as our God?"
06:31 The tabernacle made by Moses and the children of Israel
06:34 during there desert wanderings explains the way of God.
06:38 If you want to know who He is and what He's doing?
06:42 Look to the sanctuary.
06:44 Some might say that for the New Testament believer
06:48 the Old Tabernacle is not important.
06:51 But if you read Paul's letter to the Hebrews,
06:53 you will find that he mentions the word 'tabernacle' nine times
06:57 and it's used 15 times in the New Testament.
06:59 Four times Paul uses the word 'sanctuary,'
07:03 another name for this ancient church.
07:06 So if we're going to learn about Jesus and the Day of Judgment,
07:10 this is the place to be. So let's go.
07:15 No theme in the Bible is greater
07:17 or more important than salvation.
07:20 This theme will be the study and science of the redeemed
07:23 throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity,
07:26 like a giant fractal.
07:28 The love of God will continue to expand,
07:32 leaving infinite room for exploration and contemplation.
07:36 So God created in this sandbox illustration,
07:40 a portal that would direct the minds of His people
07:44 to Himself, His love,
07:46 His plan for their redemption and the judgment.
07:50 Here you will see His plan and purpose
07:53 to finally rid our hearts of sin and its curse.
08:00 Okay, remember team it's all about Jesus,
08:03 so check it out and tell us what you find.
08:07 The first thing we see is the simple tent structure
08:10 surrounded by a courtyard.
08:12 It could be the home of anyone, but this was to be tent,
08:15 the dwelling place of Jehovah, the God of all creation.
08:20 God said, "Let them make me a sanctuary
08:24 that I may dwell among them."
08:27 So the primary purpose of this tent
08:30 was that man and God could be together,
08:33 interacting and having fellowship.
08:36 And that way that truly does testify of Jesus.
08:40 For Isaiah said, "The Lord himself shall give you a sign.
08:44 Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
08:47 and shall call his name Immanuel."
08:50 Immanuel is the name that means "with us is God."
08:55 The tabernacle was placed in the center of the camp,
08:58 so that God could be with them.
09:02 And when Jesus came to earth it was for the same reason.
09:05 God wants to be with us, you and me.
09:09 I don't think where you can fully grasp
09:11 how intimate this illustration is.
09:14 But Paul writing to the folks in Corinth put it this way,
09:17 "You are the temple of the living God,
09:21 as God hath said, I will dwell in them,
09:25 and walk in them, and I will be their God,
09:30 and they shall be my people."
09:32 Much more than just living in a tabernacle amongst the people,
09:37 He wants us to be the sanctuary.
09:40 He wants to dwell in us.
09:47 As you enter the courtyard of the sanctuary,
09:49 the first thing you would see
09:51 is the 'Altar of Burnt Offerings'
09:53 where animals were sacrificed.
09:54 If anyone sinned, he or she would come to the tabernacle
09:58 and bring a spotless lamb with no defects.
10:01 Then they would place their hands
10:03 upon the head of the lamb and confess their sins,
10:06 the lies, the adultery, the bitterness,
10:09 the pride, the envy, the theft everything,
10:13 anything that would stop one
10:15 from being intimately connected to God.
10:18 This is how we come to God, to His house,
10:22 just as we are, sin-stained and damaged.
10:26 But we don't come alone.
10:28 We come with a lamb that is going to take our sins,
10:31 with the lamb that would become our sin and die in our place.
10:36 It is our sin-stained hands that must take the knife
10:39 and slay the innocent
10:41 who is punished on behalf of the guilty.
10:44 Now I'm going to share with you something that is important.
10:47 This will become significant in the need for the sanctuary
10:50 to be cleansed and the judgment.
10:53 The sacrificial blood was then carried by the priests
10:57 into the sanctuary and sprinkled before the veil or the curtain
11:00 separating the Holy Place from the most Holy Place.
11:04 The priest would also put some of the blood
11:07 on the horns of the altar of incense.
11:10 Everything burned on this altar was a representation of sin.
11:14 Jesus was made to be sin for us
11:17 and was offered for all our sins.
11:20 This altar was for the express purpose
11:22 of connecting us to Jesus,
11:25 the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice.
11:30 Paul tells us God is a consuming fire.
11:33 Like the Israelites of old,
11:35 we can come now confessing our sins
11:37 and accepting the merits of Christ in our behalf.
11:41 We can let His consuming presence cause us
11:44 to hate the sin that hurts and kills our precious Savior.
11:48 Burning up our desire to sin any longer
11:52 or we can hold on to those sins
11:54 and let that same fire consume them and us in the end.
12:00 The choice is ours.
12:04 The next item, God used to speak about His ways,
12:07 His plans was a brass laver with water in it.
12:10 You can well imagine that slaughtering an animal
12:13 and then burning it was not a clean process.
12:15 So after sacrificing the animals,
12:18 the priest would use this water to wash their hands and feet
12:20 before entering the sanctuary.
12:22 This was not simply an optional part of the service
12:25 because if the priest would have entere
12:26 into the presence of God without washing, he would die.
12:31 We can come to God as we are,
12:33 but we must not plan to stay that way.
12:35 We must be washed and cleaned.
12:38 This water represents baptism.
12:40 True baptism is a complete death to self.
12:43 You know, I've never met a dead person who has a drug problem.
12:46 Dead people don't smoke either.
12:48 I've never seen a dead lady cheat on her husband.
12:51 Baptism is literal when we die to self.
12:54 When choose a life of Christ and then live new life
12:57 different from the old, that's a miracle,
12:59 and that miracle is a gift from God.
13:02 But we still must cooperate with this miracle.
13:04 The priest had to cooperate by bringing
13:07 his hands and feet in contact with the water.
13:09 But it was the water that made him clean.
13:12 The same is true for us.
13:13 For this water is none other than Jesus
13:16 who works that miracle of grace
13:17 in those who humbly come and receive life from Him.
13:21 Now once the confessions were made,
13:24 once the sacrifice was offered,
13:26 once the washing was finished,
13:28 the priest continued the service,
13:30 inside the sanctuary.
13:32 Just inside the sanctuary and to the left in south
13:35 is the seven branched lampstand.
13:38 It was made from a whole talent of gold.
13:41 A talent of gold is approximately 75 pounds.
13:45 This lamp stand used the pressed oil of olives
13:47 and was kept burning night and day.
13:50 Moses recorded that the whole lampstand
13:52 "shall be one beaten work of pure gold."
13:56 And of course, this piece of sacred furniture
13:58 once again is a symbol of Jesus.
14:02 For He said, "I am the light of the world."
14:06 According to Paul, this light is an apt symbol
14:09 for the knowledge of God.
14:11 "For God, who commanded the light
14:14 to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts,
14:17 to give the light of the knowledge
14:19 of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
14:22 If you want to know the truth,
14:24 then you have to have the knowledge of God.
14:27 Jesus brought us all the truth we need about a loving Father
14:31 who longs to redeem us from sin and from death.
14:36 And before we move on,
14:38 let's look at one more prophesy concerning Christ.
14:41 Isaiah 53:5, "He was wounded for our transgressions,
14:46 he was bruised for our iniquities,
14:49 and the chastisement of our peace was upon him,
14:53 and with his stripes we are healed."
14:57 God foresaw that His own son
14:59 would also be beaten and so give us light.
15:05 It is as we see Him suffering for our sins
15:07 and for those of the entire world
15:09 that we can experience His great and wonderful love.
15:16 Directly across from the candlestick
15:17 and to the north is the table of showbread.
15:20 I like the way the Revised Standard Version
15:23 translates Exodus 25:30.
15:26 "And you shall set the bread of the Presence
15:28 on the table before me always."
15:31 Once again we see God wanting to be with us
15:34 to have His presence
15:36 always nourishing us and strengthening us.
15:39 And, yes, this also represents Christ.
15:42 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven."
15:46 Jesus said in John 6:51, "If any man eat of this bread,
15:51 he shall live for ever,
15:53 and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
15:57 which I will give for the life of the world."
16:00 Of course, He later explains that His flesh is in fact,
16:03 the living and powerful words of life.
16:07 All of His knowledge, His words, His testimonies
16:10 which are the Spirit of Prophecy will nourish us,
16:14 giving us life and strength to live for Him and with Him.
16:19 So many people have absorbed bad attitudes,
16:23 feelings and even habits
16:24 from their fathers and mothers, even while in utero.
16:28 But through the assimilation of this bread, this living word,
16:32 we can overcome every inherited and cultivated tendency to evil.
16:37 A great principal of life declares,
16:40 "By beholding we become changed."
16:43 By eating and digesting this bread daily,
16:47 often, we too become like Christ
16:51 experiencing His very presence,
16:54 peace, directions, purposes, and love.
17:00 The final article of furniture in this room,
17:01 the Holy Place is the Altar of Incense.
17:04 Each day the priest would come
17:06 and place incense upon the coals
17:08 causing a sweet fragrance to loft upward.
17:10 This incense gives us a picture of how God feels
17:13 about prayers of His people,
17:15 when they come to Him in daily humility
17:17 is outlined in these sanctuary services.
17:19 Our prayers are a sweet savor in His nostrils.
17:23 In the heavenly sanctuary of which, this is a type.
17:26 Incense is mixed with the prayers of God's people.
17:28 Revelation 8:3 let's us peek into
17:30 the very throne room of God.
17:32 "And another angel came and stood at the altar,
17:35 having a golden censer,
17:36 and there was given unto him much incense,
17:39 that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints
17:41 upon the golden altar which was before the throne."
17:46 Just a side point, it is this censer
17:48 filled with the intercessory prayers of His people
17:50 that starts the prayers in Revelation 8.
17:52 And I'm convinced that not until we commence to praying
17:55 for God's kingdom to come and His will to be done,
17:58 will He start the final and rapid end time movements
18:01 that will close the sin chapter of earth's history.
18:04 And, yes, once again this is a type of Christ
18:08 and His ministry on our behalf.
18:10 First, He is our priest
18:12 who is standing before the throne of God.
18:14 And why is He there?
18:16 He would stand before the throne offering His blood,
18:18 as the great sacrifice for all our sins.
18:21 And second, He is the incense Himself
18:24 mingling our small and impotent prayers
18:27 with His own omnipotent, powerful prayers
18:29 claiming gifts in our behalf.
18:32 "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost
18:35 that come unto God by him,
18:38 seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
18:41 So you've now seen all three pieces
18:43 of furniture in the Holy Place.
18:45 There is just one more item behind this curtain.
18:48 This is the Ark of the Covenant
18:51 and it stands in the most Holy Place
18:53 of the earthly tabernacle.
18:56 This is a representation of the very throne room of God.
19:00 The first thing, you notice are these two angels,
19:03 the covering cherubs who attend Him.
19:06 They are the highest angels of whom Gabriel is now one.
19:10 Lucifer used to have one of these physicians
19:13 before he coveted God's throne for himself
19:15 and rebelled against his creator.
19:18 Of course, if it was a real throne of an earthly king,
19:22 this would be an uncomfortable seat.
19:25 But God is a Spirit
19:27 and the presence of the Almighty
19:29 hovered over this throne with Shekinah glory.
19:32 Do you know what He calls this seat?
19:35 God calls His throne, "The Mercy Seat."
19:40 What a wonderful God?
19:42 And while He does have mercy,
19:44 His government's foundation is set upon immutable laws
19:49 based on the principle of love.
19:52 They are the Ten Commandments.
19:54 These unassailable principles were written in stone
19:58 with the finger of God
19:59 and are as unchangeable as the eternal God Himself.
20:04 If they could have been abrogated,
20:06 if they could have been eliminated,
20:09 then Jesus never would have had to go to the cross.
20:12 Jesus believed in this laws
20:15 stored here in the Ark of the Covenant.
20:17 He said, "He did not come to destroy it."
20:20 On the contrary, His chosen people had abused it.
20:24 Actually making an idol of it
20:26 and He had come to put it back in its right place.
20:30 Now once a year and only once a year
20:33 the high priest alone would enter this room
20:36 to perform a most solemn service.
20:39 It was called the "Day of Atonement."
20:41 And it was a type of the antitypical cleansing
20:44 of the heavenly sanctuary mentioned in Daniel 8:14.
20:49 "And he said unto me,
20:50 Unto two thousand and three hundred days,
20:53 then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."
20:56 So what was the Day of Atonement all about?
21:00 Well, day by day, all year long sacrifices had been made.
21:05 The priest over an over carried the blood
21:07 from the sacrifices into the Holy Place,
21:11 placing it upon the horns of the Altar of Incense
21:14 and sprinkling it before the veil.
21:17 This daily action carried the sins
21:19 from the people into the sanctuary.
21:22 And so, "An atonement for the Holy Place,
21:25 because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel,
21:29 and because of their transgressions
21:30 in all their sins needed to be made."
21:34 So once a year, on the last day of the year,
21:37 atonement was made for the sanctuary and the people.
21:41 This day was set aside
21:42 for the people to afflict their soul.
21:45 It was a day of sincere introspection before God
21:48 with prayer, fasting, and deep searching of the heart.
21:52 They were to make sure that there were
21:54 no unconfessed sins in their life.
21:57 Everything was to be made right.
22:00 Then two goats were chosen by lot.
22:03 One was to be the Lord's goat representing Jesus,
22:06 the other, the scapegoat which represented Satan
22:09 the enemy of God and his followers.
22:12 The Lord's goat was killed
22:14 and its blood was taken into the sanctuary.
22:17 That blood was used to wash the sanctuary clean
22:21 of all the sins of the people
22:23 that had collected during the year.
22:25 Those sins were carried by the priest
22:28 back out of the sanctuary
22:30 and then the true guilt was placed symbolically
22:32 upon the symbol of the one truly responsible
22:35 for the sins of mankind, Satan himself.
22:41 Then this goat was led away by a fit man into the wilderness.
22:45 Now these were domesticated goats
22:47 and left alone in the wilderness,
22:49 they didn't stand a chance.
22:52 The wilderness contains
22:53 no feral herds of domesticated goats.
22:57 Now what does all this mean?
23:01 Well, one thing is for sure,
23:03 this whole sandbox illustration was only symbolic.
23:07 "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
23:10 should take away sins." Paul tells us in Hebrews 10:4.
23:14 This blood was in symbol of the cleansing agent
23:16 that washed the sinner clean
23:18 and also it was only
23:20 symbolically cleansing the sanctuary.
23:22 This is not to downplay or minimize its importance.
23:25 It has a very important role and that role was to point
23:28 the followers of God towards Jesus
23:30 and the day that Jesus, the true Lamb of God
23:32 would shed His blood in our behalf.
23:35 That's right, Stephen.
23:36 And this dramatic Day of Atonement
23:38 and the cleansing of the sanctuary
23:40 also point's us to Jesus.
23:43 Listen to what Jesus taught in His doctrines.
23:45 "The Father judges no man,
23:47 but has committed all judgment unto the Son.
23:50 And the Father has given Him
23:52 authority to execute judgment also,
23:54 because He is the Son of man."
23:57 You see the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary
24:00 of which the earthly was a type or shadow,
24:03 foreshadows the final judgment
24:05 when everyone's case will be decided by Jesus Himself.
24:10 And why is that important to me here and now?
24:13 Because as we learned in our last study,
24:16 this investigative judgment has already begun
24:19 when every case has been decided by Jesus
24:23 and the judgment, He will announce.
24:26 "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still,
24:29 and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still,
24:33 and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still,
24:37 and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
24:41 And, behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me,
24:45 to give every man according as his work shall be."
24:49 There is no more time to play games with God.
24:51 We are moments away
24:53 from the Savior of the world returning.
24:56 All cases decided.
24:58 He already has His reward with Him.
25:00 No second chances. There's no appeals.
25:04 And that's an important call to each one of our hearts.
25:08 Listen to the teaching of Jesus from Matthew 5:48.
25:12 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
25:15 which is in heaven is perfect."
25:18 That seems like an impossibly tall order,
25:20 but the question that I have to ask myself
25:23 and perhaps you do too
25:25 is am I letting God not only call me righteous
25:28 through the justification of Christ,
25:30 but am I also letting Him make me righteous
25:33 through the sanctification of my heart?
25:35 Jesus loves us.
25:37 He doesn't want any of us to miss out on the new heaven
25:40 and the new earth that He's preparing for us.
25:42 We have to keep saying, yes, to Him
25:45 with all our known choices, if we would be saved.
25:48 When He calls you to obedience? Say, yes.
25:52 When He calls you to service? Say, yes.
25:55 The judgment is so permanent.
25:57 We will either end up like Sodom and Gomorrah
26:00 or we will end up with Jesus
26:01 and the angels, our heavenly Father
26:03 and those who we had loved on earth forever and ever.
26:08 The choice is yours.
26:12 The entire life and ministry of Jesus
26:15 was foreshadowed in the sanctuary service.
26:18 He is our sacrifice, our lamb.
26:22 He is our water of life, our living bread, our light
26:29 and He as our high priest
26:31 interceding for us in the judgment.
26:35 Jesus was clear that there will be a judgment
26:38 and the prophecy of Daniel 8 and 9
26:40 clearly sets the starting day 1844.
26:44 In 1844, the "Day of Atonement"
26:46 or "Yom Kippur" was on October 22.
26:50 It's going on right now.
26:54 I'm convinced that that judgment will soon be finished
26:58 and everyone will be either saved or lost for eternity.
27:03 So what about you, friend?
27:06 Will you like Christ be your minister
27:08 in the heavenly sanctuary just as He was on the cross?
27:11 Will you choose to allow His sacrifice
27:14 to win your heart making it obedient to His love?
28:04 Did you know "Thunder in the Holy Land"
28:06 is a fun to share, powerful one hour Bible study,
28:10 bought with the engaging 30 minute high def video,
28:12 in the prepared discussion,
28:14 questions that take to small group
28:16 straight to the heart of the matter?
28:18 Thunder is a delightful and rewarding way
28:21 to share the teachings of Jesus.
28:24 Check it out at QLP.tv.


Home

Revised 2014-12-17