Sermon Notes: Exodus 30:1-10; 34-38 – Incense as Prayer
Exodus is a challenge to preach through. The work of preaching is mental and emotional labor. It challenges us to think with a Biblical theological lens while not abusing the text to make it say what it doesn’t say. It challenges our ability to exposit and then apply appropriately and accurately.
I had the honor of talking about this work with an old friend on a podcast recently, and I think you might appreciate what we talked about. I’ll link it here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/483VCvRfMyYAFZusWNqquc?si=e4ec5942d5ad47ed
My primary reason for telling you this and linking that podcast is that I don’t like most of what I’ve written for this series study through Exodus. I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m seriously critical of my writing and want to improve every sermon I write because it matters in eternity. I will be judged by the Lord for what I write and speak. Preaching is not just a thing churches do that is expendable. Preaching God’s word is central to a local church. Preaching requires thinking, and thinking is labor. So, we work hard at it. Exodus is a challenge. I look forward to preaching some New Testament passages. We are going to study through the gospel of Mark after we finish Exodus. I’m looking forward to that.
Even still, I know the Lord is hitting some straight licks with Silver Creek, metro-Atlanta, and east Tennessee sticks.
So, let’s get after it.
Let’s start by reading our text today. We will read Exodus 30:1-10 together, then you all can sit, and I’ll finish reading verses 34-38.
Introduction
To honor someone is to treat them as weighty. To honor someone is to put them in an exalted place. To honor someone is to treat them accurately and appropriately.
The Hebrew word “kabod” is the word “glory” and it’s a synonym of honor.
The Bible pairs “honor and glory” intentionally because they define one another. To glorify is to honor and to honor is to glorify.
The opposite of honor can be casual. A casual attitude toward what should be honored dishonors the object. Treating someone or something as casual is to treat someone or something lightly, ordinary, or common.
What is happening on this altar in our text today is anything but light, ordinary, or common. It is not casual. God considers it glorious and honoring to him.
“It is most holy to the LORD.” – 30:10
“It shall be for you holy to the LORD.” – 30:37b
There are things that belong to God (ultimately all things belong to God), and when he shares them with us, they are to be approached with appropriate weight or fear and trembling.
NOTE: As with the other altar, the text is less about the altar and more about what is happening on the altar. Its design is not unimportant. But the activity happening on the altars is the main point. God has not revealed all the eternal purpose behind the intricacy of the designs. We just know that they look like what is in his presence.
This altar is for burning incense. The altar’s construction is similar to the other items. So, today we are going to focus on the altar’s use, and that is for the incense.
Listen to how the Lord sees the incense of this altar: “…you shall not make (it)[1] for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord (It’s the Lord’s and he is allowing us to participate in it for him)[2]. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.” – Exodus 30:37b, 38
The incense is holy, set apart TO the Lord. It is the Lord’s.
The Lord is sharing it with Israel for his honor, his glory and their good. And with that use there are boundaries.
The incense is God’s, yet he has given it to be offered on behalf of the people to him and for him in relationship with them by Aaron as part of their worship. Thus, this incense and the altar it is offered on is to be treated in an honorable, weighty, holy way.
What is this incense for? What is happening here that is weighty and not common?
Let’s make some observations then we’ll deal with implications in our application.
1) Incense represents the prayers of the people.
What God designated incense to represent is not a mystery. The rest of the Bible teaches us it’s weighty and holy and God honoring purpose.
Psalm 141:1-2 (ESV) 1 O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to you! 2 Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice! (To lift my hands in praise is to offer up something to no longer belong to me but completely belong to God.)[3]
Luke 1:8-11 (ESV) 8 Now while he (Zechariah, John the Baptist’s dad.)[4] was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
As Zechariah is offering the incense, the people are gathered outside to pray. Incense represents the prayers of the people.
Revelation 5:8 (ESV) 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Revelation 8:3-4 (ESV) 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.
God takes the initiative, and he brings the mountain garden of Eden to the people in the form of the tabernacle, and he has an altar constructed and a special incense put together to teach them the gospel gift of communion with him in prayer.
The incense teaches us that our prayers rise to God the Father.
The incense teaches us that our prayers are sacrifices to the Father. We will make application of this truth in a moment.
2) Incense was offered morning and evening along with the morning and evening sacrifices. Sacrifice and the offering of incense go together. – Exodus 29:38; 30:7,8; 30:10
The altar is to be, along with other parts of the tabernacle, atoned for yearly on the Day of Atonement (30:10), and incense is burned only at the time of the daily morning and evening sacrifice.
The fact that the altar is to be atoned for by blood on the Day of Atonement and incense is offered only at the time of the daily sacrifices indicates that prayer’s effect comes through the shed blood of sacrifice.
It’s not that God can’t hear prayer offered without the covering of sacrifice for sin, but he chooses to effectively hear prayer that comes to him by his means of making the person offering the prayer righteous in his sight through the substitute of innocent blood in the place of theirs.
Listen to Proverbs 15:8 (ESV) 8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD,
but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.
The parallel connection of sacrifice and prayer in Proverbs 15:8 indicates (as noted already) that prayer is a sacrifice, and thus the prayers of those not atoned for is not something the Lord honors or responds to.
Note: You may say the first prayer the Lord responds to for a person is when they confess Jesus and repent of sin.
This truth also indicates that prayer is for the Lord and offered to the Lord as one of his means of sanctification.
The fact that the Father offers us the relational connection of prayer indicates to us that the Lord hears and responds to the prayers of his people who are covered in righteousness.
3) The altar of incense and what it teaches and represents is so holy that in Solomon’s temple it was moved into the most holy place before the ark and mercy seat of the Lord. – 1 Kings 6:22; Hebrews 9:3, 4
Hebrews 9:3, 4 clearly place the altar described here in our text as being in the most holy place, not just outside of it as we see in Exodus 30.
1 Kings 6:22 is where the writer of Hebrews indicates this relocation was made.
Solomon puts the altar of incense inside the most holy place.
The Lord does not rebuke Solomon for this, and the writer of Hebrews speaks of the altar of incense as being perfectly where it belongs in the most holy place where Solomon puts it in the temple.
The Father let Solomon do this, and I’m sure there are loads of things we can learn here, but that will have to be for another sermon.
What we can say is that the incense, and thus prayer is intimate access to the Father. Prayer takes us into relational connection that atonement makes possible.
Atonement makes access possible, and prayer makes relational connection actual.
4) Incense is not to be offered in any unauthorized way, and the altar for incense was not to be used for other offerings. This altar and the incense are most holy to the Lord. – 30:9; 34-38
Aaron and his sons were to only offer the prescribed incense, and this altar was not to be used for anything but offering the incense.
The text is clear that the offering of incense was “most holy to the Lord”, and they were not to copy this incense to use for themselves.
This altar’s activity is special to God. He cares deeply about this, and he demands Israel honor what is happening.
Leviticus 10:1-3 records an instance where Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu bring “unauthorized” fire to the incense altar, and the Lord summarily executes them on the spot for failing to honor him as holy.
They brought unauthorized incense to the Lord, and he killed them for treating prayer as casual.
They thought they’d experiment with something that was special to the Lord, and it cost them.
Since prayer is the Lord’s we should be careful to treat it has holy and not casual.
NOTE: God never allows us to use the gospel as an excuse for treating holy things as casual.
5) Incense was to be offered on God’s prescribed schedule continually. 30:8
Aaron entered daily at morning and evening to tend the lamps and when he entered, he was to offer incense before the Lord.
God lined up the morning and evening sacrifices with the tending of the lamps and the offering of incense.
Sacrifice. Light. Prayer.
God desires and prescribed this order and that this order is kept continually.
This work of offering incense was ordered, daily, consistent, and it was ongoing.
The offering of incense was without ceasing in God’s order.
Prayer is orderly, intentional, and without ceasing.
God operates things with and in intentionality not mere spontaneity. Not that spontaneous things are not good. They can be. AND spontaneity grows in the garden of discipline.
Spontaneity can be a convenient cover for laziness in order and details. God constructed a routine and order he called them to keep.
Build discipline into your spiritual disciplines, and then listen for the voice of the Spirit to riff off of the disciplined pursuit.
Application
NOTE: Prayer is a deep and rich subject, and this one sermon is not going to do it justice. So, go read your Bible and obey what is there.
My favorite saint who practiced prayer is George Muller. His life of prayer is loaded with examples of prayer. Go read his biography and journals.
Also, nothing I’ve said to this point or will say in application is coming from a desire to decrease our prayer lives. It is intended to help us honor God and make prayer effective in receiving from the Father all that he designed prayer for.
1) Since prayer is God’s and most holy to him, we must approach prayer the way God teaches us to approach prayer.
Prayer is not ours to do with as we please. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire on the altar of incense which represents prayer, and God was not pleased.
The altar of incense teaches us, and the prayers of the Bible teach how to practice prayer.
As the incense was holy to the Lord and not for personal use, so prayer is holy to the Lord and not for our personal advancement apart from the will of God and his kingdom taking root in our lives on earth as in heaven.
There is acceptable prayer, and there is unacceptable prayer for the follower of Jesus.
Peter is clear that prayer offered by the Christian husband who is not appropriately relating to his wife is hindered (1 Peter 3:7).
We approach prayer Biblically informed recognizing this precious gift is shared with us from the Lord, so we approach his way not our way or our culture’s way.
If there are habits of prayer in Christian circles that don’t match with God’s word about prayer, then kill the habit and pray as God says.
Example: The two longest prayers in the Bible are Nehemiah 9:5-38 which is a corporate prayer of repentance, and Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17:1-26.
Jesus’ normative model for us to follow in prayer is significantly shorter, and obviously there are exceptions.
Listen to Ecclesiastes 5:2 (ESV) 2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
There was a movement back in the day around praying longer like praying longer is praying without ceasing. Praying without ceasing as Paul encourages is not necessarily praying longer prayers. Church prayer meetings filled with these long prayers made by many people turned into flesh shows as there was little repentance and no gospel. These experiences soured me on prayer as a kid. Prayer is not how we put a quarter in the juke box and get our favorite song from God.
Be careful with prayer. By all means pray, and if you don’t know how to pray yet, just pray like Jesus instructed us to pray. All prayer that rises like incense before the Father is rooted in that example.
2) Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in our place for our sin we have been given full and direct access to the Father in prayer.
Listen to Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV) 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Because Solomon moved the altar of incense, representing the prayers of the people, into the most holy place and God did not stop him, he prophesied of the coming access that would be purchased by the finished work of Jesus as our atoning sacrifice.
Listen to Jesus in John 16:25-27 (ESV) 25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
God’s love for us to give an altar of incense to show us what would be granted to us and then make the way for that gift of access in prayer through the sacrifice of Jesus is astounding.
So, pray.
3) Prayer must be treated in a way that honors God and is in no way casual.
We are part of an evangelical culture that prefers casual to formal when it comes to the expression of our faith in Jesus.
Many of us have turned from a formality in external expressions of the faith and we embraced a casual expression of our faith in external things.
Some of that has been good in helping us rediscover the depth of our faith in Jesus. Some of that casual approach has bled over into how we approach God and approach things he is not casual about.
Understand that formality is not necessarily honoring and glorifying and weighty. I’m not saying we need to be more formal. Formality can be a crushing weight that is not spiritual or good.
God does not care whether one wears a flowing robe and Jerusalem cruisers (flip flops) or shorts or a suit to worship. God does not care where the church gathers only that what gathers is an actual New Testament church that has the markers of a New Testament church
God does care that we approach him like he’s holy, and that we honor him as holy.
Jesus has saved us and our relationship to God in Christ is fixed. And that relationship is grown and deepened by how we learn to relate to God in obedience to him.
Just because TRC tends to dress casually and gathers corporately in a gym does not mean our approach should take the attitudinal approach of going to a sporting event.
We come to worship, to pray, to hear his word and be shaped by it, and to be sent on mission. We should be aware of how we enter, how we inhabit to time and space, how we engage, and how we exit (think about Ezekiel’s vision of entering and exiting the temple).
We should be aware in such a way that we intentionally approach the altar of incense with awe and a heart set on honoring God as holy as our very first priority.
4) Praying in Jesus’ name is to pray in submission to God’s will and in line with his kingdom agenda on earth as it is done in heaven.
Christians traditionally end prayers with the phrase: “In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
We do this because of John 14:13-14 (ESV) 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
Praying “in Jesus’ name” is not a transitional phrase we tack onto our prayers to move from an eyes closed to eyes open state. It is not a magical spell that guarantees we get what we are asking.
Praying in Jesus’ name is our declaration that we are aware of the cost of our access, that we have stayed within the holy parameters of God’s design in prayer, and what we have asked represents the Father’s will which Jesus came to accomplish, so we pray in his name. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray in such a way that our words match his mission and reputation.
Let that be a guide to what we say in God’s presence and how we say it.
5) Prayer is a sacrifice.
Prayer God’s way is a sacrifice of our will to God in exchange for his kingdom reigning and his will being done on earth in us as in heaven.
Biblical prayer that honors the Triune God of the Bible and ascends like incense to his throne requires us to lay down our agendas in sanctified and transformed wills.
When we learn prayer, we will learn sacrifice and in that we will learn generosity toward God not only in finances but in the personal cost of laying down ourselves and our wills for the good and eternal purposes of God which are our good.
6) Praying in faith is not demanding things from God.
Prayer that demands God do what we ask is casual and flippant and lacking any sort of honor and glory to God.
Praying in faith is asking, seeking, and knocking humbly acknowledging our vision is limited. Praying in faith acknowledges that we think we know his will as best as we can surmise and are willing to receive the good he has even if it is suffering for his name’s sake and our eternal sanctification.
Praying in faith is continuing to come to the Good Father because we know he will not delay long over us as he counts time. So, we keep coming to him in prayer.
That is praying without ceasing. That is praying in faith.
7) Let’s pray!
Increase us.
Make us holy and to seek your kingdom and righteousness first.
Increase our sending.
Teach us to honor you. Make a welcome environment for you to inhabit in power.
Teach us to be contrite in our relationship with you.
Teach us prayer.
[1] Parenthesis mine.
[2] Parenthesis mine.
[3] Parenthesis mine.
[4] Parenthesis mine.