The Sweet Aroma of Prayer: Understanding the Altar of Incense

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,