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“You shall make a table of acacia wood: two cubits shall be its length, and a cubit its width, and one and a half cubits its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold and make a rim of gold around it. And you shall make a frame of a handbreadth around it; and you shall make a rim of gold for its frame around it. And you shall make for it four rings of gold and put the rings on the four corners that are on its four feet...You shall make its plates and its cups and its pitchers and its bowls with which to pour out drink offerings; of pure gold you shall make them. And you shall set the bread of the Presence upon the table before Me always. And you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand with its base and its shaft shall be made of beaten work; its cups, its calyxes, and its blossom buds shall be of one piece with it. And there shall be six branches going out of its sides; three branches of the lampstand out of one of its sides, and three branches of the lampstand out of its other side...Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it; all of it one beaten work of pure gold. And you shall make its lamps, seven; and set up its lamps to give light to the area in front of it. And its tongs and its firepans shall be of pure gold. It shall be made of a talent of pure gold, with all these utensils” (Exo. 25:23-26, 29-32, 36-39).
Following these verses we must read from Exodus 37: “He made the table of acacia wood...And he made the lampstand of pure gold...And he made the altar of incense of acacia wood” (vv. 10, 17, 25).
Now let us read Leviticus 24:1-9: “Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel to bring to you pure oil of beaten olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually. Outside the veil of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting Aaron shall set it in order from evening to morning before Jehovah continually. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order on the pure lampstand before Jehovah continually. And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold before Jehovah. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, so that it may be a memorial for the bread, an offering by fire to Jehovah. Every Sabbath day continually he shall set it in order before Jehovah; it is an everlasting covenant for the children of Israel. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, for it is most holy to him of Jehovah’s offerings by fire, a perpetual statute.”
We must continue to see more about the priesthood. We know that the tabernacle consists of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Surrounding the outside of the tabernacle is the outer court. The Ark, which typifies Christ, is in the Holy of Holies. On the Ark there is the expiation cover sprinkled with the blood for atonement. It is here that God meets with man.
When man meets God at the expiation cover, he must take with him two things: the blood and the incense. Man must get the blood from the outer court and burn the incense within the Holy Place. By these two things, the blood and the incense, he is qualified and permitted to contact God. We know that the blood in typology signifies the blood of Jesus, through which we are redeemed, and the incense signifies the sweet fragrance of the resurrected Christ.
So the blood is for redemption, and the incense is for acceptance. It is by the blood that we are redeemed, and it is in this sweet incense of Christ that we are accepted. By these two things we can contact God in a bold way. We get the blood from the outer altar, and we burn the incense at the inner altar. It is by these, the blood and the incense, that we are accepted by God, and it is also by these that we contact, meet, and have fellowship with God. So, as we have seen, the incense altar is the center of the tabernacle.
However, according to the record of the Old Testament, there are at least two other things in the Holy Place: the table of the bread of the Presence and the lampstand. What kind of relationship do these have with our contacting God? In the last chapter we saw clearly that if we burn the incense, we cannot burn it in darkness. In the outer court there is the sunshine in the daytime and the moonlight at night. This is the natural light. But within the Holy Place there is no natural light. There is no window, or even a door—just a covered entrance. Therefore, the lampstand is needed.
The burning of the incense requires the lighting of the lamps to give the light. Then it is possible to burn the incense. The burning of the incense depends very much on the lampstand. We have seen this clearly in the previous chapter, and we have seen its spiritual significance. We must have the light from the Word, through the Spirit, that we might know how to pray. Otherwise, we will simply pray in darkness. Whatever we say without the light will be in darkness. It will be a kind of nonsense, a foolish talking to the Lord. We must pray in light and with light. Our prayer will then issue out of the light.
The light comes from the Word, through the Spirit. The Word and the Spirit are not two separate things but two sides of one thing. They are two aspects of one thing just as the children of Israel had the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. This was one pillar with two aspects. In the daytime it was the pillar of cloud, and in the nighttime it was the pillar of fire. The cloud is a type of the Holy Spirit, and the fire is a type of the Holy Bible. When our sky is clear, we have the Holy Spirit. But when our sky is cloudy, we need the Holy Bible to enlighten us and give us light.
So the Spirit and the Word are two aspects of one thing for our enlightenment. It is in this enlightenment that we know how to pray and how to utter something of Christ unto God as the sweet incense. This is the expression of something of Christ from within us in the light. Without the light, we would pray foolishly.
But what does the table of the bread of the Presence have to do with the lampstand and the incense altar? In Exodus 37 we can see an order, or sequence, in the making of the utensils. First of all, the children of Israel made the table of the bread of the Presence, then the lampstand, and then the incense altar. This shows us clearly that the table comes first, then the lampstand, followed by the incense altar. This means that the table of the bread of the Presence is for the lampstand, and the lampstand is for the incense altar.
The table of the bread of the Presence is for the lampstand because the table is for life and the lampstand is for light. John 1:4 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” The life is the light. At the table of the bread of the Presence there is the life supply, and from this life the light is produced. The light comes from life. The more life supply we enjoy, the more light we are in. Life produces light. If we do not partake of and enjoy Christ as our life supply, we will be in darkness. When we are filled with the life supply of Christ, we will have the light. The enjoyment of the life supply will give the light.
Some people receive light when they read the Bible, but this receiving of light depends to a certain extent on the enjoyment of life. The more life we have, the more light we will receive from the Bible. The more we grow and mature in life, the more light we will receive. Light depends on the growth of life. The more we enjoy Christ as our life supply, the more light we will have.
To burn the incense requires the light, and to have light requires the life supply. In order for us to burn the incense in a proper way, we need the light, but to get the light, we need the life. We must learn to feed on Christ as the bread of the Presence, the life supply. It is not simply to receive Him once for all; we must feed on Him continually, day by day. We can never graduate from feeding on Christ. We must eat continually to receive the life supply. The supply of life we receive will become the light. The life is the light, and this light is necessary in order to burn the incense unto God. The burning of incense depends on the light, and the light depends on the life supply.
From where does the bread of the Presence come? We have seen that the altar has two things: the redeeming blood and the satisfying meat. After the blood was shed, the priests simply fed on the meat as their food. The bread of the Presence, in a spiritual sense, comes from the meat of the offering.
Some may ask how the meat could become the bread? In John 6 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Then, in the same chapter He said that His blood is drinkable and His flesh is eatable. So in this one chapter there is the bread, and there is the meat. In a spiritual sense, the meat of the redeeming Lamb is our bread. This means that the redeeming One is not only for our redemption but also for our satisfaction and nourishment. On the one hand, He redeems us, and on the other hand, He nourishes us. He is our nourishment, our food. He comes not only for redemption but also for life, that we may be nourished with Him.
We do not go directly from the offering altar to the incense altar; we make a curve. From the offering altar we must go to the table of the bread of the Presence, and from the table of the bread of the Presence, we make a curve to the lampstand. Then from the lampstand we go to the incense altar to get into the Holy of Holies and meet God at the expiation cover. It is a curved way, not a straight way.
To say that we can pray solely on the basis of being saved and sprinkled with the blood is not altogether true. It is possible for us to pray foolishly. To pray in a way that is acceptable to God, we must make some curves. After applying the blood, we must go to the table of the bread of the Presence and stay there for a while. This means that we must stay with Christ as our nourishment. We must feed on Christ day by day as the bread of the Presence to enjoy Him before God. Then we will receive the life supply which will bring us to the lampstand to produce the light. Then by, in, and with this light we will be able to offer the incense; that is, we will be able to pray with Christ as incense, in a proper way, in the light, and our prayer will be something issuing out of Christ—something so sweet—just as the sweet, fragrant incense to God.
In the morning when we get up, the first thing we must do is pray. But if we are going to have the proper prayer that is acceptable to God, the sweet incense with something of Christ in it, we cannot begin to pray immediately. The way is not so straight. First of all, we must apply the blood. In other words, we must come to the offering altar to confess all our shortcomings, our sins, and our filthiness. After confessing all these things, we must apply the blood to be cleansed.
When we confess and apply the blood, we will enjoy Christ as our nourishment. The redeeming Christ will become the bread of the Presence to supply, to nourish, and to feed us. When we enjoy Christ in this way by feeding on Him, we are satisfied. Spontaneously, from this inner satisfaction there is something shining and enlightening. That is the lighting of the lamp. Then we know what to utter and express to God. In this way, whatever we say to God is sweet incense. It will issue out of the Spirit with Christ as the sweet and fragrant element. Our prayer will be just like the incense to God.
I have no intention to give you teachings about typology. My burden is to show you the right way to contact God. This is not a kind of teaching but a certain kind of instruction to show you the proper way to contact God and to enjoy and experience all the riches of Christ in the presence of God.
Now we have seen the way. We must start from the offering altar by confessing. Every time a priest goes into the Holy Place, he cannot escape the offering altar. We cannot say that yesterday we passed it, so today we do not need it. No, yesterday we passed it, and today we still need it. Whenever we are going into the Holy Place, we need not only to touch the offering altar but also to stay there. We must stay there to apply the blood so that the redeeming One will become our enjoyment. If we would just confess all our sins, our failures, our mistakes, our wrong deeds, our shortcomings, and our weak points, and apply the redeeming blood of Christ to cleanse us, immediately we would have the sense within that this redeeming Christ has become our inner enjoyment and nourishment.
As we feed on Him in such a way, He becomes our bread of the Presence. Here is a table, and a table means a feast. We must stay here to enjoy Christ for a time. We must not begin to pray too quickly, but first we must feed on Christ. Then this nourishment, which is the Christ we have taken in, has to be assimilated by us. This takes a certain amount of time.
After enjoying the feast at the table, Christ as our nourishment brings us to the lampstand. The nourishment of Christ as life produces the light that we need. Something within enlightens us and brings us into the presence of God. Then, whatever we express is something of Christ. It is the fragrant odor of the different aspects of the sweet Christ. When we assimilate Christ into our being, we have something so sweet and precious of Christ to utter to God. Then our prayer is on the incense altar ascending to the heavenlies to be accepted by God. This is the acceptable prayer.
Do not take this as a teaching! We must put all these instructions into practice. When we get up early in the morning, we must stay at the offering altar for some time, realizing that we are sinful. Do not think you are a saint. In a sense you are a saint, but in another sense you are so sinful. We all are sinful, and we will be until the day our bodies are transfigured. As long as we are still in this old nature, we are still sinful.
At the altar we confess so many items in which we are wrong: our attitudes, our motives, our intentions, our way of thinking, our way of making decisions, the way we love things, the way we hate things, etc. We are full of dirt, so we must confess to the Lord. But our confession must not be just in a general way. We must confess in a detailed way. Do not simply say, “Lord, You know that I am sinful.” No, we must sometimes itemize our sinfulness. Perhaps I am wrong with my wife in my attitude, in my words, and in my motive. We must confess all our shortcomings item by item, staying at the altar for some time. Then we apply the redeeming blood to cleanse us. If we will do this, we will have the deep inner sense that this redeeming Christ is our enjoyment. We will enjoy Him immediately after confessing and applying the blood.
From applying the blood, we turn to feeding on Christ at the table of the bread of the Presence. There we feed on Christ to enjoy Him and to taste Him. We do not simply eat Him—we assimilate Him. This also takes some time. Five or ten minutes for morning watch is not sufficient. According to our experience, we need at least thirty minutes, and it is better to take an hour, if possible. It is just like eating breakfast. We cannot eat an adequate breakfast in two or three minutes. Even if we eat a hot dog for lunch, we need more than five minutes. We cannot eat a good meal in such a short time. We need a longer time, and the longer the better. We must stay at the table of the bread of the Presence to be nourished and filled so that we might be full of the life supply.
Then we will have the light that issues out of the life supply. The things of God will be so transparent and crystal clear to us. Spontaneously, we will know what to say in prayer, and whatever we say will be something of Christ as the fragrant and sweet incense that is so acceptable to God. At this time, we will have a deeper sense, not only of satisfaction but also that we are accepted by God with the sweetness of the resurrected Christ.
In the ascending fragrance of this sweet incense, we will be one with God. I do not have the human words to tell you what kind of feeling this is, but when you experience it, you will sense how wonderful it is. You will have the sense that you simply do not know where you are—you cannot say whether you are in the heavenlies or on the earth. No human words can explain what a wonderful enjoyment there is when we experience the sweet incense.
The lampstand gives us the light by burning the oil, but there is a real problem with the burning of the oil. The lampstand needs the wick in order to burn the oil for the light. I am afraid that some of the younger ones do not know what a wick is. A wick is a bundle of loosely twisted, soft spun cotton used to draw up the oil of the lamp or the melted wax of a candle to be burnt.
The lampstand is one piece of pure gold. The table of the bread of the Presence is made of gold and wood, as is the incense altar. Even the Ark is made of both gold and wood. In the past I thought the lampstand was only gold and nothing else. But recently the Lord showed me that even the lampstand is not gold alone. If it were only gold, it would not burn and give us the light. The lampstand must have something of the plant life, so soft, thin, and fine to be the wick. Without the wick, how could the golden lampstand give the light? The gold needs something of the plant life, the vegetable life, to give the light. The gold, the wick, plus the oil will give the light.
When I was young, we always used either oil lamps or candles. We always had a problem with the wick. When the wick is burned overmuch, it becomes charred. This charred, overburnt wick is called snuff. The snuff must be cut off from the remainder of the wick. Therefore, in Exodus 25 there are the firepans with the tongs. The priests pinch off the snuff with the tongs, and all the pinched snuff goes into the firepans.
Sometimes we have an enjoyment of Christ as our life supply, and this enjoyment really brings us to the light. But still, it does not give light. This is because the wick has been burned too much. It is overburnt, too old, and too charred. To dress the lamp means to snuff, or to pinch off, all the charred remains of the wick.
The lampstand is made entirely of gold. Gold signifies the divine nature, and the wick signifies the refined human nature. It is not only the human nature but the refined human nature. When the refined human nature cooperates with the divine nature and the oil, there is the light. But sometimes the human nature becomes too old and overburnt. It does not work so well. It needs the snuffing, the cutting, and the pinching.
When we contact the Lord, to begin with we must stay at the offering altar to confess our failures and to apply the blood. This is good, for it will cause us to enjoy Christ and will bring us to the table to feed on Christ and receive nourishment. Then the life supply will bring us to the light. But many times when we are under the enlightening, we realize that something is too old. It does not need to be washed or cleansed but to be snuffed, pinched, and cut off. Yesterday it was a good wick, but this morning it has become overburnt.
Three years ago, certain brothers and sisters were fresh wicks. But today they have become charred, just like charcoal. Five weeks ago, some of the sisters were so fresh, just like fresh, new wicks, but today they are charred. Now they are not proper wicks. They need to be pinched and cut. They do not need the blood; they need to get rid of all the snuff. Then they will be the fresh wicks to give the fresh light. Perhaps even yesterday I was so fresh, as a proper wick, to burn the oil and to give the light, but this morning I am overburnt. I have become a charred wick, too old to give the right light.
To cut off the snuff means to dress the lamp, and to supply the lamp with oil means to order it. In the morning, after the lamp has been burning for the night, the priests have to dress it. This means that they must cut off all the snuff to get rid of the charred part of the wick. Then in the evening they have to order the lamp by filling it with enough oil. If it is short of oil, it will go out.
Sometimes the wick is fresh, but the oil is short. So we need not only the dressing but also the ordering of the lamp. We need not only the snuffing but also the supplying of oil. Since the oil signifies the Spirit, this means that we need more and more of the Spirit so that we might burn.
If we will bring all these things to the Lord, I believe that the instructing Spirit will show us all our problems. We cannot do a quick job; there is no shortcut. The Lord is available, no doubt, but we cannot be so fast. We must stay at the offering altar, and then make a curve to the table of the bread of the Presence to enjoy the Lord as our food for a while. Then we must make another curve to the lamp. Sometimes we have to dress the lamp in order to get rid of all the charred part of the wick, and sometimes we must supply it with oil. Then it will give the proper, adequate light. It is then that we will know how to utter something to the Lord and be acceptable to God.
Our shortcomings, sins, and failures must be confessed, and the blood must be applied. The old, overburnt part of the wick must be pinched off. We must be a clean wick, and we must take care of the shortage of oil. Then we will have the lamp with the proper wick and adequate oil. This will give the light under which we will know how to pray. In this way we will get into the presence of God.
