1454 - "The Laver/Wash Basin in the Outer Courtyard" Exodus 38:8

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1454. Today we're continuing our story of the Crimson River, the great story of redemption that runs from the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation. It's a story of sacrifice. It's a story of the shedding of blood, of innocent blood, to make atonement for sin. All of the offerings, all of the pieces of furniture, the tabernacle itself, and later in the temple, were all patterned to show the great redemption story. Now we've been learning about the different pieces of furniture, and we've gotten out into the outer court, and I want to talk to you today about the labor, the wash basin. Because as you came out of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, then you would be face to face with a wash basin. It stood between the altar, the brazen altar, which is the first piece of furniture you saw when you came in the gate, when you came in the door. And then before you walked into the tabernacle with all the golden pieces and the lamps burning, you had to wash your hands and you had to wash your feet. And there's a purpose for that. You see, this represents cleansing. That's right. You see, when a person enters into a relationship with Jesus in the New Testament, that's called being born again. Now what does that mean? I know everyone doesn't know the exact date or in some instances, perhaps even the year, because it's been so long since you really came to know the Lord. But everyone has an experience where they pass from death into life. That is a moment in time. And again, you might not remember all about it, but you must know that you have come to a place where you were dead and you realize that, and then you trusted Jesus alone. And what that means is you had an experience with God when everything changed. Now it might not have changed all at once. Many times there is an initial decision and then God leads us along, but no one has ever been a Christian all their life. If you're listening to this podcast and you say, I've always been a Christian. No, you've not, because you've got to be in a relationship with Jesus, and that comes through a deliberate personal choice that you make. Now there's a lot that goes into that. There's repentance, there's faith, and I have entire broadcast and podcast on that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a time when you know God is drawing you to himself, and you give your life to him, lock, stock, and barrel. Everything is his. You sign over the title deed of your life to him. But once you do that, you enter into a relationship with God that is forever. You become a part of his family. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You will have a heart change, a mind change. And yes, there will be times when you will stray from the Lord, but once you're in a relationship with him, that is forever. And whereas relationship is maintained by the Lord Jesus, that's what the writer of the book of Hebrews says when he says, We are saved to the uttermost. Why? Because Jesus is alive and he makes intercession for us. That's why I'm going to make it to heaven is Jesus, not me. It's not my praying, but it's his praying that makes the difference. I talk to him and ask him to take my life, what was left of it when I was nineteen years old, and he has been with me ever since. But I have strayed from him, and what happens when we walk away from God and we disobey God is our relationship is not broken, but our fellowship is. You see, I was born as a blood son of my father and mother, and forever they are my parents. I can even deny that they are my parents, but they cannot deny me. They might say you're not mine, but the reality is the DNA is there. And this is what a relationship is all about is forever. But fellowship can be broken, but it also can be restored. That means in a relationship of a father or a mother, we as children may not always do what our parents want us to do when we disobey, then that's a break in fellowship. That means that we're embarrassed, we're ashamed, we're guilty. But the Lord forgives us and he cleanses us and he gives us a fresh start and renewal when we come to him in repentance and faith. And so it is a fellowship that is based on our obedience and then our repentance and confession when we disobey. Our relationship is dependent upon Jesus. Our fellowship is dependent upon us because God never leaves. And so when we walk with God and we're controlled by His Spirit, then we're in fellowship with Him and we can sense the cleansing of the blood of Jesus. But when we turn our back on Him and walk away and we have a sense of guilt and shame, it's like when we disobeyed our parents and we knew we were guilty, and there was something about that fellowship that changed. We didn't want to be around our parents. We thought they might could tell what we have done, that we've done something. And sometimes my grandmother who really raised me, she'd say, Tony, what have you been into? I'd say, What do you what do you mean, Grammy? And she'd say, You've been into something I can tell. Well, they could simply because we as parents, we know uh the different look on our children's face and the way that they act, and they cannot hide it. And they might try to, but the Lord knows and we know. And so that's what it's like to be out of fellowship with God. And so the Bible gives us this beautiful picture. Peter talked about this in the Gospel of John, and Jesus talked to him because you remember they were at the uh Passover Seder having that last meal together before Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane. And the Bible says that he started washing the disciples' feet. And as he did, he came to Peter, and Peter said, You can't wash my feet. And Jesus said, If you don't let me wash your feet, you have no part with me. And he said, Well, not only my feet, but my whole body. And Jesus said, The one that's washed only needs to he's clean, but you need those parts that are exposed, your feet, your hands, your face, you need to wash those. And that's what they did in the basin. That's interesting that it was like a reflection pool. That's right, it was like a wash basin that had a mirror on the bottom of it. You say, Well, how do you know that? Because in the book of Exodus, chapter 38, when he's talking about the materials that the brazen altar was made of and the uh labor it says, and he made an altar of burnt offerings of acacia wood. Five cubits was its length and five cubits its width, it was square, and its height was three cubits. And he made on it horns on the four corners, horns of one piece, and he overlaid it with bronze. And then he made all the utensils and the fire pans and so forth. Then it says, beginning in verse eight, after he talked about that altar, here's what he said, and he made the labor, the wash basin of bronze, and its base of bronze, and from the bronze of the mirrors, the looking glasses, the mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. In other words, he took polished brass that would have been able to reflect your own reflection, and that's what he made the inside of that with, so that when you went up there and that water was standing there, that clear, crystal clear water. You would go and you would see that you need to maybe uh some blood had spattered or some dirt on your face. You would wash your face, and then you would wash your hands and your feet. Then you would be clean. You didn't need to take off your robe because why? You've already been cleansed, you've already been bathed, you've already had ceremonial cleansing, you'd been dipped. All of those things were already done. And that's the way it is. We don't need to be saved every time we disobey the Lord, but we need to confess our sin. John, the same one who leaned on the bosom of Jesus the night he was betrayed, wrote in 1 John chapter 1, writing to believers. Now the Gospel of John was written to unbelievers. It was like a gospel track. But the book of 1 John was written to believers. That's what it says. The purpose of the gospel was evangelism, so that people would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and trust in his name. That's what John said in the last two chapters of his book, the last two verses of each one of those chapters. But in 1 John he said, I have written to you that have eternal life, that you may know that you have eternal life and walk in obedience. And so all of that is about how we know that we're saved, how we know that we're followers of Jesus, and there's a series of questions that John asks in 1 John. But in the first part, he talks about how all of us are sinful, and if we say that we haven't sinned, even after we're followers of Jesus, then the truth is not in us. We're liars. But then he comes to 1 John 1 and verse 9. He says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now he's talking to believers. So he's talking about a cleansing there, like with a labor. That's what the labor was a picture of is cleansing. And the whole idea is you would come to the altar and there you would find sacrifice that represented forgiveness. And then as you even walked a short distance, you would come defiled with your hands and your feet. You'd get dirty. And so you would bend over that beautiful labor, that wash basin, and you would then wash your hands and your feet and your face so that you could go in clean before the presence of God. These are priests, these are people that walk with God, people that knew God, and they even became defiled and had to wash their hands and their feet. That's the picture. Doesn't matter who you are. If you say that you have no sin, you're a liar. And so, yes, the whole goal is that we sin not, but we're not sinless. And so we're going to sin, and when we do sin, we have a righteous one that will be our defense attorney. But John said if we confess our sins, and the word confess is a compound Greek word homo, which means same, logeo, which means to speak. And so confession is to say the same thing or speak the same thing that God says. And so it's referencing sin. So that if we say the same thing about our sin that God does, that it's not his fault, it's not anyone else's fault, we make choices no matter what people do to us. No one makes us sin. That's a victim mentality and it's foreign from the Word of God. If you're in a mess, yes, someone may have hurt you, damaged you, forced you to do something, but as much as is within you, most of our lives, we have an opportunity to react and to act upon what people do to us. Just because people treat us ugly doesn't mean that we need to sin and treat them ugly. Jesus said don't trade insult for insult. And so when we sin, it's our fault. And that's what God says. It's not his fault. When we sin, we need to say the same thing about it that God does, that it is sin and that the remedy is to turn from it and confess that, not just admit it, but confess and say it's wrong. I never want to do that again. God help me, please forgive me and cleanse me. And the Bible says if we confess our sins in that manner that he is faithful. That means he'll do what he says every time. And he is just, he's righteous in doing it because Jesus died to pay for that sin and to cleanse us from unrighteousness. So if we admit that we are sinners, yes, but more than that, we agree with God about our sin and the remedy of that, we repent of it, we turn from it, and we ask God to cleanse us of our sin, then he's faithful and he's righteous in doing it, and he'll do it every time. And he will cleanse us. He will not just forgive us, but he'll cleanse our conscience. He will make us clean, and we can experience the forgiveness of God on a regular basis. That is what that labor represented. It's an amazing thing. In the book of Revelation, the Bible says, before the throne of God in heaven, now listen to this, there is a sea which has been turned to crystal. This is the image. You can read it in Revelation chapter 4. And that sea is the name of what the huge wash basin was called in the Temple of Solomon. It was called the Sea of Solomon. And it was a series of wash basin, but it had tens of thousands of gallons of water in it. And that was piped into and brought into the temple complex. That was the job of many priests to just carry water all day. But doing God's work is never menial even if it's carrying water, and because God used that to cleanse the people and to give them representatives so when they would get defiled, they could be cleansed. Why? It is to remind us that there was a sea one day that we had cleansing, but now our faith has become side, and there's no more confession of sin. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We will be glorified then. There's no need for the wash basin. There's no need for confession. I'm looking forward to that day when I don't have to look my Savior in the face and bow my head and say, Lord, I've sinned again. And please cleanse me, give me another chance, and let me walk with you and to look into your face once again, because Lord, I'm embarrassed to stand before you. I didn't fully obey you or I I disobeyed you, and I delayed in my obedience. I wasn't rapid, and Lord, I was selfish, and all of those things that we have to confess on a regular basis. God help us to understand the glory of the labor, of that lavatory, of that wash basin, and that one day there won't be a need for cleansing because we'll be like you, Lord Jesus. I pray this encourages you as you walk on the way. This is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.