The “Outer Court” was the place of redemption and cleansing. There was the “Altar” where you were redeemed by the blood. The “Laver” where the priests were cleansed before they went on into the “Holy Place.” There’s the “Holy Place,” celebrating God’s provision, the “Table of Showbread.” Every week they put new loaves of bread out to thank God for His provision. There’s the Menorah and that pictures the Holy Spirit of God, the “seven-fold spirit,” celebrating God’s provision of revelation through His Spirit. There’s the “Altar of Incense” picturing access to the Father in prayer. And then there’s the “Veil,” a thick curtain, some say as much as a foot thick to thoroughly separate the “Holy Place” from the “Holy of Holies” because in the Holy of Holies dwelt the glory of God. He dwelt there between the Cherubim over the “Ark of the Covenant.” Now I don’t know about you but I sort of see a similarity there. See God’s yearly cycle of feasts is like a journey into the presence of God. It’s like walking through the Tabernacle. You start in the “Outer Court,” you go through the “Inner Court” and you end up in the “Holy of Holies.” So the whole cycle of feasts is designed to bring you into a fresh experience of God’s glory every year. Now why is that important?
Well see living in the world is like being on an escalator going down. You just tend to drift further and further from God. You don’t have to try hard to drift away from God. But God’s appointed times puts you on an escalator going up. They draw you ever closer to God and where you’ve gotten off track they’ll give you a chance to get back on. So let’s look at these feasts. First of all there’s Passover. Passover begins the whole cycle of feasts. The story of Passover is given in Exodus, chapter, 12. God said “Take a lamb for each household and on the 14th day of the month slaughter them at twilight. Then take some of the blood and put it on the sides and the tops of the doorframes of your houses. And that same night you are to eat the meat roasted over the fire along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. And this is how you are to eat it. With your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. This is the Lord’s Passover. And on that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn both men and animals and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. And the blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are and when I see the blood I will pass over you and no destructive plague will touch you. And this is a day you are to commemorate for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, a lasting ordinance.” That was Passover.
For the Jews Passover was a celebration of God’s power in setting them free from slavery in Egypt. They had been in bondage, under bitter oppression. They cried out to God and He delivered them through Passover. What was passed over at Passover? Well the Israelites were passed over. You know somebody sometimes we sing “Lord, don’t pass me by?” I want to tell you sometimes you want God to pass you by because the time had come for God’s judgment and it would have fallen on everyone but God gave the Israelites a way to escape. The key to their rescue was not an army. It was not in some great heroic deed but their deliverance came through the smallest, weakest, most innocent thing imaginable, a pure, spotless lamb. And when the blood of the lamb was placed on the doorpost God accepted the sacrifice of that lamb in place of Israel’s first born. The angel of death passed over them. So the central focus of Passover was the lamb. But even more than that the central focus was the blood of the lamb.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth