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There is only one person who ever lived a Wholly Holy life!
That was JESUS of Nazereth
"He never sinned, never told a lie." (1 Pet.2:22) He is now the high priest in the Most Holy place in heaven, the Court House of the Holy Sanctuary. |
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| "ECUMENISM -- St. Joachim's Catholic School children view display of ancient Hebrew worship in Seventh-day Adventist Church. C. E. Andross, creator of the display is delivering a series of lectures at the Adventist church . He gave a program for the children Friday. (Daily Tribune Photo) " |
GOD REVEALED HIMSELF IN A BRILLIANT LIGHT
Ninety-five children from the St. Joachim's Catholic School came to see the model of the God-designed Wilderness Tabernacle and hear the history of the ancient Hebrew worship at our Madera Seventh-day Adventist church. The newspaper ran a picture story with the bold heading: "Ecumenism!" The Catholic-Hebrew-Protestant mix made news. But the really good news for me was that I caught a glimpse of the glory of God that I had never seen before. |
On the 14th day of the first Jewish month at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Jesus died on the cross!
At that exact moment the holy curtain was torn from top to bottom by the unseen hands of God and the Passover Lamb escaped from the knife of the high priest. |
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Through the Holy Curtain I caught a peak of the brightness and holiness of God. I saw a glory of the Messiah I had never seen before. Oh, yes, I knew Daniel predicted that the Messiah would appear as God's annointed son in 27 AD and would be cut off or crucified in 31 AD. It thrilled me to see how Jesus came exactly as scheduled. He died the year, the month, the day, and the hour predicted. I had been preaching this amazing fact for 20 years but I had never seen the physical beauty and glory of the Holy Sanctuary. By accident I discovered it. I had just purchased a macro lens for my telephoto camera and I pretended to be a little doll priest walking through the model. Through the lense of the camera I caught a glimpse of glory I had never imagined. Come with me. Let me take you on a tour of this sacred mystery house of veils and mirrors. But first we need to start up on a mountaintop looking down on the encampment to get the big picture.
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Spread out below us is the camp of over two million. Their camp-city is clean and orderly.
God has been dwelling with them for forty years and is still performing miracles for them. The Shekinah cloud that rises like a tower from the tabernacle spreads out to give them shade by day and light and warmth by night. The diseases of Egypt have not afflicted them. Even their shoes haven’t worn out. |
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For forty years they have had good food to eat and they still gather manna every morning Sunday through Friday with a double portion on Friday so they don’t have to gather any on the Sabbath. God has given them a rest day from labor with an opportunity for worship and fellowship.
The tent city is laid out in four divisions and each has its own flag around the Holy Tabernacle. |
Let us imagine that God has granted us His divine permission to enter and admire His Sanctuary. We start by walking through a colorful curtained entrance into the courtyard enclosure made of an eight-foot high white linen wall.
We stroll past the shining bronze altar of sacrifice and we see our reflection in the gleaming washing pool. Before we enter through the second gorgeous veil we are reminded that we are about to step on holy ground. (Only the ordained priests were allowed to enter the Holy Place.)
Then as this second curtain is opened we are shocked and awed by the beauty of the place. From the furniture of gold to the innermost veil of brilliant colors -- panels of bright blue, red and purple --our eyes are drawn upward above the veil to a space where in the past a rainbow of light spilled over the eighteen-foot high curtain. That glorious light radiated from the Most Holy Place behind the curtain where God's presence dwelt above the mercy seat and between two cherubim.
The walls of the Sanctuary are marvels of beauty. The 17 foot planks are overlaid with polished gold. This makes the Sanctuary look like a house of mirrors. The gold angels imbroidered into the curtains and ceiling panels are reflected in such a manner that as you walk toward the curtain it seems to be a wall of angels extending in both directions for miles into the distance.
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I saw this mirror magic through my camera! But all the slide films turned out poorly.
I tried to rescue a few. Here is one. You can see the altar of insence and a single reflection. I was able to see multiple images of the table of bread, the 7 branch candlestick, the altar of insence, the colorful curtains and even the foundation blocks of silver that supported the golden walls.
Why was so much expense used to beautify a temporary tent?
Who and what did it represent? |
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The light reflecting off the golden angel forms embroidered into the ceiling curtains seems to make them come alive with shimmering beauty. (Real gold and silver threads were used to create the picture of heavenly angels.*)
We see the angels’ reflections in the walls and realize that we are in a house of mirrors that plays interesting tricks on our perception. Angels are everywhere, above us and around us their golden forms shine out in contrast to the purple and blue background that is reflected back and forth by the walls. The walls are made of wood planks thirty inches wide by seventeen feet long completely gold plated to a mirror finish. Each plank is seated into solid silver sockets that weigh sixty-six pounds and might be worth $8,000 apiece. One hundred sockets were used in the erection of the sanctuary. *Patriarchs and Prophets page 345-347 |
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As we walk toward the middle of the holy place we notice the table for bread on our right and a seven-branch candlestick on our left. The table is overlaid with pure gold, and the candlestick is of solid gold. The reflections of the intricate designs dazzle the eye. Our vision of the vastness of God’s House keeps expanding. |
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Next to the Curtain is the golden altar of incense with a crown around the top. It is three and a half feet high and the slow burning incense sends a wispy column of smoke up to join the cloud of glory and fills the room with a delicious fragrance. Some have described the aroma of the four blended gums as that of crushed rose petals.
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Someone might ask what is the purpose of all this ceremonial beauty. The Bible tells us that the main reason why God designed it was to give mankind knowledge of His plans, His Laws, and His Holy character. A written description of His ideal government was kept on two tablets of stone in the sacred box under the mercy seat of Jesus. It was Jesus who wrote the Ten Commandments. And Jesus was the Lord of the Sabbath. |
Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God? ----
---- Ps. 77:13;
Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
---- Ps. 96:6.
How I wish I could go into your sanctuary to see your strength and glory, --
--- Psalms 63:2 LB |
My eyes have seen the glory of The Most Holy Place. What a vision that was as with a camera I peaked through the model's curtain.
The red is the reflection of the curtain that I was peaking through. The middle line is where 2 wall panels join. Angels wings reflect gold. The black spot is a reflection of my camera.
See "Patriachs and Prophets" 343-358.
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Here are God's instructions for building the Ark of The Ten Commandments:
“For I want the people of Israel to make me a sacred Temple where I can live among them. This home of mine shall be a tent pavilion--a Tabernacle. I will give you a drawing of the construction plan, and the details of each furnishing.
“Using acacia wood, make an Ark.… Overlay it inside and outside with pure gold, with a molding of gold all around it. …When the Ark is finished, place inside it the tablets of stone I will give you, with the Ten Commandments engraved on them. |
“Make a lid of pure gold… This is the place of mercy for your sins. Then make two statues of Guardian Angels using beaten gold, and place them at the two ends of the lid of the Ark. They shall be one piece with the mercy place, one at each end. The Guardian Angels shall be facing each other, looking down upon the place of mercy, and shall have wings spread out above the gold lid.
“Install the lid upon the Ark, and place within the Ark the tablets of stone I shall give you. And I will meet with you there and talk with you from above the place of mercy between the Guardian Angels; and the Ark will contain the laws of my covenant. There I will tell you my commandments for the people of Israel.” --- Exodus 25:8-22 LB. |
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During the years of Israel’s theocracy only the ordained High Priest could enter the Most Holy place and that was permitted only on one special day of the year. Even then it was a daring thing to do because the priest would die if he had any hidden sin in his life. With blood and incense he would enter the Most Holy Place. It was like entering the very Judgment Hall of the universe! |
| That is what it represented, Since 1844 Jesus has been our High Priest Lawyer and Judge in heaven's court. His blood redeems us when we plead guilty. Court will soon close and Jesus will put on his kingly robe and crown and come in fiery cloud jets of brilliant heavenly rainbow glory. |
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Read God's Instructions: Psalms 95:1-8 ---
"O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods... The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart."
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| "When we are converted and accept Jesus as our Savior the same Ten Commandments that are written on stone are now by God’s grace written on our hearts as Ten Promises. “That law of ten precepts of the greatest love that can be presented to man is the voice of God from heaven speaking to the soul in promise, ‘This do, and you will not come under the dominion and control of Satan.’ There is not a negative in that law, although it may appear thus. It is DO, and Live. ... The Lord has given His holy commandments to be a wall of protection around His created beings.” --- Sons and Daughters of God, p.53 c 1955, |
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Only when we appreciate and accept what God has promised to do for us will we have power to overcome evil. Here is the new agreement God wants us to accept. It is based entirely on His promise: --“I will write my laws in their minds so that they will know what I want them to do without my even telling them, and these laws will be in their hearts so that they will want to obey them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” Hebrews 8:10 LB
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| Our heart [mind and affections] becomes the sacred ark for the Lord’s New Covenant. Our body becomes the temple or tabernacle for God’s Spirit. Then we can say with David and with Jesus the Son of David, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. --- Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.” -- Ps. 40:8; 119:127. |
God’s main purpose for the earthly sanctuary was to elevate humanity and prepare people for a place in His Heavenly Sanctuary, Paradise, the Garden of Eden restored.
Ponder the following quotation: --
Through Christ was to be fulfilled the purpose
Of which the tabernacle was a symbol—
That glorious building, its walls of glistening gold |
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Reflecting ..the curtains inwrought with cherubim,
The fragrance of ..burning incense pervading all,
The priests robed in spotless white,
And in the deep mystery...above the mercy seat,
Between the figures of the ... worshiping angels,
The glory of the Holiest.
In all, God desired His people to read His purpose
For the human soul.
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It was the same purpose long afterward set forth by the apostle Paul, …
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
And that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God,
Him shall God destroy;
For the temple of God is holy,
Which temple ye are." --- 1 Cor. 3:16, 17.[8] |
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The way of salvation was clearly taught by the sanctuary services that were performed daily. When lawbreakers wanted forgiveness they could have it by offering a lamb as a sacrifice. They knew from the story of Abraham and Isaac that a ram was substituted for Isaac. But to have a ransom for the sins of Adam's children it would take the blood of the Sinless Creator of Adam.
It wasn't easy for Abraham to use his knife and take the life of Isaac his beloved son.
It wasn’t easy for Isaac to encourage his aged father to carry out the human sacrifice.
It wasn't easy for the fathers of families to to use their knives to cut the throats and catch the blood of their best lambs -- their children's pets. But it told of the coming sacrifice of God and his son Jesus the Lamb of the universe. |
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Jesus told the Jewish leaders-- "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad... Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.''
John 8:56-58 New King James |
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Jesus was the great "I AM" Jehovah of Old Testament history. He spoke to Abraham and asked him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. He was the one who sent the angel to stop the knife. He was the one who provided a substitute sacrificial ram caught in a bush.
Jesus was the one who appeared to Moses at the burning bush. He was the one who wrote the Ten Commandments on the two tablets of stone. He gave Moses very exact instructions for building the tabernacle with its furnishings.
Jesus was the Creator of all things, and yet he clothed his divinity with the robe of humanity so that he might die as the Lamb of God. And because he was a perfect lamb without any blemish, (He was born a holy child and remained sinless) his sacrifice was accepted as atonement for the sins of the world.
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The beautiful lamb, probably the pet of his family, was led by the confessor to the tabernacle court where he would kneel by the lamb, place his hands on its head, confess his sins over it and then take a knife and cut its throat. The priest would catch the blood and carry it into the sanctuary of angels as a testimony to the court of God that a death had been paid as a ransom for a man’s sin. The ceremony was to show to the angels and the entire universe the justice of God’s forgiveness.
The killer with the lamb’s blood on his hands watched it lay down and die and pondered the thought that it was his hands and his sins that killed the innocent one. Certainly he understood that the "wages of sin is death." But he also saw that the gift of God, as seen in the slain lamb, would pay for his sins and allow him to live and not die. The blood of the innocent lamb meant life for the guilty sinner, with the hope of eternal life when the true Lamb would come.
The True Lamb would come 1300 years later and the prophet Daniel would foretell the very year He would appear. The longest time prophecy of the Bible as found in Daniel 8 and 9 tells us when the Messiah would appear and the exact year that He as the Lamb of God “would be cut off” or die for His people.
Messiah means “The Anointed One” and Jesus was anointed at His baptism in the fall of 27 AD. This was the exact year that Daniel predicted for “Messiah the Prince” to appear. (Dan.9:25) John the Baptist must have known Daniel’s prophecies and recognized that the year had come, for in that year God told John how to recognize the promised Messiah. See this amazing story in John 1:29-36: ---
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’… And John bore witness, saying, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.’ Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’”
John the Baptist never lived to see Jesus die on the cross as the atoning Lamb of God but he knew the Passover lamb ceremony pointed to a Redeemer for all mankind, and he announced that the Messiah, Son of God was the true Lamb of God Redeemer. Perhaps John knew that Jesus would die exactly three and one half years after He was baptized because Daniel’s prophecy foretold that was the time when the Messiah would “be cut off” or killed. (Dan.9:26) Jesus was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev.13:8)
Many people have asked me why the scholars and students of prophecy did not accept Jesus as the Messiah if they knew the very year of his anointing and the very year of his dying for hundreds of years in advance. It seems amazing to us that the great majority did not receive him as the Son of God. His disciple John says, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:8-14)
The reasons people rejected Jesus then are the same reasons people reject Him today. They wanted a king with worldly popularity and earthly glory. His holy life was a constant rebuke to them, and His teachings offended them. He taught that anyone who was angry or hateful toward another person had already broken the sixth commandment against murder and if unconfessed that sin would send the guilty person to judgment and eternal death. Jesus said that for a man to think about sex with someone other than his own wife would keep him out of heaven. In today’s society Jesus would be labeled derogatorily as a strict legalist.
People who reject God’s Ten Rules today and try to change any one of them to suit their own traditions would have rejected Jesus just as the tradition keepers did when Christ walked among them. He warned them, “You bunch of hypocrites! Isaiah the prophet described you very well when he said, ‘These people speak very prettily about the Lord but they have no love for him at all. Their worship is a farce, for they claim that God commands the people to obey their petty rules.’ How right Isaiah was! For you ignore God's specific orders and substitute your own traditions. You are simply rejecting God's laws and trampling them under your feet for the sake of tradition.” (Mark 7:6-9 LB )
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| Jesus not only talked the talk but He walked the walk and magnified God’s Holy Law by keeping the Ten Commandments perfectly. He challenged the professors, “Which of you can truthfully accuse me of one single sin? [No one!] And since I am telling you the truth, why don't you believe me? Anyone whose Father is God listens gladly to the words of God. Since you don't, it proves you aren't his children.” (John 8:46-47 LB) Jesus was absolutely sinless from the cradle to the grave. At his birth He was “utterly holy--the Son of God” (Luke 1:45 LB) and at his death he was “the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.” (1 Pet.1:19 LB) |
| The greatest glory that anyone can see is the revelation of God as seen in the holy life of Jesus. The Ten Commandments are a mirror reflection of God’s character, but Jesus was a living image of God reflecting the glory of God’s holy character perfectly. On a few occasions the physical glory of Christ’s divinity flashed forth but the loving character of God could be understood better when Christ's perfect humanity was seen in his unselfish ministry to others. This holy life of Jesus is offered to the human race as a free inheritance in place of Adam’s sinful heritage but only those who appreciate and see the glory of this offer enough to accept it will receive it. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and the joy of all the angels to help us see this glory, and as we read the Bible and search for truth we will see glory after glory.
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THE GLORY OF CHRIST'S TEN COMMANDMENTS .
The ten holy precepts spoken by Christ upon Sinai's mount were the revelation of the character of God, and made known to the world the fact that He had jurisdiction over the whole human heritage. That law of ten precepts of the greatest love that can be presented to man is the voice of God from heaven speaking to the soul in promise, "This do, and you will not come under the dominion and control of Satan." There is not a negative in that law, although it may appear thus. It is DO, and Live (Letter 89, 1898). {1BC 1105.2}
The God of heaven has placed a benediction upon them that keep the commandments of God. Shall we stand as a peculiar people of God, or shall we trample upon the law of God and say it is not binding? God might just as well have abolished Himself. {FLB 95.3}
His law is the echo of His own voice, giving to all the invitation, "Come up higher. Be holy, holier still." Every day we may advance in perfection of Christian character. {FLB 95.4}
As the stars tell us that there is a great light in heaven with whose glory they are made bright, so Christians are to make it manifest that there is a God on the throne of the universe whose character is worthy of praise and imitation. {FLB 95.5}
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He has revealed Himself in the most loving manner posible by sending into this world His Holy Son born through an earthly body so that His Divinity might be clothed with human flesh. The brightness of His Glory would be covered so that human beings could live in his presence and see his Holy character. His life of loving ministry would be an example for man to follow. His blood and death would be the ransom He pays for the atonement of all mankind. "All" means all sinners. "All" includes me and "All" includes you. If you appreciate God's Gift tell him so. If you want eternal life that comes with His Wholly Holy Jesus then ask for it now. Thank God for eternal life right now.
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