The Seven Trumpets

Parts 1-3

 
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What is the service at the Altar of Incense all about? In a sentence, “This service marks the close of corporate intercession and the commencement of the Great Tribulation.”

To understand the phrase, “the termination of corporate intercession,” you have to understand three things:

 

1.   When Adam and Even sinned, Jesus “stood between” the law of God that demanded their immediate execution of the guilty pair. Jesus immediately interceded.   

 

On the basis of love for Adam and Eve and their offspring, Jesus voluntarily interceded. For six thousand years, Jesus has been “standing in the way” of [as in holding back] the execution of sinners. This intercession operates on two levels: The personal level and the corporate level.

 

See if this makes sense:

 

When the whole world became corrupt in Noah’s day, Jesus told Noah that He was going to destroy the world because it had passed the point of no return. So, after 120 years, mercy for the world (corporately speaking) ended and the flood came.

 

However, even though God was angry with the behavior of mankind as a whole, mercy was extended to any individual who believed God’s Word and entered the ark that Noah built. The point here is that God deals with mankind in corporate ways and He deals with mankind in individual ways.

 

This is why there were two altars in the Earthy temple. There are two levels of atonement. The Altar of Burnt Offering [located in the courtyard] was used for atonement on the personal level. This is where individuals came with their sin offerings.

 

The Altar of Incense [located inside the temple] was used for atonement on corporate level. Each morning and evening, atonement was made on this altar for the whole nation of Israel. Because continual or daily atonement was ongoing, a holy God could dwell in a camp of sinners without destroying it!

 

Consider this: In Bible times, God dwelt with the nation of Israel as though the whole nation was one person. The Babylonian captivity was corporate punishment upon the whole nation for the apostasy of its majority. [Yes, there were some in Israel at that time who still pleased God (like Ezekiel, Daniel and his three friends). But the majority in Israel displeased Him and He destroyed the whole nation through Nebuchadnezzar.]

 

Of course, God also deals with mankind as individuals. You may remember how God punished King David for having an affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.

 

So, the first thing that you need to know about the services at the corporate altar, the Altar of Incense, is that God deals with mankind on two levels and this truth is confirmed by the presence of two separate and distinct altarsin the Earthly and Heavenly temples. (If you want to investigate further, read Leviticus 4 and notice the differences between corporate sins and individual sins and their respective altars.)

 

Just in case you have forgotten, I said there are three things we have to understand before we can understand the service at the Altar of Incense in Revelation 8, so let’s proceed with item #2.

 

2.   We need to understand the role of incense at the Altar of Incense.

 

Have you ever heard the expression: “Well, that stinks!”? The idea behind the expression is that something went wrong and the consequences stink, that is, they are offensive. This may come as a surprise, but sinners are a stench in God’s nostrils. This stench isn’t body odor our stench is our unrighteousness.

 

God is totally pure and we are totally impure – even after a bath. Sin cannot be washed away with water. Pilate did not remove his guilt in the death of Jesus by washing his hands. To teach that even in our finest clothes we are stench in God’s nostrils, God required the offering of a special fragrant incense. Jesus designed this fragrance to mask our stench. 

 

Exodus 30:34   Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take fragrant spices – gum resin, onycha and galbanum – and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts,    

 

Exodus 30:35   and make the fragrance blend of incense, the work of a perfumer, it is to be salted and pure and sacred.

 

Exodus 30:36   Grind some of it to make powder and place it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of the Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you.

 

Exodus 30:37   Do not make any incense with this formula for yourselves; consider it holy to the Lord.

 

Exodus 30:38   Whoever makes any like it to enjoy its fragrance must be cut off from the people.”

 

Each day, evening and morning, when priests offered this incense on the Altar of Incense, people would gather outside the temple to present their prayers and petitions to God. They gathered at the evening and morning services because they desperately wanted their petitions to be answered and they reasoned that their petitions would be favorably presented if they ascended with the sweet fragrance of incense.

 

Think about this: If you petitioned a great king to grant your request, don’t you think a delightful atmosphere would do more good than trying to approach him in “stinky” clothing? Ok, now that you know about corporate intercession on the Altar of Incense and you know about the use of incense. The last thing you need to know about is the censer and the act of throwing it down.

 

3.   In Bible times, censers were little metal buckets [skillets] that were used to carry fire from one place to another. In those days there were no matches or butane lighters, so it was a lot easier to carry fire around than to start a fire. Thus, censers in ancient times were rather common household devices.

 

Censers were also used at the temple for the purpose of carrying fire. The fire on the Altar of Incense never went out, even when Israel carried the tabernacle from place to place. The fire from the Altar was carried in a censer. Notice how a censer was used on the Day of Atonement. 

 

Leviticus 16:12   “He [the high priest] is to take the censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord [Altar of Incense] and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain.

 

Leviticus 16:13   He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die.”   

 

The point here is that temple censers were used to carry fire during the process of atonement. [When the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram occurred, God became very angry with the whole nation of Israel…]

 

Numbers 16:44   And the Lord said unto Moses,

 

Numbers 16:45   “Get away from the assembly so I can put an end to them at once.”

 

Numbers 16:46   Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put incense in it, along with fire from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out of the Lord; the plague has started.”

 

Numbers 16:47   So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran in the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them.    

 

Numbers 16:48   He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. [What a beautiful example of intercession]

 

Numbers 16:49   But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.”

 

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