Lord, that is the only way to come to You: on bended knee, with a humble heart. So we do come before You once again in this manner, Lord, totally depending upon You, upon Your Spirit to speak; to open our eyes and our ears.
Lord, I pray that You would speak today. What a privilege we have to be in Your presence. We bless Your name, Lord. Amen.
That has fast become one of my favorite songs. It is like a prayer; it is a song you can sing all day.
Turn to Psalm 141. This is, I feel, what the Lord has for me to share.
Psalm 141:2—the first phrase:
May my prayer be counted as incense before You.
May my prayer be counted as incense before You. Your prayer can be worship as well as petition, as we know from the Lord’s Prayer. The bookends of the Lord’s Prayer are worship, are they not?
So, when I read this, I say, “Lord, may I worship. May our prayer be as incense before You.” Today I would like to look a little at what Scripture says about incense—about our prayer and our worship being as incense.
Just as a way of encouragement. Nothing new, but I have found it a great encouragement simply to consider these passages.
Now, before I begin, for Christmas one of my presents was this little book called The Valley of Vision. It contains prayers by the Puritans.
I would love to read the introduction to you, but, Mac, it says that during this time—since you are the history guy—a lot of the Puritans and the people who lived during this time, although they had doctrinal differences, had the same spirit and the same love for the Lord. This collection of prayers shows that.
I have been astounded to read some of these prayers. I would like to read one just in beginning. They are wonderful. This one is called “The Throne.”
O God of my delight,
Thy throne of grace is the pleasure ground of my soul.
Here I obtain mercy in time of need;
Here I see the smile of Thy reconciled face;
Here joy pleads the name of Jesus;
Here I sharpen the sword of the Spirit,
Anoint the shield of faith,
Put on the helmet of salvation,
Gather manna from Thy Word,
And am strengthened for each conflict.
Nerved for the upward race,
Empowered to conquer every foe.
Help me to come to Christ as the fountainhead of descending blessings, as a wide-open floodgate of mercy.
I marvel at my intense folly that, with such enriching favors within my reach, I am slow to extend the hand to take them.
Have mercy upon my deadness for Thy name’s sake.
Quicken me, stir me, fill me with holy zeal.
Strengthen me that I may cling to Thee and not let go.
May Thy Spirit within me draw all blessings from Thy hand.
And on it goes. What a wonderful prayer. Can you just imagine the Puritan with a hat on? I mean, just picture the Puritans in the old cabin, praying these kinds of prayers to the Lord. What a blessing that is.
I woke up this morning with a little cold, so you will have to excuse me.
I must admit, when I first started considering this matter of incense, I did not like incense.
When I first got married, I would walk into the house and, being the wonderful husband that I was—I think I am a little better now—I would say, “Whoa, what is that smell?”
It would be one of these Northern candles sitting on the stove, which is called a Yankee Candle. I do not know why they call it that. The smell was so strong. Now I say, “What a wonderful smell,” but I am still thinking, “Oh, what is that smell?”
It goes through the whole house. It is like, well, it is masking some other odors. But that is my only touch with real incense. Well, this is real incense, is it not? Anyway, I am glad I am a much better husband now.
Turn to Revelation, chapter 5. We are going to read two Scriptures in Revelation that speak about incense.
You know, in Revelation 4, you have this great scene of John being shown the throne room. We have all this wonderful worship before the throne: the twenty-four elders, a myriad of angels, the four living creatures, and all these wonderful beings offering worship and praise.
We will read Revelation 5:6-10.
And I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.
And He came, and He took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.
When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Notice that: “Golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”
What struck me—and I am getting a little ahead of myself, but I must say it—is that in the midst of all this grand worship in heaven, before the throne itself, there are the prayers of the saints. Just think of that. In the midst of all that grand worship, the prayers of the saints—the worship of the saints—is there.
Turn to Revelation 8. Between Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, you have the seals being opened. At the seventh seal, there is silence in heaven for about half an hour, and the seven trumpets are getting ready to be opened.
When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.
And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God.
So when the psalmist says, “Lord, may my prayer be as incense before You,” we can see that in heaven there is a golden altar before the throne. The incense upon it is lit, and it rises as smoke before the Lord.
I want you to notice: in the first passage we read, there is great worship and praise; in this passage, there is great judgment. Right in the middle of both are the prayers of the saints, rising as incense before the Lord. I find that astounding.
But to really understand the New Testament, you have to understand the Old, right? It is based upon the Old. So our real text is Exodus 30. We will quickly look at incense and the golden altar.
I am going to be quick today, so listen carefully—quickly.
Exodus 30 begins with the altar of incense, which we will come back to. Then it speaks about the atonement money, the laver, and the anointing oil. But in Exodus 30:34-38, we have the incense—incense which represents the prayers of the saints.
Hopefully, the Lord will flesh out a little of this incense. What is it?
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take for yourself spices: stacte, onycha, and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each.
With it you shall make incense, a perfume, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.
You shall beat some of it very fine, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I will meet with you; it shall be most holy to you.
The incense which you shall make, you shall not make in the same proportions for yourselves; it shall be holy to you for the Lord.
Whoever shall make any like it, to use as perfume, shall be cut off from his people.”
—Exodus 30:34-38
Now, this incense is a very unique fragrance. It is made by the perfumer. I am not going to go over what each spice could mean. I know some of the ancient guys—and I mean really ancient, not Mac’s age, but really ancient—they said these spices mean certain things. I do not know about that.
But I do know that the spices put together for the incense made a very special incense, made only for this purpose. The spices were ground up in a particularly fine way, and they were mixed together in equal proportions. In other words, it was a precise thing: a precise smell, a fragrant incense made by the perfumer.
You notice in Exodus 30:23 that the anointing oil had different spices from this:
Take also for yourself the finest of spices: of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, even two hundred and fifty, and of fragrant cane two hundred and fifty, and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin.
—Exodus 30:23-24
Even the anointing oil, which represents the Holy Spirit anointing everything, was a totally different kind of thing. I never realized that the spices were different between these two, or that there was such precise measurement and that it was made in a certain way.
The children of Israel did not make their own spices and bring them into the temple like they would bring lambs from their flocks. This was something they did not touch. It was made by a perfumer.
So I was thinking and meditating upon this: “Lord, what could the perfumer mean? Is there something here about the perfumer? Who is the perfumer? Who makes the spices? Who grinds up the spices and makes the incense?”
I was reading the next chapter, and I came across this verse:
I have filled him with the Spirit of God.
—Exodus 31:3
So this perfumer was filled with the Spirit of God. I said, “Ah, that is it. The perfumer is the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Spirit for us. He is the Perfumer.”
I said, “Wow. That is neat, Lord. Your Holy Spirit is the One who makes the incense.”
He is the One who makes the incense fragrant. He is the One who precisely mixes the spices and makes that incense.
You know, the Holy Spirit—greatly, I cannot use the right words to describe it—He is intimately involved in incense-making in our lives. He is the One who makes the incense, not us.
I would encourage you to read this book by Dana called The Fellowship of the Spirit. I just want to read a small portion of it.
In these Scriptures, which tell us some of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves involved with the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit comes to commune with us. He communes and fellowships and shares with us the things regarding Jesus, and the things which belong to Jesus because the Father gave them to Him.
Jesus and the Father own the same things. So He shares the things of the Father with us, and the Father shares the things of the Son with us.
It is the Holy Spirit who brings us this blessed fellowship. We are the recipients of this most blessed benediction.
He goes on to describe how it is the Spirit of God who works so much in our lives. He reveals the Lord Jesus. He is the One who leads us through life, withholding us from things we should not be doing and encouraging us to do the things we should be doing. The Spirit of God is intimately involved in our lives.
Brothers and sisters, when you read the Psalms, you can see how much prayer, praise, and worship come out of a life that walks with God. The incense is made by the Holy Spirit in our lives as He works, moves, and shows us the Lord.
It is a very simple thing, but incense that rises before the Lord is only made by the Holy Spirit. Only made by the Holy Spirit. It is not us who make that incense.
The question I have for each of us is this: Do we trust the Holy Spirit for this work? Do we think, in our own lives, that we have to produce this incense?
No. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus to us. He is the Holy Spirit who reveals the greatness and goodness of the Lord. It is the Holy Spirit who, in our lives as we walk through troubles and difficulties—even this morning, as we talk about hope—reveals that Jesus is our hope.
He has a great work, and that work is producing incense in our lives. I know you have a lot of, “Well, but what about—” We are coming to that. But fundamentally, incense is made by the Holy Spirit.
Now, to me, that was so encouraging. I do not have to be in charge of making the incense. I do not have to mix it in the right way, and the fragrance does not have to smell a certain way. I am not in charge of that. It is the Holy Spirit.
What a blessing. When we come to worship and pray, it is the Holy Spirit who is in charge of that. Will you trust the Holy Spirit?
Something else we find in Exodus 30:35-37 is this little phrase: when the perfumer makes the incense, it is salted, pure, and holy.
When we make it, it dissipates, it is dirty, and it is not holy. But when the Holy Spirit makes it, it is salted, pure, and holy. This word pure has the thought of being clean and refined, like pure gold. This is pure incense.
What really struck me was that it is holy. In Exodus 30:36, He says, “It shall be most holy to you,” speaking about the incense. In Exodus 30:37, He says, “It shall be holy to you for the Lord.”
The incense is holy. This word holy has the meaning of sacred. It is a little different thought about what incense is, or what holy is. It is sacred. It is to be considered sacred to you and sacred to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, this is something I had never seen in this light before: when we come together to worship and pray, that incense is sacred.
It is as though we have within us this sacred, holy thing—the incense, the work of the Holy Spirit. When you share and when you pray, I am to consider that sacred.
Now, this is just me speaking, my own personal feeling on it, but it is of great value. It is sacred. Not only should it be sacred to each other; it is sacred to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is sacred to Him.
What a wonderful thought that is. But it is only because the Holy Spirit makes it. He makes it in a certain way, and it is sacred.
We need to touch this incense lightly. The hand of man can make that incense—well, it can ruin it right quickly.
Exodus 30:38 says:
Whoever shall make any like it, to use as perfume, shall be cut off from his people.
It is so sacred that you had better not mess with it. It is only made by the Perfumer. Do not make it for yourself. Do not try to manufacture it. It is only done by the Perfumer.
Well, incense is not just to be there. Something has to happen to that incense. So turn to Exodus 30:1, and we will talk about the altar of incense.
Moreover, you shall make an altar as a place for burning incense.
—Exodus 30:1
I love straightforward definitions. The altar is a place for burning incense.
Now go to Exodus 30:10:
Aaron shall make atonement on its horns; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, the altar is a place for incense to be burned. It is not a place for the incense to rest and sit there. The incense must be burned on the altar.
You have an altar in your heart—that place where you pray and worship before your God. But my thought this morning is that we have an altar here. It is the place where we come, and incense is burned.
Now, what is the burning of incense? In Old Testament times, the priest would take coals from the altar of sacrifice, bring the coals in, and put them on the altar of incense. Then he would sprinkle some of this finely beaten incense powder onto the coals.
An aroma would rise, and that was the aroma of the incense. Incense has to be kindled for the smell to rise before God.
That altar—that place where incense is burned—has to be atoned for. The blood of the atonement was applied to different things in the tabernacle, but once a year the blood of the atonement was sprinkled on the altar of incense.
This signifies that the place of burning incense is holy to the Lord. It is made holy by the atoning blood of our Lord Jesus.
So the place where we burn incense is when we come together in worship and prayer. We come as to an altar, and only by the blood of Jesus can we offer prayers and worship.
That altar, it says, is most holy to the Lord. Once again, we see how sacred, how holy, worship and prayer are.
He makes the incense, and we come; the incense is burned. Now, how is the incense burned? To me, it is so simple: incense is burned when we pray, when we open our mouths and pray.
Psalm 141:2 says, “May my prayer be as incense before You.” When we pray, the incense, as it were, is brought to the altar; and when we pray, it is burned, releasing a fragrance that goes up before the Lord.
What a wonderful, wonderful thing.
But we find something else very wonderful about this altar in Exodus 30:6:
You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you.
He mentions this twice: “in front of.” The first time, the altar is mentioned as being in front of the veil that is near the ark. The second time He says, “In front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you.”
At the beginning of Exodus 30:6, you have the old covenant: in front of the veil. In the second part of the verse, you have the new covenant. The second phrase does not even mention the veil.
When I first read this, I said, “He is repeating.” But He is not repeating. The first time, the emphasis is on the veil; the second time, there is no veil.
It is a glorious placement of the altar. The altar is placed in front of the mercy seat. We know from the Old Testament that above the cherubim, He is enthroned. Three times it says in the Old Testament that above the cherubim, the Lord is enthroned.
So the altar is placed right there before the Lord.
Hebrews 9 has a big doctrinal controversy which this really answers. In Hebrews 9:2, it says that there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one in which were the lampstand, the table, and the sacred bread. This is called the holy place.
Doctrinal people say, “No, this is wrong. This should not be in here,” because Hebrews 9:3 says:
Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant.
No mention of a veil. Wait a minute—the altar of incense in the tabernacle was separated by a veil. But here, the Holy Spirit puts them together without the veil.
There is such doctrinal controversy. You can read how they try to explain it all. But when I read Exodus, I said, “What a wonderful proclamation.” The whole tabernacle was prophetic and spoke of the Lord.
The Holy Spirit, it seems to me, took delight in saying the second time, without the veil, that the altar of incense is right before the mercy seat—right there.
Some of the rabbis I read said that this shows a very special, unique, wonderful place that the altar of incense has in the tabernacle. You can see it in Revelation.
Even in the tabernacle, it was not far off in the courtyard somewhere, because the smell would have gone all over. They say even in Jerusalem, when they offered the incense, it could be smelled a quarter of a mile away from the temple. This smell was very strong.
The Lord was saying, “This worship and prayer is as close as you can get to Me. It is right up next to the ark of testimony.” He says, “In front of,” twice.
What a glorious placement the altar has. When we come and worship and pray, not only is it sacred, but it is so very near—as near as can be—to the throne of God.
If this is true, we should always have a great sense of His presence, a great sense of nearness to God every time that we worship.
There should be an overwhelming sense—and I believe the Spirit of God wants to give this to us—that the place where we worship is holy and sacred. It is right before the throne of God, not far away.
You know, Hebrews talks about being drawn near, brought near. Brothers and sisters, when we worship by the power of the Holy Spirit and pray by His strength, it is on that golden altar which is right before the throne. What a glorious placement.
It is also a glorious presence of the Lord, because He says, “Where I will meet with you.”
In Exodus 25:21-22, He says:
You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I will give to you.
There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you.
So you have this in the tabernacle. The Lord God says, “From between the cherubim, I am going to speak to you.” Right in front of that, you have the place where the people of God are speaking to the Lord, as incense rises before Him.
This shows great communion and fellowship in worship and prayer. It is you speaking to the Lord, and right there, He is speaking to you. It is that close, intimate relationship.
Brothers and sisters, do you not know that during worship, sometimes you hear from the Lord more clearly than at any other time, it seems to me? When the brothers and sisters are raising that sacred incense before the Lord, the Lord is speaking to you and to me.
What a wonderful communion it is. It is our blessing and our honor to be able to have this communion with the Lord.
Go back to Revelation. You can see now, when we say, “May our prayer rise as incense before the Lord,” we mean right there before Him. We mean that the incense—the smoke that rises when we pray—is right there before the Lord.
We cannot understand the importance the Lord places on our prayer and worship. Now, we know the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede as part of it. But, brothers and sisters, the prayers of the saints are so involved with this worship that goes on in heaven.
The prayers of the saints are somehow, which I do not understand, connected to the great judgments upon the earth. Have you ever thought of that?
As I was considering that, I said, “Lord, none of us are praying for judgment. We are not praying that the world would have plagues, earthquakes, trouble, and turmoil.”
But what is one of the greatest prayers—the last prayer—of the church?
“Come, Lord Jesus.”
That is the last, as it were, incense that rises from the great part of the church. What does it say in Revelation? The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Do you see both together there? The One who makes the incense, the Holy Spirit, is crying out, “Come, Lord Jesus.” And we, in total agreement, are saying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
This prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus,” has been going on for a couple thousand years. It has been the prayer of the saints since the Lord Jesus left the first time: “Come back, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus.”
It seems to me that through all the judgments of Revelation, the church is not praying for judgment. The church is praying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
The Lord says, “Okay, I will break open another seal.” “Come, Lord Jesus.” Another seal is opened. “Come, Lord Jesus,” and the trumpet sounds. “Come, Lord Jesus,” even through all these battles.
The church is saying, “Come, Lord Jesus.” It seems to me this is the prayer, perhaps, that rises continually before our God—continually before the Lion of Judah, the One who comes and takes the seals and begins to break them.
The church has been praying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Look at Revelation 8:5:
And the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
It is like the very coals from the altar the angel took and scattered, and all these things happened. Now, that was just me. I did not read that anywhere, so just ignore that.
But it seems to me how that prayer rises within us: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
It was like that in Luke, was it not? In Luke, before the Lord came the first time—well, we can turn there, but before we do, look at Revelation 8:3:
Another angel came and stood at the altar.
Where have we seen an angel standing beside an altar of incense? Where was that? Yes, Luke 1, right? We do not need to turn there. You have all been studying it.
Is it not amazing that the first time He came, the angel came and spoke to the priest who was ministering incense, the evening incense? The angel stood beside the golden altar of incense while the priest, Zacharias, was ministering—putting that incense on top of the coals so that the incense would rise.
What was happening outside at the same time? I am looking at you because you were in prayer. People were praying, were they not?
Perhaps Anna, Simeon, and many others were praying, “Come, Lord. Messiah, come.” Right there, it seems so wonderful to me that the answer came by the golden altar of incense.
I find that an amazing blessing. All through Luke 1, you see the Holy Spirit coming upon different ones to offer prayer and worship. How much the Holy Spirit was involved in that.
Brothers and sisters, may our prayer and our worship be as incense before the Lord, rising before the Lord. Let us pray.
Lord, I do pray that in the coming days we would sense Your presence with us as we worship, as we pray throughout the day.
Lord, as we come together as Your people in the house of prayer, may we sense Your great presence with us. May we sense Your delight in placing us so near the throne of God.
Lord, may we sense the delight that You have as we pray, as that incense rises before You. Lord, we bless You for this wonderful work.
Thank You, Lord, that our prayer—humble people of no value other than what You have done—that our prayer could be considered as incense rising before the very throne of God.
Bless the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.