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Mills River SDA Church

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

Cory Reeves

The House God Built

I'm looking out there and a lot of you know me, but a few of you don't.

I'm the pastor here at Mills River SDA Church.

I decided to go as a missionary to the island of Yap, and that is a whole testimony in itself that we don't have time for tonight.

But how, it wasn't until I got back that I began to really realize that I desired ministry.

And I found that at first in my career in healthcare.

A lot of you know, I spent 20 years in healthcare.

I was in finance, I did CFO work, I did CEO work, I did regional CFO work.

And it was when I first started working I met my beautiful wife Amanda in the back.

We have 2 amazing boys Noah who is 18 and Jacob who turned 16 on Wednesday, I believe So Noah's a senior and Jacob is a sophomore We have lived in Orlando as a family, in Georgia as a family, and then up here in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina.

It was in 2021 that I felt called to ministry here at Mills River and God opened those doors.

Even though I have a fairly varied background, I've always had a desire and a love for people.

A love for people and also a desire and love for people's relationship with God.

Even as a CFO, and I say that kindly to any CFOs that might listen later on, Even as a CFO, I offered Bible studies to anyone who worked for me.

At 1 point, I think I had 7 Bible studies going with them.

I served for many years as a church elder and taught, I think I've taught Sabbath school for every children's division we have.

But at some point, you've gotta wonder why the sanctuary?

I initially wondered, If you start looking, particularly at the beginning of the Old Testament, why would God take so much space in the Bible to describe something as outdated as the sanctuary?

Then I read from my favorite author that the sanctuary is an essential pillar to our faith.

So why would this model, this old model, be so important?

This began for me a multiple year study, and I don't think it will ever end, but at the start of it I bought book after book after book I could find on the sanctuary.

I read my Bible and poured over the essential sanctuary text.

It helped me see the Bible in a new light.

In studying, I told a few friends, we've really got to create Bible studies around the sanctuary.

My best friend and I went back and forth.

We've gotta figure out how to create these studies.

It was probably a few years later, in 2016, around then, when I found a six-part series by a pastor named Pastor George Baute.

Then in 2020, I moved here to learn that Pastor Boutte lived here.

I also learned he had a much longer series on the sanctuary doing just what I wanted Bible studies to hand out to do.

So, the series that I will be sharing with you is very much personalized to me, but the guides and the PowerPoint are actually Pastor Bautist.

And if he ever hears this, I want to thank him, not only for creating the series, but also helping me in my walk with God through his message.

I will say any message in the Bible is so deep that we could spend eternity studying it.

And the sanctuary is probably the extreme of that.

There are so many different messages in the sanctuary, and we're not gonna have time, even in the series we're doing, to go through every little piece.

So whether you're an experienced Bible student or brand new, I hope this series blesses you.

So even after all the books I have read on the sanctuary, it has to come from the Bible.

In order to share it with you, it has to be something relevant for your life and how you are going to live.

It is my goal to make these presentations practical, personal, and relevant.

We are going to look at the furniture and the meaning behind it.

We will make some brief looks into the festivals as well as into some of the sacrifices.

But overall, you will see that the sanctuary message is actually a very simple message.

In its simplicity, however, you will find it is profound and it can impact your life like never before.

This series overall is divided into 2 main parts.

The first portion is going to be about your relationship, our relationship with Jesus.

Did you know the sanctuary actually teaches us how to grow in our relationship and walk with Christ.

Then, the second part, we'll move into the most holy place.

The most holy place is the prophetic section.

Did you know the whole sanctuary is a prophetic timeline?

You will get the opportunity to study that.

It is the most holy place we will see specifically in time prophecy.

It is crucial to see that the sanctuary teaches us, first we come to Jesus, then we can learn in our understanding of prophecy.

It's in that order, because without Jesus in our lives, prophecy doesn't matter squat.

Those are the ones that Pastor Baltay put together, and that's what we're gonna go through.

I will request that you, We gave you pens, hopefully they work, if they don't, exchange them.

There are fill in the blanks, like I like to do in my normal sermons, so this just fits right along with the way I like to preach.

If there's something that challenged you, study it again.

You can't trust someone standing up here with your eternity, right?

Would someone out there—Pastor Balte used this example, I remember it for some reason, but would you come up here if you didn't know me and give me your bank account information?

Why would you trust me with your eternity?

What I also love is that this study overall is gonna drive you to a deeper understanding of the Bible.

You know, sanctuary is throughout the whole entire Bible.

I don't know if you've ever read with your, I wanna say, sanctuary glasses on before, but you start reading through the Bible in their secret sanctuary language throughout almost the entire Bible.

If you started pulling out texts or verses that have sanctuary type language, the Bible would fall apart.

I lastly want you to know, I have been praying for you.

And as we go through our Bibles tonight, I will continue to pray for you.

But before we do, I do want to stop right now and pray before we start.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, We desire a deeper relationship with you.

In a world full of turmoil, you've given us a clear picture of your love for us.

And that picture is found in the sanctuary.

Please give us that clear picture tonight.

Our story of the sanctuary begins actually in the Garden of Eden.

In the beginning, God created a perfect world.

God taught Adam and Eve that their happiness was contingent upon their loyalty to God.

How we demonstrate loyalty is in obedience.

A lot of you know that this first test was in what?

02 The Outer Court

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we want to thank you for the journey through the sanctuary.

We want to thank you for joining us here tonight.

And Father, we ask that you would guide and bless our study.

Father, let my words be not my own, but yours.

Last night we discovered that the earthly sanctuary was actually a model of the sanctuary where?

The purpose is to help us understand the work that Christ is doing, not for ancient Israel, but He is doing for us today.

The sanctuary in heaven is actually the center of activity in God's plan to save a fallen world.

God gave us this model so that in seeing what He is doing for us, we can choose on our own free will Him.

And then we can cooperate intelligently with the work God is doing for us.

In the sanctuary, we find the science of salvation.

And our main point last night was that Jesus is the door, the opening of the sanctuary.

And so the first step in God's plan of salvation is that we have to make the choice to go to the door, Jesus.

Now I'd like to ask for us to turn back in time to an incident that took place next to Mount Sinai.

This incident takes place after God has delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage.

And While they were there, God through Moses presented Israel the 10 Commandments.

Those 10 Commandments are the covenant between Israel and God.

They entered into the covenant relationship.

Moses then went back up Mount Sinai to commune with God.

Sadly, before long, the children of Israel gave up on Moses returning.

And then what they did next resulted in the breaking of the covenant.

They decided to worship a new god, a god formed of their own hands, even though they claimed it bounced, popped out of the fire, a golden calf.

God tells Moses that the people have fallen away and it is time to go back down.

As Moses descends and witnesses the apostasy, he shatters the 2 stone commandments, the 2 stone tablets of the 10 Commandments, a symbolic act that mirrors Israel's action in breaking God's law.

And it was discovered that there was no apostasy from that tribe.

They had remained faithful to God, and as a result of their loyalty to God, their faithfulness, God blesses them with the new role of being His representative, serving as priests in the sanctuary.

As priests in the sanctuary, they were object lessons for the people, right down to the clothing they wore.

Aaron and the sons of the descendants of Aaron, who were also of the tribe of Levi, were given the task of being the priests of the sanctuary.

The other relatives of the tribe of Levi were assigned to the role of the Aaronic priesthood in assisting them.

So first, we're gonna glance at a couple things.

We're gonna look at the dress of a common priest.

His dress was white linen and he wore a white mitre.

You can see there's a pretty good picture on the screen.

He wore a white mitre on his head, accompanied by the sash around his waist.

The common priest could officiate in the tabernacle.

Let us open our Bibles and turn with me to Revelation 1.12.

Before we read, let me give you some background.

He has ascended to the heavenly sanctuary.

The Apostle John is in a vision and he suddenly hears a voice behind him in vision.

Now let's see what it says here in Revelation 1 starting with verse 12.

Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw 7 golden lampstands.

And in the midst of the 7 lampstands, 1 like the Son of Man, clothed with the garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band." Does that dress sound familiar to you?

Paul writing this would have thought this was, like we talked about last night, this is common knowledge.

They knew sanctuary, so he didn't have to spell out who he's describing because he thought who he was writing to all understood.

That's why studying the sanctuary is so important.

There's a golden lamp stand that's located in the holy place.

Here we see John in a vision in the great control center in heaven.

He sees Christ, our priest, who is advocating on our behalf.

Okay, here's some amens and a couple heads.

This marks the beginning of our journey today.

And our series serves as building blocks on future presentations.

So in the days of Moses, it was Aaron who was the high priest, right?

We all remember, most of us remember that.

The garments of the high priest also had the white linen garment, and this pure white linen garment represents what, church?

And if you need a reference for that later, you can look up, 1 of them is Revelation 19, 7 and 8.

We know that our righteousness is filthy rags, right?

And the only righteousness that is pure, that is perfect, that is acceptable, is the righteousness of the Son of God.

Just like the door, there is only 1 way to acquire righteousness.

After the white linen, he also had an ephod which consisted of 2 parts.

The blue robe you kinda see there, and the apron.

What are you doing when you wear an apron?

Some of you are doing dishes, some of you are cooking, some of you might be woodworking.

I've seen welders usually wear a big heavy leather.

I think that's an important point here is when the priest put on a robe and then put this apron over top.

And Jesus isn't just sitting there back watching, friends.

Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.

On top of the ephod, you had a breastplate.

03 The Cleansing Laver

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, as we continue our walk in the sanctuary, Father, it opens so many things to us.

And Father, we ask that you would come into our hearts and our lives, that you would impact us for your kingdom.

So we've been learning in our presentations that God gave Israel the sanctuary to help them understand the plan of salvation.

It also was given to us so we could see the big picture of how salvation works.

The plan was not intended only for Israel and us, but also so we could intelligently cooperate with God.

We serve a God of love and he is interested in saving the whole world the people created in his image He is interested in saving you personally Our study revealed that there is only if you remember there is only 1 way in Through the gate that represents Jesus.

And then if you remember, we come to the altar, the foot of the sanctuary.

And at the foot of the sanctuary, we see that our God, thank goodness, praise God, wants to separate the sin from the sinner.

I'm so glad we serve a God that wants to separate the sin from the sinner.

And then tonight, we are coming to the next piece of furniture, so to speak, in the courtyard.

And we're gonna learn more about the laver tonight.

1 of the interesting things about the laver is it was made of bronze we're going to learn of.

And do you know where most of that bronze came from?

And when they asked Israel for a donation for the sanctuary, these mirrors were given and they made something.

And this something, this laver, is to show us who we really are as a people.

I know we did a lot of introduction the last 2 nights, but tonight we're jumping in.

Number 1 in your study guide, what service was conducted at the laver?

You shall also make a laver of bronze and its base also of bronze for washing.

For Aaron and his son shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it." You see, the laver was filled with water to allow the priest to wash their hands and feet.

They were to get the water from up top and wash at the base.

I think in the picture you're going to see here in a minute, you can see some depictions of it actually have a trough at the base of the laver.

We're not sure exactly how that worked or how that looked, but there's different depictions.

I think the example here on this has a pedestal base which wouldn't allow for that.

But we know they didn't bathe, they didn't jump into the laver to wash.

They pulled the water from the top and they used it at the base of the laver.

What was the significance of this washing?

When they go into the tabernacle of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister or burn an offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die.

They shall wash their hands and feet, lest they die.

Before they ministered inside the tabernacle, or before they brought an offering, the priests had to wash their hands and feet.

As we learn and study the sanctuary, we have been finding that it is full of symbolism, correct?

The symbolism of washing is washing away defilement of sin as they entered into the presence of God to do their work.

We understand that the role of the priest was literally an object lesson for the people.

When People came to the tabernacle to watch the service.

In fact, we are still reflecting on this service today.

Tonight, we're reflecting on the service that God gave us.

God gave specific instructions to the priest that they would communicate the plan correctly.

Done incorrectly, and the incorrect message gets sent.

Do you remember a story of Nabab and Abihu?

If you wanna write that down, if you wanna look at that later, you can.

God had given specific instructions to the priest that whenever they were to use fire, in any service, they were to use fire that God had lit on the brazen altar.

Any fire lit, even the menorah, was to be lit from that original fire.

God told them not to use any other fire, not common fire.

Now, Bible students, what is fire symbolic of in the Bible?

So when we come into service with God, we go with the right spirit.

Our Bible tells us that there is another spirit in this world.

But we have to make sure we're following the right spirit.

Thus, when Nabab and Abihu got careless and said fire is fire, it's no big deal, they could be sending the wrong message to the children of Israel.

Without correction, this message could be life-ending.

And sadly, it was for those 2, if you go back and read that story.

You know, this tells me something significant.

My life, your life, is set to be an example to others.

You and I are entrusted with truth that we're learning here.

We are called to our Bibles so that we can share Jesus with those those who've never opened their Bibles.

The work of being reconciled to God, being justified, which began at the brazen altar, continues at the laver.

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