The Secret of the Brass Laver | The Mystery of the Tabernacle Season 1

We're studying today from the pages of the Hebrew Bible, we're going back to the Torah, to the book of Exodus, and we're looking at the Mishkan or the tabernacle that the Lord instructed Moses to build so that the children of Israel could enter into God's presence. I want to move forward now and cover the next piece of furniture that we could see in the tabernacle. We've come to the door, we've presented our sacrifice, what do we see next? We see, beloved, a brass laver. Now the brass laver was a basin that was filled, it was the place where the priests would come and wash themselves every day. And I want you to get this, not only do we understand that because the priests had to wash themselves every day, it's being communicated to us that you and I need to be continually being cleansed every day, we're being washed more and more and more as we enter in deeper in our fellowship with our Creator, as we more and more repent, as the Holy Spirit is continually showing us ways in our life that we need to grow, how we need to improve, how we need to stretch ourself to be stronger, to love more, to be more patient, whatever it is that the Holy Spirit is showing you, every day we're growing, we're not static. Just like the priests had to wash themselves every day because their washing, their consecration to the Lord was becoming more and more as they were being transformed. Not only do we learn that from the brass laver because they had to wash daily, but there's something else here that's so important. We read in the book of Exodus chapter 38, this brass laver, this place where the priest washed themselves, it was made from the mirrors. Get that. It was made from the mirrors of the women that ministered outside the tabernacle. This is really poignant. This is so important. God specified where the brass needed to come from. It needed to come from mirrors. Now, remember, God told Moses, every piece of this tabernacle needs to be made exactly how I'm telling you.

You make this brass laver, Moses, from mirrors. Now think about this. What is a mirror used for? What do you and I use a mirror for? We don't use a mirror to try to figure out, you know, what somebody else looks like, right? We use a mirror to see what we look like. A mirror shows us our own face. We look at a mirror to see ourselves. So the brass laver is about cleansing. And when the priest went to the brass laver every day and they looked over the brass laver that was filled with water, what do you think they saw? They saw a reflection of themselves. What can we learn from this? That if you and I are going to be cleansed, we need to see ourselves through the eyes of the Spirit. And as we see ourselves through the eyes of the Spirit and agree with Him and repent by growing by saying, yes, Lord, I agree with what you're saying, I want to grow in this area of my life. I want to love more. I want to give more. I want to be a more patient person. I want to control my emotions or my lust or my anger. Yes, Holy Spirit, I agree with what you're showing me about myself. And I turn to you to rise up and follow you as we do that, we're more and more being cleansed. This is so important. That's why I began today's teaching with the concept of self-awareness. Some of us don't take time to really look at ourselves. We need to be aware of what's going on in our heart. What are the impulses that are arising from our heart? How are we relating to the world around us?

Are we easily frustrated? And then when we get frustrated, we get angry. And then when we get angry, we hate or we judge people. or we condemn people, the Holy Spirit will show us these things. And as He shows us, we need to say, yes, Lord, I'm guilty, help me. Because the Bible says if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us and what? Cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So the brass lever, as the priests came every day 3,500 years ago, and they looked into the brass lever, they saw themselves, it's a teaching, beloved, it's a prophetic shadow of how you and I can walk with God, how we can enter deeper into the divine presence. We have to be transformed. And in order to be transformed, we need to be aware of our sin and we need to be cleansed of it by confessing it and turning away from it and overcoming. You know, I was doing a devotional recently here and I was reading in my devotional about the sin of laziness and having a mindset of being in this world for pleasure and how when the Lord gives us a command, we need to run to obey Him. It was about running to do God's will. And why do we not run to do God's will? And the teaching that I was absorbing was we don't run to do God's will sometimes because we're lazy.

And we need to have a mindset like a soldier. Soldiers, they sleep on the ground. They have irregular sleeping hours. They sleep whenever they can get it. They can't have the best meals all the time. They've got to eat when they can, what they can. And they've got a mindset that they're there to do a job, not to be comfortable in the world. And as I was reading this, I was thinking, yes, Lord, I need to be less affected when you're asking me to do something. And when you're asking me to do something, it is a disruption to my wanting to be comfortable. That was the sin that I was wanting to repent of, that I don't get frustrated because the Lord has asked me to do something that is not comfortable for me. Like, let's say, for example, we get home from work and we're tired. And we're just tired. We don't feel like doing anything. But there's somebody in our house, maybe. Maybe it's a grandchild. Maybe it's a phone call. Maybe it's somebody there. They want to talk to us and they need our ear to listen to them and they need our love or they need our affirmation. Maybe they need our prayer. They just need to feel our presence with them.

But instead, because we're tired, we don't really want to deal with it sometimes. We don't really want to spend the time to talk. But the Lord was showing me, listen, you've got to rise out of being comfortable. And when I'm putting you in a situation where I'm asking you to do something, you've got to repent of not running to do what I'm asking you to do because it's making you uncomfortable because you're tired or because you just want to rest. And so as I saw this, I said, yes, Lord, I see what you're saying to me here. That a lot of times I'm getting frustrated because someone's calling me to do something and I just want to lay on my couch and study your word. Because that's usually what I'm doing. I'm just studying God's word. I'm reading different literature, spiritual literature, some from rabbinic sources, some from the scriptures itself, some from different New Testament, but I'm absorbing God's word. And I don't want to be bothered. But sometimes the Lord is saying, no, that's a sin for you just wanting to lay here because you love my word so much. When I'm putting something in front of you that I'm asking you to do,

get off your couch, go spend time with your grandkids, go spend time with your wife. And I said, yes, Lord, you're right. Because I was just enjoying being in your word, but I can see now that you're showing me that sometimes it's just selfish of me. And so I'm sharing that story with you just to give you an example for my own life of how this takes self-reflection. The priest came and the Holy Spirit showed them things about themselves and they washed themselves with the water. This is the prophetic teaching here. We're priests. And so I want to ask you, how much time do you spend just by yourself in the Lord's presence in openness to the Holy Spirit to show you what he wants to show you? I remember when I was a kid growing up, maybe some of you can relate to this. And I remember my dad saying to me one time, you only hear me when I say something that you wanna hear. He didn't say it like, it was something about candy. If he said the word candy, I heard him. Like we would go, we were able to go to the store every Sunday. My parents give us each a quarter. My brother and sister and I, we walked down the street to the candy store

and the candy was like five cents each. You could get five different types of candy for a quarter. Whenever my parents would say candy, we jumped off the couch. We ran to them. We got that quarter, we walked down to the drugstore, came back with our bag of candy. My dad said, you know, whenever I say candy, but you guys are, you hear me. But yet my, if my dad would say, hey, go, go, go straighten your bed or go, go clean your room. For some reason, he must've noticed that I, I didn't hear him so well. I wonder how many of us are like that with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit speaking, but because he's speaking to us about something that we're uncomfortable about or we're too lazy to do something about, or it makes us uncomfortable because to obey the Spirit's voice, it would stretch us out of our comfort zone. I wonder how many of us have shut them out and we're not listening. But to grow and be cleansed, we need to hear and we need to let the Spirit speak to us when he wants to show us, we need to look at ourselves. We need to look at ourselves just as the priest looked in themselves when they leaned over the brass lever and we need to agree with what the Spirit is saying. And we need to repent.

We need to strive to grow, to overcome. Last night, I didn't get a good night's sleep. I was really wanting to get a good night's sleep last night because I knew that I was going to be ministering to you today, but I didn't get into good night's sleep. And I woke up this morning and I wasn't in the best of moods. And I was thinking about the fact, man, I feel lousy. I feel tired, but you know what? I was thinking about what the Lord was showing me. Listen, you've got to be like a soldier. You've got to be, you got to rise up above just being trapped and being tired. You've got to rise up and run to do my will and stretch yourself to perform it, even when you're tired. And so I was thinking about that. And so what did I do? Rather than acting like I was frustrated to my wife because I was so tired, instead I made a conscious decision to love my wife, to not let her see that I was tired, to not let her see that I was frustrated, to not let her see anger from me because it took her a little longer to get to bed last night, which is, I think, maybe one of the reasons I didn't sleep well because I can't sleep well unless Cynthia's in bed with me. But the Holy Spirit showed me about myself. I'm calling you to a higher level. And you know what happened?

When I got strong and I said, Lord, I'm not going to let myself show frustration. I'm not going to let myself show anger because you showed me about myself that I need to be strong and not allow myself to be trapped in just protecting my own comfort. I need to run to do your will, even if it means doing your will when I'm sacrificing my comfort. So what did I do? I overcame it, but I had to first be aware of myself. And you know, I recognize it as I stepped and showed love and showed compassion and blessed my wife and prayed for her, when I could have very easily, in my old man, shown my frustration or showed my anger. But when I chose to not allow my physical tiredness, determine my behavior, you know what I realized? Doing that right thing, it made me stronger. It made me stronger, not just for a second, but there's a transformation that's taking place as we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to us and then agree with him and do it, we get stronger. And you know what happens, my beautiful one? You know what happens, my beautiful and holy brothers and sisters, when we get stronger? We break free, we break off the darkness that surrounds us that's pressing in. But part of the process is to be like the priest that let the Holy Spirit show them what it was

that they needed to be cleansed of. So I want to ask you today, are you making a conscious decision in your life just to spend time with the Lord? Just you and he alone and opening yourself up to him and letting him show you where you're an error, letting him correct you. See, the Bible says that the Lord disciplines every son or daughter that he receives. And if we're without discipline, we're not his children. So discipline is a good thing, it's a blessing, it allows us to grow, it allows us to repent, it allows us to change, it's a process of transformation, it allows us to make a decision so that we can become stronger and as a result, break free. This is the gospel, beloved. It's revealed to us in the tabernacle. So maybe you've not heard this before, maybe you've only heard about how God wants to bless you and make you happy and healthy and wise and do all these things for you. And that's good, that's true, God wants to bless you. to bless us. But let's start with the inner man. Let's start by recognizing and becoming conscious of our sin. Let's be open to the spirit so we can show us where we need to repent and let's agree with him and take action and do what he's revealing that we should do. And as we do, beloved, we're going to become strong and we're going to more and more shine with the power of the face of Jesus.

Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. As we cooperate with God through the pattern of the tabernacle, we're going to become pure and more and more see his face. In the book of Numbers, chapter six, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to speak this blessing over his people. And the Lord said, when you speak these words over my people, I will place my name on them and bless them. Receive the impartation of the Lord's blessings. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up by his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. God bless you and shalom.