“Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Col. 1:12-14

BLOOD ATONEMENT

There is one more item that the High Priest would carry with him into the Holy of Holies, a container of blood which he would sprinkle on the Mercy Seat as he approached it. The blood acknowledged five things, first, that the shedding of blood before God was the focal point of atonement for sins. Second, it was an admission that someone else had to shed the blood for them and in so acknowledging the people understood they could not atone for their own sins. Third, the blood that was sprinkled made it possible for justice to be administered and judgment to be withheld. Fourth, it made it possible for unholy people to become intimate and commune with the Holy God. Finally, the sacrificial blood prophesied the coming of the Messiah who once and for all would make an everlasting atonement for all sin.

You do not have to sprinkle the blood, but you do have to appropriate the blood of Jesus to your life - which you have been doing at each piece of furniture - which was already sprinkled with that blood.

JESUS THE GOLDEN CENSOR OF INTERCESSION

The Golden Censor you now have in your hands will carry the Prayers you have prayed into the next room. In fact, that smoke has already preceded you. It penetrates the very fiber of the thickest of fabrics, even the Veil that is before you. The Hebrew Historian, Josephus, wrote that the Veil of the Tabernacle of Moses was the equivalent of being four inches thick and that a team of horses could not pull the Veil apart.

PRAYER FOR YOU, PRECEDES YOU

As a reminder, the fact that prayer preceded you into the Holy of Holies is metaphoric of Jesus preceding you into Heaven and continually interceding there for you. Thus, prayer , for you in the Holy of Holies, is already present before you bring your prayers for others there. In fact, it is Jesus who is about to open the Veil for you, just as in the giving of His life, the Father tore the Veil in the Temple from the top to the bottom.

GOD’S SPECIAL PRESENCE

With the coming of the Tabernacle of Moses, God’s special presence was no longer in the Garden of Eden, it was in the Tabernacle itself. God’s presence in the next Room of Mystery returns to mankind all that Humans had before sin entered the world through them. In this room, the Holy of Holies, the presence of God is thick again, just as it was intended to be in the beginning - only then, before sin, there was no worry about the consequences of sin in a persons life.

The Veil was one piece of Fabric, and the Cherubim woven into the Veil more than likely match the Cherubim woven into the fabric above you and reaching out beyond the Golden walls on either side of you.

The Cloud of smoke in which you are standing and breathing represents both the Glory of God’s presence and acts as a protecting covering around you. Finally, it represent the Holy Spirit of the living God and as you breath it in, it begins the process of preparing you for what you are about to encounter. Now you are ready …

LIVING LIGHT

Suddenly, there is light, not just any light, but brilliant, thick, light oozing out from under the Veil in front of you. The light seems to be alive, as if it were living and wanting to touch you. Looking down at your feet, the encroaching Light mingles with the swirl of the smoke and your feet seem to be immersed in the clouds of Heaven. Your feet tingle a bit as the living Light moves around your ankles and passes over the arches of your barren feet. Even now, time seems to be fading, and you have begun to hear a sound coming from beyond the Veil as if a fire was raging just feet away from you and you wonder why there is no heat.

With this Light, the “Dark Night of the Soul” has come to an end, and you will discover eternity in ways that at this moment is unfathomable. Your agendas have dissolved and fallen away - the only thought you now have is to do the will of the Father, the agenda of God.

The Veil begins to slowly lift, and your heart is pounding so hard that your chest hurts - yet you are grateful, because in this “other worldly” environment, it is the one thing that lets you know you are still alive. The sound is becoming deafening, the living Light is already so bright your eyes find it difficult to look at it, and you can hardly breathe …. .

Blessings,

John Paul

“Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O LORD my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You” 2Chronicles 6:19

The above prayer, was prayed just outside the veil that you now stand before. So here you stand, here you wait, and here you ponder the wonders of God. You think on the amazing attributes that He has begun to reveal to you. Like the fetus within a woman, the spiritual matter or spiritual substance that you have been absorbing this entire journey is reforming inside you. You are stronger now, but you probably do not know it, and you are more than likely unaware of the new level of  insight you have. In some measure, you are holding you breath, hoping you have not forgotten something - and you have - the Golden Censor.

You see you must carry the smoke and some of the coals from the fire on the Golden Altar into the Holy of Holies. As you know, the five spices burning on the Golden Altar are five types of prayer that you have been praying. But you, the priest, now have to carry those prayers into the next Room of Mystery. That is what the Golden censor was for - to carry the prayers for the people.

Your prayers must become like burning coals within you. When you breathe in, the coals are fanned, when you breathe out the smoke rises to God. By carrying this Censor, you are committing to God that you will not fail to pray, even in the height of the experience of His presence.

Get used to prayer, you will never be able to stop praying and remain in His presence, once you cross the Veil - even the torn Veil. The tearing of the Veil only removed the obstacle, not the conditions. The cost of obedience, at this level of interaction and intimacy is impossible to carry out if He does not give you the Grace to do it. So, once again, you are being asked to do something you are totally incapable of doing, without God’s help. This is the first hint of what the next Dark Night of the Spirit is all about and how you will live once you enter the Holy of Holies.

So take the tongs from the Altar and carefully place the burning coals into the Golden Censor, be careful no coal should fall to the Earth, if it does it cannot be placed back on the Golden Altar nor in the Golden Censor. Thus, by this you are never to forget to pray, especially for others. When you pray for your others, God will act on your behalf (Job 42:10).

Waiting here, holding the smoldering Golden Censor, you are now taking on the fragrance of prayer. The Veil will not lift until you are saturated with the smoke of it. In other words, prayer must become a focal point of your life.

Blessings,

John Paul

“You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim.  Ex. 26:31

With trembling heart you stand inches away from a new understanding of Eternity, an entirely different perspective of infinity, and a fear of God that will be etched into your memory. Years from now you will recall the moment as if it were merely seconds ago.

THE TABERNACLE IS A MODEL OF GOD HIMSELF

Do not forget, God is revealing himself to you every moment of your time here. It is good not to get so caught up in the journey and the expected revelations that you lose sight of who the journey is about. Even before you enter the next Room of Mystery, the Holy of Holies, it is good to pause, and while you wait recite this truth to your self - In all things God is revealing Himself to me.

It cannot be said too often, this truth must sink into your spirit, not just your brain - God has been revealing Himself to you this entire journey. The entire Tabernacle is designed as a means of God revealing Himself to you. There is nothing you can see anywhere in here that does not reveal God’s name, heart, and way.

While you wait for God to lift the Veil, you look at the Cherubim overhead. As animate designs of Cherubim they are not moving here, but in Heaven they orbit around the Throne like the electron orbits around the nucleus of an Atom and they do it very, very fast.

WHAT WENT THROUGH THE PRIEST’S MIND?

What went through the priest mind as he looked at the designs of the four colors of Blue, Purple, Scarlet and the white Cherubim woven in the Veil? The other two curtains he had crossed were of the same four colors, but this one… this one was so different that those two. Why? What would He feel when the Veil began to lift?  Would he really die if there was one spot, one wrinkle, one blemish? What would happen if he just took a short peek around the Veil into the Holies of Holies. Is God actually there? What is He waiting for? The wait must have been agonizing.

THE VEIL’S TWO PURPOSES

It is clear that this Veil served as a barrier and had two functions; to keep God at a distance and to keep man from intimacy with Him. You see, sin the destroyer of creation must be distanced from the Creator - not because sin would harm or conquer God, but that God in His wrath would destroy the sinner.

SILVER AND REDEMPTION

Perhaps the Priest looked at the silver base of the Golden walls with their sockets that held each panel of the walls in place. Perhaps he saw the Gold of Heaven, the Dust of Earth and the only thing between the two was the Silver base. Is it any wonder that Silver is the color of redemption and represents what Jesus did in reconciling God and man. Amazing, it is here, in the Holy Place of the Sanctuary that it was prophesied what would happen more than fifteen hundred years before Jesus would fulfill it.

Did the priest wonder why silver? Did he know the silver base represented the Messiah, the hope of mankind? Did He understand that the basis for salvation would shift because the Messiah would be all in all, fulfilling all things, becoming all things, the very things he now stewarded within the confines of this cloth and skin boundaried Tabernacle?

GOD’S SPIRIT RESTED UPON THEM

Did the Priest notice the beauty and intricacy of the weavings? Did he understand that the spirit of God had rested on the men who were chosen to perform this task and in that “rest” God’s Spirit imparted the design, that even to this day no one is exactly sure what it looked like?

Before we become hasty in our passion to bring our wonderings to an end, it would be good to be just a little more patient, and consider a few more elements that should catch your attention. The reality is this, it is in the wonder of this moment that you are being prepared to meet the Creator of all things. The last vestiges of you are being removed. Times that are this weighty merit greater attention.

Blessings,

John Paul