Even novice Arkansas hikers know the name Tim Ernst.   Nature photographer and bushwhacker, Ernst penned the authorized canon of trail guides to Arkansas’ most glorious hikes, waterfalls, swimming holes, and vistas.  Organized by region, difficulty, and attraction and filled with easy-to-follow directions, his guides are a non-negotiable for the hiking newbie and the experienced trekker.

In his guides, Ernst introduces readers to his favorite shorthand waypoint – the SSS, or super special spot.   These are the spots on the trail that make the sweat, the climb, the pests, and the stream crossings all worth it.   Places which take your breath away and make even the hardened atheist doubt his creed.  Places where struggle is converted to glory, peace, and joy.

Most of us have SSSs.  Places where grief, adversity, doubt, and loneliness emerge from the dark forest into a spreading vista of grace, peace, fellowship and faith.   Perhaps it is your home or a favorite spot in the woods, or even an old song or voice of a loved one – SSSs that take us from miry pit to solid rock.  Places of respite for the body, mind, soul and spirit.  Those with no such places of refuge plod through life like the shades of Greek mythology or the wraiths of Tolkien’s tales.  

God made us to need such places as we pass like pilgrims through this world.  Scripture reminds us that this life is not our destination, not our home.  In Philippians, Paul notes, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”   And the author of Hebrews writes of Abraham, “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”  And of all the saints.

[T]hat they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Hebrews 11:14-16

But until we reach that city, God has given an SSS for weekly reminders of what we are made for and where we are headed.   Among all the furnishings, furniture, and fittings of the ancient Tabernacle, God gave instructions for a large gathering spot – an SSS for his people.  A place to draw near, to gather, to experience grace, peace, fellowship and faith in the midst of a wilderness filled with grief, adversity, doubt, and loneliness.  A heavenly SSS on earth.  A foretaste of the ‘better country.’  A place of rest and refuge in a dry in weary land.

The courts of the Lord are for the people.  A place of gathering and grace.   A place to touch the sacred in the midst of the profane.   A tethering spot to ground us in the eternal.   The place the psalmists longed to be.   The place whose misuse made Jesus so angry that he braided a cord of whips to clear it out so the lame, weary and the blind could come in.  A place of prayer for all nations.  God delights for his people to draw near. And he has made provision for the church in all ages to do so.  His Sabbaths are to be our delight and his people are called to gather on his sabbaths to find a feast of grace, rest, peace, fellowship and faith.  

The gathering of God’s people for corporate worship is the paradigmatic super special spot.   Long before Tim Ernst introduced us to the stunning vistas of our native state, the Lord God appointed a super special spot, a vista for his people to draw near to the ‘beauty of holiness’ in the middle of the desert of sin.  And our gracious God has given us such a place in his house on his day.  Is the gathering of the saints on the Lord’s Day an SSS for you?   Is the beauty of the Lord’s house the vista you most desire?  

Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine Exodus 27:9-21 and consider one of the most glorious features of the Tabernacle, the super special spot God appointed both for his ancient people and for us.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Church splits are the most prolific, yet painful catalysts for church planting.  And while the Lord sometimes graciously brings good out of division, Jesus taught that our witness is most powerfully declared by our love for one another. Join us as Rev. Shannon Stokes leads us to examine Philippians 4:1-9 and consider what it teaches us about “Keeping the Peace.”

“Want God to laugh? Tell him your plans!” So goes the saying.  But what does God think about our prayers?  As Christians we talk a lot about how we pray, when we pray, and why we pray.  But what is God’s perspective on our prayer?   Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman leads us to examine Luke 18:1-8 and consider “God’s Point of View on Prayer?”

Smells are powerful.  Sweet, repulsive, alarming, soothing; smells invite, repel, attract, and remind.   No matter how highly refined, your sense of smell triggers a host of emotions and experiences.  Grief, romance, celebration, and warning are powerfully engaged by our sense of smell.   Hearing and sight are powerful, but smell is utterly compelling.

Bakeries know this, so they funnel smells from the kitchen to the sidewalk.   Natural gas companies add the repulsive scent of rotten eggs to odorless gas to warn us of a leak.  And perfumers create scents which excite romantic, pheromonic attraction.   Smell has a powerful unconscious effect on our brains.  Like the salmon who returns inexplicably to the pond in which it was spawned by ‘smelling’ the chemical signature, no matter how faint, smells add context to our memory.

The smell of a pipe takes me to daddy’s car.   While the smell of chicken frying returns me to Mama’s kitchen.  And the perfume, White Shoulders, transports me to 1986 and early days with my wife.  For most of us, the smell of a Weber Kettle and burgers grilling somewhere puts us at family gatherings, the lake, or happy summer days.   Smells are bound tightly to our memories.   And losing them induces a significant emotional amnesia.

Smells are important in the Bible as well, especially in worship.   Central to worship in the Old Testament were oils for anointing, incense for burning, and seasoned and cooked sacrificial meat and fat.   While no doubt, worship in the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, was visually stunning and audibly engaging, the smells would have imprinted all that was seen and heard deep in the memory of the worshippers.    The formulations for the oils, the incense, and the seasonings were exclusive.  To be used only for worship.   Replication was forbidden.  

There were to be no counterfeit smells from the scents of Old Testament worship.   God was not concerned with trademark infringement, but to ensure that the promised mercy and grace seen, heard, touched, and tasted in worship be deeply imprinted upon the people.   So deeply that the perpetual smell of worship wafting up and out from the Tabernacle would constantly remind them of all God’s promises.

Central to this feast of smells was the altar of burnt offering.   While the principal point of sacrifice is the exchange of one life for another, the Lord commanded that virtually every sacrifice be offered on the altar through burning.   Burning adds important perspective to the sacrificial offering.   The smell rises to God and is accepted as sweet.   The offering is cooked by the fire and eaten as a fellowship meal with the Lord.   Some offerings were completely burned up warning of the consuming judgement of God upon sin.   And every burnt offering would place a strong, sweet smell in the nostrils and memories of the people.   It was the smell of grace.

It was not enough for a sacrifice it be killed and offered.   It needed to be burned.  And the grace it pictured entered into the hearts, minds, and memories of the people through the aroma of the altar.   To smell the sacrifice was to smell the grace of God.   Burnt offerings reminded the people of God’s gracious promises, fellowship, and assurance.   Worship still does this.  Though now there is a sweeter smell.   Not the “smells and bells” of ritual, but the sweet aroma of a clear and complete gospel.   A gospel that sets before us gracious promises, fellowship, and assurance.  

Paul expresses this when he declares.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17

Join us as we examine Exodus 27:1-8 and consider the instructions for the altar of burnt offering and the sweet-smelling gospel that replaced it.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

The surest way to get rain is to put up a tent.   Campers know if you have slept in a tent, you have gotten wet in a tent.  Even high dollar tents rarely refuse entry to water.  Sometimes this is a problem of design – a rainfly that does not quite cover the edges, where rivulets inevitably flow.  Or perhaps a failure of routine maintenance such as proper seam sealing.  More commonly, however, getting wet results from a poorly pitched tent.  

Modern tents are imminently designed for ease of use.  With shock-corded poles, lightweight ripstop nylon shells, dome-shaped structures, guide sleeves and clips for the poles, and buckle-in, self-tightening rainflies, these tents can be erected in minutes.  And while ease of use is important, the novice camper soon learns that it is not the most important feature.   When the rains come down and the floods rise up, hastily pitched tents often fail to keep us dry.

Our family has been wet in every kind of tent on every type of campsite imaginable.   We learned long ago that no matter how easy it is to set up, if we are going to stay dry, we need to add significant amendments.  Carefully placed and folded ground tarps, a ginormous tarp to serve as an encompassing second rainfly along with the T-posts and parachute cord required to rig the right shape to drain the water away.  These are the basics. The non-negotiables. And worth every additional pound of portage.

Pitching a tent well involves careful thought.  And lots of layers. Layers for comfort. Layers for protection. And even layers for concealment.  Modern tents come in canary yellow, hunter orange, and sea-foam teal.   But the wise camper wants his tent to blend in to provide concealment for protection and aesthetics.   Pitching a tent is engineering and artistry.   “Pitch in haste and you will repent at leisure.”   A poorly pitched tent makes for a poor camping experience, plain and simple.

In Exodus 26, Moses is shown the design for a well-pitched tent.   The Lord God promised to dwell among his people.   Just as they lived in tents, He would dwell in a magnificent tent.   His tent was designed from a heavenly exemplar to teach the people that their ultimate purpose was to dwell with him in heaven not just on earth.  And his tent was placed in the center of the camp to remind the people that their lives revolved around him.  

And yet, though always visible, most Israelites would never see inside God’s tent.  He hosted no open houses.  Invited no tours. As one theologian commented, the layers of coverings, the veil at the entrance, and the veil concealing the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant “would visibly say ‘come in’ and then ‘keep out,’ ‘thus far’ and ‘no further.’

The description of the tabernacle leaves one lasting impression: that of the number of coverings and entrance curtains.  Though Israel had this tremendous privilege of the divine presence in their midst, there was to be no doubt that his is the Holy One, and that access to him was no easy matter, even though his palace and temple was right there in the centre of their camp…. The picture is one of limited access.   But now this has all changed.  ‘We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is his body.’ (Hebrews 10:19-20)

John Mackay, Exodus

God’s tent is a marvel of engineering and artistry.  Portable but protective.  A microcosm of heaven on earth.  A place of God’s presence, provision, and promise.  A place where God bids us draw near yet warns that our approach requires a mediator. A place whose concealed treasures speak of unseen saving faith in an unseen God.   The author of Hebrews puts this together.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.  Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

Hebrews 9:11-15

Join us as we examine Exodus 26:1-37 and consider the design, artistry, purpose and promises found in the Tabernacle.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.