An idol is very much like Brer Rabbit’s Tar Baby.   It will not speak, or move, or act, but its refusal to speak, move, or act causes no end of trouble as it draws us in and catches us fast.  We engage it, we hate it, we strike out and it traps us.  It cannot give, but it can certainly take.  The Psalmist notes this poignantly.

But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.

Psalm 115:4-9

And Isaiah mocks the futility of idolatry, writing,

To whom will you liken me and make me equal,
    and compare me, that we may be alike?
Those who lavish gold from the purse,
    and weigh out silver in the scales,
hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
    then they fall down and worship!
They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,
    they set it in its place, and it stands there;
    it cannot move from its place.
If one cries to it, it does not answer
    or save him from his trouble.

Isaiah 46:4-7

The Tar Baby can’t act or interact, but it puts Brer Rabbit in mortal danger from his nemesis, Brer Fox.  An idol can’t save, but it will wear you out.  And wear you down.   It cannot stretch out its arm to save.  Its ears cannot hear your prayers.  And its nose cannot smell the aroma of your offerings.

And here is a great irony of idolatry.  The idol with a nose can’t smell, but the God without a nose, delights in the pleasing aroma of his people’s prayer and worship.  Worship is never just cerebral.  The worship of the Tabernacle was a complete sensory experience.   Every sense is engaged.  Tabernacle worship was visually stunning, audibly overwhelming, and a culinary feast for the priests.   And hanging in the air is the pleasing aroma of seasoned sacrifices, anointed priests, and offerings of incense.

In Exodus 30, the Lord concludes instructions for the furnishings and ministry of the Tabernacle.  Often this passage is viewed as an appendix of leftover instructions.   Yet these final instructions include aspects of Tabernacle ministry that produce a pleasing aroma to the Lord.   An aroma from the altar of incense that pictures the pleasure of God when his people pray.   Prayer that is dependent upon the sacrifices offered on the altar of burnt offering positioned in the courtyard.

We see this connection between the altar of incense and prayer through passages such as Psalm 141, Luke 1, and Revelation 5 and 8.   And just as the altar of sacrifice points to Christ’s work on the cross, the altar of incense anticipates Christ’s intercessory work at the right hand of the Father.   M. R. DeHaan, noted this powerfully when he wrote.

At the brazen altar Christ died for us, shed His blood, reconciled us to God, and made us forever secure in Him.  But at the golden altar He lives in heaven to intercede for those for whom He has already died, and who are already saved.  The brazen altar speaks of the death of Christ; the golden altar speaks of the living, resurrected, ascended Lord Jesus Christ.  The two altars, therefore, speak of the death and the resurrection, and constitute the full message of the Gospel.

The altar of incense is a sweet altar of prayer, offering up a pleasing aroma to our God.  God delights in the smell of prayer.  It is a pleasing aroma to Him and a great privilege to us.  In the Tabernacle only the priests could offer incense.   But as a priesthood of believers, through the intercessory work of our great High Priest, we have been granted immediate access to the throne room of Almighty God.  We can approach him at any time, day or night for any reason.  The unceasing prayer of God’s people is a pleasing aroma to the Lord.   Yet no privilege is more neglected than fervent, effectual prayer. As smoke rose perpetually from the altar of incense, so we should be equally constant in prayer. 

How does your prayer life smell to God?  Is your prayer as constant as the incense burning on the altar in the Tabernacle?  Are we tending to it morning and evening?   Join us as we examine Exodus 30 and consider what the altar of incense teaches us about prayer.  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. 

Students love to hate them.  But I was an exception to the rule.  Math word-problems!  They were some of my favorites.  Especially those asking to recognize a pattern.   Discovering that mathematical rule that maps one data set into another always brought great satisfaction.   Like unlocking the key to a mystery, recognizing patterns is axiomatic to the business of living in the well-ordered world God has made. 

Virtually all of life involves recognizing and following patterns.  The computers which facilitate most of modern life are utterly dependent on repetition, iteration, and pattern recognition.   Medical diagnoses, scientific discoveries, and industrial production all revolve around recognizing and repeating patterns.   Patterns allow us to be creative without creativity.  To repeat a success without repeated failures.  And to live in a dependable world whose time and space can be measured and predicted.

Pattern recognition and repetition is the soul of technology whereby God through common grace allows us to push back some effects of the fall and reduce the sweat that must fall from our brows.   Patterns give us proven, well-worn paths to navigate the highways and byways of our pilgrim life.   And as believers in Jesus Christ, walking the Camino de Christo to the Celestial City, we are not called to be bushwhackers or trailblazers, but followers.   The calling of Christ and of the Christian life is to follow him, where he has led.  Jesus call to discipleship is the call to “follow me.”  Not to innovate or speculate, but to follow.

One translation of Hebrews 12:2 makes this point clearly.  “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.“   And the race marked out for the life of faith is traced in the Bible through the patterns of faithful living it describes and prescribes.   God grants us faith, calls us to follow, and provides all the directions we need through the patterns of faithful following found in his Word.

The story of the Exodus illustrates this powerfully.   God “sees, hears, and is concerned” for the condition of his people and he “comes” to deliver them.   But this deliverance is unto a life of freedom, not merely from a life of slavery.  The first half of Exodus tells the story of God’s saving work.  But the second half of Exodus calls the people live as freedmen Christ. 

Beginning with the pattern of moral law and its application through the civil law, God moves on to his magnum opus, the pattern of his dwelling with his people.    A dwelling that required a place for his presence, process for bringing sinful people near to a holy God and a priesthood to mediate between God and his people. 

However, the priesthood of Aaron and his sons had two glaring insufficiencies.  Every priest in this order is immoral and mortal.   Every priest is a sinner, under the curse which brings death.  So, God, himself must provide a covering for them.   Beautiful clothing which covered them in the alien righteousness of the true and great High Priest who was to come, the High Priest without sin who would live forever to make intercession.

Once clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, God ordains Aaron and his sons and instructs them in their mediatorial work.   We often gloss quickly over these instructions because we tend to view them as tedious details associated with an obsolete administration of the Covenant of Grace.   But in Exodus 28 we apprehend the beauty of Christ and our need for His mediation.   And in Exodus 29 we see in the process of priestly ordination the pattern for the Christian life; washing, covering, worship, fellowship, provision and ministry. 

In Exodus even before the moral, civil and ceremonial laws are given to the people at Sinai, God declares.

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Exodus 19:5-6 

This idea of all God’s people being a ‘kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ is not confined to the Old Testament.   The Apostle Peter writes to New Testament believers.

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:4-5

And in the preface to Revelation, the Apostle John writes to the churches.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

Revelation 1:6

The Christian life is a priestly life.  The pattern of the Old Testament priesthood is neither irrelevant nor obsolete. But provides a remarkable picture of our life of fellowship, worship, communion and faith as we follow Christ, our great High Priest.

Join us as we examine Exodus 29 and consider how the priest’s ordination shows us how we are to live our lives as a kingdom of priests.  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. 

“Clothes make the man!”  Or so they say.  While we recognize a shallowness in this sentiment, we also recognize that it has some merit.   ‘Dressing up’ makes us feel different, act differently, aspire to things beyond ourselves.   A period drama without elaborate costumes lacks credibility.   A tux adds solemnity to a groom and maturity to a prom king.   A soldier is somehow more a soldier in fatigues than in gym clothes.  And our young children, when they don ‘dress up’ clothes, take up adultish things with remarkable parody and clarity. 

Our dress often communicates ‘what’ and ‘who’ we desire to be.  And how we want to be known.  An outward expression of aspiration and identity.   All parents observe this as their teenagers experiment with style and try on identities with their fashion choices.  Ironically choices that react against the parent’s dress and unwittingly resurrect the fashion of the parent’s younger selves.   As much as we might protest, our dress speaks to what and who are important to us.  Clothing projects our values, our tribe, and our desire for becoming.

Clothes have always done this.  In the beginning God made Adam and Eve holy and happy.  Nothing was lacking.  No clothes were needed.  But after their fall, they sought clothes to cover up what they had become and get back to what they had been.  Plant-based fashion was not enough.  So, God graciously clothed them in the skins of sacrificial animals.  Clothes that reminded them daily that fellowship with their heavenly Father depended on the blood of another.  Theologians say they were dressed in an alien righteousness.   Their clothes made a statement.  

This is seen more dramatically in the clothing God commanded for priests in the Tabernacle.   God promised to dwell with his people.  But God’s imminence always creates a problem for us.   His presence makes us want to hide.  Like Adam and Eve, when we sense him drawing near we hide because our sin exposes us to his holiness and judgment.   How can we draw near to him and live?  God instructs Moses to make a dwelling place for his presence and furnish it with the means of grace for God’s sinful people to approach their holy God.   But God’s means of grace require a mediator – one who is morally blameless, holy, and without sin.   But where is such a mediator to be found?

Until “the fullness of time had come” and God would “sen[d] forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law,” God graciously provided priests to function as mediators of the means of grace.   But these priests faced two significant problems in their mediatorial work.  First, they were mortal.  The author of Hebrews notes, “the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.”   And second, every priest had his own sins to deal with.  None were ‘Holy to the Lord.’   How could they approach God to make atonement for the people when they were exposed to God’s judgement by their own sin?

To cover their condition, God instructed Moses to make for them special clothes.  Clothes that would cover them with an alien righteousness.   Clothes that would instruct the people to long for and look for a mediator who, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, “is very man and perfectly righteous; and yet more powerful than all creatures; that is one who is also very God.”  The priestly clothes protected unholy men from the wrath of a Holy God as they drew near to him in worship.    But this is nothing new.  Since the garden, man has needed to be covered by the righteousness of the perfect sacrifice.  And so, the Bible calls us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

What are you wearing?   Are you dressed in the alien righteousness of Christ?   Are you approaching God in the beautiful garments of salvation provided for you?  Or in the filthy rags of your own works?  God offers you a new, gracious wardrobe.  Maybe it is time to change clothes.   Join us as we examine Exodus 28 and consider how the priest’s clothing instructs us to dress in the righteousness of Christ.  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. 

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.