All right, you can turn in your Bibles to Matthew 26. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 26. Actually, we're gonna turn to Matthew 27, Matthew 27. This week, the Lord spoke to me as I was in prayer and asked me to preach on a topic that I've never considered preaching on.
And I was a little surprised, and so it's been a journey of kind of discovering the mystery of this topic tonight. And the Lord said, I want you to preach on the veil of the temple being torn. And so we are just gonna give ourselves tonight as a community to the study of the veil of the temple, the curtain of the first century temple. And as I've given myself to studying this, it's fascinated my heart afresh.
And I just, I believe what the Lord wants to speak, what he wants to deposit in our community is really significant for many of us in the room. The veil in the temple in the first century was this massive curtain that was four inches thick. Four inches thick, now this piano is probably about three inches thick. So we're talking about there's a curtain that's hanging in the temple that's four inches thick.
That's a thick curtain. It's probably velvet, very nice, okay? Very nice curtain. But it's in this temple in Jerusalem.
And this temple, I wanna just like geek out with us a little bit. Can we just geek out about the temple of Israel? Can we do that? So this temple was massive.
It was 1.6 million square feet. Massive building. So the whole like Herod's temple, the whole property, 1.6 million. The building that's comparable to the size of Herod's temple and the colony and everything like that, as it was combined, is the size of US bank stadium.
That's how big this temple complex was in Jerusalem in the first century. And how it was structured is there was a court called the Court of Gentiles, which is if you were not a Jew, you could only be in the Court of Gentiles. And it was this open area where that's where Gentiles would worship. Now you might remember when Jesus comes through off the Mount of Olives and he's right on the donkey, comes into the temple.
Well, he's throwing tables everywhere in the Court of Gentiles, okay? So that's the outer courts of the temple. Then you go through a gate, the gate into the temple, listen, 150 feet tall. Huge, this is probably like 40, no, 30 feet tall.
150, it's massive, okay? You go through that door and you go into the Court of Women. And the Court of Women is where the Jewish women and children could enter into that court. That Court of Women was about the size of a football field.
This outdoor court. Then you would move through and you would move into this place where only Jewish men could actually worship. Then you would move into the next room and that was where only priests could operate. Jewish priests, the Levites could operate in their job.
That's like the people on staff at the temple, okay? The priesthood. Then there was only a few priests that could go into the holy place and bring sacrifices. And then once, so you see it, just keeps on getting refined of like, who can go into what rooms, right?
And there's actually curtains and barriers for each one of these rooms. But then the final room that many of us are familiar with is called the Holy of Holies, which is considered the dwelling place of God on the earth. In other words, God's thick presence was in that room. And his presence would dwell on this thing called the mercy seat, which is on the Ark of the Covenant, okay?
And there's only one person, many of us know this, but there's only one person and it was the high priest that could enter into the Holy of Holies. And then he could only enter into that room one time a year. And it was at Yom Kippur, which is the day of the covenant. Which happens to be the same day that Jesus died on the cross as the sacrificial lamb, that's very interesting.
All right? And so when the nation of Israel would come together for the feast of Passover and celebrate the day of atonement, we're talking about one million plus people that would get added to the city of Jerusalem during this time of the feast. So we're talking about like 1.6 million square feet. You needed every square foot because there's actually one million Jews that come into the city to celebrate the feast.
There's literally 20,000 plus staff members that were priests to make this whole thing operate. That's a lot of staff that are priests that are part of the tribe of Levi that were actually operating and helping make this happen. I think these things are just fun, okay? Do you know that there's actually ovens set up all throughout Jerusalem in like quarters and neighborhoods?
And the reason why there are so many ovens that were set up throughout the neighborhoods is because according to Jewish law, when you're celebrating Passover, you have to actually have the sacrificial animals, they would be killed and they would be cooked and you would have to eat the lamb in one night and there'd be no leftovers. So they literally have, this is funny, they'd actually have full time doctors for the priesthood that were operating in the temple because most of the priests would only eat vegetarian all year except for the feast. Because if you ate animals, then you wouldn't have any in your flock, so you'd do it only during the feast time, right? And stomachs would get in knots because they're not used to eating meat all the time.
So there'd literally be doctors on staff that would help priests because they were eating parts of the sacrifice. Well anyways, okay, so the families, the families of the whole city, they actually have to have a place where they're gonna cook all of the sacrificial animals throughout the whole city. This isn't even part of the message, this is fun. This is real life, this really happened, okay?
I just love this, guys, you're okay. And so what's happening during this time, as Jesus goes to the cross, is there's a sacrificial lamb that's slain and that blood of the lamb is actually brought past the holy place curtain. So the priest would actually take the holy place but there's a curtain that was dividing that court where the priests were operating and they would go into the holy place, he removed that curtain and he pulled it back. And then there was one last curtain that was 60 feet high and four feet thick and 30 feet wide that would be pulled back for him to enter into the holy of holies.
And as he, what he does is that lamb is sacrificed and he comes in and he sprinkles that lamb's blood onto the mercy seat to cleanse the sins of the whole nation of Israel. So that was what was happening as Jesus was just outside of the city, hanging on a tree in Golgotha and he was being crucified. That's what was happening. These are all matching up, okay?
Matthew 27, let's look at this. I want us to start here in verse 50. This is the moment where Jesus says it is finished and he breathes out his last breath. He says, and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and he yielded up his spirit.
Verse 51, and behold, the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. And the earth shook and the rocks were split and the tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had died were raised from the dead and they left their tombs after the resurrection and they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Literally dead people walking around Jerusalem.
It wasn't just Jesus that rose from the dead. Man, there's so many people that rose from the dead because Jesus broke through that grave. My goodness. That's bonkers.
Can you imagine? Hey, who's that? It's like, yeah, I read about that guy. Like he lived 100 years ago and he just, he just came and knocked on our door.
Wow. But I want us to zero in on what the Holy Spirit is highlighted for tonight. That curtain was this curtain that God actually gave directions to in Exodus 26 and Exodus 36. There's directions that God the Father gave to Moses and the people of Israel for what this curtain was gonna look like between the holy of holies and the holy place, okay?
And remember that holy of holies is literally where God dwells on the earth. In other words, it's heaven, like the place of God's dwelling on the earth. And so there's a curtain or a barrier dividing heaven from earth and maybe some of you are experiencing this feeling of, I feel like there's a barrier between me and God. I remember this is over the last five years, Katie and I, we're just, I don't know how many thousands of miles we put on our vehicle just searching for a building, right?
And we're driving around the city and my kids, pretty much almost their entire lives, they've sat in cars in random parking lots of commercial buildings and they've seen their dad get out. There's been so many messages sent to the staff of like, Pastor Josh has added again and I'll literally be like, Katie takes pictures of me from like, I'm looking through the windows of random buildings all the time, just like, you know, like looking through, what's the clear height in there? You know, how many parking spots are in this property? But I was on the, I'm, for so many buildings on the outside looking in, right?
And, or, you know, when I think of that, I think of, I'm peering in, I'm looking in, it reminds me of what the people of Israel were probably doing, like the court of women, all of the women, peering in, what's going on back there? All of the priests peering in, into the holy place, what's going on in there? All of the priests looking into holy holies on the outside looking in. And, and maybe, you know, you feel that you're on the outside looking in for people that are experiencing friendship and connection and family, it's like, it's like home alone, you know, where he like walks past that family's window and they're having Christmas meal.
And he just like, he wants that, right? And many of us feel like, I want to be known and I want to know God. I want to be seen by God and I want to see him. I want to know the Lord.
And you felt this block of going, but I feel like there's a barrier. I feel like even when you're in worship tonight and you're going, all of these people, just seem like they're so passionate about God and I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. And you feel this tension of, I want to know God, that's why I'm in the room, I want to experience the Lord, I want to know him, but I feel distant and I don't know why there's some type of wall, there's some type of block, there's some type of barrier. And we've been living like that as humans for centuries and centuries and centuries and we weren't created to be on the outside looking in.
And that's why there's tension on the inside of our spirits. There's tension we're going, something's not right. I wasn't supposed to be on the outside, hoping to get a glimpse. I was supposed to be near him experiencing him.
Well, this veil that was between, that divided and it was that barrier between heaven and earth, it had colors to it, it was blue, red and purple. Those were the colors of this curtain. The blue represents heaven, the red represents earth, like the dirt of the earth, red. And then the purple represents blue and red becoming one, right, how many of you took kindergarten art class?
You know, blue and red make purple? Heaven and earth were always supposed to be one. They were always supposed to come together. And so the curtain, what was also significant about this curtain is that there was cherub or cherubim that were embroidered into this curtain.
How many of you guys remember when Adam and Eve sin? What happens? They take the knowledge of the tree of the good and evil and they eat of it, which is basically this belief of I want to fully know evil and I want to fully experience evil and I want to fully experience good and I want to make the decision about what is good and evil and I want to be a god unto myself and I love me more than God loves me. But that's the lie they bought in the garden.
They took that, digested it and became one with it. Well, that was a bad day. And then God had them leave the garden. Do you remember that moment where they were removed from the garden?
And it wasn't that God was kicking them out of the garden because he was mad at them. It's because he was a good, loving father. And he goes, they're in this fallen state of brokenness. And if they eat of the tree of life, then they're going to experience immortality and they're going to live forever in that fallen state.
So I got to protect them from eating the tree of life. So I have to guard them and I have to remove them out of the garden so they don't do that. And I'm going to actually put the chair of them and they're going to guard the garden so that Adam and Eve and all of those that would come after them don't go into the garden and eat of the tree of life. So when we think chair of them, like embroidered on the curtain, what we have to remember is that Genesis moment and we start realizing all throughout the scriptures, chair of them show up in one way all throughout the scriptures.
They show up between the barrier of heaven and earth. So if God actually, if you are in an open vision, I'm praying for you guys to experience this. If you have some type of encounter with God and you see chair of them, you know you are entering into the heavenly realm of the dwelling place of Yahweh because they are the ones that guard the barrier between heaven and earth. That's why they're embroidered on the curtain.
It's earth and heaven, right? Well, we see in Matthew 27, the curtain of the temple is torn into from top to bottom. My goodness, it wasn't the earthquake that tore this veil. If it was the earthquake, I mean, scientifically it doesn't even make sense, but let's say it was, you tried to make a case for it was the earthquake that tore the veil.
It would be a tear from bottom to top, right? Not top to bottom. So who tore the veil? My goodness, I can only think of one person in history that when they got so excited they just start tearing things up.
Do you know who did that? God the Father. I'm remembering when Jesus came up out of the water of baptism. Do you know what God did?
It says that he actually, that word in the Greek, when it says that God opened up the heavens, it's actually God ripped him open. God rented the heavens. He opened up the sky, heaven, his dwelling place, and he peered down in the earth and he delighted in his son. He said, this is my son.
Jesus starts his ministry with God tearing open the heavens and saying, this is my son who I'm well pleased with. How many of you know that Jesus ministry bookings with the Father tearing things open? Jesus comes up out of the water, begins his ministry. This is my son, I'm delighted in, tears open.
Then Jesus says, I did, I finished the ministry, I did what you called me to do, and I'm breathing my last, I'm yielding up my spirit because I did what you prophesied about when I came about the water, and now I'm done with my ministry and the Father goes, rah, and he just rips that four inch curtain. The other thing that's dividing heaven and earth. My goodness, only the Father can rip a four inch curtain that's 60 feet tall, right? I believe that as that's happening, the Lord is standing watch and looking at who's around the cross.
Do you remember who's around the cross? Mostly a bunch of women. And I just pictured the Father looking at all of the women around the cross that could never go into the holy place, that could never leave the court of women. And he's looking at them at the foot of the cross and he's going, my goodness, I'm gonna tear that veil and I'm gonna make a way for you to leave the court of women, I'm gonna make a way for you to go past the holy place and I want you to have full access in the holy of holies, women, children, all of those that are going, I'm disqualified, there's some type of barrier, the divorce, the widow, the people that feel like there's just something about my life that disqualifies me from entering into the very fiery presence of God and the Lord's going, I'm removing every barrier.
I'm removing everything that would actually bring accusation for you to come right in and to know me. The Lord's full of zeal and passion. He's going, I'm ripping the very thing, the very barrier that would actually enable injustice in the system. Where it's not just gonna be, it's not gonna be the 20,000 plus priests that are gonna have a monopoly on the presence of God, but it's gonna be every tribe, it's gonna be every nation, there's no male, there's no female, no Jew, no Greek, they're all going to have full access into the presence.
How many of you know that priests, their return on their role, their return on their investment out of the priesthood is encounter, priests encounter the Lord. Sons get connected to the Father, but priests, they encounter him. And I believe that all of us, you were designed not just to know facts about God. You weren't just to know conceptual things about the Lord.
I'm believing that all of us Baptists and Lutheran and Methodists that are in the house, all you evangelicals, that the Lord is actually going, I want you to step into your priesthood. I want you to step into the place where you actually begin to encounter me experientially. And what I'm not saying is every time in worship you have to come in and go, God encounter me, encounter me, encounter me, and then you don't have some type of crazy encounter and then you leave offended. When we enter into worship, we enter into worship and it's not about me, it's about him.
And so I come to worship to love on him and adore him and give him affection. It's a cherry on top if he blows my mind, right? That's just amazing, I love that. But it's not about me, but when he encounters me and I have the experiential knowledge of who he is, whoo, there's something that happens deep on the inside because I'm stepping into my priesthood.
I'm stepping into, I was made for this. I was made to have Psalm 1611, pleasures forevermore at the right hand of God. I was meant to actually enjoy God and have my mind blown. All of us, you were meant to be fully, like, short-circuited, completely overwhelmed.
Like I don't know what to do because you just blew my mind. That's your destiny in God, not to be bored, not to be a spectator and watch other people encounter him. No, you were supposed to encounter him. You were supposed to encounter him emotionally, physically.
Or it's like, I don't know what's happening, but I just feel you. Yeah, now is that super charismatic? No, it's just like normal. Like when God is in a room and you experience God, it's probably pretty normal that your body would be like, I don't know what to do.
You are destined, and I'm not trying to be weird, because some of us are like, oh, that makes me feel uncomfortable. When you experience God and encounter God, the one where they would literally have to tie ropes onto the priest that had bells on the rope, because he was so powerful that they might die, and it once the jingling stopped, that was bad news for the priest. That means they died in the presence of God because he's so powerful and just. You know, it's like, and we're just like, now I let me down to sleep.
Pray the Lord, my soul, to keep. You were meant to encounter the God, the ancient of days, the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning. Okay, let's turn to Hebrews 10. I'm just telling you, there is more than what we've tasted.
I feel that in my own life. There's more than what I've tasted in touch. There's more for you than just business as usual, and just like, I'm gonna try to get my five minute devotional in through the Bible app, there's more. All right, okay.
Hebrews 10. We're gonna start in verse 14. Actually, we'll just do verse 12. That's also good.
No, we're gonna do 11. Okay. I did, I started in 14 last service, but then I just keep on going up. Yeah, okay, verse 11.
Every priest stands daily at a service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Jesus, the Messiah, the King, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins. He then finished the job, and he sat down at the right hand of God, amen. Waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a foot stool for his feet.
I love that, that's so fun. For by one single offering, he has made perfect for all time those who are in process. You see that? He's made us perfect in the spirit, those, all of us that are still in process.
Verse 15. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I'll make with them. After those days declares the Lord, I'll put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. And then he adds, I will remember their sins, past, present, future, all of their mistakes, all the sins done against them, all the sins performed by them.
And I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds. No more. That's good news. Where there is forgiveness of all of the past, present, and future sins, there is no longer any extra offering for sin.
So that means when you come into worship, you don't need to go, I just sinned and I have to bring an offering of worship to get right with God. How many of you have heard of Pastor Go? Hey, we're gonna take communion. You better get right with God.
Listen, Jesus, 2000 years ago, made you right with God. He actually removed your sins as far as the east is from the west, from you. So you don't have to bring another offering to get right with him. He completely cleared the slate.
It's amazing. All right. Where there's forgiveness of these, there's no longer any offering for sin. Verse 19, therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way, I want you to picture, walking through all of the thousands of priests, past the holy place, going through that curtain, and approaching the holy of holies where the curtain is completely torn.
That's what he's saying right there. Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened up for us, right? Through the curtain, that is through his flesh. Oh my goodness.
Okay, this is getting very complicated now. Now, the curtain is the flesh of Jesus. Commentators, as I was reading about this, they're going, this is what is meant when, in Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53, they're going nothing of like earthly significance about Jesus on his outside appearance would let anybody connect the dots that it was God in the flesh. In other words, there was a veil on all of humanity.
When they saw Jesus, they didn't think that's God. There is a veil called his flesh that actually, it was difficult to actually see past the veil to go, it's Yahweh. It's like when Jesus goes to his hometown in Azeroth and they're like, who does this guy think he is? He just claimed himself to be God, the veil of the flesh.
Now Jesus is hanging on the cross and he dies, and the veil of his flesh is torn, and then all of a sudden the soldiers standing at the foot of the cross, and once the body, the veil is torn, tama. We just got a picture of this, this is so wild. It's noon, it's 12. And all of a sudden the sun goes completely dark and there's no eclipse.
There's no eclipse, the eclipse is last for, I don't know, like 30 minutes or an hour or something like that. For three hours, it's completely dark in Israel as Jesus is hanging on the cross. Completely dark in the middle of the day on Yom Kippur, it's dark. And all of a sudden at 3 p.m., Jesus shouts out, it's finished.
And then he breathes as he gives up his last breath. And right when he does that, the lights turn on, and then the father takes him a shetty to the curtain in the temple, right? The lights turn on, the sun is bright as noon, just shines and boom, the curtain tears. As Jesus gives up his life, eyes open, darkness to light.
The curtain through his flesh, since we have such a great high priest, we just picture, oh, this is mind-blowing too. Jesus, he's not a part of the tribe of Levi. He's not in the priestly line, right? He shouldn't be a priest to go into the holy place.
He's the tribe of Judah, David's tribe. But all of a sudden, just like Melchizedek, he's a king and he's a priest. And the father goes, boom, I'm gonna remove the veil, I'm gonna remove the curtain. And Jesus, you're gonna go in and you're gonna apply your blood to the mercy seat, here and in heaven, and you're gonna perform the sacrifice yourself.
You are the sacrifice and you're the priest, and you're the curtain, and you're the way. You're the door, you're the way to get through the bear, you're between heaven and earth, you are heaven embodied as a man, heaven and earth combined, you are the only way for it to happen for everyone. This is the good news of Jesus, that he's literally God in the flesh, blue, red, purple, he's royal, he's the king, heaven and earth becoming one. He's a man you are God with us, and he's going, I want a man you are God with us to be for everyone all the time.
He's going, I don't want just a percentage of Jewish men to have full access to the holy, I don't want just one. I want people from every tribe, every tongue, every tribe of Israel and every tribe of the nation is to have full access to me. Look at this, since we have such a great, he is a great priest over the house of God. Now let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance.
Let's come close, that draw near, like God's going, he's, he didn't have to tear the veil. How many of you know that? It would have been such a wild story. If Jesus dies, there's no lights going out, there's no lights turning on, there's no earthquake, there's no people raising from the dead throughout, like none of that.
If Jesus just died and then rose again three days later, it would be still mind-blowing, it's like amazing. Why the heck does God go to the trouble of ripping the 60-foot curtain? Because he's going, I want you, I want you, because Jesus knew his mission. When he came up out of the water, God says, this is my son who I'm well pleased with.
Jesus knows his whole purpose is to have that moment, get multiple billions of times over. And so when Jesus finishes the job to make a way for that, then the father takes up the baton and goes, yep, they're going to come near. I'm removing every barrier, every accusation. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance.
Our hearts sprinkle clean, are we okay? Are we okay? Are we good? Our hearts sprinkle clean from an evil conscience and our bodies wash with pure water.
Do you know when there are sacrifices happening? Can you imagine a million people and they're bringing their sacrificial animals? Can you imagine the amount of blood? Sorry, this is gruesome.
But the amount of like, that is a big mess, right? And all of these priests, it's like you need 20,000 priests to deal with all of it, okay? And they had actually like waterways and systems, like civic systems that would help to get the blood out of the city to the Kidron Valley. And so they would use water to wash with the blood, to wash away the blood.
And I just, I'm just reminded, this is another one of those things, it's not planned, but it's just like a love it. Jesus has a spear put through his lungs to confirm his death and water and blood come out. I don't know what that means, I don't know what, if it's significant, but I love him, right? Like I just found that out and made me love him a little bit more and just get a little bit more fascinated.
Okay, all right, full assurance. What the priest would do is he would take that lamb's blood and he'd sprinkle it on the mercy seat. In this picture, the writer of Hebrews is saying, he's going, I want you to understand that the mercy seat of your life, your heart, Jesus comes in, he goes, I'm gonna sprinkle that so that your conscience of shame and guilt would be fully cleansed. So that anytime you come before God, you know, oh, I know that he loves me.
Oh, I know, like just like Jesus coming out of the water, I know that he delights in me. I know that he wants me to come near. I've been sprinkled with my conscience. I've been sprinkled clean as a son or a daughter of God, as a priest, I get full access.
I'm so thankful that you want to be close to me, God. I wanna be close to you. I wanna be near to you. Let us hold a confession of our hope without wavering for he who promises faithful.
Let us consider how to stir up one another, loving good works, not neglecting the meat together as a habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near when Jesus splits the sky at the end of the story. Come on. I want us as a people to understand that the enemy is the accuser of the brethren. And he is constantly trying to bring division and put barriers in between you and the Father, you and the Lord.
And I wanna encourage you, God the Father and the Son were highly motivated to remove every obstacle and barrier that was between you and them. He was so motivated. He went through a lot to make sure you understood his intentions and his heart. And the enemy has been trying to slide in bringing accusation against many of us.
Many of us where we feel like I'm on the outside looking in, there's something wrong with me, that there's something that I'm not enough of this, I'm not enough of that, I had this happen in my life and therefore I'm disqualified or therefore I can't have what I had with God before that happened. And the Lord's going, stop, it's a lie. I tore the veil for you. I joyfully ripped open the heavens for Jesus and I've joyfully ripped open the curtain veil between the holy of holies and you and me.
And the Lord's going, let's break it off tonight. Let's break off the accusation that keeps you at a distance. You are all destined to be on the inside looking out, not the outside looking in. You were meant to be in the holy of holies in everyday life with God, Emmanuel, God with you.
And you were meant to be looking out from the place of connection, from the place of encountering the heart of God, from the place of knowing who you are and your identity, knowing that you're a son or daughter loved by him and delighted in him. And then from that place, you're looking out of the world, you're going, wow, who do you wanna reveal yourself to? Oh Lord, I'm becoming loved because I've been loved by you. This is what, this is God's design.
I want us to take communion together. And as we do, I'm gonna pray from first Peter and I believe that the Lord wants to take communion and he actually wants to have it like land in a new way tonight. And I wanna strategically have a stake communion and we can sit down as we do this. I don't, we don't even need to stand up.
So you can grab communion on these in these aisles on the inside and pass them to the edge of the room. But we have this ache to be known, this ache to be loved. And I believe the Lord wants to undo some lies tonight. And he wants to actually connect it to communion so that every time we take communion, we remember the foreign veil and we remember the motivation and the intention of the Father's heart.
What he, how he loves you. First Peter two, nine through 10. But you're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. This is for the nation of Israel, but we get grafted into this.
You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light once you are not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. You can take the elements in your hand, you can remove the wrapper for the cracker of the bread. Jesus, we look at you and we know that your body was the veil, your body was the doorway, your body was our way into connection with the Father.
Lord, we thank you that you tore the bread of your body. If you wanna just break that cracker in half, Lord, you tore it into so that we could have full access. The IP backstage access into connection with you. You're the way to the Father.
Jesus, you're the way to garden intimacy, garden connection, you laid down your life. Your body was given as a ransom for many if you made a way where there is no way it was impossible. There was no way to get to the Father except through one, through a perfect slain lamb, king, Messiah, judge. You in your body represented heaven and earth becoming one.
You are the royal king. And so Lord, we receive your body and partake of it. Just the way Adam and Eve received the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we take your body and eat and we take you in and we thank you that it means connection with the Father. Thank you that you've removed every hindrance.
You can take the bread if you haven't already. Lord, we thank you that your body has removed all of our questions on the intentions of the Father. And if the Father really wants us close, if the Father really wants us near, you settled it, you've finalized it. You brought finality to the reality that you want us near.
Lord, we thank you for your blood. We thank you that you entered into the holy of holies, in the heavenly places and applied your blood to the mercy seat. And you didn't just apply it to the mercy seat. You've sprinkled our hearts so that we don't have an evil conscience.
We don't have to be focused on all of the mistakes, on all the sins, but you've actually removed every barrier. You've cleansed us from all unrighteousness. We thank you for tearing the veil with your body and applying the blood of your sacrifice. You're the most amazing priest.
You're a great priest on our behalf. You're an amazing intercessor. It says in Hebrews that he was the one that went behind the curtain before us, like as a forerunner, ahead of us. It was almost like he paved the way, like the tip of the spirit.
He paved the way, made a way, so that we could come right in. It's a Lord we thank you for your blood. You can take the blood. You can take the juice.
Bird we love you. You know, in worship, I was thinking about this passage in Exodus where the nation of Israel, it's Passover. And the Lord says something that just blows my mind. And he says this feast that you're celebrating tonight.
It's actually going to happen indefinitely, forever, every single year. In other words, long past, the new heavens and the new earth are here. We're going to still be celebrating this moment. And there's going to be, it's going to be so huge.
It's going to be larger than life. Can you imagine the billions that he tore this veil for? Says that the New Jerusalem is, that the exact measurements are comparable to the country of Australia. That's how big the New Jerusalem is.
That's how big the city is. We thought the first century temple was big. Can you imagine the billions that have given their life to Jesus all coming in to that New Jerusalem to celebrate? I want to stand up.
Let's just respond to the Lord. Lord, we thank you that we're part of a big story, that forever we're going to celebrate the torn curtain. Forever we're going to celebrate with billions of brothers and sisters from every age and every generation, all of the ones that were totally messed up and screwed up but still loved you, all of us that are still in process, all of us that don't have it all together, but we know that we love you and all of us that felt like, there's barriers but I want God, but I'm not exactly sure what I need to do. Lord, we thank you that we're all going to every single year in the New Jerusalem.
We're going to gather and be reminded once again that you're the Father that wants us close in near and you'll remove every barrier that hinders love. I just want to pray over any of us that felt like, yeah, that was for me. I felt like there's just something that is blocking me in my connection with God. Feel like I'm on the outside looking in.
If that's you, you can just put out your hands and you're just, and you've been getting hit or something like that and you're feeling like, man, there's just a block. I want to pray for you, Lord, I thank you. I thank you that you ripped the heavens open for your son and that you ripped the curtain from top to bottom to remove every barrier and every block and every wall and every hindrance over these sons and daughters. And I bind every demonic spirit that's been bringing accusation over and over again to their lives and to their minds and causing traffic in between their ears.
And we just apply the blood of Jesus to the mercy seat of their hearts and say that you are cleansed from every accusing lie, every phrase of accusation that you kind of go with, yeah, that's kind of parsley true. It doesn't make sense. I understand why God would be mad at me and upset with me. And all these partial truths that have been keeping you at a distance, Lord, we cut those things off and we redirect them so maybe some of those things are true, but there's something that's higher and truer.
And the something that's higher and truer is that God became a man and took on flesh. The veil was torn and that Jesus' blood has washed every accusation past, present, future and he's cleansed you from all of the mistakes, all of the blocks and the Lord's saying, I love you, I love you. I love you. You don't have to be second guessing anymore.
You don't have to be unsure, uneasy. You don't have to get right with me. I made you right. You are my son and daughter.
Look at you. I love you. You're my beloved one. And I'm well pleased with you.
I just feel like the Lord's wanting you to actually repeat that phrase that the Father spoke over Jesus, that you're supposed to say it with a thank you. You can say, Lord, thank you, that I'm your beloved, that you love me and that you delight in me. Lord, thank you that I'm your beloved and that you like me, that you delight in me. It almost feels uncomfortable for it to not just be him loving us, but actually him enjoying us.
The Lord enjoys you. He delights in you. The enemy always tries to go, but, and what about this? What about that?
What about this? And that's the enemy's voice. That's the flesh speaking. The Lord's going, no, you can just receive it.
I really like you. No but ends. It's just, Lord, thank you for liking me. Thank you for enjoying me.
Even when I'm at my work. Psalm 73 says, even when we're at our worst, it comes and he grabs our hand. Lord, I thank you that you're holding hands tonight. For those of us that feel like we're at our worst, at our low point, just fully a mess.
You're holding our hand tonight. You're gonna not gonna leave you. It's gonna be near me. You need me near you right now.
You need to feel near. And I want you to feel me near. You're the God of comfort, Lord, we just comfort tonight. I'm a chorus from Amanda.
I throw up the sales up my heart. Here, and there you are. Could you just sing that? I just felt like we're supposed to sing this together.
There's an ease when we just know he's with us. He's not gonna leave me. He made a way so that we could be together. And you lift up your sales.
And you're just on the wind, it takes you. Some of us just need to go, I've been white knuckling this thing. I've been trying to drive it. I've been trying to work so hard.
And Lord's going, you just gotta put up the sale of the sale boat. Let me take the wheel. We're gonna be together. Thank you, Lord.
I feel like that's supposed to be a theme for some of us in this season. And I really feel like you're supposed to have that song on repeat and that it's actually supposed to like drive into your heart. It's his work, he's gonna do it. We're gonna be together in it.
Just commission us out, Lord, I thank you. That you made a way for these not to be ethereal, cool facts about the Jewish temple in the first century. But there's an ongoing storyline. My life is a part of the story.
And that I get full access to you. What's behind the veil? I get God. Lord, we thank you.
You are the reward. You are the one behind the veil. Connection with you. What was so important behind all of these rooms and the veils and everything that was so important.
It was connection with God. Lord, we don't take it for granted. What Israel had for so many years where they didn't have access, only one person could access your presence. Lord, we don't take it for granted.
That you're a man you help God with us in our everyday lives. Lord, we wanna know you. I send out these sons and daughters that they would love you and encounter you and know that you're with them. There you are.
That would be just this like, there you are. Awareness of your presence. Lord, we love you. We wanna encounter you.
If it just helps you to go like realize what you want, you can just say, Lord, I wanna encounter you. I wanna encounter you more. I wanna have more experiences with you. Thank you Lord.
We know that that that's what you want to Lord. We pray all these things in Jesus name and everybody's sending men.