February 18
“Spices… for sweet incense” (Exodus 25:6).
Spices were also used to make the incense for burning! Read the instructions for preparing
them in Exodus 30:34-38. The anointing oil speaks of service which we should render in the
House of God, and the incense speaks of the intercession which ascends from the hearts of
believers before God’s throne.
In God’s Sanctuary the incense burned day and night on the golden altar in the Holy Place,
the whole day and the whole night. “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (Psa. 141:2).
We are God’s co-workers; that is why we have to pray. And even though we may never
receive an answer to our prayer upon this earth, when we reach heaven we shall know God’s
answer to every one. No prayer ever goes unanswered. The High Priest had to first burn
incense before the Mercy Seat (Lev. 16:12-13). Then only was the blood sprinkled on the
Mercy Seat (Lev. 16:6, 15-16). All this was a type or shadow of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself. He brought His own Blood inside the Most Holy Place, thereby wholly satisfying
God (Heb. 9:11-12).