TCB
Part 3
It was recorded in 1956 in Nashville. “Heartbreak Hotel” introduced Presley to the American national music consciousness. It was released as a single with the b-side song "I Was The One" on January 27th. "Heartbreak Hotel" became the first No.1 pop record by Elvis and was the best selling single of 1956.
"Heartbreak Hotel" was no. 1 for 8 weeks on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart when released in 1956 on RCA Records. The record was no. 1 for 17 weeks on the Billboard Country Chart and reached no. 3 on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues Chart. In 2006, more than 50 years after its initial release, "Heartbreak Hotel" returned to no. 1 on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales Chart when re-released.
The song is ranked #45 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The song contributed to the first Gold Record Elvis ever received with over 1 million sold.
Again I remind you that Elvis was just TCB. We should be taking care of business as well. As priests we have daily duties that we are responsible to carry out. We have talked about 4 of those duties so far. 1. Diagnose and provide remedy for sickness. 2. Transport glory. 3. Remove the ashes from our lives. 4. Keep fresh fire burning.
Did you stay off your ash this week? Did you conduct a daily heat check? We must TCB!
Let’s continue our look at the daily duty of the priest.
TEXT: Exodus 30:1-8; Leviticus 24:1-4
1“Make an Altar for burning incense. Construct it from acacia wood, 2one and one-half feet square and three feet high with its horns of one piece with it. 3Cover it with a veneer of pure gold, its top, sides, and horns, and make a gold molding around it 4with two rings of gold beneath the molding. Place the rings on the two opposing sides to serve as holders for poles by which it will be carried. 5Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold. 6“Place the Altar in front of the curtain that hides the Chest of The Testimony, in front of the Atonement-Cover that is over The Testimony where I will meet you. 7Aaron will burn fragrant incense on it every morning when he polishes the lamps, 8and again in the evening as he prepares the lamps for lighting, so that there will always be incense burning before GOD, generation after generation.
1GOD spoke to Moses: 2“Order the People of Israel to bring you virgin olive oil for light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually. 3Aaron is in charge of keeping these lamps burning in front of the curtain that screens The Testimony in the Tent of Meeting from evening to morning continually before GOD. This is a perpetual decree down through the generations. 4Aaron is responsible for keeping the lamps burning continually on the Lamp stand of pure gold before GOD.
5. Burn the Incense
The Israelites would take precious spices and grind them together to form this very special incense that would be burned every morning and night before God. The incense was made up of at least four ingredients and was to be made and stored in the temple. This type of incense was sacred and could not be used by anyone for their own personal use. In fact, if a person were to make the incense for personal use they would be excommunicated from the camp and in some cases executed. Every morning and every night the incense went up before God. Tradition says that the priests believed the words of their prayers actually mixed with the smoke of this incense and were caught up to heaven to God.
David must have understood this concept because he says in Psalms 141:2, “2Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee; The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”
This daily stop at the Altar of Incense speaks to us about the business we should be involved in daily. It speaks to our prayer life. You do have a prayer life don’t you?
There are some principles here about our prayer life as priests that we need to consider:
a. First point I want to make and just mention briefly. The priests would cast lots to see who would be the one to burn incense each day. They could only go in one at a time. Only one priest could be at the altar at a time. This teaches us that we must develop our own prayer life. No one can pray for you. Oh, they can pray for you, but they can’t pray for you. Do you understand what I am saying? We can’t expect the prayer team leader to do our praying. We can’t expect our grandmother to do our praying. We must learn to pray for ourselves. We have a duty to develop our own prayer life!
b. Pray often and persistently – morning and night – coming back again and again.
Too often the only time we pray is over a meal or at church. This altar teaches us that we have a duty to constantly be in prayer. We should be people of prayer. In fact, Paul exhorts us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing. The word “ceasing” in the Greek carries the idea of “uninterrupted or permanent.” Every morning and evening they had a duty to stop and pray. Maybe our problem is that we don’t have a visible reminder to stop and pray. I want to encourage you to stop by the altar of prayer on a daily basis. In your car . . . pray. At your desk . . . pray. Playing ball . . . pray.
We have relegated prayer to something that requires us to be at a physical altar on our knees. It is something we do at a particular place – church and then while there we don’t always pray we listen to others pray and count them as our prayers. When as priests we must be people of prayer that pray continually.
We must follow example of high priest – Jesus. Hebrews 7 teaches us that He liveth to make intercession for us. His life revolves around praying for us. He is constantly praying. We must become a priesthood of prayers. It can’t just be the little old ladies who know how to pray. We must all know how to and practice constant and daily prayer!
b. Prayer saturated – As the priests would burn this incense the scent of that incense would perfume their clothing. In fact, history teaches us that the family that was in charge of making the incense were so saturated by the smell of this incense that their daughters didn’t have to wear any perfume because they were so permanently saturated by this smell.
What I am saying and what I believe this teaches us is that we should be in prayer so often that we are marked by those prayers. People who come into contact with us should notice a difference in how we handle stress and how we handle turmoil and how we handle tragedy. Everywhere we go a fragrance should come off of our lives. They should be able to smell God on you! Sniff your neighbor. Do you smell God or is all you smell right guard, or obsession, or the latest perfume from Dillard’s?
Think about this, your life is to be so saturated by the presence of God that you change the smell of every situation you walk into. Haven’t you met someone like that? When they walk into the room the atmosphere changes? That is our duty as priests and that can only be accomplished as we spend time in prayer!
c. Pray with passion – Incense with no coals doesn’t do anything. The incense would be placed on coals brought from the Brazen Altar. It took hot coals to burn the incense. Teaching us that we must pray with passion. Not some regimented dead, lifeless type of prayer. I am calling you to passionate prayer. Prayer where you are honest. Prayer where you are transparent and vulnerable. Gut level, gut wrenching, down to earth dialogue with God. He can handle it. It is that type of prayer that produces results. It isn’t the programmed, doctored up for the audience, fancy prayer that brings change. James says it is the “Fervent” prayer that availeth much. The word “Fervent” means red hot.
Some of us need some passion in our prayer life again. We need to get back to talking to God with a fervency about us. Not just going through some motions, but spilling our guts before God!
As priests we have a daily duty to pray. We should pray often and persistently. We should pray until we are marked by our prayers. Our prayer life should cause us to smell differently, act differently, and behave differently. Our prayer life should be passionate. How passionate are your prayers? Are you just praying dull prayers because you are fulfilling a duty or is your prayer life filled with passion and power?
6. 6th duty as a priest is that we must replenish the oil.
One of the more tedious duties of the temple service was the constant care of the lamps on the golden lamp stand. They had to be continually refilled with oil, cleaned of soot, and their wicks had to be maintained. Every day the priests had to fill each of the lamps with oil. The oil would be consumed. The oil would run out. The oil would have to be replenished. Fresh oil was required. Each of the 7 cups only held enough oil for one day or about ½ pint.
There are some lessons and truths revealed by this duty.
Here we go. I knew that at a Pentecostal church it would get freaky once they started talking about the Holy Spirit. Not the case here. I want us to look at the oil because it does symbolize the Holy Spirit to us. But, I want to look at it a little differently.
a. In the tabernacle there was no window or sun roof. The lamp provided the only light. But even with the lamp stand there was no light. (SLIDE 11b) With no oil there is no Light. This reminds me of what Jesus says in Acts regarding the oil of the Holy Spirit. You shall be my witness after you get the oil. Acts 1:8. Oil produces light.
If you aren’t spreading light chances are you don’t have any oil! There was no other light source. There is no other light source today. If we don’t spread light the world stays in darkness. We must constantly replenish the oil because without the power of the Holy Spirit flowing in and through us we will not shine like we should. Every morning we should check our oil! Is it there, is it fresh, is it flowing? The reason some of you aren’t witnessing is because you don’t have fresh oil! Without oil we become timid and self centered.
b. The second thing that I want to mention or examine is the process of how the priests produced the oil and how it was used.
The oil that was required to fuel the lamp stand was obtained from olives. The olives would be crushed to get the oil. However, the olives weren’t crushed only one time. In fact, there were subsequent crushings that took place. The olives were crushed 4 times. Each crushing produced oil for different uses.
The first crushing of the olive would provide the oil for the temple lamp stand (church). The second crushing would provide oil that was used for the house or person’s dwelling place (home). The third crushing produced oil that was used for cooking or meals (widow that Elijah challenges). And the final crushing produced oil that was used medicinally (Good Samaritan).
I believe this method of obtaining the oil teaches us two very powerful lessons.
1. The first is no crushing . . . no oil.
The stuff you have gone through that we talked about last week is part of the crushing process. The crushing is not pointless. The crushing is on purpose. In fact, God tells us that nothing takes Him by surprise. He wasn’t surprised by the pain you went through. He wasn’t shocked by your distress or your devastation. May I remind you that the steps of righteous people are ordered by God? And may I remind you that the Word says that He works all things together for our good? The good things, the bad things, the painful things, the hurtful things all rolled together to produce oil, anointing! The crushing is necessary to get the oil out of you.
Some of you think that God wasn’t around when you were hurt. Some of you think that God didn’t know it. Can I suggest to you that He not only knew about it, but He can utilize it to produce in you a powerful anointing?
Don’t despise the crushing.
Recognize that the greater the crushing the greater the anointing!
2. The second truth is that the crushing that produces oil in us isn’t just for church!
This oil that we are talking about isn’t just for tongues – we have majored in tongues and flunked out in allowing the Holy Spirit to have an impact in every area of our life not just around and altar or during prayer time.
The oil that God produces in you should have an impact at the church and at home. It should help you feed others and heal others. In fact, I would say this. If all the oil in your life does is help you buck, shout, speak in tongues during service but has no bearing on your family, your neighbor, your friends, your co- workers, or on how you live the rest of your life then you aren’t filled - your fake.
Oil is supposed to seep and flow into every area of our lives! Speaking in tongues is great. It is a verifiable, needed experience in your life. However, you must have enough oil left over to apply to the conversation you have with your spouse or your kids in the car on the way home. Speak in tongues all you want to during our services, but you had better have enough oil left to control your tongue and your temper at work on Monday morning.
The oil was present in every arena of their life. We have boxed up the oil and tried to keep it at church. It must be present everywhere! In fact Paul implores us to this in Galatians 5:25.
25Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.
I want you to be full of the Holy Spirit. I want you to communicate in a heavenly language. But I am most concerned that you are so full of the Holy Spirit that it is carried into every area and aspect of your life. You work life, you fun life, and your church life must be marked by oil.
You have to TCB – you must develop a prayer life. We must stay in red hot communion with God. Without prayer your life will not be marked. Second we need fresh oil. A daily crushing that allows the anointing to flow into every area of our lives! Are you oily? Check your oil!
