The tabernacle and the temple signify our being which is composed of three parts—spirit, soul, and body. In order to burn the incense, we must learn how to behave, act, and serve inwardly, not just outwardly. Gradually, we must learn how to be in our spirit. According to the record of the Bible, it is hard to discern whether the incense altar is outside the veil or within the veil before the ark (Exo. 30:6; 1 Kings 6:22; Heb. 9:3-4). This is a problem for Bible students. However, this arrangement is under God’s sovereignty. In typology this signifies that when we begin to pray, we are mostly in the soul and only a little in the spirit. It is hard to tell whether we are praying in the Holy Place or in the Holy of Holies. After a few minutes, however, we enter more deeply into the spirit. At this point we are praying in the spirit.
Aaron took a censer of incense to burn before Jehovah within the veil of the tabernacle (Lev. 16:12-13). This censer is different from the incense altar. According to the proper spiritual interpretation, the incense altar is for general prayer, but the censer is for special prayers. Special prayers are something deeper, in the Holy of Holies. All our special prayers must be in the spirit. Therefore, we must learn to behave, act, live, and walk in an inward way.
We all must seek to live in an inward way to contact the Lord. What God needs is a people to contact Him by praying. In today’s Christianity there is much outward activity, but there is not much inward contact with the Lord to burn the incense. A priest is a person who burns the incense inwardly, not in the outer court but in the Holy Place, and even in the Holy of Holies, to contact the Lord. Hebrews 10:19 through 22 exhorts us to enter into the Holy of Holies, and 4:16 encourages us to touch the throne of grace. One who enters the Holy of Holies and touches the throne of grace is a priest. In Colossians 4:16 Paul exhorted the Colossians to read his epistle to the Laodiceans, but for the most part, the writers of the Epistles encourage us not to read more but to be praying persons, persons who constantly go into the Holy of Holies to touch the throne of grace.
The kind of person who can contact God is not a working person but a praying person. What we need in the Lord’s recovery today is for more people to pray. We look to the Lord for changing the way we have our meetings, but if we are not a praying people, we can have only formal meetings. We can have living meetings only when we become a praying people. We may compare the formality in Christian meetings to grave cloths. In John 11:44 the Lord told the people to remove the resurrected Lazarus’s grave cloths. However, if Lazarus had not resurrected, taking off his grave cloths would only have uncovered his stench. If we change the way we meet, but our meetings are not living, they will be meetings full of stench, like a cemetery full of death. Therefore, we must encourage the brothers to learn how to pray.
To be a praying people, every day we have to read the Word, but we have to pray more than read. If we spend ten minutes for reading, we should spend another twenty minutes for praying. This kind of prayer is not to pray for affairs, business, husbands and wives, school, jobs, or even for help. This is simply to pray about what we read and to pray with what we read in order to contact the Lord. It is not a business-doing prayer but a God-contacting prayer. We must learn to pray to feed on Christ and drink of Christ. We should forget about our business and forget about our needs. We have Matthew 6:33 as a promise: If we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, He will add to us whatever we need. We must learn simply to seek Him by praying about what we read and with what we read.
Very few Christians have a proper prayer life, and even fewer pray with what they read. We need to pray with what we read and pray about what we read. Then the word which we receive will become the Spirit in our spirit, and when the word becomes the Spirit, it is life to us. “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). How can the word become Spirit to us? There is no way other than by our prayer. May we pray about this word. May the Lord grant us a real change and a real revelation in spirit that we may serve Him, not merely in the outer court but in the Holy Place, even in the Holy of Holies. We all must learn not to be scribes or teachers but priests, paying more attention to prayer than to reading.