Address—Stan Allan
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I wonder if we could open our meeting this afternoon by singing 200 and 28228. Join all the glorious names of wisdom, love and power.
That mortals ever knew, that angels ever bore. All are too mean to speak his words, too mean to set the Savior forth.
We've seen #228.
Bring a prompt that is on my recall a fire and thus once the last time and and and and Andy. By the way, Lucinda Dieter always falls off in the middle of the 1003 hours bringing each other and can't be.
But I don't care what's going on everyone.
10-4, 110 minutes. And how about this battle? So much good summer speaking. It's never, ever known.
Umm, you know.
I have to turn out to scratch me through the armor and I'm afraid.
We gave you love thy shadow very poor and it's why it's all I can't give you. I fell from those $1000 in time thou sort of differences 1000 dollars from God my God.
It is being sailed in the clouds. It's called everything 777377.
We just ask God's blessing. Our God and Father, we just come before thee, and we thank Thee for this little hymn we've been singing. Join all the glorious names.
Of wisdom, love and power that mortals ever knew. And Lord Jesus, we thank you this morning, that this afternoon that we can be here to consider thee and all that thou hast done and all thou art doing for us at the Father's right hand.
We thank Thee that we can be together to encourage one another and to be occupied with Thy glorious person. And so we would pray that as we open Thy word this afternoon, we pray that Thou would direct what is said by Thy Holy Spirit.
We pray, Lord, that it might be a blessing to each one of us, and it might be simple enough for.
Even the younger ones to understand. And so we just ask thee for thy help, for we know without thee we can do nothing. And we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
When my when our brother Ted asked me to umm, take this meeting, I was just wondering what the Lord would have before me. And about 3-3 or four weeks ago.
Uh, you'll have to forgive me. A brother tweeted me and he said, you know, I've just been reviewing the garments of glory and beauty of the Lord Jesus or the high priest. And I thought, oh, I used to really enjoy that subject.
And I have enjoyed it many times. And then I thought of a a comment that Ernie Wakefield told me years ago, and I'm sure many here heard it too. He said, make much of Christ, make much of Christ. And I thought, you know, we need to be occupied with this person.
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And I was wondering this afternoon if we could look at the garments of the high Priest, uh, in Exodus chapter 28.
You know we know those verses so well in in umm Hebrews chapter 4 where the Lord has spoken of as our High Priest.
Umm, and we know too how he referred to in, uh, first John Chapter 2 as our advocate.
And, uh, what a wonderful subject to bring before us the work of the Lord Jesus now, uh, as our advocate and as our High priest. And this chapter 28 brings before us, I believe.
Umm, a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus.
And his work for us at the Father's right hand at this point in time.
It's a long chapter and umm.
Really, to read it all straight through might take a little bit, so we're just going to read, uh, a little bit at a time and maybe make a few comments that I have enjoyed.
We'll read the second verse first. Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron, thy brother.
For glory and for beauty.
Uh, verse six. And they shall make the ephod of gold of blue, of purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work. It shall have two shoulder pieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof, and so it shall be joined together, and the curious girdle of the ephod which is upon it shall be of the same according to the work thereof, even of gold of.
Blue, purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. And thou shalt make 2 Onyx stones. Engrave on them the names of the children of Israel, six of their names on one stone, and the other six names on the rest of the other stone, according to their birth. With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with names of the children of Israel.
Thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold.
And thou shall put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod, for stones, uh, of memorial on to the children of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial.
Maybe I should mention right at the beginning that it's, I wish I had a large picture here of the high priest with these garments of glory and beauty here. It makes it a little easier, but there were actually three parts to his, his, uh, garments. The first one was the ephod. That was the outer garment. And then underneath it was the robe of the ephod. It's mentioned in verse 31.
Thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue.
So it was underneath the ephod and then underneath the, uh, robe of the E5 we have what's in uh, verse, umm, 39 Thou shalt embroidery the coat of fine linen. Thou shalt make the miter of fine linen. So the, the, the umm, the code of fine linen was underneath the robe of the ephod. So to make that plain again.
There's the ephod, and then underneath it the robe of the ephod, which was blue, and then underneath that was the coat of fine linen. And I think if you keep that in mind, it makes it a little easier to understand. But you know, why has God-given us this wonderful description? It just seems like a lot of words in some respects. But you know, I believe it. It says here in the second verse that these garments were for glory.
And for beauty.
Actually, the high priest, if any, I don't know if he ever wore these garments of glory and beauty on the Day of Atonement. He wore a coat of fine linen. Uh, and that was the day, of course, that speaks of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, when the Lord went into death and, and uh, gave his life that we might live and that he had on that coat of fine linen. Why was that?
Well, you know the Lord, the fine linen.
Would speak to us of the practical righteousness of the Lord Jesus in his walk down here, the perfection of his walk. You know what tells us in Hebrews chapter seven? I think it's verse 26 that says.
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He is holy, spotless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.
That was the Lord Jesus in his walk down here. And because he was, uh, perf perfect in all his ways, he was the only one that could accomplish that work of redemption. And so on the Day of Atonement that speaks of his death, he, he wore that linen, that linen garments. But here it talks about the garments of glory and beauty.
And I believe this would bring before us more.
The present work of the Lord Jesus. There's a verse that I think that would help us in this in Hebrews Chapter 9.
I just refer to it for a moment. Uh, Hebrews Chapter 9.
And uh.
Verse 24.
Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands.
Which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.
So there's his present work. He's in heaven itself, and he appears in the presence of God for us. That's his present priestly work.
And I believe what we have here in this chapter brings before us of what the Lord Jesus is doing for us now. And so we find here in the sixth verse, it says that the that we're taking a look now at the ephod, that outer garment that the priest wore. It says it was made of gold, of blue, of purple, of scarlet and fine twined linen with cunning work.
Now, why would? Why were all these things mentioned?
Well, you know, the gold brings before us the divine righteousness of God and we know that the Lord Jesus, he went to the cross and he accomplished that mighty work of redemption. And uh, that work was perfectly accepted before God. And so it says here divine righteousness which characterized the Lord Jesus. Then it says blue.
And you know, blue is the heavenly color we look up in the sky on a clear day and we see that blue.
It makes us think of heaven and you know, it says no man hath ascended down from heaven, but he that that went up to heaven. I'm sorry. I better just uh, read it. I'm not very good at quoting uh, John chapter 3. We know the verse. It says this, uh, verse 13, no man ascend ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven.
Even the Son of man, which is in heaven.
So the Lord Jesus, that heavenly man came down here into this world and walked this very the very streets of the very world that we're in. And then it says purple. Now, you know, back in Roman times.
Rome, uh, purple was only worn by those who were very rich. In fact, it was really, uh, never worn until the days of the Roman Empire and the emperors. They wore that purple color and you know, Rome, it ruled not just.
The city of Rome had ruled the entire Mediterranean. All those various countries were part of the Roman Empire. And so I think when it mentions purple here, reminds us that the Lord Jesus is not only the king, but he's the king of kings and he's the Lord of Lords. The day is coming when he's going to rule this world and this universe supreme.
And it brings before us the royal color. And then Scarlett, of course, was the.
The color of the, uh, kings of Israel and some have said too that it really brings before us human glory. And you know, we were mentioning this morning about pride and how man loves to boast of all of he's accomplished, but you know, there's only one that can truly have human glory and who's that? It's the Lord Jesus. He's the only one that walked in this life in this world perfectly according to the will of God as.
We had, and so it says, scarlet here, and then the fine twined linen which brings before us, as we said before.
The practical righteousness of the Lord Jesus as he walked this world.
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And so we have all of these things intertwined. You couldn't say that this part was gold and this part was blue and this part was was purple and so on. It was all interwoven. And you know, you can't divide the glories of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God from the glories of him as the perfect man. It's all perfectly intertwined. And that's what we see here.
Well then it goes on and talks about the curious girdle in verse 8.
And I just make a comment about that. The girdle, What was the girdle? It was really like a belt that went around the ephod here and it was tied, umm, and so, and it was the very same, it was made of the very same things as the ephod itself. But what's meant by the, the curious girdle? Well, you know, there's two verses that I think would help us in that. If you take a look at John chapter 13, first of all.
Umm.
I think this was referred to briefly this this morning, although not the actual verses I was thinking of, but in John chapter 13 it says there umm in verse four he rises from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them.
With the towel wherewith he was girded. What is the Lord Jesus doing in those verses? You know, He's just what we were saying this morning. He took upon Him the form of a servant. You know, he's, he's not our servant. But voluntarily the Lord delights the service because He loves us. And here he was washing the disciples feet. You know, Peter couldn't understand why the Lord would do that. But the Lord was teaching Peter.
Important lesson, the need of feet washing. And here just imagine the creed of the universe stooping down and washing the feet of the disciples. Uh, how wonderful to think of the Lord as the the perfect servant. And then, you know, if you were to turn to loop 12, we won't just turn to it, but there we find the Lord again referred to as the servants and the one that will serve us forever.
He delights to serve his own, and so we find here the curious girdle would bring before us.
The Lord as the one who is serving us now in the glory, and we can be so thankful.
Well, then it goes on and talks about, umm, these two Onyx stones in verse nine and on them were engraved the umm, the 12 names of the 12 tribes. There were six on this, on this Onyx stone and there were six on this Onyx stone. And, uh, what would that bring before us? Well, you know, the first thing I'd like to think of is that they were engraved.
And umm, you know, and engraving is where you cut into the rock, into the stone, don't you? When it becomes permanent, you can't wipe it off.
It's there permanently. And you know, I think that the names of the 12 tribes, six and six, they could not be erased. And what is the teaching there? You know, every one of us here who know the Lord as our Savior, we're engraved on His shoulders. I've enjoyed that. You know, if we go to Luke 15, maybe we'll just look at it for a second. Luke chapter 15.
The story of the lost sheep.
It says there, uh, without reading the whole thing, verse five. And when he has found the sheep, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. So you can just see the shepherd taking the sheep by the two legs here and two legs here, putting it over his shoulders, and there the the sheep is secure. And so I believe.
That the thought of the soldiers is security. The thought of the Onyx stones on the shoulders is security.
And so the Lord Jesus took that sheep, as it were, and carried it all the way home. And the wonderful thing is the Lord is going to hold this secure all the way home. And we're engraved on his shoulders. Uh, we've often read that verse in Isaiah 49. And I think again, these are verses I'll just refer to very briefly. Uh, but it says there in the 49th chapter.
And the.
Umm 15 verse Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yeah, they may forget, but yet will I not forget thee? Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, and so the Lord Jesus has our names engraved on his shoulders.
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And He's maintaining us in the presence of God until the day when He can have us with Him forever.
And so how wonderful that we have here, you know, there's just every name was on the same stone, the Onyx stone. And so we're equally there before the Lord. You know, some here, umm, have been saved a long time. There are others have only been saved a short time, but we're all equally secure.
All equally secure. Our names are engraved, they'll never be wiped away. And the Lord is there umm, and he has us on his shoulders. It's a place of security. I thought of this too. You know in in Isaiah Chapter 9, it speaks about him having the government on his shoulder. It only takes 11 shoulder for to look after the government. But when it comes to you and I.
He has us on both his shoulders. I think that's so wonderful. And so we, I think that's the teaching that we have here in connection with the Onyx stones. And one other thing I wanna mention. The Onyx stones were set in ouches of gold. Now I know that for the those who are younger here, you say what's an Ouch? Well, I think it was just like a setting.
I can't really describe it, but it was a setting and the Onyx stone went into the setting and it was made of gold.
Now we said that gold brings before us, umm, the divine righteousness of God. And you know, I like to think of that verse in Second Corinthians chapter 5, it says, umm, in him was uh oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to read it. I can quote it, but I get confused sometimes.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5, the last verse it says this, He hath made him to be sin.
For us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I like the last part of that verse. The righteousness of God in him. So the gold is the divine righteousness of God and we're set in Christ. You see that the Onyx stone with the names are in that.
Ouch of gold. And we are in him. We are in Christ.
You know, some people use the expression justified just as justified never sinned, and that's nice. But you know, that's not the whole thing. The the real reality of it is that we're in Christ, We're in Christ, we're in the ouches of gold. And so that's what we get in the Onyx stones. Well, then if you go on down to verse 13, we'll read a few more verses.
And thou shalt make ouches of gold, and two chains of pure gold. At the ends of recent work shalt thou make them, and fasten the recent change to the ouches. Umm. And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work. After the work of the ephod, thou shalt make it of gold. And blue, and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen shalt thou make us.
Foursquare It shall be uh, being doubled. A span uh shall be the length thereof. A span shall be the breadth thereof.
And thou shalt set it in the settings of stones, even 4 rows of stones. The 1St row shall be a stardeus, a Topaz, a carbuncle. Uh, this shall be the first row. And the 2nd row shall be an emerald, a sapphire and a diamond. And the 3rd row a lager and agates and an amethyst, and the 4th row a barrel and on on it, and an Onyx and a Jasper.
They shall be in gold in their enclosings.
And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel 12 according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, Everyone with his name, uh, shall they be according to the 12 tribes?
We'll just stop there, I guess, for now. So we find now that on the front of the ephod right here, there was the breastplate. And you'll notice in verse 15 that it's made-up of the same materials that the ephod was made out of, and it's called the breastplate of judgment. Now why is it called the breastplate of judgment?
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Well, you know, it doesn't mean that the Lord is going to judge us. I don't think that's the thought.
The thought here is discernment and guidance.
We need. I'm sorry.
The thought is, umm, well, maybe we should just take a look at a verse. Psalm 119.
Some 119 and verse 66.
OK.
It says there teach me good judgment and knowledge.
So you see, the thought is discernment and guidance.
For I have believed Thy commandments teach me good judgment. So that's what's meant here by, umm, the breastplate of judgments. We'll talk about that again in just a few moments. But you'll notice here that, umm, in this breastplate there were 12 Stones. Each stone was different. And what do those stones represent? You know, I believe they represent you and me as individuals.
We have.
There's the 12 names. The tribes of Israel on the Lord's shoulders are on the high priest shoulders.
That speaks of security, it speaks of power. But now they're on his breast over his heart. And what does that re re remind us of? The fact that each one of us here this this afternoon are individually loved by the Lord. We're all different. You'll notice there was a sardius, a Topaz, a carbuncle and sapphire, and they were all different. You can't say that the diamond was more.
And the Ruby or the carbuncle, but they were all different. And the Lord knows we're different. The Lord doesn't expect us to be all the same. We're not. We're different. And he knows our disposition, He knows our weaknesses. And yet the wonderful thing is he's we are on his heart. We're on his heart. He loves us.
And that's why I chose that little hymn, you know, join all the glorious names of wisdom, love and power.
The Lord has us on His shoulders in power and strength. He has us on us, on our heart, on His heart because He loves us. And He's going to be and we're going to be there.
All through eternity on his heart and you'll notice here it says in the 16th verse Foursquare it shall be doubled. You know back in this these days the only nation that really knew the Lord at all or knew Jehovah was.
Was Israel, but you know when it says Foursquare you think of.
The four points to the compass, north-south, east, West, it speaks of universality and no doubt the Lord was was reminding himself the day was coming when he was going to have his own individual with him for all he turned from all over the world, not just Israel, but from the four corners of the world. So it says 4 score, 4 score square.
Uh, it shall be, uh, it shall be being doubled. Now, I, we're not really told, but I think the idea of it being doubled was, we'll say this is the, the, uh, breastplate and it was doubled. You see, like this, That's the way I take it. It was sort of doubled and in, in here where the, the Urim and Thummim, I, I just mentioned that in passing. I think that's what it means.
But it it says here.
The size of it. A span should be the length thereof. Now, what was a span? The span was the distance between your thumb and your little finger. That was a span.
It shall be the lengthier up, and a span shall be the breadth of. So it was this wide and this, you know what I'm saying? It was a span both ways. And what does that bring before us? And it says also being doubled. So we know you can't help but think of that little verse that we know so well.
I know my umm. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man shall pluck them out of my father's hand. Isn't that double security? Isn't that the span, the length of the breads? And so it seems that over and over again the Spirit of God is telling us how secure we are, how secure we are and so.
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How wonderful, it says here it shall being doubled. A span shall be the length thereof, and a span shall be the BR. The the the breadth are rough.
And then it mentions the various stones. And as I've had before, we're all individually loved by the Lord. And those various stones that are mentioned here would be all different colors, wouldn't they? And you'll notice that in the high priest garments there were all these different colors too. And the wonderful thing is that the Lord has not made us all the same.
And one Christian might shine in a certain area, reflecting the.
The, the glory of the Lord in one little area and another, umm, Christian might, uh, shine in another way. One thing I've enjoyed too is that when would you see the, the wonderful colors glowing? When the high priest went into the holy place, there was the Candlestick. Remember the Candlestick? And when that Candlestick was lit and this high priest went in.
Then the light would reflect off those stones.
And you know, when we come into the presence of the Lord, we see those wonderful glories, umm, uh, shining out from those various stones. And so I think it's so wonderful to see that the Lord has us securely on his shoulders. He has us. He has us on his heart because he loves us.
And umm, so let's go on for a moment.
Uh, excuse me.
Maybe we'll just skip down to verse 26 to save a little time. And thou shalt make two rings of gold, and thou shalt put them upon the two ends of the breastplate, and the border they're off, which is in the side of the ephod inward. And two other rings of gold thou shalt make, and shall put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath toward the four part thereof over against the other coupling thereof above the.
Girdle of the ephod, and they shall bind the breastplate. I was thinking of this verse particularly. They shall bind the breastplate by the rings thereof unto the rings of the ephod, with a lace of blue, that it may be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breastplate be not loosed from the ephod.
Well, again you can see the curious girdle came around here, and then the breastplate was here.
And it was fastened to the ephod. What does it bring before us? Security. Again, How is it that Christians can believe that they can lose their salvation? Over and over again? We're told here how secure these various parts were. The breastplate was fastened to the ephod. It couldn't be loosed.
By a a lace of blue and uh, the size of the breastplate again was a span in both directions.
And so we're perfectly secure, and I believe that's what this is bringing out. Well, then, it says Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart.
Isn't that wonderful? That shows the place that we have when he goes in onto the Holy Place for a memorial before the Lord continually so every time the high priest went into the holy place.
There were the children of Israel individually on his heart. And how wonderful when the Lord there is in the glory in the presence of God, we know He is God, but there's a man in the glory, and he has this on his heart.
How wonderful. And it's we're there continually, it says here in this verse.
Verse 30 And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord. And Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. And thou shalt, uh, make the robe of the ephod all of blue.
Maybe we'll just stop with that 30th 1St for a moment. So here we have the.
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The Urim and the Thummim mentioned for the first time, and I believe that's why it's called the breastplate of judgment.
In other words, the we're not really told much about the urine and the thumb. We don't know what they looked like and we don't know exactly how they were attached, umm, to the, the breastplate. But we do know that, umm, they were on the breastplate of judgment. And we said before that the word judgment here means discernment and guidance.
And so it would appear as if.
When a difficulty arose, umm, for instance, a king, if the king of Israel didn't know exactly what to do, he could go to the high priest and he would consult, could I say the Lord through Urim and Thummim. In fact, we have an example of this if you take a look at, uh, numbers chapter 27 for a moment.
Numbers, Chapter 27.
And umm, the 21St verse.
Maybe we should read from verse 18 for a moment. And the Lord sent him to Moses. Take thee, Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay thine hand upon him.
And set him before Eliezer the priest, and before all the congregation, and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. Now notice. And he shall stand before elegies of the priest, who shall ask counsel for him.
After the judgment of Urim. Urum Urim.
Before the Lord. And so they went, and they would consult the Lord through the Urim and the Thummim. And so I believe they went there for wisdom and guidance. And we don't fully understand it, but if you were to turn to First Chronicles chapter 14, you would find there too that David consulted the Lord before going up against the Philistines.
And it would appear as if maybe he went to the Urim and Thummim, uh, and there he looked for guidance. But anyway, what does Urim and Thummim mean?
It means lights and perfections. That's what the expression means in the Hebrew, lights and perfections. So what can we learn about this? Well, what I've enjoyed particularly is James chapter one.
James chapter one.
Can I read just two verses that I think will make it obvious? Verse 5.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
Now verse 16, do not earn, my beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Now do you get the connection there?
Urim and Thummim means.
Lights and perfections.
And we find here that if we if we lack wisdom, where are we to go? Where to go? To the Lord? And back in Old Testament times, if a king didn't know what to do, what did he do? He went to the Lord, he consulted Urim and Thummim, and what do they mean? Lights and perfections. And so.
What does it bring before us? Well, I believe it brings before us the fact of God's wisdom. God's wisdom, umm, in all we do, you know, he's perfect, It says a verse in the Old Testament says, As for God, his way is perfect. He knows all about us. He knows every difficulty that we pass through.
And he wants us to go to him in those difficulties.
And he will give us the needed direction. You know, sometimes we don't always.
Appreciate his answers. Sometimes he says wait when we ask him for something, or sometimes he even says no. But the wonderful thing is that God knows what's best for us and he will always do what's best because he knows all about us. He's he's, he's light and he's perfect and umm.
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He sees everything and he knows what's best for all of us. And so how wonderful here that the Urim and the thumb would speak of discernment and guidance. It would speak of wisdom. And so I go back to that little hymn that we were singing. Join all the glorious themes of wisdom, love and power. That's our high priest today. He's the one that we can go to for wisdom. He's the one that has us as.
On his heart because He loves us and He's the one that has us on his shoulders of security. And umm, how wonderful that we find that here in these verses.
But, you know, sometimes we don't fully understand the Lord's ways with us. I was just thinking of a good example is, uh, the story of Joseph. You remember how faithful Joseph was with his brothers? He went down and, umm, to give them food. And what did they do? They took them and they threw them into a pit he was sold into.
Slavery and there he worked for Potiphar and he did such a wonderful job and yet his wife.
Accuse them of adultery and he was thrown into prison for two years.
You know, Joseph wouldn't have understood any of that. Why would the Lord allow all these things to happen when he wanted to please the Lord and he wanted to do what was right? But you know, the day came when he was made ruler of all Egypt, and it began to dawn on him, no doubt, why the Lord had allowed these things in preparing him for the time when he would be.
Ruler over all Egypt. So sometimes we don't get the answers as to why the Lord allows things.
Down here. But the day is coming when it will all be made manifest. We just need to trust Him. Well, if we go down, I see our time is running away. But if we go down now to verse 31.
He had mentioned Thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue, so now we go from the ephod to that blue robe underneath.
And it says There shall be a hole in the top of it. In the midst of it shall be a binding of woven work round about the whole of it, as it were the whole of the harbogen that had been on rent, and beneath upon the hem of it.
Thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet round about the hem thereof, and bells of gold between them round about a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe roundabout. And it shall be upon Aaron to minister, and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when?
Cometh out that he die. Not so now we find on the hem of this. Well, first of all, the garment was made of blue. It's the heavenly color. But down along the hem there was a pomegranate, a bell pomegranate, and a bell all the way around. And it was made of those various colors that we know bring before us the glories of the Lord Jesus. And you know, the number of bells was exactly equal to the number of pomegranates.
And no doubt the pomegranates would speak of fruitfulness and the bells would speak of testimony, because everywhere the priest went it made a noise, the tinkling of the bells.
And there was an equal number of both. And you know, I think the thought in that is that in the life of the Lord Jesus there was absolute perfection.
The fruit in his life, his walk, was equal to his testimony. You know, the people asked him there in John Eight, they said, who are you and what was his answer altogether? That which I say unto you. In other words, his talk was equal to his walk. You know, with us that's often not the case.
You know, we can do a lot of talking, but our walk doesn't match up to what we talk about.
But with the Lord Jesus, there was absolute perfection. The number of pomegranates were equal to the number of bells. And so, uh, house, you know, I think it's so important for each one of us that our walk should equal our talk. I know it never does. Umm, we, we fail most of the time. But you know, there should be a desire.
00:45:17
That our walk would equal our talk. And I think we see that with the Lord Jesus. A good a good example would be, uh, Acts chapter one.
I'm sure you've seen this, but in the very first verse of Acts one it says this.
Umm, the former treatise have I made all theophilus of all that Jesus began to both do and teach. What came first the doing and what followed the teaching. And so, so often it's easy to do the teaching 1St and then failing in the walk. But with the Lord Jesus, the walk perfectly balanced the talk.
Well, we have that, but I think there's another thought here too, because in the 35th verse.
It says it shall be upon Aaron's minister, and his sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh out that he die not. Now you will notice in the 33rd verse the pomegranates come first and the bells come second. But in the 34th verse the bells come first, and then the pomegranates.
And.
Perhaps the thought is that when the Lord Jesus went into the presence of God.
There was a testimony that that work on the cross had been done.
And that his work had been perfectly accepted before God. And what was the result?
The Lord sent the Holy Spirit to indwell the church, and there became blessing and fruitfulness as a result. So when the Lord went into the presence of God, it was the bell first as it were, but then the blessing went out in the giving of the Holy Spirit. So I just mentioned that in passing. And then just one other thing that we come to the last part, verse 36. And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold.
And grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet. Holiness to the Lord.
And thou shalt put it on the blue lace, that it may be upon the miter. Upon the forefront of the miter it shall be, and it shall be upon Aaron's forehead. And Aaron. I'm sorry that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel shall howl in all their holy gifts. And it shall be always upon the forehead that they may be accepted before the.
Now I trust I can make clear what I'm trying to say here, but.
You'll notice that on the, uh, front here, on Aaron's forehead, it said holiness to the Lord. And when the high priest went into the holy place there it said holiness to the Lord. In other words, God can only accept that which is perfectly holy. But you know, sometimes.
I think this actually refers to two things in our lives and that is worship and service. You know, in connection with our worship, you know, we might get up on Lord's Day morning and give out to him, or at least we have maybe, umm, we, we might get out of him and.
Uh, maybe a little bit of self is involved with it. Maybe I think, Oh well, I gotta do something. I'll, I'll give out to him. Umm, and in other words, there's that which isn't really for the Lord. Umm, it's iniquity, but it's mixed with our worship. Or maybe I decide to do something for the Lord and in it there is something that isn't really pleasing to the Lord.
Well, this says here that the errand was to bear the iniquity of the holy things.
In other words, the Lord would separate that which is not for his glory and put it aside, and only that which is for his glory would be presented as holiness before the Lord. And you know, I just say this, that there are young brothers here and perhaps on the Lord's Day morning you think, oh, I can't give out to him. It might not be the right thing, and there's a bit of self mixed up with it, but.
What would the Lord say? The Lord would say, go ahead, give out to Him, and that which is for me will be accepted, and that what isn't accepted will be put aside. Someone has used the illustration and I have enjoyed this for years and Leviticus chapter one. We won't turn to it, but when they offered birds, they were to take the crop and they were to put it in the place of the ashes.
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And the feathers they were to take, and they were to put those in the place of the acids, and that which was acceptable was offered to God.
Now why would the crop be taken and put in the place of the ashes? Well, you know, the crop is the place where the bird keeps undigested food. And you know, sometimes we might get up and umm, we might say something that we really haven't made our own. And it really is like that crop, that which we have never made our own, it needs to be put aside. Now Lord puts that aside and what is acceptable?
To him is presented before God. The same with the feathers. The feathers would speak of outward show. And you know, I might get up and give a wonderful prayer to show people and I can really pray well, uh, or I can use beautiful expressions and so on. But that's just self that has to be put in the place of the ashes. But it says here that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things. So the Lord.
He takes what is for him and is presented to God. That which is just for self is put aside in the place of the ashes. So I know I haven't gone into this very well this afternoon, but I think it's a wonderful chapter to think of what the Lord Jesus is doing for us, uh, at the present time, He's there in the glory as our high priest. He's maintaining us in the presence of God.
In security and in love.
And in and in wisdom. And He is living for us and He's our and He's serving us too. How wonderful. Well, I just mentioned these things. I've enjoyed it for many years and umm, just thought maybe we could profit from it. But, uh, how much we need to have His glorious person brought before us.
And umm, may we just take the time to umm, to umm, meditate on some of these things that the Spirit of God has given us in the Old Testament.
Maybe we could just sing 1 hymn in closing, how about 281?
281.
With joy we meditate the grace of God's High Priest above. His heart is filled with tenderness. His very name is love.
Uh, 281.
I can get anything.
00:55:03
From vitamin D time, I can hear you.
We didn't get you.
Refreshed and.
We're going to be.
Our God and.
Father, we come before Thee at the end of this little meeting, and we thank Thee for Thy beloved Son, that One who would perfectly did Thy will, went to the cross and accomplished that mighty redemption. And we thank Thee that now He is in Thy presence, maintaining us before Thee in all his loveliness and grace and goodness. And Lord Jesus, we thank Thee that we are on Thy shoulders of strength.
And that thou are carrying us home. And Lord Jesus, we thank thee too, that we are on thy heart.
Thou knowest each one of us individually and the difficulties we face and our natural dispositions, and yet thou just love us and thou art undertaking for us all the way home. And Lord, we thank thee too, that, uh, that thou knowest best what is best for us, and we can come to thee for wisdom. And we thank thee for that verse that says.
In him are are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And we thank thee, Lord Jesus, that we can come to thee in every difficulty, and that thou art willing to not only hear, but to answer prayer. And so, Lord, we would just pray that that would bless the few words, though weakly, spoken here this afternoon, and it might be a blessing to each one of us. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.