chapter thirty nine that represents the first migration of Arabs. says in verse 2, And thou shalt
make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and beauty. Verse 4 says, And these are the
garments and a robe, a broad coat, a miter,
a girdle, and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother
and his sons, that ye may minister unto me in the priest's office. back to chapter 39 of exodus and he speaks again The Israelites were at a distance
from God, far off from God. They were God's people, but they
were far off from God, at a distance. And they needed someone to represent
them before God. It was not their idea, it was
God's idea. so Aaron was his choice and he gave directions to Moses in the mountain Moses was up
in the mountain of God and he gave him various directions of
the things that he should do and he did all Well, really, God is going to
allow His people to see Herod dressed in this glorious splendor. This robe is made of different
colors. God's going to allow these people
to see, in time, this green high priest that I read about in the book
of Hebrews, seeing that we have a green high priest, He's going
to allow it. he's going to be a picture, he's
going to be a shadow of him who was to come, the Lord Jesus. And all of the details of the
garments and all the rituals that Aaron went through, typified as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and
His splendor. and in this 39th chapter it talks
about verse 1 in blue and purple and scarlet they made cloths of servants
to do service in the holy place in the tabernacle which was this
temporary shelter temporary meeting place between man and God. Only
Aaron, the high priest, was allowed in the tabernacle. And he must have all this dress
that was so designed by God for him to wear for the children
of Israel to make in order to cloak. He had to have all that
on. You remember reading about the
bells on the hem of his garment and the pomegranates and all
that? Well, to do service in the holy place, and made the
holy garments rare as the Lord commanded the princes. And he
bought it gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and vinyl, and they
did beat the gold. Now this wire of gold, gold in about every place in the body,
has reference to deity. The wire of gold was woven into
all the other material. fine linen, and they did beat
the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires to work it
into the blue and the purple, and into scarlet, and into fine
linen with cutting work. That is how the wire of gold
was woven into all these materials, so as to be inseparable connected,
inseparably connected with, and yet perfectly distinct from them
all. That is, it speaks here of the
union of God and man in one person. The gold was to be interwoven
into the cloth, into the material, the purple, the scarlet, and
the blue, as a thin wire, and it was so distinctly interwoven
in this that it was not distinct. That is, it was not noticeably,
it didn't noticeably stand out where you've just seen the gold,
but it all blended in to one material. That gold is dead. And that's the reason why we
say, we read so much, about finding out who God is, finding out who
the Lord Jesus Christ is, we find out who God is in Christ,
and we find out that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and man in
one person. And I talk about that a whole
lot, I repeat myself over and over and over about the importance
of us seeing and understanding, finding out who God is, that
he's all God and he's all man and one person. And that's what
this reflects here, this gold, this gold interwoven in this
other material. And it so becomes one that you
can't distinctly see one from another. It's all in one piece. And this was made into this garment,
this wonderful, glorious, beautiful, garment that clothed Aaron and
was essential for him in that he is a type of the great high
priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this wire woven that was beaten
thin and interwoven into this material was so done that it
was inseparably connected and yet perfectly distinct from the
different materials. I said this speaks of the union
of God and man in one person. You remember when the Lord Jesus
Christ was on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples and says that a storm, a great
storm, began to thunder and the waters got very rough and the disciples were afraid
and our Lord Jesus Christ as a man and God in one person to
show forth the the manhood of God in Christ. He was asleep on a pillow. A perfect man sleeping on a pillow. A man. But they began to cry for help
and he instantly arose and took upon himself all the dignity
of God himself. and spoke to the waves, to the
storm, and said, seize! He called the
storm. In one aspect of him, he was
all man, sleeping on a pillow, as other men sleep. Then, in
an instant, at the grave of Lazarus, his
friend. He cried. He wept. He wept real
tears from a real man. In another instance, though,
he spake as a God and cried, Lazarus, come forth! and death opened their doors
and came forth. And lastly, as a man, responded
to the cry and the voice of God and man in one person. That's
our Savior. That's our High Priest, whoever
lives on God's right hand. He represents us, always, at
all times, under all circumstances. His eye is fixed on us in Christ,
our great high priest. Now, here in the 29th chapter, go
back there again, In that second verse, And thou shalt
make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for the old age,
establishing who the high priest was, Aaron thy brother, and his
sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Thou shalt take gold, and blue,
and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and make them this robe." And
it goes on and says that It talks about the two shoulder pieces
joined at two edges thereof. It talks about the curious girdle. Embroidered girdle. Gold, blue,
purple, scarlet, fine twine linen. Then it says that she'll make
two honey stones. and bring on them the names of
the children of Israel. Six of their names on
one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other
stone, according to their brother. It says, And the stones shall
be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve according to
their names, like the engravings of a signet, each one with his
own name. Shall they be according to the
twelve? It says that after he puts these garments
on, and in verse 29, Aaron shall bear the names of
the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon
his heart, and he goeth into the holy place for a memorial
service. Now their names shall be set
in settings of stones, even four rows of stones. The first row shall be a sardis,
a topaz, and a carbone, and the second row shall be and
sapphire, and diamond, and the fourth row
in myrtle, and onyx, and in jasper. They shall be set in gold in
their inclusion, and the stones shall be with the names of the
children of Israel, twelve according like the engravings in the signature,
each one with his name shall be accorded to the Twelve Tribes." In other words, on this garment,
this dress girdle of evil, the names of the Twelve Tribes of
Israel, ten sons, ten tribes, and the names shall
be written on this breastplate in these various stones, these
various precious stones. And when the high priest goes
before the Lord, he has to have on his breast, representing the
children of Israel. And these stones glitter and
shine. And the more light that's brought
upon the stones, the brighter they shine. They glitter and
shine. And they are to be worn by the
high priests when he goes into the tabernacle to represent the
children of Israel. They shall always be there. The more light shines upon them,
the brighter they get. Well, I said this Aaronic priesthood
was God's provision for a people who were in themselves far off
from God. That's a picture and a type of
you and I. We have always, from the time
we came into this world, we have always needed something The trespasses had been seen. The dead had been seen. It was
borrowed from God. And what we need is someone to
represent us before God. In that we were not fit to represent
ourselves. Sinners by nature, and sinners
by birth, and sinners by choice. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the fulfillment of the shadow. The shadow is just a substance,
nothing to it. But when He came, the Lord Jesus
Christ, He became a man, and as a man, and God in one person. He provides for us all the requirements
of God, he said. And in this clothing that Aaron
wears depicts what Christ has done and what he's doing in our
behalf. It says also here, in verse 29, that Aaron shall
bear the names of the children of Israel. And when I say Aaron
shall bear, I could rightly say that the Lord Jesus Christ shall
bear in His heart all those whose names were written in the Lamb's
Book of Life before the world and Aaron shall bear the names
of the children of Israel." In the breastplate of judgment,
Christ is our judgment. No condemnation to that other
than Christ Jesus. No judgment is what that condemnation
means. So there's no judgment in the
heart of Christ for the people of God. He paid their judgment.
In the breastplate of judgment, But into the holy place, that
is, into the place where God dwelt in the holies of holies,
where the Ark of the Covenant was, into the holy place for
a memorial before the Lord continued. And he goes on down in verse
30, the latter part of it, it says, And Aaron shall bear the
judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart, before the Lord
continually. Again, I say that the Lord Jesus
Christ bears the judgment of His people upon His heart before
the Lord continually. And then He goes on in verse
33 here and says, And beneath upon the hem of this particular
garment that we've been talking about, 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, a pomegranate, a golden bell, a pomegranate,
upon the hem of the robe round about, and it shall be upon Aaron
the minister, and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in to
the holy place before the Lord. And when he cometh out, that
he dieth not." That is, when he went in to the holy place,
into the tabernacle where the Ark of the Covenant was, the
dwelling place of God, he went in there to work, to do service
to God and being a representative of his people. And he would put
the bells on the hem of his garment so that he couldn't sit down,
there was no seat, no chairs in there, for he must continually
do service by way of worship on behalf of his people, and
if he ever stopped, if the bells quit ringing and jingling while
he was walking around, they knew that he was dead, and when he
cometh out, that he died not, he's got to continue to move
around, and thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon
it like the engravings of the signet Holiness to the Lord.
And thou shalt put it upon a blue lace, that it may be upon the
miter, upon the forefront of the miter it shall be." That
is, the thing that went around his head and there was a kind
of a piece that stuck out here, and Holiness, Holiness to the
Lord was written upon it. And it shall be upon Aaron's
forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things
which the children of Israel shall hallow in their holy gifts.
Remember, what is on his head now is holiness to the Lord. that they may be accepted before
the Lord. Their only reason for being accepted
by God is because of the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
and the holiness of the high priest Aaron, which he is just
a type of ivory high priest, and says that he shall that he represents may be accepted
before God. Well, let's go on now. We've talked about these robes
that Aaron was to wear, a special priestly robe with twelve brides
engraved on precious stones. They were to be worn upon his
shoulder and upon his breastplate. I mentioned to you about the
excellence of the stones you see, and the more intense the
light is brought upon the stones, the more brightly these stones
then shine. Now, in this we could say that
light can never make a precious stone look dim. it makes it shine
brighter and brighter. And these were part of Aaron's
priestly robe which he was always to wear. He had them upon his
breast and upon his shoulders. And these stones represented
the ten tribes of Israel which we are represented in them in
that we are the true Israel. represented the smallest of the
tribes and the largest of the tribes. These twelve tribes were
represented before God by Aaron the High Priest. Now, whatever
may be their weakness, whatever may be their failings,
those that Aaron represented, yet their names glittered on
the breastplate of Aaron with unfading grace. Regardless of their weakness
and their failures, yet these stones shine in pure whiteness,
in spite of their failures and their fullness. So it is. with the great operation
of the Lord Jesus Christ who represents us. We are these stones, and regardless
of our weakness and our wanderings and our failures, these stones
glisten and shine with luster, brightly, before God in God's
presence, in Christ. who is our great high priest
and who represents us. You see, it was God who put them
there. God, it was God's idea, according
to all that he gave to Moses for the mountain to do. It was
God who put them there, and if God put them there, It was God
that put us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Who can overrule God? Who can snatch our names away
when God put them in Christ? Who could penetrate into this
holy place? into this tabernacle that Moses
erected for God's dwelling place and take one of them from Aaron's
breast. The name of the least of all
those that were represented by Aaron there could not be snatched
away. Now, I say this because it ought
to be an encouragement to you and I live in this world who
are tried and tempted and sometimes awful failures as far as giving
up to the standard set before us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is encouraging, encouraging to me, though I wonder, though
I'm tried, though I'm tempted, for me to remember that God only
sees me in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as He sees me as these stones
represent you and I, they continually shine in brilliance in the presence
of God Almighty. And as we are put in Christ,
and Christ who represents us, and whoever lives to make intercession,
we can truly say that God sees us in the heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Well, I know that the world cannot
see you and I like this, but God sees us like this, and this
is what makes the difference. It's not how the world Now, as
the world looks at you and I for the most part, they're not fooled. They're blind, but they're not
fooled. When they look at us, that is
the people of God, they see our blemishes and they see our swaths. They don't have any ability to
see otherwise. They can't see any more than
what they see in us. And as a consequence, their judgment
is always wrong. They can't see these sparkling
jewels that's in Aaron's breastplate
and on his shoulder, and the binding that's on his hand, that
says holiness. They can't see that. They can't
see it, but we can see it only in Christ, and God sees us in
Christ. Our safety is in Christ and Christ
alone. Our safety is not in our doing,
or our good intentions, or our bad intentions, or our habits,
or this or that. Our safety is that we are in
Jesus Christ. We are the scope. on the breastplate, we are the
holiness on the microbe of Aaron's headplate. Holiness unto the
Lord. Nothing shall change that. We have this word of encouragement,
approval. It's absolutely, I believe, absolutely So we're like that before God. But men don't see us like that. And because they don't see us
like that, then we ought to be very careful not to furnish men
of this world with any just occasion to speak manly of us, but we
should, I believe, seek by patient continuance in well-doing to
put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. And we ought
to live like we're represented before
God and shine brilliantly all the time. We ought not to be lacking in
service to God. We ought to be men of honesty
and goodwill. We ought to seek to love other
men as God has loved us. We ought to do for
other men as we would do for ourselves. We ought to be particular
in our conduct and our behavior. And I think if we understand
at least a little bit of how we are viewed by God in Christ,
that would be enough to make us want to live in such a manner
that God would be glorified in us. Well, I think that the more
we see of what we are in Christ, our High Priest, that He bears
our judgment in His heart, in His soul, in His body, His flesh,
He bears our judgment. His heart before God continues.
The more we see of this and understand of this, the better people we'll
be. The more useful we'll be. But we've got to see what we
are in Him. And that's what I'm trying to
show us here this morning. What we are in Him. Not what
we are in ourselves, but what we are in Him. see what we are
in Him, we'll see a little more difference in our lives, in our
behavior, in our conduct, if we really see what we are in
Him and believe that's what we are in Him. But I know this morning
that I'm a sinner. I know that in nature, by birth,
in nature, by practice. I'm a sinner in myself, but before
Him, I'm just I'm totally the opposite. Before Him, I'm holiness. Before Him, I'm like them sparkling
emeralds and diamonds that shine. That's the way I am before Him. If I see what I am before Him,
it'll cause a difference in my behavior and my conduct here.
It'll be an encouragement to me because I know I'm safe in
here. I can't sink as long as I'm in
Him. I can't die and suffer as long
as I'm in hell. It's all over with. I know we have shortcomings and
all that. We're bald. We're careless. We ought not to be. Well, then
he said, make that plate of pure gold and grave with that tomb holding us to
the Lord. on your head, he said, be on
Aaron's head, always, that they may be accepted before the Lord. Well, what encouragement this
is! What rest this affords his people
that our high priest is always in the presence of God for us!
Always there! He takes no vacation! He's there
day and night! always before the Lord that we
might be accepted. Now if we understand that, if
we can see that, if we quit looking at ourselves and quit trying
to standardize ourselves and conduct behavior that conforms
to our thinking and start realizing what we really are before God. We're accepted. God has accepted
us in the Lord Jesus Christ forever. And you put that on your forehead,
and it shall be there forever, that we might be accepted by
Him. You know what He said? It says
when he goes into the holy place with the names of the children
of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, he'll
do that forever. And Aaron shall bear the judgment
of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. And it
says it shall be upon Aaron's forehead that Aaron may bear
the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel
shall hallow in all their holy gifts, and it shall be always
upon his forehead, that they, the people of Israel, whom the
stones depict, that they may be accepted before the Lord, that should I, that we might
be accepted, presented by, accepted by, in Him, His holiness is ours. Oh brethren, this so sustaining truth in these
words, it shall always be on His forehead that they, may be
accepted in His Church. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Always accepted. We are the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That being so, that ought to so move us that we practically in this life
and have his mind and try to serve him the best we know. God help us. We're not here forever. We ought to give more time. God
in prayer and worship and doing for others
and in doing so glorify our great God
and Jesus Christ! His death is our life, His resurrection
is our resurrection, His life is our life, We'll meet again soon.