Alright, Exodus chapter 29. Our subject is Christ our consecration. And we begin here in verse 19. God is ceremonially hallowing
Aaron and his sons to minister unto him in the priest's office.
And he begins here in verse 19, he says, Thou shalt take the
other ram. Now you remember the bullock
that was without spot. That bullock was a sin offering.
And it pictured Christ our sin offering. He bore the sin of
his people and then he was slain and put our sin away. Then the
first ram without blemish was burnt offering. And that offering
as we saw We pictured how that Christ's perfect obedience to
God as he bore the fire of God's wrath to satisfy justice, that
perfect obedience came up to God a sweet smelling savor. And
that's our obedience to God, Christ's obedience. He says, verse 19, and thou shalt
take the other ram. This other ram is the ram of
consecration. Consecration means to fill up. We're going to see here that
their ears are filled up, their hands are filled up, their feet
are filled up, and that's what consecration means is to fill
up. It's whereby we're sanctified and consecrated to God. It's
also called a peace offering. We're not going to look completely
at all of it today. We're just going to look here
at the blood applied, but in that burnt offering, Christ gave
God the Father a sweet-smelling savor of acceptance. In this
ram of consecration, Christ gives His people the benefit of His
blood. So Christ is the ram of consecration,
and it's by His blood that we're sanctified, that we're consecrated,
and we have peace with God. Now first of all, God consecrates
us through faith in His blood. We're consecrated by Christ through
faith in His blood. We see here in verse 19, Thou
shalt take the other ram, and Aaron and his son shall put their
hands upon the head of the ram. Then thou shalt kill the ram. Now three times they put their
hands on the head of the sacrifice. And each time they did that,
it represented It represented each time they put the hand on
the head of the sacrifice, it typified whatever that sacrifice
typified. When they put their hands on
the head, their putting of their hands on the head of that ram
typified whatever that sacrifice typified. For instance, the sin
offering typified Christ putting our sin away. So the putting
of their hands on the head of that ram pictured the sins of
God's people being transferred to Christ. It's what that pictured. And then when that bullet was
slain, Because Christ bore the sin of His people, that's that
picture of Christ being slain, bearing our sin. Then the burnt
offering typified Christ making our persons accepted by His obedience. And so we saw putting the hand
on the head of the ram typified our persons being transferred.
And I'm just using that because I don't know a better way to
say it. It's Christ literally taking our place. It's Christ's
obedience being the obedience God will accept. And so this
realm of consecration now, when they put their hands on the head
of the realm, this realm, this typifies our sanctification,
our consecration, the application of that blood to us, and this
is done through faith. And so their putting their hands
on the head of that realm typifies faith in Christ. Let's read it
again, verse 19, Thou shalt take the other ram, and Aaron and
his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram, then
shalt thou kill the ram. Now God shall give each of His
children who He elected, who Christ redeemed, He shall give
each one faith in Christ. He's going to give each one faith
in Christ. He's going to give it to us effectually
so that we behold the efficacy of Christ's blood. Now, a sinner
begins to hear the gospel and he begins to behold and hear
about Christ, about what Christ has accomplished, about what
Christ has done. And the Spirit of God causes
him to behold that something was done for him personally.
He begins to see that blood was personally shed for him. He sees Christ personally dying
for him. He sees that blood personally
being shed for him. And as he beholds that and sees
that by Christ's blood his sin really has been put away, it
purges his conscience. It purges our conscience so that
we realize Our sin has been, it's gone. Before God, before
where it matters, our sin is put away. And as he beholds Christ
and he beholds that burnt offering and that obedience of Christ
by whom we're accepted and we come up a sweet savor unto God,
he begins to realize that there's no more offering for sin, there's
no more works for him to do to have acceptance with God. He's
purged, his conscience is cleansed and so he ceases from doing works
trying to make himself righteous before God. And this is what
Peter described this way. He described it as the believer
purifying their heart by faith. And you know God does the purifying,
but it's beholding the blood. It's beholding the blood, the
Spirit of God making us behold the blood through faith that
our hearts are purified so that we stop trying to offer sacrifices
to God and we behold Christ is all. Christ is all. That's what we have pictured
here. You get the picture here. They put their hands on the head
of the ram. A picture of a believer's been
given faith and he begins to behold and hear the gospel. And when they put their hands
on the head of that sacrifice, then that sacrifice was slain.
And they beheld that sacrifice was slain for me. And they saw
the blood spilled out and they began to see that blood was spilled
out for me. This is what we have here. So, I want you to understand
this. If you've never believed on Christ,
I want you to get this. Christ's blood was shed for a
reason. God set him forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood. Christ is a mercy seat. He is
a place where God will meet with His people in mercy through faith
in what Christ has accomplished, through faith in Christ's blood.
Christ is the realm of consecration. He is the realm whose blood sanctifies
and purifies the heart. Christian Scripture says Jesus
also that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered
without the gate. He washes us with the Word and
He is our sin offering. He makes us see He is our sin
offering who put away our sin. He is our burnt offering who
is our obedience and He is our consecration who sanctifies us.
So I say to you who believe and to you who haven't believed on
Him, behold the blood. Look to the blood. Look to the
blood of Christ. When God sees the blood, He passes
over His people. And when He makes us see the
blood, our conscience is purged and for the first time in our
life, we can be honest with God. He's already dealt with us. We're
not fooling God by trying to act like we're righteous and
act like we're something we're not. He purges your conscience
to realize that. He's already dealt with you over
2,000 years ago at the cross. He's just now letting you know
about it. And He shows you that your sins are put away. When
He does this now, you can worship God and serve God and serve His
people because you really want to. You're not just putting on
a show, now you really want to. And this is through faith in
His blood. Now secondly, we see a little
bit more of this. This is all because Christ's
blood is applied, making our whole bodies to be separated
and consecrated for God's use as God's priests. When this happens,
the blood's applied and so every part of our body is separated
and sanctified for God's use. A sinner beholds he's not his
own anymore. He beholds I'm God's. I'm God. And that's what's pictured here.
Look at verse 20. Then shalt thou kill the ram and take of
his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron
and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons. Now by the blood
of Christ, God sanctifies our ear. He sanctifies our ear. He sanctifies us so we can hear
to begin with. But then once He makes us to
hear, He sanctifies our ear so that we delight in one message. We delight in the message of
Christ and Him crucified. We don't want to hear anymore
a message that's blaspheming our Redeemer, that's making His
blood common, that's saying He died for everybody but He didn't
accomplish anything. We don't want to hear that anymore.
Why? God sanctified our ear. And we don't want to hear God's
name taken in vain either. Because God has sanctified our
ear. Verse 20, And upon the thumb of their right hand, When the
Spirit of God applies the blood of Christ, He separates our hand. First of all, spiritually, He
separates our hand of faith to lay hold of Christ. But then
once we've believed on Christ, He sanctifies our hands for His
use, to be used for God, physically. He separates us and uses our
hands. He gives you gifts so that you
can use your hands to do things for his cause, to spread the
gospel, to help with the brethren. When we built or remodeled this
building and there was something Somebody knew how to do everything
that needed to be done here. That was not by accident. And
the willingness to want to do it wasn't by accident. That was
by God sanctifying the hand and gifting His people to do those
things and giving them the heart to want to do it. See, this thing
is real. This sanctifying blood of Christ
works in His people. It works in His people. He gives
you the strength to do what He would have you to do. And then
verse 20, He says, and upon the great toe of their right foot,
He sanctifies our feet by the blood of Christ. Now our feet,
before our feet were swift to shed innocent blood. We were
sinners. We were running from one mischief
to the next mischief. We were just looking to satisfy
the lusts of our flesh. Now our feet are shod with the
preparation of the gospel. So we run on God's errands of
mercy. doing what God would have us
to do. Now most of you who are made priests under God, you use
these ears and hands and feet for secular employment. But here's
the difference. You used to, before he applied
this blood, you went to your jobs for you. Just you. The preeminent cause that you
go to your employment is so you can promote the gospel. And so
you can be ready to, as our brother Scott read, to communicate to
the pastors that are preaching the gospel, to your brethren
who need help. You have that with which to communicate. It's not for you anymore, it's
for Christ. That's what this blood does.
Now, notice, this is very important, the same blood that sanctifies
us within, sanctifies us before God. It says there in verse 20,
and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. Sprinkle it
upon the altar. This is God's part right here.
This blood of Christ applied to you and I, his priest, is
also offered to God. Now this is important. The blood
upon the altar being the same blood that's applied to the priests,
same lamb, same ram, same blood applied to the altar, applied
to the priest, that shows us that God's priests, you and I
who are made priests unto God, we're sanctified personally and
we're sanctified before God. Both. before God and personally,
and it's one way, one blood, the blood of Christ. Christ's
sin atoning blood before God, that blood that justified us,
that blood that made us righteous and obedient to God, is the blood
that purges our conscience within. Now you can guess where I'm going
to go. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. You know you can't go through
Exodus and Leviticus without going through Hebrews 10. You
know the first book I preached through was Hebrews and when
we preached through Hebrews we wore out Exodus and Leviticus
going back to them. So with Exodus and Leviticus
we go to Hebrews. But look here you can see it
in Hebrews 9 He talks there about the verse
12, let me see, verse 13, ìIf the blood of bulls and goats,
the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the
purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot
to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God?î Then he says here, he shows us here in verse, Hebrews
9, And he says, without the shedding of blood is no remission, and
he says, 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 you see, he entered in, look, verse 25, not yet that he should
offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy
place to every year with the blood of others, for then must
he have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. And so here you have the blood
purging the conscience, and you have the blood in God's presence. Look here in Hebrews 10. The
law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of
the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered
year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. That word's important, perfect.
That means complete before God, before God's altar, perfect. Look now, for then would they
not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers
once purged, once they beheld that before the altar, if that
altar, that blood on that altar really made them perfect with
God, then it says they would have had no more conscience of
sin. It would have purged their conscience. You get what I'm
saying? That blood on the altar pictures
Christ's blood in God's presence, and the blood applied pictures
Christ's blood in our conscience. It's one blood, it does two works,
two things in two different places. It expiates sin before God's
altar and it purges sin in our conscience. Now look here, verse
3, but in those sacrifices there's a remembrance again made of sins
every year. That's what they were for. We
come here to hear about how our sins are put away. and our conscience
is purged and we don't have any remembrance of sin anymore. It's
gone. They came to worship to remember
they still had sin. For it's not possible that the
blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, when Christ came, he said, Sacrifice
an offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared
me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, that's what we're seeing in our text. He said, thou hast
had no pleasure. You had no pleasure. They didn't
satisfy God. That blood put on the altar didn't
satisfy God. Then said I, lo, I come. In the
volume of the book, in Exodus, that you're sitting there reading
about right now and having preached to you. That's written of me,
Christ said. Look here. Lo, I come to do thy
will, O God. And so, he says there, verse
9, he takes away that first covenant of law that he may establish
the second covenant of grace. Now read verse 7 again. Take
out the parenthesis. Then said I, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God, verse 10, by the which will we're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Look down at verse 12. This man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected, he made complete
forever, them that are sanctified, them that are consecrated, them
in whom this blood is applied. Do you get what I'm saying there?
He perfected us forever before God, in God's presence. That's
the blood on the altar. and that blood is the same blood
that purges our conscience. Look at the very next verse in
Hebrews 10. He says, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness
to us in our heart, purging our conscience. After that, He said
before, this is a covenant I'll make with them after those days,
saith the Lord. I'll put my laws into their heart. Are you seeing
what laws He puts in our heart? He puts the word of the sin offering,
and the word of the burn offering, and the word of the ram of consecration. He's putting all these laws in
our heart, make us see this all pointed to Christ. It all spoke
of Christ. And in their minds I'll write
them, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more, because
the blood's been poured out at the altar. We're perfect before
God. Now, where remission of these
is? We don't offer anything for sin either, because the conscience
has been purged. You see the two-fold use of that
blood? All right, now, go back to our text, Exodus 29. Now, I could have preached through
the end of this chapter, because it all goes together. But I wanted
to keep it simple, and I just wanted to show you these three
things. But now, here's this third thing
I want you to see. First of all, it's through faith.
This thing's through faith. They put their hands on the head
of the ram, then they saw that ram slain for them, they saw
the blood spilled for them, and then it's that blood that makes
us perfect before God and it purges our conscience within.
Now, the blood of Christ applied by the Holy Spirit is our holiness. This is holiness. This is the
beauty that hallows us to God. Look here, verse 21. And thou
shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, there's that
justifying blood before God, and of the anointing oil, there's
the Holy Spirit of God, that's how this is applied when the
Spirit of Christ enters in, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and His
garments, and upon His sons, upon the garments of His sons
with Him. There it is, that same blood
that was offered to God is applied by the Holy Spirit to us. It's
put all over us. And here's what it accomplishes.
And He shall be hallowed. He shall be holy. He shall be
consecrated to God. And His garments, and His sons,
and His sons' garments with Him. Now you get the scene. I want
you to get the scene here. Here these priests stand and
Moses takes this blood from the altar and he comes to them and
he takes the holy oil and he covers them. I mean he sprinkles
them with this blood and this oil all over their garments,
all over them. Think about how stained they
were. Blood all over them, oil all
over them, And here they are stained, their garments totally
stained. And God says, this is how you
are snow white before me. This is how you're perfectly
holy before me. Here it is. Listen to Revelation
7 verse 14. John saw those standing there
that had their garments white, what garments on, and he didn't
know who they were. And the angel said to me, these
are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. You ever
think about that? They made their robes white,
holy, perfect before God. How? By being completely stained
in the blood of the Lamb. That's the picture we have there.
Here's what it means. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power in the beauties of holiness. Naturally, I would
stand there and look at them. spotted in blood, spotted in
oil, and they would say, man, they just ruined those beautiful
garments. They just stained completely. But anybody that's got spiritual
eyes looks at that and sees, oh, that's beautiful. That's
holiness. That's the beauty of holiness
right there. That's how we're made holy before God. Now lastly,
I want you to hear how the New Testament speaks of this. I want
this to be plain. I want you to see how the New
Testament speaks. Turn to Galatians with me. Galatians chapter 2. Aaron and his sons, now here
they stand. They're marked with symbols of
death and symbols of life. Think about that now. They're
standing there, they have blood all over them, that's the symbol
of death. They died. They died in that lamb. And they're
standing there in oil. The spirit of God, the life of
God. So they're standing there in
these symbols that picture life and they picture death. So they
typically, ceremonially, they died, and yet they live. And here it is, right here, Galatians
2.20. Paul says, I'm crucified with Christ. I am crucified with
Christ. I'm dead. You see that verse
19 tells you what it means. I through the law am dead to
the law. I'm dead. I am crucified with
Christ. Verse 20, nevertheless, I live. Yet not I. I didn't do this.
My flesh had nothing to do with this. How is it you live? Christ
liveth in me. There's the oil. The blood I've
crucified with Christ. Here's the oil. Christ liveth
in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
of God. I live, yes, by faith in Him,
but I live by His faithfulness moving me, directing me, keeping
me cleansed, keeping me purged, keeping me looking to Him, keeping
me strengthened by His grace. Him who loved me and gave Himself
for me. He gave Himself for me. We've
died with Christ, but we arose with Christ. And therefore, by
the Spirit of Christ within us, we're made new creatures. God
has made us put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness. We've been made partakers of
Christ's resurrection, of his life, and now we go forth doing
his will by his strength. That's how you made a priest
son of God and the result of being made a priest. Turn with
me to Romans chapter Romans chapter 10. No, I'm sorry,
Romans chapter 12. So now, when this work's done,
listen to me. Here's your new heart. This is
your new desire. Now, we don't always succeed
in this, because here's the thing about our consecration. Before
God is perfect. We're perfectly holy before God.
But because we have a sin nature with us, our consecration's not
perfect in us. We mess up. But here's our desire,
and this is gonna be the tenor of our walk, and this is our
chief preeminent desire, that whether we eat or drink, Whatever
we do in our new heart, our desire is to do all to the glory of
God, is to follow our Master fully, is to serve Him wholly. We have a new outlook. Our bodies
are not our own. They've been totally washed in
the blood and Christ abides in us now. And so this is what will
make you when you become hard hearted and your sins dominating
you and your sin nature is dominating you. How, first of all, how is
Christ going to make your brethren bear that burden that you are
going through? How is he going to make them not break out the whip of the
law on you? How is he going to make them pray for you and point
you to Christ and wait on God to work in you? How are they
going to be made to do that? They're going to be consecrated
by this blood and cleansed by this blood. And so their conscience
is purged within so that they see it's all by the blood. And
how are you going to be turned from that hard heartedness so
that you'll begin to show mercy and be gracious and be forgiving?
God's going to have to purge your conscience and make you
see this blood and purge your conscience. You see, we're made
holy. That's done. And it's a continual
process of God continually keeping us, our conscience purged, and
continually keeping us looking to Christ only, because we defile
ourselves with our flesh every day. And so He continually keeps
us looking to Him. And so here's our new desire,
Romans 12, verse 1. Paul said, I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, We could say by these mercies
of God we've been looking at this morning. By these very mercies
we've been looking at. That you present your bodies.
There he is, aren't they? He covered the whole body. There
he is. That you present your bodies
a living sacrifice. We're alive now. We're dead before
the law, but we're alive to God. A living sacrifice. Holy. Made holy by Christ. consecrated
by Christ, acceptable unto God by Christ our burnt offering.
He made us accepted, which is reasonable service, isn't it?
He did it all. He did everything. It's not like
he's asking us to, when he says for you to bear your brother's
burden, it's not like he's asking us to be crucified for him. He
already did that. He's saying to you and me, just
put up with him. Till I come and work grace in
him, just put up with him. That's like needs a yoke, isn't
it? That's reasonable, isn't it? I pray God will bless that,
brethren. I want to keep it simple and
I hope it was. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious Father, we thank
you that you give your simple children simple pictures Help
us to understand these profound works that you do in your people. Lord, thank you for making us
behold Christ and behold the blood and making us know that
everything is accomplished through your darling son. Lord, make us to see that these
things that we get so carried away with in this life are just
not important. Make us lay aside our differences,
make us lay aside things that divide us and the things we get
carried away in this world and running after. Lord, take this
blood of Christ and make us purge our conscience and make us wholly
consecrated to You, wholly devoted to You. Make us see, Lord, that
when we think we're separated and we think we're holy and yet
we're looking down on somebody who's outwardly not walking as
we think they ought to walk, we need to be consecrated in
our own heart. And Lord, consecrate it. Make
us not look down on our brethren and make us look up to Christ. If we're looking up to Christ,
we can't look down on our brethren. And Lord, keep us looking to
Him. Keep us looking to Him and away from our flesh and away
from our brethren's flesh. Lord, this is what we utterly
depend on You to sanctify us, to separate us from ourselves,
separate us from our flesh, separate us from this world. Keep us in
Christ. And Lord, by this word, we thank
You that You make worship a delight. Now we can worship you. Now we
can serve you. Now we have a heart where we
want to do it. We thank you for that. We thank
you for that. You've taken religion and made
it cease being a chore to us and a burden to us and made it
a delight to us. Lord, bless us now with these
words and bless us with this blood. We ask it in the name
of our most holy, glorious, perfect redeemer, Christ Jesus, your
son. Amen. For my God eternally So I'll trust my God and Savior
Though my joy is mixed with pain He is worthy, worthy ever That
in me His peace should reign Faith in such a great Redeemer Christ is near.