Let's turn to Exodus chapter
28. Exodus 28. We read down in verse 30. It says,
Thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and 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 we've been seeing how the
high priest and his garments picture Christ. And today we're
looking at the Urim and Thummim, or Urim and Thummim. These things
are kind of mysterious. Nobody really knows what they
look like. We're not told in Scripture.
This is only mentioned five times in Scripture, this being one
of them. But we do see here that they
were put in the breastplate of judgment along with the twelve
names of the children of Israel. And then we see that they were
upon the high priest's heart. that tells us that what the Urim
and Thummim are, that's what Christ's heart is. And then we
see here that Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children
of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. It was
by Urim and Thummim that the high priest went in to God and
represented the children of Israel to God so that he was received
and he got judgment from God, he got discernment and direction
from God to give to the children of Israel. Now Urim means perfections
and Thummim means, I'm sorry, Urim means lights and Thummim
means perfections. Christ is, in His heart, the
light and the perfection of His people. And it's only by Christ
that He goes into God in the holy place and He bears the judgment,
the verdict on His heart. He's the verdict before God so
that God accepts Him and accepts us in Him, His people. And then
He's the He is the one who gets direction and discernment from
God and gives to his people. Now, look over at Numbers 27.
I'll show you an example of this. In Numbers 27, Joshua, who's
leading the people, He was required to follow the direction of God's
priests. And God's priests sought counsel
from God by Urim. Look here in Numbers 27-21. And he shall stand before Eleazar
the priest. Joshua had to go to Eleazar the
priest, who shall ask counsel for him. Eleazar the priest went
in to the Lord and asked counsel for him after the judgment of
Urim. That means lights. And it may
be that he doesn't say Thummim here because perfection was not
accomplished by the Levitical priesthood. So he went in to
get the sermon by Urim which is the lights. And it says, and
at his word, at the word of the priest shall they go out and
at his word shall they come in. Both he and all the children
of Israel with him, even all the congregation. So whatever
the priest received from God, that's what he gave to Joshua.
And at his word, they went out and came in. They did whatever
they did at the high priest's word. Now Christ is our high
priest with whom is Urim and Thummim, lights and perfections. I want to show you that as my
first point, that He is the lights and perfections of His people. And then I want to show you that
it's by Christ bearing judgment for His people upon His heart
that we're directed, we're received and directed in this life. Now
first I want to show you Christ is Urim and Thummim. He's lights
and perfections for His people. And then secondly I'll show you
that by Him bearing our judgment, our verdict in God's presence
that God receives us and then God sends us direction from Christ. First of all, Christ is the true
Urim and Thummim. He's the lights and perfections
of His people. Let me show you this clearly
in the scripture. Go to Deuteronomy 33 and look at verse 8. of Levi, he said, Let thy Thummim
and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at
Massa, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah. There's only one Holy One. We
know that's Christ. Look over at Psalm 95. Who was
it that was proven and strived against
in the wilderness. Look at Psalm 95 and look at
verse 7. It says He's our God. We are the sheep
of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will
hear His voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation and
as in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers
tempted me and proved me and saw my work. You see, that's
who was proven in the wilderness. It was Christ. He's the Holy
One. and He's the one with whom is
Urim and Thummim, lights and perfection. All light and perfection
is found only in Christ because it pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell. So all fullness of light, all
fullness of perfection is in Him. Scripture says in Christ
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now let's
look first at the Urim. Christ is the Urim. He's the
light in whom all light is found and from whom all light comes.
Christ is the light and from Him all light shines. Now you think about the old creation.
God pictured this whenever He created the heavens and the earth. For four days the sun was the
only light that shined. For four days. In the new creation,
the only son that gives light is the son of righteousness,
Christ Jesus the Lord. What kind of light does he give?
Well, natural light comes from him. All natural light comes
from the light that we're born with so that we can think and
learn and whatever. That comes from Christ. John
chapter 1. He's talking there about Christ
being the Word and about Christ being the Creator. He says, all
things were made by Him. Without Him was not anything
made that was made. In Him was life. And the life
was the light of men. The light of men. Then at verse
9 he says, that was the true light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. Now you can't be saved by your
natural light. It's nothing compared to what
Adam had before the fall. So we can't be saved by our natural
light, but this natural light Christ gives is enough to make
us without excuse for not believing Him. He said in Romans 1.20,
the invisible things of God, the things we can't see about
God are clearly seen from the things that are made. We can
see God by the things He's made and learn something about God
from the things He's made. Being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power, we know He's eternal because
these things were created. That means He came before them.
And we see His power and His Godhead in that He created all
things and upholds all things so that they are without excuse.
We have no excuse for not believing on God. But we need the light
of grace to come from Christ to make us see, to make us believe. We don't have any light in us
by nature. We're blind. We can't see anything. We cannot understand the scriptures
or anything. So Christ must give us light. When He gives you light, that's
the first time you see your lost condition. Men won't, they will
not stop defending themselves until God makes men to see their
lost condition. And then you see that you're
ruined. You're totally ruined. You're
in sin. You're guilty. There's nothing
you can do about it. And then Christ shines a light
and makes us see the necessity of a Redeemer. We had to have
somebody come and honor God's law on our behalf. We had to
have somebody that could go between God and His people and bring
us into unity together. It takes light to see this. And
then once we behold the Redeemer, then we see that all fullness
for our salvation is in Him. All this light comes from Christ,
every bit of it. The redeemed of the Lord are
made children of light. That's what scripture calls us.
And it's by Christ giving us light. Remember he said, I'm
the light. Them that follow me, they will
not walk in darkness. When he's made you to follow
him, you're going to have light. You're going to understand some
spiritual things by his light. The light to behold the perfections
of God is seen in Christ. Everything about God is perfect.
We're talking about Urim which is lights and Thummim which is
perfections. We see the lights and perfections
of God in Christ the light. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. That means when you see the Lord
Jesus Christ, this one spoken of in the scriptures, when you
see Him by faith, You're beholding God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. He's the fullness of the Godhead.
We see the brightness of the Father's glory in Christ. He's
the express image of His person. We see the wisdom of God in salvation
by Christ and from Christ. How could God kill me and save
me? How could He kill me and honor
His law and save me, showing me mercy? He had to come. And He had to fulfill the law
Himself. And by Him justifying me, God's both just and the justifier. That's wisdom. We see when we
behold Christ, we see in Him the exceeding riches of God's
mercy and His love. We see His grace in Christ. God
sent His only begotten Son. The love of His heart. God sent
Him to die in place of His people. Just imagine Him trying to give
your child for a bunch of rebels. The child you love to give for
a bunch of rebels. That's what God did. We see His
grace in that. We see His love in that. His
mercy in that. And we see in God how that He
made that mercy and that truth meet in harmony. How He is just
and the justifier. It's in Christ. All fullness
is in Christ. Now, think about this. It's impossible to see the sun
except by the light of the sun. At night it's dark. We can't
see the light of the sun. The sun's not shining. It's impossible
to see the light of the sun except by the light of the sun. And
it's impossible to see it by any other light. There's no other
light that can make you see the sun. There's not another light
that you can shine on that light and make you see it. It takes
that light to see that light. And so that's Christ. Scripture
says, In thy light we shall see light. All light is from Him
and all light is in Him. In Him is all the light and from
Him is all the light. It's only by Him that we see. When He gives you light, that's
when you see and understand the Scriptures. You understand the
Bible for the first time when he gives you some light. Before
the end, this book is a closed book. It's just, I can remember
trying to read it when I had no spiritual discernment and
most people pick it up and try to read it like you do any other
book. They start at the beginning and try to read through it. When
they get to the baguettes, they quit. This book is not read like
any other book. Some of the books are aligned
in here that came And chronologically, they came before some other books
that are put before them in the Bible. It's not all in chronological
order. So you don't read this book like
you read any other book. David, he knew this. He knew
that light has to come from Christ for him to be able to see. He
said, open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things
out of thy word. I need God to open my eyes to
see all the wondrous things of Christ out of His Word. And then,
when we leave this world, the light of heaven will be Christ.
He'll be the Urim of heaven. This world is full of sin, and
that's why it causes us much darkness. In Scripture, it's
compared to darkness, the world is. And because of sin, we have
a lot of darkness. But when we get to glory, there
won't be any sin. Just light. Just light. Listen to this. Revelation 21-23
says, The city, talking about heavenly Jerusalem, The city
had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it. For
the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof. Christ is the light of glory. He's the light of heaven. Isaiah
60 verse 19 speaks of a believer when Christ is, when the day
star has dawned in your heart, the scripture calls it. It says,
Isaiah 60 verse 19, the sun shall be no more thy light by day,
neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee,
but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy
God shall be thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. For the Lord shall be
thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall
be ended. That's going to be in heaven.
Christ will be our everlasting light. Now, He's the Thummim
as well. He's perfections. All perfections
are in and by Christ. He's the perfection of God. He's
divine perfection. Everything is in God. He's perfect,
omnipotent power. That's what we're going to see
in our second hour. We're going to see the Lordship of Christ.
He has perfect, omnipotent power. Power over everything and everybody. When a king's heart is turned
and he decides to go against the counsel of his counselors,
Scripture says Christ turned his heart. and he turns it whichever
way he will. He's omnipotent power. Christ
is perfect omniscience. That means he knows our heart.
Peter said, Lord, you know all things. You know my heart. He
knows your heart right now and he knows my heart. He knows the
believer's heart. He knows the unbeliever's heart. That's a joy for a believer.
That's terrifying for an unbeliever. For us, it's a joy because A
lot of times you can't see what's in our heart by looking at what's
in our outward actions. But God knows our heart. But
for the unbeliever that's terrifying because he knows every sinful
thought. He knows that God's not in your
thoughts. He knows that. Christ is perfect
omnipresence. He said where two or three are
gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. How can
he be there and be at God's right hand at the same time? He's omnipresent
God. He's perfect immutability. He's Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever. His righteousness never changes. He never loves somebody today
and hates them tomorrow. He has everlasting love for his
people. So you see the perfections of
God when you look at Christ. And then Christ is the perfection
of all the gifts of grace that God gives us. You know, scripture
says it must be perfect to be accepted of God. We need perfection. We have to have perfection to
stand in God's presence. Scripture says thou hast ascended
on high, thou hast led captivity captive. All the captives that
led us into captivity, Christ has taken captive now. everything
that led his people into captivity, sin, death, hell, the law, all
those things, Christ is taken into captivity. And it says,
blessed be the Lord who daily loatheth us with benefits, even
the God of our salvation. He that is our God is the God
of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. How are we going to be saved?
We've got to have perfect justification from all our sin. You're going
to find that in our works? No. Perfection of justification
is in and by Christ Jesus. We need a perfection of redemption. We need to be completely, totally
brought out from the law. We need to be brought out from
our sinful flesh. And one day we need to be brought
out from this world. Christ is perfect redemption.
We need perfect holiness. We need perfect sanctification.
That holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. We're
not going to be able to work that out. Christ is perfect sanctification
to his people. He's made unto us sanctification. He sanctified himself that he
might sanctify his people. He's our sanctification. We need
a perfection of preservation. I need to be perfectly preserved.
I don't want God to just preserve me a little bit. I need Him to
preserve me from the beginning to the end. To keep me believing
on Him. Keep me trusting Him. And Christ
is perfect preservation. One day, Christ is going to be
perfect glorification. We are not going to have anything
to do with raising our dead bodies to be with Him in glory forever.
How is that going to happen? Christ is the perfection of glorification. It's all in Him. So the Urim,
the Lights, and the Thummim, the Perfections, is Christ. Everything is of Him and by Him. Now secondly, you'll like this
part too. It says back in our text in verse
30, this Urim and Thummim was in the breastplate of judgment.
And it says there, 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. Now Christ carries our judgment
in his heart. What his heart is, is the verdict
for us and it's the discernment for us. He's able to go into
God's holy presence and God see him as perfect and see us as
perfect in him. The verdict's been passed. We're
justified, we're righteous, we're perfect. The sentence has been
passed and Christ stands there in God's presence and he's that
perfect verdict before God. But not only that, he gets direction
from God and gives it to his people. Teaches us what to do
in everything you do. He's teaching his people what
to do. He obtained eternal redemption
with His own blood, justifying us from all sin. And then He
entered in and He took possession of heaven. Scripture says He's
the forerunner that has for us entered. And He's a witness to
us that we're going to enter. He went in before us, the forerunner,
to let us know we're going to enter there too one day. But
He stands there in the presence of God as the final verdict for
His people, bearing the judgment for His people. By His blood,
by His wounded hands, by His wounded side and feet, He is,
by His blood, He is the perfection that God receives and accepts.
And so God receives His people in Him. And then, brethren, God
gives you discernment from Christ. He bears the judgment of discernment
bringing us direction continually. At the beginning, we saw there
in Numbers 27, it said by Urim, God gave direction to his people
through the high priest. He told Joshua, you stand before
Eleazar the priest. What do we do when we're praying?
We're standing before Jesus Christ, the high priest. We're calling
on him. That's why we pray in his name.
We're not just tacking on a religious phrase when we say that we pray
in His name. We're coming to God by Him. We
stand before Christ, the High Priest, and it says, and He shall
ask counsel for you after the judgment of Urim before the Lord. He goes into the Lord and intercedes
for His people and asks counsel of God. And at His Word, that's
what, at His Word, He's able to move the heart, He's able
to cause you to, you don't hear an audible voice, you hear Him
in the heart. Through the preaching of the
Gospel, and in your conscience, you hear the Lord speak. And at His Word, you go in and
come out. You go here or there, or wherever
He would have you to go, you do it at His Word. If you don't
know what to do, don't do anything. Don't do anything until you have
a word from Christ on what you should do. Because He's the one
who gives direction. He does it. You know, only the
priests could go in and ask counsel in the sanctuary. The sanctuary
is the holy place. That's why we don't call this
room a sanctuary. Sanctuary is the holy place.
Only Christ, who is God, could go in to God's presence in the
holiest of holies and seek counsel for His people. We can't go in
there without Christ. Only Christ can enter in there
and be received. God's direction and His blessing
was sought and given by Urim and Thummim, by the lights and
perfections. The high priest has the judgment
on his heart and it was only by the judgment of the verdict,
the judgment of his discernment that this counsel was given.
We don't have that by nature. That's why we can't go in and
ask counsel of God apart from Christ. And then another thing
to notice is this, counsel was sought for and given to the children
of Israel only. Christ is at God's right hand
interceding only for God's elect. That's who the true children
of Israel are. Some are Jews, some are Gentiles, but they're
all those God chose from before the foundation of the world by
free grace. That's who Christ is interceding
for. His elect. And the one last thing
we see is this. If Joshua was going to get this
counsel, get this direction, and be represented perfectly
before God, he had to come and stand before the priest. That's where he had to come to. You have to come. If you want
to be received of God, you have to come and stand, bow down before
Christ Jesus the Great High Priest. There is no acceptance with God
any other way. No other way. If you want direction,
if you want to know direction as a believer, You have to come
to Christ. Seek God's counsel through Christ
Jesus the High Priest. There's no other way. There's
no other way. And once you've believed on Him,
once you trust Christ by His grace, you trust Christ to lead
you and direct you the entire way in everything. In everything. If you have the counsel and the
heart and realize that you have the desire and the willingness
and the understanding so that you see I need Christ and I'm
going to go to Christ. If you have that, you know who
gave you that counsel? Christ did. He gave you that
life. If you come to Him and you cast
all your care on Him, and you have peace in your heart, peace
in believing, your conscience is purged from dead works, so
you know now you don't have to keep doing those dead works to
be accepted of God, you are accepted of God. If you come to Christ
and find that out, it's going to be because Christ gave you
that understanding. He's the light, and from Him
comes all light. And so every bit of direction
that we seek, all the days of faith, we seek it through Christ
Jesus our high priest. Direction in spiritual and eternal
matters, we get it from Christ. Direction from temporal earthly
matters, we get it from Christ. Direction for family matters,
we get it from Christ. Christ is our Urim and our Thummim. All right, brethren, let's take
a short break.