Okay, turn with me again to Exodus
chapter 28, if you would. We're looking at the garments
of Aaron, the high priest, and he was the high priest that God
chose among the people of Israel. Last week, we pointed out how
that the garments of Aaron were for glory and for beauty, according
to verse two. And that simply pictures what
Christ, our high priest is to the believer and what he is our
substitute makes us in Christ. Every believer is for glory and
for beauty. And it's interesting that the
number of the garments of the high priest were seven in number. As you know, seven is the number
of perfection or completion. There was the ephod that we looked
at last week, the girdle, the robe, the broadered coat. the miter, the golden crown,
and the chief and the most costly of all the high priest garments
is called the breastplate, and that's what we'll look at tonight. All the garments of the high
priest were actually the background for this centerpiece that pointed
to the very heart of Christ himself, and I think that we'll clearly
see that, and that'll be our subject, the breastplate. As
we've already mentioned, every piece of the high priest garments
typify the Lord Jesus, our great high priest. In verses 15 through
30, I won't take the time to read each verse, but God gives
instructions to Moses concerning this centerpiece of the high
priest dress called, in verse 15, it's called the breastplate
of judgment. Look at verse 15, and thou shalt
make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work. After the
work of the ephod, thou shalt make it of gold, of blue, and
of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen shalt thou
make it. We looked at the ephod last week,
which is basically the beginning of the priest uniform, for lack
of a better word. And we looked at its apron and
its shoulder pieces, and the girdle that went around the waist. Before services tonight, I gave
each of you an artist's rendition of the breastplate. I think it'll
be helpful to see what the words here describe. And it's upon
the ephod that this breastplate of judgment would be fastened. If you recall, and you can see
from the picture, the shoulder pieces of the ephod had two large
onyx stones on each side. You probably see those there.
They had to be fairly large in size in order to engrave or inscribe
six names on each one. And then under the two stones
were what the scriptures call ouches. They were just simply
gold settings. You can see that the onyx stones
there are in a gold setting, pure gold. And then under that
were pure gold chains twisted like a rope. that attached them
to the top of the breastplate with two golden ring, as described
in verse 14 and also seen in our picture. And these twisted
golden chains attached the ouches or the settings for those onyx
stones. And they would come down and
they pass through the loop of those golden rings on the breastplate
on both the left and the right side of the top of the breastplate. Now the breastplate in verse
16 is said to be four score, or in other words, a perfect
square. It says in verse 16, a span wide
and a span high. The best I can tell in looking
at this, that's about nine inches, nine to 10 inches. And it's also
said to be doubled, it actually doubled in thickness. And that
was to give it strength and order to hold these 12 stones. Now, a span is measured by human
hand from the tip of the thumb to the end of the little finger
outstretched. is considered a span. I measured
mine today, it was actually nine inches. I have maybe bigger hands
than some of you, but around nine inches. It's said to be
half a cubit, and a cubit is based on the length from the
elbow to the tip of the middle finger, which is about 18 inches.
The breastplate was basically nine to 10 inch square. And you
can see from the picture, and it's said that it was made of
cunning work after the work of the ephod. In other words, it
was made similar to the way the ephod was made, and it was made
in the colors of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet, a fine twine
linen. And just as we've seen in the
curtains in the tabernacle, along with the ephod itself, and now
in the breastplate, these colors beautifully represent Christ,
our heavenly high priest. Blue representing his heavenly
righteousness, and gold representing his godly deity, purple representing
our Lord's royalty as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords,
and scarlet representing the precious blood of our Lord and
Savior. Now, according to verse 17, upon
this breastplate, this nine to 10 inch square, were four rows
of settings of stone, three stones in each row. And in each gem
was engraved the name of one of the sons of Jacob, who was
later called Israel. And each of the sons of Jacob
represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Look at verse 17 again. And thou
shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones. The first row shall be a sardius,
a topaz, and a carbuncle, and this shall be the first row.
Verse 18, in the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and
a diamond. In the third row, a ligure, is
the way I believe that's pronounced, and an agate, and an amethyst. In the fourth row, that's pronounced
barrel, and an onyx, and a jasper. They shall be set in gold in
their enclosures. And you can see from the picture,
that's pretty much what is described here. Now these stones, as you
see from our picture, have those golden ouches or those golden
settings also. And look at verse 21. And the
stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, 12
according to their names, like the engravings of a signet. Every
one with his name shall be according to the 12 tribes. And then in
verses 20 through 27, describe the gold chains and the rings
that attach to the breastplate to the two onyx stones at the
top that we've already discussed. So we won't look at those again.
But then in verse 28, we see that there were also two rings
of gold at the bottom of the breastplate on the left and on
the right. Now they're a little hard to see in your picture,
but if you look close, you can see them. There are no chains
at the bottom, but there's a blue lace there. Look at verse 28
again. And they shall bind the breastplate
by the rings thereof and to 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 effet." When
it's talking about blue lace here, it's not like the lace
that you would see on a fancy tablecloth, but more like a shoelace. It was a lace of blue linen woven
and attached to the girdle of the effet. And the whole purpose
of this was to hold firmly into place this breastplate. is to hold it firmly over the
heart of the high priest. And these laces held the breastplate
firmly to the 12 stones and also the two onyx stones on the priest's
shoulders. No matter what the priest did,
they didn't move. They just held them very tightly,
whether standing or bowing or bending over, walking. No matter
what the high priest did, these names attached to the breastplate
never moved. and they stayed right over the
high priest's heart, as did the names of the 12 tribes upon the
high priest's shoulder. This is the picture. You probably
already see it. Christ, our great high priest,
he carries his people on his shoulders, and he continually
has them on his heart. That's what this is a picture
of. Now, I wanna ask you just a few questions as we discuss
this, but what was the breastplate's significance? It's called the
breastplate of judgment. There's a reason for that. It's
not called the breastplate of judgment because the high priest
wore it to judge over the people of Israel. That wasn't why it
was called that. It was called the breastplate
of judgment because the high priest who wore it, his business
was to provide a sacrifice that would appease an angry God. That
was the whole purpose of the high priest. He took that sacrifice
into the Holy of Holies to present it to God, who's, by the way,
angry with the wicked every day. And that's the office of a high
priest. He's a mediator. The high priest
was to offer a sacrifice to a holy God that the 12 tribes of Israel
had offered. Now, what a picture this paints
for us and of us. On the heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ, he bears the name of his elect. They are there on
his shoulders and on his heart. And I love to think about that.
We talked in great detail last time about how the Lord carries
His people on His shoulder, and I'm so glad that He does. They
are on this breastplate of judgment because under God's strict justice,
and it's unbending and inflexible justice, they deserve nothing
but God's wrath and God's righteous judgment. That's what we all
deserve. We've all come short of the glory of God. We've all
offended God. Our sin is against Him and Him
only. And that's why Christ was appointed to be the high priest
for God's elect people. He's the one mediator between
God and men. He's called the man Christ Jesus. He's God in the flesh. He's the
God man. But he's the only man who could
ever mediate on our behalf. It has to be perfect to be accepted. God will accept nothing but a
perfect mediator. He was the only man that could
enter into the presence of God to mediate and continue to live. You remember what the Lord told
Moses, no man can see my face and live. And it's because of
sin. No man other than Christ himself
could see God's glory and live. That's exactly what the Lord
told Moses in Exodus 33. And this is the message that
Isaiah declared in chapter 45, verse 21. He declared that the
Lord Jesus Christ is a just God and a savior. And then he says,
there's none beside him. There's no one else that could
do for us what Christ did. He's a just God, but he's also
a savior. Only the God-man could be both.
Only Jesus Christ could make a way for God's judgment and
God's justice to remain, and at the same time, justify sinners. How's that accomplished? By the
sacrifice of himself. Christ being both the just and
justifier is what Paul's talking about in Romans chapter three.
Stick your marker here and look at these verses with me. I know
they're very familiar, but look at Romans chapter three with
me, if you would, just for a minute. We'll come right back to Exodus.
Romans three, verses 24 through 26. The Old Testament and New are
beautifully connected. The Old Testament points to Christ
who was to come. The New Testament shows us that
he has. Romans 3.24, if you got it. Paul writes, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past. There's no remission apart from
Christ and the shedding of His blood. "'through the forbearance
of God,' verse 26, "'to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
"'that he might be just and the justifier of him "'which believeth
in Jesus. "'Christ, our great high priest,
"'with this breastplate of judgment, "'shall bear the judgment of
God in his heart always.'" When was Christ given the office of
high priest? from the foundation of the world.
Christ bore the names of God's elect on his shoulders and upon
his heart. Secondly, we see that our position
in Christ and our high priest is fixed. That's something to
rejoice in. Those 12 names engraved and etched
forever on those stones, on the breastplate of judgment. Nowhere
in the scriptures do we find those stones or those gems replaced
by different stones or gems. You just won't find it. Both
the stones and the names on them were forever. The believer's
position in Christ is forever fixed. I wish folks could get
ahold of that. Safe and secure we are in the
shepherd's folk. Fixed by God and forever fixed. And they were fixed by eternal
redemption upon Christ's shoulders and upon his heart. Aaron was
the high priest of Israel. He was not the high priest of
any other nation. Christ's mediation is not for
every religion of the world. Christ is the high priest of
God's chosen nation and God's chosen people. Christ is the
high priest for the Israel of God. Thirdly, we see the significance
of the arrangements and types of these stumps. The distinction
of these stones is to show us that there are no distinctions
with God. Let me try to explain that. The
distinction of these stones are made by men. It's with men that
the distinction is made between a diamond and an onyx. Oh, a
diamond. I'd much rather have a diamond
than an onyx. It's men that value an emerald
and a sapphire above a topaz and a carbuncle, but God doesn't. Earthly pearls doesn't mean anything
to God. Oh, they mean a lot to men, but
not to God. In heaven, God makes gates out
of pearls. Gold. Gold doesn't mean anything
to God. God paves the streets of heaven
with gold. In heaven, gold is used to walk
upon. But men put great value on these
things. These stones all had an equal
setting on the breastplate of judgment. With our great high
priest, there are no distinction. There's neither male nor female,
neither bond or free, neither rich or poor, neither Jew or
Gentile. All who belong to God have an equal setting upon the
heart of Christ. I don't know if you noticed it
or not, but upon the part of our great high priest, the emerald
and the sapphire and the diamond are listed beneath and below
the sardis and the topaz and the carbuncle. They took second
row to these common stone. God's showing us that these precious
things that men call precious don't mean anything to God. And
also these stones were taken and shaped and some were polished
and some were not. And what a picture that is of
God's people. We're all different. All of us
different, yet all one in Christ. These stones, these gems were
all set in place as God was pleased to set them. God set them as
it pleased Him. And it's the same today. God
sets His elect in the body of Christ as He sees fit. Not all
are preachers, not all are deacons, but all equally important. And
fourthly, we learn something here from the origin of these
stones. Some of these stones were taken
from the depths of the sea and others were taken from the dark
pits found below the earth's surface. Some were found just
on the common path of life, discovered out in the open that they'd been
walked on. Again, what a picture of God's
people. all from different walks of life.
Yet all have been predestinated by God to be placed and put over
the heart of the great high priest. And then fifthly, we see that
these stones were carried everywhere they went. After all, they were
fastened over the heart and they were held secure in their place.
And everywhere the high priest went, those 12 stones went. Everything the high priest saw,
they saw. What a picture they are of us.
Everything the high priest did, they did. They were carried to
the brazen altar. They were carried to the mercy
seat. They were with the high priest everywhere he went. And
these stones upon the high priest's breastplate and upon his shoulders,
they were seated with him on high. When the high priest entered
into the holy of holies, these stones were with him. God's elect
people experienced the same light that shines from the face of
their satisfied father onto his beloved son. It shines on us
too because we're in him, we're with him. He's well-pleased with
his beloved son and friends and him, he's well-pleased with his
elect, every one of them. We had that light because our
great high priest finished and accomplished the will of God
on our behalf. And that's why Hebrews chapter
10 verse 12 through 14 tells us that Christ, our high priest,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down on
the right hand of God. Christ hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. You're perfect forever. You can't
lose that perfection. Every child of God has the same
light and life that Christ provided by his perfect keeping of the
law and his complete satisfaction of justice as their high priest.
It wasn't the jewels on the breastplate that gave great value to the
high priest. It was the high priest that gave
great value to the jewel. You know, today's religion has
it backwards. They preach man too high and
God too low. They make God dependent on man
and not man dependent on God. You think about it. What is religion
saying when they say things like God has no hands but your hands?
What is religion saying when it says things like let go and
let God? I heard a man recently tell those
to whom he preached that they should not push God's hand away.
They should let him do what he wants to do. What's that saying? It's saying that God finds his
value in men. It's saying that God needs man
to accomplish his will. It's declaring that God is dependent
on man when it's totally the opposite. Now these jewels on
the high priest breastplate are representative of a people who
Christ is mediating on the behalf of. They're nothing but worms,
the scripture says. And you can look that word up
in a concordance, and it's worse than it seems at face value.
It actually means wiggling maggot. That's what we are in the sight
of God. I know that's not a popular message among men, but that's
how God sees us. Job chapter 25 verse four asks
two questions. First, how then can man be justified
with God? The second question is just an
elaboration or an extension of the first question. How can a
man be clean that's born of a woman? A sinner's got to be perfectly
and completely clean and pure in order to be justified, so
basically it's the same question. And Job's so-called friend by
the name of Bildad gives us the answer. He makes a statement
and then he answers his question with a question. The statement
he made was this. Behold the moon and the stars
that God created. They are not pure in God's sight.
God is so holy, God is so righteous, and God is so pure that the sun
and the moon and the stars are not pure in his sight. compared
to him. So the crucial question is this,
how much less, how much less pure is man that is a worm and
the son of man, which is a worm? I don't suppose that there's
anything more repulsive to men and women, to me anyway, than
a maggot. You just see it and you just
cringe, don't you? I do anyway. How much more repulsive
is man to God when man is, in God's eyes, a wiggling maggot? But I'll tell you this, even
a worthless maggot is invaluable if God chose it. And that's why
the 12 tribes of Israel are pictured in these precious stones and
jewels. The God of heaven and earth of
one day look and say to his elect bride, for I am the Lord, thy
God, the Holy one of Israel, thy savior. And I gave Egypt
for thy ransom. Ethiopia and Saba I gave for
thee. Why? Because thou was precious
in my sight. Thou hast been honorable and
I've loved thee. Boy, you think about being precious
in his sight. How are you and I, the worms,
the maggots that we are, precious and honorable to God? There's
only one way. And it's by our great high priest
and our mediator carrying us on his shoulders and upon his
heart. That it's by him alone having suffered for our sins,
the just for the unjust, that he might what? Bring us to God. The fact that God selected gems,
precious stones to represent his people indicates just how
precious that his people are in his sight. How precious are
they for him to give his only begotten and beloved son to die
for them. Our excellency, our righteousness
is not of our own, but it's in Christ, the altogether lovely
one. We have no righteousness, but
that which God gives us in Christ. but that is perfect righteousness
and it's yours. It's not just pasted on, not
just a post-it note that we stick on, it's yours. And when God
sees it, he's perfectly satisfied. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. He calls his own sheep by name, such as the omniscience
of our great high priest that all our needs are known to him.
And the durability of these stones chosen to picture his elect proves
that our redemption purchase is eternal. 12 stones, but no
two of them were alike. They were all different in form
and in hue and in character, but all gems in the sight of
God. Each of them were set in gold.
They all equally rested upon the heart of Aaron and he ministered
before the Lord on Israel's behalf. In Revelation chapter 21, you
can read in your leisure, we find that the foundations of
the heavenly city will be garnished upon 12 precious stones. It says, this is the heavenly
city that had no need of the sun, neither the moon to shine
in it for the glory of God did lighten it. And the lamb is the
light thereof. Verse 24 of that same chapter
in Revelation 21 says this, and the nations of them which are
saved all walk in the light of it. That's speaking of Christ,
the Lamb of God. And the same 12 tribes, the elect
of God represented by those 12 stones on that breastplate of
judgment are who these nations are. You see, there's no judgment
for those that have already been judged. We've been judged in
Christ. No punishment for those whom
Christ was punished for. He truly and surely is our great
high priest and our mediator before God. So let me leave you
with the words found in Hebrews chapter four, beginning in verse
14. Go ahead and turn there with me. Hebrews chapter four. beginning in the verse 14. Hebrews 4, verse 14. Seeing then that we have what? A great high priest that is passed
into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. Friends, let's hold fast our
profession of faith in Christ's substitutionary work. Verse 15,
for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Our high priest is not cruel
or unmerciful, but one who's sympathetic, having been touched
with the feelings of our infirmity. And he as a man experienced these
things, and he firsthand has understanding of everything that
you and I go through in this life and in this world. And he
goes before us as our great high priest to God on our behalf.
So knowing these things, verse 16, let us therefore come boldly
into the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. The word there is may, that we
may obtain mercy. It doesn't say maybe, but we
may and we will. Not maybe will we find grace,
but that we will find grace to help in time of need. But I know
this much, no man or woman will ever come that doesn't have a
need. Those that are well have no need
of a physician. We'll never find any comfort
until we cast all our cares upon Him. And the scripture says,
because He careth for you. Never forget these stones were
inseparably fixed from the heart of our great high priest. Never
forget that those names are representative of the whole household of God.
And it's speaking of all who are called by God to believe
and trust in Christ. For such a high priest became
us, is what the scripture said. You think about that. He became
what we were, that we might become what he was. He was made to be
sin for us. He that knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. Our great high
priest became us. He became a man yet without sin. One who is holy and harmless
and undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than
the heavens. And we have such a high priest
who's at the right hand of God on the throne of the majesty
of God in the heavens. And where are those whom he intercedes
for? On his shoulders and on his heart.