I try to let me see. OK, thank you. Jerry. Now turn back to John Chapter
12. John Chapter 12 also. You can
turn to Exodus Chapter 28. And mark both places where we'll
go back and forth between these two. books, Exodus 28 and John 12. Now, the purpose of our gathering
here, every time we meet together, the purpose for being here should
be to glorify God, to worship God. We're not here to fellowship
per se, to see one another, although
we are glad to see each other and we do have fellowship. But truly, John said, truly our
fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. In other words,
our fellowship is around the gospel. At times we get together and
eat downstairs, eat food, but we always gather at this table. And we hope that the bread, as
we sung, the bread will be broken to us. We'll be able to eat this gospel food. Now, the purpose
of our gathering is to worship God and study his word. I strongly
believe in going verse by verse through the scriptures, for many
reasons which I'll not go into. But we come here to study his
word that we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That was the last thing that
Peter said in his last epistle, I believe. Grow in grace and
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not prepare messages to
try to arouse your emotions. I don't do that. Nor do I prepare messages to
fill your head with useless facts. But when we study the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we study him, when we study him and your faith in Christ grow. This is how you. This is how
faith grow. This is how faith is created
when God reveals Christ to you through his word and faith grows
by studying his person in his work. OK, that's what Romans
10 talks about faith cometh by hearing." Faith what? Faith in
Christ, to know Him. This is life eternal, to know
Him. And you come to know Him through
the pages of this book, when the Holy Spirit reveals Him.
And then that faith grows by studying His Word. And if your
faith in Him grows, and as you study while you're studying him,
hopefully your problems will begin to kind of vanish for a
time. But when we meet in here together
and we look at the person and work of Christ and begin to marvel
at him, then your problems begin to fade for a time. Well, they
ought to as we look at him. You think, I thought about heaven.
Heaven will be a time when we are with Christ. When we will
be beholding him. We'll be marveling at his person. And thinking about his work.
And the scripture says there will be no more tears. There
won't be time. There won't be any remembrance
of these things. Isaiah sixty-five verse seventeen
says, The former things shall not be remembered, nor come to
mind. Why? Because we'll be so taken up
with Christ, we won't worry about our problems, we won't worry
about our family, we won't even care if our family's there. That's
just so. If they're there, good. But they
won't be our family then. They won't be our mother and
father and sister and brother will all be brethren in the Lord. We'll be just as glad to see
one of these as we would our flesh and blood. Do you see as
you study, what I'm trying to say, maybe I'm not making myself
clear, but as you study the person and work of Christ and your faith
in him grows, your problems ought to kind of vanish for a time. Because that's what heaven's
going to be. As you consider him, you won't have any problems.
You marvel at him. That makes sense, Barbara? So
I don't prepare messages with particular problems in mind and
try to arouse your emotions or this and that and the other,
but we study Christ. That your faith in him might
grow. All right? OK, John 12. Now, and I say that to confirm
When we look at Old Testament types, and you may not know this, but most
people in this world see no point in Old Testament types. They
see no point in the Old Testament at all. But the Old Testament types mean
nothing to the average person, but to the lover of Christ to
the one who studies, who's a disciple of Christ, a student in the school
of Christ. These things just keep driving
nails in their faith when you see him as he is. And you're
more and more convinced this is the Christ. Your faith is
grounded and settled. Do you see that? That's why we
study these Old Testament times. You say, Old Testament. We looked at a supper last week
prepared for Christ here in John 12. I'm going to read these first
three verses again. And his brethren partook of this
supper, and then there's an anointing that takes place here also. Our
Lord is anointed. Let's read the first three verses
again. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany
where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from
the dead. There they made him a supper.
And I'd like to dwell on that a little longer, but I won't. And Martha served, but Lazarus
was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary
a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly. and anointed the
feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house
was filled with the odor of the ointment." Now, what is all this
about? Well, we're going to see in a
moment. All of this is the fulfillment of scriptures which typify Old
Testament scriptures which tell of the consecration of the high
priest, the anointing of the high priest. This is what is
going on here. Christ, listen to me carefully,
and you can turn over to Exodus 28, OK? Christ is the great high
priest. Christ is the believer's high
priest, the great high priest to God for his people. And our
high priest is about to go to the altar, the cross. The altar is where the lamb's
blood was shed, you know, and his body burned. Christ is about
to go to that altar and make a sacrifice, the sacrifice, the
one sacrifice, to put away sins forever. the sacrifice of his
own body, his own blood. He's about to go to that altar
and make that sacrifice to the cross. And then he's going to
go into the Holy of Holy with his own precious blood to obtain
eternal redemption for us. He's going to offer up the blood
before the Lord for the remission of our sins. Now, there's some
things that had to take place before The high priest went and
did this, all right? He had to be consecrated. He
had to be... Stay with me, people. This is
going to be a blessing, OK? I know it's warm and a long day
and all this, but if you'll stay with me and study this with me,
you're going to get a blessing, OK? I'm not just... I'm not just
saying words here. I'm leading up into something,
all right? This is the anointing of the great high priest before
he's to go and make that sacrifice for the sins of the people, all
right? Exodus twenty-eight. Now, do you remember the Passover
feast, how it was unto the Lord back in chapter twelve? Well,
here in Exodus twenty-eight we have, and twenty-nine and thirty,
we have a, we have another supper. Exodus twenty-eight, and our
great high priest Christ is being prepared by God to go to Calvary
and make this sacrifice. Look at Exodus 28, verses 2 and
3. Exodus 28, verses 2 and 3. Thou shalt make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty. Holy garments. And then it goes on to describe
those garments, which I wish we had time to do, which we have
done before. You may remember we studied the
garments of Aaron along with the tabernacle and so forth.
But these holy garments that Aaron wore for glory and for
beauty, what is that? What is it? God just said make
him a nice looking suit of clothes so he'll just look good and everybody.
What is it? What's this all about? What are
these garments? Everything is significant. He wore an ephod,
a breastplate, a robe, a coat, a girdle, a miter, and all along. And each vesture had particular
things about it. What is all this? Huh? I know you know. This is the
robe of Christ's righteousness. This is Christ's life. This is
the beauty of the person of Christ. This is his righteousness, his
righteous life. That robe of righteousness Now
look over at verses 29 and 30 in Exodus 28. It says, Aaron shall bear the
names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment
upon his heart. Now, the high priest, Aaron,
is being prepared before he makes the sacrifice. All right? He's
got to be robed in beautiful, beautiful garments. And Christ
lived a perfect life as a man, and the Scriptures talk about
a robe of righteousness which he imputes to his people. That's Christ's holiness, his
righteousness, which he worked out for men. And then here it says, Aaron
shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate
of judgment upon his heart. There was a breastplate in which
he wore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel upon his heart. Read on. When he goeth in unto
the holy place for memorial before the Lord continually, that the
Lord might remember who? Remember these people. See, Aaron
is a high priest, and he's about to go in and offer this sacrifice
for who? The whole world? That's what men say. Christ died
for everybody. Oh, no. Oh, no. Uh-uh. Stories such as this tell us
that redemption is particular. that Christ went in to offer
that sacrifice with the names of his people on his heart. And
in other places it says, I've engraved your name on the palms
of my hand. So Christ offered, he had the
names of his people on his heart, he had a robe, he worked out
a robe of righteous, a perfect life of righteousness. All right,
John 12, turn over there. It says he has this the names
of the people upon his heart when he goes into the holy place.
John 12. Now look at verse 27. Verse 27 says, Christ says, Now
is my soul troubled, what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Now back to Exodus 28 again.
You remember where we read that Christ wept at Lazarus' tomb? And how we pointed out that Christ
wasn't weeping out of sorrow for Lazarus. He's about to raise
him. That's not, not at all. Christ wept over the punishment
and the judgment of sin, which was death. All right? And then
right before Christ, right there we read, he says, my soul is
troubled. And then we're going to read
later on, where he went into the garden and he sweat, as it
were, great drops of blood. Where he prayed, Father, let
this cup pass from me. In other words, I'm going to
die right here in the garden before I get to the cross. From
what? This weight of judgment. It said there in Exodus 20, verse
29, that He bears this breastplate of
judgment upon his heart. Look over at verse 12. Verse
12, the last part of verse 12, Aaron shall bear their names
before the Lord upon his two shoulders. Christ is being made sin for
us. Christ is being the weight, of
our sins being laid on him, and he's going to bear them. He is
going to bear them on his shoulder. He's got big shoulders. He is
able to bear our sins away. He's a fit man who can take our
sins as far as the east is from the
west, separate them from He's a fit man. Well, in that sense,
Christ was heavy and sorrowful and wept and so forth. But he
bore our sin. All right, look at verses 36
through 38 now of Exodus 28. Now, here we're having the high
priest is being prepared, OK? He's got this garment. He's got
names on his heart, on his shoulders. Thou shalt make a plate of pure
gold, and engrave upon it, like the engravings of Cygnet, holiness
to the Lord. And thou shalt put it on a blue
lace, and that it may be upon the miter, upon the forefront
of the miter it shall be, and it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, between his eyes." that Aaron
may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children
of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts, it shall be
always," read this, "'it shall be always upon his forehead,
that they may be accepted before the Lord.'" Holiness unto the
Lord. Christ said it behooves me to
fulfill all righteousness. He said not one jot or tittle
shall pass from the law. You remember Psalm 1? who delights in the law of the
Lord, who day and night meditates in his law. Who is that? That's
this high priest. That's Christ. Aaron failed miserably,
people. Aaron failed miserably. Aaron
ended up making a golden calf and all of that. You know the
story. And his sons, Nadab and Abihu, Strangefire, they all
failed miserably, as every priest but one. Christ, the high priest. This speaks of Christ. Aaron
was not holy, and Aaron did not continually think on the holiness
of God. He was a man, a fickle, finite,
failing, sinful man. But there was one man, one high
priest, who always bore this on his miter, between his forehead,
that we might be accepted, holiness under the Lord. And he went before
God with this written across him, holiness unto the Lord,
that we might be accepted." See, my names are here. He's taking
my place. Accept me. God said, I approve. Who's he approve of? Me. You. If he has your name, Barbara.
If he went in there for you, God approves of you. You're accepted
in the beloved. Holiness unto the Lord. All right? All right, now look over at verses
40 through 43. The high priest is being prepared. Look at verses 40 through 43.
And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make coats, make coats for his
sons, make for them girdles and bonnets shalt thou make for them,
glory and beauty. Thou shalt put them upon Aaron
thy brother and his sons with him, shalt anoint them. In other
words, the same clothes Aaron wore his sons wear, and anoint
them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may
minister unto me." Verse 43, "...they shall be upon Aaron,
and upon his sons, when they come in unto the tabernacle of
the congregation, when they come near unto the altar, to minister
in the holy place, that they bear not iniquity, and die."
They've got to have these garments on or they'll die if they don't. It's a statute forever. Look
at chapter 29, verse 29. Got it? The holy garments of
Aaron shall be his sons after him, to be anointed therein,
to be consecrated in them. There's that righteousness of
Christ imputed to our camp. Imputed to our camp. Christ's righteousness is imputed
to his people are charged to their camp, it consecrates and
sanctifies it. All right, there's a supper that
takes place here. OK, you've been prepared. Are
they going to eat something? Look at Isaiah, look at verse
twenty, chapter twenty-nine, verse one. And this is the thing that thou
shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in
the priest office. Take one young bullock and two
rams, without blemish. One bullock, two rams, three,
but these three are one. And in verse two and three, And
the unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened, tempered with oil,
wafers unleavened, anointed with oil, wheaten flour shalt thou,
that means beaten flour, shalt thou make then and thou shalt
put them into one basket, all in one basket, and bring them
in the basket with the bullock and the two rams." All this is
a picture of Christ as well. All of this, the bread with the
oil. Christ is the bread who has the
Spirit without measure. Verse 4, And Aaron and his sons,
Aaron and his sons, thou shalt bring unto the door. of the tabernacle. Bring to the door of the tabernacle
the congregation, wash them with water." So here we have bread,
we have water, we have oil, we have a door. All these things
sound familiar. This all speaks of Christ. Everything here is Christ. Christ
is the priest, Christ is the door, Christ is the water, Christ
is the bread. Christ has been anointed with
the Spirit without measure. And they were to prepare this
meat and bread. Look at verse 31 through 33.
Take the ram of the consecration, seethe his flesh in the holy
place, and Aaron and his son shall eat the flesh of the ram
and the bread that is in the basket by the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. They shall eat those things wherewith
the atonement was made. Christ said, except you eat my
body and drink my blood, you have no part in me. There's no
atonement going to be made for you. Eat, come, and dine. All things are ready. To consecrate,
read on, to consecrate, sanctify them. A stranger shall not eat
thereof. No one, no stranger can eat of
these things. And no one who, one who does
not know Christ can take no part in this. Only those who know
Christ. So they ate a supper. Look at verse thirty-five. Verse
thirty-five, Thus shalt thou do unto Aaron his sons, according
to all things which I have commanded thee, seven days. Just a good number. Remember,
in John 12, six days before Christ sat down to eat supper with his
disciples. One of the ladies after the message,
when did I preach that? When was it? Wednesday? I forget. John, the last time. Sunday? OK. One of the ladies
afterwards said, I just met you, that Martha served lamb. You
reckon? Well, I bet she did too, but
I bet she didn't do it on purpose. I bet you God did it on purpose. I bet she was running around
the house saying, what am I going to fix? What am I going to fix
for the Lord? I'm going to fix this. Let's see. Here's a leg
of lamb. I'll fix that. And here's some
bread. I'll fix that. Need a little
oil? Well, it had to be. You see,
they couldn't have eaten anything else, could they? They couldn't
possibly have eaten anything else. It had to have been lamb
and bread and water and so forth. And seven days, and Christ began
eating that supper six days before he went to the cross on the seventh
he was crucified. The word of God is so, so precise. Look at chapter 30 here in Exodus,
chapter 30. Beginning with, now we have an
anointing. All right, they ate supper, Aaron and his sons, and
now there's going to be an anointing. Take a look. Look at verse 22. The Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, chapter 30, verse 22. Take thou also unto
thee principal spices of pure myrrh, a hundred shekels of sweet
cinnamon, half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels
of sweet calamus, two hundred and fifty shekels of cashew,
five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, olive
oil and hen. Make it an oil of a holy ointment."
and ointment compound after the art of the apothecary." I like
the sound of these words, don't you? It just sounds so dignified. It shall be in a holy anointing
oil, and thou shalt anoint the tabernacle, the consecrate of
the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony, the
table, all the vessels, the candlestick, vessels, and then once again,
people, all this is Christ. All these things are pictures
of Christ, which we don't have time to go into. The table, all
his vessels, and the candlestick and his vessels, and the altar
of incense, the altar of burnt offering with all his vessels,
the label and his foot, anoint his foot. Be sure to anoint his
foot with this ointment. and thou shalt sanctify them
that they may be most holy. Whatsoever touches them shall
be holy. Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his
son, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in
the priesthood. And thou shalt speak unto the
children of Israel, saying, This shall be an holy anointing of
oil unto me throughout your generation. Upon man's flesh shall it not
be poured, Neither shall you make any other like it. After
the composition of it, it's holy, and it shall be holy unto you.
Whosoever compoundeth anything like it, whosoever putteth any
of it on a stranger, will be cut off from his people." Do
you see what all this is talking about? Now back to John 12, and while
you're turning back there, let me read you something, one of
my favorite songs. It is. It's one of my favorites,
along with the other 149. It says, Behold how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It
is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down,
Aaron's head, that ran down upon the beard when they anointed
Aaron with this ointment, this Cash is probably all told, I
didn't count it up or look it up, but probably about a pound
of ointment. And it ran down his head, ran
down the beard, even down Aaron's beard and went down to the skirts
of his garment. And it covered his body. It was
like the dew of Hermon. Look here at John 12, and so
this is what Mary was doing. What is Mary doing? She's anointing
the high priest. She's doing what the Lord told
her to do, unwittingly. Martha served Lamb, and Mary
said, I want to anoint him. Why? Because it was predetermined
long before. that these things prepare the
high priest to go off of this sacrifice. Isn't that beautiful,
Barbara? Beautiful. Now, Matthew and Mark
give the accounts of this, and they speak of Mary anointing
the head, and that's significant, because that's what we saw back
there, the head. And they also speak of an alabaster
box or a casket, a little box of alabaster. Alabaster being
kind of a pearly looking substance. You ever seen alabaster? Looks
like pearl. And this box, these boxes were
made and this ornament was put in it and they were sealed up
and they were very costly. But Mary is always at Christ's
feet. Mary is always at His feet. God
anoints His head, but Mary, like every And anointed the feet. Make sure
you anoint the foot of that labor. Anointed the feet of Jesus and
wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with
the odor of the ointment. And I hope that's what's going
on right now, is this golden casket is being broken before
you. I hope the sweet-smelling Savior
of Christ is filling this place right now. Those who have a nose
for it, smell it. It will fill the house with the
odor of this ointment of Christ. But there must be heresies among
you. Some in here, this is sweet,
this is wonderful, this is marvelous. All this talk of Christ to others
is a waste of time. Look at here, look at verse 4.
Then saith one of his disciples, or it seemed to be one of his
disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him.
Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pen, given
to the poor? He said this, not that he cared
for the poor because he was a thief. This was a waste. That's what
Judas said. And it's also a waste for those
who have no real love for Christ. A waste of time. A waste of time. No sweet savor to them. But it
was to Mary. Why was it a savor, sweet-smelling
savor to Mary? Why did Mary take part in all
this? Mary was healed of seven devils. She had seven devils
cast out of her. And she just delighted in nothing
more than sitting at the feet of Christ. And she gave up everything. She was a poor lady, a poor woman. This box full of, she forsook
all she had. This was her, practically her
life savings, in this box. And I know what it is. It's nothing
to me. Christ is all. It was to marry, Christ was all.
Because he delivered her from seven devils. Lazarus was in
on this too, wasn't he? Did it smell good to Lazarus?
Did Lazarus cry out, Oh, what did we do? Hmm? Oh, Lazarus probably
went, That's a good thing to do. Why? Lazarus was raised from the dead.
He said, Not Judas, just a waste. This is all a waste, a waste
of time. Look at verses 7 and 8, and I'll
bring this to a close. Then said Jesus, Let her alone
against the day of my burying, as she kept this. The poor always you have with
you, but me you have not always. A waste of time. There may be a day And I hope
it's not so of anyone in here. But there's going to be a day
when people would wish, with every ounce of their being, to
sit under one more gospel message. Because this gospel is not going
to be around forever. Right? You're not going to be
around forever. Today is the day of salvation. You might not live tomorrow.
You need Christ now. May he open your nostrils. Open your eyes and open your
ears to see the beauty of Christ and your need of him. Well, he
said of Mary over in Mark 14, he said, wherever the gospel
shall be preached throughout the world, this also that she
hath done shall be spoken of her, spoken of for a memorial
of her. That's what it said in Mark's
account. He said she hath done what she
could. That's what it says in Mark 14.
She hath done what she could. Leave her alone. She's done what
she could. What can I do? You can worship. Worship Christ. And he said,
wherever the gospel is preached, this will be remembered as a
memorial of her. And may this one thing be remembered
of me when they write my epitaph. This is what I'm going to say
about your mother very shortly. We're not going to be able to
say, well, she was this, she was that, she was a great woman,
she was influential all over and she had great riches. None
of those things, right? We're not going to talk about
all those who knew her well and this and that and the other. She knew Christ. She knows Christ. And this is her memorial. She
did what she could. Right? What she did. She was in this service until
she couldn't sit here any longer. And Lord, and that's the only
thing that will be remembered of any of us. The only thing. Lord, remember me. Remember me
when you come into the kingdom. He will. He'll remember all those
that come unto God by him. And all those that trust him
shall never be put to shame. Never. And all these things will
pass to the wayside, relationships and all that, but those that
know Christ and worship him will be with him forever. All right. I hope this has been a blessing
to you. Let's stand. Let's ask the Lord to bless it.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. We apologize for our faulty handling of it, our inability,
our babbling. Your Word is too beautiful,
too glorious, too marvelous. And we have this treasure, but
it's in earthen vessels, and we cannot do it justice as it
should be done. This, your word, were it rightly
preached and magnified and set forth as it should be in all
its beauty, we ought to be just beside ourselves like the disciples
of old, hearts burning within us as the word is opened and
Christ is revealed as the way. And we thank you for what little
light you've given us, and we thank you for what sweet smell
you have granted us tonight and every other. We ask that Christ
might be more precious to your people. We ask again that Christ
might become precious to someone who has had no real interest
in him before now. Our Lord, time groweth short,
and we need to buy the truth and sell it not, not for all
the world, but store up this treasure and forsake everything for this pearl
of great price, this alabaster box of such precious ointment. Thank you for it. Thank you for
this story. plant it and instill it in us,
we pray in Christ's name, amen.