and the ladies who presented
it did such a good job. I made mention of that song a
few weeks ago, and so I really am grateful that y'all took the
time to learn it, and it was such a blessing to me and to all of us here this
morning. Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Exodus. I'm going to read the last verse
of Exodus chapter 27. And then I'm going to read just
a very few verses out of the 28th chapter. We welcome those
who are joining us by way of the Internet this morning, and
so thankful that We can have a ministry to you, and we ask
that God would bless you and all of us in this building as
we meet together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. Just the last verse of Exodus
27, in the tabernacle of the congregation without the veil,
which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order
it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute
forever under their generations on the behalf of the children
of Israel." We're now introduced to Aaron and to his sons. And now the Lord continues His
words to Moses in verse 1 of 28, and take thou or literally
fetch thou unto Aaron thy brother and his sons with him from among
the children of Israel that he may minister unto me in the priest's
office. My subject is the priesthood. And then he identifies these
men. Aaron, he'll be the high priest. Nadab and Abihu. Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's
sons. They will constitute the priesthood. So we have one high priest and
four priests. And thou shalt make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt
speak unto all that are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit
of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate
him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. These
are the garments which they shall make, a breastplate, and an ephod,
and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle. And they shall make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother and his sons, that he may minister unto
me in the priest's office. and they shall take gold and
blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen." And we'll get more
into the various garments of the high priest and these four
priests later in our series, perhaps next week or perhaps
the week following. Now let's ask the Lord to magnify
Himself and enable us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Our Father, we bow our heads
before You. We do this indicating the humility
of our hearts We come before you as creatures that long to
worship and adore our Creator. We come before you, so many of
us, as your children, adopted into your family, born again
by the Spirit, for we were washed with the blood of the Lord Jesus. and His very righteousness has
been reckoned to us. We are the beloved of God, and
we're so thankful for Your grace to us, and Lord, we come to You
to ask that You would enable us to honor You today as we meet
for worship. Bless all of us with an understanding
of spiritual things. Lord, make us wise unto salvation. You know how foolish we are and
how we lack wisdom to receive anything that is spiritual. And
you therefore have to give us understanding. You have to give
us that wisdom which is from above. Grant to us your saving
grace, your preserving grace in Christ Jesus, that one who
is the object of our soul's affection and the object of our faith.
We have been brought by your sovereign effectual grace to
believe this wonderful Savior, to lay a hold of Him for eternal
life. And it's all due, dear Father,
to the sovereign, mysterious, even miraculous work of Your
Spirit within us. We, so many of us, we have been
born twice, certainly born of the flesh as we entered into
this world. But, oh God, we bless Your name
that we have been born again. born that He is from above by
the Spirit of grace who gave us the gifts of repentance toward
God and faith in the Lord Jesus. Now, Spirit of grace, take the
things of our Savior and make them real to us, make them known
to us. May we all diligently take heed
to the Word of the Gospel. And so, Father, magnify Your
great and glorious being. And if You would speak to us
unworthy sinners, we are indeed mercy beggars. We come before
Your throne. You have all mercy. You have
all grace. And Lord, we petition you, and
we say if you will, you can make us whole. And we thank you that
many of us are whole. We are spiritually well due to
your saving grace. These things we ask in the name
of our Savior and for his, amen. In the book of Exodus, earlier
in chapter 3, the Lord met Moses on Mount Horeb, which is also
known as Mount Zion, or Mount Sinai, I should say. And he met
Moses as our Lord dwelt in a burning bush that wasn't consumed with
the fire. And he spoke to Moses. And he
gave him several instructions. Of course, the Lord identified
himself as the Great I Am. He is God. He is Jehovah. He is the ever-living One, the
ever-existent One. And then as he gave more information
to Moses regarding that marvelous commission that he was going
to give to Moses, which would be to lead the Lord's people,
Israel, out of Egyptian bondage, this is what the Lord said to
him. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, You shall serve Me on this mountain. You shall serve Me. You shall. You love the Lord's shalls, don't
you? We all do. We love the Lord's wills and
shalls. And when the Lord said, you shall serve Me on this mountain,
well, you know it is going to come to pass. What does the word,
in this context, what does the word serve mean? Well, it means
to, it certainly includes the idea of worship, but it's worship
by rendering to God that which He demands. It is worship, it
is honoring God by means of a sacrifice. So, there is certainly some similarities,
great similarities between worshiping God and serving God. I hear people
say quite often, you know, I just want to serve the Lord. Oh Jim,
would you please tell me how I could serve the Lord? I want
to be His faithful servant. Well, here's how you serve the
Lord. You bring to Him that sacrifice that He requires. And I'll make good on that. Remember,
the Lord said, He said, you tell Pharaoh, let my people go, that
they may serve Me. And go to chapter 24 of Exodus. And I want to work on this just
a little bit about what it means to serve the Lord in Exodus chapter
24. And I want you to look now at
verses 4 and 5. Exodus chapter 24, 4 and 5. And
this is when the Lord has said, if you will keep my commandments,
if you'll keep this covenant, then all of these blessings will
be yours. These physical mercies will be
yours. A conditional covenant, a covenant
of works. This is a covenant dependent
upon God doing what He said He would do, which He always does,
and man doing, Israel doing what they said they would do, which
they of course failed to do. But here we have in Exodus chapter
24 and verse 4, we have Moses, he's reading the covenant to
Israel. Chapter 24 and verse 4, and Moses
wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning.
He built an altar under the hill and 12 pillars, according to
the 12 tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the
children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings and sacrificed
peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord." Now, here's the question,
where are they? Well, they're at Mount Sinai.
This is where God said they would serve Him. They would worship
Him, that is, they would render to God the service that He demanded
on this Mount, Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai. And this is the
way they served God. They brought sacrifices to God. Now we bring, of course, the
sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, but mainly the way
we worship God today is to bring to Him certainly honor and glory
that is due Him, but we bring Him or we come to God by means
of the only sacrifice that He has appointed. Would you, in
your heart, would you serve God today? Would you be a servant
of the Lord? Well, here's what it is. It is
honoring God, it is worshiping God, it's esteeming Him greatly
as you give thanksgiving for and render to God, bring to God
the only sacrifice that God will accept, which is the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus. That is, His bloody death upon
the cross of Calvary. And you know this service unto
our God is one that we will offer forever? What are we going to do in heaven?
We're going to present service unto God. Turn to the book of
Revelation, if you would. And I'll give you two references
here real quick. First of all, chapter 7 of Revelation. Chapter 7. in the book of Revelation. I want to serve the Lord. I want
to honor Him. I want to do what He tells me,
and here's what God tells me to do, and here's what He tells
you to do, to render honor to Him as you bring to Him the only
sacrifice that He will accept. And that's the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus. Now, the Savior has already been
sacrificed. And as I come to God, I come
to God through the bloody death of the Lord Jesus. I must not
try to come any other way. God will not accept me. He will
not accept you if you attempt to draw near to Him except by
Jesus Christ, watch it, and Him crucified. It isn't enough for
us to just mention the name of the Lord Jesus every once in
a while. Every denomination nearly does that. It doesn't matter
whether you're Catholic or Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Baptist. Churches of those sorts all over
this country, they often speak of Jesus. They speak of Christ
Jesus. But to just mention that name
is not to preach the gospel. It is to set him forth as that
God-appointed, God-approved sacrifice and substitute. You haven't preached
the gospel, as Spurgeon said, until you've set forth substitution
and satisfaction. And so as we go to our God today,
we seek to serve Him. We seek to honor Him. We do so
through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, the only sacrifice
that God approved of and the only sacrifice that would satisfy
God's justice and put away our sins. Now, what will we do in
heaven? We're gonna serve the Lord. Look
here in Revelation chapter 7. He's already set up in verse
9. Revelation 7, 9. After this I
beheld a great multitude which no man could number. Here's the
people of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, They stood before
the throne, before the lamb clothed with white robes. That's the
imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus, which is, as he gives
it to us, is called the righteousness of the saints and palms in their
hands. But drop down to verse 15. Therefore are they before the
throne of God and serve Him. They serve Him. We're going to
serve the Lord. Well, we're going to serve Him
night and day. In other words, forever. Here's
another reference on this. Look at Revelation 22. Revelation
22. What are we going to do in heaven?
People think, well, we're going to go to heaven, we're going
to sit down with our families, we'll renew old acquaintances. No, this is what we're going
to do. We're going to serve the Lord. That's what the scripture
says. Look at Revelation 22, 1, 2,
and 3. He showed me a pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of
it, on either side of the river, there was a tree of life. which
bared twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him."
Now, what is this service? How are we in eternity in the
perfection that God has ordained for us? In what way will we serve
Him? Well, we will honor Him and magnify
Him and glorify Him, singing hymns unto Him, singing all the
Psalms unto Him, and we will do so upon the basis of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. That's what we're going to do.
We're not going to be doing physical labor for Him. Well, we'll serve
the Lord, so we'll repair this or repair... No, there won't
be any need of repairs in heaven. Well, how are we going to serve
Him? The exact same way we serve Him
now. And this is what most people
miss. Because they won't tell me, preacher,
what can I do? I want to serve the Lord. Well, serve Him. You want to
serve the Lord? Serve Him. Well, how can I serve
the Lord? Honor Him through His appointed
sacrifice. Give thanks for Christ Jesus
and His death upon the cross of Calvary and our stead in order
to satisfy God's justice and put our sins away. That's what
it means to serve the Lord. And then when Moses, to go back
to finish kind of that story, when Moses goes before Pharaoh,
the king of Egypt, he says, Thus saith the Lord, let my people
go that they may serve me in the wilderness. And now we know,
based upon that passage we read in chapter 24, verses 4 and 5,
this is the way they're going to serve the Lord. They're going
to bring sacrifices to Him. Burnt offerings and peace offerings. The burnt offerings will be to
appease His wrath. The peace offerings will be because
of that peace that has been made by the burnt offerings. This
is what it means to serve the Lord. Now we have gathered together
today to worship. Worship. And of course, every
church that I know of says that they're having a worship service
this morning. But this is what I want you to
understand. There is no worship of God. There is no service of God. unless
you focus everyone's attention upon the sacrifice of the Savior. And I'll give you an Old Testament
illustration of that. God told Abraham to take his
son, his only son, the son he loved, Isaac, go to a mountain
that I'll show you, God said, offer him there as a burnt offering
unto me. And so Abraham and Isaac go,
and the wood is taken, and there are two servants that go with
them. And once they get inside of this mountain that God told
Abraham that's where he'll offer his son, Abraham, he said to
his two servants, He said, you stay here. You abide here. I and the lad will go yonder
and worship. Well, here's the question. How
did he worship God? How did Isaac worship God? It's very clear in the Scriptures.
Abraham said, we're going to worship. And then we'll come
back. Well, how did they worship God?
What did they do in order to worship? Well, first of all,
he puts Isaac up on the altar, but then the Lord commands him
to release Isaac and kill the ram caught in the thicket by
its horns in the stead of, or as a substitute for Isaac. And so the question still comes
back, in what way or how did they worship God? I and the lad will go yonder
and worship. Well, Abraham, what did you do? We offered the sacrifice of God's
appointing and of God's approval. That's how we worshiped God. Do you want to worship this morning? My goal as your pastor, and wherever
I go, wherever I preach, my goal is always to lead people in worship,
in the service of God. But there will be no worship
without the God-appointed sacrifice. Do you remember that Isaac, in
that verbal exchange with his father, having heard his father
say to the two servants, I and the lad will go yonder and worship,
Isaac gets to thinking, well, I got the wood on my back. And,
Dad, you have the knife and you have the fire. We can't worship
God without a lamb. And so that's what he had. Where
is the lamb? Where is the sacrifice? Because,
you see, Isaac, he knew what most people and the vast majority
of preachers do not know. There can be no worship, no service
of God without the appointed lamb of God. And Abraham answered Isaac and
said, my son, God will provide himself, himself a lamb. That lamb is the lamb of God. Behold the lamb of God is what
John the Baptist said. If we would worship, let's just
say if you would worship, Would you be a true worshiper? You
know, our Lord Jesus in John chapter four, he spoke, the woman
at the well, she spoke of, we worship God in this mountain.
Our Lord Jesus said, true worshipers. There are those who go through
the motions of worship and those who truly worship. I want to
be one of those that truly worship, don't you? See, it's easy to
go through the motions. It's easy to go through the rituals
of worship, of a worship service. Here already this morning, we
sang. That's part of worship. We had the Word of God read to
us. That is certainly part of worship.
And we sought God in prayer. That's worship. That's part of
worship. And now we're preaching the Word of God. And that's a
vital part of worship. But if those things do not come
forth out of the heart, it's not true worship. See, anybody
can sing. Anybody can bow their head. Anybody
can read the Bible. but to do it without the heart,
to do it without affection to God, to do it without humility,
to do it without reverence. It's not worship and therefore
God won't accept it. He won't accept anything that
we do unless we do it His way from our innermost being. That's
the reason God told Israel in Isaiah chapter 1, I'm not going
to hear you when you pray. And all of your offerings, and
those were offerings that He ordained. All of your offerings,
God said, I'm sick of them. They're nauseating to Me. Well,
Lord, aren't these the offerings that You appointed? Yes. But
You didn't worship Me from the heart. So we've got to have a
right spirit within us. No wonder the Savior said that
we worship God in spirit and in truth. I know we worship Him
by the enablement of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, but
we worship Him from our spirit. We're not involved in fleshly
things, waving the hands and standing up and sitting down
and kneeling and bowing and all of those sorts of things. We're
not into that. But we're just as guilty of ritualism if we don't, from our innermost
beings, enter into this service in a way that is honoring to
God. That's what true worship is.
True worship. So don't forget this. True worship
and the service of God are vitally joined together. Let my people
go that they may serve me, that they may worship me. How are
they going to do that? They're going to offer sacrifices
to God. God said, that's what I'm pleased
with. And there were people within
the nation of Israel who did just that. A remnant according
to the election of grace. They worshipped Him from the
heart. They worshipped Him with the appointed sacrifice. You watch television, some of
these religious Fools have all their promotions and all their
organizations. The average church is not having
a worship service at all. And I can't do anything about
other churches. I don't have any influence over
them. But I do have some influence
here. And while I cannot direct you to worship, I cannot bring
you to worship, I can at least set before you what true worship
consists of. And then God's going to have
to make you a worshiper. And I'll tell you what, everybody
who is a true worshiper is going to glory. just to pick up there
in perfection what they were doing down here. And if you don't enjoy true worship
here, if you don't enjoy hearing about the bloody death of our
Lord Jesus that put away the sins of all of His people, if
you don't enjoy hearing about imputed righteousness down here,
the righteousness of the Savior that He gives to us, He has given
that to us, if you don't enjoy that, you wouldn't be at all
happy in heaven. Because there we're going to
serve Him night and day forever. So to get back to the Israelites
then, they had been redeemed out of Egyptian bondage by price
and by power. That is, by the blood of the
Passover lamb. And they're going out and they
get to Mount Sinai. That's where God said, they're
gonna worship me. God made that promise to Moses
and said, listen, He's going to worship me in this mountain.
It's going to be a while before that happens, but take my word
for it, because I can't lie. I won't lie. Israel will worship
God on this mountain. And it came to pass. It came
to pass. And regarding this worship of
God after the exodus from Egypt, and before beginning their wilderness
journeys, They worshiped God, and let me set before you three
questions and try to answer these three questions. I'll give them
to you briefly. Number one, where were they to
worship? Well, God is teaching them that
as of this time, they could only worship God at the tabernacle. That's the only place they could
worship God. It wasn't anywhere else. God says, this is where I'll
meet you. This is where you will meet Me,
at the tabernacle." And the tabernacle in the wilderness pictured our
Lord Jesus, the great Savior of sinners. And the Word was
made flesh and dwelt. He tabernacled among us. And
John said, we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. God said, I will be
worshiped and I will be served at one place, the tabernacle. Where do we worship God? Well,
I know we have designated this building as the designated place
of worship, but more specifically, where do we worship God? In the
tabernacle, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ. True worship involves our coming
to God. You can't come to God any other
way except through the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. He is God. Manifest in the flesh. That's
the first question. Where were they to worship? The
tabernacle. And this is what He's teaching
them with all of these details about this unusual tent in the
wilderness. He's teaching them that there's
just one place where you can honor God. Christ Jesus is the
only place you can honor God. Here's the second question. Not
only where were they to worship, but how were they to worship?
We know that God said He would meet them at the brazen altar
that is the place of sacrifice. And I would refer your attention
again to chapter 29 and verse 42. Chapter 29 and verse 42. We know
where they were to worship at the tabernacle. Now let's consider
how they were to worship. Chapter 29, verse 42. This shall be a continual burnt
offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord, where I will meet you to
speak there unto thee. This is where the morning sacrifice
was offered at 9 a.m. and the evening sacrifice was
offered at 3 p.m. How were they to worship God?
By means of an offering to God. And that must be a life that
was offered to God. If you were rich, you could bring
a bullock If you kind of were middle class, bring a lamb or
a goat. If you were poor, God took those
folks into consideration too. If you were poor, bring pigeons
or turtle doves. God appointed those animals as
sacrifices that were suitable for Him and acceptable by Him
for an offering. the sacrifice. Without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission of sins. So, therefore, so far in our
study of the tabernacle, this county has been the footing of
our study. Where do we meet God? At the
place of His choosing, at the tabernacle, a picture of His
Son. Where can I meet with a holy God? God's a consuming fire.
And if I'm to draw near to God, if I try to go by myself, He'll
consume me. I'll die. I'll be consumed by
the unshielded presence of Jehovah. Where will God meet me? In Christ
Jesus. You better learn that lesson. And how shall we meet Him? How
shall we worship Him? By the presentation of the correct
sacrifice. Let me show you something. Go
back to Genesis chapter 4. Look at Genesis chapter 4. You see, there's only one sacrifice
that God will have regard to. Or as it's used here in Genesis
chapter 4, one sacrifice that God will have respect to. Genesis chapter 4, two sons are
born to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. Verse three, chapter four,
verse three, Genesis. And in process of time, it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of
the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, that is the
richest part of the animal. And the Lord had respect. Very important word in this.
The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. Respect means God showed regard to it.
One translation just simply says, God liked and he was well pleased with
Abel's offering. He liked it. He was well pleased
with it. But verse five, but unto Cain
and to his offering, God had no respect. He didn't regard
it with favor. And the word also means to look
upon, to look upon, to gaze upon as though delighted with. When
Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, a holy God looked
on it and He was delighted with it. Because those lambs that
died as Abel brought them one after another, all of those lambs
pictured the Lamb of God who was coming. And God said, I have
respect to that sacrifice. I regard that as precious. I
like it. I like it. And here Cain brings
his offering, which consists of the vegetables or whatever
that he had grown, and he brought them to God. And God said, I
don't like it. I'll have nothing to do with
it. What is it that you bring to
God this morning? What would you bring to God?
as you worship Him and you bring Him something, would you bring
Him the works of your hands? Well, then God will say, I don't
like them. I have no respect for them. Because
your works, even good intentioned works, works that are meant for
good for others, your works come forth out of a polluted fountain. God said, I don't like them.
I don't like them. Don't you try to come before
me based upon what you have said, done, or thought. Lord, I come
to you this morning to honor you. And I'm so thankful for your
son. I'm so thankful for his sacrifice. I'm thankful that He took the
place of this guilty sinner. He died the death that I deserve
to die. He did it out of pure grace and
love. Oh God, receive me for Christ's
sake. On the basis of His sacrifice.
He's the only one I bring to you. And God says, I like that
sacrifice. I'm well pleased with that sacrifice. That's what the Lord said. This
is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Not pleased with
you unless you're in Christ Jesus. Then he's pleased with you. Well, there's still, with Israel,
there's still something missing. They knew where to worship God
at the tabernacle. They knew how to worship God
by means of the sacrifices. But they had to have people to
represent them. That's the priesthood. Specifically,
they had to have one man who would go into that Holy of Holies,
which we have studied. One man who would go back there
behind the veil into the presence of a holy God and represent them
to the Lord. One man. They had to have a man
to be their representative to deal with God for them. That's the high priest. And we
have a high priest. Christ Jesus, our Lord. That's why now he presents to
us the priesthood. And you know, as we've talked
about the gate and the door and the veil into the tabernacle,
we've talked about the fencing. We've talked about each of the
seven pieces of furniture. All those were certainly necessary,
but they're meaningless. Listen to me, they're meaningless
without a man to stand in their stead and do business with God
on their behalf. That's why Aaron is introduced
to us. He is that high priest. And he represents, or he, let
me say it this way, he pictures, he typifies our Savior, the great
high priest. You see, our Lord Jesus became
a man. He didn't cease to be God, but
he joined his deity to humanity. and God came down here. And this
God-man is our prophet, he preaches to us, he teaches us, but he
is also our priest. We have a priest who lived and
died and rose again and went back to glory and he's still
our priest. He's still the king. And he represents
us to God. We have one who stands for us,
who represents us before the majesty on high. And he did his
work in such a manner to please God and glorify the Father that
the Father said, sit here on my right hand to make the enemies
your footstool. That's who he is. We have a high
priest. And one more thing, and we are
the priesthood. Every believer is a priest unto
God. You see, these four sons of Aaron,
they constituted the priesthood. They also represented the people,
but to a very limited degree, as did the high priest. But for
the people, they offered the sacrifices to God. You brought
your animal to the door of the tabernacle, there at the brazen
altar, and they took that animal that you had killed. You killed
it right there. He catches the blood in the basin. He puts the carcass up on the
brazen altar. He washes his hands. He goes
into the holy place. He eats the bread of preparation,
just like we feed on Christ, the bread of life, and we walk
in the light of His countenance. We honor God. See, there's got
to be a place where we worship God. Christ Jesus is at place. And there's got to be a means
by which we worship God. Christ Jesus is the means. His
death is sacrifice. And there has to be one who stands
between us and God. That's our Lord Jesus. And based upon His faithfulness
to the Father, He's made us a holy priesthood. Don't you go somewhere
and bow down to or go in a little booth with some man who says,
hey, I'm your priest and I represent you to God. That's heresy. You make sure you understand
that. I want to be absolutely clear. You are a priest if you're
a believer. And you come into the presence
of God. The veil has been opened. You come into the presence of
God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the priesthood of God. And thankfully, we've got somebody
who does business with God for us. The Lord Jesus Christ. Let's get our song books. We'll
sing a closing song. And the number is... What is
the number?