This evening, chapter 8. Exodus
chapter 8. We're grateful that Patsy's here
tonight with Joe. She says she's feeling good and
we're very thankful for that. Let's read starting at verse
6 and read down through verse 14. And they shall make the ephod
of gold, of blue, of purple, of scarlet, and fine twine linen
with cunning work. And ye shall have the two shoulder
pieces thereof joined together at the two edges thereof, and
so it shall be joined together. And the curious girdle of the
ephod which is upon it shall be the same according to the
work thereof, which means fine twine linen, according to the
work thereof, even of gold and blue and purple and scarlet and
fine twine linen. And thou shalt make two onyx
stones, engrave on them the names of the children of Israel, six
of their names on one stone and the other six names of the rest
on the other stone according to their birth. With the work
of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, thou
shalt engrave the two stones with the names of the children
of Israel, and thou shalt make them to set in ouches of gold. And thou shalt put the two stones
upon the shoulders of the ephod for the stones of memorial, unto
the children of Israel, and Aaron shall bear their names before
the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial. And thou shalt
make ouches of gold, and two chains of pure gold at the ends
of wreaths and works shalt thou make them, and fasten the wreaths
and chains of the ouches." Now let me show you what we're talking
about here. This right here is what we're
talking about. This is the ephod. It started out as white linen
woven together and then you see all the different colors that's
in it. And that right there is the curious girdle, just a belt
made just like the ephod. See them gold chains across there?
And they made a little gold pouch to step those onyx in with the
names of the children of Israel on them. And that is the breastplate
that went over the ephod. and have those things upon the
head. Now I want you to hold Exodus
28 and look in chapter 39 in verse 3 for me just a moment. I want you to see something here.
How in the world do you mix gold and put gold in all of those
garments? And those things had gold all
through them. Look what it said. And they did beat the gold, verse
3, and they did beat the gold into thin plates and cut it into
wires to work it into the blue and in the purple and in the
scarlet and with the fine linen with cuddling work. So the thread
they put that together with and wove it together with was gold.
Cut it so fine that you could put it through there. God's got to give somebody some
incredible gifts to do those things. But you know, last time
we dealt with this, Aaron and his sons were consecrated to
the priesthood. Set apart to the priesthood.
And that showed us that our Lord Jesus Christ, our great high
priest, was consecrated to the office of priest as our Redeemer.
No man took this unto himself, but he that was called of God.
And then we talked about the garments of beauty and glory
for beauty and glory. And then Moses, you know, when
we went over there and he showed him dressing these men, putting
their clothes on them. We saw the embroidered linen
coat. That's the first thing that he put on him. This beautiful embroidered linen
coat. Then they put the girdle and
the belt around him. And then the blue robe over that. And so now we're going to continue
on and deal with the ephod and the breastplate. And I showed
you this is the outer garment. It's like a tunic that came down
below his waist and had all this blue, purple, scarlet, and fine
twine linen. And it had all that gold in it.
And that breastplate and the gold chains that held it together.
And it was composed of two pieces and they were fastened together
on the shoulders with these two onyx stones and that gold to
put them together. And then this belt that was around
them, that was called the curious girdle because it was made just
exactly like the other and it was so curious means it was skillfully,
skillfully made. And I tell you what, he was made
of blue, purple, and scarlet color. And then he put on those
two stones, two onyx stones, the names of the children of
Israel. Started out with Reuben, and they went to the next one,
they went to the next one. The first six was on one side.
Started with the oldest to the one born the sixth. Went to the
other side, started with the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th,
and Joseph's name would have been the last, no, Benjamin's
name would have been the last on it. Benjamin's name. And so
this ephod had their names on this ephod was as the priest
moved about to show you how genius and how glorious the construction
of this thing. When you looked one way, it was
all gold. The sun shining on it. And the
gold shining on it. You looked at it and all you
see is just shining gold everywhere. Just catching every ray and every
light. And then when you looked at it
from a different angle, all you saw was linen. White and blue
and purple and scarlet. And so as you know, you have
these two distinct materials in this ephod. And neither material
became one became the other. That linen didn't become gold
and that gold didn't become linen. Two distinct materials was in
that. Gold and linen. And beloved, that's the way our
Lord Jesus Christ is. He has two distinct natures.
Two glorious, blessed natures. That's the wonder of His glorious
person. He was changeless. infinite,
and had two distinct unmixable natures. He was a man, he was human, and
yet at the same time he was divine, he was God Almighty. And you
know our Lord Jesus Christ was genuinely human. Genuinely human. Born of a woman just as you and
I are. Born of a woman just like you
and me. And the scriptures tells us that he grew in wisdom. Grew
in stature. That means he started out as
a little baby. He had to learn to crawl. Then
he learned to walk. Then he learned to talk. He had
to grow up and he grew in stature. He started out as a little fellow
and he grew taller and taller and taller. And he started filling
out as a man. I'm telling you when we talk
about Christ being a man, we're talking about a man started out
as an infant and grew up to be a man. And he had to grow in
stature just like we grow in stature. And we look at somebody
I've seen several years and we'll say, my goodness how they've
grown up. And that's what happened with
Christ. And beloved, and he, he grew in wisdom. He grew in
wisdom as a human being, as a man. He grew in knowledge as a man.
And the scripture said he grew in favor with God and man. Now
you explain that to me. I mean he was a man so much so
that he grew in wisdom, stature, knowledge, and favor with God
and man. Everybody that knew him thought,
boy this is a fine young man. They didn't know who he was yet.
They didn't know. And I'll tell you something else
he did. As a man, he worked for a living. He earned his bread
by the sweat of his brow, just like he said in Genesis. Our Lord Jesus Christ, he grew
weary. He grew so weary sometimes. He hungered sometimes. And then
he thirsted sometimes. And he had to eat like everybody
else did. And he drank. And he had to go to sleep. To
rest his body. And to renew his body. Just like
you and I have to do. And our Lord Jesus Christ, bless
His name, He was burdened. He knew what it was to be a man
who was burdened. Oh, He knew what it was to be
burdened. Oh my! He knew what it was to
be burdened. And He knew what it was to have
sorrow. And heaviness, heaviness, heaviness
of soul. And our Lord Jesus Christ to
show how much of a human He was. Like these two distinct things
in this material, gold. and linen mixed together. The gold didn't make the linen
gold and the linen didn't make the gold more precious. Two distinct
things and that's the way it was with our Savior. And our
Lord Jesus Christ even wept. His heart got so heavy sometimes
that He even wept. You find Him weeping twice. And
that's something, that's one of the, above all the things
I've said, that to me is the most humane thing, the most human
thing that our Lord ever did to me. Was that He stood outside
Lazarus too, And he wept, he stood there and cried. I mean,
tears went down his holy face. Here's a man that I tell you
what, he is so touched by Mary and Martha's grief, Mary and
Martha's sorrow, and the heaviness of her heart, and he loved them
so much, and he loved Lazarus so much, that he stood there
at his tomb, and after he'd been dead four days, and he wept!
Wept he didn't just stand tears come down and you could hear
his voice you could hear Weeping you could live in people stood
around him and they said oh how he much he must have loved this
man They just had that funeral for Steve Jones yesterday I know
telling how much weeping went on over that and how much more
weeping that will be But do you think about the Lord Jesus Christ? So human, so human, so much of
a man that tears streamed out of his face. And another time
when he looked out over Jerusalem and he saw how all the things
that they could have had and he wept over them. wept over
him. And beloved, how long has it
been since you and I have wept? But our Savior wept. How can
a man, that shows you how human he was. His heart was so heavy
that he would stand and weep. You know what it felt like to
hear the Lord Jesus Christ weep? If he was in this service, you
could have heard him weep. You could have heard him weep.
And I tell you what, And at last he died. He died. He died. And his body, as ours,
became cold. just like anybody else that dies
their body becomes so cold and they become so cold so quick
that died and his body became cold and then they took his body
down and they buried it as uncold told millions upon millions upon
millions had been buried before him yeah our Lord Jesus was a true
man Exactly like you and me, sin accepted. And don't ever,
ever, oh my, don't ever think of Him as some kind of a spirit
or something. Our Lord Jesus Christ was 100%
man. They called Him the man Christ
Jesus. And there's a man right now,
I'm telling you. There's a man sitting at God's
right hand. And he's in a body. Not the one he had here. He's
in a different body. But he looks the same. And beloved,
that's the one we're going to see. You know how we'll know
him? You know how they knew him in Revelation? He was as a lamb
that had been slain. He was as a lamb who had been
slain and had redeemed us by His blood. That's how they saw
Him. And when they saw Him that way,
they said, Oh, He looked as a lamb as it had been slain. He is one
who redeemed us by His blood. You know what happened then?
They began saying, They began to sing, and you know
what? They sang a new song. I don't
know what it's going to be, but we'll get to sing it too one
of these days. We done already sung, Oh How
I Need Thee, Oh How I Need Thee, Every How I Need Thee. It's just
so sweet to trust in Jesus. And we cling to the Christ of
the cross. So he was a hundred percent man. And let me tell you something,
he could not have died. as a sacrificial death, a death
that would put away sin, a death that would satisfy God, a death
that would be a sacrifice acceptable to God and would save sinners
at the same time. If he wasn't a man, he could
not have been a sacrifice. Could he? He could not have been
a sacrifice. But, if he is only a man, and
that's all he ever was, He's a false prophet, and he's deceived
a multitude that no man could possibly number. And I tell you
this, if anybody ever teaches, and you ever hear anybody say,
that Jesus Christ is just a man, and nothing more than just a
man, that man's an infidel. A man is an infidel. In fact,
and that's what we just read, you know, the infidels of his
day, the Pharisees, they accused him of only being a man and making
himself equal with God and making himself to be God. And you know
what they tried to do to him? Tried to stone him. They picked
up stones to stone him. Why are you going to stone me?
For what good work are you going to stone me? The Lord Jesus said.
So we're not going to stone you for a good work. Oh, it's wonderful
to do good works. We glory in our good works. We
glory in our prayers. We glory in our almsgiving. We
glory in our phylacteries. We glory in our going to the
synagogue. We glory in keeping the Sabbath. Oh, we don't mind
good works. But I tell you one thing we can't
bear is you being a man and you saying you're God because if
you are God then we're in real trouble. That's exactly what
they were thinking about. That's exactly what they were
talking about. And I tell you, beloved, it took a man. It had to be a man to be able
to see a sacrifice. It had to be a man that could
die. It had to be a man that could
be buried. It had to be a man so he could
rise again from the dead. And he was 100% man. And I tell you what, in all that
he did, it was more than human to show you that there's something
else besides his humanity. He gave sight to people that
were blind. Blind Barnabas said, Oh Jesus, that son of David! Shut up! Shut up! The disciples
told him. He said, Oh no. Cried out that
much the more. He said, Why do you all have
mercy on me, thou son of David? And when he had cried for mercy,
thy Lord Jesus stopped in his tracks. I tell you what, when
you start crying out for mercy, you got his attention. You start
asking him for mercy, you got his attention. You start asking
him for forgiveness, you got his attention. You start asking
him for grace, you got his attention. You come with a heart heavy and
a need in your soul, I tell you what, you got his attention.
He stops and listens. What do you want? I want to see.
Alright. Alright. Oh my. And all people that couldn't
hear a word, He'd give them their ears back. People that couldn't
speak and couldn't talk, He gave them a tongue and put a new tongue
in their mouth so they could speak of Him, praise Him and
glorify Him. When lepers, oh lepers, leprosy
is one of the awfulest diseases, oh my goodness, it eats the flesh
away. It leaves a man's nose off, eats
the flesh off of his hands and just tongue, he starts rotting
it all over. And I tell you what, our Lord
Jesus Christ would cleanse lepers. He would touch lepers and he
wouldn't get leprosy. And oh my, they'd be lame men,
they're sitting around, they couldn't walk, couldn't get up
out of their bed, couldn't get up off their bed. Our Lord Jesus
Christ said, rise up! Rise up! Oh my, you know what he did?
He couldn't get up, but he did. It's like that man you read about
tonight with the withered hand. He said, stretch forth your hand.
That man couldn't stretch forth his hand. But when Christ told
him to, he could. And that's the difference between
what Christ says and what anybody else says. If he says, get up,
you get up. That man laying at the pool of
Bethesda. I heard people everywhere. He
just stopped before one man. He said, will thou be made whole?
Yes, Lord, but I ain't got nobody putting me in the water. Lord,
he wasn't thinking about water. He said, I'll be made whole.
He said, take up your bed and leave this place. He got up,
rolled up his little mat. Hadn't walked in 38 years. Oh my, man can't do that. Oh and I tell you what, when
he took that loaves and fishes, one time he took five loaves
of bread and two fish. Five thousand men, not counting
the women and children. He took that and he gave thanks
to God for it. And he started telling them fellas,
start feeding these people. When they got through feeding,
two fish, five loaves of bread. When they got through feeding
all them people, they had twelve loaves left. Twelve baskets full
left. I tell you. And you know when he did that,
he created food, atoms, while he was doing that. How do you
create fish and bread? Christ did. How do you take two
fish and multiply it and feed over 5,000 people with it? That
means you've got to make fish over and over and over again.
You've got to make one bread after bread after bread. Who
does that? Christ can. Huh? And when he
hunched the storm, he was laying asleep. He was asleep. Big huge storm come up. Master,
don't you care that we perish? He got up. And when He hushed
that storm, He was master over mass. The whole mass of that
lake. He was master over weight. Those
waves were coming up on that ship. He was master over weight.
He told them waves to stop. Huh? Oh my. He was Lord over gravity. He told it to go down. And over
motion and everything else that was on that ocean that night.
And let me tell you something else. When He raised Lazarus
from the dead, He had to create him a body to come out of that
tomb with. Do you know that? He had to make
that man go back Reverse death on him and create a new body
For him to come out of that tomb with And I tell you know what
that tells us Just like when we're in the grave, when He brings
us out, He's going to create a new body. You say, well, that's just in
the tomb. He didn't come out of there four
days stinking. He didn't come out of there corrupt.
He didn't come out of there, you know, with, no, no. He come
out of there with better than He was when He went in. Better
than He was when He was younger. Our Lord gave new life, a new
body. and created a new life in that
man. And I tell you what, everything
in this world is by His will. He created all things, and by
Him all things consist. So just like you're trying to
separate the gold from the linen, if you tried to do that, you'd
ruin the gold, and you'd ruin the linen both. You'd ruin them
both. Huh? And oh, if you start to
take that gold out of there, you'd just have it all twisted
and everything and then the linen would all be all messed up and
you'd ruin the gold and you'd ruin the ethan too. And that's
the way it is with our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't take apart
the two natures of our Lord Jesus. There's two blessed natures.
What a glorious thing. Do you know what it means to
believe that Christ was both God and man? You know that John
said it this way, he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born
of God. You know what that means that
Jesus is the Christ? That means that he was sin of
God. That he was anointed of God. He was blessed of God, and
that he was God, and yet he was a man. And yet that's what he
said, he that believes that is born of God. How can you believe
that when a man was walking this earth, and all you could see
was a man, and the things that a man would do. If you saw him
asleep, you said there's no way that could be God. If you saw him sitting at that
well and weary, and asking for a drink of water, you say, there's
no way that can be God. But you see him standing outside
Lazarus' tomb, and crying, and says, Lazarus, come forth, and
he creates a new body. When that man came out there,
Martha said, Lord, let him alone! He's been dead four days, he
stinks! When they opened that rock and
took that rock away, if I was a betting man, I'd bet you a
cow and a calf to a dollar and a half that our Lord Jesus Christ,
there was not a stitch coming out of that tomb. When they rolled
that away, and he had already said Lazarus come forth, and
they rolled that thing away, there was no stake. No corruption. Christ made him a new body. And when they took that thing
off of him, his eyes hadn't seen. Oh man, I don't know what a shape
he was before he died, but when they took that thing off of his
eyes, his eyes was as pure and bright and could see just like
they did today as a young man. And you know what? They made
him a supper. They made him a special meal.
And it says, Bethany and the Lord Jesus sat down at the table
with Mary and Martha and Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. So he wasn't stinking, he wasn't
corrupt. He wasn't corrupt. But I tell
you what, no more than you can tear apart that ephod, take the
gold out of it and the linen and separate them. You cannot
separate the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our poor little
old brain, men have always attempted to, but it always ends up in
condemnation. And the moment, the moment you
use human logic or reason, To explain the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ, he destroyed it. But our Lord Jesus Christ,
God and man, God and man, 100% man, 100% God. And they was two distinct natures
in one mercy. That's a mystery to me. I'm one
person. The only way I have two natures
is my new nature and my old nature. But it's still the same nature.
But here's the thing. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He's the
one, listen, He made eternal damnation and He made eternal
salvation. And I tell you something else,
they did not depend on any principles or any precepts that he taught.
You know what he said? What salvation was? It's to believe
me. To believe me. Huh? Oh my, He
taught that believe in Him, have faith upon Himself, and believe
that He was who He claimed to be. And that was salvation. To believe He is who He said
He was. And when men believed that, everyone who believed that,
they were a saved person. Huh? That's why our Lord Jesus
says, No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. And when he
told people that, they said, there's got to be another way.
There's got to be another way. But you take away our Lord Jesus
Christ, His Godhead, His deity, from the storm of Galilee, and
all you got is just a storm, and nobody able to control it.
And a maudlin story. You take away our Lord's Godhead
away from the grave of Lazarus, And then you got just a deception.
But beloved, if we believe, if we believe in this blessed book,
believe in this blessed book, then you have to come to the
conclusion that Jesus Christ was born of a woman, came into this world as a little
baby, He grew up. Had to grow up. Had to do everything that we
have to do. Eat, sleep, drink. But yet at the same time, He
was God. He was God. And I'll tell you
what my hope is and what my hope is based on. That as a man, He
was able to bear my sin in His own body on the tree. He is able
to face God for me. He is able to die. But as God, as God, He is able
to save me and keep me and give me a new body. when he raises
me out of the grave just like he did Lazarus. Huh? That's my
hope. That's my hope. Ain't that yours? Huh? Oh my. I tell you his humanity and deity
is just like the gold in the linen. You can't tear them apart. Can't tear them apart. And I
know we've heard that over and over and over again, but it's
still one of the greatest wonders that you'll ever confront in
this world. Yeah, it's just... You know, you can't separate
one from the other, but you see him so clearly as a man. One day you see his manhood,
he's laying there asleep, the next minute you see him calming
a storm. standing weeping over a dead
man's grave. Let me tell you why I think he
wept. You know why I believe he wept? He said, I got to bring
Lazarus back into this world. And he still got to go through
this again. Huh? Got to go through this again.
It's just like with somebody that we love, the Lord takes
them home. The minute they say that, the Lord come to take them
home. You wouldn't brought them back
for 10,000 worlds like this, the moment they left. You stand
by somebody's bedside, you stand with somebody and find their
body and they're gone. You say the Lord come and took
them home. Oh, let's bring them back. Oh
Lord, let me bring them back just for another hour, another
half hour. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no. No. Do I have to go through that
again? They have to go through the sickness
again, and the death again, and you'd have to go through the
grief again, and the pain again, and the crying again, and the
sorrow again. Who'd want to do that? Lazarus, come on out of there.
One of these days, that's the way He's going to do us. He'll
call us by name and say, it's time to go. Time to go. And we'll be laying in the graves
and the graves going to bust open. And we're coming out of
there just like Lazarus did with the new body. Our Savior, our blessed, blessed
Father, in the Lord Jesus' name, we thank you, bless you, and
praise you for giving us this day, another day of worship,
another day of gathering with the people of God, the saints
of God, the blessed saints of God, the precious people of God.
We thank you for allowing us to meet here together. And Lord,
what a joyous time we have when we meet because of you, because
of who you are and what you did. And Lord, we love to sing about
you, talk about you, meditate on you, think of you, and find
you in your word. And Lord, I know that we don't
come within a thousand miles of even coming close to describing
you as you are. But Lord, we sure enjoy trying. We sure enjoy hearing about it.
We delight in what we hear about our blessed Master. Thank you
for meeting with us. And God bless you, dear people.
Continue to bless Patsy and the dear Saints of God that Dirk's
already prayed for. Please meet their needs. For
Christ's sake we pray. Amen. Amen.