Alright, twelve stones of glory. One of the things that I've put
in this lesson is a reason why I decided to spend a whole lesson on these
twelve stones because you know when you go into the scriptures
and Mark and I were talking about this a while ago how We'll come
up on so many things that are detailed issues that we might
look over at first reading or the second reading or even when
we study. And then the Lord may give us
some light. And when he gives us light, it's not some kind
of a extra biblical thing. It's always something that he
leads us to in scripture. And we know all the symbols and
the types and the pictures of revelation. are found in the
Old Testament. And so, you have to look for
those things. You know, you want to be careful
because you don't want to read into the scripture more than
what's there. And you certainly don't, you know, you don't want
to put anything in there that's not there. That's the problem
with people today. They look at scripture and they have preconceived
notions and preconceived ideas and they jam them into the scripture
and they're not there. But I just want to I want to
find what's there and these 12 stones look at look at verse
18 He's talking about the wall of the New Jerusalem now we know
the New Jerusalem is Is God's city the spiritual city? spiritual
Jerusalem heavenly Jerusalem which describes the glory and
the blessings the security of the church because of our union
with Christ and And it's all about Him. It's all about His
glory. Whatever these 12 stones mean,
it's all about Christ's glory. It's all about His righteousness
and the benefits that we as the church receive from Him. And so, however you view these
things, that's the way that we view it. And we won't go wrong. This is gospel truth. showing how God is glorified
in the salvation of His people and in blessing us through Christ's
blood and righteousness. But look at verse 18, it says,
the building of the wall. Now, the wall means security.
The wall means safety. He's not talking about a physical
wall here. He's talking about Christ. He's
talking about the church. He's talking about our security
in Christ, that we're safe in Him. He's our high tower. He's
our bulwark. He's our buckler. He's our shield.
He's our rock. We're hidden in the rock. You
see, that's what he's talking about. People who take this and
say, this is what the actual city of Jerusalem is going to
look like when they rebuild and all that, that's not right. It's
impossible. He says, this wall, look at it.
The building and the wall of it was of Jasper. Now this Jasper
was one of the stones in the breastplate of judgment in the
high priest of Israel. And that's one of the reasons
I decided to devote a whole lesson to these 12 stones. Now the number
12 represents the completed government of God. That's what it represents. It's one of the numbers of completion
or perfection. We talked about that. And so
when you talk about 12, what you need to think of is this.
That government of the covenant of grace that was set upon Christ's
shoulder, he has completed and there are no vacancies. There
are no empty houses in this city. There are no empty seats in this
congregation. This is the elect of God complete. The last one of God's elect has
been called into the fold, into the church. The last one of the
sheep has been called into the fold. Everyone whom God chose
before the foundation of the world, everyone whom God justified,
by the righteousness of Christ imputed, everyone whom Christ
redeemed on the cross, everyone whom the Holy Spirit has regenerated
and converted. They've been brought into the
fold and now they're glorified. And so this is all about the
judgment of God. This Jasper wall shows that their
safety is the judgment of God based upon the finished work
of Christ. And nobody can charge us. Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. Now
we're sinners saved by grace. But our sins can never be charged
to us. God said, I'll remember them
no more. There's no record of them in the law books of heaven.
We have righteousness imputed, see? So we're safe in Christ. This jasper was mentioned in
Revelation 4 and it symbolized the perfections of God revealed
in Christ, the Shekinah glory you might say. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you're complete in
Him. So you see how it works together?
If everything that God is in His nature and His glory and
His being is honored and magnified working consistently together
in the person and work of Christ, and we are in Him as our representative,
our surety, our substitute, then we're safe. Nothing can touch
us. And look at verse 18, it says,
the city was pure gold. That means it's of God. In other
words, man has nothing to do with the building of this city.
Man is the object of God's grace. He's not the foundation. He's
not the enactor. He's not the facilitator. It's not God helps those who
help themselves. This is all of God. This is pure
gold. And anytime you see the purity
of it, it always comes from God. It never comes from us. Because
if we have a hand in it, it's not going to be pure. We'll corrupt
it. This is a testimony to the glory
of God. And he said it was so pure it
was like under clear glass. So in other words, there's no
dross here, there's no impurities, there's no sin, there's no corruption. Now that's the issue. But now
look in verse 19, and the foundations of the wall of the city are garnished
with all manner of precious stones. Now he mentions 12 stones here.
And it's not an easy thing to really go through and understand
everything about this but again we know number one that this
is all about the glory of Christ and his church and the security
of salvation that glorifies God. Now we know that's what it's
all about it's all about Christ it's all about his righteousness
it's all about our security in him and this is the wall so nothing
can touch us. Now The only scriptural reference
we have to twelve stones is found where? Anybody know? Right, that's the only reference
you have to twelve stones in the Bible is back during the
high priest. He had twelve stones on his breastplate. Rows of four, three rows of four
I think they were. And then there were 12, they
had amulets on his shoulder, there were six stones on one
shoulder and six stones on the other. What you had there is
a picture, the breastplate. You know what the breastplate
is, that protects the heart. And what that shows is that Christ,
and you remember what else was beside the stones? The names
of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now, he doesn't mention in this
particular place the names of the 12 tribes, but he does in
other places in Revelation, and obviously in the Old Testament
you have them. But you have those 12 stones,
and by each stone there was the name of the tribe. And it's a
little difficult to try to pinpoint everything in its accuracy. First of all, nobody has seen
the breastplate of the high priest since it went missing. Now, when
did it go missing? I don't know. Some people say
that it went missing when Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army took
the things of the temple and took them to Babylon. You know,
they took things out, you know, the holy things of the temple,
the vessels, and they took them to Babylon. They stole them.
And they did keep them, but you remember they abused them, the
vessels. You remember when Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall,
all of that, they were having a big party. And God brought
judgment down upon them. Now, was, you know, is that when
they took the breastplate? I don't know. Nobody has seen
it. Plus the fact, too, when you go back to the Old Testament
and you see the listing of the stones on the breastplate, well,
different translations translate those things differently. Is
this a, is, you know, what is, what exactly is this stone? What
do we call it today? There are variations of that.
But my advice to you is don't get bogged down in that. I've
always said just say, well, this is what it is, and say it with
authority like nobody can argue with you. And just leave it at
that. But what I did is I went with
John Gill on this. I think Brother Gill usually,
he stuck with the gospel. And that's what I want to do
with it. So let's just look at some of these. He says, or look
at these. He says in verse 19, the foundations of the wall of
the city were garnished with all manner of precious stone.
Now, when it says the foundations of the wall, that doesn't mean
that believers or the church is the foundation of it all,
this whole city. I believe what he's showing here
is that the church is the pillar and ground of truth. The foundation
of truth, God has laid the foundation. Paul spoke of that in 1 Corinthians
3 when he talked about preaching the gospel in different ones
and he talked about one man comes along and he builds, in other
words, God uses this man to start a church here. And he builds
the foundation and another man comes along and builds upon that
foundation and that's Christ building his church. So it's
not replacing the church itself with Christ who is the foundation
of everything. Christ is the foundation of the
church, Christ is the head of the church, Christ is the heart
of the church, and he's certainly the builder of the church. But
he says the first foundation was Jasper, so there's Jasper
again. And that jasper was a stone that
was on the breastplate of the priest, and it was associated
with the tribe of Benjamin. And the name Benjamin means son
of my right hand. And who does that point to? Well,
that points to Christ, who's seated at the right hand of the
Father, who's in heaven. Now we're in Him. So we're at
the right hand of the father. What is the right hand of the
father? Well, it's the right hand of judgment. When they judge
somebody in the courts back then, you know, if they extended the
right hand, that means they were exonerated, that they were acquitted.
If they extended the left hand, they were guilty. It's the right
hand of acceptance. It's the right hand of fellowship.
So I believe this Jasper stone represents Christ And the fact
that in him, we're seated at the right hand of the Father.
He's our intercessor, he's our mediator, he's our advocate. And so we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is, I've quoted
here in Hebrews 1 and Romans chapter 8, that Christ being
our intercessor, that he is our position. The next one, the second
one, verse 19, is Sapphire. The tribe Issachar was written
on this stone, and the name Issachar means reward. So what you're
seeing here in these stones are all the blessings of salvation
and glory that we have in Christ based on the merits of his blood
and righteousness. We have a reward. But I believe
this mainly talks about how the church is his reward. Now the
reward we have is the reward of grace. We didn't earn it and
didn't deserve it. But Christ earned and deserves
every bit of the reward that he has. He is both Lord and Christ. He is seated at the right hand
of the Father. He is given the reward of his
people because he bought us lock, stock, and barrel with the price
of his precious blood. On verse 19, the third is chalcedony. Now, you may pronounce that dish. Some people say chalcedony, but
I say chalcedony, and I'm right. So, all right. Yeah, all right. This could be
the same as a carbuncle in the breastplate on which the name
Levi, the tribe Levi was written. Now, what does Levi mean? It
means attached. It means joined. And of course,
that pictures our unity, our oneness with Christ. Christ and
his church cannot be separated. We're one with Christ. We're
baptized into Christ. We're made one with him. So much
so that we're chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. All of our sins were imputed to him. He was our surety from
the very beginning. He became responsible for our
whole salvation, for our whole debt from the very beginning.
He's our representative. Think about this, knowing your
sins, knowing my sins, would I ever want to appear before
God outside of Christ? That's the terror of the Lord.
Remember Paul said that in 2 Corinthians 5 about judgment, knowing therefore
the terror of the Lord. The terror of the Lord to a believer
is the thought of appearing before God without Christ, without his
blood, without his righteousness. We're one with him. He's our
substitute. Not only is he our surety, he
actually came and paid the debt. He's our sacrifice. He's our
sin offering, our sin bearer. He's the bridegroom and we're
the bride. We're joined together in a covenant marriage. We're
married to another, Paul said in Romans chapter seven. We're
not married to the law. We're married to Christ. That's
the third stone. And then verse 19, the fourth stone is an emerald.
Now on the high priest breastplate on an emerald, the name Judah
was written. Now Judah is the kingly tribe,
that's the tribe from where Christ came according to the flesh.
What does Judah mean? It means praise. Praise the Lord,
it's the stone of worship. It symbolizes the glory of God
in Christ and the worship that he deserves. And that's what
we are, we're the circumcision, we worship God in the spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Our whole lives are to be marked
with worship. You see how this all works out
to the glory of Christ. None of it goes to our merits
or our glory. We don't have any, you see. And
so we worship Christ who is the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's
our king. He earned that right. Look at
verse 20. Here's the fifth stone. It's
called sardonyx. And that may be, some people
say onyx. That was what was on the breastplate
of the high priest and the name the tribe Joseph was associated
with that. Well, what does Joseph mean?
It means addition. It means may God add. And what that's showing is that
Christ, because of his successful victorious work on the cross,
he adds his people God adds to his church, remember in Acts
chapter two, that's what they said, God added to his church
daily. You see, we don't add to the church, we invite people
to church. We tell people to come hear the gospel. But we
don't add to his church, we can't make, listen, I know what the
great commission says, go out and make disciples, and I know
what he's saying there. But technically speaking, only
he can make disciples, only God can give a new heart. Only God
can bring a sinner to believe the gospel. And I've often said
it, you know, he said, all that the father giveth me shall come
to me and him that cometh to me, I will no wise cast out.
Any sinner who believes the gospel is a miracle of God's power and
God's goodness and God's grace. I quoted, I've got quoted in
your lesson, Isaiah chapter nine and verse seven, because this
name Joseph, adding to, or may God add, is the same ideas expressed
in this verse. You know, in Isaiah chapter nine,
it starts off, you know, unto us, verse six, unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given, and then his name shall be called
wonderful and all, and then it goes on to list those. And verse
seven says this. It says, of the increase of his
government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of
David and upon his kingdom to order it, to establish it with
judgment and with justice from henceforth even forevermore,
the zeal of the Lord of hosts." Now what is that? That's the
desire of God to glorify himself. That's what will perform this.
God's going to glorify himself. He's not going to lose his people.
There's not going to be anybody who perishes for whom Christ
died. That would deny and challenge and blemish the glory of God.
God's gonna bring his people in. Okay, here's the sixth stone. Sardius, it's called here. And
that could be the sardine stone. That was mentioned in Revelation
4. You know, that was the first
stone on the breastplate of the high priest, and whose name you
think was written by that? The first one, Reuben, who was
the eldest. You remember of the tribes of
Israel, the sons of Jacob? Reuben was the oldest. Now somebody
asked the question about these stones as listed here. Why are
they in this order? I believe they're listed in this
order because it shows the order of things beginning with the
glory of God and the foundation of salvation. But that's all
I can tell you about that. But here's what Reuben means.
Reuben, he was the firstborn of Jacob. His name means viewing
or beholding a son. It's almost like when Reuben
was born, they said, Leah was his mother, wasn't it? Jacob
and Leah. He said, look, we got a son. Look, a son. And so that was
his name, beholding a son. This sardine stone was blood
red. And it symbolized the justice
of God as satisfied by the blood of Christ. When we look to Christ,
what do we do? We look at the Son, the Son of
God. We behold the Son. We behold
His glory, John said, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father. In other words, salvation is
looking to Christ. Salvation is viewing Christ,
the Christian life. You know, people, they have so
much So many issues and so much argument and debate on Christian
living, Christian thinking. The Christian life, I believe,
is summed up so well in Hebrews chapter 12, where he talks about the sin
that so easily besets us. And people, what is the sin that
so easily besets us? Well, we have so many sins, it's
hard to pinpoint one, isn't it? But I think it mainly involves
anything that would cause us to look away from Christ, that
would distract us. I think that the essence of what
he's talking about in Hebrews 12 there is doubt. And what causes
doubt? Well, it's when we look away
from him. And I think the proof of that is Hebrews 12 too. where
he says, we run the race of grace looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Now, we have so many distractions
today. I was on the internet, a fellow
over in England was talking about how his prayer life was so pitiful. And he was wondering if any other
Christian had problems with that. And I thought, yeah, yeah, we
do. And one of the things that, especially
in our day and age, and I say that, you know, but I think it's
been in every day and age, we do, we have so many distractions,
don't we? And things that would take us
away from worship, things that would take us away from prayer,
things that would take us away. We live our lives looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And that is a foundation
of the faith, isn't it? That's a foundation of the faith.
All right, look at verse 20, the seventh stone. The seventh
is chrysolite. And on the high priest breastplate,
the tribe of Asher, that was one of the tribes of Israel,
his name was written on that stone. And Asher means blessed,
blessings. Well, Obviously, you know what
that is. Blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Do you know, and I know
this is hard for people to get square in their minds. Somebody
said, well, if I go to church today, and
I say that, I hate that term, go to church. Well, I'll say
it this way. If I go to worship today, meet
with the people of God, open the word, pray with each other,
sing praises to God with each other, study his word. If I do
that, I'm going to be blessed. And if I, if I ignore that, or
if I neglect that, I'm not going to be blessed. Well, does that
mean by coming here and doing what we're doing this morning
that you're earning your blessings? Does that mean that you're any
more deserving of it than the ones who aren't here this morning?
And the answer is no. You didn't earn your blessings
here. Here's the thing about it, and I'm telling you, I know
it's hard for us to get this square in our minds because we're
so attuned that we get what we earn, we get what we deserve.
Listen, there are blessings that God has connected with obedience. Not because we earn or deserve
them, that's just the way it is. And every blessing that we have,
and that's what this stone means, in this great walled city, that
we are secure in every blessing, whether we realize it or not,
because of what Christ accomplished on Calvary, because of his righteousness
imputed. So don't get to thinking, well,
I'm going to go earn my stars today or get stars in my crown,
you know, and all that stuff. That's false religion. But that's
what this name Asher means. We're blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Look at the
eighth one in verse 20. It's called Beryl. This stone may answer to what
Exodus 28, 19 calls Ligur. I guess that's how you pronounce
it. I shouldn't say it like that, should I? I should just say it's
Ligur. Anybody want to argue with that? Lydgier. Some of you ladies may
have heard of some stone like it, I don't know. But I've heard
of Beryl. But that was on the breastplate
of the priest and on that stone was the tribe Dan. Now what does
Dan mean? Dan means judging, judgment. Many of the judges came from
the tribe of Dan, like Samson. Judgment. And what are we talking
about when we talk about judgment? We're talking about the gospel.
I'm going to be preaching on that this morning out of Hebrews
11 about Noah. And the gospel is a gospel of
judgment. The gospel is not, listen, the
gospel is not some syrupy, soapy, heart-tugging message that plays
upon the sentiments of people because it presents a God or
a Savior who feels sorry for them. That's not what the gospel
is. Now don't get me wrong. The gospel is the preaching of
the love of God. It's the preaching of the mercy
of God. But if you don't have a gospel that is founded and
permeated with the justice and judgment of God that took place
on Calvary, for the sins of his people imputed him, you don't
have a gospel at all. The gospel is a gospel of salvation,
but it's also a gospel of condemnation because it tells me That without
Christ, I'm condemned. Without Christ, you're condemned.
And it is a judgment. And that's what that symbolizes,
this barrel. Look at the ninth one. It says
in verse 20, topaz. The name Simeon. The name Simeon
was on that topaz. That means one who hears and
obeys. Well, that symbolizes the obedience
unto death of Christ. doesn't it? Certainly as our
substitute and also the obedience of believers in the gospel when
God the Holy Spirit brings us to know Christ. We hear, let
he who has ears to hear, let him hear. The 10th stone there in verse 20. Now
this one is a hard one to pronounce. Anybody want to give it a...
Chrisoprasus I guess that's how you pronounce it but some say
this was the agate in the Old Testament on the breastplate
of the priest and the tribe Naphtali was written on this stone Naphtali
means wrestling or striving with and it symbolizes when we think,
I think about Christ struggling in his humanity agonizing on
the cross for our sins, imputed to him, he suffered, he bled,
and he died. You know, a lot of the modern day attacks upon
the doctrine of imputed sin come because people want to say, well,
what Christ went through in his suffering and death was more
than imputation. Well, that's no argument there.
What Christ went through on that cross was a struggle that we
can't even imagine. what it was like. He suffered. In the garden of Gethsemane,
he sweat great drops of blood. Can you imagine that? It's like
a hemorrhage. His soul suffering. I can't describe
that to you. But that doesn't deny or even
diminish the doctrine of imputed sin because everything that he
suffered in his agony, in his struggle, in his wrestling was
based upon sin imputed to him. He was a debtor, and he had to
pay the debt, and he died to do that. But it also, I think,
this agate, this naphtali, symbolizes our struggles, persevering in
the faith in this world. I think about Jacob wrestling
with the angel, striving to enter in. Now that certainly doesn't
give any testimony to our power or our goodness, it's all to
God. Look at the 11th stone, it's called Jason. This corresponds
with the diamond in Exodus 28 on the breastplate of the high
priest and Zebulon's name was written on it. Zebulon means
home or dwelling place. Christ is our home, our dwelling
place and the heavenly city is our eternal home. That's what,
in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Then the
12th stone is the Amethyst. And on that stone on the breastplate
of the priest, the name Gad, the tribe Gad, and that means
a company. A group of people, that's what
it's talking about. And what it symbolizes is the power of
Christ to overcome all our enemies who come against us and to form
the complete company and population of the city of God. It's populated. Again, there's no vacancies.
There's nobody missing in this kingdom. And it's all to the
praise of the glory of His grace. Okay.