Priesthood, worship

Now, I want you to turn with me to the book of Exodus, please. First of all, to 28, Exodus 28, and we'll read a few verses there and then some in 29. Verse 9, Exodus 28 and verse 9, And thou shalt take two anuk stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth.

Verse 15, And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work, after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it, of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen thou shalt make it. Four square it shall be, being doubled. A span shall be the length thereof, and a span shall be the breadth thereof.

And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones. The first shall be a sardis, a topaz, and a carbuncle, this shall be the first row. And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.

And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper. And they shall be set in gold in their enclosings.

And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve according to their names, like the engravings of a signet. Every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes. Verse 30.

And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord. And Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually. Now chapter 29, please.

And verse number 8. And thou shalt bring his sons and put coats upon them, and thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them, and the priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute. And thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons, and thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock, and thou shalt kill the bullock before the Lord by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar, and thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the call that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar.

But the flesh of the bullock and his skin and his dung thou shalt burn with fire without the camp. It is a sin offering. Thou shalt also take one ram, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram, and thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.

And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him and his legs, and put them unto his pieces and unto his head, and thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar. It is a offering unto the Lord. It is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.

And thou shalt take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram, and thou shalt kill the ram, and take his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of the right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. Now just for sake of time maybe, verse 26. And thou shalt take the breast of the ram of Aaron's consecration, and wave it, of the ram of Aaron's consecration, and wave it for a wave offering before the Lord.

It shall be thy part. And thou shalt sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the shoulder of the heave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of the consecration, even that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons. And it shall be Aaron's and his sons by a statute for ever from the children of Israel.

For it is an heave offering, and it shall be an heave offering from the children of Israel, of the sacrifice of their peace offerings, even their heave offerings unto the Lord. Now that's all we need to read, and we know that God always blesses the reading of his precious word. Now I would like to continue a little bit, speak a little bit about the priesthood, first of all of the Lord, and then the very practical aspect of that priesthood to each one of us here who have been saved by the grace of God.

I'm not going to go into all the details of the garments of the priest, but you know that Aaron's garments especially are brought before us in chapter 28, and they're called the garments of glory and beauty. They have been referred to before in the ministry of the priesthood. And these garments, I would say in type, really they speak of the character of the Lord.

The Lord didn't need any of these fancy garments to show what he really was. That would be very evident to those that would see him in his life down here. But Aaron had to be clothed with these garments to show typically what the Lord Jesus Christ is.

So we see then the beauties and the glories of the Lord Jesus in these garments of glory and beauty. I have read just in chapter 28 about the stones that were associated with the garments. I've been interested in this recently, but we just want to mention this.

Of course, there were two stones on the shoulder pieces of the garments of the high priest. And these stones were engraved with 12 names, six on one and six on the other. And if you were listening attentively to the reading, you would find that the names were written according to their birth.

These were the names of the tribe of the children of Israel. But for you and I, we know, we have been reminded of this, that our names are engraved on the shoulders of our great high priest. He upholds us in the presence of God.

We haven't learned too much from the conference already. I hope we have, but we can learn this, that there's one that has been emphasized who upholds us in the presence of God. The shoulder speaks of strength.

So the Lord upholds every believer. Can you imagine that? Just think of it. Don't think just so much of the tribes of Israel, but think of yourself.

Think of me. Imagine the Lord holding me up in the presence of God. Wow, that's something that should really stagger our imagination.

To think that your poor little worthless you and poor little worthless me, we have a place on the shoulder of our great high priest. And not only that, we have a place on the breastplate of the high priest. The names of the children of Israel were engraved there and those 12 stones and were told, not really told according to their birth, but I believe it's according to their order, their marching order through the wilderness or the order in which they encamped around the tabernacle.

Be that as it may, when we think of that and think of ourselves, what do we think? Well, first of all, they were all precious. Did you know that every believer is precious to the Lord? It may seem that we have favorites and sometimes we have, we shouldn't, you know, but everyone is precious to the Lord. I don't need to tell you we're all different.

Good thing, isn't it? Wouldn't do to have too many like me, I'm sure. Maybe one would be enough, but you know, we're all different, but we're all precious. We shouldn't try to make everyone the same.

Some people try to do that. They think that when the good seed was sown and it brought forth 30 and 60 and a hundred that I must be a hundred, I must be the big thing and others should be like me. No, we're all different and likely we're all going to be different in many ways, but we know this, we're all precious.

Can you imagine that there's one who has your name on his breast? Imagine. The Lord Jesus loves you and he loves me so much that he has our names not only on his shoulders, but on his breast. But then, you know, I think of the Urim and the Thummim.

We're not told exactly what they were and I'm not going to take time to tell you all the ideas that people have or maybe what I have, but I know this. In some way, they found out the answers that they needed from God. In the days of Nehemiah, we know there were some who claimed to be priests, but they couldn't prove their genealogy, so they were set aside until a priest arose with the Urim and the Thummim.

I think that priest really is the Lord. Now, no matter how they got the decision that came from those, I don't know, but I know this. I think it's very, very important to remember this in view of what has been taking place, especially with this young couple where the wife has been taken.

I was thinking, you know, of James. He was taken early, wasn't he? And yet John went on for so long. We don't understand that, but that's sometimes the way God works.

But I'll tell you, the decision comes from the Urim and the Thummim. You say, how do we get that today? Well, of course, we have the Word of God, but I want to emphasize this. They're close to his heart.

And whatever takes place, while we may not understand, and I hope we don't question what God is doing, we know that it must be all for our good. And somehow, even if it's, I shouldn't say even of it, that kind of minimizes it, but it'll draw us closer to him. And I don't mean that our brother Beckett had to be drawn closer to him.

We don't know these things, but I know it comes right from the heart of the high priest. Now, there's a practical aspect of this priesthood. We've been reminded of that.

We've been reminded not only that the high priest, he bears us on his shoulders and his breast. He didn't really ever go into the holiest of all with these garments of glory and beauty. You will know if you read of the Day of Atonement, he had to take them off, and he could go into the holy place with them, but into the holy place, the holiest of all, he had to change and wear just a white linen garment.

Aaron went in alone. It shows where the types fall short. The Lord Jesus, he went in alone, but he went in as our forerunner.

We've been reminded of that in the readings from the Hebrews, so that we have access into the presence of God now in spirit, and of course, in the future, we're going to all have to be safely gathered home. Well, you know, the priesthood of Aaron's sons, we read off here, they were chosen, they were called, they had to be born into the family, and then they were clothed. There was a character about them that you would have seen and known that this man is a priest.

Now, of course, you know, we believe in the priesthood of all believers. And while the brethren function audibly as priests, the sisters don't, but they're still priests. And there should be something about each one of us that would be obvious to others that we are priests.

We don't wear a special garb like some have in some of the religions of the day, but you know, there should be something about us that would show very distinctly that we're part of a priesthood. You know, one thing is people should know that as priests, we have spent time in the presence of the Lord. I preached with Brother Edward Dougherty, and so did our brother that spoke first this morning, Bruce, and we have fond memories of our brother Dougherty.

When Mr. Dougherty was a young man, he was a bishop's altar boy in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the city of Londonderry in Ireland. And he used to go in, of course, when the priest had the incense and so on. I don't know all the things that they do.

I've been at a few funerals, and that was enough for me. But anyhow, you smell the incense. And he said, then when I left the cathedral and went to play soccer with the boys, he said they could tell where I had been.

They'd say, man, he must have been in the sanctuary. Why? Because he could smell the incense. I wonder, would that be true of you and true of me? But people know that we've been in the sanctuary.

You know, it's an important thing to know that we are all priests. And as priests, we have been reminded from the book of Hebrews that, well, first of all, let's put it this way, the priesthood of the Lord, first of all, in Hebrews, it's from God toward man. We've been reminded so well of that this morning.

How God suckers with us in temptation, sympathizes with us in our weakness, reminded of that this afternoon as well. And he's able to save to the uttermost. That is, he's able to bring us safe right through this wilderness journey.

But then there's another aspect. The next part of Hebrews, it's from man toward God. And we're brought right into the very sanctuary.

We have access to the sanctuary at all times. Imagine, would you say, how does that affect us in our everyday life? Well, we were also reminded that what do we bring today? The fruit of our lips, giving thanks unto his name. Isn't that the access, our holy priesthood, the access that we have to his presence.

But to do good and to communicate, forget not. If the Lord draws near to help us, we should be drawing near to help one another as well. This is a practical thing that should be seen in our lives day by day.

And as well as that, if we're going to really function as priests, we're going to have to know something of the sacrifice of Christ. I hope you have tried to study at least the Levitical offerings. It's not easy.

And personally, I have never just sat down with my Bible and just read my Bible and thought I could get everything for myself. I think I'd be quite proud if I could think that. But there are lots of helps.

That's why our brother Olson has those books. We'll give him a commercial. There's some good books out there in the Levitical offerings.

If you're like me, you won't agree with every little thing. That doesn't mean they're wrong. And I'm right.

But it stirs your mind and gets you to consider these things. And we have read here how that these priests, well, first of all, in verse 8 of chapter 29, we read that there were coats put upon them. And I mentioned that that spoke of their character.

And they had bonnets, their heads were covered. That's their subjection. We have subjection to the Lord.

And as well as that, there's girdles. That means there's service. It's not just a passive thing that we're saved and that's it.

We're serving God. And you know, if we're going to serve him in the gospel, even in personal work, we need to spend time in the sanctuary. When I was first saved, we were taught you have no place on the public platform if you can't worship.

I don't know if that was right or not, but I think it's not too bad, you know. We should be able to worship. What's more important? What are we going to do when we get into heaven? I'm not going to be preaching the gospel there.

I'm not going to be trying to minister the word when I get home to heaven. I heard a cassette of an old man, a good old Christian he was. You wouldn't know him, he wasn't with the assemblies.

But anyhow, he said, I'm never going to stop preaching. I'm going to get the angels and I'm going to tell them all the great things that God has done for me. Well, that's a nice thought, isn't it? But you know, we're going to worship.

So what would you think would be the most important thing? Preaching? Teaching? Or worship? You ever ask God to make you a better gospel preacher? I have. I'd love to be able to preach the gospel far better. You ever ask him to help you to minister the word better? I certainly would love to have greater gift.

You ever told him you'd like to be a better worshiper? Maybe that's the most important thing of all. I know men that weren't very good at preaching or teaching, but I'll tell you, they could take you right into the presence of God. And in order to do this, we have these Old Testament types.

And here we have, we're able to stand in the presence of God, and they're able to bring a sin offering. And that's something that we need to really know, that our sins are gone. We're going to serve him.

Our sins have been put away once for all, but we need to be clean before God. These priests were cleansed, weren't they? But I'm occupied now so much with what they were offering. We have an appreciation of the Lord Jesus that all our sins have been put away.

Oh, you say, yes, we do. Well, then why is it when we worship, we're talking so much about our sins and about what we have received and about what we have got from Christ on the cross? Sure, I appreciate all those things, but you ever think of what God gets? You ever think of the revenue or the glory that God got from the sacrifice of Christ on the cross? Does that not mean something, what God has gotten and what he's going to get in the future when there's a new heavens and a new earth, when all's going to be put in a condition where sin will never enter in? That's because of Calvary. Doesn't all center around you or center around me? Where only I think I'm just a little part of it.

I'll be glad to be there, certainly. But I'll tell you, I'd like to be occupied more with Christ. And then not only do we have the sin offering, but the burnt offering.

And all I'm going to say about that is, I think that's where we read there that they shall, verse 17, they shall cut the ram in pieces and wash the inwards of him and his legs and put them onto his pieces and onto his head. Now, how about my worship? Is it orderly? They didn't just take the animal and just put it all in the altar and say, well, that's it. Let it all ascend to God.

They put it in its order. I'm not pretending that I always do this, but I like to keep it in mind, to be orderly in my worship. And it says they washed it, these parts of the animal, they washed them with water.

And while we usually say that makes them practically what Christ was intrinsically, I've often wondered, could it not refer to the water of the Word? Is my worship all according to the Word? They told me, Bill, they said, if you use scriptural expressions in your worship, you'll keep yourself out of a lot of trouble. And I want to keep myself out of trouble. They're fanciful things that we have heard.

And we wouldn't make someone an offender, especially if they're a young believer, but we want to be intelligent in our worship, even giving out a hymn. We should be intelligent. I was in a place, one of the islands, there was a young man, he wasn't very long saved, and he gave out a hymn that was altogether inappropriate for the breaking of bread.

You know what it was? Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me. Did I say anything to him? No, I didn't, because I knew his father would. His father was an intelligent man.

That's not a hymn for the breaking of bread. Old Mr. Stewart, when he was at the home at Longport, you know, when you get older, some of them just weren't maybe so sharp. He said the next thing, some of them would be giving out onward Christian soldiers at the breaking of bread.

Well, I hope we wouldn't go that far. But you know, we need to be orderly. In order to be orderly, we need to get into the book and learn more of this wonderful person.

We need to have our heart touched. I'm not saying that we have to be perfect in every expression. The most important thing is the heart and worship, isn't it? It's an overflow of the heart.

It's a spontaneous thing. We should be able to stand up and worship at any moment, not just getting ready on a Saturday night for the breaking of bread. Sure, there's nothing wrong with that, being home on a Saturday night.

But wherever you are, make sure you know that we're going to remember the Lord. Get to know him and the things concerning himself. And then I must close.

There's more I wanted to say, but some other time. You have not only the burnt offering, sin offering and burnt offering, but the peace offering. Others would share in that.

And you know, we often say, with this I'm going to close. We often say that when we come in the Lord's Day morning, we come to give, we don't come to get. And there's a lot of truth in that statement.

But you know, I have gotten things in the Lord's Day morning from my brethren. Some of them, not going to mention names, but I could learn more from their prayer maybe than I could from ministry. Why? Because they've been doing their homework.

They've been studying the Word. They've been finding things about the Lord that they've been enjoying, and they want to tell the Lord about it. And the others will learn.

We'll all learn if we've all been doing our homework correctly. That is our preparation. We'll get something from it.

Do we have an appreciation of God? I read about the shoulder, and the shoulder's mentioned as a heave offering. I would take it and it would be heaved vertically. And in my little mind, I think it'd be saying, my, I have an appreciation of the greatness of God, the God of creation, heaved up toward the heavens.

And then my heart would be touched when I think of the waved breast. You know, the breast speaks of affection. And it's waved horizontally.

I think it likely was waved toward the altar. Not only the God of creation, but He's the God of redemption. And when I think of Him in all His greatness, I think of the lowly place that He took when He went to the cross at Calvary.

I tell you, there'd be something wrong if our hearts didn't well up in praise and worship and adoration. Thank God we have a great high priest, made higher than the heavens. But we're all part of a priesthood.

And the things that He was involved in, it's the same priesthood, isn't it? We should be involved in. Growing near to strengthen God's people and to help one another and encourage one another as we travel through this wilderness world. And then as well to take advantage of the fact that we can give the fruit of our lips.

Some brethren, I've never, ever heard them. Would be nice. I'm sure the Lord would like to hear you.

Let's just put it that way. Not whether I want to hear you or not, but the Lord would like to hear you. And you know, we have gotten so much out of a brother, maybe a younger brother, an older brother, not very long saved, but he's got something from the heart.

That's what really counts. And that really brings a cheer to God's people. And that's what we need as we travel through this world.

So may the Lord help us to realize our position that we have because of our great high priest and then of the responsibilities and the privileges that we have as being part of that priesthood.