All right, Exodus chapter number 39,
the Bible reads in verse number one,
and of the blue and purple and scarlet,
they made cloths of service to do service in the holy place
and made the holy garments for Aaron
as the Lord commanded Moses.
So again, in this latter part of the book of Exodus,
it's a little bit of a recap
because God had told them to make all these things
and now he's basically saying, so they made them.
So it's going through all of the different parts
of the tabernacle and the furniture again.
But at this point, we're talking about the garments
that the priest wears when he does the service unto the Lord
specifically the high priest.
And it says here that the cloths of service
in verse number one are to do service in the holy place,
these holy garments.
And then if you look down at verse number two,
it says he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple,
scarlet and fine twine linen.
And they did beat the gold into thin plates
and cut it into wires to work it in the blue
and in the purple and in the scarlet
and in the fine linen with cunning work.
Now, one of the things I wanna point out here
is that of course, everything in Exodus here
is very symbolic.
God did not give us this scripture
so that we could rebuild this
or make these articles of clothing.
But yet all scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is today profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, instruction, correction and so forth.
And so we can get the symbolism here
and the Bible is talking about clothing
that's being put into service for God.
Well, if you think about this, we are in service to God.
We are servants of God.
We are also used in the holy place to do service for God.
And also we as Christians are likened unto gold.
The Bible talks about in 2 Timothy chapter two
that in the Lord's house,
there are vessels of gold and of silver
and also vessels of wood and of earth,
some to honor, some to dishonor.
And God says we should be a vessel unto honor
so we should be like a golden vessel.
Job said, when I am tried, I shall come forth as gold.
The Bible also says in the book of 1 Peter
that the trial of your faith
being much more precious than that of gold.
And so over and over again,
the Bible uses this metaphor about gold
that we're like gold being tried in the fire.
And not only does gold get tried in the fire
to purify it and make it better,
but also the Bible here talks about gold
being beaten into plates and cut into wires
in order to be made usable in the service of God's house.
And so what we can learn from this
when we look at scriptures
about gold being put through the fire
or gold being beaten or cut into wires
so that it can be useful,
we need to understand that God is gonna put us
through painful processes so that we can be useful to Him.
He's not just gonna leave us the way we are.
It's not just like, hey, come as you are,
stay as you came.
It's definitely come as you are.
We love the song, Just As I Am, O Lamb of God, I come.
But the Lord wants to form and fashion us
into something that He can use.
He wants to change us.
See, the Christian life is all about changing.
It's not about staying the same.
It's not like you just get saved and you're just the same.
The idea is to be changing.
Every time we come to church
and we're hearing the Word of God preached,
every time we read our Bibles and pray and sing hymns,
the goal is to become better.
The goal is to become more pure, more righteous,
to learn more, to grow more, to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So God is in the process of changing us
to make us more fit for His use.
Now, we often think of the illustration in the Bible
of the potter with the clay,
and he's fashioning the clay,
and he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
But another image that is pretty appropriate
is not just God gently fashioning us.
Sometimes God just has to take a hammer
and basically beat something into us
or maybe even put us through the fire,
put us through some very hot situations
and uncomfortable situations.
The Bible also uses the illustration of God purging us
or trimming us like a tree would be pruned of branches
that are not producing any fruit.
And so we have to sometimes go through painful things
that are pictured by being chopped, cut, hammered, burned,
and you say, man, why is life so hard?
Why am I just constantly going through these painful things?
It's because God is trying to make you a better person,
and He's trying to make you more useful for His kingdom.
If we are just in a state of comfort
and we don't go through anything difficult,
we're going to remain weak and unuseful.
No pain, no gain, right?
If you just go to the gym,
well, sorry, you can't go to the gyms.
They're all closed.
But back when you used to go to the gym
and your home gym, if you just went there
and you just kind of picked a weight that's comfortable,
just kind of did it for a comfortable amount of reps,
you're not getting anywhere, are you?
You're not getting any stronger.
You're not accomplishing anything.
In fact, you're wasting your time.
You have to use what's called the overload principle,
and you have to push yourself to the limit
and even try to push a little bit beyond
your typical limits.
That's how you grow.
And that's the way the Christian life is.
God sometimes pushes us right up to that breaking point.
And the term that you use in weightlifting
is you go to failure, all right?
Well, sometimes when we are serving God,
we have to kind of push to failure.
So failure is not necessarily an all-around bad thing
because a just man falls seven times and rises up again.
So sometimes we push to failure,
but even if we don't finish that last rep,
we got stronger, okay?
So I'd rather be the guy who tries to push
for that one last rep and needs the spotter to come in
and help me out than the guy who just racks the weight
like several reps before I get to that point
because I'm just too lazy to push myself, right?
So the point is God's gonna put us through pain
and suffering, trials and tribulations in our life
to make us a better person.
So if bad things happen to you in life,
it doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing anything wrong
and of course the book of Job makes that crystal clear.
So don't think to yourself, oh, things are going bad for me.
God's not blessing me or God's not pleased with me.
Maybe God is pleased with you.
Maybe God is blessing you
and he's just trying to make you a better person right now.
He's just trying to make you stronger
and put you through something
that's gonna test your faith and make you better.
So he's gonna beat you into plates.
He's gonna cut you into wires.
He's gonna melt you down and purify you and make you better.
So as we're looking at this clothing here of the high priest
one of the things that says in verse number four,
they made shoulder pieces for it
and we'll get to those a little bit later
to couple it together by the two edges
was it coupled together
and the curious girdle of his ephod that was upon it
was of the same according to the work thereof
of gold, blue and purple and scarlet
and fine twined linen as the Lord commanded Moses.
Now, what does that mean the curious girdle?
Now, when we use the word curious
we mean something different in 2020.
When we say curious,
we mean you really wanna know about things
and understand things that are maybe none of your business
or whatever.
But the curious girdle of the ephod curious here
actually just means that it's very intricate
that it is something that's embroidered in a way
where it has designs in it basically, it's artistic.
That's what that means the curious girdle of the ephod.
So I was thinking about what the girdle represents
and I was thinking about how in the New Testament
the Bible talks about having our loins gird about
with truth, right?
So if you think about the girdle of truth
or the belt of truth, right?
Loins gird about with truth.
If you think about the truth is the word of God.
The Bible says thy word is truth.
And if you think about it being a curious girdle
that's probably to represent the fact
that God's word is so detailed and intricate
and it's not just this really just simple
straightforward book.
I mean, the Bible is a very deep book.
I mean, you spend your whole life studying it
and you're never gonna fully understand everything.
Even it takes a lifetime of study
and you're still just scratching the surface
because God's word is so deep.
God's thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts.
So this is represented by the curious girdle of the ephod.
And then it talks about the colors of the curious girdle.
It talks about the gold, the blue, the purple,
the scarlet and the fine twined linen.
And we talked about previously how the reason
these three colors come up over and over again,
blue, purple, scarlet, blue, purple, scarlet
is that these are the colors of taking a beating, all right?
Because we have Jesus Christ being scourged for our sins.
And I went into a lot more detail about this
in an earlier sermon in Exodus,
but when Jesus Christ was beaten and scourged for our sins,
of course the Bible talks about the fact that he bled.
So obviously when he's hit with that whip,
it creates a bloody stripe,
but also the Bible talks about him being bruised as well.
So the colors of a bloody beating from a scourge
would be blue, purple and scarlet,
because the scarlet representing the blood,
you think of a purple bruise
and the Bible talks about the blueness of the wound
cleanses away evil,
so do stripes the innermost parts of the belly.
So the Bible relates stripes to blueness, all right?
Because of the internal bleeding,
because obviously our blood
when it comes out of our body is red,
but if you look through your arm and you see your veins
on the inside of our body,
it's more of a bluish color.
And so that's why internal bleeding
makes colors like blue and purple and so forth.
So when the Bible talks about the blue, purple and scarlet,
the emphasis is on the blood of Christ.
The emphasis is on him being beaten
and bruised for our sins.
Jesus Christ is the high priest for us in the New Testament.
So the Old Testament high priest
is gonna symbolize a lot of things about Jesus.
So the Bible says in verse six,
and they wrought onyx stones,
enclosed in ouches of gold.
So an ouch is basically a jewelry term
for what's going to receive.
It's basically like the receptacle
or the socket that the jewel is placed into.
And so he makes these onyx stones
enclosed in ouches of gold,
graven, so they are engraved,
is the modern word we would use,
graven, as signets are graven,
with the names of the children of Israel.
And he put them on the shoulders of the ephod
that they should be stones for memorial
to the children of Israel as the Lord commanded Moses.
So get the picture here.
On this garment that Aaron's wearing,
he has an onyx stone on each shoulder.
And on each shoulder, this onyx stone
has basically six of the tribes listed on one side,
six of the tribes listed on the other side.
And it's a remembrance, the Bible says,
a memorial to the children of Israel.
A memorial of what?
So that they don't forget their name.
What he's telling them, by putting it on the shoulders,
this is a picture of the bearing of a burden.
All throughout the Bible,
this term is used about bearing burdens.
You think about in Matthew,
you don't have to turn there,
but in Matthew chapter 23, for example,
when Jesus is preaching about the Pharisees,
he says in verse four,
for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born
and lay them on men's shoulders,
but they themselves will not move them
with one of their fingers.
So when they're putting burdens on someone,
it's basically saying they're putting it
on their shoulders.
You think of Jesus Christ talking about taking up the yoke.
The yoke would go upon the shoulders.
He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me
for I'm meek and lowly in heart
and you shall find rest under your souls
for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
So getting in the yoke is talking about
basically shouldering a burden.
The Bible tells us to bear one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ.
And so the picture of the high priest
having the names of the children of Israel on his shoulders
is basically showing that he's bearing the burden
of the children of Israel.
He's bearing their burdens just like Jesus Christ
bears our burden, right?
And so the burdens in Matthew 23
that the Pharisees are putting upon men,
they're giving them all these strict commandments
and all these strict rules that they need to live by,
but they're not even following them themselves.
So they put these heavy burdens on men,
they won't touch it with one finger.
So they're teaching the law,
but they're not actually doing the law.
And that's why he says in Matthew 23,
whatever they bid you observe that observe and do,
but do not after their works for they say and do not.
So he's saying, yeah, the stuff that they're telling you
to do is pretty much good stuff that you should be doing,
but they're not doing it, they're hypocrites.
But here's the thing about that though,
even though the things that the Pharisees
are telling them to do are good things,
you know, where they're telling them to follow the law.
And obviously a lot of the things
that they're telling them to do are correct.
And that's what Jesus said in Matthew 23.
No one is actually able to carry that burden perfectly
because we've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
No one is able to fulfill the law.
The Bible's clear on this in Romans chapter two and three,
that it's not the hearers of the law
that are just before God,
it's the doers of the law that shall be justified.
And so we're not able to bear that burden,
that burden of the law,
that burden of keeping all of God's commandments
is something that we are not able to fulfill
because we all sin every day.
As it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one.
Jesus Christ bears that burden for us.
He fulfilled the law.
He lived the perfect life that none of us could live.
And so he bears our burden upon his shoulders.
He bears the burden of his people on his shoulders.
Now in the Old Testament, the people of God,
the covenant people of God were the nation of Israel.
And in the New Testament,
the covenant people are all believers in Christ,
whether they be Jew or Gentile, red, yellow, black, and white
if you believe on Jesus Christ,
you are the chosen people in the New Testament.
So when we see the Old Testament priest
carrying the names of the 12 tribes,
we could picture our New Testament priest, Jesus Christ,
carrying our names, right?
Having us born upon his shoulders.
And then it says in verse number eight,
he made the breastplate of cunning work
like the work of the ephod of blue, purple,
gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twine linen.
It was four square.
They made the breastplate double.
A span was the length thereof
and a span the breadth thereof being doubled.
And they set in it four rows of stones.
The first row was a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle.
And again, he goes through these 12 different precious stones
that are on the breastplate, but he says in verse 14,
and the stones were according to the names
of the children of Israel, 12 according to their names,
like the engravings of a signet,
everyone with this name according to the 12 tribes.
So just as he's carrying the six names on his shoulders,
he's also carrying the six names,
six names on each shoulder, I should say.
He's also carrying six names
on each side of the breastplate.
So again, this represents God's people
being born on his breastplate,
which you could picture as being over his heart, right?
That he basically loves us.
He has us on his heart and so forth.
So he's bearing that.
Now, God's people's names are being engraved
on precious stones, whether it be on the shoulders
or on the breastplate.
Go to Malachi chapter three.
Keep your finger there in Exodus chapter 39.
So the 12 stones have the 12 names on them.
The two onyx stones on the shoulders
have six names of peace.
What does this represent?
Why did God choose to have the names of his people?
Because obviously the tribes are representing
the members of those tribes.
The names of his people engraven onto precious stones.
The Bible says in Malachi chapter three, 16,
chapter three, verse 16,
then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another,
and the Lord hearkened and heard it.
And a book of remembrance was written before him
for them that feared the Lord
and that thought upon his name.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts,
in that day when I make up my jewels,
I will spare them as a man spareth his own son
that serveth him.
So we see that God's people unto him
are his precious jewels.
His collection of jewels and precious things are his people.
And this shows that we are precious unto the Lord.
The Bible says precious unto the Lord,
precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saint, right?
So we are very precious.
God loves each and every one of us.
We're important to him.
You know, you think of the family jewels
being the prized possession that's passed down,
that diamond ring that's passed down,
it's been in the family and whatever.
You know, the most precious things
that a lot of people own are precious stones.
You know, whether it's the crown jewels
of England or whatever.
And so that's how precious we are to God.
God loves us and we're precious unto him
and we're on his heart.
That's what's pictured by the breastplate
with all these precious stones with the names written on it.
So back in Exodus chapter 39,
the Bible goes on to describe how the breastplate
and the shoulder pieces are attached
with these little golden rings.
And then the golden rings are tied together
with a lace of blue.
So jump down if you would to verse 20.
And they made two other golden rings
and put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath
toward the fore part of it,
over against the other coupling thereof,
above the curious girdle of the ephod.
And they did bind the breastplate by his rings
unto the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue,
that it might be above the curious girdle of the ephod
and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ephod
as the Lord commanded Moses.
Now think about this, the breastplate represents what?
What's on the breastplate?
The 12 stones with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel.
So this is God's people on his heart,
God's people being born upon his shoulders,
but there's a thread that's attaching them.
The Bible used the word lace attaching this
so that it be not loosed, right?
What is it that keeps God's people
from being loosed from Jesus Christ, right?
So we're tied into Jesus, right?
We're tied in with this lace of blue.
So what does the lace of blue represent
that basically ties us to the high priest
or ties us to the Lord Jesus Christ
that we be not loosed from him?
Now, if you want to flip over to Numbers chapter 15.
Numbers chapter 15.
Numbers chapter number 15.
And as you're turning to Numbers chapter 15,
let me again remind you the significance
of the color blue in the Bible,
because the Bible says the blueness of the wound
cleanses the way evil,
so do stripes the innermost parts of the belly.
And remember, when we take the blue, purple,
and scarlet together,
we get a picture of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And specifically, listen to Isaiah 53.5.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
And again, the bruising calls to mind the purple in color.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with his stripes, we are healed.
Now, don't miss that.
With his stripes, we are healed.
The blueness of the wound cleanses the way evil,
so do stripes the innermost parts of the belly, right?
So the stripes are connected with the color blue,
and it's by his stripes that we're healed.
Everybody got that?
But now, let's even connect this further.
There's another connection here,
showing the connection of the blue color
with the healing in the stripes of Jesus Christ, right?
Being washed in the blood, and by his stripes, we're healed.
Okay, look at Numbers chapter 15.
Let's make another connection.
It says in verse 37,
The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel,
and bid them that they make them fringes
in the border of their garments
throughout their generations,
and that they put upon the fringe of the borders
a ribband of blue.
So they're to make fringes on the border of the garment,
right, and to make a ribband of blue.
Now, we often think of the scarlet thread
that was let out the window by Rahab the harlot,
and a lot of people will use that to preach about
how there's a scarlet thread running through the Bible,
right, from Genesis to Revelation,
the scarlet thread pointing us to the blood of Jesus Christ,
because the Bible says to him,
And give all the prophets witness,
that through his name whosoever believeth in him
shall receive remission of sins.
So just as we have the scarlet thread
that we hear so much about,
another thing you could say is the ribbon of blue, right?
It's a similar idea.
So the ribbon of blue is on the border of the garment.
Does everybody see that?
It says, Put upon the fringe of the borders,
at the end of verse 38, a ribband of blue.
Now go to Matthew chapter number 14.
Matthew chapter number 14.
And remember, while you're turning
to Matthew chapter number 14,
remember the story of the woman who is ill,
and she has this flowing, running issue of blood.
For 12 years, she's had this illness,
and she spent her money on doctors,
and not only did the doctor not heal her,
the doctor made things worse, all right?
And so she'd wasted her money on doctors
that made her worse, and she couldn't be healed,
and she presses up to Jesus in the crowd
as Jesus passing by, and the Bible says
she just touches the hem of his garment.
And she says, If I may but touch his garment,
I shall be whole.
And of course, she did touch his garment,
and as soon as she touched the hem of his garment,
the Bible used that term,
she was healed of her infirmity immediately.
Look at Matthew chapter 14, verse 34.
And when they were gone over,
they came into the land of Gennesaret,
and when the men of that place had knowledge of him,
they sent out into all that country round abroad,
and brought in him all that were diseased,
and brought him that they might only touch
the hem of his garment, and as many as touched
were made perfectly whole.
So this is not a one-time thing with that woman.
Anybody who could touch the hem of Jesus' garment
is made perfectly whole, is completely healed.
And obviously, that physical healing
is a picture of the spiritual salvation,
the spiritual healing.
So get the picture.
What's on the hem of Jesus' garment?
I mean, is Jesus following the law or not?
Or is Jesus in violation?
Did Jesus not read Numbers 15?
Did Jesus not follow Numbers 15?
Of course, we know that Jesus Christ
was the perfect fulfillment of the law.
And therefore, when the woman reached out
to touch the hem of Jesus' garment,
what color is she touching then, according to the Bible?
She's touching that which is blue,
because blue represents the healing
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because it's by his stripes were healed,
the blueness of the wound is connected with the stripes,
and the blue hem of the garment, she touches it,
she's healed.
Anyone touches it, they're healed.
So now, we see the significance of blue in the Bible.
You know, if you study the Bible, you study blue,
you'll see that sometimes blue is just
mentioned as just a rich person's fabric,
because throughout history,
colors like blue and purple are expensive,
because the dyes were expensive, and so forth.
So a lot of times, you'll hear Bible teachers
just kind of emphasizing the expensive aspect,
but I think they're missing something here.
They're missing the healing,
and they're missing the picture of the blood of Christ,
because, you know, we think blood is red,
but the purple and blue is also blood.
It's just in a different form.
It's just showing up in a different color,
internally bleeding versus externally bleeding.
And so when we see here the blue thread,
or the blue ribbon, or the lace of blue
that's tying the breastplate to the ephod,
so that it's not loose, so that it doesn't come off,
you notice the picture of the fact,
what is it that keeps us saved?
What is it that keeps us connected to the Lord Jesus Christ?
Because we have to be in Christ to be saved, right?
If we're in Christ, if we're in him, we're saved.
If we're not in him, we're not saved, right?
Because we gotta be in Christ.
That's how we get into heaven,
is by being in Jesus Christ.
Well, you know what?
It's not our works.
That's got us tied in so that we be not loose.
You know, it could, hey, make a lace out of linen,
you know, representing your works.
The stuff that you, but you know what?
Even if the lace were made out of linen,
I'd say, hey, that must have been the work
that Jesus did that's holding us on.
Because you'd have to be a fool to think
that you're the one that's keeping yourself saved
by your good works or your, hey,
I just gotta keep going to church so I can stay saved.
I gotta keep on keeping the commandments.
Well, you know what?
Then we're all doomed.
Because you know what?
None of us is gonna keep the law perfectly.
None of us is gonna serve Christ perfectly.
Anybody who says they're without sin is a fool.
They're deceiving themselves and the truth is not in them.
The Bible says if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
All our righteousness is found in Christ
because our personal righteousnesses
are as filthy rags before him.
It's only the righteousness of Christ
that counts for anything.
So what is it that keeps us connected,
that keeps God's people attached to the high priest,
attached to Jesus Christ, that they be not loose?
It's the blood of Christ, right?
It's the healing power of Jesus Christ's stripes, right?
That is what keeps us tied in and connected
and that's what's pictured by the ribbon of blue,
or in this case, the lace of blue
that is kind of tying it all together,
keeps it all connected.
Everything's connected by the blood of Christ.
It says in verse 22, if you go back in Exodus chapter 39,
Exodus chapter 39, 22 says he made the robe of the ephod
of woven work all of blue, okay?
So now you have a complete robe that's all of blue.
And again, the casual observer of this in the ancient world
or the casual observant of this even in the modern world,
thinking about these things would just say,
oh, it's a blue robe, that's fancy, that's expensive.
And of course it's fancy, of course it's expensive
but now we know that it actually represents healing.
It actually represents the blood of Christ.
It actually represents being saved.
And if you think about this picture of the coat,
it's all through the Bible, right?
Because when Adam and Eve sinned,
what did God make them to cover their sins?
A coat of skins, okay?
What was it that Joseph, you know,
when he's thrown into the pit and he has the coat,
what'd they do?
They dipped the coat in blood.
It's a picture of Jesus Christ because Jesus,
when he comes back in Revelation 19,
has a vesture dipped in blood, right?
He has a coat that's dipped in blood.
This is picturing, of course,
the covering that Jesus Christ blood covers our sins, right?
It provides a covering.
And so the whole coat is a blue
that again connects with that.
Now, as we go down here and he talks about,
and some of this I already talked about
back when we did the chapter on this
earlier in the book of Exodus
where we went through the garments and so forth.
So some of this is a bit of a repeat from,
I believe chapter 28 when we went through that.
But one of the things I want to point out
are the bells and the pomegranates.
So this is something that's a little bit of a mystery here.
It says in verse number 24,
they made upon the hems of the robe,
pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet and twine linen.
So that's like a pomegranate design being embroidered.
But then also there's an actual three-dimensional pomegranate
because there's a bell and a pomegranate,
a bell and a pomegranate round about
the hem of the robe to minister in
as the Lord commanded Moses, okay?
So they made the bells, look at verse 25,
of pure gold and put the bells between the pomegranates
upon the hem of the robe,
about between the pomegranates,
a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate
round about the hem of the robe to minister in
as the Lord commanded Moses.
So what is this talking about,
the bell and the pomegranate?
Well, the Bible doesn't really talk a whole lot
about bells and pomegranates.
So that's why I'm saying it's a bit of a mystery
because we want to understand symbolism in the Bible.
You know, we want to read what the rest of the Bible says
and compare scripture with scripture.
You know, if I'm thinking about the color blue,
I'm going to look at other places
where the Bible mentions the color blue.
If I'm thinking about the color scarlet,
I'm going to look up scriptures on scarlet.
If I'm thinking about any of these things,
I look throughout the shoulders and it represents
bearing a burden.
And that's pretty obvious because we constantly
carry heavy weights on our shoulders.
With this, there's not as much evidence in the Bible
on bells and pomegranates because bells
aren't really mentioned and pomegranates,
you look up the scriptures on pomegranates
there doesn't really seem to be anything
of major significance.
So what if we just think about the physical objects
themselves in the real world?
You know, since we don't have actual biblical evidence
to go on, then we can just think of the natural world itself
as evidence, which is a legitimate place to find truth.
You know, we basically have two sources for truth.
We have the word of God and then we also have
the natural world.
You know, God speaks through both.
If you look at Psalm 19, it talks about how the heavens
declare the glory of God and so forth.
And so God's truth is revealed clearly in his word,
but God's truth is also revealed in nature.
It's also revealed through his creation.
We can learn something about the creator
by looking at the creation.
We don't wanna worship the creation,
we wanna worship the creator, but we can learn about God
through the word of God and through the natural world.
And of course, God's word always matches reality.
What is truth?
Pontius Pilate, he asked that famous question, didn't he?
What is truth?
Well, let me tell you what truth is.
Truth is reality.
That's one way that you could define truth, right?
Because if something is true,
that means that that's really what it is.
Now, a lot of people today in our world,
they're sort of like Pontius Pilate,
they don't know what truth is.
So they'll say like, well, you know,
your truth could be different from my truth.
Maybe that's true for you,
but that's not necessarily true for me.
We all have our own beliefs.
Or like, you'll tell people of the dangers of going to hell
and they'll say, well, I don't believe in hell.
It's like, okay, so what?
That doesn't change the fact that it's there.
Just because you don't believe in it
doesn't make it suddenly go away.
Well, I've literally had someone say to me
probably a hundred times in my life,
how can I go to hell when I don't even believe in hell?
It's like, what kind of a logic is that?
You can easily go places that you don't believe in.
Easily, right?
I mean, I could say, you know, I could say,
hey, I don't believe that this certain place exists
and someone could take me there,
even if I didn't even believe that that place existed.
So that's a bad logic right there.
So basically truth is what's real.
Truth is reality.
So, you know, our five senses are telling us about reality.
You know, unless you believe
that we're just living in a dream
or some weird belief like that,
it's all a simulation, you know, or whatever,
all the goofy beliefs that are out there.
But most sane, rational people acknowledge the fact
that our lives are real, that what we see is really there,
what we hear is really here,
what we smell, taste, touch is reality, right?
And what God says in his word is truth.
It's all true.
And so it matches reality.
You know, what if we're just constantly reading the Bible
and it wasn't lining up with reality?
You know, we'd say the Bible's not true.
But because the Bible does match with reality,
it confirms the truth of the Bible.
Now look, we believe the Bible by faith.
But look, I've been a Christian now for over 30 years.
I've been saved for 32 years.
And in that 32 years of being saved,
over and over again, I've compared what the word of God says
with what I'm experiencing in life,
what I'm seeing in reality.
And you know what you see?
It just, it lines up every time.
And so over and over again, you know,
you'll see things that you believe by faith.
You know, there are a lot of things in the Bible
that I've never experienced in the natural world,
but I've seen them in the Bible
and I believe them by faith.
But then later in life,
you'll actually experience them yourself and say,
you know what?
That is exactly what the Bible said would happen.
And here it is happening.
So there's reality confirming
what the Bible had already told us.
So if the Bible were just completely different than reality,
then something's wrong here.
One of them can't be right.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
So the Bible is truth.
The Bible represents reality.
And obviously our natural world is a reality that we live in.
We're not living in some weird dream world
where we're in a simulation or something.
This physical reality, this pulpit,
I'm real, you're real, we're all here, flesh and blood.
So these are two sources for truth, okay?
The word of God and God's creation,
the natural world that we find ourselves in.
And so if we examine the natural world
on the bell and the pomegranate,
since we don't really have much to go on in the word of God,
then we can just turn to the natural world.
You know, the Bible says, go to the ant, thou slugger.
And he tells us some things about the ant.
He gives us some basic things about the ant in Proverbs 6,
but then we could actually go to the ant
and take that literally.
We could literally go to the ant
and we'd probably learn even more.
So we learned something from what God tells us,
but then we could also just watch the ant
and then apply what God told us
and then learn even more, right?
So if we think about a bell, what is a bell?
What are its physical properties?
What does it do?
Well, a bell, it's a piece of metal that makes a sound,
but it doesn't just make a random sound.
A bell is metal that is tuned to a certain pitch.
So have you ever seen those bell choirs
where you basically have a bunch of people lined up
and people have a bell in each hand,
they might have two bells,
they might switch bells if they get really fancy with this,
but basically they ring bells
and they could play all the notes of the scale.
They could play beautiful, complicated music with a bell.
So what is a bell?
A bell, by anyone's definition,
is metal that is shaped in such a way
to produce a specific pitch or a specific sound.
So in that case,
it's kind of like a musical instrument in that sense,
except it only makes one note.
And if you think about it,
we have bells in our,
well, there's a bell right back there, in fact.
Don't ring it though,
because we're not even close to breaking the record tonight.
In fact, we're setting a new record
for low attendance on a Wednesday night, okay?
We need to start having a prize
for how low we can get the attendance
during the coronavirus, all right?
But,
no.
Well, you won't even have to buy that one.
No, I'm kidding.
But anyway, if you think about like a church bell,
ding, ding,
they're always tuned to some beautiful pitch,
or they'll play a song,
ding, dong, ding, dong, ding, dong.
They make music, basically,
or they at least play a specific pitch.
Well, if we think about that,
what does that represent?
Or what does that symbolize?
This symbolizes preaching.
And the reason that I say that
is because God likens a preacher
to a trumpet all the time.
And he talks about a trumpet
that gives an uncertain sound.
That would be like a bad preacher.
A preacher who doesn't speak in words that are clear.
A preacher that speaks,
and people walk away like,
where does he stand?
What does he believe?
What is the truth?
I don't understand.
You ever just walk out of a sermon just confused?
Like, what was the point?
Or, I can't figure out what this guy believes.
You know, it's like when you ask a politician
what they believe about something,
and they gave you this really complicated answer
to kind of snow you and kind of please both sides.
You know, a good preacher,
he gets up and he communicates clearness.
You don't walk away wondering,
man, is salvation by faith or is it by works?
Or is it both?
I don't know.
You know, you walk out and you say,
hey, it's all by faith.
It's not of works, so any man should boast.
And aren't there a lot of preachers
who mix that up and muddy that and confuse that.
And basically, when they sound the bell of the gospel
and salvation by faith,
it's kind of like, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
They got like a whammy bar.
They're up here like,
ow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow,
faith works, faith works, faith works, faith works,
faith works.
And we're just like, dong,
faith.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, we're giving one note.
We're not like, wow, wow, wow, wow.
We're just like, whoa, all right?
So you understand the difference.
The bell is given a clear sound.
It's giving a certain sound,
just like a trumpet would be like,
doo, doo.
You can think of a bell like,
dong, and it's just like that pitch goes forth
and everybody knows what's being said.
Does everybody understand?
I mean, that's what a bell is.
Okay, now what's a pomegranate?
Well, who has never eaten a pomegranate before?
Put up your hand if you've never had one.
All right, people are embarrassed.
There's a few that are embarrassed to say,
well, look, don't be embarrassed.
Don't feel bad because you know what?
I was an adult before I'd ever eaten any pomegranate.
I was in my 20s.
All right, so don't feel bad
because not everybody just grows up
eating pomegranate pips, all right?
I love pomegranate pips
and I do eat them from time to time.
But when I was a kid, I'd never heard of such a thing.
I had to look in a book
and this is before Google.
So when I'm reading the Bible
and I'm reading about pomegranates, I'm curious about,
I had to look it up in the encyclopedia
and there's some black and white drawing of a pomegranate
in the encyclopedia.
I couldn't just go to Google Images or something.
But look, if you've ever done anything with a pomegranate,
the thing that stands out
is just the ridiculous amount of seeds, am I right?
I mean, you have an apple, you eat this big apple
and there's a few little seeds in the middle.
You eat an orange, there are a few seeds,
but the pomegranate is just seed upon seed upon seed.
It's just pretty much just the thing.
Now, this is why it's also,
could be a symbol or a picture of reproduction
because of just all the fruitfulness, the seeds of it.
So the way I look at this, the bell pomegranate,
bell pomegranate, bell, here's the way I see it.
God's Word is preached, brings forth fruit.
Preached brings forth fruit,
it's preached, it brings forth fruit,
it's preached, it brings forth fruit.
Clear preaching, like ringing a bell-type preaching,
produces fruit.
It's associated with fruit.
It's like inter, it's just like producing fruit,
clear preaching.
Producing fruit, clear preaching.
So I think that's a pretty strong symbol here.
I like it, all right, so let's move on.
I gotta hurry up for sake of time here.
It says in verse 30,
and they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold
and wrote upon it a writing
like to the engravings of a signet,
holiness to the Lord.
And they tied unto it a lace of blue
to fasten it on high upon the mitre
as the Lord commanded Moses.
And again, this is the key of the entire book of Exodus.
This is the key of the book of Leviticus.
God's holiness is paramount.
What does holiness mean?
Holiness means set apart.
It's the opposite of holy would be just common,
profane, everyday, average, nothing special about it.
Holiness is, holy is that which is set apart and different.
Special, okay.
Now God is the ultimate in holiness.
He is so set apart, there's no one like him.
There's no other God, since there's only one God,
that's pretty holy when you're one of a class, right?
You're the only one.
Total holiness, right?
So God is totally set apart.
He's not like us in so many ways.
He's so much better than us in so many ways.
His thoughts are as high above our thoughts
as the heavens are above the earth.
So God is holy.
And one of the main themes that I've been preaching
as we've been going through the book of Exodus
is how unapproachable God the Father is
according to the book of Exodus.
And the same thing's carried over in Leviticus and Numbers
where you have to go through all these steps
to approach God.
And the few times in Exodus when man has an encounter
with God, what do we see?
It's like, all right everybody,
you gotta purify yourselves for three days.
In fact, we gotta put a whole fence around the mountain.
We're gonna set a bound around the mountain.
We can't even let an animal come close.
You've gotta bathe yourself.
You've gotta be pure.
You've gotta be clean.
You've gotta be ready.
And then you're gonna do this.
And then, okay, now only one person comes.
Just Moses.
Just the high priest.
You know, who goes into the most holy place
in the tabernacle?
One person.
How often?
Once a year.
And there's gotta be an animal killed and blood brought.
And he's gotta wear a special outfit.
And he's gotta walk in and do everything perfect
lest he die.
So it's not easy.
According to Exodus, is it easy just to walk in
and just start talking to God?
He's portrayed as very unapproachable.
He's so holy.
He's on such another level.
You know, he's unapproachable.
And the reason why God goes through all that
is because of the fact that Jesus Christ
makes God approachable.
Jesus is the one that allows us to come boldly
into the presence of God.
So as born-again Christians, as those who are saved,
through Jesus, we have the power to approach the Lord.
Now, the unsaved man is at enmity with God.
That's what the Bible says, right?
The Bible says that while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.
The unsaved person is at enmity with God the Father.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is unapproachable without Christ.
Totally unapproachable.
And this is why it's so ridiculous to say,
oh, look at this Israeli soldier praying to God.
He's not praying to God.
He might think he's praying to God,
but you know how far his prayer is getting?
The ceiling.
And it's stopping right there.
Because you know what?
He cannot approach God.
I don't see him wearing this outfit.
I don't see him carrying the blood.
I don't see him being ordained the high priest.
I don't see his genealogy that he's of the sons of Aaron.
I don't see him with a bell and a pomegranate,
a bell and a pomegranate.
Is it the right day of the year?
Look, he doesn't have the right to just march.
And by the way, that's done away anyway,
because that's obsolete.
The old covenant, it's called old because it's old,
because it's obsolete.
The Bible says in that he sayeth a new covenant,
he has made the first old.
Now that which decayeth and waxeth old
is ready to vanish away.
So here's the thing.
That Israeli soldier, he can't pray to God
unless he does it in the name of Jesus.
His prayer is hitting the ceiling, okay?
Because man cannot just approach God the Father,
except it's through the blood of Jesus.
Jesus is the one who makes that relationship possible
between the Father and us.
And so how can you have that relationship without Christ?
You can't.
It's not possible.
Come to the Father through Jesus the Son, right?
So what we see here is God's holiness is paramount.
Jesus's blood bridges the gap
and connects us to the throne room of grace
where we can come boldly.
And here's the thing, we don't pray to Jesus
and then Jesus prays to the Father.
The Bible says, no, we actually ask the Father in his name.
So we actually go there in the name of Jesus.
We go straight to the Father.
That's why Jesus said in that day, you shall ask me nothing.
Say, you'll ask the Father in my name
and it will be done for you.
So what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer,
as the old hymn says.
God's holiness is the important thing to remember.
Then at the very end of the chapter,
after it goes through all the things that they made,
it says in verse 42,
according to all that the Lord commanded Moses,
so the children of Israel made all the work
and Moses did look upon all the work and behold,
and you know, whenever I read this,
I'm always expecting him to say, behold, it was very good.
Cause it's kind of worded similar to Genesis
where he creates everything.
He looks upon everything that was made.
He looks upon all the work and behold,
they had done it as the Lord had commanded.
Even so had they done it.
And you know what?
That does make it good, doesn't it?
The fact that they did it the way God wanted it to,
that's doing it well.
That's doing it right.
And what's the result?
Moses blessed them.
You want God to bless you, do things God's way.
So the bottom line,
just to kind of connect everything in this chapter,
just to kind of tie in everything
that we take from the chapter,
just to give a bit of a review,
we understand that some of these things
regarding the garments represent God's people.
Pretty obvious because their names
written all over it, right?
Now God's people in the Old Testament were the 12 tribes.
In the New Testament, it's us as Christians.
So some of the garments represent God's people
born upon his shoulders, Christ bearing our burdens.
On his breastplate, he's carrying us on his heart,
signified by precious stones
because we're important to him, we're dear to him,
we're beloved by him, beaten and cut and melted.
Why?
Because we go through trials and tribulations.
Attached to him, tied on that we be not loosed by what?
The blood of Christ, the healing power of Christ's wounds,
his stripes by which we're healed.
They connect us to him, right?
The bell and the pomegranate represents
the clear preaching of the gospel
and the fruit that's born as a result.
And all of this is done in accordance with God's will.
It's all very good.
And so we do things God's way and we're blessed.
So look, what is it that keeps us saved?
Doing things God's way?
No, what keeps us saved is the blood,
the ribbon to blue, the scarlet thread.
That's what keeps us saved.
The blood of Christ, we're sealed
unto the day of redemption by the Holy Ghost.
We can't lose our salvation because nothing can separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
If you say you could lose your salvation,
here's what you're saying.
Something can separate you from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
That's what you're saying.
And then you're gonna have to change your Bible
where it said, I never knew you to, I used to know you.
But then you messed up and now I don't anymore.
That's garbage, okay?
We're tied in by the blood.
That's the thing that can never be broken, okay?
But if we want the blessing of God, we need to obey God.
So obeying God is not to get saved
as far as doing his commandments
because no flesh is justified by the law in his sight.
So doing the commandments and following Christ's commandments
and doing good works, they don't get us saved
and they don't keep us saved.
What they do is they get us rewards.
And they get us blessings from God.
So look, if I go out and do good works for the Lord,
I'm gonna be blessed.
I'm gonna get rewarded.
But even if I don't, I'm still going to heaven.
Going to heaven is free.
Serving Christ is expensive.
It could cost you everything.
It could cost you everything that's dear unto you.
Present your body a living sacrifice.
Why?
Because you want to serve God and obey God.
Why?
Because you want to be blessed so you can be rewarded,
so you can show your love to him.
But when it comes to salvation,
it's a done deal through the blood of Christ.
So you got to separate those two things.
The blessings of God, the path to God's blessing
is through the door of obedience.
And then just God's forgiveness, God's redemption,
God's salvation, that's purchased through the blood.
That's already paid for, that's done.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord,
and for all of these wonderful things that we could learn
looking at the clothing of the high priest, Lord.
And just bless us next week
as we go through the final chapter.
God willing, if we're all here, Lord,
to read Exodus chapter 40 and finish this marvelous book.
Lord, help us to study to show ourselves approved.
Please bless everyone who's here tonight.
Lord, give us safety as we go our separate ways.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.