Amen, all right, we're in Exodus chapter 36.
It's been a while since we've been in the book of Exodus.
A lot of things going on, and we had the Lord's Supper,
we had Easter, we had Pastor Tavener,
and then, yeah, so it's been a little bit
since we've been in here,
and so we're kind of in a stretch here
where it's kind of going through.
We've already kind of gone through
what God told Moses he wanted
and told him how to make everything by the pattern,
how he wanted everything to be done.
He told him what to do.
He told him to do every, to kind of start everything off,
and then he told them what the priests were supposed to do
and now we're kind of in the part
where they're actually putting everything together,
where they're actually building it,
and God is calling in this chapter,
actually the chapter before,
these guys called Bezalel.
How'd you say it, brother Eli?
Bezalel.
And?
Oh, Aholiab.
Aholiab, yeah.
I'll just call him Bezalel and Aholiab, okay?
I like the way he says it better,
but I'm not gonna say it like that,
or I'll just, it just won't sound right.
So anyway, so Bezalel and Aholiab,
anyway, that's all I'm gonna say,
but he has these specific guys
that he chooses to do this work,
and basically, they're also,
they're given the Spirit of God,
and they're indwelt by the Spirit of God for a time.
Now, I am gonna talk a lot about
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
as in comparison to the New Testament,
and it was not a permanent thing in the Old Testament.
It is a permanent thing in the New Testament,
and kind of go through some of the comparisons
of how it's different,
but these two guys are picked from the tribe of Judah,
from the tribe of Dan,
and their job is to specifically,
they're supposed to build all this stuff,
all the furniture, all the hooks,
and all the things that it was talking about
in this chapter, and in the chapter before,
and they're putting all this stuff together,
very ornate, very detailistic style of work,
and these things probably can't be copied today.
The things that they built back then
cannot be perfectly copied.
The way that they built the Ark of the Covenant,
we don't know what the cherubims looked like.
Moses knew what they looked like.
God's Spirit told them what it looked like,
but we won't know what it looked like,
so when they try to build another Ark of the Covenant,
it's not gonna probably look like
what the old one looked like.
It'll probably look like the one from Indiana Jones,
and the Raiders of the Lost Ark or something,
and it probably won't melt people's faces
when they open it up, but anyway.
But I am gonna preach out of chapter 35 and chapter 36
because the last time I preached out of here,
I just kind of took one, in chapter 35,
I just took one verse, basically,
and just I preached about the scarlet thread
that you see throughout the Bible,
and the scarlet, of course,
when it's talking about all the scarlet thread
and the purple and the blue,
it is a picture of Jesus Christ
and how he, the blood of Christ,
and it represents the blue and purple
representing the bruising that Christ went through
when his body was broken for us,
and of course, the blood of Christ
is represented by the thread,
and I kinda wanna go over some of those verses
that I just didn't preach out of,
and of course, I'm not gonna cover the whole chapter.
I'm not gonna cover the whole chapter in 36,
so don't get too nervous,
but it is probably gonna be
a little bit longer sermon than normal,
so I'll try to get through it
as quickly as I can, though,
but let's go ahead and flip back
to chapter number 35 here,
and I wanted to talk about the Sabbath regulations,
and I know I've talked about this a few times,
but I wanna bring up something specific
that it talked about,
and then I wanna make a spiritual application
to the Sabbath regulations,
so point number one tonight
is going to be about Sabbath regulations.
The title of the sermon is just Bezalel and a Holy Ab,
so I'm gonna cover Exodus 35 and 36 tonight,
so the Sabbath regulations,
so basically, in chapter 35,
look at verse number one, the Bible says,
and Moses gathered all the congregation
of the children of Israel together and said unto them,
these are the words which the Lord hath commanded
that ye should do them.
Six days shall work be done,
but on the seventh day there shall be to you
in holy day a Sabbath of rest to the Lord,
whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
Ye shall kindle no fire
throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.
And it just seems like a real strange place
to put these, just all of a sudden,
we've already been told this in Exodus chapter 20,
God does repeat himself a little bit sometimes,
and he repeats himself when the guy gets caught
picking up the sticks,
he picks up the bundles of sticks on the Sabbath day,
and then God says, put them to death,
they stone them to death,
and I remember when I first read the Bible
the first time when I saw that,
I thought, man, that's really harsh.
I mean, he's picking up sticks,
like, what's the big deal, God?
That's me just thinking that like an idiot,
but the picture is that he's working his way to heaven
and he's picking up sticks.
You know, it's like he's carrying his own cross,
you know, so to speak,
and Jesus is the one that carried that cross for us.
He's the one that did all the work,
and so it really ruins the picture of salvation
when you start messing with that Sabbath day.
So we don't have to keep that Sabbath day anymore,
and I'm glad for that,
but there's still a whole religion today,
and they are the synagogue of Satan,
and they still keep all these laws,
and they still won't kindle a fire.
That means they won't turn on a light switch.
A Gentile will have to kindle a fire for them,
and I looked some of this stuff up today,
and I was like, how did they get around this?
Because some Jews lived in cold places.
They didn't live in Israel.
They got dispersed throughout the whole world,
and some of them probably lived in Alaska,
or it says the uttermost parts
to every corner of the earth that they were sent to,
so I'm sure that they lived in some pretty cold places,
so to not be able to kindle a fire on one day of the week
must have been pretty harsh.
It's like, does God just expect these guys
to freeze to death, or what's going on?
But just like with the provision of the manna,
they were able to gather much more.
God gave them double what they got,
and they could gather more on the day before,
the Sabbath day, and so they had plenty to eat.
So reason would dictate that they probably found a way
to keep the fire going so that the fire would not go out,
so that they could kindle.
The fire's already kindled,
and so they could just put logs on the fire.
Well, they won't even put logs on the fire now.
They think that that's breaking the Sabbath,
but that's not what the Bible says.
What's it say right there, verse three?
It says, he shall kindle no fire
throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.
It doesn't say you can't put a log on the fire.
If it's already kindled, when you kindle something,
isn't that when you first start it?
You're starting the fire, right?
So they weren't supposed to just freeze,
and believe it or not, you can actually travel around.
If you're out in the mountains or something,
they have these canisters that you can buy,
and they kind of have vents in them,
and you can walk around with them.
People have been doing this for thousands of years.
You can carry them around and start your fires
at a new location, at a new camp that you started up.
So if they've been able to do that for thousands of years,
I'm sure that they can keep a fire going on a Sabbath day.
So, but yeah, today Jews won't,
they have everything that's clicked off on a timer.
So all their houses have timers on them,
and their refrigerators have timers on them,
and their stoves have timers.
But back before they had all that technology,
they probably had to have some Gentile that they paid
to put the logs on the fire for them,
put that log on the fire, goy.
It doesn't matter for you,
because only the Jews have to keep the Sabbath.
You wash my feet while you're there,
lick my boots, all that kind of stuff, right?
But obviously there was a way to do this,
but why is God putting this here in this chapter
right before all this work's about to get done?
Because I think he wants to just reiterate the fact
that even though I'm asking you to do all this stuff,
you're not gonna skip out
on what I've already commanded you to do.
I want the work to get done,
but you're still supposed to keep the Sabbath,
so don't get so zealous to get this done
that you're not keeping the commandment, right?
But in the New Testament,
we have to look back on the Old Testament
and think about the spiritual applications to things,
and I was thinking about this,
and I just thought it was really interesting,
a spiritual application for this would be
that we do take days off, some people do.
They take days off because otherwise
you're gonna burn out physically.
You have to take some rest, right?
Obviously we're not commanded
to take a day of rest anymore,
but it's probably a good idea
to at least take one day off
and just kind of not hit it as hard or whatever,
but we're not commanded to do that.
But obviously if you don't rest some,
you're gonna burn out, you're gonna fade away.
But what we shouldn't allow to burn out
is our spiritual life on those days that we take off.
We're not supposed to take off days from God,
and if you think about it,
the priest, they didn't get out of this.
This wasn't something,
they still had to circumcise babies on the eighth day,
whether it was on the Sabbath or not.
They still had to, every morning,
they still had to put a sacrifice,
a morning sacrifice and an evening sacrifice.
It didn't matter whether it was the Sabbath or not,
so did they still have to work?
They did still have to work,
but they were the priests and the Levites.
That was their job.
It didn't matter whether it was the Sabbath or not.
They still had to do it.
So if you think about it, in an application for us,
when we take a day off,
that doesn't mean you take a day off from God.
Don't let your spiritual fire burn out
just because you're taking a day off to rest your flesh.
You should still wake up thinking about the Lord.
You should have some kind of devotion in your life
for the Lord that day that you take off.
When you take a vacation,
you need to go out of town or you go to do something,
you should probably try to plan a trip
where you're going to a church on Sunday
or a Wednesday night or a Thursday night
when you're out of town.
Most independent Baptist churches do a Wednesday night,
but don't just take a vacation from God.
The point of a vacation is to rest your flesh
and maybe have some fun,
but obviously you still put God first no matter what.
So even on your day off,
do you think that they just didn't go to church
on that day?
They still went to church.
They just went on the Sabbath day.
So it wasn't just a rest from God.
You still worship God on that day.
So the spiritual application I would say is that
don't let your light stop burning.
Don't let your fire go out.
Allow your fire to keep going
even though you're trying to take a rest.
Let's look at some verses here on this.
Let's look at Leviticus.
Go ahead and keep your finger here or a bookmark
and turn to Leviticus chapter six verse 12.
We'll look at what the priest had to do
and then we'll look at some spiritual applications
from the New Testament.
But Leviticus chapter six verse 12 says,
and the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it.
It shall not be put out.
See they were not allowed to let the fire
of the altar go out ever.
It was not supposed to go out.
So when those things happened,
it was a big deal.
It was a big deal.
It was a sin to let the fire go out of the altar.
And remember when Eli broke his neck,
not this Eli, the different Eli,
but what was it, did the lamp go out
or was it the altar?
I can't remember, was it the lamp?
It was the lamp went out
and they were not supposed to let the lamp go out either
but it says, and the priest shall burn wood on it
every morning and lay the burnt offering
in order upon it and he shall burn thereon
the fat and the peace offerings.
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar.
It shall never go out.
And remember, this is the job of the priest
that's supposed to be doing this.
Now, the people, I hate to say it like this,
but the common people are the people
that were not the priests, okay?
They're not common, but you know what I mean.
The citizens or whatever, you know,
the people that didn't have the job of the priesthood.
So it says, so go to Exodus chapter 27.
Exodus chapter 27, I won't make you go too far there,
make you think too much tonight, hopefully.
But, and if you get tired of just flipping around
and your just eyes start to go like this, you know,
then just kind of stand up, turn around.
Nobody will make fun of you.
You know, go back, slap yourself,
put some water in your face or something.
But Exodus 27 verse 20 says,
and thou shalt command the children of Israel
that they bring the pure olive oil
beaten for the light to cause the lamp to burn always.
So there was two things
that were not allowed to let go out.
It was the altar and the fire for the altar
and the lamp.
And what did the lamp represent?
It represented the Holy Spirit, right?
The seven spirits of God.
There were seven lamp stands on that candlestick.
It was supposed to all be beaten of one work.
It was a very curious item that was made.
It was not something that just anybody could make, right?
And they were not allowed to have that go out
and it had to have pure olive oil put in there,
which represents the Holy Spirit, right?
When people were anointed in the Old Testament,
they were anointed with the oil of gladness, right?
So that represents the Holy Spirit
and you're not allowed to let the Holy Spirit
be quenched, the picture of that Holy Spirit
to be quenched in that temple.
So what does the temple represent?
Well, it represents the body, doesn't it?
And in the New Testament,
the Holy Spirit indwells the temple of our bodies, right?
And so we don't want our Holy Spirit in us to be quenched.
Now, we can't lose the Holy Spirit
like they could in the Old Testament,
but we can quench the Holy Spirit.
So I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Look at verse 21.
It says, in the tabernacle of the congregation,
without the veil, which is before the testimony,
Aaron and his son shall order it
from evening to morning before the Lord.
It shall be a statute forever unto their generations
on the behalf of the children of Israel.
So this is something they had to do every morning,
every evening.
It was not something that they could allow to go out.
It didn't matter what day of the week it was.
It doesn't matter what holiday it was.
They could not let this lamp go out.
Now, look at Revelation chapter five, verse 10.
Revelation chapter five, verse 10.
Now, here we'll start to see the difference.
So I want us to see the difference
between the New Testament and the Old Testament.
Obviously, we know these things,
but it's still interesting to see the comparisons
and why God did certain things
and told us certain things in the Old Testament,
and then it'll help us see the picture
of the verses in the New Testament to help us understand.
So look at Revelation 5, 10.
It says, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests
and we shall reign on the earth.
So God has made us, in the New Testament,
kings and priests, and you're like,
well, I don't really feel like a priest or a king.
Well, we're not done yet.
We got eternity to live, okay?
But while we're on this earth,
we are still kings and priests on this earth.
It might not seem like that.
People have authority over us.
Our boss is telling us what to do.
We don't feel like kings sometimes, do we, guys?
And we don't feel like priests necessarily,
but we're, as husbands,
you should be the priest of your home.
We believe in the priesthood of the believer here.
As Baptists, we believe that.
And one day, we will rule and reign with Christ.
But our service in the New Testament is different
in that we are all now kings and priests.
See, back then in the Old Testament,
it was Aaron, his sons, the Levites.
That was it.
And then once Christ died for us,
he became the high priest.
The Aaronic priesthood was no longer in effect.
The Levitical priesthood was gone.
And now all believers are the priesthood.
So that's a big change, isn't it?
And the other big change is there's no more tabernacle.
There's no more physical tabernacle or temple
that we have to go to.
The temple of God is us.
And the Holy Spirit, once we get saved,
is inside of our bodies.
And so we're all walking around with the Holy Spirit
with us if you're saved today.
And so it is a little bit different, isn't it?
Now turn to Romans chapter 12, verse one.
See, and because of that, God expects us,
and we actually have a lot more expected of us,
maybe not in all these different duties
and things like that,
but spiritually he expects more of us
than he probably did of the people in the Old Testament.
They had a lot of carnal things that they had to do.
You know, bring this, pay this, chop up this,
bring this animal, bring this barley,
bring these cakes, shake this back and forth,
whatever they had to do, right?
All the Old Testament things come three times a year,
all the males should appear before the Lord.
I mean, some of that stuff is probably hard.
But being spiritual is actually harder
than doing physical things.
You know, who works a desk job here as a man?
Sometimes I feel like doing a desk job
is harder work than doing a physical job.
Because I mean, you can be dog tired,
your body's all beat up,
but you can still kind of function mentally.
But at the end of the day,
after being at a computer all day long,
your mind is gone.
You know, all you want to do is just go to sleep.
You don't really, I don't know, it's weird.
But you know, I don't know,
I'm just kind of comparing physical labor to spiritual
because of course looking at a screen
isn't necessarily spiritual, but it's still work.
But spiritual work is still work too.
Going soul-winding and preaching someone the gospel,
that's work, isn't it?
And once you get done preaching the gospel,
and you've given it everything you got,
and you've given every verse that you know,
and you're preaching and you're just working really hard,
and when you're done and that person gets saved,
you're like, ugh, you're done, right?
And so if you're on a mission field,
you really got to kind of,
you know, when you're out in a place
that's like Detroit or Indianapolis
or it's the Philippines or it's Africa
or someplace else and you're doing it multiple times,
you're probably wanting to shorten up
your gospel presentation a little bit, aren't you?
So I mean, if you're like giving the gospel
multiple times in a day, you're gonna lose your voice.
So you're doing physical stuff at the same time,
but spiritually, virtue is going out of you.
Like Jesus, when the lady touched the hem of his garment
and he's like, who touched me?
And he's like, who touched me?
And he knows who touched him, I'm sure.
But everybody's looking around,
they're looking at him like,
look at all the people around you, like.
And you're asking who touched you
and then he said he knew
because virtue went out of him.
Some kind of spirituality went out of him
and he felt that.
Look at Romans 12, one.
This is how the Lord expects us to be
in the New Testament though.
It says, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
So he doesn't expect us to sacrifice
our bodies necessarily in the way,
obviously, definitely not like the cows
and the oxen and the sheep in the Old Testament,
but our bodies as a living sacrifice.
So he wants us to serve him with our life
and we have a body on this earth
with a spirit in it and the Holy Spirit
and all of these things function together
to serve the Lord.
So he expects us to live as a living sacrifice,
not to go sacrifice ourself on an altar.
But he still wants us to be holy,
that means set apart, not worldly, spiritual, right?
Acceptable unto God.
So what was acceptable to God in the Old Testament?
Animals without blemish, animals without spot,
not the gnarly, blind, ugly ones.
He want, and that picture's what?
Holiness.
So God wants us to be acceptable
and it says, which is your reasonable service?
It's reasonable to serve God
because he saved us, right?
It's reasonable.
It says, and be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
And the renewing of your mind
is gonna be from the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit helps renew your mind.
Well, how does that happen?
Well, reading the Bible,
understanding what God wants from you,
praying, going soul winning, doing these things,
singing the hymns and the songs,
the songs and the spiritual songs.
All these different things combining
and just doing work for the Lord,
this is gonna help renew your mind.
And it says that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
So in the New Testament,
our sacrifices are different, aren't they?
It's a living sacrifice.
It's serving God with our body
and our spirit, which actually belong to God.
And the Holy Spirit kindles that fire within us.
See, the fire's already going.
God gave us the Holy Spirit
and that fire's going,
but we can be filled more with the Holy Spirit.
We have a certain amount of the Holy Spirit,
but the Holy Spirit can be increased in us.
But that fire,
we don't wanna let that fire die in our spiritual life.
And it can get real low, can't it?
People can get real backslidden and things like that
where it's barely just a little,
you can barely just see it, but it's still there.
And we don't wanna let that kindle,
that fire die out.
So we don't wanna let that die out
and we need to make sure to maintain ourselves
so that we can be filled
and not quench the spirit through our sinful actions,
ways, and deeds.
So the Bible says in First Thessalonians,
chapter five, verse 19, it says quench not the spirit.
So we can quench the spirit, right?
And what is quenching the spirit?
It's making the fire die down, right?
And so the Bible says God is a consuming fire.
When Moses was called out of the burning bush,
the bush, he looked at it because it's on fire,
but it's not consuming.
So there's something to that.
There's a connection with that fire
and the Holy Spirit of God.
And there's a connection with the Holy Spirit and fire.
That's why he said don't let that fire go out.
And so they weren't allowed to let the fire go out
in the Old Testament, but we don't have a Sabbath day.
So when we rest, don't let your spirit be quenched.
Don't let the Holy Spirit of God be quenched in your life.
Stay spiritual, even when you're taking time off.
Don't just say, you know what,
I need a vacation from God.
That should never come out of your lips, ever.
Don't ever say that.
Because maybe he'll say, well,
maybe I need to take a vacation from you, too,
and all your blessings and your job
and everything else that you have
and see how you like me taking a vacation away from you.
I mean, you probably wouldn't like that, right?
But God is, he's a gracious God.
He's a long-suffering.
I'm not saying he's just ready
to just take your job away at the drop of a hat.
But I mean, you keep talking like that.
If you're talking like that,
it's not something you should be talking about, right?
So number two, I wanna look at the contributions
for the tabernacle.
Let's go ahead and look back at Exodus 35
in verse number four.
So after God commanded all these things,
again, now he's taking the time to make the things.
So he's offered, he's asking people
to bring forth this offering of a free will offering.
Now, a tithe, it means 10th.
And that's what God just kind of expects back
out of our income that he allows us to have.
But an offering, sometimes there can be an offering
that people make that's of their own free will.
They don't have to do it.
It's just of their own free will.
That's why it's called a free will offering.
And that's actually a term found in the Bible
that Calvinists just don't like those verses
because then it would indicate that you have free will.
And that just doesn't, that scrambles their brain,
right, they just don't, it does not compute,
does not compute.
Because if you have free will,
that means you chose something
and God didn't choose it for you, right?
Look at verse four, it says,
And Moses spake unto the congregation
of the children of Israel, saying,
This is the thing which the Lord commanded,
saying, Take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord,
whosoever is of, what's it say there?
A willing heart.
Let him bring it, an offering of the Lord,
gold and silver and brass.
So he's not saying they have to do this.
He's saying whoever has a willing heart,
whoever wants to do this.
You know, and some people just are more willing than others.
Some people are so, they're so tight,
they're so cheap, when a bird flies over to their house
it says, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, right?
Verse 29, you know, some people are so tight
they squeak when they walk, right?
They're just, they don't wanna give up any of that money.
But you know, and look, you don't have to.
If you pay the tithe, you're right with God.
You're right with God.
But you know, there is a time that, you know,
if God lays that on your heart,
to give a free will offering.
Look at verse 29.
It says, the children of Israel brought a willing offering
unto the Lord, every man and woman
whose heart made them willing to bring
for all manner of work,
which the Lord had commanded to be made
by the hand of Moses.
So there was people that were willing.
And it says every man and woman
whose heart made them willing.
So there were people that were willing to do these things
and you know, when they spoiled the Egyptians
they took a lot of treasure with them
and they were giving out of the abundance
that they took with them.
They borrowed from the Egyptians, right?
They had never intended on giving it back.
But anyway, so that's,
so this is how they're accomplishing
building this tabernacle.
It's like, you know, I think I preached in a sermon before
how God, you know, he tells him how to build everything
and then he says, you build it.
See, God wants us to work for him
and he's like, here, I got these ideas
but I want you to do it.
You know, could God build the tabernacle?
Could he have just said, you know,
tabernacle assemble
and then everything just comes out of nowhere
and just all of a sudden it's a tabernacle
and the fire's burning
and they don't have to keep it going?
No, but that's not what he wants.
He's not, you know, it's not so
he just does everything for us
because if he did everything for us
what purpose would we have?
We'd be like NPCs, like, you know,
just walking around, you know,
pretending like we're lighting fires for the,
you know, whatever.
We'd just be no purpose for us.
He didn't make us so we could be robots or NPCs.
He wants us to, you know, take pleasure in serving him.
So, number three,
we'll look at what he called
for the construction of the tabernacle.
So, and the construction of the tabernacle,
most people have construction formants and engineers
that do the projects and things like that.
I guess you'd say that these guys, Bezalil
and what's the other guy's name, Aholiab or whatever,
they're all these things.
They can make the stuff.
They're the trainers.
They train everybody how to do it
and they're the engineers
and God is actually just showing them
through the Spirit of God how to do these things.
Look at verse 30.
It says, and Moses said unto the children of Israel,
see the Lord hath called by name Bezalil,
the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah.
And he hath filled him with the Spirit of God
in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge,
in all manner of workmanship to devise curious works.
Now, when it says curious,
it's talking about like unusual things,
things that most people can't make.
It's not just like, ooh, it's curious.
It's just something that's not a normal thing
that people would be able to make.
So you have to have great skill
to do what he is able to do.
So that's a lot of things
that he's been given wisdom with.
It says he filled him with the Spirit.
Now, there was some Bezalil
that was going to our church in Indianapolis
and he was going around saying
that the Spirit of God indwelt the believers
just like they do today in the New Testament.
And that's just like,
he'll take a verse like this and say, see?
It's just like, yeah, but that doesn't prove your point.
It just, do you think that he was always
filled with the Spirit?
Like, you can't really prove that.
I mean, the New Testament is pretty clear
that that indwelling didn't happen
until the New Testament.
So, and I'll get to that here in a little bit.
But so you see how he had these different spirits
of the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, knowledge.
So the Spirit of God has,
there's seven spirits of the Spirit of God
and we'll look at that too.
But it says to devise curious works,
which is unusual, to work in gold
and silver and in brass
and in cutting of stones to set them
and in carving of wood
to make any manner of cunning work.
And so cunning work is basically like work
that takes great skill to accomplish.
So it's not necessarily,
like sometimes you would think that cunning
is implying some kind of evil reason to do it,
but it's not what it means.
It's talking about just having great skill to do it.
So, and he hath put in his heart
that he may teach both he and Aholiyab,
the son of Ahisamak of the tribe of Dan.
Now, I mean, I was just curious
as to why he chose these people.
I mean, I guess we don't really need to know a reason why
but I was kind of thinking about
how Jacob blessed his sons
and you're about there in your Bible study.
All right, what are you in chapter 47 coming up?
Yeah, so he's getting close
to the blessings of Jacob to his sons.
But one of the blessings for Dan is in Genesis 49, 16,
says, Dan shall judge his people
as one of the tribes of Israel.
So, I mean, obviously he's not judging this situation
but you can see he's put up as one of the leaders
in the construction program.
And later on, you'll see Samson in the book of Judges.
Samson judges the people for 20 years
and he has some personal problems that he deals with.
But he's still a great man of God.
He's a man of faith.
Just made some mistakes, obviously.
But then you have the tribe of Judah that's chosen here
and of the tribe of Hur.
I mean, excuse me, the son of Hur, the tribe of Judah.
Of course, we know that Judah also would be the law giver
and he's blessed by Jacob and called the law giver
and that the scepter will not depart from him
and that he's the lion of the tribe of Judah, right?
And so it makes sense to see the blessings of Jacob
kind of shown forth in the construction
of the tabernacle here.
I don't know, I just thought it was
an interesting little tidbit here.
Now, number four, the Spirit of God in the Old Testament
came upon the believers in power
but filled the believers in the New Testament.
Now, I wanna really dive into this
and talk about the gifts of the Spirit also.
And so the Holy Ghost could be removed, though,
in the Old Testament.
I'll prove this to you.
Samson and Saul had the Holy Spirit come upon them
more times than anybody else in the Bible.
You know, I think that they're actually a picture
of the New Testament because if anybody's saved
in the New Testament, it doesn't matter
how spiritual they are, it doesn't matter
whether they ever go to church ever in their whole life
or whether they ever repent of any sin,
the most unspiritual person that's saved
still has the Spirit of God, right?
And so when you think about Saul and Samson,
obviously you don't think of the most spiritual men
in the whole Bible, but they are saved.
And they did have great moments in the Bible
where they were great men, but they just,
they're also viewed as bad examples
of how you can be really bad and still be saved.
And these are characters that we use
when we're so wanting to show people,
hey, you actually could commit suicide
as a saved person and still go to heaven.
Both of those guys did that.
And yet, you know, the Spirit of God
came upon them more than any other person.
Now I'm gonna have you turn to Judges 16 real quick.
Turn to Judges 16.
And we'll see where I'm gonna prove to you
that the Holy Spirit could leave people.
And a lot of times, you know, like in our chapter
that we're dealing with tonight,
the Spirit of God indwelt him,
but then you'll also see where the Spirit of God
will come upon someone in power.
It'll come mightily upon someone,
like in Judges 16 here, it says,
and she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
And he awoke out of his sleep,
and said, I will go out as other times before
and shake myself, and he wished not
that the Lord was departed from him.
So the Spirit of God departed from Samson.
He departed from him,
and he lost his strength because of that.
So what was empowering Samson?
What is it that made Samson strong?
Was it his hair that made him strong?
No, it wasn't his hair that made him strong.
It was God's Spirit that came mightily upon him
when a lion just jumped up and tried to eat him,
and he grabbed it by the mouth and went,
and rent it like you would rent a kid,
which I've never rent a kid before.
I'm assuming he's talking about
like a baby goat or something.
But I don't know, maybe they rent a lot of kids back then
so you'd really know what he was talking about there,
but I mean the picture is still there,
like he's ripping a lion in half, basically.
That's how strong he was.
Or the fact that he's so fast
that he could catch, what is it,
300 foxes or something,
and tie their tails together,
and light them on fire,
which is, you know, Peter would be really mad about that,
and then burned up all the wheat,
and so all the Philistines lost all their wheat harvest,
or their barley harvest, or whatever it was.
You have to be pretty fast to catch foxes.
I mean, they're tricksy, right?
I've seen them in England, too.
Isn't it true, you can't even,
you can't put your garbage out at night at all.
Like you have to literally get up
right before the garbage man's about to get there
and put them out,
or the foxes will get your garbage
and knock it all over the neighborhood.
That's how bad they are.
They're like kinda, they're pretty tall creatures there.
They're taller than I thought they were.
They got some pretty, they're like coyotes to us,
but they kinda, they have those long, witchy tails.
Anyway, yeah, so Samson was fast, okay?
And the Spirit of God is what made him that fast,
and made him, and gave him that power.
You think about Saul, you know,
Samuel said, the Spirit of God's gonna come upon you,
and you're gonna prophesy.
And so, you know, the prophets come,
you know, he passes Rachel's tomb,
all the things that happened
that Samuel said were gonna happen,
all of a sudden, you know,
he sees these prophets come down from,
you know, the mountains,
and then he just starts,
then the Spirit of God comes upon him,
he becomes a new man,
and then he starts preaching right along with him,
and they said, is Saul also among the prophets?
You know, so the Spirit of God
came upon Saul mightily also.
And, you know, and sometimes the Spirit of God
would make people mad.
You know, not mad as in crazy,
but like, Saul, like, remember he cut up that ox,
and sent it to all the different parts,
and he's like, if you don't show up,
you're gonna be like this ox, or whatever?
But the Spirit of God came upon him
right before he did that,
and then Saul was angry.
So sometimes, you know,
the Spirit of God works just in so many different ways,
but these two men are pictures, though,
of how you can be pretty backslidden,
and pretty unspiritual,
and still have the Holy Spirit.
But again, in the Old Testament,
they could lose it, just like it's shown
in Judges chapter 16.
So, but that's kind of like a foreshadowing for us,
though, about that,
and that's a real point of contention
with people nowadays, where they'll like,
you can't live the way you used to live,
and still be saved.
If you're still smoking cigarettes
five years after you got saved,
then you're not even saved at all.
It's just like, that's baloney.
That is baloney.
Everybody still has a propensity to sin,
and still has proclivities to sin.
Everybody still has problems with sin.
Anybody that says that they don't are liars.
You know, just straight up devils.
Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 1, 22.
Here's the difference, though.
In the New Testament,
I'll just show you and prove to you really quickly
that the Spirit of God comes upon you,
and indwells you,
and is never gonna leave,
no matter what you do in the New Testament.
So the Old Testament, they could lose it.
David, he said, please don't take the Holy Spirit from me.
And God didn't take the Holy Spirit from him,
but if he's asking him not to do it,
that means, indicates what?
That he could have taken it from him, right?
So look at 2 Corinthians 1, 22.
It says, who hath also sealed us,
and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts?
Now let me ask you something.
When you buy a house,
and you put the earnest money down,
what does that mean?
That you're serious,
it's as if you basically bought the house, right?
You're just waiting for all the other paperwork
and contract to go through.
Now when the Holy Spirit seals us,
that word sealed is really important
because it's used a lot through the Bible.
And it's used, obviously, as a ring.
You could seal something,
or a letter, you could seal something.
But that kinda gives us the picture of what it is.
It's something that it can only be opened by somebody,
or broken by certain people.
But when the Holy Spirit seals you,
nothing's gonna take that away.
Nothing's gonna break that seal.
Nothing's gonna take that Spirit away from you.
Now look at Ephesians 1, verse 12.
So when God seals us with the Holy Spirit,
he puts an earnest payment down.
Now earnest is basically when you're serious about,
I mean, I just like to use the house analogy
because it's common knowledge.
When you buy a house,
you have to put earnest money down,
at least in the United States we do.
You have to put earnest money down
to prove that you're serious about buying the house.
And that's what the Holy Spirit is given to us for.
Now, it's basically like a promise
that he's gonna resurrect us.
He's gonna, you know, we're redeemed.
He's gonna cash it in.
We're gonna get the mansion just over the hillside
in that bright city that will never grow old,
and the streets of gold,
and all the pearly gates, and all that stuff, right?
Unless you believe the pastor and men
is part that we are the mansion.
But it could be, you know?
We could be the Ferraris.
We could, you know, the mansion Ferraris or whatever.
You know, our bodies are, you know,
invulnerable and all that.
But anyway, if you didn't know,
the pastor of men just believes that, he does, so.
But he could be right.
I mean, I don't know.
Maybe I'm just carnal and I want a real mansion.
It's possible, you know, whatever.
I just always think of the house
that has like the slide that goes into the lagoon,
and I could just change it whenever I want
to something else, some other landscape.
Maybe a skiing slalom or something.
I could ski for the first time
because I'm never gonna do it in this life.
I'm afraid I'm gonna crash into a tree and die.
Anyway, Ephesians chapter one, verse 12 says,
that we should be to the praise of his glory,
who first trusted in Christ,
and whom he also trusted after that
ye heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
and whom also after that ye believed
ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
That's really important.
And I want you to think about that verse
as we kind of continue to go through this,
but that once you believe,
you're sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
It's a done deal.
You're sealed, the last verse said sealed,
which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession.
We're already paid for.
We're already redeemed.
We just haven't been cashed in yet, right?
Until unto the praise of his glory,
wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith
in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints.
Now go ahead a couple chapters here,
chapter four, verse 30, it says,
and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,
whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
See these bozos that say you can lose your salvation
or give it away or put it on a shelf
or all this other stuff.
It's like no, you're sealed unto the day of redemption.
And look, he's never gonna take
the Holy Spirit away from you.
There's never a chance,
I mean if you're sealed unto the day of redemption,
then you've got your new body.
Then you've got the Mustang.
You've got a body that can't get hurt, can't get tired.
I'm sure that there's all kinds of gadgets
and things that we'll be able to experience
that we've never experienced in our life,
being able to see in the dark hopefully.
That would be nice, right?
But even if you stub your toe,
it's not gonna mess your toenail up for life
or anything like that because you're invulnerable basically.
You're immortal at that point.
So the Old Testament had eternal security though.
I believe that.
But how can you prove that?
This is what that guy kind of challenged,
like well where's the verse where it says
that they were sealed,
that the Old Testament saints were sealed
in the New Testament?
How do you know?
Like it seems to be like
they were sealed in the Old Testament.
Well I believe that they had eternal life.
The Psalms talk about it.
There's lots of verses in the Old Testament
that teach that they're saved forever,
but they weren't sealed like were sealed
in the New Testament, right?
So how do you explain that?
And I just was kind of thinking about that.
But let's go ahead and turn over to Ezekiel chapter nine.
Turn over to Ezekiel chapter nine.
Now the devil likes to copy the things
that God does of course.
And with the mark of the beast,
he's copying something that you find
in Ezekiel chapter nine
where God has this,
I think it's a man or an angel with an ink horn.
And he marks the people of God
with this ink horn.
Look at verse number three.
It says,
And the glory of God of Israel
was gone up from the cherub,
whereupon he was,
to the threshold of the house,
and he called to the man clothed with linen,
which had the rider's ink horn by his side.
And the Lord said unto him,
Go through the midst of the sky,
or excuse me,
the city through the midst of Jerusalem,
and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men.
That sigh and that cry for the abominations
that be done in the midst thereof.
And to the others he said,
In mine hearing,
go ye after him through the city and smite.
Let not your eyes spare,
neither have ye pity.
So a mark was put upon them
so they wouldn't be killed.
And so that mark is what?
Like a seal to show them,
don't kill these guys,
these are good guys, right?
So the devil takes that concept
and he takes it for wickedness
and says if you have this mark,
for us it's a bad mark.
You don't want to take that mark
because anybody that takes that mark
is damned or doomed.
Obviously saved people can't take that mark
or won't take that mark,
but many people will be damned because of that
and then you're guaranteed the wrath of God.
So they're like,
Oh yeah, take that mark
and everything will be all better.
Nobody can ever steal from you again.
You just wave your hand over the register
and ding,
it's all paid for.
If you don't have a hand,
then you can only just do that, right?
Or they can just scan it.
But that's gonna be bad for people.
But God does in the final seven years,
he's gonna send back people
after the resurrection happens,
he's gonna send back 144,000 people, right?
You know, they're Jehovah's Witnesses, right?
No, they're not Jehovah's Witnesses.
They are saved people of the tribes of Israel.
And what's really interesting about this
is that it talks about them being sealed, doesn't it?
So I showed you all those New Testament verses
about the sealing.
Now let's go to Revelation 7.
So Ezekiel kind of shows us this mark that's put on you.
Now in heaven,
so Revelation 7 and Revelation 14
are kind of parallel chapters.
You know, the book of Revelation,
you kind of have to read it
like you started over at chapter 11
and it kind of retails.
It's like you're starting over.
Daniel's the same way.
But in Revelation 7, it says in verse one,
and after these things,
I saw four angels standing on the four corners
of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth,
and the wind should not blow on the earth,
nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
And I saw another angel ascending from the east,
having, what's it say?
The seal of the living God.
And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels
to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
saying, hurt not the earth,
neither the sea nor the trees,
till we have sealed the servants
of our God in their foreheads.
So it's kind of,
isn't it kind of registering us
back to Ezekiel chapter nine there?
I mean, it's kind of the same picture, isn't it?
But there's, to see it,
you know, don't do anything,
don't hurt anything until we've done this.
And it says, and I heard the number of them
which were sealed,
and they were sealed in 144,000 of all the Jehovah's,
I mean, all the tribes of the children of Israel.
I'm just kidding.
All of the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 of the tribe of Reuben were sealed,
12,000 of the tribe of Gad were sealed,
12,000, and I'm gonna just kind of,
you know, all these different tribes are sealed.
It just says sealed.
Can you just see where it says sealed
in like three times per verse, right?
Now look at verse nine.
It says, and this I beheld in low a great multitude
which no man could number,
of all nations and kindreds and people in tongues,
stood before the throne and before the lamb,
clothed with white robes and palms in their hands.
So who are these people?
Well, and why do they get sealed
before this great multitude appears in heaven?
Who are these people?
Well, I would say that they're
Old Testament saints, aren't they?
They're Old Testament, it says who they are.
They're of the 12 tribes of Israel.
They have specific things about them.
Now I'm not saying that these are
the only ones that are resurrected.
It's not that there's only 144,000
Old Testament saints, but these are special ones
that it's just talking about in these chapters here.
Now go to Revelation chapter 14,
and it kind of gives us some more details,
kind of just a different look at it.
Verse number one says, and I looked
and lo, a lamb stood on Mount Sion,
and with him 140 and 4,000,
having his father's name written in their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven
as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of the great thunder,
and I heard the voice of harpers
harping with their harps,
and they sung as it were a new song before the throne,
before the four beasts and the elders,
and no man could learn the song but the 140 and 4,000,
which were, what's it say there?
Redeemed from the earth.
So these are people that are saved, aren't they?
And so when did they, but when did they get saved?
They got saved in the Old Testament, didn't they,
because they're of the 12 tribes of Israel.
And they came and got sealed
before the multitude appears in heaven.
Right before, right?
Which has always kind of interested me,
and I just couldn't really put it together why this was,
but look at verse four, it says,
these are they which were not defiled with women.
So they had to have specific things about them.
They were not defiled with women,
so these guys are virgins.
For they are virgins, that's what it says, right?
These are they which follow the lamb
whithersoever he goeth.
These were redeemed from among men,
being, what's it say there?
The first fruits unto God and to the lamb.
So these have a special classification
that they are sealed right before,
it's like they're,
because it says Christ the first fruits,
and I've never thought about this before,
I was just looking at my Bible tonight and studying this,
but these are like the first fruits
of the redeemed of the earth, basically.
So, I mean, that's what it says, right?
I mean, I'm not like making up some new heresy here.
That's what it says.
So, and it says they appear,
in chapter seven it says they appeared,
and then the multitude appeared right after them.
So it's not that like,
maybe they came all in the same bunch,
but right before, and then they follow the lamb.
They specifically follow him wherever he goes.
They're specially chosen.
They're not defiled.
They're virgins.
They're of the 12 tribes.
And so that word sealed, though,
when it says sealed, what is it talking about?
According to the New Testament,
when you're sealed, what are you sealed with?
The Holy Spirit, right?
So, these are Old Testament saints.
What are they?
How many times did it say it in each verse?
Sealed, sealed, sealed.
So, are the Old Testament saints
sealed with the Holy Spirit?
Yes, they are.
But when did they get sealed?
Right before they, I mean,
obviously when everybody gets raptured,
you know, but they're already dead, right?
They're dead now.
And they lived in the Old Testament.
We live in the New Testament.
So, it is different, but just because,
you know, they're not lesser saints than us
or anything like that.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that the Bible says
that these specific people, these first fruits here,
get sealed right before everybody else does.
You know, before the other Old Testament saints do.
But everybody appears as great,
multitude appears, but we are sealed now.
That's the difference, see?
And so, like, I was trying to struggle
to find these verses that, like,
where does it say the Old Testament saints are sealed?
It really, I couldn't find anything.
I was just like, man, that's really bothering me.
And then I just kind of found it tonight.
I thought it was really interesting.
So, thought I'd share it with you.
But anyway, so, but both instances are,
they're separating the heathen from being destroyed.
Those sealed are safe from God's wrath.
So, you know, we're sealed
with the Holy Spirit of promise.
We're safe from God's wrath.
No matter what happens, God's never gonna pour
his wrath down upon us like he's gonna do the heathen.
And because we have a different kind of mark upon us.
We have the seal of the Holy Spirit.
And so, when God seals that 144,000
and he sends them back to the earth,
they're sealed and they can't be hurt either
by the plagues that God sends back down, right?
Now, let's go back to our text in verse number 35.
Now, because the Bible says we're not appointed under wrath
but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Exodus 35 verse 35 says,
them hath he filled with wisdom of heart.
Talking about our two guys,
good night, Bezalel and Aholiyab, sorry.
And them hath he filled with wisdom of heart
to work all manner of work,
of the engraver and the cunning workman
and of the embroiderer and blue and purple and scarlet
and fine linen and the weaver,
even to them that do any work
and of those that devise cunning work.
So, now, again, it's talking about filling them
but again, it's not a permanent filling.
So hopefully that makes sense based upon all the evidence
I kind of showed you from the sealing
and all that kind of stuff, right?
But there is different gifts of the Holy Spirit, right?
Everybody knows that there's diversities of gifts
but the same Spirit
and there are differences of administrations
but the same Lord.
There are diversities of operations
but it's the same God which worketh all in all.
And in 1 Corinthians 12, 7 it says,
but the manifestation of the Spirit
is given to every man to profit with all.
So every single person that's saved
has a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now what is your gift?
Do you know what your gift is?
And if you don't know what your gift is,
then maybe you need to find out.
Maybe if you're not doing anything for God
then you're definitely not gonna know, right?
So it's probably a good idea to get doing something for God
if you're not doing anything
and find out what that gift is.
But if you think it's discernment
then you're probably wrong
because most people that think that are usually wrong.
They're usually the least discerning.
No, I'm just kidding.
But let's see.
Let's turn to 2 Kings chapter three.
So but some people get,
everybody has their different kind of gifts.
So there's the gift of tongues, of course,
and I believe that modern day
that's just talking about you have the gift
to study many languages and understand them, of course.
And there's different gifts.
The gift of wisdom was talked about
by our guys in the chapter tonight.
God just gives different gifts to everyone.
And some people have more than one gift.
Some people have multiple gifts.
Some people have the gift of prophecy.
And that's not necessarily that you're gonna
foretell future events, but that you can preach.
You just have a gift to preach.
I mean, some guys, they'll get up
and the first time they ever preach a sermon
it's just like, wow, where'd that guy come from?
It's like, they just have that gift.
It's a gift that God gave them.
Some people have to work for it.
Some people can preach right away
and they're really good at it.
So but all these work with one
and the selfsame spirit dividing
to every man severally as he will.
So we all have a gift.
And whether that's a gift of,
in the Old Testament you'd have
guys that had the gift of leadership,
guys that, and that's true in the New Testament also,
but military strategy.
Some of these guys, who knew
that Gideon was a great military strategist,
but he did pretty good, right?
Break the lanterns.
It's just like millions of Midianites
flee for their lives or whatever from 300 men.
Yeah, he had a good plan, didn't he?
I mean, obviously God was helping them,
but then of course you have guys
that can write and sing and play music
and preach to music.
So I had to turn here, it says,
and Elisha said, as the Lord of Hosts liveth
before whom I stand, surely were it not
that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat,
the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee
nor see thee.
But now bring me a minstrel,
and it came to pass when the minstrel played
that the hand of the Lord came upon him.
So Elisha would play this minstrel,
it's kind of like a guitar or something.
I'm not exactly sure, I've never played one before,
but I can't play any minstrel instruments,
I can't carry a tune in a bucket,
but there are people that can,
and there are people that can preach
when they play a guitar.
He played this guitar or whatever,
and he would preach while he played it.
It's not just hand, there's multiple times
in the Bible where people would do this.
So we've never seen that.
If somebody came in here playing a guitar
and preaching to it, we'd probably be like,
what's going on here?
Wait, what?
It'd freak you out.
But it's a gift.
I mean, obviously the gift of preaching to music,
and David obviously would play music,
and his songs are written in this book.
Moses' songs are written in the psalm book,
and a lot of great stuff.
So obviously service and organization,
administration, all these things are gifts
that God gives us, and the seven spirits of God
are what divvy out these gifts.
I know I'm running out of time here,
but let's go ahead and turn to Isaiah chapter 11,
and it kind of lists these spiritual,
the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might,
and they're kind of, in the book of Revelation,
they're kind of named off also
as the seven spirits over and over again
in the book of Revelation.
Then of course you have the seven golden candlesticks.
So you have the seven spirits before the throne,
you have the seven golden candlesticks in Revelation,
you have the fruits of the spirit,
you have the gifts of the spirit,
all these different things that we are given
by the Holy Spirit, and really,
if you kind of check out the theme tonight,
it's kind of about the Holy Spirit, isn't it?
It's a great ministry of the spirit
to allow us to work for the Lord,
and gives us gifts, and it's not like
if we serve the Lord in our own power,
we have this massive amount of power that we get from God
that allows us to serve Him,
and gives us energy when we think that we don't have any
and we're as tired as can be,
and then all of a sudden we'll just be able
to get up and do something for Him,
and it's just like, it's amazing.
He's the one that allows us to endure
and do these things.
Look at Isaiah 11, it says,
and there shall come out forth, excuse me,
come forth out of the stem of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots,
and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
So, seven spirits in there,
the seven spirits of the Lord there.
Obviously, they're not, they're just different aspects
of the spirit of God.
Now, the spirit of God is not some force like Star Wars.
You know, that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe,
that He's just like, you know,
He's like empowering Yoda and Darth Vader and whatever,
but that's not what we believe.
At this church, we believe the Holy Spirit is God.
So, we believe in the Trinity here,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one.
So, the spirit of God is the spirit,
and He dwells within us.
So, to skip through some of this,
but if you wanna write these down,
Revelation 1, 4, Revelation 3, 1,
Revelation 4, 5, Revelation 5, 6,
all mention these seven spirits that are before the throne,
and then let's look over back at our text in Exodus 35,
35, 35, chapter 35, verse 35.
So, we serve and are of service to God
through and by His mighty power.
It says, then He had filled them with wisdom of heart
to work all manner of work, of the engraver,
and of the cunning workmen, of the embroider,
in blue and in purple and scarlet and in fine linen,
and of the weaver, even of them that do any work,
and of those that devise cunning work.
Now, I kind of already talked about the blue, purple,
and scarlet representing the bruised body
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the blood of Christ.
Now, the fine linen, I've talked about this before,
but I just wanna bring it up really quickly
and go ahead and turn to John chapter 19,
John chapter 19, but that fine linen represents what?
Does anybody remember?
What does the fine linen represent?
Anybody remember?
Well, it's good I'm going over it again
because nobody remembers, good.
All right, John chapter 19, verse number 40.
Now, when Jesus was dead
and they took Him off the cross, He was buried.
And look what it says in John 19, 40.
It says, then took they the body of Jesus
and wound it in linen clothes
with the spices and the manner of the Jews to bury.
So they took linen cloths or clothes,
probably cloths, I guess, and with spices is the manner.
So they wrapped Him, and it's not an accident
that they wrapped Him in these types of clothes.
And what does it represent?
Well, turn to Revelation 19, verse eight.
Revelation 19, verse eight.
So the fine linen represents what?
It represents something very important and specific.
Once Jesus died and He went to hell
for three days and three nights
and He rose again, He purchased our redemption
and allowed us to be able to be imputed
with the righteousness of Christ.
And so we're justified by the blood of Christ.
We're justified through His perfect life and His suffering.
And that we're justified means just,
you can think of it this way,
just as if I'd never sinned.
Just as if I'd never sinned, justified.
And so that white linen represents this.
Look at Revelation 19, and it says,
and to her was granted that she should be
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.
For the fine linen is, what's it say there?
The righteousness of the saint.
So that linen that you see all throughout the,
I mean, I could preach a sermon about the linen
in the Bible and the linen thread, I guess.
I won't do that.
But that's what it represents.
So when you see that fine linen all throughout
the book of Exodus and all the different tapestries
and everything that they had to weave it in,
all the priest garments and things like that,
that's what it's representing.
The fact that the bruising, the purple and the blue
and the blood produced the white,
which is kind of, doesn't make sense to us.
Because when you get a lot of colors like that
in a white garment, it doesn't usually like
to come out very easily, does it?
You get grass stains, things like blood stains
in your clothes, they don't like to come out.
But Christ's stains take away the sin stain
out of our lives, right?
So it says for the fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints, the saints are, so the saints
are given these white robes that represent
the righteousness that we already have from Christ Jesus.
And he imputes us, we're not righteous on our own,
but he imputes his righteousness unto us because of faith.
And we come back in this same chapter with,
remember we talked about this last week,
with our horses, right?
Did you guys pick a name?
Because we're gonna go back to verse 14.
Anybody got a new name?
Jehu, that's a good name.
This is a good name, Brother Sean.
I like this name.
Anybody else?
Snowball Junior, yeah, that's a fitting name
because he would look like a junior.
You could ride next to me, my friend.
We'll be Snowball and Snowball Junior.
But verse 14, so Jesus comes back on the white horse,
right, but he's in a different kind of outfit.
What's his outfit look like?
A vest or dipped in blood, that's right.
So he's the only one in a red garment on a white horse
and all the saints are with him.
We're behind him.
He's in the front with this red outfit on
and maybe so all the blood that gets on him
doesn't really show, I guess.
I don't know what the deal is with that,
but it says, and the armies which were in heaven
followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And we won't get a drop of blood on us
because we don't have to do anything
because Jesus is gonna do it all for us, right?
Which, and we'll forever be clothed.
In heaven, it doesn't say that we're naked again.
Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden,
but we're never gonna be naked again like that.
So when they lost their innocence,
they lost the covering of Christ.
But we have obviously the covering of Christ,
but we're still gonna have robes on.
So I'm kinda happy about that still.
I mean, you know, whatever.
We probably won't even think about stuff like that,
but it'd still be kinda weird
to be walking around naked, wouldn't it?
Anyway, I just feel uncomfortable about that.
But we have comfort in the fact
that we have clothing on, right?
So, but in Genesis, we had Adam and Eve.
They were naked and innocent,
but we can see the innocence in little children, right?
They don't care about running around naked,
but then they come to a certain point
where they're just like hiding behind something.
They're like, what are you doing?
And they're like going to the bathroom or whatever, right?
And they're divert.
And they want some privacy, right?
Like most people do.
But, or they'll just be like,
you know, they'll try to cover up,
and you're like, then you know
that they're starting to lose
that innocence that they have in them.
And so that's a good time to start, you know,
talking to them about the things of God
so that you can make sure
that they can get the righteousness of Christ on them.
Look at Exodus 36, verse one.
It says, then wrought Bezalel in a holy ab.
And don't worry, I'm not gonna finish
the whole chapter, okay?
You guys are like, oh no!
And every wise-hearted man, they're like, ah!
In whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding
to know how to work all manner of work
for the service of the sanctuary
according to all that the Lord had commanded.
Every servant has the ability
to be a wise-hearted servant just like these guys now,
because everybody has the Spirit of God.
This was a special thing for them at that time,
but we don't have to wait for some special time
where we, you know, we all have the Spirit of God.
So we can all be like Bezalel in a holy ab.
Obviously, you know, some people like have
a more, more gifts of the Spirit,
but you know, we all have the Spirit of God.
So we don't have to, you know,
we're not like it was in the Old Testament.
Everybody has the availability to work for God
and to do great things for him.
And what did God, that everyone would seek
the Spirit of wisdom and to know
and to do the service of the work of the Lord
and to be like these guys that just had it
in their heart to give and to put the hard work in
and to love the Lord.
And you know, if you work hard, God will make it up.
He'll make up what you lack in talent
and he'll give you grace.
And God saved us so that we would work for him.
And I'm not gonna have you turn there,
but Ephesians chapter two, eight through 10 says,
for by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus on two good works.
For God hath before, which God, excuse me,
hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
So he's already ordained us to do the work
and we all have the Spirit of God.
So again, like I said at the beginning of the sermon,
we have a greater responsibility than some of those people
in the Old Testament because instead of just being
a group of priests back then, we're all priests.
Will some people have the Spirit of God come upon them
to do mighty things?
Some people have the Spirit of God
for a short amount of time.
We all have the Spirit of God all the time.
Everybody that's saved.
So do you see how our responsibility is a little bit more?
And he's given to us the ministry of reconciliation
and made us ambassadors, he's given us a task to do
and he's made us, we're a new creature in Christ Jesus.
That new creature is the Holy Spirit of God
renewing our spirit within us,
giving us the ability to work for him
like nobody in the Old Testament ever could before.
To where we're, I mean, that gift of the Holy Spirit
is such a big deal and I think sometimes we forget it.
Sometimes I think we take it for granted.
Sometimes I think that we don't,
we just kind of forget that we have something
that they did not have and we, you know,
we sleep on it.
We take it for granted and we forget about it.
But you know what, don't sleep on the Holy Spirit.
Don't let your fire go out.
Don't let your days go by, your days off go by
without giving some kind of glory to God,
having some kind of devotion with God,
thinking about the Lord when you wake up.
Do you think about him when you wake up?
Do you pray to him when you wake up?
Do you say good morning, Lord, or anything like that?
Do you have a devotion?
Do you read the Bible?
Do you pray to him?
You know, when things are going on hard in your life,
do you reach out to the Lord and ask him to help you?
I mean, these are things that we should just be
ingrained in our life.
They shouldn't be afterthoughts.
They shouldn't be like, oh man, it's 11 o'clock.
It's time for me to go to bed.
I can't believe I haven't even done anything
for the Lord today.
That should not be part of any of our days, folks.
We are Christians.
We are children of the king and you know what?
We have the Holy Spirit.
He's given us a great gift.
Don't waste it.
Don't waste your life doing things that don't matter.
That's what the devil wants us to do.
He wants us out of church.
He wants us out of fellowship.
He wants us just fighting and bickering
about things that don't matter.
He wants us, you know, just often our little toys
and the things that are hobbies that we like to do.
That's what he wants us doing.
He wants us wasting time on stuff that doesn't matter.
And look, I'm not saying don't have fun.
I've never said don't have fun.
Have your hobbies.
But you know what?
Put God first in your life.
Amen.
And you know what?
You're not gonna be ashamed at all
of the fact that you did something for God with your life
and the fact that you utilized the Holy Spirit,
that spiritual battery that can recharge you
no matter how tired you are from your job,
no matter how hard of a day you've had,
he can just energize you.
You know, the Bible says that we can mount up
wings like eagles.
We'll run and we won't faint like the young men.
You know, obviously, I'm older
and I wanna be able to keep up with the young dogs.
And sometimes it's hard.
But you know what?
The Holy Spirit can give us that power.
Look what he did.
I'm probably not gonna catch 300 foxes tomorrow.
But you know what?
You know, I wanna just take tomorrow and serve God somehow.
And you know what?
I think that if we just,
if we focus more on God,
then our church will be bigger,
our church will be better.
We have a great church.
But it can get better.
We can get better as individuals
through the Spirit of God
and the power of his word.
And you know, we have a great gift.
Let's not waste it.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much
for these great chapters in the Bible, Lord,
and for the great truths that are in them.
I pray, Lord, that we would not neglect
the Holy Spirit that we have, Lord,
that we would not quench the Holy Spirit,
that we wouldn't dampen the Holy Spirit, Lord,
that we would just make it something
that we just don't forget about, Lord,
our salvation and the fact that you're counting on us
to reach this world for Christ.
Pray, Lord, you'd help us to be holy unto you,
to use our bodies as a living sacrifice
that would be acceptable to you, Lord.
And we thank you.
We pray that you just take us home safely tonight.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.