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So in Exodus chapter 29 here, we just read the entire chapter, but this is the consecration or the sanctification or setting apart of the priests for the job that they have set before them. If you remember in chapter 28, we went through the garments of the priest and we talked about the clothing that they wear. And of course, the priests are the sons of Aaron. So what is it that makes them a priest? The thing that makes them a priest is that they're a son of Aaron. So that's by birth, okay? But just because they're born into that doesn't mean that they're just automatically ready to do the job or do the work. They have to go through a process whereby they are hallowed, as the Bible puts it, or consecrated. Look at verse number one of chapter 29, and this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them to minister unto me in the priest's office. So the purpose of this hallowing or consecration is so that they can minister to him in the priest's office. Now, to hallow is the same thing as to sanctify or consecrate. These three words are used interchangeably. They mean the same thing. And basically what they mean is just made holy. And holy simply means set apart, and you'll see it used that way in the Bible over and over again interchangeably with the term set apart. And what the Bible is getting at here with holiness is that these are not just common everyday things, but they are things that are set apart, they belong to the Lord, they are special, they are different. So when the Bible, for example, commands us in the New Testament to be holy, he's telling us to be different than everyone else. Don't just be another person just like everyone else. You are set apart, you are special, you are different, you belong to the Lord. And so you are to live up to a certain standard. Now we talked about last week also the fact that every single believer in the New Testament is a priest. So we don't have a priesthood like they had back in the Old Testament where they would go to the priest, and the priest would be a mediator between them and God. The Bible tells us that there's only one mediator between God and men in the New Testament, and that's the man Christ Jesus. So Jesus Christ is the one mediator. All of us are sons of God. We are all priests. Jesus is our high priest. But what this chapter would be getting at for us in the New Testament is how we should be hallowed, we should be consecrated so that we can minister in the priest's office. So how is it that we are priests in the New Testament? By birth. Just like Aaron's sons were priests because they were born into that family, we are priests in the New Testament because we are born into God's family. By being born again, believing on Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are born into the family where we are now automatically priests. So whether someone is a good Christian or a bad Christian, they're both priests. Every believer in Christ is a priest. But if we're going to be effective in ministry, if we're going to be used by God, we need to be consecrated. We need to be sanctified. We need to be made holy. So it says here, hallowed them, in verse 1, to minister unto me in the priest's office. So you take the people that are the sons of Aaron, and then you get them ready so that they can do the service. And so we're saved, we've already been born into the right family, now we just need to be made ready to serve God in that office. So they go through all of this ritual. It says in verse 1 there, take one young bullock and two rams without blemish and unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened, tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened, anointed with oil of wheat and flour, shalt thou make them, and thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket with the bullock and the two rams. And Aaron and his sons, thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. So here we can see, symbolized, a couple of steps for being consecrated as a believer. One of them is getting to church, right? So he's saying, hey, take them and bring them to the door of the congregation. So if someone is saved and we want that person to get consecrated, we want them to serve God, we want them to minister to the Lord, we should get them to church, right? Bring them to the door of the congregation. And then another thing is wash them with water. And of course, in the New Testament, this is called baptism, all right? Now baptism is nothing to do with salvation. It doesn't save us, it doesn't wash away our sins, it doesn't do anything like that. It is purely symbolic, as many things in the Bible are. And it symbolizes a whole bunch of different things. Now if you expected someone to fully understand baptism before getting baptized, then they'd probably have to go to some six-week class or something like that. And that's what a lot of churches do. But that's not biblical. You know, in the Bible, we see people get saved and they immediately get baptized. You know, we see the Ethiopian eunuch, the gospel is preached unto him, and just right there cruising down the road in the chariot, he says, see, here's water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip answered and said, if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. He didn't say, hey, if you fully understand everything about baptism, you know, if you enroll in this six-week class, I can meet you here six weeks from now. He just said, hey, if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He commanded the chariot to stand still. They went down, both of them, into the water, sorry sprinklers and pourers, but they went down into the water and he baptized him, right? And so people in the Bible are baptized immediately. Acts chapter 16 with the Philippian jailer, the apostle Paul at midnight ends up pointing this guy to Christ and it says the same hour he was baptized. So he actually went to the guy's house and baptized the guy at his house in the middle of the night, okay? So we believe that baptism is a first step of obedience after you get saved. Once you've believed on Jesus Christ, as long as you're saved, you are qualified to get baptized. You don't have to get all the sin out of your life and prove to us that you're going to be a good Christian or something like that. No, if you're saved, you're qualified to be baptized immediately. That's what the Bible teaches. So what does it symbolize? Well, it symbolizes a bunch of different things. I'll just quickly give you some of the highlights of what baptism symbolizes and how it ties in here. The first thing that it obviously symbolizes is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The Bible tells in Colossians chapter 2 and in Romans chapter 6 that we are buried with him by baptism into his death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Again, that's why pouring or sprinkling is not a legitimate baptism. We are buried with him in baptism. Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. He went down into the water, came up out of the water, and that pictures Jesus on the cross, and then he's buried, and then he rises again. That's what baptism by immersion pictures. But it also pictures walking in newness of life. So on one hand, it pictures Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. But on the other hand, it pictures us dying to self, the old man dying, and then the new resurrected man going forth to walk in newness of life. So it pictures newness of life or, hey, I'm burying the old Steven Anderson, and I want to follow Christ walking as the new Steven Anderson. That's another thing that baptism pictures. So this washing right here, washing them, again, this is not something that, oh, it washes off your sins, and now you're saved. No, our sins are washed in the blood of Jesus. And the Bible specifically says that baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but it is the answer of a good conscience toward God. First you get a good conscience toward God by believing in Christ, then the answer to that or the next thing to that is baptism. But the washing, the Bible says having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, what that pictures is basically we're saying off with the old and on with the new. That's what we're saying. Now, obviously, after you get saved and baptized, you're not going to be perfect, you're not going to be sinless, but you're basically saying that that's what you want to do. You're starting out with a step of obedience saying, I've decided to follow Jesus, I want to follow Christ with my life, and that you want to walk in the new man, not the old man that has to die daily. Now baptism is something that we only do one time, but that's because it's just a picture. Dying to self and putting on the new man is something that actually needs to take place every single day. And so we see here, bring them to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, wash them with water, picturing somebody after they're saved, and we want to get them consecrated, we want to get them serving, then get them to church, get them baptized. Those are some first steps. And then it talks about in verse 5, the garments that Aaron the high priest is going to wear. And then it says in verse 8, thou shalt bring his sons and put coats upon them, and thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, put the bonnets on them, and the first office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute, and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons. So one thing you could picture with this putting on of garments, you know, the Bible tells us to put on the whole armor of God. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on the new man, right? Put on the whole armor of God. Over and over again, the Bible uses that kind of language about sanctification or growing in the Lord or becoming a better Christian, girding your loins about with truth, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. So there are garments that they're going to put on that are going to help them to serve better, and they're going to wear these things while they serve. We're not putting on a special garment in the New Testament physically, but spiritually. We're putting on the new man. We're putting on the armor of God. We're putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in Romans 13. It says in verse 10, and thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock, and thou shalt kill the bullock before the Lord by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar. So the New Testament tells us, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. So everything in the Bible, whenever it's sanctified or consecrated or hallowed, the Bible's saying that almost all the time, almost, blood is involved because of the fact that the blood of Christ is so important. It's the only way that we have salvation, and it's the only thing that makes fellowship with God possible. No relationship with God or fellowship with God is possible without the blood of Jesus Christ. So therefore, in order to be consecrated, the blood comes into play, once again, in the symbolism where they're going to kill these animals, and they're going to put blood on the altar to sanctify the altar, and they're going to put the blood even upon their person. Jump down, if you would, to verse 19. It says, Thou shalt take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. Now, first of all, in verse 19, when it says, put their hands upon the head of the ram, this is something that comes up over and over again in this chapter. You see it at the end of verse 10, Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock. Here they put their hands upon the head of the ram, and it comes up over and over again, that phrase, and this laying on of hands has to do with a transfer, okay? So think about it in the Bible when the laying on of hands is used in ordination, you know, to ordain someone. Basically there's a transfer of authority, a transfer of power, a transfer of blessing when they lay their hands on someone. And so when they lay their hands upon this animal, they're basically symbolically transferring their sins onto this innocent little animal, they're putting the sins on the animal. By the way, this is where the term scapegoat comes from, because in the book of Leviticus it uses that term scapegoat, because it's the goat that's going to escape into the wilderness, and they would lay their hands on the scapegoat and confess the sins, and basically they're transferring symbolically the sins onto the scapegoat, and then they kill that animal, and it's like, all right, the sin's taken care of. You say, come on, that's crazy. You think you'd just transfer your sins onto some animal and then kill the animal and say, oh, that fixes that? Yes, and here's why. Because no, that animal cannot ever take away your sins. Obviously, an animal can't die for you, but it's symbolic. It's a picture. Jesus did that exact transfer. The Bible says, he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 1 Peter 2.24 says, who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. So when Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross, every sin that we've ever done, every sin of the whole world was transferred onto Jesus. And so when these guys are confessing the sins onto a goat or a ram or a bullock, yeah, obviously, if that were literal, then that would be silly to think that killing that animal is going to take care of anything. And that's why the Bible says in the book of Hebrews, it's not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Jesus can take away our sins though. Jesus did die for our sins. That's what is really happening. Everything's pointing to Jesus. In and of itself, being dunked under water is meaningless. Smearing blood on an altar is meaningless. Putting blood on your ear or your thumb, it doesn't do anything literally. But the real stuff, the blood of Jesus, really does cleanse us from our sins. Really does save. Jesus' death on the cross really did make an atonement. Everything else is just symbolic. Taking it literally would truly be ridiculous. But when they're killing these animals, they're looking forward to Jesus, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. So there's that transfer in verse 19 of confessing the sins or transferring the sins over to the ram. Then they kill the ram and take of his blood. And they put it on three places. They put it upon the tip of the right ear, they put it on the right thumb, and they put it on the right big toe. Now what is the purpose of this? And then they also take the anointing oil and use it as well. So what's the purpose of anointing these three places? The ear, the thumb, and the toe? Well, again, remember what the context is. They're being consecrated for service for the Lord. So I think that these are three areas of consecration that we need to have in our lives for serving the Lord. Now if you remember when I preached on Sunday night about 2nd and 3rd John, we had kind of a three-part teaching there about how he wants us to walk in the truth and how he wanted us to walk in love and how he wanted us to walk after his commandments. And we talked about how the truth means we need to have the right doctrine. And then walking in love, we have the right attitude, the right feeling toward God and toward our fellow man, the right motives. And then we talked about walking after his commandments, having the right practice, doing the right things. So believing the right things, having the right heart, and doing the right things, those were the three things that were emphasized in both 2nd and 3rd John. Well, here we see not the exact same three things, but a very similar three things. Because if you think about the ear, this would represent taking heed unto God's word, listening to what God says. So this would have to do with getting your doctrine right, you know, actually reading the Bible, listening to God's word, paying attention, hearkening unto that. And not just hearing it, but hearing it as in hearing it, right? Comprehending it, hearkening unto it, and so forth. So that would be the ear. And then obviously the thumb, your hand is associated with your works, your deeds, your actions, having the right walk. So not only just hearing God's word, getting the right teaching, the right doctrine, paying attention, hearkening, understanding, but then also being a doer of the word, having the right practice with your hands, right? And then if you think about the toe, you know, throughout the Bible the feet are associated with evangelism because you go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Behold, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel and bring glad tidings of good things. And part of the ministry of the Levites and of the priests is that they would go and evangelize. They were supposed to be preaching the word of God throughout Israel, teaching them statutes and judgments. And remember, the cities where the Levites lived were spread out throughout the nation of Israel so that they would be local in different areas so that they could teach their area. And remember, they're actually living off the tithes of their area. So if their area goes into Baal worship or whatever, they're out of a job. They don't deserve anything because it's their job to keep their area spiritually right. If they drop the ball, then they deserve to be out of a job at that point. If they're just going to let the land go to Baal worship and all the other false gods. So hey, they are supposed to be peppered throughout the nation of Israel and they're supposed to be out there with their feet, right, going and teaching and preaching and speaking the word of God to people. And so the feet are associated with evangelism, okay. So again, it's a similar list, you know, hearing, learning, hearkening, doing. Don't be just a hearer, be a doer. And then also share the gospel with the lost, right, evangelize, care about other people. So again, you could put the feet and the evangelism, you could tie that in with the walking in love because that's about getting the gospel to other people, right, reaching other people. That's love. And then keeping the commandments is the thumb, the practice. And then the hearkening, you know, you're walking in truth because you're hearkening to what God says is the truth. So anyway, very similar idea here with the ear, the thumb, and the toe. And you know what, there are going to be people who have the feet, they've got that. I mean, they're really into going out and teaching and preaching but it's like they don't have the ear anointed then their doctrine gets goofed up. Or they got the right doctrine and man, they want to go out and reach people but then their hands, you know what, they're just not doing the right works as far as they're living a life of sin, they're not keeping God's commandments, they're worldly and sinful. Or you could have the person who is, boy, they're really listening up and boy, they're really into keeping God's commandments and living a clean life and doing right by their family and they do, they work hard at their job and everything but they're not reaching anybody, they don't have the foot anointed. So we want to make sure that we have all three of these in our life so that we can be complete so that we're not lopsided in our Christianity as so many are unfortunately. We want to make sure that we're a balanced person. There are Christians out there who just study and study and they know a lot but they're so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good and they're not doing any good for anybody else, right? And then there are other people that are just, oh man, it's all about evangelism. Doctrine's out the window, clean living's out the window. You know, we need to be balanced and we need to have all of these things in our lives and not be off balance because remember, what are we reading about here? You know, why is this relevant to us? We have no Levitical priests, we have no sons of Aaron, we're not going to smear blood on anything. The idea is to learn spiritually from this, right? The Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness. So we need to look at this and say, okay, what is God trying to tell me here when he talks about consecrating the priest? Well, he's telling me to be consecrated. Now if you would flip over to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, let's tie this in with the New Testament. He's telling us to be holy. He wants us to be consecrated when it comes to our ear. He wants us to be consecrated when it comes to our hands. He wants to be consecrated in regard to our feet. And a little bit later in Exodus 29, he's going to talk about the wave offering. Say what is that wave offering? The wave offering is basically where they would pick up a certain part of the animal or in this case there were also some cakes and things that were waved. They would basically pick it up and wave it, okay? So they're basically just picking it up and waving it before the Lord. Now what is the point of picking something up and waving it around? What is the wave offering? You know, I believe that the wave offering is probably so that you could show, let your good works be seen of men, okay? The Bible says, let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Because of course you have the heave shoulder and the wave breast. And if you've read the Law of Moses before, you've read those over and over, the heave shoulder, the heave shoulder, the wave breast, you know, and you just see those over and over again. And, you know, think about the breastplate of righteousness and you think about the wave breast. You know, you're basically letting your righteousness be seen, okay? Letting your light shine, not hiding it under a bushel. And of course there's the danger of some people that are hypocrites where the Bible says all their righteousnesses they do for to be seen of men. So we want to balance these two things. Some people are just all wave. Every offering is a wave offering for them. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, here's my offering. So we don't want every wave. Every offering is not a wave offering, all right? But there are some wave offerings and we should not set out to be seen of men. And you should always remember that verse about the hypocrites, all their righteousnesses they do for to be seen of men. We need to make sure that there are a lot of things we do that nobody knows about. We need to enter into the closet and pray on our own, fast on our own, do works that nobody knows about, study on our own and be righteous on our own. But we need to also be openly Christian and openly doing the right things in our lives. We're not doing it all to be seen of men, but we're not hiding it either. We're not ashamed of it. Now there are a lot of things that we should be doing in private and then there are things we should be doing publicly. The Bible says on one hand, don't be like the hypocrites where they get on the corner of the street and they pray real loud and make sure everybody sees them praying. Enter into your closet, pray to your father in secret. But then he also says in 1 Timothy 2, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So what's the balance there? A lot of people will point at stuff like that and say, oh, the Bible's contradicting itself. No, the Bible's trying to balance you out. Because if it just said one or the other, you'd go overboard. If it just said, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, then you'd have all the hypocrites out in force, just loudly praying long out in public, just beating their chests in public and praying and make it a big show. And if he just said enter into your closet, then nobody's really being a good testimony because they're all just praying in their closet. Nobody even knows about the fact that they're even a Christian. So it's a balance. So here's what I believe the Lord's getting at is that, you know what? The long prayers are done by yourself in the closet, and the prayers that are done publicly are short prayers because the Bible talks about them making long prayers and being a hypocrite, sounding the trumpet, and he specifically says long prayers. And you've been around these hyper-spiritual types and these hypocrites who just, you know, they pray for dinner, and it's like a whole sermon, and they're like, thank you so much, Lord, for this food that you provided, Lord, and, you know, just as you, when you created the earth, Lord, you provided the green herb for man to eat and the fruit-bearing seed after his kind and the fruit-yielding seed, Lord, and, Lord, just like when Noah got off the ark and you provided the beasts of the field, everything that breathes, Lord, thank you for providing this meal for us, Lord, and thank you for the new covenant, Lord, that we're able to partake of this wonderful pork and, you know, you don't want to just go into some big, long thing because then it just becomes a show at that point. Okay, but you also don't want to be, like, you know, doing the thing where you're, you know, you're in public and you need to pray for your food, so you kind of, like, drop something, you're like, all right, dear Jesus, Jesus' name, amen, put it back in your pocket, you know, kind of play that off, so, you know, that you want to have a balance of, hey, I'm not ashamed of Christ, I'm not, hey, I'm not ashamed to be caught doing good or caught doing right, you know, I want the people around me to know that I'm living a Christian life, I want to have a good testimony, but, you know what, I'm not just in it for show and just everything I do, and, you know, there are those people who just, it's like, they can't, they can't go soul winning without taking a selfie or, you know, here I am, here I am, you know, doing this, and it can be a little bit unsettling when people are just so overboard about just showing you everything that they do and it's like, we get it, you know, but so you see the balance there of, hey, you know what, let's let our light shine before men, let them see your good works, let them glorify your Father which is in heaven, that's the wave breast, you know, when you make an offering to the Lord, sometimes it's something that's seen, you know, you see people in the Book of Acts where they, you know, they brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet, one of the good guys did that too, Barnabas, okay, but then there are also the bad guys who did that, Ananias and Sapphira, where they're doing it to be seen, they're doing it for show, so there's a balance and then there's also the alms that we do where we don't let our right hand know what our left hand doeth or vice versa, so the point is that that's the balance. I think another thing about the wave offering is that when you give something unto the Lord, you know, when the, when you think of making an offering or a sacrifice, when you give something, sometimes you are ending up with less, obviously, right, you know, if I have ten dollars and I give five dollars to the Lord, now I only have five dollars, right, that's kind of the meaning of the word sacrifice in the sense that I'm giving something up, I'm giving something to him, but you know, there are certain offerings that we give to the Lord where we actually don't lose anything, we actually have the same amount when we're done, you know, for example, the Bible talks about the sacrifice of praise and the offering of praise, you know, there are a lot of times when we go out and do works for the Lord where we sacrifice of our time or energy or, or our whatever and, and we actually end up with more as a result or we just end up with the same, you know, or we, we offer our family to the Lord, we offer our lives, we offer the praise and the fruit of our lips, and you know what, we end up being blessed and enjoying it, it's great, we don't really lose anything, so you know, some sacrifices, yeah, they hurt, some sacrifices that we make for the Lord, some offerings we make are painful, and then other offerings we make, it's like a win-win, it's like I wave it to the Lord and then I, it's like here it is, didn't even, it's still here, it's not like they wave it and then it like disappeared or God took it or something, and there are all kinds of different offerings, the sin offerings, the, the whole burnt offering, also known as the Holocaust unto the Lord, or the, the trespass offerings, the wave offering, the heave offering, that's outside the scope of this sermon to go into all those, but look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, what's all this about, what's the, what's the wave offering about, and the blood on the ear, the blood on the thumb, the blood on the toe, the blood on the altar, and put on these clothes, wash your body with water, go to the door of the congregation, the whole chapter is consecrating them or hallowing them to minister in the priest's office, we in the New Testament are to be sanctified, consecrated, holy, set apart, look what the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, it says, furthermore then we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that is you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more, for you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, watch this, even your sanctification, and what does that look like, that you should abstain from fornication, so being set apart, being sanctified has to do with cleaning up your life, that's why I remember one of the things was hey, they wash up, and put on clean clothes, and come to the door of the congregation, and one of the things that should set us apart as Christians is that we abstain from fornication, now a lot of people out in this world are committing fornication, and that shouldn't surprise us, because the Bible teaches that worldly people are going to do that, I mean the Bible flat out said, hey I wrote unto you an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, for then must you need to go out of the world, he's saying look, if you're not gonna hang around with fornicators, you'd have to just leave the planet, or you'd have to go hide in the wilderness, in a monastery, or a hermitage somewhere, but he says no, what I've written unto you is not to keep company with anyone that's called a brother who's a fornicator, so he's saying don't be around Christians who are fornicators, now if a heathen person is a fornicator, well that's just par for the course, and especially we look around in 2020 America, for a lot of people that's par for the course, for a lot of people they think it's perfectly fine to go to bed together before they're married, but let me tell you something, we as Christians are supposed to be different, we're supposed to be set apart, God's will is our sanctification that we should abstain from fornication, what is fornication? It's going to bed with someone before you're married, okay so you teenagers out there, and you young adults out there, this is a temptation and our society is constantly cramming this culture down our throat, this hookup culture or live together before you're married culture, I mean nowadays there are just many people living together as married, out in the in our culture today, but you know what, we are to be different, don't live like a heathen, don't shack up, don't you dare think that because everybody's doing it, no they're not, because so many of God's people are not doing it, you know there are always 7,000 men that haven't bowed the knee to Baal, there are always going to be people who take God's commandments seriously, who love the Lord their God, and who love their neighbor as himself, and they don't do it, so no everyone is not committing fornication, and you are commanded by God to abstain from fornication, say oh we're priesthood of the believer, well act like it, get consecrated, get prepared for service, don't fornicate, he says that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, see God wants to use a clean vessel, what's a vessel, a vessel is like a cup, or a glass, or a bowl, or a pitcher, that's a vessel, and our body is a vessel, you know our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, this is called our vessel, okay, and God wants us to be a clean vessel, so that it can be prepared for the Masters use, and the Bible says here that we should know how to possess our vessel in sanctification and honor, so our body should be treated in a way that is set apart, sanctified, holy, where we treat it as hey this belongs to the Lord, right, this is not just any old body, my body, my choice, or something, hey this belongs to the Lord, I'm bought with a price, I'm to be set apart, so I'm not going to take that which belongs to Christ and become one with a harlot, the Bible says, right, shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot, God forbid, so he says here that we should possess our vessel in sanctification and honor, honor, it is dishonorable for you to commit fornication, for you to sleep with someone before you're married is a dishonorable thing to do, and is honorable to be a virgin when you get married, and that's what the Bible teaches, not in the lust of concupiscence, and the word concupiscence is a big word, but it kind of has Cupid in it, right, so you can kind of get an idea, concupiscence has to do with lust or desire for that which is carnal and sinful and not something that God wants us to do, not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God, yeah, the people who don't know God, of course that's what they're doing, but that doesn't make it okay for you a child of God, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified, for God have not called us unto uncleanness but unto holiness, and you say, well, I'm just so offended, Pastor Anderson, that you get up and preach against fornication and that you've said that children that are born out of wedlock, the Bible calls them bastard children, and I'm so offended that you said that it was unclean or dishonorable, you know, this physical relationship I'm having, hey, we love each other and whatever, hey, what does the Bible say about people who are gonna get offended when you preach against fornication and get offended when you rip on adultery, and when you use biblical words like whores and harlots and whoremongers, uncleanness, filthy, you say, I don't like that, you're not loving, what does the Bible say about people who don't like this kind of preaching, look down at the Bible in verse 8, he therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man but God, now look, I would hate for it to be said of me, oh, Steven Anderson, he despises God, that's pretty bad, what does the Bible say, God, verse 7, has not called us unto uncleanness but unto holiness, and he therefore that despises it, despises not man but God, because God's the one who said abstain from fornication, God's the one who said these things, and if you despise these things and you despise these rules and say, oh, the rules, it's legalism, you know what you're saying, I despise God is what you're saying, that's what you're saying, oh, you know, how dare they say they preach abstinence, how dare you despise God, you're a worm, you're nothing, God created this whole universe, quit despising God, do what he said, he has the right to do that, and look, by the way, these things are for our own good anyway, even though we're too stupid to realize it sometimes, I was too stupid to realize it when I was a teenager and a young adult, but you know what, I abstained from fornication because I was afraid of God, because I feared the Lord, okay, but I was too stupid to understand all the reasons why that was the right thing to do, but I said, hey, God said not to do this, God's serious about this, and so I was a virgin when I got married, but you know what, I didn't fully understand why God was right about this, and I don't think most young people do understand these things, but when you get older, you look back and you realize, hey, God was right, I did it right, you know, even though I didn't get it at the time, I'm glad I did what God said to do, okay, now isn't it interesting that in verse 6, this is thrown in there, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, you say, what does that have to do with abstaining from fornication, because the passage here is about being sanctified, and specifically he's kind of homing in on this one sin, and saying, hey, you need abstain from fornication, you need to possess your vessel in sanctification and honor, and if there's one sin that the Bible really hits on a lot in the New Testament, it's fornication, I mean, Paul is constantly hitting on it, and Jesus Christ himself hits on it repeatedly in the four Gospels, but what we see here is this verse in verse 6 that's just kind of thrown in, what does this mean, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you also and testified, for God had not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness, I think that there are a few things that he could be referring to here, number one, defrauding your brother, he could be bringing in adultery into the equation now, because obviously the close kin of fornication is adultery, now what's the difference between fornication and adultery, well fornication is when people that are unmarried commit that act, and adultery is when you would do that with someone who is married, right, so if a man sleeps with a single woman and they're not married, that's fornication, but if he sleeps with a married woman, now it's adultery and it's even much worse of a sin, okay, even though they're both major sins, so that would obviously be defrauding your brother by committing adultery with thy brother's wife, but if you were to say, well hey, adultery is not mentioned here and we're just talking about fornication, then you could say, you know, if you sleep with some girl that you're not going to marry, you're basically defrauding her future husband, because now he doesn't get to be the only man that's with her, he has to have one that has now been used by someone else, and so you've defrauded him of that joy and that privilege, okay, and you say, that makes me uncomfortable, how dare you refer to that, hey you know what, the Bible puts a premium on virginity, like it or lump it, okay, the Bible puts a premium on virginity, you say, oh you're slut-shaming, you better know I am, yeah, I am, you gotta be ashamed of yourself, you know, now it's like, oh yeah, it's like you tell someone that's unhealthy to be overweight and you're fat-shaming, you know, and you tell someone that the Bible says, you know, not to sleep around and now you're slut-shaming, well you know what, these bunch of sluts need to be shamed then, don't they, okay, if they're gonna be a whore and a harlot and do all these things, now look, you say, well you're hurting my feelings because I've done that, hey I'm not here to hurt your feelings, I'm trying to get the people who haven't done it to not do it, that's my main goal right now, I'm thinking about those that are still pure, that have not done this, I want them to realize the seriousness and to realize the permanent damage that they're doing when they commit fornication, period, if you don't like that, I'm sorry that you don't like me telling you that fornication causes permanent damage in your life and in the life of other people, but that's a fact, okay, and you know what, you are hurting other people and you are hurting yourself when you break God's laws and do that, okay, now you say, well what do I do, I've already done that, I've already fornicated, look, then you repent of that, you get that right and you push a reset button and you do it right from here on out, I'm not here to beat you up about your past, you know the Bible says forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I'm not here to beat you up about your past, you know what, if you have committed fornication, you know, I hope that you can just push that out of your mind, forget about that and say, hey, I'm a new person now, I'm a new man, I'm a new woman and you know what, from here on out, I'm gonna be pure, don't just have this attitude that says, well, I've already done it five times, I might as well make it six, no, my friend, you better just leave it at five, okay, don't get this doomed attitude, God's the God of the second chance, God is constantly restoring people, giving people another chance, so don't get this attitude, oh, I'm trash now, I'm doomed, I can't do anything, no, you can still be used by God, you can still be blessed by God, you can still have a great marriage, so don't, just throw in the towel, hey, push your reset button and start over, so I don't want you to get me wrong that I'm up here just saying, oh man, once you do that, you're doing, hey, listen to me, if you're hearing the sound of my voice right now and you haven't fornicated though, and God knows you're getting this warning, God knows you're here hearing this, and then he sees you go out and do it, God may just come down on you like a ton of bricks, because he's, because unto him, you know, unto whom much is given, of him shall much be required, he that being often reproved, hardened at his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed in that without remedy, you know, and, and look, you get punished worse if you know better and you do it anyway, you know, you, you might say, well, but I, you know, I used to fornicate and sleep around, but I didn't know any better, well, you know what, God's gonna be more merciful to that than the people who are here tonight and then go do that anyway, when they're seeing this in scripture, okay, but no matter what you're saying, I don't care if you fornicated a bazillion times or if you're a virgin, you know, from here on out, you need to stay pure until you get married, that's what you need to decide, and so, and by the way, I'm not here to beat you up about your past, because you know what, I want you to just confess it to the Lord, forsake that sin, and, and do it right from here on out, and if you're married now, you know, then be faithful to your spouse, and you're gonna be pure from here on out, you're not gonna commit adultery, you're gonna keep it clean, but I will say this, you know, you should never lie to your spouse and, and tell them that you're a virgin when you're not, that is super wicked in the Bible, and you should never do that, you should at least be honest with the person that you're getting married to, you should not hide that, there's no, look, I get it, people have a past, and you know what, by the way, people who've sinned and repented should be forgiven and allowed to live that down, should be allowed to live that down, it shouldn't be constantly thrown in their face, you know what, when people have repented of something, it should not be brought up again, it's unchristian to bring stuff up and throw it in people's face after they've already gotten it right, we're supposed to restore people, okay, but that being said, you know, some people may have the, the, made the decision, hey, I'm gonna marry someone who's a virgin, and you know what, there's nothing wrong with somebody making that decision that, hey, I'm a virgin, and I'm gonna marry a virgin, you know what, then, then they have the right to be told the truth about that, now, you know, maybe that's a non-issue for them, they don't mind marrying someone who's been with someone else, and you know what, hey, there's nothing wrong with marrying someone who's not a virgin, but you know what, people need to be honest with each other, going in, because the, the lying can do more damage sometimes, and it's also a big sin to lie, okay, and especially lying about that was a major crime, actually, in the Old Testament, so anyway, I don't want to spend the whole sermon on that, although it'd probably be good if I did, because of the fact that, you know, so many young people are tempted by this sin, and our society is just constantly hitting us with, with just images, and, and just advertising, and everything, to just program our minds to have all this concupiscence, and all this inordinate affection, and all this lust, I mean, the advertising is just, it doesn't matter what they're selling, there's some beautiful babe selling it, scantily clad, seductive, to sell you anything, it doesn't even matter what it is, okay, because that's what sells, and so, because we're constantly getting hit with this stuff, we need to constantly get hit with Bible preaching, telling us no, consecration, sanctification, holiness, right, God wants us to be holy, be ye holy as I'm holy, he says, go back to Exodus 29, we'll quickly finish up, Exodus chapter 29, Exodus chapter number 29, so he talks about the, the different offerings, and they're gonna take the blood, they're gonna take the oil, the oil represents the Holy Spirit, they're gonna anoint these guys, they're, they're washing their bodies, put on clean clothes, they get anointed, they do the offerings, all these different things, the wave breast, etc, and then it says in verse 31, thou shall take the ram of the consecration and seethe, seethe means boil, his flesh in the holy place, and Aaron and his son shall eat the flesh of the ram and the bread that is in the basket by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made to consecrate and to sanctify them, but a stranger shall not eat thereof because they are holy, and of course the, the New Testament application for this is that the, the unsaved are not supposed to eat of the Lord's Supper or communion, you know, then they should, because it's, that's a holy thing, and it should not be shared with unbelievers or the stranger, people that we don't know, etc. Look at verse 36, thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement, and thou shalt cleanse the altar when thou has made an atonement for it, and shalt anoint it to sanctify it, so he's getting the altar sanctified, just like the priests are sanctified, and it shall be an altar most holy. Now I want to make sure you don't misunderstand the end of verse 37, whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. This is not saying if something touches the altar, boom, it becomes holy. The Bible is really clear that that's not what this means. What it actually means is that nothing is allowed to touch the altar that's not holy. Things are holy first, then they're allowed to touch those. So this is not to be understood the other way, because in the book of Haggai this exact question is dealt with about, you know, if a holy thing touches an unholy thing, obviously the holy thing becomes unholy and not vice versa, okay. And then if you jump down to verse 42 it says this shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and here's what I want to focus on at the end, where I will meet you to speak unto thee there. Look at verse 43, and there I will meet with the children of Israel and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar. I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest's office, watch this, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. At the end of verse 46, that I may dwell among them, I am the Lord your God. So at the end there you have, I'm gonna meet you there, I'm gonna meet you there, I'm gonna dwell among you, I'm gonna dwell among you. So he doubles, you know, meet you, meet you, dwell with you, dwell with you, be your God. What's the purpose? So we have this big long chapter with all this offering and sanctification and days and days of killing animals and spreading the blood and the oil and waving the breast and, you know, taking the call above the liver and burning it and all this stuff. What's the purpose? The purpose is fellowship with God, right? That's the endgame, because we get to the end of the chapter, what's it all about? Hey, I'm gonna meet with you. It's worth it to go through seven days of all this ritual when you get to meet with God. And to have God dwelling among you is worth it. So what's the point of being, you say, why should I abstain from fortification? Why should I, you know, stop drinking and partying? Why should I read my Bible and pray and live a clean life? The point of being consecrated, the point of cleaning up your life, is not just to clean up your life for the sake of cleaning up your life. It is that you might meet with the Lord and that the Lord will dwell among you, right? The purpose is fellowship with God. Look, it's not about going to heaven because, you know what, we're going to heaven anyway if we believe in Jesus. Salvation is by faith, not by works. Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life. So if we believe in Christ, we're going to heaven, period. So I'm not in church tonight because I want to go to heaven. I'd be going to heaven even if I never set foot in church again. I've already been saved. What's the purpose of consecration? What's the purpose of getting baptized? What's the purpose of going to the door of the tabernacle, which is in the New Testament church? What's the purpose of going to church? What's the purpose of, you know, getting your ears right and your hands right and your feet right and and getting cleaned up in your life and abstaining from it? The purpose is so that you can know God. You want God to be nigh unto you, right? The Bible says draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James chapter 4. So right after he tells you draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you. Then he tells you how. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. So he's saying, look, you want to get close to God? Get consecrated, right? A person who's living a worldly sinful life and they're living with their girlfriend that they're not married to and they're drinking and partying and doing all these things. That person's not gonna be close to the Lord, okay? They're gonna be distant from the Lord and, you know, whatever fun they're having doing those sinful activities has no comparison with the joy of being nigh unto the Lord and having a close walk with the Lord and having the Lord dwell among you and having the Lord nigh unto you. Look, yeah, it's great that we're saved and going to heaven. I don't know about you, though, I don't want to just live a stupid life. Well, I'm going to heaven so let me just be an idiot for the next 40, 50 years of my life and then God's gonna keep chastising me and disciplining me and then I'm just gonna mess up my own life by going out and, you know, getting a DUI and getting an STD and having kids out of wedlock and losing my job and losing my family and breaking the law, go to jail, right? I mean, isn't this the type of things that sin will eventually lead you into? You get addicted to gambling and lose all your money, you get addicted to drugs and alcohol, you get the DWI, you run into some minivan and kill everybody, right? That's what happens. I mean, look at all the things that could happen. Going to heaven is the most important thing but, you know what, there's also a whole life to live until you get there. So let's serve the Lord until then, also. Let's get consecrated now, let's get sanctified now, let's get hallowed now so that we can have a sweet fellowship with God every single day, God's gonna bless us, and we can be used by God to minister, right, to serve and to perpetuate God's work and to get other people saved and not to just flush our life down the toilet and say, hey, bless is he that eateth and drinketh in the kingdom of heaven, I'm going, that's enough for me. Hey, you know what, I'm glad I'm going and that's paramount but that's not enough for me. You know, I want to get rewards. I want to be blessed now and I want to take other people with me. So let's get sanctified, right? Let's get consecrated. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the book of Exodus, Lord, and this plan that you had set out for the nation of Israel so that you could meet with them and dwell with them and be their God and that they could be a light to the Gentiles, Lord. And we know that ultimately they failed at that. But, Lord, in the New Testament we have so much success at actually evangelizing and being a light to the Gentiles, Lord. So, Lord, help us to succeed where they failed. And, Lord, help us to get the sin out of our lives and to be consecrated unto you in our bodies and our minds and our actions. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.