Reading first of all a few verses in
chapter 28.
We're going to deal this evening with the
High Priest.
Exodus chapter 28, reading from verse 1.
And take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother
and his sons with him from among the
children of Israel that he may minister unto
me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab
and Nephiu, Eliezer and Isamar, Aaron's sons.
And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron
thy brother, for glory and for beauty.
And thou shalt speak unto all that are
wisehearted, whom I have filled with the spirit
of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments
to consecrate him, that he may minister unto
me in the priest's office.
And these are the garments which they shall
make, a breastplate, and an ephod, and a
robe, and a broided coat, a mitre, and
a girdle.
And they shall make holy garments for Aaron
thy brother and his sons, that he may
minister unto me in the priest's office.
Now turn to chapter 29, to see how
the garments were placed upon him.
Chapter 29 and verse 5.
And thou shalt take the garment and put
upon Aaron the coat or the tunic, that's
number one, and the robe of the ephod,
number two, and the ephod itself, number three,
and the breastplate, number four, and gird him
with the curious girdle of the ephod, number
five.
And thou shalt put the mitre upon his
head, and that's six, and put the holy
crown upon the mitre.
Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and
pour it upon his head, and anoint him.
There follows a description of these garments, and
we know that, or rather there comes before
it a description of these garments which is
very, very full, and would take up a
lot of time to go through it.
So shall we turn for a moment to
the epistles of the Hebrews, to gather one
or two thoughts there to help us this
evening.
Hebrews and reading in chapter 7.
Hebrews chapter 7.
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of
the most high God, who met Abraham returning
from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed
him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth
part of all, first being by interpretation king
of righteousness, and after that also king of
Salem, which is king of peace.
Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life, but
made like unto the Son of God, abideth
a priest continually.
Now look at verse 17.
For he testifies, thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.
For there is verily a disannulling of the
commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness
thereof.
For the law made nothing perfect, but the
bringing in of a better hope did, by
the which we draw nigh unto God.
And inasmuch as not without an oath, he
was made priest.
For those priests were made without an oath,
but this with an oath, by him that
said unto him, the Lord swear, and will
not repent, thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek.
By so much more was Jesus made a
surety of a better testament, and they truly
were made priests, because they were not suffered
to continue, and they truly were many priests,
because they were not suffered to continue by
reason of death.
But this man, because he continueth ever, hath
an unchangeable priesthood.
Wherefore he is able also to save them
to the uttermost that come unto God by
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them.
For such an high priest became us, who
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and
made higher than the heavens, who needeth not
daily as those high priests to offer up
sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then
for the people's.
For this he did once when he offered
up himself.
For the law maketh men high priests, which
have infirmity.
But the word of the oath, which was
since the law, maketh the son who is
consecrated, or perfected forevermore.
Now that's as much as we need to
read this evening, unless we are going to
think about this priesthood.
Now it's just as well for us to
remember this very remarkable incident.
We know of course that a priest is
one who draws near to God, one who
has access to God, one who draws near
to God for himself, or draws near to
God on behalf of someone else.
And there were those who acted in this
way as priests all through the Old Testament,
the early books of the Old Testament.
But now we suddenly find a rather remarkable
thing happening.
We remember that Abraham, he was the man
who dwelt in the tent, but his nephew
was the man who made his way, way
down into that city of Sodom.
And then when Chedoreoma raided that with other
kings, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled,
and Chedoreoma with the kings with him, they
took their spoils, and away they went.
And then the news is brought to Abraham
that Lot, his nephew, had been taken captive,
and all his goods and possessions with him.
So Abraham went in pursuit, and he attacked
these kings at night, and overcame them, and
they fled.
And Abraham returned with Lot, and all that
he possessed, and much more besides that.
And then we find now the king of
Sodom has gathered himself together again, and now
he is asking of Abraham that he will
just let him have the people, whilst Abraham
may keep the things.
And then steps into the picture a very,
very important person, a very remarkable character.
He was named Melchizedek.
He suddenly appears as though from nowhere.
In just a few verses, three verses there,
we find this man coming in, and then
going out.
He appears, and he disappears.
There is this king, king of Salem.
He was king of peace.
He was Melchizedek, and his name means righteousness.
So he was king of peace, he was
king of righteousness, and he suddenly appeared at
that moment, and to him Abraham paid tithes,
and he blessed Abraham.
And the less, of course, is blessed, the
greater.
And then this Melchizedek disappears.
Very strange, but he was a priest, and
a priest of the most high.
Now then, we are beginning to think of
another priesthood.
It is the priesthood of Aaron.
But you see, God has been very careful
to bring before us first, in this remarkable
way, this king-priest, Melchizedek.
And then later now, as we are dealing
with the tabernacle, we find God is bringing
in another priesthood, another high priest, it is
Aaron.
And so, we have to remember this, that
the Lord Jesus Christ was not a priest
after the Aaronic priesthood.
He could never have been a priest according
to the Aaronic priesthood, because he did not
come out from the tribe of Levi.
Aaron was of the tribe of Levi, the
Levites had the service of the tabernacle, and
the priesthood came out of Levi.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came out of
the tribe of Judah, and there was no
priesthood connected with the tribe of Judah.
Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ could never have
been a priest according to this order, the
Aaronic priesthood.
And yet it has pleased God to bring
in Aaron, the high priest, as a perfect
type of our Lord Jesus Christ, our great
high priest, who was not a priest after
this order, but was a priest after the
order of Melchizedek.
And one may wonder, why was it that
God did that?
Why did he have Christ to be a
priest according to a different order, and yet
bring in Aaron, in that order, as being
a type of Christ?
Maybe it was because God wanted to show
very clearly, very vividly, the contrast between the
priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood of Christ.
Because the Aaronic priesthood was a changing priesthood.
Aaron died, and another took his place.
And he died, and another took his place.
And so, continually, they were dying, and others
taking their place.
And in that way, it was a changeable
priesthood.
But that would not do for us.
We needed a priest who was a priest
forever.
An unchanging, an unchanging priesthood.
And God had that in his mind long,
long ago, when he brought in this man,
Melchizedek.
Because we are told, and so it would
seem, that this man, Melchizedek, suddenly appears on
the sea that's from nowhere.
Where did he come from?
We don't know.
Where did he go to?
We don't know.
Where did he begin?
Where did he end?
We don't know.
Who was his father?
Who was his mother?
We don't know.
Well, did he not have father and mother?
Did he not have beginning and end?
Well, I think he did.
But there is nothing recorded in the Word
of God about that.
He suddenly appears and suddenly disappears.
And he appeared as a keen priest.
And he must remain so.
As far as we're concerned, he never came
to an end.
And so the thought there, in the Old
Testament Scriptures, as God brought him in, was
that he might be that perfect picture of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so you remember that God brings in
this Melchizedek again.
He brings him in in Psalm 2.
He brings him in in Psalm 110.
In Psalm 2, Thou art my son, this
day have I begotten thee.
And then connected with that in Psalm 110,
Thou art a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek.
Thou art my son.
Thou art a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek.
So whilst it may be true that our
Lord Jesus Christ, when he came in, came
in as a priest after the order of
Melchizedek, it was not really until he had
been raised from the dead that he took
that place as being a priest forever.
It was in resurrection.
So first of all, Thou art my son,
this day have I begotten thee.
That resurrection from the dead, declared to be
a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
So then we have this clear before us
concerning Melchizedek and concerning the order of the
priesthood, the high priesthood of our Lord Jesus
Christ, not according to the Aaronic priesthood.
Nevertheless, Aaron was brought in as that type.
And so we're going to try and gather
up something of the value of what we
find in Aaron the high priest.
So I have here a model which you
may see a little more clearly, just to
give us an idea of how he was
this type of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we saw, and you probably remember that
I emphasize this, that when we saw how
the priesthood was being brought in, Aaron and
his sons, and of course again and again
it says his sons with him, so that
Aaron is the prominent figure here in the
priesthood, apart from Aaron they could have no
priesthood.
And we saw that in bringing them in
the first thing was that they were bathed,
and then they were clothed with their priestly
garments.
And then they identified themselves with the sin
offering, and the burnt offering, and the offering
of consecration.
I said that I felt quite sure of
this, that they did not all go together
to the sin offering, and all press their
hands at one and the same time on
the head of that sin offering.
Rather, because Aaron was the high priest, he
would in all probability step forward first of
all, and for a moment he would press
his hands upon the head of the sin
offering, and then he would step back.
And then his sons, their two, would step
forward, and each one in turn would for
a moment press his hands upon the head
of that sin offering.
Thus they were identified with it.
But as we look at Aaron doing this,
we find it must have been different from
what the sons of Aaron did.
Because without a doubt, when Aaron's sons placed
their hands upon the head of that sin
offering, they were really being identified with it,
that all the value of what was done
to it might be made over to them.
It was becoming their substitute.
Their sins were transferred to it, and it
suffered for them, you see.
That was his sons.
But if Aaron placed his hands upon its
head, it was not for the same reason.
But it was that he might be a
type of Christ.
Because Christ went to that cross, and he
offered himself as a sin offering.
This man Aaron, as a type of Christ,
could not offer himself as a sin offering.
But he could, and this is the picture,
he could for a moment press his hands
upon the head of the sin offering, and
when he did so, he was identified with
it.
And we see Aaron and the sin offering,
we have the picture of Christ himself the
sin offering, you see.
Types, of course, are not perfect.
They break down.
And so this breaks down, but it helps
us to see how this man Aaron was
indeed a type of Christ in this way.
And so with the other offerings, the burnt
offering and the offering of consecration, to him
it was different.
He was doing it so that he would
be that type of Christ.
They were doing it that all the value
of what was done to these offerings should
be made over to them.
Very well.
Now we're thinking of Aaron in particular.
And we can see that he, over on
that far side, was bathed with water, and
then clothed with priestly garments.
Now this is all in order for him
to be the type of Christ.
Now we read in the epistle to the
Hebrews that the Lord Jesus Christ, our great
high priest, was holy and harmless, undefiled and
separate from sinners.
You couldn't say that of this man.
He was to be a type of Christ.
And so God says, the first thing I
want you to do to him is to
bathe him with water and make him clean.
Our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ,
was intrinsically clean, intrinsically pure.
This man was made typically clean, typically pure,
you see.
He was bathed with water.
What else can you do?
God says, well, I want you to see
it in all its simplicity, bathing from head
to foot, so that he would be a
type of Christ.
Christ intrinsically pure, this man typically pure.
And so it will follow through.
Now then, having bathed him with water, God
said, now you shall clothe him with that
fine twine linen coat or tunic, reaching right
away down to the feet and having sleeves
in it, and it had a girdle as
well.
Now put that coat or tunic upon him.
Why?
That he may be a type, a perfect
type of Christ, our great high priest.
Our great high priest was right.
He was righteous in every way, in every
detail of his life.
He was right.
This man was not.
God says, well, let's make him right typically.
So take the fine twine linen garment which
speaks of righteousness and put it on him.
Now then, he is typically clean, he is
typically righteous.
Our great high priest was intrinsically pure and
clean.
And then again, we know that these things,
all of them, are perfectly true of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
He was right, righteous.
Well now then, having put that garment upon
him, God said, now the next thing I
want you to do is to put upon
him the robe of the ephod, which is
all of blue.
And that robe of the ephod shall be
all of one piece, made all in one
piece, so that it will need to have
a hole in the top of it.
It will go over the head.
The head will come through this hole which
is in this robe all of one piece.
And so because of this putting it over
the head, there's a possibility that it might
be rent.
So God said, now when you make it
and you make that hole, you will make
that hole as strong as you can, as
if it was a coat of mail.
Strengthen it around the neck there, so there's
no possibility of it being rent.
And then I want you to put down
on the hem of the garment golden bells
and tassels like pomegranates, made of blue and
purple and scarlet.
And you put a golden bell and a
pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, alternating
all around the garment.
Not more bells than pomegranates, not more pomegranates
than bells.
So there you have the robe of the
ephod.
Now when that was placed over this coat
of fine twine linen, then it would look
like that.
Now that's the first thing that goes over
this fine linen.
Now you notice that the sleeves are short
in the robe, so the white sleeves are
showing, and also it's shorter than this fine
twine linen there.
And it was all of blue.
So the first thing we can think of,
of course, that being all of blue reminds
us of the heavenly character of Christ.
This man Aaron was not heavenly.
He belonged to the earth, he was earthly.
But he's going to be a type of
Christ.
Well how can you make him to be
heavenly?
Well God says, make the robe of the
ephod all of blue, and just put it
on him.
So you're putting on him, he's typically heavenly
now in character.
Now make it as strong as you can
around the neck, so there's no possibility of
it being rent.
You see, if a priest, a high priest,
rent his garment he came under the penalty
of death.
There was one high priest who took his
garment and rent it.
You remember his name?
His name was Caiaphas.
And of course, as far as we are
concerned, he was the last high priest coming
all the way through the old testament scriptures,
right away into the new.
Now we find this high priest Caiaphas, and
the Lord Jesus Christ is standing before Caiaphas.
They took him in the garden, they brought
him before Annas, they brought him before Caiaphas,
then they brought him before Pilate, and there
before Caiaphas.
Caiaphas got so angry that he took his
garment and he rent it.
The last of the old testament priests has
rent his garment in the very presence of
our great high priest.
As much as to say, my priesthood is
finished.
It comes under the sentence of death.
By what he said, he pointed to the
true high priest.
But you know, Caiaphas said something which was
very significant.
He said one day to these Pharisees, he
said, you know nothing at all, nor consider
it is expedient that one man die for
the people, that the whole nation perish not.
And John says, he said this as a
prophecy.
That Christ would not only die for those
people, but for others as well.
Now Caiaphas was not concerned about Christ.
Not concerned about Christ dying, that the whole
nation might be saved.
As we are thinking of it.
He was concerned about Israel being under the
heel of Rome.
And there had been so much trouble that
Caiaphas was saying to them, you know nothing
at all, nor consider it expedient.
We've got to hand this man over to
the Romans.
He must die so that we can be
spared.
That's our way out.
He wasn't thinking of the nation being saved
from their sins.
He was thinking of the nation being saved
from the Roman wrath.
And so you see, this is rather remarkable,
isn't it, at the end, that Caiaphas, by
doing what he did, pointed out the true
high priest, and by saying what he said,
he pointed out the true sin offering.
All right.
So there it is, all of blue, and
it speaks of the heavenly character of Christ.
I went into a house one day, and
they said, we want to listen to the
news.
And they switched on, and it wasn't quite
time for the news, and a man was
just finishing a talk.
And he said, well, there you are, this
world has produced some very wonderful men.
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and various other
men he mentioned.
But he said, the greatest man that this
world ever produced was Jesus Christ.
I said, you're wrong.
And they looked at me and said, he
can't hear you.
No, well, I said, I couldn't let that
pass.
I've had my little say.
He's wrong, he's dead wrong.
This world never produced Jesus Christ.
He said, I am not of this world.
He belonged up there, but he came down
here.
He's heavenly, the heavenly man.
So now God says, all right, let's put
upon this man Aaron, the high priest, the
robe of the ephod, to count to him,
you see, reckon to him, the heavenly character.
Make it sure no possibility of it being
well, and then have those golden bells and
pomegranates around the hem of the garment.
Now, as he moved around in the court
and in the holy place, those bells would
tinkle, and also one could see these pomegranates
with their blue and purple and scarlet.
And as we're thinking of the bells, we're
thinking of sound.
As we're thinking of the pomegranates, we're thinking
of fruits.
And so there comes before us the thought
of profession, what is said.
And then the thought of practice, what is
done.
And so all around the garment, there was
this golden bell and pomegranate.
There was this profession and practice, you know,
and even the balance all the way around
the garment.
Not more profession than practice, not more practice
than profession.
And when we think of our Lord Jesus
Christ, our great high priest, how true it
was of him that he was so evenly
balanced in what he said, in what he
did, always evenly balanced.
Always doing those things that were pleasing to
the Father.
So then, now we can see how God
is having this man clothed so that he
will be that perfect type of Christ.
Now over that robe of the ephod, they
put the ephod itself.
And then when that was put upon him,
it would look something like that.
Now the robe of the ephod was made
of fine swine linen, and it was embroidered
with blue and purple and scarlet.
And they took gold and they beat it
out into thin sheets, and then they cut
that into threads.
And the threads were embroidered with the blue
and the purple and the scarlet into this
fine twine linen.
Why did God have that done?
Well again, you see, he is piling it
on to this man because he wants to
show that which has to do with his
beloved son.
So made of the fine twine linen, he's
bringing out again that sort of righteousness.
Embroidered with the blue, he's bringing out again
that heavenly character.
Embroidered with that scarlet, it's worm scarlet, the
thought of suffering is there.
Embroidered with the purple is reminding us that
this one, who was righteous and came down
out of heaven into this scene and became
the suffering one, is going to be given
a name above every name.
He's going to be in the highest place.
He's going to be king of kings and
lord of lords.
And so embroider it with the purple.
And then take the threads of gold and
embroider it because there you have the glory
again of his deity.
And there it is, orange.
So these things were not true of Aaron,
but if he's the Christ, then we must
put them on him, you see, so that
we can see how he does make that
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this ephod, it had a curious girdle
and that too was made of that same
fine twine linen and blue and purple and
scarlet and the threads of gold also were
in it.
And the priest must needs be the one
who serves the people, just our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Remember at supper when he laid aside his
garments, he took a towel and a towel
and he girded himself and he became the
serving one.
Well now, there we have somewhat concerning Aaron
the high priest.
Now over the ephod itself, there was to
be the breastplate of judgment.
And when that was placed on, it would
look something like you see there.
The breastplate again was made of that same
fine twine linen embroidered with its blue, purple,
scarlet threads of gold.
And then there were set into it these
twelve stones, all different, and the name of
one tribe on each stone.
Now when the ephod was placed upon him,
it was in two pieces.
The piece that came down the front and
the piece that fell down the back.
And the two pieces, the back and front
pieces, were joined on the shoulder with a
golden setting that had a stone.
On each shoulder there was a stone in
a golden setting and engraved on that stone,
each stone, was the name of six of
the tribes.
And they were engraved according to birth.
There was no difference.
They were all on the same level.
They were all the sons of Jacob you
see.
And there they were equally on the shoulders.
Now from these golden settings on the shoulders,
there were even chains of gold to which
the breastplate was attached you see, so that
the weight of the breastplate was taken by
the shoulders.
And then there were golden rings on the
underside of the breastplate, and gold rings in
the ephod itself, and then ribbons of blue.
And the ribbons of blue were passed through
the golden rings and the breastplate was fastened
to the body so that it couldn't come
loose.
When he was moving or when he was
bending down, it remained firm to his breast.
So then, now we have these things put
upon Aaron.
We have this breastplate.
We've got these stones, two stones with the
names engraved on them, according to birth, representing
the children of Israel, and they're born upon
the place of strength upon the shoulders.
But when we look at the other stones,
they're all different.
They're different colours.
We don't know what the stones really were.
Efforts have been made to be sure about
it, but we just cannot be sure, so
we have to leave it.
There's no doubt if we didn't know, we'd
be able to think out some very wonderful
thoughts concerning it, but we just don't know.
What we do know, that these stones were
no doubt called the Urim and the Sumim,
and this means the lights and the perfections.
I know there are some people who have
got some rather weird and wonderful ideas about
the Urim and Sumim, and I listened one
time to a man who talked for nearly
an hour, and he was talking about the
Urim and Sumim, and he said the breastplate
was made hollow, and he could put his
hands in it, and he said now when
the high priest wanted to know what the
judgment of God was concerning various matters, then
he put his hands inside this breastplate, and
he took these two stones in his hand,
the Urim and the Sumim, and when he
did so, and he stood before God, then
these various stones on the breastplate began to
flash, and they were flashing out light, just
like you see the neon signs in the
town flashing out Bovril, Oxo, Surf, and what
have you, you know.
He said saw these stones flashed out, the
letters spelling the words, and these were pieced
together to know what God was saying.
Well, I tell you, I just could not
accept anything like that.
Neon light in a breastplate flashing?
No, no.
I think one can accept this fact that
the Urim and Sumim refer to those twelve
stones, not to two other stones that were
in there.
Neither did those stones flash, but the very
fact that he was the high priest ordained
of God, and he wore the breastplate of
judgment, it meant that God could, because of
that, make known to him what his judgment
was with regard to things that had to
be dealt with.
Maybe intuitively, maybe he heard the voice, because
God said it's from between the cherubim upon
the mercy seat that I will commune with
thee and give thee commandments.
Maybe Aaron would hear the voice, I don't
know.
But these stones are the Urim and Sumim,
they are the lights and perfections.
They were all different colours.
And you know, this is the prismatic radiance
of that one ray of pure light.
When that one ray of light, pure light,
it's split up, then you have all the
colours that you see in the rainbow, you
know.
That's the result of that one ray of
pure light being split up, prismatically showing all
these various colours, lights and perfections.
And God is light, and God is the
father of light.
And here we see these twelve tribes engraved
upon the twelve stones, the lights and perfections,
they are there in all the glory of
God himself.
On the shoulders, the place of strength, on
the breast, the place of the affection, so
Aaron, day in and day out, was bearing
these people before God.
Now the next thing was, he had to
have a ribbon of blue, and upon the
ribbon of blue there was a golden plate,
and words upon the golden plate, Holiness unto
Jehovah.
And when that was placed upon his brow,
it would look something like that.
Well now, I've closed Aaron, just to show
you how he became a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
That golden plate, Holiness unto Jehovah, was because
of the iniquity of the children of Israel
in all their holy things.
He took upon him the responsibility for that.
Our great high priest, here is Aaron the
high priest, only a type.
And yet how wonderful, as we are thinking
of all this, God decks him forth and
decks him out and sets him forth so
that we can see something of it typically.
But think of the reality.
All this is typical.
All this is bringing before us that which
is so real and so true of our
great high priest, who is up there in
the very presence of God.
Well now, having closed him, I've got to
do something else.
I've got to unclose him.
You may wonder why.
You know, it's strange how we read scripture,
and we read it over and over again,
and yet we miss so much.
I said to the friends in one place,
quite a big congregation of people, I said,
now tonight, I'm going to talk about the
high priest.
This was Sunday.
I'm going to talk about the high priest,
and we'll see what we can gather up
from Aaron the high priest.
And in the morning, in the meeting there,
one of the brethren stood up, and he
read in the epistles of the Hebrews, and
he began to talk about the high priest.
Now it was announced I was going to
deal with a high priest in the evening.
So here this man stands up at the
meeting for remembering the Lord, and he read
from Hebrews, and he started dealing with the
high priest.
And he gave us a wonderful picture.
He pictured Aaron the high priest, dressed as
you see him there in these garments of
glory and beauty, on the great day of
atonement, he said.
And on that great day of atonement, he
pictured Aaron being down there in the court,
and as he walked about, the bells were
tinkling, you know, and then when the sin
offering had been killed, Aaron took the blood
in the basin, and he made his way
through the court, and as he did so,
the bells were tinkling.
Meanwhile, the children of Israel have gathered together
there, prostrate before God because of their sins
and iniquities.
This is the great day of atonement.
Aaron the high priest is going into the
holiest of all, into the very presence of
God.
And they don't know how they're going to
fare because of their sins and iniquities, but
he's going in.
And so he said, Aaron slowly, in his
garments of glory and beauty with this blood,
makes his way through the court, and the
priests are standing there, and they watch him
go, and they listen to the bells, and
they signal to the people outside, he's moving
through the court.
And he went to the door and pulled
it at one side, and he entered in,
and they listened, and they could hear the
bells tinkling inside.
And they signal to the people, he's in
the holy place now, all is well, we
can hear the bells.
And then after a few moments they said,
he's going through the veil, he's going into
the holiest of all, the bells are still
tinkling, so they signal to the people, all
is still well.
And there in the holiest of all, they
sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat, and
before the mercy seat, and then he began
to come out, and they heard the bells
tinkling again.
And they said, all is well.
And he came out through the door, and
he went away down into the court, to
that scapegoat to put his hands upon it
and confess over it the sins and iniquities
of the children of Israel.
That was in the morning.
And in the evening, I had to stand
up before the congregation, and I had to
say, on the great day of atonement, Aaron,
dressed in these garments of glory and beauty,
went into the holy place.
The sin offering and the offering for the
scapegoat were away down there.
And he went into the holiest of all,
dressed in his garments of glory and beauty,
and he removed the golden plate holding us
unto Jehovah.
He removed that breastplate, and he laid it
at one side.
He removed the ephod, he laid it at
one side.
He removed that robe of the ephod, all
of blue, he laid it at one side.
And he stripped off that fine, fine linen
coat, and he laid it at one side,
and he put on him another linen coat,
a different one.
And then he went down there to the
sin offering.
And he took the blood of the sin
offering, and he made his way through the
court, no tinkling bells.
He went into the holy place, no tinkling
bells.
He went into the holiest, and he sprinkled
the blood.
No tinkling bells.
I was embarrassed.
So was he.
One only needs to read carefully, and you
find Aaron, the high priest, on the great
day of atonement, never went in in garments
of glory and beauty.
He went in in a plain linen garment.
The priest wore three kinds of garments.
They wore a fine twine linen garment which
was called shesh in the Hebrew, and then
they wore a rougher kind of linen garment
which was called bad in Hebrew.
And that was worn on the great day
of atonement.
And they had another garment that was made
of bright, shining linen, worn on special occasions,
and that was called booth in the Hebrew
language.
And it was this rough linen that he
had to wear on the great day of
atonement, and it was called his holy garments,
not his garments of glory and beauty.
There could be no tinkling bells on that
great day of atonement, because it was altogether
a question of the sins and iniquities of
the children of Israel.
It was a matter that had to do
with a sin offering, and the holy God
had to be propitiated with the blood of
that sin offering.
There could be no glory in this.
There could be no tinkling bells.
I hope you remember that.
Now, in closing, I hope every one of
us here tonight are able to say that
the Lord Jesus Christ is our own personal
great high priest, and that he's up there.
Oh, we see Aaron on the great day
of atonement, yes, we can go through it
all, but we know that our Lord Jesus
Christ is up there in all the value
of what we've seen in Aaron clothed in
his garments of glory and beauty, because he's
already been to the cross in the plain
linen garment.
Now he's up there, you see, in all
that we see portrayed here.
All that beauty and holiness and glory, he's
got it way up there.
He's ever living to make intercession.
Is he your personal high priest?
In England, one of these lawyers, a man
well on, he was a notorious thing, he
went into a restaurant to get a cup
of coffee and some little sandwich or something,
sat at the table, and at the next
table three men were talking.
And as he sat there, these men were
talking rather loud, and he heard what they
were saying.
And they were talking about all things, you
know, in general, and then suddenly the conversation
came round on to religion, and he picked
up his ears, because he was a very
fine Christian man.
He picked up his ears and he heard
them saying, you know, all about religion, and
one man said, well, he said, I don't
know about you fellows, you know, he said,
I don't concern myself, you know, about heaven.
He said, I put all my affairs in
the hands of my priest, you know.
I say to him, look, you take over.
I can't do anything about it.
You're my priest, so here you are.
So he said, I put all my affairs
in the hands of my priest, and it's
up to him, it's his job to get
me to heaven.
But you fellas, I don't know, you go
on.
He said, this is what I do, I'm
not one bit concerned, all my affairs in
the hands of my priest, you get me
up there.
So the lawyer got up and he went
round and said, gentlemen, I couldn't help but
hear your conversation, I must say our friend
has put his matter very nicely, he's put
all his affairs in the hands of his
priest, he's leaving them there, and he's not
one bit concerned, his priest is going to
get him to heaven.
He said, I've done the same.
He said, I've taken all my affairs, and
I've put them in the hands of my
priest.
He said, I leave them there, I'm not
one bit concerned.
He said, he'll get me there alright.
He said, you see, the high priest into
whose hands I've put all my affairs is
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, our friend here's got the wrong
priest.
Or you can have the wrong one.
Watch out, the right one, the true one
is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when they went along and they told
the priest up in Scotland, they said, you
ought to go and see that poor old
lady, she's dying, and she doesn't seem to
have any friends.
You'd better go and see her.
And he went in and he said, Mother,
you're very ill.
She said, yes, I know.
He said, do you know that you're dying?
She said, I know only too well I'm
dying.
Well, Mother, he said, don't you think you'd
better confess your sins to me, so that
we can put this matter right?
She said, me confess my sins to you?
Yes, he said, Mother, I'm a priest.
You confess my sins to me, and I
can deal with that.
Oh, she said, you can?
He said, yes.
She said, can I see your hands?
And he held his hands out, and she
looked at him, and she said, you're an
imposter.
The priest who forgives my hands has got
nail prints, who forgives my sins has got
nail prints in his hands.
You haven't.
Sir, you're an imposter.
Yes, our great high priest got nail prints
in his hands.
Watch out, you've got the wrong priest.
You need the right one.
Shall we pray?
O God, our Father, again we thank thee
for helping us in looking into thy word,
and for a little while thinking of this
high priest brought in by thee so long
ago, with all his garments of glory and
beauty, and much that he had to do
and see to.
We thank thee, our God, for this, because
it helps us to think more of our
Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest, to
see how more wonderful he is than this
man Aaron.
He's a priest forever.
He's up there at thy right hand.
He's there ever living to make intercession for
us.
He will never fail us.
We are there upon his shoulders, that place
of strength.
We are there upon his breast, that place
of affection.
He will never forget us, and he will
never fail us.
We thank thee for helping us to put
all our affairs in his hands, and for
helping us to leave them there, because we
know he is able to save us right
away through to the end.
Grant us then thy help and thy blessing
from day to day, that we may always
remember our great high priest up there in
thy very presence, in all the value of
that precious blood, and there for us, ever
living to intercede on our behalf.
We ask all this, and give our thanks
to thee in the worthy and precious name
of thy beloved Son, our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
Amen.