Aaron's Consecration

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word and we pray now that as we read it that you would watch over us, teach us and bless us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, we're going to go to Exodus chapter 29. This is Aaron and his son's consecration. So the priest's consecration. Here we go. And this is what you shall do to them, to hallow them for the ministering to me as priests.
Take one young bull and two rams without blemish and unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil and unleavened wafers anointed with oil. You shall make them of wheat flour. You shall put them in one basket and bring them in the basket. with the bull and two rams.
And Aaron and his sons you shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall wash them with water. Then you shall take the garments, put the tunic on Aaron and the robe of the ephod, the ephod and the breastplate, and gird him with the intricately woven band of the ephod. You shall pull the turban on his head, and put the holy crown on the turban, and you shall take the anointing oil, pour it on his head, and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons and put tunics on them, and you shall gird them with sashes, Aaron and his sons, and put the hats on them. The priesthood shall be theirs for a perpetual statute. So you shall consecrate Aaron and his sons. You shall also have the bull brought before the tabernacle of meeting and Aaron and his son shall put their hands on the head of the bull.
Then you shall kill the bull before the Lord by the door of the tabernacle of meeting. You shall take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger and pour all the blood beside the base of the altar. And you shall take the all the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them and burn them on the altar. But the flesh of the bull with its skin and its offal, you shall burn with fire outside the camp. It is a sin offering.
You shall also take one ram and Aaron and his son shall put their hands on the head of the ram. and you shall kill the ram and you shall take his blood and wash or take its blood and sprinkle it all around the altar then you shall cut the ram in pieces wash its entrails and its legs and put them with its pieces and with its head and you shall burn the whole ram on the altar it is a burnt offering to the lord it is a sweet aroma an offering made by fire to the lord You shall also take the other ram and Aaron and his son shall put their hands on the head of the ram. Then you shall kill the ram and take some of its blood from blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron and on the tip of the right ear of his sons. on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar. And you shall take some of the blood that is on the altar, and some of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron, and on his garments, on his sons, and on the garments of his sons with him. And he and his garments shall be hallowed, and his son's garments with him. Also you shall take the fat of the ram, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver, the two kidneys and the fat on them, the right thigh, for it is a ram of consecration. one loaf of bread, one cake made with oil, and one wafer from the basket of the unleavened bread that is before the Lord.
And you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and you shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. You shall receive them back from their hands and burn them on the altar as a burnt offering, as a sweet aroma before the Lord. It is an offering made by fire to the Lord. Then you shall take the breast of the ram of Aaron's consecration, and wave it as a wave offering before the Lord, and it shall be your portion. And from the ram of the consecration you shall consecrate the breast of the wave offering, which is waved, and the thigh of the heave offering, which is raised, of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons.
It shall be from the children of Israel that Aaron and his sons buy a statute forever, for it is a heave offering. It shall be a heave offering from the children of Israel, from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, that is their heave offering to the Lord. And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons after him, to be anointed in them and to be consecrated in them. That son who becomes priest in his place shall put them on for seven days when he enters the tabernacle of meeting to minister in the holy place. And ye shall take the ram of the consecration, and boil its flesh in the holy place. Then 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 meeting.
They shall eat those things with which the atonement was made, to consecrate and sanctify them. But an outsider shall not eat them, because they are holy. And if any of the flesh of the consecration offerings or of the bread remains until the morning, then you shall burn the remainder with fire. It shall not be eaten, because it is holy.
Thus you shall do to Aaron and his sons according to all that I have commanded you. Seven days you shall consecrate them, and you shall offer a bull every day as a sin offering for atonement. You shall cleanse the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to sanctify it. Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and sanctify it, and the altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar must be holy. Well, quite a bit of a passage to read. Let's quickly ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? What's this about?
This is the pattern of the consecration, the ordination service of Aaron and his sons. The consecration is this idea of kudosh, right? It's this hallowing them. But then there's another part of this that's not just his setting them apart, right? That's what holy means is setting apart, but it's also filling his hand, the ordination of Aaron. We found that word ordination here at the end of Well, nevermind, in this translation they call it consecration, but there's two different words here, right? You should hallow them and consecrate them. I would say you should consecrate them and ordain them. This idea of ordain them is to fill them, right? To fill their hands with good work to do.
So Aaron is given a priesthood. Aaron is given a priesthood and his sons with him. And there's this pattern that goes into it right first. It's talking about the materials that are going to be gathered together for this. And you have Aaron who has to be washed. He has to be cleansed before he even puts on the garments, right?
This is meant to signify that Aaron by himself is not clean. But he has to go from unclean to clean. But it's not good enough just for him to be clean. Now he needs to be holy. And this whole consecration ordination process is to show that he is going to have to don different clothing. And then once he has the different clothing, then he has to be anointed. But that's not enough to be go from clean to holy either.
He's got to offer different sacrifices and be marked by the blood. He's got to have sacrifices, sin offering, seven days worth of them. And he's gonna have burnt offerings. These are offerings to appease and glorify God. But he's also gonna be marked by the blood, right?
The blood of the animal's gotta be taken and the blood's gotta be sprinkled on the altar and then that blood's gotta be taken and put on his right ear, his thumb. I'm not gonna pick up my foot but I'm putting on his big right toe you know he's he's gotta be marked by that blood and then the garments are sprinkled as well.
There's this whole point that Aaron can't just walk into the holy place. He can't just go in and do whatever he wants. No, to enter into God's presence, someone must not just be clean, but they must be holy. And God is the one who gives these different signs of how to be, how to show that holiness. Now, it's just blood of bulls and goats. It's just symbolic of what's actually happening in heaven. All of this is meant to impress upon them the gravity that this is the Lord's home. This is God's dwelling place amongst men in the tabernacle. So we're just gonna jump to see calling. What impact does this have on our lives? What are we called to do? How does this point us to Christ?
Well, the covenant truth is that God tabernacled amongst us by sending his one and only son, Jesus Christ. that his dwelling place is among men, that he sent his son, and his son lifted up his own body as a heave offering, poured out his own blood upon the altar for sin. It is Jesus Christ who now as a much better high priest is in heaven.
He was washed. Do you remember? Jesus went to John the Baptist to be baptized, but he didn't have any sin. So his baptism couldn't be for repentance of sin. But his was to fulfill all righteousness. It was to fulfill this passage that he would be a better priest than Aaron. He would be washed.
And then do you remember what happened when he was going into Jerusalem and Mary came to him and she poured oil upon him? Thomas is really mad at this, you know, cause it's really expensive oil. This was to fill this as well. You don't know what she's doing. She's anointing me for my death.
The entrance of Jesus into his eternal priesthood. It be Jesus who would be anointed, washed, offer himself up as a, as a sin offering, have his blood poured out. but he would also raise again, ascend into heaven, sit at the right hand, he has entered into the holy of holies in heaven, and there he has sat down upon the mercy seat, the lamb who was slain, to intercede continually for you and for me as our high priest. So what are we called to do? Look to Jesus, your high priest. Look to Jesus.
He's the one. who perfectly takes care of your sins. He is the one who has marked you out to be holy. He is our mediator between God and man. He is the one who makes our prayers perfect. He is the one who makes our praise perfect. He is the one who makes our sins washed away because he bears us upon his chest because he represents us before God. and he has represented God to us.
So look to Jesus, your high priest. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have sent us your son, who is our great high priest. Father, we pray that you would please help us to walk in your ways and trust in you. We pray that you would Make us more and more thankful for all the things you have done for us, especially in giving us your son, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, knowing that your high priest loves you and is always praying for you. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.