Exodus 28:31–43

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions is for 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 way from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today while 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. Lord, you are a wonderful God, generous and gracious in every way. And we thank you for the blessing it is for us to get to read your word this morning. Please help us to understand it.
Lord, we pray that we would. not just understand it, but that we would also know how it applies to our lives. Please give us clarity and instruction by your Holy Spirit in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay, so we are at Exodus chapter 28. I'm going to wrap up. Aaron and his son's priestly clothing this morning. So Exodus chapter 28 beginning at verse 31.
You shall make the robe of the ephod of blue. There shall be an opening for his head in the middle of it. It shall have a woven binding all around its opening, like the opening of a coat of mail, so that it does not tear. And upon its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet. All around this it's him, and bells of gold between them all around. A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe all around. And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out, that he may not die.
You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave upon it like the engraving of a signet, holiness to the Lord. And you shall put it on a blue cord. that it may be on the turban and it shall be on the front of the turban. So it shall be on Aaron's forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts. And it shall always be on his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord.
You shall skillfully weave the tunic of fine linen and thread You shall make the turban of fine linen, and you shall make the sash of woven work. For Aaron's sons you shall make tunics, and you shall make sashes for them, and you shall make hats for them, for glory and beauty.
So you shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his sons with him. You shall anoint them, consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister to me as priests. And you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness. They shall reach from the waist to the thighs.
They shall be on Aaron and on his sons, when they come into the tabernacle of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place, that they do not incur iniquity and die. It shall be a statute forever to him and his descendants after him.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in responses, right? So what's this about? Aaron, this is like his undergarments and his turbans, right? This is getting at the last bits of clothing, right? We've talked about the breastplate. We've talked about the ephod. We've talked about all these other things. Now we've come to this robe that he used to wear.
And it's not like the ephod. It's not a whole bunch of different colors. This one is just of blue. But at the bottom of the hem, it's these pomegranates. right now these ones are the different colors but interspersed with each of these is gold golden bells so as Aaron was to walk into the holy place It's this almost serving dual purpose, right? People argue back and forth about what this is supposed to be, right? One people think is, you know, this is God's royal domicile, right? This is the Lord's house.
And so Aaron's not allowed to just intrude whenever he wants. Right, just last night I was checking on our daughter. She woke up in the middle of night screaming. So I go and take care of her. And then I turn around and all of a sudden behind me was Olivia. I mean, I scream like a little girl, right? What in the world? I didn't know that she had walked up behind me.
I don't think the Lord is surprised, but it's meant to announce his entrance is what some people say. Other people Saying it's not for God at all. I actually lean this way. It's more that when he walks in But this is if he does something wrong You don't hear the bells swishing anymore Well, you're gonna have a problem Because that means Aaron is dead Either it's so that they know Aaron hasn't died or so he doesn't die. People go back and forth and argue about this clause. You let me know.
You can let me know down in the comments which way you lean, but either way, this is this blue robe with, you know, hole for his head to go through. And it's meant to have a collar on it and bells and pomegranates on the bottom. It's royal, it's regalia, right? This is a uniform that he used to wear, used to have that. But then last thing, well, there's two more things that it talks about here, right? A few more is he's going to have a sash right around his waist. He's got to have trousers on underneath, right? So he's not walking in there and people go all the time about like, you know, whenever you different commentaries on this, but Oh, why does he need to have, you know, trousers on and stuff like this?
You know this from your own house. I mean, there's literally a whole business that's, that's markets that you'll never see their plumbers walk into your house with plumbers crack. You don't wanna see people's undergarments or their underpants. You don't wanna see people's butts or their genitals. You don't wanna see that type of stuff. That's private.
God blesses him with wearing trousers. Aaron's supposed to be doing work. There are gonna be times where he's gonna bend down and pick something up and so God gives him underpants. He's got pants to wear underneath that robe so that he doesn't expose his nakedness. Couldn't be the same for his sons and for the perpetual priests, right? So we'll get there in a second. But the last thing though is this turban, right? It has a turban upon his head, wrapped around. But interestingly, across the turban, he used to have a plate of gold that goes across his forehead.
And across that plate of gold is inscribed the words, holiness to the Lord. This is to be on Aaron's forehead. So every time he walks into the holy place, every time he ministers unto God, once a year when he enters into all the holy of holies, he himself is marked as holy. As we get into the last part of this, of this chapter of the passage today, he's been consecrated. He's been anointed. He has dawned the vestitures. So he he's the one who is marked as The high priest he is holy to the Lord so as he is Kudos Kudos, Leanna is he is Carrying that title on his forehead It's meant to be the sign of holiness.
I This set-apart office, this set-apart person, and his life is to correspond to that. But he's got to bring sacrifices even for himself. Now, the last part of here, when verses 39, or sorry, 40 and following, it's going to talk about how they're to be consecrated and how they're going to be ordained, right? That's actually going to happen in Leviticus. We'll get there later.
But here it's just saying that, but the priests, wear a little bit different clothes. The high priest wears this real fancy regalia. The priest's uniform is more like a working uniform. When I was in the Navy, we were allowed to wear kind of stripped down uniforms when we were working. We had uniforms, dress uniforms, and we had working uniforms. And the priests are given working uniforms.
They're carrying charcoal, they're bringing about wood, they're lifting hunks of meat, they're butchering animals, they're dealing with the blood, they've got all of this stuff and so wearing a robe and an ephod and stuff like that just wouldn't make sense. And also on the ship we had different types of hats. I had a hat as an enlisted guy and the officers had a different type of hat, right? And so you just have different head coverings based upon your station, right?
There's a ranking here and you know who the high priest is. Well, it's the same thing with Aaron's sons, right? Aaron wears the turban his sons and the New King James it calls it hats maybe we could call it head coverings I don't think it's a hat like we think about you know with a bill and I don't think it's like that necessarily but they have a different type of head covering I think it's probably lighter, right? They're wearing mostly linen. All of them get trousers. All of them have pants they've got to wear so that they don't expose themselves as they're doing this hard work. And so this is the way in which God is dressing the priests.
So what's the best verse to summarize all of this? There's actually quite a bit in here but I have verse 35 underlined and it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out that he may not die. I also have holiness to the Lord underlined and I have that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts and that shall always be on his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord. That's what I have underlined in my Bible but maybe you'd underline something different. What do you think best summarizes this verse? Or these first best summarizes this section? Let me know. Well, last see calling, right? What calling does this have on our lives? What's the covenant aspect of this? How does it show us Christ? Well, once again, Jesus is the high priest.
Aaron had to go into the holy place of the Lord and only once a year, and that not without sacrifice. He had to come with sacrifice, even though he had on his forehead holiness to the Lord. The sacrifices which he brought, the sacrifices which the people brought, they always had the blood because they were sinful. He was meant to be holiness to the Lord. But he had to be. brought in with this blood, but the blood of bulls and goats would never cleanse. It was never enough. That's why it just kept on going and kept on going and kept on going. But the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus entered in not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood.
And he ministers to us, and he is the Holy One of Israel. It is Jesus. It is Jesus, our high priest, who is holiness to the Lord. It's Jesus, our high priest, who makes intercession for us even today, who cares for us, who loves us, and who ministers in the heavenly tabernacle today. And so we know with his better sacrifice and with his better priesthood and with his holiness, we find acceptance before God.
May you find peace and rest in that. 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 and 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.