So, tonight, we turn to Exodus chapter 29, which I am returning to our study. You'll notice there that we're really having a section here on the consecration of the priests, and you'll notice even in verse 26, even though we're not getting there tonight, but I'm anticipating all of this even into Leviticus, even though I don't plan to preach Leviticus next. That was a test to see what you've learned. But that Aaron's ordination is mentioned here in verse 26. So I've titled the message tonight, Ordained by God, to think a little bit about ordination and how important this was in Old Testament Israel, Old Covenant, what ordination meant, what it looked forward to, what it anticipated with Christ, and now what it means for us. And so that's sort of the structure that I'm following tonight as we consider just the first 22 verses of Exodus chapter 29. This is the word of the Lord, Exodus chapter 29. You shall make them of fine wheat flour. You shall put them in one basket and bring them in the basket and bring the bull and the two rams. You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and wash them with water. Then you shall take the garments and put on Aaron the coat and the robe of the ephod and the ephod and the breast piece and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod. You shall set the turban on his head and put the whole crown on the turban. You shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons and put coats on them. And you shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them. And the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute forever. Thus you shall ordain Aaron and his sons. There it is. Then you shall bring the bull before the tent of meeting. Aaron and his son shall lay their hands on the head of the bull. Then you shall kill the bull before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And you shall take part of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger. And the rest of the blood you shall pour out at the base of the altar. And you shall take all of the fat that covers the entrails and the long lobe of the liver and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them and burn them on the altar. but the flesh of the bull and its skin and its dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp it is a sin offering then you shall take one of the rams and Aaron and his son shall lay their hands on the head of the ram and you shall kill the ram and shall take its blood and throw it against the sides of the altar then you shall cut the ram in pieces and wash its entrails and its legs and put them with its pieces and its head and burned the whole ram on the altar. It's a burnt offering to the Lord. It is a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord. You shall take another ram and Aaron and his son shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. You shall kill the ram and take part of its blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron and on the tips of the right ears of his sons and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet and throw the rest of the blood against the sides of the altar. Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar and of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and his son's garments with him. He and his garments shall be holy and his sons and his sons garments with him. We'll end the reading of God's word there tonight. Well, tonight, I've already made the case, it's about the ordination of the priests in here, the Old Covenant. And ultimately, we're going to see tonight, the goal of this is to see how all of this takes us to our true high priest. That is always the intention the author of the book of Hebrews wanted to do with these things in the Old Testament to explain many of these ceremonies and show us how they all were fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to begin tonight just for a moment thinking a little bit about ordination. We will have here sometime early January a service where we will lay hands on elders and deacons. And you've seen this when pastors are ordained to the ministry. I'm not sure that's as appreciated anymore as it used to be. It's such an important thing that goes on, and yet I don't know that we take it as seriously as we should. Ordination. Think about that word. Ordination. We live in a day when Leverfield's move to do ministry goes ahead and does it. And who are we to question anyone who says, I feel like I should be in the ministry? I have many friends who aspire to be pastors, and I remember along the way some of them wanted to go and to be a pastor, but they never wanted to have training. They thought about just doing some online courses. They were always looking for the easy way out when it came to the ministry. And I would always challenge them, because why would you not want to receive training? This is exactly what we've always done in the church. We've set apart men to be trained, properly trained and recognized with an internal and external call. Especially because the job of the pastor is so important to rightly divide the word of truth. That's hard work. This whole process of consecration, this whole process of setting apart someone, this whole process of recognizing men to serve is really important. And we see that all the way here back in the Old Testament, don't we? Who is called by God? Think about that. Called by God. Have we lost a sense of the separateness of these offices? The importance of what the Lord has done in these offices of the church? Or how are we used to now? I mean, I remember attending a pastor's gathering at one point and a colleague and I were sitting there and we looked around it was at a local christian school and we looked at all the pastors who were represented and i saw one with a mohawk and i saw one just covered with all sorts of terrible things and i thought what does this office mean anymore to people do we represent it rightly william perkins known as the father of elizabethan puritanism used to say that a true preacher, a faithful preacher, is one in a thousand. That was in his day. The damage that this all causes is huge, and we see it that it was no different in Israel's history when they stopped listening to the Lord and raising up their own prophets and their own priests and doing things of their own message. It was a disaster in Israel, wasn't it? The prophets prophesy lies, the priests ruled by their own authority and my people love it so Israel was overturned by false prophets false priests doing the ministry we so desperately need to realize that and their messages were were nothing like Jesus's this morning their messages were always peace peace when there is no peace we can study that line all throughout the prophets who railed against these messages that didn't call people to repentance and let them just stay and be and do what they wanted to do Well, we're desperately in need in our times to return to an understanding of how weighty ordination is. Just what it requires, what it means, and what Christ said when He challenges us to specifically recognize that He does the sending and that we should be praying a lot more that the Lord raises up sent ones to go out into the harvest. For the fields are white for the harvest. Not everyone's sent. Well, that sort of leads us tonight to think about the process of ordination here, where it began. We see it early beginnings of it here in Exodus and what it all foreshadowed. And that's what we're going to do tonight. Remember where we left off last time in Exodus chapter 28, where we studied some detail, the garments of the priests, what they had to wear. What an interesting study for me that was. holy garments, beautiful garments, speaking of their holiness and their separateness, they were to reflect the glory of God in some way. They were to embody the tabernacle itself. They looked like the tabernacle. The clothing they put on was just beautiful. Remember God had commanded an ephod. Remember that? Remember how special some of that stuff was to study? On two stones were engraved the names of the children of Israel. And when these priests would go there and minister on behalf of the people, they were symbolically represented as bearing up and carrying the people to God, carrying the burdens of the people, carrying, remember, even their sins and making atonement for the sins of the people. As a breastplate was over their chest, and again, the names of the children of Israel were right there on their chest. Remember how many times last time it said, keep that close to your heart, priests because these people are close to my heart and the priest would carry those those burdens of the people and the sins of the people close to his heart he would discern the will of god through the urim and the thummim on his head would be a turban that said holiness to the lord all the way down to the undergarments remember um they were decked out as it was described here in beauty, in glory, and in holiness. Those were the words that are used to describe them in their dress. And we studied last time how all of that somehow pointed ahead and spoke to Christ's priestly work for us. Well, now we have the grand description of the ordination, how it's supposed to go. And maybe you've always been confused about that, boys and girls, you see us lay hands on people. What in the world are those guys doing up there? Where does that stuff come from? Paul said that in the New Testament. He referenced laying on of hands. This is all taken from this understanding of ordination. And so notice we have some pretty detailed instructions here, don't we, tonight? Beginning in verse 1, you'll notice that this is what you shall do to them to consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. So from here we learn that the Lord wanted Moses to take one bull and two rams without blemish, unleavened bread, unleavened cakes, unleavened wafers with oil, and put these things in a basket bringing the bulls and the rams. So Moses was to take Aaron and his sons right to, we've studied the structure now, we've studied the rooms, right to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. You'll notice that. Now, from here, it's really not difficult what was described to explain. He describes four things that took place. The first thing that he does is, you'll notice in verse 4, the first thing he told Moses to do was to address the issue of washing. I want you to bring Aaron and his sons, and I want you to bring them right to the door of the meeting, and I want you to wash them with water. Give them a giant bubble bath right in front of the tabernacle of meeting. Head to toe, you scrub them. You don't think about that with ordination, do you? Nobody ever did that to me. Scrub them. I want all the dirt washed off their bodies. And the whole thing was communicating some kind of need for purification, right? It was a kind of ceremonial baptism, wasn't it? I'm going to mention baptism, but I don't want you to transfer the Christian understanding of baptism into this. What do I mean by that? The Jews were very accustomed to baptisms, washings, and even in Christ's day when John the Baptist called the Jews to be baptized, it ignited a fury because baptism was for filthy Gentiles, right? It ignited the fury over this. The Jews, by virtue being Jews, were considered clean. The question they should have been asking is, well, were they? The priests had to be washed. First signal here that something might not be real great with this priesthood. First signal. They needed to be washed, and so this giant washing happened right outside the tent. Next, they were robed. You'll notice this in verse 5. You shall take the garments and put on Aaron the coat and the robe, the ephod and the ephod and the breast piece, the robe of the ephod and the ephod and the breast piece and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod and you shall set the turban on his head and put the holy crown on the turban. What a scene. So they washed the naked body of the priests and then in a moment of what they called investiture, Moses put carefully on them the garments. So beautiful. So radiant. Holiness. Remember, imagine Moses taking this turban and setting it right on the priest. Holiness to the Lord. What a moment, huh? Decked out now these guys are. Decked out in glorious dress. holy, righteous. And now they had to minister on behalf of the people. What's next? You'll notice here in verse 7, it's anointing. Verse 7, he says, you shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons and put coats on them, and you shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them. I want you to anoint them with oil. And notice what it says, the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute, verse 9, forever. Thus you shall ordain Aaron and his sons. Probably always been confused about anointing oil. And here we have it referenced in the setting apart of the priests where oil is being put on them. And it was always a symbolic act of there somebody being consecrated and set apart in the service of the Lord in that particular capacity that was being defined. Here it's the priesthood. So they would take oil and they would dump it over their heads and it would drip down. Think of the psalm when it describes the unity of the brethren. It says it's like the oil dripping down off the beard of Aaron. They must have had big manly beards, by the way. Oil running down the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. What did it symbolize? Well, you have a man set apart as holy and the oil of God is going on him. Anointed to that office. He's being anointed. It's anointing. It's the anointing. Often associated, you know, with who? The Holy Spirit. God anointing this man for his service. What a beautiful scene. Pastors think about their ordination services and it wasn't quite as glorious as this. We made vows. That was very important, wasn't it? There was a beautiful thing when all of these servants come up and they put their hands on you. Symbolizing this one is anointed and set apart. Set apart by God. It's a weighty thing. I had to think a lot about that. Think about that for a minute. The weight of that. It was really exciting. The excitement that happened. I just look back to mine years ago. The excitement that happened. Everyone's excited. It's just a joyful day. The Lord had set apart and given servants to serve. Decked out in the most, you know, here in their particular situation. Decked out in the most glorious dress. Oil on them. They smell great, they look great, all is well, right? Well, not so fast. What happens next? I want you to ponder this one for a minute. Three sacrifices are now commanded. First is the sin offering. God tells Moses to bring the bull to the tent of meeting. Aaron and his sons were to lay hands on its head. And the sin offering taught something all of Israel. didn't it? It taught these something, and here particular at their ordination, this is not so much dealing with the sins of the people. Uh-oh, we're dealing now with the sins of the priests, aren't we? I'll come back to Hebrews on that, which makes this a very strong point. But they symbolically communicated when they laid their hands on the bowl, it signified a transference, didn't it? And the sins of Aaron and his sons were laid on the bull. The teaching was that Aaron and his sons were sinners. The rest of the unclean part of the bull's body was taken out the camp and burned. You'll notice that in verse 14. And then you add these two rams that were given. The first is a whole burnt offering. They laid their hands on the ram in this burnt offering that signified the whole consecration of their lives to the Lord. dedication to him and in the second ram of the third sacrifice again hands are on the head following the whole burnt offering and it spoke of their sanctification it spoke of their separateness as as priests but here's what i want you to think about for a minute in this last sacrifice they're washed they're clean they're beautiful oil anointing oil think of what happens here all of a sudden keep in mind from the first two sacrifices blood is being cast on the altar blood's everywhere in verse 20 god commands them once you take some blood and i want you to put it on aaron's right ear and on his right thumb and his sons and notice that on the big toe of their right foot. What in the world is that? That's just odd, isn't it? And then why don't you take the blood and start sprinkling it everywhere? Remember, this dress is awesome dress. This is beautiful clothing. Somebody had worked a long time to skillfully weave and make all this clothing. From head to toe, notice here, Now blood is starting to go on them. Then notice verse 21. And you shall take some of the blood that is on the altar and some of the anointing oil, and here we go, and sprinkle it all over them. That is a remarkable moment. Sprinkle the blood on Aaron and on these beautiful garments and on his sons and on his sons' garments with him. He and his garments shall be holy and his sons and his sons garments with him. He just took blood on these beautiful garments and had it splattered, all sprinkled on garments. What a sight, isn't it? Think about. Blood everywhere. Teaching, of course, and you should know by now as we look at the entire Bible and put this together, is that blood is always what makes for atonement, doesn't it? There was always the teaching that the high priest had to make atonement for sins because he was a sinner. And that's the important point here is that the Lord is here declaring a problem with this priesthood. And the problem with the priesthood is the priests are sinners. And as I was reflecting on this, I realized something very important was just communicated to Israel that they should have stopped and said, ah, that's a big problem. God never wanted Israel, this is so important for the history of the church, this point, I believe it is. God never wanted the people to think that it was through the personal holiness of the priests that their lives were blessed by God. Now, how big of a problem has that been through history? Well, you know. But Rome has had this problem for years and we have this problem. I don't want you so exalting Domini Abihu. I don't want you trusting in Domini Aaron. I don't want you to think your spirituality, you're getting it and you're getting saved because of Him. This is a big problem in the history of the church, isn't it? I've been amazed at how many times people even in the way they casually will talk to me out in public when they find out I'm a pastor. Things that are said, if you wrote them all down, it's just shocking. But all of a sudden now, if they befriend you, they think they're getting some kind of benefit through you. Happens a lot. They were to be respected, but they were sinners. In fact, this was the very thing forgotten later in Israel's history. You know how bad this got in Israel? When Jesus comes on the scene, what did He chide the Pharisees for? You love your phylacteries. You love your robes. You love to walk around and show by all your tassels and all your accomplishments how holy you are. Uh-uh. Don't call those men your father. You don't call a pope your father. I'm your father. You call your heavenly father your father. There's one who's your father. Don't fall into that. This is what Jesus was dealing with with Israel when these guys dressed up. This was the problem. They loved to go in the marketplace and be called rabbi, rabbi. Do not be called rabbi. One is your teacher, that's me. You are all brethren. Father, one is your father, that's me. This has been a huge problem in the history of the church. You have to remember this. You can't help but take this and apply it and say, well, everyone who's set apart to serve you is a sinner just like you. Same struggles, same problems, same lusts, same things they have to fight. It's so important. Because God never wants your faith to be in men. And that happened in history and we still fight that to this day. Israel learned this. Let me give you an example of what happened in the first service in the Old Covenant. In Leviticus chapter 9, the Lord says, let's have the service. And in their first act, Aaron and his sons go into the tent of meeting. In the first act. And they begin to do the work. And the Lord comes and fire falls down from heaven and consumes the offering. And God's people, Israel, is just in a thunder cry. I mean, they are bowing. They are yelling out in excitement. This is the day. The Lord's with us. We've got our priests. And then this happened. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put a fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them. And they died before the Lord for service. Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke. Listen, listen. I told you, Aaron, I told you this is serious business. This is what the Lord spoke when He said, by those who come near Me, I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified. So Aaron held his peace. And Moses and Mishael and Elizaphan, the sons of Uziel, the uncle of Aaron, said to them, come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp. So they went near and carried them by their tunics. They got incinerated. But they could pick up the tunics. and they did that. And I reflected on this this week, and I thought, what was the Lord teaching Israel? All His sons are decked out here in their garments, and they, in the moment of excitement, decide, well, worship, we can do what we want to do in worship, and they profaned His worship and shamed His name, and all of a sudden, the priests are destroyed. Moses says they carry Him out by their tunics. And all I can say tonight in light of that, in light of what we're studying, is the blood of bulls and goats only provided ceremonial cleansing, but the blood of bulls and goats and rams never took away sin. That was the problem with this priesthood. That was the problem with the Old Covenant. Remember, blood went on the people. You don't want that kind of arrangement. This priesthood could not bring in perfection. So now that opens up for us the life of Jesus, doesn't it? We need a faithful and good high priest. And that's what Hebrews is all about. We need that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. Faithful high priest, notice that. Pertaining to the things of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. So now, Christ's life has all kinds of meaning. Think of his life. How does his public ministry begin? Well, you can begin to put this together. He goes to the Jordan, he goes down into the Jordan, and he's baptized. Now, the amazing thing about that is Jesus was not a sinner. But Jesus says, John, you do it because we need to fulfill all righteousness. Now, you've struggled with that a little bit. What did you mean by that, Jesus? What do we understand? He's a faithful high priest. So what that means is he had to submit to it because the first ritual of a faithful high priest in the ordination of the priest is that washing. Right there. This is what happens to him. And when he's baptized, all of a sudden heaven's opened and who falls on him? The Spirit. He's anointed right there. He's anointed. Jesus, just like the priest had the washing and the oil, Jesus gets the washing and the Spirit. The Spirit falls on him. Notice that. And his very name means the anointed one. This is why Peter said he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. Garments? His garments were his righteous life. You didn't have to wear this stuff. Pure, sanctified, never defiled, righteous, hallowed to the Lord, set apart. Here's the most amazing thing about it. He goes in, carrying your sins, and offers His own body to pay for them. That's what Hebrews says. We have an altar from which those who serve at the tabernacle have no right to eat for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Well, remember the transference. Therefore, Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let's go to Him outside the camp bearing His reproach. This good and faithful high priest who had no sin, who didn't need to make atonement for his own sin, stood in your place for you as your high priest with the power of an indestructible life, forgave you, with His own blood made the propitiation to pay for your sins, with His own body was crucified, His own blood shed, so that now He might cover you in that blood. His blood. And that's why Hebrews says, chapter 7, unlike the other high priests, He doesn't need to offer sacrifices day after day after day after day after day. That's what they did. First for His own sins, and then for the sins of His people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself. That's the whole point tonight. When we set our hands of faith on Christ, when we believe in Him, a great exchange occurs. And all that transfer goes to Him. And we have His righteous life and righteous garments given to us. That's the heart impulse of the message of the Bible and the faith that we believe. God made Him who knew no sin to become sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He's your high priest. Now I thought tonight, well, Heidelberg so beautifully captures this. Why is He called Anointed One? Why is He called Christ? Because he has been ordained by God. Isn't that wonderful? Here's the real ordination. He's been ordained by God to do what? To be, number one, your chief prophet and teacher. He perfectly reveals to you what you need to know. But in our context tonight, our only high priest, who's delivered us by the sacrifice of his body and who continually pleads our cause with the Father. In the New Covenant, that's why. You can enjoy and know forgiveness. You understand that any ordination that follows from Him, now think of what I'm saying at this point, any ordination that comes from Him means that that is a direct gift from Him to you now to continue that ministry. It's so wonderful, and this is what we say and we have said and we've believed for I don't know how long. Ephesians 4 says it. That He gives as gifts to His church. Men to serve you. Pastors, elders. And these are gifts to you from Him. And every time you see an ordination, you're witnessing that the Lord has been ordained to do all this for us. And now He set apart these men to continue that ministry to you. But I love this. It doesn't leave you out. But Heidelberg also says something else. Why are you called a Christian? Well, by faith, I'm a member of Christ and do what? Share in that anointing. I get to share in that. How so? Well, I'm anointed, you're anointed, to use your lips to speak about him, to confess his wonderful name. You get to function that way. You get to do that. You are anointed this week to go out and to take your bodies and to present them to the Lord as a living, not a death. You don't have to go kill yourself this week. Present yourself as a living sacrifice of thanksgiving to him your whole life. Now, if the priest had it here, here, and here, put it together. Your whole life is consecrated. What you hear, what you do, how you use your hands, how you use your feet, where you're walking, what you're walking into, everything that you're doing. You're consecrated. You're anointed. You're set apart. You're a priest unto God. You present your bodies this way. The ear is sanctified to hear. The thumb is sanctified to serve. The foot is sanctified to walk in holiness. What a path for us now. Consecrated and anointed. And we do that because of the power of the anointed one and his indestructible life for us. I've got a wonderful calling as a pastor, but you also have a wonderful calling from God as Christians. You share in that anointing. And you get to go show the love of this high priest this week to one another in your service, in His kingdom, in the way you behave, in how you do your work tomorrow, what you get up and do, how you think, what you see. All that. You're His. I hope that encourages you to see what you share in. And to remember how wonderful ordination is when a few months from now you see men set apart to serve you in a special way, teaching you as elders about the Word of Christ, overseeing the Word so that it's purely being given to you, and the deacons in a special way who exhibit before you the mercy of Jesus, who care about you and who love you, all because He is the ordained One by God. Let's pray to Him. tonight. Heavenly Father, thank you for encouraging us with things that are challenging and yet so comforting to see the whole picture. When we look back to the Old Testament, we see these men set apart and how inferior that priesthood was. That's why we needed the true and faithful high priest. And now to see what we share in a ministry of righteousness, a ministry of the new covenant, a glory that does not fade away that gives us lord to reverentially bow to praise you to come up to your house all the more careful in our worship and to recognize the men you set apart to serve and to represent the offices of jesus christ but may encourage all your saints of their important duties this week of who they are and what they're set apart to do and who to be lord help your saints to know their identity i suppose that's what i'm praying in the end tonight help them to know who they are in christ and i believe with all my heart that they will really enjoy walking in the kind of holiness and set apart life that you have designed for them as you tell us in the book of revelation we are all kings and priests to our God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.