112 - 7 Days & 7 Bulls (17 Sept 2022)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, have you ever set aside a whole week to observe a particular event? Wow, it'd have to be really special to do a whole week. And to do something significant every single day for that week to commemorate it?

Yeah, it would be special. Well, it looks like today as we look into Exodus, we're going to find a reason to celebrate for a whole week today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning.

We are at our dining room table. We hope you are too. And I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are marching our way through Exodus. And boy, we've come a long way so far. I mean, we started with leaving Egypt, but we're still at Mount Sinai, right?

Well, we are. We're still receiving the instructions about how to build the tabernacle. The actual execution of the instructions is still to come.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, how to build a tabernacle. Basically, how to build a portable tent for God as they wander in the desert in their tents. But not just the tent itself, but what goes on in the tent. We've looked at not only the furniture and stuff inside, but now we're pretty much focusing on the guys who are going to be doing stuff in the tabernacle, and principally the high priests. The priests, yeah.

So last time we looked at the consecration of Aaron, you know, the first high priest and what they did. And lots of interesting imagery right there. And again, remember, this isn't arbitrary. All this imagery is meant to teach you something. So you should be asking yourself all the way through this, why did God specify this? He's trying to teach me something in the picture of what he's showing right here.

Because he's very specific. So last time we looked at consecrating the priests, and today we look at consecrating the priests. Well, it just continues the consecration.

But it does actually look forward to Aaron's replacements as well. And we gain a new understanding about the duration of the consecration. So if you're following with us, we're reading out of the ESV Bible. We're in chapter 29 of Exodus, and we're picking up at verse 29.

You want to just dive in? Well, I do, but let me just say one other thing first. Since we're talking about Aaron as the high priest, remember, he was not a young man. He was Moses' older brother, and Moses was in his 80s at Sinai. So there needs to already be a plan in place for Aaron's replacement.

So that figures in today's information. So we're talking about the consecration of the first high priest, Aaron, which we just talked about. Well, we've got to talk about the future ones as well. But already in view are the ones that will follow who will be of his line.

Aaron and his sons. Right. Okay, so with that, here we go. You want me to read? Go ahead. Yeah, verse 29.

Okay. And the holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, and they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them. The son who succeeds him as priest, who comes into the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place, shall wear them seven days. You shall take the ram of ordination and boil its flesh in a holy place. Now wait, did you want to talk about that seven days first before we press on to the food? That's an interesting new fact, because we didn't have seven days with Aaron's consecration, but in the subsequent sons who take his place, it's going to be a week long affair to consecrate. Okay.

Well, actually we do. In Leviticus 8, it talks about when the actual event takes place, and Aaron and his sons do camp in the gate, a camp in the doorway. And then do it for a week? For a week. Oh, okay.

Excellent. And that's in actually all of Leviticus 8, but the part that particularly describes that which is 31 to 36. And it's Moses who does the ordaining.

If you remember a couple weeks ago, there was that question. We don't know yet who actually performs the ceremony, but in Leviticus 8, it's very clear that it's Moses who's doing it, because Moses has received the instruction from God. And Moses is the type, the intermediary, before the establishment of the priest. So this isn't just a day long consecration. This is a whole week that these guys spend in the courtyard and inside the tabernacle. Well, okay. So if they're eating a bull- So they'll have food while they're there. Well, it's going to take them a while.

They're going to have enough food for a week. Okay. Well, let's push on from there.

So 31. Okay. Verse 31. So you shall take the ram of ordination.

Oh, sorry. They're eating ram. And boil its flesh in a holy place. And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram and the bread that is in the basket in the entrance of the tent of meeting. They shall eat those things by which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration. But an outsider shall not eat of them because they're holy. And if any of the flesh for the ordination or of the bread remain until the morning, then you shall burn the remainder with fire. It shall not be eaten because it's holy. Holy again means set apart for a certain purpose. Right. In this case, it's to feed the high priest.

Okay. So as we're reading this, I want you all to listen for the repetitions that happen because holy, holy, most holy, holy, holy, holy. It comes up again and again and again. Consecration comes up again and again and again. And so when something is repeated, that's a big waving flag.

We need to kind of slow down and pay attention to what we're being told there. So we've just learned that the garments are holy and the flesh of the animal that was sacrificed is holy and it needs to be eaten in a holy place. Not just eaten, but cooked, prepared in a holy place.

Yeah. And so when we talk about holy in terms of being set apart for a purpose, the idea of purpose is really paramount when you see holy. It's like God saying, look, I'm doing this for a purpose. There's an intention in my heart. Don't stray from this. I'm doing it for a reason.

So there's great purpose behind this when you see holiness. Yeah. Okay.

Should we go on? Well, I think so. Sure.

I didn't, I don't know if it was worth mentioning here, but remember that episode with David where he's on the run and he goes to the, goes to the temple or the tabernacle and eats the dedicated bread. Yeah. Yeah. And even Jesus uses that argument later on.

So if you're curious of what I'm talking about, go searching around because it's a pretty fascinating thing. Well, maybe we can circle back to that in a couple of weeks when we get to the actual bread of the presence and bring that up again. But it doesn't really figure here. Yeah.

I was just looking and says, you know, an outsider shall not eat of them. Right. But, but there's also, there's sort of a hint in one of Peter's letters about the fact that we are all kind of adopted into this priesthood. Not kind of. We really are.

We really are. And so there's a, there's a change in the qualification in terms of eating that bread. I won't get into all that. I think it's in chapter two, first Peter. But anyway, we'll just, we'll just move on. Let's go to 35. What do you say? And thus you shall do to Aaron and to his sons according to all that I've commanded you. So do you remember where we are now?

We've just been talking about eating. Do this to Aaron and his sons all according to all that I've commanded you through seven days till you ordain them. And every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement. Also you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it and shall anoint it to consecrate it. Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and consecrate it. And the altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar shall become holy.

Ah, so. Okay. Repetition, repetition. Holy, holy, holy. Atonement, atonement, atonement. Yep.

Seven days, seven days, seven days. Yeah. Which sort of emphasizes the fact, you know, you were, you were talking about a bull every day. Right. It's a big animal.

It's a big animal. And it's interesting that a single bull offering is not going to be sufficient in order to atone for what the priest needs to do. And that sort of hints back to what the writer of Hebrews says as well. You know, if the offering of an animal would do it, you wouldn't have to do it over and over and over again. So really, this atonement is something that it's like a temporary covering, you know, in terms of atonement. But you know, a bull a day, man, that's just a lot of sacrifice. That's a lot of sacrifice, a repeated sacrifice. And this is specifically a sin offering for atonement. Right.

Right. We're going to, we're going to get to other sacrifices. But we mentioned this before, that there's this constant shedding of blood, constant death of animals, constant offerings on this altar in front of the of the holy place.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a bull is a sin offering. Whose sin are we talking about? Well, it's possible that we're talking about Aaron's sin. Yes.

I would go that direction. He doesn't say it here directly. But we're talking about consecrating the priests. Right. So in order for the priest to be holy, set apart, he's not qualified himself because he's sinful. So something has to be done first to deal with the sin of the high priest before the high priest can intercede for the sins of the people. That's very biblical.

And so this is a big animal with a lot of blood. Right. So did you notice in verse 37, where it says, the altar shall be most holy, and whatever touches the altar shall become holy. Yeah.

Isn't that interesting? Now later on, and reading the accounts of what happens with things that are holy, usually it works the other way. Right. It desecrates it. Something that's holy gets touched by something unclean, and it's no longer holy, or it's no longer clean. But here it says, no, anything that touches the altar shall become holy. The holiness flows out from the altar, and what happened there?

Right. The sacrifice of the animal. So God's purpose in all of this, in terms of dealing with sin and what's on the altar, the altar is the place that happens, and it flows from what happens there.

It flows from there. So it comes back to purpose again. The purpose of a life being shed so that life might come to someone else is from that altar.

So actually, it isn't just something coming to an end, death, but it's actually life coming out of it. So that's why we're looking at that. And he also had to consecrate the altar. And I would presume they used the blood and they actually touched it like we looked at before. Right, right. We looked at that a couple chapters ago. Yeah, so it makes the entirety of not only the high priest who's being consecrated, but the altar we're sacrificing, everything is cleansed by this blood. Well, the writer of Hebrews says, so you could even say, nothing is cleansed without the shedding of blood. Right. There must be a life given. Exactly.

So yeah, I think we mentioned before about Hebrews, I mean, the parallels are so tight because the writer of Hebrews interprets for us what we're reading right here from a New Covenant perspective. Yeah. Anyway, okay.

Should we move on? Yeah. Yeah. So this is what pertains to the seven days, the week consecration thing, which will go on every time they get a new high priest. You do a week of this. Well, let's go to 38.

I'll read for us because I like to read. So now verse 38, now this is what you shall offer on the altar. Two lambs a year old day by day regularly. Okay, so two lambs every day. Two lambs every day. One lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And with the first lamb, a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hint of beaten oil and a fourth of a hint of wine for a drink offering. And the other lamb you shall offer at twilight and shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning for a pleasant aroma, a food offering to the Lord.

And it shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord where I will meet with you to speak with you there. Let's just stop there. Oh, stop, stop, stop.

Yeah, please. So now we've gone on to what it's like a continual consecration, a continual action that's going to be in the tabernacle and eventually in the temple itself, not the seven days of consecration, but now as we go on, two lambs, one in the morning and one in the evening. Every day perpetually at the beginning of every day and at the end of every day. And it's not just the lambs, it's a full meal. It's a full meal. Yeah, exactly. So this is something that goes on.

If you wonder about what happened in the temple in Israel and the tabernacle, you can at least say, well, every day there was a lamb in the morning and one in twilight that was offered. Yeah. And this is like a continual consecration that goes on.

Yeah. And these are the official prescribed offerings that the priests offer morning and night. But in between time, the people were continually bringing their own thank offerings and peace offerings.

And that's what makes this different. This isn't someone saying I'm bringing an offering for my sin. This is the priest doing this regardless of people coming. For the nation.

Yeah, for the nation. Yeah. And maybe in a sense to consecrate the actual place, the altar itself.

Hard to say, but this is what goes on all the time. Well, they had already consecrated the altar in a different ceremony. This is the continual morning and evening reminder of shed blood in order to secure for you access to the meeting place with God. Yep.

He says, and I will meet with you there and speak with you there. Yeah. It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations. A pleasing aroma, right? It smells good to God. Right. Which barbecue does to us.

Well, it does. You know, that opens the door that we're going to get into next week when we talk about the incense. Yes. There were fragrances that took place in this holy place that you didn't smell anywhere else.

Quite this way. Yeah. So as we're painting this picture, as we read Exodus, you got to not only turn on the imagination of your mind, you got to turn on the imagination of your nose. Your senses.

Yeah. Because that was actually part of the entire thing. There was a lot of beauty in the linens you saw, there was a lot of activity going on, but there's this smell. Well, there's just a very sensual appeal to the entire tabernacle, to the sounds, the sights, the smells, the crackling of a fire that there just was auditory stuff going on. The whole experience was for the senses.

It was meant to be absorbed by the people who watched it. Right. So at this point, we're transitioning into an interesting end of this chapter where God does a lot of I-wills. So we talked about holy is set apart for a purpose. He's going to talk about that purpose right now.

Why all this stuff we've just been talking about? Because remember, we're doing this at the entrance to the tent of meeting before the Lord, he says in 42, where I will meet with you to speak to you there. So recall, when we laid out the organization of the temple, the tabernacle, the tabernacle courts, you'd come into the court and you would see the altar there, you'd have to pass by that. So like the first barrier in a sense is dealing with your sin. That's what you see. And then as you go into the tabernacle, then you go into more and more special places and then you get to the core of it where God is.

So don't be lost in that because the purpose of these sacrifices is to allow you to proceed further in into the presence of God. And sure enough, that's what he says right here. You want to read it 43 and he'll say it straight up.

I do. I want to actually back up because it's part of the sentence of 42. It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you to speak with you there. There I will meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons, I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God and they shall know that I am the Lord, their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them.

I am the Lord, their God. Wow. There's an interesting structure. Now we see the purpose behind what's going on.

Yeah. What are the repeated things? I counted, I circled all the I wills, one, two, three, four, five, six.

I counted six I wills. I will meet twice. I will consecrate twice.

I will be once. So again and again and again, it's God is doing, God is doing, God is doing. So again, we underscored to start with the tabernacle was so that God could live in their midst. God would live in their midst and visibly live in their midst in this tabernacle, his tent in the midst of the tents of the nation of Israel, because he says, I want to be with you in your midst. And so here we are, here's the tabernacle and it allows him not only to be with them, but for them to meet with him. Fascinating. Isn't that amazing? And in this sentence or two, God is the one who's doing all the acting. I will, I will, I will. The only thing that they do is know that I'm the Lord.

Yep, yep. And it's interesting too that the high priests, we've talked about this before, the high priests in a sense don't belong to Israel, they belong to God. They serve me. In fact, he said at the beginning of this chapter, that very thing, that they may serve me as priests. And so that's God's intention, the priests serve God in order that God can meet with the people.

That's the whole point. And when you extend that a little bit more, going past the altar where the sacrifices are, God does indeed want to meet with us, but what gets in our way is the sin. And isn't it, I love this here, that even though we're in this portion of the book where God is saying to Moses now, you do all of this and you will consecrate, you will consecrate him. But here in this kind of summation statement he's saying, you know, it's really me.

He's doing it. I am consecrating them. You are performing the ceremony, but I am the one that's making them holy. Yeah, right.

So God's not that interested in having a good worker in terms of the high priest. This ceremony. Right.

He's interested in establishing a much deeper relationship with him. And that's what this is all about. That's what the tabernacle was all about. That's why the high priest exists. That's why the sacrifices exist. Everything exists here.

The purpose for being set apart, the purpose is to meet with God and to be with God. And God will make it happen. Not just to have a meeting, but I will dwell among the people of Israel, right?

Which is what he had always wanted to do. Yep. I will meet with you there. I'll meet with the people of Israel. Yeah. And I will dwell with the people of Israel and I will be their God.

Wow. That's the purpose. That's the set apart. Well, and he actually uses the proper name that he gave to Moses back in chapter three in verse 46. That's right. And they'll know that I am the Lord their God. Now, maybe some of you listeners don't realize this, but if you're reading in your Old Testament and you find Lord, all in capital letters, L-O-R-D, then that signifies that the word there is the Hebrew word that we, sometimes we say Yahweh, sometimes we say I am. That is the literal name that when Moses said to God, who shall I say sent me? And he says to him, I am that I am. That's this name. Right. So they'll know because I make them holy that I am dwelling among them, the God who is.

I am. He's existence is what he's saying by that name. Right. And in case you're confused, Jehovah is just the Latin version of that.

Well, it's kind of a transliteration, it's a conglomeration of the consonants and the vowels. But when you see Jehovah, think Yahweh. Right. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah. And it's interesting too, he put some of his credentials there in 46th, they'll know that I am the Lord their God, I'm the Yahweh, I'm the one who appeared to Moses, who brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Now that action will come up over and over and over. I'm the one that brought you out of Egypt. That's his central claim to fame, right? I brought you out of Egypt, that's me, that God who did all of that stuff. I'm the one who's dwelling among you. However, it's interesting, he says here, and I'll say it in other places, I brought you out of Egypt not to just free you, I brought you out of Egypt that I might dwell among them.

So it's from one to the other. And this evokes a whole bunch of marriage imagery as well, because the bride, when she goes and lives with the groom, she leaves the one place. And so what he would say is, I brought you out of your family, your own family, so that I might dwell with you.

You know, change the entire relationship. Right, because you're gonna be identified with me. Be identified with me.

Right, and you know, still these days it's less and less common, but when we get married, the woman's name is changed to that of her husband. So let me just remind you that back in Exodus 19, when the Lord had first mentioned this idea to Moses, he said, Now then to the people, if you'll indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak. So early on, God had said to them, Now I'm bringing you out so you can be identified as mine to make my name known among the nations.

And there's that marriage thing as well. Right. You belong to me. You belong to each other in that particular sense. So you'll know that I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am Yahweh, their God.

Wow. That's the purpose of all this holiness. It's like, what do you say after that? That's the final statement. I am the Lord your God. Before we wrap up, we just got a couple minutes left.

Back to speculation alley here. Verse 43. Verse 43. It says, And it shall be sanctified by my glory. Isn't that an interesting phrase? I paused on that too.

Yeah. Sanctified by my glory. Sanctified by my glory. I will meet with the people of Israel there and it will be sanctified by my glory.

I mean, we could talk a long time about exactly what that means. But it's interesting that the glory is just like the outward manifestation of who God is in that sense. So what he's saying is that this place is consecrated. It's set apart because of my presence and not because of anything else. My glory.

Who I am. And here's a little spoiler. We're going to get to this when we get to the end of Exodus. When they actually had built it and went through all the consecration services and God's glory came down and filled it, they couldn't even stand because of the weight of the presence of God in terms of the smoke and the fire that they had seen at a distance. But now it was present in their midst, touched ground in the camp in this holy place. And the priests fell on their faces before the Lord.

So we're going to get there. That's in the last chapter of Exodus. Well it made me also think of a time when the sacrifices were consumed by God with fire out of heaven. And I looked one of them up in Leviticus 9, Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting and when they came out, they blessed the people. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

Wow. And it happened again with Elijah when Elijah has his face off with the prophets of Baal. The fire comes down. So what goes on here can glorify God and his presence is what consecrates this place. That's what consecrates it so that God can be with his people. And there will be this unmistakable revelation of who God is associated with this place in their midst. And there already is because associated with this tent is going to be his Shekinah glory. The cloud during the daytime, the fire at night, the gigantic night light I call it.

You know there's a lot of things. Yeah they had already seen that. But here it's going to come and be over this place, in this place. So it would have been really great to be a tenter with them at the time and see all this go down.

It would have really been amazing. And yet Jesus said, something greater than the tabernacle is here. Something greater than the tabernacle.

Hello. He came to show us the glory of God in human flesh. So let's not get all excited about the visible smoke and fire because when that God took on flesh to dwell among us, it was to reveal his glory. And for the same purpose he just talked about here so he can be with them and meet with them. And that's exactly what Jesus' role was, was not only to be a sacrifice and the high priest for us, but also to meet with us and let us know who God is face to face.

That was Jesus' role. Well next week we turn into chapter 30 and we pick up an item of furniture let's say that's inside the tabernacle that wasn't covered five chapters back. We looked at all this other stuff back in chapter 25 and at the time we remarked and said, you know he left something off the list. Well it comes back on now.

But it comes back on for an interesting reason why it's waited until now. So we're going to take a look at that. You can read ahead if you want, we're going to be going to chapter 30 and what got left out of the list five chapters back? Well you'll find out when we come back next time. So I'm hoping that you're gaining some understanding based on the graphical teaching that God's giving us with the high priest and with the items that are there and that will continue again next week. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us. Please read ahead and if you read with us as you're listening to this, use the ESV so you don't have to trip over trying to translate it on the fly.

But we're looking at God's glory as He consecrates this place called the Tabernacle. And we'll see you next week on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. Oh, we are on track too.