Exodus 39:2-7 Bible Study | Episode 647

April 2, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Exodus 39:2-7   Bible Study | Episode #647

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now, that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day.

Especially today. In Jesus name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake community churches morning Bible study. We are in Exodus chapter 39, and we're back dealing with something we dealt with in chapter 28 tangentially we're really just ran over it, but in Exodus chapter 39, verse two when you're talking about the priestly garments the main brand that everybody's going to focus on the main brand that everybody's going to talk about that knows anything about the priestly garments, and I clarify that way, because the truth is the number of people that actually talk about the ephod are not many.

In fact we don't talk about it very much in scripture. In fact in the Old Testament, ephod can mean two things. It can mean a garment worn by the priest to go into the holy of holies. It can mean an idol. And there are places in scripture where ephods are idols, not this ephod, but an ephod is an idol.

And and understanding that's one of the things that goes along with an ephod and you go, what is an ephod? When they put on their robe, the High Priest would've would've looked like, for an old for an ancient soldier, would've looked like a breastplate. But it wasn't a breastplate in the sense that it was made of metal.

And it was a and it's not a vest either because it doesn't open in the front. It is a pullover piece of material that had gold and stones sent into it. And in fact, it says in those two, he made the ephod of gold, blue, purple, and spandex. So we had we've added thing the just regular room, which had in Irvin in In the material, Billing, Purple, and Scragglet.

Eternality, the reality the above price, but adding to it a world which represents heavenly things. It is it is the matter that is the representation of the kingdom of heaven. And it's woven into this fine linen and then they beat the gold into thin sheets and cut it into the thread.

So you've got little strips or little pleats. It's not like a full it's not like a full metal. It's just little strips of gold that were made with a metal patch that were made mostly to hold these stones, to have a place to set the stones in them. And it went through with the blue, purple, scarlet thread and the fine linen into artistic designs.

Notice this is a beautiful piece of garment. They made shoulder straps for it to couple it together, meaning it had a back and a front and it's got shoulder straps over it. So you go it's like a vest. It's, yeah, it is. And it was coupled together with two edges and the intricately woven band.

Of his ephod that was on it, was of the same workmanship, woven of gutter, purple and scarlet thread, fine woven linen, as the Lord had commanded Moses. And they set eunuch stones enclosed in the settings of gold, and they were engraved as signets are engraved with the names of the sons of Israel. He put them on the shoulder of the ephod as a memorial stone for the sons of Israel, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

And we've got you've got this EFOD, which is a piece of. Material, it's not a, it's not a breastplate in the sense of an animal breastplate, and and it's got on the shoulders, it's got those stones, and then there is a plate in the front. There's a metal plate right here in the front, but it's just a small metal plate.

It's not the color of the head body. It's just right there in the chest. And he made the breastplate artistically woven. I like the relationship of the ephod of go blue, purple scarlet thread, and then made a square for doubling it. And the span was the length of a span. It's really, it's a. It's a plate that would have just barely covered his chest and not all the way down to, to, to his waist.

And they said third rows of stones and you had Sardis, Topaz, Enlil, the second level was Tetrachoros, Sapphire, and Diamond, the third row, Jaseph, Agathe, and Amethyst. And the third row, Bur and Onyx, and Jasper. And they were 12 stones according to the names and sins of Israel. So you have these stones that but have the names of the sons of Israel.

These are the tribes of Israel. And it says, and the names were actually engraved out of the stones and it says, and they may change for the breast plate at the lens, like blade cord. They tie each other with braided, not thick gold, but, braided gold chains to tie to the.

To the shoulder, tie it to the, to the back the back of it to tie it together in the back. It says on the two ends and two braid chains, they were fastened to the two settings and put them on the shoulder straps of the E 5 in the front. And they made two rings of gold and put them on the two ends of the breastplate, so they tied them off.

They made two rings of gold, tied them off. To the actual just piece of gold, but sat on his breast breastplate and they bound the breastplate by means of its wings. And basically it is a beautiful piece and you go, why are you rushing through this, right? Because I went over some of the stones last time but the main thing is to figure out what this is and why we don't talk about it.

And it seems like something that we would not think that would be. Just to be honest, Ricky we don't really consider this something because it was something that, that the priest will and I don't know if the priest can wear it because if anybody else would the punishment was severe for that.

And the only person that could wear it was our priest and he would to do his priestly duties, mainly to go in the hall of holies. And on Yom Kippur, the High Holy Day. And so it was a, it was something that would seem to be, and I'm going to use this word, like an idol, something that it, and it's not a rare fact, a rare tract about the Ark of the Covenant, they carried the Ark of the Covenant in front of the army and no army that matched out with the Ark of the Covenant in front of it could be defeated.

You've got all these you've got RBS Lewis about the act of the covenant, but you haven't had anything about the E 5 and I thought about it and I've rendered about it. And I've considered it and I know that clothing represents the covenant of sin, but it's not clothing. It is. It is literally a piece of metal that it's a literally a grommet that has metal on top of it, this, and it's not a, it's not a piece of armor.

It's just a, it's just a, it's just a square, to some level with stones on it, it's not, it doesn't function to it. And if you look it up on the internet, the, there, there are all kinds of depictions of it because we really don't know what it looked like. Totally. We know how it was made. So we can extrapolate that out and make it make something looks like, but we don't know how those stones lived.

We don't know. We don't know how they how the engraving looked on them. We just don't have any idea about it. We don't. We don't see it. And as I was thinking about it and I was considering it, I said, really, what is this? First of all, I think it's good and it's important to to look at it and say, okay, what is what is going on with this?

It's got the names of the sons of Israel. And and there is an element to this, and it was used in worship. So you need to definitely nail that down as you're thinking about it. It's, it was a type of worship used by the high priest. So we've got priestly. That would tie to the church and you've got it being willing to do worship.

That's something that the church would do and it'd be willing by the high priest, but the high priest is a Levite. He's not all the tribes, but he's willing all the tribes. And when I really come to think is a representation of the legacy of faith that we share with us as believers and in many ways it is an important aspect of worship.

And I think about that in little ways as I was just trying to consider what this, because it's made of gold, it's dealing with definitely the kingdom of heaven. It's definitely dealing with a legacy of those who came before us, the sons of Abraham. It is a picture of it's a beautiful piece of material because it's getting in line with gold and there's a beautiful it's a beautiful, almost a I guess the best way you could describe it is, in little ways, it is it's a piece of jewelry.

It's a huge piece of jewelry that will run into the rail ship service. It's a beautiful addition. And so it has importance. And the importance I got to believe is that we carry a legacy of faith, a heritage of faith. And each believer carries that heritage and legacy of faith with us into worship.

And I do know scripturally speaking that anointings from from our family does good handed down. And God does honor. The heritage of faith that we connect with, connect in as we move our family forward. God's in the business of redeeming and saving, not just individuals but families of people.

And if you have a heritage of faith it is a pilot for film that you carry. I have a great heritage of faith and I sincerely believe that a lot of the prior that Iraq in and the position that I live out in my daily life comes from that heritage of faith. And that's not really fair for.

New Christians. No. Remember God loves new, he loves to dig new wells, who loves to plant new vineyards. And so the first of the heritage of faith, just like in the old Testament is one of the greatest. And many times it was the greatest like Abraham. And there's great reward for being the first in your family or being one of the beginners of the people that you come from to hear Christ and to believe in him and to join the kingdom of heaven.

That's a powerful thing to do. That being said if you come from a great line of heritage of faith, there is great unlocking and there's great. There's great power that comes from that. That being said I think it's important that when we do new things and by the way, God is in the business of doing new things in his kingdom and doing new works and operating in different ways so that he can glorify himself in all the many, myriad of ways that he wants to.

When we do that as a church, we can't just. throw the baby out with the bath water. We got, we, we need to bring our heritage with us. Our heritage of faith that we could have been oftentimes I, I knew church culture wants to just throw everything away and make not remember the things that that our heritage has passed down to us that makes us powerful.

That makes us a moment that gives us the amortium that we have. And many of those things they add up traditions and remember we don't do traditions just for traditions, but we do, I'm sorry, we do traditions for the purpose of glorifying the past. There's nothing wrong with having standing stones.

There's nothing wrong with having memories of what God's done in the past. And honoring those things by some of the things we do in a church, but we need to remember what the purpose for those things are and while we're doing them. And so that we properly honor those things. That being said churches that may honor that churches, oftentimes that struggle with that, and that's going to be a problem for our modern day church culture, because we have a lot of churches that don't have a whole lot of heritage of faith.

Behind them and so they, they really need to dig down and realize where their heritage comes from and tie those things as to what they're doing today. Why? Because apparently the ephod's in peridot. And the e fide has great value and e fide was something that they thought was they thought was an aspect of reassurance that God says, I'll let the high priest deliver this.

And so where you come from and, that can. And he's been referring you to get to you is it's a it's something that needs to be considered. I have a great hood at your faith. I know the teachings and the beliefs of the denominations that my family came out on. I take hold of those things that I think and are tedious and eternal feminist heritages, and I hold on to them.

The high each one of the different areas of faith that my family came out of Methodist and Baptist primarily, but there, there's some Presbyterian, a little bit of Pentecostalism out there also. Those heritages that I came out of are in Plymouth and they placed a high view of scripture.

They they believed in gathering together and assembling together for worship. He and they believed in the power of the Holy Spirit and they believed in being posted to the believer. All those things that I keep throwing out just in a wine right there are great heritages that I carry with me and in my ministry.

As a pastor, and in my, that as a believer, I think I need to honor those things in my life and make sure that they are in plain of who I am. And those of you who don't have that heritage you are making the heritage. You're learning, you're being disciples you're figuring it out.

And those things you have, you learn about God need to be handed down. You are the new vineyard, you're the, you're you're the new row that's being dug. And you need to make sure that you add to that vineyard as much as possible so that as it gets passed down from where you at to the generations to come.

That you are passing down those great understandings of Scripture and those great activities actions that believers take. That that amending by scripture, carve on us by God, but also that, that mean a lot. And some of the things that mean a lot, the shape of the building, what the building looks like and the color of the carpet is not important but what went on in that building, what went on in the heads of people, what was emphasized powerful worship, what was emphasized the word of God.

It was emphasized as far as discipleship, as far as evangelism, as far as the things that ever, the bedrock of that faith, and they need to be honored. And I really think that the E5 represents that. I think that that, and oftentimes in our faith, we need to go back to where we began and remember the things that that we built upon, built our life upon so that we can strengthen those things so that we can move forward.

And each believer needs to do that. I think each congregation needs to do that. And I think we as a people of God need to move forward. And if you watch, if you look around there are a lot of differences between denomination, churches, things like that, but the differences are far outweighed.

The differences are far outweighed by the similarities. The similarities are stark considering how many directions the church has gone, especially over the last hundred years with the Protestant Reformation and how I like we really are as Christians as followers of Christ and how much we really, believe.

A core of things that are all the same and we follow one Lord and we are part of one holy church. I'll use the word Catholic as universal, and that's what Catholic means. We are one Catholic or universal church that is under Christ. And a lot of about 95% of who we are and how we function.

Is very similar and the reason it's very similar is because it comes from the same place and then you have the uniqueness of the individual strands of that faith. And I would just say to you that when you think about the E 5, think about the heritage of faith that you have and you bring that to the table and you shouldn't you shouldn't discount it because there's great anointing and power that comes from it.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.