Rabbi Schneider - God's Meaning of the Priestly Anointing

TOPICS: Worship the Sacrifices and the Priesthood, Priesthood, Anointing

I left off, beloved, on last week's broadcast by talking about the bells and the pomegranates at the bottom of the blue robe that the high priest wore. I'm going to be reading now from the book of Shemot, the book of Exodus, chapter number 28, verse number 33 and 34. Hear the word of God. And you shall make on its hem pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet material all around its hem, and bells of gold between them all. A golden bell, a pomegranate, a golden bell, and a pomegranate, all around on the hem of the robe.

And so you can see that the bell and the pomegranates alternate one with the other. I said in last week's broadcast, beloved, that every part of the robe means something. God breathed it out of eternity. He breathed it out upon the high priest from heaven, beloved. Every part of it has spiritual meaning and spiritual application. So as we look at the Lord to try to understand, Lord, why the pomegranates, why the bells, what's a pomegranate about, the first thing that most of us would think of is a pomegranate is a fruit. And of course, we know the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. But we ask ourself, okay, so it's a fruit. It must represent the fruit of God's Spirit. But why a pomegranate? Why not a grape? Why not an orange?

Listen to this, beloved. The average pomegranate, as I said on last week's broadcast, from all over the world, when you take all the pomegranates from all the different nations and average the average number of seeds, the average number of seed in the world's pomegranates, beloved, listen to this, is 613 seeds per pomegranate. The thing that's so amazing about this is according to Jewish tradition, the number of laws in the Torah, in the first five books of our Bible, get this now, is 613. Isn't that an awesome thing, that God talked about the fruit of the Spirit, but in that, He embodied, beloved, His law. Because Jesus said all the laws are fulfilled in one thing, love, the fruit, the chief fruit, love the Lord with all your heart, strength, soul and mind and your neighbor, hallelujah, as yourself.

Now, notice also that the pomegranates alternate with the bells. What does a bell symbolize? Remember, the pomegranate symbolizes fruit. But what about the bell? Well, you can hear a bell. A bell is something you clang for people to hear, right? What does this mean? Beloved, I believe what the Lord is saying here is you and I are walking as priests for Him, because we've been close chosen as priests. This is what 1 Peter tells us, that we're a royal nation and a holy priesthood. This is what Yeshua tells us in the book of Revelation, that He's purchased us by His own blood to be His priest. That's why we're studying the garb of the high priest, because they have application for us today because we're priests.

What the Lord I believe is communicating to us, beloved ones, is that we not only have to have fruit in our life, symbolized by the pomegranate, but listen. We also have to speak the name of Jesus. We have to witness to people and lift up the name of Jesus and call people to Him. It's not just enough to have the fruit, beloved. They also have to hear. You have to have the bell, beloved, as well. And some people, beloved, because they're afraid, they think they can just do friendship evangelism without ever telling people about Jesus. Listen. We do need to be kind to people, we do need to reach out to the world, we do need to embrace people. But listen, beloved. We also have to tell them about Jesus. And a lot of Christians think that their witness is just their life. Listen, beloved. Our witness is our life. That's the fruit. But there's also got to be some bells there. You've also got to lift up the name of Jesus and speak Him to people.

Jesus said if you're ashamed of me and my, listen, and my, listen, words. You hear a word. It's not just doing something nice for somebody. They have to hear the words of Jesus. Jesus said if you're ashamed of me and my words in this wicked adulterous generation, so I'll be ashamed of you when I come again in the glory of my Father with the heavenly angels. So what the heavenly angels. So what this is telling us, beloved, as priests, you and I not only have to have good fruit, but we also have to be speaking the Gospel. Paul said how are the Gospel. Paul said how are they going to believe unless somebody tells them?

Let me give you an example. Let's say that I'm wearing my yarmulke, and I go into a restaurant, and I order a meal, and the waitress that waits on me, let's put this in context. The waitress that waits on me, she's kind of turned off by Christianity because she grew up kind of her parents were in church and so forth, but she really didn't respect her parents a lot, and she didn't see a lot of fruit in their life, and maybe the pastor where she attended church when growing up didn't really exhibit a lot of the goodness and the power of Jesus, so she's not really convinced that Christianity is true and that Jesus is the only way. She has kind of a New Age philosophy, you know, whatever works for you. And then I come into this restaurant, and I sit down and eat, and I'm wearing my yarmulke. And I really reach out to this waitress, and she can just feel the warmth from me, and she can feel the peace from me, she can feel the love from me, she feels the fruit of the Spirit from me, and I never tell her about Jesus.

When I leave that restaurant, you know what? I've actually potentially brought her farther away from Jesus because she may be thinking in her mind, look, he's wearing a yarmulke. Yarmulkes are for Jewish people. Jewish people don't believe in Jesus, and I saw more goodness in his life, and I felt more love from him, and I felt more of God from him than I have from my parents or these other Christian people I know. Therefore, Christianity must not be right. It's certainly not the only way, because here I met this Jewish guy that doesn't believe in Jesus, because I never told her, she's just assuming because I'm a Jew that I don't believe in Jesus, so therefore what I'm doing is I'm actually strengthening her resistance to Jesus being the only way.

See, it's not enough, beloved, just to have fruit. You have to also tell people where the fruit is coming from. You have to lift up the name. Now, if I would have been in the restaurant and that woman really would have felt the power of God, the love of God, the peace of God from me, and then when I left I said to her, I want you to know that Jesus loves you, then I would have had the fruit, beloved, and the bells. And that's what God wants us to do. They both, beloved, have to work, hallelujah, together.

Well, this next statement that I'm going to make is certainly not Biblical, but just an interesting observation that was pointed out to me, that it's interesting that remember, especially in the olden days when it was time for the Gospel to be preached, what did churches do? They rung the bells, right? So people could come and hear, hallelujah, the Gospel. So I want to challenge some of you today that you think that you're reaching out to people in Jesus, but you're never really telling them about Jesus. And I want you to know, beloved, you have to tell them about Jesus. You can't just love them. You can't just do good works. You can't just have good fruit and do good deeds. You've also, beloved in addition to that got to tell them that it's in Jesus' name. Jesus loves you. Jesus is the only way. This is our job, beloved. This is our responsibility as priests. The Scriptures tell us there's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved, hallelujah, but the name of Jesus. Hallelujah and hallelujah and hallelujah and amen.

Well, we're continuing on as we're moving through the garments of the high priest. I want to point out now the ephod. Notice the beautiful colors of the ephod, beloved, blue, purple, gold and scarlet. And when you think about the fact that the Lord specifically commanded that the ephod needed to be made of blue, purple, scarlet and gold, and ask yourself what does this mean? Why the different colors? What does each one of these colors symbolize? Because remember, everything on the garb means something. Well, let's think about it. First of all, we talked about blue. Blue is the color of the heavens. We have a heavenly citizenship, a heavenly calling. We've been blessed with a heavenly spiritual blessing. And so the ephod, beloved, contains blue, ephod, beloved, contains blue, communicating to us that we have a heavenly calling, and the clothes that God wants to give us in the Spirit are heavenly clothes.

Notice also, heavenly clothes. Notice also, beloved, that the ephod has purple on it. Purple is the color of what? Of royalty. Notice also that the ephod has red on it. Red is the color of Jesus' blood, beloved, and of the love of God. And finally, the ephod was made of gold. And gold, beloved represents, hallelujah, the glory, the kavod in Hebrew, of God. Now, on the blue robe, the priest wore the breastplate, beloved, of judgment. And on the breastplate of judgment were 12 beautiful, gorgeous, costly stones. I'm going to read now from the book of Exodus chapter number 28, verse number 15 through 21. Hear the word of God. And you shall make a breastplate of judgment, the work of a skillful workman. Like the work of the ephod, you shall make it of gold, of blue, purple, scarlet material and finely twisted linen.

And we're going to continue on. It shall be square and folded double, a span in length and a span in width. And you shall mount on it four rows of stones. The first row shall be a row of ruby, topaz and emerald. The second row, turquoise, sapphire and diamond. The third row, jacinth, agate, amethyst. The fourth row, beryl, onyx and jasper. And the stones shall be according, verse number 21, to the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. Verse number 29, and Aaron shall carry the names of the sons of Israel in the breastplate of judgment over his heart when he enters the Holy Place for a memorial before the Lord. Again what we're doing is we're looking for spiritual application for our life today. I want you to consider, Yedidim, beloved ones, that these stones that the priest wore over his heart, beloved, these were costly, valuable, precious stones. And this communicates to us, beloved, it was over his heart, this communicates to us, listen, how much God loves us.

Listen. You need to hear this. You are a ruby, hear this. You are a ruby, you're an emerald, you're a sapphire to God. It's like sapphire to God. It's like when a man gives his wife a diamond ring. What is he saying to her? He's saying to her you're a diamond to me. These are the most costly stones, beloved, on earth. And this is what God uses to symbolize who we are as His people. And the fact that He loves us so much is indicated by the fact that the high priest wore these stones on the breastplate of judgment over his heart, that God carries every feeling on his heart, beloved. He's conscious of all our thoughts. In the book of Ephesians chapter number 1, verse number 18, Paul said this. Hear the word of God. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, that you might know, listen to this, what are the riches, listen now, of the glory of His inheritance, get it now, listen, in the saints. Paul is saying here I pray that God will enlighten your eyes, that you'll understand what are the riches and glory of God, listen now, that is in you.

Let me say it again. Paul prays that your eyes will be opened and that my eyes will be opened, that we'll understand the riches of the glory of God's inheritance, listen now, that is in us. Beloved, we're emeralds to God, rubies to God, sapphires to God, diamonds to God. We're priceless stones to Him. I want you to know, Yedidim, beloved one, you are beautiful to God. You're worth so much to Him. He loves us so much. to Him. He loves us so much. He sees so much in us. That's He sees so much in us. That's why Paul said I'll pray that you understand the riches of the glory of His inheritance in you. Oh, help us, Father God, to understand who we are to you, that we're like diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires to you. You are valuable, beloved. God You are valuable, beloved. God wants you to have a godly self-respect for yourself. He self-respect for yourself. He wants you to know who you are to Him, that there's something beautiful and precious and unbelievable inside you and inside me.

Now, connected to this breastplate of judgment, beloved, was the urim and the thummim, which is called in Hebrew the urim and the thummim. Let me read about it for you once again in the book of Exodus today. And we're going now to Exodus chapter 28, the 30th verse. Hear the word of God. And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment the urim and the thummim, and they shall be over Aaron's heart when he goes before the Lord. Now, the urim and the thummim, beloved, were some sort of divine oracle that the high priest would present before the Lord when he needed to know something, and God would answer him oftentimes through the urim and the thummim. Oftentimes it was simply a yes or no answer. There's a lot of mystery around it. The Scripture doesn't tell us a whole lot about it, other than the fact that there was a divine oracle called the urim and the thummim connected to the breastplate of judgment. We're not exactly sure if it was on the breastplate of judgment or if it was in a pouch that was under the breastplate of judgment over Aaron's heart. What we do know is that it was a divine oracle and that the Lord would speak to the high priest through this divine oracle.

Now, how does that relate to us today? Well, beloved, we're not carrying stones with us today that help us to know God's will, but listen, we have the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKo-dosh. And for some of you when I say that, it might just sound like water off a duck's back, but I want you to know when you practice, beloved, cultivating the presence of God in your life, when you learn how to be still and wait on Him, when you discipline yourself just to sit before Him and be patient and learn how to become aware, beloved, of the nuances of His Spirit in you, you're going to be led by the Spirit, and you're going to know yes or no. The Holy Spirit will either give you peace about something, He'll impress it upon you to go forward, or if you're thinking about doing something, if you're paying attention to His Spirit in you, if you've developed a spiritual sensitivity, He'll put a check in your heart when you know it's wrong. We're not relying on the urim or the thummim anymore, beloved. We're relying on the Holy Spirit that's been given to us as our indwelling inheritance now.

And I want you to know, once again, this is not just some fanciful thinking. He's real, and it's true. The Scripture says you've received an anointing from the Holy One in the Holy Spirit, and He's not a lie. And I can tell you that as I've matured in the Lord and have learned not just to run ahead in the flesh, but to wait on the Lord, God has taught me a lot about knowing when He's leading me forward in something and when He's checking me in something. This is the spiritual application, beloved, of the urim and the thummim for us today. Those two words, beloved, urim and thummim, are translated into English directly as perfection and lights, or lights and perfection. Some have translated revelation and truth. God gives us light, beloved, and He shows us His perfect way. He gives us revelation, and He gives us truth. But we need to learn, beloved, to stop looking to the world and to learn how to wait on God and trust Him and be still, and He'll teach us, beloved, how to be sensitive, to the voice, hallelujah, of His Holy Spirit. Amen and amen.

Well, as we continue on today, Yedidim, God bless you, I hope you're excited about today about this. This really excites me, because these garments of the high priest, beloved, are the garments that God clothes us with as priests today when we deny the flesh and look to Him, beloved, to cover us with His glory. But you can't feed on the flesh and expect to receive from the Spirit, because if you feed your flesh, you're going to weaken the Spirit. That's why Jesus said in Revelation I advise you to buy from me garments of white. So as we learn how to fast from the flesh, beloved, fast from relying on the world, fast from giving ourselves to the things of the world and instead learn how to wait on the Holy Spirit, God's going to clothe us with these heavenly garments just like Jesus said to the disciples in Luke 24:49, go into the city and wait, and the Holy Spirit's going to come on you, and what? Clothe you, He said, clothe you with power from where? From on High.

Well, beloved, as we close today, I want to talk about the miter, the headgear or the cap. We read about this in the book of Exodus chapter number 28, verse 40. The Scripture says that the priests were to wear caps, miters, headgear, and the Scripture says once again these caps were for, get it now, listen, glory and beauty. Did you know, beloved, that as a priest of the Lord, you're clothed with glory and beauty? Lift your head up, beloved. Lift your head up. You're clothed with glory and beauty. Cast off that old negative self-image. Forget what your boss has told you. Your boss might not see the glory on you, but you know what, beloved? They didn't see the glory on Jesus, either, when they plucked out His beard, spit in His face, and jeered at Him when He was on the cross. But that didn't mean, beloved, that glory wasn't in Him.

See, it doesn't matter how your boss treats you. When you go to work and your boss treats you like you're nobody and is paying you minimum wage, you might not feel like you've got glory, but beloved, listen, the world doesn't define who you are, just like the world didn't define who Jesus was when they crucified Him. You're a costly diamond, ruby, sapphire, an emerald to God. The riches of His glory, beloved, is in you. So lift your head up high, beloved. You're crowned as a priest of the Lord with glory, hallelujah, and beauty. Look to Yahweh alone for your identity. And we find that over the priest's forehead was a gold plate that said holy to the Lord. That's who you and I are, beloved. The Bible says we're a holy nation and a royal priesthood. We're set apart, hallelujah, to God. And it was over his head.

Beloved, I want to ask you, what's over your head? Hopefully, if you had a condemning father growing up, that's not the voice that's over your head anymore. Hopefully, if your employer's not treat you right or if you've had self-image problems, you can cast those voices off, because that's not the voice that God wants over your head. He wants to have His gold plate over your head. You're gold to Him. You're holy, beloved, set apart to Him. So as we close today, I want to just review. We started off several weeks ago talking about the garments of the high priest, and we began by talking about under the robes, the high priest wore breeches. They were like long underwear, the Scripture says, to cover up his flesh. God is teaching us here, beloved, He does not want us operating in the flesh. If we're going to try to attract people to our flesh, we're not going to understand, beloved, the heavenly, beautiful garments of glory and beauty that God has given us.

Over the undergarments, beloved, was a white robe. It symbolizes God's purity, His glory, His perfection. It symbolizes His light. We find that in heaven, the redeemed of the Lord are clothed in white. And Jesus wants us to fast to Him. He said you're poor and naked. I advise you to buy white clothes from me. So we need to fast the flesh, and Jesus is going to clothe us, beloved, with the white holiness of the Holy Spirit, which is also, beloved, symbolized by the rainbow, because white light through a prism is all the colors of the rainbow, which is around the throne of God. All the colors of a rainbow, Ezekiel 1:28 and Revelation. We find over the white was the blue, the blue robe, beloved. This speaks of heaven. You look straight up in the sky, it's blue. We have a heavenly calling. Our citizenship is in heaven. We've been blessed with heavenly blessings.

Then the priests had an apron, blue, purple, scarlet and gold. Beloved, blue, heaven; scarlet, the blood of Jesus; gold, the glory of God, beloved, and purple for the royalty. From the blue robe, we have the pomegranates and the bells symbolizing the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the bell symbolizing, beloved, that not only should we have fruit, but we need to be speaking the word of Jesus, we need to be preaching the Gospel and witnessing to people. Not just doing good deeds, but telling them, beloved, the bell, telling them about Jesus. And then we looked at the breastplate of righteousness and the beautiful stones, the diamond, the sapphire, the emerald and the ruby right in the heart of the high priest. It speaks about who you are to the Lord. He loves you, you, you. And then, beloved, we looked at the urim and the thummim. We have the Holy Spirit leading us and guiding us today.

On the shoulders we were also two stones symbolizing again the 12 tribes of Israel, six on each side. God carries our burden on His shoulders. And then finally, the covering of God is over our life, beloved, symbolized by the miter or the cap. And we are inscribed with the identify, beloved, that we are set apart and holy to the Lord.

Father, I pray today for each one of your beloved children that is watching this broadcast. Father, will you give them a heavenly identity today? Will you help them understand, I ask, Father God, that they're clothed in your glory and your beauty, that you love them, that they're so precious to you, Lord, they're the costly stones symbolized by the high priest's garment over His heart? Father, we love you today. Thank you for making us yours, in Jesus, amen.