The High Priest's Garments (Part 4) - The Blue Robe And The Perfection Of Jesus' Finished Work [1st svc, 5 April 2009]

THE HIGH PRIEST’S GARMENTS (PART 4) – THE BLUE ROBE AND THE PERFECTION OF JESUS’ FINISHED WORK

1st svc dated 5 April 2009

preached by Ps Joseph Prince

as noted by Yeo Choon Meng Terence

Artist's impression of Solomon's Temple in which the High Priest and his sons ministered. - Temple Institute, 6 Nov 2008.

PRE-SERVICE TESTIMONY

A certain man took holy communion at half-an hour intervals and was healed of liver failure. Initially, there did not appear to be signs of recovery. It was only on the third day, did the man finally show signs of recuperating. Despite this initial bloom of health, there were still negative symptons. The man persisted in faith and he is now in full health.

JESUS IS GOD’S EXPRESSION OF LOVE FOR US

God has always loved us, even from the beginning, when we yet sinners.

Jesus is the expression of God’s love for us — God so loved us that He sent His only begotten son to die for our salvation.

Healing takes place in a God-ordained setting. You don’t go walking around in public and then suddenly you are are zapped with healing for your condition. Healing takes place when for example, you are in church and the preaching edifies your faith to the point when you manifest healing, or when the Holy Spirit is moving in the church service and produces spontaneous healing.

THE WORLD IS WARPED

The World is flawed. When something is not profitable, they say cut it off. But how can you cut off things like missions giving, etc.

The joke is told of how a dog walks on water to fetch a stick that its owner has thrown. The next day, the dog’s owner decides to repeat this action in front of his friend. The dog again walks on water to fetch the stick. When asked if he sees anything unusual, the friend says, “the unusual thing is that your dog cannot swim !” Skeptics can never see miracles !

The World can never understand the record collections achieved thus far for the Church Building Fund. They are not donations. They are love-offerings.

GOD IS MADE RICHER BECAUSE OF HIS PEOPLE

God is made richer by having His people.

The last time the world saw Jesus was at the Cross as after that Jesus never appeared to unbelievers post-resurrection (there may be visions here and there to unbelievers but these are isolated incidents). That is why to most unbelievers, they continue to see Jesus as nothing more than a great man. For unbelievers, post resurrection, they can only see Jesus in faith (as a general rule), and this is how they might be saved. Post resurrection, Jesus did appear to more than 500 people but this group were believers. (1 Cr 15:6)

The last gesture of Jesus on earth (post resurrection) was the High Priestly one of blessing His people before He “parted from them, and carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51)

WITHOUT GOD, WE CANNOT

When enemies come against you, bless them ! Take or follow the example / position of God in this respect.

Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not !

God is in small churches too, so why do these chruches remain small? Perhaps it has to do with the anointing on the leader of the church or the largeness of his heart.

While at Kadesh Barnea (Deuteronomy 1:21) Moses told the people that God had “set the land before thee” and to go up and possess it , and it was in Deuteronomy 1:22 that we find that it was the leaders who told Moses to send men to spy out the land , which led to the evil report
subsequently being presented. The spying had backfired because the spies were faithless and saw giants instead of opportunity.

Everything is based on leadership. That is why entire nations are indicted based on the fall or judgement of its leaders. For this reason, we ought to give good leaders credit, where credit is due.

Long before the people gave generously for the church building fund, the leaders were already exhorted to give generously and they had made this a habit. God starts from the head to the leadership and finally, the people.

JESUS IS HIGH PRIEST FOREVER AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHIZIDEK

Exo 28:31 And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue.

Exo 28:32 And there shall be an hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof: it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of an habergeon, that it be not rent.

Exo 28:33 And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about:

Exo 28:34 A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.

Exo 28:35 And it shall be upon Aaron to minister: and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the LORD, and when he cometh out, that he die not.

There is something around the collar of the High Priest’s garment – like a coat of mail – that prevents his clothes from being rent. In other words, there is a strong binding around the blue (heavenly grace) garments preventing tearing.

Yet we find that Caiaphas rent his garments even though as High Priest, he was not to do so. This action signifies the beginning of a new order of priesthood – inaugurated by Jesus – the priesthood atfer the order of Melchizedek.

Under the old priesthood, we have to perform in order to receive. Under the new priesthood, we receive and then we perform.

THE ANOINTING

In Exodus 29, Moses can be seen as representing God and the washing of water (Ex 29:4) can be seen as a picture of regeneration.

Exodus 29:4 And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water.

Ex 29:5 And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod:

Ex 29:6 And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre.

Ex 29:7 Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour [it] upon his head, and anoint him.

Ex 29:8 And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them.

Ex 29:9 And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them: and the priest’s office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.

Ex 29:10 And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock.

Only the High Priest is anointed (Ex 29:7) and not his 4 sons (a picture of us). Also the High Priest is anointed before the sacrifice (bullock) has shed blood and died (Ex 29:10). The OT scriptures are God-breathed as they are indeed consistent with the NT scriptures – Jesus because He has no sins, Jesus was anointed before He died as our sacrifice. In other words, because there is no sin in Him, the Holy Spirit can land on Him. Recall the baptism at Jordan (Mat 17:5) : “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” Whereas, we (Aaron’s sons) the Children of God are anointed because Jesus has died.

In Exodus 29:4-10, we also see a double-type in action, Jesus is seen in the Offeror (High Priest) and the Offering (Bullock).

The Oil, and also, the Light from God makes the stones (Children of God) on the breast-plate of the Ephod sparkle and shine in the sight of God the Father. Hallelujah !

PSALM 133 – THE ANOINTING ON AARON – A UNITY PSALM

Psalm 133:1 [[A Song of degrees of David.]] Behold, how good and how pleasant [it is] for brethren to dwell together in unity!

Psalm 133:2 [It is] like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, [even] Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

Psalm 133:3 As the dew of Hermon, [and as the dew] that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, [even] life for evermore.

The blessing contained in Psalm 133 is: life for evermore!

Senior Pastor preaches Psalm 133 in churches outside Singapore to leave a sense of honor in the congregations for their local pastor.

THE FLOW OF OIL

In the OT, oil cannot be poured on unclean flesh. But in the NT, post-Pentecost (Acts 2:17), the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh.

The Order of Blessing in the Church Body follows the way the oil travels from the Head of the High Priest (local under-shepherd i.e. pastor) down the beard (elders, as beard speaks of maturity, kids have no beards) and to the stones on the breast-plate (individual members of Church).

Each stone reflects the individual characteristic of a person. We are not homogenous.

Finally the oil travels down all the way to the bells of the High Priest. Where, in our case, it was heard by the Singapore Media when we as a church gave bountifully to the One-North building project recently.

Oil travels softly.

God is top. Therefore blessing comes from head then to the rest.

When we bathe, we dry hair first because if we don’t , the water will still drip from the top. That is why the devil wants to attack and dry up the oil on the head so that the rest of the body is affected and dry.

Recently, there was a survey which reported that Singapore was the least affected by the ongoing global recession but its citizens were the most depressed.

BLUE – TEKHELETH

Num 15:37 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Num 15:38 Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue [i.e. TEKHELETH] :

Num 15:39 And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

The High Priest also wore Blue – Tekheleth (Strong’s 8504)

Tekheleth is the noun for blue. The root word is Kahlah which means perfection, or completeness.

In the Hebrew translation of the New Testament, Jesus is recorded in the Gospel of John to cry out “… it is finished” or koolah (a form of kahlah) in Hebrew. Jesus is declaring, Completion!

That is why the High Priest wears the blue-completed work.

When the woman with the issue of blood said to herself that if she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment (Num 15:38), she would be healed, she was declaring that if she touched the blue / kahlah / Jesus’ completed work, she would be healed.

Again, it is not the item per se, but what it represents and that you believe the truth behind that item. The Pharisees (Matt 23:5), “all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders [i.e. the BLUE CORNERS] of their garments”

CLOSING REMARKS

When the Father sees Jesus, He sees us in Him. He sees us against the background of completeness, perfection and grace.

When we come to church, we see more of Jesus Christ, and when this happens, your heart becomes bigger and this increases the capacity of your heart to receive blessings. It is thus so important that your heart is big in order to receive the blessings.

Be careful and do not let the spirit of the World creep in.

You cannot explain to the world, spiritual things, or things which require spiritual discernment. Just like you cannot explain a kiss. If you explain a kiss in purely scientific terms, it would be such a shallow definition. Likewise, if we are to remain only in the scientific, visible realm, we are very poor indeed, as there is more than one knowledge outside the realm of science.

Whatever we are conscious of, we manifest.

Adam had no precedent of death and therefore no consciousness of death. That is why Satan took many hundreds of years to finally ‘train’ Adam to die.

Now that we are regenerated Children of God, we must be conscious of Jesus Christ. We are not normal. We reject the world’s notion that at certain ages, we must grow old and that our bodies must mal-function, etc. Our new precedent is Christ Jesus! When we are conscious of Christ Jesus, we manifest Him in our lives, spirit, soul, and body!

*******

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: THE ABOVE NOTES WERE DRAFTED BY, DEVELOPED, COMPILED AND ORGANISED BY YEO CHOON MENG TERENCE IN HIS PERSONAL CAPACITY ON 6 MAY 2009 AND ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS ARE HIS ALONE. THE ABOVE NOTES ARE NOT REPRESENTATIONS OF, ATTRIBUTABLE TO OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH NEW CREATION CHURCH OR JOSEPH PRINCE MINISTRIES.

About these ads