Exodus 28

A Broidered Goat

A broidered coat (RV ‘a coat of checker work'). Exodus 28:4.

A broidered coat! Such was one of the garments Aaron was commanded to wear when he went in to minister before the Lord in the Holy Place. I wonder what it was like! Clever people who know about such things tell us that the word translated “broidered” should really read “checkered work,” and if you look up the Revised Version of the Bible you will find that that is how it is written there. The coat may have been made of some stuff woven with different colored threads, or it may have had a honeycomb or checkered pattern on it. In any case it was very wonderful and the finest that could be made.

There is not a little girl in church who does not know about Sunday clothes. You know how careful you have to be not to get them stained or soiled, and how careful mother is to hang them up in the wardrobe or lay them away in a drawer. The old idea of having Sunday clothes was a good one, but, girls, we should not call them “holy garments” nowadays, should we?

If you ever go to India, you will see that the veiled ladies there have special garments in which they go to worship. They wear a sari of a particular color it may be fawn, it may be white; and if there is embroidery on it, the workmanship will be exquisite. They regard that sari as being quite different from their festal garments. It is a holy garment.

What was really the idea in Aaron having a broidered coat? The Israelites were being trained to think of the great God as their King a King holy beyond their understanding and invisible to their mortal eyes. They believed that in some wonderful way He was in the Holy of Holies, and that he who ventured in there must have beautiful raiment of exquisite workmanship. It would satisfy them in a manner, and make their idea of God seem all the more real, when they saw the priest going in to pray for them, wearing a coat that they themselves had woven.

But Jesus Christ came to this world with a beautiful message. It was that the poorest worshipper might enter the Holy of Holies. There was no further need for the priest with the broidered coat. In His sight the garments of a poor woman or a poor little girl who loved Him were more beautiful than the most elaborately woven priestly coat.

One day, speaking to a great audience on a mountainside, He startled many of His hearers by proclaiming the laws of His new kingdom. They were laws that could be understood by the simplest and least educated of the people. They had to do just with people's hearts the hearts of those who could be humble, or who longed to be good. Some who listened to Him were first astonished and then angry, for they were very proud of broidered coats, and other things of the same kind. No! they would not listen to Jesus Christ. And, do you wonder? It must have been galling for men with proud hearts to hear Jesus saying that those who would enter the Kingdom of Heaven must become as little children.

Boys and girls, Christ had a special message for you. He loved children. And when you say your prayers in real earnest, it is like a child speaking to a father; you enter the Holy of Holies.

What, then, is the meaning of preaching about a broidered coat at all? I once knew two very interesting boys belonging to one family. They had heard a great deal about Jesus Christ in their home, and one of them the older of the two came to be spoken of in the country village where they lived as a young Christian. The other boy was not a great favorite. His personality was less friendly and rather quiet. But years afterwards the “quiet” boy was doing good work in the world, while the likeable one had come to be referred to as “poor John.” John had lived in a lazy, careless way, while his quieter, less confident brother had been patiently working at his “broidered coat”. Can you guess what I mean?

From my window I can see every morning children at play. There is one boy I notice specially; he has a very bad temper. He constantly quarrels with his companions. If he grows up without curbing that temper, don't you think he will be a very disagreeable man? And I see little girls disobedient when their mothers call them to go into the house. If that boy and those little girls are ever to be good men and women good citizens they must work every day at their broidered coat which is their character. It will take a great deal of going into the Holy Place, and it will mean an everyday fight with the evil that is in their hearts.

But take heart, dear children! Jesus Christ is the friend of boys and girls; and if you ask Him He will help you to be good to weave your broidered coat.