(Ver 1.2)  There are many people who do not understand how the Bible was written.  God has hidden a countless number of mysteries, riddles and puzzles in the Bible for us to solve with His help.  These riddles are always word based puzzles.  All of these puzzles are implemented with techniques that use hidden and spread out information that makes them very hard to find.  These mysteries are of course much more difficult to solve than they are to find but many of the puzzles are also very hard to recognize by just reading the Bible.  Today I am going to show you one of these very complex puzzles that I have been working on from the Bible for several years and so far have not completely solved the entire mystery of the puzzle.  I want to share what I know today with those on the Web to challenge you to see it and then to think and help me to see things that maybe I have not thought of.  There are certainly people on the web that have also found this puzzle, but clearly they have not understood it completely either.  I believe that since we are so very close to the time of the end, that God is intending that we should know what these puzzles mean before He returns for us.  The biggest problem that I have with most of the interpretations that I have found on the web concerning this mystery is that they are all someone’s opinion on what it means.  No one gave any Bible verses to establish the truth.  So that is a major problem with most interpretations, they are “Private Interpretations” and these are not allowed (2 Peter 1:20).  This however, does not stop men from coming up with their own personal interpretations of what they think the Bible means.  The Spirit of God began to show me this puzzle almost 20 years ago and even though I have studied it over and over, I have not come to a definite meaning to what is being taught.  So, I will share with you what I know and maybe God can use someone else to help solve the mystery.  In the Old Testament, Moses was given specific instructions of how to make the Temple of God and the garments of the Priests.  There are several articles of clothing of the priests with some very specific items that all must have symbolic meanings.  The garments of the priest are said to be holy.  One of the key pieces of the Priest’s wardrobe was a breastplate.  This breastplate was put on over the head and shoulders of the high priest and covered his chest and back areas of his body.  This resembles what many soldiers wore while they were in battle to protect themselves from blows to their bodies.  The breastplate was an outward covering of the body and specifically the upper torso.

There are two places in Exodus that specifically lists the qualities found in the breastplate and these verses describe the breastplate to us in some detail.  One of the places this is found is in Exodus 28 and the other is in found Exodus 39.  We will only focus in on the description found in Exodus 28 in this lesson today:

Exo 28:15  And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.

The priest’s breastplate is called the Breastplate of Judgment.  The word judgment means a judge’s verdict or degree, either for or against you.    Every mention of titles, names or specific qualities of the breastplate I believe all have symbolic meanings.  I believe that God is more interested in teaching us about spiritual things than He is making us look like we worship external manmade idols.  The breast plate consists of three colors of threads.  One is Blue, the second is purple and the third was scarlet.  I believe these colors also have symbolic meanings attached to them.  Now God begins to describe the stones that should be included on the external covering of the breastplate:

Exo 28:17  And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.

As you can see God picks very specific stones and a very specific arrangement, placement and order to each stone.  The stones are arranged as we discover in 4 rows of 3 stones each for a total of 12 stones in all.  This is a very key number to remember.  I believe that the number 12 is also symbolic of spiritual things.  We know from study that Israel had 12 tribes, that there are 12 hours in a day,  Jesus picked 12 apostles and the foundation of the New Jerusalem has 12 specific parts that we may look at later.  Let’s continue through the rest of the rows of stones given by God:

Exo 28:18  And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.

Exo 28:19  And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.

Exo 28:20  And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.

So we have a list of 12 unique individual stones with no duplicates arranged in a pattern of rows and columns.  It just so happens that rows and columns are a sommone type of computer database concept and terminology.  If you are familiar with Spread Sheets like Microsoft Excel, then you also can understand how rows and columns play a factor in what God is showing us by this specific diagramed information.  If you understand these concepts it may help you to see where we go later in this lesson.  Then in the next verse in Exodus we see another association being made.

Exo 28:21  And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.

Each stone is engraved with the name of the sons of Jacob.  What order to place the names, however is not given to us.  We could assume that it is in the order of birth given to us in Genesis 29 and 30, or we could assume it is in some other order like the names of the tribes given to us in Revelation 7:5-8 or even Ezekiel 48:31-34.  However, in each case example that I just gave you, God lists the 12 sons of Jacob in a different sequence.  So which is the right one and does it even matter?   Many have tried to come up with the sons of Israel names associated with each stone, but I am not convinced any of them are right.  I have read at least 3 or 4 possible renditions on the web of who they thought the stones were and they were all different and nobody could tell us why they picked one to be associated to the other.  It could be that the names being associated with each of the stones is not important, or it could be that it is still just hidden from our view and we have not found it yet.  Here are the stones we found on the Priest’s breastplate listed in the specific Row order given to us by God.

I have listed the name of the stone from the KJV Bible as well as the Hebrew Strong’s number followed by a parenthesized number of times this specific word is mentioned in the O.T.   As you can clearly see 3 stones are only mentioned a total of 2 times in the Bible and only in the description of the Priest’s breastplate in Exodus.  This is Row 3 of the list of 12 stones.  Next you can see that 4 stones are mentioned in the bible only 3 times, 2 stones are mentioned 4 times, 1 stone is mentioned 7 times and finally 2 stones are mentioned a total of 11 times.  That is the makeup of the 12 stones and their frequency of word usage occurrence in the O.T. Hebrew Bible.  All this tells me is that 7 stones are only mentioned in the descriptions of the breastplates and then 5 stones have varying references from 1 additional mention to 4 mentions and finally to 8 additional mentions.  In reading these references I only saw Jasper mentioned in relation to the throne of God.  I then noticed Topaz mentioned as coming from Cush.  I did not see any references to any of the tribes of Israel so we still have a major mystery with relating the stones to the individual tribes of Israel.  It would appear that God does not mention this in the Bible or it is definitely hidden using a method that God has implemented to conceal the information.

Heb 8:5  Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.

So here we go with the beginning of the enormous mystery puzzle.  We know from the above verse in Hebrews that God gives us some valuable information of those things that were given to Moses in the O.T. Law.  God specifically tells us that those things that Moses created for God’s temple on the earth were shadows of the heavenly things that already preexisted in heaven.  That is very important information.  God has a temple in heaven that resembled the temple on the earth created by Moses.  This would have to mean that God had a high priest in heaven that also resembled the high priest here on earth.  Are you getting it so far?  We are now ready to see some more important clues found in Ezekiel 28:13 that seems to describe Lucifer or Satan as the type of or in the role of the high priest in heaven.  Satan is described to resemble the role of the high priest on the earth, but with 3 less stones on his covering.  Read this verse carefully:

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

If you go through the list of stones and lookup each of the Strong’s Hebrew words, you discover that each stone listed in this verse is an exact match for a stone found on the Mosaic priest’s breastplate.  They are of course listed in a completely different order. Then as you can determine by looking and counting, there are exactly 3 stones less with a total of only 9 stones being listed.  So we have to reorder them to see which ones are present and which ones are missing.   So not only does Satan have stones in a different order, he is missing a total of 3 stones.  By closer comparison you can determine that it is Row 3 of the high priest’s breastplate that is missing from the covering of Satan.

All of this is just too amazing to be a simple coincidence.  If you understand God you will know that God purposely hides information like this for us to discover.  Using database concepts, this information would represent a missing record from a file.  A record always contains related field information that is grouped, organized and associated to form the information in the row.  A row would be like the name and address for a customer.   Therefore, in database terms, we would have a table that has 4 rows of people’s names and addresses  that we know.  Each row would represent one person that we know and the information that we want to relate to that person, like their stree address, city, state and phone number.  These are just basic database concepts, but they must certainly apply to the puzzle being presented to us by God.  God is definitely trying to reveal something to us, but what it is, is the major question of the day?  What can we derive from the fact that exactly Row 3 is missing and not Rows 1, 2, or 4?  It would appear to me that since Row 3 is missing that it seems to be an indication that something was taken away from Satan and not just simply being added to the high priest on the earth.  However, that is not a complete factual reality, since in any spread sheet or database you can add a row anywhere you like.  So that is the mystery of the missing row in a nutshell.  What is being added to the earthly priest that Satan did not have?  Or what is being taken away from Satan that man still has?   Since the Bible does not appear to answer the missing row question specifically from Satan’s breastplate, nor the names of the tribes of Israel can be directly tied to each stone, then this forced me to change my perspective and to look in the Bible for alternative related subjects and topics in order to come up with a better understanding for what God is trying to teach us.  Sometimes I have learned that if you can’t understand it from one perspective then you better change your perspective to see it differently and this is what I’ll do for the rest of this lesson.  I learned that the Bible says God does not change, so the Bible does not change either, it is only our view of the Bible that should be affected.  Did you understand what I just said?  It was very important!

You see, I believe the Bible clearly reveals to us that the people in the church are a spiritual pattern of the Old Testament Mosaic priests.  These O.T. natural Priests were given to us as natural views into the coming spiritual truths and realities found in the New Testament.   Let me briefly show you some scriptures in the N.T. that seem to indicate this to us:

1Pe 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

As you can see this verse both calls people in the church living stones as well as being a people who are called a “holy priesthood”.   I do not think this is an accident that God mentions these two things in one verse.  It would appear that there is a definitive association to the stones found within the breastplate of the O.T. priest.  In this verse you can clearly see that we in the church are supposed to offer to God a spiritual sacrifice and not a physical one.  So the people in the church are the new spiritual priests of God.  Could we possibly be replacing Satan the original heavenly priest?  If the church is also the spiritual priests of God, what kind of spiritual breastplate are we now wearing?  If you noticed I did say a spiritual breastplate and not a physical breastplate.  The O.T. breastplate is clearly a symbolic representation of something that we cannot see with our natural eyes.

1Pe 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Here is another witness to the fact that the church is called a royal priesthood of God.  You see the word “priesthood” comes from a Greek word meaning to “execute the priest’s office”.  To do what the priest did physically, but do it now in the spiritual realm for real.   We have observed two major verses in the N.T. written to the church of God that tell us we are now God’s spiritual priests, but let’s look at one more for fun:

Rev 1:6  And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Here is another witness found in the Bible that says the members of the church have been placed into the office of a “priest” unto God.  You can clearly see from these three witnesses that the church is directly called priests.  So we are at the point now to try to figure out what the breastplate might represent to us as God’s priests.

Eph 6:14  Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

As you can clearly see, this verse describes Christians as wearing a “breastplate of righteousness”.  This statement is made in the clear context with a description of the armor of God and is starkly contrasted with the O.T. “breastplate of Judgment”.  So it is not directly a high priest type of breastplate or is it?  It still could be considered very similar.  As you recall in the description of the high priests breast plate it was labeled the breastplate of judgment a figurative named title just as our breastplate is stated to also be a figurative described title.  The one of judgment is obviously very different than the other that is given to us for righteousness.  However, the Bible says that we have been justified and redeemed and therefore we are not under the condemnation or judgment of the law.  Since we have been freely given the righteousness of Jesus, I believe that we would be wearing a different type of priest’s covering than the one found in the O.T. law.

1Th 5:8  But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

I am convinced that the Bible gives us many clues in little pieces that we need to put together correctly.  Here we again see another reference to us wearing a breastplate, but this time it is mentioned in conjunction with two new terms called faith and love.  Do you realize that faith and love are two of the fruits of the spirit mentioned in the New Testament?   Do you also realize that there are 9 direct fruits of the spirit mentioned in this verse in Galatians?   I believe the reoccurrence of the number 9 is again more than a simple coincidence.

Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

So are these 9 fruits being mentioned in a list just a mere coincidence?  The only way you know there are nine is by us counting them.  Of course the only way you know there were only 9 stones on the breastplate of Satan was to count them also.  How many stones did Satan have?  You know by now that Satan had only 9 stones.  We can logically conclude that since the High priest’s breastplate had 12 stones, 3 more than Satan’s breastplate that God is trying to tell us something very important.  I personally believe that the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians are missing 3 fruits and here is one of the main reasons that I believe this:

Rev 22:2  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

So I believe this verse has some more major clues in it that are applicable to our puzzle solution.  This verse clearly mentions the number 12 and this is the same number of stones on the O.T. High Priests breastplate.  Then there is a connection of the number 12 to fruit which we discovered this connection when looking at the fruits of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness found in the N.T.  It is also interesting to note another connection found in this verse connecting these 12 fruits to the tree of life.  If you have ever read some of my other lessons you know that the tree of life is a clear reference to the people in the church.    Here is an example of one of these verses:

Pro 11:30  The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.

As you should be able to see this verse says that we have “fruit”, “righteousness” and the “tree of life” all mentioned in one verse and there is no way that this is there by chance or accident.  In the N.T. the people in the church are clearly those who have been given God’s righteousness.  We clearly saw verses that said the breastplate of righteousness was part of our spiritual wardrobe.   Then there is this very simple fact that almost all natural fruit grows  on trees.  You do not plant a fruit seed like an orange seed and get more oranges; you first get a tree and that tree will produce the oranges.  So where does spiritual fruit come from?  Spiritual fruit must also come from a spiritual tree.   I believe these righteous trees are those who have been given eternal life by God.

Pro 15:4  A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.

We are given another clue to this fruit that we are to produce and this is by our mouth and the words that we speak.  This is one of the key reasons that I teach a lot on the importance of your spoken words.  There are many verses that I can give you that are related and I will give you a couple of them:

Pro 12:28  In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.

Here in this verse we can see a reference to a pathway, righteousness and life and these are all being connected or linked together again.  We saw in Revelation 22:2 that the tree of life was in the middle of what?  This verse says that the tree of life was found in the middle of the street.  Is a street a pathway?  I believe it can be.  It is often times called a highway, a parkway, a drive or other words in our English language but a way to go is the clear reference being given to us.  So we can see in Proverbs 12:28 that the righteous are intended for life and this would imply the ability to produce the 12 kinds of fruit mentioned in Revelation 22:2 on the tree of life.  If you study the Bible in the Old Testament, trees are many times used as symbols for people.   So a symbolic a group of “trees of life” in Revelation 22 could also be a righteous group of God’s people.

It is also interesting to note that in Revelation 22:2 that there are 12 fruits that are produced every month.  How many months are there?  In our calendar there are 12 months in a year.  So we have two number twelve’s being related together.  If you multiply 12 x 12 you get 144 and this is a number that occurs other places in the bible.  If you add 12 + 12 you get 24 and this number also appears in the Bible multiple times.  So are these coincidences or simply clues to a greater mystery.  I think I’ll end this lesson here today, for I do not want to overwhelm you with too many questions to consider all at once.  What I want you to do is recognize that there are little clues found in the Bible that are repeated to display hidden information that has meaning and significance.  I believe very firmly that the righteous ones are those who are supposed to be producing 12 kinds of fruits of the spirit.  What the other 3 fruits are, represents the missing row on the breastplate of righteousness of Christians.  This is another mystery of Biblical proportions.  But, the patterns and information being given to us is clearly not by accident or chance.  What we must do is study to show ourselves approved and continue to ask God to reveal to us the mysteries of the Bible.  God Bless!