I greet everybody in Jesus' name.
I really appreciate this verse 3 of the
song we just sang.
Redeemer, Savior, Friend of man, once ruined by
the fall, Thou hast devised salvation's plan, for
Thou hast died for all.
And blessed be the name.
Let's stand for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for all
your goodness and all your kindness and all
your mercies to us.
We recognize you as our Father in heaven
and that your name is holy.
We pray that your kingdom would come and
your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors and lead us not into temptation.
Deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
I suppose you all know what it's like
to have a bit of a stirring inside
you, like a good kind of a stirring,
the kind that has you excited to share
some good exciting bit of news.
That's a little how I feel this morning.
When Moses was born, he was hid for
three months because the Egyptians were out to
kill all male children.
And so they kept him hid.
They wanted to keep him.
And after three months, they were afraid they
couldn't hide him any longer.
So they made this little basket and they
laid him in there.
And the mama, if we have her name,
it's not coming to me right now, but
her mama or his mama laid him out
in the calm waters of the Nile, back
by the bulrushes.
And she had his sister Miriam watch over
it.
And Pharaoh's daughter comes down there to wash
herself.
And she sees this little basket and she
tells her maid servants to go get it.
And she opens it up and here's a
little child.
And she takes pity on him.
And immediately Miriam comes up, runs to her
and says, should I go get somebody to
nurse this child for you?
And she says, yes, let's do that.
And then once this child doesn't need to
be nursed anymore, bring him to me.
It's my child.
That's how Moses's life begins.
And so that's what happened.
And I don't know the age that Moses
was weaned, two, three, I don't know.
And then he grew up as Pharaoh's daughter.
I doubt that he remembered much of his
life at home.
But it says, the scriptures say that he
grew up as Pharaoh's daughter.
When Stephen recounts this, when he's giving this
story of the Old Testament before the council,
he says Pharaoh's daughter nurtured him as her
own son.
He says he was educated in all the
learnings of the Egyptians.
And he was a man of power, both
in word and deed.
And so we don't know much about Moses's
life between his birth and when he was
40 years old.
But that he was raised in Egypt in
that time.
At some point in his life, whether it
was gradually, whether it was suddenly, but at
some point in his life, he came to
the realization, this is not where I belong.
I was not born for this.
I was not born an Egyptian.
I belong to those Hebrews.
I'm out of my place.
This is not what the Creator made me
for.
And so as the Hebrew writer says, by
faith, when he had grown up, he refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the pleasure of
sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasure in Egypt.
It can have a powerful effect on us
when we come to realize who we're supposed
to be, what we were created for, and
what the expectation is for us.
Sometimes when we get away from just zooming
in on, okay, here's the things we ought
to be doing, and we look at the
big picture of who we're supposed to be,
it has a powerful effect on us.
I well remember back when I was in
my 20s, and I was reading through Peter
Hoover's The Secret of the Strength, and in
some fresh way, in some new way that
I hadn't realized before in my life, I
realized the message of Jesus is simply, follow
me.
He is asking us to just follow him,
to be like him, to walk the way
he walked, to do the things that he
would do.
And it had a powerful effect on me,
more than just realizing, okay, here we have
a Bible, and it says things that God
does, it says things that we should do.
We're supposed to be like Jesus.
And especially the freshness and the newness of
it had an effect on me.
I could tell it enabled me.
It enabled me to resist sin in a
new way.
I remember particularly one time when all this
was real fresh on my mind, and I
went to this grocery store.
And in this particular grocery store, when you
got done at the cashier, you had to
make a left and turn along this wall
to go out the door.
And all along that wall was this huge
rack of magazines.
Probably none of them had anything good in
them.
Half of them were probably not fit to
see.
But I just remember when I got done
with my groceries and I walked out there,
I was not even tempted to look at
the magazine rack.
It was like Jesus would have no interest
here, and I was being like Jesus.
And it really helped me not even be
tempted, because I realized who I was made
to be, who we are supposed to be.
And it wasn't just like a, don't do
this.
But I was trying to be like somebody.
It does.
This realization of who we're supposed to be
can have a gripping effect on us and
convict us of evil and to help us
say no to sin and to pursue what's
right.
And I want to talk today about a
thing that we're supposed to be, something that
the scripture says that we are supposed to
be, and that is a royal priesthood.
We are supposed to be a royal priesthood.
Let me just read this verse here in
1 Peter, in the second chapter, in verse
9, where he says, But you are a
chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people for God's own possession, so that
you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
has called you out of darkness and into
his marvelous light.
This is a pretty high calling.
This is a pretty big position.
A royal priesthood, and our duty is to
proclaim the excellencies of God, of the one
who called us out of darkness and into
his marvelous light.
We're supposed to proclaim that.
I think the King James says to show
forth his praises.
We're supposed to be the publishers of the
goodness of Christ.
That's what we're called for.
By definition, that's what a priest is.
He is one especially consecrated to the service
of divinity and through whom worship, prayer, sacrifice,
and other service is offered to the object
of worship and pardon, blessing, or deliverance is
obtained by the worshiper.
That's one definition I found of priest.
A priest is required to act as a
mediator.
He is the one who represents God to
the people and in return represents the people
to God.
The priest, he is a figure, he is
an image that God appoints on his behalf
to represent himself to the rest of humanity.
And the priest in return is to beseech
God on behalf of the people to bring
God the prayers, the offerings, the praise, and
so forth.
He is like the gateway between humanity and
God.
God wants a chosen generation.
He wants a royal priesthood so that his
presence would flow out over all the earth.
And that's quite a position.
And don't forget that it says a royal
priesthood.
That's royalty.
That's kingly in nature.
We are with the ranks of a king.
Who was the first priest?
Anybody want to take a...
Before Melchizedek, at least, not before him because
he was maybe without beginning and end, but
we read about him before Melchizedek.
He doesn't get called a priest, but he
is a priest.
It's Adam.
He was the first priest.
He was the first representative of God.
He was made for this purpose that a
priest has.
He was made in the image of God.
Adam and Eve are God's priests to take
care of creation.
As the image of God, they represent God
to creation.
And as the jewel of his creation, they
represent creation before God.
Adam means human and Eve means life.
Adam and Eve are the human life that
God created.
And the whole purpose of creating human life
was to be his royal priesthood or his
royal representatives to represent him here to creation.
He put Adam and Eve in a holy
place and he called the place Eden.
Now, Eden, and this is something I just
came across recently, or realized recently, Eden was
not the garden.
Eden was the region.
Eden was the region and then within the
region of Eden, he planted a garden.
And then within the garden, he planted the
tree of life and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
There is evidence that Eden was on a
mountaintop, on a highland.
You get the idea, this is not just
totally explicit, but you get this idea that
a river flowed out of Eden and that
it separated and went into four waters flowing
each direction and watering the whole surrounding area,
which is an indication of it being up
high, higher than anything else.
There's also the account in Ezekiel where the
prophet is describing Eden and he calls it
the holy mountain of God.
Adam and Eve were instructed to work and
keep the garden.
They were supposed to rule creation on God's
behalf, to be fruitful and to multiply and
to fill it.
And here in this holy place was the
presence of God.
There was constant communication between God and Adam
and there was abundant blessings.
There was bounty and there was perfect peace
and love here.
The perfection of blessing, joy, peace and love
was right here in the garden.
We know the story.
Adam and Eve were not satisfied with being
the image of God and they took a
jab at being God and they fell into
sin.
They were expelled from the garden and they
were driven out toward the east, out of
the garden.
And he placed cherubims at the east entrance
of the garden to guard the way to
the tree of life.
Cherubims are angelic beings of some sorts.
So this garden, this paradise that had been
holy, that had been a holy mountain, where
God's presence was, this is what it was
and man was no longer holy and he
could not be there.
Humanity had lost its position that God had
created it to be.
The very thing that God had created them
to be and wanted them to be, they
lost it.
They could no longer be it.
As I understand it, to start with, Adam
and Eve were not driven completely out of
Eden.
They were driven out of the garden.
And it wasn't until Cain and Abel offered
a sacrifice and Cain rose up and slew
Abel that they were just further driven out
and out of Eden altogether.
Adam and Eve, or in other words human
life, lost its access to not only the
tree of life but to the garden and
to all of Eden.
This paradise, this ultimate state of being in
delight and peace and love, it was lost.
But God had a plan to undo it.
If we go forward, and I'm talking to
people who are generally pretty familiar with the
whole biblical account, but if we go forward
to Exodus chapter 19, if
I understand this correctly, God had this plan
to take the descendants of Abraham, all of
them, the whole of Israel, and he was
going to make them a priesthood.
He was going to have them be a
royal priesthood, a special priesthood.
This is what he says in chapter 19
in verse 3.
He says, Then Moses went up the mountain
of God, and God called to him from
the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to
the house of Jacob and tell the children
of Israel, You have seen what I did
to the Egyptians and how I bore you
out on eagles' wings and brought you to
myself.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my
voice and keep my covenant, you shall be
a special people to me above all nations,
for all the earth is mine.
You shall be to me a royal priesthood
and a holy nation.
These are the words you shall speak to
the children of Israel.
This was before the golden calf event.
And God was wanting to take Israel and
have them be his representatives to the whole
world.
But then this golden calf thing happened, and
they started worshiping a calf, saying, This is
the one who brought us out of the
land of Egypt.
And God was furious, and Moses was furious,
and Moses came down from the mountain, and
he said to the congregation, Whoever is on
the Lord's side, come over here.
And the Levites came over.
And Moses told the Levites, Get your swords.
Go out and kill your neighbors and your
companions.
And they went out, and they just did
a slaughter and killed 3,000 men.
There was something, I think there was a
special zeal that the Levites had, especially a
zeal for holiness, a zeal for worship, and
to not be idolaters.
And so God said, I'll make a priesthood
out of the Levites.
God gave Moses instructions in great detail about
the priesthood and their duties, and the tabernacle
and where they were supposed to do it.
The tabernacle was a very important place.
It was a holy place.
It was a sacred tent that the Israelites
carried with them as they journeyed through the
wilderness.
It was the place where the presence of
God dwelled.
And so it was typically set up in
the center of the garden.
There were particular ways it was supposed to
be set up.
Well, first of all, it was designed after
a certain way, and I think it was
designed after the Garden of Eden.
It had an outer court, and inside that
it had a tent that had an entry
room.
And inside the tent there was a curtain,
and behind the curtain was the Holy of
Holies.
And on the curtains there was figures of
cherubims symbolically guarding the way into this Holy
of Holies.
And they were always supposed to set it
up with the entrance toward the east.
Whenever it was possible, it was supposed to
be set up on, or it was set
up on high places, on mountains.
Only the priests and the Levites were allowed
to enter the outer court.
Only the priests were allowed to enter the
entry room, and only the high priest, once
a year, was allowed to go behind the
curtain into the Holy of Holies.
It was a very, very holy place.
The work of the priests, God said, is
to work and keep the sanctuary of the
tabernacle.
That is just about exact, if not exact,
wording that was given to Adam and Eve,
to work and keep the garden.
They were to work and keep this tabernacle.
They served, the priests and Levites served as
mediators between God and the people.
They took the people's sacrifices and offered them
up to God.
They interceded on behalf of the people before
God.
They would inquire God for the nation.
They were the guards of the tabernacle.
They were to seek the law.
They were to be the messengers of the
God of hosts.
They were the teachers, they were the scribes,
the judges, the musicians, the singers, and the
doorkeepers.
They were to be the regulators.
They were responsible to make sure that the
weights and measures were accurate, that people used.
They were very active in representing God to
the people, and the people to God.
They were to be so dedicated to this
work that they did not receive an inheritance
of land.
When all the other eleven tribes received an
inheritance of land to till it and to
work it and to raise things, the Levites
did not receive that.
They were supposed to be so totally dedicated
to the work of God.
I think in the book of Joshua it
says, for the Lord himself is their inheritance.
They lived by a somewhat different standard.
They had to undergo a purification.
They could not marry a divorced woman or
a prostitute.
They had to be without blemish.
I want to read to you in Leviticus,
chapter 21, verses 16-24.
It says, Now the Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, Speak to Aaron, saying, No man of
your descendants in succeeding generations who has any
defect may approach to offer the gifts of
his God.
For any man who has a defect shall
not approach.
A man, lame or blind, who has a
slit nose or ear, a man who has
a broken hand or foot, or is hunchbacked,
or has a defect in his eye, or
an inflammation with respect to his eye, or
a man with a severe itch or a
single testicle, no man of the seed of
Aaron, the priest who has a defect, shall
come near to offer the sacrifice of your
God.
He has a defect.
He shall not come near to offer the
gifts of your God.
The gifts of his God are most holy,
and he may eat only the holy things.
But he shall not go near the veil
or approach the altar, because he has a
defect, lest he defile the holy place of
his God.
For I, the Lord, sanctified them.
Thus Moses told this to Aaron and his
sons and to all the children of Israel.
Remember, the priests were the representation of God.
They were the image of God to the
people.
That's why they were not, I think if
you read it in the Masoretic text, a
dwarf is included in there.
There was not supposed to be this obvious
blemish in someone who works in the tabernacle.
Or who enters it, for that matter.
So that's a little description of the tabernacle.
Now later, David got this idea after the
children of Israel had settled in the land
of Canaan.
They might have moved the tabernacle a few
times, but it had kind of come to
settle somewhere on some mountain there.
But David got this idea, why should the
Lord dwell in a tent?
And I dwell in a house of cedar.
And he had this idea of building a
house, a temple for the Lord.
Solomon ended up building that.
But I found some of this, just this
information interesting.
I just think, I sometimes think we just
scratched the surface on the richness of the
types and the way God did things, where
he did them, how and when these things
all were.
So when David was king and he captured
the Jebusites, he made their city the capital.
And he expanded it.
And he purchased the threshing floor.
And this is, you're probably familiar with that
story.
But David had sinned.
Toward the end of David's life, David had
sinned.
He had taken a census of the people
and taken a count to see how powerful
he is.
I think that's the mind behind it.
It's like, look at my achievements.
And he took a count and it really
came back to him.
In fact, I think it's a similar sin
that Adam did in not being satisfied with
the blessings of being in God's will and
wanted to elevate himself concerning his achievements.
And the result was widespread death.
After David committed that sin, there came a
plague and people started dying.
Unlike Adam, who shifted the blame, David took
it upon himself.
When he saw that angel with a drawn
out sword there at the threshing floor of
Orna, this is what he said.
He said, I am the shepherd and I
have done wickedly.
But these sheep, what have they done?
Let your hand, I pray thee, be against
me and against my father's house.
And it goes on to say in verse
18 there of 2 Samuel, last chapter, And
Gad came to David that day and said
to him, Go up and erect an altar
to the Lord on the threshing floor of
Orna, the Jebusite.
So David went up according to the word
of Gad as the Lord commanded.
Now Orna looked and saw the king and
his servants coming toward him.
So Orna went out and bowed before the
king with his face to the ground.
Then Orna said, Why has my lord the
king come to his servant?
And David said, To buy the threshing floor
from you to build an altar to the
Lord so the plague may be withdrawn from
the people.
Now Orna said to David, Let my lord
the king take and offer up whatever seems
good to him to the Lord.
Look, here are oxen for a burnt sacrifice
and threshing implements and yokes of the oxen
for wood.
And Orna gave all these things to the
king.
And Orna said to the king, May the
Lord your God bless you.
Then the king said to Orna, No, but
I will surely buy it from you for
a price.
I will not offer burnt offerings to the
Lord my God with something that costs me
nothing.
So David bought the threshing floor and the
oxen for 50 shekels of silver.
And David built an altar there to the
Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
And Solomon later made a larger offering upon
the altar for a small one was made
first.
So the Lord heeded the prayers of the
land and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.
I find it interesting.
And I think we can learn from this
where David says, I will not offer burnt
offerings.
This Orna was saying, Oh, you want the
threshing floor?
Take it.
Not only that, I've got oxen here working
here.
Use these.
And I got threshing implements.
Use these for the kindling, for the fire.
And David is like, No, I won't offer
a sacrifice to the Lord that costs me
nothing.
Anyway, I find it real interesting.
It is on this mountain.
This place where this happened was up from,
okay, so there was the city of the
Jebusites, which was already up on a high
land.
But on up from there toward the top
of, I think it was Mount Moriah, is
where the threshing floor was.
And this is the piece of ground that
he purchased.
And there is where he built his altar
to cease the plague.
It is the same spot, they say, that
Abraham had offered up Isaac many, many years
before.
And it is the same spot that Solomon
ended up building the temple.
There just seems to be this, I think
typology can sometimes be taken too far, but
there seems to be this type of some
of these particular places are on mountaintops, on
a high place, oftentimes with a tree.
Not always, but I think it is
a type of where literally heaven and earth
meet.
It is where the earth and the heavens
meet, which is, again, which is what was
supposed to be happening at Eden.
It is what is supposed to be happening
at the tabernacle.
And now this temple is being built on
this high mountain.
And the temple follows this same pattern of
the tabernacle, which followed the pattern of Eden.
I think the temple is just yet a
bigger prototype of something.
It is a bigger prototype of something that
we will get to yet.
There was the outer court.
There was the temple inside.
It was facing east.
Within the temple was an enormous curtain.
And it had cherubims on it guarding the
inside of the place called the Holy of
Holies.
They say this temple or this curtain was
as thick as a man's arm.
It was a huge, thick curtain of some
kind guarding the way to the Holy of
Holies.
The temple was to be a holy, consecrated
place of worship.
And here comes Jesus, the true high priest,
the perfect representation of God on earth.
Faultless, without blemish.
The perfect union of God and man.
The perfect coming together of God and man
is found in Jesus.
And he did something early in his ministry
that was a really radical thing.
If you would, or if you want to,
I'll read the account in John chapter 2.
Starting in verse 13.
It says, The Passover of the Jews was
near.
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he
found in the temple those who were selling
oxen and sheep and doves and the money
changers seated at the tables.
And he made a scourge of cords and
he drove them all out of the temple
with the sheep and the oxen.
And he poured out the coins of the
money changers and overturned the tables.
And those who were selling the doves, he
said, Take these things away.
Stop making my Father's house a place of
business.
And his disciples remembered that it was written,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
And the Jews then said to him, What
sign do you show us as your authority
for doing these things?
And Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple and
in three days I will raise it up.
And the Jews then said, It took 46
years to build this temple and you will
raise it up in three days?
But he was speaking of the temple of
his body.
So when he was raised from the dead,
the disciples remembered that he had said this.
And they believed the scripture and the word
which Jesus had spoken.
Now it seems like, as best as I
can tell, it seems like this happening, this
thing of him cleansing out the temple might
have happened twice.
John records it as if it's something that
happened very early in his ministry.
Very, very soon after he performed his first
miracle at Canaan.
But if you read the other gospels, they
all kind of place it toward the end.
And I assume maybe it happened twice.
But I want to get something out of
Matthew's account where Matthew says it.
Jesus said, It is written, My house shall
be called a house of prayer.
But you are making it a robber's den.
That was after he had drove them out.
He said that.
And then it says, And the blind and
the lame came to him in the temple,
and he healed them.
And when the chief priests and scribes saw
the wonderful things that he'd done and the
children who were shouting in the temple, Hosanna
to the Son of David, they became indignant
and said to him, Do you hear what
these children are saying?
And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you
never read out of the mouth of infants
and nursing babies?
You have prepared praises for yourself.
I think this is just another example of
a shadow or a prototype in the old
covenant that was pointing, and even the laws
pertaining it, that was pointing towards a real
thing.
And when the real thing came, they missed
it.
They totally missed it.
There was meaning behind these things that were
said in the old covenant when it says,
Don't let those come to the temple who
are blind and lame.
There's meaning behind that.
I think he's talking about spiritual blindness and
lameness or the ones who are hunchbacked, who
are under the burden of the world or
the dwarfs, the ones who couldn't grow spiritually.
They're somehow stunned.
The guys with a flat nose whose senses
are dull or broken stone are the people
who are not fruitful spiritually.
These people should not work in the temple.
There's meaning behind that.
But when Jesus comes, what does he find?
What does he find in the temple?
He finds it filled with people who are
spiritually unfruitful, who have dull senses, who are
hunchbacked, who are blind, who are crippled, who
are doing all these crooked dealings and cheatings
and he's right there in the temple.
And once he had these well-clad and
rich merchants cleared out of the way and
the last animals scampered down the steps and
the last pigeons winged their way out, who
came?
The blind, the lame, the cripples, the poor,
the children.
They all came up to the temple and
were singing Hosanna!
And he healed them.
He restored them.
And he made this holy place accessible to
them.
Now it's quite understandable why the priests and
the Levites who were supposed to be the
guards of this place, it's kind of understandable
why they became pretty livid and how they
set out to kill this man who defied
their authority and claimed it for himself.
And they succeeded in their evil plot and
they crucified Jesus, the perfect representative of God,
on a hilltop, on a tree.
But if we can receive it, if we
can see it, Jesus gave his life.
They didn't take it, he gave it.
His cleansing the temple and inviting the poor
and the needy into the entry room wasn't
enough.
It wasn't a satisfactory reconciliation for God.
And so something else happened.
When he died, that thick curtain, that thick
curtain that had the thickness of a man's
arm, try to take a piece of fabric
sometime and just try to rip it.
Some fabric is pretty easy to tear if
it's thin, but if you can even imagine
a piece of fabric the thickness of your
arm, I suppose we could hang two skid
-steers on it and not tear it.
But that curtain just rent.
When he died, that curtain rent from top
to bottom and opened up to the Holy
of Holies.
It is accessible.
As the Hebrew writer says, Jesus enters as
a forerunner into the Holy of Holies.
This paradise, this Eden, it can be restored
even though it was lost.
That thief on the cross who took the
blame for his own sin and was promised
paradise, that's what it means.
This state of perfect peace and love, we
can have it.
It can be restored.
What shall we say?
How shall we conduct ourselves?
How shall we escape if we neglect so
great a salvation?
I think figuratively speaking, Jesus is inside this
Holy of Holies and we are called to
be his royal priesthood.
We're supposed to be going in and out
between God and the world.
We're supposed to be representing God to the
people and the people to God.
We are to be the workers and the
keepers of what he created.
We're to be the rulers of it.
We're supposed to fill the earth with perfect
love and peace.
We're to be the messengers, the teachers, the
scribes, the singers, and the doorkeepers.
This is what we were made for originally
from the beginning.
The priesthood of royalty, of the king of
kings.
You know why James calls loving your neighbor
as yourself the royal law?
Because it pertains to royalty.
It pertains to, it's a kingly thing.
It's something that pertains to the king of
all the universe.
The prophet Isaiah said, you shall be a
royal diadem in the hands of your God.
Let me take this one step further yet.
The scriptures say we are the temple.
We are meant to be a holy place
for God to dwell in.
And I hope I'm not stretching this allegory
too far when I say that I think
that these three parts, this reading of Egypt
and in it the garden and in it
the tree of life, this tabernacle and temple
who have the outer court and then the
entry room and then within that the holy
of holies.
I think perhaps the real thing is our
body, soul and spirit.
The outer court, the entry room and the
holy of holies.
The true peace of love in God is
supposed to fill our body, soul and spirit.
And when the presence of God fills every
fiber of our being, it is paradise restored.
It's Eden.
It's the state of perfect joy and happiness
and love and peace.
It's supposed to go out and multiply and
fill the earth.
It's what we were created to be from
the beginning.
My hope and the reason for what I
said about Moses there in the beginning and
that experience that I had is I hope
that the realization of not just these things
that we should do but the realization of
who we are meant to be, who we
are supposed to be can have the impact
on us that it ought to have.
Let's take the utmost care that we don't
defile this temple.
It's a holy place chosen by a king
and possessed by a king.
Let's not grieve the Holy Spirit.
Let's not be blind to the things of
God.
Let's not be broken footed and walk the
wrong way.
Let's not be broken handed and do the
wrong deeds or hunchbacked under the cares of
this world or slit-nosed or slit-eared
and be dull to our spiritual senses or
have an itching and always restless or unfertile
and bear no fruit.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says, We urge
you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint
-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone,
see that no one repays another with evil
for evil, but always seek after that which
is good for one another and for all
people, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything
give thanks, for this is God's will for
you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not despise prophetic utterances, but examine everything
carefully, hold fast to that which is good,
abstain from every form of evil.
This all starts sounding like priestly work, right?
And then this is what he ends up
saying in verse 23, Now may the God
of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may
your spirit and soul and body be preserved
complete without blame at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He who calls you and He
also will bring it to pass.
God has done His part in undoing this
expelling from the tree of life.
The grace of God has made it accessible
to all men.
And as it says in the last book,
in the last chapter of the Bible, John
saw this city coming down out of heaven,
down to the earth.
There was no temple in it, for God
was the temple.
God and the Lamb were the temple.
There was no darkness, for God was the
light.
Nothing unclean will ever enter it.
And He saw the river and the tree
of life for the healing of the nations.
May the Lord be magnified.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we ask you to help us to
let this sink into our hearts and minds
what you really created us to be and
how far we have fallen from that.
But we thank you for the ability to
be restored and to have all our lameness
and blindness and broken joints and sores healed
and restored.
We pray, Lord, that we can faithfully represent
you here on earth.
In Jesus' name, amen.
That clay was like the color red.
Yeah, blood.
Yeah, earth.
He was made from the earth.
But I mean, human blood.
I like blood, though.
Blood and life.
The life is in the blood.
Another thing I thought was really edifying, you
brought it all full circle there, but when
you were talking about how these temples, and
where are the temples?
These temples are on the hill where the
heavens meet the earth.
And then Jesus was the perfect priest who
was God the Father in heaven, in earth
the man.
That was really edifying.
I didn't have a whole lot to share,
just that I'm just thankful that you put
that together.
You started out by saying you're stirred to
share this message, and I just feel stirred
because this message is in me.
I felt really provoked and just I want
to go out and do something.
I just want to use this.
I feel like there is a power in
just knowing why we were created, and it's
a blessing to know that.
So God bless you.
Yeah, Brother Taylor, I appreciate you sharing that
because I was thinking the same.
It's like when you look at the words
that spin off the same root from Adam,
Adam, you've got ground, dirt, you've got the
color red, and then of course the idea
of man.
And then with Eve, in Hebrew, Haba, I
don't know how they get the word Eve,
King James Translates, I somehow got that from
that, but it's a Sephardic pronunciation of that,
the modern Hebrew pronunciation, but you know, life.
So when you put the two together, because
the two are no longer two, but they're
one, right?
And just like Taylor said, oh, I lost
it.
But like Taylor said, we've got life in
the blood.
So you've got Eve, Haba, that means life,
and then you've got, spinning out of that
root, Adamah, blood, or Adam, the color, Edom,
actually, I think is the way they would
say it.
And so you've got life in the blood,
you've got that idea, like Taylor said, with
the two together.
And I just find that interesting.
I don't know what kind of allegory would
come out of that, you know, prophetic sort
of thing, illustrated in the message, but I
just think that's interesting.
Another thing I was thinking, Dwayne, I really
appreciate this message.
Thank you.
Like brother Taylor said, very edifying.
Is, yeah, so the Beatitudes, one of them
particularly, blessed are the peacemakers, or blessed are
the peace-doers.
Like that's the idea of a priestly duty,
of bringing peace between God and man.
So one idea just occurred to me, was,
you know, I think it's Matthew 18, where
it's if there's some, if there's something between
you and your brother, to go to your
brother, and it seems like that function, that
act, is a priestly sort of thing, by
bringing peace.
Because if the brother was struggling with you,
and you go to him, obviously that's affecting
his relationship with God.
And now you by acting humbly, and helping
resolution between you, is going to help him
with God, or her with God as well.
And so that seems like a priestly duty.
So there's so many of these things, that
we never really think of it this way,
I don't think, at least I don't typically,
that are little spin-offs of this idea
of us being a royal priesthood.
And I guess one other thing I would
mention too is, I was looking at the
Greek when we were reading this passage in
1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10.
Most translations will say that for us to
proclaim the excellencies.
Well that word typically, I appreciate it better
this way.
It's the way I typically think of it.
Arete usually means virtue.
So we're to proclaim His virtues.
And that's more special to me, seeing it
that way.
I guess you could see it as excellencies,
but that just helps me.
So I just thought I would share that.
Amen.
Brother Dwayne, there's so many typologies that you
brought in, and I wonder how many we
miss.
You catch the ones in the mountains, and
other ones.
How many go over our head and we'll
never really hear?
And I appreciate it.
Brother Tao said, he stirred up the Gospel,
stirring it up.
And I heard someone say that a million
years from now, or a billion, or a
trillion years from now, all the opportunities we
missed.
We should have done things.
So we still have life in our blood,
and we can redeem in time.
All the opportunities.
We can say, if we make it up
there, we say, you know, we could have
done this, we could have done that, we
could have given more, we could have reached
out more.
So many things.
So let's encourage one another, exhort one another,
to keep the, you know, to reach out,
and to give ourselves to the Gospel's sake.
And one last thought would be, as you
started out, Brother Duane, you said that, it's
good news, I'm stirring up good news.
Well, I guess that Micah and Tao went
preaching last night, and I guess the other
night, some of Daniel, others Friday night, but
it's good news.
Gospel means good news.
It's good news to a small remnant of
people, but to the world, it's bad news.
It's bad news.
It's the aroma of death to death.
To most people, it's bad news.
And let's encourage them, let's love them.
Let's love them.
I know my wife, I didn't plan on
saying this, but one of her brothers was
divorced and remarried, and Sarah sent a letter
to the wife, and then to someone else,
the daughter, and she got two nasty letters
back, saying how hateful you are, and how
mean you are.
I know my father is in heaven, and
I know my husband's in heaven, and all
she did was just saying that you're not
living, you're married, you're living in adultery, and
saying that.
And so, no matter who it is, let's
remember that it's bad news to so many
people, and it's good news for us.
And thank you, Dwayne, for the message.
The Lord be magnified.
Yes, I would agree with the brother, and
it was a very thought-provoking message, thinking
of the places those priests have stood, the
responsibilities they had, the judgments for their seemingly
pretty slight mistakes.
If we look back on Moses, one of
the greatest, one of the most humble priests,
for a small mistake, he didn't make it
across.
He didn't cross into Canaan.
So, I believe that's the reason a lot
of us shrink from the thought that people
shrink from this type of message because it
places huge responsibilities where they belong.
And so, I would just pray for courage
to be what we're called to be, each
one of us.
Faithful in that.
Believing that husbands and fathers are responsible in
their homes.
They have a huge impact.
Their prayers.
As Dwayne mentioned, how the priests represent the
people to God and God to the people.
So is a man in his home.
And so the Lord, just help us each
to be faithful where we are.
Whatever our position is, whether a leader in
the home, whether an employee on a job,
whether a boss with responsibilities to do, the
Lord, just help us be faithful in those
and take responsibility where we're to take responsibility.
So many times if the priest in the
situation won't step up and be faithful, it
just really makes it hard for those who
are dependent on them.
If the husband isn't willing to step up
and be who he is to be, it
leaves the responsibility for that to the wife
who's the weaker vessel.
We're leaving the outcome of a lot of
things to the weaker vessel.
If an employer isn't willing to step up
and be who he's supposed to be, it
falls on his employees to make up the
difference.
And they can.
Many do.
But it's much harder than when we follow
God's order.
And the blessing can flow as it's meant
to.
Yeah, thank you for all that's shared and
the reading that Rob had.
And yeah, may God's blessings be upon it.
It's been encouraging to bring it out to
be like what we were meant to be
and what God intended for us.
I think maybe it's safe to say that
just like Adam and Eve were intended to
be doing God's will, that is God's intent
for each one of us to do His
will.
He started perfect and we started imperfect.
But Christ did make it that way and
I really appreciate that message.
May we be what God intended us to
be.
I really like personal testimonies and I was
actually just reminded of one.
This might seem a little strange, but I'd
like to share it because over the years
I wondered if it was God trying to
encourage me.
But when I was younger, I used to
have really long hair.
As soon as I found out in the
Bible that it was wrong, I cut it
off.
There was a time I didn't know.
But I was purposed to do something really
bad.
I wasn't a Christian yet.
I was purposed to do something really bad
and I looked in the mirror because I
had a beard and long hair and I
kind of looked like that famous picture of
Jesus in some ways.
I just felt like God was saying to
me, you could be like me.
You don't have to be this wretched sinner.
You could actually be like me.
That's what I got out of it.
I was really feeling like God was saying,
you could put away the works of your
flesh and all the things that you're entangled
with and you can follow me.
You could be like me.
That's what Dwayne's message was about.
That really is the truth.
We really can be like Jesus.
It's such a great hope.
One other short testimony, I don't remember where
I was or what I was doing, but
somebody yelled.
It was when I was traveling around.
They yelled out from somewhere.
They said, you Jesus wannabe.
And I just thought I wasn't offended at
all.
I was just like hallelujah.
Yeah, that's right.
That's what I want to be.
I want to be just like Jesus.
Anyways, I just wanted to share this.
Thank you.
It was a real blessing to hear the
Holy Scriptures which can make us wise unto
salvation.
And if that's not the Old Testament brought
alive, then I don't know what is.
I just thank the Lord for His work
and me being able to be here this
morning and marvel at, like many of you
brothers, how I could even stand here versus
just being who I thought I was meant
to be was just an American sinner.
But anyway, I just praise God for His
mercies and just thinking about last night being
in Sodom and downtown Springfield at the gates
of Sodom and just seeing the revelry, just
the darkness.
It was just vexing as usual.
But I haven't been there in a long
time, like eight months or something.
It was just so extra vexing.
And just thinking about this morning how we
can revel in God and His work and
Jesus and how the Son is risen and
He's brought healing in His wings.
We can wake up in the morning and
rejoice in that versus they're waking up this
morning feeling terrible, hungover, having been shamed by
their debauch or sex during the evening, during
the night.
I just want to press into healing because
I am not there.
I am not whole.
The virtues is what God wants.
That was all a shadow.
The physical, as was brought out, I'm not.
As Brother Duane taught us, that was all
a shadow of being virtuous, being noble, being
royal.
I'm not there yet.
I want to be healed.
But I'm very grateful that in James, at
the end of James, Brother Brett brought this
out a couple months ago and I'm still
reveling in that, how it just talks about
how the prayers of the righteous, and if
anyone has sinned and they can confess their
faults, and it talks about how if anyone's
sick among you, and I forget what Brett
said, if it's not necessarily sick, weak.
Yeah, it's translated sick, but it could be
translated weak.
If anyone's weak among you, just let the
elders know.
If you've sinned, you'll be forgiven.
And I'm just really blessed that that passage
could be talking, I think it's probably maybe
talking about both, but whatever the case, I
just was blessed to think that that is
the church.
It's healing.
It's not worried about whether or not you
have a physical illness.
It's worried about whether or not you have
a spiritual illness.
And in the New Testament, we can all
be whole.
And that is amazing.
Thank you for the comments and stuff.
I just wanted to give maybe a little
bit of a defense on my using of
the word human for what Adam means.
And I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so the
information I have could be wrong, but I
think maybe to connect the dots, we should
also define what human means, which I understand
the word hue means dirt or clay.
It's where the word humus comes from.
And then I think somewhere there in the
meaning of the word Adam is somewhere there's
man, and I'm not denying that there's blood
there.
In fact, I saw the word ruddy, which
is red.
So anyway, I'm just, I think in the
past even, I've been impressed with the idea
that if the word Adam means human, the
word human means a dirt man.
We are made of humus.
We are made of dirt.
It's humbling.
It's good to think about.
But again, that does not come from someone
who's, or coming from me, I am not
a Hebrew scholar at all.
Yeah, just on the heels of that, Duane,
you prayed the Lord's Prayer when we started,
and you said, Thy kingdom come, thy will
be done in earth.
Well, you said on earth, but I think
it could also be in earth as it
is in heaven.
I just always, somebody taught me sometime back
there to not think of that as like
on planet earth as it is up in
heaven, but rather in earth, like this earth,
this earth, in earth, or collectively we're earth
here, a bunch of living clay in this
earth as it is in heaven.
of the Lord of
the Lord His name above all names shall
stand Exalted more and more Heav'n
from the Father's own right hand When angels
close the door of
the Lord Blessed be the name Blessed be
the name Blessed be the name of the
Lord.
Redeemer, Savior, Friend of man, Once true and
bright above all, Thou who hast defied
salvation's plan, For Thou hast died for all.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
His name shall be the Counselor Of the
mighty Prince of Peace.
Of all earth's kingdoms conferred, His reign shall
never cease.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
The ransomed host to Thee shall bring Their
great and polish'd wheat.
With raptures all adore their King, And worship
at His feet.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
blessed be the name of the Lord.
Then shall we know that we are known,
and in that world of love, forever to
come out the throne of everlasting love.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name,
blessed be the name of the Lord.