This is tape K-035, entitled, Priests Unto
Him, spoken by Art Tatz.
There's a theme on my heart, it's also
the theme of the camp, about the kingdom
of priests.
I've not been able to shake it.
There's a particular verse in Hebrews, the third
chapter begins with this, Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling, Consider the apostle and
high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.
I want us to consider that there's something
attached to the reference to apostle, and that
is the reference to high priest.
I think all of us have a high
consciousness with things that are apostolic, but few
of us have a high consciousness with things
that are priestly.
And I think that what is expressed in
the heavenly calling of Jesus is also implied
for our own heavenly calling, and it'll not
be heavenly until God shall restore to us,
or inspire in us, a sense of the
priestliness that is joined with apostolic calling.
I just want to say from my own
point of view, and I'm new at this
subject, that I just sensed in the course
of my own travels and moderate ministry, that
there is a precious little awareness of priestliness
to be found among God's people.
And though that I myself am Jewish, has
not helped in this matter.
As a matter of fact, on the few
occasions when I've been required to sit in
on Sunday school lessons, on priestly garments and
all of the nomenclature pertaining to priests, I
always found it rather dull.
But I'm convinced now that there's an eternal
weight of glory in all of these things
that pertain to priesthood, that God is now
beginning to open in my own spirit.
So I'm just going to ask the Lord,
I've got more material than I could possibly
express in one speaking, but that the Lord
will just breathe upon us through the random
moving through this material, something of the sense
of priestliness that will transfigure us all.
And I want to say with absolute authority
that priestliness and apostolic calling are inexorably connected.
You cannot have the one without the other.
And if we have suffered from anything in
our generation, it is that it's the absence
of the priestliness that ought to proceed our
apostolic walk.
So precious God, great high priest of our
profession and our calling, our heavenly calling, come
gracious God, in your own heaviness, Lord, ultimate
priest of God, Melchizedek priest, and breathe upon
us, Lord, the spirit of this which we
so urgently need, that every aspect of our
life, our walk, our talk, our ministry might
be touched by the sense of things that
pertain to priesthood.
In Jesus' holy name, bless this time and
make it your own.
We thank you and praise you for it.
Amen.
The eighth chapter of the book of Leviticus
describes the consecration of the priests.
As you read it, it has a strange
and antique ring to it.
It's so altogether remote from anything that can
be considered modern that the first temptation is
just hurriedly to read it by as something
that is rightfully buried in antiquity and has
no claim upon our attention.
But I want to say that that attitude
is completely wrong.
Everything that is in this chapter is profoundly
relevant for this age.
I can almost say more so now than
in the biblical generation in which it was
given.
It begins with the precious words, and the
Lord said to Moses, and you'll find that
that phrase is repeated throughout this chapter, and
the Lord said to Moses, and the Lord
said to Moses, and the Lord said to
Moses, because there's not a requirement in here,
an ordinance in here that could have had
its origin in human contemplation.
The whole thing beggars the mind.
The whole thing is counter to the flesh.
The whole thing is a calculated attack upon
human sensibility and good taste.
It has its origin in the heart of
God and completely contradicts all that is human,
and for that reason it is all the
more valuable, and the Lord said to Moses,
take Aaron and his sons with him, and
the garments, symbols of their office, and the
anointing oil, and the bowl of the sin
offering, and the two rams, and the basket
of unleavened bread, and assemble all the congregation
at the door of the tenth of the
meeting.
Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and
the congregation was assembled at the door of
the tenth of meeting.
Moses told the congregation, this is what the
Lord has commanded to be done.
Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed
them with water.
He put on Aaron the long under tunic,
girded him with the long sash, clothed him
with the robe, put the ephod upon him,
and girded him with the skillfully woven cords
attached to the ephod, binding it to him.
Moses put upon Aaron the breastplate.
He also put in the breastplate the urim
and the tumum, and he put the turban
or mitre on his head, and on it
in front Moses put the shining gold plate,
the holy diadem, as the Lord commanded him.
Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the
tabernacle and all that was in it, and
consecrated them.
He sprinkled some of the oil on the
altar seven times, and anointed the altar and
all of its utensils and the laver and
its base to consecrate them.
He poured some of the anointing oil upon
Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him.
And Moses brought Aaron's sons and put under
tunics on them and girded them with sashes,
wound turbans on them, as the Lord commanded
Moses.
Then he brought the bull of the sin
offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their
hands on the head of the bull of
the sin offering.
Moses killed it, took the blood, put it
on the horns of the altar round about
with his finger, and poured the blood at
the base of the altar, and purified and
consecrated the altar and made atonement for it.
He took all the fat that was on
the entrails and the lobe of the liver
and the two kidneys with their fat, and
Moses burned them on the altar.
But the bull and its hide, its flesh
and its dung he burned with fire outside
the camp, as the Lord commended Moses.
He brought the ram for the burnt offering,
and Aaron and his sons laid their hands
on the head of the ram.
Moses killed it, dashed the blood upon the
altar round about.
He cut the ram into pieces, and Moses
burned the head and the pieces and the
fat, and he washed the entrails and the
legs in water.
Moses burned the whole ram on the altar.
It was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet
and satisfying fragrance and offering made by fire
to the Lord.
And he brought the other ram, the ram
of consecration and ordination, and Aaron and his
sons laid their hands upon the head of
the ram, and Moses killed it and put
some of the blood put on the tip
of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of
his right hand, and on the great toe
of his right foot.
And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put
some of the blood on the tip of
their right ears, on the thumbs of their
right hands, the great toes of their right
feet, and Moses dashed the blood upon the
altar round about.
And he took the fat, the fat tail,
all the fat that was on the entrails,
the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys,
the fat, the right thigh, and out of
the basket of unleavened bread that was before
the Lord, he took one unleavened cake, a
cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, put
them on the fat on the right thigh,
and he put all these in Aaron's hands
and his son's hands and waved them for
a wave offering before the Lord.
Then Moses took these things from their hands
and burned them on the altar with the
burnt offering as an ordination offering for a
sweet and satisfying fragrance, an offering made by
fire to the Lord.
Moses took the breast and waved it for
a wave offering before the Lord.
For the ram of consecration and ordination, it
was Moses' portion as the Lord commanded him.
Moses took some of the anointing oil and
the blood which Aaron and his, the blood
which was on the altar and sprinkled it
on Aaron and his garments and upon his
sons and their garments also.
So Moses consecrated Aaron and his garments and
his sons and his son's garments.
And Moses said to Aaron and his sons,
boil the flesh at the door of the
tent of meeting and there eat it with
the bread that is in the basket of
consecration and ordination as I commanded, saying Aaron
and his sons shall eat it.
What remains of the flesh and of the
bread you shall burn with fire.
You shall not go out of the door
of the tent of meeting for seven days
until the days of your consecration and ordination
are ended, for it will take seven days
to consecrate and ordain you.
As has been done this day to the
Lord, so the Lord has commanded to do
for your atonement.
At the door of the tent of meeting,
you shall remain day and night for seven
days, doing what the Lord has charged you
to do that you die night, die not
for so I am commanded.
So Aaron and his sons did all the
things which the Lord commanded by Moses.
It's not often that I'll read an entire
chapter, but it's hard to omit any portion
of this.
And you know that you come to a
certain sense of exhaustion just in the reading
of the description.
What would it have meant then to actually
have been a participant and to have gone
through all of these laborious requirements of God,
of cutting, of sprinkling, of blood, of every
kind of foolish thing, of wave offerings, of
sitting at the door of the tent of
meeting.
It's patently absurd.
It's altogether exhausting.
And when the blood and gore is finished
and these besplattered men are waiting at the
door of the tent of meeting, it's hard
to consider that there's anything honorific or appealing
about the role of priesthood for men.
I think most of us have rather glamorous
notions of priesthood.
We see ourselves in some kind of lofty
image, but I'll tell you that the real
image is the one that's described here.
It's men who are so spent, so exhausted
by the requirements of God, who are so
doused in blood and gore and oil, that
you can't tell where the sacrifice ends and
where the priest begins.
They have somehow all become one, and truly
they are a living sacrifice.
And I'll tell you if there's anything left
after the lengths and the demands of this
requirement for consecration, God in his wisdom gave
one last stipulation.
Let them wait seven days at the door
of the tent of the meeting.
Many of us itch to see, to be
seen, and to do for God.
And just in all honesty, guys, there's a
terrible human taint in a lot of our
speaking and doing.
Even our most modest testimonies cannot help but
show an egotism shot through and interwoven even
in the very things that are lauding God.
There's a human taint in so much that
passes for ministry and witness in this generation.
A stench, a certain smell of man that
somehow forestalls and keeps from our experience the
fire of God falling as glory.
If I had all kinds of time, I
would read you the very next chapter that
begins on the eighth day, the day of
new beginnings, when again, another succession of offerings
was required in these men that had fulfilled
every requirement of God, waiting the measure of
the full seven days.
But on the eighth day, in the day
of new beginnings, God promised them and said
to them, today the Lord will appear to
you.
Moses said, this is the thing which the
Lord commanded you to do and the glory
of the Lord will appear to you.
And sure enough, at the end of that
eighth day, when the last sacrifice is made,
it says in the 22nd verse of that
ninth chapter, then Aaron lifted his hands toward
the people and blessed them and came down
from the altar after offering the sin offering,
the burnt offering and the peace offering.
Moses and Aaron, what a picture this is
of prophet and priests of apostolic ministry combined
with priestly calling went into the tent of
meeting.
And when they came out, they blessed the
people.
Can I suggest that the people are never
going to be truly authentically and eternally blessed
until again, Moses and Aaron go into the
tent of the meeting, having fulfilled all the
requirements of God for consecration, for separation in
the copious shedding of blood and sacrifice that
cannot be numbered.
Basiliash link in a little book that I
intend to quote tonight speaks that so much
of our blessing for other people is more
pious wish than it is fulfillment.
Even the phrase bless you brother is a
kind of euphoric beep.
It's a kind of a Welch rather than
having the authority, the priestly authority of God
that will actually confer blessing.
I think that we have had an avoidance
of blood and we have resisted sacrifice and
necessary cuttings, which makes therefore our speaking of
blessing, mere pious wish rather than actual fulfillment.
But I'll tell you that there was a
generation that when a priest raised his hands
above a people, they were blessed.
And I'm not speaking about titillation of feeling.
I'm speaking about a heavenly ministration brought about
by the authority of a man in priestly
robes, utterly consecrated unto God, who can invoke
for men godly blessing.
We have not seen that kind of ministry
except in fleeting moments, but not in the
consistency and volume that our generation requires.
Because I can tell you that the opposite
of blessing or the absence of blessing is
curse.
And the whole of our world is transfigured,
not in the glory of that which was
described on the mountain, but something that is
to be imagined in the bowels of hell,
where men are losing the godly imprint and
are becoming so deranged and so grotesque and
so caricatured, you can hardly distinguish in some
instances one sex from another.
It's a fearful and filthy and degraded age.
And the function of the priest has been
lost, and its absence is written into the
whole horror of our generation.
For God said that the priest shall teach
the people the difference between that which is
holy and that which is profane.
They shall teach them to discern that which
is common and uncommon.
But if there be no priesthood, if there
be no discernment, if there be no sense
of the sacred and of the holy, how
shall the spirit of it be projected into
a godless world, when it's absent even in
the ranks of God's people?
When so much of our own religious activity
is a kind of entertainment or bland thing
or technically and spiritually and scripturally correct thing,
but lacks the fragrance of heaven, lacks that
sense of priestliness, of one who has come
out from the holy place, who has ministered
first unto God before he then ministers unto
men.
How much of the ministries that come to
our microphones are, in a sense, full of
human braggadocio, they're brash, there's a metallic cling
to them, there's a human stink that comes
forth with them.
It's a sense of men who have not
waited in the holy place, and worse than
that, men who have no notion that there's
such a place for which God calls them
to wait.
We desperately need the restoration of the priestly
sense of things.
Prophet, priest, and king is a description of
the ministry of Jesus, and I think that
that priestly thing needs also to be deep
in whatever calling we have, apostolically speaking, where
there's going to be a clang, a metallic
sound, a brash humanness that goes forth with
our speaking and doing that stops short of
the glory of God.
I'm surprised that we're content with so little.
I'm surprised that we're content with mere good
meetings and successful camps.
I think that one of the failures of
the priestly ministry to be expressed in us
is that we have not even so much
as the desire for the glory of God,
and I think that this must precede everything,
an expectation that there can actually be glory
of God falling from heaven as fire, men
being brought on their faces, stupefaction, hands clasped
over mouths, deep gasps and sobs and racks
and breakings when the presence of God comes
as a priestly ministration to his people.
God assembled the whole congregation of the people
to watch this consecration.
You know why?
Because as the priest, so also the people.
They're not mere religious hacks.
They're not a bunch of functionaries doing their
thing that they are paid off by the
dollar in the collection plate and the people
can go about their business while the priest
does his.
There is such a bond of connection.
There is such a vital link that as
the priest goes, so also the people.
And if you want to follow the melancholy
history of Israel, and melancholy is the least
of words to describe it, you need only
to follow the history of its priesthood.
When it had its zeal, when it had
a heavenly respect for its calling, when it
was a separated class of men unto God,
when they revered God and revered the duties
they were given to perform and they were
faithful in the performing of them, Israel was
at its zenith.
But when these men began to turn, when
they began to be seduced away, when they
were attracted to the Hellenistic culture that was
then sweeping the ancient world and began to
give their children Greek names rather than Hebrew,
more fascinating with wrestling matches than the sacrifices
which they now consider to be ungainly and
unbecoming and primitive, even as rabbis now presently
speak.
I don't know if you've had the experience
of confronting a modern rabbi.
I've taken whole groups of church people to
synagogues and temples on a Friday night for
Shabbat service, and then the rabbi has answered
our questions afterwards, and invariably there'll always be
some saint to ask, where are sacrifices presently
being performed?
And the rabbi will titter or laugh or
be embarrassed, and he'll make some wisecrack about
in the back room.
And then he'll get serious and say, well,
that was primitive Judaism.
We have since graduated from those bloody practices,
and we have gone on to higher and
more progressive forms.
You know what I think?
That not only have Jews, quote, gone on
to higher and more progressive forms, but even
the Israel of God is somewhat embarrassed and
somewhat offended by the cutting and the bloodshed
that is part and parcel of true priestly
ministry and ordination.
How'd you like to be washed in the
water of the Word before men?
The humiliation of being naked before others, before
even the first priestly vestment can go on
your body, and then one by one the
clothing is put on, each prescribed of God,
one layer after another, no wool, for God's
priests shall not sweat.
It's probably one of the greatest ironies of
modern times, that there's more sweat exuded on
Sundays than any other day of the week.
More feverishness, more anxiety, more apprehension, more nervousness,
more fleshly putting out and producing successful religion
than we could ever know.
But I want you to know that the
God who said, no wool, is the God
still.
The God who said, my priest shall not
sweat, is the God still.
And I'll tell you that there's a sense
of men so taken from themselves, so weird
in sacrifices, so immersed in blood and gore
from fingertips to elbows, that there's not anything
left of them to perform anything priestly, and
that is the heart of the mystery of
true priesthood.
It's in the power of his everlasting life,
not in some makeshift pumping up in ourselves
of some image of which we think priestly
ministry ought to be.
It's men so innovated, so devastated, so wiped
out, so prostrated, so beside themselves, so exhausted,
so understanding the holiness of things that are
before them, that they don't dare dream, to
presume, to initiate, or to do anything out
of their own humanity.
It would be a patent contradiction in terms.
These garments, these vestments, these skills were attached
to the priest with skillfully woven cords.
It's not a quickie take on and take
off.
It's not a stepping into the phone booth
and coming out as Superman.
It's not something performed only behind the pulpit
and then discarded at home.
It's something attached to the priest by skillfully
woven cords, and their cords that ascend up
to heaven.
It's not something that a man has determined
for himself to do.
It's not a calling that he has chosen
because he thinks that it's lustrous or appealing.
As the Lord commanded Moses, take now Aaron
and his sons.
It just so happened that together they constituted
five.
Beautiful picture and type and foreshadowing of the
fivefold apostolic ministries, but God counted it as
one ministry, and he counted it as priestly,
and this is exactly the sense that is
missing from our own apostolic understanding.
Many of us come in service to men
before we have ever considered turning to God.
Many of us come in the clothing of
the street.
You know what I'm speaking about.
Many of us come stained with sweat.
Many of us have not the sense of
the necessity for the cleansing of the water
of the word, for the taking off of
the things that are spotted and stained, for
the coming into the high priest himself, and
coming before God and being prostrate there before
we should ever consider turning to men.
I have not the time to describe it.
You can read it for yourself.
In Ezekiel 44, how God had a controversy
with the priest and the Levite.
He could not discard them because his gifts
are without repentance, his gifts and his callings,
but he castigated them to this, that they
could only serve him at the gate.
They could only serve in the outer court
and they could only serve the people and
they can only cut up the animals, but
only one family out of the whole tribe
of Levi, the family Zadok, meaning righteous, could
come before him to minister unto him in
the holy place and in the inner place.
There's not been not enough of that kind
of ministry.
More a sense of men and what men
expect and the pleasing of men than the
sense of those who have waited before God.
Not enough of seeing men who are turned
around from their own intentions because in the
holy place, God has breathed yet another theme
in their hearts for them to deliver.
And the strange thing is that, you know,
that obedience oftentimes brings reproach from them.
I remember speaking at a great charismatic center
in the West Coast.
I don't know how I got to such
a place.
I never wanted it.
It was a divine arrangement where we were
so opposite in every way.
One of these great giddy, gaudy, great charismatic
centers.
If I named it, you would know it
instantly.
And that afternoon in prayer, I had some
intention of what I thought to speak that
evening, but in prayer, in the holy place,
the Lord whispered a little leaven leavens the
whole lump.
And on the basis of no greater knowledge
than that, I came armed with that one
impulse to that meeting and told the people
it would not be a message, but an
event, which indeed it proved to be.
For in the very speaking of it, I
was interrupted by the minister who said, don't
slay the sheep, preach the gospel.
I looked with wonderment because as far as
I was concerned, I was preaching the word
of God.
And so I just went on to finish
the message.
Somewhere in the course of my remarks, without
premeditating it, I heard myself saying that in
the life of every minister and every ministry,
there comes a moment of truth.
And if you will not face it and
deal with it as the issue of truth
and pass it over from that moment on,
leaven has been introduced in the lump.
Little did I know how biting and how
accurate and penetrating my words were to the
actual condition of the fellowship where I was
speaking that night.
They were offended, so offended that when I
finished this pastor came to the microphone and
said, let us pray for our poor brother.
I've always appreciated brother cat's his ministry, but
evidently he has some kind of inner conflict,
which he is venting in his message.
Let's pray for this dear man.
And one of his hacks came and laid
his arm around me in a condescending way,
and they began to pray for me.
And while that was going on, some man
got up out of his seat and crossed
the entire auditorium and came by me and
said, brother, he said, I want to tell
you that I completely repudiate all that is
now taking place.
I want to tell you that I witnessed
that every word that came from your mouth
was from God.
Here's my name.
Here's my address.
Come and minister in my country, Pretoria, South
Africa.
So later on, I was taken into the
office and I was grilled by the pastor
and by three of his associates.
And I tried to determine what was the
fault that they found with me.
Was it that the message was unscriptural?
No.
Was it doctrinally unsound?
No.
I said, what then was the fault?
Well, it was just a little too heavy,
Art, for this young congregation.
There are many tender, young believers and they
wouldn't know how to understand such a word
and it's likely to offend them.
I said, what do you recommend that I
do then?
That I should look with my natural eye
and take stock of the audience before me
and then calculate my comments on the basis
of what I see?
I want you to know, brother, that that
afternoon on my knees and in the inner
place, the God who is my Lord said,
a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
And I could not do other but speak
the word that he has put in my
mouth, though it has offended you.
Priestly ministry will often offend men.
Priestly ministry will often be misunderstood by men.
Priestly ministry will often be bloody.
Much cutting, much flame, much shedding of blood
that not only are you covered with it
in the course of your ministration, but you
have splattered others.
But I'll tell you that if you're obedient
to perform all that God has required in
that cutting, you'll find at the end a
measure of glory from God.
When the priest can raise his hand above
the congregation of God, having come out of
the holy place, and the glory of God
can fall as a fire.
Put on the garments of God.
Take off the garments spotted and stained with
the spirit of the world.
Put on the vestments.
Put on the breastplate.
Let them be attached with heavenly cords to
the God who has called you.
Put the little gold diadem upon your forehead
and feel the heft of it as you
walk.
Your every step will register the weight of
that gold shield right on your forehead with
the words inscribed, holiness unto God.
Would to God every one of us could
wear it.
Would to God in the realm of spirit,
we could always sense on our foreheads the
sense, the weight, holiness unto God.
Holiness unto God.
There'd be much less brash ministry.
Much less humanity interspersed in the things that
we speak in.
Much less soulishness.
Much less tears that are profuse and human.
More of the things that have their origin
in heaven.
Because God is not going to force upon
us the things that are heavenly and perfect,
so long as we're content and satisfied with
something less.
I think there'll be more sense of silence.
More a disposition to wait on God.
Less a rush to come to the place
of speaking.
More the waiting for the corporate mind of
God by his spirit to seize us and
to unfold the glory of his purpose at
any particular convening of his saints.
Let's feel the heft and the weight of
that gold diadem.
Holiness unto the Lord.
And then the anointing oil that was sprinkled
on the tabernacle, the furniture, the articles, the
dumb things that cannot speak.
I'm always amazed that if God requires anointing
oil on pieces of wood and brass, what
then upon flesh and blood who are made
in his image and who are called to
serve him.
How dare we presume ever to stand before
men without the holy anointing oil.
And it says in Exodus, upon man's flesh
it shall not be poured.
Hallelujah that from the chin to the tops
of the toes the flesh of man was
covered in the righteousness of God's linen.
Only one place where that oil could run
down the head of Aaron and down his
beard.
It was the head.
The only visible thing and the only thing
that can bear the holy anointing oil.
Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured.
And one of the most sad and melancholy
characteristics of modern day charismatic culture has been
the increasing amplification of our sound equipment and
the other calisthenics and devices as substitutes for
the increasing absence of the holy anointing oil.
It's holy and upon man's flesh it shall
not be poured.
But when God has his man in his
place for his ministry called and bound to
God by courts not doing his thing.
You can be assured the holy anointing oil
will be upon him.
Seven times and he poured some of the
anointing oil upon Aaron's head.
And they brought the bull of the offering
and they laid their hands on it and
Moses killed it.
There's so much death in priestly service.
Such profusion of blood one animal after another
fallen.
But the same blood of death is the
same blood of sprinkling.
There's no consecration without death.
There's no life except for the blood that
comes from it sprinkled upon the servants of
God.
A testimony again and again that the priestly
ministries of God are not to be worked
from human flesh.
Are not to be the product of human
zeal.
Are not to be the expression of soulishness
or intensity or well intending men to do
for God.
Priestly ministry that touches time and eternity is
only out of the sacrifice unto death.
It is only out of that which is
sprinkled of the blood of sacrifice and the
resurrection life.
The Melchizedek priesthood is in the power of
the everlasting life.
This priest who had neither father nor mother
nor origin nor end of days was it
lived in the life that is eternal.
And that's the only kind of priesthood that
can be performed today.
You can almost measure the absence of true
priestliness by the absence of the knowledge of
resurrection life.
For the two are intimately linked together.
You don't learn priesthood.
You inherit it just as the sons of
Aaron.
And I'll tell you there was only one
priestly garment and it was passed from Aaron
to his successors and every man had to
grow into it.
It was not cut down to meet the
measure of men.
So is it also to this day.
One garment in which we must grow up
into it in the full Melchizedek proportion of
the eternal life.
To minister out of anything but the resurrection
life is to fall short of priestly ministry.
And every one of us who have a
discerning ear knows the difference.
We've heard good messages, good teaching, good ministry,
good testimony.
But there's a difference between that which is
good and that which has its power and
its life out of death.
That's why God is calling for priests to
stand in the gap for the wall that
is falling down.
That has not been tempered by mortar that
holds, but has just been whitewashed.
It appears right, sounds right, looks right, technically
scripturally sound and true.
But it's a wall that's going to collapse
because it has not the mortar that comes
from that organic matter that constitutes the stuff
that sticks.
I don't know too much about mortar.
What is that stuff that goes into it
that is organic?
Lime, which is the decayed accumulation of organic
life of millennia ago.
Without death there's no walls that will stand.
It's just whitewash.
Without death and without the sprinkling of blood
there's no priestly ministry.
There's just correct ministry.
There's not the fragrance of heaven.
There's not the fire of God that falls
and brings men on their faces.
So they poured the blood on the base
of the altar and he took the fat
that was on the entrails, the lobe of
liver, and the two kidneys with the fat.
Moses burned them on the altar.
But the bull and its hide, its flesh,
and its tongue, he burned with fire outside
the camp as the Lord commanded Moses.
You know, I think we've got it all
wrong, all backwards.
I think that what we're burning and what
we're thinking to sacrifice to God is what
we consider most valuable, the flesh, the hide,
and the tongue.
And what we consider a waste and distasteful,
the entrails, the kishes, the guts, that we
want to take outside the camp and destroy.
May I tell you that God's way is
not man's way?
May I tell you that what is displeasing
and distasteful to us is of God's sweet
savor?
He's not interested in the outer hide.
He's not interested in the flesh.
He counts that with the dung.
But what is in the inside, in that
inner man, that which has been worked by
God in the hidden place, this is the
sweet-smelling savor to God.
And how many priests are there that can
lay it on the altar and that have
it, who have waited before God and have
received and welcomed the dealings of God in
the inner place and in the entrails that
they have wherewith to lay before God as
a sweet-smelling savor, a sacrifice, a burnt
offering made by fire?
I'll tell you guys, it's the fire that
makes it.
And many of us have not the entrails,
and we have not the fire either.
It's the dung that we're laying and the
flesh and the outer thing, and it's not
to God a sweet-smelling savor, and it's
not going to bring from heaven an answer
by fire.
That is glory.
A priest, if anything, is one who has
experienced the inner dealings of God.
He knows God in the hidden place, and
God has dealt with him in ways that
he cannot be explained to men, that are
scandalous, and that men look upon as reproach,
that you cannot explain but have only to
suffer.
They're humiliations, things that God has wrought in
you, in the stillness and in the quiet,
if you've allowed God to bring you to
such a place.
If anything is characteristic of this generation, it's
that we have little disposition for quiet.
We're the generation that has grown up with
the transistors glued to our ears.
Our kids are the products of a generation
that cannot do their homework, except that there's
a radio going or a TV.
Silence intimidates us.
There's not enough waiting on God, in silence,
in the hidden places, that we might have
wherewith to lay upon the altar of God.
An offering made by fire to the Lord.
What shall we say of the foolish practice
of this touching the right ear with blood,
and the thumb of the right hand, and
of the right foot?
I've enjoyed the discussion of Abraham.
Although the word priest was never used in
connection with him, unquestionably he was.
Long before these practices were prescribed of God,
it was evident, spiritually speaking, that the blood
of consecration was on the ear of Abram.
How else then should he have risen early
in the morning and saddled his ass, when
God called him to that which boggles all
human understanding?
Abram, take now thy son, thine only son,
whom thou lovest, and make of him a
burnt offering in the mouth that I will
show you.
So he rose early in the morning and
saddled his ass.
God had a consecrated ear upon which the
blood of sacrifice and consecration was touched.
Does he have your right ear?
How much of your doing and going and
being is the result of what men whisper,
the expectations of men, the tune and the
dance and the tempo of the world?
Does God really have that ear to call
you to acts of obedience that contradict even
what you think to know and understand from
God?
This writer says that it is quite clear
that in some way the governing faculty of
every life is the ear, not necessarily the
outward organ, but that by which we listen
to suggestions.
The suggestions may arise from our own temperament
and makeup, our own natural inclination, the pull
and draw of our constitution, deep-seated ambitions,
inclinations, and interest.
To listen to these is to have our
lives governed by our own interests.
And probably the greatest mishmash that is to
be found in present Christianity is the mixture
of men who have well-meaning intentions to
do for God, but also to do for
themselves at the same time, wanting somehow to
insinuate and to tie and relate the two
together.
It shall never, never work.
The right ear as the right hand is
the place of honor and power so far
as the hearing and the speaking are concerned.
Does God have your ear?
Can he stop you midway in your own
course?
You had the intention of speaking and doing
one thing or another, but by a still
small voice and a whisper and intimation, a
suggestion from God, your whole course was redirected,
and your obedience to it, for what is
the purpose of hearing if you're not going
to obey, will require your Isaac being brought
to the mount of sacrifice, loss or reproach
or things that cannot be explained.
Does God have your ear?
Are you consecrated?
This is the secret, an ear alive only
unto him and dead to everything that comes
from any quarter other than the Lord himself.
And I know that we who are called
to this final generation are going to be
called to some such unconventional behavior.
We're going to be called to such acts
of obedience that not only will the world
not understand, but even our compatriots, our colleagues
in the faith will be bewildered and offended.
Does God have your ear?
Is the blood of consecration upon it?
And in hearing, do you obey?
The blood was also on the right thumb,
which is a picture of priestly service unto
God.
And a lot of that priestly service is
dull.
It's monotonous.
It's routine.
It's not at all anything that complements the
flesh.
Will you yet do it?
Will you yet be obedient to do the
things that God requires, though it contradicts your
own temperament and disposition?
What if God should call you to an
act of divine severity?
Will you obey him?
Your temperament is to be conciliatory and to
make nice.
Yours is to brush over and to hope
that the outcome will be good.
Yours is to look the other way.
You don't want to be misunderstood and to
be looked upon as a harsh disciplinarian or
a man who is unfeeling or unloving.
And you know that if you do this,
that is exactly the way you're going to
be perceived.
Will you yet do it?
Will you be the instrument for the divine
severity of God as well as his divine
grace?
Is the blood on your thumb as well
as it is on your ear?
Will you be ruthless if God should call
you to ruthlessness?
Will you be an instrument for his judgment
if God shall call you to pronounce judgment?
Until God has the whole of us in
every kind of act, however much it contradicts
what is our own natural disposition, he has
not yet the priest.
The blood on the toe suggests that the
Lord must have the direction of our lives,
that we are to be controlled alone by
the Lord's interests, and we are not always
bidden to go.
Sometimes the going is a relief.
It is staying that is difficult.
How many of us have considered that?
How much of our going is more an
opportunity for us to be relieved from the
pressures of unpleasant situations where we are, and
we clothe it and cloak it in the
name of service unto God when it is
only providing for us psychic relief and cop
-out?
Until you're prepared to stay in the tedious
and demanding situations of God, the blood of
consecration is not upon your toe.
Our going has been rendered dead to all
but the Lord, and our staying also.
Our life has been poured out.
It has been let go, has been taken
away.
That is the life which is for ourselves
and of ourselves, so that our life has
come up to another level.
A priest has no life unto himself.
He has no inheritance for himself.
He has no possession for himself.
He has nothing in the world that he's
going to acquire.
He's not going to retire with benefits.
God is his inheritance and his possession.
He's ungainly.
He's separated.
He's strange.
He hears another tempo and another beat.
He's God's.
The blood is on the ear, on the
thumb, and on the toe.
He's consecrated unto the Lord, and he cannot
do other.
When we seek our own ends, our own
works, our own glory, we've yet to come
to the priestly place.
Jesus is a beautiful picture of one who
only served the interests of his Father, was
alive only to those interests and never considered
his own.
If we are the Lord's, we must be
governed by the Lord's interests and brush aside
all the rising suggestion of looking after ourselves.
The only question is, what does the Father
say about this?
I just had a conversation with a man,
and he's being sent to help to shepherd
a new work in the east coast of
the United States, and he began to give
me all the reasons why he's going.
His Jewish parents live only a few miles
from that location.
There are other friends now that he'll be
able to see and witness to whom he's
not had occasion to witness to as a
believer.
It'll serve this purpose and that purpose.
He gave me a list of about a
dozen commendable human reasons why he ought to
go, but not in one of the twelve
was there a suggestion that God was sending
him.
How many of us predicate our decisions on
the basis of logic, or we reckon that
we'll be doing God's service, or that it
will serve his interest if we do this
or go about that, when God has not
said a word about it.
How much of our doing has not been
ordered of God at all, and how much
of that which he would order we do
before the time.
Oh, to come to the priestly place where
we're just covered in the blood of consecration.
We have no life unto ourselves.
You can't tell where the sacrifice ends and
the priest begins.
They're all one.
He has no life for himself, and if
he had anything left, it was burnt out
in the seven days that he waited at
the door of the tent of meeting.
Have you waited seven days?
Is it that we're Americans that we're so
adept at producing schools of discipleship that process
men in three months and are ready to
send them out to change the world?
Where is the waiting?
Where is the opportunity to let that human
itch so deeply ingrained, so part and parcel
of our being, to die out in that
final seven days of waiting at the door
of the tent of meeting?
Until that death has been consummated, God does
not yet have a priest whose bloody hands
can invoke the blessings of God unto fire
and unto glory.
Oh, I tell you, we're missing something by
our not heeding the Old Testament scriptures.
We're missing something in our blithe disregarding of
what we consider to be the wearisome details
in the nomenclature of Aaronic priesthood.
And I'll tell you this, guys, that Melchizedek
priesthood, which is our calling, is not less
demanding than this, but more.
Maybe we ought to take just a look
at some of the phrases in Hebrews that
describes that kind of priestly ministry.
Melchizedek, king of righteousness and king of peace.
And it says of him in the seventh
chapter, reading from the Amplified in the third
verse, without record of father or mother or
ancestral line, nor with beginning of days or
ending of life.
You don't come into this by Aaronic succession.
You don't come into this because you happen
to be a Levite or your last name
is Katz.
You come into this because you have come
into the son who is the king of
righteousness and the king of peace and the
high priest of God.
You are in the Melchizedek priesthood in exact
proportion as you are in him, no more
and no less.
It has not to do with natural factors,
natural choosing, but resembling the son of God
is what it's all about.
He continues to be a priest without interruption
and without successor.
It's not a take on and take off.
It's not a stepping into the phone booth.
It's not the convenience of changing garments.
It's without change.
It's eternal.
It's without interruption.
It's priestliness, which is written in your life.
You're part and parcel of it.
You're caught up into the high priest.
You're one with him without interruption.
You know what that will mean?
Everything has got to be sanctified.
There's a sense of consecration about the most
mundane aspect of our lives.
The most ordinary thing becomes holy.
We don't dare approach our bedrooms or our
kitchens.
The chance conversations, there's no such thing anymore
as small talk.
Everything has somehow become rarified, sanctified, consecrated, having
eternal weight of glory.
It's priestly.
The sense of this, the trailing of clouds
of glory that should be attending the lives
of those that are in this king of
righteousness.
In the 16th verse, speaking of him who
has been constituted a priest, not on the
basis of bodily legal requirements and externally imposed
command concerning his physical ancestry, but on the
basis of the power of an endless and
indestructible life.
I'll tell you if the mere reading of
the ironic requirements exhausts us, what shall we
say of this priesthood?
It cannot simply be performed on the basis
of human zeal and well-meaning intention, only
on the basis of the power of an
endless and indestructible life.
Is that the origin of your burdens for
a dying world?
Is that the origin of your concern for
Israel, for an Indian people, for want in
the world?
I'd rather see men wholly insensitive and without
burdens, waiting for the burden that comes as
the expression of the indestructible life from heaven
than they should fashion for themselves burdens that
are seemingly inappropriate.
Oh, for the dying world, that kind of
burden bursts like a bubble with the first
kind of pressure or challenge or sacrifice of
loss to self-interest.
But the priestly burdens that inhere and are
part of the endless and indestructible life shall
not be in any way affected by gasoline
shortages.
It shall not be oil, yes, and Israel,
no.
It shall be Israel, yes, even with without
oil, without warmth, without heat, without the Sunday
car, because the burden comes from the indestructible
and endless life that is of the resurrection
of the King of Righteousness, who is a
witness, for it is witnessed of him you
are a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek.
Therefore, it says in the 25th verse, he
is able to save to the uttermost, completely,
perfectly, finally, and for all time and eternity
those who come to God through him.
Oh, for more of this kind of salvation.
Oh, for less of the shabby kind, countless
tens of thousands who are saved but not
converted, all their life long a struggle trying
to make it for God, wearisome struggle, grinding
it out in a wearisome and sweating away,
trying to hang in there and find their
little niche in heaven.
Surely they've not been saved by a Melchizedek
priest, because anyone who comes to God by
him is saved to the uttermost.
We need more of this kind of salvation
and less of the four spiritual laws, less
cheapies, less appealing to the self-interest of
men, of the benefits that will accrue to
them if they should accept Jesus.
A priest would gag on such terminology as
that.
He would double up and clutch his guts
to hear any such expression about accepting Jesus,
or any appeal for men to be saved
on the basis of their filthy egocentric self
-interest, for it is a contradiction in terms.
It is not salvation, because if you're not
saved from yourself, you're not saved.
And to be saved from yourself is to
be saved to the uttermost.
Oh, for more priests who will save men
on the basis of the power of an
indestructible life and not saccharine sentiment and little
fleshly tears and soulish appeals.
Oh, guys, take off the spotted garments and
put on the righteousness of God.
And come into the priestliness that must be
coupled with apostolic calling.
He's a son who has been made perfect
forever, it says at the end of that
chapter.
And then the eighth chapter begins, now the
main point of what we have to say
is this, we have such a high priest,
one who is seated at the right hand
of the majestic God in heaven.
There's something about this priestly calling and the
heavenly calling that cannot be separated.
For the tabernacle into which the priest entered
and the temple into which the priest entered
and the Holy of Holies is only a
carnal type and shadow and picture of that
place into which the Melchizedek priest is invited
on the basis of the power of an
indestructible life.
It is very heaven itself to the throne
of God.
Have you been there?
How do you dare presume to minister to
men if you've not been there?
First, waiting on the Lord is wholly unknown
by modern saints.
Andrew Murray writes, wait on the Lord, wait
for the Spirit.
In great quietness, set your soul still, silent
unto God and give the Holy Spirit time.
Excuse me, but I've not yet adjusted and
I don't believe that I ever will adjust
to the modern tempo of evangelical life that
requires us to fly into cities on planes
and be met at the airport and be
whisked to a motel and wash our face
and put on a tie and come to
a service and sit on a platform and
be called up within minutes and be expected
to speak.
What do you think we are, professionals or
something?
My God, you'll give an athlete more opportunity
to warm up than you'll give a man
of God to catch the mind of the
Lord for that people in that place and
in that hour.
You have more respect for athletic performance than
priestly service.
You want it now and you're getting what
you're paying for.
Cheap, shallow, unheavenly service scripturally sound good, but
the people leave as they came unchanged.
They have not been brought to the heavenly
place.
The aura of heavenliness and the fragrance that
is about to throne has not been breathed
upon them, for the man has not been
allowed to wait on God in silence in
the heavenly place.
In great quietness, set your soul still silent
unto God and give the Holy Spirit time
to quicken and deepen in you the assurance
that God will grant him to work mightily.
We are a holy priesthood to offer up
spiritual sacrifice.
The slaying of the sacrifice was an essential
part of the service.
In each sacrifice you bring, there must be
the slaying, the surrender, and sacrifice of self
and its power to the death.
No more oxen and rams and bullocks, but
us!
Every single time that fleshly thing that has
the opportunity to well up, that human thing
that wants to perform, that human thing that
wants the cheapest and easiest out to use
last week's message, needs to be brought as
spiritual sacrifice and hacked before God.
And let the blood shoot out in that
holy place, that all the powers of self
be brought to death, that what comes forth
must be from the power of the indestructible
life.
Ministry from heaven.
I'll tell you, when one such minister comes,
we're not always happy for him.
We're intimidated, because we thought we had it
all together.
We applauded our apostolic callings.
We saw ourselves as well-meaning and industrious
elders.
We were able to quote the scripture.
We had a grasp of doctrine.
We knew how to counsel men.
And then comes a visitor from heaven, and
we're devastated.
He brings a fragrance and an aura and
a spirit that challenges us to the root.
All of a sudden we feel cheap and
earthly, something about us heavy and human and
tainted.
We recognize that so much of what we've
been saying and doing, though we had not
seen it till that moment, was human, all
too human.
And therefore the result of it could not
exceed the origin of it.
Oh, for more heavenly invasion.
Oh, for more of the fragrance of heaven.
Oh, for those who will come to minister
to men only after they have first ministered
to God in the holy place, stretched out
prostrate and dead before him, waiting that seven
days at the door of the Tent of
Meeting for everything that's human and vain and
selfish and earthly to be utterly burnt out
and dissipated, so that whatever comes forth is
his life.
Teach us, he writes, as we draw near
to thee to wait, in the sacrifice of
our own wisdom and our will, in the
holy fear of the workings of our own
nature, may we learn to lie very low
before thee.
That thy spirit may work with power.
Teach us that as the life of self
is laid before thee, day by day, the
holy life that flows from under the throne
will rise in power and our worship be
in spirit and in truth.
Do you distrust yourself?
Do you distrust your cleverness?
Do you despise your eloquence?
Are you ashamed by your ability?
Are you fearful that it would be these
things that be expressed before men?
Have you given God the appropriate time to
assure that all these earthly things, however commendable
and impressive, will die out as sacrifice before
him in the holy place, that the ministry
that will come forth to men will have
its origin in heaven and at the throne?
Denying our self, our wisdom, our strength, in
confident expectation of what he will do.
I wish I had time.
I would just ask if you could obtain
a copy of this, keep it under your
pillow, read it day and night.
The greatest embarrassment is it's written by a
woman, Basilia Schlink.
A German woman has got to tell us
about the royal priesthood.
There's so much I could quote from cover
to cover.
She talks about those who have the authority
to bless.
Many devout people can say the Lord blessed
thee, but one feels that the words express
only a nice pious wish and that there
is no power behind it.
That is, the one who speaks these words
of blessing does not have the authority to
move the arm of God in blessing.
His prayer does not penetrate to the throne
of God.
He has not been there, and hence nothing
of the redemptive power of Jesus descends upon
the other, nor does the peace of God
come into the heart through the pronouncement of
blessing.
How we need a priesthood in this generation
that can bless men, because their hands are
dipped in blood.
They have submitted to all that the Lord
has required through Moses.
They are consecrated through and through men lost
unto God, whose ear, whose thumb, whose foot,
whose life, whose body, whose attention, whose thought,
whose future, whose speaking is all established in
heaven.
For such men to raise blood-stained hands
with the gore dripping from their fingernails to
their elbows over the people of God will
bring the fire of God as glory.
Men who will come themselves to be daily
purified.
Men who recognize that the first sacrifice is
for themselves, for the iniquity of themselves, even
as priests.
Who recognize the disposition of their hearts, that
even their most lofty speaking has an element
of corruption.
The disposition of their hearts, the things that
we have been required to see in these
days, our competitiveness and jealousies and covetousness, all
these things require first a sacrifice for ourselves
before we minister before God unto men.
She writes, only those that are sent from
the throne of God to serve mankind, only
those people who live in the presence of
God can serve others as priests.
My prayer tonight was that the spirit of
priesthood, of priestliness would be breathed upon this
people.
This is not something that lends itself to
teaching.
It defies analysis.
It can't be laid out neatly.
It needs to be breathed upon you or
be splattered upon you or be sprinkled upon
you.
The sense of what it means of a
life hidden before the throne, those who live
in the presence of God, who can bring
before men something of the heavenly fragrance, the
separation from the world that can only be
established there.
I'll tell you that you'll be haunted till
your last day on earth by the temptations
of the world until you have found that
place, that priestly place in heaven before the
throne, consecrated before God and prostrate waiting on
him.
It is the final doing away with the
power of the seductive strength of the world,
being in his presence, in the tranquility of
the sanctuary of God, where the priest lives
hidden in his holy presence, where the glory
of his countenance streams upon them.
Can they be prepared to carry the brightness
out into the dark world?
It was true that when one of the
sisters from this fellowship came to visit the
family, she said, you're not yet radiant, and
she said it all.
It was true.
We're not yet radiant, but I'll tell you
that we're desiring to be, and we're submitting
to every process of God, of breaking, of
grinding, of pulverizing, of being separated, of being
stretched out, of waiting on God in wretchedness
and silence, that the radiance might come, that
something of the transcendent glory of heaven can
begin to flood our faces, and we shall
not be satisfied until we shall have it.
God is wanting a kingdom of priests in
the earth, a whole race of men and
women who are radiant and transcendent beings, because
they have waited in the presence of him
who is light.
Just let me conclude with some sober thoughts
that she expresses.
Yes, she says it is of the utmost
seriousness to live in the presence of God,
where no darkness is tolerated.
The calling to priesthood is most grave.
This isn't for amateurs.
This isn't for cheap thrill seekers.
This isn't for those who want to be
quickly processed into ministry and do, do, do
for God.
For men who have a disposition to wait,
for those who love the heft and the
feel of the golden diadem, that every step
brings the sense of holiness unto God, holiness
unto God, willing to wait for it.
Do we have any idea what it means
to fail here, she writes, to stand before
men and not be able to help them,
because there is no power to absolve and
to bless?
For us to become mere religious functionaries or
glib charismatics, unctuous practitioners who have not the
power and the authority to bless and to
absolve in a priestly way a dying generation?
How will we be able someday to stand
before the living God when he requires our
brother's blood at our hands, and we failed
him because we did not live in God's
sanctuary and forgot to be cleansed from our
former sins?
I'm so foolish as to desire that anyone
that meets us in the world shall go
away scratching their head or stroking their chin,
wondering, was it man or angel?
That every encounter with God's people shall be
an encounter with God.
That every coming forth of God's minister shall
be the word made flesh and an event,
and not just mere teaching or mere preaching.
That the radiance of heaven shall be so
effusive, so flooding the voice, the face, the
manner of these priestly ministers that the world
must be confronted and be left without excuse
for spurning the kingdom of which they are
the priests and the representatives.
Instead, we resemble more the world, cheap, glib,
quick, sharp, our churches, so much entertainment, quickie
things, playing games with holy things, discipleship, submission
to authority, glib, cute kinds of practices, not
the sense of priestly responsibility, not the solemnity,
not the sense of heaven, not the awesomeness,
the fear of God, let alone we can
project it to men and teach them the
difference between that which is holy and that
which is profane.
We don't know it ourselves.
She writes, how can men be priests who
can endure nothing and suffer immeasurably if they
cannot gratify their appetite?
Or when they are not loved or honored,
does that get you to become unglued?
If you're not patted on the back and
applauded, if you're not properly esteemed and acknowledged,
do you come undone?
Priests are indifferent to the applause of men
as well as to their reproaches.
They hear only from God.
And I'll tell you, God is often a
long time in vindicating his priests, a long
time.
The heavens are often silent when you've rendered
obedience to God and bear the shame of
it.
It may go months before God lets you
to know that you were a faithful servant.
Can you stand it?
Will you crack up?
Are you living in the present spirit of
the world, the now generation, gratified now, immediate
gratification now, and you cannot bear the suspense
and the tension of waiting?
In spite of their knowledge of Jesus as
Savior, they have not yet entered their priestly
calling.
They remain bound to this world, dependent upon
people, dependent upon circumstances, dependent on their own
nature.
How could they, when they are so subjected
to sin themselves, be capable of helping others,
of freeing others?
How could they be witnesses to redemption when
they themselves are still tied tightly to Satan's
yoke and even still cling to it?
That's why royal priests stand majestically independent of
all people, conditions, circumstance, and material things of
this world.
Have you come to that place?
You have no inheritance in the world.
You're not looking for it and you're not
expecting it.
You're altogether indifferent to cars, to clothing, to
money, to rewards, to success, to security, or
any such thing.
You wear what you have.
You eat what's put before you.
You drive in the accommodation that's given.
You fly.
It doesn't matter where.
You get out of one airport or the
other.
It's all the same.
Majestically independent of all people, conditions, circumstances, and
material things of the world, Jesus has become
their one and all, their inheritance, and now
they go through the pains of judgment and
kingly majesty.
They're able to live in primitive conditions, truly
a royal priesthood, personally free and independent of
everything in the world, yet always ready to
give oneself, able with royal authority to loosen
the fetters of others in prayer.
The priestly person rests in the peace of
the sanctuary.
Jesus is sufficient for him.
Privations and troubles of all kinds, which have
always been a part of his priestly life
of devotion and sacrifice, only serve to unite
him more intimately with his Lord and let
Jesus' nature become more powerful in him.
Today a perishing world cries for such messengers
that come to it from the presence of
the living God.
They have received power from him.
They reflect the glory of his countenance.
They are truly royal priests.
I just want to conclude with this verse
in the eighth chapter of Hebrews, the fourth
verse.
If then he were still living on earth,
he would not be a priest at all.
That's the long and the short of it.
If he were living on earth, he would
not be a priest at all.
There's no way to live on earth to
have your tempo meted out by the drummers
of this world, or to be responsive to
the religious dictates of this world, or the
expectations of men, and to be a Melchizedek
priest who can loose the fetters of men
and bring blessing by the stretching forth of
your hands.
If he were still living on earth, he
would not be a priest at all.
Where are you living?
Children, this is a call to the high
calling, the heavenly calling, to be not only
apostles, but priests.
To catch our life, our substance, our energy,
our direction, our thought, our message, our burden
in the holy place.
Prostrate before him, suspicious of anything that emanates
and rises up from our own natural life,
which is brought again and again and again
to the place of sacrifice, of cutting and
of blood.
When the fire of God fell on that
eighth day, hallelujah, when the people saw the
glory of God fall as fire, they fell
on their faces before him.
I'm sick of seeing men persuaded to accept
Jesus for the benefits that will accrue to
them.
Where is the fear of God that men
should know?
For the day of the wrath of the
Lamb shall soon be upon them.
Who is going to save them from that
day?
Who is going to stand in the gap?
Who is going to call them to warning?
Who are the intercessors whose hearts are breaking
for the burden?
Who are the men who are so flinty
-faced before God that can speak whatever foolishness
he puts in their mouths?
And men will not titter or mock, for
the priestly authority of God is upon their
declarations.
Who will save men from burning?
May it begin with our suspicion of our
own earthliness, our hesitation to come even to
any public and spiculous place, even to give
so much as a word of testimony, if
we have not first had our time in
silence waiting before him for the burning out
of that which is suspicious and selfish.
Oh for the fragrance of heaven, oh for
the authority of the Melchizedek priest, oh for
the ministries that are conducted in the power
of the indestructible and the everlasting life.
If they lived in the earth they would
not be priests.
I bid you to come up to heaven
and to despise earthly things, and will tell
you that for every earthly fetter that you
break and allowed to be broken, there shall
be pain.
But as one beautiful poet said, what is
bliss in heaven is first pain on earth.
Willing to suffer the weariness of priesthood, exhaustion,
numbingness, blood splattered gore, oil, garments, weightings, heave
offerings, eating the sacrifice, because you're not going
to dispense this ministry cheaply and get out
of town and beat it.
You're going to eat what you perform before
God, and it's going to be an indigestible
lump if it has not first had its
origin in heaven.
This is serious stuff, and will not be
apostles till we are also first priests.
This is a call to priesthood, the priestly
sense in everything that we say, we speak,
we do, our homes, our marriages, the most
ordinary aspects of our life, to be suffused
with heaven as a kingdom of priests.
Let's bow our heads and thank God for
so high a calling.
Hallelujah.
Precious God, we're embarrassed at how sparse and
threadbare and minimal this talk was on so
great a subject as the royal priesthood.
But I ask you, mighty God, in the
power of your endless and indestructible life, in
the spirit of God that is to be
found in the holy place and at the
throne, you would breathe upon your children in
this room and your servants something of the
sense of this high calling.
May men have a fresh and new inducement
to find a place in silence before God,
waiting.
May they invite the dealings of a radical
God in their interior life, that they might
have wherewith to lay upon the altar of
God as a sweet-smelling savor, an offering
made by fire, of something that if you've
worked in their gut, their intestines.
May their life be more truly lived from
there than from the surface.
May they tremble to come before men if
they have not first come before you.
May they never dream to serve God except
in the priestly arraignment of God.
May they despise anything that emanates from their
own life, ambition, thought, knowledge.
May everything come from your life.
Hallelujah.
That priestly indestructible life.
Precious God, breathe the spirit of priestliness upon
us.
Hallelujah.
And I would just ask you in the
concluding moments of this service, in these days
of ministry and all that God has worked
and spoken, if there's a sacrifice that God
would have from you even tonight, that you
don't even dare leave this room because you're
so intent upon being the priest of God,
that there's something fleshly that needs to be
cut and laid out upon the altar, something
offered before God by fire.
Will you do it before you leave?
I don't know how to ask you to
do it.
Will you make your own chair an altar
and go to your knees and name something
that needs to be sacrificed before God?
Human ambition perhaps, vanity, pride, the desire to
be seen and to be recognized of men,
impatience, inability to wait, presumption upon God and
doing that which you thought was pleasing to
Him, but which He never called you to
perform.
If there's some sacrifice that you make before
God tonight before you leave, will you do
it now?
Just turn and go on your knees.
And lay it out before the Lord.
An attitude, a haste, a lack of reverence
for heavenly things, too much the victim of
this world and the spirit of this world,
and things that are casual and glib, a
sense of dedication that needs to be performed
now tonight before God.
Lord, I want to be a priest.
I recognize this calling, Lord, and I take
off my spotted garments and I ask and
I thank you for the washing of the
water of the word that I've already received.
And I now invoke your blood, precious God,
and that in me which is vain, lustful,
selfish, fearful, easily intimidated and threatened by men,
earthly, break the power of it.
Teach me how to come before you and
find that heavenly place.
Hallelujah.
Gracious God, have for yourself a kingdom of
priests.
For Jesus' sake.
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