The Raising of the Kingly Priests (11)

Reading:

                                                              Job 1:           

            5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all, for Job said, it may be that my sons have cursed  God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

Reading:

                                                            Exodus 28:

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

                                 Revelation: 1:

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

               We are continuing our meditation on the book of Job.

                We go aside to examine the thoughts of God on the kingly priests He is raising today. This will not be too much an aside-on-stage as we reflect on the fifth verse of the first chapter of the book. This is because Job had the spiritual and the prophetic makings and trappings of a priestly king in his days. Only the priest could approach God; the one who could pacify His ire concerning the daily abomination of man. The priest was it that Job longed for and called the daysman or umpire who could lay hand both on man and God. He was the only one who could ensure the righteous rights of God on earth; he knew the heart of God and could bring it to the heart.

                                                       The Significance of the Priestly Garments                                     

               The priest wears specially made garments which signify the divine characters. These holy garments set him apart from all other person for they reflect what God looks like. He is very special to his Father as Joseph was so special to his father who made for him beautiful multicolour garments; they were the garments meant only for the son of the king. The priestly garments mean the spiritual growth into the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, into the approval of a son. We talk of the garments of the fullness of Christ which fit only sons, matured sons; these have the rights to display these garments like Joseph had and was always showing off in them.  The materials of these garments are abundantly provided and wrought by the Holy Spirit.

             In our last meditations, we pondered over the breastplate, its ephod and the precious stones set into it and the first row of the setting: sardius, topaz and carbuncle. We meditated on sardius as Reuben: the red colour gem or ruby. Today, we shall be helped by the Holy Spirit to reflect on Topaz which represents Simeon.

                                                             Topaz: The Gem Character Of Simeon.  

               Topaz, according to Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, is yellow in colour though other colours of it exist. It is as hard as diamond and has the power of double refraction. Precious stone like this has the power to refract light at certain angles through them that brings out lights of beautiful colours. It means that when topaz is in the path of white light, it brings out, after refractive process, a monochromatic yellow, very beautiful.  This gives the light its own distinctive characters. The white light is reflective of the word of God and when it goes through this gem of a man, another beautiful light comes out. The word of God when well processed in his priest comes out with amazing fidelity; there is fidelity of refracted light to bring out certain colour of distinct characters. When this is achieved there is a speedy execution of the Father’s heartbeat and thoughts.

            Leah said in Genesis 29, verse 33:  “Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon.”  Simeon means hearing. One would expect the woman’s statement of joy to be “Because the Lord hath seen that I was hated,…” but, no, she said that the Lord had heard that she was hated. It means that with God, there is a seeing in hearing.  And there is also an edge of hearing in seeing; in the hearing of God is the seeing from God’s perspective, seeing like God and able to give sound judgment or conclusion on any matter. This is like the science of the waves. After this and that experiments, the scientists have been able to ‘see’ the structure and behaviour of waves and have been enabled to subject everything concerning waves to mathematical judgment (modelling) based on what they ‘see.’ The priest 'sees' in what he hears from God, more beautifully than all other.

                   Topaz is Simeon.  We mean Topaz is used to represent Simeon. Simeon means hearing. Leah believed that God identified with her in an unenviable condition of existing among a family in which she was not much loved. Now, she knew, God had ‘seen-heard’ her state. Who should know this estate more than God Himself! He created man for the purpose of eternal love and fellowship. And this was only possible if man could ‘see-hear’ Him soundly. He is still much concerned today that this condition is yet to be perfected. This is the reason He typified this desire with topaz: ears that not only hear but also see. In refraction, there is a way the path of light is bend to bring another phenomenon. This knowledge has been used by scientists and technologists to achieve many optical effects. So is the word of God is being directed to produce the effect of sonship in the individual through whom this sound of the knowledge of God has become the desired light of His word.

                        God is raising priestly kings who in reality are sons with divinely provided acute hearing power. This is clearly spelt out in the enacted thought of God concerning His priests at the consecration for the old priests. In the 29^th chapter of Exodus, Aaron and his sons washed themselves at the gate of the tabernacle. They would lay their hands on the bull of sin offering as they confessed their sins and the bull would be killed. Then they did the same to the ram of consecration. Here is what is done with the blood of the ram of consecration, 20^th verse of the book: then shall thou kill the ram and take his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron and upon the tips of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the altar round about. This is the ram of consecration. The blood on right toe, right thumb and right ear reveals the God’s blood-bought man. Therefore, the right toe means walk aright; the thumb of the right hand, means to handle aright and the tip of the right ear means hear aright. The priests of God have acquired hearing prowess, far beyond the ordinary.

                            Topaz is Simeon; it means hearing.  Tip of the right ear. This priest has been so taken over by the joy of the sound of the will and word of God that he leaps at the hearing of the sound of His voice. He not only hears the sound of God’s voice, but literally sees the word. Revelation, 1,verse 12: And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. There are many ways of hearing. With God, there is only one that is right. There are so many voices; there is the voice of God. Whosoever that heareth these sayings of mine and does them is, said the Lord, like one who dug hard and laid the foundation of his house. The Lord further vouched for such house that no vehemence of any storm could make it collapse because it has been laid on good foundation. The word of God is the good foundation.  Every one that is of the truth, again said the Lord, heareth my voice.

                         Now how do we cultivate the hearing power?  It is by the hearing of faith. As we continue to abide in His presence the voice of the Father will become more clear and recognisable to us. We easily drown the voice of God in the voices of our reasoning. It is, for example, good and cool thing to go for the soundly economical spouse; it stands within reason to gun for the more attractive sister (Leah and Rachel). It is reasonable to migrate from the poor south to the more economically buoyant northern hemisphere to preach the gospel. It sounds good as God’s voice to establish a Christian ministry in the mega-cities or any of the Western nations. We are not criticising these moves nor are we passing judgment. They are just examples, in our meditation, of what we have seen men do as the voice of God.

                          Hearing of faith more often does not flow in the direction of smartness and acute power of reasoning. Once upon a time, my friend and Christian brother,  Bishop Tom Oluwadele was in dire financial strait. A brother sent some US dollars to him in the nick of time. The money had hardly been cleared from the bank when he heard that he should give part of it to a brother X who once fellowshiped with him in his assembly. My friend’s reaction should be experienced rather than imagined. He literally argued with God. But he had to obey thinking that he would not be able to locate the house of the brother. Unfortunately, the Holy Spirit came into the matter and, against his will, he found the house. He sneaked through the door left ajar with the sound of agonising weeping and sighing emanating from it. Brother X was so taken up with his weeping-sighing prayer that he was not aware of another presence with him in the room. The prayer ended, he got up and got startled as well to see somebody in the house. The moment of truth had come and the visiting minister of the gospel had to give the money as directed. When the weeping brother learned that he had become so much richer than he was yesterday, he asked what would be the equivalent of the dollars in local currency. It was just the amount he needed and was crying to God for to pay his house rent and to get something to eat. That voice of God to the Bishop came like a thought from himself. Priesthood is about hearing accurately from the Father and do His bidding on earth.

                                 Seven times did the Lord admonish His people in the book of Revelation, “He that hath ear let him hear what the spirit is saying to the church.”  Let us learn the hearing of faith from the Lord Jesus, “…as I hear, I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of him that sent me.”  For good ears, the priest must have been completely lost in the will of the Father. As we seek more to please Him and do His will, His voice comes more clearly to us. Then we will find it difficult to go wrong. This means we must have God’s word abiding in us; we must continue in His words to do them.

                               Father, if there is anything our hearts hunger and thirst for, it is to know your will and pursue it. We pray that we will be filled with the knowledge of your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Like the hart panteth after the water brook, panteth our hearts after you, O Lord. We pray that we might walk worthy of you, Lord, unto all pleasing. We receive the grace to increase in the knowledge of you. Thank you, dear Lord. 

d         mathew 7: 24

           John 18: 37

            Galasians 3: 2

             Revelation 2 - 3

             John 5: 30

   

the Raising of The Kingly Priests

                                                             TheMaking Of The Kingly Priests Of God (10)

             "Now, the sardius-gem character keeps away from the pathway of sin not because of the need to attract the attention of God’s material blessings and protection; he is off sin’s way because he is a son – he is simply incapable of sinning just as God cannot sin. This speaks of the nature of the sardius-gem being..". continue @ www.faithscape.blogspot.com

Reading:

                                   Job 1:            

            5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all, for Job said, it may be that my sons have cursed  God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

Readin:

                                 Revelation:

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

Reading:

                                                            Exodus 28:

             15 and thou shall set in it setting of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz and a carbuncle…

                        The truths of sanctification, atonement and redemption headed up in Christ Jesus represented in the practices of the OT brought us to the firm meditative conclusion that Job was a type of priest. And we have, as it were, turned aside, to consider some issues about priesthood. This Shakespearean on-the stage-aside comes handy in our reflections through the Holy Spirit to take us deeper in the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of the Lord Jesus. We continue here in our reflections on part of the Aaron’s holy priestly garments.

                                                        The Number Twelve.

                      The twelve tribes of Israel were represented in three rows of four columns by different  precious stones setting on the breastplate of the ephod.

                    Have you wondered about why twelve tribes of Israel?

                    Have you considered the twelve apostles of the Lamb?

                   The number twelve runs all the way from the book of the Beginning to Revelation.

                    The number twelve is government

                    In the New Jerusalem, there are twelve foundations (of precious stones), twelve gate-names of the twelve tribes of Israel and trees of life on either sides of the street bearing twelve manners of fruits… These no doubt mean control, government and complete sovereignty; it is a lively perfect government. It showcases the goal of God all through the history of man obtained through divine wisdom. This speaks of a government obtained through patience. We shall consider the issue of the breastplate a little more.

                                                  The Breastplate.

                   The names of the male progenitors of the tribes speak volume; it is divine and spiritual in origin and conception. They are all prophetic; names that are borne out of divine vision and plan – the future victory. No, the names do not speak of the characters of the bearers; they but speak of what the eyes of God saw ahead of time, what those eyes of fire tried and purged and created in the end of the ages -  in ages to come. For God is the only one that declares the end from the beginning. Even now He sees the end-product that we are in the Lord Jesus even though here we are not yet anywhere near to the ordained predestination. For those he called, he predestined to conform to the image of his Son. Far back in the eternity past, he decided to raise a race of kingly priests unto Himself. Beyond the immediate children of Jacob, God saw carnal Israel and the later spiritual Israel who would come into priesthood to Him.  

                  The twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel – what about them? Reuben was incestuous; Simeon and Levi were murderously vengeful; Judah was promiscuous; the sons of Bilah and Zipah had bad reports. The elderly ten sons, out of envy, sold their brother Joseph and Judah was the one that came with the suggestion after they had conspired to kill this younger brother. Nothing, and this is the point, showed them anywhere near God’s heart and vision; but God will get to His own end through His own means: the patient in-working of the cross of Christ.

                 These characters live in us; all manners of contradictions to Christ: sins and iniquities. There is lust and evil in us. God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempt he any man, everyman is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Evidently, we cannot plumb the depths of this lust and enticement. We are not violent but we delight in violent movies, the more violent and action-packed, the merrier and better. And we are not averred to the badgering and killing portrayed in the work of cinema. We are not sexual perverts nor are we prurient in our thoughts, but we are enticed by animated and beckoning  pornography while on the internet, browsing. We condemn those who embezzle public funds, but we do not fare better in our little world where we occupy an office. We do not fight nor box, but we are addicts of the pugilists and wrestlers on the screen. We shun the thrills of this world and regard them as vanity, but we are fan(atic)s of this-and-that football club, from the Man that is Chesting to the one the one that is with a smoking Gun and the Chel of the deep sea; we even adorn our homes and windscreens with their emblems. We do not backbite but we criticise. We are not promiscuous, but we cannot do away with sexually explicit novels and writings.

                                          Reuben: The Sardius-gem Character  

                  In the first row on the breastplate was sardius. It represented Reuben. Sardius is a blood-red gem and translates to the blood that would be shed and bring about redemption and forgiveness.. Then Leah conceived and bare a son, and called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely, the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore, my husband will love me. Which speaks of God-man relationship all the way from the beginning. Just as it was unbearable for Leah to love and not be loved in return, so God who loves man and is unloved; nothing is as hurtful as to love and the object of one’s love does not only despise the overtures being made but panders to the love-crave of another. God knows this better than anybody by experience and not by sense knowledge. You see the show of love, affection and witness the serenade between your love and another and your love does not even acknowledge your presence. The sardius gem reveals the great cost of this to God. Leah said, “surely, the Lord hath looked upon my affliction..”

This shows how her heart bled for the man of her life; it serves to show the heart-love of the Father and the affliction of God’s heart as man diverts his love to another.  

                    God is love and we shall say this the umpteenth time. God is the husband par excellence. For thy maker is thine husband; the Lord of host is his name; and thy redeemer, the holy one of Israel. In the book of Jeremiah, … although I was an husband to them, said the Lord.  In the book of Revelation, the Bible speaks of New Jerusalem… prepared as a bride for her husband. The heart of God continues to yearn for man as wife…. Wife signifies Love. The entire 23^rd chapter of Ezekiel is very significant in this connection of how God declaims whoredom and calls the heart of His lover back home to him.  The chapter is an interesting reading.

               “ ….now therefore my husband will love me.” This word of the neglected Leah was a cry of love from him whom she loved greatly. For God to obtain this love it cost him his own life, His blood and all that He is. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…The gem sardius stands for that cost that was His life for man. Today, His love is the church and is a sad story that she repeats the whoredom that God cried against in the past as He watches the merging of His blood-bought church and the world. Here is what the Holy Spirit says on this matter: Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend with the world is the enemy of God. And this is the place where his church is now. The world pursues these things and the church far more; the world shows off its wealth garnered from unrighteousness; the church displays her voluptuous greed-gathered prosperity creatively schemed off through all manners that portray Chist in a bad light. 

                    Reuben is sardius. Reuben means, See a son. Gathered into this symbolic gem is God’s desire and plan for sons and also spoken in it is the law of first born. It stands for might, the beginning of strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. This is son; this is Manhood. It prophesied of the ultimate sacrifice that would bring redemption and produce sons of God. We talk of what God sees, Son – Manhood. That is what God sees in in this one on the path to priesthood; we speak of the church of Christ. The red gem means the blood of our redemption that sings, There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. The flesh is the prompting that is sourced from other points other than the Holy Spirit. The flesh lives in the soul and rules the passions, shapes responses to stimuli and in deep love relationship with a principle that contradicts the divine nature;it is a law called sin. When a man becomes spirit-born, he begins to learn to yield right of way to the now-indwelling Spirit. He who is in this position is said to be walking in spirit. When the indwelling Spirit completely takes over the soul, he is said to have become a spiritual being; he is living the life of heaven, heavenly; he has the characters of God occupying the centre of his soul which before now has been controlled by self-spirit. The sardius-man, the very man in this estate has come of age, he has come to sonship; he has come to Manhood. He is only thrilled by those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. He has known how to use this world as if not abusing it; he is not possessed of this world or of all these things people run after. As a matter of fact, he may even not cry to God for interventions on his behalf concerning these things; he seeks the face of God alone. No, he does not hate ‘good things,’ but he is not overtly moved by their extrinsic values nor is he averred to their intrinsic values. If he has them, he makes use of them; if he does not have them, it does not matter anyway.

              The red gem represents Reuben. It means see a son. Son is one purchased, possessed of and overtaken by the Holy Spirit. He is God’s resting place; he is Go’s temple. A son does not keep good to attract the attention of his father; a servant does. A son does not delight himself in good behaviours so that the father will give him candy; an immature child does. A son does what he does so as to keep permanent smiles on the face of the Father, so that the pleasure of God may prosper in his hand. He has been dealt with in the flesh and the values of the blood have been woven into the fabrics of his soul. He glories in nothing but the cross of Christ by which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I live now I live by the faith of the Son of God, who love me and gave himself for me.

           Once I was in a church listening to a message. It was the usual stuff of do well and keep away from sin so that the Lord may bless you and all those other things. I almost bolted out and made a 4 by 4 relay-dash out. The character portrayed by that message was a mercenary. Now, the sardius-gem character keeps away from the pathway of sin not because of the need to attract the attention of God’s material blessings and protection; he is off sin’s way because he is a son – he is simply incapable of sinning just as God cannot sin. This speaks of the nature of the sardius-gem being. As a partaker of divine nature, he is invulnerable to sin and does not exercise undue fear of sin.  The Holy Spirit has been dealing with the self-Iife of sin nature in him.

              And the Father, the tender-hearted Father is not father because He performs miracles on his behalf. The faith in him that sees Him as a lovely Father when He fights and performs those miracles will never shift even when he does not do anything concerning him. He is always what he is: Father. This issue should not be misunderstood. If this character needs material blessings, he will pray; if he needs divine intervention, he will rise up on the wings of faith and exercise his authority of the believer. When he has done all, he will stand. He will stand therefore… but if after these the Father does not bear down on eagle’s wings to rescue him, he is not going to loose his strong sense of sonship, nor is his faith in his Fatherhood  going to shake or depreciate. This is son and this is the Father.

              See a son. This is Reuben symbolised in sardius. God’s yearns for love and union with his bride prepared over the ages is in view here. God sees sons in Christ. The Lord is raising sons

through the church by the hands of his ascended gifts: the apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors. For the perfecting of the saints, for the works of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we come… to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is our prayer today; we need to pray for these gifts of Christ for they are very crucial for the growth of the body to maturity.

                Lord we thank you for the activities of the Holy Spirit today. Father, we pray for the blessing of the gift of Christs in your church.  We pray that you will raise again in the whole church in the earth, not only in North America and Europe, but in all the earth, your true apostles, prophets, evangelists…. These have to be specially prepared since the evil one has gone hyper in his strategies and tactics in attacking the church. The time of the enemy is short and he knows it and so desperate. Father we do declare that these ministers of yours will not only be more than a match to the devil in all his moves and subtleties, but will be able ministers who are of the mind-mode of sons ably taking their commands from the Holy Spirit. These are sons who have known Christ’s humility and great grace and have come to be able to wield the sword of the Lord with amazing ease and effectiveness. The days ahead, we declare, are the days of your church o lord.

James 1: 13

Isaiah 54:5

Jeremiah 31:32

James 4: 4

Colsians 1: 1

Isaiah 53: 10

Galasians 6: 14

Galasians 2: 20

                                                             TheRaising Of The Kingly Priests (09)                

                    “Inside the breastplate are two stones called Urim and Thummim translated as Light and Perfection; complete Truth. What were these and how were they used. They speak of accuracy and judgment. By them the priests determined the decisions of God on any issue. In the book of Joshua, the instruments were used to apportion out the land to the tribes.”  @ www.faithscape.blogspot.com                    

Reading:

                                   Job 1:           

            5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all, for Job said, it may be that my sons have cursed  God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

 Reading:

                I chose him to be my priest to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear the ephod…

                                                    The priestly Garments.

           Our meditation on Job as a priest of old brings us to consider one or two parts of the Aaron’s holy garments of the later specialised priesthood revealed in the Law.   

                                                    Brother Popoola.

                  Brother Sam Popoola of Ilorin, my elderly Christian-brother and friend, taught me, through the pages of a now rested newspaper called The Comet On Sunday, about the priestly garments in 2001. This lasted for several Sundays. Each Sunday, I pored over this revelational diet and prayed. That was the beginning of my journey to the ever increasing fullness of Christ. Am I claiming that I have arrived?  Sorry, I never said that. I only meant to say that the passion after Christ is incessantly increasing. Sometimes, I almost despair, thinking, Will this not come to an end; isn’t there any end in sight? When will I ever arrive?

                In future, God willing, I may have to go through the more than fifteen years’ old newspapers and reproduce the Dear brother’s writings that stirred my heart towards God the more. But it is like the Lord will have us approach this thought in another direction in our contemplations in this page.

                                                 The Ephod

             The ephod is a garment of worship that the priest puts on. Not everybody can wear ephod. Ephod is so powerful a spiritual wear; it is of great spiritual significance with its own demands and responsibilities, priestly responsibilities, that is. The first ephod was made in the wilderness by God, through, as He said, him whom He “filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding…” It required the direction of the Holy Spirit to accurately fashion with divine precision and dimensions the patterns of heaven on earth. By the time we get to the book of the Judges, we spotted one man who made his own ephod, a false replica and by a non-priest for that matter- we talk of Gideon. And it turned out to be what it would always be, an idol. Every imitating ephod would always turn out to be an idol. Then there was Micah who had a houseful of idols and a false ephod to boot. All these ephods were not made by the wisdom and artifice of the Holy Spirit; they emerge out of the constant agitation of the soul. When put on, it could not serve its purpose of the true worship of the Creator of the universe.

                                                  The materials of the Ephod.

                      The materials with which the ephod was made were stuff of: gold, blue, sardius and twined fine-linen.  

                      Gold denotes divinity, God. The mercy seat was made of pure gold; the ark of testimony of God upon which the the seat was placed was made of wood overlaid with gold and the lamp-stand was also of gold. Blue is heavenly and means God’s kind of love; it has heavenly colour and consistency. It is the sphere of heaven. Purple is royalty. Modecai had purple as part of his dress when he was elevated next to the king in the land. The soldiers plaited a crown of thorns  for the head of Jesus Christ and robbed him in purple to mock his claims to kingly authority. Purple is kingly. Sardius, blood-red stuff denotes salvation from destruction obtained through the shedding of blood. Twined fine-linen speaks of righteousness. ….for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. The five elements were carefully woven and made into this vest like dress that reaches to the thighs. It was called the ephod.

                 The ephod is our Lord Jesus Christ to be put on for He is the epitome of worshipping experience before God his Father. “…put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ…” Jesus Christ is the heavenly ephod wrought by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit for man. Any other dimensions, any other stuff or materials will just not fit into the true worship of God; it is only by Christ that man can approach to worship acceptably before Him. The one we put on is our excellence, our perfection that cannot be sullied by Satan. The question is, How much of the Lord has been woven into the fibre of our being? We know that in the weaving process, the materials take a lot of pounding, twisting and bending. Patience is required before the emergence of the excellence and character of God and His Christ. It cannot be any other way. The weaving and twisting may last a life-time. It takes patient faith that does not look for a quick fix. It is the natural man, devoid of faith that becomes impatient in the process of the weaving.

               The vest like wear has a girdle which can be used to hold the ephod together. It also has two shoulders’ straps. Each strap bears a setting of onyx in which has been set six names of the tribes of Israel. The onyx stones are in socket of gold. The significance of this is that priests are burden bearers before God. They bring to memorial before God. Bearing burden is not an easy thing; holding forth in intercession is not easy either, but the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities with groaning that cannot be uttered. We have heard of men of God in a full stretch of 12-hours intercessions in the Spirit. Great and supernatural things have been known to result from such priestly intercessions.

                If Christ is this garment, it means we have to press hard into this ministry. Nations, cities and peoples are waiting for the saints to enter into this estate; the Lord Himself has been patiently waiting for us as the Holy Spirit helps by the way. He depends on us to salvage the nations and the peoples. Lord this is an awesome responsibility, but what can we not do through putting on the Lord Jesus!  We trust you to strengthen us as we are obedient and are willing.

                The girdle or the band of the ephod gathers together all of the divine characters and excellence with nothing missing.

                                                           The Breastplate

                  Now the ephod serves a major purpose. It is on it that the breastplate is attached. The breast plate is made of the same materials as the ephod. Doubled, it is a span long and a span wide.  On it are set precious stones representing the names of the tribes of Israel. They are set in four rows, each of three names. The breastplate sits pretty on the breast, above the band of the ephod; it is redolent of a latter NT word of the breastplate of righteousness.

                 Two gold rings are attached to the two edges of the breastplate. A twisted or gold chain is used to attach each of the gold rings to each of the shoulder straps of the ephod. Again, two gold rings are attached on the inside edge of the plate; another set of two golden rings are also attached to the ephod just above the band or the girdle of the ephod. Two blue strips of blue lace material are used to tie the inner edge rings of the breastplate to that of the two of the ephod underneath it so that it will not be loose.

                       The priest does not only bear burden on the shoulders but also on the heart. This speaks of power to empathise; it is the ability to enter into the pains of another. It means the grace to suffer as the one involved. The breastplate signifies the heart of both God and man. The Lord Jesus must reconcile both. The blue strips of lace bind the rings together so that the breastplate will not be loose. The key word here is loose. Divine characters and the excellence of the Lord being worked into us need to be carefully secure lest they get loose.

                                                      Binding the Breastplate Firm.

                   There is a need to bind the breastplate firmly to the ephod so it will not get loose. The priest must live above the human foibles. He cannot afford to hate; he must develop a sharp appetite to love as your Father which is in heaven.  He must be able to love the beautiful and even the ugly in character. He must come to a place where he has learned enough of the life of love of Christ to forgive and to pray for enemies. Love is the driving force of this life that has the breastplate firmly bound to the ephod; it is the cord that binds all of us all together. Though I spake with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (love), I am like a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. Love gathers all the work and achievements together or else they will get loose. The invitation into the experience of the 13^th chapter of 1Corinthians is in view here.  Paul speaks of faith which works by love.

                                                Urim and Thummim

                    Inside the breastplate are two stones called Urim and Thummim translated as Light and Perfection; complete Truth. What were these and how were they used. They speak of accuracy and judgment. By them the priests determined the decisions of God on any issue. In the book of Joshua, the instruments were used to apportion out the land to the tribes; when Saul failed to get direction from the Urim, he sought out a witch to know what would happen to him about the war he was about to fight; David consulted the ephod on many issues like wars to be fought, possibility of him being betrayed, where to stay and live and many more. Do we need the Urim and the Tummim today? Yes, because they speak of clear maturity and ability to make decisions on any matter that, from the view point of God, are sound and accurate. They speak of one who is completely drowned in the light of the complete Truth and thus able to make judgments.

                   Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. In prayer to His Father, he said, ….Thy, word is truth. Having a measure of Truth who is Christ is light; it is perfection. Moses said of the Levites, …Let thy Thummim and Urim be  with thy holy one. This is an instrument associated with the holy one of God. Actually, everything boils down to the Holy Spirit here. By the in-working of the Spirit of Truth, we see Lord more clearly and less of ourselves until we come to perfection of judgment. Many of us struggle to know the mind of God on any matter; and that is the way it should be. It is part of the teaching of the Holy Spirit and by Him we will come to clearer light as the processing continues and if we do not faint or give up. He will teach you all things to come and will remind you of all that I have taught you. Urim and Thummim signify the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. It is of the inner eyes that have been enlightened, brightened and sharpened and able to know the mind of God. No matter the levels of frustrations we have encountered in this walk of faith, I am confident that we shall all get there for He is faithful who has promised. We do not have to be discouraged by the preaching of the great preachers who may not have  experienced our peculiar journey.

                    Father your word says that we shall reap if we faint not. In this way of life we declare that we cannot faint. We shall continue to look up unto you the author and finisher of our faith until we receive the perfection of all things. We shall be found to be among them who by faith, obtain good reports. We also say that your Urim and Thummim are with your holy one. Christ is our holiness, our sanctification, our righteousness and our salvation. By him we  obtain the promise which has a great recompense of reward. Thank you, our Father.

Revelations 19: 8

Exodus 31: 3

Romans 8: 26

Ephesians 6: 14

Mathew 6: 48

1 corinthians 13:1

John 14 : 6

John 17: 16

Deuteronomy 33: 8

John 14: 26