The Raising of the Kingly Priests
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.
Revelation 1:
6 And hath made us kings and
priests unto God and His Father…
In the raising of the kingly
priests, God will have to ensure the clear spiritual ascendancy of the saints,
conforming them to the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus who is the High Priest
of our profession. In this meditation on the fifth verse of the first chapter
of Job, we shall be looking into the seventh spiritual gem-character on the
breastplate of the high priest. It is ligure and represents Dan.
Ligure: the
gem character of Gad
Exudus 28: 19: And the third row
a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
The gem called ligure is not well
pronounced in the bible. Strong, in his
concordance, suggests that it is equivalent to the Greek word jacinth. Jacinth
is a gem of deep blue colour. This speaks of the heavenly essence. It is the
deep calling to the deep; it is the execution of divine will on the earth.
Ligure represents Dan, the seventh son. The number seven means completion,
perfection and fulfillment of God’s purpose and will. This speaks of the
completion and perfection of the will of God in the saint. It is about him that
is coming, that is, the perfect man, the one that is coming into the excellence
of the character of Christ; it is about one that has fully appropriated, in his
continual coming and approach, the measure of the fullness of the stature of
Christ.
Vine, on the other hand, in his
Expository Dictionary suggest sapphire. It is still the same calling of the
heaven; it is of a character where the heavens visibly reigns and is clearly
seen. When people see this man, they see heaven , they see Christ; he show to
the world the excellence of divine character and by this is also in the
position to teach the angels or the principalities the manifold wisdom of God.
The creation and the heavenly beings still have a lot to learn about God. The
manifest sons of God will be the “teaching aids” or the teaching materials to
illustrate the unending depth of the wisdom of our God.
Ligure is Dan which means a
troop. Genesis 30:10 -11: And Zilpah
Leah’s maid bare Jacob a son. and Leah said, A troop cometh: and she called his
name Gad. Gad connotes assembling selves by troop, soldiers… Leah deployed
a military term meaning a troop or a company. This signifies one that has lost his
individualism into the clear solution of the troop.
The troop is the church of Christ. No football team wins a match except
as all the players have lost their individualism to the team. To score a goal,
there must be good defenders in absolute difference to the good skipper and
the coach; there will be excellent passing of the leather rim from one to the
other until the goal-mouth is reached. There was little or nothing a one-man-army Samson was
able to accomplish; but David was able to establish the kingdom by his
assembled troop that trooped to him to join force with him.
The ligure-gem character is
heavenly. The patterns of heaven have come to the earth in this one person.
This was clearly revealed in the life of the Lord Jesus. He did not see equality with God as something to be grabbed or be
forcefully taken. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. (Phillipians 2: 6 - 8) All these for a team-work of saving the lost
the man. The Father was in the Son and the Son was in the Father. I in them and thou in me, that they may
be made perfect in one...(John 17: 23) It surely takes the humility of the
degree of the character of the Lord Jesus to allow oneself to be integrated
into the Body of Christ. Many forceful characters cannot bear obscurity; many
want to be a lone ranger to earn the applause of men. Many love to be the soul
of the party, to achieve clear visibility and to be the anchor-man of a
gathering. The thing is called super-stardom and many men of God are in this un-Gad-like race
today. It is of the earth, earthy. But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated..(James 3: 17). The
heavenly character ligure-gem does not consider self but the Body or the
company or the troop above all else.
Dan is ligure, a troop. The
signification of this is that this is one who is not for a one-man show, a
splurge. Gifted preachers come handy as an example here. Few in the body of
Christ cherishes the out-of-scene or behind-the-scene ministries. Most young
Christians fast and pray to be like this or that famous preacher or tel-evangelist. Many preachers want to be able to gather hundreds of thousands
if not millions in their mega-church buildings or communes. These super-star
preachers throw themselves up to all as the example of what God wants us all to
be. Me think that if this were true, God would only go ahead and make clones of
them. No, it is not like that, taking the kingdoms of this world for the Lord
is not a one-man army or one-man initiative; it is that of the Body. The Body
must minister to one another in team work. That was how the fathers taught us;
that was how they were able to turn the world the right side up even though the
complaint of the world of that time was that these had turned the world upside down. Many today refuse to join hands with
others to achieve the God-given goal. It suits them to go it alone.
The ligure-gem character revels
in the fellowship of the brethren for he knows that that is where lies his
safety; it is the portal of coming to maturity and kingly priesthood. Such
people cannot be overcome; cannot be cursed; canot be defied; nor can they be
defiled. Balam said, How can I curse, whom God hath not cursed? Paraphrased:
how can I defy whom God has not defied. As each tribe of Israel passed by their
own standard of staff, ‘with the ensign of their father’s house over against
the tabernacle,’ Balam, the man called to curse them saw the whole congregation
from the top of the mountain. He prophesied: How goodly are thy tents, o Jacob,
and thy tabernacles, o Israel. It should be noted that Jacob or Israel here was
a troop or a company of God. Right outside and above their conscious knowledge,
spectacular spiritual activities were whirling to destroy or to enchant; but
there was a greater centrifugal counter-whirling that would not allow this.
This was because the destructive force was dealing with a heavenly troop called
Israel or Jacob and in the later days, the church of the Lord Jesus. Upon this mountain will I establish my
church and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. The diviner Balaam said
of them, the Israelites in the Wilderness of...: Surely, there is no enchantment against Jacob neither is there any
divination against Israel. This is being lifted together in the heavenly
places with Jesus Christ far above principalities, power, rulers of darkness of
this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. Yes, it pays to confess the
word of God, “...no enchantment against me and neither is there any divination
against my family.” Good, this becomes more effective in the family of the
children of God if the spiritual law or principle has been set into motion. One cannot be out
of fellowship with the Body and expects this confession to hold. Yet, one can be
in perfect tandem with the Body of Christ and not confess anything and still be
safe. To be out with the body is a breach of divine spiritual law; it is a
legal ground for another law to supervene..
Ligure represents Gad. This
gem-character is troop or company. This character loves the brethren. This is my commandment that ye love one
another as I have loved you. He loses his will and self-possession in the
Body. He is unbound by the earthly relationship of families and is bound by the
law of another relationship to the brethren. He is concerned with and for the
Body and does not remember denominational differences; he knows only of those
things that bind the Body together. There was once a pastor of a church who had
his son in a fee-paying nursery and primary school which was adjudged to be
giving students quality education. In the church was a tertiary- institution-going
brother who could no more pay his school fees. The pastor, for the sake of the
brethren, the Body withdrew his son from the private school to the public
school where quality was low and little or no fees were paid. He did this to
enable him have more money to pay the indigent brother’s fees. I have seen a
brother who gave up his right to another; I have seen hurting families turned
around when the church got involved. I have seen hatred turned to love because
of the Church. And let us consider one another to provoke unto
love… not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together… It means we should
not be forgetting to sort ourselves out as troop or as a company; this is an
everyday assignment.
Gad is ligure. The gem is heavenly character of assembling; it is of
discerning of the Body of Christ. We talk of the body and not of the splintered
groups the church is today in an attempt at shining singularly as part of the
body. We talk of one body and one baptism that is Christ; it is not
greater-revelation-than-your-church consciousness. We talk of the true body of
Christ where conceit has no place, where no timidity and false humility do not
exist, where nothing of title-hollering-prefixed-names are known. No, there is no
Reverend-Doctor-Chief-professor-General-Arcbishop-Pope Pontifex Maximum X. We here speak
of the place of the rest of God and man; a spiritual place of a people where
the Lord can be truly worshipped and appreciated; we speak of a place of
the rebound of spiritual energy.
After Peter and John had been
threatened, ‘they went back to their own
company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto
them. so when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord... And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.’ (Acts 4: 24, 31) The disciples were refreshed and reinvigorated by the energy of the Spirit
Gad is ligure. Ligure-gem is the heavenly co-existence of the kingly
priests; they are simultaneously present in the heavenly families and that of
the earth: God of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named. The writer of Hebrews says in the 12th
chapter, verse22 But ye are come to
mount Zion, and unto to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and
to the innumerable number of angels to the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and God, the judge of us all, and to
the spirit of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of the sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of the blood of Abel. In fact this is their priestly function for here
mention is made of God to whom they minister; the location in heaven and the blood of sprinkling,
which is the tool of their ministration. Priests deal with the blood of
reconciliation or atonement; only that this is supremely better than that of
Abel.
Ligure is Gad – a troop. The body of Christ is one. The Lord Himself
ministers through the Holy Spirit to His church on earth and, that from heaven.
The place of ministration is not located anywhere on earth nor is it with any
group or else man will mishandle it. He sends His special gifts of apostles,
prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors. These will continue to minister
through the gifts until we come to the unity of the faith. The faith is the
faith of the Son of God. Jesus in his prayer for the disciples in the 17th
chapter of John said, …Holy Father keep
through thine own name those who thou hast given me, that they may be one, as
we are. The Holy Father and the Lord Jesus are one. The identity of the
Lord has become that of the Father and that of the Father has become that of
the Lord. Looking at the Lord, we see the Father. Any one that has seen me has
seen the Father. This speaks of a troop; this is a company. It is of a
character that gains spiritual strength and ascendancy through being part of
the company of the Lamb; gaining strength through fellowship with the Body.
This character has learned to log the fellowship with the Body around in his
subconscious and conscious mind.
The opportunity to come to this
tribe of the company or troop of the body of Christ has never been so great as
that of today. What with the communication system that has shrunken the earth
into a global village; what the ease with which I can reach my brother even
when thousands of kilometres away, located at the other end of the globe. But
there is also no greater time to be very cautious and be ready to discern the
true Body for many strange companies pass for that of Christ nowadays. If we say that we have fellowship with him,
and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not do the truth. Jesus is light;
darkness is impossible in the presence of light. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin. Before we go global, therefore, the local assembly fellowship is the
best any day, this is where we are whetted and kept strong. As great as the
internet assembly is, the local is the greatest place to learn and have worked
into us all divine characters. The local assembly is the place of safety.
In the last days, fellowship or company of the brethren will prove to be
the place of greatest wisdom but will also prove to be a plaque to the world for
it will assail the world’s arrangements and order. In the beginning, the
foundation of the earth was really shaken by the life of the early believers.
Their righteous presence was so dazzling that no one could join themselves or
become a casual members as we have nowadays. But the people magnified them. That was long before I-am-of-Apollos-and-I-am-of-Paul schism
reared its ugly head; not unlike today too when some still say, Our G. O. Is
superb, the greatest man of God on earth. Perhaps, you are right; certainly,
God has not committed that judgment to you. Admire your G. O by all means, but
let us not divide the Body.
There is strength in unity. Can this be said of today’s church? As many
more join the tribe of Gad, the economy of the world will be shaken. There was
an anti-type in the early believers; there will be the type in these last days.
Neither was there any among them that
lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and
brought the prices of the things that were sold. And laid them down at the
apostles’ feet; and distribution was made to everyman according as he had need.
This is the ligure-gem experience of the kingly priests.
Father, we declare that this is the age of the Church. We pray that we
experience you all over again as of old. May the heart of the church yearn for
you and you only, not these things toward
which,today, our hearts and teachings and visions as well as our aspirations and
discussions gravitate; the very centre of our prayers. Raise the ministers, your own ministers,
appropriate for your church today and let many know that as in the days of the wilderness
there is always a move from one point to the other; in fact the points were 42,
each with its own unique experiences with God. May we experience a fresh breath
of heaven. we pray that your church will know what you are now doing. And,
Lord, we pray that you will bind us together in love as that daughter of yours
sang in a song, years ago: Bind us together, Lord...in love that cannot be
broken.. Bind us together... Thank you, Father.
