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 23rd
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
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