The Raising of the Kingly Priests (14)
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…
Our
meditation on Job as a priest has brought us far into the reflection of the
priests and kings of God or into the divine concept of the kingdom of priests.
And in this way we have had to consider the spiritual constitution of these
special people; the very fabric make-up of their souls.
We, in
this connection, have been considering the breastplate of the priest and the
precious stones set in it. All these stones are the divinely gracing characters
of the kingly priests. These precious stone-characters are not external
decorations; they are the adornment of the inner man of the priests of God. Our
next stone in this meditation is sapphire which represents Dan.
Dan: The
Sapphire-gem Character.
Sapphire is
the fifth precious stone and is the second stone in the second row. Starting
from Reuben who is represented by Sardius, sapphire is the fifth stone. The
number five represents grace. Sapphire stands for Dan. The stone has various
shades of blue colour. It speaks of the heavenly. It is part of the in-wrought
of the heavenly characters of these priestly kings of God.
Dan,
represented by sapphire means Judging. He was the son of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid
given to Jacob as wife. The name signifies the Lord who hears our voices and
cries and judges accordingly. The word in Hebrew means judging, a present
continuous action word. Genesis 30: 5,
And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. 6, Then Rachel said, God has judged
my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she
called his name Dan. That name was
the prophetic destiny he was to live; it is the prophetic life of the kingly
priests. Jacob, in his priestly cum prophetic prayer for his sons spoke of the
destiny of Dan in a statement: Dan shall
judge his people. And he did for
Samson was of the tribe of Dan.
The
sapphire quality of those being made priests and kings unto our God and the
Lamb means that they have been tried and approved; they are, says the blue
colour of the sapphire, of heaven and not of the earth. The divine quality of
heavenly righteous judgment has been replicated in them. That is why Dan shall
judge his people.s is a quality attained in the hands of our handler, the
Holy Spirit; He will see to this.
Dan is
sapphire. This precious stone is, according to Vine, second hardest substance
in nature after diamond. Judgment is hard to be carried out. Such one with this
quality has gone beyond the culpable soft or jelly-like nature and has matured,
rigidly solidified into an incorruptible disposition. Heavenly judgment is
in-corruption. It is God’s position of authority. God is incapable of being
corrupted with sense of power, of wealth or of wisdom. Heavenly judgment has
all the elements that make the appropriate judgment. This judgment is neither arrived
by logic, nor by the rigorous reasoning of the earthly judges. It is by divine
intuition. The one that is in this estate just know – like God. These beings
have come to know the Father so much that they thus can give, not their
opinions or suggestions, their word as God’s, on any matter or issue. Therefore
they can also judge angels.
Sapphire-gem Characters As The Judging
Throne
As
the leitmotiv of our contemplation in this thought, this person has come to
sonship and therefore can vindicate divine thought on any matter. The one in this
character-mode is the only one that can stand for God. In-corruption is as hard
as sapphire and has the capacity to carry, without breaking, additional weight
of the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem – the foundations are
persons.
Sapphire in the scriptural appearances is
always associated with the throne of God. The first appearance of this word in
the bible is in the 24th chapter of Exodus, the 10th
verse: And they saw the God of Israel:
and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as
it were the body of heaven in its clearness. The New American Version in
its own rendering puts the second sentence thus: under his feet was something like pavement made of sapphire, clear as
the sky itself. The phrase, clear as
the sky itself is very significant. Only the things, the judgement of God
can be so clear; so is the sapphire-nature man.
We have
the sapphire-throne figure again in the 1st and 10th chapters of Ezekiel. 26-28th
verses of the 1st chapter read: Above
the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and
high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what
appeared to be his waist up he looked like a glowing metal, as if full of fire;
and that from there down, he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded
him. Like the appearance of rainbow cloud in a rainy day, so was the radiance
around him. This being is the metamorphosed son of man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is the glorified Christ; this is the hope of man, this glory.
Above
and on the cherubims, above and on the four living creatures was the stone of
sapphire which speaks of judgment or rulership. The glory was awesome. The book
of Daniel corroborates this as also Revelation. It is the throne of one that
looks like the Son of man. If the one on that throne looks like man, it means
that man is expected there. What does this mean? Simple: a man has attained
that throne - representatively, that is; man will come over there. Since this is true of
one man, then it is true of His brethren among whom He must have the preeminence.
Daniel
invites us. Daniel 7: 9 “As I looked Thrones were set in place and
the Ancient of days took his seat. His clothing was white like wool His throne
was flaming with fire and its wheels were all ablaze. 10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out
from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousands ten
thousands stood before him. The court was seated and the books were opened. 13
In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like the son of
man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of days and
was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign
power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is
one that will never be destroyed (NAV).
Above
are prophetical scenes rendered in a mixture of the poetic and prose. It is all
about glory of the throne; it is an attainment of the sapphire-character man;
it is the sphere of the elevated man. We see with all clarity the authority and
glory of this Man on the Throne. Reading from Revelation 14: 14, I looked, and before me was a white cloud,
and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his
head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Continuing in Revelation19: 11, I saw heaven standing open and there before
me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.(NAV).
The last sentence is rendered by KJV as... in
righteousness he doth judge and war. All is about judging. Attaining this height of “judging” is
an on-going process; it is not a one day event pushed into the future; it is a
processing. We are not denying the ultimate of the scenes depicted above, but
the sapphire-culture nature must be in-wrought into us by the Lord. You see,
that figure on the sapphire throne judging is not interested to be alone nor is
He interested to do the judging alone; He is therefore raising brethren like
himself to come and join Him. God, through Him, is raising sons called priests;
matured sons are priests capable of delivering judgment. Now, this is much more
by the unction in us and by the exercising of it. It is a life we press into
right here in this present dispensation, not when we get to heaven. We are so
sure that the Lord will help us in this matter as in all the matters concerning
His kingdom. Our submission is that there had, have been and will be sons that
will arise on earth and deliver judgments in all spheres of life. We say this by faith having the same spirit of faith, according
to what is written, I believe therefore have I spoken. We believe therefore
we speak.
Spontaneous Spirit-judging Through The
Sapphire-man
The
Lord Jesus Himself began to say this. He was hinting certainly at judging when
He taught in Luke 21: 14: Therefore settle it in your hearts not to
meditate beforehand on what you will answer;
15, for I will give you a mount and
wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.The
first test of this warning of the Lord was to take off in practical effect in the life of Stephen, one of the seven deacons. In a no-hold bared
judgment-giving arguments, effectively deploying historical facts and truths,
Stephen, not premeditating beforehand what to say before the elders and his
accusers, gave them their deserts. The bible says in Acts 6: 8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people…,
10: And they were not able to resist
the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. It is worth noticing that the
apostles requested for men of good
reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom…. And they chose Stephen, a man
full of faith and the Holy Spirit. We do well, therefore to take note that
this was one of the acts of the Holy Spirit.
Brother Garlock
We find
it instructive to illustrate our former submission that God had, has and is
raising sons who are priests, kingly priests that have come to the stature of
the sapphire-gem, the stature of judging, the stature of Dan. We do this with
one of the starling miraculous stories of a kingly priest ever told anywhere in
the world. This kingly priest was known by the name of Garlock, whose book,
White Man Before We Kill And Eat You, came to our hand about thirty-four years
ago. This book then was published by Gordon Lindsay’s ministry. This great
brother having been filled with the Holy Ghost with evidence in speaking with
tongue, had a vision, while still ensconced in the comfort of his native
America, of a blindfolded people jumping
into the fire of hell. God asked the now crying young man whether he would like
to go and save these people. He obeyed his Lord with all joy and, in a jiffy as
people say, he was in Liberia – a West African nation. At that time, in the
early decades of the last century, Liberia was still a USA’s concern or area of
influence. Actually, that was a wrong statement for American’s influence did
not extend beyond Moronvia, the city that later became the capital of the
nation? But brother Garlock was in the interior, alone with God without
America’s might or presence. He was there wading through crockodile-infested
rivers and living among hostile neighbours.
He was
also living among people that had a practice of eating their victims and
captives in wars. As a matter of fact, the tribes were always having one cause
or the other to wage war against one another. One day, a servant of this
servant of God was caught in another hostile territory when the latter was on
an errand for the former. News came to Brother Garlock that his servant had
been seized and was about to be killed. The Brother had to run to the rescue of
his brother. He himself was caught, bound and seized as a prize of war. They
sat and surrounded their captive. Of course, the god they served, as gods in
all nations did and still do, demanded justice with regards to the prosecutions
of wars. As soon as the Brother appeared, they captured him too intending to kill and eat him, but first they needed
to hear from their gods that it was a just act to so do, especially as this one
was of another race. Brother Garlock rose up from his recumbent-bound position to
speak in defence of himself. However, he suddenly noticed his hands were shaking and he was
furious with himself because he did not want to give the impression that he was
afraid. Oh no, he was wrong; it was actually the Holy Spirit that was active in
his son. As he opened his mouth, he did not only hear himself speaking in a
strange language, but found he was gesticulating with vim and vigour. He did
this for up to an hour or so and then looked around to find his accusers’ heads
bowed in awe and reverence, nodding and agreeing with what he was saying. He
had actually spoken in the language of his captors. Then the leader of the
group, affirming, “Your God is the true God,” caught a white cock[no doubt, to
substitute for the white man] and, snapping off its head, sprinkled the blood
on him and also on them. It was an acceptance of a superior argument and
judgment that had a supreme power back of it.
Now it
should be stated that Brother Garlock did not know the language before hand and,
till he died, did not know the judgment he passed on those his accusers. This
was a son; this was a priest; this was Dan; this was a king. Brother Garlock was
it.
We surely
have exciting days ahead of us. The Lord will bring us all in. Lord, we receive
the mentoring of the Holy Spirit that we may be truly pleasing to you in this
present time. If any thing, we need to be more practised and sensitive to Him
you have given to us to teach us al things, to remind us all that you have
taught us. These days are the days of Dan’s prophetic character; the days of
declaring the true judgment of God; it is the day we leave childhood of
butter-my-bread behind and migrating into the hard core of the life of matured sons.
It is the time of doing the will of God on earth. Father, we pray that we may
be partakers of this goodness of the Lord. We pray that we will answer to
prophetic destiny, not of becoming a big shot in the world but of becoming
great with you. This is our destiny; this is where we belong and we receive the
grace to end up there, Lord. Thank you our Father.
