The History of the Life of the Priest of God (09)

Reading,Job 1: 5

The life of Job as one that deeply cared for humanity and therefore saw the necessity to stand between man and – between his children and – God set him apart uniquely among the families of the bible history. Scholars believe that Job was contemporaneous with the patriarch Abraham if not earlier than him. Apart from Noah, no biblical family history is this close in the breath of vision for an arbiter between man and God, until the coming of the Law. This tells us that from age to age, God has not been tired of revealing Himself to man, especially of those with listening ears and seeing eyes and willing hearts. As as an aside, Melchizedec was the priest of God to whom Abraham paid tithe and he was who blessed the patriarch. Melchizedec was a Canaanite. We shall not stay to attempt any exegesis here.

We continue our meditation in Job through Ezekiel.

 Ezekiel 44: 19:

 And when they go forth into the outer court, even unto the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers and shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.

            The Amplified version gives us a better picture of what the Spirit is saying here.

 And when they shall go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments in which they ministered and lay them in the holy chambers… lest by contact of their garments with the people, they should consecrate (separate and set apart for holy use) such persons (unintentionally and unfittingly).

 The People must be able to look pass the priest to see God

           

              The priest of God is deep in himself and has the ability to keep the secrets between him and his God for what they are: secrets. He does not have to show how close he is to God or how God is to him. He needs not boast about his power with God to make the others tremble and fear him and thus grudgingly concede, by default, authority to him, as Paul says, “. . .so no one will think of me than is warranted by what I do or say” (2 Cor. 12: 6). The Apostle stood in clear danger of this possibility because of the abundance of revelations he received from God. To keep him from the possible danger of the hubris, an agent of Satan was allowed to buffet him with thorns in his flesh. (2 Corinthians 12:7 - 8 ). Through this he learned the amazing grace of God that can keep a man going in the face of infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions and distresses.

          The priest learns, in his journey, to keep what is holy, truly holy. He keeps the deep nature of the divine in the holy chambers which are within him where the Lord lives – in the very depth of him. The  garments of divine characters are not superficial; they are not resident in the outside, but are the controlling and governmental forces within. He must not make the mistake of flaunting the deep things of God any how. The glory of the presence of God was too great on Moses that he had to put a veil over his face to reduce the glare of the glorious radiance from his face. In the New Testament, this veil became a nuisance to the people to see what God was doing and the new thing that superseded the Law that was among them (2 Cor 3 : 15). The exceptional presence of the Lord with the priest must not become a distraction. He must learn to step out of the way.

        Some of God’s ministers project themselves to the people. When the people begin to focus on the servant and the stage-crafts and mannerisms on the pulpit, it is time to pause and take stock. When the intellectual grandeur of the minister begins to bob up in the water of the messages, it is time to allow the Lord to purge.

           We must not be unduly ordained, but must be allowed to go through the dealings of God in making us ministers. Apostle Paul writes to Timothy not to lay hands suddenly on any one. In other words, do not suddenly consecrate or unfittingly ordain someone. The church has gone against the grain of this truth and we reap the whirlwind. Any educated man and who happens to be an elite easily becomes a pastor. Some go to bible school. The priest has learned that he must allow for time and the word to mature a person before he can lay hand on him.

           The priest does not appear to the people just as he does with regards to the presence of the Lord or else, he will mistakenly consecrate many men unfit. He therefore follows the counsels of Christ strictly: cast not your pearls before swine. Failing to meet with this instruction, the church has produced assemblies of mass psychology: a great dosage of Napoleon Hill and a little bible mixed into it. Today, if Pa Hagin were around, he would disown so many of us on the way we have taken his teachings on faith and distorted it. Many have taken these and used them for other purposes other than divine intentions.

                                               The path of the priest

The path of the priest leads through personal secret dealings of God which is made peculiar to the individual priest. And it must be for him alone to walk by and must be used as a generalised teachings for the body. A woman, related as a story by Pa Hagin, heard a preacher saying that God spoke to him. She went to pray that God should also speak to her. She was strong on this that an evil spirit obliged her. The problem was that she did not hear the preacher out to know exactly how God spoke to him and whether He would so speak to her, AUDIBLY.

Lord, guide us through this time that we may know how to behave ourselves in your house which is the ground, the stay and pillar of truth. May we keep ourselves strictly for you and not be tempted to compete for authority and showoff-ism. We pray that you will be clearly seen. Lord, may you increase in your Church while our individualism decrease; as you increase, may there be less of us. Thank you for hearing us.

          The History of The Life of God’s Priest (08)

The history of the life of the priest of God is inexhaustible. It is a life better lived than imagined or learned about. The priestly acts were encountered in Job. He was a man in love with God and was, as in a living priest, very sensitive to the possibilities of his many children going into a life of disobedience. He was a priest to the family (Job1:5).

             God as the priest’s possession

      Ezekiel 44:28 I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; i will be their possession.

                 The priest knows one thing which the people – the others not in the priesthood – are not privy to. He is aware that the raison d'etre of life is possessing God. He knows God as the centre of his desire and pursuit. He shares the same vision with Abraham. The history of the life of the priest of God, therefore, is full of irresistible movements from one place to the other. When he thinks he has finally arrived and come to rest, he sees that there is still much of God left to possess. So off he goes again. The priest has come to know that there is no finality in the matter of possessing God. He has come to find out that in all eternity he will still be learning God through his High Priest, the Lord Jesus, through whom he came into the priestly life.

            The people’s life is centred around pursuing things just like the world; the priest’s is centred around the nature of God and pleasing Him. While the people are busy throwing up “visions” to run after, the priest is moving towards God.

                  Found faithful

            The priest's walk towards God has a full effect of making him to be faithful and incapacitating him from going away from God. This can be seen in Zadok, the priest of God. Zadok was found faithful and he found it impossible to follow the general run of  people, Israel, to go away from God (Ezekiel 44: 15 - 16). It is expected, Paul writes, in steward that he should be found faithful (1 Corinthians 4: 1).  It is the faithfulness of the priests that brings him constantly forward to the holy of holies for fellowship and ministration to God. This is not talking of standing behind a pulpit. It is about minding the heart of God, being concerned that the will of God is fulfilled. This revelation of the mind of God comes through possessive ministering to God.  “….while they ministered to God…” (Acts13: 1). The faithful heart is it that ministers to God. He cannot depart from God like the others; he simply does not have the ability. As a matter of fact it does not cross his mind to depart from God, no matter how justifiable.

Such degree of commitment is found today in the Orient where an organisation violently against Christ and those that belong to Him carves a kingdom for itself which it calls Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS. It slaughters and kills and dehumanises everyone that has the Testimony of Christ. A new dimension to this in the recent time is to slitter the throats of their victims and drain the blood into a basin. They are thrilled to see this. They are gone beyond the human grace to consider a child or a woman. Yet, these great people, the saints, these priests of God, hold on to their faith in Christ.

           The priests as teachers and judges

                By the trajectory of the course of the history of their lives, the priests teach “my people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23). The priest has travelled far with God and so has come to be partaker of divine nature ; he has come to the knowledge of “very great and precious promises” (1 Peter 1: 3 – 4). He has tread the path of the High Priest of his soul Who, after living before God for thirty years, had the divine approval as God testified of Him: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Three years down the course of this life, God spoke again: “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.” The meaning of these is that this one has come to fully represent God and God is directing our attention to this representative of His. He has the capacity to teach the very life of God, not necessarily by the words of mouth, but by his life; he has the capacity to deliver the true judgment of God. He has become, not only a teacher, but a judge. Now a judge is a product of experiences and wisdom acquired over ages.

             That was Jesus Christ; that is the priest of God today.

Lord, in this season, we receive grace and find mercy and favour to come to the full possession of the Godhead. We pray the Holy Spirit inspired prayer as we bow our knees before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name and pray that out of your glorious riches you he may strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being or man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that we, being rooted and established or grounded in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ, and to know his love that surpasses knowledge – that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

 The Life History Of The Priest Of God (07).

           Long before the institution of the priesthood, God had always had His priests who appeared and functioned in various forms. One of the priests was Job who was fond of making all forms of sacrifices for his children ( Job 1:5).

          We are continuing with our meditation of this special breed of mankind who is so important to God. As a matter of fact, God is doing everything within the confine of His justice to raise this specie of man and He has been at at it, raising so many all through the millennial and He is still at it in our age.

     Leveticus 8

  30 And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments . . .

31 And Moses said to Aaron…, Boil the flesh at the door of the tabernacle…:and there with the bread that is the basket of consecrations…

           32 And that which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread shall ye burn with fire.

33 And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle in seven days…: for seven days shall he consecrate you.

 The anointing oil in our passage is a type of the Holy Spirit.

   The blood on the altar is the type of the blood shed from the foundation of the world, the blood of the Lamb that took away the sin of the world; it is the blood of the Lord Jesus.

 The history this far of the priest is about the consecration or the ordination of the priest.

 The oil-sprinkled garments of the priest are the inwrought divine characters into the priest by the Lord. This consecration in its grand finalis is done indoors of the tabernacle.

  The sprinkling of the garments with the anointing and the blood on the altar ass well as eating of the cooked meat and bread in the tabernacle and remaining indoors of the consecrated priest for for seven days are interwoven in significance. The eating of cooked meat and bread signifies eating the flesh and body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is done in the place of listening and prayers. The tabernacle – this place of waiting and eating for seven days – is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He once said, upon the confession made by Peter, that He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Remaining behind in the tabernacle speaks of absolute commitment to only the heart of God; it means being shut away from other altars of other gods; it speaks of of our having lost grips of other desires, other meat, other life or offerings and other services to any other gods.

             Seven, in scriptures, means  completion or perfection. Perfection, in this instance means that no further improvement can be done on the perfected thing. Nothing supersedes this completion. The Church is it that completes Christ ( the fullness of Christ);it is the place of completion. There we eat and eat without being gorged, but ably convert the meat to life. What we eat in the church is the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word from the mouth of God. We eat the word of life… until we come to completion, to perfection. Then the history of the life of the priest has just started.

           The church is where the Lord meets with His people, or with a person. It is the place of operation of them that are coming to or have come to fullness of the knowledge of Christ. There are children as well as kids in this church, but the house is so ordered that the priests or sons are able, by the virtue of their priestly ministration and life, to carry or move the whole house forward – the same way the priests in the wilderness were able to sustain the tempo of the sound of the music of the presence of  God though majority of the members were children and kids who could not defferentiate their right hand from their left. Yet, no one was feeble among them.  

            The church is not an organisation superbly done to attract us; it is, first the person, the place of the expression of the kingdom of God; it is of the Lord Jesus reigning, right now, not in the future or after escaping to heaven through the rapture, in  the midst of His enemies.  Unrighteousness is His enemy. Unbelieve is. Death is His is enemy and so is flesh, the living according to the principles of self. Everything anti-divine in nature is His is enemy. The love of other life other than God’s is an enemy.

           Now, whatever is it that can respond to human intelligence and knowledge, cannot be described as God’s enemy. Actually, God’s enemies are bunched up in the soul of man. If a thing or situation or problem can be ruled over or overcome by the exercise of the will or intelligence of the ordinary man – ordinary, in this sense as not being helped by supernatural ability of God in His Son – then it is not God’s enemy.

         “ ….and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled upon…” verse 30. The writer of Hebrew, in chapter 12, speaks of how the church has come to spiritual Mount Zion…. And in verse 24: And to Jesus…, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. The first human blood to be shed was Abel’s; the blood that was shed from the eternal, Christ’s. the sprinkling of the blood from the altar is a type of the blood of the Lord Jesus that covers sins, satisfies divine justice of the mind of God and brings to fellowship with God. The blood is continually offered and ministered today in the church of Christ for remission for sins, satisfaction of divine justice and healing. As the church perfects her fellowship with God through the sprinkling blood, the members have fellowship with one another, “and the blood of Jesus [speaking, appealing] Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sins” (1 John 1:8).

             The cleansing here is different from the first cleansing  at the point of believing. This comes from being in fellowship with the church in hearing, feasting upon the Word of God. In the fellowship, there are revelations from the throne of mercy; the heart is exposed for what it is. Rather than bring despair, this brings us to a place of confessing our exposed sins, thus receiving cleansing. The revelations are forms of sprinkling blood from the altar. As we are being cleansed, the course of the history of our life as the priests of God is deepened.

      This is the path and part of the history of God’s priest.

Lord, once again we give you praise and thanks for your wisdom in making the Christ the head of the Church,  the pillar and ground of Truth. By the Church, the Lord reigns on the earth; the Church is the Body, His fullness on the earth by which the whole world and the heaven are being ruled today. The Church is Christ on earth in all His glory which He had with the Father before the world began. We pray that You will raise Your Church again and bring her to fullness. The Church is in fullness when all of Christ can be seen in her; the believers were called Christians first in Antioch. Lord, beyond the supernatural interventions, the people observed that these people, the believers, were living by another Spirit different from the one the world had always known. May You revive your Church in so much so that this generation will see and say , Of a truth, this is the Christ on earth.

                         The Life History Of The Priest Of God (06)

Job 1: 5 gives us the thought of the priest of God. The man Jod had a measure of the fullness of the priest of God.

              We continue our meditations on this from Leveticus 8,

           verse 27: He put these on the hands of Aaron…. As wave offering…        

                                

                                      Wave Offering

                       

               "Moses removed the vital organs of the liver, fat tail, the kidneys. Out of the basket of bread before the Lord, he took cake of bread made with oil, and a wafer and put these on the fat portion and the right thigh of the ram in the hands of Aaron…. Who waved them before the Lord “as wave offering.”

            In the course of ministration of peace or fellowship offering before the Lord, the offerer by himself removed and brought the fat and breast to the priest. The offerer waved these before the Lord as wave offering. The priest would then burn the fat before the Lord, but the breast belonged to him as the officiating priest. It was the Lord offering this potion to the priest by Himself. “From the fellowship offerings of Israelites I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest…” (Leveticus 7: 34).

             As the priest ministers to God on the behalf of the people, God’s nature begins to rob off on him in turn; parts of the glory of the offering returns to him. No one knows this better than our High Priest, Jesus Christ. He knew and was able to shift through all degrees and shades of glories. Satan offered him his best, but the Lord would not fall for it. He desired the ultimate. Certainly, the Lord did not dispute what the devil showed him as  not being glorious. but He knew it as the glory which the devil has control of. It has its own measure of glory (Mathew 4: 9). Of degrees of glory, let us tick off some: political power, super-intellectual prowess, material wealth, modern inventions, gift and grace of having children, spirit-gifts, military exploits and fame.

          The church is not left out of the glory-pursuit. The present glory is the definition of glory to the church. In many Pentecostal mega-churches, the pastors have ways of making the overhead human boss to send them to the branches where the elite worship, where you can impress the worshipers with erudity and where there is all the possibility that you will be financially blessed. This reminds one of Simon, the sorcerer of Samaria who, after conversion to Christ tried to bribe Peter into giving him the power to bless others with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

             There is a vast practice, today, another form of simony in the church. A member is well-behaved so that he may be recommended to become a pastor or to become the minister of the gospel; pastor or minister of the gospel in the church is well-behaved so as to be sent to a money-spinning branch of the ministry. Being  called into the ministry is so rash and rampant; it is now a vocation that anybody can go into. We study for the ministry as we do for this or that profession in school. And my, are we not in the days when ministry “is a soft sell”! Many go into the ministry because it is a mean of self-glorification. Even when we pray that God will honour Himself by using us to perform wonders and signs, we know who we desire to be honoured; it is not truly God but us. The gospel preaching is a fast lane to fame.

                Both the first Adam and the last saw the glory prepared for them. Both saw immortality in the promise laid before them. But, the first would rather choose the one that was able to gratify his immediate desires, the glory that was even later denied him. Jesus deliberate chose the path of sufferings to get to the true glory; Adam sighted a quick path that offered no suffering of tutelage under God. Adam failed to link to the eternal thought of God in creation; Jesus saw the very heart of the Father in creation and went on to satisfy that longing.

          Christ is the wave offering to God; God is the wave offering to Christ. This looks awkward but true. The wave offering means dedication, a given of self; it comes of what is called fellowship or peace offering; it is fellowship-seeking offering. And the Lord Jesus was so conscious of this. He knew the eternal mind of God in creation and knew the glory God designed for man to walk into. He was aware of how th heart of the Father yearned for fellowship with like nature. Angels? Sorry, angels are not for immortality! But man!

              The successful offering of God to man is glory; the offering of man to God is the glory of fellowship. In John 17: 4, Jesus began to say, “I have glorified thee on the earth…. And, now, O Father , glorify thou me  with thine self with the glory which I have with thee before the world was.” What is the purpose of this system of sacrifices and tabernacles and the rules? I t is to achieve glory. Friends, God is the glory. Glorify thou me, said the Lord, with thineself… it is called the inheritance of God. The heaven is not as glorious as God Himself; He has made man this glory to inherit, to live in, with and by; He has offered to dwell among men in fellowship. This, friend is the glory of God.

           We write this in a moment of excruciating pains and, as it would seem to our natural self, crushing defeat. But we have by faith link up with those things that cannot be seen; they are said to be eternal. We desire to have the testimony of them who are dead, despising, the glory of this world. We will rather go through the strait life for the inheritance of God – the wave offering; the offering God waves back or gives back to man; the offering  man waves to God.

         This is the eternal historical path of the priest of God.

Lord, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has made the eternal thought of the Father to come to fullness through the Body of Christ, the Church. The Church, as His body, is the testimony of the Lord on the earth today and forever. We are the offering unto God through our Lord Jesus, the wave offering. Of course Lord, you were offered for us and we acknowledge this. We pray that more of you will rub off on us, Lord; may this consciousness of the fullness of your thought realisable in your Son continue to be with us and in us.            

     The Life History Of God’s Priest (05)

Job 1: 5 is our point of meditation. Job was a kind of priest before God; he knew certain principles of pleasing the LORD. We continue our meditation on the life history of God’s priest. Our text is still Leveticus 8.

25: He took the fat [of the ram of ordination], the fat tail, all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver…

26: Then from the basket of bread made without yeast… took a cake of bread, and one made with oil, and a wafer; he put these in the fat potions and the right thigh

27: He put these in the hands of Aaron… as a wave offering.

30: Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood from the altar and sprinkled them on Aaron and his garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments.

   In our meditation, we consider the underlined phrases in out text.

                                 

                                                 Bread made without yeast.

     Bread is made or baked with yeast or what is called leaven. Such bread is sweet and tickles the taste buds of the tongue. This is the bread the world is in love with. But, here, as shown to us,this is without leaven or yeast. My pastor, Rev Olabode aways gives the children snack called cheeseball as an examlple of the big lie and falsehood that man calls life. Throw that ball into the mouth and see it melt without giving you any satisfaction of being full.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the type of bread. He is the bread which “my Father sent.” Again, “I am the bread that come from heaven.” Further down the gospel, He identifies His body as the bread (Luke 22: 19).

 And He took [unleavened bread for it was during the feast of unleavened bread, verse 7] and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them [the disciples], saying, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.. . . .”   “. . . [The] bread which we brake,” says Paul, the apostle in First Corinthians 10: 16, “is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” The following verse continues, “For we being many are one bread, and one body…”

      Now this bread is without yeast. Yeast causes bread to rise. It gives the bread a false size. It signifies corruption and falsehood. In the gospel it always means false religious doctrines – leaven or yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. In the Pauline writings, it stands for insincerity, deceit, malice, falsehood and wickedness (1 Corinthians 5: 8). And my, these are violently against the nature of the living God.

                              Bread processing

       Processing of bread starts from harvesting of wheat, beating it to remove chaff; grinding it to fine powder in the mill [remember that milling machine had not been invented; it was a slow, tedious but thorough job]. The powder is made into dough after taking much pounding and is baked in the oven. These speak of spiritual grooming and journey that may take hard and mysterious routes. It shows the patience required to make a son, a priest. The Lord Jesus went through the gruesome processing from one stage to another, until, He, the bread was baked and given to the church also called His Body.

                                                         The Bread of life

          There are many types of bread, but we are concerned here with the bread from heaven, free of corruption and,  it is bread that gives the eater energy of the eternal. Eternal life is a spark gained through eating of the heavenly bread, this bread of life; it has the ability to permeate the soul and the body, bringing or creating immortality.

                                                   Immortality that comes from the Bread

              The entire purpose of the gospel is this – immortality. All  the miracles of Christ, His wise and witty sayings and His out-of-the-ordinary life would all be without purpose if He had not lived to fulfill and accomplish this singular purpose: to abolish death and bring immortality to light. He came for this – to overcome death and show immortality as attainable through Him, through eating Him (1 Timothy 1: 10). God has His own nature which is eternal and His dwelling place - which is in and among mankind – must have the same life which is immortality. God is the only one that has immortality; He is the only one that is not dependent. In Him all things cohere. Even angels are not immortal. This makes man born from heaven, the one that has partaken in eating the body of Christ to come to immortality, a nature foreign to angels though they covet it. Immortality is not only of perpetual existence, but it is a life that cannot diminish in intensity of expression [that fadeth not away], a life foreign and strange to decay and disintegration [incorruptible]. It is God’s own nature being ministered to man.

                                                     Oil of preservation

         One other phrase in our text is bread made with oil. It signifies the presence of the Holy Spirit. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them. . . anoint him with oil…( James s: 14). The presence ensures the flow of gladness like “oil” [oil of gladness] in the righteous as represented in the Lord Jesus (Hebrew 1: 8).

                                                 The Body, the Church and the Bread

       The Body is the Bread. The body of Christ is bread broken for us. Every partaker of the bread has become part of the body of Christ. This body is the church of Christ. We here think about the mystical body of the Lord and not of the accretion and conglomerates that call themselves church – mystical because it belongs to only the initiates [brought or co=opted in by the Spirit of Christ]. Any initiate, any part of this Body has learned to recognise and give due honour to the Body, especially in spirit as oppose to geographical locations. As we learn to “discern” the body, we remain in spiritual ascendancy. This is done by staying away from hurting, spiritually, the body. Achan failed to discern the body and put the entire church in the wilderness in trouble. The church is the supreme council of God on earth. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mathew 18: 20). it speaks of men and women that have grown to wear or represent His name. This body has the power to forgive sins, to release from sin or hold up to sin; it has the power of the attorney. It has the ability to do the mind of the Father. In its strong expression on earth, the ``heavenlies`` are cleared of the rulers of darkness and the wicked spirits in high places. We talk of the Body which is not only praying but whose glorious and holy representation of the presence of the Lord on earth sets the ``heavenlies`` in commotion. Again, we are not thinking about the gifted individuals in the Body, but of the Living Body, the church of God whose mere existence on earth sets the heavenlies in commotion and activities. This takes place when the Body is full of the Head, “unto the measure of the stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4: 13).                

   Lord, we thank you for the gift of life, the gift of righteousness and the leading of your Holy Spirit. We are submitted fully to the Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, that He may lead us more and more towards You, that we may grow up to be that Body, the church, which is the fullness of Christ, who fills all in all. Amen.

The Life History of the Priest of God

    Life History of The Priest Of God (04)

             Job 1:5 sets us considering the priestly life. 

                                          Priesthood is Sonship

Leveticus 8:

                  22: He then presented the other ram, the ram of ordination…

                 23: Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of the blood and put on the lobe of

                      Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of the right foot.

            The blood-of-Christ regenerated-soul is consecrated or chosen or ordained or called or “vocationed” or foreknown of God…to be conformed to the image of his Son of God (Romans8:29), the Lord Jesus Christ. This requires the engaging of all that the man is. He is a new man; he is re-oriented, and able to see the expected path and direction. Christ is our vocation, our heavenly calling and He is the star lode by which we have to set and readjust our compass of life.

           The blood of the offering of ordination is put on the lobe of the right ear. It means the priest will have to be able to hear right and, that, with dawning insight and understanding. The people of Israel heard the prophets, yet they were just hearing sound with no meaning just like a child will hear speech but will never hold any meaning to it. A child learns over the years to distinguish, to judge, to assess and evaluate what each note of sound represents and means. Of man’s invented language is mathematics which has a precision that can only have an engaging meaning and truth to only the initiates of that discipline. For what one mathematician says is what the others say on the same matter. This is the path of the the life of the ordained of God. They hear God with the utmost accuracy like their forebear who has gone ahead of them. It is rightly pointed out that of all men God ever dealt with in biblical history, only the Lord Jesus got it all right. He did not for once miss a single note of the sound of His Father’s voice and heart beat in all of His life journey. Yet, this is the life expected of the priest of God. That blood which is Christ’s blood represented applied to the lobe of the right ear means to hear as accurately as the Lord. We will not hear words and the leading of the Spirit as meaningless sounds.

            Oh Lord that this blood-on-the-right-lobe-of-the-ear will be so activated that we know or hear no other word other than the Lord’s.  This  goes beyond knowing the right thing with respect to choice of career, who to marry and where to live. It means being Christ-centric. Our will is lost n His will. In this path, we come to a place we loose the ability to be “decisive” and do things for ourselves. Sometimes, in this mode of life, we will look as certain fools to others; and sometimes, not the least, to ourselves. We are not trying to push away the virtue of a sound mind that easily takes decisions, but this may have to be put aside sometimes in order “to hear aright.”

          Jesus said, My sheep heareth my voice (John 10: 27). It means that there may be many voices all over the earth and the Church, but the sheep of the Lord recognises the distinct notes of His lips; and, continues the Lord, I know them, and they follow me. 

    

                                           The Thumb of the Right Hand.

             The thumb of the hand is strategically placed among the four fingers. It faces all the others. It depicts creative intelligence. Imagine that there is no thumb. We will not be able to pick or use tools as we do today; try to hold something with the fingers without the thumb and see the soreness of it all. Definitely, all creativity would be impossible, even man’s scientific and technological breakthroughs would be virtually impossible. A man holds, handles and picks things, uses tools…because of the all pervading presence of his thumb among the fingers. What we do is what we handle. Paul says, We handle not the work of God deceitfully, meaning the word of God can be creatively handled, and deceitfully too. Whatever we handle has, first of all, been processed in our hearts. The right hand therefore speaks of handling things aright, coming from the right heart, from the right motive, from the Spirit. It tells also about things we must not try to handle. In other words, apart from handling the right things and handling things aright, there are also things we should not even bother to handle. There are secular works we cannot engage in; there are relationships we cannot be found involved in, no matter how beneficial; there are businesses we cannot go into; there are associations we cannot be part of. There are things we can be involved in but must be “handled the right way”; the imprimatur of the Lord must be on it. Revelation 9: 20 comments on the rest of the men not killed of these plagues yet repenteth not of the works of their hands…,

                                                              The Right Big Toe

This signifies our walk with the Lord – how straight and how crooked. Is our walk God-seeking or ambition-oriented? Where do our feet carry us to? Walk before me, said the Lord to Abraham, and be thou perfect. The right big toe stained with the blood of dedication speaks of perfect walk with God. This priest cannot walk away from the things of God; he finds it impossible to discountenance the things of God. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart (Psalm15: 1- 2). our walk, therefore, spells righteousness.

 

                                                                 Making of Sons.

The son is one in whom the spirit of the Lord has gained ascendancy and mastery (Austin T. Spark). The son is he that grows to Christ in all things. He has dissolved in the clear solution that is called Christ. He has lost his self identity and has clearly merged into another; he is another being, a spirit being. He hears what the Spirit says to the Church, handles not the word of God deceitfully but sincerely and walks in the Spirit and therefore fulfills not the work of the flesh. The blood on the lobe of the right ear, on the right thumb of the hand and on the right big toe of the foot sums up the tools for Sonship, for pleasing God. It is the life history of the priest of God.

      Lord, we appreciate the blood that was shed from the foundation of the world that creates for us the path of the life of sons. We thank You for the blood, as it were, on the right lobe of the ear, the right thumb of the hand and the right big toe of the foot. We stand on the ground of this Truth who is the Lord Jesus; we stand on the ground of the Cross of Christ and declare that we run the Divine intentions to sonship to hear aright, handle aright and walk aright. Thank you our Lord.                             

The Life History of The Priest of God

   The Life History Of The Priest Of God (03)

                        Job 1:5 has been the root of our meditation on the priest of God.

               We come to burnt offering. Leveticus 8:

                                    18: He then presented the ram of burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons…laid

                                       their hands on its head.

                                    19Then Moses slaughter the ram and sprinkled the

                                    blood against the altar on all sides.

                                   20 He cut the ram into pieces and burned the

                                    head, the pieces and the fat. He washed the  inner parts and the legs with

                                water and burned the whole ram on the altar as burnt offering, a pleasing         

                              offering made by fire.

                                                                                         

                                                    Burnt Offering and Its Meaning

                  This sacrifice takes place in the outer-court of the tabernacle. We are here considering the burnt offering.  It signifies the putting away of man from God for his sin nature as completely opposite that of the Lord. This offering portrays a complete annihilation of the the man or the man in the ram. We are seeing the extermination of Aaron and his sons [represented in man] in this ram of burnt offering. This is the same way the Lord Jesus was completely removed from the presence of His Father, not because of His own sin, but for the sin of the world, for the sins of each of us; past, present and future sins – all have been answered in the  death (Christ as burnt offering) of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalmist prayed, May He remember all your sacrifices and accept all your burnt offerings (Psalm20: 3). It was, to the bible people,  an awesome experience to have one’s burnt offering accepted of the Lord; it means we are of a life dedicated and given completely over to God. But just as then, even so now, we do not put much by this because it is not a physical and emotional thing. The people of old did not know the significance of the burnt offering in the eternal thought of God. They thought it was just to bring the ram and so that would be all and that would qualify them to be intimate with God. We too do think that all we need to do is to accept the Lord Jesus as our burnt offering and that will offer us the right to the heart of the Father. Yes, this action does ensure the turning of the heart of God towards us; yet, it is just part of a whole; the journey still lies ahead.

                                                    The Blood that Speaks and Moves God

                   The blood is sprinkled against the altar. This blood has a clear message. It is said to speak. Whether of man who is a friend of God or enemy, his blood speaks. It is written of the blood of the Lord Jesus in Hebrew 12: 22 -24, But ye are come to …Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better thing than that of Abel. This, we should note in passing, is because the perfect offering – as in other offerings represented in Leveticus and the law – Jesus Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God (Hebrew 9:14).

               This is the clearly delineated path of the priest. In his identification with Christ, he comes to the altar of burnt offering. The altar knows two things: blood and fire. This is where the life of the priest begins and goes on in a cycle whose end and completion can only be pronounced by God. It is Him that knows when a cycle of death has been accomplished and the purpose fulfilled; it is only Him who knows when to invite His servant to come up hither. It is only Him who knows when the fire has done its work of trying and proving thoroughly. God is He who does the upgrading to the higher grounds inherent in Him for each of His saints, the priests.

             Romans 12 begins to say in verse 1, I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye  that ye present yourself a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. This does not mean that we take the first available flight to ISIS to go for martyrdom. But it does mean that our lives as defined by flesh should be taken from us, completely tore from us or we from it.

                                        Annihilation to the Self

                The priest treads this path of lively self-sacrifice; he has lost his life, his self-hood. He has no will of his own left. The life of the priest is in a covenant relationship with God. In covenant relationship, each party has to commit his own life, his very existence and resources to the relationship. This can be clearly seen in the relationship between Abraham and God. God always stand back to keep this covenant to the descendants of His friend. But we are talking of priestly covenant with God. God gave Abraham a son on request based on the strength of the covenant between them; then, based on the same principle, God required that Abraham give himself to Him without reserve. This meant death to himself and being alive to Christ. The first thing was to take away Isaac his son, given to him by God, who he loved so much – his very life, his very existence and the ultimate enduring limit of his resources. In eventually agreeing to offer the son as sacrifice to God, he certainly died many times over. He came to a place that he lost his own life and offered to follow the Lord and accept him for what He said He was to him – your exceedingly great reward. Just as with the holocaust, there will always be struggles at the point of being slain, of being offered to death. That is why we find ourselves crying and weeping.

            Yes, in the process of being the living sacrifice, the priest may shed tears. At the end when heaven must have achieved its purpose, the tears are wiped away and joy of the Lord supervenes. …You are a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of His flesh [Jesus] offered definite, special petitions, …and supplications with strong crying and tears…(Hebrew 5: 6 - 7).

           Complete annihilation of the flesh that resides in the soul requires drastic measures as being killed, slaughtered or destroying the self-principle. There is nothing wrong for Abraham to love Isaac with all his heart, soul, power, mind and might; but that was infringing into the sacred domain of the place of God in the Temple, the heart.

    

              Lord, come and take your place within us and constantly have your way. Let struggles with your will die; let it be completely annihilated in us. Let your love grow in us so much so that we have no room for any other entity, even if as precious to us as Isaac to Abraham. Father, we pray that your love will be the driving force in our lives. As the knife of separation and tearing away from the self rips through us, we receive the grace to bear up under such drastic measures of the Holy Spirit who must do His work to secure us as sons and priests. Thank you, our Father.