The Priests of the Lord
The Priests of the Lord
And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. (Isaiah 61:6)
Who will refer to us as "the priests of the Lord, the ministers of our God"?
The saved people of the earth who are not members of the Royal Priesthood.
That there are two classes of "saved" people, the Church, and then those individuals from among the nations of the earth who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord, appears not to be known commonly by God's people.
Yet, these two classes are presented clearly in both the Old and New Testaments. It would be difficult to understand the Bible apart from the realization that there is the Church, and then the people who are the inheritance of the Church.
I wonder how many of us have carefully considered the following verse?
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:3)
We understand that the Law went out from Zion, and the Lord of the Lord from Jerusalem, when our Lord Jesus Christ spoke what we refer today as the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew, Chapter Five, Six, and Seven).
But Isaiah appears to be speaking of the future when the spirit atmosphere has been cleared, that is, after the Battle of Armageddon when Antichrist and the False Prophet have been thrown into the Lake of Fire, and Satan has been bound and thrown into the Bottomless Pit.
In addition to this cleansing, the Lord Jesus Christ will lead His saints as they remove from the earth all the works of evil, as described in the second chapter of the Book of Joel and elsewhere.
Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste—nothing escapes them. (Joel 2:3)
See also:
The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. (Matthew 13:41)
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him." (Jude 14,15)
After this deliverance, what will take place on the earth?
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths."
Who is it who will desire to go up to Jerusalem, to the Temple of God? The people of the nations of the earth who have survived the cleansing described above.
Will Jerusalem be in the same place as now, except that Christ and His saints will be governing there?
Yes, as far as I know.
Who or what is the Temple of God? Christ and His saints, in whom God is dwelling.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19-21)
And notice:
"He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths."
Who will do the teaching? No doubt it will be the saints, who are ministering under the supervision of the Lord Jesus.
Notice the converted "will" of the people. They want to be taught the Sermon on the Mount. They want to learn how to be poor in spirit; why they are blessed when they mourn; why they should be meek; why they should forgive those who offend them.
And exactly what is the Kingdom of Heaven? It is not the place termed "Heaven". Rather it is the rule of Heaven, the rule that is formed in us as Christ is formed in us.
See how this follows through in their daily lives:
He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:4,5)
This is what the governments of today want to bring to pass. But they cannot. Why not? Because they are opposed by wicked spirits in the heavenlies.
Enter the Royal Priesthood, the Lord Jesus and His Church. They will remove these evil influences so they no longer can drive people to want to kill and possess the wealth of other individuals.
In this manner peace will come to the nations of the earth. But first the descendants of Jacob, the Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, must walk in the light of the Lord.
This is what is taking place in our day. The Holy Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk in the Light of the Lord Jesus. The Royal Priesthood is being taught by the Spirit how to live in the Presence of Jesus.
If I am not mistaken, this same instruction is being given to the members of the Body of Christ who have died and now are alive with Christ in the heavenly Zion.
First we must confess our sins and our self-will. The Spirit will help us with this.
Second, and of extreme importance, we must "die in the Lord." This means we must follow Christ patiently, bearing our cross of self-denial, during long periods of "imprisonment" of one sort or another.
The most important lesson of all is stern, unwavering obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we follow Jesus at all times, the behavioral edicts of the Sermon on the Mount are wrought in our personality.
When the Lord Jesus next appears, those who have obeyed the Spirit of God will be transformed in body and caught up, together with those who have returned with Jesus and have been resurrected, to meet the Lord Jesus Christ at the staging platform in the air.
We now will be shining beings, much as the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration. This is the firstfruits of the Kingdom of God.
Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. (Revelation 14:1)
In addition to the name of Jesus and of the Father, they have the name of the new Jerusalem written on them.
This is how the peoples of the earth will know that the members of the Body of Christ are the priests of the Lord. They shall represent God to the nations.
They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They always are with the Lord.
Since we are going to be with the Lord Jesus when He removes all the works of Satan from the earth, we must prepare ourselves today.
The teaching, of what might be termed the "cheap gospel" of our day, informs people that all they are required to do is to "accept Christ," and then when they die they will go to a mansion in Heaven to do nothing for eternity.
They go through the Door, Christ, but they then they are not taught how to feed in the Lord's pasturelands.
The "four steps of salvation" which is the man-made "new covenant" does not teach people how to "die in the Lord," that is, how to die to self in strict obedience to the Lord Jesus so He may take over their thinking, speaking, and behaving.
Until an individual dies to his self-will, Christ cannot come forth in his or her personality. Until Christ comes forth in us it is impossible to fully obey the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount.
The Christian who is not portraying in his personality the commands of the Sermon on the Mount cannot teach convincingly to other people the principles of the Sermon on the Mount.
Yet it is the Sermon on the Mount that is the Law that came from Zion, from the Lord Jesus. It is the Law that will teach the saved people from the nations of the earth to live peacefully and productively in what probably will be a largely farming culture.
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. (Isaiah 65:21)
Strangers will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. (Isaiah 61:5)
There will be cities, but nothing like the metropolitan monstrosities of our day, the breeders of every sort of crime and abomination.
God created man in a garden, not in a skyscraper.
People have been born and died throughout the history of the world.
Then a Man came, who was different from the rest of mankind. As we could have predicted, He was murdered. The present world has been aptly named "the valley of the shadow of death.
That Man is returning, this time accompanied by thousands of shining beings who are a multiplication of his personality. This great Personality is a portrayal of the Sermon on the Mount.
The power of the Father is solidly with them. There is no authority or power, spiritual or physical, that can resist them. They will thoroughly cleanse the earth, removing all sinners and their sinful institutions.
Finally the shrieking clamor of self-willed human beings will be stilled. Peace will cover the earth, the peace of the Spirit of God.
The people left on the earth will be amazed! When they finally realize that Christ has come with His saints, they will want to go up to Jerusalem to see what this is all about.
They will not understand their own desire for peace and for obedience to God. Righteousness, love, joy, and peace, the product of the edicts of the Sermon on the Mount, will now be found wherever there are human beings.
The fiercest of animals will become tame and loving in nature. Sickness will be a thing of the past.
Such a world is near to come. However, it will not just happen. It will come at the hand of Christ, and His saints in whom He dwells.
Such people are being prepared today. You and I can be one of them. But we must follow our Lord Jesus every moment night and day, until Christ has finished making us in His image and teaching us how to rest with Him in the center of God's Person and will.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. (Romans 8:18,19)
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)