An Unchangeable Priesthood

*"Thus, Moses, Joshua, and Aaron may be considered types of some upon whom the same Spirit will come, yet in greater proportion. Whereby they shall make way for the ransomed of the Lord to return to Mt. Zion, but none shall stand under God but those who have become "tried" stones after the pattern and similitude of Christ. This will be a fiery trial through which a very few will be able to pass or bear up in it. Whereby the waiters for this visible breaking forth are strictly charged to hold fast, and wait together in the unity of Pure Love. This trial will be of absolute necessity to all for the clearing away of all remaining infirmities of the natural mind, and the burning of all hay, wood, and stubble. For nothing must remain in the fire, for as a refiner shall He purify the sons of the kingdom. There will be some who will be fully redeemed being clothed upon with a priestly garment after the Melchizedek order. This will qualify them for governing Authority. Therefore it is required on their part to suffer the Spirit of burning, and the fanning of the Fiery Breath searching every part within them until they arrive at a Fixed Body from whence the wonders are to flow out. "

    Moses and Joshua and Aaron were types of those upon whom the Spirit of God came in order to lead the children of God: first, out of bondage and then into the inheritance. These who make up the Manchild company must first enter into that which is typified as being "behind the veil". They shall be the immediate forerunners of those who will, thereafter, follow them out of the bondage of that servile creation which is fallen in Adam, returning unto Mt. Zion.

    Into this place of union with God shall they come until He is All in all. The main difference between the "Firstfruits Company" and those who follow later being that some of those who enter in first will receive the seven-fold Spirit of God. That is, they will receive the Spirit without measure, and having at that time received also the new body, they will indeed be able to bear the Spirit without measure.

    The prophecy goes on to say that, "...but none shall stand under God but those who have become "tried" stones after the pattern and similitude of Christ." This is but another way of saying, "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" -- 1 Peter 1:7.

    The reason being, the only way out of any world is by a death, and the only way into another is by a birth. We need not think that any shall stand under, or have a place in the building of God under Christ, unless and until they have come through the lakes of cleansing, purging fires. All the things, which Paul called light afflictions, work in us a more exceeding weight of glory without which we do not enter into the place He has prepared for us.

    We are to receive an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. It is reserved in the heavenly realm for us, who are kept by the power of God unto salvation. This salvation is that which is ready to be revealed only in the last time and only in the heavenlies. So we greatly rejoice, though now for a season we may well be in heaviness through various temptations, yet we know that the trial of our faith...shall be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ!

    And what is the word to those who have really seen these things and have yielded themselves to the dealings of God and to His cross in this hour? "WAIT!" Only a further working of death to the impatient soul. Some have already come to the unmistakable conclusion that absolutely NOTHING can be accomplished along the lines of the bringing forth of this holy seed until the Father's appointed time. "For if the firstfruits (Christ Himself) be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches" --Romans 11:16.

    We are therefore in a time of coming to zero, a time of coming to the place wherein we can only do what we see our Father doing, the time of the actual putting off of the deeds of the old man and of the flesh; the final circumcision. We have brought forth more than enough religious Ishmaels under the pretext of, "It seemed a good idea at the time." This epitaph could be written over every heartache and hardship mankind has ever known. Adam could have had it inscribed on his tombstone. So could Eve. Good ideas are not what God is after. Obedience is what He is after.

    Thus, we need the refining work of the purging fires of trials, in order to burn away the infirmities of the natural mind. Most of what has been religiously offered to God in the form of good works has been but wood, hay and stubble. Most of the religious monuments that have been built in honor of men are but the same and will not abide the fire which shall try every man's work in order to reveal whether it was built in obedience upon the foundation of Christ, or through disobedience right next to it.

    Oh, beloved, understand that to build upon the foundation of Christ is an exacting experience. This temple which He is building is built only with precious materials, materials bought only in the fires, materials taken only through conflict and war. David provided for the building of that typical temple with the gold, silver and precious stones taken in battle with the enemy! The true temple of the Lord cannot be built by any but front line warriors who are, through conflict, gathering the gold, silver, and precious stones for the true temple of the Lord.

    Oh there may be ever so many seeming great and noble works that men have constructed and for which they are highly esteemed by their peers. Such is but wood, hay and stubble; fuel for the fire, and the day will declare it. There are but few, and therefore very precious ministries that have endured the fires of obscurity, of misunderstanding, of isolation from their brethren, of being thought to be of no account and appearing that way, but their work has endured the fires of God.

    These men, most of whom were all but unknown during their lifetimes, being dead, yet speak and minister to the hungering, thirsting hearts of many today who are not satisfied with the husks of men's minds and the worm-eaten doctrines of yesterday. Only those who have been faithful to wait on the Lord have come into the place where the hidden manna is kept in store for those who truly hunger and thirst after righteousness. Waiting is extremely difficult and trying for the natural man. It is equally trying for the one upon whom God has placed a calling to serve. It is one of the hardest things not to take that which God has given and "use it for God's glory," as they say.

    The Lord gave me a clear illustration of this matter a long time ago, just before He began to deal with me along these same lines. I was asked by a friend to pick up a dog for someone at a kennel out in the country. The man who ran the kennel also operated an obedience school for dogs, both pets and hunting dogs. When I arrived that day, he happened to be out in the field putting some of the hunting dogs through their paces and I could see him from the driveway. As I approached him, a beautiful Labrador retriever came to meet me. I picked up an object and tossed it out and the dog ran and retrieved it for me. I told him, "That sure is a well-trained dog there."

"That one?", he said. "That dog's no good, yet. He's just doing that because its in his nature to. Let me show you what a real dog works like."

    With that he opened one of the holding pens on a nearby truck and out came a beautiful golden Labrador retriever, but her mind was not on playing. She went immediately to the feet of this man and to his left: fixing her eyes on his face, she never moved. He stood motionless for the longest time. In fact, I was getting uncomfortable for the dog. I thought that she would just have to move, he waited so long.

    But the dog was motionless except that she had begun to tremble with expectancy and with desire to ...go! Finally, the man shot a dummy far out into a pond. Only then, briefly, did the dog take her eyes off him to watch and see where the dummy went. Then more waiting and more trembling. The excitement in the dog was quite obvious. She was now trembling from head to feet, but otherwise immobile, her gaze fixed like a laser on the man.

    Finally, he made a slight movement with his left hand and out she shot like a rocket from its pad. She left the bank and hit the water without ever slowing down. She was obviously in her glory. But then she did something I had not expected. She turned around in the water and watched her master who waved her first right and then farther back to the place the dummy had fallen.

    She took it gently in her mouth and brought it and laid it at his feet and then took the exact position as before, eyes fixed on him, body trembling almost violently, but immobile otherwise. No pats on the head, no back rubbing, just, "Good girl." That seemed to be more than enough for the dog. "Now, that," he said, "is a dog a man can do something with." I had to agree.

    The lesson from this little account is so clear I think I need not enlarge upon it. But let me just point out a few things. The first dog essentially did what the second dog did, but not for the same reasons. The first dog did it for himself, it was in his nature. The second dog was totally and constantly under the control of her master and she would do nothing for herself, even though it was also in her nature.

    Even during the excitement of the moment, in the pond, she continually looked to her master for direction, though I'm sure she could have found it by herself. When I saw this display of obedience and loyalty, I could not help but admire both dog and trainer. He had obviously put a lot of work and time into this second dog, thereby making her to be much more valuable than the first.

    Waiting on the Lord is hardest toward its end. If Abraham had only waited a few more years rather than going in unto Hagar. It seemed a good idea at the time. It seemed a good idea to Israel and Aaron, at the time, to build a golden calf, too. If only the children of Israel had waited 40 days, rather than 39, for Moses to come down from the mountain. If only Saul had waited for Samuel and had not acted presumptuously, but it seemed a good idea at the time. It cost him a kingdom.

    Waiting on the Lord has more purpose in it than is often apparent to us who are doing the waiting, but it is a necessary part of our training and conditioning. We must come to the place where even that which God has given, gifts and all, are freely laid down upon His altar. Not in pretense, as we then take them up at our caprice and use them "for His glory." But to leave them there, to become nothing, to be nothing, to do nothing, except to wait, our eyes fixed, our gaze fastened on Him.

    We will not move according to right and wrong, or according to good or evil. We will only do that which we see our Father doing. Oh, there is a place in Him where the losing all becomes the greatest joy, and that for which crowns are given; crowns that are in turn thrown at His feet, who alone is worthy! Wait. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Therefore we are strictly charged to hold fast, and wait together in the unity of pure love in order to give the fires of God their chance to remove all remaining infirmities of the natural mind, and for the burning of all hay, wood and stubble. For nothing must remain in the fire, and where there is no wood, (human nature) the fire goeth out.

    In the completed temple it is said..."And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" --Revelation 22:5. There is no experience of the "sun" of the outer court, nor "candle" of the Holy Place.

    Those in this completed temple are not walking after the lights of their own intellect, understanding, and senses. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" --Matthew 24:29,30.

    The Manchild company will not walk according to their own soulish lights for they will have experienced a darkening of their sun and moon and stars. The very powers of their heavens will have been shaken to their very foundations. But so surely as they have been brought into loss, limitation and declension in the loss of temporal powers, so surely shall this herald in them the sign of the Son of man coming with power and great glory... INWARDLY first, and then outwardly manifested. There must be nothing left of the natural mind, for that ministry into which the sons of God shall move will not be done in mixture, as we have witnessed in this present Levitical (temporal, changeable) priesthood.

    Fully redeemed means spirit, soul, and body. The complete redemption of which comprise a kind of angel, not seraphic in nature. It was these kinds of angels that Jacob saw ascending first; not descending first, and then ascending....revealing that only those who have so ascended and received of such a glory are qualified to then condescend and communicate that glory to others. They will be clothed upon with the new body which is incorruptible, after the power of an endless life, even that life which is of the Melchizedek priesthood order. And who was this Melchizedek? "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually" --Hebrews 7:3.

    He was a natural man whom God used as a type; and not Jesus in some other form. Probably, as the book of Jasher says, he was Shem; one of the sons of Noah. Shem was certainly alive at the time Abraham defeated the five kings. Who he was naturally, is not important. What he represented is what is here in view. He was without mother or father, the Bible says, without natural descent. That is, we have no account of it, no biblical record of mother or father, and in this sense Melchizedek was a good type of the New Creation priesthood of Jesus Christ.

    The Levitical priesthood was a changeable one. Priests came and went; they lived and died. But the Melchizedek (which name means King of righteousness) priesthood is an unchangeable one, its members having been clothed upon with the priestly garments of an incorruptible, "fixed" body.

    This Melchizedek priesthood was itself typified by the Zadok priesthood. The Zadok priesthood was a family in Levi and therefore part of the Levitical priesthood. Zadok, a priesthood out of a priesthood, is the same word as the last part of Melchi-zedek and means the same thing, righteousness. We see these two priesthoods in Ezekiel 44 and are told explicitly how they differ in their services.

    "And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charge at the gates of the house, and ministering to the house: they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them. Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed. But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein. But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD: They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge. -- (Ezekiel 44:10-16)."

    There is a ministry that shall minister to the house, to the people of God, but there is another, more exalted priesthood, the Zadok or Melchizedek priesthood, which shall come nigh unto God and minister unto Him as well as to the people. "And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments" --Ezekiel 44:19.

    This means that these priests will not be bound by the flesh or its limitations on any level. They will be able to appear physically before the people clothed in flesh and bone and will be able to put off that in which they minister before the Lord, changing back and forth at will. In fact, I believe that they will be able to be in several places at once, just as Jesus. "Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court" --Ezekiel 44:21.

    This priesthood, unlike the gifts ministries which were typified by the Levitical priesthood, will not drink the wine of pride and become lifted up, hence the reason for the many and effectual dealings of the cross, lakes of fire and various other dealings of God in their lives. Wine often symbolizes pride throughout the scriptures. It has destroyed many strong men of God.