Dennis Tuuri

children may be dismissed now to go down to Sabbath school. I apologize now if I’m not quite as clear in my speech as I normally would be hopefully. I had a cold myself all week and truthfully when I got up yesterday morning I wasn’t sure I’d be here today and guess a lot of other people are sick as well. So I guess it’s kind of going around but sorry for any indistinct speech I might have.

Hopefully God’s word will come through though. We have of course been going through the confessional statement of Reformation Covenant Church and we’re at the point in the confessional statement now that speaks to the leadership of the church, the government of the church and the people’s participation in it. We’ve spent a good many weeks now talking about that and we’re kind of in the next few weeks be drawing to an end the Old Testament considerations.

Then we’ll begin into a study of the New Testament passages relating to office and government and polity in the church and the nation as well. Last week we talked about the prophet and his part in the economy of the old covenant and today we’ll be talking about the priest and next week we’ll be talking about the king and these are three functions as it were or offices that were existent in the old covenant economy.

Now this morning we’ll talk about priesthood and the priest. This is kind of a controversial subject at times. There have in the reconstruction movement been various people who have re-examined the idea of sacerdotalism. Sacerdotalism refers to the handling of sacred things, refers to the priesthood and they’re trying to see the implications of the new covenant for that priesthood. We know the scriptures teach us now of course in the new covenant that all priests are believers.

We believe in the priesthood of all believers. And so there’s sometimes some question over whether or not we should have officers at all in the church. Are they like priests of the old covenant in any way, shape or form? What were the priests in the old covenant? Of course, is a question we have to ask before we can answer that question of continuity or discontinuity between the old covenant officer priest and the new covenant officers of the church and the implications of that for all the congregation.

So, it is kind of a controversial subject and hopefully one of the things we’ll be doing this morning is sort of clear up some common misperceptions of what priesthood is or isn’t in the scriptures and that’ll help to answer that question. As we go through this material, we’ll look at two specific descriptions of God’s call here for the nation of Israel to be priests out of the passage of scripture in Exodus 19.

And then after that, we’ll draw some applications as to what it was really prefiguring in terms of the new covenant. Now, one of the first things I wanted to talk about is the fact that we’re told in verse six that we be unto God a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And so, the an obvious linkage there between the fact that you have a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. A kingdom of course is a nation as well in this particular sense of the word with an emphasis upon the primary authority of the king and a holy nation.

Nation also is like a kingdom or a group of people and they’re to be holy. And so there’s a connection between the kingdom of priests on one hand and the holy nation on the other. To help set the boundaries of what we’ll be talking about in terms of priesthood, I’d like to first address the concept of the holy nation. Now, and this is probably one of the most important things for you to grasp this morning, that God’s call for the people of Israel to be a holy nation was set in the context of his ownership of all the world.

You see, it says in verse 5, if you’ll obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. Now, first of all, the context then of God’s establishing a holy nation, a kingdom of priests is the covenant. Specifically, we’re told here in Exodus the 19th chapter that all these things occurred after their deliverance. There’s a tie to the deliverance of people from the land of Egypt, the establishment of God’s covenant with them, and them being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

The context is the covenant. You’ll notice in the arrangement of the first five books of the Bible that you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Exodus is primarily the book of the covenant and it establishes the story of God’s establishing of his covenant with his covenant people Israel in that particular age and then following Exodus and at the latter portions of Exodus God because he has covenant relationship with his people tells him the instructions to build a tabernacle or a house for him to have his presence in the people known to his covenant people.

The establishment of the temple or the tabernacle in the wilderness was a result of the covenant relationship the nation had with God. Now the priests were to minister in that tabernacle. And so the fact that we have priests is tied to the covenant. And so it’s God’s covenant in Exodus that then produces the necessity for a book of Leviticus which talks about the role of the Levites and the priestly nation or the priestly tribe rather within the nation.

Leviticus follows Exodus. The priestly nature of the Levitical tribe and of the Aaronic priesthood follows and is a result of covenant relationship with God. It’s important to keep those parameters in mind. But what God tells him here specifically in the verse that we just read is that they shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people for all the earth is mine. God says that he owns the whole earth.

It’s not as if he owned just the covenant people and they were the only ones he was going to deal with. He says all the earth is mine but you’re to be a peculiar treasure unto me. A kingdom a holy nation. A kingdom of priests a holy nation. Holy means to be set apart, to consecrate it to God. And so what God is saying here in this passage, and this is extremely important to catch, is that all the earth belonged to him, but he had picked one nation, one specific geographic location, and one people to be his peculiar treasure, to be his holy nation, representatively of the whole world.

And we’ll get more of that as we go through this. What I’m trying to get you to see is that God doesn’t by the establishment of a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, reject his claims to the rest of the people. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And if some cattle are used in the sacrificial system, that doesn’t mean the other cattle aren’t his and aren’t used for his purposes. It means they’re set apart to that use.

The nation of Israel was set apart to particularly demonstrate that they were God’s covenant people, but the context was the whole world. Now, in Isaiah 61, we’ll be going through a lot of scriptures this morning, and most of the times you’re just going to have to write down the reference, but if you want to turn your Bibles now to Isaiah 61:4-7, we’ll see some of what I’m talking about here in terms of Israel’s relationship to the rest of the world.

Isaiah 61:4-7. And remember that Isaiah 61 begins with the announcement of the Messiah. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. And that’s what Christ identifies himself with this passage of scripture. In any event, the result of God’s covenant relationship with his people is finally and officially fulfilled in Jesus Christ in verses 4-7. Then they’ll rebuild the ancient ruins. They will raise up the former devastations.

They will repair the ruined cities of the desolations of many generations. And strangers will stand and pasture your flocks. And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers. But you will be called the priests of the Lord. You will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of your shame, you shall have a double portion, and instead of humiliation, they will shout for joy over their portion.

Therefore, they will possess a double portion in their land. Everlasting joy will be theirs. Now, that’s a peculiar passage, and it’s been interpreted in many different ways. But what if we understand this in the context of what we just read in Exodus 19 that the covenant people are a consecrated holy nation because God owns the whole earth and he has a represented group of people in this particular nation.

Then we see here we aren’t offended by the fact that in the fulfillment of all these things that foreigners will keep the flocks and you the special covenant people will be called a priesthood to the nations. Israel was always set as it were an example and a light to the rest of the world. This passage should not be seen in terms of an exploitative arrangement. He’s not saying here that you’ll be the priest and therefore these guys are obligated to serve you and they will be in submission and bondage in a sense of not being willing to do that.

What he’s saying is that all the world, the foreigners and the other nations will be brought into relationship with me through the ministration that I give to my special people, the covenant people. They’ll be a priest to the rest of the world in terms of demonstrating the holiness of God and the need to consecrate everything that they have to God. Now this is extremely important. Many people have seen for instance in the fact that in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers that there’s a specific distinction made between the tribe of Levi and the Aaronic priesthood in those three books.

And yet in Deuteronomy it talks about the Levites and the priests as being one group of a priestly caste. They see these things in opposition to each other. And the higher critics have used this. This is one of the basic things they’ve used to try to destroy the scriptures because they see an inbuilt conflict between the Aaronic priesthood and the rest of the priestly group, the Levites. Well, the same thing’s true here.

We would be under grave misunderstanding if we saw an inherent conflict between the priests, this consecrated nation unto God and the rest of the world. It’s not an exploitative arrangement. It’s a cooperative arrangement for the glory of God and for the salvation of the whole earth. Now, this is depicted in the institution of the priesthood in the land when they were going to go into the promised land. God set up the Aaronic priesthood.

Now we have to understand that this also follows the same structure of having the whole world and yet a consecrated nation to serve God in the nation itself in Israel which was called a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They were all in a sense priests. There was a priesthood of every covenant member in the old covenant as we just read. But yet there was a special tribe, the Levites who were picked out of all the other tribes to be a priestly tribe to be particularly consecrated to God as such.

The Levites, of course, represented the firstborn of all the people. God had them do a census. They numbered all the firstborn. He said, “The firstborn are mine. I redeemed you out of Egypt by slaying the firstborn in Egypt. The firstborn are mine. They’re consecrated to me in a special way.” And again, you have to recognize he doesn’t mean all the rest of them aren’t his, but they’re consecrated in a special way to his service.

And the Levites then were picked out of all the people as a tribe to represent the firstborn of all the other people. And most of you should know that they did a census. The number of Levites wasn’t quite enough to make up for the number of all the firstborns in the community and as a result they had to have an offering to God to make up for the other part that wasn’t made up for by the population of Levites.

The point was the Levites represented the firstborn of the people. The firstborn represents the entire nation. So the establishment of the Levites as a priestly group within the nation doesn’t mean that the other people aren’t priests or aren’t also consecrated to God, but they had a special consecration. Now, within the Levitical tribe, we had the Aaronic priesthood. That was a portion of the Levitical tribe.

And yet, they were specifically given the service to God in the temple, in the tabernacle, in the place of God’s residence. So, you’ve got the whole world, you’ve got the nation, the holy nation set apart, consecrated to God. Within the holy nation, you have a holy tribe, the Levites, set apart for the service of God, both in the temple and around the in the various cities they had. And then within the Levitical tribe, you had an Aaronic priesthood.

You had a priesthood, an Aaronic priesthood whose specific service was at the temple. And of course within that Aaronic priesthood, you also had a special person, the high priest. And so you had these series of concentric circles. The high priest representing all the nation and representing specifically the Aaronic priesthood. The Aaronic priesthood around him representing again the whole nation. Around them, the tribe of Levite around them the tribe of Israel and around the nation of Israel the whole world a series of concentric circles of consecration to God.

Now this is pointed out you can look at this several different ways. This is probably too small for all you to see but one example is the garb that the people would wear. You realize of course the high priest wore real glorious vestments. He had eight particular articles of clothing that he had to wear. This guy here. What’s this guy over here? He’s an Aaronic priest who isn’t the high priest. And he also had special garb that he had to wear, but it wasn’t as glorious as it were.

It wasn’t as extensive and particular as the high priest. But he had his own garb showing he was consecrated to God also. But we must remember, of course, that all the nation of Israel, all the covenant people were to have a blue ribbon and a tassel on their garments. They all had special clothing because they were consecrated a holy nation representing the whole earth not exploitively but in terms of representation.

This could also be seen of course in the structure of the land as we said we have the whole earth as a geographical unit. We have a holy nation set apart to it in a specific geographical location. We have the establishment of Levitical cities within the holy land specific geographic location again of their consecration. And then more restrictive area we had Jerusalem itself and the establishment of the temple in Jerusalem or the tabernacle in the wilderness where God dwelt and then within the tabernacle there was the holy of holies into which only the high priest could go in.

So in this series of concentric circles of consecration to god you also had a series of concentric geographical locations and a series of garb as well demonstrating increasing levels of consecration to God. These garments of course give us a clue as to what priests were. The garments were representational. They demonstrated the representational nature of the priest. It wasn’t as if each of these people in the internal circles, concentric circles we’ve talked about were better than the people on the outside.

That’s not the point. Aaron was no better in and of himself as the high priest than the normal priest was. The normal priest was no better in terms of his standing before God than the normal covenant member. And the normal covenant member living in Israel was no better than the believer in Jehovah God around the surrounding world as well. What was important was that this different garb represented a differing layer of consecration to God.

Aaron’s uniqueness was not in Aaron. It was in the garb. And when Eleazar was to take Aaron’s place, God specifically gave them instructions in Numbers 20:26 that they were to take the garb off of Aaron and then he would go back to the people and die and they are to put the garb on Eleazar. Now that all that was to demonstrate to us the representational nature of the high priest and of the priestly group.

They weren’t somehow better. They weren’t somehow specially privileged in the sense of being better than the other people. They were representational of the whole community. And Israel was to be representational, a holy nation of the whole world that would eventually become consecrated to God. So what we see then that the holy nation of Israel was holy in that it was separated unto God. It was particularly consecrated for a particular task the way the priests were in their particular task with the high priest was in his particular task.

Consecrated separated to God and they were also to be separating other aspects of life unto God. Now that maybe one way to talk about that is in Adam’s task in the garden. Adam was originally planted in the garden for what purpose? He was planted there to dress the garden and to keep it. Now to keep the garden meant that Adam was to guard the garden. To keep has etymology in a word that meant to plant thorns around.

To guard it. He was to prevent the garden from what? From becoming desolate like the rest of the earth. To becoming unglorious as it were. And what did Adam do? He failed in that guardianship, didn’t he? The serpent came in. Because of Adam, the earth was cursed. And so he failed in his attempt to guard the garden of God. And he was replaced in that guarding function by a cherub with a flaming sword. He didn’t guard, but he was supposed to guard.

He was supposed to keep the garden separated unto God. And so the priests guarded entrance to the sacraments of God and the old covenant. They wouldn’t allow just anybody into the outer court. They wouldn’t allow anybody into the holy of holies except Aaron, demonstrating that the priest has to guard the garden. But at the same time, Adam was called to exercise dominion over just the garden. No, Adam was given the dominion mandate to exercise dominion over the entire face of the earth.

Adam’s only sphere of responsibility was not Eden. He was to go forth from Eden into the entire earth, glorifying it for God. He was to exercise dominion, ruling the earth under the kingship of God. And that was his calling. So, Adam was to not just keep be separated in Eden and make sure that non-holy things invade created such as the serpent. He was also then to extend the consecration of the garden into the whole earth and make the whole earth consecrated to God.

Now that’s why God says we have a holy nation here in the establishment of Israel in the old covenant. It doesn’t mean that God just wanted to deal with one group of people and everybody else was just tough luck for them. God was not a chauvinist in that sense of the term. We’re not chauvinists. Chauvinists believe in inherent goodness in the people that makes them have a different function than somebody else.

God never established that with Israel. Israel was to be a priest to the nations as we read in Isaiah 61. Just then you read the same thing in Isaiah 66 the second half of that chapter. Israel was to be a priest to the nations and we read the same thing here that all the earth was God’s. To demonstrate that and to effect that he brings forth a holy people to serve him. They were a holy nation because they were separated to God and they were also called to separate other lands to God.

There was an evangelism that was required of them. They were to consecrate all things to God. And of course that means originally in the context of their land, everything within the land. In Zechariah 14:20-21. Oh, by the way, one other scripture that talks about the essential nature of separating things is Leviticus 10:10 where he says the Aaronic priesthood was to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, between the unclean and the clean.

Make the distinction. Keep it separate. And yet in Zechariah 14:20-21 we read the following. In that day there will be inscribed in the bells of the horses holy to the Lord. And the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the bowls before the altar. And every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of hosts. And all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them.

and there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day. What Zechariah prophesied and what was the eternal plan of God throughout the establishment of the nation of Israel was that all things might be consecrated to him. He says here that the cooking pots in Jerusalem would be like the bowls in the altar before the altar. The cooking pots were outside of the official temple.

They were the places where the where the in Ezekiel it describes the temple the construction of the temple. And we’re told in Ezekiel that the cooking pots were the place they would put this meat in and cook it and boil it before God. That was set apart in the in the chambers where the Levites or the Aaronic priests would actually live. Those cooking pots were actually outside the official temple itself or the tabernacle of God’s presence.

But these verses before us say that the cooking pot in the Lord’s house will be like the bowls before the altar. So you had in this geographical location the bowls before the altar and a little bit outside still in the context of Jerusalem. The cooking pots, these other sacrifices were boiled before they were eaten. These cooking pots were now said to be consecrated to God the same way the bowl before the altar was.

But not only that, because he goes on to say in verse 21 that every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of hosts. It was never God’s intention to create this division between holy and profane, sacred and profane, and just leave it there. They were to understand the difference because of the fall of Adam that there were things out there that have been given over or consecrated to Satan because Adam had rejected his priestly calling to consecrate him to God.

They would understand that difference to the end that they might destroy that difference by consecrating all the earth. And we see that symbolized here with the cooking pots. Every cooking pot in all the land in all places was to be consecrated to God just as if they were in the very temple where God resided. We can never look upon then priests as being somehow separate in terms of essence. They were separate in terms of representation before God.

They were separated and they were to separate all things. They were through the ministration of the priest. They went through the priests themselves to teach people to consecrate all things to God. Teach the nation of Israel. And the nation of Israel was to teach the whole world to consecrate themselves and everything to God. That was the essence of being a holy nation. They were a holy nation before God, a kingdom of priests.

Well, the second phrase is that phrase. We want to talk about the kingdom of priests. Now, next week we’ll talk more about the kingdom and the king because there’s an obvious correlation here between priests and kings, isn’t there? Says it’s a kingdom of priests. We’ll talk more about that, but it’s important to recognize here that there are two definite offices throughout this throughout the nation of Israel and its history.

The king and the priest who are both anointed ones. We’ll talk a little bit more about that in a couple of minutes. But what were these priests? What were the function of the priests to learn the function of the priests and to how they would create this separateness and then a consecration or separating all things to God to learn about their specific function now instead of just the overall view of their consecrating things to God.

We can look at Deuteronomy 33:10. Deuteronomy 33 and the blessing of Moses he says about the tribe of Levi now they shall teach thine ordinances to Jacob and thy law to Israel. They shall put incense before thee and whole burnt offerings on thine altar. Oh Lord, bless his substance and accept the work of his hands. Shatter the loins of those who rise up against him and those who hate him so that they may not be again.

They may not rise again. So this tells us that the tribe of Levi and remember the tribe of Levi is the priestly tribe. Even though there were more special priests inside of it, the Aaronic priesthood and the high priest, the whole tribe of Levi were the priestly group and their function according to the blessing of Moses was twofold. Their function was one to teach the law of God and their function number two was to offer sacrifices to God.

And that’s the two functions that are told here in Deuteronomy 33:10. And you’ll find all the other scriptures relating to the to the priesthood and the tribe of Levites falling under these two categories of teaching the law and offering sacrifices. Now, the fact that the Levites taught the law is pretty well acknowledged, but a lot of times we don’t make the connection between the Levites and the priests.

that’s incorrect. Deuteronomy clearly tells us that uses the terms priests and Levites together and says they’re both the same thing. The priests were a particular kind of the Aaronic priests were a particular type of priest, but the Levites were also priests to God. This is reinforced, of course, in the teaching of the law in Ezekiel 7:26. We’ve read this verse several times in the last few weeks, but I’ll read it again now.

Disaster will come upon disaster. Rumor will be added to rumor. Then they will seek a vision from the prophet, but the law will be lost from the priest and counsel from the elder. Now, that’s interesting. When I first came across that verse a couple months ago in my original studies for the eldership, I thought that’s interesting. It sounded different to me to hear that the law would be lost from the priest. I always imagined the priest is just offering sacrifices.

But what you have to keep in mind is that the whole tribe of Levites are priests and the law is essential to their very character. It’s essential of course that they understand the law. The priests understand the law so that they do things correctly in God’s system. It was a very involved elaborate system, but it was also true that they then had to teach the law to the people as we read in Deuteronomy 33:10.

It was a priestly task to teach the law in Leviticus 10:11. Specifically now talking about the Aaronic priesthood itself in Leviticus 10:11 we just read that they’re to make a distinction between the holy and the profane between the unclean and the clean in verse 11. And so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken them through Moses. Their consecration and their understanding of the distinction between holy and profane was so that they would teach Israel all the law.

It was the priestly function to teach the law to Israel. Malachi 2:6-7. Another verse says the same thing. At the beginning of the chapter it says, “And now this commandment is for you, oh priests.” Verse 6, “True instruction was in his mouth.” Talking now about Levi. True instruction was in his mouth. Unrighteousness was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity.

For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should see instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger and the Lord of hosts. The priest’s specific function, one of his two functions was to teach the law of God to the people that they might make distinctions between profane and holy that they might turn around then and sanctify everything they had including their cooking pots to God’s purposes and consecrate and all these things.

Part of the teaching of the law, of course, another specific function that sometimes people will break out as being a separate function of the priesthood was to pronounce blessings upon the people. But I think that function really should belong under the teaching of the law. I think that all these functions will fall into the two things teach the law and offer sacrifices. In teaching the law of course if anything this church should know of course is that the law has specific commandments but then also part of the law is the blessings and cursings that God calls upon his people in terms of obedience or disobedience.

And so the priests were the ones responsible for blessing the people. And when at the end of every worship the first half of the worship service every Sunday I get up here and read from Numbers 6. I’m reading the blessing that God commanded the Aaronic priesthood to place upon the people. And so I pronounced the blessings of God upon the people because the word of God says that if they walk in obedience, these will be their blessings.

Now there’s a specific function of the Aaronic priesthood to give blessings. Many of you might well some of you might know that you know how Spock always in Star Trek did this deal here. You know, peace be with you. But you know where he got that? Well, he got that from the blessing of the Aaronic priesthood. He went into a synagogue once, an Orthodox synagogue, and he noticed the rabbi out there blessing the people with his hands like this.

If you read the Encyclopedia of Judaica, what you find what they say is that they’re actually supposed to have their thumbs together. Now, I can’t do it. I don’t know why I can’t, but supposed to have your thumbs together like this. And then they would say this blessing, you know, the Lord made his face shine upon thee and this kind of thing. They’re placing the blessing of God upon the people. And I don’t know the significance of this.

They say maybe it was to represent a fan, you know, I don’t know, but it is interesting. It was extremely important part of the priestly function to bless the people. And so on are the gravestones of priests who had done their job exceedingly well. They’ll actually you’ll actually see the drawings of these hands in this form etched onto the tombstone because that was so much a function of what they did to promote the blessings of God upon the people.

But see that’s a function of the teaching of the law to tell people the blessings of God upon them and to instruct them that blessing is upon them if they walk in obedience. You know, I don’t know if some of us probably first start using our communion form and I talk about the remission of sins is affected in the name of the father, son, and the holy ghost. That doesn’t mean that I’m saying I’m now going to make this happen.

And the Aaronic priest doesn’t say I’m now going to make this happen. If I put my hand like this above the people, they’re going to somehow magically all be blessed. Now, it came to mean that. And it came to mean that one specific thing it came to mean was that apparently they thought this could drive away evil dreams and put the blessing upon the people, they wouldn’t have bad dreams at night. You know, it gets magical.

But the point I’m trying to make is we know that’s ridiculous. But it wasn’t just ridiculous under the new covenant. It was ridiculous under the old covenant. They weren’t to do that. It wasn’t magical somehow. They didn’t have power in and of themselves. They were pronouncing the blessing of God’s law upon the people that if the people obeyed, this would be the result. And at communion time, we say that if you understand the nature of the efficacious satisfaction of God’s righteous holy indignation against sinners in the blood of Jesus Christ.

You are your sins are remitted by God to one who understands them and accepts that and walks on the basis of that. It’s a pronouncement of what already occurs. You see this idea of priesthood of all believers being distinct from the old covenant priesthood. Somehow it implies in the old covenant the priest could magically do things and he could act as that mediator between God and man, but he couldn’t.

We’ll get to that more in a little bit. But part of the instruction of the Aaronic priesthood was the law of God including the blessings and cursings. On the cursing side, remember when Israel was to go into the land, he had Mount Gerizim, Mount Ebal. The blessings and cursings were there. And it was the Levites who read the blessings of God and the cursings of God against disobedience. So the Levites were instructed the law and part of that was to bless and curse.

Now, of course, part of the guardian function of the priest that we talked about earlier that Adam had given up his guardian function. The priests were guards 1 Chronicles chapter don’t know now I think 1 Chronicles 26 I believe you have a whole chapter devoted there to telling about who were the gatekeepers of the priests whole chapter listing all the different gatekeepers and where they were stationed how many were stationed in each gate etc because part of their function was a guardian function we’re to fence the table today at the communion table it’s a representational function but it’s guarding the table as well and so that guardian function and also as part of the teaching of God’s law.

When we teach God’s law and the blessings and cursings of God’s law, that provides a guardian function to the nation as well. That guards the nation from apostasy, which also guards them from the curses that God would call upon his people. On the other side, as far as teaching the law and blessings and cursings and the guardian function of the priest, the other side was to offer sacrifices. Deuteronomy 33:10 says he’ll teach the law, but he’ll also offer up incense and sacrifices to God.

And that one we’re much more familiar with of course. Deuteronomy 18:5 is one specific scripture that says they were to offer sacrifices and part of that offering of sacrifices were also the offering of prayer for the people in Joel 2:17 one of the functions of the priest is said to be that he offers prayer for the people and then that all can be one way to categorize all those activities is worship is acknowledging God’s ownership of all things. It’s a proper response to him.

You know, it I never understood this correlation until this last week as I was studying this out, but I used to I did a study of worship oh, I don’t know, probably 10 years ago now. And it was really interesting to me. well, the reason I did it was we’re going to a church and we weren’t there one Sunday night, but we’d heard that some guy came in and got up on the stage uninvited and said, “You guys want to worship? I’ll show you how to worship.” And he threw himself down on the floor plate, you know, flat as a pancake. And you know, was right. I mean, in the in the old covenant, in the new covenant, too, the word actually means to get down, to lay down before God, to get down on your knees or down on your face before God. That’s worship. But what that means is it’s an indication of the subservience of the person to God that we’re totally God’s possession.

We’re consecrating ourselves to God. The laying of a dead person on an altar before God or a dead animal rather on an altar before God. That’s what’s to worship. To give ourselves as a sacrifice before God, to lay down before him and give secure ourselves to him. So that was part of the function of the priesthood as well was to lead people in worship and the sacrificial system was aimed at worshiping God.

So the two basic functions were to teach the law to offer sacrifices to be guardians as it were blessings and cursings and then to offer sacrifices and so lead the people in worship and prayer. These two functions in the context of the government of the old covenant community were absolutely essential. We talked last week about the need for the prophet because the institutions that God give us are not efficacious in and of themselves to lead people into righteousness.

Just because you’re the right form of government doesn’t mean you’re going to stand forever. And we should know that in this country of course because we had a good form of government and now the people have perverted it because they’ve lost faith by the way I wanted to just mention here too this idea of consecration to God that Israel was a holy nation. If you don’t mind me going back for just a couple minutes to that point as we were watching the show America this last week on TV.

this same thing I’ve been trying to get across to you that Israel was not a holy nation in the sense of being the only good nation. They were a holy nation consecrated to God to lead the other the whole rest of the world in worship to God. Remember how we talked about in Revelation where the elders lead the worship of God and eventually all the created order worships God. So Israel is to lead to be the consecrating priest to perform the worship before God and to lead the whole world into righteousness and praise before God.

Well, see that’s important because in America the attempt I one thing I was thinking of as watching America was that this show is not portraying what could happen in this country. This show is portraying what has happened in this country to a large extent. Now the very first night or second night whatever it was you were supposed to be real shocked when they pulled down this map of the new country and over the map you’ve got the flag of America the flag of Russia and the and the UN symbol in between.

Who’s shocked by that? anymore only somebody who hasn’t understood or read any of the textbooks dealing with globalism that’s taught in all the public schools in Oregon a mandated law I mean that’s exactly what they are teaching in schools today and I’m sure the writers of the show understand that now why is that bad well it’s bad because America was always to be a light to the world in terms of freedom where people would come to escape tyranny America never saw itself as the only side of the world.

The fathers of this country refer to themselves as the new Israel. Not because they were they understood Israel to be a consecrated nation dedicated to God and to lead all the other nations of the world in dedicating themselves to God. And they had all the Israels done by dedicating themselves to God. That’s what America was. Dedicated to God for the purpose of being a light to the world. Not saying we have special privilege because we’re Americans.

That’s the way it’s always portrayed. Unfortunately, a lot of us fall into that portrayal ourselves because we don’t understand And the profane sacred distinction is not an absolute distinction for all time. It’s a distinction so we might take the consecrate we might take the word of God and consecrate all the world to God. Our nation was to be a light to the world and establish freedom in all the world.

The attempt of people who teach globalism today is to take any light and bring it all down into darkness to make everything the same so that we don’t have these beacons. shining examples of righteousness and holiness before God. Obviously, they wouldn’t want priests to wear holy garments to demonstrate again the importance of a standard, but the people would would try to emulate in terms of their own life and what that meant to us in terms of being clothed with righteousness and holiness.

Scriptures were clear in the old covenant in the book of Psalms, we’ll read those in a little bit here, book of Psalms and Isaiah, that the clothing was to be the righteousness of God and salvation. That was the real clothing. Well, this nation was to be a light. And to the extent that the globalists want to diminish that light and put a bushel basket over it, make us all equal, they upset, they deny the very principle of what the scriptures are telling us in terms of priesthood and consecrating yourself, consecrating a nation unto God that other nations might benefit.

We’re not against other nations. We want to help other nations by being an example to them. Yet, it’s always portrayed we want to be exclusivist. And I suppose one of the other themes of America was that people were exclusionist. I could talk a long time about America I suppose but one more example of course is that I was thinking as I was watching America that one of the worst things about the possibility of having a Soviet Union to take over our country was the examples they show to the schools they were teaching the kids in terms of Soviet theory.

but again is that futuristic? Well, no. We have a public school system that mandates that God can’t be taught in the classroom. It’s atheistic. All education of the public school system becomes atheistic because it denies the relevance of God to all knowledge. Knowledge is based upon religion. The world and life views. And for them to deny God from the classroom means we already have an atheistic system of education in America.

that was seen of course by good people who studied the Bible 100 years ago. They knew that the system of compulsory public education would become a great engine for atheism. I don’t think America is about the future as much as it is about what’s already occurring in our land today. Same way that George Orwell wrote 1984, not you know about the future. He wrote about 1948. He just transposed the last two digits.

Well, anyway, the priests were to lead the consecration of the people of the whole world by teaching God’s law, by offering sacrifices. Does that mean that the priests were the only ones who are to do these things? Do we think that the priests were some sort of specialized task that could do these things and nobody else could. Well, that’s ridiculous. We know that from many passages of scripture, Deuteronomy 6 among them, that all men were to teach their children the word of God.

That’s a Levitical priestly function. We just saw it. The priests were supposed to teach the nation and men were supposed to teach their children. And men and women were supposed to learn from the word of God and to teach it to their neighbors as well. People were supposed to teach the law, the very person was. So there wasn’t a distinction in terms of in terms essentially of who can do something and who can’t.

All people were to teach the law. They had specialized representational teaching of the law though from the priesthood. They had a group of people set apart or consecrated to do that specific thing just like we do today. All people, all fathers are to teach their children the blessings and cursings of God’s law and to be true prophets in their home, explaining the word of God and its relevance to all things.

What about sacrifices? That You might say that the priest of the would offer sacrifices, but that’s not true either. In Exodus 20:24, An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen. In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. These were instructions for sacrifice, not to the priestly cast. These were instructions of sacrifice to all the people. This is before the establishment of a specific group of priests. And so we see here that all people could sacrifice to God. And of course we see that we saw it before the giving of Levitical structure in Cain and Abel of course offering their own sacrifices to God.

One good and one bad. And of course after that we see that many other occurrences such as Gideon for instance who sacrificed to God. all people can sacrifice to God and understand the importance of consecrating themselves symbolically as it were through sacrificial offerings to God and to understand the nature of propitiation. for sin required. It was only the priests were only set apart to sacrifice God exclusively at the temple in Jerusalem.

Only that particular sacrificial system which was to be the model for all the other sacrificial systems throughout the rest of the world. Only that system was exclusively the domain of the priests again representing everybody and everything. Prayer of course we said that it was a functional Levitical of the priestly group to pray for the people and of course people obviously had access to God in prayer throughout the old covenant.

It is ridiculous to think that people had to go through a mediator to reach God other than going through the coming covenant mediator to come Jesus Christ when they prayed to God. They didn’t have to go to the high priest and have him talk to God for them. They prayed throughout the land. It’s an incorrect concept of priesthood to say that the people had to go through a human mediatorial mediator to get to God.

People the old covenant prayed There were a kingdom of priests as we’ve just read and that kingdom of priests indicates both in the analysis of what the priests did and then the analysis of what the common people do in all their lives and in the fact that it was to be a kingdom of priests. They were all to be priests. Both of those things indicate to us that all the people of Israel were priests in a particular sense of the word.