And this is clearer still, if another priest ariseth after the likeness of Melchizedek,
who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life:
for it is witnessed of Him,
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.For there is a disannulling of a foregoing commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness
(for the law made nothing perfect),
and a bringing in thereupon of a better hope, through which we draw nigh unto God.And inasmuch as it is not without the taking of an oath
(for they indeed have been made priests without an oath;
but He with an oath by Him that saith of Him,
The Lord sware and will not repent Himself,
Thou art a priest for ever);
by so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better covenant.And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing:
but He, because He abideth for ever, hath His priesthood unchangeable.
Wherefore also He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
who needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people: for this He did once for all, when He offered up Himself.
For the law appointeth men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was after the law, appointeth a Son, perfected for evermore.Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
May the Lord help us all. Thank you.
Beloved Lord, we thank You together that when we gather in the name of Jesus, whether we are few or many, You are the same. You have said that when we gather two or three in that Name which is above every name, You are there by the Holy Spirit. We praise You that You are amongst us this evening.
Lord, we want to thank You from our hearts that You have saved us and brought us into a wonderful, living experience of Yourself. For this we praise You. It has been Your mercy and love that has done it.
Lord, as we are gathered here this evening, we pray that You will help us to be simple and clear, and that the Holy Spirit, above everything else, will touch the eyes of our hearts, that they may be opened to behold You in a new, deeper, and clearer way.
Lord, we are moving into times of great trouble and difficulty, and all we can ask is that You will help us. Lord, You never forsake Your people. You are so wonderful in times of distress and trouble. We thank You that You will be to us everything that we need in the days that lie ahead.
Now, Lord, we praise You that You have given us an anointing. You have won for us an anointing of grace and power through Your finished work. We come very simply by faith to stand in that anointing for the speaking of Your Word this evening.
Make it alive to us, Lord. Help us to hear Your voice beyond the human voice. Somehow deposit something in our hearts. We pray not only for an anointing for the speaking, but for an anointing upon our hearing, that we may hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
May we hear what is the burden of Your heart for us as we stand, as it were, in the prelude of so much problem, difficulty, and confusion. Hear us, O Lord, we pray. We shall be careful to give You all the praise and worship of our hearts for answering this prayer, which we ask in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Yesterday evening, I spoke at some length about the present world situation and Psalm 110 in the light of it. All I want to say this evening, for anyone who was not there last night, is: you need to get the tape. If I were to start again on that, we would not get anywhere with what the Lord, I believe, wants to say tonight.
In 1998, at the International Intercessional Leaders Conference, a biennial conference held at that point in Laguna, Philippines, I had a very troubled day. Out of that day came a prophetic utterance, and I asked those leaders if they would judge it. And they did.
I cannot remember it word for word; I have it recorded somewhere. I believe you, Gary, have it recorded here. But the Lord said to me, “I have arisen with furious anger. From now on, I am going to be the enemy of the nations. They are dividing My land. They have thrown down the gauntlet, and I will take it up. And I will judge them by floods, by fires, by hurricanes, by tornadoes, and by earthquakes.”
“They sit like potentates,” I remember the Lord saying, “safe and complacent. But I will touch them at the root of their affluence. I will wreck their economies. I will bring them to nothing.”
Then the Lord went on to say that we were to hide in Him and know His power and His grace. Now, that was in 1998, and there was much more that the Lord said to me at that time. But it has been, for me, a guide as to what would happen. It was almost ten years before it began to happen.
If some of you want a documentary on this, it is my good friend Bill Koenig’s book, Eye to Eye, which documents the various things that have happened in the United States in particular, linked to the division of the promised land.
When I was first saved, from a non-Christian background, I remember very well that everyone talked about the promised land. They referred to the Holy Land as the promised land. I never hear it today. You go a long way to hear the phrase “the promised land.” I hear instead “the land of Israel,” or “Palestine,” or I hear about the Holy Land. But I do not hear “the promised land.”
I find that very interesting, because if it is the promised land, who promised it? And if God promised it, to whom did He promise it? He promised it to the seed of Abraham—not to Ishmael, with whom He made a separate covenant and has kept it to the letter to this day.
But He made that promise and that covenant an everlasting covenant throughout their generations: to Abraham and to his seed; to Isaac, not Ishmael; and through Jacob, not Esau.
I find it quite amazing that an American president could be so faithful to biblical principle, and yet the Lord never supported him. I am not talking about President Obama. You would think the Lord would thoroughly bless him, support him, and strengthen him. But on this one matter of the promised land, he was the first person to articulate and verbalize the division of that land into two sovereign states.
I have understood from what the Lord said to me in 1998 that this land, strange though it may seem to many, is very, very important to God. It is the guarantee that the rest of the earth will come to the Lord Jesus.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
God thirteen times calls that little piece of territory—the promised land—“My land.” You cannot have a president coming along and saying to the Almighty, “You are not politically correct. My administration will have to put You right on this matter. Covenant or no covenant, I will divide this land into two.”
When the Annapolis Conference took place, I knew that the whole matter was set in stone. From that moment, I knew that God would judge the United States.
I must be careful, because this is not the message for this evening. But it is to give you some understanding of our world situation.
When I was first saved, I was twelve and a half years old, before my thirteenth birthday. Everything to me was alive. I had never read my Bible. I did not have a Bible. I read the Gospel of John, a little booklet, until it fell to pieces. Finally, I got a Bible—found a Bible. No one even thought there would be a person without a Bible in this evangelical Baptist church, but I did not have one.
For me, it was very exciting when one day I heard someone from the pulpit say that the Jews would go back to the promised land. I thought I had never heard such a thing in my life.
So I went to a dear Swedish sister who had adopted my sister and me. My sister came to the Lord one week after me. I said, “Auntie, what is this? I heard the preacher saying that the Jews are going to go back to the promised land, but what is happening now with the Nazis? It does not look as though they will ever go back.”
Auntie Dagmar said to me, “The Bible is full of it. Every part of the Bible, no matter where you look, says the Jews will go back.” Then she said, “You are going to live to see it.”
That was 1944. I went back to my mother and my stepfather and said to them, “Do you know that the Bible says the Jews are going to go back to the land?” I have never forgotten my poor mother. She sat down and said, “Your Auntie Dagmar is nuts. There is no way the Jews will go back.”
She said, “The Jews who would go back would all be from Central Europe and Eastern Europe, and they are dead. If Hitler has his way, there will not be one of them left. The American Jews will never go back. They have it too good. Nor will the British Jews.”
But I lived to see it. I lived to see the British Empire fall apart, and Britain become offshore islands of Europe.
I remember very well Alan Redpath standing in the pulpit. He was a rugby player, thirty-two years of age. He gripped the side of the pulpit, his face went quite red, and he shouted—nearly at the top of his voice—“As sure as I stand here this morning, God will judge the British Empire and the British Isles for what she has done to the Jewish people.”
At that time, the RAF was bombing survivors of the Holocaust, and the Navy were shelling them in unseaworthy boats, putting them in camps—these people who had escaped from camps.
I saw people get up and leave. In my sweet innocence, I thought they had luncheon appointments and that the pastor was going on rather long. I thought, “Well, they have got to keep those appointments,” so they were rushing out. Later, friends in the church told me they were patriots who were furious with the pastor for talking like that.
“How could the British Empire fall apart, upon which the sun never set? London ruled a quarter of the population of the whole world. How could it possibly be?” But it happened. It happened within four short years, and I saw it with my own eyes.
Today, Britain has an identity problem. She is flooded with Muslims, and she has a huge identity problem. Does she belong to Europe, or should she stand alone? She knows that she is an offshore island of Europe.
That is why I am pretty sure that, unless the Holy Spirit works in a new way in North America, the same thing will happen. Most Americans are patriotic, and they cannot believe the possibility that the United States could be judged. But God judged Britain, at that time the great superpower of the world, and He is no respecter of persons or nations as such.
That is basically the background. I will not say any more, but it is all to do with what I spoke about last night. I gave you an overview of the global situation.
We have come full cycle. In Babel, they built a tower that would reach to the heavens. We have no idea what they were doing. Some say it was witchcraft, wizardry, black magic. Some believe they were in touch with demons—fallen principalities and powers.
Generally speaking, most people think that everyone at that time ran around with cudgels, were hairy, and wore skins. But in fact, in my estimation, it is not evolution that we have witnessed, but devolution.
It is quite possible that that was the first skyscraper man tried to build. It may even have been, and I know this will sound silly to you, the beginning of a space program. The idea was somehow to bring heaven and earth together, to make them one.
God said, “I will have to go down and see this that they are doing.” Then He said, “If I do not put a brake on it, nothing will be impossible to them.” Well, it has happened. Here we are, full cycle. We are back where mankind began: Babel.
The Bible speaks of Babylon—that is the Greek name for Babel. The Hebrew word is Babel, because they called it Bab-el, the gate of God. But God said, in effect, “Do not call it Bab-el. It is not the gateway to heaven. It is Babel: confusion.”
We have got to the place where we have a man on the moon, which we are celebrating. We have got to the place where we have explored a little of Mars. Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airways is talking about building an aircraft for space travel, and he has actually got bookings for the first seats.
We have cloned an animal, which means that we could clone a human being. The great question is: if we clone human beings, will they have a soul? Will they have a spirit?
Somehow, God put the brake on mankind at Babel, and it has lasted through all these years until our generation. Now the brake is off.
That brings me to Psalm 110, which I spoke about last night. I gave you a bird’s-eye view of verses 1, 2, and 3. I am not going to say any more, except that the Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.
He is in a place beyond the power of Satan to touch. Satan cannot dethrone Him. He cannot unseat Him. He cannot frustrate His finished work. He cannot, as it were, devalue His finished work. There is nothing he can do. He is seated.
The Father says to Him:
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
I took you to Revelation 4 and 5 last night—to that wonderful vision of the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, the little Lamb slain in the throne. He can break every one of the seven seals. Through those seals come judgments—judgments galore, terrible judgments.
But it ends in the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. It ends in the New Jerusalem, the Bride, the wife of the Lamb, coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God.
Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is not fighting. He is not struggling. He is not anxious. He is seated. He has won. It is as simple as that: He has won.
May it sink into your hearts in these days of confusion and difficulty, when people are losing their jobs, their income, and so much else is happening. When they are striving by various means to jump-start the economy, I do not think it will happen, because it is the Lord who has touched it, in the same way that the Lord is touching the climate.
It will end in the sun, moon, and stars before the final events.
This evening, I want to talk about verse 4 in Psalm 110. The first three verses are quoted everywhere in the New Testament. If they are not actually quoted, they are there in the statement that He is seated at the right hand of God.
That happened gloriously at the ascension. I often feel that the ascension is the Cinderella of the feasts. Everyone thinks of Passover, when Jesus died on the cross and atoned for our sin; then, on the third day, He rose gloriously from the dead and triumphed over death; and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon us.
But so often the ascension is sort of passed over. Yet the ascension is just as vital as the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Without the ascension, we do not know that Jesus has won.
It was when the Father told Him to sit at His right hand—not struggle and not fight, just sit—and said, “Let the rod, or sceptre, of Your strength go forth out of Zion. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.”
When the Holy Spirit was poured out, something amazing happened. For the first time ever in the history of mankind, Someone in heaven, at the right hand of God, became the Head of a body on earth.
In the beginning, it was one hundred and twenty Jews, saved by the grace of God and redeemed by the power of the Lamb. They were joined to a Head in heaven.
Sometimes we look upon this as though we have a head over there and we are the staff over here. He is the head of a hospital, a principal in a college, the Prime Minister in a cabinet, a president of a nation. He is there; we are here. We think of Him in that way.
But the New Testament, when it speaks of head and body, always speaks of one organism—one living organism—not an organization. It is a living organism which has an organization, but it is in the life: all the time moving, all the time changing, all the time contemporary.
Here I am. I am seventy-eight years of age. I was born in 1931. I was just that much when I was born. My eyes did not open for three weeks. My mother was sure that I was blind, but they finally opened after three weeks. Would you believe it? Here I am tonight speaking to you, and I am reasonably contemporary.
Every seven years, every cell in my body has changed, because I am an organism, not an organization. If you had a 1931 car here, the only way you could bring it up to date for 2009 is by fiddling with it from without to within. But if you think of an organism, it is changing all the time.
When my body gets cold, I shiver. Where does that come from? I never read a book saying, “Are you cold? You must shiver.” Something happens within. Something right deep down within me says, “You are cold. You need to shiver to generate a bit of warmth.” When I am too hot, I perspire. I have never read a book about it. It just happens.
There are a lot of other things. God help us when we have to bash into some poor kid how to play a piano. But when the gift is there, you train it. It is the same with every other thing. It is all there in a living organism.
Now, what happened on the day of Pentecost was that one hundred and twenty people got joined to a Head at the right hand of God—a living, organic union. Within a couple of hours, three thousand more Jews were added. So three thousand one hundred and twenty were joined to a Head in heaven.
It turned Jerusalem upside down. Any of you who know anything about the Jewish establishment know how impossible it is to turn it upside down. But that amazing work on the day of Pentecost turned the Jewish establishment upside down and, in the end, turned the Roman Empire upside down.
Whilst it heard the Head, whilst it was in living union with the Head, as it heard what the Spirit was saying and obeyed, it had power. Without great theological seminaries, without great Bible schools, without great missionary organizations, it turned the known world upside down.
Here we have this wonderful verse:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
This One at the right hand of God is an eternal High Priest. That means He stands before the face of God the Father for us. He stands there for the church—and I am talking about the real church.
He has a work to do of intercession for the real church, which through the years, ever since Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” has needed that intercession.
I like it better in the King James than “Hades.” What does Hades mean to the normal person? It is the place of the departed dead. But what do the gates of the departed dead have to do with the church? Although, going into some churches, I fully understand.
The real fact of the matter is that you have something tremendous here. I like the old King James phrase, “the gates of hell,” because that gives exactly the right feeling about the word. It has something to do with the strategy of Satan, his schemes, and his determination to outwit the Lord.
Jesus said, “Upon this rock”—the great message of the Rock—“I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” But if we look at church history, it seems as if it has prevailed again and again and again.
Tomorrow morning, I will talk a little more about that, because that is where I want to get to. It is not just that the intercession of the High Priest is so important. It is whether He can get the burden of His intercession into us, and whether we can become true intercessors.
Intercession is another devalued word, like “born again” in the United States. What does it mean? Hearing some people, every single president you have had is born again. I can hardly believe it. What does it mean? I understand that when you are born again, you are born of God.
Something happens within you. You hunger for the first time. You thirst for the first time. You breathe for the first time. You long for fellowship for the first time. It is something tremendous when we are born of God.
I often have people come and say to me, “I am an intercessor.” Then I know they are not, for every real intercessor has a learner plate on their back.
Real intercession for the church—for the real church. How the Lord has taken the initiative by the Holy Spirit again and again and again through the history of the church. He has never stopped.
Every time it has died, every time it has crystallized, every time it has denominationalized, every time it has systematized, He has taken the initiative. We have them all: Bogomils, Montanists, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, Priscillianists, the Reformation, the Puritans, the Covenanters, the Quakers, and the early Methodists.
“Methodist” is a dreadful word. They were originally called enthusiasts. That is a far better word. You are quite right.
Then you had the Brethren. You had the Pentecostals, so disliked by everybody else. Then the Charismatics. That brings us right up to date.
The Lord never ceases to take the initiative. He said, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Wherever He has found a man, a woman, or a group of people who are freewill offerings in the day of His power, He has acted.
That is something tremendous, is it not? The High Priest’s intercession for the church. Dear Lord, I sometimes think it is only Your intercession that is going to get us through. We are a poor lot.
I remember a lady at Halton House—thank God she did not stay with us too long. She used to say, “I and the Lord get on so famously, but it is the Christians that are the problem.”
Here we are: the intercession of our High Priest. “Thou art a priest for ever.” The intercession of our Lord Jesus for His work.
Is it not amazing how many missions have died, crystallized, become liberal, become dead—just social work and a social gospel? But it is amazing, the intercession of our High Priest. All through the years, missions have been birthed by the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
I think of Hudson Taylor. I used to think of Hudson Taylor as such a dignified man, speaking beautiful Queen’s English. Then I discovered that he was freckled, red-haired, and spoke with a Yorkshire accent. But when God got into that man, something happened in China.
I think of Amy Carmichael, who used to pray when she was a girl, “Lord, would You change my eyes to blue?” She said, “The Lord never answered my prayer.” But when He called her to India, and she wore a sari and went into the temple to reach children given to temple prostitution, she thanked God for her brown eyes.
The missions were furious with Amy Carmichael. They spent their whole day playing tennis and having a standard of life that nobody else had. They came from poor backgrounds, but they had a lifestyle with servants.
I remember Bakht Singh saying to me, “When I was first saved, the missionaries”—and of course I am talking about false missionaries, not real missionaries—“said, ‘Go and sit over there, and the servant will bring your food to you.’” He was a Sikh, saved by the grace of God, but they would not have him at their table.
There was another person who used to have a bowl with disinfectant in it, and you could put your cash in the bowl with disinfectant. What a way to evangelize. Terrible.
Only the Lord. What would we do without the intercession of the Lord? I think of Youth With A Mission. I think of Operation Mobilization. I think of some of the very modern things that have come into being and have been so used of God, as well as other missions of more normal times.
What would we do without the intercession of our High Priest, especially now, when people have not the same amount to give?
I think of C. T. Studd. He was a graduate of Cambridge University and one of the seven who went to China and shocked the whole of Britain. He was in China for a while, then India, and then the Congo, amongst the cannibals. He never went back to Britain. He said, “Real missionaries never have furloughs.”
Dear old C. T. He was not easy. He had a standard of perfection and devotion that meant most people did not reach it. He was a difficult man, but he was a thornbush, and the fire burned in him—the fire of God.
When he died, thirty-three thousand people, saved by the grace of God from cannibalism, came to his funeral. I was saved through C. T. Studd—the first Christian book I ever read. He became the progenitor and father of one of the greatest missionary fellowships in the world today: Worldwide Evangelization Crusade.
What would we do without the intercession of this Priest forever, this eternal High Priest, the Lord Jesus?
Let me be a little more personal. What would you do without His intercession? Do you think you are perfect? Well, I think some Christians do. That is why they are so critical of others. They think they are marvellous.
But when you know yourself, you know you have no hope but Jesus. He is your only Saviour, your only Redeemer, your only Deliverer. There is no other salvation and no other redemption. It is Jesus.
What would we do without the intercession of the Lord Jesus? He loves us. He knows us inside out.
You may say, “Well, it is very nice of you talking like this, but I am not very sure it is really so down to earth.” Let me tell you: do you know what God said about someone who was impossible? He said, “I have loved him.” It was Jacob.
There was no one more impossible than Jacob. He stole his brother’s blessing. He deceived his old father and stole his brother’s birthright. I had a senior moment then.
What did the Lord do with him? He sent him to the other biggest twister in the Middle East—his uncle Laban. It ran in the family. Uncle Laban and Jacob twisted each other for twenty-one years.
Poor Jacob. He saw himself in the end in Laban. Then he saw himself in Leah, because do not tell me Leah was not in the deception. Father and mother must have said to Leah, “Now you keep your big mouth shut. We are going to marry you to Jacob. You are the older sister, and you are going to be on the shelf.”
“So keep your mouth shut. Ape your sister, walk like her. We will dress you from head to foot. We will put a veil on you. We will have plenty of wine. The lights will be down. He will never know until the morning.”
It must have been a terrible shock to Jacob when he woke up and found it was Leah and not Rachel. He was absolutely stunned. How could my uncle do such a thing to me? God was in it.
Then dear Rachel—meaning, for Jacob, never an evil thought flitted through her sweet mind. She was the purest, sweetest thing that ever lived on the face of the earth. But when they fled from Uncle Laban, Laban and his men came riding furiously after them.
When they got to Jacob, they said, “You have stolen the family gods.” Now it was Jacob’s turn to be furious, because he said, “Gods? I have never worshipped your family gods. You can keep them.”
Laban said, “I do not trust you. Will you let me search everything?” “Yes,” Jacob said. “You will not find any of those.” By the way, those gods were title deeds. That was the custom of the day. The family gods, little idols, were actually title deeds to property and wealth.
Jacob watched Uncle Laban, and the Hebrew is very interesting. It says he touched everything. In other words, Laban knew his nephew. He went everywhere touching things; he did not just look.
Rachel was sitting on the camel saddle, and she said, “It is the way of women with me, Dad. You will not touch me, will you?” “No,” said Laban. Dear sweet girl. He never touched her. She was sitting on all the family idols.
That was a terrible shock to Jacob. He thought, “Perhaps the Lord will not hear.” Whoever was found with those idols would die. And she died within months.
Jacob was changed. The amazing thing was that, at one point, Jacob was alone. Laban was behind him. Esau was in front of him. And he was alone. That is what the Book says. Then God appeared—a Man, it says; an Angel in another place—and wrestled with him.
I think that is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. I have written a book on it; some of you know that. It is so amazing that the Lord wrestled with Jacob. Do not tell me the Lord could not have knocked him out with one blow.
But the Lord deliberately made Himself weak so that Jacob could get the better of Him. It is Calvary, when Jesus was crucified in weakness for our salvation.
In that one single moment, Jacob said, “Bless me. I will not let You go.” He did not mean as we often say, “Oh, God bless you,” in a sort of bright little way. He meant, “Bless me. Change me. Transform me. Do something in me.”
The Lord said, “What is your name?” Fancy the Lord saying, “What is your name?” The Lord had arranged it all. He had been with him all these years, taken him to Uncle Laban, taken him to Leah, taken him to Rachel. He had done everything. It was an appointment God had made.
The Lord said, “What is your name?” He was trying to find out where Jacob really stood. Jacob could have said, “Abraham’s grandson.” What a get-out that would have been. He could have said, “Isaac’s son.” No, no, no. He said, “I am Jacob.” In Hebrew, Yaakov really means “twister.”
Then God said, “Your name shall no more be called Twister. You shall be Israel, a prince with God.”
What would you do without the intercession of the Lord Jesus? Did you know that the Lord arranges your circumstances? Do you know the person you married that maybe you rather regret now? That person is there by arrangement. God is using that person to change you.
When you pray, “Oh Lord, intercede for me,” you think the Lord is only interceding for all that is sweet and rosy and lovely. But actually, the Lord arranges your circumstances with one aim in view: that you will be like Him.
If He has to use difficult circumstances and difficult relationships, He uses them. It is simply wonderful. What would you do without the intercession of the Lord Jesus?
You would not last a few days without the intercession of the Lord Jesus—nor would I. I marvel at Christians who do not feel they need the intercession of the Lord. They are so perfect. Poor souls. They are in a delusion.
But for those of us who know ourselves, what would we do without the intercession of our High Priest?
We have an Advocate with God the Father, Jesus; and we have an Advocate with us, the Holy Spirit.
Now let me say something further. This is the most difficult part of all. If you want to have a sleep, have a sleep. But here is the second part of this wonderful statement:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
The word order in Hebrew is “manner” or “fashion”: after the fashion of Melchizedek, after the manner of Melchizedek. What does that mean?
Jesus is not a High Priest after the order of Aaron. The Book of Hebrews actually says it. It asks the question, in effect, “Is He not after the order of Aaron?” The writer of the Hebrew letter says, “No one ever sprang as a high priest from Judah.” That is the royal tribe. Only from Aaron.
So Jesus is High Priest forever after the order—the manner, the fashion—of Melchizedek. What does that mean? Very simply this: it was forbidden for a priest to be king. It was forbidden that a king should be a priest.
There was a total division between kingship and priesthood. That was the law of God in the Old Testament from Moses on.
This Melchizedek was king of righteousness and king of Jerusalem, king of Salem—translated shalom, peace. King of righteousness, King of peace. This is Jesus.
He combines in Himself the two offices. It is interesting that the prophets actually prophesied that this would happen in Zechariah 6:12–13. Let me read it to you.
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold, the man whose name is the Branch:
and He shall grow up out of His place;
and He shall build the temple of the Lord;
even He shall build the temple of the Lord;
and He shall bear the glory,
and shall sit and rule upon His throne;
and He shall be a priest upon His throne;
and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
The promise was that the Messiah would be Messiah and King. He would be King and Messiah, which is exactly what Peter the apostle said: God has confirmed by the resurrection from the dead, by the exaltation of Jesus, and by His being seated at the right hand of God, that He is both Lord—King—and Messiah, Christ.
In other words, He combines in Himself this wonderful thing: Messianic King. He is a Priest forever.
I must finish by talking just a little about Jesus the Messiah reigning as Priest and King. I think this is wonderful. I have said, “What would we do without His intercession?” He reigns as King.
All authority in heaven and on earth is in His hands—not for the future, now. Do you believe that? All authority in heaven and on earth. Jesus said it in Matthew 28:18, just before He ascended.
All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.
The earth is fallen, yet all authority belongs to Him. That means that the real ruler in our present world is not the potentates or the kings, although they are there by God’s authority. Jesus is sovereign over all.
When you come to the Book of Revelation, you have a new title: He is “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” He is ruler of the potentates of the earth. That is a wonderful, wonderful title.
Do you know what the Lord Jesus said? I hope I can get it over to you.
All authority and power hath been committed into My hand in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you:
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
In the Greek, it is even simpler: “And behold, I am with you all the days, to the end of the age.”
Is that just sentimental, romantic, rather sweet? I do not think so. All authority in heaven and on earth is in My hands, and behold, I am with you all the days to the end of the age—if you and I will only do the will of God.
The real problem is whether we are freewill offerings. That is the problem. It is our will that is the problem.
We want to be tithe people. We want to give a tenth to the Lord, and the rest we will do with as we think best. But the freewill offering is you: your time, your energy, yourself, your whole being, your family, your work, your career—everything.
Did I tell you the story of C. T. Studd last night? No? I preached a few weeks ago in Leicester, which is now a Muslim city. Did I say this last night? Yes, I did, so I am not going to tell you again.
I think it is amazing that F. B. Meyer asked C. T., “What is the secret of your ministry and life?” C. T. was only twenty-six or twenty-seven. He said, “I have surrendered my will to God.”
That is what it means to be a freewill offering: “I have surrendered my will to God.” Our will is the problem. We want it intact. We want the Lord to bless us, support us, stand behind us, clean up the messes, and everything else. But we do not want Him to take over.
But really, the real secret is when our will is His. That is the secret.
There are some wonderful things in this Book about the Lord Jesus as King. For instance, He has the key of David. He opens, and no one can shut. He shuts, and no one can open. That is authority.
I do not know if you know that in experience, but I can tell you, I have seen some of the best of God’s servants facing situations where they needed the door to open. When the Lord opened it, no one could shut it.
He did it with Nepal, which was closed to the gospel. It was wonderful when He opened that door, and no one has shut it.
He did it with Afghanistan, with Ellen Rasmussen, who spent her whole life. She heard the Lord say to her when she was eighteen years of age, “Go to Afghanistan.”
She went to India, which then included Pakistan. Because Afghanistan was closed, she went to live on the border. Then the law of the mission was that she should retire at sixty-five. But she did not believe that servants of the Lord retire, so she refused.
She took a little place on the border. She always remembered what God had said to her at eighteen, but she had doubts. Every now and again she wondered, “Was I deluded? Did I kid myself?”
One day there was a banging on the door. She opened it, and there was a young man standing in Afghan clothes, obviously aristocratic. He said to her, “Is your name Ellen Rasmussen?” She said, “Yes.” He said, “Are you a specialist nurse in eye trouble?” “I am,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “I have been sent by the king of Afghanistan to ask you to come to Kabul. The Crown Prince has very serious eye trouble. Would you come?” It did not take Ellen long to say yes. At eighty-five, she went into Afghanistan.
She was the door that opened to Dr. Wilkie, I think his name was, an eye doctor who came. She got him in to look after the eye condition. They started a clinic. Afghans were saved, and the church of God, as in Nepal, grew in Afghanistan.
That is just an example of what happens when the Lord says, “All authority is in My hand, both in heaven and on this fallen earth. Behold, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age.”
Some of us are much more ordinary people, but are we? The fact that you pray, the fact that you are part of the work of God, that you are concerned about the nation in which you live—it is all part of this. Jesus is with us. He is at the right hand of God.
But if I may put it as simply as I can, though rather irreverently, the Holy Spirit is here as the supervisor. He is the Manager. He always has been. He never talks about Himself. He always turns you to Jesus. But He is here as the Manager.
This is tremendous. If you would only think about it for a little while—my goodness me, I do not know where I could end here. Jesus is King. That is terrific.
Do you know what the Book says in Revelation 1? We are made kings and priests unto God. Some versions say we are made a kingdom and priests unto God. Do you know what it says in Revelation 5:10? We are made a kingdom and priests unto God, and then it adds this wonderful word: “And they shall reign on the earth.”
It could not be any more wonderful. This is the King. He also reigns as High Priest. He appears before God for us. He ever lives to make intercession for us.
What a beautiful word that is, if you know yourself.
He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him,
seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
I do not know if you have a Saviour to the uttermost. Maybe your will is the problem. Maybe that is the blockage. Once you have surrendered your will to God, He is a Saviour to the uttermost, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for us.
There are a whole lot of other things I could say from the Book. There is no reason whatsoever for us to fail, to come short, to miss the mark, to fall short of the goal.
Jesus has won and has provided in His finished work all the power and all the grace that the weakest saint could need. If you do not get to where God intends you to get, it is not His fault, because He has made available to us such power and such grace.
Oh, what a wonderful little psalm Psalm 110 is.
It says that He will shatter the kings of the earth. He will fill the place with dead bodies. These are the enemies. Where are they now? Where is Napoleon? Where are they all? Where is Stalin? Where is Marx? Where is Mao? Where is the demonic one? Dead bodies.
What a wonderful thing this is:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
That name in Hebrew means “King of righteousness.”
Dear friends, is it any wonder that when the Book speaks about Satan coming down to earth, knowing that his time is short and having been thrown out of heaven, it says:
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their life even unto death.
By the blood of the Lamb—that is the finished work of the Lord Jesus. By the word of their testimony—that is when you say with your lips, “You are Lord. You have won. You are seated at the right hand of God.”
And they loved not their lives unto death. That means you have let go of your self-life. You have let go of your will. You have so yielded to Him. Then the Lord says, “They are overcomers.”
May the Lord do it for every one of us in this place, and for all who belong to the remnant of the faithful in this nation.
Beloved Lord, we pray that You will write upon our hearts this word: “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” You are both King and Priest. We do not know what we would do without You, Lord.
You are still King—King of kings, Lord of lords, ruler of the kings of the earth. You are the King of Israel. You are our King.
You are our High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us. Thank You, Lord. Write these words upon our hearts.
If our will gets in the way of Your will, Lord, deal with it. Bring us to the place where we are willing to be willing. Lord, hear us. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.