Once again, as we come to look at the Word of the Lord, we need to be reminded of that principle that is so indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
The Lord so delights to make Himself known to us, and only God reveals God. No human being can reveal the Lord. But He has been pleased, through the foolishness of instruments and preaching and men, to make Himself known, and we praise Him for that.
So we want to see the Lord, and we know that it is only as we trust His Holy Spirit that He will open His Word. Let me share a couple of verses before we pray together.
This is from Psalm 24, that great Psalm of Ascension, as many have called it, which was read antiphonally: one side would speak and then another. But anyway, from verse 7:
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory will come in.Who is the King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle.Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory will come in.Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
He is the King of glory.
And the only point I will make on that precious passage, however you apply it, is that even the King of glory seeks admission. “Lift up your heads, O gates. Open up the door.” He is the King of glory, but He will not break down the door.
In that connection, the same truth comes from another passage: Song of Solomon 5:2.
I was asleep,
But my heart was awake.
A voice!
My beloved was knocking.
You see, when we say “a voice,” we think about a word. That is what a voice is: it is a word. A voice. “Behold, my beloved was knocking.”
Every time God speaks, He knocks. He knocks because He wants us to open the door. He seeks admission.
And so:
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory shall come in.The Lord strong and mighty,
Mighty in battle,
The Lord of hosts—
He is the King of glory.
And He invites us to invite Him. So let us pray.
Father, we thank You so much for Your great grace. You are certainly a gentleman, knocking, seeking to come in. And so we invite You, Lord: come in and minister to our hearts. Feed us, refresh us, revive us. Show us again Thy beautiful face. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, let me continue where we began last night in pressing into this glorious theme: God has called us to be royal priests—priests of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Priest who is after the order of Melchizedek. And because He is, we are priests after the same order.
I pointed out that in Hebrews 5–10, the Holy Spirit, through the human author, spends much time talking about the priesthood of our Lord Jesus, especially after that great order, the order of Melchizedek. As he develops the truth, he holds in contrast the old order and the new order. Over and over again, he contrasts them. Every now and then there seems to be a similarity, but in the main, it is the contrasting of the two orders.
Now, the old order was limited, not only because their priests kept dying off—that is one of the reasons Hebrews gives—and because theirs was not actual atonement but only symbolic atonement, so that had to pass away. But also, as I reminded you, one of the contrasts was that the combination of offices—king and priest—was forbidden under the old order.
Now, that was certainly the general direction. A brother last night pointed out that there were several exceptions. You know, when you study David and all, it seems that there were times when he did take on priestly functions. I am inclined to think that he had a new-covenant heart and maybe was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. But I will leave that for you theologians to iron out. The reality is, it is a puzzle to me. I do not understand the exceptions, but as a rule, you could not mix the offices.
That brings me to the burden that is on my heart for the weekend. Let me read again 1 Peter 2:9–10.
Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:
Which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God:
Which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
We are a chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, that we might manifest the excellencies—and in everything He is excellent—the excellencies of our Lord Jesus.
The offices are combined in being called royal priests. In my understanding, that makes us priests after the order of Melchizedek.
Now, this is a burden on my heart because, as I reflect back over my Christian life—a great chunk of it—I longed to be a priest. I love the Lord. And as I look back, I see how much of my priesthood was under the old order. I am so glad for the measure of light that has begun to dawn on me.
God has contrasted the two priesthoods. That is where I am moving. Tonight, Lord willing, we will begin to enter into this: this is what the old priests looked like; this is what the new priest looks like. God has called us to this and not to this.
But in order to do that, we need first to see what the order of Melchizedek is. Last evening, we began to introduce that by looking at just the bones, just the ministry: what did Melchizedek do? It is a short record. There are only four verses. But in those four verses, we find at least these four wonderful principles.
Number one: when Melchizedek first appeared on the scene, the war was over. Hebrews makes a point of that. That is instructive because his ministry begins after the war is over.
The second fact we learn about Melchizedek is that he came refreshing, serving, ministering, and fellowshipping. He served the father of faith, representative of all the children of faith. He served the bread and the wine.
The third thing we learn about Melchizedek is that he came blessing. That blessing had to do with the revelation of the union that Abraham had with Him Who is Possessor of heaven and earth.
And so great was that revelation that when the king of Sodom came to him and tempted him with something—anything from this world—he was able to say, “I have just discovered that I am in union with the Possessor of heaven and earth, and no, thank you. I will not take a shoelace from you, lest in anything you claim to add to my wealth. You cannot add to my wealth. I am rich in God.”
And then finally, the last thing we see about Melchizedek was that he received the tithe, as Abraham spontaneously surrendered the spoils of the enemy unto him. It is all about victory.
In the old order, there was also surrender, but not the spoils of the enemy, because the enemy had not been conquered in the old system. It was all symbolic, all pictures.
So that is, in the bones, in the bare essentials, the order of Melchizedek. His priesthood begins when the war is over. His priesthood is Him serving His people. His priesthood is Him blessing His people and showing them how wealthy they are in union with Him. His priesthood is allowing them to give themselves back to Him as a spontaneous response to the victory that He has given over the enemy.
Let me tell you what I would like to share this morning, preparing us, Lord willing, for tonight and tomorrow morning. If we are going to understand the contrast—what it means not to be this kind of a priest and what God has intended, that we be this kind of a priest—we need first to see and understand the One Who is Melchizedek.
Remember, our priesthood is really Him living as Melchizedek through us. So that is the priesthood. We need to see Him.
Last night we looked at the bones of the ministry. Now, this morning, I would like us to focus on Him, the Person. Who is Melchizedek? He is the One Who is going to make it real. He is the One Who is going to live through us. So we would just like to show what God says about our Lord Jesus as the Melchizedek Priest.
I am going to take this one verse as a summary of all the verses that call attention to “after the order of Melchizedek.” I am talking about Hebrews 7:17.
Thou art a Priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
Now again, we must not read this, “La, la, la.” It is such an emphasis as you go through Hebrews. It is majestic. It is divine. When you read how God tries to drive home the reality that Jesus is our Priest, as far as I can see, I have never seen any other truth so emphasized by God as the fact that Jesus is our Melchizedek.
God the Father called Him to that. Listen to Hebrews 5:4–5: “No one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.” Verse 10: “Being designated by God as a High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” That Jesus is our Melchizedek is God’s divine idea. This comes from Him. He is called to this.
And to drive it home, what the Holy Spirit reveals about God the Father in Hebrews in relation to Melchizedek is magnificent. God the Father, to drive it home, says, “I swear to it—that He is Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 6:13 says that when God made the promise to Abraham, He could swear by no one greater, so He swore by Himself. He swore by His life. Hebrews 7:21 says:
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.
Let me illustrate, or try to illustrate, how huge that is. You know, it was possible that you would never have existed. Again, I speak as a fool because you are here, so it is not possible now, but it was possible.
In fact, the only possibility that you are here is that one cell from your dad had to join up with one cell from your mom. Out of billions of possibilities, the fact that you are here is the will of God. What a precious thing to realize: you are here. That is the will of God.
But what is true of you, and possible of me—that we never would have existed—that possibility was never true about God. It was never possible that He did not exist. That is not a possibility. There is nothing more certain in the universe than the existence of God.
And so He takes that and says, “I swear by My life. Nothing is more certain than that. I swear by My existence that Jesus is Melchizedek.”
He bends over backwards. He says, “I have called Him to this.” You read Hebrews: there is a verse that says, “I have commanded Him to be your Priest.” He says, “I testify to the fact. I attest. And I have a flawless character. I never lie. I promise you that He is Melchizedek.” And then God says, “I swear to God that He is Melchizedek.”
He is bending over backwards because this is such a vital issue: that we understand that He is a Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
I call attention to that because He is the One Who is going to live in us. If we are going to be royal priests, we need to see the Royal Priest. We need to see Him after the war is over. We need to see Him ministering, refreshing, serving us. We need to see Him with His hands outstretched as He ascended to heaven—in that one-time act, but in that everlasting attitude of blessing us, telling us how rich we are in Him. We need to see Him bring us to the place where we can tithe the spoils of the enemy. We need to see our Lord Jesus.
So we will pass over what He does, and let us look at Him.
To do that, I will ask you to turn, please, to Hebrews 7. This is the New Testament commentary on the Old Testament’s short, short record of Melchizedek. Chapter 7, verses 1–10.
We are going to read ten verses. Maybe a couple of brothers, or several brothers, can read it aloud. Make sure everybody can hear you. But let us just read it, and several brothers can read all the way through verse 10.
Thank you, brother.
From this text, let me mention a couple of things—the most basic things that made Melchizedek God’s illustration of our Lord Jesus. The first observation, and it is all right here, is that God calls attention to his name. His name, Melchizedek, sheds light on the character of the Royal Priest Who is living in our hearts.
The Holy Spirit calls attention to the etymology of the name Melchizedek in Hebrews 7:1–2:
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
To whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all—being first, by interpretation, King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is, King of peace.
The Holy Spirit is the One calling attention to the meaning of his name: King of righteousness, then King of Salem.
Now, there is a lot of spiritualizing that goes on among those who study the Bible, and a lot of it has to do with the meaning of names. We can sort of get sermons out of making this name mean that, and, you know, the water of Jordan went all the way back to Adam. All right, let us talk about that. You can spiritualize a lot of things.
But I know I am not spiritualizing this morning when I call attention to the meaning of the name Melchizedek. It comes from two words: melek, which means king, and tsedeq, which means righteousness. He is the King of righteousness.
Now, that is a big deal, and we will be emphasizing it in another connection. He can be King of righteousness because the war is over. That is why He can be the King of righteousness. And that is why, according to Romans 5:17 and on, we can reign as kings in Christ, because He is the King of righteousness.
As Melchizedek, He is not the propitiation for our sins. That is over. That is over now. Now He is the King of righteousness.
Look again at verse 2. Not only King of righteousness, but King of Salem. The word Salem just means peace. Most commentators believe that this was Jerusalem, that he was king of Jerusalem. And that is how he is introduced: King of righteousness, King of peace.
Now, as you know, every picture of our Lord Jesus falls short of the reality. He is much greater than every picture of Him. A lamb could never picture the Lamb. It is just a small little picture of Him.
So Melchizedek was King of righteousness, but only in a limited sense. He was not sinless. Melchizedek, the one who met Abraham, was a sinner like you are a sinner, like I am a sinner. I am thankful that, though he lived in the vicinity of Sodom and Gomorrah, he was King of righteousness. That is a possibility even in an environment like that.
But Jesus is our sinless King of righteousness, even as we sang. He is our sinless King of righteousness, King of all righteousness.
And just so, he was King of Salem, King of peace, but only over Jerusalem. Our King of peace is King of peace over everything. Daniel 4:17 says that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind; He bestows it on whom He wishes, and He sets up over it the lowliest of men. He is King of kings, Lord of lords, in an unlimited way.
Now, before we move on from his name, notice that the Holy Spirit in verse 2 makes a big point of this. He was first of all, by the translation of his name, King of righteousness; then, King of Salem. First of all, then.
In other words, peace does not come first. Righteousness comes first, then King of peace. Everyone today is crying, “Peace, peace,” but it is sort of peace at any cost. It is not peace based on righteousness.
Matthew 5:6: He does not tell us to hunger and thirst after peace. He says, “Hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Peace will follow.
James 3:17: “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.” Purity comes first. Holiness comes first.
Isaiah 32:17–18: “The work of righteousness will be peace; and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.” Psalm 23 shows us that the path that leads to green pastures and quiet waters is the path of righteousness. Righteousness first, and then peace.
Well, that is how it begins. Why can Jesus, as Melchizedek, be King of righteousness and King of peace? The answer is because the battle is over. The battle is done.
In addition to his name and title being a picture of our Melchizedek—King of righteousness and peace—Melchizedek also pictures our Lord Jesus in a unique way by the things not said about him.
Most of the time, we look at what is said about him. But there were certain things not said about Melchizedek. Let me illustrate. If you glance at Hebrews 7:5–7, we do not know when he was born, and we do not know who his father was on the level of earth, or his mother, or, in fact, any of his relatives. Nobody is mentioned.
He was a priest. Who was a priest before him in that order? We do not know. Who was a priest after him? We do not know. When did he die? We do not know.
This is amazing in the Old Testament, where they laid such great stress on genealogical records. This is just an amazing thing. Hebrews 7:6 speaks of one “whose genealogy is not traced.”
From the silence about Melchizedek, the author of Hebrews draws strong arguments. Verse 3 again:
Without father, without mother, without genealogy,
Having neither beginning of days nor end of life,
But made like unto the Son of God,
Abideth a priest continually.
The author uses what is not in the Bible—what is not recorded: the silence. The fact that he was never born, the fact that he had no parents, the fact that he never died, the fact that he had no predecessor, the fact that he had no successor.
And he says, since there is no record of that, how old is someone who was never born? He is eternal. How old is someone who never died? It does not mean he did not die. There is just no record of it. And because there is no record, it is a picture of His eternity.
He was never born. He never died. How high is someone above human parents? He is transcendent. He is using that to illustrate, as nothing else could illustrate, the priesthood of our Lord Jesus.
Did you notice, when he keeps saying, “After the order of Melchizedek,” the word that he constantly uses? “A Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:20: “A Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 7:17: “A Priest forever.”
Melchizedek illustrates, by the silence of his life, the foreverness of the priesthood of our Lord Jesus.
Now, I do not believe this is just my opinion, but I do not think, when Melchizedek met Abraham that day after the battle, he said, “Wow, what a privilege I have today. I am going to illustrate the everlasting priesthood of Almighty God.” He did not know that. He was just living.
He did not have a clue that his family tree would be buried in oblivion. God arranged that. God set that up in order to be a picture of our Lord Jesus, Who is a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
This is our Melchizedek: King of righteousness, absolute King of righteousness, King of peace, and, in that order, eternal in His Person. I have already pointed out that King and Priest shows He is the whole show.
I want to show one more aspect of the Person to prepare us as we look this evening at the contrasting priesthoods—or begin to look at that.
In the priesthood of our Lord, there are several titles that describe this Melchizedek priesthood. We are not going to look at all of them. He is called Intercessor. That is part of His priesthood. He is called Advocate. That is part of His priesthood. He is called Mediator of the New Covenant. That is part of His priesthood.
He is an Intercessor before you sin, like with Peter. He intercedes before you sin. But if you blow it, “If anyone sin, he has an Advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.” So before you sin, He is an Intercessor; after you sin, He is an Advocate. That is all part of the Melchizedek priesthood.
But so that you might not sin, He is the Mediator of the New Covenant. So I want to focus on that wonderful title, because I am not going to understand what it means to be a royal priest, a holy priest, and a happy priest if I do not understand His ministry up there, that I might not sin, as the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Listen, please, to these verses. Hebrews 8:6: “Now He hath obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises.”
Hebrews 9:15: “For this cause He is the Mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
As Melchizedek: Intercessor, Advocate, now Mediator. God gave that covenant with an oath. Hebrews 7:21–22:
The Lord hath sworn and will not repent Himself,
Thou art a Priest for ever;
By so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better covenant.
God swore that it would be that way and that He would never change His mind about it. So, what does it mean that He is the Mediator of the New Covenant?
Now, I am quite certain with this group of brothers, in another place, at another time, perhaps I would have to explain the old covenant and why it did not work. But I am going to bypass that now. I am quite sure you know why it failed, and the problem was in us. The covenant was great, but we failed.
The old covenant was made between God and man, and man did not keep his part. The new covenant was not made between God and man. The new covenant was made between God the Father and God the Son on behalf of man. That is a different covenant altogether.
The point is this: when we look at the old system, it was all symbolic. It was all pictures. It never gave actual atonement. There was no actual atonement in all of those sacrifices, in all of those animals. There was only symbolic atonement.
Hebrews 10:4 says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. The blood of bulls, goats, lambs, bullocks, turtle doves, and a pinch of flour—those were pictures, symbolic atonement. Nobody in the Old Testament ever got saved under that system. It is not possible.
I have heard people say something like this: “Although in the Old Testament the shedding of animal blood could not actually give forgiveness, it covered their sins until Jesus would come and die on the cross.”
Symbolic atonement had no power to forgive sin. It had no power to cover sin, and it had no power to deal with sin in any way. It was only a picture. A picture cannot give actual forgiveness.
I wish God would impress upon His people the tremendous distance between a picture and a reality. They needed real forgiveness, not symbolic forgiveness. Pictures are only pictures, and that is all they can serve as.
You cannot eat a picture of a steak. You could, but it would not nourish you. You need more than a picture. If you are cold, a picture of a fire is not going to help. You need more than a picture of a fire. And if you are lonely, a picture of a friend or a loved one is not going to do much good. You need the reality.
So the question is, did anybody in the Old Testament ever get saved? They did. They had actual forgiveness, not just symbolic forgiveness.
You say, “Well, how could they? There was the old covenant. They were under the old covenant.” No, they were not. They lived at the time of the old covenant, but they never lived under it. They lived under the everlasting covenant.
The everlasting covenant is the covenant of grace. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” He never began to love you. He never began to love me. His delight was with the sons of men before there were sons of men. He has always delighted in us. Christ was crucified before the foundation of the earth.
They had real forgiveness because the old covenant, the symbolic covenant, drove them to their need of the everlasting covenant, which was grace. What is the relationship between the everlasting covenant and what we call the New Covenant? The New Covenant is the full explanation of the everlasting covenant. The everlasting covenant is grace.
They did not just have symbolic forgiveness. Listen to Paul quoting David in Romans 4:
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.
That does not sound symbolic to me. That sounds like David had real, genuine, through-and-through, honest forgiveness when he sinned with Bathsheba, when he murdered Uriah.
When God finally, through His servant Nathan, convicted him of his sin, when he repented, he called out for real forgiveness, not symbolic forgiveness. Psalm 51:
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.Hide Thy face from my sins,
And blot out all mine iniquities.Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
That is a cry for the real thing.
Notice what he said in verse 16. Now, do not forget: he was living right at the heart, in the midst of, at the time of the old system.
For Thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it:
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Where did he get that idea? “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire”? Come on, David. Read your Bible.
I will tell you: he had his heart the same way that you have to have your heart. He saw the everlasting covenant. Then later he said, “Now I will pay my vows, and You will accept the burnt offering.” It is not that he did not offer it, but not until he got right with the Lord.
They had actual forgiveness. The greatest things you will ever read about forgiveness, you are going to find in the Old Testament. Those are the great descriptions: “Wash me whiter than snow,” and, “Create in me a clean heart.”
Isaiah 1:18: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Isaiah 38:17: God said, “I will cast all thy sins behind My back.” Where is the back of an omnipresent God? Oh, how glorious, where God has taken care of our sin.
Isaiah 44:22: Every time I see a blue sky, I think of this verse. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions.” A blue sky, a cloudless sky, to me does as much for my soul as seeing the white snow. I just remember how forgiven I am.
Hosea 14:4: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” Micah 7:19: “He will tread our iniquities under foot.”
The other day, I was watching the Discovery Channel, and they talked about the deepest part in the Pacific Ocean, that long channel there. I forgot what it is called. You have seen it—seven miles down. He said, “I have taken your sins and thrown them into the deepest sea.” Marvelous pictures of actual forgiveness, not just symbolic forgiveness.
Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant. He is the King of righteousness because the war is over, the war against sin. He now can bring peace based on that righteousness.
Now, there are many things about the New Covenant. You are a royal priest, but you cannot experience the wonder of being a royal priest if you do not understand His ministry as the Mediator of the New Covenant. There are many characteristics, and we cannot get into everything, but let me mention two. Then we will wrap that up, and hopefully that will prepare our hearts for this King of righteousness and this King of peace, Who is the whole show, Who is now mediating for us this New Covenant.
Number one: the New Covenant is absolutely unconditional. Listen as I read from Hebrews 8:
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.
In that repetition of the New Covenant, there is not a single “if.” May God help us see this. “I will make. I will put. I will write. I will be. I will be merciful. I will remember their sins no more.”
In Ezekiel 36, we have another list. It is a New Covenant passage, verses 22–32:
I will take them from the nations.
I will sprinkle clean water.
I will cleanse them from their filthiness.
I will put a new heart in them.
I will remove the heart of stone.
I will put My Spirit within them.
I will cause them to walk in My ways.
Ye shall be My people,
And I will be your God.
Christians are so afraid to really believe that it is that simple—that there are no conditions. The natural heart wants conditions. It wants to believe that there are ifs.
“God will bless, refresh, revive, deliver if—if I pray, if I have a faithful quiet time, if I am sincere, if I have confessed all my sins, if I surrender, if I obey, if I study, if I fast, if I join, if I, if I, if I.” The natural heart has a critical case of the ifs.
When you read this New Covenant, to be a royal priest means He is the Mediator of an unconditional covenant. You say, “Now, come on, Ed. Read the whole Bible. You are saying there are no conditions to the Christian life?”
Of course there are conditions, but they are based on the unconditional. They rest on the unconditional. I am not blind. I can see: “If you abide in Me,” and, “If you keep My commandments,” and, “If you love Me,” and, “If you walk in My ways,” and, “If you confess your sin.” You have to see the ifs. But they are based on the unconditional.
Man’s obedience and response is because it is unconditional. That is the bedrock of it.
Now, this is going to sound like a contradiction, and I have wrestled with how to find a word. I do not know the word. Maybe afterward you can help me with this. Because I know that it is unconditional, now I want to give you the one condition that you need. It is not a condition, but I do not know what else to call it.
Let me try to illustrate it. It looks like a condition, and I do not want to back off the fact that it is unconditional. But God has promised the New Covenant to all that ask Him.
He will live through me, but by my permission. I have to trust Him to do that. I have to ask Him to do that.
Remember that I quoted there from Ezekiel 36: “I will, I will. I will give you a clean heart. I will take away the stony heart. I will put in a new heart. I will cause you to walk in My way.” My heart says, “Yes. Do it, Lord.”
You know how that chapter ends? “I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.” We come to the end of the chapter, verse 37: “Thus saith the Lord God: For this, moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.”
After He gives all those unconditional promises, He says, “Now I am going to let them ask Me to do that.”
Philippians 1:19. Next week, Lord willing, pray for me, brothers. I have a wonderful privilege with another group of brothers to share, and God has opened my heart to some wonderful things in Philippians. I was arrested with this verse, chapter 1, verse 19:
I know that this shall turn out to my salvation,
Through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
What is that all about? Through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit. You see, the Spirit is His life, and He said, “I give My life in answer to your prayer.” As we pray, God works wonderfully.
I believe there is a great weakness in the Body of Christ today because there are those who so love the Lord, and love the truth of the New Covenant, and love grace, that they just say, “God promised to do it. I am just going to sit back and wait until God does it. I am just going to wait and wait and wait because it does not depend on me. It all depends on the Lord.”
If I need the Holy Spirit in my life and in my study, just as much as I need Him, I need to pray. Just as much as you need Him, you need to pray. He works in answer to prayer.
Some get so theologically technical, they just think, “It is all by grace, and I do not have a part.” Or else, “I have a little part because I am weak, and God will do ninety-five percent, and I will just have to do my little five percent.”
No, you do not do your little five percent. God does one hundred percent, and He expects you to do your one hundred percent. My one hundred percent. And what is my one hundred percent? It is asking Him to do His one hundred percent. That is my one hundred percent. I have to do it. I have to ask Him.
Our Lord Jesus was certainly filled with the Spirit before His baptism. It is interesting, though, when He prayed, the Spirit came down like a dove. We read in Acts after Pentecost that the Holy Spirit had already come, and the enemy, Satan, was trying to quench the church. They prayed, and the Spirit came upon them. They had to pray. When they prayed, then God’s life was released.
I need to pray for all that God has promised to do unconditionally for me. Now, does that make prayer a condition? I do not know what to call it. I think it describes more the when than the why.
He is not doing it because I pray. He is doing it because He loves me. He is doing it when I pray.
That does not satisfy my heart either. I do not know what to call it, but I know this: the covenant is unconditional. But that unconditional covenant will not be yours, will not be mine, until we ask for it. When we ask, He just pours it out.
May God help us to learn what that means. Prayer is God’s inspired means to allow God to do His unconditional work in our heart.
Now, I know when we rest on the unconditional, then we will accept the conditions with open arms. It is easy to accept the condition if we are resting on the unconditional.
All right, hold that a moment, and let me just show you the second part of the New Covenant. It is not only unconditional; it is internal. Verse 10 of chapter 8:
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel:
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them.
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
What does it mean when we read that God writes His law in our mind and writes it in my heart? I have to have the law. I am not under the law to keep the law; I am under grace to keep the law. But I need the law, and it needs to be internal.
You know, in Matthew 23:5, Jesus talked against the Pharisees about their phylacteries. You remember what that was. They had a little box, they put Bible verses in it, and they carried it on the outside. God said, “I will take what is on the outside and put it on the inside.”
When God said, “I will write it in your mind,” basically He is saying, “You will know it.” That is what it means to have it written in your mind. You will know the will of God.
What does it mean to write it in your heart? Maybe you will love it. It is hard. You mean God can do such a work that His laws, His commands, I can know and I can love? Yes, by the New Covenant.
That is what He is living to do, because royal priest is followed by holy nation. Royal priests are holy priests, and holy priests walk in union, in obedience to the Lord. How am I going to obey Him?
The answer is: He, by the New Covenant, will take that which is external and put it on the inside. You will know His will, and you will also love His will.
You have heard before, and I have stated it in your presence: all God has ever commanded us to do in this Book is impossible on the level of earth. You cannot keep one command. I cannot keep one command.
Your only hope for living the Christian life, and living as a royal priest, is if God would take His law and put it in your mind and put it in your heart so that you will love it. It is not possible to obey God.
“Stretch forth your withered hand.” “I cannot; it is withered.”
“Take up your bed and walk.” “I cannot; I am crippled.”
“Be clean.” “I cannot; I have leprosy.”
“Stand up straight.” “I cannot; I am bent over.”
“Talitha cumi. Little girl, I say unto thee, arise.” “I cannot; I am dead.”
But they did, because everything He commands, He provides. He takes what is on the outside and puts it on the inside.
“You feed them.” “I cannot; I do not have the resources.”
“Go to the other side.” “I cannot. You are going to send a big storm out there, and You are going to stop me dead in my tracks.” They could not, but they did.
Brothers, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile. In everything give thanks. Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. Pray for those who despitefully use you. Rejoice evermore. Be perfect, as your heavenly Father in heaven is perfect. Again, love your enemies. Do not just stop hating them; love them.
Brothers, we can fake the external. We can go through the motions. I cannot fake the delight: “I delight to do Thy will.”
Only God, by the New Covenant, can make me know the will of God and then make me love it, make me long to do it.
There is so much testimony that rings of Aaron. I hate when somebody stands up and gives a testimony that begins something like this: “I want to give God praise. I went through an awful struggle. Oh, it was terrible. But finally, at the end, God brought me through, and praise God.”
May I just suggest that the bitter struggle is the pain of the old system? The New Covenant makes you not only a royal priest, but a holy priest and a happy priest. “I delight to do God’s will.”
He gives grace not just at the end, after the bitter struggle. He gives grace before the bitter struggle, through the bitter struggle, and at the end of the bitter struggle. That is the New Covenant.
A royal priest is someone who knows Christ, the One Who is righteous—King of righteousness, King of peace, the whole show. He has made provision before you sin. He has made provision if you blow it. But so that you might not blow it, He says, “I want to write this in your mind, so you will know My will, and I am going to write it in your heart so that you will love to do My will. I will cause you to walk in My ways.”
But you have to ask Me. You have to ask Me. I have given you permission. I will do all of this for you, but you have not because you ask not.
Many Christians are still under the old system because they have never dared to ask the Lord, “Do this for me.”
You know how the promise of the New Covenant ends there in the chapter? I love this. He says, “I have given this from the greatest to the least.” That is like saying, “From the dumbest to the smartest.”
I used to think, “Royal priest? My goodness. Spirit-filled, knowing the Lord—that has to be just for the hotshots. That has to be just for the spiritual theologians, those who know Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and all of that.”
It is for you, brothers. It is for you. It is for me. From the least to the greatest—from the dumbest to the smartest. Think of the dumbest Christian you know. I hope you did think about yourself. It is for you. It is for you. But you have to ask.
Well, I pray that that will prepare us. This is our High Priest. This is the One Who wants to live in your heart. This is the One Who wants to live through you. This is the One Who has such excellent things that need to be manifest to the world through us.
You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, called of God to manifest the excellencies of Him. May God prepare us, especially as we this evening begin to look at this priesthood and those priests. They loved the Lord. Do not get me wrong. I am not condemning them. They loved the law. They did not understand the new—the new order.
So may God prepare us and help us. Well, let us pray.
Father, thank You again for being such a Priest and for setting aside a covenant between God and man, making a covenant instead between God and God on behalf of man. Oh, we praise You.
Praise You that all the saints have ever had it through the everlasting covenant, that we have it now with a fuller understanding through the New Covenant.
Help us to enter into all of this, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.