Let’s pray together.
Lord, our confession, like we just sang, is that love conquers even us. Even with our stubborn hearts, this morning we were drawn close to You together, and really, Your love has conquered our hearts. We just willingly give our lives over to You. We yield to You. We trust in You to speak to us.
Lord, we pray Your word would be like a double-edged sword in our hearts, really showing us Christ and showing us what is not Christ. We pray for Your blessing, Lord, that all the way through we would have Your presence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let’s read together in Psalm 110. This psalm is the most quoted Old Testament chapter in the New Testament. The book of Psalms is the most quoted book, and this is the psalm that everybody quotes. The early saints really knew this one by heart; they probably had it memorized. It is a prophetic psalm very specifically about Christ.
We just want to read one of the verses, verse 4.
The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
“You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” This verse was written by David, King David, who had this prophetic utterance about the Messiah to come. He starts off the psalm saying:
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit thou at my right hand.
So it is a word that David had about his own Lord, even though he was the king. He knew there was the King of kings who would come. This is also quoted a lot in the book of Hebrews when it shares Christ as our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, using this verse and, of course, the story of Melchizedek.
I have shared a couple of times on Melchizedek: one time about the person Melchizedek from Genesis 14, and one time going through a little bit of our own ministry as the priesthood of all believers, which includes the kingship of all believers. Our priesthood is after the order of Melchizedek.
I actually prepared a bunch of review slides, and then Catherine looked at them and was in shock that there were eighteen-plus or something. She was right. We would not finish today if we reviewed everything.
So I thought, what do we basically need to know today to look at Christ, our Melchizedek? You just need to know one thing. If you have missed everything about Melchizedek—the history and all the neat stuff about him—his order of priesthood is unique in that he is a king and a priest.
This is a big deal to know. Different from the priests of the Israelites, Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest at the same time. So our Lord Jesus is after this order. He is a High Priest, but His priesthood is very closely connected with His kingship. You do not separate the two when it comes to Christ.
When it came to the Israelites, you could not combine the two. One of the kings tried to act like a priest, and he suffered for it. Even though King David had the heart of a priest, he knew he dared not touch the ark, or else he would die. He was not a priest; he was a king. They were separated back then.
But our Lord Jesus, when we look at Him as a priest, as the great High Priest, we always realize that He is the King—the kingly priest, the royal priest. This is the order of His priesthood.
Today, we want to look not only at Christ as our Melchizedek. We have mentioned this the whole way through. This is the point we have always had a glimpse of, but today we want to experience His current ministry. This is the ministry He is doing right now.
What He is doing right now as a High Priest is the work of a kingly High Priest. For example, the book of Hebrews kind of splits the book in half: talking about when Christ first came and did a work of redemption and accomplished it, and then talking about Him as our High Priest.
There it uses the term apostle—Christ our Apostle. He was sent from God, as the word apostle means. He had a mission. He came to the cross, said, “It is finished,” and completed it. This is the finished work of Christ. He was able to do it because He is fully God and fully man.
Then Hebrews goes on to talk about Him as our High Priest. This is the current work that the Lord Jesus is doing right now. He is alive. He is praying, ministering, serving, and working in the church as a kingly High Priest.
So we want to look at how to actually experience that ministry of His—how not to hinder His ministry, but to yield to it. The hymn we sang starts off, “Lord, You have won; at length I yield.” This phrase of yielding to the Lord especially caught my attention.
There is a verse I want to read and explain a little bit. It is in Romans 6:16, and it has this word yield in it. There are a lot of different ways to explain having Jesus as our Lord, consecrating ourselves to Him, experiencing Him as our King, and being His bondservant. But this gives me a specific experience, or a specific thing, to try.
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey,
His servants ye are to whom ye obey;
Whether of sin unto death,
Or of obedience unto righteousness?
Here it gives us the phrase, “to whom you yield yourselves as bondservants.” If there is a master, the way of having the master really be the master is to yield to his lordship—to let him be king, to let him be lord.
So here he is saying, you are either yielding yourselves to sin, like you are the slave of sin, or you let the King of righteousness be your King. You yield yourself to Him, and you really become His bondservant in your experience.
With that thought of yielding, we are going to look at a vision of Christ as the High Priest. It is in Revelation 1. We are going to start in verse 12.
This is when the apostle John is on the island of Patmos. He is suffering; he has been outcast. On the Lord’s Day, he is in the Lord, and suddenly he sees something. He hears the words, turns, and looks, and sees this vision of Christ as the High Priest.
To begin with, I want to read the whole thing through—verses 12 through 18—because we need to see the whole picture, keeping in mind that this is a picture of Him as the High Priest.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.
And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks;
And in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of man,
Clothed with a garment down to the foot,
And girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle.
And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow;
And his eyes were as a flame of fire;
And his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace;
And his voice as the voice of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars:
And out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword:
And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead.
And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not;
I am the first and the last,
And the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore,
And I have the keys of death and of Hades.
At this vision, the apostle John fell down as if he was dead, at His feet.
It starts off saying he saw seven golden lamps. If you read on in Revelation 2 and 3, this whole package together, the whole vision has Christ ministering with these seven golden lampstands.
This is similar to the priest in the Old Testament tabernacle or temple. There was a lamp in the holy place. In our time now, the Holy of Holies and the holy place are all kind of combined because the veil was torn. The glory comes into both realms.
There is this golden candlestick, this light shining, that the priest would minister to. He would keep it filled with oil, make sure it was not flickering, and make sure the lights were bright.
The picture here, in general, is that you see the lamp and you see the priest working on the lamp, keeping it shining bright. As you go through each of the churches, it mentions in Revelation 1 that the seven lamps are the seven churches in Asia Minor.
Revelation 2 and 3 each have a letter written—a word spoken—to each of these lampstands. Each time, He describes Himself. Then He tells them how they are doing, what they are doing that is not shining, and what they are doing that is not His expression.
Then He has a call on all of them:
He that hath an ear, let him hear
What the Spirit saith to the churches.
In this ministry of the kingly High Priest, even in this picture in Revelation 1 through 3, the ministry requires a response. There is a type of action that should happen in order to receive His priestly ministry. It is not something forced upon the churches.
After doing His work, He calls out, “Do you have an ear to hear Me?” This ear could be like the pierced ear of a bondservant in the Old Testament, who would say, “I love my master so much.” One of his ears would be pierced to show that forever he would be his bondservant, until he died.
Either way, it is an ear that listens. The ear that listens means that you respond. With each of the churches, He calls out, “To him that overcometh,” and He mentions a reward.
What is going on is that someone responds and listens to His ministry. Someone receives the kingship of Christ. In that, they overcome in their circumstance. It may be that they need to keep doing what they have been doing, so He is encouraging them, increasing the oil, filling them with the Holy Spirit, and calling them to press on, be faithful unto death, finish well, and hold what they have.
Or it may be that they are in a bad spot and need to repent, remember where they have fallen from, and do the first works. They may be dry and think they have something, but really be blind and need to turn.
The ones who listen to Him and yield to His ministry let Him be King and let Him do His priestly work. Christ as our Melchizedek priest means that if He is going to minister to us right now, the reaction has to be, “Jesus is Lord.” The reaction has to be, “He is King.”
With the Old Testament priests, their ministry on behalf of God and their going to God on behalf of man did not depend on the priest being king. But in our relationship with the great High Priest, every experience of Him ministering to us is an experience of yielding to His kingship.
Every experience is, “I have an ear to hear what You are saying.” He is working with us, and we respond in that way.
We are going to take this vision spot by spot, description by description, seeing Him as our High Priest and looking at how we yield to Him in order to experience Him as our High Priest. Any vision of Christ in Scripture is not just for sight or enjoyment. The vision of Christ always has a reaction in us. It always has a response.
It begins with Him in the midst of the seven lamps. Not only is He standing in the midst of the seven lamps, but He is also walking amidst them. Revelation 2:1 says that He is the One walking in the midst of the seven lamps.
Then the description says He was “like unto a son of man.” This term is used in Old Testament prophecies of the King to come and the kingdom to come. There was One like the Son of Man.
This is that King who was prophesied about. This is that One being talked about. He is alive right now, ministering. He is that Son of Man mentioned in the Old Testament.
When we know the life of the Lord Jesus, we know that He took the position not only of literally being a son of man—a human being born as a human being—but He also took His stance as a man.
He did not take His stance as the Son of God while He lived on earth in that time, even though that was the temptation Satan brought to Him. One of the main temptations was, “If You are the Son of God, You are hungry. Turn these stones into bread.”
His response was that of the Son of Man:
Man shall not live by bread alone.
He took His position always as a man. He did not even do powerful works without their being power from God, given to Him by the Holy Spirit. He did not act in His own power, which is why He could not do anything without it being something the Father initiated.
The Father initiates it, the anointing of the Holy Spirit is there, the power is there, the blessing is there, and then He would do it. He worked just like a man and took His place as a man. This is our High Priest.
The book of Hebrews especially brings this up because it is connected with us and with His ability to be our priest. As a man, He suffered like a man. As a man, He understands things like a human being.
Hebrews says that He was tempted just like us in everything, yet without sin. He knows our temptations. To have a High Priest who could not sympathize with us would be difficult. But to have Someone who lived on this earth—who knows how to cry, what it feels like to lose someone you love, what it is like to be tired, hungry, thirsty, and in pain—even physical pain—this One can sympathize with us in whatever we go through.
His life was so complete that He was tempted in every foundational principle of temptation. The outward aspects may be different for all of us, but He never assented to sin. As a human, He knows what you are going through.
With this picture of the High Priest as the Son of Man, it reacts in our hearts: here is Someone who can sympathize with me. I see the King, but I see a King who knows what I am going through.
Sometimes, when you want to follow a leader, it is easier if the leader gains your respect—if the leader earns it by spending time with you and you see how they act in their downtime. We read this of Christ in the Gospels.
Not only that, you see that you are like Him. When He leads the way, you see that you can go as well. There is a Man in glory who made it all the way through. If we yield to Him as our King and High Priest, He will lead us all the way through.
He is the Son well-pleasing to the Father, who wants to lead many sons into glory—many sons of men. He Himself is the Son of Man, standing there representing us as a human before God the Father, even though He is the Son of God at all times and in all His glory.
Then it goes on to say He has a garment reaching to His feet. The priests in the Old Testament wore garments, and the High Priest had multiple layers.
This long, complete priestly garment represents righteousness. We have Christ as our righteousness like a garment or robe. The Scriptures talk about this. There are also the righteous actions of the saints, which are like a second garment.
In general, the garment that is worn is a picture of righteousness. With our Lord Jesus, another description of this same garment is shown later in Scripture when He comes on a white horse for the battle of Armageddon, coming to defeat the Antichrist.
It mentions this same garment, and it says that it is dipped in blood. His garment being dipped in blood especially explains to us His righteousness.
The first layer is that He Himself is righteous. This is what lets Him be the One who could die for our sins. But another layer of His righteousness is that He completed the righteousness of God.
God has His righteous way of saving mankind. That righteous way was for the Son of God, the Son of Man, to die for all mankind. This fulfilled the righteousness of God. It was the only way.
It was the only righteous way to fulfill the righteous requirements of God. It is the only righteous way to save unrighteous sinners. Just like that prayer in Gethsemane: if there had been another way, there was no other way to accomplish the Father’s will. This is His garment dipped in blood.
When we see Him with this robe of righteousness, what is our reaction of yielding? His ministry as High Priest right now is really connected with His garment. Most of our initial experiences of Him as High Priest have to do with this righteous realm.
For example, 1 John 1 and 2 talk about walking in the light and dealing with our sins. If light shines on your sin, do not ignore it. Do not act like it is not sin. Step out into the light and confess your sins.
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with Him, and the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, cleanses us from all sin. If we confess our sins, because God is faithful and righteous, He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
These things are mentioned so that we do not sin and can live a righteous life. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father: Jesus Christ the righteous. This is Him as a High Priest, standing before the Father right now.
There is no need for us to sin, true, but if anyone does sin, this is the encouragement: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, is right there before the Father.
When we confess our sins, the Father sees what the Son has done. He sees the robe of righteousness dipped in blood. He sees the righteous sacrifice on the cross. There is genuine repentance and confession of sin, yielding to Him as the Righteous One when we have failed and walked in darkness.
You confess your sins, and your sins are forgiven. You are washed clean by the precious blood. He ministers to you as the High Priest.
Why would this be yielding? It seems like I am just confessing my sins. But notice: when you try to merely say your sins, it does not actually work. One reason people struggle with sins and condemning thoughts is that they do not understand how to experience the forgiveness of sins.
Even when we think of the word confess, we may not know its meaning. We might admit the sin, tell the Lord of the sin, or even apologize. But there may not be that response of confession.
When there is confession of sins, there is hatred toward the sin and a turning away from it. It includes repentance. It includes, “I do not want this, and I choose not to walk in this anymore.”
Sometimes, when you have apologized to the Lord for your sins, there is another word in your mind saying, “But you are just going to do this tomorrow. You are going to fail again. Are you really sorrowful enough? Do you feel your sorrow?”
These are all incorrect. It does not hinge on whether you feel sorrow for your sins. Many people have a lot of sorrow for their sins, but they do not have their sins forgiven. They may even come with tears, but they do not see Him as the Righteous One.
When they apologized, they did not know that He stands before the Father, having already accomplished it. They did not believe and see that their sins are forgiven.
When the thought comes, “I am going to fail again,” all we can do is yield to Him. We can say, “You know me. You can sympathize with me. You are the great High Priest who knows the temptations of all men.”
“I hate what I did. I confess it as sin, not as something I want to do. I receive Your forgiveness of sins right now.” This is believing and trusting. It is standing on His word.
The word says He is faithful and righteous. He will forgive you of your sins. He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Sometimes, when you are struggling, a way of yielding to His ministry is to begin thanking Him for forgiving you of your sins. If you know you have confessed them, if you genuinely have said, “I do not want to do this,” even though you may not feel much, thank Him for forgiving you.
If His light is not shining on anything else, if He is not exposing another kind of sin, receive His ministry as King and High Priest. You have confessed Him as Lord by turning from those sins.
Where you used to say, “I am lord,” now you say, “Jesus is Lord.” We used to say, “I choose to go my path, accomplish this sin, hide in darkness, and do things I am ashamed of.” Now you say, “I am walking in the light. I am exposed before my King, and I am no longer going to do these things.”
As you yield to Him as your King in that way, you are His bondservant. You are washed clean by the precious blood. He ministers to you, washing your dirty garments white as pure white, as if you had never sinned.
This is a basic experience of His ministry as High Priest. If today you have not had this experience recently, you should ask, “Am I living in the good of His high-priestly, Melchizedek-style ministry? What is the reason I am not? Are my apologies lacking His lordship?”
It may be that you are thinking of a sin you are convicted of, but actually that is not the main problem. One time recently, I failed at something and went to apologize to the Lord. The Lord said, “That is not your main problem. You would not have failed at that if, this morning, you had spent the proper time with Me.”
Then I really repented. Sometimes your sins of omission are bigger than your sins of commission. Sometimes it is what you do not do to grow in the Lord that brings you to do all of these worldly, sinful, and carnal things.
If you let Him minister to you, pressing you on to full growth, that is what He is trying to do. If you let Him lead you, saying, “I showed you to take these steps,” it is sin if you do not do what you know you should do. It is darkness if you hide from what He is calling you to do.
Have you ever repented of those sins? Often we do not. This is why we do not experience a thorough cleansing through His precious blood.
We go to apologize for being rude to someone, but do not realize it is because we neglected our Bible reading for the past three days. We have not been refreshed with His voice in our hearts, or we have been listening to a lot of other things. Sometimes we do not realize it is the sin of neglect.
When you stand before Him, even though you know a sin to apologize for, let His light shine more thoroughly. Let His righteousness be the standard, not your own righteousness. Stand there in His light and let Him show you more.
Another thing it mentions is that with this garment there is a girdle, girt about at the breast. We do not use the word girdle much, and we do not really use this style of clothing. But spiritually speaking, there is a reason that the belt is tightened at the breast—at the heart.
Normally, if you were going to battle or do anything while wearing a flowing robe, you would wrap it up with a belt. We wear belts because our pants might fall down, but they wore belts because their robe would fly up. They would tie them up if they were going to do work.
To be girded with a girdle means you are doing something. You are serving, working, and accomplishing something. Why is it on His breast? Because it is a work of the heart that He is doing.
At this point, I want to bring up the main backbone of the heart ministry of a priest, which is prayer. Deep in the heart of someone ministering in this priestly way—especially our High Priest—is that He is praying for us.
His praying for us is not a prayer of anger. I have heard people pray for another person when they were angry at them. They prayed for them not to fail, but it was almost like they were mad at them. His is a prayer from the heart, out of so much love.
As Hebrews says, He is alive forever, and He ever lives to intercede for us. Anyone who approaches God through Him, He will bring through. He is praying for everyone. He is praying for all of us. This is His work, His ministry of the heart.
If you look in John 17, there is a prayer of the Lord Jesus that almost everyone in Christianity calls His high-priestly prayer. It is His prayer as a High Priest. It is His prayer for the people.
He not only prays for His disciples; He mentions us as well. He says, “Those also that believe on Me through their word,” and He prays for us. He prays from the heart, out of such love. When you read this prayer, it is very touching.
Today, behind all of His praying right now is that prayer as well. He is not a different One. He still has on His heart that we would be in the world but not of the world. This is something He is praying for you.
He still has on His heart that we would be one with Him, abiding in Him and experiencing the joyful relationship He has with the Father. He wants us to experience His presence.
He still has on His heart that we would have the love of the brethren. He prayed for us to have that expression of love amongst us.
In Revelation, one of the churches is Philadelphia, the church with brotherly love. That church was yielded to His prayers and experiencing the good side of His prayers. They were walking in the love of the brethren.
So He told them, “Just keep what you have.” They had the reward. They had the crown. They were expressing Christ. They did not necessarily have something to repent of because they were yielded to Him in His ministry.
He is ministering to us. If you have ever known that someone was praying for you, it is a rare thing. When someone says, “I will pray for you,” what do you normally think? Probably, “You will not pray for me.”
Have you ever said, “I will pray for you,” and then never prayed for them? It is not because you hate them. It is because you forgot or were too busy. You might say it to a person at Kroger while getting groceries.
I knew a cashier one time who said he prayed for me, and he actually stopped, reached his hand out, and prayed for me. I think he lost his job. But anyway, some people genuinely pray, and it is very touching.
When they take the time to pray for you, there is love there. It may not be a warm-and-fuzzy kind of love, but it is a love that counts. It is a love we really appreciate.
When I was traveling with Lance Lambert, he would spend a certain portion of time every day in his room. One time, after lunch or something, I asked him, “What are you doing there?” One thing he mentioned was, “I am praying for you three boys.”
There were three of us there at the time. I said, “You are praying for me every day?” It really touched my heart.
Another person I really respect told me, “I am praying for you.” It had an impact on me. I asked, “What are you praying for me?” He told me, and it sunk deep into my heart for weeks.
I kept thinking about it. It turned into me asking the Lord, because I felt it was a prayer from the Lord. Someone had been praying for me, and the Lord had given them insight into how to pray. It seemed so appropriate to me.
So I asked the Lord, “Lord, do not let that prayer go unanswered. Let me do this.” Now, how does that work? Can someone pray for you, and can it be God’s will, and yet it not work? Yes—if you do not yield to Him as your King.
Even Jesus, even the Son of God, in all His glory right now, is praying something very specific for each one of us. He knows our names. He has a secret name for each of us that He wants us to grow into.
He knows specifically our condition and our case. I think He is praying something unique for each of us. We can hinder His prayers. We can delay them.
In the very end, every Christian will be conformed to the image of Christ. They may miss out on a whole lot, and there may be a long delay, but everyone will experience the good of those prayers at some point.
But it is a shame to delay them so long. It is a joy, though, to submit to what He is praying for. He is doing a work right now from the heart.
Have you ever asked Him, “Lord, what are You praying for me?” I think it is a healthy prayer to ask. It is a healthy thing to wait before the Lord, seek Him, and seek the Scriptures: “What is it that You are praying specifically for me, in my case, at this time right now?”
He may show you. He may not. But to know that He is praying for you in general is comforting. It makes you want to yield to whatever He has shown you, whatever He has spoken, whatever He is leading you in.
We know one prayer He has: that we would be conformed to the image of Christ. We know, like the apostle Paul in Ephesians, that He is praying for us to be strengthened inwardly so that we can live the Christ-life outwardly.
He is praying for us to see Him as He really is. These prayers are on His heart, and they are prayers out of love. We can yield to Him, respond, and not hinder His prayers.
It is heartbreaking to consider: this Person is praying for me, and here I am in full rebellion, living as if what I do does not affect anybody. Every day, He is praying again and seeing me living in my sin, shame, or lack of growth. It is sorrow to His heart because He is touching the heart of God.
Beyond all of that, though, is the One who stands always living, always alive, and always interceding for us. We want to let His prayers be answered. Let Him be able to have a new prayer.
Let Him be able to pray, and then have that specific prayer for this week answered because we yielded and responded. Amen. He can write it in His prayer logbook: “This prayer was answered on this date.”
I do not know if Jesus has a book like that. They are helpful; maybe He does. He can remember everything, at least. He can say, “My prayer was answered this day for this person right here.” Then He has a new prayer, bringing that person into more maturity.
You keep yielding, and one by one the Lord’s prayers keep getting answered. This is a real thing happening currently. He literally is praying for us. It is not a picture, imagination, or just a good theory.
He is actually alive right now. No joke. He rose from the dead. He ascended on high. He is alive right now at the throne of God, and He is doing something.
He is not merely sitting and waiting for God to make His enemies the footstool of His feet. He is standing and walking around the saints. He is in the midst of us. He is praying from the heart for what we specifically need.
We can yield to Him, let Him be our King, and His prayers will actually be answered. This is a joyful experience for a Christian: to hear Him say, “Well done today, you good and faithful bondservant. My prayer was answered.”
Another thing that describes Him as our kingly High Priest is in verse 14: His head and hair are white like white wool, as snow.
In the Bible, white hair is a glorious thing. It is not a thing of shame or something to be dyed another color. White hair in the Scriptures shows maturity and wisdom. It shows experience.
In many cultures, if someone with gray or white hair walks in, younger people stand up. There is an automatic respect in the younger generation, knowing that this person has lived and has experience.
Wisdom does not always include intelligence. Wisdom is knowing what you should do. Where I come from in Kentucky, the accent alone can make the rest of the world think people are not intelligent.
I lost my accent, so you cannot tell—or maybe you can. Sometimes you talk to somebody who is a scientist, but because they come from the deep hills and the way they talk, you might think, “You are not so smart, are you?”
Then you find out they are a nuclear physicist or whatever—a nuclear scientist, very intelligent. But wisdom does not even have to do with intelligence per se. Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do.
An unintelligent person from deep in the hollers can often tell a very smart college student what they are doing wrong. They might say, “I might not know algebra, but I know you should not be doing this to your mom. You should not be rude and talk back to her, even though you are an adult.”
“I know that if you treat your mom like that, you are going to treat your wife like that.” There is wisdom that comes with experience and age.
With our Lord Jesus, His wisdom is pure. The spiritual picture is that His wisdom is wisdom from above. It includes the heavenly realm of understanding.
Earthly wisdom is wisdom, but heavenly wisdom includes a larger picture. It knows what is supposed to happen for all eternity. It knows what is on God’s mind, even though many complex things are happening.
Can you yield to a High Priest who has wisdom from above, who knows what He is doing? Sometimes we are afraid and hang on to something because we feel that we know what should happen, while it seems that the Lord wants us to do something else that would not be wise or good for us.
But He knows the best thing for you. He knows what is best for us. He knows with heavenly wisdom.
Sometimes in our lives, it is like we are in a current, being pulled by circumstances the Lord has arranged. The discipline of the Holy Spirit is happening. In that time, we really need to submit to Him as our King.
If we yield to Him, let Him be God, and let us be His people, we will experience the good of whatever is happening. We will let Him minister to us as that wise High Priest.
Another thing it says is that His eyes are as a flame of fire. These are piercing eyes. When they look through, they go deep into the heart. The fire burns unnecessary things away from the heart.
I am actually pretty good at stare-downs. Any of the elementary kids here, I might be able to match them. Have you ever done that, where you stare until your eyes get watery and someone has to look away?
I was supposed to wear contacts, and because of that you get used to putting your fingers in your eyes and your eyes being watery. When I was younger, I could really stare people down. They would be crying and blinking, and then I would win.
That is not the experience of eyes as a flame of fire. That is a stare-down.
When I was younger, in elementary school, middle school, and high school, people would stare somebody down. Someone would look at you, you would catch their glance, and whoever looked away was the wimp.
You could be walking in school, and some stranger looks at you with a mean look. You look back with your mean look. Whoever is tougher keeps looking, and the other one backs down. Or, if you keep staring, you go up to each other asking, “Why are you looking at me?” Then you start pushing each other and have a school fight.
That is what we used to do. I was really good at it, but my brother was better than me. He was a little crazy. He would say, “What are you staring at?” and start fighting somebody.
I would stare at them, smile at them, walk up, and say, “Hey, I’m Jeffrey.” That is just my personality. I never got into a fight because of a stare-down. I usually made friends.
But this is not the same experience. I think I experienced something like this with a human one time. I was in Israel, and there was a preacher there who has gone to be with the Lord now. His name was Derek Prince.
We went to his place a few times for tea. I got to meet him and share a little bit. Lance had told him some of my story at another time, I guess. I had read a little bit of his books. He was kind of famous, especially with the charismatic movement.
I was sitting there, having fellowship with him and some other people. Lance was talking to somebody. Derek looked over at me and started staring at me, eye to eye. I looked back at him, eye to eye.
I had never had this experience before, but his eyes seemed to pierce through to my heart and were burning. I felt that I was in the presence of the Lord. Maybe that is how I experienced it; I do not know.
I knew that morning I was right with the Lord completely. But as he stared at me, I was just like, “Oh,” and I put my head down. He won—not that he won—but it was like a flame was in me.
It was almost like something burned that I had not thought about before. I stared at this man of God, and I could tell he was in the Lord’s presence. I was trying to be in the Lord’s presence too, but there was some dross on my heart, some dirt. The Lord showed me as we had our stare-down.
Have you had this kind of stare-down with the Lord? Have you seen His eyes, stayed at His glance, and allowed His glance to pierce through to your heart?
I bring this up especially for when we fail. It can happen in many ways, but especially when we fail. Remember when Peter fell and denied the Lord three times. At the end of his denial, the Lord looked at him.
Peter caught the Lord’s glance. The Lord looked at him, and he wept bitterly. He went away with bitter repentance. This is a deep repentance.
Outwardly, there were not flames coming out of Jesus’ eyes, burning Peter’s eyebrows. But spiritually speaking, there were flames that touched Peter’s heart and really showed him everything.
They probably reminded him of the time he stood up and said, “Everybody else might fail, but I will never fail You.” As Christ’s eyes looked into the depths of his heart, Peter had such sorrow.
It is not light sorrow. It is not merely, “Oh, I messed up and I am sorry.” It is like, “Can I ever be recovered?” You can be recovered, but there is a depth to this kind of sorrow.
When we have a repeated sin, when something keeps happening, I would challenge you: spend time looking at the eyes as a flame of fire. One reason you continue doing the same thing over and over is that you never allow your repentance to go deep enough, especially when it is a repeated habit.
With those things, the depths have to be there. There has to be bitterness of remorse. There has to be godly grief that leads us to repentance.
Remember, there was a man in Corinth who was full of a terrible sin. He probably apologized for his sins, because he kept coming to the Lord’s table. He probably went through all the motions, but he kept living in this terrible sin.
It got to the point where the apostle Paul said, “You have to remove him from the church gatherings.” He got excommunicated, delivered into the hands of Satan outside the protection of the church.
What did this do? Suddenly, he realized. Suddenly, his conscience awakened. Suddenly, the eyes as a flame of fire got deep into his heart. He realized the depths of his sin, how ugly it was, and how terrible it was.
It was terrible enough that he could not even meet with the church. If everybody knew what you were actually doing, how bad really is it? The eyes of fire pierced into his heart so much that he had such repentance it was as if he would be in despair for the rest of his life.
So the apostle Paul had to say in 2 Corinthians, “Restore this brother. He did repent. Do not let him go into complete sorrow.” Grief according to God is good because it works repentance unto deliverance, but the grief of the world is death.
It is not just about remaining grieved. Peter did not go away weeping in grief like Judas. Judas went away with a kind of grief, but Judas missed what the eyes as a flame of fire were doing. He went and hung himself.
He listened to all the voices in his mind and went into total worldly grief. But the grief of God has depths, and then restoration. The Lord says, “Do you really love Me? Are you really attached to Me?”
Again, there are tears. Again, there is, “Come and serve. Come and feed My sheep. Come and minister alongside Me.” There is restoration.
To yield to His priestly ministry of looking at you is really an experience, especially with our failures, of being restored to the Lord. Do not do a light restoration.
I would say, do a quick restoration. Repent of your sins quickly and get right with the Lord quickly. But let Him stare you down. Do not look away until it is so deep that the flames are burning in your heart and you have bitter sorrow for your sins.
This is how we experience His current ministry to us. This will deliver you from repeated sins. Some are so sad about their repeated sins that they think, “I am not even going to keep trying, because I keep failing.”
They do not realize that every time you repent, hatred of sin develops in your heart. It gets deeper and deeper, to the point that when temptation comes up, you hate it even more. This hatred builds up and brings you into deliverance.
What will bring it quicker is to look at Him and allow those piercing eyes to burn into your heart, bringing deeper bitterness of repentance.
Another thing it says is His feet. This is, I think, verse 15:
And his feet like unto burnished brass,
As if it had been refined in a furnace.
His feet are feet of judgment. Brass is often used for judgment in the Scriptures. Remember how the Lord said in Psalm 110:
Sit thou at my right hand,
Until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet.
This is talking about the Lord Jesus. Under His feet, He will have all His enemies. Judgment will come upon all.
In the Old Testament, when they defeated the Canaanites while conquering the land, Joshua got the leaders and kings, and they put their feet on them. It was like saying, “Your enemies are under your feet. Judgment is upon these men.”
What does this have to do with us and His current ministry? He is ministering to the church right now. He will come and defeat His enemies. He will bring judgment upon those alive and then upon those dead who have been His enemies.
But right now, Scripture says judgment begins with the house of God. Not that we are under His feet, but that we are to pass through judgment right now.
You are to live in the light of the judgment seat of Christ—the family judgment. We are to live as if we are always ready to be judged before the Lord, ready to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful bondservant,” rather than, “You lose out. You failed.”
When we experience His ministry right now, even every week when we are breaking bread, there is a healthy judging that happens. You are before the Lord asking, “Lord, if I were at the judgment seat of Christ right now, how would I do?”
That is the kind of question we should ask. That is the experience of the burning feet of brass. His judgment is already working in us.
If you are living that way and suddenly the rapture comes—or suddenly you get hit by a bus—you are going to see the Lord. It is not a frightful thing. It is a love thing, because you have already handled the burning feet of brass.
You have been living in the good of that. When you see Him, there is a smile back and forth: “I was just fellowshipping with You. I was just with You, and now I am really with You.” That is the way it should be.
When we yield to Him in that experience of His judging us currently, this is judging out of love. It is family-type judging, not condemning judging. It shows us what does not match Christ and how we should walk.
It is healthy to be before the Lord asking, “What is wrong? How would I do right now?” Then you can walk in it, and He gives us grace to step into it.
Another description is that His voice is as the voice of many waters. This is like the voice of an ocean. It is a glorious voice.
We put seashells to our ears and say to kids that there is an ocean inside. It kind of sounds like it, but not really. When you are next to an ocean and hear the sound of many waters, it is something glorious.
There is roaring, awe, and largeness to it. When the Lord met Saul of Tarsus before he was saved, He spoke and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”
But Saul’s companions heard only a noise. They heard something loud, but they did not hear words.
For us, He is this High Priest, this kingly priest. When He speaks in His current place of glory, His voice is like the voice of many waters. There is awe about it and completeness about it, as if there is no other voice to be heard when you hear His voice.
When you are at the ocean and the waves are crashing, you may ask, “What did you say?” because all you hear is the beautiful sound of the ocean waters. But for us Christians, what is the voice we hear? Is it not the still, small voice deep within?
It is true. In our bodies, to hear the Lord’s voice, you are not listening for a loud, thundering, audible voice. In our souls, it is not a loud screaming thought coming into your mind. Those things are not from God.
In the makeup of man, the place where we hear Him is deep in our spirit. So the experience is quiet. The noise of the soul has to calm down. You must ignore some of the noise of outward things, even someone’s cell phone, and hear in your spirit.
It is a still, quiet, small voice. It takes an ear to hear it. But when you hear it, it is like the voice of many waters. It is glorious.
As you get to know His voice, even though technically it is quiet, it resounds in your heart like the voice of many waters. It is kind of like the seashell: there may not be actual ocean sounds coming out, but because you have an ear to hear, you hear something like the ocean.
When you hear His still, small voice, inside there is the expression of the voice of our King. It is like the voice of many waters.
What does it mean for us to yield to Him? Of course, it means listening to the still, small voice. When He speaks something, just go for it. Try it.
You may not even know, “Is this really the Lord? Is this not the Lord?” But as we step out, as long as it is not sinful or against the principles of God, we try to discern: what is His voice? What is that still, small, dove-like voice?
Gradually, as we get to know Him more, we love His voice. To us, it is the voice of a King. It is not merely the voice of Someone whispering. It is not something so gentle that it will just fly away, even though He will not force us if we reject Him.
Because He is our King, it is a glorious voice with authority and power. We respond to His voice. When He speaks something to do, walk in it and He will continue speaking. If He speaks of something to experience or some sin to confess, respond to it. Gradually, we get to know this glorious voice.
Another aspect says that He has in His right hand seven stars. The interpretation in Revelation 1 is that the seven stars are messengers or angels. Each letter is written to the angel of each church.
It could be that there are actual angels for each church, but it does not totally seem to match because He is writing a letter to the angels. There are angels in Scripture that are humans, and there are angels that are angelic beings. The word angel was also used for humans.
A king is, theoretically, supposed to be a messenger of God. These human messengers are sent by God with a message, and the same word as angel can be used. If you do a word study, looking at the word and not merely the translation, you find that angels can be humans.
In this case, with these churches, He has these seven stars in His hand. One thought is that they are those faithfully bearing the testimony in the church—the ones with an ear to hear, responsible for that testimony where they are.
It may not always be an outward title, but they care about the shining of the lampstand. They care enough that He can write the letter to them. They represent the whole church, though.
The part I want to bring out is that they are in His hand. For all of us believers, we are actually in the hands of the Lord Jesus.
He says in John 10 that no one will snatch them out of My hand. Everyone the Father has given to Him, He will keep.
This is our High Priest. This is our King. You are in His right hand. He holds you in His hand. That means He is not only providing for you and taking care of you, but He is also protecting you.
The enemy cannot snatch you out of His hand. Once you are born again and once you are His, you cannot be unborn again. You cannot be removed from His hand. It is a war that no one can win by trying to take you out of His hands.
This is comfort to us. This is the Man to whom we can yield and say, “He will protect me. He is my shield. He is my fortress. He is the One I can run to.”
Even though I am afraid of other things and think they could take me out, I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God. He has me in His hands. I can yield to Him and let Him be my King.
It also says that out of His mouth goes forth a sharp two-edged sword. Later in Revelation, when He rides on the horse and comes, the same two-edged sword comes out of His mouth.
At that point there is the battle of Armageddon, the last real kind of fight. A lot of us are interested in sword fighting in America now. It seems more glorious than bullet fighting, though it is dirtier too. You see the stabs; you see everything.
The last fight is a sword fight, a real sword fight. The last sword used is this sword right here. It seems like a strange picture: this sword in His mouth, a double-edged sword coming out of His mouth.
Do not try to draw it in your mind and picture Him sticking out His tongue with a sword. It is spiritually real and physically experienced later on.
Right now, it is not experienced physically. Later, the double-edged sword will go forth from His mouth as He rides in and the armies of Antichrist are there. He speaks a word, which is the sword, and everyone is slain at one time.
Right now, this sword—the word of God—separates soul and spirit. At that time there will be a literal separation of body and soul. This is spiritual, but real. It is tangible.
For us right now, it is very real that the words of God are living and active, as Hebrews 4 says. They are sharper than a two-edged sword.
He is like a High Priest with the sacrifice, cutting it, splitting the bones and marrow, and laying everything bare. When the priest of old offered sacrifice, it looked gross. Everything was separated out and carved out.
With the burnt offering, they burned it until every piece burned up. This was a consecration offering.
With our High Priest, He is doing the same thing with us. We are not animals, and we are not dying physically. He is not separating our bones and marrow. Instead, we are living sacrifices, as Romans 12 says.
We offer our bodies, whole beings, time, and everything as a living sacrifice. As we lie there on the altar, yielding to Him as our kingly High Priest and letting Him do His work, His word comes.
He speaks, and suddenly soul and spirit are divided. There can be a major experience of this, but I am talking about the daily experience of Him showing us, “This is of the soul, and this is of the spirit. This is of Christ, and this is not of Christ.”
Hebrews 4 says He shows you the intentions of your heart. He shows you the things you are thinking about, not just what you did. No one can see what you are thinking, but when He speaks in His word, it exposes even your thoughts.
Before Him, everything is laid bare. Have you experienced and yielded to this ministry recently? What about this morning?
When Old Testament sacrifices were being offered and the priests ministered daily, the foundation of all their ministry was the morning and evening burnt offering.
At the beginning of the day, a sacrifice went on the altar. They chopped it up, everything was laid bare, and it burned through the day. It was called a consecration offering.
It means He is King. It means He owns everything. Romans 12 says that out of the mercies of God, we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. This is our right response.
When you do that, He carves you up spiritually speaking. He shows you what is of you and what is not of you. The priests also did this at the end of the day. Before things were finished, they offered another animal, and it burned through the night.
There is a reason for this. All of that was a shadow of what is currently happening today. For us Christians, the foundational experience of Him as our High Priest is when you start your day with an offering as a living sacrifice.
I do not know what other things you do. There are lots of recommendations for morning time. But there is a reason this is first. There is a reason they did it at the very beginning of the day. The burning happens all day and counts for all day.
At the beginning of the day, spend a little time before the Lord. Sit there as a living sacrifice. Wait for Him to apply His word, and allow Him to do it.
Do not just say, “Lord, I offer myself as a living sacrifice,” and then move on to something else. Then you have to read your devotional book, your chapters, or whatever else you do. Wait for a while.
Wait before Him and see whether something goes on in your heart. See whether He begins speaking deeply into your heart, showing or exposing something. It may concern maturity; it may be whatever.
Later in the day, this experience may happen while you are reading the word, fellowshipping with someone, or doing something else. This ministry of Him working on us as a living sacrifice through the sharp two-edged sword, through His word, happens all the time.
It burns all day. But if you do it foundationally at the beginning of the day, that means you are yielded to Him as your High Priest. That is the foundation of His priestly ministry.
If you neglect this part and do not give Him the beginning of your day, you miss out. We hinder Him from doing His work.
What about the end of the day? Some of us are faithful at the beginning of the day, but it is important at the end of the day too. You are lying in bed, have brushed your teeth and done everything else, and you sit there before the Lord.
“Lord, I am Your bondservant. I offer myself as a living sacrifice.” Then wait before Him in His presence.
Of course, it is the end of the day, so what will He do? Probably, together with the Lord, you will go through your day a little bit. Not just in your mind, but in His presence.
The Lord may slice and slice again, saying, “This thing you did was not right. This thing you did was unnecessary. This thing you did was really Christ. You responded to My voice. You were not sure, but this was Christ.” There is an amen there.
As you do that and let Him minister, maturity happens. The priestly ministry of the Lord, as your King, works and works on you. You go to bed well.
Not only do you go to bed right with the Lord, which is safe, but this has to do with maturity as well. The next day, you will forget what happened the previous day. Do you remember what you ate three days ago? Do you remember what you ate this morning? Hopefully. Maybe.
By the end of the day, you can basically remember most of it. With our kids, we sometimes go through what they did that day. With Gabriel, we have a kind of checklist, because you need to pick up your toys. It is a good thing.
It is like being on the altar before the Lord. He has things He wants to show us, and we experience His ministry.
After all this, His countenance is as the shining of the sun in all its power. This has to do with His beauty. It is not merely a beauty of light that shines brightly. It is like the sun in its power.
When you experience the light of the sun, it is heat as well. It changes the color of your skin and sometimes your hair. It feeds the plants. There is power to His radiance.
It is like when you behold Him. John 1 says they beheld His glory—the glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This is the vision you see when you meditate, experience, and yield to Him as your High Priest and King. You see that He is beautiful. You see that He is not only beautiful but all-powerful, all-glorious, and everything.
When you see this kind of vision, the experience is, “I fell at His feet as one dead.” This may happen as a real experience in your life, but in an ordinary way there is a kind of giving up.
To me, this is a real picture of yielding. It is like, “I am spent. I see Him. That is everything. I yield to Him as my King.” Then He picks you up, puts His hand on you, and says, “Do not be afraid.”
“Fear not.” He begins to describe Himself:
I am the first and the last.
When we see Him as our High Priest and see that what He is currently doing is bringing us to maturity and overcoming—not merely being saved, but living it now—we may want to give up.
You may fall down as a dead person in a good way, but you may also stay down out of fear: “I dare not get up. I cannot do that. I have failed so many times.”
One of the greatest things keeping us from moving on, pressing on, and experiencing Him as our High Priest is fear of failure. What defeats fear of failure? Hearing His voice describe who He is—basically, seeing Christ.
You can fear failure in yourself, and you may be correct—except if you see Christ. He says, “Do not be afraid. Remember, I am the first and the last.”
This is something to yield to. I am afraid of failing. I am afraid of all this. He holds me in His hand, picks me up, puts His hand on me in comfort, and says, “Let Me be your first and your last, and you will make it.”
“Do not give up. Make Me the beginning of everything and the purpose of everything, and you will make it. Let Me minister to you, and it will work.”
“Do not be afraid. I am the Living One. Let Me be your life, and do not give up. Let Me be the One who gives you strength to actually do these things, and you will make it.”
“I was the dead One, and I rose from the dead. Do not give up when things are so hard that you feel you cannot overcome, because the life in you is resurrection life. I am the One who conquered death.”
“Right now I have these keys. My keys are the keys of David, the kingly keys. These keys have all authority and power. I have the keys of death and Hades.”
Even death and Hades are at His will now. In the very end, Revelation says death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire. Someday there will be no more death, and no more place for the dead, because no one will die.
So why are you afraid? Why are you afraid of His ministry? This is a question on my heart to myself. Why give up when you see that He is the Living One? Why give up when you see that He is the first and the last?
All that is needed right now is to yield to Him. All that is needed is to let Him be who He is. All that is needed is to let His prayers be answered.
He gives us strength. He gives resurrection power. He has authority to make things work. He is the King and our High Priest. He cares for us, loves us, is glorious, and is beautiful.
So let us yield to Him today and let Him be our King. Let Him be our Melchizedek.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, You are so glorious in all Your majesty that we cannot even express in our hearts what it really is. Even reading through these verses, there is a temptation in our hearts to walk away and not reveal ourselves to You.
Lord, we thank You for putting Your hand on us today. You have put Your hand on us, and we can hear Your voice like the double-edged sword saying, “Do not be afraid. Fear not.”
Lord, we want to respond to You and say, “We give up. You have won. At length, right now, we yield to You.”
We no longer run and hide from the flaming eyes. We no longer run from the love in Your heart. Lord, we no longer want to reject Your prayers. We no longer want to be our own kings, but we say, “Jesus is our Lord.”
Lord, we confess these sins we have neglected—things we should be doing that we have left off, these sins of omission. By Your grace today, allow us to see again what we should be walking in.
Bring us into our mature place, and let us walk in the way You are calling us to. We really worship You and thank You for ministering to us today, even now. In Jesus’ name. Amen.