Zadok
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LETTERS TO AARON Part 6 (This is a serialization of a father's heart [Philip] to his son, Aaron. The spiritual lesson in this session is worth the read..) May these installments be a blessing. If so, you may email Philip at ggayle1977@yahoo.com. To review earlier parts of this letter, you may click on the following: (This is a serialization of a father's heart [Philip] to his son, Aaron. The spiritual lesson in this session is worth the read.)Aaron Letter; Part 1 Aaron, one man once told me that nothing is hard if you understand it. By gaining some understanding of covenant and covenant terms, it is much easier to understand the table of shew bread. Leviticus 24:5-9 speaks of the twelve loaves of shew bread as being made of pure ingredients and of their being anointed with frankincense. This represents the view the Almighty had of each of the twelve tribes of Israel. By extension,(in the New Testament) the shew bread indicates that in His sight and foreknowledge He sees us as pure, holy, and anointed. The twelve loaves of shew bread (one for each tribe of Israel) were a "memorial" to be set before the Lord freshly baked every Sabbath as an everlasting covenant. Israel cried out to the Lord because of their bondage in Egypt and He "remembered" His covenant. In the case of the shew bread, the Lord directed that it be placed before Him as a "memorial." (The covenant of shew bread Leviticus 24:8.) Under covenant, one of the parties must be brought into remembrance before an action is required on their part. But in the case of the shew bread He said the placing of it on the table every Sabbath would be the equivalent of a self-proving legal clause in a will or contract. That is the only thing necessary for the shew bread to bring the Lord in to "remembrance." The Jews did not need to cry out to get the Lord to go into action. He had a purpose in causing this table to function outside of the normal standards governing covenant. He had done this before in setting the rainbow in the sky. He knew the children of Israel would not walk pure, holy, and in their anointing. So He directed that the shew bread to be set before Him in their stead. He established a covenant of the rainbow that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood, although He knew that man would again corrupt his way (Genesis 9:8-17). The rainbow and the shew bread cry out for covenant remembrance. One cries for the whole earth and the other cried for each of the twelve tribes of Israel and by extension the unseen shew bread cries out for every one of us who is under the New Covenant. The shew bread was pure and holy and anointed with frankincense. He instructed that it be place there to constantly draw His attention to the covenant of the shew bread and away from the iniquity of the children of Israel. I am sure that the very presence of the shew bread in the tabernacle averted many judgments Israel rightly deserved. The Shew bread cried and He remembered. The implications for us should be obvious. We stand before the Lord at the table of shew bread; we then can draw on the nature of our Father to withhold judgment and pour out mercy. The ministry to Him at this table is ordained by Him to remember covenant and make every allowance for the fallen nature of our flesh. In the case of both covenants He has purposely put restraints upon Himself when it comes to dealing with us, because of his great love for us. This is the plumb-line that we should use in our dealing with others. In the case of our Father, some of us leave Him no choice but to mete out judgment and justice: for when judgment comes we will never have any justification to fault any of His actions. Another area that I have found flowing out of the shew bread is wrapped up in the Western idea of a memorial--that of bringing something know back to our mind, to refresh our memory. When this part of the purpose of the shew bread manifests, the Spirit brings to mind past blessings, care, comfort, and deliverance we have received at the Lord's hand. There is strength and restoration of confidence that brings a change within us that can be found in no other place. The Holy Ghost has taken many to the table of shew bread in times of great need. Many who do not understand the pattern of the tabernacle do not realize where the Lord has taken them. When one comes before Him bearing a heavy load, the Spirit will take that one to the table of shew bread. There He causes a heavenly rod of iron to once again be placed in their spine. Thus strengthened, one puts on his armor and once again is able to go up into the breach and on into the most intense part of the battle. He has refreshed ones memory and that causes all of the divine vital juices again begin to flow. Once a believer is at that point he is then able to call Him into remembrance, He answers the heart cry and the power of the Kingdom flows into him making him stand in battle and overcome. Application In a public service, quite often, the voicing of testimonies is sufficient evidence for at least some of those present, of having drawn lots (under our covenant of being led of the Spirit) to minister that day before the Lord at the table of shew bread. At the table of shew bread the word "remember" seems to embody all of its meanings ranging from its sublime definition under covenant, to its common meaning of bringing something to mind. There is one more thing I have experienced at this point of worship in the inner court. At times, the Spirit of God has directed me to simply look on the shew bread in the same manner the children of Israel were instructed to look intently on the brass serpent that Moses was told to lift up on a pole (Numbers 21:4-9). All who had been bitten by fiery serpents were to intently gaze upon the brass serpent for their deliverance. In John 3:14-15, Jesus spoke of His being lifted up like that brass serpent that He might heal the bite of that fiery serpent, Satan, and give eternal life. I have stood at this table and steadfastly beheld the purity and the holiness of the anointed loaf of shew bread that He has set there for me. At those times as I have looked at His express image of me in the shew bread He begins to work on transforming me more into His image. The Holy of Holies In conclusion, our tour now leads us to enter our last place within the tabernacle. Now we go the place under the Old Testament where no man could enter except the high priest and that only once a year. We are entering the Holy of Holies, the place where the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat are set. In both the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem there was a veil between this most sacred place of all and the holy place. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn from the top to the bottom (Matthew 27:50-51, Mark 15: 32-33, Luke 23:44-46). Under the New Testament, there is no veil separating between the holy place and the holy of holies. The golden altar of prayer was located directly before the veil in front of the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle of the congregation. Incense is symbolic of prayer (Psalm 141:2). In the holy of holies, in both the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem, incense was to be burned only once a year by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. As our High Priest, our Lord Jesus has entered the heavenly Holy of Holies. When He entered there He did not make an atonement to cover our sin and iniquity as the high priest would do once a year. He entered the High place once and made reconciliation for our trespasses. (Reconciliation is an accounting term that has to do with balancing the books. Jesus balanced the heavenly books that recorded our trespasses with a payment of His shed blood.) As we pray, the cloud of incense that rises from the golden altar spreads into the Holy of Holies. The veil has been taken away. Our prayer at the altar of incense enters where the Most High's Throne is set. Our prayers affect the Holy of Holies when we are led by the Spirit to minister before the altar of incense rather than at the Ark. This is not a minor difference between what happens in the ministry of a priest under the Old and the New Testaments. In Leviticus 16:13, we read of "the mercy seat that is upon the testimony". The Ark of the Covenant was an ornate wooden box overlaid with gold. Within it was set the stone tablets of the Old Testament or as it was also called the testimony. The mercy seat was also overlaid with gold with two golden cherubim's set upon it. The mercy seat was then set on top of the ark in order to cover the stone tablets of the Testimony. So the mercy seat was set over the testimony. If we were to count the ark and the mercy seat as two separate pieces of the furniture there would have been seven pieces in the tabernacle. Seven is said to be God's perfect number. I don't think this was an accident. The presence of the Lord was set above the mercy seat. The Lord sat above the Testimony or the actual terms of His covenant with Israel, Under our covenant, the mercy seat still sits on our ark; but the tables of stone have been displaced by another legal document called the New Testament (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Under the New Testament the Lord still sits above the testimony. David said that He could not descend into hell and escape the presence of God. By His Spirit there is not one place in the universe that the Father in not there. By his spirit he is omnipresent and by his spirit he inhabits the praises of his people. But his being is present in his ordained place of worship at his throne in the holy place (Revelation 4:1-3). When we approach the ark and the mercy seat we are at the only place in the all creation where we can legitimately say that we have come into the very presence of God. This is the only place in the seen or unseen universe we can truly say that we have come to the Throne of Grace. This is where the Lord Jesus Christ bears the glory as he sits and rules upon his throne and is a priest upon his throne (Zechariah 6). There is a clue in what I just said for those are seeking the Glory of God in this day. He has "raised us up together." He has made us "to sit together in heavenly place in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). In Christ Jesus there has been provided a seat at the right hand of God for each of His children. It has been said that some things are caught rather than taught. What I am about to say proves this. Aaron, the Lord has been teaching me and walking me through the pattern of the tabernacle for many years. About twelve to fifteen years ago, during a worship service, the Lord turned my little spiritual world upside down. During that service He directed me wash my hands and feet at the laver and put on my priestly robes. Then He told me to walk past all of the other points in the tabernacle and come and take my seat beside Him in the Throne. At the time, following these instructions, He made me very uncomfortable. It seemed to me that none of what the Lord had taught me to this point in my life had prepared me for what He was asking me to do. At that place in my walk with Him I didn't realize that my training in warfare was also training to rule and be a priest in the Throne. You know me, Aaron. The Lord trained me to be a warrior. He started me out on the open field face to face with the forces of darkness. Then He showed me how to take a parcel of spiritual ground away from Satan. And then how to hedge it up, walling it up, rooting it out, replanting it and rebuild it and nurturing it until it produced fruit (Isaiah 5:1-7). In the process of my schooling I discovered that this was the calling of Adam, to dress and keep a garden (Genesis 2:15).Therefore it was the call of every one of Adam's male descendants. Over the years what I was being trained in became more and more second nature to me. I had matured, in this area, to the point that the Spirit began to spend more time on my calling as priest. The warrior and the centurion were all I knew for years. When I would speak to other men about a man's special place of authority, they were usually intimidated. Very often from then on they would put a polite (and sometimes not so polite) distance between themselves and me. Those were lonely years. But something inside of me said there was a better day up ahead on this road. And so, I endured both the buffeting of Satan and the rejection of my brothers. I had to say what I just said, to have the rest of this make sense. Now back to that day the Lord told me to come into the tabernacle and take my seat beside Him in the Throne. Once I was seated, I knew that I was completely out of place. I had no reference point in my mind to "sit in a throne." I had become seasoned in warfare, but I was also changing and becoming more comfortable in the unseen tabernacle. But what does one do there? This is the Throne. So I asked the Lord Jesus what I was doing here. He said that my sitting in His throne with was the ultimate purpose of His redemption. I was told to observe the goings on in Throne and in the Tabernacle. He said, "This is where all of the business of the kingdom is conducted". In other words, what was going on there was more easily caught that taught. At times, I am still somewhat unsettled as to what to do in my mind. My flesh keeps telling me it "just sitting." I've walked with the Spirit long enough to know the Sheppard's voice. So from the day He told me to take my place in His Throne, I have not drawn back. This was the real beginning of any understanding about what it means to be a king and a priest. This letter is about our priesthood, both office functions are from the same Throne. There is really no way to keep these two callings from bleeding over into each other. However, the king and the priest are distinctly different roles. As only the word of God is the only sword sharp enough to divide between the soul and Spirit (Hebrews 4:12) so His word is the only thing that can neatly show the difference between the roles of king and priest. The priest relates to our access to the Temple. The king relates to the place of authority and power one has in the Father's house ( that is in one's dynasty). One final thing about the Throne, it is that there have been times when my flesh would try to tell me I was "just sitting". But then He and I would review my progress in allowing Him to do in me what He said He would do under the New Testament Covenant. His throne is above the mercy seat which is above the ark which contains the document we call the New Covenant. So the Throne would seem to be the most logical place from which to conduct a review and issue a progress report as to where we stand in letting him finish His work in all of us. Remember, being at the ark and the mercy seat is as close as we can come to the original document called the New Covenant. He is seated just above this governing document of the Kingdom. This is where we come as children to the Throne and learn to rule and reign. Here is where we are to learn from the greatest and highest Potentate in the entire seen or unseen universe. This is the place of the centurion's faith took him, "Lord, speak the word only and my servant shall be healed." It is the sacred territory of "The words that I speak, I speak unto you. I speak not of Myself: the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works." This is where we hear Jesus say, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." The late teacher and prophet, Kenneth Hagin, said that when you have heard the Lord speak in your inner man you have come to the place where "No human effort is required". Why do you think my flesh and my soul were so unsettled the first time I heard, "Come and sit down/" Where I had come from (being a warrior), human effort (that of the natural and carnal parts of me) was acceptable as long as the natural parts of my being were mostly kept in submission to my spirit. Where I was going was to a place where the only part of my being had any capacity to function was in my inner man. In this place, of "the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" is the ultimate place. Human effort is an affront to the Throne. (To those facing the humanly impossible task of rebuilding a city a totally destroyed, the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem from seventy years of captivity in Babylon, the Holy Ghost responded to through the prophet Zechariah. He said, "Not by [human] might, nor by [human] power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts (Zechariah 4:6)." This verse is the plumb line that is dropped from Heaven into the earth as the Lord's ultimate standard. The Throne has one standard, which is, "no human effort needed here; no human effort required here; no human effort allowed here." |
