A Kingdom of Priests
The following is a reading from John W Shenton.
God once made to our ancestors the greatest offer that anyone has ever received – an offer of the highest honour that anyone could hold. We find it in Exodus 19: 5-6; “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” This is one of the few offers which God made to us on condition that we also do something: as we have seen, most of His promises of future greatness were unconditional: but for this greatest honour, we must do our part.
Moses told the people of this offer and they said: “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” IT THEREFORE BECAME A COVENANT. We must earn the reward before we get it; but we are bound by our promise to do this and we must yet make good on our word.
We were reminded many times of our special position and therefore of the duties and responsibilities which went with it. In Deuteronomy 7: 6 we are told “For thou art an holy people unto the lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” Again Isaiah 61: 6 says, “…ye shall be named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God.”
It is true that this promise was on the condition that we obey God’s laws and keep all of His covenant with us; and we have not done so; and there were punishments provided for disobedience. However, God foresaw this and prepared a remedy for us. In Deuteronomy 4: 30-31 we are promised, “When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient to His voice; (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.” Therefore we have at all times had the path open to us to keep our covenant with God and thereby receive the promised blessing. In fact, it specifically refers to our troubles in “the latter days” – and every student of Bible prophecy knows that we are now in the latter days. It is high time that we begin to keep our word so we can become “A kingdom of Priests” to our God.
What were the duties of the priests? There were two classes of priests: the Aaronic priesthood and the Levitical priesthood. The descendants of Aaron served in the Temple, their duties being restricted to the religious ceremonies, the sacrifices and offerings made there. However, the entire Tribe of Levi were also priests and some of them also assisted the Aaronic priests at the Temple but the rest of the Tribe of Levi constituted the entire Civil Service, the administrators of the government. They were the teachers and the judges, they kept watch over the entire national life to see that all was done in accordance with God’s commandments. The Aaronic priesthood administered over man’s relation to his God. The Levitical priesthood administered over man’s relation to his fellow men, both as individuals and as organized society. Out of the entire nation of Israel only the one Tribe of Levi were priests and only one family in Levi were the Aaronic priests. But we were promised that our whole nation could become “A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS AND AN HOLY NATION.”
Therefore, what the Aaronic and Levitical priests were to the Nation of Israel, that nation was to become to all the world. That is to say, we were to teach God’s laws and commandments to all the world, to judge them when they became disobedient, to administer and ENFORCE God’s will in all the world. We have not fulfilled our duty in merely sending missionaries to plead with the pagans to adopt God’s laws and religion and then stand around wringing our hands in futile dismay when they despise all that we have come to teach, and begin arming themselves against us. Jesus Christ Himself warned us in Matthew 7: 6, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.”
When we promised to obey God’s commandments and assume the powers and duties of His Kingdom of Priests we really promised to administer His world for Him as His priests, not as the servant of a certain bloc of nations in their destruction of civilization. Again, remember Jesus Christ’s commandment in His parable of the servants and the talents. “OCCUPY till I come!” We have not occupied His world! We have retreated before the advance of His enemies and let them take over more and more of it. Thus, we lost our priesthood by our own failure to obey and to perform the duties of God’s priests. We should have put His laws into effect throughout the world , even if His enemies opposed us.
I know this sounds like “Imperialism” but I support it because God Himself commanded us to create empires. Psalm 105:43-44 says, “And He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness: and gave them the lands of the heathen.” Psalm 18: 43 says, “Thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.” We will meet opposition of course but God commanded us not to retreat before it but to destroy it. In Jeremiah 51:20. God says, “Thou art my battleaxe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.”
But we allowed treacherous liberals and ignorant clergymen to talk pacifism and “equality” to us until we forgot our duty. The result has been tragic: terrible wars within the twentieth century, half of the civilized world lost and now, in the twenty first century, a further push for actual extermination. But God warned us in advance that this was the penalty: in Hosea 4: 6, God said: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children.”
We have seen this sentence enforced against us. We rejected the knowledge of God’s laws until we have been rejected by Him. We are not exercising our priesthood and have been deprived of it. Because we have forgotten the law of our God, we allow our politicians to lead us into one unrighteous disaster after another and our children are forgotten to die on muddy battlefields all over the world.
How may we regain our priesthood? Only by a return to Jesus Christ for He alone may restore it to us. Not by allowing alien groups to forbid mention of His name in our schools and public ceremonies; not by fellowship in a National Conference of Christians and the anti-Christ; not by reducing all nations to equality with lowest in the “United Nations”. No: only by cleansing our lands of all these evil mistakes we have made in this generation. In past centuries our nation has gone through other periods of corruption and apostasy though not as bad as this period and they did not produce disasters as great as the one we are rapidly bringing on ourselves now. Because of God’s promise that “He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy father which He sware unto them”, God has sent to us at such times prophets to call us back to our faith and to cleanse the nation of its evils. Fortunately, the Old Testament closes with the promise. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord.”
Surely we need him! Remember that Elijah lived in a day of similar apostasy, materialism, internal corruption and lunatic foreign policy. He was scorned, smeared, with false accusations, threatened with assassination; he stood alone – except for God. Even when he had raised anew the banner of faith and loyalty there were about 7,000 men to follow him out of all the people. But just as he had spoken boldly for God; now he acted boldly for God; and with his 7,000 men he speedily rid the land of the 450 priests of Baal. Evil cannot exist by itself. It is the work of evil men; and until their influence is broken, no land can be cleansed. The Baal priests who corruptly twist and falsify all our religious, economic, social and political institutions in the evil service of Satan, must be removed from power before we can regain our lost priesthood.
God send us Elijah soon!
