God's Normal Order - Called to Be Kingdom of Priests — Devern Fromke

The Late Hour and God’s New Work

Lord, we thank Thee tonight that as Thy people we do turn our eyes, we turn our face unto Thee. Thou who hast never disappointed Thy people, we claim tonight Thy own speaking to us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, praise the Lord. I don't know where you all come from. I confessed to you when Frank Llewellyn moved out here, and I came out the first time I thought, there'll no longer be any crabs out there in the woods.

But hungry people have a way, don't they? John went out into the wilderness, you know, and they found him. Well, when I come to the last service, there are about eight or ten things that are pressing in my heart, and I don't know how to fit them together.

So I'll just sort of start, and if they don't fit, well, you'll understand. I feel the need to remind us tonight that this is a late hour in which we live, and I believe the Lord is going to do some quick things.

He's doing a quick work, and it's going to be a marvelous thing, something our hearts can hardly comprehend. We're prone all the time to figure out what the Lord's going to do and then try to groove Him into our expectations.

But I think I've got good news for you. He's going to do exceedingly abundantly above what you can ask or think. I'm safe in that, don't you think? And it's a new thing, and it's going to be very different.

I thought I had the Lord figured out for some time, but He never fits into my little narrow conception of things. I've been doing some studies in the book of Matthew because it's a book that deals with the kingdom so much.

The Lord keeps pressing my heart regarding the kingdom, the reality of the kingdom in our life right now. Our proneness is to always think of the kingdom of heaven and something that's way off there, and we put a future.

But I believe there's a present spiritual reality of the kingdom that we have to know now if we're going to have any abundant entrance into anything that will be unveiled later. The kingdom is a now thing, the spiritual reality of it.

I think of this verse over in Romans where it says, the kingdom of God is righteousness and joy and peace and the Holy Ghost someday. Right? Huh? When? You mean now? That's right. Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and that's a now.

That's a reality He wants His people to live in right now. Well, when I think of what God is doing at this present hour and the new thing, I feel that the Lord's just been sort of teasing me with four things.

New Cloth, New Garment, New Wine, and New Wineskin

I found in Matthew, I don't call this interpretation, but it's been an application to my own heart. You know there's a difference between interpreting and applying. The Lord can be very broad in His application, and sometimes He allows us to be rather broad in the application.

It might not be a proper interpretation. But I was reading in this ninth chapter, if you want to read just a couple verses with me, Matthew, and I found four new things in verse 16 and 17. I've spoken from this and used it in many different ways, but never quite has the Lord applied it in the same way as just recently.

Verse 16 says, No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish, but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

And I saw four new things. Just let me share this with you in passing. First of all, I saw the new cloth. Then I saw the new garment. Then I saw the new wine. And then finally the new wineskin. And I don't know, it was as though the Lord were saying to me, it goes progressively like this.

The first word that seems to speak to me is that when an individual comes to know the life of the Lord, and he's clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, he has life. And God today is bringing into emphasis the fact that people are not just born again, but they come to live by the very life of the Lord.

The basis of all is the life of the Lord himself. Every place I turn, people are not just talking about being safe, but it's a matter of enjoying and sharing his life. And that's like a new piece of cloth.

And the trouble with this new cloth is every time you have life, life speaks what? To be attached to something. You go back with life to an old garment, and what do you do? Tear things up. The garment, I think, speaks of fellowship.

You patch some old life onto an old garment, and it just doesn't work. At every place today there are home groups, there are people who have the life of the Lord and a common basis. And there's a real sense of fellowship.

I think that's why we're here tonight. We've found the common denominator, the life of the Lord Jesus, the livingness, not doctrine, no person, no particular emphasis, just the life of the Lord himself.

Flows in his righteousness like a new piece of cloth that needs to be added now to the garment. It's sort of a body. It's a carpet sort of a thing, you see. This is the fellowship we enjoy. And so it's as though the Lord was saying, this fellowship, now the fellowship can't exist for itself.

Home meetings last just so long if they exist for fellowship. You know that. Because fellowship gets introverted, gets turned in. The Lord says fellowship is unto, it's for something. It's with the Lord.

It's for something else than just ourselves. And so it leads us on to the next new thing, which I believe is the empowerment or the undoing of the Holy Spirit. We just call it endowment. I am utterly amazed that the Holy Spirit is being poured out in areas.

Every place I turn, folk come to me and say, oh, thank God, the Holy Spirit has come upon my life. There's been a new wine, a new wine, a new measure of his empowerment. This is happening. I say God's parachuting in behind walls that he never could get in.

That's right. Brother Kong and I have been down in a home in Raleigh, a Catholic home. They love the Lord. He parachuted right in. Didn't think it could happen in Catholic groups. A couple weeks ago, I was up in Cleveland in a big Episcopal church.

If the Lord could get in that place, he'd have to parachute. And he did. Three, four hundred that have come to really know not only the life and fellowship, but the endowments, the Holy Spirit really coming upon them.

And this is wonderful. I thank God. But it's as though the Lord has been saying, life, fellowship, endowment, all of these things in their place are something very new, very wonderful that we see today.

But he wants something else. What does a new wineskin represent to you? What does a new wineskin represent? A totally new vessel for the expression of all that he wants. His life, his fellowship, his endowment.

And this vessel that God is preparing, I think it's something utterly new. I have great anticipation. Men are all the time trying to fit the things that they have back into the old. And God's word all the way through is what?

New, new, new, new. Don't forget it. It's new. Something new. This is my anticipation tonight. The people that I meet are often fearful of what the Lord is doing today because they think we're talking about something they've seen or something they've experienced or something they can imagine.

Then I'd be fearful too. My heart is set in this hour for the new thing that God is going to do which is totally of Him. A vessel that we'll be able to contain. Now there are a lot of folks who are getting new wine but you don't know how badly they need the proper vessel because they leak out all over.

I mean, it doesn't seem that God's able to, the proper container for the expression of it. God is very careful and the expectation here is let both wine and wineskin. So He doesn't put the new wine in something of an old skin.

That's what happens. You lose both the wine and grapes. So He's doing something new. Praise the Lord. Well, how do I fit that in with the rest? That's the first chapter. Now I need an eraser. Anyone understand what I'm trying to say or is this the Lord's word to me?

Do you see what we're saying? Where are you? New life? Well, praise the Lord. Coming into new fellowship with people you never, you thought you were all alone? Poor me. And suddenly I find somebody else has the same flow of life?

Is God by His Spirit really come in and upon your life? Praise the Lord. Don't get stalled in anything. All four news are what He wants. And He's working to bring His people into a new vessel for the expression, the real exhibition of His own life.

And I rejoice in this. I will try it. It's the time that we get introduced to something new. Our real danger is what the Lord seemed to say to me the other day. Turn this time to Luke 9. And I'd just like to share this with you for a moment.

Vision, Understanding, and the Transfiguration

Sometimes I fear that I only speak out of the things the Lord has been dealing with me and then maybe it's not really pertinent to others. But I'll share it with you anyway. Luke 9. You know, one of our difficulties is that we get some vision of what we think the Lord's going to do and the new thing He's performing.

But we fail to realize that there's a difference between vision, which can come in a brief moment, and then understanding. I want you to see this in this lesson right here. Vision is one thing. How many of you have ever had the Lord unveil something and you thought you understood, you really knew?

But in the process of time that went on, it took some readjusting and developing your understanding. What you saw, the way the thing really worked out, wasn't quite the same. Vision is one thing, but understanding comes sometimes a little differently.

Well, let's see it here in this incident. Chapter 9, beginning to reach with verse 27. He says, But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.

Till they see the kingdom of God. And it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.

And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep.

And when they were awake, they saw his glory and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. What a vision we've had.

That's vision. They saw the glory of the Lord in his transfiguration, and the two that represented the old, Moses and Elias, the law and the prophets, you see. It is good for us to be here. And notice immediately what people who get a vision want to do.

Here it is. Let us make three tabernacles. Let's build. One for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. That's the eagerness, the first flash of seeing something, a vision. Oh, Lord, I've got to do something.

And I want you to notice now the first danger that really comes out when you have vision without understanding. The first danger is that we try to add the Lord, make room for him in the old program. They were deeply grounded in the law and the prophets, Moses and Elias.

You can hardly appreciate how precious that was to Peter, James, and John. The whole Jewish economy, the law and the prophets, were until Jesus, but then grace ensued. Every time we see something new, we get a glimpse, and it really attracts us.

Our first tendency is to make room for it, try to include it in, try to fit it into our life, to fit Jesus into the situation. You can't do that, friends. What God is doing in this time is something totally N-E-W.

May I say it with all the emphasis I can? You can't fit the Lord into any old program. I believe that just as it was back there when an old period was fading, hear me tonight, an old period was fading and Jesus was ushering in something new, there was tremendous ripping and tearing.

There was an awful, awful, devastating controversy that was taking place. It was so hard to make room for the new. Men were willing to add something a little new, but they weren't ready for the old to be devastated and laid aside.

That was a transition back there when Jesus was on the scene, and grace and truth were being introduced by Jesus Christ in the oldest giving way. Back in 1948, I had a real sense when we saw Israel becoming a nation that God was beginning a transition.

I was ministering before in those days, and it seemed like ministry was after a certain order, but it's totally different today. Beloved, we are in a real transition. And the reason there's a shattering going on tonight, I don't think it takes much of a profit at all.

Anyone with any kind of sight and sense can see that there's an awful shaking going on. And the shattering of old things, the period of grace that we've lived in, is giving place to the kingdom. Something new is bursting forth.

Hearing the Beloved Son Above the Old Order

Well, Lord help us. You can't make room for Jesus when he introduces a new order. It's a devastation to all that the old represents. And it's rather interesting right here that Luke adds an apology. He says when Peter has made the statement, it is good for us to be here.

Let us make three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias. Notice how he puts it, not knowing what he said. Poor Peter. He didn't understand. Not knowing what he said. You can't add the Lord.

You can't make room for him. He has to be central. There's only one room for him. It's the room and all the others set aside. This is true. It's a difficulty in our life. Too many times we try to add him, make another room.

You can't do it, friends. You'll be in total confusion. There'll be a heavy cloud that comes and that's exactly what happens. While he's upstate, there came a cloud. How many of you have ever been in the cloud?

I don't mean up there. I mean cloud down here. Confusion. You can't, you see? That's what's happening. I don't know how to say it tonight. I'm not prophesying at all. I'm just saying that we're in an hour where people are in a cloud and the reason is because an old order of things is giving way to a new order right now and it's a devastating thing because people are trying to hold on to Moses and the prophets.

I mean, just as Peter did. We're trying to hang on to some of our old and God's introducing something new, bursting forth. And it says,. And it overshadowed them and they teared as they entered into the cloud.

And there came a voice out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved son. He's central. He alone is worthy. One house, one building, one tabernacle. He's it. This building one. And then I love this little phrase, which is the key to all the building and all that God wants.

Hear ye him. My prayer for us tonight is that we'll incline our ear and the Lord will really get our ear. What is he saying today? Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart. Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart.

He's introducing a new order. And all the time when we go about, as it were, to seek to produce what we think the Lord wants or to fix up the old a little bit, rebuild the tabernacle of Moses and Elijah or whatever tabernacle of grace and truth there is today, he says it's not even a tabernacle of that.

I'm ushering in a new order. Well, many can receive it. Praise the Lord. If you can't, well, I put it on the shelf. But I believe with a deep conviction and something stirs in my heart, it's the only way I can explain something of what's happening today.

Something new is taking place. Well, to get to the real thing we've been dealing with in the last couple meetings, we've been talking about God raising up a priesthood. And I want to go into the kingdom aspect tonight.

A Kingdom of Priests

You remember it says over in Revelation 1 -5. We might read it. The last part of verse 5, it says, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. Now, your middle margin would render that just a little better. And hath made us a kingdom of priests. A kingdom of priests. It's not kings, but a kingdom of priests. Unto him be glory and dominion forever.

Let's ask the question tonight and just take a little survey. What is God really after? What is he really after in the universe? I think it's interesting when you go back to the very beginning and you see that as he placed Adam in the garden, Adam stood as the first king in a lovely garden.

And his words to Adam were, Multiply and increase to do the earth. Adam, I put you here in a kingly sphere. With a kingdom before you. The first picture of the kingdom we get is what we call a universal kingdom.

The kingdom of God in his reign throughout all created intelligences. This is the first picture of the kingdom. The kingdom of God. He reigns over all that has been made. It includes the angelical. It includes all the handiwork.

And when he put this first man in the garden, he was wanting someone to act on his behalf as a king right down here. We know the story. Instead of Adam fulfilling and living unto the purpose and the thing that God really wanted, Adam turned to his own way.

We call it the fall. Instead of Adam assuming his kingly rights and privileges, fulfilling what God wanted, he turned, he goes his own way, an independent course. We fall, we find the fall of man. Adam has missed his right to kingship.

He is cast, as it were, out of the garden. No longer has the right to eat of the tree of life. And in a sense, we look at the whole human race and we see that in that one terrible act, we all, like sheep, have done exactly the same.

Now, what is God's purpose? So many, in their limited conception of things, only think of God creating us so he can... I don't want too much. Give me just one of the Bibles or something. We'll put it down.

If that gets too cold, you speak more softly. I think it'll... When God created man, he had something in his heart. Something far beyond, I think, our fond comprehension. What was he after? What was the purpose in the blueprint of things?

What was he really after? I think the reason the fundamental church today is failing to relate and meet the real needs of a generation that's growing up is because they have never had the unfolding of the lives of things that God's after.

The tendency is to just say, you need to be saved so you can go to heaven. And before we're through, if we're not careful, it sounds like God created somebody so he'd have somebody to save. Without realizing it, the fall becomes necessary.

Oh, we wouldn't really think it through, but that's the sort of limited approach. And the average person you meet is just waiting to get to heaven. As though that's the goal. Is heaven the goal? Is that God's purpose?

Or does he have something else, something other? What is God's purpose? How can a young lady fit into God's purpose? Unless the Holy Spirit enlightens and helps us to see the real motivation of life, the real purposes of life can never be fulfilled if we're just sort of twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the rapture.

Praise the Lord, someday I'll go to heaven. This is what's wrong in the church tonight. In the meantime, folks say, well, save souls, get some more saved, help some more, grow in grace, work a little harder, you'll feel better.

The Lord will reward you, give you some more, give you some more crowns. That's been the message that I grew up under through law. And I don't wonder that a generation of young people are growing up and saying, there's something else.

What is it? Oh, may the Lord help us to be more clear and enlarge our hearts to see that the kingdom is very real to him. The kingdom that, so to speak, was introduced here, and Adam was placed as the first ruling king, the first one for whom God was going to accomplish something.

Now, there had been a revolt in the heavenly. One of those that he had created had already revolted. I can't go into all the story, but in this revolt, God is now seeking a means by which he can unveil and fulfill his own purposes of the government of God being established not only here on the earth, but taking over all the kingdoms of this world, the heavenly realms also.

Far more inclusive than we realized. When Adam was placed here, this one who had revolted already saw an opportunity to put a monkey wrench or to hinder the purpose of God. And he steals into the garden, whispers in Eve's ear.

And Adam, with his eyes wide open, makes a choice. And it looks as though the first king that has been placed here is going to miss the purpose, and God's thing is going to go awry. But we see that man in his fallen condition, the first Adam in his desperate condition, God has a way.

And we just quickly say that through the work of the cross now, God comes down, robes himself in human flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus in order that he might recover for the Lord. He might recover for the Lord.

Something of this first king and his family that have gone astray. Not only bring them back, as it were, and offer forgiveness for what they have done. Adam sinned. Adam went his own way. He needs forgiveness.

And so by the precious blood, God offers forgiveness. The incorruptible blood, we read, of the Lord Jesus. But I must stop for a moment and say this, that when God created Adam in the very beginning, and he placed him here, Adam had an open door that he might become something more than he was.

Adam enjoyed the created life that had been given to him. All that God could give him by creation was image, likeness. He enjoyed the created life of God as one of God's created beings. It's kind of a shock to some people when they realize that Adam did not have divine life.

He had the created life of God. The scripture says that the first man, the first Adam, was made a living soul. What does that mean? Adam had a soul, mind, emotion, and will with which he could think, he could react, he could choose.

He was a living soul. But I believe that in the innermost part of Adam there was a room, the human spirit, a place that was made for God. And God waits to be invited into that room. He waits for man to receive of the tree of life, which is the life of God coming into his own spirit.

Scripture says, as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the what? Sons of God. So there's a difference now. Let's be very clear. When Adam was placed in the garden, and Adam enjoyed by creation the image and likeness of God, Adam needed to eat of the tree of life to have the divine life of God.

The snare of the liberal and the world today is to assume that there's just one big brotherhood of man. Now that's true. That's true if you speak of the brotherhood of Adam. We all have created life, and that's a brotherhood in the first Adam.

But there's a vast difference between enjoying the natural life, the created life that comes through our father Adam, and those who come to enjoy a divine life, a begotten life that comes from our father.

That's when we are begotten of God. We look up and we say, Abba Father. It's something very different. I grew up somehow with the mentality that Adam had life, divine life, and he lost it. And that God's program is just to restore man back to what had been lost in the garden.

And that's it. Just restoration back to Adamic perfection. Now, God is working out something far more wonderful. And in it all, there's something of the kingdom purpose that we want to see tonight. So, here is Adam, the first king.

He goes his own way. He misses out. And it looks like the kingdom purposes of God are going to be missed. They're going awry. But God sends his own lovely son who comes down, and through the shedding of his own precious blood, man, as it were, is brought back to the very line that Adam, he's just forgiven for what he's done.

Adam needs something else. What is it? He's been sent out of the garden. He can't eat the tree of life. God needs not only to forgive him for what he's done, but to once again make the tree of life available.

Except that you can't eat the tree now. Man has sinned. And therefore, we enjoy the privilege of a lamb slain, whose blood is shed. And our eating of the lamb now is the basis for our receiving the life.

This is what we have in Jesus Christ. So God introduces something. The blood that brings forgiveness and his life. We are begotten. And I don't know if you can see in my diagramming here that when he brings us to forgiveness, that would merely bring us to the plane that Adam was on.

But when we receive Jesus as our tree of life or the lamb as our very life, we are lifted to a higher plane than Adam ever knew. Oh, beloved, do you see tonight the privilege that's ours is not only to have the negative things dealt with by blood, forgiven for what man has done.

I'm afraid there are a lot of folk who only know pardon. I mean, they only think of it in the realm of pardon. But God's full package to us is two incorruptible things. Peter says, it's the incorruptible blood by which we are redeemed.

Then a couple of verses later he says, being born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word. Two incorruptible things. And in these two things, man is lifted into a new relationship, a begotten relationship.

From Forgiveness to the Purpose of the Kingdom

The question is, when man enjoys forgiveness and life, then what? So we make a little chair, sit down, praise the Lord, wait until the last day. How many of you do that? How many of you know people that that's the state they're in?

Praise the Lord. Or get up and walk around a little bit. Working for the Lord, as we said last night. What's God's purpose? What is he after? Oh, I don't want to be funny. It's too serious. But my heart, my heart is burdened because we need an enlarging of our scope of understanding.

It's wonderful to know the grace of God. Here it is. It's wonderful to know the grace of God that has been provided through Jesus Christ. Grace and truth has come by him. But that introduces us to something else.

What is the other? What else is God after? Here is a gateway. When Adam turned to his own way, God introduces a means by which he can, through the work of the cross, through his lovely son, bring man back.

And lo and behold, instead of a goal, we have another gateway. Not the goal. It's the gate. To what? The fulfilling of God's purpose. We ask the question tonight, then. What is this? What is this purpose that God is working out?

What does he want? What is he after? Well, we read it a little bit ago. We read it a little bit ago in Revelation. He has washed us and has made us a what? A kingdom of priests. And out of this priesthood there should be a showing forth and extolling and exultation of him in all his loveliness.

Not just a priesthood, but a kingdom of priests. A kingdom of priests. I think as I move around amongst the Lord's people, there's an emphasis on priesthood today. Thank God. Praise the Lord. We are made, we are made to be priests, offering up spiritual sacrifices.

This is wonderful. But there is the kingdom of priests. And what does it mean for God to develop a kingdom? You see, all that Adam failed and missed and lost, now God is going to use, he's going to use a kingdom of priests.

He's moving from within here to establish a kingdom of priests as a means by which one day the whole of this government will spread throughout and he'll take the universe and God shall be all and in all.

That's where it's moving toward in 1 Corinthians. When the Son has brought all things under his feet, he will turn it all over to the Father and the kingdom then will have come into its fullness and its spread.

Authority, Freedom, and Divine Government

But in the meantime, what? In the meantime, what? Where are we today? Well, here we have the universal kingdom. We call it all the nations, all of the spheres of government. And it's interesting, when you get into the Word of God, you find that all government and all authority issues from one place.

Where is it? I tell you, the kingdom of God is in its eternal, its universal aspect. All the kings are in his hands and he can turn them like the rivers, he says, whether it's wherever he wants them to go.

It seems like when a Hitler rises up and a Stalin comes on the scene in their awful treachery, that they're not really under God. But don't forget, God, government is a universal thing. And he just allows a Hitler or a Stalin or any one of these tyrants, momentarily, they're fitting in and he's using them in his permissive way.

For what is right? That's the definition we need of freedom today. Adam, I give you freedom. How do we interpret freedom? We interpret freedom as the right to do what I want to do. The right to do what I want to do is the modern definition of freedom.

Hey, I'm free to do anything I want to do. How long do people like that stay free? They drink as much as they want until pretty soon they can't control and they're not free anymore. It's the course. Freedom that God gives, I believe, is the power to do what is right, what a man ought to do.

What would Adam stand here then? The right to do what? He went his own way. He did what he wanted. That's abusing. Freedom is for something. It's not just from, but it's for something. So, here we are.

God delegated to the first Adam. The first Adam has failed. And now he has delegated to his lovely son, the Lord Jesus, who has come in. And through him, he is bringing back, he's bringing into being the kingdom that he's after.

Well, let's just go a little further. There's such a thing as resident authority in the power. Then it is delegated. You can delegate to someone, but until the individual accepts the position, it's not only delegated, it must be accepted.

How many of you know fathers who don't accept their delegated position? It's easier to say, Mommy, you do it. How many of you know mothers who don't accept their delegated position? They turn it over to the teacher in school or the babysitter or somebody else.

They don't accept their delegated position. Oh, one day when God opens our eyes and helps us to see the place, the position he has delegated to us, and with our hearts and our eyes wide open, we begin to say, Lord, I accept the calling.

I accept the place. I accept what you've given me. I'd like to stop with that a little while, but it just comes in incidentally. It's one thing to know that God has delegated. It's another thing in a spiritual way to come to accept.

And along with accepting then, in a true sense, we come to the next. If I really accept the place, the calling that God has given me, knowing the order of things, then I have the responsibility of representing him in the calling that I have.

And so authority must be represented. Do you accept? Sometimes it would be good if we could go through the Old Testament and see all the principle of representation. Every time I turn around, I'm beginning to see that all the incidental things that the Lord has hidden, they represent something.

And the total of our life is quite an unveiling of whether we really understand the authority that has been delegated, whether it's been accepted, and whether we are in the place of representing. I have a friend who had just been reading this portion in Romans.

We'll read on a little bit. Verse 2 says,. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. Verse 2,. And they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation. For rulers are not a terror to good work, but to the evil.

Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power of the authority? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he that is all authority, all these who have been delegated something, they are the minister of God to thee for good.