Priests Unto Him — Art Katz

This is tape K035, entitled Priests Unto Him, spoken by Art Tatz.

The Heavenly Calling of Priests and Apostles

There's a theme on my heart. It's also the theme of the camp, about the kingdom of priests. I've not been able to shake it. There's a particular verse in Hebrews, the third chapter, begins with this. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.

I want us to consider that there's something attached to the reference to apostle, and that is the reference to high priest. I think all of us have a high consciousness for things that are apostolic, but few of us have a high consciousness for things that are priestly.

And I think that what is expressed in the heavenly calling of Jesus is also implied for our own heavenly calling, and it will not be heavenly until God shall restore to us, or inspire in us, a sense of the priestliness that is joined with apostolic calling.

I just want to say from my own point of view, and I'm new at this subject, that I just sensed in the course of my own travels and modest ministry, that there is a precious little awareness of priestliness to be found among God's people.

And though that I myself am Jewish, has not helped in this matter. As a matter of fact, on the few occasions when I've been required to sit in on Sunday school lessons on priestly garments and all of the nomenclature pertaining to priests, I always found it rather dull.

But I'm convinced now that there's an eternal weight of glory in all of these things that pertain to priesthood, that God is now beginning to open in my own spirit. So I'm just going to ask the Lord, I've got more material than I could possibly express in one speaking, but that the Lord will just breathe upon us through the random moving through this material, something of the sense of priestliness that will transfigure us all.

And I want to say with absolute authority that priestliness and apostolic calling are inexorably connected. You cannot have the one without the other. And if we have suffered from anything in our generation, it is that.

It's the absence of the priestliness that ought to proceed our apostolic walk. So precious God, great high priest of our profession and our calling, our heavenly calling, come gracious God, in your own heaviness Lord, ultimate priest of God, Melchizedek priest, and breathe upon us, Lord, the spirit of this, which we so urgently need that every aspect of our life, our walk, our talk, our ministry might be touched by the sense of things that pertain to priesthood.

The Consecration of the Priests in Leviticus 8

In Jesus' holy name, bless this time and make it your own. Well, thank you and praise you for it. Amen. The eighth chapter of the book of Leviticus describes the consecration of the priests. As you read it, that has a strange and antique ring to it.

It's so altogether remote from anything that can be considered modern that the first temptation is just hurriedly to read it by as something that is rightfully buried in antiquity and has no claim upon our attention.

But I want to say that that attitude is completely wrong. Everything that is in this chapter is profoundly relevant for this age. I can almost say more so now than in the biblical generation in which it was given.

It begins with the precious words, and the Lord said to Moses, and you'll find that that phrase is repeated throughout this chapter, and the Lord said to Moses, and the Lord said to Moses, and the Lord said to Moses, because there's not a requirement in here, an ordinance in here that could have had its origin in human contemplation.

The whole thing beggars the mind. The whole thing is counter to the flesh. The whole thing is a calculated attack upon human sensibility and good taste. It has its origin in the heart of God and completely contradicts all that is human, and for that reason it is all the more valuable, and the Lord said to Moses, take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, symbols of their office, and the anointing oil, and the bowl of the sin offering, and the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread, and assemble all the congregation at the door of the tent of the meeting.

Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and the congregation was assembled at the door of the tent of meeting. Moses told the congregation, this is what the Lord has commanded to be done. Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.

He put on Aaron the long under tunic, girded him with the long sash, clothed him with the robe, put the ephod upon him, and girded him with the skillfully woven cords attached to the ephod, binding it to him.

Moses put upon Aaron the breastplate. He also put in the breastplate the urim and the tumum, and he put the turban or mitre on his head, and on it in front Moses put the shining gold plate, the holy diadem, as the Lord commanded him.

Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle, and all that was in it, and consecrated them. He sprinkled some of the oil on the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all of its utensils, and the laver and its base to consecrate them.

He poured some of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him to consecrate him. And Moses brought Aaron's sons and put under tunics on them, and girded them with sashes, wound turbans on them, as the Lord commanded Moses.

Then he brought the bull of the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin offering. Moses killed it, took the blood, put it on the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and poured the blood at the base of the altar, and purified and consecrated the altar, and made atonement for it.

He took all the fat that was on the entrails and the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys with their fat, and Moses burned them on the altar. But the bull and its hide, its flesh, and its tongue he burned with fire outside the camp, as the Lord commended Moses.

He brought the ram for the burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. Moses killed it, dashed the blood upon the altar round about. He cut the ram into pieces, and Moses burned the head and the pieces and the fat, and he washed the entrails and the legs in water.

Moses burned the whole ram on the altar. It was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet and satisfying fragrance and offering made by fire to the Lord. And he brought the other ram, the ram of consecration and ordination, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram, and Moses killed it and put some of the blood put on the tip of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot.

And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put some of the blood on the tip of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands, the great toes of their right feet, and Moses dashed the blood upon the altar round about.

And he took the fat, the fat tail, all the fat that was on the entrails, the lobe of the liver, the two kidneys, the fat, the right thigh, and out of the basket of unleavened bread that was before the Lord, he took one unleavened cake, a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, put them on the fat on the right thigh, and he put all these in Aaron's hands and his son's hands and waved them for a wave offering before the Lord.

Then Moses took these things from their hands and burned them on the altar with the burnt offering as an ordination offering for a sweet and satisfying fragrance, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

Moses took the breast and waved it for a wave offering before the Lord. For the ram of consecration and ordination, it was Moses' portion as the Lord commanded him. Moses took some of the anointing oil and the blood which Aaron and his, the blood which was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments, and upon his sons and their garments also.

So Moses consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and his son's garments. And Moses said to Aaron and his sons, boil the flesh at the door of the tent of meeting and there eat it with the bread that is in the basket of consecration and ordination as I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it.

What remains of the flesh and of the bread you shall burn with fire. You shall not go out of the door of the tent of meeting for seven days until the days of your consecration and ordination are ended, for it will take seven days to consecrate and ordain you.

It has been done this day to the Lord, so the Lord has commanded to do for your atonement at the door of the tent of meeting, you shall remain day and night for seven days, doing what the Lord has charged you to do that you die night, die not for so I am commanded.

The Exhaustion and Sacrifice of True Priesthood

So Aaron and his sons did all the things which the Lord commanded by Moses. It's not often that I'll read an entire chapter, but it's hard to omit any portion of this. And you know that you come to a certain sense of exhaustion just in the reading of the description.

What would it have meant then to actually have been a participant and to have gone through all of these laborious requirements of God of cutting of sprinkling of blood of every kind of foolish thing of wave offerings of sitting in the at the door of the tent of meeting?

It's patently absurd. It's altogether exhausting. And when the blood and gore is finished and these besplattered men are waiting at the door of the tent of meeting, it's hard to consider that there's anything honorific or appealing about the role of priesthood for a man.

I think most of us have rather glamorous notions of priesthood. We see ourselves in some kind of lofty image, but I'll tell you that the real image is the one that's described here. It's men who are so spent, so exhausted by the requirements of God, who are so doused in blood and gore and oil that you can't tell where the sacrifice ends and where the priest begins.

They have somehow all become one, and truly they are a living sacrifice. And I'll tell you if there's anything left after the length and the demands of this requirement for consecration, God, in his wisdom, gave one last stipulation.

Let them wait seven days at the door of the tent of the meeting. Many of us itch to see, to be seen, and to do for God. And just in all honesty, guys, there's a terrible human taint in a lot of our speaking and doing.

Even our most modest testimonies cannot help but show an egotism shot through and interwoven, even the very things that are lauding God. There's a human taint in so much that passes for ministry and witness in this generation, a stench, a certain smell of man that somehow stalls and keeps from our experience the fire of God falling as glory.

The Eighth-Day Glory and Priestly Blessing

If I had all kinds of time, I would read you the very next chapter that begins on the eighth day, the day of new beginnings, when again another succession of offerings was required in these men that had fulfilled every requirement of God, waiting the measure of the full seven days.

But on the eighth day, in the day of new beginnings, God promised them and said to them, today the Lord will appear to you. Moses said, this is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do, and the glory of the Lord will appear to you.

And sure enough, at the end of that eighth day, when the last sacrifice is made, it says in the 22nd verse of that ninth chapter, then Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them, and came down from the altar after offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering.

Moses and Aaron, what a picture this is of prophet and priest, of apostolic ministry combined with priestly calling, went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out, they blessed the people. Can I suggest that the people are never going to be truly, authentically, and eternally blessed until again Moses and Aaron go into the tent of the meeting, having fulfilled all the requirements of God for consecration, for separation, in the copious shedding of blood and sacrifice that cannot be numbered.

Basil Eashlink, in a little booklet that I intend to quote tonight, speaks that so much of our blessing for other people is more pious wish than it is fulfillment. Even the phrase, bless you brother, is a kind of a euphoric beep, it's a kind of a belch, rather than having the authority, the priestly authority of God that will actually confer blessing.

I think that we have had an avoidance of blood, and we have resisted sacrifice and necessary cuttings, which makes therefore our speaking of blessing mere pious wish rather than actual fulfillment. But I'll tell you that there was a generation that when a priest raised his hands above a people, they were blessed.

And I'm not speaking about titillation of feeling, I'm speaking about a heavenly ministration brought about by the authority of a man in priestly robes, utterly consecrated unto God, who can invoke for men godly blessing.

We have not seen that kind of ministry except in fleeting moments, but not in the consistency and volume that our generation requires. Because I can tell you that the opposite of blessing, or the absence of blessing, is curse, and the whole of our world is transfigured, not in the glory of that which was described on the mountain, but something that is to be imagined in the bowels of hell, where men are losing the godly imprint, and are becoming so deranged, and so grotesque, and so caricatured, you can hardly distinguish in some instances one sex from another.

It's a fearful, and filthy, and degraded age. And the function of the priest has been lost, and its absence is written into the whole horror of our generation. For God said that the priests shall teach the people the difference between that which is holy and that which is profane.

They shall teach them to discern that which is common and uncommon. But if there be no priesthood, if there be no discernment, if there be no sense of the sacred and of the holy, how shall the spirit of it be projected into a godless world, when it's absent even in the ranks of God's people, when so much of our own religious activity is a kind of entertainment, or bland thing, or technically, and spiritually, and scripturally correct thing, but lacks the fragrance of heaven, lacks that sense of priestliness, of one who has come out from the holy place, who has ministered first unto God, before he then ministers unto men?

How much of the ministries that come to our microphones are, in a sense, full of human braggadocio, they're brash, there's a metallic cling to them, there's a human stink that comes forth with them. It's a sense of men who have not waited in the holy place, and worse than that, men who have no notion that there's such a place for which God calls them to wait.

We desperately need the restoration of the priestly sense of things. Prophet, priest, and king is a description of the ministry of Jesus, and I think that that priestly thing needs also to be deep in whatever calling we have, apostolically speaking, where there's going to be a clang, a metallic sound, a brash humanness that goes forth without speaking and doing, that stops short of the glory of God.

I'm surprised that we're content with so little. I'm surprised that we're content with mere good meetings and successful camps. I think that one of the failures of the priestly ministry to be expressed in us is that we have not even so much as the desire for the glory of God, and I think that this must precede everything, an expectation that there can actually be glory of God falling from heaven as fire, men being brought on their faces, stupefaction, hands clasped over mouths, deep gasps and sobs and racks and rankings, when the presence of God comes as a priestly ministration to his people.

God assembled the whole congregation of the people to watch this consecration. You know why? Because as the priests, so also the people. They're not mere religious hacks. They're not a bunch of functionaries doing their thing, that they are paid off by the dollar in the collection plate, and the people can go about their business while the priest does his.

There is such a bond of connection. There is such a vital link that as the priest goes, so also the people. And if you want to follow the melancholy history of Israel, and melancholy is the least of words to describe it, you need only to follow the history of its priesthood.

When it had its zeal, when it had a heavenly respect for its calling, when it was a separated class of men unto God, when they revered God and revered the duties they were given to perform, and they were faithful in the performing of them, Israel was at its zenith.

But when these men began to turn, when they began to be seduced away, when they were attracted to the Hellenistic culture that was then sweeping the ancient world, and began to give their children Greek names rather than Hebrew, more fascinating with wrestling matches than the sacrifices which they now consider to be ungainly and unbecoming and primitive, even as rabbis now presently speak.

I don't know if you've had the experience of confronting a modern rabbi. I've taken whole groups of church people to synagogues and temples on a Friday night for Shabbat service, and then the rabbi has answered our questions afterwards, and invariably there'll always be some saint to ask, where are sacrifices presently being performed?

And the rabbi will titter or laugh or be embarrassed, and he'll make some wisecrack about in the back room, and then he'll get serious and say, well, that was primitive Judaism. We have since graduated from those bloody practices, and we have gone on to higher and more progressive forms.

You know what I think? That not only have Jews, quote, gone on to higher and more progressive forms, but even the Israel of God is somewhat embarrassed and somewhat offended by the cutting and the bloodshed that is part and parcel of true priestly ministry and ordination.

The Priesthood's Consecrated Garments and Holy Waiting

How'd you like to be washed in the water of the word before men? The humiliation of being naked before others, before even the first priestly vestment can go on your body, and then one by one the clothing is put on, each prescribed of God, one layer after another, no wool, for God's priests shall not sweat.

It's probably one of the greatest ironies of modern times that there's more sweat exuded on Sundays than any other day of the week, more feverishness, more anxiety, more apprehension, more nervousness, more freshly putting out and producing successful religion than we could ever know.

But I want you to know that the God who said no wool is the God still. The God who said my priest shall not sweat is the God still. And I'll tell you that there's a sense of men so taken from themselves, so weird in sacrifices, so immersed in blood and gore from fingertips to elbows, that there's not anything left of them to perform anything priestly, and that is the heart of the mystery of true priesthood.

It's in the power of his everlasting life, not in some makeshift pumping up in ourselves of some image of which we think priestly ministry ought to be. It's men so innovated, so devastated, so wiped out, so prostrated, so beside themselves, so exhausted, so understanding the holiness of things that are before them, that they don't dare dream, to presume, to initiate, or to do anything out of their own humanity.

It would be a patent contradiction in terms. These garments, these vestments, these skilts were attached to the priest with skillfully woven courts. It's not a quickie take on and take off. It's not a stepping into the phone booth and coming out as Superman.

It's not something performed only behind the pulpit and then discarded at home. It's something attached to the priest by skillfully woven courts, and they're cords that ascend up to heaven. It's not something that a man has determined for himself to do.

It's not a calling that he has chosen because he thinks that it's lustrous or appealing. As the Lord commanded Moses, take now Aaron and his sons. It just so happened that together they constituted five.

Beautiful picture and type and foreshadowing of the five-fold apostolic ministries, but God counted it as one ministry, and he counted it as priestly, and this is exactly the sense that is missing from our own apostolic understanding.

Many of us come in service to men before we have ever considered turning to God. Many of us come in the clothing of the street. You know what I'm speaking about. Many of us come stained with sweat. Many of us have not the sense of the necessity for the cleansing of the water of the word, for the taking off of the things that are spotted and stained, for the coming into the heavenly garments of priesthood, which is the high priest himself, and coming before God and being prostrate there before we should ever consider turning to men.

Ezekiel 44 and Ministry in the Holy Place

I have not the time to describe it. You can read it for yourself. In Ezekiel 44, how God had a controversy with the priest and the Levites. He could not discard them because his gifts are without repentance, his gifts and his callings, but he castigated them to this, that they could only serve him at the gate.

They could only serve in the outer court, and they could only serve the people, and they can only cut up the animals. But only one family out of the whole tribe of Levi, the family Zadok, meaning righteous, could come before him to minister unto him in the holy place and in the inner place.

There's not been enough of that kind of ministry. More a sense of men and what men expect and the pleasing of men than the sense of those who have waited before God. Not enough of seeing men who are turned around from their own intentions, because in the holy place God has breathed yet another theme in their hearts for them to deliver.

And the strange thing is that you know what that obedience oftentimes brings? Reproach from men. I remember speaking at a great charismatic center in the west coast. I don't know how I got to such a place.

I never wanted it. It was a divine arrangement where we were so opposite in every way. One of these great giddy, gaudy, great charismatic centers, if I named it, you would know it instantly. And that afternoon in prayer, I had some intention of what I thought to speak that evening, but in prayer, in the holy place, the Lord whispered, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And on the basis of no greater knowledge than that, I came armed with that one impulse to that meeting and told the people it would not be a message, but an event, which indeed it proved to be. For in the very speaking of it, I was interrupted by the minister who said, don't slay the sheep, preach the gospel.

I looked with wonderment because as far as I was concerned, I was preaching the word of God. And so I just went on to finish the message. So in the course of my remarks, without premeditating it, I heard myself saying that in the life of every minister and every ministry, there comes a moment of truth.

And if you will not face it and deal with it as the issue of truth and pass it over from that moment on, leaven has been introduced in the lump. Little did I know how biting and how accurate and penetrating my words were to the actual condition of the fellowship where I was speaking that night.

They were offended, so offended that when I finished this pastor came to the microphone and said, let us pray for our poor brother. I've always appreciated brother catches ministry, but evidently he has some kind of inner conflict, which he is venting in his message.

Let's pray for this dear man. And one of his hacks came and laid his arm around me in a condescending way. And they began to pray for me. And while that was going on, some men got up out of a seat and crossed the entire auditorium and came by me.

He said, brother, he said, I want to tell you that I completely repudiate all that is now taking place. I want to tell you that I witnessed that every word that came from your mouth was from God. Here's my name.

Here's my address. Come and minister in my country, Pretoria, South Africa. So later on, I was taken into the office and I was grilled by the pastor and by three of his associates. And I tried to determine what was the fault that they found with me.

Was it that the message was unscriptural? No. Was it doctrinally unsound? No. I said, what then was the fault? Well, it was just a little too heavy art for this young congregation. There are many tender, young believers, and they wouldn't know how to understand such a word, and it's likely to offend them.

I said, what do you recommend that I do then? That I should look with my natural eye and take stock of the audience before me and then calculate my comments on the basis of what I see? I want you to know, brother, that that afternoon on my knees and in the inner place, the God who is my Lord said, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And I could not do other but speak the word that he has put in my mouth, though it has offended. Priestly ministry will often offend men. Priestly ministry will often be misunderstood by men. Priestly ministry will often be bloody.

Much cutting, much flame, much shedding of blood, that not only are you covered with it in the course of your ministration, but you have splattered others. But I'll tell you that if you're obedient to perform all that God has required in that cutting, you'll find at the end a measure of glory from God.

Holiness Unto God and the Anointing Oil

When the priest can raise his hand above the congregation of God, having come out of the holy place, and the glory of God can fall as a fire. Put on the garments of God. Take off the garments spotted and stained with the spirit of the world.

Put on the vestments. Put on the breastplate. Let them be attached with heavenly cords to the God who has called you. Put the little gold diadem upon your forehead and feel the heft of it as you walk.

Your every step will register the weight of that gold shield right on your forehead with the words inscribed, holiness unto God. Would to God every one of us could wear it. Would to God in the realm of spirit we could always sense on our foreheads, the sense, the weight, holiness unto God.

Holiness unto God. Holiness unto God. Holiness unto God. There'd be much less brash ministry. Much less humanity interspersed in the things that we speak and do. Much less soulishness. Much less tears that are profuse and human.

More of the things that have their origin in heaven. Because God is not going to force upon us the things that are heavenly and perfect so long as we're content and satisfied with something less. I think there'll be more sense of silence.

More a disposition to wait on God. Less a rush to come to the place of speaking. More the waiting for the corporate mind of God by his spirit to seize us and to unfold the glory of his purpose at any particular convening of his saints.

Let's feel the heft and the weight of that gold item. Holiness unto the Lord. And then the anointing oil that was sprinkled on the tabernacle, the furniture, the articles, the dumb things that cannot speak.

I'm always amazed that if God requires anointing oil on pieces of wood and brass, what then upon flesh and blood who are made in his image and who are called to serve him. How dare we presume ever to stand before men without the holy anointing oil.

And it says in Exodus upon man's flesh it shall not be poured. Hallelujah that from the chin to the tops of the toes the flesh of man was covered in the righteousness of God's linen. Only one place where that oil could run down the head of Aaron and down his beard.

It was the head. The only visible thing and the only thing that can bear the holy anointing oil. Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured. And one of the most sad and melancholy characteristics of modern-day charismatic culture has been the increasing amplification of our sound equipment and the other calisthenics and devices as substitutes for the increasing absence of the holy anointing oil.

It's holy and upon man's flesh it shall not be poured. But when God has his man in his place for his ministry called and bound to God by courts not doing his thing, you can be assured the holy anointing oil will be upon him.

Death, Blood, and the Melchizedek Priesthood

Seven times and he poured some of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head and they brought the bull of the offering and they laid their hands on it and Moses killed it. There's so much death in priestly service.

Such profusion of blood. One animal after another fallen. But the same blood of death is the same blood of sprinkling. There's no consecration without death. There's no life except for the blood that comes from it sprinkled upon the servants of God.

A testimony again and again that the priestly ministries of God are not to be worked from human flesh, are not to be the product of human zeal, are not to be the expression of soulishness or intensity or well-intending men to do for God.

Priestly ministry that touches time and eternity is only out of the sacrifice unto death. It is only out of that which is sprinkled of the blood of sacrifice and the resurrection life. The Melchizedek priesthood is in the power of the everlasting life.

This priest who had neither father nor mother, nor origin nor end of days, was it lived in the life that is eternal and that's the only kind of priesthood that can be performed today. You can almost measure the absence of true priestliness by the absence of the knowledge of resurrection life, for the two are intimately linked together.

You don't learn priesthood. You inherit it just as the sons of Aaron. And I'll tell you there was only one priestly garment and it was passed from Aaron to his successors and every man had to grow into it.

It was not cut down to meet the measure of men. So is it also to this day, one garment in which we must grow up into it in the full Melchizedek proportion of the eternal life. To minister out of anything but the resurrection life is to fall short of priestly ministry.

And every one of us who have a discerning ear knows the difference. We've heard good messages, good teaching, good ministry, good testimony. But there's a difference between that which is good and that which has its power and its life out of death.

That's why God is calling for priests to stand in the gap for the wall that is falling down, that has not been tempered by mortar that holds, but has just been whitewashed. It appears right, sounds right, looks right, technically, scripturally sound and true.

But it's a wall that's going to collapse because it has not the mortar that comes from that organic matter that constitutes the stuff that sticks. I don't know too much about mortar. What is that stuff that goes into it that is organic?

Lime, which is the decayed accumulation of organic life of millennia ago. Without death, there's no walls that will stand. It's just whitewash. Without death and without the sprinkling of blood, there's no priestly ministry.

There's just correct ministry. There's not the fragrance of heaven. There's not the fire of God that falls and brings men on their faces. So they poured the blood on the base of the altar and he took the fat that was on the entrails, the lobe of liver, and the two kidneys with the fat.

Moses burned them on the altar, but the bull and its hide, its flesh and its tongue, he burned with fire outside the camp as the Lord commanded Moses. You know, I think we've got it all wrong, all backwards.

I think that what we're burning and what we're thinking to sacrifice to God is what we consider most valuable, the flesh, the hide, and the tongue. And what we consider a waste and distasteful, the entrails, the kishkes, the guts, that we want to take outside the camp and destroy.

May I tell you that God's way is not man's way? May I tell you that what is displeasing and distasteful to us is of God's sweet savor? He's not interested in the outer hide. He's not interested in the flesh.

He counts that with the tongue. But what is in the inside, in that inner man, that which has been worked by God in the hidden place, this is the sweet-smelling savor to God. And how many priests are there that can lay it on the altar and that have it, who have waited before God and have received and welcomed the dealings of God in the inner place and in the entrails that they have wherewith to lay before God as a sweet-smelling savor, a sacrifice, a burnt offering made by fire.

I'll tell you guys, it's the fire that makes it. And many of us have not the entrails and we have not the fire either. It's the tongue that we're laying and the flesh and the outer thing and it's not to God a sweet-smelling savor and it's not going to bring from heaven an answer by fire that is glory.

A priest, if anything, is one who has experienced the inner dealings of God. He knows God in the hidden place and God has dealt with him in ways that he cannot be explained to men, that are scandalous and that men look upon as reproach, that you cannot explain but have only to suffer.

They're humiliations, things that God has wrought in you in the stillness and in the quiet if you've allowed God to bring you to such a place. If anything is characteristic of this generation, it's that we have little disposition for quiet.

We're the generation that has grown up with the transistors glued to our ears. Our kids are the products of a generation that cannot do their homework except that there's a radio going or a TV. Silence intimidates us.

Abraham's Consecrated Ear and Obedient Service

There's not enough waiting on God in silence in the hidden places that we might have wherewith to lay upon the altar of God. An offering made by fire to the Lord. What shall we say of the foolish practice of this touching the right ear with blood and the thumb of the right hand and of the right foot?

I've enjoyed the discussion of Abraham, although the word priest was never used in connection with him, unquestionably he was. Long before these practices were prescribed of God, it was evident, spiritually speaking, that the blood of consecration was on the ear of Abraham.

How else then should he have risen early in the morning and saddled his ass when God called him to that which boggles all human understanding? Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and make of him a burnt offering in the mount that I will show you.

So he rose early in the morning and saddled his ass. God had a consecrated ear upon which the blood of sacrifice and consecration was touched. Does he have your right ear? How much of your doing and going and being is the result of what men whisper, the expectations of men, the tune and the dance and the tempo of the world?

Does God really have that ear to call you to acts of obedience that contradict even what you think to know and understand from God? This writer says that it is quite clear that in some way the governing faculty of every life is the ear, not necessarily the outward organ, but that by which we listen to suggestions.