In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being willing to be cruel in order to be kind when it comes to preaching the word of God. He argues that sometimes being hard and delivering harsh truths is necessary for the spiritual growth and salvation of individuals. The preacher also highlights the contrast between those who love death and hate God, and those who believe and cling to the message of repentance. He references biblical stories, such as the incident with the Ark of God and the obedience of the prophets, to illustrate the significance of faithfully delivering God's message without withholding judgment.

Let's dwell on that Melchizedek priesthood for a little bit. Did you guys have occasion to check that scripture in Hebrews that talks about Jesus as a Melchizedek priest? Without ancestry, without beginning or ending of days, he remains a priest forever? I think it says something like, if he were in the earth, he would not be a priest at all. That little portion has always haunted me. If he were in the earth, involved in earthliness, he would not be a priest at all. It's like a priestly detachment from earthly things, though the souls of the Aaronic priests were in the earth to feel the conditions and the reality of those for whom they were interceding and relating. Somebody find that in Hebrews 7, I think it is. It gets at the very nub and heart of what the Melchizedek priesthood is as compared to the Aaronic as being a superior. It never is subject to decay. It will not end when the genealogical descent ends because it has not to do with genealogical descent. It has not to do with father or mother or beginning or ending of days. And dwell on this, you dear young saints. Without father or mother or ancestry or beginning or ending of days, do you think that you could embrace a calling of that kind? That is, without father or mother or beginning or ending, without ancestry, without earthly ties, without the comforts of relationships that are natural and given to other men to enjoy. Remember that even the Levitical priesthood began with the golden calf episode and Moses came down from the mount and watched Israel nakedly dancing around that calf and burst the tablets of the law and ground up that golden calf and made them to drink it. And then he said, who is on the Lord's side? Stand by me. And the Levites, as one man came, evidently they did not participate in that debauchery, in that idolatry. And they stood with him. He said, okay, now every man strap his sword to his side and go in and out of the camp and let every man slay his friend, his brother, his neighbor. And it says that day God consecrated the Levites for priesthood and that the word consecrated in Hebrew is blood in your hands. I'm single not to say this. Priestliness requires a savage, Lord help me here, neglect of legitimate concern for one's own flesh. If you'll not slay your own flesh, if you'll not be ruthless against yourself, you cannot be a priest. They were required to go in and out and slay. They're not just the unknown, but your own friend, your own neighbor, your own brother. You must not withhold the sword of judgment because of fleshly, natural, soulish ties and affection that is legitimate for other men. Other men can, but you cannot. A priest has got to come for the want of a better word, ruthless, savage separation, not just from sin, but from legitimacy. So when I read Jesus as the Melchizedek priest without father or mother, that is without the soul ties of a fleshly kind that would keep us rooted in the earth in condescension to what is nice. You don't want to hurt your mother. After all, you're supposed to be a Christian and you respect your father and all that. Remember how Hamlet hurt his mother? You guys who have read Shakespeare's greatest play, and I quote it all the time, where there's a remarkable scene. Hamlet's mother has married the murderer of Hamlet's father. The legitimate king was killed by his brother in order to take the throne and his dum-dum of a widow marries the murderer because she's a sensualist. And Hamlet accuses her of incestuous conduct between the sheets. And then in this remarkable scene, she's wearing the locket around her neck and he opens it and thrusts it into her face. And there's the picture of the husband who was now dead, murdered. And there's the picture of her present husband, the murderer. And he shows her, look what you forsook, this Hyperion, this saint, this godly man, this giant, for this crumb, this ambitious, foul thing who would not stupid murder. And you're so filled with lust and the gratification of your flesh that you're oblivious to what this means. And finally, the truth breaks upon her heart painfully. And she cries out in a cry that would make the hottest soul weep. Hamlet, no more, no more. I can't take it anymore. Don't press this issue. And then he says this classic line, sometimes one must be cruel in order to be kind. And I'm saying to you young ministers, it's not sometimes. It's going to be more frequent than you know or you'll not be the priestly minister of God if you're incapable of cruelty, of being hard. Because if this is what is required for the particular soul being addressed and you refrain because of a certain condescension, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, there may be another way to say you do this, you have misguided. What was needed was hardness. What was needed was cruelty. And you can't allow your sentiment, your well-meaning intention, and your nice guy-ism to keep you from the place of absolute obedience that draws blood. Got that? That's why I'm a personal enemy against sentimentality. That's why we began tonight by saying, hey, I'm in a rare mood, you better take advantage of it while it lasts. I'm feeling unusually tender. But a priestly man is not subject to mood. I don't know that those men were in the mood on the day when Moses said, who's on the Lord's side? To be on the Lord's side is to be against your brother, your friend, and your neighbor. Got that? And not just in a way that is insulting to them or offensive, but kills them. Maybe not with a sword, but with a word. I've spoiled more fun and done more damage to end happy meetings, but bring about a moment of truth for congregation that was historic and necessary for its continuance with God than most men will know in ten lifetimes. And you'll be called to that. This is priestly detachment from father and mother. I'll even give you a little insight on how to read scripture and how to understand what is so condensed in those few words that without father and mother and ancestry is not the Lord saying that Jesus did not have natural origins as we would have. It's saying that anyone who is called to the royal priesthood has got to be without father or mother. Has got to spurn those legitimate concerns and expressions by which all the world lives its life, but you cannot. And when it comes to an issue of conflict between flesh and blood or being nice or being cruel, if cruelty is what is required you will perform it. And you'll not be understood for that let alone admired because you're without beginning or end. You're above and beyond time and culture, beyond being a nice guy, beyond being approved. Because the sword that is bloody, that constitutes consecration has come first against yourself. It's a ruthlessness against your own flesh. And few there be who call themselves ministers in our contemporary church who have been willing for that death. Maybe the greatest bane of the church is nice guy-ism. There's not enough cruelty if you understand. And sometimes one must be cruel in order to be kind. For any other kindness would have been a cruelty. Now there's a paradox. Had you been kind in a conventional way you would have been cruel because you would have denied that congregation or that person from the sword of the Lord that cuts. So this is the royal priesthood. Well, the thought that I had this morning has yet to do with priesthood. And some aspects of it that we've not considered. And I think the Lord wants to bring to our attention. We've looked at something of the Levitical priesthood, the Aaronic priesthood of the past. But I want to begin by looking at the expression of priesthood in the future. There is an Ezekiel temple from chapter 40 on, from there on. It talks about the configuration, the lineaments, the proportions. It's given in such remarkable detail that it's hard to imagine that this is just an allegory. But something in fact actual that will exist in the redeemed Israel. Some believers have a difficulty with that because it talks about the restoration of sacrifice performed by priests. So what does that mean? That that invalidates the once and for all sacrifice of Christ? Or does it memorialize it? So just as history of sacrifice prepared Israel for that lamb that would come without spot and whose blood would be shed as a once and for all, it's possible, and this is the way that I interpret it, that the sacrifices that will be resumed in the millennial Israel is not to replace that once and for all sacrifice, but to be a memorial and reminder to bring us back to a deepened appreciation of what has been given. It will not be its substitute. So I've heard estimable men of God say, no, there cannot be another temple. There cannot be a resumption of sacrifice because they hold so jealously the sacrifice of Jesus as the lamb of God. But they're forgetting that in the same way that previous sacrifice pointed to that once and for all, resumed sacrifice can point back to the once and for all as memorial and as reminder and will detract nothing from the efficacy of that sacrifice, but rather enhance it. But that means that there's got to be a priest, priesthood that performs it. So I'm directing your attention to Ezekiel chapter 44, the last chapters of the great prophet, who's the prophet of judgment and of restoration. Like Jeremiah and Isaiah, those prophets that did not withhold themselves from bringing the Oracle of God that spoke of a future judgment of such severity of expulsion and exile are exactly the same prophets to whom the privilege is given to speak of restoration and return. If you withhold yourself from the one, you'll be denied the privilege of the other. If you don't want to speak of hard things, you'll not be able to speak of glorious things. So we have a wonderful example in their obedience that because they did not withhold the word of judgment, God did not withhold from them the word of restoration in remarkable detail by which the book of Ezekiel is concluded. So in chapter 44, talks about the house of the Lord in verse five of that chapter and the laws thereof and Mark will be entering into the house with every going forth of the sanctuary and thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, lest sayeth the Lord God, O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations in that you have brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations and you have not kept the charge of mine holy things, but you have set keepers of my charge and my sanctuary for yourself. So we talked about this before that the index of Israel's condition is always to be located in the condition that prevails in the temple and with the priesthood and here God has not forgotten that in the age of Israel's apostasy a great abomination had taken place in the holy place and priesthood had been made a profession by men who had no ironic qualification at all and it was politically awarded as a plum to those who played the game and would serve the purposes of God. They trafficked in the holy things and God has not forgotten and there will be a penalty, an enduring penalty for those who have allowed that desecration because to allow the house of God to be defiled, to be profaned is to slur God and to cheat the nation of a standard by which its own testimony is to go forth to the nations. It's interesting that where Jesus overturned the money changers tables was in the court of the Gentiles because he said my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations and instead of going to any other aspect of the temple where he might have displayed the same kind of protest that God is now sounding he went to the place of the court of the Gentiles because there the faith of God and the purpose of God and the very nature of God itself was being profaned by turning the holy thing into a business. You've made my house a house of merchandise and so therefore you've robbed the nations of the one kind of thing that would have established their sanctity. You've denied them the thing that had to have its origin with you and would be an example and model to the nations lest they would fall into the things that are profaned. For the priests shall teach the people of the nations the difference between the sacred and the profaned. But if priests shall themselves become profaned and become money lenders and money changers and turn sacrifice into a form of profit then what hope? What can be hoped for? So this is what the Lord is lamenting and condemning. You've not kept the charge of my holy things but you've said keepers of my charge and my sanctuary for yourselves serve your purpose. You can say something like this today. Worship is serving the purpose of men serving the purpose of church meetings establishing an atmosphere conducive to enjoyment but it's not a worship. Anything that is not exclusively for God and serves the purposes of man by whatever name it's called is ipso facto no longer worship. Worship is exclusively a priestly service unto God for his benefit, his blessing, his delight his honoring or it's not worship at all. But in our time I think I can safely say worship has become a business. Worship leaders, worship teams churches are noted for their worship that is to say their enjoyable music and it's a place to be uplifted and so when it has the purposes of man in mind it is desecrated. So we're guilty now of the sins of Israel then you have said keepers of my charge to my sanctuary for yourselves when it's for yourselves it's no longer priestly nor holy. So in verse 9 Thus saith the Lord God No stranger uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel. Circumcision of the flesh is the critical sine qua non the absolute vital necessity for any approach to God. You cannot come before him in your flesh remember that we were reminded that the priest could not even ascend to the altar to make sacrifice by steps but rather by a ramp lest in lifting their leg to the next step that something of their flesh would be seen in the parting of their garments and having to raise their leg to go up on steps therefore a ramp was prescribed that they could go up in a gradual ascent that no flesh be revealed. Would to God that we had this present sensitivity how it would affect everything how God abhors flesh and especially in the holy place and nowhere is flesh more conspicuous than in the holy place we might get away with it in casual and loose fellowship but to seek to serve God in the flesh or to use the flesh our own carnal minds heart or will in what we think is serving the purpose of God is desecration so the Levites that are gone far away from me in verse 10 when Israel went astray is that remarkable that the same core of people who stood at Moses' side subsequently themselves erred and turned from that place of consecration and allowed the temple the thing that they should have guarded to become a court in which the uncircumcised trafficked for themselves and God has retained the memory of that and is now pronouncing a judgment that these Levites will not ever again be allowed to minister unto him the violation is so profound they are millennially and eternally cut off from ultimate priestly service but will have a more limited jurisdiction why? because the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable without repentance so he cannot remove altogether the Levitical calling but he'll limit it in such a way as to always remind them of their historic error and to remind us to walk before God rightly and in a priestly demeanor and not to allow any flesh in the holy place or any misuse of the holy place for our ends however much we say in fact to incur the phrase in the name of the Lord when our own purposes are being served religiously is itself desecration is itself the very height of profanation better that you had not used that phrase than you should use it so as to justify some activity of yours in the flesh for yourself but you think that somehow it is redeemed by invoking his name no, by invoking his name you have deepened the profanity you have deepened the desecration so these are remarkable things for our instruction upon whom the ends of the age have come it's wonderful to look back to the past and the origin of priesthood and gain some sense of what that meant or how else shall we walk out our own Melchizedek calling unless we understand the constituent elements that distinguish priesthood a certain kind of mindset even when we read that after all of the preparations for the priesthood the washing of water the sprinkling of blood the putting on of the vestments and the use of the anointing oil which can only be made according to prescription and you shall make no other like it nor shall you pour it on man's flesh all of that is rich in instruction that having served all that before they could begin their service they waited seven days at the door of the tent of the meeting as we said earlier seven is the number of completion if there is anything that yet remains after all of the sprinkling of the blood after all of the requirements that would have reduced any human impulse to get into the act and to use God's holy calling as a place for self-aggrandizement the last thing is seven days of waiting so if there is any itch to be seen in service to be acknowledged, to be recognized that would in any way contradict what priesthood means it will die in that seven days and this in the front of the door of the tent of the meeting so all Israel is being instructed by the example of the priesthood before it which is exactly the purpose for priesthood that God did not think it elaborate that of the twelve tribes he took one and gave them a function of priesthood only they were not to engage in merchandise farming their sustenance came by those who brought their offerings and they had no inheritance in the land he said I am your inheritance so these are a separated presence in the midst of the twelve tribes to affect the conduct and the attitude and the respect of the twelve tribes for the God of Israel whose sanctity is preserved and maintained by one entire tribe, the Levites and in the same way Israel itself as the nation of priests and light unto the world is to serve that purpose for the nations Israel is the center by its example to model for the nations what ought to be its attitude and conduct toward God as it is exhibited by this priestly nation in its midst, can you see this? so the Levitical tribe in the midst of the twelve tribes when they set up their tents there was the tabernacle of God in the midst and the priesthood and the eleven tribes around it as an example to the whole of the nation but the nation itself is intended by God to be an example to the nations and as I think I one time suggested there's a deep underlying cause of antisemitism that the nations intuit without any biblical knowledge and have a resentment for Jews who have failed to beat to them what God had intended that something organic is amiss and wanting in the divine provision of God for the nations that a people called Israel would be a nation of priests and a light unto the world and in the absence of that priestly service the world languishes in darkness and its darkness is called light and it's suffering from every malady and everything is askew because a priestly nation is not in its midst serving its function and there's a resentment for that failure it's a personal hunch of mine I don't know that I could find a scripture to support it but I suspect that that's true and so in fact if that's a root cause of hatred of the Jew out of resentment for failed priestly ministry what then is the answer the answer is the Jew coming in to his destiny and calling and being to the nations what God intended that he should and instead of resentment and hatred called anti-semitism you'll have Gentiles washing their feet bearing their burdens hewing their wood, drawing their water and being to them supportive people appreciating and glorying in the grace of God that has come through a people restored to their calling of which they will be the beneficiaries the nations will be changed just by this ministration that teaches them the difference between the sacred and the profane what does it take to maintain the sense of this difference in yourself as priest how do you keep alive the sense of the holy how do you recognize what is profane that contests against the holy and seeks to threaten it if not eliminate it that parades as virtue and as rectitude, as right as being moral it's one thing to recognize apparent evil but real discernment is to discern between the good and the perfect, anyone can understand blatant evil but a priest is so acutely honed to appreciate and to maintain the holiness of God that he flinches and instantly recoils at anything that purports to be virtue, purports to be right, purports to be clever and to be desired as good because he knows that that is the deepest threat to that which is holy therefore he'll find himself in painful condition sitting in a charismatic congregation and everybody's having a ball and they're all at the top of their voices in worship and he has somehow strangely churned up on the inside, something is grievously amiss that worship is hollow it is not being directed to God it's serving human religious purposes and he cannot go along, so I'm saying I'd like to say this this is not a stamped out religious calling, I'm a priest, what are you going to wail a title around your neck this is something to be nurtured, jealously because evidently the Levites who were called to this and served that purpose lost it, and they lost it so grievously that they allowed or participated with the uncircumcised and allowed them even to come into the holy place and perform their traffic in the very place that God reserved for himself as sanctuary and the place of his dwelling and the place of his presence that's how far priests can fall and when they fall, they fall grievously if they do not maintain the sense of the holy and are able to discern the thing that is profane, that threatens it which will parade as good, and you'll not be understood, you'll be looked upon as a freako, what's wrong with you why can't you go along everybody else is worshipping the Lord, why are you sullen, why is your face downcast, why can't you participate and you'll not be able to explain yourself so we're not talking about some light thing, but an ultimate thing, because if that is lost, there's no hope if this is not maintained, where else shall we expect the sanctity of God to be acknowledged revered and maintained, if the priest fail in that function as the priest, so also the people so I'm not at all regretting that the Lord is yet on this theme, and he's not finished with us yet, he wants to plow and insert something into our deeps, lest we just pick this up as a nice thought and entertain it for a while and then succumb and fall back again into the lassitude that governs the many, and we've not maintained our distinction as a Melchizedek priesthood for if we don't maintain it nothing else can be hoped for and if the church then will suffer that loss, what can it be to Israel how shall it move Israel to envy, to jealousy, by what means if it itself has become profane so the Levites in verse 10, that are gone away from me, when Israel went astray, see the key is the relationship with the Lord they kept their title, they seemed outwardly and externally to function but they went away from me which went astray from me, after their idols they shall even bear their iniquity yet, they shall be ministers in my sanctuary having charge at the gates of the house ministering to the house, they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice of the people they shall stand before them to minister unto them, there's a place for them, but it's in the outer court, it's maintaining the buildings and the architecture and cutting up the sacrifice they can hew and hack and draw the blood, but they can't come up to me, they're ok for the externals but I'm not going to allow them to minister unto me they've forfeited that, by their sacrilege but I'm not completely abandoning them, I'm giving them a function of a kind that is outward in the outer court, necessary function, but the highest function, the highest calling will be denied them because, in verse 12 they ministered unto them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, sayeth the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity the wages of sin is death, there's a consequence, God may forgive, but the there's a consequence that remains they shall not come near unto me, look how jealous God is for himself is this because our God is egocentric and jealous for his person or because he knows that if he is desecrated, if men lose or never have the sense of himself, which is the foundation of the church brought by the apostles and the prophets, not some technical abracadabra that they know the principles by which the church is established or its problems are resolved the foundation they laid is God himself they came trailing clouds of glory with them, they bring the sense of God because they come to the church out from the holy place not from Antioch I mean, of course Antioch but from a place of communion and the knowledge of God that even when they're not explicitly speaking of those things they're still communicating the underlay, the the tremor of God, the sense of himself that's why one speaking from Paul is to leave men eternally without excuse when he was on Mars Hill and confronted the intellectuals and the philosophers and some claimed to him to believe and others said we'll hear again on this matter, they don't need another occasion, one occasion with Paul is so much the testimony of God that not one of them who heard and saw him as the, what shall this babbler say, this Hebrew, this guy without Marx apparel who came in ordinary garb and seemed so ordinary and undistinguished from a Greek philosophical perspective, he had not the elaborate grace and education of civilization, he was after all just a Hebrew, what will this babbler say, but what he said was given of God, that God has winked in times past but he now commands all men everywhere to repent so some clave unto him and believe isn't that an interesting statement why doesn't the scripture say some believed his message and were saved no, they clave unto him because the man is the message he's the thing of himself this is the genius of what is apostolic what is prophetic, what is priestly, it's not an adornment it's not a title, it's not a take on and a put off, it's something wrought by God in that one who is called, whose profoundest function is to communicate the sense of God as God that's the priestly call so for us to labor and to fight against profanity in the house of God not in the world to discern and to find that genius of God as God, the sense of himself and not as we think him to be and to retain that and so be imbued by that so as to affect everything that issues from us whether we're speaking explicitly about the subject, we're yet communicating the sense of God that's why people were afraid of Paul though he says that my presence is nothing impressive and my words actually are weak, but they were afraid when he came because he bore the sense of God so they shall bear their iniquity I praise God for his jealousy and again not because he's a vain egotistical God but because he knows that if the sense of himself is lost as holy what can be expected in the world that is the plumb line that has come down from heaven against which all things are to be aligned and measured and if that plumb line is snapped or distorted or misused or misappropriated what shall we hope for in the world and that's exactly why the world is in its lamentable condition, it can behead men at will, it can exhibit their body parts with glee and that when the Israeli outpost was bombed by terrorists who had dug a 350 meter long tunnel underneath their outpost and blew it up there were 2,000 Palestinians rejoiced in Gaza at the news of the destruction that what we lament as that 4 year old child that was killed by that rocket that came out from Gaza others celebrated they loved death, they hate God and they loved death they shall not come near unto me in verse 13 to do the office of a priest unto me nor to come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place you guys know the architecture of the temple modeled after the dimensions given Moses on the mount for the tabernacle that was carried in the wilderness for 40 years and the parts of it, the poles, the awnings the tent, the coverings, the furniture born only by Levites you remember what happened when David forgetting that thought to move the ark of God on an ox cart and a man touched it who was not qualified that it had to come not on an ox cart but on the shoulders of priests that was their function to bear the holy things in the most holy place so there is an outer court where the brazen altar was and the water of washing where the sacrifices were killed and gutted and washed and then burned, sweet smelling savor unto God much activity, many priests, much scurrying much physical activity that's where these Levites will be allowed to continue that's the outer court then there is the holy place and there are not so many priests, only a few, those who are going to replace the show bread and keep the menorah lit and the anointing the incense of anointing so you go from an outer court to a holy place and then God says there is a holiest place of all there is yet another veil and only one priest is allowed there this is not for everybody or anybody, the high priest only and then only once a year and that in atonement for his own sin and that of the nation on the day of atonement bringing the blood of a blemishless animal to sprinkle on the mercy seat and we talked about that that he had his garment fringed with bells that tinkled and a rope tied around his waist that if those bells stopped tinkling and he died in the holiest place of all because of some infraction on his part some presumption on his part that he thought to get away with or was unconscious of taking a liberty and not maintaining the sanctity required of the high priest, boom down he went and the sacrifice was not performed and Israel yet remained in its sin the whole nation held its breath that the bells should not stop tinkling and a man was in preparation for this one function all the year long it was so sacred, the whole destiny of the nation, its character hinged on this one function coming into the holiest place of all the holy place that preceded it was illuminated by the seven branch menorah but the holiest place of all had no illumination that was external it was not open to the sky as the outer court it had no burning menorah as the holy place its illumination was God himself the shekinah glory, the presence of God in the holiest place of all, and that's where it says there I will meet with you above the mercy seat and between the cherubim as holy, holy, holy their saints, and this is not just figurative something given for our analogies, there's a literalness about this that must not be lost although the spiritual application is profound so they shall not come into my holy place nor touch any of my holy things they shall bear their shame and their abomination which they have committed we ought to fear God how would you like to suffer this fate that because of indiscretion on your part a lack of high seriousness with regard to your call you've allowed yourself to traffic in lesser things that will permanently keep you from the holiest place of all, and you're condemned to a kind of lesser activity but kept from the ultimate and that will be your shame and it will be your shame forever these are serious cautions that I myself have not considered as I'm considering it now today, they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed their being confined to a lesser activity will always be for them a continual remembrance that we violated against the holiness of God, and though he has forgiven us our sin, there's a judgment that we have to bear will be kept from ministering unto him we can minister unto men we can cut up the sacrifice we can burn the wood, we can change the incense, we can light the candles we can tidy up, but we can't come into the holiest place of all to minister unto me and as we said at the prayer time it's in that place that the sense of God is communicated there I will meet with you there something of myself will come into you as you come into me this is ultimate privilege and we're going to go on from this to talk about have we access today to the holiest place of all can we come into that presence and find the sense of God and from that place go out into the places of calling whether it's Singapore, Oshkosh, Timbuktu Argentina, Brooklyn and bring something of the sense of God that was to be found only there I will make them keepers of the charge of my house in verse 14 for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein but the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood sayeth the Lord God they shall enter into my sanctuary they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, they shall keep my charge who are these Zadokites Zadok, the TZ of my name Katz is from that word Zadok means righteous so Cohen, Zadok is priest of righteousness it may well be that I'm descended from these this remnant this minority from among the priests who did not violate the sanctity of God, who kept his charge and their eternal reward as the others have an eternal shame their eternal reward, they shall come unto me they shall minister unto me the others, this far but no further they'll minister to man in the outer court but these, these Zadokites who reserve their integrity, who would not join the show be one of the boys, go along with the crowd and have retained their priestly integrity and it cost them maybe even their lives in an age of apostasy they and their descendants shall minister unto me it's one thing to keep it when conditions are conducive to priestliness but to keep it when conditions are hostile and adverse is all the more a priestly keeping and that's exactly the character of our age the conditions of our age are adverse to Zadokite priestliness, to maintain this kind of integrity before God an exclusive separation and the honor of him when the general trend is easy come, easy go and everybody is doing it, everybody is saying it everyone is in the current fad, whatever it is the body of Christ or power evangelism or the kind of things that franchise apostles and give them districts and titles and you're welcome to join the club and share in the reward of it to keep yourself and your integrity in such a time as this as they did then obtains ultimate reward they shall minister unto me put it another way, I don't think that we can keep a Zadokite integrity except in community because we all have blind spots, because we can all drift and we need someone who knows us well and sees in love something at its inception, beginning to call our attention to it or we would otherwise miss it and before long it has become so hardened that it's beyond the point of limiting we need to speak often one to another, the truth in love, we have things that we cannot perceive about ourselves or for ourselves that can only be seen by another but they have to be in a frequency of relationship by which the subtlety of change can be noted at its inception and I often speak when I come to this subject I think of my return to my original Pentecostal assembly in New Jersey where I've been away for a few years, I was invited to speak on a Sunday morning when I learned that Saturday that the three most prominent spiritual women in the congregation had every one of them all freaked out had forsaken their husbands had become whores and had engaged in most astonishing moral conduct and so the next morning the Lord put that on my heart that to detect sin while it is yet today, tomorrow is already too late, I said why is it that you had not observed something at its inception in the beginning maybe the first air of flirtation you don't have to wait until full-blown whoredom to be shocked out of your skin, why weren't you acute enough and close enough in proximity to begin to discern the first signs of something that gave you a caution in your heart and your love for that person so much that though you might have been misunderstood and be an offense, you still out of love felt necessary to say you know, I don't know why it is I can hardly express it but I'm disturbed I'm seeing something in you that I hadn't seen before there's a certain lightness about you and you seem to show yourself in a way that draws the attention of men that makes me concerned are you aware of that? I often say to congregations can you tell your pastor while there's yet time that his voice is changing and that his manner and style of speech has gone from a conversational reality to a kind of affected ministerial style because when that hardens it's already too late to bring him back to the place of reality but he himself is unaware that he's moved from the one to the other unless someone will draw his attention to a subtlety that they hear even in the resonance of his voice so a lot depends on your acute not your spirit of suspicion but a spirit of discernment which will only be factored in love God will never allow you to discern or to express your discernment if it comes out of a critical spirit that wants to be exalted at the expense of another but when there's a real loving identification with that minister or a person in the congregation and you begin to sense something early our health our sanity very much depends on what comes to us from those who are with us in that frequency of life and truth and love by which something can be nailed at it's inception before it takes a full growth and becomes too late to correct and then we're shocked when the scandal breaks full blown on an unsuspecting community so my indictment that Sunday morning was against the community you're shallow you're just Sunday saints and you're not in that frequency of relationship and you have not the courage for truth and love by which correction might have come early enough to have saved those women from walking in that way and ending up in the calamity that has come that is irretrievable so yes it's our personal responsibility to maintain a Zadokite integrity but we cannot do it alone and those men and who are more susceptible to falling into error and losing their calling going from a true prophet to a false than prophetic men who need this kind of correction more than others but if they are surrounded by a paid staff who will always be afraid even to suggest that there is a need for correction and will hold it or not see it because they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them those men will drift into a place increasingly of becoming affected and false that happened to in the early 1950's 60's this guy who was told that he had the ministry of Elijah Branham when you hear the early stories of Branham's ministry the power and the discernment what he could know of a saint before him and the power of his prayer and healings was remarkable but he allowed himself to be seduced by game sayers and men who wanted to butter him up and began to tell him that he is really a prophet and that he is not only a prophet he is the prophet and that he is not only the prophet he is the Elijah that precedes the coming of the lord until his life ended when he crashed into trees or tree in his car and was instantly killed and even then his devotees waited his resurrection just as orthodox Jews awaiting the resurrection of Rabbi Schneerson he was bathed in a kind of adulation and celebration that was very fleshly and uncircumcised and he himself believed it and allowed himself to be exalted beyond God's intention or calling and the lord had to take him where were those who would have corrected him and put him on God and say hey don't surround yourself with those who are slapping you on the back and puffing you up your flesh and blood as Elijah himself was and this is not your calling don't go beyond the limitation that God has set there was evidently no one around like that or one whom he could trust to receive that counsel