In this sermon, the speaker expresses his inability to fully comprehend and explain the significance of the chapter he is about to read. He emphasizes the importance of preserving the message that God has given him, even though he may not fully understand it himself. The speaker mentions a desire for a deeper understanding of the scriptures, comparing it to a hunger for knowledge. He encourages the audience to invest time and money in a "miracle school" that will help them become more knowledgeable and prepared in their faith.

Well, I think that the first statement that I have to make is this. All ministry is first and foremost unto the Lord. Sounds like such a simple truism, doesn't it? So self-evident. You'd think we would have known it long ago. And probably though we have spoken that and acknowledge it, it has not been so. All ministry, first of all, foremost to the Lord. This really is a man-pleasing generation. Have you realized that? The Lord has really been teaching me some things of late. I mentioned an episode already in a few days that I've been here, but I want to repeat now, because I've not yet recovered from it. It was so startling a revelation. It was hearing another man preach. Something I don't ordinarily have the privilege of doing. And going with anticipation because his reputation had already preceded him. Spirit-filled minister, working in a denominational church. I went on day five, a free Sunday morning, and sat in the balcony of this rather large, prestigious church. And as is my practice, I always look at the faces. What did God say to the prophet in Israel? Your confidence does testify against you. And I'll tell you that, that was enough in itself. What a study. My. How can anybody be preoccupied with birds so long as there are faces? I saw all the state and proper religionists in their places. Husbands and wives sitting side by side. But I'll tell you that the gap that was really between them was immeasurable. They were like sticks of wood. The whole spirit that surrounded these couples was the spirit of compromise. It was making the best of a bad thing. They were sharing modern conveniences together. It was anything but the mystery, the marvel, and the wonder of marriage. They were putting in their hour. And back on the back pew were their teenage kids. What a motley collection. Long hair, creepy pipes, body jewelry, chokers on their necks. Hip-hugging, mock clothes. Wholly and entirely and completely out of it. I really can't blame the poor kids. Who were chucking each other under the chin and digging each other with their elbows and trying to get a few good laughs out of the weird proceedings. The whole thing was so fantastically ceremonial. Hey listen, you don't have to go to Timbuktu and Borneo and places like that to see paganism or idolatry or primitive religion. Just fasten your attention on any local Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal church around and you'll have plenty. It's amazing how much we're able to tolerate. Maybe that's what makes us Jews so peculiar. We have a very short span of tolerance. And if no one else is going to shriek and cry out, by God, we will. I told my brother Paul that I'd already come within inches of pulling microphones out of the hands of most celebrated speakers. At great full gospel carnivals. And who knows, I'm just becoming increasingly maniacal as we come closer to the end of the age. Less and less tolerant. It's not to me, it's not just an antagonist Jewish personality. It's the very earnest God whose patience is growing short. Now here's the whole catch, children. The outstanding phenomenon was this. That a man was speaking the right-on message. I don't think there's one of us that could ever have faulted it. It was perfectly spiritual. Perfectly doctrinal. Perfectly alive. You say, how can those things be? Are you yet that Jewish? Are you yet that instructed? Are you yet that easily persuaded if someone speaks something doctrinally and scripturally correct that you think it's all right and right on? Are you persuaded when someone says, don't look at me, look at God, it's not me, it's God? That they're exalting God? You think because someone says, give the glory to God, they're giving the glory to God? You think because we use cheap, trite phrases about, well at least he loves the Lord, but he really loves the Lord? Hey fellas, wake up! Our God is eminently the God of reality and truth. And there's a world freaking out and dying for the very absence of that reality. Not only do I have a short tolerance span, I have a very slow recovery. I've not recovered from that ungainly experience of hearing a man say the right things and his spirit contradicting it all the way. You know what the Spirit was saying? Hey, don't take me seriously. Don't get flustered. Don't worry, this is just a sermon. No one intends that you're going to act on it. Keep your cool. Let's go on with this ceremonial nonsense. After all, my income and my security will be dependent upon it. I don't push you, you don't push me. Right? Right. We'll go on till the end of the hour and we'll meet again next Sunday for more of this thing. Then another experience in recent weeks, invited to a TV interview on a Christian station. It came during a series of meetings that were absolutely horrendous, painful, excruciating, difficult. God wasn't explaining to me day by day what was going on. I only heard pouring out of my mouth the most untoward statements, absolutely freaky. It was either the ravings of some kind of quasi-lumatic or it was God's bad. Everybody who was persuaded was a lunatic, including the pastor, who called me to his office the night before to say, in all my 30 years of ministry, I've not had such a speaker. What are you trying to do, wreck the church? My children have not come back from the first Sunday that you began here. My elders and deacons have been walking out. You've outraged people. I remember. Left another one of those messages. I was taken late at night for an hour's drive down the freeway to this Christian television studio to be interviewed. And I came in and there were little Dresden dolls before the camera. The husband and wife whose program it was and whose station they managed. Really pretty. Pastel blue suit and white shoes with tassels. Real dolly with carefully cultivated sideburns. The wife with a silver wig and about eyelashes an inch and a half long and makeup about two inches thick. I could, I suppose, have endured that. But what I could not endure was the squealing voices and the feigned excitement and the reports that have come in and all of the other mock stuff that seemed to give the appearance of the excitement that comes with being a believer. But it was phony malarkey. You know how I know? The moment that the camera turned off then to something else. They sagged and turned red. And the moment that the camera turned off, oh, hello there, have you been waiting for me? Well, they had been promoting Israel to us and they figured that they had a stiff that they could use. Our cat is Jewish. And I understand he was saved in Jerusalem. Well, where are the cats? Isn't it exciting what's going on in Israel? Well, isn't it? You know what, people, that the whole thing was staged. It was a put-up job in which a man was required to condescend to the forms that were arranged to be a patsy to promote the interests of men. And I couldn't do it. I didn't last very long. I think as quickly as they could, they got me off the program and out of sight and out of sound. I was such a painful contrast to their pert, glib, unctuous, happy, comedic, wrinkled, crumpled, deflated, weary block. I could hardly sleep that night on the basis of that very brief experience. I thought to myself, in that community of about 500,000 Jews, what would happen if some family of my kinsmen would inadvertently turn the dial to that station and see these little porcelain mugs with their little giddy stuff and shrill shrieks? I'll tell you, if there's anything good left in them as Jews, they'll just as quickly turn them off. I'll tell you, Jordan, there's a cry of God that's going forth over the earth. And it's a cry for reality. It's a cry for truth. It's a cry for setting forth the glory of God that doesn't need pancake makeup and artificial eyelashes and all kinds of pert little squeals and glib, unctuous kinds of behavior to testify that this... Well, I'm speaking like a fool. And I want you to turn with me to the book of Leviticus to give you a complete contrast, which I think we desperately need. The kind of chapter or section of scripture which in times past I would have read cowardly in a sense of obligation and quickly passed on to more exciting persons. I would have considered this, in the Brooklyn lexicon, a drag. You know, some kind of esoteric stuff about priests and what they wore and what they had to do and that they did this and they did that and they killed this and they killed that and they sprinkled this and that and... What a cumbersome, wearisome, chronicle of details wholly unrelated to our modern life. That's when I was young in the faith. You know what I say now? I can't think of anything more relevant, powerful, filled with enormous significance where our lives now at the end of the age in what has seemed to us boring and useless detail. I'm going to read this, or skip through it as the Lord will lead, with this apology that I'm not a teacher. You're not going to get one of those teaching presentations where everything is explained. What the road means, what that means. I don't know myself. All I know is this. I am powerfully drawn to everything that is stated in this chapter. It's a mystery, children. I can't explain it. And that's why it was so important for me to preserve the movement that God has put me in. As a brother said to me on my way into the building tonight when he sees my newsletter, he said, aren't there so much between the lines? There has to be because I only send it out four times a year. Leviticus, the eighth chapter. You're going to have to read between the lines tonight. It's quite astute of you. But I love a chapter and I'm reading from the Amplified Edition that begins, And the Lord said. Hallelujah. Do you like that? Do you get it? Thrills my soul. And the Lord said. There's a distinct contrast between the things that the Lord says and the things that men say. The Lord said to Moses, Take Aaron and his sons with him and their garments and the anointing oil and the bowl of the offering and the two rams and the basket of unleavened bread and the symbol of all the congregation at the door of the temple to be. Moses did as the Lord commanded him. And the congregation was assembled at the door of the temple to be. Are you salivating already? That means drool. Only for two reasons. Because the Lord said. And the man did it. He didn't need any ifs, ands, buts, whys, or hows. He didn't need any explanations. Any justification. Any rationalization. He did it because the Lord commanded. And I think that when we get finished with this chapter, you know what we're going to note? That everything that the Lord commanded was absolutely inimical. You know when I tell you it's a little fancy vocabulary, don't you? I'm a walking amplifier myself. He chose everything that was opposed to human sensibility. He went out of his way, it seems, to find everything that would contradict intelligence, right reckoning, human sensibility, and good taste. And I love that kind of a God. I think somewhere it says in the Gospel of Luke that that which is esteemed of men is abomination of this earth. And I suppose we could say that the devil's little side of the coin is this. That which is abomination of the side of men is that of our children. Are you seeing as God sees? Do you have his discernance? Do you love the spirit of God which is the spirit of truth? Because truth is nothing more but nothing less than everything as God sees it. Would to God that there'd be such a power out of my heart tonight to blast us out of this office, out of the world, out of conventional associations and modes of speaking and thinking and seeing and being. I didn't even want to look up. I didn't want to see it tonight. I hope you understand what I'm saying. You're beautiful. But I didn't want to be influenced by any kind of heat factor or any kind of expectation. Would to God I could have worn focals over my eyes and just been completely God's fool. But in a dimension that's beyond North Carolina, the United States, 1976 and come to that place where God is as timeless, eternal, global, universal where truth is. That's what I think he wants to do to his people. Hallelujah. And I think we need to be brought back to these ancient scriptures to find that God and that truth again. The Lord said to assemble all the congregation that the Lord intended to be and Moses did as the Lord commanded. The congregation assembled. And they were going to be assembled to watch the foolish practices which Moses was going to perform with Aaron and with his sons. You say, why do you think that that was necessary? I can only give you a guess. I think it's for this reason that somewhere it says as the priests told the people that the people need to see what is required of the priests. And for God's sake will you become disabused of the notion that somehow you're the lay people and we are the professionals? This is just Mark Cants, fellas. Brooklyn boy makes good. No Bible school, no seminary, no nothing. Drafted, dressed into service. It's cruel. Bleeding and sweating and agonizing just like you. I don't know how many of you have had the disillusion to learn that I have bowel movements just like everybody else. But that men like me have problems and that dear marriages can be struggles also. I think that the congregation needs to be assembled at the tent, at the door of the tent again and witness all that pertains to the priests. Because as the priests go, so also the people. Moses told the congregation this is what the Lord has commended 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 and upper vestment upon him and girded him with the spiritually woven cords attached to the ephod, binding it to him. Moses put upon Aaron the breastplate, he girded him with the tunic and put the turban or mitre on his head and on it in front of Moses put the shining gold plate, the holy diamond as the Lord commended him. What a bunch of foolishness. How would you like to be washed as a grown man in the public sight of others? I just feel like closing my Bible. You guys are so distracting because men come up to the platform or someone comes in the room and heads turns. This is holy children. We're still almost like a kindergarten distracted and curious. It began with the washing of priests with water. I think that's where necessarily always must begin. The washing of the water of the Word. May God ever keep us from becoming so slick, so expert, that when we're called upon we leap out of our seats quickly and come to the microphone a fear that there's a moment's pause or a silence somehow that the interest of God's people is going to become distracted or restless. Haven't you seen those carnivals? Like a three-ringed shelf first this one and that one. Now it's open, now pray, now let's speak, and now they're open up. And so what's the matter if a man stumbles? What's the matter if there are lengthy silences and pauses and gropings and choking and smotherings? What's the matter if a man agonizes waiting for the message and he's not some good professional who's just knocking it off? You want to know something children? Every time a man comes to this holy place it's a matter of livelihood. Have you realized that yet? You think this is some meeting time? You think you've come to hear a personality? Or if we're evening's entertainment? Or wasn't it an interesting message? I tell you with all my heart that the hour is so short that every single coming together of God's people in His name of His service is a matter of livelihood. And who is sufficient for that? No quick, glib, easy business this priesthood. No quick, crash program three months of discipleship teaching at a desk and then you're sent off to Afghanistan. No injuries intended. This was the God who took 30 years to prepare a priest for only three years of service. You want to know about these priests? They didn't begin until their 30th year. Hey man, that's wasteful. I'm 21 and I'm filled with the wine of life and rip roaring ready to go. Let me have it. God says, cool it. You're wet behind the ears not nose. Where do you think you're going? You're full not only of the wine of life but your own fleshly ambition. You seem to be hurting a little. You'll be tempted in my hand and I'll release you when you're 30. And when you're 50 you'll be required to face compulsory retirement. But 50? Hey boy, I'm 47 and I'm in the greatest shape of my life. Only three years more than me and I was thinking of 70, 75 and white and hoary with age and full of wisdom. You know children, the priesthood in God's book is extravagant, lavish and wasteful. It begins late and ends early. But oh for those 20 years of perfect service unto the Lord. The spirit of this age is entirely something else. Easy come, easy go. Man, what? It's only six months and you don't have a ministry yet. And you play a mean guitar. You have to go someplace. I think the amplifiers have replaced the school of the priesthood. You've got enough electronic equipment and enough dance and bravado. Man, you ought to have a ministry somewhere. Mmm. You're going to see something shortly when the glory of God falls. And it's because we have no appetite for glory. No desire to see it. We're content with something much less than we have something much more. But God is returning his children to biblical standards and truths. He's going to have a holy, royal priesthood long in preparation. Men, whose service is unto the Lord and not as men pleases, speaking correct things with unctuous tones that say don't take me seriously. Don't give rise. It's only hysterical. He's going to have men who will do all that the Lord has commanded. Nothing more and nothing less. He begins with the washing of the water of the Word first for the priests, publicly and humiliatingly as grown men before the entire congregation. And then putting on these garments of white linen, the linen of God's righteousness, reaches to cover their nakedness from their loins unto their thighs shall they reach. You know what, children? The anointing oil that's going to be poured upon these priests cannot come upon them. No wonder we have been desperately striving for every alternative to the anointing oil of God. Turn up the amplifier a little more, will you? Let's have a little bit more zip, a little bit more performance, a little bit more feigned charisma, a little bit more technique and manipulation. Maybe it'll seem the same as that which comes from the authentic anointing of God. If you want to know why we have substituted the amplifiers for the anointing, it's because our flesh has not been covered in the white linen of His righteousness. Oh, I'll tell you, God was fastidious about this and so it's with that when that high priest ascended into the holy place, he didn't even dare go up by steps but on a ramp. Less than the going in steps, he would have to lift his foot so high that the flesh of his body would be revealed. My God lives in my flesh as a pariah. No flesh shall stand in His presence. No flesh shall compete for His glory. His anointing oil shall come upon no flesh. It shall pour down upon the head of Aaron and upon down his being and down to the head of his garments. And there's only one place where that flesh is revealed. It's the head of the body then and now. But as far as the body is concerned, from the neck to the toes, covered in the white linen of the righteousness of God. No ambition, no fleshly cravings to be seen, ministries to be promoted, works, names, nothing. If we want a whole new world. I'll tell you, dear children, you cannot have it for dead. If you think that you're going to go through slaughter and sacrifice and blood and gore from fingernails to elbow to evoke the glory of God in the only way that it can be evoked, by bloody sacrifice, without the anointing of God, you're not going to be a priest. You'll just be a butcher hacking at food. No service can be performed independent of the holy anointing oil. And there shall be no holy anointing oil except the priest be covered in the linen of the righteousness of God. A long undertone there. A long sash, clothed him with the robe. The ephod, upper vestment, girded, and skillfully woven cords attached to the ephod, binding it to him. I like that. I like that the garment of the priesthood is bound to the priest. Not some quick, glib, easy, put on and take off. No stepping into a phone booth and dropping your jacket and coming out like Superman. The priestly garment is bound to the man. You know, God is weak in times past when we were hot shots at the altar and something less at home with our wives and our kids. Take on, take off. One thing publicly, another thing privately. You know what that is saying? One thing. Period. You're a priest publicly and you're a priest privately. His garment is bound to your body with cords of wool. It's the heavenly color and it's righteousness. It's not some two-faced thing that's got to do with public performance and private discipline. I speak from a hard school. But I praise God. He's the author. All our children. He's weak in times past, but he's calling us back to this. On top of the turban that was on the head of the priest was put a gold plate. You know what it said? Holiness unto the Lord. Holiness unto the Lord. You can turn to a thousand of Leviticus dictionaries or the one of your own choice. You'll never hear the definition of the word. Have you learned that already? The great words are just not susceptible to dictionary definition. There's only one way we'll ever learn what holiness really means. And that's by the intimacy of the knowledge of Him and the fellowship of His service. Willing to learn it there, you priests. You're not going to get it at the desk with a dictionary. You're going to get it where Joseph got it, in pits of isolation and rejection, even from your own brethren, who despise you for your dreams and all the more for the words you speak. You're going to get it where you're falsely accused and find yourself again thrown into the stinking dungeons How else should a man have said when a woman saw him as elusive? How could I do this evil thing and grieve God? How did He know it was evil when the Ten Commandments had not yet even been spoken? He didn't need commandments for Him. He knew that God was holy because He knew Him in the place of fellowship, the places of alienation, isolation, and rejection. I have a feeling it's the only place to know the fellowship of His presence. Oh, may God give us again such a priesthood who have on their heads such a sense of the holiness of God, such a sense of solemn responsibility in opening their mouths before God's people, such a sense that they must never condescend to being professional or a political expert or fear that they might be disappointing men if they wait on God agonizingly until He should bring His purpose. Oh, I'll tell you some strange things that happened in my life. You think this is something tonight? How would you like to have been with me that night in a situation where a charismatic fellowship had just built themselves a new church, gone into debt, felt themselves to be at a crossroad in their history, and they invited me to address them for three successive nights thinking that I was an oracle of God. Well, I thought so too, or else I would not have come. And I came with expectancy and with peace, knowing that their need was great. And I remember going down in my station that motel room that night, the night of the first meeting and crying out to God, Lord, what is on your heart for this people? Breathe to me your theme in these days. Trigger that portion of Scripture from which you have come to speak this night. Nobody said. Nothing. Silence. Dead man. Death in the heart. Silence. Well, I said that. Peace. Hallelujah. I remember driving in the car to the meeting that night, whistling as I went, and praying with my right hand, okay, what I said. In a way that so often pleases you to do. While I'm in this car now, just by the wafting of the Spirit in part to me, your theme. Nothing. Well, there was still time. I got to the church and I went to the prayer room and I went down to my face and I said, I reminded the Lord, the hour is getting short. Just in case, maybe that was known at the time. I said, Lord, out there are hundreds of expecting people. And I myself did not know the distance that some of them had traveled that night to be at that service. 50, 75, 100 miles. One way to hear the gospel of God. I did the work, didn't you? With God we had fewer meetings and when we had them, we had the opportunity of hearing our hearts. With God we got off the monotonous nonsense of having to fill monthly obligations, having to reach at the bottom of the barrel to find a speaker. I was pretty exalted for the oil crisis. At least it had this advantage. We wouldn't so lavishly be able to have conferences and convocations and all kinds of things that meant to travel lavishly to reach. We'd have to have fewer but more solemn, more spiritually planned times of the assembling of God's people to hear God's word. Has there ever been a generation that was heard more and shown less benefit to the hearing than we do? Man, I've seen tape libraries in the homes of ordinary believers that will blow your mind. They can go into business, but they don't have a corresponding literature. I somehow still have a hankering for good old Abe Winker, who grew up with only four or five books through his entire youth in early member. But I'll tell you it wasn't the piece of punctuation in any of those books that escaped his attention. He sucked the very marrow from the book. Well, I prayed earnestly on my face in that prayer room, and God said, Go ahead, peace. And so I came to the meeting and had already begun and I took a seat in front of the meeting there and the clock was ticking away and I was getting closer and closer to being introduced and yet the Lord had not spoken. What would you have done in such a situation? I began at Genesis and I read through all the books down to the book of Revelation hoping that one book would loom large on that page. Nothing. And so finally I was called and what could I do? Just wait the night. And I came and I brought my body by the microphone and I looked up and I see what I was expecting. Wow. I mean, there were microphones and tape recorders just around the room. People poised waiting to catch every syllable that the Lord might have spoken. And I had nothing. And I had one more opportunity to pray. If you want to hear a man bellow before God, earnestly, it was that prayer. I said, Lord, the hour has struck. Your people are assembled. Your messenger is here. We're all expected and waiting at a crossroad. The hour is urgent. Life and death stakes. What is your will? When I lifted my head, I had nothing. What would you have done then? You know what happened at that moment? About ten things crossed through my mind. I thought of juicy messages given of God to everyone that have had people sprawled out of their seats and all the platforms in the house gasping and sucking for air. That's how anointed they were. And yet I knew that I could not speak one of them. Unless God anointed you. Unless it's fresh from the throne out of the heart of God now. But what's the alternative to not speak? The most agonizing and embarrassing and humiliating silence that you could imagine. And then I finally had to say to these people who were waiting and looking at me with quizzical expressions. I looked up at them and I said, I have nothing to say. Give me the mob of out-aged rabbis any day and the faces of God's expecting and disappointed people. If looks could kill, you know what the book said? Hey, we thought that you were anointed messengers. What do you mean have nothing? Don't you prepare? Have you ever heard of praying? Don't you have a good chorus? What do you mean have nothing? And I could not answer them a word, you know what I mean. God hadn't explained to me. I said, I don't know what to say to you people. All I know is that I can't say anything, but let's wait until the Lord tells us. Don't we sing about it? Let us wait upon the Lord of the hills. It's a great song, isn't it? How do you like to do it? Before hundreds who are just giving you the eye when you move, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. You move from one foot to another, you change your position, you look down, you look sideways, you look up. I'll tell you that the tension was so thick in that room. And finally when it seemed utterly unbearable to the point of bursting, some man got up tremblingly from his seat. I learned later he had never before publicly spoken in a congregation. And he said with a voice like a leaf, Your mother, Cassie, said, I have a scripture. Could this be it? I said, man, what the hell? We all did it. Mama Mia, was it a scripture? It was not an Olympian that had to do with suffering. A man had to be a fool not to be able to spin a message off of that scripture standing on his head or upside down. You know they had this at the time. I said to him, I'm sorry, brother, that's not it. Did you ever watch a man die publicly? Did you ever watch a man publicly humiliated who had taken his life in his hands believing that he had been moved by the Holy Spirit only to hear that he had missed it? That guy fell through his seat or through the floor. And then we waited remote wilderness in Minnesota. Can you imagine a guy who grew up in New York and Brooklyn and got his meat, that simple one, that's prickly, packaged and cellophane, had to see for the first time an animal butchered? Wow! Did you ever see what it looked like? We had to barbecue a lamb and a pig to feed a convocation. And I had never witnessed the death of an animal. It was about time because I'm always heartbroken that there's no life without death. I hardly understood what that meant until that day. Well, the lamb wasn't too bad, just a few jerks and tremors. My stomach got a little queasy, but I could survive. But then came the pig. Phew! You've never seen one. It took four able-bodied men to keep that piece of protoplast on the ground. I'll tell you from my Jewish point of view, a pig is minimal protoplast. Laughter It was God's ingenuity with minimal brain and any other enduring man. But that little slit of life, encased in skin, put up such a holler and a shriek and a commotion that it made your ears dance straight up. I never heard squeals and grunts and shrieks and so three things come out of that howling animal. It jerked, it fought, it struggled just to keep its filthy protoplasmic life. When they had that sucker down, this rural character who was performing the butchery turned, and wouldn't you believe it, he can't see another one. Laughter I'm the guy who wanted to be a ballet dancer. Laughter A true priesthood wallows in bloodshed. If you're too squintish, you know when God consecrated the priests? It was the day that Moses came down from the mount with the tablets of the wall and saw an Israel pouring and exulting around a golden tent, eating and drinking and rising from the lake. He threw the tablets down and he cried out to the people, who is on the Lord's side? Why do I yearn to hear that cry again? Who is on the Lord's side? In a certain segment of the Jewish people, very peculiar, Levites came and stood by the side of Moses. Isn't that what we'd like to make these open calls and these responses? But how many of us would make them if we knew what was going to come next? Okay, now, could I resort every one of you, and go in and out of the camp, and slay every man whose neighbor, his brother, his friend? Phew! That's bloody church. That's painful. That's putting God before man. This day has been consecrated as priesthood. It began in blood, it continues in blood, and it shall end in blood. And there's something so stubborn in us that seeks some groovy alternative to the true ministries of God. And that's what I saw in that minister that day. Speaking correct things, but unwilling to draw blood, he cut out on God, and therefore also on man. That's why the world is dying. That's why our faith is a mock, and our religion a travesty. That's why the cities are not shaken, and taken for Christ. Because we don't want to draw blood. Well, this guy, when I shrank from the knife, he took it, and he plunged it in. And I heard that animal emit such sounds as I can't describe. And they hoisted that piece of coloplasm up by its hind legs. And I'll tell you until virtually the last drop of blood poured out of that piece of flesh, it continued to shriek and howl with the expiration of the last drop of blood. Finally, when it was done, he took the knife and slashed it down the middle, and took out what we Jews call the chiscus, the guts. And when he came to the heart, nobody showed me, he said, look, I that heart was punctured when I put the knife in, right? And yet that thing continued to shriek and howl virtually the last drop of blood came out. I have never forgotten that experience. A pig dies hard. Moses took anointing oil in the tenth verse and anointed the tabernacle and all that was in it and consecrated that. And I'll tell you, children, if dumb pieces of furniture, pieces of metal and wood were anointed, what shall we say? Well, maybe this ash called chiscus. And he sprinkled some of the oil on the altar seven times anointing oil. The altar is a utensil for labors faced to consecrate them. And he poured some of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head and anointed it consecrated him. And then he brought Aaron's sons and put under them a sandalwood, and girded them with sashes and prisms as the Lord commanded Moses. Then he brought the bull of sin off of him, and Aaron's sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of sin off of him. Moses killed it, and took the blood and put it on the horns of the altar round the bottom of the spindle, poured the blood at the base of the altar, purified and consecrated the altar to make his home therefore his. They 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, the sin off of it, as high as flesh and stone, he burned with fire outside the camp, as the Lord commanded Moses. We're only at the beginning. Are you getting a little scared? And I'll tell you by the time we're finished, with the bull, with the goat, with the lamb, and the animals that are required, we shall be standing virtually in a puddle of blood. I don't understand this, and I'm just sort of, I don't know, just musing that what we would consider to be the value of the animals is high as flesh. I suppose from an agricultural point of view, it's done. That was taken out and burned and destroyed. And that which we would consider of no value, the entrails, the liver, the lung, the back, that was given on the altar of sacrifice as a reward. I'll tell you children, God's way is not our way, nor His way is our way. The ministry that seems to us glowing, that seems to us eloquent, that seems to us so rich, exciting, when we got thrilled we would lift it up out of our seats, maybe that's the kind of thing that dissipates just as quickly as a good morning. But the kind of thing that makes us tearing and grievous, that leaves us unhappy with the speaker, that makes us kneel at the door and say, thank you for your nice sermon, when we're merely looking in the face to dig his guts, but that's me. The entrails, the lung, the liver, the back, the unsavory and undelectable parts, maybe that's the kind of thing that God's source is the source of atonement and savour that device. And so we put a ram for the burnt offering in the evening first, and again they lay hands on it, Moses killed it, dashed the blood upon the altar on the rock, cut the ram into pieces, burned the head into pieces, washed the entrails, the lips in water, burnt the whole ram in the altar, it was a burnt sacrifice for a smooth and satisfying fragrance, an offering made by a choir to the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses. I wish you would take your pen tonight and just every time you put that phrase on the book, as the Lord commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses, and you'll see that every command has got to do with something that flat-out patently contradicts all human sensibility. Nothing to do with things that we reckon to be wise, or estimable, or delightful, unsavoury, unpleasant, offensive, as the Lord commanded Moses. And I'll tell you children, if you have no style to do the things that the Lord shall command you that are unsavoury and that God might be more delightful, you may be some kind of a religious hack, and a functionary in a time circle, but you shall not be a priest or a god. You say, what happened that night? Well, I'll tell you what happened that night that I rarely remember. When, again, it seemed that we were going to burst from the very tension, a woman got up in the other side room and again, with great trembling, said, Brother Caps, you said, I was freaked, you couldn't speak, and we had all huddled in the party at last. We rejected one because it was not the real thing, now this must be the real thing, and we waited, and we heard the scripture, it was a rumor. But you know what I had to tell the woman? Sorry, that's not the word. And she went back to her seat, like it had been a month, and we waited, and waited. And finally, that excruciating last moment must have been like the fourth day that Lazarus languished in the grave, waiting to hear the voice of his beloved Jesus calling him forth. We had broke forth somewhere and missed that congregation, and others in the house. And out of some other portion of the auditorium came an interpretation, something began to move in my spirit, and God began to give us something that was not just good, but that was perfect. I've been back to that place where they said that was a historic night in the life of our congregation. God told them that the Patsy meeting was over, and it's no longer going to be a question of sitting in rows, looking at the back of one's head, watching the professionally good. They would come to a earnest hour in which we're all involved in the breathing water of Jesus Christ, and we're all a priesthood. Ministries were born that night. They entered into a depth of relationship with God with each other, which continues to this day. And it began in a painful, excruciating waiting, which was like dying. It was bloody children, bloody, bloody, bloody. Now, do you see this? Looking back in retrospect, you know what I have to say? That those scriptures that came from the man and from the woman were actually inspired of God to be spoken, but not to be acted upon. Can you believe that? Can you believe that God would go so far as to humiliate a man and a woman, to move them by the spirit to speak a scripture, and yet to test the quality of our beings? Not that. I'll tell you if you'll not believe it. You shall be wholly unfit to move with an unorthodox God in the unconventional demons that are going to come from his hand right through to the end of the age. We've been spoiled by those little cats who paint by the number of cents. You don't have to be an artist to have that talent. Fourteen is red and thirteen is blue and twelve is something else, and you put it all together, you've got the Lord's Son. And we've brought that same mentality to the Kingdom of God. I'll tell you children, the true ministry is expensive. It's costly. It's lavish. It's extravagant. It's wasteful. It's bloody. And it does not flatter the flesh. You want to be a priest? I'll tell you that at the end of your service, when you have faithfully performed all that the Lord has commanded, you're going to be an unsavory, bloody mess, and a spectacle before men. Standing in pools of blood with the gore and the flesh in your fingernails and dripping on your elbows. That's what is required in the true service of the Lord. They had to waive this meat offering. Imagine the foolishness of that. Everything that's humiliating has not been in the flesh. And then they were told in the very first verse that Moses said to Aaron and his sons, boil the flesh at the door of the temple meeting, and there eat with the bread that is in the basket the consecration of the Lord's nation, as I command and saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it, and what remains of the flesh and of the bread we shall burn in fire. And let me tell you this, children. If you're not prepared to eat what you yourself sacrifice, you don't understand what being a priest unto God means. You're going to have to eat your ministry. And I'll tell you sometimes, it's not too pleasant to talk about it. I've got a holy responsibility before God tonight, not that this is mine or His will. I'll tell you why this is. There's going to be such an indigestible lump of money cut. If I show up tonight to placate you, and to please you, and to be cute, and a delight, and isn't it wonderful? My Jewish brother gave his testimony. How do I get out of this mental mess? I would have to eat that flesh. I've got to eat my ministry. It lives with me and becomes part of me also. I'll tell you that the relationship that has been established with that church, with that congregation, I've got to invest it in my life and what God transacted out of my sweat and agonizings and fears and tremors that night and through those days. And that other place where I told you where God was carrying on maniacally and the pastor said in 30 years of ministry, I've never had such a speaker. What are you trying to do? Destroy the church? I have to eat that. And if that was just archaic, if that was just Jewish contemptuousness, I've got to eat that. I'll tell you what happened on the last day. The same man whose wife sat in that front seat and clowned after me service after service with such unspeakable hatred as you could not imagine pouring out of the face of a white Jewish minister, she painted my guts for the things that I was doing. But on the last day of the last service, the man who was not even able to bring himself to introduce me and called me cat because he could not even bring himself to call me by my first name had someone else introduce me at the services. That day got up and he introduced me. And he said, Dear Melissa, I've been a pastor over 30 years. I've had all kinds of speakers, the biggest and the best, the most famous, well-known, popular, but I've never had such a one as this. I've never been more personally attacked, more devastated, more undone, more left for dead, more humiliated. My own children have refused to come back to the service. My elders have been arguing with me to dismiss this man and not allow him to go on, and yet I felt concerned with God to do so. I've never been more broken. I've never received greater revelation. I've never had my understanding more addressed. I've never been more lifted out of myself. I've never seen a greater exaltation of the glory of God. I've never more fully grasped the understanding of his purpose. For every negative thing he said, he had such a glorious positive expression because at the end of it all, when it was all finished, and all the blood, all the shrieks, all the flesh flying, all the bloodstains, all the murderous looks, God brought forth his glory. They weren't just meetings, children. It was an event in the life of a people and a man who shall never again be the same. The people who were ready to lynch me at the first would not let me go at the last. Clutching my clothing. Can't you stay another day? I said to the pastor, where's your wife? I've not seen her all day. Artie said, I'll never find the words to thank you. God has so devastatingly dealt with my life. He has reached down so deep and broken something at the fount of her life that had to do with compacted resentments and fears that go back to her childhood. She just came apart. She's dissolved in tears. She can't speak. She has just mumbled to me, please, thank you. I wrote to the employer, my God shall not explain to you what you're doing. You'll not be able to explain to other men. You'll suffer reproaches and shrieks and catcalls and screams when the blood shall fly in the gourd of flesh and at the end you might see the glory of God. Oh, it's not a groovy school and you're not always so pleasantly vindicated, but God is looking for a priesthood for this church. You know the strange way this chapter ends? You shall not go out of the door and pretend to leave for seven days until the days of your consecration and blood-mixing are ended, for it will take seven days to consecrate and obey. As has been done this day, so the Lord has commanded you to do for your atonement. At the door of the temple meeting you shall remain day and night for seven days, doing what the Lord has charged you to do, that you die night, for so I am commanded. So err in the sons of all the things which the Lord commanded by Moses. Are you willing to wait until the perfect number is complete? Are you willing to wait for the true cold and warmth of God in this place? Will you not initiate activities and music with it all? Will you not go running helter-skelter to it all on things which you think are good and what you want? Will you wait? Will you wait? Will you wait? You have a stomach for austerity, hiddenness, and quietness in the unseen until it is time for the performance of judgment. Because the beautiful thing is, it shall come on the eighth day. And as we turn to the ninth chapter it says, by the eighth day, Moses called err in the sons of Israel and the elders of Israel and he said to them, take a young calf of sin offering and a ram for birth offering without blemish, and offer it unto your Lord. And say to the Israelites, take a male goat for a sin offering, a calf, a lamb, or an eagle without blemish for birth offering, a bull, a ram for peace offerings, and sacrifice them for the Lord, and a cereal offering next to the Lord. For today the Lord will appear to you. Have you ever experienced an appearance of the Lord? Have you ever tasted the glory of God? Have you ever been in a place, in a time, in an event which is holy and has its origin in heaven and is performed by His Spirit for His glory and for His kingdom alone? I'll tell you which you have tasted once you shall be forever spoiled for any lesser thing. This day the Lord shall appear unto you. And I speak this to you with a broken heart, not because I covet to see the glory of God that I should be exalted, but for this reason, that every time that the glory of God has come upon earth, apostate, backslidden, stubborn, selfish, vain men have fallen on their faces and cried out, the Lord He is God, the Lord He is God. And I don't know anything less that will produce that. It only takes one day, but it is the day of the Lord's juicing. His time, His place, His way. It's the eight days. It's the resurrection number. It's the new thing. If we'll wait seven days perfectly, the Lord will appear to you this day. And on that day it's going to be as bloody as the previous days. A calf, a lamb, a ram, cut, hack it, bleed it, mix it with cereal with oil, a cereal offering mixed with oil. Not that little oil of personality, not that squealing voice that is cute and fetching, that we think we need to do to make our messages in here. Not that oil. A box of that oil. It's the holy oil, it's the anointing oil. It doesn't have to be fabricated and promoted to make ourselves and hearing problems. It's mixed with prayer that feeds and sustains and floods it. The glory of God is to appear that day. Nothing has changed. Can you see it? Only we. Cheap, shabby, quick, quick. Instant. Easy. Let's have it. Struggling to come. Plugging in. Let's have it. Let's go. Let's do it. But we're not seeing the Lord right now. This is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do. And the glory of the Lord is with you. Amen. So Moses said to Aaron, join in the altar offering your sin offering, your burnt offering, make atonement for yourself, the people offered the offering of the people. So Aaron drew near the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was designated for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented the blood to him. And he dipped the stream of the blood and put it on the bones of the altar and poured out the blood of the altar's base. But the fat, the kidneys, the lungs, the liver, the sin offering, he burned on the altar as the Lord had commanded Moses. And the flesh of the high Aaron burned with fire outside the kingdom. He killed the burnt offering Aaron's sons delivered in the blood, which he dashed around about the altar. And they brought the burnt offering to him piece by piece. The head and hair burned with the altar, washed the entrails of the legs and burnt them with the burnt offering on the altar. Aaron presented the people's offering, took the goat, the sin offering, which was for the people, and he killed it. He offered it for sins. He did the first offering. He presented the burnt offering, and he offered it according to the ordinance. And Aaron presented the cereal offering, took a handful and burnt it on the altar. He also killed the bull and the ram, the sacrifice and peace offerings of the people. And Aaron's sons presented him the blood, which he dashed upon the altar around about. And the fat of the bull, the ram, the fat tail which covers the entrails, the kidneys, the lower liver. They put the fat upon his breast, and Aaron burned the fat upon the altar. But the breast and the right side, Aaron buried the way before the Lord as Moses commanded. Hey, what are we reading here? Is this holy writ and scripture? Or is this a kind of formula for becoming a butcher? Isn't priesthood something we can sanctify wholly? Men in perfectly blemishless garments, speaking with unctuous and flattering tongues, and sonorous sayings and stained-glass windows, and reading dissents, and all that religious abracadabra which the world loves. But of this priesthood, service unto the Lord, they know nothing. It's bloody, it's unflattering, it's vulgar, it's obscene. And when you're finished in your obedience to the Lord, you're standing, blood up your ankles. Then, in the 22nd verse, Aaron lifted his hands to the people and blessed them. Not people, men. Learn this little abracadabra, in the name of Jesus, running the genie lamp, hoping to see them come out and do the magical thing. And maybe if our voice gets louder, that will show we have a regular problem. What games are we playing? Who do we think we're kidding? Then, Aaron lifted his hands. There's no blessing before this bloody sacrifice. It blessed them and came down from the altar and offered them a symbol of the brainwork of the priesthood. I'll tell you that his hands were stretched out and priestly blessing over the heads of his people. You never saw a filthy pair of pants in your life. Dripping with blood and gore down to the elbows. Still want to be a priest. Still want to serve God. I looked up the word of consecration. Notice, hands full of guess what? The blood of sacrifice. Then Aaron blessed the people. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting and when they came out, they blessed the people and the glory of the world the Shekinah cloud appeared to all the people as promised. Because they did all that the Lord had commanded Moses to do. Then there came a fire out from before the Lord and consumed the brainwork and the family altar and when all the people saw it, they showered and fell on their knees. Hallelujah. I'll tell you children, that service that begins as unto the Lord is in the last analysis the purest, deepest, best service of them. And the people saw it and they fell on their knees because they did that which the Lord had commanded Moses. And there's not a shred of it as any man's labyrinth of healing. I can't close the book without saying that I have the greatest sense of trembling for the deceptions that are soon coming to the earth upon God's people. Right now, I'm already concerned for a dear brother in ministry who has already been quiet for the things which the Lord commanded. And the Lord opened this whole section of Scripture and the issue that has come up with a brother who might believe this movement and contain his deception. You know why? He's religious. He wants to do for the Lord and of course also for himself. After all, he's got a newsletter that goes out every month and you've got to put something in there. You've got to give some report. You've got to tell your constituency what they're doing and you expect their response. There's a certain inordinate necessity to do, to perform, to be seen, to be heard, to crank it out, to underline it, to poke the pen, to give four-color print jobs to initiate things which God has commanded. Of course, it's all in his name. The 10th chapter, I'll just read what it says at the beginning or at the end. Name, fathom, and attitude of the sons of Aaron. Each book is censored, put fire in it, put incense on it, and call it a strange and unholy fire before the Lord, as he hath not. And there came forth before the Lord fire, and killed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord meant when he said, I and my will, not their own, will be acknowledged as power by those who come near me, and before all people I will be honored. And Aaron said, Two men, priests, were consumed of God, and killed on the spot. They were priests, they were Levites, they were sons of Aaron, and they were ordained to carry incense. But they did it at a time when the Lord had not commanded them. You say, isn't that important? Yes. But why did they do it? Because they just saw the glory of God fall, and they had an itch to produce it themselves. Children, where is the priesthood of God who will do all that the Lord has commanded, nothing more? Men and women willing to wait at the door until the eighth day of the coming forth of the perfect Lord God, for his mystery, that day the Lord will appear. Oh, you have a stomach for this? It's not flattering, it's not pleasing, it's not quick, it's not easy. It lends itself to being misunderstood. It makes you look sloppily unkempt. But it's the formula for the coming forth of God's glory in a world which is dying for the right way. We're producing pagans in our own children. They're mud-clothed creeps sitting in backs of pews, in backs of churches, digging each other with their elbows and cracking jokes. Where do you get out of that ceremonial paganism? While some man down below is batting his guns, saying incorrect things, but his spirit contradicts his speaker because he doesn't want to offend men. And he's placating men rather than serving God because he has no stomach for that. Who are the priests of God's resurrection who will wait on the Lord and serve him and do service unto the Lord, that his glory can appear again on earth, that men will rip off their choker-beads and their mud-clothes and all of their worldly adornments, fall on their faces before God and cry out again, The Lord is God. It's not going to be done by patsy rallies and door-knockings and literature distribution and all the other cheap substitutes. No, it must not be in the Bible. That will save us from the alternative of blood and sacrifice. Who are the priests of God? A loyal priest who has confidence that God has changed him. There's a Christ who is looking for his fools to despair. Men who would rather die than speak out of their own heads or even use messages to describe themselves as priests. Men who will rip and slash and speak the truth without compromise or duplication. If that's what a priest is God will be like. Priests will serve us as untold and unheard of. Precious Holy God, Precious Holy God, Mighty God, may your glory appear again to the earth in direct proportion, Lord, to the obedience of your ministers to do only that which you have planned. May I ask you, precious God, to look upon these children this night before home and as please you to speak to these ungainly things, precious young people whose hearts palpitate to serve God. And Lord, you spoke a so good word to give us yet another perspective. And in your name and in their hearing and yours, I would ask for those who want to be enrolled in this school, those who have a stubborn commitment, who are willing to endure the blood and the blood, the misunderstandings and the reproach, the shrieks and the howls, the disappointment of men, that you might be pleasing to God. Pray for these. Will you stand before God now? Amen.