Ministers in God’s Sanctuary

An anti-christ, Nixon and Kissinger, the Jewish head there, and those two are running it right now. There’s nobody else that is running it. There’s a commentary this morning and it was to that point, but he has avoided all suggestion to the Congress or anything and the two are right together running the country, and in a secretive way. So you have the anti-christ and the false prophet. It’s just the thing all over again. It’s just say a forerunner of what we will see absolutely run by the devil. Well, it’s run by his demons right now. We’re being run by the demons, our country, by two such men, and people are just under it and just numbed, numbed, and don’t wake up, because of our sin because as we see, we know the taste of the universities we have.

We have the awful condition of the universities and nothing coming out of it. So, and now, McGovern, and his wings have been clipped because he’s all for ending the war, so that’s one thing that’s taken out of anything he has extraordinarily. He doesn’t seem to be using anything too much about Kissinger. This is the point to use that we’re being run by two men, and they’re working hand-in-hand, and they say, I said that Kissinger just is lifting himself up to the greatest. He doesn’t think there is anything like him. He says, “I’m running the country.” He doesn’t make any bones about it. So we have a terrible situation confronting us.

We’ve got two men in charge that are doing to get prestige, or to… just power. Only the miracle of God, only the intercession, only the calling out to God can change anything. We’re on the way. Just every other nation has risen and come to the forefront. Spain one day, and England and Turkey and different countries, and then the peak, the summit, and then the landslide. That’s what we’re on. We’re on the other side of the mountain now, going the other way. We’ve reached a great summit, the blessed, the most blessed of any country could be. And now, going to the other side.

Just all the details that you know about. Everything is to the other side. They won’t be long till the whole thing. Therefore the church must come forth. It’s the church. When Ezekiel was told about it, he was… The Lord always called it, “my sanctuary.” I like that so much. My sanctuary. Just one time he says “the” sanctuary, but… And when he brought Ezekiel to that house that he saw there, it was the glory of the Lord filled the house. And I fell upon my face, it was just such a marvel and such a glory—the house. But then the Lord dealt with the different people and the different sets of people, especially the Levites and the people that had failed him.

And would the glory of that house, it was the entering to the house, every going forth of the sanctuary. And he said, “Talk to the rebellious even of the house of Israel….” “Thus saith the Lord GOD; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations”—why? – “in that ye have brought strangers into my sanctuary.” (Ezekiel 44:6) They brought strangers, rebellious house of Israel, you dare to bring strangers into my sanctuary, because a sanctuary is the sanctified—the very word, sanctuary, that’s what God’s house is to be. But “uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh.” They weren’t even circumcised Jews in heart or in flesh.

They were uncircumcised “to pollute it, even my house,” and then you offer bread to those people and fat and blood, “and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.” Then the Lord talks about this. He says, “No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter my sanctuary”—not only heaven, we can’t get into heaven, but in “my sanctuary”—“of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.” So there’s a place on earth, his house, his sanctuary. Not just you can’t get to heaven, and think, well, that’s terrible, or one can’t get to heaven, but my house, my sanctuary.

And then you can say, well, now does this mean a house? Well, in this sense, he’s speaking of his sanctuary. But it’s on earth and it’s the body of Christ. How can you get into it? How can you function? How can you be with that replenishing of spirit of the oil of the Holy Spirit if there’s anything there? He said, for the simple reason you brought into my sanctuary strangers, people that wouldn’t fit, that don’t fit there. He said… Then he goes into it: I’ll take the Levites—they went away from me. When Israel went astray, they went astray also. And they went after their idols, and they will have to bear their iniquity, that is, those Levites that went astray when the Israelites. Well, and though they came back now to the house, it says, “They will have to bear their iniquity.”

Yet they shall… what they would do would be those of gatekeepers. They could never get into the Holy of Holies. They were meant for the Holy of Holies, Levites were the only ones that could go in, and into the Holy of Holies, or into the sanctuary, the very sanctuary where the curtain, where Jesus took the curtain away. He broke that curtain, well, he ripped it, the veil from the bottom to the top. But he ripped it there. These Levites though they come back, they can never get into it again. They can be used, because they repent.

“They shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charge at the gates of the house,”—that’s all they could do—“and ministering to the house”—but not in the house, they ministered to the house: they shall slay the burnt offerings and sacrifice for the people. They stand before them to minister because they ministered unto them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity. They caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity—the Levites, these are the pastors, let’s say, the pastors of the people. They couldn’t get into it, because they were the ones. And they will bear their iniquity. It says, they are gone, they went astray and they went after their idols. They shall bear their iniquity and cause the house of Israel to fail. I’m reading in Ezekiel, many of you might know it by now, 44:13.

“And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.” So they would just be gatekeepers, they could never get into the Holiest of the Holies. But Zadok, who was a faithful priest and didn’t turn away… In David’s day, we remember he was a minister, they kept the charge of my sanctuary. When the children of Israel went far away, there was another one named Ahithophel, that stayed with David. They were together, they stayed with David. And they didn’t go, when the others went astray, “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, saith the Lord GOD: They shall enter into my sanctuary,”—my, what a difference! “They shall enter into my sanctuary.”

So there are… you say, well, who could ever get in? They—priests like Zadok can enter into the inner court: “And it shall come to pass, that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments;”—that was part of the prophecy today, nothing that would cause sweat or nothing that smelled of sweat or that is the working of the flesh. You know, the harder you work, the more you perspire. And that comes more if there is something of wool on a person. Anything that had anything of the smell or the scent or flesh in it, the working out of the flesh, couldn’t go into his sanctuary. It had to be those that will be clothed in linen garments.

“And no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within.”

So I think I remember that Watchman Nee brings this out, doesn’t he?, about the inner and outer court. I remember this is the thing that impressed me, when I first read any of his books, was that part because the Lord had given me this Scripture. And he brings it out very clearly, clearer than I had ever heard it brought out. He brings it out very clearly of ministering to the Lord or to the house, that’s it. Ministering to the house, so you can be ministers to the house, you can be gatekeepers and do all the nice things and seemingly get along very well. But it’s never ministering to the Lord.

They’re the ones that enter into the Holy of Holies. And they’re the ones that minister, and they are the ones that offer the sacrifices. Of course, this is according to the Law, but let’s take it according to the body. So you wonder where… Many times I wonder where people that do the good things or the nice things or the helpful things or what, and ministering to the house. Ministering to the house, well, I don’t know just how God counts that, but it’s not vital. It’s not the leg and the arm and the finger and the eye and the foot. As Paul said, The eye cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you. So all of this… Much work in this, much ministering to the house, to the house, and ministering to the house (11th verse).

You shall be ministers in my sanctuary, yet they went away and they came back, and a whole other set of them. It would be the Levites all the way down, and yet they shall bear their iniquity he said. And ministering to the house, they shall slay the burnt offering and sacrifice, but they don’t serve it. They slay, they do the menial parts, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them, because they ministered unto them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall in iniquity. Therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near unto me. They never have the communion first hand from the Lord. They’ll not come unto me and do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place.

But they couldn’t get there, say, in the spirit, that if you’re not in a place to move in the spirit, you can’t get in the spirit just because you want to get in the spirit. As we were taking about the airplane. You have to get into the plane, that doesn’t mean that everyone can run and get into the plane. You have to pay your fare, you have to have some legitimate cause to be sitting in that seat. And they’re at the house of the Lord, and they’re cutting up the sacrifice, killing and cutting, but they don’t come unto me, to do the office of a priest and to me, nor to come near to my holy things in the most holy place. But they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. But I will make them.

It’s like I said about Adam and Eve, the Lord does the best possible under the circumstances, the best possible he can do, the best possible he could do was clothe them with the skins of animals, of the animal that he had to offer as sacrifice. Blood had to be shed of an innocent animal to give them covering and they were covered, their shame was covered. Wasn’t at all God’s will that that would happen, he plainly warned them. And here we have the best possible, “I will make them keepers of the charge of the house,” and that’s wonderful to even be a keeper. But for all the service there are, and all that shall be done therein, but the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok. Not just Levites, but the few Levites that did not leave what they were supposed to be doing and kept the charge in my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray.

So we had the two classes there, we had the Levites that went astray, went after idols, and did sacrificing and all of that before the idols and caused the children of Israel to stray. Worse because the children of Israel would think well they had a right because they had their priests with them. And they would think, look, our preachers are with us, our pastors are on our side. Just in this day, we call them pastors, or of course in Catholicism, priests. But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge in my sanctuary when – you can say while – 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 saith the Lord. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge.

They shall enter into my sanctuary, he says my, my, my, my—it’s so personal—my sanctuary. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge. They shall enter, they shall come near, they shall minister, and they shall keep. Just that one verse, all that has in it: Ezekiel 44:16. Enter the sanctuary, well, praise God to get into the sanctuary. To be able to minister there, to the holy of holies. They shall come near to my table. My. With what trust, to minister unto me. Not unto the house, satisfied with the house ministering? But, this is to minister unto me. Me.

And they shall keep my charge. Me, my, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods beside me or in front of me. For I am a jealous God. Why? But why is that for your good? For your own good, he is a jealous God. And it shall come to pass that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they had to go to by what he said, still the obedience. All the woolen garments aside, all the sweat of flesh, all the effort that one might have to put forth because you can’t get into the holy of holies. You can’t get into God’s presence by willing to be there, wanting to be there, it’s not to him, there’s where it comes in. It’s not to him that willeth or runneth, but it’s God that does it. Yet you have to be in the place where he can do it. Here’s again where the sovereignty of God and the will of man meet. It has to be the two sides.

You can will and run, you can’t put yourself there no matter what. And he has to do it. And no wool shall come upon them whiles they minister in the gates of the inner court and within—all inside. Inside. They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads and shall have linen breeches upon their loins. They shall not gird themselves up with anything that causes sweat. So the Lord cannot stand our sweaty efforts, whatever they might be. Whosever. The best person, the most choice, there is no sweat of flesh can ever have anything of value in his presence or in his sight. It has to be left outside.

And there has to be the pure linen which is written in the Bible, which is the righteousness of the saints, the pure linen. The righteousness of the saints is pure linen. It’s without sweat, because he became our righteousness, and he didn’t do it with the sweat of his flesh. He did it because he looked to the father. Praise God. He didn’t have any robes on to sweat. They were torn off of him and torn away from him. And they parted his garments, and they… you could say, shout dice for them, so they could get them. And there he was, you could say, naked before the Lord. Before heaven, before earth, before everyone. “They have parted my garments.” There was no sweat there of trying to make it. Praise God. “My God, my God,” he said, “Why did you forsake me? My God, if it be thy will, let this cup, my Father, pass from me.

But nevertheless, not mine will, but thine be done.” “And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.” Praise God, it goes on to somewhat of the law here. But here’s a wonderful portion out of this 44th chapter. What God expects. What God expected of Israel, and the failure. What God expects of his people that no flesh can glory in his sight.

Another Scripture: no flesh shall ever glory in his sight. So the flesh cannot do it, we cannot do it with works of flesh. It must be the acceptation of ourselves, putting ourselves down. It all goes back to the death life. All goes back to Jesus in the garden, not my will, but thine be done, to death, and all the time. If you… He knew what was facing him. “If it be possible, let this cup”—it wasn’t that he was going into the darkness about it or I’ll take a next step or there will be something maybe. “If it be possible, let this cup”—the cup of bitter woe, sorrow filled with all the dregs and the hell of everything that could ever come upon anybody. And drank it to the last drop. “If it be possible.”

I don’t want to have to take it, it’s being pressed to his lips, spiritually, being pressed to him, push it to his lips by the Father. If it would be possible, I don’t—and then you wonder if you’ll take what somebody says, or if you’ll go all the way, or if this wouldn’t happen. The whole cup of iniquity that he drank to the last drop for you, vicariously, as he became sin vicariously. And the cup of iniquity, the sorrow that was upon him. Death, it meant his blood to pour out every drop of his blood to pour out on Calvary. And yet, you wonder, and no matter what you go through what phase of the walk you are in, it comes sooner or later. To death!—where it’s utter death to you and your thoughts and your ideas of what you are, who you are or what you merit or what you don’t.

And it’s not some kind of a pipedream you have, some kind of imagination that you are where you are not. You come to face reality. And you know if you have drunk it, or you know if you have pushed it aside and have not said the rest of it. Because you say, not my will but thine. You say, not my will, but can you say the rest of it? You can say, I don’t want my will. And I’m not striving, I know that because of some kind of imagination. If you say that, then you get somewhere. But it’s not my will, but thine be done. The killing off that he gives you, that’s his will. No matter what or how it comes, different things are used—different means, to the same end. So that has to come through. You have to break, and you have to give up.

As long as there’s that little, you’ll never minister in the inner court, how can you? It isn’t the case somebody says, Stop it now, you’re not moving in the spirit. You’re not there. You didn’t get there. It just happens that somebody happens to know and maybe somebodies happen to know that you didn’t get there. You’re not ministering, so somebodies are faithful enough to the other bodies to say, well, let’s stop it now. And let’s get on with the whole theme or message or work or program that God has for us. And that’s another chance to die out to that. But if it’s just a dying at that time, or “well, I have to take it and just swallow it now.” It’ll come around to your turn someday, just keep it up, and sometime you will hit it. It doesn’t work that way. Sometime you will go around around, and you will hit it.

You hit it one time and then you rise to a peak, let’s say, you seem to make it or border on it, and then the big drop. And then all that ground, it’s worse to take it again. And you see the Levites, they… I don’t know how many times they failed in themselves or just what this did individually for each priest. Because the priests are named especially the highest ones. The priests were named, or who they responded to.

The priests which we aim in the body of Christ. We’re priests and kings unto God. We are in the priestly line as Jesus was not of the line of Aaron, not of the line. He was of the order entirely different, the order of Melchizedek—an undying priesthood. They died, Aaron and Zadok and every, all of them. But he was from the order of the highest, that is with no beginning of days, or no ending. All the rest of the priests had beginning of days and endings. But not with Jesus. He is a priest of the order of Melchizedek without mother, father, without descent, with no beginning or no ending. Of course, that’s God. It’s a much higher priesthood.

We wouldn’t especially want, not unless we were… you say, well, my father was a Levite. Well, but what does that make you? Or, what did it make him? But, my father is of the… My Jesus is of the order of the highest of the highest of the high. That’s what the whole writing to the Hebrews—it is a superiority, the whole book is one of superiority. If this was good, and that was… well, how much better, how much greater, and how much more wonderful is this ministry? We have the two there to show you. Just another, what are these things written for? They are written for our benefit, for our exhortation, for our comfort, for our edification, and for remonstration. Everything is here.

We have the two types of priests and they went astray from me. And they shall bear their iniquity. So don’t forget while people are losing out and scrambling maybe again to scramble up, you could say, to the height, it can be that one time—I started to say one time. I don’t know how many times that set of Levites went off the track, but they finally went off. They finally went off where there was no getting back. They shall bear their iniquities. So there, you can see then the arrangement of heaven. That there are degrees, that there will be those that will be right up there, the four and twenty elders sitting on the throne forever and ever and ever. And can see the ones that will have their place forever and ever and ever, and nobody can change it. So the mark is being set here. Rigidly, God is watching, knowing.

It just means that we have someone there that is taking note of all that, but it’s all to grade us. We’re graded here at this side of eternity. The farmer grades his apples, or the eggs, or they’re graded, graded eggs, graded apples, graded fruit, graded. And we’re being graded for all eternity. Graded for all eternity and you won’t die.

And the last bit of flesh won’t go down. And you will have that little tinge of bit of your way. And you’re crossed, or something happens. Well, you take it, and maybe with a smile or maybe not, maybe it’s a sour note. But you come back, you bounce back on the same note again. And God has to go over it again with you. And as I’ve said, I’ve watched and some day, whatever that is, it knocks you.

One person, it’s one thing or the another that is the greatest trial to get over. Well, if it isn’t, some day, you won’t be able to get over. Or you’re graded, and you’re put there and you won’t get of it. And you can go along, and you probably won’t even know it, but you go along. You’re graded, they were graded. And the grade that they got was gatekeeper, ministering to, very good, much better than nothing, and good even to be around the sanctuary, my, thank God. And people that get in there by the skin of their teeth as it says, Paul writes to the Corinthians and tells them that there will be those—this will be burned, and that will be burned, yet the person themselves will be saved so as by fire. While certainly it’s better to be on that side than the other. But what, why and especially people of light.

Especially of painstaking that the Lord had with the Levites. They had painstaking. They were people that God took special care and God takes special care of us and over us and warns us and admonishes us, gives us his word by times until they’re absolutely in the light of that. The light of the painstaking and the patience and the love and the care for his people that this (weed?) can throw over with just like that. Well, she said that or he said that, and I’m just… All right? The grading. And you’re put there, and they could never get out of it. Thank God they could even be around my sanctuary, my house, the Lord’s. Isn’t it wonderful to hear the Lord claim something – my people? Who are called by my name. If they will call upon me, things will happen.

My, that personal pronoun of being so close to a house or to a people or to his priesthood, praise God. Well, I don’t have any Levite name, and I’m never been called as a Jew would be called, but praise God for the higher priesthood of Melchizedek that we’re called to, to serve his sanctuary and in our day, it isn’t sanctuary—his body. His body, his bride, that’s personal. His body, his bride, wonderful. What could be more wonderful? What could be greater? What call? The spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And whosoever will may come. What call could be?

And no matter what your circumstances in your home, or whatever it is, with this calling upon you. As Paul said, I have decided that neither height nor depth, no matter what my circumstances are that could be called to bear, neither height nor depth nor principality nor power nor men nor demons nor things present nor things to come, I purpose, I am persuaded that he is able to keep me, and I have decided that nothing will separate me from that high calling in him. And he wasn’t going for a sanctuary literally. He wasn’t going… He was in a prison, and he didn’t see any sanctuary set up or to be a gatekeeper or to be a doorkeeper or anything, for the mark of the prize of the high calling which is in Jesus Christ. And there was nothing that could defer him or deter him from making that grade in his Lord.

And after I preached to others, that I’m making sure that I’m not going to be cast away from that out resurrection, from the highest that God has. Praise God. He wasn’t talking about his soul salvation, he was talking about attaining unto God’s purpose. God had the highest purpose for him, and he made sure he would make it. And he laid aside everything that would bind or obstruct him or every weight of sin that would come upon everything was there. We have a man that said those things. Jesus did it. You can say, Jesus was God. Well, we have the work of Paul here that are works. You want beautiful works, they could be engraved in gold, they could be penned in gold, by golden pens and engraved. He said, you are my epistles and it’s engraved on your hearts who I am, known and read of all men. Praise God.

We don’t have Paul for our day, we have Jesus, and we want that engraving into our hearts so that heaven, just not heaven by the skin of our teeth, but the making of the grade. Now is our time. Now is our part, as we see the signs of the forerunnings, we see these two at the head of the nation. They have made it there. They are seeing to it, that they’ve kept it this far. And statesmen and people are rising up, but what are they doing, what can they do? The whole thing is landsliding, just going and they try to recapture and put in that which is running down. But they can’t get it together, the people won’t gel. The people just let it go, they’re numbed because of the sins upon us. So we see, here’s just a sample.

And you’re under it as well as I, we’re all under it. But here’s where we can come to life in the body of Christ, and be those that stand together and move together , and will to do the will of God. Hallelujah, we shall know the doctrine. Just what it is. Praise God, we’re not left in any darkness. So today we’re up there making our claims, and making not only claims but living, because no matter what your brain, how great your prayers are, how much you’re claiming, it has to be done. It has to come to pass in you. And you have to make it so that the wafting of the Holy Spirit takes you right out there, that you know that you’re right in the current. And you’re moving right on in the plan of God. And you know that you’re moving, the scenes are changing spiritually. And you know you’re right out there where God wants you. Praise the Lord.

As Paul’s so clear, crystal. He’s crystal. You look into some waters that are muddy and murky lives that are muddy and murky. You look into others, they are pools. He said, My dove, your eyes are like fish pools, you can look right through to the bottom of all you are. There’s nothing that goes back when you look through you. I know what you are, I know who you are, that God can look right through us and see the bottom, the bottom that is clear, that is clear sand, clear truth, clear light, clear foundation, everything clear. He looks through—are you clear on that? Jeremiah, what are you seeing? I’m seeing a basket of figs. All right, that’s right. You got it. Let’s go right on from there. Are you seeing clearly? Is your vision right? Is there anything that is befuddled or anything that is cloudy? No, clear, look me through, Lord.

I want to be clear, I want to be clear in your eyes. I want you to look right straight through me, hallelujah. No, this crystal-like clearness, hallelujah. Nothing there that is back, nothing in the hiding, nothing that you have to say, “Well, I couldn’t just answer that now.” “I don’t know,” or “Maybe tomorrow.” No. Right now. Crystal clear, hallelujah. Praise God. This is what he requires. Are you ministering to the house, are you ministering to the Lord? Different. You minister to him. Then the house will be blessed. It doesn’t come while I’m ministering now to the house. No, you minister to the Lord, and then the house is blessed. My sanctuary, my house, my people. Thank God we’ve got a God that takes us to himself, his very heart, and we’re his and his forever. Wonderful.