PRIESTLINESS

E. E. Hoyte

Exodus 32: 26–29; Numbers 25: 10–13; Malachi 2: 4–7

Reading these scriptures, dear brethren, my though is of priestliness. It is worthy of note that in this book of Exodus, the ministerial book, God suggests that He had this idea in mind for His people. It is most interesting to think of that. In other words it was, you might say, the beginnings, and God would enlighten us in our beginnings of His great thoughts for us, of what He has in mind. We might not have much in mind, but God having taken us up in our beginnings would enlighten us as to what His thoughts are about us in taking us up. So in Exodus 19, appealing to His people, He says, “Ye have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, and how I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. And now, if ye will hearken to my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall ye be my own possession out of all the peoples—for all the earth is mine and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak to the children of Israel” (Exodus 19: 4–6).

They had just begun in their history, just come out of Egypt, and God is appealing to them as to what He has in mind for them. They are His sons; “Let my son go ...” (Exodus 4: 23) underlies the whole position, but He has in mind that they should be a kingdom of priests—that was His idea. We shall have to understand what is involved in that. So from our very beginnings, dear brethren, God has these great thoughts for us, and He would have us to understand and to know what they are and to enjoy them. “A kingdom of priests”; sons are in a position of nearness; priesthood is that we might be able to approach God, to draw near to God. But only sons can do that, so sonship underlies priesthood. Priesthood is, you might say, official, it is an office, but you are a son, and that is generative, that is your status. But now you come into what is official where you are able to minister. This is a ministerial book and we are to minister to God for His pleasure and for His delight, to draw near to God, and it is the priest that is going to do it.

So what we have in Exodus 32 is their beginnings. God had written the law for them, the commandments. He brought them to the mountain, He wanted to bring out His mind and His thoughts as to how they were to conduct themselves—the ten commandments. So they are at the mount. But something had taken place; they were left at the foot of the mountain and Moses had to go up to God; he had to stay there so many days with God receiving the tables on which the law was written. In this chapter he is coming down, in fact God tells him that something has happened. They are all at the mountain—they were not even to draw near. If an animal came he was to be shot through; the place was holy; God had come down on the mountain and written the tables of stone. The people were left with Aaron, left to themselves.

So God says to Moses in verse 7, “Away, go down!”, it is urgent, “for thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, is acting corruptly”. God notices everything, dear brethren, whatever is going on in

us, in our minds, in our thoughts, our intentions, is all known of God. We cannot fool God.

That is what He says to Moses; Moses did not know what was going on, but He says, “Away, go down! They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them—they have made themselves a molten calf, and have bowed down to it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said. This is thy god, Israel, who has brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!” Think of that— idolatry! Before they had the law that was given to govern them, before it was in their hands, it was broken.

Well, we cannot be hard on the Israelites, dear brethren, it is ourselves, we are the same.

Before the instructions were given they were broken. Who is behind that? The enemy; the enemy is always busy to upset God’s divine thoughts, His plans. That is what had come in, they had made a calf—idolatry. God says, “Go down!” So in the passage I read Moses comes down and Joshua a young man that accompanied him. That was a distinction, that Moses could carry him up—Joshua a young man, “And Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, and said to Moses, There is a shout of war in the camp”. Was he right? Moses said,

“It is not the sound of a shout of victory, neither is it the sound of a shout of defeat—it is the noise of alternate singing I hear. And it came to pass, when he came near the camp, and saw the calf and the dancing, that Moses’ anger burned, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and shattered them beneath the mountain”. Think of that, dear brethren! You say, Moses, you are audacious. God has just given you His ten commandments and you smash them. God said not a word to him. It was in jealousy; Moses was acting for God. He says, What is the use of bringing these commandments into the camp when the law is already broken? So he smashes them at the foot of the mountain. God

said nothing to him, He did not dispute with him. In other words, it was intelligent. What was the use of bringing in judgment upon them when they were already in sin? He says, These are not for you.

Now what next? Does that finish the matter? No, brethren. I do not go into the rest of it, the brethren know what happened. Aaron was with them and he says that they had constrained him to do it; when he cast something into the fire this calf came out. ‘Think of that! “And they said to me, Make us a god, who will go before us; for this Moses, the man that has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what is become of him! And I said to them. Who has gold? They broke it off, and gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf”. That was not quite true, that you throw gold in the fire and a calf comes out; it must have been formed and planned too. Anyway, that is what Aaron said. “And Moses saw the people how they were stripped; for Aaron had stripped them to their shame before their adversaries”. What is going to happen? “Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, He that is for Jehovah, let him come to me”. The priest is for Jehovah, the priest is on Jehovah’s side; that is what the priest is for. “And he said to them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel—Put every man his sword upon his hip; go and return from gate to gate through the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbour”.

It is a crisis, dear brethren. Who is going to come forward in a crisis? The priest! So it says the sons of Levi, that is the priestly family, these persons came forward. That is what we need in a crisis, dear brethren; we need righteousness, we need those who feel with God about things. These men were not asked, they were

not invited, but he says, “He that is for Jehovah, let him come to me”. This tribe went out and these are the instructions, they were to go through the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbour. They were not to respect father, nor mother, nor son nor daughter; the priest does not do that, the priest thinks for God. And so it says, “And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. And Moses said, Consecrate yourselves today to Jehovah, yea, every man with his son, and with his brother, and bring on yourselves a blessing today”.

As we are for God, dear brethren, we come in for a blessing.

Now I go to the chapter in Numbers. These men of whom we have read are acting for God.

God cannot stand idolatry; He is displaced from the souls of His people, and that is what the devil always does. Whenever you have disobedience, whenever you have these crises coming in, the enemy is behind it and you need wisdom and eyesight to see what it is and how to conduct yourself, but at any rate you want to be with God. Now what has happened in Numbers 25 is another crisis and Phinehas, who is of this family of Levi, comes forward and without being asked he performs what was necessary. So in the verses that we read it says,

“And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away”. God did not tell him to do it, it was simply priestly instinct, considering for God. And God says, “Phinehas the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy”.

That is the kind of jealousy you want to have, brethren, God’s jealousy, a jealousy that is of God. Paul speaks of that (2 Corinthians 11: 2). “He was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not

the children of Israel in my jealousy”. Now listen to the reward for this—“Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace! And he shall have it, and his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel”. God is speaking, dear brethren; see what He thinks about those who consider for Him and who come into the breach and act for Him.

I must go to the next scripture, Malachi 2. This chapter begins, “And now, ye priests, this commandment is for you”. God is speaking. The priesthood had failed in this chapter—you will have to read it to see—the priesthood failed and God is speaking to them. It is a remarkable thing, dear brethren, that the idea of priestliness comes at the end of this book and it occurs at the end of the New Testament—I mean the Lord being referred to in that relation by John in Revelation 1. You see, what had happened was that failure had come into the assembly and the book of Revelation is bringing to our attention all that had come in as a result of it, and then finality. So as John writes his book he begins with, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”, Revelation 1: 5, 6. As he begins his soul is full of Christ, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood”. As I said, John stands in the breach in the declension and he brings in this idea that God has not deviated from His thoughts of priesthood. So John says, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom”, not “a kingdom of priests” here, but “a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”. John has that in mind. So God’s thoughts are not given up in the end.

Now in this chapter where I read there is

failure and God is speaking. Besides other things He says, “And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. My covenant with him was of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear; and he feared me”. In other words, God in the presence of the failure of the priesthood here is calling their attention to the faithfulness through which Levi obtained this everlasting priesthood; that is what He is saying here. He says, “My covenant with him was of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear; and he feared me, and trembled before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips”.

Dear brethren, we have to be sure that what we say is righteousness. This scripture was quoted some weeks ago—“and unrighteousness was not found, in his lips he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge”, Malachi 2: 6, 7. Jehovah is saying this, dear brethren, “the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and at his mouth they seek the law; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts”. Can you understand that, dear brethren? Try to understand that passage; do not misquote Scripture, do not misrepresent God. What is He saying here? He says, “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge”; that means he is intelligent as to the law and from his mouth proceeds the law of God; there is no unrighteousness with him. So we must be sure that when we quote the Scripture we know what we are talking about. Are we misrepresenting God? You might say, Well, he is misleading the brethren. That is true, but he is misrepresenting God. God said,

“Unrighteousness was not found in his lips—he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge”. It does not mean that the priest holds secrets. “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge” means he is intelligent as to God’s law; “and at his mouth they seek the law”, so you can depend upon him.

I just have this thought to bring before you so that we might have the right judgment in what we do, and what we say, and how we quote the Scripture. Let us not mislead the brethren.

May the Lord help us in this.

Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
13 June 1978