You Are a Royal Priesthood | God’s Calling for Every Believer

Brothers, is there any scriptural evidence in the Old Testament that the elders were supposed to lead, prophesy, and instruct and preach?

Oh, you don’t know they had elders in the wilderness. Don’t you know the Old Testament elders? They’re Old Testament elders. And they’re called elders. They had nothing to do with the temple; that was Levi’s. These were the elders over each tribe; they tended to the people, made sure everything was taken care of, and reported to Moses.

Well, let me tell you, some time ago I didn’t know elders did this. Moses gathered all the elders, laid hands on them, and they prophesied. When I read that, I almost got under the table. Oh no… elders preach. Oh, that just ruins everything. I’m going to have to go back to the New Testament. Some fellows watched it and began to rejoice. Praise the Lord; that was something marvelous: all elders prophesying. They started chasing the whole company of Israel, praising God and prophesying. Someone grabbed them, stopped them, took them to Moses, and said, “These people are not elders, and they are prophesying.” Moses looked up, shocked, and said, “Let them alone; would to God that Israel would prophesy.”

Now then, in the Old Testament, different people are called to very special things. No one ever laid anything on Moses’ head; God called him. But there was succession. When Moses lay down to die, he grew old, and someone else had to lead. That which was on him was delivered to Joshua this way. What was given to one was passed on to another. Also, in the case of our friend Jacob, he passed on everything he had to a certain person, letting that person have what he had individually.

We have two things here. We have people giving up what very rightfully should have and giving it to an individual. Then we have an individual passing that on to another person from generation to generation. It is a passing on. Brothers, you do not live in that age. We do not live in the age where a blessing is passed on to a certain person. We are a group of priests who lay hands on, as in the New Testament. This is how they laid hands on in the New Testament: some had received salvation from their Lord and the whole inheritance of salvation. Then there were new babies in Christ who would get saved and believe; they took them out, baptized them, and brought them out of the water.

Did those who were baptized and taken out of the water come over to the guy doing the baptizing and lay their hands on his head, as if to say, “I just got saved; I’m supposed to be a priest”? I’m going to give it to you to be a priest for me. Is that what happened? Is this what they did? No. Praise God. We live in a new age. After they dunk you and you’re baptized, that which we have of our Lord, we pass on all of it, every bit of it, to all of the new believers. Brother, you are to be a prophet. You are to be a prophet and a priest. All that there is of the Lord Jesus Christ for you, you must take. In the early church, hands were laid on everyone. You receive it all: the blessing of Jacob, the position of prophecy, the position of priesthood. You get it all, that we might be a body of priests to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today in this hour, you and I must be priests to God. What are priests? They are a group of people who simply, daily, and constantly come to the Lord and open themselves to Him. The Lord fills them and floods them until he has deposited His nature within them. And they are so filled and so flooded that the Lord pours out of them.

Have you been a priest? Don’t answer me. Really, don’t answer too quickly. But I will ask you again, will you be a priest? Do you really believe this is all that God wants of you? Do you think the Lord wants more of you than that? Do you think the Lord wants something else? Do you have any idea how hard it has been for God to get priests?  We got volunteers for everything on earth except priests.

Brother, there must be a group of people who say, “Lord, I will come to You. I will open myself to You. I will stand in Your presence. I will be in Your presence. Lord, pour Yourself into me. Work Yourself into me. Move in me, Lord. Take Your nature and put it into me. Take Your presence, Lord, and work in me. Lord, pour and flow and overflood me until You pour out of me, Lord.” Then the Lord has, from the flow in us, out; He has a group of people who bear His image. And out of the bearing of the image comes the authority.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t believe we have fully realized how simple our place is with the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t want you to serve Him or work for Him. He searches for a group of people who live in His presence hourly and daily and offer Him sacrifices of praise. Can anything come out of that? You mean that you want somebody who will die for the Lord and give all his energy to the Lord and work for the Lord and help others and teach others? No. We’ve got 1800 years of that. “But where are my people? Where is My priesthood who will just come to Me and live before Me and open themselves to Me and let Me pour My nature into them and My being into them.” That’s all He wants.

Brothers and sisters, for God to have that has been so unusual and so rare: a group of people who will live before their Lord and let Him work His nature into them.  We’re going to learn how to live before God and let Him work and pour Himself into us so that we can be a holy, royal priesthood. Brothers, if the Lord Jesus Christ gets this, He’ll get His kingship in His people.

God chose you to be priests of the Most High God, and He chose you to be princes. Do you know what a prince is? It is a king in apprenticeship. God wants you to be priests to God so that He might work His kingship in you. You are princes of the Most High God, and He wants a group of people on this earth to rule, so that after being ruled, they can rule. He wants a house, a city, a nation, a kingdom of priests and kings; out of the line of Judah. Having lived before Him, brothers and sisters, you shall reign.