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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Royal Priesthood, #18
And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? (Exodus 17:3)
The Israelites in the wilderness were continually faced with thirst, hunger, doubt, fear, discouragement, human enemies, discomfort. How did God's chosen people, His royal priesthood, respond?
They responded by questioning God's intentions toward them. As a result they all died in the wilderness.
Why has the failure of Israel been written in the New Testament? It has been written in order to warn God's royal priests of today that they will be tested in the "wilderness." If they cast away their confidence in God they will perish without becoming a part of Christ's house.
Two factors are of the greatest importance if we are to partake of Christ. One factor is belief in God's goodness and faithfulness. The other factor is obedience to all that God says. If a saint permits the pains and doubts of his wilderness experience to cause unbelief and disobedience to enter his personality, he is in danger of not becoming a partaker of Christ.
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:14)
We saints, the members of the royal priesthood, enter the rest of God on the condition we continue steadfastly in Christ every day of our pilgrimage in the world. If we stumble we are to get back up on our feet and fight on. The Lord will forgive us as we repent and keep on pressing ahead in Him.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? (Hebrews 3:17)
We know that of the generation of adults that left Egypt, all but two died without entering the land of promise. The writer of Hebrews is warning us that if we abandon our joyous hope and confidence in the Lord Jesus, turning away from our discipleship because of unbelief or disobedience, we will not be a partaker of Christ.
The Rest of God
And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? (Hebrews 3:18)
Precisely what is the rest of God? What does it mean to become part of the house of Christ, to partake of Christ?
What is the new-covenant counterpart of Canaan, the land of promise, the land of milk and honey, the promised-land rest of God?
God calls each member of the royal priesthood out of Egypt. The calling out from Egypt means the saint has left the world and, as a future priest, is now making his or her way toward a life of separation and service to God. Then the saint is confronted with the hunger, thirst, pain, discomfort, and general deprivation of life in the wilderness. The goal set before him is a land where he can dwell in peace with the Lord, being a firstfruits unto God of the nations of the earth.
To be continued.