If Yeshua Calls You a Priest Then Act Like One!

Shabbat shalom everyone!

Here’s a long, meaty teaching for you to chew on today that will hopefully bring you into a closer spiritual walk with YHVH Elohim by giving you a deeper understand of his ways and expectations of us. Understanding the Tabernacle of Moses and the Levitical priesthood is the focal point of this teaching. It’s amazing how much we can learn from history and how it applies to us!

Scripture reveals that the saints are to be a holy or set-apart (kadosh) priesthood, not a profane (worldly and polluted) one. Which are you? Kadosh or profane?

YHVH Is Preparing His Saints to Be a Kingdom of Priests

In his Word YHVH revealed that ancient Israel’s destiny was to become a kingdom of priests (Exod. 19:6) and as such become a light to the nations to lead them to YHVH (Deut. 4:6-8). This is why YHVH in his sovereignty positioned the nation of Israel at the crossroads of the major trade routes of the ancient world—between three continents: Africa, Asia and Europe. Israel did not fulfill this prophetic destiny because of sin and rebellion. They desired to conform their lives to the standards of the wicked nations around them rather than conform to YHVH’s standards of righteousness as revealed in the Torah-law.

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Those who come to faith in Yeshua the Messiah become children of Abraham and are thus Israelites (Rom. 4:16; 9:8-11; Gal. 3:7, 9, 14, 28-29) who have been grafted in to the olive tree of Israel (Rom. 11). Ancient Israel never fulfilled its divine calling to a kingdom of priests and a light to the nations of the world. YHVH’s calling and purposes for Israel are without repentance (Rom. 11:29). What ancient Israel failed to accomplish because of disobedience, rebellion and faithlessness will be left to grafted in Israel—the one new man in Yeshua the Messiah—to accomplish. Yeshua commissioned his disciples to preach the Good News (Gospel) of the kingdom of Elohim to the world (Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8). But more than that, his disciples were to become that kingdom of priests that ancient Israel missed the opportunity to become.

We read in the Testimony of Yeshua (New Testament) that the Saints of YHVH will be called kings and priests (or a kingdom of priests) of YHVH-Yeshua the Messiah and will reign with him during the 1000-year Millennium or Messianic Age. Continue reading

 

Put on you holy under and outerwear

Exodus 39:1, The holy garments for Aaron. The vestments of the high priest (kohen hagadol) are symbolic of the robes of righteousness that saints should be wearing in preparation for the return of the Messiah.

High Priest

Gold symbolizes purity of heart. Blue symbolizes heaven and spirituality. White linen pictures robes of righteousness. White symbolizes purity and sinlessness. Red represents blood—the blood of Yeshua that cleanses from sin.

The high priest wore a belt that represents truth, according to Paul (Eph 6:14).

White linen pants represented sexual purity.

The white turban represented purity of thought and humility (the opposite of conceit).

He wore a gold crown inscribed with the words, “Kadosh l’YHVH” meaning “Set-Apart to YHVH.”

The dangling pomegranates represented the fruits of our lives be they good or bad.

The golden bells jingled when the priest walked. As we go through life people hear us and see us. Our actions speak loudly and clearly. Also, Yeshua said that our words reveal the true condition of our heart (Luke 6:45). How do people really view us? What are we like in secret when no one else is around—our thought life and our words—our secret life? Is there a discrepancy between our secret and public lives? If so why? How set apart and righteous are we … in reality?

If we are called to be a set-apart priesthood then hadn’t we better get busy cleaning up our act?

Jewish tradition tells us that a rope was tied to the leg of the high priest in Second Temple times so that while ministering in the innermost sanctuary of the temple if he was impure and YHVH struck him dead (as happened to Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, when they offered up strange fire) the corpse could be dragged out by the rope.

Doesn’t all this show us that we should take being righteous and set apart seriously? Remember Hebrews 12:14: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man will see the Master.”

 

 

New Video: What is the meaning and significance of the name Elim?

In Exodus 15:27 we see that upon leaving Egypt, the children came to the desert oasis of Elim with its 70 palm trees and 12 wells. Elim and its name have many prophetic implications, which is why we named our congregation after it. This video explains these things.

 

Exodus 34: A Prophecy About the Second Coming

Exodus 34:1–35, Moses’ second ascension of Mount Sinai is a prophetic picture of the saints’ resurrection and glorification at the second coming of Yeshua the Messiah.

According to Jewish tradition, Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the second set of stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments on the first day of the sixth month or 30 days before Yom Teruah, which occurs on the first day of the seventh month. Forty days later on Yom Kippur he descended from the mountain carrying with him the second set of tablets as a sign of YHVH’s forgiveness of the children of Israel after the golden calf incident. This signaled YHVH’s renewed relationship with Israel after they had repented of golden calf worship.

We know that a biblical Israelite bride, while waiting for her betrothed to arrive from his father’s house, would hear the sound of the shofar in the distance as her bridegroom approached. If she were alert and not asleep (as were the ten virgins in Matt 25), she would have had time to put on her wedding robes, trim her lamp’s wick, and have it filled with oil and ready to light as soon as he arrived.

Prophetically, the Scriptures tells us that the saints of Yeshua are to be resurrected and to meet the returning Messiah Yeshua in the air at the seventh or last shofar blast on Yom Teruah (Day of the Trumpets, Shouting or Shofar Blasts, see 1 Cor 15:52; Rev 11:15–18). From the time the saints begin hearing the shofar blasts in the distance signaling the arrival Continue reading

 

The Golden Calf Incident: A Prophetic Picture of the Church

Exodus 32, On Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost), at Mount Sinai, YHVH entered into a marriage covenant with the children of Israel, but they were not ready to live up to the terms of that covenant. Those terms, simply stated, involved the Israelites being faithful and obedient only to YHVH, Israel’s Elohim (God) and spiritual husband, and to his instruction in righteousness, the Torah. This Israel quickly demonstrated they were not willing to do, for they had hardly said “I do” to their marriage vows (Exod 24:3, 7) when they turned their hearts away from YHVH and began worshipping the golden calf—a pagan deity from Egypt. After the golden calf incident and up until Yom Teruah (the Day of Trumpets or Shofar Blasts) when Moses received the second tablets of stone from YHVH containing the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel, the bride of YHVH, prepared herself not only to receive YHVH’s instructions again, but this time to be faithful to her marriage vows. This Israel did. She remained faithful to YHVH for approximately 38 years while trekking through the wilderness of Sinai, after which she entered the Promised Land and “stayed the course” until after the death of Joshua.

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Sadly, the cycles of history often repeat themselves. This time, it involved the descendants of the children of Israel who were at Mount Sinai. In the early first century A.D.,  the redeemed Israelite followers of Yeshua received the Torah written on the fleshly tablets of their hearts by the finger of the Spirit of Elohim on the Day of Pentecost (Shavuot) as recorded in Acts 2. But starting at about A.D. 70 with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and continuing up through the Second Jewish Revolt of A.D. 135 until the time of Emperor Constantine (in the fourth century), the first-century spiritual bride of Messiah had, for the most part, abandoned YHVH’s Torah-commandments and turned, to one degree or another, to a mixed form of worship (of which ancient Israel’s worship at the golden calif was a prophetic foreshadow) where some pagan practices were assimilated into the early churches’ belief system (most notably, Sunday replaced the Sabbath, and Christmas, Easter and other paganistic holidays replaced the biblical feasts).

Moses’ descent of Mount Sinai on Yom Teruah with the second set of tablets containing the Torah prophetically foreshadows Yeshua’s second coming. As Moses renewed YHVH’s Continue reading

 

A Quick Tour of the Tabernacle

The Outer Courtyard

The Outer Curtain (Exod 27:9–19)

The tabernacle’s outer court was approximately 150 feet long by 75 feet wide (or 11,250 square feet, which is about one-fourth of an acre) in size.

The curtains of the outer court (Exod 27:9–19) were made of fine white linen and was seven-and-a-half feet tall. The linen curtains speak of robes of righteousness the bride of Yeshua will wear on her wedding day (Rev 19:8).

Sixty pillars supported the outer curtain. They were set in heavy bronze (or brass) bases topped by silver capitals. These pillars represent redeemed humanity wearing robes of righteousness. Wood symbolizes humanity, while bronze symbolizes judgment against man because of sin, and silver represents redemption or Elohim’s ransom price for man’s sin.

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The Door to the Tabernacle (Exod 27:16–17)

The door of the outer court curtain contained three colors woven into white linen fabric: blue, purple, crimson, and white. These four colors speak of different attributes of Yeshua, whom Scripture likens to the door of salvation (John 10:1–18). These four colors combine to form a full picture of Yeshua, the Redeemer and Savior of Israel. Only through him can man come to the Father, have salvation, eternal life and inhabit the glorious New Jerusalem pictured by the glory cloud over the Holy of holies in the tabernacle. The four colors also correspond to the four faces of the living beings around the throne of Elohim (Ezek 1).

Crimson symbolizes the human aspects of Yeshua, for red is the color of man and red clay Continue reading

 

New Video: Tabernacle of Moses: An Aerial View

Why study and learn about the Tabernacle of Moses? What are its main themes? How is it like a gospel tract, and a blue print that the Creator is using to reach out to and to communicate with men? How does this ancient divinely-inspired structure impact your spiritual destiny? Watch this video and find out. Also please check out my other videos on the Tabernacle of Moses.