Let's pray, sweetie. Our Father, we thank you for your son, and we thank you for the opportunity we've had here these last several weeks to talk about who he is and hear about his office as the prophet, priest, and king. So we continue to talk about those today, and we pray for your enabling and ability to understand that we might know Him better, and serve Him, and love Him, and worship Him more fully. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, well we have talked then a little bit about Christ as our prophet, bringing God's Word to us, and then we have talked a little bit about Christ as our priest, and how He represents us before God. And the priest does three key things. One, of course, he offers sacrifices. He also prayed on behalf of the people. And he blessed the people. These are the three key functions. We can talk about some others, even his role as judge. But in particular, that one will overlap with Christ's role as king and his office there. about how Christ is our priest looking at passages, especially Psalm 110 and the Book of Hebrews. And then we talked briefly last time about Christ, our sacrifice, who is perfect, sinless, blameless, as well as dying on our behalf. So Christ as priest offers himself as a sacrifice. And then we started on the theme Christ interceding for us, and he is at God's right hand doing that, even this very moment, taking the prayer that was just prayed a couple minutes ago, and perfecting it, and presenting it to his Father, and so forth. We read from John 17, where he prays, and we read from 1 John 2, he is our advocate, and from Hebrews 7, where it says that he intercedes on our behalf. Now, there were two others that I wanted us to look at briefly. And so let's turn to Romans chapter 8. And I just wanted to call our attention to this too. In verse 26, we see these words, Romans 8 verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. He who searches the heart knows what the mind and spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And so we have the spirit helping us to pray. And then in verse 27, he, okay, seems to be referring to Jesus, is making intercession for the saint. So he who searches the mind of the spirit is making intercession for us. Seems to be a reference to Jesus there. And so when we pray, the spirit enables us, strengthens us, helps us. And then, of course, the spirit heard of the son, Jesus, takes their prayers and mingles them with his incense, as it were, and presents them to God on our behalf. Then we have one other here in this way, and that's John 14. And here we have the promise of the coming spirit. by Jesus, in John 14 and verse 16. John 14 and verse 16. And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another, the King James says here, helper, that He may abide with you forever in the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot perceive, and so forth. Now, the word here for helper is the Greek word parathlete. And it's a Greek word you've probably heard before. And the idea of helper, I think, is a fair way of translating it. Comforter, maybe more familiar to us. Defense, defender, defense lawyer, something like that. You'll hear people give those ideas. And even advocate. And so as we saw in 1 John 2 last week in verse 1, Jesus is our advocate. So here's another advocate, the Spirit, who is strengthening us here in our prayers in particular. And so the connections with Jesus and the Spirit are made in Romans 8 and now here as well. So briefly then, Jesus, as our priest, is praying. on our behalf, and more specifically, taking our prayers and perfecting them, mingling them with His incense, His perfection, His good smells, if you will, and making our prayers smell good to God. And so just a few words here on this aspect before we continue. This is more of a comment. In our women's study, we just studied that passage about that many months ago in John 14. And Sinclair Ferguson, he was doing his sermons on this Doppler group. And I thought his description about advocate was really neat, because he talked about the idea behind the word is more like how it used to be in the law, where where the person who came as your advocate and your defense attorney was not a hired person. It was someone who knew you from the time you were in diapers. So they've known you for years. They could vouch for your character. It was that kind of an advocate, a helper, someone who knew you through and through intimately. And I thought that was really a neat, drawing out of me that I had never, I had never put all that together. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess that's a point I was assuming, but it's helpful to make, because it is true. In our culture today, we hire a lawyer who may have no idea who we are. And we give them money, and they'll try to defend us. But certainly, that's not true with God, and the Spirit, and Jesus. who knows us better than we know ourselves. Yes, Dale, are you going to? Yes. It reminds me of an episode of Vanessa. Seriously, her uncle Joe was accused of murder. He didn't hire an attorney. He had a law student. Anyway, very good episode. All right. Any other comments or questions? All right, let's talk then about the third key function of the priest, and that is blessing the people. And let's start with number six here. And we did look at this, I think it was two weeks ago now, number six. And you recall at the time, we also looked at Leviticus 9, which gives us And so since Jesus is our high priest, let's read these words in light of what Aaron is foreshadowing. So in verse 22 of number 6, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his son saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Obviously the word blessing is used several times in this set of verses. And as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when we read this, this is not strictly a prayer. It is an act of blessing. You're putting the word of blessing upon people. So when I stand up here and I raise my hand as Leviticus 9 talks about, I'm placing a blessing on you. I'm acting as your priest in this way. And so in regards to Jesus, this is anticipating what Jesus would do. And so it is the Lord, Yahweh, our Covenant Lord, that is blessing us, keeping us. The word keep is the idea of protecting. But it takes us back to Genesis 2, verse 15. Our first priest, Adam, he was to tend and to keep, but he failed. And so the role of priesthood is to do what Adam did, but of course they failed. And all this points forward to Christ, who keeps us, who blesses us. And then, as we talked about last week and the week before, when God's face shines on us, that's the idea of salvation. The light theme of the lampstand. And thus, all this is God's grace. And then, the Lord lifts up His countenance. A very similar idea here. Lifting up His face. Again, this idea of salvation and giving you peace. Grace and peace. Two key themes, obviously. in regard to our salvation. And so this blessing highlights the salvation that God brings and gives to his people. And as I often do, I often end it then with the word of Jesus. Because as you read the blessings in the New Testament, they all mention the name of Christ in one way or another. And so I often then say, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because he's ultimately the priest whose blessings Not Aaron, not me, though I am a conduit, if you will, and a representative in that way. And so, my point here is, see how it is fulfilled in Christ. For he is the one who blesses us ultimately as our priest. All right, now let's turn to Psalm 29 for a moment. we see this anticipation, but we do see some other places. And here's one of those, the Psalm of David, Psalm 29. And at the end, verse 11, it says, the Lord will give strength to his people, the Lord will bless his people with peace. Obviously, it calls us back to number six. And the Lord then anticipates what Jesus will do here. So let's then turn to the New Testament. And where we see it most is in the role of Jesus in giving gifts. So let's turn to Romans 10 here. we think of our tithes and offerings, right, our gifts, in that sense. When we think of a blessing, this is, in essence, a gift that is being placed upon you. And so, in Romans 10, verse 12, we see this language, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich toward all who call upon Him. Number six is focusing on God's salvation, His grace and peace to us. If we call on the Lord, there's the blessing, there's the gift, and the Lord is the one who gives it to us. And then maybe a little more specifically, if you turn to Ephesians 4, But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he let captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Quoted from Psalm 68. Now this, the Ascendant, goes to mean that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. The Ascendant is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some, the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, and equipping the saints for the work of ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ. And so I am one of these gifts that Christ has given, and part of what I do is I pronounce the blessing, and that gift upon them. And then lastly, let's turn to Revelation, and we have the promise of many And so let me just read these quickly. In Revelation 2, in Revelation 2, verse 7, toward the end of the verse, to him who overcomes, though, he has to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. And then, verse 11, he who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. In verse 17, to him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden man to eat. I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it. And then the end of chapter verse 27, and it starts in verse 26, sorry, verse 28, and I will give him the morning star. In chapter three, We see it in verse 5, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. And then in verse 12, he who overcomes shall make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name. And this is our name, New Jerusalem. And then lastly, verse 21, to him who overcomes, I will grant you to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. These are the gifts Christ has given, and they all relate to salvation in one way or another, starting with the field life that we saw there in chapter 2, verse 7. Our point here is Jesus is blessing us. He is not just saying words, but giving gifts. And I can't bless you more than just telling you what is true. I might talk with you and spend time with you or something like that, but the ultimate blessing is I'm giving you or I'm trying to give you the truth regarding the scriptures. All right. Comments, questions? Yes. Getting back to the idea of the pronouncing of blessing. I've been in church services where the pastor would pronounce to the congregation, you are forgiven. always kind of troubles me, it seems to me more like a priest saying, tell your soul, eh? What's your thoughts on that? Well, like, was it last week we were talking about some of the Catholic ideas, or was it the week before maybe? And there are elements of truth of what what they do, that they go too far, maybe not far enough in certain ways. It is common in Reformed circles in the liturgy to have a pronouncement of encouragement, comfort, that we are forgiven in Christ. And so I tend to do that in my prayers in one way or another when I do the pastoral prayer to include that. I guess I would say how are they saying it and how the one saying the words, or are we calling our attention to the one who forgives? I've heard a pastor say, I declare it to you now that we are forgiven. And I say, well, you know, there are probably people in the congregation that are just there for show, but it troubles me him saying that. You know, like as if he's giving a blanket declaration to every one present. Well, I've made comments. along these lines at different times. When you read the scriptures and maybe Paul's letters in particular, he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. He speaks on the one hand to the elect, on the other hand to the professing believer. And so those aren't necessarily and gives words of comfort like that to the church at Ephesus or whatever. And yet at the same time, he'll say things like, well, if you believe in Jesus or something to that effect. And so there's more of a question if you're truly saved. So I will tend to do both things, I will say words of comfort correctly. Assuming everyone hears a believer, other times I don't. So again, I think it would depend on what all is being said around that pronouncement. That sounded like passive voice, the way you said it. And if a person used it that way, I probably wouldn't bother me nearly as much as if they said, I declare to you, your sins are forgiven. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Because there's clearly someone outside our sins are forgiven in Him. I therefore declare, those of you who trust in Him, your sins are forgiven, or something to that effect. I wouldn't have a problem with it. If he didn't seem to make any distinction, it was like as if he was speaking to everyone present. I found that troubling. Well, I think it can be done, but I think you need to word it carefully, too. One, not to call your attention to yourself. And two, like you're saying, not to give false assurance. So anyway, I guess a few thoughts to your question. Other questions or comments? Alright, then, when we talk about Christ as prophet, I kind of interspersed how we are prophets and how he is a prophet. Here, let me end with the idea how we are all priests. The priesthood of all believers. So let's turn to two passages here just a moment. And that is, first is 1 Peter chapter 2. Peter here is mentioning metaphors. We are stones and priests. So in 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 4, he says, coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house of holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And then jump down to verse 9, But you are chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and so forth. And so here we see Peter saying, very specifically, that we're all priests. And I'm inclined to say that the audience to whom Peter writes were largely Gentiles. There's some debate on whether he's writing to the dispersion of Israelites who believe in Jesus, or he's talking to Gentiles. And I'm inclined to believe Gentiles makes a little more sense. But either way, these words apply to Gentiles. And we are all priests. Yeah, interesting that Peter says this in light of the whole issue of the Pope and so on. But we are all priests, he says. And we are priests ministering within that temple. And so as priests, we're going to do the same things. Sacrifice, prayer, blessing. Let's turn to one other, and that's Romans chapter 12. And you're probably thinking of some others too. Verse 1, Romans 12, verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Only priests offer sacrifices. So note the assumption that we're a priest here. And here it's a living sacrifice. All right, now when we talk about a priesthood of all believers, I think what we tend to emphasize is we have access to God in prayer. If the temple bell's been torn, we can come into the throne room of God and we see that in Hebrews 9 and 10 and so forth. And that sometimes is all we talk about. And obviously that's a very important aspect to this. We do have access to God in prayer as a priest. We can come, as it were, to the altar of innocence. I don't have to have a priest do that for me. I can do it myself. And all believers can. And so we can offer our prayers to the Lord and offer sacrifices, your living sacrifice. And back to 1 Peter 2 as well, as the priest said. But it's more than that. To be the priesthood of all believers means that we too are giving gifts to others. When we witness and tell them about Christ and about His sacrifice, we're giving a gift to someone. We're pronouncing a blessing, as it were, as we give the words to them. You might think of teaching and training your children, or teaching here at church, or Sunday school, or Idol school, or whatever. There are ways we can do this. And I guess in some ways back to what Joe was saying, we're not the priest offering the sacrifice. That's what Jesus has done. We call people's attention to what he has done. And this then blesses people. give to them, and so forth. So don't just think about prayer when we talk about the priesthood of all believers. But certainly that's a large part of it. OK, so if you read forwards here this way, comments or questions. All right, let's talk then about Christ our King. And this is the third one. You can put these in a different order, but this is how you almost always hear a priest and king, so just following that order. And as I've said before, we can't just emphasize one office of Christ, or even two offices of Christ. All three must be emphasized. For if we emphasize one or the other, Or two out of three, there's an imbalance there. And it's going to lead us into wrong places. And so we add, then, the idea of Christ as our king. Pretty, can you say, comforting and nice to talk about Christ as our priest. Even Christ our prophet gives us God's word. When we talk about Christ as king, it might make us squirm a little bit. We need to talk about him as a king and the fullness of who he is and what this means as well. All right, so the prophet brings God's word to the people. The priest represents the people before God. And the king then, of course, rules over the people with God's authority. All right, now, we're not going to get through all this today. some observations and then some scriptures here. The way God established things in the beginning to Adam is that Adam was the prophet, priest, and king. We see him bringing the word of God to Eve. We see him ruling, subduing the earth as king. We see him as a priest there in the garden, tending and keeping it and so on. And then we see elements of that after the fall, and after the flood, and so forth. We can see Abraham as a kind of prophet priest who came as well. And yet, these elements are more individual, more limited or local, you might say. And then, of course, when we come to the exodus, and we come to most Obviously, he writes the first five books of the Bible. And he brings the word of God from Mount Sinai to the people. So the office of prophet is established and then anticipates Christ as the prophet like Moses. And then you see a number of prophets, of course, throughout the Old Testament. The same can be said about the priesthood. We see no offering sacrifices in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and so forth. But it's not until the exodus at Mount Sinai where the office of priest is established. And of course, you have the book of Leviticus and other places where it's clearly spelled out what they are to do, and how they're to dress, and so on and so forth. that the office of king is not established at this time. The idea of king is from the beginning, Genesis 1, who will subdue the earth. We see elements of that, Noah leading, of course, Abraham leading, and so forth. But Moses is never called a king, nor is Joshua. And I think that's very deliberate. on God's part, because there already is a king in Israel. He is their king. There's no need to establish one. Now, he obviously could have done this differently, but this is the way he set it forth. And so I think we must understand it in its redemptive historical focal point, as it's given to us. So let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 1 here in a moment. establishment of a civil authority at the time of the Exodus. Exodus 18 is probably the closest you can get. And here in Deuteronomy 1, we have these words, beginning in verse 9. And I spoke to you at that time saying, I alone am not able to bear you. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude. Remember the light theme? May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are and bless you as he has promised you. How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? Choose wise understanding and knowledgeable men from among your tribes and I will make them heads over you. And you answered me and said, the thing which you have told us to do is good. I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes. And I commanded your judges at that time, saying, hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brethren from a stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear the smallest loves to great. You shall not be afraid in any man's presence. The judgment is God's. The case that is too hard for you brings me, and I will hear. And I command you at that time, I commanded you at that time, all the things which you should do. And so we see here then, again, referring to Exodus 18, that through Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, God led Israel to establish a representative and local focus in terms of civil government. not a king at the top and descending from there. Moses is a temporary figure in that, if you will, federal sense. The things are, can you say, state focused with the different tribes. And so, And it says, then you shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you according to your tribes. And they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not prefer justice. You shall not show partiality nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not plant for yourself any tree. Oh, sorry, that's the end of the next one. So here, through verse 20, then, we see the same idea. Chapter 1, the first back text is 18. Now, this one is anticipating coming into the promised land. And it's not. It's immediately different. They're going to have this local rule, this state sovereignty, if you will, and the establishment of a civil order in the land. Then if you look down at chapter 17 and verse 8, note some of the assumptions here. If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge between degrees of guilt or bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates. In other words, you can't come to agreement in your local communities. You shall rise and go up to the place which your Lord your God chooses, where he's going to put the tabernacle. And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them. They shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which your Lord chooses. You should do what they say. And so notice then that Moses does not talk about a successor to himself. There is Joshua, but for the purpose of the conquest. And after Joshua, we don't see a successor to him. And the successor, in this civil sense, is the priesthood. So when there's a civil matter that is of dispute and controversy, they were to go then to this federal system. Now, what I have often heard then is verses 14 and following read outside of the context of what we've just read. Verse 14, when you come to the land which the Lord your God has given you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me. you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. For the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Also it shall be when he sits on the throne in his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, and the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him that he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes. That his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the command of the right hand or to the left, that he may for the longest days of his kingdom, he and his children, be with us in this world. Now, in light of what we see in Exodus and now here even in Deuteronomy, this seems to be kind of out of place. How does this fit? He's talking about local authority, civil authority. So why then all of a sudden this talk about a king? Well, I think the key really centers around verse 14. When they say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me. That's our clue. It's not that God is saying that the king is a good thing. But when they want to be like the nations, this is how it's supposed to be done. God is the king of Israel. He's also their priest. does not happen when the establishment of the prophet and priest take place. There's an anticipation of an establishment of the king, office of king. But it's couched in terms that are not very good. It's a desire to be like the nations when they want a king. So let's turn then to 1 Samuel 8. We won't get any further than this here this morning. But in 1 Samuel 8, here's where Israel's demanding a king. Now remember, we can go back to Judges 8 and 9, where they want a Gideon to be king, and then they establish a Bimelech as king. And so in many ways, Bimelech's the first king of Israel. But here we see it in a more comprehensive way, broader way, in the land. We know the story. There comes Samuel, and his sons aren't accepting him very well. And so, in verse 4, he comes to Samuel. Rava, verse 5. Hey, look, you're old, your sons aren't doing well. Make us a king to judge us, like all the nations. Well, it's that same language from Deuteronomy and Jaffa, verse 17. And then, verse 6. The thing is, please, Samuel, when they said, give us a king to judge us, So Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, Heed the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt to you to this day, with which they have forsaken me and served other causes, so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice, However, you shall solemnly forewarn them and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them." As we see here, again, God's granting it, but not because it's a good thing. They projected Him to be like the nations. They projected Him as their king. Summarize verse 10 and following, here's what he's going to do basically. He's going to raise taxes. He's going to set up a military and take your stuff and your people and so on and so forth. Verse 19. Therefore, or nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Sam when they said, no, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. Now, there's more to read here. Chapters 10 and 12 say some similar things, but we'll pick up that next time. But notice as we come on to the time of the establishment of the office of king and son, we're now about 400 years after the establishment of the office of prophet and priest. 400 years of Israel rejecting God their king. And finally, they say, enough is enough. We want to be the king. So they've been trying to do it for many years. So obviously, the office of king is established. The question is why? Why do you got to do it? And we'll try to answer that question. Our Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you, our Lord Jesus, that you, the living word, our prophet, you have brought God's word to us. You are our priest, and you have offered yourself as sacrifice, and that you pray for us even now, and you bless us. And we praise you too, that you are our king, and you rule over us justly. We pray, Lord, that as we come now to worship you, that you would now strengthen us by your Spirit, and that you would grow us in grace, that we might truly be blessed, and that you would advance your kingdom.