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“Now Jericho was shut up so tight because of the children of Israel that no one went out and no one went in. And Jehovah said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho and its king and the mighty men of valor into your hand. And you shall circle the city, all the men of valor, going around the city one time. Thus shall you do for six days. And seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the Ark. Then on the seventh day you shall circle the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they give off the blast of the ram’s horn and you hear the trumpet sound, all the people shall shout with a great shout. And the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, each straight ahead.
“So Joshua the son of Nun called the priests and said to them, Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and let seven priests carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the Ark of Jehovah. And he said to the people, Pass on and circle the city, and let the armed men pass on before the Ark of Jehovah.
“Then when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before Jehovah passed on and blew the trumpets; and the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah went after them. And the armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets; and the rearguard went after the Ark, the trumpets continually blowing. And Joshua commanded the people, saying, You shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, nor let a word go forth from your mouth, until the day I say to you, Shout! Then you shall shout. So he had the Ark of Jehovah circle the city, going around it one time. And they came into the camp and lodged in the camp. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the Ark of Jehovah. And the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams’ horns went before the Ark of Jehovah, continually blowing the trumpets; and the armed men went before them, and the rearguard went after the Ark of Jehovah, the trumpets continually blowing. And they circled the city on the second day one time and returned to the camp. This they did for six days” (Josh. 6:1-14).
Now let us read Romans 15:16. “That I might be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” This means that the apostle Paul preached the gospel as a priest.
“We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). The apostles continued steadfastly in prayer first, then in the ministry of the word.
I believe we know that Ephesians 6 is a chapter dealing with spiritual warfare. After mentioning the armor of God in the previous verses, verse 18 says, “By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.” There is no doubt that this is the priestly ministry.
All service for the Lord must be priestly, regardless of what kind of service it is. Our service to the Lord must be a kind of priestly service. The priests in the Old Testament were not only priests but also the army, so the army was a priestly army. Priests not only stand before God, ministering unto Him, but they also fight the battle. The army of the Lord is a priestly army. This means that if we are not priests, we can never fight the battle for the Lord. We must be a priesthood in order to fight the battle for God.
After the children of Israel went over the Jordan and entered the land of Canaan, the first warfare was a battle fought by the priests. It was not fought by any secular weapons but by the Ark. The Ark was the prevailing weapon. In addition, the priests used rams’ horns. They were a peculiar army, and they fought the battle in a peculiar way with a peculiar weapon. Everything was peculiar. That is not the way we would fight a battle. Later on, however, we will see that we must learn to fight the battle in this way. Basically speaking, this army was the priesthood. I do not mean the office of the priests but an army of priests, a body of priests coordinated together under the leadership of the Ark.
As we come to the New Testament, we see that the apostles were priestly apostles. An apostle must be a priest. If we do not know how to be priests, we can never be apostles. The apostle Paul tells us that he served as a priest in preaching the gospel. It was as a priest that he offered all the Gentile believers unto God as an offering. I believe that you have read Romans many times, but have you ever noticed that Romans 15:16 tells us that Paul preached the gospel as a priest? If we are evangelists, we must be such as priests. We must be priestly evangelists. If we are not priests, we can never preach the gospel in an adequate way. The gospel must be preached by priestly evangelists.
Then the apostle Peter tells us that he and others had to first continue steadfastly in prayer and then in the ministry of the word. This means that to minister the word, we must first be priests. As priests, we must give ourselves to prayer and spend time in the presence of the Lord. This is the priestly ministry.
Before all kinds of service, we must first serve as priests in the Lord’s presence. If we are elders, we must be priestly elders. If we are deacons or deaconesses, we must first be priests. Without being priests, we can never be good brothers or good sisters in the church. But even this is not all. We must be priestly husbands, priestly wives, and priestly parents. We have to be priestly in all things.
The army must be priestly; the apostle must be priestly; the evangelist must be priestly; the minister of the word must be priestly; the elder and deacon must be priestly; the brothers and sisters must be priestly; and the husbands, wives, parents, and children must be priestly. This simply means that in the Lord’s service we must first open ourselves to the Lord and spend time in His presence. This will enable Him to fill, saturate, and even swallow us up so that we may be one with Him. Then He will be our content, and we will be His expression. He will be able to say something through us and to express something from within us, whether we are fighting the battle, preaching the gospel, teaching the word, or serving as elders or deacons. Whatever we are will be a channel for the Lord to flow out. This must be our way of living, our way of work, and our way of service.
Thirty years ago, if a brother came to me asking how he should act as an elder, I would have outlined several points he needed to know. I would have said, “Brother, let us open the Word,” and then I would have given him all the points. But today if anyone comes to me to ask how to be an elder, I will say, “Go to be a priest. Go to practice the priesthood. Then you will be a good elder.” When I was young, the sisters also came to me and asked how to have a proper family life. Again, I would give them the first point, the second point, the third, etc., until twelve points were given. But in these last years I simply tell the young sisters to go to the Lord, touch the Lord, and be touched by Him. When the Lord has saturated you, you will know how to be a good wife. It is not by the Ten Commandments or the twelve commandments. All the commandments do not work. Only one thing works, that is, to go to the Lord, open yourself to Him, and let Him fill and saturate you with Himself. Then the Lord will be your very content and reality, and you as a good wife, good husband, good elder, or deacon will be His outward manifestation.
Do not trust in your message, teaching, or ministry very much. There is only one thing in which we can trust: the priesthood. In 1934 a co-worker moved to one of the biggest cities in north China. It was a naval base with a population of nearly one million people. When he went there, he was very poor and did not know anyone in that city. The first few years he really had a hard time. He could not get one person to meet with him. Later, two or three moved there from my hometown, but it was a very difficult situation. Many of the brothers tried to encourage this brother to move to another city, but he would not move. Gradually, people began to be saved, and the number increased. In the spring of 1949, they baptized more than seven hundred people at one baptism. The point is this: this brother could not minister in a very eloquent way. He was awkward in speaking, and his utterance was always very slow. But he prayed very much. The work there in that city was carried on by the priestly ministry.
The church is built up basically by the priestly ministry, not by the teaching ministry. All the local churches must be local bodies of priests. We do not need much speaking, but we need the priestly ministry. A strong local church is one that is full of praying people. They may not be so strong in talking or in teaching, but they are very strong in praying. Their spirit is strong in prayer because they practice the priesthood in their daily walk. They have learned to open themselves to the Lord, to go to Him and spend time in His presence. They have learned to be filled and even swallowed up by the Lord. Therefore, their spirit is so living, so active, and so aggressive. When they come to the meetings, nothing can quench them. There is something burning within their spirit.
Do not think that I am encouraging you to pray by asking the Lord to do something. This is not my point. Real prayer is not to ask the Lord to do something for you or for the church. Real prayer is to open yourself to the Lord. Do not ask Him to do anything, but simply open yourself to Him, and let Him fill and saturate you with Himself. Then He will burden you to pray, and He will give you guidance to pray. Your prayer will then be according to the inner feeling, not according to your mind.
Why do we need to pray? It is because we cannot do anything. We can never be elders, we can never be deacons, and we can never be evangelists. We just cannot do it. So we must pray, which means that we put our trust in the Lord. The second reason we need to pray is that we realize God must do something through us. Without us, even God cannot do anything. This is quite remarkable. Without us, the Lord cannot preach the gospel. Without us, He can never save sinners. Although we need Him, He needs us even more. So we have to pray because we cannot do anything and because without us God cannot do anything. The third reason we must pray is that God wants to mingle Himself with man. Therefore, we pray to open ourselves to Him that He may mingle Himself with us. When God and man are mingled together through priestly praying, God will flow out through man to do His work.
So we see that if we are going to build up the church, we must first realize that we cannot do anything. We cannot build up the church, yet we must. This burdens us to pray. Even the Lord cannot build up the church unless we pray. The building up of the church can only be accomplished by the mingling of God with man. There must be certain ones who offer themselves to the Lord so that the Lord may mingle Himself with them. Then it will be possible for the church to be built up. This building is not by the ministry of the word but by the ministry of the priesthood. We must simply learn to practice the priesthood; then we will see the result.
In reading the history of the church and the biographies of many spiritual persons, we found the same principle. It is not a matter of work or a matter of ministering. It is a matter of practicing the priesthood. We must have the priestly ministry. Of course, we do need people to work in the outer court, but we must know that all the activities in the outer court are under the direction of those who are in the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies. Without the priests in the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies, there is no direction for the people to work in the outer court. All the outward activities must be under the direction of the inward priesthood. We need this priestly ministry today.
I must repeat again that to fight the battle or be the army in Ephesians 6, we need the priesthood. We must offer ourselves to the Lord that He may take us over, saturate us, and make us one with Him. Then, in this mingling, the Lord will move deep within us to express something. This is the priesthood, and this is basic and necessary for any kind of ministry. Without this, whatever teachings, messages, ways, or gifts we have will not work. Past history has adequately proven this. All these things have been tried in the past centuries. Teachings, ways, messages, gifts, and so many different kinds of practices have been tried and found wanting.
If we are not in the life of the Spirit, regardless of what way we use, we are still in deadness. Once a brother told me that about sixteen or seventeen years ago, he learned from the Brethren the way to have a meeting, that is, to arrange the seats in a circle rather than in one direction. So they changed their arrangement of chairs and found that they had more deadness. After a period of time, they decided to return to the old way of arranging the chairs in one direction. If we are not in the life of the Spirit, the more directions we have, the more deadness we will have. If we arrange the seats in one direction, we will have one direction of death. If we arrange the chairs in four directions, we will have four directions of death. When you are a dead person, no matter what way people arrange you, you are still dead. When I am living, regardless of how I am seated, I am still living. It is not a way; it is life. It is not the message; it is the Spirit. It is not the gifts; it is the priesthood.
There are too many teachings in today’s Christianity, and all the ways have been tried in the past. It is not the way but the life, the Spirit, the priesthood in the Holy of Holies. Forget about the way; get into His presence and let Him saturate you.
We must see today that it is not this or that, but it is a matter of life in the Spirit. When I was young, I would argue about a number of things, saying that they were scriptural. But today I know it is foolish to argue in that way. It is neither this nor that, but the life in the Spirit. We have to be in the presence of the Lord. We have to open ourselves and be filled with Him.
In the priesthood the only way is the presence of the Lord. We must have the Lord’s presence. This is why it is rather hard to find any kind of way in the New Testament. What is the best way to preach the gospel? No one can tell you. What is the best way to hold a meeting? Again, no one can tell you. If you were to ask me what the right way is, I would have to say that I do not know. I really do not know what the right way is. In the Bible you can never find a way to minister the word or to do the work of the Lord. This is because the New Testament is the dispensation of the Spirit. Whatever way you use, it must be in the spirit. Everything must be in the spirit. In these last years, wherever I have gone, I have never paid any attention to the way. Regardless of the way people meet or serve the Lord, it does not mean anything. The real problem is this: Is there the presence of the Lord? Is there the life in the spirit?
May the Lord have mercy upon us that we may be delivered from anything other than the priesthood. We must learn this one lesson of being in the presence of the Lord. Then we will come out of the Lord’s presence with the bread and wine to minister to the people’s needs. This is what we need. If we are an army, we must be a priestly army. If we are apostles, we must be priestly apostles. No matter what kind of persons we are or functions we have, we must be priests. Then there will be the free course for the Lord to go on and accomplish something through us to fulfill His purpose.
It would be foolish for us to repeat the tragedy of history. Since the recovery of the Lord started, five hundred years ago, the priesthood has not been recovered completely, even today. The Brethren have seen the so-called universal priesthood—that everyone should function. But that does not work. You cannot expect dead people to function. You cannot expect those who are empty to minister Christ to others. The priesthood is not just something universal; it is something of life, something living, something divine, and something in the presence of God. We believe that in these last years the Lord must recover this priesthood—not the universal priesthood but the holy and royal priesthood.
We must be brought into the reality of contacting the Lord and being filled with Him. Then we will be so living and so aggressive in the spirit to minister something of the Lord to others. This is the priesthood, and this is what the Lord is going to recover in a corporate way. The priesthood is not something individualistic but something corporate. It is a body of priests working, coordinating, and functioning together in a body way. I have the assurance that the Lord is going to recover this priesthood in these last days.
