The Melchizedek Priesthood

At the time I was here two weeks ago, we had a sermon, and we used as a prop some oil, some olive oil. And we compared that olive oil as it's usually compared in the Bible to the Holy Spirit. We also looked at some containers we could see and used the parallel of vessels that this olive oil is held.

And it's like our bodies are also vessels for His Holy Spirit. That's what makes us holy. There's nothing holy about us. Just because we're made in God's image doesn't necessarily make us holy. But when we have His Holy Spirit, that's what makes us holy. And we ventured then into the understanding from Hebrews about another kind, a better kind of priesthood. Not the Levitical priesthood, but the Melchizedek priesthood. And I pointed to the fact that we are here, and we are being trained as part of the Melchizedek priesthood. And I also brought out that in the Greek there is no real masculine noun for that priest because you can either be a male priest or a female priest.

It's another language that you actually have the word priestess, but not in the Greek as we understand it. So, as I look upon you today, I am looking at the priesthood, all those training to be priests. And you have responsibilities. And it is a big responsibility. And as I like to bring out, it is a calling because God does call us, as we know from Scripture. I won't go through that. You can't just come to God and say, Hey, God, think I'll be a priest.

It doesn't work that way. It didn't work that way with the Levitical priesthood, even though Jeroboam thought he could do that. God condemned it. But you must understand, and hopefully we'll bring that out today, about this Melchizedek priesthood. Because there's going to be a series of sermons on that because it is a serious calling. It is a serious responsibility to accept it. And as we look around this room, we see that there are not thousands of people. God has not called thousands of people to be part of the Melchizedek priesthood.

You ever wonder why? Tell you the truth when you know what's involved. Most do not and would not want to do it. It's that different of a lifestyle. And once you become part of the Melchizedek priesthood, it will define you. It will define you. And I'd like to use the analogy or the comparison today at the start, comparing the priesthood to another bit of calling. I only had the opportunity of two men in my life that I have met. One was a judge and the other was another man I met in my work.

Now, I was able to spend some time with them, but they had unique training. They had a unique calling. They were both part of the Navy SEALs. Now, many of you hopefully know about the Navy SEALs. You might have seen movies. I've read a couple books from Marcus Luttrell's book on Lone Survivor, which I actually made into a movie, to Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior, as he was the creator of SEAL Team 6.

There's been various movies and books written about these unique individuals, the Navy SEALs. They are the elite of the elite, and their training is specialized. And they realize that they are not like everyone else. They are willing to accept the training that they are going to be put through, because as an active Navy SEAL, you are never not training. You are always working out. You are always watching your diet. You are staying a fit, physical machine. You are used to getting up and running five, even 10 miles a day in the morning, before you go to work.

Your diet is monitored. Your body fat is monitored. Even when you are off, as they say, and you have time off, as was told in the book Rogue Warrior, even what you drink, the alcoholic beverage that you would drink, you are required to only drink Coors Light Beer. So that if you were called at any time and you had a lot of beer that you drank, which a lot of them did, they knew exactly what to inject in you to turn you back into the fighting machine that the government had trained you.

Not everyone wanted to do that. As a matter of fact, in their training, they have a part at the end that these two men that I was able to talk to told me about, and it's actually called Hell Week. And all during this training to be a seal, there is a bell that is up there, and any time you decide you can't take any more, you ring the bell, and you can drop out.

And the last part is the last week of this training is called Hell Week, because they want your life to be literally a place of hell to see if you will break. You have seven days, and during that seven days, you get anywhere between 8 and 12 hours of sleep in seven days, at which time your body is put through tremendous tests. You're required to swim miles and get out and run miles. You are trained to do incredible stunts jumping out of airplanes.

And all during this week, until your nerves are just so frayed, and it tells them whether you will break under extreme pressure. And many, most, 70-75% ring that bell during that week. They get out. So it's only the elite of the elite that carry on and become a Navy SEAL. None of us, I take it in this room, has been a Navy SEAL. Most are required to bench press 350 pounds. Well, that kind of puts me out of it. It puts a lot of us. You're also required to run under a five-minute mile for at least five miles.

And you're required to run at least one mile under five minutes carrying a 75-pound back on your back. It's extreme. These are the warriors who protect us. And even though God said it wasn't necessary, if the nation would let him protect, for those that have not allowed him to protect, I like knowing that we have Navy SEALs to protect us. That's part of their job. Why do I bring this up? Because the Navy SEALs, they are great examples of someone that have a physical calling, a physical responsibility, a physical job that not everyone wants to do.

And most people, when they get into it, realize it's a little more than what they had anticipated. So is the calling of the Melchizedek priesthood. To follow God and to be a priest of God. It's a spiritual battle. Scripture even tells us we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities of the air. Spiritual powers that work on us, they work on our minds. They work on our families. They work to try to get us to, if I can say, ring the spiritual bell and say, I'm out, don't want it.

Well, I want to look at today, this incredible calling of the Melchizedek priesthood. We saw it last time in Hebrews as the writer of Hebrews was trying to show the difference. And there is a better priesthood, not the Levitical priesthood. There is a better priesthood of the Melchizedek priesthood, of which Jesus Christ was a part of that priesthood. And that we follow when we say we are His, as we talked about last time. Peter even said, you are a royal priesthood, a chosen generation, a holy nation. So today, I'd like us to think in that way.

I'd like you to think of this congregation as a congregation of priests. And just like the Navy SEALs, there were some short ones, there were some tall ones. There were those with different abilities. There were snipers. There are snipers who are incredible shots. There are others who are hand-to-hand combat. There are those who have memorization capabilities of memorizing five or six pages of notes of just reading them one time, then being able to explain everything when those notes are destroyed. A variety of talents and qualities and gifts. So there is also in the Melchizedek priesthood. We have different gifts of different talents, different abilities.

But we are all part of the priesthood. And as they are always defined by SEAL Team Six, we are defined by our team, the Melchizedek priesthood.

I would like for us to go back to the original beginning of the Melchizedek priesthood. There are only three short verses that explain this incredible opportunity or job or calling. I'd like to go back there in Genesis 14 if you will go there with me as I read from the New King James Version. And I'd like for us to extract all that we can out of these three verses, so that perhaps you can understand what is required of our priesthood. Because what I do as part of the priesthood is different than what you do. And what is required of you may be different than what is required of the person sitting there. The person sitting next to you or beside you. Let's go there. We pick up the story as we realize that Lot was captured by Abraham's nephew. He was actually captured. He was living in the city of Sodom. And he was actually captured and taken prisoner, slaves, by a union of three or four kings. Which history tells us that this army that captured these cities and captured Lot consisted of at least 10,000 men up to 100,000. This was a major army. And then we see that Abraham found out that his nephew was taken prisoner. And being also understanding his position and his God, he actually said, I'll take three of you men, these Ammonites. You can read about that in verse 13 of chapter 14. And I'm going to take 318 of my personal servants, or men. And we're going to go get Lot and his family back. Now, I've never heard Abraham called a salesman before. I've never heard him called a motivational speaker. But obviously he was to be able to talk 318 to 322 men into going to battle with anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 men. Would you go, take me? Oh, I'm all for that! Because I think even 318 Navy SEALs would have to question their leader in saying, we're good. I'm not sure we're that good. But we see in the story that it is a rout. It is devastation on those armies. And they are totally defeated and wiped out. So as they return, Abraham does with his men after this battle, they return with not only Lot but all the goods of the city, because that's why this band of military band came in to take everything, to enrich themselves and to have slaves. But after they released their freedom, we come to verse 18. Said then, Malchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God, Most High. And he blessed him and said, blessed be Abram of God, Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God, Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all. End of story. Three verses. What are we supposed to extract from there? How are we to learn about this position that we have found ourselves in today, as we have followed the long line of those, as Jesus Christ was the first of the Melchizedek priesthood?

Can we take something from those verses? Well, let's go back and look. It said, verse 18, then Malchizedek, king of Salem. Remember the royal priesthood? So here we find in the first verse that this Malchizedek is not only royalty, because he's a king, he's also a priest.

As he sets up for us.

We are told to follow this book. We can live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That makes us a priest.

If you don't want to be a priest, don't go by the word. We have people who so-called priests in various religions today, who they go by their own book. Not by this one. That's their choice. But if you want to be part of the Malchizedek priesthood, you have to follow this book. Otherwise, you're not a priest. You're not part of it, and you will not be given your crown. Because we will serve, we are part of the family of the king of kings. He's going to be the king of kings. Okay, you got it? Kings. That's what the priesthood will be. A royal priesthood. But it says, Malchizedek came out the king, and he was a king of Salem. Does anybody here know what Salem means? What? Peace. Peace is what the Hebrew word for Salem means. And it places, as most historians will say, because of the location, this was the beginning of Jerusalem. So this is where he was located. Before there was a Jerusalem, there was a Salem. So we understand where this priest was. I think Malchizedek felt pretty good about being a city, our king over peace.

It would be no problem being we're going to be working with the prince of peace, right? So we find something here for us that we need to be as part of our kingdom that we live in now, and the kingdom that will come, the kingdom of God, we need to make sure that we do what? We demonstrate and we strive for peace. It is something that will be done in the kingdom of God. It's something that we should be used to. It's something that we have to work our lives, because many of us live in a life that is not very peaceful.

And it's something we not only have to exhibit, we have to work it to have that inner peace. Really, that's what the Sabbath is all about, is having peace. And I've actually had not a lot, but a few problems. In some churches where people in the Sabbath did not care about peace. They were the opposite. They desired to bring in chaos, or to bring in conflicts, or to bring in problems, or to bring in prejudice. Those people are no longer here. Those people are no longer in other churches that I have. Because it is very important on God's Sabbath that the brethren have peace.

God expects it, and the brethren deserve it. And it must happen. For me to bring peace to church sometimes, that means my life is not very peaceful. I have to handle conflict. Not what I enjoy. I enjoy just getting along with everybody, laughing, having a good time, and anything else. But it's it's something that we are called to handle conflict. Conflict resolution. Because it's not my way or the highway. It is God's way or the highway. In your own life, you may have children, you may have relatives, you may have people you work with that bring conflict into your life that you have to resolve the best way you can. It's part of the priesthood. You learn to handle conflict. You handle it on a small basis because we're looking at the coming kingdom of God, millions of people.

Are we working at it now? It's not just about salvation. This world and world's religions talk about salvation, salvation, salvation. It's about you having salvation. It's so much bigger than that. It's about you becoming who God has called you to become. Priests, kings. It's that big. And here we see that example here. So I hope because it doesn't come natural. Peace. We do not live in a peaceful world out here. William can tell us, right? Don't want to be in your classroom. Don't know how much I would learn. How many of your lives here is you living? But we are to walk like Melchizedek here. Okay? Because all of you know who Melchizedek really was. It's who we follow. But look, the world around him wasn't peaceful. It was war. But with him, there's peace.

We have to pray for that peace. We have to be a part of that peace. But what did he do? Here, this is the example. This is the forerunner for us. Look what he did. He brought out bread and wine.

Why?

Why would you bring out bread and wine? Why would a king or a priest, priest slash king, why would he pick up and do this food and wine and bring it out to people? He gave us the example of service.

Jesus Christ later said, what? The greatest of you is what? Servant.

This is what we do. And yet, we see the people that are somebody's. Today, they have the underlings do things. There are different careers, and we have many people in this room who have careers that if you're not a servant, you're not going to last long in your career because it's all about serving.

And you don't do it for the money. Because there's something in here. It's just something in here that says, I will serve people. I will take out a bedpan. I will do what other people would go. It's a matter of the heart. And why did God call you? What does He say time and time again, as I've said? The eyes of the Lord run to and fro over the entire earth, looking for those whose heart is loyal to Him. Same thing.

A servant! Wow! So He comes out and He brings that out. And then He said He blessed Him. Now, Kizzet blessed Abram and said, Blessed be Abram of God's Most High. He recognized who Abram was. We should recognize another priest when we run into them. Because we don't eat like everybody else, do we? We don't worship like everybody else on other days. We do not keep the holidays as holy days. We keep God's holy days as holidays. That's what we did. Our conversation is another way you're going to pick up another priest. Right? It's not going to be salty language, as Navy guys are sometimes known to have. Okay? We don't talk like that. We don't carry ourselves like that. Matter of fact, we don't even dress a certain way. But it's said that Melchizedek blessed Abram. You know what the Hebrew word or blessed is?

It's the first name of our current president of the United States. It's the same word in Aramaic as is in Hebrew. Barack. Barack. It's like Barack Obama. And that word, Barack, has two meanings. And it depends on the context. So you have to understand where the context. One means to kneel, which is not this context. And the other means to have a good word. To say a good word. Can also mean like to congratulate. So here we see Melchizedek having or saying a good word. Good words. Right here. Good words. That's part of the priesthood, and we'll go in just a few minutes from now.

How many good words do you have to say? How many people have you blessed? And we say, well, wait a minute. I thought God blesses us. He does. But how many people have you blessed? How many good words? You know, we ask God to bless the food. We say a good word over the food. And we're hoping that God removes impurities out of it. We ask that it strengthen and nourish us. And we also, in those same words, we thank Him because without Him, we would need. You don't eat because there's publics. God is the one. The sooner that you realize as a priest that everything is from God, your whole viewpoint changes.

So I walked on the beach this morning. My back didn't hurt. My legs didn't hurt. I didn't have a cold. Felt good. That was from God. And I thanked Him for that. And I said a few good words. It's a part of your prayer. It's a responsibility. But see, He also blessed me a brom of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth. He knew who His God was. There wasn't any doubt.

And He blessed Him because of it. How about you?

Then it says in verse 20, And bless be God most high, who has what? Delivered your enemies into your hand. As a priest, you recognize that God did it. I'm sure a brom and his 318 men also realize that God did it. Especially as the context is, they basically all made it back. It's like, let's take the middle ground, 318 to 50,000, and 50,000 is gone. And 318 is still there.

Most people wouldn't go to Las Vegas with those odds. But I'll take those odds with God any day. And that's what a priest is required to do. Is you know where everything comes from, and you know why it comes from. Why it comes to you. For He has delivered your enemies into your hand, and gave, He gave him a tithe of all. 10th.

It's a whole other sermon.

So we learned something here. We learned that first, there is service. As you read the Levitical priesthood, you realize they had to slaughter a lot of animals, and there was a lot of work. Just go back and read the Leviticus. You can read all the work required by the Levitical priesthood. We're not part of the Levitical priesthood. I'm not from Levi. You're not either. We're born from above.

That's why we're part of the Melchizedek priesthood. We're born from above. Spirit.

But the Levitical priesthood required a lot of work. Matter of fact, that's why you couldn't get into it. You were trained until you were 30, and then at 30, you did that for 20 years. And by the time you were 50, you were pretty well shocked. Of course, they did not live much longer than that either. Not like our age today at that time. But I want to look at that.

What is required of the Melchizedek priesthood? Service, right? It requires work. Spiritual work. And sometimes, I look at what we do or you do on Bartomahika, right there. Melchizedek priesthood. He's doing spiritual work right now. Part of the priesthood. He's serving God. So there's only two. There's only... You're serving God, and you're serving God's people. That's it, okay? Now, you may be required to serve outside of even God's people, of the people that He brings into your life, the world.

And you should not dread that, but look forward to it. Because not many people, just like not many of you, probably have run into Navy seals. Not many people out there have run into the priest of Melchizedek.

It's a serious calling, and they're rare, even rarer than Navy seals. And I laughed just a couple years ago. There was a guy in Tennessee that was standing on the street corner asking for money, and he had a sign that said he was a Navy seal, injured.

The guy went, and of course, they were giving him all kinds of money. And another Navy seal came up and said, were you with? Ask him for questions that give man couldn't answer anything. He wasn't. He was a fake. He even had a uniform on any and the real Navy seal stripped the coat off and said, you take that off. You're not worthy. You're a fake. And he was. Well, you can't fake it in a priesthood. Many of you could see a fake. All you have to do is talk to him. Look at him, right? We are different.

Don't run from it. Embrace it. Embrace who you are. It's a shame that people do not know their destiny. Yours is laid out right here. Dwight was carrying that through as he was doing his service today. Being a priest, teaching about the Kingdom of God.

The Levitical priesthood used to sacrifice animals.

We also sacrifice. Matter of fact, what Romans 12.1 says, we are a living sacrifice. The only problem is we crawl off the altar a little too much, don't we, sometimes?

And God asked to get us back on there. Okay? I know I've crawled off of myself many times. I'd give myself back on there. Because I'm part of that priesthood. See, my job is different than yours. I'm 24-7, this priesthood, and my job is to train priests. I'm like Richard Marcinco, the creator of SEAL Team Six. He trains. He's a SEAL training other SEALs. I'm a priest training other priests. Where it is my job, all of that, it is your job 24-7, but you have other things to do. You have other responsibilities. You have other ways to serve. You have other avenues to live in so that people see. People do not see me, because my job is the only time in my office I may see people. You will see hundreds more people than I will.

And that's part of the service. You get to be that billboard. People get to see you and work with you.

Something else besides service, and that is prayer. In-depth prayer. Think about it, because prayer is not a natural thing. Depending on someone else, especially when you can't see them, they're an entity, and they have all power, and you turning yourself over to them, that's very hard to do.

Yet that's what we do. Because, you see, priests have to pray. You have to pray for yours. Who's yours? Who's yours? Who has God given to you? Who has God given to you to pray?

Faith is going to be praying for people I don't pray for. There's some she's praying for I'm praying for, but hey, I pray for all of you, every one of you, except our visitors. I didn't know you this morning, okay? So when I was walking on the beach, I didn't call your name. But almost every name, call. Ask God to bless you, and protect you, and see you through your issues and problems. It's part of my job. Well, this is yours also. You should be praying. That's why we prayed for Humberto Mieka. Guess what? God answered most of our prayers. I want him to answer the rest of them. Okay? People prayed for us while we were traveling. Thank you. But really, isn't that what we should be doing? Okay? Prayer life is important, and not just to this congregation of priests, but who has God given to you in your life? How about your family? Some family members that don't even believe in God, or anything else, but they're your family. They're your blood. Who else is going to pray for them if you don't? It's a responsibility. It's what we do. You should take that responsibility.

If I get lost in my prayers, and I go, and I forget Fort Lauderdale for one day, and cover the Caribbean, or one of the islands, or do this or that, I've got to go back because of your family, but my personal family. As we stopped by and saw a cousin of mine, she's four or five years younger than I am, and there were twin girls, and they grew up partly with us. And now she's 52 years old, 53, and she has dementia, and she's not even remembering anything. And yet she's physically strong.

Karen's part of my prayer. If I don't pray for her, I'm the only priest that she probably knows. As a Melchizedek priest, how about you? How about your family? Very important. How about people that ask you, just on the street, oh, how such and such? Oh, man, they're really bad. I hope you pray for them. Yeah, yeah. Do you? Or you just kind of go, yeah, you know. Everybody says, oh, pray for them. When somebody says pray, you do not have a choice of saying no, because you're a priest. If someone asks you of this, you have to. It's your responsibility. Your God, your Father, who has called you into this special calling is expecting that.

Wow. You see why not everybody wants to do this? You see why not everybody? Because you're required to pray every day, multiple times. That's part of the priesthood. Pray before you go to bed, whether you're on your knees or whether you're in bed and you're before you go to sleep or in the morning when you get up or and when you ask God's blessing on the food or when something enters your mind. Oh, God, please be with that person. I never...

Priesthood, service. We have people here who do things. Chris does why. He serves. He's a priest. He's over here. He takes care of us, speaks if we need, whatever you need. You clean up. Bruce, Vicki, Maurice, all of you do something. It's service. It's what you do.

When you pray, it's service. It's part of the priesthood. William came in and set up, put these songbooks out.

Took five minutes. So I didn't see anybody else do it.

Right? You didn't have to be asked. Many of you do things. You don't have to be asked. You just do it. Why? It's part of your service. Because God's Spirit is telling you, well, what can I do? That's the priesthood. So you have service. You have prayer. And then there's one thing that all priests must do, and that is, we must be educated.

Okay? We must study. This is the book, but we must educate ourselves.

The story of the priests, and they were to keep the book of the law, and they were to read that, and the kings were also required to write down the entire law.

The priests were required to study it and know it, so when people came, they would actually sometimes make judgments. Why? Off of here. They would also tell people what they needed to know. Your decisions. Your advice to people.

Brethren, as a priesthood, where does it come from?

This book. We must educate ourselves.

Must want. That's why it's important we read every day.

And go back and reread what we don't understand.

So that we're constantly educating ourselves and becoming better spiritual priests.

I didn't like three years of theology classes and pastoral care and all these things I had to take and write down and memorize.

You know, I just got old, and Mary knows I would not always have a good attitude with these theology classes and some of my professors.

But I am so glad I did it, and I still need to do more.

And I want to do more because it makes me more able to help other people. You don't educate yourself just so you are, well, yes, I know everything about the Bible. Come to me. Come. Sit. Sit, young child.

Wow. You do it so that you can help people. So they come and they've got these problems. God's going to put it in your mind. You know, the scripture you read the other day, they could really use that.

It's incredible because, you see, being of the Melchizedek priesthood, you're not an elevated person.

You know, I love these churches. We occasionally have to do it. When I do a funeral, I'll do it in some church, and they always have this big lectern and raised floor, and then they have all this, and you're just looking down on all the people.

And I always get a kick out of it. That's not... Yeah, that's elevating the person.

We're not to be an elevated person. We just have an elevated way of life.

That's what's elevated. The way of life that we live.

Hmm.

Because, you see, you are required to preach a sermon.

Now, I preach every week. Last week, I was in Murfreesboro.

I have Bible studies, and I preach, speak, teach. Okay. But you, most of you in here, you're priests. You preach a sermon every day, by the way you live.

More people will see that than they will hear me. That is how the work is being spread.

Every day, by the way you live. So, let's wrap this sermon up today.

I'd like you to go to a place, which also is the most in-depth study of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

And it was actually written by David in David. So, if you will go with me, we have seven verses to finish up today. And I hope you will read these and study these so that you can have a further understanding because we will delve into this deeper and deeper as we go. Because you need tools, just like I needed to understand Greek. I had to take classes on, which I didn't like, Hebrew. I found out Greek was a lot easier than Hebrew, and they said it was different, but it wasn't for me. We need to learn. We need to know more. And you need to grab hold of this calling, this job you've been given. And yes, you're going to fall down, and you're going to make mistakes, and people are going, if that's a priest, I don't want to be one of those.

Okay? We're all going to do it. Well, you're looking at David. David knew he was of the priesthood.

Right? And you think he knew, David also knew he was a prophet. David knew that his life was going to be written down. He also knew we were going to see and say, whoa, wait a minute, man, I've done some terrible things, but I never killed somebody and slept with their wife and then took their wife. But it also teaches about forgiveness.

Because when somebody sees that we have fallen and we get back up, it also shows them when we need to help them that we're here to help you get back up.

That's the beauty of it. And priests need to lead by example.

Psalm 110, please. Psalm 110. Because Psalm, the Psalm of David. So David wrote this.

Okay? And it happens to be one of the more quoted verses of verse one in the New Testament also.

It says, the Lord said to my Lord. Well, wait a minute. David's writing this. He's inspired to write this. And he says the Lord, and you go back to the Hebrew and the actual word is Yahweh. Yahweh, Jehovah. Okay. God, the Father, Yahweh, said to my Lord, which in the Hebrew is actually Adam not. Which means another word for Lord. But try and put this down. So here we have a view of my God said to my God. Because you have God the Father and you have the Word.

Before he became Christ, he was the Word. But here he puts us down so you can delineate.

The Yahweh said to Adonai, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Hmm. And interesting, you can find it in Mark 14.62. You can find also in Hebrews 10.12, where it actually describes Christ being what? On the right hand.

Amazing part here, we have God and we have the Word.

And it describes right at the throne as it does many times. But where's the other third guy at?

They're really disrespecting this third guy.

That's why there's no trinity.

Okay. Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord Yahweh, Jehovah, shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion, which was Christ, rule in the midst of your Christ's enemies. Your people, whoa, here we go, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. It talks about Jesus Christ coming back. Where are we covering that? We've done it many times. We covered it the last time I was here in Revelation 19 when Christ returns and sets up His kingdom and puts down the evil of this world.

Okay. But He said, your people shall be volunteers. Guess what? By this time, if you have not realized that the priesthood is volunteer because you don't have to do it, you can walk away. But He's talking to us. You're volunteers. You're willing, you're more than willing to set up. Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power, in the beauties of the holiness from the womb of the morning. From the very beginning, this is His plan. You have the do of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not relent. And it says what? You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The order of numerical order, Jesus Christ, this was the first, Jesus Christ was the second after He came and died and became the priesthood following this order. So you say He's the first numerical. He's also the first in order of degrees because you see, He was the first and the greatest. And that's the pattern we follow. We follow Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's what we do, right? And it said, the Lord is at your right hand. It's interesting there because it's Adonai, but it's an emphatic.

And I won't go through that. I don't have time, but it's an emphatic use of Adonai. And then it says, He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath. Jesus Christ comes as I was thinking Revelation 19, 18 and 19. It tells this whole thing. David is prophesying right here of what's going to happen. He shall execute kings on the day of His wrath. He shall judge among the nations. He shall fill the places of the earth with dead bodies.

He's going to bring peace to this earth, but it's going to take violence to do it. He's going to put evil down. He's going to put Satan down. He's going to put the evil angels down. It's done.

He shall execute the heads of many countries. He's saying, wow, wait a minute, what happened to my Prince of Peace? Sometimes we can't have peace until the evil is put down.

I found that interesting because some people have a hard time. Wait a minute. We're supposed to be peaceful now. Aren't we? Yes. When Christ came and He was walking on this earth as a priest for His three and a half year ministry, He was peaceful. Other than running the money changers out, He was peaceful. It wasn't time because He said, when I come and I say, my people will fight, I could call these individuals. There's a time when we will no longer be those peaceful, but we've got to, for the sake of this world, save it, as I said last time. I found that to be interesting and I don't want to. It's too much stuff, but I found this interesting in the USA Today yesterday as I picked up a paper. I found this very interesting.

Because evil does not understand anything but force.

If you've ever visited some prisons, if you ever realize that, you deal with it, police have to deal with it. There has to be authority and it has to be done and it has to be dealt with. But in the USA Today, they had an article about the new Defense head of Defense department, James Mattis. He was a four-star general.

I found this very interesting as I was reading this because I just want to read a couple excerpts from it. People were saying, wait a minute, why do we have to put a four-star general as the head of Defense?

I'm not being political. I'm being fragile because I look at our Defense. I want those Navy SEALs. I want people protecting us. I want the biggest and baddest guys because otherwise the bigger badder guys are going to come over here and act out. Let's understand it. David, when he appointed, when Abner was there, he was the head of the military. He was a general. Then there was Joab. Then there was Ben-Aniah. That's who they put. They put a military man over the Defense. It was interesting that it has not been in this country since 1950 when the last time that the general had been over the Defense, the head of the Defense, a Marshal of the Marshal Clean. 1950. That's 60 years ago. We haven't had one since till this guy, if he gets confirmed. I found that to be very interesting because the one we have now, which I don't know the name, maybe a nice guy, but he's a physicist. You know? But it actually says with Mattis here, he said, on and off the battlefield, Mattis developed a reputation as a blunt speaker whose language sometimes hearkened to an earlier time, capturing the ethos of being a warrior. He avoids military jargon like exit strategy and instead speaks unapologetically about victory, ferocity, and slaughter. He has left no room for doubt on those enemies, on our enemies. He said, if they find themselves at war with American enemies, you are to annihilate them. He said, you have to make them recoil back and say we don't ever want to take on the U.S. Marines.

That's the general. And I'm not saying I'm a warrior. I'm not saying any of this. I'm saying that is an attitude.

Okay? That is an attitude, if you want to be strong. We need the same attitude as he takes with the military with how we conduct ourselves as a priest. As they have a calling, so we have a calling. And we should be ferocious when it comes to defending our book. We defend God's way of life. And I'll finish this up. In verse 7, and this is beautiful poetry. At the end, the last verse, of course, you have to realize that David is a poet. He was a writer. But here he is a poet. And he says, he shall drink of the brook by the wayside. What's he talking about? Therefore, he shall lift up his head. See, you have to go to the store. First, he's talking about Christ coming and slaughtering these people. Slaughtering, killing, and devastating, and bringing peace. And David understood that so well. David was ferocious, fearless, and he understood what it was to go to battle, and then what it was when the battle was over.

And you would see this water, and you were covered with blood and mud and everything else. And then all of a sudden, it's over, and there's peace. And you go, and you drink that water, and how good it tastes. See, he was picturing exactly what Christ is going to be like when Christ returns and puts this place in order. And he shall lift up his head. What happens in war? What happens in battle when someone is defeated? Do they look up and walk like this? No, they walk like this. They're dejected. They're beat. Christ is going to be head up in victory. We will be our head up in victory. It's part of the priesthood. Brethren, never, ever forget who you are.

You're part of the priesthood, the Melchizedek Priesthood.