#488 – The Preparation Of the Priests Through Consecration – Part 6

Preparing for a New and Different Lifestyle of Serving God.

The Kingdom And Experiencing the Fullness of Consecration.

We cannot accurately give practical examples of the personal or the eternal meaning of the “Fulness of Consecration.” There is no modern practical applications simply because this is part of the invisible realm and exists between the believer and God. There is no such thing as “seven steps” to consecration. There is no such thing as an “Apostolic Impartation” of consecration. Scheduling a “Consecrating Meeting” is fruitless. All these outward things are just fantasy exercises in futility!

EXCEPT for a total surrender of every area of our Life and person to God we will never experience “fullness.” The reason is that everybody has different problems in their life to conquer and different callings to complete. Therefore, the preparation through Consecration is very diverse. For example; Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah and many others all were prepared by God for a specific purpose. While each one was “prepared” for their “ministry function” each preparation was unique and began at different times during their life span to accomplish certain things within a specific people. However, their function was quite different and therefore, the equipping was quite different. There is NO cookie cutter preparation where one fits all method can be identified. For that reason we have to see Consecration as a total Preparation without knowing what that exactly means for each of us today. This is what makes this experience so exciting because each of us will have an exclusive and intimate discipline and personal adjustments by God. That is IF our consecration is genuine and fulfilled according to God’s Purpose!

If we are NOT adjustable and totally given to change this will be a very difficult time of rectification. Why? Because God will have to begin rectifying every aspect of our person until Christ be formed in us. In a general way we could say that “the Fullness Of Consecration” will result in the “Fullness of Christ” being formed in us! This involves the true Riches and Abundance in the invisible and Eternal realms that enhance our destiny. It is “Christ” formed in us that will be the actual source of the “ministry” from the Holy place. This is NOT “Jesus being formed in us” but “CHRIST” the Living and Abiding Word of God. This is “CHRIST” the new inner man who was conceived and born of God.

2Cor 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

There is no question that Paul is making a clear distinction between the “outer man” and the “new inner man” and making a clear distinction between the things that are seen and the things that are not seen but are nevertheless, real, necessary and eternal. Why? Because they define the mighty difference between the temporal destiny and the eternal destiny. Therefore, both the visible realms and the invisible realms must be considered before any real Consecration can be defined. Why? Because whatever is ONLY done in the visible dimensions can only be temporal and ONLY the things accomplished in the invisible dimensions are eternal. The trials, afflictions, confrontations, testings, hostilities, sufferings etc are supposed to be producing an “eternal weight of glory” ‘exceedingly beyond anything measurable.’ However, the fruit of these things can only be perceived in the invisible realms.

While focusing upon the invisible realms of Christianity is not popular or well received, Paul was quite convinced that ONLY the invisible realms define the eternal dimension. Even though nearly every one of the real and genuine experiences in Christ are inward and in the unseen realms, only the seen realms of Christianity are considered important or essential. (Healing of the physical body would be an exception). However, being “born again” is not outward but inward. Is water baptism and our death and burial and resurrection in the seen realm or the unseen realm? Of course the fruit is in the unseen realm.

This is the exact reason that the Consecration Offering, the Second Veil, and the Holy Place Life and Ministry must be perceived in the realm beyond the five physical senses. If we just look for physical evidence we will be disappointed and think all this is fantasy. We are suggesting that it is in the invisible realm that our preparation for the next dimension is taking place. That means in the New Inner Man, out of the visible realm of the five physical senses, but within the ETERNAL dimension of ultimate reality. The Kingdom Government of God, as an Inner Life of Laws and Power, is an example of the invisible realm in a practical and experiential way.

The question is usually asked “Since we are already saved why is more preparation even needed? Isn’t the seven Outer Court transformations enough to prepare us for the Priesthood ministry?” This is why we are spending so much time focusing upon the Consecration Offering and the “preparation” inherent within the total or “fullness” of the experience.

We must once again make a clear distinction between natural, intellectual and human type training and the spiritual preparation that can only be done by God working in us. Therefore, Bible colleges and formal training cannot be substituted for Divine Preparation. It is exclusively God’s Preparation that can equip us for the next restoration of the Priesthood Ministry. We must insist that there is NO training by man that can duplicate the preparation by God for the work to which He has called us.

Learning about what God did in Moses, or David, or Jeremiah or Martin Luther or Joel Osteen is irrelevant in training us. Why? None of this information can change the Inner Man or prepare him for the Priesthood ministry. The fact is that we CANNOT substitute any formal training for the personal preparation that only God can do.

More exposure to Bible verses or another cleaver message or more Bible knowledge, which effects no inner or lasting change, is just more exercise in futility. A transition from what we are to what He is can only be evaluated as it relates to eternity.

Many of us evaluate ourselves as being “self taught” which we think means we gave ourselves our personal religious training through Bible study, long hours of prayer and religious activity which we called “ministry.” The problem was in all of this is that we gave our outward man, our body, to God to do His will but we reserved our own person for ourselves.

It is, possibly, an demonstrable fact that we are NOT fit, in our present redeemed position, for anything related to the Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. It is also a fact that we cannot prepare ourselves for priesthood. Neither Aaron nor his sons could consecrate themselves without Moses! Therefore, we first have to totally sacrifice ourselves into the hands of Almighty God and trust that He will do the work of preparation. Nevertheless, we need to be aware that He will not alert us to what is wrong or we would try to fix it ourselves. You will not be aware of what He is doing or why. He will not tell you when that area of your life is adjusted or we will get proud and think God is finished with the transformation. This will be a secret inner work that is very confusing because we do not know exactly what He is after in our life that offends Him or that will someday destroy our calling. God has given us dozens of examples in the Old Testament and some in the New Testament of how certain ones were prepared. We may assume that is exactly how God will deal with us and list the changes. However, we will always be wrong. Why? Their preparation was exclusively for them and their calling. This is why the cookie cutter training of the formal educational systems will never be effective in preparing anyone for the priesthood ministry.

Still, there are details that are in a general form that we can study from the scriptures but these are not intended to reveal everything that is taking place in the inner and secret realms of our Preparation. Trials, sufferings, correction, humiliation, and ANYTHING else that is necessary must be considered as normal. We must remember there is an “ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY” hanging in the balances.

Consecration is making a COVENANT before God that you are willing for any change that is necessary and that you give God full access to every area of your life to adjust, change, destroy and perfect as He sees is necessary for His purpose or for His pleasure. Consecration then will touch every area of our lives from the inward and hidden recesses to the outward and visible realms of serving God.

Since we have no way of knowing what God is preparing us for, except for a rather abstract Eternal Government, we have no clue what is being accomplished or why. If we are being prepared for a place in the Government we still don’t know what that place is or the preparation that is necessary. This is why the Consecration Offering is so precise, so complete, but with abstract and unidentifiable details. This is why we cannot choose the preparation or decide upon certain training because we cannot have a “chosen field of employment” in eternity.

The great list of details of all the unresolved and offensive things in our life are hidden from us but must be included in the sacrifice of the “Whole Burnt Offering” or the first Ram. Nevertheless, we go into these “sacrifices” totally blinded to the reasons these multiple areas of our lives are unacceptable to God. However, ridding us of these hindering things is not in one instant sacrifice. As part of the Consecration Offering, God includes all personal “defects, attitudes, motives, thoughts and intentions, and a multitude of problems” in the Whole Burnt Offering. He doesn’t reveal the hundreds of things that we have to commit to death in that first ram but He just says “EVERYTHING” must go! It is “a whole burnt offering” in which EVERYTHING is consumed! Now we may expect this to be fulfilled in one night of prayer, fasting and personal surrender. However, you will be wrong again. Why? This is a process that may require months or years to complete. For example; Moses was forty years in preparation but didn’t seem to know it. Consecration is not just us giving ourselves to God as a living sacrifice but the Consecration Offering is when God takes EVERYTHING and consumes it in the fire of His Love. Consecration is permitting God to do ANYTHING that is necessary to prepare us for priesthood and though the priesthood to meet His standards of character and integrity and fulfill His Eternal Purpose!

In the preparation of Aaron and his sons, the sacrifices were offered and the consecration was completed in seven days. However, our Consecration may take seven years or seventy years but if we are willing and adjustable it will be completed exactly on time. Therefore, you must have complete abandonment and a resulting confidence in your total COVENANT commitment to complete the full Consecration Offering regardless of how long it takes. Otherwise you will get confused and think God has stopped working and has gotten involved somewhere other than in your life. Of course you will be wrong again.

How does all this begin? Well, they killed the second Ram “the Ram of Ordination” and put the blood on the ear lobe of the right ear. Well, that should take about 15 minutes. That is the exact problem with transferring these outward scenes into the Inner Life Reality. Why? It may take five years before this “Blood on the Ear” causes you to hear ONLY His voice and be completely dead to all the thousands of other voices trying to influence your destiny and the inner working of God that is essential to your transformation. How did God work this in Moses? He isolated him on the back side of the desert for 40 years away from all these other voices.

In our actual experience, He may just bring our ears into the Consecration of death so none of the other voices penetrate our inner consciousness. To say “YES” to consecration is to say”NO” to a multitude of good and acceptable things that may actually be Christian. This part seems strange to the natural thought process. To obey the inner voice in the inner ears is the fruit of Consecration! However, the recognition and rejection of all the other voices is vitally important and must be included in the First Ram. Both death and Life applies. Now we are not talking about the outward ears but the ears of the new inner man.

Jesus said My sheep hear my voice but thousands of believers who think they are “sheep” never hear His voice. There must be a reason for this failure. There is! Their ears are not consecrated so they listen to and hear clearly EVERY other voice but not His. Some think if they go hear a verse preached on Sunday Morning they are hearing His voice but that is not what Consecration is about. Why? They hear the verse with the outward ears and perceive with the mind and determine in the natural will of the outward man if they will do anything about the message. That is NOT Consecration in the New Covenant sense!

It appears that the devil was talking to Jesus in the wilderness. We don’t know how that is possible but Jesus never responded to his deceptions. Why? His ears were dead to that voice but alive unto the Father’s Voice. If they were dead to Satan’s voice how could He still hear. That is how Consecration works. Dead does not mean UNABLE to hear but dead to what is being said. This is why we need to think in the inner man realm and not relate this to outward ears. In the New Covenant this “blood on the ear” is related to our inner hearing and the two aspects are death and life. Blood is both “protection” from disaster like the blood upon the doors in Egypt and is “ability” like Moses’ ability to hear God’s Voice.

Because Moses was able to hear God’s voice he was also able to construct the Tabernacle and Consecrate Aaron and his sons with blood upon the right ear lobe! None of what happened at Mount Sinai would have been possible if Moses was not able to hear what God said. Did that require forty years of preparation to enable Moses to hear God’s Voice? Probably, but we don’t know simply because God has no need to explain or justify what He does or how He prepares! Why? Because He acts out of His Sovereignty and to complete His purpose.

However, when it comes to Consecration He acts with our sovereign permission. He draws but He doesn’t seem to drag unwilling souls into His processes. “I delight to do thy will” is the best approach to Consecration.

“Presenting our BODY as a living sacrifice” is the very first beginning exercise in “Consecration Surrender” but that is certainly NOT the last. Still, we have to begin some place in our experience! In other words consecration is NOT another doctrine that is preached which we “agree with” in our mind and acknowledge as valid. This is a life changing reality that touches the New Inner Man and every experience afterward. After it all begins as an inner transformation you should put every thought of “withdrawal” out of your mind because that is NOT God’s voice. Make up your mind BEFORE you do it that you will see it through till the end!

In the Tabernacle of Moses study we devoted about 110 KB of writing to the consecration of the outer man. These are studies 10A and 10B and are available on the web. If anyone needs these sent directly just email me and I will send them. Even though they focus upon the Outer Man, They are very beneficial in understanding the Consecration of the New Inner Man. Others have told me that after they read these Tabernacle Studies everything became much clearer. The Website is www.eternalvisionministries.com.

Click here (www.eternalvisionministries.org/writings/tabernacle_frameset.html) to see all of the Tabernacle studies that are available on the website.

Now the “Consecration of the Ear” is a big subject in the Bible but it is not necessary to list every verse concerning the ear. Why? Because this is not a Bible study on ears but the consecration of the ears to hear God’s voice! However, the access to the natural mind is through the natural ear but now we are NOT thinking about the outer man at all. Therefore, there MUST be inner ears that are developed and are able to differentiate which voice is speaking. Then the inner man must be developed enough to obey the clear voice of the Great Shepherd of the sheep. But “sheep” is not an outward flock lined up in pews to listen to a message but those who are able to hear His Voice and obey. “His Sheep” must also know the difference and NOT follow the voice of a stranger, even if the stranger is in the pulpit.

John 10:2 “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice<, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. 4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 “And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

If we use the Bible to define what “Sheep” are, it is clear that the thousands that attend the building each Sunday are NOT considered as “sheep” unless they hear His Voice and follow Him. His “sheep” also know NOT to follow the voice of strangers. If this is Normal Christianity then it should not offend anyone if we point out subnormal Christianity or even what is non-Christian!

It should NOT be considered as “complicated” if we use the Consecration of the Priests and the Blood of Ordination upon the EAR of every “sheep” --to “open the ear”-- just to qualify them as “SHEEP.” If we have one thousand people that attend our meetings but they don’t hear His voice how are we supposed to evaluate our work? Are we just “strangers” in the pulpit speaking platitudes that tickle the ears of our congregations. If “the Kingdom Message of Consecration” is much too difficult for your congregation, how are we to evaluate your congregation? My theory is this; Spending your life building with wood, hay and straw is not even intelligent ministry but boarding upon the mindless activity of the uninformed!

However, should we blame the sheep or blame the “ministries” that have “tin ears” that cannot hear anything except their own voices? Until there is a genuine “Consecration of the Ministries” and a Priesthood Transformation with a Holy Place function that results, there will be no solution to this universal problem. Just trying to excite the congregation to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come into the building on Sunday is a waste of time until there is Blood of Consecration on the ear, Blood of Consecration on the right thumb and Blood of Consecration on the big toe of the right foot.

Luke 14:22 “And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 “And the master said to the slave, (doulos) ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

Being extremely busy with useless activity is the hallmark of the outward church. Winning unwilling souls who are shamed into or coerced into “salvation” is one of those dead activities. Unless the Father draws no one can come is still true today. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin is still the method today of coming to repentance.

The rhetoric today says this; Still, if the Bible says go into the highways and compel them to come in that is exactly what we should do! It is assumed that this is the only voice we need to hear, the voice of the scriptures. The voice of reason is loud and clear because, we hear that today God only speaks through the scriptures. It is true that when Jesus was here He spoke directly to the “sheep” and they heard His voice and the Bible says they followed Him. Nevertheless, Jesus is no longer here, but thank God, He sent the Bible so we could all hear His voice. Of course the Bible was printed 1400 years after Pentecost. It was printed in the language of the common man so the average person could “hear His voice” in the scriptures. However reasonable that is to the natural mind that is NOT what Jesus meant by “My sheep hear My voice.”

Many still preach that the Bible IS the Living and Abiding Word of God and that is where you will hear the voice of God. This rhetoric is heard over much of the evangelical church. Why? Because many are still trying to hear in the natural mind or in the outward ears. Why is that true? Because, the inner ears are in the invisible realm and beyond the function of the five physical senses. The five physical senses are the tools we have used all our life to hear etc. We cannot hear God’s Voice in the natural realms, so hearing His voice must be relegated to reading the Bible! However, the Bible says that God speaks from between the two Cherubim.

Exo 25:22 “And there I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.

To access the Voice of God in the Tabernacle it was necessary to pass through the Holy Place and today that requires Full Consecration. For that reason the casual Christian, functioning in natural light, will NOT hear His voice. Even if a person has graduated from Seminary and ordained by men into a ministry they still do NOT hear the voice of God. Thank God, Jesus spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus but the light blinded him. That led to his consecration.

Paul wasn’t riding along and heard a message on consecration and made a “Decision” to consecrate his life to serve God. He responded to the Sovereign Voice of Christ Jesus. Christ was personally involved in his consecration and his calling. This calling and consecration to obey was not the ministry of man or another cleaver message on “consecration” from the pulpit like I did for 30 years! My message touched emotions but the result was less than Consecration.