Mm-hmm.

And it's in so doing, uh, even in the face of threats, even in the face of human opposition, uh, that we claim our prize, and we extend that gift to others.

And so there's a responsibility.

There's...

I mean, you've really shown the liberation that we have in Christ through his blood.

And, uh, right after that is, "Go ye therefore," [laughs] right, "and liberate others through your testimony, through your faithfulness-

[laughs]

... about this 'cause we've just talked about this victory, right? This, this victory that we have in Christ that we are claiming for ourselves, that we are testifying to others.

Mm

...

when He took that away, uh, and sent them into exile.

He says, "I, I gave you a king in my anger," in Hosea, "I took him away in my wrath." Uh, so this kingdom is gonna come not by human hands.

There's not gonna be a new Solomon who's gonna do another run at kingship like the nations.

There's not gonna be a new Nebuchadnezzar who's gonna bring another mighty worldly kingdom.

God is going to establish His kingdom His way, and His people are blessed to receive that kingdom as a gift and be incorporated into that kingdom.

That's right.

So I'm glad you clarified that.

And it's a timely word because of the time we live in.

I mean, one of the most influential books in psychology circles is Safe People.

There are certain people that certain other people don't feel safe around.

And this is happening inside the body of Christ, where brothers and sisters are not welcoming one another.

And the New Testament calls us, welcome one another in the Lord.

Welcome the stranger.

descendants of

priesthoods

of the nations right it was truly unique and i think we learn a lot if we want to learn what it meant for god's people to be priests we should think about the instructions that God gave for his priestly people.

And here I'm thinking about the Levites, the priests who served the priestly people.

And when we analyze their life and the various dimensions of their priesthood, I think it puts some flesh on some of the key dimensions of our priesthood which leads to lots of practical application and this is the kind of thing i develop in my book priestly presence a church for the world's sake and here i just want to highlight five dimensions of that priesthood and and maybe i can describe one and you can interact with it a little bit and i can describe the second and you can interact with it the first thing about israel's priests when we look at the levites is they had a unique kind of residency The Levites were the only tribe among the 12 tribes that were not given a piece of land as their own.

All the other tribes, the land was divided up into 12 territories, and each one belonged to one of the tribes.

And the Levites were not given... one of those 12 pieces of land.

And they were like, well, if there are 12 sons of Jacob and the Levites don't get one, shouldn't there just be 11? Well, Joseph, because of his unique service on behalf of helping, working with the Lord to preserve Israel in their time in Egypt, two of his sons get pieces of land so instead of having a tribe of joseph one plot goes to ephraim another goes to manasseh so joseph really gets two and the other ten sons get one piece of land and the levites get no land right and rather what god does is says i want my priestly people my levites scattered among all 12 territories So inside of the land of Judah, inside the land of Naphtali, Zebulun, are towns where Levites live.

What does that look like today in this hour as we're living here on this planet as aliens and pilgrims? Very good.