The Offering and the Priest
Every action taken in the ministry that diverts attention from God is an apostasy. Honor and glory belong to God, but there are those who, like the sons of Eli, snatch it away, because they want it for themselves. We already saw that God shared the sacrifices with His ministers, and although the offering was their inheritance, they were not to forget that it first belonged to Jehovah. The fact that I have some right in the sacred things does not give me room to take God’s honor, nor His offering, much less His place.
How many people today are, by force, leading the people to honor and serve them, and not God! Jehovah said to David:
“I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, that you might be prince over My people, over Israel” (2 Samuel 7:8).
Notice that He did not tell David that He called him to be “king,” but “prince,” because the Lord is the only Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords. The Word also shows us that when people wanted to worship the apostle Paul and Barnabas and offer sacrifices to them, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying:
“Men, why do you do this? We also are men like you, who announce to you that you should turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15).
That is what a priest, a minister of God, does. We must learn to throw ourselves into the crowd and stop their madness of worshiping us. Worship and admiration belong to God alone. These servants of God resisted being worshiped, regardless of what the multitude thought of them and even though in the end they stoned them and left them as if dead (v. 19). And I know that, wounded like that, bleeding, with their clothes in tatters and their lips split, they only whispered these words: No! Not to us, honor Him, the living God; He alone is worthy, worship Him, not us, no, NOT us, no, no, no… Him only, only Him, worship only Him….
The Lord showed me the similarity between the offering and the priest with something very sublime. He said to me: Just as the cherubim of the Ark and the mercy seat were of one piece, the priest and the offering must be of the same nature (Exodus 25:17-19).
Why? Because the cherubim are the ones who guard the glory of God. In the book of Genesis the cherubim appear, along with a flaming sword that turned in every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24).
Also, we see that in the book of Ezekiel we are told of cherubim at the entrance of the east gate of the house of Jehovah, where the glory was (Ezekiel 10:9).
The cherubim represent the guardians of worship, the keepers of the glory, and we ministers, as worshipers who minister at the altar, are the guardians of the glory, so that what reaches God may be the best. There is a purpose in the ministry, and it is to seek the glory of God.
Taken from the book “The Honor of the Ministry” by Pastor Juan Radhamés Fernández
