1 chronicles 22-23

Read 1 Chronicles 22-23 at Bible Gateway.

When King David, the king after God’s own heart, reigned in Jerusalem, he arranged the priests and Levites in their service. Of course they have been serving since the days of Moses, but the king established them in service,

1) in caring for the house of the LORD,

2) in standing before the LORD morning and evening – at sunrise, and at sunset – to worship and praise Him for His greatness, holiness, and wonderful deeds in the earth,

3) to care for the priests,

4) to be officers and judges over the people (in other words, no one was considered worthy of decision making in matters of administration or justice, unless they knew the Torah of God backwards and forwards),

5) and as gatekeepers.

We know what a worship leader is, an officer, a judge, a maintainer of the Temple, a servant of the priest, but what did a gatekeeper do?

Gatekeepers kept the unclean things from the world from entering the Temple and the presence of YHVH. It was a very important job, they had to know backwards and forwards what was clean and what was unclean, and how to purify a person or a thing from uncleanness to cleanness.

The rabbis believe that the fall of Satan, when he rebelled against God and led that war in heaven, happened on the second day of creation. It was the only day God did not pronounce “good,” if you go back and read it. And it was also the day when God began separating things, which He continued throughout the Torah. When the rebellion of Satan introduced sin into God’s “universe” (united verse or sphere), the spiritual world had to be separated from the physical world, the light had to be separated from the darkness, the day had to be separated from the night, the holy from the unholy, the clean from the unclean. This is to preserve that which was unclean until it could be saved or redeemed, because the holiness of God incinerates anything that is unclean, if it comes within God’s sphere.

The job of the gatekeeper is to know what belongs in God’s sphere and what belong’s in the world’s sphere, and to keep them separate as God commands them to be kept separate in Torah. Why do the Gentiles eat pork but God’s chosen nation does not? Because God’s chosen nation is marked with His name, so they also are to be holy as He is holy, and keep themselves clean and undefiled from the uncleanness of the world.

This is why mixing unlike kinds is so bad, sowing two kinds of seed in a field, or wearing a garment made of linen and wool (plant fibers with animal fibers). When we do not mix unlike kinds, we learn the principle of purity and separation, keeping that which is of God purified for God –because a little leaven spreads until the whole lump of dough is defiled.

Today, the ekklesia or assembly of believers, is the house where the name of the LORD dwells. When the bride of Messiah mixes the gospel and the truth of God with New Age, or Buddhism, or humanism, or evolution, it is mixing unlike kinds and that is an abomination to the holiness of God.

This is the original sin of the Catholic church, changing that which was set apart to God (like Sabbath) to that which was acceptable to pagans (Sunday as the holiest day of the week, since it was the pagans’ holiest day of sun worship) in order to make God more palatable to pagans. All they did was mix unlike kinds. They got rid of the gatekeepers and the Spirit of God left the ekkkesia – at least, the organized church. We will see as we read through the history of Israel, that when His people begin to get lax over that which is to be set apart (holy), and begin to mix, then the Spirit of God leaves the Temple also. And these things happened to them for our example and for our instruction.

Some very famous pastors today have done this, and the world has gone after them: Robert Schuller, Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life), Bill Wilkinson (The Prayer of Jabez). I stay far away from them now that I understand Torah, because they do not think they are defiling what God has set apart, nor do they think there is anything wrong with it.

So all that is to say, we are now a royal priesthood, as we have seen – all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We mediate between God and world, just as Abraham did between God and Sodom. Among us, there are to be workers who attend to the needs of the house of God (the body of Christ), there are to be officers and judges, there are to be worshippers who worship God night and day, and who know the appointed times and what is needed on those days, and there are to be gatekeepers – those who know what is clean and unclean, and who do not allow that which is unclean to defile the temple of the living God (that is us, individually and corporately). Messiah Yeshua is already ordering us into our places. We will serve Him and the House where His name dwells!