Reading: Lev.
8:22-24,30; 14:25-28.
The
Blood Touched Ear
In the former of these
two passages we read of the consecration of Aaron and his
sons, and the placing of the blood upon the tip of their
right ears - the ear consecrated by means of the blood.
The blood, as you know, was always the means of
discrimination and separation; all that upon which the
blood was sprinkled was separated unto the Lord,
consecrated to Him. The blood - speaking of an end made
to a whole regime, and provision made for an entirely new
order of things - the blood stood between. You hardly
need me to illustrate that from Scripture, for there is
so much. Perhaps the outstanding Old Testament
illustration would be the blood of the Lamb sprinkled on
the door posts and the lintel of the homes of the Hebrews
in Egypt. By that sprinkled blood they were marked out as
separate from the Egyptians, and as a people with an
entirely new future, a new history. The blood separated
and the blood laid the foundation for something
altogether new - that from that passover they were
constituted God's people in a new way. That is the
principle of the blood, that it separates from one system
and makes a way for another.
Now here, in the
priesthood, we have that very strongly emphasised. There
was the blood of the ram of consecration, and placed upon
the ear, it meant quite simply that the blood was going
to challenge, test and judge every presentation to the
mind through the ear. The blood would interrogate
everything coming to the inner life through the ear, as
to where it came from, as to the nature of it. The blood
would judge it and say, 'That is not of God; that is not
according to the mind of the Lord; that belongs to the
old creation which is in alliance with sin; that springs
from the original source where Satan spoke into the ear.'
The blood thus would judge everything, condemning what
was not of God, and keeping the way open for the Lord - a
very simple lesson, but a very powerful one. The Lord
Jesus said, "Take heed what ye hear" (Mark
4:24). Priesthood here means the spiritual man, the man
who is wholly unto the Lord, completely at the Lord's
disposal; and the spiritual man is going to be very
careful what he allows himself to hear, what he allows to
enter into his mind, into his inner life, and become a
part of him inwardly through his ear. He is not going to
listen to everything. He is going to judge what he hears
and to refuse quite a lot.
Now that may apply to a
large number of things which it would be unwise to try to
catalogue. We can do unspeakable damage to our own
spiritual life, and make it impossible for the Lord to
speak to us, if we allow ourselves to listen to that
which is not of the Lord, that which is contrary to Him.
The enemy has gained great power for his kingdom through
the ear of the world; he has a great hold on men along
the line of hearing. He uses many things - it may be
certain types of music, or ways of speaking. The
consecrated servant of the Lord does not allow that sort
of thing voluntarily. We are in this world, and we cannot
avoid hearing many things that we should not wish to
hear; but the important matter is not the sounds around
us that strike upon our outward ear, but our reaction
thereto, whether we consent to what we hear. Do we judge
it and inwardly revolt against it and refuse it, or do we
lend an ear to it?
I think this may
specially apply to what we allow ourselves to hear about
people. Untold damage is done by gossip and by criticism.
Now, there is no point in having lips to talk if there
are no ears to hear, and sometimes the sealing of unwise
and uncontrolled lips may come by a refusal to listen.
The priest is called upon to refuse to listen to a whole
realm of things, to judge it and say, 'I do not want to
hear that; I am not listening to it, I am not accepting
it.' You can, I am sure, see what a terrible lot of
mischief exists today even amongst real children of God,
caused by rumours, by talk, by passing on reports, by
interpretations given to things; and how susceptible we
are to that sort of thing! Well, this blood-touched ear,
the consecrated ear, conveys a fundamental lesson. On the
one side, it refuses to accept and to allow to pass into
the inner life a whole world of things.
The
Spirit-Anointed Ear
Then there is the other
side - the oil-anointed ear. Both sides are seen in the
case of the cleansed leper in Lev. 14. In type he is the
man who is freed from the defiling life of the flesh and
is walking by the Spirit, in newness of life. He has the
blood-touched ear - the token of his refusal to listen to
what is not of God; and he has the oil-touched ear - the
token of his readiness to hearken to the Lord. What a lot
is lost because so many of the Lord's people have not an
ear to listen to Him - the open, sensitive, alive ear
quickened by the Holy Spirit, the quiet ear. The enemy
has made many of the Lord's servants too busy to stop to
listen to the Lord. Things are all unsatisfactory, they
are all going wrong and missing the mark; and the enemy
is just carrying the workers on by the sheer momentum of
the work. He is seeing to it that they have no time to
hear what the Lord would say about things. Those churches
at the beginning of the book of the Revelation had many
commendable things, and perhaps the greatest surprise
that ever came to anybody came to some of them when it
was said to them, in effect, 'You have all this work,
labour, patience and all these other quite commendable
things, but you have not an ear to hear the Lord. These
other things are not wrong, but there are very much more
important things, and you are not hearing what the Spirit
is saying. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith...' The need was for an ear open to the Lord
for correction, for adjustment, for knowing yet more
fully His mind about things.
There is the ear sealed
against one world, and there is the ear open to the other
world. There is one world closed by the Blood, another
world opened by the Spirit; and it all centres in the
inner ear, the ear of the heart. It is a very important
thing. The Lord give us grace to be very obedient and
watchful over this matter, taking heed what we hear, what
we allow ourselves to receive, and keeping in that place
where, if the Lord is wanting to say something, He has
our ear not pre-occupied but alive to listen to His
voice.