"Now therefore,
if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant,
then ye shall be mine own possession from among all
peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto
me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the
words which thou shalt speak unto the children of
Israel" (Exodus 19:5,6, A.R.V.).
"And bring thou
near unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him,
from among the children of Israel, that he may minister
unto me in the priest's office" (Exodus 28:1).
"Ye also, as
living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But ye are an
elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for God's own possession" (1 Peter 2:5,9).
"And he made us
to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and
Father" (Revelation 1:6).
"...and madest
them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests" (Revelation
5:10).
"Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over
these the second death hath no power; but they shall be
priests of God and of Christ" (Revelation 20:6).
When we come to look
into the Word of God, from the beginning to the end, to
discover what the service of God really is, we find that
it is always set forth in terms of priesthood, or what
priesthood means. We are not concerned specifically with
the priests or Levites of the Old Testament as a class or
system or order in themselves. They are there to set
forth spiritual meanings, and we are using them - that
is, we are using the Word of God - to discover the
spiritual meaning of service. I say that because these
words - 'priest', 'Levite', and so on - suggest a subject,
and they can be very technical. There is a great deal
of what is technical connected with the priests and the
Levites, and I am not attempting to deal with it. There
are many technicalities to which we make little or no
reference - for instance, the question as to where the
priests end and the Levites begin. Sometimes they are put
together and are called "the priests, the
Levites": at other times the priests are put in one
category and the Levites in another. But such
technicalities are not concerning us just now.
All
God's People Called to be a Serving People
What we want to get at
is this: What is the service of God, and what are the
principles and laws of that service? And so we approach
this matter by way of looking inside the framework to
secure the spiritual meaning. So, taking up this matter
of the Levites, we begin with the fact that they
represent or set forth the service of God. They set it
forth in this way, that the Lord's people as a whole are
called to be a serving people. This is quite clear from
the passages which we have read, right through the Old
Testament and right through the New Testament to the end.
There is a very trite and hackneyed phrase, which has
lost its edge by familiarity and constant use - 'We are
saved to serve' - but that does mean what it says! It may
perhaps seem unnecessary, and yet perhaps it may have a
reviving or refreshing value, if I emphasize this point
at the outset - that it is made abundantly clear by the
whole Word of God, in both Testaments, right on to the
end of the Bible, that the Lord's Church is called
pre-eminently to be a serving Church.
But of course, this can
only be true of the whole as it is true of all its parts
- which just means that there is no such thing, in the
thought and purpose of God, as an inactive, unserving
member of the Church. If ever the Levites were not
functioning, everything was wrong, and that means that,
if you and I claim to be in the Church of God, we are,
according to the very thought of God about His Church,
supposed to be serving Levites. You will not take that
name on yourself, I am quite sure. You will not go out
into the world and tell people you are a Levite. You
might perhaps tell them you were a missionary, or
something like that. But it means that you are supposed
to be a Levite, and if you look at the Levites and their
history, you will see what God means you should be.
In the full unveiling
and revelation of this truth, it comes out at last that
priests and Levites were not, in the thought of God, a
separate, detached, isolated body of people, but the
whole nation, in the thought of God, was meant to be what
they were. We will return to that presently, but just
begin with this: that the nation - which is the Church,
which is God's own possession - is, in God's thought,
meant to be in active, Levitical service, in all that
that means. We begin very low when we begin there. But
let us begin right at the beginning, and challenge our
hearts, and say, 'Now then, what does my Levitical
priesthood, my Levitical service, amount to?' You ask
your heart that before the Lord. What does it amount to?
That is a very, very important question. We will not stay
with it, but we begin with it.
The Levites, and their
priesthood, bring right into view the fact that God's
primary thought for a redeemed people is service. The
service may be many-sided and varied, as we shall see,
but service is the characteristic of the people of God,
if His own thought for them is realized.
Bringing
God and Man Together in One
But what is this
service? When you ask, 'Now, what did the priests and
Levites set forth as to the matter of service?', you have
to say: It was nothing less than the bringing of God and
man together in one. There had come about a rift between
God and man. We know about that, we know where it took
place, we know just what happened; but there it is. God
and man are apart, there is a big gap between. And it is
not only a gap, not merely distance, but there is a
condition of positive conflict - conflict of natures,
conflict of interests, conflict of realms - in short,
enmity. Enmity is that which makes a distance. It is
called 'alienation' (Eph. 2:12). God and man are at
variance in their natures. And the whole service of the
people of God, as set forth in the Levites and the
priests, was to stand in the gap and put the hand of man
into the hand of God, and the hand of God into the hand
of man; to come between and to bring about union - of
course, in virtue of sacrifice, in virtue of shed blood,
but that is another aspect.
The service was thus to
represent, to set forth, the fact that God does not
accept this state of division. God never intended it, He
does not accept it, and He has provided against it; and
here are those who know in themselves, in their own
history, in their own experience, what it means to have
peace with God, to be united with God in life (as we were
saying in our last study); to be there themselves, and so
to set forth God's mind in this matter of union in a
practical way.
That is service - not
to talk about the doctrine of atonement and redemption
and reconciliation, but to be that. The Church can
have all the fundamental doctrines of atonement, and so
on, and still not be a unifying factor itself, still be
divided, still maintain divisions. The important thing
about service is to unify, not to talk about it; to set
forth the ground of oneness, and to live on that ground.
We shall probably have more to say about that at another
point.
Preserving
the Ground of God's Presence with Man
And then, as consequent
upon that, the further object of service was to set forth
and preserve the ground of God's presence with man. The
whole issue of the Bible is just that - God's presence.
The last thing in the Bible is the declaration: "The
tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with
them, and they shall be his peoples" (Rev. 21:3).
That is the end finally reached. It was always God's
desire from the beginning to dwell with man, to be
present. So the real service of God is to set that forth
actually. If the Church were fulfilling its priestly
ministry, wherever men and women came into it they would
meet God. They would say: 'God is here. These people are
not only concerned with correct doctrine and teaching and
with proper practice and form. You meet God when you meet
them.' We are failing of our service to God unless, as
the effect of our being here, God is found in the midst
of us - unless God is found in us first of all
individually, and then, when a few individuals are
together, He is all the more found.
That is the importance
of relatedness in Christian life and fellowship, and that
is the thing that Satan hates and is against - the
gathering and abiding together, in life, in fellowship,
in the Spirit, of the Lord's people. It is something very
great. "Where two or three are gathered together in
my name, there am I..." (Matt. 18:20). The real
ministry, so to speak, is to provide a ground for God,
and to bring God in so that He is found there.
May the Lord save us as
a people from ever being an empty shell! The Lord save us
unto this - that men know where to find God: if they want
to find God, they know where to find Him. That is so very
largely not true. Many go round, searching for God,
wanting God. They try this place and they try that place
- and go away disappointed. 'No, He is not there. The
form may be all right, and much may be quite good, but I
have not met God.' Do let us always, wherever we are,
hold strongly to that, that when we come together, people
are to find God amongst us. We are bent upon that - the
presencing of God. This is a principle so clearly set
forth in the early books of the Old Testament - of course
in the first place in relation to Israel - the presencing
of God.
Service
in Relation to the Testimony of God
In the third place, the
service of the priests and the Levites was in relation to
the Testimony of God. The central object of their
service, their work, their ministry, was the Ark of the
Testimony. That was at the heart of everything; they
gathered round that ultimately. It was the final thing,
the ultimate thing. They were gathered round that, and
they ministered in relation to that. The Ark was
entrusted to them on their journeyings. There is much of
detail - and very, very important detail - connected
therewith, but we state again the simple truth, the
simple inclusive fact, that their service was related to
the testimony of God: and the testimony of God is the
testimony of Jesus, just as that Ark was in type and
figure the Lord Jesus in His inclusive, essential,
mediatorial Person. It is the Lord Jesus, it is the
testimony of Jesus.
And what a testimony
that Ark bore! Let that Ark come up against anything, and
see what happens. Let it come up against the Philistines
or the Philistines come up against it, and see what
happens. Let Uzzah put forth his hand and touch that Ark,
and see what happens. The testimony of Jesus is not
something in word alone. It is not a theory, it is not a
type, it is not a figure. It is an impact, and the
service of the Lord is to register the impact of Jesus
Christ. We fail altogether, if, with all that we may do
and say, that impact is missing. Oh, let us pray for a
recovery of the impact of Christ, that by our presence
there may be a registration of Him.
The Lord Jesus, when He
was here in Person on the earth, could be nowhere without
registering His presence. Demons cried out at once before
He had said anything. All the evil forces were stirred.
Men governed by those evil forces could not keep silent:
they found that they had to do something about Him -
anything to get rid of Him, to quench Him. On the other
hand, people in need sensed that their need would be met
in Him. He just could not be present and be hid.
Service, then, means
bringing Christ in as a registration upon situations.
That is what the Church is here for, and what you and I
are here for: we are here in relation to "the
testimony of Jesus". When John used that phrase, as
he did so often, especially in the book of the Revelation
- he said he was in Patmos "for the Word of God and
the testimony of Jesus" - he simply meant that he
had been sent there because he stood for the testimony of
Jesus. It would be far better to be sent to Patmos than
to be ignored. If men can be indifferent, if they can
just leave us alone, and not send us either to Patmos or
to 'Coventry', there is something wrong with us. If we
are really doing the work of God in a priestly way,
something has got to happen, even if it is cruel
opposition.
A
Representation of God's Full Thought
A further thing about
this service so far as the Levites were concerned was
that they embodied and set forth in representation God's
full thought concerning all His people. Let me remind you
of the events in Exodus 32, which we were speaking of in
our first study in this series. There we see a crisis, a
crisis through and by which the Levites came into their
place. What had happened was that God had said beforehand
(Exod. 19:5,6) that Israel should be to Him a kingdom of
priests. That was the Divine thought. And then He
followed by saying: 'Bring near Aaron and his sons'
(Exod. 28:1) - the Divine thought taking shape. And then
Moses goes into the mount, and is with God forty days and
forty nights. Toward the end of that time the people
weary of his absence, and there then follow the events of
which we read in chapter 32.
The people call Aaron
and ask him to make them gods that should go before them
- 'for what has happened to this Moses who brought us out
of Egypt, we know not.' And Aaron gives way, weakly, very
weakly, and has to cover it up with a lie. If you
compromise, you will always have to add a lie presently.
And he makes them a calf of gold. (You notice the lie. It
says definitely that he worked it: he wrought it with a
chisel (vs. 4). When he described what happened to
Moses, he said he threw the gold into the fire and, as
though by magic, a calf came out (vs. 24). You
always have to resort to magic, if you get yourself into
a tight corner by prevarication and lies and so on. That
is by the way.)
Moses came down, heard
as he came down, saw, was very wroth, and challenged
Aaron, as to why - why - why he should have let the
people in for this sin, with its inevitable judgment. And
then Moses went and stood in the gate, and threw out an
uncompromising challenge. (Notice the form of his
challenge: 'Whoso is on Jehovah's side, to me!' (vs.
26). So there is another side that is not Jehovah's. That
is very discriminating at this point. Whose side is this?
Well, that touches very, very vitally upon the whole
matter of service. However, let us go on.) At that point
the sons of Levi went over to Moses in the gate. Moses
said: 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go
throughout the whole camp, and slay every man his
brother, his friend, his neighbour'. And the Levites did
so, and they did it thoroughly, and at that point the
tribe of Levi was set apart for this ministry.
Now, God's thought was
that all the people should be like that. He had said so
(Exod. 19:5,6). But the people as a whole failed - failed
God and failed of their calling, their vocation - and so
God raised up, so to speak, this 'Israel within an
Israel', and thus the tribe of Levi became the embodiment
or representation of God's full thought for all His
people.
Representation: that is
what is true of them in more senses than one. You know
that it was the firstborn in all the houses, the homes,
the families of Israel, who were the priests. Now the
tribe of Levi takes the place of the firstborn in all
Israel. The half shekel of silver (Exod. 30:13) becomes
the symbol that they have taken the place of the
firstborn. So they become in representation 'the Church
of the firstborn ones' (Heb. 12:23). The very number of
the tribe is also significant in this matter. It means
representation, if you look at it. We will not dwell upon
that, or go further with it; it is one of those details,
but it is significant. The point is that it was when the
nation as a whole failed that the Levites were taken, to
become those who set forth - by embodying in themselves -
God's full thought for His people, that they should be
serving priests.
Now, this is a very
delicate point, but we have to face facts: and the fact
is this - that the whole of the Lord's people, although
redeemed, although His by redemption and by atoning
Blood, are not fulfilling this priesthood. The people of
God as a whole are not living up to their calling, are
not fulfilling their heavenly vocation. That was true in
Paul's time. The ministry of Paul was so largely - we
might say mainly - to get Christians to live up to their
calling. His prayers for believers were that they might
apprehend their calling, 'the hope of His calling'. So
the fact has been, from so soon after the beginning,
that, as a whole, the Lord's people do not express His
full thought.
But God reacts to that
failure, and sets to work to get those who will. The
peril has always been, and it is a peril into which many
have fallen, to say, 'Well, things are as they are,
everything has broken down, it is a state of failure: we
had better make the best of a bad job, accept the
situation, and do the best we can.' God has never so
compromised, and He never will. He did not just patch up
that situation at Sinai. He definitely and concretely
reacted to it in the Levites. Now, do not interpret that
necessarily as a separate body of people. That is our
peril - to think that here are the general people of God,
and here is another class of people who are on a
pedestal, very much better than the general. Beware of
that. But, while we say that with great emphasis, we also
say, with equal emphasis, that God's heart is set upon
finding amongst His people those who do answer to His
full thought.
So that the Levites
represented what God meant, and not what God found later
on, or what came about in a general way; and that is
service to God. And it is a very costly form of service.
While God really seeks to have 'all men saved and come to
a knowledge of the truth', His heart is really set upon a
people who satisfy Him as to the fullest thought that He
has ever expressed, and that is priestly service:
representation, in the midst of failure, in the midst of
departure, in the midst of weakness, in the midst of
tragedy, of that which satisfies God. Take that to heart.
That is service - service on the highest plane, service
in the fullest realm. Service, in the most essential
sense, is not to be doing a lot of things for God, but to
be sure of what God wants most, and then bend everything
to that.
The
Levites Related to the Whole Matter of Life
Then, further, the
Levites in their service were related to the whole matter
of life. We touched on this a little in our previous
study. The great characteristic of the Levitical service
was that everything should be living. 'Livingness' was
the great feature. They were really up against death.
Death, the great nullifier - spiritual death - had
entered by sin, and they were up against it; and their
ministry was, on the one hand, to nullify the power of
death, and, on the other, to make everything live, to see
that everything lived. Everything was to be living. I do
want you to grasp this. It is so important that
'livingness' characterize the Church in every part of its
life and activity.
We have the Lord's
table. It was there in symbol in the Tabernacle. Is this
a form, is this a rite, is this the 'Lord's Supper', is
this the 'Communion Service'? What is it? It is supposed
to be, meant to be, a ministration of life, a
testimony of life. If you and I come to the Lord's
table and that does not mean to us 'livingness', if there
is not something about this that is living, well, it has
missed its meaning. We are a people of the table. The
table is supposed to be a living thing: so much so that
in Corinth, because of a touching of that table in an
unworthy manner, the people met something. Many were sick
and some died (1 Cor. 11:30). This thing is living. It is
as though the Lord would say: 'You cannot just come to
this, touch this, without it meaning something, and
without your meeting something.' It should be like that.
Oh, may God hallow the
table! God make the table to live! Lord, make the table a
challenge! Lord, make people afraid of that table, if
they are not going to adjust to its meaning! Yes, it
would not be a bad thing if there were such an effect,
such an impact about this, that, if there were
carelessness or wrongness of approach and wrongness of
state in coming to it, it led to actual suffering or
affliction. But that is the dark and cloudy side, the
shadowed side. On the other side, it should be living.
Theirs it was to keep things living.
And everything else
must be like that in the house, in the tabernacle. Is it
the altar of incense - is it the prayer life? We need a
word on this, friends. There should be something
tremendously living about our prayer life, and our prayer
life together as the Lord's people. We do not just come
and say prayers and offer requests - no, no, no, it is a
question of life, of effect, of 'livingness'. Is it the
lampstand of truth, of revelation, of illumination? Is it
the revelation of Jesus Christ? Oh, there is a great deal
of difference in teaching. We may have good addresses,
very good teaching, all very true, absolutely true; and
yet - and yet - what have we got afterward? What do we
take away? Do we go away more living than we came? Have
we met life that has challenged us, exposed us,
illuminated us, elevated us? This is the service of God.
Oh, to have companies of people, the characteristic of
whom is livingness: livingness in prayer, livingness in
fellowship, livingness in teaching - all living!
That is power. The
Levites did minister in the power of this life. It is
something tremendous. Let anybody come in, interfere with
this, take this on, and see what they meet. There was
power present in their service.
The
Continuity of Life
And then a further
thing about the life was its continuity. God made a
covenant, as we read in Malachi, with Levi, a covenant of
life and peace; and although Levi deviated often, seemed
as it were to go underground, and was often in a state
most reprehensible, yet the Lord goes on, and in the end
Levi survives. Although the old typical system passes
with the old dispensation, there is more life in the New
Testament than there was then. The Lord Jesus, as the
great Levite, as we saw in our previous study, commenced
His Levitical ministry at the age of thirty, just as the
Levites did - and oh, the life of this Levite! Was Paul a
Levite? Surely he was, and many another.
But note, this life of
the covenant goes on. What is the principle of
continuity? What is the principle of succession? It is
not that someone has a position or an office, and when he
dies someone else has to take his place, go into his
office and position, and so on, in a kind of formal,
ecclesiastical, 'apostolic succession' principle? Not
that at all. The principle of succession in the Word of
God is Divine life. As soon as Divine life
departs, you had better shut down the whole thing. Any
church or system that has not the life has lost the very
reason for its existence. The principle of continuity is
life. The Lord save us from losing the tremendous factor
of life and becoming resolved into a mere 'thing' with a
teaching and form.
And when we have said
that, we need only say further that life - this
livingness, this power, this continuity, which are the
elements of this life - is incorruptible. That means that
it is a life of absolute purity and holiness. As soon as
corruption is allowed to come in, the life is suspended.
The Lord will not let His life go on where there is
corruption. Holiness is essential to life. Allow sin to
persist and you find the life is suspended. The Lord will
not go on with us.
So the inclusive
characteristic of the Levites, as the Lord's servants,
was life.
Spiritual
Warfare
I mention just one
other thing: the matter of spiritual warfare. I wonder if
you have taken note of this? Going back to the passage in
the book of Numbers, 4:3 "...from thirty years old
and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter
upon the service, to do the work in the tent of
meeting" - you notice that the margin tells us that
"the service" is literally "the
warfare", "to do the work in the tent of
meeting". "The warfare... in the
tent!'
Now, that indicates a
difference of kinds and realms of warfare. Others in
Israel were called for the warfare of the nations. They
could start at the age of twenty. They were more
numerous: every young man, as soon as he reached the age
of twenty, was eligible for the army. The Levites started
ten years later at the age of thirty, but it says that
they entered the warfare for work in the tent of
meeting. This is a different kind, a different realm of
warfare. It is not conflict with the world. They had to
meet the world and the nations: Joshua became their
commander-in-chief in that realm; but here is another
kind. It is an inner kind of warfare. I am not going to
make a lot of it, except to point out this: that, when
any of us begin on this basis to serve God in relation to
His full thought for His people, we meet a peculiar kind
of opposition. It is an internal kind. Such ministry has
to be fulfilled amidst strange opposition, an opposition
that is directed against the Christ dwelling within.
Many of you know that
that is true. We put it in many different ways from time
to time. When you become a Christian, you know that you
are precipitated into conflict with the world: you are up
against it, and the world is up against you, and you
become a soldier of Jesus Christ in that realm. But when
you become one who is going to serve God in relation to
all His intention concerning His Church, you meet
something other - and, mark you, you will meet it amongst
the Lord's people themselves.
There was a time when
there was a movement to oust the Levites from their
particular position by people in Israel who wanted to
usurp that position. They were jealous of them, they
criticized them, and took steps to nullify them. God met
that movement in His own jealousy for this very thing. He
must have His full thought represented. He was very
jealous about it. But the point is this, that there is a
strange, unexpected kind of warfare related to the full
purpose of God. It is spiritual. It is not carnal warfare
at all. It is not with the world. Give it terms from
Scripture if you like, but the fact is that you find
yourself having to fulfil your ministry in the midst of
opposition which comes from very much nearer than the
world.
Spiritual warfare: oh,
yes, it is so wonderful to glimpse the great eternal
purpose of God, the "unsearchable riches of
Christ", the "exceeding greatness of his
power" - these superlatives, all true. Yes, but do
not forget that while half of the letter to the Ephesians
is occupied with the superlatives of Divine purpose and
calling and blessing, the other half contains
superlatives in relation to conflict. You get conflict of
a fuller, higher and more terrible nature in the
'Ephesian' realm, if I may put it like that, than you do
anywhere else, because that brings into view God's
ultimate purpose for His people.
The
Spirituality of the Levites
Well, this is the
meaning of service, the cost and nature of service. It is
tremendously real to God. So we gather it all up into one
word. Here is particular and peculiar responsibility.
Look again at the Levites - not as a class; dismiss that
from your thoughts - and see their spiritual meaning. I
would like, in closing, to dwell briefly upon some things
which seem essential to complete and round off this
presentation, such as the spirituality of the Levites.
Spiritual men is what they represent. Now it is not
possible - I say this with hesitation and with regret,
but it is true - it is not possible to say that all the
Lord's servants are spiritual people, really spiritual
people. Many may be very devout, very much in earnest,
but as persons they are not all spiritual persons.
Look at it like this.
When these Levites came into being, as in that
thirty-second chapter of Exodus, on what ground did they
come into being as functioning Levites? Well, the whole
nation, because Moses remained in the mount so long, had
lost patience. Why did they lose patience? Because they
wanted things seen, and they could not endure things not
seen. The principle of the life of Moses was that he
"endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Heb.
11:27). That was something they could not do. They must
see; things must be tangible, must be present, must be
within the realm of the senses. Religious things - yes;
things of God - yes; Moses - yes; but it must be within
the compass of our senses, that we can see and handle and
have evidence before our very eyes.
Now spirituality is
just the opposite of that. It is going on with God in
faith. Jesus is in Heaven. "Though now ye see him
not", says Peter, "yet..." (1 Pet. 1:8).
We are going on. Peter's line of things is different from
Paul's, as we know. Peter's line of things is 'pilgrims
and strangers here'. Peter consistently says: 'though now
we see him not'; 'we are pilgrims and strangers.' 'Our
greater Moses is in Heaven, but we are going on our
pilgrimage'. Paul's line of things is 'seated in the
heavenlies in Christ'. Both sides are right. But the
Israelites could not go on until they could see. They
must have a god that they see. So - 'make us gods to go
before us'.
But alas! they do not
see what they are doing, what they are letting in. What
was all the gold for that they had brought out of Egypt?
It was for the Tabernacle and the service of God. It was
the gold of the sanctuary. Satan found advantage by their
carnality, and stole the gold of the sanctuary, and
turned it to his own worship in the place of the worship
of God. Spirituality sees through. These Levites were
spiritual men. They saw through this. Spirituality sees
something more, sees the ultimate significance of things.
Oh, for men with spiritual discernment - men who can see
through and get hold of the ultimate significance, who
can see where this is leading, how this will work out,
where this comes from, what this means, what is really
the nature of this thing. Carnality and spirituality, you
see, are two different things amongst the people of God,
and the Levites were spiritual men, the embodiment of
spiritual perception.
Again, work out this
principle of spirituality. What was required of them?
"Gird every man his sword upon his thigh" -
'and slay every man his enemy'? 'Get even with that man
with whom you have had a grudge for so long'? No - 'slay
every man his brother and his friend and his neighbour'.
Brother, blood-kin; friend, neighbour;
heart-relationship. This is a test of spirituality. You
need not make it literal, unless you like. Sometimes it
comes down to that, if we are putting father, mother,
sister, brother, children in the place of the Lord;
sometimes it works down to that very literally. But
spirituality means that nothing that is of our natural
life is allowed to influence us when Divine principle is
at stake, however dear, however costly, whatever it
involves. Friends and dear ones must not stand in the way
of God's full purpose. If they have come across the
purpose of God, or if they threaten it, I am sorry, but I
must take the sword: and as I take the sword to them, I
take it to my own heart. But: "Whosoever shall seek
to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose
his life shall preserve it" (Luke 17:33). You know
that that word 'life' also means 'soul'. The sword to our
own souls - that is spirituality. It is very searching.
Well, all this, as I
was saying, amounts to taking responsibility for the
Lord's highest interests. It is costly, as the Levites
knew. It was by sacrifice, it was by blood, it was by
tears. Yes, it was costly; but therein lay the
preciousness to the Lord. He is jealous for that which
answers to His own heart most fully. The Lord give us
grace to be true servants - true 'Levites'.