Reading: Leviticus 8:22-24; Romans
12:1-2; John 17:19.
Referring to this passage in chapter 8 of
the book of Leviticus, it is important to note what
happened at that particular point in the consecration of
Aaron and his sons to the priesthood. The ram of
consecration was brought; Aaron and his sons laid their
hands upon it; and then it was slain, its blood was shed.
That blood was then taken and put upon them at different
points of their beings.
There we have two sides of consecration.
The shedding of the blood is the death side, and the
sprinkling of the blood is the life side. The blood
poured out is the life poured out, delivered up, let go
or taken away. Sprinkling is the making active and
energetic of the ministry in a living power. When you
recognize that, you understand what consecration is, and
also the meaning of the laying on of hands, the act of
identification with a life poured out, a life yielded up,
a life let go, a life taken away unto death. In the act
of sprinkling a new position is represented, implying
that now there is no longer anything of the self life,
but all is livingly of God, active by God, and unto God
alone. That is consecration.
Chapter 17 of the Gospel by John is known
to us familiarly as the High-Priestly prayer of the Lord
Jesus. He is there, in effect advancing to the altar in
an act of consecration of Himself, in the behalf of His
sons, whom He is seeking to bring to glory, that they may
behold His Glory, and that the glory which He had might
be theirs. Here is undoubtedly that which is represented
by Aaron and his sons. The High Priest is consecrating
Himself, as He says, that they also may be consecrated.
The rest of the prayer is a wonderful exposition of the
inner meaning of this part of Leviticus 8. In the little
while at our disposal we shall seek to understand it more
clearly.
The whole man has come into the realm of
consecration on both its sides; the death side, and the
life side; the life poured out, and the life taken again;
the life let go, and the life resumed, but on another
basis; the whole man is involved, as represented by his
ear, his hand, his foot. That has a simple and direct
message to our hearts.
The Government of the Ear
We begin with the ear: "...upon the
tip of Aaron's right ear." That means that the Lord
is to have supreme control of the ear, that we must come
on to the ground where the ear is dead to every other
controlling voice, every other governing suggestion, and
is alive unto God, and unto God alone. It is quite clear
that, in some way, the governing faculty of every life is
the ear; not necessarily the outward organ, but that by
which we listen to suggestions, that, as we say, to which
we "give ear." The suggestions may arise from
our own temperament and make-up; the constraining things
in our life may be our natural inclination; the pull and
the draw of our constitution; deep-seated ambitions,
inclinations, interests, which are not cultivated nor
acquired, but which are simply in us because we are made
that way. To listen to these is to have our lives
governed by our own interests. Or it may be other things,
such as the suggestions, the desires, the ambitions of
others for us; the call of the world; the call of human
affections; consideration for the likes of others. Oh,
how many things may come to us like the activity of a
voice, to which, if we listen, we shall become slaves and
servants, and the ear, and the life with it, become so
governed.
This illustrative truth in Leviticus 8
says, definitely and emphatically, to you and to me, that
that shedding, that slaying, was the slaying of our ear
and our hearing in respect of all such voices, and that
sprinkling meant that we now have a ear only for the
Lord, and He is to have the controlling voice in our
life. The right ear, as the right hand, is the place of
honour and power so far as the hearing and the speaking
are concerned. Then you and I, if we say that we are
consecrated men and women, mean that we have brought the
death of Christ to bear upon all the government and
domination of voices which arise from any quarter save
from the Lord Himself. We are not to consult the voice of
our own interests, our own ambitions, our own
inclinations, or the voice of anyone else's desires for
us. We must have an ear only for the Lord. That is
consecration.
It is a solemn and direct word for
everyone, and perhaps especially for the younger men and
women, whose lives are more open now to be governed by
other considerations, because life lies before them. It
may happily be that the sense of responsibility about
life is uppermost; the feeling is that it might be
disastrous to make a mistake, and along with it there is
a strong ambition to succeed and not to have a wasted
life. Herein is your law for life, and although the
course of things may be strange, and the Lord's ways
ofttimes perplexing, and you may be called upon in a very
deep way to give ear to the exhortation addressed to us
in the book of Proverbs, "trust in the Lord with all
thine heart, and lean not unto thine own
understanding," nevertheless, in the outworking, you
will find that God's success has been achieved, and,
after all, what matters more than that, or as much as
that? The course may be very different from what you
expected, or thought, or judged would be the reasonable
way for your life, but that does not matter so long as
God has been successful in your life, so long as your
life has been a success from God's standpoint. This is
the secret, an ear alive only unto Him, and dead to
everything that comes from any quarter other than the
Lord Himself.
Chapter 17 of John's Gospel is an
exposition of that. "They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world." If we were of the world,
we should take the judgments of the world for our lives;
what the world would suggest to be the course of greatest
success, prosperity, advantage. The spirit of the world
does sometimes get into our own hearts, and suggests to
us that it would be fatal for us to take this course or
that to give heed to that voice is to become conformed to
this age. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service": and from the outset the point
of supreme government is the ear. The ear must be put
under the blood, to be God's vehicle of government. It
means that we must have a spiritual ear. As children of
God we have, by reason of our new birth, a spiritual
faculty of hearing, and we must take heed to develop it
as the Lord would have us do.
It means that the ear must be a listening
ear. Many people hear, and yet do not hear; they have
ears and they hear, but yet they hear not, because they
do not listen. The Lord says many things to us, and we do
not hear what He is saying, although we know He is saying
something. There must be a quiet place for the Lord in
our lives. The enemy will fill our lives with the voices
of other claims, and duties, and pressures, to make it
impossible for us to have the harvest of the quiet ear
for the Lord. That ear must be an ear that is growing in
capacity. The child has an ear, and it hears, but it does
not always understand what it hears. A babe hears sounds,
and you notice the signs of the babe having heard a
sound, but that babe does not understand the sound that
it hears. As it grows, it begins to know the meaning of
those sounds. In the same way there must be a spiritual
ear, a consecrated ear, marked by the same features of
growth and progress. Then, further, this ear must be an
obedient ear, so that hearing we obey. Thus God governs
the life from the outset.
The Work of Our Hands
Then we come to the thumb: "...and
upon the thumb of his right hand..." The order is
quite right, the ear first and the hand next. The Lord
must have the place of honour and strength in the
activities of our life, in the work of our life. Now this
all sounds very elementary, but we must listen for the
Lord's voice in it. The point is that in whatever we are
doing, or about to do, in all our service, there must be
death to self; no self-serving, no world-serving, no
serving for our own gratification, pleasure, advantage,
honour, glory, position, exaltation, reputation. In the
death of our Offering we died to all that, and now our
hand, in whatever it does - and it may have to work in
this world's business, to do a multitude of uninteresting
things of a very ordinary character - whatever activity
of life it has to engage in, on the one side, our hand is
to be dead to self, and, on the other side, to work with
the Lord's interests in view, "Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do; do it with thy might..."
(Ecclesiastes 9:10). You will remember how much the
Apostle warned about service being done to men, as by men
pleasers, and not as unto the Lord. He was speaking
largely to the slave of those days. When the slave system
obtained - and the slaves had to do many, many things
that must have gone much against the grain - he said to
them: Fulfill your service, not as unto those men who are
your masters, but as unto the Lord. We must question
ourselves as to why we are in any given place, or what it
is that moves us to desire any particular place or work.
What is the governing motive of our ambition for service?
Before God we must be able to say that any personal or
worldly consideration is dead, and that our service now
is not only not a reluctant, nor resigned giving of
ourselves to what we have to do, but a ready applying of
ourselves to even difficult, hard, unpleasant and
uninteresting things for the Lord's pleasure.
Do write this word in your heart, that the
Lord will not, indeed cannot, exalt you and give you
something else, something more fruitful, more profitable,
more glorious for Himself, until in that least, that
mean, that despised, that irksome, maybe even revolting
place and work, you have rendered your service utterly as
unto Him, even if it has meant a continual
self-crucifixion. That is the way of promotion. This is
the way in which we come into a position where the Lord
gets more out of our lives than we imagine He is getting.
There is a priestly ministry in doing that difficult and
unpleasant thing as unto the Lord, but we do not see that
we are priests at the time. The idea of being girded with
a linen ephod, at the time when you are scrubbing floors
and washing dishes, and other like things, is altogether
remote from your imagination. Yet there is a testimony
being borne which is effective, of which, maybe, you have
no consciousness. It may come to light one day. Someone
may say: I proved that Jesus Christ is a reality, simply
by seeing the way in which you did what I know you
naturally hated doing; it was wholly distasteful to you,
you had no heart for it, but you did it in such a way
that it convinced me that Christ is a living reality.
That is no imagination and sentiment, it is true to life.
The Lord has His eye upon us.
The Directed Walk
Next we consider the toe, "...and
upon the great toe of his right foot." That means
that the Lord is to have the direction of our lives, that
all our outgoings and our stayings are to be controlled
alone by the Lord's interests. We are not always being
bidden to go. Sometimes the going is a relief, it is
staying which is so difficult. We are so eager to go, and
yet often the Lord has a difficulty to get us to go in
His way. However the case may be, it is a simple point,
it is a direct word. Our going has been rendered dead to
all but the Lord, and our staying also. Our life has been
poured out, has been let go, has been taken away, that
is, the life which is for ourselves, of ourselves. Life
has been taken up on another level.
The Supreme Example
Apply that to the great High
Priest. Had He ever an ear for Himself or for the world?
Had He not an ear for the Father alone? Trace His life
through again. Satan came to Him in the wilderness, and
began to speak. We do not know how this took place. We
know that the Lord must have spoken of the matter
secretly and confidentially to some, for no one had been
with Him, He had been alone. We do not know whether Satan
appeared in physical form, and spoke with an audible
voice, but the probability is that it was not so, and
that he wrought rather by inward suggestion, the strong
bearing down upon the Lord Jesus of certain other
considerations, every one of which was in His Own
interest. There is no doubt whatever that Satan spoke to
Him in some way, and He heard what Satan said, but His
ear was crucified, and the power of that voice was
paralyzed by His consecration to the Father. In effect He
triumphed on this ground: I have no ear for you, My ear
is for the Father alone!
Satan came in other forms, not always
openly, but under cover. Thus a beloved disciple would
sometimes serve him for a tool: "Be it far from
thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee" (Matt.
16:22). The Lord turned and said, "Get thee behind
me, Satan"; He recognized that as the voice of
self-consideration, self-preservation; He was dead to
that; this way of the Cross was the Father's way for Him;
He had an ear for Him only. And so it was, all the way
through.
Was it true of His service? Did He for a
moment seek His Own ends by His works, His Own glory by
what He did? No! Even in tiredness and weariness and
exhaustion, if there were interests of the Father to be
served, He was alive to those interests, never consulting
His Own glory, or His Own feelings; and I have no doubt
that His feelings were sometimes those of acute
suffering. We read of Him as "being wearied."
We know what that is, and how in weariness we would not
only sit on the well, but remain sitting on the well,
even though some demand were being made upon us. If we
are the Lord's, we must be governed by the Lord's
interests, and brush aside all the rising suggestions of
looking after ourselves. So it was with Him in all His
goings. He submitted His going or His staying to the
Father. His brethren would argue that He should go up to
the feast, but He does not yield to their persuasions and
arguments. His one criterion is, what does the Father say
about this? His mother entreats Him at the marriage in
Cana, and says they have no wine. His unlooked reply is,
"What have I to do with thee?" In other words,
what does the Father say about this? So His whole life
was, on the one hand, dead to self, to the world, and, on
the other hand, alive only to God. And what a fruitful
life, what a God-satisfying life!
There is a oneness with Christ in
consecration. "For their sakes I consecrate myself,
that they themselves also may be consecrated in
truth." "I beseech you therefore... present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship..." That is our
priesthood.
Will you listen to that word? Will you
take that word to the Lord in prayer? Will you get down
before Him with it? Perhaps it is a word to bring about
an end to a struggle, a fight, a conflict; an end to
restlessness, chafing, a lack of peace, lack of joy. You
may have been fretted, you may have been thinking of your
life as being wasted, and you are all in a ferment. Are
you reaching out for something? Are you being governed by
your own conception of things, by what other people think
of you, by what the world would do, or what others would
do, if they were in your place? These are not the voices
for you to heed. What does the Lord say? Wait upon that;
rest in that. You may not understand, but be sure a life
on this basis is going to be God's success. Do you want
God's success? God may do something through you for which
you are temperamentally, constitutionally, altogether
unfit, and for your part you have thought that,
because you are made in a certain way, that must govern
your direction in life. Not at all! Come, then, let us
get down before Him on this matter, to deal with
consecration, if needs be, all anew.