I shall not take time to turn you
again to all those passages which formed the
foundation of our meditation yesterday and which will
be behind our continuance this morning.
But I will just take those which were
in the prophecies of Malachi.
You will kindly look at them and then
add one extra passage from the New Testament.
Malachi chapter one, chapter three.
Behold, I send my messenger, he shall prepare
the way before me.
The Lord whom ye seek will suddenly come
to his temple.
The messenger of the covenant whom ye desire,
behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts.
But who can abide the day of his
coming?
Who shall stand when he appeareth?
For he is like a refiner's fire, like
fuller's soup.
He will sit as a refiner and purifier
of silver.
And he will purify the sons of Levi
and refine them as gold and silver.
Now just a fragment from Paul's letter to
Titus.
The letter to Titus, chapter two and verse
eleven.
For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing
salvation to all men, instructing us to the
intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we
should live soberly and righteously and godly in
this present age, looking for the blessed hope
and appearing of the glory of the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave
himself for us, that he might redeem us
from all iniquity and purify unto himself a
people for his own possession, zealous of good
works.
This has been a year of many and
far-reaching ministries to Formosa, the
Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Scandinavia,
Holland, Switzerland, and others.
And we come with this time here to
the end of that particular series and program.
And some of us are occupied with the
big question, what next?
What does the future hold?
As you have heard, quite a number will
be going from us in the course of
the next two and three weeks to many
parts of the world.
And I feel this morning constrained to say
something to you about the nature and the
purpose of this ministry.
Not with a desire to draw attention to
or speak about ourselves or about anything that
we are doing, but as to what we
feel the Lord wants and the Lord is
seeking to do.
And I do feel that at this terminal
point, it is very necessary for all of
us who have any fellowship and association in
this ministry to be very clear as to
what it is, and that it should be
redefined as to its nature and its purpose.
Within the compass of the few minutes that
I have, it is that with which I
want to be occupied and want to occupy
you.
Let me begin by saying what it is
not, or some of the things that it
is not.
It is not a particular teaching as such.
That is, we are not concerned with some
particular interpretation of truth.
It may sometimes sound like that, and I
think many people have the idea that that
is what it is.
But I want to say that it is
not that.
As such, I underline that governing clause, as
such.
There is teaching, it may be in some
respects different, may be in some respects particular,
but it is not a teaching.
It is not a peculiar or separate fellowship
of the people of God, body of Christians,
gathered into some special association.
It is not that.
In any earthly sense, if it's an association,
it's quite spiritual, and I trust of a
heavenly character, but not something to be set
up on this earth as distinct from other
people, true people of God.
Further, it is not a generally good or
better level or standard of ministry and teaching
and practice.
May be different levels of ministry and of
teaching amongst the Lord's people, but our conception
of this ministry is not just to be
an improvement upon others, and a little different
and a little better, or a lot better.
That is not the thought.
The answer to the question on the positive
side could not be better found than in
the spiritual meaning of the Levites.
The answer is there.
If we could understand the meaning of the
Levites in the Old Testament, see that they
are but a representation or embodiment of a
spiritual law or principle, then we would have
the answer to our inquiry.
Let us try, in a very broad way,
to comprehend that.
We begin by noting that God has always
had a very clear and a very positive
mind as to what he wants and what
he must have for his satisfaction and pleasure
in his people.
God is not just moving forward without a
very clearly defined mind as to what he
is after.
Word of God makes it abundantly clear that
from eternity God has moved with his plan,
his purpose, very clearly defined in his own
mind and counsel.
He knows what he wants, and he knows
what he must have if he is to
find his full satisfaction and pleasure in his
own people.
And that is where we begin.
Recognize that.
God is not just stumbling on things as
he goes along, then adjusting to the situation
and raising up something to meet, something that
was not anticipated or in the plan.
God knows from the beginning.
To quote our scripture, and much of it,
to bear that out, he knows exactly what
he wants and how, and by what means
he will reach it and realize it from
the beginning.
Known unto God are all his works from
the foundation of the world.
Well, that's where it all began.
But when the race as a whole turned
aside from God and his intention, his purpose,
his mind, as he did, God moved to
take out of the race a nation, a
part of the race in which he would
recover and begin again to secure that first
purpose, intention, and mind.
And so he looked into the nations and
began to take out of the nations a
people for his name.
Even in the old dispensation that was true.
A nation in the midst of the nations,
in which nation he would realize what was
ever in his heart and his mind.
This part of the race, this chosen nation,
had various features.
First of all, of course, the great law
had to be strictly enforced.
The law of separation or sanctification.
That part had to be hallowed indeed unto
God, set apart unto God, a separated, a
sanctified people.
The law of spiritual separation was the primary
and foundation law of the existence of such
a people.
They had to be separated or sanctified, the
same thing.
Firstly, in an inward way, in spirit.
They had to have a consciousness born in
them.
Their whole existence had to be constituted upon
the consciousness that they were different.
They were different.
They were not of a peace with the
other nations, spiritually and morally.
They were different.
They had that consciousness.
That consciousness, of course, gave rise to trouble
within and without.
Sometimes went wrong, but there it was.
You cannot fail to see that sense of
being different by the very work that God
had done, the act of God, in their
calling, in their separation, in their sanctification.
They knew that they were different from all
other people.
It was in their very consciousness.
Cannot account for many things apart from that
fact.
Things that I have no time even to
mention.
But it is quite clear that even when
out of the way and mixed up with
other nations, they never lost that distinctiveness, never
have.
And the consciousness of being different is a
part of this very thing that we have
to speak about.
And, of course, what was true in an
inward way, in the old dispensation, was made
true in an outward way.
That is, in their very appearance in the
world.
And in their conduct in the world.
They were different.
These are, in the old dispensation, ways of
indicating spiritual things.
Next thing about them was that they were
a people whose heart had to be holy
for the Lord.
Their history on this earth in a typical
and symbolic way was all pointing to this.
That they were not a people who could
have one foot in the world and one
foot in the things of God.
But that God required of them that they
had both feet and every part of their
heart over in relation to His things and
His end.
Then they were brought into being to be
a testimony to the nations in the midst
of the nations.
A light unto the nations to show God's
mind to the nations.
Let all men know what God requires and
has set Himself to have.
Further, that nation was called to be a
priestly nation or people.
That is, to stand between God on one
side and the needy peoples of the earth
on the other side and mediate in a
priestly way to bring men into touch with
God and God into touch with men.
That is the content of priesthood as a
spiritual thing.
And then finally, for the moment, they were
there in the midst of the nations to
show the authority of God over the earth.
There is one God.
He is God alone.
He is over all gods and over all
peoples.
He is the Lord, the creator of heaven
and earth.
And they were there with His authority over
all creation resting upon them and deposited with
them.
They should secure for Him His rights in
the nation.
And we can go further because, although this
is only brought out in the New Testament
in fullness, it is so clearly seen all
the time, right through the old, that this
authority extended beyond the earth.
It extended into the realm of spiritual intelligences
who were constantly seeking to break in and
take away from God His rights in the
earth.
This was God's great corporate act in relation
to His original purpose.
But then, that people as a whole, that
nation as a whole in general, came short.
Failed Him.
Disappointed Him.
And then He moved again within that nation.
And we have that which has been occupying
us so far and still is at this
time, God's movement in relation to the Levites.
In the place of all the first born
in Israel, He took the Levites.
And they became within the nation the embodiment
of God's thought concerning the nation both as
to its own nature and constitution and as
to its vocation and service in the midst
of the nations.
They were taken to supply the Lord with
what His people as a whole had failed
to give Him in which they were a
disappointment to Him.
God moves ever more inwardly as you see.
And so within the compass of the nation
He took one out of every family and
constituted that tribe of Levi the center
of His interest and His service.
Certain things come out in relation to the
Levites.
Firstly, of course, their representative character and position.
They were not separate from Israel while spiritually
separate from the wrongs in Israel.
They represented all Israel, their very constitution as
being the tribe of the first born ones
in spiritual principle.
They represented all the families in Israel and
stood therefore representatively as God's thought concerning all
His people.
They were there to serve the Lord in
this particular thing.
Again, I emphasize what I said last night
the necessity for our understanding what the service
of God is.
Dear friends, you and I need to be
very clear about this thing what the service
of God is.
Service of God has become all sorts of
things.
It's an omnibus thing with people today.
The service of God.
But the essence of the service of God
as made perfectly clear by the whole word
of God is this that it really does
minister to the realization of the full purpose
of His heart.
It is only service of God as it
does that.
Only that which does that is the service
of God.
It is the service of God more or
less according to how that ends itself.
But the whole idea of the service of
God is this.
God has from the beginning a full, complete,
clearly defined and rounded off purpose and intention
concerning His people.
And service to God requires that we know
what that is and that we are in
line with that.
And that that is being realized by what
we do.
We must be very clear on that matter.
So the Levites were taken from the midst
of the nation in order to be a
concentration of the Lord's full thought in the
nation.
Their ministry, though it had various aspects was
mainly to do with the altar.
Such ministry, such service, such a purpose always
brings us very closely into relation with the
sufferings of Christ.
There has been no mistake about it.
When you really get right on the line
of God's full purpose you are precipitated into
a life in which you are going to
know the fellowship of His sufferings.
It's a part of such a ministry.
Another thing for the moment, the Levites were
the spearheads in battle.
They were a warring tribe.
Strangely enough, it's a peculiar phrase, a peculiar
phrase even in their relationship to the altar
and the sacrifice.
It says that they were to serve in
the warfare of the sanctuary.
Strange, isn't it?
See, if any place and anything ought to
be out of touch with warfare it ought
to be the sanctuary.
But no, the warfare of the sanctuary.
To carry that further, it's not scriptural, but
it means this, the warfare of the sacrifice,
of the cross, of the altar.
You're precipitated into peculiar conflict when you come
into line with God's full purpose.
These were the Levites.
And they embodied this word that I have
read from Titus, to purify unto himself a
people for his own possession.
Now what was true in the old dispensation
is ever true in God's thought, God's mind,
and in spiritual principles.
We may have passed from the time of
the types, the figures, the symbols, and the
outward system, embodying the principles, and come into
the pure, clear realm of spiritual reality.
We have not passed out of the time
or the realm of the principle of these
things.
And so we find in the New Testament,
God's still moving on this same line.
The Levites now are a spiritual company, a
heavenly people, not an earthly, and not a
temple.
They are the people that God must have,
even though it be in the midst of
his people generally, who really do know what
God's full purpose is, and are committed to
that and nothing less, whatever the cost may
be.
Have I answered our first question?
I'm not saying, mark you, that we are
the Levites.
Don't misunderstand me.
But I am saying this, that God is
ever seeking for a people here, in whom
he can find the fullest response to what
is in his own mind from eternity.
He's ever seeking that, and he will never
be satisfied with anything other or less than
that.
If I may be allowed to go so
far, I would say that he has called
into being this ministry, I don't mean my
ministry, this ministry, to serve him in that
way, to, in a small way, as a
part of something very much larger, perhaps larger
than we know in the earth, nevertheless, to
serve him in this way of seeking to
keep alive a testimony as to the fullness
of God's intention for his own people.
Praise the fullness of Christ is a commonplace
amongst us, but that is what it is,
that is what it is, the fullness of
Christ.
That is the true Levitical function and ministry.
And I want to say to you, dear
friends, this morning, that the Lord wants that
where you are concerned.
He does want, and will take pains to
have, where you are concerned.
If I said where we are concerned, you
might misunderstand that.
You think I'm talking about on a rope,
or something that is called disfellowship, something like
that.
And I mean you as the Lord's people.
The Lord wants you to stand in that
relationship to himself, not as something superior, not
a kind of spiritual autocracy, certainly,
certainly not a spiritual aristocracy, but just as
a people here, amongst his own people in
this world, not looking down on anybody, not
feeling that anybody else, or thinking that anybody
else is less, oh God forbid anything like
that, but in a true heart way, to
represent for the Lord all that he would
have in his people.
An utterness for God, and giving God a
position, and an opportunity for showing in you
all his counsel, and all his will, and
all his purpose, and all his character.
It's a very holy calling.
That is why we began yesterday, in our
first two sessions, with the tremendous emphasis upon
holiness.
This cannot be only by holiness of life.
You see, holiness is not just a state
which ends with itself.
Holiness in the Bible is vocational, always.
It's vocational.
It always relates to God's work.
Be ye holy, ye that bear the vessels
of the Lord.
For his work, the work of which we
are speaking, this work, holiness is vocational.
Sooner or later, I repeat, sooner or later,
our work will be brought up short on
the point of holiness.
If we are the Lord's servants, if we
are joined to the Lord for his purpose,
and anything comes in, anything comes in that
is unholy, the Lord may bear.
He may speak.
He may exercise.
He may for a time do nothing.
But there'll come a point at which you'll
say, I've spoken about that.
I've spoken to you about that more than
once.
I've waited.
I've been very patient.
I don't care.
We're not going any further.
And some terrible crisis will arise which involves
the whole question of our usefulness to the
Lord, nothing less, whether the Lord is going
to do any more, going any further with
us.
I have to be serious again and solemn
about that because, you see, the very governing
principle of Levitical service to God is holiness.
The whole dimension of the house is to
be holiness unto the Lord because it's a
priestly house in the spiritual sense.
It's holiness of people separated unto God in
an inward way.
It's impressive when you stop to think about
it, really sit down and think a little
about it.
All this all the way through the Bible
about separation, about sanctification, about holiness.
What does it imply?
Well, surely the implication of it all as
it runs right through the Bible from beginning
to end and is the, the, shall I
say the golden thread through the Bible.
What does it imply?
Well, it must imply that this whole realm
of things is a corrupt realm.
Is corrupted.
Is defiled.
Is unclean.
It's contrary to the nature of God.
We're born into it.
This realm of earth and the lower heavens
tainted and polluted.
It's been touched by an unclean hand.
It's being energized by unclean spirits.
It's unclean.
The very heavens in the sight of God
are not clean, the Bible says, with uncleanliness.
The warfare against God of unholiness.
So, it's quite clear that there can be
no association with God and no real work
for God only on this ground of true
holiness and practical holiness.
God wants a holy people.
I think that's the note of this weekend.
Note in my heart.
God wants, He must have a holy people
and then see what He'll do.
See what He'll do.
But oh, it's a suffering way because it
brings us so deeply into the meaning of
the cross.
But oh, it's a suffering way because it
brings us so deeply into the meaning of
the cross.
The cross teaches to be a teaching and
a doctrine.
It becomes almost an awful reality.
Terrible to the flesh.
Terrible to the flesh is the cross.
We got too cheap a cross perhaps and
sing about it, talk about it, teach about
it.
I think we know all about the cross.
The cross is a devastating thing in the
realm of the flesh.
You'll find that sooner or later.
The most awful thing really to come into
touch with the cross in the flesh.
On the other hand, what a mighty, mighty
power the cross is objectively when you are
in line with it, in tune with it,
in fellowship with it.
When it has nothing against you, you're on
its ground.
What a tremendous power it is in this
universe against the evil forces and in this
world.
Do you not agree with me dear friends
that that's the position that we want to
be in?
On both its sides, holiness, holiness and power.
Those two things always go hand in hand.
Holiness and power.
We cannot have the power, know the power
only by the holiness, but if we have
the holiness, the power will spontaneously work.
It will.
Do not have to ask for power if
the holiness is there.
So to sum up this whole matter of
Levites in all dispensations, it's a spiritual thought,
it's a spiritual conception, it is the embodiment
in the creation of the holiness and therefore
the power of God.
We read again and again last night from
this prophecy of Malachi that my name may
be great among the nations.
My name shall be great among the nations
repeated by the Lord and leading straight to
this.
He shall purify the sons of Levi.
He shall purify them.
The two things go together.
The greatness of his name among the nations.
A people purified unto the Lord.
I close by reminding you there's other words.
My covenant was with Levi.
My covenant of life and of peace.
I think we've got to know more of
that divine life.
Don't you?
We've got to know more of that divine
life.
The mighty power of that risen life of
the Lord Jesus.
We need to know it.
Every one of us and as a people
we need to know it where we are.
My covenant of life.
Victory over death in a spiritual way and
until the Lord has finished with us here
in a physical way.
I still stand on that ground.
It's a lifelong ground until he has finished
with us.
Divine life even for the body.
We want to know more about that.
And peace where God is not against us.
He has no controversy with us.
The conflicts between us and the Lord and
the Lord and us are settled.
His covenant of life and peace is with
Levi.
But Levi, mark you these two things God's
full purpose for his people and absolute sanctification
holiness separation unto the Lord.
Now you must ask the Lord how that
applies because it touches so many practical kinds.
May come into the family life the domestic
life may come into your business life challenge
and search out and judge all your business
methods and transactions.
Yes.
You've got to be a Levite in business
as well as in the assembly of the
Lord's people.
Holy unto the Lord be careful how you
are involved in the devil's system of running
this world to take from the Lord.
In your social life in every department of
life we are in a terrific business no
less than whether this great kingdom of darkness
is going to hold its ground or whether
the Lord is going to oost it.
And that issue is going to be settled
in the church make no doubt about it.
Make no mistake about it.
That issue is going to be settled in
the church.
It's going to be glory in the church
and by Christ Jesus in the church.
I must stop there.