Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

“And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked to their shame among their enemies:) then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that He may bestow upon you a blessing this day.”

Here a new scene opens to us, and we are called to witness the dawning of a new day upon Levi; a day, moreover, which may justly lead us to anticipate great things. It is true we get him here likewise with his sword by his side, but, oh, for what a different purpose, and in what a different cause! It is not now in anger and self-will slaying a man, but in holy jealousy and care for the honour of the Lord God of Israel, and in simple obedience to His command; and although this, may, and will, lead to the very cutting off of a brother, a son, or a friend, Levi cares not; for the word is, “Consecrate yourselves to the Lord, that He may bestow upon you a blessing.” This was enough for Levi; and although by nature he was vile and utterly unfit either for the fellowship or service of God, yet is he now the foremost in jealous vindication of His holy name and worship, against those who would seek to “turn their glory into the similitude of an ox that eats grass.” Nor is Levi now seen “joined” with his brother Simeon — no he might join in league with him in the days of his wickedness for the perpetration of deeds of blood; but here, as I before observed, we get the opening of a new scene and therefore he is seen “joined” with the Lord and His servant Moses for the execution of righteous judgement upon idolatry.

And henceforth, in following the footsteps of Levi, we shall find that, instead of being “swift to shed blood,” they are to be “swift” in following the movements of the cloud, and, “swift” in performing the service of the tabernacle.

It would, of course, be quite foreign to our subject to dwell upon the sad and humbling scene that called out the above act of service on the part of Levi. Suffice it to say that it was, as we know, on the part of Aaron and the camp, a ceasing to exercise faith in the fact that Moses was alive in the presence of God for them. The consequence of which was an entire forgetfulness of the mighty Hand and stretched out Arm that had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and of their present position in the wilderness; hence, as might be expected, “the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” May the Lord preserve us from like forgetfulness; and, seeing “those things were written for our admonition,” may we be truly admonished thereby not to “lust after evil things.”

We shall now pass on to the next Scripture, where we get the Lord’s own thoughts upon the above act of service, namely, Deuteronomy 33:8-11: “And of Levi he [Moses] said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who said to his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed Thy word and kept Thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob Thy judgements, and Israel Thy law; they shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon Thine altar. Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.”

In this passage we have real Levite service brought before us in the words, “who said to his father and mother, I have not seen him,” etc. The true and decided servant of God will ever have to experience something of this; indeed, the measure thereof will just be in proportion to the faithfulness and power of his walk: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”; therefore every heir of that kingdom must show himself in readiness to deny all the claims which “flesh and blood” would make on him, whether in himself or in others. Most happily does the address to “the queen,” in Psalm 45, connect itself with this point: “Harken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty for He is thy Lord, and worship thou Him.” (verses 10-11)

We have all to watch against a tendency to be influenced by the claims of flesh and blood, in our testimony for Christ. He Himself has said on this subject that “no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) And, as some one has observed, it was upon this point that the prophet Elisha’s character seemed a little defective, for when Elijah cast his mantle over him, or, in other words, when he had put upon him the high honour of making him a prophet of the Lord God, Elisha’s heart seemed to yearn after home, and he said, “Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.” (1 Kings 19:20) Now this was most natural, and, as some would say, amiable and affectionate; but, oh, amiability and natural affection have often hindered people from entering as they should into the Lord’s service; and although it is one of the marks of the latter-day apostasy to be “without natural affection,” yet does Moses, in the above-cited passage, ask the Lord to bless Levi, because “he said to his father and his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children.” How grossly inconsistent would it have been for Levi to have said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother,” when called to enter upon the Lord’s work; and not less so is it for us to allow the claims of “flesh and blood” to interfere with our true-hearted Levite service to our God, who has done so much for us.

But let us carefully observe the blessed consequences of this decision of character on the part of Levi. These are, first, “They shall teach Jacob Thy judgements, and Israel Thy law.” Secondly, “They shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon Thine altar.” Thirdly, “Bless his substance.” Fourthly, “Accept the work of his hands.” Fifthly, “Smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.” All these fruits are distinct, and yet intimately connected, as springing from the same source, namely, simple, devoted and uncompromising obedience to the Lord. As to the first of these fruits, how true it is that it is only the man who himself endeavours to walk in power before God that can speak with effect to the hearts and consciences of others; nothing else will do — nothing else will tell, either upon the hearts or in the lives of Christians. There may be, and, alas, is much of mere systematic teaching and preaching of things which the mere intellect may have received, and which, by a natural fluency of language, we may be able to give out; but all such teaching is vain, and had much better be avoided in the sight of God. True, it might often give to our public assemblies an appearance of barrenness and poverty which our poor, proud hearts could ill brook; but would it not be far better to keep silence than to substitute mere carnal effort for the blessed energy of the Holy Spirit?

True ministry, however, the ministry of the Spirit, will always commend itself to the heart and conscience. We can always know the source from which a man is drawing who speaks in “the words which the Holy Ghost teaches,” and with the ability which God gives; and while we should ever pray to be delivered from the mere effort of man’s intellect to handle the truth of God amongst us, we should diligently cultivate that power to teach which stands connected, as in Levi’s case, with the denial of the claims of flesh and blood, and with entire devotedness to the Lord’s service.

In the second consequence above referred to we have a very elevated point: “They shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon Thine altar.” This is worship. We put incense before God when we are enabled, in the power of communion, to present in His presence the sweet odour of Christ in His person and work. This is our proper occupation as members of the chosen and separated tribe.

But it is particularly instructive to look at both the above mentioned consequences in connection; i.e., the Levites in ministry to their brethren, and the Levites in worship before God: it was as acceptable in the sight of God, and as divine an exercise of his functions, for a Levite to instruct his brethren as it was for him to burn incense before God. This is very important. We should never separate these two things. If we do not see that it is the same Spirit who must qualify us to speak for God as to speak to Him, there is a manifest want of moral order in our souls. If we could keep this principle clearly before our minds, it would be a most effectual means of maintaining amongst us the true dignity and solemnity of ministry in the Word: having lost sight of it has been productive of very sad consequences. If we imagine for a moment that we can teach Jacob by any other power or ability than that by which we put incense before God, or if we imagine that one is not as acceptable before God as the other, we are not soundly instructed upon one of the most important points of truth; for, as some one has observed, “Let us look at this point illustrated in the personal ministry of Christ, and we shall no longer say that teaching by the Holy Ghost is inferior to praise by the same, for surely the apostleship of Christ when He came from God was as sweet in its savour to God as His priesthood when He went to God to minister to Him in that office. The candlestick in the holy place which diffused the light of life — God’s blessed name — was as valuable, at least in His view, as the altar in the same place, which presented the perfume of praise, whether of Christ personally, or of His body the church, for in both do we not equally see Christ?”

We now come to speak of the third point, namely, “Bless, Lord, his substance.” This is just what we might have expected; an increase of blessing will ever be the result of real true-hearted devotedness to Christ. “Every branch in Me that bears fruit He purges, that it may bring forth more fruit;” “The diligent soul shall be made fat;” and “To him that has shall more be given.” Levi had exhibited much diligence of soul in the Lord’s service — he had shown himself in readiness to vindicate His name in strong and decided opposition to every mere human thought and affection; and now the Lord will show Levi that He is not unrighteous to forget his work and labour of love, “for He will bless his substance.” We find the Apostle Paul bringing forward the same principle to his son Timothy when he tells him to “meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Here he connects the “profiting” with the “giving himself wholly”: this will ever be the case; and if we would experience more than we do the meaning and power of the words, “Bless, Lord, his substance,” we must first endeavour to enter into the meaning of what goes before, namely, “who said to his father and to his mother, I have not known him,” etc. “Every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (Matthew 19:29)

Not less striking is the connection between what has just been stated and our fourth point, namely, “Accept the work of his hands.” This I conceive to be a point of the greatest importance to us, and one which involves a question upon which we frequently display much want of intelligence. We often find it difficult to reconcile the idea of salvation through free grace with that of an increase of blessing and power for walking in obedience; and yet we find the two things constantly maintained in Scripture; thus we read, “He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me; and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” And, again, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:21, 23)

This is very clear and decided upon the subject: we see here that the manifestation of the Son is made to depend on our keeping the commandments of Christ. Grace takes up a sinner and leads him into the knowledge of the full forgiveness of his sins through faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ: but all this is simply a means to an end: it is, in a word, to set him down in a position of responsibility to Christ, which position he by nature could never have sustained, because “the carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” If, then, a man be put into a place of responsibility it is clear that the more faithfully and diligently he maintains that place, the more enlarged will be his communion.

A father may have two children, the one obedient, the other the very reverse; now, they are both his children; neither the obedience of the one nor the disobedience of the other can interfere in the least with the relationship existing between them; but can we have a question as to which of them would enjoy most of the father’s presence and affection? Surely not; a father likes to be obeyed, and will love the obedient child. There may be extraordinary cases where, from a warped judgement or a blind and unmeaning partiality, the disobedient, lawless son may have more of the heart of the parent than the other; but this is not so with God: His judgement is clear and unerring: He can accurately distinguish between the one that honours Him and the one that despises Him: the former “He will honour,” the latter He will “lightly esteem.” The Lord does not ask a sinner dead in trespasses and sins to serve Him, for all such a one could do would be polluted with sin — his very prayers are polluted — his meditations are polluted — his acts of benevolence are polluted; in a word, he is all polluted, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and therefore can do nothing acceptable in the sight of God. But the Lord quickens those that are dead in trespasses and sins, and then teaches them to “walk worthy of Him as dear children,” and to be fruitful in every good word and work, to the praise of His name: and when we do this He graciously condescends to “accept the work of our hands.” But not only does Scripture abound with precepts which confirm what has been above stated, it also affords numerous examples and illustrations of the same; thus, for instance, the case of Abraham and Lot, in the opening of the book of Genesis. These were both servants of God, but yet how differently they walked! one loved God; the other loved the well-watered plains of Sodom: and the consequence was, that while the Lord Himself could meet with Abraham, and sup with him, and, moreover, unfold to him His counsels with reference to Sodom, He merely sends angels to Sodom, and we can plainly perceive in their manner toward Lot their marked disapproval of his circumstances, for when he invites them into his house, they reply, “Nay, but we will abide in the street all night.”

This is plain: the angels of the Lord would rather abide all night in the streets of guilty Sodom than go in to a child of His who was not walking in obedience; nor does the fact that they afterwards consented to go in at all interfere with the point which I am seeking to establish; no, their answer speaks volumes of the most solemn and practical instruction to us; they enter into Lot’s house, it is true; but if they do, it is only to counteract the sad effects of Lot’s sin. May we, then, seek, by prayer and communion with God, to keep ourselves in the path of obedience, so that we may prove in our soul’s happy experience the meaning of the prayer in our text, “Accept the work of his hands.”

We have now arrived at the fifth and last point in this branch of our subject, namely, “Smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.” This is properly the last point, when there shall be neither “adversary nor evil occurrent” we shall rest from our labour and conflict, and enter into possession of that upon which hope now feeds; therefore, when it can be said of our enemies “that they rise not again,” we shall be happy indeed.

However, there is much of practical value in this point in the connection in which it stands here, i.e., as a consequence of obedience; there is nothing that gives the soul such marvellous power over enemies as an obedient, holy walk. Christ has conquered the devil, death and hell, and He has moreover crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, and therefore when a soul believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, he is introduced at once into a place where he has Satan, the world, and the flesh under his feet; and it is as he walks in the power of resurrection life, that he can at all maintain this, his blessed ground. But alas! how often does it happen that instead of having all these our enemies under our feet, we are found under their feet, to the gross dishonour of our Lord, and the sorrow and debility of our own souls, and why, but because we walk not in simple obedience.

Every step we take in real obedience to Christ is, so far, a victory gained over the flesh, and the devil; and every fresh victory ministers fresh power for the conflict which follows; thus we grow. And on the other hand, every battle lost only serves to weaken us, while it gives power to our enemies to attack us again. Thus we see that the man whose heart is truly devoted to the Lord will have power to teach — power to worship; he will increase in substance, for Christ causes those that love Him “to inherit substance.” (Prov. 8) He will enjoy more of God’s favour and of the light of His countenance, for “them that honour Me I will honour”; and, finally, he will have enlarged power over all enemies. All these are the fruits of that true Levite devotedness which will enable a man to say “to his father, and to his mother, I have not seen him”; or, in other words, those fruits can only be enjoyed by one who is ready to “leave all and follow Christ.” This being the case, then, we can have little difficulty in accounting for the poverty in gifts of ministry — the poverty in worship — the meagreness of growth — the many interruptions in the enjoyment of divine favour — the almost total lack of power over enemies of which we have all to complain. Many seek to satisfy themselves by saying that we cannot expect the same power in gifts and worship now as that which fell to the lot of the saints in the apostolic day, and this, of course, we are not going to deny; but then, the question is, Have we as much power and freshness in these things as we might have? I believe we have not — and why? Is not Levi’s God our God? Yes, He is, blessed be His name, and the same everlasting and abundant fountain of blessing as ever He was, but we, alas, are far behind in the matter of Levi’s true devotedness; and this is the root of it all, for it remains unalterably true that “to him that has shall more be given,” and “we cannot serve two masters.” This is true — solemn — and practical.

We are now called to consider a Scripture which will unfold to us at once the wondrous secret of how a sinner so degraded as Levi could hold a place of such elevation and nearness to God as that which he afterwards occupied. There is nothing in a sinner by nature with which God could hold any intercourse; therefore, if ever He brings any one into a place of blessing and high communion, He does so in pure grace, and thus excludes “boasting” altogether, for “no flesh shall glory in His presence.” Those who look upon it as presumption in a sinner to speak of holding a place of such nearness to God, seem to lose sight of this completely. It could never be pride that would lead any one into a place where he would be broken to pieces, and be shown that he was altogether corrupt and worthless; if God were to elevate flesh, and bring flesh into a place of nearness to Himself, then indeed there would be some force in the objection on the ground of presumption; but God does no such thing: the flesh is so far gone in ruin that it cannot be improved, and therefore God declares in the Cross His mind about the flesh, namely, that it is a condemned thing; but He, by the same Cross, gives the poor sinner life, and in the power of that life, and not in the power of life in the flesh, He brings the sinner into His presence and sets him down at His table; so that it is not the presumption of a poor prodigal that assigns the place which he is to occupy, but the grace and boundless loving kindness of the father: thus, God says to Noah, “The end of all flesh is come before Me,” and what then? “Make thee an ark of gopher wood” — and in that ark is Noah raised up beyond the region of judgement, and a judged world, into a place of undisturbed communion. Now, we shall find the very same principles developed in God’s dealings with Levi, in the Scripture which is about to engage our attention. I shall first consider their cleansing; and secondly, their position and service. First, their cleansing as recorded in