EXTRACT

Another thing that comes out in David’s last words refers to young people. By the last words of David, the Levites were numbered from twenty years and upwards instead of twenty-five or thirty. In a typical sense young people are thus authorised to take part in assembly service five years earlier than was usual. That David should have thought of this in his last words is of great significance, especially as the statement is found in relation to the service of God. Let us read these scriptures as applying to ourselves. That is how we get the force of them. Let young people here read chapter 23 of 1 Chronicles, with the thought that it is written for them, that they have a right from God to take part in the assembly at an early age. It is as if the Spirit of God was thinking of you young people, even centuries ago, so that you should be free to take part as regulated by other scriptures in the divine service, beginning at twenty years of age. You will understand it is not literal, that it is a question of spiritual stature, and that the service of God in the land in the assembly viewed thus—is less onerous than it is in the wilderness. That is the point that David makes. Young people, as believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and thus they are qualified to have part in the assembly, “in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession”, Ephesians 1: 13, 14. Hence we are made sensible that we are the property of God. We are anointed, sealed, and have the earnest of the Spirit. These three things together make us rich in whatever part we have in the divine service. In type, all this is by the last words of David.

J. Taylor (Vol. 49, pp.109, 110)

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