LEVITICAL SKILL IN SERVICE
LEVITICAL SKILL IN SERVICE
JT It is as well to remember as we had last evening that the things treated in the gospels had already become known. They were written to show the settings of them from the divine standpoint that the saints should be in sympathy with God in what He was doing.
This gospel presents the beginning of the gospel so that the believer is arrested as to what part he has in it. The Lord would bring us into a sense of levitical obligations in regard to it and this gospel is peculiarly fitted to bring about the levitical family and to bring about the recognition of levitical obligation, and that each should take his place in regard to the service.
WH Is that in the Lord’s mind when He says, “Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men”?
JT Yes. It shows how the levites were brought into the service, and the apostles brought into it so that all should follow — so that they should enter levitical service. They were with the Lord a considerable time. After this chapter is the place of active service; that is to say, from the time they are called they are serving the novitiate, the five years. They would observe the Lord, how He did things.
WH So that Mark says, “that they might be with him”.
JT Yes. Now they are to be with Him in the mountain — called apart.
GN Is levitical service in this gospel universal?
JT Yes, I think so, preaching.
Rem So that “do the work of an evangelist” 2 Timothy 4:5 would be applicable to all of us.
JT [p. 69] Yes. In the first chapter the Lord attacks the enemy in the religious sphere and the household sphere, and He returns to the synagogue; He enters it again. At His first entrance He overthrew the power of Satan. Now He is going to take a man out of it that He can use, hence it is his right hand that is withered. He is going to employ us. And so He heals a man. Hence the man’s hand is restored.
AR Is levitical service preaching, did you say?
JT Yes, it is the leading thought in this gospel.
AR Would you confine it to that?
JT No. All saints are levites. You see this third chapter is dealing with a special class of preachers. All are not preachers, neither does the assembly preach. So that this chapter calls attention to a class specially employed in the preaching.
GN It is the twelve that are singled out here.
JT That is what it develops into; but He goes up into a mountain and “calls whom he himself would” and He appointed twelve. This principle of sovereign selection is important. Peter’s house had a condition that would hinder service; it was fever, but there is also the man himself in his house. It is how he is to be in it. That is chapter 2, where he has power in his house. It might not cure fever in the house but the power in which the man is set in his house would enable him to hold it for God. It says, “passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-office, and says to him, Follow me”. “And it came to pass as he lay at table in his house” — the Lord was in his house.
Rem This house then becomes an evangelical outlet to the world.
JT That is what you get. Many were with Jesus at table. Levi brought in his own class.
GN Levitical service would be dealing with a moral state.
JT Would you enlarge on [p. 70] that?
GN Well, we generally take priestly service as dealing with a moral state.
JT The point in Mark is how things are done, do you think? The priest is the sympathetic side — that is Luke; but the skill is seen in the levite. So that we have “He hath done all things well”.
GN Hence the necessity of being with Him.
Ques Do you suggest that the power of evil may be dispossessed and a brother still have a withered hand?
JT Yes. The withered hand means he is not available for work, so that the second chapter adjusts one in regard to one’s circumstances. Love is sympathetic. But there is another thing; we have to learn what new things are, because coming out of the synagogue one would carry the old things. Hence we have seen the gospel carried on in the old way, not according to the new methods. So that the Lord, before He healed the man, brought out the fact that the things had to be new. He says, “No one sews a patch of new cloth on an old garment: otherwise its new filling-up takes from the old stuff, and there is a worse rent. And no one puts new wine into old skins; otherwise the wine bursts the skins”. Mark 2:21 - 22 It is the Lord’s way of doing things and that has to be noted. So that the man whose hand is withered has to learn that if he is in the Lord’s employ he must work on new principles.
GN So that every case would require new and special skill on the part of the levite.
JT Yes, a certain newness in the levite working in the power of the Spirit.
Rem You would see that in Philip joining himself to the chariot.
JT Philip knew what to do. In Samaria he preached Christ because the Samaritans were under the influence of national feeling, and they had not come to it, that one Man had done everything; and [p. 71] that delivers from national feeling. It conveys the idea to you that one Man, Christ, has done everything so that all men would be indebted to this one Man. That overthrows all feeling. And then to the eunuch he preached Jesus. I do not suppose that he had any pride in his nation; he was a coloured man, but it was a great thing that a coloured man should know that Jesus was a Man as he was. He saw that Jesus was a Man, for Philip would enlarge on the humanity of Christ. He preached Jesus; you must begin at His birth, for that is the history of the Man. “He shall grow up before him as a tender plant”, Isaiah 53:2 that is what he was reading and that won his heart so that the levite knew what to do. He might have said ‘the preaching in Samaria was very effective and I will preach it here’.
Rem That indicates the skill of the levite.
JT Yes, the thing is to be ready to have something new to meet the person where he is. He began at the scripture and preached Jesus. I think from the whole of the book of Acts we get the levitical skill working out. The first is Peter’s sermon at Pentecost; he stood up with the eleven, and that meant that they were all preachers.
- .S. Is there an analogy between the priest and the levite now?
JT It was the priest who regulated the levite.
GN Luke’s gospel presents the Lord Jesus as priest on the extrication line. “That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies”, Luke 1:74 and all through the gospel each incident is extrication.
JT Yes, it is more sympathy in Luke. He had compassion. The Acts appeals to one in this sense. Peter acts in the intelligence of a levite in standing up with the eleven and so after chapter 13 we have the full height of levitical intelligence presented in the apostle Paul. The Spirit says, “Separate me now”; Acts 13:2 the time had come for it. Paul had been [p. 72] working in Antioch for a whole year and working effectively, too. That is the five years’ novitiate. But they were not at full levitical maturity until chapter 13. The Spirit says, “Separate me now”. They had come to the age of thirty and the choice is amply justified in the fact that they return to Antioch. The choice of the Spirit was justified in that their work was done, they completed the work and they fulfilled it. The idea of a levite is to finish things; the Lord finished His work. So during that tour Paul comes to Antioch in Pisidia. He does not stand up at once. He sits down amongst them until he is asked to speak and then he speaks. The levite knows. He has levitical wisdom and in speaking he says nothing to irritate. There are many other instances. When he went to Philippi he sought out the prayer meeting before he preached. He found certain ones there praying and he sought them out. When he went to Thessalonica he went in “among them” before he spoke. These are hints as to levitical skill in service.
GN In the type the levite received his instruction from the priest so that the apostle would be first priest and then levite.
JT Yes, that is the order. That five years in Numbers is very important because you see how other people act then. You will have observed in your own way how you have been helped by seeing how brethren did things. It is “Remember your leaders”. Hebrews 13:7 At Antioch there was a priestly element in operation.
GN So an old brother is not to be despised for he has experience.
JT Yes. So you have Peter alongside. Peter is preserved. Herod would kill him, but Peter was a man of great experience with God.
WH Is the skill you speak of a gift or the result of [p. 73] experience?
JT It is experience. Men with great gift employ sometimes human methods, but experience with God excludes all that.
GN So that in the conflicts we pass through we should gain experience and pass it on.
JT Yes. Young people may have gift and energy, but they cannot have experience; hence the importance of leaders.
Rem That shows the wisdom of God in setting the young and the old together.
JT Yes. It is the twenty to fifty years. There is a time when the Holy Spirit indicates that a brother has a certain line of work to do, and it has to be done.
GD Do you think that the writer of the gospel moved out too soon?
JT Yes, but he came to it afterwards. It says afterwards “he is profitable to me for the ministry”. 2 Timothy 4:11 His time with Paul and Barnabas would be a great lesson to him.
JT Yes, there is a time when you get knocked about; you are not yet a journeyman. During the five years you have to take a subordinate place — you are not thirty yet. One learns this in those five years, that things are not done on old methods.
WH Do you think you get in Barnabas a recognition of the skill when he went to seek out Paul?
JT Yes. I think he saw in Saul the right kind of man. In Acts 9 he came in among the disciples and then he entered the synagogue and preached that Jesus is the Son of God. He joined himself to the disciples not as a distinct vessel but as one of them. He was to be subordinate in Jerusalem. All these things happen, he comes to Jerusalem, works for a year, and is not recognised, but he is working; and he is not yet recognised — it is Barnabas and Saul. He has to win his spurs, so to speak, and presently it is Paul and — Barnabas.
[p. 74] Rem So that in the day of ruin you would be very glad to do anything.
JT Yes. You do not give up the thought that there is a levite and a Prince of the princes of the levites. You look to the Lord to give you His own line. We are told just what they did; they went out preaching everywhere.
AR Is that what you meant last night when you said that levitical work is not local?
JT Yes, the levites’ work is general and so the Lord had established the principle of newness and the third chapter brings out a state of things so that the old regime had to be given up. No doubt, reluctantly, but he takes out of it what is usable, and this man can be used. A man with one hand is awkward. He was not altogether useless.
JC How do we find out what work the Lord would have us to do?
JT The great levite Paul said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Acts 9:6 That is one thing. The next thing is that you work away at what you find; he just did what was to be done. Barnabas brings him to Antioch but that was not a levitical appointment. Barnabas saw that he had a heart for the service, but he does not yet get his commission. So one has just to move on humbly doing what is to be done at the time, looking to the Lord, and you will find that you are in a certain line of things. You may have desire and the Lord has respect for any desire but you find that you become effective on a certain line.
GN We must have no assumption — the apostle came amongst them.
JT One has not to go far. So that at the end of the year the Spirit says, ‘Separate me Barnabas and Saul, I have another work for them’.
Ques Do you think that a good deal of our [p. 75] discipline comes in to teach us that the man must be greater than his service?
JT I think that is important. Every levite is a first-born, so the book of Joshua helps greatly.
Rem You would not use the service to distinguish yourself. It is to distinguish Christ.
- .S. So this man with the withered hand is typical of the first man?
JT Yes, it is any man working in a religious way.
- .S. Would it suggest the recovery of Israel?
JT I have no doubt in the future, but if you notice he says, “Rise up and come into the midst”. The Lord would show what He is doing and all see it. The Lord calls the man out and heals him; He gives him power to work — to work according to God. Thus things begin to take a new form; the old methods depart. The Lord proves that He has a right and calls whom He will so that, after all, my service is given to me of Christ. He takes them away from the noise of the crowd up the mountain and one has to apprehend the Lord there, to be with Him there.
Rem He calls to Himself, whom He would, so that we have not only to be with the Lord but to recognise the sovereignty of His choice.
JT Yes, that is what comes out here. You will observe that whilst they are with Him on the mount they are not yet put into service. It is one thing to go amongst the saints and to do what comes to your hand but another thing to get a distinct word from the Lord as to what you are to do and take your bearing from that point of view. Thus another course of instruction comes in and that is in chapter 6: 7. You have levites entering on their service and what they do — they leave anointed ones behind them. They would be witnesses, they “anointed with oil many infirm”. The anointed one is a witness.
AR Would that be in the apostle’s mind, when he said to Barnabas, “Let us go ... and see how they do”? Acts 15:36 Yes. It was his thought that souls should not only be saved but set up as witness. All this sets aside modern evangelical activity.
Rem You get that in chapter 5 — the demoniac is left behind.
JT Yes, the Lord leaves us as witness. If it were for the satisfaction of His own love he would take us to be with Himself.
WR Why does Mark record the Lord’s command to have a staff and sandals? Luke leaves that out.
JT They were to go forth in experience. The staff is experience and the sandals help you in regard of the earth and your walk.
WH In the middle of chapter 3 he comes to the house. What is the instruction in that?
JT You find that the house is a place of affection and the Lord would be available there to people. That would be now in the assembly.