PRIESTLY GREATNESS

PRIESTLY GREATNESS

Deuteronomy 9: 18 - 27; Deuteronomy 32: 1 - 4; Deuteronomy 33: 1 - 7

What is upon one’s heart, dear brethren, in view of this hour is the thought of priestly greatness, I would like to draw attention to priestly greatness in Moses. There are other men in Scripture in whom the thought of priestly greatness is set out, but with special design I have selected Moses and the book of Deuteronomy, because the book of Deuteronomy fits in with the present moment, as we are about to go over, dear brethren, into the realm of God’s choice for us. There is every right and title to refer to Moses as priest although officially he was not a priest. But yet in Psalm 99, it refers to him as a priest, it says, “Moses and Aaron among his priests,” that is God’s priests, “and Samuel among them that call upon his name,” verse 6. It is a wonderful thing to be priestly, dear brethren, and I am sure that the Lord would help every one of us, young and old alike, to desire to be more priestly. And what is priestly suggests nearness to God. It is a great thing to come into contact with persons, brothers and sisters, who have to do with God, who live in nearness to God: you cannot help feeling something about them that is different. We may have all the knowledge of the truth that it is possible to get, but if it is held apart from priestly conditions and nearness to God there will be little power with it. And if the word tonight should create in all our hearts, oneself included, a greater desire to be more priestly, it will have served to a good end indeed, because every one of us has the capacity for being priestly as having the Spirit.

In the Old Testament, of course, the priesthood was vested in a specific family, Aaron and his sons;

in Christianity priesthood belongs to all the saints as having the Spirit. As receiving the Spirit we are divinely constituted and capacitated to think and to act for God, and that is a great matter in these days, dear brethren, in a world where everybody is thinking for themselves and thinking about themselves, it is important to be among those who are thinking for God and acting for God. And I would say in passing, you will find God acting for such persons, as Isaiah tells us.

In the book of Deuteronomy we get a life-sized portrayal of Moses in a unique way. Deuteronomy gives us in a very special way, the man Moses. It gives us the spirit of the man. It underlies priestly conditions - our spirits. It is one thing to be marked by certain external actions which may correspond with the truth, but we may be all wrong in our spirits. Moses was a remarkable man, and this book specially draws attention to the spirit of the man, the unselfish spirit of the man and his thoughts of God. His priestliness lies in the way he thinks of God and speaks of God, and in the way he thinks of the saints and speaks of the saints.

Now in the first passage that I have read I want to refer to him in that crisis, a unique crisis, at the very mountain of God, and the remarkable way that Aaron is before him, a prince in Israel, and the priestly feature that marked Moses in that critical hour when the enemy seemed to have gained the day, but where the intercessory service of Moses, wonderful type of Christ, intervenes for the salvation of Aaron and of the people. It was a difficult moment: Deuteronomy helps us to go over the ground and see all the way that God has led us. It has not been an easy matter for God, speaking reverently, dear brethren; if it had been a question of ourselves with one another we long ago would have had done with one another, but this book unfolds to us how God bore with them. As Paul says, “he nursed them in the desert,” Acts 13: 18. The unbelief, the murmurings and the rebellion. What Deuteronomy would help us to see in enlarging on the journeyings is the greatness of the mountain of God, that lying behind all these journeyings and all God’s operations in relation to them, in view of bringing them into the inheritance, is this great stable position, the elevated position that the mountain of God suggests. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, Hebrews tells us. God is God and this book reminds us of His government, and how serious it is for any one of us to resist any light that God may give to us as to His mind and to His thoughts and as to the disposition of His heart. This book is to sober us in view of going over, in view of finishing with the wilderness side altogether, and therefore we get touches in this book that we do not get anywhere else. And I think we can say that at the present time, dear brethren, in some little way we are getting touches that we have never had before, and especially is our attention being drawn to what the saints are substantially, what the ministers are substantially. And a great feature of a man of God is not his ability to draw you into reminiscences of his own spectacular exploits, but to draw you over to God’s side and to impress you with the greatness of God, and the greatness of His mountain. His purpose which stands fast, in order that you might see what lies behind all the humbling circumstances of our desert path.

Moses was a great minister, a wonderful minister! He could fill a place in ministry that nobody else could in his day, and yet the remarkable thing at the close of his life is that he is not dwelling on what he once was. He is not dwelling on the mighty deliverances that God had wrought through him and by him instrumentally. The Psalms give us an insight to Moses. What is he speaking about in his closing days? Is he just dwelling in reminiscences? No. He had pitched the tabernacle according to divine direction, and all the details connected with its structure he had to do with, but he is not living in that, he is not living in the greatness of his ministry, as it says in Psalm 90: the prayer of Moses, the man of God: “Lord thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,” think of that! How many there are that would dwell on their own exploits, would dwell on the help they have got in divine things, it may be. But what a poor thing it is after all! If God is pleased to use any of us, brothers or sisters alike, we can thank Him for it, but it is a poor thing to live in it and to dwell in it. Moses, one of the greatest ministers of all time, outside of Christ, lived in God, he dwelt in God. As John writes in his epistle, “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” Who loved the saints like Moses? Wonderful type of Him he foreshadowed, our Lord Jesus Christ. He was prepared to die for the brethren in order that they might be carried through. Does that spirit mark us, dear brethren? Is that the outlook of our minds and our hearts? Prepared to go out? Prepared to lose our lives in view of the brethren? What a wonderful man is Moses, he says, “Lord, thou!” - the emphatic ‘thou’ - “Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,” not one or two or three but in all generations.

I have no doubt that Moses would think of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as the children of Israel in referring to the generations, for he alludes to them here, he says in the portion that we have read, “Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not at the stubbornness of this people...”, he refers to God on the high level of His promises, he would remind God of His promises, which is another priestly feature of the man, as Isaiah says, “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance.”

What a wonderful thing! How God delights, dear brethren, to have us put Him in remembrance of His promises, the high level of His thoughts, the heavenly line of His thoughts, suggested in the reference to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Think of the variety of experience that entered into the lives of those three patriarchal men! Think of what God was to them! And Moses reminds God of these men over against the stubbornness of the people. I believe God was very pleased with Moses at this time in that relation. Another thing about Moses emphasising his greatness is the way that he can accept the discipline and government of God in regard to himself. Three times in the beginning of the book, once in the end of the book, does he refer (for the book is his) to the government of God because of the way he spoke in a certain circumstance. He is not covering up anything in regard to himself. He is clear and transparent as to all that he was in his ministry and in his movements with the people of God. He has got nothing to hide, there is no opaqueness with Moses. He relates to us in detail the displeasure of God with regard to the matter in which he broke down. And, dear brethren, who of us here would dare to say we have never broken down! But it is a wonderful thing to see how this book rises above all the breakdowns. God is above the breakdowns. Moses is above the breakdowns, and he carries on, holding God, as I might say, in priestly power to the light and the blessedness of His promises.

It was a critical time. Moses was up on the mountain and God had been giving ray after ray of light in regard to His pleasure, with regard to the world of which the tabernacle was a figure, because the first sanctuary is a picture and a type of the vast universal system in which God’s glory is displayed in Christ. And ray after ray of light as to that wonderful world was being unfolded on the mountain, and yet we are reminded in Deuteronomy of what was taking place below. What a humbling lesson, dear brethren, what a humbling experience! God by His power had brought the people to Himself, prepared to do the best for them, to bring them to the best and choicest thoughts that love had for them; but the working of unbelief in the scene here below - think of what it was to God! We all have to learn the lesson that that man will never do for God. There is only one thing that God could do with that man, the man of sin and shame, the man of unbelief, the man of murmuring and rebellion, there was only one thing that God could do with him, and that was to remove him judicially for ever in the cross of Christ. And He has done it, blessed be His name, and the gospel is to help us to come to the change of man, that we are no longer going on in ourselves with the man that has been linked with the history of sin and shame, but we are going on with a Man that is the Centre of God’s world, the blessed Man that the ark, the beginning of the tabernacle system, speaks of, the Centre and Head of God’s world.

Well, Moses had to come down - we have to face these conditions here below, we cannot go on, on the mountain without the people, Moses would say. That would be the language of the heart of this great man of God in his priestliness. We cannot go on without the brethren! Are any of us trying to go on without the brethren? Are any of us thinking that we are above the brethren and that we can go on without them? Moses would help us as to this. He comes down, he sees what had happened, he could not do what the Lord Jesus Christ did, he had to break the tables of stone, he could not bring in redemption for the people, wonderful man as he was, that prerogative belonged to Christ and how wonderfully He carried it through. But it says of Moses as the full bearing of the crisis bears in upon him, “I fell down before Jehovah as at the first,” notice that! It was not the first time, dear brethren, that this man of God had been with God about matters, he says, “I fell down before Jehovah as at the first, forty days and forty nights - I ate no bread and drank no water.” Oh, how like Jesus he was! How like the One he typified he was! Think of His forty days in the wilderness without bread and water. He who could have commanded that the stones should be made bread, but in the perfection of His holy humanity, having come into the place of obedience to God, and dependence on God, He would not take Himself out of it, and He answered the tempter, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” What a situation that was. But think of Moses, a man of like passions as we, corresponding with Christ in this great relation! Dear brethren, we shall be like Jesus in glory, as one has said:

“Like Jesus in that place,
Of love and light supreme,” (64:5)

but what about being like Jesus now in all the difficulties and crises of the hour in the testimony, for it is one crisis after the other. The whole matter of the testimony at the present time is full of crises, and we want to consider, dear brethren, the attitude and the spirit that marks us in these circumstances, as to whether we are like Christ. We want to be like Him now, in spirit and in our ways, drinking into His spirit and grace as Man, so that we are like Him in crises like these. He says, “I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all your sin.” Think of this man’s love for the people! Think of his love for God! In this section there is the mountain of God; chapter after chapter refers to it, the mountain, it is casting its shadow over the whole position - the rights of God in holy love to a people He has redeemed by grace and by power from Egypt and from the enemy’s thrall - He has a right to the people. He has got a right over us now. The mountain is casting its shadow over us now, dear brethren, at this time as we are together. God, in other words, is asserting His rights to us. He will not let any of us go. He will not leave us to go on without being reminded of His holy rights - the rights of His love to have us, to have us for Himself, for His pleasure now and forever. And if we dare to do despite to these rights, we are only but courting the government of God, a serious and solemn thing. This book tells us about it in no uncertain terms.

And this matter of fasting, what do we know about fasting, dear brethren, in crises? What can we say about it? What can we say about denying ourselves? You know there are people abroad that profess links with God and they carry on fasting but they have really got nothing vital in their souls; but here we are with all the light and wealth of the purposes and counsels of God, and what do we know about fasting? How much there is that we could deny ourselves! That was Moses, and a mark of his priestliness, it enters into his priestly constitution, his ability to deny himself in view of the people and their condition. How God must have been pleased with Moses, as He always is pleased with the attitude of mind and heart in any brother or sister that is prepared to fast, to deny themselves, in view of God’s rights, the rights of His holy love being secured. Think of David, think of Daniel, think of Nehemiah - all these men of God - think of what they knew about fasting! That is what enters into this matter. He says, “I ate no bread and drank no water - because of all your sin which ye had sinned, in doing what is evil in the eyes of Jehovah.” God loves persons who are prepared to hold themselves to this principle of self-sacrifice and self-denial that the rights of His love might be maintained.

And it says in verse 19, “For I was afraid of the anger and fury wherewith Jehovah was wroth against you to destroy you.” I would say in passing, dear brethren, that while we are in Christianity, in the dispensation of grace, we must not forget the fear of God. The fear of God is a wholesome thing. It is a great matter to see men and women who are marked by the fear of God. How many there have been before us, we who are younger, in the line of the testimony, who have feared God. And the testimony has prospered on account of their fear of God - Moses, great man as he was, living in nearness to God, had the fear of God before his eyes, as he says, “I was afraid of the anger and fury wherewith Jehovah was wroth against you to destroy you.” We shall not, any one of us, turn lightly to sin or to the world, or to anything connected with man’s doings if the fear of God is before our eyes. The man we were reading about last night had got a touch as to the saving grace of Jesus, he says to the other man, “Dost thou not fear God?” What a word for every one of us - do we not fear God? Young people, I say to you tonight in soberness, it is a great thing in early years to cultivate the fear of God, it will be a preservative all your life as you develop and grow in it. And he says, “And Jehovah listened to me.” I think that is beautiful, dear brethren. Think of a brother or sister in priestly power going through like this in a crisis in Barbados, and God would listen to them. He says, “Jehovah listened unto me” - Moses knows it, you see. He is not haphazard about it, he does not say, “I think” - he knows. Any man or woman that goes through things with God, they know if they have got the ear of God, and Moses knew it, he says, “Jehovah listened unto me also at that time.” What time? All this time of crisis when Moses was marked by the spirit of Jesus in relation to the people. And notice what it says, “And with Aaron Jehovah was very angry to destroy him.” Oh, what a word this is! Aaron was a prince in Israel, he was a man with a remarkable place and position, but we must remember that God in the jealousy of the rights of His love is not going on with anything in any of us, however great we might think we are, whatever position we may fill. After all, dear brethren, we always have to bear in mind what J.N.D. said in regard to Barnabas, that all the weight of a man’s godliness adds to his sin when he falls. Sometimes people, you know, excuse sin by saying, he was such a godly man or such a godly woman, but all the weight of that godliness adds to his sin when he breaks down, as it says here, “With Aaron Jehovah was very angry to destroy him.” Think of what a crisis it was! The whole priesthood was threatened and it says, “And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.” He is not only praying for the people generally but he is praying for Aaron specifically, and that is a great thing, dear brethren, to pray for one another specifically, especially if any of us breaks down, to mention one another, each by name, in any given crisis.

And he says, “I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.” It is one thing when a brother or sister is not going on right to give them a word. We are very good at giving them words, but I wonder if we are as good at praying for them? It is a good thing to back up a word publicly to them with prayer in private for them. So Moses is praying, he is interceding. He might have thought, as some men might think, Aaron might get ahead of me, God might put him in my place, but not Moses. Moses was the kind of man that says, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” and that is the spirit of true greatness. You will find that distinctively in the ministry at the present time, that true greatness lies in the lowliness of the vessel, and the desire to make room for all that is in the assembly. It is a great matter, dear brethren, notice what it says, “And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, and ground it very small, until it became fine dust; and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that flowed down from the mountain,” verse 21. Now this is one of the added touches in Deuteronomy. There are a number of them. You young brothers and sisters, as you have time, look into the book, read it carefully. Read it once, twice, three, as many times as you can, you will find great help for your souls in the book. You do not get this in Exodus, you get it in Deuteronomy. After all the wilderness journey is over we get this added touch as to the brook that flowed down from the mountain. As if in the very place of the breakdown of the first man, of the people in relation to their great sin, in the very presence of the mountain - typical of the holy rights of God in His love - there is this suggestion of grace flowing to carry away the fruits of unbelief and independence of God. What a touch, dear brethren! It is a Deuteronomic touch, reminding us that in the very presence of the severity of the government of God, in the very presence of His anger, the touches of His grace appear. The brook that flows down from the mountain reminds us of what is available to carry off in its stream the fruits of the workings of infidelity among the people.

Now I would pass on to speak of the second portion that we read. It is not a crisis now. Moses is a great minister. His priestly greatness underlies his ministry. He is not only marked by priestly greatness in a crisis, but he is marked by priestly greatness when it comes to ministry, because the test of all ministry is as to whether it leaves an impression of the greatness of God. You will find if you study a man of God, a man marked by priestly greatness,

that there are two impressions that he will leave on your spirit - he will leave an impression as to the greatness of God and an impression as to the greatness of the saints. I would counsel each one of us as to that. It is a great matter to speak well of the brethren. It is easy, you know, to speak wrongfully of the brethren, to find all the fault we can with them, but it is a great matter to be with God in priestly greatness and to speak well of the brethren, and that is Moses in Deuteronomy. And in this passage he leaves an impression on our souls as to the greatness of God. And what I would point out in regard of this passage is the fluidity that marks the man. You know, when we get older it is a great thing to be fluid right to the end. The danger is always in crystallisation, but the more we are with God, the more we are marked by priestly greatness, the more fluid we will be. You know it is a wonderful thing to see persons who are well on in years and to see how they are in the main stream. Some of us were visiting a beloved brother known to you all on this island this morning, and what spiritual fluidity marks the man, the freshness and fluidity that marks the man! Instead of crystallisation, instead of saying, Oh, well! Twenty or thirty years ago we had such wonderful times and wonderful ministry, but things are different now. It is a great thing to move all the way with the stream in which divine Persons are moving. Not to say ‘the former days were better than these,’ but to be in spiritual fluidity, flowing in affections and in thought in these wondrous streams that make glad the city of God, “God’s exhaustless tides,” as J.N.D. refers to them.

Now in this portion Moses says, “My doctrine shall drop as rain, my speech flow down as dew. This is the lawgiver that is speaking. This is the man that with such authority and power led the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea,

into the wilderness, and brought them to the mountain of God. You might think Moses was a hard man, he was an arbitrary man, but Deuteronomy would give us a view of the spirit of the man, he says, “My doctrine shall drop as rain.” Think of the gentle influence of the rain and what it means to this earth. What it means to the saints, the people of God in this relation! “My speech flow down” this is the man that God had to speak to and discipline because he spoke so hard to the people, because of the hardness of his speech. Notice how he has faced the whole matter, and he has got the gain of it, as it were he is with God in the matter, he has got the whole gain of it, and his speech now is flowing down as the dew. He is in accord with the mediatorial system, what is coming down from God to men, the heavenly influence of the dew. You know this was the man who said he was not eloquent and could not speak. He did not want to do what the Lord wanted him to do. Many of us have been like that. We have hindered God perhaps taking us on, but God went forward with Moses and Moses got the gain of it, and here he is saying now, “Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth!” (verse 1). It is not a question of Pharaoh now, the sphere is far extended - the heavens and the earth. This is the man that could not speak, who said he was not eloquent! Spiritual mellowness is a great thing. In the Song of Songs it speaks of the fig tree mellowing her winter figs. A wonderful thing to see the mellowness that belongs to old age, the ripened fruits of old age. How we thank God for experience amongst us. We younger brethren always want to remember that we could never buy what the older brethren have. They have got experience and we have not got that, and it is a great thing in the things of God, mellowed and ripened experience. Think of what Paul says being such an one as Paul the aged. He says that in the epistle to Philemon, and if you read that epistle you cannot help but see that Paul’s doctrine is dropping as the rain, his speech is flowing down as the dew, and as small rain upon the tender herb. Onesimus was a tender herb, one who had newly come into the truth. His master had difficulty about him, but Paul solved the whole matter as he distilled the influence of heaven. It is a great thing to find a brother or sister coming into the room and distilling the influence of heaven, especially when things are not going too well, and it is all a part of priestly greatness.

I finish now with a word as to chapter 33. I might say in passing from chapter 32, that he says, “For the name of Jehovah will I proclaim,” not the name of Moses, “Ascribe greatness unto our God! He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all his ways are righteousness: A God of faithfulness without deceit; Just and right is He.” What a word after all the Deuteronomic coverage of the failure and breakdown along the way. But the mountain is looming above it all, the rights of God in holy love for a people He had redeemed by His power. And now a finishing word as to priestly greatness in Moses. What is he doing in chapter 33? He is blessing the people. Blessing the children of God, the children of Israel, before his death. Think of his priestly greatness, he not only can leave an impression as to God and His greatness upon our spirits, but he will leave an impression as to the greatness of the saints. And he says, “Jehovah came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them.” Now I want you to notice, dear brethren, that he is not referring to the matter of what took place in Egypt or the Red Sea, the prophets tell us that God brought them out under the leadership of Moses from Egypt, and through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, but Moses leaves that side. “Jehovah came from Sinai,” that is, the mountain is in his mind - God’s rights in holy love in relation to the people, those rights of God of which He is so jealous. It says, “He rose up from Seir unto them; he shone forth from mount Paran. And he came from the myriads of the sanctuary”; Moses saw not the unbelief of the people, but God shining forth on the people like the blessing of the Nazarite, in Numbers 6. And it says, “From his right hand went forth a law of fire for them.” Oh, that law of fire! God round about His people protecting them. Why should we fear, dear brethren? Our God is round about us, the law of fire is for us, to protect us. We do not need to be afraid of the law of fire. It may involve discipline and suffering, but the rights of God in His holy love are behind it. You remember hour in Genesis 22 where God is testing Abraham, that it says, Abraham took the knife and the fire and both of them went on together. It is not an easy matter to face the knife. The knife is the dissecting side, the fire is the consuming side. We do not like the dissecting side, when things are laid open, and motives exposed in the discipline of God, but Abraham took the knife. He was prepared for every dissecting movement on the part of God, he took the knife and the fire. And Isaac, type of you young people, he is in the matter - they went both of them together. Think of Isaac alongside of Abraham, and the fire, and the knife. Let us not be afraid of the sufferings, the testings of the present time, because God is in them, it is His law of fire.

I desire that we might all emulate Moses, the man of God, in his priestly greatness!

Chapman Street, Bridgetown, Barbados.