The Spiritual Meaning of Serviceby T. Austin-SparksChapter 2 - Levitical Priesthood (continued)The Levites Related to the Whole Matter of LifeThen, further, the Levites in their service were related to the whole matter of life. We touched on this a little in our previous study. The great characteristic of the Levitical service was that everything should be living. 'Livingness' was the great feature. They were really up against death. Death, the great nullifier - spiritual death - had entered by sin, and they were up against it; and their ministry was, on the one hand, to nullify the power of death, and, on the other, to make everything live, to see that everything lived. Everything was to be living. I do want you to grasp this. It is so important that 'livingness' characterize the Church in every part of its life and activity. We have the Lord's table. It was there in symbol in the Tabernacle. Is this a form, is this a rite, is this the 'Lord's Supper', is this the 'Communion Service'? What is it? It is supposed to be, meant to be, a ministration of life, a testimony of life. If you and I come to the Lord's table and that does not mean to us 'livingness', if there is not something about this that is living, well, it has missed its meaning. We are a people of the table. The table is supposed to be a living thing: so much so that in Corinth, because of a touching of that table in an unworthy manner, the people met something. Many were sick and some died (1 Cor. 11:30). This thing is living. It is as though the Lord would say: 'You cannot just come to this, touch this, without it meaning something, and without your meeting something.' It should be like that. Oh, may God hallow the table! God make the table to live! Lord, make the table a challenge! Lord, make people afraid of that table, if they are not going to adjust to its meaning! Yes, it would not be a bad thing if there were such an effect, such an impact about this, that, if there were carelessness or wrongness of approach and wrongness of state in coming to it, it led to actual suffering or affliction. But that is the dark and cloudy side, the shadowed side. On the other side, it should be living. Theirs it was to keep things living. And everything else must be like that in the house, in the tabernacle. Is it the altar of incense - is it the prayer life? We need a word on this, friends. There should be something tremendously living about our prayer life, and our prayer life together as the Lord's people. We do not just come and say prayers and offer requests - no, no, no, it is a question of life, of effect, of 'livingness'. Is it the lampstand of truth, of revelation, of illumination? Is it the revelation of Jesus Christ? Oh, there is a great deal of difference in teaching. We may have good addresses, very good teaching, all very true, absolutely true; and yet - and yet - what have we got afterward? What do we take away? Do we go away more living than we came? Have we met life that has challenged us, exposed us, illuminated us, elevated us? This is the service of God. Oh, to have companies of people, the characteristic of whom is livingness: livingness in prayer, livingness in fellowship, livingness in teaching - all living! That is power. The Levites did minister in the power of this life. It is something tremendous. Let anybody come in, interfere with this, take this on, and see what they meet. There was power present in their service. The Continuity of LifeAnd then a further thing about the life was its continuity. God made a covenant, as we read in Malachi, with Levi, a covenant of life and peace; and although Levi deviated often, seemed as it were to go underground, and was often in a state most reprehensible, yet the Lord goes on, and in the end Levi survives. Although the old typical system passes with the old dispensation, there is more life in the New Testament than there was then. The Lord Jesus, as the great Levite, as we saw in our previous study, commenced His Levitical ministry at the age of thirty, just as the Levites did - and oh, the life of this Levite! Was Paul a Levite? Surely he was, and many another. But note, this life of the covenant goes on. What is the principle of continuity? What is the principle of succession? It is not that someone has a position or an office, and when he dies someone else has to take his place, go into his office and position, and so on, in a kind of formal, ecclesiastical, 'apostolic succession' principle? Not that at all. The principle of succession in the Word of God is Divine life. As soon as Divine life departs, you had better shut down the whole thing. Any church or system that has not the life has lost the very reason for its existence. The principle of continuity is life. The Lord save us from losing the tremendous factor of life and becoming resolved into a mere 'thing' with a teaching and form. And when we have said that, we need only say further that life - this livingness, this power, this continuity, which are the elements of this life - is incorruptible. That means that it is a life of absolute purity and holiness. As soon as corruption is allowed to come in, the life is suspended. The Lord will not let His life go on where there is corruption. Holiness is essential to life. Allow sin to persist and you find the life is suspended. The Lord will not go on with us. So the inclusive characteristic of the Levites, as the Lord's servants, was life. Spiritual WarfareI mention just one other thing: the matter of spiritual warfare. I wonder if you have taken note of this? Going back to the passage in the book of Numbers, 4:3 "...from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter upon the service, to do the work in the tent of meeting" - you notice that the margin tells us that "the service" is literally "the warfare", "to do the work in the tent of meeting"; "The warfare... in the tent! Now, that indicates a difference of kinds and realms of warfare. Others in Israel were called for the warfare of the nations. They could start at the age of twenty. They were more numerous: every young man, as soon as he reached the age of twenty, was eligible for the army. The Levites started ten years later at the age of thirty, but it says that they entered the warfare for work in the tent of meeting. This is a different kind, a different realm of warfare. It is not conflict with the world. They had to meet the world and the nations: Joshua became their commander-in-chief in that realm; but here is another kind. It is an inner kind of warfare. I am not going to make a lot of it, except to point out this: that, when any of us begin on this basis to serve God in relation to His full thought for His people, we meet a peculiar kind of opposition. It is an internal kind. Such ministry has to be fulfilled amidst strange opposition, an opposition that is directed against the Christ dwelling within. Many of you know that that is true. We put it in many different ways from time to time. When you become a Christian, you know that you are precipitated into conflict with the world: you are up against it, and the world is up against you, and you become a soldier of Jesus Christ in that realm. But when you become one who is going to serve God in relation to all His intention concerning His Church, you meet something other - and, mark you, you will meet it amongst the Lord's people themselves. There was a time when there was a movement to oust the Levites from their particular position by people in Israel who wanted to usurp that position. They were jealous of them, they criticized them, and took steps to nullify them. God met that movement in His own jealousy for this very thing. He must have His full thought represented. He was very jealous about it. But the point is this, that there is a strange, unexpected kind of warfare related to the full purpose of God. It is spiritual. It is not carnal warfare at all. It is not with the world. Give it terms from Scripture if you like, but the fact is that you find yourself having to fulfil your ministry in the midst of opposition which comes from very much nearer than the world. Spiritual warfare: oh, yes, it is so wonderful to glimpse the great eternal purpose of God, the "unsearchable riches of Christ", the "exceeding greatness of his power" - these superlatives, all true. Yes, but do not forget that while half of the letter to the Ephesians is occupied with the superlatives of Divine purpose and calling and blessing, the other half contains superlatives in relation to conflict. You get conflict of a fuller, higher and more terrible nature in the 'Ephesian' realm, if I may put it like that, than you do anywhere else, because that brings into view God's ultimate purpose for His people. The Spirituality of the Levites Well, this is the meaning of service, the cost and nature of service. It is tremendously real to God. So we gather it all up into one word. Here is particular and peculiar responsibility. Look again at the Levites - not as a class; dismiss that from your thoughts - and see their spiritual meaning. I would like, in closing, to dwell briefly upon some things which seem essential to complete and round off this presentation, such as the spirituality of the Levites. Spiritual men is what they represent. Now it is not possible - I say this with hesitation and with regret, but it is true - it is not possible to say that all the Lord's servants are spiritual people, really spiritual people. Many may be very devout, very much in earnest, but as persons they are not all spiritual persons. Look at it like this. When these Levites came into being, as in that thirty-second chapter of Exodus, on what ground did they come into being as functioning Levites? Well, the whole nation, because Moses remained in the mount so long, had lost patience. Why did they lose patience? Because they wanted things seen, and they could not endure things not seen. The principle of the life of Moses was that he "endured, as seeing him who is invisible.", (Heb. 11:27). That was something they could not do. They must see; things must be tangible, must be present, must be within the realm of the senses. Religious things - yes; things of God - yes; Moses - yes; but it must be within the compass of our senses, that we can see and handle and have evidence before our very eyes. Now spirituality is just the opposite of that. It is going on with God in faith. Jesus is in Heaven. "Though now ye see him not", says Peter, "yet..." (1 Pet. 1:8). We are going on. Peter's line of things is different from Paul's, as we know. Peter's line of things is 'pilgrims and strangers here'. Peter consistently says: 'though now we see him not'; 'we are pilgrims and strangers.' 'Our greater Moses is in Heaven, but we are going on our pilgrimage'. Paul's line of things is 'seated in the heavenlies in Christ'. Both sides are right. But the Israelites could not go on until they could see. They must have a god that they see. So - 'make us gods to go before us'. But alas! they do not see what they are doing, what they are letting in. What was all the gold for that they had brought out of Egypt? It was for the Tabernacle and the service of God. It was the gold of the sanctuary. Satan found advantage by their carnality, and stole the gold of the sanctuary, and turned it to his own worship in the place of the worship of God. Spirituality sees through. These Levites were spiritual men. They saw through this. Spirituality sees something more, sees the ultimate significance of things. Oh, for men with spiritual discernment - men who can see through and get hold of the ultimate significance, who can see where this is leading, how this will work out, where this comes from, what this means, what is really the nature of this thing. Carnality and spirituality, you see, are two different things amongst the people of God, and the Levites were spiritual men, the embodiment of spiritual perception. Again, work out this principle of spirituality. What was required of them? "Gird every man his sword upon his thigh" - 'and slay every man his enemy'? 'Get even with that man with whom you have had a grudge for so long'? No - 'slay every man his brother and his friend and his neighbour'. Brother, blood-kin; friend, neighbour; heart-relationship. This is a test of spirituality. You need not make it literal, unless you like. Sometimes it comes down to that, if we are putting father, mother, sister, brother, children in the place of the Lord; sometimes it works down to that very literally. But spirituality means that nothing that is of our natural life is allowed to influence us when Divine principle is at stake, however dear, however costly, whatever it involves. Friends and dear ones must not stand in the way of God's full purpose. If they have come across the purpose of God, or if they threaten it, I am sorry, but I must take the sword: and as I take the sword to them, I take it to my own heart. But: "Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.", (Luke 17:33). You know that that word 'life' also means 'soul'. The sword to our own souls - that is spirituality. It is very searching. Well, all this, as I was saying, amounts to taking responsibility for the Lord's highest interests. It is costly, as the Levites knew. It was by sacrifice, it was by blood, it was by tears. Yes, it was costly; but therein lay the preciousness to the Lord. He is jealous for that which answers to His own heart most fully. The Lord give us grace to be true servants - true 'Levites'.
