Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the
Lord."–Isaiah 66:21.
THIS chapter is surrounded with critical difficulties, and yet it is
full of spiritual instruction. The verse before us is by some referred
to Gentiles, and supposed to mean that the Lord promises that he will
take out of the heathen nations a people whom he will make into priests
and Levites. Others would say it points to the Jews, rejected for their
unbelief and dispersed in judgment among all nations. When their own
Messiah came, it was not with a devout faith, but with a profane
imprecation, they said, "His blood be on us, and on our children." The
curse they invoked did come upon them. The retribution they challenged
has been meted out to them in full measure. To the letter it was
verified. Have you never read how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem,
five hundred Jews were sometimes crucified in a day? Do you not
remember that Josephus, speaking as an eye-witness, said, "There wanted
room for crosses, and crosses for bodies"? To this day their children
are scattered in all lands, and have found no rest for the soles of
their feet. But they are to be restored; they are to be brought back to
their own land, and to worship God in his holy mountain; and in the
latter days, when they are restored, then will God take of them for
priests and Levites. To me it appears of very small consequence to
which this verse refers, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Gentile
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision; and this promise seems to me
to stand good to the whole human race considered in its fallen state.
"I will take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord."
Under the gospel dispensation God will select both out of Jews and
Gentiles a chosen people, who shall stand before him spiritually as the
priests and the Levites stood before him typically.
Think for a minute of the compass of this great promise. Evidently a
high honor is here conferred. The connection leads us to see that not
only a great promise but likewise a great privilege is herein implied.
What is this privilege? It is that we shall be priests and Levites.
Now, the priests or Levites were persons set apart to be God's peculiar
property. When the firstborn were spared in Egypt, God claimed the
firstborn to be his own, and he took the tribe of Levi to represent the
firstborn; they were to be the Lord's. Though all Israel belonged to
God, yet the tribe of Levi was especially selected and particularly
appointed to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; and
of this tribe of Levi, chief among them the house of Aaron, to minister
in the sanctuary as priests. So now, glory be to God, he takes out of
all nations a people that are to be peculiarly his own–his own by
election, as he chose them–his own by redemption, as he bought
them–his own by endowment through the regenerating and sanctifying
operations of the Holy Spirit. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord of
hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels;" his own, therefore,
before time, and after time shall close. "I will take of them for
priests and for Levites, saith the Lord." Being thus set apart as the
Lord's property, the priests and Levites lived only for divine service.
While others were engaged with their trade or upon their farm, the
Levites were attending to the tabernacle or temple, and the priests in
their courts were slaughtering bullocks and lambs, and offering them to
God; or they had other duties of a kindred order, by reason of the
charge given them of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel.
Anyhow, it was in sacred things that they were occupied; so now, it is
the duty of every man to serve the Lord; but, alas! man will not; and
therefore God takes unto himself a people out of all nations, and
kindreds, and tongues, and he ordains them to stand before him
continually, to wait on his commands, and to do his bidding. Thus he
puts upon their shoulders his easy yoke and weights them with his light
burden, and they become his willing servants–that their life may be
for his glory, and that their desire, as well as their duty, may be to
serve him with heart and strength so long as they have any being. In
this sense, then, happy is the man who is set apart to the divine
service, a priest and a Levite unto God.
Further than this, the priests and the Levites enjoyed the privilege of
drawing near to God–nearer than the rest of the people in that typical
dispensation. While the people stood without, the Levites are busy
inside. One of them, the chief of the tribe, and the High Priest before
the Lord for all the tribes, was permitted and commanded to go into the
most holy place within the veil; and you know that the holy places made
with hands are figures of the true, even of heaven itself. In like
manner there is a people to be found on earth at this day whom God has
chosen to draw near unto him. In Christ Jesus they who sometimes were
afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. The same precious blood
that is applied to their conscience is sprinkled on the mercy-seat;
therefore they have access to the Father. Oh! happy they, who, like the
priests and Levites, love dwelling in the Lord's house, and praising
him, who can say–
"Here, Lord, I find settled rest
While others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home."
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations: we are a
people near unto thee made nigh by affinity with the Son of God,
brought nigh by the blood, led nigh by the Spirit of God, kept nigh,
and rejoicing to be nigh–for herein is our honor and comfort, to be
near unto God; made priests and Levites, because claimed as God's
portion, prepared for God's service, and admitted to a near familiarity
with him. There are some such to be found in this place to-day, whom
God has taken from among the Gentiles to be priests and Levites unto
him. But priests and Levites had two works to do: something to do
towards God for men, and something to do towards men for God. They were
engaged to do something towards God for men, and so they offered the
sacrifices that were brought to the door of the tabernacle, whether
according to the general ordinances, or to any special vows.
Spiritually minded, they were much engaged in intercession for the rest
of Israel. So there is a people to be found this day who offer unto God
acceptable prayer and praise, and in answer to their prayer, unnumbered
blessings come down upon the sons of men. I trust there are some here
that have power with God in prayer. Ye are the king's remembrancers; ye
make mention of his name, and keep not silence; ye cry to God for
Sodom, and yet more hopefully ye cry to God for Jerusalem: your prayer
ceaseth not, and God's grace and favor always follow it. In this sense
God is constantly taking out, even from amongst the vilest of the vile,
a people whom he makes to be priests and Levites for men towards
himself. Another part of their office consisted in speaking for God to
the people; "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge." As for the
Levites, they were as ushers in the schools and tutors in the families
of Israel. Amongst the Levites were found those scribes who became the
instructors of the people, the copyists of the law, and the expounders
of its statutes and ordinances; ministers who opened up to the people,
as Ezra did, the knotty points of the old covenant, and expounded the
word. So not all of us in the same degree, but all of us in a measure,
are to be teachers of God's revealed truth, even as he has taught us;
and he has in this place, and throughout the world, taken out a certain
company whom he has made to speak as his mouth to the sons of men–men
of his own choosing, and his own sending, who are as priests and
Levites for his name. They claim no priestly office as though they
could absolve the sinner: they leave that with Christ, the firstborn of
his Father's house, and the chief rabbi of all the Lord's chosen seed,
but as teachers and instructors; they are in the midst of the world the
priests and Levites of God. I have thus shown what the promise means.
God will take out of the Jews and Gentiles a people whom he will bring
very near to himself, and make use of for his own sacred purposes. The
great point is this. It seems to be mentioned here as a matter of
surprise that God should take any of them–of the persons here
mentioned–of the sinful, backsliding, tranegressing Jews, or of the
blinded, dark, benighted, heathen Gentiles–that he should take them,
and make them to be priests and Levites before him. Now, that is
parallel to the fact that God does take some of the most unlikely
persons, who seem to be the most unsuitable of all, and make these to
be his faithful and honored servants among the sons of men.
Now, I shall first notice that fact; then, the reason for it; and then,
the lessons from it.
I. First, I notice that God does, to the astonishment of men, TAKE SOME
WHOM HE MAKES BE PRIESTS AND LEVITES TO HIMSELF. This is a fact. How,
there are priests and Levites that God never took. There have been such
in all ages. There were those in the days of Aaron who said: "Ye take
too much upon you, ye sons of Levi;" and when they stood before the
Lord with their censers, "the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them
up." There were those in the days of Elias. When he stood by the altar
of the Lord, the priests of Baal, in great numbers, stood by their
altar, offering prayer to Baal. Ye know how God had no regard to their
sacrifice. They were the church established by law; but, for all that,
Elias the Nonconformist, put them to the rout, and maintained the
worship of the invisible God of Israel firm and faithful to the end. So
in our Savior's days there were priests and Levites–men taught and
instructed in the law, and these were the very men who conspired
together against him, who took counsel how they might put him to death,
and who stirred up the people to say, "Not this man, but Barabbas." And
on down to this present day there are those legitimate priests and
Levites–at least, those who call themselves so–whom God hath never
taken, upon whom he hath never laid his hand, upon whom his Holy Spirit
hath never descended; who speak, but he speaks not by them; and who
administer ordinances, but he gives not grace to the ordinances by
their hands. And such there always will be, doubtless, till Christ
cometh, but they are not spoken of in the text, for the text says, "I
will take," and it is only those whom God himself takes and chooses
among men that are the real priests and Levites that serve him.
Observe, according to the text, men have nothing to do with the
selection; for here it is said, "I will also take of them"–not "their
parents shall bring them up to it;" not "those who shall be looked out
as the most fit and proper men on account of some natural bent and
bias, or gift and talent, but I will take." God's priesthood in the
world is a priesthood of his own choosing of his own setting apart, of
his own anointing. "He hath made us kings and priests unto God." The
church is a royal priesthood, not of man, neither by man, nor of the
will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth: it is of God's choosing. This
sacred and consecrated band of priests and Levites, and all that serve
God effectually and acceptably, are men whom he has himself chosen to
the work. He himself hath done it, and only his own will as been
consulted in the matter. In their case, it appears from the text, that
whatever was unfit in their character has been overcome by divine
grace. "I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the
Lord." If God takes them for Levites, he makes them Levites; if he
chooses them for priests, he makes them priests. So, glory be to his
name, when he chose you, my dear brother, when he chose you, my dear
sister, to be his servants, to be his priests and his Levites, he gave
you the grace you wanted. He found in you no natural fitness, no
suitability, but in fitness for sin, a suitability to go astray, and to
become a brand for the burning; but if there be a fitness in you to
serve him on earth and in heaven, it is his grace that has done it. It
is his grace speaking in all its wondrous majesty–"I will take of them
for priests and for Levites"–which has effected in you the great
transformation, making in you all things new, and thus qualifying you
to become the servants of the Most High. In some persons this natural
inaptitude and unfitness for the Lord's work has been more apparent
than in others. They have been men of rough exterior, unhallowed life;
their education neglected, their passions wild and lawless, their
tastes low and grovelling; yet, for all that, God has taken from
amongst such men some who in an especial manner, even beyond the rest
of God's servants have become as priests and Levites unto him. He has
sometimes selected women, in whom there seemed to be no suitability for
his grace, to make them matrons in the church; and men, who seemed to
be ringleaders in the service of Satan, to make them very captains of
the Lord's hosts. They had no inbred faculty, no natural genius that
qualified them to become the instruments of righteousness: as I have
said before, it was the reverse of this. Their career was not
foreshadowed by any instinct with which they were born; nor was it
aided by any training they received in childhood. The God who chose
them gave the grace they required at their second birth, and subdued
all the evil that was in them by the rich discipline of his spiritual
operations, in order to qualify them for efficient service. I thank
God, I do remember in my soul some dear brethren who have been made
eminent ministers of the gospel, of whom, if any one had said they
would ever have preached the gospel, none would have believed it. Not
to mention the living, the men of to-day, go back to the early days of
John Newton, an earnest preacher, a famous evangelist, not to add a
sweet poet. Almost a model for the ministry was John Newton, but once a
blasphemer and injurious. Turn farther back, to John Bunyan, on the
village green, with his tip-cat on the Sabbath-day, with all a
drunkard's vices and sins, and foul-mouthed in his profanity: yet John
Bunyan becomes an eminent proclaimer of the gospel, and the author of a
matchless allegory which has served to guide many a pilgrim to heaven.
Turn farther back, to Luther, most earnest as a Romanist for all the
letter of the law, diligent in every ceremony, superstitious to a high
degree, yet afterwards the bold proclaimer of the gospel of the grace
of God. Turn to Augustine, in youth of corrupt and vicious
propensities, according to his own confession, to the grief of his
mother Monica, yet called by sovereign grace to be one of the fathers
of the church, and a notable exponent of sound doctrine. Look yet
farther back to the apostle Paul, breathing out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, like a huge wild beast,
making havoc of the church, but suddenly struck down, and almost as
suddenly raised up a new man, and ordained (not of men, neither by man,
but by Jesus Christ and God the Father) to be a chosen vessel unto
Christ, to bear his name unto the Gentiles. "I will also take of them,"
the most unlikely and unfit, according to human judgment. "I will also
take of them for priests and for Levites unto me." And where the
service has not taken the form of preaching, we can remember some whom
God hath made eminent in prayer. Never account prayer second to
preaching. No doubt prayer in the Christian church is as precious as
the utterance of the gospel. To speak to God for men is a part of the
Christian priesthood that should never be despised. Surely I have heard
some prayers of those whom none would ever have expected to pray, such
as I have not heard from those who, from their youth up, have been
accustomed to the language of devotion–moved with energy and full of
fervor, like Elijah. Or, shall I say it, they have become in spiritual
force nerved as Samson was with physical strength. In their prayers
they have seemed to take hold of the pillars of the temple of Satan,
and pull it down upon their enemies; they have been so mighty as to
wrestle with God and prevail. God has taken of them–that is, even of
the prayerless, and the careless, and the blaspheming–and he has made
these to be priests and Levites unto him. And in all other holy service
I think I can recollect eminent men who out of weakness were made
strong, from simpletons they were changed into sages, or, rescued from
the dregs of infamy, they became paragons of virtue. In their
unregeneracy as bitter fruit, apples of Sodom, that crumbled into dust
and turned to ashes, yet so transformed by the renewing of their minds,
that they bore the richest clusters of choicest fruit to the praise and
glory of the Great Husbandman. "I will also take of them for priests
and for Levites, saith the Lord." There is the fact. You need not that
I enlarge upon it. While a false priesthood still lives (and always
will), God has his elect people, who are his royal priesthood among the
sons of men, who are discharging regal functions and sacred offices
among the sons of men in his name, and before his face; and these he
oftentimes takes out from the least likely of mankind.
II. And now, secondly, as to THE REASON OF THE FACT. Does not he do
this to display his mercy–his great and infinite mercy? that those who
have provoked him to wrath should become the men in whom he should show
forth his lovingkindness–men to be pardoned, men to be washed, to be
sanctified–and then men to be put in trust of the gospel of Jesus
Christ–does not this reveal and illustrate the high prerogative of
sovereign grace? "Unto me," saith the apostle, "who am less than the
least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." It is a great grace to
be permitted to preach the gospel. I have sometimes said to you that
when the prodigal came back to his father, and was received into his
father's house, no earthly parent, though he had quite forgiven him all
the wildness of his son's adventure, could wholly forget the
waywardness of his disposition. He might condone the past without
confiding in him for the future. If it were needful to send one of the
sons to market with a bag of money, the good old father would, in all
probability, say to himself, "I will send the elder son with it: he is
better to be trusted; I would hardly like to put such a responsibility
upon the young lad who has so lately been reclaimed." I can fancy,
without uttering a word to his younger son he would, discreetly (as you
would say), trust the other with any weighty concerns. But our heavenly
Father–oh, how he forgives us! He leaves no back reckonings, for
though we used to be such sinners, some of us, and so injurious, after
he forgave us, he committed to our charge not merely silver and gold,
the perishable resources of time, but the priceless treasure of the
gospel of Jesus Christ: he allowed us to go and tell to others "the
unsearchable riches of Christ." See ye not the impure giving, lessons
on chastity, the intemperate teaching chastity? and mark ye not how he
who persecuted the disciples in times past, now preacheth the faith he
once destroyed? Oh, what deep mercy there is in Jesus! What wonderful
grace there is in giving his commissions, that those that cursed him
themselves should intercede with him for others; that those that
despised him should be permitted to honor him; that those who broke his
Sabbaths should nevertheless be helpful to his people in hallowing the
Lord's-day; that those who despised his word, and put it behind their
back, should be the men to open it, and display the sweetness of it to
their fellow men! Is not this grace? Methinks every time Paul preached
Jesus Christ he would say to himself: "I used to call him the Nazarene;
I abhorred him and used opprobrious language, but herein is great
mercy, boundless mercy, that he should take me to be his servant,
permit me to labor for his people and suffer for his sake."
Next to this, do you not think that the Lord loves to display his
power? Men who are tamers of wild beasts, will frequently, when they
have subdued a lion, take a delight in showing to the people how
obedient that lion will be to them, and how every word that the
lion-tamer chooses to say, it will regard and pay attention to. Thus,
when the Lord takes a great sinner, after he has tamed him, removed his
heart of stone, and given him a heart of flesh, he desires to show how,
without the use of the whip, without a threatening look or an angry
word, he causes his enemy to become his diligent servant, his earnest
friend. O brethren, it shows the power of love on a man when he is so
broken down that the things he sneered at he now preaches with all his
might. Surely it showed the power of divine grace when Paul avowed
Christ openly, and vehemently preached–exposing himself to persecution
and death–that same gospel which his soul had previously nauseated;
yea, which his zeal, full of bitterness, had kindled to exterminate.
God takes great sinners, and then appoints and qualifies them to be
priests and Levites, in order that he might show the exceeding
greatness of his power to usward who believe.
Again, does not God do this to show his sovereignty? Can we ever forget
that attribute of the Almighty? Divine grace, while it comes freely to
us, is dispensed freely by God, according to the good pleasure of his
will. I should like to hear that text thundered throughout Christendom:
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion." No man hath any right to
the mercy of God. We have all sinned ourselves into outlaw: all the
rights we have are the right to be condemned, and the right to be cast
into hell; all the rights of man that he can appeal to God for in
equity are merged in the wrongs for which he is responsible. If the
Lord have mercy, it is his own will to do it: he can withhold it if it
pleases him; so he selects the most degraded, those that have gone
farthest from him, and takes them into his church; nay, more, advances
them into eminent positions of service in that church, that all his
people may know that the Most High ruleth in the armies of heaven and
Amongst the inhabitants of this earth, and none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, "What doest thou?" He lifteth up the poor from the
dunghill, and setteth him among princes, even among the princes of his
people. His mercy, power, and sovereignty are displayed when he takes
of them to be priests and Levites.
But does he not thereby secure to himself the most loving service? I
have sometimes thought (I hope I am not censorious) as I have observed
with pain the superficiality of a great deal of what is called ministry
in these days–that kind of superficiality, I mean, in which little is
said about the corruption and depravity of the heart; little about the
experience of the child of God when under the law; little, far too
little, about the glory of that grace that takes such worms of the dust
to make them one with Christ. I have often thought that this avoidance
of, not to say this aversion to, deep ploughing, may be accounted for
by the fact that the preachers themselves probably had not been
suffered to go very far into outward sin; had never had any very deep
law-work upon their souls; never had much awakening of conscience, nor
felt much of the powers of the world to come. They got their religion
very easily; and so knowing little of soul-humbling sensations
themselves, they could not go very deeply into the experience of the
children of God. When the Lord calls a grievous sinner, to make a
gracious example of him, it is not so. The man who has done business in
deep waters knows what sin means; tortured with a sense of his own
crimes, he has been like those wretched culprits who surrender
themselves to justice, because their conscience makes liberty chafe
them. He knows what pardon means, for he has found peace after great
bitterness, and got remission after the gnawings of despair; he knows
what the conflicts of God's people are, for he has had many fierce
encounters with the lusts that beset him within, and the temptations
that assailed him from without. And now, when he opens his mouth, the
testimony he bears is from an inwrought experience: he speaks of things
which he has tasted and handled of the good Word of God. John Newton,
to whom I referred just now, could not do otherwise than livingly and
lovingly preach the Word of God. You could not have brooked from him a
dainty essay or a flowery sermon, because nothing else would have
consorted and accorded with his experience, but a faithful tale of the
way the Lord had led him, and a forcible exposition of what the Lord
had taught him. He had been such a sinner, that it must be grace which
saved him; and he would have belied all his inward feelings if he had
not proclaimed the grace of God. And so with Bunyan: if he had not
tearfully wept over sinners and preached Jesus Christ in his fullness,
as the Savior of Jerusalem sinners, he would have been opposing all
that animated his own breast, and all that burned and glowed for
utterance. God, therefore, takes some of these men who have gone far
astray, that he might have warm-hearted, intensely earnest men, who
must proclaim the gospel, because they have felt its power; who love
much because they have had much forgiven; who preach of grace, because
they need much grace, and lift up high the brazen serpent amongst the
sin-bitten hosts of men, because they have been sin-bitten themselves
and do remember it; they have looked and been cured, and they still
remember the cure, and rejoice in it.
Another reason why the Lord takes the vilest of men to make them the
saintliest is, that he might openly triumph over Satan. How the devil
must feel defeated when such a man as Saul is taken straight away from
persecuting to preaching! Surely, it makes Satan bite his chains and
gnash his teeth when he loses his servants so. Just when he has trained
them up, and got them into fine condition for doing mischief, in comes
the officer of divine grace, arrests them, and changes their hearts.
You know none ever do the devil so much mischief as those who once did
him service. They know the ins and outs of his castle–where to attack
it. They understand so much of his devices and tactics, that they
become all the more powerful adversaries when they are converted. All
heaven rings with rapture when a great sinner is saved; and all hell
howls with dismay when one of the arch host bows down to kiss the feet
of Christ, and receive the mercy of God. Glory be to God when he takes
those that would have been deepest damned, and sets them highest among
the saved on earth to be priests and Levites unto him. By these means
also he secures another end: he encourages poor penitents; for when a
sinner, under a sense of sin, meets with a brother in Christ, who was
like himself once, but is now living near to God and serving him
acceptably, he is much encouraged. "Why," he thinks to himself, "is
this how God receives sinners when they turn to him? Perhaps he will
receive me." And if he gets into conversation with one of those whom
God has made priests and Levites, he says, "Tell me what the Lord has
done for thy soul." And the minister being a man of like passions, and
having had like experience, delights to describe the works and ways of
God with hardened sinners and old offenders and then the man who is
seeking finds in the other a guide who is touched with the feeling of
his infirmity, is very helpful to him, and much blessed of God to enter
into the secrets of his heart, and lead him to the cross. If there be
here some great rebel against God, I think he ought to take
encouragement thence to turn unto the Lord and live, for surely, when
God so treats his most defiant enemies as to make them his most honored
ministers, there should be some comfort for the great sinner to seek
the Lord while yet he waits to be gracious.
And do not you think this is done very much for the encouragement of
the church of God? I know, as myself one of its humble members I often
need to be solaced by seeing what God's hand can do. We ought to walk
by faith, and so I trust we do; but when we see sinners converted, it
gives zest to our fellowship and zeal to our enterprise. We all of us
feel the happier for it. I hardly expect to see so many converts in the
Tabernacle as there used to be. We have had so very many brought to
God, that those of you who are left, I almost fear, have resisted
overmuch the wooings and warnings of love divine. Indeed, there are so
few comparatively left, that we have not the opportunities we once had
when the mass of the congregation was not converted. Peradventure there
are few of you whom God has not blessed. But I do long to see a fresh
ingathering of converts: it would make my heart glad, and it would make
all the church glad if we heard of some great sinners being saved.
I pray God sometimes that he would save a great multitude of the
priests of the church of Rome and the church of England. Be did in the
olden times bring a great multitude of the priests to believe the
gospel, and why should he not yet again? If he wills to call to himself
some of the lowest of the low, and the vilest of the vile, and make
them wonders of his grace, his omnipotent fiat shall be instantly
obeyed. Why should he not? Why should he not? He has done so: why
should he not again? He has done so, I say, and the text says, "I will
take of them for priests and for Levites." Why should he not go on to
take from strange quarters still a people that shall serve him? Does he
not say "I will"? Suppose it should ever come to this, as some say it
will, that the churches, many of them, should desert the old truths,
and the ministers become dumb dogs that cannot bark, and one by one
their testimony should be silent, and every candlestick should be taken
out of its place, and the whole head should be sick, and the whole
heart faint, and Zion be under a cloud, and there should be none to
help her, and none to lift up the banner for the truth? What then? Why,
then God would arise, and take again from the fishermen in their boats
new apostles, and from the lowest dens of iniquity, and the worst
haunts of vice, from the saloons of frivolity where the rich resort,
and from the chambers of commerce and the palaces of merchandise where
buyers and sellers make their contracts, he would take a fresh staff of
men. Out of the roughest material he can make the finest fabric, out of
the newest recruits he can raise the noblest regiment, to show forth
his praise, to do his work, and to secure victory for his cause. If
some were unworthy holders of his vineyard, and brought him no revenue,
he would put aside these wicked men, and send forth fresh laborers, and
give his vineyard unto others, for he will get glory unto his name; he
"will take of them for priests and for Levites." Never say it is a dark
day; never say God has forgotten his church; never give way to
despairing fits, and dream of horrible times coming, that yet are not
to come. Verily, "all flesh shall see the salvation of God," and the
glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it; for the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. He shall arise, and have mercy upon
Zion; he will build up her walls, heal all her breaches, and once again
shall she be the joy of the whole earth. Take heart and comfort, God
can find his servants anywhere. Omnipotence hath instruments where we
see them not. He "will take of them for priests and for Levites."
III. Lastly, WHAT IS THE LESSON FROM THIS? I address myself to those of
you especially, my dear brethren and sisters, whom the grace of God has
taken to make priests and Levites unto God. You are near to him: you
serve him. What effect should this have upon you? First, remember what
state you where in before God's grace took you in hand. Then consider
what you are called to be; you are made priests and Levites. Then ask
yourself what you would soon become if his grace were to depart from
you? Why, as you were before, only with this difference, that the evil
spirit in you would take unto himself seven other spirits more wicked
than the first, and enter in and dwell there, and your last state would
be worse than the first. Watch then, watch! watch! God, his grace
enabling you to watch, will preserve you to the end. Am I a priest and
Levite–a holy vessel set apart before God, serving at his altar,
bringing prayers and praises to him? Ah! yes, I may be a priest and a
Levite, but I should be a devil if his grace did not prevent. O watch,
watch, watch! "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."
And oh, what humility this vocation of God should produce! However high
we may be raised, we must remember whence the honor cometh. For this
promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west–it is God's
gift. Thou, a blasphemer and injurious; thou, a careless, godless,
Christless man, now raised to be a servant of God, to wait in his
courts, and honor his name, be thankful that thou art lifted so high,
but wonder, and fear and tremble, for all the goodness that God has
made to pass before thee. What am I, and what is my father's house,
that thou hast brought me hitherto; to pray and my prayer to be heard,
yet not worthy to lift mine eyes to the place where thine honor
dwelleth; to have thy holy Spirit dwelling in me, and yet not worthy
that thou shouldst come under my roof! Be humble brother: it will help
you to watch. Watching is done best in a lowly manner.
And since he hath taken us for priests and for Levites, let us do every
office heartily as unto the Lord. If others in this world can serve God
coldly, yet, my brethren and sisters, you and I cannot afford to do so.
We were such sinners, that if we have been forgiven, we must love him.
Those that had little sin to be cleansed may not have much love to
lavish on their Redeemer. Not so with me or thee:
"Love I most; I've more forgiven;
I'm a miracle of grace."
Those that had some good principles instilled into them by early
training or some sort of preparation to receive the gospel, may not
feel their deep indebtedness to the wonderful working of the Spirit;
but those of us who were steeped in sin, and hardened in heart, when we
are saved must magnify the power of God, and moved by that feeling we
must serve him heartily with our whole spirit, soul, and body. A man
that feels what grace has done for him cannot help throwing his whole
soul into it. I used to know a man whom I often heard swear–on the
other side of the river, in the town where I was–and when converted I
recollect his prayers. They used to trouble us rather: they were so
loud. It was not everybody that knew the reason why. He had been so
accustomed to swear loud that he could not help praying loud; and when
a man has been very loud for the devil, he cannot help being loud for
Christ. Some of those dear Methodist brethren who cry out, "Amen!" so
stentoriously, do it, I hope, because they feel the love of God in
Christ on account of what great things have been done for them. Let
those go the common track of service that have gone the common track of
sin, but let those serve the Lord with all their heart, and mind, and
strength, that have been unusual sinners. Bring your alabaster box, O
great sinner, break it on his blessed head that pardoned you. Wash his
feet with your tears, and wipe them with the hairs of your head, for
where extraordinary love has been experienced, extraordinary love ought
to be the outgrowth, and extraordinary service ought to be the
consequence.
Once again, if the Lord has taken of us to be his priests and Levites,
let us serve him with great thankfulness and joy. If any people should
be glad, I am sure it is those people that feel the aboundings of his
mercy in forgiveness, having heard those glad tidings, as it were, from
the lips of Jesus himself. "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven
thee: go in peace." They have something always to stimulate their
gratitude and regale them with sunshine. "I am very poor," saith one,
"but, never mind, poor as I am, I am not a drunkard or a swearer now; I
feel weak and sickly in body, it may be; never mind that; I have not
the burden of sin upon my soul." Or, "I am unknown, quite unknown. I
have nobody to come and see me. Never mind that; I am known to God. I
am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. My great wounds have
been healed in Jesus' precious blood." Why, you have always cause to be
glad, my dear brother and sister, if you have had your sins forgiven:
you have a fountain opened in your soul of love to Christ and joy in
God, quite as surely as there is a fountain open for the cleansing of
your sin in the side of Jesus.
So let me close, by saying, surely we ought to serve God with great
confidence in him. If he has made us priests and Levites to him, why
then we may trust him to do anything. "He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely
give us all things?" He that has done so much for us, as to take us out
of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock, and put his gospel into
our hearts, may be trusted for the rest. Suppose a man owed you ten
thousand pounds and a trifling sum besides for a small promissory note
he had given you; if he paid you the ten thousand pounds, you might
trust him to meet the little bill when it fell due. And when the Lord
has given us so much, so infinitely much, the little that remains–for
it is comparatively little–ought to cause us no anxieties or doubts,
no fears or misgivings. "Because thou hast been my help, therefore in
the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." He who found me a sinner, made
me a pardoned sinner, put me among his children, and numbered me among
his honored servants, has not done all this to desert me at last and
put me to shame. He has not been at this expense with his poor servant
to fling him away after all. No, glory be to his name: he will continue
his work till he has perfected it. He is the God that performeth all
things for me, and in him will I rest, and not be ashamed, world
without end. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah 66.