A Levite's portion

So before the help of the Lord I beg your careful attention to Deuteronomy chapter 10. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses 8 and 9. At that time The Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part The Lord is his inheritance according as the Lord thy God promised them. Deuteronomy 10 verse 8 and 9.

A Levite's Portion in reading of the blessings that Jacob blessed his sons. Levi stands out, Levi the third son of Jacob, third son of Leah, stands out from the rest. Levi had joined with Simeon in the very cruel treatment of the people of Shechem. And so in the prophecy of Jacob as he is dying in Genesis 49, he says that Levi and Simeon, but Levi especially, shall be scattered in Ishmael. And so Levi he had with four sons, with Aaron, from Aaron's line came the priests.

They only were allowed to offer the sacrifices, the burnt offerings, to serve in the temple in that way, to go into the holiest of all. Then he had another three sons, Gershon, Kohath, Morerai, and they assisted the priests security, the maintenance, all that was needed about the service of God. And so you have the picture of this tribe of Levi, some of them you might say ministering or bringing the offerings or setting forth a type of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the one to offer and to be a mediator between God and man. Because the high priests, they had the names of the tribes of Israel upon their shoulders and upon their breasts.

But where they stood out even more was that they should not have a portion of land in Israel. had a map of the lots that were cast and the amounts of land given to the other tribes. You'll never see one that has the name Leeron on it. They instead were given 48 cities scattered right through Israel. Six of those were cities free on the other side.

If a man killed someone unawares, then they could flee to those cities of refuge, and there find refuge from the avenger of blood, the relatives of the one killed, until their case came before the high priest. If it was found that it was deliberate murder, they were still killed.

If it was accidental, it was manslaughter, of the death of the High Priest. It is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ as being a refuge for us, a place to flee, a place of deliverance from death. But of course, unlike the types, our Lord has died and lived again, so those fleeing there are immediately fleeing the right way, set free.

But what has so struck me? And sometimes we might have situations where we have a family and there is a will read out or it turns out that some family members are given lands and others are not. Some have more and others have less. And our Lord of course had those come to Him. saying, speak to my brother, that he'd divide the inheritance with me.

And our natural thought is that we shall remain here forever, we go after the things of this time state. But with Levi they hadn't got that. It could have been easy for them to have thought what we would like to be like the other tribes. We would like a piece of land the same. dependent upon receiving our food and our gifts from these other tribes. And of course there was the situation at the time when they came back from Babylon, all the priests had gone back to their land because they weren't being given their portion, they weren't, the actual arrangement wasn't being fulfilled.

But the way it came to be, and this is what whole of Israel, that is a picture of mankind, of God's creation. But then we have the kind of Levi that are God's people. This is why we read in 1 Peter, because Peter says that ye are a chosen generation, ye are a royal peaceful, and he's pointing to the people of God. God's people, their inheritance is in heaven. And so I wanted to look at using the type of Levi and Tri and their portion and just set before you the portion of God's people.

Sometimes these types can be very strong, very illustrative And as the Lord's people, we do want to be very clear as to where our portion is and who's chosen it out. We sang in the hymn about not choosing our own lot. Having the Lord choosing that. And we read those beautiful words that He shall choose our inheritance for us.

I think we're one of the most above, inheritance in himself, and that the other side of it is, that it is not this world. This is not your rest, it is the loser. And we need that balance, we need that reliance, otherwise we are falling back to these poor things of this world. It's so sad when you hear those Maybe those mega churches in America, or you hear of even those smaller churches, and a pastor or people will fall, and they're going after money, they're going after things of this world, the corruption that is there.

And you think, how can they realize what the Lord really has given them, if they're the Lord's people, that we shouldn't covet these things? moment, let us be there with consent and you'll realize you have a better portion, a Lord's portion. So I want you to look at several aspects of the Levite's portion and see what these are to us. Firstly, and we're looking at these, predominantly these two verses, verses 8 and 9 in Deuteronomy In verse 8 we have a separated people. At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Immanuel. A separated people. There's one blessing that God gave to Joseph through Jacob. And it was a blessing on the head of him that was separated from his brethren. That personally is always, even in a natural way, has been precious to me.

When I was first called by grace when I was 19, my parents, as soon as the Lord really, the timing of it, the Lord walked me from the chapel, and they said we're going to move, we're going to move to Tasmania. And I said well I'm not going, I've finished my apprenticeship, I'm going to buy my house here, I'm going to stay. I lived on my own more or less for 10 years before being married. And so right from then, I was there on the mainland in Australia, my family in Tasmania, and I felt that, even in a natural sense of being separated.

My life seems to be a constant receiving people at the airport or at the boat terminal and saying goodbye, saying hello, saying goodbye. And in some ways it hardened. It had to be more hardened, because otherwise you'd be so upset about saying goodbyes all the time. But of course later on then we moved over here, so even further away, and I've had the Lord prepare me for that, another puzzling over a scripture where the Lord says that he'll take you, one of a city and two of a family and I used to puzzle and how can you have one in a city and two in a family because as a child I thought we're all there, you're together, you're family. The idea of being separated never kind of entered my head as a child. That is how it has been. And that has been in a literal way, but it's also been in a spiritual way.

Because sadly, with the four of us children, as yet, and I hope it is true as yet, and yet later, may the Lord call others, but I'm the only one that has been called. So, I don't have my natural siblings to have fellowship and union. in the things of God. God's people are a separated people who are separated unto Himself. And though we may find it hard, nature may find it hard, yet the Lord makes us willing that that should be so.

For His honour and glory, because He has chosen that path and appointed that path, the Lord will have us to follow Him. You think of when Peter had been questioned by the Lord, love us thou may, and then the Lord told him that what should happen when he should be old, that he should be carried where he would not and spread forth his hand signifying what death he should die, how he should glorify God. He turns to John and what shall this man do? And the Lord said what is that to them? He followed their man.

And in the separation there is a following of the Lord. Now the Lord spoke of this a lot when He was on earth as those that were separated in front of Him. He didn't mean to say that we are literally to hate our father, our mother, our brother, words, so that we would rather separate from them and be with the Lord, than to leave to them and not be with the Lord. It is a fact that is repeated right through the world, that the Lord takes His And the flesh, we find it, huh? We find it difficult on a natural stone to be wrong to say that we don't. But it emphasizes even more the grace of God and the willingness He gives, the choices that are made often in that separation, although sometimes, like with Joseph, It was all taken out of his hand. His separation from his father, from his brothers, maybe you might say the separation began with the dreams, or with the favoritism that Jacob showed him.

But he led a life that was very clear, different than his brethren, and appointed by God. So he had it with the Levites. They were separated from the other time. They were separated to be the Lord's people and to serve Him. People that had a very different inheritance than all the rest of them and needed to be separated. And so maybe if the Lord has done that with us, called us out, separated us, chosen us out from the world, brought us to Himself, made that difference. May we never be ashamed of the difference God makes, the separation He brings about, but mark it as the Lord's doing, that He should make us like these Levites, separated unto Himself.

Just as a thought on this, You think of the very last day, when the Lord shall come a second time. He shall do a separation then. He shall be separating the sheep and the goats, one on his right hand, one on the left. What a solemn time that will be. What a blessed thing to be amongst the sheep.

The separation begins not then. in this life and in the days of Christ, separated by spiritual people, chosen people, redeemed people unto himself. The second thing I've noticed is not lands or not material things but spiritual. Spiritual blessings, something the world cannot value and we don't value naturally because we are spiritually damned. A natural man received not the things of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

When Paul writes to the Ephesians he says that the Lord has blessed them with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And it's a good thing for us come into trials, into tribulations, that we are always looking that the Lord will bless us with spiritual blessings. A quickened soul, a living soul, needs living food, needs living bread, needs that which comes from heaven.

Of course, that marked out the children of Israel generally, the Levites as well. The Levites received the free gifts, they received the Lord's portion. And we think of our Lord's Word, of course He's wrote in Deuteronomy 8, Man shall not live by bread under, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. the Lord's portion to feed upon Him. He said, you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. And Levi's portion was to eat those sacrifices that were typical of the suffering, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews, of course, struggled with that idea.

How can this man give us his flesh to eat? the Lord was speaking in the spiritual way. And so it is to realize that this difference that the Lord gives us to value eternal sins, lay out for not for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, where thieves break through and steal, but lay out for yourselves treasures in heaven.

There's a most solemn word that Elisha spoke to Gehazi his servant. If you remember the account when Naaman had been healed and he wanted to return to Elisha with gifts and Elisha refused to receive that. her name had gone a little way away, then Gehazi went after him, told a lot of lies, managed to get silver and gold and raiments from him, and reasoned heavy, and then stood before Elisha, as if Elisha wouldn't know, and God wouldn't show him what he'd done. Well he did, and he had a solemn word to say. He said to Gehazi, is it a time to receive money and to receive garments, and olive yards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men's servants, and maids' servants.

And you think, well, he didn't receive all of those from Naaman, but he received the money. The idea was that with that money, he could buy, he could get all of these things. those who are preaching the word, not for filthy lupus sake. And he's a trap that so many forms may be delivered from those things.

And when you think that Hazi was a servant of the man of God, he saw his miracles, he lived so close to him, and even had his heart winged after. But what about Judas? He had part with our Lord. With his ministry, he saw his miracles. He was with the apostles. He had for 30 pieces of silver. He sold his Lord and Master.

The love of money and the value that men put on it. But if we have a Levite's portion, and it's not wrong to have money. We all need it. We all need to live. Those in Vegas have food and ramen. let us there be content. There's many that have just a little and the little that they have they make a God of. There are others that are very rich and they don't make a God of their riches and they distribute their riches and are blessed into many. It's not how much we have that God has chosen to give us, it's how we use it and where our heart is set. Wherever it is actually set on, that brings me to call to mind when I did buy my own home.

I was just 20 and I did end up paying it off and I was just 8 years later. But I became at one time obsessed with trying to pay it off as quick as I could. And I had my pay packets and I'd work out what I could do and how quickly I could pay it off and the law saw it.

So I changed the car, but unbeknownst to me, the mechanics made a change of difference in one of the services and I changed the ratio of the diff on the back by changing the back axle. And I had to run a three speedy flight because the speedo was wrong. And then I had lots of other repairs. All things happened. And I saw all my calculations and all my schemes all go out the window. And I saw the Lord's hand. I could see what He was doing. He knew my heart. He was reading my heart.

And even later on, when I paid off that home, then there came a grocery letterbox, and it was advertising they were selling off a whole school site, there's going to be some 200 lots of land auctioned, and I'm going to get one of those. I'm going to buy that. I'm going to build a house, I'm going to rent it out, and with the money from that I'm going to get another house. I had all these things. I thought, no, you don't do it, you don't touch it. And it kept coming back, and it comes to mind with Ahab. Put him, all of Ahab's servants, at lion's den. Ahab was told he would go down and he'd fall in Rome after Gilead. I knew it, and yet I felt absolutely crashed.

I don't excuse myself at all, but you know I got the loan, I paid, and I paid a lot of money for that land, and already the interest rates was 30 to 13 percent. Now sooner I'd bought it, they went up to 18 percent, you couldn't give the land away for anything.

The whole market vanished. I had that land, What the Lord did, He used it as an anchor when I got married, so I didn't come back here before the time He meant. The Lord overruled it for good. I thought I'd never ever be able to buy another house to live in Australia. But we did, we could buy it as soon as we bought the land sale. The timing of it, and when we did come back to England, we saw the interest, the exchange rate where it was, much more than that 30,000 years was.

The Lord had a plan for me. I saw my own sin. I saw what it is to be under the power of the Lord's decrees. Solemn feelings of being as an enemy against the Lord. But also, the Lord dealt with, and quite often I see this, that the Lord deals with me, not just in one point, a lot of lessons. money-making, stealing, desiring way. The Lord dealt with them in such a way I can never forget it. And that old nature is still there. But when the Lord gives you lessons like that, there is a mercy He does.

Otherwise we do, we go after this world as if it's everything, to set our nest here and to rest here. But a Levi's portion of spiritual, heavenly blessings, a position in Christ, a redeemed soul, a soul that is for the Lord Himself, to have an eternal inheritance in heaven, that is the portion of a Levite. So, especially this point, not lands, not material things.

And we'd look on all of his brethren, and they've all got land and he hasn't. And then we start to look on those around us, and we think they've all got what I haven't got, or what have you got that they haven't got. And have we got that, which in time should be no more, those lands, they've got to leave them, haven't they? They won't have them all at all.

And to have this portion, the Levi's portion, is an eternal portion. Sometimes you might think, well we'd like to have heaven, we'd like to have the Lord's portion, but we want our portion here too. But we boys did not have both. They could not have both. The Lord chose it for them, not us. We then want to think thirdly of what the Lord did give them, which was himself as his imperative.

Verse 9, Wherefore, if I have no part nor inheritance with his brethren, the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised them. He said in another place that the Lord's inheritance is his people as well. Those are twofold. It's an amazing thing that the Lord should inherit the people that he had to redeem that were lost and ruined in the fall, and that was the Lord's fortune. When we are concerned or unhappy with our fortune, we think of what the Lord's fortune is. We've been given the Lord of life and glory, but he's been given a whole lot of awesomeness to redeem and to save. That is what he delighted with.

What a fortune it is then to have the Lord for our inheritance. Remember as it says in there, our inheritance. One needs to die to receive an inheritance. And our Lord Jesus Christ is both the one that died but is the executor of his inheritance. So he gives to his people the benefit of those things that he has purchased through his death and rising again. And as we have here in our text, according as the Lord our God promised him. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. and that eternal life is promised to the people of God.

It comes to mind in Hebrews 4 verses, verses 13 to 16 in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, they saw that long catalogue of those that lived and died by faith. They all had a Levi's portion. They may not have been a Levi, but their portion was the Lord's portion. They looked for the Lord. And what they did, what they marked down, they saw the promises afar off, they embraced those promises, and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. And therefore they that say such things declare plainly that they seek the country. And so you have these two things, the eternal inheritance you don't have a part here. Those are the two sides and that is the same with the Levites here as well.

It's not a case of, I think of the way the Lord spoke of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man didn't go to hell because of his riches and Lazarus didn't go to heaven because he was a beggar. But what he set forth is that one had faith in the Lord and the other did not. One was seeking for an eternal inheritance and the other was trusting in his riches on earth.

And our Lord many times did that. We think of the one that was speaking of pulling down his barns and building graves there. And the Lord said, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be defiant of thee. So to have the Lord for our inheritance, Think of this Levi's portion, what better blessing can one have that the Lord be our Saviour, our Redeemer, that He be our eternal portion, that we be found with Him forever, that He is our elder brother born for adversity.

Do you think of the time of Ruth and Boaz? There's Ruth united to Boaz, and Boaz arranged Incidentally, of course, Boaz was half-Gentile, because his parents were Salmon and Rahab. So then you find that Boaz is married Gentile as well. Two Gentiles, one after another in the lines of Christ, brought out from the world, separated.

Ruth separated from Malachi, the godly nation, separated from her sister-in-law. brought to be amongst Israel. Rahab, separated from all of those in Jericho, but given her life, and of course the lives of her family as well. We have in these times found true what it is a blessing to have the Lord as our portion, separated unto him, an inheritance. Think of that inheritance with Ruth, with Rahab, nearer and aligned to Christ, all of those blessings that were for them. Those blessings that are laid up in store for all of the Lord's people, laid up in heaven. Inheritance, says Peter, which is incorruptible, undefiled, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the Lonstone.

That inheritance is not like the inheritance is here. Had all gone wrong, must needs be passed on, it all decayed, it can be taken away. No, that is eternal. Bless the Lord, if He has given you, if He has given me that eternal inheritance. And what is it that marks it out? Separated unto the Lord, the Lord did that. The Lord chose her out to give us eternal life and to give us spiritual blessings and to value those things which are above and to seek those things which are above. Mark these things in your life, what the Lord has done.

Picture a Levi blessing portion separated like this. Then we had a scattered people. This is where they were given those 48 cities. And then amongst them, three one side Jordan, three the other for the cities of refuge. And there were the Levites. I often thought about this with the Lord's people.

Now when I was young and I was 22 or so, it had just been called. And I went over to New Zealand. And I love those people over there. It's a bit easier to move from Australia because I was the only living man that had gone over to New Zealand. But they believed in infant baptism. They believed in covenant theology. And I struggled with that. So I thought, I can't do that.

And I've noticed this, and I've found it with other Presbyterians as well, the Lord has used different denominations or differences amongst those that we really esteem as the Lord's people, to make sure one stays in one place and one stays in the other. and I read less.

In this land we meet often down at Sawesbury or Southampton, it's a fraternal with several of us from cross-of-standard churches or from reformed churches and the ministers you have there we meet with as ministers and we have great fellowship and union one with another. Realize there are differences, we never bring them up, we never argue, we are in the main themes in Christ and of the Reformed faith. Some of us sing hymns, others are explicit, some are dead. Some of us we will only refer to the preaching of the gospel, some will offer the gospel, Some use different terminologies, but we realize that each one is point zero.

And we can have fellowship. But at the same time, the Lord does use little differences, where he says, we used to then, used to then. Do you remember after the flood? The Lord said that they were to scatter. They were to spread it through the land. I said, no, no. We're going to build a tower. We're going to build a Bible. We're going to all graduate to that. And the Lord sent them. Because at Pentecost, we had the gift of languages and the Lord wanted a game to spread out through the world, to spread the gospel through the world.

How's it going to work that time? Persecuting in one city, another city. Has it also worked out, the trouble between Paul, Barnabas, Mark, the tension so great, one goes one way, one goes the other way. Think how terrible that is amongst those people, and it was.

But God uses that still, painful though it is, He'll make sure, like with the Levites that were scattered throughout Israel, that they were, that they didn't suddenly get all in one place and say, well, you might as well call this the tribe of Ribai now. No, they were to be saved. And you think of our Lord saying his people are salt and light. Salt is thin little tiny grains and it's scattered through the fluid. Not all in one lump. It's so small you can't even see it. God will have that for His people. He appoints for them where they shall be, where they shall minister, where their field of labour shall be.

And that's often been a real hope to me. I would much rather be in a small church with all troubles and trials and difficulties, but be persuaded I am where the Lord has placed me. than to be in a prosperous church where everything seems to go well but I'm uncertain and think, did I just bring myself here, am I really where the Lord would have me to go. There is a real comfort in feeling we are with the Lord and have us today and sometimes brought us where we are, but to realise the Lord has chosen and gone before us in the way and made that way plain. So it was the Lord that chose out this inheritance for Nevi to be not only a separated people, but even scattered amongst their own. And the use of it can get brethren together.

Here's a lovely thing, when we started the seminaries 10 years ago in Sawsburg, 2016, we met several times for prayer. Malcolm Watts said once, he said, I've never in 50 years ministry had a gathering of some 20 ministers from Well, we're often favoured in cross-understanding after our meetings perhaps that size as to the annual meetings, but it was a remarkable occasion. I've opposed it a few times, but most of the time all of our swing pastors are all in different parts of the country. And we're ecstatic, and we're little, and we feel it little, and the Lord would have it so. one of the fraternals, one of the brethren from down Brickport, he'd given a report for his church, and suddenly turned to me and said, Robin, he said, you are such an encouragement to us all, that you keep going, you're such a small number, he said, you're a real encouragement to us down in Brickport. And I was amazed, I thought, others are looking at us, and they may be looking at you here, at Belgium Green, and thinking the same. Unknown to you, you are encouraging others in the path of your making.

It's good to think of a Levite's portion. I think the Lord has given this portion. The last one I'll mention, their portion was to serve the Lord. Reading verse 8, At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless his name unto his soul.

And not all of the Levites were that. Not all were those with the sacrifices, the offerings, but they did serve in some way. And not all of God's people are ministers or elders or deacons, but all serve in some way. whether he's making the tea, or playing the organ, or looking after the streaming, or cleaning the building, or looking after the grounds. They're all the things the Levites did.

And they're serving the Lord, and it's good for us to remember that, to have a Levite's portion. If one could say that he'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the like a leaver serving the Lord in his house in whatever small way one may, working as unto the Lord and not as unto him. I hope you've found, as I've found some sweetness in this time of leaver, their portion, their trial, and how it relates to us as the Lord's people, to value the portion we have, to be contented though we are small, to not desire and hang after the things of this all-dying world, but to look for that internal imperatives, really, that is begun by the love with fellowship and union with them and with the Spirit, but to be forever abides with the Lord. May the Lord bless us with the Levite's portion.

A Levite's portion

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A Levite's portion

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About Rowland Wheatley

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