A couple of Scriptures I want
us to look at. In Deuteronomy 33, the first
place. I want us to read the first verse
here. I want to remind you, we've got
just two more studies in this book. Our next study will be
the death of Moses. But I want to remind you in chapter
33, in verse 1, that these are the blessings. He said in verse
1, and this is the blessing. We're with Moses, the man of
God. Bless the children of Israel before his death. And we've looked
at a couple of his sons, and we want mainly to look at verse
8 through verse 11 tonight. And let me read that. This is
the blessing upon Levi. And then I want us to turn over
and look at Genesis 49 just for a minute. But let's read our
text in verse 8. And of Levi he said, Let thy
Thuman and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove
at Massa, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of
Meribah, who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not
seen him, Neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own
children, for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments,
and Israel thy law. They shall put incense before
thee, and whole burnt sacrifices upon thine altar. Bless, Lord,
his substance, and accept the work of his hands. smite through
the loins of them that rise up against Him, and of them that
hate Him, that they rise not again." Now that's the blessing
upon Levi. And I want you to hold that and
look over in Genesis chapter 48. The reason I want to look
over here is because This is the portion of Scripture
where Jacob was on his deathbed, and he called his twelve sons
together, and he cursed some of them. He curses them. If you remember, Jacob had several
children. He had two wives, and he had
two concubines. We could say probably he had
two mistresses. Some want to say he had four
wives, but he really had two wives and two concubines. And
his first wife, Leah, she had four children, four sons, and
then she had a daughter. And Jacob's four oldest sons,
he cursed them. He cursed his first three of
his four oldest sons because of the evil that they had done.
Jacob had a... He probably, of all the patriarchs,
he had the saddest and most trying life in his family. And here
he is on his deathbed, and it's almost like he's saying, I'm
going to get even with you guys. You guys have burdened me. You've
been evil. You've done wicked things. And
he curses them. I want you to see that here in
chapter 49. And look in verse 3 and 4. This
is Reuben. Now what Reuben did, his firstborn,
he went up and lay with Jacob's concubine, Jacob's mistress.
I think, what, two or three sons by this Bella. And Reuben went
up and lay with her in a carnal, sexual way. And then in verse
3, Jacob is ready to die now, and here's the curse that he
puts upon Reuben. Reuben, he said in verse 3, thou
art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength,
the excellency of my dignity, and the excellency of my power.
unstable as water. Thou shalt not excel, because
thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defilest thou it. He went up to my couch." And
that's the curse that he put upon him. He said, you're not
going to excel. You're just not going to prosper. You're going
to be as unstable as water. And then his next two sons, his
next two oldest sons, Simon and Levi, If you remember what they
did when this man had lain with their daughter Dinah, they got
revenge on this man. And what they did, they deceived
them. They deceived the whole city
of Gentiles, had them to be circumcised, and then while they were still
sore, they went and tore down a wall, dug down a wall, And
in the wrath, they went in there and killed all of those males
in that city. And Jacob said, you've made me
to stink before the inhabitants of this country. And he got so
afraid, he thought they were going to come in and kill all
of them. And now, here he is on his deathbed, and look what
he says to Simeon and Levi. Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in
their habitation. My soul, come not thou unto their
assembly. Mine honor, be not thou united. For in their anger they slew
a man, slew a whole city, if you will study the history of
it. And in their self-will they dug down a wall. Curse be their
anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel.
I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. And then he had a daughter. If you remember his daughter,
Dana, when she went out to a party of the Gentiles. She was a young teenager, probably
16, 18 years old or so, and she went to this party and she went
to bed with this young Gentile man. And he fell in love with
her and she moved in with him. And I don't know why Jacob didn't
intervene and go get her. But it's obvious she didn't want
him to. Well, that's why her two brethren went and got vengeance
on this man and his father and this whole city. So, this is
what was taking place in Jacob's life. And this was the same time
that his wife that he loved dearly, Rachel, died. And it was just
a year or so later that Joseph, one of his favorite sons, was
sold by his brethren and went down to Egypt and he lost him.
So you can see what a trying life this man had. This was one
of God's choice servants. Jacob, whose surname was Israel. Now you think you got family
trials? You and I should never complain again, should we? It's
very understandable why Jacob, when he was introduced to Pharaoh
by Joseph, he said, the days of my pilgrimage have been few
and been evil. They have been few and they have
been evil. But when we come back over here
now to our text, back to our text in Deuteronomy chapter 33,
Reuben doesn't get what he deserves. what he deserves by nature and
the curse that his own father had pronounced upon him. You
are unstable as water, he said, and he lost his birthright. He
lost his birthright because of what he'd done. But instead of
that, he comes here now and Moses blesses him. And this shows us
that by our very natures, By what we do, just like Reuben,
the evil that we've done in our lifetime, we're losers by it,
aren't we? We're cursed by it. We're under
condemnation because of it. But here's what makes this so
wonderful. Here are these blessings, and
we look at these blessings as they are in Christ. And they're
such gracious blessings, and instead of Moses saying, Reuben,
your unstable is water, you shall not You shall not prevail. You'll never prosper. He says,
let Reuben live. Let Reuben live. And let not
his men be few. Now that's the blessings in Christ.
That's the difference between what Reuben deserved and what
he earned as opposed to what he finally got was a blessing. And in Christ, Levi, who was
cursed for his cruel deeds, is now forgiven. He is blessed. And we read in our text here
that he was to teach the other tribes the Lord's judgment, the
Lord's law, the Lord's gospel. The Lord blessed him to do that. We may look down on Reuben and
his lust, and we may look down upon Simeon and Levi, And chill
bumps may run up our spine for their cruelty. But listen, are
we any better? We may have never got out and
fulfilled the open lust of the flesh. We may have never killed
anybody as they did. But I tell you, we fulfilled
the lust of the mind, didn't we? The best of men, the most
moral of men have done that. We are not worthy either, are
we? We are not deserving either, any more than these young men
are. Why are we blessed? For the same
reason they were blessed, freely by God's grace in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Why are we saved this afternoon? Why are we forgiven of all our
sins? Why do we believe? Why have we
repented? Why do we love the Lord? Why
do we love His ways, His people? Why do we follow Him? There is
but one answer to that really, isn't there? He has graciously
blessed us in the Lord Jesus Christ and because of Christ. If He had given us what we deserve
and what we have earned, then the curse would have remained.
We would have still been under condemnation. But He has blessed
us. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. And that's why I wanted to compare
these two, because I think until we see ourselves utterly helpless,
and hopeless in this awful condition that we are born in and live
in by nature, will never appreciate and value these blessings of
God that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we see ourselves
blessed right in the face of deserved judgment, and when we
see ourselves delivered from the death that we deserved and
that we thought we were appointed to, Not until we see that are
we amazed and surprised that we're blessed. Are you surprised
that you're blessed? And when does it surprise you
the most? When you see what you deserve. And that's what makes it so wonderful
when we look at these men whom their own father cursed because
of what they were and what they did. And now in Jesus Christ,
all of these curses are reversed. And we're blessed. We're blessed. Listen to a couple of Scriptures.
Psalms 102, 19, 20. The Lord looked down from the
height of His sanctuary. From heaven did the Lord behold
the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner. Now, prisoner
of what? Prisoner of sin? Prisoner of
guilt? Prisoner of Satan? Prisoner to
the curse of the law? He heard the groanings of the
prisoners to loose those who are appointed to death. And that is what they think of
themselves in their own eyes. They are appointed to death.
And boy, we have got a perfect example of that in the thief
on the cross. He was appointed to death by the judicial system
of His day that said, you are going to die. And in His own
eyes, He was dying. And you know what? He said, justly
so. I mean, boy, can you see the
darkness in that man's mind, the guilt, the fear, the doubts? I am facing eternity. I am cursed. And I have earned everything
I get. And he says to the Lord Jesus, Lord, remember me when
You come into Thy kingdom. And here's that blessing, undeserved,
unearned blessing. Today, You shall be with me in
paradise. Today, shall You be with me in
paradise. I thank the Lord Jesus, given
this dying thief, for giving him and giving him life the way
He did, gives us a perfect example. of how free His blessings are,
how free His grace is. In His dying hour, He gave Him
what He didn't deserve, undeserving of, never could have earned,
and He only lived three hours afterwards with which to praise
Him and thank Him. And I bet you He didn't do much
of that. He was in too much pain. I have lived 43 years and I have
tried to live in His praises to bless Him for what He has
done for me. But in all the praises I have
given Him, I have not repaid Him one iota. I haven't repaid
him what I owed him. Men, this thief is in the same
situation, and you are too. If you and I could live 75 years
and praise him every day, we could no more pay him for his
blessings than that thief could with three hours to live in his
life. We're just like him, haven't
we? We've got nothing to pay him. They're free. We can just live in his praises
and live in his honor. God's spiritual blessings of
salvation in Jesus Christ, they're free in His gracious hand. And that's why God can bestow
this grace and this mercy and these blessings upon the most
unworthy and the most undeserving in this life. And sometimes He
makes examples of that, doesn't He? He makes examples of that. I want you to hold Deuteronomy
again and I want you to look over in the book of Job right
quickly. Job chapter 33. Job chapter 33. Elihu was speaking here how the
Lord sometimes dealt with sinners in His day and He still does
in our time. Job 33, verse 13. Look in verse 14. Job 33, verse 14. For God speaketh once, yea, twice,
yet man perceiveth it not, in a dream and a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falleth upon him, and slumberings upon his
bed. Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from
him. He keepeth back his soul from
the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. He is chastened
also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones
with strong pain, so that his life abhorreth meat, and his
soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away that
it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out.
Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the
destroyers. If there be a messenger with
him, a mediator is what that word is, an interpreter, one
among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, the Lord's
uprightness, his grace, and his righteousness to save. Then the
Lord is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit. I have found a ransom. His flesh
shall be fresher than a child's. He shall return to the days of
his youth. He shall pray unto God, and he
will be favorable unto him. He shall see his face with joy,
and he shall render unto man his righteousness. He looketh
upon man, and if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which
was right, and it profiteth me not. He will deliver his soul
from going down to the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Lo, all these things God worketh oft times with man, to bring
back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light
of the living. God works this way. Maybe not
as drastically as Eli here was talking about, but I know one
thing. He humbled me, didn't he, you?
He taught me my sinful ways and kept me from going down to the
pit and saved me from the pit. And that's what makes his blessing
so wonderful. the backdrop of what we are by
nature and how evil we are, how undeserving we are. And then,
right in the face of that, He blesses us, just like He did
these men here. Back in Deuteronomy 33, right
quickly now, in verses 8 through 11, I just wanted to make mention
of that since we'll be finishing this chapter about these blessings
and how precious they are. But here in verses 8 through
verse 11, I want to look at these blessings pronounced upon Levi
from two different perspectives. First, as it pertains to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's who we see in all
of these. All these blessings are in Him.
And there's such beautiful pictures of Joseph being Christ, Levi
being like Christ, Christ being pictured in Levi, And the tribe
of Levi had basically three things that they did. They were overseers
of the entire tabernacle. They took care of it. They cleaned
it. They packed it around. They were in charge of it. They
were the superintendents over that. And then they offered the
sacrifices and the incense. They took care of all of that.
But here in Deuteronomy chapter 33 and verse 10, they taught
the other tribes. They were teachers. There in
verse 10, "...they shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel
thy law." And that's what the book of Deuteronomy is about.
Remember when we first started studying the book of Deuteronomy,
these be the words of Moses. This book is not about sacrifices.
It's not about the tabernacle. It's about the Word, about teaching. And that's what he says here.
He's going to raise up Levi to teach. to teach, that's what
he says here in our text. But they had, here in verse 8,
they had these two, we assume they're stones, it's called the
thumen and the urim. Nobody really knows what these
were. Some people think it was two
stones in the breastplate of the high priest. They were put
in there. And some people think it was the twelve stones themselves
that represented the twelve tribes of Israel. Whatever they were,
we don't know. But we know they were in His
breastplate, upon His heart. We don't even know how this worked.
They sought counsel of this thumam and urim. When they needed direction,
they needed counsel of the Lord, they went to the high priest,
and some way or other, I don't know if these things glowed,
if some way the Lord spake through these things. Nobody knows. But
they got counsel from these two things that was in the breastplate.
Probably two stones is what most people say. But the definition
of these stones is very interesting. Thumen means perfection. And
someone says you can carry it so far as to say complete truth.
It means perfect truth. Perfection and truth. And Urim
means light or illumination or manifestation. Now, Jesus Christ,
our priest, He is not only offering Himself to God for us to atone
for our sins, but He, like the tribe of Levi, is our Teacher. And what does He teach us? Perfect
truth, doesn't He? Perfect truth. "...let thy human
and thy Urim be with thy Holy One." Who is? That's Christ,
isn't it? He's often called the Holy One
or Just One. Jesus Christ is the truth incarnate. He is the complete truth. The perfect truth. I am the way. I am the truth. And I am the light. When God
represents Himself to us, He does it under the emblem of pure
light. Pure light. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all. There's no shadow of turning
with the Lord. And in Hebrews chapter 6, it
says this, it's impossible for God to lie. Why? He's truth. He is the perfection
of truth. Listen to these passages in Deuteronomy
32 forward. He is the rock. His work is perfect. All His ways are judgment. A
God of truth, without iniquity, just and right is He. Listen
to Psalms 31 and 5. And to Thy hand, O Lord, I commit
my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O God
of truth. One more Scripture, Isaiah 65,
verse 16, "...that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless
himself in the God of truth, and he that swears in the earth
shall swear by the God of truth." Jesus Christ is truth. God the
Father is truth. And doesn't the Scripture call
the Spirit the Spirit of truth everywhere? I'll give you another
comforter. He shall abide with you forever.
And who is He? Even the Spirit of truth. So
the Troun God is truth. He is truth. And the Scripture says His Word
is truth. sanctify them through Thy truth,
Thy Word is truth." So what are we talking about when we look
at this through man? Perfection in truth. Perfect
truth. Now some will tell us today that
we've got a Bible, but it's full of errors, and it's got some
places in there that's just not true. It's strange to me that
You take theologians that have read the Bible and studied the
Bible all their lifetime, they can't find one error in it. And
you take some other fellow that's just not very educated at all,
and he starts reading the Bible and he finds all these errors.
Is there any errors in this Bible? I know this is a version. I realize
that. And maybe there are some places
that some words could have been better translated. But is there
errors in here? No, there's not, is there? There's
no error. Every Word of God is truth. I'm holding in my hands tonight
the perfection of truth. The perfection of truth. There
is no errors or lies in this Bible. And some people say, well,
truth is relative. It's whatever it means to you.
Or it can mean one thing today or another thing tomorrow. Truth
never changes, does it? It never changes. And Thy Word
is ever settled in heaven. The perfection of truth. And this word Jurem means light
or manifestation. What does light do? It reveals
things, doesn't it? It manifests things. And Christ
Jesus as our Teacher is light. In thy light we shall see light. And He shines upon the Word,
and He teaches us infallible truths." He teaches us. He is the truth. He takes the
written truth, and He shines that into our hearts and teaches
us. And when He teaches us, He teaches
us infallible truths. That's the wonderful thing about
when the Lord teaches a person. He leaves no doubt. that He has
taught you the truth. Some today are like Pilate. What
is truth? Isn't that what they say? What
is truth? Well, when the Lord teaches you, boy, you know the
truth. You know the truth. Listen to
1 John 2.26. These things have I written unto
you concerning them that seduce you, them that try to deceive
you. But the anointing, that's the
Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. Christ in us, which you
have received of Him abideth in you. And you need not that
any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of
all things, and is true, and is no lie." You have a Spirit
in you. When the Lord regenerates a man,
when He gives you the life of Christ, He gives you the Spirit
of Christ. And He's in your heart and He
guides you unto all truth. And He'll be with you forever.
And the truth that He teaches you is the absolute infallible
truth. And there's no lie about it.
There's no lie about it. That's why common people, common
people, like us, can open the Bible. And we can know it. We can know it for ourselves.
I know the Lord uses preaching. I know He uses teachers. We know
that. But I tell you, it's Him that
does the teaching. It's Him that takes it to the
heart. It's Him that puts light in the mind and teaches us these
infallible truths. That's why John said, He'll abide
with you and shall be in you forever. When the Lord Jesus
teaches His people, He does it by His Spirit. and by His written
Word. Listen to this. You shall know
the truth. Isn't that wonderful? You, you,
me, cats, us. You shall know the truth. How
are we going to know the truth? He's light. He's our Urim. He's the light. He shines into
our hearts the truth. You shall know the truth. And
the truth shall make you Paul Martin Luther. I watched
that thing you gave me on his life, Greg, and it's just such
a blessing. Some of the things that he said. And Martin Luther,
if you've never read his history, know anything about him, I encourage
you to do that because he was scooped in tradition. He was
coming up real swiftly in the Catholic Church. He was a priest.
Probably headed to be a bishop. And the Lord shoved this truth
into his heart. The Lord began to shine into
his heart. And he gave up friends. He gave up precious friends to
him. He gave up his position. He lived
being threatened of the Catholic Church with death. And one of the reasons he said
he did it, the main reason he did it was this. I'll lose all
my friends. It don't matter. My position
in the Catholic Church, that don't matter. He said, My conscience
is bound to the Word of God. What would make a man willing
to give all that up? I'm telling you, when the Lord
teaches the truth to your heart, He convinces you, and it's infallible,
everlasting truth. What a blessed, what a blessed
high priest we have that can teach us, remove the darkness
and the ignorance, and bring us to His truth and teach us
that infallibility. Lastly, and right quickly, this
blessing pertains to the tribe of Levi. Let's look at it that
way back here in our text again. When the Lord blesses a band,
or when He blesses a group of men, or a church with this absolute
truth, it becomes evident. It becomes evident. Sort of what
I've been saying about Martin Luther. You'll see the evidence.
When the Lord begins to bless a man, with the truth. You know
what He'll do? He'll buy the truth and sell
it not. Ain't that what the Bible says? Buy the truth and sell
it not. And you can't get it from Him.
You just can't get it from Him. We've got a good example of this
here in our text, in Deuteronomy chapter 33. And look in verse
9. Look in verse 9. Who said unto
his father and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither
did he acknowledge his brethren." He didn't acknowledge his brethren. "...nor knew his own children.
For they have observed by word and kept by covenant." What in
the world does he mean by that? They didn't even acknowledge
his own children and his brethren? that they might keep Thy Word
for this reason?" It seemed like there was a hindrance there from
his brethren and his relatives. And he said, I'm not even acknowledging
you. I've got the truth and I'm going
with the truth. Now, I want to give you an example
of what I think he was talking about. Look over in Exodus 32.
You'll remember this very well. This tells us of a place where
he didn't acknowledge his brethren. Levi, the tribe of Levi. You remember when Moses and Joshua
came down off of the mountain, and Aaron had made that calf,
and they were worshiping the calf? That's where this takes
place at. Moses takes the calf, he grinds
it to powder, and throws it out on the water. And this is where
you picked up this story at. Look in verse 26. Exodus 32,
verse 26. And Moses stood in the gate of
the camp and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come
unto me. And look who came to him. And
the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. Now, I'm just saying, when the
Lord begins to bless a man with the truth, there's going to come
a time when he's going to separate You're going to see the evidence
that the Lord's blessing is on that man. And when Moses said,
Who's on the Lord's side? Boy, here they came. I'm on the
Lord's side. He's taught me His truth. I'm
on His side. In verse 27, And He said unto
them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his
sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate through
the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of
Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the
people that day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate
yourself today to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon
his brother, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day. They killed their own sons and
their own brothers because they were worshipping this idol. And Moses said, get your swords
out and you go into these tents, these places where they've been
worshipping these caves. They won't repent of it. They're
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. And you kill them.
And boy, can you see a dad going into the tent? And there is his
teenage son, or his son in his mid-twenties, and he is idolatrous,
and he won't repent, and he is a mocker, and man, he takes that
sword and right through his heart he goes. Can you believe that?
He did not acknowledge his own brethren. He killed his own son. Why? The truth. The truth. We don't do that today and thank
God for it. We've got some fellas over in
the East that's doing that, ain't they? They'll cut your head off.
The church don't do that. But boy, they did it back in
this day. But I tell you what we will do. Bud, let push come
to shove. Let push come to shove. Let a spouse stand against the
truth. Let a husband stand against the
truth. And the Lord has taught the wife the truth. You watch
her take a stand against Him. Let a child stand against the
truth. You watch daddy and mom take
a stand against him. Let a neighbor or anyone else,
a dear friend. And when the Lord blesses a man
with the truth, you'll see him standing on it. Just like Martin
Luther. You take that stuff, he said. Take those relics. Take my gowns. Take my offices. You friends, you'll have to go.
The Lord has blessed me to know the truth, and I'm free, and
my conscience is bound to the Word of God. And no man is going
to get in your conscience, is he? Nobody is going to get in
your conscience. One, one person. Your conscience
is reserved for one person, and that's Jesus Christ. And He rules
there and He sits there by His Word and by His Spirit. And boy,
when you have to stand for the truth, you stand. You stand. Ain't that a blessing? Oh, what
a blessing to know the truth and to be taught the truth this
way. Our bodies they may kill, but they're not going to get
our truth. Levi. The Lord taught him the truth.
And you follow him throughout the Old Testament. Every time
they had a revival. You know who did the teaching?
Levi. The tribe of Levi took the Bible.
Sometimes he said, I don't even know how to comment on it. And
they just read it for hours. Read it for hours and talked.
Because the Lord had shined into their hearts the light. And they
loved it. They loved it.