The Spiritual Meaning of Service # 6

The Belovedness of Christ (continued)

Now, the history of the Levites is a long and varied and mixed history. They were not always in good condition; they were not always in their right place, position and function. Sometimes they were incapable of ministering simply because they were involved in the bad state of the people of God. Sometimes they themselves were out of adjustment. It is a long and painful history. But what I want you to notice is this, that even in the last recorded phase of that history - a long history in which there are many dark chapters - even in the last phase, as we see it in Malachi, God has not given them up. The last word about them is that He will "purify the sons of Levi," after all. He has not abandoned them; He has not given them over. The Lord has made a covenant, and He is standing to it.

But it is not always a matter of the people. Here it is a matter of the ministry. There is some ministry which is of this kind, which has this importance and value in the sight of God. There is particular kind of service to the Lord to which He is peculiarly committed, and, while those who are connected with it may change, may sometimes go wrong, the Lord is jealous for this thing, and He is not giving it up, He is not casting it aside. If that had been His way, where would the ministry of the Lord be today? Think of those periods in this dispensation when things have been in a deplorable state, and the Lord has seemed to have little or nothing of this kind. But the Lord has never given it up, and He never will. The last chapter of the Old Testament sees the Lord coming back to it again. He is committed to it. It is a great thing to know that there is that which is of such importance to the  Lord that if we come into it, we shall find God persisting in spite of failures, of weaknesses, of imperfections, of days of darkness, of seeming eclipses. God is going on with that thing.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 7)