The holy service portrayed in Numbers was for a God who is very active and moving; our priesthood and service is not for Christ who is inactive but for a Christ who is very active, and we must match God in His move.
On one hand as believers in Christ we are a holy and royal priesthood, those who minister to God and who bring God to man, and on the other, we are also Levites, those who handle the things of Christ and the church and bring Christ and the church wherever they go.
In the Old Testament there was a clear distinction between the priests and the Levites; the priests were the only ones who could minister in the tabernacle, and they were the ones handling the holy things; even when the tabernacle was to move, the priests covered the items in the tabernacle and then handed them over to the Levites to carry them.
The Levites, on the other hand, did a lot of practical service around the tabernacle, and they carried all the items related to the tabernacle. we could say that the Levites did not serve God directly but served the tabernacle, taking care of many practical things, and they also served the priesthood and the priests.
As the real spiritual Levites today in the church life we need to handle Christ as the holy things of God, and we need to bear the testimony of God in all its aspects wherever we go.
And though we may have to do a lot of practical things, we should never divorce our practical service from our spiritual service, that is, we should never serve God without enjoying God and ministering God.
Rather, in our service in the church life in many practical things, our first order of business should be to enjoy God, be filled with God, and be saturated with God, and out of this infilling will issue out our real service to God.
Wherever we go and whatever we do, we need to bring Christ and His cross with us, and we need to do all things to minister Christ to others for Him to gain a testimony on the earth.
We need to realise that we are handling Christ – He is the Head who assigns us a particular function in the Body according to our growth in life, and He is the One who fills us and is ministered through us, whether we serve in a practical way with many outward things, or whether we preach the gospel and visit the saints.
For us to minister is for us to serve, and to serve is to supply people by ministering Christ to them. May we be such ones, the real Levites and priests today who function in their measure in the church life, learning to minister Christ to others for the testimony of God.
We need to Match God in His Move on Earth today by Serving Him as Priests and Levites
The holy service of the priests and the Levites as portrayed in Numbers is not for a God who is inactive but for a God who is living, active, and moving, a God who needs His people to match Him in His move on earth.
Our holy service as priests and Levites today is not for a Christ who is inactive but for a Christ who is very active, and we as His people need to match Him in His activity and in His move. This is why He wants to have an army formed; for Him to move, He needs some on earth who would match Him.
He doesn’t want to stay in one place; God wants to move, and He wants to move in every country and in every city, to reach to places where He didn’t go yet. But how does God move? He has only one way to move, which is to have man match Him in His move.
In the Old Testament dispensation it was different – God did a lot of things without man; He created the universe without man to match Him, and He created all things without man’s assistance or cooperation.
But at the beginning of the New Testament we see the incarnation of the Triune God, which began a new age. In this age God joins Himself to man, He becomes one with man, and He even limits Himself to man’s cooperation with His move.
God Himself is omnipotent, but He operates according to His own principles in His economy; according to this principle, He will not move in His New Testament economy apart from man.
This means that the omnipotent God moves based on you and me; He limits Himself to us, for He needs us to match Him in His move. When we move, He moves, and when He moves, He wants us to move one with Him.
He wants to gain a group of people who don’t go ahead of Him neither trail behind Him but are one with Him and match Him in His move.
In the Old Testament in the book of Numbers God wanted to move, but He didn’t do it by Himself; He didn’t come in to move the tabernacle, but He gained a group of people who moved the tabernacle of the testimony to match God in His move on the earth.
God wants to move, and He wants to gain a corporate man (composed of many men) who would move in concert with Him, serving as priests and Levites.
The priests and Levites had certain duties in the tabernacle’s setting out, in its going forward. Each and every one of them had an assignment; when there was the time for the tabernacle to move, everyone had to do something. This is a picture of the coordination in the Body of Christ.
If we function in life, according to God’s placement and in coordination, there will be a smooth move, everyone functioning in their appointed service, and God can move in us and through us.
Lord Jesus, make us those who match You in Your move on earth today! Show us how much we need You and how much You need us to cooperate with You for Your move. Save us from hindering You in Your move on earth. Save us from going ahead of You or trailing behind You. Lord, make us one spirit with You so that we may function as today’s priests and Levites bearing Your testimony and moving one with You on earth! Amen, Lord Jesus, gain a corporate man who matches God in His move on earth today!
In order for us to see how Christ moves on earth, we should look at the move of the tabernacle; the tabernacle moved on the shoulders of the descendants of the three sons of Levi (Josh. 3:11, 13-15, 17).
The Lord moves through our bearing the Ark, the furnishings of the sanctuary, and the Tent of Meeting. The principle is that God needs man to match Him in His move on earth (Matt. 28:18-20).
The limitation of God’s move throughout church history is that man doesn’t match God in His move. Where are the men who today match God in what He wants to do in this age?
God must have man to match Him and be one with Him, to coordinate with Him. Without man, God cannot do anything; in His New Testament economy, God doesn’t do anything without man (Acts 1:8; 13:1-3).
He wants the gospel to be preached, churches to be raised up, and the church life to be practiced, but He won’t do it by Himself – He must have man to match Him, be one with Him, and coordinate with Him (see Ezek. 1:15-21; 1 Cor. 6:17).
God needs our prayer as priests in order for Him to move; without priestly prayer, there’s no move of the Lord.
We need to pray to cooperate with God for His move because we cannot do anything; we can’t serve in the church, be elders, deacons, or evangelists – we just can’t do it, so we must pray and put our trust in the Lord.
We need to realise that God must do something through us, for without us, He can’t do anything; without us, the Lord can’t preach the gospel or save sinners. Although we need the Lord, He needs us even more.
We need to pray because He wants to mingle Himself with us; when we pray, we open to Him, and He mingles Himself more with us, and thus He has a way to flow out of us to do His work.
We shouldn’t be first involved in doing things for God; rather, first we need to contact the Lord Himself and be mingled with Him, depend on Him, and let Him do the work in us and through us.
We may be quick to do things, but we may not pray that much to be mingled with God, be one with God, and be saturated with His thought, burden, and intention.
May we realise that Christ today is moving throughout the earth, and we need to be those who match Him in His move by being one with Him and praying priestly prayers! Amen, we are today’s sons of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, and Christ as the embodiment of God for His expansion moves through us, those who love Him!
Lord Jesus, we love You! We give ourselves to You to spend time with You to be infused with Your thought, desire, and intention. Without You, Lord, we cannot do anything. We open to You to be mingled with You and be saturated with You until You fill flow out through us to do Your work in us and through us. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we be those on earth who match God in His move so that God may advance His kingdom on the earth today!
We Match God in His Move by Serving Him and Ministering to Him under His Leading Within
The priests appointed the Levites to do their service (Num. 4:19, 27-28, 33), and the Levites did their service not according to their way but under the direction of the anointed priests.
This shows us that we, the New Testament believers who are priests serving God, we should not act according to our own idea and concept but under the direction of the anointed view, that is, under the direction of the Spirit who anoints us (3:3; Exo. 28:41).
Today we are both priests and Levites in God’s eyes, and as we serve God in practical things, we also need to enjoy God and minister God to one another.
We cannot separate the Levitical service (referring to the practical things we need to take care of) from the priestly service (referring to preaching the gospel, shepherding the saints, etc).
For example, when we clean the meeting hall, we still need to pray; when we arrange the chairs for the meeting or cook for the home meeting, we still need to enjoy the Lord and minister Christ to one another.
It is not only when we preach the gospel that we need to pray and enjoy the Lord, but at all times – and especially as we serve with practical things – we need to pray to contact the Lord. Actually, our prayer, our fellowship, and our pray-reading the word of God is the real service to God.
We see this in Acts when the apostles asked the saints to look for seven brothers to help with serving food; the criteria was not “those who have restaurant experience on their resume” but brothers full of the Holy Spirit.
In whatever service we are, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and minister Christ to others. We need to pray as much when serve physical food as when we preach the gospel.
Out of these seven men who served food, one was Stephen who, as we see in Acts 7, was clearly a priest; then in the next chapter we see Philip who was led by the Spirit to preach the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, functioning as an evangelist.
In the church life one minute we serve food or clean the table, and in the next, we preach the gospel and minister Christ; we don’t separate these two things, for we are both priest and Levites.
The priests took care of the primary things, the important things, and the Kohathites (Levites) took care of some of the secondary things (Num. 4:5-14). To take care of the furnishings of the sanctuary is to take care of the primary things.
In the church life there are many outward things to take care of, many business affairs and outward arrangements and work, but these are secondary; the primary thing to be done in the church service is ministering Christ and dispensing Christ to one another.
Our desire, burden, and intention is to minister Christ to one another; this supplies us and enables us to serve God and match God in His move on earth today.
The Kohathites carried the furnishings of the sanctuary (vv. 2-4, 15, 17-20, 34-37); to do this today is to speak concerning the church as the expansion of Christ.
When we are supplied with Christ and we minister Him, wherever we go we will bring the Lord’s testimony, the contents of the tabernacle, for the Lord to establish His testimony and build up His church.
Lord Jesus, may we be those who take care of the primary things in the church life, which is to enjoy Christ, be filled with Christ, be saturated with Christ, and minister Christ to others for the building up of the church. May we never separate serving in practical things from enjoying Christ and ministering Christ. Make us those who serve as priests and Levites by always enjoying Christ and ministering Christ to dispense Christ into others in all the things that we do. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we be such ones matching You in Your move on earth today for Your testimony!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Numbers, msg. 5 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 3, The Service of the Priests and the Levites for God’s Move.
- Hymns on this topic:
# As God’s redeemed, sanctified elect, His holy army arrayed we stand, / And in the energizing God, we move, we battle, we take the land. / We must move today in the wheel of God’s ultimate move, / Go forth, disciple all nations, teach the divine truths, / The kingdom’s gospel spread to all earth inhabited, / Till lampstands shine throughout all the earth, / Hasten the day of the Lord’s return. (Song on, God’s move today)
# Fellowship and testimony, / Ministry and worship too, / In all helps and ministrations / Christ is all our service true. / Christ to minister is service / Both to God and others too, / Christ, the surplus, e’er supplying, / Off’ring Him as service true. (Hymns #912)
# Lord, anew we give our bodies; / May we be transformed to prove / All Thy will, to know Thy Body, / And therein to serve and move. (Hymns #913)
About aGodMan
