Hope From the Word

Bill Luebkemann: God's organizational chart. That's next on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: And so the Levites carried out their responsibilities for the Tent of Meeting, for the holy place, and under their brothers, the descendants of Aaron, for the service of the Temple of the Lord. They did their job. They were organized, they had things to do, and here you have David setting up an organization.

Nothing wrong with organizations. Some people today make fun of organization, say, well, we need to trust the Holy Spirit. We organize it too much. There is nothing wrong with having a plan and being organized, as long as that's what God is calling you to do. And these people were quite organized here.

Bill Luebkemann: Being spiritually minded doesn't require you to be impractical or mystical. God is not opposed to planning or organization. On the contrary, our bodies are highly organized and function beautifully as they follow the direction of the head. The same is true of the body of Christ.

Bill Luebkemann: We have fascinating illustrations of this in the arrangement of the Old Testament priests and Levites. And we'll look into that today on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.

Bill Luebkemann: So, let's jump right in to today's teaching from First Chronicles chapter 23. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: Well, if you'll open up to First Chronicles 23, we were nearing the end of David's life, and he had foolishly numbered the fighting men in Israel. And then we saw after that what happened in his relationship with the Lord. And we saw him preparing to build the temple that he, that his son was to build. We saw him doing the preparation work, providing all kinds of raw materials.

That he could have bronze and stone and different kinds of cedar logs and many other things. Everything that he needed, that his son needed, David gave him a good start on that.

Bill Luebkemann: So, in addition to giving him a good start on the materials, supplies that he needed to build the temple, he also helped his son out by organizing things. And that's what we're going to get into here in these next few chapters, specifically how the, how he organized the Levites.

Bill Luebkemann: Those that were helpers around the temple, priests, singers, gatekeepers, treasurers and military. He had everything organized. It was almost like he delivered the kingdom to his son in move-in condition. Everything was rip-roaring and ready to go.

Bill Luebkemann: And we see here at the beginning of 23, he actually puts out the word that his son is going to be king. When David was old and full of years, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

Bill Luebkemann: He also gathered together all the leaders of Israel, as well as the priests and Levites.

Bill Luebkemann: The Levites 30 years old or more were counted. And the total number of men was 38,000.

Bill Luebkemann: David said, of these, 24,000 are to supervise the work of the Temple of the Lord, and 6,000 are to be officials and judges.

Bill Luebkemann: 4,000 are to be gatekeepers and 4,000 are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.

Bill Luebkemann: David divided the Levites into groups corresponding to the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

Bill Luebkemann: Look, let's first talk about how Solomon became king of Israel.

Bill Luebkemann: You may remember that David promised his wife, his wife Bathsheba, that her son Solomon would be the king.

Bill Luebkemann: And that, yeah, that's a puzzling one because she's, of course, the one that he slept with, got her pregnant, and he got her husband bumped off, murdered, really. And now it's her son that's sitting on the throne.

Bill Luebkemann: And just think that that's interesting that it wasn't one of his other wives who got to put a king on the throne.

Bill Luebkemann: And what happened? If you go back into the first book of Kings, you'll see that David's, one of his other sons, Adonijah, was wanting to be made king. And he was running his own campaign here that he was going to be king.

Bill Luebkemann: And we're not going to redo the beginning of First Kings, but basically, in a nutshell, Adonijah recruited a bunch of people to be his supporters.

Bill Luebkemann: And he was having a big party with them, and they were celebrating, having a big feast, celebrating that they were all going to support him to be the king.

Bill Luebkemann: And Bathsheba heard about this, and she approached King David and said, "Don't you remember that my son Solomon, you promised him to be on the throne?"

Bill Luebkemann: So King David went ahead in light of what was happening and made Solomon king.

Bill Luebkemann: He said in verse 32 of First Kings 1, "Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, son of Jehoiada. When they came before the king, he said to them, 'Take your Lord's servants with you and set Solomon, my son, on my own mule and take him down the Gihon.'"

Bill Luebkemann: "There, have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and shout, 'Long live King Solomon!'"

Bill Luebkemann: "Then you are to go up with him and he is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed him ruler over Israel and Judah."

Bill Luebkemann: So here's the king setting in motion the plan that his son would be anointed king.

Bill Luebkemann: And if you read further on down, they put Solomon on the mule, they escorted him down the Gihon, they took the horn of oil, and anointed him. Then they sounded the trumpet, and all the people shouted, "Long live King Solomon!"

Bill Luebkemann: They were rejoicing and partying and all that kind of stuff.

Bill Luebkemann: Meanwhile, back at the farm, Adonijah was having this big feast with his supporters, celebrating that he was going to be king. And they heard all this singing.

Bill Luebkemann: It says in verse 41, "Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they were finishing their feast. On hearing the sound of the trumpet, Joab asked, 'What's the meaning of all the noise in the city?'"

Bill Luebkemann: Even as he was speaking, Jonathan, son of Abiathar the priest arrived. Adonijah said, "Come in, a worthy man like you must be bringing good news."

Bill Luebkemann: "Not at all," Jonathan answered. "Our Lord King David has made Solomon king."

Bill Luebkemann: "The king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, the Kerathites, and the Pelethites, and they have put him on the king's mule."

Bill Luebkemann: "And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon."

Bill Luebkemann: Well, needless to say, Adonijah didn't like them crashing his party this way.

Bill Luebkemann: And that's what they were doing here. At this, all Adonijah's guests rose in alarm and dispersed.

Bill Luebkemann: Hey, if Solomon is going to be the king, we better not let Solomon see that we were here supporting his brother.

Bill Luebkemann: Because then Solomon might not like us.

Bill Luebkemann: And you know, if you follow the story, you find out that Adonijah eventually gets executed by Solomon because he doesn't really give up the idea of becoming king.

Bill Luebkemann: Solomon promises him if he's a worthy man, nothing will happen to him, but it turns out that he's not a worthy man, and he is still in various ways scheming to take over the kingdom. And so Solomon has him executed a few chapters later.

Bill Luebkemann: In the, maybe about the third chapter of First Kings. So when it says here in Chronicles, when David was old and full of years, he made his son Solomon king over Israel, that's really a short, condensed version.

Bill Luebkemann: And you have to remember again that the writer of the Chronicles was speaking to the Jews who were returning from the exile and reminding them and refreshing their memory and telling them what was going on. And didn't necessarily give them every detail. They had the other writings. They could refer to the other writings for more of the details.

Bill Luebkemann: So he made his son Solomon king over Israel. Now he previously got all the supplies ready, or many things ready for, for building the temple. And now he's made his son the king. And now he gathers together the leaders.

Bill Luebkemann: He gathered them together to get them ready, to give them a charge, so to speak, to set up a whole system, an organizational structure, if you will.

Bill Luebkemann: So he was making an organizational chart here of who's going to do what and everything. And his son was young and inexperienced. He had said that previously. He wasn't that much older now.

Bill Luebkemann: So we're going to give him all the benefit of David's years of experience, help him to get organized. And we're going to see that that's what he does here in these next few chapters here.

Bill Luebkemann: The Levites 30 years old or more were counted. Now you know back in Numbers, it said the ministry of the Levites began when they were 30 years old. I believe it ended when they were 50.

Bill Luebkemann: We're going to see as we go through this that David actually changes the age to 20. And there were 38,000 of them.

Bill Luebkemann: And David was not a priest. The Levites were not all priests. Only those who were descended from Aaron were the priestly line. But David had all the Levites counted so that they could be divided.

Bill Luebkemann: On that org chart, into different areas. And the greatest number, 24,000 of them were to supervise the work of the Temple of the Lord.

Bill Luebkemann: There was a lot of work to do. There was people coming every day to worship the Lord, and they were bringing offerings, and the animals had to be slain, and they had to be offered up. Only the priests could offer them up, but these other guys could help in so many ways to bring that about.

Bill Luebkemann: We're going to see later on that these guys were in charge of all the various side rooms and where they prepared the offerings. And no doubt, there were so many people coming to make an offering on any given day that they needed a lot of people there to help.

Bill Luebkemann: And they also had shifts, by the way. They weren't there all at the same time. We'll get to that as well.

Bill Luebkemann: He appointed 24,000 to supervise the work of the Temple, and then 6,000 to be officials and judges. So the Levites were also in charge of the system of civil government.

Bill Luebkemann: So if you had a complaint with your neighbor, if things were not going right, if you had to argue about something, your neighbor stole your cow or something, lawsuits and what have you.

Bill Luebkemann: 6,000 people to be various types of officials and judges.

Bill Luebkemann: 4,000 gatekeepers and doorkeepers. We'll get to that later on, that guarded the perimeter of the Temple.

Bill Luebkemann: And 4,000 more to be praising the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose. 4,000 just, just to be in their worship team.

Bill Luebkemann: So we're talking about a whole lot of people here. They were organized. And then he gets into the family breakdowns of the Levites here.

Bill Luebkemann: There were three main families in the Levites, the families of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

Bill Luebkemann: And you can go back to Numbers chapter 3 and 4, where these are broken down. The Gershonites were Ladan and Shemai, and the sons of Ladan, and the sons of Shemai, and more of the sons of Shemai. They're all broken down there in the verses 7 to 11.

Bill Luebkemann: One guy didn't have many sons, a couple guys didn't have many sons. Jahath was the first and Zizah the second, but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they were counted as one family with one assignment.

Bill Luebkemann: Breaking down the assignments here by families.

Bill Luebkemann: The sons of Kohath, Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four in all. And we have the breakdown of them. The sons of Amram, Aaron and Moses. Aaron was the one set apart, he and his descendants forever, to consecrate the most holy things, to offer sacrifices before the Lord, to minister before him, and to pronounce blessings in his name forever. These were the descendants of Aaron.

Bill Luebkemann: The sons of Moses the man of God were counted as part of the tribe of Levi.

Bill Luebkemann: So Moses' sons were part of that tribe of Levi, but Aaron's sons were the ones that were the priests.

Bill Luebkemann: And his descendants were the priests. Not all the Levites were priests.

Bill Luebkemann: And it has here what their role was.

Bill Luebkemann: Aaron was set apart, and he and his descendants forever, we just read this, to consecrate the most holy things.

Bill Luebkemann: To sanctify the things. They were the ones that took the offering and presented it to God. And they were the ones that showed the people what holiness was. They were the ones that had to be clean.

Bill Luebkemann: That had to know what it meant to be clean. And before they could serve the Lord in the temple there and offer up the offerings, they had to be sanctified. And they couldn't sit there in short pants and a t-shirt. They had to set aside their earthly clothes and put on their priestly garments.

Bill Luebkemann: Aaron was set apart and his descendants forever to consecrate the most holy things.

Bill Luebkemann: They were the ones that understood what it meant to be holy and what it meant to set aside things for the Lord and to be set aside to him.

Bill Luebkemann: To offer sacrifices before the Lord. They were the ones, the priests were the ones that came in and made the sacrifices.

Bill Luebkemann: They were the ones who offered up the sacrifice. Nobody else could do that. It was not legal for someone else to make a sacrifice to God.

Bill Luebkemann: To minister before him. They were the ones that provided the ministry, the devotion, the attention to God, the worship.

Bill Luebkemann: And to pronounce blessings on his name forever. They were the ones that will give blessings to God.

Bill Luebkemann: They pronounced blessings in his name, and they were sanctified, and they were holy, and they were the ones that burned incense, which were like the fragrant prayers that were offered up.

Bill Luebkemann: They were the ones that stood between God and man.

Bill Luebkemann: And you know, when Jesus was sacrificed, when he died on that cross, the veil in the temple was torn in two.

Bill Luebkemann: Separated, signifying that no longer did we need this exact same ministry of a priest to be a buffer between God and man, to be an interface that we could come to God ourselves now. We can make our own offering to God. We can minister before him, be devoted to him, worship him, and follow him, and tell other people about the blessings of following him.

Bill Luebkemann: The sons of Moses, man of God, we saw, they were counted as part of the tribe of Levi.

Bill Luebkemann: Also his sons are listed in the next few verses, and then down in verse 21, the sons of Merari, Mahli and Mushi.

Bill Luebkemann: I love that name, Mushi.

Bill Luebkemann: The sons of Mahli were Eleazar and Kish.

Bill Luebkemann: Eleazar died without having sons, he had only daughters. Their cousins, the sons of Kish, married them.

Bill Luebkemann: He was the guy that didn't have any sons.

Bill Luebkemann: And the sons of Mushi were listed there after that.

Bill Luebkemann: Verse 24. These are the descendants of Levi by their families. The heads of families, as they were registered under their names and counted individually, that is, the workers 20 years old or more who served in the Temple of the Lord.

Bill Luebkemann: Now we see here that David changing the requirement of service to be 20 years old instead of 30.

Bill Luebkemann: For David had said, "Since the Lord, the God of Israel, has granted rest to his people and has come to dwell in Jerusalem forever, the Levites no longer need to carry the Tabernacle or any of the articles used in its service."

Bill Luebkemann: According to the last instructions of David, the Levites were counted from those 20 years old or more. It used to be 30 years to 50 years was the years that they served. But it says here that David changed that age and lowered it to 20 that a Levite could be 20 years old and serve.

Bill Luebkemann: And they no longer needed to do some of the things that they used to do. In some ways, I think they were busier because they had probably had more people in Israel, and now they had a, they're going to have a permanent temple. There's going to be a constant amount of people coming in making offerings. They're going to be very busy there.

Bill Luebkemann: But when they were traveling around the desert, they needed to keep disassembling and reassembling the Tabernacle. And that weighed a lot. All those big beams and posts and the big thick curtains that they hung over them. So there was lots of people whose jobs were to take this apart and to pack it up and to carry it where they were going and to set it back up again and put it all back together again.

Bill Luebkemann: And David said, "Well, that doesn't need to be done anymore."

Bill Luebkemann: He gave us a rest. When he granted rest to his people, rest from their travels, rest from wandering around the desert, rest from fighting against their enemies, battling all the time.

Bill Luebkemann: He granted rest for them, and he's come to dwell in the in Jerusalem forever.

Bill Luebkemann: So the Levites in a way have less work to do, in a way have more work to do, and this organization here is needed for that.

Bill Luebkemann: The duty of the Levites was to help Aaron's descendants in the service of the Temple of the Lord, to be in charge of the courtyards, the side rooms, the purification of all sacred things, and the performance of other duties at the House of God.

Bill Luebkemann: They were in charge of the bread set out on the table, the flour for the grain offerings, the unleavened wafers, the baking and the mixing, and all measurements of quantity and size.

Bill Luebkemann: They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. They were to do the same in the evening and whenever burnt offerings were presented to the Lord on Sabbaths and at New Moon festivals and at appointed feasts.

Bill Luebkemann: They were to serve before the Lord regularly in the proper number and in the way prescribed for them.

Bill Luebkemann: This was the duty of the Levites, to be in charge of everything there. The courtyards around the Temple, the side rooms that were in it, the purification of the sacred things and the other duties that were going on there.

Bill Luebkemann: And there was bread that had to be set out, and flour and grain offerings, and wafings, and there was baking and mixing that had to be done, and things needed to be measured. It was almost like they were running a factory here. A production plant almost seems like that.

Bill Luebkemann: In addition, they thanked the Lord every morning and every evening, put out the proper offerings, serving before the Lord regularly in the proper number.

Bill Luebkemann: Now you say 24,000, that's an awful lot, but they didn't do it all at the same time. They were divided into groups, which we're going to see here later on.

Bill Luebkemann: So divided into 24 groups, that's only a thousand at a time, for I think a week at a time.

Bill Luebkemann: And so the Levites carried out their responsibilities for the Tent of Meeting, for the holy place, and under their brothers, the descendants of Aaron, for the service of the Temple of the Lord. They did their job. They were organized, they had things to do, and here you have David setting up an organization.

Bill Luebkemann: Nothing wrong with organization. Some people today make fun of organization, say, well, we need to trust the Holy Spirit. We organize it too much. There's nothing wrong with having a plan and being organized.

Bill Luebkemann: As long as that's what God is calling you to do. And these people were quite organized here.

Bill Luebkemann: David not wanting, I don't think, to leave his son young and inexperienced, having to deal with all this, setting it up ahead of time. You can just see the amount of planning and preparation that went into this.

Bill Luebkemann: This was not something that David sat down in a half a day and worked out real quick. This took a lot of time. And it was the way God wanted it.

Bill Luebkemann: These were the divisions of the sons of Aaron. Now we get into the priestly clan, the sons of Aaron.

Bill Luebkemann: The sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father did, and they had no sons. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as the priests.

Bill Luebkemann: You'll remember the story of Nadab and Abihu. These guys died because they weren't following God, is what it boiled down to.

Bill Luebkemann: And Nadab and Abihu died before their father did. They died before they had any children. And you think that they gave up the opportunity to have generation and generation and generation of priests descended from them. And they gave all that up because they were off doing their own thing and not worshiping God in the way that he called them to do. So only their two brothers, Eleazar and Ithamar, served as the priests.

Bill Luebkemann: And all future priests were descended from them. With the help of Zadok, a descendant of Eleazar, and Ahimelech, a descendant of Ithamar, David separated them into divisions for their appointed order of ministering.

Bill Luebkemann: So they had all these sons. Now you know Eleazar and Ithamar were not around anymore. They lived many years before David.

Bill Luebkemann: We're talking now about their descendants.

Bill Luebkemann: And David separated them. He had Zadok there who was descended from Eleazar, and Ahimelech, who was descended from Ithamar. And so he got them two together, leading men in their own families.

Bill Luebkemann: And said, "Hey, how about if you help me divide up all the priests for the proper service?"

Bill Luebkemann: A larger number of leaders were found among Eleazar's descendants than among Ithamar's. And they were divided accordingly, 16 heads of families from Eleazar's descendants and eight heads of families from Ithamar's descendants. Eleazar had a bigger family.

Bill Luebkemann: Or if he wasn't a bigger family, it was more prepared to be leaders. Maybe these people were seeking the Lord more. Maybe they were more well-trained or educated or something. But it could be that they just had more of them. He had a bigger family.

Bill Luebkemann: They divided them impartially by drawing lots, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among the descendants of both Eleazar and Ithamar.

Bill Luebkemann: So they did not involve human reasoning here.

Bill Luebkemann: They did not say, "Who's going to pay us off, or who do we like the best?"

Bill Luebkemann: You know, some churches today elect their leaders, and they can often become a contest of who is the most popular.

Bill Luebkemann: Who is liked the most?

Bill Luebkemann: I was talking to a pastor friend that I know, and he was talking about a pastor friend that he knows. So this is a friend of a friend who, in his church, the people who are heads of the various boards and committees, the reason they're the head of the board or the committee, is because, you know, their father was the head of that board or committee and and his father, their grandfather was the head of it.

Bill Luebkemann: As it was described to me in this particular instance, they had people that weren't even saved, who were going to the church, heading up boards and committees because, well, that's what our family does. And don't you dare step on our toes here because this is our place and we've got a handle on it.

Bill Luebkemann: And we're locked into this part of it here.

Bill Luebkemann: But this was not what they did here. They divided them impartially by drawing lots, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among the descendants of both Eleazar and Ithamar.

Bill Luebkemann: They had people there that were well trained, that were well established, that could serve. And so they used a process of drawing lots, common in the Old Testament.

Bill Luebkemann: To what we would call chance maybe, but it wasn't chance because God was in it, to describe, they used that process to, to pick who was going to serve and where.

Bill Luebkemann: You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann's study of First Chronicles.

Bill Luebkemann: If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options.

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Bill Luebkemann: If you've been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton, where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you.

Bill Luebkemann: Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10.

Bill Luebkemann: We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM.

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Bill Luebkemann: For more information, go to CCmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Bill Luebkemann: Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series.

Bill Luebkemann: You can easily email us at our website CCmarlton.org or just call us at 856-983-1662.

Bill Luebkemann: There's more to come from Bill's study of First Chronicles, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.