Joshua 21 Levitical Cities & Priestly Responsibilities

The speaker discusses recent events, including funerals and a personal encounter with J.W., who shared his faith story before passing away. They transition to discussing the Book of Joshua, focusing on the Levites and their roles as priests and non-priests. The Levites receive cities and land for their ministry, with specific clans like the Kohatites and Gershonites mentioned. The distinction between priests and Levites is emphasized, with a historical example provided. The lesson encourages reading Chapter 21 of Joshua to understand the Levitical tribes better. Good morning. Hey, you're looking good today. Everybody have a good week? Had a great week. And God is good. Busy. Betty Bradshaw's funeral and visitation and Nellie's funeral and visitation. Now, J.W. I was with J.W. Friday afternoon for a while. We had good fellowship. In fact, we had a good time, didn't we? Had a wonderful time. And J.W. gave his confession of faith to the entire room that was there. Told us about when he was saved and how he was saved and what God has done to him in his life. It was a great blessing to be with him. And we talked about, you know, when God desires a person to come home, they're going to come home. And I told the family when I was sitting there, I said, now, when God gets ready to take J.W., don't be surprised he's going to take him. Well, Saturday morning, he took him. Amen. And he is with Nellie. And they're having a wonderful time. I bet you they're squared acid. Because in the scripture today, I'm going to tell you about one of the clans of priesthood that had, as their responsibility, dance in heaven. OK, so we'll see about that when it comes up. OK, if you have your copy of the scripture, turn to Chapter 21, Book of Joshua. Now, we're going to finish up Joshua in a couple of weeks. President Jimmy is going to do 22, 23, 24 and get through with those. Because we're trying to get ready to start the Book of Hebrews, which will be our next study in the New Testament, Book of Hebrews. And so we're trying to get Joshua put on the shelf and get over with it. And so we're trying to get that done and see something. I hope, by the way, come in, Brother Dan. I want you, I want all of you to look. This is Brother Dan coming in. OK, Dan, I want you to stand right there. Stand right there, Dan. Don't you move. I told him I was going to do something when you came in. Ladies and gentlemen, Dan is a reservist in the Navy. He has been a Navy man all of his life. And just this last month, he was promoted to Commander Dan Bly. OK, and the interesting thing is I'm going to talk about him in the lesson today. That's why I want to introduce him to you, because of what he does in the Navy and what he does in his reserve activity and what he did when he was full time Navy. And so we'll see. He was what he was in the Navy in a group of people that we call the heavy lifters. Heavy lifters. They were called Seabees. If you know anything about the Seabees, they built bridges, they built airports, they built runways, they built tunnels, they built they built everything you could build. They carried everything. They hauled it around. They were the people of the activity. They were the heavy lifters. And you know what? There was a group of Levites who were heavy lifters. And we'll talk about that. OK, look, if you want, in Chapter 21. Now, again, the book of Joshua can be, if you allow it to be, one of the most boring books in the entire Bible because of all of the allotments of the land. And after a while, you get tired of saying, well, now that this tribe got this and that tribe got that and the other tribe got another and then somebody got something else. And so what Brother Jimmy and I and Brother John have been trying to do is we were trying to do sidebars to help you understand what was happening to the people and not just where the land was listed and that land was listed, other land was listed. So I'm going to try to help you understand better who and what the Levitical tribe was today. And may I ask you to do one thing after the class is over and sometime during the week, if you have time, would you read this lesson? I know you won't have time to read it this morning, but read through it and find out because I talk about the three clans of the Levites, what they did, where they operated and what they were in relationship to the Kingdom of God. And you read it because I'm not going to be able to touch all of it today. OK, so please, sometime during the week, if you have time, read the lesson. Now, Chapter 21 says, Now the heads of the fathers of the Levites came near to Eleazar. Now, Eleazar was the high priest. And so the heads of the clans of the Levites came to Eleazar, the priest, to Joshua, the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel. And they spoke to them at Shiloh. Pause. When the children of Israel did, in truth, get in control of Cana, they put the tabernacle at the city of Shiloh in a semi, in a semi, it wasn't a temporary, it was a semi-permanent activity. Because when they put it at Shiloh, they actually left it there for nearly 200 years. And so it was not a permanent situation. They did not intend for the tabernacle to ever be permanent, but they had to leave it in a place where the children of Israel could get to it. And so they put it at Shiloh, which was one of the major cities of Levitical religious influence. And so they put it at Shiloh and it stood there, it stayed there until the time of King David. And we'll talk about that in a few moments, about what happened when King David became king of the United Kingdom. And so they're talking to them now and they put it at Shiloh. And they spoke to them in Shiloh, in the land of Canaan, saying the Lord commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their common lands for our livestock. So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance and the commandment of the Lord, these cities and their common lands. Now, the Lot came out too. And then all of a sudden there's a name, Kohatites. And later on in this book, you read it, and the Lot came out too. And there was another name, Gershon. And you read again, and in this chapter it says, and the Lot came out too. And there was another name, Memoriites. And these were the three sons of Aaron, the high priest. And these were of the clan of the Levites. And so what we're getting ready to see here is the land, the cities in the land of Canaan on the western side, and over in the land of Moab, Edom, and Ammon on the eastern side, where you had Reuben, Gad, and one-half Manasseh. And you're getting ready to see where Israel is going to give back something of what they got. And so what you're going to see here in this passage is that the tribes of Israel on both the western and eastern side of the Jordan are going to give to the Levites, who got nothing. And you remember they got nothing because of what Reuben and Levi did. I mean, what Simeon and Levi did. And they lost all their inheritance. Simeon was put into Judah, and he was absorbed. Levi got nothing. They had no allotment of land whatsoever. So the Israelites, realizing that their Levitical people got nothing in the first part of the chapter, they're getting ready to give them, not land, but there'll be some land attached, but they're getting ready to give them cities. And in the cities, the surrounding land is for the Levitical people to do vegetation, to do gardens, to raise cattle and herds, and to do a kind of ministry. And so you're going to have 48 cities in the western and eastern side of Canaan where these Levites are going to live. The majority of some of them live down near in Judah, because it is close to what will become Jerusalem, Jebus, which will become Jerusalem, and later on where the temple will be built. And so what we're getting ready to look at is, we're going to look at three clans of the man Levi. And these clans are named Kohatites, Kirshenites, and Mereriites. And these clans are very interesting, because I want you to know, I'm going to give you a truism right now, and I want you to understand it. And when you give a truism, you need to kind of explain it. Every priest, listen carefully, every priest was a Levite, okay? But not every Levite was a priest. Okay, get that in your head, wrap it around your head, because that's what we're getting ready to talk about. We're getting ready to talk about the requirements of the priest, and then we're going to talk about the requirements of two other tribes, of the non-priests. Now, here again, and I'm going to say it two or three times during the lesson, every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a priest, okay? Some of them were non-priests, and they had other responsibilities. We'll talk about that in the lesson. Now, let me share something with you. Now, some of us are going to understand what Jesus said in the story of the Good Samaritan, which has been very complicated and misunderstood. You remember the man was beat up and left by the side of the road, and Jesus was telling about him being left there for dead, and all of a sudden there came on the other side a priest, and he walked by on the other side. Now, he was coming up from one of the Levitical cities down in Judah, going to Jerusalem, going up the Jericho Road. And a few minutes later, Jesus says, and there came by a Levite. Hey, I thought they were the same. They are, but they're not. Again, every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a priest, okay? Now, let me give you a sidebar. Now, Brother Jimmy does rabbit chasing. I do educational sidebars, okay? There was a man by the name of Joseph Kohen in 70 AD. Kohen is the word for Kohatites. Kohen is the word for priest in Hebrew. Anybody who has the name Kohen was a priest. Kohatites, you got it? Kohatites, Kohen, priest. This man was Joseph Kohen. He was a priest. He studied to be a priest. He studied to be a Pharisee. He studied to be everything. He was a very intelligent man. In fact, probably in 70 AD, one of the most intelligent Israelites in the country. He, every Jewish boy, as you and I well know, had to have a trade. Jesus was a carpenter, right? Paul was a tent maker. Joseph studied military. He wanted to become a military officer in the army of Israel. And he did so very well. He was so intelligent, he spoke five languages. He could read and write, which 90% of the people could not do. And he was a very intelligent military officer, which he studied for. Although he was a Kohatite and was a priest, he decided not to be a priest. He decided to be a non-priest. And he joined the military. And in 70 AD, when Titus was sacking the city of Jerusalem and destroying the temple in Jerusalem, before he destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, he went up to Galilee to a Jewish garrison, one of the largest Jewish garrisons in Galilee. And the commander of that Jewish garrison was a guy by the name of Joseph Kohen. When he talked with him, he found out he was intelligent. He could speak five languages. He could read and write, which even Titus could not do, by the way. And Titus really had a great feeling of appreciation for Joseph. And he killed everybody in the garrison with the exception of Joseph. And he brought Joseph back with him. And he told Joseph, he said, I am going to make you a Roman. And he did. He took Joseph Kohen to Rome. He got him into Rome. He made him a Roman. And he gave him another name, which you know well. He wrote the history of the Jewish wars. And his name was Josephus. OK, that's Joseph Kohen. You see, he was a priest, but he chose to be a non-priest. And so this is what you're going to begin to see here in this chapter. Now, we're going to study about, first of all, the Kohenites and who were they? Then we're going to study about the Gershwites and who were they, Gershon. And then we're going to study about the Mareites and who were they? And what did they do in the tabernacle and in the temple and in the land of Israel? What was their responsibilities at the temple, at the tabernacle? What was their responsibility when they were not at the temple and tabernacle? What were they doing? And I hope before the lesson is over, you will be able to see what all of these Kohenites and Gershonites and Mareites were doing. Now, first, you have to understand that they had a four major responsibility. All four of these clans had four major responsibilities, and they had to see to it that these four major responsibilities came about. I have them listed on page one. You can read them later as you get there. First of all, they were to preserve the law. They became the interpreters of the law. They became the progenitors of the law. They produced and they preached and they spoke the law. So the first thing they had to do was preserve the law. That was one of their major responsibilities. The second thing they had to do, they had to teach the people about the requirements of the law and how to keep them. So not only did they have to preserve it, they had to tell them about the requirements and how you keep the law. And of course, you remember that Jesus on many occasions says nobody can keep the law, although they attempted to keep the law. Number three, they always defended justice and according to the law. And these were the people who were judging in the cities, the Levitical cities, especially in the six cities of refuge. The justice people in the six cities of refuge were Levites. And most of them were priests. Some of them were non-priests. So you've got to understand what I said in the beginning. Here's the point. Every priest was a Levite, but every Levite was not a priest. So in a city where you had Levites, you had Kohatites, you had Kirshites, and you had Mariites, some were priests and had the job of justice and preaching. Others were non-priests and all of them had jobs and all of them had a trade and all of them could do work and all of them were responsible for going to the temple. So they had to defend justice and dispense it. Number four, they had to transmit the law into the posterity of the Jewish people. So the fourth thing they had to do was be sure that the law would continue to be moving in the posterity of the Jewish people as the law was being explained. So that's what they had to do in the cities. Now, later on, they were always in defense of their unseen king, okay? They were always in defense of their unseen king. Many, many times the Levites were challenged, show us your king. And they would always say, we worship and serve an unseen king. Well, later on, you know what happened with Saul and later on David and later on and later on and that's when the thing began to crumble. And so they worshiped an unseen king and they were always in the presence of that unseen king, which, ladies and gentlemen, is where we are today. Today we sit in the presence of the unseen king. Okay, so they were to do that. Now they had four things that they had to do. When the tabernacle was established at Sinai and eventually moved with them and finally set up at Shiloh for about 150 years at Shiloh and then later on brought to Jerusalem by David, when the tabernacle was established, they had several things they had to do in the tabernacle. Now, not all of them did the same thing. The priest did some things, the non-priest did some other things. And so I want to help you understand what all of them had to do and then I'm going to help you understand what each tribe particularly had to do. I think you're going to enjoy what they had to do. First of all, they had to guard the temple. The Levites were the temple guards. Basically, the non-priests were the temple guards. In fact, most of what I'm going to tell you was done by non-priests, were done by Gershon and Gerberite. They had to guard the temple. They had to maintain the sanctuary. They had to receive the tithes and put them in the storehouse. Now, let me help you understand what I'm talking about. All of the Jewish people tithed everything they had. If they were a farmer, they tithed their vegetation. If they were herdsmen, they tithed their animals, yada, yada, yada. If they were businessmen, they tithed money, et cetera, et cetera, okay? So these non-priests received the tithes, whether it be food, vegetation, animals, or money, okay? That was one of their jobs. They had to protect the lamp and the lampstands. And they had to see to it that their brothers, the Kohatites, were able to take care of the lampstands because that's going to become one of the major responsibilities of the Kohatites, the Kohens, the priests. But let me help you understand something. The two groups that were not priests could not go into the holy place until it was prepared by the priest. And before they could even go into the holy place where were the 10 lamps of oil and the 10 tables of shewbread and the one altar of incense and the holy of holies and the holy of holies and the holy place where were the others, these other two tribes could not even go in there until the Kohatites went in and covered all the furniture. And when all the furniture in the holy place was covered, then these other two, Gershon and Mariette, they could go in and work with the stuff. But without it being covered, they could not go in. So they had to take care, protect the oil. They had to assist the priest in sacrificing. Now, every sacrifice was done by an Israeli man, a human man, and he had to do the sacrificing and the priest would assist him. The priest was not the one who was cutting the neck of the lamb. The offerer was the one who was cutting the neck of the lamb. The one who was giving the sacrifice was cutting the neck of the bull. The one who was giving the sacrifice was getting the pigeons and taking the feathers off. Every offerer had a lot to do in preparation for their sacrifice. And the priests, the Kohatites, had to help them. But there were so many people that these other two clans had to come. And since they were at the tabernacle and temple anyway, they would come and help the priest. Now, you can imagine it became a bloody floor and they were on the court of the Jews just behind the wall of separation. And it got pretty bloody when you had a lot of sacrificing going on, especially of bulls and goats and sheep and lambs and all kinds of stuff. So they had to help. They also received the tithes and put them in the storehouse and the various stores and they led. Now, here's the kicker. They led in the music and worship of the tabernacle and the temple. And when we get to it, you're going to enjoy this part. Because the Gershonites were the musicians and they are going to be the ones who are going to be responsible for the musical, the vocal, the choral, and the reading of the law and all of what was happening. And the Psalms and the hymns were all part of the Gershonites. They were the ones who did that. We'll see about that in a few moments. Okay. Now, when Moses divided the Levites, he said, now, I didn't read it to you, but on page one, I gave you the number of Levites that are, I think it's coming in this page. I give you the number of Levites who were in the clan of the Kohatites and the Gershonites and the Meriites. And there were over thousands of men. There were thousands of Levites. And Moses knew that as they continued to grow in the land of Canaan and as they continue to have total control of the land, that these Levitical tribes would grow and grow and grow and grow and be thousands of people, thousands of Levites, thousands of priests, thousands of non-priests. And they all had to come to the tabernacle and perform duty. They all had to come to the tabernacle and be part of the celebrations. They all had to come. Moses knew they were going to become numerous. So Moses separated them into three, what he called courses. The Kohite had a course, the Gershonites had a course, and the Meriites had a course. Now, they became so numerous that during the period of the judges, they had to reorganize them and they put them in eight courses. And later on, when Saul became king and they began to conquer more lands, they were growing more and more, and Saul put them into 16 courses. Now, you can see how we're getting a lot of priests and non-priests. And when David was in the United Kingdom, he put them into 24 courses. And by the way, the courses were in power when David was there. They were likewise in power when Jesus was there. You remember the scripture told us about Zechariah, Elizabeth's husband, John the Baptist's father. Zechariah, it is said in the second chapter of the book of Luke, that Zechariah was of the course of Abijah. You remember? Abijah was course number eight of the 24. Okay. Now, watch this. Every Levite, priest or non, had to come to Jerusalem every year at least seven times. And when they came for seven times, they didn't stay for long. If they came to minister in the tabernacle or the temple, they stayed for one week. Okay. Now, that meant that they came on the first day of the week, which would be a Sunday after Sabbath. They came on a Sunday. They stayed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and celebrated Sabbath and went home. Every Levite had to do that twice a year. Okay. One week, twice a year. The rest of the time, they're in the Levitical cities doing their thing, growing their food, raising their cattle, being like other people. But on that week, they have to be in Jerusalem. They have to work at the temple. Have to work in the tabernacle. Okay. During the seven celebrations, the celebration of Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, New Year's, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles, the seven feasts, all of the Levites had to be in Jerusalem. Now, you can imagine, if there were 24 courses and they were full of Levites, when those celebrations came, the city of Jerusalem was crowded with Levites, both priests and non-priests, and they were at the temple doing their duty. Let me tell you why they had to be there. On the day Jesus died, at three o'clock, every Jewish male in the city of Jerusalem was required to be at the temple with a lamb, not a goat, but a lamb. Had to be at the temple with the lamb, and at three o'clock, all of those lambs were sacrificed on the day Jesus died at three o'clock. All the Jewish men had to have a lamb for sacrifice at the temple. And the blood of those lambs just profusely filled the temple. You can imagine thousands of people, thousands of males, thousands of men doing a sacrifice, blood running everywhere. Hey, somebody has to clean it up. Who's going to clean it up, Dan? The heavy lifters. They're going to clean it up in a little bit. Okay, so you get the picture? So they had to come for all seven of those. Now, they were kind of nice because they're kind of adjusted with each other. The Feast of Passover is within a week of three feasts. Feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits. That comes on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That's kind of nice, isn't it? So the Levites had to be there for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then they'd go home. Now, 50 days later, they had another feast. It's called Pentecost. They had to come back. But they came back for one day, okay? And they did their one-day ministration, went home. And then there was a long period of time, sometime between May, June, and September, October. Now, Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits was in early March, April. Pentecost was sometime in May, June. New Year's was sometime in late September, October. And so you have periods of time between. And so they had to come in late September, October for New Year's, which was called Rosh Hashanah. And they had to stay 10 days for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And then they had to stay five more days for the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot. So they came one, they came Pentecost, and they came back, plus the fact they had to come two other weeks. So they were coming and going to the City of Jews rather regularly, okay? And they had to do their ministration while they were there. So, since they were in charge of doing all those festivals in the Temple, they had major responsibilities that were in the festival. So, let's look at the three, and let's see what they did. Now, let's look at the Kohens. Let's look at the priests. They're called Kohenites. And they had, they were the priest, the only priest. And once again, I remind you, every priest was a? Levite. Thank you. Every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a? Priest. Now, if you can put that down, and you can remember Jesus' story about the road to Jericho, and the man that was beat up, the Good Samaritan. If you remember that story, you remember the priest and Levite. I always wondered, well, aren't they the same? No, they're not. They're not the same at all. They're a totally different group. Okay, so let's look at the Kohenites. What was the responsibility of the Kohenites? Numbers 4, 4 through 14 tells us that the Kohenites were responsible for the inside of the holy place and the holy of holies. They were responsible for the inside of the tabernacle and the temple. Now, every high priest in the beginning was of Aaron. He was Aaronic. Moses was a Kohenite. Aaron was a Kohenite. Miriam was a Kohenite. All of them were priests, and Miriam was a priestess. Okay? Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were all Kohenites. They were all priests. Okay? Do you understand that? And then there were more Kohenites who became priests. And so, in Numbers 4, 14, it tells us the holy objects inside the holy place and the holy... Now, the high priest was the only one who could go in the holy of holies. Nobody else could go in there. Only the high priest. The only time the holy of holies was demonstrated or open was when they were moving the tabernacle. And then everything in it was covered. And the non-priests could go in there and get the stuff and carry it out. Because, like they were on, you would find out they were responsible for hauling the stuff. But they couldn't go in there if all the stuff was open. If the candlesticks were open, the altar of incense, or the ten tables of shoe bread, they could not go in there. Only the Kohenites. Only the Kohens. Only the priests. Could go in the holy place and the holy of holies. Now, what did they do when they went in there? Well, they were responsible for the veil. You remember the one that was ripped from top to bottom when Jesus died on the cross? They were responsible for the veil. They were responsible for the golden candle arbors, the golden candlesticks. They were responsible particularly for the cups and the wicks and the trimming. They were to see to it that all of those were burning brightly. They were also in charge of the trays and the vessels of the tables. They were in charge of the tables of shoe bread. They received the shoe bread every morning. They took it off every day. They gave it to the priests. They put it in stores. The Kirshenites, the Myriads, took it and put it in stores around the temple. And that's what the priests ate. And that's what the Levites ate. They ate the tithes of the people who brought tithes to the temple. And so the stores had to be there in the temple. It had to be disseminated. Then they had to take it all over Israel to these priests who were out there in all the cities. And so that was what they were responsible for. They had to take care of the altar of incense, the golden firepans. They had to take care of the forks and the shovels and all of these stencils. Everything that was used for worship, including the Ark of the Covenant, was the responsibility of the priest. Nobody could do that but the Kohens. So no one could go into the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies unless they were the high priest or a Kohen. And they took care of all of this. They were responsible for carrying these objects when the tabernacle was moved. Okay? Somebody had to carry them. Now, in preparation for carrying them, when the tabernacle was moved from Sinai and then was moved in several different places and eventually put temporarily at Shiloh, these Kohenites had to cover all of the implements inside the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. And then the Mariites had to go in and take them and bring them out. And then the Kohens had to carry the Ark of the Covenant, the ten candlesticks, the ten tables of shewbread, the altar of incense, and the Ark of the Covenant. All of them had to be carried on poles on the shoulders of Kohens. And they walked. And they had no conveyance to put any of it on. They carried it physically. And if you remember seeing the Ark of the Covenant, there were four men with a leader in front. And they had these two poles coming. And they had the poles on their shoulders. And they carried the Ark of the Covenant with the rings on the side on poles. They covered the altar of incense with the rings on the side on poles. They carried each of the covered candelabras on poles. They covered the altar of incense on poles. They carried all of the tables of shewbread on poles. And they carried them physically behind the temple, behind the tabernacle. Now, an interesting study. All of the men, all of the Kohenites, all of the priests, who carried these religious implements were between the ages of 30 and 33. If you were over the age of 33, you could not participate. If you were beyond the age of 30, you could not participate. All of the men who carried on two poles, all of these religious implements were between the ages of 30 and 33. And our blessed Savior died on two poles. And He was the Ark of our Covenant. And He shed His blood on the Ark of the Covenant. And He was carried on two poles. And He was 33 years of age. I guess that's just coincidence, huh? I mean, the Bible's full of coincidences, isn't it? All right. Now, that's what the Kohenites did. Had to carry everything on their pole. Now, they had a lot of ministry to perform. Number one, the high priest, who was a Kohen, had to do everything the high priest did. The rest of them had to do all kinds of things inside the holy place. Had to check. They had to be sure it's clean. They had to take care of it. The Kohenites assisted in worship. They were people who did help the men sacrifice at the brazen altar. And they were the ones who did saw to it that the five major sacrifices were done. The burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, and there was another one I ran out of time there, and the peace offering. There were five of them. You look in the book of Leviticus, chapters 1 through 5, you'll see all five of the sacrifices. The Kohen were responsible for all five of those sacrifices. And they had to do it with the help of the other two. And so they all helped each other, but actually the Kohenites, the Kohens, had to do the sacrificing. And finally, they had to be there, as I said, for all the festivals. Then every one of them had to be in Jerusalem two weeks every year from Sunday to Sabbath. And that was the task of the Levites. Now, let's talk about the Gershonites. They were the other crowd. They were the non-priests. The Gershonites were kind of interesting non-priests. I identify them more as the clan that was more aesthetic. I mean, you know, I'm a musician, folks. I was a musician for several years in a church. I was minister of music and education in several really nice churches. I'm a musician. I know how temperate musicians are. I know how they're, you know, they're all aesthetic. They all like to read. They like to sing. They like to play instruments. They like to do things that Mariites, they don't want to do. They don't want to carry planks. They don't want to carry stuff. They don't want to clean up. They want to sing. They want to minister. They want to have a good time. Okay, so you've got the Mariites. Now, I'm going to tell you a story about the Mariites. Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles was a king of Israel, was king of Judah before the two kingdoms once came back together. And he was attacked by Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and it was a pretty fierce war. And Jehoshaphat was getting beat up on pretty bad. And so Jehoshaphat said, you know, I'm going to pray to God and ask him what I need to do. This is in 2 Chronicles. You can look it up. I think it's in 2 Chronicles 4 or thereabouts. Anyway, Jehoshaphat prayed and God said, Jehoshaphat, get your temple choir and put it in front of your military vanguard. What? Put my choir in front of my troops with their archery and their spears and their shields and their swords? Put my choir and their choir ropes in front of my vanguard? God, you must be crazy. Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, do what I'm telling you to do. So Jehoshaphat read the story, put his choir in front of his army. They started marching toward Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and God wiped out the entirety of Moab, Edom, and Ammon with them singing. Now, I've said on many occasions, I have been in many churches where I have heard choirs that I think could do the same thing. And you all probably have also. But this choir of Jehoshaphat wiped out the whole enemy and God did a miracle. Okay, so they were responsible for the reading of the law. They were responsible for temple worship. They were responsible for ministry in the temple. They were responsible for all of the singing. They were responsible for choral. They were responsible for orchestral. They were responsible for everything that had musical. In fact, many of them wrote hymns in the Hebrew hymn book, the book of Psalms. Many of the Psalms were written by Gershonites, who were musicians. Because in the Psalms, as you read along, all of a sudden you'll run into something that says, yadda, yadda, yadda, Selah. Have you ever seen that word Selah? And you read along and it's Selah. So what is that? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have anything to do with what the poetry is, but it says Selah. That's a musical term. And in music, it means to pause, think, take a breath, and sing on. That's what Selah means. And if you understand anything about musical notation on a scale, these Selah marks are there, but you don't see them if you're not a musician. If you're playing a piano and you come to a Selah mark, you will pause. Everything will stop. The music will stop. Everybody kind of takes a breath and it starts up again. They ran into a Selah on the musical score playing the piano. Okay? So these Gershonites were really wonderful musicians. They had charge of all of the instruments of the tabernacle and the temple. They had strings and organs. What? Organs? You mean, no, they had a lot of pipes. Ladies and gentlemen, an organ is nothing but a series of pipes. You get the big pipes and they play deep. You get the little pipes and they play high. They got all these reeds. You remember the sea of reeds that they came through coming out of Egypt? They pick all these reeds. They clean them out. They make little pipes. They make little flutes. They make little, you know, they make little piccolos. And they take the bigger pipes and they make a clarinet or they make a thing like a oboe with a little reed. They put a reed in one of the big pipes. And now rather than just getting a, you get a, they put a reed in it. And we have in our orchestra now all of the instruments that they had in the temple. They had harps. They had strings. They had little strings and big strings. The harps could do all kinds of sounds. And they had all kinds of pipes. They had big pipes. They had little pipes. They had blow pipes. They had reed pipes. They were the, they actually invented the reed for the clarinet. Okay. So now in an orchestra we have pipes. We have all kinds of oboes with reeds. We have wood, we have wind instruments, flutes and piccolos and little, you know, and we have reeds in clarinets and we have them in oboes and we have them in the big bassoon. And then we have, we have the reed in the saxophone and we have the reed, and then we have the big brass instruments. Do you all know that a tuba is nothing more than a big brass pipe wound up in a circle? Oh, by the way, do you know that a cornet is nothing but a little pipe wound up in a circle? All of these instruments are pipes at one time. And they take them and they wind them around and they make a different sound. A trumpet is higher than a tuba because it has less pipe. The tuba has more pipe. Now the baritone is more, is more higher than the tuba because it's less round. So the more you wind it, the bigger it gets and the less you wind it, the higher it gets. And so they had all trumpets, they had tubas, they had baritones, they had all kinds of brass. All of this was made out of brass. And then they had drums and all kinds of drums. And they had cymbals and they had temporals and they had chimes and they had gongs and they made all kinds of percussion noise. Let me read you from the scripture what they had. In Psalms 153, it says, praise him with the sound of the trumpet, the lute and the harp. With the temporal and the dance. There it is. The Gershonites were responsible for dancing and the dance and with string instruments and flutes and loud cymbals and high cymbals, big cymbals and little cymbals, loud cymbals and little cymbals, high cymbals. They had an orchestra and the Gershonites were responsible. They did the worship in the temple. They were responsible for the hymn book, the Psalms. Oh, by the way, if you ever read the latter part of the Psalms, there are several Psalms that are called Psalms of going up, of ascending. And these are Psalms that they sang when they were coming from their fields in the areas of Israel, Cana, and they were going up the mountain, going up to the temple in Jerusalem. And they were called Psalms of ascending, going up. You cannot believe how musical the Gershonites were. And they were non-priests. You see, the guy that came up the Jericho Road could have been a Gershonite. He was a Levite. The other guy was a Kohatite. He was a priest. And they both came up the same road coming up to the city of Jerusalem. Now, let's do quickly the Mariites. Dan, you're going to like this crowd. I call the Mariites the heavy lifters because they had part of the tabernacle that took muscle to move it. In fact, the Mariites were non-priests. I call it the maintenance crew of the sanctuaries. When it got ready to move the tabernacle, they had to move all of the heavy stuff. Now, if you remember the tabernacle, the tabernacle was made with big planks. The walls were big planks. And the planks were covered with gold or silver. I bet you they were heavy, Dan. And guess who had to move them? The Mariites. It was their job to move all of this heavy stuff. All of the planks, they had to move the planks. They had to move the great sea, that big laver that held water for cleansing the sacrificial animal. That big water laver, they had to move it. They had to move the planks. They had to move the bars. They had to move the pillars. They had to move the pillars of the court and the sockets. They had to move the pins. And they had needed to tear down the tabernacle and put it back up again. They were the maintenance crew of the tabernacle. They were what we would call the Navy Dan Seabees. They had to do the heavy lifting. And so they did it. Now, during the period of the temple, their job was different. Because they're not taking the temple down. So what are they going to be? They're going to be the maintenance crew of the temple. Oh, they're going to do the following. They're going to have great big wooden sledges. Have you ever seen a wooden sledge? It's a conveyance that doesn't have wheels. It has rods under it. You know, big strips of wood. And you can drag them with an animal. In fact, if you look at the building of the pyramid in Egypt, they had all these sledges that brought these towns up to the pyramid. They don't have wheels. They have runners. And they're pulled by animals. Now, think this. On the day of sacrificing, they were killing hundreds and hundreds of animals. Blood was running almost ankle deep in the court of the Jews by the brazen altar. The great laver of the sea was there. It held hundreds of gallons of water. There were 10 small lavers or rollers that they would bring for the tribe. Each tribe had a rolling water pitcher. And they would bring these rollers up. And these Mariites did all the heavy work. They would push the rollers. They would bring the water. Now you got blood ankle deep. It's going to be a mess. Also, not everything could be burned at the altar. Some of it had to be thrown away. And so when they got through sacrificing, they would generally cut the animal in four parts. Four quarters. Everything but the burnt offering was not burned up. The only total sacrifice that was burned up was the burnt offering. Everything was burnt. Not the skin. Not the bones. But the flesh. And so you had to cut the skin. You had to cut the flesh. You had to get it away from the bones. And you had to... Now, what are you going to do with all those bones? What are you going to do with all that additional fat? They're not going to burn it on the altar. It can't be burned on it. Some will be burned, but not all of it. And so you got all of this animal refuse. And it just piles up and piles up. And you got piles of bones and piles of bones and piles of meat. And all kinds of fat. Blood running everywhere. And it's got to get out of there. We got to get out of it. Hey, we're going to have some more people coming. This blood's going to be needy before we get through with this. So the Mariites were responsible with their eight oxen that... They had carts to move the tabernacle. They had four carts and eight oxen. And they loaded all this heavy stuff on these carts. And when they moved, they moved all the tabernacle on carts. They didn't carry it like the Kohatites. They moved it on carts. And now they're moving all of this animal hide out of there. They're taking it to the back side of the temple. To the western side of the temple. They take all the refuse. And on the western side is a valley. And that valley is called the Valley of Hinnom. Jesus called it Gehenna. The Valley of Hinnom was the valley in which one of the kings of Judah took his children and on a burning brass guard sacrificed babies in the Valley of Hinnom. Go read about it. He sacrificed a lot of babies on a hot skittle alive. And they said you could hear the cries of these babies all over Jerusalem. And because of the cries, this king brought in a lot of topaz. He brought in a lot of drums. And as they got ready to put a child on that hot brazen, they'd start beating these drums so that you couldn't hear the child cry. And eventually the valley was called the Valley of Topaz. The Valley of the Drums. But it was the Valley of Hinnom. And it became a garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem. And during the time of Jesus and before during the time of David, during the time of the other kings of the southern kingdom, that dump was there. And it burned day and night. Because it had all kinds of flesh and stuff and garbage and trash. And it burned day and night. And Jesus said, you want to know what hell is like? Go look at the Valley of Gehenna. It looks like that. It's full of trash. It's full of junk. It's full of uncleanliness. It's full of fire. It's full of ashes. It is horrible. You don't want to go to Gehenna. Jesus said that. And so these Mariites had to dump all that stuff into the Valley of Hinnom. And it burned, the scripture says, and it burned day and night. And the stench came up into the city. Now after sacrificing was over, the Ark of the Jews was full of blood. Now a lot of it ran off, but you had to get rid of it. So guess who had the task of washing and sweeping and cleaning the court of the Jews? Mariites. Now that was part of their maintenance. So they started sweeping the blood. They started sweeping it toward the western edge. And they would sweep all of the blood from the court of the Jews. And they'd sweep it toward the back. And eventually they'd sweep all the blood off into the Valley of Hinnom. And it, too, would begin to burn. And it, too, would give up. Now that was the task of the Mariites. And the task of the Mariites was heavy lifting. And they did it well. And it was complete. And the Mariites were the heavy-duty maintenance crew. Now those are the three clans. The Kohantites, the Kohens, are the only priests. The Gershonites are non-priests, but they are mostly aesthetic musicians. Thank you. The Mariites are the heavy-duty crowd. They do the lifting, the pulling, the carrying, the moving. They take care of everything of maintenance in the Temple. Those were the three clans. They were the ones that Moses set up the course of the Levites. Conclusion. The Levites were always a peculiar possession of God. Although he didn't give them any land allotment, he did take care of them. And they became the portion of Jehovah himself. God gave them a portion of himself. Watch what he gave them. He gave them a tithe of the land. Now, who and who alone has the ability to give you part of a tithe? Think about it. Only eternal God can give you part of his money. If he wants to give you part of his tithe, he can give you part of it. God gave all of these Levites land, which was part of his tithe. The Israeli people gave it to them, and God convinced them to do it. So, they gave him part of the land tithe. Also, these Hebrew people gave them part of their vegetation and their animal tithes. And these people also gave them part of their monetary tithes. So, all of the portion that was given to the Levites was from the tithe that was given to eternal God. And God and the Levites were God's portion. Although because of the sinfulness of Levi, God punished them, God ended up doing better for him than he did for Simeon and Reuben. And the Levites were God's portion. They had the tithe, and they were given the tithe. They were sustained by the tithe. Now, back in their cities, each of them had land, each of them had herds, they could grow vegetables, they could grow gardens, they could grow orchards, they could grow anything they wanted, they could make a living. Every one of them had a trade, because every Jewish boy had to have a trade. So, every one of the Levites could do some kind of job. So, when they were in the cities, not in Jerusalem, they were doing their jobs. When they were in Jerusalem, they were Kohen, priests, they were Gershons, musicians and artists, and they were Bereites, heavy lifters. Isn't that cool? I mean, isn't that interesting? And so, we come to the end of this chapter, and the end of the chapter sounds this way, and I'll read it to you. Verse 43. I mean, between verse 4 and 5 in 43, you see all kinds of the law, but I'll read that to you. I'm going to read this to you. So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of this. And the Lord gave them rest all around according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and not a man of all their enemies stood against them. The Lord delivered all the enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass, and the Lord is good all the time. All the time. Now remember, every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a priest. Okay, now you got it. Now you can understand when these people do something in the Old Testament, and you see it's done by the Kohens, or you see it's done by the Kirshans, or you see it's done by the Meriites, then you understand what portion of the clans of the priesthood is doing the work. Doesn't that help you understand the Scripture better? It does me. And I praise God for understanding the Word of God. Thank you for being here. Let's pray. Father, thank You for today. Thank You for this study of Your people, the Levites. Thank You, Father, that some of them were very, very ministerial in their ministration. But thank You also, Father, that You brought us some musicians, because music fills our hearts and our souls, and singing and songs and psalms help us so much to live in this world. Orchestry, dance. Thank You, Father, for letting us speak. But also thank You for these men who were the heavy lifters and saw to it that everything in the tabernacle and the temple was cared for. And thank You, Father, that You had the kind of insight to give these people in the land of Canaan the kind of priestly Levites and ministers that they needed. And for that, Father, we thank You for giving us our ministers today. And may we pray for our revival tonight. And would You bless our dear friend O.S. Hawkins as he preaches in this wonderful music group that will share music and song and maybe dance with us tonight. And, Father, we thank You that we're going to be able to share and fellowship and sing and love and have a big time in the house of Jehovah tonight. Thank You, Lord. Bless us as we go to lunch. Give us a good time in Your kingdom. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.