More chapter summaries (10-12) from An Exposition of Deuteronomy 33 by William Parkinson

The chapter summaries for sermons 10, 11 and 12 from An Exposition of Deuteronomy 33 by William Parkinson are:

Sermon 10: “The Blessing of Levi. His Urim and Thummim, Considered Mystically,” pages 287-334;

Sermon 11: “The Blessing of Levi Continued. His Deportment and Service,” pages 335-382;

Sermon 12: “The Blessing of Levi Continued. His Substance Blessed, and His Enemies Vanquished,” pages 383-408.

In these three chapters Parkinson further expounds on the blessings given by Moses on the priestly tribe of Levi. Sermon 10 is especially interesting for the way in which Parkinson illustrates to believers the significance that the Urim and Thummim held as a type in regards to them. For example, in the fourth point he outlines on this subject, Parkinson suggests that believers must realize in Christ “what the high priest, with Urim and Thummim on his breast, did for the Israelites, in asking divine counsel on their behalf….The high priest, by Urim and Thummim, asked divine counsel only in relation to matters of great importance―matters in which the glory of God and the welfare of Israel were greatly concerned. And such, pre-eminently, are the matters to which the intercessions of Christ relate.” In sermons 11 and 12, we are shown the various ways in which they were types of the Lord Jesus Christ in His priestly office. “The Levites, in the character given of them in this part of our subject,” writes Parkinson, “were variously typical. First, they were typical of CHRIST, and particularly in the person of the high priest. As the high priest, according to the obligations he was under, might not leave the service of God, even for his father or mother; so Christ, being bound by covenant stipulations, could not, and did not neglect the work assigned to him by his heavenly Father, even when respect to the anxieties and wishes of his nearest fleshly connections seemed to require it….Did the Levitical priests, moreover, in rightly performing their work, observe the word and keep the covenant of God? How much more perfectly did Christ, as Mediator, observe the word of God the Father, and keep the covenant into which he had entered with him, as the covenantee of the elect!” Parkinson goes on to relate the manner in which the Levites were in some respects also typical of Christ’s ministers, whom, he says, “like the Levites, and in imitation of their blessed Master, must not neglect the work of the ministry out of respect to the persons or wishes of their nearest relations or dearest friends….As the ministers of Christ must not be drawn from their work by the flatteries and allurements of the world, so neither must they be driven from it, by the reproaches and persecutions of the world.”