The Call of Levi

Driving home: Thus a business not unlawful in itself and only made oppressive by the greed of those engaged in it came by degrees to be regarded by devout Jews as intrinsically evil and gave rise to that familiar but without reference…

Martin quotes Alexander's commentary to explain the despised status of publicans, their exclusion from Jewish society, and the oppressive Roman tax system they enforced, which made them instruments of a heathen power.

and then a very succinct statement from the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Commenting on this passage, Alexander writes, While our Lord claimed an authority above that of any prophet, he consorted with the most notorious violators of the law, who were excluded by all strict Jews from their social and their church communion. These publicans were excluded, from the privilege of attending the synagogue, and they were excluded from even common social intercourse such as you would have when you have a group of people in your home for a meal. Our Lord did so even with publicans whose very nam...

7:44 - 9:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Thus a business not unlawful in itself and only made oppressive by the greed of those engaged in it came by degrees to be regarded by devout Jews as intrinsically evil and gave rise to that familiar but without reference…

Martin quotes from the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary to further define publicans as hated instruments of Roman subjugation, noted for extortion, and classed with sinners and harlots.

so you can find this for yourself you come under alphabetically to publican and this is what you read. An under collector of Roman revenue of these there appear to have been two classes the chief of the publicans of whom Zacchaeus is an example he's called a chief publican and then secondly an ordinary publican the lowest class of the servants engaged in the collecting of the revenue and of whom we have an instance in Levi who was afterward named the Apostle Matthew. The publicans were hated as the instruments by which the subjugation of the Jews to the Roman Empire was perpetuated and the pay...

11:55 - 13:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin reconstructs the scene of Jesus seeing Levi at his toll booth and issuing the simple, imperative command, 'Follow me,' to which Levi immediately responded by rising and…

Martin uses the analogy of a raised platform in a Pakistani town court to help visualize Levi's toll booth, suggesting it might have been a similar elevated structure where he sat.

And as far as I'm concerned that's enough for me to know that much and I'll not weary you with all the stuff that I've read of the various theories. But by comparing scripture with scripture there is no question that the Levi of Mark 2 is the Matthew of Matthew 9, 9 as well as the Levi of Matthew of Luke 5 and verse 27. Well try to live the picture and the manner in which Mark wrote presses us to do this. You will find in many of the gospel records but particularly in Mark he moves from using what we would call the past tense describing something that happened to a present tense so that the re...

23:48 - 25:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine if you have personally experienced the individuality of Christ's call, where it felt like only Jesus and you mattered.

Martin shares his personal experience of the mental and spiritual drain of preaching to large congregations, contrasting it with the intimate, individual engagement Christ had with Levi.

Day after day great crowds were coming. Day after day He is speaking to the crowds and teaching to them and only someone who knows a little bit at least of what it is to teach and preach knows anything of the tremendous drain upon the mind and soul in speaking to multitudes. I have found in my own limited experience, the larger the congregation, the more is the drain upon the mind and the spirit to engage the minds and spirits of that larger crowd. And here our Lord, day after day, is acclimated to that ministry to the multitude, seeking to engage them as individuals in the great crowd. No eas...

30:39 - 32:03 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I am not at all embarrassed to have the likes of you found in the closest proximity to me. Follow me.

Martin uses the analogy of Jesus 'gloating' (without attributing carnality) in the opportunity to challenge the Pharisees' pride by calling a publican, highlighting the graciousness of the call.

They were in the moral and ethical realm what the lepers were in the physical realm. If you had leprosy, you were unclean and cut off. If you were a Republican, you were unclean and cut off. And I can just see the Lord Jesus almost, may I say it without attributing anything carnal to our blessed Lord, almost gloating in the opportunity to stick it to these Pharisees.

37:49 - 38:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I am not at all embarrassed to have the likes of you found in the closest proximity to me. Follow me.

The example of Jesus touching a leper is used to illustrate the shocking and counter-cultural nature of His gracious identification with the unclean, paralleling His call to Levi.

The Son of God takes the initiative. And in compassionate, condescending grace that was verbally, precisely what his touching the leper was physically. You remember a few weeks ago as we studied that healing of a leper, how everyone must have stood with bated breath. And when Jesus reached out and did what would make him ceremonially unclean, he touched a leper.

39:11 - 39:34 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

The biblical imagery of a man leaving his father and mother to cleave to his wife is used to explain the radical, unqualified nature of Levi's 'leaving all' to follow Christ.

When he heard the words, those words that said, follow me, he could not escape the fact that they were addressed to him individually, that they were the very revelation of grace and of sovereignty. We read that he rose up, he left all, and he followed. And the word for leave all is exactly the same word used in the New Testament quoting from Genesis. A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

45:01 - 45:32 Read in full sermon