CHRIST’S CALL
‘And as He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphæus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him.’
This incident is narrated also in Matthew’s Gospel (Mark 9:9) and in Luke’s Gospel (Mark 5:28). Luke adds that Levi (known to us at Matthew) not only rose up, but ‘left all’ to follow Jesus. From Matthew’s own account we should never have learned that he had anything to leave. He had resolved to follow Christ. In following Him he had found the pearl of great price, and gave no thought to the price at which he had obtained it. So he never mentions what he left. But there can be no doubt that he did, as we should say, make a considerable sacrifice in order to obey the Lord’s call, even though he may have thought nothing of it in comparison of the higher gain which he won.
We have a double lesson to learn from this point in the history.
I. When God calls us to make any sacrifice for His sake, we are not to be the persons to speak of it, for we ought not to feel that it is any sacrifice at all. The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man who sells all that he has to secure the pearl of great price. When a man sells all that he has in order to procure the pearl, he is doing a voluntary action. It is not like having your goods taken from you in exchange for something else. It is your own voluntary deed, which you do because you consider it to be well worth while; because you consider the priceless pearl to be well and cheaply won by the sacrifice of all; and, therefore, your mind is so much more set upon what you have gained than upon what you have given up, that you do not even think of mentioning what it cost.
II. See the example Matthew sets us.—It would have been a loss to us if we had been left to imagine that Matthew had nothing to leave. And so this piece of information is supplied to us by Luke. From the way that Luke mentions it, it is clear that Matthew had much to give up. The word publican means tax-gatherer. And the tax-gathers of those days were a wealthy class of persons. They paid the Government a certain price for the taxes of a town or a district, and then made what profit they could out of their bargain. This being so, they were of course anxious to make as much as they could out of the taxes, and in most cases they grew rich by grinding the people to the uttermost. This is why they were so unpopular. The publicans are always mentioned in the New Testament along with sinners. An I the reasons were (1) that in most cases they were so extortionate that their very name was a by-word for ‘swindler’; and (2) that scarcely any one with a good character would become a publican at all. Matthew was one of these ‘publicans.’ Up to this time he had given up all for money. Now he gives up all his profits and all his future opportunities of wealth—gives them all up to follow Christ.
Illustrations
(1) ‘On the shores of the Lake of Galilee many fishing villages were situated, and from amongst the hardy fishermen of this district Christ chose his first four disciples. Simon and Andrew were called to follow Him whilst casting a net into the sea, and James and John as they sat in their boat with the crew mending their nets. Bethsaida, the house of fish, was the native place of Simon, Andrew, and of Philip, and from the same region Matthew was called as he sat at the “receipt of custom,” by the lake, collecting dues levied on fish, fruit, and other produce conveyed by boat to the towns and villages on the margin of the lake.’
(2) ‘When, after a great missionary meeting, the offerings of the people were counted over, among the banknotes, gold, silver, etc., was found a card. “Who put that in? “was asked; and it was discovered that it came from a young man at the back of the assembly. On it was written, “Myself.” That was the young man’s offering—“himself.” It was just this which Levi offered when he obeyed the call of our Lord and, in reality, if not in quite the same way, it is with nothing short of this that we must be satisfied.’
(3) ‘How people do slave for money! The wonder is that they do not see that money is their god when they obey it and slave for it so. If this is not making a god of money I do not know what is. And then having thus slaved and worked for money, whether they have gained much or little, they worship what they have got. Having got it, the next thing is to keep it, except what, like Dives, they spend upon themselves. Any way, it is their god. And it draws off their whole mind and thoughts from all the many duties which God sent us into the world to do. The father of a family is so hard worked in money-getting for his children (as he says) that he cannot find time to attend to bringing them up so as to be good and upright and virtuous. That he must leave to others. He sees less of his own children than any one, and then when they grow up he wonders that they don’t care for him, and he complains that nowadays young people have no respect for their parents. But it is his own fault. He was busy worshipping money when he ought to have been winning his children’s love and respect, and he must reap as he has sown. You cannot serve God and Mammon. It is the same with a man’s other duties. How can a man be a good Christian, devout, prayerful, and God-loving, who makes money-getting his first object in life?’