Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Before we get going on Revive Our Hearts today, I’d like to take just a moment to honor my longtime friend Kay Arthur, who, as of last week, is now worshiping in the presence of her Savior!
Kay has been a sweet source of encouragement to me ever since the beginning of Revive Our Hearts. I’ve learned so much from her, and I’m deeply grateful for her life and her ministry. I know that many of our listeners have been blessed by Kay’s teaching, her books and Bible studies, and the ministry of Precept.
If you know anything about Kay, you know that her love for God’s Word was infectious, and here at Revive Our Hearts we experienced it when she was a guest on this program . . .
Kay Arthur: Application is, how are you going to change your thinking to line up with what the Word of God says, and how are you going to order your life so that you walk the walk you talk.
Nancy: . . . and when she spoke at True Woman events.
Kay: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.”
Nancy: A few years ago, at our most recent True Woman conference, Kay joined me on the platform. She was nearly eighty-nine years old at the time. I asked her how God’s character and His Word had provided encouragement in her life. Here’s some of what she had to say.
Kay: His Word is a strong tower, so anytime that I have a need, I run to the Word of God. I ask God, “God, show me what I need to know. Show me what I need to do.” And then I wait upon the Lord. But the more you’ve studied the Word of God, the easier it is.
Nancy: And, of course, making it easier to study the Word of God is what Kay Arthur and Precept Ministries have been all about.
I’m so thankful for the life of Kay Arthur, and I know many of our listeners are as well. Maybe you’re one of them. So, let’s thank the Lord for her now, and then we’ll hear today’s edition of Revive Our Hearts.
Oh Lord, how I thank You for the gift of this precious woman, for her faithfulness to You and Your faithfulness to her over many years; for her love for Your Word, her enthusiasm for what she was discovering in the Scripture, and all the ways that she served to help us love Your Word more.
I pray that You would provide the comfort only You can give to her family—to her son David as he continues to lead the ministry of Precept—and to the staff and friends of Precept ministries who are really grieving this loss. I pray that You would encourage them and strengthen them as only You can do so.
Thank You that You carried her through old age and Parkinson’s disease, and now she is well, she is whole, and she is with You. She has forged a path. And we who are left behind miss her, but we also want to follow in the steps she taught us: to love You with all our hearts and to seek You and to believe You for great things from Your Word.
We pray that You would raise up many, many in her wake, coming behind her, who will love Your Word, study it, seek to do it, and be used by You in great ways as we share Your Word with those in our generation. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Dannah Gresh: The Old Testament Levites were stewards of a wonderful treasure, and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says we are, too.
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Oh the joy that will make every burden we carried here on this earth seem no heavier than a feather—those light and momentary afflictions. It will be a joy if we can hand over to Him the treasures that were entrusted to us. And we can say, “Lord, by your grace, it’s all here. It’s all accounted for. We give it to you.”
Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Holiness: The Heart God Purifies, for Tuesday, May 27, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.
Yesterday, we listened to part 1 of a message Nancy gave at our staff summit. It was a little peek into what it looks like to work at Revive Our Hearts and to do ministry in general.
Nancy shared with us that a life of ministry—whether that’s vocational ministry or the informal yet meaningful ministry that happens in your homes, churches, and communities—is a lot like the life of an Old Testament Levite. Interesting, isn’t it? She talked about the Levites’ calling, their preparation, their privileges, and their responsibilities. She showed us so many parallels to life as you and I serve the Lord. If you missed it, you can always go back and listen through the Revive Our Hearts app, or at ReviveOurHearts.com.
But next up we’re going to shift gears and talk briefly about their peril. Here’s Nancy with part 2 of the series “Lessons from Levites.”
Nancy: Let me invite you to turn to the sixteenth chapter of the book of Numbers. Number 16, verse 1 says: “Korah,” you may remember that name. You probably haven’t named a child Korah. But,
Korah, son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi.
Korah was a Kohathite. The Kohathites were one of the three family lines of the Levites. So Korah was in that particular family line in the tribe of Levi that was responsible to carry the holy objects in the sanctuary. This was a sacred calling. They could not touch them. They had to be carried carefully. They could not look on them lest they die. I mean, it was a holy awesome responsibility. And Korah was in that family line. That was part of his responsibility. Now, what did he do? It says he joined with . . .
Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, and they took two hundred fifty prominent Israelite men who were leaders of the community and representatives in the assembly, and together they rebelled against Moses. They came together against Moses and Aaron. (vv. 1–3)
So here is Korah who first gets something in his craw, he gets upset, and he gets others to side with him and join in the rebellion. He says in verse 3 to Moses and Aaron:
“You have gone too far! Everyone in the entire community is holy, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?”
Now these are serious accusations, and Moses took them seriously. Look at verse 4:
When Moses heard this he fell face down.
As he so often did, he prostrated himself before the Lord in intercessory prayer. Then he got right to the heart of the matter. For Korah and company had said to Moses, “You have gone too far.” But look at verse 7. Moses says to them:
It is you Levites who have gone too far! . . . Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the Israelite community to bring you near to himself, to perform the work at the LORD’s tabernacle, and to stand before the community to minister to them. (vv. 7, 9)
Isn’t that enough for you? He reminded them the honor that they had to be set apart to serve the Lord and His people as Levites. Look at verse 10:
[God] has brought you near and all your fellow Levites who are with you, but you are pursuing the priesthood as well.
You see, only the sons of Aaron in the tribe of Levi were allowed to be priests. But Korah was not satisfied with the privileges and responsibilities given to him. He wanted something God hadn’t given him—selfish ambition, striving to have a different role than the one God had assigned to him. So Moses says, “Isn’t it enough for you that the Lord has called you to Himself? He’s brought you near. He has given you the privilege of serving Him and His people, but you are pursuing something more. You want a position someone else has.”
God takes this seriously, and it does not end well. You remember the outpouring of judgment, and how God caused the earth to open up and swallow Korah alive, along with the others who had led in the rebellion, many of them consumed by fire. It’s a sobering passage, and it reminds me that not one of us, starting here, is beyond the spiritual peril of pride.
Tenure and position in ministry can make us think too highly of ourselves. They can set us up for presumption and sin. They can cause us to justify behaviors and attitudes that are unholy. This is an important reminder to me, starting here first. “Oh Lord, guard my heart, protect me, and remind me that God will hold leaders accountable when they fail to honor Him and where He has placed them.”
Well the consequences of this pride and rebellion were tragic. Korah’s entire legacy could have been ruined and wiped out. But as I’m teaching through the Old Testament, one of the things we’re looking for is glimpses of grace. We’ve got an amazing one right here. Numbers chapter 26, I won’t have you turn there, but Numbers 26, verse 11 is recounting what we just read about in Numbers 16, however, it talks about how God judged Korah and those who rebelled with him. And then it says:
The sons of Korah, however, did not die.
Now, we’re not told why, maybe that they were spared because they were too young to be held accountable. Or it may have been that they didn’t join in their father’s rebellion. But here’s something precious, not only were their lives spared, but in God’s kindness, the sons, the descendants of Korah became a beautiful picture of redemption. Let me just give you two examples.
In 1 Chronicles chapter 6 it talks about the sons of Korah. And this is in one of those long genealogy chapters that you want to skip over. You’d be glad you didn’t skip over this one, 1 Chronicles 6:31:
These are the men [the sons of Korah] that David put in charge of the music in the LORD’s temple after the ark came to rest there. They ministered with song in front of the tabernacle. (vv. 31–32)
They became the worship leaders. Their father had rebelled; He had been sinful. He had been disciplined, chastened, judged for his sin. But God redeemed his descendants from destruction and made them servants of the Lord leading the music. These sons of Korah wrote a dozen psalms, including this one, Psalm 84.
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness. (vv. 1, 10 ESV)
It shows the deep satisfaction that the sons of Korah had come to experience in just the privilege of knowing and serving Yahweh. It is enough. He is enough. We have enough. We don’t need anything more.
Well, I’m going to take you to one more book of the Bible for a final snapshot here. The book of Ezra, you can find that—Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther—chapter 8.
One more snapshot of the Levites. Let me just give you a little context here. Ezra was getting ready to leave Babylon after seventy years of captivity. This is fast forwarding a long ways from where we were in Numbers. He’s going to take a group of exiles back to Jerusalem.
So, they’re all set. Their names have been listed. Their bags are packed. They’re ready to go. And then look at verse 15 of Ezra 8.
I gathered them at the river that flows to Ahava, and we camped there for three days. I searched among the people and priests, but found no Levites there.
Woah! We can’t go without the Levites. We have to have Levites for this trip.
So he sends a message to one of the leaders of God’s people in Babylon, and he says basically, “Send us some Levites. We need Levites.” Look at verse 18, chapter 8.
Since the gracious hand of our God was on us, they brought us Sherebiah—a man of insight from the descendants of Mahli, a descendant of Levi, son of Israel—along with his sons and brothers, 18 men, plus, Hashabiah, along with Jeshaiah from the descendants of Merari, and his brothers and their sons, 20 men. (vv. 18–19)
Merari was one of the three family lines of Levi. These were Levites. There were also twenty of the temple servants who had been appointed by David and the leaders for the work of the Levites. All were identified by name.
Gotta have the Levites. We can’t go without the Levites. We need these faithful servants of the Lord. Now look at verse 24 of Ezra 8, this is Ezra speaking.
I selected twelve of the leading priests, along with Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brothers. [Levites]
And what we read about in the following verses is that Ezra handed over to the keeping of these priests and Levites all the gold, the silver, and the articles that had been donated for the temple in Jerusalem.
Now they had a journey of some 1,700 miles ahead of them, not as the crow flies, but as they would have to go in that day on foot. He put these valuables into their hands. He said to them, verse 28:
“You are holy to the Lord, and the articles are holy. The silver and gold are a free will offering to the LORD God of your ancestors. Guard them carefully until you weigh them out in the chambers of the LORD’s house before the leading priests, Levites, and heads of the Israelite families in Jerusalem.” So the priests and Levites took charge of the silver, the gold, and the articles that had been weighed out to bring them to the house of our God in Jerusalem. . . . We set out from the Ahava River on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. [I love this] We were strengthened by our God, and he kept us from the grasp of the enemy and from ambush along the way. So we arrived at Jerusalem. (vv. 28–29, 31)
We arrived at Jerusalem. Most of these men had never seen Jerusalem. They had been born in Babylon. But now these Levites and others were given the privilege of seeing the holy city.
And we rested there for three days. On the fourth day, the silver, the gold, and the articles were weighed out in the house of our God into the care of the priest Meremoth, son of Uriah. Eleazar, son of Phineas, was with him. [another of the priestly line] The Levites, Jozabad, son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, son of Binnui, were also with him. Everything was verified by number and weight, and the total weight was recorded at that time. (vv. 32–34)
At the beginning of the journey, it was all numbered and weighed, and now at the end of the journey, it’s all numbered and weighed. Brothers and sisters, God has put into our hands an incredible treasure. It’s the message, the ministry of the gospel. It’s the lives that we’ve been called to serve. And this precious treasure has been weighed out into our hands. God gave you so much. God gave you so much. God has given me so much.
It’s all been weighed and numbered and counted. God knows how much it is. And on our journey from here to heaven, if we do not have the hand of God on us, we’re not going to make it. But we do have His hand on us, and He is accompanying us.
He is going with us, alongside of us, among us, in us, before us, behind us. We are in Christ on this journey. And in every phase of this journey, no matter how mountainous the ups and downs, the terrain, no matter how difficult, no matter how long, no matter how far, in every phase our God has promised He will strengthen us.
He has promised to keep us from the grasp of the enemy that threatens to ambush us along the way. And one day soon, we’ll arrive in the New Jerusalem, where we will see our Great High Priest.
And oh the joy that will make every burden we carried here on this earth seem no heavier than a feather, those light and momentary afflictions. It will be a joy if we can hand over to Him the treasures that were entrusted to us and can say, “Lord, by Your grace, it’s all here. It’s all accounted for. We give it to you.
Ministry is a sacred and holy calling for every child of God. It’s an awesome stewardship, an awesome responsibility, but there are burdens to be born. And at times, this calling, this being set apart for ministry means being unseen, unknown, underappreciated, undervalued. Few may know the extent of the investment we make in His work. Few may know the cost you have paid to serve Him or are paying. Few may know the toll that it takes.
But I want us to just remember that ministry, being set apart to serve the Lord and His people is a magnificent, undeserved gift. It is a gift. It is a means through which we share in the work of Christ, the ultimate true servant of God. To be called, to be chosen, to be consecrated, to be strengthened, to be sustained by Him, there’s no greater privilege.
There’s no greater joy, and so, we press on. Not just when we’re all here singing and sharing and enjoying each other together. This is fun. But when we go back to those lonely and hard places.
The Lord is with you. He will strengthen you, and He will do more through you than you can imagine for His glory. So we press on, knowing that one day we will give an account, but also knowing that one day our faithfulness will be rewarded by the one who called us into His service.
Remember that verse in Hebrews 6? That promise?
God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. (v. 10)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (sometimes on the broadcast I call him my friend Charles Spurgeon) preached his final sermon at London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle. He was not well at the time, and about six months later he would be taken to heaven at the age of fifty-seven.
But in that final sermon here are his closing words. He said:
You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters. But if you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find Him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was His like among the choicest of princes.
He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold, He always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on His shoulders. If He bids us carry a burden, He carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yea lavish and super abundant in love, you will always find it in Him.
These forty years and more I have served Him, blessed be His name. I have had nothing but love from Him. I would be glad to continue yet another forty years in the same dear service here below, if so it pleased Him. His service is life, peace, joy.
Oh, that you would enter on it at once. God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus even this day, amen.
Dannah: Amen. That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, reading from Charles Spurgeon’s last sermon. What an incredible thing it is to be enlisted under the banner of Jesus. Is this you? If you are a follower of Jesus, it should be!
Even if you’re not working in vocational ministry, you have kingdom work to do in your church and in your home. This is a wonderful, exciting thing. God entrusted the Levites with treasures to steward, but you know what? He hasn’t forgotten us! God has entrusted us with wonderful treasures to steward, too—the gospel and precious people to love and serve. He will help us to be faithful caretakers of all He’s given to us.
This message had a profound impact on all of us attending as Revive Our Hearts staff from all over the world gathered here in Michigan and sat under Nancy’s teaching. With us there were many of our international staff. They are perhaps more conscious than the rest of us of the great privilege of stewarding the gospel message well. We were able to hear from some of them how God is renewing women in their languages and countries through their part in the Revive Our Hearts ministries.
Sabrina Aslan is the voice of Nancy for Revive Our Hearts in Farsi, the Persian language. She shared a story that illustrates the impact that the program is having.
Sabrina Aslan: We recently received a testimony of an Iranian couple who were new believers in Christ, but were in a very desperate financial situation. At the same time, the wife finds out that she’s pregnant. They didn’t know what to do, because financially they were in a very desperate situation.
They thought maybe they would have to get rid of the baby. They had been struggling through that because they didn’t even have money to pay the doctor to do the abortion. But right then, the wife receives a podcast about heaven rules, and she just continues listening to them. She realizes that God is in control, and we shouldn’t do that.
So she shares those podcasts with her husband, and the husband realized that we shouldn’t do that. Heaven rules in Farsi is [speaks in Farsi]. The word “osamon” is the same word for heaven and sky.
So after this, they decided to have the baby. They decided to call their baby Osamon, to remember always He’s in control and He’s going to take care of them.
Dannah: Wow, that’s so powerful!
Next we’ll hear from my counterpart in Portuguese. Raquel is the cohost of Aviva Nossos Coracoes, and she read a note from a listener who is grateful for the Portuguese resources and teaching that is available to her.
Raquel: Good morning, dear ones. This new series on spiritual motherhood which is aired is simply from God. I am truly, very grateful to God for the lives of everyone involved in this ministry. I am an enthusiastic promoter of it because it’s clearly from God.
The previous series in celebration of ANC’s fourth anniversary made me cry a lot. Even though I already knew the testimonies, hearing them again was like adding more fuel to the fire. It is always so good to hear and see what God is doing in our lives.
I am doing the Seeking Him study with two women individually. We’re also going to start a small group today at the church. I also have an online group with women from my family who live in another state. What I love about this study is realizing that we are truly being awakened and seeing how much we need to be more attentive and involved with the Word of God. I love seeing lives being surrendered to Him.
Dannah: I love hearing from women like that one who are able to take the truth they hear from Revive Our Hearts and use it in their own lives to disciple others around them!
You know, Revive Our Hearts as a ministry has been around for almost twenty-five years, and we’ve grown a whole lot! In 2001 there were only a handful of people on the team. Today, we have over eighty staff and volunteers. Aviva Nuestros Corazones, the Spanish outreach of Revive Our Hearts, is smaller, with less than thirty on the team.
But one woman with a big heart for her country has—get this—herself and a few part-time volunteers. That doesn’t keep her from doing what she can! Dorcas heads up the beginnings of Revive Our Hearts Italian, and she is praying for revival in Italy. Here she is, speaking in Spanish with a translator.
Dorcas [with Yadira translating]: I discovered Revive Our Hearts. When I discovered the resources. I started spreading them with all Spanish-speaking women that I meet. Our hearts were revived, and we decided to join the global movement of revival. We pray, we plead, we cry out to the Lord for revival in Italy, revival for children, for women, for men, for pastors, for churches. We pray for the women to go back to God’s Word. That’s our prayer.
Dannah: Amen. May God answer that prayer “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think!”
Well, if Revive Our Hearts has encouraged you in your own ministry and you’d like to make a donation, you can visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.
When you donate, be sure to request your 50 Promises to Live By Scripture card set. We’d love to send that to you as a “thank you” gift for your generosity.
Dannah: We heard today about the Levites, people who served the Lord on a day-in, day-out basis.
You could call Mari Glick a modern-day Levite. She has served behind the scenes, taking care of a woman with dementia. Mari has served with joy even while getting criticized by the one she’s serving. Find out how to have that kind of joy and contentment tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.
This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.
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