And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

Suppose it should ever come to this, as some say it will, that the churches, many of them, should desert the old truths, and the ministers become dumb dogs that cannot bark, and one by one their testimony should be silent, and every candlestick should be taken out of its place, and the whole head should be sick, and the whole heart faint, and Zion be under a cloud, and there should be none to help her, and none to lift up the banner for the truth? What then? Why, then God would arise, and take again from the fishermen in their boats new apostles, and from the lowest dens of iniquity, and the worst haunts of vice, from the saloons of frivolity where the rich resort, and from the chambers of commerce and the palaces of merchandise where buyers and sellers make their contracts, He would take a fresh staff of men. Out of the roughest material He can make the finest fabric, out of the newest recruits He can raise the noblest regiment to show forth His praise, to do His work, and to secure victory for His cause. If some were unworthy holders of His vineyard, and brought Him no revenue, He would put aside these wicked men, and send forth fresh laborers, and give His vineyard unto others, for He will get glory unto His name; He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Never say it is a dark day; never say God has forgotten His church; never give way to despairing fits, and dream of horrible times coming, that yet are not to come. Verily, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” and the glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. He shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; He will build up her walls, heal all her breaches, and once again shall she be the joy of the whole earth. Take heart and comfort, God can find His servants anywhere. Omnipotence hath instruments where we see them not. He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.- Romans 9:15

Men who are tamers of wild beasts, will frequently, when they have subdued a lion, take a delight in showing to the people how obedient that lion will be to them, and how every word that the lion-tamer chooses to say, it will regard and pay attention to. Thus, when the Lord takes a great sinner, after He has tamed him, removed his heart of stone, and given him a heart of flesh, He desires to show how, without the use of the whip, without a threatening look or an angry word, He causes His enemy to become His diligent servant, His earnest friend. O brethren, it shows the power of love on a man when he is so broken down that the things he sneered at he now preaches with all his might. Surely it showed the power of divine grace when Paul avowed Christ openly and vehemently preached—exposing himself to persecution and death—that same gospel which his soul had previously nauseated; yea, which his zeal, full of bitterness, had kindled to exterminate. God takes great sinners and then appoints and qualifies them to be priests and Levites, in order that He might show the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.

Divine grace, while it comes freely to us, is dispensed freely by God, according to the good pleasure of His will. I should like to hear that text thundered throughout Christendom: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” No man hath any right to the mercy of God. We have all sinned ourselves into outlaw: all the rights we have are the right to be condemned, and the right to be cast into hell; all the rights of man that he can appeal to God for in equity are merged in the wrongs for which he is responsible. If the Lord have mercy, it is His own will to do it: He can withhold it if it pleases Him; so He selects the most degraded, those that have gone farthest from Him, and takes them into His church…He lifteth up the poor from the dunghill, and setteth him among princes, even among the princes of His people. His mercy, power, and sovereignty are displayed when He takes of them to be priests and Levites. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

“I will also take of them,” the most unlikely and unfit, according to human judgment. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites unto Me.” And where the service has not taken the form of preaching, we can remember some whom God hath made eminent in prayer. Never account prayer second to preaching. No doubt prayer in the Christian church is as precious as the utterance of the gospel. To speak to God for men is a part of the Christian priesthood that should never be despised. Surely, I have heard some prayers of those whom none would ever have expected to pray, such as I have not heard from those who, from their youth up, have been accustomed to the language of devotion—moved with energy and full of fervor, like Elijah. Or, shall I say it, they have become in spiritual force nerved as Samson was with physical strength. In their prayers they have seemed to take hold of the pillars of the temple of Satan and pull it down upon their enemies; they have been so mighty as to wrestle with God and prevail. God has taken of them—that is, even of the prayerless, and the careless, and the blaspheming—and He has made these to be priests and Levites unto Him. And in all other holy service I think I can recollect eminent men who out of weakness were made strong, from simpletons they were changed into sages, or, rescued from the dregs of infamy, they became paragons of virtue. In their unregeneracy as bitter fruit, apples of Sodom, that crumbled into dust and turned to ashes, yet so transformed by the renewing of their minds, that they bore the richest clusters of choicest fruit to the praise and glory of the Great Husbandman. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord.” There is the fact. You need not that I enlarge upon it. While a false priesthood still lives (and always will), God has His elect people, who are His royal priesthood among the sons of men, who are discharging regal functions and sacred offices among the sons of men in His name, and before His face; and these He oftentimes takes out from the least likely of mankind. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

Observe, according to the text, men have nothing to do with the selection; for here it is said, “I will also take of them”—not “their parents shall bring them up to it;” not “those who shall be looked out as the most fit and proper men on account of some natural bent and bias, or gift and talent, but I will take.” God’s priesthood in the world is a priesthood of His own choosing, of His own setting apart, of His own anointing. “He hath made us kings and priests unto God.” The church is a royal priesthood, not of man, neither by man, nor of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth: it is of God’s choosing. This sacred and consecrated band of priests and Levites, and all that serve God effectually and acceptably, are men whom He has Himself chosen to the work. He Himself hath done it, and only His own will has been consulted in the matter. In their case, it appears from the text, that whatever was unfit in their character has been overcome by divine grace. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord.” If God takes them for Levites, He makes them Levites; if He chooses them for priests, He makes them priests. So, glory be to His name, when He chose you, my dear brother, when He chose you, my dear sister, to be His servants, to be His priests and His Levites, He gave you the grace you wanted. He found in you no natural fitness, no suitability, but in fitness for sin, a suitability to go astray, and to become a brand for the burning; but if there be a fitness in you to serve Him on earth and in heaven, it is His grace that has done it. It is His grace speaking in all its wondrous majesty—”I will take of them for priests and for Levites”—which has effected in you the great transformation, making in you all things new, and thus qualifying you to become the servants of the Most High. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm