HOW BLESSING IS ACQUIRED
Jim T.Brown
2 Chronicles 4: 1 (first clause), 9,10; 13: 1, 3 14; Ruth 2: 10-12 (And she...); 3: 10
1 have been thinking a little since Lord's Day of how blessing is acquired. I suppose the prepared place, to which our brother has referred, would involve the enjoyment of blessing. It links, as we know with Exodus 15: 17, ''Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, The place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy dwelling, The Sanctuary, Lord, that thy ha ds have prepared." That is the place of blessing which Christ has gone to secure tor us. The disposition of God is to bless and He has blessed us unstintingly. The great patriarch said, Bring them ... to me, that I may bless them", Gen. 48: 9. It is as it the divine presence is synonymous with blessing. At the end of Malachi, God says, "Prove me now herewith ... if I open not to you the windows of the heavens, and pour you out a blessing, till there be no place tor it", chap 3: 10. How wonderful to think of God creationally establishing windows in heaven. There are doors in creation. In Job He said, "And who shut up the sea with doors, when it burst forth, issuing out of the womb? " chap 38: 8. Then in Philadelphia there is the "opened door", Rev 3: 8. But the windows suggest something distinctive. How fine to contemplate God poised, as it were, at the windows of heaven, desiring and looking tor, the opportunity to dispense blessing on His creature ''till there be no place for it"!
Of course, in Genesis the windows of heaven were opened in judgment. God looked down through the windows and saw wickedness on the earth. He opened the windows and the rains of judgment tell upon this scene. The waters prevailed on the earth till, in His measured way, God closed the windows of heaven and stayed the course of judgment. At Calvary, in one sense, the heavens were closed: the heavens were like brass, unresponsive to the cry of the suffering Saviour. In another sense - one simply applies it - the windows of heaven were opened and the unmitigated wrath of God rained down upon the head of the blessed Saviour: "The waters encompassed me, to the soul", Jon 2: 5. How affecting that is! But blessed be the day that we are in: by virtue of the work of Jesus the windows of heaven are open wide and the blessing of God is available to men! So there sits God, we might say, looking out of the windows of heaven today, observant, vigilant, surveying the scene, seeking an occasion to bless men.
Well, what is seen in Jabez is that he acquired the blessing on the principle of desire. That is a very necessary thing. Sometimes the shallowness of our enjoyment of the blessing is commensurate with the deficiency in our desire. The Lord Jesus demonstrated the principle of desire in perfection. In John 17 He says, "I desire that where I am they also may be with me", v.24. Then in Luke's gospel He says, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you", chap 22: 15. What blessing was His in consequence. The divine response is recorded in the Psalm, "Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah. For thou hast met him with the blessings of goodness; thou hast set a crown of pure gold on his head", Ps 21: 2,3. The desires of that perfect heart were met in His resurrection and glorification.
So here is Jabez and the backcloth to his desire for blessing is maternal travail. How much travail there has been in our localities on the part of godly sisters; how deep has been the expression of maternal instincts and longings that the seeds of spiritual desire might be sown in the coming generation. We know it - I do not say it patronisingly - in our own local gathering here in Meadow Place; godly sisters with these evident desires that there might be vitality and fruitfulness, productivity for God in our generation. Some of us have known it in our personal experience in relation to our natural mothers, the travail and the agonising that there might be something inwrought in our hearts that might be for spiritual blessing. Such was the background to these desires of Jabez. It says, "I bore him with pain. And Jabez called..." His call for blessing flowed immediately and sequentially from His mother's remarks. How much then we owe to the agonising and travailing which have gone on on our behalf that there might be inwrought in us what is desirous of divine blessing!
So Jabez says "Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me and enlarge my border." He is not seeking enlargement in a natural or predatory sense: nor is he envious or jealous of his neighbours’ possessions; but rather he is seeking enlargement spiritually. That is why I read verse 1 with its reference to "The sons of Judah." What a fine territory Judah is! Worthy of observation and study are the spiritual geography and the spiritual land scape of Judah. Jabez is like an Ephesian saint "enlightened in the eyes of your heart", Ephes 1: 18. His spiritual vision was expanding to embrace the whole territory of Judah that he might be enlarged in it. He would look out on Bethlehem Ephratah, and he would desire to have an enlarged impression of the incoming of Christ, "Bethlehem Ephratah, little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall he come forth unto me who is to be Ruler in Israel: whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity", Mic 5: 2. On that we might have enlargement in our appreciation of the wonder of the incarnation!
"Bless'd Babe! who lowly liest
In manger-cradle there;
Descended from the highest,
Our sorrows all to share.
Come now, and view that manger –
The Lord of glory see,
A houseless, homeless Stranger
In this poor world for thee."
Who can grasp the glory of the One who came out of Bethlehem Ephratah. On the one hand the humility of the manger: on the other the surpassing greatness of Him, who would be Ruler in Israel, ''Whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity."
Then the eyes of Jabez would, no doubt, gaze out to Hebron. What a place Hebron was, one of the great landmarks or Judah, linking us up with the grand purposes of God. Built before Zoan in Egypt, there is something immutable about Hebron, and it introduces us into a land where the blessings never fail. And Jabez would desire expansion in his enjoyment of these blessings and of the favour into which through grace he had been brought. Then wonderful contemplation - "our Lord has sprung out of Juda", Heb 7: 14. Jabez would look out again and he would see the lion of the tribe of Judah bestriding the land! and he would say: “give me an enhanced appreciation of Jesus glorified. "Judah", it says, "is a young lion; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up." Think of the Lord Jesus going up from the prey victorious, having smitten the power of death. "He stoopeth, he layeth himself down as a lion, And as a lioness: who will rouse him up? The sceptre will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his fee, Until Shiloh come, And to him will be the be the obedience of peoples", Gen 40: 9,10. Everything is secure in Him! What a desire for enlargement then Jabez would have as he looked out on the great territory of Judah. When he says, "Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me, and enlarge my border." It is as if his innermost longings and instincts were stirred to acquire a deeper appreciation of the glory and grandeur of the divine territory. It is there for the asking; it is there for the taking. God is unstinting, as we said, in His disposition of the blessings. Remember Moses went up to the top of Pisgah and "Jehovah shewed him the whole land", Deut 34: 1. May our spiritual vision be Increasingly focused on the vastness of the heavenly land!
So it says, "And God brought about what he had requested." We know that a little in our experience. Spiritual blessings come to us on the basis of desire and request; and God in His grace honours exercise. The request here is made to the God of Israel. What a great, expansive title that is, “the God of Israel". Not here the thought of the tribes dispersed, but the God of Israel is the complete thought, and it is upon such a One that Jabez calls.
Then, in the next chapter read, in the case of the house of Obed-Edom, blessing is gained on the principle of making room for Christ in our circumstances and households. That would challenge us all to the core. Here it is the culmination of a dark period in Israel's history, but the beginning of a wonderful chapter, too, ending in the building of the Temple as a place for the ark to rest. The ark had been in the house of Abinadab for many years and David was desirous of bringing it home to himself in Jerusalem. But because of an unpriestly act by Uzza, which incurred God's anger, David was fearful of the consequences, "but he carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite." What wonderful blessing ensued for Obed-Edom. I suppose he might have thought: 'This is going to upset the family arrangements. This is going to disturb our domestic circumstances, and hinder the discharge of our responsibilities.' But what is the outcome? "Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that he had." How attractive that is!
One ponders often on what would transpire in that household as the ark was there. What would Obed-Edom have to say to his children about the ark, that was born of his own experience? Could he tell them about the construction and coverings of the ark as set out in Exodus or Numbers? Would it be covered with the veil of separation? Could he tell them what that represented? Would it have a covering of badgers' skin? Would it have spread over it "a cloth wholly of blue"? Could he tell them about these things from his own experience? The cloth of blue over everything - the heavenly Man, the Son of Man who is in heaven, the second Man out of heaven! Then the veil of separation. How precious to think of the distinctiveness of the humanity of Jesus. What a Man the Lord Jesus was: in His Person distinct, in His nature divine, in His existence eternal! Yet alongside all that, His was a real but sinless humanity. Then in between was the badgers' skin, suggesting how our Lord was impervious to evil, vigilant against every thrust of the enemy and sin could have no entrance to Him. All these things would flood, no doubt, into the mind, typically, of Obed-Edom as he looked upon the ark. Then he would think of the ark overlaid with gold, and he would say to his household that God and the testimony of God were seen in that wonderful ark. He would be able to tell his family of the acacia wood and of that journey through the wilderness. He would explain to them how it typifies that pathway of Jesus and all the exigencies through which He passed, all the tribulations, all the sorrows. He would be able to point to the rings in the ark and the staves within them and he would recall that wonderful verse in Exodus which says, "The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not come out from it" Exod 25: 15. He would speak of the devotion of the Lord Jesus to His Father's will: “they shall not come out from it" - the staves there perpetually in the Lord's pathway here.
Well, "Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that he had." How often we put things round the other way, do we not? We seek natural blessing first, thinking that spiritual blessing will be a consequence, but here the converse is true: "Jehovah blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that he had." That was a result of room being made for Christ in his circumstances, room being made for Christ in the house!
In the reference to Jabez, the emphasis was on the mother and the maternal instincts. Here the accent is on the father and the paternal side. How much devolves on the parents and that is a test for us all for there is no doubt that the children imbibe the characteristics of the parents. If there is lack of interest or immaturity or restlessness or lack of committal in the children, how far is that a reflection of what is seen in the parents? How far is that a reflection of inadequate room being made for Christ in our households and in our circumstances? These are testing questions.
Then in Ruth, the blessing is acquired on the principle of sacrifice. How extensive was the sacrifice of Ruth. There is this sweet verse in chapter 1, "Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried", v 16,17. What sentiments these were, what holy desires, what expression of wonderful committal and sacrifice, and yet what a blessing was hers! She went out in faith leaving behind the whole Moabitish scene, and what was legitimately hers in terms of what was natural. She left the fields of Moab, no doubt the environment in which she had been brought up and reared. She left it all behind and in faith clung to Naomi. And what was the outcome? A relationship with Boaz, the blessed Redeemer! We had a reference to him on Lord's Day which affected me, the Kinsman Redeemer, the mighty man of wealth, the One from whom all blessing flows. What blessings are at His disposal! He says here, "And Boaz answered and said to her, It has fully been shewn me, all that thou hast done to thy mother-in-law since the death of thy husband." He is able to assess the situation. There are criticisms that come our way sometimes, but the Lord Jesus has His own assessment of that and He helps us to rise above them! What we meet in our pathway secretly, individually, what each of us does sacrificially, unknown to the brethren - how much goes on unseen - the Lord Jesus, the true Boaz has His own valuation of everything and He dispenses His true reward. It comes from God: "Jehovah recompense thy work, and let thy reward be full from Jehovah the God of Israel." Here it is again, the reference to the God of Israel, what a source of provision and divine resource, "under whose wings thou art come to take refuge."
Then later on "she sat beside the reapers; and he reached her parched corn." She is now coming on to enjoy the blessings of the land, sampling the great panoply of blessings available to us, as set out in Ephesians, where God has "blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ", chap 1: 3. See her gleaning among the sheaves during the barley harvest and then the wheat harvest. How she would revel in the blessings that have ensued from the resurrection of Christ and rejoice in His work as seen in the sheaves, and the Christian circle into which she had been brought. Then in chapter 3 Boaz says, "Blessed be thou of Jehovah, my daughter! Thou hast shewn more kindness at the end than at the first ... all that thou sayest will I do to thee; for all the gate of my people knows that thou art a woman of worth." What blessings were hers! One thinks often of that scripture in the Proverbs, "The blessing of Jehovah, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow to it", Prov 10: 22. There is what underlies the blessing - tribulation, perhaps, and sorrow, but once acquired, He addeth no sorrow to it. We are introduced into a great realm of blessing, an environment of eternal life, untouched, unsullied, by earth's sorrows or griefs. It is all one great scene of wonderful blessing.
Well, these things are glorious. The blessings are available from God unstintingly. But underlying it all is the need for us to acquire these desires, to make room for Christ in our circumstances, and to go on in that sacrificial way, which is amenable and susceptible, to the divine blessing. For His Name's sake!
EDINBURGH
18 February 1997