HAVING PART IN THE KINGDOM
[p. 282] HAVING PART IN THE KINGDOM
Genesis 30: 22 - 25 (first clause); Matthew 6: 33; Isaiah 38:4 - 8; Acts 2:47 (last clause)
We have been speaking today, dear brethren, of the movement characteristic of christianity beginning with the idea of entering the kingdom of God and what I have in mind in these four scriptures is those who have entered and are moving with God, each knowing that he is a part of the kingdom: “Made us a kingdom”, Revelation 1: 6. It really synchronises with the kingdom of God, but it has its own distinctiveness and implies that each is not only known in the kingdom and under protection, but is part of it, part of the great system of government and movement and activity in which God has part as well as ourselves, a living system, a system of persons; the Lord spoke of one who was evidently moving apart not far from the kingdom. When one comes nigh movement is there, but in that well-known case the movement was not allowed to become effective. But to come to the personnel of these scriptures, the first is Rachel, one who is deserving of being regarded as a mother in Israel, and it is because of this that she is under review now. She had asked for a child, a son evidently, for it is said, “And God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her”, showing that she had acquired a place in God’s mind. Now in saying all this I had thought of opening up a little a family matter, a household matter: my thought is to be very simple and practical; this matter of a family and all that enters into it has a great place with God. We see here a mother, or one who would be one, and becomes one, not a foster-mother, she was a foster-mother already, but she was to become a real mother with a real son. And she had acquired a place in God’s mind, not in any great [p. 283] affair, but simply in the desire to have a son. And this raises in our minds the fact that many mothers in Israel or those who were eventually mothers in Israel had been deprived of families, God Himself acting in that way negatively. Sarah was one and Rebecca was one and Leah was one and Rachel was one. And surely they who were to be the mothers of the tribes became concerned as to the families and became interesting to God. You can understand, dear brethren, that I am speaking of them, not to them. They are out of the reach of my voice. Whatever any may think all are out of reach of our voice, all of these dear women. So that I am not speaking to them. I am speaking of them in order to be of help to ourselves. For their God is our God. And He is our God in the sense of One who cares, who is a Father to us. “And I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, 2 Corinthians 6: 18. This had become known in Genesis that God was interested in these matters of wives without families. It was an interesting matter; it was God’s matter. Their families were really of more interest to God than they were to them, or ever could be to them. So they had learned to pray and what I wish to enlarge on for the moment is that these women prayed; Rachel prayed. I believe it has come to us while we have been together that we are in a wonderful time, not only a time of divine movement, but saint movement, divine activity and saint activity, that we, in fact, have come into a wonderful system of love and intelligent life. Of course the natural things are also in a way living. There is the kingdom of God which is all-inclusive of living creatures, but I am speaking not of them but of persons who are living, of creatures who are living in a divine sense, and moving in it, having feelings divinely begotten, these feelings inclusive of families, husbands, wives and children; God is interested in all this. I am not [p. 284] seeking to proceed to the typical meaning of these verses, but am just going to speak of the verses as they stand. They refer to a mother, to her child and to her husband. They refer to the fact that this mother had prayed. Now I want to promote prayer. That is really one of the things I am seeking to forward; and these matters of families, husbands and wives and children have a great place, not a selfish place, but a great place with God. I mean to say not in the sense of selfishness with us. They belong to the divine realm. Husbands, wives and children belong to God, every one of them, in the relation which is meant to belong to God. And so we have this woman, Rachel, one who prayed, and who had her prayer answered; she became a prophetess through having her prayer answered and that is not beyond any sister here either. Were there more praying and prophetic sisters, there would be more praying and prophetic husbands, because one works out on the other. And so in Rachel who is remembered by God. It was not that she asked for a husband: she had one; we are not told that she had asked for a husband, but she had no child and she asked for one. We would be much safer and happier with young sisters who want husbands-it is quite right, God honours that-if there is prayer. God will honour the prayer. God will honour the prayer of a brother who wants a wife. Pardon me for being so simple and direct, for we are in great danger. It is a terrible time of corruption. The brethren are in great danger, young husbands separated from their wives. They are in great danger and so are the wives and the fiancees. All are in great danger and God is beckoning to us and leaning towards us and telling us that He is with us and wants us to tell Him about things, to pray, to pray against the danger. A spinster may pray as well as a bachelor. God would say she is happier if she remains single but nevertheless God is beckoning to us that He is interested in our family affairs, our [p. 285] marital affairs; so why should we become exposed to the corruption abroad because of neglect of God? So God remembers Rachel. What a very beautiful touch that is. When did she pray about a son? We are not told. We know that she resorted to prayer and God remembered this. He remembered that she wanted a son and she got one. God remembered her. She became signalised amongst the godly women of Genesis. Godly men are found there, too. Genesis is not necessarily a book of young people but of old people. Young people are found there, but old people dominate Genesis. When I say old people, I refer to Rachel. She is not an old woman but I refer to such as Rachel. They are the kind that are distinguished in the book of Genesis. They are the beginning of things. So the word is dependence upon God because these scriptures that I read tell us about what comes to those who are dependent upon God, especially if a person wants a family. I am not now speaking of Jacob. He wanted a wife. For a wife he kept sheep. We know what Scripture says, “And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep”, Hosea 12: 12. That means that he loved her. He loved Rachel as Christ loves the assembly. “Husbands, love your own wives, even as the Christ also loved the assembly”, Ephesians 5: 25.
Now, Rachel, as I said, is remembered here and in being remembered and knowing that it is divine remembrance, she becomes a prophetess. Notice that she does not say, ‘I hope to have another son’. Nor does it say that she hoped to have this one but she did have Joseph, and ‘Joseph’ means ‘addition’. It does not mean that he is the addition, but it means that there is another. The prophetic word in regard to the other is that God will give me another son. That is what she says. “And she conceived, and bore a son, and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph; and said, Jehovah will add to me another son”. She does not say, ‘I hope so’.
She is a prophetess. She says, “Jehovah will add to me another son”. I am just touching on this practical matter. She is not saying that ‘God will save me from having another’, as some do. God hates that. God is asserting His rights over humanity. He has a right to have children born. They belong to Him. Their spirits are from Him. Every child born has his spirit given to him from God. So you can see how important he is, every child, and how important it is not to defeat the divine mind or the divine purpose. And so Rachel becomes a prophetess. She says, “Jehovah will add to me another son”. It is of God. That is, Benjamin became known in heaven at once. From this point onward Benjamin becomes known in heaven. The first name is Benoni and the other was Benjamin. So important was he in the mind of heaven that he gets two names. One means the son of his mother’s sorrow. I am not touching on that; the other, the son of his father’s right hand, meaning that he is a type of Christ. Wonderful indeed that any family should have anyone like Christ, a wonderful thing! Surely the thought of our hearts is to have our children have some ray of Christ in each of them. So it was in Benjamin. There was a ray of Christ in the son of his mother’s sorrow. The wail of Rachel, weeping for her children, comes down the ages; it comes in the gospel of Matthew. I am only touching this matter so that we might become interested and living and moving in these matters as to our husbands, wives, and our children, as to their names and what there is in them, as a reflection of Christ. If there is no reflection in the family, what is there? Nothing! God intends the family to be radiant with touches of Christ. That is, the fathers and mothers have that in mind and nothing else. So we are told that Rachel wept for her children. It is brought in in a very significant section in Matthew. There are murderers [p. 287] in mind and our children are greatly exposed to murderers, if not in a physical sense certainly in a moral sense, but we are not to be afraid of those who kill the body and Rachel comes into that. She comes into issue with the wicked Herod, who slew all the children over certain years. What a terrible crime that was in order to get at Christ, slaying a number of them to get at Christ, to destroy Christ if possible. You see how the matter stands in relation to the mothers’ progeny from God which is to be in the assembly, which is to have a place in the assembly to swell the numbers, to make them greater, to add to them as we hope to see in a moment. The children of the saints have prophetic beginnings, if they really are children of the saints. Rachel was a prophetess. She says, “Jehovah will add to me another son”, and through that son she becomes a woman of sorrow. She died at his birth. She comes down through the ages as a witness to feelings. She belongs to the family of Jeremiah, so to speak, the weeping family, and the issue is not uncertain. She would say she lost her child. She lost herself in bearing him, but she neither lost herself nor him. She saved herself and she saved him. Benjamin is saved, standing out from the tribes, and Rachel too, in her latter end, in Jeremiah 31. I am reading this for those who want children, who have children, or should have children. So it says, “Thus saith Jehovah: A voice hath been heard in Ramah, the wail of very bitter weeping”; this is what she became coming down through the Scriptures through the weeping prophets. “Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are not”. But God will wipe away all tears-mothers’ tears. “Thus saith Jehovah: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears”; let us not forget that God is a wiper away of tears, of all tears, of mothers’ tears. “For there is a reward for thy work, saith Jehovah; and they shall come [p. 288] again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith Jehovah, and thy children shall come again to their own border”: that is why I speak of not only Benjamin living in the light of God’s purpose but Rachel. Things come back, you know. God has a long outlook and a great memory, an infinite memory. Think of what He has in mind and it all comes out in perfect accuracy. He has named Christ as the “Firstborn of many brethren”. There are many but not one too many, nor too few, nor is it so to the tribe. Every seat will be filled and so Rachel and Benjamin come to light in the latter end. I need not say more on that point but I wanted to show in Matthew how the parents are provided for, and that there is a provision for children. We know how the governments of the world take on these matters. It is for us to take them on, to look for children and provide for them. We are the only ones that take on these matters rightly. So as we read in Matthew 6: 33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”. I just want to make a few remarks on that verse because it is needed in regard of what I said. Now it is for the brethren, as I have been saying, to prepare themselves, for there is no doubt something for all of us in these remarks of what is to be added “unto you”. That is to say, it is to be children. It is children properly provided for. What are the husbands to do? What are the wives to do? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”. This is a wonderful matter for us to study, for a christian, and for working out as a problem and seeing the results, the net results, in what God does for prayer. Now Solomon, for instance, a young man in a place of great prominence, a king of Israel, son of David, prayed a prayer about the kingdom of God, not his own kingdom, but the kingdom of God and [p. 289] His righteousness. It is not the long prayer of Solomon’s, but his first recorded prayer, in 1 Kings 3: 6 - 9, where the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. He says, “Ask what I shall give thee”. Now this is not Solomon’s long prayer. This is his first prayer. It is a brief one but it is a very, very important one. He prayed and it tells us what he prayed about, and then in verse 10 it says, “The word pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing”. Now, that is for each one of us to enquire what the thing is that we have especially in our minds. I have spoken of what Rachel had in her mind and the net result of her prayer, and now what Solomon had in his mind and then what God thought of it. “The word pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing”. What was the thing? “And God said to him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself discernment to understand judgment”. That was ‘the thing’, distinct. God remembered the prayer. It was pleasing to God. It is lovely to have a sense in your soul, in your loneliness as you are praying, that God hears you. He said later to Solomon, “I have heard thy prayer”. That was the long one. It takes about eight or ten minutes to read it. This is not the long one. This is for one thing, discernment. “God said to him, Because thou hast asked this thing ... discernment to understand judgment”. Dear brethren, do we not need it? Have you ever asked God for such a thing, to have judgment? We are called upon, every one of us, to judge. The apostle says to the Corinthians, “Set those to judge who are little esteemed in the assembly”, 1 Corinthians 6:4. We are to be spiritual and learn how to judge. Solomon asked to know how to judge and so God says to him, “Behold, I have done according to thy word: behold, I have given [p. 290] thee a wise and an understanding heart, so that there hath been none like unto thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked”. That is to say, Solomon did not ask at all for the things belonging to this life, what we call provision for our families, the wherewithal to be fed or clothed or housed. Solomon did not ask for these things. But God says, ‘I am going to give you what you did not ask for’, and that is really what Matthew 6 means. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”.
So, dear brethren, I mentioned that because we are in a very great city, this city of Detroit, an industrial city, one of the greatest in the world, one of the most prosperous, one of the most productive. And the princes of the wealth of this city, the heads, are great men, princes, as they are called, and of course we are apt to be influenced by their success, and we are apt to think of how we can get such success as that, and we lay ourselves out to get it and we do get it and we will ruin ourselves. You actually ruin yourself if you set out to be a prince in commerce or anything like it, anything at all approaching this city, because there are so many opportunities of obtaining your end, but you leave God out. If you do, if you seek these things and maybe you ask God to help make you prosper in this life, you will ruin yourself. You will spoil your use in the assembly, in the preaching, in the ministry and in the levitical service. You will simply drop out and die spiritually. But to take the other line, that Solomon has led in and Matthew directs you in, is sure prosperity. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”.
Well now, you can see the connection of these two first points, the family and the wherewithal to provide for the family so that it becomes potential material for [p. 291] the assembly. God undertakes to provide the where withal. It is His matter. And then the next thing is the father who has to think of himself, to think of his own. Suppose he is fifty years of age. He has a family. He thanks God for his family and brings them up for the assembly. But he begins to number his days and it is a most important thing to do, not to wait until you are fifty, but you must certainly attend to it, if you have got to that point, to number your days. We are told to do this that we may acquire a wise heart. What about the father who is fifty or more and the mother who is fifty or more? Where is she now? It says in Isaiah 38: “In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah: Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live”. No question of a child here, wife or husband. It is a question of God. It is a question of days and man has to exist in these days. It applies to every one of us. Hezekiah was not that old: he was much less than fifty, but he had right exercises. God says, ‘You are going to die’. Well, what does Hezekiah say? “And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah, and said, Ah, Jehovah, remember, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept much”. He numbered his days. He had not many. He was short of time, and there is a time coming, if it has not come yet, when we begin to feel that we have a very short time. The point now is to make the most of what we have. Hezekiah had nothing. “For thou shalt die” were the words to him. So the first thing is the filling out of assembly life and the increase of assembly material, for the elder brothers and sisters are the best material we have, but God is saying they are going to die. It is a most solemn matter, this matter of days. What will become [p. 292] of the assembly? Where are we going to get material? The old brothers and sisters are dying and the Lord says, ‘It must be so’. Well, now, dear brethren, if the assembly needs me, is it not right to pray? If the Lord needs me here, is it not right to pray? I am not now speaking of what I have of a family, nor means of support for a family, but I am speaking of myself and my relations with God. God said nothing to Hezekiah about anybody but himself, nothing about his wife, his children, but himself. Well, a great servant is going to die. There will be a great void in Israel and so it is here in this city, in this Union and in Canada. How many there are in this place getting near to the appointed time, threescore years and ten. This is a matter for everybody to think over, not simply what happens to you, but what happens to the assembly, what happens to the ministry. Where is the material coming from? Is the testimony to die out? These are problems. These are questions to be raised with God and He will listen. God is urging it. He is looking out for it. He is listening for such prayers, prayers of older brothers and older sisters. Take Anna, or take Simeon; he told the Lord when he was going to go. “Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation”, Luke 2: 29, 30. Well, that was wonderful! That was triumph! Like Aaron he was going up to die, not down. Aaron went up to die. Moses went up to die. They die at the word of the Lord. They knew when the time came. They could tell to the moment. They all became prophets, in that sense. It is a very precious thing to be able to talk that way in the presence of God, to be able to speak in this way of time. Brethren who have spent long years and who are about to finish their days in the ordinary sense may think God is not interested. He is. I am speaking now as one of the most interested here. I say that here without any [p. 293] hesitation, one of the most interested here. Not a question of money or families now, but a question of your relations with God. As if there is only God and you. You talk to God about this matter: how long you are going to stay here, how long He wants you here. If you give Him time, He may not need much, He will answer you. It is very comforting. The testimony is bound to go on if the brethren learn to have intercourse with God about these ordinary matters. There will be an answer. So the prophet is sent again to Hezekiah, “And the word of Jehovah came to Isaiah, saying, Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add to thy days fifteen years”. Thank God. I am sure that word was precious to Hezekiah, going to live fifteen years longer. Young people are not so concerned about this matter. Young people do not prove this. God gave fifteen years longer to this brother. I am putting the matter to you. It happened to Hezekiah. God went to all the trouble of causing the sun to go back ten degrees for his benefit. It was not simply to be a prophetic idea. It was to be a positive sign that Hezekiah would live fifteen years more. Fifteen years more of God for Hezekiah the servant of Jehovah, the son of David, who spent the time in the house of the Lord. And so it tells us what he will do if he lives. “The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness: I said, In the meridian of my days I shall go to the gates of Sheol: I am deprived of the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see Jah, Jah in the land of the living. With those who dwell where all has ceased to be, I shall behold man no more. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent. I have cut off like a weaver my life. He separateth me from the thrum: — from day to night thou wilt make an end of me. I kept still until the [p. 294] morning; ... as a lion, so doth he break all my bones. From day to night thou wilt make an end of me. Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I mourned as a dove; mine eyes failed with looking upward; Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit; and thou hast recovered me, and made me to live. Behold, instead of peace I had bitterness upon bitterness; but thou hast in love delivered my soul from the pit of destruction; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For not Sheol shall praise thee, nor death celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit do not hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth. Jehovah was purposed to save me. — And we will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah”. These men are reliable and we need them. One could look back and count, you know, such men as Hezekiah. The Lord has taken them and their places have not been filled. It is a solemn matter. How many it may happen to! It is for us younger ones to pray that the older ones may continue, not get rid of them. It is a question of the service of God, the need for these experienced men; if it only be ten years, no matter how long it is, it is worth while to pray to God that He may be pleased to leave them here to continue the testimony.
“And the Lord added to the assembly daily those that were to be saved”, Acts 2: 47. Faith counts on that, that God’s work will go on anyway. He will see to it. But at the same time it is for us to fill out the service until the end, until we are all translated to heaven, to be with the Lord for ever and ever.