CHRIST AS TYPIFIED IN DAVID

H. J. Glass

1 Samuel 30: 21–25; 2 Samuel 5: 1–3; 9: 1; 19: 24, 29, 30; Romans 16: 1–16

I seek help to follow up the same line we had in the reading. I trust it will turn our thoughts to Christ. We have read of David, who is an outstanding type of Christ in his movements.

Where we read in 1 Samuel 30 is before he became king. I think what comes out here is the kind of man David was; what he was, what he was able for, what he was able to demonstrate.

Think of the word of the Spirit of God about David; it says God found David, “a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”, Acts 13: 22. Think of God’s thoughts about David, think of His eyes on a man here. Of course he was a type of Christ outstandingly, but he was a man and we get God’s thoughts about him. Think of what God’s thoughts are about the saints, those who have come under the sound of God’s word and are affected by it, and have come under the administration of Christ to be here for His glory. It is a wonderful thing to have His thoughts about each one. We may feel our lives are a bit humdrum sometimes, but we need to get this thought of being under the Lord’s hand, of belonging to this glorious system that is for God’s pleasure.

David had already been anointed, but he is really in rejection, he is having to move in a simple way and yet he is maintained in what is for God. There is this matter that comes about, this wonderful triumph in overthrowing the Amalekites. It is a wonderful triumph to overcome Satan’s efforts to deter and to hinder the prosperity of the work of God in my soul and yours. David is able for that, he is able to overthrow the Amalekites. He recovered all.

Now this problem comes up about some who had wicked thoughts. They are called wicked men. I suppose they were pretty proud of their exploit. Think of what David says to them, “Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which Jehovah has given us, who has preserved us”. We need to have a sense of being preserved in the pathway of the truth, preserved under God’s favour, and to give thanks for that and not to have thoughts that deviate from it. Here were these men, who said that the ones who had not gone to battle were not going to share in the spoil. Well, David will not have it. He sets out the principle and he has the strength to maintain it, and it works out that they are to share alike, preserving unity among the brethren. How much it is needed. We need to have the necessary skill and the ability for this. Where are we going to get it? We have to get it from the Lord, as we have been having in the reading, get something from the Lord to know how to do this, to have that inward development in us so that we are persons like David; “he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day”. This is David, he is to become the administrator in Israel.

What I thought as to 2 Samuel 5 was what had been going on in the intervening years. I suppose if you look it up carefully you can tell how many years it was from the first incident to where we read this second one. But what has been going on in the meantime? David has been going on in the same kind of way. He had his failures, but he is an outstanding type of Christ, and the Spirit of God would keep that before us. If he makes things a statute in Israel he is setting the standard in Israel. No wonder God loved him so! He set the standard for Israel because he is a type of Christ. Think of what Christ is, the Root and Offspring of David. Think of the Spirit of God being able to use that language in the Scriptures to help us to understand what God’s thoughts are. The time came when all the tribes of Israel came to David, saying, “Even aforetime, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel; and Jehovah said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over Israel”. This is what has been developing in these years. David went on in a certain way and he demonstrated what the administration was to be and the people were affected by it. All the tribes came, it is as though all the brethren came.

They are all laying hands on David and saying, He is the man. It is wonderful if we can be affected in this way by Christ. What unity we would have if we could be like that! If it is set out in the Scriptures it is surely intended that it is possible for you and me to be in the good of it. All the tribes came. We need to pray more, and make room for the Spirit of God more, that there may be this kind of unity, this kind of desire to embrace the administration that is in the hands of David—typical of what is in the hands of Christ.

In 2 Samuel 9 we get Mephibosheth. It brings out what is in David and it brings out what is in persons. This is what I was thinking about for this short time together; what is developed in persons because of the kind of administration that was there in David. So David says. Are there any left of the house of Saul? Think of the way David preserved Jehovah’s anointed, and now he has feelings for the house of Saul. He waited his time to be set free. All through that transitional time until Saul was removed, and also Ishbosheth, David had to wait, but finally he had his place in the hearts of the people of Israel. It shows what is coming out in David’s administration. We could think of others, such as Urijah and Ittai, persons that were developed under David’s hand. They would have kept an eye on David. Where we read in 2 Samuel 19 David had failed a bit, he is not a perfect type there; but Mephibosheth had his eye on the right man, on the man who does things according to God. David handled things rightly when he first found Mephibosheth.

We should have read these other verses in 2 Samuel 9, verses 5 to 8, “And king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel from Lodebar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the

son of Saul, came to David, and fell on his face and did obeisance. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he said, Behold thy servant! And David said to him, Fear not; for I will certainly shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually. And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?” Then later it says, “So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem; for he did eat continually at the king’s table”, 2 Samuel 9: 13. Things are developing under David’s administration. Just imagine him thinking of Mephibosheth, thinking of someone of the house of Saul, a poor man who was lame on both his feet. We were speaking about circumstances ruling us and we need help to learn how to overcome, but here is Mephibosheth in a disadvantaged position and yet David cares for him. He thinks about him, he sends for him. I do not know how far away this was, it was a place of no pasture we know, but he sends for him to bring him into this place, and to bring him into the liberty of sonship. He says, You are to eat at my table, as one of the king’s sons. That shows the real David, the real man after God’s heart. He takes up such a person as Mephibosheth. Do you ever feel like he did, Such a dead dog as I am? It is good to feel like that, it is good to feel our unworthiness, but then it is good to be exalted. God takes up beggars, does He not, and exalts them. David does that with Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth kept his eye on the man who did these kind of things. That is really what I wanted to call attention to.

Where we read in chapter 19 David is not really up to the true level. He failed, like you and I do, but Mephibosheth had his eye on the right man, the real David. It says in 2 Samuel 9: 13, “Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem”. He did not leave Jerusalem when David had to leave it.

Sad results came in through David’s failure to maintain things. But Mephibosheth does not deviate, he stays in Jerusalem; he stays where the ark is, he stays by what he knew to be the right standard. So, when David comes back, Mephibosheth is waiting for him to be restored to his right position. Is that what our thoughts are, to get a glimpse of Christ in all the glory that belongs to Him? Mephibosheth said, “my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house”. That is all that matters. Do we really appreciate what it is to enjoy eternal life in the assembly setting? If we did we would be more submissive to Christ’s rule and administration. Mephibosheth was like that, and it says of him when he came down to meet the king, “he had neither washed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace”.

This is Mephibosheth, he did not want anything else. I think what is important here is that he had his eye on the right man, the man whose administration was according to God’s thoughts.

He is a wonderful subject in David’s kingdom. Are we good subjects in Christ’s kingdom? How much joy we would have if we were that and had the sense of the liberty of that. Chronicles gives us all the good things that are extant in Israel, and the things that David did. At the end of his life he set up Solomon as king. There was no better man than Solomon to set up. Then it goes on to tell us all the other things he did—there were thousands upon thousands brought into the service, and he speaks there of the instruments that he had made.

These are the wonderful things that David did in his reign. He brought this all about; the twenty-four courses that were according to divine arrangement in the service of God, and the singers and the doorkeepers. You read that chapter, 1 Chronicles 23, where you get David doing all that, setting everything in order. What an administration is under the hands of Christ! When we come to the service of God tomorrow let us have a sense that it is under His hand and that we are in His hand to be set free. Think of the man in John 9; he was set free in the understanding of the Person of the Son of

God, and able to worship Him. I wonder if we really understand what real worship is, to have a sense of the greatness and glory of One who is worthy of it.

This is what happened under David’s regime, there were these thousands of persons gathered up to be in the praise of God, “four thousand were doorkeepers; and four thousand praised Jehovah with the instruments which I made, (said David), to praise (therewith)”, 1 Chronicles 23: 5. We may think of all David’s battles, how successful he was, he fought Jehovah’s battles, he excelled in that and it was right that it should be so. But then David was also able for all this, he gathered the princes of Israel, he set in order everything. What a regime it was!

We tend to think of Israel as being disunited, but Chronicles would show that the people are set together, these thousands upon thousands, under the arranging of David, to fulfil their place in the praise and in the service of God. David divided them into courses according to the sons of Levi—Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. What intelligence he had, what ability he had to divide them, to set them all in order to have a place in such a wonderful system. We think of the younger ones growing up amongst us. We desire that they might have a sense of this, of the glory of what is under the hand of Christ, and that they are under the hand of Christ too, to be set free in a wonderful order of things that is for God’s pleasure.

Paul was a great administrator as to the assemblies, the local assemblies. How much help we need to understand his ministry about that. In 2 Corinthians he speaks about how he did things. In chapter 10 it says, “For the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds; overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ”, 2 Corinthians 10: 4, 5. This is the way Paul ministered when there were problems in Corinth, or wherever it was. All he

had in mind was to lead captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ. What an arrangement of love! The administration that we know here in the hands of men does not have this way of taking fear away and of setting us up in love. The way that Paul would minister Christ would bring that in; he would bring in the need for what was right to lead captive every thought, to bring down the high thoughts and bring them into line with the standard that is in Christ.

Then I think that you would get these kind of persons that we read of in Romans. Think of Paul going over this list. What a long list of persons he could speak about. But what impressed me was the way he speaks about them. He says, “Salute Prisca and Aquila, my fellow-workmen in Christ Jesus ... Salute Epaenetus, my beloved, who is the first-fruits of Asia for Christ ... Salute Urbanus, our fellow-workman in Christ ... Salute Apelles, approved in Christ”. The apostle could do that with accuracy. But then the Spirit of God knows each one of us, He knows each one in this city, He knows each one in every place, persons who have come under His hand to be able to fill out what is for God’s pleasure. We were speaking about that in the reading, that if Christ was the Man of God’s pleasure surely He expects those that have come under the hand of Christ to be for His pleasure. I think this is seen in these persons. I would like to leave that impression with us, that here is a long list of persons who have come under that hand of Christ, and how beautifully Paul can speak of them. He is saying, Salute them. Are our eyes and our affections on the persons who have come under the hand of Christ, and are able to fill out what is here in the testimony according to such a standard, according to the administration that is under His hand? Do we regard such persons with affection? I think we get the sense of that here, in the way that Paul speaks of so many persons that have come under the hand of Christ. He speaks of them that way; our fellow-workmen, those who are in the Lord, those that labour much in the Lord.

It is not a coincidence that we know as many brethren as we do, so many to enjoy fellowship with. But, do we really regard them as Paul regards them here? He says, Chosen in the Lord, and so on. He says, “Salute one another with a holy kiss”.

How good it is to get these thoughts before us, that the Lord has effected things for His own glory. Whatever we have to work out, sometimes with certain difficulties, it is all to be worked out under His hand for His glory. I trust we will find some of this when we come together tomorrow. We think of the gathering in this room, normally only two brothers, and yet there it is, it is what has been worked out under the hand of Christ. May we just contemplate these things and go on in the knowledge of Him, and go on in the knowledge of what is under His hand. For His name’s sake.

Address at New York
1 July 1995