DIVINE TREASURES
[p. 73] DIVINE TREASURES
Matthew 18: 2 - 6; Malachi 3: 16, 17; John 14: 21 - 23
My remarks will bear on the saints according to what they are in the divine mind as treasure; in other words, divine values. Scripture abounds with these values, for the Lord regards the saints as His heritage; and what He regards as a heritage and treasure is supremely so. No one values more accurately than He, and in the passage in Malachi we have an allusion to the time when He makes up His jewels, His special treasures. We read too of the Lord referring to Himself as a merchantman seeking goodly pearls. He would have us to know what a connoisseur He is as to values; He finds one, a pearl of great price. We often quote that verse and overlook that it includes ourselves, just as also does this verse in Malachi. “When I make up my jewels”! One who understands treasures of that kind has His mind on them in making them up and in comparing them with others. How His whole being is brought into it! What an array there will be and how perfectly appraised — each one in its own setting! Not hidden, but where it will have the best effect. ‘Setting’ is a jeweller’s term, and the setting of diamonds and other precious jewels calls for skill. “They shall be unto me a peculiar treasure”, Jehovah says. That that should include me is a thought that should come home to my heart and affect me as to whether it is practically so in any way.
I thought, dear brethren, of speaking of this subject from the moral point of view — that is to say, as to how the jewel appears now, when the setting does not enhance it, when outward circumstances are adverse. It is now that the moral idea applies, for the value is there in spite of conditions. By and by, the value will be seen enhanced by conditions. You may be sure conditions will be calculated in every way to enhance the peculiar treasure [p. 74] God has in mind. So that Matthew 18 helps as to one moral feature in this regard. The Lord is seen here in the midst of a group of truths. As to the order of the truth, chapter 17 follows on 16, in which He had spoken of My assembly. Whenever that possessive thought occurs the Lord’s affections are in the matter under consideration. Think of belonging to that! My assembly!
Chapter 17 opens up the personnel of it — the great persons who are in the structure, leading up to the idea of sonship. We have the great privilege of putting ourselves into this wonderful picture of chapters 16 and 17. Peter, James, and John were actually in it. We are in this setting of things theoretically, but in them very poorly practically. The question arises here, Is the Lord to pay tribute? Someone raises this question with Peter, who had just been on the mount and had heard the voice from heaven. He said later, “such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son”. He had just heard that voice, and someone says, Peter, does your Master pay tribute? What Peter had heard on the mount had no influence on him. Certainly, he replies. He makes the Lord just an ordinary tributary person here. This He never was; this He never could be, and Peter should have been assured of it.
The Lord knew of the incident. Be assured that if we have a good time on the Lord’s day, we shall be challenged on the Monday and we may forget what we enjoyed, be dull and blunted in our sensibilities; our remarks may have no light or wisdom in them, and the Lord knows. He who hears our thanksgivings on Lord’s day, hears our remarks next day in the office or in the workshop when we are challenged. The Lord anticipated what Peter would say: “What dost thou think, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do they receive custom or tribute?” Peter knew. He was conversant with general conditions, which is to be noted. He was only a fisherman; probably never in his life in a royal court, but he knew what went on there. They exact it from [p. 75] strangers, he answers, and Jesus said to him, “Then are the sons free”. That is the setting in which we are. The sons are free! Then the Lord says, “go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when thou hast opened its mouth thou wilt find a stater; take that and give it to them for me and thee”. One of the great items in this setting is the important truth of sonship, applied to Christ and then to you and me. Peter had missed the thought. In chapter 18 the disciples ask the question, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?” Peter, who must be regarded as included among them, has failed again. He was not absorbing the truth. The disciples asked Jesus the question in that hour — the hour in which He had spoken of sonship.
This brings me to the verse I read. “Jesus having called a little child to him” — a child — someone who is not asking such a question as mentioned, not vying with anybody else for distinction in the kingdom, but just leaving it with God. We know not what that little child had been engaged in, but we may be assured the child’s occupation had been morally right, for he came to the Lord at His bidding.
The Lord looks out on christendom. Allusion has been made to the labours of brethren who preceded us. God blessed them and the results of their labours, but the devastations of the devil must be owned. These are due largely to the ambitions seen in the disciples’ question — to the absence, in some, of the spirit of the little child. How many have turned away from the path they once seemed to tread so steadfastly and with joy! “Will ye also go away?” John 6: 67, the Lord had to ask. Others are doing it. If you turn aside, you have company. And the Lord looks abroad on the labourers of christendom, for no labourer works in a smaller field than that, discriminating between those who are true and those who are thinking of their own distinction, and are lacking in the character of “this little child”. There have been those, thank God, marked as separating the precious from the vile: “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth”, Jeremiah 15: 19. Could anyone aspire to anything greater than that — to be as God’s mouth? Jehovah said, “What seest thou, Jeremiah?” Jeremiah says, “Figs: the good figs very good; and the bad very bad”, Jeremiah 24: 3. One always notices that if a prophet’s attention is called by God to anything, he is always alert and he knows what to say. There are good figs shown, and very bad ones. The latter have had reputations, they have been in the position of good ones. It is a question now of separating the precious from the vile. The Lord calls: will any answer to His call? The Romans are said to be “called” ones. They had heard the call and moved in answer to it; they gave evidence of God’s work in them. The Corinthians were called through Paul’s testimony. The gospel is a call. It is not simply that you are brought to where you get relief — that is how Luke presents the gospel, but John says, “Come and see”. That is the idea in the gospel — it is a divine call. Whom God “has predestinated, these also he has called”, Romans 8: 30. The point is, do I move in response to the divine call? That is the feature I wish to dwell upon. The child here answers to the call. The Lord called it to Him. It was not an infant, but one capable of understanding a call and answering to it. It is a type of a Christian, not exactly of one who has received a little blessing and gone to its mother to tell her, although very good so far; but the point here is of moving in answer to the Lord’s call — going to Him. The next move is to be yours. If you have light from God, you move — as the little child moved; and the Lord set him in their midst, as though to say, Someone I can call, one not occupied with the thought of greatness in the kingdom, not occupied with honour accruing from the service he was going to render, but a little child! Who does not admire what is presented in a little child, as life is beginning to show itself in intelligence and response to affection? Who does not feel attracted to the movements [p. 77] of such a one? Matthew is full of that thought. His is the assembly gospel, but he also makes a good deal of the child. He presents Jesus under that term, as a little Child, some nine times. “The little child and his mother”, how beautiful that is — to see Him there as the magi saw Him!
Transferring the thought of a child from the literal to the spiritual, the Lord through him presents something to His disciples; He sets him down in their midst so that they can see what He has before Him in mind for them. This is a little child divinely called, and no one is answering to God’s call, however they may be blessed in the gospel, unless they are moving in this way; so that the Lord can have them as His little ones. “Unless ye are converted and become as little children, ye will not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens”. And then, “Woe to the world because of offences!” “Woe to that man by whom the offence comes!” How solemn this is!
Matthew carries the thought of the child all through his gospel, beginning with the Lord Himself, as we have seen. In chapter 11 we have “babes”, presenting a smaller idea — persons unsophisticated, with no worldly education or religious status. “At that time, Jesus answering said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Yea, Father, for thus has it been well-pleasing in thy sight”, Matthew 11: 25. Think of being the subject of conversation between divine Persons! Is it not attractive that we may put ourselves in there? Has heaven ceased to talk in that way? No indeed! The greatest exercise is to grasp what is current in heaven now. The gospels give us an inkling. There is continual joy there. The theme is largely the saints, and the joy and conversation in relation to them goes on.
The full result of the work in the children is seen in chapter 21, when the Lord is in the temple. What a [p. 78] frigid place it had become! The Lord should have received a warm reception — but how frigid it was! They were buying and selling in the temple, there were money changers, there were sellers of doves. How foreign to His blessed mind! And here are “children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David!” You can see how Matthew dwells on the thought of a child, and develops it. As we have seen, in Luke the Lord expresses it in Himself. At the age of twelve He had been in the midst of the teachers, hearing them and asking them questions. What a spectacle to heaven that was! In Matthew 18 the Lord set a little child “in their midst”, and in chapter 21, in the temple the children were crying “Hosanna to the Son of David!” What a note of praise! And what a note of praise today when children praise in the midst of the indifference of christendom! — those who praise the Lord Jesus, who know Him, who know what to say, and are able to worship according to the truth of the moment. The blind men have just cried out saying, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David”. They had come to Jesus for aid. But what a beautiful note in the temple! — “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The enemies of Christ say, “Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus says to them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” Matthew 21: 16.
In spite of what is going on in the paraphernalia of man’s religious systems around, the Lord hears such a note of praise as this — which refers to His dignity in His own sphere — and it issues forth from those who are children in the true sense. We today can say more than was said by those in the temple. The Lord has taught us of love itself. We have a spiritual vocabulary and we are able to speak suitably to Him. How He loves to hear us! This is one side of the truth and it ought to appeal to every young christian — what the Lord had in mind in setting the child in their midst, and what, as in Matthew,
[p. 79] He works out in young christians whom He is not ashamed to call His brethren.
His traducers call attention to the children crying in the temple. We need not expect anything else but to be despised by them; but how serious to be of those who despise! They call the Lord’s attention to what the children were saying, but He knew what was there, a note of praise of real value to Him: “perfected praise”. You can see what it is, and how it should move us into the position into which we are called. A position we value, a position we must hold on to and develop there — the courts of praise. What treasure God has in the saints viewed thus!
What comes out in Malachi is the fear of the Lord — that is at a particular time. Solomon says there is a time for everything. In this feature we have a beautiful treasure shining in its own setting in its own particular time. When disregard for Him prevailed, “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”. They did it often; heaven’s ear was attentive, as it were, to hear; there would be no impure, unholy remarks in these conversations. It is no question here of assembly formation, but of such persons as these. There is no hope for any who do not fear the Lord. This is not slavish fear as we have in those of the Gadarenes who asked the Lord to leave their country, but a reverential, restful fear; such as dreads to do or say anything contrary to the divine will. I know that I have to do with God, I know that I have to answer to God as to my religious position, my business affairs, my household matters, and I fear Him. It is not here ought to, but did fear God. It is a divine treasure, that in this country there are those who fear the Lord. Who can afford to be outside that circle? None.
They spake often. I suppose heaven looked for the hour when they were accustomed to come together. I am sure our footsteps are watched as we wend our way to the meetings, or wherever we can come together to speak [p. 80] to one another of Christ. Heaven looks for that hour, even more than we do. Jehovah says, “they shall be unto me a peculiar treasure”, Malachi 3: 17. All their natural thoughts were awed; national feelings had gone; the items of every-day news were not the subject of their conversation. Instead, as fearing the Lord, they spake often one to another and the Lord declared, “they shall be unto me a peculiar treasure”. Can any afford to miss it, by turning aside to the allurement of the world? Our hearts are so treacherous that we need to be constantly on our guard as to this danger. “I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him”, says Jehovah. What an incentive to stand true, is such a promise!
The word “son” is used in the Old Testament with wide bearing. We have to understand it contextually wherever it occurs. The Holy Spirit enables us to do this. The setting here is special. It is a question of one’s own son, and is an allusion to Exodus 4, where Jehovah sends the message to Pharaoh, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. It is the greatest thought in God’s mind with regard to Israel. “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”. It was not that they spoke to Him, but to one another, and that in itself was pleasing to Him. The Lord loves to hear our spiritual conversation. It resounds in heaven; it is fit for that holy scene.
Now just a word on John 14 — a well-known passage. The point is the persons who love Jesus. The conversation of those who feared the Lord was the outcome of love, I am sure, but it is not the point emphasised in that connection. In John 14 it is a question of those who love the Lord when others do not, or have ceased to do so. That is the point in this chapter. Profession only of love for Jesus is not valid, it gives no status in heaven. There must be evidence of your love, and that evidence is given in keeping His word. Let none talk of throwing aside, or giving up, any part of it. The test is the commandment [p. 81] of the Lord. May it ever be that to us! The Lord goes on to say how He values such persons. “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”. Is not that attractive, dear brethren? Is there not something in it to induce real love in us, so that we keep His commandments? “Judas, not the Iscariote, says to him, Lord, how is it ... ?” John discredits the Iscariote at every point. That Judas is the only man who is called a devil in Scripture; not a demon, a devil. John records it. The Lord called him a devil. We are not left in doubt as to what he was, and he is ruled out here. It was another who says, “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, If any one love me, ...”, He opens up what I may call tabernacle conditions, for the persons who love Him and keep His word are the tabernacle, the dwelling-place of God. The conditions the Lord indicates here afford an abiding-place for the Father and the Son. All that is involved in the word of Christ. How extensive it is! How imperative that we look into it in order to understand what the Lord said! He adds: “These things I have said to you, abiding with you; but the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things”, John 14: 25, 26. He will teach us the truth. What a fact that is! Are we not proving it? “And will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. Nothing is lost if the Spirit is but given His place. The ministry is cumulative — He gathers it all up and presents it to us to the end that there may be those tabernacle conditions in which the Father and the Son make their abode.
So you see how divine valuation is seen in these chapters, and how every passage refers to ourselves. The difficulty in reading is to make it apply to oneself. Scripture always speaks to its reader. We never get the good of it unless we allow this. These scriptures include [p. 82] ourselves and impress us with our value in the mind of the Lord, of the Spirit, and of the angels who are looking down all the time, seeing what is going on; for they are active creatures, constantly doing God’s will and sympathetically interested in all that is current in heaven. May the Lord bless His word!