MAINTENANCE

^[p. 439] MAINTENANCE

Luke 10:35; 2 Samuel 19:31 - 39; 1 kings 17:8 - 16

I read these scriptures because they present to us the idea of maintenance in certain characteristic persons, not only in the sense of food, but in the sense of all that is needed in a given position. It is very much before men at the present time, but now we are dealing with what is with the people of God, what is of divine ordering in the kingdom of God.

The idea of maintenance, or, if I may so say, departmental maintenance of persons or things, is common. In David’s kingdom it was very extensive and each department had its head. The service of God, food, the army, all these, speaking simply, were departments that had heads. In David’s time you will remember the idea of twenty-four was inaugurated in the division of time. It is carried down to the New Testament and helps us in the understanding of the present dispensation and the coming one, especially the latter, because in the coming one the numeral twelve is very pronounced, especially in Revelation 21. The book of the Revelation came in long after the inauguration of christianity, consequent upon certain exigencies that arose and have arisen and are now existent, involving the severest judgments of God. The book is full of this. And as brethren, saints, and followers of the Lord Jesus, we are to become conversant with that era. The Spirit says in the beginning of the book (chapter 1: 1, 2) that it is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John, who testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw”. So that we have a plain and brief ^[p. 440] statement of the whole matter as to the Apocalypse one of the severest periods in the course of time. It only requires that we should read the book and we are promised a premium, so to speak, to do so. We are blessed if we do it, and if we do not do it we shall lose, we shall not understand the times.

So David, as I said, divided time into twenty-four courses of persons in order to facilitate the government, inclusive of the service of God, the singing, so that there should be no time lost. It is a very important matter that time should be preserved and not wasted. We are to redeem it. And so it is that David used time well, Solomon also. Solomon divided time up, especially for administration of food.

The food question was the prime question in his day as it is in ours, never more so than it is now.

So I come to this matter of maintenance, which involves food and other things also. The first person in mind is the man of Luke 10, a well-known gospel subject. Luke is full of these subjects, for he is most evangelical. What is particularly needed today is the word of God, so that the mercy and goodness of God expressed in the death of Christ should come home to men. God hates the disposition that assumes that His things can be left at will and taken up at will or may not be taken up at all. So the word of God is to be preached, and not only the glad tidings, which involves the idea of joy and gladness. Those who do preach would do well to take note that it is so — that we should preach the word. Not, indeed, that the glad tidings should be neglected or misused, but that the word of God in all its significance should be used. The first mention we have of it in Scripture is in Genesis 15. It is spoken to Abram. And it runs down to the present time and is now touched on so that we might have in mind that God’s word carries with it is own penalties if we neglect it and its own joys as we accept it. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them”, says Jeremiah, “and thy words were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart”, Jeremiah 15: 16. Where there is neglect of it, the penalties will come. God is slow to anger, He is long-suffering and merciful, but still the days of penalty are fixed and they are sure to come.

Now the gospel is in mind in Luke 10 and I have selected verse 35 because it speaks about the maintenance of the man who has been rescued from the thieves; his wounds have been bound up and oil and wine poured in, and he himself carried to the inn. That was preliminary. The Samaritan, however, remained all night with him, which is a good suggestion as to evangelical service — remaining with the convert or the man who, as Scripture says, is convicted of all, judged of all, and who falls down and worships God. A man like that is turned into a worshipper. He is to be in mind after meetings — the ministry meeting, the Bible reading, and all such meetings. The man is in mind. But first he is carried and cared for, however far the distance, which may be considerable, because he is to be taken to the nearest town, so to speak, the nearest hotel and, to extend the thought, perhaps the nearest hospital.

Then the man who journeyed is a Samaritan, one who is not affected by the claims of the Jews specially. There are many against and for the claims of the Jews. Heaven knows them, and what they need, but heaven is not speaking of the terrible pouring of apostate Jews to the east. Let the nations struggle about it, yet heaven knows exactly what the mind of God is as to them and will carry out its behest in time, as in the case of Cain. Whilst he was a vagabond and murderer, yet Jehovah put a mark on him. That is the present moment. It is a prophetic idea, that God has put a mark on His ancient people, and woe betide the nation that disregards it. So that we christians, believers in the Lord Jesus, are not ^[p. 442] indifferent to or neglectful either of this great matter of the Jewish problem. Their time will come, and the land will be theirs. The uttermost north will find out to its loss in due course that it cannot attack them with impunity. God has His eye on them and will take care of them.

This Samaritan who journeyed is not in any sense to be regarded as obligated to the Jewish nation. He is a journeying man, and withal a typical merciful man, a man that noticed what had happened through the thieves. He had all that was needed with him. He had the things with him, he knew what to do and he did it. He had skill. Then he had also the beast, that is to say, the means of power. It was not a vehicle, it was a beast, a creature of God included in the living creatures. They are all viewed as of God, they belong to God, and they become types and symbols of mercy and goodness. The four living creatures as over against the twenty-four elders represent what God is in a creative sense, how good He is! Every morning brings its testimony, as the scripture says, of freshness, “new every morning”. And that is really what is meant in the symbolical book to which I have already alluded, the book of Revelation, that these four living creatures are living, they are part of God’s creation. They do not refer to man-made things but to God-made things, such as God can use. Even creatures have a certain amount of affection. God has placed it in them. They are next to men; the field animals are our neighbours, so to speak. God says to Job, as to a certain creature, the behemoth, “which I made with thee”, Job 40: 15. They were made on the same day as man, the land animals, the domesticated animals, and we do well to have respect for them. The Scriptures warn us not to be cruel to our beasts; they are under God’s eye as His creatures.

So the Samaritan represents the embodiment of ^[p. 443] mercy, in fact rising to a type of the Lord Jesus, no less than that. And the idea of maintenance comes into it, as I have said. “On the morrow”, we read, “as he left, taking out two denarii he gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt expend more, I will render to thee on my coming back”. That is to say, the Samaritan is coming back. There are better times coming, dear brethren. Not a Utopia as the natural mind would suggest, but what heaven would suggest will come in course of time. The symbol now that I am dealing with — the first one — is the case of a poor sinner saved by grace, for that is what it is, and how he is on our hands. No one can say in the light of christianity that it is not his affair. The priest and the levite passed by on the other side, but the Samaritan not only rises to a type of Christ but at the same time represents the principle of mercy in christians. We are to be merciful. We are to have love among ourselves and to do good unto all men. And in bringing this man to your notice I would like you to carry away with you the simple thought of the maintenance of a sinner saved by grace. He needs to be maintained. God will do for him above all that we can ask or think. God will care for him abundantly, but at the same time it is given to us to do the same: to extend mercy as needed. And what a time of distress from physical need it is, but above all, dear brethren, from spiritual need. And christians only can meet that. I say that advisedly. Christians only can meet that and it is our obligation to do it. So I leave it with you. It is a sinner saved by grace, his wounds bound up, and himself taken to the inn, the nearest hotel, the most suitable. And then we are told that the man whose love, mercy and grace are shown, stayed there all night with the man. That is the test. It is all very well to deal out a little money and perhaps ^[p. 444] some food, but to stay the whole night at an hotel with the man touches the heart. It is the mercy of God that is being shown by the man who does it.

I pass on to the next instance — Barzillai. David says to him in 2 Samuel 19: 33, “Pass thou over with me, and I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem”. That is the word — a very full, comprehensive word, and well understood in all departments of life — the idea of maintenance. This case is an old brother. We are very thankful for them and hope they will continue to attend the meetings and take in the ministry, whatever it be. They are needed. They have experience which young people have not. David says, “Pass thou over with me, and I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem”. The Lord has been pleased to take many of the older ones, brothers and sisters, in one’s own time and more particularly in recent times, and there are more who will go to be with Him soon if He does not come before. The Lord will take them. He has a right to do that. He has rights over us, too, as to our aged ones, that we should not neglect them, because we are apt to forget that they did not neglect us when we were young and they were able to help us. They carried out God’s will in their way, and now it is the turn of us who are young to take care of them. We are told in the first epistle to Timothy that widows are not to be put on the list unless they are sixty or older, that is to say, they are not to be a charge on the assembly. But that does not mean that someone must not care for them, and the alternative is that the descendants must take on the responsibility. God is showing to us in such a requirement that He has great regard for the assembly, far greater than we have been accustomed to think. It is His vessel, His immediate means of operation through all time. There is no vessel outside the assembly which is taken account of in this way, and it is to be regarded ^[p. 445] according to the dignity of it, so that certain charges are not to be levied upon it.

Barzillai was a very aged man, we are told. But that is not all; a very great man, the word ‘great’ meaning ‘rich’. He was a very great man, which means that he was a rich man, so rich that he could maintain the king of Israel when he was in rejection; so all the more did he deserve to be taken care of by the king. And the king was not behind in his desire to take care of Barzillai. But then Barzillai was not in need, and not only that, he said he was too old to go to Jerusalem. That is what I want you to take notice of, lest anyone should think himself or herself too old to have part in the wonderful operations of the Spirit of God, to elect himself out of this and to go back to his farm, his business, his house — a well-built one, no doubt, well furnished and embellished. Barzillai was going back to it, and he was going back to it to die. He knew he was going back to it to die.

“I am this day eighty years old”, he says. Not very old even now, for some have lived to a hundred, but not many. I know one old brother who is a hundred and five, and he is not too old to be attending the meetings, he is the best attendant I know at the meetings. He is not too old to go to Jerusalem, and there are many others like him.

I am speaking now of going to Jerusalem, not simply attending the meetings on the Lord’s day to carry through a show of religion, but to attend all of them and to join in them happily, too. Heaven is in that and glorying that old people are there. That is where Barzillai failed. He says to David, “How long ^[p. 447] have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem?” Well, he did not answer that question, and David did not either. How could he? Moses lived to be a hundred and twenty; Aaron lived to be a hundred and twenty-three; Joshua to be a hundred and ten; and how long others lived I ^[p. 446] am not prepared to say, but anyway many lived longer than eighty years. And yet this old man, who is typically a christian, a worthy man — the king kissed him, he had great affection for him and honoured him, for he had served the king well — says, ‘I prefer to go home to die than to come to Jerusalem with you’. He did not say that in so many words, but. David’s proposal was, “Pass thou over with me, and I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem”. How is it going to be with our old brothers and sisters? A few days, a few years — and die? There are some places in this country where people go down to die, whereas the idea in David’s mind was that Barzillai should go over with him and be maintained with him in Jerusalem. I may transfer that thought to the Lord’s wishing us, however old we may be, to be at the meetings in due time, especially when speaking is going on that is kingly, that belongs to David. Great things are going to happen. The Lord says to Nathanael, “Thou shalt see greater things than these”, John 1: 50. And I would say to any old brother or sister that you will see greater things than these. Even the meetings are going to be greater. I am not saying that they are going to be larger or that there is to be a great revival, nor am I denying it. I am saying simply that it is a time of great things and greater things and we cannot afford to miss it.

So I would urge all the old people to attend the meetings. One old sister of whom we read in Luke 2 lived, as far as I can make out, to be a hundred and six — Anna. She was a prophetess, contemporary with Simeon. Simeon prophesied about the Lord Jesus that He should be for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and he was ready to go when Jehovah wanted him. He says, “Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace”. But Barzillai did not say that. He said, “How long have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? I am this day fourscore years old and can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king?” He is asking questions, but in his mind they were to be answered in the negative, that is to say, that he should not go to Jerusalem, whereas David is saying he should and he would maintain him there. You say you cannot hear and cannot enjoy the singing. But why not? The Lord has graciously furnished the means for the intelligent service of song, and here is a brother who is saying that he cannot enjoy it! You will understand I am paraphrasing the passages only to bring the facts before us. Barzillai is saying he cannot enjoy the voice of singing men and singing women. But why should he not? As far as I know, the old brothers and sisters are enjoying the singing “Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord”, Ephesians 5: 19. It is a way of being maintained for God and for Jerusalem, to be able to sing the precious songs that God has furnished us by His Spirit. I need not say more, but you can see what I mean, that Barzillai elected himself out of the greatest things. The coming of the Lord is imminent, it is about to happen at any time, and who is there — is there a brother or sister who will elect himself or herself out of the great things that are about to happen? On the contrary you will say, ‘I want to be in these things, I love the Lord’s appearing’. That is the thing.

I finish with 1 Kings 17 just to bring out again this matter of maintenance. It is a question of the testimony here, because it is a question of the prophet and the prophet usually stands for the testimony. Elijah was at that time the mainspring of the service ^[p. 448] of God in the testimony. He had to flee from Jezebel, as we read in chapter 19, but the Lord restored him — a word that I would pass on to all the old brothers and sisters. If they have been tripped up or something has happened which has caused discipline, well, it happened to Elijah, and yet Elijah was caught up to heaven without dying! What a thought that is — the possibility of going to heaven without dying! It is within the range of every brother and sister today. It should stir us up and invigorate us. And in the meantime, if something has happened, we may be restored, cleansed from it, made fit and kept from falling: as Jude says in his epistle, “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy ...”. (verse 24). It is a wonderful thing to have in mind, and surely it should be an incentive to be maintained here and be used to maintain others, too.

Elijah had been fed — maintained — by the ravens, and he drank of the brook. But the brook dried up, which may happen. Then the word of Jehovah comes to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which is by Zidon, and abide there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee”. Not simply to maintain the prophet but to maintain him there, where she lives. That is, it is a local position, and Elijah is to be maintained in it. And we may therefore think of local positions with peculiar satisfaction, for it is a question of being maintained by God, and if we have a commission from God, which Elijah had, then how great the matter is, to carry on in the local position, wherever it may be, and do something for the testimony. The widow woman was to maintain Elijah there in that place, Zarephath. She had great questioning about it, because he met her at the entrance of the city and we are told what she was doing; she was ^[p. 449] gathering two sticks to prepare whatever food she had that she and her son might eat it — and both die! Now this is serious. It is very serious to die rather than to live and maintain the testimony of God. I urge every brother and sister that this is the point — the maintenance of the testimony of God, in so far as you can do anything for it. The testimony of God is a very wide thought and each one of us can do something in it to maintain the position.

I would close with that, so that we may carry it away with freshness and know that wherever we are the testimony must go on. Whatever it may cost me, let it go on. Let the circulatory principle be with us, whatever we have got, even if it be means or food. There is a remarkable testimony in regard of the circulation of food and we may well thank God for it. It is of God. God does the thing in an immense way, and He puts it upon us to circulate whatever we have amongst the brethren. The story of Elijah and the widow woman is well known, but perhaps not well enough. It is not simply Elijah, but the testimony of God, that must be maintained; not just carried on, but maintained, and each one of us can do something to maintain it.