RIGHTEOUSNESS, FAITH, LOVE, PEACE
J. R. Surtees
Matthew 1: 1–6; Genesis 38: 25, 26; Hebrews 11: 31; Ruth 1: 14–19; 2 Samuel 12: 24, 25
I have in mind to say a word as to these four remarkable women in the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel, and to show a little as to the principles of the kingdom—righteousness, faith, love and peace. They are in these four women, I believe. It is not new, of course, but the Lord will perhaps help us to get a fresh impression of how these things can be set out in the most unlikely people.
We have these persons brought in in a distinguished way in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. That is God’s sovereignty, there is nobody’s name here by mistake; God has not been taken by surprise. We can see that, can we not, in the Scriptures? God orders things to serve His own will. We read in Ephesians of the counsel of His own will; not many things are more interesting, it seems to me, than the will of God. It is a wonderful subject to trace in the Scriptures. Do not be afraid to speak, and to think, of the will of God; it is not a prohibitive matter. Sometimes we hear it spoken of as though it were some kind of restrictive thought, but that is not the case; the will of God is that the saints should enter into their place. The Father has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light (see Colossians 1: 12). It does not say that He will do so, in the mind of God it is so. The saints have a wonderful portion, the best of heaven is reserved for the saints of the present time. Did you know that? It is where Christ is—“I go to prepare you a place”, the Lord says (John 14: 2). Not prepare the saints for the place, the Lord does not emphasise that, but prepare the place for the saints. What the saints are in God’s mind!
So I would just like, with the Lord’s help, to speak of these four women. The first is Thamar in Matthew 1: 3, who is the same person as Tamar in Genesis 38. She had a history, like many of us; we would have written her off I do not doubt; she deceived Judah, but he said,
“She is more righteous than I”, Genesis 38: 26. More righteous—you see the first principle of the kingdom is righteousness. God is righteous to forgive men their sins; God is righteous in doing that. It is not that God has overlooked anything. God has meted out the judgment of your sins and of mine upon the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; so that if we believe, they are dealt with, they are finished. God is perfectly righteous in forgiving men their sins. So it behoves us to consider the righteousness of God, as we read, “righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all, and upon all who believe”, Romans 3: 22. That is the righteousness of
God. But this here is practical righteousness—“She is more righteous than I”, he says.
There is no deceiving God. In fact the scripture says, “God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap”, Galatians 6: 7. So it would be for me to ask myself, What have I sowed today? We are sowing all the time, “For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh”. Perhaps we all know that. It may be that in the course of our lifetime however long, or however short, we have discovered that he that sows to his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption. God is not mocked. He sees all things. Another has said that anyone who reads the Scriptures is impressed by the fact that they present realities, they do not disguise the truth however severe, or shady it may be. Those who have helped us, even to the present day, in my observation, have all greatly valued the Scriptures.
So Judah comes to it that things are different now. He thought he could hide something. One thing led to another; he thought a kid of the goats would deal with the problem, it would all be covered up and that would be the end of it. But not so, he comes face to face with the matter of righteousness, and that is like our histories, that is how we find things are. The time comes when we have to pursue righteousness. After this, I believe, Judah began to pursue righteousness. He went along, of course, for a time with his brethren in saying that Joseph was no longer alive, but eventually he came to it that they had been practising unrighteousness for something like twenty years. Possibly more than that because Joseph was thirteen years in the prison it would seem, and there were the seven years of plenty, and then there was a year or more of the famine. All that time they had been living in deceit. The time had now come for Judah, and it comes in our histories too, dear brethren, when we must pursue righteousness. There is no other way; there is no liberty, no confidence
amongst brethren, no power in the locality, no power in testimony, and no help in the home, unless we pursue righteousness. This is an important matter. So we would be impressed by the way that things took a turn for the better; Tamar here established the standard of righteousness and it helped.
Now the next one is Rachab, and I think with Rachab we have faith. With Tamar it is righteousness, but the next thing we need to pursue is faith, so we look to Rachab, who is the same person as Rahab. She had been a pretty shady person; there she was with all her sin. It struck me once that she had no difficulty in finding a scarlet line, I suppose much with her would have been a matter of show. That is the kind of person she probably would have been in times past, but the time came when she hid the spies. I do not think Scripture condones her saying to the king that the men had gone away, but what she did by faith, which heaven took account of, was that she received the spies in peace. She received them, and covered them up under, the flax, and it says here, “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with the unbelieving, having received the spies in peace”, Hebrews 11: 31. She knew that laying hold of this in faith would “mean the end of the world morally, the end of all that Jericho stood for, the end of everything she had known and lived in. She had faced all that, yet by faith she received the spies in peace. She said, It is clear that God is with you, that God is with the people of Israel, we must have our faith in God.
Now faith is not a thing that is only used at the time when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, it is not intended to be a once and only matter. The Scripture says, “the just shall live by faith”, Hebrews 10: 38. Believers are to live on that principle. So do we pursue faith? Do we have our outlook in relation to what God is doing in our localities? Do we look at our brethren, old and, young, in all their circumstances, and look at things in faith? Have we faith that God can act in relation to difficulties, that God can bring in answers to the prayers of the saints? Do we pursue faith? I would encourage those that are prepared to take on responsibility in relation to needy souls to have faith, that God will come in and answer them. The joy of seeing people, for whom you have prayed for months and years, getting help, is a wonderful thing. We know some little of it. There is scarcely a joy like it, to see the plant growing, to see the plant flourishing, to see it coming into leaf and bearing fruit. This is the answer to faith. Rahab laid hold of the matter in faith, and God was pleased with it, and she comes into the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Next we come to Ruth. I think love is emphasized in Ruth. Pursue righteousness, faith and the next thing is love. We have to pursue love. So Ruth clave to Naomi. She said, “Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, 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”. We might say, Well, that is committal! Yes, it was committal, but what was the origin of committal? Love! That is what brings about committal. Love is the basis of everything. Unless there is love in my soul towards the person to whom I am speaking, then it is not a lot of good speaking at all, because what it does is create a situation of confrontation. Whereas love, active love, would bring about this sort of committal. She clave to her. There is no suggestion throughout the book of Ruth that they were apart. Naomi and Ruth go through the history together, and when Obed was born there was Naomi to hand. Naomi, I suppose, would speak of God’s mercy towards the saints.
Everything had gone wrong after she went to Moab; the whole situation was in such a plight that only God could do anything about it, and so she is a subject of mercy. We may feel oftentimes that there is so much to learn, there is so much to be done in us, and it will take so long. That may well be true, but God is towards us in mercy. He is righteous about being merciful to us. So Ruth is committed to Naomi, and to her people and to her God. Divine love was expressed in the way that God dealt with Ruth and she responded to it.
So we need to pursue love. It is not always the most easy thing to do, because sometimes things come in that make it difficult to show love. There might be remembrance of things, or personal feeling, and we all know how dreadful these things can be. There is scarcely anything more negating of liberty in the service of God, as far as I am aware, than personal feeling. Yet it is our responsibility to pursue love. It does not say that Naomi was the most attractive of people; she was in much bitterness; she felt that God had dealt very bitterly with her, but nevertheless, Ruth proved that this was the way of blessing. She clave to Naomi; she demonstrated what it was to pursue love.
I would just like to refer to the scripture as to Solomon. The matter of her that had been the wife of Urias was a greater departure than any of the others we have referred to, I believe.
Responsibility in David waned, great man as he was, and although he had all that he needed, I suppose, yet he still failed. Bathsheba had been the wife of Urias and we know a little of the history as it is recorded in the Scriptures. God sent Nathan with a prophetic word that touched David in his affections and conscience in chapter 12. He said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich and the other poor. The rich had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing at all, but one little ewe lamb which he had bought, and was nourishing; and it grew up with him, and together with his children—it ate of his morsel, and drank of his own cup, and slept in his bosom, and was to him as a daughter. And there came a traveller to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that had come to him; and he took the poor man’s lamb and dressed it for the man that had come to him”. Then eventually Nathan says, “Thou art the man!” We get the gain of his experience in the Psalms. We get some impression of the depths that touched David’s soul in Psalm 51, but God’s answer to it was peace. He called his name Solomon, which means ‘peaceful’, and Jehovah loved him. This was a fresh turn in David’s history. He had to face much after this—the insurrection of Absalom, and, the numbering of the people, and all that happened consequently. Nevertheless the Lord touched him by divine grace, in relation to his failure, in such a way as to bring in peace, the fulness of which was reached in Solomon’s time. It says in 1 Kings 4: 24 that Solomon had peace on all sides round about. So we need to pursue peace. It is on the basis of righteousness, with faith and love in full activity. God will bring in the blessing. May the Lord help us for His name’s sake.
Address at Kirkcaldy
28 September 1991