THE LIGHT OF ANOTHER WORLD
D. C. White
1 Samuel 30: 11–13; Luke 15: 13–20; Matthew 27: 3–5; 2 Timothy 4: 6–8
I wanted to speak about these three men of whom we have read; this young man of Egypt, the younger son, and Judas. These were all persons who at one time had a certain value. The young man of Egypt was the servant of an Amalekite. No doubt he had served him well; he had come far with him, right from Egypt into the land of Judah, and he had been a profitable servant it would seem. Then he fell sick. He no longer had any value, and he was simply abandoned. This is what the world does with people who serve it. For a time they have value, they are of use, and then when they have served their turn they are simply cast aside. The Lord never does that with anyone. The Lord Jesus preserves
and maintains those who serve Him, and in the glad tidings He is seeking to recover and to save, and then to use, those who put their trust in Him.
So here we have this young man found in a field. What a wretched plight he was in, left there without any resources whatsoever, left in his sickness, in his distress, just left to his own devices, with no one to help him. But he is found by the servants of David and brought to him. So we can be thankful for those who have care for our souls. Some of us have experience of the service of others, finding us where we were and bringing us to Christ. This is what we would seek to do in the glad tidings. If there are any here who do not know Jesus, we would like to bring you to Him, we would like you to prove for yourself what a Master He is. The first thing David does for this young man is to see that he is fed, and then he raises these questions with him. So the Lord would feed us and see to it that we are nourished, giving us to understand that He cares for us and has an interest in us.
So David raises these questions with him—“To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou?”—good questions for each one of us to ponder and to answer. “To whom belongest thou?” Do we belong to Jesus? Each one of us belongs to someone and it is a good thing to belong to Jesus. The apostle says, “Ye are not your own … for ye have been bought with a price”, 1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20. The Lord Jesus desires to have us for Himself; He is seeking to set free captives to sin and Satan; He would delight to set us free from these other influences and attach us to Himself. Do we all know that we belong to Jesus? Do we all know Him as our Saviour and Lord? David asks this of the young man and he is able to give an account of himself. Then he becomes of value to David; he is used to bring him down to the troop
and thus everything is recovered. It is a good thing to be set free from the world which has cast Christ off, cast Him aside as worthless. He is “the stone which the builders cast away as worthless” (1 Peter 2: 7); there is no place for Jesus in this world. He did not fit into the world system; there was no place for Him. Even when He came in as a Babe, there was no room for Him in the inn. He was born in conditions of privation, and cradled in a manger.
Think of that—the One who made the world coming into His own creation and there being no room for Him!
Well, this young man no doubt felt keenly the fact that he had been cast aside, but as he came into touch with David he would find a master of very different character, one who would care for him and cherish him, one whose affection would be displayed and one who would claim his affections. The great thing about David was that he attracted people and held them by reason of their affection for him. In Saul’s system there was harshness, there was demand. In the system of many of the kings that followed David there was the same feature of demand and extortion. But David was one who had always something to contribute to his own. We have been reminded often that he never lost a battle. This particular point where we have read was perhaps the lowest point in his fortunes, but it says later in the chapter that “David recovered all” (1 Samuel 30: 18).
So the Lord Jesus is going to retain, feed, and care for any one who puts his trust in Him. I would say to the young people here, and to us all, let us put our trust in Jesus; and let us see the true character of the world, a harsh, demanding system which has a use for people only so long as they can serve it, but when they have served their turn they are simply cast aside.
How often you have seen it
happen; you see it in business, you see it—in politics; great statesmen who have served their turn are rejected and forgotten about. But in the great christian system the Lord Jesus cares for every one of us and He delights to have us serve Him. So let us appreciate the fact that persons have a care for our souls and can put us in touch with the Saviour In Luke 15 we read about this well-known younger son, one who was in the father’s house but felt he was being deprived of something. When he was there he was sheltered from the world and did not know the sort of place it was; he never had to look for anything, all was provided for him. But he rather tired of what he thought was the restriction of his father’s house. Sometimes, you know, those of us who have been brought up in christian households chafe a little at what we think of as restrictions. We may feel we would like to taste what the world has to offer, to see something different and do something different, just as this young man did. So his father allows him to go this distance. He divided to his sons what he was possessed of, and this young man goes off. For a time he proves to be very popular and has many friends; he has all that his heart desires. But the end result is that he spends everything, he “dissipate his property, living in debauchery”. What a sorry plight he is now in, left with nothing but the unhappy memory of his folly. A violent famine arose throughout the country and he began to be in want, and nobody gave anything to him. No doubt he went around his friends to see what they would do for him, and he very soon found the answer. They would not do anything. He finds himself in servitude he finds himself in this loathsome position, longing to fill his belly with the husks which the swine were eating.
Then it says that “coming to himself, he said,
How many hired servants of my father’s have abundance of bread”. What a good thing it is, if we get away on our own course, that we come to ourselves, that we remember things. How many must have memories of happier times and happier experiences which they once enjoyed. We would long that persons might come to themselves, those who have gone away from what they know to be right. Oh that they might remember where there is full provision for them, just as this young man did.
So he comes to himself and goes back. He has made up in his mind this little speech, what he is going to say to his father and what he is going to ask for—a place among the servants. But when he is yet a long way off he finds that his father has been looking out for him, runs to meet him, and embraces him; and instead of giving him the place of a servant he restores him fully to what he previously enjoyed—and far more. That is a great thing about christianity, that things are preserved for us, things are kept; there is always somewhere where the truth is preserved, there are always persons who are seeking to go on with what is right. I am sure that those of us who believe we are in the pathway of faith would seek to preserve things for persons who may come to themselves and return to where the blessing is, to where the Father’s love is known, where nothing has ever failed.
So that is the wonderful message of the glad tidings. If we return, everything is once more available to us. What a contrast between the condition of this young man in the fields feeding swine, with nothing to eat, and his being received back into his father’s house, clothed with the best robe, a ring on his hand, feet shod, feasting on the best that could be provided. What a God we have, beloved! Let us prove Him more; let us draw more
abundantly on what He has, and let us appreciate more fully the blessing that is ours in having to do with such a glorious Provider. One who has provided everything for us. “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?”, Romans 8: 32.
In Matthew’s gospel we have this very solemn and unique picture, because Judas is a unique character, one who knew the Lord intimately, we would judge from the Psalms, where he is referred to as “mine own familiar friend”, Psalm 41: 9. How close he, must have been to Jesus; they “held sweet intercourse together. To the house of God we walked amid the throng”, Psalm 55: 14. Judas was evidently close to the Lord and trusted by the other disciples. Right up to the time when he betrayed the Lord it would seem that the other disciples did not suspect the character of Judas. The Lord, of course—knew who would deliver Him up; He knows everything about every one of us. John’s gospel tells us that He did not trust Himself to man because “Himself knew what was in man”, John 2: 25. He knows every one of us through and through; nothing is hidden from the searching and watchful eyes of the Lord Jesus, for His eyes are as a flame of fire. Everything is discerned, weighed, measured and evaluated by Him. So He knew Judas. Judas, close as he was to Jesus, was beguiled by the lure of money, and had gone to the chief priests and offered to deliver up Jesus. We are told elsewhere that when he went there they rejoiced. They were glad to see Judas because he could help them to accomplish their evil purpose. No doubt Judas was made very welcome; he would be a very popular man. And anyone who would seek to betray the Lord will for a time be popular.
Think of what remorse must have filled the soul
of Judas as he contemplated what he had done. The act which he perpetrated was without parallel; to sell and to betray the Son of God, the Lord of glory. Judas might well be filled with remorse. Many persons who have gone on a wrong course have been filled with remorse, but we are not to confuse remorse with repentance. You remember how Esau, when he had sold his birthright, was remorseful, but it says, “he found no place for repentance”, Hebrews 12: 17. What the Lord is looking for with us is repentance, “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. Those are the terms of the glad tidings.
‘Repentance only. God requires from man,
And faith in Christ, His well beloved Son’.
That is all we have to do, that is the simple message of the glad tidings. How profound a thing it is to repent, to acknowledge our sins and feel the weight and burden of them; to feel how unable we are to do anything about them, and just to realise that Jesus has done everything for us.
Judas was filled with remorse and he went to the chief priests, seeking in some way, I suppose, to salve his conscience. But there was no alleviation for him. He found that, having done what the chief priests and elders required of him, they had no further use for him. “What is that to us?”, they say, “see thou to that”. What a solemn contemplation! Here was a man who had done the foulest deed that could be imagined, and all that remains for him is to go and hang himself. He went “to his own place”, Acts 1: 25.
It underlines for us what the character of the world is, whether it be the religious world as in the case of Judas, the social world, as the younger son found, or the commercial world, or whatever it might be, that the young Egyptian had experienced.
Once a person has served his turn the world has no further use for him.
I wanted to contrast that with what we have set out in the second epistle to Timothy. This is a passage which was written by Paul towards the end of his pathway. So we think of Paul here as an old man, one who had served much and suffered many things for the sake of Jesus; one who had faithfully fulfilled the mission that was committed to him. What a vessel Paul was!
Here he is in prison and has the consciousness that he has come to the end of his pathway. He says, “For I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is come”. Well, the Lord did not desert him. He says, “At my first defence no man stood with me, but all deserted me.
May it not be imputed to them. But the Lord stood with me, and gave me power, that through me the proclamation might be fully made, and all those of the nations should hear; and I was delivered out of the lion’s mouth. The Lord shall deliver me from every wicked work, and shall preserve me for his heavenly kingdom”, 2 Timothy 4: 16–18. What a contrast with what the world would do to persons who have served it! The Lord will never desert His own; He will stand with them right to the end. He would give us the consciousness of His being interested in every one of us here, desiring our welfare, our well-being and our blessing, desiring to comfort and sustain us and bring us through. This is a comfort to all of us, young and old alike, that the Lord Jesus will be with us. His own promise is, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”, Matthew 28: 20.
So Paul, this old man, was writing to a young man. Timothy. He can say what his own experience has been, and he can point Timothy, and all of us,
to what the Lord has laid up for us. “Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will render to me in that day; but not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing”. We may say that Paul was well worthy of a crown of righteousness, well worthy of being recompensed for what he had done for Christ, but he would not claim this for himself alone, he would hold it out as the prospect for all who love His appearing. I trust that we all love the appearing of Jesus, and what a prospect it is that He is going to come first for His own. We were speaking earlier about the rapture, when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then the living will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17).
What a comfort it is to think of these things! We are in a world where everything is changing; people are changing and standards declining; deterioration marks everything; but this great system with which we have to do does not change or alter, or become devalued or depreciate in any way. The One who is the centre of it is the Same yesterday and today and to the ages to come. He is the righteous Judge who has laid up the crown of righteousness for us and He will render it to us in that day. It is not far distant now. It has been the hope of His own right down the ages from the time when He was taken into heaven and the word came, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven”, Acts 1: 11. This is what His own are looking for, and then the glorious matter of His shining forth, His coming to reign, which will follow soon after. What a time, and what a prospect, and what a Master to serve!
May we all be encouraged then as we think of these things. May we all be serving Him, and may we know this blessed One as our Saviour and as our Lord. He would desire to have us all engaged in His service. Maybe we cannot do very much; indeed, as it says, “We are unprofitable bondman; we have done what it was our duty to do”, Luke 17: 10. That is what Paul would say of himself, and yet he laboured more abundantly than all. The Lord would seek our allegiance and our service, and He would assure us of His love for each one of us, His interest in us, His desire and His ability to bring us right through to the end. May we be encouraged then, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Cullen
14 August 1977