(ii) DESIRE

John Mitchell

Judges 1: 12-15; 1 Samuel 1: 10-18

I have been struck these last two days in thinking about this section. The testimony covers the book of Judges very largely and enters into the opening of the book of Samuel. To say that the state in Israel was low at that time is putting it mildly. As we know it says, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes”, Judg 17: 6. There is a danger of that at the present time. We were speaking over the weekend of the authority. Our brother has spoken about preservation, and I think if there is right authority, authority under God, and it is listened to and acted upon, we will be preserved. Without authority, there is no preservation. We should remember that.

The state in this period was extremely low and yet the Spirit of God is pleased to bring forward certain women, Achsah, Deborah the wife of Manoah, the daughter of Jephthah, Naomi and Ruth, Hannah, and then the wife of Phinehas the priest. It is beautiful to think, though the general state was very low, of what God had in these women. It is a comfort that God will always have subjectively what will hold the testimony. He never lets it go publicly it may seem at a very low ebb, everyone might appear to be doing what is right in his own eyes, but God never lets His testimony go. He will maintain it through persons who are with God Himself. Therefore, the encouragement for us is to be in relation to God about matters – our brother has spoken about severe happenings amongst us. These are very sorrowful and very exercising – and I think would drive us into the presence of God that we might find out what His mind is. Nothing happens by accident, so that the encouragement is to be before God and find out what is on His mind. He loves to disclose what is in His mind to His lovers.

Where I read first it speaks of Achsah. She appears twice, in the book of Joshua (see Josh 15: 16) and then in Judges. It might seem unnecessary having gone over matters in the book of Joshua, brought out with delightful character, but the Spirit of God in opening this book which very largely deals with a low state, is delighted to bring forward a person who can hold the truth and not let it go. Just the very next chapter says, “And the Angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim” (2: 1). That is a very sad situation. The angel of Jehovah is forced to change his position, but in the midst of it all there is what is going through, an expression we often use, but not only going through, going through in triumph. The chapter, as you read it through, says that this tribe did not dispossess, but then you get this bright spark of light in relation to Caleb and Othniel and his wife Achsah. They were delightful characters, that would not only seize hold of the inheritance, but Achsah is exercised that she might be in the enjoyment of it. Not only does she encourage her husband to ask for “the field” – it is not a field, but “the field” – but then when her father discerns that she is asking for something else she says, “give me also springs of water”. It is wonderful to think about that, there is a person here amidst general decline, who is thoroughly exercised that she might, in the gain typically of the Spirit, as making room for the Spirit of God, be in the gain of God’s inheritance. I think that should be an encouragement to us. But there are such persons at the present time and the exercise is that we should be among them, everyone of us – no sectarian idea. In this book it is in the few, but our concern would be that it would be among all. I think any priestly person would carry the concern that what you find in Achsah, in her real earnest desire in type to have the Holy Spirit in such a way that she can enjoy the inheritance and appropriate it rightly, should mark every one of us. What an inheritance we have! I need hardly say that, but do you ever stop to think of the inheritance that we have? Think of what has been handed down to us – this came through Caleb, and you will remember that Caleb was a man who went through the wilderness for forty years with Joshua, but in that forty years, content as he was to go along with the people, the land was in his heart all the time. I often think of the daughters of Zelophehad – there are other women, and they also are anxious to have their inheritance, not to give it up, not to lose it. It may be fanciful but I often think that they came under the influence of Caleb. There are these persons, the daughters of Zelophehad, and this woman Achsah unquestionably came under the influence of Caleb. What a thing it is to have Calebs in our meetings. It has been said as to the Philippian epistle that there is no type in the Old Testament of a Philippian. I remember that when I was younger the brethren used to tell us that Caleb was a true Philippian. He was in the wilderness and going along with the people but his heart was in the land, that is where he lived. He went through the rigours of the wilderness and all the exercises that were attached to it, and the full acceptance of the governmental situation for forty years wandering there, but he never altered in his affections for the land. Here is a product of that, Achsah his daughter; she says, “Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a southern land; give me also springs of water”. Caleb was the kind of man that if he gave anything it would be in relation to the inheritance. That is where his own heart was and that is where his heart would be for the younger persons coming along that they should have the inheritance, and not only have it, but have it with a power to enjoy it. What things are ours! I sometimes stop to take stock of what has come down to us and it is intended that we should be in the thorough enjoyment of it and as we are in the enjoyment of it God will undoubtedly get His portion. One would encourage us all to be like Achsah and to be concerned about the upper and the lower springs. We have been taught that that speaks of Ephesian and Roman truth, that she wanted to be in it vitally, in a real way, and she was concerned about it, “urged” her husband – what a wife to have! I trust all our wives here are urging on their husbands as to what is right.

When you come to Samuel you get Hannah. It is quite remarkable, with things at about the lowest state that they could be – you get a description of what was current in the priesthood and a sad state of things, and very little concern on the part of Israel as to it – the wife of Phinehas is a person who feels things. There was no exercise in Israel; they would appropriate the ark to themselves without a state that is proper to it. Let us not just be positional, let us be exercised that there is a state which fills out the position rightly. While Achsah had every encouragement to go in for divine things, think of Hannah, she had no encouragement whatsoever. She was a woman for whom there was no sympathy, a husband according his best, but his best was not very much. The high priest completely misunderstood her and charged her with things of which she was not guilty, rather than seeing, as she herself said that she was: “a woman of a sorrowful spirit”. She really felt things. If one person feels a situation, God has the basis there in which He can work recovery. It is from this point on that the recovery takes place, Samuel comes to light in a positive way, and what a change it was! Immediately his influence was felt and that makes room for David so that God reaches His best thoughts.

I have also been thinking very much, especially in the verses in Matthew 11, but elsewhere too, that when things are at their worst, God brings out His best. How wonderful that is! He can bring out His best here, but there is a person who is really agonising before God, and prepared to be misunderstood, prepared to suffer. I believe that there is plenty of room for suffering at the present time; to suffer for the state of things among the saints, suffer for the maintenance of the testimony in its heavenly aspect, suffer as our brother has been saying that the brethren both locally and universally might be preserved and preserved together. There is grave danger, the enemy is trying his hardest to disrupt, and I think the answer to all that is the suffering spirit. Hannah shines in that way. There is one other feature about her: she is really a Nazarite. The reference to a Nazarite in Numbers says, “If a man or a woman have vowed the special vow of a Nazarite” (6: 2) – but then it goes on and deals entirely with the situation of a man: there is not reference to a woman, but we have to wait until the first book of Samuel to see that here is a woman who is really a Nazarite. Not only is she a Nazarite but she is going to make sure that her progeny is a Nazarite. There is great encouragement in matters like that, that there are such persons so that we need not be discouraged. We should be deeply exercised, and carry feelingly and sufferingly in the way that Hannah does here, the situation and the destiny generally, but do not be discouraged, God will see it through. There are persons like this at the present time, God knows them and He knows all about them. Eli – the Elis – might miss what is there, but God never misses it and it becomes the basis for the recovery. These are well known passages, but I trust that they may encourage us that we might carry things feelingly before God in view of giving Him a moral basis on which He can work in recovery amongst us. May it be so, For His Name’s Sake.

Ormond Beach

December 2003