AT A MARRIAGE MEETING
(i) FAITHFUL, PRUDENT, GOOD
Eric Burr
We have just sung (hymn 163), in the anticipation which marks us all as believers, about the expected coming of the Lord. I trust that that remains fresh and powerful in the minds of everybody here, young or old. We go on from day to day and we live lives in this world and we are here, and I expect it is true, as many would admit, that we do not remember all the time that the Lord is coming soon. It is interesting that in Revelation the Lord says, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come” (22: 7) and Jesus says, “I come quickly” (v.7). The Lord would help us to be here in anticipation of that great day.
The marriage may provide opportunity for ministry in relation to the coming of the Lord and our being ready for Him, and such an occasion brings before us not only the personal expectation of the coming of the Lord, but that great sense of corporate expectation of it. The Lord would use every occasion to stimulate us in relation both as to the personal and individual, aspect of expectation, and what I might speak of as the corporate expectation of His coming. Until the Lord comes we will be in a condition of responsibility and one inescapable fact about taking up marriage is that it sets you on a fresh path of responsibility. We know our sister and we know, to some degree – naturally speaking less – of our brother, save if I might make a comment, my impression of our brother is one who desires to be faithful.
I read these two scriptures because they both relate to a time when the one who is superior, and the one to whom the servants are responsible, is away. It bears, therefore, on the responsibility of the present time. There are three things said about the bondman in these scriptures – twice is said, “faithful”, once is said “prudent”, or as the Authorised Version says, “wise”, and the third is “good”. I am sure that our beloved brother and sister would accept the exhortation, as we all would, that these three things are to mark us while we wait for the Lord, faithful, prudent and good. In each of these parables Jesus speaks, the bondmen were charged with responsibility. Some were found out.
I was thinking about these things because it is very easy to have doctrinal marriage meetings, but marriage is not all about doctrine – marriage is a practical day by day experience and the first thing that is called for is faithfulness. I need not remark, as our brother and sister have been married today, on faithfulness to one another. What prime importance that has in a world where it is discounted and people turn away from it, give it up and have no real sense of responsibility to be faithful in the bond that they have taken on. The Lord would use occasions like this to remind us, as a marriage ceremony used to say ‘marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life’. Let us keep that strongly before us, that our affections, married or not, do not stray where they should not stray. “Faithful” is also in relation to responsibility here and as the teaching of these scriptures has it, faithfulness is in relation to the Lord. Beloved, that enters into everything that we take up, everything that we do, we are governed by this that we are here on behalf of the Lord, responsible to Him and for Him and the Lord would underline that with us the more we anticipate His coming:
“Yet a little while,” Thou’rt coming! (Hymn 163)
The more we anticipate that the more faithfulness should be with us. The great thing is that he that endures to the end should be saved. We seek ourselves, and the Lord would remind us of the need to be faithful to Him in every particular day by day – what we do, where we go, what we buy and sell, what we read – all these different things come in, but faithfulness is to be maintained by us all.
“Prudent” (or as the Authorised Version says, “wise”) – who that is married here would deny that wisdom is what is needed, “faithful and wise bondman”. That enters into daily life. Nobody here that is married will disagree with me if I say that the marriage condition is one that calls for wisdom, or alternatively prudence, day by day. Not to go beyond your means, not to stretch yourselves beyond what you can afford, not to undertake things that you cannot really maintain – be maintained in prudence, always willing to maintain things rightly before the Lord, and be wise in it. The Spirit gives you that wisdom, helps you to decide even in the most practical details of the day, He helps you to decide what to do here or what to do there, and wisdom enters into the maintenance of the household. We tend, when we think about these things, to let our minds rest entirely in relation to headship in the man, but wisdom applies to the wife as well. It may be in practice – some of us have been married quite a few years now – in a happy marriage that it is the wisdom of the wife that maintains things, “the wisdom of women buildeth their house”, Prov 14:1. There is a word in that for our sister, a sister we love here, but I say this to her. You have to be wise, you have to be prudent. I have often been struck by a scripture that is very much neglected among us that Paul says to the young women, “rule the house”, 1 Tim 5:14. Someone may say, how does that tie up with headship? Headship determines the policy, and ruling of house determines the implementation. These two things fit together; if they jar with one another then things do not succeed. But headship and the wife ruling the house go together and the influence and power of the disposition and character of the husband is a bulwark to the wife as she, in wisdom, operates things in relation to the house day by day. It is my experience that during the course of the day in the house, the wife has to take far more decisions than the husband. I think most wives here would agree with that, but that is where wisdom is needed and prudence, not to commit yourself to more than you can do, not to seek to have elaborate entertainments beyond your means. Prudence, wisdom, care goes with faithfulness.
The other thing is “good” – “good and faithful bondman” – think of the Lord saying that to you. Think of the Lord coming back and saying to you ‘good and faithful’. You may say, there is none good but God, but beloved, God is in you by the Spirit and that goodness that is in the Holy Spirit would form everything you take on, so that the Lord when He comes could say, “good and faithful bondman”. The faithful and prudent bondman gets promotion, he is set over the house, but, beloved, the good and faithful bondman gets the joy of his lord – what a great thing that is! He gets the joy of his lord, “enter into the joy of thy lord”. Where was the joy of Jesus? It was in His bond with the Father and His living on account of the Father and He says to you, “that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full”, John 15: 11. These things are held before us and the full entrance into them will not be long, but the Lord would keep us and help us.
Sometimes the scriptures help you, two or three words in them focus one’s mind on what the Lord would have us do and be, and the Lord would have us to be faithful whatever condition we are in, prudent always, wise (both the same word), but good. The Lord would have us good. It says of the virtuous woman, “She doeth him good, and not evil, all the days of her life”, Prov 31: 12. These scriptures are about bondmen, but the word is generic and it includes women as well. The Lord might say, good and faithful bondwoman. He would say, good and faithful bondman to our beloved brother whom we appreciate in the Lord in what we have had to do with him here and seen him locally in Glasgow, but our sister too – we love our sister and we commend her and her husband to the Lord. But before us all, the gracious promise to us all is “the joy of thy lord”.
May we get a fresh touch of it today.