PATERNAL, MINISTERIAL AND KINGLY QUALITIES
[p. 404] PATERNAL, MINISTERIAL AND KINGLY QUALITIES
Genesis 48:8 - 19; Deuteronomy 34:1 - 4; Deuteronomy 34:7; 1 Chronicles 29:10 - 19
I have been encouraged as before the Lord to turn to these scriptures. I wish to treat of them separately and together in this meeting. The first, indicating what is patriarchal, is an important side to the position of believers, and it properly begins with Abraham the believer, who is said to be “the father of us all”, those who are on the principle of faith being blessed, as the scripture says, “with believing Abraham”, (Galatians 3:9). Then, from the passage in Deuteronomy 1 hope to show in a few words what I may call the ministerial development, a most important feature also of our position as believers. Then, finally, what I may call the royal development, in its place also most important, for what is kingly is specially intended to stand out in these last days against the radical spirit that has become dominant.
The first is marked by love of the saints.
The second is marked by love of the truth.
The third is marked by love of the house of God.
David stands out distinctly in this latter way, as indicated in the verses I read; indeed, he speaks in the same chapter of his affection for the house, saying also elsewhere, “I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth”. (Psalm 26:8).
To go over the ground again, so as to make the subject clear, the first quality — the paternal or patriarchal — necessarily circles around the family; the second centres in the truth, Christ being the truth and the Spirit being the truth: and the third centres in the [p. 405] throne, which, as I hope to show, implies moral greatness now.
Having the subject thus briefly set out, we may dwell on the first, the patriarchal thought. It is not beyond any of us, for, as I remarked, it is really a question of love of the brethren. Although we may begin to love the brethren very young, as left here in the testimony we shall not remain young; we quickly pass the youthful stage and others come in who are younger. So that we, as actuated by love, begin to regard those who are younger as the objects of paternal care. As we grow older, this becomes accentuated as younger ones come along constantly. One generation passes away and another comes — that is a fixed fact, and as we merge into middle age, or old age, we begin to think of the passing away. Not indeed that saints all live to be very old; it is of course not so, but I am speaking of how love works, and nothing can be more interesting in the whole field of knowledge than love’s way. The first commandment with promise is to the young, “that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth”, (Ephesians 6:3). It is a promise to be valued, and will not be abused by love.
As the youthful stage passes, we begin, as governed by love, to look with fatherly care on those who are younger; and as we are allowed to continue here in the wisdom of God, there is scope for love to operate in this as in other ways. As I said, one of the most interesting features in the whole field of knowledge is the movement of divine love, and it will be observed that it eventuates in a fatherly development in believers. Perhaps the need for fathers is as great as any that is current. One could count a great many who have reached, under the wise government of God, the stage in life to which spiritual fatherhood properly belongs, and God would lay it upon us that it should be assumed. It is not exactly an office, it is a family relationship developed in love, but developed too, in certain moral connections [p. 406] as indicated in the name of the great father — Abraham. His first name was Abram, which, as no doubt most of you know, means “high father”. That was before he had a family, as if the idea of moral elevation as attached to separation from the world, is essential to fatherhood. That is to say, we begin to love the saints, not from natural proclivities or because of natural links or natural correspondence; we begin to regard them differently, that is in elevated moral relations. The idea of “high father” is in contrast to all that attaches to man in the flesh which is low and gravitates towards the earth and grovels there, and so we begin to look at the brethren from the standpoint of moral elevation, and thus love in this connection begins to show itself.
Now, all this is seen in the history of Abraham, and then to some extent in the history of Isaac, and finally in the history of Jacob; and what comes out in Jacob is that he had the experience of the loss of children. He temporarily lost two, and so had experience thus occasioned. Now that enters into love’s position at the present time. Many have been lost, and we qualify among other things, in the way we regard those who have been lost, for we cannot afford to lose any of our brethren, however unlovable they may seem to be. I believe that Jacob had in his thoughts the essentialness of the twelve, that they must not be lost. Divine counsels required the twelve, but “one is not”; that was the sorrowful note that had to be struck. And again, “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not”, Genesis 42:36. That is to say love is wrenched and tortured by the loss of children, children once possessed, but possessed no longer.
That comes out in the history of Jacob, and the Spirit of God records the patriarch’s delight in the recovery of the lost. “Israel said, it is enough: Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die”, Genesis 45:28. It was intelligent affection, because it was not only a question of the loss of one son, but one of twelve, one of a required [p. 407] number. Let us never forget that there is a required number with God, and the loss of one of a required number enters into the sorrow. One could point that out in many ways. How the Lord felt the loss of the twelfth! But His love never wavered; He gave Judas the sop just as he was about to go out. That is a point of great importance; the power to love what is unlovely, and even what is opposed. I am not for a moment saying that Judas represents a brother, or the work of God, but he represents one of twelve, and the Spirit of God stresses the eleven afterwards. So that the Lord would put it upon us to think of the lost ones; there are those who are lost to us, although the Lord knows those that are His, 2 Timothy 2:19. Every true believer, however obscure or feeble he may be, is known to the Lord, and each is included in the family. There are those who have not been lost to us; we have not had them, so to speak; but there are those we have had, who are lost — and Jacob represents fatherhood in regard of sons once possessed but lost. How one could dilate on that in regard of Luke 15! — but I only touch upon it in regard of Jacob.
And now he said to Joseph, “Who are these?” It is an old man speaking, a man of great experience — largely through his own failure, indeed, but in spite of this of God’s love, for God loved Jacob; as scripture says, “Jacob have I loved”. He met him at Luz as he was on his way to Haran, and He met him as he came back, and in a most familiar way, and ennobled him, giving him a great spiritual name; and He told him His own name also. He met him again as He was going out of Canaan to Egypt, and said He was the God of his father Isaac, assuring him, in type, that every thought of His was secured infallibly in a risen Christ. And now, “Who are these?” We may well look around and ask such a question. “And Joseph said unto his father. They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said. Bring them, I [p. 408] pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them”. Then “Joseph brought them out from between his knees”, showing that they were cared for, and brought them to his father, and his father kissed them and embraced them. What a word that is for us from the paternal side — “he kissed them, and embraced them”, and in doing so, he was perfectly intelligent as to the mind of God about them, although his eyes were dim. I believe God would speak to us as to these qualities, many of us, as I said being in the fatherly and motherly stage of life; but old age is not to rob us of the power of affection, for “love is strong as death”; it never fails. Old age does not rob the man of faith of divine love; and what wealth there is in brothers and sisters of the fatherly and motherly age retaining spiritual affection in full fervour for the younger, and withal knowing exactly the mind of God about them — able to tell, able to discern the children of God, where nature fails!
Nothing is more blinding in the things of God than nature. So that Jacob at the advanced age of a hundred and forty-seven years has maintained freshness of affection for the young, and discernment, where nature would blind him, as it blinded his father Isaac. Nature did not blind Jacob. He was able to say, “I know it, my son”. He knew which was the elder and which the younger, and he knew the mind of God about both. He blessed them both, the Spirit of God tells us in the New Testament, Hebrews 11:21; but he put his right hand upon Ephraim’s head and his left upon the head of Manasseh, against the wishes of the most powerful man outwardly in Egypt, next to the king. We must not think it was regarded as a trivial matter by Joseph; it was not. Jacob’s action was regarded as “evil” in his eyes, and what was evil in the eyes of a man like Joseph in Egypt was something to be stopped, and he sought to stop it. We have to learn in our old age to go against the current, and maintain the mind of God. As we grow older we are apt to give way to [p. 409] the more powerful features that are coming up, but not so with Jacob. The words of Joseph, who was lord of all Egypt, were: “Not so, my father”, taking hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head; but Jacob refused, saying, “I know, my son, I know ... truly his younger brother will be greater than he”. The hand of the patriarch is not to be turned aside by the demand of his son in the carrying out of the will of God, although that son was very great.
That is what I had in mind as most needed and important at the present time; that God would put it upon the brethren to develop the fatherly and motherly instincts, and to maintain the affections proper even in old age, so that the will of God goes through unimpaired. Then, to go a little further, you see in Jacob how he gathered his sons together to listen to Israel their father. It is not now a question of young people brought to one, so that he might express his love to them and the mind of God about them, but here is definite initiative on the part of the patriarch. “Hearken unto Israel your father”, he says, and I will “tell you that which shall befall you in the last days”(Genesis 49:1). What an advantage to have a father like that! And he hesitates not to tell them all the truth. Sons of his though they were, he tells them all the truth. It is necessary that we should have the whole truth told us; it is no love to withhold the truth from the brethren. And then we are told that he blessed them. Everyone of them was blessed — such is a father; he cannot think of the saints otherwise than that they should be blessed. It is the true fatherly instinct that the young should be blessed; and so he blessed each of them according to his blessing. Jacob as dying was in the mind of God.
Now I come on to the ministerial side. God is greatly helping us on this line, and there are many now, thank God, who are able to serve in the truth, but there are [p. 410] not enough. The need is great. The need of pastors and teachers especially is urgent; and the Lord would thrust out qualified ones into His field. I want to show how the ministerial feature is seen and developed, for God loves development in His people; He loves full fruition, whatever phase it may be; the apostle says, “that we may present every man perfect in Christ”, (Colossians 1:28). Moses represents the ministerial side; he is, indeed, called in the New Testament, “a ministering servant”, (Hebrews 3:5). He is said to have been faithful in all God’s house. What a word that is! What marks the minister, as I said at the beginning, is love of the truth. The Spirit of God is said to be the Spirit of truth. Christ is said to be the truth objectively; the Spirit in John’s epistle is said to be the truth, as I may say, subjectively. He maintains it here in the saints; He is also the Spirit of truth; and one is pressed to say a word as to this because the need for ministry is great, and, although there are a goodly number in the service, more are needed. But we need to have our eye on what God regards as a perfected servant, and that, I think, is set out in Moses.
What is to be observed is that his eyesight was good; we have often remarked on that: “His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated”, (Deuteronomy 34:7), and he was able to go up: that is to say, he was a man of energy in spite of his advanced years; he “went up ... to mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah” — as Deuteronomy puts it; he did it. The suggestion is that in the servant there is to be no giving in or lapsing into lethargy or quiet restfulness. I am not speaking of what is physical, but of spiritual energy. The Lord would put it upon those of fatherly and motherly age, as I was saying, to retain the strength of affection; and He would put upon the ministers — the same persons, as I may say — the necessity for energy in regard to the whole scope of God’s thoughts for His people, and in regard to the freshness that belongs to ministry.
[p. 411] If we take chapters 32 and 33 of Deuteronomy together, we see something cognate with what we find with Jacob, that is, a faithful setting out of the history of the people in chapter 32, and then a beautiful pronouncement of the blessing of each of the tribes. Moses is called a “man of God” in chapter 33. I do not suppose there is any title that is so to be desired in the service of God as that. It is applied sparingly in Scripture, only to Timothy in the New Testament. It is applied to Moses and to David, and I do not think there is any character a minister should aim at more keenly than that of a “man of God”. That is, in our service, to think for God, and at the same time for the people, to maintain the truth at all costs — “love of the truth”, as is said, 2 Thessalonians 2:10, and in ministering it, to minister it in freshness. As you will observe in the beginning of chapter 32, Moses says, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he”, Deuteronomy 32:1 - 4. It seems to me that this has a voice for all who minister. If I call the heavens and earth to hear, I cannot be given to repetition, I cannot be given to staleness: heaven knows if I am merely repeating, and earth knows, though the present audience may not know. Moses would remind us that ministry is to be always in freshness; and in its freshness it is to maintain the rights of God at all costs. The truth must be maintained. In no way can we serve the saints better in ministry, than to insist on the truth; that is chapter 32. Then, on the other hand, to set out in the clearest manner the mind of God about His people, for God’s heart is full of blessing for His people. He lavishes it upon them. Let the servant [p. 412] be in the hands of God, and there will be abundance and freshness of matter, and ability for the setting out of the great thoughts of divine love about the saints. Chapter 33 sets out God’s mind about the tribes; then chapter 34 sets out the great features of the land, the extent of the land seen by the eyes of this same minister, as shown him by Jehovah. Moses valued it, requesting earlier: “Let me go over, I pray thee, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon”, Deuteronomy 3:25.
Now I come on to David, and, as I said at the beginning, we shall see that the king is concerned about the house. That is to say, kingly qualities imply moral greatness, and that I regard any greatness that I may have, whether it be moral or official, just as a means to an end. I am not speaking of these three features as belonging to three different persons; they are three features of the same person, and the kind of person that is so needed, so essential to the present exigency. If I have moral power, affording me it may be some little official position — although officialism is really out of place today — what is the intent of it? It is a means to an end; it is a means to the house — that is David. His great thought was the house; he loved the place of God’s habitation, the place where God’s honour dwelt. How is that to be reached? How is the house to be brought about? By kingly power and resources. This is strikingly seen in David, as typifying Christ, and it is to be reflected in us all. Any little bit of moral greatness that one may have is just a means to an end, and there is no greater evidence of true greatness in a person than that. The greatness is not an end. Great as the kingdom and our service in it are, they are not the end; they are a means to an end, and that end is for God — that He should have a dwelling-place. That is God’s idea for us; and as honestly received by each, it wipes out at one stroke all ambition and pride amongst the people of God in His service.
[p. 413] So that what you find with David is that at the beginning he is marked by personal greatness, for the thought of a king is that he is a man that is able, the official comes afterwards. The introduction of David in Scripture is most beautiful. The first description we have of him in 1 Samuel 16 is intended to attract the heart; that is the first thought. A brother, if he is to be morally great amongst the saints, is first to be lovable. I am not to climb into prominence by my ability; the first thing is personal lovability. That is the idea, that one is loved; a man like David is bound to be loved. Samuel said to Jesse, “Are here all thy children?” There is yet one, he says, “and, behold, he keepeth the sheep”. And Samuel said, “Send and fetch him; for we will not sit down till he comes hither”, 1 Samuel 16:11; and as he arrived, Jehovah said, “Arise, anoint him: for this is he”(1 Samuel 16:12). But that is not all. “Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance”; he was of a lovely appearance. The idea is that he was attractive. The attention of everybody there could not but be riveted on that young man. I suppose Jesse never saw such beauty in David before, as he saw when Jehovah called attention to him; and there he was in the midst of his brethren. I suppose they, too, never saw such beauty in that young man before!
Well, that is the thought. God will call attention to a man as to his personal character first — what he is. Then the next description we have of David is by a young man in Saul’s service. “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse”,(1 Samuel 16:18) and he plays well. Some of us have been engaged with that today. It was inherent in the man, as I may say. Although a shepherd by occupation, he knew music, he knew how to play well. He was a valiant man, too, and a man of war, and of good presence, and Jehovah was with him. That is the second introduction to David. Need I say that all the qualities of kingship were there? But the kingly qualities are not the first presented; the lovableness is the first thing [p. 414] presented in David. So that one becomes an object of affection to the brethren, and then one’s ability comes into use. David served even a Saul! It would be most difficult to serve persons like Saul, one affected by an evil spirit, but David served him acceptably, such was his moral greatness.
Proceeding now to the closing moments of his life, we shall see that in these he is equal to all this. It is the full development; his heart is still full of the house of God. His heart was on the house from the time when he said, “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood”, (Psalm 132:4 - 6), and he brought the ark to Zion. That was the great burden of his life; his kingship was subservient to that, to make a place for God. What a great thought, to have any part, however small, in making a place for the habitation of the mighty God of Jacob! So, from the time he saw the sheathing of the sword at the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, until this chapter 29, he is full of the house. It was the great end and result of his kingly power and resources.
But what I want to show further is what is most important for ministers. As we get older there is a tendency to assume priority, and to set up a little throne and refuse anyone a place near it. Now that is the very disposition that David did not have, because he made Solomon king along with himself. He did not say to Solomon, You wait, do not come into power till I am gone. True greatness in the elders will make ample room for the younger; the more ability the better. So that David made Solomon king, chapter 23; and we read here, chapter 29, that he was made king “the second time”. I ask the brethren to examine these chapters, and see how much is made of Solomon being made king. You say, why do you speak of that? Just because of the importance of the elder making [p. 415] room for the younger, that is, for those in whom moral greatness appears. They will only enhance us; they will not interfere with our ministry. The more royalty the better; and Solomon had true royalty. It is said that Jehovah loved him; he was loved from his youth; like David, he was lovable; Jehovah loved him. He was loved of his father and mother, too. So, throughout this section, from chapter 22 onward, the Spirit of God dwells upon the fact that Solomon the son of David is king; and David is perfectly restful in the kingly position of his son alongside of him.
So these three features, dear brethren, as I said before, are intended to attach to each, and God would press them upon us so that the testimony should go on. There is no idea at all of any interference with the carrying out of the will of God. As one generation passes away, the coming generation is to carry on the service, and it is the intention that they should have every possible advantage, and, on the other hand, it is imperative they should be in suitability and seemliness in their service. Solomon was made king by David, and he sat on the throne with David, so that we have the father and the son exercising royal power together, and all with a view to “the palace”. Beloved, let us have in our hearts the thought of the palace, 1 Chronicles 29:19. If there is to be a palace for God we need all the help that God has provided to this end. The building was to be “exceeding, magnifical”, and David had that in mind. He says: “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine: is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all”. How powerful and beautiful is that language! And how fitting it is for us, in any little place or work He has given us, that it should be always fully owned that it is He who is providing and doing all! May God bless these thoughts to us!