RULE
[p. 338] RULE
The last words of David, dear brethren, cannot fail to be of interest to all of us, and what is in mind in reading this part of the chapter is kingship, not that I wish to speak of kingship as such, but because it applies peculiarly to David. What we shall come to is rule, which indeed David speaks of here, “The ruler among men”, 2 Samuel 23:3. What was in mind was mutual feeling between the ruler and the ruled, and, as applying to our David, the Lord Jesus, He said that He was among them as One who served (Luke 22:27). What is in mind now is the thought of rule, not among the nations, but among the brethren. The only way we can get rule now according to God is among the brethren. So it is thought that these words of David may help us to apply rule among the brethren.
You might say no one is more suitable, either morally or actually, to deal with this matter of rule than David; although there is a higher than he, of course. David is a type of the Lord Jesus, yet not simply a type, there is a substance in David which is often to be observed in the Old Testament saints, prophets or poets. So as I said, David is entitled to a voice; in fact, what he says implies this — “the last words of David: David the son of Jesse saith”, 2 Samuel 23:1. You will all recall, too, how there were his last prayers, and they become quite interesting; they relate to Solomon, they relate to Christ, of course. If we selected the last words of the speakers in the Old Testament, we would have a book of great value, if it could be put together and used. But when we come to divine writing or speaking, they imply infinitude; we cannot apply that to David, but we can to Christ; if all His works were “written one by one” — very remarkable — “not [p. 339] even the world itself would contain, the books written”, (John 21:25). So we do well to have infinitude before us in these matters.
What is in mind now is to bring down the last words of David to our own times, as to what is suitable in persons who rule; those who rule among men. It may be rendered over men, but it is very likely it is among men, and it is a very beautiful touch I would say, especially as applied to the Lord Jesus as to how He was among the brethren. “But I am in the midst of you as the one that serves” (Luke 22:27), He says. That is a matter of which everyone who is serving in a prominent way should take notice; that is to say, to be among the brethren, not above them. Although David does allude here to what is above, he was raised up on high, God has the right to raise up His servant, and not only to raise him up, but to raise him up on high; therefore, it is a most distinguished place. We get others like it, but David is unique. The brethren will all agree that David is always attractive, especially in the book of Revelation where there is so much to distress in the awful judgments of God unfolded. The refinement of David is seen there, Christ being the root of David; so that he is more than an ordinary writer in Scripture, he is a prophet, he is a priest, and he is king. We could apply all these titles to David, but I prefer to apply them to the real David, the Lord Jesus, because He is the Ruler now. So in writing to the assemblies, the Lord presents Himself as the Son of God, whose eyes are like a flame of fire. He is the Son of God, He is the Ruler in the house, He is over the house of God.
That brings me to what I have in mind, namely, the four gospels. I want to break up these few verses in 2 Samuel 23 among the four gospels, because it is a question of our knowing how to rule among men; that is, to rule among one another, “each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”, (Philippians 2:3).
[p. 340] We have to learn to be among the brethren and to esteem them; yet not to esteem them at random. One has often said, and I believe it is right, that one has a judgment about everybody that he knows, and everything, too, and the more we practise assessing persons and things, the safer we shall be. I am not to be critical, but truly judging, “do ye judge what I say”, Paul said (1 Corinthians 10:15). So, as I said, I am going to break up these four verses in 2 Samuel 23 in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and put the dear brethren into these gospels, to see how we can be in them, and derive from them, and know how to rule among the brethren.
Matthew is the assembly gospel, but what is in mind now is that the idea of many belongs to Matthew. We must not leave out the idea of many in dealing judicially with the things of God, we must not divide the brethren up too much. I am doubtful about committees among the brethren, setting a few to look after this, that and the other thing. It is a question of the brethren, and how to be amongst them. We must think of the many, whether there be few or many; God has many, He has many sons. Those who belong to God are innumerable; He is not afraid of big meetings, far otherwise, if they are controlled, if they are ruled, and they must be ruled. If we apply Matthew, it will furnish us with two or three; that is, if it is necessary; but do not forget, if there are two or three, there must be two or three called in, and if there are two, it is “two of you”. That is Matthew; they are not ordinary, but “two of you”, and then ten of you, twenty of you, one hundred of you. I can run up to numbers in these parts of the world, thank God. Someone told me years ago, that he was amongst the thousands of Israel down here, and I rejoice in that, but then remember that we must be countable, “Let his men be few”, (Deuteronomy 33:6). That is said of Reuben, that is to say, he was [p. 341] countable; persons who can be seen and known and used if necessary, within range. You might say, that is reduction. Yes, but it means to be countable, not to be beyond range, but within reasonable compass for reasonable purposes, and God is reasonable. I speak reverently, God is extremely reasonable. Matthew would say, If anything is to be done well, let the persons involved be countable, let them be as few as can do the thing, so as to be under control. So as I have said, we have “two of you”, and “two or three” of you, and then we have the extraordinary numbers given in Matthew 1, the forty-two generations; not that they all lived at once, they did not, but still they are there; they are known, forty-two generations; God knows them. One often says, quoting Paul, “whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows”, (2 Corinthians 12:2). He knows everything, and if it be a question of numbers, He knows, and when He begins to number in Christianity, the thought is soon stopped. It runs up to five thousand in Acts 4:4; but that is not many for God; still it is a good many. The blessed Spirit of God is here to bring about numbers, conversions, and the number will be enormous; we thank God for that, too. There are no small numbers. Alas, that idea refers to the lake of fire; it is a limited thought as compared with God’s thoughts; it is very limited; it is a terrible thought, but it is a lake. So God stops numbering at five thousand. As far as I know, Paul never numbers like that. I am afraid of numbering as soon as we go above that; even at that I am afraid of it because it is almost unusable for ordinary purposes.
I am beginning with Matthew, just in the order in which Scripture has the four gospels, because of the question of numbers and how they are to be utilised, how they are to be kept within bounds. I have alluded to the forty-two generations, and who [p. 342] can tell how many were in those forty-two generations, and yet they are carefully thinned out; several are left out altogether because of their links with Jezebel. God has His generations, and they are not ordinary generations; they are God’s generations. “The generations of Jesus Christ”; that is Matthew, so that we have quality at once. But then the numbers are to be utilised, and so there are to be plenty, but do not forget that they must be countable. That is why I touched on Matthew first, so that the dear brethren will know how to arrange their committees, if we use the word, although I do not like it at all, it is a political word. Matthew says, “two of you”, “two or three” of you, meaning that we are of great value in heaven, because that is the idea in Matthew; not that Matthew is taken up much with heaven, although he does speak about heaven, but he never says that Jesus ascended up into heaven, and that means much. It means that He is here all the time, and so whenever matters have to be gone into, and large numbers have to be sought out to adjust them, do not forget that the Lord is near; that is the greatest comfort one knows. Even if you have the large numbers, you may forget that the Lord is near in these matters. So that when the crisis comes, we are not concerned about the many that are engaged in the matter, we are concerned about, and know and enjoy, the fact that the Lord is near. If He has not ascended up into heaven, He is down here, and that is what Matthew would say to us, that the Lord is near, so that we can count upon Him in a crisis.
Now I pass on to Mark. If Matthew furnishes the numbers, then Mark furnishes the ability, and when you come to ability, the necessity for numbers more or less fades, and so the word ‘gift’ belongs to Mark. The Lord, as you know, went up to a mountain and called whom He Himself would, and He named [p. 343] twelve (Mark 3:13,14); that is to say, it is a question of gift. We have already had this today, that they persevered in the teaching of the apostles. These are the ones that have been up in the mountain with the Lord; He made His own selection, and the point was that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach; not anybody, but those who had been accustomed to be with Him. So when you come to Mark, you have ability; you come, therefore, to these different features; Matthew would furnish you with plenty, and as I said before, Matthew alone tells us that they were all to drink of the cup, “drink ye all of it”, Matthew 26:27 showing that we are brought into it in a happy sense. Drinking is for satisfaction, so that in Matthew one is brought into happy conditions. Mark speaks of the disciples as being with the Lord; these are the gifted men, the apostles, and you do not need as many as you would in Matthew, because the ability makes up for the loss of numbers. Therefore, we have to consider ability. Paul is a representative of ability.
I think you will all see the importance of being able to do things, and ability to preach is of prime importance, because the Lord was to send them forth to preach, and, therefore, it is said, “how shall they preach unless they have been sent?” (Romans 10:15). We must not say they must be invited, the point is to be sent. The Lord has them up on the mountain with Himself so as to impress them with what He is up there, exaltation is there. It is a question of being sent, as we get in Isaiah, “Here am I; send me” (Isaiah 6:8). So the Lord sends His ministers out because they are gifted. He sends them out as gifted. “Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men ... he has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers”, (Ephesians 4:8 - 11). He gave [p. 344] all these kinds of gifts, but all for one purpose, namely for the edifying of the body of Christ. It is a question, dear brethren, of ability to edify the body of Christ, and there is an end in view, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). So that we are happy in this service; we have been up there with the Lord, and we are gifted. The Lord has taken care of us that we might be able to do things, to preach and to teach, and so we are happy in the service, and, dear brethren, that is the secret of rule going on happily and prosperously, so that there is no division amongst us; there is to be no dissatisfaction. The Lord arranges through these gifts that there is no dissatisfaction, and therefore, if preaching has to be done, or if teaching has to be done, well, there is satisfaction in the brethren who are preaching or teaching. They are happy in their service, profitable in their service.
Then if we apply the thought to the gospel of Luke, he is a most attractive evangelist, he is not an apostle, but he is the beloved physician. When we come to Luke, it is a question of prayer, and who does not know the need of prayer? You know that it is said of the Lord that He spent the whole night in prayer, showing to us how important prayer is. We have already had it today as to Philippi, the place where prayer was wont to be made; that is, the Monday nights. One always has comfort in the Monday nights. Monday is a day of happenings, maybe difficult things happen after the Lord’s day, the first day of the week, but then there is the prayer meeting. The disciple who said to the Lord, “teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1), not teach me to pray, did not want to know more about prayer than the others, he wanted all the brethren to know how to pray. Above all, prayer is needed in the care [p. 345] meetings, that is to say, where rule is carried, on, and we can be sure that things will go through according to God if we have recourse to prayer. Luke is one who specially speaks of prayer, and the instance I have cited is a most important one, when the disciple said to the Lord, “Teach us to pray (Luke 11:1)”. The acme of the prayer is that the Father will give the Spirit to those who ask Him. It is a matter of prayer. It is said of the Lord in Luke that they “wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth” Luke 4:22. It is one of the finest tributes we can get of grace, and, therefore, I connect grace with Luke as well as prayer. Then I connect love with Luke, too, though I connect it fully with John, but grace is the fruit of love, as I might say, in a practical sense. Love is of God. “God is love (1 John 4:8)”. Scripture does not say that God is grace, or God is mercy, but “God is love”. So if we have God, as dealing with these matters in the care meetings, in the rule of the things of God, then the great point is love. “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves”, (John 13:35). It is a question of what is among us; as I said, Luke is grace, but Luke is a priest, too.
You can see what I am seeking to open up to you now, that is to say, the rule that is going on amongst us, especially in these parts of the world; much time is devoted to rule, rule among the brethren. What I wish to do is to lead the brethren into these thoughts which I am endeavouring to set out, so as to reduce, if possible, the amount of labour, the amount of work in the sense of ruling, and ruling according to laws that are given. We may miss the point in ruling through certain laws that are laid down; a ruler should know what the mind of God is, and, therefore, laws are not to be admitted which will mislead the brethren. Constantly you hear, What is this, that and the other thing? Does [p. 346] it apply? I am not saying that we should not ask questions or write to brethren who may know better than we, but I do say that before we write far away, we should ask the nearest neighbour we have about anything; take counsel among yourselves. Indeed Nehemiah 5:7 says, “I consulted with myself”; a very important thing, because it precludes the idea of partisan feeling, and linking ourselves up with partisan brothers and sisters. Take counsel with yourself, says Nehemiah. I would apply that to Mark, of course, and to Luke and to Matthew too.
Now I am coming to love, and love never fails. I am now speaking of something that never fails in the rule among men. “The ruler among men shall be just, ruling in the fear of God”, 2 Samuel 23:3. Then we are told what he is like, “A morning without clouds”. What a man David was, and yet he has to say, that his house was not so before God. There was sorrow with his house, and who is there here who has not to own that in some sense, and it is well to own it. He says, “Although my house be not so before God (2 Samuel 23:5)”. But still David was raised up on high, he was seen afar off, his name became known universally. It was not simply that he was a warrior, he was, perhaps in a sense the greatest, but he was a priest as well, he wore a linen ephod; he was a prophet, he was a priest, he was a king, he had these titles. He was not only a figure of Christ, but he is something of the substance of Christ, because Christ is the root of David. There is something of the substance there, which it is well to keep in mind; he is not simply a figure, but there is substance. This is applicable to many others too, like Elijah. Elijah is one of the most interesting of all the prophets, because he went up into heaven, without dying. Where is he now? What is he doing? These are pertinent questions.
Matthew says, “many bodies of the saints fallen [p. 347] asleep arose, and going out of the tombs after his arising, entered into the holy city and appeared unto many” Matthew 27:52,53. Where are they now? We are left in the position of not knowing, and we might as well accept that, and say that God knows, and rest in the fact that God knows, that there is nothing unknown; God knows everything. In the day when we shall see these men, we shall see Elijah, we shall see Enoch. You say, That is attractive, and so it is. Presently a host of us will go to heaven without dying, a very precious thought, and what I would urge at this point, dear brethren, is that we should love the appearing of the Lord Jesus, not simply His coming for us, but His coming with us; His coming “to be glorified in his saints, and wondered at in all that have believed”, (2 Thessalonians 1:10). That is what is going to be our portion. These things are, therefore, left with God, and it is well to do that, and to say, I do not know, but God knows; thus I am comforted. The thing is not unknown, God knows it, and no doubt in due time He will disclose it. I am coming back again to the thought of love in the fourth gospel, the well-known term for the gospel of John. It is a unique gospel, it is the one I have quoted already, in which we are told that if the works of Christ were “written one by one, ... not even the world itself would contain the books written” John 21:25. So that we are impressed with the magnitude of the works of Christ, the infinitude of the works of Christ. We are to think of the infinitude of the works of Christ, how wonderful they were! How wonderful they are! So as to the care meeting, if there is love, everything will be solved. 1 Corinthians 13 is a great love chapter, but it is a picture on the wall. It is not like Acts 20, which is not a picture on the wall simply, it is a chapter of love itself, love substantially. So love is a great thing.
Collectivity is the thought in Matthew; and then [p. 348] I touched on Mark as to the question, of ability, the ability which Christ gives, not natural ability, but the ability which Christ gives as we are with Him on the mount. Then I touched on Luke, the grace of the Lord Jesus in Luke, but prayer too. The Lord Jesus prayed the whole night before He appointed the apostles, showing how careful we must be as to appointing committees, showing how needful it is to be careful about committing ourselves, “Lay hands quickly on no man”, (1 Timothy 5:22). If we have to lay hands on people, do it with care. But then as I said, John is love. In reading John, with a view to what I am saying now, I was struck with the place the Spirit is given in chapter 3; that is to say, how people are born again, born again by the Spirit, showing the family of God. The race that God has in mind is born again, and then the facts are given. “Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, John 3:5, showing the quality that is in John before we come to love. Then we come to verse 16, “God so loved the world John 3:16”. We often speak of it, and I would speak of it now, not simply as a gospel text, but as a text for ruling among men, which must be just, which must be in the fear of God, which must be a matter of love. “Love is of God”, the Scripture says, “and every one that loves has been begotten of God, and knows God”, (1 John 4:7). These are the greatest things you can hear one say. We are in the realm of love, that would be heaven. I would say that heaven is the realm of love. It is a question of love, not indiscriminate but intelligent love, and hence John is full of “Come and see”. Do not be content with what you hear; “Come and see” for yourself. Work things out by what you see. Of course, we have to take witnesses and we have to get information; nevertheless, we have in John 1 twice, “Come and see”. It says of the two that followed Jesus that “they went therefore, and saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day” (John 1:39). They never saw such an abode, I would venture to say; think of the abode that Jesus was in! “They abode with him that day (John 1:39)”. What can one say about what they saw! It is John’s way of presenting things; come and see for yourself, and work things out from what you see, and, of course, what you eventually see is Christ, because He is put forward in the universe to be seen; “every eye shall see him”, (Revelation 1:7). There is a wonderful time coming for humanity in what they shall see of Christ. To the man in John 9 the Lord says, “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” John 9:35. What a question that is! I would ask every one here, Do you believe on the Son of God? I might say in the Son of God too, but now I am saying, Do you believe on the Son of God? This man said, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” (John 9:36), and the Lord says, “Thou hast both seen him, and he that speaks with thee is he” (John 9:37). Then he said, “I believe, Lord: and he did him homage” (John 9:38); he is another of the worshippers in John.
“God is a spirit”, we are told, “and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”, John 4:24. It does not say that God has a Spirit, but God is a Spirit, and that is beyond us; no one has seen Him at any time, nor can see Him at any time, “King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God”, (1 Timothy 1:17). The man spoken of in John 9 saw the Lord and he worshipped Him; he said, “I believe, Lord: and he did him homage (John 9:38)”. John gathers people who are worshippers. There are many more, of course, they are innumerable, but there are certain selected in John as worshippers. It is for us to enter into and understand, that God is a Spirit, and that “they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”; (John 4:24) it is a question of the truth.