MATERNAL TRAVAIL
Genesis 3:14-16 (to “desire”), 20,21; 1 Chronicles 4:9,10;
Galatians 4:19,20 (to “now”), 25,26
One was pondering a little today the thought of the mother, and travail being associated with the mother. It says of our Lord that “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”, Isa.53:11. It is very affecting to think of the soul of our Lord Jesus being in travail. His soul came into irons, and it says that His soul became “very sorrowful even unto death”, Matt.26:38. Indeed, His soul was made “an offering for sin”, Isa.53:10. How very sobering and humbling to consider that precious soul of Jesus being in travail.
But these scriptures refer to the maternal – that is the subjective – side. It is of interest that the first reference to travail is in relation to Eve, who was initially called “Woman” (Gen.2:23); that is, as we know, a type of the assembly in sinless perfection. There was no travail connected with the building of “Woman”; she was ‘Ishshah’, that is, the woman. But then came the intrusion of sin, and what intensity of history is involved in that short period, maybe just a matter of days, if indeed it was that, between the building of the woman and the incoming of sin. Then she is called Eve, “the mother of all living”; a very remarkable thing. Adam was not deceived, as the scripture says, but Eve “having been deceived, was in transgression”, 1 Tim.2:14. Eve was in transgression and bore the consequences, the effect of which was that travail was introduced. Of course, for the serpent, the consequences were dire; “On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”. The woman’s seed pre-eminently refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The serpent would crush the heel of the Lord Jesus but He would, in glorious triumph, crush the serpent’s head. How unfathomable are the sufferings and death of Jesus. The crushing of His heel by the serpent could not retard or prevent the totality of His victory over death. He has annulled both death and “him, who has the might of death, that is the devil”, Heb.2.14.
So Eve is called “the mother of all living”. She is that because of the death of Jesus and thus we are brought into the line of faith and life on account of His work. Abel was on the faith line, but faith also entered into Adam’s soul, a very remarkable thing that God should so operate. One often contemplates the terrible consequences if God had simply abandoned Adam and Eve on account of the transgression of Eve, and Adam’s sin as well, because “by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death”, Rom.5:12. Man was God’s ideal, but God, in one sense, had reason to abandon him as having fallen short of His standard. He desired to commune with man in the garden, but then He had to ask, “Where art thou?”, Gen.3:9. How awful the catastrophe had man and woman been cast out of Eden, with conscience operating but no remedy; manipulated by Satan and nothing to assuage their inner needs, the darkness of their souls, and no recourse to God. But what was the remedy? God clothed them in coats of skin. God abandoned His Son in these three awful hours at Calvary and Jesus died in order that the great faith line should be introduced and that you and I should be brought into the realm of blessing. When Adam called Eve “the mother of all living”, it was as if to say that men and women were to be the objects of divine grace and divine mercy with access to God through the work of Jesus. Thus, in the faith of his soul, Adam was able to call Eve “the mother of all living”, so that we now have the generations of life. There is the generation of the devil, of course, as alluded to in verse 15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”. There is such a thing as the seed of the devil. Scripture refers to “the children of the devil” (1 John 3:10), that is, the seed of the devil.
But then as among the family of the living, we are of a new generation; “to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name”, John 1:12. Adam saw in faith that a living generation would come out of Eve, a generation of living persons for God, begotten of sovereign mercy. She begot Abel, and the faith line continued; but there was Cain, too, the firstborn, and Cain, I suppose, sad to say, becomes one of the children of the devil. But Abel is on the faith line, one of the seed of the woman, a subject of the retrospective nature of the work of Christ, reaching right back to Abel’s generation.
These things are very blessed, and, as on the life line, we come to Chronicles and the matter of travail continues here. Jabez must have been a very remarkable person. He was called Jabez by his mother, that is “Because I bore him with pain”. What feelings must have entered into that woman’s soul as she gave birth to Jabez, as she bore the pain of the travail. As we apply it to the history of the testimony, and indeed to our localities, we might think of what has gone into the production and building up of a generation that is for the heart of Christ, and for His interests, and the upholding all that is precious to His name. I suppose Jabez must have enquired of his mother, ‘Why did you give me a name such as this?’ Not an ordinary name, a name meaning “causing pain”, not the kind of name a mother would usually give to a child. Is it not to bring home to us the great cost at which the truth has come down to us and how it caused pain to so many? Think of the fathers that have gone before. Think of the martyrs right down through the dispensation, and the pain they suffered. Many gave up their lives in defence of the truth. It is right that we should enquire about and have a knowledge of the history of the testimony and the travail entailed. We think of the fathers and indeed the mothers in this city and the pain it caused them when standing for what was right – is that to be surrendered or given up in any iota? Let us ponder the pain to a sister perhaps, or to a brother, as in fidelity they stood for what was right and what was true to the Lord’s name.
The influence of his mother clearly spread to Jabez himself, so he called on the God of Israel, as she no doubt had done before him. There is no mention of his father; but the maternal line, that nurturing, building up line was flowing down into the very spiritual and moral constitution of Jabez. He says, “Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me”. He called on the God of Israel. What whole thoughts he had; the God of Israel, nothing partial. We were speaking last week in the reading about all Israel being involved in the judgment of Achan (Josh.7:25,26). It has been said that any element of unfaithfulness that comes among the people of God has to be judged by all His people1. So one locality or another cannot exempt themselves from that process. Jabez called upon the God of Israel. He had a comprehensive outlook that embraced all the parameters of the truth and all that God had in mind for His people; and what a plea this is, “Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me, and enlarge my border”. He had borders, and no doubt he was fruitful and productive in them, but the desire of his soul was that there would be something more for Christ and something more for God. Jabez sought this enlargement, “enlarge my border, and that thy hand might be with me”. How wonderful that the hand of God can be with us, with you and me: no doubt in our day a reference to the Holy Spirit and the leading of Christ. He is the source of all.
Then Jabez says, “that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!”. We find that in our own histories, that evil grieves us. You look back at your own history and what you have done, and how it grieves you. But his prayer was, “that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!”; a wholesome outlook for each one of us. But then there is a wonderful outcome to his prayer. God brought about what he had requested. It is very fine to think of that. Think of the ever attentive ear of Christ. What struck me in the prayer meeting last night was the Father’s diligent attention to the prayers of His own and the Lord Jesus, at the golden altar giving efficacy to the prayers of all saints (Rev.8:3). God brought about what Jabez had requested. God is attentive to every detail of what we seek rightly at His hand. So let us ever be reminded of what has been borne “with pain”. May the sanctity, the glory and majesty of what has been bequeathed to us in the testimony freshly affect our souls and bring out further commitment on the part of us all to what the Lord desires, and what the Spirit desires, in this present day.
It just occurs to me as I speak, that Deborah arose a mother in Israel (Judg.5:7). That is a very affecting passage. It says, “In the days of Shamgar … The roads were unused, and the travellers on highways went by crooked paths”, Judg.5:6. How sorrowful to contemplate the neglect of the highways, the neglect of great divine principles. The roads were unused, persons went by crooked paths. The psalm says, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, – they, in whose heart are the highways” (Ps.84:5), the highways of divine pleasure, the highways of divine principles, which have come down to us at great pain and through conflict. May these highways be in each of our hearts and in our affections. It is easy for impediments to be placed on the highway, a little stone maybe, but what damage it can create, diverting those who are on the highway, causing them to swerve and to go on to crooked paths that lead to disaster. Isaiah says, “And a highway shall be there and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness”, Isa.35:8. Proverbs speaks about “The highway of the upright is to depart from evil”, Prov.16:17. We need to be thus preserved in our day, in which we are called to depart from evil so that we walk on the highway which leads to God. May we be found increasingly in it.
In Galatians, we have a very affecting picture. Here the apostle Paul speaks in this maternal way, saying, “my children”. What affection he had for these Galatians; “of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you”. ‘Again’; perhaps the first time he had travailed in birth would have been in relation to their conversion, and how it would have given him pleasure as he found them turning to the things of Christ, and of God. But the devil got in, and Paul says, “who has bewitched you …?”, Gal.3:1. ‘What has got into your hearts and minds and souls to lead you astray?’. Of course, the great error in Galatia was in relation to legality, a pernicious thing, but notwithstanding, Paul again travails in birth that Christ might be formed in them, that there might be a reproduction of Christ in true formation in these Galatian saints. Paul travails in birth, not just travailing but travailing in birth, that is, that something should emerge in life and in vitality for the heart of Christ and for the heart of God. Therefore it is the divine intent that in all our local assemblies, and indeed in each one of us, there should be the development of a moral fibre, a moral formation, a constitution which is pleasurable to God.
Paul then goes on to say, “For Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which is now, for she is in bondage with her children; but the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother”. Jerusalem above is the assembly and all that pertains to it. The assembly, as we know, is a heavenly vessel. Mr Darby’s description is very precious: ‘a lowly heavenly body … has no portion on earth at all, as it was at the beginning – suffering as its Head did, unknown and yet well known – an unearthly witness of heavenly things on earth’ 2. That is Jerusalem above, which is our mother. May we draw from that great maternal source, Jerusalem. The psalm says, “All my springs are in thee”, Ps.87:7. “As well the singers as the dancers shall say, All my springs are in thee”; that is, in the assembly, the heavenly Jerusalem. Not in Christ exactly, although of course we derive everything from Him, but “All my springs are in thee”, that is, in Jerusalem, the assembly. May our hearts be developed in these things, for His name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
23 May 2017
J.T. Brown
2 Footnote to ‘The Call’ by J.N. Darby in the Third Edition of ‘Spiritual Songs’
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