“THY BROTHER”
P. W. Hickmott
I was struck by this section when reading it recently and believe it has a bearing on what has engaged us already because this contemplates a person who is established in the land of Canaan. The instruction in Deuteronomy, as we know, was to the children of Israel just before they went over into the land, and it is instruction for them once they were settled there.
That is what we have thought of, the question of whether we can really get in and experience what our heavenly portion is, what the inheritance is in Canaan typically. Are we persons that appreciate the passover and the deliverance of the Red Sea, and the many experiences in the wilderness, all in view of finally crossing the Jordan and settling, each for ourselves, yet with the saints, in the land of Canaan? All that is typical in its teaching, as we know, and has a bearing on us as to whether or not we actually are experiencing—not only know about but experience—our heavenly portion, and are dwelling there. It is our place. Every believer has an inheritance in the land. In the final day, the eternal day that our brother has referred to, every person, every saint, will have his own portion; no one can fill out another’s, but the possibility, in the earnest of the Spirit, as Ephesians would teach us, is that that portion can be understood and entered into by us even now.
But then this section we have read is an additional instruction, and I believe it has a special bearing on us in these broken days. If, in any little sense, we have been brought back to value our heavenly inheritance, we are not to forget our brother whose ox or sheep has gone astray.
Oh, how many there are, persons whose ox or sheep typically have gone astray. I noticed as I read it that it says several times that you are not to hide yourself from them. So I wondered if it is not intended by the Lord to enlarge our feelings and thoughts for our dear brethren.
The first verse, it seems, refers to someone that you know. How many brethren do we know, with whom we may have spent much of our lives, whose ox or sheep, what they would have for God’s portion, the sacrifice of praise, has gone astray? Here the dweller in the land is enjoined not to hide himself but it says, “thou shalt in any case bring them back to thy brother”. Well, that would be an exercise how to do that, how to bring them back. So we would be thinking all the time in view of recovery and a brother having what is rightly his and using it towards God.
Then it suggests, “And if thy brother be not near to thee, and thou know him not”. The fact is that the vast majority of those that are Christ’s are unknown to us, even in the places where we live. It says as to the ox or the sheep that has gone astray that if you find it “then thou shalt bring it unto thy house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it unto him”. You cannot help but be impressed with the tremendous privileges that we enjoy, the light of the truth that shines for us, that we have been brought back to ourselves. It
says here that “it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it”. Think of a brother seeking after it! Would it not be wonderful if it became evident that what we were holding in our understanding and enjoyment of the thoughts and purpose of God, we were holding in relation to our brother? This contemplates even the brother we do not know seeking after it, and it says, “thou shalt restore it unto him”. And then it says, “And so shalt thou do with his ass”. Perhaps that would be his means of getting about the land and enjoying it. How many brethren there are that are not enjoying the scope of the land. It is as if they have lost the means of travelling around in the land and finding out all that there is to enjoy in the company of Christ’s own.
Then it says, “and so shalt thou do with his clothing”. What would that mean? You just wonder at it. Think of finding someone’s clothing and you are holding that for him. How many brethren there are that are not rightly clothed, whose associations and links are wrong.
They are not exactly naked but they are not really clothed with their own clothing. Think of the clothing, the heavenly clothing, that the faithful believer would be clothed with! Here is someone that has lost his; he is going round without his true clothing on. Well, can we hold it for him?—“and so shalt thou do with his clothing; and so shalt thou do with everything that is lost of thy brother, which he loseth, and thou findest—thou mayest not hide thyself”. I only just suggest this, beloved brethren, first that we feel concerned to reach more and more for ourselves into the experience of our heavenly blessings, but then to have regard for the situation as it is generally under Christ’s eye with regard to our brethren around us, the great number who have lost what belongs to them. May we be just a little more concerned, in any measure in
which it may be open to us, to hold these things in relation to all the saints. “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case help him to lift them up”. I believe it would be very serious for any of us, in these days in which we enjoy great privileges and advantages, to insulate ourselves and hide ourselves from beloved brethren around us. The Lord would have us to be here in faithfulness to Him and to the truth and to hold things for them in the measure in which we can, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Christchurch, N.Z.
4 October 1983
(Another word given on this occasion will be published later, if the Lord will).