PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
[p. 324] PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
1 Kings 14: 1 - 6; 2 Kings 4: 18 - 21; 2 Samuel 12: 15 - 23; Luke 8: 49 - 56
The word tonight will bear on parents and their children. I have selected Jeroboam and his wife to remark on them first as representing an apostate condition. We are living in apostate times, not yet the fulness of apostasy, but it is in progress and increasing in rapidity. Being in apostasy, or a falling away, as the apostle says, contemplates what was at one time of God, and nothing is more of God than christianity viewed in its inception, and viewed too, in its abstract connection to the end of its history on earth. There is still in it something of God, although relatively small, but still our presence here tonight testifies that there is yet something of God. There are those who revere Him and respect His word; the generality of the profession is, at least in principle, apostate; some so-called christian nations, altogether so. Three hundred million Mohammedans also have to be regarded under this heading; modernism is of this character, and rapidly spreading; besides there is that system of great antiquity that claims everything of christianity and of God, and yet itself is marked by the workings of the mystery of iniquity. It is a mystery; it is not open. It is not flagrant, like Mohammedanism and other things such as modernism and communism, but still the working is there. All this is represented in the house of Jeroboam. It has its beginning as prophesied by Ahijah, the prophet who had to do with Jeroboam. It is remarkable how everything that is of God is connected with prophecy. We read of Israel coming out of Egypt by a prophet, and christianity, of course, is founded on the apostles and prophets. The house of Jeroboam was recognised in this way, God honouring [p. 325] him with prophetic ministry in the prophet Ahijah, and here the same prophet is speaking to his wife, God directing him what to say. The same thing applies to christendom, the prophetic ministry goes on, it may be in great weakness, as with Ahijah who is blind. You hear little of him except as to his relations with Jeroboam who has recourse to him, but not to obtain help in his soul; he directs his wife to go to him in disguise, all being in keeping with the character of things he headed.
It was an apostate order of things, representing death, for there was a death adder in the field, affecting the horses so that the riders fell backward. That was the state of things, but then God has respect to His prophet, and to what He Himself had ordered at the beginning of this regime, and now He is showing that sovereignly He has something. He has this child, but He is not going to use him to restore or recover things in Israel; there is no hope of that. We may rest assured there will not be another reformation, in fact, we might say there never was one, for it is not God’s way to restore what becomes apostate. What is called the reformation was not really that. There was a certain betterment of things, and certain assertions of Scripture, but the principle was not reformation in the true sense and in the sense of restoring things according to God; so that Jeroboam’s child is not to be used of God at all, at least in the sense of helping his house or his kingdom. In that way, I think we are reminded in this particular case of the apostasy that is current, but that God still has something. There is no credit to the parents in this matter, and no credit to the kingdom over which Jeroboam ruled, but all credit is to God. That is the point one would stress. It is the sovereign action of God in our time. He has one child here, now sick and ready to die, but still there is some good in him, and this is to be recognised by all Israel, for he is to [p. 326] have a burial. We are told in Ecclesiastes that if a man has no burial it were better he had never been born. The whole house of Jeroboam is to be without a burying and is to be treated like dung. How God expresses His abhorrence of apostasy, a turning away! How He pours His contempt on it! Perhaps I speak to some who may be aroused afresh, if not already, to the actual state of things, and to the abhorrence of God in regard to all that is current about us, and yet there is something that is not accredited to the system. We are told here that this child is to be buried, and that he is the only one, “And thou, arise, go to thine own house; when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die”, 1 Kings 14: 12. This shows what the mother is, that she has no power at all to help her child, nor has the father, and the apostasy is not a little due to the lack of right parental feelings and care. The prophet tells her to go to her house, and that as soon as she enters the city the child will die. What a reflection on a mother — no power at all; in fact, the point to be stressed is that she has no power. The child would die, the prophet says, and all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him. He is to have a burial. As I said before, the rest of the house of Jeroboam is to be treated like dung. Burial is honourable, and the burial of this child brings out the affection or respect that there was for such a child. This thing was not done in a corner, for the child is known, and God would have him to be known. How does it come about that the child was known? He is now sick and about to die, and we are told, “All Israel shall mourn for him, and they shall bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward Jehovah the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam”. No credit to Jeroboam, no credit to his wife, it is God. This child is signalised by a [p. 327] burial as over against all others of the house of Jeroboam, who are not so honoured. I speak briefly on that point so that our minds may be directed into a wide channel in regard of what I have to say of the other three scriptures, so that parents may have their attention arrested as to their children in the apostasy, and whether God has to look after each child Himself, or whether He is to use the parents to do so. We see in Matthew how the latter is the divine principle even in regard to the Lord Jesus. The angel says, “Arise, take to thee the little child and his mother, and flee into Egypt”. The little Child is defenceless yet, but the mother is with it; the little Child is first, then the mother. He moves under divine direction. God could have taken care of the little Child, for He was in truth the ark of the covenant carried carefully by the Levites. Now it is the father taking the little Child and its mother, not the father alone, the father’s influence alone is like one hand, while the mother is the other hand, and this is the full divine thought in family care and culture.
Joseph fulfils his charge. Matthew makes much more of Joseph than of Mary; Luke more of Mary, but the gospel of Matthew is the assembly gospel, and contains great general principles of government, and the principle is the father and mother, but in the case of Jesus it is the little Child before the mother. Matthew develops the idea of children, and shows that they become the means of perfecting praise, which is a remarkable word from the lips of Jesus Himself, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise”, Psalm 8: 2. Perfected it. We hardly get that until we come to the New Testament, but it is presented by David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, but the perfecting of praise is to be in the mouths of babes and sucklings. So the mouths should be cared for and the filth of the street should not be allowed to pass in and out of them, and in [p. 328] the schools, too, they require this care. They should be carefully and holily kept for the truth, for the children of believing parents are holy, in a potential sense, and should be kept on that principle, so that in their time they may be perfecting the praises of God. The parents come in for a great place, especially the mothers. We have in Matthew Rachel weeping for her children, because they were not (chapter 2: 18), in a powerful voice carried down from Jeremiah to remind parents of the need of care of their little ones, so that they should not be lost to us, and that God Himself should not be obliged to look after them solely for the parents. He does it. He did it in the case of Abijah, the son of Jeroboam. Who else did it? Not Jeroboam nor his wife — it was God.
When we go back to David in 2 Samuel, we have not a Jeroboam, thank God! We have a great servant, a father, and I bring him forward here because of the child also dying; he was sick. For David’s sin Jehovah smote the child that Urijah’s wife bore to David and it became very sick, so that we might have a better David and a better father. In truth we could scarcely have the father of Solomon without all this, as it is the education of the parent to make him really a father. God goes to great lengths to make fathers; true fathers are scarce, true mothers more scarce. After this we find David with a son named Solomon, who could say, “For I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother”, Proverbs 4: 3. What an asset in the testimony of God was Solomon! We could scarcely have had him without this experience, and what an experience! It was a father who sinned, but he knew God. How solemn it is that the knowledge of God in itself did not prevent this, for David knew God. The knowledge of God is doubly laid in his soul, and whatever happens to such a man, or such a woman,
[p. 329] there is the possibility, the potentiality, yea, the certainty, of making that father and that mother a better father and a better mother, for that is the principle with God; it is betterment whatever happens. God is not honouring or condoning the flesh in David, but honouring His own work. One often wonders how God can speak of David’s being a man after His own heart, but it is that David was such a subject of the work of God. Let us allow God to work in us, dear brethren. It is not simply that I am prayed for, or praying for myself, but God’s answers to prayers. Give Him occasion to answer prayers, that is the principle. David gave God opportunity to answer prayer as well as praying for himself and others.
Now he has reached the crisis of his life, for something terrible has happened, but he knows God and whatever happens in the man, the parent, the father, the mother, or children, the knowledge of God will stand by us. Hence as the scripture says, “Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me”. If you know God you will have recourse to Him, hence we find how beautifully David recognises God. He lay down on the earth and humbled himself. Nathan says, ‘You are the man, David’. His sin was portrayed before his eyes and in his ears by Nathan, and Nathan says, “Thou art the man”, and David says, “I have sinned against the Lord”. There is no holding back, no excusing of himself; he candidly owns it and the prophet says, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin”. The prophets not only tell what God will do if we do not judge ourselves, but they tell us what He will do when we do judge ourselves. It is all a matter of ministry to bring out the grace of God. Nathan was able to do both by God’s grace, to convict the sinner and tell the sinner that God had put away his sin, ‘Thou shalt not die, but the child shall die’.
[p. 330] There is no hope for the child in that sense, but David lies on the earth and hears the whispering of the servants. What a keen man he was in the exercise of his senses. The whispering of his servants, he decided, meant the death of the child. What a solemn word that is! God acts in our children, not on their own account, but on ours. One has seen it. It is no reflection or punishment on the child; the child is saved I have not a doubt. David says, “I shall go to him”. The punishment was not on the child, but it was for David, the servant that was to live, the parent of further children; the father of the great Solomon was still to live, the discipline was for him. God is dealing with us in great or small ways constantly, and He is aiming at productions in our children that are usable to Him. Apostasy is very largely because of the want of parentage, firstly of the paternity of God rightly apprehended and reflected in others, and, secondly of the motherhood of the assembly, and that reflected in others, so that the idea of a production for God is continued. In the apostasy God has recourse to Himself and He brings in this child Abijah, the only one in the whole system with something good, but still it is there. Now He has David under His hand and has wrought in him in a most extraordinary way and is going to make him such a father as he had never been before. David’s families were the saddest spectacles in Scripture, 2 Samuel presents one of the saddest spectacles in Scripture of parentage and family, “Although my house be not so before God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in every way and sure”, 2 Samuel 23: 5. David was now restful in God, but he has lost his family. It is a most distressing thought that a man like David should have lost his family, but he secures a Solomon, who said, “I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother”. God says, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, and every honour is given to David in that respect. Solomon is taken over by God, and surely every right-minded father and mother would aim at that. Can my children be taken over by God? He took over Solomon and used him in the most exalted way, David bowing to it. God will say, ‘Can I take your son, is he ready? How was he brought up?’ David had learned his lesson. The child is dead, he says, and he worshipped. Think of the result in the man’s soul brought about so quickly in such an experience, that he worships. How rapidly the recovery took place; and now he has a son taken over, named Solomon by David, named Jedidiah by Jehovah, who loved him. We want to have the double naming. It is not what the son or daughter is to gain, but what he is to God. Jehovah sent Nathan and named him Jedidiah because Jehovah loved him and is going to have him. The other child is gone; David says, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me”. Solomon is given after the discipline of the father. How great the need is, dear brethren, for parentage and watchfulness, that the children do not die before our eyes, never to be restored again. I am speaking now of spiritual death, as you will understand; and this brings us to 2 Kings 4, where we have a mother by prophetic message.
The family begins with the prophet and an only boy. It is a prophetic matter. And when the boy grew up he went out to his father to the reapers, and while out there he began to feel illness in his head and cried, “My head, my head!”, to his father. His father could do nothing. This is a household where the mother is prominent, the wife being more spiritual than her husband. She is a remarkable woman, and indeed is called a great woman. She is also an observant woman. She had a house, and she saw the prophet Elisha passing the door and wondered what he was doing. Her husband did not appear to [p. 332] have seen him, or if he did, he paid no attention to him, but the woman was observant of the man who passed by her door regularly. She was sufficiently interested to find out what he was doing, and she called him a holy man of God, perhaps the only one ever called that. There may have been many men of God, but this one was called a holy man of God, and she proposes to her husband to make provision for him so that he might turn into her house. She built a room on the wall and put into the room a table, a bed and a candlestick. She is worthy of a son, and did not have one. She would entertain the saints, and it is a poor sister who does not entertain the saints and have pleasure in doing it. She would entertain a holy man of God, but she would not expect to be entertained herself by stories told by the servant. Her husband agrees to the building of the room; he is a passive husband, and would not make a good father, for the husband must be head always, that is the divine way. The woman here is taking the lead and she stands in the doorway, we are told. The servant Gehazi is a talkative man, and later told stories to the king about his master after he was dismissed, not a wholesome element in these matters. Still he suggested to the prophet that the woman did not have a son, and that she was worthy of one, because she was such a great woman. I have no doubt that she is a continuance morally of the wife of the prophet who had been in debt, and after paying the debt lived on the rest. This is a great woman of Shunem now who has this boy, a prophetic boy and an only one. You will notice how I stress the idea of the prophet, and God is stressing it and He is going to finish with it.
The boy dies. How searching that is! You may say we had good meetings, good prophetic meetings, good ministry meetings, the brethren getting on nicely, and many promising young men amongst us,
[p. 333] but the child dies. There is something unusual here, something out of the way, whether this be a natural family or a meeting, it is the same thing. How has this boy been brought up? Did the mother educate him? I do not say he was fully grown, but he was grown. The cry of the boy was entirely a matter of his mind. Is it the culture of his mind? Is that possible with a spiritual woman? It is possible. Many, many young men are ruined because their fathers and mothers wish to make them something distinctive. It is the motive of the parents that is at fault, not the child. This child would be subject to his mother in whatever education or influence she arranged for him, but now his head is troubled. He is with the reapers. Why not with the sowers? Why is he not harrowing or ploughing? He is with the reapers. There is some distinction in reaping, some result or profit from reaping, and he says, “My head, my head!”. The head will not do in spiritual matters at all, not that we do not need brains; they are a faculty and the mind is a faculty, too; but then the cultivation of the mind, entirely omitting the renewing of it, is certain to bring trouble in the head, and that is what happened here. This woman, dear brethren, knows what to do. We are not speaking of David now, but the husband of this woman did not know what to do; this husband was so negative. It is a deplorable state. He says, “Carry him to his mother”, but why did not the father look after him? He was his only son. Think of the neglect of the father in this respect. He sent him with a lad to his mother. Where were his fatherly feelings? — there are none. The servant carried him to his mother, and the mother nursed him till noon, when he should be stronger, but he died at noon.
I am not speaking against parents, but seeking to show what is needed at the present time against apostasy in the care of children, and how the father [p. 334] should take the lead in it, instead of being behind in it. So the Shunammite’s child dies and she places him in the prophet’s room, but she does not call her husband. It is a most appalling thing to see such negativeness in the head of the house. What can you expect? The woman is the weaker vessel, and why should things be entirely in her hands? Thank God, this woman knew what to do to restore the child. She had to take a long journey, and she shuts the dead child in the prophet’s room and goes to Carmel for the prophet, and the prophet sends Gehazi with his staff to restore the child, but in this he is wrong. There is dislocation all through this matter, but God sees to it that the prophet is brought round to the true position in dealing with things. This cannot be done from a distance, the one must be there on the spot. He may enunciate principles and talk of his years of service, but God says you must be there if you are going to deal with a locality and the people in it. The prophet has to go to Shunem and to the woman’s house and to his own room. We do not hear of his going into the house previously, but only into his own room, but now he goes into the house. Gehazi went ahead and laid the staff on the child, but nothing can be done in that way, because we cannot deal with matters at a distance. The apostles chose elders in every assembly, elders must be there, and the prophet has to go there. The boy is dead and the staff can do nothing. The prophet shuts the door on himself and the dead boy. You will see from this how we have to deal with persons in these matters, the persons who are there, so the prophet has recourse to personal identification with the matter. He says, ‘I prayed for this boy and now he is dead. I had to do with this child coming into existence and now he is dead, I must identify myself with him in death — that is the point — or this boy will never revive’. It is the prophet’s matter,
[p. 335] and he is face to face with it. Can he do it, can he identify himself with the dead boy, eye to eye, mouth to mouth? Yes, he does it. The child begins to get warm. That is the point, because it indicates that life is coming into him. We must get life back again, principles are not enough. There must be personal contact and personal knowledge of things. So the boy begins to get warm and there is hope now, because the idea is resuscitation. It means that there is something there that produces warmth, and it is produced in answer to the personal contact of the prophet, his personal identification with the dead child. So the child gets warm, but still he is not coming to life quickly enough. You see, dear brethren, the point is in getting to the child, identifying yourself with the child. It is not the mother that is doing it, but it is the prophet who is doing it, it is the man called in who is doing it. He belongs there and his house is there, his house is on the spot. The prophet is a local brother, and although he has been in Carmel, now he is here, where he should be in this matter. He goes down and walks around the house. First of all it was his room, now it is the house. We must look round the whole assembly, or the whole family, if it is a family. It must be the mother if it is not the child. He walks to and fro, we are told, I wonder what he was looking at. Perhaps he was looking round to see if there were any deadly things about that would cause the death of this child, any bad reading, any novels, or were there undercurrents in the assembly there, or any secret packages being brought in, or any other thing calculated to cause the death of a child who had been brought in by prophetic word? The boy sneezes seven times, showing that the power of life was within, and now he has come back to life. This is the procedure and he says, “Call this Shunammite”. He does not call the father. How humbling that the father should be left out. Is [p. 336] it not time he should get down on his knees and ask why he has nothing to do with all this, he, the chief person in the house? He calls the mother, as it is a question of the locality, he does not name her but calls the Shunammite: the locality is in question. She comes in, and he says, “Take up thy son”. What a glorious thing that was! She bowed herself and went out. Now she has a living son. Much more could be said as to the spiritual side of this matter, but there it is. What a change in the Shunammite, what a change in the house, what prospects now with a living son, brought in by the prophet, dying in his absence, resuscitated by his presence through the power of God, and handed over to his mother.
Finally, there is the well-known case of Jairus’ daughter. The mother’s name is not mentioned here; it is the father this time. Jairus is very concerned about his daughter, who is twelve years old. He goes to the Lord Jesus and the Lord goes with him at once to save his daughter, who is not yet dead. During the journey the woman appears of whom we have often heard, having an issue, and she is saved. The Lord can do two things at the same time, during the same journey, so that He saves this woman and says to her that her faith has saved her. He calls her ‘Daughter’. Someone says to Jairus, ‘Do not trouble the Master any more, the child is dead’. What a poor person this is, entirely wanting in faith, but that was the word given to the father, that the maid is dead. I have been speaking of four dead children, two did not come back to life, one did, and now here is the fourth. The message shows no faith in the Lord, “Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master”, whereas the great testimony was that He raised the dead, and that is the testimony at the present time. He is declared Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead, whoever they are.
[p. 337] I want to say briefly that the question is a spiritual one this time. The father is in his place and nothing is said about the mother until she comes in with the father when Jesus has come with John, James and Peter. According to Matthew, the flute players were with the body of the child in the house. I have no doubt it was customary for them to be there, and possibly that is the clue to the death of the girl. Young girls are sensitive to music, of course, and this, you may be sure, was not wholesome music. We are told that the Lord drove them all out. Why did not the mother do that, for she was there? They derided the Lord Jesus because the child was dead. Think of having a house, of being head of a house where the Lord Jesus could be derided. They knew that she was dead, but they did not know the Lord. We may know much, and be able to tell when people are dead, but if, when meeting the living One, the resurrection and the life, we cannot name Him, how sorrowful that is! They derided Jesus because He said she would live. He said it. It is a question of the testimony of life at the present time, not simply light. No doubt the Shunammite boy had light, because he had a cultivated mind for a boy of his years, but the point is life. The girl is to live, the Lord says, and He put them all out. That, dear brethren, is to be noted, all that appeals to the flesh, all that is distinctive in the world, things of this kind admitted into our homes, not gross but such as to corrupt the minds of the girls and the boys in the houses so that they die; and there is a state of unbelief in the house, so that death has happened. What can be done? The resurrection and the life is here. Christ is that, and He is stressing this point of life, dear brethren, for it is the power of God in raising the dead, and having conditions in our houses that are suitable for this. There is such a thing as this in a spiritual way, bringing young people back [p. 338] to life and drawing them from the deadening influences of the things brought into the houses. The Lord put them all out. There were six of them in the house, the Lord Jesus, three disciples, the mother and father, but no more, because this is a spiritual matter. You may think that many fathers and mothers would mean a spiritual meeting, but remember, this incident is a question of spirituality. Our children are to be rescued from these terrible deadening influences that have had admission into our houses. The Lord put them all out. They derided the Lord because He said the child should live. He takes her by the hand and says, “Child” — it is a child here. In Mark the Lord’s own words are quoted, the very words that He used in this household matter. How important it is to heaven that the very words our Saviour used in Jairus’ house are actually quoted and brought down to us by the Spirit of God, so that we all know how interesting and important a christian household is in the eyes of heaven. “Child, arise”, and she rose up, to the astonishment of all, and the Lord says, ‘Give her something to eat. Do not have any more of these novels and music papers in the house, but give her something to eat that such a one as this needs’. She has been raised up into the most spiritual atmosphere. Let her grow in it now from twelve years on. Let no one say that a child of twelve cannot take part in spiritual matters. It is pernicious and fallacious to say so. This passage is incontestable testimony to the fact that a child of twelve can be introduced into a spiritual atmosphere and maintained in it, for the Lord says, ‘Give her something to eat’. It is a remarkable chapter in this respect, showing the way that God is helping the young, and putting it upon parents so that they should be available to Him, and if anything happens, God is there. When resuscitated spiritually, they should be sustained in a spiritual atmosphere.
[p. 339] I am sure that everyone here will understand what an important matter it is that the fathers and mothers should be looking to Christ regarding their children. He says our children are potentially holy, and that is the basis of all family training, and all that is contrary to it must be kept out, so that the children should live and not die.