“THY MAKER IS THY HUSBAND”
N. T. Meek
I suppose these scriptures refer directly to Israel, but I take liberty to apply them, dear brethren, to ourselves. It says in chapter 54 “For thy Maker is thy husband”. One who is great enough to be the Maker is the Husband with all the resource that that infers. He is a Husband; One who cares for His wife; the husband is at hand; when problems arise he has resource. We often feel we are limited, those of us who are married; we often feel that our resource is limited; problems arise and situations and we often feel limited, and it is well we should; no doubt it is part of our education. We can always turn to our Maker. How many matters can be resolved by turning to our Maker. He can do things, dear brethren, that we cannot do—look what He has done for the weather today! Most of us have been thinking about it during the past week, looking at the gloom and the rain and the snow. “Thy Maker is thy husband”; He has resource. He can do things. I just commend this simple idea to our beloved young brethren, but to us all also, that He can make things work. He can make situations develop; you keep in prayer about it, and He will not only then make them work but He is a Husband.
There is something very touching and affectionate about that. He is very near; in the times of stress He husbands things along, helps
things along. And I have no doubt, dear brethren, that in the principle of it our local assemblies also require these makers and husbands; persons who are available with an answer. How often we feel we are in an impasse. The more we draw from Christ the more we will be available to help the local brethren.
I read in chapter 62. Locally we seem to have got on to a run of typical books in our weeknight readings, but they are very beautiful, very rich. These things are said about the remnant, but we can catch the spirit of them in relation to our local gatherings. It says “thou shalt be called, My delight is in her”; that is the land; God is going to say, “My delight is in her”, and, dear brethren, whilst He waits to say that to Israel, to the nation, may we not think of our local assemblies and God saying, “My delight is in her”? That is what He wants to say, beloved; that would be normal, and in a certain sense, if one may say it reverently, there is a joy to God Himself to say, “My delight is in her”. Let us hold that; let us hold the idea in our affections; let us hold it as an object, and in our gatherings, even if we are very small, relatively small anyway, let us carry the impression that God is finding delight in the gathering, and let it be so, let there be a basis for Him to say it. Of course, we should also have delight in one another; we come together week by week and it has been said that the first thing we do is to look at the brethren, look at one another, and carry that forward in our affections, Let it develop, let the idea develop until as God looks down upon our localities.
Birmingham, or wherever it may be. He says, That is how I like it—“My delight is in her”.
Then it says, “and thy land, Married; for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, shall thy sons marry thee”. I would just like to apply that to young men and young women getting to love the local position, and to marry it, that is, to support it, to take up your obligation in relation to it, your local position. Do not chafe; do not let us chafe, dear brethren, in our local positions—they are small, and weak often. Maybe you would like to be in a city, a large city, with all the comings and goings and the visitors that come in and out in a city constantly; it is all very fine and in a certain sense stimulating, but let you and me marry the local position, let us be committed to it, so “shall thy sons marry thee”. This is a time, prophetically, when everything will become, or start to become, ascendant. It may have been long on the plateau, on the level, and it will start to become ascendant—it is a more blessed thing to marry it now while we are still in the scene of problems and difficulty. The Lord gives us an opportunity at the present time, I am sure, to marry in this sense, to commit ourselves to the local assembly; “shall thy sons marry thee”, it says. I suppose it means there will be a surge of devotion and of committal. We have been hearing about that recently, committal and consecration; do not let us forget these expressions—so “shall thy sons marry thee”.
Well, our brother and his wife have an opportunity to marry in that sense, to commit themselves to the local gathering in Birmingham. May they do it—I have a certain confidence that they will, and it is extant in some localities to greater or less degree; let it be increasing—so “shall thy sons marry thee”. Dear brethren, we shall look down, we shall look down from heaven when these things literally take place on the earth, and we shall recognize the spirit and character of it as something that we knew in our own day. Do not let
us miss it. May the Lord encourage us and our dear brother and sister and the parents and grandparents in both families. May the Lord encourage them all and us all for His name’s sake.