“GOD’S HOUSE”
AND
THE QUESTION FOR ALL WHO ARE OF IT
“Tell me, what hast thou in the house” (2 Kings 4: 2)
When this question was asked, “What hast thou in the house?” any one may read that God was practically displaced in Israel. And to teach us that this was so—that THIS was the secret of all the then sorrow; as well as to cheer the exercised and anxious among us by giving us a glimpse of the immensity of our resources, is, I have no doubt, the object of the Holy Spirit in this passage, Rom 15: 4.
We have a glimpse of God’s desire for intercourse with man in Gen 2: 19; 3: 8. All that the entrance of sin spoilt. But on the ground of redemption again God’s desire comes out. “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them”, Exod 25: 8. It is not only intercourse now that He seeks, but abode. God can on this ground be again in the midst of His people according to the full delight of His heart. In full joy therefore He comes again to take this place, and accompanies them all through the wilderness. “He brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness”, Ps 105: 43. It is God’s joy and God’s gladness to be thus in the midst of His own, as we read: “Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion”, Ps 114: 2. He enters with them into the land (Josh 5: 14, 15), where “Solomon built him an house”, Acts 7: 47.
Passing over all the story of ruin which came in when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed that house because of their sins and unfaithfulness, and noting also the dark years which rolled over them during their dreary captivity in Babylon, we never read that God gave up His thought of inhabiting a house on earth; though the visible form of it may have disappeared. The Lord when on earth owns the temple then as His “Father’s house”, John 2: 16. The first glory of the house might depart, and did (Ezek 10: 4, 18, 19), but it was only to pave the way for a latter and greater glory in the Person of Him who was God manifest in the flesh. In John 2: 21, therefore, the temple, while He was on earth, was the Lord Himself. “Behold, a greater than Solomon is here”, Matt 12: 42. But when Jesus was gone on high, God again comes (Acts 2), as He did once before in Solomon’s days (2 Chron 7: 1, 2), into His house on earth; God still dwells on earth. “Whose house are WE”—Christians, see Heb 3: 6. Who has power to dislodge HIM? None. But, surely my reader, in these days in which we live God is again practically disowned. Hence all our distress. He is refused a place, HIS PLACE, IN HIS OWN HOUSE. Hence the appropriateness of this moment to draw your attention to the question at the head of this little book.
In the first epistle to Timothy, God’s house (composed, as we saw in Heb 3 of those called believers or Christians) is called the house of God, “the assembly of the living God”, 1 Tim 3: 15 NT. And there is also the house spoken of in the second epistle, but it is in a very different condition. Timothy is in each. In the first, the house is called “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”, and in it Timothy is to know how to “behave himself”. The house being in order, Timothy in it was not to be disorderly.
In the second epistle, the only mention that we find of this house, is where we read of “a great house”, in which there are many vessels, “some to honour, and some to dishonour”, but here again we find Timothy, and as “a man” he is bidden to purge himself from these vessels to dishonour—the state of these vessels, not the state of Timothy, requiring it. Here also, as in the first epistle, he is still considered as of the HOUSE.
Moreover, the brightest thing had failed when the second epistle was written. It had failed since the writing of the first. “All they which are in Asia”, that is, the Christians in it, had “turned away” from the writer—the apostle Paul, 2 Tim 1: 15! Ephesus is the bright spot among the local churches addressed in the New Testament, and Ephesus was in Asia. To Ephesus was addressed that epistle to which we turn, to learn, even now, God’s thoughts respecting the wondrous union of CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.
Timothy had been left in this favoured assembly to see that some who desired it taught no other doctrine, 1 Tim 6: 3. But Ephesus was gone as to Paul, when he writes this second epistle, and a great house was seen where the house of God had formerly been! Timothy had been kept, and the heart of the aged apostle, who was now on the eve of martyrdom, yearned over his beloved child in the faith, as he saw the darkening future before him, 2 Tim 1: 2, 5. Are such yearnings of heart totally unknown today? Thank God, No! May we learn to rightly prize and value them.
But not only had this faithful servant stood firm amid the seething mass of decline and corruption. There is that which is of infinitely greater moment to the saints NOW than Timothy’s personal conduct in this matter—blessed as that was—what is it? GOD IS FAITHFUL, 2 Tim 2: 13. He has not left His house—and HE is never at a loss, amid the saddest declension and corruption. We live in these days of God’s faithfulness, spite of ruin. My reader, do we duly appreciate what it is to have at this moment the blessed God Himself as our unchanged resource—God, who STILL dwells in His house?
I turn then to 2 Tim 1: 6, 7, and I read: “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”. Not one breath, not one whisper of the discouragement of that day do we find here. No, not one tinge of discouragement reaches Timothy from end to end of this epistle, and not one hint will you gather to foster depression in you, my reader, if, as he, you are a faithful servant; for all are called upon now to stand in the breach; and all must and can only stand there WITH GOD. I ask, is not the resource enough?
May we bow our heads, and our hearts, before Him, and seek grace to rightly estimate the privileges and favour of ‘Timothy’ days. No change in them for us may we expect till “his appearing”, chap 4: 8.
In the first of these verses (2 Tim 1: 6, 7) Timothy is reminded of the peculiar “gift” communicated to him through the apostle. This was personal or individual—Timothy’s gift alone. But in verse 7 he is reminded of what God has given to all the children of God. How does this affect us? Beloved reader, I reply that it fully and sufficiently—and more than fully and sufficiently answers the question— “What hast thou in the house?” (2 Kings 4: 2) GOD IS THERE.
The question, “What hast thou in the house?” shews that God has resources there which He can use. It is THE question, which the Spirit of God puts today to all that are exercised by the sorrows of God’s people. When God said, “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exod 25: 8), He gives no hint that He will ever be dislodged. But in the time of 2 Kings 4, it was truly a sorrowful day in Israel, and Israel had really become like this poor widow who appealed to the prophet for help. God had been the husband of the nation, but through their sin He was practically dead, and everything was going, for she was in debt, and the creditor had come to take her two sons as bondsmen! Now what was a true parallel to this is this day of the second epistle to Timothy—a day only perhaps then dawning—but now, fully upon us. The proof is in the epistle itself. As far as the outward aspect of things went, it is a parallel day to 2 Kings 4. Gloomy indeed, with the leader in the path of truth in prison, yet calmly comes the instruction to Timothy, and in order to get it you must read the whole epistle. It is full of cheer, indeed how could it be otherwise, with GOD as the resource? We seem to hear the aged apostle repeating in our own ears the question asked by the prophet of old, “What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house?” Is ours a bright day in the history of the church? Are things improving? Are not heresies and divisions rampant? Not one of these three questions is asked, and shall we pause to ask them? No, what does He ask? Let our wisdom be rather to listen to His question, “What shall I do for thee?” he says, “tell me!” It is the voice of God. He is all that He was (who shall measure or exhaust HIM) “What hast thou in the house?” Is HE driven out of it?
Now comes her reply, and a wondrous reply it is, “Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil”. A wondrous resource, as she is soon to learn to her infinite joy and delight.
Oh that the Spirit of God may make known to all the saints what it is to give such a reply in these days! Oil in scripture is a well-known figure of the Spirit of God (see Lev 8 and 14, Matt 25: 3, etc), that is, of God Himself. In spite of the break-down in Elisha’s day, and in spite of the more sad antitype of all this, the break-down in our own day, GOD remains the same. The pot of oil testified of it in the one case, and the analogous truth “the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim 1: 7) testifies to the same in Timothy days. “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God”, 1 Cor 2: 12. No corporate restoration is hinted at, and we are not to seek it nor to expect it, but an all-sufficient supply is ensured for every faithful soul and for all those who “depart from iniquity” and “who call on the Lord out of a pure heart”, 2 Tim 2: 19-22. Notice this! Vessels are even wanted, to contain all that God has to pour out in these days. “Empty vessels, borrow not a few”, was the prophet’s word to the widow. And this done, what was the next word? “And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels”, and the supply only stopped when there was “not a vessel more”. Now says the Spirit by the prophet, “Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children on the rest”.
First notice that the resource is in “the house”, for you cannot get out of Christendom, as she could not get out of Judaism, but she is to get alone therein, with her sons, to find empty vessels, and to “shut the door”. This last word is important, it teaches separation to God. Now I think “separation” is not understood. It is at once suggested that we must stand aloof in a sort of ‘I am holier than thou’ spirit. How the devil seeks to nullify everything that is of God! It is much closer than a question of separating from persons. They come before us later. It is the self-judgment that measures everything in me in relation to God. Note how it begins in chapter 2, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity”. It tends to godliness or piety, that is, I do everything as in God’s presence, see 1 Tim 6: 11. If I desire in days of ruin to profit by WHAT GOD IS, and by what GOD CAN DO in them, there must be separation. For the widow it meant separation even from God’s people who dwelt around her. Timothy in like manner is bidden to “shut the door” on all association with vessels to dishonour—even though these are, and must be, in the house—for God’s people (or those who take that ground are before us when it is a question of the HOUSE, as it is here, that is of the place where God dwells on earth and dwells today
The great sin of Christendom is the ignoring of GOD in His house, and it is also the cause of all the present sorrows of those who have learnt, however unfaithful they have been to it, that to recognise HIM, and to give HIM His place, is the present resource. May God re-awaken this in us. Stephen brings home and sums up the sin of the nation during all its long and dark history, to this one point exactly, in Acts 7—“Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost”. And man lives, only to repeat the history of what his fathers have done before him. My reader, where are you as to this matter? There is no thought of reconstruction, nor of so gathering together saints, that there shall be a display again on earth of the Ephesus that has failed. Up to the end, we shall always have to individually “depart from iniquity”, and collectively have to “follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart”, and to refuse all who do not do so. And it is only thus, for thus alone do we give GOD His place, that we can learn what He is, in all the magnitude of His sufficiency. We shall turn away from man (though educated and trained professedly to bear rule and to keep order for God in God’s house) knowing that God wants no human aid in the management of His house! And it is only those who have learnt in the secret of their own souls with Him, that GOD is enough for these days, who can really go on happily amid the confusion, and can commit to others what they have learnt from and of Him. Such are first clear of the world, and then they live on “the rest”—that is, on what remains for us in GOD, in this present day of His grace.
May the Lord exercise all of us as His people about this, His present favour to us. We have untold resources, and they are all summed up in one word—HIMSELF—and in order to profit by them, may the second epistle to Timothy be more studied. May we thence learn, with Him, first to “depart from” all the activity of will in ourselves, and then who and what are the vessels to dishonour, from whom we must separate if we are to profit by all that is in Him for us. In the type I am bidden first to pay my “debts” —that is, I must be free from all here, and what then? Why to such only is it added, “Live thou and thy children of the rest”. What a REST! GOD and heaven are open to me—and heavenly things with Him as my portion until I get there!—these remain, as the true and abiding portion in life and blessing of the soul. May we know more of what they are, for His Name’s sake. Amen.
From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 29, 1895
