UK 18:1-30{IN this chapter the Lord looks at the different positions, if I may so say, [in the path of His people upon earth. The seventeenth chapter gives a prophecy of judgment on the earth, which He ends by saying, "Remember Lot's wife." Now He points out the path of His people, in which there are found two classes of difficulties; the one being that you are so weak, so small in this world, the other being that you are so great; the one having so little, the other so much; the one having no resources, the other many. We do not generally think that the second would be a difficulty, but it actually is a greater difficulty than the first.
The Lord sets before us a picture of the journey through the wilderness, and gives us three examples of the one who has no means, and one example of the one who has plenty. The first gets relief; the second goes away sorrowful. Those who have earthly means rarely seek help from God-; but when people have nothing at all to turn to, if there be any conscience, they turn to God. It is the very opposite of human judgment, which would be, that it is easier for a man to get on who has plenty of means; but the truth is just the contrary, so much so that it is impossible with men " for those who are rich to enter into the kingdom of God; it is only 4‘ possible with God."
There is nothing, perhaps, that people like so much as to have visible means, but it too often diverts the eye from faith. I do not say that God in His mercy may not at times give means, but still, when it is so, even rich people find that large means in this world cannot produce everything. Riches cannot give them health, nor drive sickness, and sorrow, and death from their door. And as to possessions here, the fact is you cannot look for succor when you have no need.
The Lord intimates that the very look back is dangerous. " Remember Lot's wife." You will find whenever you stumble, that it is always because you have turned your eye to something for yourself. Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt, an example to others. You might have thought her crime very small: she was only sorry to leave the place she was in. But we are in a place that we must not be sorry -to leave. And having brought us out, He gives us four examples of what we meet with in our path; three having no means, one having plenty.. Where there are no means, He succors; He makes bare His arm; He perfectly acts for His people who have no means; so that each may boldly say, " The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." But the one who had plenty of means, went away sorrowful. He was sorry that He could not remain with the Lord, but He preferred his possessions to the Lord.
The first example is that of a widow, and a widow who had an adversary.
The Lord tells us when a thing is difficult, we should pray; " Men ought always to pray and not to faint." You could not conceive anything more pitiable than this case. The widow who had lost her only son is the true picture of sorrow, but this widow with an adversary is the full picture of misery. And this miserable object, gets relief from a judge who feared not God,, neither regarded man. And she with no influence whatever, for a widow in Scripture represents one who is powerless. So that we have a perfectly powerless person, and that powerless person with an adversary, which greatly aggravates. the case. She has no one to appeal to but a judge who is a reckless man; who says to himself, " I fear not God, nor regard man." Well, this miserable case moves even him. He says Though I am perfectly indifferent to everything: else, I really must pay attention to her. Then the Lord adds: If an unjust judge is moved by a case of misery, do you think God will not be moved? He has an ear for every misery on earth. Here it is a powerless woman, a sorrowful one too, deprived of everything in this world, and then beset by an adversary, and she moves an unjust judge! How much more then will not such a one move the great God and the merciful So, to any one here who is powerless I say, You are not without resource. " Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." Typically, of course, this is the remnant; still it is " Men ought always to pray and not to faint." Never say, There is no resource for me. If you had means, very likely you would turn to them and find no deliverance; but without resources there is a resource for you in God, that very likely you might not turn to if you had natural resources.
I doubt not there is that in people which leads them in difficulties to think only of the fact that there is power in God; and it is a very necessary thing to get the sense in one's soul that " Power belongs unto God." All that the widow looked for in the judge was power; she did not look for kindness. But I do not think it is the highest condition of soul simply to know and to trust in the fact that God has power. The man could not have gone as he did to his friend at midnight unless he knew that he had bread; and the importunity is in consequence. Hence " because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." Very often where there is the prayer of faith, there is an amount of hardness connected with it, because I am looking to God only because I know that He has power.
What I want to press is that you have resources. It was the great mark of power in Israel, that, when everything had failed, after the ox goad, and the jawbone of the ass, and the woman's hammer, and everything had been tried, then God said, I have one instrument yet. Prayer! Samuel comes in with one sovereign remedy: that is prayer. Whatever happens, he says, I will pray, I will pray for you.
Supposing I saw a poor desolate woman now without resource and pressed by trouble, I say to her, Well, you have God to turn to; you can turn for help to the Hand that moves the whole world. In that way this poor desolate woman has an advantage over me: I, who do not want God's interference, will not get it; whilst her misery makes it necessary for her to go to God as her resource, and then He interferes on her behalf. He will rise and give her all that she has need of. The second example goes a step further. I get in it another element of what God is. We read: " Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." The Pharisee stood boasting of what he was himself; the publican, in quite another spirit, stood praying. It is just the difference between a person going to God knowing that he has nothing to turn to but His mercy, and one who can in his self-sufficiency commend himself. This is a most important element: I am not entitled to anything, but God has mercy. The result was that the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other.
In the widow I get God's power; here I get His mercy. A poor failing creature down here, where do I turn to? I turn to God. Suppose I had something of my own like the Pharisee, it would not put me to so high a place as God's mercy puts the publican. The publican was in a higher place morally than the Pharisee. " God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." I can turn to Him who is full of mercy, " whose mercy endureth forever." I may rest in, not only His power, but His mercy. One has an outside affliction, another an inside. We all know what the name of publican implies. He was one, who, in order to be rich, sacrificed both his country and his religion; one who gathered taxes for the Romans, and gave up his place as a. good Jew to make money. This man comes into the presence of God, and says: I cannot say anything for myself, but I can count on the mercy of God; God be merciful to me, the sinner. Thus. I get not only power but mercy. I have sin inside, and an enemy outside, but I am not without resource. My very necessity makes me a fit object for God's power and mercy. There is an old saying which is a very important one " Man's extremity is God's opportunity," when in simple faith he turns to Him.
We ought to know when we get answers to prayer. We see books printed about prayer, where we read of food provided, lodgings and rent paid, sick children raised up, in answer to prayer. But I do not think I ever read in any book on faith, that any spiritual mercy was granted, that any one's soul was brought into greater light in answer to prayer. And yet I do not know any greater favor that God could ever show me than giving me something more of Christ, revealing to me something fresh by His Spirit.
When one spoke to the Lord of the blessedness of those who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God-the millennium-the Lord replied, I can tell you a greater thing than that; there is "a great supper " for you now. This is not the gospel, as some say; it is a feast; it is the fatted calf.
A soul must be converted first, then kissed, then clothed, before it can come to the great supper. I think it would be very easy to write a book as to the way in which God orders everything, even down to the very weather, if you are walking with Him. But there is a greater thing than any of these. A soul led up like Paul into the third heaven; a soul that gets an answer to the prayer that " the eyes of your heart may be enlightened to know the hope of his calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of his power " in raising us up with Christ. If God gives an answer to such a prayer as that, it is, a far greater favor than His supplying any temporal need here; far greater than curing your sick child or anything else.
I believe some may go on smoothly in their circumstances for a length of time, until they get a certain self-reliance, and a tone of indifference about them, which they who are not in so smooth a path cannot have, because the latter are cast upon the Lord by their difficulties. But you will often see a man, well off in circumstances, tried in. health. God will keep each godly one in some way or other dependent, for He knows how blessed it is for the soul to lean upon Himself.
We now come to the third example: " They brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them." They thought they should not trouble Him with such weak things. " But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." It is a remarkable thing. It is a little child, where there is no progress, no development, without 'education, without anything, in fact independent of all these things, that the Lord takes up as a sample of the way in which a soul gets into -grace. It is not merely powerlessness and incapacity in themselves that qualify, but the fact that a little child has nothing in which he can in any way rest to obtain anything for himself: he is both weak and clinging. He is neither reduced like the widow, nor degraded like the publican. Still in either of these cases, as we have seen, we can turn to God, whether we be tried outwardly or inwardly. But neither of these is the case of the little child. " Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Why? Because their very beginning is weak, and they cannot exist without help; they seek it, and He delights to vouchsafe it.
The disciples rebuked those that had brought them, as much as to say, Do not trouble Him with such little helpless creatures as these, with neither development of head nor heart, neither strength of limb nor anything whatever to com mend them. In Luke it is more history, and we-are only given the simple fact of His receiving them; but in Mark, where it is service, we are told He did three things: "He took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." This is what He does where there is no conscious strength, but simply clinging. It is. more than turning to His power or His mercy; it is simple repose in the arms of Christ. " He took them in his arms, laid his hands upon them,. and blessed them." The child never had any power nor any history; it just lies there, and has the satisfaction of being taken care of. If you are not a desolate one oppressed, if you are not morally distressed, you can still in immeasurable grace as a child repose in the arms of Christ.. Here, then, I get confidence. It is the confidence of a child: it accepts the attention and care it receives without doubt or fear. I do not, as a child, feel that I am merely a recipient; I feel that I simply could not do without the Lord. This is what I get when I have nothing to lose and nothing to regret.
I now come to the one example of the man with plenty of means. " A certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Now here is one who is neither a widow, a publican, nor a little child. He is a ruler, not a widow; he is a great man, not a little child; and, instead of being a publican, he is a very good man, one of excellent, unblemished life among his fellows. In answer to his question, the Lord only asks him as to the way in which he had fulfilled his duty to his neighbor; and even of those commandments he leaves out Thou shalt not covet." He does not ask him one at all of his duty towards God, because it is impossible for a natural man to keep those, though it 'is possible for him to keep his duty to his neighbor. Yet the Lord leaves out the tenth commandment, the one to which Paul refers in Rom. 7 as that which convicted him of sin. The five which the Lord quotes were quite possible for an amiable man to do, who would neither kill, nor steal, nor bear false witness. So this young ruler answered: "All these have I kept from my youth up. When Jesus heard this he said, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." He had everything; he was not oppressed, he was a ruler; not a publican, but a high-class Pharisee; he was no child, not resourceless, he had plenty of possessions. The Lord directs him, Distribute your property to the poor; reduce yourself to nothing; take up your cross, and follow me. Have no means but me; let me delight your heart and be your resource. No, the ruler cannot accept this, and sorrowful goes away, " for he had great possessions."
So it is practically with saints. I never see a saint in adversity get on badly, if he has faith, and I never see a saint in prosperity who gets on well if he trusts in his means. The moment a man gets means that he can rest on, then there is an opportunity for his particular worldliness to come out. When he is a poor man he cannot buy a picture; if he were rich he could, I do not say he always does.
But now comes out another thing: mercies and ties. " He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." The Lord announces, If you give up what naturally you value, such as natural ties when they come to bar the way, when they hinder you in your path with me, I will take care that you shall gain by doing so. You shall have manifold more in this present time. If you sacrifice natural things for Christ here, you gain manifold more from Christ here. There are rich men: some are rich in friends; others in belongings, in means, in bodily strength, in mental powers, no matter what. I say to you, if you begin to trust in such riches instead of surrendering them to Christ, you will find you are not progressing. Now is it not pleasant for the heart to be able thus to delight in God? To be able to say: I am a poor, feeble creature, without means; but He has taken me up in His arms, laid His hands upon me, and blessed me; whereas, if I were a man of great natural resources, perhaps I should find it very difficult to give up everything to follow Christ.
And yet it is there that devotedness comes in, because devotedness consists in giving up for Christ. When Gideon's army was too great for God to use, He said, " Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there." The water was the test to them. And I am sure many now turn aside after an earthly mercy. They do not cease to be Israelites, but they are no longer fit to go on, no longer fit to fight the Lord's battles.
Therefore, in conclusion, let not a single heart droop here. Surely there is immense comfort in the thought that, if I am a poor helpless widow, I can turn to the power of God; if I am in a distressed state of soul, I can rest in the mercy of God; and if I am but a feeble thing like a babe, I can be borne along in His arms. I have no resource whatever but Christ, but I am supported by His arm, and carried along in the sense of His love.
And as for those who know what it is to surrender anything here for Christ-those things which I might have, but which I give up so that I may have more of Him; I have no loss; my gain is great. It is " manifold more." Let no one say, I have suffered through giving up for Christ. You have not. The Apostle says, All that I have given up for Him " I do count it but rubbish." That is the force of the word. What! Does a man talk of losing a farthing when he has picked up a sovereign instead! In this way I say a saint enjoys " the life that now is and that which is to come." A saint walking with God enjoys every remnant of good in this world far more than a rich man does who is surrounded with every luxury that he is dependent on. " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." " A merry heart is a continual feast." And who is there in this room who cannot have a merry heart?
The Lord give us all to understand what a wonderful resource He has given us in Himself, as we go traveling on through this wilderness.
(J. B. S.)