It is said of some of those who surrounded David at Hebron, that they "had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." Alas! it is to be feared that it is more than can be said •of too many who profess to have come out in this present day to the true David in his rejection.
In earlier days, even ere the land of promise was entered, we are told that it was the conduct of some of the spies that spread fear and discontent in Israel; they made the heart of the people melt by bringing up an evil report of the land they had searched (see Numb. 13; Josh. 14). This is the very opposite of knowing what Israel ought to do.
Now it cannot be denied that while the truth of God is one great whole and that all and every portion of it is the property through grace of His children, and all needed too in its place, there have been certain parts of it to which at different times as special truth the Holy Spirit has been pleased to give prominence, either in recovering it after years of ignorance, superstition, and darkness, or else reviving its preciousness in the waning affections of His saints. This is so plain that to dispute it seems blindness indeed; more than that too may be urged in the remembrance of how God has ever connected the knowledge of His mind, the understanding of the thing that He does with loyalty of heart toward Himself. "Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" shows very clearly that it was a special and peculiar line of action; and, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him," shows very distinctly that faithfulness on Abraham's part was the ground of the communication being made to him.
Now the importance of having a divine estimate of anything cannot be overrated; it is false and mischievous in the extreme to suppose that it is in any sense an experience. "The knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," is in order to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing; and the practical result with the experience flowing from it, depends upon the saint being filled with the knowledge of God's will. The Lord has been graciously pleased in His sovereign goodness to raise up from time to time vessels of His own election to whom He communicated His mind, and through whom He spread it among His people. The last of such vessels in the way of special revelation was the
Apostle of the Gentiles; as soon as the mystery was made known to him, the Word of God was completed; it was given to Paul to complete it. (See Col. 1:25.) He could say as none other even of the apostles, "Be followers together of me." We know that so far from that having been a general thing, "all they that are in Asia" were turned away from him; and at his first answer no man stood with him, but all forsook him. The fashion then, as now, was the other way.
Since the days of the Apostle, God has graciously been pleased to recover much of His truth by vessels of His own choosing; of such the Word says, "Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith." Heb. 13:7; J.N.D. Trans. The greatest favor that could be accorded to any saint of God on earth is to be a friend of Christ. In David's day those who knew what Israel ought to do, were his friends, and surrounded him at Ziklag and Hebron; in these days those whose one desire is to please the Lord and answer to His longings, surround Him in spirit in heaven where He is crowned, and surround Him also on earth where He is despised and rejected. "Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." John 15:14, 15. The Lord grant that many hearts may be aroused at this moment to seek as His friends His mind for this present time, undeterred alike by the indifference and heartlessness of His own people, and by the deadly opposition of the world and its prince.