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Appropriate sheet, and as you will see, it consists of three things. In the first hour, we shall be beginning to consider the second stage in the rise of man from Adam until the time that Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord. Then from, after a brief interval, from eight till eight forty five, uh, we are to be given a time for questions and further contributions. We don't wish to be legalists, of course. Uh, so by the law of the land, anything is permitted.
But, uh, if our questions were directed to the parts of the book that we have already studied, that would help us to concentrate our minds and make sure that we have all understood as best we can, eh, what, uh, uh, we have been studying. But as we said before, the time is not merely for questions, but for further contributions. They can be long or short. If you have a longish contribution to make, pray consider all others who might likewise have a longish contribution to make. And if you wish to make a long contribution, there is a microphone.
Everything is provided except the thoughts, uh, you'll see. Uh, so do make use of the facilities provided. Uh, again, eh, eh, for those who make contributions, if those contributions could be germane to the question that we are talking about. I know that at such conferences like these, and in other lands, perhaps more particularly than in the States, certain questions come up always, whatever the topic being discussed, whether it be Ecclesiastes or the book of the Revelation, about the second question in some countries is bound to be, what do you think about the sons of God in Genesis chapter six?
You'll see. Ha ha. If you have such a question, I pray reserve it, uh, for, uh, some other time than these public sessions. But otherwise, uh, this, let us remember, is a cooperative effort. We are together waiting on God. Yes, we shall help each other as best we can according to what the Lord has given us, but let us not lose sight of the fact that we are waiting on God to hear what the Lord will say to us, each one. And therefore, it is good that we help one another as the Lord shows us different things according to our different personalities and backgrounds, that we help one another so that with all the saints we might come to know what is the length and breadth and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
Now, this afternoon we briefly surveyed the first stage, and when I use the word stage, let me remind you that we discovered that the first book of Chronicles is from Adam at the beginning to the time when the man Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord. And we were asking ourselves, by what experience, by what pathway, in what stages did mankind r- uh, come from Adam at his beginning to the time when a man should sit upon the throne of the Lord. A question important to answer historically, uh, uh, of the pathway from Adam to Solomon, but an even more important question when we think of the whole future of humanity and God's purpose for it, summed up, of course, in Christ, uh, who, being man, now sits at the throne of God and holds out to us the promise that to him that overcomes, I'll give to sit on my throne, even as I overcame and sat on my father's throne.
We ask here too, what are the stages? What are the necessary experiences? Wherein is the path of progress? As we observe it in history, we shall, of course, at the same time be thinking of ourselves in this age. What are the necessary stages by which we hope to sit one day on the throne of God with Christ? We found in the first stage two, uh, major things. First, there was what we may, uh, uh, vaguely call what was right.
That is the rise of Israel from among the Gentile nations. There would we look if we would find sense in history. Let us be warned against historiographers who t- think they can tell you that history as a whole has a special pattern. Marx would have told you that. He thought he saw s- patterns in all of history, uh, dialectical, uh, uh, materialism, you'll see, or historical materialism, as he liked to call it. That has to proved to be the nonsense it always was, of course. To give a pattern of the whole of history, you would need to know the whole of history, and none except God knows that.
While we don't try to say that we can give you a pattern of the whole of history, we can point to a very definite, uh, pattern in history, in one direction arising in the Middle East, being the rise of Israel. That has proved to be unique in many a way, and has as its trim- chief claim to our attention that it was the nation through whom, uh, the Christ according to the flesh was born. A nation who had a special role for God in history, the nation of the great lawgiver Moses, of the patriarch Abraham, of the great King David, the nation of the prophets, all of them in their way contributing to the education of the nation until the time came when it was ready for the Messiah to come.
Therein lies a pattern within history of the profoundest significance, and Israel as a nation is not finished yet, for the gifts and callings of God are without change of mind, and Israel shall yet fulfill the role, the distinctive role that God has given to that nation. Though some of the branches, as Paul would say, have been cut off, that does not mean that God has, uh, forsaken and given up the people which he knew in a foretime. But there shall come the point when the deliverer shall come out of Zion, and so Is- so Israel as a whole shall be saved.
Here is the most significant pattern within history, and in it and on it lies mankind's hope. That, therefore, is good, and we passed over it unduly quickly. We saw that within that, uh, rise of, uh, of Israel, the chronicler gives the greater proportion to the genealogies of Judah and then of David's house within Judah. And also equally, uh, the proportion given to the Levites, and we saw the significance of it. There was going to be any sense made of the endless generations of human beings upon the earth and the trillions of individuals.
Then it will call for a someone who can bring mankind back to God and redeem them, and then make something of them for God. And it reminded us of that passage in Revelation five. He is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals and purge earth by God's judgments of the rebellious mankind. He's worthy to do it because before the judgments are released, he has been slain and has redeemed us to God by his blood out of every kindred, tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and done more, made us kings and priests.
Pray let us not forget that second bit. Let us hear nobody in the Christian community saying that worship is pointless. Is qualification to take the book, to reign universally, is in part this, that he makes his redeemed people a kingdom, men and women that have learned willingly to obey God, and then have learned to live as priests and to fulfill their priestly functions, first of all to God, and then to the nations around them.
So this first stage is rightly occupied, then, if man is ever going to sit upon the throne of the Lord and do and fulfill and achieve what is God's great purpose within human history. That is one day to build a dwelling place for himself, permanent, inside creation. That is going to be fulfilled, then, uh, it will have to be fulfilled through the greater than David, David's son. He shall build the temple. Praise God, he has come. Him of whom it can be said in the fullest possible sense, by God, I will be his father, and he shall be my son.
He is in process of building that house already. But then we noticed in the final session this afternoon that while the genealogies record that good thing, that tremendous stage forward, that is the rise of Israel from among the nations. Their witness against the idolatrous interpretation of the universe and the worship of the powers of nature. Their witness to the true God of heaven, and so forth. That was followed by grievous going wrong, and our good friend Jim McKendrick dealt with it this afternoon.
How rightly so. Saul, the first king, proved to be a disaster in that he committed a trespass against the Lord because of the word of the Lord which he kept not, and also for that he asked counsel of one that had a familiar spirit to inquire thereby, and inquired not of the Lord, therefore he slew him. And how not? Man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord, but not the likes of Saul. Does anyone suppose that God Almighty is going to hand over the throne of the universe to someone that will rebel against the word of the Lord?
To someone that has not learned to obey? Saul not only disobeyed the Lord, he went over to the other side. Quiet of an evil spirit. He most certainly shall never sit upon the throne of the Lord. So that we might sum up that lesson, mightn't we? Man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord, declares Chronicles, but by whose authority shall he sit? And therein lies a big story, as Jim pointed out to us.
Just as the first man Adam sinned, so did the first king, and the sin was the same. A rejection, a disobedience to the word of God. As we apply that lesson to ourselves, as Jim pointed out, let's underline it. We should have had no hope, should we, of ever sitting upon the throne of the Lord. We were once disobedient. We came under the condemnation that as by one man's disobedience, sin entered in the world, by that same one act of a disobedience, the many were constituted sinners.
We owe our hope in the first place to God's provision. Blessed be the name of the Lord, that if by the disobedience of one, the many were counted and constituted sinners. Oh, praise God, listen to it, by the obedience of one. And the one great act of obedience in Gethsemane and the cross, that many shall be constituted righteous. Therein is all our hope. But let us then remember the practical side of this question.
The Lord is in process of making us a kingdom, that is people who obey. And here is an emphasis that we should not allow to escape us. We frequently, and very rightly, I say nothing to the contrary, we frequently talk about he who believes has eternal life. That is blessedly true. Allow me to read in your ears a verse that you will know, but is not quite so commonly quoted. Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears unto him that was able to save him from death.
And having been heard for his godly reverence, son though he was, yet learned he obedience. Not that he was ever disobedient and had to learn how to obey, but he learned what it means to obey. Obeying God in glory of heaven will be a comparatively easy thing. Obeying him here on earth is something else. And our Lord learned by practical experience what it means and what it costs to obey God in a runaway world of rebellion.
But now listen else what it says. Son though he was, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect in the sense of having qualified, he became the author of eternal salvation to those who... Ah, yes, my brethren. To those who obey him. Paul, the great expositor of justification by faith and not by words, tells us at the end of his epistle that the gospel is made known for the obedience of the faith.
That is an emphasis that we should not allow to be lost. Justified by faith we certainly are, but we are in, uh, from conversion upwards being taught to obey. Repentance and faith can in some senses be described as an act of obedience, as we bow to God's word and accept it, and obey his command to repent, and to trust the Savior. Repentance towards God, owning God to be right, his condemnation to be just, and accepting his command to bow the knee and confess Jesus as Lord.
And as we begin the path, it will not be by our merit that we share Christ's own, but the condition, the evidence that we are really the lords is that we learn to obey. My dear brethren, there is no, no possibility that people that have throughout life carelessly disobeyed the Lord should share the throne with him, is there?
At least I put it in the form of a question. Now, the lesson of Saul reminds us that if a man will deliberately and positively disobey God and go over to the other side. There can be no thought of his sitting on the throne of the Lord. That said, then we move on to the next stage, and let me remind you how, uh, it begins and where it ends. End of chapter ten, Saul was slain and the kingdom turned unto David the son of Jesse.
The second stage goes on until chapter fourteen, When at a certain point, Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David and cedar trees and masons and carpenters to build him a house in the sense of a royal palace. And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, for his kingdom was exalted on high for his people Israel's sake. So now he was not only king, but established, and began himself to build a royal house in the sense of a royal family. What were the elements then in this stage?
Ra- reason would suggest that this stage ought to show progress, progress upon the first stage, taking things further. What then is the next major bit of progress on the pathway to sitting upon the throne of the Lord? On the pathway to the building of the great temple of God and the organizing and achieving of the worship and service of God on the part of God's people. If I would put one word on the, uh, progress part, it would be the unification of the people of God.
The unification of the people of God. This stage, alas, like the first one, having spent a great deal of time on the element of progress, the advance, the right pathway will end as the first one ended, by a very sad lapse and going wrong. The bringing up of the ark, the attempt tool, in the wrong fashion. That was met by the judgment of God.
Once more then, first the right thing, first the advance, first the progress, secondly, the lapse, the going wrong. I hasten to declare that the going wrong eventually taught Israel, and David in particular, a very important lesson, and the wrong was put right when the third stage dawned. Ah, we serve a lovely God that can make our mistakes in the end serve the purpose of our further education and help us to be victorious at last.
Now, by an innate selfishness, which you will all perceive, in organizing these lectures, I realized that each stage had a nice part and a bad part. I chose to expound the nice bit, you see. And I gave out the nasty bit to somebody else. First then, the good piece of progress, the unification of the people of God. What's that got to do with the great purpose of the book, the building of the house of God, the organizing of the Levites and the priests and the people in the worship and service of God?
Well, if that is the job of the man who sits upon the throne of the Lord eventually, and we can see at once come to it, why the next necessary, absolutely indispensable thing is that he should know how to unify the people of God. How shall the praise of God ever resound to God's acceptance, unless the people of God eventually are unified?
And in saying that, I hope I'm reali- realist enough to know how difficult that is to achieve here upon Earth. God have mercy upon our frailty, but how countless are the causes and the occasions of the disagreements among the people of God. We, my brethren, must come round to seeing the seriousness of division and disunity among the people of God.
What Paul urges us as is not to keep the unity of the body, does he? To keep the unity of the spirit. There is one Holy Spirit, spirit in every believer redeemed by the blood of Christ. Yes, we must take our stand for truth, but let us ever keep in mind the necessary objective, the unification of the people of God. How else shall the choirs of heaven function?
How then was it achieved at the level of history at this stage, this second stage, in the first book of Chronicles? First of all, let it be said that unity of the people of God was achieved through a person, and Israel's love of a person, that is David. Let us follow, therefore, the elements that are given us in the text and allow ourselves to concentrate on some of the detail.
Then all Israel, meaning all the ten tribes at this juncture, gathered themselves to David, to Hebron, saying, behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. In the past seven years, David had been king in Hebron over the two tribes, but the ten tribes had gone their way under Saul's progeny, and thus the tribes had still remained divided. Now the great move forward was made.
The nation as a whole unified. Lovely words to read. Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, for the ten tribes, that took a de- great deal of grace and humility. To abandon their own capital city and come over to what was at the moment David's capital city, Hebron, that took a great deal of grace. What was the secret of it? Their sense of utter vital life unity with David.
Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. That is a Hebrew way of explaining the way they felt to be not just, uh, subjects in his kingdom, but veritable members of David, of the same bone and flesh. You cannot read it without observing that the same thing is true of the people of God. What is it that unites them? What is it that will unite them eternally? Oh, my brothers, it's that sense that each believer is joined to Christ, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
Christ is the unifying center, more than a center, with us beyond what this Hebrew metaphor by itself means. Beyond that for us, there is the wonderful fact stated for us clearly in the epistle to the Hebrews in chapter two, saying he is not ashamed to call us his brothers, brethren. How is that? Why isn't he ashamed to call us brethren? The answer is Hebrews two eleven: for both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Because he who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all out of one, he is not ashamed to call them brothers. And some theologians, and they could be right, I very much doubt it, but they could be, ah, they'll say, take it to mean that because we have been so elevated to become children of God and are children of the Father, we're one with Christ because he's a son of the Father. That may be what the writer means. You'll see, ha, we've been so exalted that he isn't ashamed of us anymore.
There would remain, wouldn't there, an uncrossable chasm at that level between us and Christ. We are children of God, but not in the sense that he is Son of God. I take it that the argument is the other way round. It's not on the grounds of our exaltation that he's not ashamed to call us brethren. It's on the ground that he is one of us, truly human, born of a virgin, genuinely one of us.
It is not our exaltation, it is his condescension. That is the amazing thing. Isn't that why you love him? Isn't that why, amidst all the ten thousand and one things and opinions that we hold or don't hold, this tugs at your heart centrally. Because for your salvation he became a man like you, sin apart, and because he is genuinely one of us. When he calls us brothers, the term means what it says. It is not an insincere exaggeration.
He is genuinely one of us. How all the more easy it is for us to accept him as Lord and King, not some extraneous despot called in to come to govern the savages on the bus. Lovely. First ground for the unifying of Israel was Israel's appreciation of David as being one of them. Then notice it says, in times past, even when Saul was king, it was thou that ledest out and broughtest in Israel.
The term is, of course, to do with leadership in warfare. He led them to the battle. He was the secret of their victories. And nevermore was it so when he met the giant Goliath and thereafter, when Saul and Jonathan were skulking in their tents, yellow with fear and panic at the sight of Goliath. It was David that led them out and conquered the giant and led Israel's armies to victory. It speaks at once to our hearts, doesn't it, what? What hope would we have in this world, in this universe?
What victory could we ever claim over the powers of nature, let alone the powers of hell, were it not for him who came to lead us in the battle and fight our battles for us. We celebrate him who could say, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Think of the, of the colorful metaphor used by Paul in Colossians chapter two, when the very hosts of hell surrounded his cross, and as it would seem, defied God to pardon us sinners.
Satan, you know, is more interested in morality than we think he is, and in the topic of justice and righteousness. And if God had dared to forgive us just by an act of power, okay, I'm the governor of the universe. I choose arbitrarily to forgive them, and that's that Satan, and you shut up. Satan, though he were consigned to the abyss, would have gone down shouting that God had been defeated, God had been unjust. And the answer was, that man on the cross who took the long handwriting that we ourselves had signed by our own conscience, knowing we were sinners, and in our own conscience agreeing the fact with God that we were sinners, indisputably sinners, the long bond written out against us and signed in our own handwriting, so to speak, by our conscience.
He took it, wiped it out, and nailed it to his cross. He fought the fight. For us in might came forth the mighty one. For us he fought the fight, the triumphant one. The victory is ours. Us. Thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ over the powers of death itself. One of us, you see. Being a real man, his death was real. So was his bodily resurrection.
I like the words that the risen Lord said to his apostles when they thought they saw a spirit, and he said, handle me and see. Spirit doesn't have flesh and bones, as you see me have. Handle me, it's I myself. For the Lord to be I myself, he had to have a body, we noticed. He had a body in resurrection, well, and will have it eternally. And the victory is given to us too. Oh, how you could go on, and you preachers do it far better than I. He fought our battles. Therefore we love him. We have no other leader to hide behind, have we?
It is Christ, the winner of our battles, that compels the love of his people and thus draws them together. And then it is said, eh, what is more, and the Lord God said unto thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over my people. So in a sense, they weren't doing anything sort of unique, were they? Nor were they the beginners of this. But first of all, they saw that God had made him, if you see what I mean, Lord and Christ. They thought it was time they had made, they agreed with God and made him that too themselves.
Yeah? That is the situation, isn't it? As Peter announced to Israel on the day of Pentecost, God has made him whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. You better do the same then. And God said, you shall feed my people Israel. Ah, lovely term for a king. Well, there were many kings in the ancient world who liked to regard themselves as shepherds, shepherd kings. That, in theory, was the role of a king, not to be a tyrannical despot, to be a shepherd of the people. How far many were from fill- fulfilling that ideal, I leave you to recount.
But how lovely to hear our Lord as a shepherd king. John chapter ten, Those beautiful words, I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish. None shall pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, are greater than all. None shall pluck them out of my Father's hand, were not spoken, as you have observed, to believers. Not those words. They were spoken to the unbelieving Pharisees. Pray, perceive the situation. Our Lord was claiming to be the shepherd king of the people of God.
The Pharisees despised him. You a shepherd? If I might say it in all reverence, here was Christ advertising himself as a shepherd. Yes, I'm a shepherd. You want to know what kind of a shepherd I am? What would you require of a shepherd? Ha. The shepherd's going to be a real shepherd. One of the first qualifications is this, that he must keep his sheep. I'm telling you, gentlemen, I am the shepherd. Just look at the security I can give my sheep. He was talking to Pharisees. Oh, good for them. I, I need to hear it still. This is a shepherd rightly advertising himself to his enemies.
This is the kind of shepherd I am. I give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. The way to unity was rule, yes, is a king, but notice the kind of king. He's a shepherd king. He feeds, guides, cares for, and knows his sheep. So the elders of Israel came to the king, to c- to Hebron, and David made a covenant with them, that he should be their king, and they should be his obedient servants.
I remind you, gentlemen, if I may, that central to the life of the church is the celebration of the covenant which our blessed Lord Jesus has made with us, his people. That is sometimes forgotten, in some denied. For there are those who, for various theological... feel that the covenant, the new covenant that our Lord made at his cross is not for the church.
I have not now time to discuss it. If people want to discuss that matter, then it could well be brought up in question time. When Moses made the covenant that he was given to make as a mediator with Israel, he took a basin with blood and said, behold the blood of the covenant. When our Lord sat at the table with his own a few hours before Calvary, he took a cup of wine and said, this is the cup of the covenant in my blood, which is shed for many. This is the cup of the new covenant.
There aren't two or three new covenants. Pray, what are the terms of the new covenant? You say, forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. I will not remember their sins anymore. You've got it absolutely right, at least the third bit of it. You've admitted the, admitted the first two. And the first term of the covenant is this, I will write my laws on their heart and on their mind. And when the blessed Savior offers us the cup of the New Covenant as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, and we take that cup, we are in symbol saying, yes, Lord, I stand to your covenant.
Fulfill that covenant in me still yet further, and write your laws on my heart ever more deeply. Paul points out it would be a serious thing to come to that supper, take that cup of the new covenant, with no intention of carrying out the Lord's will and command, and unrepentant of sin. They made a covenant with him, or he rather with them. It is that that brings believers together, doesn't it?
In their covenant union with the blessed Lord Jesus. Then David did a second thing. For the unifying of the people of God. He took the combined forces, verse four: so David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, the same as Jebus. And with the combined forces of the united twelve tribes, they took this city of Jebus that hitherto had been occupied by Canaanites ever since the days of Joshua, captured the city and formed it into the new capital city for the people of God.
That was a stroke of genius. David already had a capital, that was Hebron, where the two tribes made him king. And when the ten tribes, their leaders came to David to make him king and to submit to David's rule, had David been a little bit like me, he might have said, well now, gentlemen, I'm glad to see you eating humble pie. I told you that this is what it would have to come to in the end, and I'm glad you've seen sense and come, and now you will give up your capital in Samaria and recognize Hebron as your capital. No, he didn't. He chose a place that had never been occupied by Israel, ever.
Together they took it. They set up Jerusalem as the capital for all the tribes without distinction. Judahites or Ephraimites, people from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north, they could regard Jerusalem as their capital, just as much as it was Naphtali's capital and Benjamin's capital. It hadn't been anybody's capital before, until David made it the capital. Ha ha. And so Jerusalem became the unifying city to which all the tribes equally belonged as of right.
Marvelous stuff, isn't it? Jerusalem. Time would tell it failed me, like it failed the writer to the Hebrews on another occasion, to say all that ought to be said about Jerusalem. This is not fairy story we're reading. This tactic of taking Jerusalem and setting up as the capital city of the people of God has had repercussions down through history that are with us still. Mighty repercussions. And forms in the plans of God and their fulfillment a pivotal importance.
It would be difficult to exaggerate it. They called it the city of David. Oh, that's right, they got that right too. It was not just a city, it was David's city. And, uh, thus it lasted. It was sacked, I know, by the Babylonians, but rebuilt under Nehemiah. It was assaulted by Antiochus Epiphanes, but it was cleansed of idolatry by the time our blessed Lord came to Jerusalem and to the temple.
Oh, what earth-stirring days were that? When at last, deliberately he took an ass and sat there on, accompanied perhaps by thousands of people that had followed him from Ga- Galilee, added to by the hundreds that have come out of Jerusalem to meet him. He came over the brow of the Mount Olivet, riding on an ass, the foal of an ass, to the acclaim of the humble. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, deliberately fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah nine verse nine. behold, thy king cometh to thee.
Pivotal point in history. According to the plans and the prototypes of God, this is how it should happen. That's how it did happen. He came as Jerusalem's king to his capital city on earth, son of David and rightful heir. They rejected him, of course, didn't they? But even so, the key transaction of all time and eternity happened. It's not a myth. It happened here on earth. It happened just outside the gates of Jerusalem City. At Jerusalem City, he said, should be downtrodden of the nations until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, at which time the nations of the earth shall be gathered against Jerusalem in their attempt to wipe from the earth this testimony that Israel has borne to the living God and to the hope of a coming Messiah.
Then shall the Lord come, as Zechariah fourteen plainly declares. And the enemy shall be defeated, and the Lord shall reign. Ah, but there's more than that. Ah. Ha. Jerusalem becomes a prototype of even a higher thing than the earthly city. The Jerusalem that is above. For good old Abram, he was given the covenant of inheritance, that his seed should inherit certain acres in, in, in Palestine, and that they have and will foot to the full one day.
But Abram, though he was father of those that had the earthly inheritance, he believed in it with all his might and main, but he looked further. He looked for a heavenly fatherland, the fatherland in heaven, says the Greek. That was Abram's ultimate prospect. And he looked for the city that hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. To that city, all who trust the Savior belong. City foundations are writ with the names of the apostles anyway, of the Lamb. And me fancies in my wider moments that Abraham and Sarah, you know, laid the foundations, didn't they?
What will be the foundations that keep that great eternal city, that community, together. On what foundations shall the community itself, the people, be built into an eternal unity? The foundations are those laid by God in the experience of Abraham and Sarah, justification by faith and justification by works. Oh, and the gates of that city, but that's a long story, I mustn't go into that. But just as the gates in an ancient city were the place where the government, uh, sat, to carry on the government of the city, so the eternal city shall have gates, and on the name, gates, the names of the children of Israel.
For we are being prepared, not only to be members of that eternal city, but to reign with Christ. So then, the unification of the people of God. There is one other topic that I must deal with, and I shall deal with it in brief because James dealt with it this afternoon in excellent fashion, to all say. Amidst the unity, there was diversity. It was not that every citizen was monotonously and indistinguishably like another citizen, and when I think of the differences in heaven, I'm somewhat glad, uh, being monotonous to have how many trillions all looking exactly the same, so you couldn't distinguish one from another?
Wow, that would be a bit monotonous, wouldn't it? You say we shall all be like Christ, uh, my good sir. So we shall. Does that mean we shall all be identical and indistinguishable? You won't know Abram from Lot, and Lot from me? No, surely not. We shall all be like Christ, what there is of us. And some will arrive in heaven as spiritual babies, won't they? And some will arrive in heaven, as Paul indicates, Colossians chapter one, as mature grown-ups, spiritually, I mean.
I want to present every man, he says, grown up. That is important, isn't it? If we are to share Christ's administrative throne, then we must grow up unto him who is the head. Think what that means in his divine wisdom and power and control. Oh, grow up, says Paul, grow up. You haven't got the time to fritter away. You've got to grow up into the full measure of the stature of Christ. He shall rule the universe if you want to take part with him. We should all be in the reigning house, shouldn't we?
We shan't have equal responsibilities given us. That is important. As James was indicating this afternoon, within Israel there was a diversity. There were the armies loyal to David, but within them there were people that had distinguished themselves in one way or another. There were the first three, then there were the thirty, then there were others mentioned, and each were given his place in the rule and kingdom of David, according to what their loyalty, service, and sacrifice had been for him.
That is important, isn't it? In the accounts of what they did are accounts of great valor that distinguished the one from the other. Perhaps you say, ah, but, ah, but wait a minute. How can I ever have been a great warrior? Surely they were given special gifts to start with. You hit it on head. We've not all been given the same gifts, have we? You say that ain't fair then. Tell me, is it fair that you're going to heaven at all? It's a question of fairness, my boy.
It's God's grace that will see you in heaven. It's God that has placed the members in the body, even as it's pleased him. I'm never going to be an apostle. I've discovered that, but I'm rather late to be an apostle. And the apostles are, so our Lord told them, to sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, so there's twelve jobs that are gone, and I shall get one of them. As far as gift is concerned, Paul points out that whether you have a big gift or a little gift, you can be all equal in this, that the job of any gift is to please God.
And you, my brother, can please God by being what God has made you to be. And I, my little way, can please God if I will do what he made me to do, and not try to be somebody else. And the man with the big gift can do no more than that, please God. Well, I can do the same, by God's grace. That's the first thing to to be reminded of. But don't let this lull us into carelessness. For it's not merely gift that counts, but the willingness to suffer. It's if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him.
It's not knowledge that necessarily counts, it's loyalty and the willingness to suffer for Christ. In that respect, the chronicler records the different circumstances in which different groups of people came to David. Some came when it was a very popular thing to do, to come. Well, okay, they came. Some folks get converted amidst thousands of others getting converted, and it's a very popular thing to do to get converted. Well, that's a good job they get converted then. But other came to David when it was a decidedly unpopular thing to do.
Some came when he was in Ziklag, a little toehold that was given him by the Philistines when he was fleeing like a partridge on the mountain to escape Saul's attacks and determination to hunt him down and assassinate him. And some came to him then. It is recorded in the Chronicle. Some came when he was in Hebron, only king over the two tribes. Some came with all Israel. It is all recorded. Oh, we are writing our history, aren't we?
Each one of us. We're writing our history not merely for now, but for eternity. We are writing today what at the judgment seat of Christ will determine what role we are given to play in the coming economy. Some came against great difficulties. Some came across a river in flood. They risked their lives, a physical obstacle. Some came against the obstacles of their family life. The Benjamites belonging to the family of Saul. Wow, I didn't know what Mama said about that.
They came to David with grace overcoming the pull of nature. How easy it has been for some of us to come to Christ. With others, how difficult. A year or two ago, we had a letter from Tajikistan in response to our messages in the Russian press. Tajikistan is about eighty percent Muslim country. This came, this letter came from a student. He had been led to the Lord, I forget by who, by some Baptist believers, I, I think it was, I, I don't know for sure.
He'd seen our advertisement of free literature and wrote to ask for it, and said, you know, when I came to Christ and was baptized, my brothers beat me unmercifully to try and persuade me to renounce Christ and continue to follow the prophet. My father got knives and cut my back to try and force me to renounce Christ. Could you please send me some literature to tell me why do we have to suffer so much when we come to believe in Christ?
And what could I say, who've had it so easy? This too shall count. Not just great gift, is it? But what we have been prepared to suffer for Christ. And suffering isn't always being tied to a stake with burning faggots underneath your feet. Suffering can be of other sorts in our polished civilization. Being prepared to take a lesser salary for the sake of the sheep of God's flock.
To be prepared to face endless criticisms, as elders must do, for the sake of the Lord and his people. And who shall tell of all the other ways that we are called upon to show our loyalty to David? This too will be written, is being written in God's book of records. And all the people of God shall be one, members of the Jerusalem that is above. But some shall have rule over ten cities, and some of five, and some of one, if I may use the metaphor our Lord himself used.
Whatever the reality lies behind it, we leave to him. And we are determining now, maybe, on our side of the thing, what role we shall fulfill in the coming kingdom of Christ. We break now for a few moments, and then we shall proceed, uh, to the, um, questions and contributions. Shall we just pray? Sovereign Lord Jesus, thou who hast redeemed us with thy blood and fought our battles for us, and disdained to call us thy brothers.
Help us now to listen to this word of exhortation from thee, we pray. Foster within us the love that thou hast implanted. Show us ever increasingly thyself and thy glory. And give us hearts to obey thee and to serve thee, not counting the cost, that when the day of thy glory comes, we might hear thy word of commendation and be appointed to serve thee eternally. For thy name's sake, amen.
All the others probably.
