"And the princes
of the people dwelt in Jerusalem: the rest of the people
also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem
the holy city, and nine parts in the other cities. And
the people blessed all the men that willingly offered
themselves to dwell in Jerusalem. Now these are the
chiefs of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem: but in
the cities of Judah dwelt every one in his possession in
their cities, to wit, Israel, the priests, and the
Levites, and the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's
servants" (Nehemiah 11:1-3).
"Then they that
feared the Lord spake one with another: and the Lord
hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was
written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and
that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do make, even a
peculiar treasure; and I will spare them, as a man
spareth his own son that serveth him" (Malachi
3:16,17).
As we come to the last
of this series of messages, it is necessary to have the
whole background before us in order really to appreciate
the setting of this final word. We have been led, as we
have considered the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem
by Nehemiah and those who were inspired by him, to see
again that, as that was a movement of God at the end-time
of the old dispensation (Nehemiah being the last
historical book of the Old Testament), so there is a
corresponding movement in our own time, as we move toward
the end of this dispensation: that God would seek to
complete, make full, the testimony of His Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. We have looked at that testimony, as to
what it is; we have taken account of the work, and the
workers related to it; and we have also given some
consideration to the conflict, the warfare, in which the
workers in such a work are involved.
Now for a brief and
simple word arising out of the two passages which we have
just read. More than once in the course of these messages
we have reminded ourselves that Nehemiah and Malachi were
contemporary, that what we read of in the book of
Nehemiah should be placed alongside of that which we have
in the prophecies of Malachi. Malachi tells of the
conditions in the days of Nehemiah, and here we come to
what may be regarded as a final word in the matter. In
this eleventh chapter of the book of Nehemiah, there is
mentioned a peculiar offering to the Lord, and in Malachi
3 a peculiar treasure of the Lord.
A
Tithe of the People
The peculiar offering,
as you notice, was now not a tithe of things. Tithing
of things was dealt with, but here was a tithe of the people,
a tithe of the whole people, a tenth part of those
who had come back and who had engaged in this work of
rebuilding the wall, and that tenth part became a
peculiar freewill offering to the Lord. Let us put a line
under the tenth part for the moment: because, whether we
like it or not, whether we are prepared to accept it or
not, the fact remains that it always has been, and, so
far as the forecast of the New Testament goes, it will be
to the end, that there are only a certain few who go the
full length with the Lord in His whole purpose. After all
the sifting that had taken place - the first great
sifting in Babylon when there came back a company, and
then a second sifting when a few more came back - after
the siftings, here we find ourselves at a kind of final
sifting, when the number is still further reduced and it
is only a tenth part who will voluntarily abide in
Jerusalem by their own choice - just a tenth part. It
seems that they correspond to Malachi 3:16,17, that
company that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His
Name: because you notice that it goes on to say:
"They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the
day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure". and
He has made a record of them - "The Lord hearkened
and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before
him", - a record was kept.
The
Lord's Book of Remembrance
Now in Nehemiah 11:4-24
you have the names, the record, of those who were a
freewill offering. The Lord kept a record, the Lord
composed a "book of remembrance," the Lord
entered the names of these, and concerning them He says
they are "a peculiar treasure," something He
specially treasures. The Lord is looking for some who
will be to Him "a kind of firstfruits," a kind
who will be in the vanguard, following Him
"whithersoever he goeth". He does look for a
nucleus who will mean the satisfaction of His heart in
the first place and in the essential way. As He looks out
on a great multitude - and He has a great multitude who
are His in the earth today - it cannot be said that all
who bear His Name, all who are the Lord's, are utterly
following and wholly going on, or meaning to do so. No,
it is not so. But He looks for this tithe of His people,
this tenth part representation answering to His own heart
desire. They to Him are peculiarly precious. "They
shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I
do make, even a peculiar treasure". That is the
final issue of this matter of the whole testimony: who
will voluntarily go all the way with the Lord, no matter
what it costs?
A
Freewill Offering
Now it was a freewill
offering, this tithe. Each one of the tenth made it
voluntarily. They submitted themselves voluntarily to
this casting of lots. You might object that if a lot was
cast they had no option, they had to accept it whether
they liked it or not, but the point is that they
willingly committed themselves to that method. That was a
willing, a freewill, offering unto the Lord. No
compulsion here, no law here, no legality here - it was
just willingness. Are you prepared, out of your own
heart, to make a response and say, without any bribery,
without any fear of the consequences if you do not: 'Yes,
I am going all the way with the Lord, I am going to see
that the Lord gets all that He wants so far as I am
concerned'? That may mean a lot, that may involve a lot.
But the Lord does not ask you to do it. He just waits for
it - a freewill offering, a peculiar treasure to Him
because it is freewill.
But what did it mean,
this living at Jerusalem - this living at the very heart
of the testimony, in other words? For since the wall
represents the testimony, people coming into residence
within the wall in Jerusalem really represented a
spiritual movement - that there are those who are
prepared to live right at the heart of the testimony. It
was necessary, and it always is necessary, to the Lord
that some do that - come right into the heart of it, to
be there in the place of responsibility concerning it.
There is a need that the testimony should be taken up
with a sense of responsibility for its maintenance, that
it shall be kept whole, that it shall be guarded, that it
shall be served, that it shall be ministered to. If you
look at the details concerning those who came within, you
see their various ministries. I cannot take up the detail
now, but you will see the various ministries which were
represented by those who came into Jerusalem. They came
in to fulfil a ministry, a spiritual ministry, on the
inside, and take responsibility there. It was a need the
testimony required.
A
Great Cost
But there was a great
cost attached to it. Not everybody was prepared for that,
not at all. There were many who were ready for it, who
accepted the method of choice to live inside, who were
not called upon to do so, but there were those who, in
the sovereign overruling of God, found themselves called
upon to do so. The lot fell out in their direction. God
sovereignly saw to it that that was how things went for
them, and it represented a real cost. It was very much
nicer to live outside Jerusalem than inside. These men
came into the city, on that day when the lot was to be
cast, ready to accept the result as the will of God for
them.
And then the lot was
cast, and it fell to them to come and live in the city. I
can imagine some of those men going back to their
suburban dwellings, wondering what the reaction was going
to be at home about this; saying to their wives: 'My
dear, we have to go and live in the city, we have to move
into Jerusalem - the lot has fallen to us.' Well, of
course, the right kind of wife would say this: 'My dear,
it was a matter of prayer, was it not? We prayed about
it, that if it was to come our way the Lord would
overrule, that if He wanted us He would let the lot fall
on us. It was before the Lord; it is all right, the Lord
wants it. Of course, it means giving up our nice little
country house and our nice garden. It means losing that
circle of friends we have out here. But still the Lord
has laid it on us and we do not do it with any murmuring.
But there are the children - perhaps that is the hardest
part of all, the children. They have to lose so much -
this free life out here, this life with all these others
out here in the larger scale. They are involved in this.'
And then they would turn to the children, and say:
'Listen, children: we have got to go and live in the
city. We shall have to leave the country, and the garden,
and all these others out here, and go to Jerusalem for
the Lord, because the Lord wants it.' They would be very
happy parents to whom the children said: 'Yes, we realize
that your devotion to the Lord is costing you something,
it is meaning a lot for you; and if we are involved in
it, well, of course it means a lot to us - but we are
with you in this.'
I do not think that is
all imagination. I am quite sure that it was a costly
thing to move into Jerusalem - and it always is costly to
live at the heart of the testimony. Those who do so must
forego many things that other people may have. You lose
the large circle of friends when you go right to the
heart of the Lord's interests. There are many people who
do not understand your doing that; they call you foolish,
you lose their confidence. They cannot believe that the
way you are taking is right, and they would argue,
'Surely that is not the Lord's will for you'. Yes, you
lose many friends, and you may lose many other things;
you may involve your children too - they may lose much if
you are going wholly with the Lord.
But listen - "They
shall be... a peculiar treasure". To be a peculiar
treasure to the Lord surely balances the account - nay,
outweighs that. If you are going on with the Lord, it
means that there are many things that you would like to
have, many things quite legitimate and right, many things
about which there is nothing wrong, but which, because of
your utterness for the Lord, you will have to let go. And
if you involve others in the suffering and cost of it
all, that is a very bitter draught from the cup. There is
nothing to indicate that these people who were chosen to
move into Jerusalem did not have a bit of a struggle
about it, that it did not cost them something, but the
fact is that in their willingness to go on with the Lord
they triumphed over all.
I think it is a
wonderful thing that in the arrangement of the books of
the Bible there is such a big gap between Nehemiah and
Malachi, and that Malachi comes right at the end with:
"They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the
day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure". It is
costly in many ways to live at the heart of the
testimony. Again I say, you may be deprived of many
things - good things; you may lose a lot of friends; you
may lose a larger life of opportunity. Oh, how many have
stopped, saying: 'How many doors will be closed to me if
I go that way! How much wide influence I shall forfeit! I
shall narrow my scope if I go that way.' And many have
refused on those grounds, thinking that it was a
legitimate argument to hold on to a larger scope and
larger influence against the whole mind of the Lord - a
wrong way of estimating values, because values are not
bigness; they are intrinsic and essential.
The
Intrinsic Value of the Peculiar Treasure
And so the value that
the Lord has here, as you see quite clearly, is in just a
very few, comparatively. It is a "day of small
things"; it is a comparatively small company about
which the Lord says, 'My peculiar treasure'. The value is
intrinsic. It is there that the Lord finds what His heart
desires, and that which, I believe, leads us to the far
greater thing. It is not that the Lord's thought ends
there in smallness because the Old Testament ends with
this day of small things, this little company fearing the
Lord: but that is the link between the end of the old
dispensation and the beginning of the new - the coming of
the Lord Jesus and all that followed. For, in the four
hundred years between the Testaments, there was still
that little company holding to the Lord's full thought.
When you open the New Testament, and begin the record as
given by Luke, there you find that link - the little
representative handful. Here is Anna, here is Simeon -
here in Jerusalem is a company who wait for the promise,
for the Messiah, looking for that day. They are linked
with those who "feared the Lord". Ah, but this
is something that, though outwardly small, has become so
intrinsically great, making a way for the Lord to come.
No, it does not end
there, but the challenge lies there. How mistaken we are
when we measure things by their bigness, by their
numbers. That is the way the world does it. And that is
where the world has come into the Church - measuring
things by numbers, size, extent, what you can see, how
you can appraise from natural standpoints. 'Oh, that must
be something for God! Look what a big thing it is!' Not
necessarily. It has often been that the greatest thing of
God has been very small in the eyes of man.
We return for a moment,
in closing, to the long list of names in Nehemiah 11. I
expect when you have read the book of Nehemiah you have
skipped this - those names, those terrible,
unpronounceable names! You have said, 'Oh, let us get on
to something more interesting than this!' And yet perhaps
this is one of the most interesting things in the whole
book. The Lord has taken note of each individual who
offered himself in this way, and has marked him down by
name and put him in the book; and he is not only here in
this book, the Bible, and there mentioned by name for all
successive generations to recognize, to identify, but he
is in the other book in Heaven for all eternity. That is
no small thing: to have your name down not only in the
Lamb's Book of Life as one born from above, a citizen of
Heaven, but in the Lord's "book of remembrance"
as one who has 'followed the Lamb whithersoever He
goeth', as one of a tabulated company, yes, out of all
the saved, all the redeemed - this kind of firstfruits
unto God.
Need we say more? What
is the appeal of these messages? That is the point at
which we arrive. I trust it means comfort to you. We want
all the comfort that we can get, but we know something of
the cost. How many times recently have people said to me,
'When are you going to retire? So-and-so has retired and
so-and-so is retiring' - yes, ministers of the Gospel.
There is no discharge in this warfare, no day for
retiring, brothers and sisters. I am sorry for you! You
are not going to be pensioned off down here and spend the
rest of your life vegetating. You have to go on to the
last breath, with battle and cost to the end. There is a
cost bound up with the full purpose of God, and in many
ways we know it.
But oh, the answer! The
Lord is taking note; He is putting it down, and He is
saying: 'That tithe, that freewill offering people, shall
be My peculiar treasure in that day that I do make'. I do
not know how that is going to work out, what it is going
to mean. Of course, it is a picture statement: that in a
great house there is something, amongst all the
possessions and all the ornaments, something that is
peculiarly precious to the owner, and whenever his
friends come he is always showing them that. 'Have you
seen this? This is most valuable. I hold it more dear
than anything else I have got; indeed it is more to me
than all the rest put together - a peculiar treasure.'
That is behind this. How
it is going to work out I do not know, but that is what
it means. Those who go this way, those who will pay this
price, those who will accept these consequences, those
who will be after this kind - a freewill offering to the
Lord for everything that He desires and His heart is set
upon - will be in His House like that. He will be drawing
attention to them and saying, 'Look here, have you seen
these? These are peculiarly precious to Me. They followed
the Lamb whithersoever He went.'
The Lord make us like
that.