76
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
February 1928
Bringing Back the King B y R ev . J. R ussell H owden , B. D. ( From a Keswick Address )
“ All the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king saved us out of the hands o f our enemies, and he delivered us out o f the hand of the Philistines; and now he is fled out o f the land fo r Absalom. And Absalom, whom he anointed over us, is dead in battle. : Now therefore why speak ye not a word o f bringing hack the king?” (2 Sam. 19:9). HE episode to which this chapter refers is the most tragic, perhaps, in the whole history of the Israelitish people, certainly the most tragic in all David’s life. You will recollect the cir cumstances. There had been definite rebellion on the part of his son, Absalom, his honored, dearly beloved son. That rebellion had resulted in devas tating civil war, and now Absalom was dead and gone, and the civil war had resulted in widespread anarchy. The little land of Palestine was, in those days, in very much the condition in which the great land of China is today. But I do not stay to speak of the historical setting of the words because I want to take them as once again an illus tration of the condition of God’s people, ànd of the way in which, by God’s mercy, those people who are in such case as that may be brought right out into a condition such as God intends should be theirs. In many of our lives there have been similar happen ings. Perhaps some of us look back, over the past year, and we know that somewhere in our history there has been a definite act of rebellion and disobedience against God. We know perfectly well at the back of our minds that there has been one particular thing, perhaps more than one, wherein we have got away from the line of God’s will. There has been this, act of rebellion, and the result of that one act has been that there has been a condition o f civil war in our hearts and lives, and sometimes the Lord Jesus has seemed to have the upper hand for a little time, and sometimes self has gained the upper hand, and we were never quite sure what was going to happen to us next. S ouls in S tate of A narchy For many of us that condition has gone into a state of strain and complete anarchy. Our souls are all in distress, our lives are all in disorder. The governing center of them seems to have disappeared, and we are just a welter of con flicting impulses and desires and longings, dissatisfied and restless and wanting we know not what. We, like the Israelitish people of old, are restlessly longing for someone or something to come and re-establish the government in our lives which has slipped out of them. ; There was in those people the consciousness of poverty. They were open to the attacks of their enemies. The strong hand o f central government had been withdrawn, and I doubt not that the land was alive with propaganda of rapine and lawlessness throughout, from north to south and from east to west. They were impoverished when they might have been rich. The glories of the past seemed to have departed, and the old condition of security to have gone forever. It may be that we feel something like that. There is such a verse, for example, as 2 Cor. 9 :8 : "God is able to make all grace abound toward you ; that ye, always having
all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” W e read a verse like that, and it conveys nothing to our minds. W e are not conscious of abounding grace ; we are conscious o f desperate lack, of weakness. When we read of the grace made possible for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, it all seems so terribly far off and unattain able. Or turn to 1 Cor. 1 :5 : "In everything ye are en riched by Him, in all utterance and in dll knowledge.” It may be that there was a time in our lives when that was somewhat true. We knew then, as we do not know now. We were sure about the Bible then, as we are not sure now ; we were sure about God’s promises then, as we are not sure now; and we were sure that there was an enrich ment of utterance for some of us that has sadly died «town. There may be much talking, much preaching, much eloquence, but the utterance which is the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the enrichment of God Himself, has de parted, and the ministries which were once fruitful, and helpful, and useful to others, have sadly been shorn of their power and influence. Men come round us as of old, but there is not thé old-time power or fervor. That is the sad story and record of the life of many a Christian worker. There was a time when things were dif ferent and better with us, but now all that seems to have passed away, and we read about these enrichments o f God, and the only thing they bring to us is a sad consciousness of our own utter divorce from them in all our experience and knowledge. No grace, no utterance, no knowledge, no power ! That is' our consciousness. T he D issatisfied L ife There is not only poverty, but there is a sense o f dis satisfaction in our lives. It was the dissatisfaction in the lives of these people which drove them to support the rein stated David on the throne in Jerusalem, and acknowledge his supremacy over all the land. It is a great thing when a man .is restless and unhappy because he is out of har mony with the will of Christ. Thank God if you and I know something of being dissatisfied with life, and dis satisfied with ourselves and dissatisfied with our experi ence. God loves you far too much to let you settle down easily into a condition of rebellion and revolt against Him. He loves you far too much to acquiesce in your own spir itual self-destruction, and He has allowed that dissatisfac tion to come into your heart in order that it may provoke you to seek after Him and discover once again the ruling, restful center of your life. Your restlessness and dissatis faction are all due to one thing : to the fact that the throne of the kingdom has been usurped, that self is in the place where the Lord Jesus ought to be, and that you have been trying to run your life for yourself, along your own line and according to your own plans. Further, there is the consciousness of helplessness. The Israelites felt that very painfully. "The king saved us out o f the hand o f our enemies, he delivered us out o f the hand o f the Philistines; and now he is fled.” There are lives in which it seems as if the devil were just ravaging at his pleasure. In various ways he has come in and he has got us down under, his grip and power, and it seems as if
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online