ENLARGEMENT
Rodney Brown
2 Corinthians 8: 9
Psalm 4: 1
1 Chronicles 4: 9-10
Judges 6: 11-21
Isaiah 38: 16
We have enjoyed these days together under the sound of the Word, and we can say that we have all benefitted from it. My desire from our time together, for myself, is that there may be a permanent result wrought. I feel the need of enlargement in the things we have spoken over; help has come in, and we have proved help together. I think the desire of God, of divine Persons, is that there should be a permanent result in each soul here - a result in enlargement, and I seek to say something as to that. The idea has really come into each of our meetings. You think of the living stones: “To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men” (1 Pet 2: 4), but, “elect, precious”, v 6. You might say that our appreciation of the Lord Jesus has been enlarged as we have been together and spoken over these things. These are not static things; these are things that are to continue, but to continue in power, and to increase. These things increase in persons. If I do not make room for them, then I have to say the ministry, for me, has not had the effect that God intended, and I believe, that God does have an end in view. We have spoken about formation; we have spoken about increase; we have spoken about desire.
All these things relate to enlargement in the things of God. What we are talking about here is spiritual enlargement. I have read of three persons, some of them perhaps insignificant - Jabez, for example, these two verses are the only references to him in scripture. Hezekiah - there are details as to Hezekiah’s life that are very interesting, entering into three different books in the Bible, spanning ten chapters altogether. There is a lot of detail gone into in relation to Hezekiah, and I commend it to each one of us, myself included, to look into it. He came to something; he was enlarged, as we will see. Really he was enlarged in view of the service of God; that is the great end in our exercises, and in formation, that there may be more for God, there may be more for the service of God. Hezekiah shows us the way to that. Gideon - he was enlarged himself, but then others came into the benefit of what he had done; others became enlarged through what he did.
That matter starts as an individual exercise; but it involves others. We have all benefitted from being together, but then enlargement is not an end in itself; it has an outlet in the service of God; we have that before us tomorrow, if the Lord does not come for us. There is an outlet for all gathered to enter into these things in reality, and in power. Every resource is available that we should be enlarged, and that we should be sustained in the enjoyment of these things. Christ is on high as our great High Priest, the Holy Spirit is here, and gifts have been set in the assembly. All that is in view of enlargement. It is never too late to be exercised in this way; it is never too late to be enlarged.
Jabez speaks of a young person early in his pathway. What he set himself for in the way of desire God brought about; that is a very blessed thing. Gideon was, I suppose, a young man too. Where we read, Hezekiah was at the end of his life, and he was still being enlarged. Therefore I can say to all those that have an interest, and I credit everyone in this room with an interest in these things, from the youngest to the oldest, there is still room for enlargement. No one has a complete impression as to the Lord Jesus; how could that be? Think of the impressions that have come into our time together; there is something more for everyone from the youngest to the oldest.
I started in 2 Corinthians 8 to bring out the fact that, in order that this enlargement should be available, in order that increase can be known by each one of us, the Lord Jesus became poor. We, by His poverty, have been enriched. He came from the height of glory into restricted circumstances; He has been found here, as we read in Philippians 2, “in figure as a man”, v 8. He served as a bondman. Think of the desire of divine Persons to enrich us, going to such lengths as the Lord Jesus coming here, and being found in figure as a Man, humbling Himself, and “becoming obedient, even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. Who knew pressure like the Lord Jesus Himself? Think of what He endured in His life here, the conditions into which He came; and of what He faced from men. Think of Him particularly in Gethsemane when that pressure came upon Him, His sweat falling as great drops of blood (Luke 22: 44) and Him saying, “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me but not as I will, but as thou wilt”, Matt 26: 39. When we speak about pressure we can point to the Lord Jesus, and say that He knew pressure like no one else has ever known it, and no one else can ever sustain the pressure that He sustained. No one else has faced the judgment of God as He faced it. He bore it, and He bore it in its totality, and as a result, we have been enriched. We by his poverty have been enriched. Have you been affected, dear friend, dear young one, by the poverty of Christ, “that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor”? Does that not affect you, to think of the Lord Jesus doing that for you? Paul was writing here to the Corinthians, but I think we could apply it to each one in this room. Is there appreciation in your heart to the Lord Jesus that He has loved you so much that He has become poor on your account? He has laid a basis in righteousness whereby this enrichment can be the portion of us all. We are not left here in degradation; we have been given untold riches, spiritual wealth - great matters! Start there with a view of what this means to divine Persons. Are we going to be casual as to these things, in the face of such a sacrifice? Are we going to take what we want, and leave what we do not, in the face of what the Lord Jesus has expended for each one?
I trust that everyone I am addressing here has a personal and living link with the Saviour, and recognises that what He did in going to the cross, and in becoming poor, He did for them. It is essential that everyone in this room knows the Saviour if they are to come into the benefit and the blessing of the enrichment, and the enlargement that is available; you have to start somewhere and it starts with the cross of Christ, and it ends in the glory. There is a place in it for everyone here; if you have not trusted in Him, do so now; do not leave it a moment longer. Come into the blessing that God has in mind for you. So we see what the Lord Jesus has done that this should be available and He has done it, and He has paid the price. He has gone into death and He is no longer there; He is ascended and glorified and it is from the glory that this enrichment comes. It is not bound up with this earth; it is bound up with a Man where He is in glory, and He is available there today.
Where we read in David’s psalm, Psalm 4, it says, “To the chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A Psalm of David”. The chief musician was referred to in the last reading: the stringed instruments generally refer to experience and pressure.
When I call, answer me, O God of my righteousness: in pressure
thou hast enlarged me; be gracious unto me, and hear my prayer.
These scriptures that I have read give examples of three persons who were in pressure. As has often been said, it is not the pressure that enlarges; it is being with God in the pressure. “In pressure thou hast enlarged me”. So you can see how essential it is to have a living link with the Saviour, to know God, because, really, it is enlargement in our affections that is brought about through these exercises, and love lies behind it all. We have love in our hearts as a result of what has been done, but we can relate everything to Him - “in pressure thou hast enlarged me”. That is the backdrop to my exercise and my impression for this time. There is much pressure; there is pressure in the world, there is pressure among the brethren, pressure in households, in health. The Lord is able for these things; He is available, and if we seek Him in that pressure, He will answer, and He will bring about something for His own pleasure. It is not something that we would invite, perhaps, but it is a blessing to see that when pressure comes, there is always a resource, there is always One outside of ourselves to whom we can go, and come out of His presence, having related things to Him. I think that is what each of these three persons that we read about did. We may come out from His presence and the pressure is still there, as has been said; but we have been changed, because coming in touch with divine Persons changes us, and we get their mind as to things; it results in enlargement.
This was the experience of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4. It is interesting that he was more honoured than his brethren. “And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bore him with pain.” We had reference in the first reading today as to Samuel and the exercises that he went through. He was like Jabez in that sense. Think of the exercises that Hannah had for a man child (1 Sam 1: 11), and I think Jabez has been related to that - the product of sorrow, the product of suffering. He has been likened to a young person with right desires. I would appeal to the young people here today, on the basis of this scripture, to have right desires. Those of us who are older can detect in young persons when there are right desires, and I think we can detect in this company that there are young persons with right desires. It is a cause of rejoicing; it is a cause of thanksgiving. I would say to each one here to ask Jehovah to bless you, to ask Jehovah to enlarge your border. When we were talking about our place in the body yesterday, I was thinking of this verse, the desire that is embodied in Jabez calling on the God of Israel. “Oh that thou wouldest richly bless me, and enlarge my border”, is like asking for his place in the body to be made plain to him. If your border is enlarged in the world, it is generally at the expense of somebody else - not so in divine things; if you enlarge your border, others will benefit from that; others will come into the blessing that that entails. A desire to enlarge your border really means that, while you are responsible for everything that is in your border, there is an appeal to God for more responsibility. It is an indication to God that you accept what He would have you to do. I think Jabez answered to the right desires of his mother who bore him with pain, and he came into things for himself. There comes a time when you have to begin to have exercises for yourself. We go so far, and I think the expression was used at the meetings in Edinburgh last weekend, on the ‘coattails’ of others, but there comes a time when you need to reach out in faith; really that is what Jabez did, and sought to be guided by God, and blessed by God. “And God brought about what he had requested”; that is a great thing. God would not withhold a blessing from a true heart that desires it - not at all. Dear hearer, how quickly He will link on with it, and come into the matter, and bring about blessing. And so, from the pressure, enlargement comes about. “God brought about what he had requested.” A simple request from one young in the faith - how quickly God will link on with that, and bring about what he had requested.
In Judges, we have Gideon, who knew what pressure was, and threshed wheat in the wine press; the wine press speaks of pressure. It is not the place where you would normally thresh wheat, but if the food supply was to be maintained Gideon had to use what was available, and he did so. If he had not done this, the food supply would have failed because the Midianites came up in their hordes every year. It says earlier in the chapter, “they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as locust for multitude; both they and their camels were without number; and they entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian. And the children of Israel cried to Jehovah”, v 5-6. There was a period of seven years that this was so, but here was a young man who had exercise that the food supply should be maintained. And he threshed wheat. We have been affected this weekend by God’s view of the saints collectively, and the idea in Scripture of threshing wheat has that in mind. Wheat speaks of the saints; it speaks of an ascended Christ, but it also speaks of the saints, and what is secured in them. Here we have one who was exercised to secure it from the Midianites, not only to thresh it, not only to make it available as bread in that way, but to secure it from the Midianites.
We have spoken a little about desire in Jabez, and Gideon had desire as well. If Gideon had not been exercised in this way then that wheat would not have become available; the Midianites would have just taken that as well. Sometimes there is exercise required in order to secure something from the Midianites; they speaks of what is natural and what is not conducive to spiritual desire. Gideon was exercised; it was not that the wheat came to hand all of a sudden and he was able to thresh it. This was the outcome of secret history. He had planted, I suppose, and he had tended it, harvested it, and now this was, as it were, the final matter to have to do with it, before it was made available to be appropriated by his household, or the people. Against the backdrop of the pressure that the Midianites sought to bring in, Gideon was working in a hidden way in order for this food supply to be maintained. If enlargement is to come in, we need the food supply; we need Christ, we need impressions of Christ. There is a danger in the time in which we are that our eye comes off Christ on to things here - even on to things that are legitimate, things that would take our attention, things that are natural, and not spiritual, and the food supply suffers. I may find myself impoverished because I am not prepared for this exercise of threshing, and securing from the Midianites; I am really falling in with what the Midianites speak of myself. There is no way in which we can stand still in these matters if we are not being enlarged; we are not static. We need to keep coming, as living stones. Everything we have spoken about this weekend needs to be real in our affections, and needs to be effective in our lives if this enlargement and increase is to be brought about. Gideon came into the blessing of that, and how graciously God speaks to him. Gideon was a humble person, truly humble. He meant what he said here, he felt he was not able for this, but his secret history belied that; he was clearly able. God had identified something there. The angel would not have appeared to him had that not been so. And so it is that secret history with God comes to light, and persons that are in secret with God are used. This can be seen in the Scriptures, with those that tended sheep in a hidden way. Think of David: “Are these all the young men? And he said, There is yet the youngest remaining”, 1 Sam 16: 11. God can use those that go on in obscurity, and in true affection and desire, as He used Gideon here. Gideon did not think much of himself; that is the kind of person God can use. If Gideon had thought that he himself could have brought about anything, God would not have linked on with that, because all the power for this is in God, in divine Persons. “And Jehovah looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might”; what a touch of assurance would have come into Gideon’s soul as these words came to him. Further on, he brings out that the angel should tarry until he comes back with his present; so really Gideon is beginning to move on priestly lines. There is what can be offered; the kid of the goats, the ephah of flour, and the broth in a pot; these are all suggestive of Gideon’s appreciation of the Lord Jesus; His death in the kid of the goats, the essential nature of His Person in the broth, and the evenness of His humanity in the flour, and the unleavened cake. Think of what impressions Gideon might have gleaned when he was having to do with the food supply. While outwardly there is poverty, and famine, in having to do with Christ, these impressions are available. They are available for each one, for everyone in this room. As we go in for them, and make way for them, then enlargement comes about. We see it in Gideon; we see it in this peace offering, which was accepted, and then further on where we did not read, a greater expression of it in the second bullock in verse 25, all that that speaks of, a mature thought as to his appreciation of the burnt offering. Gideon himself was enlarged as having to do with the food supply, but in so doing, others came into it. He was influential. You read on: it is an interesting account of the salvation that was brought about by Gideon; it was effective. Through him God wrought a great deliverance for the people. So not only do we see himself enlarged but others came into the benefit of it, and he was the means by which salvation was known.
In Isaiah 38 we have one, who in the face of pressure, was enlarged, and came into increase. This scripture is interesting; there is much as to Hezekiah in the Scriptures. In 2 Chronicles 29 where he first comes on the pages of Scripture it says, he “began to reign being twenty-five years old”, v 1. The first thing he did, which relates to the house of God which we spoke about earlier in chapter 29: 3 says, “He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of Jehovah, and repaired them”. Here was one who had an appreciation of the house of God in his heart. That was him at the beginning of his reign, and where we read is at the end of his reign. All through his reign he ministered to God, and had the service of God in his affections, and he became formed by that. His own appreciation was enlarged, and that is open to each one of us. His appreciation was enlarged, and then others came into the benefit of it. In chapter 36 of Isaiah, the enemies came up, and Rab-shakeh made his threats; and in the beginning of chapter 37 “when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah” (v 1), and he really appealed to the prophet. So the prophetic word brings enlargement: we should always be open, and desirous of receiving the prophetic word, and of it having entrance into our hearts. That was the backdrop to the first threat from the enemy. He went to the prophet, and the word came. The next time Rab-shakeh returned, Hezekiah himself went into the presence of Jehovah; so we begin to see that things are working with Hezekiah personally - he no longer has to go to the prophet although that resource was available. In chapter 37: 14 he went into the house of Jehovah himself, and spread the letter before Jehovah. Thinking of Psalm 4 again, “in pressure thou hast enlarged me”, he related matters to Jehovah, and he received the help that was available. He was able to say wonderful things, things that relate, I think, to the salvation of Israel, that give some indication of the enlargement that had come into his own soul.
The scripture says, “And Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah, saying, Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, who sittest between the cherubim, thou, the Same, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made the heavens and the earth. Incline thine ear, O Jehovah”, v 15-17. This is a man who knew his God, and could appeal to his God, and God came in, and intervened, and wrought a great deliverance. Where we read in chapter 38 he came into pressure personally, “In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death”, and “Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah”, v 1, 2. Again, he related it to Jehovah, and Jehovah answered his prayer and gave him fifteen more years. The result of that was this writing which we have read part of, beginning in verse 9, the writing of Hezekiah. It was no longer only what he said, but the writing. That was my impression as to what he left, really, for the service of God. He had been effective in the service of God throughout his reign, but now, as a result of this pressure into which he had come, there was something permanent, something written that could be passed on. That is what I want to come to. It says in verse 19, “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth”. Hezekiah himself had been enlarged through the exercises that had come upon the nation, and the exercises that he had faced personally, but the result was something for the service of God. It was something for the next generation, “the father to the children shall make known thy truth”. You might say something permanent was left there, something that could be referred to, something that could be passed on. Is that not the desire of each one here? We seek enlargement ourselves, enlargement in our affections. Paul appealed to the Corinthians to let their heart expand (2 Cor 6: 13); that was in relation to himself. I feel the need for that for myself, that enlargement and expansion might come in. But as it is so, then there is something that the following generation can take account of, something that they can come into, something of life, which has invigorated this weekend.
We have spoken of that thought of the living stones, and then the temple and the house of God, the pillar and base of the truth. These are tremendous matters that are available for all. We have stressed that in our times together. By all, we do not mean just everyone in this room, but all believers - we hold it for all; it is available for all. It is available for you, young ones, just as it is available for the oldest saint in this room. There is something we would seek to communicate to you, to impart to you, of the blessing of these things, not that it will make anything of you personally, and I do not suggest that anyone enters into it for that reason, but in order that the service of God might be enriched, and there might be something for Him as a result of this. Anything that He passes us through - it is easy to say it, but I feel the need of it, both in terms of what we have to face personally, but also what we face assembly-wise - anything we are passed through by way of pressure should result in a greater note in the service of God. So,
Jehovah was purposed to save me.
- And we will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life,
in the house of Jehovah. v 20.
He brought others into it. It was his stringed instruments but “we will play”. What we have, what we have benefitted from ourselves, is available and is to be passed on, and is to be entered into in reality. These are not fairy tales, these are not traditions that have been passed from one generation to the next; these are living realities. There is something for each one of us to enter into livingly. As I said at the outset, we have opportunity to do that on the Lord’s day tomorrow. What privileges are ours! Has anything been withheld? The result of what the Lord Jesus has done, and the way we have been set together, and the result of the truth that has come to us - it all has in mind that the service of God should be enriched. We spoke earlier today as to assembly truth - well, how blessed. What a privilege it is to be in an area where such truth is held, and gone in for, and it is available for all. It is available for you, dear friend, and God would have you go in for it, so that you may be blessed, and that there may be more for His own heart. May the Lord bless the word.
Address at three-day meetings in New York
28th October 2017