“TO WHOM BELONGEST THOU?”
Jim T Brown (Edinburgh)
1 Samuel 30: 13
1 Chronicles 12: 18 (to “Jesse”)
“To whom belongest thou?”. It is a question posed in the glad tidings; it is relevant to every man, woman, boy and girl. Some day God will require an answer; everyone will have to give an answer to that question. The answer of this young man, of whom we have read, was full of pathos; he said, “I am a young man of Egypt, servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me, because three days ago I fell sick”. Was there a more pathetic picture? Born in Egypt, yet the servant of a master, who was an Amalekite, who had deserted him because he was sick, and had left him without food and water. Could there be a more hopeless picture, a more vivid warning of what might befall those who seek satisfaction in this world’s temporary pleasures? But the glory of the glad tidings is that there was hope for this young man, and for anyone like him. You can belong to Jesus! He died to save you; He paid the full price of your redemption at Golgotha: “For the redemption of their soul was costly, and must be given up forever”, Ps 49: 8.
Psalm 87 refers to those who, like this young man, were born in Egypt. “I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon among them that know me; behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia: this man was born there”, v 4. Rahab means Egypt, and what an awful outlook it is for those who remain morally there. Every man in one sense has been born in Egypt, born in sin: “by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Rom 5: 12. But then, through the work of Jesus, we can find our origins in Zion. “And of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her” (Ps 87: 5), born in Zion. What a contrast to Egypt! How wonderful to trace your spiritual birthplace to Zion, founded deep in the sovereign mercy of God, enveloped by the warmth of divine grace. Your birthplace there can never be undermined.
But this man said, “I am a young man of Egypt”. The reality is that Egypt is ruined. Pharaoh’s own bondmen told him, “dost thou not yet know that Egypt is ruined?”, Exod 10: 7. Yet still Pharaoh persisted in his ruthless path, unyielding to the divine word, expressed through Moses. How solemn it is for any to reject the pleadings of God in grace, as set out in the gospel. God says, “I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which saith, My river is mine own, and I made it for myself”, Ezek 29: 3. Satan lays claim to this poor world. What it must have meant to the Lord Jesus when He said, “the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing” (John 14: 30), a world He had created, yet presided over by Satan. What sorrow for the Lord Jesus to utter these words. So Pharaoh, in his arrogance, says he made it for himself. How awful to think of Satan shaping the lives of men and women, acquiring them for his own satisfaction and for his own pleasure.
But the attractions of Egypt will soon wane and ebb away. Isaiah 19 tells us that “the streams of Egypt shall be diminished and drain away”, v 6. What deterioration there is in the world around us. The atrocities, the abuse, the overthrowing of standards and undermining of institutions, long cherished. But you can be sure that the rivers of this poor world, with all their tainted pleasures and pursuits, will soon be dried up because “the ruler of this world is judged”, John 16: 11. Isaiah says, “the fishers shall mourn, and all they that cast fish-hooks into the Nile” - that great river of Egypt - “shall lament”, chap 19: 8. How these hooks, plunged into this world’s dark waters, have lured and ensnared men for generations. See the addictions, the allurements, catching and entrapping men, without power to escape. But there is hope: the gospel is the means of salvation.
What a sorry picture this is! Not only were this young man’s origins in Egypt; he was also “a servant of an Amalekite”. One thing leads to another and the situation becomes even worse. What does it say in Exodus about Amalek? “For the hand is on the throne of Jah”, Ex 17: 16. The awful arrogance of it! What insolence that Amalek would seek to challenge the very rights of God and to obstruct His work in men’s hearts. His attack continues for “Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation!”, and God will assuredly prevail. This young man’s master was an Amalekite. He was under the domination of a man who used him for his own purposes and when that purpose was served or he ceased to be of use, he abandoned him. He told David that his master had left him because he had fallen sick. Deserted and hopeless, left without even food or water: could there be a sadder sight? How cruel the world can be. Sick perhaps he was with the excesses of Egypt, intoxicated with its allurements and charms, and left to his own devices, with no one to help. What a plight! Who could save him? None but the Lord Jesus Christ, the true David. It says that “he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, for three days and three nights”. He was sick with no one to help him or provision to sustain him. He could do nothing for himself.
There were another three days and three nights, unequalled in this world’s history, and that was when the Lord Jesus lay in the heart of the earth, Matt 12: 40. There were three unparalleled hours too. What significance the numeral three has in the Scriptures. There were three hours, when from the sixth to the ninth hour, there came darkness over the whole land, and when the sun was darkened, Luke 23: 44, 45. One often ponders that. There would be the ploughman, ploughing the field, and men going about their work, and then, at noonday, darkness enshrouds the land. What must they have thought? Ah, in these three hours God was forsaking His well-beloved Son in order that the basis for redemption should be laid and the way opened up into heaven for guilty sinners. He suffered to deal with the awfulness and vileness of sin. In these three hours, He bore the unmitigated wrath of God. The Lord Jesus bore it all, the full weight of God’s holy judgment on account of sin, without one iota of alleviation, and He exhausted the judgment, blessed be His Name! His soul was made an offering for sin, Isa 53: 10. Can you contemplate the fact that the soul of the Lord Jesus was made an offering for sin?
Wonderful the work of Jesus, that not only did He bear the judgment of God, but He died and shed His precious blood on the cross, He who came “not by water only, but by water and blood”, 1 John 5: 6. The Holy Spirit would emphasise the efficacy of the blood. Without the shedding of blood, there could be no remission, no remedy for guilty sinners like this young man, like you and me. What a remedy it is - the forgiveness of offences (Eph 1: 7), every one of them! “God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us, (we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ”, chap 2: 4-5. He “so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. Through the work of Jesus there is “propitiation for our sins, but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 2. “He is the propitiation for our sins”, His was the blood, and His was the work of atonement.
Where was the hope for this young man, a product of Egypt with an Amalekite for his master? But the glory of the transforming power of the glad tidings is that he was transferred typically to another Master. He moved from the master who had dominated his life as under sin to come under the influence and authority of another Master, one who speaks to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a change! No more the unrelenting toil as under our former master, but now happy subjection to the Lord Jesus, who says, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”, Matt 11: 30. What a wonderful Master He is. What resource He makes available: they “gave him bread, and he ate; and they gave him water to drink, and gave him a piece of fig-cake and two raisin cakes, and he ate, and his spirit came again to him”, v 11. The reviving power of Jesus, how glorious it is! They gave him water to drink. Isaiah 21 says, “Bring ye water to meet the thirsty!”, v 14. That is what God does in the glad tidings; He brings water to meet the thirsty soul. Then bread to relieve the hunger pangs of three days and nights without food. The Lord Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6: 35), the One “who comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world,” John 6: 33. How precious that the Lord Jesus Christ, having come to a rejecting world, has the capacity to satisfy the desires, the longings, of every living thing. He opens His hand and satisfies “the desire of every living thing”, Ps 145:16. So they “gave him bread, and he ate, and they gave him water to drink, and gave him a piece of fig-cake … ”; what resource there is for the needy, what mercy and grace for the sinner, the cleansing power of His blood to wash his sins away.
Then too there is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Himself said, “whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever”, John 4: 14. A young man as this, as met by the Lord Jesus, the true David, would never thirst for ever, would never be hungry again. This young man may have filled himself to excess in Egypt, laboured under the domination of an uncaring master, and he had fallen sick. But now he is cured and satisfied as coming into contact with David - for us, the Lord Jesus
So David asks, “To whom belongest thou?”. There was no doubt about Amasai’s answer: “Thine are we, David”. He was one of David’s men now, I suggest, one of those who were of his flesh and bone:
Thine are we, David,
And with thee, thou son of Jesse.
He belonged to David.
David was anointed king over Israel at Hebron, 2 Sam 2: 4. What a wonderful moment it is when the Lord Jesus is crowned in our affections. Hebron stands in contrast to Egypt. That scripture we referred to in Isaiah 19, speaks about the princes of Zoan being fools. It says that the counsel of Pharaoh’s counsellors is become senseless, v 11. How acute scripture is in its judgment of Egypt and all that pertains to it. Then we know that Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt, Num 13: 22. Hebron surpasses all that Zoan can provide. In principle, this young man now becomes linked with Hebron. He would be among those, I suggest, that anointed David at Hebron, and he could say, ‘Now David is my master, David is my lord. My origins now are not of Egypt, I am not now a young man of Egypt, I belong to Zion I was born there’. Egypt and Babylon and the nations commemorate their great ones. Indeed it was sought of old to preserve the Pharaohs and the great personages of Egypt by embalming their bodies after their death. That may be of historical interest but serves no moral purpose. It will never have any living, vital outcome; but those born in Zion will never die. Mr Darby says, ‘Zion boasts of her heroes’, Synopsis vol 2 p147. Your faith is bound up with a Man who lives, and lives for all eternity.
What a contrast therefore between Zion and Hebron on the one hand, and Zoan in Egypt on the other. What pertains to Christianity will never die; it is eternally living because it is centred in the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is God, but who came, in the glory and perfection of a Manhood which could never be surpassed, to accomplish the whole will of God and to lay the basis for redemption. So the believer becomes a possession of the Lord Jesus. It says again in one of the prophets, “I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine”, Isa 43: 1. Never from His grasp can you be loosened. The wonderful verses in John 17 speak of, “the men whom thou gavest me” (v 6), “I kept them in thy name … and not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition”.
David says to Abiathar, “Abide with me … for with me thou art in safe keeping”, 1 Sam 22: 23. What assurance is there! What encouragement for the soul: as we follow Christ, we are in safe keeping. Paul says to the Philippians, “I have been taken possession of by Christ Jesus”, Phil 3: 12. As conscious of that fact, he said, “I pursue looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, v 14. What a glorious prospect. For that is the prize, being with Christ for all eternity, and there we will enjoy the fact that we will be His possession forever: “Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession”, Deut 7: 6. How precious to think of the collective aggregate of the work of Christ, bringing together every blood-bought saint, to become a people for a possession for the gratification of God’s own heart. Ephesians speaks too of “the redemption of the acquired possession”, chap 1: 14. By and by, the whole aggregate of His work will come out in glorious display. 2 Corinthians refers to the One who “has anointed us” and “sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”, chap 1: 21-22. When God seals us it means He takes us as His possession. Nothing can interfere with that seal, the divine stamp which signifies that you belong to God, and nothing in this poor world can ever interfere with the reality of that fact. We look forward to the day when, as part of the acquired possession, we will be for the glory of God eternally; but first, the gospel requires that we answer the question, “To whom belongest thou?”. Every one of us has to do that. Let us turn away from the influence of another master, from Egypt’s pleasures, as the hymn asks,
Art thou weaned from Egypt’s pleasures?
(Hymn 76)
Then, as coming to the Lord Jesus and becoming His possession, you can experience the blessings, the sustaining grace and the satisfaction, which He alone can provide.
May we enjoy it freshly, for His Name’s sake.
Sidcup
10th February 2019