SAUL had fallen, with Jonathan and other members of his house, on Gilboa. David had been acknowledged king by many of the children of Israel at Hebron. Ishboseth, Saul’s son, had been acknowledged king by those remaining loyal to the house of Saul. So long war had been waged between the two parties. Abner had proved himself the loyal follower of Saul’s house and the able leader of its hosts. Yet in his heart questionings had been going on, for he was not certain that the kingdom was not David’s from the Lord. Then arose a situation which forced the issue, for he desired to do the right and to advance the welfare of Israel.
Ishboseth charged him with going in to Rizpah, Saul’s concubine. This was to charge him with aiming to secure the throne for himself. There was revealed in Ishboseth the same weakness that manifested itself so painfully in his father before him. He was a selfishly jealous-minded man. His concern was not for the welfare of Israel so much as for his own honour and prestige. Here he was ready to accuse his most faithful and tried friend of plotting his overthrow. Whatever it was to cost to Israel, Ishboseth would defend his personal interests. Now were Abner’s eyes opened to the utter unfitness of this man to reign over the Lord’s people. Now the reality of Jehovah’s having chosen David as king came home to his heart. Nor was he slow to act. He made clear to Ishboseth what his mind now was, and he moved with determination and energy to unite the people of Israel under David.
Thus Abner showed his innocence of the charge laid by Ishboseth and his goodwill toward Israel. Arrangements were soon made with David for the establishment of his royal authority over a united Israel. In Abner David discerned a whole-hearted Israelite, and now a promising counsellor and a faithful friend. His loyalty to the reigning house of Saul was rooted in integrity of heart toward Israel, and, indeed, toward Israel’s God. But David’s hopes in Abner’s help were soon dashed to pieces through the vindictive treachery of Joab. Here again was a man with whom merely personal matters weighed to the embittering of his soul against such as crossed his path. Excusing himself by the death of his brother Asahel, who had fallen by his own fault at Abner’s hand in battle, he traitorously slew Abner, and in such a way as to involve the reputation of the king. Thus was David constrained to let the people know his deep grief at Abner’s death, and the high regard in which he held him. With unfeigned respect he honoured him in his burial, and in song lamented his untimely death. A man of single aim for Israel’s welfare, according to his ready discernment of the Lord’s will, David ascribed to him this high and noble character, “Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?”
This day, my dear friends, we are gathered together under the shadow of a deep grief. Your beloved pastor has been taken from you, and you are this day shepherdless. I feel for you. I mourn with you the removal of a prince and a great man in Israel. Yet I am glad to hold the conviction that no one would be readier to reprove me, were it possible, than your late pastor if I were to use this opportunity of addressing you only in extolling his many virtues and those characteristic excellencies whereby he so warmly attached to his person those who had the honour and privilege of his intimacy, as we have. Therefore, we shall endeavour to reach some clearness of insight into the secret of true greatness. “What is it that makes anyone a prince and a great man in Israel?” is our question to-day. As for the personal application to the one whose loss we so keenly feel, that is left for you to make it.
The first and fundamental essential to true greatness in anyone is an undivided heart. It is with this principle we have to do to-day. It does not matter what sphere of life a man may be moving in; it does not matter what line of business in life a man may be following; it does not matter what condition a man has to face of poverty or wealth, of squalor or of cleanly and well-ordered comfort, of mountains of difficulty to climb or of manifold opportunities opening up before his eyes, except there be an undivided heart no man can attain unto greatness; and granted that there be an undivided heart, greatness is assured. To the undivided heart the very conditions which confound and stumble others become the very means to greatness. In Abner we see what it is to have an undivided heart. His whole heart was devoted to the welfare of Israel. His own interest was bound up in the interest of Israel. When he transferred his allegiance from Ishboseth to David he did not change his aim. He simply recognised that he was mistaken in seeking Israel’s welfare by supporting the house of Saul. He readily discerned Jehovah’s purpose to establish the throne of David. Nor did he consider his own honour or prestige, and so manoeuvre for a rich reward from David for his transferred allegiance. There are those who might call him fickle-minded or even worse. With that he had nought to do. He looked beyond mere persons to something on which his heart was so united that he forgot his own personal aggrandisement. Had he concerned himself with what might be said or thought of him, or with his own personal advantage, he would have shown the hesitancy that comes of a divided heart. Indeed, we may consider that it was on the simplicity of his heart that the artful Joab played to his destruction.
From an undivided heart flows steadfastness of aim, clearness of insight, loyalty of purpose, definiteness of counsel, determinateness of action, and persistency of energy. Now, these are qualities that we must sadly confess are manifested more notably by men of the world than by the people of God. This arises from the fact that the worldling is more whole-hearted than the child of God. In the child of God the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. But in the worldling there is no such division. So it is that our Lord Jesus Christ urges upon us the example of the children of this world, not that we should go in their direction, but that we should be whole-hearted in His service even as they are in the service of this world.
We come to consider from what an undivided heart proceeds. It proceeds from some object before our minds, to which we so give up our hearts that our entire life is devoted to it. To reach this object our whole thought is so directed that other things that appeal to others, and would appeal to us were it not for this object, are not allowed to interfere. Every influence and suggestion is now judged of in the light of this one object. Whatever may be in line to help us reach it is welcomed, but all else is put aside. Things that may seem hard and severe to those whose hearts are not so united appear quite in order to the one whose heart is undivided upon the object sought after. This is to be noted in the lives of all great men. When such a course is followed to obtain a corruptible crown, the heart of the wise is saddened. Yet how common a thing it is to see men give themselves up in this way to gain wealth, fame, popularity, power, or some other object of a merely carnal character. Such attain greatness according to the object they seek, but they can never so become princes or great men in Israel.
A prince and a great man in Israel is one who can say: “I have set the Lord always before me.” He has a heart united to fear the Lord. This is the secret of the Christian’s undivided heart. The living God is the great overpowering reality of his life. So was it with Joseph: “How can I do this great wickedness (commit this great evil) and sin against God?” So was it with Elijah: “As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand.” So was it and must it be with all who are princes and great men in Israel. This is declared in the Book of Psalms, “O God, my heart is fixed.” And when thus a man’s heart is united his life must bear some likeness to the life of Moses, of whom it is written that he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. His life is a life of faith. The worship of God is the principle that controls him in all his goings.
And this leads us to notice the character of true worship. How there can be the supposition of true worship where there is not absolute surrender to His will it is difficult to understand. Worship there can not be where there is not obedience. He who yields himself unto the Lord with an undivided heart, finds no place for his own will as over against the will of God. He has surely learned the perversity of his own will, so that he can not presume to find place for it, especially in the matter of the formal approaches to God, which we call worship, even beside the will of God. But we must observe that it is only in Christ Jesus that we can come to that knowledge of God that makes an undivided heart. All the reasonings of philosophers and theologians are but in vain, so far as leading us to know the living God is concerned. We may have beautiful ideas of what God must be and definite thoughts of what He cannot be, and yet have nothing more than a figment of our own imagination. Such thoughts may go far in influencing our lives, but can never unite our hearts in the fear of the Lord. The living God reveals Himself in and through Jesus Christ, and Him alone. So it is declared, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” This honour belongs unto the Son of God as the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace. So we hold that He alone can be a prince and a great man in Israel who has an undivided heart as fixed on the living God incarnate in Jesus Christ.
It is true that God revealed Himself to His people before the Son of God came in the flesh. Yet it is to refuse to Christ His full honour when men teach the possibility of knowing the living God out of Christ. Since the fall all God’s revelation of Himself to man has centred round the promised seed. With ever-increasing clearness and fulness God’s revelation of His will is presented to us. The matter of purity of worship must grip the undivided heart of the servant of God. Therefore he moves with careful, reverent steps within the bounds wherein he knows he has the mind of the Lord. Beyond those bounds lie the open spaces where will-worship may have free play. To the truly undivided heart those spaces are uninviting, for within the limits wherein we do justice to the sovereign claims of God is freedom to be known and nowhere else. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Even so it is with will-worship.
It is true enough that the pure simplicity of New Testament worship does not appeal to the carnal mind. That would be to make it self-contradictory were we to have it so. “God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” So while it remains that the natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God—they are foolishness unto him, for they are spiritually discerned—it must remain a problem insoluble to the world how the undivided heart delights in the pure simplicity of spiritual worship, and contemplates with pain the entertaining and ornate programme of service so popular in these days with those who give free play to their own will rather than wait upon the Lord. Revelation of Himself in the Scriptures prepared the way for the identification of Jesus of Nazareth as the Incarnate Son. It is true, therefore, that even to His servants of old the revelation of God was only through the Son.
This is a matter of great importance. The whole question of our outlook on life and of our prospects for eternity turns upon the place we give to Jesus Christ. If we fail to honour Him as we ought, to give to Him the absolute homage of our entire being, it simply means that we have not the undivided heart of a true believer. He claims not only that His sheep know His voice and follow Him, but He also declares that they will not follow a stranger, because they do not know the voice of strangers. Such is the place He must get with us. We will not move in any direction except at His bidding, simply because we are jealous for His honour as our Lord and Master. Of His very murderers it is declared that had they known Him they would not have killed the Lord of Glory. Yet they were accounted guilty. They had the Scriptures whereby to identify Him, but, prejudiced by various considerations, they would not receive the simple testimony of the written Word. And when He sent forth His ambassadors He put that very written Word into their hands, opening their understanding to understand it. Every question that meets us going through this world—and many a problem faces us these times—must be answered according to its bearing upon Christ according to His Word, if we are to answer aright. If our heart is undivided, happy, indeed, are we, for there is no test upon this question like the test of the times we are passing through.
This leads me to observe further that it is from the Cross of Calvary that the light must shine upon us to unite our hearts in and unto Christ. The revelation of the Divine character may properly be said to be summed up in two statements: “God is love” and “God is light.” There are those who try to put such a meaning on terms as to embrace all under the one statement, “God is love.” This is popular to-day. It is impossible, and it is disastrous. Men may as well deny our reason itself as eternal justice, which is the real principle underlying all rationality. Our Lord Jesus Christ clearly shows how evil-doers shun the light. Men know what is to be shunned by evil-doers, were it possible. Evil-doers fly from justice. So in the Cross of Calvary we behold two principles displayed in all their glory. There is the principle of love, and there is the principle of justice. These two are never in opposition, for they cannot be in the very nature of things. The fruit of their union in the life is righteousness. To vindicate justice that we by sin have outraged, and to manifest love that we have set at nought, Christ died on Calvary. His death on Calvary reveals what God thinks of justice. He reveals there what Justice is. There also love is shown forth.
The more we ponder the facts of the death which Christ accomplished at Jerusalem the more grievous will we find our fall into, and bondage in, sin to be. It is impossible that a more awful exhibition of the character of justice can be made than was made on Calvary. What awful words, “Awake, O Sword, against my Shepherd and against the man, that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the shepherd!” There can be no hope, absolutely none, for the guilty, for the one who must appear in naked guilt before the judgment throne of Christ. Only in Him who died on the tree, giving His life a ransom for many for the remission of their sins, is there refuge from the holy wrath of God, revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men. It is in this that the true view of moral law is to be had. Our modern Socialism, which is permeating Protestantism through and through, knows nothing of this. The question asked by them is, “What is the use or benefit?” Not “Is it just?” The one is mere animalism. The other is true morality. The one is the rule of fallen man, as Satan charged against Job. The other is the rule of the truly moral life, the child of God. Thus as we look in our confessed guilt to the Lord Jesus Christ, “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world,” for pardon, and our hearts are united under the power of His redeeming love and of His inviolable justice, there takes place that change without which none can enter His kingdom. We are created anew in Christ Jesus into good works. The undivided heart in which He reigns becomes ours, and we become children of the day and not of the night any longer. According as He becomes more and more unto us, and we grow in clearer views of His Person and character, we are changed into His image again in the actual practice of our lives. The two foundation principles of our moral agency, love and justice, become the controlling principles of our lives. But surely as we ponder these things in the light of His death, we find ourselves overwhelmed with a growing sense of our unlikeness to Him and the impossibility of our salvation from sin except by Him.
And this leads us on to the question of how this great change—a new creation—is wrought in us. It is herein that the undivided heart becomes ours. Christ is the object of our trust. He is at the door with His overture of peace through the propitiating efficacy of His blood. His very presence points to our danger and our need as sinners. But with heart set upon the creature, revelling in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, we regard not His earnest entreaties. The day of our visitation is upon us, but we know it not. We can’t discern the force of His warning and appeal. We would let Him pass utterly away and ourselves pass out into the blackness of darkness. But the light breaks in; we begin to see the force of His call unto us; we ponder His word in the secret of our souls. As we ponder the light shines more brightly, and though we dread it as it exposes our naked guilt before Him, we cannot escape it. And in our helpless need and guilty bondage no salvation can we know to rest in until we behold the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace—the sovereign grace of the living One, against whom we sinned. As thus beholding Christ, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, we cannot but believe in Him and He is made of God unto us our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. But when arose the light upon our minds? Verily, not from the exercise of our own wills. It is the work of the Spirit of God who reproveth the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And whence came that great change, when we began to rejoice in Christ as our God and Saviour—when a new principle of life possessed us? This is the regenerating power and work of the Holy Spirit. And whence come those clearer views of the truth as it is in Jesus—of His person, character, and work? Surely from the Spirit of God, whose it is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us, that we may be sanctified. So the undivided heart of the Christian is so, as fixed on the living God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, and unveiling His heart on the Cross, and so fixed by the power of the Holy Ghost through the word of the truth of the Scriptures.
But it is written from the lips of the Lord that “Many that are first shall be last and the last first.” There shall be a reversal of earth’s judgments at the final assize, when the secrets of all shall be revealed. It is then that men shall see what the service of the Lord means. It is required of a steward that a man be found faithful. It is not for the servant to choose his own method or sphere of labour. The word of reconciliation is committed unto him, even the faith once delivered unto the saints. He is called to sow the good seed of the Word where it may please His Master. His aim is to seek not his own glory, but the glory of Him who sent him. He may pass hence as among the least, but be found at last amongst the greatest. The widow’s mite was more than the abundance of the rich when cast into the treasury of the Lord. So shall it be. Where the undivided heart is that values all things only as they bear on His glory, there is the “all the living that a man hath” cast into the treasury of the Lord. It is not done to enrich Him. It is not done to enrich the deer. It is done from constraint of the love of Christ, and as far short of His due to whose grace the redeemed must remain overwhelmed in debt for ever. It is the nature of grace to be satisfied with simple acknowledgment of the debt as utterly beyond payment. You know, my dear friends, the witness of the ministrations, walk, and conversation among you of your late pastor. It was the witness of an undivided heart. May it be ours to follow in the footsteps of that faith. This, I believe, that he, among the last on earth, desiring not to be among the first, shall be among the first on high.
N. C.