Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Aug 1961

It is evident from many parts of Scripture that God takes delight in using small things and in using few people to do His work. It was so in the day when David arrived at the vale of Elah, where Saul and the army of Israel were encamped against the Philistines. The Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath, whose height we are told was six cubits and a span (about eleven feet), for forty days had challenged the men of Israel to a fight. Saul the king, who was head and shoulders above the men of Israel, was paralysed at the sight of Goliath, and was unwilling to enter the lists with him in mortal combat. The Philistine had hurled his challenges across at Saul and his army: "I defy the armies of Israel this day give me a man, that we may fight together."

We are told of Goliath's armour and his weapons; his helmet of brass, his brass coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels, the brass armour for his legs, his brass javelin, the huge staff of his spear with an iron head of six hundred shekels, his shield, and his sword, which David later used to decapitate him; he was a frightful monster for any warrior to meet. When David arrived the Philistine was out hurling defiance at Israel. David asked, as he listened to Goliath and saw the men of Israel fleeing from him, what would be done to the man who killed the Philistine, and he was told that the king would give him great riches, give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel.

Eliab, his eldest brother, twitted him, saying that he knew his pride and that in the naughtiness of his heart he had come to see the battle. David assured them not to let any man's heart fail because of him, and said, "Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." When brought before Saul, Saul said that David was not able to fight with the Philistine, for he was but a youth. But David said that he had fought and slain both a lion and a bear which were taking lambs from the flock. Saul tried the parts of his own armour on him, but David said that he could not go with these.

When the Philistine saw him approach to enter combat with him he disdained him. He saw the ruddy youth approach him with a staff. He evidently did not see what was more deadly, the sling with the smooth stone one of five, which David had taken from the brook, which God in nature had prepared against the day of battle and war. Many smiths and other craftsmen had spent many days of labour on the armour and weapons of Goliath. David's weapon was but a sling

After preliminary salutations, the one with his mouth full of cursing and bitterness, the other making his boast in the living God the battle was soon over for David, fixing the stone in the sling, swung it round his head and let fly, and with deadly accuracy the stone hit the giant in the forehead and down he crashed to the earth. The simple statement of Scripture is. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone. Thus passed this giant great of flesh from the scene of his boasting. Here were small things used for great ends a youth a sling and a stone were what the Spirit of God used that day.

As with small individual and coordinated things so has it been with small companies of men in days of deliverance when God would show His own power and wisdom and save naturally proud men from glorying in their strength In the time of Gideon's splendid victory (Judges 7), men might have said that twenty two thousand men of Israel were too few against their enemies which were like locusts for multitude. But the LORD said that the fearful were to go home so twelve thousand departed. The LORD said that there were still too many and the remainder were tested at the water, and in the test only three hundred passed yet with these God saved Israel. How so? With but earthen pitchers and torches and trumpets. Never was such a victory wrought before nor afterwards Yet it has a powerful voice for us. The secret was in the fact that they were to do as Gideon their leader did. His command was, "Look on me and do likewise" They broke the pitchers, and the light of the torches shone in the darkness and they blew with the ram's horn trumpets of freedom and victory The enemy melted away like snow in a thaw, for the LORD set every man's sword against his fellow Here were such that from weakness were made strong Are we as broken earthenware? for it is true, no breaking, no shining! Here we have small things that God used a weak little band, earthen pitchers, torches and trumpets.

I think it is true to say that God has never wrought in His work among men with large things and with great masses of mankind. This is man's way, to work with large things (if he can make them) and great masses of human beings. God

in the beginning made one man, Adam, though He might have made a million as

easily as He made one, and of one He made every nation on the earth. Malachi

2.15 tells us why He made one, "Did He not make one, although He had the residue of the Spirit? And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed." Alas, the seed in Adam, from which were generated all nations, degenerated, and God rejected mankind and turned to one man in far away Ur of the Chaldees. He chose Abraham, and His seed, not simply men who claimed natural descent from Abraham, but such as followed after righteousness, that sought the LORD. God said to such,

"Look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for 'when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many" (Isaiah 51.1, 2).

What patient care God exhibits over the ones and the twos with whom He

works! He waited till Abraham was a hundred years old before He gave him Isaac by Sarah. Why? During that time human patience became exhausted and so Ishmael was born. Jacob waited till he was 77 years old before he set out to seek a wife of his kinsfolk. Why? One reason was that he had to wait till his cousins, Leah and Rachel, were of marriageable age. It was a long time from when Abraham entered Canaan till the children of Israel, his descendants, were back in Canaan again, close on five hundred years, yet all this while God waited patiently, tending that tender vine which He brought out of Egypt, which He was going to plant in the land of promise (Psalm 80.8-11).

What can we say more about God beginning again with One? We see this

Seed, the woman's Seed, Abraham's Seed, and David's Seed amongst the jostling crowd on Jordan's bank. There stands the Baptist, his hairy garment dripping wet with Jordan's water. The Man from Nazareth approaches John; he knows Him, for they are relatives, though he knows Him not yet by revelation through the sign of the Spirit as a dove descending upon Him (John 1.31-84). John would have hindered Him, but on the Lord explaining what he must do he baptized Him. Here is another beginning with One. Here the kingdom of heaven (and also the kingdom of God) began in that form, according to the parable of Matthew 13.31,82, of a "grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is less than all seeds; and when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree." How small the Lord's work seemed at the first, but it grew!

We cannot overlook God's work with Israel in the days of the oppression and the Exodus. Moses is far away in the extreme south of the Sinaitic peninsula, herding a few sheep. This was he who once walked in marble halls, clothed in spotless linen, who had everything that the world had then to offer. He forsook it all in refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Slighted love soured in her to bitterest hatred. Forty years have passed since the time Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. Now he stands bare-footed before the Burning Bush in the presence of Jehovah. He is commissioned to go back to Egypt to deliver Israel from bondage, but he is loath to go on such a task. He knew the power of the Egypt of those days, and he felt altogether inadequate for the great work. God asked him, "What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod." He was told to east it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and he fled from before it. God commanded him to catch it by the tail and it became a rod again in his hand. This was followed by the sign of his leprous hand. What could a leprous hand do? Again the hand was healed like his other.

The question may be asked, What have we in our hand that God can use? Some little insignificant thing it may be, but if God chooses to use it great things may be done. Do not wait till things have grown big and large. Think of what God did with Moses' rod as he stretched it over the Nile and over the Red Sea, and smote the flinty rock in Horeb and the waters gushed out. Use what you have

for God; not what you hope to have!

J. Miller | Aug 1961
Jottings