"Out
of the spoil won in battles did they dedicate to repair
the house of the Lord" (1 Chron. 26:27). The
margin gives a slight variation - "Out of the
battles and the spoil did they dedicate to repair the
house of the Lord."
The
emphasis for this moment is not so much upon the battles
as upon the one word here which is translated
"repair." The word really means to strengthen,
to make sound, to consolidate. There are battles
connected with the building - we know something about
that - but here they are not particularly related to the
original building. When the building is done, it needs
preserving, it needs its original splendour maintained,
its first glory kept; there needs to be something that
can maintain it according to God's first thought in it;
and if this word is to be taken as it stands - repair,
maintain, preserve, strengthen, consolidate (the
Authorised Version does translate it
"maintain") - then it is something which has to
go on after the work of building. It looks like a reserve
that they had against the building falling into
disrepair. I think it is just there that the force of the
whole verse rests. "Out of the battles and the
spoil." or, if you prefer it, "Out of the spoil
won in battles did they dedicate to maintain the house of
the Lord."
Conflict Allowed by Divine Sovereignty
Well,
the message in that is, I think, very apparent. It lies
right on the surface. Divine wisdom working sovereignly ALLOWS
conflict, as a way to keep things strong, pure and
healthy. Battles seem to be necessities for the very
purity of that which the Lord is seeking to have.
Conflicts, in the Divine judgment are essential to
maintenance. We do not always look upon them like that;
indeed, it is very often difficult so to regard the
terrific conflicts into which the Lord's people
individually and collectively are so frequently thrown.
We know something about the conflicts. It is not
necessary for me to tell you that there are such things.
We know that they are increasing in their intensity, and
sometimes they get almost, if not altogether, beyond our
powers of endurance. It seems there is very little
"let-up" in the number of battles that have to
be fought. It is in the plural here - "Out of the
battles..." You and I know a good deal about the
battles, the real spiritual battles, the enemy coming in
like a flood, the fury of the oppressor, the constant
effort on his part to break and to destroy us. Our
question often is as to why the Lord allows it. We are
hardly out of one before we are in another; and there is
no doubt about it, the Lord allows it. It may be that
there are some things which could be cut short and put
back, but on the whole, the Lord allows His people to
know very much conflict and pressure; and as we enquire
why, this little fragment does give us at least a part of
the answer. When we examine the history of things, we can
see it is quite true that any increase, any preservation,
any maintaining, has come along the line of what we have
gained from our deep experiences.
What the
Church has secured by way of conflict, trial, pressure
and adversity! If this were a literal building around
which we could walk at the end of our days, we should be
able to see quite a lot in it which we could relate to a
definite experience of conflict and trial through which
we went, and we could say, That came out of so-and-so,
that was the result of that particular bad time that I
had. Spiritually, it is like that. Even now we can see in
our lives something like that, and it will be so at the
end. If we use our imagination, the truth holds good (if
it is not actually like this) that the Lord will be able
to take us round His completed work and say, Do you see
this and this? Do you remember what you went through?
That is the result from it, the value of it, that is the
good that came out of it. It was all built into the
fabric, the great eternal edifice of God's own house. It
was something secured through battles; it was the spoil
that went to the house; it recovered something that was
lost of original glory, purity, fullness. It safeguarded
some breakdown. The Lord put you through something, and
out of that He secured what was necessary to guard
against a threatened loss of which He was aware.
The Enemy Used as God's Instrument
We will
not let our imagination carry us too far, but we could
take the enemy round and let him have a look at the
result of his onslaughts - not to his great
gratification. You see what you did! You meant it to
destroy; it has worked the other way. Does this mean,
then, that when the Lord is alive to some threatened loss
or failure, some need for strengthening, a repairing, a
recovering, when He sees that things are weakening,
crumbling He lets the enemy in and allows him to make an
onslaught? Does it mean that? It has proved like that.
You can find much of it in the New Testament. It was not
only connected with the securing of the house, with the
winning of a way for the building of the churches and the
Church, that there was conflict. But so often, after the
Lord had established a church, the saints in it went
through great conflicts, and you find that it was in that
way that things were kept pure. We cannot keep the Lord's
things pure by sound doctrine alone. A lot of people
think we can - that we are bound to have a pure thing
according to God's original thought if we have the
doctrine right. It does not work out like that. It does
not mean that the doctrine is a matter of little concern
- of course, it must be right and sound - but there is
something more than sound doctrine needed to keep things
straight. You will never keep things wholly in a
spiritual way according to God's mind by having only a
perfect technique and perfectly orthodox teaching. They
are kept living and pure only as we go through the fires
with them, as we know the conflict which is associated
with these things. Every bit of truth which we receive,
if we receive it livingly, will take us into conflict and
will be established through conflict. It will be
worthless until there has been a battle over it. Take any
position the Lord calls you to take, and, if you are
taking it with Him, you are going through things
in it, and there will be an element added by reason of
the battle. You have taken a position - yes; but you have
not REALLY got it yet, the real value of it has
not been proved. You have not come into the real
significance of it until there has been some sore
conflict in relation to it. The enemy assails you. But,
you say, where is Divine sovereignty at work? Can the
enemy do just as he likes? No, he cannot. The Lord has
allowed the assault, knowing quite well that by so doing
you are going to get something as a result which you
never would have got by just taking the position
mechanically. It has to come to you, not technically, but
spiritually. Out of the battles some extra factor will
come. Do you not think that that is precisely the meaning
of the Apostle's words, "We are more than
conquerors..." (Rom. 8:37)? The Lord does not allow
battles just to bring us to victory, simply to have a
fight in order to win. To be more than conquerors means
that there ought to be something out of the fight that is
more than just being where you were before, a maintaining
of your position; something out of it - the spoil of
battle. You have not only beaten your foe, you have taken
something from him of extra value.
That leads to another thought. Has the
enemy got things which are of value to the Lord? Can he
really yield values to what is of God which are only
secured through this conflict? Well, it is true; he has
much, very much, which, wrested from him, can beautify
the house of the Lord and strengthen that which the enemy
meant to destroy.
Well, it is out of the battles and the
conflict that there is that dedicated to repair,
strengthen, maintain, keep pure and healthy, the house of
the Lord; and we have to seek this grace that, when we
pass into conflict over some position we have taken in
obedience to the Lord, some line that we are following
which we know to be the Lord's way for us, and we find
ourselves thrown into the vortex of a terrible conflict,
we may remember that it is not loss that lies in
that direction at all. It is something extra, it is spoil
from the battle; the conflict is going to yield something
for the house of the Lord. If we can only believe that
and accept the pressure and the trial in that light! The
Lord give us strength so to take hold of the conflict in
faith that we really do believe that there is something
coming out of it which is more than there was before,
something very much for the Lord.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1947, Vol. 25-1.