“Thine Are We”

1 Chron. 12:18

The intense applicability of the truth conveyed by these words at this time cannot be called in question. The supreme inquiry of the moment is, who are practically the Lord’s, and who are on His side?

The order, too, is striking and significant, for it is first whose we are. The circumstances in which David was at this juncture are familiar to all who search the scriptures; he was in a rejected and outcast position, and this became of itself the test -- his position manifested those who were true to his person and interests.

But it is not a little interesting that those who thus declare themselves through Amasai, chief of the captains, as true to the person and fortune, if we may so say, of the rejected and despised man of Ziklag, were men who “went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflown all his banks.” And further, it is said of them in this connection, that “they put to flight all them of the valleys, both towards the east and towards the west.” Now, it is blessed to ponder and meditate on that which is set forth in this, to see that all true power, true affection, and true devotedness, spring from the other side of Jordan ; death is the door to Christ in heaven, or to follow Him with whole-heartedness on earth. It has ever been so, Elisha’s newly acquired mantle of power, received from the one to whom he separated himself (2 Kings 2:2-14), leads him, ere he uses it, to Jordan as well. Alas how little such a solemn reality as this has set its mark upon us! Not only are carnal wisdom, earthly-mindedness, and worldliness allowed to pass unexposed and unrebuked, but it has been even attempted with disastrous effects to press them into the service and testimony of the Lord. Let us be well assured that we must leave behind in death, practically, self and its surroundings, ere we can follow the true David in His rejection, and be devoted to his Person and interests on earth: yes, that to us impassable river, until He made a road through it by going into it himself, is the secret of all true heart following of Him, and is moreover the secret of all power by the Spirit in service for Him during the long weary night of His absence.

“Thine are we. ” Now this was as regards David more than words; first, it was with these Benjaminites acts, for they were separated men, who had gone out to David, in the despised place; these words, of such dreadful import to many in these days, demonstrated the reality of David * s faithful followers; they might well say to David, “Thine are we,”

having proved it so clearly. Are we so acting and expressing to our rejected Lord and Master in these days? Have we acted and spoken in the spirit of “Thine are we”? Alas how little, must be the truthful answer of every heart and conscience at all awake and exercised but more than this, how little even do we measure, or judge, or weigh things in relation to Christ hence the insensibility that seems to have set in, the frosts and snows of the winter of the soul, the icy coldness that seems to have asserted its influence on so many hearts; oh that we might, as a whole, be awakened out of this sleep, this deathlike slumber, by His own voice saying to us in power, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from among the dead.” But how little plain do we make it appear that we are Christ’s, and yet we in language and speech own Him as our Lord; but where are the proofs that He is so really to us? Where, it may be asked, is our subjection to His authority, to His will, to His word? Self-importance, self-justification, self-assertion, self-exaltation in its most specious forms, is the sad crop occupying the ground where fruit for him should have been found.

“Thine are we.” Most searching words where reality and uprightness of heart are found, and the very contrast with, and the opposite to, the prevailing spirit of the hour, “With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?” But further, observe, that to be really where we can take that place with Christ, and be, as well as say, “Thine are we,” Jordan must not only be passed when it had overflown all its banks, that is, death in faith accepted by us in all its extent, but it must be carried by us as well (2 Cor. 4:10), and carried by us, not once or in a way, but “always.” Oh, the reality of the “dying of Jesus”; “that is the death we must always carry but how unsparing it is; nothing of man, not to speak of nature or flesh, can be tolerated here. Why is it we see and hear so much of man? Is it not because this great reality is avoided by many, refused by others, and dreaded by all? Lord, help us always to bear about in our bodies the dying of Jesus!

“Thine are we.” This, we may be assured, is the desire of the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ as to all that are His own; they are in fact, blessed be His name, His own; His own, too, whom He loves right on to the end, through everything and in spite of all! We may well say, what should we do if it were not so? But the fact underlies the great practical truth we seek to enforce, even that what is true of us in His amazing grace and love should be practically recognized and acted upon by us. How blessed to see it in the apostle of the Gentiles, he who followed Christ as none before or since, and to see it declared in a moment of human suspense and emergency, even when in the shipwreck all hope of being saved was taken away; what words of comfort from the mouth of a poor prisoner, as he opens it to comfort and cheer the despairing and the overwhelmed: “There stood by me this night, the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve.” Mark those blessed words well, “whose I am”; what dignity, what confidence, what affection these utterances breathe. Oh, that the beloved saints of God tasted the liberty of belonging to Christ; exclusively and entirely to be to Him, “a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed ” — that is, fully, finally, and only for Him! “Whose I am,” “Thine are we”; our happy confession to Himself and to all around us in acts and in words.

But we have also another mark of true devotedness in their further confession to the rejected David — “and on thy side”; indeed, we might say this is the simple consequence of “Thine are we.” How grateful to the heart of David this confession at this moment, hunted as he was, like a partridge on the mountains. It is just this that one sees the immense lack