If such a special vision be granted to us let us keep it in memory. Jacob called the name of that place Mahanaim. I wish we had some way in this western world, in these modern times, of naming places, and children, too, more sensibly. We must needs either borrow some antiquated title, as if we were too short of sense to make one for ourselves, or else our names are sheer nonsense, and mean nothing. Why not choose names which should commemorate our mercies? Might not our houses be far more full of interest if around us we saw memorials of the happy events of our lives? Should we not note down remarkable blessings in our diaries, to hand down to our children? Should we not tell our sons and daughters, “There God helped your father, boy;” “thus and thus the Lord comforted your mother, girl;” “there God was very gracious to our family”?
Keep records of your race! Preserve the household memoranda! I think it is a great help for a man to know what God did for his father and his grandfather, for he hopes that their God will be his God also. Jacob took care to make notes, for he again and again named places by the facts which there were seen. Jacob named Bethel, and Galeed, and Peniel, and Mahanaim, and other places, for he was a great name giver. Nor were his names forgotten, for hundreds of years after good King David came to the same spot as Jacob, and found it still known as Mahanaim, and there the servants of God of another kind met him also. This brings me to my second text; for angels did not meet David, but living creatures of another nature met him, who answered the purpose of David quite as well as angels would have done. So just for a few minutes we will dwell upon that second event which distinguished Mahanaim.
Turn to the Second Book of Samuel, seventeenth chapter, twenty-seventh verse. David came to Mahanaim, and there was met by many friends. He stood upon the sacred spot, accompanied by his handful of faithful friends, fugitives like himself. There was not an angel about that day apparently, yet secretly there were thousands flying around the sorrowing king. Who is this that comes? It is not an angel, but old Barzillai. Who is this? It is Machir of Lo-debar. They bring with them honey, corn, butter, sheep, great basins by way of baths, and cooking utensils, and earthen vessels to hold their food; and look, there are beds too, for the poor king has not a couch to lie upon.
These are not angels, but they are doing what angels could not have done, for Gabriel himself could hardly have brought a bed or a basin. Who is yonder prominent friend? He speaks like a foreigner. He is an Ammonite. What is his name? Shobi, the son of Nahash, of Kabbah, of the children of Ammon. I have heard of those people: they were enemies were they not— cruel enemies to Israel? That man Nahash, you recollect his name; this is one of his sons. Yes! God can turn enemies into friends when his servants require succour.
Those that belong to a race that is opposed to Israel can, if God will it, turn to be their helpers. The Lord found an advocate for his Son Jesus in Pilate’s house,— the governor’s wife suffered many things in a dream because of him.. He can find a friend for his servants in their persecutor’s own family, even as he raised up Obadiah to hide the prophets and feed them in a cave: the chamberlain to Ahab himself was the protector of the saints, and with meat from Ahab’s table were they fed. It strikes me that Shobi the Ammonite came to David because he owed his life to him. Kabbah of Ammon had been destroyed, and this man, probably the brother of the king, had been spared: this act of mercy he remembered, and when he found David in trouble he acted gratefully and came down from his highland home with his men, and with his substance. Many a good man has found gracious help in his time of need from those who have received salvation by his means. If we are a blessing to others they will be a blessing to us.
If we have brought any to Christ, and they have found the Saviour by our teaching, there is a peculiar tie between us, and they will be our helpers. Shobi of Kabbah of Ammon will be sure to be generous to David, because he will say, “It is by him I live; it is through him that I found salvation from death.” If God blesses you in the conversion of any, it may be that he will raise them up in your time of need, and send them to help: at any rate, either by friends visible or invisible, he will cause you to dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed. Here comes another person we have heard of before, Machir of Lo-debar.
That is the large farmer who took care of Mephibosheth. He seems to have been a truly loyal man, who stuck to royal families, even when their fortunes were adverse. As he had been faithful to the house of Saul so was he to David. We have among us brethren who are always friends of God’s ministers: they love them for their Master’s sake, and adhere to them when the more fickle spirits rush after new comers. Happy are we to have many such adherents. They helped the preacher’s predecessor; they like to talk of the grand old man who ruled Israel in the olden times, and they are not tired of it, but they are the entertainers of the present leader, and are equally hearty in their help. God fetches up these brethren at the moment they are wanted, and they appear with loaded hands. Here comes Barzillai, an old man of fourscore, and as the historian tells us, “a very great man.” His enormous wealth was all at the disposal of David and his followers, and “he provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim.”
This old nobleman was certainly as useful to David as the angels were to Jacob, and he and his coadjutors were truly a part of God’s forces. The armies of God are varied: he has not one troop alone, but many. Did not Elisha’s servants see the mountain full of horses of fire, and chariots of fire? God’s hosts are of varied regiments, appearing as horse and foot, cherubim and seraphim, and holy men and holy women. Those who are of the church of God below are as much a part of the host of God as the holiest angels above. Godly women who minister unto the Lord do what they can, and angels can do no more.
On this occasion, Mahanaim well deserved its name, because the help that came to David from these different persons came in a most noble way, as though it came by angels. The helpers of David showed their fidelity to him. He was driven out of his palace and likely to be dethroned; but they stood by him and proved that they meant to stand by him. Their declaration was in effect, “Thine are we, thou son of Jesse, and all that we have.” Now was the time of his need, and now he should see that they were not fine weather friends; but such as were true in the hour of trial. See their generosity! What a mass of goods they brought to sustain David’s troops in the day when they were hungering and thirsting.
I need not give you the details; the verses read like a commissariat roll of demands. Every actually necessary form of provision is there. How spontaneous was the gift! David did not demand: they brought before he asked. He had not to send round his sergeants to levy upon the outlying villages and farms; but there were the good people ready-handed with all manner of stores. Their thoughtfulness was great too, for they seem to have thought of everything that was wanted, and besides, they said, “The people is hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.” The heartiness of it all is most delightful. They brought their contributions cheerfully and joyfully, else they would have brought after a meagre sort, and with less variety of gifts.
I infer from this that if at any time a servant of God is marching onward in his Master’s work, and he needs assistance of any sort, he need not trouble about it, but rest in the Lord, for succour and help will surely come, if not from the angels above, yet from the church below. Will you look at Solomon’s Song, sixth chapter and thirteenth verse, “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies,” or Mahanaim; for that is literally how it stands in the Hebrew.
In the church of God, then, we see the company of Mahanaim: the saints are the angels of God on earth as the angels are his hosts above. God will send these upon his errands to comfort and sustain his servants in their times of need. Go on, O David, at the bidding of thy Lord, for his chosen servants here below will count it their delight to be thine allies, and thou shalt say of them “this is God’s host!”
And now, to close. While I have shown you God’s invisible agents, and God’s visible agents, I want to call to your mind that in either case, and in both cases, the host is the host of God: that is to say, the true strength and safety of the believer is his God. We do not trust in the help of angels; we do not trust in the church of God, nor in ten thousand churches of God put together, if there were such, but in God himself alone. Oh, it is grand to hang on the bare arm of God; for there hang all the worlds.
The eternal arm is never weary, nor shall those who rest on it be confounded. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength.” I said last Thursday night to you that faith was nothing but sanctified common sense; and I am sure it is so. It is the most common-sense thing in the world to trust to the trustworthy, the most reasonable thing in the world to take into your calculations the greatest power in the world, and that is God, and to place your confidence in that greatest power. Yea, more, since that greatest power comprehends all the other powers,— for there is no power in angels, or in men, except what God gives them: it is wise to place all our reliance upon God alone.
The presence of God with believers is more certain and constant than the presence of angels or holy men. God hath said it,— “Certainly I will be with thee.” He hath said again, “I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee.” When you are engaged in Christ’s service, you have a special promise to back you up,— “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” What are you afraid of then?
Begone all trembling. Let feeble hearts be strong. What can stagger us? “God is with us.” Was there ever a grander battle cry than ours— the Lord of hosts is with us? Blessed was John Wesley to live by faith, and then to die saying, “The best of all is, God is with us.” Shrink? Turn your backs in the day of battle? Shame upon you! You cannot, if God be with you; for “if God be with us, who can be against us?” or if they be against us, who can stand for an hour? If, then, God is pleased to grant us help by secondary causes, as we know he does — for to many of us he sends many and many a friend to help in his good work— then we must take care to see God in these friends and helpers. When you have no helpers, see all helpers in God; when you have many helpers, then you must see God in all your helpers.
Herein is wisdom. When thou hast nothing but God, see all in God: when thou hast everything, then see God in everything. Under all conditions, stay thy heart only on the Lord. May the Spirit of God teach us all how to do this. This tendency to idolatry of ours, how strong it is. If a man bows down to worship a piece of wood or stone, we call him an idolater; and so he is: but if you and I trust in our fellow-men instead of God, it is idolatry. If we give to them the confidence that belongs to God, we worship them instead of God.
Remember how Paul said he did not consult with flesh and blood: alas, too many of us are caught in that snare. We consult far more with flesh and blood than with the Lord. The worst person I ever consult with at all is a person who is always too near me. The Lord deliver me from that evil man, myself. The presence of the Lord Jesus is the star of our night and the sun of our day, the cure of care, the strength of service, and the solace of sorrow.
Heaven on earth is for Christ to be with us, and heaven above is to be with Christ. I can ask nothing better for you, brethren, than that God may be with you in a very conspicuous and manifest manner all through this day, and right onward till days shall end in the eternal day.
I do not ask that you may see angels: still, if it can be, so be it. But what is it, after all, to see an angel? Is not the fact of God’s presence better than the sight of the best of his creatures? Perhaps the Lord favoured Jacob with the sight of angels because he was such a poor, weak creature as to his faith; peradventure if he had been perfect in his faith he would not have needed to see angels. He would have said, “I need no vision of heavenly spirits, for I see their Lord.” What are angels? They are only God’s pages to run upon his errands; to see their Lord is far better.
The angels of God are not to be compared with the God of angels. If my confidence is in him that he is my Father, and that Jesus Christ has become the brother of my soul, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in me according to his own word, what need I care, although no vision of the supernatural should ever gladden my eyes? Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” and in that joyous faith we rest, expecting that in time and to eternity the power of God will be with us, either visibly or invisibly, by men or by angels.
His arm shall be lifted up for us, and his right arm shall defend us. My heart is glad, for I too have had my Mahanaim, and in this my hour of need for the work of the Lord to which he has called me, I see the windows of heaven opened above me, and I see troops of friends around me. For Pneuma City a project God has determined to complete very soon, I see providence moving. Two camps are around me also, and therefore do I preach to you this day of that which I have seen and known. May the angel of the covenant be ever with you. Amen.