Next, we are told that the family of the house of Nathan shall mourn apart. Take that to be the family of a prophet; the family down at the Manse, if you like. There is some particular sin in the minister’s household which makes it proper that his family should mourn apart. Or, it may refer to the family of that good man in the church who is distinguished for his walk with God; yet, even in his family, there is a something which, when God the Holy Spirit visits it as a Spirit of intercession and of mourning for sin, will cause it to mourn apart.
There will be something about each household which it does not like to tell to others; and even in the house of Levi, which is so near to that of Nathan,—for the prophet and the priest often go hand in hand,—yet, when their families are gathered together to confess sin, Nathan prefers that the family of Levi should not be at his house, and Levi is anxious that there should be a closed door when he and his household are mourning before the Lord. You will be right if you let the family of Levi represent the household of a gracious people; for now that the priesthood is the common property of all the elect of God, I do not care to distinguish Levi otherwise than as a believing man in whose house there is a church of God, and all whose family are of priestly rank. Still, even there, among the holiest and best of saints, among those devoted to the service of God, among those whose very lives are spent in work for God, there will be some sin that shall make the house of Levi wish to mourn apart from all others.
Then there was to be the mourning of the family of Shimei. We do not know who this Shimei may have been; some commonplace person, perhaps; possibly, his was a household in which there had not been the fear of God. But when the grace of God comes to it, then the house of Shimei begins to mourn apart for its own special sin.
You see, dear friends, that the one blow I have kept striking upon the anvil is this, “apart, apart, APART.” All this mourning, however similar it might be in the one case to the other, is presented to God separately by each family; and if ever families were marked off the one from the other by a most manifest line of demarcation, it was in the night of weeping when, as at Bochim, they drew near unto God in prayer apart.
Notice, next, that this separateness is carried very far by the fact that, in each case, it put the family apart, and their wives apart. These people were one flesh; but when their hearts were made flesh, they had to offer separate supplications. The common sin of husbands and wives should be confessed unitedly, and there is nothing more natural, more beautiful, and more edifying, than for husbands and wives to pray together, to confess sin together, and to offer thanksgiving together. In all these they may be most fittingly one; yet there is and there must be some sin which the man shall bring before God, and before God alone, feeling that even his dearest one would be an intruder in that act of personal mourning for sin; and when the Spirit of God is in the woman’s heart, she feels that, though she has no earthly secret from her husband, yet there is something between God and her soul into which even her husband cannot enter. Her mourning for her sin, when she first seeks the Saviour, would be hindered by her husband’s interposition, so she gets alone; and his mourning for sin, when he first seeks the Saviour, or when afterwards he is conscious of some backsliding, and longs to return to his Lord, must be apart and alone. No, ye dearest ones, when we enter into the closet, and shut to the door, you must enter your closet, and shut to the door; for, in the dealing of a soul with God, it must be One and one, the one Mediator standing between them twain, but no other individual interposing. This family or that family was to mourn apart as a family; but then the individuals composing each family were also to be separate in their confession before the Most High: “every family apart, and their wives apart.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
