The apostle tells us in Romans
15:4 that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning." The first ten or twelve chapters of 1 Chronicles are little
more than a list of names. What the "learning" is, I am frank to
confess I do not know. But in 1 Chron. 4:9, 10 something is said about the one
whose name is mentioned:"And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren:
and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.
And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that Thou wouldest bless me
indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that
thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him
that which he requested." Why are we told something about Jabez, while
nothing is said about others? The fact that the Spirit of God lingers over him
encourages us to do so also. We are told he "was more honorable than his
brethren." Naturally we ask, What made him so?

 

The Chronicles are a history, a
review book; and in this way suggest to us the judgment seat of Christ. We are
making our histories now, and a review day is coming. At the judgment seat of
Christ our stories will be told. Will it be said of any of us, "He was
more honorable than his brethren"? I suppose we would like that to be said
of us. Let us then linger over these verses to see if we can find out what it
was that made him honorable.

 

There are two things to be
noticed. Sorrow gave him his name, and he was a man of earnest desires. There
is no doubt a close connection between the two things.

 

First, then, sorrow gave him his
name. This is also true in a sense of us. How? Let us see. This world is a
scene of sorrow. Evil has come into it. There is not a heart that does not feel
more or less its power. The story of this world is one of human woe. The cry of
need and suffering rises up on every hand. It is impossible to be unaffected by
it. And the more we are with God about it, the more we enter into His mind, the
more serious we will be, and the more we will view the world in the light of
the reality of things as they are before the eye of God. Thus soberness will be
stamped upon us. We will not be able to mock at human need. We cannot be
indifferent to suffering or laugh at the ills and griefs of men.

 

Our Lord had this character. He
was "a man of sorrows?’ He wept in the midst of human ill and the havoc of
a scene of evil. He said, too, "Blessed are they that mourn." To
be mourners in the sense in which He was a mourner is to know the grace by
which tears are wiped away. In the scene to which we are passing there will be
no sorrow. No ill or evil will ever enter the new creation.

 

But we must pass on to the
second point, and to understand it we must look at the history of Israel. God put them in Canaan and told Joshua to divide the land among the twelve tribes.
He did so, giving an explicitly defined position to each tribe. Now when this
was done, each tribe was responsible to drive out and destroy the inhabitants
occupying land within its own territory. If we turn to the Book of Judges, we
shall find that every tribe failed. They did not drive out the inhabitants.
There was, however, much greater energy of faith in Judah than in the other
tribes. We have the story of Caleb who drove out of Hebron the three sons of
Anak; of Othniel who took Kirjath-sepher; and of Achsah who despised not her
father’s gift of a south land, but in the boldness of faith asked a further
gift of springs of water. We read of Judah going up, having asked counsel of
the Lord, and slaying the Canaanites and the Perizzites. He slew also
Adoni-bezek and took Jerusalem. He took Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron. He drove out
the inhabitants of the mountains, but he "could not drive out the
inhabitants of the valleys." Notwithstanding his greater energy of faith,
he failed. He gave up the conflict; he stopped pressing on. Why was this? And
why was it that each tribe broke down and ceased fighting before they drove out
all the enemies? Perhaps after getting possession of part of the land, they settled
down to enjoy it. They may have become satisfied with what they had acquired,
and so gave up the effort to acquire more. But whether this was so or not, it
is evident that the effort to complete the subjugation of the land was given
up.

 

If now we turn to this man,
Jabez, we find he was not content to enjoy merely the coast he already
possessed. There was in him an energy of faith that said, "My coast is a
gift of the God of Israel. It is a good coast. But He who gave me so good a
coast must delight in giving. His gifts are well worth having. I want
them." And so he prays to have his coast enlarged.

 

Have we not now gathered the
lesson of his story? If so, let us apply it. God has given us His Word as our
inheritance. We have learned something of certain parts of it, though as to
what we do know, we have to say we do not know it as we ought to know it. We
have no reason to be proud of our knowledge of God’s Word. But whatever we know
through God’s mercy, do we want to know more? Have we not to some extent
settled down to enjoy what we have learned, and given up the effort to learn
more?

 

Let us remember the words of the
Lord:"Labor … for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life" (John 6:27). Our danger is in being satisfied with what we have
learned. Are we seeking to get out of the Bible what is in it? Have we learned
the spiritual value of all its different books? We cannot say we have. It is
true of us that there is still "much land to be possessed." Why is
not our coast being enlarged? Is it not because we have failed in respect to
what was so prominent in Jabez? Are we fervently desiring to increase in the
knowledge of God’s Word?

 

We live in a day when every
effort is made to rob us of the blessings and authority of the Scriptures. May
we be thoroughly alive to it! How prone we are to feed on certain favorite
passages. We need "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God." How often we find ourselves at our wits’ end to know what to do! Why
is it so? Simply because we do not know the specific word of God that applies
to the circumstances in which we are. We cannot throw the Bible as a whole at
the enemy. We need to meet him with the particular "saying of God"
that suits the occasion. How busy the enemy is! How often he prevails! How
seldom we conquer! May the Lord give us diligence and earnest desire and
fixedness of purpose to increase in the knowledge of His Word!