Good Tidings to the King’s Household

‘We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us; now, therefore, come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.’—2 Kings vii. 9.
JUST the last persons who would seem to need ‘good tidings,’* and the last, too, who would seem likely to have them to convey! But oh, how true the figure is ! how many among the King’s own household need the good tidings which these lepers brought! For they are starving so near to plenty,1 and poor within reach of treasure,3 and thinking themselves besieged when the Lord has dispersed the foe for them. Is it not often the spiritual leper, the conscious outcast, the famine-stricken, possession-less soul, who takes the boldest step into the fullest salvation, and finds deliverance and abundance and riches beyond what the more favoured and older inmate of the King’s household knows anything about?

It may be one of the enemy’s devices,3 that we sometimes hold back good tidings, just because we shrink from telling them to the King’s household. How many who do not hesitate to speak of Jesus to little children or poor people, or even to persons who openly say, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us,’* never say one word to their fellow subjects about the blessed discoveries that the Holy Spirit has made to them of the fulness of His salvation,5 and the reality of His power, and the treasures of His word, and the satisfaction of His love, and the far-reaching fulfilments of His promises, and the real, actual deliverance, and freedom, and victory, which He gives,6 and the strength and the healing that flow through faith in His name !7
Satan even perverts humility into a hinderance in this, and persuades us that of course our friend knows as much or more of this than we do, and
that telling

^ Ps Ixxxi. 10-16. 2 I Cor. iii. 21, 22. 3 2 Cor. ii. 11.
^ 1 nke xix. 14. 6 John xvi. 1,4, 15. ^ Rom. viii. 37.
7 Acis iii. 16.

of what we have found in Jesus, may seem like or lead to talking about ourselves. Yet perhaps all the while that friend is hungering and feeling besieged, while we are withholding good tidings of plenty and deliverance.1 Verily, ‘we do not well.’2 Have there not been days when the brightest of us would have been most thankful for the simplest word about Jesus, from the humblest Christian?—days when even ‘the mention of His name’ might have been food and freedom!

It does not in the least follow that members of Christian families need no such ‘good tidings’ because of their favoured position. They may need it all the more, because no one thinks it necessary to try and help them. ‘As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, specially unto them who are of the household of faith.’3
And when? The constantly recurring word meets us here again, ‘Now!’

1 Prov. xi. 24-36. * James iv. 17. * Gal. vi. 10.