Notes of 4 Addresses at Catford 1977
Index
Title Page
1. The Choice, Call and Testing of Elisha 2
2. The Double Portion granted to Elisha 10
3. A Tale of Two Homes 18
4. The Man who Made Things Better 26
The Days of Elijah and Elisha
Elisha served God in a very difficult day and in the circumstances surrounding his call, his testing and the incidents of his life there will be an encouragement to us in our day when we too find ourselves in difficult times, not so much the miraculous things that he did, but rather the features that we see coming to light in Elisha. Elisha came onto the scene in a very abrupt manner. We do not read anything of his boyhood, who his parents were or how he was brought up. He served as a prophet for 55 years, which is a considerable time, and he was faithful to the Lord in the midst of varying circumstances. Perhaps the greatest honour that was given to Elisha was that he was mentioned by the Master Himself in Luke 4 in terms of honour and dignity.
Elisha lived in conditions that were far from encouraging. A great division had taken place amongst the people of God. It is a very sad thing that when we read the history of the ten tribes that not one good king reigned over them. Thank God in Judah there were some good kings who did right in the sight of the Lord. Elisha’s predecessor, Elijah, served his God in the midst of very trying conditions in the ten-tribed northern kingdom before a king and a queen who hated him, and with the nation largely given over to the worship of Baal. There was not much to encourage him. He did not even know that there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Ki. 19:18). It was a great encouragement to learn that there were seven thousand who had never bowed the knee, but it was very sad that not one of them ever came out in public witness to support Elijah. Here we have a picture of the days 2 Timothy speaks of when it says “the Lord knoweth them that are his” (2:19). It is a very sad thing when only the Lord knows them. We should all be known as people who are genuinely here for the Lord in the circumstances in which we are found. So although the Lord had to open Elijah’s eyes and say ‘Elijah, you are not the only man, there are seven thousand who have been faithful’, it is right to say that he was the only man who stood out publicly in the face of all that was evil and declared openly that he was on God’s side; a courageous prophet indeed. He got discouraged, as most servants of the Lord do at some time or other, due to a lack of results and His own inadequacy. All this kind of thing presses upon the Lord’s servants, and it did upon Elijah so much so that he said “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life” (1 Ki. 19:4). In other words, he said, ‘Lord, I am finished. I want to go. I have served my God, I have served my day and generation. I have had enough’. ‘All right’, says God, ‘I will take you at your word. I want you to go and anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat. He will take your place. You can go, but I will still carry on the testimony.’ God always carries on His work. It has been aptly said that God buries His servants and carries on His work. So it was with Elijah, he was set aside, and Elisha filled up the position.
The Character of Elijah
In the call of Elisha, we see the ungrudging character of Elijah. A lack of envy amongst the Lord’s servants in relation to each other is a lovely sight to see. Elijah does not look upon Elisha as an upstart, but ungrudgingly, according to the command of the Lord, he went and put his mantle upon Elisha. And as far as we can see from the narrative he gives him every encouragement to take up this service for the Lord, so when the call of God came through Elijah to Elisha we find this wonderful attitude of lack of envy or jealousy. This comes out distinctly in the life of the New Testament servant, Paul. Oh, how he commended the service of others. Timothy? Paul said he was a man after his own heart, he knew no man so like-minded as Timothy (Phil. 2:20). Epaphroditus? Oh, this man was ready to give his life (Phil. 2:30), and there are many others (e.g. Rom. 16). As he writes his epistles, unjealously he commends others for their work for the Lord. This is a good lesson for us all, not to be marked by any spirit of envy in relation to the work of others, but rather to commend what we see. So very often we put aside the service of others because of something that we see in the servant, and we discount all that is worthwhile and all that is valuable. Paul did not do that. Paul commended the servants of the Lord for what he saw.
Having briefly considered Elijah we now want to look at Elisha following in his footsteps. So if we were to write a heading over our simple message this evening it would be:—‘The servant’s choice, the servant’s call, and the servant’s testing’.
The Choice of Elisha
“And the Lord said unto [Elijah]… Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.” (1 Ki. 19:15-16)
God chose Elisha, and God does not make any mistakes when He calls His servants. He has called us all, every one of us, and we are all small compared to those who have gone before, serving the Lord, but there is something for us all to do in our generation. Elisha was an outstanding servant of the Lord. There are more references to Elisha as a man of God than any other (31 times), far more than either Elijah (7 times) or Moses (6 times). The term “man of God” comes to light when things are difficult. So Elisha, the man of God, is chosen by God to serve in Elijah’s place. It was a divine choice. Now we find this all through the Bible. God has the right to choose, for after all, it is His work. So very wisely and carefully He chooses His servants for a particular purpose. When the Lord Jesus Christ was here He chose twelve special disciples and also another seventy, and sent them out two by two. He chose them carefully. They did the work He wanted them to do and His choice was vindicated. ‘Oh,’ you say, ‘they were a poor lot! they made so many mistakes. They all forsook Him and fled at the time of His greatest need.’ That is true, but before we criticise them let us all take a look at ourselves. The point is this however, that after the Lord went on high and the Holy Spirit was sent down, oh, how wonderfully they served the Lord, what faithfulness, diligence and sacrifice they showed, and if we are to believe tradition (and there is no reason to disbelieve it) each one laid down his life for the Lord with the exception of John, who died at a very old age in exile. Even Judas Iscariot was chosen for a specific purpose. They laid down their lives willingly in sacrifice for their Master, and it takes a lot of courage and faithfulness to do that. So the Lord was vindicated in His choice of the twelve.
When we come to the first chapter of Acts we find two men who were short-listed by the disciples at that time to take the place that was vacated by Judas Iscariot in his unfaithfulness, and a lot is drawn. They did not make the choice in an arbitrary fashion. They did not only say ‘We will draw lots and the winner of the lot will be the one we will choose’, they also prayed. They asked the Lord to support them in this matter. They knew that the Lord knew the hearts. Outwardly these two brothers had the same qualifications, having been with the Lord from the time He was baptised until the time He died and went back to glory. They had all the qualifications, but God knew the heart, and so they asked God to choose the one to fill up the space, and the Lord made the choice. One was chosen and the other put aside. This is always right; the Lord knows best. In Acts 6 we have the choosing of people to look after the administration in the church at Jerusalem in relation to the widows. Certain qualifications were required and the choice was made, the service was completed, and as far as we know, the problem was resolved. In Acts 15:25-26 we find the church making a decision, choosing two men to go along with Paul and Barnabas in connection with another company of believers in another part of the world. It says they were men who had “hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. In all cases qualifications were attached to the choice. When Paul sent Titus to Crete to choose elders there he told him not to look for the men who were most influential, the best educated people, the richest people or the people with the best standing in the world, he told him to choose people with the best spiritual qualities, people who could be relied upon to do the required service. So this question of choice is one that is associated with quality and this is very important in times of great difficulty.
Now we come to ourselves; has God chosen us? Without a shadow of a doubt He has. This is one very important choice that we can all take to our hearts this evening and rejoice in it because before ever time began, before ever the world existed, God chose us in Christ for the greatest possible blessing. In Ephesians 1 Paul unfolds this wonderful choice of God, describing how He chose us in His sovereign love and grace that we might be with Him eternally in sonship’s dignity for His praise and glory and for His blessing for all eternity. Dear brethren, this is a wonderful thing. He knew each one of us by name before we ever existed and He chose us in His own sovereign choice and will.
When we come to 1 Corinthians 1 we find another kind of choice. “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty” (v. 27). God takes up the weak instrument in order to testify to the outside world that in His power those weak instruments can overcome for His name and for His glory. This is what we find illustrated in Elisha, the son of Shaphat. He, a weak instrument, had to face the king, had to face those who were lukewarm and had to face those who were enemies. In himself he was a weak instrument, but in the power of God it was another story. He was an instrument in the hand of God to overcome the enemies of the truth. God chose Elisha for this, and that we can say humbly God has also chosen us for this, not to occupy a place like Elisha, a man of God in dignity and power and wonderful miracles performed through him, but in our humble situations, wherever we are at home, amongst our neighbours, at school, in business, wherever we are found, God has chosen us that in our weakness might be demonstrated His power so that there might be a testimony for Him. You might say ‘What use am I?’ That is a common place statement. Many great servants in the Scriptures have said that. Jeremiah said “Ah, Lord God! Behold I cannot speak; for I am a child” (Jer. 1:6), Moses was most reluctant to perform the service that God had in mind for him (Ex. 4:1, 10), Jonah, also, ran away (Jon. 1:3). In all these cases there was a great deal of reluctance, but when God takes hold of His servant He forms him and moulds him to His will so that He can do great things through the servant’s weakness, and it must always be so. The moment we begin to think that we are able to do this work ourselves we are heading for a fall. However, Elisha was chosen by God and we are very thankful for the way he reacted to the call.
“So [Elijah] departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah cast his mantle upon him.” (1 Ki. 19:19)
Elijah did not find Elisha sitting down enjoying himself or having a snooze in the heat of the day, he found a very industrious man, ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen. This is a good thing to see in the Lord’s servants. We see this all through the Bible, that God chooses men of action, men of industry, men who can do things. There are many instances of this. Take the Lord calling the fishermen. What were they doing? Were they sitting chatting about their exploits at sea and the large catches of fish they had? I come from a fishing village and when you see some fishermen congregated together it is very likely that this is what they are talking about, their boats, their nets and their catches. But the Lord called the fishermen as they were mending their nets (Matt. 4:21, Mark 1:19). They were industrious, they were busy, they were concerned about the well-being of the nets in view of catching more fish. When God called Moses he was occupied with tending sheep (Ex. 3:1). David was a very industrious and reliable man (1 Sam. 17:34-37, 22:14). So we could go on. God called this man, a man of industry, a man who was concerned about his daily calling, and performed it in a correct manner. Many, many great men of God have been called from very active lives to serve the Lord; they proved themselves in their secular calling, and then they proved themselves in the calling of God. When there is so much to do it requires much energy to follow the Lord’s will in the midst of difficulties and opposition. So Elisha is found with the twelve yoke of oxen and is carrying out his daily calling according to God. Also, this little incident would indicate to us that he was a man who was deeply concerned about the work of God. He was not ploughing with an unequal yoke, but instead he was ploughing with something that is commended by God (Deut. 22:10). Now this is a very important thing that in our lives, without necessarily being engaged in some particular service for the Lord, we should be governed by the word of God. You see, if we become habitually governed by the word of God, it is very easy to be submissive to it when God makes a special claim upon our allegiance. The sixth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews presents this that those who are feeding upon strong meat are those who have their senses exercised habitually to discern between what is right and what is wrong. So the fact that Elisha is ploughing with twelve oxen indicates that he is the kind of man who can be relied upon, he was industrious and his life was governed by the word of God. In short, he was an ideal man to serve the Lord. And so Elijah casts his mantle upon him.
The Call of Elisha
“And [Elisha] left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.” (1 Ki. 19:20-21)
Elisha immediately knew what this act of Elijah involved; it meant he was being called to the service of God. Elijah’s mantle would be the hairy garment that he wore that was indicative of his being a prophet of God. This was the way Elijah was identified. ‘What kind of man was he?’ said the king. ‘He was a man with a hairy garment’ was the reply. ‘Ah,’ said the king, ‘It is Elijah the Tishbite, the prophet of God’ (2 Ki. 1:7-8). This mantle was thrown upon Elisha and immediately he knew that he was called of God. There was no reluctance or hesitation. He said he was prepared to forsake his father and mother, prepared to forsake his secular calling and he was ready to follow Elijah, and he did. Now this is a very wonderful attitude. How easy it is to reason, how easy it is to say ‘Well, I am not qualified for this kind of thing. I have no credentials to give me the right to take up this service.’ It is very easy to turn away; maybe too the sense of sacrifice is too great. But Elisha showed no hesitation. This is a wonderful picture of this man. It does not mean that he set his father and mother aside, oh no, the Scriptures are plain that we are to honour our father and mother, we are to respect those natural ties (Ex. 20:12, Eph. 6:1-2). God honours them and we ought to honour them also. That is not the point. Here was a claim that God was placing upon him that was far greater than any earthly tie. God was virtually saying to Elisha ‘Now, Elisha, I want your time, I want your service, I want you and if my claim comes along with a claim from your parents, my claim is paramount, my claim is first’. Elisha is prepared to face that. God also said ‘Elisha, you are not going to have any time to spend on anything else I want all your time to spend in this service that I have called you for’. And Elisha is prepared to do that so he killed the oxen and he burned the implements of service. In other words, as we say, he ‘burned his boats’. His old life was finished, at an end. A new life was starting for him and that life involved his time, his talents and everything about him and he was now thoroughly devoted to the interests of the Lord.
So, dear brethren, we have to ask ourselves, is this our attitude to the service of the Lord? We are not all called upon to leave our secular calling, we are not even called upon to actually leave our parents, but we are called upon to answer to the claims of the Lord when He makes a claim upon us. When there is some particular call for some particular service then it is right that this should be listened to and we should serve Him accordingly, and do it without any hesitation or reluctance. I know it is easy to say that, but it is a right thing to say because the Lord Himself indicated this in Luke 14, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (v. 26). Again, it does not mean that we forsake our mother and father and do not show them the respect that we ought to show them, it does not mean that at all, the Lord is simply saying ‘My claims come first’. Oh, dear brethren, what a wonderful position it is to be in at all times, to say ‘I have the things of God at heart and His things come first in my life, and my whole life is geared to this, the plans I make, what I do, what I say, where I go, my whole outlook in life is governed by the fact that I belong to God’. I am perfectly sure that we would all be in a healthy condition spiritually if this were true of us in every day of our lives.
Elisha showed how ready he was to answer to God’s claims, “he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him”. We might have said, ‘Well, Elisha has been called by God to fill Elijah’s place and now we find Elisha is ministering to Elijah! If I were called to fill his place I am going to start right now.’ ‘No,’ says God, ‘first there are a few lessons to be learned. You have some experiences to go through, and there is no-one better to teach you than Elijah. Just you go along with Elijah’. So Elisha went along and ministered to him. He was in the place of a subordinate servant, and he was prepared to accept this place. We find this attitude with the young men all through the Scriptures, Joshua along with Moses (Ex. 24:13), Timothy along with Paul (1 Tim. 1:2, 2 Tim. 1:2), and we could quote other cases where the young go along with the old and they learn from them in their spiritual experience and in spiritual maturity. Now this is a great challenge for us who are older. Do we in any way influence the young in the right direction? That is a very solemn thing. We should have sufficient spiritual maturity and power to influence the younger brethren into a pathway of devotedness to God. The truth is, dear brethren, if we are not in it ourselves we cannot influence others to be in that pathway. We have to have the power and the spiritual influence to direct others. Nobody could doubt that Elijah was such a one. How courageous, how faithful, and how obedient he had been, and in times of trial and stress and danger he had represented God and had followed God faithfully. Such a man was spiritually qualified to help this young man. So Elisha went along with Elijah. I do not know what they talked about when they were together. I am sure that Elisha would have plied him with some questions as to the great experiences that he had had on mount Carmel, and with Ahab and Jezebel, and all sorts of things of that character, and talking with this man of God he would learn many things that would stand him in good stead when he was in the place of responsibility and representation.
The Testing of Elisha
“And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Beth-el. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Beth-el.” (2 Ki. 2:1-2)
We have first this divine choice, Elisha was chosen by God, and then he was called by God, through Elijah, and how readily he answered to it. Now comes the test. This is always a problem. We think of the call of God (and we are very thankful that we are called of God), but very often when the testing time comes our faith gives way, the difficulties are too great, the problems are too many, and we wonder if we have stepped out on the right pathway, if we have done what is right. God tests us, and it is right that He should. You think of the Master Himself, He was thirty years in obscurity before He served for three and a half years in public. That is a good ratio. There is more of an iceberg under the water than is showing above it, and perhaps our lives should be similar, that is, there should be more devotedness in private in view of our public service. The first thirty years of the Lord’s life is shrouded in obscurity before He stepped out in public service for God; and oh, how wonderful those years were! We get an idea of their worth when the Lord Jesus was at the Jordan and the heavens were opened upon Him and God declared His delight in His well-beloved Son. Was it just for that moment? No, those thirty years of obscurity were revealed to us in this one great statement, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. In those thirty years everything was pleasurable to God although hidden from our eyes. Then followed three and a half years where the Lord walked here in public witness to God. Oh, how wonderful that six days before the Lord Jesus died, God could say again, “This is my beloved Son, hear him”. This is God’s testimony to His own beloved Son. So the testing time comes, as it did in the life of the Lord, where, immediately after the Father’s delight was expressed in Him He was tested of Satan for forty days in the wilderness. So we are not surprised if we are tested by difficulties and trials and oppositions so that God might prove us to be reliable servants. Dear brethren, the more often we are faithful in private, in secret, the more indication there will be in our public lives for God.
Briefly now we will look at this incident in 2 Kings 2. There are four places mentioned here: Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho and Jordan. Elijah and Elisha are in Gilgal and Elijah said to Elisha ‘You stay here, I am going to move on a little further’. Elisha replied ‘No, this is what I have desired, this is why I am called, I am going to follow you’. And they went to the next place and the same things were said. And so they go through the four until they came to the end and then we find the wonderful evidence that the mantle of Elijah had definitely fallen upon Elisha, and he was able to perform a mighty act of power that indicated that God was with Elisha just as He had been with Elijah. These four places represent principles that ought to govern us if we in our day want to follow the Lord.
What does Gilgal represent? There came a moment in the history of the nation of Israel when they arrived at Gilgal (Josh. 5). All the males who were there were all the new generation, all those who had come out of Egypt having perished because of their unfaithfulness, save two, Joshua and Caleb. Now this new generation had to enter into God’s land, this being God’s purpose for them, but not as uncircumcised persons, as they were at that time, they were to be circumcised at Gilgal, and then enter into the land as circumcised persons. This was to remind them of God’s covenant with Abraham. So at Gilgal they were circumcised. This signified that they were no longer just like ordinary persons, they were persons who belonged to God through covenant. They were persons who belonged to this great line of promise and blessing, and as such were the true representatives of God. Gilgal represents the cutting off of the flesh, that is, the reproach of Egypt. There is a great deal of ministry in the New Testament that helps us to understand this. Oh, if there is anything that hinders us in our service for God it is the flesh! Oh, what a wicked thing it is—pride, anger, envy. We read all about these things in Galatians 5:17-21, and indeed, in all Paul’s epistles. What an awful thing the flesh is! Paul encourages us to see that at the cross of Jesus the flesh was condemned in all its evil features and was put aside, and in the power of the Spirit, believers today are enabled to live for Christ, to follow God, and to do the things that are pleasing to Him. So what Elijah was really saying to Elisha was ‘Now look Elisha, are you prepared to stay here at Gilgal or are you prepared to answer to the principles regarding the destruction of the flesh? Are you prepared to move on with me?’ And Elisha was prepared to deal with these problems, he was prepared to enter into the principle regarding the destruction of the flesh and, in the power of that, move on to the next step whatever it might be. So, dear brethren, this is one thing we must all learn if we are going to serve God effectively in whatever place He puts us, that is, we can place no reliance on the flesh, no reliance whatsoever. We cannot serve in our own strength, we cannot serve as men of the world serve, we must serve in the power of a judged flesh, we must be prepared to put it aside and answer to the claims of God. Gilgal is a very important place for us to go to to learn these lessons, and, having learnt them, to move on for the glory of God. Elisha was prepared to learn these lessons and he was prepared to move on, and he did so.
“And Elijah said unto [Elisha], Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And [Elisha] said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho.” (2 Ki. 2:4)
Then they came to Bethel. Bethel represents the house of God. Jacob, in Genesis 28, had a wonderful vision that made him wake up and say “How dreadful (or, awesome) is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17). Bethel represents just that, the presence and the holiness of God. Elijah was saying in principle to Elisha, ‘Stay here. Are you prepared to learn the lessons that are involved in Bethel, and having learned them, move on?’ And Elisha replied ‘Yes, I am going to learn these lessons and move on. I am not going to stay here. I am not going to be held up by refusing to learn these things, I am going to learn them and move on.’ Oh, how wonderful it is if we serve with this in mind, that it is God whom we serve. How we ought to behave ourselves in the house of God! Oh, what lessons are to be learned! What a vast subject it is to learn how to behave ourselves in the house of God, to have God’s presence regulating our lives, our thoughts, whatever we do or say. What a lesson to learn! Elisha was prepared to learn it, and having learned it, to move on, and he did, and they came to Jericho.
“And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And [Elisha] said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.” (2 Ki. 2:6)
What does Jericho represent? When the children of Israel went over Jordan and into the land, standing to thwart their progress was the city of Jericho (Josh. 6). It was no use bypassing it. If we read in our history books about the days before modern warfare, castles were very, very important in the defence of one’s country. Round about the border and coastline where we live there are castles galore because these were the places where the English came up and bothered the Scots, and the Scots too went down and bothered the English. They were there and they could not be bypassed. It was no good an army invading Scotland and saying ‘We will not bother about these castles’, because from the castles would come out companies of soldiers and harass the communication lines of the invading army, and so they had to be overcome. So it was in Israel’s history, Jericho, a walled city, stood right across the path and it had to be overcome. The ark was carried around it, the priests blew the trumpets and then the walls fell down, and so Jericho was overcome. But what does it represent? Cities in Scripture represent what is good sometimes, especially in Jerusalem, but very bad in other senses, being a compact system of administration against God. That is the world. That is exactly what the world is, a compact system without God, energised by Satan, the power of this world, in opposition to God.
The New Testament speaks about Satan in two different ways, as “the prince of this world” (John 14:30), and as “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). As the prince (or ruler) of this world he has his power and influence in politics, in business, and in all the affairs of men in a general sense. He makes his presence and influence felt in such a way that it militates against the spread of the truth. Now I know that nine people out of ten would say ‘You are talking nonsense’, but this is what the Bible tells us. Satan is the ruler of this world. As the god of this world he has his influence in all the religious affairs of this world, in all the different faiths that are in opposition to the truth of God. Sad to say, his influence has even infiltrated into that which we call Christendom. The power of Satan is now making itself felt in a very distinctive way in the spread of obnoxious doctrines that bring down the glory of Christ, that challenges the authenticity of the Scriptures and in a thousand other ways that bring down the truth of God. Satan is the god and prince of this world.
But we are particularly concerned about Jericho as representing the world in opposition to the people of God, and how well we know it. If we waste our time in the things of this world how soon our spiritual strength goes. So Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Now you tarry here at Jericho’, at the place where the world’s power and domination is seen. But Elisha replied that he would overcome that, and move on. Remember poor Demas who forsook Paul “having loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10). When he left Paul he left the vessel whom God was using for the spread and maintenance of the truth. He said ‘I would rather have the world’. How many have we seen going back to the world? Oh, what a sad thing when a Christian gives up his testimony and would rather have the world—the world of business, the world of entertainment, the world of fame, the world of advancement, it does not matter what shape it takes, if it is the world, and we seek after it, it will deprive us of all strength and energy in serving the Lord. Elisha said ‘I am going to move on from Jericho, having learnt the lessons that Jericho represented.’ And so they came to the Jordan.
“And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.” (2 Ki. 2:8)
Now Elisha was going to learn the lessons that were to be found at Jordan; but what were they? The children of Israel came to the Jordan and they were told to wait. Then when the ark began to move they were to follow it, but were to keep a reverential distance of two thousand cubits behind. When the ark moved through the Jordan, as the priests’ feet touched the water, the water flowed back. The priests went over on dry land bearing the ark, and the children of Israel followed two thousand cubits behind (Josh. 3). This represents for us our death with Christ, this being the teaching of the epistle to the Colossians. Paul says there in chapter 3 “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth” (vv. 1-2). The truth can be easily illustrated in the forty days when the Lord Jesus Christ as a man out of death, spoke to His disciples. He no longer had any interest in this world, He never appeared in it publicly, He did not go out and testify in the villages and streets as He had before, He was finished with His public presentation, He was bound for glory. In a few days He was going to ascend back to His Father, He was finished entirely with all that was down here. All the earthly relationships had gone, He was a Man who was bound for heaven. That is exactly what Colossians teaches us. Oh, dear brethren, that it might be true of us! Elisha said ‘I am moving on.’ And he went on, having learnt that lesson, and the two of them went on together talking.
How well Elisha answered to the test. Three times he was told to go back, but every time he said ‘No, I am going to go on’. That is resolution. That is determination. He might easily have said ‘Well, the man of God has told me to tarry here. I will do what he says’. It might have been an easy way out. ‘Ah, no’, he said, ‘I have been called, I have been chosen. I feel the dignity, the responsibility, and I am going to go on and fulfil what the Lord desires of me.’ Dear brethren, let us have this determination to go on. It is so easy for us to give up, not necessarily to stop coming to the meetings, not necessarily in our outward profession as a Christian, but how easy it is to give up in spirit, and say ‘What is the use?’ We are to have the energy that faith provides, that the Spirit of God provides, to do what we can, to help the testimony at the present time in its weakness and fight the opposition against it. Oh, may it be so, that we may be those that are marked by this spiritual determination.
It is very interesting to notice that there are two other persons in the Bible told to go back, and they said the same. One is Ruth. Naomi said to her “Turn away, my daughters, go your way… Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her own people, and unto her gods; return thou after thy sister-in-law” (Ruth 1:12, 15). ‘No,’ Ruth said, ‘I am steadfastly minded to go on’, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried” (Ruth 1:16-17). Oh, the determination that marked Ruth! Then there was Ittai the Gittite who was told by David, ‘Ittai, you go back, I am in reproach, there is no future here for you Ittai, go back.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Wherever my lord the king goes there will I be found’ (2 Sam. 15:19-22). There was determination to go on. Oh, dear brethren, let us go on. It is well worthwhile. May we do so for His name’s sake.
Elisha asked for a hard thing from Elijah. Elijah said, ‘You will get it on one condition, and that is that you keep your eye fixed upon me and if you see me ascending into the heavens then your request will be granted to you’. Well, the time came when Elijah was caught up. Oh, what a wonderful translation! Elisha was watching carefully and he saw Elijah being caught up and received the double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Then he said ‘I have this double portion, and I am going to see how it works.’ Elisha wanted to experience the truth and reality of this wonderful gift that had been given to him (a double portion of Elijah’s spirit) for himself before he ever went out in public service. So just as Elijah smote the river Jordan and was able to walk over on dry land, so Elisha took the mantle of Elijah and smote the Jordan and the river went back as Elisha too walked over on dry land. This was an incident in the lif
e of Elijah and Elisha, but it has a lesson for us today. We do not want to be imaginative, we just want to follow out these two or three things that are mentioned, and just see how we can fit them in to New Testament teaching that we might get the gain of them.
“And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” (2 Ki. 2:9)
In other words Elijah asked Elisha ‘What do you want? What is nearest to your heart?’ And Elisha asked him for a double portion. Now this matter of Christians making requests is a very, very important thing. The Lord Jesus said often in His ministry “Ask, and ye shall receive” (John 14:13-14, 15:16, 16:23-24). That was carried out to the letter. In the early days of the church’s history when the apostles, utterly dependent upon their Lord for power in their service, cried aloud to Him in prayer, He answered them. I believe, by extension, that it applies to us too, that if there are matters connected with our witness and testimony in this world we can cry aloud to the Lord and get the help and blessing that is necessary. I do not think it means that any prayer that we utter to the Lord is going to be answered; I do not believe that for one moment. I am sure that every Christian here knows what it is to ask the Lord for help and blessing for himself and others and, for the moment, prayers have not been answered, but this is something that we must learn, we must learn what is the Lord’s will. I have heard people say that we should not qualify our prayers by saying ‘If the Lord will’, we should demand of the Lord—oh, what a fallacy! This is presumption of the highest possible kind. I remember our Master, bowed down in the garden, saying “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Every prayer of every Christian should be qualified by this statement, ‘If it is Thy will’. So this matter of requesting is a very important thing. We need to have spiritual discernment to ask the right kind of things. Nothing pleases the heart of God more than to hear us praying in relation to His own glory, as centred in Christ, and made known in the power of the Spirit. The two prayers of Paul in Ephesians 1 and 3 are beautiful examples of prayers by a spiritually minded man. Do we find in them anything of Paul’s difficulties, his trials, his sorrows, or the opposition to him? No, we find Paul praying in those prayers for the upbuilding and benefit of the saints, for the glory of Christ, for the glory of God. What wonderful requests.
But to come back to our incident in connection with Elijah and Elisha, it is perfectly permissible for us to pray for things that stand related to our witness here in this world, and we cannot ask enough as far as this is concerned. God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask what I shall give thee” (2 Chr. 1:7). Oh, my friend, I often feel that this is one of the most difficult things for us to answer, God saying to any man, ‘If you ask me what you want most I will give it to you’. What a challenge! What would we ask for? It is perfectly obvious that we would ask for what was nearest to our hearts. Solomon said “Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this, thy people, who are so great?” (v. 10) He wanted this in relation to God’s people, and God was so pleased with that request that He said, “Wisdom and knowledge are granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour” (v. 12). He would give more than wisdom, He would give him all the things that he did not ask for, the things that are nearest to a man’s heart. There are many requests like this, not for personal gain, not for fame, not to make oneself important, but praying earnestly in relation to the needs of the people of God. I do not think for one moment that Elisha wanted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit just to make much of himself, not for a moment. He was really anxious to serve the people of God just as Elijah had done, and, in fact, in a greater way because he wanted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.
When we read the Bible we find that succeeding generations lessen in spiritual power. When things are set up by God there is power and prosperity and strength, but then, as generations succeed, things seem to diminish. I feel that Elisha was saying ‘I do not want to be any less than Elijah (not for any pride), I want to maintain the testimony that this dear man has maintained, and I will require a double portion of his spirit to do it. I require help and strength to continue this wonderful testimony that he rendered’. That is a worthy thing to pray for today, dear brethren, that God would give us power, faithfulness, devotedness and energy, that we might be enabled to maintain what has been handed down to us. Those who have gone before in courage and faithfulness and devotedness to the Lord maintained things for His glory, and very often in self-sacrifice. We are responsible now to maintain those things and hand them on to others if the Lord should not come soon. So you see it requires a great deal of spiritual energy, wisdom, faithfulness and power. Paul said to Timothy “The things that thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). And so the testimony is carried on in power and blessing. What a responsibility to receive from the hands of others, those precious, holy, eternal things that have been made known.
“And [Elijah] said, Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.” (2 Ki. 2:10)
We find in Scripture that some of the things that are really worthwhile are things that are hard things. In John 6 the Lord Jesus said “It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (v. 63). The disciples said “This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?” (v. 60), and “from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (v. 66). I am sure that they felt ‘Well, we are wonderful people. We have a wonderful teacher. He is going to restore the glories of Israel. All the energy that we can impart in this service is going to make things work’, but the Lord was saying ‘The flesh can profit you nothing. Do not think for one moment that in your power and in your energy you are going to achieve anything. I only have the words of eternal life. The words that I speak unto you are spirit and life. If you listen to my teaching and appropriate it then you are really going to know what eternal life is’. What did he say? “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (v. 53). They did not understand that all this glorious blessing was bound up in the Person of the Lord and in the appropriation of His death. It was a hard saying and so many walked no more with Him.
Peter, in his writings, said “our beloved brother Paul… hath written unto you… speaking of these things in which are some things hard to be understood” (2 Pet. 3:15-16), but Peter did not leave Paul, he did not say ‘I am leaving Paul and his ministry because I cannot understand it’. I heard recently of some young people who said ‘We are not going to go to the meetings any more. We cannot understand. The Lord’s supper does not seem to provide anything for us. We do not get anything out of the meetings, the Bible readings are too deep, we do not understand and so we are stopping going.’ Could you imagine that happening in university, that the students, when they enrol and hear a lecture by a professor, saying, ‘We have stopped going to the university because we do not understand’. The thing is ludicrous! How could they ever make progress? If we give up because we do not understand we will never make progress. Peter said that Paul wrote things “hard to be understood” but he carried on. The Spirit of God would teach and unfold these hard things. There has to be a diligent acquiring of the truth. ‘Hard to understand?’ Paul was speaking of things that had never been revealed before, a Man in the glory of God, the body of Christ here upon earth, the body united to Him in the power of the Spirit; things hard to be understood indeed. Dear brethren, if things are hard to be understood, let us pursue them until we get to know. Do not give up. There are many, many things that I do not understand in the Scriptures (and I have been reading them for a very long time now), but I keep on hoping that someday they will be opened up to me. Oh, there is so much to learn. So Elijah said to Elisha, ‘It is a hard thing that you have asked, Elisha. Now you watch carefully, if you see me ascending you will get what you asked for’. So Elisha watched carefully and saw Elijah being caught up to heaven and he received the double portion.
Now what is the double portion? When Christ ascended into glory the Holy Spirit was sent down into the life and bodies of the believers. He indwelt them. This is the great distinctive teaching of the present dispensation. There is a living Man in the glory of God who represents the people of God continually, and there is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son who indwells the bodies of the believers and represents them in all their affairs upon earth. There is an Advocate in glory and an Advocate upon earth: a wonderful, wonderful blessing. The word for “Comforter” in John 14:26 is the same word as the Advocate of 1 John 2:1. So we are represented in glory and we are represented upon earth, and that by divine Persons. Now this is the real spring and power of the enjoyment of all Christian blessing and the power for all Christian testimony. If we do not understand this then we are missing the very best. Here are the essentials of the present Christian dispensation; and it is a very wonderful thing to take account of. If I see a Man at the right hand of God I realise that victory has been accomplished over death, the purpose of God has been secured in a Man, and He is the guarantee that every thought of God will be fulfilled. If I take account of the Holy Spirit indwelling me, I realise that I have a power to rise above every opposition that might face me as I seek to follow out the truth of God in this world. That is a wonderful double portion, a wonderful provision for every believer at the present time. I suggest to you, dear brethren, that this is an application that can stand the test of Scripture. This man Elisha, from this moment onwards, would be faced with many difficulties, many trials, and, thank God, many blessings too. This double portion of Elijah’s spirit that he received would be his sustaining power in all that he sought to do and enjoy. So we think of it in relation to ourselves, this is a double portion that we have for every step of the journey and for the enjoyment of all that God has given to us.
“And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horseman thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan.” (1 Ki. 2:11-13)
I feel that there is a very close connection between the double portion and Elisha rending his clothes in two pieces. Two in Scripture always indicates an adequate witness; one verse can prove this, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Cor. 13:1). Indeed, no charge was to be held against an elder unless there were two witnesses (1 Tim. 5:19). Here we have a man who gives a witness to the fact by rending his own garments in two pieces that all that Elisha represented in the past was finished, and in the power of this double portion that he received by putting on Elijah’s mantle he was now striding forth in that energy. What a lesson for us, dear brethren! The thing that we learn least of all is that our own flesh is of no use whatsoever in the things of God. We learn many other things before we learn that. It is a very difficult lesson for us to learn, but it is something that we must learn if we want to be true to the Lord because the flesh will always intrude itself into that which belongs to the Lord, it is that kind of thing, it is in hatred and rebellion against God. The Bible says that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8), it is impossible, so if any bit of flesh intrudes into our service for God then, in that measure, the things of God are affected. So Elisha rending his own garment in two pieces was his way of saying ‘I am finished with that life. I want to be in this new life’. Oh, dear brethren, that we might learn this in a deeper fashion. In baptism we are giving an expression to that kind of thing. We have been baptised to the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and by baptism we are giving a witness that we are finished with what we were before and that we desire to walk in newness of life. What a test for us all, and yet this is the pathway we all have to tread if we are going to be here for the Lord’s glory.
“And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.” (2 Ki. 2:14)
Elisha said ‘I have this double portion, I am in the position that Elijah was in, I now want to do the things that he did’, and so he took Elijah’s mantle and smote the river Jordan and walked over on dry ground. So we today have to put into practice the things that we have learned. I am sure that this lies at the root of much of our weakness, that we learn many things but we fail to make them work, we acquire a great deal of knowledge but we seldom rise to the height that God would have us in experience. This is a wonderful lesson to learn. Elisha made his knowledge work. It was an experience with him. We might say that before ever he went out in public service he determined to prove for himself that God, the God of Elijah, still existed and was there to help him. I remember reading the life of the founder of the China Inland Mission, Hudson Taylor, and he said ‘Before ever I go out to China I must prove for myself the power of prayer. I cannot possibly go out there to serve the Lord unless I know that God answers prayer’. I advise you to get that book if you have not read it before, it is called ‘The growth of the soul’. It is a thrilling, establishing book. That dear man, in many difficult circumstances, waited upon God, prayed to God, and proved God so that when he went out to China he was going out in the value of a proved experience, and when difficulties came along it was simply a normal matter with him to refer the matter to God because he knew he would get the answer that was consistent with God’s will. George Muller of Bristol was another man who really proved God in prayer. Someone said to him ‘Mr Muller, you have a marvellous faith.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I have not. I have got the same faith that you have; only I make it work’. And how he made it work! What a man of faith! Most of us would be very much concerned if we were responsible for a few children in our home and we sent them to bed, perhaps with a bite of supper, but with not a bite to give them for their breakfast the next morning. That would be a test of faith, but think of five to six hundred children to feed in the morning and no food. That man of God, with his companions, just got down on his knees and referred the matter to the Lord in the constant hope that everything would be all right, and it always was, not one child ever went without his or her meal. God answers believing faith.
This is what Elisha here represents, smiting the waters for himself, seeing it work and in the confidence that such an experience brought, striding forth in testimony for God. This is a wonderful lesson for us. This is something worthwhile for us to follow; not simply for the sake of something miraculous, oh, no, dear brethren, but as it applies to the will of God in our lives, this is what matters. Let us not be desirous of seeking miraculous things to make much of ourselves. There is a man in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Simon the sorcerer (chap. 8) who wanted this kind of thing. He wanted to be someone, to demonstrate divine power operating, and that is simply out as far as the Christian testimony is concerned. But we do want to experience answers to prayer in relation to our testimony and the will of God. We must lay hold of the truth that there is a Man in the glory of God and the Spirit of God indwells us. These are the requisites for the real experience with God in this world.
The Service of Elisha to Men
“And the men of [Jericho] said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters: there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.” (2 Ki. 2:19-22)
We said earlier that Jericho is a type of the world, and so it is, but it was also a cursed city. In Joshua’s day when it was raised to the ground Joshua said “Cursed be the man before the Lord, who riseth up and buildeth this city, Jericho; he shall lay the foundation of it in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it” (Josh. 6:26), and there came the time when a man rebuilt the city of Jericho and he lost his firstborn and his youngest (1 Ki. 16:34); the curse of Joshua was fulfilled. This is why we say that Jericho is a type of the world under the curse, having nothing for God, being a place of death and barrenness. Yet here is the man of God in this place, and the inhabitants came to him and said ‘There is something wrong with the water. The situation is good, we are in a fine place, but the water is bad’. Now we cannot possibly say, if we are applying this to ourselves, that we can make the world a better place to live in; that is not the call of the Christian. So occupation with politics or reformation or anything of that kind of thing in relation to men of the world is a waste of time for a Christian. He knows the world is doomed, going on to judgment and he cannot make the world a better place to live in; but what he can do is to preach the gospel, what he can do is to live Christ, and in the measure in which people’s consciences are affected and they are brought to God, in that measure the world is certainly made a better place, but we can never alter the fixed character of this world because it is doomed, it is judged, and one day the judgment will be exacted on it.
So what does this represent? There is a hymn that we sometimes sing which I feel is applicable here:
“The river of Thy grace,
Through righteousness supplied,
Flows O’er the barren place
Where Jesus died.”
How wonderful to see this flowing water that is available for all for blessing and fruitfulness in the midst of a cursed scene. In the first application it would be our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who overcame the evil, the One who brought in life and blessing, the One who was indeed the Sent One of God to bring all this in for the blessing of those concerned. It did not change the character of Jericho, but oh, the blessing that it brought into the world (I mean, in figure). The Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world, dying on the cross, rising from the dead and then giving people the opportunity to get saved has never altered the character of the world; but what a difference it has made! We would not be here tonight if it had not been for those streams of living water flowing into our souls. We would not be refreshed in our spirits apart from that stream of living water. That, I believe, would be the primary application.
Secondly, it would refer to ourselves. Thinking of the details, what was the use of trying to heal the waters at the place where they were running because up from the source was coming a bubbling of water all the time that was contaminated in some way? It was no good putting the salt into the stream. It was the source that had to be corrected. That is very true of ourselves. Reformation is no good, we have to get to the source of things to get right with God, and once done, new creation comes in, and because new creation is there, there is the power and preservative against evil, i.e. the salt, and what a difference that makes to the stream of water. We can think of ourselves in this sense. Scripture would suggest that this is an application. The Lord Jesus, at the end of the great day of the feast, stood up and said “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water… this spoke he of the Spirit” (John 7:37-39). So a believer is looked upon as a person through whom and in whom living waters are flowing out to those who are in need. So we can think of ourselves being set right, our sins are gone, we are a new creation in Christ, having nothing contaminated about us whatsoever, and the salt that is in us is the preservative against evil. It is this that produces this living stream in this world. Thank God for the testimony of real believers in this world. The Lord Jesus said “Ye are the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13), a preservative against the spread of corruption. 2 Thessalonians tells us the “he who now letteth (or, hinders) will let until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:7), that is the Holy Spirit; and there is “what withholdeth” (2 Thess. 2:6), that is the church of God. The church of God in the world today is the great barrier against the inroads of evil. Evil and corruption are rapidly spreading, but think of what it would be without the influence of the people of God! What an awful scene! You might say ‘Well, my testimony is very weak’. We all feel this, but thank God, we in no way support the corruption, the wickedness and vile things that are in this world; we keep clear of these things, we try to support what is pure and holy and good, and we endeavour in the power of the Spirit to be a blessing to those who are around. From that moment onwards, although the character of Jericho was unchanged, in the midst of Jericho there was a constant stream of living, pure water. Thank God, as far as the testimony of the church is concerned, this will be maintained until the very end. I do not mind if you disagree with that application, but at least be occupied with something that is worthwhile. I am perfectly sure that what I have been saying, as it applies to ourselves, is the truth. If you think of any other application then I will be very glad to hear it.
The Service of Elisha to God
“And king Jehoram… sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses. And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah went, and the king of Edom: and they fetched a compass of seven days’ journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them.” (2 Ki. 3:6-10)
2 Kings 3 is a very sad and solemn chapter. We find here a very unholy alliance between the king of Edom, the king of Israel and the king of Judah. The king of Israel was already identified with the king of Edom, that should have been a loud, loud voice to Jehoshaphat. Imagine someone belonging to the nation of Israel, who recognised God as the only true God, and yet for his own personal advantage identifying himself with a man who was an idolater and who represented one of the great enemies of Israel. Then the king of Israel said ‘Ah, we will get help; we will send for the king of Judah’. So he sent word to the king of Judah, and the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, said “I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses”. Basically, it is perfectly true, they were both of the nation of Israel, they belonged to the same nation and in this sense they could trace their genealogy back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but there was something that was being ignored, the nation of Israel was divided. The ten northern tribes formed the northern kingdom, the two southern tribes occupied Jerusalem; and God was with the two tribes. The ten tribes went into idolatry and got worse and worse and from Dan to Beer-sheba there was the evidence of idolatry, a hateful thing to God. Here was something that at this particular moment was being ignored. It was all right to say ‘Yes, we are all the same, we all belong to the same nation’, that was true, but there was something being ignored that was very significant. The ten tribes had revolted, had forsaken the true centre Jerusalem and had set up golden calves and worshipped them. Here was something that they could not possibly overlook. For Jehoshaphat to say ‘We are all the same’ was very, very wrong, they were not the same because a division had taken place and there were things that had to be adjusted and until they were adjusted it was utterly wrong for Jehoshaphat to be connected with the king of Israel.
“Jehoshaphat said, Is there not a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him? And one of the king of Israel’s servants answered and said, Here is Elisha the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.” (2 Ki. 3:11-12a)
Jehoshaphat had to acknowledge that the word of God was with Elisha, and when the king of Israel spoke to the prophet Elisha said “What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother… As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor see thee” (vv. 13-14). Then he said “Fetch me a minstrel” (v. 15). I would like to give a word on that sometime, if the Lord will help me. That sounds very, very attractive; it is something to lift our hearts up, something to set us rejoicing. When the minstrel came and played, the hand of the Lord was upon Elisha and he was able to make a prophecy that indicated that there might be a temporary victory (3:18) but in the end it would be disaster (8:12); and it was. What I feel this lesson indicates to us, dear brethren, is that it might be very easy to take a stand and say ‘Well, we are all Christians; we all belong to the Lord Jesus. ‘That might be very true in one sense, but what are we going on with, what do we represent? It is a very sad thing today that we have to take account of this fact that there is much connected with the name of Jesus that is an abomination to His glory and we cannot possibly in truth and in faithfulness be identified with it.
In a daily newspaper a few months ago, I read the account of an evangelical conference. In that conference (remember we are talking about persons who claim to be Christians) the largest proportion of them were in favour of Sunday entertainment—drinking, and all sorts of earthly amusements. This was a report (if I am speaking wrongly, then the paper is wrong), and a large proportion of the clergy were also in favour of these things. Would we be in favour of this, dear brethren, to be occupied with Sunday entertainment? Would we be in favour of alcohol? Would we be in favour of these things? Surely not. We are all Christians, but surely we would desire to be separate from these things. And if these persons avowedly say ‘This is the way we want to travel’, we would have to reply ‘If you want to travel that way you cannot take me with you; I am not going. I do not want to walk that way’. This is the lesson that this thing would indicate to us. The king of Judah, the king of Israel and the king of Edom, all together on the same ground and ignoring the rights of God. I am sure that this is the lesson that 2 Timothy would also teach us, that if there are real Christians (we are not denying the fact that they are real Christians) who hold doctrines and practices that are a dishonour to the Lord we must separate from them. This is what 2 Timothy says. If we want to be vessels to honour, to be meet for the Master’s use, we cannot walk together with such.
Elisha, in his faithfulness to the Lord, indicated that as far as he was concerned he had no time for the course of the king of Israel. He was concerned for the truth of God as it was represented in the king of Judah, but he was far beneath the level. So I find that here is the uncompromising attitude of Elisha that was seen in Elijah coming to light when there were those (oh, what a sad thing) professing Israelites falling down to Baal. Elijah stood out against them and stood for his Lord and what a wonderful victory he acquired. So here we find Elisha in the spirit of Elisha making the same stand. This faithfulness is what is required of us too, dear brethren, faithfulness to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. May it be so for His name’s sake.
“Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.” (2 Ki. 4:1-7)
Tonight, we will speak about this remarkable man of God in connection with two homes of differing characters. The first house is in a desolate condition, death had come in, and debt had followed, with a real threat that two sons would be taken into bondage to pay the debt; we might almost call it a bleak house, but as we see at the end, it had great expectations. The prophet with his power and ability brought great blessing into this home. This provides a beautiful picture of conditions that might prevail, and have prevailed, amongst the people of God.
Firstly, let us get the picture correct in our minds. A woman’s husband had died, her means of support had gone, and so she was no longer able to care for the requirements of her home and her children, and steadily her resources would have been used up until eventually she was in debt. The creditor came and said, ‘I want my money,’ and upon hearing that she had not got any, said that he would take her two sons to be bondmen to him, to pay the debt. She called upon the man of God, who asked ‘Have you any resources in the house, have you any assets at all, nothing that you can use to meet this matter?’ All that she had was a pot of oil, so the man of God said, ‘Go to your neighbours and ask if if they will give you some vessels, pots, leather vessels, anything that was available to hold water, wine or oil.’ She did so and gathered a few. ‘Now’, said the man of God, ‘start to pour out into these vessels from your pot of oil,’ and one by one they got filled up, until they were all filled to the brim, and she had no more vessels to fill. That was the end, the oil stayed, things were back to their normal character. She then had many pots of oil, and now, said the man of God, ‘Go and sell some, and when you get your money in, go and pay off your debt, there is plenty here, quite sufficient, and there is plenty left over so that you can live a normal life, there is no more fear of debt, no more fear of your sons going into bondage. It is a very beautiful picture.
We are impressed by the miraculous power that was exercised by the servant of God, it makes us think of the Lord when He took a few fishes and a few loaves and multiplied them exceedingly until thousands of people were satisfied. As is often quoted, ‘Little is much, if God is in it.’ God through His servant intervened, and very meagre supplies are turned into abundant resources. This is important for us to learn, because we often feel how poor our faith is, how insignificant is our power, how meagre is our spiritual supply is, and so we are often fearful of embarking on any service or any testimony for the Lord. But in such conditions the Lord is able to come in and use those supplies, and abundantly bring forth from them His own power and blessing.
There is a specific lesson for us to learn here, What does oil represent in Scripture? There were four classes of people that were anointed with oil in the Old Testament—kings, prophets, priests and lepers. We all come in in the category of lepers, we have all been sinners, and we all required being saved and being anointed with the Holy Spirit. This anointed with oil finds the anti-type in the New Testament in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10, Peter says “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power,” and in 2 Corinthians Paul speaks about the anointing and earnest being upon the people of God (chap. 1:21-22). John also speaks of an “unction, [or anointing,] from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20). All this is connected with the Holy Spirit, and so it is easy to see that the anointing with oil in the Old Testament finds its fulfilment with the anointing with the Holy Spirit in the New. Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit.
Think of the abundant resources that are to be found in the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. Is there anything in the New Testament that corresponds to this kind of condition? Real believers becoming so spiritually low that they were in danger of being brought into bondage, and the ministry of the Lord through His servant bringing in the truth of the Holy Spirit to counteract this? Yes, there is a very definite teaching of this in the epistle to the Galatians. The Galatians were real believers, there was no doubt about it, they loved the Lord Jesus Christ, had been cleansed by His precious blood, had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then after running well, they came to a stop. Why? They were listening to people who said, ‘It is all right being a Christian, it is all right having Jesus of Nazareth as your Saviour and Lord, but connect the law with it, keep the law of Moses, get circumcised, do not forget the traditions of your fathers.’ This teaching brought them to a halt. They got the truth mixed up with wrong doctrine, and whenever this happens we come to a full stop. We do not make any further progress, indeed, we go back, we come under different influences, we come under bondage. This is exactly what Paul said to the Galatian believers, ‘In going back to the law, you are in bondage, you have fallen from grace, you are no longer enjoying the liberty of the Christian position that you formerly had. So, very carefully, he began to apply the different truths connected with the Holy Spirit to show them how they could regain this place of liberty and joy and blessing and life. The Galatian believers were experiencing all that this story tells of—death (spiritual death), debt (not fulfilling righteousness), and bondage (coming under the influence of others). Paul’s ministry concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and His work, and the descent and gift of the Holy Spirit, was the great antidote to all that had crept in.
While we see the truth of this in Galatia, we do not want to treat it as a historical matter, something that happened a long time ago, we have to remember that we ourselves can come under this kind of teaching, it is possible for spiritual death to come in in our lives, stagnation, debt, if we are not fulfilling righteousness before God, according to the position that He has placed us in, and we can be in bondage to elements that we should never be in bondage to. So this is a word for us as much as it was for the Galatian believers.
I want to apply these vessels that were filled up with oil to different features of Paul’s teaching in the epistle to the Galatians. The first thing the woman had to do was to pay off her debt, to get rid, as far as we are concerned, of the unrighteous features that are hindering us in our pathway, in testimony, for God. The great danger for the Galatian believers was that they were trying to be perfect in the flesh. They had begun in the Spirit, they had begun well, but now, by being circumcised, and by listening to the Judaizing teachers, they were coming under the bondage of the law, and in principle were seeking to be perfect in the flesh. That was the way for debt, for no man can be justified before God in the flesh, no man can please God in the flesh, it can only be done in the power of the Spirit. So we can think of the first few vessels that were filled by the woman to clear off the accumulation of debt.
In chapter 5 of Galatians, Paul enumerates features that belong to the old man, the flesh. Such only create conditions of debt because every feature there is an unrighteous feature, they are certainly not pleasing to God, they are abominable to Him. Then, said the apostle, if they lived in the flesh, if they expressed themselves in this way, they were not living for God. So against that he presented nine beautiful features of the fruit of the Spirit of God. This is what is prefigured in these vessels of oil. This is the way to clear off the debt, not allowing ourselves to follow a pathway that is dishonouring to God and which brings us into bondage. Oh, what a wonderful list it is! “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” What delightful features to come to light in the believer! And it is possible. Thank God it is expressed, what a lot of love there is amongst the people of God. Plenty of joy and peace, and much evidence of long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Every feature expressed there, as we see it amongst the people of God today is the evidence of the Spirit of God. The flesh cannot produce features like that, it is impossible for it! It can only produce the features listed in verses 19 to 21, and what a horrible list it is! So one of those vessels filled up with that precious oil is indicative of the fruit of the Spirit that is expressed in our lives, that is so pleasurable to God and reduces all these features of the flesh that is so easily expressed in us. It is the positive features that are coming to light that are so pleasing to God.
Then Paul said, ‘Now look, brethren, do not sow to the flesh, do not make provision for it, for if you do you are sure to reap corruption. It is inevitable.’ If we sow beans we expect to get beans, we get what we sow. It is the result of creation, we get everything “after its kind”. ‘So,’ said the apostle, ‘If you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life.’ This is the sort of thing, this is the sort of Person, that we want to sow to, the Spirit, and if we do, we will sow eternal life. Do we not get the Spirit the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? Yes, we do. John says so. He wrote “These things I have written that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:3), but Paul always wrote about eternal life as something that we get at the end, “the end, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22), “lay hold of eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:12). How do we lay hold of a thing if you already have it? It simply means that we are to be in the positive enjoyment of it, that is a different aspect of it from what John writes about. Plenty of people today have life, but you could not say that they are in the enjoyment of life. Take for example a person lying paralysed in an oxygen tent, unable to do a thing for himself, dependent upon a machine to keep him alive. He is living, but is he in the enjoyment of it? This is a picture of eternal life as used in the Scriptures. Thank God that through Christ we can claim that we have eternal life as a present possession, as a gift, that can never be taken from us (John’s aspect); but whether we are in the enjoyment of it is another story (Paul’s aspect). So if we sow to the Spirit we have eternal life, that is, we enjoy eternal life as it ought to be enjoyed. Here is another vessel filled with oil, the resources of the Spirit that is available for every Christian, so that we can live normally. The leading of the Spirit, the walking in the Spirit, the living in the Spirit, the addressing the Father through the Spirit; in the type, this is living, having paid off the debt. We must keep in mind that our debt was paid off once and for all in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, but I am now thinking about debt as living unrighteously for God, which is something possible for every Christian. The way to cancel that out is by living positively in the power of the Spirit of God. How wonderful, dear brethren, to realise that there is a power that enables us to live a normal Christian life. All the corrective ministry that we find in the New Testament stems from the fact that Christians were living abnormally, it was not a normal Christian feature to live as the man who was mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5, rather, it was an abomination. And when we read in 3 John of a man casting believers out of the the assembly as Diotrophes was, that was not normal Christian living, neither were the Galatians living a normal life. So all the corrective ministry indicates that Christians were living abnormally, but if we are walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit and worshipping in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, this is all normal Christian life, and it is only the flesh and sin that intervenes to hinder us in this normal way.
‘Now,’ says Paul, in Galatians 4, ‘I do not want you to be living in bondage. Why, all the Godhead is active in this great and wonderful operation to bring us out of bondage into liberty! So when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, born under the law, then when the work of the cross was accomplished, the Spirit of God’s Son was shed abroad in our hearts so that we can call God Abba Father. The Spirit of the Son is in our hearts.’ Now we are not bondmen, we are sons, and not only are we sons, but we have the feeling of sons. Paul did not want them to be in bondage, ‘Why should you allow yourselves to be in these beggarly features of bondage? Why not be in the joy of sonship? That is what I want for you.’ What a wonderful thing to be in the position of sons.
In order to do this, the Son, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, had to come into this world, accomplish the work of redemption, and then ascend back up to His Father and send the Spirit into the heart of the believers. It is one thing to have the position of a son, it is another thing to have the feeling of a son. I could adopt a child into my family, and I could give him the position of a son, I could be kind to him, I could love him, I could bestow all the care that is necessary upon him, and yet he might never have the feeling of a son towards me. He might know his position and yet never feel that he has this affinity with me that he might call me his father in reality and truth. God has not only given us the position of a son, He has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father. This is the normal call of the believer. So that we might have the proper feelings according to the position of sons we get the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, and just as the Son said to His Father, “Father,” so we too, having His Spirit say, “Abba, Father.” We have the Spirit of His Son in our hearts. This is a lovely vessel of oil, is it not? This is real living, all sense of bondage has gone forever, all sense of distance has gone forever. Here is a condition of joy and blessing that every believer enjoys.
It is one of the happiest things that we have when we come together to remember our Lord Jesus Christ, that having entered into the truth of His sorrow and sufferings and death, to be with Him in all the power and glory of the triumph of His resurrection, and be led by Him into the worship of His Father. What a wonderful thing! He could say to Mary, “I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God” (John 20:17), and so He brings us into His own place that He has won and secured for us, the fruit of His suffering and sorrow, and He brings us into that place that we might have it with Him, and enjoy it with Him, and in that place we have the Spirit of the Son, that we might have the true feelings that belong to this position and blessing. We often say, dear brethren, in connection with the preaching of the gospel, ‘Don’t rely on your feelings towards the unconverted’, and I am sure that is perfectly correct. But, oh how we should, as believers, yearn for true and proper feelings, produced by the Spirit of God, in relation to the Father and the Son! I am sure there are right and proper feelings that belong to us as believers in Christ. This is not sentiment or emotion, as we know it according to nature, this is the fruit of the Spirit of God that gives us the right feelings towards the Father and towards the Son. Without the Spirit we cannot have such feeling, they are Spirit produced and Spirit maintained, and how wonderful they are!
Paul goes on to say to the Galatians, ‘You have now got to live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:15, 25). Think of the woman in the house, she has rid herself of all the pressure on her, she no longer thinks of debt or bondage, all that is gone, she knows that her sons are going to be with her, and now she goes about the house, goes about the natural duties of the house, happy in spirit. If we transfer that thought to Christian living, we see ourselves in the power of the Spirit, leading a Christian life without any sense of burdens weighing upon us because of the problems that face us, although there are burdens, but they are borne in the power of the Spirit of God. We have strength and courage, help and blessing, and so we walk in the Spirit, and do not fulfil the just of the flesh (5:16).
We are also led by the Spirit (5:18). It involves guidance, control, direction and help by the Spirit of God Himself. Perhaps we have not give sufficient recognition to the power and service of the Person of the Holy Spirit. I noticed something in studying our hymn books. In the 436 hymns in the 1928 book there are but 50 references to the Holy Spirit (the same is the case in the 1903 version). This is too few in my opinion, for we cannot read very far in the New Testament without coming across a reference to the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there is not a truth that is not revealed in New Testament times that does not have some reference to the power or the Person of the Holy Spirit. This is a very important matter, that we keep in mind that there are infinite resources available for us as believers in the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. This little story in 2 Kings 4 gives us some impression of this. Let us keep it in mind, that the little pot of oil, that under the miraculous power of the servant of God was transformed into an illimitable force so that the woman was blessed in such a wonderful way.
“And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.” (2 Ki. 4:8-10)
Now we come to the second home. This is not a home of material need, it is a home of a wealthy woman, a woman with a husband, but a woman without any sons. It was a well-ordered home, where there was care and blessing, and a concern for the things of God. They saw Elisha passing by and invited him in for a meal, and he accepted. This went on for some time, and then the Shunamite said to her husband, ‘This man who we have been giving a meal to for some time, this is a man of God!’ There was discernment as to what was of God, and she said, ‘Let us go further than just offering him a meal, let us provide a little chamber for him. We will provide all that is necessary, a bed, a table, a seat and a lamp. We will make him comfortable and look after him.’ Now I am not giving you an address on how to look after the Lord’s servants! Only to show you the kind of man and the kind of woman that was in this house, and how much concern they had for the things of God.
This went on for some time, and Elisha said ‘Is there anything that you need? Can I speak to you before the king, or the captain of the host?’ She was not interested in such things, she was amongst her own people and was quite happy there. She was content in the place where God had placed her, there was nothing she wanted. So Elisha spoke to Gehazi, and Gehazi said, ‘She has no son, she would like a son.’ So Elisha said, ‘I can rectify that,’ and he made a promise to the woman, who thought he was telling lies. And when the time came, she received a son. But it was not long after the boy had grown, as he was working in the fields with his father that he fell ill and said, ‘My head, my head!’ (possibly sunstroke), and he died. The man of God was sent for, and it is beautiful—they had identified themselves with the Lord’s servant, now, in a moment of extremity and need, he identified himself with them and their need. This is the way Scripture works. Love begets love. It is so with God’s love to us, and our love towards God—love begets love. So the man of God identified himself with the boy’s condition, stretched himself out on him, mouth to mouth, hands to hands, and so on, and the little boy was raised to life and restored to his mother. It is a beautiful picture.
First of all, let us look at this matter of hospitality in the Christian home. They did not know at first that he was a man of God, he could have been an ordinary Israelite as far as they were concerned, but they saw that he was someone who needed a meal. What a nice thing it is when a Christian’s home is given to hospitality! What joy and blessing there is! It is the man of God, the Lord’s servant, that is bringing this kind of thing to light in the home. When people are thinking primarily about God in their lives it expresses itself amongst the Lord’s people in hospitality. Then came spiritual discernment. ‘This man is a holy man of God.’ Oh, how right it is, that in our dealings with each other there is this in us that can draw out from each other this recognition that there is something in us that is of worth for God. How prone we are to pry into each other’s lives, to try and find some fault in each other, something that makes much of ourselves if we can find someone who is lower than ourselves! This is the spirit of self-exhortation. Oh to see something of spiritual worth!
Paul experienced this often. He wrote a letter of commendation for a dear sister Phoebe, at the beginning of Romans 16, and she was like this Shunamite woman, she had shown help and succour to the people of God. As a deaconess she had shown and done work that was of real spiritual worth for the testimony. Phoebe was a real Shunamite! She was a person who wanted to help. This comes out particularly in this husband and wife in 2 Kings. In thinking about God, they expressed it towards the Lord’s servant. Real spiritual discernment was seen in them, as was seen in Paul, and, oh, dear brethren, ought to be seen in us too, an ability to recognise what is of spiritual worth in each other and commend it without any envy.
Care is the great matter that comes to light in the provision that they made for Elisha. Indeed, this is what Elisha said in verse 13, “Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care.” Let us examine this care, and let us think of these things in relation to ourselves. What do they represent for us? I want us to think for a moment of the kind of life that Elisha lived. He had thoroughly committed himself to the things of God, he had left his father and his mother and his secular calling, and he was prepared to endure the reproach and difficulties that were involved in following the Lord. It seems to me that this is God’s way of providing a recompense to His servant by this gracious provision through the Shunamite. Forgetting for the moment that it is connected with Elisha and let us think how it connects with us all, because I trust that we are all thoroughly committed to the things of God, not necessarily giving up our secular employment, but nevertheless, thoroughly devoted to the things of the Lord, our whole outlook is that we want, above all else, to promote the things of the Lord as we are left in the world. The way we live in our homes and the whole bent of our life should be governed by this great principle, we want to promote the things of the Lord.
We can be sure that as we set ourselves for this we will meet opposition, reproach and difficulty—it is inevitable. There will be opposition from within, the flesh and self, which hates to be kept down or pushed aside, and at every opportunity it will intrude. There will be opposition from the world—anyone who sets themselves to represent God in this world will meet opposition. Sometimes we also meet it, sad to say, in the professing Christian circle. It does not matter where the opposition comes from, or where the difficulty expresses itself, we have to be prepared for it, and make sure that these things are not going to hinder us in our desire to please God. What we read in 2 Kings is the way God recompenses us, and provides for us as we seek to be true to Him.
The little chamber means a place of privacy, a place where we can be alone with God. This is one of the great essentials in the Christian life. In this modern age it is one of the hardest things to obtain—privacy—just a little time to be alone with God. Oh, how necessary it is, that we fond time for prayer, to commit ourselves to God, tell God the problems that face us, the resources that we require, everything that is involved in the pathway of devotedness to God. Elisha had this little chamber, to which he could go in and shut the door, speak to God, have his prayer time, tell God all the things that were pressing upon His spirit. Remember in Daniel’s day when a decree was issued that meant that Daniel was not allowed to pray to his God? When he knew the decree, he closed his door, and inside his chamber opened his window and prayed towards Jerusalem. He had a little place of privacy wherein he could speak to God about this very important matter. I am sure in the strength of that prayer he went into the den of lions and was blessed of God in such a wonderful way. This is irreplaceable. It is an absolute necessity for every believer, to have time alone with God.
This chamber was built upon a wall. A wall would indicate to us a place of safety and separation. Remember Rahab the harlot’s house was upon the wall. The scarlet cord was let down from her house. So that when Joshua and his army captured the city she and all her family was saved through her resource and energy. Walls in Scripture are not only used to show evil kept out, that is the negative side, but walls in Scripture are used to preserve what is inside. Who would build walls around a place that contained nothing of value, a piece of waste-ground, it would be a waste of time, dogs can come in and it will not matter; but if we have something worth protecting, if the ground is fertile and we have some vegetables growing, we want that protected, so we build a wall to protect them, and to keep wild animals out. We need a wall so that we can gather the fruits in due time, for protection, to keep the good in. So the high wall in Revelation 21, while it is to keep out all that defiles, preserves all that is good inside. This is the true secret of separation, to preserve that which is real and precious and worthwhile. This is a lesson that every Christian must learn. And if we let the wall get broken down as it was in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra then it is a very sad condition. So this little room that Elisha had was upon the wall, the place of safety, the place where things are preserved.
It is a place of rest, for he had a bed there. Now we are not thinking about literal rest, we know that well, we also know how much we need to be kept at rest in our spirits. How easily we can become frustrated and irritated by the difficulties of the pathway. So how good it is that we can rest, rest securely in faith, in the confidence that God supplies. I am sure that Paul and Peter, and all that serve the Lord, were very restful men in their spirits. Remember when Peter was lying in prison, awaiting execution the next day, and he was asleep in the prison! I wonder, could we have slept, with the threat of death hanging over us the next day? I am sure we would have been very much perturbed. Peter was not an old man, and the Lord had said to him he would die in old age, “When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not” (John 21:18). Peter knew he was not an old man, and so resting on the Lord’s words he was restful, secure in the knowledge that it was not his time yet. When he wrote his second epistle, he did say it was very near his time, “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me” (2 Pet. 1:14), and he was restful still. In all circumstances of life the servant of the Lord who trusts in God can be restful. It is when our faith is lacking that we get disturbed and upset.
Then, Elisha had a table and a stool and a lamp. The table represents the great principle of fellowship—the table of the Lord is the best possible example of fellowship that we can find in Scripture, we have a meal, with others around it, we all partake of the same meal, in a beautiful picture of fellowship. So while Elisha was in the place of privacy he also knew something of the reality and blessedness of fellowship, whether we think in the figure of fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3), or fellowship with each other (Acts 2:42), the same idea is there, and what a marvellous thing that is in the Christian life! If you in this hall are not faithful to carry on the principles of the truth it would be no use me coming and speaking to an empty hall. This is an example of fellowship. Year by year you gather and practice the principle of fellowship here and maintain a testimony for the Lord as you see according to the truth. That being so, I and my wife and others can come along and have fellowship with you. That is a wonderful thing. There is an affinity, something we can enjoy the precious things of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then there is the seat. This would make him comfortable in the enjoyment of the fellowship, comfortable too with the many things that he would do at that table. I can imagine him reading or writing at night, and this chair would make him comfortable in this kind of thing. This is what the Lord does for us. He provides everything that is necessary for us as we seek to serve Him.
Lastly, how wonderful to have this light shining! Cardinal Newman, before he became a cardinal, wrote the well-known hymn “Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom” at just about the same time J.N.Darby wrote his well-known hymn, “Light divine surrounds thy going, God Himself shall mark thy way.” What a difference! “Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom” seems to give an impression of the scene getting murkier and murkier, and we need to seek this Light in case we miss it. But the positive statements about being led by the Light that is always shining,
“Light divine surrounds thy going,
God Himself shall mark thy way.”
is what we need to know more and more, the real enjoyment of divine guidance in our souls, whether it be in private or in fellowship with each other, conscious that there is divine light shining for our blessing and for our help.
We have not time to speak on the rest of the story, I leave it for yourselves to look into the restoration of the little lad, the joy it would bring to his mother, her hopes, apparently dashed, restored to her by divine power. How wonderful to identify ourselves with the difficulties and problems, how remote we can be from the problems that beset each other. If we have the attitude that their problems are not our problems then we are not acting as Christians. We speak a lot about the principles of the body of Christ, and one of its great principles is that if one member suffer, then all suffer with him, and if one rejoices, then all rejoice with him (1 Cor. 12:26). Elisha stretching out himself about the little boy and acting as he did, brings before us the picture of identification, and life flowing from it. Oh, that we might do this, identify ourselves with each other, really, spiritually, feelingly in connection with our sorrows and joys. May it be so for His name’s sake.
“And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.” (2 Ki. 4:39-41)
Elisha made thing better. In the incidents we will consider tonight we will see this again and again. This is a very good commendation for any man to have. It is so easy to make things worse.
In the first incident, there was a time of famine, but Elisha had some food, and he told his servant to put the great pot on and to start preparing a meal. One of the sons of the prophets, who had been sent out to gather gourds, in his ignorance, gathered poisoned gourds, and it is not long before the whole pot is full of that which is poisonous. They cry goes out, “Man of God! There is death in the pot!” Elisha did not command that the pot be taken away and the contents destroyed, but commanded that a handful of meal be brought, and casting that into the pot he restored it to a condition of goodness whereby they could partake of it. There is a lesson in this for us all.
First of all, there was a famine. This always indicates unfaithfulness on the part of the people of God. God has promised His people that if they were faithful and obedient to His word, their land would produce plenty, there would be ample supplies for everyone, safety from their enemies and an abundance of everything to satisfy their hearts; but He warned them if they were disobedient then there would be consequences, and one of the consequences would be a famine (e.g. Deuteronomy 11). So here we find a condition of dearth, a direct result of unfaithfulness amongst the people of God. Dear brethren, how often we bemoan the low condition of things spiritually. Who is to blame? Certainly not God. If we all humbled ourselves—continually, not just coming together in one meeting—and were marked by a condition of self-judgment day by day, continually before God as to the low condition, with an endeavour on our part to better it, as by ourselves, each one of us individually, things can be improved. Mr Darby, while a young man, continually complained to his father about the condition of the world, and the Christian world in particular. ‘Well, John,’ said his father, ‘Go and make it better by one man!’ That is good advice. If we bemoan the condition of things locally, we can always make it better by one man. The onus is always upon ourselves individually. As we take account of the dearth, dear brethren, let us humble ourselves, and let us desire in prayer and exercise to improve the condition by ourselves. It is so easy to correct other people, to put the blame on others, but, oh! to be exercised that there might be a better condition, and that, by each one of us, individually. Thus, this dearth can be overcome.
So the great pot goes on the fire, and in go the different ingredients, and one man in his ignorance provides something that is poisonous. He did not mean to do it, but, in his ignorance, he did something that could have had very serious effects. Ignorance is a dreadful thing in the sight of God. There is kind of ignorance that God takes account of graciously. Even in the Old Testament there were sacrifices that were permissible for sins of inadvertence (e.g. Lev. 4:2). People did not know what they were doing, and so it was permissible for them to bring an offering. But there were sins of wilfulness, direct disobedience, presumption, evil; and this was a very serious thing in the sight of God. There is a great deal of ignorance amongst professing Christians, and each one of us must take a position of humility before God and own how little we know and understand of the things of God. A great deal of the confusion that exists in Christendom springs from ignorance, (although there may be wilfulness to). For the purpose of tonight, in light of this incident in Elisha’s life, I want to talk about what Scripture says on the matter of ignorance.
First of all, it was ignorance that crucified the Son of God; “for had they [the princes of this world] known it [the wisdom of God], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:18). Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost and said to the people, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17). What a serious thing! Think of all that was expressed in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless pathway! By His words and deeds it should have been obvious to every intelligent Israelite that the Messiah was there in person, but because of the blindness of their hearts and their eyes they failed to appreciate who He was, and in their ignorance they crucified Him.
We find an even more serious thing when we come to our day when we find, so-called ‘leaders’, of whom Peter refers to in 2 Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” These damnable heresies produce terrible evil consequences; but they do them in their ignorance. They are ignorant of the truth of the Person of the Son, of the presence and power of the Spirit, and because of their ignorance they bring in the most abominable things.
When Paul preached on Mars’ Hill in Acts 17, he said that idolatry was the result of ignorance. This is another solemn thing. Man ought to have been intelligent as to the mind of God, instead of that, in his ignorance he moved away from God, and idolatry was one of the results. In Ephesians 4:17-18 Paul said that the nations walk “in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” What a solemn thing it is to be ignorant of the truth of God! In 1 Peter 1:14 Peter says that our former lusts were the result of ignorance; and in 2:15 he says that foolish men are foolish because they are ignorant of the truth of God. Most of these references stand in relation to unconverted people, but being ignorant of God brings in its train all these evil things that are obnoxious to God.
Now let us think for a moment of Christians being ignorant of the truth of God; they do not know, they do not understand, are we surprised when we look around in Christendom and see the abominations that are connected with the name of Christ? It is because they are ignorant of the truth that is contained in our precious Bibles. All the things that belong to man, his power and his knowledge and his mind are the direct outcome of ignorance of the truth of God. At the start of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes that they came behind in no matter at all, they had all knowledge and gift, and yet throughout the epistle he keeps repeating ‘Don’t you know…? Don’t you know…? Don’t you know…?’ Why does he say that? They were not consistent with the many things that they had been taught. How solemn for us to take account of that in our day.
Most of us have been going to meetings for many, many years—what good people we ought to be! We have heard so much ministry, address after address, been in so many Bible readings—we ought to be the most wonderful people in the world! We would be if we were obedient to the many things that we have heard. Oh, how easy it is to hear, and to to accumulate knowledge, and yet that knowledge not governing our lives! This is a form of ignorance that God is deeply concerned about. The Bible speaks of some who are “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7), always in the position of being taught and yet never grasping the truth in an active, operative way. Many things have been allowed in our lives through ignorance of the truth of God; but once we know, we are responsible to God to obey that truth, and we do not get any more until we move on in obedience.
Before we leave this matter, there is one more passage I would like to speak about. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter said, “Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias”, and Luke the man of grace, adds “not knowing what he said.” What a nice touch—it puts a better complexion on Peter’s expression, but it does reveal that Peter was not aware of what he was saying. If he had realised the glory of the person who was before him, the Son of the Father, he would never gave dreamed about putting Moses and Elijah on a level with the Son of God. He would have kept the unique character of the Son of God always before him, and never suggested what he did. It was right that he set the Lord first, but he would have kept clear of any association with Moses and Elijah as understanding the unique character of the Son of God.
As young Christians move along, we bear with them with the utmost grace and kindness and tolerance. If they give expression to things that are not right, they have to be taught, and taught graciously; but when a man is on the road for fifty or sixty years we do not expect him to be expressing things that are not in accordance with the truth, he ought to know better, he should not be expressing ignorance like a babe, he should be a mature, full grown man. So again, dear brethren, I would say that it is a very serious thing today if a Christian is ignorant of the mind of God. He ought to be well-informed, and being well-informed, he should be able to meet every demand that was made upon him either in privilege or in responsibility. It is a wonderful thing that you can be fully grown in knowledge—this is the great desire of the apostle in his epistles, the desire that we should arrive at the full knowledge of the truth concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and the purpose of God.
So this man in the Book of Kings, in his ignorance, put poison into the pot. If we are thoroughly taught as to the truth of God we will not bring poison into the local company, we will not be saying something that will bring down the truth of God in one way or another, everything will be pure and worthwhile—this is what Peter says 1 Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word, that by it ye may grow up to salvation” (N.Tr.), a desire for that which is pure and wholesome and sustaining. Paul urges Timothy to be “nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching which thou hast fully followed up” (1 Tim. 4:6). There is nothing poisonous there, this is real good, sustaining food! The manna, the roast lamb, the old corn of the land—Christ Himself—nourishing, pure food; not a false Christ, but a Christ that is derived from the Scriptures, in truth and in dignity, this is the great food for the people of God to feed upon, to be intelligent as to this great and wonderful Person who is known to us as Saviour and Lord, and to feed upon, that is, to appropriate, Him, for our souls. We do not want any poisonous food to be circulating amongst the people of God, this is spiritual death, we want good, wholesome, pure food, that we might feed upon it for the best possible advantage.
When they became aware of the poisonous character of the food in the pot, they cried aloud. ‘Here is poison, what do we do with it?’ The prophet took some meal and cast it into the pot, and everything was made right. I suggest that the handful of meal that is thrown in is typical of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do I say this? Paul speaks about the truth as it is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21), every feature of truth will find its centre in Christ. And in some way or other, whatever the poison might be, whatever the wrong teaching might be, there will be something connected with Christ that will rectify it. If we understand the greatness of the Person of the Son His greatness and glory, and all the offices that He fills, and the way He operates in the assembly, if we understand the Lord Jesus, then we will be able to bring in rectifying food that will put things right.
The Galatians were in danger of going wrong because of the Judaising teaching, and the truth of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is the antidote to that kind of thing. But along with that, is the truth of the Person of the Son, for Paul’s great desire for the Galatians was that Christ be formed in them (Gal. 4:19), and if Christ was formed in them, then in the power of the Spirit they would be able to refuse the wrong teaching.
There were people going into the Colossian assembly teaching that it was okay to be a Christian, but man’s philosophy should be added also. Man was a very clever creature, the philosophers of the day were very clever men who could tell a lot about the origin of mankind, his destiny and how things operated, so this should be added to Christianity they said. Paul said No, Christ is everything, “ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10), and if we are complete in Him, we need nothing else. So man’s philosophy, his intellect, however great and attractive it may be, is out as far as the Christian is concerned. Christ is everything.
The Corinthians were in a bad state, boasting about their wisdom, whilst allowing the most awful sin in their midst. Paul said “Christ… the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). ‘If you want wisdom,’ he said, ‘there it is in all its glory and perfection.’ And, in connection with all this evil in their midst, he says “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7). So Christ is again the answer to problems amongst the people of God.
Oh, dear brethren, if we only knew Christ better, if we were more occupied with His glory, and greatness and love, and his humility and meekness too, how it would answer all the problems that we have both individually and collectively! Thank God there is some response in our hearts and lives to His glorious Person. He has made Himself known to us, revealed His glory to us, and how thankful we are for it. Oh, that we may respond to it more and more.
So the meal cast into the poisonous mixture changed it completely, and the prophet could tell them to serve it now, so that everyone could have something to eat, and all were happy and satisfied. Dear brethren, once things are set right as to the Person of Christ, what peace, what joy, what happiness is ours!
“And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord.” (2 Ki. 4:42-44)
I do not read anything here suggesting that the man brought the food to the man of God for the people; it appears to be a present to the man of God himself, and here we see the unselfish character of the man of God. Something worthwhile was given to him, the firstfruits, the very best of the crop, and the barley loaves, all speaking of refreshing food. He did not keep all for himself, he wanted to share it together with the people with him. And when faced with the response, ‘Why should such a small gift be shared amongst a hundred men?’ he simply told him to pass it out, with the reassuring word of the Lord that there would be plenty for all, and his servant did.
This is what we want to speak about first, the unselfish character of the man of God. Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, had run after Naaman and asked him for a present, and when he came back Elisha chastised him severely by indicating to him how wrong he was in doing this kind of thing, that was not the time to be receiving money. This principle is again seen here. He received something personally that he wanted to share amongst all. This is the principle of fellowship, the unselfish character of this man. He made things better. He put the bad food right. And now he has an ample supply of good food for himself, he shares it amongst all, and in divine power, as led by the Lord, what he had was expanded and made available to all for their satisfaction.
This unselfish character comes to light in many of the great men of God in the Bible. Think of Paul, “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:33-35). Here was a man who was only concerned about the spiritual well-being of the people of God, and if there was anything he could do in a material sense he was quite prepared to do it.
Nehemiah was the governor of Jerusalem, and being the governor he was entitled to a very large portion or provisions, but things were difficult, plenty of the people were starving, plenty in great difficulties, and so Nehemiah waived his rights as to the provision (Neh. 5:14), he was an unselfish character. And we find this all through the Scriptures, men of God who were prepared to sacrifice, or to share in the things of God. Now what we have been considering is in the material sense, but if we apply it in a spiritual sense, how wonderful it is to have a supply of good nourishing spiritual food in our souls, and to share it with the saints. There is no place for men with minds like an encyclopaedia, that can store up an abundant knowledge in their minds, but do nothing with it, rather, it is the ability to arrive at the truth and to make the truth known so that the saints get encouraged and helped. Now the man of God thoroughly associated himself with the people, identified himself with them in their need, and was prepared to come down amongst them and share with them all that he had.
How do we get such stores of good, nourishing food? Paul says to Timothy, ‘Timothy, you pay attention to yourself.’ This is not selfish; Paul is saying this in view of Timothy helping others. If Timothy paid attention to himself, got right himself, if he accumulated and enjoyed the truth himself, then he would be in a position to save others and be a blessing to them.
“Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and”—only then—“to teach in Israel statutes and judgments” (Ezra 7:10). There is no good trying to help anyone if we have not the resources to do it. We might see harrowing pictures in our newspapers of children in the last stages of malnutrition in famine struck lands, crying for help, what can we do? So very little. If we had enormous resources at our disposal how gladly would we rectify the situation. And when we look at the saints of God, anxious for ministry, how do we get it? By applying ourselves to it, by reading our Bibles, by prayer, by crying to the Lord that we might have an abundance of food to share with others. So when we come along to the Bible reading it is not just to get (though it is a very good thing to come along to get), but it is also to give something for the benefit of others, so that all can get the benefit of what is available.
Sometimes today there is a tendency not to arrange fellowship meetings for various reasons, such as for catering reasons, but material things can be overcome if the desire is there. It is far better to have fellowship and enjoy our own sandwiches (or share them with others) and enjoy our flasks of tea, than not to have fellowship at all. Oh, how important it is to come together and share and enjoy the precious food of heaven! I am sure that the people in these two incidents we have considered were really happy that there was such a man as Elisha the prophet amongst them, a man who could make things better, a man who could cure the poisonous food, a man who could make available good food, in a very unselfish way.
“… now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant [Naaman]. But he said, As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it; but he refused …” (2 Ki. 5:15-16).
This is another important principle. Many men of God were like this. We have already thought of Nehemiah and Paul, and we could add to the list Peter also, who wrote “The elders which are among you I exhort… Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock” (1 Pet. 5:1-3). They were not to have a place of pre-eminence amongst them, but being amongst them in love and care and concern, serving not for filthy lucre’s sake, for any personal advantage, but because they loved the people of God. What a wonderful thing that is! Paul sought to encourage the Corinthian believers in the matter of sending their help to other believers in need; they had a desire to do it, but had somehow or other forgotten to fulfil it or were lackadaisical in fulfilling it, so he wrote, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). What a powerful lever to produce in the hearts of the Corinthians, an eagerness to fulfil the desire that was on their hearts! Here again we find this principle, Elisha saying to Naaman, ‘Look, dear brother, I do not want any reward for this blessing, I am only the vehicle of the blessing of God; it is God to whom you should turn with your thanksgiving; give God the glory, I am only the vehicle. I do not want to belittle the things of God by accepting this.’ This is a very important principle.
I remember reading about Billy Graham, that he felt a certain deal of dishonour was being brought on the Lord’s Name by some evangelists acquiring great sums of money. The last night of the gospel campaign was the night when the collection was taken, and usually there were 30,000-40,000 very generous people there, and so usually the evangelist would collect in the region of $50,000 for this one night, and he felt that this was bringing the truth of God into disrepute. He said it had to stop, and so he and his fellow-workers obtained for themselves what was the average salary for a clergyman in America. This destroyed forever the accusation that he was preaching the gospel simply for monetary gain. This is a commendable thing in relation to him.
Elisha here says the very same thing to Naaman, ‘No, I do not want a present, I am only here as a servant of the Lord, and it is God who is to get the glory.’ Did not Abraham do the same to the king of Sodom? It may be a different situation, but the principle is the same, he said “I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich” (Gen. 14:23). John also writes of the brethren in his day, “Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles” (3 John 7), they relied utterly upon God and upon His power and goodness. So the unselfish character of Elisha comes to light here, he is not motivated by any desire for personal gain or glory. He was only desirous of bringing blessing into the lives of others.
“Therefore sent [the king of Syria] thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Ki. 6:14-17)
Lastly let us consider this young man who was very concerned because of the nature of the opposition that was against the man of God. The man of God was the object of great hostility, and he was in a position of great danger for the king of Syria had sent a great army after Elisha. The young man was terrified when he saw the great army, and the poor defenceless man, Elisha. Elisha told the man not to be worried or afraid, for there were far more for them than against them. It is like Paul in Romans 8 saying, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (v. 31). What a wonderful thing to have faith in God! Now Elisha prayed to God to open the young man’s eyes, and his eyes were opened and he saw the great army that God had provided to meet the opposition. It is so easy to get fearful as we see the tides of evil running high, as we see evil men waxing worse and worse. We know this is the fulfilment of Scripture, and yet it is a terrifying thing in another sense as we see them moving forward, with seemingly no check to their power and advancement. What are we going to do? The only thing we can do (and it is the best thing we can do) is to have faith in God, that God can deal with the problems as they come. If God in His permissive way allows these things to happen we can be sure that he has a plan, He has a purpose in mind, and we submit to that, and we seek His power and grace and strength to carry on, and be a testimony for Him in the midst of these evil days. So the position was entirely reversed. Instead of these people coming with power and strength and capturing Elisha and those with him, they are blinded and taken away captive. The king of Israel said, ‘Oh! What an opportune moment. They are blind. Shall I smite them?’ Then we find the grace of the servant. ‘No,’ he said, ‘why should you smite them? Give them something to eat, show them kindness.’ When it did this it touched their hearts, and they came no more into the land of Israel.
How gracious and kind Elisha was! He might easily have retaliated in anger, we might even have said he would have been justified in doing so! but he was like the apostle Paul, showing grace and humility, exemplifying his words, “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:24-25). And Elisha exhibited those features, so like the Master, not seeking to exert himself, not revengeful, but kind and gracious. What a character he was!
Elisha—A Man of God
I feel we have gone over some of the incidents in the life of Elisha in a scant way, but I trust enough has been said to whet your appetite, that you too might look into these incidents and derive help in your study of them, and fresh thoughts come into your soul. We said at the very beginning that Elisha was referred to so often as a man of God. Let us close by reading two passages from Paul’s letter to Timothy.
Firstly, in 1 Timothy 6:11-12 we read of the pathway for the man of God—flee, follow and fight: “But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses”.
Secondly, we find the resource for the man of God in 2 Timothy 4:14-17, “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
These two passages would help us to be men of God in these last closing days. In 2 Timothy, the letter that considers the worst possible conditions in Christendom, Paul says to Timothy, ‘Do not forget the word of God. It is this that will equip you to be a man of God’; and in the first epistle Paul indicates the characteristic features that belong to a man of God as he is found here as witness for Him. Oh, dear brethren, let us aspire to this wonderful appellation—a man of God—for it will be the barrier against the inroad of evil amongst the people of God and will be the means of maintaining a testimony for God in this poor, sad world. May it be so for His Name’s sake.