Expositions of Holy Scripture Volume II Part 49

Still further, another cognate application of these great words is that one which is more directly suggested by their quotation by Joash. It does not matter in what way the end of life comes. The reality is the same to all devout men; though one be swept to heaven in a whirlwind, and another lady slowly away in old age, or 'fall sick of the sickness wherewith he should die.' Each is taken to G.o.d in a chariot of fire.

The means are of little moment, the fact remains the same, however diverse may be the methods of its accomplishment. The road is the same, the companions the same, the impelling--I was going to say the locomotive--power, is the same, and the goal is the same.

Of Enoch we read, 'He was not, for G.o.d took him.' Of Elijah we read, 'He went up in a whirlwind to heaven.' Of Elisha we read, 'He died and they buried him.' And of all three--the two who were translated that they should not see death, and the one who died like the rest of us--it is equally true that 'G.o.d took' them, and that they were taken to Him.

So for ourselves and for our dear ones we may look forward or backward, to deathbeds of weariness, of lingering sickness, of long pain and suffering, or of swift dissolution, and piercing beneath the surface may see the blessed central reality and thankfully feel that Death, too, is G.o.d's angel, who' does His commandments, hearkening to the voice of G.o.d's word' when in his dark hea.r.s.e he carries us hence.

GENTLENESS SUCCEEDING STRENGTH

'He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; 14. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord G.o.d of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. 15. And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. 16. And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send. 17. And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not. 18. And when they came again to him, (for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not! 19. And the men of the city 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. 20. And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. 21.

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. 22. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.'--2 KINGS ii. 13-22.

The independent activity of Elisha begins with verse 13. How short the gap between the two prophets, and how easily filled it is! Not the greatest are indispensable. G.o.d lays aside one tool, but only to take up another. He has inexhaustible stores. The work goes on, though the workers change, and there is little time for mere mourning, and none for idle sorrow. Elisha's first miracle is almost an experiment. The mantle which lay at his feet had been thrown over him by Elijah when he was called to his service, and it was now a token that office and power had devolved on him. His first steps tread closely in Elijah's track; as those of wise and humble men, called to higher work, will mostly do.

The repet.i.tion of the miracle by the same means, and the invocation of the Lord as the 'G.o.d of Elijah,'--a new name, to be set by the side of 'the G.o.d of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob'--express the humility which seeks to shelter itself behind the example of its mighty predecessor.

The form of the invocation as a question indicates that Elisha had not yet attained certainty as to his power, as not yet having proved it.

'Where is the Lord G.o.d of Elijah?' is not the question of unbelief, but neither is it the voice of full confidence, which asks no such question, because it knows Him to be with it. It is the cry, 'Oh that Thou mayest be here, even with unworthy me! and art Thou not here?' The faith was real, though young, and clouded with some film of doubt. But, being real, it was answered; and it was because of Elisha's trust, not Elijah's mantle, that the waters parted. G.o.d will listen to a man pleading that ancient deeds may be repeated to-day, and, by answering the cry addressed to Him as the G.o.d of saints and martyrs of old, will embolden us to cry to Him as our very own G.o.d. We may learn from that first half-tentative miracle the spirit in which men should take up the work of those that are gone, the lowliness fitting for beginners, the wisdom of seeking to graft new work on the old stock, the encouragement from remembering the divine wonders through His servants in the past, and the true way to a.s.sure ourselves of our G.o.d-given power; namely, by attempting great things for Him, in dependence on His promise.

The miracle was wrought partly for Elisha, and partly for others who were to acknowledge his authority. These sons of the prophets, who stood on the eastern bank of Jordan, had probably not been witnesses of the translation, even if their position commanded a view of the spot.

Purer eyes and more kindred spirits than theirs were needed for that.

But they saw Elisha returning alone, and the waters parting before him, and, no doubt, as he came nearer, would recognise what he bore in his hand--Elijah's well-known mantle. They hasten to recognise him as the head of the prophets, and their acknowledgment accurately expresses his place and work. Elijah's spirit rests on him, even though the two men and their careers are very different, and in some respects opposite.

Elisha is distinctly secondary to Elijah. He is in no sense an originator, either of fresh revelations or of new impulses to obedience. He but carries on what Elijah had begun, inherits a work, and is Elijah's 'Timothy' and 'son in the faith.' The same Spirit was on him, though the form of his character and gifts was in strong contrast to the stormier genius of his mightier predecessor. Elisha had no such work as Elijah--no foot-to-foot and hand-to-hand duels with murderous kings or queens; no single-handed efforts to stop a nation from rushing down a steep place into the sea; no fiery energy; no bursts of despair. He moved among kings and courts as an honoured guest and trusted counsellor. He did not dwell apart, like Elijah, the strong son of the desert; but, born in the fertile valley of the Jordan, he lived a life 'kindly with his kind,' and his delights were with the sons of men. His miracles are mostly works of mercy and gentleness, relieving wants and sicknesses, drying tears and giving back dear ones to mourners. He is as complete a contrast to his stern, solitary, forceful predecessor, as the 'still small voice' was to the roar of the wind or the crackling hiss of the flames.

But, nevertheless, 'there are diversities of operations, but the same G.o.d.' It is well to remember that one type of excellence does not exhaust the possibilities of goodness, nor the resources of the inspiring Spirit. The comparative merits of strength and gentleness will always be variously estimated; but G.o.d's work needs them both, and both may join hands as serving the same Lord in diverse ways, which are all needed. We should seek to widen our discernment to the extent of the rich variety of forms of good and of service which G.o.d gives.

Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy, Luther and Melanchthon, are all His servants. Well is it when the strong can recognise the power of the gentle, and the gentle can discern the tenderness of the strong, and when each is forward to say of the other, 'He worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do.'

The search after Elijah, insisted on by the sons of the prophets, is of importance only as showing their low thoughts and Elisha's gentle spirit. He is their head, but he holds the reins loosely. Fancy anybody 'urging' Elijah 'till he was ashamed'! The shame would very soon have mantled the cheek of the urger. But though, no doubt, Elisha would tell what had happened, these 'prophets' only think that Elijah has been miraculously borne somewhither, as he had been before, and seem to have no notion of what has really happened. How hard it is to heave heavy men up to any height of spiritual vision! How vulgar minds always take refuge in the most commonplace explanations that they can find of high truths! 'Gone up to heaven! Not he! He is lying, living or dead, in some gorge or on some hillside. Let us go and look for him!' There is nothing on which some people pride themselves more than upon being practical--which generally means prosaic, and often means blind to G.o.d's greatest deeds. To go scouring wady and mountain for a man who had been taken up into heaven was practical common sense indeed! But Elisha's gentleness is to be noted. He let them have their own way.

Often that is the only plan for convincing people of their errors. And, when the fifty scouts come back empty-handed, all he says is a quiet 'Did I no say unto you, Go not?' 'The servant of the Lord must not strive,' but 'in meekness' instruct 'those that oppose themselves'; and the effectual instruction is often to let them take their own course.

The miracle of healing the waters is of the beneficent kind usual with Elisha, inaugurates his course with blessing, and typifies the healing power which G.o.d through him would exert on men. Jericho had been recently rebuilt in spite of the curse against its builders. The bitterness of the spring seems to have been part of the malediction; for men would not be so foolish as to rebuild a city which had only impure water to depend on. However that may be, the main lesson of the miracle, beyond its revelation of the spirit of gentle compa.s.sion in Elisha, is the symbolical one. The new cruse and the salt are emblems of the divine gift which cleanses the human heart. Salt is an emblem of purification, and its emblematic meaning prevails here over its natural properties; for the last thing to cure a brackish spring was to put salt into it. The very inadequacy, as well as inappropriateness, of the remedy, points the miraculous and symbolical character of the whole. A jar full of salt could do little to a gushing fountain. But it figured the cleansing power which G.o.d will bring to bear on us, if we will; and it taught the great truth that sin must be cleansed at the fountain-head in the heart, not half a mile down the stream, in the deeds. Put the salt in the spring, and the outflow will be sweet.

WHEN THE OIL FLOWS

'And it came to pa.s.s, 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.'--2 KINGS iv. 6.

The series of miracles ascribed to Elisha are very unlike most of the wonderful works of even the Old Testament, and still more unlike those of the New. For about a great many of them there seems to have been no special purpose, either doctrinal or otherwise, but simply the relief of trivial and transient distresses. This story, from which my text is taken, is one of that sort. One of the sons of the prophets had died in Shunem. He left a widow and two little children. The creditor, according to the Mosaic law, had the right, which he was about to put in practice, of taking the children to be bondmen. And so the penniless, helpless woman comes to Elisha, as a kind of deliverer-general from all sorts of distresses, and tells him her pitiful tale. He asks her what she wants him to do, and she has no counsel to give. Then the thing to do strikes _him._ He asks what she has in the house. It was a poor, bare hovel of a place. There was not anything in it save a pot of oil, which was all her property. He sends her to borrow vessels, of all sorts and sizes. He takes the pot of oil, and shuts the door. Then she sets the two boys fetching and carrying; and herself taking up the one possession that she has, in faith she pours; and dish after dish is filled, and still she pours; and they were all filled, and she kept on pouring. Then she said, 'Bring some more'; and the boys answered, 'There are not any more,' so then the oil stopped.

There was no very special reason for all this. It is not at all like most Biblical miracles. I do not suppose it had any symbolical intention; but I venture to do a little gentle violence to the incident, and to see in the staying of the oil when no more vessels were brought to be filled, a lesson addressed to us all, and it is this: G.o.d keeps giving Himself as long as we bring that into which He can pour Himself. And when we stop bringing, He stops giving.

Now, if I may venture to be fanciful for once, let me tell you of three vessels that we have to bring if we would have the oil of the Divine Spirit poured into us.

I. The vessel of desire.

G.o.d can give us a great many things that we do not wish, but He cannot give us His best gift, and that is Himself, unless we desire it. He never forces His company on any man, and if we do not wish for Him He cannot give us Himself, His Spirit, or the gifts of His Spirit. For instance, He cannot make a man wise if he does not wish to be instructed. He cannot make a man holy if he has no aspiration after holiness. He cannot save a man from his sins if the man holds on to his sin with both hands, like some sh.e.l.lfish with its claws when you try to drag it out of its cleft in the rock. He cannot give the oil unless we bring the vessels of our hearts opened by our desires.

If G.o.d could He would. 'Ye have not because ye ask not.' But we are never to forget that G.o.d is not led to begin His giving because we pet.i.tion Him, but that the infinitude of His stores, and the endless, changeless, unmotived, perfect love of His heart, make self-communication--I was going to use a very strong word, and I do not know that it is too strong--necessary to the blessedness of the blessed G.o.d, and, long before we ever thought of Him, or sought anything from Him, there was pouring out from Him all the fulness of His love: just as we may conceive of the sunshine raying out before the orbs that were to circle round it had been completely shaped, but were still diffused and nebulous.

But, while G.o.d is always giving, our capacity to receive determines the degree of our individual possession of Him. Or, to put it in the plainest words--we have as much of G.o.d as we can take in; and the princ.i.p.al factor in settling how much we can take is--how much we wish.

Measure the reality and intensity of desire, and you measure capacity.

As the atmosphere rushes into every vacuum, or as the sea runs up into and fills every sinuosity of the sh.o.r.e, so wherever a heart opens, and the unbroken coast-line is indented, as it were, by desire, in rushes the tide of the divine gifts. You have G.o.d in the measure in which you desire Him.

Only remember that that desire which brings G.o.d must be more than a feeble, fleeting wish. Wishing is one thing; _willing_ is quite another. Lazily wishing and strenuously desiring are two entirely different postures of mind; the former gets nothing and the latter gets everything, gets G.o.d, and with G.o.d all that G.o.d can bring.

But the wish must not only rise to intensity and earnestness, but it must be steadfast. Suppose these two little boys of the widow had held their vessels below the spout of the oil-pot with tremulous hands, while they looked away at something else, sometimes keeping the vessels right under, and sometimes shifting them on one side, it would have been slow work filling the unsteadily held vessels. So it is in regard to receiving G.o.d's best gift. Our desires must be unwavering. A cup held by a shaking hand will spill its contents, or will never receive them. 'Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.' The steadfast wish is the wish that is answered.

Is it not a strange indifference to our true good that we who have learned, as most of us have learned only too well, that in this world to wish is not to have, should turn away from the possibility that lies before us each, of pa.s.sing from this disappointing world of vain longings into a region where we cannot wish anything that we do not get? There is only one thing about which it is true that, if you want, and as much as you want, you will have; and that thing is found when we turn away our wishes from the false, fleeting, and surface satisfactions of earth, and fasten them upon G.o.d, 'Who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ... think.' Wish for Him, and you have what you have wished. Wish for anything else, and you may have it or you may not, but depend upon it the fish is never half as big when it is out of the water as it felt to be when it was tugging at the hook.

II. Another vessel that we have to bring is the vessel of our expectancy.

Desire is one thing; confident antic.i.p.ation that the desire will be fulfilled is quite another. And the two do not certainly go together anywhere except in this one region, and there they do go, linked arm in arm. For whatsoever, in the highest of all regions, we wish, we have the right without presumption to believe that we shall receive.

Expectation, like desire, opens the heart.

There are some expectations, even in lower regions, that fulfil themselves. Doctors will tell you that a very large part of the curative power of their medicine depends upon the patient's antic.i.p.ation of recovery. If a man expects to die when he takes to his bed, the chances are that he will die; and if a man expects to get better, Death will have a fight before it conquers him. There are hundreds of cases, in all departments of life, where he who sets himself to a task with a.s.sured persuasion that he is going to do such and such a thing will do it. 'Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail,' said the heroine in the tragedy; and there is a great truth in her fierce encouragement.

All these ill.u.s.trations fall far beneath the Christian aspect of the thought that what we expect from G.o.d we receive. That is only another way of putting 'According to thy faith be it unto thee.' It is exactly what Jesus Christ said when He promised, 'Whatsoever things ye ask when ye stand praying believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.'

I am afraid that a great many of us often have expectations fainter than desires; and that we should be very much surprised if the thing that we ask for, in the prayers that we so often repeat by rote, were granted to us. You will hear men praying for holiness, for clean hearts, for progress in the Christian life, for a hundred other such blessings. They do not expect that anything is going to come in consequence, and they would be mightily at a loss what to do with the gift if it did come. The absence of expectancy in our public pet.i.tions is to me one of the saddest features in the Christian life of this day.

If you expect little, you will get little; and we do expect far less than we ought. We cannot raise our confident expectations too high; for 'He is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask' as well as 'think.' The Apostle has set the limit of our expectations, in the same context, and here it is: 'That we may be filled with all the fulness of G.o.d.' There are two limits: one is the boundless illimitableness of G.o.d's perfection, and the possibilities of our possession of Him are not exhausted until we have reached that infinite completeness. But then, there is a practical, working limit for each of us; and that is--what do you desire? and what do you expect? G.o.d can give more than we can ask or think, but He cannot at the moment give more than we expect or desire.

True, the vessels that we bring to be filled with the oil are not like the vessels that the fatherless boys brought. These were of a definite capacity; and the little cup when it was filled was filled, and there was an end of it. But the vessels that we bring are elastic, and widen out. The more that is put into them the more they can hold, so that there is no bound to the capacity of a heart for the reception and inrush of G.o.d; and there will not be a bound through all the ages of a growing possession of Him in eternity. But for to-day, desire and expectancy determine the measure of the gift.

III. Lastly, one more vessel that we have to bring is obedience.

'If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.' _There_ is one case of the general principle that wishes and antic.i.p.ations are all right and well, but unless they are backed up and verified by conduct, even wishes and antic.i.p.ations will not bring G.o.d's gift. For it is possible for a man who, in his better moments of devotion, has some desires after a loftier range of goodness and a completer conformity to G.o.d than he ordinarily has, to rise from his knees and rush into the world, and there live in some l.u.s.t, or uncleanness, or vice, or indulgence, or absorption in the cares of this life, in such a way as that desires and antic.i.p.ations shall vanish. If we fill our vessels full, before we take them to the source of supply, with all manner of baser liquids, there will be no room for the oil. We may contradict and stifle our desires by our conduct, and by it make our expectations perfectly impossible to be fulfilled. Are our daily doings of such a nature as that the Spirit of G.o.d, which is symbolised by the oil, can come into our hearts; or are we quenching and grieving Him so that He

'Can but listen at the gate And hear the household jar within'?

Desire, Expectancy, and Obedience--these three must never be separated if we are to receive the gift of Himself, which G.o.d delights and waits to give. All spiritual possessions and powers grow by use, even as exercised muscles are strengthened, and unused ones tend to be atrophied. It is possible, by neglect of G.o.d and of the gift given to us, to incur the stern sentence pa.s.sed on the slothful servant--'Take it from him.' By disobedience and negligence we choke the channel through which G.o.d's gifts can flow to us. So, brethren, bring these three vessels, and you will not go away with them empty. 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.'

A MIRACLE NEEDING EFFORT

'So she went, and came unto the man of G.o.d to mount Carmel. And it came to pa.s.s, when the man of G.o.d saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: 26. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband! is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. 27. And when she came to the man of G.o.d to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of G.o.d said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. 28. Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord! did I not say, Do not deceive met 29. Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again: and lay my staff upon the face of the child. 30. And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her.

31. And Gehazi pa.s.sed on before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child; but there was neither voice, nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked.

32. And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. 33. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. 34. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and stretched himself upon the child: and the flesh of the child waxed warm. 35. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.

36. And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. So he called her. And when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. 37.

Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out.'--2 KINGS iv. 25-37.

The story of Elisha is almost entirely a record of his miracles, and the story of his miracles is almost entirely a record of deeds of beneficence. Exception has been taken to it on the ground of the strange acc.u.mulation of supernatural works, which have been said to make it like some mediaeval saint's legend. But why should it not be true that, after Elijah had proclaimed the truth, his successor's function was to enforce it chiefly by his acts, and to seek to draw Israel back to G.o.d by 'the cords of love' and the gentle compulsion of mercies? The careful consideration of the work of the two prophets makes the peculiarities of Elisha's perfectly intelligible. This story of the great lady at Shunem, her joy over her only child and his piteous death 'on her knees,' is one of the tenderest and sweetest pages in the history. Late won and early lost, the poor boy lies pale and dead on Elisha's bed at Shunem, while the mother hurries across the plain of Jezreel to Carmel,--a distance of some fifteen or sixteen miles,--where Elisha was then living, probably near the place of Elijah's sacrifice. This pa.s.sage begins with her approach.