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2 Kings Chapter
Four
2 Kings 4
Chapter Contents
Elisha multiplies the widow's oil. (1-7) The Shunammite
obtains a son. (8-17) The Shunammite's son restored to life. (18-37) The
miracle of healing the pottage, and of feeding the sons of the prophets.
(38-44)
Commentary on 2 Kings 4:1-7
(Read 2 Kings 4:1-7)
Elisha's miracles were acts of real charity: Christ's
were so; not only great wonders, but great favours to those for whom they were
wrought. God magnifies his goodness with his power. Elisha readily received a
poor widow's complaint. Those that leave their families under a load of debt,
know not what trouble they cause. It is the duty of all who profess to follow
the Lord, while they trust to God for daily bread, not to tempt him by
carelessness or extravagance, nor to contract debts; for nothing tends more to
bring reproach upon the gospel, or distresses their families more when they are
gone. Elisha put the widow in a way to pay her debt, and to maintain herself
and her family. This was done by miracle, but so as to show what is the best
method to assist those who are in distress, which is, to help them to improve
by their own industry what little they have. The oil, sent by miracle,
continued flowing as long as she had empty vessels to receive it. We are never
straitened in God, or in the riches of his grace; all our straitness is in
ourselves. It is our faith that fails, not his promise. He gives more than we
ask: were there more vessels, there is enough in God to fill them; enough for
all, enough for each; and the Redeemer's all-sufficiency will only be stayed
from the supplying the wants of sinners and saving their souls, when no more
apply to him for salvation. The widow must pay her debt with the money she
received for her oil. Though her creditors were too hard with her, yet they
must be paid, even before she made any provision for her children. It is one of
the main laws of the Christian religion, that we pay every just debt, and give
every one his own, though we leave ever so little for ourselves; and this, not
of constraint, but for conscience' sake. Those who bear an honest mind, cannot
with pleasure eat their daily bread, unless it be their own bread. She and her
children must live upon the rest; that is, upon the money received for the oil,
with which they must put themselves into a way to get an honest livelihood. We
cannot now expect miracles, yet we may expect mercies, if we wait on God, and
seek to him. Let widows in particular depend upon him. He that has all hearts
in his hand, can, without a miracle, send as effectual a supply.
Commentary on 2 Kings 4:8-17
(Read 2 Kings 4:8-17)
Elisha was well thought of by the king of Israel for his
late services; a good man can take as much pleasure in serving others, as in
raising himself. But the Shunammite needed not any good offices of this kind.
It is a happiness to dwell among our own people, that love and respect us, and
to whom we are able to do good. It would be well with many, if they did but
know when they are really well off. The Lord sees the secret wish which is
suppressed in obedience to his will, and he will hear the prayers of his
servants in behalf of their benefactors, by sending unasked-for and unexpected
mercies; nor must the professions of men of God be supposed to be delusive like
those of men of the world.
Commentary on 2 Kings 4:18-37
(Read 2 Kings 4:18-37)
Here is the sudden death of the child. All the mother's
tenderness cannot keep alive a child of promise, a child of prayer, one given
in love. But how admirably does the prudent, pious mother, guard her lips under
this sudden affliction! Not one peevish word escapes from her. Such confidence
had she of God's goodness, that she was ready to believe that he would restore
what he had now taken away. O woman, great is thy faith! He that wrought it,
would not disappoint it. The sorrowful mother begged leave of her husband to go
to the prophet at once. She had not thought it enough to have Elisha's help
sometimes in her own family, but, though a woman of rank, attended on public
worship. It well becomes the men of God, to inquire about the welfare of their
friends and their families. The answer was, It is well. All well, and yet the
child dead in the house! Yes! All is well that God does; all is well with them
that are gone, if they are gone to heaven; and all well with us that stay
behind, if, by the affliction, we are furthered in our way thither. When any
creature-comfort is taken from us, it is well if we can say, through grace,
that we did not set our hearts too much upon it; for if we did, we have reason
to fear it was given in anger, and taken away in wrath. Elisha cried unto God
in faith; and the beloved son was restored alive to his mother. Those who would
convey spiritual life to dead souls, must feel deeply for their case, and
labour fervently in prayer for them. Though the minister cannot give Divine
life to his fellow-sinners, he must use every means, with as much earnestness as
if he could do so.
Commentary on 2 Kings 4:38-44
(Read 2 Kings 4:38-44)
There was a famine of bread, but not of hearing the word
of God, for Elisha had the sons of the prophets sitting before him, to hear his
wisdom. Elisha made hurtful food to become safe and wholesome. If a mess of
pottage be all our dinner, remember that this great prophet had no better for
himself and his guests. The table often becomes a snare, and that which should
be for our welfare, proves a trap: this is a good reason why we should not feed
ourselves without fear. When we are receiving the supports and comforts of
life, we must keep up an expectation of death, and a fear of sin. We must
acknowledge God's goodness in making our food wholesome and nourishing; I am
the Lord that healeth thee. Elisha also made a little food go a great way.
Having freely received, he freely gave. God has promised his church, that he
will abundantly bless her provision, and satisfy her poor with bread, Psalm 132:15; whom he feeds, he fills; and what
he blesses, comes to much. Christ's feeding his hearers was a miracle far
beyond this, but both teach us that those who wait upon God in the way of duty,
may hope to be supplied by Divine Providence.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 2 Kings》
2 Kings 4
Verse 1
[1] 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.
Prophets —
Who, though they were wholly devoted to sacred employment, were not excluded
from marriage, any more than the priests and Levites.
Fear the Lord —
His poverty therefore was not procured by his idleness, or prodigality; but by
his piety, because he would not comply with the king's way of worship, and
therefore lost all worldly advantages.
Bondmen — Either,
to use them as his slaves, or to sell them to others, according to the law.
Verse 2
[2] 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.
What shall I —
How shall I relieve thee, who am myself poor?
Verse 7
[7] 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.
Unto her son — To
one of them: for she had two, verse 1.
The oil stayed — To
teach us, that we should not waste any of his good creatures; and that God
would not work miracles unnecessarily. We are never straiten'd in God, and in
his power and bounty, and the riches of his grace. All our straitness is in
ourselves. It is our faith that fails, not his promise. Were there more
vessels, there is enough in God to fill them, enough for all, enough for each.
Verse 8
[8] 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.
Great —
For estate, or birth and quality.
Verse 9
[9] And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy
man of God, which passeth by us continually.
This is — A
prophet, and that of eminent holiness: by our kindness to whom, we shall
procure a blessing to ourselves.
Verse 10
[10] 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.
On the wall —
That he may be free from the noise of family business, and enjoy that privacy,
which, I perceive, he desireth for his prayers and meditations.
A bed, … — He
will not be troublesome or chargeable to us: he cares not for rich furniture or
costly entertainment, and is content with bare necessaries.
Verse 12
[12] And he
said to Gehazi his servant, Call this Shunammite. And when he had called her,
she stood before him.
She stood —
The relation seems to be a little perplexed, but may be thus conceived. It is
in this verse recorded in the general, that the prophet sent Gehazi to call
her, and that she came to him upon that call: then follows a particular
description of the whole business, with all the circumstances, first, of the
message with which Gehazi was sent when he went to call her, and of her answer
to that message, verse 13, and of Gehazi's conjecture thereupon, verse 14, and then of her coming to the prophet at his
call: which is there repeated to make way for the following passages.
Verse 13
[13] And
he said unto him, Say now unto her, Behold, thou hast been careful for us with
all this care; what is to be done for thee? wouldest thou be spoken for to the
king, or to the captain of the host? And she answered, I dwell among mine own
people.
I dwell — I
live among my kindred and friends; nor have I any cause to seek relief from
higher powers.
Verse 14
[14] And
he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gehazi answered, Verily she hath
no child, and her husband is old.
He said —
Hast thou observed any thing which she wants or desires? For the prophet kept
himself much in his chamber, whilst Gehazi went more freely about the house, as
his occasions led him.
Verse 16
[16] And
he said, About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a
son. And she said, Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie unto thine
handmaid.
Do not lie — Do
not delude me with vain hopes. She could not believe it for joy.
Verse 17
[17] And
the woman conceived, and bare a son at that season that Elisha had said unto
her, according to the time of life.
Time of life —
See note on Genesis 18:10.
Verse 21
[21] And
she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon
him, and went out.
Bed of the man of God — Being apt to believe, he that so soon took away what he had given, would
restore what he had taken away. By this faith women received their dead raised
to life. In this faith she makes no preparation for the burial of her child,
but for his resurrection.
Verse 23
[23] And
he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to day? it is neither new moon, nor
sabbath. And she said, It shall be well.
New moon, … —
Which were the usual times in which they resorted to the prophets for
instruction.
It shall be well — My
going will not be troublesome to him, nor prejudicial to thee or me.
Verse 26
[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.
It is — So
it was in some respects, because it was the will of a wise and good God, and
therefore best for her. When God calls away our dearest relations by death, it
becomes us to say, it is well both with us and them. It is well, for all is
well that God doth: all is well with them that are gone, if they are gone to
heaven. And all is well with us that stay behind, if by the affliction we are
furthered in our way thither.
Verse 27
[27] And
when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but
Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone;
for her soul is vexed within her: and the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath
not told me.
The feet —
She fell at his feet and touched them, as a most humble and earnest supplicant.
Withal, she intimated, what she durst not presume to express in words, that she
desired him to go along with her.
Let her alone —
Disturb her not, for this gesture is a sign of some extraordinary grief.
Hid it —
Whereby he signifies, that what he knew or did, was not by any virtue inherent
in himself, but from God, who revealed to him only what and when he pleased.
Verse 28
[28] Then
she said, Did I desire a son of my lord? did I not say, Do not deceive me?
She said —
This child was not given to me upon my immoderate desire, for which I might
have justly been thus chastised, but was freely promised by thee in God's name,
and from his special favour.
Deceive me —
With vain hopes of a comfort that I should never have. And I had been much
happier if I had never had it, than to lose it so quickly.
Verse 29
[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.
Gird up —
Tie up thy long garments about thy loins for expedition.
If thou meet, … —
Make no delay nor stop by the way, neither by words nor actions.
Verse 30
[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.
Will not leave thee —
Until thou goest home with me. For she had no great confidence in Gehazi, nor
was her faith so strong as to think that the prophet could work so great a
miracle at this distance.
Verse 31
[31] And
Gehazi passed 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.
Neither voice —
Neither speech, nor sense, nor any sign of life, in the child. This
disappointment might proceed from hence, that Elisha having changed his mind,
and yielded to her importunity to go with her, did alter his course, and not
join his fervent prayers with Gehazi's action.
Not awaked —
Not revived.
Verse 33
[33] He
went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the LORD.
Shut the door —
Upon himself and the dead child, that he might pray to God without distraction,
and might more freely use those means which he thought fit.
Verse 34
[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 he stretched himself upon
the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm.
And put —
One part upon another successively; for the disproportion of the bodies would
not permit it to be done together.
Grew warm —
Not by any external heat, which could not be transmitted to the child's body by
such slight touches of the prophet's body; but from a principle of life, which
was already infused into the child, and by degrees enlivened all the parts of
his body.
Verse 35
[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.
He walked — He
changeth his postures for his own necessary refreshment, and walked to and fro,
exercising his mind in prayer to God.
And went —
Repeating his former actions, to teach us not to be discouraged in our prayers,
if we be not speedily answered.
Opened his eyes — So
the work begun in the former verse is here perfected. Although miracles were
for the most part done in an instant, yet sometimes they were done by degrees.
Verse 36
[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.
Unto him — To
the door.
Verse 40
[40] 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.
Death —
That is, some deadly thing.
Verse 41
[41] 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.
Into the pot —
Together with the pottage which they had taken out of it.
Verse 42
[42] 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.
First fruits —
Which were the priests due, Numbers 18:12, but these, and probably the rest
of the priests dues, were usually brought by the pious Israelites, according to
their ability and opportunity, to the Lord's prophets, because they were not permitted
to carry them to Jerusalem.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 2 Kings》
04 Chapter 4
Verses 1-44
Verses 1-8
Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the
prophets.
The widow’s pot of oil
If we are to believe the voice of tradition as expressed by
Josephus, the subject of this touching story was one who had seen far better
days, being the widow of Obadiah, the Lord High Chamberlain of Ahab. While her
husband lived she breathed the atmosphere of a court, and was nourished in the
lap of luxury. But when he died she seems to have been reduced to the utmost
poverty. That world which had smiled upon her in the days of her prosperity,
now, with characteristic fickleness, turned its back upon her. Her friends
forsook her, and refused to help her. She was plunged into debt, contracted in
order to obtain the barest necessaries of life. Having nothing of any value in
the house, the hard-hearted creditor, in lieu of payment, threatened to take
and sell her two only sons as slaves; which, by virtue of one Jewish law and
the extension of another, he had the power to do. It is true that the period
during which slaves could be held in Israel was mercifully limited by the year
of jubilee, and that year, which would break every fetter, might be near at
hand; but nevertheless, in her position, the enforcement of the law even for
the Shortest period could not but be felt as a grievous calamity. On account of
these trying circumstances, her case was one that peculiarly warranted the
interposition of Heaven. But she had another claim still, beside that of her
wretchedness, upon the sympathy and help of Elisha. Her husband feared the Lord
while he lived. He was the son of a prophet, and cherished the deepest regard
for the person and the work of those who filled that sacred office. Elisha’s
first question to her evinced a wonderful knowledge of the human heart, and of
the best mode of dealing with poverty and suffering. Instead of volunteering to
give her aid at once, as most persons would have done, carried away by an
overpowering impulse of compassion at the recital of the tale of sorrow; like a
wise and judicious friend, he inquires how far she herself has the power to
avert the threatened calamity--“What hast thou in the house?” His assistance
must be based upon her own assistance. He will help her to help herself. And
this is the only true way to benefit the poor. By reckless and indiscriminate
almsgiving, we run the risk of pauperising the objects of our charity. Our
assistance should therefore be of such a nature as to call forth the resources
which they themselves possess, and to make the most of them. However small
these resources may be, they should be used as a fulcrum, by means of which our
help may raise them to a better condition. The first question which we too
should ask the widow or the destitute is--“What hast thou in the house?” No
help from without can benefit, unless there be a willingness of self-help
within. The widow of Obadiah had nothing in the house save a pot of oil. Was
this oil grown by Obadiah during his lifetime--the last of the produce of his
olive-yard? In all likelihood it was all that remained of the once extensive
property of Ahab’s steward. Out of this last pot of Oil--the sign of her
uttermost poverty--Elisha furnished the source of her comfort and happiness. In
the fables of all nations we are told that a magician, by a mere wave of his
wand, or by pronouncing a certain charm, produces at once wealth and luxuries
that had no existence before. Aladdin rubs a ring, and immediately a genius
appears, and at his command provides a rich feast for him out of nothing. He
rubs an old lamp, and at once a gorgeous palace rises up before him in
substantial reality, created out of the formless ether around. By putting on
Fortunetus’s wishing-cap the lucky possessors of it can get anything they want,
and create things unknown before. But there is nothing like this in the
miracles of the Bible. The Gospel miracle which most nearly resembles the
multiplication of the widow’s oil by Elisha, is the miracle of the loaves and
fishes. In both cases the properties of the articles remained the same, and
their substance only was extended. In both cases the point of departure and the
completed result of the miracle were articles in familiar use among the people.
Elisha simply multiplied the common olive oil of the widow into the common
olive oil of the country, neither better nor worse. Jesus simply multiplied the
common barley loaves and fishes of the fisher-lad into the common barley loaves
and fishes which formed the ordinary fare of the disciples. In both cases the
miracle was based upon the ultimate result of man’s labour. The oil in the
widow’s pot was the juice expressed, out of berries gathered, from trees
planted, grafted, and tended by man’s toil and skill. The bread in the
fisherman’s possession was baked by man’s hands, out of barley sown, reaped,
gathered, threshed, and ground in the mill by man’s skill and labour; the
fishes were equally the produce of human industry and special knowledge. These
examples show to us that even in miracles man must be a fellowworker with God
in subduing the earth, and in removing the limitations and disabilities of the
curse. In these actions men prepared themselves by the miracle wrought within
them--the triumph over natural unbelief and the objections of reason--to
believe in and to benefit by the miracle about to be wrought without. The widow
of Obadiah might well be astonished at the command of Elisha. If she had stopped to reason
about the procedure required of her, she might well hesitate to undertake it.
Taking a common-sense view of the matter, of what use would it be to borrow as
many vessels as possible from her neighbours? What answer could she give them
if they asked her what she meant to do with these vessels? Would they not laugh
at her if she told the prophet’s message, and ridicule the utter folly of the
whole story? And yet, in spite of all these apparent absurdities and
impossibilities--in spite of all the objections of reason and common sense, the
widow hastened to obey the prophet’s command. She stumbled not because of
unbelief. Her faith triumphed over all difficulties. It is a significant
circumstance that the prophet should have commanded the widow to shut the door
upon herself and her sons, when she poured out the oil into the vessels. There
is a reason for, and a meaning in, every detail of the Bible miracles; and
doubtless the design of this apparently trivial injunction was to secure to the
widow the privacy and calmness of mind necessary for the performance of the
miracle, and for
its producing the full and proper impression upon her own soul. If she had left
the door open, the neighbours doubtless, moved by curiosity to see what she would do with the
vessels she had borrowed, would flock around her, and sadly discompose her mind
by their laughter, their sneers, and their unsuitable remarks. Reverence,
stillness, and solitude are needed for the miracle. But, besides being
necessary in order to prepare the widow of Obadiah for receiving the benefits
of the miracle, the solitude and secrecy which Elisha enjoined were significant
of the mysterious character of the miracle itself. It was withdrawn from sight.
It was silent and unimaginable. The process by which the oil wag multiplied we
labour in vain to conceive. We cannot explain the phenomenon by the observation
of any known laws; and yet in truth the miracle is not more strange, save in
the rapidity with which it is effected, than that which is every day going
forward in nature in those regions where the olive tree grows. You sow the seed
of an olive tree; that seed contains a very small quantity of oil. It grows and becomes a tree and
produces an immense quantity of fruit; so that from the little drop of oil in
the small vessel of the seed, you have thousands of vessels in the shape of the
berries, each filled with oil. He who makes the olive seed in the course of a
few years, or the olive tree every season, to prepare and extract oil from the
scanty soil on the arid rocks, and the dry burning air in which the tree
delights to grow, concentrated, in the miracle in the widow’s chamber, the
slower processes of nature spread over months and years, into the act of a
single moment. Of course the natural process does not explain the miracle, but
it is a help to our faith. The one sheds light upon the other. The miracle
teaches us that the natural process is not the result of an impersonal law or
of a dead course of things, but the working of our Father in heaven; while the
natural process in its turn shows to us that God in the miracle is working in
the line of the ordinary events and dispensations of His providence. The
miracle blends with common life. How strikingly does this wonderful incident show
to us that we must be fellow-workers with God throughout, from first to last,
in our own deliverance and blessing. How wonderfully it illustrates the whole
Divine economy of grace, under which we are enjoined to work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling, seeing that it is God that worketh in us
both to will and to do of His good pleasure! We are all in the condition of the
poor widow; we are destitute of everything, and are ready to perish. But God is
far more tender and considerate to us than Elisha was to the widow. If we have
but the feeling of want, but the desire for God’s help, that very want or
desire will be to us what the pot of oil was to the widow--the source of an
abundant supply of all that we need. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
A prophet’s widow and a prophet s kindness
I. A prophet’s
widow in distress. To-day some of the most enlightened, thoughtful, and really
useful ministers are amongst the poorest.
1. That poverty is not necessarily a disgrace. It is sometimes the
result of inflexible honesty and moral nobility.
2. That the best lives here are subject to trials.
3. That avarice feeds cruelty.
II. A prophet at
work to relieve a brother’s widow. In her distress instinct tells her where to
go, and she goes to Elisha, a man not only who knew her husband, but of kindred
experiences and sympathies. See how Elisha helps this widow.
1. Promptly. He did not want arguments or testimonials. He helped
her.
2. Effectively. (Homilist.)
The humble not forgotten
One thing which is prominent in the Word of God is vividly
illustrated in this incident. God remembers His poor people. The Bible is the
poor man’s book. The wealth, honour, pride, power, and glory of this world are
of small account in the sight of Heaven. The widow with her two mites, the jailer
at Philippi, Lydia the purple-seller, Elisha the ploughman, Amos the herdsman,
Peter and John the fishermen, were individuals of no social importance. The
secular historian would have deemed them unworthy of notice. But they were
chosen to play wonderful parts on the field of moral action. In the age when
this poor Shunammite widow was living in obscurity, stupendous struggles were
going on among the carnal empires, of which Herodotus, Xenophon, and Thucydides
give most elaborate records. But of these the Bible takes no notice. In the New
Testament Philippi comes before us in connection with a humble man and an
insignificant woman; while the terrific battle which there turned the world’s
history is ignored; nor are King Philip, the great founder, and Alexander the
Great--brought up at Philippi--so much as alluded to. If we would be great in
the sight of the Lord, we must be found in line with His purposes. It might
have been imagined that Elijah and Elisha would concern themselves only with
the important affairs of great people. But, as a matter of fact, while they had
much to do with kings and nobles and generals and statesmen, yet they had still
more to do with peasants, labourers, poor students, and lone widows. They
belonged to the people. The Gospel is not for any one section of humanity; but
its blessings come flint to the needy, the sad, the afflicted, and the guilty.
(Christian Commonwealth.)
Elisha multiplies the widow’s oil
I. The person for
whom this miracle was wrought. “A certain woman.”
1. She was the subject of accumulated sorrow.
2. She was a woman of devout spirit. It is difficult to over-estimate
the value of having a pious partner, a godly child, or a faithful companion;
but how important it is that we ourselves axe holy, We may gather from this
incident the following thoughts concerning this woman.
II. The manner in
which this miracle was performed. God was this widow’s Helper. This is in
harmony with His nature. He is loving, tender, faithful, and full of
compassion. “A Father of the fatherless” (Psalms 68:5).
1. God took advantage of her extremity. Often “man’s extremity is
God’s opportunity.” God interposed just when this woman’s sorrow was the
heaviest, and when her outlook was the darkest. How often He deals with His
children in like manner now.
2. Her faith was tested by the means employed. This woman’s
deliverance was effected in a short time and in a strange way.
III. The attributes
of the Divine character which this miracle exhibits. This miracle exhibits--
1. The Divine law of righteousness. “Go, sell the oil, and pay thy
debt.” The Divine law is, “Owe no man anything but love.” We are to be just in
our material, social, and commercial relationships.
2. The rich resources of Divine wisdom. The promises which God has
made concerning the deliverance of His children in seasons of trial are
abundant, simple, precious: “Call upon Me” (Psalms 50:15). “When thou” (Isaiah 43:2). In behalf of His children,
God has brought water from a rock, made a path through the sea, etc.
3. The greatness of Divine mercy. “Live thou and thy children of the
rest.” Enough to satisfy the creditor, and some to spare. How great is God’s
mercy. It is higher than the heavens. Conclusion. Let us be faithful,
submissive, and heroic when duty leads us into trial Many a cloudy morning has
turned into a fine day. We all have trials; but what are our heaviest trials
compared to those this woman endured? We may have the same Friend and Helper.
If we trust in Him, our sorrow shall be turned into joy. (John Wileman.)
Christ anticipated
The way in which Elisha addresses himself to the circumstances of
the case is very significant of the method of Jesus Christ. Elisha asked the
woman, “What shall I do for thee?” Jesus often asked the same question of those
who came to Him for healing or relief--“What wilt thou that I shall do unto
thee?” Thus the petitioner is made a party to the case in no merely nominal sense, but in the
sense of acquiring distinct responsibility of suggestion or advice. No doubt the prophet
knew what the widow wanted, yet a good purpose was to be gained in causing her
to state her case in her own words. This is how God Himself proceeds in the
matter of our own prayers. Our heavenly Father knoweth what things we have need
of before we ask Him; yet it has pleased Him to make it part of our education to
allow us to state our own necessities and argue our own pleas, leaving Him to
be sole judge when the case is
laid before Him. Elisha asked another question which Jesus Christ also put on some occasions.
Elisha said, “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?” Jesus Christ asked the
disciples what bread they had before He proceeded to satisfy the hunger of the
multitude. It is God’s plan to start with what we have. So we have certain
preliminary duties to attend to; as, for example, finding out the whole of our
resources, placing these at the disposal of the Master, beginning with a little
as if it were a great amount, and gradually proceeding until we ourselves are
surprised by the largeness and completeness of the miracle. Now Elisha proceeds
to his work:--“Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty
vessels.” This would have committed him to some degree of miraculous
interposition, but this was not all he said; he added to his instructions,
“Borrow not a few” (verse 3). In Psalms 81:10, we read, “Open thy mouth
wide, and I will fill it.” It is God’s joy, if we may so put it, to give large
answers to the requests of men. Said Christ, “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in
My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” Not a partial
joy, and not the beginning of a joy, but a complete, overflowing, redundant
joy. It was the vessels that were exhausted, not the hand of God that was
emptied. A notable lesson this, that it is never God who fails but always man
who comes to the end of his capacity. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The widow’s pot of oil and the empty vessels
There are three or four significant utterances here which I wish
to speak of.
1. The woman’s great need. Every sinner is in debt. We have broken
the law of God and our debt is greater than we can ever pay. There is no one to
pay the debt for us among our fellow-men. We must have a redeemer, and Jesus
Christ is the only name given under heaven or among men who has the spiritual
wealth and the infinite love to redeem us, and He comes and asks us, as Elisha
asked this poor widow, “What shall I do for thee?” What are you going to say to
Jesus who is asking you that question? Will you say to Him, “Oh, I think you can
do nothing for me now. I will go on awhile in my sins; I will think about it
awhile longer; I will wear the handcuffs of evil habit and drag the
ball-and-chain of sinful appetites a while longer; perhaps some time I will let
you do something for me?” Can you imagine the poor widow answering Elisha like
that? Can you dream of her saying to Elisha, “Oh, I think I will not have you
do anything now; I will let the boys be slaves awhile; I will go on in my
misery and my poverty. Perhaps after they have slaved it for a time, and I have
starved awhile, I will let you do something for me?” Would you not say that
that was infinite folly? And it is the part of wisdom for you to say, when
Jesus asks what He can do for you, “Lord Jesus, redeem me from my sins. Save my
soul. Do whatever you can do to lift me out of my sinful condition into
goodness and peace.”
2. Elisha says to this widow, “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?”
That is in harmony with the way God always brings blessings to His children. So
God deals with us. He will not waste anything that we already have. He will
take into account whatever there is of good in us. While we have absolutely
nothing in us which, taken by itself, can save us, yet every fraction of good
teaching that we have received from our parents, every point of good discipline
that has come to us in the stress of life, everything that is good in us, if it
be so small as only to be compared to a widow’s pot of oil, or a little lad’s
lunch of five loaves and two fishes, God will not throw away, or fail to take
into account, but He will make all these a blessing to our souls if we give our
hearts to Him.
3. Another very important message is to be found in the empty
vessels. Many fail of salvation because they have no empty vessels. Their vessels
are all full of their own self-righteousness, something that is utterly useless
to redeem from the bondage of sin, but that shuts out the grace of God from the
heart. When the publican and the Pharisee went up into the temple to pray, the
Pharisee had no empty vessels with him. We must all come with the same humility
of heart, with the same vessels emptied of all self, and throw ourselves on the
mercy of God. There is no caste or aristocracy or social rank in sin; every sinner in the
world, rich or poor, high or low, must come with supreme self-surrender at the
foot of the Cross if he would find salvation. When the Duke of Kent, the father
of Queen Victoria, was told by his physician that he could not live long, he
was anxious about his soul. His physician, who was an old friend, endeavoured
to soothe his mind by referring to his high respectability and his
distinguished situation, but the Duke stopped him short by saying, “No;
remember if I am to be saved, it is not as a prince, but as a sinner.” (L. A.
Banks, D. D.)
Verse 3
Empty vessels: borrow not a few.
The filling of empty vessels
The best of men may die in poverty. Here is the widow of a prophet
left in destitution. We must not hastily censure those who leave their families
unprovided for. Circumstances may render it impossible to do more than supply
the pressing wants of the hour. This sorrowing widow went to God in her
trouble, but through the mediation of the prophet. So we should go to Christ.
It is well to tell friends, but never fail to tell Rim who is the best friend.
God was pleased to ordain by His servant a way of escape for the poor woman. It
is the rule of God’s providence that His children should cry to Him in the day
of trouble, and that He
should be gracious to them and deliver them. Yet the Lord allowed His handmaid
to be very sorely pressed. The Lord does not promise to rescue us in our time,
or to save us from waiting; wherefore I say to you whose turn seems to come
last, be strong to wait. Waiting in faith is a high form of worship, which in
some respects excels the adoration of the shining ones above. But the way in
which this woman was delivered was one which proved and exercised her faith.
I. In reference to
the grace that is in Christ Jesus. All the miracle required was empty vessels.
Full vessels were of no use. Righteous self is a greater hindrance than sinful
self. All our Saviour wants of us is our need of being saved, and our
acceptance of His salvation. The oil flowed as long as any empty vessel could
be brought. How many empty souls are there here? Christ will continue to save
sinners just as long as there are needy sinners to save.
II. In reference to
answers to prayer. My conviction is that we do not pray enough; that is, do not
ask enough of God. “Borrow empty vessels”--note the next word, “borrow not a
few.” It was needful to urge her to large things. You and I have more to do
with the measurement of our mercies than we think. Some have never brought
their sins and prevalent temptations to God. Why carry your sin, your need,
your care? These cares are all different sets of empty vessels for the grace of
God to fill. We ought to treat others as if they were empty vessels for us to
use, so as to glorify God in their salvation. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God wants our emptiness
Do you see that beautiful tree in the orchard loaded with fruit?
It is a pear tree. From top to bottom it is covered with fruit. Some boughs are
ready to break with the luscious burden. As I listen to the creaking boughs, I
can hear the tree speak. It says. “Baskets, baskets, baskets, bring baskets.”
Now, then, who has a basket? “I have got one,” says yonder friend, “but it is
of no use, for there is nothing in it.” Bring it here, man; that is the very kind of basket
the tree wants. A person over there says, “Oh, I have a basket, a splendid
basket. It is just the thing. It is full from top to bottom.” You may keep your
basket to yourself. It is of no use to my loaded tree . . . What is wanted by
the Lord Jesus is an empty soul to receive out of the fulness God has treasured
up in Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 6
And it came to pass when the vessels were full.
God’s way of giving
This incident is rich in suggestiveness. It may be employed to
illustrate the rapid changes of human fortune; the crushing weight of
cumulative trials; or the practical sympathy of a true prophet who is never so
faithful in his calling as when he visits the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and exerts his influence in their behalf. There are, however,
considerations suggested by the particular method adopted in this case which
throw light upon God’s way of giving, and indicate, not obscurely, the terms
upon which we, who have no miraculous interpositions to expect, may become
recipients of His continual bounty.
I. In the
communication of his grace the most high makes the confession of our
helplessness the condition of his help. The sense of need must be awakened
before He will bestow the required aid. “Tell me what hast thou in the house?”
was a question
intended to fathom the depth of the woman’s poverty. Until this insufficiency
of all human resource has been felt and acknowledged, the Divine assistance
will not be sought and cannot be given. The Saviour in His miracles of mercy
made it apparent that He did not interpose until all human help had failed.
When He was about to feed the multitudes He asked the disciples, “How many
loaves have ye?” and measured the limits of ordinary means before drawing on
the infinite capabilities of Omnipotence. The trembling sufferer who sought to
touch His robe had tried all other measures before resorting to Him. The
disappointed fishermen were obliged to admit that they had taken nothing ere
they could be gladdened by a great success. So is it still. The choice gifts of
God are withholden from the self-complacent and lavished on the needy--“He hath
filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He hath sent empty away.”
II. He enriches us
by the multiplication and increase of previous gifts. It would be equally easy
for Him to work without means, but He chooses rather to work by them. “What
hast thou in the house?” is something more than a gauge of poverty; it is a
wholesome reminder that in the poorest lot there is some remnant of former
possessions, some basis for present hope. The multitudes whom our Lord
miraculously fed might have been relieved by the creation of an altogether new
and strange provision; but He used such common food as was available, and then
multiplied the stock till every need was met. The persuasion of our
helplessness does not warrant our neglect of such opportunities and the use of
such talent as we have. Too often we covet fresh interpositions of Divine power
when we have at our command previous gifts whose energy is unexhausted, and
former experiences which may fitly stimulate activity and encourage hope. Moses
held in his own hand the simple instrument whereby with God’s blessing he would
compel attention to his words (Exodus 4:2); and if not in our hands, we
may have in our house that which, like the widow’s oil, shall be multiplied by
the bounty of Him.
III. He measures his
bestowments by our capacity to receive. While there is an empty vessel to hold
it, His grace continues to flow. He entrusts talents “to every man according to
his several ability.” A preoccupied heart has no room for the Saviour. He is
“gladly received” when He is eagerly waited for (Luke 8:40). In the dispensation of
spiritual gifts the same rule obtains--“He giveth more grace,” and again more,
according to the ardour of our wishes and the measure of our preparedness to
receive His favours. Still as of old--“He satisfies the longing soul, and fills
the hungry soul with goodness” (Psalms 107:9), drawing out our desires,
and at the same time enlarging our capacity.
IV. He delights to
exceed the requirements of present need. Not content to give enough to satisfy
the clamorous creditor, He supplied a store for the maintenance of the widow
and her sons for some time to come. The fragments left after each feast in the
wilderness far exceeded the original provision. This generosity is a
conspicuous feature in all the communications of grace. David was overwhelmed
at the bounty of which he was the recipient, yet what he held in possession was
small compared with future blessings secured to him by promise (2 Samuel 7:19). Jacob, in like
manner, after giving up all hope that he should ever see Joseph again, was
constrained to acknowledge that God had far exceeded his most sanguine
expectation. “I had not thought to see thy face; and lo, God hath showed me
also thy seed” (Genesis 48:11). (Robert Lewis.)
When the oil flows
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. God 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 anybody, 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. 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 coast, 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 God in the measure in which you
desire Him.
II. Another vessel
that we have to bring is the vessel of out expectancy. Desire is one thing;
confident anticipation 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 anticipation of recovery. If a man expects to die when he takes to
Iris 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. All these illustrations fall
far beneath the Christian aspect of the thought that what we expect from God we
get. 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.”
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.” Desire, Anticipation, and Obedience. These
three must never be separated if we are to receive the gift of Himself, which
God 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. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The oil and the vessels
So long as there were vessels to be filled the miraculous flow of
the oil continued, and it only ceased when there were no more jars to contain
it.
I. This is true in
reference to our providential circumstances. So long as we have needs we shall
have supplies, and we shall find our necessities exhausted far sooner than the
Divine bounty.
II. The same
principle holds good with regard to the bestowal of saving grace. In a
congregation the Gospel is as the pot of oil, and those who receive from it are needy
souls, desirous of the grace of God. Of these we have always too few in our
assemblies.
III. The like is
true with regard to other spiritual blessings. All fulness dwells in our Lord
Jesus, and, as He needs not grace for Himself, it is stored up in Him, that He
may give it out to believers. The saints with one voice confess “Of His fulness
have all we received.”
IV. The same truth
will be proved in reference to the purposes of grace in the world. The fulness
of Divine grace will be equal to every demand upon it till the end of time. Men
will never be saved apart from the atonement of our Lord Jesus, but never will
that ransom price be found insufficient to redeem the souls that trust in the
Redeemer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Spirit of God supplying the need of the Church
The multiplication of the oil ran parallel with the demand of each
successive vessel. As the sons brought them they became full. Whatever their
size or shape, they were carried back, and set down, filled to the brim. When
all were quite full, she bitterly lamented that there was not a vessel more. It
is so that the Spirit of God has been supplying the need of the Church from
that moment in the upper room, when the risen Lord began to pour Him forth.
Vessel after vessel has been brought; men like Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine,
Luther, John Knox have been filled, and still the stream of oil and grace of
spiritual plenitude and anointing is being poured forth. (E. B. Meyer.)
Verses 8-17
And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunem.
Hospitality
In these verses there are two very interesting subjects, and of a
practical character.
I. Hospitality
rightfully employed. The object of the hospitality was Elisha the prophet, and
the author of it is called here a “great woman.” Observe,
1. The hospitality was very hearty. “She constrained him to eat
bread.”
2. The hospitality was shown to a poor but a godly man. Genuine
hospitality looks out for the poor and deserving, and constrains them to enter
and be fed.
3. The hospitality involved considerable trouble and expense.
II. Hospitality
nobly rewarded. Elisha, instead of being insensible to the great generosity of
his hostess, glowed with gratitude that prompted a strong desire to make some
return. His offer,
1. Implies his consciousness of great power with man. Elisha’s offer,
2. Implies his consciousness of his power with God. (Homilist.)
A great woman.
A great woman
The monotony of a woman’s life is, perhaps, its greatest trial.
Such a round of daily trivialities occupy her attention that, even though heart
and conscience may be right, the body and nerves not unfrequently suffer. The
“strain” and “over-pressure” from which her husband often suffers are not
supposed in any way to affect her: his life is in the rush, but hers in the
calm; he is mixing with men, and taking part in all the movements of the day,
while she is in the nursery and the home-place, with her easy duties and
sheltered position. Yet while we have the story of the lady of Shunem before
us, we cannot but see how possible it is for the life of a woman to be great even
in the midst of very contracted interests. This woman lived at home with her
husband, and Was occupied with household cares; but she never lost her own
individuality, never allowed her little duties to make her little also; she
stands before us as a great woman, indeed--greater in character than any
circumstances or position could possibly have made her.
1. As we read the narrative several points reveal her true greatness,
and stand out as examples to us all; and the first is her kindness. She cared
for others. In our modern speech this expression means a great deal. “Do you
care for him?” is a question full of significance; for when a woman loves she
does care very much indeed. And this woman had a kind heart, whose sympathies
centred at home, but reached out to all who needed her care; and this heart,
which royally ruled her whole being, had servants in eyes that were quick to
see and hands that were swift to bless.
2. The lady of Shunem exhibited, also, that quality of greatness
which is submission. Much nonsense is talked about the equality of the sexes;
but no one can read this history without suspecting that, in this case--a rare
one, no doubt--the woman was more than the equal of the man. Had she been
conscious of the fact it would have gone far to change it; but she was not.
3. The loyalty of the Shunammite was another proof of her greatness.
That she had everything she wanted, and nothing to wish for, we cannot imagine.
Serenely contented as she might have been, she would have been less, or more,
than a woman if greater possessions and a higher position would not in
themselves have been acceptable. But she counted nothing a rise in life that
took her away from her own people.
4. The marvellous self-control of the Shunammite was another element
in her greatness. How quiet she was during all the tests that came to her!
5. The self-control of the Shunammite was no more marked than the
great force of character which in this case, as in every other, accompanied it.
The strong individuality of this truly great woman shone out in all the
circumstances of her life. She ‘had that subtle power, with which only a few
people are trusted, but which, in man or woman, is invariably felt by others.
Her mastery of self gave her in great part the mastery over her fellows; but
her natural abilities were great, and no littlenesses spoiled them. She seems
always to have had her own way; but that was because her way was the best.
6. It was godliness, most of all, that made the woman of Shunem
great. It is true that we are not told that she feared God; but we can see that
written between the lines of everything that is said respecting her. It was
because Elisha was “a holy man of God” that the hospitality of her home was
offered to him. It was the sustaining power of religion that made her strong to
declare, “It is well.” (Marianne Farningham.)
A great woman
The hotel of our time had no counterpart in any entertainment of
olden time. The vast majority of travellers must be entertained at private
abode. She was great in her hospitalities. Uncivilised and barbarous nations
have this virtue. Jupiter had the surname of the Hospitable, and he was said
especially to avenge the wrongs of strangers. Homer extolled it in his verse.
The Arabs are punctilious on this subject) and amongst some of their tribes it
is not until the ninth day of tarrying that the occupant has a right to ask his
guest, “Who, and whence art thou?” If this virtue is so honored among
barbarians, how ought it to be honoured among those of us who believe in the
Bible, which commands us to use hospitality one toward another without
grudging? Most beautiful is this grace of hospitality when shown in the house
of God. A good man travelling in the far West, in the wilderness, was overtaken
by night and storm, and he put in at a cabin. He saw firearms along the beams
of the cabin, and he felt alarmed. He did not know but that he had fallen into
a den of thieves. He sat there greatly perturbed. After awhile the man of the
house came home with a gun on his shoulder, and set it down in a corner. The
stranger was still more alarmed. After awhile the man of the house whispered
with his wife, and the stranger thought his destruction was being planned. Then
the man of the house came forward and said to the stranger: “Stranger, we are a
rough and rude people out here, and we work hard for a living. We make our
living by hunting, and when we come to the nightfall we are tired and we are
apt to go to bed early, and before retiring we are always in the habit of
reading a chapter from the Word of God and making a prayer. If you don’t like
such things, if you will just step outside the door until we get through, I’ll
be greatly obliged to you.” Of course the stranger tarried in the room, and the
old hunter took hold of the horns of the altar and brought down the blessing of
God upon his household and upon the stranger within their gates. Rude but
glorious Christian hospitality!
II. This woman was
great in her kindness toward God’s messenger. Elisha may have been a stranger
in that household, but as she found out he had come on a Divine mission, he was
cordially welcomed.
III. This woman was
great in her behaviour under trouble. Her only son had died on her lap. A very
bright light went out in that household. The sacred writer puts it very tersely
when he says, “He sat on her knee until noon, and then he died.” Yet the writer
goes on to say that she exclaimed, “It is well!” Great in prosperity, this
woman was great in trouble. Where are the feet that have not been blistered on
the hot sands of this great Sahara? Where are the shoulders that have not bent
under the burden of grief? Where is the ship sailing over glassy sea that has
not after awhile been caught in a cyclone? Where is the garden of earthly
comfort, but trouble hath hitched up its fiery and panting team and gone
through it with burning ploughshare of disaster? Under the pelting of ages of
suffering the great heart of the world has burst with woe.
IV. This woman was
great in her application to domestic duties. Every picture is a home picture,
whether she is entertaining an Elisha, or whether she is giving careful
attention to her sick boy, or whether she is appealing for the restoration of
her property. Every picture in her case is a home picture. Those are not
disciples of this Shunammite woman who, going out to attend to outside
charities, neglect the duty of home--the duty of wife, of mother, of daughter.
No faithfulness in public benefaction can ever atone for domestic negligence.
There has been many a mother who, by indefatigable toll, has reared a large
family of children, equipping them for the duties of life with good manners and
large intelligence and Christian principle, starting them out, who has done
more for the world than many a woman whose name has sounded through all the lands
and through the centuries. I remember, when Kossuth was in this country, there
were some ladies who got honourable reputations by presenting him very
gracefully with bouquets of flowers on public occasions; but what was all that
compared with the work of the plain Hungarian mother who gave to truth, and
civilisation, and the cause of universal liberty, a Kossuth? Yes; this woman of
my text was great in her domesticity. When this prophet wanted to reward her
for her hospitality by asking some preferment from the king, what did she say?
She declined it. She said, “I dwell among my own people”--as much as to say, “I
am satisfied with my lot; all I want is my family and my friends around me--I
dwell among my own people.” Oh, what a rebuke to the strife for precedence in
all ages!
V. This woman was
great in her piety. She had faith in God, and she was not ashamed to talk about
it before idolators. Ah! woman will never appreciate what she owes to
Christianity until she knows and sees the degradation of her sex under Paganism
and Mohammedanism. Her very birth considered a misfortune. Sold like cattle on
the shambles. Slave of all work, and, at last, her body fuel for the funeral
pyre of her husband. Above the shriek of the fire worshippers in India, and above the rumbling of
the Juggernauts, I hear the million-voiced groan of wronged, insulted,
broken-hearted, down-trodden woman. Her tears have fallen in the Nile and
Tigris, the La Plata, and on the steppes of Tartary. She has been dishonoured
in Turkish garden and Persian palace and Spanish Alhambra. Her little ones have
been sacrificed in the Indus and the Ganges. There is not a groan, or a
dungeon, or an island, or a mountain, or a river, or a lake, or a sea, but
could tell a story of the outrages heaped upon her. But thanks to God this
glorious Christianity comes forth, and all the chains of this vassalage are
snapped, and she rises from ignominy to exalted sphere and becomes the
affectionate daughter, the gentle wife, the honoured mother, the useful Christian.
Oh, if Christianity has done so much for woman, surely woman will become its
most ardent advocate and its sublimest exemplification! (T. De Witt Talmage,
D. D.)
Verse 10
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall.
The little chamber on the wall
I. How did this
little chamber come to be? It originated in the quick and clear perception of
this woman of Shunem. “I perceive,” she said to her husband, “that this is an
holy man of God, which passeth by us continually.” I don’t know that any very
unusual faculty of perception was necessary for this. A much inferior person
might have made the same observation as she made, but few would have made it in
the same sense, and with the same fulness of meaning. What is said in one of
the psalms, of the gods of the heathen, is true of too many human creatures. “They have
eyes, but they see not.” They see the mere forms of things but not the
inhering, underlying substance. They see the outward movements of things, but
not the inward significance. And suppose different people looking out of the
window; will they all see alike? We know they will not. Why, there are some
people who could see the same persons pass for year after year and never make
an inference. “They have their own reasons, no doubt, for passing and
repassing--what is that to me?” There are other people who could not see them
pass many days without having certain conjectures about them, and beginning to
take an interest in them; we mean not the barren interest of a mere curiosity,
which is common enough, but the deeper concern of the heart. “That little boy
is in a situation, for he passes the window daily at the same time. This woman
who is going by is paler day by day, and wears sorrow on her face. Perhaps she
has some great home care. Or she is brighter and happier, things are better
with her.” The “perceiving,” the observing eye, is the gate of knowledge, the
quickener of sympathy, the informer to benevolence. It brings before the
benevolent heart the material on which it can act. It is at least the hewer of
wood and the drawer of water to nobler faculties than itself.
II. Immediate
action is taken. This action gives expression to the good impulse which
attended so very closely on the quick perception. “Let us make a little
chamber.” There is a pleasure in seeing, simply as seeing. It is good to know men and
things somewhat correctly; but the higher pleasure is later born, and is always
associated with doing and with duty. And these two pleasures God hath joined
together, although men are always rending them asunder. And so men, looking at
the same things, take different courses. From the same point apparently they
diverge--one along the pathway of duty and activity and helpfulness; and
another by a shorter circuit, back again idly to the post of observation.
“Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it.” Make your little chamber,
whatever it be, for helpfulness to others, as long as help can be given in that
way.
III. Do not think of
these duties of helpfulness as involving great exertion, or very considerable
expenditure of time or money. It is not so. It is even in some cases very much
the reverse, as in this case of the good Shunammite. Her gift, after all, is
very simple, and to herself and her husband very inexpensive. And yet I think I
see something on the walls--one, two, three inscriptions at any rate are
there--only a single word in each. Now we don’t need this famous room for rest
or for writing, but we do need it very much for some higher purpose. Let us
stay in it for a very little time until we can read together these
inscriptions.
1. Considerateness is the first. There was evidently a thoughtful and respectful
considerateness in the way this gift was offered to Elisha. Another word surely
we can see in this little room, if we look--the word,
2. Simplicity. Nothing, in its way, could be simpler than this room
and its furniture. “A bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick.” Of
course this chamber was only for a passing traveller and not for a permanent
resident. But how easy it is to make a grand display for a passing traveller!
Monarchs have been known before now to impoverish some noble families by
accepting from them a munificence of hospitality beyond their means. And should
we be wrong in supposing that the simplicity of this one chamber is, after all,
but the expression of a simplicity that reigned through the whole house of this
good woman in Shunem? “How many things,” said Socrates, “there are which I do
not need!” “How many things” there are, which, although we do need them a
little, we can yet do very well without! Here is a bed, and that meets the need
of almost one-third of our whole time here on earth. Here is a table, and that
meets the need--for intellectual persons, for commercial men, and for some
workmen--of another third of our time. If I am neither sleeping, working, nor
eating, and yet am detained in-doors, I cannot stand all day; well, here is a
stool to sit on and think, or think of nothing. Year in and out, there are
twelve hours of dark to pass through,--well, here is a candlestick, or lamp,
with oil in it--light it, and let it burn. And so we are at the end of the
inventory! Beautiful simplicity! There is just one word more I want you to
decipher, and that is the word,
3. Contentment. The whole history of this chamber shows that an
unusual contentment reigned in this home. If the inmates had been dissatisfied or
ambitious, here is a fine opportunity to advance themselves. The very ladder of
elevation comes within their reach. A word from the prophet would set them almost anywhere.
(A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Verse 13
I dwell among mine own people.
Influence
We contend
that there is not a man, who does not dwell among a host of persons who are
under his influence, who listen to his voice, and echo his thoughts. None are
so mean and powerless as not to shape and bend in some way the mind of an
acquaintance. None stand perfectly alone. The distant planets which are jostled
in their orbits by the power of another sphere, are but the type of the moral
universe, in which one star not only differeth from another star in glory, but
kindles a thousand sympathies, and lights a thousand reflective fires.
I. It is the
eminent prerogative of the mother to be the educator of the family; a truth
which is alike in the expression “our mother tongue” and “our mother country.”
The arrangements of modern society and commerce separate the father from his
family during a great part of the clay; he dwells among other people, and
exercises over them another sort of influence. It is the mother who is the
keeper at home, and with boundless, indefatigable tenderness moulds the first lispings,
and extracts the first thoughts of her young children. They imitate her manners
and pronunciation; and she is the interpreter of their self-invented or
half-formed words with the world.
II. It may remind
mothers of their responsibilities to state, that when a boy escapes from the
nursery and enters upon his school career, he becomes in turn an educator, and
dwells among his own people. Not to speak of that technical arrangement in some
schools, which sets boys to teach boys, there is a constant play of mutual
influence, wherever youths congregate. An eminent teacher, whose mantle seems
to have fallen upon many of his successors, used to exclaim:--“If my sixth form
desert me, all our success is at
an end!” Boys at school are rarely unemphatic and harmless; they do then, as
they will do hereafter, the work of God or of Satan.
III. The Hebrew
Rabbins used to maintain that they learned much at school, but more from their
contemporaries in active life. The most valuable part of our knowledge is
self-acquired or obtained by the collision and play of our minds among those of
our equals. Our educating power, then, expands with our years, and we teach
more truly and successfully, if we are Christians indeed, the older we grow. (T.
Jackson, M. A.)
The sphere in which we move
You cannot grow grapes on the north-east wall of a poor cottage,
nor English pine-apples in the bare exercise-yard of a workhouse. And you
cannot grow noble in the society of those who never feel a noble sentiment or
give birth to a fine thought; whose talk is of sport, or intrigue, or cattle,
or money; whose one ambition is fine company, and whose god is gold. The soul
of the large nature must have its suitable sphere, or like the lark that lives
only with sparrows it becomes dumb.
On a contented mind
1. The temper of this worthy Shunammite stands in opposition to that
restless and discontented spirit which so often sets men at variance with their
condition in the world, makes them look with contempt on that state of life and
sphere of action which Providence has allotted them; and encouraging every real
or supposed discouragement to prey upon their minds, makes them pine for some
change of fortune. It is proper, however, to observe, that this moderation of
spirit is not inconsistent with our having a sense of what is uneasy or
distressing in our lot, and endeavouring, by fair means, to render our
condition more agreeable. Entire apathy, or passive indifference to all the
circumstances of our external state, is required by no precept of religion.
What a virtuous degree of contentment requires and supposes, is that, with a
mind free from rejoining anxiety, we make the best of our condition, whatever
it is; enjoying such good things as God is pleased to bestow upon us, with a
thankful and cheerful heart; without envy at those who appear more prosperous
than us; without any attempt to alter our condition by unfair means; and
without any murmuring against the Providence of Heaven.
2. But if this acquiescence in our condition is to be considered as belonging
to that contentment which religion requires, what becomes, it will be said, of
that laudable ambition, which has prompted many boldly to aspire with honour
and success far beyond their original state of life?--I readily admit, that on
some among the sons of men, such high talents are bestowed, as mark them out by
the hand of God for superior elevation; by rising to which, many, both in
ancient and modern times, have had the opportunity of distinguishing themselves as
benefactors to their country and to mankind. But these are only a few scattered
stars, that shine in a wide hemisphere; such rare examples afford no model for
general conduct.
I. Discontent
carries in its nature much guilt and sin. A contented temper, we are apt to
say, is a great happiness to those who have it; and a discontented one, we call
an unlucky turn of mind; as if we were speaking of a good or bad constitution
of body, of something that depended not at all on ourselves, but was merely the
gift of Nature. Ought this to be the sentiment, either of a reasonable man, or
a Christian; of one who knows himself to be endowed with powers for governing
his own spirit, or who believes in God and in a world to come? Besides impiety,
discontent carries along with it, as its inseparable concomitants, several
other sinful passions. It implies pride; or an unreasonable estimation of our
own merit, in comparison with others. It implies covetousness, or an inordinate
desire for the advantages of external fortune, as the only real goods. It implies,
and always engenders, envy, or ill-nature and hatred towards all whom we see
rising above us in the world.
II. As this
disposition infers much sin, so it argues great folly, and involves men in many
miseries. If there be any first principle of wisdom, it is undoubtedly this:
the distresses that are removable, endeavour to remove: those which cannot be
removed, bear with as little disquiet as you can: in every situation of life
there are comforts; find them out, and enjoy them. But this maxim, in all its parts,
is disregarded by the man of discontent. He is employed in aggravating his own
evils; while he neglects all his own comforts. Let it be further considered, in
order to show the folly of a discontented temper, that the more it is indulged,
it disqualifies you the more from being free from the grounds of your
discontent. First, you have reason to apprehend, that it will turn the
displeasure of God against you, and make Him your enemy. Next, by your spleen
and discontent, you are certain of bringing yourself into variance with the
world as well as with God. Such a temper is likely to create enemies; it can
procure you no friends. Such being the mischiefs, such the guilt and the folly
of indulging a discontented spirit, I shall now suggest some considerations
which may assist us in checking it, and in reconciling our minds to the state
in which it has pleased Providence to place us. Let us, for this purpose,
attend to three great objects: to God, to ourselves, and to the world around
us.
1. Let us speak of God, of His perfections, and government of the
world; from which, to every person of reflection who believes in God at all,
there cannot but arise some cure to the discontents and griefs of the heart.
For, had it been left to ourselves what to devise or wish, in order to secure
peace to us in every state, what could we have invented so effectual as the
assurance of being under the government of an Almighty Ruler, whose conduct to
His creatures can have no other object but their good and welfare. Above all, and
independent of all, He can have no temptation to injustice or partiality.
Neither jealousy nor envy can dwell with the Supreme Being. He is a rival to
none, He is an enemy to none, except to such as, by rebellion against His laws, seek enmity
with Him. He is equally above envying the greatest, or despising the meanest of
His subjects.
2. In order to correct discontent, let us attend to ourselves and our
own state. Let us consider two things there: how little we deserve, and how
much we enjoy.
3. Consider the state of the world around you. (H. Blair, D.
D.)
And when the child was grown.
The empty home
The Bible is the most perfectly natural and human book in the
world. It deals not with philosophies and theories, but with real human life.
The story of the Shunammite and her child is one of the most touching episodes
in Scripture, and also one of the most beautiful and finished narratives in the
whole range of literature.
1. We are introduced to “a
great woman,” a lady of great wealth and influence. She dwelt in Shunem, in the
plain of Jezreel, the richest and most fertile tract of land in Palestine. She
was a woman of keen spiritual perception; and as Elisha passed to and fro on
his Master’s business, she recognised him to be a man of true piety. “I
perceive,” she said, “that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us
continually.” There is an Eastern proverb, “A myrtle in the desert will be a myrtle
still.” So Elisha was consistent in whatever circumstances he might find
himself.
2. She was also a woman of
large-hearted generosity.
3. But this great woman was
hiding in her heart a great disappointment: she had no child to cherish as her
very own.
4. But this great woman was
to pass through a great sorrow.
5. But this great woman
overcame by means of great trust in God. (F. S. Webster, M. A.)
Concerning accidents
The remark was recently made by an earnest and thoughtful
believer: “There is no catastrophe that can possibly come to a living
Christian.” The tidings had just reached him of a serious accident--as we are
accustomed to say--that had befallen a dear relative, known not less for piety
than for marked amiability of disposition. This was the sad occasion that
suggested the above remark. The words were spoken tenderly, evincing no lack of
heartfelt sympathy, showing no indisposition to administer comfort in the most
substantial manner. While we stood silently contemplating the situation, this
Christian friend added: “There is no catastrophe but the loss of faith.” Very
true. To abandon one’s reliance upon the Heavenly Father’s care is incalculable
loss. The whole universe, without faith inspiring the soul, would, indeed,
become a dreary chaos, a world distorted, meaningless. Laying aside all
discussion of extraordinary events which befall those who are in rebellion
against God--how far these events are under the supervision of that Almighty
power which is so despised, consider that no catastrophe can possibly come to
the living Christian. He is not exposed to accident in any true sense. The
severest revulsions may come; the sudden visitation of physical illness may
change every earthly plan; even the throne upon which reason sits may be
demolished; but not one nor all of these combined can touch that sacred
relationship over which infinite love and power exercise perpetual
guardianship. A living Christian has a living union with the Divine nature,
enjoys a residence in the realm of faith, is upheld every moment by an arm that
wearies not beneath the burden of universe. The child of our King--a victim of
chance? Never! Sooner the covenants of God will be broken than this could be.
Let every loyal heart rejoice in the absolute perpetuity of relationship with
his Father, and in the consequent pledge on His part of unremitting care.
A day in a mother’s life
There are times when everything goes on smoothly, and one day is
like another. Again, there are times when changes come, and whole years of joy
or sorrow may be concentrated into a single day. So it was with the household
at Shunem. It was a hallowed day when Elisha first entered the house (2 Kings 4:8). It was a joyous day
when a man-child was born (2 Kings 4:17). But most memorable of
all was that day when the only son was lost and found; was dead, and received
back to life again (verse 18-37).
I. Morning joys. It is the
harvest time. “Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour until the
evening” (Psalms 104:22-23).
1. We see mother and child at
home. She is called “a great woman” (2 Kings 4:8). This implies not
greatness in wealth, but in character (Proverbs 12:26; Proverbs 31:10-31). Doubtless she would
show her “greatness,” not only in her management of household affairs, but in
her care of her child.
2. The next scene is in the
harvest field. Here, too, all is joy. The father is glad at sight of his boy.
His coming is not the result of command, but of his own choice. There is such
love between him and his father as makes their meeting and intercourse a joy to
both. They are happy together.
II. Darkness, at noon. How
soon may the brightest sky be clouded. How quickly may the happiest home be
darkened by sorrow and the shadow of death. “We know not what a day may bring
forth.”
1. It is a cry raised in the
midst of innocent labour. The work going on is good and not evil. It is in
accordance with God’s ordinance. It is wholesome and pure. Old and young may
join in it freely. Such, at least, it was in the olden time, when the
simplicity and purity of pastoral life were still known in the land (Ruth 2:4). And yet here death
comes. There is no place safe. There is no people or work with immunity from
trouble.
2. The cry brought woe to the
father’s heart. His son’s voice was sweet to his ear.
3. Picture the sad
home-coming. “Carry him.” The lad obeys. What a change. He came out full of
life and frolic; he is borne back helpless as a clod. Alas, how dreadful the
awakening! (2 Kings 4:20). Mark her gentleness.
“On her knees”--where often she had dandled him with delight.
III. Light at evening time. All
is not lost, since God liveth. This woman, like her countrywoman of Gospel
times, was great in faith. Therefore, instead of giving way to despair, she
strengthens her heart in God.
1. Mark the preparation. What
promptitude and decision!
2. The long ride to Carmel.
3. The passionate appeal to
the prophet (verses 27-30). Nothing will satisfy her but Elisha.
4. The return and restoration
(verses 32-37).
Hope has sprung up again in her breast. Nothing is too hard for
the Lord. Trials will come. In the darkest hour God can help. Here the child
cries to his father, the father sends to the mother, the mother appeals to the
prophet, and the prophet casts himself on God. So let us cast ourselves on
Christ, our God and Saviour (Isaiah 66:13; John 11:25). (William Forsyth, A.
M.)
Verse
20
He sat on her knees till noon, and then died.
Death in early life
I. Let us inquire what
proportion of mankind die before they arrive to years of maturity.
II. What purposes God may
design to answer by the early death of children. Though there is no reason to
doubt whether God has some wise and good purpose to promote by cutting short
the lives of so many of mankind; yet it is not to be supposed that we can
discover all the reasons which influence the kind Parent of the universe in
bereaving fathers and mothers of their young and lovely children. But some of
His purposes in such dispensations of Providence are plain and obvious.
1. He may intend, by taking
away so many at an early age, to make this appear as a dying world. Though He
has told us in His Word that it is appointed unto all men once to die, and that
dust they are and
unto dust they must return, yet these declarations generally fail of making
mankind realise their frail and mortal state. The eye affects the heart, and
the bare sight of death makes a deeper impression on the minds of the living,
than any human or even Divine declarations concerning it. The frequency of
death seems necessary to keep up a lively sense of it in the minds of dying
creatures. A very dying time we know is always very alarming to the living. And
by so many deaths of the young, God makes it appear to all, that they live in a
dying world and are dying creatures. The frequent instances of mortality, not
only from year to year, but from month to month, and from week to week, make it
appear that death is continually carrying mankind to their long home, and
causing mourners to go about the streets. If it be necessary, then, that the
world should appear as a dying world, what wiser course could God take to
produce this solemn and instructive appearance, than to cut off such a large
proportion of mankind in their earliest days?
2. God may design, by the
great mortality of children, to teach mankind His sovereign right to take away
any temporal favours He has bestowed upon them. They are very apt to consider
their children as their own property, and their own most precious property.
They value them more than all their other earthly enjoyments, and claim a
higher right to them. They possess many things which they do not consider as
their own. They dwell in houses, and cultivate lands which are not their own.
They borrow many comforts and conveniences from one another; but their children
they hold by a stronger claim, and practically deny human or Divine right to
take them away. But they ought to consider, that God has given them these
desirable objects and precious blessings, and therefore that He has an original
and sovereign right to do what He will with His own. This is a matter of so
much importance, that God may, with propriety, take the most effectual method
to display His sovereignty. And we can hardly conceive of any more effectual
way to make mankind see, and feel, and acknowledge His sovereignty, than His
stripping them of those blessings which they are most apt to claim, most apt to
prize, and most reluctant to part with. By going into their families, and
tearing from them the objects which lie nearest to their hearts, He gives them
the most sensible and affecting evidence, that He has a right to dispose of
them and of all they have. The loss of children was the heaviest of Job’s
afflictions, and most effectually bowed his heart in cordial submission to
Divine sovereignty. “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be
the name of the Lord.
3. God may design, by the
death of some little children, to take them away from the evil to come, and
give them cause to adore His sovereign goodness in early and safely conducting
them to His heavenly kingdom. We are told that God sometimes takes away the
godly from the evil to come; and why may He not do the same by some who die in
infancy and childhood?
4. God may design, by the
death of little children, to moderate the affections of their parents towards
them. They are extremely prone to love their children too much. Jacob was too
fond of Joseph and Benjamin. David was too fond of Absalom. Aaron and Eli were
too fond of their sons. And parents in general are too fond of their children.
And sometimes they are partial in their affections, and dote upon some son or
daughter, who has the more promising appearance or talents. Now, God knows the
feelings of parents better than they do themselves, and there is reason to think
that He often takes away some of their darlings, to teach them to moderate
their affections towards them that survive.
5. God may intend, by the
death of children, to prevent parents from being too much engaged to provide
for them in this life. Their great fondness for them often creates a worldly
spirit, and an anxiety to lay up for them rich and large possessions. They are
ready to think that they cannot do too much for them. They give themselves no
rest, but employ their time and exhaust their strength and expose their own
lives, for the sake of putting their children into the most easy and
flourishing situations.
6. God may bereave parents of
some of their children, on purpose to teach them to do their duty to the rest.
So long as parents have high expectations of their children’s living, they are
apt to neglect to prepare them for dying; but when God takes away one or more
of their children, by an early death, then they can hardly fail to realise that
they are all mortal, and may be called out of time into eternity before they
are prepared for the solemn and interesting event; which makes them feel, that
it is of more importance to prepare their children for dying than for living.
7. God may bereave pious
parents of their young and tender offspring, in order to try and purify their
hearts. This seems to have been the primary purpose of God, in taking away for
a time the child of the Shunammites. Every circumstance was directly suited to
try the hearts of those professed friends of God. They were not fond of the
world. They were amiable and exemplary persons, and much engaged in religion,
and warmly attached to its friends. But it is probable that they idolised their
only child. Accordingly, God meant to take away their idol, try their
sincerity, and recall their supreme affections to Himself.
8. Another reason why God
sometimes bereaves parents of their little children, is because He intends to
make their bereavement the means of their own conversion. Such sensible and
severe strokes of Providence have led thoughtless, careless, and prayerless
parents to attend to the things of their everlasting peace.
III. Improvement.
1. If so great a proportion
of mankind die in childhood and youth, as has been stated, then all adult
persons have great reason of gratitude for the preservation of life.
2. If God so often takes away
infants and little children by death, then those parents have peculiar reason
for gratitude to God, who have never suffered a single breach in their young
and rising families.
3. If God so often and so
early takes away children from their parents, then it is of very serious
importance that parents should be truly religions.
4. If God may answer many
wise and benevolent purposes by the death of little children, then those who
are lamenting the sudden and surprising death of their lovely and only child,
ought to be cordially submissive to the bereaving and afflictive hand of God.
5. This subject calls upon
all to inquire whether the bereavements and afflictions they have experienced
have been instructive and beneficial to them. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Influence of a child’s death upon his mother
Princess Alice had just returned from her Italian trip, into which
she had thrown herself with true enjoyment, and was still resting after the
fatigue of the long journey. The two little princes had been playing by her
sofa; Prince Ernest ran into the next room followed by the Princess, and in her
brief absence Prince Fritz fell out of the window upon the stone pavement
below. One moment in the most vivid radiant life and health, the next he lay
senseless and crushed. He died a few hours later in his mother’s arms. In her
agony she sounded, as it were for the first time, the depths of scepticism. She
searched in vain through the various systems of philosophy, but found no
foothold. She did not speak of the transformation that was going on within; but
slowly, silently, and surely faith returned to her, never again ¢o falter. “The
whole edifice of philosophical conclusions which I had built up for myself, I
find to have no foundation whatever--nothing of it is left--it has crumbled
away like dust. What should we be, what would become of us if we had no
faith--if we did not believe that there is a God who rules the world and each
single one of us?” (Miss Gladstone in “Contemporary Review.”)
The Shunammite’s son
I. The dead child. Beautiful:
innocent, and pure.
1. His death was sudden.
Although sufficiently grown to have passed the usual dangers of the infant age,
he is not old enough to go out to the field to the reapers.
2. In the death of this child
there is one of the hardest providences to understand.
II. The believing mother. In
reality she is the central figure in this story.
1. She manifested her faith
by her determination. She tells no one of her plans, but prepares to go to find
the prophet, and bring him to the chamber where the child has been placed.
2. She showed her faith again
in not making known her errand until she met the prophet himself. She must pour
her complaint into the ears of God’s representative.
3. Her faith came out still
stronger in her refusing to leave the prophet unless he would return with her.
Gehazi had been sent with the prophet’s staff, but this, to her mind, was not
sufficient. Her intuition seemed to tell her that it would not restore the
child, and Elisha must return with her.
III. The restored son.
1. He stretched himself upon
the child. He “put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and
his hands upon his hands; and he stretched himself upon the child; and the
flesh of the child waxed warm.”
2. This effort was a
manifestation of the earnestness of the prophet. Elijah did the same. In both
cases there was such an earnest longing for the accomplishment of the purpose
that they would willingly give their own lives to restore the dead. (G. S.
Butters.)
Verse 26
Is it well with
thee?
Ministerial inquiry into
the welfare of a people
I. When may it be said to be really well with any persons? Many would
think it to be well with us when we have food and raiment, when our flocks and
herds increase. But, if this is to be well, and we are no better than “this
world’s goods” can make us, we are well only for time, and as it respects our
frail and perishable bodies. In this sense, it was well with Dives. For it to
be really well with us, we must come to things which concern the soul, and
which have a reference to that eternal state whither we are going. Mark, then,
what follows: It is well with us if our souls have been awakened--if we have
found forgiveness--if the Lord Jesus Christ be precious to us--and if we be now
walking in newness and righteousness of life.
II. Whether it be thus well with you? You may, as we have seen, be
well as it respects this world and your abiding in it. But, is it well with
your souls? Would it be well with you, do you think, if God were now to require
your souls of you? Inquire, I pray you. Felt you ever your need of mercy? Has a
sensibility of your guiltiness ever constrained you to cry for mercy? Have you,
like her who had lost one of her ten pieces of silver, sought for it “til you
have found it”? Is your heart “sprinkled from an evil conscience”? What do you
love most? Christ or the world?--Christ or sinful pleasure?--Christ or the
increase of your temporal wealth and honour?--Christ or yourself? What is your
chief joy? The Christian “rejoices in Christ Jesus.” Is He the object of your
rejoicing? In what way are you living? The way in which we live will most
clearly evidence whether we have been awakened, forgiven, and “I accepted in
the Beloved,” or not; and, consequently, whether it be well with us or not. (W.
Mudge, B. A.)
It is well
Death is not a
calamity to the Christian. “It is well.”
I. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of life. Paul would say, “To
live is Christ,” and yet he testified, “To depart and be with Christ is far
better.”
II. In view of the home prepared for the saved.
III. “it is well” with the child of God even in this life.
IV. Appeal to the living. Is it well with your soul? (Homiletic
Review.)
A searching inquiry
In the late
South African War, Major Child, when setting out one morning on reconnaissance
duty, had a presentiment he might not return alive, and so said to a brother
officer that if he fell that day he wanted written on his memorial stone just
these words: “Is it well with the child? It is well.” It fell out as he
anticipated, but death had no terrors for him, and now he lies on the veldt
with this question and answer above his grave. Suppose this question put to us:
“Is it well with thee?” Can we answer, “It is well”? (J. D. Jones, M.
A.)
She answered, It is well.--
Submission under trial
I. The trial which the woman endured. “Man is born to trouble, as the
sparks fly upwards.” “The ills to which flesh is heir” are diffused with
wonderful impartiality. The palace is as much accustomed to the visits of
sorrow as is the cottage. The robe of honour cannot ward off the touch of pain
any more than the garment of beggary. The glittering diadem often encircles an
aching brow, and the silken robe often covers a bleeding heart.
1. In her trial there was the disappointment of a strong desire. She
seems to have had only one strong desire ungratified. No child had ever called
her mother; she had no son to perpetuate her husband’s name in Israel. The
desire to be a mother was peculiarly strong in the heart of a Hebrew wife, from
the national relationship to the promise, that of the seed of a woman would
come the Destroyer of the serpent and the Deliverer of Jacob. This desire in
the heart of the Shunammite had almost died away, when the prophet assures her
she shall yet “embrace a son.” As the desire had been strong, so would the joy
be great when the desire was realised. Who can blame her if her heart swelled
with a joyful pride and a proud joy, as she clasped her baby to her breast, and
pictured for him a future of happiness and honour?
2. An additional element in this woman’s trial was the blasting of a
bright hope. What sweet and sacred hopes cluster round every cradle! We all
know the power of hope, and to how large a degree hope constitutes the beauty
and blessedness of human life.
3. As another element of this woman’s trial--her tenderest affections
have been torn. Her child has been taken from her. The grief of “one that
mourneth for a first-born” has passed into a proverb. She had lost her
first-born--nay, she had lost her only child.
II. Her conduct under the trial. Notice, first:
1. She is filled with the most pungent sorrow. When trial is sent, it
is designed we should feel it. There may be sorrow, there must be sorrow, under
the afflictions and bereavements of life; only it should not be despondent
sorrow, nor rebellious sorrow, nor murmuring sorrow, but sorrow submissive and
sanctifying, like that of this woman.
2. She acquiesces in the will of God. She says, “It is well.” This is
one of the highest achievements of Christian faith.
3. In her trial this woman cleaves to God. She does not sit down and
brood over her bereavement, and nurse her grief, and indulge in “the luxury of
sorrow.” She goes at once to consult the oracle of God.
III. The grounds which may produce and sustain such a course of conduct
as this woman pursued. There are three grounds which may contribute to this
desirable result. A consideration--
1. Of what we are who endure the trial;
2. of what He is who sends the trial; and
3. of the purpose the trial is designed to serve. (G. D.
Macgregor.)
Reasons for trials
I. Affliction comes to call our sin to our remembrance, and to humble
us for it beneath the cross of Jesus.
II. Another end for which God sends His heavy hand upon His children
is to loose them from the world--to make them cease from the idolatry of the
creature.
III. Again, another object of the trials which God sends His children
is to make himself more dear to them. Dear indeed He is to all who have learned
to view Him as a God of love--as the God who hath “so loved the world as to send His
only-begotten Son” to die for it--dear is He to all of us whose souls. He has
sprinkled with the blood of Christ, “in whom” He has “revealed His Son, and
whom He has made heirs, through Christ, of life eternal.”
IV. A further end God has in view in laying crosses on His people is
that He may conform them to their Saviour, by admitting them into the
fellowship of His sufferings.” “If we suffer,” says the apostle, “we shall also
reign with Him.” Justly then might we feel uneasy to be the prosperous
followers of a suffering Lord--light-hearted servants of a sorrowing and
weeping Master.
V. But, when God makes His children acquainted with affliction, He
has a purpose in His view, beyond any of the objects we have yet enumerated. He
intends by it His own glory. Eminently is that glory promoted and set forth by
the patience of His people in the hour of trial, and by their cheerful
acquiescence in His will. The world is then compelled to see that there is
truth, that there is power, in His Gospel. “It is well,” very well, with every
child of God, however great be “the fight of affliction” he is called on to
sustain. For look at the issue of these things! These afflictions are not
everlasting. God “will not always chide, neither keepeth He His anger for
ever.” As soon as the ends of His chastening providence are answered, the
dispensation will be changed. “It is well,” then, with believers even in their
most afflicted moments. The Shunammite spoke truth when she uttered that saying
in the midst of her affliction. Christian brethren, are any of us her
fellow-sufferers? (A. Roberts, M. A.)
The uses of affliction
An artist asked
a friend to come to his studio to see a painting just completed. He came at the
time appointed, but was shown into a dark room, and there left alone. He waited
for fifteen minutes, when his friend came in, greeted him cordially, and then
took him to the studio. Before he left, the artist said laughingly: “I suppose
you thought it queer to he left in that dark room so long?” “Yes, I did.”
“Well,” said the artist, “I knew that if you came into my studio with the glare
of the street in your eyes you could not appreciate the fine colouring of the
picture. So I left you in the dark room till the glare had worn out of your
eyes.” So God puts His children into the dark room of affliction, so that they
may be able to see the beauty of heavenly things otherwise hidden from their
eyes. (Christian Commonwealth.)
Verse 29
Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand.
The power and weakness of faith contrasted in Elisha
There are no less than five instances wherein the prophet
exemplifies the man of faith and the man of love witnessing to the faith of God
by his grateful deeds.
I. The power of
Elisha’s faith, and the success which attended it.
II. This weakness
and this failure is to be seen at the very dawn of the trial now coming upon
the prophet. “The Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me” (2 Kings
4:27), is the
querulous expostulation of the now mortified prophet, even before the nature of
the vexation had been ascertained. He is evidently greatly put out, not so much
by the outward event itself, but at the circumstance of his friend being
afflicted without his knowledge. How difficult it is to be honoured and lifted
up, and yet to remain contented and humble! How many a follower of a great man
upon earth is spoiled instead of improved by even just and moderate rewards of
honour and confidence, and his previously gratified Lord has to take him down
again! So it was with Elisha. He has a lesson to learn of dependent
humility--and the Lord is going
to teach it him. He follows up the hasty expression of his petulance and
mortification by as hasty a proceeding, which, viewed in the most favourable
light, is redolent of presumption and self-confidence: “Then he said to Gehazi,
“Gird up thy loins and take my staff in thine hand;” etc. Here is no prayer no
earnest seeking, no humble inquiry of the Lord, What must I do? but, in the spirit
of one aiming to work “lying wonders” rather than healing benefits, he puts his
own staff into the hands of his servant, anticipating that a miracle might be
wrought and a child restored to life by the simple touch of the holy staff,
without his own presence or effort. Let us now examine ourselves on this event
in Elisha’s history.
1. On the power of
faith and its success, as exemplified by the prophet.
What
is the working of faith in us? Have we faith?
2. Mark the
weakness of faith and its consequent failure in Elisha. This weakness, we have
seen, consisted in a self-confidence approaching presumption. (G. L. Glyn.)
Verse 31
And
Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child.
Personal power
Here
is a remarkable thing in Bible history--nothing less than that a miracle should
miscarry. Here is an attempt to work a miracle, which ends in failure. This is
strange and most painful. Who knows what may fail next? Are there any purposed
miracles suddenly broken in failure? Does the staff ever come back without
having done its work? We are bound to ask these sharp and serious questions. Do
not let us hasten perfunctorily oyez the melancholy fact of our failure; let us
face it and wisely consider it, and find out whether the blame be in Elisha, or
Gehazi, or the staff, or whether God Himself may be working out some mystery of
wisdom in occasionally rebuking us in the use of means and instrument. Elisha
was not a man likely to make vain experiments. We had, therefore, better know,
with all frankness and simplicity, exactly what the case is, for in
faithfulness may be the beginning of success. Gehazi came back and said, in
effect, “Here is the staff, but it has done no good. There is neither sight,
nor hearing, nor sound of returning voice; the child is not awaked.”
1. Who was this Gehazi? An undeveloped hypocrite. There were three or
four different men in that Gehazi figure. There are three or four different men
in you and in me. Which man is it to whom I speak; who is it that announces the
hymn, that offers the prayer, that reads the Scriptures, that proclaims the
Word? “Things are not what they seem.” Gehazi was at this moment an undeveloped
knave, and what can he do with Elisha’s staff, or with God’s sunlight? The bad
man spoils whatever he touches. In the fall of man, everything with which man
has to do must also fall. Virtue perished out of Elisha’s staff; it became in
the grip of Gehazi but a common stick. There is law in that deterioration;
there is a whole philosophy in that mysterious depletion of virtue, and we
ought to understand somewhat of its operation. Sin impoverishes everything. The
universe is but a gigantic shell gleaming with painted fire to the bad man. To
him there are no flowers in the garden; there may be some diversity of colour,
but flowers as tabernacles in which God reveals Himself, creations of the
supreme power, there are none, there can be none. A man cannot go down in his highest
religious nature without going down all round. Whatever his pretence of
interest may be in things beautiful and musical, and pure and noble, it is only
a skilful hypocrisy. When the fool says in his heart, “There is no God,” he
also says in his heart, “There is no beauty, there is no virtue, there is no
purity, there is no soul.” God is the inclusive term, and denial in relation to
that term is negation in reference to everything that belongs to it--all music
and beauty, all virtue and tenderness, all chivalry and self-sacrifice. You
cannot be theologically wrong, and yet morally and socially right. We know what
it is to have done the evil deed, and then to have seen all the sunshine run
away from the universe like a thing affrighted. Thus we may be coming nearer to
the reason why the staff failed. The staff is good, the hand that wielded it
was bad; there was no true sympathy or connection between the hand and the
staff. The staff was only in the hand, it was not in the heart. There was a
merely physical grasp, there was no moral hold of the symbol of prophetic
presence and power. Gehazi had already stolen from Naaman, and already there
had gone out from the court of heaven the decree which blanched him into a leper as
white as snow. Now, let us come home. We have an inspired Book as our staff,
our symbol, but are we inspired readers? An inspired Book should have an
inspired perusal: like should come to like. By inspiration, by the human side,
I mean a meek, reverent, contrite and willing heart, a disposition
unprejudiced, a holy, sacred burning desire to know God’s will and to do it
all. How stands the case now? You read the Bible and get nothing out of it. No,
because you read it without corresponding inspiration on your part. No bad man
can preach well. He may preach eloquently, learnedly, effectively. He may go
very near to being a good preacher in the right sense of that term, but the bad
man cannot preach well in God’s sense and definition of the term. What can the
bad man preach? Can he preach salvation by the blood of Christ, he who knows
not what it is to shed one drop of blood for any human creature? Can he speak
nobly who never felt nobly? (J. Parker, D. D.)
The personal
element
Personality
is the one thing of real value. The other day I stood looking at ten or fifteen
pounds of clay. It was valued at one thousand dollars. But this clay bore upon
it the impress of personality. It had been touched by man’s intelligence and
innermost spirit. It had been designed, and moulded into beauteous form; painted
by artistic skill; glazed and baked and perfected by man’s inventive genius,
and when it came from his hand, bearing the impress of his art, the beauty of
thought, the very life of his personality, it had risen in value from zero to a
thousand dollars--from worthless clay to a vase of surpassing value and
loveliness. Whenever we purchase an article of any kind, in any store, we buy
manhood, and not materials; personality, and not things. What we buy would be
worthless without the impress of the human soul. Material things take their
value from man. They rise in value as he rises in intelligence and moral power.
The only thing of real value in the world is the human soul. (Homiletic Review.)
The child is not awaked.
Are you awake?
Many
of you are, or have been, quite as “dead,” in the truest sense of that word, as
was the boy who lay still and white in the prophet’s chamber at Shunem, and
need to be “awaked” quite as much as he did. No doubt even in the youngest of
you there are evil germs which may unfold themselves by and by, until you too
die, or fall asleep, to God and goodness. No doubt even you often do wrong, and
know that it is wrong while you do it. But, for all that, I do not call you
“dead” if God is near and present to you, if you think of Him as your Father,
if you are sorry when you do wrong, if you are quickly and easily moved to
love, admire, and imitate whatsoever is right and brave and noble. But there
are some of you who have lived long enough, and have long enough been “knocked
about” in the little world of school, to have grown somewhat dull and “dead.”
God is not so real, or He is not so much, to you as He was. You are not so
ashamed of doing wrong as you were; it may be even that there are some things
which you know your masters or parents would think wrong that you take a
foolish pride in hiding from them. Perhaps you are getting greedy, selfish,
hard to please; or, like Gehazi, covetous of the good things which others have,
but you have not. Yes: I have often seen a most gruesome sight. I have seen a
dead boy inside a living boy, and a dead girl inside a living girl! That is to
say, I have seen girls and boys who had lost their sensibility to spiritual
things, their love of goodness, truth, kindness, and gentleness, and were
nevertheless quite content with themselves so long as they could get nice food
to eat, nice clothes to wear, and plenty of pocketmoney and amusement. Is it
too much to say that such boys and girls are dead? And, then, some of you, if
you are not dead, are at least “fast asleep.” Your spiritual faculties and
affections rust unused, or they are seldom used. You are dreaming, and pursuing
dreams. For what we often call “the real world,” the world outside us, is not
truly the real one; but the world within it and behind it, and beyond it.
Thousands of men pass into this outward world, and pass out of it every day;
and they can only take with them what they have stored up within themselves. So
that it is this inner world which is the real world to us, the world in which alone
true and enduring treasures are to be found. And if any of you think the
outside world--in which you only stay for a few years at most--to be the real
one, and are living only or mainly for that, while the inward and spiritual
world, in which you are to abide for ever, is unreal and unattractive to
you;--what can we say of you except that you are fast asleep, and do not see
things as they are, and mistake dreams for realities, and realities for dreams?
You have eyes, but they are not open. There are faculties in you capable of
apprehending the true realities, but as yet they are not in exercise. Like the
Shunammite’s son, who was both asleep and dead, you need to be awaked; you need
to be quickened unto life. I should like to creep into your very hearts, and
whisper, “Are you awake?” and to go on asking it till you were roused from your
dreams, and saw things as they really are; for it is my duty to you, as it is
that of your other teachers, to rouse and wake you, if we anyhow can. But, at
the very outset, you may turn upon me, and say--“How are we to know whether we
are what you call awake? What is it to be awake, and alive, toward God? What do
you want us to be and to do?” And I reply: Well, for one thing, I do not want
to see you trying to become sanctimonious little saints. I should hate to see
you behaving and to hear you talking as some of the “good children” behave and
talk of whom you read in certain tracts and books. What I want is that you
should set yourselves to become good, useful, and happy men and women, by
placing the best and highest aims before you, by acting on right motives,
because you know that God loves you, and is bent on making you good. How are
you to know whether you are alive and awake, or asleep and dead? In a hundred
different ways--such ways as these. If you are at school, and set yourself to
learn your lessons well and to get on fast--you may have very different motives
for doing your duty in school. You may care only to beat your class-fellows, to
stand above them, to get on in your little world and be looked up to; and if
that be your aim or motive, it is a selfish one, and you are asleep and dead to
the true motives and aims by which you ought to be inspired. But if you are
eager to learn because you wish to do your duty, and to fit yourselves for
larger duties by and by, because you want to become wiser, better, more useful,
or because you want to please your parents and show that you are not unmindful
of how much they have done for you, or because you want to please God and to
prove that you thankfully remember how much He has done for you and given you, then
you are alive and awake: for, now, your motives reach up out of and beyond this
present world, which will soon pass away, and you are trying to prepare
yourselves for any life, or any world, to which it may please God to call you.
And, lastly, some of you are growing up into men and women, and have to go out
into the world to earn your daily bread. Are you diligent, thoughtful, eager to
advance? Why, so far, well. But you may be diligent, observant, quick to seize
every advantage and opportunity, mainly because you hate work and hope to get
free from it the more quickly; or because you want to lay by money, to get
rich, to make a fortune; or because you are bent on distinction, reputation,
applause. And, in that case, you are dead and asleep; you are not alive and
awake to the best things, the most satisfying, the most enduring. For this
life, for which alone you are living, will soon be over, and the riches which
have wings soon use them and fly away. If you should die to-night, our Father
would not have sorrowfully to say of you, “The child is not awake,” and feel
that He must put you into hard and painful conditions which will rouse and
sting you to a sense of all that you have lost and thrown away. And if you
should live to be never so old, still all your life will be a useful and happy
preparation for the better life to come. (S. Cox, D. D.)
On being awake
A
member of Whitefield’s Sunday Afternoon Men’s Meeting stopped Mr. Horne a
little while ago and said, “I have a crow to pluck with you.” “Oh, only one?”
said Mr. Home. “What is that? You have taken away my Sunday afternoon’s nap!”
“How is that?” asked the well-known preacher. “Well, I used to sleep all Sunday
afternoon, and now I come to Whitefield’s.” “And how do you like it?” “Oh, I find it far more
interesting to be awake!” The story is worth repeating, because there are tens
of thousands of people who seriously assume that it is more interesting to be
asleep. God has made us for wakefulness, and in all the departments of our life
the wakeful man receives the surprises of the Almighty. How much the wakeful
man can see in the country lane! There are uncounted numbers of village people
who are still asleep, and whose senses have never begun to discern the
transient glories of their own surroundings. I have just been staying with a
man who makes it part of his ministry of life to open the senses of young villagers whose lives are
cast in these entrancing spots. He tells me that they are entering into the
unknown world with all the fascination exercised by a fairy tale. Birds and
flowers have become the fairies in their once commonplace world, and now that
they am awake they find it surpassingly interesting. (Hartley Aspen.)
Verses 33-36
He went therefore, and
shut the door upon them twain.
The staff and the
sacrifice
The story of the
Shunammite and her son is one of the most charming idyls in the Bible. It
abounds in the most beautiful touches of nature; and though the mould in which
it is cast is peculiarly Eastern, its simple pathos appeals to the universal
human heart. But passing from the simple, obvious instruction which the narrative
bears upon the surface of it, I wish to use the significant incidents connected with the
child’s restoration as an acted parable. Looking at the incidents of the
miracle of Shunem in this light, they seem to me to afford admirable
illustrations of the two prevailing methods of doing good, both on a large
scale, as affecting the highest interests of the whole human race; and on a
small scale, as affecting the spiritual and temporal interests of individuals.
The one method of doing good, which may be called the impersonal, is
illustrated by Gehazi putting the staff of the prophet upon the face of the
dead child; the other, or personal method, is illustrated by the prophet
stretching himself upon the dead body, and by his own exertions and sacrifices
restoring the life that had fled.
I. The impersonal
method. His action was impersonal; it was wrought by another, by a mere
servant; it did not proceed from a true knowledge of the case, and it did not
contain the requisite amount of faith. For these reasons it did not succeed.
Death would not release his prey at the bidding of such a feeble and inadequate
instrumentality. Elisha himself did not manifest any surprise when Gehazi
returned from his fruitless errand, and told him, saying, “The child is not awaked.”
Having adopted the measure as a human precaution, and not at the instigation of
God’s Spirit, he could not count upon success; and therefore there was no
revulsion of feeling, no shock to his faith. He knew by the result that he had
committed an error in judgment. It will be lawful, in the first place, to apply
this incident to the mode of salvation that existed in the time of Elisha--the
method of imparting life to the dead body of humanity by the dispensations
previous to the gospel. These modes were all impersonal. God Himself did not
come into closest contact with men, did not identify Himself with their
interests, did not assume their nature or tabernacle with them. As Elisha sent
his servant to restore the dead child, so He sent His prophets and priests and
godly men, and spoke to mankind at sundry times and in divers manners. He sent
His servants with His commission, and gave them His staff, the red of His
power. He entered into covenant with Israel, and gave them laws and
institutions for their guidance and blessing. But the result of all His
impersonal dealings with the human race before the appearance of the Saviour,
was like the result of Gehazi’s laying the prophet’s staff upon the face of the
dead child. Some good indeed was done. The decay of religion was prevented; the
process of spiritual decomposition was arrested; the possibilities of restoration were conserved;
and the body of humanity was kept at least from sinking into a deeper spiritual
death, and yielding to the dissolving forces which were assailing it in the
world. But no spiritual life was enkindled; the sleep of death was not broken;
mankind, dead in trespasses and sins, heard no voice, and felt no touch potent
enough to break the spell that bound it down in spiritual torpor and coldness.
Scripture itself tells us of the insufficiency of all the means and appliances
that were used under the old dispensations to quicken mankind into newness of
life. It tells us that “the law made nothing perfect”; that it could not effect
the restoration which it proclaimed “in that it was weak through the flesh”;
that it had only “a shadow of good things to come.” The law may induce a man
actually to refuse the offers and allurements of evil, but it cannot grapple
with the sin of the heart, and order aright the government of that invisible
kingdom within where Satan wages his most successful war. Its terrors and its
blessings have no effect in that inner world where we have to do, not with the
realities, but with the ideal forms of sin--where there are none of the
restraints and mitigations that hinder the full power of evil in the world
without; where ambition is uniformly successful, and pleasure leaves no stains
or stings behind; arid vice, instead of being clothed in rags and fed on the
beggar’s dole, is clothed in purple and fares sumptuously every day. “If,” says
the apostle, “there had been a law given which could have given life, verily
righteousness should have been by the law.” But such is the inherent corruption
of human nature, that no law, however holy or however sanctioned, could reach
and cure the disease. The laying of it as a standard of righteousness before a
soul dead in trespasses and sins, is as useless as was the laying of the
prophet’s staff on the dead child’s face. It only shows the deadness of the
soul all the more. And if this be the case with the great impersonal method for
the salvation of the whole race and of the whole of human nature from all the
evil effects of sin, we find that it is very strikingly the case with every individual
attempt to overcome the individual evils of sin in particular persons. Much of
the exercise of benevolence in these days is impersonal. Many try to do good by
means of others. They send their servant, as the prophet sent Gehazi, to heal
some clamant evil by the aid of their staff; by the help of something that is
useful to them, but not indispensable; something that belongs to them, but is
not a part of themselves; something that they can spare without inconvenience.
The staff that they use represents their money, their help, whatever shape it
assumes; and their Gehazi is the missionary or minister, the society or
collector, whom they use in distributing their help. Thus they themselves never
come into contact with the evil they seek to redress. We need not wonder that
so many of our efforts to remove the evil of the world should be so
unsuccessful. Its dead, cold form remains pulseless and motionless under the
pitying heavens. There is no answering thrill of life, no voice to break the
awful stillness.
II. But there is a
more excellent way--the personal method of doing good, as illustrated by Elisha
stretching himself upon the dead body of the child. And how significant is all
this of the Divine method of restoring the dead body of humanity through the
life and death of Christ. Does not the stretching of the prophet upon the dead
child--each member of his own body being applied to the corresponding member of
the lifeless corpse, and by this sympathetic contact imparting his own vitality
to it, and ultimately raising it to life--figure forth in the most beautiful
and suggestive manner the incarnation of Cod, by which He brought His
infinitude within the limitations of human nature and human existence, touching
it at every sympathetic point, and so raised it from a death in sin to newness
of life in Himself? What does each joyful Christmas morning proclaim? Is it not
the wonderful fact that the Eternal God incarnated Himself in the body of a
little child; was born in Bethlehem, lay as a helpless babe on a mother’s
breast, grew in wisdom as in stature, and lived in humble dependence upon and
submission to earthly parents in a human home in Nazareth? Does it not tell us
that God in Christ was united to us by blood-relationship; knew all “the things
of a man”; filled all the moulds of our conduct, and passed along all the lines
of our experience? Does it not powerfully proclaim to us the one only method of
salvation, to which all other methods, by their weakness and failure, pointed,
and for which all other methods prepared the way--the personal method of God
assuming the very nature that had sinned and suffered, and in that nature
bringing back life and holiness and happiness and all that man had lost? And
consider the awful cost of this personal method of salvation. The connection
between them was only an outward one. But Jesus became bone of our bone, and
flesh of our flesh. In the first creation God stood aloof at an immeasurable
altitude above the creation when He summoned it into existence. But in the new
creation He identified Himself with the work of His hands. He came into contact
with sin and impurity that others might be cleansed and healed. The same
remarks that are applicable to the great salvation of Jesus Christ, are
applicable to every individual effort we make in the track and in the power of
that salvation to redress the evil of the world. Among the many great lessons
which the incarnation of the Son of God is designed to teach us, this lesson is
assuredly not the least important--that if it was necessary for Christ to take
human nature upon Himself in order to redeem it, so it is necessary for us to
become incarnate as it were in the nature we wish to benefit. The servant, in
this respect, cannot he greater than his Lord. We must, like Elisha, take the
evil that we would remove to our own room; we must lay it upon our own bed; we
must bear it upon our own heart; we must identify ourselves with it as far as
we possibly can. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Salvation by personal
contact
The steamer Ganges,
bound for Colombo, Ceylon, had a unique experience in the Red Sea. The captain
observed a vessel which was flying signals of distress, when about two hundred
and thirty miles from Perim, the nearest harbour. The skipper of the Ganges
undertook the task of towing the helpless steamer Fernfield into port.
Before he reached the port, however, the connecting hawser snapped. Determined
to get her into
the port of repair, the captain ran his vessel alongside of the Fernfield--a
most difficult operation on the high sea--and lashed her to his steamer, and so
escorted her into Perim, the novel sight of the two vessels coming in abreast
excited no little attention there. The salvage was very great, as the disabled
vessel had a rich cargo of tea, cocoa, cocoanut-oil, and cinnamon. In winning
souls personal contact is always the surest method. A long-range hawser is
always likely to break. If we lash ourselves with cords of friendship and
sympathy to the man or woman we want to save, we can always bring them into
port. There is no salvage ever awarded in the admiralty courts of earth equal
to the treasures which God grants to the saviour of an immortal soul. (L. A.
Banks, D. D.)
The Church and her
quickening ministry
The living Church has not
yet stretched herself, Elisha like, upon the dead body whose quickening she
prays for. She must grope her way into the alleys and byways of the city, and
up the broken staircase, and into the bare room, and beside the loathsome
sufferers. She must go down into the pit with the miner; into the tent with the
soldier; into the forecastle with the sailor; into the shop with the merchant;
into the factory with the operator; into the field with the peasant, and into
the workshop with the mechanic. Like the atmosphere, she must press with equal
force on all the surfaces of society; like the sea, flow into every nook of the shoreline
of humanity; and like the sun, shine on things foul and low as well as fair and
high, if she is ever to accomplish that for which she has been commissioned by
her glorified Head.
And prayed unto the Lord.--
The relation of prayer to
secondary causes
Shunem, a small village in
the town of Issachar, lying between Samaria and Carmel, at the base of Mount
Tabor, was the scene of this miracle. The resurrection of this woman’s son may
be looked upon in two aspects, as illustrating the reward of kindness, and the
power of prayer. But the point which the incident before us presses on our
attention is, The relation of prayer to secondary causes or to means.
I. That prayer
does not
supersede the necessity of means. We do not say that God never answers prayer
without the employment of means. He has done so, as in the case of Elijah, when
he prayed for rain. A diseased man may pray earnestly for health, yet he has no
right to expect an answer to his prayer if he neglects the Divine conditions on
which health is given. A poor man may pray earnestly for an amelioration of his
secular distress, and for an increase of his comforts, yet his prayers will be
fruitless if he neglect the ordinary means by which temporary advantages are
obtained; the ignorant man may pray earnestly for knowledge, yet his prayers
will go for nothing unless he attends to the settled terms on which
intelligence is conferred. The sin-convicted man may pray earnestly to be saved
from his sins and their attendant perils, but he will find hell even in praying
unless he employs the right means to deliver himself from “the law of sin and
death.” The Church may pray earnestly for the extension of truth, for the
conversion of the world, yet, all will be waste breath unless it employs the
divinely established means for the purpose. The God of order carries on His
government both in the material and moral department of His universe by certain
laws, conditions, or means; and these, as a rule, He will not interfere with,
even in answers to the prayer of His own loyal and loving children. This fact
serves at least two purposes.
1. It serves to reveal the wisdom of the Divine benevolence. We can
conceive of benevolence communicating mercies in abundance, but doing so in
such a way as would neutralise their value to the recipient, and prove an
inconvenience to others. The kindness of earthly parents often proves, through
the want of wisdom in this direction, an incalculable evil to the children in
years to come. Thus it is not with Divine benevolence; that is ever exercised
with Infinite discretion. The fact serves--
2. To explain the inefficaciousness of modern prayer. Prayer is not a
positive, but a moral institution;--its foundation is not on written rules, but
deep down in the constitution of the imperishable soul. We remark from this
marvellous incident--
II. That prayer may
sometimes suggest the most effective means. It is by no means improbable that
the method Elisha now adopted in bringing his own living body in contact with
the dead child had a natural adaptation to the end intended. There is nothing
absurd in the idea of his imparting life and health by contact. Perhaps the
life of the child was not so far gone, as not to be resuscitated by the vital
magnetism of the prophet’s frame. Be this, however, as it may, the placing of
his body in contact with that of the child, it is not unnatural to suppose was
suggested to his mind by his prayer. It was after his prayer that he did it. If
prayer is answered in this way, it follows--
1. That the sceptical assertion that answers to prayer imply an
alteration in the Divine plan is without foundation. We grant that the universe
is governed by
secondary conditions, but we deny that prayer necessarily implies an
interference with these conditions;--it rather implies a right attention to
them. Its design, and tendency, are to induce and enable the soul to act
rightly in relation to God’s ordinances, both in the material and mental
departments of nature. If prayer is answered in this way, it follows--
2. That we should always engage in prayer with a determination to
carry into practical effect whatever impression we receive in our devotions.
For in this way the real answer to our prayer may come. To allow the practical
impression to pass away is to neutralise our prayer. We remark from this
marvellous incident--
III. That prayer
always gives efficacy to the means. The means which the prophet employed
succeeded. The child was raised to life and presented to his mother. Whether
there was a natural adaptation in the means he employed or not, the result must
be ascribed to the interposition of Divine power. It was obtained by the
prophet’s prayer. (Homilist.)
Verse 34
And the child sneezed seven times.
The seven sneezes
The child was dead. Although he had been the special gift of
Divine promise and was therefore doubly prized by his parents, yet the little
lad was not secure from the common hazards of life. The first clear evidence
that the child was restored to life was his sneezing. Doubtless, it greatly
rejoiced the prophet’s heart. We too, who are seeking the good of others will
greatly exult if we are favoured to see gracious tokens in those for whose good
we labour. At all gospel meetings earnest people should be on the look-out for persons
convinced of sin, aroused in conscience, or in any other manner made to feel
the power of the life-giving Spirit. It will be well if these persons watch
with instructed eyes, so that they do not look for what they will never see,
nor overlook that which should give them full content. Of natural life we may
discern the tokens more readily than those of spiritual life; we need practice
and experience in reference to this more mysterious matter, or we may cause great
pain to ourselves and to those whom we would befriend. Possibly we may gather
instruction from the signs of life which contented the prophet:--the child
sneezed seven times.
1. This evidence of life was very simple. Nothing is freer from art
than a sneeze. It is so far from being artificial that it is involuntary. As a
rule we sneeze, not because we will, but because we must. No instruction,
education, talent, or acquirement is necessary to a sneeze, nor even to a series of
seven sneezes; it is the act of a child, or of an illiterate peasant, quite as
much as of a philosopher or a divine. We ought not to expect too much in
enquirers; we ought not to be satisfied without signs of life; but he faintest
sign of life ought to encourage us and lead us to encourage them.
2. This evidence of life was in itself unpleasant. To the child it
was no pleasure to sneeze. We should most of us prefer to be excused from
sneezing seven times. Many of the surest marks of the new life are by no means
pleasurable. The regenerate are not at once happy; on the other hand, they are
often in great bitterness for their sins, and in Bore anguish because they have
pierced their Saviour. The Divine life is not born into the world without
pangs. When a man has been nearly drowned, and animation is restored by
rubbing, the first movements of the blood within the veins causes tingling and
other sensations which are exquisitely painful. Sin causes numbness of soul,
and this is attended by an absence of sensation; this is changed when life
comes with its look of faith, for the first result is that men look on Him whom
they have pierced, and mourn for Him.
3. A sneeze, again, is not very musical to those who hear it, and so
the first signs of grace are not in themselves pleasing to those who are
watching for souls.
4. “The child sneezed seven times,” the evidences of life were very
monotonous. Again and again
there came a sneeze and nothing else. No song, no note of music, not even one
soft word, but sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, seven times. Yet the noises wearied not
the prophet, who was too glad to hear the sounds of life to be very particular
about their musical character. The child lived, and that was enough for him.
Much of the talk of enquirers is very wearisome; they tell the same melancholy
tale over and over again. Let us not be disappointed because at the first we
get so little which is interesting from young converts. We are not examining
them for the ministry, we are only looking for evidences of spiritual life; to
apply to them the tests which would be proper enough for a doctor of divinity
would be both cruel and ridiculous.
5. Yet the sound which entered the prophet’s ear was a sure token of
life, and we must not be content with any doubtful or merely hopeful signs. We
want evidences of life, and these we must have. The child might have been
washed and dressed in his best clothes, but this would not have fulfilled the
prophet’s desire; the lad might have been decked with a chaplet of flowers, and
his young cheeks might have been rouged into the imitation of a ruddy blush, but the holy
man would have remained unsatisfied: he must have a sign of life. However
simple, it must assuredly be a life-token, or it would be in vain. Nothing
could trove been more conclusive than a sneeze. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
.
And Elisha came again to Gilgal, and there was a dearth in the
land.
Ministries to man, good and bad
Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the
prophets; he had come thither once more on his early circuit, and during the
famine which prevailed in the land. As the students sat before their master, he
discerned in their emaciated forms the terrible effects upon them of the
famine.
I. Here is the
ministry of severe trial. “There was a dearth in the land.” A destitution of
those provisions essential to the appeasement of hunger and the sustentation of
life is undoubtedly one of the greatest trials. Such destitution is of two
kinds, the avoidable and the unavoidable. The former is common.. The latter
kind of destitution, viz., the inevitable, is that recorded in these verses; it
arose out of the sterile condition into which nature was thrown.
II. Here is the
ministry of gross ignorance. “The sons of the prophets,” says Matthew Henry, “it
would seem were better skilled in divinity than philosophy, and read their
Bibles more than their herbals.” What they put into the pot tended to produce
death rather than to strengthen life. Every day men are afflicted through the
gross ignorance of themselves and others. The cook, the doctor, the brewer, the
distiller, how much death do they bring into the “pot” of human life! Through
ignorance, too, men are everywhere putting “death in the pot” in a spiritual
sense. Man’s ignorance of God and His claims on the soul, its nature, laws, and
necessary conditions of true spiritual progress, is the minister of death.
III. Here is the
ministry of human kindness. “And there came a man from Baal-shalisha, and
brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and
full ears of corn in the husk thereof.” Whoever this man was he was an
heaven-inspired philanthropist. Mercy, the highest attribute of heaven, was in
him, and he left his home and came forth to minister to the needs of his
suffering race.
IV. Here is the
ministry of supernatural power. Supernatural power through Elisha comes to the
relief of these sufferers. The supernatural was manifested in two ways.
1. In
counteracting the death tendency of what was in the pot. A supernatural power
is required to counteract the pernicious in life. If the Almighty allowed evil
to take its course free and full, death would run riot and reduce the whole
race to extinction. The supernatural was manifested.
2. In increasing
the supplies of life. Elisha commanded his servant to distribute amongst his
starving pupils the provisions which the man that came from Baal-shalisha had
brought. As the pot of oil increased in the pouring, so the provisions
increased in the eating. It has been said of old of God that He will abundantly
bless the “provisions of His people, and satisfy the poor with bread.” It is
true that the tendency of moral goodness, truth, and justice, skill, prudence,
and diligence, has a tendency to increase everywhere the provisions of human
life, and it is doing so every day. (Homilist.)
The famine in Gilgal
There was a dearth at Gilgal. Palestine is about the most
plentiful region in the world, although it now labours under the curse of the
Turkish law and the malediction of God. There was death, there was famine at
Gilgal. In the time of plenty, do you know that right on your heels there is
coming a dearth, a famine Never a child of God ever passed from the earth
without a dearth, without famine. You pencil the Sahara off--so many degrees
longitude and so many latitude; and you say, “north and south” of that burning
desert you have plenty, but in those regions you have drought. So, certainly,
in every human life there is a Sahara to be traversed, during which your soul
Will cry for bread. Caravans laden with provisions have plunged into the
Sahara, and the camels have dropped and fallen, and the whole party has been
lost in the desert. I never saw a life without a Sahara. Man, the caravans have
come into your life. You have plenty of money, you have abounding health. The
messenger that would come to you and say, “Sahara ahead!” you would greet with
an incredulous “Get away,” but death is before you. Men have tried to deck the
death-bed with rose-leaves, but they have never managed it; and you have to
tramp through the dark desert of the Sahara of death. Have you got a Joseph to
give you bread? What is to be your hope on the death-bed, when the hands are
fallen nervelessly over the coverlet? When Dr. Raleigh lay dying of a disease
that prevented him from taking food, he said, “Never mind; Jesus is bringing to
me the Bread of Life,” and he passed away. (J. Robertson.)
Hard times
It is not likely the sons of the prophets fared sumptuously at any
time. The provision for the maintenance of religion under the law had been
diverted to the support of those who professed and taught the principles of
idolatry; and little wonder it was that, when a season of famine occurred, they
were reduced to great straits.
1. There is one
lesson to be learned from this in common with many other passages of Scripture:
God’s people are not exempted from the ordinary afflictive visitations of
Providence. The sons of the prophets must feel the effects of the dearth as
well as the grossest idolater in all the land: there is no promise of any such
exemption held out to them. If we attend to the words of our blessed Lord we
shall find that He never seeks to allure His followers by promising them days
of ease, or seasons of the enjoyment of any temporal comfort. Rather are they
warned that they are to expect nothing in this life but a narrow way and a
strait gate, much opposition, plenty of obloquy; and well for them if they meet
not even with harder fare,--well for them if they escape persecution whilst
they live, and are suffered to end their days by aught but a death of violence
like the Master they serve. But they are promised what will sustain them under
all these inflictions, and make them more than conquerors, even the heirs of a
glorious immortality.
2. And there are
not a few records of very remarkable instances in which providential supplies
have been brought to the people of God in distress. Take another instance
somewhat similar, recorded by Samuel Clarke, and quoted by Flavel in the fourth
volume of his works, at the 396th page. I do not profess to give the exact
words of either author, but the substance of the incident is briefly this: Mr.
John Fox, in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII, went to London, where
he quickly spent the slender means with which his friends had supplied him or
he had acquired by his own exertions, and began to be in great want. He was a
faithful servant of God, but he was ready to perish for hunger, as many of the
faithful have been. In this condition he sat one day in St. Paul’s Church,
every one seeming to shun such a spectacle of horror. But when he little
expected but that his time had come, a person unknown to him thrust an untold
supply of money into his hands, and bade him be of good cheer, for that he
would ere long be placed in a position in which he might honourably earn his
bread. Not long afterwards he was sent for by a person of rank and title, and
entrusted with the charge of a nobleman’s children.
3. But a common
calamity ought always to foster a common sentiment of benevolence. This was the
case with Elisha. His means were very slender, but he would treat the sons of
the prophets with the best he had to give; and his example is well worthy
imitation. We need not at present advert to those ghastly records which tell us
that human nature loses all its better instincts in circumstances of extreme
distress, and which mention instances of mothers forgetting their little ones
so far as to snatch from them the morsel so much required--thus suffering the maternal
affection, one of the strongest, deepest, and purest of our nature, to be lost
in a selfishness not only shocking but unavailing. There is not much to be
learned from such extreme cases. It cannot be denied, it seems, that our better
instincts may be suppressed, but as they will be sure to vindicate themselves
as long as they remain, it ought to be our utmost endeavour to foster and preserve
them by keeping them in constant exercise. (J. Murray.)
Verse 40-41
There is death in the pot.
Poisons
Nature grows poison as
well as food. The sons of the prophets little knew the hurtful quality of the
food that was being poured into the pot. In all things nature has its poisonous
side as well as its sustaining and comforting aspect. The bane and antidote are
both before us in nature. Death lies very near to life in the great open
fields. Even our most natural passions lie but a single step from their
destructive application. Can it be possible that a son of the prophets went out
to gather food for a natural appetite, and came back with poison? This is what is
being done every day. We may turn honest commerce into a means of felony. We
may go into the market-place to buy food, and yet by some action we may
perpetrate in connection with the purchase we may take all virtue out of the
food and make it contribute to our worst qualifies. Blessed are they who eat
honest bread: everywhere the great law of trespass is written in nature. By
putting poisons upon the earth so plentifully, what does the Lord say in effect
but, Take care, be wise, examine your standing-ground, and do nothing
foolishly? Thus nature is turned into a great training-school, within whose
walls men are trained to sagacity and discrimination, so that they may know the
right hand from the left, and the good from the bad, and thus may turn natural
processes and customary daily duties into means of culture. (J. Parker, D.
D.)
Poison in the cauldron
There are now in the world a great
many cauldrons of death. The coloquintida of mighty temptations fills them.
Some taste and quit, and are saved; others taste and eat on, and die. Is not
that minister of Christ doing the right thing when he points out these
cauldrons of iniquity and cries the alarm, saying, “Beware! There is death in
the pot”? Iniquity is a coarse, jagged thing, that needs to be roughly handled.
I want to go back of all public iniquity and find out its hiding-place. I want
to know what are the sources of its power.
I. Unhappy
and undisciplined homes are the source of much iniquity. A good home is
deathless in its influences. Parents may be gone. The old homestead may be sold
and have passed out of the possession of the family. Yet that place will never
lose its charm over your soul. That first earthly home will thrill through your
everlasting career. Rascally and vagabond people for the most part come forth
from unhappy homes. Parents harsh and cruel on the one hand, or on the other
lenient to perfect looseness, are raising up a generation of vipers. A home in
which scolding and fault-finding predominate is blood relation to the gallows
and penitentiary. Petulance is a reptile that may crawl up into the family nest
and crush it. There are parents who disgust their children even with religion.
They scold their little ones for not loving God. They go about even their
religious duties in an exasperating way. Their house is full of the war-whoop
of contention, and from such scenes husbands and children dash out into places
of dissipation to find their lost peace, or the peace they never had. I verily
believe that three-fourths of the wickedness of the great city runs out rank
and putrid from undisciplined homes. Sometimes I know there is an exception.
II. The
second cauldron of iniquity to which I point you is an indolent life. You will
get out of this world just so much as, under God, you earn by your own hand and
brain. Horatius was told he might have so much land as he could plough around
in one day with a yoke of oxen, and I have noticed that men get nothing in this
world, that is worth possessing, of a financial, moral, or spiritual nature,
save they get it by their own hard work. It is lust so much as, from the
morning to the evening of your life, you can plough around by your own
continuous and hard-sweating industries. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
consider her ways, and be wise.”
III. Another
cauldron of iniquity is the dram-shop. Surely there is death in the pot.
Anacharsis said that the vine had three grapes: pleasure, drunkenness, misery.
Then I remember what Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England, said to a
committee of men engaged in that traffic when they came to him to deplore that they were not treated
with more consideration: “Gentlemen, don’t be uneasy about the revenue. Give me
thirty million sober people, and I will pay all the revenue, and have a large
surplus.” But the ruin to property is a very small part of the evil. It takes
everything that is sacred in the family, everything that is holy in religion,
everything that is infinite in the soul, and tramples it into the mire. (T.
De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
The deadly pottage
The acts of Elisha are
like rays of divine glory shining through his poverty and humiliation. “Elisha
came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land.” This is a picture of
our world. Dearth is on every side. Of every stream that runs through it it may
indeed be said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” But in
the midst of this dearth Elisha has a table spread for all his children. So the
Lord Jesus has a table for His children in this land of dearth. And mark, this
table is especially prepared not for Elisha but “for the sons of the prophets.”
The Lord takes care of His children. In the desert they shall never want. But
in this land of dearth there is always danger near. The poison is always liable
to find its way into the feast of the Lord. And so it was here. “And one went
out into the field to gather herbs.” But here lies the danger: we are poor,
weak, blind creatures, and the “wild vine” mingles with the “true” everywhere
around us. Worst of all, we “know it not.” And the danger is worse from the
fact of it being “a vine.” If it were a thorn, a thistle, or some growth
bearing the danger on its very front, we should avoid it. There would be no
temptation to stoop down and gather it. But it is not from the thorn or the
thistle that the danger arises. And is it not so still? Our danger lies not in
the open blasphemer, the avowed atheist; not in the open vice, or profligacy,
or crime; not in the sin that lifts itself up with unblushing front in our way.
These are the thorn and the thistle that carry their own character on the
surface. No; our danger lies in that which is so like the vine and yet not it.
It lies in that which looks so good, so Christian, so generous, so liberal, so
praiseworthy--Rationalism under a great display of the love of Christ, yet
denying the innate depravity of the heart. It lies in the theatre, the ball,
the concert, under the specious gilding of “charity.” It lies in the world’s
follies and amusements, while yet maintaining family prayer, regular attendance
at church and its ordinances. In these and a thousand other ways we see the
“wild vine.” We think it is “the true vine,” and so, like the man here, we
gather plenty of it. We carry the poison home with us. We shred it into the
pottage. We carry the spirit of the “wild vine” into our hearts, our thoughts,
our spirit, our whole life. And what was it we needed? To see the true
character of this “vine” that it was “wild”; to see the true nature of these
gourds that they were deadly. Yes, we wanted more spiritual sight, more prayer,
more communion with God, more distrustfulness of self, more watchfulness, more
of the Spirit of God. For lack of these we were unable to distinguish between
the “true vine”
and the “wild,” between Christ and mere religion, between Christ and popular
Christianity, between Christ and mere benevolence and charity, between Christ
and the world. “There is death in the pot!”--everywhere God’s truth blended
with “wild gourds.” In ten thousand different forms it is presented to us--in
the Church and in the world, in doctrines, in preaching, in services, in
private life and public life, at home and abroad. “So they poured out for the
men to eat.” How many in this day do the same thing! They literally pour out
this mixture of truth and error, light and darkness,--Christ and the world,
self and Jesus, for men to drink! In the day in which we are living, this
blending of opposites and “pouring them out for men to drink” is most
conspicuous. And it will become more and more so. Strict and clearly drawn
lines are not palatable to man’s fallen nature. The death in the pot was only
discovered in the eating. And then it is said, “they could not eat thereof.” It
is so still. It is in the eating that the proof lies. It is when the soul tries
to enjoy Christ and the world it finds out the death--that is, if there be any
conscience left, if it has
ever known,, the joy of God’s presence. Then it “feels how impossible is this
blending. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” It is then that the soul of the true
child of God feels the force of this “cannot.” We say it again: if the man has ever tasted
the joy of God’s presence, of abiding communion with Him, and if there is any
conscience left in harmony with this, then it will be felt most keenly that
“there is death in the pot”; then it will be felt that he cannot live nor grow in grace on
this mingling of “wild gourds” with the pottage of the Lord. A spiritually
sensitive soul will feel that, to enjoy the feast of the Lord, it must draw
sharp lines between truth and error, light and darkness, Christ and the world.
“There is death in the pot” will be felt, and there will be found no real food
but in the “true vine,” Christ alone. We notice here that the Divine mode of
healing is not by taking out the evil, but by putting in something to
counteract it. When Elisha found the spring of Jericho bad he did not strive to
draw out the evil, but put in the salt to counteract it. When Moses found the
waters of Marah bitter he put in the tree to sweeten them. Throughout the Bible
this is God’s way. Man’s is exactly the opposite. He begins by cutting off what
he conceives to be the fruitless branches. He begins by reformation, forgetting
that it is not reformation man needs, but revolution. Thus man cuts off the
branches and leaves the tree unchanged. God lays the “axe at the root of the
tree.” The Holy Spirit is given to the sinner. It is a new and Divine power
working from within. It is the meal cast into the pot, the tree cast into the
bitter waters. Thus God’s “new creation” begins. Hence the spiritual
conflict--a redeemed soul in an unredeemed body--the new nature inside the old.
Hence the struggle, the agony, the cry, “O wretched man that I am!” This goes
on to the end, for the old
nature is never made new. It is the old Adam to the last. When the Lord comes
again we shall then have the redeemed body. This body will match the redeemed
soul, and the conflict will end. Not till then. There will then be a redeemed
soul in a redeemed body, and its result everlasting joy and blessedness. What is
this “meal”? It is, spiritually, Christ. It is the Holy Spirit bringing Christ
into the soul, into the house, into the duty, into all things. Christ is the
one great antidote to all error. Christ is the life of all things. “He that
eateth Me, he shall live by Me.” The soul will find food in everything where He
is, but it will starve without. (F. Whitfield, M. A.)
The poisonous pottage
healed
Notice here--
I. A
supernatural interposition to counteract a natural mistake. When the Son of God
was invited to the marriage feast in Cana, He found there had been a mistake on
the part of the provider as to the quantity of wine required, and He rectified
the mistake by making more. Here the mistake was not in the quantity; there was
enough--there was too much there was death in the pot. But the mistake was in
the quality of the food, and was such a mistake as could be rectified by
supernatural intervention only.
II. A
supernatural intervention watch did not take place until the very moment when
it was needed. “And as they were eating,” etc. (2 Kings
4:40).
Man’s extremity is often reached before God interposes. The wine was quite
exhausted at Cana before the Saviour made more. Abraham’s knife was lifted to
slay his son, when the angel of Jehovah called to him (Genesis
22:11).
Israel came to the very
border of the Red Sea before the waters were divided. So here the hungry men tasted
the pottage before the miracle was wrought.
III. A
supernatural intervention in which human effort was required to be put forth.
When Jesus was about to raise Lazarus, He said, “Take ye away the stone.” So in the
miracle at Cana, “Fill the water-pots with water.” Elisha could have rendered
the pottage harmless by the power of God without the meal, and the Saviour
could have filled empty water-pots with wine quite as easily as those filled with water. But
human effort must do what it can. Lessons:
1. Mistakes
made through man’s ignorance can be made right by Divine power and wisdom.
2. Sincerity
of purpose and good intentions are no guarantees of the harmlessness of
actions.
3. We
ought to seek to know for what work we are qualified. The man who volunteered
to gather herbs for the pottage might have been well fitted for other work; but
his undertaking that for which ignorance of the nature of herbs disqualified
him had well-nigh been the death of all the sons of the prophets. (Outlines
of Sermons.)
Inexorableness of law
God’s laws will not be
suspended to accommodate our disobediences, or indolences, or ignorances, or
mistakes. If you sweeten your coffee with arsenic, it will kill you as surely
that you did it by mistake as if you did it of wilful purpose. Nature’s
commandment is, “Thou shalt not
make mistakes, thou shalt not be ignorant, thou shalt not be
deceived, thou shalt not transgress any natural law.”
Verses 42-44
And there came a man from Baal-shalisha.
The farmer’s gift
I. A lesson on
providence. This dearth came in consequence of sin. The proud and wicked people
would never yield, except they were obliged by God’s strong hand. And when He
punishes, He makes men know how powerful He is. Some men nowadays would not be
touched in any other way. When God takes to preaching, His voice is heard outside the
churches and chapels. You cannot have retributive providences, and only the
wicked suffer; the godly have their share of want. Elisha was in need. But the
godly have some one to look up to. The God of to-day is the God of the Old
Testament:--the manna God,--the barrel of meal God,--the God who has said,
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee.”
II. There is here a
beautiful example of benevolence. We don’t know the farmer’s name who relieved
the prophet. He was one of a noble band of nameless ones. We know where he came
from,--the village has got into the Bible, through the man’s goodness. It is
possible to make our birthplace famous by living for Jesus. We sometimes say,
he gives twice who gives quickly. The farmer gave as soon as he could. Don’t
wait till you have churned, and give God the buttermilk. For many wait to be
rich before they will be generous, only to find that their heart is too sour to
give anything. First fruits 1 Give God the best part of your life, that which
has the sunshine. If you will care for God with your May and June, He will care
for you in November.
1. He came himself. He did not send it. If you want a thing well
done, do it yourself. Especially is this true of acts of benevolence. Be your
own almoner. “Pure religion, and undefiled, before God the Father, is to visit
the fatherless and widow.”
2. This farmer increased God’s capital. The rule is, that God works
by means. He does not usually act without the assistance of His creatures. Many
of His plans are unfinished because the men are on strike! Let it be said, with
all reverence, this miracle could not have been performed if the man had not
come from Baal-shalisha with the corn and cakes. The prophet might have been
fed, but not in this way.
III. The good farmer
accomplished a great deal more than he intended. He meant feeding the prophet,
and he fed a hundred others! And is not this the ease nowadays? When Robert
Raikes began his Sunday School he only thought of the poor ignorant children of
Gloucester; he little thought that he would be imitated, and that there would
be thousands of Sunday Schools. When Charles Wesley asked Bohler if he must
tell of his joy in Christ, the answer was, “If you had a thousand tongues, tell
it with them all.” He little thought that the idea would be set to rhyme, but
Wesley wrote--
O for a thousand tongues
to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise!
and that has been sung by millions of happy Christians in all
parts of the world. The fact is, God can make a much better use of our talents
than any one else can. You cannot get so much interest for your money anywhere
else. Lord Byron was a much greater poet than Isaac Watts, but they will be
singing Watts’ hymns when Byron’s name is forgotten. Elisha would not have had
the chance of feeding his students if the farmer had not brought the corn. And
the good man was equal to his opportunities. In spite of the sneer of his
wretched servitor, who was then in training for leprosy, he would have the
cakes divided. “Give unto the people that they may eat.” How like God! He does
not sell, but gives, and so it is with the bread of life. It is given to whoever
will come. Are you hungry? Does your soul need satisfying? His mercy can do it.
(T. Champness.)
Love to our neighbour
It is love to our neighbour which has purged the slum, and built
the orphanage, and gathered the children into schools. It has had compassion on
the poor; it has given bread to the hungry and covered the naked with a
garment; it has given the Bible to the nations; it has launched the lifeboat to
the perishing; it has taken the prodigal by the right hand, and opened the door
of repentance to the harlot and the thief. It was love to our neighbour,
burning like a fire of God in the hearts of a Carey, a Livingstone, a Romilly,
a Howard, a Clarkson, which sent missionaries to the heathen; modified the
ferocity of penal laws; purified the prisons; set free the slaves. It was love
to our neighbour which, enriching even an age of torpor and of mammon worship,
sent Wesley to fan a flame amid the dying embers of religion; and Gordon to
toil among his ragged boys; and Coleridge Patteson to die at Nukapu by the
poisoned arrows of savages; and Father Damien to waste away at loathly Molokai,
a leper among the lepers. It is a dim reflection of the love of Him who lived
and died to redeem a guilty world. It differentiates the worldly life with its
low aims from the noble and the Christian life, which is ready to do good to
men that despitefully use it and persecute it. Every true life is nearest the
life of Christ in love to its neighbour; and this love is the essence and
epitome of all pure religion; it is the end of the commandment and the
fulfilling of the law. (F. W. Farrar, D. D.)
Give unto the people that
they may eat.--
Punctual love
We wonder at the smooth working of the machinery for feeding a
great city; and how, day by day, the provisions come at the right time, and are
parted out among hundreds of thousands of homes. But we seldom think of the
punctual love, the perfect knowledge, the profound wisdom which cares for us
all, and is always in time with its gifts. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Beneficence
The great ocean is in a constant state of evaporation. It gives
back what it receives, and sends up its waters in mists to gather into clouds;
and so there is rain for the earth, and greenness and beauty everywhere. But
there are many men who do not believe in evaporation. They get all they can,
and keep all they get, and so are not fertilisers, but only stagnant, miasmatic
pools.
The people’s needs provided
Oh, we are so glad when one seeks and finds the Bread of Life;
when there is an Elisha to bring meal, sound and healthy, and life-giving, and
when the meal is put into the pot, we are so glad when the hungry eat and go
satisfied; there is joy in seeing the hungry feed. Away on the Marylebone Road,
in London, there is a place where the hungry get free food, and those who
supply it get their return for the money they give for the food in seeing the
hungry eat. There was a wealthy young fellow who devoted a large sum to feeding
the hungry, and he was always there. When he was asked why he was always among
the poor, he replied, “It does me good to see them eat.” Ay, and gospel
preachers, when the Lord sometimes does not as much as give us a bite for
ourselves, when we see the crowd hungry for Jesus, when we see one step forth
into the hall where the feast is spread, we rejoice as much as the soul that is
saved, (J. Robertson.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》