Where Is the God of Elijah?
(No. 2596)
A SERMON
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
24, 1883.
"And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and struck the
water and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? And when he also had
struck the water, it was divided this way and that, and Elisha crossed
over." 2 Kings 2:14.
THE great objective for our souls is to seek after our God. We love His
House, the place where prayer is apt to be made is very dear to us. But
the courts of the Lord's House are dull and dreary if the Lord,
Himself, is not there! Our question is not so much, "Where are His
courts?" as, "Where is Jehovah, Himself?" Brothers and Sisters, we love
beyond expression the ministry of God's Word–it has been unspeakably
precious to our spirits! By it we were called into spiritual life and
by it our life is fed and nourished. But still, if God, Himself, is not
in the Word and with the Word, what does it avail us? Our spirits must
be sustained by the Holy Spirit or else they faint and die.
In reading a gracious book, or in engaging in private devotion, or in
coming into the great assemblies of God's House, our chief question is,
"Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"–for if we do not find God in all
these things, what have we found? Nothing. Or we have mere husks,
whereas the precious, priceless kernel is lost to us! Oh, I wish that
we always felt in prayer that we would never leave off praying till we
found the God of prayer! I wish that, in our singing, we would always
feel that we had not truly praised God at all unless our song had found
Him, and every note in it had had some one of His attributes to sing.
Oh, what an effort it is, sometimes, to really get at God! We are ready
to cry with the poet–
"I will approach You–I will force My way through obstacles to You."
"I will break through gates of brass, I will leap over the highest
wall, but I must get to my God, the living God! Oh, when shall I come
and appear before God?" I wish that we were always in this state of
mind, that our continual cry might be, "The Lord God of Elijah–we must
have Him! We cannot live without Him, we cannot be strong without Him,
we cannot rejoice without Him. We would not wish even to be in Heaven
without Him–it would be no Heaven to us if the Lord were gone from it!
"Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I
desire beside You."
Now, this great Truth of God, that our first and last objective should
be to seek our God, is peculiarly true when we are called upon to
undertake some new office or work unknown to us. Elisha, for instance,
has poured water upon the hands of Elijah and been his personal
attendant. But Elijah has been taken away by a whirlwind into Heaven
and, now, Elisha has to be the Prophet of Israel in Elijah's place. A
great weight of responsibility has fallen upon him. He has to do what
scarcely any other man of woman born had ever done before–he has to
follow one who seems well-nigh inimitable! He has to be successor of
the Prophet of Fire–the man of God, Elijah. "Well," you say, "he has
Elijah's mantle." Yes, he has his mantle and there is something in
that. If ever I could feel any great reverence for relics, I would like
to have Elijah's mantle. Elisha had it, but what was the use of having
the mantle of Elijah unless he could also have his God? Though he is
called to take the mantle and with it to strike the waters, yet he
knows where his strength must lie, and his prayer, his cry, is, "Here
is the Prophet's mantle; but where is Jehovah, God of Elijah?" If he
can get Elijah's God, then the mantle will mean something! But, if not,
it may even be like a garment of fire to him when he puts it on–and he
will not be able to wear it becomingly. Men will see that he has
Elijah's mantle, but they will ask, "Where is Elijah's power?"
Now, dear Brother, you are about to succeed a man of God. You have his
mantle. The people have chosen you, so you are entering in by the door.
You have not intruded into the office uncalled. You are a fit man, no
doubt, to be a successor of the one who has fallen asleep, but do not
be satisfied with your succession to the office. Whatever it is that
has been bequeathed to you by your predecessor, be not satisfied with
that, alone! Above everything else, you need his God. If you have his
God, you will do very well, even if you do not have his mantle. If you
should turn out to be a very different man from him who went before
you–as different as Elisha was from Elijah–you will do very well if
your confidence is where your holy predecessor placed his confidence.
And you, good Sister, have undertaken the charge of a class, or some
special work for Christ, and the dear Sister who went before you was a
woman of renown. Her death has made a great gap in the Church and you
do not feel fit to fill it. Well, never mind about that–if you can get
her God, if you can rest in Him with a simple faith–you may go on
without the slightest fear! If you have the same God as she had and
have the same faith in Him, even if you do not work exactly in the same
way, yet you shall bring glory to God and you shall be a blessing to
those round about you! I exhort all young people who are entering upon
an untried path to say to themselves, "Where is my father's God? The
dear old man has fallen asleep and I am apt to cry, 'My father, my
father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof,' but I have now
to follow him. Oh, that I may have the same Spirit resting upon me! The
same God to come to my succor! Then I shall do well enough." You see,
then, dear Friends, this question of Elisha is an important one, but
most of all, when you are entering upon some untried work–"Where is
the Lord God of Elijah?"
This question also comes in most appropriately when some great
difficulty lies in your way. Before Elisha, the Jordan is flowing, a
deep and rapid stream–how is he to cross it? He takes the mantle which
those waters knew before, when Elijah passed that way, and striking
them with it, he cries, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" And the
waters at once divide and the Prophet walks through! Have you come to a
great difficulty, my dear Friend? Can you not get over it? Are you in
trouble about it? Now, if this is a difficulty that ought to be
removed, the shortest way to have it removed is to go to God about it!
If it is one that ought not to be removed, then you also have done
rightly in going to God, for He who will notremove it will at least
give you Grace to glorify Him in some other way! The best thing we can
do, in all times of trouble and trial, is to lay the matter before the
Lord.
Here is a Church in difficulty. It does not know what to do, or which
way to look. This is the question for its members to ask, "Where is the
Lord God of Elijah?" Here is a Christian man in great difficulties. He
has not brought himself into them, but the pressure of the times has
brought him into a very sad condition–what is he to do? Why, look to
his God and see what God will do! Let him also cry, "Where is the Lord
God of Elijah?" I do not think that we shall ever find that any man who
truly trusted in God was yet confounded. No difficulty which was ever
propounded to the Most High and left in His hands ever remained very
long a difficulty. He has the solution of all our problems, the answer
to all our riddles. He can work out to a blessed result all our
difficulties. There is nothing which can possibly be beyond the power
of Him whose name is Jehovah, the I AM, God All-Sufficient!
So, then, we learn from Elisha's question that we must ask after God
when we are beginning any new work, or when there is some great
difficulty in our way.
Thus have I introduced the text. Now there are two things I wish to
speak upon. The first is, this question turned into a prayer. ' 'Where
is the Lord God of Elijah?" Though it reads like an enquiry, yet there
is no doubt that, properly construed, it is a prayer, an invocation.
"Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?" Secondly, if we have time, we
will have a few words together upon this question answered. "Where is
the Lord God of Elijah?"
I. First, then, let us think of THIS QUESTION TURNED INTO A PRAYER and
let us, ourselves, pray it as we meditate upon it–"Where is the Lord
God of Elijah?"
That means, first, the Lord that kept Elijah faithful when all the rest
of the nation turned aside. Elijah could say, with some little
exaggeration, "I, only, am left, and they seek my life to take it
away." Jezebel, that imperious Sidonian queen, held Ahab entirely under
her power, and she had set up the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth,
which had straightway become popular all over the land, though it was
accompanied by foul and filthy rites. And side by side with that was
the worship of Baal. The worship of the Most High God was carried on by
the faithful few, but they generally consisted of the very poorest of
the land. And they were molested, persecuted and hunted to the death by
the cruel and idolatrous zeal of Jezebel. But there was one man, at
least, whom Ahab and Jezebel could not touch–one man who was Ahab's
master, who spoke out for Jehovah even to the king's face, and who
stood alone, and cried, "The God that answers by fire, let Him be God."
When the fire-answer had come, he cried to the people, "Take the
prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape." That man, when all the
waters raged around him, stood like a rock, unmoved and unmovable! For
the most part of his life he was steadfast and firm.
This is the kind of men that we need today. Look how the whole world
seems to be rocking and reeling, and men are continually asking for one
novelty after another! This cry for something fresh has led to the
casting off of the worship of God. "No!" you say. "Yes!" I say. They
worship, today, many gods and many lords–gods newly come up, which our
fathers knew not! But Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of
Jacob, is scarcely known among us! Men, so far as they could, have
dethroned Him. They have set up an effeminate being whom they call
their god–a god without justice, a god whose name has no terror in it,
as the name Jehovah has–as we read the story of it in the Old
Testament. We need, nowadays, to have men who will say, "We worship no
new god. The God of the Old Testament, who is also the God of the
New–this God is our God forever and ever! He shall be our Guide even
unto death." You know how they cry down Jehovah. They will not have
Him! At least they will not have Him on His throne. His sovereignty is
a thing that is scoffed at and made a by-word almost everywhere. And
yet, Beloved, Jehovah reigns! He sits upon the floods. He rules as King
forever and ever and unto His blessed name we will give praise,
whatever others may do!
In these days, too, we need men who can stand steadfast for all kinds
of truth–not only as doctrines, but in practice. We need you, young
men, to be upright and honest in your trade, when so many tradesmen all
around you do all sorts of evil things in order to get gain. We need
you, young men, to confess Christ in the workshop and to stand up for
Him amidst the mass of your associates who keep not the Sabbath,
neither regard the worship of God at all! Do you ask, "How can we be
kept steadfast?" The answer is, "Where is Jehovah, the God of
Elijah?"–for He that held him up can hold us up! I would that we had
ten thousand men like John Knox was in Scotland–men that could not be
turned aside from the Truth of God–men that knew the power of it in
their hearts and that knew the practice of it by being sanctified of
the Spirit of God and who, therefore, were "steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord." We shall never have such men
unless they find the Lord God of Elijah! So let us all seek for Him.
Next, this question," Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" reminds me of
Elijah's mighty power in prayer A man of like passions with ourselves
was this Elijah, yet God gave to him the key of prayer and he locked up
Heaven with a turn of his hand! And when the time came, he went up to
the top of Mount Carmel and put his head between his knees–and there
cried to the Lord until, once again, the heavens were covered with
clouds and down came a deluge of rain! This was the man who, in his
chamber, prayed back the spirit of a child. This was he who could have
anything of God that he wished, like Luther of old! Do not some of you
say, "Would God I had his power in prayer! How am I to get it?" Why,
where he got it–from his God! The Lord God of Elijah can help you to
pray prayers like his–and if He does, He will give you answers like
his! It may be that you will have nothing to do with bringing or
withholding rain, but you may have something to do with things quite as
important that shall touch the inward lives of men and shall bring them
food from Heaven, and the benediction and bedewing of the Holy Spirit.
Get to your God! Lay hold upon Him by a brave and daring faith! Fall
flat upon the promises and then pray straight up to the God who gave
them! And so shall you get the blessing that you desire. You and I are
going about after this and after that till we compass sea and land, and
miss the blessing! Straightforward makes the best running. Let us go
straight to God in prayer, with simple confidence in Him, and we shall
not have long to ask, "Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?" for we
shall prove that He still answers prayer even as He did in the
Prophet's day.
The third rendering of the text is this–As God provided for Elijah at
the brook Cherith and at Zarephath, so can He provide for us. I think I
hear you say, "My store of meal is running very short. My flask of oil
is almost empty. 'Where is the Lord God of Elijah?'" Why, He is still
with His Elijah and He is still with such widows as the widow of
Zarephath. Do you think that He is dead? Has it crossed your mind that
Divine Providence is a failure and that God will no more provide for
His own? Oh, think not so! If you do, your unbelief will prove a
scourge to you–it will break that meal barrel, it will dash in pieces
that oil flask! You will get nothing of the Lord if you waver! But if
you keep strong in faith, you shall find that Jehovah Jireh is still
His name–"The Lord Will Provide." "No good thing will He withhold from
them that walk uprightly." God can help us to put such confidence in
Him that we shall find the Lord God of Elijah supplying our daily needs
and feeding us until we need no more! Sing this song, O you tried ones!
Sing it at this moment–
"The Lord my Shepherd is! I shall be well supplied Since He is mine,
and I am His, What can Ineet beside?"
I see also in this great text, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" that
the God that raised the dead by Elijah is the God I need. Oh, I have
had to try to raise the dead in this place many a time and it has been
done, too! Man has spoken God's mandate and as the command has been
uttered, "Lazarus, come forth," full many a Lazarus has left his tomb
and you, my Brothers and Sisters, by your gentle, kindly teaching, have
loosed them and let them go about their daily occupation, or upon holy
service, as those who have been raised from the dead! But there are
still some dead ones for whom I have prayed full often and others, too,
who love them, have pleaded for them. We never cease to make them the
subject of our earnest supplication, but they are still as dead as they
were several years ago. Shall they remain so? Shall they lie there
till, at last, they become utterly corrupt? Shall it ever be said of
them, "Bury the dead out of My sight"? God will say that concerning all
dead souls, for He will have no dead ones in Heaven. They must be put
out of sight! They must be driven from the Presence of Christ and from
the glory of His power–far from His glorious abode of peace and love!
O Brothers and Sisters, pray mightily for these dead ones, for still,
the Lord God of Elijah can raise them! Never despair of anybody and
remember how, even when Lazarus had been so long dead that his body
stank, he was nevertheless made to live! And if men go so far into evil
that their sins turn to corruption and their lives become foul and
loathsome, yet even then the quickening Spirit can make them live! Oh,
let us be importunate for these dead souls! Let us still plead for
them! Let us urge our suit with earnestness and perseverance–and let
us never cease crying unto God for them until the dead in sin become
the living in Zion! Here is the great hope for them, and here
alone–that the God who raises the dead is still in the midst of His
Church!
Further, we still need "the Lord God of Elijah" as "the God that
answers by fire." Today, in this country, we are undergoing very much
the same sort of ordeal as Elijah had to endure. The priests of the
modern Baal and of the groves swarm on every side. The "mass" and all
the other idols of Rome are set up again in this land–they may be seen
as objects of adoration even in our parish churches! The candle that
Latimer lit, which never can be quite put out, seems as if it burns but
very dimly in this land–and the old and glorious Gospel of the blessed
God, which was preached by Luther and by Calvin, and by our Lord and
His Apostles, has come to be regarded as an old worn-out thing, to be
thrown away and cast aside. Oh, for the God of Elijah once again to
answer by fire! We need a Baptism of the Holy Spirit for all such as
are spiritually alive, and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon such
as know not the Lord and obey not His Truth. Oh, that we could see the
Lord making bare His arm, again, in the midst of the land! When I think
of how God visited Pharaoh and magnified His might by smiting that
stout-hearted rebel by plague after plague, my soul cries, "O Lord,
will You not split the heavens and come down, even if it is with a rod
of iron, to dash in pieces, like a potter's vessel, those who have so
long resisted Your Grace? Your longsuffering seems to have been
displayed long enough and men grow bolder and yet bolder in their
iniquity."
I can understand the spirit of Jonah–though I do not wish to fall into
it–when he seemed to feel that Nineveh ought to be slaughtered for its
enormous sin. At this day the world still lies in the Wicked One–and
Christ Crucified is disowned and derided. Perhaps London is more
heathenish than ever it was since first the feet of savages walked
among its woods–the people grow worse and worse in many respects–and
there is less and less of vital godliness and of seeking after the Most
High. O Lord, how long? "Pluck Your right hand out of Your bosom" and,
once again, as on Carmel the fire descended, so let the sacred flame
fall upon Your true Church, that we may no longer need to ask, "Where
is the Lord God of Elijah?" We need Him, we need HIM beyond everything
in these dead days!
Now look yet again at our text–"Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" I
should like to meet Him and to know Him as the God who gave Elijah such
wondrous food. In the strength of that meat, he went for forty days! I
should like to feed on that kind of fare! One grain of meal to a gallon
of water is the sort of food served out by some preachers, nowadays–
there is nothing in it to satisfy or to sustain the soul. But God gave
Elijah forty days' meat at one meal! Do you, dear Friends, ever get
meals such as that? I do, when I read certain books–not modern thought
books–they give me no such meat as that, but let me have one of the
good solid Puritan volumes that are so little prized, nowadays, and my
soul can feed upon that! You do the same and see whether you do not
find food that will last not merely for forty days, but that will make
you strong to walk before the Lord, even unto the Mount of God, there
to bless and adore Him forever and ever! But, oh, the milk-and-water
diet that is too often given in these times! Well may we cry, "Where is
the Lord God of Elijah?" Oh, to be fed once more upon the doctrines of
discriminating Grace! Oh, to be told continually of the love without a
beginning, love without a change, love without an end! Oh, to hear of
an atonement that is an atonement, and that does, indeed, put away
sin–not the kind of atonement of which many talk today, which is all
mist and cloud, and which accomplishes something or nothing according
as men are pleased to let it!
We need, again, to have meat unto life eternal, to know the great Truth
of union to Christ, of being in Him, and so safe before the Lord, and
made well-pleasing unto the Most High! God send us back this food!
Brothers and Sisters, do not be satisfied until you get it! Turn from
all other tables and say, "'Where is the Lord God of Elijah?' Where is
that flesh that is meat, indeed, and that blood which is drink,
indeed?" Be content with none but Christ! Have no Gospel but Jesus
Christ and Him Crucified. May God so satisfy the souls of His saints
that they shall be able either to serve well or to suffer well! We are
only strong either in patience or in zeal as the Lord God of Elijah
feeds us with the Bread which came down from Heaven, the Bread of Life,
Christ Jesus, Himself! "Lord, evermore give us this Bread!"
Once more, we need the God who took Elijah away in a chariot of fire. I
shall close with that. I daresay many of you do not expect to go to
Heaven in that way. If I had my choice between that form of translation
and death, I think I would prefer to die. I never could sympathize with
the great delight which some Brethren have in expecting that they shall
never die. Why not? You will be a loser throughout eternity if you do
not, for you will not have fellowship with Christ in His death so fully
as those who fall asleep and so have fellowship with Him in the grave.
It will be a great joy to meet with Christ whatever we may miss in any
other way. To behold Him and to be with Him is the utmost hope of our
spirits. But, still, I would not wish to miss fellowship with Him in
death. What is there to be afraid of in death? "The pain," says one.
What pain? "The pain in dying." There is no pain in dying! There can be
none–the only pain is in living! Death is the great quietus. There
shall be no sorrow or sighing when death has passed upon the Believer.
What, then, are you afraid of? Of death? But has not Christ told you
that you shall never die? You shall depart out of this world unto the
Father and, very likely you will not know when you are going. I have
personally known several friends who were always afraid of dying, but I
am morally certain that they never knew anything about death, for they
went to bed, one night, apparently in good health, and when they were
called in the morning, it was discovered that the Lord had called
them–and they had gone up to be "forever with the Lord." The placid
countenance showed that there had not been any struggle, probably not
even a sigh or a gasp! They shut their eyes and dreamed of Heaven–and
when they awoke, they found that they were there! They had passed
through no iron gates, nor struggled through any cold stream–and they
were in Heaven!
"Oh," says someone, "but I am still afraid to die!" Let me tell you of
one who said the same. Some years ago I was away in the South of
France. I had been very ill, there, and was sitting in my room alone,
for my friends had all gone down to the midday meal. All at once it
struck me that I had something to do out of doors. I did not know what
it was, but I walked out and sat down on a seat. There came and sat on
the seat next to me a poor, pale, emaciated woman in the last stage of
consumption. And looking at me, she said, "O Mr. Spurgeon, I have read
your sermons for years and I have learned to trust the Savior! I know I
cannot live long, but I am very sad as I think of it, for I am so
afraid to die." Then I knew why I had gone out there and I began to try
to cheer her. I found that it was very difficult work. After a little
conversation, I said to her, "Then you would like to go to Heaven, but
not to die? "Yes, just so," she answered. "Well, how do you wish to go
there? Would you like to ascend in a chariot of fire?" That method had
not occurred to her, but she answered, "Yes, oh, yes!" "Well," I said,
"suppose there should be, just round this corner, homes all on fire,
and a blazing chariot waiting there to take you up to Heaven–do you
feel ready to step into such a chariot?"
She looked at me, and she said, "No, I would be afraid to do that."
"Ah," I said, "and so would I. I would tremble a great deal more at
getting into a chariot of fire than I would at dying! I am not fond of
being behind fiery homes, I would rather be excused from taking such a
ride as that." Then I said to her, "Let me tell you what will probably
happen to you. You will most likely go to bed some night and you will
wake up in Heaven." That is just what did happen to her not long after.
Her husband wrote to tell me that after our conversation she had never
had any more trouble about dying– she felt that it was the easiest way
into Heaven, after all–and far better than going there in a whirlwind
with horses of fire and chariots of fire! And by His Grace she gave
herself up for her Heavenly Father to take her home in His own way. And
so she passed away, as I expected, in her sleep.
Now I want you, dear Friends, to feel that your great need in dying is
to have "the Lord God of Elijah" with you. If you have Him, then you
may cry, "Come, horses of fire, and chariots of fire, we are not afraid
to ride behind these fiery steeds if 'the Lord God of Elijah' is with
us!" Oh, no! Or it may be, "Come, silent chamber. Come, bed made hard
with weary weeks of pain. Come, at last, the message that the wheel is
broken at the cistern and that we must depart. Come Death and come
celestial band, to bear my soul away." Thus you will have such a sweet
realization of the Presence of "the Lord God of Elijah" with you that
you will not be at all afraid! You timid ones are sure to "play the
man" when you come to die. Often, the most trembling saints are the
boldest at the last. I have known some who dared hardly call their
souls their own, they were so full of doubts and fears, but when they
have come to the river, they have been the bravest of the brave! You
remember how Mr. Bunyan says of poor Miss Much-Afraid, Mr.
Despondency's daughter, that she went through the river singing! Some
of God's Great-Hearts, when they have died, have found the water up to
their chin and it is a glorious thing for them to be able to stand
there–to feel the bottom beneath their feet and to know that it is
good to let Death do his worst and, all the while to be shouting,
"Victory, victory, victory, I am more than conqueror through Him that
loved me!" But if you are weak, feeble and timid, you will very likely
die in a different way–you will probably have a sweet, calm, happy,
blessed passage. "The Lord God of Elijah" will be with you and you
shall triumph at the last, even as He did!
You see, dear Friends, that the time has gone, though I have only been
able to speak upon the first part of my subject. So you must come
another time for the second part, if the Lord wills.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 KINGS 17.
Verse 1. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead,
said unto Ahab, As the Load God of Israel lives, before whom I stand,
there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
How abruptly this man breaks in upon the scene! He leaps like a lion
from the thicket. There is no previous announcement of his coming, but
here he stands, God's own man ordained to bear witness in evil
times–to stand like a bronze pillar when everything around him seems
to be moving from its place! Ahab had not been accustomed to be spoken
to in this fashion. Mark how personal is Elijah's message. He does not
begin even by saying, as the Prophets usually did, "Thus says the
Lord." There is something that at first seems almost audacious about
his expression–"There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but
according to my word." A man may sometimes seem sell-assertive when,
really, he has so completely lost himself in God that he does not care
what people think about him, whether they regard him as an egotist or
not. Some men appear to be modest because they are proud, while others
seem to be proud because they have sunk themselves and only speak so
boldly because they have their Master's authority at the back of their
words. Bravely did Elijah say, "There shall not be dew nor rain these
years, but according to my word."
2, 3. And the Word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Get you hence,
and turn you eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is
before Jordan. Of course the Prophet would have had to share in the
general need unless God had provided for him and, therefore, the Lord
took care that His servant should be hidden away where a brook would
continue to run after the moisture had departed from other places.
4. And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook; and I have
commanded the ravens to feed you there. Perhaps someone says, "Ravens
were more likely to rob the Prophet than to feed him!" And so they
were. Some have objected that these ravens were unclean. What if they
were? Things are not made unclean because they are carried by unclean
creatures. Did not Abigail bring to David food upon animals which were
unclean? There is no sense in that objection! "Oh, but," somebody else
asks, "how should ravens bring food?" How should they not, if God
commanded them? All creatures are under His control. Granted a God–and
a miracle is simple enough. If God does not feed His people by any
other means, He will command ravenous beasts and unclean birds to feed
them!
5. So he went and did according to the word of the LORD: for he went
and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. It is the glory
of Elijah that he does whatever God bids him, asking no questions. He
simply, like a child, goes to the brook just as, like a hero, he had
previously stood before the king.
6. 7. And the ravens brought him bread andflesh in the morning, and
bread and flesh in the evening; andhe drank of the brook And it came to
pass, after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no
rain in the land. Brooks will dry up, even if godly men are being
sustained by them. Is there anyone here whose brook is drying up? Has
it quite dried up? Still trust in God, for, if the ravens are put out
of commission, God will employ some other agency.
8, 9. And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Arise, get you to
Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there: behold, I have
commanded a widow woman there to sustain you. It was a time of famine,
yet God sent him to a widow woman! She is sure to need sustaining,
herself. Yes, and she shall get it, too, through sustaining the
Prophet! He that could command the ravens to feed His servant, could
command a widow woman to do the same thing–and He did. This woman does
not appear to have been originally a worshipper of Jehovah. She lived
in a heathen country and probably was, herself, a heathen, but she
reverenced the servant of Jehovah and she did his bidding and, no
doubt, became a true follower of the living God.
10. So he arose and went to Zarephath. There is the same unreasoning
faith–"So he arose"–just as, in the 5th verse, it is written, "So he
went," that is, with all alacrity, as a matter of course, he did his
Lord's bidding without any question.
10. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman
was there. There she was, the woman who was to sustain him! She had
come, no doubt, with a carriage and pair, to take him home, to her
mansion. Oh, no! "The widow woman was there."
10. Gathering sticks. She was a poor woman to sustain him, but there
she was, "gathering sticks."
10. Andhe called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray you, a little water
in a vessel, that I may drink Water was scarce then–every drop was
very precious–it was, therefore, a large request that Elijah made of
her.
11. And as she was going to fetch it For she saw, by his garment, and
by his majestic bearing, that he was a messenger of God. "As she was
going to fetch it"–
11, 12. He called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray you, a morsel of
bread in your hand. And she said, As the LORD your God lives, I have
not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a
cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that Imaygo in and dress
it for me andmy son, that we may eat it, and die. It was such a little
quantity, that two sticks would be quite enough. Yet this is the woman
who is to sustain Elijah! Poor creature, she needs someone to sustain
her and her son! How often does God use very strange means for the
accomplishment of His blessed purposes!
13. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as you have said: but
make me thereof a little cake, first, and bring it unto me, and
afterwards make for you and for your son. What a trial for her faith!
This stranger must have the first portion of her last meal–yet she had
faith enough to obey his word.
14, 15. For thus says the LORD God ofIsrael, The barrel of meal shall
not waste, neither shall the cruse ofoil fail, until the day that the
LORD sends rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the
saying of Elijah. Faith is blessedly contagious! God, by His Spirit,
can make the faith of one to beget faith in others. This woman learns,
from the very boldness of Elijah, from the very strength of his
countenance, to believe in God! And she does as he tells her.
15-18. And she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the
barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse ofoil fail, according
to the Word of the LORD, which He spoke by Elijah. And it came to pass
after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the
house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no
breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with
you, O you man of God? Have you come unto me to call my sin to
remembrance, and to slay my son?Poor creature, having lost her husband,
her heart was wrapped up in her son! Under this sharp trial, she
condemned herself and she also began to have hard thoughts of the man
of God. We, none of us, know what we may say when we are overwhelmed
with a great trouble. It is easy to find fault with the utterance of a
poor distracted spirit and to say, "That is improper language." Have
you never spoken so in the hour of your grief? Blessed is that man from
whose lips there has never escaped a wrong word in the time of his
anguish! This widow woman was a mother with a dead child in the
house–do not find fault with her, but tenderly pity her–and all who
are in a like case.
19, 20. Andhe said unto her, Give me your son. Andhe took him out of
her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him
upon his own bed. And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God,
have You also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by
slaying her son? The words of the woman had touched his heart and,
perhaps, he also spoke unadvisedly. But who are we that we should
judge? He seemed to feel that wherever he went, he was bringing trouble
upon people. All Israel was afflicted with drought because of his
prophecy and now this poor woman had lost her darling child. Yet even
in this desperate case he did not give up hope, and prayer, and effort.
21. And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto
the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray You, let this child's soul
come into him, again. This was splendid faith on the part of the
Prophet. Nobody had ever prayed, before, for the restoration of one who
was dead. No one had ever attempted to work such a miracle as this, but
Elijah's faith was strung up to a wonderful pitch! Here was faith ready
to receive the blessing, so the blessing would surely come. Here was
the faith that could move mountains and stir the very gates of death!
Elijah treads an unaccustomed road and asks for what had never been
given before.
22, 23. And the LORD heard the voice ofElijah; and the soul ofthe child
came into him, again, andhe revived. And Elijah took the child and
brought him down out ofthe chamber into the house, and delivered him
unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, your son lives. Elijah was never
a man of many words. He was a Prophet mighty in deeds. He said little,
but what he did, spoke loudly.
24. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this Iknow that you are a man
of God, and that the Word ofthe LORD in your mouth is truth. Did she
not know this before? Yes, or else she would not have given him the
first portion of her meal. She must have known it, for she had been
living for a long time upon the meal and the oil which he had
multiplied. But now she said that she knew it, as if she had never
known it before. God has a way of bringing His Truth home to the heart
with such vividness that, though we have been perfectly acquainted with
it for years, yet we are compelled to cry, "Now I know it! Now I have
it as I never had it before! Now I grasp it and embrace it with my very
soul!" May we all know the Truth of God in this grand fashion! Amen.