It is early morning upon Mount Carmel. We are standing on the highest point, looking northward to where Hermon, on the extreme borders of the land, rears its snowcapped head to heaven. Around us on the left lies the Mediterranean Sea, its deep blue waters flocked here and there by the sails of the Tyrian mariners. Immediately at Carmel’s base winds Kishon’s ancient brook, once choked by the slaughter of Sisera’s host. Beyond it stretches the plain of Esdraelon, the garden of Palestine, now sere and barren with three years’ drought. Away there in the distance is the city of Jezreel, with the royal palace and the idol temple distinctly visible.

From all sides the crowds are making their way toward this spot, which, from the remotest times, has been associated with worship. No work is being done anywhere. The fires are dying out in the smithy and the forge. The instruments of labor hang useless on the walls. the whole thought of young and old is concentrated on that mighty convocation to which Ahab has summoned them. See how the many thousands of Israel are slowly gathering and taking up every spot of vantage ground from which a view can be obtained of the proceedings; and prepared for any extreme — from the impure rites of Baal and Astarte, to the reestablishment of their fathers’ religion on the dead bodies of the false priests!

The people are nearly gathered, and there is the regular tread of marshaled men — four hundred prophets of Baal, conspicuous with the sun symbols flashing on their brows. But the prophets of Astarte are absent. The queen, at whose table they ate, has overruled the summons of the king. And now, through the crowd, the litter of the king, borne by stalwart carriers, threads its way, surrounded by the great officers of state.

But our thought turns from the natural panorama, and the sea of upturned faces, and the flashing splendor of the priests, sure of court favor, and insolently defiant. We fix our thought with intense interest on that one man, of sinewy build and flowing hair, who, with flashing eye and compressed lip, awaits the quiet hush which will presently fall upon that mighty concourse. One man against a nation! See with what malignant glances his every movement is watched by the priests. No tiger ever watched its victim more fiercely! If they had their way, he would never touch yonder plain again.

The king alternates between fear and hate, but restrains himself. He feels that, somehow, the coming of the rain depends on this one man. And through the crowd, if there be sympathizers, they are hushed and still. Even Obadiah discreetly keeps out of the way. But do not fear for Elijah — he needs no sympathy! He is consciously standing in the presence of One to whom the nations of men are as grasshoppers. All heaven is at his back. Legions of angels fill the mountain with horses and chariots of fire. He is only a man of like passions with ourselves, but he is full of faith and spiritual power. He has learned the secret of moving God Himself. He can avail of the very resources of Deity, as a slender rod may draw lightning from the cloud. This very day — not by any inherent power, but by faith — you shall see him subdue a kingdom, work righteousness, escape the edge of the sword, wax valiant in the fight, and turn armies of aliens to flight. Nothing shall be impossible to him. Is it not written that “All things are possible to him that believeth”? (Mark 9:23). He spoke seven times during the course of that memorable day, and his times during the course of that memorable day, and his words are the true index of what was passing in his heart.

ELIJAH UTTERED A REMONSTRANCE

“Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). To his clear faith, which was almost sight, there was no IF. He did not doubt for a moment that the LORD was God. But he wanted to show the people the absurdity of their position. Religions so diametrically opposed could not both be right. One of them must be wrong. As soon as the true one was discovered, the one shown to be false must be cast to the winds.

At present their position was illogical and absurd. Their course was like the limp of a man whose legs are uneven, or like the device of a servant employed to serve two masters — doing his best for both and failing to please either. His sincere and simple soul had no patience with such egregious folly. No doubt they had drifted into it, as men often do drift into absurd and wrong positions. We are all liable to that drift of the stream. But the time had come for the nation to be arrested in its attempt to mingle the worship of Jehovah and Baal and compelled to choose between the two issues that presented themselves. Undoubtedly, the prophet felt that once his people were compelled to choose between the two and to say whether the Jehovah of their fathers, or Baal should be God, there should be no doubt as to their verdict.

The people seemed to have been stunned and ashamed that such alternatives should be presented to their choice, for “the people answered him not a word” (1 Kings 18:21). Oh, for the clear- sightedness of that faith which shall show men the unreasonableness of their position — sweeping away the cobwebs of sophistry with a single movement of the hand and arraigning them at the bar of their own consciences, silent and condemned. It is needed in our day as much as ever. Everywhere men are trying to win the smile of the world and the “well done” of Christ. They crowd alike the temples of mammon and of God. They try to be popular in the court of Saul, and to stand well with the exiled David.

ELIJAH THREW DOWN A CHALLENGE

“The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” It was a fair proposal, because Baal was the lord of the sun and the god of those productive natural forces of which heat is the element and sign. The votaries of Baal could not therefore refuse.

And every Israelite could recall many an occasion in the glorious past when Jehovah had answered by fire. It burned in the acacia bush which was its own fuel. It shone like a beacon light in the van of the desert march. It gleamed on the brow of Sinai. It smote the murmuring crowds. It fell upon the sacrifices which awaited it on the brazen altar. It was the emblem of Jehovah, and the sign of His acceptance of His people’s service.

When Elijah proposed that each side should offer a bullock and await an answer by fire, he secured the immediate acquiescence of the people. “All the people answered and said, It is well spoken” (1 Kings 18:24).

That proposal was made in the perfect assurance that God would not fail him. Had he not spend days in prayer? Had not the divine plan been revealed to him? Was it to be supposed for a moment that God would push His servant into the front of the battle, and then leave him? Granted that a miracle must be wrought before the sun set: there was no difficulty about that to a man who lived in the secret place of the Most High. Miracles are only the results of the higher laws of His chamber.

God will never fail the man who trusts Him utterly. He may keep him waiting until the fourth watch of the morning, but the gray dawn will reveal Him stepping across the billows’ crests to His servant’s help. Be sure that you are on God’s plan, then forward in God’s name! The very elements shall obey you, and fire shall leap from heaven at your command.

ELIJAH DEALT OUT WITHERING SARCASM

For the first time in their existence, the false priests were unable to insert the secret spark of fire among the fagots that lay upon their altar. They were compelled, therefore, to rely on a direct appeal to their patron deity. And this they did with might and main. Round and round the altar they went in the mystic choric dance, breaking their rank sometimes by an excited leap up and down at the altar which was made; and all the while repeating the monotonous chant, “O Baal, hear us!” (1 Kings 18:26). But there was no voice, nor any that answered. “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not:… they that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them” (Psalm 115:4-6,8).

Three hours passed. Their deity slowly drove his golden chariot up the steep of heaven and ascended his throne in the zenith. It was surely the time of his greatest power, and he must help them then if ever. But all he did was to bronze the eager, upturned faces of his priests to a deeper tint.

Elijah could ill conceal his delight in their defeat. He knew it would be so. He was so sure that nothing could avert their utter discomfiture that he could afford to mock them by suggesting a cause for the indifference of their god: “Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked” (1 Kings 18:27). Sarcasm is an invaluable weapon when it is used to expose the ridiculous pretensions of error and convince men of the folly and unreasonableness of their ways.

“And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:28). Surely their extremity was enough to touch the compassion of any deity, however hard to move! And, since the heavens still continued dumb, did it not prove to the people that their religion was a delusion and a sham?

Three more hours passed by, until the hour had come when, in the temple of Jerusalem, the priests of God were accustomed to offer the evening lamb. But “There was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded (1 Kings 18:29). The altar stood cold and smokeless, the bullock unconsumed.

ELIJAH ISSUED AN INVITATION

His time had come at last, and his first act was to invite the people nearer. He knew what his faith and prayer had won from God, but he wanted the answer of fire to be beyond dispute. He therefore invited the close scrutiny of the people as he reared the broken altar of the Lord. As he sought, with reverent care, those scattered stones and built them together so that the twelve stood as one — a meet symbol of the unity of the ideal Israel in the sight of God — the keen glances of the people in his close proximity could see that there was no inserted torch or secret spark.

Do we not want a few more, who, amid the scatterings of the present day, can still discern the true unity of the Church, the Body of Christ? We may never see that unity visibly manifested until we see the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, descend out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. But nevertheless we can enter into God’s ideal of it as a spiritual unity, existing unbroken in His thought and unaffected by the divisions of our times. Is it not clear that, during this age, the Church of Christ was never meant to be a visible corporate body, but a great spiritual reality, consisting of all faithful and loyal spirits, in all communions, who, holding the Head, are necessarily one with each other?

ELIJAH GAVE A COMMAND

His faith was exuberant. He was so sure of God, that he dared to heap difficulties in His way, knowing that there is no real difficulty for infinite power. The more unlikely the answer was, the more glory would there be to God. Oh, matchless faith! which can laugh at impossibilities and heap them one upon another, to have the pleasure of seeing God vanquish them — as a steam hammer cracks a nutshell placed under it by the wondering child.

The altar was reared, the wood laid in order, the bullock cut in pieces; but to prevent any possibility of fraud and make the coming miracle still more wonderful, Elijah said, “Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the sacrifice and on the wood (1 Kings 18:33). This they did three times until the wood was drenched, and the water filled the trench, making it impossible for a spark to travel across.

Alas, few of us have faith like this! We are not so sure of God that we dare to pile difficulties in His way. We all try our best to make it easy for Him to help us. Yet what this man had, we too may have, by prayer and fasting.

ELIJAH OFFERED A PRAYER

Such a prayer! It was quiet and assured, confident of an answer. Its chief burden was that God should vindicate Himself that day, showing Himself to be God indeed and turning the people’s heart back to Himself.

Whenever we can so lose ourselves in prayer as to forget personal interests and to plead for the glory of God, we have reached a vantage ground from which we can win anything from Him. Our blessed Lord, in His earthly life, had but one passion — that His Father might be glorified; and now He cannot resist fulfilling the prayer which advances this as its plea: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13).

Is it wonderful that “the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt- sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (1 Kings 18:38)? It could not have been otherwise! And let us not think that this is an old-world tale, never to be repeated. The fire still waits for the Promethean faith that can bring it down. If there were the same need, and if any one of us exercised the same faith, we might again see fire descending. Did not the Holy Ghost inaugurate this very age with flames of fire? Our God is a consuming fire and when the unity of His people is once recognized, and His presence is sought, He will descend, overcoming all obstacles and converting a drenched and dripping sacrifice into food on which He Himself can feed.

ELIJAH ISSUED AN ORDER FOR EXECUTION

It was a very terrible act, and yet what could he do? The saints of those times knew nothing of our false notions of liberality. Tell Elijah that those men might be sincere; he would find it difficult to believe it. He would assert that they were none the less dangerous to the best interests of his people. To let them escape would be to license them as the agents of apostasy. They must die. And so the order went forth from those stern lips: “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape” (1 Kings 18:40). The people were in the mood to obey. Only a moment before they had rent the air with the shout, “The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God (1 Kings 18:39). They had seen how hideously they had been deceived. And now they close round the cowed and vanquished priests, who see that resistance is in vain, and their hour has come.

“And they took them” (1 Kings 18:40). Some took one, and some another. Each priest was hurried down he mountainside by the frenzied and determined men who were beginning to see them as the cause of the long drought.

“Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there” (1 Kings 18:40). One after another they fell beneath his sword while the king stood by, a helpless spectator of their doom, and Baal did naught to save them.

And when the last was dead, the prophet knew that rain was not far off. He could almost hear the clouds hurrying toward the land. He knew what we all need to know; that God can only bless the land or heart which no longer shelters within its borders rivals to Himself. May God clear us of His rivals and impart to us Elijah’s faith, that we may also be strong and do exploits!

We can, to a very inadequate degree, realize the horrors of an Eastern drought. And it would have been difficult in the parched land on which Elijah gazed from Carmel, to have recognized that garden of the Lord of which Moses said: “The LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it” (Deuteronomy 8:7,9).

But beside this exquisite delineation, Moses had been given a description of the certain calamities that would ensue if Israel went aside from any of the words which God commanded, to the right hand or to the left. And among other items of misery, it was expressly stated that the heaven overhead should be brass, and the earth underfoot iron, and the very rain should be transformed to powder and dust (Deuteronomy 28:23-24). This terrible prediction had now been literally fulfilled. And the anguish of the land was directly attributable to the apostasy of its people. All this was the result of sin. The iniquities of Israel had separated between them and their God. Elijah knew this, and it prompted him to act the part of executioner to the priests of Baal. They had been the ringleaders in the national revolt from God, but their bodies now lay in ghastly death on the banks of the Kishon, or were being hurried out to sea.

Ahab must have stood by Elijah in the Kishon gorge, an unwilling spectator of that fearful deed of vengeance, not daring to resist the outburst of popular indignation or attempt to shield the men whom he had himself encouraged and introduced. When the last priest had bitten the dust, Elijah turned to the king and said, “Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain” (1 Kings 18:41). It was as if he said, “Get thee up to where thy tents are pitched on yon broad upland sweep; the feast is spread in thy gilded pavilion; thy lackeys await thee; feast thee on thy dainties; but be quick! for now that the land is rid of these traitor priests, and God is once more enthroned in His rightful place, the showers of rain cannot be longer delayed. Can you not hear the sough of the western breeze, which shall soon become a hurricane? Be quick! or the rain may interrupt thy carouse.”

What a contrast between these two men! “Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees” (1 Kings 18:42). It is no more than we might have expected of the king. When his people were suffering the extremities of drought, he cared only to find grass enough to save his stud. Now, though his faithful priests had died by hundreds, he thought only of the banquet that awaited him in his pavilion. Cruel, cowardly, mean, and sensual are the least epithets we can apply to this worthless man, clad though he was with he royal robes of Israel. I think I can see Ahab and Elijah ascending those heights together: no sympathy, no common joy, no reciprocated thanksgiving. The king turns straight off to his tents while the servant of God climbs to the highest part of the mountain and finds an oratory at the base of a yet higher spur from which a marvelous view could be obtained of the broad expanse of the Mediterranean, which slept under the growing stillness of the coming night.

Such contrasts still reveal themselves. Crises reveal the secrets of men’s hearts and show of what stuff they are made. The children of this world will spend their days in feasting, and their nights in revelry, though a world is rushing down to ruin. If only they can eat and drink, they are regardless of the needs of the perishing and the judgments of God. Such feasted with Belshazzar when the foe was at the gates of Babylon. Such filled with the frivolities the royal apartments of Whitehall when William of Orange was landing at Tor Bay. And woe to the land when such men rule! The sequence between the sensual luxury of the rulers and the decadence of the nation was well pointed out by Isaiah when he said: “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them! And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity” (Isaiah 5:11-13 RV). May our beloved country be preserved from having such leaders as these! And may our youth be found, not garlanded and scented for the Ahab feasts, but with Elijah on the bleak uplands; where there may be no dainty viands, but where the air is fresh, and life is free, and the spirit is braced to noble deeds.

There are certain characteristics in Elijah’s prayer, which we must notice as we pass, because they should form part of all true prayer.

IT WAS BASED ON THE PROMISE OF GOD. When Elijah was summoned from Zarephath to resume his public work, his marching orders were capped by the specific promise of rain: “Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth” (1 Kings 18:1). To natural reason this might have seemed to render prayer unnecessary. Would not God fulfill His promise, and send the rain, altogether irrespective of further prayer? But Elijah’s spiritual instincts argued otherwise, and more truly. Though he had never heard the words, yet he anticipated the thought of a later prophet who, after enunciating all that God was prepared to do for His people, uttered these significant words: “Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.”

God’s promises are given, not to restrain, but to incite to prayer. They show the direction in which we may ask, and the extent to which we may expect an answer. They are the mold into which we may pour our fervid spirits without fear. They are the signed check, made payable to order, which we must endorse and present for payment. Though the Bible is crowded with golden promises from board to board, yet will they be inoperative until we turn them into prayer. It is not our province to argue the reasonableness of this; it is enough to argue and enforce it. Why should it not be sufficient to silence all questions by saying that we have here reached one of the primal laws of the spiritual world, as simple, as certain, as universal, as any that obtain in the world of nature? Promises of abundant harvest smile to the husbandman from earth and sky, but he knows that they will not be realized unless he puts into operation the laws and processes of agriculture. As he does so, it is not necessary for his success that he should understand the why and wherefore; it is enough for him to do his little part, and he finds that every promise is fulfilled in the produce shed at his feet from Nature’s golden horn.

When, therefore, we are asked why men should pray, and how prayer avails, we are not careful to answer more than this: “Prayer is the instinct of the religious life; it is one of the first principles of the spiritual world.” It is clearly taught in the Word of God to be prevalent with the Almighty. It has been practiced by the noblest and saintliest of men, who have testified to its certain efficacy. Our Lord Jesus not only practiced it, but proclaimed its value in words which have been plunged a myriad times into the crucible of experience and are as true today as ever: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Luke 11:9). We are content, therefore, to pray, though we are as ignorant of the philosophy of the modus operandi of prayer as we are of any natural law. We find it no dreamy reverie or sweet sentimentality, but a practical, living force. Whenever we stand by the altar of incense, we become aware of the angel of the Lord standing hard by, and saying, “Fear not, O man greatly beloved! thy prayer is heard.”

When your child was a toddling, lisping babe, he asked many things wholly incompatible with your nature and its own welfare; but as the years have passed, increasing experience has molded your child’s requests into shapes suggested by yourself. So, as we know more of God through His promises, we are staid from asking what He cannot give and led to set our hearts on things which lie on His open palm waiting to be taken by the hand of an appropriating faith. This is why all prayer, like Elijah’s, should be based on promise. We stand on a foundation of adamant and have an irresistible purchase with God when we can put our finger on His own promise and say, “Do as Thou hast said.”

IT WAS DEFINITE. This is where so many prayers fail. They are shot like arrows into the air. They are like letters which require no answer because they ask for nothing. They are like the firing of artillery in a mimic fight when only gunpowder is employed. This is why they are so wanting in power and interest. We do not pray with an expectation of attaining definite and practical results. We wander out like Isaac to meditate in the fields at eventide, but we fail to ascend Carmel with the compressed lip and the resolute step of Elijah, as determined, if we may, to win by prayer the fulfillment of some blessed promise, as he was to bring the longed-for rain. Let us amend in this matter. Let us keep a list of petitions which we shall plead before God. Let us direct our prayer, as David did (Psalm 5:3), and look up for the answer; and we shall find ourselves obtaining new and unwonted blessings. Be definite!

IT WAS EARNEST. “Elias… prayed earnestly” (James 5:17). This is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, through the apostle James. It was the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man, which availeth much. The prayers of Scripture all glow with the white heat of intensity. Remember how Jacob wrestled, and David panted and poured out his soul; the importunity of the blind beggar, and the persistency of the distracted mother; the strong crying and tears of our Lord. In each case the whole being seemed gathered up, as a stone into a catapult, and hurled forth in vehement entreaty. Prayer is only answered for the glory of Christ, but it is not answered unless it be accompanied with such earnestness as will prove that the blessing sought is really needed.

Ah, what earnestness pants and throbs on every side! No listless attention! No flagging interest! No drowsy eye! Oh, for such violence, guided by holiness, to take the kingdom of heaven by force! Such earnestness is, of course, to be dreaded when we seek some lower boon for ourselves. But when, like Elijah, we seek the fulfillment of the divine promise — not for ourselves, but for the glory of God — then it is impossible to be too much in earnest or too full of the energy of prayer.

ELIJAH’S PRAYER WAS HUMBLE. “He cast himself down on the ground, and put his face between his knees.” We scarcely recognize him, he seems to have so lost his identity. A few hours before, he stood erect as an oak of Bashan; now, he is bowed as a bulrush. Then as God’s ambassador he pleaded with man; now as man’s intercessor he pleads with God. Is it not always so — that the men who stand straightest in the presence of sin bow lowest in the presence of God? And is it not also true, that those who live nearest God are the most reverent? True, you are a child; but you are also a subject. True, you are a redeemed man; but you can never forget your original name, sinner. True, you may come with boldness; but remember the majesty, might, and power of God, and take your shoes off. The angels of His presence fly with veiled faces to do His bidding, as they cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy!” The most tender love, which casts out the tormenting fear, begets a fear that is as sensitive as that of John who, though he lay his head on Jesus’ breast, scrupled too hastily to intrude upon the grave where He had slept. Our only plea with God is the merit and blood of our great High Priest. It becomes us to be humble.

IT WAS FULL OF EXPECTANT FAITH. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). Faith is the indispensable condition of all true prayer. It is the gift of the Holy Ghost. It thrives by exercise. It grows strong by feeding on the promises: the Word of God is its natural food. It beat strongly in Elijah’s heart. He knew that God would keep His word, and so he sent the lad — possibly the widows’ son — up to the highest point of Carmel and bade him look toward the sea. He was sure that before long his prayer would be answered, and God’s promise would be kept. We have often prayed and failed to look out for the blessings we have sought. The stately ships of heaven have come up to the quays, laden with the very blessings we asked; but as we have not been there to welcome and unload them, they have put out again to sea. The messenger pigeons have come back again to their cotes with the tiny messages concealed beneath their wings, but we have not been there to search for them and take them.

Sometimes we have to exercise faith on the simple warrant of God’s Word. At other times, God seems to give us special faith for things which are not directly promised. THe presence or absence of faith is a great test in prayer. Where it is present, we are so sure of the answer as to turn petition into thanksgiving. But where it is persistently absent, and where continued prayer fails to light up the spirit with the conviction of coming answer, then it would seem as if the Urim and Thummim stone is darkening with one of God’s loving refusals and He says, “Ask me no more concerning this matter.”

There is a faith which God cannot refuse; to which all things are possible; which laughs at impossibility; which can move mountains and plant them in the sea. May such faith be ours! It can be ours only by careful and eager nurture. Such faith was Elijah’s.

IT WAS VERY PERSEVERING. He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up, and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” –How often have we sent the lad of eager desire to scan the horizon! and how often has he returned with the answer, There is nothing!– There is no tear of penitence in those hard eyes. There is no symptom of amendment in that wild life. There is no sign of deliverance in these sore perplexities. There is nothing. And because there is nothing when we have just begun to pray, we leave off praying. We leave the mountain brow. We do not know that God’s answer is even then upon the way.

Not so with Elijah. “And he said, Go again seven times” (1 Kings 18:43). There is a truer rendering of this: “Then said he seven times, Go again.” It is not that the lad was told to run to and fro seven times, without interrupting the prophet in prayer; but it would appear that again and again the lad came back to his master with the same message. “There is nothing;” and, after an interval, he was bidden to go again.

He came back the first time, saying, “There is nothing” (1 Kings 18:43). Elijah said, “Go again.” And that was repeated seven times. It was no small test of the prophet’s endurance; but he was not tried more than he could endure, and with the ordeal there came sufficient grace, so that he was able to bear it.

Not unfrequently our Father grants our prayer, and labels the answer for us; but He keeps it back, that we may be led on to a point of intensity, which shall bless our spirits forever, and from which we shall never recede. The psalmist says, “Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed” (Psalm 25:3). Then when we have outdone ourselves, He lovingly turns to us, and says, “Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt!” (Matthew 15:28). He waits, that He may be gracious unto us.

AND THE PRAYER WAS ABUNDANTLY ANSWERED. For weeks and months before, the sun had been gathering drops of mist from lake and river, from sea and ocean, drawing them as clouds in coronets of glory and around himself. Now the gale was bearing them rapidly toward the thirsty land of Israel. “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). The answer to your prayers may be nearer than you think. It may already have started by the down-line. On the wings of every moment it is hastening toward you. God shall answer you, and that right early.

Presently the lad, from his tower of observation, beheld on the horizon a tiny cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, scudding across the sky. No more was needed to convince an Oriental that rain was near. It was, and is, the certain precursor of a sudden hurricane of wind and rain. The lad was sent with an urgent message to Ahab, to descend from Carmel to his chariot in the plain beneath, lest Kishon, swollen by the rains, should stop him in his homeward career. The lad had barely time to reach the royal pavilion before the heavens were black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.

The monarch started amid the pelting storm, but fleeter than his swift steeds were the feet of the prophet, energized by the hand of God. He snatched up his streaming mantel and twisted it around his loins. Amid the fury of the elements with which the night closed in, he outstripped the chariot and ran like a common courier before it to the entrance of Jezreel, some eighteen miles distant. He did this to convince the king that in his zeal against idolatry he was actuated by no personal disrespect to himself and prompted only by jealousy for God.

Thus by his faith and prayer this solitary man brought back the rain to Israel. More things are wrought by prayer than this world knows of. Why should not we learn and practice his secret? It is certainly within the reach of us all. Then we too might bring spiritual blessings from heaven, which should make the parched places of the church and the world rejoice and blossom as the rose.

Amid the drenching storm with which the memorable day of the convocation closed in, the king and the prophet reached Jezreel. Probably they were the first to bring tidings of what had occurred. Elijah went to some humble lodging for shelter and food, while Ahab repaired to the palace, where Jezebel awaited him. All day long the queen had been wondering how matters were going on Mount Carmel. She cherished the feverish hope that her priests had won the day; and when she saw the rain-clouds steal over the sky, she attributed the welcome change so some great interposition of Baal in answer to their pleadings. May not some such colloquy as this have taken place between the royal pair, when they met in the palace interior?

“How have things gone today? No doubt, well; the rain has anticipated your favorable reply.”

“I have nothing to tell you that will give you pleasure.”

“Why! Has anything happened?”

“The worst has happened.”

“What do you mean? Where are my priests?”

“You will never see them again.

“Never see them again! What do you mean? Tell me quickly!”

“They are all dead. By this time their bodies are floating out to sea.”

“Who has dared to do this thing? Did they not defend themselves? Did you not raise your hand? How did they die? Where is Elijah? Have the people broken into revolt?”

Then “Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:1).

Jezebel’s indignation knew no bounds. She was like a tigress robbed of her young. Ahab’s temperament was sensual and materialistic. If he had enough to eat and drink, and the horses and mules were cared for, he wan content. He could not understand people becoming so enthusiastic about religious matters. In his judgment there was not much to choose between God and Baal. His was the motto of the Epicurean, “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.” Not so Jezebel. She was as resolute as he was indifferent. Crafty, unscrupulous, and intriguing, she molded Ahab to her mind; and, in doing so, anticipated the symbol of the Apocalypse in which the scarlet-clad woman rides upon the beast.

To Jezebel the crisis was one of gravest moment. Policy, as well as indignation, prompted her to act at once. If this national reformation were permitted to spread, it would sweep away before it all that she had been laboring at for years. She must strike, and strike at once; and where would her blow tell so well as when aimed at the master-spirit of the day’s proceedings? So that very night, amid the violence of the storm, she sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them, by tomorrow about this time” (1 Kings 19:2). That message betrays the woman. She did not dare to kill him, though he was easily within her power. So she mastered her wrath, and contented herself with threats. Her mind was set on driving him from the country, so she might be left free to repair the havoc he had caused. In this, alas! she was only too successful.

Elijah’s presence had never been so necessary as now. The work of destruction had commenced, and the people were in a mood to carry it through to the bitter end. The tide had turned and was setting in toward God. Elijah was needed to direct its flow, to keep the people true to the choice which they had made, and to complete the work of reformation by a work of construction. From what we have seen of him, we should have expected that he would receive the message with unruffled composure, laying it before God in quiet confidence, assured that He would hide him in the secret of His Pavilion from the wrath of man and shield him from the strife of tongues. Surely he will preserve a dignified silence or return an answer like that which Chrysostom sent on a similar occasion to the Empress Eudoxia, “Go tell her I fear nothing but sin.” But, instead of this, we are told (and surely the sacred historian must have heaved a deep sigh as he wrote the words), “When he saw that, he arose, and went for his life” (1 Kings 19;3).

He went for his life! Accompanied by his servant, and under covert of the night, he hurried through the driving storm, across the hills of Samaria, and directed his course, with true Bedouin instinct, toward the extreme south of Judea, where the pasture lands of Palestine fade into the drear expanse of the Arabian desert. Nor did he slacken his speed until he had left far behind him the country over which Jezebel’s scepter swayed and had reached Beersheba, the town that clustered round the well of the oath — where, centuries before, Abraham had planted a grove and called upon the name of the Lord. He was safe there, but even there he could not stay. His spirit seems to have become utterly demoralized and panic-stricken. He would not even brook the company of his servant. So, leaving him in Beersheba, he plunged alone into that wild desert waste that stretches southward to Sinai.

Through the weary hours he plodded on beneath the burning sun, his feet blistered by the scorching sands. No ravens, no Cherith, no Zarephath were there. No human sympathy lent him its kindly aid. The very presence of God seemed to have withdrawn itself form his side. At last the fatigue and anguish overpowered even his sinewy strength, and he cast himself beneath the slight shadow of a small shrub of juniper, and asked to die. “It is enough now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

What might have been! If only Elijah had held his ground — dwelling in the secret place of the Most High and hiding under the shadow of the Almighty — he might have saved his country. There would have been no necessity for the captivity and dispersion of his people. The seven thousand secret disciples might have come forth from their hiding places to avow themselves and would have constituted a nucleus of loyal hearts. And his own character would have escaped a stain which has resisted the obliterating erasure of the ages and still remains, fraught with shame and sorrow. Elijah’s influence in Israel never recovered from that one false step. He missed a chance which never came again. And though God, in His mercy, treated him lovingly and royally as a child, He never again reinstated him as a servant in just the position which he so thoughtlessly flung away. It is a solemn thought for us all! If for one moment we are left to ourselves, we may take a step which may shatter our influence, and forever after put us into a very different position from that which might have been ours if only we had remained true. As children, we may be forgiven; as servants we are never reinstated or trusted quite as we were once.

It is noteworthy that the Bible saints often fail just where we would have expected them to stand. Abraham was the father of those who believe; but his faith failed him when he went down to Egypt and lied to Pharaoh about his wife. Moses was the meekest of men; but he missed Canaan because he spoke unadvisedly with his lips. John was the apostle of love, yet in a moment of intolerance he wished to call down fire out of heaven. So Elijah, who might have been supposed to be superior to all human weakness, shows himself to be indeed “a man subject to like passions as are we” (James 5:17).

The old castle, which from its hill, watches over the town of Edinburgh clustering beneath, was captured only once in the whole history of Scotland, and its capture happened thus: its defenders thought that on one side the steepness of the rock made it inaccessible and impregnable; and they put no sentries there. And so, in the gray mist of the early morning, a little party crept up the precipitous slopes and surprised the garrison into surrender.

Is there not a warning here for us all? It may be that some have been saying boastfully of certain forms of vice, “I shall never yield to this or that. I have no inclination to such forms of sin. This is one of the points in which I am strong to resist.” Beware! It may be that the great enemy of souls has a special design in producing in you a sense of false security, that he may assail and vanquish you in the very point in which you deem yourself impregnable, and so forbear to watch.

What a proof is here of the veracity of the Bible! Had it been merely a human composition, its authors would have shrunk from delineating the failure of one of its chief heroes. No artist would think of snapping a column just as it was tapering to its coronal. Men sometimes complain against the Bible for its uncompromising portraitures. Yet, is not this its glory? It holds the mirror up to human nature, that we may learn what is in man that we may none of us despair, and that we may infer that, if God were able to fashion his choicest ware out of such common earth, it is possible for Him to do as much again in the most ignorant and degraded of His children. Is there not even a gleam of comfort to be had out of the woeful spectacle of Elijah’s fall? If it had not been for this, we should always have thought of him as being too far removed from us to be in any sense a model. We should have looked on him as we do at the memorials of a race of giants, with whom we have nothing in common. But now, as we see him stretched under the shade of the juniper tree asking for death, behaving himself with more pusillanimity than many among us would have manifested, we feel that he was what he was only by the grace of God, received through faith. And by a similar faith we may appropriate a similar grace to ennoble our mean lives.

Several causes account for his terrible failure.

(1) HIS PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND NERVOUS ENERGY WERE COMPLETELY OVERTAXED.

Consider the tremendous strain which he had undergone since leaving the shelter of the quiet home at Zarephath. The long excitement of the convocation, the slaughter of the priests, the intensity of his prayer, the eighteen miles’ swift run in front of Ahab’s chariot, succeeded by the rapid flight which had hardly been relaxed for a single moment until he cast himself upon the desert sand. All this had resulted in sheer exhaustion. He was suffering keenly from reaction, now that the extreme tension was relaxed, and this counted largely in the unutterable depression under which he was suffering.

We are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) and our inner life is very sensitive to our outward conditions. It has been truly said that the most trivial causes — a heated room, a sunless day, want of exercise or a northern aspect — will make all the difference between faith and doubt, between courage and indecision. Many who send for the religious teacher would be wiser if they sent for their physician. And if any are conscious of having lost the sunny gladness and buoyant faith of former days, before they speak of the mysterious hidings of God’s face or lament their own backslidings, it might be well to inquire if there may not be some physical or nervous cause. And if there be, it will attract not the blame, but the compassionate sympathy of Him who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are but dust. When we consider the speed and strain of our times, it is marvelous that there are not more among us suffering from the intolerable depression beneath which Elijah sank on the desert sand.

(2) HE WAS KEENLY SENSITIVE TO HIS LONELY POSITION.

“I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:10). Some men are born to loneliness. It is the penalty of true greatness. At such a time the human spirit is apt to falter, unless it is sustained by an heroic purpose and by an unfaltering faith. The shadow of that loneliness fell dark on the spirit of our divine Master Himself when he said: “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). If our Lord shrank in the penumbra of that great eclipse, it is not wonderful that Elijah cowered in its darksome gloom. He might have had the company of his lad, but there is company which is not companionship. We may be more lonely in a crowd than in a desert. We need something more than human beings, we need human hearts and sympathy and love.

(3) HE LOOKED AWAY FROM GOD TO CIRCUMSTANCES.

Up to that moment Elijah had been animated by a most splendid faith, because he had never lost sight of God. “He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.” Faith always thrives when God occupies the whole field of vision. But when Jezebel’s threats reached him, we are told most significantly, “when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life” (1 Kings 19:3). In after years, Peter walked on the water until he looked from his Master to the seething waves. “When he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me!” (Matthew 14:3). So here, while Elijah set the Lord always before his face, he did not fear, though an host encamped against him. But when he looked at his peril, he thought more of his life than of God’s cause; and was afraid of man that should die, and of the son of man that should be made as grass; and forgot the Lord, his Maker, which made heaven and earth. “When he saw that, he arose, and went for his life.”

Let us refuse to look at circumstances, though they roll before us as a Red Sea and howl around us like a storm. Circumstances, natural impossibilities, difficulties, are nothing in the estimation of the soul that is occupied with God. They are as the small dust that settles on a scale and is not considered in the measurement of weight. O men of God, get you up into the high mountain, from which you may obtain a good view of the glorious Land of Promise, and refuse to have your gaze diverted by men or things below!

It is a great mistake to dictate to God. Elijah know not what he said when he told God that he had had enough of life, and asked to die. If God had taken him at his word, he would have died under a cloud; he would never have heard the still small voice; he would never have founded the schools of the prophets, or commissioned Elisha for his work; he would never have swept up to heaven in an equipage of flame.

What a mercy it is that God does not answer all our prayers! How gracious He is in reading their inner meaning, and answering that! This, as we shall see, is what He did for His tired and querulous servant.

How many have uttered those words, “It is enough!” — the sufferer, weary of long and wearing pain; the wife tied to an inhuman husband, the Christian worker whose efforts seem in vain; “It is enough. Let me come home. The burden is more than I can bear. The lessons are tiresome. School is tedious, and the holidays would be so welcome. I cannot see that anything will be gained by longer delay. It is enough!”

O silly, silly children! Little do we know how much we should miss if God were to do as we request. To die now would be to forego immeasurable blessings which await us within forty days’ journey from this; and to die like a dog, instead of sweeping, honored and beloved, through the open gates of heaven. It is better to leave it all in the wise and tender thought of God. He wants us home, but will not let us come till we have learned the last lesson and done the last stroke of work. And we shall yet live to thank Him that He refused to gratify our wish when, in a moment of despondency, we cast ourselves upon the ground, and said, “Let us die. It is enough!”

The holy apostle, whose earliest lessons of the love of God were conned as he leaned on the bosom of Christ, tells us, in words deep and simple as some translucent lake, that “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” They are wonderful words for mortals to utter. A lifetime would be well spent if, at its close, we could utter them without exaggeration. But alas, many of us have learned some of our deepest lessons of the love of God in having experienced its gentle kindness amid shortcoming and failure, like that which marred Elijah’s course.

That failure, as we have seen, was most disastrous. It inflicted lasting disgrace upon Elijah’s reputation. It arrested one of the most hopeful movements that ever visited the land of Israel. It struck panic and discouragement into thousands of hearts which were beginning to gather courage from his splendid zeal. It snapped the only brake by which the headlong descent of Israel to destruction could have been prevented. It brought discredit and rebuke on the cause and name of God. A choir of angels might well have gathered around the truant prophet as he lay upon the desert sand and recited some such mournful words as those with which David lamented the death of Saul and Jonathan on Gilboa’s fatal field: “How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee… How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!” (2 Samuel 1:25-27).

If ever it were befitting for a man to reap what he had sown and suffer the consequences of his own misdeeds, it would have been so in the case of Elijah. But God’s thoughts are not as man’s. He know all the storms of disappointment and broken hope which were sweeping across that noble spirit, as gusts of wind across an inland sea. His eye followed with tender pity every step of His servant’s flight across the hills of Samaria. He did not love him less than when he stood, elated with victory, by the burning sacrifice. And His love assumed, if possible, a tenderer, gentler aspect as He stooped over Elijah while he slept. As a shepherd tracks the wondering sheep from the fold to the wild mountain pass where eagles, sailing in narrowing circles, watch its faltering steps, so did the love of God come upon Elijah as, worn in body by long fatigue and in spirit by the fierce war of passion, he lay and slept under the juniper tree.

And God did more than love him. He sought, by tender helpfulness, to heal and restore His servant’s soul to its former health and joy. At His command, an angel, twice over, prepared a meal upon the desert sand and touched him and bade him eat. No upbraiding speeches, no word of reproach, no threats of dismissal, but only sleep and food and kindly thoughtfulness of the great journey which he was bent on making to Horeb, the mount of God. It makes us think of Him who, in after days, prepared in the early morning upon the shore of the lake, a breakfast such as wet and weary fishermen would love — there was a fire, and fish laid thereon, and bread. And He did this for those who, following the impulsive lead of Peter, had apparently determined to wait no more for His coming but to return to the boats and fishing-tackle from which He had called them three years before.

It may be that these words will be read by those who have failed. You once avowed yourselves to be the Lord’s; and lived for a little on the uplands where the golden light ever shines upon the happy spirit. Or perhaps you professed to enter the blessed life, and you did taste its joys and experience its liberty and victory. Or maybe you have stood up to teach others, stirring them to deeds of heroic courage and daring. But all that is over now. You have fallen, as Milton’s Archangel, from heaven to hell. We need not now discuss the cause of your failure; you were overtaken in some sudden temptation, or you neglected communion with God, or you refused to live up to your light. But the sad fact remains that you have failed, perhaps as Elijah did, when everyone expected you to stand. And you are ashamed. You want to hide yourself from all who knew you in happier days. You have given up heart and hope and lie dejected and dispirited on the desert sands; you account yourself forsaken by God and man. But remember, though forsaken by man, you are not forgotten of God. He loves you still, and pities you, and yearns over you; and waits beside you, with loving tendance and provender, in order to restore your soul, and give you back the years that the cankerworm and caterpillar have eaten. We have then, in this incident, four thoughts of the love of God which must be a comfort to us all and especially to those who have fallen from Carmel’s height to the level of the desert sands.

GOD’S LOVE IN ITS CONSTANCY

It is a fact which we all admit, but which we seldom realize in the moments of depression and darkness to which we are all exposed. It is not difficult to believe that God loves us when we go with the multitude to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, and stand in the inner sunlit circle; but it is hard to believe that He feels as much love for us when, exiled by our sin to the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, our soul is cast down within us, and deep calls to deep, as His waves and billows surge around. It is not difficult to believe that God loves us when, like Elijah at Cherith and on Carmel, we do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word; but it is not so easy when, like Elijah in the desert, we lie stranded. It is not difficult to believe in God’s love when with Peter we stand on the mount of glory and, in the rapture of joy, propose to share a tabernacle with Christ evermore; but it is nearly impossible when, with the same apostle, we deny our Master with oaths, and are abashed by a look in which grief masters reproach.

Yet we must learn to know and believe he constancy of the love of God. We may not feel it. We may deem it shut up and gone forever. We may imagine that we have forfeited all claim to it. We may think of it as Arctic travelers, dying in the icy darkness, dream of the summers of early childhood. But nevertheless, it has not altered. Staunch as the affection of a friend, true as the love of a mother, the love of God abides unchangeable as Himself. Mists, born of the swamps and marshes of your own sin, obscure the light of that sun; but it is shining yet as brilliantly as ever and will shine on until it has dispelled all shrouding veils and bathes you again in its warm and blessed glow.

O man of God, lying amid the wrecks of what might have been, take heart! Hope still in the love of God; trust in it; yield to it; and you shall yet praise Him who is the health of your countenance and your God.

GOD’S LOVE MANIFESTED IN SPECIAL TENDERNESS BECAUSE OF SPECIAL SIN

We do not read that an angel ever appeared to Elijah at Cherith or Zarephath or awakened him with a touch that must have been as thrilling as it was tender. Ravens and brooklets and a widow woman, had ministered to him before, but never an angel. He had drunk of the water of Cherith, but never of water drawn by angel hands from the river of God, which is ever full of water. He had eaten of bread and flesh foraged for him by ravens and of meal multiplied by miracle, but never of cakes molded by angel fingers. Why these special proofs of tenderness? Certainly it was not because God took any pleasure in His servant’s sin or condoned his grave offense, but because a special manifestation of love was needed to convince the prophet that he was still dearly loved, to soften his spirit, and lead him to repentance.

Where ordinary methods will not avail, God will employ extraordinary ones. There is one memorable instance of this which has afforded comfort and hope to multitudes who have sinned as Peter did. This multitude will bless God forever for the record of the Master’s dealings with His truant servant. The Lord sent a general message to all His disciples to meet Him in Galilee. But He felt that Peter would hardly dare to class himself with the rest, so Jesus sent to him a special message through an angel. “Tell his disciples, and Peter” (Mark 16:7). It is thus that Jesus is working still throughout the circles of His disciples. So eager is He to convince the fallen of his unaltered love, that He will go out of His way to show it. He will invent new and unwonted surprises. He will employ angels with their gentle touch and bake special cakes on desert stones. He will send special messages, entwined about the backslider’s name. He will take the wondering sheep on His shoulder to bring it home. He will kill the fatted calf and call on the angels of His presence-chamber to make merry and be glad.

It may be that you are sleeping the sleep of insensibility or of despair, but all the while the love of God is inventing some unique manifestation of its yearning tenderness. He hates your sin as only infinite holiness can. He yearns over you as only infinite love can. He wants to convince you of what He feels; to touch you, to soften you, to win you back to Himself. All the while that you are grieving Him and wandering from Him, He is encompassing you with blessings. Be conquered! Yield to Him! Take with you words, and turn again to the Lord. He will receive you graciously.

GOD’S LOVE IN ITS UNWEARIED CARE

It is most likely that it was evening when the angel came the first time and touched him, and bade him arise and eat; for we are told that he went a day’s journey into the wilderness before he sat down under the juniper bush. Night was spreading her temporary veil over the scorched sands, and the sun was sinking like a ball of fire on the unbroken rim of the horizon. And when the angel of the Lord came the second time, it would probably be as morning was breaking over the world. And thus, through the intervening night, the angels of God kept watch and ward about the sleeping prophet.

None of us can measure the powers of endurance of the love of God. It never tires. It fainteth not, neither is weary. It does not fail, nor is it discouraged. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It clings about its object with a divine tenacity until the darkness and wanderings are succeeded by the blessedness of former days. It watches over us during the hours of our insensibility to its presence, touching us ever, speaking to us, and summoning us to arise to a nobler, better life, one more worthy of ourselves and more glorifying to Him.

GOD’S LOVE ANTICIPATING COMING NEED

This always stands out as one of the most wonderful passages in the prophet’s history. We can understand God giving him, instead of a long discourse, a good meal and sleep as the best means of recruiting his spent powers. This is what we should have expected of One who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust and who pities us as a father pities his children. But it is very wonderful that God should provision His servant for the long journey that lay before him, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee” (1 Kings 19:7).

That journey was undertaken at his own whim. It was one long flight from his post of duty, it was destined to meet with a grave remonstrance at its close: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9). And yet the Lord graciously gave him food, in the strength of which he could endure he long fatigue. The explanation must be again sought in the tender love of God. Elijah’s nature was clearly overwrought. Without doubt he had steadfastly made up his mind for that tedious journey to the Mount of God. Nothing would turn him from his fixed purpose. And therefore, as he would go, God anticipated his needs, though they were the needs of a truant servant and a rebellious child. In wrath He remembered mercy, and provided him with the blessings of His goodness. God imparted, through a single meal, sufficient strength for a march of forty days and forty nights. Let us pause here for a moment to adore the wonderful love of God which gives men life and breath and all things, even when He knows that they will be used for selfish ends and in direct opposition to His revealed will.

Surely these thoughts of the love of God will arrest some from pursuing any longer the path of the backslider. You have failed, but do not be afraid of God or think that He will never look on you again. In thinking thus of Him, you grieve Him more and aggravate your bad behavior. Rather, cast yourself upon His love as a swimmer flings himself upon the buoyant waves which immediately close around him and bear him up and carry him upon their sunlit bosom. Tell Him how deeply you mourn the past. Ask Him to restore you. Give yourself to Him again, resume the forsaken work, retake the abandoned post. Believe hat God will again use you as a chosen vessel and pour through you His tides of blessing as an ocean may pour its flood through one narrow strait.

And as we close this precious narrative, may we all receive instruction concerning those meals which heaven prepares for us, each evening and morning, during our journey across the sands of time. At night, when we come home wearied with the day’s toil, before we fling ourselves into deep slumber, the angels bid us arise and partake of that living bread and water on which alone can spirits become strong. And morning by morning their gentle touches awake us from overdue slumbers, as they whisper, “Arise and eat, lest the journey be too great for thee.” their neglect to obey the heavenly summons is the true cause of so much failure in the lives of Christian people. They do not feed enough on Christ. They slumber on, heedless and insensate, until the morning sun is high, and the angels, with their provisions, have faded away.

May we be among the happy number who never need twice calling, but who rise each morning as the first cadence of the angel’s voice breaks upon their ears, to eat of that flesh which is meat indeed, and to drink of the blood which is drink indeed. Then shall we be able to withstand all assaults, to endure all fatigue, and to abide perpetually in the realized presence of God. “They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

Refreshed by sleep and food, Elijah resumed his journey across the desert to Horeb. Perhaps no spot on earth is more associated with the manifested presence of God than that sacred mount. It was there the bush burned with fire, there the law was given, there Moses spent forty days and nights alone with God. It was a natural instinct that led the prophet thither, and all the world could not have furnished a more appropriate school. Natural scenery and holy associations lent all their powers to impress and elevate the soul.

Forty times the prophet saw the sun rise and set over the desert waste. I do not know that anyone has perfectly explained the meaning of that symbolic number which so frequently appears upon the page of Scripture, and is so often associated with failure and temptation. In passing, I can only note the fact of its frequent repetition. Thus, at last, the prophet came to Horeb, the mount of God. We have to consider how God dealt with His dispirited and truant child.

GOD SPOKE TO HIM

In some dark cave, among those rent precipices Elijah lodged, and, as he waited in lonely musings, the fire  burned in his soul. But he had not long to wait. “Behold, the word of the LORD came unto him (1 Kings 19:9).

That word had often come to him before. It had come to him at Thisbe. It had come to him in Samaria, after he had given his first message to Ahab. It had come to him when Cherith was dry. It had come to summon him from the solitudes of Zarephath to the stir of active life. And now it found him out and came to him again. There is no spot on earth so lonely, no cave so deep and dark, that the word of the Lord cannot discover and come to us.

But though God had often spoken to him before, He had never spoken in quite the same tone — “What doest thou here. Elijah?” (1 Kings 19;13). The accent was stern and reproachful, and seemed to mean, “Thou art My servant; thou art set to do My will; if ever thou wast needed, it is now; the tide is on the turn; a great reformation is almost ripe. Why hast thou left thy post? How camest thou hither without My bidding or My leave?” Elijah shrank from a direct reply. If he had answered truly, he must have confessed that he was utterly in the wrong, without a single word of extenuation or excuse. He had done wrong in leaving his post; and that first wrong step had been aggravated by every one which he had taken since, plunging him further and further into the dark.

If the prophet had answered that searching question of God with shame and sorrow, if he had confessed that he had failed and asked for forgiveness, if he had cast himself on the pitifulness and tenderness of his Almighty Friend — there is not the least doubt that he would have been forgiven and restored. The past would never have been named against him, and the results of his fatal flight would have been repaired. God would Himself have stood in the breach, until His child could hasten back again to his post and lead on the glorious work which he had so nobly commenced. But instead of this, he parried the divine question and evaded it. He did not try to explain how he came there, or what he was doing. He chose rather to dwell upon his own loyalty for the cause of God and to bring it out into striking relief by contrasting it with the sinful backslidings of his people. “I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenants, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10). All this was well known to God, and I do not think the prophet would ever have alluded to it unless he had been hard pressed to find an excuse to palliate his own cowardice and neglect of duty.

In fact, he was thoroughly demoralized with unbelief and fear. The sky of his soul was covered with clouds so dense that no star of comfort glimmered through their murky curtains. There was a tinge of self-vindication and of blame on others, which was scarcely worthy of him. He did not sufficiently realize that the fault lay with himself and that he, equally with others, was to blame for the pass to which the cause of God had come. His was a noble nature under a temporary cloud, a palace in ruins, a splendid vessel rolling rudderless in the trough of the waves. There was, no doubt, truth in what he said. He was full of zeal and holy devotion to the cause of God. He had often mourned over the national degeneracy. He keenly felt his own isolation and loneliness. But these were not the reasons why at the moment he was hiding in the cave, nor were they the real answer to that searching question, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”

How often is that question put still! When a Christian worker, to avoid some difficulty or to secure selfish gratification and ease, deserts his post and escapes to that couch of indolence or that forest glade where soft breezes blow, the question comes, “What doest thou here?” When a child of God is found in the theater, the dancing saloon, or the place of evil companionship, sitting in the seat of scorners, or walking in the way of the ungodly, again must the question come as a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, “What doest thou here?” When one endowed with great faculties digs a hole in the earth and buries the God- entrusted talent, standing idle all the day long among the loungers in the marketplace, again the inquiry must ring out, “What doest thou here?”

Life is the time for doing. The world is a great workshop, in which there is no room for drones. God Himself worketh as the great Master builder. All creatures fulfill their needful functions, from the angel that hymns God’s praise to the wasp that buries a corpse. There is plenty to do — evil to put down; good to build up; doubters to be directed; prodigals to be won back; sinners to be sought. “What doest thou here?” Up, Christians, leave your caves, and do! Do not do in order to be saved; but being saved, do!

GOD TAUGHT HIM BY A BEAUTIFUL, NATURAL PARABLE

He was bidden to stand at the entrance to the cave; but this he hesitated to do until afterward. Did that hesitancy arise from a guilty conscience, reminding him that all was not right between him and God?

Presently there was the sound of the rushing of a mighty wind, and in another moment a violent tornado was sweeping past. Nothing could withstand its fury. It rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord. The valleys were littered with splintered fragments; but the Lord was not in the wind. And when the wind had died away, there was an earthquake. The mountain swayed to and fro, yawning and cracking. The ground heaved as if an Almighty hand were passing beneath it, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And when the earthquake was over, there was a fire. The heavens were one blaze of light, each pinnacle and peak glowed in the kindling flame. The valley beneath looked like a huge smelting- furnace, but the Lord was not in the fire.

How strange! Surely these were the appropriate natural symbols of the divine presence. If we had been asked to describe it, we should have used these first of all. But hark! A still small whisper is in the air — very still, and very small, like the trembling echoes of a flute which is being played among the hills. It touched the listening heart of the prophet. If the more tumultuous outburst of power had expressed the storm and tumult of his nature, this elicited and interpreted a sweeter, nobler self, and cast a softening spell over his tempest-tossed spirit, and seemed to be the tender cadence of the love and pity of God which had come in search of him. Its music drew him from the cave, into the innermost recesses of which he had been driven by the terrible convulsions of nature. “And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave” (1 Kings 19:13).

What was the meaning of all this? It is not difficult to understand. Elijah was most eager that his people should be restored to their allegiance to God, and he thought that it could only be done by some striking and wonderful act. He may have often spoken thus with himself: “Those idols shall never be swept from our land, unless God sends a movement swift and irresistible as the wind, which hurries the clouds before it. The land can never be awakened except by a moral earthquake. There must be a baptism of fire.” And when he stood on Carmel and beheld the panic among the priests and the eagerness among the people, he thought that the time — the set time — had come. But all that died away. That was not God’s chosen way of saving Israel. And because He did not go on working thus, Elijah thought that He was not working at all, and he abandoned himself to the depths of despondency.

But in this natural parable, God seemed to say, “My child, thou hast been looking for Me to answer thy prayers with striking signs and wonders; and because these have not been given in a marked and permanent form, thou hast thought Me heedless and inactive. But I am not always to be found in these great visible movements. I love to work gently, softly, and unperceived. I have been working so, and I am working so still. There are in Israel, as the results of My quiet, gentle ministry, seven thousand, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” Yes, and was not the gentle ministry of Elisha, which succeeded the stormy career of his great predecessor like the still small voice after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire? And is it not probably that more real good was effected by his unobtrusive life and miracles, than was even wrought by the splendid deeds of Elijah?

We often fall into similar mistakes. When we wish to promote a revival, we seek to secure large crowds, much evident impression, powerful preachers; influences comparable to the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. When these are present, we account that we are secure of having the presence and power of God. But surely nature itself rebukes us. Who hears the roll of the planets? Who can detect the falling of the dew? Whose eye has ever been injured by the breaking of the wavelets of daylight on the shores of our planet? At this moment the mightiest forces are in operation around us, but there is nothing to betray their presence. And thus it was with the ministry of the Lord Jesus. He did not strive, nor cry, nor lift up nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets. While men were expecting Him at the front door with blare of trumpet, He stepped into His destined home in the disguise of a peasant’s child. His going forth is ever prepared as the morning. He comes down as showers on the mown grass. His Spirit descends as the dove, whose wings make no tremor in the still air. Let us take heart! God may not be working as we expect, but He is working. If not in the wind, yet in the zephyr. If not in the earthquake, yet in the heartbreak. If not in the fire, yet in the warmth of summer. If not in thunder, yet in the still small voice. If not in crowds, yet in lonely hearts, in silent tears, in the broken sobs of penitents, and in multitudes, who, like the seven thousand of Israel, are unknown as disciples.

But Elijah refused to be comforted. It seemed as if he could not shake off the mood in which he was ensnared. And so when God asked him the second time, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:13) he answered in the words with which he had tried to justify himself before: “And he said, I have been very jealous — ” (1 Kings 19:14).

It is pleasant to think of those seven thousand disciples, known only to God. We are sometimes sad as we compare the scanty number of professing Christians with the masses of ungodly. But we may take heart, there are other Christians besides. That seemingly harsh governor is Joseph in disguise. That wealthy owner of the garden in Arimathea is a lowly follower of Jesus. That member of the Sanhedrin is a disciple, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. For every one entered on our rolls of communicants, there are hundreds — perhaps thousands — whom God shall reckon as His when He makes up His jewels. But if you are one of that number, I entreat you, do not remain so. It puts you in a false position, it robs the cause of God of your help and influence, it is an act of treachery to Christ Himself. Beware lest, if you are ashamed of Him, the time may come when He shall be ashamed of you.

It is quite true that confession means martyrdom in one form or another. Sometimes our heart and flesh shrink back in unutterable anguish as we contemplate the possible results of refusing the act of obeisance to Baal. But, at such times, let us cheer ourselves by anticipating the august moment when the dear Master will speak our names before assembled worlds and own us as His. And let us also ask Him in us and through us to speak out and witness a good confession, effecting that in us and by us which we are totally powerless to effect by ourselves.

We are all doing more good than we know. Elijah thought that he was doing nothing except when battling with idolatry and sin. He never thought how often he was helping those seven thousand by the indirect influence of his example. We, perhaps, accomplish less by our great efforts than we effect by a consistent life, a holy character, a daily shining. Lighthouse keepers never know how many weary, longing eyes turn in the darkness to the silent light that is maintained through the dark night. Our duty is to shine, not asking questions, not eager for great results; but content to do the will of God, consistently, humbly, and constantly, sure that God is not unrighteous to forget our work of faith and labor of love.

It is a very solemn thought that one sin may forever, so far as this world is concerned, wreck our usefulness. It is not always so. Sometimes — as in the case of the apostle Peter — the Lord graciously restores and recommissions for His work the one who might have been counted unfit ever again to engage in it. “Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs.” But against this one case we may put three others, in each of which it would seem as if the sentry angel, who forbade the return of our first parents to Eden, were stationed with strict injunctions to forbid any return to the former position of noble service.

The first case is that of Moses. No other man has ever been honored as was he, “with whom God spake face to face” — the meekest of men, the servant of the Lord, the foster-nurse of the Jewish nation, whose intercessions saved them again and again from destruction. Yet, because he spake unadvised with his lips and smote the rock twice in unbelief and passion, he was compelled to bear the awful sentence, “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them! (Numbers 20:12). Most earnestly did he plead for a revocation of that terrible prohibition.  But he was silenced by the solemn reply, against which there was no appeal, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter” (Deuteronomy 3:26).

The second case is that of Saul, the first, ill-fated king of Israel whose reign opened so auspiciously, as a morning without clouds; but who soon brought upon himself the sentence of deposition. Yet it was only for a single act. Alarmed at Samuel’s long delay and at the scattering of the people, he intruded rashly into a province from which he was expressly excluded and offered the sacrifice with which the Israelites were wont to prepare for battle. “And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-offering, behold, Samuel came… And Samuel said, What hast thou done?… Thou hast done foolishly; thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue;… because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee” (1 Samuel 13:10-14). Early in his reign and before his further disobedience in the case of the Amalekites — for that one act of disobedience, revealing, as it did, a sad state of moral decrepitude — Saul was rejected.

The third case is that of Elijah. He was never reinstated in quite the position which he had occupied before his fatal flight. True, he was bidden to return on his way, and work was indicated for him to do. But that work was the anointing of three men who were to share among them the ministry which he might have fulfilled if only he had been true to his opportunities and faithful to his God. God’s work must go on; if not by us, then, through our failures, by others brought in to supply our place. “Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria; and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.” Those words rang out the death knell of Elijah’s fondest dreams. Evidently, it was not for him to be the deliverer of his people from the thralldom of Baal. Others were to do his work; another was to be prophet in his room.

All those who hold prominent positions as teachers and leaders may well take warning by these solemn examples standing on the plains of time, as Lot’s wife on those of Sodom. We may not all be tempted, as Elijah was, to unbelief and discouragement. But there are many other snares prepared for us by our great enemy and strewn over with fair appearances, as the hunter strews earth and grass on the top of the pitfall which he has dug in the pathway between the river and the lair of his prey. There is the adulation given to the successful man in which so much of the human is mingled with thankfulness for the help or comfort given. There is the desire to be always prominent — foremost on every platform and first in every enterprise — to the utter neglect of private prayer. There are the insidious attacks of jealousy, depreciation of others, comparison of their standing with our own. And in addition to these are other modes of failure, more gross and evident than they, to which we are all prone, and by which, alas! too many have been mastered. Any one of these may compel God to cast us away from His glorious service and employs us in a humbler ministry, or to anoint our successors.

As children, He will never cast us away; but as His servants He may. Let us beware! One false step, one hurried desertion of our post, one act of disobedience, one outburst of passion; any one of these may lead our heavenly Father to throw us aside, as Samson did the jawbone of the ass with which he had slain heaps upon heaps. We shall not forfeit heaven; that is guaranteed to us by the precious blood of Christ. We may even be favored by a glorious and triumphant entrance thither in an equipage of flame. But we shall never again ride on the crest of the flowing tide, carrying all before us. Others shall finish our uncompleted task.

But with the danger there are sufficient safeguards. Let God prune you with the golden pruning-knife of His holy Word. Look into the mirror of revealed truth, to see if there is any trace of blemish stealing over the face of the soul. Offer your spirit constantly to the Holy Spirit, that He may detect and reveal to you the beginnings of the sin of idolatry. Be very jealous of anything that divides your heart with your Lord. “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38). Have perpetual recourse for cleansing, to the blood shed for the remission of sin. Trust in Him who is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish, in exceeding joy.

But now, turning to the further study of the words with which God dismissed His servant from Horeb, let us notice three distinct thoughts.

THE VARIETY OF GOD’S INSTRUMENTS

Hazael, king of Syria; Jehu, the rude captain; and Elisha, the young farmer. Each was as different as possible from the others, and yet each was needed for some special work in connection with that idolatrous people. Hazael was destined to be the rod of divine vengeance to Israel at large, by whom God began to cut them short, and to make them like the dust by threshing. Ah! cruel indeed was his treatment of them! (2 Kings 5:12; 10:32 12:3,17). Jehu was to be the scourge of the house of Ahab, extirpating it root and branch. Elisha’s ministry was to be genial and gentle as summer rain and evening dew, like the ministry of our Lord Himself whom Elisha prefigured and of whom his name significantly spoke.

It is remarkable how God accomplishes His purposes through men who only think of working their own wild way. Their sin is not diminished or condoned because they are executing the designs of heaven, it still stands out in all its malignant deformity. And yet, though they are held accountable for the evil, it is nonetheless evident that they do whatsoever God’s hand and God’s counsel determined before to be done. This fact is often referred to in Scripture. Joseph comforted his brethren after his father’s death, by telling them that though they thought evil against him, God meant it for good, to save people. David forbade his men to slay Shimei because, though Shimei cursed David, and cursing the king was a foul act of treason, yet “the LORD hath said unto him, Curse David” (2 Samuel 16:10). And our blessed Lord, when about to be delivered into the hands of wicked men, said that His Father was putting the cup into His hands (see Acts 2:23).

Men may do evil things against us for which they will be condemned, and yet those very things, being permitted by the wisdom and love of God, are His messages to us. Before they can reach us, they must pass through His environing, encompassing presence. If they do, then they are God’s will for us, and we must meekly accept our Father’s plan, saying, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”

NO ONE CAN ENTIRELY ESCAPE FROM GOD’S PERSONAL DEALINGS

God’s nets are not all constructed with the same meshes. Men may escape through some of them; but they cannot escape through all. If they elude the Gospel ministry, they will be caught by some earnest worker, apt at personal dealing. If they manage to evade all contact with the living voice, they may yet be reached by the printed page. If they evade all religious literature, they may still be the sudden subjects of the strivings of the Spirit. “Him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay” (1 Kings 19:17).

We do not read that Elisha ever wielded the sword, and yet the ministry of gentle love is sometimes more potent in slaying souls than the more vigorous ministry of an Hazael or Jehu; and out of such slaying comes life.

Let us not compare man with man. Let us not despise any sect or denomination or body of Christian workers. What is inoperative with one is God’s voice to another. We are totally unable to estimate the essential use of men. And let us not envy one another, because each of us has some special gift which qualifies us for the use of the dear Master and enables us to touch some who would be unreached if it were not for us. “But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

And as we look around on the entire range of ministry by which the world is filled, we may be sure that everyone has at least one chance, and that God so orders the lives of men that once at least during their course they are encountered by the kind of argument which is most appropriate to their character and temperament, if only they will give ear and yield.

GOD NEVER OVERLOOKS ONE OF HIS OWN

Elijah thought that he alone was left as a lover and worshiper of God. It was a great mistake. God had Many hidden ones: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18). We know nothing of their names or history. They were probably unknown in camp or court; obscure, simple-hearted, and humble. Their only testimony was one long refusal to the solicitations of the foul rites of idolatry. They groaned and wept in secret and spake often one to another, while the Lord hearkened and heard. But they were all known to God and enrolled among His jewels and counted as a shepherd tells his sheep. He cared for them with an infinite solicitude, and it was for their sake that He raised up the good and gentle Elisha to carry on the nurture and discipline of their souls.

It has often been a subject of wonder to me how these seven thousand secret disciples could keep so close as to be unknown by their great leader. Attar of a rose will always betray its presence, hide it as we may. When salt has not lost its savor, it cannot be hid. And the work of God in human hearts must, sooner or later, discover itself. It is to be feared, therefore, that the godliness of these hidden ones was very vague and colorless, needing the eye of omniscience to detect it. But for all that, God did detect it, and He prized it. He did not quench the smoking flax, but fanned it. He did not despise the grain of mustard seed, He watched its growth with tender love and care.

You may be very weak and insignificant — not counted in the numberings of God’s captains, nor deemed worthy of a name or place among His avowed servants. Yet if you have but a spark of faith and love, if you strive to keep yourself untainted by the world, you will be owned by Him whose scepter is stretched out to the most timid suppliant. But remember, if your inner life be genuine, it will not remain forever secret. It will break out as a long hidden fire; it will force its way into the light as the buried seed in which there is the spark of life.

It may be that God, by these lines, will speak to some backslider, saying: Go, return! Return to Me, from whom you have wandered. Return to My work, which you have deserted. Return to the posture of faith, from which you have fallen. Return to the happy, holy childlikeness of former years. “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jeremiah 3:22). Oh that the response may be, “Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God” (Jeremiah 3:22).

In a room of the palace, Ahab, king of Israel, lies upon his couch with his face toward the wall, refusing to eat. What has taken place? Has disaster befallen the royal arms? Have the priests of Baal been again massacred? Is his royal consort dead? No, the soldiers are still flushed with their recent victories over Syria. The worship of Baal has quite recovered the terrible disaster of Carmel. Jezebel — resolute, crafty, cruel, and beautiful — is now standing by his side, anxiously seeking the cause of this sadness which was, perhaps, assumed to engage her sympathy and to secure through her means, ends which he dared not compass for himself.

The story is soon told. Jezreel was the Windsor of Israel and the location of the favorite royal house. On a certain occasion, while Ahab was engaged there in superintending his large and beautiful pleasure-grounds, his eye lighted on a neighboring vineyard which belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. It promised to be so valuable an addition to his property, that he resolved to procure it at all hazards. He therefore sent for Naboth and offered a better vineyard in exchange or the worth of it in money. To his surprise and indignation, Naboth refused both. And Naboth said to Ahab, “The LORD forbid it {134} be, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee” (1 Kings 21:3).

At first sight this refusal seems churlish and discourteous. But a little consideration will justify the refusal of Naboth, and aggravate the subsequent guilt of the royal pair. By the law of Moses, Canaan was considered as being, in a peculiar sense, God’s land. The Israelites were His tenants, and one of the conditions of their tenure was that they should not alienate that which fell to their lot except in cases of extreme necessity, and then only until the year of Jubilee. The transfer was always coupled with the condition that the land might be redeemed at any moment before that time by the payment of a stipulated price. If these two conditions had remained in force, Naboth would have felt less compunction at this temporary alienation of his paternal inheritance; but both had probably fallen into disuse, and he anticipated that if it once passed out of his hands, his patrimony would become merged in the royal demesne, never to be disintegrated. Taking his stand then on religious grounds, he might well say, “The LORD forbid it me.” His refusal was in part, therefore, a religious act.

But there was, without doubt, something further. In his mention of “the inheritance of his fathers,” we have the suggestion of another, and most natural, reason for his reluctance. Beneath those vines and trees his fathers had for generations sat. There he had spent the sunny years of childhood. Many a holy memory was associated with that spot, and he felt that all the juice ever pressed from all the vineyards in the neighborhood would never compensate him for the wrench from those clustered memories.

Naboth’s refusal made Ahab leap into his chariot and drive back to Samaria and, like a spoiled child, turn his {135} face to the wall in a pet, “heavy and displeased.” At the close of the previous chapter we learn that he was heavy and displeased with God; now he is agitated by the same strong passions toward man. In a few more days the horrid deed of murder was perpetrated, which at one stroke removed Naboth, his sons, and his heirs and the unclaimed property fell naturally into royal hands. There are many lessons here which would claim our notice if we were dealing with the whole story, but we must pass them by to bend our attention exclusively on the part Elijah played amid these terrible transactions.

HE WAS CALLED BACK TO SERVICE

How many years had elapsed since last the word of the Lord had come to Elijah, we do not know. Perhaps it was five or six. All this while he must have waited wistfully for the well-known accents of that voice, longing to hear it once again. And the weary days, passing slowly by, prolonged his deferred hope into deep and yet deeper regret, he must have been driven to continued soul- questionings and heart-searchings, to bitter repentance for the past, and to renewed consecration for whatever service might be imposed upon him. Using a phrase employed of Samson who was as remarkable for physical force as Elijah was for spiritual power, we may say, “the hair of his head began to grow again.”

It may be that these words will be read by some, once prominent in the Christian service, who have been lately cast aside. They have been removed from the sphere they once filled. They have found audiences slip away from them, and opportunities close up. They have seen younger people step in to fill the ranks from which they have fallen. This may be attributable to the sovereignty {136} of the Great Master, who has a perfect right to do as He will with His own, and who takes up one and lays down another. But before we lay this flattering unction to our souls, we should inquire whether the reason may not lie within our own breasts, in some inconsistency or sin which needs confession and forgiveness at the hands of our faithful and merciful High Priest, before ever again the word of the Lord can come to us.

It is also quite possible that we are left unused for our own deeper teaching in the ways of God. Hours, even years of silence are full of golden opportunities for the servants of God. In such cases, our conscience does not condemn us or accost us with any sufficient reason arising from ourselves. Our simple duty is to keep clean and filled and ready, standing on the shelf, meet for the Master’s use, sure that we serve if we only stand and wait and knowing that He will accept and reward the willingness for the deed.

ELIJAH WAS NOT DISOBEDIENT

Once before, when his presence was urgently required, he had arisen to flee for his life. But there was no vacillation, no cowardice now. His old heroic faith had revived in him again. His spirit had regained its wonted posture in the presence of Jehovah. His nature had returned to its equipoise in the will of God. He arose and went down to the vineyard of Naboth and entered it and strode through its glades, or waited at the gates, to find the royal criminal. It was nothing to him that there rode behind Ahab’s chariot two ruthless captains, Jehu and Bidkar (2 Kings 9:25). He did not for a moment consider that the woman who had threatened his life before might now take it, maddened as she was with her recent draught of human blood. All fear was but as the cobweb {137} swinging across the garden pathway and swept before the child rushing resolutely forward. Who does not rejoice that Elijah had such an opportunity of wiping out the dark stain of disgrace which attached to him from the moment when he had forsaken, so faithlessly, the post of duty? His time of waiting had not been lost on him!

HE WAS ACTING AS AN INCARNATE CONSCIENCE

Naboth was out of the way, and Ahab may have comforted himself, as weak people do still, with the idea that he was not his murderer. How could he be? He had been perfectly quiescent. He had simply put his face to the wall and done nothing. He did remember that Jezebel had asked him for his royal seal to give validity to some letters which she had written in his name, but how was he to know what she had written? Of course if she had given instructions for Naboth’s death it was a great pity, but it could not now be helped. He might as well take possession of the inheritance! With such palliatives he succeeded in stilling the fragment of conscience which alone survived in his heart. And it was then that he was startled by a voice which he had not heard for years, saying, “Thus says the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?” (1 Kings 21:19). He killed! No, it was Jezebel that had killed. Ah, it was in vain to shift the responsibility thus! “Hast thou killed?” The prophet, guided by the Spirit of God, put the burden on the right shoulders.

Often a man, who dares not to do a disgraceful act himself will call a subordinate to his side and say: “Such a thing needs doing, I wish you would see to it. Use any of my appliances you will, only do not trouble me further about it — and of course you had better not do anything {138} wrong.” In God’s sight that man is held responsible for whatever evil is done by his tool in the execution of this commission. The blame is laid on the shoulders of the principal; and it will be more tolerable for the subordinate than for him, in the day of Judgment.

Further than that but based on the same principle; if an employer, by paying an inadequate and unjust wage, tempts his employees to supplement their scanty pittance by dishonest or unholy methods, he is held responsible in the sight of heaven for the evil which he might have prevented if he had not been willfully and criminally indifferent.

It is sometimes the duty of a servant of God fearlessly to rebuke sinners who think their high position a license to evildoing and a screen from rebuke. And let all such remember that acts of high- handed sin often seem at first to prosper. Naboth meekly dies, the earth sucks in his blood, the vineyard passes into the oppressor’s hands, but there is One who sees and will most certainly avenge the cause of His servants. “Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons, saith the LORD; and I will requite thee in this plat” (2 Kings 9:26). That vengeance may tarry, for the mills of God grind slowly; but it will come as certainly as God is God. And in the meanwhile, in Naboth’s vineyard stands Elijah the prophet; and in the criminal’s heart stands conscience with its scourge of small cords, weighted with jagged metal. This lesson is enforced again and again by our great dramatist, who teaches men who will not read their Bibles that sin does not pay in the end. No matter how successful it may seem at first, in the end it has to reckon with an Elijah as conscience, and he always finds out the culprit; and with God as an avenger — and He never misses His mark.

HE WAS HATED FOR THE TRUTH’S SAKE

“And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” (1 Kings 21:20). Though the king knew it not, Elijah was his best friend, while it was Jezebel who was his direst foe. But sin distorts everything. It is like the gray dawn which so obscures the most familiar objects that men mistake friends for foes and foes for friends. Many a time have men repeated the error of the disciples, who mistook Jesus for an evil spirit and cried out for fear.

When Christian friends remonstrate with evil-doers, rebuke their sins, and warn them of their doom, the Christians are scouted, hated, and denounced as enemies. The Bible is detested because it so clearly exposes sin and its consequences. God Himself is viewed with dislike. It cannot be otherwise. The Egyptians hated the blessed pillar of cloud. The Philistines sent away the ark of the covenant. Wounds shrink from salt. The broken bone dreads the gentle touch of the physician. The thief hates the detective’s lantern.

Let us not be surprised if we are hated. Let us even be thankful when men detest us — not for ourselves, but for the truths we speak. Let us “rejoice, and be exceeding glad.” When bad men think thus of us, it is an indication that our influence is at the very antipodes to the bent and tenor of their lives. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

Oh, do not turn from the surgeon’s knife, or the lighthouse gleam, or the red warning light, or the deep baying of the hound — as if these were your foes. It is you that is wrong; not they.

HE WAS A TRUE PROPHET

Each of the woes which Elijah foretold came true. Ahab postponed their fulfillment for some three years by a partial repentance, but at the end of that time he went back to his evil ways, and every item was literally fulfilled. He was wounded by a chance arrow at Ramoth-gilead, “and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot” (1 Kings 22:35) and as they washed his chariot in the fountain of Samaria, the dogs licked his blood. Twenty years after, when Jehu sent out to see, there was nothing of Jezebel left for burial. Only her skull, feet, and palms, escaped the voracious dogs as she lay exposed on that very spot. The corpse of their son Joram was cast forth unburied on that same plot, at the command of Jehu, who never forgot those memorable words. And there, in after days, the armies of Israel were put again and again to the rout, saturating the soil with richer fluid than ever flowed from the crushed grapes of the vine. God is true, not only to His promises, but to His threats.

Every word spoken by Elijah was literally fulfilled. Jehovah put His own seal upon His servant’s words. The passing years amply vindicated him. And as we close this tragic episode in has career, we rejoice to learn that he was reinstated in the favor of God and stamped again with the divine imprimatur of trustworthiness and truth.

In order to understand the striking episode before us, we must think ourselves out of this dispensation, the main characteristic of which is gentle mercy, and imagine ourselves back in the age that ended at Calvary. It is very important to have a right understanding of our times. We must not judge the past ages by our own high standards of forgiveness and love, learned in the life and death of Jesus Christ, who is the last and supreme revelation of God. And we must not import into our own age methods of thought and action which were once permissible and necessary, because cognate to the spirit of their times.

This lesson was once impressively taught by our Lord to His disciples. Fresh from the transfiguration, He was on His way to the cross. For some reason He did not take the usual route along the eastern bank of the Jordan, but chose the more direct course through Samaria. Traveling thus, they had probably reached the spot, of which we are soon to speak, which was once scorched and blackened by the cinders of Ahaziah’s troops. Below them, in the ravine, lay a village, to which they sent a deputation, asking for entertainment in the night, which was darkening over them. But religious bigotry triumphed {142} over natural feeling, and the request was absolutely refused. Oh, if they had known that He was about to purchase the redemption of a world and institute a religion in which there should be neither Samaritan nor Jew, but one great brotherhood in Himself — they would surely have bade Him welcome and pressed Him with hospitality, even though the mighty transaction was to take place within the limits of their hated rival, Jerusalem! “And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But He turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of” (Luke 9:54). It was as if He had said, “Remember that in Me you have passed into a new epoch; the affairs of the kingdom of heaven will be managed on altogether different lines from those with which you are familiar. I shall not destroy the law and the prophets; but I am introducing a code which shall fulfill them after a new fashion. The new regime of mercy is already begun.”

Let us clearly define to ourselves the difference in the dispensations. This is after the Spirit of the Son, dwelling in the bosom of the Father; that was after the spirit of the servant, clad in ardent zeal for the glory of God. This glows with the lambent fire of the Holy Ghost; that with the devouring fire of destruction. The keynote of this is salvation; of that, vindication. The Old Testament brims with striking teaching of the holiness and righteousness of God. God, our Father, was as merciful and long suffering then as now; and He gave many sweet glimpses of His loving heart. These glimpses became more numerous as the ages brought nigh the incarnation of the love of God. But men cannot take in too {143} many thoughts at once. Line must be on line, precept on precept. And so each preliminary age had some one special truth to teach, and that truth was accentuated and brought into prominence by special proofs and episodes. The age of the Mosaic Law, which shed its empire over the times of Elijah, was preeminently the era in which those awful and splendid attributes of the divine character — God’s holiness, justice, righteousness, and severity against sin — stood out in massive prominence; as some of us have seen from the ancient capital of Switzerland, the long line of Bernese Alps rising above the plain in distant and majestic splendor, cold in the gray dawn or flushed with the light of morn and eve. It was only when those lessons had been completely learned that mankind was able to appreciate the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Critics — who insensible have caught their conceptions of infinite love from the Gospels which they affect to despise — find fault with the Old Testament because of its austere tones and its severe enactments. They point out many things inconsistent with the gentler spirit of our times. There is nothing surprising here. It could not have been otherwise in a gradual unfolding of the nature and character of God. The holy men who lived in those days had never heard the gentle voice of the Son of Man speaking the Sermon on the Mount. They had, however, very definite conceptions of the righteousness and holiness of God, and His swift indignation on sin. This inspired many of the Psalms in the hymnal of the Old Testament saints. This stimulated them to do deeds from which our gentler nature shrinks. But for this, Levi had never slain his brethren, or Joshua the Canaanites, Samuel had never hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord, and {144} Elijah had never presumed to slay the priests of Baal or call down fire from heaven to destroy the captains and their men.

And, as we read these deeds, we may well sink into quiet self-questioning. We need not fall into the extreme of Cromwell and his soldiers and introduce the speech or acts of those bygone days into our dealings with the enemies of truth and God. But we do well to ask whether — granting that we forego the outward manifestation — there is the same hatred of sin, the same zeal for the glory of God, the same inveterate enthusiasm for righteousness as there was in those days of force and decision and unswerving righteousness.

These considerations will help us to understand the narrative that awaits us, and will relieve the character of Elijah from the charge of vindictiveness and passion. Then we can consider, without compunction, the rising up again in his breast of something of his old undaunted courage and heroic bearing.

The story is as follows: Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, had succeeded to his father’s throne and his father’s sins. He shrank in cowardly fear from the hardihood of the camp and the dangers of the field, leaving Moab to rebel without attempting its re-subjugation. He led a self-indulgent life in his palace. But the shafts of death can find us equally in apparent security as amid threatening dangers. He was leaning on the balustrade that fence the flat roof of the palace when it suddenly gave way, and he overbalanced himself and was flung to the ground. Many are the balustrades on which we lean in hours of peril, which fail us to our hurt! When the first panic was over, the king was seized with intense longings to know how his illness would turn. In a strange freak, he sent messengers to one of the ancient shrines of Canaan, {145} which was dedicated to Baalzebub, the god of flies and the patron saint of medicine, who had some affinity with the Baal of his parents. This was a deliberate rejection of Jehovah, a daring choice of those ways which had brought the wrath of God on his father’s house. It could not pass unnoticed, and Elijah was sent to meet his messengers as they were speeding across the plain of Esdraelon, with the announcement of certain death: “Thus saith the LORD… thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die” (2 Kings 1:16).

The servants did not know the stranger. They may have been imported Tyrians who had never mingled in the life of the nation, and who were ignorant of the mighty prophet of God. Years also had probably elapsed since his last public appearance. However, they were so impressed by that commanding figure and authoritative tone and so awed by that terrible reply, that they determined to return at once to the king. They found him lying on the divan covered with cushions, to which he had been carried from the scene of his accident. And they told him the reason of their speedy return. Ahaziah must have guessed who the man was that had dared to cross their path and send him such a message. But, to make assurance surer, he asked them to describe the mysterious stranger. They replied that he was a man of hair. Long and heavy tresses of unshorn hair hung heavily down upon his shoulders, his beard covered his breast and mingled with the unwrought skins that formed his only dress. It was enough. The king recognized him at once, and said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

Two emotions now filled his heart. He wanted, in exasperation, to get Elijah in his power to vent his wrath on him. He also, perhaps, cherished a secret hope that {146} the lips which had announced his death might be induced to revoke it. He therefore resolved to capture him. For that purpose he sent a captain and a troop of fifty soldiers. When they were struck down in death, he sent another captain and his band. These men exceeded their duty. Instead of simply acting as the tools and instruments of the royal will, they spoke with an unwarrantable insolence, “Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down!” (2 Kings 1:9) Either they did not hold him to be a prophet, or they gloried in putting the power of their master above that of Jehovah. In any case, the insult was less against Elijah than Elijah’s God.

There was no personal vindictiveness in the terrible reply of the old prophet. I don not suppose for a moment he considered the indignity done to himself. I believe he was filled with consuming zeal for the glory of God which had been trodden so rudely under foot and which he must vindicate in the eyes of Israel. “If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty” (2 Kings 1:12). And in a moment the fire leaped from its scabbard and laid the impious blasphemers low. That there was no malice in Elijah is clear from his willingness to go with the third captain, who spoke with reverence and humility. “And the angel of the LORD said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose and went down with him unto the king” (2 Kings 1:15).

A thought is suggested here of the meekness and gentleness of Christ. How wonderful it is to think that He who, by a single word, could have brought fire from heaven to destroy the bands that came to take Him in Gethsemane, left that word unspoken. He threw them on the ground for a moment, to show them how absolutely {147} they were in His power, but He forbore to hurt one hair of their heads. It was a marvelous spectacle, which the legions of harnessed angels, who waited in midair for a word to bring them to His rescue, must have beheld with speechless amazement. The explanation is of course found in the fact that He was under the compulsion of a higher law — the law of His Father’s will, the law of self-sacrificing love, the law of a covenant sealed before the foundation of the world.

The only fire He sought was the fire of the Holy Ghost. “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled” (Luke 12:49). He strove not to avenge Himself or vindicate the majesty of His nature. Christ “endured the contradiction of sinners against himself” (Hebrews 12:3). “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). “When he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). Oh, matchless meekness! Oh, wondrous self-control! Oh, glorious example of the spirit of His own teaching! May grace be given to each of us, His unworthy followers, to walk in His steps and to emulate His spirit, not calling for the fire of vengeance, but seeking the salvation of those who would do us hurt; dealing out not the fire of heaven, but those coals of fire which, heaped on the head of our adversaries, shall melt them into sweetness and gentleness and love.

There is also suggested here the impossibility of God ever condoning defiant and blasphemous sin. We have fallen on soft and degenerate days when, under false notions of charity and liberality, men are paring down {148} their conceptions of the evil of sin and of the holy wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

It is quite true that God yearns over men with unutterable pleading tenderness. God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). As there is not a dying sparrow in the recesses of the deepest woods over whose last agonies the Almighty does not bend with sympathetic interest and alleviating tenderness, so there is not one waif of humanity excluded from the warm zone of His infinite compassionateness and tender pity. In every outbreak of human sin, in the lot of every lost man and woman, over every street fight, at every public-house doorstep, amid the blasphemous orgies of every den of impurity and shame — that love lingers, full of tears, and longings, and entreaties. “God so loved the world” (John 3:16).

And yet, side by side with this love of the sinner, there is God’s hatred of his sin. This longsuffering lasts only so long as there is a possible hope of the transgressor turning from his evil ways. “If he turn not, He will whet His sword.” The wrath of God against sinful men who have definitely elected their sin, slumbereth only; it is not dead. It broods over them, held back by His desire to give everyone the chance of salvation. They may be thankful, therefore, that their lot has fallen in this parenthesis of mercy. But “because sentence against their evil work is not executed speedily, therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evil.” Yet the time of forbearance will end at last, as the waiting did in the days of Noah. Then fire will fall, of which the material flame that fell on these insolent soldiers is a slight and imperfect symbol. And it shall be discovered how bitter a thing it is to encounter the wrath of the Lamb, “when {149} the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8).

We need more proclamation of this side of the Gospel. There is an alarming lack among us of the sense of sin. Our vast populations are indifferent to the message of mercy, because they have not been aroused with the message of the holy wrath of God against sin. We need again that one should come, in the power of Elijah, to do the work of John the Baptist; and to prepare men by the throes of conviction for the gentle ministry of Jesus Christ. The crying need of our times is a deeper conviction of sin. And if this shall be ever brought about, it must be by the religious teachers being led to study the Law as well as the Gospel, and to realize for themselves, as they can only do through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Then when Elijah’s fire of conviction has smitten human confidences low in the dust, there will be room for an Elisha to bind up broken hearts with the message of mercy.

We are also assured of Elijah’s full restoration to the exercise of a glorious faith. In a former time, the message of Jezebel was enough to make him flee. But in this case he stood his ground, though an armed band came to capture him. It was as if he were able to repeat the familiar words without exaggeration: “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though wars should rise against me, in this will I be confident” (Psalm 27:3). And when he was bidden to go down with the third captain to the king, he did not hesitate; though it was to go through the streets of a crowded capital and into the very palace of his foes. We are reminded of the entrance of Luther into Worms, and of {150} the remonstrance of Ambrose to the mightiest emperor of his time. Do you ask the secret of why he was able to stand so calmly beside the couch of the dying monarch, delivering his message and retiring unharmed? Ah, the answer is not far to seek. He was again dwelling in the secret of the Most High and standing in the presence of Jehovah. His faith was in lively and victorious exercise. He was able to gird himself with the panoply of God’s mail, invulnerable to the darts of men and devils. And thus might he have spoken with himself as he passed through the threatening perils of that crisis: “By thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect… he is a buckler to all them that trust in him” (2 Samuel 22:30-31).

Is it not beautiful to behold this glorious out burst of the faith of Cherith, Zarephath, and Carmel? The old man, nearing his reward, was as vigorous in this as in his first challenge to Ahab. He bore fruit in old age, like one of God’s evergreens which are full of sap. Glory be to Him who restores the soul of His faltering saints and brings them up from the grave and sets them again as stars in His right hand and deigns to use them once more in His glorious service!

It was the cherished wish of Dr. Chalmers that he should be granted a Sabbatic decade, after the six decades of work, between the sixtieth and seventieth years of life, so completing its entire week. And it was surely a natural desire on the part of one who ranks among the foremost workers of our time. Whether or not this had been a specific desire of Elijah, in God’s gracious providence it fell to his lot. And after a life full of storm and tempest, it came to pass that at eventide there was light and peace and a parenthesis of rest, as if the spirit of the world which he was about to enter were already shedding its spell over his path.

There is always something beautiful in the declining years of one who in earlier life has dared nobly and wrought successfully. Younger men gather around the veteran to whom they owe the inspiration and model of their lives, and call him father, enwreathing his gray locks with crowns in which love is entwined with reverence. Seeds sown years before and almost forgotten, or reckoned lost, yield their golden returns. Memory rescues from the oblivion of the past many priceless records, while hope, standing before the thinning veil, tells of things not perfectly seen as yet; but growing on the {152} gaze of the ripened spirit. The old force still gleams in the eye, but its rays are tempered by that tenderness for human frailty and that deep self-knowledge which years alone can yield. The crudities are ripened, the harshnesses are softened, the bitternesses are mellowed. Marah waters no longer forbid the thirsty lips, but an Elim invites the weary. And from those revered lips flow rivers of wise and loving counsel to the younger generations grouped around. Such a life- evening seems to have been Elijah’s. He did not reach a great old age. In all likelihood he showed no signs of physical decay. His eye was not dim nor his natural force abated. He probably betrayed his age more in the deeds he had done and in the mellowness of his spirit than in the infirmities of the natural man. Still there is little room for doubt that the noon of his life was well passed when he prepared himself for his final journey. And he must have been very grateful, as it was most fruitful of blessing to his country and to the cause of God, that there was granted a time of comparative calm at the close of his tempestuous career.

For those years of retirement were valuable in the highest degree, both in their immediate results upon hundreds of young lives, and in their far-off results on the coming times.

THE WORK OF THE CLOSING YEARS OF ELIJAH’S LIFE

His life has been called a one-man ministry, and there is much in it to warrant the description. He made his age. Towering above all the men of his time, he cleft his way through the crowds of meaner souls, and withstood the onslaughts of evil; as a rock shakes off the {153} waves that break on it into volumes of spray. By heroic exploits and deeds of superhuman might, he strove single-handed against the tides of idolatry and sin that were sweeping over the land. In this he reminds us perpetually of Martin Luther and of John Knox; all these men were spiritual giants by reason of their faith, which could appropriate the power of God, as the lightning conductor can rob the thundercloud of its electric stores and bring them to the earth.

But though largely successful in keeping the cause of true religion from dying out, Elijah must often have realized the desirability of carrying on the work more systematically, and of leavening the country more thoroughly with the influence of devoted men. So, under Divine direction, he carefully fostered, if he did not altogether inaugurate, an institution which was a relic of former times, and known as the “schools of the prophets.” When we use the word PROPHET, we think of it as indicating a person who can foretell the future, and much confusion is introduced into our reading of Scripture. It includes this idea as a fragment of a larger meaning. The original word means “boiling or bubbling over,” and so a prophet was one whose heart was bubbling over with good matter, and with those Divine communications which struggled within him for utterance. He was a spiritual geyser, the mouthpiece and spokesman of God. “Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). So these schools of the prophets were colleges in which a number of young men gathered, their hearts open to receive, and their tongues to utter, the messages of God.

The Christian traveler among the Western Isles of Scotland will hardly fail to visit one small, bare, lone {154} spot out amid the roll of the Atlantic waves. It is thy shore, Iona, of which I write! No natural beauties arrest the eye or enchain the interest. There is but one poor village with its two boats and squalid population. Yet who can visit that low shore and stand amid those crumbling ruins without intense emotions? It was there that Columba built the first Christian church to shed its gentle rays over those benighted regions and to shelter the young apostles who carried the Gospel throughout the pagan kingdoms of Northern Britain. With similar emotions should we stand amid the ruins of Bethel, Gilgal, and Jericho, where, in his declining years, Elijah gathered around him the flower of the seven thousand and educated them to receive and transmit something of his own spiritual force and fire. These were the missionary seminaries of the age, the repositories of sacred truth and learning; and beneath his influence, an Isaiah, a Hosea, an Ezekiel may have first received impulses which have since thrilled through the world.

These young men were formed into separate companies of fifty in different towns. They were called sons. The chief among them, like the abbot of a monastery, was called father. Clad in a simple dress, they had their food in common and dwelt in huts made of the branches of trees. They were well versed in the sacred books, which they probably transcribed for circulation, and read in the hearing of the people. They were frequently sent forth on errands of God’s Spirit — to anoint a king, to upbraid a high-handed sinner, or to take the part of oppressed and injured innocence. It was, therefore, no small work for Elijah to put these schools on so secure a basis that, when he was gone, they might perpetuate his influence and guard the flames which he had kindled.

THE ATTITUDE OF HIS SPIRIT IN ANTICIPATING HIS TRANSLATION

The old man clung to those young hearts and felt that his last days could not be better spent than in seeing them once more; though he resolved to say nothing of his approaching departure or of the conspicuous honor that was shortly to be conferred on him. Here is the humility of true greatness! He foresaw that he was to enjoy an exodus to which, in the whole history of the race, there had been but one parallel. Yet he was so reticent about it that if he had had his way, no mortal eye would have beheld it. Anyone less great would have let the secret out, or have contrived to line the heights of the Jordan with expectant crowds of witnesses. Instead of this, he kept the secret well locked up within him and tried to dissuade Elisha from accompanying him a single step. “Tarry here” (2 Kings 2:2). Perhaps that loyal heart feared attracting to himself, either then or afterward, honor due only to God.

Alas, what a rebuke is here for ourselves! The prophet’s evident desire to die alone shames us when we remember how eager we are to tell men, by every available medium, of what we are doing for the Lord. There is not a talent with which He intrusts us which we do not parade as a matter of self-laudation. There is not a breath of success that does not mightily puff us up. What wonder that our Father dare not give us much marked success or many conspicuous spiritual endowments, lest we be tempted further to our ruin! Oh, when shall we be free of ourselves? Would that we could live so perpetually facing the sun that we might never see the dark shadow of self! “I could not see for the glory of that light.” The Holy Spirit of life alone can set us free {156} from the law of sin and death. Let us urge Him to hasten the performance of His gracious office and to give us the sweet humility of this man who was willing to efface himself that men might think only of his Master and Lord.

We are also deeply impressed by the calm tenor of the prophet’s course through those closing days. He knew that before many suns had set he would be standing in the light of eternity, mingling with his peers, understanding all the mysteries that had puzzled his eager spirit, and beholding the face of God; and we might have expected him to fill the preceding hours with ecstatic offices of devotion. But instead, he spent the days, as he often spent them before, visiting the schools of the prophets and quietly conversing with his friend, until the chariot swept Elijah from his side. And, as we consider that spectacle, we learn that a good man should so live that he need make no extra preparation when death suddenly summons him, and that our best method of awaiting the great exchange of worlds is to go on doing the duties of daily life.

That was a wise and true reply of Wesley to the inquiry, “What would you do if you knew that you would have to die within three days?” “I should just do the work which I have already planned to do: ministering in one place; meeting my preachers in another; lodging in yet another, till the moment came that I was called to yield my spirit back to Him who gave it.” When our summons comes, we should wish to be found, not in the place which sentiment or a false sense of religious propriety might suggest, but just doing the work which we have been appointed to do, and in the place where duty would demand our presence at that very hour. The workshop and the factory are as near heaven as the sanctuary; {157} the God-given task as fair a height for ascension as Olivet or Pisgah.

THE AFFECTIONATE LOVE WITH WHICH ELIJAH WAS REGARDED

It strongly showed itself in Elisha. The younger man stood with his revered leader, as for the last time he surveyed from the heights of Western Gilgal the scene of his former ministry. And, in spite of many persuasives to the contrary, he went with him down the steep descent to Bethel and Jericho. He followed him, even though they had to cross the Jordan, which meant death and judgment. The sacred historian accentuates the strength of their affection, as he says thrice over, they two went on; they two stood by the Jordan; they two went over. And again the strength of that love, which the cold waters of death could not extinguish, approved itself in the repeated asseveration: “As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee” (2 Kings 2:2). It is sweet to think that there were in the rugged, strong nature of Elijah such winsome qualities as could elicit so deep and tenacious an affection. We catch a glimpse of a tenderer side for which we had hardly given him credit.

Unusual emotion also welled up in the hearts of the young men, whose reverence shared the empire with their love, as they beheld their master for the last time. With delicate reticence they would not speak on a subject which he did not mention but, drawing Elisha aside, they asked him whether the moment of separation had not come. “Yes,” said he in effect, “but do not speak of it. Let there be no parting scene. Give and receive the parting farewells in expressive silence.”

But in all their intercourse, how real and near the {158} Lord seemed! To Elijah it was the Lord who was sending him from place to place: “the Lord hath sent me.” To Elisha it was the living Lord to whom he constantly appealed: “as the Lord thy God liveth” — living on the other side of the great change through which his master was to pass to Him. To the prophets, it was the Lord who was taking their head and leader to Himself. Surely those who speak thus have reached a position in which they can meet death without a tremor. And what is death but, as we shall see in our next chapter, a translation!

What is the Lord to you? Is He a dear and familiar friend, of whom you can speak with unwavering confidence? Then you need not fear to tread the verge of Jordan. Otherwise, it becomes you to get to His precious blood and to wash your garments white, that you may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

We have reached at length one of the most sublime scenes of Old Testament story. We should have been glad to learn the most minute particulars concerning it; but the historian contents himself with the simplest statements. Just one or two broad, strong outlines, and all is told that we may know. The veil of distance, or the elevation of the hills, was enough to hide the receding figures of the prophets from the eager gaze of the group that watched them from the neighborhood of Jericho. And the dazzling glory of the celestial cortege made the only spectator unable to scrutinize it too narrowly. What a wonder, then, if the narrative is given in one brief verse! “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11).

But there was one symptom at least, of the coming wonder, which was clearly witnessed by more than the solitary companion who had so faithfully and tenaciously kept by Elijah’s side. The two friends halted for a moment before the broad waters of the Jordan, which threatened to bar their onward steps, and then Elijah’s spirit was thrilled with the old omnipotent faith such as had so {160} often enabled him to overcome the working of natural laws, by the introduction of the laws of that higher sphere which only answer the summons of a mighty faith.

True, he took off his well-worn mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters. But that, at the best, was only an outward and significant sign. At that same moment his spirit was grappling the power of the Infinite God and was bringing it to bear on the hurrying stream. He knew that the Lord had sent him thither, and that his road lay further into the country on the other side. He saw no means of pursuing the God-marked path. He was sure that, since his way led through the waters, God was prepared to make it possible and easy for him to tread it. And he therefore dared to strike the waters, believing that divine power was working in every stroke; and the waters parted hither and thither, leaving a clear passage, through which they went.

Child of God, your path seems sometimes to lie right through a flowing Jordan. There is no alternative but that you should go straight on. Forward moves the cloud. Forward points the signpost of circumstance. Forward bids the inward prompting. But how, when Jordan rolls in front? Now is the time for faith! Where God’s finger points, there God’s hand will make the way. Believe that it shall be so! Advance in unfaltering faith! Step down the shelving bank, and the waters of difficulty shall part before you; and you shall find a pathway where to human vision there was none. So through parting Jordans you shall march to your reward.

THE FITNESS OF THIS TRANSLATION

There was fitness in the place, Not the smiling plain of Esdraelon, with its cornfields and vineyards and {161} dotted hamlets, speaking of the toils and homes of men. Not the desert of Sinai, so closely allied with the memory of his fatal fall. Not the schools of Gilgal, Bethel, or Jericho. None of these would furnish a fit setting for his farewell to his earthly ministry. But, away from all these; amid the scenery familiar to his early life; in view of localities forever associated with the most memorable events of his nation’s history; surrounded by the lonely grandeur of some rocky gorge — there God chose to send His chariot to fetch him home.

There was fitness in the method. He had himself been as the whirlwind, that falls suddenly on the unsuspecting world, and sweeps all before it in its impetuous course, leaving devastation and ruin in its track. It was meet that a whirlwind-man should be swept to heaven in the very element of his life. His character was well depicted in the panorama of the desert, with its shivering wind and its glowing fire. And nothing could be more appropriate than that the stormy energy of his career should be set forth in the rush of the whirlwind; and the intensity of his spirit by the fire that flashed in the harnessed seraphim. What a contrast to the gently upward motion of the ascending Savior!

There was fitness in the exclamation with which Elisha bade him farewell. He cried, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof” (2 Kings 2:12). Doubtless, amid that sudden flash of glory he hardly knew what he said. Yet he closely hit the truth. That man, whom he had come to love as a father, had indeed been as an armed chariot of defense to Israel. By his faith and prayers and deeds, he had often warded off evil and danger with more certain success than could have been effected by an armed troop. Alas that such people are rare! But in our time we have known them; {162} and when they have been suddenly swept from our side, we have felt as if the Church had been deprived of one main source of security and help.

THE REASONS FOR THIS TRANSLATION

One of the chief reasons was, no doubt, TO WITNESS TO HIS TIMES. The men of his day were plunged in sensuality and had little thought of the hereafter. At the very best, the Jews had but vague notions of the other life; and those notions were probably still further darkened by the obscuring influences of idolatry and sin. But here a convincing evidence was given that there was a spiritual world into which the righteous entered and that, when the body sank in death, the spirit did not share its fate but entered into a state of being in which its noblest instincts found their befitting environment and home — fire to fire, spirit to spirit, the man of God to God.

A similar testimony was given to the men of his time by the rapture of Enoch before the Flood, and by the ascension of our Lord from the brow of Olivet. Where did these three wondrous journeys end, unless there was a bourn which was their befitting terminus and goal? And as the tidings spread, thrilling all listeners with mysterious awe, and as they heard that no sign of the rapt ones could be discovered by the most diligent search, would there not break upon them the conviction that they likewise would have to take that wondrous journey into the unseen, soaring beyond all worlds or sinking into the bottomless pit?

Another reason was evidently the desire on the part of God TO GIVE A STRIKING SANCTION TO HIS SERVANT’S WORDS. How easy was it for the men of that time to evade the force of Elijah’s ministry, by asserting that he was an {163} enthusiast, an alarmist, a firebrand! It would be convenient for them to think that his denunciations and threats began and ended with himself — the workings of a distempered brain. And if he had passed away in decrepit old age, they would have been still further encouraged in their impious conjecturings. How would they have known that he spoke the truth of God? But the mouths of blasphemers and gainsayers were stopped when God put such a conspicuous seal upon His servant’s ministry. It was as if Jehovah had stepped out of the unseen to vindicate him and to affirm that he was His chosen ambassador, and that the word in his lips was true. The translation was to the lifework of Elijah what the resurrection was to that of Jesus — it was God’s irrefragable testimony to the world.

As a servant, Elijah had failed in one fatal moment; and by that moment’s failure had missed a splendid chance: but for all that, the general tenor of his ministry was such as God could approve; and concerning it He could bear His sanctioning testimony to men. It may sometimes happen that our Father will greatly honor His servants in the eyes of men, while He will be very strict in His private dealings with them in reference to certain failures in duty of which only He and they are aware.

THE LESSONS OF THIS TRANSLATION FOR OURSELVES

LET US TAKE CARE NOT TO DICTATE TO GOD. This was the man who lay down upon the ground and asked to die. If he had had his will, he would have had the desert sands for his shroud and the desert winds for his requiem. How good it was of God to refuse him the answer he craved! Was it not better to pass away, missed and beloved, in the chariot which his Father had sent for him, and with which Ahab’s, though he had run before it, could bear no comparison?

This is no doubt one reason why our prayers go unanswered. We know not what we ask. We ask for things which we would not dream of, if we only knew the infinite superiority of the lot which our Father has planned out for us. We shall have to bless Him forever, more for the prayers He refused than for those He granted. When next your request is denied, reflect that it may be because God is preparing something for you as much better than your request as the translation of Elijah was better than his own petition for himself.

LET US LEARN WHAT DEATH IS. It is simply a transfer: not a state, but an act; not a condition, but a passage. We pass through a doorway, we cross a bridge of smiles, we flash from the dark into the light. There is no interval of unconsciousness, no parenthesis of suspended animation. “Absent from the body,” we are instantly “present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Oh, do not think of death as the jailer of a prison in which he is collecting the saints against some final order for their liberty. It is nothing of the sort. It is but the grim disguise of one of the angels of God’s presence-chamber, specially commissioned to bring faithful souls into the audience-room of the King. As by the single act of birth we entered into this lower life, so by the single act — which men call death, but which the angels call birth (for Christ is the Firstborn from among the dead) — we pass into the real life. The fact that Elijah appeared on the transfiguration mount in holy converse with Moses and Christ proves that the blessed dead are really the living ones; sentient, active, intensely in earnest; and they entered that life in a single moment, the moment of death. Would it not {165} be truer to speak of them not as the dead, but as those who have died and are alive forever? It must be remembered, however, that while it is far better for the emancipated soul and spirit to be with Christ, present with the Lord, the blessedness will not be complete until the resurrection of the body, which will then have put on incorruption and immortality.

LET US SEE HERE A TYPE OF THE RAPTURE OF THE SAINTS. We do not know what change passed over the mortal body of the ascending prophet. This is all we know, that “mortality is swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). There was wrought on him a change like that which took place in the grave of Joseph, when the crucified body of Jesus became transformed into the risen body — which was largely independent of the laws of nature, but which was so like the body which He had worn for thirty-three years that it was readily and universally recognized. Corruption put on incorruption. The mortal put on immortality. The body of humiliation was exchanged for the body of glory.

Such a change, unless Christ tarry longer than the term of our natural life, shall be the portion of many who read these lines — “caught up… to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). It becomes us then to walk as Elijah did, with alert and watchful spirit; talking only on themes that would not be inconsistent with an instantaneous flash into the presence of God. Thus, whenever our Father’s carriage comes for us, and wherever it overtakes us — whether in the storm at sea, or in the railway accident; in the tumult of a catastrophe, or in the gradual decay of prolonged illness — may we be prepared to step in, and sweep through the gates, washed in the blood of the Lamb!

Was it not some reference to this august event that was in the mind of the great Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, who, when dying, majestically waved his hand to the bystanders and looked upward with a smile and uttered these last words, “Drive on!” “The chariots of God are twenty thousand” (Psalm 68:17). May we not suppose that one awaits each departing spirit, standing ready at hand to convey it into the presence of the King, to whom be glory for ever and ever!