THE MAN OF GOD

A. J. E. Welch

1 Kings 17: 17–24; 2 Kings 4: 32–36; 1 Timothy 6: 11, 12

The title “man of God” is specially used of these two great prophets, Elijah and Elisha, and I have little doubt that in using the same expression to Timothy Paul must have had these prophets in his mind. It is not, it seems, an expression specially denoting gift, though these men would be in the fullest sense prophets, but it does seem to bring in that the man is expressive in some sense of the power of God. It is a concern at this present time that there be power to promote life among the brethren. The suggestion is not that life is wanting; the suggestion is the positive one of the need to maintain what is in life and in freshness constantly for the pleasure of God. What I am, and what every person is, in the local assembly will carry an influence of one kind or another. The point is that that influence should be positive and stimulating to life among the brethren. We see how, in addressing himself to Timothy, the beloved apostle has in mind, more particularly perhaps in his second letter, to rekindle the features of life. How effectively he did it! These two epistles have come to us peculiarly in times of recovery, tending to strengthen what is in life; and that is the concern as to this occasion.

We must have noticed how these two prophets, Elijah and Elisha, both had to do with a dead child. The same concern as to a dead child is faced by both; Elijah, I suppose, presents to us in some sense the glory of a man going into heaven, relating to the glory of Christ; Elisha asserts what belongs in our time to the Holy Spirit. Both prophets bring power to bear, and the manner of their doing so is remarkable as to its detail; they were able to bring what was in death to life. The point in mind in speaking of this is to see what will constantly tend to bring in life among the people of God. We may not be faced with the extreme case of moral death; thank God if our dear young ones, especially, are sustained in life; but we are to maintain the spirit of life and freshness in persons by our influence and activity.

The circumstances are very affecting in both cases. The maternal side is so much affected in both, and we need that maternal side of things among us. We need the element that will care for what is living and will seek to nourish it. We need all the feeling features of watchful, tender care that constitute the mother. In the first instance it says, as the matter is concluded, that Elijah delivered the child to his mother. He recognises the force and necessity of the mother, as if to place the child in the mother’s particular responsibility. It is as if the prophet would say, ‘What I have needed to do, I have done. Now this child, brought from death, is in your care’. And that is something, I believe, for us to take to heart. The maternal side of things involves in our time the sisterhood, but not only the sisterhood; it is the side of care in the assembly in which all would have part, watchful for the features of life to appear, and moving in a way that would strengthen every element of life in every person in the company. It is a very attractive thought in the working of it in our several localities.

We have before us, in this first passage especially, the feeling side of matters, “Let this child’s soul come into him again”; it is a feature of life in which God delights that there is what is of soul in persons, involving depth in the affections and feelings. When this prophet is presented to us he has his “upper chamber where he abode”. I point to that briefly as a most needed element with us in working out the concern for life in local meetings. Do I know what it is to be in secret with God? Have I an upper chamber? I would say affectionately from this scripture to every brother and sister. Have you an upper chamber? Do you know what it is to withdraw from every other kind of influence, get into the presence of God, and find strength and power there? The upper chamber is a prime necessity of a man of God. We well know that the demands of these times leave us in our personal and household circumstances very little time to get quietly and restfully into God’s presence, but we need to make time for that.

There may be the need to sacrifice less necessary things. There may be the need for greater definiteness, that we are not found wanting in the use of the upper chamber. There we learn God, and God is graciously pleased to make communications to us and leave us with impressions that sustain us in life. I am not speaking now, I need scarcely say, of life eternal, as we had it in the reading, but of the more general sense of life in that what is living is maintained among the people of God.

How God delights in life! He brought in the elements of it in creation and set them in their place, and then He brought man in and breathed into him the breath of life, giving to man a moral being unique and distinct from all the creatures that had been created. That whole scene, as has often been said, was teeming with life. And the assembly, secured for God’s pleasure, is to be like that, teeming with life. There will be those who are more mature, who have been long in the pathway, anticipating that the Lord may soon take them. Then there are the younger ones, and there are all the stages of growth in between; the little children, the young men, and the fathers are all represented, but life, what is fresh, is to mark them all. There are persons we know, and have known, like this. We are thankful to reflect that we know them now, those who always tend to life. If we become engaged in conversation with such their conversation relates to what is living, and it tends to infect you with what is living, which is a great positive end in mind. If we speak of the things of life we tend to disseminate the things of life among the brethren. If we speak of the things of death we shall not help on the living quality of things very much, as I need scarcely say.

Here was a man, a prophet, who had his upper chamber, and he carried the child to his upper chamber. He went before God alone as to this child. He found in that the power he needed to bring in healing. He stretched himself upon the child three times. There is no question, I think, that those three times refer to death and resurrection, the dying and resurrection of Jesus; there is the bringing to bear upon this child of the full powerful efficacy of the death of Christ and His glorious resurrection. Can we bring what is in Christ to bear upon one another, so that what relates to death may be met, and what relates to life introduced? He stretched himself three times. That is, it was not without exercise, it was no mere mechanical movement; it calls for a certain nearness in the application of the truth. So let us keep near to one another; let no estrangement come

in, however small. Let not little things be magnified into estrangements. I have nothing specific in mind in saying that, save the tendency sometimes for it to happen. But the spirit of Elijah the prophet, asserting what is related to the glory of Christ, would rise above all these small things and just come into nearness to the child. It is a most challenging thing, but can we do it? Can we get near enough to a person to stimulate the elements of life there? It is a choice matter, delightful to God.

What comes to light is a son—“See, thy son lives”. What a wonderful evidence of God’s hand in blessing, not only a son, but a son in life! We would love to see all the brethren bearing this character, sonship in life, sustaining not only the right to have a place in the realm of sonship, but sustaining in life the realities of what belongs to sonship in the presence of God—a fine objective! God would have us make it our objective, that we might come out in this character of the man of God, able to bring what is of God to bear upon persons and strengthen and enliven and help them. The bonds that unite us are very close in these days; we thank God that is so. The little estrangements that I have spoken of, in general, thank God, are notably absent. But let us watch that the enemy does not get in at any place, at any time, to bring about any barrier against this choice activity of strengthening and stimulation that tends to life in all the brethren; let us be set for it in a definite way.

Then we come to Elisha, in principle bringing us to the Spirit’s day. It says of him that “He went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands”. You might wonder why so much detail is given; it is to bring out that the prophet is bringing something to bear upon the child of a distinctive kind. He lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth. How would Elisha speak? How would this child speak? It is intended, I believe, to show here that Elisha is imparting something to the child that relates to what he stands for in himself. Before we can do this we have to stand for something ourselves. The need is that we have qualities in ourselves, and how blessed it is that we have the Spirit on whom to rely to bring out features at any time when they are specially needed. Do we know the Spirit well enough? Are our links with the Spirit strong enough? Is our reference to the Spirit frequent enough? Are we kept, in the course of our walk in our pathways here, close enough to Him who is “another Comforter” according to the words of Jesus? Is there not yet scope for us to be kept in greater practical nearness to the Spirit of God? I have to say that is what I feel for myself. Elisha, I believe, illustrates it. He has got something. The mouth of Elisha means something. He is concerned to bring what corresponds with it into this child. He is, so to say, seizing features that are pleasing to God and seeking to inculcate those features in life into the child.

Then there were his eyes. Elisha must have had remarkable vision. His prophetic actings and speakings suggest a remarkable view of what God was doing. He would give some range of that vision to this young person. And then it says, “his hands upon his hands”. What would the hands of Elisha do? What would Elisha put his hands to? No mere trivialities or unimportant things; coming forth from God, as he did, the man of God, he would put his hand to weighty matters, and he would provoke the same thing in life in this child. So what is

according to God in the man of God is disseminated, it expands in the circle of the brethren, it expands in the fellowship. But then, are we possessed of such qualities, beloved brethren?

The work of God, is going on rapidly in these days; we marvel at the skill of it. I believe there is to be yet more striving that we take on the features of the heavenly Man, features that the Spirit would promote. We are to find grace in our contacts one with another to strengthen those features in our brethren as having some degree of possession of them in ourselves. In this sense the assembly becomes a living order of things practically in the personal relationships that enter into it; life is thus disseminated in all its characteristics and features among the brethren, and that, I believe, is very pleasing to God.

It says later that “He returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and bent over him”. Twice it says of Elisha that he bent over him. Can we bend, dear brethren? Can we take a low place? Is the spirit of Christ in humility characteristically marking us? It tends always to resolve every difficulty when the spirit of Christ in humility is at work. We long to be able to bring it in; we long to see it coming into expression. We thank God that it does come into expression; in this time of the Spirit, the spirit of Jesus, in that sense the spirit of the lowly Man, is being brought out in the saints. It is a prime feature in the Spirit’s day. The Spirit Himself, blessed be His Person, has taken a place so lowly in the saints, and He would have us to take on this feature of lowliness, the feature which Paul had in mind when he said to the Philippian brethren, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 2: 5.

There are references in Scripture, such as that to Abigail, that show us the bearing of going down. What lowliness of spirit we see in Hannah, too, in her song! It is as if we are to be reminded that such a spirit as this is what God looks for in persons in the assembly in these times of the Spirit. Let us find the capacity, as having Christ in our hearts and the spirit of Christ before us, to bend, dear brethren. The prophet bent over the child twice. Can we do that? Can we get down to the situation, as humbly taking the ground that Elisha takes in this passage, to bring some effect in from God that shall result in life? One longs for it, that there may be not only the bringing in, but the sustaining in life, as we take humble ground and accustom ourselves to this concern to go down, to bend in the presence of that in which help is needed.

Well, with this background, we have Paul saying to Timothy, “But thou, O man of God, flee these things”. One senses sometimes that it would perhaps have been something of a surprise to Timothy when he found himself being addressed as a man of God. It would arouse concern with him that he might genuinely fill out that place in a substantial sense. I believe it was a skilful touch on Paul’s part, to awaken Timothy to a full sense of the responsibility that lay upon him. Timothy was a young man, as we are given to understand. He is not one of those more mature persons, in years at least. He was a young man, and yet the beloved apostle addresses him in this way, as if he would bring out the full features of the man of God in Timothy. So Paul goes on to intimate the features that are needed, “righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, meekness of spirit. Strive earnestly in the good conflict of faith. Lay hold of eternal life, to which thou hast been called, and hast confessed the good confession before many

witnesses”. These are the features of life, the features that prove the quality of what life is in men, as brought out in the man of God. There is to be some reflection of this, I verily believe, in these closing moments among those who love Christ and know the Spirit and who delight in what is due to God; there is to be capacity to affect situations so that life is introduced, and life is sustained. Through that the pleasure of God shall be maintained until the Lord comes.

May God bless the word.

Address at Buckhurst Hill
12 February 1977