EXTRACTS

My first point now is the passage in the second chapter where the land is described as barren (2 Kings 2: 19). The situation of the city is good, but that in itself does not suffice. The land is barren, and the waters naught. It looks as if the men said, We are just resigned to these sorrowful conditions. What can the man of God do? First, they have to provide a new cruse. If there is to be anything done at all in a needy locality, the brethren there must be brought into it. Do not, therefore, settle down and fold your arms and say, This is the position, nothing can be done. Bring a new cruse and put salt therein. No old vessels, no old methods, it is the new divine way that is effective. Many brethren are using old ones, but we are in a dispensation which is characterised by things being new, it is stamped with the word new—newness of life newness of spirit, the renewing of the mind, the new man and so on. I am not to be taken up with the things of the day (not that I ignore them), my mind is to be applied to the things of God. The principle of what is new must stamp the position; particularly the manner of serving God is to be different. Possibly the men at Jericho had never before had anything like this suggested to them. It is a new thing that is needed here, the old ways will not do at all. They were to put salt into the cruse—not salt that had “lost its savour”, but what would make others savoury. We ourselves are to be new in principle.

Elisha goes forth to the source of the waters and casts the salt in there. That is, it is the will of another—Elisha’s will, and he is representative of God. This matter must come under the power and will of the Spirit of God. It is no patent medicine, it is the source that is wrong, and it is corrected. Every one of us has to observe this principle—to deal with sin as it works at the root. It is needful to go back habitually as far as we can in our spiritual history, and see how things have been from the outset. In this way we maintain a healthy state before God; we maintain as a state the mind of the Spirit, which is life and peace. The woman in Luke 13 had been bound for eighteen years, she had ceased to be of any use in the service of God. The Lord in healing her referred to the evil from the outset. You may say our early days were much brighter, but what has happened if things are not what they used to be? Elisha settles the matter here. He says it is the source of the matter that is wrong. Thus what is new is employed, involving spiritual power, and the waters are healed. We have to get at the root of matters—why is there so much barrenness? The remedy is in the recognition of the will of Another and getting at the source of things. The three passages I read furnish a thread which runs through this book, and, in fact, runs through the history of the testimony.

J. Taylor (Vol. 45, pp.140, 141)

I am speaking now from Peter, whose ministry deals with the government of God, inclusive of material things, what men would call scientific things. But they are things that God has in His own hand; whether it be the water or fire or other things hidden, they are under His hand and can only be used at His behest, according to His mind and will. I say these things that brethren may be restful, as Peter says, that we may “be found of him in peace”. There are those who would fill us with gloom, and perhaps have good reason, but the Christian takes refuge in the word of God.

However much catastrophe may be in the future or in the past, all is under divine control. In a few words Peter would set us at rest as to these physical matters. They cause anxiety in those who rule on the earth, and should cause a certain anxiety in ourselves, but at the same time God would have us to be restful. All things that are in His creation belong to Him, they do not belong to the devil. However great or powerful they may be in their effects, they are God’s. Even as to this awful thing which has been found possible recently—someone remarked to me what is very true, that it is not an invention, but a discovery—God can frustrate any use made of physical things which would be detrimental to His people or His testimony. I think it should be a matter of prayer, indeed it has been so, and God has given us to understand that He is answering our prayers; that it is largely in our hands, as it were, God putting it there, so that His people should be with Him in whatever may be attempted or done.

J. Taylor (Vol. 57, p.456)

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