“ASK WHAT I SHALL DO FOR THEE”
W. Dickson
2 Kings 2: 9, 10; Joshua 15: 16–19
We have been conversing together over great things, heavenly things, but it is a comfort to know that the greatest things in christianity are open to desire. This immediately opens the prospect for everyone in this room. No one need say, ‘If I had greater mental capacity’, or ‘If I had greater physical energy, or a better environment, I would be able to touch these things’.
The greatest thoughts of God, on the unqualified testimony of Scripture and in the experience of countless saints, the greatest things in christianity are open to desire. I have read these scriptures to speak simply about them. In each case persons were asked the question as to what they would desire. What would you desire, beloved brethren? I trust our appetites have been whetted during these days, whetted for heavenly things. Perhaps we have been negligent. How that word comes home to all of us, comes home to me as I stand here. How often I have neglected the opportunity of acquiring heavenly things. But tonight the Spirit of God would say, “Ask what I shall do for thee”.
This young man Elisha had accompanied Elijah. It is interesting to note the places to which Elijah goes with Elisha. He covers in his movements the whole testimonial sphere. It is remarkable that Elijah did not take him to Jerusalem. He took him to Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, and the Jordan, but he did not take him to Jerusalem. He took Elisha back over the whole
testimonial area, and said to him in effect, ‘I am leaving the scene of my labours to you.
Elisha, to see whether you can be a workman approved of God’. Elisha went round that testimonial area and when Elijah said to him, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I am taken away”. Elisha said to him, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me”. It would appear to me that as Elisha surveyed the extent of the testimonial position and what had to be carried in heavenly power, he recognised that it called for a double portion of the Spirit. And, beloved brethren, it does call for a double portion of the Spirit.
Elijah said, “Thou hast asked a hard thing”. Why should it be a hard thing for this request to be granted? Well, I think it is only when you see Christ up there in glory that you will feel yourself equipped in a double portion of the Spirit to cover the testimonial sphere. ‘If you see me when I go up’, Elijah said. Have you seen Him go up? Do you know only the Christ of the gospels? Is your knowledge of that blessed Man limited (I speak reverently) to what came out here in Him as Man? or do you know Him as having gone up there to glory, having smitten the waters of Jordan?—Elijah “took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters”. Why did he wrap it together? Beloved brethren, when Jesus went into death there was in that blessed Man the concentrated power of God able to deal with every adverse power and influence that would range itself against the testimony. That was the Person that Stephen saw at the right hand of God, standing there to sustain His servant in the hour when he was passing over Jordan.
Beloved brethren, have we all a double portion of the Spirit? In my application of the scripture at this time the double portion of the Spirit lies in this, that one portion is the Spirit given to
you on the principle of gift, and the other portion is the Spirit given to you on the line of desire. There are many believers in this world who have in that sense only one portion of the Spirit. They have the Spirit on the line of gift. But power in the testimonial position lies in the Spirit asked for as power, a double portion. As we have our eyes fixed on Christ in glory we are equipped for the heavenly road and every exigency of the testimonial position here.
In the passage in Joshua 15 the question was asked, “What wouldest thou?” Caleb had issued a challenge as to the overthrow of Kirjath-sepher, and Othniel had come on to view and taken the city and got Achsah, Caleb’s daughter, as wife. Have we all got Achsah? Kirjath-sepher,
‘the city of the book’, is the mind of man entrenched against God, and was overthrown in Paul’s ministry—Acts 19 shows us the smiting of Kirjath-sepher. But have we got Achsah?
In other words, is the truth of the assembly worked out subjectively with us? Do we hold the truth of the assembly merely objectively, or have we Achsah as wife? That is the challenge.
You will have her when you take on subjectively the truth of what Paul did in his ministry when he overthrew this stronghold of Satanic power to establish this great and wonderful thought of the assembly for Christ and for God.
“It came to pass as she came, that she urged him to ask of her father a field”. May I be practical? There are a lot of young people here today. Do you urge your husband to ask, for a field? Do you urge him to go in for spiritual things? Do you urge him not to allow work or hobbies, or other things of this life, to hinder him in that field? Whatever you do, get that field, so that you can cultivate it for the inheritance of God, for the service of God, and
bring forth fruit from the field. Caleb said, “What wouldest thou?”, but first of all it says,
“she sprang down from the ass”. Beloved brethren, you will not get spiritual things of any substance unless you spring down from the ass. I would like to give you an illustration from real life. Some years ago an old brother visited one whom the Lord appeared to be using and helping, and found him with a mountain of books around him, deep in study. The old brother said, ‘You know, so-and-so, that is not the way to get it’. The brother said, ‘How would you get it?’ The old brother indicated his knees! That is how we spring off the ass, to abandon human support, human resources, and learn something of the power of prayer in regard to the entrance into the heavenly things that God has in His heart.
She said, “Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a southern land; give me also springs of water. Then he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs”. A double portion of the Spirit!—the upper springs—the power to enter into the great realm of privilege, and the lower springs, the power to testify here in heavenly freshness. “Springs”, the scripture says, not ‘the upper brook and the lower brook’; “the upper springs and the lower springs”—power, heavenly vitality, the double portion of the Spirit. Have we asked for a double portion of the Spirit? Have we asked for the upper springs and the lower springs? Beloved brethren, may we get the gain of the Holy Spirit as the power to enter into heavenly things and to sustain us here in testimony in the heavenly path, for His name’s sake.
Address at Grangemouth
21 April 1979