“ALAS ... IT WAS BORROWED!”
P. Buchan (of Boddam)
I would like to say something as to the sons of the prophets. They must have a father somewhere. We all must have a father somewhere. I am thinking of it not just naturally, although we respect our fathers, but in this second book of Kings there is quite a lot about the sons of the prophets who were claiming the fathers and the prophets.
We listen to ministry and all nod in assent as
if we are all agreeing with everything said, but afterwards the question is, How much of it is mine, my own? Here you find this company of the sons of the prophets. We are not to despise the prophets, but these are the sons of the prophets. Have they reached what the prophets were at? We come to a ministry meeting or a reading meeting and the Lord gives something of a prophetic character to touch us, and we may fail to get it. The Lord is yearning for us to come into blessing. That is in His mind all the time; He wants us to come into His thoughts.
In the second chapter the sons of the prophets thought they knew so much. They said, ‘Do you know what is happening today?’ They were up-to-date in everything, and Elisha said, ‘I know it’. But later on, when God takes up Elijah by a whirlwind and when Elisha returns across Jordan with the double portion of Elijah’s spirit, the sons of the prophets were found out; they were in doubt; they did not believe. We find it in ourselves. While we assent in one way, on the other hand we may miss the point.
I read this portion because there is something right about the desire here. The sons of the prophets are sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and here they seemed right in their desire to go to the Jordan. It is safe enough to go to the Jordan. Acquaint yourself with the Jordan!
Acquaint yourself with the death of Christ! The Red Sea is one thing: what He has done for us; and then the Jordan is our death with Him. Acquaint yourself with that! That is the point here. Elisha seems to approve when they say “the place ... is too strait for us”. There is plenty of room to expand at the Jordan. Paul says, “Let your heart also expand itself” (2 Corinthians 6: 13), and in this area there is room for expansion. We were thinking about certain things that middle-aged men are in danger of. I know from experience what it is to
desire to expand in a way that is of no value to me. Expand in this area, near the Jordan, near Gilgal; you can safely expand there! Acquaint yourself with death with Christ.
What goes on here exposes one of the sons of the prophets, but there is something honest about him. We have often hit him and, as long as you apply it to yourself, you can hit as hard as you like! He was felling a beam and he had an axe, and he was left with the handle and the axe-head was in the water. He says, “Alas, master, and it was borrowed!” We may nod our heads while the meeting goes on, but we may afterwards discover that so much is borrowed!
What this brings out here is that we do not need to be down-hearted by it. I look round on these brothers and sisters here and I know they have borrowed quite a lot; many things they have are just borrowed. I quote ministry, and I can quote the ministry as if it were mine. I say,
‘Well, Mr. Taylor said it’. Yes, it is safe enough that he said it, but it does not mean that I have got it—“Alas ... and it was borrowed!”
What does the man of God do here? Does he say, ‘Well, that is you sacked; we can cut you out’? No, he does not say that, he says, “Where did it fall?” That is the point. He was honest enough; he says, ‘Just down there’. I got it at meetings and I thought it was mine and I had not got it at all. It says of Elisha, “And he cut down a stick”. He cuts you down to size, just your own size. In Exodus 15 Jehovah showed Moses wood. Here he gets a stick, not a beam but a stick. Another order of manhood is before the man of God here. He does not go for borrowed axes or borrowed chisels, or anything else. He cuts it down himself. “And the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither, and made the iron to swim”.
It is an amazing thing that where naturally everything else goes down, something is made to swim. It is not just a question of floating; you may be just floating; it is not that. He causes it to swim. As a result he says, “Take it up to thee”. I think that is what the Lord is saying to us—‘Take it to yourself’. The message for us is to become engaged with the things that have been before us and not to lose them. The enemy would be active to occupy us with other things, but what has been before us the Holy Spirit would help us to engage in all the time.
‘All things of Jesus’ He knows (hymn 412), and He would like us to be engaged in them all the time. I think that is what happens here. He says, Take it up to thee. “And he put out his hand and took it”. Let us take it, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
23 October 1979