CONFIRMATION IN THE TESTIMONY AS MAINTAINING IT
[p. 96] CONFIRMATION IN THE TESTIMONY AS MAINTAINING IT
You will remember that the Lord Jesus refers to this incident. As in many other instances, in referring to incidents, He opens up a vein of thought which He intends to be followed up. Indeed the New Testament is marked by furnishing keys, so to speak, to the Old Testament, so that we might use them to explore them, and thus be, as the apostle says, “thoroughly furnished” 2 Timothy 3:17 in relation to that with which we have to do, namely, the testimony of God. The Lord says, “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, so that a great famine came upon all the land, and to none of them was Elias sent but to Sarepta of Sidonia, to a woman that was a widow”, Luke 4:25,26.
The Lord, whilst asserting the sovereign action of God in that passage, also refers to the fact that the prophet was sent to the widow there. He says, “Of a truth I say to you”. The circumstances required that the truth should be asserted, and it implied that some widows were passed by. “There were many widows in Israel”; there were many in that privileged sphere or nation, but in the sovereignty of God; the prophet was not sent to any of them, but to a widow outside, in the neighbourhood of Sidon, that is to say, she was, in the sovereignty of God, greatly honoured. Right down the history of this dispensation the sovereignty of God has been asserted, and is being asserted, and will be asserted. The assertion of it may cut across our most cherished thoughts, for God thinks not as we do, and so we have to be prepared for occurrences wholly different from what we [p. 97] may have expected. The Lord in speaking to the privileged people at Nazareth — a wonderfully privileged town, for the Lord Jesus was brought up there — said to them, “But of a truth I say to you” Luke 4:25. In an earlier day like privileges existed, but God instead of admitting that they involved any virtues in the privileged ones, ignored the widows of Israel and sent His prophet to one outside — far away. The book of Kings says that Jehovah spoke to Elijah and said, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which is by Zidon, and abide there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman thereto maintain thee”.
Now I want you to notice, beloved friends, that if God sends His prophet to this widow, she was qualified to receive him. That is to say, if God acts sovereignly and passes by those distinguished in this world religiously, and sends to those who are in obscurity, to those who have no reputation at all religiously, He has prepared them beforehand for the honour. So He says, “I have commanded”. It is a dignified word. I wish to note, too, that if we are to be honoured in this way in these last days, there must be the habituating of ourselves to obedience. “I have commanded”, He says, “a widow woman there”. To do what? “To maintain thee”. The word is ‘maintain’. God would have the vessel rightly cared for, and the question arises as to what is come to us, what it is that God in His sovereign ways has sent to us? How much do we value it? How are we to maintain it? “I have commanded”, He says, “a widow woman there”. He selected the city and He selected the woman — a widow — and He commanded her to maintain the prophet. Now the Lord is not putting upon us that which is beyond us. “But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come” Revelation 2:24,25;
[p. 98] that is to say, He took account of their circumstances and that they were just a remnant. “I do not cast upon you any other burden”. He gauges our ability and burdens us accordingly, but He burdens us. “I have commanded”.
Now the Lord would recall the setting of this chapter. The prophet Elijah appeared abruptly, and said to the king, “There shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word”. 1 Kings 17:1. He is as a man who had rights under God. That is the light in which Christ is suggested to us here. And God said to Elijah, “Get thee hence ... and hide thyself by the torrent Cherith”. The circumstances there were small; He says, “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there”. 1 Kings 17:3,4. You see how much God bears with in that the vessel of His testimony should be fed by ravens. Indeed, we see how independent He is of us — a humbling suggestion. He says, “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee”, but feeding is not maintaining; maintaining is connected with the widow. It is well if we have the widow spirit; it is very different from the ravens! The ravens, morning and evening, brought bread and flesh, that was all — no affection, no attention to the prophet beyond that. Still that was important, they fed him. But you can understand the living conditions were very poor, very different from what was becoming to a prophet — a representative of God.
Now we must not think lightly of that through which the light comes to us. God marvellously, graciously, puts up with much, but there were no vessels by the brook Cherith. We read nothing of a fire of coals and fish laid thereon and bread. The brook came down in the ordinary way, and the prophet drank thereof without a vessel as far as we know; there was no intelligent care and attention, no affectionate regard. Nevertheless it was important [p. 99] that the bread and flesh were brought, that the ravens fed him, but all that state of things dried up and came to an end. It is not what answered to the mind of God. There has been much of it in the history of the assembly, much of that poor attention. God bears with it, even commands it, but now He commands a widow to care for His servant. I dwell on this because God would promote that spirit in us. One says, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow; and I shall in no wise see grief”, Revelation 18:7. She will not be entrusted with the care of the prophet; she will be entrusted with nothing from God. She sits a queen, decking herself with all the glory of this world; there are no springs for God with her; she is in a desert where there is nothing at all to sustain what is of God. But here is a widow, one who is bereft of outward care, who nevertheless is possessed of something; she has something.
So it is, beloved brethren, in these days, God passes by those people distinguished in this world religiously and He finds the widow. Would that one were in that spirit — the spirit of a widow. She is a selected widow; there were many others, but evidently none like this one! He says, “I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee”. She is taken up in connection with her own locality. Elijah was to dwell there. She is under divine command. I wonder how many of you young people are under the sense of divine command. Do you run hither and thither? When we are young we gird ourselves and go where we wish, whither we will, but we shall never be entrusted with anything unless we learn to be under command. “I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee”. Think of the magnitude of the trust — to maintain the greatest man on earth at that time! A man without whose word the heavens would not pour forth their rain. Think of that! Think of the blessed privilege of maintaining such a [p. 100] man as that! God looks for the maintenance of the vessel of His testimony; He looks for our best. The demand to maintain this is made upon our very best.
Well, the prophet reaches the city and there was the widow woman. She was not out of view; as we might say, she attended the meetings. Spiritually, it is that you are in view in this way as needed. She was doing something needful. True enough she needed adjustment, but she was in view, she was doing what was right, so far, though very little outwardly — gathering a few sticks — but she was doing that. I wish now to enlarge on this passage so that we may see how the maintenance is effected, and how the very youngest is called into it. Whatever your spiritual growth or stature may be, you at least have a body; you have that. God in the epistle to the Romans would impress us with the idea of a containing vessel. We are “vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” Romans 9:23, but in the meantime we are to be in the hands of the Lord for the maintenance of this service of the testimony. And so the prophet says to her, “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel”. It was not simply the water, but the vessel also. If you are to serve the Lord thus, you want the vessel to be clean, it must not be polluted. We are enjoined to possess our vessels in sanctification and in honour; 1 Thessalonians 4:4. We are challenged as to how things are done. There is nothing said in connection with the ravens about a vessel, they used no vessels, but the first challenge to this woman is as to a vessel. You see the application, young people. God has “fearfully and wonderfully” Psalm 139:14 made you, He has redeemed you by the blood of His Son, and put His Spirit into you. Think of that! A little water in a vessel; note, a little water, for God does not expect what you have not got; He begins in a small way with you.
[p. 101] And so she went off to fetch it. But he said to her as she went to do so, “Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand”; in thy hand, note. You have first the general idea as to the vessel and then one of her members; a little bread in her hand. She said, “I have ... but a handful of meal in a barrel”. Ah, she has got the idea! She might have said, I have only a little meal, but she said, I have got it in a barrel. She had already the idea of keeping things in vessels. The things mentioned are worth keeping. Think of the value of meal in those days when there was a famine in the land for three years and six months! It was precious, and she kept it in a barrel; and the oil was in a cruse — a little oil in a cruse. Although she had not much, yet she had something; she had a variety of things and she kept each in its place — the meal in a barrel, and the oil in a cruse; she was not unprepared. She was a ready vessel in the hands of God for the maintenance, not simply for the feeding of the prophet, as with the ravens, but for the maintenance of the testimony.
Now the prophet said, “Go, do as thou hast said”. God is very ready to acknowledge any right word or any right thought in a young christian; He will never belittle it, He will never turn you aside from a right thought. “Go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first”. He says, so to speak, You have been talking about little things and about dying, now I want you to get a whole idea into your soul; you do not want to be occupied with parts. A cake is a whole idea. The prophet had first asked her for “a morsel”, which was in keeping with her state, but he would lead her forward. Many christians are just like that, they deal in parts, in little things. It is true enough “we know in part, and we prophesy in part” 1 Corinthians 13:9, but in order to do that effectually we must have the idea of the whole. The epistle to the Corinthians brings in the whole or complete idea: “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 10:16. That is a whole idea. Nor shall I ever be a member of Christ intelligently and consciously until I arrive at the complete thing.
“Make me thereof a little cake”, small indeed, but it is a complete thought. You are getting on; as partaking of the Lord’s supper you are getting into your mind that in Christ there is completeness. “A body hast thou prepared me”, He says Hebrews 10:5 — a vessel in which God can be set out. “Make me thereof a little cake first”. I wonder whether any of you young people have ever made a little cake? You will remember how the Israelites of old, when they received the light of Christ typically, were to bring out of their dwellings two wave loaves baked with leaven; Leviticus 23:17. They were to be baked, that is to say, sin was owned to be there, but it was not active; it was rendered null and void by the action of the fire and the baking process. Loaves, that is the thought. You do not come to the assembly with a morsel; that a morsel will be accepted is true enough, but you want to come with the whole idea, to move forward. “Make me thereof a little cake first”.
Well, she tells her tale to the prophet. She had it in mind to use the sticks she had gathered, and to use the little that she had to die with. She does not say anything about making a cake, but about preparing the little she had for herself and her son so that they might eat and die. A poor affair! The idea of dying: is often so with christians. Quite right to die in one sense, but really it is extinction that she is thinking of. We do not want extinction. It is by the power of the Spirit of God I die; but that is not extinction; I remain as living in the Spirit. We do not want to disappear. What is needed here, beloved friends, as we shall see later at the end of the chapter, is a man out of death, a living man. The widow had [p. 103] no thought of that; she had not thought of dying to live, but only of eating to die, which would mean that she and her son would disappear and there would be nothing for the prophet. That was not God’s thought.
And so the word comes, “The meal in the barrel shall not waste, neither shall the oil in the cruse fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the face of the earth!” We are stayed by the prophetic word in these our days. God is coming in, beloved, the prophetic word announces the intervention of God in blessing, and in the meantime as the little cake is made for the prophet, there is the meal in the barrel, and the oil in the cruse. The vessels were not to be empty, for God does not care for empty vessels. The meal remains in the barrel and the oil remains in the cruse. It is a question of vessels — containing vessels. But what more? She and the prophet and her house live on the meal and the oil for many days — for a whole year. Now you see how things are; the woman is brought into blessing, she is sensibly supported by God for a whole year. What formative experience! The whole year through, spring, summer, autumn, winter; all the varied experiences of the year are gone through, and there is sustenance for her and for her house and for the vessel of God’s testimony. These are precisely the circumstances in which we are; God has acted sovereignly, He has selected certain ones in His sovereign way, and He has commanded them. They are under His command and they have got something. Then the prophet brings in the light of Christ, and there is a living state of things, not a dying state of things, but a living state of things for a whole year.
The second part of the chapter gives the supreme test in all this. The “son of the, woman”, we are told, “the mistress of the house, fell sick”. It is right to understand the Lord’s position as over the house; He is Son over God’s house; Hebrews 3:6. That is [p. 104] perhaps owned by most christians, but that “the mistress of the house” should come to light is another matter. If the feminine idea is to prevail in a moral way, there must be something beyond the ordinary, and that is developed in this woman during the year she maintained the prophet. What an experience, beloved, to maintain the prophet, the vessel of the testimony! What growth in the knowledge of God there must have been with that woman as she observed the ways of the prophet, how he partook of God’s provision for him! You can understand the piety of Elijah as he partook of the meal and the oil and the little water, how much there would be for God in that period. We read of the Lord lifting up His eyes to heaven and giving thanks (John 11:41); what a model for the disciples! They were to learn from Him, and they did. They saw Him praying at one time, and one said, “Lord, teach us to pray”, and He did; Luke 11:1,2.
What an honour, as I said, it is to maintain the vessel of God’s testimony as coming under your own roof! The Lord says to Zacchaeus, “Today I must abide at thy house”, Luke 19:5. What an honour! The widow is the mistress of the house. Elijah did not take the place of master. It is a question of developing what is subjective, as we call it — the work of God in us in relation to the perfect model presented to us in Christ. She is worthy of being mistress of that house, she has given up her natural rights in meeting the needs of the prophet, and in doing this she has made a little cake. She had some conception of Christ, and she had set the meal and the oil at the disposal of the prophet; she is mistress of the house, and she is in every way entitled to be it.
There is very little of that in our local gatherings. I say that advisedly. The book of Proverbs develops what becomes the mistress of the house, “a woman of worth”, Proverbs 31:10 as she is called in the last chapter.
[p. 105] Well, the supreme test comes, for the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick. It is not that he died suddenly, but the illness was severe. God would put us through things so that we might feel them, that we might learn to take them seriously. He brings in death upon us, a prolonged kind of thing, a severe illness. Day after day there is the child severely ill and there she was, and God brings to light the latent unbelief that, in spite of the fact that she is mistress of the house, was in her heart. She was ready to charge Elijah with bringing her sins to remembrance; showing that she did not know forgiveness after all, typifying believers in similar circumstances today. God does not remember sins that He has dealt with in the death of Christ. She was entirely mistaken. But there was death in her house; there was the severity of the illness, so that the breath was ebbing out of the boy; a severe test indeed for the heart of a widowed mother. It was to bring out those feelings in the widow and in the prophet, too, which were so perfectly exhibited in Christ, as He wept and was deeply moved in His spirit, and was troubled; John 11:33. He said, too, “Now is my soul troubled”. The Lord felt things. “What shall I say? Father ... glorify thy name”. John 12:27,28. In His trouble He refers to His Father and the Father’s glory.
Not so with this poor widow; she did not think of God’s glory in what was occurring. But God would bring us into the reality of things through the experience of bitter feelings, to give tone to us, and that we may learn to give up the natural links. This was what she had to learn. The prophet took her son out of her bosom. It is the last thing we give up — the natural link. Naturally that was the place for the boy — in the mother’s bosom — but he was dying in it, his life was ebbing out of him in it. “What shall I say?” the Lord said, as His soul was grieved and troubled. “Father, glorify thy name”. The Father says, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again”. John 12:28. He had glorified it in the raising of Lazarus, and He would glorify it again. It is a question of life out of death — a risen life. The woman had no thought of that. Perhaps some of us have not thought of it, of a life developed, not out of our bosom, but by the power of God. The prophet took the boy “out of her bosom, and carried him up into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed”.
He took him up. A principle in christianity is elevation. She had not learnt that, she had learnt that she was mistress of the house and had reputation thus. We are apt to live in that and never ascend. It may be desirable to be a leading brother and to be able to help the saints locally, but that in itself is not ascension. The principle of christianity is in going up or being taken up. The prophet took the boy up and laid him upon his own bed, and now the prophet has to go through experience of sorrow, foreshadowing what the Lord Jesus has gone through, as I said. God, beloved friends, would make men of us, and we shall never be men according to God as we cling to nature. However legitimate it is to have a child in your bosom, you have to learn to relinquish him. “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest”, Genesis 22:2. And so the prophet comes into the bitterness of the position, as our Lord Jesus Christ came into it in perfection. The prophet stretched himself on the child on his own bed. It is very different from the child being in the bosom of his mother. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”, Matthew 28:6. That is a touching appeal! “Where the Lord lay”. As we say:
‘Jesus died, and we died with Him,
Buried in the grave He lay’.
“We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death” — a very real thing! “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”. Romans 6:4,5.
[p. 107] It was a very real thing for Christ. “Now is my soul troubled”. John 12:27. In Gethsemane how He felt it as anticipating the awfulness of the cross — the suffering of death — and then the grave: “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”. Matthew 28:6. Do we go there? Life begins there. It is life out of death; that is the principle with God, and He set it out before ever sin came into the world. God set out that principle that life was to be out of death, and Eve was the figure of it — taken out of Adam as figuratively in death. It is a divine principle, and the prophet as a type of Christ goes through it, and he prays to God and the breath comes back into the boy. It is a wonderful point to be reached in any soul, in any local company, or in the whole church, that life begins there. The soul of the child comes back into him. It is a remarkable figure — the severity of the illness and the ebbing out of the life, and now the life coming back to the boy. Then the prophet takes him alive and presents him to his mother and says, “See, thy son lives”. You expected him to die, he says, so to speak, but now he lives, he lives by the power of God. And so he brings the child to the mother. There is now a living son in the house.
What I want to do in closing is to draw your attention to the fact that the woman was confirmed; confirmation is in life out of death. She says, “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of Jehovah in thy mouth is truth”. There is a great deal of latitudinarianism amongst the people of God. ‘That is your view’, people will say, ‘and I have mine’; that is what latitudinarianism is. What God intends is that His people should know. The unction that we have teaches us all things and is true. We need not anything else. He gives us certainty, for we need to be certain; and the process [p. 108] to certainty is seen in this chapter; it is as we accept obligations to maintain the testimony. The result is that you come into certainty as to it. The word of the Lord in the mouth of the prophet, the woman says, is truth. Thus confirmed believers have got the truth. You need to be sure about things, and you may be. We need not be in any doubt, for we have the Spirit, who is the truth and who “searches all things, even the depths of God”, 1 Corinthians 2:10. God is true, and He gives us an understanding that we should know Him that is true; 1 John 5:20. The apostle John says, “These things have I written to you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life” 1 John 5:13, that you may be conscious — as it may be rendered — that you have eternal life, that it is no longer a theory but it is what you know. That is what the woman came to, and what in a simple way is presented here. The Lord would give us assurance as we accept obligations in regard of the testimony; when we arrive at divine assurance there is no longer any doubt that the word of God, as ministered by fit persons, is truth.
May the Lord bless His word.