THE RIGHTS AND PATIENCE OF GOD IN TESTIMONY (1)
THE RIGHTS AND PATIENCE OF GOD IN TESTIMONY (1)
JT Those who have read the book of Kings with attention will discern that this chapter begins a section, in which is worked out the thought of God’s rights; as conditions reached their worst in Israel. Then further, we have the thought of His patience, Ahab and Jezebel affording examples of the worst influences that had been in Israel, for in them is developed the greatest wickedness — and yet God uses Ahab, and helps him against the Syrians, and then ultimately saves Jehoshaphat, although he was in a false position when, as allied with Ahab, he went to war. These chapters, therefore, afford much instruction for us; and the first feature of the instruction is in the discipline and formation of the vessel through whom God spoke and wrought.
WHM Elijah says, “Jehovah ... before whom I stand”, but he had something else to learn.
JT Yes, he had come into the attitude of service; so that a secret, untold history is suggested. The epistle of James throws light on the first verse, because James tells us that Elijah was a man “of like passions to us” (chapter 5: 17), so that he was not anything extraordinary in that sense, thus bringing the service of God within the range of anyone. “He prayed with prayer”, it says, meaning that he was a man who had learned how to pray, which must precede all useful service. His was not only a formal prayer, but that which is really prayer. The result was that “it did not rain upon the earth three years and six months; and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth caused its fruit to spring forth”. We are reminded in the first prayer, of what is secret in the history of God’s servants, for there is no [p. 2] allusion to it in the Old Testament. God will not identify Himself with any servant save as he has a secret history with Himself earlier, and has learned how to pray; that is, prayer means that I depend on God, not on myself. “The surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”, 2 Corinthians 4: 7. The position is thus clear enough as applicable today. The previous chapter depicts the darkness of the state that prevailed in Israel, but at the darkest hour God brings forward an unlikely man, a man hitherto unheard of, but who had had relations with Himself and had learned how to pray, to depend on God. He takes him up and puts him through certain exercises, and then uses him in the most striking manner, as a vessel of His power.
TG Is that why he is said to be “of the inhabitants of Gilead” — he was not known till God called him, he was in secret with God.
JT Yes, he was from a territory that was under reproach spiritually; Gilead was under reproach as the territory of the two and a half tribes — the sovereignty of God is evidenced in that.
HB Would that come in as a rebuke to those in the land, that one from that territory should be chosen?
JT Yes. The nine and a half tribes would assume they had special spiritual advantages, but God is not restricting Himself to those who make claims; as soon as we begin to make claims, God shows He is not under obligation to us on those grounds; He acts on account of what He is in Himself.
PL The early ministry of the great Prophet, the Lord, in Mark’s gospel is much in Galilee. Is the place of it a rebuke to apostate Israel?
JT That is the thought in the Lord’s great activities in Galilee in the synoptic gospels; it is to bring out that God is slighting the claims of Jerusalem. Elijah’s subsequent history shows that he had relations with God. Our relations with God should arise, not from any specific feature of God’s work or ways, but from our [p. 3] knowledge of Himself, that is, it is a question of God.
PL And does that knowledge of God enable us to hold Him to His promises, so that, however dark the day, we can refer to Him as the God of Israel?
JT Yes, it is that God. “As Jehovah the God of Israel liveth”, that is, it is the covenant God, which implies all that He is, in so far as He may be known. Paul says, “God, who ... called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me”, Galatians 1: 15, 16. It is the full thought of God. Service ought to be based on the full thought of God.
JC Was Paul referring to his conversion in the verse quoted from Galatians?
JT Yes, but it is a fuller thought; he refers to more than is recorded of his experience outside Damascus. The revelation of God’s Son in him includes more than that, his commission is involved — “That I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations”.
Rem We usually connect prayer with blessing, here it is to withhold it, there was to be no rain.
JT The withholding of blessing in a disciplinary way is with a view to blessing, so that we might be prepared to enjoy it. The two prayers viewed together imply blessing; discipline has blessing in view. The shutting up of the heavens for three years and six months seems severe, and Elijah had to go through the experience himself. We must bear in mind that, if we pray for anything, we cannot escape the consequences. If our prayers have to do with the people of God, we must go through the thing we pray for, with them; if it be disciplinary, we must go through it with them. The thing is with a view to blessing — he prayed again: it is all of one piece, we must have the two prayers. If we are with God, we learn God has blessing in view. Jehovah the God of Israel implies the covenant God. God is true to His covenant. If the servant sees that discipline of this severe kind is necessary and asks for it, God accedes to his wish; and then he has to go through [p. 4] the thing with the people, but he goes through it with great advantage. He is with God, and God knows where the torrent is, but the servant has to go through the discipline. That is the teaching of this chapter. It is a question of going through things with God, so that there is a feeling with us about them. It is all very well to pray that a brother might be disciplined, seeing that he needs it, but going through the thing is another matter; in going through it, you have power as to it. It is a certainty that in praying for a brother I shall have power with him in time, if I go through things myself. Elijah is immediately sent — “The word of Jehovah came to him saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the torrent Cherith, which is before the Jordan”. This position, the torrent Cherith in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, has a great deal in it for faith: as there, I am in the presence of something that may dry up, a very solemn matter. Plenty of water at a given moment may not always last. God has a means of drying up the brooks, and Elijah had to go through the experience of seeing the means of his supply dry up; that is a solemn matter! Then moreover, he had to learn God’s power in the creation. We, perhaps, overlook that, in intervening for us, God wishes us to understand Him, not only in redemption but in creation; the servant has to learn God in creation. He is a faithful Creator, and He has great resources in the creation.
CAB How would drying up the brooks refer to us now?
JT In the removal of those whom God has fitted to refresh His people. The man with a pitcher of water may not always last; we know how the Lord removes those whom He uses in the service of refreshment. We do well to keep that in mind that we might value what we have.
JMcCR The meaning of Elijah’s name has a bearing on his ministry — ‘Whose God is Jehovah’.
JT Very [p. 5] good.
PL Would the turning eastward suggest that, while you humbly thank God for the brook, you can survive the drying up of it?
JT Yes, ‘eastward’ is a region of hope. Elijah had not a word of complaint so far, but the education of a brook drying up is important for those who serve, we may have been drinking from other sources, depending on other brothers, or other ministry, but that may come to an end. Elijah has to go through that experience, and it would result for us in this, that one can say: As far as I am concerned, the brooks will not dry up; that is to say, one relies on the Spirit of God oneself and thus I become a means of supply. Then the creational resources of God have to be apprehended; He is a faithful Creator and has agencies He can employ. If men are not available to Him, He is not without resource, and the agency used here is the raven. Nature teaches us, we are told, and the teaching of the ravens here would be unselfishness. A raven is a carnivorous bird, and why should he deny himself to bring flesh to Elijah? Why does he not devour it himself? It would be unselfishness; and that is what the woman had to learn. Elijah learned from the ravens the principle of unselfishness, and now the woman of Zarephath has to learn that principle too — “make me thereof a little cake first”.
WJW The raven was an unclean bird, was it not? Why did God use the raven in particular?
JT To show what resources He has. He left it to Noah to determine which were the unclean birds. When we come to a crisis like this, there is nothing unclean in itself. “Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, being received with thanksgiving”, 1 Timothy 4: 4. The fact that the raven’s character was changed would show that God had cleansed it, Acts 10. We have to learn these things — what God has in His creation. God can bring His creation into accord with Himself, for these lessons of unselfishness all centre in Christ. It is a question of what God is [p. 6] in His creation,
awaiting the time when He shall be fully expressed.
WHM I was thinking of that word, “my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 4: 19. Elijah was learning that.
JT Yes, and he was being instructed in the spirit of thanksgiving. “Every creature of God is good”. “Meats, which God has created for receiving with thanksgiving for them who are faithful and know the truth” — a very great lesson that God would teach us in nature, “Does not even nature itself teach you?” 1 Corinthians 11: 14.
HL Why is he told to hide himself?
JT It is important for the servant to learn to hide himself, especially if he has great gift; it is the teaching of Colossians; when God enjoins it, it is the more important. “Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the torrent Cherith, which is before the Jordan”. He is hiding himself in a good place, there is refreshment — bread and flesh. These things are amplified in Christ — bread and flesh. He is the bread of God, and He gives His flesh for the life of the world. It may be humbling to learn from a creature, from nature, but it is important that we should not miss the lessons of nature, for “the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity”, Romans 1: 20. That encourages us as to the whole race of mankind in all its history; God has not left Himself without a witness in creation. He has His ravens and asses.
WCG Would not the bread and flesh represent the doctrine of the Christ: “rooted and built up in him, and assured in the faith” (Colossians 2: 7): and yet we need the water as well, we need the unction of the Spirit to give it vitality?
JT It is a learning place, that is the thought in hiding. It is a most instructive chapter if we are to [p. 7] have part in the great patience of God in His testimony towards christendom. Christendom embraces about five hundred millions; am I to have any part in the testimony of God to that wide area? We see here how God can be so patient as to use a man like Ahab. I have to be brought alongside God to learn His patience, and I have to be nourished in this way in hiding. I do not suppose it was any great trial to Elijah to be hidden away, for he was a man who had a secret history with God, or he could not have stood as he did. This is nevertheless a further lesson.
PL Is there something akin to Philadelphia in this? Elijah, having learned the resources of God through so many different agencies, would connect with the “opened door”. Then the Lord speaks of “the word of my patience” and there is the “little power”. Everything is small here: the brook — a “little water” — “a morsel of bread” — “a handful of meal” — “a little oil”, and so on. Is this like Philadelphia?
JT Yes, I think it is the setting of the whole Apocalypse. “I, John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus”, Revelation 1: 9. He was equal to the service put upon him, to write “what thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to be after these”. He is to write as the Lord touches him. He puts His right hand upon him; he is under the touch of Christ; but he is “in the ... kingdom and patience in Jesus”, he is a brother and companion of the saints in tribulation.
Ques Would you connect the thought of the ravens with Onesiphorus, who diligently sought out Paul when he was in such reproach? (2 Timothy 1: 17).
JT Very good. He found him — these ravens had to find the prophet, and they brought refreshment. Onesiphorus refreshed the apostle. He was not ashamed of Paul’s chain.
[p. 8] Ques Would you say we are all to take up the reproach of the situation as seeking to serve, and to be committed to God, standing before Him in the service, like Elijah?
JT Yes, that is the lesson, to be hidden; not to seek to make a show by preaching immediately, or taking a reading, or a special meeting, as we say, but to learn in secret with God, knowing fully the actual situation which you are in; a situation which you have brought about by your prayers, as it were. Then, being regulated by God in that very situation which you have yourself brought about by prayer, God follows you up to see that you do not get elated by the great place you have, but that you are hidden away, and kept in the enjoyment of these positive things, all coming about in the most unlikely way; a humiliating way indeed. The ravens were under reproach, but they are doing this work well, morning and night, and every time they come, you would say, ‘Thank God for the unselfishness of those birds’: they would become great in your eyes.
HB The example of the ravens should help us in our ministrations to those who serve the Lord.
JT Yes, that is the idea; that the saints should all become of the raven kind, morning and night looking after those whom God has set aside for His service.
PL The Philippian jailor setting the table for the servants of God would be a kind of raven.
JT Quite so: a very unclean one to begin with — a jailor. This learning from nature is humiliating, it would be so to Elijah, that an unclean bird should be feeding him; but he would begin to see through the mere letter of the law; to see that after all we have to connect God’s creatures with Himself, and not to regard them as unclean and detach them from God; that would be misleading. They are God’s creatures; as already said, the type shows there had been divine cleansing. Then the saints have to come to see that we are to be servants like the ravens, that is a lesson for every saint. This [p. 9] service of God is to be carried on, and if so, there must be bread and flesh morning and night for those whom God is using. I may despise the ravens, but am I up to them? Is there the element of unselfishness, that cares every morning and night? Bread and flesh is needed, for it is a question of strong meat; these servants of God need all the support we can give them. Then there is the water coming down; it is a torrent, not a pool, the water comes of itself; it is not merely that it is forced to come, it is a symbol of the energetic action of the Spirit in the way of refreshment; the Spirit is here, active, a divine Person, and He moves of Himself.
Rem “Doing good and communicating of your substance be not forgetful, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased”, Hebrews 13: 16. Is that on the same line as the raven’s service?
JT Quite so. It is humiliating to be on such low ground as the ravens, but we learn from nature how God puts into His unintelligent creatures the ability to reflect what He is Himself in unselfish service; all this is perfectly set out in Jesus. The Jordan is near by all the time; it is not a question of drinking out of Jordan, or of drinking death yet. There is always plenty of water there, we never hear of Jordan drying up, it overflows, it is the power of God in death; Elijah is not enjoined to drink of the Jordan. He now has to go straight across to the north-west, to a territory that would not be very attractive to him, Tyre and Sidon — to a woman who is a widow, and God says, “I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee”. This thought should be taken in, I think, that the servant is to be maintained. You cannot conceive of God sending out anyone at his own expense, or that he should be without what is necessary. He is to be maintained — but then how? It is a widow woman; that denotes one whose means, whose resources, are cut off in the loss of her husband. So that we have a further lesson now, that is, the feeding of the household. We see what God [p. 10] has in households in the case of the jailor at Philippi: what the apostle and Silas found in that house. The ravens are not spoken of as having houses, but the widow has a house; it is alluded to twice, her house is sustained, and then she is the mistress of it.
RKC You find the Lord working in the same territory in Mark 7, but it is said of Him that He could not be hid.
JT Quite so. The Lord could not be hid, I suppose that comes into this chapter. The ravens did not tell the prophet that he was a man of God, the woman did; she said at the end of the chapter, “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of Jehovah in thy mouth is truth”. He is now becoming known, as the Lord was.
Ques Why is she called “a widow woman?”
JT I suppose it is to stress the thought of “woman”.
PL Is it in contrast to Jezebel, and also to Babylon? — “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow”. Jezebel was the daughter of the king of Zidon. It is in the very presence of the apostasy here, in Zidon, that this widow woman comes to light.
JT Just so. The combination of circumstances would suggest the great ministry God raised up about a century ago, and what it afforded. The two thoughts run together; the widow woman and her poverty denoting how very little there was among christians, but they learnt (in the revival of the truth of the house) what is in the house. Christians of a hundred years or so ago began to see there was something other than that which the clerical system afforded, or even required. The clerical system is a great system regarded as necessary for the preservation of divine things. The saints began to see that there was something outside of that. This woman had a little meal in a barrel, she had it in a suitable vessel. A barrel is a large kind of vessel, apparently it had been full and was greatly reduced; still the meal was in the proper vessel, it was [p. 11] not taken out of it. And the oil was in the cruse, that is, in the proper vessel. It was in regard of that, that God helped the brethren, and out of it you have plenty for the development of what is living.
Rem The woman is commanded to maintain Elijah, but she did not appear to be wholly prepared for it at first. She had the water — what does that signify?
JT We are never wholly prepared for God’s overtures, no person is: what God proposes is much beyond anything I am prepared for; but she came into it. It is remarkable that she came under Elijah’s notice immediately he entered the city, and she is gathering two sticks. It is remarkable how definite she is. I think God takes account of definite people; people who are indefinite in the little things of life are not likely to be definite in the great things.
WCG What is typified in the water and the oil?
JT I thought the first (verse 10) was the Spirit in His free action in meeting need. It is available at hand. In the other case the word is “torrent” (verse 4), meaning that gravity brings it down; but oil is dignity, which you would expect in a woman in her house. The Spirit is now to be understood as dignity, so that I do not need university or clerical honours in the things of God; the Spirit is dignity enough. He puts dignity upon the saints; she had the means of that in the house. The Spirit takes account of circumstances. He has to be viewed as meeting the thirst of the soul — “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink” (John 7: 37); but you learn afterwards that that same Spirit puts dignity upon you, makes you so that you do not need the degrees of the universities; they do not help you in the things of God, in the things of Christ, or in your service. It is the Spirit who puts dignity upon the service of God. I should think, when God works in a man who has these degrees, it must be a great difficulty for him to be free from the importance that attaches to them in human estimation.
[p. 12] JC I think you intimated that God has blessing in view in all this — what would Ahab represent?
JT If you read chapter 16 you will see what he is — he represents wickedness; the most consummate wickedness was there, he represents that — and we see God acting in spite of that, not in judging it, but to show that He can use Ahab, even as He uses christendom in spite of what it is.
PL Does the word “Zarephath”, meaning a place of refinement, suggest anything? Is that a Philadelphian setting that the best is made available by way of the furnace? — the gold separated from the dross.
JT Very good, I think what comes out at Zarephath is the finishing thought. The woman has to learn the idea in the cake — “make me ... a little cake first”, as if God were to say to us, ‘The assembly is in My mind in all this. It is the whole thought, not the multitude of religions that marks christendom. I have but one thought in My mind, that is the assembly, and I am not going to be diverted from it’. The woman has to act upon what the ravens had already manifested; she has to learn unselfishness and surrender to God. The prophet has to be taken here as representative of God’s rights. And when Elijah says, “make me thereof a little cake first”, I can conceive of the woman saying, ‘What a selfish man that is!’ and Elijah would feel that; but he had to do violence to his feelings to represent God, to bring in the great thought that God is not selfish. The acknowledgment of His rights involves our blessing, that is the result; and Elijah had to go through the shame and reproach of demanding a cake from a poor woman who had just a handful of meal in order to prove this to her. But she would never forget this, she would never forget how she had arrived at the whole thought in her soul. Just as a christian today gets the thought of the assembly, and says, ‘I would not give up that for anything; I see there is one idea in the heart of God, and that is the assembly’.
AEL Would you say a little as to the meal? You spoke of the water and the oil.
JT The meal would be an allusion to the humanity of Christ; it is that kind of humanity coming in now, the humanity of the Lord Jesus. “Other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 3: 11. Jesus Christ is the kind of humanity that exists here in the presence of sin; all that has to be learnt, and that enters into the cake. What is in the mind of God is the assembly — He never gives up that thought — that which He purchased with the blood of His own, the assembly of God. At the very beginning He would impress on us, as He did on this woman, the thought that we belong to the Israel of God. The woman was to be unselfish in regard of God. I acknowledge the rights of God; He claims all I am, and all that I have; that is the epistle to the Romans. God was bringing this woman to unselfishness in regard of God, acknowledging the rights of God. God was testing her; He was testing Elijah and the woman at the same time, but Elijah represents the rights of God.
Ques Is it not remarkable that when there are suitable conditions, there is always a little with the man of God? I was thinking of Jacob when he told his sons to carry a little balm and a little honey (Genesis 43: 11).
JT Faith always has something.
JMcCR The Lord said there were many widows in the land of Israel, and here we see God asserting His rights in a sovereign way, to go outside the confines of Israel.
JT That is the way it is presented in the New Testament; but what a testimony it must have been to Elijah! How is he to get water and flesh all along the way until he reaches Zarephath? We have to learn it all spiritually.
Ques Do we get the thought of hiding and sustaining suggested by Paul in the epistle to the Corinthians?
[p. 14] He reminds them he had not gone with wisdom of words and that he was with them in much fear and trembling; suggesting the thought of hiding: then he reminds them that out of their poverty the Macedonians had ministered to him; the spirit of the widow came out in them as they supplied what was lacking.
AWR Are these experiences necessary for what we get in the following chapter — “Go show thyself”?
JT When God tells you to show yourself there is something to be shown, but it is better for you to hide yourself till then. I think the suggestion as to what the apostle was at Corinth is good, for he was a tent maker; he hid himself as not knowing anything but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. He kept himself hidden, but then he was working with them; their faith was being set on the right foundation by the power of God. The widow is like Mary Magdalene, a subject for the teaching of God, but though a teachable person, she was on wrong lines when she was going to eat and die; she had to be put right, but she was definite. What you see in many is so much indefiniteness. It is haphazardness that sows so much mischief amongst us. If I am not definite in my business relations, and my private matters, it is not likely I shall be definite in the things of God. Now she becomes dignified; it is her house now — she and her house were sustained. You say, ‘She had only a son’; well, God clothes it with the dignified term of ‘household’, meaning that she is evidently growing. The idea of the household has been greatly stressed during the last forty years amongst us, for at one time nearly half those amongst us were Baptists; but God has brought us round to the thought of the household and this woman came to the idea of having a house, and later, she is called the mistress of the house.
PL So you have the desolate woman keeping house, and then she becomes in principle the joyful mother of sons (Psalm 113: 9).
JT Quite so. This thought of the household [p. 15] is important. I believe God is augmenting the assembly through the households. The household thought comes out in Paul, it is in his ministry you get it, and it is there you get the assembly properly. So the idea of the household and the idea of the assembly are both suggested here — that is, in the little cake. The idea of the house comes in in Acts 16 first, in Lydia; it stands peculiarly in relation to Paul’s ministry. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she attended to the things spoken by Paul. That is, she was a person of ability, so to speak, she attended to things, she paid attention to what was said to her. Then she said, “come into my house and abide there”. She baptised her house, and then asked Paul and his company in.
PL You mean the household habitually feeding on the meal, Christ, the Second Man out of heaven, and the oil, the Spirit, will provide spiritual support to the assembly in the locality?
JT Exactly. There is the groundwork of the right kind of humanity in the house; the humanity that, if one becomes sick, is subject to resuscitation, is subject to the influence and impress of the man of God. That is a sure evidence of right conditions in a household, if the children are impressionable, if they recognise the man of God. So that it says, “it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come to me to call mine iniquity to remembrance, and to slay my son?” He did not intend that, but it is a very wholesome thing for parents to call to mind earlier days, and review their whole history in regard of their houses. Why this concern? This son is of value: why this sickness? It is the “mistress of the house”, she is feeling it house-wise — and recalling her sins — she knew her history, she says, “mine iniquity”. We all have to admit that these things have existed; and it is well to recall how [p. 16] God has dealt with them in the death of Christ. Maybe the sickness of this child is the result of some governmental action of God, because of the parents, but that was not the point — the point was that God is going to bring in life by the exercises of the prophet: the son is going to be brought into life in the upper room too, not down below in the bosom of the mother; she has to learn that the children have to get away from her influence. If I hold the children under my natural influence, they will never get into life, they have to be taken away from that and up to the chamber of the prophet — “where he abode”.
Rem It is in accord with Acts 9: 37, as regards the upper room.
JT Yes, Dorcas had been laid there and Peter putting out the natural element, having prayed said, “Tabitha, arise”, and she opened her eyes and seeing Peter sat up.
WA How keenly the prophet had felt the breakdown of things at the end of the previous chapter! And Hiel was made to feel his conduct in building up Jericho — the world; he laid its foundations in his first-born, and set up the gates in his youngest.
JT Yes, it was a terrible state in Israel. But what a different thing you have here; it is a son resuscitated into life in the household of faith. He took the child “up into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed”. You can see the complete change of circumstances with this boy, he is now taken out of his mother’s bosom, and placed on the bed of the prophet — the circumstances of God, you might say, in a world of evil.
PL Is it a little like Timothy taken by Paul from a pious home into the fresh circumstances connected with the testimony and spiritual power?
JT Yes. “And he cried to Jehovah, and said, Jehovah my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And [p. 17] he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again”. It is very like Eutychus; it is a question of the young. It is not death and burial, but resuscitation. That is to say, life is promised in keeping the law; but this is bringing them back into it after having sickened and died, as you might say, in the natural, in such circumstances as are depicted here; now they are brought back into life, but in other circumstances, in circumstances in which the rights of God are recognised in this world. This would be the great end of all the discipline of God. As Hezekiah said, “by these things men live”, Isaiah 38: 16. It is a great thing to get souls into the moral elevation indicated here; it is where the prophet himself had lain, his own bed in the upper chamber. Is that too exalted a thought for the youngest child amongst us? The more we can get them into those circumstances, the more we are rewarded.
WJW Did the rich woman in 2 Kings 4 recognise that? She went up and laid the child on the bed of the man of God.
JT Exactly, that illustrates how the truth was cumulative. No doubt she would know what preceded as seen here; every true christian coming into the truth goes back to what preceded him and profits by it.
Ques Do we fail in not bringing our children who are sick morally into the presence of God?
JT And bringing them into the circumstances of God; God has come in here in lowly circumstances, but which are morally elevated, such as those in which the prophet had his own bed.
PL Would it be a little like John Mark’s recovery — “Take Mark ... for he is serviceable to me for ministry”, 2 Timothy 4: 11. Is he brought into the circumstances of the testimony?
JT Yes, he had left them, but he is brought [p. 18] back.
JC Is there not a little help in the fact that she acknowledges her iniquity?
JT I think there is a great deal in that. It is well to look back on your history, even if you are spiritual, and see what is involved. So you are always in the house of Simon the leper, the greatest things happen there.
HB Do we not often lose by thinking that the children will not understand what goes on at the meetings, whereas if they were brought they might come to the prophet’s bed, and become familiar with what happens there?
JT Quite so, habituated to the circumstances of God: He has come in in the lowliest way. You may depend on it, it was not any great bedroom Elijah had.
Rem I was thinking of Samuel; he is put by the ark.
JT Quite so, placed in the house. So the great end here is that Elijah is becoming known. “I know”, she says, “that thou art a man of God, and that the word of Jehovah in thy mouth is truth”. You can understand how that precedes what is said in the next chapter, that he is to show himself — “Go, shew thyself to Ahab”. He has been already discovered in the woman’s house as one through whom life had come in.
PL Is the prophet’s bed in contrast to Jezebel’s bed? “I cast her into a bed”, Revelation 2: 22. It is a very degraded atmosphere, not an upper room, but a large bed, like Og’s.
JT How terrible is the thought of Jezebel’s bed!
PH Should the thought of abiding be more definite with us? God told Elijah to abide in Zarephath; there is a definite place in the house; the bed is in the chamber where, it says, he abode. Is it an increase in apprehension on the part of the woman to make these things more definite to the prophet?
JT Quite so. The education that runs through and the progress made in the woman, and in Elijah himself too, is very striking; so that God could say, “Go, shew thyself”, as it were, ‘I commit Myself to you’.
PL Having proved the power of life in relation to the immediate case on hand, he was fitted to face all the hosts of darkness in that power. Can we do anything in the power of God if we have not proved that power in our immediate surroundings such as in a test case like this child?
JT He had gone through the thing in the deep exercise of his soul — he “cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?” — he is not here speaking as a prophet, but as a believer feeling things. “And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again!” He is speaking, you might say, as a priest, praying to God. It is state that is in view, he himself is learning.
WCG Would the third year represent an advance in the knowledge of the Spirit’s power? The first year, the brook: the second year, the oil: and the third year, the quickening power of the Spirit?
JT Quite so; the three and a half years have been filled out. Then the showing to Ahab, God has something that can be shown. “Seest thou this woman?” for instance; and He “having taken a little child set him by him”: there is something now with which God can identify Himself, something to be seen in testimony. You ask yourself, ‘What is there in me that God can call attention to as promoting the testimony? that He can commit Himself to?’ He is said to be hidden. Is he like the prophet Isaiah, made a polished shaft and hidden in his quiver? Now is he as an arrow in the hand of Jehovah?
JT Yes, it is all very beautiful; and, as applied to ourselves. God would bring us into a living state of things, for whilst Colossians is hiding — “Your life is hid with Christ in God”, yet it is life of the highest order, and that is the thing that is to be shown.
PL That would be the new [p. 20] man.
JT That is how it works out.
Ques Verse 20 does not seem to be cleared up. Elijah gets no answer to it. Have we to take it as indicating right feelings?
JT Yes. It is the prophet, of course, but the prophet going through things himself, so that God can use him publicly. It says, “Jehovah heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came again into him again, and he lived”. It is definite progression in the things of God. If you look abroad at the current conditions, what can you do unless God comes in? “And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and delivered him to his mother; and Elijah said, See, thy son lives”. What a triumph that is! It is a living state of things in the house now.
FI It is very beautiful to see that Elijah is taking up these things in relation to Jehovah, and he does not say to the woman that the death of her son was the outcome of her iniquity.
JT No, he does not. It is a question of God’s power, that God might be known in life-giving power in the household.
PL Does Paul urge the upper chamber on the Galatians by the introduction of sonship, saying, so to speak, ‘See, Titus liveth’. I mean Paul has Titus with him as a product of his ministry. You spoke about a model produced, what an effect it has.
Rem In regard to the prayer in verse 20, the prophet then has to go through the circumstances that came in — he stretches himself three times on the child before he prays again and the power comes in for resuscitation.
JT Yes. It represents the power of Christ identifying Himself with us that we might live.
HB It says they ate “a whole year” — would that correspond with the period during which Paul was at Antioch before he was commissioned for public service?
[p. 21] There must be the secret history, then assembly history, before there is qualification for public service.
JT Quite so, the whole assembly was being helped and Paul and Barnabas were being helped by all that proceeded, so they are the product of the assembly there, as it were.