THE UNFAILING FAITHFULNESS OF GOD
James 5:16-18; 1 Kings 17:1-6;10-16; 18:21-24, 26-39, 41-45: 19: 3-6, 9-13, 18: 2 Kings 2:11
I have in mind to speak about the unfailing faithfulness of God in the day of departure. In a world of great turmoil and change, it brings stability into the soul and heart of the believer to know that God will not change. His unfailing faithfulness goes on. We sang in our hymn:
‘We change – He changes not,
Though changing years roll by’ (Hymn 349).
Let that comfort and assure us in our sorrows, that however much we change, there is no change with Jehovah; His faithfulness goes on. And God is looking for faithful men; He is looking for faithful women, faithful brothers and sisters, boys and girls. God’s faithfulness goes on of its own accord, but often God’s faithfulness is expressed through faithful men and faithful women. It has been so right down through the history of God’s dealings with man.
My mind went to Noah. He was a faithful man who could be trusted with the building of the ark. How accurately he would have built the ark, having been instructed of God. Every detail would have been carried out according to God’s mind. But not only that, he was intelligent. Not only is the faithful man one who is entrusted to be accurate and to have the mind of God, but he is also intelligent. Very soon after the ark rested, Noah built an altar and there he sacrificed the clean animals. “And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done. Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”, Gen 8:21,22. Can you question that, dear friend? We can see the evidence of God’s faithfulness even in relation to the creation. Men worry, in some respects understandably, about the climate and all that goes with it – many of the problems they have caused themselves – but God’s faithfulness goes on. And even the youngest of us can see God’s faithfulness in the creation: can you doubt that “the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”?
We can also think of another faithful man, Jeremiah. We know that in the time of Jeremiah, Jerusalem was in ruins. He was a feeling man. I believe a faithful man is a feeling man. He felt all that had come in and he could look upon Jerusalem in all its ruin and all its departure. One scripture has laid hold of me in Lamentations; “It is of Jehovah’s loving kindness we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not; they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him”, Lam.3:22-24. Let those words sink in, “his compassions fail not; they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness”.
Then we come to our own time. The second epistle to Timothy was written amid the darkening days of the testimony when Paul was bound, but he knew that the work was not bound and he was looking for faithful men. While it seems that Paul was almost alone, there were a few with him: “Luke alone is with me”, 2 Tim.4:11. Paul could write to Timothy, “And the things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men”, 2 Tim.2:2. So the Lord is looking for faithful persons, that is men and women who have an appreciation of Paul, his ministry and of the light that had come. But along with that, verse 13 of that same section says, speaking of the faithfulness of God, “if we are unfaithful, he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself”. It is impossible for God to deny Himself. His faithfulness goes on.
The passage in James illustrates and fills out what I had in mind in relation to Elijah. He was a remarkable man and I like that little phrase that James puts in; “Elias was a man of like passions to us”, that is, just like you and just like me. In that sense, while he was a very, very great prophet, and had a great part in one of the darkest times of Israel’s history, he was a man like us; in that sense there was nothing extraordinary about him. He was “of like passions to us”, that includes you and me. So God is looking for faithful men like Elijah.
I read these scriptures in Kings because I want to touch on God’s faithfulness in relation to Elijah and to Israel at that time. I am not going to say much about the unfaithfulness or the departure of Israel, save to say that you can read it for yourself in 1 Kings 16. It was very, very grievous. Ahab was king, a wicked king, and Jezebel his wife was even more wicked; one who is referred to in Revelation 2 as representing the epitome of evil. The situation in Israel was low, the people were going on with an outward order of things but were leaving God out of it and bringing in what was idolatrous and of Baal. How obnoxious that was to God. But in the midst of all that departure, God had raised up a man of like passions to each one of us. At the beginning of 1 Kings 17, we read of “Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead”. There was nothing special about where he came from; he was of the inhabitants of Gilead. How remarkable it is that God can use any one. His faithfulness was to be known through Elijah; despite all the breakdown, God shows that His purposes go on. The word comes through Elijah that there is not going to be rain. It is remarkable. He says here, “As Jehovah the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except by my word”; that is the word of Elijah. It is not exactly the word of God, although no doubt what Elijah said was entirely in line with God’s thoughts. Here we have a man, a faithful man whom God is going to stand by, and it is by his word that there was not going to be rain or dew, and then by his word there would be rain or dew once more. Such was his standing before God; Elijah had power with God to bring a lack of rain or dew upon the earth. That is remarkable.
What we see in this first section in chapter 17 is the way in which God is ever faithful to a man who is with Him. He is always faithful to a faithful man. The word of God came to Elijah, “turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the torrent”. It gives us some idea of what is coming from God, coming from heaven; there was a torrent. It is not my poor dwindling resources, there is a torrent and we have to drink of that. Then God was working behind the scenes; He had commanded the ravens to feed Elijah. You might say that a raven is an unclean bird – yes, it is – but God can use extraordinary means to bring about the support and sustenance of His servant. So every morning Elijah would look out, and ravens would come; they brought him “bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the torrent”. How well Elijah was provided for! He would have looked out in the morning and here come the ravens, here comes the flesh and here comes the bread. Then he would have looked out again in the evening; here comes the bread and here comes the flesh. It was the constancy of God; He will not deny Himself. He stood by Elijah, who was well provided for. Dear friends, are we not well provided for? Of course we are, with the food that is available to us in contemplation of the Lord Jesus. God has given us all that we need to feed upon. It must speak to us of Christ; it must have to do with our life – our wellbeing eternally, surely, but the eternal life that we can enjoy now. In John 6, there is reference after reference to the Lord Jesus speaking of His body as the bread of life (v.35), His flesh as being given for the life of the world. How much there is to strengthen and set forward believers in their pathway here.
The second section is well known to us; we can see God’s faithfulness to the continuation of the testimony. Elijah comes and is told to go to Zarephath. Look at the map and you can see where he went, across the country, outside the territory of Israel, right up into what would have been a Gentile nation – a long, long way. What a wonderful action of grace that Elijah should go that way. Of course, it brought out the envy and hatred of the Jews when the Lord referred to it in Luke 4. They did not want to accept the fact that grace was going outside of the bounds of Israel. Jesus said that there had been many widows in Israel at that time, likewise He said, “there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian” (v.27). So Elijah took his journey all the way up to Zarephath and came into the city, and what does he find? It says, “when he came to the entrance of the city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks” – a widow woman. She was gathering sticks and was presumably going to make some sort of fire with them, then dress the meal with the oil and then eat it, she and her son: “that we may eat it, and die”. She thought that it was all just going to die out.
Is that what is going to happen? Will God’s faithfulness allow that? Of course not! He had sent His messenger here, and Elijah was to have to do with this woman. It is remarkable that he should come to this city and find there a widow woman. Our Head is in heaven, but I think that we need to feel the widowed condition of Christ’s assembly. However, there are the most wonderful blessings; the dispensation will continue in the light that shines out from where the Lord Jesus is. So Elijah comes there and says, “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink”. That was a test, a real test, and there is much we could say as to that, but I wanted to give it a very simple application. We see how this widow woman, even in such conditions, is able to bring refreshment to Elijah. The water would refresh this prophet, having come all the way on this journey, a little bit like when, in John 4, the Lord came all the way to Sychar just to see that sinner woman. He asked her for a little refreshment from the water in the well, but she said, “the well is deep” (v.11). Every time that poor woman would have gone to that well, it would, as it were, have become deeper and deeper. But Jesus said, I will give you water; I will give you that which is springing up. That is not reliant upon this scene at all.
Elijah says, “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And she went to fetch it, and he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand”. I wanted to bring out briefly these references to a “little water”, a “morsel of bread”, “I have not a cake, but a handful of meal”, a “little oil in a cruse”, I am gathering “two sticks”. It is a widow condition. Now, how are we going to proceed? We are living in days of much smallness; we mentioned it in the reading. Some of us have been in that condition for many years, some more recently have had it put upon them. We are living in days of much smallness, and it brings its own tests. And the first test here is “make me thereof a little cake first”; make it first. Practically, when things are small, it may be hard to put first things first, but there is every encouragement to put the Lord first, and we all know from a little experience that the Lord comes in with a blessing that you would never have expected.
The widow had said, “As Jehovah thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel”, but she had something. It was just a handful, but it was not loosely held; it was held in a barrel. What does the meal mean? It must represent the humanity of Christ. How do we know that? What do we mean by that? I would encourage younger people not to accept what I say just because I say that the meal speaks of the humanity of Christ. Look into it, find out why those who have gone before have established that. I will tell you why, and I will illustrate it by what meal is. Meal is a very basic food, it may be made of oats. It was a very foundational and important food for persons at this time of which we are reading – substantial but very basic. You can feed upon what is foundational in thinking about the humanity of Christ. There is in Him that which is so worthy of your consideration; it will fill your heart, it will fill your soul, it will give you strength to go on. It says that “The meal in the barrel shall not waste”; your contemplation of Christ shall never waste; it will sustain you for as long as you are here.
Then this widow had oil, “a little oil in a cruse”, and Elijah said, “neither shall the oil in the cruse fail”. That is another type, as we speak of it, a picture. We learn that the oil speaks to us of the Holy Spirit, so the believer is well provided for. We have Christ on high, we have the Spirit of God dwelling here, and They will not fail. The Spirit and the bride say “Come” (Rev.22:17); the Spirit of God will be with us right until that time when we are raptured, and indeed He will continue to be with us after we are raptured. The Lord Jesus could speak of the Comforter whom He would send being always with us (John 14:16). The Spirit will never be taken away, so whatever happens, whatever comes in by way of breakdown, by way of ruin, the meal will not waste and the oil will not fail. This widow is to go on in the strength of that; “The meal in the barrel did not waste, neither did the oil in the cruse fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he had spoken through Elijah”.
In 1 Kings 18, we see that God is faithful to Himself; He is faithful to His own rights. The question is raised here: Who is God? “How long do ye halt between two opinions? if Jehovah be God, follow him; and if Baal, follow him”. “How long do ye halt between two opinions?” – the time was serious; it was a sobering time. You must not halt between two opinions. There is only one God and He is always faithful to Himself. The challenge was put to these men of Baal, and they did as Elijah said, they built an altar and cut the bullock up. They cried to their god, but there was no answer. There is only one true and living God, He is the One who has been made known by the Lord Jesus and He ever remains the true and faithful God. You can cry to Him, you can call upon Him at any time. Elijah knew His God; He had learned God during his time as a prophet. These men of Baal built up the altar, they put the water around it and they sacrificed the bullock, but nothing happened. Elijah said, Perhaps your God is travelling, perhaps he is meditating – you can hear the irony in Elijah’s words. Then Elijah says to the people, “Draw near to me”. That is the evangelical spirit, dear brethren, draw near to me, come round and let us see who God is – we will see who the faithful God is. Elijah repaired the altar of Jehovah, for it had been broken down, and he put all this water on it. You might ask, Elijah, why are you putting all this water on it? This is not going to help it work if you are calling on God to come down in fire. Elijah asked for this water to be poured onto the altar the first time, then a second time, and again a third time the trench was to be filled with water. “And it came to pass at the time of the offering up of the oblation, that Elijah the prophet drew near, and said, Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel … Answer me, Jehovah, answer me, that this people may know that thou Jehovah art God and that thou hast turned their heart back again. And the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt-offering … And all the people saw it, and they fell on their faces and said, Jehovah, he is God!”. God is ever faithful to Himself.
I want to say one more thing about this: “And it came to pass at the time of the offering up of the oblation”. What does that mean? The Authorised Version of the Bible refers here to the “evening oblation”. Mr Darby no doubt took out the word “evening” in his wisdom, but it seems that this happened towards the evening because it refers to the oblation. I want to refer to the offering up of the oblation referred to in Numbers 28. What you find there is the offering up of the oblation: “This is the offering by fire which ye shall present to Jehovah: two yearling lambs without blemish, day by day, as a continual burnt-offering. The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer between the two evenings” (vv.3,4). I think about the evening oblation sometimes. We all have busy lives, and how busy a day Elijah had had here. Perhaps many of us, when we come to the evening, think it is the time for putting our feet up, perhaps anticipating going to bed. I would rather it was the other way! I feel it is a time of contemplation, a time of reflection in which to think about the day, go over it with the Lord, reflect on whether everything has been in accord with the offering up of the evening oblation. The lamb was not a new-born lamb, it was a yearling lamb, implying a certain intelligence in it. In going back over the day, you can consider if there was anything that took place that was not in accordance with the Lord Jesus as represented by the lamb and the fine flour, and if not, you can put it right. You can have to do with the Lord about it. What a wonderful matter, as it were, what a principle has been established in the lambs that were offered in Numbers 28, speaking to us of the perfection of Christ. What a wonderful example He is, One who we can see, we can follow, we can admire, and we can love, and at the end of the day we can spend a few minutes to go back over the day and think about Him.
Now we are coming to the end of the section spoken of in what I have read in James. Elijah says, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain … And he said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea”, and then “Go again seven times”. The time of the abundance of rain had come. The servant had said to him, “There is nothing”, but there was a sound of abundance of rain. And we would be well to say that there is the sound of it. What do we know about God’s faithfulness? There will be abundance of rain for as long as we need it, and as James says, “and it did not rain upon the earth three years and six months; and again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth caused its fruit to spring forth”. The abundance of rain is a full thought. Look towards the sea – how expansive are God’s thoughts. The seventh time he looked, the servant saw “a cloud, small as a man’s hand, arising out of the sea”. That word “small” seems to me to link with the day that we are living in. You might say, there is the sound of the rain coming, but do you know the source of it, “arising out of the sea”? That cloud, “small as a man’s hand” – how affectionate, how appealing would a man’s hand be. It might speak of all the supply we can have right through the testimony until we are called to glory – that cloud as small as a man’s hand. Then “the heavens became black with clouds and wind, and there was a great pour of rain”.
I have read these other sections because they are perhaps for me more than anybody else. Elijah was a “man of like passions”; he had his ups and he had his downs. God was greatly using Elijah, a faithful man, but in this chapter, he was not quite as bright as he should have been. God could have dealt with Jezebel, but Elijah lacked faith, he thought all was at an end and he was all alone. He arose and went a day’s journey; he thought he was going to save his life. Dear brethren, do not go a day’s journey without the company of divine Persons. You cannot afford to do that. Do you remember what happened when the Lord came up as a twelve year old to Jerusalem with His parents? They went a day’s journey, and they assumed He was in their company, but it took them three days to find Him. Do not go a day’s journey without divine Persons. And poor Elijah here said that it was enough; he wanted God to take his life, but he looked and “behold, at his head was a cake, baked on hot stones, and a cruse of water”. God’s provision is very wonderful.
In the next section, I do like the way in which God dealt with this faithful man. God was passing by again and said to him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”. It is a good question: that word would come home to each one of us. God is the God of hosts – that is what we get at the end of it: “Yet I have left myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him”. When we get to glory, I think that we will be amazed at all the thousands and millions that God has, that the Lord has had for Himself and about whom we knew nothing. But in the meantime, it is for us to go on. We are living in days of smallness, days of brokenness. God spoke in faithfulness to Elijah, again not very bright, but God passed by “and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Jehovah”, then there was the earthquake, then there was the fire. There is no mistaking the noise of an earthquake, no mistaking the noise of a fire, but after that came “a soft gentle voice”. We have to listen for that. We have to listen carefully to this “soft gentle voice”. That is the way in which the Lord is speaking today, in “a soft gentle voice”. When he heard that voice, Elijah “wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave”, and again that question came “What doest thou here, Elijah?” What are you doing here? – it is a question for us all.
The passage in 2 Kings is well known to us. Elijah was a remarkable man and came in at a dark time in Israel’s history. He had an extraordinary taking up to heaven; he was found, you will remember, completely at home in heavenly realms. It says that on the mount of transfiguration, he was speaking of the Lord’s departure (Luke 9:31). That was remarkable There was Elijah, perfectly at home with Moses and speaking about the Lord’s departure. It was the portion of this faithful man that he was taken up in the sight of Elisha. “And it came to pass as they went on, and talked, that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire; and they parted them both asunder”. Elisha said, “My father, my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof! And he saw him no more”. There is something triumphant, there is something victorious about this; “the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof”, the grandeur of it, the military character of it.
Now the saints will not go up in a chariot of fire or anything like that, but we will all be raptured. What a wonderful victory for divine Persons it will be when the saints will be raptured, taken up for ever by the Lord. We will look back and wonder and worship at the way in which God gently led us on. What a faithful God we have to do with!
That is all I have in my mind and I trust that it might be something for us to contemplate, for His name’s sake.
Address at Grimsby
9 February 2019
Charles C D Remmington