Month: May 2022

In 2 Kings 4:1-7 is a dramatic incident from the days of Elisha which has challenged the thinking of every Bible lover. In its appeal to life, it is unsurpassed in beauty. In its expression of God’s care for the minute things of one’s life, it is unexcelled in grandeur.

The story opens with a” … certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets … ” (verse 1) who was in distressing, heartbreaking trouble. Her husband, a prophet of God, had died, leaving her with two boys to care for, and with a debt to a cruel man who demanded payment at the expense of the son’s liberty. It would seem that God had let this widow down; that following the cause of righteousness had brought disaster. No day could have been darker.

The instruction given to this woman is worthy of our mediation,” … thou shalt shut the door upon thee … ” (verse 4).

Shut the door to opinion. Had she gone down the street asking for the opinions of the wise ones, those opinions would have been varied and contradictory; but they would have been unanimous, to follow the prophet’s advice was a foolish thing to do- it would be only a waste of precious time. The good woman would have been advised, “Use what time you have left in trying to refinance your loans.” But she shut the door to opinions.

You, too, will need to shut the door to the opinions of others if you would experience the supernatural manifestations of God, if you would escape the clutching hold of sin and the starving force of carnality.

Shut the door to fear. How filled our lives are with fear! From morning until night, from the cradle to the grave, fear stalks our pathway. We are afraid that we will not be accepted; we are afraid to start a new job; we are afraid move to another town; we are afraid of …the list is almost endless.

Shut the door to fear, and do it now. Look your problem squarely in the face; take one step toward it; you will discover that the closer you get to it the smaller it becomes.

Shut the door to unbelief.  Unbelief said, “The borrowing of the extra vessels was only lost motion.” Unbelief said, “The whole experience of the race is against expecting a small bottle of oil to fill all those vessels.” This good woman closed the door to unbelief, and filled every cup that faith had brought in.

Close your door to unbelief. Believe in God! Believe in the God transcendent, personal, righteous, compassionate; God – big enough for this day of big things; God – powerful enough for your problems and wise enough to get you through life with honour.

Shut the door to everything that is little and mean and vile and selfish. There you will find the flowing oil, the manifestations of God, and the glow of a glorious experience of being closer to our Maker.

“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalms 126:5-6)

Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission tells that when he was a college student he had charge of a man with a gangrenous foot. It was his duty to dress the man’s foot every day. He soon learned that his patient was not a Christian, and had not been in a church for forty years. Such was his hatred of religion that he refused to go inside the church at his wife’s funeral.

Young Taylor made up his mind to speak to this man about his soul every time he visited him. The man cursed him, and refused to allow him to pray. The student persisted in presenting Christ until one day he said to himself, “It is no use,” and was leaving the room.

When he reached the door, he turned around and saw the man looking after him as if to say, “Why, you are going away today without speaking to me about Christ!” Then the young man burst into tears, and returning to the bedside, said, “Whether you wish me to or not, I must deliver my soul. Will you let me pray with you?” The man assented, began to weep, and was converted.

Mr. Taylor says, “God broke my heart, that through me He might break this wicked man’s heart.”

Ask now that the Holy Spirit may give you a tender heart, and make your eyes a fountain of tears, that, with the sympathy of Christ, you may seek the lost and perishing.

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

It is a great thing to remember – what Christians too easily forget-that we are called to the enjoyment of heavenly things, and we live by the revelation of them. God has not introduced grace and His Son and Spirit to make us get along easily in this world (it was not needed) but to bring us to the enjoyment of heavenly things, and to live in them. What characterizes a man is what his mind is on, and then all his ways flow from that.

The apostle says that we ” …in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ... ” (2 Corinthians 5:4); that is, all we have of this world. The Lord uses it as an occasion of His dealings with us, but He does not take that up until salvation is settled. Redemption being settled, we find difficulties and exercises come in; and the apostle gives us here (and in chapter 12) what the principle and power of his walk were. What we are called to is the manifestation of the life of Christ; our whole life is to be nothing but that God is revealed. We have life, and the Holy Ghost as our power; we are set here as the epistles of Christ, for men to read. While waiting for Christ to manifest Himself in glory, we have to manifest Him in grace.

It is not pleasant to “do well, and suffer for it,” but is not that what Christ did? It is what we have to do in lowliness and meekness. He first gives us a place in Heaven, and then sets us down here to do that. We have the revelation of God Himself in the Person of His Son. He dwells in us, and we in Him; and we know it, for He has given us of His Spirit. Our place before God is settled; Christ is our life. We have the knowledge of God and the power to walk in this world; and, another thing, heavenly things are revealed – the things that belong to the place in which we are. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2: 12). There we are to live and to get the motive that characterizes us as Christians. If that were always so, we should be always really epistles of Christ – in our houses, our dress, in our everyday life, in all the . things that are the expression of a man’s heart. Is Christ the motive in everything we do? If not, we leave Him for some vanity or other. What every Christian has to do is to commend himself” ... to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2), that if they judge him, it should be for consistency.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). That is where every Christian is. The glory of God is revealed in his heart, and he is thus to manifest it in the world, that they should see it in his words and ways. It is a blessed place, but a very distinct and definite one. If Christ is revealed, He has brought in the knowledge of God – all the glory of God, His holiness, His majesty, His love – has shined into our hearts, that we may give it out. That is very simple if that were all, but it is not all. It is God’s way to put this in an earthen vessel. The apostle does not speak here of wickedness, but weakness. We have to get the flesh put down. We know that, but the apostle does not go on that ground here. It is not a question of sin or failure, but of the path of the Christian as such. The first element is, he has the whole glory of God revealed, but in these ” … earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God … ” (2 Corinthians 4:7)-constant dependence.

Great, excellent, and wonderful as the treasure is, He has put it in a place which, to man’s eye and mind and thought, is unfit for it – as to power, I mean. Therefore in your life, even when you are going on right, you get these two elements: all the glory of God revealed in your heart, but put purposely in an earthen vessel, because there is a great deal for us to learn as regards to what poor, wretched creatures we are. Peter says, ” … I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death” (Luke 22:33). Will you? says the Lord; I will see. We all know what it was. You may say he had not the Holy Ghost. No, but the flesh is as treacherous now as it was before the Holy Ghost was given; of course, there is more power to keep it down. We may learn slowly what it is, but learn it we must. It comes out even when we are seeking to serve Christ honestly, as Peter was. It is the thought of God to put the treasure in this vessel that it may learn itself what it is, and we must learn it. We may earnestly and honestly go and preach Christ, and heartily; but if we have not learned ourselves, there is some confidence in self, and we make mistakes. It is lovely to see Moses going down and associating himself with the poor brickmakers; but he had not learned himself, and he killed an Egyptian, and then ran away.

I must keep watching the flesh, for I know what it is. I need to lean on a strength that is not mine, and wait for God’s direction and guidance. By the discovery of my weakness, I know I have no power but in God. Paul had been put down when he was converted, but he had to be kept down that he might know it was not the capacity of Paul, but that the power of Christ might rest upon him. God says, as it were, it is I working in you; cannot I work through your boggling? Oh, then, says Paul, I will keep it! “…Most gladly… will I…glory in my infirmities … ” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Here he says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed … ” (2 Corinthians 4:8); I cannot see a way out for myself, but I have God, and He is a sure way. “Persecuted, but not forsaken … ” (2 Corinthians 4:9), for God is with me; ” … cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:9). He lived in the consciousness that the Lord was always there, and that he wanted Him. Even in truth and sincerity of heart, we are apt to go on as if we did not want the Lord. If for one instant I do not have Him with me, I am nothing. Where we are seeking to serve Christ, we have to learn our own lesson; but where there is not that dependence, there will be failure. In small things or in great things, we cannot do anything without Him; and we are not to do good in the strength of our own thoughts. We are slow to learn it!

There are two remedies for this. First, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus … ” (2 Corinthians 4: 10). The apostle applies it to himself, and that goes very far, though it is not all. If you applied the cross to every thought that arises in your heart, you would find how many thoughts the cross would crucify. The flesh would never put up a thought at all, for what thought could a dead man put up? Of course, we have to be gentle and courteous as Christians; but the old man has been put to death, and I have to reckon myself dead. Here he is carrying it out every day. I might fear there are many who do not so apply it to every thought and feeling and purpose – who do not so distrust the flesh, and everything in mere human nature. If l let my body live, there is flesh. But he says, I bear” … about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Corinthians 4: 10). In order to manifest Christ always, I need to hold the flesh dead. That is his part in faith. Then comes the second thing, God’s part. “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4: 11 ). However faithful he was, God had to help him. He could not trust him, and He cannot trust you. He puts you through circumstances where the flesh comes out, and then says, “There now.” Paul could say all this trial and exercise was for Christ’s sake. With us, very often, it is for the flesh’s sake.

The fulness of the glory is ours. The glory has shone into our hearts, but He puts it in an earthen vessel because our hearts have to learn what we are. No will can be allowed – no self-stirring, no flesh, no thought from the vanity of this world – nothing that does not suit this treasure. But do not thoughts come into your mind, and are they not allowed there, that do not suit the treasure of Heaven? Things that do not take the form of gross evil, but a quantity of things that are not Christ? Take the day’s conversation: has there been no vanity, no idleness? Is your speech “… alway with grace, seasoned with salt … ” (Colossians 4:6)? If you take up a newspaper and read of the vanities of the world, do you then tum to read of Christ and His glory, and not find your heart dull? If you do not find it out, you may be sure it will get duller and duller. It hinders the preciousness of Christ to you. You have lost power. You do not go and read your Bible and pray with the same freshness. When I apply the cross of Christ, it stops the moving of my heart. The Lord puts me through circumstances that put me to the test.

Are you willing to take this place, willing to be under God’s hand, cleaving to Him with purpose of heart, saying, I want Christ. Are you willing to have your flesh put down? It is singleness of eye. What Satan is doing is to get us to have, if it were ever so little, confidence in the flesh. Do you say, “Let the vessel be dealt with as He will,” in whatever He sees needed, so that Christ may be manifested, whether by life or by death? Is that the desire of your hearts?

1. When you grow bolder with sin, or with temptations to sin, than you were in your more watchful state- then be sure something is wrong.

2. When you make a small matter of those sins and infirmities which once seemed grievous to you and almost intolerable.

3. When you settle down to a course of religion that gives you but little labor, and leave out the hard and costly part.

4. When your God and Saviour grows a little strange to you, and your religion consists in conversing with men and their books and not with God and His Book.

5. When you delight more in hearing and talking, than in secret prayer and the Word.

6. When you use the means of grace more as a matter of duty, than as food in which your soul delights.

7. When you regard too much the eye of man, and too little the eye of God.

8. When you grow hot and eager about some disputed point, or in forwarding the interests of some party of Christians, more than about those matters which concern the great cause of Christ.

9. When you grow harsh and bitter towards those who differ from you, instead of feeling tenderly towards all who love Christ.

10. When you make light of preparing for the Lord’s day and the Lord’s table, and think more of outward ordinances than you do of heart work.

11. When the hopes of Heaven and the love of God do not interest you, but you are thirsting after some worldly enjoyment and grow eager for it.

12. When the world grows sweeter to you, and death and eternity are distasteful subjects.

“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls …” (Jeremiah 6: 16).

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13).