 By Andrew Bonar 1 Kings 17 'To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.' (Rom. 14: 9) There never was a resurrection in the world or in the Church of Christ before this one. Yet it is a resurrection in very quiet circumstances. The Lord does not make a work about His wonders, for what are wonders to Him? Sarepta was a town of Syro-Phoenicia. I have sometimes thought that the Syro-Phoenician woman belonged to this place. I should not wonder but that the Lord had gone out of the coasts of Israel in order to see it. I remember it, forty years ago. It was a place of villas for the people of Tyre. On this account the woman would spread the news all the better among the Gentiles there. But let us keep to the story of the widow. Christ refers to it, showing He had read it carefully, as setting forth the sovereignty of God. Let us look at I. This incident as bearing on the widow.- She must have had some acquaintance with the Hebrew truth and the Hebrew prophets, for when Elijah appeared to her in the name of his God she was not at all surprised, but put faith in the God of Israel. First her faith was tried, then it was rewarded. 'Her barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.' Would you risk anything in faith for the Lord? Are you conscious that you often do things simply because you believe they are God's will? Did you ever do so without being rewarded? It is not like the Lord to forget those who do anything for Him. One day this woman's son sickened and died. Could there be a greater affliction to a widowed mother? Is this the reward of faith? No doubt she hazarded a great deal in taking in a Hebrew prophet into her house, and is this the way the Lord rewards her? No doubt Elijah prayed for her son; yet he died. It is remarkable how it affected her. 'Thou hast brought my sin to remembrance.' How affliction brings sin to remembrance! It is one of the Lord's ways of convincing of sin in the case of His own people. If you let the Spirit of the Lord work in you it will always have this effect, and a most blessed effect it is. The Lord wanted to humble the woman. Perhaps she was getting a little proud of her barrel of meal. Ay, and perhaps she was beginning to feel that she deserved it, for taking the prophet into her house. The Lord drives all this out of her. But still, is it kind to do this to a believing woman? 'God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith, in that ye ministered to the saints (Heb. 6:10). Now she has ministered to the saints. Well, God has rewarded her, and this is His way of preparing a greater reward - a kindness such as had never been granted to a saint since the Flood, before or after. You see the Lord empties before He fills. When you are overtaken by some bitter grief, say, 'Now I know the way of the Lord. He is preparing something better for me.' It ended in the widow's son being given back to her from the grave. 'Now I know,' she says, 'that thou art a man of God.' Did she not know that before? Yes, but have you not noticed that there are times when the truth we know is lighted up as with a flame? I referred to walking forty years ago on the shore at Sarepta. I well remember how Mr. M'Cheyne and I used to say to one another, as we walked in other parts of Palestine with our Bibles in our hands, 'We believed the Bible before, but now we believe it more than ever.' Some of you have felt this after a time of affliction. II. This incident as bearing on Elijah. - I think Elijah was a little stumbled at first. He seems not to have known what to say. 'Give me thy son.' He goes up to his upper room, and there he is, alone with the dead child. You see what he is about. He speaks to the Lord for him, not to his mother. Three times he cried. It often puts me in mind of our Lord's words, 'Ask, seek, knock.' 'Asking' is when we pray, but 'seeking' is more earnest still, and 'knocking' is more and more in earnest. Elijah had never heard of a resurrection before, but he does not hesitate to ask this of the Lord. You see we may ask Him to do greater things than He has ever done yet. Don't confine yourself to the same things over and over again. I think Elijah took a hint from former things done for him. There was heaven, sealed and opened again, - there was the barrel of meal not spent. 'Lord, Lord, do greater things!' What a simple resurrection, done so quickly, done in a private house, done in an upper room. I don't know that men would hear of it till long afterwards. The heathen would not believe the woman's story. The Lord likes to do great things, if we would not make a great noise about them. Let them tell their own story. I think the Lord was preparing Elijah for greater things still. We may in this respect compare him to David slaying the lion and the bear by faith. When we are dealing with the Lord we always act on this principle, 'greater still, greater still.' Here is the man who was never to die used by God to bring life to one who was dead. God let him look into the cavern of death, and see how He could bring back from death. And the Lord was teaching His servant in his retirement what He could do for a dead nation. When the Lord gives you any remarkable visit in your retirement He means you to use it. We need a great awakening. God does not want us to be content with what we have got. Have you cried to the Lord for the quickening of souls as earnestly as Elijah cried for the quickening of life in that dead lad? If we were intensely in earnest we would see reviving. Transcribed from Reminiscences of Andrew A. Bonar D.D. |
Friday, March 29, 2013
The Resurrection of the Son of the Widow of Sarepta
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Waiting Rather than Fretting
By A.W. Tozer
Of one thing we may be sure; we can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of them and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days alone, we still could not lose them. The rough floor of our cave would chafe us, the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret.
Deliverance from a fretting spirit may be by blood and fire, by humility, self-abnegation and a patient carrying of the cross. There will always be "evildoers" and "workers of iniquity," and for the most part they will appear to succeed while the forces of righteousness will seem to fail. The wicked will always have the money and the talent and the publicity and the numbers, while the righteous will be few and poor and unknown. The prayerless Christian will surely misread the signs and fret against the circumstances. That is what the Spirit warns us against.
Let us look out calmly upon the world; or better yet, let us look down upon it from above where Christ is seated and we are seated in Him. Though the wicked spread himself like "a green tree in its native soil" (Psalm 37:35), it is only for a moment. Soon he passes away and is not. But "the salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD; he is their stronghold in time of trouble" (verse 39). This knowledge should cure the fretting spirit.
Returning in Power
The Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels: Chapter 25
By John Henry Jowett
"And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee."--Luke iv. 14.
OUR Master had been at the familiar place in life where there are many roads but only one right one. And the wrong roads were decked with all sorts of shining allurements. And the allurements were all the more perilous because they had a suggestion of religion and piety about them. The wrong road was made to look as though it led up to a church. There was a sound of church bells, as though a subtle temptation had been wedded to a call to worship. That is the most insidious trial in life, when the church bells are ringing on the broad road that leadeth to destruction.
But our Master knew the broad road, even though it was carpeted with flowers. He knew the egotism which lay concealed under seeming homage. He knew the difference between faith and presumption. He knew the infinite contrast between a swelling imperialism and the holy Kingdom which He had come to found in sacrificial blood. And so with all His might He fought the tempter and overthrew him, and with richly invigorated strength He went forth to His work in Galilee.
Our Master had been in the wilderness of temptation, and He returned with a vaster equipment for His holy service. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; but here the thief had been robbed, and the despoiler had been spoiled. The tempter had been made to strengthen the tempted. The very temptation had been coerced into a minister of increased resources. The Lord Jesus emerged in power! The wilderness had become a school, a gymnasium, a scene of combat and wrestling; and, so far from being spiritually destroyed, the Master put on strength and victory like a robe. As Samuel Rutherford quaintly says, in one of his letters to Marian McNaught: "God can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself for setting forward His work!"
And all this teaches me how I must think about my temptations. I must look upon temptation as opportunity. I must regard it, not as something to be feared, but as something to be spoiled. It is like some frowning, bristling city which I am to overthrow and sack. The bigger the temptation the richer the booty! The harder the conflict the more robust shall be my strength. And so it is that the Apostle counsels us to count it all joy when we fall among temptations! They are often full of menace, but splendid wealth hides behind the guns! Refuse to yield and the wealth is yours! Our manifold temptations are just the threatening side of manifold treasures. If we overcome the tempter we shall return in power.
And so it is that we are never so near great riches as when we are sorely tried. That is surely very heartening. In great temptations we are being favoured with a shining opportunity, and we are to count it all joy. We must fix our minds upon the rich possibilities, and with all the strength of our being resolve that they shall be realised. Let us maintain a positive attitude to our foe. Let us fight the good fight of faith, assured that every victory will make us nobler soldiers. And let us fight in the holy fellowship of the Captain of our Salvation, who, Himself being tempted, turned His wilderness into a place of springs, and who will so strengthen His disciples that their wilderness and solitary place shall be glad, and their desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.
The Road Uphill
By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
"Walking in the midst of the fire" (Daniel 3:25).
The fire did not arrest their motion; they walked in the midst of it. It was one of the streets through which they moved to their destiny. The comfort of Christ's revelation is not that it teaches emancipation from sorrow, but emancipation through sorrow.
O my God, teach me, when the shadows have gathered, that I am only in a tunnel. It is enough for me to know that it will be all right some day.
They tell me that I shall stand upon the peaks of Olivet, the heights of resurrection glory. But I want more, O my Father; I want Calvary to lead up to it. I want to know that the shadows of this world are the shades of an avenue the avenue to the house of my Father. Tell me I am only forced to climb because Thy house is on the hill! I shall receive no hurt from sorrow if I shall walk in the midst of the fire. --George Matheson
"'The road is too rough,' I said;
'It is uphill all the way;
No flowers, but thorns instead;
And the skies over head are grey.'
But One took my hand at the entrance dim,
And sweet is the road that I walk with Him.
"The cross is too great,' I cried--
'More than the back can bear,
So rough and heavy and wide,
And nobody by to care.'
And One stooped softly and touched my hand:
'I know. I care. And I understand.'
"Then why do we fret and sigh;
Cross-bearers all we go:
But the road ends by-and-by
In the dearest place we know,
And every step in the journey we
May take in the Lord's own company."
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