It is well for us to lay to heart these lessons in connection with Elijah, especially any of us who seek to serve the Lord. How easily we get taken up with our own service, and then perhaps when we are set aside for a time, or are called upon to suffer in our path of service, we think that the Lord’s work cannot be carried on without us. We forget that the Lord has His own faithful ones everywhere, and that while He may deign to use us, if we are lying at His feet content to be only a voice for Him, yet He can use others. He always has, and always will have, “a remnant according to the election of grace.”
Elijah still loved the Lord and so, taking the rebuke from Him, he arose to do as He had said. When he saw Elisha plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, he came to him, cast his mantle upon him, and passed by. Elisha immediately left the oxen and ran after Elijah saying, “Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.” Elijah replied, “Go back again: for what have I done to thee?” The call to serve the Lord ought to touch the cords of our hearts. He wants willing servants, not those who serve grudgingly, and so Elijah told Elisha to go back again. However it is one thing to know that we can go back, and delay our service to enjoy home life, and it is another thing to try to do it. If one has really had the call from the Lord, he will never find true happiness apart from such a path. Everyone does not have such a call, though we all have our individual service for the Lord; but if one does, then he should remember the scripture, “For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed to me.” 1 Cor. 9:16, 1716For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 17For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. (1 Corinthians 9:16‑17).
Elisha could not remain at home. He took a yoke of oxen, and using the instruments for wood he made a great feast. Then he arose and followed Elijah. He burned up the instruments, no doubt, so that he would not be tempted to go back again. It is a great thing to make a clean break when the Lord has made His call clear to one.
There is another point here that is of interest in connection with serving the Lord. Elisha was a busy man when the Lord called him, as were Moses, Peter, Matthew and many others whom the Lord called to serve Him. In fact they were occupied at the very moment the Lord called them. If one has not learned to be faithful in the ordinary matters of life, and diligent in “proving things honest in the sight of all men,” it is doubtful if the Lord would really call him. The Scripture says, “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” Luke 16:1111If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? (Luke 16:11). In these days when the path of a preacher is often looked upon as a respectable and easy occupation, it is because we have lost sight of the pathway of our rejected Master. What a pathway was His, of untiring, loving service to His Father and to ruined man, and what a pattern for any of us who would seek to represent Him in this scene of His rejection! I believe Elijah could be looked at as a figure of Christ in His rejection, and Elisha of our present pathway, with the Spirit of Christ resting upon us as we represent Him here. We will see more of this later (D.V.) in considering 2 Kings 2.
ML 06/24/1956