CH. 9. (CONTINUED.)
THE JUNIPER TREE AND THE GOURD.
The first of these two trees we find in 1 Kings 19 Elijah, that faithful prophet and “man of God,” had just before (ch. 18.) glorified God by his courage of faith. In that unique scene of heroic faith and decision for God he had served as an instrument of His grace to restore apostate and idolatrous Israel and bring them back to Jehovah as the only true God. But Satan did not rest. He sought to occupy the prophet with self and with the act of unexampled heroism Elijah had performed on that grand occasion. In that attempt the tempter appears to have succeeded but too well, as Elijah's own words clearly prove (ver. 10). Peter's self-confidence was followed by Peter's cowardice. After the cutting off the ear comes the denial. Such has been the natural order before and since the days of Elijah and Peter until now. Peter dreaded the words of the high priest's maid, and Elijah became alarmed at the words of the wicked queen, Jezebel. We find him in the wilderness, under the “juniper tree,” praying God (almost in the same words as, forty years after, did the prophet Jonah) to “take away his life.”
But the same pitiful and merciful God, Who gave to Jonah the cooling shadow of that miraculous tree to soothe his disappointment, sent His angel with food and drink, to refresh His discouraged prophet under the juniper tree. But after arriving at the foot of Horeb, the “mount of God,” Elijah has to listen to the humbling question, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” Was this the place for a prophet of God? His post was at the gates of the city; in the market place; or at the entrance of the temple; or wherever the concourse of the people was most numerous, and consequently the testimony of divine truth most public, decided, and dangerous. What a difference in Elijah's position in ch. 18. from that in ch. 19.!
And what was the prophet's reply to the heart-searching question of his divine Master? Does he humble himself, confessing his want of faithfulness and of courage and of faith? No. His language is that of self-elevation and accusing others, as is always the case when a believer departs from the path of obedience and refuses to judge himself and to confess his sin. Elijah says, “I have been very jealous for Jehovah, the God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” These words betrayed in a threefold way the prophet's unhappy state of soul, viz.,
(1.) Self-exaltation.
Unjust accusation against God's people, whom he charges with idolatry and persecution against God's prophets. Why, they had just turned away from their idols, and returned to the true and living God, and assisted the prophet in killing the priests of Baal.
How true it is that he who exalts himself only abases himself. Whilst accusing others, he accuses and condemns himself; his own lips betray and judge him. Far be it from me by these remarks to cast any disparaging reflection upon that faithful servant of God! Never since the days of Moses had God been so glorified by any of His servants, as in that wondrous scene of fearless faithfulness and victory over Satan, recorded in the eighteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings. But Elijah had failed to do what we also so frequently fail to do, in the combat of faith against the hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places, viz., to “stand, after having withstood in the evil day” (Eph. 6). Like Moses, he had also failed in not rendering the glory to God above all.
All this has been written “for our admonition.” God afterward honored His faithful prophet. Like Enoch, he did not see death, being caught up to heaven in the fiery chariot. But before that he had to learn a humbling yet blessed lesson on Horeb, the same “mount of God,” at whose foot the “God of glory and grace” had appeared to His servant Moses in the “burning,” yet not “burnt,” bush. God, Who on Sinai, the mount of the law, had caused “all His goodness” to pass before Moses, when Moses asked to see His glory, causes on Horeb, the “mount of God,” the heralds of His power—the “great and mighty wind,” the “earthquake,” and the “fire” —to pass before the terrified prophet, who was glad “in the crushing sense of his nothingness” to hide himself in the farthest corner of a cavern before the terrible effect of the power of these mere heralds of divine majesty. But God Himself was neither in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. But after the fire there came a “still small voice,” the voice of God's grace. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” No sooner does the terrified prophet hear that “still small voice,” than he wraps his face in his mantle, and comes to the entrance of the cave, to approach God.
Is it not the same tender voice that speaks to the sinner penitent and crushed, but believing, “Your sins will I remember no more,” after this world had rejected and crucified Him, Who in His own Person was that “still small voice” when “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing trespasses?” And does not the same “still small voice” bid the once rebellions sinner, but now worshipper and saint, who, through the blood of Jesus has liberty to enter the holiest, to “draw nigh with a true heart?” Blessed be His glorious and gracious name!
But the full grace of God in Christ was unknown to Elijah, though he felt the sweet attraction of that gracious voice, and, in an outward way, approached God, freed from fear. Again, that voice of longsuffering grace spoke, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” It was the same voice that said in Paradise, “Adam, where art thou?” Alas! Elijah's heart had been only delivered from fear, but not softened, by that “still small voice.” Again we hear the same lamentable reply, “I have been very zealous,” &c. The prophet had learned little or nothing. He could make the fire come down from heaven upon the enemies of God and of His truth, but had not yet understood that after the fire comes the “still small voice” of grace, and that judgment is God's “strange work,” but grace His “natural work.” Alas! how much does the religious natural heart in its graceless John—zeal resemble that of Elijah, even in the two brothers Boanerges, the “sons of thunder!” (Luke 9:5454And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? (Luke 9:54).) No sooner has the same answer the second time escaped Elijah's lips, than Jehovah commands him to return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus, and anoint not only two kings for Syria and Israel, but also another prophet in his (Elijah's) stead. Like Moses, the founder of the law, so Elijah, the restorer of the law, had fallen short of the glory of God and of His grace. Like Moses, Elijah was no, longer to remain in his office, but had to transfer it to a successor, who better knew how to enter upon the grace of God and to act in the spirit of it.
Before resuming our meditations on Jonah under the gourd, a few remarks on the third and fourth of our four trees under consideration.
3. THE FIG TREE.
The small group of believing Israelites, whom we behold in the second part of the First Chapter of John, who were waiting for the Messiah announced by John the Baptist, His forerunner, possessed one blessed quality common to all of them. They were looking out for the promised Messiah. They sought and found. “We have found the Messiah,” says Andrew to his brother Simon. “We have found Him, of Whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” Philip exclaims to Nathanael. Nathanael like them had searched the Scriptures, for he answers Philip, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" But he had done something else. Before Philip brought him to Jesus, he had been “under the fig-tree” alone with Jehovah-Jesus, in deep exercise of soul. His utterances might have borne the character of words like these, “Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence......For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness; those that remember Thee in Thy ways. Behold, Thou art wroth; for we have sinned; in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou art the Potter; and we are all the work of Thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O Jehovah, neither remember iniquity forever; behold, see, we beseech Thee, we are all Thy people” (Isa. 64:1-91Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, 2As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence! 3When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. 4For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. 5Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. 6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. 8But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. 9Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. (Isaiah 64:1‑9)).
Certainly, on that tree there were not merely “green leaves.” The Lord found there at least one ripe, good fruit— “an Israelite without guile.” And what a reward did Nathanael receive from the Lord! Jesus reveals Himself to him not only as the Messiah as He did to the others. Nathanael exclaims, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.” He had sought, and he had found; he had asked, and it was given to him; he had knocked, and it was opened to him.
What a blessedly instructive tree is that fig-tree, Christian reader! Though it was but a Jewish “fig-tree,” one can but fervently desire that we might be more continually found under it engaged like Nathanael, before Philip called him to introduce him to the personal presence of Him with Whom Nathanael had been engaged in the Spirit under that tree. Thus from the fig-tree the faithful Israelite was brought to the “apple-tree” —Christ (Song. 2:3). He “sat down under His shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to his taste,” just as he himself to his Master had been a refreshing fruit of the fig-tree.
Would God, I repeat, we were like Nathanael, engaged in the prayerful shadow of that tree, instead of in the dry atmosphere of a prayerless study, or under the poisonous shadow of the upas tree of modern religion. What different manner of men should we then be in our houses, in our offices and shops, and in our assemblies! Like Philip and Nathanael, only in a far higher sense, should we then enjoy, in the cool shade of the “apple-tree,” His fragrance and His sweet fruits, and our communion one with another as well as our individual testimony would have more of the sweet fragrance of Christ.
4. THE SYCAMORE, OR MULBERRY-FIG TREE.
That tree, with the little man in its top, so eagerly looking out for the Savior, appears to be a beautiful figure of the gospel and of the blessing connected with it, and promised to every sinner looking for Salvation. At sunrise the birds flutter from the lower branches to the tops of the trees, to greet the glorious orb and offer their songs of praise to the Creator. So did Zacchaeus. He was but a small bird, an insignificant wren. His elevation indeed was no self-exaltation, but rather self-abasement, when he, unmindful of his official rank and dignity, like a schoolboy climbed the sycamore tree, intent upon catching a glimpse of the Savior, Who came to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He was eager to catch sight of Him Who had said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Zacchaeus also sought and found; nay, he found even more than he sought. For not only did his eyes see the salvation which God had prepared before the face of all people, but the Savior, Whose joy it is to honor those who abase themselves, invited Himself as guest with Zacchaeus, and he heard the Savior's own voice say to him, “This day is salvation come to this house, For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Blessed mulberry fig-tree, with the fruit of a sinner looking for a Savior! May our Lord and Savior, Whose eyes, so graciously quick, at once discovered that hidden fruit and made it drop into His lap as a fruit of His labor, grant unto us wise and gracious eyes for a timely discovery of such fruits half hidden, as it were, between the branches of His gospel tree, without attempting to shake them off before they are ripe. God, Who alone gives the increase, will at the time of harvest make the ripe fruits drop into the laps of His servants, to render all the praise to Him from Whom all blessings flow, and to Whom all power belongs, even to “God and the Lamb,” once for sinners slain. For He Who called Zacchaeus and us has sent us into the world, as the Father had sent Him into it, to be witnesses of divine grace and truth. May He grant us the joy of reaping more fruits of our feeble labor from that blessed gospel tree, and to pray under its shadow to God for His rich blessing on all His laborers in the gospel. We shall then be kept from two extremes—either of growing cold in our interest in the work of the gospel for the church's sake, as is the case, alas! with not a few; or, what is just as bad, if not worse still, of making everything of the gospel, and neglect the church and the “assembling of ourselves together,” the sad habit of so many now-a-days. The saints at Philippi were equally familiar with the “fig-tree” and with the “mulberry-fig tree” or “sycamore.” And why? Because they were seated under the shade of the “apple-tree,” preferring its fragrance and sweet fruits to all other trees, “always rejoicing in the Lord.” Let us follow their example.
We now return to our prophet under the gourd.