1 Kings 18-19
Demonstration of power never invigorates the soul, unless it is connected with private communion with the Lord, and then, it is the communion and not the power which confers the blessing. The demonstration of power gives effect to service, but it is followed by depression and disheartenment unless the soul is kept in secret nearness to the Lord. We learn this from the chapter before us — 1 Kings 18. Here was Elijah after witnessing one of the most marvelous demonstrations of the Lord’s power on earth: “The fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (1 Kings 18:3838Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. (1 Kings 18:38)). Besides this, there was also a great rain in answer to Elijah’s prayer. There had been a double manifestation of God’s power: one to corroborate the mission of His servant, the other to bless His people. Yet, after all, we find in the next paragraph that Elijah is so disheartened and fearful that he fled for his life a day’s journey into the wilderness and requested for himself that he might die! In this state, the angel of the Lord comes to him to prepare him for a journey to Mount Horeb. Then, having eaten nothing for 40 days and 40 nights, he is instructed that the Lord is not in the strong wind which rent the mountains, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in “the still small voice.” He is in that secret, invisible, noiseless communication which “no man knoweth but he which receiveth it” (Rev. 2:1717He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. (Revelation 2:17)). When Elijah heard the latter, his soul responds to the unmistakable voice of the Lord; the sheep knows His voice. The manifestations of His mighty power had no such effect on him. And this is our experience if we have but retirement and abstraction enough from nature to observe it. The soul must be in a listening attitude in order to distinguish the peculiar notes of the voice of the Lord. The listening attitude is morally typified by Elijah’s position at the mount of God — alone, without food, and subsisting only on God’s provision for him. It is solitude with God at Horeb, unsustained by nature, that is the true preparation for spiritual judgment and instruction.
Demonstrations of Power
In the histories of God’s people in the Scriptures, we find that humiliation and disaster immediately succeed some signal mark or demonstration of God’s power in their behalf. Why is this? Simply because to be signalized is always dangerous, unless the soul is simultaneously kept conscious of the necessity of dependence on God. When the disciples told the Lord that even the devils were subject unto them, He replied, “Rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:2020Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)). What God is to me is greater than anything God does before me.
No sooner is the song for the marvelous deliverance from Egypt ended than the children of Israel are murmuring on account of Marah. What does the great demonstration of power in the passing through the Red Sea avail them now? They must realize their dependence on God as a very present help in time of trouble. The great deliverance proved to them His value, but Himself and not the proof is the only sure blessing in every time of need. Therefore there was a need that they should be brought into such trying circumstances.
When David reaches the summit of regal consequence, he numbers the people, but in his humiliation he learns God in a way that he had never known before. In his fall respecting Bathsheba he had learned the depth of God’s restoration, so now he learns in the hour of humiliation a much fuller revelation of His mind than he had ever known before. Not that it is good to fall, but God’s grace is a greater thing to my soul than the acts of His power, and therefore David advanced more in moments of repentance than he ever did in any season of honor and glory. Paul found more strength to his soul from the communication, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” than from all the evidence of the glory which he had seen in the third heaven.
Dependence and Love
The source of strength and blessing to man is in dependence on God. A manifestation of power has a tendency to make me independent of God, as having power on my side. There is ever a craving for power in the natural mind because the thought of man since the fall is that if he had power he could do better for himself than God would do for him. Man did not primarily in his nature deny the power of God. He distrusted His love, and as His power without love could not be trusted, the power was distrusted too, but at the same time it was always desired.
Men may own God’s power abstractedly, but His love — never. They therefore seek the one to accomplish what their own love for themselves, not what God’s love for them, would seek for in it. They have no faith. Man would use any borrowed power and personally glory in it; consequently, the moment man is engaged by the power of God, apart from communion with Himself, it must be a snare to him and must leave his soul barren and unfruitful. The consciousness that the Powerful One LOVES me and is beside me is the true invigoration of the soul. When Elijah heard the “still small voice,” he returned to his work like an omnipotent man. When David was at the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, he was in spirit and intelligence more advanced than ever he had been before. When Paul said, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches ... that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9-109And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9‑10)), he had reached the summit of moral glory.
I like to see the power of God that I may magnify His name, but the more I do so, the more do I desire to realize in an unseen nearness that He is my God. The latter is always dearer to me than the former. Have we not seen gifts and distinct powers from God become a snare to the church, and the possessors of them, over and over again? The soul can easily become more occupied with the expression than with the heart of Him from whom it came.
The Inward Sense of Power
Powerful teaching blesses me just in proportion as I can realize the love of Christ, of which the teaching is the exposition. If I am engaged with the exposition, as I might be by a poem, then it is mental and not spiritual. Later, if I find that I need the results of the exposition, I discover that I received it and felt the power of it without appropriating it to myself as the very sentiments of God’s heart toward me. The consequence is, I am worse off than if I never heard, for I am humbled when I thought I had gained something. Real power, after all, consists in the inward sense it produces, not in the outward demonstration of itself. Paul would rather speak five intelligible words than possess the gift of tongues as a mere demonstration of power. People sometimes wonder at the manifestations of God’s power, as if they were total strangers to the manner and greatness of it in their own souls. An undue place is given to that which nature can more readily apprehend, for with nature it is always from the outward to the inward, instead of vice versa.
May we be spiritual enough to own every gift and power from God as given, to the church, from the church, and for the church, but also may we know the “still small voice,” the secret communion, the unseen link which should be our real resource rather than any demonstration of power.
Girdle of Truth, Vol. 5