Address—Bill Prost
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Could we sing together #332?
332.
A well known hymn in the gospel, but notice the slight change of tents here to adapt it to believers.
Just as I was, without one plea, and then the second verse the same, just as I was referring to what we were, And finally the last two verses, just as I am.
332.
I'd like you to turn with me please to.
A little story, a little incident in the Book of Second Kings.
That has been much on my heart lately.
Second Kings chapter 6.
Just a little short incident here, but one that is recorded in God's Word, I believe, with a real message for us today.
Second Kings chapter 6 and we're going to read together the incident at the beginning of the chapter, just the first 7 verses.
00:05:06
Second king 6 and verse one. And the sons of the prophet said unto Elisha.
Behold, now, the place where we dwell with thee is too straightforward.
Let us go, we pray thee unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam.
And let us make a place there where we may dwell.
And he answered, going, And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. But as one was falling a beam, the axe head fell into the water. And he cried and said, a last master, for it was borrowed.
And the man of God said where fella?
And he showed him the place.
And he cut down a stick and cast it in there, and the iron did swim.
Therefore, said he, take it up to thee, and he put out his hand and took it.
As I said a moment ago, I've had this passage on my heart quite a bit lately.
For some reason it had an appeal to me.
Searching perhaps in my own soul, what special message it might have for us today.
There can be different thoughts on it.
One thought is which I enjoy very much and I'm going to mention.
Is that God has a real interest in the little things, what would seem to be on the one hand, inconsequential things in our lives, and yet there is nothing in our lives that really is inconsequential, nothing too small for the Lord. And here the Lord has a care even for a man.
Whose axe head fell into the water?
I appreciate that.
And I don't mind confessing to you that right from the time I was a boy, my mother taught me to go to the Lord with little things.
Help with an exam? Help when I was in any kind of difficulty?
Help sometimes in getting away from some bigger boy that was occasionally bullying me, even if sometimes I had done something to deserve it.
Helping little things and sometimes when we get older.
The things don't seem so little anymore, but some of you may be aware of a book out there that someone out in the world has written entitled.
Don't sweat the small stuff.
And then in the fine print underneath it says and it's all really small stuff.
Well, if the world can say that, how much more you and I can say it? Because in the light of eternity, many of the problems down here all are really small stuff, aren't they? But the Lord is interested.
But then there can be another application of this, and some perhaps have read the pamphlet written by our late brother Clarence Lundine, which I very much enjoyed, in which he likens the axe head to the law.
And the axe handle to you and me in the flesh. And of course the two don't fit too well together, do they? As Peter could say in Acts 15 concerning the law, Why tempt ye, God, to put upon the necks of the brethren a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? And so he points out that if man in the flesh tries to.
Live up to the.
Standards of the law. Inevitably the axe head flies off the handle and goes into the river, and it requires that tree, which is a type of the death of Christ, in order to bring that.
Axe head back to the to the handle, so that as we get in Romans 8, the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Not that we're under law, but in walking according to the Spirit we fulfill the moral requirements of the law.
00:10:20
Very nice meditation.
I'd like to go at this little passage in a bit of a different way, and I will leave you to decide whether it fits and whether it's of the Lord or not.
Here we find the sons of the prophets, with Elisha living in a place.
Who were the sons of the prophets? They figure quite a bit in the history of Elijah, and if we went back a few chapters, we would find that these sons of the prophets surface a number of times, beginning with the day when Elijah was taken up into heaven.
And without going into all the detail, we find that at that time those sons of the prophets were intelligent as to the mind of God. They knew that the Lord was going to take Elijah up to heaven.
And yet somehow it didn't have the proper effect on their hearts, so that when they voice their intelligence to Elisha in a somewhat peremptory way, he says, yeah, I know it. Hold you your peace.
He couldn't have full fellowship with them because what they knew up here did not translate into a walk that was in keeping with it. And as a result, after Elijah was taken up, we know very well that they.
Insisted on sending fifty of those young strong men out into the mountains and valleys to see if just perhaps the Lord had only done half a job in taking Elijah up to heaven. I speak with reverence. And it somehow dropped them into some valley or on some mountain, and he had to be sought out by a search party.
Later on, the sons of the prophets surfaced again at the end of chapter 4, and they're hungry because there's a famine in the land. And Elisha by the Spirit of God is used first of all to set on a great pot and feed them with pottage, and then later on to feed them with bread of the first fruits which were brought to him. And there can be a lot of good meditation.
On that.
I would suggest that in the type that fits the day in which you and I live, the sons of the prophets would speak of those who have been brought up under the sound of the Word of God.
Of which I would suggest this group is largely composed, although maybe not all, but most of you here have grown up under the sound of the Word of God. Many here are very intelligent as to the Word of God.
And the question I speak to my own soul because thank the Lord, I fit into that category too. Does what I have learned have that effect on my heart and on my walk that others can see that it is a reality to my soul?
It is a challenge to my heart. I trust it is to yours too.
I don't think the sister in question will mind my mentioning this, but a little while ago, just prior to the prayer meeting, I was talking to an older sister here who said that this was the 65th St. Louis conference that she had attended. Or perhaps the 64th because she said I had to miss one year, but the first one she came to was 65 years ago.
I thought, isn't that wonderful that you and I, many of us now, I can't look back that far to coming to a Saint Louis conference, but isn't it wonderful that so many here can look back to such privileges? And I believe these sons of the prophets represent that. And where were they when this story starts out?
I'd like to make a suggestion. Turn back to chapter 4.
And there we read in verse 38.
Chapter 4 and verse 38. And Elisha came again to Gilgal.
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Gilgal.
You will remember that when Elijah and Elijah started out on that journey, at the end of which Elijah was taken up to heaven, they started from Gilgal and they went from Gilgal to Bethel, to Jericho and to Jordan.
We know that there was a Gilgal on the banks of the Jordan, or very close to it, a place where after Israel had crossed the Jordan after their 40 years in the wilderness.
They renewed circumcision and they placed those 12 Stones taken out from the bed of the river Jordan, as it were, a memory, and the Lord commanded them to do it as a memory that.
They had now, as the Lord said and God had done it, rolled away the reproach of Egypt from them. From that point on, those rivers of those waters of the river Jordan flowed between them.
And the wilderness, and ultimately Egypt. And it was a place to which they went back, and properly so after every victory.
I'm going to suggest to you that this Gilgal and the Gilgal mentioned in chapter 2, from which Elijah and Elisha started out, is not the same Gilgal.
It's not the same place. If you look at a map, you would find it impossible to go down from Gilgal to Bethel and then to Jericho and then to Jordan. You would kind of be going backwards and forwards.
There were two Gilgals in Israel.
And I would suggest that this was the Gilgal that was far to the West. There was another Gilgal quite a way to the West, probably about 10 miles away from the city of Samaria, and that that was Elise's home.
Where did it originate?
We find it mentioned way back in the book of Joshua. Let's turn back there just to see where it was.
Or at least read about it. Joshua chapter 12.
Joshua, chapter 12.
And here I would suggest we find that Gilgal mentioned.
Right down at the end of the chapter where?
Just a moment here.
Joshua 12 right at the end of the chapter where it mentions all those kings that had been conquered and noticed in verse 23.
Joshua 12 and 23. The last clause of the verse, The king of the nations of Gilgal 1.
Again, not the Gilgal near the banks of the Jordan, a royal city way off up somewhat in the hills close to Samaria in the West of the land of Canaan. A city, I would suggest, that is typical of where the Lord Jesus came from on his way down to this world, typified by that journey from.
Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to Jordan.
A royal city.
And I would suggest that for you and for me, that city, at least to me, has the significance of heavenly places. That is where Elijah dwelt, that is where he spent his time, and that is where you and I, by rights, ought to live.
When we read the book of Ephesians, we find that we are risen and seated in Christ in heavenly places. And it doesn't just say we should be there, it says we are there. God has placed us there because He wants you and me to enjoy, even now, all of those heavenly things that rightfully belong to us and of course will in that coming day be ours in total reality.
When we are there, when we have glorified bodies, when we are taken right out of this world.
And when we can enjoy them to the full. But the Lord says, as it were, I want you to live there now.
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But that is a challenge.
That is a challenge.
It might not seem that difficult, and yet it is.
And the heavenly calling of the Church has been one which the devil has attacked almost more than everything else, because he knows in the words of another that when the Church loses the sense of its heavenly calling.
Humanly speaking, it loses everything, and that is true. And the devil's efforts, if I may say so, in these favored lands as to, and not only now, but in many years past and right from the beginning of the Church.
Has been to drag Christianity down to the level of this world, to make it a worldly religion, a force for good.
In this world, so that the believer loses sight of his heavenly calling. And then of course he has to start working with the world. He's dragged down to the level of the world and he loses.
His character as an ambassador and loses his effectiveness.
Heavenly places.
Very, very difficult to maintain, to have a heavenly calling, to be a citizen of that heavenly place and yet to walk down here.
Not in isolation from the world.
Reaching out to this world, being in the world but not of the world. We tend to go to 1 extreme or the other, don't we?
I would suggest that here this Gilgal brings before us a heavenly collie. And what happens? Ah, we find that there are those sons of the prophets dwelling there with Elisha. They appreciate his company, but they say the place is too straight for us.
You and I might answer, How could that be? How could a place, how could a heavenly calling be too straight for us?
All because if I am going to enjoy my heavenly college, it means that I have to say goodbye to things that are in this world, and they tend to have a tug on my heart. I have to say goodbye to my own desires, my own ambitions, my own thoughts, everything that has to do with me.
And say as we sung in our hymn together.
Here for a season, then above.
O Lamb of God, I come.
I've been impressed lately with how many there are in this world. And it has been the character of this world for many years, hundreds of years, thousands of years to have the horizon of one's thoughts as the life down here and how important they all are. And I don't say that things down here aren't important. We have to live and move in the world. We have to make a living. We have to have a place to live. And it's only right that we concern ourselves with those things.
And in no way would I suggest that it's wrong for a young person to seek a career, wrong for a young person to have certain thoughts and ambitions. But remember that God points them out as a means to an end, not as an end in themselves. And all too often the devil crowds our minds with those things so that they become an end in themselves and we lose sight, as the apostle Paul says to Timothy.
We lose sight. This is the Darby translation. We don't lay hold of what is really life.
These young men said the place was too straight for them. They didn't feel comfortable there.
And in one sense, that was a sad thing, because they didn't feel comfortable enjoying those heavenly things.
And they said we want to go down to find a place where we can dwell.
Forgive this little story, but at a general meeting not too long ago within the year, I sometimes keep my ear to the ground to hear what people are saying about the meetings and I heard a bit of rumblings and grumbling about how that there wasn't enough practical ministry.
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I took it to heart, I trust.
It's needed. On the other hand, let's remember.
That if our hearts are in the right place, the practical things will take care of themselves.
A brother back in the 1800s lamented the fact.
That we have to spend so much time on the details of life and on the practical application of things in Christianity, rather than enjoying the great truths and principles of that life itself.
He wasn't saying it was wrong, he was saying it's a sign of our state.
And don't think for a moment that I'm pointing the finger. There are three fingers pointed right back here.
We need the practical side, but I've been struck by the fact that in Abraham's life, even though he made mistakes, we never read of the Lords having to administer a rebuke to Abraham.
Why? Because his heart was right. And as Clarence Lundine reminds us in his pamphlet on Abraham, communion took care of everything. Things adjusted themselves in the proper way.
Exercises in his heart, which were given of God, caused him to change course if he'd gone in the wrong direction. So it will be with you and me.
Well, anyway, we better go on here. What do we find happens?
The sons of the prophets want to go down and make a place where they can dwell.
And in one sense it was a good idea because, as we will see, they went to the right place.
They want to go.
And Elisha gives his approval. He says go ye. And I would suggest Elisha here as a type of Christ.
He says you go ahead. They had his mind, the mind of the Lord. But then they want Elisha to go with them and how beautiful that is. They don't want to go without Him. They had seen that in Him which touched their hearts.
Even though perhaps their hearts were up, as it were, to his level of spiritual understanding and enjoyment. And how good it is when you and I have the desire to go after Christ. And I say to each one of you, and may I be allowed to say this especially.
To the young people here.
If you have a desire to go after Christ, a sincere desire, the Lord will work it in you. He will take you and mold you, Even if, if I may say it kindly, sometimes He has to pull you along, dragging your feet a little bit because it's not too comfortable. Allow me to say that that has happened to me more than once. Or I've said, Lord, I wanna follow thee.
And the Lord sometimes has to say, All right, this is the way.
Oh Lord, please yes.
It's worth it. And so they wanted to have a relationship with him. He says, I will go, isn't that beautiful? And I say to your heart and mind, God values a desire in your heart. Maybe you don't know how to do it. Maybe you say the way it's difficult. Maybe you say I'm not sure how to work out the details.
Ask the Lord to do it and He will do it.
Sometimes it may not be all that pleasant.
One time a brother.
Went to another brother and he said oh brother, he said, I want to get to know the Lord better and I want my faith to be increased. I don't want to enjoy the Lord more and to be drawn closer to him.
The older brother said well let's get down on our knees and pray about it. Well, I can't fault that, can you? So they got down on their knees and prayed. And the older brother?
He prayed, and he wasn't praying with his tongue in his cheek or in a humorous way. He meant it. He said, Oh Lord, he said, we pray for this dear brother. We pray for this dear brother who wants to learn more of thee.
That you will send lots of trials and difficulties into his life and lots of things that no doubt will be a real problem to him and the younger brother said. Brother, please, I didn't ask you to pray like that.
Oh, no, no, no.
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The older brother wisely said. Brother, you let me finish my prayer.
And he prayed earnestly that the Lord would bring that into his life, which would cast him on the Lord, and which would bring the Lord.
Into his thoughts and into his heart as a definite living reality.
It's true, you know, it has to come that way.
All our blessings come to us through the obedience and suffering of Christ, and our enjoyment of those blessings comes to us in the same way.
Well, let's go on here. We find that they come to Jordan.
That was a long way to go. You would wonder why they went to Jordan. Do you know why I think they went there? It doesn't say, and I don't want to read into Scripture what isn't here. But is it possible that Elisha took them there? I think he did. He recognized that that was the place they needed to go. Why did they need to go there?
Because it was the Jordan which Israel had crossed many hundreds of years before this when they entered the land.
Now, we don't want to go into this too deeply, but you and I know that the pathway of Israel from Egypt to Canaan.
Has many spiritual lessons and the Red Sea if we could say it, and we don't have time to develop this, but you can go at it yourself. The Red Sea brings before me my death with Christ.
The children of Israel, it tells us, went down into the Red Sea. It doesn't say they came out, although of course they did, but it isn't recorded.
In between there was the wilderness, not part of God's purposes, but part of his ways. And then it never says that they went down into the Jordan, but it does say that they came out. That is the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce in the sense that the Red Sea is Christ's death for me, the Jordan.
It is my death with Christ.
The Red Sea is Christ death for me. The Jordan is my death with Christ. That is, it is my practical realization that only seeing the death of the old sinful self and walking in newness of life.
Only in that way can I enjoy.
The land of Canaan. Only in that way can I have the power for conflict with the enemy, to enjoy those heavenly things, and these dear sons of the prophets, although brought up in that land of Canaan, and party to all its privileges.
Had to realize that dwelling in Gilgal was too straight for them.
And Elisha knew that they needed to come back to the Jordan. I have a feeling that he took them there because it was a long way and you might have thought that there was surely somewhere a little closer where they could have built themselves a place.
But they go all the way to Jordan.
Very, very nice. Very necessary.
Are you and I not enjoying our heavenly calling as we should? Do we feel the lack in our own soul?
Oh, we need to get back to the Jordan. We need to get back to that place.
Where we realize what our Savior did for us. We mentioned already those 12 Stones that were there at the other Gilgal to represent and remind them that they had come through that Jordan.
And that there were those 12 Stones.
Representing the fact that they took their place as dead and risen with Christ.
But what was at the bottom of that river?
12 other stones.
And again, we don't have time to develop that.
But we notice that those other 12 Stones were not put there by direct command, nor were they put there by the people of Israel themselves.
They were put there by Joshua. Joshua put them there. He put them there, as it were, for Israel, for Joshua is a type of Christ in that situation and he puts them there. Where were they?
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Long out of sight because as that river once more flowed over, those stones were Unsee. And yet by faith an Israelite could stand on that bank and say, that's where I belong. That's where the ark stood when we passed through and those waters separated. And it's very significant. They went all the way back to the city. Adam, isn't that beautiful? There was a city by that name going all the way back.
To the beginning of man's history.
The death of Christ answered everything wonderful.
And then the water flows over.
But there's more. That Israelite is a picture of what you and I can do and what God wants us to do. He brings us back repeatedly to that Jordan, first of all, to recognize properly.
That we are dead and risen with Christ. But more than that, to recognize that there was a cost involved, that Blessed One, typified by that ark, had to stand in that river Jordan.
Until everyone passed through on dry ground.
And those stones were there, as it were, as a reminder.
And the Lord brings us back from time to time to that place that our affections may be drawn out.
Well, what happens here?
They go to work, they're going to build evidently a log house, and it seems that in those days they didn't have chainsaws, as we know.
Nor did they have what I was used to as a boy. And this kind of dates me. Good old fashioned crosscut saw with a man at each end. To cut down a tree they would add it with an ax.
And here's a man felling a beam during what they could say had the Lord's approval in a sense, through Elisha. Elisha was there. He went with them. And as we said a moment or two ago, I believe.
He was the one that brought them there.
But then this poor man is busy felling an axe, no doubt putting all he had to it, and away goes the axe head into the river.
Does that happen to you and me sometimes?
Sometimes we get a little upset in our Christian lives. We believe we have the Lords mind in doing something, and perhaps we feel that the Lord even has LED us to a place of going right back to first principles. Right back to the point where we recognize where we were before we were saved, recognize the need to see the death of that old sinful self and to walk in units of life.
In order that we might enjoy those heavenly things. And yet the axe head falls into the water and we say, Lord, what did I do wrong? Why is this? And maybe if you're like me.
You get a little bit upset. Sometimes we even get to the point where we say this is not fair.
That's what Job did, didn't he? In the Old Testament? He didn't quite think this was fair, that he, a good man, was suddenly subjected to one of the most severe trials ever recorded in the history of Scripture.
The axe head into the water.
But you know, this man reacted in the right way.
When we are at the Jordan, we react in the right way and all he does is simply go to Elisha and say, alas, master, for it was borrowed. I love that it was implicit.
Acceptance of what had happened and faith that Elisha was equal to the situation. Oh, can I impress that on our souls this afternoon? Allow me to quote Brother Harry Hayhoe, as I'm afraid I do rather often.
The secret of a happy Christian pathway is to take your circumstances from the Lord and your difficulties to the Lord.
This young man doesn't start saying a lot of things as to why it happened, nor does he immediately go to Elijah and say, Elisha please fix this problem I want to get this tree cut down. No, he simply goes and says oh oh master it was borrowed.
And I say to your heart and mind, whatever difficulty there may be in your life and mine, let's quietly lay it before the Lord. If you're anything like me, we like to think now what can I do to fix this? And especially if you're naturally a fix it person, especially if you're capable, then you say, what can I do to fix it?
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But there's no way you can fix an axe head at the bottom of the river, is there?
Unless you've got a scuba diving outfit, and even then it might be kind of hard to find, there's no way you can fix it quite that easily and I believe the Lord often is allowing circumstances your in your life and mine where we have to say Lord.
We don't have any way to fix this, and so we go simply to the Lord, as this young man did. How beautiful.
It was borrowed. What does that say?
It was boring. Wasn't even his axe. Oh dear, that makes it worse. You might say an axe head isn't that serious. Although this man didn't have an Ace Hardware to which he could go, or a Home Depot or something like that where he could pick up another axe without any problem. Probably have to go to a blacksmith and get one specially made and might have taken a bit of time and energy, but it wasn't even his and perhaps he didn't even have the resources to go and get another one.
You know this.
Tells me and I trust this is the right application. You decide.
Your life and mind does not belong to you and me. We like to think that we are our own persons, that we are in charge of our own ship, that we are able to plot our own course, that we are able to direct our own steps.
But way back in Jeremiah it says it is not in man to direct his steps.
Is not a man that walketh to direct his steps. It wasn't at any time.
Reminds me of an old autograph book that my mother owned.
And then at a young man with a lot of zeal for the Lord.
Had written the last two lines of a verse in hymn 283 in our Little Flock hymn book. Love that transcends our highest powers, demands our soul, our life are all.
Evidently, at some later point, my mother, as a young woman, had asked that young man's father to write in her autographed book. And in perusing it a little, he naturally came upon his son's entry. And since his son had not used up the whole page, he took the other half page. And he put that verse down. You're not your own year. Bought with a price, therefore glorified God.
In your body and in your spirit, which are Gods Good compliment, wasn't it? On the one hand there is our exercise to follow Christ, on the other hand.
Alas, master, for it was borrowed. If you and I lose the axe head in the river, let's remember that.
Well, the Lord may have allowed it. It's a life that he has. Claim over first, claim first, claim in everything.
So the axe head goes into the river.
What do we find?
To me this is significant. Verse six and Elijah said where fell it? I didn't read that right, did I? No, it doesn't say Elisha, it says the man of God.
The man of God. Why so?
I said earlier that I believe Elisha here is in one sense a type of the Lord Jesus, but in another sense he's a type of one who by virtue of his walk with the Lord and his experience with the Lord, can act as a leader in a guide in a day of difficulty. And if you trace the expression man of God, and it applies to a sister too, if you trace that expression throughout the word of God.
Try it sometime. If you have a Bible program on your computer, plug in the phrase man of God and see how often it occurs. But I suggest always in connection with an individual who stands out as being 100% for the Lord in a day when there is difficulty, in a day of ruin, in a day of giving up. And I may say that we need men of God and men of and women of God today who are willing to stand up and be counted.
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For Christ, you know the truth is being given up today. And I say that not with any degree of pride. I trust we say it with all humility. But may I suggest to you that the truth of God?
Becomes more valuable as it is given up.
Man of God.
I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. My late father, who's been gone for a few years now, worked most of his life as a farm laborer for a very wealthy man who not only had a nice farm, but had a number of houses and small apartment buildings. And my father, being a bit of a Jack of all trades, was kind of did a lot of farming, but he trouble shot a lot of little problems that people have in rental houses and rental units.
And his boss, who was no believer.
Not infrequently made fun of his Christianity, and also of the fact that he was gathered with a somewhat despised body.
Known as those that are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, my father usually didn't answer his arguments, but one day it seemed that the boss did it once too often. And my father usually wasn't that quick on the draw, but the Lord seemed to give him wisdom that time. And so my father, to my astonishment, because I overheard the conversation, rather abruptly changed the subject. And he said to the boss, he knew. He knew he'd get a rise out of him. He said, what kind of profit did you make on the farm last year?
Well, this was in the 1960s when farming wasn't as profitable as it was back in the 40s, and the boss immediately said, ah, not very well. We we broke even, but that's about it.
Well, my dad said why don't you sell out? Because he knew that every farm pretty much around him had been encroached on by the city, and most of the farmers had sold out to developers for what they considered big money. And my dad's boss was pretty well the last one holding out. He said why didn't you sell out, get out of the business, Why bother with all the hassles and just breaking even?
Well, dad's boss walked right into it, as we would say. He said, oh, he said, you don't understand. He said, I don't need the money. I'm doing OK on my houses and apartments. I don't need the money. I'm holding out. You watch. He said, I'm going to be the last one to sell out. And when I sell out, you just watch all those other farmers, they're going to turn green with envy when they see the price I get for the land compared to what they settled for.
I'm holding out or I'm going to get top dollar for this place.
Well, my dad said.
May I suggest that it's the same with the truth of God? He said. If it's being given up and it is being given up, he said If it is the truth of God, and I know it is, it's according to the word of God, he said.
It's not losing value because a lot of people giving up. It's going up in value, he said. You know that a scarcer, a commodity is the more of a price it commands, he said.
In the coming day when I have to stand before the Lord, I'm going to get top dollar too, I think. Now, my father didn't say that with pride. He just used the boss's own words. As you can imagine, that was the end of the conversation. And I say that to you and me this afternoon. We need men and women of God today who will stand up for what they know the word of God says and who will say before the Lord? I'm willing to live for His glory.
Whatever the cost is, well, these young men, what happens?
The axe heads at the bottom of the river. Why that? What is the ax head represent?
I'm going to suggest a little different thought than what others have advocated. Again, I say you can decide if the application works.
Sometimes we really want to follow the Lord, and sometimes we are really in the pathway of His choosing. And then something adverse happens, and even if it may seem on the surface to others to be something insignificant.
It seems pretty important to us.
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This accent was important to that young man. It was devastating.
And maybe something devastating happens to us.
To me, that axe head can represent.
In your life and mine something that the Lord wants to speak to us about. It may not always be a gross sin, but it may be something. It may be that, but it may be an attitude, may be a trait of character. It may be something in my.
Walking ways something in the circumstances of my life that the Lord says, do you really want to enjoy me more? Do you really want to enjoy what I have for you?
And then he allows the axe head to go where? To the bottom of the river.
In one sense, it's an appropriate place for that to happen because that river, as we said, speaks of Christ.
We realize there our death with him. We realize what he suffered for us, those stones at the bottom of the river. We realize that we, if we take our place with him, have come through that river, and sad as it were.
I reckon that everything to do with self needs to be at the bottom of that river.
And properly speaking, even that act said Lord, if that is your mind.
It's hard to lose the accent sometimes, isn't it?
And this young man didn't say, oh, Elisha, please give it back. Please give it back. He just says, alas, master, for it was borrowed. Our time is nearly gone. But the rest is simple, isn't it, Elisha? What does he do? He says, where's the place? Where is the place? Why? So what does it matter where it fell in? Oh, the Lord wants you and me to be able to identify the problem. He wants us to confess it. He wants us to say, Lord, that's wrong.
I need to deal with that. Thank you, Lord. He wants us to identify the problem.
And then he cuts down the stick and cast it in thither, and what happens? Ah, the iron did swim.
The iron did swim.
There is power in the death of Christ.
The blood of Christ puts all my sins away, figuratively speaking. That happens way back in the land of Egypt, where the blood was on the door.
But here it's the death of Christ, signified by that tree, which speaks of the cross.
And the death of Christ puts me away all that I am in my old sinful self.
In order that I might walk in units of life. Ah, the Lord through Elisha gives that young man the axe. Head back. But now it's different. It's been to the bottom of the river. Now it comes back again.
Now I know in this case it was the same accent.
It was the same accent, but figuratively speaking, that axe head has been to the bottom of the river. It now comes up again.
And it's different before God. It's different. There's a recognition, yes, there was something that needed to go to the bottom of that river and come up.
And Elijah simply says, put out your hand and take it. He had to take it. Now he can take back that which formerly.
Was he using it for the Lord? In one sense, yes. Was he using it in the right way, with the Lord's approval? In one sense, yes. But with something there that the Lord wanted to bring before him and perhaps before those other sons of the prophets. Now I say this is a type.
But God doesn't put these little stories in his word just for a bit of interest so that we can say, Oh yeah, that's interesting, Somebody lost his accent. They're meant for you and for me.
He put out his hand and took it.
Now he still had to take it and put it back on the axe head, so this time it's not going to fly off.
I've had this happen to me in natural terms, have had axe heads fly off and the heads of splitting moles fly off and so on. And when we put them back the second time, perhaps we take a good strong metal or wooden wedge and we drive it in a lot harder and hope that it doesn't fly off so easily the next time. But this is a spiritual illustration. This man takes the axe head and puts it back, and figuratively, figuratively.
00:55:07
It's different. It's been to the bottom of the river.
Well, our time is gone.
May God bless this meditation, I trust it's of the Lord.
Can honestly say I didn't read it anywhere but I believe.
For my own soul, that it does bring some precious truths before us, which the Lord would have us consider in these last days.
And which can be used in blessing to us if we are willing to willing to recognize how the Lord would speak to us, how He would love to have us living in that heavenly Gilgal.
But how he sometimes sees necessity to bring us back to the River Jordan.
A good place to come, how he sees the necessity to allow the axe head to fly off.
But only in order that His grace, and it is His grace.
We speak reverently, dear Elisha could have said well.
I'm sorry, but why are you so poor that you can't even have your own axe?
And why were you so careless? Not to secure that axe head a little better, I guess you'll just have to cut your losses and do the best you can. No, isn't it wonderful? The grace of God meets us where we are, if we only admit where we are. Never fear to admit where you are. In God's presence, He'll meet you where you are. It's when we pretend to be what we're not that we're in trouble. Well, let's sing part of another hymn in closing.
225.
225.
And we'll sing just the last three verses.
The last three verses of 225 verse three while here in the valley of conflict we stay, oh, give us submission and strength is the day.
Soon, free from affliction to Thee, we shall come and find with our Savior.
A Heavenly Home 225, verse 3.
I'll here in the.
End.
01:00:41
Can't get this lid on anymore.
Must be getting old. Uh, one more little story. Singing this hymn always reminds me.
The man who wrote the worldly hymn after this one was pattern in the spiritual sense.
J Howard Payne, an American who wrote those words mid pleasures and palaces, though you may roam, be it ever so humble, There's no place like home. And so on. I'm not quite sure of all the circumstances, but he ended up being exiled from home and there is a very good story.
Sad story about him of how once in London, England.
Cold. Friendless.
Broke.
Huddling under a Bush in the front garden.
In front of a wealthy home in the Hampstead area of London, which is the wealthy area of the city.
And there he was, trying somehow to keep himself out of the wind and the rain.
And what should he hear inside but the cords of a piano and singing?
And you guessed it, what were they singing?
There they were inside, warm, well fed and happy, singing the song.
That he had written.
I've often thought of that.
He had nothing to which to look forward.
You and I in this world.
Look around us and perhaps there isn't much that gives us a lot of comfort.
But oh, what joy.
The Lord wants to fill our hearts with what joy as we look forward to that wonderful eternity. We don't have to huddle, as it were, and listen to the world having a good time. No, you and I are the ones that have.
The real joy because we are definitely hasting toward home.