A lovely example of the workmanship of the Spirit is presented to us in the Shunammite woman, whose faith with its fruits, trials, and triumphs, is the subject before us. One fruit of faith much commended in Scripture is that enjoined upon us in such passages as the following: "given to hospitality" (Rom. 12:1313Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. (Romans 12:13)). "Use hospitality one to another without grudging." 1 Pet. 4:99Use hospitality one to another without grudging. (1 Peter 4:9). "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Heb. 13:22Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2). "I was a stranger, and ye took Me in." Matt. 25:3535For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: (Matthew 25:35). What a beautiful instance of such hospitality is presented to us here. "And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that, as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread." The lowly husbandman of Abel-Meholah, a welcome guest with the "great woman" of Shunem, is a lovely illustration of what grace can do. Nor did she know, as it would appear, anything of him when she first "constrained him to eat bread," save the homely garb, the unpretentious exterior of the man.
Another fruit of faith much noted in Scripture is the capacity of discerning and owning "like precious faith" in others. Who could give a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple if he had not the capacity of discerning the badge of discipleship? Beautiful is the display of this spiritual discernment of where God had set His mark and put His honor in the case of this godly Shunammite. She had shown him hospitality as a stranger, and afterward "as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread," but in these repeated interviews she saw enough of him to make her long from a deeper motive to provide a more permanent accommodation for him. "She said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither." The Lord grant us, beloved, to be so in communion with Himself that wherever His name is truly confessed, and His Spirit dwells, we may be quick to discern and joyful to own His handiwork.
The Shunammite's appreciation of the tastes and habits of her guest is another lovely trait which the Spirit has been pleased to note in her ways. It was Martha's failure (Luke 10) that while she truly and devotedly loved the Lord, she little appreciated His glory and the errand on which He had come from heaven to earth; she thought to please Him by providing for Him a sumptuous feast. To think of entertaining God manifest in the flesh with a feast! Not so Mary. She knew that He had come not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. She spread the table and provided the feast that He had really come for the purpose of enjoying, by sitting at His feet and opening her heart to drink in the words of eternal life from His lips. This godly Shunammite shared the same characteristic. She had Martha's hospitality with Mary's appreciation of her guest, and her guest was but mortal, a servant of God indeed, but still a mortal man. Martha and Mary's guest was the Lord from heaven. Elisha enjoyed a hearty welcome at the home of the Shunammite; there was even an apartment set aside for his use, where he might turn in and tarry as long as he would. But what a tale does its furniture tell! There was no provision for the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life. A bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick are what it contained. A pilgrim's accommodation showed how entirely the Shunammite had appreciated the pilgrim character of her guest. Would that there were more of this heavenly simplicity among us, beloved. Would that our hearts were so in heaven that we might feel, as to one another, that even our hospitality must be after a godly sort-cordial, large-hearted, without grudging, as the Apostle says-but yet not as though we looked upon each other as in the flesh, or thought we could gratify one another by making provision for its lusts.
"Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have," is the exhortation of the Apostle. How the spirit of it was exemplified by the Shunammite! Elisha instructed Gehazi to say to her, "Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care; what is to be done for thee? wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host?" God had wrought a great deliverance by Elisha for the king and his allies but a short time before, and thus, for the season, he could doubtless have had of the king whatever he asked. But the Shunammite wished for nothing that the king or the captain of the host could give. "I dwell among mine own people," was the reply of her contented spirit. Can we in any way so powerfully testify to the world of its vanity and the emptiness of all it offers? If anything can tell on the conscience of a worldling, it is to see a child of God so conscious of his portion in his Father's love that he declines when it is in his power to accept a portion here.
But if Elisha, like an apostle of later days, was destitute of silver and gold, and if the Shunammite did not care for what his temporary favor with the king might have procured her, it was because he and she had interest in other things, and she did not refuse what the prophet promised on behalf of "God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." She was childless and her husband was old, but the prophet assured her that at the set time she should embrace a son. The promise thus given, God fulfilled it, and a child, direct from his hand, crowned the faith which had already produced such lovely fruits. How the Shunammite must have loved her son. With what inexpressible tenderness she must have nursed him in infancy, and watched the unfoldings of his faculties as from infancy he passed to boyhood, and from that to youth. But she had to learn the lesson that God is the God of resurrection, and it will be well for us if God's record of His dealings with her should be used of Him to help us learn that lesson too.
"And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head! And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died." What a stroke was this! The child whose birth had crowned her faith and whom she had received, as it were, direct from God's hand, had died. Was this God's reward for the care which He had put into her heart to have for His servant, the prophet? Was it for this that God made Himself known as the quickener of the dead, causing the barren to bear, only that when the child was born he might be suddenly torn away? No, she had better thoughts of God than this. It was not that she questioned His right to take what His mercy had bestowed. But her faith gathered from the past what God's meaning and purpose was in dealing with her as He had done, and she was not without hope. But her son was dead. What then? It was from God, who quickens the dead, that she had received her son. What could she do? That was not the question. What rather, could God do? That was faith's question, and thus there was no case too extreme for faith because there is none too extreme for God. Faith knows and trusts. "With God all things are possible."
Circumstances which produce utter despondency where there is not faith, are to faith only the occasion for more singly and entirely trusting God. "And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again." The husband remonstrated. It was neither the new moon nor the Sabbath day, and his faith went not beyond the ordinary exercises of devotion, if indeed he were a mat; of faith at all. Faith like his wife's, who did not give up her son though dead, because she knew Him who quickens the dead, he seemed to have no thought of. But his wife could neither be detained nor turned aside. "It shall be well," is all the reply she made, and hastened to the man of God at Carmel.
But here she was to meet with other trials of her faith. If there was anyone or anything in danger of being between her soul and God, it was the prophet, the man of God. To own him as the prophet of God was indeed at that time the test of faith in Israel. God had honored him in fulfilling his promise, on God's behalf, that the woman should have a son. But it was possible then, as it is now, for the channel through which blessing flows to come between the soul and the Source from whence it was supplied. At all events, the Shunammite was to learn that even the man of God could of himself do nothing for her. To all the inquiries of Gehazi she had only one answer-"Well." She was not to be detained by him. "And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me." One word from her revealed the whole, and the prophet at once dispatched Gehazi with his master's staff to lay upon the face of the child. Whether the prophet did this under divine guidance for a lesson to Gehazi, as well as to try the Shunammite's faith, or whether, as the matter had been hidden from him by the Lord, he acted in his own wisdom and strength without any direct guidance from God, I would not say. It is suggested as an inquiry for prayerful consideration. In either case the result is plain. The Shunammite could no more be put off with Gehazi and His master's staff than she could be detained by her husband's expostulations or Gehazi's inquiries. "And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her."
They met Gehazi returning from his fruitless journey-one of many examples that the forms and circumstances which are seen when faith is in action are all nothing apart from faith itself and the power of the living God on which faith rests. Elisha's staff in
Gehazi's hands was as powerless as any other piece of wood. The prophet's staff without the prophet's faith accomplished nothing. "There was neither voice, nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked." The Lord grant us to be exercised by the serious lesson which these words convey.
What a scene follows! Already there had been enough to make even Elisha feel that it was no ordinary case, and that through it God was dealing with him as well as with the Shunammite. Perhaps the fact that Gehazi's journey with the staff (undertaken at the prophet's request) proved entirely futile was enough to awaken the inquiry in the soul of the prophet whether God was not teaching him, as well, that the power was not in him, but in God Himself. But even if Elisha had to learn this lesson more deeply than he had as yet learned, it was not that his faith in God might be shaken or weakened, but tried and strengthened. Tried it was, but not shaken.
"When Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed." The mother's faith had placed the dead body there. "He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord." The prophet, a dead corpse, and the living God, the quickener of the dead! "And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child." So completely did he identify himself with the one for whom he interceded that it was as though he would tell God that if the child were not restored to life he could only lie there with him in death. What faith! What holy boldness!
He is given encouragement. "The flesh of the child waxed warm." There were some signs of returning vitality to strengthen the prophet's faith and encourage him to persevere. "Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him." What is all this the witness of but of that agony of prayer, that energy of faith, of which we know so little? But "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Jas. 5:1616Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16). "The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes." Prayer was heard; faith was crowned. God showed Himself once more to be in very truth the God of resurrection. And when the mother came in to the prophet into the chamber, he said, "Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet [her heart too full to utter a single word], and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out."
The Lord grant us, like this Shunammite, to know nothing, to regard nothing but Himself. How privileged we are to know Him, the Resurrection and the Life, unknown to saints in any former dispensation, in the intimacy of communion. May we acknowledge it and confess if the sin of unbelief has robbed us of our joy, but may neither this nor anything else be allowed to hide from the view of faith "God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."