YP Address—B. Anstey
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#46 in the appendix.
Have I an object Lord below?
I understand that the young people don't like brethren who get up to the podium and speak, as one young person said in Hieroglyphics.
Well, this afternoon it is my intention to use great plainness of speech. Like the Apostle Paul said, I want to speak straight from the shoulder, so to speak.
About a very important subject in your life, perhaps we could say the most important subject in a Christian's spiritual life.
And I trust by the time I sit down at the end of this meeting, you'll know what I said. You may not agree with what I'm going to say because I'm going to speak to your heart, and I trust to your conscience as well. But you'll know what I said I trust. So let's look first of all at an opening verse by way of introduction in First Chronicles.
Chapter 9.
Verse 26 and 27.
First, Chronicles 926. For these Levites, the four chief porters were in their set office, and we're over the chambers or that could read the storehouses and treasuries of the House of God. And they lodged round about the House of God because of the the charge was upon them and the opening. And that should read the the key to the opening thereof every morning pertaining to them. Let me read that last clause again, the key to the opening thereof.
Every morning pertaining to them.
I want to use this verse as an introduction to the subject that I have before me. I think this is very, very interesting. We learned from this scripture that there was a key to the storehouses in the House of God, and these men had the care of the House of God had that key, and the opening and the use of that key would open the storehouses whereby the people of God could be fed and given the blessings that were there in the House of God.
This afternoon, what I want to do is to give that key to each one of you young people. Perhaps we could say it's a golden key, a key that is going to open the the storehouses of God on high for your life. It'll be the key and the secret for blessing in your life in a spiritual way. So I want you to listen very carefully to what we're going to speak of this afternoon, and I want to bring it before you by way of tight.
About 3 things that are so very important that we must make room for in our lives. So suppose we could say that this key that I want to give you, this golden key is a key with three prongs to it. And if you'll use this key, dear young people, you will have great prosperity and success in your spiritual life. And so now let's turn to 2nd Kings Chapter 4.
And I like to look at three separate incidences in the life of Elijah, along the lines of the need for.
Making room for divine things in our life.
2 Kings Chapter 3 to start with.
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Now to save time and to bring us up to speed with regard to this chapter.
It's really from verse 5 on to the end of the chapter. I'm going to just tell you the story and I'll read a few verses. So first of all, let's read from verse 16 of chapter 3.
And he that is Elisha.
He said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches, for thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see when neither shall you see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink both ye and your cattle and your beasts. This is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand, and you shall smite every fence city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all the wells of water, and mar every good piece.
Of grant a land with stones.
And it came to pass that in the morning when the meat offering was offered, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armor and upward, and stood in the border. They rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red.
As blood, And they said, this is blood. The kings are surely slain. They have smitten one another now. Therefore Moab to the spoil.
Well, the story here is.
3 Kings got together in an alliance that was not blessed of God. There was a godly king, there was a professing, a king of Israel, and there was a worldly man who knew not the Lord the king of Edom. And they got together, they were going to attack the land of Moab. And since if you know the geography of Moab, is a land that bordered Israel to their east, but on Moab's east behind Moab was a vast desert.
Of hundreds of miles and on that side of Moab's land they never took to defend themselves because no one could ever come across the desert to ever come in from behind to get them. They only armored their their West side towards the children of Israel. At any rate, these 3 kings got in a on a mission. They were going to attack the king of Moab and they got this idea that what they would do is that they would take a journey of seven days, make a great circuit out into the wilderness and then circle in behind and attack them where they're not defended.
It was a great idea, they thought, but they hadn't asked the Lord for his direction in the matter. And what happened? After about seven days, they found that they were wandering in the wilderness. They were lost in the wilderness, so to speak, and they ran out of water, and they were in an awful predicament. And so they called on Elisha, and he said, those words that I read to you make ye ditches.
Make the valley full of ditches, and that God would supply water by the miraculous power that he had. And so I believe that this is the first thing that we need to make attention, bring our attention to, and that is the need to make room for the water of the word of God in our lives.
Here we have this terrible and this sad situation of this association with this godly king Jehoshaphat linking himself with these ungodly men and now getting himself into this predicament so that they were, so to speak, circling around aimlessly in the wilderness and in desperate need of water. It may be that our lives are like that. We have made links with people of this world that have sapped our strength and have got us on a course in our lives that is going to lead only to destruction.
And what we need is the water of the word of God in our lives. Dear young people, if I'm speaking to you this afternoon and is anyone here that is found in such an alliance or association with ungodly persons in your life, you're going to end up, if you haven't already, wandering in the wilderness without water, and you're headed towards a spiritual disaster in your life. They did the right thing. Thank God they turned to Elisha.
Elisha, in this chapter and in Chapter 4, is a type of Christ, and that's what you need to turn to this afternoon. If you feel that your life is nothing more than dry and you feel like you're just wandering around and you're making no progress at all, I entreat you this afternoon to turn to the Lord Jesus. Tell him of what you feel in your soul, and he can supply a remedy. And so the exercise for the children of Israel and with these ungodly kings was to make the valley full of ditches. They had to get down, and they had to dig.
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And make holes. They had to make room for the water that Elisha was going to send by the power of God. And that's what we need to do too, dear young people, is to make room in our lives for the word of God. Do you take time in your life to have the word of God have its rightful place in your busy day? Going to school or going to work or whatever you're doing? Do you have a time When you are, you can set aside whereby the Word of God can be opened and God can pour you out a blessing.
This is essential to the blessing that God wants to give. As I said, it's one of those 3 prongs to that important key to our spiritual success in our life. What we find here and then, I'm not just sure, perhaps some older brother can tell us just how the water came. He said it wasn't going to come by rain, but anyway, the water came. And just as the word from Elisha was, the whole country was filled with water. They had more than they needed because they obeyed his word and they made room for it.
I hope that's the case. Will be the case, if it has not already, with each one of us here this afternoon. Isn't this interesting? What we read here in verses 21 and 22, that when the enemy rose up in the morning and the water was filled in all those ditches, they looked out and the sun was shining on it in such a way and it reflected red. And so they looked at it and they saw that looks like blood. They must have slain each other and killed each one. So they decided that they would rise up to the battle. But that wasn't the case at all.
And you know what? It really? It really speaks to us of what is refreshment for the child of God.
Looks like death to the man of this world.
The man of this world that looks at what is refreshment for us, which is the water of the word of God. It is nothing but looks like death to them.
They see a Christian who holds a Bible in dearly and reads it and studies it, goes to Bible meetings like this and so on. And they think that's death. How could anybody have any interest in that? And I'm reminded of that scripture that the apostle gave that word that he gave to the Colossians. He said, Gee, your life is hid with Christ in God. That is the spring of our life. It hid from the man of the world. They can't understand what makes a Christian tick, why a Christian does what he does.
And why he is satisfied and refreshed. From reading the word of God, it looks like death to him. If we take a man of the world and bring him into a Bible meeting and told him what we do throughout the week as a Christian, reading the scriptures and having Christian fellowship, he'd say that's death, that's death. It looked like blood to these kings. But all that was refreshment for the children of God. I wonder. I trust that each one of us know what it is to drink of the refreshment of the water of the word of God.
It is one essential thing that is needed in our lives. Now let's go on in chapter 4, verse one. And there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband is dead. And thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, And the creditors come to take unto him my two sons to be bondsman. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee?
Tell me, what hast thou in thine house In the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil?
Then he said, Go, borrow or ask the vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few. And when their heart come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and thou shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him. She shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her. And she poured out, and it came to pass them when the vessels were full.
That she said to her son, bring me yet another vessel. And he said unto her, There is not another vessel. More. And the oil stayed. And she came and told the man of God, And he said, Go and sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. Here we have a second incident in the life of Elijah that really illustrates the importance of making room for another divine thing, and that is the oil of the Spirit of God.
I suppose most of us here know that the oil Oil in the word of God is a figure of the Spirit of God. In the first instance we had the exercise of making room for the water of the word of God here. Now on this story we have the exercise of making room for the oil of the Spirit of God. How important it is that we would have the power of the Spirit of God in our lives and His activity working to help us to live the Christian life.
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And to give us that abundant life of happiness and joy and a life of meaning and fulfillment, Well, the story is we are met with a woman that is poverty stricken. It doesn't tell us how she got into that condition. That's not the point of the lesson. It's how she got out of it that we want to learn what God has for us. But having said that, let's turn to a fruit few verses and we will see what really does bring spiritual poverty in the lives of God's people.
Turn first of all, hold your finger here and turn first of all to Genesis 45. I'm going to run through a few verses just quickly to give you a summary of really what Mark's spiritual poverty and those who are characterized by that Genesis 45 verse 9.
HG Go ye up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me Lord over all Egypt, Come down unto me, and tarry not, and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen. Thou shalt be near unto me, thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish thee, For yet there are five years of famine, lest thou and thy household and all that are thou hast.
Come to poverty. Come to poverty. Here we have Joseph, who is another type of Christ, entreating his brethren to come around and live their lives close or near unto him, pick up their lives in the land of Israel, and to come to Goshen and arrange their lives around him. And then he warns them, if he didn't do that, that they were going to come to poverty. And so here we have the first great thing, and that is the need for.
Dwelling or living near to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It says the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him. And how important it is that we have a life that is arranged around the Lord Jesus Christ. So this speaks to us of nearness to Christ. Turn to Proverbs.
Proverbs chapter.
6.
Verse 6. Go to the Ant thou sluggard, and consider her ways, and be wise, which, having no guide or overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will thou sleep, O sluggard, when thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall poverty come to as one, as one that traveleth and I want as an armed man. So here we have another thing that would contribute to poverty, and that is a lack of energy and diligence to gather food like the ants, food from the word of God.
Turn on to chapter 13, verse 8. The ransom of a man's life for his riches. But the poor heareth not rebuke. The poor heareth not rebuke. Here's another thing that characterizes the poor, spiritually speaking, is that he can't listen or won't listen to his brethren, won't listen to rebukes. And if there's a rebuke that comes from this podium this afternoon, will you hear it? Dear young person, dear older person, That's what marks a person.
Who is spiritually?
Poor turn to chapter 21, verse 17.
He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. Now that word pleasure there, and the margin says sport, or it could be translated a recreation, that sort of thing, taking your ease and you know, sitting backwards, the young people say kick back and whatever they do. So the point here is not so much that sport or recreation is sin or wrong, but it's the loving of it. It's the giving ones of oneself to it.
In such a way as it becomes.
The the central thing in the life, the loving of sport and pleasure, You see that today amongst young their lives are filled oftentimes with that from morning to night. I'm not speaking against it, don't get me wrong, But if it's that which is the central part of your life, to the point where you love it to the exclusion of the things of God, then it's utter proportion and it's going to bring you to spiritual poverty. And that's all there is to it. Turn onto one more scripture in chapter 28.
Chapter 28 verse 19. He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread.
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But he that follows after vain person shall have poverty enough, and here we have.
Bad associations, bad companions will lead you also to spiritual poverty, and so that's a good little summary to consider.
Who are our friends and companions? Are they those who will build us up in the things of God and encourage us? When one among your number may say let's skip the next meeting and then someone says no, let's not skip the meeting, let's go and we can go do something after the meeting.
What kind of companions do we have? They will lead us, if they're bad companions, into spiritual poverty. So there you have some clues as to what leads a person into a condition of poverty. Though, as I say, that's not the focus of this chapter that we're reading in Second Kings Four. It's how she got out of poverty that we are to get the license. Now this is very interesting and very instructive. The Prophet again is a type of Christ.
It's beautiful to see that she recognized her condition and she went to him and told him, and I think this is very nice, that we would take our troubles to the Lord, that we take spiritual inventory and realize that we're really poverty stricken. We hardly have any understanding of divine things. We may feel spiritually poorer in the presence of our brethren, go to the Lord Jesus like she went to Elisha and he asked her, have you got anything in your house? And she said, well, I only got a pot of oil. Well, as I said, the oil speaks to us of the type of Christ, a type of the Spirit of God.
And you know something? Every Christian has a pot of oil in his life. Every one of us have the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God.
And he was going to use that pot of oil to pour out a blessing in that woman's life. And God wants to use the Spirit of God to pour a blessing in your life, too. But the exercise for her was to make room for it. She had to go and get as many vessels as possible, borrow them from friends and neighbors, and to bring them in so that the spirit of God, or rather the oil under the power of God, could be poured out for a blessing in her life. But there's one thing I want to point out here that is so very important and gives us a clue.
Having the power of the Spirit of God in our lives, look very carefully now at that fourth verse, he said, One hour come in, Thou shalt shut the door upon thee and thy sons, and shall pour out into all those vessels. She was she was told to close her door first, before she took that vessel, that pot of oil, and began to pour it out. That is very instructive, Forrester. Friends, the closing of the door brings before us the shutting out of the outside influences.
Those influences of the world and so on, that affect our judgment and cause us to lose spiritual apprehension. She was to close that door and then take that pot of oil and begin to pour. And what happened was a miracle took place. It poured and it poured, and it poured and it poured until she had filled every vessel she had in her house, until her house was full of oil. And it's a picture you see for us, of being filled with the Spirit of God.
But isn't it interesting that it was consequent upon her closing the door to the outside influences?
Of the world, dear young person, God has given us these types to teach us some very valuable lessons. You want a blessing in your life? Of course you do. And God wants you to be blessed too. One of the opening verses that was quoted in prayer yesterday was that God wants to open the storehouses of heaven and pour you the windows of heaven and pour us out of a blessing is so great that we won't even be able to contain it, and that's what he wants to do. But it's up to us to make room for the spirit of God to work in our lives. That means that we may need to get rid of some of the trash that's in there.
So she was to shut the door and the miracle took place and the oil ran and ran and ran. What an instructive lesson for us. You know, it's kind of like to make this more simple. And I said, I'm going to speak straight from the shoulder. It's kind of like a man in a room. Now listen to what I'm going to say. It's kind of like a man in a room. And out of the one wall is this great hose leading to the outside influences of this world and all of its contaminations and defilement and everything else.
And on the other wall he has another hose, and it's attached to heaven, and through it pours all of that pure oxygen.
Of the heavenly things that God has for a Christian that would build up his spiritual constitution.
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And on the end of each one of these hoses is a valve that could be turned and would allow to come in.
Those things through the pipe or through the hose.
And you know, if we have the valve open to the influences of this world pouring into our lives, it is going to hinder our spiritual progress. It's going to SAP our spiritual energy and strength. It's going to take away our appetite. It's going to spoil our judgment. 1000 things could be said about it. It'll take us away from the Lord sooner or later, you know.
Sad to say, every one of us.
Live in a room, so to speak, like that.
And there are many, many young people that have not understood the importance of closing down the valve of those pollutants and the pollution, pollutions and the contaminations and so on that are coming in to us and being bombarded from the world. And sad to say, too many Christians really don't have the valve open on the hose that leaves from heaven that heavenly atmosphere that we should have into our lives. And what's happening is, is that we're suffocating.
It's damaging to our souls, dear young people. Am I describing your life?
Am I describing your life?
There are some young persons that I'm not here to point fingers at anybody who seemed to be so intoxicated with the pollutants of this world that they're like a man going over to the wall and putting his mouth on the hose and inhaling with all his worth.
And become spiritually intoxicated by all of that. Now you know what I'm talking about, but I said I was going to speak plain to you today.
There are so much in this world, you know, technology is making advances so fast.
But the devil just sees everyone of those new inventions as another way to bring pollutants of this world into our lives, and we seem to be so simple minded that we don't realize it.
You got the TV, we've got these DVDs and all these movies and garbage that is coming into us. These, you know, iPod and all. I could go on and on and list all these things. You know them better than I do.
Now I know that they can be used, I suppose, to listen to hymns and so on.
But I'm not so naive to think that that's what young people today are doing and using all these technological advances and things for. And, you know, all that kind of stuff is only polluting our souls.
And it's causing the Spirit of God to not have liberty to work. We're grieving him. We're quenching the spirit of God.
You know what I'm talking about. You listen to this rock music.
This kind of stuff is damaging to your souls. You may not think so.
A dear brother that I know, who listened to that stuff for a long time as he walked in the world, got delivered from the world and he said to me as if I didn't know. He said to me 90% of it is all to do with drugs and sex and rebellion and that kind of thing.
Is that what you want to be listening to? That's what they're promoting. It is the music of rebellion against the standards of society and the old blue laws, so to speak, and of young people are just inhaling that full speed. Is it going to do any good for you? No, it's not. Look at the movies that I hear that young people are listening to. In my generation, if someone went to watch a movie, they wouldn't go and tell their brethren. But today I was talking to a young person not too long ago, not naming names.
He said to me it's incredible he had moved from the country to the big city and.
He was used to rejoicing it. He said it's incredible, you know, the things you can do. Everything's at your fingertips. And he said, you know, like, well, movies. So we just walked down to Blockbuster Video and got these movies. He's telling me this.
Like, you know, are we that insensible that here we are even thinking that there's nothing wrong with this kind of stuff?
And what are these movies all about? Usually they got a killing scene in it, a chase scene in it, a sex scene in it, and that's what you're listening to and watching.
Really true, I know it is. Dear young people that kind of pollution is affecting. Desensitizing your moral standards and bringing it down to the level of the world. It is going to kill you sooner or later. Spiritually speaking, it says if we live after the flesh, ye shall die. Romans 813.
Now, you may not like what I'm saying, but you said you wanted to hear somebody talk straight, so I'm talking to you straight.
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It's going to suffocate you sooner or later. Now, I know some people, young in various degrees, various young people, We're all at different levels. Some have that one valve partially on a crack open, maybe the other ones in various degrees. But whatever the case is, you know what I'm saying? We need to shut out those pollutions in this world. What's the obvious answer to all this? Well, close down the valve to all that pollution and drink in the heavenly atmosphere, but listen to what I'm going to say next.
And you may not like this either.
You know something? You can't do it. You can't close that thing down on your own strength. You cannot do it, you said. That's ridiculous. I could stop watching a movie if I wanted.
That's the point. You don't want to.
And you can't. The Scripture says it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You don't have the will to do it. That kind of stuff. Being brought into your life at any kind of degree or at any length of time brings you to a point where you don't have the spiritual energy to reach up and close down that bell. That's the truth. You may not like it. It's a fact. And God knows that, even if you don't know it. And so I think it's so beautiful to see that when God takes up the subject of deliverance from the world and all of its contaminations, that what he does.
Is that he presents the principle of displacement. Displacement is the only answer. Now let's turn to a few scriptures. Hold your hand here and I'll show you what I mean.
And this is the key to deliverance dear young people. So listen very carefully Isaiah Chapter 7 verse 15.
Butter and honey Shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. Now notice the order of things. It is to eat the butter and the honey. And then we have the knowledge and the power to refuse the evil and to choose the good. That's the way God usually presents deliverance from the power of the world. It's on the principle of displacement. And so this is going to be very important way to get ourselves out of spiritual poverty.
And into spiritual wealth, like that woman that we were reading about. Butter and honey are words that are used on milk and honey are to describe Canaan and its fruits, which is a type of heavenly things. We drink in those heavenly things. It'll give us the spiritual strength to shut down that other stuff. Turn to Isaiah chapter 31.
Just give you a few verses as we sprinkle, as they are sprinkled through scripture as they are 31, six.
Turn ye unto him, That's the Lord from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. For in the day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, but your hands have made.
You for a sin. Isn't this interesting, The idea of turning unto him and then turning away from the idols.
Let me see if I can find another passage here that might be helpful to this end.
Jeremiah, chapter 15.
Verse 16 and 17.
Thy words were found and I did eat them. Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers. Isn't that interesting? He drank in the pure sweetness of the word of God, and it was giving him strength to sit, not with the assembly of the mockers. Isn't that interesting? The Second Chronicles, chapter 30. I think it is where you get Hezekiah.
Second Chronicles 30 This is the chapter where the children of Israel were called to come up to Jerusalem and to enjoy the presence of God at Jerusalem and keep the Passover.
Second Chronicles chapter 30 read verse 26. This is the summary of that great chapter. And so there was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon the son of David the king of Israel, that there was not like in Jerusalem chapter 31 verse one. Now when all this was finished all Israel.
That word present went out into the cities of Judah, and break the images in pieces, and cut down the Groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin and Mephram also Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.
Then all the children of Israel returned every man to his possession into their own cities. Here again they enjoyed something in Jerusalem.
And it gave them strength to go out and break their idols. Who told them to do that? Hezekiah didn't say no, I want you to go home, and I want you to break all those idols. No, they tasted something better and they were through the idols. Now let me give you one from the New Testament. So you don't think it's only an Old Testament principle? 2 Corinthians, chapter 3.
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2nd Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18.
But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, Chapter 4, verse one. Therefore, having seen we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, and so on. Isn't this interesting? The apostle was speaking about looking into the face of the Lord Jesus and enjoying what there isn't from heaven in him. And then he turns around and says, and we renounce all the hidden things of dishonesty and crafty.
And all that. Again, you see that same principle. You'll find it throughout the word of God. I can probably give you a couple of dozen places where that's found. It's usually presented on that line. Isn't that interesting? And so, dear young people, what I'm now saying is what you need to do is to open the floodgates of that one valve and let as much of that heavenly things come into your life as you can.
Mr. Hayhoe used to say, read scripture till you think in the language of Scripture. Just saturate your life with Scripture and the word of God and the things of God. We're thankful that you've come to these meetings and have been to be here under the sound of the word of God. That's good. It'll give you the strength to reach up and to close down that valve that is contaminating your life.
It's important. It's so essentially important. You know, I was thinking of.
The old illustration you've probably heard many times has been among brethren for way over 100 years. It's the story about the young man that complained that he, when he read the word of God, he wasn't getting anything out of it. He just couldn't retain it. So he was telling his older brother, And the older brother said, well, take this Wicker basket and go over to the fountain here and fill it up with water and bring it back to me. So the young man went over there. Of course he came back with the basket. It was empty, just dripping with water. And then the old man said, well, go do it again. So he went and did it again a second time and brought it back.
And.
The older man, the younger man said, well, what's the point here? They won't hold water. And the old man said, as you probably know the illustration well, he said, yes, it didn't hold water, but it's an awful lot cleaner. It's.
An awful lot cleaner. The water flowing through it cleans us up wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way. The Bible says by taking here there are two unto the word of God. There's a cleansing power in the word. Well, anyway, the antidote to this story is Mr. Darby heard that story. Someone told him that illustration. He listened to it and he said, Oh well, if you want the basket to stay full of water, just keep it in the fountain.
I thought that was good. Think of the fountain here. And he keeps pulling it up, pulling it out of the fountain. Well, just leaving in there. Who said to take it about taking it out if you want to be saturated with the water and to keep it, stay in the word. And that's what we need to do, stay in the word, drink in the word. God would have us to do that.
It'll give us the power to live for His glory and for his praise. And so this is a very important key, shall we say. This is the second prong to this great golden key that I'm trying to give you this afternoon. That is to make room for the Spirit of God in your life. He will bring a blessing. He will help you shut down all of those outside influences that you don't have the power on your own strength to do. But the story is not finished. Let's look at one more incident in the life of Elisha. Now let's read on in verse 8.
And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to shoot him, where there was a great woman stopped there.
The word great here should be translated wealthy. The first woman we had was a poor woman. The second woman we have is a wealthy woman. And it's very important we want to learn something from this. You know, you can get books. My wife has had them before. It's never done us any good. But anyway, books about.
You know they people write in chronicles things about rich people, how they get rich and what they do and so on as to how they end up rich and.
You know, they'll tell you what time of year to buy a car and when and why to sell their house and so on and all this kind of stuff. There's certain things that rich people seem to know how to do. The rest of us don't know anything about it, and they even written books about this kind of thing. I know it.
And, you know, they want people to learn from them. Well, you know, in a certain spiritual sense, we should learn something here from the rich people that we find in the Bible, too. Like Boaz. He says he was a mighty man of wealth. And this woman to shoot him, she was a wealthy woman. Let's learn something from her, what she did, and we might get a great blessing. Well, it says that the great woman as she constrained him, that's Elisha to eat bread. And so it was that as OFT as he passed by, she turned in.
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Thither to eat bread.
And she said unto her husband, Behold, now I perceive that this is a holy man of God, which passeth by continually. Let us make a little chamber. I pray thee on the wall, or with walls, and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a Candlestick. And it shall be that when he comes to us, that he shall turn in thither. And it fell on a day that he came thither, and turned into the chamber, and lay there. Now we have another illustration.
And the life of Elijah that is so essential to spiritual blessing in our lives, God intends for us to get a understand this typically again Elijah is a type of Christ. And this woman here she sensed or perceived that he was a holy man of God and she and.
Invited him in to come and have a meal with her, and the idea of eating a meal with someone is the idea of fellowship.
Scripture. So the picture here is, is that she wanted to have fellowship with this man.
And as I said, he's a type of Christ. Ah, this is good. This is a good lesson for us. You want to be spiritually wealthy in your soul. We need to copy this woman and what she did here, She encouraged.
And we, I would like to say to you, we would like to encourage you and myself as well, that we make room for the Lord Jesus in our lives. And so they had, she had fellowship her and her husband with this man. And I would like to encourage you to take time to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus, to make room for the Son of God. So what they did was they didn't want just to have an occasional meal with him, just a little fellowship. They wanted to have a more sustained fellowship. So they decided that they should make a little room for him, little place where he could come and dwell there. They enjoyed his company so much that they wanted to have it last a little longer. And So what happened was they said let's build a little chamber. And so when he comes by, why we can have him there longer with us. Oh, that's so beautiful.
It's so instructive for us. And so here we have the third thing, and that is making room for the Son of God in our lives. The first little exercise was to make room for the word of God, the water of the word of God. The next exercise was to make room for the oil of the Spirit of God. But the third exercise is to make room for the presence of the Son of God. Oh yes, we want to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus. And so she said, let's make this little chamber. What would that speak to us all? The little chamber.
Friend Junior speaks to herself. The Chamber of our hearts. We all have a little chamber here, and what we should be seeking to do is to encourage the Lord Jesus to come and dwell in our chamber.
That we might enjoy his fellowship and his company. Dear young people, this is the key to spiritual blessing in your life, to know what it is to have fellowship and communion with the Lord Jesus. And so they said we know what they seem to know, that it would have to have walls in it, and walls in Scripture speak to us of separation from evil. No, She knew that since he was a holy man of God, that he needed to have a place that would have walls in it. And it's the same with the Lord Jesus. You know he can't dwell in an unclean place.
If your heart is full of entertainment of this world and the corruptions and so on, are you going on with something in your life?
You will not be able to have the Lord Jesus in your chamber in this practical way that I'm now speaking. So it's important that we have walls there. And then also, she said a bed. Yeah, she wanted him to stay the night. She wanted him to stay longer where he could rest. And then a table. What does a table speak to herself? Well, and script. Your table is always the thought of fellowship, was where the meals are eaten. And so there's fellowship. And then we have a stool. A stool. Why would they include a stool?
Well that was so she could sit at his feet and listen to his instruction. That's the place of a learner to sit on a stool. And you know that's what we had in the Bible reading here when we read from Luke chapter 10 about Mary. She sat at Jesus feet and heard his word and the demoniac when he was delivered from all of his trouble, where was he found? He was found seated at the feet of Jesus and in his right mind. And every right minded Christian sits at Jesus feet and they and they hear his word and they learn something. So the Lord has got lots to instruct us.
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We need to take the stool of the student and hear his word. And then it says a Candlestick. What's that? Speak to us all? A Candlestick. Well, it's big to us of light and testimony. There's going to be light and testimony as a result of having the Lord Jesus in our lives in this very practical way. Oh, dear young people, what a wonderful book of lessons that we have in the Bible. Now let's summarize what we've had.
Let's talk about this now. God wants you to enjoy the storehouses of heaven.
He has stored up so many rich blessings for your soul, and we've read that there is a key to the storehouses of God, and God wants to give you that key. He wants you to use that key to go there and open it up and to take in those wonderful things that he has for you. And as I've put it tonight, this afternoon, it's like a free prong key making room for the water of the word of God in our lives, making room for the oil of the spirit of God in our lives, and making room, most importantly of all, for the Son of God in His presence.
That is the key to spiritual progress I have given to you. Now, as we draw this meeting to a close, I have given to you the key to spiritual success. Will you come and take this key from my hand and let the Lord Jesus pour out a black God, pour out a blessing in your life? It's all there for you. And he wants the very best. And so do we. You know, dear young people, we don't want to take everything away from you. It may sound like, oh, you're illegal.
You don't understand the needs that we have and all. Don't worry about that.
We're not trying to take anything away from you. We want you to get a spiritual blessing and we know.
What is damaging your soul? And that's why we have spoken so plainly here this afternoon. And so the storehouses of God are open to you. If you'll use that key, will you take it from the hand of the Lord Jesus, so to speak, and begin using it in your life, and prove that goodness of God?
Let's sing one more hymn.
153 I believe it is.
Yes, 153 Whom have we, Lord but these?
Some brother raised the tune.
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Now let's pray, Father.