KI 13:14-15{ELIJAH going up in a chariot of fire is not a bit more wonderful as a testimony to Elijah, than the grave of -Elisha is to him for a testimony,' when the man they were burying was cast into the prophet's sepulcher. " And when the man Was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood upon his feet." The same power of the Spirit, which caught up Elijah without dying, now wrought to vivify and send back a dead man to the earth, as a witness that the God of Elijah was equally with Elisha's dead bones in the grave.
Elijah is wearied, as we see, under the juniper tree; so God takes him away, and the mantle' drops on Elisha that he may go on with the testimony. You must take up these two ministries, of death and of resurrection life, if you would ever lay claim to keep the testimony of the Lord.
I think of the jealousy for God of that blessed One on the earth, whilst, as perfect too in the grace that could place Him side by side of the woman by the well; perfect in righteousness, perfect in grace, for " grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." If I think of the testimony of the Lord in His life and death-that perfect testimony which has now come in by the Holy Ghost— such a testimony as that of a Man gone up into the heavens when he had glorified God, and finished the work that was given Him to do—what do I see? I look at the Man passed into the heavens, and I see Him there, "the faithful and true witness” who was never weary.
And then another- thing too; blessed be God! not like Elijah.. He is not gone there alone. What I mark is this, that, now He is ascended, He calls us out in righteous title into the place where He is, and God sends the Spirit down as witness that all is between Him and us as it should be. Let that “nail in a sure place" be that on which everything hangs. If I say é, word about the other nail of which we read hi. Isaiah, I can afford to see it go down, with all that came in with it of the old Adam. Oh! what a thing to say, I know a nail in a sure place, on which God hangs all His own " glory, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons."
Next I say a word about the earth. Oh! the contrast that there must be between the earth and the heavens-that earth that rejected Him! What a world it has been that has cast out the Son of God! It has impoverished itself beyond recovery. It has refused to be loved. God has spent all He could, on trying to recover man to Himself; but the perfection of the love of the Father's heart, and of Christ's, has only brought out the iniquity of the human heart. The cross is the proof that man is irreclaimable; and, if he could' add an insult to what he did then, he will send a message after Him, by the martyred Stephen, saying, " We will not have this man to reign over us." In principle it is always, " Not- this man but Barabbas."
What must men be who could come back to such a world again, with a Barabbas instead of the Christ of God? but that is what has been done!. If I take a glance at what those are who have taken a place with Christ rejected at the right hand of God, I find that I have a new order of men. What are they? " If any man be in Christ he is a new creation." You must look at the work of Christ, and measure it by the glory of God. It is the " Fellow'" of God that I have before me; the One who " thought it not robbery to be equal with God." And if He raised up that Man and seated him at His own right hand, what is the first act of the Father of glory from that place where He sits? I See He sends down the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost comes and rests on that little company at Pentecost to claim them for the Father and the Son; and are they not a new creation?
I do not want to look back to Adam except to ask, What was I? Miserable clay, only fit to display the wisdom of the potter. I say, Look at Christ! and not merely for shelter either; He is that, but I do not want to be sheltered by the glory; I have not a bit of the bad thing left to be sheltered. What are you to do with a bit of flesh? If there were a sin left what are you to do with it? If I look at myself-why everything that is outside Christ, is Adam the sinner. I ask is there a bit of that flesh which you brought into the world with you left? It was my nature, but I have nothing to do with that nature. What power is there in a man to overcome his fallen nature? He is overcome already, He is " sold under sin" by that sinful nature!
But look what God has wrought in the person of Christ on the cross. Is there a sin left? I do not want shelter, but death. The extinguisher is put on the old man judicially by God, and I do not want to look at it; the mischief is where we take it up to have a look. Resurrection does not make us one in life with Christ; it is because we are one with Him in life and righteousness that we are raised up. Do not let any one say, we shall be a new order of men; we are so now.
I get the descending One, the Holy Ghost sent down by the blessed Son of God gone up. The revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is necessary for the new testimony; I cannot do without the Father, the Son,-and the Holy Ghost.
What is it that I have further to put off? I have simply to put off the image of the first man; the reproach of Egypt is rolled from us, and away we go, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and like Him. I do not want shelter, but manifestation in glory. The person who is one with Christ, must be secure enough. I need not dwell on that.
But I have been taken away from what I meant to speak on: of ourselves and the heavens now.
I would say the heavens and the earth are necessary to a new order of beings. He wants the heavens, and it is the place where we worship. Everything has been adapted to what suits the new order of man. Where is the place -in which you worship? " Inside the veil," if you know what that is. There is not a worshipper but is inside the veil. Do not talk of having " happy thoughts!" I want to know what produces them.
Is it being inside the veil, and the right ones supplied?
And we go in, in what relation to God? I go in to learn not about my sins, but to prove what it is to be accepted in the sweet savor of Christ. I am afraid not many of us are abiding there. I only speak of that to make it plain, to any here to whom it may not be so, what the thought is that we have as to worship. I state that you must go to heaven to worship, in the Holiest where God dwells.
Then, when we come back to look at earth again, as surely as ever we get into understanding the true meaning of it all, we shall see that Paul is in his right place in prison. Paul is as exactly in his place below, as the Lord is in His place above. The height reaches, and characterizes, the depth. The height to which you take a thing, is the depth to which it will fall. When Paul wrote his epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians their scope corresponded precisely to what the Lord Himself was, in the glory above the sun, which He showed him when He opened to him heaven.
Now come back to the second of Kings, to this little pictoral representation of a great thing. I get here, in principle, what we have been saying. Was there virtue wherever Elisha was? It was life out of death. Would you take life out of anything else? Not I! Not if we are true to Christ.
But who is this that quotes Elisha's words to him? “My father, my father!' the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof! " One, Joash, the king of Israel, comes down in faith to Elisha; there was but one man to whom he could go. It is a wonderful thing to get the eye single enough to cling to Christ only, and to no body else. Faith will follow God, look to God, and none else. I will not look at this man's faith; whether driven or drawn, he has come to the right person; and, when I am there, whatever my difficulties may be, I say, It is nothing! provided Elisha be the true prophet of Jehovah, and our Jesus be really the Son of the Father. It is nothing!-If I take my place in the fourteenth of John, I find: " If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it."
We are brought together. But in prayer the point is, not that you may get an answer; that will come in as a consequence; but, that the power of God may come -out,-and that He may be glorified in the Son. If-We are in the right place, and asking the right thing, the cream of our answer-do not forget it -is that God may be glorified, and the Son in whose name we ask.
I get this man saying, “My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" And Elisha rises, sick as he was, and Says to him: " Take bow and arrows; and he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand, upon the bow, and he put his hand upon it; and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands." " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." He says, I charge myself with the whole thing; I take it out of your hands into mine. He loves to associate Himself with us. There is the secret; there is the power. "Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands."
And what else, does he say? “Shoot: and he shot.” And see what Elisha, pledged himself to. “He said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance." This is, as I said, “that the Father may be glorified in the Son." Elisha had taken the matter into his own hands. As surely as Elijah said to Baal's worshippers, “If there is a God, call upon your god," so now Elisha looks up and calls upon his God. And to you who know what it is to have His hand upon your hand, the word is, " If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." We shall be sure in our turn to be put to the proof, and, when faith is put to the 'test, as to its measure and quality, the word is then, “according to your faith be it unto you." I get the pattern of the right thing when Elisha's hands are upon his hands, and the opened window.
" He smote thrice and stayed!" Why? That was the measure of his faith. Oh, what a lesson. We are straitened in ourselves; you may know that by the pattern thing here. It is cording to your faith be it unto you."
Let us seek to encourage one another in the Lord. You will be put to the proof by God, but in what a blessed way.. ".Thou shouldest have smitten five of six times." Our faith will never come up to the spring head, but, however short it falls of what it might be, there is no such thing now as the Man who stands for us being " wroth " with us, like Elisha.
What are your expectations in the scene where you are, where everything is to be measured by that Man at the right hand of God? Do we stop at our three times, and think what we have done? or go on to the five or six fillies, and see what- God will do?
In the second of Timothy Paul is instructing his son in the faith by the bow and arrows, just as Elisha was guiding Joash. The apostle had learned his lesson with the Lord alone, and could say: " Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." He then opens the window, or writes this epistle to Timothy, and bids him to shoot and to smite on the ground, putting his hands upon his son's hands, for God, he says, " hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power." Paul was himself a prisoner in the mouth of the lion; but he says, I go into the mouth of the lion in order that I may know the arrow of the Lord's deliverance in it. So God delivered the faithful servant says