Transcribed from a message given in May,
1959. The spoken form has been retained verbatim.
In the second book of the Kings, second book of the Kings chapter
4, at verse 38:
"And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the
land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he
said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage
for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to
gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild
gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of
pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to
eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that
they cried out, and said, O man of God, there is death in the pot.
And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And
he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people,
that they may eat. And there was no harm or evil thing in the
pot."
As you recognise, this is one of these many recorded incidents
in the life of the prophet Elisha subsequent to his receiving the
mantle of Elijah and the double portion of his spirit. Every one
of these is a part of a whole and the whole is the testimony of
Life overcoming death. This brief story has several features which
we will note, and I think we shall find in them something true to
all the Word of God; that is, abiding meaning and value.
We begin by noting again, that it is related to the "sons of the
prophets", men of those schools of the prophets founded for the
training and educating of men who were to succeed them and carry
on the testimony of the Lord, and become responsible people in
that testimony. It is necessary to keep that connection in mind,
because it has something to say to us. There is a sense in
which we are all in the Lord's school for training in the matter
of spiritual responsibility in His testimony. Indeed, we could say
that that is the explanation of all His dealings with us,
and of the strange happenings which He allows in our lives. It is
education, spiritual training, unto responsibility in His
testimony. The Lord has no place for irresponsible people, or
people who carry no responsibility. That's the connection.
Then there was:
A Dearth in the Land.
It was a time of straitness, a time of pressure, a time when
things were anything but easy. And all such times are perilous
times. A time of pressure, time of adversity, time of difficulty,
time of straitness, when things are hard... that is a perilous
time in this sense: that we are very often found governed by the
necessity of the time, and we yield to the pressure of
circumstances and do something or try to do something.
We've been occupied with Abraham on our Thursday evenings; the
situation was a very difficult one for Abraham. Indeed, humanly
impossible, and he yielded to the pressure of circumstances, or of
what seemed to be a necessity. He took action... and we
know the terrible result of that in Ishmael. We have quite a
number of such instances in the Bible, and perhaps the most
outstanding of all, it is a comfort to know that our Lord Jesus
did not escape this temptation for there is no doubt that the
temptation of the devil in the wilderness to Him was to act
under the pressure of necessity. "And He hungered..." after
forty days and forty nights fasting, and the devil came and said:
"Command these stones that they become bread; if you don't you'll
die; it's necessary for you to do something! Your
circumstances demand that you do something." It's always a
perilous time to be under pressure, duress, and a time of
adversity. This was a time of dearth, and so they must do
something and they go out to do it. And you see what happened;
it's a part of the whole story - it's only a part - it leads on to
the very blessed sequel.
But the next feature: this inadvertent wrong, mistake. As they
gathered, one gathered this wild vine, and it says that, "They
knew it not". Under pressure doing something and inadvertently
making a mistake, which involves in real peril of a threat to the
whole life itself.
Out there in that world, the curse was lurking secretly... for
all wild things and poisonous things came from that initial curse,
when God said "Cursed shall be the ground because of you". The
curse was lurking, as it always is; that curse which has in it the
very element of death - it's about, it's there - we are not always
able to detect, to identify. It is in the world, it is
everywhere; the deadly thing... just waiting for them,
shall we put it like this: to act like this,
indiscriminately, or by sheer force of seeming necessity,
for their very life. A trap waiting!
Do you notice that this inadvertent error, mistake, not only
involved the one who gathered the vine; it involved all those who
were in relation with the testimony. The enemy is very subtle. If
he can only drive just one child of God, one servant of God, along
this line and entangle him or her, he knows that this is a
communal pot, that it's not an isolated thing - he has got others
in view - and they were all involved in this mistake. The result:
the touch of death. Evidently they drew out and tasted, and
detected that there was something poisonous: the touch of death,
Of course, that is the point of this whole story, and of
all these stories, you see death in some form or another
abounding - the work of the curse.
But then the end. And this is where this message turns from being
one that is sombre, and perhaps not very helpful, although
enlightening; where it turns to become, I think, tremendously
helpful. When, discerning their mistake, recognising that they had
become involved in something evil quite unintentionally - they did
it under pressure, under seeming necessity - they made a mistake.
And I suggest, dear friends, that there are not many of us here
today, who, looking back over our lives, are unable to see more
than one occasion when it was like that with us: we were driven,
we were harassed, perhaps distraught, pressed out of measure; we
felt that we must do something, and we did something on
that ground. And we regret it to this day. What it involved us in,
and others too... well, it's a very real-to-life story, this is.
But that is not the message. It may be a warning; it may be
enlightening, but the message comes at the end.
They cried out: "O man of God, there is death in the pot" and he
said, "Then, bring meal". And he cast it in the pot. They drew
out, and there was no evil. What's the message? I hope I'm not
reading something into this, but if the rest of the story is true
to principle, I think its issue is true. I have to go back to the
book of Leviticus for the real clue to this issue and I will find
it in the second chapter - those chapters dealing with the various
offerings to be brought to the Lord by His people, all of which,
as you know, are related to the one thing: Life - Life with God.
The second chapter of that book, at the beginning, we have the
"meal offering".
The Meal Offering
We know a type of Christ as the Meal Offering, composed of fine
flour, oil, frankincense and salt. I'm going to stay with all
that, simply to sum it up in its inclusive meaning.
The fine flour... ground very fine... "bread corn is bruised".
Well, this Meal Offering quite clearly is a figure of the
incorruptible humanity of the Lord Jesus: a human life without
corruption in it, without the poison in it, without the harmful
element in it, without any elements of the curse, therefore of
death - His perfect humanity. Under the anointing of the Holy
Spirit with the frankincense mingled, making it a "sweet savour
offering", as differing from other offerings. The whole Burnt
Offering, the offering for sin, they were not "sweet savour
offerings"; they were offerings of judgment. But the meal offering
was a sweet savour offering; the frankincense made it that. And
the mingled salt eliminated any possibility of corruption. And
then "baked in the fire": tested, perfected, through the fires of
suffering. He presented Himself to God as a Man to satisfy the
heart of God: incorruptible, a humanity perfect.
Do you see the connection? You and I, in our human frailty, our
human folly, and in the corruption that is in our natures and in
our hearts, do many, many foolish things and involve ourselves and
others in a great deal of trouble, and bring something very much
like death very near. But this is not done by calculation,
deliberately, in rebellion; so many of these things in our lives
are inadvertent, unintentional, unpremeditated; we just get caught
in them under pressure. The consequences, of course, are very
serious.
What are we to do? Is it hopeless? Is there no way out? Cannot
our human failures, follies, and weaknesses be retrieved? Must
that be the end? Is it death, because we have made a mistake?
However grave it is, God has made His Answer for all human
inadvertency, all unintentional sin or mistakes: He has got His
Answer in a perfect humanity in His Son - an Offering to Himself
that satisfies Him for all your and my mistakes.
You know, in the great provision under the Law, there occurs this
very phrase "If a man sin unwittingly...", then a provision
is made. This man went out into the field, to gather what was
there, and unwittingly - he had no thought of bringing
back poison, to poison all his fellow-students - unwittingly,
not knowing what this thing was. Perhaps it was a part of his
education that he had to learn the difference between
things that are good and bad, and undoubtedly he did that day. We
do learn in this hard school of mistakes; if we can't learn by our
mistakes well, then we are pretty hopeless. No doubt he learned a
very big lesson that day by his error of judgment and by acting
without sufficient thought and consideration, or prayer;
impulsively, like Saul did, and lost his kingdom. But he learned
his lesson, this man, no doubt about it. The great thing, I am
quite sure, that remained in his heart, was this: "I've made a
terrible mistake; I have been responsible for an awful blunder. I
nearly involved not only myself, but others, in disaster, but the
Lord has made a provision to meet all my foolishness, all my
ignorance, all my unintentional wrong." Christ meets our
need in that way. I think there's a lot of comfort in that, don't
you?
You see, the whole question is the question of death through
corruption. And it's still true of us: in us, that is, in our
flesh, "dwelleth no good thing"; we are still very corrupt; our
heart is desperately wicked, desperately wicked. But the
Lord has provided... He is greater than our heart. It is one more
aspect of our appreciation of the Lord Jesus.
I trust that this comes to you, as it does to me, with some real
helpfulness. Are you often looking back over your life, and
saying, "Oh, if only... if only I had not done that." Of
course, perhaps some of you people have no regrets about your life
at all; there's not a thing that you can look back upon and have
any regret... well, behold the perfect man! But most of us are
like that: we are aware that there are many things that we wish
had never been, we had never done; if only we had had the light
then that we have now, we should never have done them, but
they're done! What do we do about it? Is it hopeless? The Lord has
taken the full measure of human frailty and met it with an
Answer in His Son of human foolishness.... We may have to meet the
Lord in another way if it is rebellion, if it is deliberate, but
most of us can truly say to the Lord, "We would not have done that
had we known, had we understood - it was not intentional,
it was not deliberate, it was not rebellion - it
was just inadvertent... under pressure".
And I realise, dear friends, that this is a limited message; it
can only apply to some, and certain situations. You want to take
all these incidents in the life of Elisha to get the whole range
of the Lord's provision, whether it be for a Naaman, or a woman
and her son, or whatever it may be. Here is one point in the whole
story of a wonderful provision in the Lord Jesus to meet us where
we've got into trouble by our own foolishness, our own weakness: a
Meal Offering of a Perfect Humanity that satisfies God.