Reading: 1 Kings 18:41-44.
In this small fragment
we have crowded two of the major things in the spiritual
life and experience of the people of God. One is the fact
of the seemingly slow and hidden ways of God; the other
is the demand for faith to be found in His servants. It
is not my intention at the moment to enlarge much upon
the former. You will know quite well how much there is in
the Bible about it. You have only to look into the
Psalms, and you will find again and again the Psalmist
crying out because of the seemingly slow response, or the
entire absence of any response, from God. "O God,
why hast thou cast us off?" (Psa. 74:1). Whole
Psalms are given up to that problem, and in many other
places we find the same thing. In our own spiritual
experience it is very true that not least among our
trials is this same one - that God is so slow in His
response, so hidden in His answers; often it would appear
that He is almost indifferent or careless; and that is
here in this little fragment. I think we shall be
convinced of that before we are through, but for the
moment we mention it and dismiss it, having just one
object in saying anything about it at all, and that is that we might again
recognise that this is a very common experience amongst
even the greatest and most devoted of the servants of
God. It is not the experience alone of the novices, of
the ordinary people. It has been the experience of the
most outstanding of God's servants through all the ages;
they have been confronted with this problem. The Lord
does seem to be slow and not at all anxious to respond;
though to His people the situation may seem to be
exceedingly critical.
The
Critical Issue
The second thing is
that upon which I want to concentrate for these few
moments - the demand for faith's persistence in God's
people. This in a sense was the most critical point of
the whole chapter. It might be thought that the most
critical point was when the prophets of Baal had
exhausted themselves without any response, and Elijah,
having built the altar of Israel and saturated it with
water and filled the trench, called upon the Lord. We
might say this is a breathless moment, everything depends
upon what happens now. Perhaps it is true that was the
high point of the story; but, after all, supposing it had
stopped there! Three years of drought, with all their
disastrous consequences, involving the whole question of
the possibility of the continuation of life at all - that
was all gathered into the moment when the rain began to
fall; and, although the people had cried, "The Lord,
he is God," if the rain had not come it would have
been easy for them to say that some magic had been
performed in the bringing down of the fire, and that they
were none the better for it all. So there is a sense in
which the real crisis is at this point - rain, new life,
new prospect, new hope, new possibility; all the rest
goes for nothing if the rain does not come.
God's
Seeming Indifference
How critical, then, was
this moment! and the Lord knew how critical it was. It
might well have been thought, 'Well, the people have now
turned from Baal, they have cried, "The Lord, he is
God," it seems that the great reformation has been
completed. That issue is settled; surely the Lord can
send the rain now. The heavens ought at once to be filled
with clouds.' But it was not so, and, while the prophet
was quite assured in his own heart and gave words of
assurance, he went up higher in the same mount of crisis,
and before God, with his head between his knees, began to
pray the supreme issue through. James tells us
"Elijah was a man of like passions (infirmities)
with us, and he prayed fervently (he prayed with
prayer)," implying something very, very strenuous
and definite, something more than ordinary praying - and
even so he had to hold on and on and on. It seems that
God is slow, even in the presence of the greatest crisis,
the most serious situation. Why this?
Well, I think it
relates to this anonymous servant, and, in relating to
him, it is something for all time. I call him an
anonymous servant, because we do not know who he is or
where he came from. Evidently Elijah had a servant,
though very little is known of him. In the record of
Elijah at the brook Cherith, and at Zarephath, no mention
is made of a servant; and later, when Elisha joins
Elijah, it is stated that "they two went on,"
implying the absence of any other. But at the point of
the story which we are now considering mention is made of
a servant, though not by name. This man just comes like
that, without name. Being anonymous, he seems to
represent the principle of service, and, if that is true,
we can understand at least a good deal of the meaning of
this strange episode, the seeming delay of God. The
battle had been fought through, a mighty victory had been
secured, they knew that the issue was in hand, and yet,
and yet, something had got to be done.
A
Warning Against Complacency
Here in the first place
is a very serious warning against anything in the nature
of complacency, even after we have poured ourselves out
and been assured that we have got through. The principle
or spirit of service is gathered up surely into this,
that there is a persistence of faith which is the very
essence of true service or servanthood. You will not find
in the whole Bible any servant of God of account, of
value, who did not need to have developed in him this
persistence of faith. Here is this servant. The next
servant who comes into view is Elisha, and after his call
the one recorded phase of his association with Elijah is
that which precedes the taking up of Elijah into heaven.
Elijah said unto Elisha, "Tarry here... the Lord
hath sent me as far as Bethel" (2 Kings 2:2). Stage
by stage, "Tarry here..."; "tarry
here..."; but Elisha would not have it. He said,
"As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will
not leave thee." At last the whole issue was
gathered up into that request of Elisha for a double
portion of his master's spirit, and Elijah's response,
"If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall
be so unto thee." It was the element of persistence
that was brought into view.
Now, if you analyse
this, you will see that there had been a tremendous thing
done. They had got through on Carmel, they had reached a
place of very real consequence. We might think that they
would have been perfectly justified in saying, 'Now, that
is done; now we will wait to see the Lord working it all
out; it is His matter, so we will fold our arms and see
Him do it.' If you had gone through the ordeal that
Elijah had gone through and seen that tremendous thing,
and felt that assurance that the end was reached, would
you not have felt justified in speaking like that? And
yet Elijah went higher up into the mount. "Ahab went
up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of
Carmel" - to pray. Something more had to be done to
see this thing through to the final issue.
The
Persistence of Faith
Then comes in this
servant. "Go up" - still higher. There is still
something more to be done in exercise. "Look toward
the sea." He went up and came back. "There is
nothing!" After all, nothing is happening. After all
that battle, after all that conflict, after all that
prayer, all that exercise, all that exhausting ordeal,
laying hold of God and getting something of an inward
witness that it is all right - after all, nothing
happening! Have you ever been there? It is like an
anticlimax. "There is nothing." Oh, that is the
most perilous point! Everything can collapse there! The
tremendous reaction that can set in there! After all,
there is nothing. We are just where we were, despite all
that we have done and endured.
What are you going to
do? Well, one of two things. Either you will say, 'After
all, somehow or other, it has all been an illusion.' You
know that sort of thing - a counsel of despair; paralysed
by the seeming unresponsiveness of the Lord. Or there is
the other side. "Go again seven times."
"There is nothing." A second time - "there
is nothing." A third time - "there is
nothing." A fourth time "there is nothing.''
I try to imagine what the servant's voice was getting
like as he went on toward the sixth time. I am not sure
that he did not add a few words! 'What is the good of it
all - there is nothing; I told you there is nothing!' It
could be like that: that is human nature. 'I do not see
the use of going right up there again, I am tired of
this business, there is nothing.' "Go again seven
times." The seventh time - what? A cloud as small as
a man's hand. In the vast heavens, a cloud the size of a
man's hand! That is all. God is doing a very deep thing.
He is carrying this matter of faith's persistence a long
way. You need not interpret the number seven literally,
but there has to be a rounding off in spiritual
perfection in this matter of faith's persistence. The
issue broke; it broke only in something very small. That
small thing is just a token, it is not the whole. But the
token was given, and Elijah says, "Go up, say unto
Ahab, Make ready thy chariot, and get thee down, that the
rain stop thee not" - the token is taken as the
whole. "Now faith is... the title deeds of things
unseen" (Heb. 11:1) - the token of the whole. And as
they went, the heavens were full of clouds.
A
Quality Inwrought into the Servant
I think the message is
clear. It is so easy to make a big start, with a good
deal of strength and shouting and activity, thinking that
something is going to happen, that the Lord is going to
come right in and do some big thing. Then it does not
happen, the Lord does not do as we expected, and then our
prayer begins to lessen, our spiritual diligence to wane.
All that zeal and energy and devotion which marked us at
one time is declining. The Lord is not fulfilling our
expectations. But what is He doing? He is making a
servant. You go into the service of God and think you are
going to get quick returns and instant interventions of
God from heaven in difficult situations; you look for the
immediate response to your cry, especially in what seems
to you to be the most critical situation; you expect
that; and because you do not get it, are you going to
fade out and give up and lose your zeal? No true servant
of God has ever known it to be like that. The real
servant, the useful servant, is the one who persists in
faith - a persistence that is demanded even when
interests that are clearly the Lord's are at stake.
"The Lord, he is God." God had to vindicate
that again, not this time in the fire, but in the water,
in the rain; not only in the passing of judgment but in
the maintaining of life; not only in the death, but in
the resurrection. But it is sometimes the most testing
thing for a servant of God to believe that God's strange
behaviour really does not mean that God is indifferent
about His own name. Do you grasp that? His delays, His
hiddenness, His strange, seeming indifference - does it
imply that He is not as concerned about His name as we
are? The true servant has to learn otherwise. God is
making a servant, and in so doing He sometimes does
appear to be indifferent, slow. Faith's persistence is
required to "seven times" persistence right
though to completion. God may test us. We are not to sit
down. There has to be a persisting in faith, and holding
on for the issue. God is more concerned about the
constitution of His servants on true Divine principles
than He is about the doing of things by way of
demonstrating His power. God can demonstrate His power if
He wants to. But no, He has to work into the very
constitution of His people that faith which can hold on,
stand fast, even against His own seeming indifference.
And in the end the rain came in abundance; all knew about
the rain. But there was a double battle. There was the
battle first with Baal, and then with inward unbelief -
the battle of self; the outside and the inside battle;
and very often the whole issue hangs upon the battle
within.