The Link
Between Elisha and Elijah
The second book of
Kings has very largely to do with the life and ministry
of Elisha, the prophet; and Elisha undoubtedly brings
before us the Old Testament illustration and type of the
Church living and working in the power of resurrection.
We are familiar with the point at which the ministry of
Elijah gives place to that of Elisha. When the Lord took
up Elijah in a chariot of fire to heaven, Elisha's
connection with that rapture, that ascension, was a
matter of his being on the spot and seeing his master
taken up, and of having fulfilled in himself the request
that he should receive a double portion of the spirit of
Elijah.
Elijah thus very
clearly becomes a type of the Lord Jesus ascending, and
the Holy Spirit as a double portion of His Spirit coming
upon the Church, fulfilling His own words:
"...greater works than these shall he do; because I
go unto the Father." In the case of the Lord Jesus
the Church followed, proceeding in the fullness of the
Spirit to work out the ministry of Christ on a larger
scale than He in the days of His flesh had been able to
accomplish. His own prayer in those days was that the
baptism with which He had to be baptized might be
accomplished, because He had come to scatter fire on the
earth. That scattering could not be until the baptism of
the Cross was a realized thing, and He longed therefore
for His emancipation from the limitations of the flesh.
When that baptism of passion was fulfilled, and He was
translated to the glory, the fire was scattered in the
earth, and His desire was fulfilled through His Church;
His limitations were removed.
That has its
foreshadowing in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha. So
that which came in with Elisha is that which comes in
with the Church - fullness by the Spirit in the power of
resurrection. There we begin, with Elisha coming in on
resurrection ground for the purpose of showing forth the
fullness of the ascended Head. The fact that Elisha does
speak of the power of resurrection, and the full meaning
of life on that ground, is amply borne out by the
outstanding incidents of his life. If you cast your eye
over them you will see that it is, firstly, a matter of
changing from death to life, and then, secondly, of
changing from limitation to fullness.
We begin with
The
Waters of Jericho,
the new cruse and the
salt. By these means the waters were healed, and the
fruit of the ground delivered from the bondage of death
and corruption, and made living, abiding, and full. Then
The
Three Kings in League
were in a most
paralyzing situation for want of water, in danger of
being delivered into the hands of Moab. There was the
digging of the trenches in the valley by faith, and
silently, without noise or demonstration, the torrents of
water coming down; then the deliverance from captivity to
the enemy, from the hand of the spoiler. It is the power
of resurrection life in fullness.
The
Widow's Oil
A calamity had
overtaken her, leaving her in a predicament. There were
the vessels, not a few. The fullness of life is typified
in the poured forth oil, the limitation of which was not
on the Divine side but on the human side. Then we have
The
Woman's Son,
given, taken, raised
from the dead. That speaks for itself as to the power of
resurrection, and as to the fullness of life.
The
Poisoned Pottage
The sons of the
prophets found death in the pot, and by the casting in of
the meal the death elements were destroyed - death turned
to life, fullness, and satisfaction. Next we have
Naaman
the Syrian Leper,
his washing, if you
like, his baptism in Jordan; all of which speaks for
itself to those who know anything of the meaning of
Jordan - from death unto life, the fullness of the power
of His resurrection.
The
Loose Axe Head
We have the sons of the
prophets again, building their place of instruction; the
incident of the axe head coming off; falling into the
water and sinking; the casting in of the branch of the
tree, causing the iron to float. Once more is seen the
miracle of life triumphant over death, and fullness of
satisfaction. There follows
The
Feeding of the Multitude
with a small amount of
bread;
The
Unseen Horsemen
in the day of peril and
threatened death;
The
Arrows,
which were the arrows
of deliverance; and finally
Elisha's
Death,
and a man brought to
life by touching his bones.
So Elisha, from start
to finish, is a most conspicuous type of the power of
resurrection, and of what that means as fullness of life.
All these are aspects
of the one comprehensive truth, and each has its own
particular message to bring in connection with it. We are
not going to touch any of them in particular until later.
They have been reviewed simply for the purpose of getting
our minds clear as to what Elisha really stands for, and
of giving us a further point from which to move forward.
Elisha's
Preparation in His Natural Vocation
That which will occupy
us now is connected with the preliminary stage in
Elisha's life, before he moved out into this full
expression. There is always a preparatory stage, and a
preparatory dealing with us on the part of the Lord.
The first time Elisha
comes before our notice is very significant of what the
Lord takes account of, when He puts His hand upon a man
or a woman, to make such a vessel of His fuller
Testimony. It is found in I Kings 19:19-21:
So he departed
thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who
was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he
with the twelfth: and Elijah passed over unto him, and
cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran
after Elijah, and said, "Let me, I pray thee, kiss
my father and my mother, and then I will follow
thee." And he said unto him, "Go back again;
for what have I done to thee?" And he returned from
following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and slew them,
and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen,
and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he
arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him (A.S.V.).
Here you have some
features of a life upon which the Lord looks, or has
already looked, with a view to bringing that life into
relationship with Himself and His Testimony in a way of
fullness. The characteristics of Elisha here are such as
the Lord looks for in His would-be servants.
What Elijah found was a
man of whom, by reason of his thoroughness in what he
did, a note was made in the Divine records, which goes
down through the ages. He was ploughing with twelve yoke
of oxen. He was putting all his resources into the work.
In his ordinary course of life he was not having anything
in reserve. Twelve yoke of oxen represent the doing of
things thoroughly; doing what your hands find to do with
all your might. Oxen are types of strength in service,
and, although Elisha was but in his ordinary natural
vocation, in that there were no half-hearted measures. He
was doing it with a downrightness that is taken account
of. It may seem to be a very simple thing, but the Lord
puts His workers on a probation to watch for that very
thing. We may be waiting for the time when we shall be
able to serve the Lord with all our might and main, and
in the waiting time we may be reserving ourselves just a
little along other lines. That can be put in different
ways, but you may take it as settled that the Lord will
never put you into a ministry of manifesting the power of
His resurrection, of being of any special value to Him in
His Testimony, if He has seen slothfulness in the
ordinary walks of life, if He has observed any trace of
halfheartedness in other directions. There is an infinite
peril associated with waiting for what we call our life
work. The waiting should be of a positive character, and
during that time we should be in nothing less than a
hundred percent energy in what there is about us to do.
This is a word of
warning, and a word that we are constrained to give. It
is not the sort of thing we like to say, and yet it is a
word which those of us who have had time to observe, to
watch the preparation of many lives for the work of the
Lord, feel to be a necessary word. We mark how that the
time before the Lord can visit a life and say, "Now
the hour has come for you to move out into that for which
I have prepared you," is a time that is so often
marked by a lack of wholehearted abandonment to the
ordinary natural vocation; that the things which we call
"natural" are put in a place second to the
spiritual, and regarded as of less importance, and as
calling therefore for much less diligence.
We need not increase
words, but it is a thing for us all to guard very
carefully. The Lord is watching in the ordinary vocations
of life, in the things which we may regard as by no means
of any great spiritual value, to see if in those very
things we are diligent. We must remember that His own
words are: "He that is faithful in that which is
least is faithful also in much." That is a law; and
faithfulness in that which is least is qualification for
increase.
On the other side, when
the Lord sees a man or a woman who, like Elisha, is
putting all his energy, all his resources into his
ordinary vocation, and doing it with all his might, the
Lord marks that man or that woman, and the time will come
when that life will be drawn into association with the
Lord in something of peculiar value to Him.
You see this in the
first phase, before any thought or suggestion had come to
Elisha of prophetic ministry. It is not as if he were as
one of the sons of the prophets preparing for his
ministry. No suggestion whatever is made that he is to be
a prophet. We do not know that he had any such idea. What
we do know is that he was doing farm work, and that he
was putting all his might into it, and the Lord took
account of it. Before ever there was a thought of, what
many people would call, spiritual work, this man was seen
by God as one who would go a long way with Him. Of course
Elisha was a godly man, not just a man of the world
diligent in his business.
You may say: That is
reckoning on the natural. Well, the Lord does take men
into account as to their spirit, and although a man may
be very often mistaken as to the method, and as to the
way, the Lord looks on the heart. We are thinking of Paul
himself. He was certainly very blind, and very mistaken
in the way that he took, but he took it with all his
might, and there was no question that what he did was
with every ounce of his being, and we are not to say that
the Lord did not take that into account. The Lord takes
account of diligence and devotion and wholeheartedness,
in whatever realm it is. When the Lord gets hold of men
and women of that kind, He may have deep and mighty
lessons to teach them, but He knows that He has a vessel
that will be suitable to Him, and that will go on with
Him.
That is a simple word,
almost in the nature of a homily, but it is an important
one, and we must never expect the Lord to say: "Come
up higher," until we have given ourselves to the
very last measure in the place where we are. We rejoice
that there are men and women like Elisha, who just put
themselves into the menial things, the ordinary things,
the things which men would not call specifically
spiritual service, until the Lord says, "That is
enough." This is preparation; and remember the Lord
is taking account!
Everything
of Spirit
The next thing in the
case of Elisha follows closely upon the intimation that
he was called. Elijah threw his mantle over him. Then it
looked as though Elisha drew back; it looked as though he
might be numbered with certain in the New Testament who
said: "First suffer me to bid farewell to them that
are at my house"; "Lord, suffer me first to go
and bury my father"; and soon. But there is the fact
that something deeper had been registered in Elisha,
which did not allow him to do the thing he had
contemplated doing. We do not read of any farewells in
the way he suggested them to Elijah; but what we do read
is that he went and rid himself of all that was behind.
He burned his bridges, cleared up things straightway,
distributed the proceeds, and went after Elijah. Again,
the marks of thoroughness!
Here is a man who is
not saying: "Well, in case things go wrong, and I do
not get on very well in my new sphere of work, I had
better keep these oxen alive, so that I can come back to
this!" The thing had gone to his heart. He knew the
hour had struck; he knew God had touched him; deep down
in his being there was something which had made him a
prisoner, from which he found no release; so he simply
cleared up everything, and went in the way of that inward
call.
The point is mainly
this, that it was not Elijah's call that did it. On the
strength of Elijah's word alone Elisha could look back;
that is, he could contemplate going to have a
valedictory; but there was something deeper than Elijah's
word. Something had come through from God into his inner
being, which put away all that was merely sentimental or
earthly, and made him do a thorough work of breaking, and
going out for the Lord. It is important for us to hear
something deeper than the voice of man when we move into
the work of the Lord. We must have something more than
the outward appeal. We can have many appeals, strong
urges, in meetings arranged for that purpose, to appeal
for workers. We can have the appeal from the outside. We
can have the urge. We can even have people tell us that
we ought to go, that God has really called us. But that
is never enough. What we must know is that God has spoken
more deeply than any kind of outward appeal. We must know
that God has done something, and that because of this
there is no question for us whatever of keeping in
reserve the old relationships, the old associations, the
old interests; that deeper challenge has settled
everything, and the only thing we can do is to make a
complete break, and go out with the Lord.
Again, this is very
elementary, but it is very important. A great many go out
on the strength of an appeal, or an urge of man, and that
is always a very dangerous thing. It is equally dangerous
for us to put our hands upon people, and to tell them
what they ought to do, what God would have them do, what
and where their call is. Let us seek to keep our hands
off people altogether as to their life, and leave them
with the Lord. Run a thousand miles from them rather than
try in any way to shape their life course for them. If
God does not speak, we shall only make havoc of lives in
trying to influence them of ourselves. We must never be
influenced by anything but the Word of the Lord in our
heart. Someone may speak, and through that someone there
may strike home like a shaft the Word of the Lord, but we
must have that extra element before there can be
certainty. When we have that, we know it; God has spoken,
and everything is changed.
It is interesting that
we hear nothing more of Elisha from that day, until the
day when Elijah finishes his ministry. It is fitting that
it should be so. In 2 Kings 2, Elisha comes in in
connection with the translation of his master, Elijah.
There are three things in that chapter which are factors
in this preliminary stage in the preparation of this
vessel of the Testimony.
1.
The Test of Faith and Perseverance
The first thing is
Elisha's test of faith and perseverance after he had
received the knowledge of a call. You notice and it is a
familiar story how Elijah, on the one hand, seemed to be
trying to shake off Elisha: "Tarry here...."
"Tarry here..." ; "Tarry here...." To
every such urge of Elijah, Elisha rejoined: "As the
Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave
thee." On the other hand, the sons of the prophets
in every place they visited said: "Knowest thou that
the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to
day?" seeking to discourage, to deter him. There is
no element of encouragement about this repetition. Elisha
replies: "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace."
It makes no difference to me: I am going to follow on to
the end: I am going to see this thing through. It may be
the Lord's will to take him away, but I am going to be
there when it happens. And so, whatever the meaning of
Elijah's repeated effort to get him to stay may have
been, he could not influence this man one bit, could not
shake him off. Elisha was exercising faith, with a
persistence and endurance which is the outstanding
feature of this chapter.
In what connection is
his faith being exercised, and in what connection is his
persistence being tested? Well, Elijah has what he needs!
It comes within that realm of some being discouraged,
being able to be put off, and saying, while others go on,
"These are hard sayings, who can hear them?"
"From that time many of His disciples went back, and
walked no more with Him." They are discouraged more
or less easily, and they go away. And the Lord turns to
the twelve and says: "Will ye also go away?"
Simon Peter answers: "Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life." The Master has
what is needed, and there is no thought of going away,
being put off, discouraged, but the thought is to go on
with Him, because He has the essential elements of that
life. Elisha knew that Elijah had what he needed for his
life, for his ministry. So that when Elijah said:
"Ask what I shall do for thee," Elisha replied:
"Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon
me." Elijah's rejoinder was: "Thou hast asked a
hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken
from thee, it shall be so unto thee..." Elisha knew
that Elijah had the essential, and was not to be put off,
or easily discouraged. Although it seemed that Elijah was
trying to get rid of him, the other man refused to be got
rid of; he was clinging to him for life. He was,
moreover, being tested as to his faith, and as to his
perseverance.
It is a part of
Elisha's preparation, and that of all true instruments of
the Lord. They will go through experiences in which they
are tested to the very last ounce of endurance, along the
line of it seeming to be that even the Lord is trying to
shake them off. That is a very crude way of putting it;
but so often there is every opportunity, if you are ready
to accept appearances alone, to be discouraged, to feel
the Lord does not want you, that after all, although you
may have had the sense of a call, the Lord is not going
through with it. Rather it looks as though you are being
put back, and put back again. Can you be discouraged? Can
you be shaken off? Can your faith easily give way? If so,
you are of little use for this calling. If you are going
to be an instrument of the Testimony of the power of His
resurrection, you are going to have a very great deal
that you will come up against, that will put you out of
the fight, if you can be put out. It is very necessary to
be established before you start; in some measure that
proves that you are not one to be easily put off, easily
discouraged.
Elisha went through the
test; on the one hand, his own master being the occasion
of the testing, and on the other hand, those who were in
a spiritual position, sons of the prophets - supposed to
be the people who had spiritual knowledge - being
anything but encouraging, rather being discouraging
factors. Very often those who ought to be helpful by
reason of their spiritual position - officially, at any
rate - are anything but encouraging; they would put us
back. All that we are left with is: "The Lord has
called me; I know that in my heart. The Lord has led me
this way. The Lord has caused me to take this step that I
have taken. I have burned my bridges; I have cut all my
ties; I have stepped out on the Lord. Now, although I
have done that, the Lord is testing me, seeming to give
me very little confirmation and encouragement, and the
Lord's representatives - officially - are by no means
helpful: 'Nevertheless I stand to it, I am going on with
God.'" A man or a woman who can go on like that is
going to count for God. Elisha had nothing whatever to
fall back upon save his inward knowledge of the Lord. He
went through on that.
It is a very nice thing
when we get encouragement from every direction in the way
of our conceived call; when the Lord comes along and
confirms it in all sorts of ways, and then everyone else,
and everything else, says: "We are with you; we will
stand by you; we are going to support and uphold
you." We can get on all right that way. But if the
Lord gives us no special conspicuous providences,
sovereign acts; if He hides Himself, so that what we do
see is rather discouragement from going on, even from the
Lord's side - and one of the most difficult things is the
hiding of the Lord, though He is there hiddenly doing
things, and marvelously carrying through unto enlargement
and enrichment, while allowing nothing that the flesh can
take hold of - then it is a matter of faith going on with
God, even when the Lord seems to be hiding Himself, and
allowing much of discouragement to remain on our horizon.
At such a time no one else can enter into it. Everybody
else to whom we might look, and from whom we might expect
something, is of no use to us at all. All that they have
to say is something that is melancholy: "Knowest
thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy
head today?" Elisha seems to be a little impatient
with that. It might have been expressed in this way: You
are a morbid crowd, and I would sooner you kept quiet if
you have nothing better to say! They are not inspiring at
all. And that is very often how we find the people to
whom we look for encouragement. They see the
difficulties, they see the dark side of things, they tell
us of what we are running our heads into, of the
calamities that will overtake us. The question is:
"Will you go on with God?" Elisha went on! The
statement is: "They two went on." There is
something in that which leads to a large place, which
means much for the Lord.
2.
Learning the Secret of Power From on High
Another lesson which
Elisha had to learn was that although he was a man of
energy, a man who gave himself very thoroughly and fully
and used up all his natural strength in what he did, his
power was from on high. What we have said as to a man
being diligent and in earnest, and putting all his
strength into things, does not in any way contradict
this, that even such a man has to learn, before he can
move into his full spiritual usefulness, that the power
for that is not in himself, but from on high. The Lord
may take account of that man before, but even as it was
with Paul with all his zeal and all his earnestness, he
has to come to the place where all his strength is drawn
from above, and not from himself. Elisha had to learn
that it was power from on high, the Spirit sent down,
that was the secret of strength. It is only so, that we
shall be living testimonies. It is only so, that we shall
be vessels of such a Testimony as this. We are not
speaking of the general kind of Christian work, we are
speaking of the Lord having His fullness of Testimony in
us. The fullness of the Lord's Testimony is the
expression of the power of His resurrection in our very
being, and for that there has to be a coming to the place
where we know, in every realm of our being, that our
strength is not in ourselves, but in Him Who is above. It
is the One Who has gone up to the right hand of God, Who
is the Source of our strength, the Spring of our
energies; because He lives, we live; by His power, and
His power alone, we live and work. It is the Lord in
glory Who is our energy. Elisha learned that in type. For
all the future, his resource was the Spirit from above,
the spirit of his ascended master. We have to learn that
in ever deepening ways.
3.
Having His Beginnings in Jordan
Finally, he had to come
to the place where all his beginnings were at Jordan. The
last step of that journey with Elijah, and the first step
of his journey under the Spirit, were at Jordan. He went
over with Elijah in death; he came back through Jordan in
the power of resurrection. The sons of the prophets,
fifty men, were watching, and as they saw him come back
across the Jordan they said, "The spirit of Elijah
doth rest on Elisha." His beginnings, shall we say
his roots, were in Jordan. We know that there has to be a
rooting in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, life having its
very beginnings in the death and resurrection of Christ
experimentally known. Into the life of such an instrument
of God there has to come an experience which registers,
once and for all, that this life - in its good and its
bad, in all its energies, even for the work of God - has
been brought to an end, so far as that one is concerned.
Even in Christian activities, and religious interests,
and passions for service, that life has been brought to
an end, and nothing is possible except in the power of
His resurrection. It is one thing to say that, and to
hold that as a teaching; it is quite another thing to
know that, and to have that registered in your being
every time you seek to move in relation to the Lord; to
know that every day of your life, so far as the Lord's
interests are concerned, you draw all from Him, that
everything is in the power of His resurrection, there is
nothing else. To have that settled, registered,
established once and for all, demands a deep Jordan
experience. That is a deep death, a deep sinking into
Jordan, but that makes possible a wonderful Testimony to
His risen life. That is the opening of the door to the
vast, the evergrowing knowledge of Him in resurrection
life.
Calvary closes the door
on man by nature, but Calvary opens the door to the man
who means that all is to be out from God, and not from
himself. Elisha came to the place where all his
beginnings were in Jordan; every bit of His future was
born in Jordan. You and I have to learn to be vessels of
this Testimony; those who know Him in resurrection life.
That is preparation. If
all who have gone out in the Lord's service had gone out
on that basis, a very different story would have been
told. We cannot hold ourselves responsible for all who
have not, but what we can do is to recognize this to be
the truth, and, so far as we are concerned, ask the Lord
to make it true in our case. It is a deep death! This is
an end, but also a beginning. What is before us is
Testimony in what we are - not first by what we say - as
to Him in resurrection life. If that is what is before
us, that can only be on the ground that we ourselves have
ceased in every realm of knowledge and of life which is
not that; and that is the meaning of our union with Him
in His Cross. This is preparation. This is equipment.
This is where the Lord begins with His vessels for the
fullness of His Testimony.