IN the chapter of which our text is a part, the purpose of the Lord regarding the translation of Elijah is first brought before us. “The Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind.” When the Lord’s people have served their generation according to the will of God, and when they are ready to enter into their rest, they will not be left longer in this vale of tears. Elijah had fought a good fight and had finished his course and had kept the faith, and the Lord would not only have him home, but would take him there by translation, so that he should not see death, thus setting His seal of honour on Elijah’s person and work. We have further in this chapter the proving of Elisha as the Lord’s prophet and successor of Elijah. Has the Lord made known His mind to Elisha regarding his master? Will he lovingly follow him to the end? Is he deeply conscious of his great need of the same anointing that enabled Elijah to serve the Lord wholeheartedly, confronted as he was with Israel’s apostasy from the truth? Elijah’s last service for the Lord in this world is the confirmation of Elisha as Jehovah’s servant in Israel; to try him as it were in a furnace in order that the graces of faith, love, humility and dependence on God might be manifest as in him. Elisha through grace endures every trial and follows Elijah to the last moment; and even fulfils the condition on which he is to have a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. He has been proved and will use the office of a prophet, being found blameless. He is now left alone, having seen his Master ascending to heaven. He must now take up the work which Elijah had carried on so long. In the words before us, we are shown how Elisha entered on this work. In considering these words, as we may be enabled, we shall notice—
I. That which fell from Elijah.
Elijah let fall his mantle as he left this world, but he left behind him that which was much more important and useful. He left behind him his noble witness and testimony on the side of the truth of God. From the beginning to the end of his life, he had to testify against personal and public wickedness. He set his face like a flint against the immorality and idolatry of Israel, and brought the truth of the covenant God of Israel to bear against a people who worshipped Baal, a god who could neither hear nor save.
(1) Elijah was one who declared that he stood before God.
We may say that all that he was, and said and performed were based on this truth, that he realised he had to do with God and not with men. It is here that most lose themselves for time and eternity; declensions from personal piety and departures from true doctrine and worship in the church, in every age, have been the fruits of the want of God’s fear in the heart. Elijah feared God and, therefore, he would not countenance kings or captains or nations in their rebellion against heaven. He stood before God, as He is Lawgiver and Judge. Elijah knew himself as a sinner, guilty and undone. He realised that God is infinitely holy and just, and that sin will not go unpunished. He knew the terrors of the Lord, and, therefore, he persuaded men. He stood before the Lord God of Israel, the Covenant God by sacrifice, before Israel’s God, who can be wrestled with, and from whom an unworthy sinner can obtain the blessing and that favour which is life on the basis of a promised Redeemer. He stood before Him as a servant who owned no master besides. What was the will of Ahab? What though Baal’s prophets numbered 400 and he left alone on the Lord’s side? The Lord had made known His will. He had given forth commandments that are sure, that stand fast for ever, and that are done in truth and uprightness (Psalm cxi. 8). Elijah stood steadfastly in the truth of God’s revelation, and refused to change his position, or to be influenced by the popular religion of his day.
(2) Elijah left behind him in his testimony that he cleaved to the Church of God as it was set up by God Himself.
This Church ceased to exist in Israel, when men resolved that the truth of God should not be the rule of faith and worship, but what seemed expedient to Ahab and Jezebel and what suited the carnal state of that backslidden age. The altar of the God of Israel had been broken down, and Baal’s altar set up in its place. Thus the church in Israel, which was formerly founded on the truths of Scripture, came to adopt a new constitution, which was entirely antagonistic to the Word of God. The true Church of God was carried on in the person of Elijah, who was no innovator, but a restorer of pure doctrine and worship, hateful though it was to that generation. He set himself to build again God’s altar, to re-proclaim the whole revelation as to faith and worship and practice. He was no narrow bigot, whose view-point was limited to a few. His altar building was according to the twelve tribes of Israel, to whom were committed the oracles of God that all nations through them might be blessed. We believe that the history of this period has been given for the warning, the use and the encouragement of the Church to the end of time. The Lord has shown beforehand what must take place in connection with His Cause, and has made amply plain what will in each age be well-pleasing in His sight. What Elijah had to do, others had to do since his time. The Old Testament is full of instances, making plain the duty of the Church to keep hold of truth whatever it might cost. When the Saviour appeared on earth, He solemnly protested against the corruptions of the church among the Jews, declaring that they had made void and transgressed the commandment of God by their traditions. That church persisted in their refusal to return, and the Saviour rejected them as His Church, and left their house desolate. The Church of God was continued, being built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. Since apostolic times, the Church has been restored and revived by the Most High, raising up witnesses who took their stand on the express commandments of God regarding how He is to be served and worshipped. A few and very often obscure individuals have had to stand out against the great majority to witness to the fact that the Faith was once and for all delivered to the saints, and that departures from that Faith must be opposed at all hazards. Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, and Knox are examples of those who overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and who loved not their lives unto death. We are convinced that what Revs. Donald Macfarlane and Donald Macdonald, along with the students and the goodly number of pious people, did in 1893 was just what Elijah and the Church after him had to do to maintain the truth of God. Malcolm Macleod, your late missionary, was one of those who was like Levi, when men had to make choice whether they would be on the Lord’s side or not—”He did not acknowledge his own brethren nor know His own children.” Free Presbyterians have been styled seceders from 1893 to the present time, but the question arises—Are they seceders? Was Elijah a seceder? Are men seceders who declare by word and practice that they will have no part in the innovations of the times, but will seek to continue the Church on the well-defined and Scriptural basis on which she was stayed in times of reformation? The scene on Carmel that day made it very evident who they were that had departed from the truth, and also the solitary individual who had the faithfulness and courage given him to stand true to God and His Word.
(3) Elijah left behind him his confession that he was sustained by the grace and kindness of the Lord at every stage of his life’s journey.
How clear it is that it was almighty strength that upheld him at Carmel. In himself he was as weak as most men. When he fled before the rage of Jezebel, how tenderly he was nursed by Him who remembers that we are dust. He is fed after a much-needed sleep by angels, and is allowed more rest and then fed again, so that he has no difficulty in going on for forty days and nights till he reaches the Mount of God. He is given there a clear revelation of the presence of the Lord, and taught as to His mode of reviving His cause in the world. Instead of being cast off as unprofitable, the Lord commands him to perform other prophetic duties, to appoint two kings, Hazael and Jehu and also Elisha as prophet in his place, when he would be taken to his eternal rest. Thus Elijah went on till he finished his work, his whole life, an illustration of the Scripture—”My grace is sufficient for thee, and my strength is made perfect in thy weakness.” What was true about Elijah, has been fulfilled in all those who, in spite of the darkness of the times, have, like Caleb, followed the Lord wholly. A great number who formed our Church at her beginning have now departed to be with Christ, and we have now to number with these your late beloved missionary. All these and Malcolm Macleod, not the least among them, kept their consciences clean as to their public duty to the Lord’s Cause; they were enabled by grace to adhere to the path of duty; they had a goodly measure of the Lord’s presence and comfort in their souls from time to time, and they passed out of time to eternity in peace, with the good hope of being forever with the Lord. If such a witness was inevitable over 30 years ago, it is much more needed now that the Spirit that was upon Elijah would come upon many in this generation. The day is getting much darker, and God and His truth in Law and Gospel are being more and more ignored. If the cause of Christ is to prosper again in this land, it will be brought about by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace and supplications. Men will then cease being stout-hearted, self-sufficient and wise in their own conceits, and will become “as doves of the valleys, each one mourning for his own iniquity.”
II. Elisha, who was constrained to take up the work of Elijah.
It is quite evident that Elijah, when he was crying out that he was left alone, had no knowledge that the Lord had 7000 in Israel to witness for Him, and that He was secretly preparing Elisha to step into the breach, when Elijah would be taken to heaven. The Lord knoweth them that are His, and He can point them out and bring them forth in His own good time and way.
(1) Our first sight of Elisha is in connection with the prophecy that went before on him—”And the Lord said unto him, ‘Go, return on thy way and anoint Hazael to be king over Syria; and Jehu, the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay'” (I. Kings xix. 15-17).
Without doubt, this prophecy regarding these three persons has reference to the sore chastisements that would come on Israel for their sins. Hazael and Jehu were the instruments of vengeance to Israel, but it cannot be said that Elisha was like Elijah in the direct using of the sword and fire against God’s enemies. His mission was that of healing and peace; more of the still, small voice than of the whirlwind. I was directed to consider this prophecy in the light of the present condition of God’s Cause in our midst. Hazael was an idolater, a man of the world lying in open sin, and illustrative of that spirit of ungodliness and vanity and indifference which is characteristic of these times. They are few in this generation that have not fallen under the sword of Hazael, that is, who are not destroyed by openly defying the authority of God in His holy law and in the claims of His Gospel. Some escape this snare, only to fall under the sword of a Jehu-like spirit. Jehu came forth as a great professor of the true religion, full of zeal in which there was not a whit of self-knowledge. His cry to Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, and to all Israel was—”Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” Many in our midst have escaped irreligion only to fall under the power of a form of godliness, which has not as its basis the work of the Holy Spirit in quickening the dead to the glory of sovereign grace. I am led to understand that even in Lewis there are some who have come to deny such fundamental doctrines as that God elected from all eternity all that shall be saved, and that it is wrong to preach that God will punish unrepentant sinners in hell for ever. Let these doctrines and others cognate to them be left out of the preaching, and Lewis will be filled from end to end with professors of religion which may have plenty of false zeal, but who will be found among God’s enemies at last, as sure as Jehu was. The Lord has put the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God into the hands of His people, and especially into the hands of His sent messengers, that they might use it for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. This was the sword that Elisha wielded in his day, and it was the means of slaying a few to sin and self-righteousness, and of bringing them alive to faith and hope as to salvation through grace. The arrows of the Word of the Great King are sharp in the hearts of His enemies, and therefore the people fall under Him. If sinners are to be saved, the commandment will come, sin will revive, and they will die to every false refuge. It is then that the Gospel will become gospel to men, quickening them to a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What need there is in our day that through the mercy of God sinners would escape the destruction and corruption that is in the world through lust: that they would be delivered from a form of godliness that denies the power thereof, and that as lost sinners, they would be united to Him who came “that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.”
(2) The day came upon Elisha when the mantle of Elijah was cast over him, and that caused him much searching of heart.
He understood in some measure that he would have to be responsible to God for His public Cause on earth, and might say with Paul—”And who is sufficient for these things?” Elijah’s command—”Go back again: for what have I done unto thee?” had the effect only of thrusting forth Elisha to be a “partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God.” He left all and ministered to Elijah, and in that school he was fitted and prepared by God for the ministry which the Lord designed for him.
(3) The Lord revealed Elijah’s removal to the sons of the prophets, but steadfast and close cleaving to the Cause as upheld and represented in Elijah was not given to them, but only to Elisha.
There are some who can speak the truth about the state of the Cause, but they are not honoured to act according to the truths they speak. No wonder though these should find death in their pot of pottage. But Elisha’s heart is rent as well as his garments, by the removal of Elijah, which has left the Church without one to guide her or plead her cause. Dire necessity, the fruit of God’s call to himself and that “it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,” force him to stand in the breach in the dark day. The dealings of the Lord tend only to humble Elisha in the dust, and in taking up Elijah’s work, he can say with the Apostle—”I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me: yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel” (I. Cor. ix. 16). The Word of God makes it amply plain that it is such men as Elisha, wrought upon and prepared by grace, that God uses to carry on the affairs of His Church in every age of time.
III. The manner in which he went forward in his life-work.
He took up the mantle of Elijah which fell from him. That mantle was to him the symbol of what Elijah was and what he performed as the Lord’s prophet, and in dependence on grace, he could not refuse the duties and responsibilities that lay before him. With fear and trembling he began to go forward in the same spirit of faith and power, determined to follow in the steps of Elijah, because he was convinced that these steps were in accordance with the truth and will of God. Jordan’s waters were before him as they were before his great predecessor. Difficulties innumerable were to beset him, but his faith assured him that ways would be opened through these difficulties. “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly” (James v. 17). Elisha also will do nothing without prayer. His cry—”Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” accompanies his endeavours to carry out the will of God, and by prayer and action he is successful in every undertaking. “He smote the waters and they parted hither and thither and Elisha went over.” This was only the first step in a career of usefulness, wherein the power and grace of God were made manifest in Israel and beyond Israel. We read how, when complete ruin faced the widow of the prophet, that by the word of Elisha her little store of oil was so increased that her poverty in vessels to hold her riches became the most evident part of her straitness. Thus when God turns back the captivity of Zion, complaints and fears are turned to joy and thankfulness. Then there was the Shunammite, who by the Word of the Lord in the mouth of Elisha was given a son, and when bereft of him, had him restored by the prayers of the prophet. When God grants a living ministry, a new creation will be wrought in the hearts of sinners, and though these may have their lifeless seasons, by the same ministry they will experience revivings. Time would fail to recount the marvellous works of God through Elisha. There was Naaman, leprous and yet unwilling to submit to the only way by which he could be cleansed. Through the kindness and forbearance of God he receives at least a bodily cleansing. In Samaria, at a time of siege and famine, such a deliverance was brought about, in fulfilment of the word of Elisha that the four lepers outside the city had to give up their cry of “Unclean, unclean,” for a time, and to say to one another, “This is a day of good tidings.” Nothing would do but that they would become messengers to the king’s household—”We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied and asses tied and the tents as they were” (II. Kings vii. 10). My friends, we have now come to the end of this very solemn communion season, made more solemn by our having to place the dust of our late missionary in the grave at its commencement. Malcolm Macleod has been taken up to his rest, but the message of this text is that the God he served still lives and reigns. May He speedily raise up another as He did in the case of Elijah, to carry on His own work. We appeal to all, and especially to the young, to lay to heart the words and example Malcolm Macleod set before them. Cleave to the testimony raised by him and others in defence of God’s truth, and be not deceived by those whose cry is that there is no difference between our standing and that of others. There was never greater need than there is now that the witness raised over 30 years ago be maintained. We are living in days in which the seeds of infidelity and carnal views of doctrine are bringing forth fruit an hundred fold, sixty fold, and thirty fold. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, and we are certified from this portion of God’s Word and from the Bible as a whole that the Lord will give the strength and encouragement necessary to those who will cleave to Himself and to His truth.
(To be continued.)