Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy's face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, "The boy has not awakened." Sermons
"No shattered box of ointment "The discord that involveth I. A BELIEVING MOTHER. We see her strong faith in God in that answer which she gave to Gehazi. At Elisha's command he asked her, "Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child?" And she answered, "It is well." Not a woman of many words, this. But a woman of great thoughts, of practical faith, of heroic patience. 1. It was well with the child. She had no doubt of that. She knew less about the hereafter than we do. She did not know what we know about him who is the Resurrection and the Life, who was himself dead and is alive again. She did not know what we know about heaven - about the angels' song and the pearly gates and the golden streets. But this she felt assured of, that there was a hereafter; that, though the body died, the soul still lived; that her child was with God, and that, therefore, it was well with him. 2. It was well with her husband. It was well with herself. Yes, although sorrow had entered their home, still she could feel and say that it was well all round. She could have anticipated Paul in his unfaltering assertion, for "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Calmly and confidently, even though perhaps her tears were falling while she spoke, she uttered the single Hebrew word which means "It is well." Thank God for believing mothers. A mother's faith in God has rescued many a son from the very grasp of hell itself. How many an eminent servant of God has owed his conversion to the prayers of a believing mother! St. Augustine and John Newton are well-known instances. A word here to bereaved parents. You too may have watched a dear child droop and die. Perhaps you murmured rebelliously under your affliction. Learn to look away behind the veil, into that happy land of which perhaps your darling sang-and as you look there surely you cannot but say, "It is well - it is well with the child." A word here to all parents. Can you say, as you think of your children one by one, "It is well with the child"? If they should die in infancy, it certainly is well with them. But your children of maturer years, who are growing up into manhood and womanhood - how is it with them? Are there not some in your household that you know are still unsaved? O parents, can you rest until you win them for Christ? It is right to give them a good education. But the most important concern of all is the salvation of their immortal souls. II. A DEAD CHILD BROUGHT TO LIFE. All dead children will be brought back to life. The body only dies; the soul lives forever. This little one, however, was brought back to the life of earth. Perhaps God thought that this poor mother had been sufficiently tried. Perhaps he wanted to give even then some proofs of the possibility of a resurrection. It was an exceptional act then. It is not to be expected by bereaved parents now. They can only say with David, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Is it not better so? Could we wish them back again? Look upon them in that bright land where Jesus is, and where the angels are, where their little feet are never weary, where their little faces are always bright and happy, where their little bodies shall nevermore be racked by pain or enfeebled by sickness, where their minds shall never know another thought of sin, and tell me if you would bring them back to this world of wickedness, of temptation, of sickness, and of sorrow? Surely not. Surely they were taken away from the evil that is to come. To depart and be with Christ is far better. 1. Notice the means of this child's revival. (1) First of all, there was prayer. "And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord." So it must be in all efforts for the revival of dead souls. Parents must have recourse to prayer if they would see their children converted. We want more praying families; we want more praying Churches. Nothing but the Spirit of God can make the dry bones to live. If our work is to last, it must be done in prayer. (2) Then, again, observe that Elisha used the means to bring about an answer to his prayers. He asked for a certain blessing, and he showed that he expected an answer. He stretched himself upon the child, that his body might communicate heat to that of the child, and his breath upon the child's mouth encouraged the returning vitality. It is God's method of converting the world, of quickening dead souls. It is the Spirit of God that alone can quicken a dead soul. But he uses human instrumentality. He uses living Christians. The apostles were men on fire with the Holy Ghost and with zeal for souls, and therefore their labors were blessed. The reason there are so few conversions, the reason the Church has so little influence upon the world compared to what it might have, is that too often the Church itself is worldly, seeking for temporal position and worldly gain, and that Christians show too little of the spirit of their Master. They have a name to live, but are dead. But it is wonderful what one or two living Christians can effect in a congregation, in a community, even throughout the world. 2. Notice also the signs of this child's revival. "The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes." It was enough. Elisha did not wait for the child to speak. He did not wait for him to walk. He recognized the unmistakable signs of life, and at once he restored the child to his sorrowing mother. Christians ought to watch for signs of spiritual life as the result of their labors and their prayers. They should not be discouraged if there seems - but little fruit, do not discourage the slightest indication of a desire on the part of any one to turn from sin and come to Christ. Encourage those who may be seekers after God, groping feebly after the truth, struggling, perhaps, with their difficulties and doubts. What souls have you been the means of bringing from death into life? - C.H.I. 1. Who was this Gehazi? An undeveloped hypocrite. There were three or four different men in that Gehazi figure. There are three or four different men in you and in me. Which man is it to whom I speak; who is it that announces the hymn, that offers the prayer, that reads the Scriptures, that proclaims the Word? "Things are not what they seem." Gehazi was at this moment an undeveloped knave, and what can he do with Elisha's staff, or with God's sunlight? The bad man spoils whatever he touches. In the fall of man, everything with which man has to do must also fall. Virtue perished out of Elisha's staff; it became in the grip of Gehazi but a common stick. There is law in that deterioration; there is a whole philosophy in that mysterious depletion of virtue, and we ought to understand somewhat of its operation. Sin impoverishes everything. The universe is but a gigantic shell gleaming with painted fire to the bad man. To him there are no flowers in the garden; there may be some diversity of colour, but flowers as tabernacles in which God reveals Himself, creations of the supreme power, there are none, there can be none. A man cannot go down in his highest religious nature without going down all round. Whatever his pretence of interest may be in things beautiful and musical, and pure and noble, it is only a skilful hypocrisy. When the fool says in his heart, "There is no God," he also says in his heart, "There is no beauty, there is no virtue, there is no purity, there is no soul." God is the inclusive term, and denial in relation to that term is negation in reference to everything that belongs to it — all music and beauty, all virtue and tenderness, all chivalry and self-sacrifice. You cannot be theologically wrong, and yet morally and socially right. We know what it is to have done the evil deed, and then to have seen all the sunshine run away from the universe like a thing affrighted. Thus we may be coming nearer to the reason why the staff failed. The staff is good, the hand that wielded it was bad; there was no true sympathy or connection between the hand and the staff. The staff was only in the hand, it was not in the heart. There was a merely physical grasp, there was no moral hold of the symbol of prophetic presence and power. Gehazi had already stolen from Naaman, and already there had gone out from the court of heaven the decree which blanched him into a leper as white as snow. Now, let us come home. We have an inspired Book as our staff, our symbol, but are we inspired readers? An inspired Book should have an inspired perusal: like should come to like. By inspiration, by the human side, I mean a meek, reverent, contrite and willing heart, a disposition unprejudiced, a holy, sacred burning desire to know God's will and to do it all. How stands the case now? You read the Bible and get nothing out of it. No, because you read it without corresponding inspiration on your part. No bad man can preach well. He may preach eloquently, learnedly, effectively. He may go very near to being a good preacher in the right sense of that term, but the bad man cannot preach well in God's sense and definition of the term. What can the bad man preach? Can he preach salvation by the blood of Christ, he who knows not what it is to shed one drop of blood for any human creature? Can he speak nobly who never felt nobly? (J. Parker, D. D.) Homiletic Review. Personality is the one thing of real value. The other day I stood looking at ten or fifteen pounds of clay. It was valued at one thousand dollars. But this clay bore upon it the impress of personality. It had been touched by man's intelligence and innermost spirit. It had been designed, and moulded into beauteous form; painted by artistic skill; glazed and baked and perfected by man's inventive genius, and when it came from his hand, bearing the impress of his art, the beauty of thought, the very life of his personality, it had risen in value from zero to a thousand dollars — from worthless clay to a vase of surpassing value and loveliness. Whenever we purchase an article of any kind, in any store, we buy manhood, and not materials; personality, and not things. What we buy would be worthless without the impress of the human soul. Material things take their value from man. They rise in value as he rises in intelligence and moral power. The only thing of real value in the world is the human soul.(Homiletic Review.) The child is not awaked Many of you are, or have been, quite as "dead," in the truest sense of that word, as was the boy who lay still and white in the prophet's chamber at Shunem, and need to be "awaked" quite as much as he did. No doubt even in the youngest of you there are evil germs which may unfold themselves by and by, until you too die, or fall asleep, to God and goodness. No doubt even you often do wrong, and know that it is wrong while you do it. But, for all that, I do not call you "dead" if God is near and present to you, if you think of Him as your Father, if you are sorry when you do wrong, if you are quickly and easily moved to love, admire, and imitate whatsoever is right and brave and noble. But there are some of you who have lived long enough, and have long enough been "knocked about" in the little world of school, to have grown somewhat dull and "dead." God is not so real, or He is not so much, to you as He was. You are not so ashamed of doing wrong as you were; it may be even that there are some things which you know your masters or parents would think wrong that you take a foolish pride in hiding from them. Perhaps you are getting greedy, selfish, hard to please; or, like Gehazi, covetous of the good things which others have, but you have not. Yes: I have often seen a most gruesome sight. I have seen a dead boy inside a living boy, and a dead girl inside a living girl! That is to say, I have seen girls and boys who had lost their sensibility to spiritual things, their love of goodness, truth, kindness, and gentleness, and were nevertheless quite content with themselves so long as they could get nice food to eat, nice clothes to wear, and plenty of pocketmoney and amusement. Is it too much to say that such boys and girls are dead? And, then, some of you, if you are not dead, are at least "fast asleep." Your spiritual faculties and affections rust unused, or they are seldom used. You are dreaming, and pursuing dreams. For what we often call "the real world," the world outside us, is not truly the real one; but the world within it. and behind it, and beyond it. Thousands of men pass into this outward world, and pass out of it every day; and they can only take with them what they have stored up within themselves. So that it is this inner world which is the real world to us, the world in which alone true and enduring treasures are to be found. And if any of you think the outside world — in which you only stay for a few years at most — to be the real one, and are living only or mainly for that, while the inward and spiritual world, in which you are to abide for ever, is unreal and unattractive to you; — what can we say of you except that you are fast asleep, and do not see things as they are, and mistake dreams for realities, and realities for dreams? You have eyes, but they are not open. There are faculties in you capable of apprehending the true realities, but as yet they are not in exercise. Like the Shunammite's son, who was both asleep and dead, you need to be awaked; you need to be quickened unto life. I should like to creep into your very hearts, and whisper, "Are you awake?" and to go on asking it till you were roused from your dreams, and saw things as they really are; for it is my duty to you, as it is that of your other teachers, to rouse and wake you, if we anyhow can. But, at the very outset, you may turn upon me, and say — "How are we to know whether we are what you call awake? What is it to be awake, and alive, toward God? What do you want us to be and to do?" And I reply: Well, for one thing, I do not want to see you trying to become sanctimonious little saints. I should hate to see you behaving and to hear you talking as some of the "good children" behave and talk of whom you read in certain tracts and books. What I want is that you should set yourselves to become good, useful, and happy men and women, by placing the best and highest aims before you, by acting on right motives, because you know that God loves you, and is bent on making you good. How are you to know whether you are alive and awake, or asleep and dead? In a hundred different ways — such ways as these. If you are at school, and set yourself to learn your lessons well and to get on fast — you may have very different motives for doing your duty in school. You may care only to beat your class-fellows, to stand above them, to get on in your little world and be looked up to; and if that be your aim or motive, it is a selfish one, and you are asleep and dead to the true motives and aims by which you ought to be inspired. But if you are eager to learn because you wish to do your duty, and to fit your. selves for larger duties by and by, because you want to become wiser, better, more useful, or because you want to please your parents and show that you are not unmindful of how much they have done for you, or because you want to please God and to prove that you thankfully remember how much He has done for you and given you, then you are alive and awake: for, now, your motives reach up out of and beyond this present world, which will soon pass away, and you are trying to prepare yourselves for any life, or any world, to which it may please God to call you. And, lastly, some of you are growing up into men and women, and have to go out into the world to earn your daily bread. Are you diligent, thoughtful, eager to advance? Why, so far, well. But you may be diligent, observant, quick to seize every advantage and opportunity, mainly because you hate work and hope to get free from it the more quickly; or because you want to lay by money, to get rich, to make a fortune; or because you are bent on distinction, reputation, applause. And, in that case, you are dead and asleep; you are not alive and awake to the best things, the most satisfying, the most enduring. For this life, for which alone you are living, will soon be over, and the riches which have wings soon use them and fly away. If you should die to-night, our Father would not have sorrowfully to say of you, "The child is not awake," and feel that He must put you into hard and painful conditions which will rouse and sting you to a sense of all that you have lost and thrown away. And if you should live to be never so old, still all your life will be a useful and happy preparation for the better life to come.(S. Cox, D. D.) A member of Whitefield's Sunday Afternoon Men's Meeting stopped Mr. Horne a little while ago and said, "I have a crow to pluck with you." "Oh, only one?" said Mr. Home. "What is that? You have taken away my Sunday afternoon's nap!" "How is that?" asked the well-known preacher. "Well, I used to sleep all Sunday afternoon, and now I come to Whitefield's." "And how do you like it?" "Oh, I find it far more interesting to be awake!" The story is worth repeating, because there are tens of thousands of people who seriously assume that it is more interesting to be asleep. God has made us for wakefulness, and in all the departments of our life the wakeful man receives the surprises of the Almighty. How much the wakeful man can see in the country lane! There are uncounted numbers of village people who are still asleep, and whose senses have never begun to discern the transient glories of their own surroundings. I have just been staying with a man who makes it part of his ministry of life to open the senses of young villagers whose lives are cast in these entrancing spots. He tells me that they are entering into the unknown world with all the fascination exercised by a fairy tale. Birds and flowers have become the fairies in their once commonplace world, and now that they am awake they find it surpassingly interesting.(Hartley Aspen.) People Elisha, GehaziPlaces Baal-shalishah, Edom, Gilgal, Mount Carmel, ShunemTopics Ahead, Attention, Awake, Awaked, Awakened, Boy, Boy's, Child, Child's, Declareth, Elisha, Face, Gehazi, Geha'zi, Hearing, Lad, Lad's, Laid, Layeth, Meet, Meeting, News, Passed, Response, Returned, Saying, Sign, Staff, Stick, Turneth, Voice, Wherefore, YouthOutline 1. Elisha multiplies the widow's oil8. He obtains a son for the good Shunammite 18. He restores her son when dead 38. At Gilgal he heals the deadly pottage 42. He satisfies a hundred men with twenty loaves Dictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 4:31Library When the Oil Flows'And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.'--2 KINGS iv. 6. The series of miracles ascribed to Elisha are very unlike most of the wonderful works of even the Old Testament, and still more unlike those of the New. For about a great many of them there seems to have been no special purpose, either doctrinal or otherwise, but simply the relief of trivial and transient distresses. … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture A Miracle Needing Effort Infant Salvation That the Grace of Devotion is Acquired by Humility and Self-Denial Extracts No. Ix. Abram's Horror of Great Darkness. The Soul. Answer to the Jewish Rabby's Letter. Supplementary Note to Chapter ii. The Year of Christ's Birth. Synagogues: their Origin, Structure and Outward Arrangements Kings Links 2 Kings 4:31 NIV2 Kings 4:31 NLT 2 Kings 4:31 ESV 2 Kings 4:31 NASB 2 Kings 4:31 KJV 2 Kings 4:31 Bible Apps 2 Kings 4:31 Parallel 2 Kings 4:31 Biblia Paralela 2 Kings 4:31 Chinese Bible 2 Kings 4:31 French Bible 2 Kings 4:31 German Bible 2 Kings 4:31 Commentaries Bible Hub |