PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 268,095 words · 382 reading sections
Political Religion
Christianity is something more than social cement. Jeroboam's policy was a great success, as policy. It both united his kingdom and definitively separated it from Judah. But it was a success purchased at the price of degrading religion into the lackey of a court. Samson went to sleep on Delilah's lap, and she cut off t…
695 wordsSECTION 302The Record Of Two Kings
'In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah. 24. And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Sa…
920 wordsSECTION 303The Record Of Two Kings
Another lesson from these two reigns is the certain widening of the smallest departure from God. Jeroboam professed to retain the worship of Jehovah, and to introduce only a small alteration in setting up a symbol of Him. He would vehemently have asserted that he was no idolater, and would have shuddered at the very no…
424 wordsSECTION 304A Prophet'S Strange Providers
'And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. 2. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, 3. Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by …
754 wordsSECTION 305A Prophet'S Strange Providers
The natural conclusion from the narrative is that the prophet and the king had never met before; and, if so, the stern brevity of the threat is even more remarkable. In any case, the absence of explanation of reasons for the drought, or of credentials of Elijah, or of offers of mercy on condition of repentance, give a …
651 wordsSECTION 306A Prophet'S Strange Providers
Note that the same words are employed about the ravens and the widow: 'I have commanded the... to feed thee.' God has ways of reaching the mysterious animal instinct and the mysterious human will, and each, in its own way, obeys. It is needless to try to pare down the miracle by saying that, of course, ravens would hau…
678 wordsSECTION 307A Prophet'S Strange Providers
It was a lesson in faith for the woman too. Her use of the phrase 'the Lord thy God' may imply some inclination to the worship of Jehovah, and so there may have been a little glimmer of faith in her; but she was full of sorrow and despair, and yet willing to help the stranger with the 'little water in a vessel,' though…
379 wordsSECTION 308Elijah Standing Before The Lord
And Elijah the Tishbite ... said ... As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand.--1 KINGS xvii. 1. This solemn and remarkable adjuration seems to have been habitual upon Elijah's lips in the great crises of his life. We never find it used by any but himself, and his scholar and successor, Elisha. Both of th…
831 wordsSECTION 309Elijah Standing Before The Lord
How nobly the steadfastness and superiority to all temptations which such a vision gives, are illustrated by the occasions, in these prophets' lives, in which this expression came to their lips! The servant of the Heavenly King speaks from his present intuition. As he speaks, he sees the throne in the heavens, and the …
972 wordsSECTION 310Elijah Standing Before The Lord
Then, still further, we may take another view of these words. They are the utterance of a man to whom his life was not only bright with the radiance of a divine presence, and musical with the voice of a divine command, but was also, on his part, full of conscious obedience. No man could say such a thing of himself who …
690 wordsSECTION 311Elijah Standing Before The Lord
The thought, which made all Elisha's life bright with the light of God's presence, which filled his ear with the unremitting voice of a Divine Law, which swayed and bowed his will to joyful obedience, chilled and deadened his desires for all earthly rewards. 'I am not thy servant. I am God's servant. It is not your bus…
505 wordsSECTION 312Obadiah
_To the Young_ '... I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth.--1 KINGS xviii.12. This Obadiah is one of the obscurer figures in the Old Testament. We never hear of him again, for there is no reason to accept the Jewish tradition which alleges that he was Obadiah the prophet. And yet how distinctly he stands out from…
709 wordsSECTION 313Obadiah
II. The foes of youthful religion. There are foes within .... the strong self-reliance and bounding life proper to youth, without which at the opening of the flower, the bloom would be poor and the fruit little, ... the power of appeals to the unjaded and physically strong senses, ... the difficulty at such a stage of…
373 wordsSECTION 314The Trial By Fire
'And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose yon one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. 26. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, …
716 wordsSECTION 315The Trial By Fire
Note that the priests are not consulted, nor is Ahab. The former would have had some excuse for shirking the sharp issue; but the people's assent forced them to accept the ordeal,--reluctantly enough, no doubt. I. The vain cries to a deaf God. It is strange that one of the parties to the test has power to determine it…
675 wordsSECTION 316The Trial By Fire
Sarcasm is not the highest weapon, and the 'spirit of Elijah' is not the spirit of Jesus; but the exposure of the absurdity of idolatry is legitimate, and even ridicule may have its place in pricking wind-distended bladders. A man throttling a serpent may be excused using anything that comes handy for the purpose. But,…
662 wordsSECTION 317The Trial By Fire
Note the substance of the petitions. The deepest desire of a truly devout soul is that God would make His name known. Zeal for God's honour and love for men who have gone astray from Him, conspire to make that the head and front of His true servant's prayers. It is God, not his own credit, about which Elijah thinks fir…
691 wordsSECTION 318Elijah'S Weakness, And Its Cube
'And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 2. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time. 3. And when he saw that, he arose, …
774 wordsSECTION 319Elijah'S Weakness, And Its Cube
I. We may note, first, the prophet's flight (verses 3-8). Beersheba, on the southern border of the kingdom of Judah, was eloquent of memories of the patriarchs, but though it was nearly a hundred miles from Jezreel, Jezebel's arm was long enough to reach the fugitive there, and therefore he plunged deeper into the drea…
788 wordsSECTION 320Elijah'S Weakness, And Its Cube
That question, 'What doest thou here?' can scarcely be freed from a tone of rebuke; but, like Christ's to the travellers to Emmaus, and many another interrogation from God, it is also put in order to allow of the loaded heart's relieving itself by pouring out all its griefs. God's questions are the assurance of His lis…
848 wordsSECTION 321Putting On The Armour
Further, the commissions met Elijah's despondency in another way; for they assured him of the divine judgments on the house of Ahab, and of the use of the Syrian king as a rod to chastise Israel. He had thought God too slow in avenging His dishonoured name, and had been taught the might of gentleness; but now he also l…
832 wordsSECTION 322Putting On The Armour
There are some of us to whom, so far as we have thought at all, life presents itself mainly as a shop, a place where we are to 'buy and sell, and get gain,' and use our evenings, after the day's work is over, for such recreation as suits us. And there are young men among my hearers who, with the flush of their physical…
761 wordsSECTION 323Putting On The Armour
Have you considered the forces that are arrayed against you? 'What act is all its thought had been?' Hand and brain are never paired. There is always a gap between the conception and its realisation. The painter stands before his canvas, and, while others may see beauty in it, he only sees what a small fragment of the …
655 wordsSECTION 324Putting On The Armour
Have you ever taken stock honestly of your own resources? 'What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether with his ten thousand he can meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?' Boast if you like, but calculate first, and boast after that, if you c…
727 wordsSECTION 325Putting On The Armour
'This is the victory that overcometh the world,' and the youngest, feeblest Christian who lays his or her hand in Christ's strong hand, may look out upon all the embattled antagonisms that front them, and say, 'He will cover my head in the day of battle, and teach my hands to war and my fingers to fight.' Dear young f…
452 wordsSECTION 326Royal Murderers
'And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a bet…
806 wordsSECTION 327Royal Murderers
The weak rage and childish sulking of Ahab are very characteristic of a feeble and selfish nature, accustomed to be humoured and not thwarted. These fits of temper seem to have been common with him; for he was in one at the end of the preceding chapter, as he is now. The 'bed' on which he flung himself is probably the …
781 wordsSECTION 328Royal Murderers
The plot gives a colour of legality, which is probably often unobserved by readers. Naboth was to be accused of treason: 'renouncing God and the king'; and that was, according to the law of Moses, a charge which, if proved, merited capital punishment. But it is Satan accusing sin for Jezebel, the Baal worshipper, who h…
687 wordsSECTION 329Ahab And Elijah
Her indecent triumph at the success of the plot, and her utter callousness, are expressed in her words to Ahab, in which the main point is the taking possession of the vineyard. The death of its owner is told with exultation, as being nothing but the sweeping aside of an obstacle. Ahab asks no questions as to how this …
716 wordsSECTION 330Ahab And Elijah
I. I find here, in the first place, this broad principle: Pleasure won by sin is peace lost. It does not need that there should be a rebuking prophet standing by to work out that law. God commits the execution of it to the natural operations of our own consciences and our own spirits. Here is the fact in men's natures…
714 wordsSECTION 331Ahab And Elijah
Then, you may say again, 'All that is very much exaggerated. That is not the sort of feeling which men that go on persistently doing wrong things, cherish. They live quietly and contentedly enough. "There are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm."' All that would be true if men's consciences kept sensiti…
744 wordsSECTION 332Ahab And Elijah
II. In the second place, Sin is blind to its true friends and its real foes. 'Hast thou found me, _O mine enemy?'_ Elijah was the best friend that Ahab had in his kingdom. And that Jezebel there, the wife of his bosom, whom he loved and thanked for this new toy, she was the worst foe that hell could have sent him. Ay,…
881 wordsSECTION 333Ahab And Elijah
Ay, and more than that:--sin makes us fancy that God Himself is our enemy; and sin makes that thought of God that ought to be most blessed and most sweet to us, the terror of our souls. You have the power, my friend, by your own wrongdoing, of perverting the whole universe, and, worst of all, of distorting the image of…
961 wordsSECTION 334Unpossessed Possessions
'And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?'--1 KINGS xxii. 3. This city of Ramoth in Gilead was an important fortified place on the eastern side of the Jordan, and had, many years before the date of our t…
693 wordsSECTION 335Unpossessed Possessions
What noble possibilities of service, what power in the world, are bestowed on Christ's people!' All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth,' says He. 'And He breathed on them, and said, As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.' The divine gift to the Christian community, and to the individuals that compose…
760 wordsSECTION 336Unpossessed Possessions
That unfamiliarity with the thought of unattained possibilities in the Christian life is a damning curse of thousands of people who call themselves Christians. They do not think, they never realise--and some of us are guilty in this respect--they never realise that it is possible for them to be all unlike what they are…
666 wordsSECTION 337Unpossessed Possessions
'We be still, and take it not out of the hands of the King of Syria.' Then these things that are ours, by God's gift, by Christ's purchase, by the Spirit's influence, will need our effort to secure them. And that is no contradiction, nor any paradox. God does exactly in the same way with regard to a great many of His n…
680 wordsSECTION 338Ahab And Micaiah
'And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him? 8. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.'--1 KINGS xxii…
664 wordsSECTION 339Ahab And Micaiah
Now, I suppose I need not spend time in enumerating or describing the points in the attitude of Christianity towards the solemn fact of human sin, which correspond to Ahab's complaint that the prophet spake always 'not good concerning him, but evil.' The 'gospel' of Jesus Christ proves its name to be true, and that it …
814 wordsSECTION 340Ahab And Micaiah
Take another illustration. Do we not all know that honest friends have sometimes fallen out of favour, perhaps with ourselves, because they have persistently kept telling us what our consciences and common-sense knew to be true, that if we go on by that road we shall be suffocated in a bog? A man makes up his mind to a…
845 wordsSECTION 341Ahab And Micaiah
Would you think it wise for a sea-captain to try to take the clapper out of the bell that floats and tolls above a shoal on which his ship will be wrecked if it strikes? Would it be wise to put out the lighthouse lamps, and then think that you had abolished the reef? Does the signalman with his red flag make the danger…
727 wordsSECTION 342The Chariot Of Fire
'And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. 2. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Beth-el. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. 80 th…
733 wordsSECTION 343The Chariot Of Fire
Why did Elijah wish Elisha to stay behind? Apparently to spare him the pain of seeing his master depart. With loving concealment, he tried to make Elisha suppose that his errand to Bethel and then to Jericho was but a common one, to be soon despatched. It was a little touch of tenderness in the strong, rough man. Note,…
695 wordsSECTION 344The Chariot Of Fire
III. Elisha's request is the next stage in the story. How far they two 'went on' is not told. The Bible does not foster the craving to know the exact situation where sacred things happened, the gratification of which might feed superstition, but could not increase reverence. Possibly they had drawn near the eastern hil…
776 wordsSECTION 345The Translation Of Elijah And The Ascension Of Christ
But the most instructive view of Elijah's translation is its parallel and contrast with Christ's Ascension. The one was by outward means; the other by inward energy. Storm and fire bore Elijah up into a region strange to him. Christ 'ascended up where He was before,' returning by the propriety of His nature to His eter…
701 wordsSECTION 346The Translation Of Elijah And The Ascension Of Christ
What a different set of associations cluster round the place of Christ's Ascension--'Bethany,' or, as it is more particularly specified in the Acts, 'Olivet'! In the very heart of the land, close by and yet out of sight of the great city, in no wild solitude, but perhaps in some dimple of the hill, neither shunning nor…
687 wordsSECTION 347The Translation Of Elijah And The Ascension Of Christ
Be that as it may, the manner of our Lord's Ascension by His own inherent power is brought into boldest relief when contrasted with Elijah's rapture, and is evidently the fitting expression, as it is the consequence, of His sole and singular divine nature. It accords with His own mode of reference to the Ascension, whi…
753 wordsSECTION 348The Translation Of Elijah And The Ascension Of Christ
III. Whilst our Lord's Ascension is thus marked as the seal of a work in which He has no successor, it is also emphatically set forth, by contrast with Elijah's translation, as the transition to a continuous energy for and in the world. Clearly the other narrative derives all its pathos from the thought that Elijah's …
673 wordsSECTION 349The Translation Of Elijah And The Ascension Of Christ
IV. The Ascension of Christ is still further set forth, in its very circumstances, by contrast with Elijah's translation, as bearing on the hopes of humanity for the future. The prophet is caught up to the glory and repose for himself alone, and the sole share which the gazing follower or the sons of the prophets stra…
732 wordsSECTION 350Elijah'S Translation And Elisha'S Deathbed
That parting on Olivet cannot be the end. Such a leave-taking is the prophecy of happy greetings and an inseparable reunion. The King has gone to receive a kingdom, and to return. Memory and hope coalesce, as we think of Him who is passed into the heavens, and the heart of the Church has to cherish at once the glad tho…
652 wordsSECTION 351Elijah'S Translation And Elisha'S Deathbed
But why should he say 'the chariot of _Israel_'? I think we take for granted too readily that 'Israel' here means the nation. You will remember that that name was not originally that of the nation, but of its progenitor and founder, given to Jacob as the consequence and record of that mysterious wrestling by the brook.…
803 wordsSECTION 352Elijah'S Translation And Elisha'S Deathbed
And what does that exclamation mean? Two things. One is this, that the angels of the Divine Presence are with us as truly, in life, when unseen as if seen. So far as we know, it was only to Elisha that the vision had been granted of that chariot of fire and horses of fire. We read that at Elijah's translation on the ot…
678 wordsSECTION 353Elijah'S Translation And Elisha'S Deathbed
Do we see them for ourselves; and, not less important, do we, like Elisha, lying there on his deathbed, help else blind men to see them, and make every one that comes beside us, even if he be as little impressible and as little devout as this king Joash was, recognise that in our chambers there sit, and round our lives…
358 wordsSECTION 354Gentleness Succeeding Strength
'He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; 14. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went ove…
737 wordsSECTION 355Gentleness Succeeding Strength
The miracle was wrought partly for Elisha, and partly for others who were to acknowledge his authority. These sons of the prophets, who stood on the eastern bank of Jordan, had probably not been witnesses of the translation, even if their position commanded a view of the spot. Purer eyes and more kindred spirits than t…
768 wordsSECTION 356When The Oil Flows
The miracle of healing the waters is of the beneficent kind usual with Elisha, inaugurates his course with blessing, and typifies the healing power which God through him would exert on men. Jericho had been recently rebuilt in spite of the curse against its builders. The bitterness of the spring seems to have been part…
683 wordsSECTION 357When The Oil Flows
I. The vessel of desire. God can give us a great many things that we do not wish, but He cannot give us His best gift, and that is Himself, unless we desire it. He never forces His company on any man, and if we do not wish for Him He cannot give us Himself, His Spirit, or the gifts of His Spirit. For instance, He cann…
751 wordsSECTION 358When The Oil Flows
II. Another vessel that we have to bring is the vessel of our expectancy. Desire is one thing; confident anticipation that the desire will be fulfilled is quite another. And the two do not certainly go together anywhere except in this one region, and there they do go, linked arm in arm. For whatsoever, in the highest …
659 wordsSECTION 359When The Oil Flows
III. Lastly, one more vessel that we have to bring is obedience. 'If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.' _There_ is one case of the general principle that wishes and anticipations are all right and well, but unless they are backed up and verified by conduct, even wishes and anticipations will not…
345 wordsSECTION 360A Miracle Needing Effort
'So she went, and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: 26. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband! is it well with the ch…
831 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.