From
"This Ministry" - Messages given at Honor Oak -
Volume 3
"I,
even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord" (1
Kings 18:22).
"I, even I only, am left" (1 Kings
19:10,14).
"Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel,
all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal" (1
Kings 19:18).
"Then he mustered... seven thousand" (1
Kings 20:15).
"Elijah... a man of like passions
(nature) with us" (James 5:17).
It is a
gracious thing that, in recording the lives of His most
used and representative servants, the Lord has never
hidden their weaknesses. Most biographers seem to feel
that it would harm their subjects, weaken the testimony,
or do injury to the work to which they were called if
they dwelt upon their human nature on its weakest side
and pointed out when and where they broke down. There is
also a mistaken kindness in this omission; the idea that,
all of us being so faulty, we should never refer to the
weaknesses of others. If the life was truly glorifying to
God as a whole, and the work was really a work of God, it
only enhances the grace of God to show how He was with,
and blessed, such very human and imperfect
vessels, and no one who really loves the Lord will take
that fact as a cover and condonation of repeated
failures. At the same time it is true that God is the
only One Who has the right to speak of human weaknesses,
and everyone who does so under His direction must do it
with deep humility and fear: the reason for this is
recognised in such representative cases as Moses, Elijah,
David, Peter, etc. Even in the case of Christ Himself,
although He did not succumb, yet this factor
held good, and in His case the fact is definitely shown.
That factor is this:
Satan Knows Our Weakest Moment, and
Uses It.
It was
when the Master had fasted for forty days and nights and
hungered that Satan came with his testings. Whatever
other factors were present in the cases of Elijah and
others, there is no doubt that the physical and nervous
drain of recent experiences gave the cowardly enemy very
promising ground for his assault. When Moses made his
great mistake at the rock it is evident that he was an
overwrought man, and although the weakness is given full
uncovering and the result shown to be very grievous in a
temporal way, he was never afterward repudiated in
history as a failure; rather was he with the Lord on the
Mount of Transfiguration. David still held his place of
high honour and value in Divine purposes, and his name
runs to the end of Scripture with Divine recognition
despite the grievous fallings in the way. He suffered, it
is true, but God knows that in the lives of those who
count for Him there are forces at work which are extra to
the ordinary human weaknesses. This is made so clear in
the case of Peter, whose terrible failure was said by the
Lord to be the work of Satan; and there is no doubt but
that Satan knew Peter's weak point and weak moment.
We must, however, bear in mind that, while
the Scriptures on these matters are given us for our
comfort, and to magnify the grace of God, they are not
meant to weaken us or excuse our weakness, but to make us
aware of how Satan can get an advantage, and to indicate
the danger points along the way of spiritual usefulness.
In the case of Elijah before us, there is
one thing that we want to note, and the noting of which
we feel will be a help to some. It is this: in the moment
of his weakness Satan sowed a lie in Elijah's mind, and
Elijah accepted it. Our Lord said of Satan that "he
is a liar, and the father thereof" (John 8:44). In
this case he begot the lie that Elijah was the only
faithful prophet of God left in Israel. There was ground
for that seed. The man was fighting a lonely battle;
ploughing a lonely furrow; walking a lonely path. There
is no doubt about that.
Loneliness is a Part of the Price of
Leadership
If we are seeking to go on with God to any
degree beyond that which is commonly accepted as a true
Christian life; if we are called to pioneer the way for
any further advance in spiritual life or Divine service;
if we are given a vision of God's will and purpose not
seen by the general mass of God's people - or even the
larger number of the servants of God - ours will be a
lonely way.
There
are many other ways in which we may feel aloneness. It
may be for geographical reasons; or it may be because of
an inward experience through which we are passing; an
experience or phase which cannot be shared by another,
even the one closest to us. All these and other reasons
may respectively become our "wilderness" in
which Satan comes, and, while there is a basic occasion,
his business is to push things into the extra realm of
untruth and tell us that we ARE actually and
utterly alone. It is not a rare thing for him to tell a
child of God that God has left him or her.
Elijah
verily believed that he was the only one left in
faithfulness to God, and he repeated his plaint several
times, "I only am left." He had lost sight of
the possibility that the prophets reported by Obadiah to
have been hidden might still be in that underground
faithfulness, or some of them at least. But the Lord
knew better and told him of seven thousand unsurrendering
saints who would not capitulate to Jezebel or Baal. The
fact is that what Elijah believed was positively not
true. If we look at things horizontally we shall only see
so far, but if we look from heaven we shall see much
more.
Well,
what is the answer? Firstly, the Lord's love has taken
the full measure of human frailty before ever He
called us to Himself, and therefore that love, being
all-knowing, does not give up because it comes upon
something unforeseen and not already accounted for.
Secondly,
the Lord asks for nothing more than a heart toward
Himself. That is the ground upon which He will go right
on. Only positive, definite, and persisted-in
unbelief and disobedience will make the Lord say,
"Look here, My child, I love you and want to go on
with you, and I will go on if only you will
trust Me and respond to Me. But we cannot go on until you
have adjusted; we must just stand here and wait for
that."
Thirdly,
if it is true that the Lord neither leaves nor forsakes
His own, it is equally true that they are not alone as to
others of the Lord's own. There is the fact,
altogether apart from the teaching, that the body is one,
and hath many members (1 Cor. 12:12). That fact
does not depend upon the doctrine, it is just a fact.
Moreover it is constituted by the Holy Spirit Himself. He
is the Spirit of unity; there is "the communion of
the Holy Spirit"; i.e. the communion of believers in
and by the Holy Spirit. There are always believers
praying for "all saints," the vast majority of
whom are utterly unknown to them in this world. If we
would take our stand on God's fact in this matter, and,
by faith, take the value of "all prayer for all
saints" we should find a wonderful relief and
reinforcement in our aloneness.
But let
us face the fact that a certain measure and kind of
loneliness will connect with any particular
value which the Lord already has, or is seeking to have,
in us, and we must accept this with courage, reminding
ourselves that were it otherwise that particular value
might not be possible. Jesus was able to meet many a
difficult situation because He had learnt the secret in
aloneness.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1947, Vol 25-5