"And it came to pass, when Ahab saw
Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Is it thou, thou
troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled
Israel; but thou, and thy father's house" (1 Kings
18:17,18).
"And he said, I
have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of
hosts" (1 Kings 19:10).
When we bring together
those two fragments - "I have been very jealous for
the Lord"; "Is it thou, thou troubler of
Israel?" - we find two strangely contrasting and
conflicting points of view. On the one side, the claim -
truly supported, and undoubtedly true - to have been very
jealous for the Lord. And on the other side, this term,
this description, used of that same person: "thou
troubler of Israel". But the juxtaposition brings
out something very significant. To be very jealous for
the Lord may inevitably mean that you are a troubler of
Israel. Indeed, it usually works out like that. You will
give nobody any trouble - I mean spiritual trouble - if
you are not jealous for the Lord. But if you are, make no
mistake about it, this is how it will come back at you:
'Thou troubler of Israel!'
THE
PROPHET AS 'TROUBLE MAKER'
Now, although Elijah
seems to have repudiated the charge, and there was truth
and right in his so doing, nevertheless the charge was
true. Ahab, for once in his life, was telling the truth,
but telling the truth in a way of which he was not aware.
It is essentially a part of the ministry of a prophetic
instrument, to cause trouble. It is inevitable; it is in
the very nature of things. For the very function of the
prophet came into view when things were not right. If
things had never gone wrong, had never needed adjusting,
correcting, or bringing to some greater measure of
spiritual fullness, there would have been no need of
prophets. We should know very very little about prophets,
if things had gone right on as they should have done. The
function of the prophets was to keep and hold before the
people of God, God's full thought concerning them,
especially in the face of certain things that worked very
definitely against it. And it is just because of that
clash and conflict that the trouble arises.
Elijah's charge against
Ahab was a real one; but the 'trouble' to which Ahab
referred was not in Elijah - it was deeply inherent in
the spiritual condition of the time. Its real root and
cause lay there. There would have been no 'trouble', but
for people like Elijah; everything would have remained
quiescent. When Elijah was there in the country, Ahab
knew of it, and searched for him high and low. He was the
great irritating, aggravating factor. Though for a long
time hidden, nevertheless his very presence in the
country was having the effect of dragging this thing out
- this spiritual apostasy and corruption, which was,
after all, the root of the trouble. It could not go on
unchallenged, while such people as Elijah were there. I
am not at this moment so much concerned with Elijah
himself, as with what he represents: the presence of some
living spiritual testimony, embodied; an annoying,
inconvenient, aggravating thing, always somewhere about.
As you notice in the chapter, Ahab sent throughout the
length and breadth of the land, to try to discover
Elijah. If only he could get hold of THIS, and
destroy THIS, he thought, he could get rid of the
'trouble'.
This leads us to some
very definite conclusions. If there is a clash, a
collision, between two irreconcilables, there will always
be trouble. Given the incorrigible downgrade trend of
human nature, and, wherever that is challenged, you will
have trouble. That there is such a thing in human nature
needs no argument. We know quite well that any kind of
turning of that trend upward, no matter in what realm, is
always fraught with hard work, with conflict. It is the
nature of things to decline. Leave anything in this
creation to itself, and it degenerates; we know that to
be true. Every attempt, every effort to improve things,
in every realm, is fraught with conflict. That is clearly
true of human nature. It hates to be bothered, troubled
or disturbed; it wants to have its own way. Morally and
spiritually, the trend is always downward; if that is
challenged, there is going to be trouble.
ISRAEL
EXEMPLIFIES THE DOWNGRADE TREND IN MAN
How terribly true is
the working of that principle and law in Israel! Never in
the history of mankind has such an experiment been
carried out, as that which God carried out with Israel.
God did everything that could be done to make possible an
upward trend in the life of a nation. He gave it the very
best system of laws and regulations, for every department
of its life - physical, moral, spiritual. He gave it the
very best conditions, in a land flowing with milk and
honey; a land that simply leapt to respond to any little
effort to make it fruitful. God showed infinite patience
and longsuffering with that people. Never was such an
experiment carried out in human history, as was carried
out with Israel.
They had only to answer
to God in any little way, and immediately He blessed. If
they did this, in the temporal realm, at once they
received blessing for it; at once they were rewarded.
They had only got to ask, and He gave. They had only to
do, and He came out to them. We often wish (secretly)
that we lived in those days, when the temporal responses
of God were so wonderful! Yes, even when they were not
right with Him, if, in the midst of their criminal
attitude toward God, they humbled themselves and prayed,
God seemed to forget it all, and to come right out to
them. God was carrying out an experiment. Right at the
centre of His universe, He was giving an object lesson
for all ages, for all intelligences to observe, to read.
He put this people there under the most favourable
conditions - physically, geographically, morally and
spiritually - that He could provide. His attitude was: If
you will, I will, and there will be no delay about it.
What is the sum of the
whole thing? What is the story when you read it? An
amazing story! It is that, in spite of everything, the
course is always downgrade, downgrade, downgrade. This is
something incorrigible, inveterate. God has shown for all
time, for all times, that there is something in man, IN
man, that is deeper and stronger than all the upward
advantages that God can give him. Put him in a paradise,
and he will turn it into a slum! Give him all the best
conditions, and, in the long run, the condition will be
one of disgrace. And, somehow, strangely enough, man
loves to have it so. If you try to interfere with it, you
see what you meet. The dentist and the doctor can be the
most hated persons in the world! Is it because they are
so evil? Oh, no; there is something irrational about it,
utterly irrational. The value is altogether overlooked -
simply because it goes against the grain! And what is the
'grain'? How many people would sooner suffer, suffer,
suffer, than endure perhaps a few moments' pain, to have
the suffering cleared up! You see what I mean - it is a
strange thing, this human nature. But that is really at
the root of this whole thing.
Is it not strange, that
that which can be, or could be, the answer to all need,
the solving of every problem, the clearing up of every
evil situation, the bringing in of conditions so much
more favourable, can become the most hated thing? Is it
not strange? Look at the Lord Jesus: look at all that God
has given in Him; look at all that He was, all that He
came to bring, all that He came to do! He is a challenge,
an abiding challenge. Can you find evil in Him?
"What evil hath this man done?", asked another
man once - a man who knew something about evil, wrong and
sin; perhaps few knew more about it than Pilate did. Yet,
knowing it all, he had to say: 'I find no fault in this
Man' (Luke 23:22,14). And yet this One is the object of
malice and hatred, unto murder. Strange, isn't it? He
could clear up all the situations, solve all the
problems, meet all the needs; and yet - and yet - 'Away
with Him!' Anything that stands in the way of man's own
disposition, or predisposition, or predilection, having
its own way, will be a 'trouble maker'.
Now that touches a
principle. You and I, on the broadest basis of the
Christian life, are here in this world in this very
capacity, to straddle the path of iniquity, of sin - of
the very course of man - and to represent a check; and
because we are here for that, we shall be called 'trouble
makers'. In a very real sense we shall BE trouble
makers. The trouble will focus itself upon us, and we
shall have to suffer for it. The very fact that you are
jealous for the Lord will bring you into conflict with
that trend that there is in this world, in man. It is
going to be a really gruelling business for any testimony
for God in this world, because, in the very nature of
things, it counters the whole course of this world, which
is downhill.
THE
SPIRITUAL VERSUS THE
'NATURAL'
That is, as I have
said, the broad line of the principle. Let us get nearer
to the heart of things, so far as what is represented by
this chapter is concerned. When the SPIRITUAL
stands to confront the merely formal, traditional,
nominal and 'natural', then there is going to be trouble.
This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is
the reaction from religion. I would go further, and say
it may be the reaction from Christianity. There is a very
great difference between formal, traditional, nominal,
'natural' Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual
Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference.
So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield - the
battlefield of a lot of trouble.
Leave formalism alone,
and everything will go on quite quietly. Leave
traditionalism alone - that is, the set order of things
as it has always been; that framework of things as it has
been constituted and set up and established by man; that
Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of
things - and you will escape a great deal of trouble. But
seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and
trouble arises at once. And YOU are the trouble
maker! The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing
condition, the situation, the state; but it is only
brought out by your action. And so spiritual men and
women, and spiritual ministry, are called 'trouble
makers', because the two things cannot go on together.
That is where Israel
was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they
had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had
the forms, they had the system - they had it all; BUT,
in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap
between the 'externals' and 'internals' of life in
relation with God. The heart is far removed from the
lips. The spiritual reality is not found in the formal.
You may have it all - but then bring in the truly
spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that
very realm. It is the trouble which arises when what is
external and traditional comes into conflict with
something which is truly spiritual.
I used the word
'natural' a few moments ago - of course in quotation
marks, taking it out of the New Testament: it means,
literally, that which is merely 'soulish', 'of the soul'.
It is important to realise how very soulish a thing can
be, even in Christianity. There can be tremendous
passion, tremendous earnestness, tremendous enthusiasm,
tremendous arguments and conviction; and yet the thing
may be far, far removed from what is spiritual. It may be
another world altogether. The conflict arises between
those two things. When the natural mind is manipulating
Divine things; when the natural reason has taken hold of
the Word of God and the things of God; when man's own
passions and interests are being served through the work
and service of God: that can become the ground of a great
deal of spiritual conflict and trouble.
Trouble will arise in
the realm of religion, and in 'Christian religion', as
such, when what is purely spiritual comes up against the
fixed system and tradition of men. It can happen as truly
within Christianity, as it did between Christ and Paul,
and Judaism. There was the tradition, and, in itself,
there was nothing wrong with it; there was nothing wrong
with what God had given, with the oracles and the
testimony, nothing spiritually or morally wrong. But they
had become ends in themselves, things in themselves; and
the real meaning, significance and interpretation of them
was lost; THEY were the things. The temple was
the thing: with God it was not the thing; it was only a
sign of something else. With them the sacrifices were the
things: with God they were not the thing at all; there
was only one Sacrifice that was true with God. And so we
might go over the whole gamut. The THINGS - the
forms and the means - were everything, and it was
criminal in their eyes to say otherwise, to give any
other interpretation than the historical and traditional.
That is where they fell out with Paul. He had come to see
the meaning of things, he had advanced from the things to
the meaning; and they had not. Therein lay the conflict
and the trouble.
'SOUL'
IS THE GROUND OF SATAN'S KINGDOM
But now, let us come to
the very heart of it. There is the wide circle of the
world, of mankind and of human nature; and, within that,
the smaller circle of religion, whatever the religion may
be. These are realms of conflict when God's full mind is
present. But right at the heart of both of those, there
is something else, something that is easily discernible
right through the Bible: there is the Satanic. Now, if
Satan is alive to anything, sensitive to anything, touchy
about anything, it is on this matter of the place that
the Lord Jesus is to have - and to have, not formally,
but vitally; not just historically, but spiritually: so
that the Lord Jesus becomes not merely a name in history,
not merely a figure in history, not merely a teacher in
history, not merely a historic factor, but a vital,
potent force in this universe, right up to date. That is
the point upon which Satan and his kingdom are most
sensitive. They are alive to any little thing that points
in that direction, and they recognise immediately a
potential menace to their kingdom.
Human nature is a good
playground for that. Hence the story of missionary
martyrs: those who have touched the raw material of human
nature with the testimony of Jesus, with all the terrible
conflict, suffering and cost. The natural man - the
natural mind, the natural will; that which is merely the
soul of man - in moving and working, exercising itself,
asserting itself and drawing to itself, in the realm of
the things of God, is a splendid playground for the evil
forces. You assert any little bit of your soul life, and
see what the Devil will do with it! You uncover any
little bit of your soul life, and see what a wreck Satan
will make of you! It is the whole story of the
devastation that results when self-occupation,
introspection and self-pity - all the forms of self-life
- assert themselves and become accentuated. Does not the
evil one just play havoc with people like that! They have
opened the door, and he is not slow to present himself
there for access.
Now, set over against
all that - the natural man brought into the spiritual
world (if that is a possibility), or into the realm of
God's things - is that which is purely and truly
spiritual, that which is of the Spirit. And when those
two things come into collision, there is trouble - for
they are both great systems - simply because, in the
realm which is truly of the Spirit, Satan has no place at
all! 'The prince of this world cometh', said Jesus, 'and
hath nothing in Me' - the Man who lived in and walked by
the Spirit. In all things, in ALL things, He
referred and deferred to the Spirit of the Anointing
which was upon Him. The prince of this world had NOTHING
in Him.
Poor Peter was just at
the mercy of the Devil, because, with all his sincerity,
with all his well-meaning enthusiasm, he moved in his own
soul. His relationship to Christ was one purely of the
soul. When Peter came to be a man under the government of
the Holy Spirit, that matter underwent immediate
adjustment, and you can almost watch the process of that
soul-life of his being brought more and more under
control.
Perhaps I should pause
to safeguard this, by saying very emphatically that it is
not wrong to have a soul. No, God has given us a soul,
and it is our soul which has got to be saved. But the
point is - what is the base upon which and from which we
operate, the instrument that we are using, the ground of
our living? Either it is the soul, which is the seat of
our SELF-life, in every sense; or it is the
spirit, which is the seat of the DIVINE life.
Here, then, is the
explanation of the conflict. Satan works hard to get hold
of 'soul'. He can lead everything out on to a false
stream in that way. A thing that may start in the Spirit,
can at some point, without sufficient watchfulness and
prayerfulness, be led right out on to a false trail, and
end up as something altogether different from what it was
at the beginning.
But, to return to this
eighteenth chapter of First Kings - Baal and all the rest
of it - the heart of the thing is this. It is not Baal,
it is not Ahab, it is not Jezebel: it is the evil powers; and THEY are after this man Elijah. Behind
Jezebel, there are evil forces set upon the destruction
of this man, because his very presence means a breach in
their kingdom. He is the man in touch with God, in touch
with the Throne. In him and by him, THAT throne
becomes imminent - that throne is present. And these two
thrones, these two kingdoms, are against one another.
'TROUBLE'
INEVITABLE WITH SPIRITUAL SIGHT
When, therefore, there
is the purest testimony, the fullest expression of what
is of God, the heavenly over against the earthly, the
spiritual over against the carnal or the natural, the
enemy gives a turn to things, a twist to things, and lays
the responsibility at the door of a spiritual and a
heavenly ministry. He says: 'You are the cause of all the
trouble - you are the troubler!' But no. The trouble lies
deeper than that, and in another realm. The truth is,
there is something here that, in its very nature, MUST
create trouble, MUST be a source of trouble, so
long as God's known will, His revealed mind, is being
violated; while the full expression of God's purpose is
being withstood. To bring in something that stands for
that, there is going to be trouble.
It is a costly thing to
have seen God's full purpose and thought concerning His
people. It is always a costly thing. The Lord Jesus set a
very vivid example and object lesson of this truth right
in the foreground, in the incident of the man born blind
(John 9). There is no doubt that the Lord intended that
man to represent Israel and Israel's condition at the
time. He gave that man sight - and what happened to the
man? "They cast him out", that is all; they
cast him out, they excommunicated him (v. 34). That is an
object lesson, an instance of this very thing.
If eyes have been
opened; if, in any sense - not officially - you have
become a 'seer' - one who sees: it is going to cost you a
lot, it will involve you in a lot of trouble. This matter
of 'seeing' does that. It was Elijah the SEER, over
against the BLINDNESS of Israel. It is a costly
thing to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman in this
universe. It is a costly thing, yes, very costly, to hold
to a heavenly and spiritual position. It is a costly
thing to hold for Christ's full place; it involves you in
trouble. It is a costly thing to have light - if it is
true light, God-given light. It is a costly thing to have
life.
But remember, it is
here, in this, that the power is resident. It is with
this that God is found ultimately to be committed. You
know the story again. God will have no compromise with
the thing that lies behind. 'Take the prophets of Baal!'
They were all slain. There is no compromise with that
spiritual thing. But God is shown as to where He stands,
to what He is committed, and where the power is.
For I suppose that, if
Elijah represents one thing more than another, he does
represent spiritual power. When we think of spiritual
power we always refer to Elijah - 'in the power of
Elijah'. It is proverbial. Why? Not because of anything
that he was in himself; no, not because of the man. He
was a man in touch with the Throne; he was a man who had
seen; a man who was committed, of whom it was true that
he was "very jealous for the Lord". God was
with Elijah.
John came 'in the power
of Elijah' (Luke 1:17); he was the Elijah of his time.
The Lord Jesus said of him: "If ye are willing to
receive it, this is Elijah" (Matt. 11:14), though
John himself denied this (John 1:21). Elijah is a sort of
phantom in a certain realm. Poor Herod was scared of his
life - he began to see things, to get strange ideas -
when he heard about Jesus: some suggested to him that
this was Elijah returned to life, but he thought it was
John the Baptist risen from the dead (Matt. 14:2; Mark
6:14-16). The fellow just lost his mental grasp of
things. This Elijah man counts for something. Power is
with him; the verdict is with him.
And - let there be no
mistake about it - in the end it will be found that God IS
committed to that which is utterly committed to Him for
His full purposes. It is costly; it causes much trouble; BUT
- the issue is with Him, and He will look after His own
interests.
First published in "A Witness
and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1960, Vol 38-4