CHAPTER 16
There is not the slightest intimation in the Book that the prophet’s faith failed in this trying circumstance or that he became impatient or repining.
That the opportunity was golden for such a mental and spiritual state, none can question. But the man of God stood true to God and himself through it all.
Not all, however, can claim such a victory. It is a bitter trial to be needy, even when we have brought poverty on ourselves by indolence or a sinful, spendthrift life. But there is a keener pang sometimes in the thought that our stripping and need comes while walking in the ways of righteousness.
The great enemy is quick to call attention to the fact. The soul is requested to note the prosperity of the wicked, that they have all that heart can wish, and spread themselves like a green bay-tree, while the child of God has the dust thrown upon him by their flying carriage-wheels, and in many cases can not see twenty-four hours ahead, so far as daily bread is
concerned.
It constitutes an experience never to be forgotten to see the brook of one’s income steadily diminishing and drying up, to hear the tinkle of temporal prosperity getting fainter with the flight of each day, — more than that, to behold the gaunt form of Need leaning against the door, looking in, and, later on, walking in, and taking his place in the house as one of the family, his presence after that being as constantly realized as that of any member of the household.
Bishop Marvin tells of the profound impression made upon him as a child, by his father and mother looking together, one day, into their almost emptied corn-crib, and talking gloomily about the future. He said, their anxious faces and low voices rolled a burden even on his boyish heart, and made a solemn memory that time had never been able to obliterate.
When a Christian, steady, straightforward, and true, spends his life in an everlasting financial strain and pinch, and sees at the same time men of the world with their comfortable homes and easy incomes, and whose lives are not such as they should be, he is going through a test.
When a preacher, with an inadequate salary, one on which he finds it impossible to do justice to his children in the way of education and preparation for life, looks across the street, and sees a lawyer, whose
beautiful home and grounds declare not only comfort, but luxury; when he contrasts these happenings in his mind with the added thought that he is doing far more good in the world than the lawyer, the man is passing through a test, and a severe one at that.
When an evangelist goes to a place, and labors with all his mind, soul, and strength for the spiritual good of the community, and sees scores of souls saved and blessed under his ministry, and receives far less for the ten days’ work than some strolling lecturer with a “funny subject” obtains in a single night’s address, there is a fine opportunity here for repining, not to say discouragement. When this same evangelist, after one month’s hard gospel labor, had scarcely an amount above traveling expenses given him for compensation, and landed at his home on Christmas eve with two dollars in his pocket, a very great spiritual test was brought to bear upon such qualities as patience, faith, and loyalty to a divine work.
A letter, received from a devout young Christian woman, contained such a portrayal of absolute want in the large family of which she was a member, of the brook having completely dried up, that the heart literally ached as we read the lines.
Of course, these conditions throw the life open to violent and persistent assaults of the Devil, the temptations being in the direction of unbelief, bitterness, worldly pursuits, compromise of principle and character, and other lines too numerous to mention.
The child of God who can see the brook diminish, and then disappear, whose bread comes by weight, and day by day, and as by a miracle, and yet keep sweet, patient, believing, and faithful in the Savior’s work all the time, has about graduated in one of the highest schools in the spiritual life.
He has swept up out of the class of “The Thirty,” and is one of the famous “Three” spoken of in the Old Testament.
The opposite test of want is that of relief.
The idea we would present is, that the mode which God often adopts to deliver the Christian in his troubles is often as faith-trying as the condition of need in which he was plunged.
This thought is brought out by considering the manner in which God relieved his servant Elijah. It was a time of famine in the land, and yet the Lord did not send the prophet to a wealthy man to be taken care of, but to a poor widow, and she so poverty-stricken that she had only a handful of meal left in her barrel. Again Elijah rose victorious over the new test, and, believing it was all right, told the woman to make the cake of bread out of that last meal, and doubt nothing. His mighty faith stimulated and
invigorated her sinking heart, and she did so. It was a wonderful biscuit that she made that day. It proved to be perfectly abundant for the needs of three people, not only all that day, but as long as the famine lasted.
The reader can not but recall occasions of distress, financial, spiritual, and other kinds, where relief came in ways and methods that were utterly unexpected. The time, manner, and instrument are scarcely ever what the tried one looked for, and in that fact we behold God even in the hour of deliverance quickening and developing faith in the soul. Man in his wisdom would not have conceived of succor in that way; reason would not have planned it in such a fashion. The deliverance of God, like all His other tests, is to intensify and strengthen faith. God is pledged to relieve his child, but the method and time is of Divine selection, and with every repetition is bound to strengthen the man’s confidence in the love and faithfulness of the Almighty. Besides, the waiting itself develops faith.
Who would have dreamed that the Lord would have commanded the poorest woman in the country to take care of His servant? But He did so, and the method of relief was an overwhelming argument and proof of God’s ability to provide for His people in the most discouraging
circumstances, and so an inspiration to faith and perfect soul-restfulness.
How could a man doubt after such an unmistakably providential dealing?
A Christian woman, brought to sore straits, and almost yielding to despair, had to be comforted, and faith in God renewed. The agency the Lord used to revive and restore His child was the sight of a sparrow hopping about on the snow-covered ground. Instantly the words of Christ rushed over her, “Your heavenly Father feedeth them — are ye not much better than they?” The revulsion of feeling was complete as, with ascendant faith in her heart, and happy tears in her eyes, she murmured, “If He cares for sparrows, how much more will He care for me!”
One of the most gifted preachers in the South, Dr. C. K. Marshall, had suddenly lost two beautiful children. He and his wife were prostrated under the blow. In the very blackest day of their sorrow they were, one morning, in their bedroom, too stunned and heartsick to take up the
simplest duty. How, now, shall they be helped? Who is qualified to talk to and help this prince of pulpit orators, who knew beforehand all that any one could say to him?
The strangeness of God’s methods of relief is again seen in the way He remembered His gifted servant. Prominent, learned, and cultivated people had come and gone, with their conversations, prayers, expressions of sympathy, and counsel. All had failed. One day God sent a poor old colored washerwoman, who, standing at the foot of the bed, and looking down with streaming eyes and kindling face upon the prostrate man and his wife by his side, so held up the duty of submission to God, the certainty of reunion in heaven, and, above all, the fact of an ever-present, loving, sympathetic Christ, that the fountains of the deep were broken up in the souls of the two she addressed, the stony feeling was swept away, a tide of sweetest spiritual consolation filled their hearts, and life, with its burdens and duties, was taken up from that hour with a comfort and power never before realized. The instrument of relief was a Negro woman, poor, unlettered, and unknown to the world, but well known to God and filled with the Holy Ghost.
We heard a gentleman say in Alabama, a couple of years ago, that he became convicted for his sins at a meeting, and there came a night when he was so burdened that he thought he would go wild with grief and despair.
The services were over, the meeting had ended, all in the household were asleep, and he tossed, wakeful and miserable, upon his bed. By his side, sound asleep, was a tobacco-chewing, backslidden preacher. There was no need of waking him up, for he himself was spiritually lapsed and dead.
While thus situated, who but God could give relief? It was a summer night, the windows were open, and the katydids were singing by scores in the trees. Suddenly God made the choral chirp or song sound exactly like
“Come to Jesus,” “Come to Jesus.” With a burst of tears the man cried out, “I will,” fell upon his knees by the bedside, and was instantly saved.
In the first year of his ministry, the writer, like many other preachers, had a very hard time financially. He saw the brook get smaller every day, and finally, after living on bread alone for several days, saw even that give out.
The weather, also, was bitter cold, and his coal supply was exhausted. As the town in which he lived was not on his circuit, there was no one to look to or call on. He had well-to-do men on his work, but they, in the rush of their own life and business, had overlooked him. What would God do in this case?
At four o’clock in the afternoon the young preacher, with a perfectly empty storeroom in his house, knelt down before his stove, and cast in the last lump of coal he had. Without rising, he dropped his face in his hands, and said, with tears in his voice as well as eyes, “Lord, I will trust you,”
when suddenly there was a knock at the front door of the cottage home, and on the doorstep stood a poor farmer’s boy. He said, with a kind voice, but in a bashful way, to the preacher:
“I have just sold the bale of cotton I made this year, and have brought you four dollars. I have heard you preach several times, and want to help you.”
Doubtless the young man wondered, as he turned away, why the
preacher’s voice was so broken as he thanked him, and why tears should fall over such a small present. But it was not small in the sight of God or of the man benefited. Moreover, the preacher saw back of the brown hand of the country-boy the white hand of Christ. He was at His old work of breaking bread. Then was the Scripture verified, “And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, and dwell there; behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.”
May the Lord grant us to be as faithful under the two tests of want and relief as was His servant Elijah! And for our additional strength and comfort may we not forget that Christ was brought into want, as had the Devil to whisper to Him in the wilderness, “Why can not these stones be turned into bread?” He stood the test to the end, even forty days; and then came the relief. It was wonderful. The Bible says that “Angels came and ministered unto him.” The same will be done to us if we abide in Christ and remain faithful.