In the second book of the Kings, the
second book of the Kings, chapter six, and
the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha,
behold now, the place where we dwell before
thee is too street for us.
Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan
and take thence every man a beam, and
let us make us a place there where
we may dwell.
And he answered, go ye.
And one said, be content, I pray thee,
and go with thy servants.
And he answered, I will go.
So he went with them.
When they came to the Jordan, they cut
down wood.
But as one was felling a beam, the
axe head fell into the water.
And he cried and said, alas, my master,
for it was borrowed.
The man of God said, where fell it?
And he showed him the place.
And he cut down a stick and cast
it in thither, and the iron did swim.
He said, take it up to thee.
So he put out his hand and took
it.
I confess that I used to wonder why
that story was included in the number which
we have of these acts of Elisha.
Very interesting, and of course quite wonderful, but
what is its lesson?
What has it to say?
And in thinking about it, several things have
become quite clear to me.
I would like to pass on just one
or two of them this morning.
Of course, this, with all these other things
that are recorded about the acts of Elisha,
this with them is included in the great
beginning of his life.
You recall that as his master Elisha was
about to be taken up to heaven, he
asked Elisha what he might give him.
Elisha said, a double portion of thy spirit.
More literally, the portion of the firstborn.
Elisha said, you have asked a hard thing.
Nevertheless, if you see me when I am
taken up, it shall be.
And as they passed through the Jordan, on
to the other side, the chariots, the Lord
appeared and caught up Elisha.
Elisha cried, my father, my father, the chariots
of Israel and the horsemen thereof.
The mantle fell from Elisha and Elisha took
it up.
The sons of the prophets who come into
view at that point, and are mentioned so
many times in this book, cried, the spirit
of Elisha does rest upon Elisha.
And they bowed themselves to the ground.
Now that is where it all begins.
For these various, shall we call them stories,
they are more than stories, works of power,
worthy expression and outcome of that mighty anointing
with the spirit.
That portion of the firstborn.
So that what we have here in every
one, and in this one, of which we
are thinking this morning, is the real work
of the anointing.
That is the Holy Spirit operating in the
power of resurrection.
Every incident, as you notice, bears that stamp.
In some way or another, in some form
or another, it is the mighty walking of
resurrection power by the anointing, by the Holy
Spirit.
It would be easy, and we have done
it before, will not take the time to
repeat this morning, show how this is but
a foreshadowing of the ascension or receiving up
of the Lord Jesus, whereupon the Holy Spirit
descended upon the church.
The mantle of the firstborn, the portion of
the firstborn fell upon the church.
We want to know what the portion of
the firstborn is.
It is just this, the power of his
resurrection.
Seeing that, let us come to this story,
the sons of the prophets, again in view,
and note what they represent.
They represent the generation succeeding, following
on to carry forward the prophetic testament, the
next generation, the sons of the prophets.
The heart of this whole thing, where they
appear again and again in relation to these
mighty acts of the Spirit through Elisha, the
heart of the whole thing is this, that
these called sons of the prophets, who were
in the schools of the prophets, being educated
and trained to carry on the work of
the prophets, to fulfill their ministry in the
next generation, were not just academic students.
They were being, by these various ways, brought
into the closest touch with reality.
And you will at once see how true
that was in the case of this man
and his ex-head.
But these sons of the prophets expressed quite
a legitimate ambition or desire when they said
the place where we dwell is too straight
for us, and said let us have enlargement
perfectly legitimate ambition or desire, a right thing,
nothing wrong with that at all.
To desire to escape limitation and straightness and
to enlarge and to expand for the work
of the Lord, that's quite a good thing
and quite a right thing.
And so Elisha raised no objection, put no
difficulty in the way, but encouraged.
And when some of them said to him,
look here, we're not just going on with
this without you, we're not discarding the old
generation, you come with us, we need you.
He said, I'll come.
There was a towardness in this whole matter,
quite rightly so.
But even so, with a perfectly legitimate desire
and ambition, a right quest with which there
is no objection at all, the thing has
got to be kept very close to life.
And that's what this story is about.
Amongst the various lessons that it teaches, there
are just two that I will point out
this morning.
That in our going on, or our desire
to go on, our quest for enlargement and
increase and escape from anything that is small,
narrow, straightened, limited.
All that is employed in the work of
the Lord must be first hand.
It cannot be done with borrowed tools.
There are many ways in which the testimony
can be second hand.
Maybe children brought up in it in their
home.
I wonder if I might refer to such
an occasion in our own midst several years
ago.
When our brother Patterson was taken so suddenly
to the Lord, his son John, who was
with us at the conference time recently, passed
into a very difficult phase.
He came to see me.
He said, I'm having a very difficult time.
I have discovered that I have been living
on my father's testimony.
I have just taken what he said, followed
him, thinking that I was on the same
ground as he.
I discovered that it was his and not
mine, and I've got to find it all
for myself right from the beginning.
It was a difficult passage.
He came through, of course.
He's on his own ground.
It was a borrowed axe.
We may get it from our meeting, teaching
that we have received over years.
We've got it in our hand, we think,
and then we imagine that we are going
to use it in some way, and it's
going to be a serviceable thing, and then
something happens.
We find it doesn't work.
The head comes off.
It just comes off and lets us down.
This is not ours, alas, it was a
borrowed one.
It wasn't ours, it was someone else's.
It was the fellowships, the meetings, or the
teachers, in various other ways.
It can be something borrowed from the study
and the library and the bookshelves, the commentaries
and the translations, and all the authorities, the
godly men who have written it, and we've
got it, we think, and it doesn't work.
The head comes off, alas, it was borrowed.
Now the Lord allows these incidents, if you
like, these accidents.
There are no accidents at all.
These things to happen where the whole thing
seems to let us down.
It doesn't seem as though it's working.
He does that.
A crisis arises such as arose with this
man and his acts, in order that the
thing should pass through death onto resurrection ground
and become ours in the power of resurrection.
When the whole head has come off, and
we are left just with a head with
a shaft in our hand, which won't chew
down any trees at all, won't accomplish anything,
left like that standing, it's a painful hour,
painful time.
Feel that perhaps we've been on the wrong
road.
We've been in some kind of illusion.
Well, maybe.
The Lord is very faithful.
And such experiences, which seem to be like
disaster, and we cry alas, alas, those experiences
are in the very faithfulness of God, to
bring that thing onto new ground, where it's
ours by a miracle of God.
It's ours because the power of his resurrection
has come in.
And when that has come in, it's no
longer a borrowed one.
It's yours.
I'm quite sure you've seen more than is
necessary for me to say.
No, dear friends, the very faithfulness of God
necessitates on the one side the loss of
the ex-head sometimes, to leave us standing,
crying alas.
All our power to do things has flown,
it's gone, it's stranded.
On the other side, there's always the positive
purpose of God in such experiences, that we
shall know this portion of the firstborn.
You get the firstborn portion, you know.
You like to go back to the book
of Deuteronomy, you'll see what that is and
what, where that arose.
The portion of the firstborn is something which
secures the inheritance to the individual conserved.
It is not something bought, paid for, earned,
but a gift of grace, portion of the
firstborn.
It is knowing the anointing in truth.
We will all agree, every one of us
here this morning will agree at least with
the theory, with the statement, that we don't
want borrowed experiences or teaching, second-hand addresses,
studied-up things.
We want people who know and can speak
out of a deep experience.
They have been through the death of Jordan.
They have been into death and have come
onto resurrection ground.
They know it by the bitterness on the
one side of loss, failure, disappointment.
On the other side, the wonderful strength of
this miracle of resurrection life.
We want sons of the prophets who are
in the good of the anointing, not just
students of it.
Well, that's the first lesson.
Simple it is, but it explains a lot,
I think.
The Lord's ways with us.
Everything has got to be established on the
ground of a living personal experience, and not
be somebody else's, but our own.
The other thing which goes with it, of
course, quite clearly is, that in this, that
happened, this miracle of resurrection, it was a
complete and perfect reversal of the natural order.
It is the nature of a piece of
iron to sink.
That's its nature.
It will sink.
For a piece of iron, a lump of
iron, an axe head, to float, is contrary
to nature.
I only need hint at things.
You'll see much more than I need say.
Dear friends, by nature we are all bits
of iron.
Let me put that another way.
By nature we are of the sinking kind.
We know that.
It wants very little to push us under,
to put us down.
It's in us.
And especially when there is some spiritual demand
on hand.
For here was the whole matter of enlargement,
expansion, and increase in the work of the
Lord.
And I wonder if you have noticed, that
whenever something more of the Lord is in
view, how quickly we get downed.
We get pressed under.
I have noticed that it happens.
It just happens.
With something of the Lord just coming on,
you'll find people under things.
They've gone down.
They've been caught in some way, and they've
sunk.
We have to really gird ourselves for anything
that the Lord is going to do.
It just doesn't happen.
Well, we are made like that.
Naturally we are of the sinking kind.
Perhaps you may think that you are a
very buoyant person.
I venture to suggest that the most buoyant
person in this place this morning, with the
most buoyant and optimistic natural make up, coming
right up against the forces that are set
against the things of God, will find that
they need more than natural buoyancy.
We are not going to swim, to float,
to stay on top, without something more than
our own strength of nature, our own constitution.
And the wonder of the anointing, let's say
it quickly and close, the wonder of the
anointing, the wonder of the Holy Spirit, the
wonder of the portion of the Firstborn is
this.
That although we are so sinkable, we are
such sinkable stuff, naturally it is decline.
It is to drop down under pressure, under
trial.
The marvel is that you and I are
afloat today.
It is a marvellous thing that we are
afloat today.
Many of you know that.
Perhaps you think that you have sunk many
times, but you are afloat today.
Your heart may be sinking today, you think,
but you are not drowned yet, you are
not at the bottom yet, you are not
lost for good yet.
We have all been there many times.
We can say with a psalmist, though I
fall, yet shall I rise.
Though I fall, yet shall I rise.
There is some extra factor in the child
of God and in the servant of God,
called according to his purpose, that causes us
to survive a thousand drownings.
The power of his resurrection is a wonderful
thing.
And this simple little story just says to
us, if the Holy Spirit is in us,
there is a reversal of the way of
nature.
Nature declines, nature goes down, nature sinks, but
here the Spirit is always reversing that, and
causing us to rise, to rise, to go
on again and again.
It is like that, there is something that
is different from nature in us.
It is the divine nature, the power of
his resurrection.
So the world's simple message is, we must
be on true ground.
Everything must be true and real, not borrowed
and second hand.
We can do nothing really effective with tools
that are not a part of our own
being, wrought into our own experience, out of
which we can say, now this truly is
mine.
I have been through death with this.
This has brought me into life.
This is mine, this is mine, not something
that I've heard, not something I've got from
someone else.
I have this because I've gone through it
with God on this matter.
It must be like that, to carry the
testimony on, the prophetic testimony, and then this
great assurance, this wonderful assurance, we have the
Holy Spirit.
If we are the Lord's, we have the
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead, dwelling in us.
And that is something not only more than
nature, but contrary to nature.
And although oft times we may feel we
are going to the bottom, we may feel
we've touched bottom, we're going to come up
again if that Spirit is in us.
The Holy Spirit is not going to die
in the grave.
If the Spirit of Him that raised up
Jesus from the dead be in you, he
that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead
shall quicken your mortal body by his Spirit
dwelling in you.
Your body of death, the power of his
resurrection.
And the iron, the iron did swim.