ELISHA SUCCEEDS ELIJAH.

(2 Kings ii:12-22.)

I. The Analysis.

1. The Condition Met (verse 12).—Elijah had said that if Elisha saw him when he was taken up, the Spirit should come upon him as he had prayed.

2. The Energy of Faith (verses 13, 14).—True faith counts upon God's faithfulness. Nothing is said of any peculiar feelings on Elisha's part. He had met a divine condition, and expected the answering power.

3. The Barrenness of Knowledge Without Faith (verses 15-18). See "Heart of Lesson."

4. The Second Miracle (verses 19-22).

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

Many things in this wonderful lesson appeal for the place of primacy. The faith of Elisha is one of them. Possibly the Bible furnishes no instance of faith which surpasses this, save the faith of the repentant thief on the cross. When Elisha took up the fallen mantle of Elijah, and in the full view of the fifty doubting theological students on the other bank, smote the waters of Jordan, calling upon the Lord God of Elijah, he had absolutely no warrant for his faith but the word of the departed prophet of God that Spirit power should rest upon him if he met the condition: "If thou see me when I am taken from thee." He had met the condition, and his faith, resting upon the immutable word of God, expected the power to be manifested. Just at this point of expectancy thousands of believers fail today. Having complied with the biblical conditions of the filling with the Spirit, they halt and wait for feeling. It might be a very perilous thing for a servant of Christ to feel strong. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he was with them in weakness, fear, and much trembling, and that just then his preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Indeed, he expressed an habitual experience in the phrase, "When I am weak then am I strong."

Then, too, the sons of the prophets present a great temptation to a writer on this lesson. They present all the characteristics of machine-made prophets—characteristics repeated in every age. They had knowledge (2 Kings ii:3), but did not really believe the thing they knew. They knew that Elijah was to be taken that day, but they did not believe that he had been taken (2 Kings ii:16-18); and they "bowed themselves to the ground" before a real prophet. Knowledge is good, and the prophets of God should have knowledge; but the man-made prophets and the God-made prophets differ just at the one point of triumphant, resistless faith. And faith is something the schools of the prophets are far more likely to destroy than to create, to impair than to strengthen.

But the effort in the writing of ''The Heart of the Lesson" is to discover in each lesson the truth which is deepest, most formative. Examples of faith, and instances of knowledge without faith abound in Scripture, and are by no means peculiar to this lesson.

Is not the heart of things here to be found in the fact that the one eternal Spirit manifests Himself and His power so variously through different men? The same Spirit came upon the gentle Elisha, who had inspired and empowered the tempestuous Elijah. Two greatly precious conclusions follow. First, that the Spirit acts through, and not contrary to, the human personality. The method of inspiration illustrates this truth. Every book of the Bible is instinct with the distinctive personality of its writer. John does not write like Paul, nor Paul like Peter, nor Peter like Isaiah, yet all of them wrote in the very words given by the Holy Spirit. By personality is meant of course those qualities which make each human being to differ from all other human beings.

And the other lesson is that the work of God in the world requires an almost infinite variety of instrumentalities. When a Wesley, or a Spurgeon, or a Moody dies, the cry goes up to God for another like man, but the man whom God sends is never another Wesley or Spurgeon or Moody. Let our cry to-day, when the need of a new voice of power is so great, not be "Where is Elijah?" but "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" Somewhere, be sure, He has ready our Elisha.