Elijah on Carmel

II Kings 18: 41-46)

A Crisis Man.

EVERY crisis produces its own master. Every sore problem contains its own solution. There’s the answer inside every serious question. A thread hangs out of the tantalizing puzzle, the unravelling thread.

And, and, this unexpected thing can be said. Out of the thick and tug of bloodtouch with the ugliest problem, the stubborn question, the brainbewildering puzzle, the desperate moral crisis, this can be said. It can be said in measured thoughtful tones, — love is the touchstone.

It must be the real thing of love, the love that “‘never faileth.’’? And that is rare. It is rare in its scarcity, and rare in its resistless power.

Love can solve the problem, and undo the tangle, and answer the question, and master the crisis. It can. It only can. Any other solution lays, or leaves, eggs for a future foul hatching.

The puzzle gets yet more intricately tangled and tangling. The question turns up again to haunt you, asleep and awake. The crisis looks you in the face at some sudden corner with an insolent stare.

This man Elijah is a striking illustration of just this. Of all the leaders in action of the

Hebrew story he stands out, with Moses, as one of the tallest. He is a mountain peak towering above the whole range.

For abruptness of appearance on the scene, intensity of action, ruggedness of character, imperious boldness, he stands out alone, and stands at the head.

Yet his humanness stands out sharply, too. There is the intense mood of depression, due so largely to bodily and mental fatigue.

There is the shrewd caution that wisely gets away from the likelihood of a knife, thrust into his vitals, in the back, and in the dark, the knife of a devilishly bad unwomanly woman, writhing in defeat.

He appears twice in the whole story of the Bible, and each time in a crisis, an outstanding crisis. It was in the nation’s most terrific moral crisis that he is in action, in the Old Testament. It is approaching the most tragic crisis in our Lord’s career, that he appears in the New.

And there are distinct intimations that he is actually to swing into action again, on the earth, in a coming crisis, the worst of all. He is distinctively a crisis man, a crisis leader.

The dramatic abruptness of his appearance in the old Hebrew story is in the very lowest moral sag-down the nation had ever known.

Two bad sags-down stand sharply out, in the long list of moral breaks. It is Samuel that turns the movement up at the first of these. Elijah comes in in the second, the worst of all.

The scene of action is in the North, where the tides of immorality run so strong. It is in the time of Ahab, the king who set a new standard of immorality and lust, so bad that it became a standard to measure badness by.

The worship of God had been wholly set aside. The priests of Jehovah had been hounded to violent death by the hundreds, under the leadership of the harlot-queen, Jezebel.

The foul lustful Baal worship had been made the state religion. It went to the lowest stage any false religion ever reaches, in enthroning vile unmentionable lust as the national religion.

Things couldn’t be worse. Jezebel could have made fresh suggestions to the people of Sodom. It is at such a time, in such a crisis, that this rugged giant figure Elijah appears.

Things were so hardened in their obstinate badness that it took three and a half years to get the king’s ear.

Shouts of derisive laughter, without doubt, greeted the bold abrupt announcement to the king, one day, by a hairy-garmented man of the despised Jehovah faith.

There would be no rain, and even no dew, for years, not until he gave the word, so this tall gaunt outspoken man had boldly declared to the king’s very face. And the stinging laughter and derisive taunts were likely in Elijah’s ears all those years of waiting.

The Fire Test.

- Then follow the rainless blue, the dewless nights, the failing streams and springs, the dying stock, the despairing desperate insistent ery of the nation, the possible danger of a national uprising by the hunger-bitten crowd, things going steadily from bad to worse and worst.

Under these mad goadings, the surrounding nations are searched for the strange troublemaker, who does seem, fanatic as he is, surely is, to carry, actually carry, the keys to the sky.

And in the desperation, these neighbouring kings are required to make oath, that they are not harbouring this man. Elijah is the most talked-of man of the day, Elijah the prophet of the despised rejected Jehovah.

Then, as abruptly, Elijah appears again, suggests a national gathering, and a test by fire of the national worship. And the whole nation gathers with a rush, eager to see this daring man, eager for the excitement of the test, yet more eager for the possible rain.

And the lustful prophets of Jezebel and Baal, have their chance, all the day long, under Elijah’s sarcastic goading stings.

And the vast crowd, filling the Carmel slopes, watch, and watch all the day; thirsty, hungry, hollow-eyed, embittered, they watch with a growing resentment toward the leaders of lust.

Then, at the early evening hour of sacrifice to Jehovah, so long neglected, the significant twelve-stoned altar is reverently erected, the fuel and the slain bullock in place, and all drenched thoroughly with precious water, while the crowds watch, with staring bulging eyes.

And, then, the simple prayer to J ehovah, ringing out, in terse tones, on the tense air, and on the mob’s straining ears; and then, and then, the fire out of the rainless blue!

Fire in abundance, catching wood and sacri, fice and altar stones, the very dust; catching? actually burning all to white ashes, and licking up the water.

It wasn’t fire simply; it was fire in abundance, leaping, licking, flaming, flashing, eating, devouring, sticking to the job till only ashes, ashes in heaps, staring white heaps, remained.

No wonder the crowds are on their faces, in awe, tumultuously shouting out their decision.

And with simple yet rare leadership, the newly-kindled enthusiasm of the huge crowd is turned to account, in putting to death these vile leaders, of the vile lust, that underguise of religion, was cancerously eating out the vitals of the people.

This is the background of the prayer on Carmel. The whole background of the picture, in clear view, helps one see all the lights and shadows of the scene on Carmel’s tiptop.

The king goes to his palace, where his queen is obstinately sulking, biting her lips, moistening her parched tongue with venomous saliva, as she tries to think up some slap-back.

And Elijah goes up to Carmel’s height. His task is as yet but half done. The fire test must be followed by the water test, the rain test, the prayer test.

This would be giving the people, and the land, what was so sorely needed. It is more. It is tying the knot, double-knotted, tight and sure, on the thread of the nation’s newly-declared allegiance to the true worship, the one Jehovah God.

Away from the wild exultant shouts of the mobbing crowds, Elijah goes up to the quiet of the mountain top. <A great task lies ahead.

He goes to do battle with the ‘‘prince of the power of the air,’’ with the principalities, the hosts of evil spirits up in the air, in the lower heavens.

And now we gather eagerly, with bated breath, and awed hearts, to watch this old master, at prayer, actually praying. We watch his every step as he goes off and prays, and prevails in prayer.

Ear Culture.

And the first thing that catches one’s eye, and ear, too, and heart, is his assurance beforehand in the outcome of the prayer. As he turns from the sadly needful task of completely removing the incorrigible leaders of vilest lust, he speaks to the king.

Quietly, decisively, in a matter-of-fact way, as a master, as one who has no doubt, he bids the king go home for some refreshment. For, he says, ‘‘There is the sound of abundance of rain.”’

What ears Elijah had! Sounds of rain! There had been no rain sounds heard for over three years. There were children who didn’t know what rain sounds like. They had never heard it.

The swish and dash of the rain on the sides of tent and house, the patter of rain on the roof, the gentle drop and drip, the wild roar down the narrow valley, these were only memories, wistful memories, to most of the nation.

Sounds of rain! What an eager stirring of memory the very words make. The prophet’s words to the king are heard, and passed quickly from ear to tongue, and tongue to ear, again. The grapevine telegraphy spreads the word to the farthest edge of the excited crowds.

“Sounds of rain a-coming;’’ Elijah says it. It must be so. Elijah says so. The fire came! We saw it. He called for it. Now he is calling for rain. Oh rain! Think of it, rain! The rain’s coming.

You can hear the ever fickle, excited crowds talking, and nervously laughing. And, on the merely human level just now, the student of mob psychology appreciates the power loosened out by this old-time master of mob psychology.

And the reverent alert student of spirit psychology appreciates the significance of this word, sent on the run, out through the crowding thousands, and tens of thousands.

It would make a difference in the spirit atmosphere of the parched earth. It did make a difference. All this purely on the human level; the lower human level, lower, yet not low, in its subtle power.

What keen ears Elijah had! He could hear what no one else did, or could. How did he know? Is he simply talking for effect? Is he really screwing his courage up to the sticking point for the contest just ahead?

Very thoughtfully it can be said, no; decidedly no; a blunt sharp outspoken no is the answer to that question. He actually heard those rain sounds.

But how could he? They weren’t there. That is, there were no actual rain sounds in the atmosphere of Canaan, by the keenest stretching of expectant ears.

And there’s an answer. It’s an answer that really answers. There’s no dodging nor rhetorical evading. Elijah had been off taking a course in ear culture,

For three years and a half, at least, he had been listening, using his ears, listening to a very quiet sound, a gentle sound of exquisite stillness, the sound of God’s voice.

No, this is not mere talk, nor rhetorical verbiage. There is a voice of God. Low, quiet, clear, distinct, it does come to the ear, the inner ear, the spirit ear, a very real, practically real, ear. He who has heard that voice knows, and knows well. And some of the sanest people have heard that voice.

Those three and a half years of rainlesgsness for the nation, had been years of praying for Elijah. Ear culture is the beginning of culture in speech. The ear controls the tongue, down to finest intonation, and subtlest shading of accent.

This old master in the fine art of praying is surely teaching us here. Watching him sends one off to the quiet corner, with the Book.

And the Book is open, and the door is shut, to shut the outside sounds out. Many of these outside sounds have their place in our practical day’s round. But they’re shut out when we take our ears to school to God’s voice.

And the knee is bent, in that ear schoolroom. For the bent knee helps the will to bend. And the hinge the ear opens on is in the joint of the will.

‘As the will bends to the higher will the spirit ig more sensitively alert. The spirit ear opens. It hears; it hears more quickly; it hears more accurately. We’ve got one great pit from the old master here.

Skilful Listening.

And it is striking how accurate Elijah’s ears were. He said there would be an abundance of rain. The storm that actually came proved how accurate that spirit-ear course had been. For when the rain did come it was a great rain.

Long, attentive, quiet, listening makes accurate listening, and accurate hearing. It takes quite a while, and quite a habit, too, to get the outside sounds out of the ear.

Yet you must get them out, and learn to be deaf to them, and get the ears quiet, skilfully quiet, before you begin to hear, and appreciate, and hear accurately, the — sound of the Holy Spirit’s voice.

This old master had not simply heard the sounds of rain. He had heard the rushing and gushing, the dashing and splashing, the roar and the rush of wind-swept torrents, and wild mountain streams.

It reminds one of John’s word, ‘‘of his fullmess we all received.’’?* Some people seem to read the word ‘‘skimpiness’’ in there instead of <‘fullness.’? They ask so little. They take so little, as they go crutching along.

It makes one think, too, of that time Paul piles the words up till they fairly clamber over each other in their eagerness.

Listen: Unto him who is able to do what we ask; then what we think, too, though it hasn’t gotten into words yet; then all we ask or think; then above all; then abundantly above all; and then he piles it up yet more in exceeding abundantly above all.

That makes six degrees of the superlative. Some of us might practise the steps on this sixrunged ladder. We may find out the meaning of Elijah’s ‘‘abundance.”’

One evening, in one of our Atlantic seaboard cities, we accepted a friend’s invitation to hear Walter Damrosch lead the famous New York Symphony Orchestra. It was delightful, watching that master musician, and listening to the rare music.

The next day, out walking with the friend whose guests we were, he said, ‘‘Wasn’t that oboe wonderful?’’ TI dimly remembered that I had heard that word ‘‘oboe’’ before, and I knew it was a musical instrument of some sort, or I thought I knew it.

But evidently my listening was quite different from my friend’s listening. I had thoroughly enjoyed the music that evening, yet, evidently, there had not been such skilled, trained listening on my part as with my friend.

He was a trained musician, expert on several instruments. He got far more than I out of that evening of music. I didn’t hear the oboe. I certainly didn’t distinguish its sound in the music.

So I tried to find out something about the oboe. And I became much impressed with its resemblance to something else, something that we are talking about just now.

The oboe is a wind instrument, very sensitive, with a small very individual penetrating tone. It is used for solo effects, and in giving the pitch to the other instruments of the orchestra.

One might well take an ear course in listening to another oboe, a spirit oboe. It comes to one’s ear with an exquisite sound of gentle stillness, as a still small voice.

It is very individual, and very penetrating. It is very sensitive to one’s attitude, not so easily heard when ignored. It specializes in individual or solo effects. And it can be used to give the true pitch to the whole orchestra of one’s being.

Elijah had trained his ear to hear the voice of God speaking within. He could hear. He did hear. He heeded what that finely attuned voice said.

That made keenly alert accurate hearing. He heard the sound of abundance of rain. This is a great item in watching this old master at prayer. He had trained ears.

The Prayer Room.

Let us take another look at this old master. ‘‘Blijah went up to the top of Carmel.’’ This is significant. The dramatic fire test had been on the lower Carmel slope. Now, he climbs the mountain till he is upon the very tiptop.

This master hand at prayer wants a quiet place. You can pray anywhere, but when one is free to choose, he picks the place, and it is always a quiet place.

When there’s a big job of praying on hand, the instant instinct is to get off to some quiet spot. One wants to get his ears free of human voices, and away from the every-day sounds and noises.

There are three kinds of quiet. There’s the quiet place, the thick of the forest, the mountain top or hilltop, the roof of a building in a crowded city, and so on.

Then there’s the quiet time, the midnight hour, the middle of the night, the early morning hour. The common sounds of daily life have been hushed into silence, or have not yet begun again.

And there is a yet deeper quiet, a trained disciplined quiet, the quiet of one’s inner spirit. One can be utterly alone in the rush of the crowded street, keenly alert in a mechanical way, to the movements of the throng, yet absorbed in the deep inner quiet of spirit.

There is no loneliness to be compared with that of being alone, a stranger, in a great densely-crowded city street. And there is no quiet that can be compared with the deep inner quiet of spirit, in the thick of the jostling throng.

It is as though the very outer bustle acts as a stimulant to inner quiet, when the spirit is disciplined, trained, by long practice, and by a firm hold on one’s self.

The master hand at prayer, he who would get something of a mastery, must get used to using all three sorts of quiet.

But when there’s a big job of praying in hand he covets the quiet place. When he is free to choose, the quiet place is the quick first choice.

One recalls, with a touch of awe, how our blessed Lord, when down here, coveted a quiet place for praying.

After carefully ministering to the needs of the crowds, he would withdraw in some quiet deserted place, to be alone, and pray.

The natural longing for touch with another human, in time of stress, led him to take the three inner intimates in among the trees of Gethsemane.

But the intense longing for utter quiet, in the great spirit struggle in which he was so alone, this leads him to go yet farther in among the trees, where he was quite alone.

Jesus was no recluse, no hermit. He mingled freely among men, and drew the little children to him; he ministered without stint to the needy crowds. But when he prayed he withdrew to some quiet shut-away spot.

The master touch is felt here in Elijah’s choice of the place for this stiff bit of prayer conflict. He “‘went up to the top of Carmel.”?

Wordless Prayer.

There is a yet more significant touch in the posture this old master takes in this bit of siege prayer. ‘‘He bowed himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.”’

Why, does it make any matter what posture you take in prayer? No, nota particle. Custom rules so much here, and custom differs in different parts.

In Scotland it is quite customary to stand reverently in public prayer, while in England the worshippers kneel with bowed heads. In Turkey the Mohammedan kneels in a stooping posture on his little prayer mat.

I have watched the throngs prostrate themselves, prone on their faces, in St. Isaac’s, in old St. Petersburg, since Petrograd, now Leningrad. And that is a common usage in the Greek Orthodox Church, The old-time common custom among the Jews seems to have been to stand in prayer.

Yet the significant thing, to mark thoughtfully, is, that the posture one instinctively takes reveals his inner spirit. Intensity affects the posture in prayer, as in every other action of life. The posture taken, without stopping to think about posture, this at once reveals the inner spirit.

Peter kneels in the tensity of his prayer over Doreas,” even as Stephen had done in the agony of dying, under the stones, yet with his mind so clear.

In the tense parting with the devoted leaders at Ephesus, Paul kneels in that bit of farewell prayer; and the whole multitude, men, women and children, instinctively kneel on the Tyrean seashore as Paul leads in the good-bye prayer.”

The posture reveals the tensity of spirit. The

1 Matthew 6:5; Mark 11: 25; Luke 18: 11, 13. 2 Acts 9:40. 3 Acts 20:36; 21:5.

very earnestness in prayer unthinkingly, half unconsciously, controls the posture in prayer.

The broader fact is, of course, that one’s inner spirit continually affects his body. Gesticulating, weeping, knitting the brows, kissing, and so on, when spontaneous, are the outer results of the inner feeling.

And this is peculiarly true in prayer. For prayer, when the expression of some real desire or longing, maybe in some keenly-felt need, prayer itself, true prayer, always has the element of intensity in it.

That intensity may show itself in one in a great outpouring of words, in another in fewer words, but in all, in the posture of body instinctively taken.

And kneeling is in itself an act of submission. It is a yielding to another of greater power. It is an acceptance of another’s official authority, or personal power, or both.

It implies obedience, Kneeling could be called the natural, the instinctive, posture in prayer, when custom or habit may not prevent. Of course, the true prayer is in spirit, quite regardless of posture.

Now, look a bit more closely at this rare old master. Note his posture. It would seem to be quite unstudied. There was a tremendous intensity of spirit. He had just come from a territically tense scene, which centered in himself.

He felt, into the very quick, the tensity of the present situation, the national need of rain, the expectancy of the vast crowds, their eagerness, and that it all centered in himself.

And he was yet more conscious that it all centered in prayer, this bit of final siege prayer. He was naturally an intense man. Now his intensity was at high pitch.

All this is revealed, in one quick glance, in the posture he instinctively takes in prayer. The inner intensity of spirit draws him, pulls him, down to the earth, with his face between his knees.

It calls to mind, with a fresh touch of awe, that scene under the Gethsemane olives, where Jesus ‘‘fell on his face.’’* The unspeakable intensity is revealed in the quick, abrupt, falling prone on the ground.

But there is yet more here. And it is a ‘“‘more’’ of significance, and of practical help, too. There are no words spoken, so far as the simple graphic record shows.

The word ‘‘pray’’ is not used. Yet there never was truer, greater, simpler, intenser, praying. The posture was the prayer.

That rugged iron will, that dared the king, and swayed the sullen thousands absolutely, that will is now bent. That straight spare form, commanding the ruler as the lowest subject, it is bent down, low down, and yet lower.

Those eyes flashing denunciation and rebuke upon the cowering crowds, now they are filled with an intense pleading. The very posture was the prayer. The lips were quite too lame for such a prayer as this.

And there’s more yet. And it brings the whole simple fact about the meaning of prayer,

* Matthew 26:39.

brings it yet closer into the very cockles of one’s heart, and the inner action of one’s understanding, too. It is this: The man was the prayer.

All the years of loyalty to the true Jehovah, in the face of stiffest opposition, were in that tense bowed form. All the despised pleadings with the nation, all the fugitive loneliness by the little Cherith Brook of Gilead;

All the forty-two long long months, are gathered up in that mute figure bowed low. The man was the prayer. Words had given out. The praying of years is now told out in the tremendous language of a person, a presence. The man was the prayer.

Expectancy.

And, as one watches keenly and thoughtfully this rare old master, in what may likely enough have been the most absorbing prayer of his life, one notes quickly, at this point, how mentally alive and alert he is to what is going on around him,

In his prayer, so intense, he is not absentminded to outside matters. He quietly says to his companion, with a touch of almost the imperious, ‘‘Go up now, look A

He sets a watch. He keeps a man on the lookout while he is prone on his face. He bids his companion get out to some point where he can see clearly and distinctly the first indication of results.

The old master is keenly alert. His mind is on edge, thinking. It is not necessary to be sleepy and stupid to be religious; that is, not absolutely necessary. You may likely have thought so, some good people you have met.

When the Holy Spirit has right of way, there will be a new birth. That does not mean a new spirit birth merely.

It does mean that surely. But it includes something else, too, There will be a new mental birth. There will be a new life, new vigour, new alertness, in one’s mental faculties, and thinking,

Prayer needs a keenly alert mind as well as a warm heart, and a strongly yielded will. And prayer will not only warm the heart, but stir one’s thinking, and make it keener.

We sometimes hear about a blind faith. Faith is not blind, not a simple thoughtful fullrounded faith. It sees. It sees the other side, the difficulties, the things that would work against having faith.

It puts these in the balance. And it insists on believing in a Person, and in a certain result, in spite of the things against it.

Faith has keenest eyesight. It does see all the obstacles, and it also sees the favourable side, and it strikes the balance.

I do not at all mean that there will always be an analyzing of things in this way. There will be a quick instinctive feeling of things out, an almost unconscious weighing of the things against. And the upshot is a simple steady faith in the outcome, against these disadvantages.

Faith sees the hard heart, the stubborn will, the insolent opposition, the intricate confusion of circumstances. And, then it sees Jesus!

Greater is he than all the things, stubborn, inveterate, humanly impossible, on the opposite side. Faith is a study in proportions.

And so faith looks. It looks up, and it looks out. It looks up because it looks out. Elijah’s eyes had seen parched fields, dying sheep and cattle, a stubbornly-prolonged drought, a sky permanently cloudless, nights ever dewless.

And he saw God! There could be no comparison. There could be only one outcome. So he kept a watchful lookout. He knew rain must come, and would come. So he set a watch for it. ‘‘ Go up now, look st

It calls to mind another ‘‘lookout.’? Faithful old Abraham on Moriah, had a heart-rending experience. Then, like a flash, everything changed.

And so he gave a new name to the place ‘‘ Jehovah-jireh.’’* Literally, in very homely colloquial English, it means, ‘‘God will look out for you.’’? As commonly used, that phrase, ‘‘look out for you,’’ means assuming the responsibility, practically guaranteeing the outcome as needed,

It is really an answering look Elijah is looking for. Elijah had looked to God in all the tremendous events of which he was the center and leader.

Now, he is expecting an answering look. God looked out for Elijah. This is the old Arab sheik, Abraham’s, terse, tense, homely, way of saying it.

But there is more here. He tells his attendant where to look. ‘‘Look toward the sea.’’

*Genesis 22:14.

The rain could come from any point of the compass, but it was likeliest to come from the sea.

That is where their rains usually came from. The east wind, and the south, were dry winds. The desert sent them no rain.

Elijah is expecting tremendous things to occur in nature, but he was expecting them to occur in the natural order. God loves the natural order. Nature is God’s method in action.

Faith is intelligent. ‘The simple thinking faculties are in full swing. Prayer is expectant. It needs three organs of the face or head, an ear, a tongue and an eye.

The ear is alert. It listens. The tongue can speak. It is under the control of the ear. The eye is open, and wide open. It watches to see what the ear has heard of, and the tongue has asked for,

A Waiting Time.

“There is nothing to be seen, sir,’’ the attendant reports. What’s the meaning of this? The crucial time has arrived, but no rain! Lower down that mountain slope the fire came at once. But now there’s no rain.

Clearly, the fight isn’t yet fought through. Praying is fighting. This is nothing new to this old master. Prayer is never fully understood until we recognize that it has to do with a spirit conflict, real, intense, ofttimes very stubborn.

Prayer concerns three: God to whom we pray; the man who prays; and the Evil One against whom we pray.

The contest with the ‘‘prince of the power of the air’’ is on again now. It is on in his own realm of action, the air. He had probably tried to have it rain during that long drought.

But he failed. Now, apparently he is trying to hold back the rain. And he is a stubborn fighter. Even when he knows he is defeated, he can hang on in pure malicious stubbornness.

But Hosea says that when God is in action he makes juicy grapes grow in a parched sandy hot-wind-swept desert.

This waiting time is a revealing time, too. It reveals Elijah. He can hold steady through even this testing, waiting, fighting, time.

It was a revealing time to Elijah. It reveals anew to him that his only help is, not in his prayer, not in his faith, not in his steadiness, but in God!

It reveals anew to the unseen spirit enemy that this Elijah can hold steady, and will, through any siege. It gives Elijah the opportunity of revealing himself, his simple steadiness under fire, his unwavering faith in God’s faithfulness, all unconsciously of revealing himself, to God.

In the spirit warfare centering on and around our earth there has ever been a waiting time. Every leader for God has this to go through.

For Noah it meant a hundred and twenty years, with the stinging taunts of the watching crowds in his ears. For Abraham it meant twenty years before Isaac came. For Joseph thirteen years in prison disgrace.

For Moses there is a full forty years in the

Hosea 2:14 — 15.

desert, and then forty again, in a yet more difficult wilderness; for Hannah a nagging, dogging, teasing, day and night, that seemed endless at the time; for Paul three years in the dreary Arabian wilds.

Aye, there’s yet more, with the utmost reverence one remembers Jesus our Lord. It meant for him a generation in Nazareth, a forty days’ intensified spirit siege in the Wilderness, a three and a half years of ministry with the hounds ever at his heels, a three days in that new-hewn tomb.

Yes, more yet, nineteen hundred ‘years, up there through the Blue, intently watching things down here till they ripen for the next gracious tremendous step.

With still deeper reverence, let it be said, waiting has meant for God the pain over his world till the ripened fullness of time came, and a yet fuller ripeness still to come.

It has meant for the earth a groaning travailing creation, with its soil wet with tears and blood, and its atmosphere rent with moaning and weeping.

Waiting means obedience; that is, holding true to one’s clear leading, with the odds and appearances all against you. It means listening; that is, holding still, quiet, in your inner spirit, so you can hear the still small voice.

It means watching; that is, holding the face up to the light, up to his face, so you can quickly eatch his leading.

It means patience; that is, holding back from immature, unwise, unseasoned action. It means steadfastness; that is, holding on, and still holding on to the finish. Waiting takes strength, and it makes strength.

There’s more, yet more here. Waiting means four other things. And these four things run along side by side. It means Satan’s opposition, sometimes just a malicious hindering when he knows he is defeated on the main thing.

It means a strengthening of the man who waits. There’s a deepening, a seasoning, a maturing, a ripening, of his strength, and of himself.

Then, too, waiting means a maturing to full ripeness of God’s plan. His plan works out on man’s level, the human level, along natural lines. And time is an element in such working out. The waiting means a ripening to full growth.

And, close akin to this, and yet distinetly additional, waiting means full results, great and greater and greatest results. There’s rare wisdom in learning how to wait, and in waiting, intelligently deliberately wisely waiting.

This old master at prayer clearly understands all this. He himself likely waited on his face before he could fling the message of defiance in the royal face,

He had just been through forty-two long weary months. He understands. Ah! This man, who is also a master at praying, this old master who is so intensely human, he has become seasoned in prayer.

Time is a very real element in the problems of the earth. Big events take time to head up. It is the age-long story of history. The bigger the event, the tenser the spirit battle, the wider the range of action, the more time it takes.

And the longer the wait, the tenser the fight, the greater the storm when it does break, and the greater the after events, too.

One notes very carefully, as he watches the Carmel Prayer Normal School in action, that there may be a testing time, a waiting time in prayer, a revealing time, a ripening time.

Persistence.

And, now, this old seasoned master, disciplined by long fighting, speaks to his watching companion. Very quiet is his voice, very even and steady its tones, as he simply says, ‘‘Go; go again; go again seven times.”’

It is the voice of a master, an old master in the fine art of praying. Doubt might begin to wabble, and wonder, and break, under the strain. Laziness might say ‘‘ Well, maybe it isn’t really God’s time, or God’s way.’’

Faith, whose ears have heard, whose knees have bent to the One Will, whose eyes have seen God in action just a little before, faith simply says, ‘‘ Again, go again, go again seven times.”’

Seven times practically means until the rain comes. Faith doesn’t bother with mere common mathematics, even though it may use common language.

And so, one notes thoughtfully Elijah’s persistence in prayer. The spirit of persistence isn’t troubled with the mathematics of mere counting. ‘‘Seven times’’ means ‘‘seventy times seven,’’ and then the count lost, disregarded, ’ merged in the joyous expectancy of what must come under such circumstances.

Blijah’s an old hand at prayer. His voice quietly, incisively, cuts the air. It’s the voice of the prayer for the rain to stop, the voice of the three and a half years of carrying the key of the sky in his hands, the voice of the devouring fire falling on the sacrifice, that voice, vibrant with expectancy, persistent expectancy, simply says, ‘‘ Again; go; go again until — rain!’’

This is really his third big ‘‘go’’ at this big national problem he has tackled. There was getting the rain and dew stopped. There was the devouring fire out of the sky.

Now, there’s getting the rain back again. The odds are with it. Two out of three meant for him the third. The rain would come. He knew it. No opposition could hold it back. He hadn’t the least idea of quitting.

‘‘Again’’; ‘‘go again’’; until the waters of the sky drench the land. Victory well begun means further persistence. Persistence always wins out, with arush. There are no exceptions to this principle. The old master is giving us a rare point for victory here.

The Flood-tide.

Then the turn comes, the great turn, yet so simple in outward seeming. It is so simple that Elijah’s attendant didn’t sense what had happened.

He was a young man, this companion attendant, probably a mere youth, utterly devoted to his master. Back and forth he makes the trip between the lookout point and the master on knees and face.

He comes back again the seventh time, and says, ‘‘There is a cloud, sir, on the far horizon, but it is so little; why, it’s no bigger than your hand!”’

Quick as a flash Elijah’s on his feet. His keen quick recognition of victory at hand makes him feel already the swish of the wind in his face before it has begun to blow. He sends the word to the king, with special advice to make speed lest the oncoming storm cause him delay.

Recognition of the victory at hand when nobody else senses it, ah! this is indeed the master revealing his rare mastery.

A little bit of a cloud, just forming itself on the surface of the water, far out, meant to his skilled, trained experience a great storm.

It really may have been there the fifth or the sixth time, but so little, so insignificant, that the youth’s unskilled eye had not detected it. Steady looking makes keener looking. Long looking, frequent looking, makes keener quicker eyes.

Recognition is surely a master touch, A glance of the eye, a hardly perceptible change in the tone of the voice, a soft touch of a hand, a changed attitude in some wholly casual matter, a something indefinable in the spirit atmosphere, and one keen enough to see with his spirit eye, knows the result prayed for has already begun to come.

And so now ‘‘a little while,’’ and the whole heavens are black with the clouds and wind, and the rain pours down in torrents. A little cloud tells of a great storm. A little while, and the overwhelming victory is in full swing.

“¢ A little while; how little! How little! And he that cometh shall come and shall not tarry any longer.’’* The promised result is “* panting breathlessly’? toward the coming fulfillment.”

Yet how long ‘‘a little while’’ can seem to hearts stretched out on tenter hooks. And yet, and yet, we call nature slow. Yet nature is the natural thing. It’s the fever in the blood that calls it slow.

‘‘Not so in haste, my heart!
Have faith in God and wait;
Although He seems to linger long,
He never comes too late.

He never comes too late,
He knows what is best;
Vex not thyself — it is in vain:
Until He cometh, rest.

Until He cometh, rest,
Nor grudge the hours that roll;
The feet that wait for God — ’tis they
Are soonest at the goal;

Are soonest at the goal
That is not gained by speed;
Then hold thee still, O restless heart,
For I shall wait His lead.’’®

1Hebrews 10:37 literal reading; with Haggai 2:6. 2 Habakkuk 2:3 literal. * Bayard Taylor.

Waiting, strong, intelligent, Spirit-suggested waiting, means — victory? No, no, that’s too tame, too tame. It means sweeping overwhelming victory. It means the wind-swept heavens, the rain-soaked earth, the gentle noiseless fertilizing dews beginning their rhythm again.

Waiting meant for Noah that the ridiculed ark on dry land did float off, over the mountain tops, and saved a race for a fresh start, a new opportunity.;

It meant that Abraham did have an heir, born against all human, natural likelihood. And that he was the son, and more, the inheritor of the traits of a changed, matured, refined-in-thefurnace father.

Waiting meant for Joseph, in place of a disgraced prison, a world throne, the privilege of ministering to a whole race of men.

It meant for Hannah a babe at her breast. It meant in time, a changed nation, through the man, who was made the rare man he was, by the experience-changed woman who mothered him before and after birth.

That Arabian desert waiting meant for Paul a ministry actually as wide as the known world, and reaching clear down to our own time.

Softly, with a tender touch of reverence, waiting meant for our Lord Jesus, an empty tomb, an ascension cloud, an opening heavens, the cities of the earth a-thrill with the message and power of his Name, a seat at the Father’s right hand.

And there’s more, too. For it will yet mean his actual sway in the life of the race, down on this same old earth. It will mean the heart that once broke with grief ‘‘satisfied’’ with the outcome.”

It will yet mean for the old earth a new Eden, as wide as the outer horizon, and as enriched as only the Calvary sacrifice, and true human culture, can make it.

And the Carmel aftermath brings out the fine traits of this rugged old master at prayer. There was the rare exhibition of patriotism in his fine public homage to the discredited king.

There is, too, the human traits brought out under that coniferous juniper tree, weak human traits. But not one of us can throw a stone here.

The terrific tension of the duel with the king, and the mob, and the evil spirit world, had pulled his bodily strength out to the utmost.

That juniper tree still shelters many, with far Jess reason, who might well follow Elijah, away from its shade, down to the fresh Horeb touch, and shelter, and new start.

A Graduate Course in Love.

It was said, a bit ago, that love, the real rare thing of love, is the solution of every sore problem, and the only solution, the only true solution.

Commonly, one does not think of this rugged old Hebrew as an outstanding illustration of love. Is that, possibly, in part, because we don’t appreciate what love is? its strength, its purity, its insistence on the right, as well as its tenderness and faithfulness and unfailing devotion?

*Isaiah 53:11.

He had given a death blow to the worst lustful worship any people has known, a lust that was eating out the very vitals of the nation’s life. That was the purity of love in tremendous action.

He had locked up the skies, long enough to break the stubbornness of the autocratic sovereign, and bring the people to their knees. There was the strength of love.

He had proven by the visible fire test the faithfulness of the nation’s despised God. There was the faithfulness of love, revealing to the befooled people their one true God.

He had fought with the unseen spirit forces of the upper air until the rain came, enough, and more, for all their needs. There was the heroism, and the tenderness, of love greatly blended.

Yet, without any doubt, Elijah had a new lesson in the gentleness of love, its healing balm, its graciousness, and tenderness, in that post-graduate course, early one morning, in the cave at Horeb.

There had been some earlier teaching bits under that aromatic juniper. The fire of coal, the cake baken, the jar of water, twice over, and the gentle word of friendly counsel, how refreshing it had all been, not only to his jaded body, but to his lonely spirit.

After all some one cared. How refreshing little creature comforts and attentions are in the time of depression of spirit, and tense weariness of body.

It was a new Elijah that wended his thoughtful way back home again. The old traits of love were there, but now a new tenderness.

For Elisha reveals the spirit of the Horebtaught Elijah. It is the doubled birthright portion of the spirit of the new Elijah that is bequeathed to his successor.

The Horeb graduate in the school of love, with its exquisite sound of gentle stillness calling to lessons, is revealed in Elisha. For Elisha is distinctly the man of the healing touch. He was always helping people in homely ways.

Elijah’s name means ‘‘my God is Jehovah.’’ It was really a nickname, a character name, nicked in deep in the minds of the people. It was the name commonly given by his neighbours and by the nation. For nicknames always grow up on the lips of the crowd.

Elijah’s commonly-used name was used in a sharp contrast. The enthroned harlot, Jezebel, said, ‘‘Baal is God,’’ and she said it in loud imperious tones,

Weak-kneed, licentious, dissipated Ahab echoed the queen’s words, and the crowds commonly echoed it, as crowds will, till it filled the air.

Elisha’s name likewise grew out of his bestknown characteristic, God is a Saviour-God, healing, helping, comforting, saving. It is really the new name of the newly-taught Elijah, down at the Horeb school of love.

Elijah had thrust: in the lancet knife, surgically cutting out the fatal tissue, to save the nation’s life. That is the heroism, the courage, of love.

Elisha tenderly binds up the wound, and nurses the patient back to strength again. That ig the tenderness, the faithfulness, of love.

And so Horeb is the sequel to Carmel. The caution of true love still persists. When Elijah returns home, it is cautiously, by the roundabout route of the Damascus desert.

For the treachery of an enraged, desperate, unwomanly, woman is still in the heat of its hot passion. A knife, the dark of night, and a lonely road, may still conspire to spill out her spleen.

But Horeb emphasizes the tenderness of the love whose purity blazed out at Carmel. The people needed both. Now they need peculiarly the tenderness of love, its healing, and comfort.

Love is the solution of every problem, the only one. It can answer the sore tantalizing question. And its answer is the only full answer.

Love’s tender, tenacious, clinging thread, hanging out of the puzzle, will unravel it. And it won’t unravel any other way. It won’t yield to any other tugging thread. The crisis yields to the touch of true strong pure love, and only 80. And, very thoughtfully, one repeats, with a new understanding of the meaning, the old words, ‘‘God is love.’’ All that love is, in its purity and strength, its heroism of action, its tenderness and unfailing faithfulness, that’s what God is.

He it was that stirred and stimulated this old master, Elijah, in all he did before Carmel, and on its summit, and then drew him down to Horeb for a graduate course.

Love, God, would pull us to our knees. It, he, would lead us up to Carmel’s tiptop for the outstanding victory, and to Horeb’s cave for the fresh tendering touch.

Then our problems will solve. Our questions will find a full answer. Our puzzle will unravel, and our crisis clear. And the air will ring with the joyous praise, ‘‘ Glory to Jesus.”’

Love the One Solution.

One foggy morning, in a crowded part of old London, a blind ragged beggar sat by the curb, playing on an old disreputable-looking violin.

But nobody heard. Nobody noticed. The crowd hurried on unheeding. The old hat upturned for kindly coins was quite empty. And the player’s face was wistfully weary and forlorn.

A tall, slender, black-haired man came by. He seemed caught by the strains of music. He gave one quick glance at the beggar-player, his dejected face, the empty hat, the greasy-looking violin.

With a simple kindly word he asked if he might try the violin. And reaching quietly down he took it out of the hand of the wondering beggar.

Then he took his stand at the beggar’s side, as though his companion and partner. And he began to draw the bow across the strings, very gently, very lightly.

Instantly strangely sweet, plaintive, pleading tones breathed softly out into the heavy foggy morning air. Some spirit being seemed speaking, in appealing tones, out of the tense strings. The effect was instantaneous and impelling.

At once the hurrying passers-by stopped, as though a spirit hand had reached out and caught them. They stood listening intently under the strange spell of the music. The crowd quickly grew. Travel was quite stopped.

A pause in the music, the hat slightly tipped forward with the toe of the player’s boot, the situation sensed, and copper and silver rained into the bedraggled hat. And the beggar’s sightless face revealed his astonishment and delight. His outlook on life was quite changed.

The tender-hearted, deft-fingered musician was Paganini, the world’s famous violinist. His fellow musician’s sore need touched his heart. His exquisitely skilled touch drew out the music that was in the old strings.

His tender heart and rare skill gave his fellow violinist the sorely-needed lift. Then with a cheery word, and a smile, he slipped away through the crowd and was gone.

It was the same violin in the hands of the two men. But it took the master to bring out what was in. The violin contained all the beggar needed. The master made it available for practical use.

The sore problem of the next meal, the question of the rent due, the puzzle of mere existence, the crisis of need, all were most likely in the poor beggar’s bewildered brain.

The instrument contained in itself the possible meeting in full of all these. But it took the master to make the possibilities realities.

And it was the heart of the master that stirred him to action. Pity, sympathy, a tenderness, a warmth at his heart, a wish to help, these were love in practical action.

The master drew from the strings, the solution, for a time at least, of the beggar’s problems, the answer to his question, the untangling of his puzzle, the clearing of his crisis of need.

And quite likely there had been a dumb prayer in the beggar’s heart as he sat by the curb, and then a ringing song of praise.

We have been watching a master, a rare old master in prayer, at prayer. We have seen him draw the king to a reluctant submission, and the nation down on its face in worship.

We have watched him draw the vindicating fire from out the clear sky, and the sorely-needed rain in torrents from out the rainless blue.

We have seen the purity and strength and heroism of love grow into a new tenderness of love.

And so the sore problem was solved, the stubborn question answered, the defying puzzle unravelled, and the nation’s grave crisis cleared.

And, mark keenly, one of themselves, a fellow Jew, was the human leader in the doing of it all. And it was a true love in him that stirred the action from start to finish.

May it not be that watching this rare old master will send us to school to another Master, our Lord and Master.

For none could pray like him. And none can teach like him. And none can kindle anew the tender fires of a pure love as he can.

And go our problems, yours and mine, and questions, and puzzles, and crises, will remain only as memories, fragrant with the Master ‘) own touch, through our prayer.

Jesus, our Lord Jesus, thou master of man, thou master of human life, thou master man and more, thou rare master of prayer, teach us, too, to pray.;

Thou art one of us down here, very bone and blood of us. Thou didst make us like thyself back there in Eden’s garden. Thou didst make thyself like us, in all our true humanness, back there in Bethlehem. Thow art indeed one of us.

Thou dost know about things down here by the tense feel. Thou didst live amongst us. Thou didst die for us, in the unspeakably great love of, thy heart.

Thou art the solution of every impossible problem, the answer to every unanswerable question, the untangling of every haunting puzzle, the master hand in every breaking crisis; and thou art the only one.

We come to thee. We come to thee all anew. We trust thee as Saviour. We yield our lives to thee as Master.

We come to thee to be taught about prayer. Por when we have learned that we have the open door to all.

Teach us, thou Jesus, our Saviour and Lord, for thy Name’s sake. Amen.