Is It Well with Thee?
“Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?” And she answered, “It is well” 2nd Kings 4:26.
FIFTY-THREE miles north of Jerusalem, eight miles from Tabor and a few miles from Jezreel, once stood the ancient village of Shunem. It was beautifully situated. It is said that “in that olden time every house had its little park about it and that every park had its fountain, the waters of which climbed the ladders of light.” But it is not of the beautiful situation of Shunem that I am to speak. We know something about one of the families of the city. We know the number of the household — the father, the mother and the little boy, who was as truly a gift of God and a miracle as was Isaac. We know something about the home life of the little company. We say in these days, if we know what company a man keeps, we may study the man through his company. And if you will tell me the names of your chosen friends written upon your guest-book in your home, I can tell you very accurately the story of your home life. I can tell you very truly, no matter whether I have been in your home or not.
One of the very best things I know about the home in Shunem is this, that it was the place where Elisha used to tarry. Over and over again he passed through Shunem, and the Shunamite woman saw him. It is said in the story that she was a great woman. John McNeil has said that he thinks that means that she must have been a great discerner of character. She knew by the way the man walked that he was God’s man. She said to her husband, “We will invite him into our home.” The home was a small one, so they built for him the prophet’s chamber. They gave him a special invitation to tarry with them, and when Elisha was weary he rested there, and when he was hungry he found refreshment in the home of Shunem.
We know something more about the household. One day in the midst of the harvesting season the little boy of the family turned his face away from his mother and sought his father and the reapers in the field. The hot sun of the East beat down upon him so that as he came into the presence of his father he threw his hands to his head, saying, “Oh, my head, my head.” His father turned to a servant and said, “Carry him to his mother.” And the lad carried him to his mother and placed him upon her knees and he lay upon her knees until about noon and then he died. You can only imagine the sorrow of that Shunamite woman unless you have passed through like affliction. She was an exceedingly wise mother. She did not shut herself up with the body of her dead boy and refuse to be comforted, nor sit alone with her grief and let her heart break. But she turned away from the home at Shunem and she said, “Elisha is across the plains in fc<*the mountains of Carmel,” and she hastened after him.
Elisha saw her coming. He turned to his old servant Gehazi and said, “Yonder comes the Shunamite woman, go and see what she wants.” And Gehazi obedient to his master’s command starts down the mountain side. When he comes near enough for the woman to hear his voice, he cries out to her after the manner of the East, “Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?” And she in turn replies, “It is well.” I suppose he thought that she would stop and tell him the nature of her errand to his master, but she pushes on past him and up into the presence of Elisha, where I suppose she sobbed out the account of the death of her boy.
By this time, Gehazi appears, and Elisha says to him, “Take this rod and go down and lay it upon the boy and see if he will live,” and just as he starts to obey Elisha says, “Salute no one.” I never realized what this expression meant until in the Holy Land I noticed the length of time required to complete the Eastern salutation, and I am quite sure that what Elisha meant to say was that there was no time for even the ordinary courtesies of life. The boy was dead, the mother was heartbroken, and the father was waiting in grief and despair, thinking that Gehazi might be the means of raising the child.
I have an idea that when Gehazi started down the mountain side at his master’s command that Elisha thought the Shumanite woman would follow him, but she did not do so. I see her at the feet of the master.
I hear her saying unto him, “Oh, thou man of God, thou knowest that I did not desire a child of the Lord. He gave him to me. Now, He has taken him away from me. As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” And so Elisha takes her by the hand and starts down the mountain side. He comes into the home in Shunem, puts his hands to the boy’s hands, his mouth to the boy’s mouth, his eyes to the boy’s eyes, and prays only as a servant of God could pray. Suddenly, there is a touch of color in the boy’s cheeks. He sneezes seven times. His eyes are opened. Elisha takes him by the hand and bids Gehazi call his mother. And I think I see her rushing up and down the streets of Shunem, saying, “My boy was dead and is alive again.” And there was joy in the old home in Shunem.
Why do you suppose this story was placed in the Old Testament? It is true that it is one of the miracles of Elisha. But why is it told? It would seem to me that among other reasons it is there for this purpose, that we might understand what it is to pray with importunity. “Do you believe,” said a young woman to me in the city of Boston, “that if my mother and I should pray all night that my brother would be saved?” I said to her, “If I were you I would pray all night if I were led to do it.” To my certain knowledge that brother had not been within four miles of the place of meeting. Before ten o’clock they were on their knees. At twelve o’clock they were praying, at three o’clock they were still crying out unto God, when the mother rose from her knees to say, “I believe God will hear us,” and closed her eyes in sleep.
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I saw that young man the next evening stand in the great church and say that he had spent a sleepless night. I heard him say that he occupied a most important position in the city of Boston. He said, “This morning, as the day was breaking, I gave myself to Jesus.” I think the story of the Shunamite is in the Old Testament that we might thus learn how to pray.
One evening my telephone bell rang. When I went to answer the call I heard a voice that seemed to me to be almost choked with emotion say, “Will you pray for me?” and I said, “Certainly I will pray for you. But will you not meet me this evening at the close of the service?” I went to the service that night and at the close of the meeting there came up to me this man who had telephoned me. He said he occupied a responsible position as bookkeeper in the city. He said, “My father is a minister, my mother is a sincere Christian. I have been feeling the power of their praying. I have felt a great sense of need in my soul, and when I heard the song this evening, ‘O, mother, when I think of thee, ’tis but a step to Calvary,’ I bowed my head and took Christ.” It seems to me that the story may be in the Old Testament that we may be led to the kind of praying that went up to God on behalf of that minister’s son. I am sure the story is there to teach us how to pray.
“As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” We have had days of prayer. I wonder how many of us have had nights of prayer. We have prayed minutes for our children. How many of us have prayed by the day for our children? And yet the story of prayer from the very first prayer that was offered until the last one that was sobbed out this evening, is this story, that when we pray in faith God does hear, and He will answer.
I think the text takes in every one in its teaching. “Is it well with thee?” That is personal salvation. “Is it well with thy husband?” That is interest in the salvation of others. “Is it well with the child?” That is interest in your own household. I ask the first question, “Is it well with thee?” I will answer it for every one in need. The man who is rich in worldly goods, highly honored in society, the man who has risen to some place of distinction, knows that in his heart there is an ache that money cannot stop and position cannot help. The man whose outward life may seem to be all right knows that in his heart there is again and again the cry for God.
“Is it well with thee?” I should like to answer the question for you if you will allow me. It is not well, and for two or three reasons. First, because sin is too mighty. No one of us is able to withstand the awful power of sin in his own strength. Sin is too mighty. There came into the city of New York a young Scotchman. He came from the hill country in Scotland. A friend of mine went to ask him to be a Christian. The young fellow only sneered at him. “Why,” he said, “I have a character as rugged and as strong as the hill country from whence I came. I have never felt the need of Christ.” In New York he began to go down. In the city of Chicago he made the wreck complete. Another friend of mine went to see him in the hospital, but the doctor refused to allow him to elfter. He said, “You could no more touch him than you could touch a leper.” But when my friend said, “I have come to pray with him,” the hospital door swung open. Lying upon a cot in one of the wards of the hospital was this young Scotchman. His eyes could scarcely close, his tongue and lips could hardly articulate, the joints of his body were beginning to separate. He was a leper indeed. “My God,” said the visitor, “isn’t it awful!” The doctor said, “Don’t touch him, you must not touch him.” The poor fellow turned his head on the pillow and said, “Mr. Smith, do you think that if I should cry unto God to-day He would save me? Drop on your knees, sir, and pray for me.” When the prayer was ended he started again to raise himself up on his elbow, and said, “Tell the men of the United States that sin is too mighty for them to resist.” Sin is too awful in its power to be trifled with. It is not well with thee.
I have another reason. Trouble is on every side of us. I am sure that no one of us can get along without Jesus Christ in the day when trouble comes. All the money in the world could not of necessity buy comfort when the heart is aching. A man worth twenty million dollars said to a friend of mine, “All the money I have ever earned and all the money that is to-day in the bank to my credit has never given me peace.” One of the richest men in the United States was walking down Broadway with a business acquaintance whom I knew. This gentleman said to the man of wealth, “I suppose you are a very happy man with your fortune, which is so far up in the millions?” And the many-time millionaire looked into the face of his boyhood friend and said, “Do you know, I have not, with all my money, the peace and comfort and satisfaction that I had when I was a boy working for a dollar a day.”
Too much of trouble on every side. When the day comes that you yourself are ill, when the day comes that the family cord binding your household together is strained, you will need Jesus. You cannot get along without Him. Dr. A. J. Gordon of Boston said that a man came in to see him one day, and said, “Dr. Gordon, will you come with me to the funeral of my little baby?” The great preacher thought he was going to lead in the service of a great funeral, but he came out to find only one carriage waiting at the door. In the carriage was a little white casket. The father and the minister rode all the way from Boston to the cemetery without a word. The little casket was taken out and carried out to the grave. The man put his hand into his vest pocket, took out a little key and unlocked the casket. He raised the lid, looked down on the little white face, closed the lid and put the key in his pocket. He then turned away from the grave, and rode all the way back to the city of Boston without a word and just as A. J. Gordon left the carriage he said the man reached out his hands, and taking hold of his hand with both of his said, “Doctor Gordon, wait a moment. She was all I had. She was all I had.” Sobbing as if his heart would break he said, “She was all I had.” “And,” said Doctor Gordon, “he was without hope.” There is too much of trouble. Therefore it is not well with thee.
I should like to give you two or three reasons why you should turn to God. First, God is ready. All the way through the Old Testament story, and all the way through the New Testament story you will find this stated. From the very first day when He went walking through the garden in the cool of the day saying, “Where art thou?” to the last sob of Jesus on the cross, God has been ready. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord.” It is not a question with God as to how many times you have sinned, nor how far you have wandered, nor how black your life is, nor how helpless and hopeless you are. God is ready.
Second, Jesus is ready. I heard Mr. Moody say once in his preaching that when Jesus was upon Patmos He gave His message to John which we find in the Revelation, which is a mysterious Book to many people. Before the Book was closed He told John to put something in for everybody, and Mr. Moody said, “I can imagine him putting this in the Revelation: ‘And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.’ And I can then imagine Jesus saying to John, ‘But they won’t understand that exactly, make it plainer.’ Then he wrote, ‘Let him that heareth say, Come.’” But there will be some who won’t hear, and so, said Mr. Moody, there was added, “and let him that is athirst come.” But I imagine him saying that there will be some that are athirst and won’t know it. And so the invitation is given that is as broad as from everlasting to everlasting, which reaches down to the lowest and up to the highest. There is no one whose case is io6 REVIVAL SERMONS
hopeless in his estimation, but that the invitation is for him. The young girl whose heart is heavy as sin can make it, who feels so helpless, it is for her. The man whose conscience is condemning him — the invitation is for him. Christ is ready.
Your mother is ready. Your friends are ready. I received a letter one morning blotted with tears. When I started to read it I knew that the writing must be by one who certainly knew very well how to write English. As I read on into the letter I saw that the hand evidently had been trembling. Down further the letters were not formed correctly and down at the last it was almost a scrawl; over the page it seemed to me there were drops of tears. This was the letter: “Please pray for my daughter only sixteen years of age; she has lost everything that makes a girl’s life worth living. She has all but killed her father, and she is killing me.” Such sorrowing friends are ready.
And then remember they are ready in heaven. Your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, they are all ready. “Will you shake hands with me?” said a gentleman in New York City. As I stepped to the platform he put his hand up to me and said, “Remember, sir, I have been a drunkard,” and I took his hand in mine for a moment. Then he said, “I will tell you my story. One day I was literally lying in the gutter intoxicated, when a gentleman came along and said, ‘If you would see your boy alive, hurry.’ I hastened to the hospital where they had taken him. A great wagon had gone over him and he was dying. When I came into the room he caught me by my hand, and his fingers were only long enough to go round three of my fitters; he pulled me down upon my knees and holding on to me with his fingers that were nearly stiff in death, he said, ‘Father, I will never let go of you, I will never let go of you. You must meet me in heaven.’ And do you know, sir, he died with his fingers around mine. The doctor came, bent back his fingers and released my hand. It was this hand,” and holding it up above his head, he said, ‘‘it kept pulling and pulling and pulling, until at last I became a Christian.” You know who it is in the skies. You know who it is that is holding you to-day. Your friends are ready.
Then there is a second question. Is it well with thy husband? I do not mean the husband that is to-day by your side, with whom you have been walking along life’s journey so long (yet I do mean your husband, too). Is it well with any one whom you know is away from Christ? Answer it, not aloud but to yourself. Is it well with thy husband? The saddest thing in the world to me is that sacred things divide us. Trouble rarely divides us. The more our hearts ache, the closer we come together. Sickness does not often do it. Your fingers have become so thin that if you held your hand down your wedding ring would slip away. But your heart only beats the truer to the one whom you love. The saddest thing in the world to me is that sacred things divide us. The communion table is between us. The church is between us. Is it well with thy husband? This is the statement made in God’s word: “He that believeth not is condemned already.” “He that hath not the Son of God, hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
“Is it getting night?” said an old Scotch woman ninety-seven years of age. “Husband,” she said, “is it getting night?” And her aged Scotch husband by her side, realizing that she was dying, bent down close to her and said, “Yes, Janet, it is getting night.” She was wandering a bit and was back in the olden days with her loved ones, but he knew that the end was near. She was still a moment, and then said, “Are the boys all in?” “Yes,” he said, “the boys are all in, Janet.” The last one had gone home three years before. She was again still a moment more when she said, “I will soon be in.” “Yes, Janet, you will soon be in.” “And you will soon come, too?” She asked. “Yes,” he said, “by the grace of God, I will soon come, too.” She reached out her thin hands in order that she might clasp them round his neck and draw him down by her side as she said, “And He will then shut us all in.” “All in.” I wonder if you can say it — with the boys all in; the girls all in. It is a sad thing to have a boy that is a wanderer, and a girl that is lost.
Is it well with the child? Your child, my child. I have such confidence in God that I know perfectly well that if a child dies in infancy before it is able to choose the Saviour for itself — I know perfectly well that God’s matchless grace avails for the little one that passes by the short route into heaven. But can any of you tell me when our boys pass to the age of accountability? Can any of you tell me when a girl comes to the place where she knows the difference between right and wrong? I almost believe you might take people into church too old, but I do not believe you can take them into church too young, if the child is cared for. Is it well with the child? The question is solemn. The only hope is in Christ. Choose Him now, and seek to win others to Him.