So perish those who prefer to eat when others starve, though they might unite with those who bring blessings on the perishing!
A year afterwards, the man who prayed walks along the road; there is one by his side who watches him with eager glance, and now comes the chariot of heaven.
God sends His Carriage to meet
the man who climbed the hill to pray, and soon he is parted from his young friend; but see! his mantle falls. Which of us will pick it up and wear it? Elijah’s garment will fit any of us, and will always be new if we pray. It grows threadbare and shabby when worn by those who prefer the table to the altar, and love the pleasures of the world better than the companionship of angels.
My brothers, shall we not become mighty in prayer? This is a talent all have received, put it out to interest at once. Lose no time in its use. Satan will gladly lend you a napkin, but then he will have your soul as the pledge. To cease to pray is to drift towards hell. Is there not a needs be for crying mightily to God? Can we look around our congregations and not feel that it is high time we went up the hill to cry to God for the rain that means revival? Let us each ask the question, Am I most like the man who lived to gratify his desires, or the man who lived to pray for others?
With whom shall I spend my Eternity, with Elijah of Ahab?
If the angels see us on our face, crying for rain, they will know that some day they will have to meet us and take us home in the chariot of fire. If they see that we are those who eat and drink when they should pray, they will know that our possessions, like Ahab’s chariot, will become a hearse, and that we are riding to hell in that which we have chosen for comfort.
XXXVII. “THE WIDOW WOMAN WAS THERE.”
I Kings xvii. 10.
Of course she was. All God’s trains meet at the junction. They don’t have to wait for one another. Elijah had left Cherith because the brook had dried up, and his first request shewed that he was in need of water. The poor widow seems to have been relieved that water was all the prophet asked, but he called to her to fetch a bit of bread as well. This broke her down. “Ah, Master, we have not so much as a cake. I have only a handful of meal, and I had come out to gather some sticks that I might bake a little cake for me and the lad, and then we shall have to die of hunger!”
“Never fear, God has sent me, and with His servant there shall come a blessing.