Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-28
THE BROOK DRIED UP.
Significance Of the Suffering That
Came Down Upon Elijah
IN HIS PLEASANT HIDING PLACE
He Was Rejoicing in the Punishment Of the
People Of Israel.
LEARNED A LESSON OF FELLOWSHIP
WRITTEN FOR THE prsrArcB.1

brook dried up, because there was no rain in
the land"
This is part of the story of the education
of Elijah. Elijah had come over out Of
Gilead upon an errand from the Lord God
Almighty. The people of Israel had fallen
into base idolatry. They had made a spirit
ual rebellion. They had dethroned God.
And Elijah came to bring them back into
| allegiance.
| ..And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the
sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as
the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before
whom 1 stand, there shall not be dew or
rain these years but according to my
word"
That was Elijah's message That was the
beginning of his mission. And when he
had brought that word from the living God
to the rebellious King, he went away and
hid himself beside this brook And then
God began to make him ready for the next
part OF his great work. God went on edu-
eating Elijah.
| The Work of Education.
| It is not likely that Elijah was ever
graduated from any school, or ever read a
book in all his life, not even the Bible.
God is all the time educating messengers,
missionaries, men and women who are to
do His work in the world. That is how
God does His work, by setting us to do it,
and, first, of all, by educating us so that
| we may be able to do it. Everybody has
some work of God to do, and is under the
education of God. And God educa1es us in
many ways; sometimes out of the pages OF
books; but, most of all, and always, out OF
that open book, which is written in the uni
versal language to be read of all, and in
which we have lesson every day, the book
OF life, the book of human experience. God
was teaching Elijah his lessons, not out of a
| dry book, but out of dry brook.
All the land over, God was teaching ter
| rible lessons out of the dry brooks. Every
body was in Elijah's class. Day after day,
till the weeks grew into months, the sky
glowed like furnace, and the earth was
! parched into hot dust, and all the green
things in the fields withered, and all living
living creatures went athirst and hungry
There was one word in every heart, and the
word was famine. Everything else was
forgotten. Everybody prayed for rain.
Getting the Attention of People.
The first thing, if you are to teach any
body, is to get attention. Even God must
have attention. And sometimes it takes
a tragedy or a famine-to get men to look
in Gods direction, and to listen to his
voice. 1t did here. These people were
wholly given over to the secular side of
life. They were all the time looking down,
and never up. We read about the golden
calves at Dan and Bethel, and about strange
temples and groves of Baal and Ashteroth
at Samaria and Jezreel, and all
that old Life seems far away,
and foreign, and obsolete and
altogether out of relation with the life
we live to-day.
But human nature does not greatly
change. Names change, but the facts
which lie behind them continue. Languages,
customs, skies change; the center of the
world moves from one land to another; out
wardly there is absolute revolution, every
thing is different; Dan and Bethel, Samaria
and Jezreel, fall into ruins, and New York
and Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Chicago,
take their places; and Baal and Ashteroth
are dead. But men and women meet the
same temptations still and fall into the
same sins. The devil wears different
dress; that is about the only difference.
Lesson of the Golden Calves.
The golden calves at Dan and Bethel were
SCI up as a substitute for the old religion.
unrest, dissatisfaction, desire for change
Let us go no more to church; let US seek
God along some other path. They were, of
course, political necessity. The northern
kingdom had separated from the southern,
and the northern people were no longer well
come at Jerusalem. Nevertheless, they
had their own individual meaning. They
represented condition of things with
which we are perfectly familiar They rep
resented distinctly modern temper. 1t is
a characteristic of our own day also that
multitudes of people are turning away
from Jerusalem and trying to find God
somewhere else, at Dan or at Bethel.
And the next step in religion in that
ancient commonwealth was to build a temple
to Baal and to plant a grove to Ashteroth.
A significant step! Baal was the god of
business and Ashteroth was the goddess of
society. That is, among the Hebrews of
King Ahab's day, the worshippers of Baal
were for the most part men who set
business before religion. and the worship
crs of Ashteroth were for the most part
women who set society before religion.
Changed Religion for Commerce.
For King Ahab wanted to make money.
He desired to strengthen the State. And
as his tastes were for the arts of peace
rather than for the glories of war, he turned
his attention to commerce. And the great
commercial nation in that neighborhood in
that day was Phoenicia, up on the sea coast,
having Tyre and Sidon for its ports, and
sending its ships far out along the Mediter-
ranean Sea. But the Phoenicians worshipped
Baal. To be friendly with the Phoenicians
meant companionship with idolaters.
And that, God had forbidden. To make an
alliance with Phoenicia, and to make it
strong, meant recognition of Phoenician
religion. And that was breaking of the
foremost of the commandments.
On the other hand, it insured commercial
success. 1t was the path to business pros.
perity. That was the alternative which
confronted Ahab. Shall 1 put business
first, or the commandments of God first?
And SO I say that, whatever that old god
Baal may have meant in Tyre and Sidon,
among King Ahab's people it meant the
alteration of the dollar And that, be-
lieve, is not an obsolete religion.
Why Ashteroth Was worshiped.
And then, to make alliance doubly strong,
Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of the
Phenician King. And Jezebel brought
with her a great company of priests Of
Ashcroft, 400 of whom ate at her own
table. And SO the worship of Ashteroth
with Baal became a part of the life of
Ahab's court. Everybody who wanted to
stand well at court must pay devotion at the
shrine of Ashteroth.
Presently, as the fierce temper of the
Queen more and more showed itself, the
choice between religion and society became
more sharp aud more imperative. All the
nobility of Israel, all the princes and the
prelates, all the great lords and the fine
ladies, had to choose between court and
conscience, between the appreciation of