Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1898-08-10
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
LESSON VII, THIRD QUARTER, INTER-
NATIONAL SERIES, AUG. -.

Text Of the Lesson, II Kings iv. 1881.
Memory Verses, 32-35-Golden Text, Ps.
lv, 22-Commentary by the Rev. ID. M.
stearns.
25. $50 she went and came unto the
man of God to Mount Carmel" In the
town of Shunem there was a great woman
who, with the consent of her husband,
prepared a chamber for Elisha and fur
stick and constrained him to turn in thith-
or whenever he passed that way oversees
6-1O). They had no children, and Elisha
In gratitude for their kindness to him
asked God, and He gave them son. One
day when the lad was grown he was In the
field with the reapers and his father. He
was suddenly taken with pain in his head,
died on his mothers knees. She laid him
on the he'd of the man of God, shut the
door, called for servant and an ass and
hastened to Carmel to Elisha.
&C. "Run now, pray thee, to meet her
and say unto her, Is 1t well with thee? Is
1t well with thy husband? Is 1t well with
the childp And she answered, It is well.
Even though our grief be very great and
our heart be breaking, with confidence in
God we can say, sit is WELL" We can say
with Eli, 1t is the Lord; let Him do what
seemeth Him good Il Sam. iii, 18), or
with Job. "The Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord Job l, 81.
"a. "And the man of God said, Let her
| nj for hor &c until noys
and the Lord hath hid it from me and
hath not told me-. Gehazi would have
driven her away, as the disciples would
have sent away the mothers with the chill
dren, and perhaps in something of the
same spirit in which they also found fault
with Mary of Bethany when she with the
precious ointment anointed our Lord and
to their fault finding He said, "Let her
alone" There are still those who find
fault with Others for clinging too closely
to our Lord. but happy are all whom He
approves.
90. "Then she said, Did desire a son
Of my Lord? Did not say, Do not deceive
me?" / suppose she thought 1t better
never to have had such gift than to have
received him and then when he had taken
hold of her heart thus to lose him; but she
did not know all Gods plan for her. We
must not judge of God ways till we have
seen the end (Jas- V, IL; Eek. xiv, 23).
80. "Then he said to Gehazi, Grid up
thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand,
and go thy way, and lay my staff upon the
face of the child'' This seems little
perplexing; it looks like making light of
the case on tho part of the prophet, though
we do not so judge. Better to have at
once done as Elijah did Il Kings xvii, 81,
and as he afterward did. When Joshua
made light of All and sent only few men
to take it, they were defeated. Contrast
Joshua vii, 8, 4 and viii, /.
30. "As the Lord liveth and as thy soul
liveth I will not leave thee" She did not
see God in Gehazi, nor in Elishas staff,
but she had recognized God in Elisha. 1t
is our Lords desire that He should be SO
seen in US that people may be drawn to
Him through us (Gal. !, is, 24). Take the
cases of Ruth, Ittai and Elisha himself as
parallels in clinging ruth 1, 49,; II Sam.
XIV, 81; II Kings ii, -.
81. Sand Gehazi passed on before them
and laid the staff upon the face of the
child, but there was neither voice nor
hearing" One has said, Deliver us from
Gehazis who only carry staff" Those
who would lead others to life must have
|
be part of us, not something we hold as
staff in our hand.
80. "And when Elisha was come into
the house behold the child was dead and
laid upon his bed" When the woman
prepared the bed for the prophet, she little
dreamed that she would ever use 1t for
such purpose. In doing good to others
we are often making resting place for
our own sorrows and also place of de-
liverance from them. In dealing with the
children for their souls salvation we must
remember that they are dead in sin (Eph.
ii, 4, b and must be placed In the warm
est sympathies of our hearts.
33. she went In therefore and shut the
door upon them twain, and prayed unto
the Lord" He now does as Elijah did.
1t is good to take the children one by one
alone with God. 1t is well sometimes to
have those with us in prayer who are in
sympathy, as when Jesus took Peter,
James and John, and the father and moth
er of the little girl whom He would re-
store to life. It is at other times wiser to
be alone with God.
\ "a. "And he went up and lay upon the
child" The verse goes on to tell just how
he did it, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes,
hands to hands. The late G. II. Spurgeon,
to whom am indebted for many thoughts
on this lesson, said that to stretch oneself
down to a child was the hardest kind Of
stretching, but unless we can find grace to
put ourselves as far as possible In tho
place of the children whom we seek to
reach, seeing and thinking as they do, We
may not hope to reach them.
35. "Then he returned and walked In
the house to and fro and went up and
stretched himself upon him, and the child
sneezed seven times, and the child opened
his eyes" First the flesh waxed warm,
then followed tho sneezing and then the
opened eyes, The boy might have revived
at once, as in the case of the little girl or
the widows son or Eutyohus, but our
Lord does not often do the same work in
the same exact way any moro than He
makes two leaves or two faces exactly
alike.
36. "And he called Gehazi and said,
Call this Shunamite. So he called her.
And when she was come In unto him he
said, Take up thy son." Now she received
him alive from the dead, more to her than
ever before, yet doubtless held henceforth
with very different feelings from formerly
In the first place, he was, like Isaac su-
pernatural child (verse l4), and now he
was a child actually given back from the
dead, 80 that this great woman of Shunom
was made to SEQ the great power of tho
"a TT