Brother Moses Welsby was speaking with me at some Open-air Meetings at
Radcliffe, the other day, and he told of seeing a lad being taken to
prison, and as he was going his father called out, "Keep thy spirits up,
lad, it will soon be over," but the lad replied,
"I SHOULD NOT BE GOING NOW IF YOU HAD SHEWED ME A BETTER EXAMPLE."
What sort of a model are you? Can your children copy you with safety?
Are your actions what you would like to see over again in your boys and
girls? Perhaps some who read this are in danger of being driven from God
at the last day. If so, shall you be chained to your children, and will
your punishment be all the greater because they say,
"WE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN HELL IF YOU HAD SET US A BETTER EXAMPLE?"
XVIII. "THERE IS A SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN."
1 KINGS, xix. 41.
So said the man of God. Rain was much needed, for famine stared them in
the face. Even Ahab himself had walked many weary miles to seek grass
for his horses; other men's cattle had perished, and if the drought had
continued, everything would have died. Still, it was not Ahab who heard
the sound of the rain. There was no sign of it. The heavens were as
brass, the sky was without a cloud, everything was burned up with dry
heat, and yet, said Elijah, "There is a sound of abundance of rain." It
is so in the spiritual world. There are those who know of a coming
Revival long before there is any sign. They have felt their prayers
being answered, and have heard the cry of the penitent sinner, though, as
yet, he seems to be as hard and careless as ever.
"So AHAB WENT UP TO EAT AND TO DRINK." Not so Elijah, he went up to the
top of Carmel. The man of God "CAST HIMSELF DOWN ON THE EARTH, AND PUT
HIS FACE BETWEEN HIS KNEES." Those who would procure blessings must not
expect to win them at the table of luxury and ease, but by climbing the
hill of difficulty, and in the humbling of self. If we would bring the
blessing down, we must be prepared to say, "No," to our own likings, and
to refuse that which would gratify flesh and blood. If we would prevail
in prayer, we must be alone with God. The priests who fed at Jezebel's
table could not bring rain, or they would have saved themselves from the
sword of Elijah. We need not to look toward the sea till we have bowed
before the Lord, then we may expect some sign of the coming Revival.
We must not be discouraged if the servant tells us "THERE IS NOTHING!"
Masters see more than servants can, or they would not be masters. "Go
again seven times," as though he said "Do not interrupt me with thy
'Nothings!'" Come and tell me when there is "Something;" and the seventh
time he saw the "little cloud." Some of us have looked from the hill,
over the sea, in a far off tropical land, and have seen that same little
cloud many a time, as it spread all over the sky, and soon there was rain
enough to stop the traveller.