Part 5

Now we must suppose ourselves entering the little courtyard where the potter sits at work, or bending our heads to enter the shady little building or shed, where the rays of the mid-day sun cannot reach him.

He has just brought a lump of clay, and placed it on the middle of his wheel, and with his feet, he gives the wheel a twist, and begins to mould the great lump of clay into a round sort of mass.

So the visitor ventures to say: "May I ask what you are making, sir?"

And the potter looks up, with a half-smile, as he answers: "I am going to make a lovely jar," and then his feet twist the wheel round and round, and the visitor stands by watching.

The potter puts his thumb into the place where the neck of the jar will be, and as he twists and moulds, the visitor sees before his eyes the ugly bit of clay coming into an elegant shape.

At length the jar is done, and the visitor asks another question. "What will you do, now?" he says.

"I shall paint it with beautiful colours—"

"And then?"

"Then I shall put it into the oven and bake it, so that the shape and the colours will stand fast."

The visitor hesitates. At length, he asks, "You do not make them all alike? Some are plain and homely; some are beautiful, and I suppose costly?"

The potter smiles, as he rises and places his jar on a shelf out of harm's way.

"Well, sir," he says, "it's just as I choose to make them! Some are so precious in my eyes that I love to look at them; some turn out so badly, that I have to mould the clay over again. Just as I like, sir; just as I like! It is my clay, and my work; but I want the pieces that I make, to come out beautiful and lovely."

So the potter takes another lump of clay, and goes to his wheel again; and the visitor, thanking him very much for his kindness, turns away thoughtfully.

Had he not read somewhere in his Bible about the Clay and the Potter?

"Yes," he said to himself at length. "It was in Jeremiah, and when I get back to my Hotel, I will look it up."

And he found what he wanted, in the 18th Chapter of Jeremiah, where the Lord told the Prophet to go down to the potter's house, that He might tell him there, what he was to say to the Jewish people, who at that time were sadly disobedient, and had turned away from God.

So Jeremiah went down to the Potter's house; and behold, he was making something on his wheel.

But as he made it, the vessel which he was moulding was marred, or spoilt, under his hand; so he turned, and made the piece of clay into another shape, as it seemed good to the potter to make it.

And the Prophet stood and watched him.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and the Lord told him he was to go to the people of Israel and tell them His message. That if they continued in their evil ways, He would take them out of their own land, and from their beloved City, Jerusalem, and He would send them to be Captives in a distant land.

And God said, "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you, as this potter has done with his clay?"

For God loved the Children of Israel, and He wanted to make them good and beautiful, like the potter wanted to make his jars.

But the Children of Israel rebelled against God; and though He had sent great deliverances many times, and brought them right out of the bondage of Egypt, and into the beautiful land of Canaan, they very quickly forgot Him again.

They forgot all His love towards them, and began to serve other gods, which they made with their own hands; and they even sacrificed and burned their own sons on their altars.

So God sent Jeremiah with His message to them—that if they would turn away from their evil ways and come back to Him, He would forgive them and give them every blessing; but if they refused, then Jerusalem should be destroyed, and God would send those who were left after the battles into a far country where they should be Captives for seventy years.

Yet even with all these solemn warnings, the Children of Israel—the Jews—refused to obey God; and very shortly those things came to pass which Jeremiah had told them.

But God has given great promises to the Jews, and He is very patient and longsuffering.

By and by after seventy years, He brought them back in a wonderful way to their own Land, which they again inhabited, and built cities and lived in them.

But it was not very long before they again began to depart from God's laws; they ceased to obey those things which were plainly written in the Old Testament Scriptures; and at last, when Jesus Christ came to earth to be their Messiah and King, they did not remember all God had said in the Bible about Him, and they rose up against Him, and crucified the Lord of Glory!

And so, again the Heavenly Father, who calls Himself the Potter, has had to send the Jews out of their Land, and He is moulding them now by trials and sorrows, so that by and by they may be purified and restored to His favour.

For when Jesus comes back to Earth, as He surely will, "they will look on Him whom they have pierced," and will turn to Him, and be saved.

XX. JEHOSHEBA, THE GOOD AUNT

2 KINGS 11.1-21. 2 CHRONICLES 22, 23, AND 24

QUEEN ATHALIAH, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was a very wicked woman.

Her son Ahaziah only reigned one year in Jerusalem, and she was his counsellor to do evil. But at the end of the year he was slain by Jehu, and the Throne of Judah became empty.

Then Queen Athaliah determined to destroy all the Royal Princes, and ordered all the sons of Ahaziah to be killed, in order to reign over the Kingdom herself.

But while these terrible scenes were happening, and the Princes of Judah were being killed one after another, there was a Princess, Ahaziah's sister, who made a brave resolve, and carried it out most successfully.

She knew that one of the King's sons, whom Athaliah had intended to kill, was a baby of a year old, and she determined that she would do her utmost to rescue him from the soldiers who were ordered to carry out this wicked scheme. This Princess was called Jehosheba, and she was the wife of the High Priest, and evidently could go into the outer rooms of the Temple.

So while the shouts of the soldiers, and the cries of those who were being murdered, were filling the air with terrible sounds of confusion, Jehosheba stole swiftly to the place where she thought she should find the baby boy, and hiding him under her beautiful robes she bore him into the Temple, far away from the noise and turmoil, and she hid him in a bedchamber, under the care of his trusted Nurse.

The bedchamber was probably a little room where the mats and bedding for the priests who lived in the Temple, were kept, and at night they were brought out and laid upon the floor in the larger chambers; for that is the custom in the East.

No one missed the little child, for Athaliah believed that all the Royal Princes were slain. So she immediately put herself on the Throne, and reigned over the kingdom, practising all her wicked ways as before, in defiance of the Commands of God.

You will not wonder that she came to a very sorrowful end, as we shall hear presently.

Meanwhile, Joash, the little heir to the throne, was kept hidden safely in the Temple. You can picture to yourselves how Jehosheba would have often gone to that far-off bedchamber to play with her little nephew, and how she would teach him all she could, to prepare him for the Kingdom.

It is evident also, when we read the accounts, that her husband, Jehoiada, the High Priest, was often with the child: for by and by when six years had passed away, and little Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada determined that he should be crowned King.

So he called the Captains of the army, and they started out all over the land of Judah, and gathered the Levites from all the cities, and the chief fathers of the people, and they all came up to Jerusalem.

Jehoiada shewed them the little King, and made arrangements for their guarding him on the Coronation Day. He also armed them with spears and shields and bucklers which had been King David's, and said to them, "Behold the King's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David."

So the Captains and the Levites did exactly as Jehoiada told them, and stood on guard about the King, with their weapons in their hands.

Then Jehoiada brought forward the little son of King Ahaziah, and put the crown on his head, and the roll of the Testimony in his hand, and they made him King, and Jehoiada and his sons anointed him; and those about him clapped their hands with joy, and said, "God save the King!"

But when Athaliah, the wicked Queen, heard the shouting and rejoicing, she hurried into the House of the Lord, and when she saw the King standing by a pillar, and the Princes and the trumpeters around him, and all the people rejoicing, and sounding the trumpets, she rent her clothes and cried, "Treason! Treason!"

But Jehoiada quickly commanded the Captains to seize Athaliah, and take her out of the Temple, and to kill her with the sword outside the Courts; and there she was slain.

Then Jehoiada made a covenant with the King and all the people, that they should be the Lord's people, and not idolaters any more; and they went into the house of the idol Baal, and broke it down; and they broke up the altars of Baal, and his images into small pieces, and killed the priest of Baal.

So all the people rejoiced greatly, and they brought the King to the King's house, and he sat on the Throne of Judah.

As long as the faithful High Priest lived, Joash was a good King. Jehoiada was his counsellor and friend, and under his advice Joash did much to repair the Temple of God.

But when Jehoiada died, Joash fell into evil company. The Princes of Judah came and persuaded him to go to the Groves and Idols; and the end was, that he brought misery on himself, and also on the Kingdom which he ruled.

God sent Prophet after Prophet to implore the people to return to the Lord, but Joash went on in his wrong-doing, even to killing the son of Jehoiada, his old friend and protector.

Joash fell very sick at this time, whether from wounds or from illness, the Bible does not say; but the servants who waited on him conspired against him, and killed him in his bed.

Oh! What a sorrowful death! No love, no tender pity, but hatred for all the evil he had done to the Kingdom, over which he might have reigned so gloriously, had he only kept close to the Lord God, who would surely have established his throne.

XXI. GOD FEEDS ELIJAH

ELIJAH was a great Prophet of the Lord; and to him were given more wonderful honours than were conferred on any other Prophet.

We talk much now-a-days about deeds of bravery, and about the honours which are given to the men who have thus distinguished themselves; and these honours are given them by our King, and the brave deeds are spoken of from one end of the world to the other!

You will like to know what honours Elijah had?

He was allowed to go to Heaven without dying; and he was allowed long afterwards to come back from the glory to talk with the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

These wonderful "distinctions" were not given him by any earthly king, but by God Himself; and as we follow out the story of Elijah's life, we shall ourselves, perhaps, have a peep into that glory which Jesus is even now preparing for those who love and follow Him.

I have read that Elijah's name means "My God is Jehovah!" and it seems to me that this is a brave motto for each one of us, "My God is Jehovah!" "For in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength."

The first mention we have of the Prophet Elijah, who came from the land of Gilead, was in the reign of King Ahab.

God chose Elijah, who was very brave, to rebuke the king for his many acts of wickedness. We read that Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God than any of the other kings before him.

One day Elijah went to Ahab and told him: "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."

This loss of rain was doubtless sent as a great punishment for the idolatry and sin into which the whole people of Israel had fallen.

Then the Word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, "Turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan."

God did not forget His faithful servant in the famine that was coming; and He told him He had commanded the ravens to feed him, and that he would be able to drink of the brook.

Here, amidst the rocks and fastnesses, he was safe from the wrath of Ahab and of Jezebel, Ahab's wife, who hated Elijah with all her heart.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook.

But when the hot days came the brook began to grow less and less, because there had been no rain, and at last the brook dried up; and then the Word of the Lord came to him again: "Arise and go to Zarephath, near Sidon: I have commanded a widow woman to feed thee there."

So Elijah went the long journey to Zarephath, and just outside the gate he saw a woman gathering sticks; and, too thirsty to wait till he reached her side, he called to her: "Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water to drink!"

And as she was going to fetch it, he called again: "And bring me a morsel of bread in thine hand!"

But she quickly answered: "I have not any bread! I have nothing but a little meal in the bottom of the barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and I was gathering a few sticks to bake a little loaf for me and my son, that we may eat it and die!"

The famine was so bad in the land that this was the last bread that poor widow would be able to get.

But God knew all about it, and He had arranged it all in His loving way.

So Elijah, hungry and thirsty as he was, gave her God's message.

"Fear not," he said; "go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth."

And she went and did as the Prophet told her, and he, and her house, had enough to eat all the while the famine lasted.

And since then there are many widows, and many distressed and anxious families, who have found the God of Elijah the same loving, providing God that this poor widow did.

But by and by there came a still harder trial to that widow's heart. Her precious little boy, who had been kept alive all through the famine, was very ill, and died.

Then the poor widow was utterly hopeless, and she blamed Elijah and said it was his fault that this dreadful sorrow had come to her.

Doubtless Elijah had told her much about the Holy God who cannot bear sin, and she began to look at her past life, and one particular sin came up before her! She told him that he had come to bring this sin to remembrance, and to slay her son!

But Elijah said, "Give me thy son." And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up to the loft where he lived, and laid the child upon his own bed.

And Elijah cried to the Lord. (You see he was a man who lived in close touch with God!) And he said: "O Lord my God, hast Thou brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?"

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times. And again he cried to the Lord God, and said: "O Lord my God, I pray Thee, let this child's soul come into him again!"

"And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived."

"And Elijah took the child, and brought him down . . . and delivered him unto his mother, and said, 'See! Thy son liveth!'"

"And the woman said to Elijah, 'Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the Word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.'"

XXII. RUTH

A LONG time ago we read of something most interesting about Bethlehem.

In the time of the Judges of Israel, before Saul or David had been made kings, there was a man living at Bethlehem whose name was Elimelech. He had a wife called Naomi, and two sons called Mahlon and Chilion.

But there came a famine in Bethlehem, and Elimelech and his wife and two sons went out of Canaan and journeyed into the land of Moab.

Here the family of Elimelech settled down for ten years.

But Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. These sons married wives in Moab, but both of them died, and Naomi was then left a desolate widow.

By and by she heard that the famine was over in the land of Canaan, and she started with her two daughters-in-law to return to Bethlehem.

But after they had set out on their journey, Naomi advised Orpah and Ruth to go back to their mothers, and prayed that, as they had been so loving and kind to her sons who had died, God would take care of them, and bless them in Moab.

Then she kissed them, and they all wept together. And they said, "Surely we will go back with thee to thy people!"

But Naomi did everything she could think of to dissuade them, and at last, with many tears, Orpah wished her good-bye; but Ruth clung to her.

Then Naomi used another argument: "Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back to her people and to her gods—return thou after her."

But Ruth said: "Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God!"

So Ruth chose the God of Israel to be her God. And that God Whom she had chosen, watched over her all her life long, and gave her great happiness and honour, as I shall tell you by and by.

When Naomi found that Ruth was determined that "naught but death" should part them she left off persuading her, and they two journeyed on till they came to Bethlehem.

The arrival of strangers at a little town in those days was a great event, and all the people flocked out of their houses to see who it could be.

And they said, "Is this Naomi?"

But Naomi's heart failed her. She had gone out with husband and sons, and she had returned desolate; and in her grief she said, "Do not call me 'Naomi'" (that meant pleasant), "but call me 'Mara'" (which means bitter), "for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me!"

Poor Naomi! She forgot her sweet daughter Ruth; she forgot the God of Israel whom they both trusted. For a little while her grief swept over her.

There lived in Bethlehem a rich man, whose name was Boaz, and he was a relation of Naomi's husband, Elimelech.

When they found that the barley harvest had just begun, Ruth said to her mother-in-law, "Let me go into the fields to glean corn!"

And when she reached the fields she happened on a field belonging to Boaz; but Ruth did not know that he was her relative.

When Boaz saw Ruth among the women who had come out to glean, he asked his servant who was set over the reapers whose damsel she was? And the servant told him that she had come from Moab with Naomi, and he had let her glean among the reapers.

So Boaz spoke kindly to Ruth, and bade her keep near his maidens; and if she were thirsty she was welcome to take some of the water which his young men had drawn.

Then Ruth bowed herself to the ground, and thanked Boaz for his kindness to a stranger.

But Boaz told her that he had heard all about her love to her mother-in-law, and how she had left father and mother to come to a strange land. And then he asked the Lord God of Israel, under Whose wings she had come to trust, to bless her, and to give her a full reward for all she had done.

So Boaz told her to come at meal-times and share the food they had; and he gave her parched corn, some of which she saved to carry to her mother-in-law; and when she had had sufficient, she went back to her gleaning. And Boaz told his young men to let fall handfuls on purpose for her, so that by evening she had gathered quite a good quantity.

When Naomi heard all the kindness of Boaz, she told Ruth that he was a near relation, and she realized that, after all, the Lord had not forsaken her, though in her grief she had almost thought He had!

She told Ruth to keep fast by the maidens of Boaz. So day after day, till the harvest was over, Ruth did as Naomi bade her; and as Boaz went to and fro among the reapers, he saw the modest and sweet behaviour of the young stranger girl, and he determined to ask her to be his wife. So they were married; and by and by a dear little son was given to them.

And the women said to Naomi: "Bless be the Lord, which hath not left thee without a kinsman, that his name should be famous in Israel."

So Naomi was comforted, and became a nurse to the babe who was so precious to her.

And his name was famous! For the child was called Obed, and he was in due time the father of Jesse; and Jesse was the father of David, and through David, years afterwards, came our Blessed Lord!

Do you not remember how the blind man cried out?—"Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy upon me."

XXIII. ON MOUNT GILBOA

As David left Saul, and went back to his stronghold at Engedi, he said to himself: "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines, and Saul will cease to look for me."

So he went with the six hundred men who followed him, and dwelt with Achish, the king of Gath, for a year and four months.

But, after a time, the Philistines determined to go to battle against the Israelites, and as David and his men were very friendly with Achish, they marched in the rear of the army which was gathered together against Saul.

But when the princes of the Philistines found David and his men among the warriors, they very much objected, telling Achish that when the battle was joined, David would go over to the other side and fight against the Philistines.

Achish tried to persuade them that David and his men were their friends, but the lords of the Philistines would not consent; and David had to go back to Ziklag. It would take too long to tell you here how he found that other enemies had invaded his home, or how he and his men went after them, and how the Lord helped them to recover their wives and children and all the spoil that those enemies had taken.

But it seems very wonderful that, in the great battle of the Philistines in which Saul was killed, the Lord had sent David far away in another direction!

So the Philistines gathered themselves to the battle, and Saul and his sons and all the men of Israel came out against them.

But the night before the battle Saul had gone to a witch at Endor, and asked her to bring up Samuel to speak to him. Both he and the witch were very frightened when Samuel came up—an old man wrapped in a mantle—and Samuel told Saul that God had given the kingdom to David, and that he and his sons would be killed on the morrow.

So the battle took place the next day on Mount Gilboa; and the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and his sons, and Saul was sore wounded by the archers.

Then Saul besought his armour-bearer to kill him with his sword lest his enemies should come and mock him. But his armour-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid.

Then King Saul took his own sword and fell upon it and died. And when his armour-bearer saw that he was dead, he fell upon his sword too, and died with him.

So Saul died, and his three sons and all his men, that day together.