2 Corinthians 6:11-13
Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.
Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections.
Now for a recompense in like kind—I speak as unto my children—be ye also enlarged.
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work.
This heart appeal of the apostle to the Corinthians about enlargement follows in his own letter without any interruption or break by chapter division. It follows right on from what we have in 2 Corinthians 5:14:
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who for their sakes died and rose again.
The point is that, through resurrection, there is enlargement. Resurrection always means enlargement. That is a test of our understanding and apprehension of it, as well as a statement of fact.
Wherever resurrection is at work, there is always expansion, enlargement, growth. We have been seeing that those at Corinth had not understood and apprehended the meaning of the gospel of resurrection which the apostle preached.
Because they had not apprehended the meaning of that gospel—that great word, resurrection—they were a small, mean, petty, contemptible people, turned in upon themselves and against one another, in divisions and rivalries and parties and factions and whatnot.
All those things were evidence of the smallness and poverty of their spiritual life, and of their understanding of the gospel, which is the gospel of resurrection.
So here the apostle cries. He tells them something of what that power had meant in his own life, opens his heart to them, showing how resurrection had triumphed in so many ways in his own personal experience; and, unable to contain himself, he cries, “Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians; our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us; ye are straitened in your own affections. Now for a recompense in like kind, be ye also enlarged.”
That is only another way of saying: Get a new hold on the meaning of the gospel. Get a new hold on the meaning of resurrection.
Just follow the course of resurrection wherever you find it, whether it be in Old Testament type, figure, and symbol, or in New Testament reality. You find yourself caught into a river, the depth of which is ever growing and the breadth of which is ever expanding. It is something always on the increase.
To be in the way of spiritual enlargement is to be in the course of resurrection life. For this river will overflow all its banks. This river will prove to be one that is deeper than you can cope with, as we see in the case of the river in Ezekiel.
Now, we are going this afternoon, as the Lord enables, to look at this in some quite familiar Old Testament connections. I always say this with my tongue in my cheek, because I never know how far we are going to get or where we shall have to stop. But, if possible, we shall take three very familiar Old Testament illustrations of the way of spiritual enlargement.
I mean what we have in the early chapters of the Second Book of Kings—especially, for our purpose this afternoon, chapters 4, 5, and 6.
Before we come to these particular occasions and instances, let us remind ourselves what the setting and background are. We are all familiar with the fact that, in the days of Elijah and Elisha, things were in a very poor spiritual condition in Israel. They were indeed at a low ebb spiritually.
The question that was always uppermost in those days, as it has been so often, was this: How shall that which is of the Lord be maintained? How shall the Lord’s testimony be maintained, especially seeing that He Himself has gone to heaven and is away?
That is the question, and that is the connection. You know the story. I may very hurriedly run over it to refresh your memories, for that is necessary.
Elisha was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he with the twelfth. Elijah passed by and cast his mantle upon him. Elisha said, “Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.” Elijah said, “Go back again; for what have I done to thee?”
The answer, of course, was within Elisha’s own heart: “You have done something, and I cannot get away from it.” There and then he slew his oxen, made a fire of the agricultural implements, offered the oxen as a sacrifice, and went after Elijah—his follower and successor.
Thereupon Elijah commenced that series of tests as to whether Elisha really meant it, whether he meant business, whether he was a truly committed man. You see, this is the question of how the Lord’s testimony is going to be maintained when the Lord goes to heaven. The instrument or vessel for that maintenance must be attested and approved.
Elijah thoroughly tested Elisha—from Gilgal to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho, and from Jericho to Jordan. As they were on the last stage, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall give thee, before I be taken from thee.”
Elisha, I think without any hesitation, said, “A double portion of thy spirit, please.” Elijah said, “Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee.”
They went on and came to Jordan. Elijah smote the Jordan with his mantle, and it opened, and they passed over. There appeared a chariot of fire and caught Elijah up into heaven. Elisha cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” He saw him no more; but there fell from Elijah his mantle.
The mantle is always the symbol of the Spirit, the anointing. Elisha took it up, went back to Jordan, and put the thing to the test immediately. The sons of the prophets said, “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.”
Now then, we are ready to carry on the Lord’s testimony while He is in heaven. By what means? By the gift of the Holy Spirit; by the anointing; by no other way.
That anointing is only on the ground of resurrection—through the Jordan, upon the other side. Resurrection never stops with the grave; it never stops until it gets to the Lord enthroned in heaven. “He raised Him,” said Paul, “from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority.” That is the range of resurrection.
On that ground the Holy Spirit comes and is given, and the mantle falls upon the church, the Lord’s vessels, upon whom He has laid His hand, apprehended, and called into fellowship. It must be a committed vessel.
That mantle comes, and that vessel is charged with the great responsibility and honour of maintaining that which was commenced by the Head when He was here.
You see what the question is. It is the matter of succession to the Lord when He has gone to heaven. It is a matter, shall we say, of the next phase—or the next generation, spreading that word over more than merely a human generation, over a dispensation.
The next phase extends to the time when that ascended Lord returns, during which His testimony has got to be maintained. In that time there has to be a vessel for that purpose.
It is the principle of succession to the ascended Lord: succession by the anointing with the same Spirit as rested upon Him.
You will therefore be ready to agree that, if this is real, this is what we are called to. And, dear friends, if I may make a parenthetical emphasis, do not make any mistake about it: this is what we are called to. This is what we are. Nothing less—nothing less than this.
We are charged with the great responsibility of maintaining this testimony of the ascended Lord while He is away. If that is true—and it is true—you are ready to agree that unto that we need an anointing. My word, we need a lot.
The Corinthians were letting the testimony down badly, and the apostle attributes that failure to their puniness, to their smallness. Hence his appeal in the second letter, which is the letter of enlargement in ministry and testimony: “Be ye also enlarged.”
The only way to save the testimony, the only way to maintain it, is to be enlarged. Go back and see what he has been saying—how in him that testimony, everywhere, through suffering, persecution, hunger, shipwreck, treachery, and everything, even to the point of many deaths, had been marvellously maintained.
He opened his mouth about it all. He dared to open his mouth, daring to do so lest he should seem to be making himself the model, the pattern. Nevertheless, he dared, and said, “Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians. Be ye also enlarged.”
We now come back to the Second Book of Kings, to our three illustrations. In 2 Kings 4 we have the account of the woman and her little pot of oil. We cannot read the stories, but I hope they come back to your remembrance.
Here she is. “There cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha.” These sons of the prophets occupy a large place in these Scriptures, and repeatedly in these chapters we shall see them. But what do they represent?
If they do not represent the carrying on of the testimony, what do they represent? They are the sons of the prophets, and their very function is to maintain the testimony of the prophets. That is what they are for. That is what they exist for: to carry it on.
Here is a woman who is the widow of one of the sons of the prophets. Her husband, a son of the prophets, has died and left her without any resource. That is a pretty poor outlook for any ministry when it leaves its successor without anything to live on.
She cries to Elisha and tells him of her situation: “Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.”
Are you anxious about your children? Are you concerned about those younger ones who are coming to take up this responsibility? Is there a cry in your heart about those who are to follow on and carry this burden?
She cries because not only was her husband dead, and not only was she in poverty and need, but there was hanging over her children a heavy cloud. It looked as though they would not be following in their father’s steps; they would not be able to stay in and take up the great responsibility and honour of maintaining the Lord’s testimony.
It is a sad outlook. Dear friends, we have very similar situations today everywhere. What are our young people doing? Are they following on? Are they coming on in the way to take up the responsibility?
Oh, many a parent’s heart is like the heart of this woman: “My children are not going on with the Lord. My children are not following on.” If the woman might represent the church, might not the church be crying today, “Our young people are not coming on to take up this great work of the Lord and to shoulder the responsibility of His testimony”?
They are threatened with a spiritually untimely end, an arrested growth of progress. It is very true, is it not?
There is the situation. She cried unto Elisha. It is very impressive how often the situation turned upon a woman’s cry. Hagar cried. Hannah cried. This widow cries. Mary Magdalene cries.
A woman’s cry—you need not take that literally, though you may if you like. The church needs to cry about this matter. It needs to cry about its young people, or those who are to follow on for the maintenance of the Lord’s interests.
She cried unto Elisha. Elisha said, “What shall I do for thee? Tell me; what hast thou in the house?” She said, “Thy servant hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil.”
A small pot. Resources may be very little. Maybe there is only a little; but if there is a little of the Spirit, there is hope. There is tremendous potentiality if you have the Spirit at all.
He said, “Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.” Empty vessels—not a few.
You can use your imagination and draw the picture: this woman and her two sons hurrying off in all directions to every house near and far, inquiring for any empty vessel available which could be lent to the woman.
They brought them home, bringing them home, until there was not another one to be found or borrowed. Elisha said, “Shut the door, and begin to pour.” She began to pour, and on went the oil—from vessel to vessel—every empty vessel filled, down to the last vessel.
Then she said, “There is not a vessel more.” And the oil stayed. Elisha did not put the limit on.
The Holy Spirit never limits Himself. If there is littleness, it is in the vessel, not in the Holy Spirit.
And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work.
That is the divine size. It is we who put the limits on the Lord.
When this was finished, the woman went out with all these vessels back to the neighbours—filled vessels, undoubtedly to their astonishment and wonder. They would all be asking, “Where did it come from? How did you get it?” She had her opportunity of testifying, saying, “It is just what the Lord has done. The Lord did this.”
And the testimony is carried on in that way.
Now, this is not just a pretty Old Testament story, dear friends. I do not know what you are thinking as I speak. You may be criticising my manner or what I am saying, or you may be thinking that you have heard it all before. But let us be quite serious about this: this is not fiction.
This ought to be, can be, and with some of us is, a right up-to-date experience. Again and again, there has been a sense of need brought to the Lord—need of many kinds: physical need, spiritual need, need for ministry, need for life, need to go on another day.
Starting the morning so empty, so needy in many ways, empty vessels—not a few—are brought to the Lord. And He has been faithful. He has been faithful. Oh, how He has filled the vessels repeatedly and continually.
If there has been limitation, it has been because of the limitation of our faith. We have not trusted Him.
This is not some great idealistic idea of prophetic ministry. No—what is prophetic ministry? It is the life of the people of God: the life of the people of God individually, and the church, bearing daily witness to the fact that the Lord is sufficient for all things.
That is prophecy in its true meaning. That is the maintaining of the Lord’s testimony, and that is what we are here for—nothing less than that.
Here you have the question of enlargement from a very little—enlargement from very little in order to meet our spiritual obligations and to save the situation for the Lord’s honour. The Holy Spirit is all-sufficient for it all, and He will not put the limitation on. It will be we who limit Him, straitened in our own selves.
Empty vessels—empty vessels. The Lord demands, in the first place, that the vessel is empty. If we have a fullness of our own, a sufficiency of our own—if there is any self-sufficiency, conceit, pride, or any idea at all that we have it—then we are not suitable vessels for this testimony.
The Bible throughout bears mighty witness to this: when God is going to do something for His glory, He takes an empty vessel. He demands emptiness, and He empties before He fills.
We must hurry to the next chapter. It is, as you know, the story of Naaman the Syrian. Naaman was commander-in-chief of the army of the king of Syria. Here was a great man, and he was a leper.
There was a little captive maid serving in his house, who said in her compassion for her master, “Oh, that my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! For he would recover him of his leprosy.”
The rest of the story you know. Naaman came with his retinue to Elisha. Elisha did not even go outside his door to see the great man, nor take any account of the pomp. He sent his servant to him with the message, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times.”
Naaman almost had the whole thing arrested or threatened with disaster because of his pride. “Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean?”
But the word of the Lord was, “Go to Jordan. Wash seven times.” However, they persuaded him, and he went and dipped himself in Jordan seven times. His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was cleansed of his leprosy.
There are many other lessons in this story, but we are focusing on one point: the matter of enlargement—the matter of being enlarged where the testimony of the Lord is concerned.
To bear this out, turn to Luke 4. Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. He went, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. There was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Isaiah, and He stood up to read.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor:
He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. We are dealing with the Holy Spirit—that is the point. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me,” and so on.
When He had reached a certain point, He stopped. He closed the book, sat down, and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fastened upon Him. He began to say, “Today hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.”
Then He said, “No prophet is acceptable in his own country. But of a truth I say unto you, there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”
They were filled with wrath. They rose up, thrust Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong. Mark, giving account of this and other factors, says that He marvelled because of their unbelief and could do no mighty work there.
Limited, limited, limited. Yet here is enlargement, wealth enlarged beyond Israel. This was a mighty blow at the nature of religious exclusiveness. It was devastating.
Not to Israel, but outside. The Holy Spirit is not confined. His range of operation is wherever there is a leper—here or there—wherever there is sin, wherever there is need, wherever there is darkness, wherever there is imprisonment. “He hath anointed Me to preach” there, outside any kind of bounds which men have set up by their traditions.
They were wrathful. They were not going to have that—not going to have that. This pernicious thing of turning in and turning in, drawing fences around, narrowing down—and then, when you touch that thing, getting into terrible trouble—must be recognised for what it is.
The devil does not like this kind of enlargement that embraces all need. He does not like it; he is fiercely set against it.
The Lord takes up this matter of Naaman and uses the story for one purpose only: there were many lepers in Israel, but unto none of them was Elisha sent, save to Naaman the Syrian—someone right outside Israel. Enlargement.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit, the anointing, is to embrace all need everywhere and of every kind, and to forbid any kind of closing in, closing down, narrowing, and restricting. Exclusiveness of every kind is an abomination to the Holy Spirit.
If you want the proof of this, look at what followed when the mantle fell upon the church. On the day of Pentecost, the ascended Lord let His mantle of the Spirit fall upon His church. Then began this very contest—the contest between enlargement and exclusiveness.
You only have to take Acts 10 and 11: the great movement of the Spirit toward Cornelius at Caesarea. You know the story. Peter raised his fence, I suppose—his fence of exclusiveness, Judaism—and put up a barrier to the Holy Spirit, saying, “Not so, Lord.”
But the Spirit bade him go. The Spirit is enlarging, and He is going outside the bounds of Israel, outside the frontiers. He is expanding. He is on the march. He is breaking down these barriers.
Not to move with Him is, as Peter said to the elders in Jerusalem, to withstand the Holy Spirit. Enlargement.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of ever-expanding vision, ever-expanding resource, ever-expanding energy. We must move with the Spirit—move with the Spirit—and not sit down and accept the impositions of any type of exclusive narrowness, smallness, bigotry, or prejudice. Anything like that is against the Holy Spirit.
That is story number two. With all the other lessons that are in it, it focuses upon this matter of enlargement—enlargement all the time through resurrection.
We take the third story, in 2 Kings 6: the sons of the prophets again saying to Elisha, “Behold now, the place where we dwell before thee is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell.”
Here it is: not only the enlargement of resource by the Holy Spirit, not only the enlargement of vision; here is the enlargement of actual ministry on the part of those who are to take up the testimony—which applies to us all.
It is a matter of enlargement to carry out responsibility. They went to Jordan and started to cut down the trees. As they did so, the axe head of one of the sons of the prophets came off and fell into the water. It went to the bottom, quite naturally.
Evidently it was fairly deep at that point, because the prophet could not see where it was. He said, “Where fell it?” It had gone to the bottom, out of sight, completely sunk. That is a very suggestive phrase, is it not?
The son of the prophet cried, “Alas, my master! for it was borrowed.” Elisha said, “Where fell it?” He cut down a stick, cast it in there, and the iron did swim.
How this fits right into the Corinthian situation! It really does. What is this iron? It is that with which men try to do the work of the Lord, with which men seek to enlarge their opportunity for service.
You can put a name to it: it is the natural man. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” If you do not appreciate those words altogether because they sound so theoretical, let me put it another way.
My dear friends, is it not the natural tendency of our own souls to sink when we are up against difficulty? Are you not, day by day, up against this thing of sinking down and dropping down, going to the bottom? Sometimes we even use the phrase, “We feel we have touched bottom.”
Sinking—that is the natural way of iron, is it not? You and I have natures like that. Their whole gravitation is downward. There is a downward pull, a downward pressure, all the time; and naturally it is so easy to go down.
Especially is this so in the work of the Lord. When you are seeking to work for the Lord and things go wrong, what you call accidents happen, mishaps take place, things get confused, disappointing, heartbreaking—then, in labouring to build and to enlarge, everything seems to be against you in the way of frustration.
We are fighting this battle with our own souls all the time, are we not? A battle against losing heart, giving up, sinking down, going to the bottom. That is natural for us, as natural as it is for iron to sink beneath the water.
But what are we going to do about it? The power of His resurrection reverses the whole order of nature.
Why are we going on today? Have we not touched bottom many times? Have we not again and again felt that we could no longer contend with the down-drag, the disappointment, and the discouragement in the work of the Lord?
As you know, in the last two months we have been travelling over many thousands of miles—about fourteen thousand miles, this time—and have seen much Christian work in many, many parts. My word, dear friends, I tell you, your heart could sink. You could very easily, if you did not know the Lord yourself, wash your hands of Christianity as it is today; and that is not saying too strong a thing.
“Yes, that is a reaction you might truly make,” speaking generally. Thank God for what there is of Himself within it; there it is. Yet one might say, “Go down. It is hopeless. It is just hopeless to work for the Lord and bring about spiritual enlargement,” all the time dragged down by this thing and that thing in the general state of spiritual life.
But the answer—the answer—is resurrection: His resurrection, the power of His resurrection, the resurrection life reacting against nature and all nature’s tendencies, making even this iron of our souls to swim.
Quite contrary to nature, is it not? I venture to say that you know something of this. You know what it is to live contrary to nature because of that grace which He makes to abound.
You know that if you were living just on your own nature, you would not be in the fight today. You would be out and down. But something is there: the power of His resurrection.
Thank God, it is not only just maintaining the surface to keep us up; the building goes on. The great spiritual project proceeds. The church is being built.
The object of the sons of the prophets—to enlarge the place—is being realised. Maybe too slowly, and against many difficulties, but it is going on, dear friends. Thank God, it is going on.
We can see in not a few places that the work is going on. In spite of much, it is going on, being built. But wherever it is so, it is not because of the optimistic disposition of the workers; it is because of the grace of God and the power of His resurrection.
We leave that matter of enlargement and close by pointing out this: what a large place Jordan has in these stories. It began at Jordan with Elijah and Elisha. It all began there.
That was the inception of this new phase of maintaining the Lord’s testimony: at Jordan.
It was in Jordan that Naaman had to be baptised. It was at Jordan that they were cutting down the wood for the enlargement of their habitation. Jordan is very much in evidence, is it not?
The way of the Spirit is through Jordan always. The way of resurrection is always through death—always like that.
You are so familiar with the thought, but that is it every time: every time the Lord is going to enlarge, He will baptise you and me into some deeper death, bring us to Jordan again in some new way.
That is hopeful really, is it not? I hope it is not discouraging or disheartening. But here we are, knowing greater depths of His death, deeper experiences of fellowship with Him in His death. But what is it for? What does He intend it for?
It is for a new fullness of resurrection life, the power of the Holy Spirit. It can be that. It should be that.
May we have faith to believe and to lay hold on this, even in the day when it seems so dark, so difficult, and so limited. Lay hold. Do what this woman did. It was a real challenge to faith, was it not?
“Get all these vessels. Go and get them.” “Oh, but that is only one little pot of oil.” Nevertheless, go out everywhere and bring in the vessels—empty vessels, not a few. It was a real act of faith.
So with Naaman. So with the sons of the prophets. An act of faith—not sitting down and waiting for something to happen, but laying hold of His resurrection life, believing and proceeding.