THE WIDOW'S OIL INCREASED.

(2 Kings iv:1-7.)

I. The Analysis.

1. The Cry of Need (verse 1).—This widow and this widow's prophet alike believed that Jehovah would in some way show Himself the husband of the widow and the Father of the fatherless.

2. The Divine Method of Supply (verse 2).—See "The Heart of the Lesson."

3. The Triumphant Answer to the Cry of Need (verses 3-7).—There is always the mark of abundance upon God's answers. He is a great God, and does not bestow like a miser, but like a king.

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

The incident related in this lesson is in itself but one of the evidences of the power and love of God as shown in His providences, in which Scripture abounds. But there are certain details which clearly point toward great principles of the divine government, and these principles are permanent and therefore well worth our learning.

The first is that God begins with what we have. "Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil." But that pot of oil, plus the creative power of God, was quite enough. It is the principle underlying the miracle of the loaves and fishes: "We have here but five loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many?" They were enough and more than enough, when Jesus had added to them His power. But the point is that He began with what the disciples had. Most Christian lives are, so far as human eye can see, barren and unfruitful. May it not well be largely because we are saying within ourselves that if only we had more time, or money, or capacity, or gift, we would do great things for God, while God is only asking that what we have shall be brought to Him to multiply?

A man once told Mr. Moody that he was asking God for money to care for five thousand orphans; and Mr. Moody said: "Friend, begin with one; you could take care of one, could you not? Well, find that one, and turn your home into an orphanage." Mr. Moody began the great Northfield Seminary in his own home, a plain New England farm house.

It is the old story of Moses protesting his lack of eloquence while all the time he held in his hand the old shepherd's crook which, cast down before God and then taken up again at God's command, became that "rod of God" with which Israel was delivered. It is the old story of Sham-gar's ox goad, and Dorcas' needle.

There is the story of the winning of a great prize at a flower show by a poor woman who lived in an attic and had but one flower in a pot. But she tended that one flower and kept it in the sun, and watered it and fertilized it until it was more beautiful than any flower in any nobleman's conservatory. Every believer has some gift of the Spirit (1 Cor. xii:7-27), and the Lord lays upon none of us any greater burden than just to use that gift.

And a second great principle of the divine outworking is that He multiplies as we pour out. Somewhere in Europe I saw a painting of the miracle of the water made wine at Cana, and the artist had caught the very secret of matter, for the liquid left the vessels water, crystal clear, and entered the water pots wine, ruby red. It was transformed between the vessel it left and the vessel it entered. The sun's rays traverse millions of miles of space black as blackest midnight and inconceivably cold, and it is only when they strike upon the atmosphere of earth that they burst into a glory of light and warmth. If we now add to these two truths the significance of the element used in this miracle, oil, we shall have a deeply important lesson all told out. For oil is constantly the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Every believer has received the Spirit, contains the Spirit (1 Cor. vi:19; Rom. viii:9; 1 John ii:20, 27) —a mighty fact' big with possibilities in life and service. But Christ, using another symbol of the Spirit, water, teaches that the manifestation of the Spirit is not stagnation, but motion— the upspringing fountain, the outflowing rivers. When, then, we exercise our gift, however small it may seem, the Spirit Himself moves. The whole secret of true service, and of multiplied power and blessing lies, then, in that question, "What hast thou in the house . . . . . pour out into all those vessels."