SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 160, 23 November 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

(iKIIAZI. Notes of a Sermon prcac/licd in New Plymouth by the REV. H. J. LEWIS. "And Elisha said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is this a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and olive-yards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and men-servants and maidservants? The 'leprosy therefore of Xaamau shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed for ever, and he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow."—-11. Kings, 26-27.

I lie story of Gehazi is the record of the life of a man who missed liis mark. The portrait here held up before us is that of a man who failed to reach the high destiny to which he had been called because of one fatal flaw in his character. This tragic episode is an appenpi ophetic session became only the founpoint which stamps it with such solemn significance is the fact that originally Gehazi stood in the same relation to Elisha as that in which Elisha had stood to Elijah. As Elisha was first the servant and afterwards the successor of Elijah, so Gehazi ought to have been first the servant and afterwards the successor of Elisha. He was for several years the attendant and the assistant of the man of God. He bore the wonderworking staff. He was the dear heart of the prophet's affection. He saw the miracles worked by Elisha's hands and •heard the prayers uttered by Elisha's lips. He was the head pupil in the school of the prophets. Everyone looked on him as the coming prophet. As the mantle of Elijah fell on Elisha, so the mantle of Elisha ought to have fallen on Gehazi. But it did not. The man who ought to have passed on the phophetic session became only tlie founder of a race of lepers bearing on their foreheads the brand of their accursed ancestry. The epitaph written over kis grave is: "Here lies an outcast who ought to have been a king." What was the secret of his failure? The story of the mean trick he played upon Xaamau, which brought down upon him the stern sentence of his master only marks the last stage in his fall. His degradation had been creeping over him for years. As we look back on his history we see the slow spreading of the blight in his hi cod which brought on nis min. His history is a monument to the work of three fatal processes which so often make the tragedy of human life.

(1) CORRUPTED CHARACTER,

There seems to have been a coarse grain in his nature from the commencement which might have been nipped in the hud, but which being neglected became the gangrene which slowly poisoned his character from the centre to the circumference. There's a hint of the presence of that flaw in the touching story of the Shnnanite woman contained in the previous chapter. Where the great lady whqse little boy was. dead went to see Elisha the people sent Gehazi to meet her. But the heart-broken mother would have nothing to do with him. She would not say a single word to him about her big trouble. She did not even tell him that the lad was dead. She waived aside all his fussy enquiries about herself, her husband and her child with the curt words. "Peace; let mi! alone." She could not make a confident of Gehazi. (When Elisha ordered Gehazi to escort her back to her home she refused to accept his,company. She shrank from him with distrust and clung to Elisha with the determined resolve, "As the Lord liveth 1 will not leave thee"). It's a bad sign for any man when a woman will not trust him. Women are ijuick to read' character. She did not know what was wrong with Gehazi, but she felt instinctively 1 that he was not the •nan on whom to lean in the hour of her great sorrow. Another little tiling pointed the same way. When (ieluizi got to the house and went up to the room where the poor little fellow day dead, lie obeyed Elisha's instructions to the letter. He laid the magic staff on the face of the child. But it was no use. Nothing came of it. The prophet's staff could work t*> miracle in the hands of Gehazi. The oracle of Heaven was as dumb to his entreaty as it would have been to the incantation of a heathen sorcerer. The current of life would not flow through contaminated fingers. God had no more confidence in Gahazi than the Shunanite woman. If Gehazi had any conscience, he must have felt a humiliated man that day. He could hardly have helped asking Himself the questions. "Why would that woman have nothing to do with me? Winwould (iod do nothing through my instrumentality?" Mail he pressed those questions home, his own conscience might have suggested the answer. Covetousliess was the grain of mud which was turning the ream of liis character dark and tainted. There's no proof that he was an utterly selfi-h man. But he seems to luive been always thinking how he could turn his connection with Elisha to his own advantage. He had ever a keen eye to the. main chance. He was always scheming how to make capital out of I lie jinitiiiei ic calling. That covetousncss struck into his character like a cancel- into the blood. That was the reason why (toil disowned him. That Wilis the reason why the people who knew him best trusted him least. Next time he come- before us this corruption ims got a grip of him too strong to be -hakcti oil". W'ice Eli-ha scuds Xaamau :-way clean .is a. little child without fee or reward, (iehazi begin- to think his mswter has nmrti- a mi-take. ile looks sr.oii him a« <.ll,■ i iio-v men who are too simple to get" on in this world. So nuts after the departing rich man. roie-octs that iiigi-iiiulis lie about the arrival of unexpected visitors at the home of the man of ('iod, takes advantage of Xaaman's generosity to -coop a spoil which will make him rich for life. There is a specimen of the way in which eovetousnes- contaminates every character it touches. The first, cll'ect of (!c----iia/.i's covetoil-ness was to blur his moral vision. It made him too stupid to see the double reason liis master had for refusing to take a reward at Xaamau's hand- —first, because he was too noble to sully the dignily of tin 1 prophetic ollii-e bv selling his gifts for gold; secondly, because he wa-" too true a patriot. !o lake money from the ollice of a king who ■ as at war wiili hi- own country. Then for Vl !:!:■'!. lie waill 'd 111 be

• ;i! for \\ 11 n I !:' - ; 11;! II;! <1 ' Then from n11'"-- !' 'hazi -:i nk I o l rifkrry an<l Ivincr. So th«- lirsi of which i his -low vnninds ns i* thai Ihcri' is 111 1 ■! i«} i !_•" which ■ •)('iii: iini ics jh" clmrac- ; y :ii! crl'.' • I'l-vf! -, 11 -11• s>. \V) posi-

:•/. ;• ;i: of "M;!i N pi'oo ' iMU ■ * poison. i!< h.l- '!:! MM!■ -! iilotv sou!- 1 it:! II :\)\\ l h j!; i- ! In* -onrc! 1 of half ou ■ ■ ; ■ ii; : (i v ii! I«!it>]il Ihe i char acliT Mini hla-M ihr nohlrsi intentions un it is nipped in Iho bud.

<•>) TAINT

Then- is i|o eyid. 'lire In show thai Ci-liazP-i lepros;. vv,|.. a MipcriM tunti .Imiiii in II ii'l i l '! nil liiai 11 \ llie >tcni sen - tence of Elisha. Elisha knew Unit the touch of .'i leper's clothes was often lleyl -omcl imc-. the infection Hills transmitted broke out suddenly, th.'it nothing made a man so susceptible to the infection as the terror caused by being detected in a crime he had sought to con-

ceal. He might have seen the liivi :,iptom of the disease in the pallor already creeping over Ohazi's face, and simply predicted the doom which he had brought vi |JOii himself by his treachery and deceit. And has not this point in the story a moral for us? Every man we meet :tll'ects us and is affected by either for good or evil. Some influence'passes either from lis to others or from them to us. If we cannot transmit our spiritual life to .them they will transmit their moral taint to us. If we cannot pass 011 to them our life they will pass 011 to us their leprosy. And the most terrible fact is that we must transmit to others the taint we have caught from them. Moral and spiritual leprosy pass 011 by the inexorable law of heredity from parents to children, from ancestors to descendants.

(3) DARKENED DESTINY

Gehazi's fall struck his name off the roll of the prophetic succession. The spirit of God could not reveal itself to a soul corrupted by eovetousness nor speak through lips defiled by deceit. This is a warning to us all. It is a warning especially to those of us who are set as stewards over the household of God. If a minister prostitutos his sacred profession by using it mainly as a means to his own aggrandisement, God will disown him. His ministry will do the people 110 more good than Gehazi's staff aid the dead child. He who sinks to the level of the world will lose his power both to serve God and to influence man. Instead of being a sun to radiate light and heat he will become a moon that has no atmosphere, and the law applies to all Christians. Tepid and tainted life makes its possessor a cipher. The corruption of character always means ,the destruction of influence. It all depends on how we live, whether the epitaph posterity writes over our graves is to be, "The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha," or 'Here lies a leper."