<TITLE>08. Par 32-36</TITLE>L-32 And his little mind began to go back. Oh, he remembered the certain story: it was about the great prophet Elisha and Elijah, how that the Shunammite woman, because there was a little boy included in it. How that the Shunammite woman was barren, and she was so kind to the prophet, Elijah. And one day when she'd built him a little place to rest on the side of her house, he said to his servant, Gehazi, "Go in and ask her if I can speak to the king for her, or to the chief captain."
She said, "No. I'm an old woman that lives by a people," and said, "I--I just have everything I have need of."
But Gehazi said, "You know. She hasn't got any children and her husband's old."
And little Bartimaeus used to like that story. So he'd say, "Tell it to me, Mama."

L-33 And one day after she was blessed, and the little baby come, he must've been about ten, twelve years old, he was with his father out in the field. And it must've been in the hay harvest time, and he sh--must've had a stroke, sun stroke, because he begin to cry out, "My head! My head!" And his father sent him into the house, and he laid on his mama's lips--lap until it was about, and oh, I'd say, around noon.
And while he must have gotten real sick, and after while, there was no breath in him and he died. She picks him up and takes him over to the prophet's room and lays him on the bed. What a place to take him. She said, "Saddle a mule and go to Mount Carmel, for I must see this servant of God. And I want to find out, if God could tell me my baby was coming, when I was an old woman, surely He can tell me why He took my baby. And Elijah is His representative. I'll go find out."

L-34 And she made haste with the little mule, until she got to the prophet. And he said, "Here comes that Shunammite woman, and God has not revealed to me what's her trouble."
And listen to this, friend. I just love this. He said, "Is all well with thee, and with thy husband, and with the child?"
She said, "All is well." and the baby a corpse. See, she'd got in front of this prophet. She knowed that he was God's agent. That's the same thing Martha did when she come in the front of Jesus. "If Thou would've been here, my brother had not died." See? She knowed she was in front of God's representative. And isn't it too bad that we ministers of the Gospel are such weak subjects of His today, as we claim to be His representatives?

L-35 And she revealed to him what had happened. And he said to Gehazi, "Gird up thy loins, and take my staff, and lay it on the baby." And Gehazi went forward.
But the woman's faith wasn't in the staff; it was in the prophet. So she said, "I'll not leave you." She was going to stay with her point. I like that. Stay with it. God made the promise; God's got to take care of His promise. She stayed with the prophet.
He went to the room. He never prayed for the child. He walked back and forth, up-and-down the floor. He and the dead child together. Then the Spirit of God come on the prophet, and he went and laid his body on him, and the little baby sneezed seven times and come to life.

L-36 Oh, how little Bartimaeus used to love that story. And then to think, that within twenty feet of where he was setting, that great prophet, Elijah and Elisha walked arm in arm, right by the wall where he was setting, going down to Jordan, to part the Jordan to walk over on dry land.
I can hear Bartimaeus as he said, "Oh, if I would've lived in that day, I would've rushed out and would said, "Oh, prophet of God, be merciful to me and pray for me, that I might receive my sight. But oh, alas, the priest tells me that the days of miracles is past." That's the cry today. If the days of miracles is past, then the day of God is past, 'cause He remains the same the Bible said, yesterday, today, and forever.


<A HREF="P9">Next Page</A>