1105. Joash Shooting Arrows or Victory Through Prayer

Joash Shooting Arrows or Victory Through Prayer

Elisha's Last Sickness (2Ki_13:14).

Take Bow and Arrows (2Ki_13:15).

The Placing of Elisha's Hands (2Ki_13:16).

The Open Window (2Ki_13:17, f. c.).

The Arrow of Deliverance (2Ki_13:17, l. c.).

He Smote Three Times and Stayed (2Ki_13:18).

Smiting Syria Thrice (2Ki_13:19, l. c.).

We bring before you a pictorial lesson on prayer. We do not think that everything that we may say was, necessarily, in the mind of the Spirit when the wonderful story of Joash shooting arrows was recorded; but we do say that there is therein such a striking picture of the prayer life, that we may well learn lessons which may be very valuable. There is a little poem that we learned as a college boy:

"I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth I know not where,

For so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight

"I breathed a song into the air

It fell to earth, I know not where;

For who has sight, so keen and strong

That it can follow the flight of song?

"Long, long afterward in an oak,

I found the arrow still unbroke,

And the song from beginning to end

I found again in the heart of a friend."

All of us should be shooting arrows–the arrows of prayer, and we should be singing songs, the songs of testimony; then, somewhere, sometime God will give us in the open, in blessed reward, that which we prayed or sang in the quiet.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly" (Mat_6:6).

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR