A Double Portion
By W. C. Moore
“…And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me” (2 Kgs. 2:9).
“…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20).
“…He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month” (Joel 2:23).
If ever there was a time when we needed a double portion of God’s Spirit to be poured out upon us, it is today! Sin abounds – let us believe God to make grace much more abound! Lukewarmness pervades the very atmosphere. We are all in danger of cooling off. “…Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:11-12).
First Love Gone
Many of us can remember, to our sorrow, how when we first were saved, the love of God burned in our hearts. We were tender in our spirits, we were not easily offended, we were quick to ask forgiveness when we felt that we had done wrong to anyone. In those early days of our “first love” to the Lord, how exceedingly precious were the times when we could slip away from all human beings and just pour out our hearts in love and in prayer to Him!
But in the midst of the battle, even in the battle against wrong, too often we have left that tenderness of spirit, we have become harsh and self-willed, we have cooled off without realizing it. Oh, let us repent, with that deep, godly sorrow that gets down to the very root of sin in our hearts and brings about a spiritual house cleaning that lasts! God wants us to so abhor ourselves, to be so stirred up about our failures and our lukewarmness that we will pray through and get rid of the whole mess.
“For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal...” (2 Cor. 7:11).
Regardless of our orthodoxy, our zeal, our self-denial – if that tender love to God and to other people has cooled off, if we have lost LOVE out of our hearts, why the very bottom has dropped out and only a “brassy” testimony remains (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
The Lord knows all about our zeal, our earnestness, the stand we take, uncompromisingly, for the truth of God, and all these are very commendable and very necessary – IF we also retain the love of God, our “first love” in our hearts. But note carefully what Jesus, the Head of the church (Eph. 5:23-24), has to say about these things:
“I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne, and hast patience, and for My name’s sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (Rev. 2:2-5).
Testing First – Then Blessings
How very often God lets His people go through severe testings and trials before He gives great blessings! See Abraham, believing God through the years, expecting the Lord to certainly keep His promise and give him a son and heir – yet himself growing older and older, and weaker and weaker! Thank God, Abraham was “fully persuaded” that what the Lord had promised He was able also to perform (Rom. 4:13-21). And when he was “as good as dead” (Heb. 11:12) then Isaac, the child of promise, was born.
See Joseph, with the wonderful dreams which God gave him, yet he must needs be sold into Egypt, put in prison, separated from his brethren and from his father’s house – before the dreams came true!
It seems that we need to be tested and tried in order that we will be prepared for great blessings and so we will give God the glory and not try to glory in ourselves or in what we think we have done.
Job was a good man (Job 1:1, 8), but he certainly had to go through mighty testings and trials before he received his double portion. He got to the place finally where he abhorred himself, and then, when he prayed FOR (not against) those tormenting friends of his, the Lord gave Job “twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:1-10).
I am among those hungry children of the Lord over the world who fully believe that God is hearing our desperate heart cries for an outpouring of His blessed Holy Spirit. It may indeed take double-emptyings, double-testings to get that mighty end-time double-portion outpouring for which many are fervently praying today.
God grant that the very intensity of the pressure, the awfulness of conditions around us – in the church itself and in the world – may drive us more desperately, with greater determination than ever to press on “until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest” (Isa. 32:15).
“Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thes. 5:24).
