2 Kings 13:21

2 Kings 13:21

I. This narrative teaches us that the influence of faithful workers for the kingdom of God extends beyond the grave, and that frequently a cause for which men have laboured and spent themselves is advanced by the departure from amongst us of those who have taken it in hand. Contact with the death of such a worker not unfrequently imparts life the life of earnestness, the life of devotion, the life of Christian self-sacrifice to those who did not possess it, or who possessed it only imperfectly and inefficiently before.

II. It is not very difficult to discover why it should be so. Independently of the fact that when a gap is made by the fall of a leader many others may feel that more effort and devotion is required of themselves, there is a contagion about one who has gone to the extremest length of self-sacrifice that is possible in man. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." And as it is the dying of the Saviour which draws His followers round Him and makes Him the centre of their adoration and their love, so it is the dying of men in the cause they have espoused which kindles the enthusiasm of other spirits and makes them willing to rush forward and take the banner from the fallen warriors' failing grasp.

G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit,No. 730.

References: 2 Kings 13:21. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 155; W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 189. 2 Kings 13 Parker, vol. viii., p. 228. 2 Kings 14:25. Expositor,3rd series, vol. v., p. 161. 2 Kings 14 Parker, vol. viii., p. 239. 2 Kings 15:5. E. Monro, Practical Sermons,vol. iii., p. 117. 2 Kings 15:10. Expositor,3rd series, vol. v., p. 259. 2 Kings 15:19. E. H. Plumptre, Ibid.,2nd series, vol. ii., p. 230. 2 Kings 15 Parker, vol. viii., p. 250. 2 Kings 17:1. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xiii., p. 83. 2 Kings 17:1. Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 105. 2 Kings 17:4; 2 Kings 17:5. E. H. Plumptre, Expositor,2nd series, vol. ii., pp. 316, 318. 2 Kings 17:41. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1622; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs,p. 94. 2 Kings 17 Parker, vol. viii., p. 263. 2 Kings 18:1. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 92. 2 Kings 18:3. E. Monro, Practical Sermons,vol. ii., p. 221. 2 Kings 18:3. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 162.