2 Kings 4:34

And the child sneezed seven times.

The seven sneezes

The child was dead. Although he had been the special gift of Divine promise and was therefore doubly prized by his parents, yet the little lad was not secure from the common hazards of life. The first clear evidence that the child was restored to life was his sneezing. Doubtless, it greatly rejoiced the prophet’s heart. We too, who are seeking the good of others will greatly exult if we are favoured to see gracious tokens in those for whose good we labour. At all gospel meetings earnest people should be on the look-out for persons convinced of sin, aroused in conscience, or in any other manner made to feel the power of the life-giving Spirit. It will be well if these persons watch with instructed eyes, so that they do not look for what they will never see, nor overlook that which should give them full content. Of natural life we may discern the tokens more readily than those of spiritual life; we need practice and experience in reference to this more mysterious matter, or we may cause great pain to ourselves and to those whom we would befriend. Possibly we may gather instruction from the signs of life which contented the prophet:--the child sneezed seven times.

1. This evidence of life was very simple. Nothing is freer from art than a sneeze. It is so far from being artificial that it is involuntary. As a rule we sneeze, not because we will, but because we must. No instruction, education, talent, or acquirement is necessary to a sneeze, nor even to a series of seven sneezes; it is the act of a child, or of an illiterate peasant, quite as much as of a philosopher or a divine. We ought not to expect too much in enquirers; we ought not to be satisfied without signs of life; but he faintest sign of life ought to encourage us and lead us to encourage them.

2. This evidence of life was in itself unpleasant. To the child it was no pleasure to sneeze. We should most of us prefer to be excused from sneezing seven times. Many of the surest marks of the new life are by no means pleasurable. The regenerate are not at once happy; on the other hand, they are often in great bitterness for their sins, and in Bore anguish because they have pierced their Saviour. The Divine life is not born into the world without pangs. When a man has been nearly drowned, and animation is restored by rubbing, the first movements of the blood within the veins causes tingling and other sensations which are exquisitely painful. Sin causes numbness of soul, and this is attended by an absence of sensation; this is changed when life comes with its look of faith, for the first result is that men look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him.

3. A sneeze, again, is not very musical to those who hear it, and so the first signs of grace are not in themselves pleasing to those who are watching for souls.

4. “The child sneezed seven times,” the evidences of life were very monotonous. Again and again there came a sneeze and nothing else. No song, no note of music, not even one soft word, but sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, seven times. Yet the noises wearied not the prophet, who was too glad to hear the sounds of life to be very particular about their musical character. The child lived, and that was enough for him. Much of the talk of enquirers is very wearisome; they tell the same melancholy tale over and over again. Let us not be disappointed because at the first we get so little which is interesting from young converts. We are not examining them for the ministry, we are only looking for evidences of spiritual life; to apply to them the tests which would be proper enough for a doctor of divinity would be both cruel and ridiculous.

5. Yet the sound which entered the prophet’s ear was a sure token of life, and we must not be content with any doubtful or merely hopeful signs. We want evidences of life, and these we must have. The child might have been washed and dressed in his best clothes, but this would not have fulfilled the prophet’s desire; the lad might have been decked with a chaplet of flowers, and his young cheeks might have been rouged into the imitation of a ruddy blush, but the holy man would have remained unsatisfied: he must have a sign of life. However simple, it must assuredly be a life-token, or it would be in vain. Nothing could trove been more conclusive than a sneeze. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

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