Examples of God's Provision. (2 Kings 4: 1-44) Part 2.

Episode Notes:  (For Transcript and Episode Notes see Part 1)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

The boy then sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, Call the Shemanite, and he did, and when she came, he said, Take your son. She came in and fell at his feet and bowed to the ground, and then she took her son and went out. Now immediately you can see the contrast here. The first story was about this poor widow, wasn't it? This one is the opposite. This is about a wealthy woman. The first woman had no husband, this one has a husband, the first had no money, this one has plenty. So it's two very different people, but people that God still provides for. Now, this woman regularly fed Elisha whenever he passed through towns. He was a travelling prophet after all, so she made sure he had somewhere to stay and was never hungry. Now in those days, most houses had flat roofs in them, and sometimes they would build a small waterproof room on the top, a quiet place for guests, and that is as it appears what she has done for Elisha here. Now, of course, Elisha wasn't just a preacher, he was a man of influence, he had connections, he was the sort of person that you could say would get things done. But when he asks what can he do for her, she replies with this simple phrase, Do you notice it? I dwell among my own people. Now that's an idiom, it simply means I'm fine, I'm content, I have need of nothing. And that is indeed a beautiful thing, isn't it? Contentment is one of the great marks of spiritual maturity, being happy with what you have. So I suppose we should pause there and ask just for a moment, are you actually content with your state of life? Or are you living in a state of constant anxiety? This woman, it seems, was at peace. She wasn't asking for favours or trying to leverage the prophet's influence by her giving and supplying his needs. She says, when asked, and she replies she's content. But Elisha still decides he wants to bless her. So he goes to his servant, the sky Gehazi, and says, Well, what do you think we can do for her? And Gezei points out, Well, she has no son, and that her husband is quite old now. Now, of course, that is a significant thing in that culture, because the son was the heir, just like in the first story. The son is the heir, the one who will carry on the family name and will in fact inherit the land. And without a son that family line would end. So Elisha calls her to his side again and says, About this time next year you shall embrace a son. And she effectively says in her response, Well, what it means, it's again, it's in the idiom of the times. She's effectively saying, as we would put it today, Oh, don't say that, don't get my hopes up, that's impossible. But three months later, as prophesied, she's pregnant, and nine months, of course, after that, she's holding a baby boy. That's why it's a year later. So God provided, but note he provided what she didn't even ask for, but something that was still inside her was a deep desire of her heart. Anyway, this child grows up, and one day, when he's a little older, he goes out in the field and his father's working among the reapers, and suddenly he cries out, Oh my head, my head. Now we don't actually know what's going on here. Some have suggested it was sunstroke, some have suggested it was a stroke or a brain hemorrhage. But the bottom line is we can't really know for sure because it doesn't give the detail. But what we see play out is the father tells the servant, carry this lad back to his mother, and he does that and he sits her on her lap and he stays with her until noon, but then he dies. So this is a heartbreaking outcome to this, isn't it? But notice what she does next. She carries the child's body upstairs to Elisha's room and lays him on the prophet's bed, and then she shuts the door and goes out. Now she calls her husband and says she's planning to go and see Elisha, and her husband says, Well, why are you doing that today? He believes that the child is probably still alive but unwell, and he points out that there's not the new moon, it's not the Sabbath, in other words, there's not sort of sort of religious oblig obligation here, it's not even a religious holiday to be celebrated. Why are you going to see that preacher? And she just replies, It is well. This is the phrase that fueled that famous hymn, which in the King James says, It is well with my soul. Now of course things weren't well for her. Her son had just died, but what it's signalling is she's saying, I'm not worrying about this, I'm simply trusting the Lord. Now maybe underneath it, she feared at this point that if she told the dad that the boy had in fact died, he wouldn't let her go. We can't be sure, but either way, she seemed to saddle a donkey and say to the servant, Go and don't go slow down until I tell you. So it says they travel together for twenty five miles to Mount Carmel, determined to reach Elisha, and indeed when Elisha sees her coming, he sends his servant Gehazi to meet her. Ask her if she if all is well with her you. Is there are things well with her husband? Are things well with her child? And again, when Gehazi meets her, she replies, It is well, or as the King James says, It is well with my soul. But when she actually reaches Elisha, she seemed to fall at his feet. Now Gehazi reacts by trying to pull her away, but Elisha says, Let her alone, obviously her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord for some reason has hidden the situation from me. So that's interesting, isn't it? Elisha doesn't really know what is gone wrong at this point. God has chosen not to reveal that to him. But she comes, bows at his feet, grabs his feet, which is a sign of honour, an ultimate sign of submission to the Lord, and finally she tells him. She pours out her heart. Did I ask for a son of my Lord? Did I say do not deceive me? In other words, she's saying, Look, I didn't ask for this. It was you who promised me a son, you who gave me that hope, and now he's gone, he's been taken for me. Maybe she's thinking I'd have been better off never having him, having now had to lose him. She's definitely broken hearted and in deep distress. Elijah's response is immediate. Take my staff and go, he says to his servant, and if anyone tries to greet you along the way, don't stop. And when you get there, lay my staff across the face of the child. Now the staff was the symbol of Elijah's authority as a prophet, a visible reminder of God's power through this guy's ministry. But the mother says, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So she's staying with him, not going with his servant back to the boy in the upper room. Now that phrase as the Lord lives, it actually appears seven times in one king's and seven times in two kings. And when it's used, it's always being positioned as a declaration of faith. By saying that she's actually saying, I'm trusting the Lord and I'm not leaving without you. So Elisha leaves and she goes with him. Like Ahazai arrives first, and he lays the staff on the boy's face as instructed, but nothing happens. And then it's in verse 31 it says there was neither voice nor hearing, so Gazai decides to return, and he meets them en route and says, It didn't work. But then Elisha arrives and he enters the room, and the boy is indeed lying dead on the prophet's bed. But he goes in and it tells us he shuts the door, and then it tells us the first thing he does is he prays. Now I I tend to think that the reason the staff is included in the story, and we are able to identify that the staff doesn't work, is because God wants to make something very clear to us through this. That being, it's never about objects, it's about the prayer. It's not about the symbols, it's about the Lord. So after praying, Elisha then stretches himself over the child, literally mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, and it tells us the boy's begot body begins to warm. And Elisha then gets up and walks back and forth and returns and stretches himself over the child again. And then in verse 35 it says the child sneezed seven times. Now you're going to want to know what that means. Well the answer is I've no idea. All I know I've sneezed twice regularly. I've maybe occasionally sneezed three times. Maybe once in my life I've sneezed more than that, I think, but never seven times in a row. But whatever that means, it means this. He came back to life. That's the main thing. Don't go looking for any weird and wonderful meaning to this verse. Just simply accepts that it's signalling very clearly that this boy, this lad is fully back to life. The guy opens his eyes and Elisha then calls the mother. And she falls at his feet, overwhelmed with gratitude, and picks up her son and says, He's alive. So that's the second story in this chapter, the second example of God providing for us. In the first, do you remember, he supplied simply money, but in the second, he supplies life. Now let me ask you something, my friends. Have you ever been sick and thought, you know, this might be it? And you've prayed and here you are, or maybe you've faced a or maybe we can wider the definition a little bit to the different types of death that we can face. Sometimes in life we have to face the death of a dream, the death of a relationship, the death of a job, or the end of financial security. But God sometimes brings us back from the brink, doesn't he? Sometimes it's physically, sometimes it can be we're in a state of loss of hope, experiencing almost a death of hope, and God comes alongside you and resurrects that hope again. So this passage is teaching us that God can not only provide financially as he did in the first example, he can provide life when we think everything was over. Now do I have any New Testament to support that statement? My response again is absolutely yes. Listen to 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 8 to 10, where Paul writes, We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. And then he goes on to say, I thought I was going to die, I had the sentence of death in myself. Why would God allow that? Verse 9, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. So Paul says, God has delivered me in the past, God is delivering me now, and God will deliver me again. So if you're facing something, anything that feels like death to you, whether that be physical or otherwise, remember that God of the Bible is the God of resurrection. He's the God who wants to meet your needs, he wants to take care of you, and sometimes that might mean supplying money and financial resources, and sometimes it might mean supplying new life. Now there's also another historical reason that that story is perhaps positioned here. You see, Baal worship was rampant at this time in this area, and Baal was supposed to be the God who provided rain, crops, fertility, and life. And this chapter is God's way of saying, Don't trust Baal, trust me. That's what the people who are receiving this book who will be reading it having now have to live with the repercussions of their Baal worship, and he's saying, Don't trust in that, return and trust me. Now, so that's where we're up to. And at the beginning I said there were three illustrations in this chapter, so so far we've seen two. So let's now look at the third. So let's drop back into the text again, two Kings four, picking up at verse thirty-eight. Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in that region. While the company of prophets were meeting with him, he said to his servant, put on the large pot and cook some stew for these prophets. One of them went out into field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and picked as many of its good as his garment could hold. When he returned he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it the men cried out, Man of God, there is death in this pot, and they could not eat it. Elijah said, Give me some flour, and he put it in the pot, and he said, Serve it to the people again to eat. And then there was nothing harmful in the pot. Okay. Unusual little story. Elijah is seen here to return to Gilgal, and we're given the added information that there is famine in the land, there's literally no food. But one of the young men goes out in the field to gather herbs, and he finds a wild vine, and he gathers some wild goods, whatever those were, but whatever they were, he gets them and he slices them into the pot, and then they serve it with the stew that he's made. Now they're not being picky here. The stew didn't just taste taste awful, it was obviously something wrong with it. That they felt they might literally kill them. Maybe they immediately started to feel unwell, or maybe their lips or mouths were numbed, but anyway, Elisha's response is not to throw it out. He says, just bring me some power, bring me some flour, and he puts it and adds it into the pot, and then it simply declares there's nothing harmful in the pot. So once again, God meets need. This time it isn't money, this time it wasn't with new life, this time it was just ensuring people had their daily bread, their daily food, and transforming that which potentially could be harmful into something that could sustain him. And that's the end of the three examples. But then, right at the close of the book, there's a couple of verses, verse 42 to 44, where there's one more little caveat, one more little story to close it. Some in my Bible it's titled Feeding of a Hundred. It then says A man came from Bal Shalish, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread, baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. Give it to the people to eat, Elisha said. But how can I set this before a hundred men? his servant asked. But Elisha asked, give it to the people to eat, for this is what the Lord says, they will eat and have some left over. Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, exactly according to the word of the Lord. So what's happening here at the close? Remember this was a time of famine, but then there's a harvest, and of course, according to the Mosaic Law, whatever that harvest produced, you bring the first fruits, and this guy brings those, the very first portion, and he brings them to those who are described as the servants of God. So from his point of view, he's simply obeying the law. But God is going to use this simple act of obedience to supply the needs of all the sons of the prophets of God. Now Elisha's servant looks at the offering and says, That's great, but there isn't enough to feed everybody here. And Elijah simply says, Give it to the people that they may eat. And then the final verse says they ate and had some left over according to the word of the Lord. Now, of course, if you're a New Testament reader, you'll know that sounds really familiar. It is indeed, as you would imagine, a foreshadowing of Jesus feeding the multitudes. But it arises out of a simple act of obedience, someone bringing their first fruit, because bringing that is the means by which God is able to work a miracle. Now I don't need to labor the point that God, as we've said, always wants to meet our daily needs. Jesus taught us to pray that way, didn't he? In the Lord's Prayer, he says, give us this day our daily bread. We're not commanded to pray for and ask for weekly bread or monthly bread. Daily bread, and that's important. Well, you might be saying today, well, this is the 21st century. I don't have to think that way. I have a job, I don't have to worry about that. But why, if that's the case, why for centuries and centuries have people continued to pray before they eat? And that's because I think godly people recognize that even if you earn money, good money, it is God who supplies the strength and health, even the breath in your lungs to enable you to do work and have those needs met. And if you doubt that, just wait because one day you may not be able to work, one day you may get sick. Anyway, let me summarise. So in this book we have these three illustrations one about God supplying money, one about God supplying life and indeed new life, and the other about daily bread, receiving God giving us what we need, taking that what we have, even limited and polluted, and turn it into something sustaining, and supplying our daily bread. So let me close by pointing out how I think we're meant to see God providing here. Clearly, he sometimes provides supernaturally. He does so in this chapter, but more often I think it's fair to note that he provides through very ordinary everyday means. Firstly, he provides to us through the fruit of our own labour. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse ten says, If anyone will not work, neither shall they eat. God gives you your health and your strength, so you can work, and that is part of his provision. Secondly, God will help us and give us through other people, because sometimes that is necessary. In this chapter, God uses a man to bring first fruits to feed the prophets, so God often uses the kindness and generosity, and here's the key obedience of others to meet your need. And by you doing the same, you will be helped bringing God's provision to other people in that way. But thirdly, God simply gives through what Scripture calls the providence of God. And this is the quiet one, some would say the most important one. This is about the behind the scenes continuing work of God. Things that just happen to fall into place, the timing just happens to work out, the right person just happens to show up. Now I see God's providence in my life all the time, as recently as yesterday. I faced a situation, I felt under pressure, I needed help, and I needed it right then, and God brought a person to speak into that situation for me. So sometimes, somehow, quietly, without any fanfare, God simply works it out in our life for us. But let me give you the final word on the provision of God, a word that comes from Jesus Himself. Listen to what he says when talking about this matter. He says, Do not worry about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, or even what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air. Your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Consider also the lilies of the field. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Your father knows you need these things. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. Do you get the message, friends? It's from Jesus Himself. That is, God wants to supply your needs. And if he doesn't do that immediately, if you get impatient, anxious, worried, then you need to remember Paul's words in 2 Corinthians chapters 1, where he felt burdened beyond measure, above strength, so much so that he despaired even of life. But then he says, But this happened that he and we might not trust in ourselves, but in God who can even raise the dead. So here's the bottom line. In all of this, God wants to supply your needs. And if he delays, or you feel he's delaying, then trust that he has a purpose in that. He's trying to teach you something, maybe just simply to teach you to trust in him. But rest assured he will and can supply all your needs. And thanks be to him. For that. Bye bye. For that. Okay, thank you, friends, for joining me in what I trust you found was not only a lengthy but a very rich chapter of Scripture. We've seen God here provide money, life, and daily sustenance, our daily bread. And we've seen that he delights in doing that. God really loves to care for his people. Now, in our next episode tomorrow, we'll move into 2 Kings chapter 5, one of the most beloved stories in the Old Testament, the healing of this guy, of this guy called Naaman. It's a story about pride, humility, but ultimately obedience, and the surprising way God brings cleansing and grace into people's life. So I'd love for you to join me as we return tomorrow on our journey through this book and indeed through the whole Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. If you're not doing so already, then please consider subscribing so that you too can make a journey through the whole Bible part of the rhythm of your daily life. Connect or support me on Patreon, where you'll not only have early access to this, but all the other four monthly podcasts that I also do. Thanks for being with me today. Bye bye for now.