Well, that song, every single
time I hear it, that starts and I think, oh, I'm so glad we're
singing this song. I love this song. And somewhere in the middle
of the first or second verse, it changes quickly and I start
thinking, what a savior. Let this blessed assurance control,
let this assurance control us, that Christ hath regarded my
helpless estate and hath shed his own blood for my soul. If
you would, open your Bibles to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 4. Our pastor and I were messaging this
afternoon and he said he thought they had really good services
and they were in an airport on their way home. So we pray for
journeying mercies for them to arrive safely back with us. The title of my message this
evening is, Do You Want to Fill or Be Filled? Do You Want to
Fill or Be Filled? And I'll explain that more here
in a second. We spend most of our lives trying
to fill things, F-I-L-L, fill things. And that might sound
odd, but let me see if I can explain it. Most of our lives,
We are trying to fill things. When we're little, we try to
fill our belly. And as we get a little older,
we try to fill our toy chest. We try to fill our piggy bank.
And as we get a little older, we try to fill our time because
we get bored. We fill our wallet. We try to
fill our number of friends. We try to fill the number of
follows and retweets and things we get. As we get a little older,
we try to fill our college application. We try to fill a resume. We try to fill our loneliness. And then we have to try to fill
our role as a spouse, as a parent. We try to fill our bank account.
We try to fill our need for power, for appreciation. We try to fill
the needs that we have that constantly arrive. As we get older, we try
to fill the number of years that we've put in at the job. We try
to fill our retirement. We try to fill all these things.
And it goes on and on and on. And if we get more in-depth through
our entire lives, we do things like we try to fulfill what people
think of us. We try to fill the image that
people put on us. We try to lie and act in a way
so people don't realize who we really are. We try to fill people
with lies. We do anything we can to look
better. And the problem with that is if we're honest with
ourselves, all of these things we're trying to fill, we always
come up short. We can't ever be filled. These
things can't ever be full. Now, why is that? Well, let me
give you a couple reasons. The first is that we can't be
satisfied or sufficed. We just can't. We're never satisfied. As an example, one of my children,
when they saw that their older siblings had a piggy bank, They
wanted a piggy bank. At two years of age, they want
a piggy bank. Well, we had gotten this little free piggy bank from
somewhere. I don't know where it was, but
this little thing. And that little one didn't have any idea what
it was they were putting in there. They were just getting these
shiny circles, these coins, and they kept putting them in there.
Well, over time came and one day they came up to me with this
piggy bank that was completely full. And do you know what they
did not say to me? They did not say, I filled my
piggy bank. There was no happiness to this
moment. They came to me with it and said,
I need a bigger piggy bank. They weren't satisfied with what
they had done. And that's what we are. It doesn't
matter what we accomplish, what we do, what people think. We
always want more. It's always the richest people
who want more money. It's the powerful people who
want more power. We can't get enough. We always
want better. We always want more. And the
second reason we can't ever fill these things is because we try
to fill them with the wrong things. What we are ultimately trying
to fill is this hole inside. Something in us makes us want
more things. How often do we see a small child,
such as back in the nursery, immediately start accumulating
things? They start pulling toys in. They
start getting things closer. They don't care about playing
with the toys, but they just want more things. Maybe it's
so others can't have it. Maybe it's so that they might
have it later. Whatever reason is, that's what we are. We just
accumulate things. Earthly things. And what we eventually
realize, if the Lord shows us, is that this hole inside, this
need for things, is we have to suffice this sin that we have.
It just makes us love the flesh. We love things and we want more.
And the reason we can't fill this hole is because we try to
fill it with earthly things. We must fill it with spiritual
things. Sin cannot be, we cannot suffice
sin. Our sin is too great. It will
be the end of us. It is our death. But, and as
we go through this, I had Jared read Ecclesiastes chapter two.
Now, why would I have him read that? When I look at this passage,
this individual did everything they could possibly do to fill
their needs. This person had more power, more
money, more of everything than any of us will ever imagine.
And they went through and tried every earthly thing. They tried
to spend their money. They tried to buy things, accumulate
things, do things. Then they slowly tried to use
servants and people to do things for them. They built things.
They had more and more things. And then when that wouldn't work
for them, it says they gave in to the lusts of their flesh.
Anything their eyes saw, they went after it. Anything their
heart desired, they did it. And after all those things, It
said, then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought
and on the labor that I had labor to do, and behold, it was vanity
and vexation of spirit. There was no profit under the
sun. We have to realize there is nothing
in this earth that will profit us any. Nothing. Now that opinion is laughed at. If you say there's nothing that
matters on this earth, you will be mocked and ridiculed. Even
false religion today, everything is about the way we behave and
we act and the things we do, earthly things. But that doesn't
matter. We look at the word. At the end
of this chapter, in that Ecclesiastes, it says, the wise man dieth as
the fool and the rich man dieth as the poor. No one will be remembered. Everything on this earth will
be forgotten. Therefore, I hated life because the work that is
wrought under the sun is grievous unto me. It's vanity and vexation
of spirit. This person did everything imaginable
to fill their emptiness. Now, what I want you to take
from just those few moments and introduction. I want you to realize
that we can't fill either our earthly void or our spiritual
void that our sin has created. We can't fill it. We do not have
that ability. Our actions, our sin, have left
us empty with no ability to fill it. In Romans, it says, put ye
on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh
to fulfill the lust thereof. This tells us we cannot fill
it. The Lord must do it for us. That's
why the title says, do you want to fill or do you want to be
filled? Now here in the text, 2 Kings
chapter 4 is a story that we all know. Look here. in verse
1 of 2 Kings chapter 4. Now there cried a certain woman
of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying,
Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant
did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my two
sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What
shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the
house? And she said, Thine handmaid
hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil. Then he said,
Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty
vessels, borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou
shalt shut the door upon thee, and upon thy sons, and shalt
pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that
which is full. So she went from him, and shut
the door upon her, and upon her sons, who brought the vessels
to her, and she poured out, And it came to pass, when the vessels
were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is
not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she
came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil,
and pay thy debt, and live thou in thy children of the rest."
Everything in our word has the spiritual application, and that's
what I want to look at. We've talked for a moment about
being filled or trying to fill on this earth. But we must look
at that in the same light in this story of our spiritual need,
of our need of righteousness, our need of a Savior. So let's
go through this story real quick and look at this. In verse 1,
this certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto
Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband, is dead. And thou
knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and a creditor
is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." The first
thing we see is that this woman had nothing. It describes her
husband as a servant of Elisha. He served the Lord. We must see
that this man died with nothing but death. He was with debt,
with debt. He was empty. And actually he
died being in the negative. He had nothing. And when he died,
his sons were being taken to pay his debt. Don't judge people
based on earthly things. Providence and plenty tends to
make us look to ourselves, but poverty makes us look to the
Lord. Look at verse two. It says, Elisha
said unto her, what shall I do for thee? Elisha here says, I
don't have anything, what am I gonna do for you? And he says,
tell me what hast thou in the house, what do you have of value?
And she said, thine handmaid hath not anything in the house
save a pot of oil. Then he said, go borrow thee
vessels abroad of all the neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not
a few. The first thing he tells her
to do is to go get vessels. And the first description, the
adjective he uses, is empty vessels. Why does she need to go get empty
vessels? Well, this is a spiritual application
of we must be empty. The Lord does not partially fill
us. He does not partially save us.
He doesn't need our help. He doesn't need any part of it.
We must be empty. We must be made to be empty.
Now we're empty, but we don't think we're empty. That talk
about we try to fill ourselves, if you ask someone, how are you
doing in blank, we always have an opinion of ourselves somewhere
between one and 100. We never think it's zero, right?
Somebody says, how are you doing? We don't ever say, I'm the worst.
I'm empty, I have nothing. But we must be emptied before
we can be filled. This might be the most difficult
lesson for us to learn. In my hands, no price I bring,
simply to the cross I cling. All who come to Christ must come
empty-handed. They must be totally void of
merit, void of works, void of goodness, or even the beginning
of grace. If we come before our Lord with
anything, anything at all, and we will be rejected. Anything
we bring is full of sin and taints anything that we've done. These
vessels, as we will see here in a moment, that were filled
with pure oil, with the oil that the Lord put in them, if there
was anything in that vessel, then it would not have been pure.
It would not have been righteous. The Lord makes the dead to live. He makes the blind to see. He
makes the lame to walk, and He clothes the naked, and He will
get all the glory. If we put one drop in that vessel,
what could we say? The Lord and I filled that vessel.
We would try to take the glory for it. It must be an empty vessel. A man once said to Spurgeon,
don't you think the greatest hindrance to salvation is our
sinful self? To which Spurgeon replied, no,
I do not. The greatest hindrance to salvation
is our righteous self. No man or woman is too bad to
come to Christ. No one is too sinful to come
to him. But many people are too good to come to him. The Lord
fills the empty, He clothes the naked, and He saves the lost.
The Lord does that. And it is very plain to see in
Scripture. It's plain to see that the Lord Jesus Christ passed
by the so-called righteous, those who claim to be righteous or
acted as if they weren't. If we come to Christ, we must
come as an empty vessel. Okay? Look there at the end Look
at verse 3. Then he said, Go borrow thee
vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not
a few. Not a few vessels. Is anything
too hard for the Lord? How many is not a few? My family
kind of laughs at me the way I use things. I use the word
few. I have a phrase that I'll say sometimes where I'll say
an answer, and then someone will ask me about it, and I'll say,
well, give or take a few. And the comment is, what do you
mean by give or take 100? I just use that word few. But
how many is not a few? If you were the person in this,
if you were these sons, and your mother said, go borrow empty
vessels from people, but don't just get a few, would you have
gotten five? Ten? How many would you have
gotten? We think of this when we say things all the time, where
we pray to our Lord. We say, call out your sheep from
among us. Bring a revival to this city.
And don't we oftentimes think in numbers that are kind of embarrassingly
low? We think to ourselves, man, the
Lord, what if he brought another ten people here? We think of
things like that when we see things in the scriptures where
thousands upon thousands in just one moment were called out. Not
a few vessels. This is to say there's no number
that's too many. There was not a limit put on
it. The only thing that was said was, don't just get a few, get
a bunch. There's also no other descriptions
about these vessels other than being empty and get a lot of
them. There's nothing talked about the size of them, the shape
of them, or the condition of the vessel. And isn't that wonderful? When we use the spiritual application
of this, is it not amazing that our size, our shape, our condition,
who we are doesn't matter? And not only that, what did I
just say about the Lord doesn't save the so-called righteous,
he saves the sinners. The worst of the worst. When
someone says they're going to save someone, we always think,
well, I've got to get ahead of so many people so I can be the
person that gets that. But that's not how this works.
The Lord saves those who can't save themselves. The worst of
the worst. Paul called himself the chief
of sinners. That's who he saves. And thankfully,
our condition doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that we're
fools. It doesn't matter that we're just ignorant. It doesn't
matter that we're not able, that we're not willing. How important
is it to know that my lack of faith, my lack of belief, is
actually something that makes me able to be saved by Him? Because
I don't have those things. He provides them for me. He said,
come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give
you rest. I will do it. Look here at verse
four. And when thou art come in, thou
shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt
pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that
which is full. So she went from him and shut
the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels
to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the
vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a
vessel. And he said unto her, There is
not a vessel more. These vessels, every single one
that they could provide, every single bit of the emptiness that
they had were completely filled. The word of our Lord is completely
full. There's nothing to be added,
nothing from it. And let me read just six quick
things that Henry Mahan said about this verse. He said, from
complete ruin to eternal glory, our sufficiency is Christ. From
absolute emptiness to the fullness of God, all that we need is met
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When an empty sinner by faith
receives Christ, he receives all that God requires, all that
he commands, and gives of eternal life. All spiritual blessings
are in, by, and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing needs to
be nor can be added to what Christ is, what He has done, and what
He is doing. And finally, all the fitness
that He requires is to fill your need of Him. The last part of
verse 6 says this, And the oil stayed. When did the oil stop? It stopped when the last empty
vessel was full. This woman asked her sons for
another vessel. She did not realize that the
oil had stayed. I love to think of this. This
woman was doing the pouring, but the Lord was doing the filling.
is all she did was just keep turning that oil cruise up. She
just kept turning it up and it kept filling. And think of, she
filled the last vessel, put the thing down and said, give me
another one. She had no idea how much oil was going to be
provided. The Lord does that. In the same
way that when we ask this question, do we want to fill or do we want
to be filled? Do we want to sleep or do we
want to be rested? Do we want to work? Or do we
want the job to be finished? I don't know why we try so hard
to do our part in something that we can't do. But that's who we
are. We want to have a part in salvation. We want to have a part in filling
this up. We want to do it. This woman
was doing the pouring, but the Lord was doing the filling. And
this is true today. As long as there is an empty,
needy sinner, the grace of God flows full and free. We often,
at least I do, I pray things, Lord, as long as you, Terry,
give us a place to worship, would you provide for us? But our Lord
has said, as long as there is the last stone of His living
temple, the last child of His, until that day, His word will
be there, His grace will be sufficient. But in the same way that this
oil stayed, The moment that that last one, the last child of God
is called, judgment day will be here and this will all be
wrapped up. We'll be in the Ecclesiastes chapter two and all of this will
be forgotten. It will be remembered no more.
In closing, let me read a few of the verses of scripture of
what our Lord has done, how he has filled us. Philippians, it
says, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by
Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. Ephesians
says, to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. That we might
be filled with all of the fullness of God. In Acts, it says, everybody
remembers this, the words to Paul, brother Saul, the Lord,
Even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest,
he has sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled
with the Holy Ghost. Matthew says, blessed are they
which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall
be filled. And in Ephesians it says this,
and he hath put all things under his feet. and gave him to be
the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him that filleth all and in all. And we're gonna
sing this song, I think we are. This song, Fill Me Now, it says,
Thou canst fill me, gracious spirit, though I cannot tell
thee how. We don't know how he does it,
but please fill us. But I need thee, greatly need
thee, come, O come, Lord, we ask Thee, stop us from trying
to fill our needs. Stop us from trying to focus
on this flesh and on this earth and accumulate things and do
things. Make us to focus on You. Make us to realize that this
flesh is just irrelevant. In doing so, whatever it takes,
Lord, whatever we need to be filled, if we must be empty,
turned upside down, hit on the back and make everything come
out, empty us and then fill us, Lord. Please fill us now. All right.