We're in 2nd Kings in the Old Testament and we're in chapter 2 and we are continuing in the history well of Elijah and Elisha. So Elijah had been the old prophet and Elisha was now the new prophet in the land of Israel. And we're in 2nd Kings chapter 2 and reading from verse 15.

And when the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho, saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And they said unto him, Behold, now there be with thy servants fifty strong men. Let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master, lest, peradventure, the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send. And when they urged him until he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent there for fifty men, and they sought three days, but found him not. And when they came again to him, for he tarried at Jericho, he said unto them, Did I not say unto thee, Go not?

The men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is not. and they ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruz, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha, which he spake.

And he went up from Thens to Bethel. And as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head! And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tear forty and two children of them. And he went from Thens to Mount Carmel, and from Thens he returned to Samaria.

Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

So as we have said, Elisha was the new prophet in the land of Israel. Elijah had been taken to heaven in a fiery chariot from the presence of the young man. And Elisha had picked up his mantle, his cloak. Now, you'll remember that Elisha had asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit or of the spirit of God. And Elijah had said, if you see me being taken away, then that will be the sign that the Lord will bless you and that indeed came to pass and accordingly he now took on the old prophet's duties

there's another group spoken of here called the sons of the prophets we met them previously this group of worshipers because they seemed to be like in a college or students of the word and these prophets Elijah and Elisha had some command over them, some control over these groups and perhaps were like their lecturers or their professors or their teachers concerning the things of God.

These sons of the prophets They weren't so sure about the way in which Elijah had been taken up from the presence of Elisha. And they wondered if perhaps the Lord had only carried Elijah out of sight to set him down again somewhere else. Or perhaps his spirit had gone to heaven, but his body, his corpse, was lying on some faraway hill. and they should go and get it and recover it and bury it properly. And so a search must be made, they thought. Elisha said no. He denied their request. But these men insisted until Elisha agreed. He knew that no body would be found. And of course, he was right. He understood what had happened here. But he allowed the men to go and search until their own minds were at rest.

And for a period, Elisha remained in Jericho. And it quickly became known that Elisha was in the city. And the townsfolk wisely called upon his services. They had a need and a man of God was amongst them. They would have been foolish not to have sought his help for the trouble that they faced.

And I think there's a little lesson here for us today. When the Lord places a gospel ministry amongst us, we ought to be like these Jericho people and make proper use of it. I wish that people, by the hundreds and the thousands, by the tens of thousands, would listen to my sermons. Well, you know, listen to any gospel sermon. I wish they would listen to the gospel. However, most people don't know that they have a need. They are sinners without a savior. but they have no appreciation of the dangerous state that they're in.

There was poison in the water of Jericho and there is poison of sin in the hearts of men and women and boys and girls and they are blind to their need. Nevertheless, it is also true that where the Lord plans to do a work of grace and mercy, He provides the means to do so, and He sends a preacher. Elisha was that means at that time in that place. And by him, the people of the city were privileged to witness the goodness of God. May that goodness continue to be evidenced as the Lord makes his mercy shown through the preaching of the word.

The city's drinking water had become polluted. And we're not told how this had happened, But it began causing crops to fail. And it seems that women and animals were caused to abort their babies as well. So whatever it was that was in the water, I'm sure, Anyone who drank it wasn't healthy as a result of drinking the water. But as far as the women were concerned and the animals, it appears as though from what is said here, the words that are used, that infants were dying.

And Elisha was ready to help. He asked that a new cruz, or a jar, a vase, and some salt be brought to him. Perhaps these had some special significance. Perhaps Elisha was being pictured here as the new Cruz, as if Elijah was the old Cruz and now Elisha was the new Cruz. I don't know whether that's what was in the prophet's mind or not. The new vessel from whom God's blessings would flow. Perhaps it was a picture of Christ and the salt represented his purifying power.

But the prophet took the crews and the salt and he went to the source of the poisoned water. The spring was where he went, the fountainhead was where he went and there he sprinkled the salt into the fountain. Now, ordinarily, this would have made no difference at all. Indeed, it might even have made it worse. If you're adding salt into the water that is supposed to be drunk and the water that is supposed to be refreshing the land and refreshing people, then that's not going to be good.

But Elisha declared, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. And so it was. God performed a miracle and the waters of Jericho were healed and again became useful to the people and useful for the land. Although, it's interesting to note, It must have been an act of faith thereafter for the people to drink and feed their animals. They had to trust God and believe the prophet. And here I think we get the first application that I want to leave with you today.

The remedy of the spring or the fountain of water is a fine picture of the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The water was spoiled from the source. Which meant that wherever the water reached, wherever it flowed to, wherever it got to, wherever it touched, the damaging effect could be seen. Like sin in our hearts, the poison spoiled everything that it touched.

There was no use for Elisha to try and fix the problem out in the fields. or in the water troughs where the cattle drank or where the people gathered their drinking water. Elisha went to the source of the problem. He went to the fountainhead and there he administered the cure. A single dose of salt from a pot could never have fixed the issue of the poison had it not been that the Lord worked a miracle and removed the toxin or the bacteria that was afflicting the water, afflicting the people.

But this is a picture of the Lord's work in an individual's heart. It is of little use to try to treat the effects of sin, the symptoms of sin, the consequences of sin in a person's life. The problem has to be tackled at its source. The deceitful heart of man is the source of all our trouble, and it has to be changed. A miracle has to be performed. God has to work in the heart of the individual. man, woman, boy or girl. A new heart must be created. New spiritual life must be infused by the Holy Spirit. New desires have to be implanted. And this is a work of God alone.

Elisha told the men and women of Jericho, the Lord had healed the waters. And it takes the Lord, it takes the Lord Jesus to make you new and to make me new by working the miracle of regeneration and creating new life in a person's soul.

Like we said, it was no use trying to fix the problem in the fields or in the water troughs or where the people gathered their drinking water. And it is no use us trying to stop doing bad things. Stop telling lies. Stop being disobedient. Stop doing wrong. It's no good for us to just say, oh I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to stop acting like that. I'm going to stop being that. I'm going to be a nicer person. That just hides the sin and moves the problem somewhere else. The heart has to be changed. Our life has to be renewed and God the Holy Spirit must Apply the saving power of Christ's death and give us faith in him.

And then we read another part of today's verses. After a while Elisha left Jericho and he went up to another city. There's a city in the mountains so he was going up. He went up to Bethel. And by this time his fame had begun to grow. People knew Elijah had been taken and Elisha had replaced him as the Lord's prophet. As the Lord's prophet. Maybe the word got round from those 50 men who went into all of the countryside roundabout searching for Elijah's body. Maybe they all told people that they met what had happened and who Elisha was.

The people of Jericho, they had been blessed and given good water and new life as it were by Elisha's intervention and his intercession with God. And by that means the prophet's authority was established and his reputation began to spread. Nevertheless, what we realize is that the idolatry of the people of Bethel remained strong. It was a center of idol worship in Israel at that time. and to the people of Bethel, Elisha, like Elijah, posed a threat. They hated God and they were hostile towards God's prophet. When Elisha approached the city, we find that a gang of youths came out to harass him. Now, the Bible calls them little children, but we can say a few things about that. The word used here for children does not mean that they were infants. When we say little children, we tend to think about infants, but that's not what the word really means. It can mean youths, It can even mean people considerably older than that.

Furthermore, these were not so young as to be prevented from leaving the security of the city without their parents. This wasn't a toddler's group outing. They were old enough to leave the city by themselves with their friends. and they were old enough to recognise Elisha. They knew who he was. He had been in the city before with Elijah, and they recognised him. Furthermore, they were sufficiently brazen to mock the prophet's appearance. They called him bald. But perhaps most telling of all, They were smart enough to know that Elijah had been taken up to heaven and Elisha was the replacement prophet in the land. Because they shouted that Elisha should go up too. Elijah has been taken up to heaven, Elisha you go up too. You're not wanted here.

And it seems that this was a large unruly gang of youngsters. Their number, their rudeness, and their awareness suggests that they weren't infants, but likely considerably older, and therefore a genuine threat to God's prophet. They insulted Elisha. They provoked his God. We're told that Elisha turned back and looked on them. This may imply that it was a warning that was given. But if it was, it wasn't heeded. And the prophet called down a curse upon them. He called for the judgment of God, just as Elijah had called for fire from heaven against the captains in their fifties.

At once, not fire, but two she-bears emerged from a nearby wood and tore 42 of these young people in what must have been a most horrific and bloody scene. I assume that all who were torn died. Although that's not necessarily so. It says they were torn. Perhaps some of them didn't die. But I assume that the vast majority who were torn died. It seems some of the total number managed to escape. But what a catastrophe to fall on a single city. Yet it seems not a soul dared to do God's prophet harm, despite their grief for the loss of their children. No one raised a word against him, which we must attribute to the fear of God falling upon them.

Elisha entered the city unmolested and from there he went on to Mount Carmel where Elijah often resided and from there he returned to Samaria, the capital city. There's another little lesson that we can draw from this, I think. The death of these children of whatever age they were was a tragedy for them, for their families and their city. but it shows the consequence of fighting against God. And we could blame the parents. There's good justification for saying that perhaps even the parents had put these youths up to this taunting of Elisha. The children must have heard these things that they said spoken about at home. They didn't invent them for themselves. And it seems likely that they were encouraged to make the life of Elisha difficult.

But the outcome, the result, was devastating. For a time, we may get away with mocking God. Men do. Mocking God's gospel, mocking God's preachers, even ridiculing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. People do. One of the thieves that hung on the cross mocked the Lord Jesus. Some of the soldiers, some of the people amongst the Jews who were there around the cross mocked the Lord Jesus Christ. People have continued to mock the Lord down through the history of the ages. I've heard many people laugh at the message of grace, but their laughter is short-lived and judgment will be swift.

These young people thought that they could mock God with impunity, without any consequences. And they found out to their cost that they could not. And that's the lesson. Galatians 6 verse 7 says, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

And consider these two she bears. God brought them to that wood for the task that was to be done. He ordained the dreadful judgment that would take place that day. Other times, the Lord used lions. Another time, fire falling from heaven. Another time, he brought hail. He once caused the ground to open up and to consume the guilty.

All of these Old Testament examples are designed with one purpose, whether it's a bear, a lion, or fire from heaven, to show us that the end of sin is death. and to shake us up to flee to Christ for forgiveness and mercy. May the Lord give us all grace to do just that. Amen.