Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the second book of Kings, chapter 4, and we'll read from our text, verses 39, 40 and 41. From verse 39, And one went out into the field to gather herbs. and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild goods his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage, for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot. And he said, Pour out for the people that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot. 2 Kings chapter 4 verses 39 to 41.

a short account of what happened when Elisha comes to Gilgal, the sons of the prophets there, and he says unto his servants, set on the great pot and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.

And we might think reading an account like that, yes, it is an account of a miracle, But how can we relate it to today? What is the Holy Spirit's message to us through a passage like this?

Some of you may have hoped that maybe we'd speak from some of the verses in the other part that we read. And certainly when we look at this account, We could say, with the words of the Shunammite woman, it shall be well. And then later on, it is well. It's begun, like the case with the Shunammite, with a great trial. And each of these cases, really, that we read, the one that had her sons to be taken into bondage because she couldn't pay her debts, what a great trial. but a miracle and deliverance. The Shunammite woman, a wonderful blessing of a child she did not expect, and then it's seen that that blessing taken away, but then a miracle and he is restored. And then we have here, the expectation of a nice meal, but as they begin to partake of it, they obviously feel those signs of sickness, or that they could not eat of it, that there was death in the pot. But then it was healed.

What is the message? Really, right through scriptures. We have the trials, we have tribulation, we have death, and then we have the remedy, we have the life. And the last account here, with the multiplied of the loaves, as well as the first one, With the multiplying of the oil you cannot help thinking of our Lord, taking the loaves and the fishes and multiplying them in the same way as a miracle.

This is not the only account in which there is something added that then heals that which is wrong. Here we have the pot that has got death in it, poison in it, And there's added to it meal that takes away that death, enables it to be eaten. We have the same in Exodus 15, where the Israelites came to the waters of Marah. The waters of Marah were bitter, they had already been longing for water, it must have been a great sorrow to see water, to come to it, ready to have your thirst quenched, and to find that the water is bitter and you cannot partake of it. And yet in that case, God showed Moses a tree, which when the tree was cast into the waters, those bitter waters were made sweet.

Our Lord also, he says in John 16 verse 33, the words that I have spoken unto you, that ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. And we have tribulation, great trouble, But the Lord giving, casting into that his word, that then they might have peace in the middle of that trouble.

We have the case in the book of Esther, where the decree of the king is made, that we might say there, there is death in the pot, because the decree was that all of the Jews were on one day to be slain. How could that be changed? The laws of the Medes, the Persians, that altereth not. He couldn't just say that that would not happen. That had to stay. But something else had to be added in. Another law. A law that instead of the king being behind the law for the extermination, Now the king is behind another law that gives them authority, a royal authority, to stand for their lives and to fight and to resist those that come against them. Even before that day came, even before the deliverance, the Jews, they rejoiced. They rejoiced because the king had made that decree. And so again, we have death that is turned into life through not the death taken away or the poison taken away, but something added into it.

And in this we have all illustrations of what the gospel really is. When we think of the fall, that cannot be reversed. It cannot be that the sentence of death be disannulled in the day that thou eatest thereof, you shall surely die. We must die physically. We must stand before the judgment seat. We are sinners. That cannot be changed, but there can be added into it, that which changes it, that which gives life instead. And this is the gospel, this is bringing in the gospel, it's bringing in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the great antitype of the tree cast in, of the meal cast in, of the new gospel. Law came by Moses, like the first decree in Esther's day, but the gospel, grace and truth, came by Jesus Christ. The decree's coming from the same king in Esther's case. The sentence of death is coming from the same God that brings also the sentence of life in the gospel. And this then is not an isolated illustration, but joins with other illustrations in the word of God to enforce to us how God saves how God works.

So with those remarks I want to look at three points and each one of them is based on the three verses that we've read as a text. So the first one is the preparation of a pot of death. That is summed up in verse 39. And one went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild goods his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage, for they knew them not. There is the preparation of the pot of death. I want to look at that in a spiritual way.

But then secondly, there's a tasting of this pot of death and realizing that it is so. In verse 40, So they poured out for the men to eat, and it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot, and they could not eat thereof. In the verse 39, they hadn't discerned at that time that there was death in the pot, And now they've tasted it, and now they know it is. So again, in a spiritual sense, to speak to that, tasting of this pot of death.

And then in verse 41, our third point, the divinely appointed remedy, which we read there, but he said, then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot, And he said, pour out for the people that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.

So firstly, the preparation of the pot of death. Here we're told how it came to pass. And there was gathered these goods. They did not know what they were, and they were put into the pot. I want to just look at it from several aspects. Firstly, the fall, the broken law of God, the preparation of death. Sin entered into the world and death by sin. We're told very clearly in the Word of God how that came to pass. Here we're told how it came to pass that death should have been in this pot that they were to drink, were to partake of. And we're told very clearly at the beginning of the Word of God how it came that death was in the pot, how it came that our first parents were tempted by Satan, how they willingly, not sinful then, not tainted by the fall, but with eyes open, partook of that forbidden fruit

And here we have a contrast, as it were, as well. Similar thing, there is the stewards here, they didn't know what they were, in the beginning with the fall, there is a forbidden fruit, it's taken, and death entered into the world. And we're told very clearly that that is the source, that is the reason why death is in the world, not because, you might say, of the very thing that they ate, but because of the sentence that God executed upon them. It's important for us to realize that we are under a sentence. If someone gets found out for doing something wrong, they aren't immediately just sent to prison. They go before a judge, and the judge decides what that sentence should be. and wherever they are put and whatever they are placed upon them, that is because of the judge. And so it is with our sin, with our dead state spiritually, our inability to understand spiritual things, the sentence that we must die, the sentence that we must give an account, that we are responsible, though we are fallen, and that we shall be condemned eternally, that is all appointed by God.

We see then a trace how the preparation of the pot of death came about. But we can look at it in another way. We think of when we come into this world, And when we begin to live as fallen creatures, and we begin to walk out that sin that is within, an ungodly life, a life that is absent from God and walking in sin is a preparation of a pot of death. We will reap what we sow. And those things that we walk in and do, even if We are called, and when we are called, I can say that many things I did in youth, they pain me more and more as years go by. They're not forgotten, they're remembered. A hymn writer says, past offences pain my eyes. And the psalmist in Psalm 25, remember not against me the sins of my youth. And in that sense, that there's a preparation of a pot of death.

The Apostle Paul, he said he was not worthy to be an apostle because he persecuted the Church of God. When Stephen was put to death with stoning, he gave a sin. They laid their clothes at his feet as they stoned him. And he remembered this as an apostle. And he remembered this which was then remembering that what he was, what he had done, of no doubt with Jacob, he remembered how that he'd stolen the birthright, how he'd deceived his father, the things that he'd done, and then when Laban changed his wages 10 times, deceived him in the matter of Rachel and Leah, and then when his sons deceived him regarding Joseph, He would have remembered those things He had done that made that a pot of death. It's that which the Lord will always do for His people. They will not forget that they deserve death. That they can't just say, this is just Adam's sin. This is just the fall. But they'll have to say that I have sinned. And so there's a preparation. of this pot of death.

Another aspect of it is when we are looking to our own works, our own righteousnesses for life. The law of God only has power to kill. By the law is the knowledge of sin. And no one will ever be saved by looking to their own works and own deeds. And the more we go to the law, it brings bondage, it brings darkness, it brings more and more a condemnation because, as the hymn writer says, law and terrors do but harden all the while they work alone. And Paul, when he writes to the Romans in Romans 10, and he longs for his own countrymen to be saved, but he sees them that they're going about to establish their own righteousness and had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. They were preparing, as it were, a pot of death. They were going down a track and away which would only end in condemnation, which would only end in ruin, that is a preparation for what later would actually be felt and realized and known. But a preparation of it first is going down that route, thinking, well, we can obey the law, we can serve God, we can be saved in that way, but there will come a time that we realize that that is a pot of death.

Another aspect of this is when there is false teaching in the church. You could almost look like this one that went out into a field to gather herbs, like a minister perhaps, He's studying his word and he reads his Bible but then he reads a few commentaries and he dabbles in a bit of this and a bit of that and he spreads them into the sermon and he puts them and he spreads them to the people and in that way there's a preparation of a pot of death. This is a picture here. They were gathering things to eat. What did the Lord say to Peter? Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. The ministries are feeding. Here they are going to feed. But there's a preparation of what is going to be fed to them, and there's things in it that have got death in it. Perhaps drinking into the idea, the doctrines of duty faith, of man's work, of man's responsibility, or that some something in us we're able to save ourselves or to instigate salvation and these things may come in a little first but they're shredded in into the pot and it is for a later time to feel it to be actually a pot of death.

You need to always remember this and you know I spoke this afternoon at Belgium Green of a safe ministry. The apostle writing to the Philippians says, for me to write the same things unto you is not grievous, but for you it is safe. And it's a good thing, where the things that are brought forth in the ministry, they are the same things, they're scripture things. They're those things that are tried and proven and not going down the track of new innovations, new ideas, or those that think we've got some extra light upon the truth, upon the scriptures that the reformers didn't have and those that have gone before us didn't have, and he's launching out into a different way. I think it's in Jeremiah that we're exhorted to keep to the old paths, to keep to the Word of God and to hold fast to that which has been tried and proven, especially the Scriptures of truth.

You know, it may always be said that when we bring forth that in the house of God, we're not bringing forth something that we didn't know where it come from. That we always say this has come from the word of God. This is the word of God. It's not strange fire. Remember Aaron's sons, they were slain before the Lord because they offered strange fire. That is, it wasn't kindled from the altar, which was a never extinguished flame and fire beneath. It had been ignited with the flame from heaven, and then whenever they offered sacrifices, it came from that flame. And so all of the Word, we think of the Apostle Paul preaching to the Bereans, and they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so. So it clearly tells us that he wasn't bringing strange fire, he wasn't bringing strange goods, they could tell where the ingredients of his ministry came from. They could see what they were actually eating. And so here is a picture of one who is preparing a pot of death by introducing other things.

Really, every church that goes astray, we think of the established church at present and many others that's introduced many doctrines, many teachings, many things that can quite easily be seen as contrary to the word of God. Well, the Brians, they tested the ministry, and it's a good thing to do that, and then it is safe. But what a preparation of death. In the letters to the churches in Revelation, churches in Asia. One of the churches was reproved because they had those in membership that held error, and another reproved because they taught error. And the Apostle, especially regarding those heretical errors, or those that are critical, he speaks that in The second epistle of John, that if any man bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house. The doctrine concerning our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

So the preparation of the pot of death. And remember, at the point of preparation, they didn't know it was the pot of death. They didn't realise it. It was sitting there. It was there. But there came a time that they had to prove it and they had to know that it was so.

So on to look at the second point, that tasting of this pot of death and realising that it was so. I want to look at this also from several aspects.

Firstly, a person first awakened, realising a lost and ruined state. By nature we do not realise, we do not know that we are dead in sin, we do not know that we are under the wrath of God, we do not know that death is on the road. But when the Lord passes by, He bids us live, He gives eternal life, then the reality is actually realized and known.

We read here in this verse, they poured out for the men to eat. They're eating of it, they're partaking of this pot, and then they realize it. And so when the Lord begins and makes man to really see that he has fallen, that he is a sinner, that death is on the road, he's under the condemnation of God, then he knows for the first time there is death in the pot. His life is a life that is under the condemnation of God. He has sinned.

You think of the Apostle Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. In his eyes, his mind, there was not death in the pot. He was a good man. He was brought up under the feet of Gamaliel. He studied the old scriptures. He was zealous for the things of God. He persecuted those, put them to death. He was following this false Christ, this heretic, this man called Jesus of Nazareth. And he was walking in this path thinking that he was alive.

And so he says, I was alive. without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. First time he knew there was death in the pot, and it was through one commandment, thou shalt not covet, and it wrought in him all manner of evil concupiscence, evil sexual desire, and he saw the sin within. He realized the death within that he did not know before.

And he's like these here. The death was already in the pot, but they didn't know until they started to partake of it. It was already in the pot with Paul, but he didn't know until the Lord began with him and opened his eyes, brought him to the law of God, brought him as a convicted sinner, and he died to hope in himself, died to saving himself. He couldn't then continue, as we might say, his diet of good works, of self-righteousness. He couldn't live on that anymore because there was death in it.

Everything he did, his thoughts, his words, his deeds, there was sin mixed with it. And every sin cried out that it should be dealt with and that death was the sentence to it. And so the first time there's a tasting of that pot of death.

Another way that is felt is when the Lord puts a stamp of vanity upon everything. Vanity of vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity. May the Lord, when the Lord dealt with me, he dealt with it in those two ways, one convincing of sin and through the law of God, but the other way, which I didn't connect at first, was making the things that I loved in this world as vanity and empty, and I couldn't understand it. Why didn't I enjoy them anymore? Why did they seem to be empty and fruitless? I couldn't understand it. It didn't link the two things together.

But when God puts his hand upon a person, then we see death is upon the pot. You see such emptiness and vanity. These things all pass away. They're nothing concerned compared with the soul of man, to be following after those things won't bring eternal life. They won't bring peace in the hour of death. They won't deliver us from the power of sin and the strength of sin, or from the wrath of God.

When we partake and see that our own righteousnesses are as filthy rags, then for the first time we begin to see that there is death. Not only cannot we atone for our own sins, we have sinned, but we have not got anything to stand before God anyway. Even if we were saved from our sin, we still needed a righteousness and we have not got that.

And so there are these things that make up the calling by God of a sinner that he for the first time realizes personally, feelingly, that there is death in the pot. Death is on the road. He cannot partake, he cannot find life in what is his present diet.

Remember our Lord said, man shall not live by bread only. but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. He was a soul that once was feeding upon his own works, the good opinion of men, and upon the word in an intellectual way, but now he finds there's death in that. He can't eat, he can't partake. This is not the food that his soul longs for and needs, and he can't eat of that.

Another way, another aspect of this is in a path of providence. We might have a path that is a very bitter path, a very difficult path. It may be a path that we've made out for ourselves, sewn for ourselves. Maybe it's like David that in his sin and in his adultery and murder, and God has chastened him, the sword shall not depart from thy house, and he must walk through it. It's a bitter path. And again, it's a realizing the bitterness of it, a cup that we might say we cannot drink. We think of our Lord, the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? But with the people of God, They also have a cup, they also have a cross, and the Lord says that they are to take up their cross, they are to follow the Lord.

But at the first, when that's realised, the reaction is the same as those here. O man of God, there is death in the pot. How can I face this? You might think of Paul with his thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. How can I live with this? How can I go on with this? And he cries to the Lord to remove it, but the Lord doesn't. He gives him something instead, added into it. We have the same picture. Paul, the thorn not taken away, but I'll give you something added in, and that is grace. My grace is sufficient for thee.

Another aspect, and this is linked to our first point, when there is Doctrines, false doctrines, false teaching is introduced with the ministry. A dead soul will not disown him. There'll be death in the pot, but they won't disown him. But when the Lord gives spiritual life and that soul wants food, wants spiritual food, and they may suffer for a while sitting in that chapel or church, But then they realized there's death in that pot. Their soul cannot feed upon that ministry.

Now, dear friends, over in Australia, they proved that, and they had to move church. Once or twice it happened to one of them, and realized that the ministry was comparing what was coming from the pulpit with the Word of God. and he wasn't getting what was feeding his soul, and he had to move from that church. And then in another church, they weren't even sometimes opening the Word of God, whole service, and they never even opened the Word of God. And again, they had to move.

And so, it is realized in that way, sometimes, and I try to pray in this way, I think, where there are those awakened to their need in this land, It is quite likely that where they'll go first is not to us or to our churches. They'll go to the established church, or they might go to a charismatic church or a church that has great big numbers. But if the Lord is working in their souls, after a while, they will realize there is death in the pot. This doesn't satisfy my soul. This doesn't feed me. This is not pointing to Christ. This is not showing a remedy. This is like this verse 40, where all there is fell, there is death there, that is all.

It is a blessing to realize when there is death in the pond. It is a solemn thing to not realise it, to be dead in sin, or to be sitting under a dead ministry and not realise it is a dead ministry. It is a searching thing for us as preachers. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there will be life and it will be a preaching of the Word, be the Word of God.

But bless God if the Lord has made a change, a change like between the verse 39 and 40, that's brought you into knowing what the true condition of your soul is, knowing what you need for your soul, to feed your soul and to keep your soul alive. And all they did here, they cried, they said, O man of God, There is death in the pot they could not aim. What a lesson for us. To cry unto the Lord, Lord, there is death. There's no life in me, there's death. It's like the hymn writer says, death's within thee, all about thee, but the remedy's without thee, seed in a saviour's blood. It's a blessed thing where we're kept from every false way, and to be only looking unto God to provide the remedy.

So I want to look at what was done. The divinely appointed remedy in verse 41 that resulted that there was no harm in the pot. No death. It's gone from death to no harm. Well, the first thing that we must say is Christ is preached. We think of Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ unto them. When he was sent to the eunuch, he began the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Our Lord on the way to Emmaus, when they were sad, when they could only tell him, of the death of Jesus. He says, I have fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things to enter into his kingdom? Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all things the things concerning himself. The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians says, I determined to know nothing among you, saved Jesus Christ and him crucified. In these types here, the meal, I am the true bread, the true manna from heaven, our Lord states this, the tree, the tree of life cast into the waters, it's all pointing to Christ cast in. With the fall immediately there was The promise of Christ cast in. The seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. The death is in the pot, but it's Christ that is cast in. He's a looking unto Christ.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. He is the one sent by the decree of the Father that he should deliver his people from death, he should take their death, endure the wrath of God instead of them, that he should satisfy the law of God, that he should then give to each believer his own righteousness, that they might stand faultless then before the throne. And every aspect of death, Every aspect of the sin that brings death is dealt with in the Lord Jesus Christ. His name is called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, not only eternally, but in this life, taking away the power and dominion of sin.

If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. The Apostle says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And his answer is, I thank God through Jesus Christ, that with the flesh I serve the law of sin, but with the mind I serve the law of Christ. The divinely appointed remedy set before every sinner that says there's death in the body, is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the promised seed, His blood, His righteousness, drawn from the world's vanities and drawn to Him. Seeing the pearl of great price, selling everything that we might have then, the treasure in the field, buying that field that we might have that treasure, the Lord being the one thing needful, and it is the only remedy to be cast into that pot of death.

How many strive to change the pot, to disannul it, to do something that shall be a remedy different than one cast in, and how much cast in? You think of our Lord, His sufferings, He endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. He suffered more than any man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He came right into that pot of death. He actually endured death, went into death and through death. But he bore the sins of his people, pressed down in Gethsemane, crying out with the weight of his people's sin. And on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The Lord Jesus Christ, his work that he has done.

Now we come to the other aspect of this. And this is where especially if there's been a preaching with a legal vein that is pointing to men to do something and that it is a part God's salvation, or Christ has done his bit, but now we must do the rest. Or looking for something in self, which one that has partaken death in the pot, they know, like the apostle says, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. There's nothing. And very often we have to prove that in trying to find it, trying to find repentance, trying to find even a good thought, Try to find some remedy within and prove that there is not anything there. And it's right for us, as we are convinced of sin, to seek to not sin, seek to walk in a right way, a godly way, to obey the law of God. It's right that we do so. And when we do so, we are proving the reality of the hatred of sin, but we'll also prove that we are not able to fulfill the law of God and we're still under condemnation.

But if the ministry is only pointing us that that is the only way of salvation, that is the way of salvation, that will still be a pot of death and will be a breath of fresh air. It'll be a wonderful thing when we have the contrast as in Hebrews 12, we are not coming to the mount that might be touched, that burned with fire, but we are coming to Mount Sinai What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. And to see that finished work, that Christ has done what we could not do, that in His coming and His life and in His death, that He has finished and brought in an everlasting salvation. that the crown is put on the Lord's head, and it is unto grace. By grace ye are saved, through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is that which lifts a burden off of sinner, brings to see that the Lord has done what he could not do, sees the empty tomb, but sees he who has suffered and bled. in his place.

The Lord said, except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you. What is no life is death. But when we eat his flesh, drink his blood, and the Lord explains it, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. That stumbled those Jews. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? But when for us, our meat, Like this pot then that could be eaten, there's the meal cast in. Then it is that we can see that Christ has come and Christ has fulfilled the law. That lifts the burden off. Bunyan puts it that when his pilgrim went to the law, when he went to Mount Sinai, he felt it was going to fall upon him and crush him. And well, the wise man had directed him there. But when he was brought to the cross, and he came to the cross, and then his burden fell off his back, the Lord said, I, if I be lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me. I am come that they might have life. That's the opposite to death, isn't it? Life. I give unto them eternal life. No man shall pluck them out of mine hand.

That life is in his son. Because I live, ye shall live also. And this is good news to a sinner, one that has nothing to give, one that has nothing to pay. The Lord says, the debts are all paid. I paid it at Calvary, but I have no righteousness. Yes, you have. You have it in Christ. He provides that righteousness. Everything that is needed is provided. Victory over death. We think of how the The Apostle finishes the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul chapter 15, the second from last, and he speaks of the victory. Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory and his victory over death. In that chapter, he's setting forth again and again, life from the dead, a resurrection arising from the dead. And that is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

But He said, then bring meal, and He cast it into the pot. And He said, pour out for the people that they may eat, and there was no harm in the pot. Thinking of Providence, how many times there's been those hard places, difficult things to bear. But when the Lord's come and blessed the soul, when He has given that deliverance in a way that we could never deliver ourselves, given us peace and quietness, then appeared for us in Providence, delivered us and saved us. Sometimes the thing like Paul's thorn is still there, but the Lord has given grace to bear it. Much more rather than will I rejoice in my infirmity, that when I am weak, then am I strong.

To may we view this little account here that goes from death to no harm. Be able to trace something of it in our own life where that which we didn't know of the death has been made known to us. And that way that that death then is turned to no harm and a deliverance. You think of the blessing of the child of God With a hope in Christ, the sins pardoned, and a hope beyond the grave, they come into death, and they hear the Apostle Paul say, absent from the body, present with the Lord. How that he had that clear view, that death now, instead of a sentence, it was the way that he should pass from this sin-cursed world, where Satan is active, with all the infirmities of the flesh, and passed to be with the Lord himself.

Stephen, when he was dying, could look up on the stones raining on him, and he could see the Lord standing at the right hand to receive him. The Lord has said, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also. Where is death? Death? loses its sting in the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord give us then that faith and trust in him and that assurance of an eternal inheritance in heaven with no more death but eternal life. Amen.