I ask you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of 2 Kings, 2 Kings chapter two,
four, I'm sorry, 2 Kings chapter four. About a week ago, providentially,
I came across this passage of scripture, and I wanna look at
verses 38 to 41. But this passage, just really bore witness to my
heart. And I'd like for us to look at
a few verses, these verses this morning. Elisha was traveling
with the prophet Elijah before the time that the Lord would
take Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind. And the Spirit of God made reference
to a place that Elijah and Elisha had been. And it was found in
2 Kings 2, verse 1. And it says, It came to pass,
when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that
Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal, now they were traveling
together. And if you wanted to read that
entire passage, chapter two, and find out that they went from
Gilgal, and they went on to Bethel and Jordan. And every time they'd
go somewhere, Elijah would tell Elisha, you
stay here, and I'll go on. And Elisha would tell him, he
said, as the Lord liveth, as my soul liveth, I'm not leaving
you. Wherever you go, I'm going. Well, in time, the Lord did take
Elijah. And we find now that there's
a place that Elisha is going back to. It says in 2 Kings 4,
chapter 38, and Elisha came again. to Gilgal. And there was a dearth
in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before
him. And he said unto his servant,
Set on the great pot, and seethe the pottage for the sons of the
prophets. And one went out into the field
to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild
gourds, his lap full. came and shred them into the
pot of pottage, for they knew them not. So they poured out
for the men to eat. It came to pass, as they were
eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man
of God, there's death in the pot. 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. They may eat, and there was no harm in the pot. Now, there was a group of men
that were referred to as the sons of the prophets, and they
were mentioned. We saw them mentioned just then
in verse 38, and these men, They were spoken of, the sons
of the prophets. They were spoken of mainly during
the time of Elijah, Elijah there for a while. And what it seems
is that these were men that gathered themselves together to be taught
of the Lord. They were a group of men that
had been brought together providentially. So we find Elisha now coming
back. He came back again, verse 38
says, surely to instruct this group of men, these sons of the
prophet. And there was a dearth said to
be found in the land. There was a famine. And they
were sitting there at this meeting, and Elisha, told, the scripture
says, in verse 38, he said, unto his servant set on the great
pot, seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. They were going
to cook them something to eat. And we're not told in that verse
of scripture right there the name of Elisha's servant, but
reference is made to the servant of Elisha in 2 Kings, just probably
right there where you are. It's chapter 5 in verse 20. It says, But Gehazi, the servant
of Elisha, the man of God, said, Behold, my servant has spared
Naaman, this Syrian, and not receiving at his hands that which
he brought, but as the Lord liveth, I will run after him and take
somewhat of him." Now, the point I'm making is this. The Spirit
of God moved to tell us who the servant of Elisha was. Go over the reference that I
could find, that he had another one. So, the compared scripture
to scripture, we know who he talked to. He talked to a particular
man, Gehazi. But then also back in chapter
four, 2 Kings 4, 39, it says, one of, but one and one, went
out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and
gathered thereof wild gourds, his lap full, and came and shred
them into the pot of pottage, for they knew them not. Now,
it's not said that Gehazi was one who went out, but rather
it says one went out into the field to gather herbs, and that
word one right there, it can mean one, it can mean a certain
another, a certain another, or one after another, and it seems
to indicate that out of the sons of the prophets, one out of the
sons of the prophets went out to gather herbs to cook. Elisha told his servant, I want
you to do it. And this one, he went out, he
says he found a wild vine, a twining vine of the field, and gathered
thereof wild gourds. And in these words, what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna tell you exactly what happened. We'll
just look at the account, then I wanna look at the gospel in
it. It, what it says concerning those wild gourds, Mr. Strong's
concordance said that that word right there, it's meaning wild
cucumbers that burst and split open the seeds. And one was gathering
these wild gourds and he gathered up a lap full of them. And he
came back and he began to just shred them. He just started putting
them in the, seethe, you know, with everything else. But here's
the thing. The last part of verse 39, for
they knew them not. Here's what they did. They didn't
know what it was. They didn't, it wasn't something
that they perceived or recognized. There was a wild vine, some wild
gourds, and he just got his lap full of them, just brought them
in there. These look good. And so he just started cutting
them up. Well, verse 40 and 41 says, well, they poured out for
the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they
were eating of the pottage, 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, that is Elisha,
then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot. And he said,
pour out for the people that they may eat, for there was no
harm, no evil in the pot. Elisha immediately told him,
said, you bring some meal. Now, what Elisha is here for
is to teach these sons of the prophets. These were, as I said,
men that were brought together to learn. And so the passage
has great significance concerning the Lord teaching them something. This is about them eating. That's
what they're doing. They're there, pretty much this
whole passage is dealing with, he's there to teach and he's
instructing his servant, I want you to get the pot, I want you
to cook something for these men to eat. These men started eating
and immediately they started eating and they realized, we've
got a problem. There's death in this pot, and then Elisha,
by the Lord's means, being the one that healed it, puts a meal
in it. Now, verse 38 says, that's the account, that's what happened.
Let's see the gospel in it. Verse 38 says, and Elisha came
again to Gilgal, and oh, how merciful that God would bless
and continue to bless a place with the hearing of the truth
of the gospel and would send a preacher, a preacher of God's
choosing. Elisha was God's prophet sent
to a place where the scripture says there was a dearth in the
land, there was a famine in the land. But thank the Lord that
though there was a famine concerning the natural food in the land,
a picture of there being a dearth of the hearing of the word of
God, the Lord had mercifully raised up a place in Gilgal where
the hearing of the gospel was maintained. There was a real
dearth there. There was a real famine in the
land. But it's a picture. It's a type. And no child of
God needs to be told, they know this, that you just can't go
somewhere. We'll just go somewhere. We'll
just go to church. We'll just drive around, we'll
pick a building and expect that the gospel is gonna be there.
There is, in this whole world, Generally speaking, there's a
famine. There's a dirth in the land. But though there was a dirth
in the land of Gilgal, there was a place God was going to
give them some natural food, no doubt about it. That's what
Elisha told them. You get the pot, see the pottage. There was going to be something
to eat. But the picture that the Lord was going to teach these
sons of the prophets There's a famine of the hearing of the
word of God. But God had raised up a place
in Gilgal. Turn with me, hold your place
and turn with me to Psalm 37, verse 18 and 19. Psalm 37, verse
18 and 19. Psalm 37, 18, the Lord knoweth
the days of the upright. and their inheritance shall be
forever. They shall not be ashamed in
the evil time. And in the days of famine, they
shall be satisfied. Brethren, we know that it is
by the grace of God that there's a place here and in other places
where God has raised up the gospel of God's free grace. We know
that. Though there's a famine, generally
speaking, in this world, and you know that. The gospel of God's free grace
is not proclaimed everywhere. But it's proclaimed where God's
raised it up and God's maintained it. And that's a blessing. So here's the Lord in his providence
moving Elisha to instruct these sons of the prophets concerning
the importance of the preaching of the gospel of God's free grace.
And the Spirit would instruct them through their need of having
to have something to eat. He's gonna teach them something.
They're gonna learn something. So he told his servant, set the
great pot, that which was to be the spiritual preparation
of the food, the preaching of the gospel. We don't just get
up and just on the fly. I've thought so many times how
many people think that you can just, you know, I've been preaching
now for 40 something years. And I just come right here and
just pick up the Bible and just turn to a passage and just start
preaching from it. You say, that would have, let
me tell you something. It absolutely, the Lord could
give a man a heart to do that. But as a general rule, a man
that would walk into this pulpit unprepared is foolish and he's
presumptuous. You think, I could just walk
up here, I wouldn't more by God's grace, I wouldn't more walk this
building one Sunday morning, one Wednesday night, and just
think, well, I'm just gonna wait, just see what's gonna happen.
That's foolishness, isn't it, Neil? He said, you get the great
pot, and you seethe the pot, you begin to cook, you make the
preparation. Well, hearing Elisha's instruction
to his servant, It seems as though that one of the young men, and
I'm sure that his intentions were very sincere. They were
sincere. He went out, the scripture says,
to gather herbs. Verse 39, one went out into the
field to gather herbs. Now, here's the beauty of the
word of God. I think about that passage when
the disciples said, why do you preach in parables? Why do you
preach that way? He said, because it's given unto
you to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, and unto them
it's not given. Now let me tell you the amazing
thing about what we just read in that word, herbs. He went
out to gather herbs. When you look that word up, that
word actually means light. light of joy and happiness. Strong's interprets the word
to mean luminousness and figuratively speaking, prosperity. And it
is also a plant, but a plant being bright. So that word herb
right there is a word that sets forth what this man sincerely
thought was going to be good. Here's a picture, here's a type.
This would be good to eat. This is gonna be some good stuff.
It's a picture. In his mind, it's that word that
the Spirit of God used to set forth that which is light. And
that's, you know, men stand in pulpits, and they say, well,
I'm gonna be preaching something that, you know, that's gonna
be light, gonna be good, healthy, and luminousness to the hearers. But if it's not from this book
right here, It's not. So he went out to gather herbs. So he thought that he was going
to be getting something that was going to be good to eat.
And scripture says he went out there and he gathered those herbs.
He found a wild vine and gathered thereof wild gourds.
He got his lap full of them. He came and he shred them into
the pot. And they didn't know what it
was. Nobody knew what they were. They weren't recognizable. They
didn't know what that was. 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's death
in the pot. and they could not eat thereof.
Now that which we behold is the immediate spiritual effect of
those who being enlightened by the Spirit of God to the glorious
truth of the gospel, the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. This is the reaction that one
has when he hears, beholds, perceives that there's something that he's
hearing that's death. It wouldn't take a believer one
second to hear something preached that was inconsistent with these
scriptures right here and say there's death in the pot. You
add a man's works or a man's choice or a man's this or a man's
that, anything that would promote the preaching of self-righteous,
man-centered religion, all you have to hear is a statement. Well, we're going to be out winning
souls for Christ. There's death in the pot. That's death. Is there not death in the pot
when the poisonous message of man's righteousness, man's own
righteousness, that which is filthy rags, is intermingled
with the declaration of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's always words thrown in
there, grace, mercy, crucifixion. There's always words that are
thrown in there that have truly a good meaning. But whenever
the wild gourd, that which Believers know not, because they're inconsistent
with these scriptures. Whenever they hear something
that is declaring salvation is by the grace of God, and all
you gotta do is, you think, there's death in the Bible. Christ alone
is the sustenance of the believer. Christ alone, Christ's blood
shed in particular for His sheep, His blood that has washed us
from our sins, His righteousness imputed to everyone that believeth. That's the rest of God's people. The blessed message of God's
covenant grace. This is what a believer wants
to hear. You give Him all the glory, all the honor, and all
the praise, and don't give any of it to me. Any time that men,
women, exalt themselves and put forth that air that they've done
something or they've maintained something, they've done something
worthy of praise and honor. I've been faithful all these
many years, like that son that wouldn't come in. I've been faithful
all these years, there's death in the pot. Death. Oh, the message that gives God's
people to have been loved, chosen in Christ, redeemed by His blood,
called out by His Spirit, kept. That's life to them. They want to hear it. You tell
me again how I've been made willing in the day of His power. Tell
me again how He's kept man. directed me. He's not going to
let me go. That's the food for the hungry
child of God. But to inject wild gourds into
the message, setting forth that man's got to do something to
make it right. There's death. And this was Elisha's
reaction. And this is what he taught him.
Here's what he's taught him. God taught these sons of the
prophets something. The people are gonna have to
eat. But whatever they eat spiritually, better come out of this book
right here. You try to inject something, those wild gourds
that's cultivated out of that, came out of the earth that was
cursed, growing wild out of the earth. You try to shred that
in there, and there's death in the pot. Well, verse 41 says,
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. If you got a marginal reference,
there's evil. There was no evil in the pot. blessed meals, talk about it,
it's setting forth the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever
that word right there is explained, it's from, the scripture says, I mean, the concordance
says from an unused root word that means to grind. And whenever
we think of that meal that was ground, I think of the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven himself and how
beautifully That type of picture sets forth the wholesomeness
and the eternal benefit of being found in Him. A needy sinner
that Elisha was moved by God's Spirit to say, this is the healing. This is the message. You put
in the meal, put in that ground, that grinding. We behold the
suffering Savior who bore the wrath of God's justice in the
stead of His people. He said, I am the bread that
came down from heaven. I'm the bread of life. He's the
manna. What's the healing? What's the healing? What do God's
people have to eat? Put the meal in there. He alone is the way. He's the
truth. He's the life of His people unto
the Father. When salvation is of the Lord,
they feast on that. When salvation is set forth to
be partly God and partly man, he's done his part. I do my part,
there's death, there's death. Psalm 103, and I'll close with
this. Psalm 103, one to three. Bless the Lord, my soul, and
all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits, who forgiveth
all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. I pray that
the Lord teach us afresh the necessity preaching Christ. And let nothing
else be the issue, nothing else. Christ and Him crucified. When
it's Christ and Him crucified, there's no evil in the pot. His
glory and our good. Amen. All right, let's take a
break.