you would open your Bible to
2 Kings chapter four. 2 Kings chapter four. They cried a certain woman, of
the wives of the sons of the prophets, and to Elisha, Elisha,
God's servant, God's prophet, 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 bondsmen. And Elisha said unto her, what
shall I do for thee? Tell me what thou hast in the
house. And she said, thine handmaid hath not anything in the house
save a pot of oil. Then he said, go. Bury thee vessels
abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, bury not
a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door
upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out unto 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
another vessel. And he said unto her, there is
not a vessel more, and the oil stayed. And she came and told
the man of God, and he said, go sell the oil and pay the debt,
and live thou and thy children on the rest. Here we see this
woman, this widow woman, here with two fatherless children.
And her husband's died, and one day somebody come knocking on
the door. She probably has no clue who
he is. And he says, ma'am, I'm here to collect on a debt. And
I can see her say, well, I didn't know anything about a debt. Yeah,
your husband, he accumulated this debt, and the debt has to
be paid. And I can see her say, well,
I don't have anything to pay. I don't have anything to pay
the debt with. And he says, ma'am, I'm sorry. The debt has to be paid. He said,
don't you have two sons? He said, I've come to get those
two sons. And they're going to be bondsmen. And a bondsman was
a person that had to work the time allotted under the law to
pay that debt. What that is a picture of. is
when God comes to you, like Paul said, when the law came, sin
revived, and I died. When the law comes and knocks
on the door and says, I've come to collect the debt, you say,
well, I didn't know I was in debt. No, we didn't. When our
father Adam sinned, he incurred this great debt, which passed
upon all men, but I have my own debt, and it has to be paid. We sung about the mercy seat.
People want mercy at the expense of justice. That cannot be. Justice has to be satisfied.
The law demanded it. And you go, well, when we read
that story, we cringe and we go, we would say that's unfair,
wouldn't we? The hymn that he would come to
this woman, this widow woman, and demand the debt. The law
would not even bend for God's own son. You wanna see how much
God hates sin? Go outside Jerusalem. Don't look
at Noah, don't look at Sodom and Gomorrah, you go outside
Jerusalem. You see him hanging his darling
son to pay the payment for sin. That's what we see here. She's
desperate. She's desperate. Her husband
died leaving this great debt. Most believed that he was a believer.
She said he feared God. He was one of the sons of the
prophets. Some believe he could have been Obadiah. Now who was
Obadiah? Well, back in 1 Kings 18 verse
one, now Ahab, who was that wicked ungodly king who was married
to a woman named Jezebel, called Obadiah. which was the governor
of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly,
for it was so when Jezebel, Ahab's wife, cut off the prophets of
the Lord. If she found one, she'd either
have him killed or destroyed. You know what he did? Obadiah
took 100 prophets, and he had 50 in one cave, and he put 50
in another cave, and he fed them with bread and water. You say, that doesn't seem too
much bread and water. It does at a time when there's no rain. And you most believe that he
did what he could, like the first message, to help these men. And
when he died, he leaves this great debt. And the debt had
to be paid. But you know, I think about that prophet, he
probably told his wife, told her when trouble comes, who to
go see, who'd she run to? She'd run to the prophet. And
she said, what am I to do? She told him this situation.
She said, this man's come, and he's demanding a debt, and it
has to be paid. And I can't bear to lose my children.
And he said, it's like her coming to a preacher, and he said, well,
what can I do? I can't help you. You know, this morning, I can't
help you. All I can do is point you to him. But we don't have the
ability. We don't. And that's what Elisha
said. He said, how can I help you? And he asked her a question,
and he got her attention. He said, do you have anything
in the house? I can see it running through
her mind. She says, no, we ain't got nothing. But just a little
cruise of oil, just a little bit. I think whatever that, it
can picture the spirit of God and the grace of God, she would
not part with it. I can see her husband say, if
things get rough, don't you ever part with Christ. Don't ever
part with the gospel. He says, here's what you do.
You go to your neighbors and don't borrow full vessels. Borrow
as many empty vessels as you can find. You say, why borrow
empty vessels? How can empty vessels help me?
And when you get those vessels, you take your sons and you go
into the house and you shut the door and you start pouring out
the oil. And that's what we have here, that's the picture. They
go and she knows that she's desperate and she acts upon what the prophet
told her to do. He didn't give her all the information
at one time, he said, you just go borrow the vessels. And you
go get those empty vessels and you go into your house, you get
alone with your sons and you start pouring out the oil. All
this happens so God may show how he provides for those who
trust in him. I can see them little children
knocking. I can see her sons going up and knocking on doors saying,
have you got an empty vessel we can borrow? They say, well,
I got one half full. Well, I can't use that one. Let me tell you, before
God ever fills you, he must empty you. There is so much self emptied. I can see them say, well, it
can't have any, it can't even have one drop in it. It has to
be empty. This is how he's going to supply
this woman's need. He said, you go and you get into
the house. Why did he tell them to shut
the door? to shout out any onlookers. You remember when Jairus come
to get our Lord, his daughter was sick, 12 years old, and while
our Lord's on the way to Jairus' house, he heals the woman with
the issue of blood, and after he just healed her and made her
whole, someone comes from Jairus' house and said, don't bother
the master, your daughter's already dead. And our Lord looked at
him, and he said, only believe. in the midst of so much doubt
and fear, only believe. Well, he goes with him onto the
house. Well, when he gets there, they said, I think Gil said that
they would pay people to mourn. They're there, they're wailing
and making all this noise. And Jesus said, what are y'all
doing? They said, well, she's dead. He said, no, she's not
dead, she only sleeps. And they laughed him to scorn. But what
I want you to say, I said all that to make this point. Christ
takes Peter, James, and John and that child's parents into
that room. Nobody else didn't go in. You
imagine this woman, they go into the house. Elisha's not there,
the creditor's not there, the neighbors are not there. That
was just that woman and her two sons. It's a picture of Christ
and his church and his children. And they go in there. And I can
see them looking at their mom. Mom, what are we gonna do? She
said, well, the prophet said for us to start pouring it out,
and how in the world can this little oil fill all these vessels? She said, we're gonna do what
we're told to do. And they start pouring, and they start pouring,
and they keep pouring. You said, how can that be? That's
how grace is. It just keeps flowing. The spirit of God just keeps
pouring. And then she gets down and she says, is there any more
vessels? And her son says, no mama, they're
all full. And the oil never stopped pouring till the last vessel
was full. The spirit of God and the grace
of God will not stop flowing till the last elect child of
God is saved and filled. Who knew about it? She knew about
it. Those sons knew about it. Filled him. Who gave her the
pot of oil? He did. Who gave her faith to
trust him? Our Lord did, and she trusted
him. Well then, now listen, well what
about the debt? Now up to this point, she just
did what she was told to do. He didn't, now we've done read
the rest of the story, but she didn't get all the information
at one time. What am I supposed to do after
I fill the vessels? Well then she goes back to the
prophet and she says, okay, I did what you told me to do. What
do you want me to do now? Every vessel's full. I can't
believe that it didn't run out. It didn't run out. Now what do
you want me to do? First thing he says, go sell
the oil. and pay the debt. And then you live on the rest
of it. The first thing, the debt has
to be paid. Who give her the money to pay
the debt? I can see her walking downtown
and she's got them little boys in her hands and got that oil
and she gets down there and she sells it and she gets the money.
I can see her in her mind knowing how human beings are. I wonder
if this is going to be enough to pay the debt. And he gets in there, she gets
her money, and she goes in there to where maybe the man, and he's
sitting there behind the counter, and she said, I'm here to pay
a debt. And such and such a name. And
he said, it's this much next year. She said, I got enough. And she lays it down, and he
said, If you're his, the debt is paid
in full. But that ain't the end of the
story. What are they supposed to do with the rest of it? You
live on it. She's a widow with two sons.
He's gonna provide for her. I thought about this one day.
I thought I can see her going back home. They done went and paid
the debt. And I can see her having them
little sons, and one in each hand. And I can see them little
boys look up at her and say, Mama, is that creditor gonna
come knock on our door tonight? Is he gonna knock on the door
in the middle of the night and say, I've come to get your boys? She
says, sons, you don't have anything to worry about. It's bad. You know, and I can
see her on the way home, she goes, Mama, can we stop and get
some groceries? Did everything they want to eat
and they go on. Mom, I'm glad the debt's paid.
I'll tell you this morning, I'm glad the debt's paid. And we live every day on grace. In Lamentation it says, his mercies
are new every morning. If we confess our sin, he's faithful
and just to forgive us of our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You can't pay the debt. Now listen
to me, you can't pay the debt. Why do men work so hard in religion?
They think they can pay the debt. Have you ever noticed the story
about the prodigal son? When he went into the far country
and he wasted his living on everything, then he went and he joined himself
to a man in that far country, and what did that man do? He
put him to work. I can see him say, you want to
go back home? Well, here's what you need to
do. If you'll work hard enough and save enough money, well,
then you can pay your daddy back. He learned the hard way that
never works. That's religion. It's by grace,
through faith, and in all of yourself, it's a gift of God.
You might be here this morning, you're without Christ. If you're
without him, you have a debt. And someone has to pay it, either
you, either you or Christ. Christ is the substitute, all
for whom he died. He paid that debt to the full,
and it's paid. That's our hope. That's our rest. That's our peace. And we live
each day upon grace. Every day. Amen. Everything she had, he'd given
her. And God always brings everything
to pass as he promised. This is what it says in Psalms
81 10. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. I thought about,
you've seen little birds in a couple of months, they're gonna make
their nest. We had a little nest of birds
there under our carport. And you could see the little
birds. They was probably five or six, I don't know how in the
world she got all them little eggs in that little nest. And every
time she'd come, you'd see them little birds and their mouth
would be about that wide. You know what, they're just waiting
for something to eat. And as that mother bird takes
care of them, our Lord takes care of his people. And we have
all the examples in the scripture. This is just many, many stories
of how our Lord, in grace and mercy, paid your debt and set
you free. And we lay down and we don't
have to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid.
If he's paid your debt, you don't have anything to be afraid of.
And we believe him and we trust him, amen. you.