Let's go ahead and start the
recording. All right, good to be back. It's been actually four weeks
since we gathered. We missed three weeks. And I
remember last Sunday morning as I was preparing to come here,
I thought, man, it seems like forever since I've been in the
pulpit. I guess it was an eventful week, but nonetheless, not getting
together in the middle kind of makes for a long week. Glad to
be back. Now we're going to continue in
our series on the life of Elisha. and we'll begin reading in 2
Kings 6, verse 24. But first we will ask for the
Lord's blessing. Our God, the things we desire
this evening cannot be gained from anything that we do, but
we're entirely dependent on you. And we pray that you will come
among us by your spirit, and that you will testify to our
hearts of the truths that are contained in the scripture that
we're going to look at. May we heed its warnings and
may we rest in its comforts. It's in the name of Christ that
we pray this. Amen. Now we're going to read from
624 down through chapter 7 verse 2. Now sometime later, Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, mobilized
his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. Now that's the capital city of
the Northern Ten Tribes. There was a great famine in the
city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for
80 shekels excuse me, 80 shekels of silver and a quarter of a
cab of seed pods for five shekels. As the king of Israel was passing
by on the wall, a woman cried to him, help me, my lord, the
king. The king replied, if the lord
does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the
threshing floor? From the wine press? Then he
asked her, what's the matter? She answered, this woman said
to me, give up your son so that we may eat him today and tomorrow
we'll eat my son. So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, give
up your son so that we may eat him, but she had hidden him. When the king heard the woman's
words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the
people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. He said, may God deal with me,
be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha, son of Shaphat,
remains on his shoulders today. Now Elisha was sitting in his
house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger
ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, don't
you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my
head? Look, when the messenger comes,
shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound
of his master's footsteps behind him? While he was still talking
to them, the messenger came down to him and the king said, This
disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord
any longer? Elisha said, hear the word of
the Lord. This is what the Lord says about
this time tomorrow. A sea of flour will sell for
a shekel and two seas of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. The officer on whose arm the
king was leaning said to the man of God, look, even if the
Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen? You will see it with your own
eyes, answered Elisha, but you will not eat any of it. Now,
this is a gruesome story. And it's almost hard to read
that one portion of it regarding the two women. That's unimaginably
horrible. And that makes it kind of, you
know, hard to preach if you don't even want to read the story,
much less speak about it. But here is a demonstration of
several things that the scriptures teach us. First of all, it is
a stark reminder of the nature of man, the nature of humanity. And then secondly, it is a very
good example of what unbelief does. So now it says, sometimes
later, sometime later. This means sometime after they
had defeated the army, this same army, and the raids into Israel
had stopped. Now we don't know how much longer,
it doesn't say. But sometime later. You know, there never
is any long-term peace in this world. They defeated Ben-Hadad
of Aram, but he just gathered up his forces, regrouped, and
when he thought he could lay siege, he went back, and that's
exactly what he did. And he mobilized his entire army. Maybe he hadn't used the entire
army before, and he said, well, if I take the whole gang, then
I can accomplish it this time. Now it says there was great famine
in the city. Now normally when we think of
famine, we're thinking of a time when food won't grow. But I believe
that this famine that it's speaking of was a result of the siege.
Why? Well, the army outside the city
had to eat. And they were. And we'll find
out next week that they had plenty of food with them. But no matter
how much they brought, eventually they would run out of it, you
know, even as the people inside the city ran out of food. So
obviously food could be had on the outside of the city. But
of course, when any army back then laid siege to a city, you
didn't dare go outside the city walls, you'd get killed. So they
were locked inside the city. So they had this great famine
and it says a donkey's head sold for 80 shekels of silver. Now that's about two pounds of
silver. Now imagine if you went to the
grocery store and you had two pounds of silver in your hand
and the most you could get is a donkey's head, you know. I
mean, it's a donkey and it's a head, you know. That's just not so good. And
then it goes on and it says, a quarter of a cab of seed pods
for five shekels. And, excuse me, that would be
about, I think, that would be a sixteenth of two pounds, so
you're talking an eighth of a pound of silver, which is still, you
know, quite a lot of money. And all you're going to get is,
it says here, about a half a pint of seed pods. It doesn't even
say the seed. It says seed pods. I'm wondering if this is not
the same kind of vegetable or whatever that was
referred to in the story of the prodigal son. Because it says
there was nothing left for him to eat except the pods and stuff
that they gave to the swine. But this is certainly an example
of just how bad things were there. Now it says, as the king of Israel
was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, help me, my lord,
the king. Now the king replied this way,
if the lord does not help you, where can I get help for you?
Now really, as an isolated statement, that's a good statement. If the
lord doesn't help you, what can anybody else do for you? The scriptures teach us we cannot
get anything good from anybody but the lord. And so if the Lord
does not help, certainly this human king walking the wall of
his capital city will not be able to help them. He says, are
we going to get it from the threshing floor? He said, well, we can't
go out and harvest any grain that might be out there. So there's
nothing on the threshing floor. There's nothing in the wine press.
That's useless. In other words, the normal means
are empty and he figures the Lord will not help them. Now
while his statement is isolated statement is true if the Lord
doesn't help you who can. But he was saying that because
he didn't believe the Lord would help. He had no confidence in
God and I can understand that he was in rebellion against God.
His heart was turned against God and you know even though
We do not believe in salvation by works or any eternal blessings
by works. We understand that apart from
repentance, that is a heart that's turned toward God, there is no
blessing. Now, we understand that that
heart is a gift from the Lord, but so long as a man is bitter
toward God, he has no reason to believe that God will bless
him. And that's, this man is in bitterness against God. And
then comes this horrible, horrible story. He says, what's the matter?
What's the problem you're bringing up to me? Now, do you remember
the two women that came to Solomon? And they were arguing, you know,
each of them had a baby and one of them rolled over top of it
at night. And so that left one and both of them were laying
claim to it. And so they went to Solomon and
of course he wisely realized that a mother would do anything
she could to spare the life of a child. And so he threatened
to cut the child in half and immediately the mother said we'll
give it to her. But notice here that wouldn't work here. the awful, awful results of unbelief. I think this part of the story,
first of all, shows how desperate it was. Cannibalism of any sort
is awful, but to eat your own children? I mean, you know, you
don't even want to say it. I cannot imagine. I wouldn't
imagine that this went on in the horrible pagan countries
around them. And yet this is happening in
a capital city of a portion of the land of Israel. And this
is what unbelief gets you. Now. The Lord. The Lord exercises what is often
called common grace. He restrains men from being as
evil as they could be. You know, we think about wild
animals, and we think, boy, they can, you know, a lion just might
run after you and tear you to shreds. They might. But I don't
know of any animal that kills for pleasure. You know, we would
consider them, if they did, we would consider them sick and
we'd probably put them down. Animals kill to eat and that's
all. And we expect animal-like behavior
out of them. But humans, we expect something
more. But we expect something more
out of them because God continually restrains natural man from being
as evil as he could be. But we see here an example of
how far it would go. Now this woman that's talking
to the king, she's not upset that they ate her son yesterday. So you think about that. You know, I don't think we'd
ever do this in a fit of desperation. There's a lot of times we do
stuff in a desperate situation that later we regret. This woman
doesn't even show any regret for it. What she's upset about
is they're not gonna eat the other woman's son. How wicked
can you get? Even the king, when he heard
this woman's words, he tore his robe. Even he couldn't take it. And
it says, as he went along the wall, the people looked, and
underneath he had sackcloth on his body. I'm not sure exactly
what sackcloth is, but it is a sign of mourning, a sign of
great distress. And then notice what he says.
May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha,
son of Shaphat, remains on his shoulders, today. Now up here he said if the Lord
doesn't help you. Who can. He didn't call upon
the Lord here. He says God and that could that
word L. Could apply to any God. It's just like our English word
God. We can use it to describe any
of the false gods of humanity or sometimes we use it as a name
for our God. But here, I think what he's doing,
well, he wouldn't call on anything from the Lord as he makes a threat
against the Lord's prophet. I think here he's appealing to
whatever of his other false gods are around. And his intention
is to kill Elisha as though this famine is Elisha's fault. It's not, he's just a spokesman.
We don't read, at least I can't recall anywhere, that he called
down a famine, or called down, or you know, called the army
down. Elisha was just in his house. Anytime, Men know that they're
under the judgment of God. They will blame the messenger
of God for the judgment. If you preach, well, if you tell
your neighbors about the gospel and say, you know, now this is
the gospel, this is the only gospel, are you saying you're
better than me? No, I'm not saying that, you know. I'm saying this
is the only gospel. Are you saying I'm wrong? Well,
I'm saying any gospel but this gospel is wrong. We're not really
going out there trying to beat them about the head and shoulders
as though we're better, but the blowback's gonna come toward
us. And then also, since Elisha is a picture of our Lord Jesus,
remember Elisha's name means my God is salvation, and that
is the name of our Lord. And, As he pictures Christ, that's
just what they did to Christ when he came. He spoke the truth,
and the truth judged them, and they hated him for it. Men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. They were
trying to convince everybody their deeds were righteous, and
so long as the shadowy light of the law was all there was,
they could hide in the shadows. But now the full, once Christ
came, the full light shines. And they've got nowhere to hide.
And when they're exposed like that, instead of saying, hey,
I need to repent. No, they need to get rid of the
light. That's what they want to do. Now, Elisha was sitting
in his house. and the elders were sitting with
him. Now, whether this is elders among
the prophets or city elders, I don't know. I'm not sure exactly where they
were. I don't think that the king could have gone outside
the wall, so this is probably somewhere inside the city. And
so... Huh? Where a light? Yeah. Because the king if he if Elisha
was out the country somewhere the king couldn't gotten to it
the king couldn't leave the city. He was under siege so I assume
Elisha was in there with him and the Lord provided for him.
But the whatever wherever he was the elders of whatever sort
of elders they were they were sitting with him the king sent
a messenger ahead. But before he arrived that is
before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders. Don't
you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my
head? Now, once again, here's a picture
of our Lord Jesus. He said to those who were so
upset at him, he said, did I not say you're murderers? You want
to kill me. Who wants to kill you? Nobody announced it yet. The Lord knew. The Lord knew
that in due time, that's exactly what they would do. And before
these messengers ever got there, Elisha knew what was gonna happen.
And so he gives them these instructions. When the messenger comes, shut
the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his
master's footsteps behind him. So he's saying, you let the messenger
in, the master's coming in with him. So, shut them all out. Now while he was still talking
to them, verse 33, the messenger came down to him. and said, now
our translation here puts the words, the king, and the king
said, and you'll notice, at least in mine, it has them in these
little brackets underneath, and that indicates they put them
in there. Now, I think they're probably right,
because it doesn't say the messenger came, and said, you know, made
his announcement to Elisha. Evidently the king was right
with him, and so What was spoken here was probably
the king talking to the men that were with him. And Elisha just
happened to hear it. Now, I've entitled this, at least
I did on the YouTube video, Unbelief's Question. What question does unbelief ask?
And notice this, he says, this disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord
any longer? Now, understand this man's an unbeliever
and all unbelievers are legalists. Because, I mean, if you're not
a legalist, if you don't think that your eternal blessedness
depends on your own works, that means you're trusting God
for it. If you're not trusting God, you're trusting yourself.
Now, when unbelief lays hold of some truth, it doesn't know
how to properly reason on it. He says, this disaster is from
the Lord, and he's absolutely right. The Lord says, I create peace
and I bring disaster. I, the Lord, I kill, I make alive. I, the Lord, do all these things.
No matter what's happening, it's the Lord doing it. But he knows
it's the Lord because he knows he's in rebellion against the
Lord. Now, you'd think that would make him repent, you know. I
mean, that sounds reasonable. I mean, if somebody was whooping
on me bad, if I couldn't overcome them, I would submit. Not this
guy. He didn't submit. He recognized
that the disaster came from the Lord. But knowing that he was
never going to submit to the Lord, He knew there was no reason
to wait for the Lord's deliverance. And so he said, why should I
wait for him any longer? I gotta take matters into my
own hands. Now, unbelief asks this question because it's unbelief. The fact of the matter is, the
very best reason to go to the Lord about it is because he's
the one that sent it. If somebody is troubling you,
isn't the best person to talk to at least first is that person?
Or at least someone who can go talk to that person on your behalf.
If you've got a problem, deal with the one from whom it's coming. Because if the Lord indeed is
God overall, and you don't find a way of peace
with him, how else are you ever gonna find any way of peace?
It won't matter what you do. There's not gonna be any peace.
No, if you perceive the judgment of God against you, that's exactly
when you need to go to God. Now, this is, as I said, an unrenewed
heart. This man's not born again. There
is no spiritual life in him. Therefore, he takes this undeniable
doctrinal fact, this disasters from the Lord, but his unspiritual
mind has no idea what to do about that. He said, no, he's going
to the Lord about it. But we who believe, what do we
do? When God, the Spirit, sent us
a disaster of conviction, That is, he made us to understand
something of our sin and the consequences that lay ahead because
of it. It was when we saw that that
we said, I must go to the Lord. Now, why would we say that instead
of what this guy asked? You can only credit it to the
gracious working of God's Spirit. He enables us to reason in ways
that the unbelieving cannot reason. And so instead of running from
the one who is threatening, you run to them. Now, we run to him,
of course, because we've been given spiritual life to know
that's the thing to do. But we don't run to him in just
any way. We run to him in Christ. Because
we realize, for one thing, he's a mediator between sinners and
God. In a sense, we don't go directly to God. We go to Christ
and let him plead our case with God. If any man sin, he has an
advocate with the Father. When the people of God are found
in sin, they've got one to go to who will plead their case.
And of course, it's not like he has to, you know, all at once
say, well, you know, Father, I'm pleading for this who was
chosen, you know, like, his very presence in the presence of God,
at the right hand of God, is His intercession. The very fact that He is there
is the argument for why there should be nothing between us
and God. But in going to the Lord Jesus,
we are going to the Lord. For He is Jehovah in human flesh. And so we're going directly to
the one who has a cause against us because he is the only one
that can reconcile things. And we believe
that he will because we've been taught he is a God of mercy. And we've been taught that the
payment that our sins requires has been paid in Christ. And
since it has been paid, then the disaster will not befall
us in its ultimate form. So while by the Spirit of God
we were shown what the disaster would be if we did not repent
and turn to God and plead his mercy, we were shown what it
would be, but the disaster will never befall us. The disaster
fell on Christ instead. But unbelief says, Why should
I wait for the Lord? If the disaster itself comes
from the Lord. Well we must wait for the Lord because no one but
the Lord can do anything about a disaster that comes from the
Lord. Now, Elisha said, hear the word
of the Lord. Now as near as I can tell, Elisha's
inside and everybody he's talking to is outside. So he's talking
through the door. Hear the word of the Lord. This
is what the Lord says. Now, I love this, and this is
what we are to do in all of our testifying of the gospel, in
whatever forum we're doing it. We ought to be able to say, this
is what the Lord says. Hear the word of the Lord, this
is what the Lord says. We're not telling them what we
believe. What we believe doesn't matter. I mean, the fact that
we believe it is not what makes it true. What we tell them is
what God says. Now, we claim to believe what
God says and we wouldn't tell them what God says if we didn't
believe it. All I'm saying is the fact that
we believe it is not what gives it any power. It's not what made
it true. What makes it true is that God
said it. Hear the word of the Lord, about
this time tomorrow, a sea of flour will sell for a shekel
and two seas of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. Now,
notice at this point, he does not say, if the king will only
such and such. He just announces good news. And when we preach the gospel,
that's all we're doing. We're announcing good news. And we're not saying to people
that the good news is dependent upon their reaction. Why? Because
we know that the good news is the good news whether or not
they believe it, whether or not they ever benefit from it. There will be food there tomorrow,
no matter what the king does. He could repent and that would
be good, but that's not going to change
whether or not there's food there tomorrow. And we declare to people
there is forgiveness from God in Christ Jesus. Now that is
a true fact, whether or not men believe it. And so we're declaring to them,
here it is. Now people say, well, you can't
offer people the gospel because the gospel's not an offer. From
us it is. I realize God commands all men
everywhere to repent. And I also realize that it's
not an offer in the sense that God does not leave it. He does
not leave everyone to themselves to decide whether or not they
will take it. Nonetheless, he sends his gospel far and wide.
And if anybody wants it, they may have it. And if somebody
does want it, we know why they want it. We want it because God
wanted them. And that was the way he worked
it out to bring the two together. But when we're preaching, When
we're testifying, when we're declaring the gospel, we do say
things like, if you will confess with your mouth Jesus to be Lord
and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. And that's true. But, we also simply tell them,
Jesus Christ is Lord. And God raised him from the dead.
That's so, whether or not you believe it. Now, the officer
on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, look,
even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens,
could this happen? Now here's another question of
unbelief. This man didn't believe, and therefore it never occurred
to him that food can come by some other means than it raining. and the grains grow. In other
words, he's still looking at natural processes. I read something
today and it said, seven reasons the Bible is not the inerrant
word of God. And I get that stuff and I think,
okay, I gotta check out what this guy's gotta say. Sometimes
he'll put that stuff up and they're really being sarcastic in a way.
So I thought, okay, is this guy for it? Well, he was against
it. He doesn't think the Bible's a word of God. And it was a bunch
of nonsense. You know, these people put up
arguments like this, and I'm thinking, do you really think
that we've never been confronted with this kind of argument before?
Do you think here 2,000 years after the Bible was finished,
you've come up with something that hasn't been mentioned before,
you know? But one of them was the ridiculous
things, and he said, like these leviathan beasts romping in the
sea, and he said, and predators on you know, locked up in a wooden
box of a boat and they didn't kill the prey and all this. And
I'm thinking, do you actually think this is a problem for God?
He created the world. I think he could change the nature
of predators for a year if he wanted to. And some even speculate
there weren't any predators before then. That all animals were vegetarian. And it wasn't until after the
flood. I mean, evidently, while men
may have eaten meat, The Lord never said, I give you the animals
to eat until after the flood. But all I'm saying is, if God
is God, none of these things are problems. Paul said, why
do you count it incredible, or is it an incredible thing, an
unbelievable thing that God should raise the dead? Now, it'd be
an incredible thing for me to raise the dead. If I came up
to you and said, I raised the dead, you'd say, no, you didn't.
I don't know what you did, but you didn't raise the dead. But
if with a word God created the heavens and the earth, I don't
think he has a problem with raising the dead. If he made the first
man out of the dirt of the ground, I think he could remake him out
of the dirt of the ground that, you know, after he completely
returned back. It's not a problem for God. But unbelief cannot
see anything happening in any other way but the way the flesh
can see it happening. You remember when our Lord was asked by that rich man what
good thing must he do to inherit eternal life, and the Lord told
him. And he said, well, I've done all those things since my
youth. And he said, okay, just one thing left. Sell all you
have, give it to the poor, and come follow me. And the guy's countenance
just fell. He turned and walked away. The
Lord said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom
of God. It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle
than for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. And then the
disciples said, well then, who can be saved? Right, good question. Good question. Who then can be
saved? And our Lord's answer is this.
With man, it's impossible. And you know, from the viewpoint
of man, what this attendant said makes perfect sense. If that's
who you're looking to, natural processes, that ain't gonna happen. But when God is brought into
the equation, as is written with God, all things are possible. Rich men have been made by the
grace of God to enter the kingdom of heaven. It may have been a
difficult process on them. Saul was rich in self-righteousness. And therefore, it was hard for
him to enter the kingdom of heaven. That is, it was hard on him when
the Lord shoved him like a camel through the eye of a needle you
know that wasn't easy but God got it done we look at people and the horrible
circumstances of their lives and their sinfulness and we say
how can a man like that ever be saved it's not any more difficult
for God to save Saul than it is for him to save the person
with the most tender conscience it was harder on Saul than it
would be for someone who is not psychologically so full of self-righteousness. But it wasn't any harder for
God. God merely has to say it. In fact, Paul put it that way.
He said, wouldn't it please God to reveal His Son in me? He just
did. And that accomplished it. Now,
this officer did not say anything that was unreasonable from a
human viewpoint, but it was full of the evil of unbelief. I think
that we do not understand the nature of sin when we think unbelief
is such a small sin. You know, if they say, well,
you know, list the seven deadly sins, and you know, Proverbs
talks about the Lord hates this, and those are the seven deadly
sins, The sin that underlies all of
those sins is unbelief. That's why the writer of Hebrews
says that, be careful that there is not in you an evil heart of
unbelief in departing from the living God. People get all up
in the air about what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Well,
it is essentially to deny the message of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, when the Holy
Spirit is sent, you know, the Lord said when he come, he'll
take from what is mine and show it to you. The Holy Spirit is
the gospel preacher. And I don't mean that the gospel
preacher is the Holy Spirit. I'm saying that the, you know, when
I stand up there and preach, I'm saying words. But the message
you're receiving that gives life to your heart and sustains your
heart, that's coming from the Holy Spirit, not from me. But
when he delivers that message and men reject it and they continue
that way, there is no forgiveness for the man who dies in unbelief. The book of John says to not
believe God is to call him a liar. Now, the man who is caught in
some of the most serious transgressions of the passions of the flesh
and hatred and covetousness and all of that, the Lord said, all
manner of sin will be forgiven. And it is, except this one. Spurgeon put it this way. He
said, for every transgression of the law, there is a remedy
in the gospel. But for the transgression of
the gospel, there is no remedy. There's nothing else. And so
to spend your life in unbelief is to perish. Now, this man's
unbelief, Elisha responded to it and he said this, you will
see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it. We have, you know, Paul talks
about the hope of righteousness. Now, inwardly, we've been made
righteous. We've had a righteousness assigned
to us, credited to us in Christ Jesus, but our hope, also extends
to eternity when in every portion of our being we are made like
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our hope. It's what we
hope for. We hope in Christ and we hope
for being made like him. And we're going to see it, and
we're going to experience it. But one of the, what must be
the greatest sorrows of hell is this. They will see it, but
they will never taste it. They will see us, because all
shall stand before God's throne. They're going to be brought and
made to bow before Christ, and we'll be there. And they will
see what the Lord can do in and for sinners, but they'll never
taste it. They will go away from that scene
as lost as they came to it. And as we're going to see, this
man, he saw it. And he got killed in the press
of people trying to get to it. And if we try to believe these
things in the flesh, that is, if we think that we have to find
some fleshly argument that proves the promises of the gospel, we're
never gonna find them. And we're not going to believe.
I was talking with a fellow online, a relative, talking with him
through Facebook, and he was talking about, you know, religion. And he quoted someone, and the
quote from the fellow was right. He said, never has man conducted
himself so happily in evil as when he does it under religious
conviction. And that's true. You will not
find any greater wickedness than that which is done under the
conviction of religion. But I said, but you'll find it,
you know, I wrote back, you'll find it equally true that never
does a man do anything so happily for the good than when he does
it under the conviction of religion. Of course, I was using religion
in the broader sense than we normally use it. When someone
has been given grace by God to be made spiritually alive, he
happily does what is good and rejoices in the opportunity to
do it. But he came back, you know, and he just argued against
religion because religion is by its very definition to believe
what is unprovable. And I said, of course, my argument
with people when they say that, I said, everybody operates according
to what is not provable. And the simple way to prove that
point is no matter what they say they believe, say, why do
you believe that? And when they tell you that, you go, well,
why'd you believe that? And you just keep going. And eventually,
they're gonna either come back around having made a circular
argument and end up where they started. Or they're just gonna
have to say, well, yeah, that's just so. That's faith. It's just so. You know, atheists
are fond of saying, I'm only gonna believe what scientific
investigation can prove. And you say, why? And well, they say, well, because
that's the only way to prove something. Why do you believe
that? Well, it's just so. No, wait a minute. You are trusting
yourself to a system of finding out information, which works
rather well for some kinds of information. But once you say,
I'm only going to trust what scientific investigation will
teach me, you are saying, without anything to prove it, that there
is no truth that is beyond what science can prove. So you see,
they're resting on something they can't prove. This man was
operating on the only things that can happen are those things
that happen naturally. And therefore, he could not understand
how there could be food for so cheap in the gate of Samaria. Once you put God in the picture, it would have been just as easy
for God to put food on everybody's table. Anything God says is going
to happen, will happen, no matter how ridiculous it may appear
to natural understanding, because God's the one that said it, and
God can make anything happen. All right, next week we're going
to find out one expression of faith. It's
a pretty low-level expression of faith, but it worked as two
lepers said, well, we're going to starve in here. We may as
well go out and throw ourselves on the mercy of the Arameans. What have we got to lose? And
for no other reason than their desperation, they went out and
what they found out is the Lord had driven the Arameans away.
And there on the field where they'd all been was all this
food and provisions that the Arameans had left behind. So
next week we'll find out something of the nature of faith.