Did you start recording in case? All right. Let's begin with the word of prayer. God, our Father, bless us in
this new year season. like the way I've sent you, our
consciousness, our conscience, that we might be able to serve
you, etc. Teach us from the scriptures,
the truth, that we need to know, that we might benefit, that we
might grow, and we might gain the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, we're in 2 Kings chapter
4, and we begin with verse 4-2, but I want to look at several
other scriptures before we get to them. So turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3-16.
2 Timothy 3-16. Now, Paul is very near to the
end of his life, and he's given what is likely his final words
to his poche, Timothy. And he has mentored for probably
21 years. And it seems to me the life may
be taking up of Paul's ministry as much as a non-apostle could
do. He'd be the one who'd be going
around with the Church of Paul. So this is what he says to me.
All Scripture is God-given and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and Christ
Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of
his appearance and his kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach
the word. Be prepared in season and out
of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage
with great patience and careful instruction. The Word of the Lord stands forever. This is the Word that
was preached to you. And I've often mentioned that
the word translated, preach, here, there's really no way to
easily translate it from Greek into English. It carries a connotation that
you, well, that you just did clearly have seen on the floor.
Because it is simply the verb form of the word normally translated,
gospel. So it isn't just preach. This is the word that was preached
to you using the generic word to simply tell something. It ties this preaching to the
gospel itself. This teaches us that when we
speak of the word of God, and when the Bible speaks of the
word of God, of the word of the Lord, it's not talking about
the Bible. Now, I don't bother with people calling the Bible
the Word of God, because it's the word, it's the message, and
it came from God. But there are many people, and I don't listen
to a lot of them. No, not since I got out of college. In my growing up, they preached
the Bible. They did not preach the Word
of God. Why? Because it's not the Word of
God. It's the message of mercy. No matter how accurately you
describe You have not preached the word of God. It is you who
has done so. Now, look over at Hebrews chapter
4. Verse 12. For the word of God is living. Now, one reason
we know that by the phrase, Word of God, it's not a reference
to the scriptures as such. It's a scriptural thing. That
is the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what
the Word of God is. And so he says, the Word of God
is committed. He's not dead yet. Of course,
he's probably, as you saw with Judas, he's contrasting to the
dead left wall. We have a lot to do with the
Son of God. It has no power in him. His power is entirely external.
All we can do is condemn him. It's living because
it comes from the living one. And it's about the living one.
We speak of, we worship a living God. You know that? And that phrase probably was
used to contrast the Jewish God with the stone idol. Our God
is actually a living, living being. And so, his message is
a living message, a living word. And it's active or powerful.
Maybe we can just combine it. It's powerful and active. So much so that the prophet,
speaking for the Lord, said that whatever he sends his word to
accomplish, it's accomplished. Now, that doesn't mean every
time the gospel is preached that everybody who hears it gets sent. All that proves is God did not
send the Word for that reason. But whatever God intends to accomplish
by the declaration of Jesus Christ, that will be done. His Word never
returns to Him. The one here, the first one,
is sharper than any double-edged sword. That would have been the
Roman standing sword. There were lots of kinds of swords,
but the Romans had this relatively short, two-sided sword. And it was for jabbing and stabbing. And it was sharp. You could hack
it with a pick. And he goes on to say, it penetrates
even the divine soul and spirit. Now, the writer here is not trying
to give us some kind of understanding of the inner works of humanity. Some believe that man is made
up of body, soul, and spirit. I believe he's made up of body
and spirit. But here, the writer uses soul
and spirit. because they're essential at
the same time, depending on what you use. And they explain so
close, they're virtually the same, but he says to me, the
Word of God can even provide that kind of answer. You know, it's like exaggeration,
just to show how penetrating and sharp the Word of God is.
And he said, the joints and marrow and it judges the thoughts and
attitudes of the heart. Now, what's known as the Bible? It's not essential. It's the
message of Christ about that. And that's why a man can stand
and preach the gospel, and preach it without any agenda
to be accomplished by it. He's just telling that truth. One man will be corrected, another
person will be incurred. One will be rebuked, the other
one will be – I don't know if praised is the right word, but
vindicated. You know, I was glad when I learned that aspect in
September 24, too, when the President said, I'm approved, rebuked,
ignored, applauded, and honored you. Well, I hope any of you that
were listening didn't get It must have been coming. That
was picking it up. Well I'm glad we at least have
a backup. They might have been able to hear something but now
they're hearing it more clearly. I said I need a staff. Let me get back to this now.
OK. The word of God is capable of doing something that nearly
everyone thinks they can do. But they can't. And that is the
Word of God can judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. Now,
we have some ability to judge the actions of a person. Though even in that we should
be careful because there may be mitigating circumstances.
We don't know the whole story. But if a guy just jumps out and
kills somebody, we go, that's wrong, that's murder. But that's
just applying a standard, an external standard. What we cannot
know with certainty is what's going on in a man's heart. And
that's why it's very dangerous to try to figure that out. But the gospel can, because when
the gospel comes to a person, It will speak to him on the heart
level. And his reaction to it will reveal
what his thoughts and intentions are. And the gospel will also
come to the believer. And it will reveal to him things
going on in his heart that need attention. You know, you get these, well,
I remember one time I preached a message at the Church of Michigan,
and it was a Bible conference, and Tim James was there, was
one of, well, it may have been just him and me, I can't remember
if there was any others or not. But I got done preaching, I went
down, and maybe he was supposed to preach next, so he was sitting
on the front pew, and that's where I sat down. But he said,
you've been reading my mail. I said, no, I've been reading
mine, you know. But the thing is, that's the
wonder of the gospel. It's power to meet every person
where they are, penetrate their hearts, reveal to them what they
are. Now, some, like the Pharisees,
I mean, there was the gospel in person standing in front of
them. Boy, did it out them. They couldn't stand the light.
They were much more comfortable in the darkness and shadow of
the law because their deeds were evil, but in that darkness they
could hide. Jesus Christ comes on the scene,
they got nowhere to hide. His message revealed to them
what they were. Their pride could not deal with
it, and so they turned in anger against Him. Others who were
beaten down with a sense of sin, and maybe by reason of some of
the activities of the Pharisees in them, thought themselves utterly
unworthy. of anything good from God, they
heard the gospel. And it revealed their heart to
them, opened it up, and they believed the gospel. So now with these things in mind,
let's read 2 Kings 4, beginning at verse 42. A man came from
Baal-shalisha, bringing the man of God 20 loaves of barley bread
baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new
grain. Give it to the people to eat,
Elisha said. How can I set this before a hundred
men? His servant, probably that Gehazi
fellow, his servant asked. But Elisha answered, give it
to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says,
they will eat and have some left over. Then he, that is the servant
Gehazi, said it before them, the 100 prophets, and they ate
and had some left over according to the word of the Lord. Now,
last week we studied a an event that involved feeding these prophets.
And we said that these this school of the prophets of these sons
of the prophets represent the church of the Lord Jesus because
the church is God's prophet to this world. We are the ones who
have the truth. We're the pillar and ground of
truth in this world. And we declare his truth. And yet they were
without sufficient food. So Elisha said to put on the
large pot and cook some stew for these men. Remember one of
the men? Went out and without adequate
knowledge of what makes for good food and bad, he picked some
fruit he thought was good and without telling anybody, sliced
it up, put it in a pot. When everybody tried to eat,
the bitterness right away. Those more thoroughly trained
in these things caught it right away and spit it out. They said,
there's death in the pot, we cannot eat it. And what did Elijah
do? He said, bring me some flour.
that which is the major constituent of bread. And he threw it in. He said, now, serve it to the
people and eat. And that bread representing Christ,
I mean that flower representing Christ, who is the bread of life,
who is the bread and sustenance of his people, it was able, whether
by natural means or miraculous, it doesn't matter. By throwing,
shall we say, Christ in the pot, it rendered the poison ineffective,
took away the bad taste, and it took away the deadly consequences
of eating. And now that pitching that flower
in is a picture of preaching Christ, particularly within the
context of the church. And what it shows us is the sufficiency
of declaring that word to unpoison what goes on in the church. Because we, through ignorance,
pride, flesh, immaturity, or whatever, poison the pot. Whether
it be in a message preached, or our conduct, or whatever.
And churches try to set up, well, what do we do if this happens?
What action do we take if this happens? There's one action to
be taken for everything that happens, good or bad. Christ. Because Christ declared and received
as the pot received it. It'll remove all poison. And
we don't have to say, OK, if there's poison in the pot because
there's gossiping, OK, here's what we do. If there's poison
in the pot because the preacher said something that shouldn't
have been said, there's that. No. Here's what fixes everything. Here is a picture now and we've
got another case where you remember we're in a state of famine here.
Probably not enough to feed but a man and no one says what you
know never mentions his name. Why is it not important who he
is is not important. What he brought is what he said
he brought 20 loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe
grain. Now this is not like a loaf of
wonder bread. What they called a loaf of bread was just a little
one-man serving at most of bread, more like a dinner roll. So that's what he brought, and
it was baked from the first ripe grain, the first fruits, along with some heads of new
grain. So he brought bread and then
he also brought just some grain along with it that they could
maybe make some more bread later on. Elisha said, give it to the
people to eat. Gehazi responded, how can I set
this before a hundred men? Now, what I believe is being illustrated
here is the sufficiency of the Word of God, the Gospel, to nourish
all the people of God, regardless of the inadequacies of the people
who bring it. A nameless man brings enough
food to sustain 20 people at most, maybe for a day. You know, you can live on a good-sized
dinner roll for a day if you have to, you know. He brought
that, and the result was that 100,
the entire church, was fed with some leftover. Such is the power
of the Word of God. that it is not affected by whoever
it is that brings it. It's not affected by how little
of it there seems to be. Its power comes from what it
is. It's the Word of God, and it's
living, so it multiplies. Consequently, 20 loaves became
100, 150, I don't know how much. But enough that 20 people, 20
men, ate all they could eat, and there was some left over.
Just like when our Lord fed 5,000, and later 4,000, there was always
food left over. Such is the nature of the Word
of God, because it springs from God and brings His nature with
it. It is living, it multiplies,
And it always brings more than what is actually needed. Now, this is all miraculous.
This was definitely a miracle. I mean, Elisha, you know, there
wasn't somebody in the back secretly making bread and tossing it to
him and nobody was looking. 20 small loaves of bread fed
100 men and there were some left over. Now, as I said, the man
who brought it, nameless. We who preach, at least most
of us, cannot utterly deny the fleshly desire to appear influential
and powerful. Nearly every preacher wishes
he had a bigger church than what he has. You put sermons up on Sermon
Audio, and I remember when I first started doing it, I was always
going back, how many people listen? You know, it's just part of us. But here's an utterly nameless
man. That is so far as God recorded it. But here's what he did. He brought that 20 loaves of
barley baked from the first fruits. The scriptures call our Lord
Jesus Christ the first fruits from the dead. First fruits of
them that sleep. When he raised from the dead,
He was the first one raised from the dead like that. I know that
shortly before Lazarus had been raised from the dead and Elijah
raised somebody from the dead. Now it's happened but everybody
else raised from the dead went on to die later on. Our Lord's
the first one who ever raised from the dead never to die again. He raised from the dead utterly
out of the reach of death. And he's the first fruits. And
therefore, that's what we're declaring when we bring like
these 20 barley loaves. Maybe we bring and it does not
appear to be enough. There's men that preach that
they don't have as broad an understanding of the gospel as others do. You know, I think of the church
as it began to expand. Do you realize most churches
probably did not even have an entire copy of the Bible? Preachers were taught by word
of mouth. Their ministries were likely not given over as is common
today. You know, you got to study, and
the preacher's in there all day with all these reference works.
They've been off the Bible. That wasn't the way it was. Now, they were men. who were
given the Holy Spirit, which guided them into the truth they
needed to know. Nonetheless, it's not as though
many of them would have been able to write books. I imagine
some of them were just downright illiterate. If you'd have handed
them a Bible, they couldn't have read it. If you'd have said,
write some notes, they couldn't have done it. And so they're not bringing what
the flesh would look at and say, okay, this man's going to be
able to feed this church. Well, this man, whoever he was,
he did not have what appeared to be enough to feed the church
of God. But it didn't matter. Because
it really wasn't going to be him feeding. He brought what
the Lord gave him. And it was set before the people,
and it was enough and more. We have to realize that it is
not required of us that we be the finest preacher in the land
to be a useful preacher. It's not required that we have
pulpit skills to tell the truth to our neighbors. It's not even
required that we have much in the way of pulpit skills to stand
up before a group of God's people and tell them the truth. Maybe
we wouldn't see ourselves fit for a lifetime ministry, but
remember Charles Spurgeon, who was probably the greatest pulpiteer
that's ever lived, he, quote, stumbled into a primitive Methodist
church on a snowy Sunday morning because he couldn't get to his
church. There was hardly anyone there. The pastor had not been
able to make it. And some so-called layman stood
up, and his text was, Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth,
and be ye safe, for I am God, and there is no other. And Spurgeon
says the man could hardly do anything but repeat the text.
And he did, he repeated it over and over. And finally he said, he looked straight at me and
he says, young man, you look miserable and you will remain
miserable until you look. You know, and he'd said things
like, it doesn't take an education to look. You don't have to wiggle
your little finger to look. You know, and all this, it's
just look. Well, you know, you say, well, that doesn't sound
like a guy's been to seminary. Thank God. If a seminary graduate
had been there, Spurgeon likely would have gone away as lost
as he showed up. But a man came there with some
barley loaves, first fruits, and he set before them what he
had. And God multiplied it. Because
he put one of those Barney loves Charles Spurgeon. Do you have
any idea how many people Charles Spurgeon spoke to over the course
of his lifetime. And how many thousands. And I
mean thousands upon thousands were truly and honestly converted
under his ministry. What that man had was enough. For those that were there. So we do what we can, never thinking
that what we can do is going to accomplish anything, rather
knowing that God can accomplish anything with virtually nothing.
That's God's way of doing things. One of the men that was in a
preacher's class back in 13th Street, a good friend of
mine. Now, he said that he had been
saved under the ministry of Billy Graham. And among sovereign grace
people, that's almost anathema. They'll just about curse you
to hell for saying that you actually got saved listening to Billy
Graham. And I understand where they're coming from, but I think
they're missing a point. And this fellow understood it. He made
this statement to me, he says, it is amazing how little gospel
God can use to save a man. Just as he can add what is needed
to the words of a faithful man, he can take out what needs to
be taken out of the words of an unfaithful man so that his
sheep hears what needs to be heard. He can be the bread that's thrown
into the poison pot and makes a bad message useful to his people
because he takes the poison out of it for him. And he is that
small amount of bread that looks small that can feed a multitude
and have some left over. So a nobody brings it, and a
servant serves it. Not a king, not one of the choice men from
among the sons of the prophets, Elisha's servant, the servant
of the Lord Jesus. Elisha said, serve it. And I
can understand how the house he must have felt. Yes you want
me to set this before all these people. And Elijah said. Give it to the people for this
is what the Lord says they will eat and have some left over. And I like what the house he
did. He served. Okay. The man who raised the grain
made the bread. He did what he could do, and
he brought it and set it down. And then the servant was told, serve
it. And he did not initially have
sufficient faith to think any good would come of it. But Elisha,
the one whose God is salvation, Our Lord Jesus, he says, serve
it. Here's what the Lord says. Everybody,
every one of my sheep will be fed by it with some left over. Our God, when he blesses, he
blesses abundantly. I guess at any point in my life
you could have said that, and I would have nodded in agreement.
But the older I get, the more I see that. We ask, and you know, we've been
taught this way probably in our youth, and it was a good lesson
learned. You just don't go asking other people for things. And
when you do, you only ask for what you need. And we take that
attitude to God. But Paul says he's able to provide,
to give to us far above what we can ask or imagine. The old hymn writer said, Thou
art coming to a king, large petitions with you bring. You don't honor a king by asking
him for a dollar. You honor a king by asking him
for a million. Now, I'm putting that in worldly terms. We're
not going to God looking for money like that. But in spiritual
things, our Lord said this, which of you, having a son who asks
for fish, you would give him a stone? He says, how much more your heavenly
father? He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for it. Now, we need to ask, but we need to ask believing.
He will provide what is needed and much more. He will give us,
even if we ask big, that's what we ask and even what we imagine.
He can do more. He can do more. God has He set it before them.
And what happened? They ate. Now here's another
thing about the Word of God, the Gospel. You set it before
the people of God, they'll eat it. And they will be satisfied with
it. I don't mean, you know, that God's people can't ever get grumbly.
We're flesh. But I'm talking Over the long
haul, in general, you feed the people of God the bread of life. They will eat it. They won't
reject it. They will be satisfied with it.
And they'll eat it till they're full. They ate and had some left over. Now, what is this left over?
I don't think it's anything in particular. I think it simply
described the abundance of the Lord's blessings, the greatness
of His ability to provide for His people. Now, all those scriptures
I began the lesson with were designed to show, in the New
Testament way of stating things, the scriptures which are the
record of the history and doctrines surrounding the word of the Lord,
the gospel. How, when you preach these scriptures
and preach them as that word of the gospel, they have the
power to do absolutely everything necessary for the well-being
of the church. And the church does not have
to do anything else In fact, it dare not do anything else.
The quickest way to get a church full of goats is to put out something
other than sheep food. And you know, it's a temptation.
It's a temptation into which otherwise faithful preachers
have fallen. because it can become discouraging
to preach to empty pews. Well, what are we going to do
to get these pews filled up? Don't make that your goal. Don't
ever try to fill the pews of a church, because the only thing
that we humans can fill church pews with is troublemakers. And I say troublemakers not because
they're worse humans. They're goats. That doesn't mean we don't try
to get people to come and listen, but you know what I mean. We're
not trying. Our goal is not to increase the membership of Grace
Community Church. Our job is to preach the word,
the gospel, to whoever comes through those doors, knowing
that it will accomplish whatever purpose God intends by it. And if he's one of the Lord's
sheep, he will hear the voice of the shepherd, and he will
follow Christ, and he'll sit down in the pew and be happy
with what he hears. If he's one of the goats, he
will either never come back, or, as some goats do, they stick
around because they can tolerate sheep food for a while. Before
long, they'll start butting somebody. They'll get mad about something,
and they'll leave. Once in a while you have to tell them to leave.
Because the devil put them in here to cause trouble and they
just won't leave on their own. So you just, you know, you don't
have to be mean, but you just say, you know, evidently you
don't like what's being preached here. There's a whole lot of
churches, I'm sure one of them is saying what you want to have,
what you want to listen to, why don't you go there. But really, in The years that
I have been a preacher, what I've learned by experience is
what the scriptures have said all along. The scriptures, the
gospel, Christ is enough. It fixes the problems, removes
the poison, and it feeds God's people to the full. All right. That's tonight's lesson.