Kings chapter 4. I want to finish
a thought I had Thursday night, you know, where David, it's been
on my mind since I said it, David said that they laid a snare for
me in the way that I walk. And I said, you know, after you've
preached a message and they tell you it's been a good message.
That applies to the ungodly. When they say it, when you say
it, I thought about that after I got home, I thought when you
say it, it's a blessing. When the Lord's people get a
real blessing out of it, I told Henry many, many times what a
blessing the message was. But what I had in mind when I
was saying that, and I held back on it a little bit, but when
I preached my father and my mother's funeral, There were several there
that said, great job, great message, great, I mean, they were just
going on and on about it and didn't believe a word I said.
They didn't believe a word I said, and I know they didn't. And that's
really the thought I had in mind in making that statement is when
the ungodly says, boy, that was a great message, then walk off
in unbelief, that's a lie. That's Satan just trying to flatter
you. That's all that is. That's the finished thought.
I had to finish that thought because that has been on my mind
since I said it. I have a real problem sometimes making a statement
and then jumping off to something else. All right, here in 2 Kings
4, the long title is, I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks
upon me. Short title is this, Empty Vessels.
So if you're gonna put the short title to it, it's Empty Vessels. I've been humming that song,
Fill My Cup, Lord. I've been humming it all morning
since I've been reading this and it came to my mind this morning.
Fill My Cup, Lord. Did you come empty this morning?
You know, the Lord only fills empty vessels. That's all he
does. Now let's look and see what we
can glean from this, this morning. In verse 1, it says, There cried
a certain woman, a certain woman for a certain salvation. We often read in the scriptures
of a certain woman, a certain man, and for good reason, because
God has a certain salvation for them. There was a certain woman
at the well. A certain centurion. You can just go through the scriptures
and it'll say a certain one. One whom God has picked out.
One whom God has chosen. One whom God has set His love
on, His heart on. And He's going to send salvation.
He's going to save them. He's going to send them a prophet,
a preacher. He's going to send them the message. And He's going
to empty them. Before he fills them, they've
got to be emptied. We are so full of ourselves.
We really are. That's just not a statement,
but that's the truth. We are so full of ourselves and
the Lord has to empty us of ourselves. But there is a certain woman
here, there cried a certain woman, of the wives of the sons of the
prophets unto Elisha, 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 bondmen. In other words, they got to work
for him until they pay the debt off. And I want you to notice
something here. There's things that just jump
out at me when I'm reading the scriptures that's just, it's
things that so often we overlook. We just overlook it. You know,
sometimes we're looking for that doctrine and we miss the real
nugget. But you want to notice something
here. How she speaks well of her husband, even though she
was left in great debt. She loved her husband. That just
stood out to me, how she spoke well of him. She didn't down
him. She just, she spoke well of him. And it's evident that
her husband loved the Lord because she said he feared the Lord.
And her husband here was a servant of the prophets and he feared
the Lord. Yet they had a hard life. They had a hard life. They were poor. You know, you
think of God's children, you don't think of a Lazarus laying
at the rich man's gate and the dog licking his sores, do you? You don't think of that being
a child of God, being in that kind of poverty, that kind of
sickness, but he was. God laid Lazarus at that rich
man's gate on purpose, and we have the story from it. We have
the story of where that rich man is and where Lazarus is.
And you and I know which one we'd rather be, Lazarus. I'd
rather be a Lazarus and I'd rather you be a Lazarus laying at the
rich man's gate and the dogs licking our sores than to be
where that rich man is forever and ever and ever. Laying at
that gate was temporary. Where they are now is eternal.
Set your heart on things above where things are eternal. That's
where you set your heart. And Elisha said to her, what
shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the
house? And she said, thine handmaid.
And here's true humility. She first identifies herself
as a servant, thine handmaid. Hath not anything in the house?
Nothing, save a pot of oil. What the Lord is making her do
here and what He makes everyone of His children do is confess
their complete poverty, complete emptiness, spiritual poverty. You know, we may or a person
could have all the riches in the world and still be the poorest
person on this earth. If you have not Christ, you're
what? You're poor. You're poor. And not many know that, but thank
God, He makes some know their spiritual poverty, which is exactly
the way we are. It doesn't matter what I am.
It's how I am before God. That's all that matters. How
am I standing before God? It doesn't matter if I was a
zillionaire. How am I before God? Spiritually
bankrupt, poor. And you're going to see here
this woman and her children were made poor by her husband. He left her in debt. How did
Adam leave us? Boy, these thoughts just rolled
in my mind. How did Adam leave us? In debt. In debt. Now, one of the things you're
going to notice at the end of it here, the first thing she
was told to do when she got the oil and sold it, you know what
the first thing she was told to do? Go pay your debt. Honor the law. Isn't that what
Christ did? I'm getting way ahead of myself.
But he honored the law. He paid the debt first, then
lived on the rest. I'll get to that in a minute,
maybe. And here's the command in verse 3. Then he said, it's like that
woman, that widow woman, remember what Elijah told her to do? He
gave her God's Word. This is what you're going to
do. And she did it. And the same thing happens here.
Then He said, Go borrow the vessels abroad of all thy neighbors,
even empty vessels, borrow not a few, borrow many. That's why
He's saying all you can borrow from your neighbors, get as many
as you can get. You see, where there's real faith,
there'll be real obedience because she did exactly what He said.
And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee
and upon thy sons. This is for you, this is not
for others' entertainment, this is not for others to gather round
and watch all these vessels be filled up with oil. You're not
going to entertain sinners on their way to hell. This is for
you and your sons, a certain woman, a certain family. This is for you. And shalt pour out into all those
vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full." We don't
hear her saying, really? This is going to happen? You know what she does? Here is faith. She did exactly
what he said. You know why? She believed. She
believed. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And you know what? If God blesses
you, if God saves you, you know what you're gonna do? You're
gonna believe. You're gonna believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's gonna be as real to you as anybody in your
life. You'll believe. That's the command. And that's
what Elisha told her. And she did exactly what he said. And then we see in verse five,
we see faith in action. So she went from him and shut
the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels
to her. She sent them out to get the
vessels and she poured out. She did exactly what she was
told to do. You see, saving faith is always obedient. It's always
obedient. It can't be saving faith if it's
not. You can't call it faith if it's
not obedience. And it came to pass when the vessels were full. And she said unto her son, bring
me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, there's
not a vessel more. There's no more. And the oil
stayed. Grace is not wasted. Grace is not wasted. God supplies
our what? Need, that's what Paul said,
he supplies our need. Our spiritual need, our physical
need, he supplies it. He doesn't, our God is not a
wasteful God. He didn't pour, he didn't bring
more vessels and say, fill them up and put them in the cupboard,
you might need them later. No, this is exactly what you're
going, you know what, I bet you she lived on that until she didn't
need to live on it anymore, at that time. Then she came and
told the man of God, and he said, Go sell the oil, pay thy debt,
and live thou and thy children of the rest. Honor the law first. That's exactly what our Lord
did. God's not going to set aside
His law. His law is going to be honored,
isn't it? God's law is going to be honored. His law is going
to be glorified. And this is exactly what our
Lord did. He honored the law first. He
honored God's law. And then He said, live on the
rest. Christ is the rest. Now I'm not
going to play on words here, but Christ is our rest and He's
the rest we live on, isn't He? We don't live on anything else,
do we? We don't live on Christ plus. We live on Christ the rest
of our life on this earth. The rest of our life on this
earth, we live on Christ. And listen, this oil will not
run out. It'll supply us all the way to
the end. It will. It'll supply us all the way to
the end. And here's a lesson in providence. Because you and I are such worry
warts. The Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. I think of this more often than
anything. Sometimes when I pray, and I
pray about some things, I think, and I know better, but these
are thoughts that go through my mind. I think, Lord, you have
the whole universe to run. The nations. You have all this
going on. You have Satan and all the evil
that's in the world going on. You have all this, think about
it, all this going on, and you're going to hear my prayer? You're
going to hear my plea for my little problems? Yes, He is. He is the God who's running the
whole of creation, the whole of the universe, I don't want
to say take time, I'm just trying to put it in language we can
understand. The more I preach, the harder I find the vocabulary
to explain what I'm seeing. But he just, I'm going to say
take the time, for lack of a better way of saying it, to listen to
me and the little things that I have. Isn't that amazing? That God in all his greatness,
as David said, give me your ear, That's just astounding to me.
But here's some lessons we can learn from these empty vessels. That's what he told her to get,
empty vessels. Just before coming out here,
I was going over this and I thought of what Paul said, that God has
put this treasure in earthen vessels that the power may be
of God and not of ourselves. But this treasure, this gospel
treasure, this salvation, GOD HAS PUT IN EARTHEN VESSELS LIKE
ME AND YOU, CLAY POTS. THAT'S WHAT THIS OIL WAS POURED
IN, THIS PRECIOUS OIL, NO DOUBT IT'S PRECIOUS OIL, IT WAS POURED
IN A CLAY POT, NOT A GOLDEN POT, IT WAS POURED IN A CLAY POT,
THAT'S ALL WE ARE. I'M JUST A CLAY POT. I KNOW WE'RE
BORN OF GOD AND WE HAVE A NEW NATURE, BUT I'M STILL IN THIS
CLAY POT. And God has put this treasure
in earthen vessels. Now we see here, first of all, and we need to really understand
this, the character of this person. He was a man, the husband that
died, he was a man that feared God. He's a man that served the
Lord. She said, you know, you know,
my husband, he feared God. He feared God. He served the
Lord. He served, he was, he was a son of a prophet. He was an
assistant to the prophets. He helped them. Don't let a person's position or physical financial
condition determine your thoughts of him or her, either one. Not all God's children are, I think we're wealthy. I think we're wealthy. We have
a lot, but some don't. Some don't. And don't say, don't
think that, like her husband, don't think that he should have
known better. He should have done better, should
have been more diligent. I don't know. I don't know his condition. Evidently,
he probably borrowed some trying to make it. But when he died,
he left his family in poverty and debt. But you know what's
said about him? He feared the Lord. HE FEARED
THE LORD! THAT'S WHAT MATTERS! THAT'S WHAT
MATTERS! HIS CHARACTER IS THIS, HE FEARED
THE LORD! AND HE SERVED THE LORD! AND HE
HELPED GOD'S PROPHETS! HE HELPED THEIR PROPHETS! IF
GOD BY HIS PROVIDENCE MAKES US RICH, LET'S USE IT FOR THOSE
WHO ARE IN NEED! IF GOD BY PROVIDENCE MAKES US
POOR, I believe the scripture says
he makes rich and he makes poor. I told this to a rich man one
time, be careful. Be careful. It's an unbelieving
rich man. This man didn't believe, doesn't
believe. Be careful. God makes rich and God makes
poor. He can make you poor just as
fast, a whole lot faster than he made you rich. You've become
rich over time, but you can become poor overnight. When the stock market crashed
in 1926, a whole lot of rich people became poor overnight. I make rich. As Hannes said this,
he kills, he makes alive. He lifts up, he brings down.
He makes poor, he makes rich. This is the work of God. So let's be careful that we determine
a man's character or a woman's character by their condition
and position in this life. Judge it by their, and this is
what I said to another man once, and he was talking about wealth and riches and things
like that. I said, success, and he's talking about success, this
particular person, someone else. I says, I'll tell you what success
is. It's where you end up when you die. I said, that's success
or failure. Not how you lived along your
life. It's where you ended up when
you die, or where you end up when you die. We need to keep those things
in their proper place. And then, listen here. She was
told to bring empty vessels. Empty vessels. I thought of this.
It just didn't hit me until I was sitting here. I was reading.
I keep an ink pen here. I usually don't finish the message until
I stand up here. And then sometimes I got to correct it or add to
it the next time. But she used to bring empty vessels.
And it just hit me up here. No mixture of what's in the vessels.
There can be no mixture. Don't bring a vessel that's got
something in it and then you pour oil in it and you mix it.
Grace is never mixed with anything. Grace is never mixed with works
in any way, shape or form. It's never mixed. The vessel
has to be completely empty. God has to completely empty us
of everything, completely everything before He fills us. Got to be empty. And I know this from experience. When you make a decision, make
a profession, and I did that when I was 20, and you want to
look back to that. And I was telling this to a young
man not too long ago talking to me. And I said, I've learned
this by experience. Quit looking back. That's my
advice. Quit looking back. I said, look
to Christ today. And tomorrow, if you wake up
in this world, look to Christ again and again and again. Salvation is not looking back. SALVATION IS NOT LOOKING TO AN
EXPERIENCE. SALVATION IS LOOKING TO JESUS
CHRIST, WHO IS THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH. LOOKING
UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH. THAT'S SALVATION.
IT'S LOOKING, LOOKING, LOOKING TO HIM. IT'S LOOKING UNTO, NOT
BACK. YOU KNOW, WHEN I LOOK AT CHRIST
CRUCIFIED, I'M LOOKING UNTO HIM. I'M NOT LOOKING BACK 2000 YEARS
AGO. I'm looking to Jesus Christ and Him crucified right now.
John, when he saw the Lamb, when he was taken to the third heaven
in Revelation, he said, I saw a Lamb as it had been slain. It was standing before the throne.
It was standing there. He saw the sacrificial character
of Christ as a Lamb as it had been slain. He was alive. But
he saw him in his sacrificial character. It's ever fresh. You
know, the Bible's ever fresh. It never grows old. The Word
of God never gets old. We do. We get old. It doesn't. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. And so is His Word. And this
is His Word. So he told her to bring empty
vessels. You can't mix it with anything. And Elisha emphasized
that. It's gotta be empty. It's gotta
be empty. And I think this is probably
one of the difficult parts, is to actually come empty. I mean,
it's really, I tell you, here's one of the difficult things about
repentance, and this is why God has to grant repentance. It's difficult to quit making
excuses. Why we do what we do. We still do it. Even after God
saved us, we still have a tendency to make an excuse for why we
do what we do, why we say what we say. Well, you know, if they
hadn't, well, that's not, drop that. Old wretched man that I am. There
you go. That's my problem. That's my
problem. Old wretched man that I am. We have to come before God empty. You know, it's God who makes
the dead alive. If you come alive, you're not
gonna be made alive. Pharisees thought they were alive.
They were dead. They thought they were righteous
and they were unrighteous. They were devils. He called them devils. A man once said to Charles Spurgeon,
Don't you think the greatest hindrance to salvation is our
sinful self? Isn't that what we naturally
think? We naturally think it's our sinfulness
that keeps us from coming to Christ, that hinders us from
coming to Christ. Spurgeon replied, No, I don't. I do not. The greatest hindrance
to salvation is our righteous self. That's the greatest hindrance
to salvation. I tell you, We gotta kill sinners before
they can be saved. God's gotta kill them. And I
say we, I'm talking about through the preaching of the gospel.
It's our righteous self. What kept that young rich ruler
from coming to Christ? What was it? Christ said, go
sell all you have, give it to the poor, come follow me. He
went away sorrowful because he's very rich. There's two things
that was that man's undoing. Number one was covetousness.
He didn't even realize it, but he was so covetous he couldn't
give it to anybody else. That's why he's rich. He kept
it. The second, his problem was his own morality. All these I've
kept from my youth up. His morality became his undoing. It's that righteous self. It's
that righteous self that keeps us from coming to Christ. You
know, sin doesn't keep us from coming to Him. It's that self-righteousness
that keeps us from coming to Him. If you ever, if a person
ever sees how sinful they really are, you know what they're gonna
recognize, realize? I need a Savior. I need God to
save me. If you ever realize how sinful
you are, and some of you have, You're gonna realize you need
a Savior. But if you think you got the least bit of righteousness,
you don't need one. You don't need to say, I don't
need His righteousness, thank you, I got my own. If someone comes to Christ for
grace, they must be empty first. They must be empty. And then the number of the vessels
he said to get, to bring was this, not a few. We ought to expect great things
from God. We ought to expect great things from God. Our God
is great, isn't He? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? No. Our Lord can save many. Or a few, and it's no challenge
to His power. He can save multitudes if He's
so pleased. And our Lord commands us to go,
listen, He commands us to go into all the world and preach
the gospel, and we ought to go with the attitude that the Lord's
going to save sinners. I pray, and I may never see it
here, I don't know, But I honestly pray continually that the Lord
will fill this place up. And I pray for this one reason,
and I hope my heart's right, but such a person like Jesus
Christ deserves such glory. He deserves such praise. I would
to God that he'd kick the sides of these walls out just for the
glory of Jesus Christ. You believe he's able to do that? I believe God, if it's the Lord's
will, He can make this place too small to contain. And I hope
and pray this, that He has a lot more sheep in His community than
what's here right now. I do. The scripture says, He's able
to save unto the uttermost all who come to God by Him. He's
able to save. I like what someone says, He's
able to save to the gutter most. Because there are some people
in the gutter He pulls out. He pulls out and saves them.
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, doesn't
matter who they are, small or great, rich or poor. He's able
to save all kinds of sinners, just like in the ark. All those
different animals, think about that, all those species of animals
that we have on this earth right now, all of it came on the ark. I mean, who would have thought
of putting a gnat on the ark? Or a mosquito? We think of the
elephants, the giraffes, you know, we think of the big ones.
God is mindful of the little ones, isn't he? The fly? God is mindful of the little
ones as well as the big ones. That ark was full of all Sizes,
types, kinds of animals. Just as the kingdom of God is
full of all types of sinners. He's able to save all kinds. And all kinds, all that he saves,
all the kinds that he saves, all have one thing in common,
empty. In my hands, no price I bring.
Simply to that cross I cling. And then the vessels were completely
filled. They came empty, they were filled.
I promise you, every child of God, every sinner that comes
here empty, I mean really empty, will eat filled. You'll eat filled. Our Lord, listen, when I think
of this, it's filled with the oil. Oil in the scripture represents
the Spirit of God. You're filled with the Spirit
of Christ. Christ is enough, isn't He? In Him, you're complete. When we receive Christ by faith,
we receive everything God requires. We have everything we need. And
then last of all, when did that oil stop? When did it stop? When the last vessel was full. When's this going to be over? When's this going to be over?
When that last center is filled with Christ. When that last center
is saved by grace. When that last center is brought
in and saved and Christ is formed in that center. This is over. That's when it'll stop. When
that last vessel is full of oil. And not till then. Not until
then. Beautiful story, I enjoyed that
so much, reading that. I was telling Vicki about it
the other night. I said, you know, I think as
husbands, you're really concerned if the Lord takes you, that your
wife's taken care of. And I told her about this. I
said, here's one example. I said, the Lord takes care of
that man's husband. He left her in debt, left her
poor. And yet the Lord provideth for thee. I am poor and needy,
and yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Isn't that a beautiful story?