And there was a great famine.
Yeah, verse 24, I'm sorry. And it came to pass after this
that Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, gathered all his host and went
up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine
in Samaria, and behold, they besieged it until an ass's head
was sold for four pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a calf
of doves dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king of
Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto
him, saying, Help me, my lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord
do not help thee, when shall I help thee? Out of the barn
floor, out of the winepress, there ain't nothing to feed you
with. And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she
answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may
eat him today. and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and did eat
him. And I said unto her, On the next
day give thy son that we may eat. And she hath hid her son. And it came to pass, when of
the woman that he ran his clothes, and he passed by upon the wall,
and the people looked, and said, Behold, he hath sackcloth within
upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so and more
also to me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand
on him this day. But Elisha sat in his house,
and the elders sat with him, and the king sent a man before
him. But ere the messenger came to him, the one that the king
sent, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer
hath sent to take away mine head? Look, when the messenger cometh,
shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound
of his master's feet behind him? And while he yet talked with
him, behold, the messenger came down unto him, and said, Behold,
this evil is of the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord
any longer? Kings chapter 6. Let me tell you what's going
on here. The Syrian army has been surrounded
by the, Samaria has been surrounded by the Syrian army for such a
long, long time, great, great famine in the city, that they'd
take the head off of an ass and sell it for four pieces of silver,
an old head off of a donkey. And then they would take six
pieces of silver for a little old bitty piece of dung off of
a dove. And I tell you what, and it got
so bad that people were eating their own children. That's how
bad it got. How bad the famine got. And the
king of Israel was so upset, he said, I'm going to kill Elisha.
He's responsible for this. You know, if they can't get to
God, they're going to get to the closest thing that they think
to God, and that was his prophet. Well, Elisha knew he was on his
way. The king sent a messenger down there and he followed right
along with him. And so they got down there and look what Elisha
said here in chapter 7 verse 1. You know, the king was leading
on a man's hand. Then Elisha said, when he was
going to do this, then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the
Lord. Now he said, not what Elisha
is telling you. There in chapter 7, verse 1. Then Elisha said,
You hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. God's going
to do this now. Tomorrow, about this time, Same
time tomorrow, this time should be a measure of fine flour sold
for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the
gate of Samaria. In other words, food was going
to be plentiful in that city the next day at that time. After,
you know, they'd have fine flour for just about a fourth of a
penny, what we would call a shekel, about a fourth of a penny. Then
a Lord, on whose hand the king leaned, answered the man of God,
and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven,
might this thing be? And he said, Behold, you shall
see it with your eyes, but you're not going to eat thereof. And
then look what it says, And there were four leper's men at the
entering end of the gate, and they said one to another, Why
set ye here till we die? So here comes this king leaning
on the hand of one of his big shots, one of his lords. And
he told him, you know, Elisha told him what was going to happen.
Plenty of food. We're going to have all kinds
of food to eat this time tomorrow. Everybody's going to have plenty.
Flour and barley. It's going to come cheap, cheap,
cheap. And that man had mocked him and made fun of him. He said,
well, you're going to get to see it with your eyes, but you'll
not eat one bite. You'll not eat one bite of it.
And on the day that that king came to Elisha, there's four
lepers. He said there in verse 3, four
leprous men, four leprous men. And they are sitting at the gate
of the city. Why was they sitting at the gate of the city? Because
they were unclean. They were unclean. They're not
allowed to go with people that's not got leprosy. And if a leper
ever came around, he had to shout unclean, unclean and cover his
mouth so everybody get out of his way. That's what he had to
do. And so they had to, you know,
and so they said, here's what they say now. If we say in verse
four, if we entered into the city, then the famine is in the
city and we'll die there. There ain't no food to eat in
there and if we sit here we'll die too. We just gonna sit here
and die there or die here. Now therefore come and let us
fall into the host of the Syrians. If they save us alive we shall
live and if they kill us we shall but die. And so they just decided, they said
listen whatever we do we're gonna die. We're going to sit here
and starve to death. If we go in the city and they
let us in the city, we're going to die there. There ain't no
food. They ain't got no supplies for us or nobody else. So we'll
just throw ourselves. We'll go down to the Syrian army.
We'll throw ourselves on the mercy of the Syrian army and
maybe they'll let us live. And if they don't, we ain't lost
nothing. We're going to die anyway. But
maybe, maybe they'll have mercy on us. So they entered in that evening.
They went down to the Syrian camp. And in verse 5 and 6, look
what it says. And they rose up in the twilight.
I don't know if it's twilight in the morning, twilight in the
evening. I'd say it's probably twilight in the evening. To go
unto the camp of the Syrians. And they were come to the uttermost
part of the camp of the Syrians. Behold, there was no man there.
Wasn't anybody there? It was all gone. For the Lord, listen to what
happens now. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians
to hear a noise of chariots. There were no chariots, but God
made them hear them. And even the noise of a bunch
of horses running. And the noise of a great army
descending on them. And they said one to another,
the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites
and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. And look what
happens to these guys now. They found abundant food, silver,
gold, raiments, oh my goodness, they just fell into it. Listen to what they said. And
wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their
tents and their horses, and even the camp as it was, and fled
for the life. And when these lepers came to
the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and
they did eat and drink in that first tent. They carried out
all kinds of silver and all kinds of gold and raiment and went
in and hid it and came again into another tent and carried
this also. And then they said one to another, we do not well.
This is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace. If we
tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon
us now, therefore come that we may go and tell the king's household.
So they went in and told the king, and I tell you what, that
Israel, Syria, God's providence is one of the most mysterious
and amazing things that there ever was. It is, you know, John
Flavel's got a message called the Mystery of Providence. And
it's wonderful to think about how God does things. There was
no army coming. There was no horses coming. There
was no chariots coming. But they heard them. Well, what
did they do? They run off and left everything
just like it was. But what in the world is this
story in the Word of God? What's it here for? What does
it teach us about the redemption that we have in our Lord Jesus
Christ? What does it teach us that? Well,
it teaches us this. These four lepers. Four lepers. What a lesson they can teach
us. These diseased, dying, starving lepers. represent the whole human
race under the judgment and curse of sin. That's what it represents.
Now we know that leprosy is a horrible, horrible disease. And I tell
you, man outside of Christ, and I mean spiritually, spiritually,
men are wretched Mean we you know they've changed in a lot
of song books. They've changed. You know that amazing grace You
know I was saved a wretch like me they took that out rest like
me and saved a Person like me or a man like me or a woman like
me they take that wrench out of there But God calls them wretched
poor miserable blind and wretched wretched naked And men spiritually
are without Christ. Now that's an awful place to
be. Be without hope. To be without God in this world
right now. That's what Paul said. We're
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Strangers from the
covenant of promise. Without God, without hope, without
Christ in this world. And I tell you, there's no man,
no man, and I've heard some people describe man till I thought,
you know, it's just awful the way they can describe a human
being. But there's no way, no way, words cannot describe the
utter and absolute ruin of man. The utter poverty and spiritual
helplessness and hopelessness of the sons of Adam just can't
do it. They're not just crippled, they're
dead. They're not just got one eye
that's got a little dimness in it, they're blind. They're not
just got an ear that just barely can hear, they're deaf in both
ears. And that's why God himself said,
there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. There's none that understandeth,
not one. There's none, not no one that
seeks after God. They ever want have gone out
of the way. They ever want are unprofitable. Their lips are full of cursing. The lips that ought to be blessing
God, they're using everything under the sun to use their lips
with. To curse God, to use Christ's
name as a byword? To blaspheme God? Oh my! And he said in this, and
he says the way of peace. They don't know the way of peace.
Preachers get up and say you need to make peace with God.
The pastor that used to pastor this church before I became pastor. One of the things you'd always
get up and make your peace and calling with God. How do you
make peace? How can you make your peace with
God? God said that way of peace, they
don't know. Man, I didn't know the way of
peace. Did you know the way of peace? Did you know, did you
ever try to find peace for yourself? And men are constantly trying
to find peace for themselves. Try to find it in religion, try
to find it in a Bible, try to find it in church, try to find
it in drink, try to find it in drugs, try to find it in alcohol,
try to find it in every way they possibly can, but there is no
peace, my God said to the wicked. If a man's gonna have peace with
God, the only way peace is established, through the blood of the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. How's that? He put to death everything
that kept God from doing anything for us. Then when Christ comes,
He brought peace with Him. And He established peace on the
basis of righteousness. We ain't won a war since the
Second World War. And we've been in a lot of wars.
The only last war that we won and everybody surrendered and
surrendered without any reservations and absolute complete surrender
as World War II. We ain't won a war since. We
ain't ever had anybody to surrender to us yet. We ain't ever had
anybody say, I'm done. We've been whipped. But when
God goes after you, He establishes peace on the basis of His honor,
His glory, and His righteousness. Huh? That's a war we ain't going
to win. Old Scott said, stack your arms
right now. Put your shotgun down. Because
you're not going to hurt God. The only thing is that shotgun
will blow up in your face. So why is this in here? And I'll
tell you what. Here we go. These starving, helpless
lepers just give us the slightest, slightest picture of man's spiritual
condition. Oh, it's an awful condition. And only, only the Spirit of
God can reveal to a sinner what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Do you know what happened in the Garden of Eden? That album that somebody brought
in here the other day. That fella that I went over and
done that in his recording studio and said the things on the back
of it. When I got to preaching the gospel,
got to preaching free grace. Got to preaching man's utter
and absolute ruin. Now I mean man could not do anything
to help himself whatsoever. When Adam fell and ate of that
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he lost his
sight, he lost his fellowship, he lost everything that was ever
right and holy and just and true. He lost it all. He died that
day. Died spiritually. But that man
always said this, he says, man's depraved and man, everything
is depraved about him but his will. He still has the power
of his will. And I said, no, there's no way
He's got the power of His will. If He's got a power left in Him
anywhere, then He can save Himself. And that's what that preacher
was doing. He's got enough power in His will to save Himself.
Then why did Christ die if man has got the power to do anything?
That's what He meant. Our Lord said, with men, salvation
is impossible. Absolute impossible. And I know
this, that the terrible consequences of Adam's sin come upon all of
us. And we like Isaiah, when he saw
the Lord high and lifted up, he said, I'm undone. I'm undone. Oh Lord, what are you going to...
God, that's where we're at. And that's the way man is. Let
me tell you another thing about these lepers, what this tells
us about the redemptions in Christ. These lepers, they knew they
were helpless to stay. And they had three alternatives.
Three alternatives. They said if we stay here, right
here at the gate, we'll die. They weren't even in the city.
If we get up and they open the gate and let us into the city,
when we get in the city, we'll die there because there ain't
nothing to eat. No food. And over here are our enemies,
the Syrians. They're our enemies. And they've
got lots and lots and lots of food. If we go to them and seek
mercy and ask for help, if they choose to show mercy to us, we'll
live. But if they don't, we've lost
nothing. For we're going to die anyway.
And they chose to cast themselves on the mercy of the Syrians and
God's blessed providence intervened. Ain't you glad his providence
intervened for you? And this is the way his providence
was for me. The greatest providence that
God ever did for me is when he crossed my path with a gospel
preacher. that had no fear, had no favor, and did not hesitate to tell
the truth every opportunity he had to anybody, anytime, anyplace. And he crossed my path through
the gospel in his own office. And that's the best, most, that's
the blessed day, most blessed day of my life. You know when
the next blessed day of my life will be? is when Christ carries
me home. But the day that somebody, God
said, you know, I was like these lepers. I was like these lepers. I was dying. Didn't have nothing
to eat. I was like the prodigal, eating
the husk of religion. And then God, in His blessed
providence, crossed my path with the gospel. And I tell you, when you consider
and we consider our hopeless, sinful estate, what's there for
us to do? Jeremiah asked this question.
He said, can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can the leopard change his spots? How then can you that do evil
ever do any good? That's a pretty good question,
ain't it? A fella said to me, he said, let me ask you this
question. That's how he said, let me ask
you this question. I like that. He said, let me
ask you this question. I like it. He said, let me ask
you this question. This question. God asks lots
of questions, you know that? Romans 8, there's four questions
in a row. What shall we say to these things?
Who shall anything to the charge of God's elect? Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Well, I'll think of it after a while.
And then there's four who's. Who, who, who, who. So you know
God asks questions. And He asked a question over
in Job. He said, how can a man be just with God? And he asked
another question, if a man dies, shall he live again? And he asked
this question, he that's born of a woman, how shall he be clean? That's three questions. How you answer them questions
tells what we know about God and our relationship with God.
But anyway, if we're like these Leper's hopeless sinful state
and his situation if we stay where we are We're gonna perish
under the wrath of God Salvation is utterly and absolutely impossible
with men and you know, this is what happens people who don't
believe the gospel and They said under the gospel Their condition
gets worse and worse and worse as their sin hardens their heart
more and more and more. Mr. Spurgeon said one time, he
said, oh listen, I've preached to you all for so many years
that you've got gospel hardened. I've preached the gospel so long
and to you so many times that it has no effect on you anymore.
You've got a gospel heart and that would be an awful place
to be in. And then he said, and you know
we're like these lepers, if we go into the city, well we'll
die there. Well what does this city represent?
It represents organized religion. That's what it represents, organized
religion. Man's efforts to save himself. Man organizes efforts to help
himself. You go through the Bible and
you find people trying to save themselves over and over and
over again. The Jews tried to save themselves.
We tried to save ourselves. An organized religion has people.
Lots of people. Activities and activities and
activities. What did people do before they
had activity centers for the kids and for the old folks? What did they do before they
had gymnasiums? What did they do before they
had programs? Jim Byrd told me that he was
on the cradle roll. What does that mean? That means
that he put little booties up on the roll of the church that
they went in. His mom and dad did put it up
on the bulletin board back in the back because he was going
to be born and he'd automatically be in the church. Put them on the cradle row. Well,
I tell you what, there's a lot of babies around, but they're
not on the cradle row. But oh my, they've got activities,
they've got buildings, they've got all kinds of organizations.
Organizations. But here's the situation. They've
got no food, even for themselves. and they got no food for anybody
else that's for sure let me read something to you from Amos I
marked it myself so you would have to try to find it but listen
to what Amos said in Amos 8 11 behold the days come saith the
Lord that I will send a famine in the land now listen to this
not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but what am I going
to send a famine of? hearing, hearing of the Word
of the Lord. Look at us here tonight. Handful
of people. Hearing. Famine for the hearing
of the Word of the Lord. Hearing of the Word. Oh, we hear
lots about marriage. We hear lots about programs.
We hear lots about a series on one thing or another. But how many people say, oh listen,
give me God's word. I want to hear God's word. I
don't want to hear your opinion. I don't want to hear your thoughts.
And I certainly don't want to hear your feelings. And I don't
want to be entertained. I don't want to hear a bunch
of jokes. And I don't want to hear a bunch
of people standing up and telling how bad they are and now how
good they are. I don't want to hear none of
that. I want to hear what God's got
to say. That's what He says. and then look what it says and
they shall wander from sea to sea from the north even to the
east they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord
and you know what it says they won't be able to find it won't
be able to find it won't be able to find it and I'm going to go
as far as say this any place any place where the free grace
of God is preached constantly continually Week after week,
service after service, service after service, and that Christ
alone has given your only hope. That's the only place that God
meets people at. He does not need them anywhere
else. If there's another place in Cumberland County that's preaching
the gospel or another place in Bledsoe County or White County
that was preaching the gospel, let's all go and join in with
them in trying to keep this building going or else get them to come
and meet with us. But you find somebody. You find
somebody that's doing it. Find somebody that's doing it.
And oh my, when our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the thing
about it, these folks don't have no food for themselves. They
can't feed anybody else. And when our Lord Jesus asked
His disciples, when a multitude of disciples walked away from
Him, you know why they walked away from Him? He said, I told
you that you cannot come to me unless my Father gives it to
you to come to me. And they turned and they said,
that's too hard of a saying. And they turned and walked away
from him. That's too hard to say, listen, you can't come to
me. Follow me all over town all you want to. But you can follow me, but I'm
telling you, you can join a church, but you can't come to me unless
my Father gives it to you to come. They said, well, if that's the
way it is, we're doing our best. We are doing our best. We're
following you everywhere you go. And every once in a while
you'll feed us. And I tell you, we'll follow you as long as you
feed us. And our Lord said, he looked
at the twelve and said, you're going to go away too. It don't take much to get people
to go away. It really don't. It's a sad, sad, sad day. It's
a sad day. when people go for months and
not come to hear the gospel. It's a sad day. It's a heartbreaking
day. Why? Is God going out of business? Is God not the author of everything
in this universe? Is God not the first cause of
everything? Is God not able to keep us? And if it was to kill us, all
that means is it's going to take us home to glory. Is that what's
keeping them? Are they afraid of dying? Listen, I thought of this this afternoon. I've watched several people die
over the years. And I've not saw anybody that struggled against
dying that was a believer. Your dad never struggled against
it. Your mother never struggled against it. Bill Grisham never
struggled against it. My mother-in-law never struggled
against it. But I remember this. Woman's dying. Woman's dying. I mean she's on her deathbed.
She's on her deathbed. What do you hope? She said two
things. I'm a great, great sinner. But
Christ is a great, great Savior. Died two days later. I'm telling you. Don't you know
the only thing? Lord, to who shall you go? Who
are we going to go to? That's what I'm saying. Who are
we going to go to? Have we talked about a famine for the hearing
word? They said, where are we going to go? You've got the words. Words of eternal life. Man has nothing to offer. No,
not one preacher, not anybody has nothing to offer. The law
has nothing to offer but death and condemnation. Religion has
nothing to offer but a refuge of lies. So what are we going
to do? We can cast ourselves on the
mercy of God and cry. We can do like them lepers. I'm
going to die so what I'm going to do, I'm going to go throw
myself on the mercy. of God himself even though David
said it's against you only that I sinned and done this evil in
your sight wash me and I shall be clean have mercy upon me show
me thy tender loving kindness even though we sinned and God
by his justice would have the right to bring wrath and judgment
on us but God is merciful oh how merciful O LORD, if Thou
shouldst mark iniquities, who should be able to stand? But
there is mercy with Thee, and forgiveness with You. And while
it is true, it is true, that all are by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. And God is angry with the wicked
every day, and the nations that forget Him, He turns them into
hell. But the other side is he delights, delights to show mercy. Let me read you something out
of Micah. Let me read this to you. Micah
7.18, Who is a god like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? Listen to this now. Passes by
the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth
not his anger forever. Listen to this. He delighteth
in mercy. Delights in it. Listen to this
now. He'll turn again. Turn again
to us. And he'll have compassion upon
us. And he will subdue our iniquities. And listen to this. You're talking
about driving a nail and clenching it. and thou wilt cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea." And over in Revelations it says
that He even done away with the sea where our sins were. Oh my! But God delights to show
mercy. Oh, He delights to show mercy.
Christ, when we were without strength, died for the ungodly. God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and
when these lepers turned to the only possible source of relief
they said well it may be well they will save us alive and any
man that God gave any sense to at all that's what they think
when God brings them to the end of themselves and they become
lepers They start crying out for mercy. Jonathan did. David did. Mephibosheth did. The king of Nineveh did. And
we know that God is not obligated to save anyone. But those who
know their sin in the light of God's holiness They know there
ain't nothing for them to do but to cast themselves on God
in Christ. And they'll always find plenteous
redemption in here. Well, I've got to wipe this thing
up here. Oh my goodness, I've preached
too long. There are several reasons, let me quickly say this. There
are several reasons to have a good hope for mercy when it comes
to the Lord God and in repentance and faith coming to Him. It's
God's gracious nature to show mercy. Show mercy. He said in Exodus 34, He said,
keeping mercy for thousands of generations. And the Lord Jesus came into
the world. Here's the second thing. He came
into the world to do what? To save sinners. And I'm certainly
one of them. I'm certainly one of them. I'll
never deny that. I can't deny it. All you got
to do is watch me, listen to me, see me. And you'll find out
what I am. I mean listen. Everything about
me says I'm a sinner. But it also says that Christ
came into the world to save sinners. And here's the third thing. have
a good hope when we come to God in mercy and repentance and faith. That the righteousness and sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ enabled God to be just and a Savior. Just God and a Savior. Oh my,
His righteousness and His sacrifice. And you know what one of God's
chief glories is? Is to save. Moses said, Lord
show me your glory. And he put him in that hand,
in that cleft of the rock, and he said, the goodness of God
passed before him. What was that goodness? I'll
have compassion. I will have compassion. But I'm
going to have compassion on whom I will. And I will have mercy. But I'll have it on whom I will.
But he does have it. And God commands us to come to
Him. And when He commands us to come
to Him, He gives us the faith to come. Look unto Me, all ye
the ends of the earth, and be saved. God commandeth all men
to believe on His Son and to love one another. So them lepers
can teach us a valuable, valuable lesson. And God put it in there
for that reason. For that reason. Our Father, in the name of our
Savior, thank you for allowing us to speak tonight. Thank you
for allowing us to look into your word and deal with true
things, real things. Things that we know in our heart
of hearts. And we bless you for it. Preserve
these dear saints of God. Keep them as they go home. Bless
those whose bodies are weak with strength. Bless those bodies
that are sick with health as it pleases you. For Christ's
sake, amen. Amen.