2nd Kings chapter 4 and verse 38. And Elisha came again to Gilgal, and there was a dearth in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. And he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.

And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds, his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage, for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot, and they could not eat thereof. But he said, then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot, and he said, pour out for the people that they may eat, and there was no harm in the pot.

And there came a man from Beal-shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor said, What? Should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people that they may eat. For thus saith the Lord, they shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

I'm sure you noticed, but in these few verses today, we find food featuring large in the miracles of Elisha. There appear to be two miracles here. The first one is where there is some poison in a pot of pottage or a pot of stew. and the second one where there is a multiplication of food, what was suitable for perhaps one or two people, feeding upwards perhaps of a hundred men. And food features large in our reading today. and I thought I would just speak about food for a moment or two. I suspect that this is true. I suspect we all take food too much for granted these days.

We can go to the refrigerator and we can choose six different things to eat. And then we can go to the cupboard and we can choose 10 different things from the cupboard. And our food comes from all over the world. Now, we might eat local cheese and local beef, but we get our bananas from the Caribbean, or the Caribbean, and we get our coffee from Peru. Our tea comes from India. We can cook one minute pasta or two minute rice and we can flavour it with sauces and spices from every continent in this globe.

It's never been so easy for you and me to eat so richly and with such variety. And yet it hasn't always been so. In fact, having anything at all to eat in times past was a great blessing. And I am sure that a huge amount of time and energy must have been spent simply growing or gathering the most basic kind of food to put it on a family table. And I am equally sure that there must have been great anxiety at different times in people's lives in the past about being able to feed their families day after day. That must have been a burden that weighed heavily upon parents.

And here's something that I think. I think that the broad choice and the plentiful supply of food that we enjoy today has led us to losing all sense of dependence on the Lord for food and gratitude for his daily provision. Do you remember the Lord taught, well he taught his disciples, but he taught us to pray. Give us this day our daily bread. That's in Matthew chapter 6 verse 11. And yet who amongst us really knows what it is to pray that prayer? truly asking that God would give us the food we require for our health and well-being for that day. I guess that many of us when we sit down at table say grace, but are we genuinely grateful when we give thanks at the dinner table? Sadly, I think that the more the Lord blesses us, the harder we find it becomes to say thank you. Or maybe it is that the less meaningful our thank yous become.

The sons of the prophets that we read about here in this passage and many of the Old Testament believers knew what it was to live through times of drought and famine when food was scarce to come by. And I am sure that these sons of the prophets, as they gathered to hear Elisha preach this day, were very glad, very pleased to hear that there was going to be a meal after their lesson.

After the preaching was finished, they were going to sit down and have a meal because they knew that Elisha's servant was putting on the big pan. He was putting on the big pot. These men knew what it was to be hungry and they knew what it was to pray for daily bread when they didn't have any. And when they did have food to eat, they meant it when they gave thanks for it to God. Let us, let us try to think about that and let us try to mean our prayers when we offer them to the Lord.

Elisha had travelled to Bethel, there was a group, the Sons of the Prophets, whatever that group might have comprised it's difficult to tell, we really don't know exactly who these Sons of the Prophets were except that they were groups of men who gathered in places where the Prophet visited.

We know that they were married because one of them had died a few weeks ago and left a widow and two boys. You'll remember that account, I'm sure. But we don't know too much about these groups. Elisha had been here before. He had visited this place with Elijah.

But now he was the Lord's prophet in Israel. And the students, let's call them that, the sons of the prophets, gathered to meet with him and were seated before him to receive God's truth and to receive divine guidance. And I imagine that Elisha taught the sons of the prophets from the scriptures, using perhaps the writings of Moses and the early writings of the Old Testament that were available to him, perhaps the writings of David that had been recorded and already were being circulated amongst the Lord's people. And after their class was finished, Elisha instructs his servant, that probably was Gehazi, to put on a great pot.

Let's think about that like a cauldron, one of these great big iron pots that might have contained a good supply of food. And a stew was to be made, or a soup, the Bible calls it pottage, but it's a stew or a soup probably. It was to be cooked in this great big pot or cauldron. And I think it would have had to have been big because it appears that there were somewhere near a hundred men in this group. and people appeared to have brought what they could to add to the meal. And one man, he went out into the fields and he brought a large quantity of wild gourds that he'd gathered. And these were chopped up and they were added to the stew. And no one was quite sure what they were, but they looked good to eat.

Trouble was they were not. And as soon as the people tasted the soup, they began to be sick. And they cried out, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they couldn't eat any more. They all had food poisoning. And that's not very pleasant, I'm sure.

And Elisha, called for a bag of meal, probably just barley, and he put it into the pot. That bag of meal was the means that God used to perform a miracle, and the toxin or the poison that was present in the pot and caused the sickness of these men was at once removed. The remedy wasn't due to the added meal. but to the power of God. It was God who took away the sickness, God who took away the poison and it was by the means of putting this barley into this meal into the pot that God's miracle was performed. And the stew was again served to the men and this time it was fine to eat and all was well.

And then we're told that a man arrived with a gift for the prophet. He had 20 barley loaves and some ears of corn. And that was probably enough for the prophet and his servant for maybe a day or two. But Elisha commanded that this little gift be shared with everyone, with the sons of the prophets. And Gehazi, we'll assume that Gehazi was the servitor, he was shocked. He says, what? Should I set this before a hundred men? Gehazi was saying, effectively, there's enough here for you and me, but not a hundred people. Elisha insisted. The Lord had told him that the people shall eat their fill and yet there will be food left over.

And so it was. And these miracles helped to prove Elisha's calling and his divine authority. The Lord was with his servant. And the prophet was verified as being a true prophet and his words as true words from God. His ministry was validated by these demonstrations of divine power. By these miracles, the Lord proved that he was with Elisha and that he spoke by Elisha.

Now here's a few spiritual lessons that I think we can draw from these stories before us today. In verse 38, we read, the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. And this sitting before the prophet implies that they were listening to Elisha teaching. just as students might sit before their teacher or their lecturer in a school or a college today. And I want to mention this because I hope you all appreciate that learning about the Lord is important. What we're doing here today is important. It was important enough for Elisha to travel to Bethel. It was important enough for these sons of the prophets to gather from all over that area and come together to hear the word of the Lord. These hundred men had come to hear Elisha preaching and teaching. about the Messiah. And that really is what we're doing here today. So all these hundreds and thousands of years later, we are doing today what these men did so long ago. It's just the same, and it's just as important.

They came to learn about the Lord, and we want to learn of Christ. Lord Jesus told his followers, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Take up my cause, take on board my claims, become my follower and dedicate your life to my service, to my mission. Now you, some of you younger people, you do your schooling in order to prepare you for adult life and the role that you will have when you grow up. That's good, that's good.

But it is more important, even than going to school, to learn about Christ and to prepare not just for this life, but for the life that is to come, for eternal life. And I would like to teach you all about Christ, not just facts about Him, but teach you to know Him as the true living God.

I wish that you would learn to love Him, to trust Him and to enjoy Him and to follow in His ways. These men gathered to hear Elisha preach Christ. And it is my duty and it is my privilege to preach Christ to you. And I hope that you will learn to love my Saviour as I love Him and trust in Him as I trust Him. But here's another question.

How do you know what I'm saying is true? How do you know that what I am saying is dependable and trustworthy? You will find that there are many, many voices out there in the world trying to get your attention and trying to get you to believe what they say. So how does a person know what to believe?

There are lots of good causes. There are lots of religious movements. There are lots of political groups. How do you know what is true? How do you know what is best? There are lots of ways to live your life. And many people, perhaps most people, have no interest in the things of the Lord. and they just wish to live for themselves and do their own thing. Is that going to be you? I want you to ask yourself these questions. Ask yourself, what is important in your life? And what is it that you hope for in your life? And where does the Lord Jesus reckon in your life? The miracles God worked by his servant Elisha proved Elisha was a true servant of the Lord. Miracles were used to authenticate, used to validate God's message to these men.

So why don't we have miracles today? Why don't we have these validating miracles and then everyone would know that what was true. Well, the reason is because the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the testimony of the apostles is God's last word to this world, is God's last word to sinful men and women. If you don't believe what Christ has said, if you don't believe what he has done, then you won't believe if someone, listen, if someone were to come back from the dead, if such a miracle could be performed, not just making a pot of stew better, not just making a small amount of food enough for a lot of people, supposing someone came back from the dead to preach, you still would not believe.

But this book, this book, this gospel, this saviour is God's final word to you and me. And we each have to decide whether we are going to believe what Jesus has said or not, to trust him or not. These Old Testament men and women believed what Elisha taught because the prophet gave evidence that he spoke for God. And today God has spoken by his son. And it is my prayer that the Lord will give us all faith to trust in Christ for the salvation that Christ has won and freely gives to sinners like you and me.

Here's another thing I want to mention. The lesson of poison in the food warns us not to trust anything except Christ's gospel and not to listen to any preacher who does not preach Christ's gospel, who does not preach wholesome words of truth. That is, wholesome words of free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul puts it like this. It's in 1 Timothy 6, verse 3. He says, if any man teach otherwise and consent not to the wholesome words, the wholesome words of the gospel.

If any man teach otherwise and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, that is the doctrine that makes us righteous in Christ, the doctrine of free grace, he is proud. He knows nothing. and from such withdraw thyself." That's the Apostle Paul telling us that we are only to listen to those preachers who honour the Lord by preaching His Gospel. no other gospel, nothing else. If they add anything, if they take anything away, we are to withdraw ourselves from such preachers.

The pure truth of the gospel is food for our souls and there is death in the pot when anything else is added to it. Anything of our works, anything of our self-righteousness is mixed in. That was the problem of these gourds. There was an issue when something was added that shouldn't be there. And our Lord Jesus, by His death on the cross, by His redeeming blood, is the sole cause of salvation. The wild gourds are false teachings that try to add human works to God's free grace and all such false teaching is poisonous to our souls.

Let me just mention one more little thing and that's me done. A man brought some more food to Elisha. What does this incident remind us of? Well, I'm sure those of you who've heard anything of the Bible stories in the New Testament know about the feeding of the 5,000. But do you see how all the works and words of the prophets point towards the Lord Jesus Christ? And here a hundred were fed with some twenty loaves. Christ fed five thousand and more with five loaves and two small fish.

Of course, we're not making a comparison here. Christ is infinitely greater than Elisha, but that's not the point. The lesson is this. There is sufficient grace in the gospel of Christ. There is more power in the work of Christ. There is greater love in the person of Christ to meet our need as sinners.

Jesus could feed 5,000 hungry men for a day with baskets to spare. and he will sustain all his people, all his elect with holiness and perfect righteousness, all that we require for all eternity. Would you like to be clean and holy in God's sight? Would you like to be well in your soul? Are you hungry for righteousness? you will find all you need and to spare in the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.