2 Kings chapter 13 and we'll begin
in verse 14 through 21 and then this will be a concluding lesson
in this series. There really isn't anything mentioned. Elisha's name isn't even mentioned
from chapter 8 to this section right here. But it begins in
verse 2 Kings 13 and verse 14 it says now Elisha was fallen
sick of his sickness whereof he died and Joash the king of
Israel came down unto him and wept over his face and said oh
my father my father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof
and Elisha said unto him take bow and arrows and he took him
a bow and arrows and And he said, under the king of Israel, put
thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it. And Elisha put his hands upon
the king's hands. And he said, open the window
eastward. And he opened it. And then Elisha said, shoot.
And he shot. And he said, the arrow of the
Lord's deliverance, of the arrow of the deliverance from Syria.
For thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek till thou have consumed
them. And Elisha said to the king,
take the arrows. And he took them. And he said
unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground. And he smote
thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth
or was angry with him and said, you should have smitten five
or six times. Then had thou smitten Syria till
thou hast consumed it. Whereas now thou shalt smite
Syria but three times or but thrice. And Elisha died, and
they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites
invaded the land at the coming end of the year. And it came
to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied
a band of men, and they cast the man into the sepulcher of
Elisha. And when the man was let down
and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his
feet." So, Elisha, we'll get to that part. I just have three
sections here. This is the last lesson, which
is lesson 22. But, verse 14, we're going to
look at that first. Now Elisha was fallen sick of
his sickness, whereof he died. And then verse 20, and Elisha
died and they buried him. This is what's going to happen
to every one of us, unless the Lord returns and He snatches
us alive. But we are all as a vapor. And
we're going to die, every one of us is going to die like Elisha,
and this king reigned, and then he died and was buried with his
fathers. Then this king reigned, and he
died, and he died, and he died. I pray that we would be attentive
to God's goodness and so greet that day when we do die with
peace and joy. And I didn't get you those copies
of John Newton. But one thing, if you've read
that, and you've read any that I've put out for anybody to get,
the love between John Newton and his wife Mary, and they had
several children, and in those writings sometimes the child
would be sick, the daughter would be sick, and then sometimes Mary
would be sick, sometimes he would be sick, but there's one thought
that seems to be throughout that whole writing, and that is that
John realized that whether they're children or spouses or whatever,
they're on loan. That's what it is. God has graced,
and he really saw the beauty in that, and he saw the beauty
of the grace that God had given, and he kept on, you know, such
an African slave trade sinner as he kept on calling himself
and other things, but he saw the goodness of God his whole
life after the Lord saved him. He saw the goodness of God, and
the believer really is back in a corner because we don't have,
we complain, but we don't have anything to complain about. We
murmur, but we don't have anything to murmur about because He has
not dealt with us to what we deserve. And that seems to permeate
through those letters. And it's such a beautiful thing
that He embraced his wife's death. And then when he was to die,
he just was going to the Lord. The Lord took that sting away.
And again, we don't like to think about it. We need to talk about
it as believers because it's a reality. Elisha, I don't know if he could have
or not. He could have maybe done a self-miracle. He maybe could
have given himself some more years. I don't know. I do know
that Elisha's time was up. There's appointed unto men once
to die. His time was up. He would not perform a self-miracle
for longer life. The Lord, as He gave Him grace,
He will give us grace for this time. as well. It's just a beautiful
thing about the gospel. It's a beautiful thing about
the grace of God that our Lord Jesus Christ has went through
this death before us. But this is our lot. Elisha has
fallen sick and in his sickness he's going to die. The second
thing we see in here is this king of Israel. Now this is a different king
than it was in several chapters ago. But this king, he did a
little bit better than the previous king, but we can kind of see
what he's after. He's really after, how's it going
to fare with me and my kingdom with the Syrians? That's what's
on his mind. Even though he comes and he weeps
over his face and he kind of makes a reference to Elijah,
my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof,
and Elijah didn't even acknowledge that. He said to him, he said,
take a bow and an arrow. I know what you're after. You
want to know how it's going to fare with you and the kingdom
and the Syrians. And so what we see, that's on
the king's heart. How will I fare with the Syrians?
And again, this tells me men apart, men and women apart from
the grace of God are ever concerned with things of the earth. The
flesh, how will it go with us in this life? And if this is,
as the scripture says, if this is all we have is what's in this
life, we are of all men and women who believe, most miserable. Elisha promised him victory over
Syria, but it would be for a limited time. And some of the commentators
said it was limited because of the King's unbelief. I can't
tell that from just the text. We do know this, if we ever have
peace and victory, like it typified the Israelites over the Syrians,
of sin and over our flesh, if we ever have that victory, It
is going to be because and only because of the grace of God.
So the Syrians are giving him trouble. The Lord's graciousness
through what this what's going on, the shooting of the arrow,
he gives them a reprieve. And there's times that we experience
reprieve from the flesh and sometimes from the sin. But I do know that
the only way that we can conquer our enemies. Is by the grace
of God. You know, it's purely by His
mercy and calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light. That's
the second thing I see. The King of Israel, He's more
concerned about how it's going to be with Him, but the Lord
was still gracious through the words of the prophet that He
did for a time, He was going to have the victory over His
enemies. Now, this last part, this is
how appropriate. This is the miracle prophet,
as he's called, and a post-death miracle. It's a post-death miracle. Now, this isn't just a simple
gospel. It's just beautiful. You've got
a dead man who's being in a funeral procession, taking to his grave
a sepulcher. Well, then these Moabites, verse
20, and the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming
end of the year. So, they're invading the land
and you've got this funeral procession going on, the men see what's
going on and they literally take the man, throw him in the first
sepulcher that they could find. It happened to be Elisha's. So
that's what's going on. First off, this shows as the
prophet tried to explain with each of his miracles, This miracle
is not done by me, to glorify me. These miracles show forth
the freeness and the sovereignty of the grace of God in the redemptive
work of Christ. The prophet, he tried to explain
this. These miracles were by God alone, through grace alone,
and by God's power alone. Turn with me to Acts 3. We see
the same thing happening over in Acts 3, which I think describes
this very well in our last text on the miracles of Elisha. But
this is exactly what I see in this situation with this dead
man coming back to life. The prophet, throughout his life,
When something would happen, a miracle, he would always try
to glorify God and try to tell the folks, I'm not doing this,
I'm just the instrument. But this is exactly what's going
on here in 2 Kings. Acts chapter 3, verses 1 through
16. And as I begin reading it, you'll
remember the story. Now Peter and John went up together
into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
And a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried,
whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called
Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple.
Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked
an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes
upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto
them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver
and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give thee. In the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right
hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankles, bones received
strength. And he, leaping up, stood and
walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking and
leaping and praising God. He wasn't praising them. The
man who had the miracle performed on him, he was praising God. Okay, now let's continue on.
And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew
that it was he which sat at the alms at the beautiful gate at
the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at
that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which
was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto
them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering.
And when Peter saw it, He answered unto the people, you men of Israel,
why marvel you at this? Or why look so earnestly on us
as though by our own power or holiness we made this man to
walk? He brings it all back to the
gospel. the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God
of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus, whom you delivered
up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined
to let him go. But you denied the Holy One,
and just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed
the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof
we are witnesses. And his name, through faith in
his name, hath made this man strong, whom you see and know,
yea, the faith which is by him, Christ, hath given him, this
man, this perfect soundness in the presence of you all." I love
how he takes this and just brings it right back. He does not spare
anybody the depravity of man. You killed him. Pilate was going
to let him go. You murdered him. You let a murderer
go. But this man, the God of Abraham,
Isaac Jacob, the Son of God, The miracle, notice Peter and
John are saying the same thing as we saw here in our lesson
in 2 Kings 13, to God be the glory. That's what he's saying,
to God be the glory in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Also,
notice how John and Peter make a full circle back to Christ
and his gospel and God's sovereign grace. That's why when we preach,
or we proclaim, or we look for the Gospel in the Bible, we begin
with Christ, He's in the beginning, He's in the middle, and we end
with Christ. Now, the Gospel scene here, short but sweet. A dead man comes to life by the
supernatural act of God. Isn't that what happens when
God saves a sinner by the Gospel? A dead man cannot walk, dead
men cannot take away glory from salvation or life, whether it's
the preacher or a sinner. If the preacher's up here saying
he's doing something, he's stealing glory from God. And the sinner
who walks in and out, makes a decision, or says he had to cooperate with
God, that's not the gospel, he's trying to rob God of His glory.
There's no robbing God of His glory. Because the agency, or
however I want to phrase that, Elisha, he's dead, and the other
guy is dead. So it's just pure sovereign grace. So dead men can't get any credit
for their rebirth, their regeneration, or their resurrection. Dead men
have no ability to do anything at all. Physically or spiritually
we see this in this lesson God Sovereignly chose to raise this
man to new life He uses the preaching of the gospel He you hear it
and the Holy Spirit makes effectual he makes you willing in the day
of your power And you you stand up your ankles whatever man or
in this case dead dead and trespasses in Salvation is by divine revelation
No education can have, you can't figure it out by education. No
morality can secure it. No good works can accomplish
it. This dead, this dead corpse touched the bones of another
dead corpse. And that's, that's the beauty.
I'm a dead sinner. I'm dead and dying sinner preaching
to dead and dying sinners. So, so it's just this, uh, Salvation
is by grace through faith, and that's not of ourselves, the
Scripture says. This dead man did not choose to be discarded. It just so happened that he got
discarded in the sepulcher of Elisha. Now what's the chance
or what luck? No, no, never. The dead man He did not choose
to be discarded or thrown into a lodge of sepulcher. No, he
simply and purely was the recipient of the free unsolicited grace
or power of God. So too is anyone who is ever
to be saved, called or converted. God is going to be the one who
does all the work in redemption. Men's work, man's work, will
never touch the altar of the Son of God who loved us and gave
Himself for our sins. Anything that we touch is polluted.
It's like the stones. The stones, when they were rebuilding
the temple, the stones were cut and everything before they even
got to the temple. And they brought them to the temple and they set
them in place. Everything has been done. And
that's the same way with the work of salvation. And we looked
at, I can't remember the name of that guy who tried to steady
the cart. with the ark on it, and he got killed. He was trying
to, you know, like God needs help, and that's how preaching
is today. God needs your help. God needs your decision. God
needs your legs, your hands, your money, this and that. No. And the thing is, that's what's
so beautiful about this, is this all happened, it's in the Scriptures,
and there's no error in the Scriptures, this all happened by purpose,
by selection, and by choice. As I said before, we are simply
the recipients of God's superabounding grace. May we bless the Lord
for His mercy because in Christ, and only in Christ, His mercy
endures forever.