2 Kings chapter 4. We're going
to be in the first seven verses for this evening. Remember the last lesson, Elisha
just brought water. No rain, no thunder, no anything.
In the valley where he had the three kings dig ditches, And
they were spared thirst and starvation and whatever they were taken
care of. And then they went on to conquer the evil king of Moab. And so now we continue on here
with Elisha. And this we're in the Life and
Miracles of Elisha lesson number 5. 2 Kings 4 verses 1-7. There cried a certain woman,
2 Kings 4 verse 1, Now 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. And Elisha said unto her, What
shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in thy
house? And she said, Thy handmaid hath
not anything in the house except one pot of oil. Then he said,
Go, Borrow thee vessels abroad of
thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few, get as many
as you can. And when you are come in, thou
shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shall
pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that
which is full." So she went from him and shut the door upon her
and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her, and she poured
out. And it came to pass, when the
vessels were full, that she said to her son, bring me yet another
vessel. And he said unto her, there is
not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she
came and told the man of God, and he said, go sell the oil,
and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest."
So just a short seven verses, but there's quite a bit in here. Basically, you see a wife of
one of the prophets, because there's a school here where Elisha
was going or was at, and there was a school and one of the wives,
or widows, so you've got this one of the prophets' wife. She feared God, and he feared
God. They were believers. But what
we're going to see here is, first of all, we're going to see this
is a picture of salvation full and free. And then secondly,
this is a picture of the believer under heavy trial. So let's look
at the first picture, the picture of salvation full and free. So
you've got this widow woman who is in trouble. Well, she wasn't
always a widow. She was once married and everything
was happy and fine and great. But now she's a widow. It's kind
of like the garden. Before Adam fell, Adam enjoyed
the fellowship with God. He enjoyed fellowship and communion and
everything that we could think of, he enjoyed. And then sin
entered. And so he lost the fall, he lost
that relationship. Now, because of Adam's transgressions,
we're just like that. We're just like this widow woman,
in a sense, without God and without hope, before we came to know
Christ. But I think it's interesting in how it first starts out. Now, there cried a woman. She cried. She didn't just ask.
She didn't just ask. Oh, by the way, no, her need,
in this case, need of salvation, need of restoration, need of
life, which would come by way of oil and remove creditors from
her, she cried. God always hears a genuine cry
for mercy. She cried. She didn't just ask.
And it shows the exceeding sinfulness and desperation of sin. Destitute,
nothing to pay, her creditor, creditor, not ters, look at what
it says in verse one, did fear the Lord and the creditor, the
law of God, is against her. We have payment, payment rendered,
we have to have it, we are as this widow, we're bankrupt, we're
helpless, we're hopeless, destitute of the grace of God, we owe,
she owed this creditor and that creditor would not He wasn't
going to bend in any way. The law of God cannot bend. It
will not bend. It shows sin exceeding sinful.
The only two sons she's got, from what we can gather, they're
going to be slaves. Servitude. My friends, sin is
a hard taskmaster. Donny Bell said years ago in
a message out of Hebrews, sin is a hard thing to put away.
But Christ did put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. is a reproach to any people,
and sin is a hard taskmaster. The law, the law of debt will
not be altered one bit. But I do think it's interesting,
at least she went to the prophet of God, which is a type of Christ
here. She went to the source. She went right to Him. And you
can go to religion, you can go to theology, you can go to doctrine,
you can go to your friend, You can do all these different things
to try to ease your debt, my debt, which is debt of sin, which
we cannot do. Catholic Church, and keep doing
penitence, and keep going to the Baptist Church, and keep
coming down the aisle, and there's not forgiveness of sins in those
things. There's forgiveness with sins in Christ by blood remission. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. So at least she went to the right
source, the prophet of God, which is a type of Christ. And I tell
you, and I tell myself, to go to Him for restoration, conversion,
for the miracle of free grace, in this case it's the oil, solely
bestowed upon the destitute. There's nobody else, we don't
read anybody else that had creditors at their door. This is the story
we're looking at. It's very specific. He's going
to show mercy to those who are destitute, to sinners who have
been made aware of their sinfulness by God's sovereign grace, by
His Holy Spirit. And look at what the prophet
says. I think this is really good.
We'll look at this application in the second part of this message,
but the first part is just beautiful. He said, what shall I do for
thee? What shall I do for thee? The prophet of God asked, what
shall I do for thee? Brethren, we must tell our sovereign
our every care, our every sin, Are every shortcoming everything? Do not hide them, because God
sees all. We confess our sins, plural,
multiple, because there are many, and there are often, and there
are frequent. But it says He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins. Don't hold anything back. Now, I got a little thing
here. I said graced people, are honest
people because God has made them so. You may be able to fool the
preacher, and people do that, and I can get fooled because
I'm just a human. You may be able to fool your
neighbor. You may be able to fool your cousins. You may be
able to fool your relations. But when God in His Word pricks
your heart, you tell Him everything. Don't hold back. And I think
that's personally one of the first things that God's people
become, is they become honest, forthright, and what they say,
that's what they mean. That's what they mean. Now, I
know we have the flesh, and we exaggerate, and we speak things
that our experience knows nothing about. If we've read something,
or we think we know, we don't. But those of us who have been
around a little bit, Bruce and I, I tell you, we've got a little
bit of experience, but even that, Even that comes so far short,
but graced people are honest people because God has made them
so. He says, take these empty vessels
and fill them with oil, grace, oil, the grace of God, the Holy
Spirit. Take these empty vessels. So you've got empty vessels.
and now they're full. This is a microcosm of salvation
by blood through faith, and that's sealed by the grace of God. But
I do like what he says, verse 4, when you come in and you're
asking for mercy, and you've got these empty vessels, which
is like us, come in and shut the door. Now, I know parents
If the child is starting to get under, or whatever it may be,
we want to try, you know, the phrase is helicopter parents
and all these different things. It's as old as long as there's
parents. Parents have always tried to buffer their children. In this situation, don't do it.
Don't do it. God the Holy Spirit is working
on them. Leave them with God. Don't say, well, you know, you've
been doing a few good things. Then your preacher stands up
and says, there's none good, no, not one. Well, I don't understand.
Because there's none good, no, not one. That's what the Scripture
says. Shut the door. Be a person alone
with God. God, through the proclamation
of His truth, will fill empty vessels. He fills them with oil,
the Holy Spirit, of the grace of God and the supplication.
That's what He promises to do. He's already gone in the destitute.
He's already asked, what would you have me to do? The debt is paid in full, at
the end of the story, and grace overflows to meet our every need.
Now isn't that salvation? Isn't that the way salvation
always comes? To the destitute, to the weary, to the faint, to
the lame, the halt, the blind, And Christ still is going around
doing good through His people and through the preaching of
His gospel. God is still doing good by the death, burial, and
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the first thought.
The first thought is this is a message of salvation. And it's
always. A lot of times perhaps us preachers
fail to see that, but it always declares Christ and Him crucified. We never ought to, we never want
to get away from this point. You know, it's like, I use a
music analogy, and the girls understand this, where's middle
C? You know where it's at. That's it. That's the only place.
You can find C here, Black Key, go up half steps or whatever,
or you can go over this way and see, but not Middle C. Middle
C. There's only one Gospel, one
truth, one Christ, one righteousness which we have to have because
we're empty vessels. So we implore Him, fill these. Take these creditors away. I can't do anything. I can't
help myself. God be merciful to me, the sinner."
Okay, the second part. This widow, as she is, shows
a tried believer. And you can just read the story
and you know that this is a difficult time for her. Well, oftentimes
our Lord allows us to go through the fire so He can screen off
some of our dross, our flesh, and make us appreciate our Savior
all the more, and because we need it. We need to be made more
like Christ. It's like I told you, Donny Bell
or somebody said this, that whittler, he's whittling that piece of
wood, you don't really know what it's going to be, but he's taking
off that which he doesn't need. And that's our flesh. And so
why the Lord is doing this, this woman who's a believer and married
a believer, a son of a prophet or a preacher, is not really
the why. But it's going to be for her
good. She's going to witness a glorious
sustenance or the taking, the Lord's going to take care of
her. She's going to witness that and be so much more appreciative,
like as we all should be. We know that He is the only one
who can assist us or even carry us upon His wide and strong shoulders. Go back to our text. She cried. She went to the only source and
the believer, that's who our source of comfort is. He is our
refuge. He is our rock. He is our stay. And He longs to hear from us.
He says, verse 2, Elisha said to her, what shall I do for thee?
He's asking for communications. And if we're one of His children,
it's like that parable, be opportunistic, just keep knocking on the door.
I'm afraid of this situation. I don't know what I'm supposed
to do. I don't know how I'm supposed to handle a situation. Okay,
do you know the Scriptures? Yeah, do you know a specific
Scripture? I do. In James chapter 1, if any of
you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who upbraideth not, and
give it to all men, all believers, liberally. That may help that. It's helped me here recently.
Well, I don't know about this. What can I do for you? What can
He do for you? What an invitation! What an opening! And we have
communion with Christ already through the blood. He longs to
hear our voices, our requests, and our desires. Now here's our
problem. Here's our problem. What would
you have for me to do? So she explains to him what the
problem is. I'm one of the creditors, but the problem, I've only got
one pot of oil. This is so like us, I blush to
say it. Just one pot of oil, but this pot of oil is of God.
So you're telling me God's grace is not sufficient? You need those
extra 10 or 20 pairs of clothes? Or can you get by with less?
How many vehicles do we need? In this country. The thing is,
what's going on, I can hardly ever remember going to a store
and not seeing this plethora of whatever I wanted to get.
Food, meat. Not anymore. Is His grace not sufficient?
I'd be embarrassed if you come to the house and look at our
cupboard. I think we made a mistake. We
bought like seven or eight cans Like, what do we got, beans? But that was our mistake. But
again, I'm hungry today, but not one can suffice. I just got
this one thing of oil, this one pot of oil. But this is contrary
to what we see and feel. But He says His grace is sufficient.
Yes, one full pot of oil of the grace of God and of the providence
of God and of His promises of God are of more infinite value
or more value than all the gold, rubies, and this world's treasures.
See, we've got to quit measuring our success by what the world
says success. We've got to quit measuring what
we have by what our neighbor has. We've got to quit measuring
what we need by what somebody else's needs and simply say,
my God will take care of me. My God will honor what He has
told me. As David said, I've never seen
the righteous begging bread. We just don't see it. We don't
see grace sufficient. One pot, one pot of oil. We just
don't see it. Often in our daily walk, but
time after time in the scriptures, a little with the Lord is far
better than treasures without Christ, without gospel, without
God. He says He chooses the weak things
of the world. He says He chooses the small
things of the world. He says that He chooses the things
which are not. He says directly, despise not the day of small
things. David said, just to be a doorkeeper
in the house of the Lord. He was running for his life.
He said, I don't need to be the preacher. I don't need to be
an elder. I just want to be there. Opening and shutting the doors.
One pot. For if we can but by grace believe,
have faith, walk in faith, we shall always see oil upon oil
upon oil. That's what happens. Take this
one pot. Get a bunch of empty pots. Close the door. And I think it's interesting,
close the door. I thought about that, I don't have anything written
down, but I thought about that. Did Christ appear, when He appeared
to His disciples after His resurrection, or after His, before ascension,
He just appeared only to His people. Now what we're talking
about tonight, Jackson knows nothing about. These churches,
they're meeting and they, you know, they're meeting different
places, they don't understand the grace of God. This is children's
food. It's a saver of life unto life
to us who believe, and death unto death to those who don't
believe. So I think it's a good thing, the separation of church
and state, closed out the world. And we
live in a country that's possible. Close the door. Get in your room. Nobody's watching. See, this
is so opposite of the world. The world, they want to have
plays, and they want to put on pageants, and they want to do
these churches, they want to do all these things for Sunday
school, vacation, Bible school, and all the different things
that go on. Most of the time, things happen between you and
God, and nobody sees it. But then you're going to come
out thanking Him, and blessing Him, and praising Him. She was
able to take all this extra and pay off her creditors. And then,
what did she do? Then she came and told the man
of God and said, go sell the oil and pay your debt and live
thou and thy children on the rest. You better believe it.
I can live a long time for one word of God, for one promise.
Bruce Crabtree told me a situation in their church and I said, boy,
I appreciate you telling me that I can live on that for a full
month. For a full month. And we just laugh, we just chuckle
because it's true. Under the spiritual, all things
are spiritual. So enough to meet our debts. This grace is enough
to meet our debts. It's enough to meet our true
need. So truly in Christ, by Christ, and through Christ, our
cup overflows. Amen and amen. Like one man said,
sink or swim. Let's trust in Him. Come what
may. Come what may. And I'm not telling you life's
easy, because it's not. Because we're not of this world.
We're just passing through. And it is rough. But I'll tell
you what. We have a pot. We have oil. We
have the prophet of God, the man of God, the grace of God,
Christ of God. And He sustains us. And it may
be tough. The creditors were right there,
and they were getting ready to take her. I mean, I don't know
how close it was, how soon it was, but obviously she was fearful. But that's communicate. It's
like I said the other day, I ashamed to admit how long it took me
to get into the Word of God. I read books, I read people who
loved Christ, I read this, I read that, and still was not comforted,
and then I just finally opened the Word, and read it, and by
the third verse I was singing. I was fine. But oh, we need to
learn over and over again. His grace is sufficient. His
grace is sufficient. Bruce, would you close this?