We're going to continue our thoughts
on the life of Elisha. And I've called, I've called
this, this story, is that how to describe
it? I've called, I've called this,
these thoughts this morning. Four fat lepers. because these lepers, they filled
their tummies as much as they could with the food that they
found in the Syrians' camp. Let's read the story about these
lepers. We're going to read 2 Kings 7,
verse 10. Let's read from verse eight.
And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp,
they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried
thence silver and gold and raiment, and went and hid it, and came
again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also,
and went and hid it. Then they said one to another,
We do not well. This day 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 came and
called unto the porter of the city, and they told them, saying,
We came to the camp of the Syrians and behold, there was no man
there, neither voice of man. I'm sorry. I've lost my place. So they came,
verse 10, so they came unto the porter of the city, and they
told him, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and
behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses
tied and asses tied, and the tents as they were. And he called
the porters, and they told it to the king's house within. And
the king arose in the night and said unto his servants, I will
now show you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that
we be hungry. Therefore they are gone out of
the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, when they
come out of the city, we shall catch them alive and get into
the city. And one of his servants answered
and said, Let some take, I pray thee, five of the horses that
remain, which are left in the city. Behold, they are as all
the multitude of Israel that are left in it. Behold, I say,
they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed.
And let us send and see. They took, therefore, two chariot
horses, and the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying,
Go and see. And they went after them unto
Jordan. And lo, all the way was full
of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in
their haste. And the messengers returned and
told the king. And the people went out and spoiled
the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was
sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according
to the word of the Lord. And the king appointed the Lord
on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate. And the
people trod upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God
had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it
came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying,
two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for
a shekel shall be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria. And that Lord answered the man
of God and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows
in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou
shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And
so it fell out unto him, for the people trod upon him in the
gate, and he died. It seems as though these lepers,
these four lepers that we have been thinking about previously,
who discovered that the camp of the Syrians, the Syrians had
brought their army into Israel, they had surrounded Samaria,
there was a siege upon the city and there was great hunger in
the city. But these four lepers had boldly
gone to the Syrians on the assumption that we're going to die if we
stay here, we'll die if we go into the city, we may die if
we go to the Syrians. Let's go and see if they'll be
kind to us. Well they found the Syrian camp
completely deserted. No one was there and they went
from tent to tent and they ate the food that they could find,
they drank what they would and they took away silver and gold
and raiment and garments and they hid these things where they
felt no one would find them. Isn't it interesting how these
four people, lepers with an incurable disease, spent their time gathering
gold and silver and garments and hiding them away? Even people that were dying of
their disease wanted to be as rich as possible before they
died. You know, the Bible warns us
that we've not to store up treasure on earth. but we've to store
up treasure in heaven. And we do that by trusting in
the Lord. We do that by believing His word,
by having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's where
our real riches are. It doesn't matter how rich or
how poor you are in this world. If you have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, you have riches in heaven, which is far better. Mark, in his Gospel, chapter
8, verse 36, says, But at last the lepers returned to the city,
and they come to tell the good news. And I think that we can take
from that that when an individual does learn something good from
the Lord, their first reaction may be to grasp hold of it as
much as they can and hold it tight. Then after a while, they
realise that there is enough in the Lord for others to share. And we want to tell other people
about the good things that we have discovered in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We say to them, come and hear,
come and hear, and I will declare what the Lord has done for my
soul. That's from Psalm 66, verse 16. I will declare what the Lord
hath done for my soul. as the lepers came and told the
people in the city what they had discovered, it seems that
there wasn't very much in the way of faith or even memory of
the promises that God had given by his servant, Elisha. Elisha
had told the king and the people of the city that within 24 hours,
there would be so much abundance of food in the city. And here
were the men coming and saying, we've just discovered that there's
no one in the Syrian camp. But rather than remember the
promises or believe the testimony of Elisha, these people started
to examine the situation and try and find an explanation for
it. The lepers come to tell their
story. The porters at the city gate tell the porters of the
king's palace. They tell the staff. The staff
tell the king. The king gets up out of his bed.
He calls his wise men together. And the unbelief is evident in
all that they have to say. It's a trick. It's a trick of
the Syrians, they say. They're going to ambush us when
we go out of our gates. You see, the interesting thing
that I take from that is that unbelief is not about a lack
of evidence. Unbelief is about prejudice against
the Lord and his promises. Unbelief betrays the heart, even
in the face of the evidence that God has given us. All Jehoram
needed to do for proof was to look at the faces of those four
fat lepers. They had eaten all that they
could. I wouldn't be surprised if they
were probably carrying some of that gold and silver in their
pockets as well. But one servant is wiser. And I wonder if Jehoram would
have stayed in the city and just let all that emptiness in the
tents go unused. He never mentioned Elijah once,
sorry, Elisha once, even although he had heard Elisha speaking
to him just a few hours earlier about what God was going to do.
He never mentioned God's promise once. his advisor says, send some horses
that they may examine the situation. And the king agrees and two chariots
are sent out and they follow the trail of the Syrians where
they've thrown off their coats and they've thrown away their
garments and they've thrown away their armour all the way to the
River Jordan. And out of the country, And so
the people go out and they spoil the tents of the Syrians. They go in and they take whatever
it is they want. They eat, they fill their mouths,
they fill their tummies, they fill their arms, they fill their
carts, and they take it all back into the city of Samaria. And soon the streets of Samaria
are full of excited people with lots of food to eat and lots
of good goods to barter and to sell and to exchange. Verse 16, we read, the people
went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure
of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for
a shekel, according to the word of God. Exactly as the Lord had
promised, we find it happening in the city of Samaria. That was a prophecy fulfilled. But there were two parts to Elisha's
prophecy. There was a promise and there
was a judgment. The promise of life and food
to those who were hungry and the promise of death to the proud. So we find that in the narrative,
in the account that we are given, in all of the chaos, the king
decided that he needed to have some order. He needed to have
some organisation. So who could he trust to control
the crowd? but the man whose arm he leaned
upon, the very one who had mocked Elisha the previous day and had
mocked God himself and said, even God couldn't open the windows
of heaven and bring so much food into the city in that length
of time. I wonder if that man thought
about Elisha's words as he made his way down into the street
and pushed through the crowds to get to the gate. Elisha said he would see the
food in the city but he wouldn't get to taste of it. So much food
and yet never tasting. And the people trampled that
man. onto the ground and he lost his life that day in the crush. So it fell out to him, that's
what the Bible says, according to the word of the Lord. Part one was that there was all
the food in Samaria as God had promised. Part two, The judgment
of God came upon the proud. Everything exactly as the Lord
had promised, everything exactly as Elisha had prophesied. God's word never lies. It never
fails. It always comes to pass. And that's how verse 18 begins. And it came to pass as the man
of God had spoken to the king. You can always depend upon God's
word. You can always trust what the
Bible has to say. You can build your faith upon
the Lord Jesus Christ whom the Bible speaks of. Unbelievers won't accept the
truth of the Word of God, even when they have the evidence set
before them. But God's promises and God's
judgments, twofold prophecies, they always come true. One final thought at this stage. This story is, I believe, a picture
to us of God's provision. God's provision of good things
for His people. And the greatest good that God
has provided for His people is a Savior, is the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
defeated our enemy, just as God defeated the army of the Syrians.
It didn't take the King of Israel, it didn't take the army of Israel
to defeat the Syrians. God defeated the Syrians. He
made them hear a noise in the wind as if there was a great
army coming upon them. God won the victory and the Lord
Jesus Christ, as God's provision for his church and people, has
won the victory for us. He has defeated our enemy, the
devil, and he has provided food to feed and to nourish our souls. Not physical food like he did
for the people of Samaria, but spiritual food to feed our spirits. And when we come and hear the
Gospel, and when we come and read the Word of God, and hear
about the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we trust in Him and
believe in Him, that is feeding our souls with heavenly bread
and nourishing us with the refreshing waters for our souls. But here we see that the very
same message, the very same events of the day nourished one group
of people and slew another. When the gospel is preached,
when the word of God is declared, when the promises of God are
declared, some will believe to life everlasting, and others
will reject the truth to their eternal cost. In 2 Corinthians
2, verse 16, we read, to the one we are the saver of death
unto death, and to the other, the savour of life unto life,
such is the responsibility of the preaching of the gospel and
the declaring of the word of God. It is my prayer today that
when you hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, it will come
to you in the power of the Holy Spirit as life unto life eternal. May it be so for his name's sake.
Amen.