2 Kings chapter 2 and I'm going
to continue a little bit here today for some of the younger
people thinking about this man called Elisha. Elisha was the
prophet who took over from Elijah. And these are some of the greatest
Old Testament prophets that we have spoken of in the Word of
God. Elijah, first of all, and then
the man who took over from him, Elisha. And we're going to read
in 2 Kings 2 and verse 15. And when the sons of the prophets
which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit
of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him and
bowed themselves to the ground before him. And they said unto
him, Behold now there be with thy servants fifty strong men. Let them go, we pray thee, and
seek thy master, that's Elijah, lest peradventure the Spirit
of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain
or into some valley. And he said, ye shall not send. Does anyone remember where Elijah
had gone? He'd gone to heaven, hadn't he?
He'd gone to heaven, but these men thought that they would go
and look for him just in case, I don't know, he'd fallen out
of the chariot and landed on a mountaintop somewhere. Anyway,
Elisha says, no, don't go. And when they urged him till
he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent there for fifty men,
and they sought three days, but found him not. And when they
came again to him, that's Elisha, for he tarried at Jericho, he
said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not? And the men
of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation
of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water
is not, and the ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruz,
or a jug, a bowl, and put salt therein, and they brought it
to him. And he went forth unto the spring
of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith
the Lord, I have healed these waters, there shall not be from
thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed
unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha, which he spake. And he went up from fence unto
Bethel. And as he was going up by the
way, there came forth little children out of the city, and
mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head, go up,
thou bald head. And he turned back and looked
on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. and there came
forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tear forty and two
children of them. And he went from Thames to Mount
Carmel, and from Thames he returned to Samaria." Well, there is quite a catalogue
of incidents from the early part of this prophet's life. three
things that happened at the beginning of Elisha's ministry. The sons
of the prophets, they want to go and look for Elijah against
Elisha's advice. The bad water in Jericho is miraculously
made usable and useful. And then we find this story,
this incident of the children being torn by the bears for mocking
the prophet of God. I was trying to think back. It's a long time ago. But when
I used to go to Sunday school in the United Kingdom, we call
Sunday school where the children go. I know that it's more of
an adult thing in some churches. But when I was at Sunday school
as a child, I used to hear stories about Elisha, but I'm not sure
that I ever heard the story of the 42 children that got torn
by the bears. And maybe that's with reason. Who wants to tell little children
such a story? And yet here it is in the Word
of God. And we're told that all scripture is profitable and it's
profitable for older children and younger children. It's profitable
for all the children of God. Elisha was now a man who carried
Elijah's mantle. That means that he had his cloak,
he had his coat. But it also meant, more importantly,
that that cloak was a picture of the fact that the Spirit of
God had moved from Elijah and now rested upon Elisha. And he was the old prophet's
successor. He had taken over the old prophet's
job. However, this new prophet, still
quite young, it would appear, because there are many decades
still to occur in Elisha's life, so he probably was still quite
a young man. And we did talk last week about
him being a boy, and as a boy he was a farmer, and then he
had followed after Elijah, learned from Elijah, and subsequently
took over that role at God's direction. But it's quite possible
that because he was still a young man, that his authority had not
yet been established. And it seems as if this first
story about the sons of the prophets going against the will and the
direction of Elisha is designed to show us that they still, though
they bowed down and worshipped him, they still had reservations
about whether that old age had truly passed. And a new beginning
was occurring. They hearkened back to the old
days. Maybe we can still go and find
Elijah. Maybe he's still out there somewhere.
Maybe we should go and get him. When it was very clear and they
had been witnesses to it. that Elijah had been taken away
by God, and Elisha now had his mantle. But there were reservations,
and sometimes that teaches us that we have to be ready to move
on. We have to be ready to say there's
a new beginning, there's a new start, and God is calling us
forward. There's always a temptation to
look back, perhaps to remember good times, to be thinking fondly
of that which was familiar. but there's also a place to step
out into that which is unfamiliar and recognise the new day and
the new beginning that God has given us. So here's a little
incident in the life of Elisha where it shows us that there
was a new chapter opening in Israel And some of these sons
of the prophets, some of these religious men and women perhaps,
some of these who were true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, just
took a little bit of time to get used to the fact that there
was a new kid on the block and Elisha now carried Elijah's responsibilities. The second thing that we see
from this story is that God used Elisha to purify polluted water
so that the people could drink. And I think that that's a lovely
picture of how the Lord Jesus purifies a sinful heart and makes
sinners fit for his service and for purpose. When the Lord converts
a sinner, he goes to the source, he goes to the soul, he goes
to our hearts, and that's what Elisha did. He took this salt,
which speaks of purification, to the spring, to the source
of the water, and there he cast it in. And when the Lord changes
a person, He doesn't change that person on the outside. He doesn't
change the way that person looks, the way that person dresses,
the way that person speaks or behaves. He doesn't change that
first of all. He changes the inside. And he
causes the inside to be made pure. And then that pure spirit,
that converted, changed spirit begins to manifest itself in
the way that we act and in the way that we speak and in the
things that we do. So this is a lovely picture of
the way in which salvation comes to a sinner's heart. And then
finally, there is this interesting incident. of the bears and the
children. And I suspect that you grown-ups
are more interested in this part of the story than the other two
parts, and maybe the children too. But how on earth do we explain
such a terrible event? Well, you know, it's only presented
to us here in a few verses, and there is a suggestion that there
may be more to this story than is recorded here. And I say that
for this reason. We're told that the prophet was
going up to Bethel. Now, Bethel had become a centre
of idolatry. Bethel is spoken of often in
the books of the prophets as being a place where Baal was
worshipped, and a place where the prophets of Baal would congregate. They had altars, they had groves,
they had trees on the tops of hills, and they would gather
there to worship. So the people that lived around
about Bethel would have been interested in maintaining that
idolatrous place. And maybe there's something here
about the reason why these children came out and endeavoured to thwart
and obstruct and mock Elisha as he was going up to Bethel. Also, it's quite possible that
these children, although they're called little children, were
not infants. For a start, there was a big
gang of them. There were presumably well over
40, if 42 of them were torn by the bear, so there was a lot
of them. They weren't with their parents. They hadn't been brought
out and led out by adults. They were out there themselves,
near the woods. They were smart enough to know
that this was a prophet of God that was passing by. and they
knew enough to be personal about the mockery that they targeted
at him. It's even possible that because
he was going up to Bethel, they were making some sort of comment
about rumours that had already happened about, what, is this
the man of God going up to worship at Baal's temple? Or maybe they
had heard about Elijah being taken up to heaven and they were
shouting at Elijah, well, you go up too. Let's see if you're
a real prophet. You go up too, old baldy. We only have what we're told
here. The prophet cursed them. And as a result of that curse,
God, not the prophet, God, sent two she-bears out of the woods
and tore these children. Does tearing mean killing? Possibly
it does. Maybe there were 42 corpses at
the end of that process. Maybe some of them were just
injured and died subsequently. But what it does do is it reminds
us that God is not to be trifled with. God is not to be mocked. Neither is his people to be mocked. The Lord will protect his people
and he will preserve them. Anyone who endeavors to lay a
finger upon one of the Lord's people is endeavouring to lay
a finger on the Lord himself. Jesus said, I will be with you
always. There's a lesson for us in that
too. We don't need to lift a hand
in our own defence, because the Lord will be with us. And whatever
happens, the Lord will be pleased to undertake for his church,
undertake for his people. Throughout the history of this
world, throughout the history of the church, there have been
many people have endeavoured to stamp it out, to inflict hardship
and trial upon the people of God. And here we are. because
the Lord has preserved us. So let us be careful. No one
will hinder or frustrate the work of God. They might try,
but they will not succeed. The work of God's salvation is
a great work which is going on in this world and will be successful. The Lord says through the prophet
Isaiah, since thou was precious in my sight, You, and you, and
you, since you were precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable,
and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee, and people for thy life. Men set themselves against the
people of God at their peril. Romans chapter 12 verse 19 says
this, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord.