Turn with me in your Bibles tonight
to 2 Kings chapter six. I've entitled the message A Gracious
Miracle. 2 Kings chapter six. Going to begin with verse 25. Matthew Henry in his commentary
began his comments on verse 25 with these words. This last paragraph
of this chapter should have right have been the first of the next
chapter, for it begins a new story which is there continued
and concluded. So we'll begin in chapter six
and we're going to read one verse in chapter seven, but beginning
with verse 25. And there was a great famine
in Samaria, and behold, they besieged it until an ass's head
was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part
of a cab of doves dung for five pieces of silver. And as the
king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a
woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king! And he said,
if the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? Out
of the barn floor or out of the winepress? And the king said
unto her, what aileth thee? And she answered, this woman
said unto me, give thy son that we may eat him today, and we
will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and did eat
him. And I said unto her on the next
day, give thy son that we may eat him. And she hath hid her
son. And it came to pass when the
king heard these words of the woman, that he rent his clothes
and he passed by upon the wall. And the people looked and behold,
he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God
do so, and more also to me, if the head of Elisha, the son of
Shaphat, shall stand on him this day. But Elisha sat in his house,
and the elders sat with him. The king sent a man from before
him, but ere the messenger came to him, he, that is, Elisha,
said to the elders, see you how this son of a murderer hath sent
to take away mine head. Look, when the messenger cometh,
shut the door and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound
of his master's feet behind him? And while he yet talked with
them, behold, the messenger came down unto him and he said, behold,
this evil is of the Lord. What should I wait for the Lord
any longer? Then Elisha said, hear ye the
word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, tomorrow
about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel
to measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. We're
looking tonight at one of the many miracles that God worked
through the hand or the ministry of Elisha. We recall how that
the day that God took Elijah up in a whirlwind, a chariot
of fire into heaven, that Elisha was with him. And Elijah asked
Elisha, what shall I do before I be taken away from thee? And
Elisha responded, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit
be upon me. And Elijah responded, and he
said, you've asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou see me
when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. We know
that Elisha stuck to Elijah that day. Everywhere Elijah went to
about four different places, Elisha was right there with him.
And he was right there with him when Elijah was separated and
taken into heaven. And that mantle fell at Elisha's
feet. A double portion of Elijah's
spirit, God the Holy Spirit, no doubt, was given. And it was
demonstrated that he had received a double portion of that spirit
by the number of miracles. I believe there's almost 20 miracles
that we read about here in 2 Kings that were wrought through the
hands of Elisha. But tonight as we look at these
verses, I want to build my message around three words. Three words
in these verses which we've read. When, but, and then. When, but, and then. First, when. In verse 30, if
you'll notice, in verse 30. And it came to pass when, The
king heard the words of the woman. When? Samaria, we know, was the
capital city of the kingdom, the northern kingdom, when Israel
was split. After Solomon's death, his son
Rehoboam became the king and the kingdom was taken away. Part
of the kingdom was taken away from David's son and Jeroboam
became the king. Ten tribes are usually referred
to from then on as Israel and the southern kingdom The kingdom
over which David's sons continued to reign because that was a promise
that God had made to David is usually referred to as Judah.
It was two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, but Judah was the largest
tribe. And Jerusalem, of course, continued
to be the capital of Judah. But Samaria became the capital
of the northern kingdom. And we see there was a wall around
this city because the king is riding around the wall or going
around the wall inspecting, no doubt, the men who were set on
the wall to protect them, to keep the city. The king was Jehoram. This king was Jehoram. And he was a son of Ahab and
Jezebel. He was one of their sons who
had become the king. But at this time, the king of
Syria, whose name was Benadad, had besieged Samaria. He had blockaded the city of
Samaria. No one was let in. No one was
let out. And his army, no doubt, brought
a great deal of food and supplies to keep them for a long time
to starve out the inhabitants of Samaria. That's
the way he was going to conquer Samaria. He was going to starve
them out. And the siege was so great, as
we see from the testimony of this woman, they were reduced
in their hunger to eating their babies. Now, that seems almost
as bad as it can be, doesn't it? Almost, well it is, inhumane. But hunger, they were broken
down, they were reduced down to nothing, to starvation. So
much so that they were willing to eat their children. You know, before the nation of
Israel ever crossed over Jordan, when Joshua led them into the
land of Canaan. It was a land flowing with milk
and honey, but God gave them that land, but it depended upon
their obedience, the obedience of the nation of Israel for them
to stay in that land and to prosper. And Moses told them before they
ever went into the land, Moses told them this was going to happen.
if they were to forsake God and His commandments, that this very
thing that this woman describes here was going to take place. I want you to turn back to Deuteronomy
chapter 28. Now I know that this especially,
especially refers to AD 70, to Jerusalem in AD 70. But it also refers to this time
and another time as well. But here in Deuteronomy chapter
28, remember this is before they cross over Jordan. They're at
the Jordan, Kedash Barnea, ready to go into the land. And the
Lord speaks to them through Moses again. And the whole chapter,
but we'll only read a few verses beginning in verse 45. Moreover, this is Moses to the
elders of the nation of Israel. All these curses shall come upon
thee and shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed
because thou hearkenest not unto the voice of the Lord thy God
to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded
thee. And they shall be upon thee for
a sign and for a wonder and upon thy seed forever. Because thou
servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness. Look at that
verse. As I was reading over these verses
yesterday and again today, that verse especially stood out to
me. Because thou servest not the
Lord thy God with joyfulness. It's not just serving the Lord,
but serving the Lord with joyfulness. It's a joy to serve the Lord. It's not a drudgery to think
that God would single us out, choose us, and save us. Why? It's a joy to serve the
Lord, right? To be one of His servants and
not still be under the mastery of Satan and be serving Satan. What a joy! And God warned them. If you don't serve the Lord with
joyfulness, not just serving, but serving with joyfulness,
that scripture says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Let me read
on. And with gladness of heart, for
the abundance of all these things, oh, God has opened up the windows
of heaven, Israel, and blessed thee with all these blessings,
the land of Canaan, and God's presence most of all. Therefore
shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against
thee in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want
of all things. And he shall put a yoke of iron
upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee. The Lord shall bring a
nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, As
swift as the eagle flyeth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand,
a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person
of the old nor show favor to the young. And he shall eat the
fruit of thy cattle and the fruit of thy land until thou be destroyed,
which also shall not leave thee, either corn, wine, or oil, or
the increase of thy kind, or flocks of thy sheep, until he
have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in
all thy gates until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein
thou trustest, throughout thy land. And he shall besiege thee
in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy
God hath given thee. Now notice, and thou shalt eat
the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of
thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the
seed and in the straightness wherewith thine enemies shall
distress thee. So that the man that is tender
among you and very delicate, his eyes shall be evil toward
his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the
remnant of his children which he shall leave, so that he will
not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he
shall eat. because he hath nothing left
him in the siege and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall
distress thee in all thy gates, the tender and delicate woman
among you. which would not adventure to
set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and
tenderness. Her eyes shall be evil toward
the husband of her bosom, and toward the son, and toward her
daughter, and toward her young one that cometh out from between
her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear. For she
shall eat them for one of all things secretly in the siege
and straightness. wherewith thine enemy shall distress
thee in the gates." God had told them what would happen, and it
did happen, not just once either, but it happened at this time.
The nation of Israel When Jeroboam became king, you remember he
set up two golden calves, one in Dan, one in Bethel, and said,
don't be of any trouble to go all the way back over there to
Jerusalem to worship God. You can just worship him in either
one of these two places. And he made priests, the scripture
says, of the lowest of the people. And that's what happened to that
nation. And we know eventually they were
carried away. But tonight, we're only seeing
what took place here. Now, both of these kings, we've
got Benadad, the king of Syria. He's made a siege around Samaria. And we've got Jehoram, who's
inside the king inside the city. And both of them were wicked
man, both of them. I want us to think about both
of them for just a moment. King Benidad shows, now listen,
if we don't learn anything else, King Benidad shows, shows us
how unthankful, get that word, how unthankful lost men can be
apart from the grace of God. He was the king of Syria, and
before this, Syria had received goodness from the hand of the
Lord, and he knew this. He knew this. If you look back
here in our text, 2 Kings chapter 5, everyone's familiar with the
story of Naaman. Who was Naaman? He was the commander-in-chief
of the armies of Syria. Now I'm not sure if Benedad was
the king who sent Naaman to Israel or not, but he would have been
aware of this. There's no question in my mind
if he was not the king, he was aware that Naaman, this great
soldier by which God had delivered their nation several times, was
cleansed, was recovered of leprosy, something which just didn't happen. It just didn't happen. When a
person had leprosy, it eventually covered his whole body. And yet,
Naaman came to Samaria, remember, and the king thought the king
of Syria was trying to start a fight with him. Because he
sent him there with silver and changes of raiment and all that
and said, cure my servant of leprosy. And the king said, well,
he's just trying to pick a fight with me. He knows we can't cure
anyone of leprosy. And thank God, Elisha heard.
Elisha said, send him down to my house. Send him down to my
house so that he will know that there's a God in Israel. There's
a God in Israel who's able to cleanse the leper. Of course,
Naaman came down and Elisha sent a servant out to
him and said, go wash in the garden seven times. And he was
going away in a huff, wasn't he? He was too big a man. He was important. He was somebody.
And you know that's something that God always does when he
saves a person, isn't it? He brings that person down. He
brings us down before God, showing us what we are. God doesn't need any of us. Naaman,
he was going home a leper just like he'd came until some of
his servants began to reason with him. Remind him if he told
you to do something very difficult, you would have done it. Just
like today. Make a pilgrimage. Crawl on your
knees. Over rocks. To worship an idol. And people are doing it all over
this world today. If the prophet had told you to
do something hard, you would have tried it. You would have
done it. He said, go wash in Jordan. What
does the Lord say? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. But man wants to, he wants to
contribute. He wants to earn. He wants to
pay his way. No, salvation is of grace. And before that, and after that,
the same King Ben-Hadad, if you look here in chapter six, He
was told that Elisha was telling this wicked king where Benedet
was laying a trap for him. And so the king wouldn't go there.
And Benedet, what did he do? He sent his army down there to
arrest Elisha, take care of him. What happened? God smote all
of those soldiers that came down with blindness. And they came
down to Elisha, and he led them all into the city of Samaria. And it would have been easy.
They were blind. It would have been easy to have
slain all of them. And that's what the king wanted
to do. Elisha said, no, you're not going to kill them. Feed
them. Feed them. Give them some food
and water. And let them go back to their
king. This man, Benedict, King Benedict, what I'm pointing out
to us is that lost men, apart from the grace of God, how unthankful
men can be. And what a great sin. I really
don't believe that any of us, maybe you are not in this group,
but many of us don't understand what a wicked sin unthankfulness
is. Not to be thankful to God. To give thanks unto the Lord. Look with me in Romans chapter
one. See what the apostle Paul connects unthankfulness
with. Romans chapter one in verse 21. He says, because when they knew
God, they glorified Him not as God. That's the first thing.
They did not glorify God as God. Neither, notice what's connected
with that, neither were thankful. You say, preacher, is being unthankful
as bad as not glorifying God? Absolutely. That's what that
verse tells us, isn't it? Well, I've got to move on or
I'm not going to Let's get to these other words. Men by nature have a wicked heart
and it takes more than temporal blessings and experiences of
God's goodness to change them. Paul said it well in Titus when
he described all lost men, including himself, as hateful and hating
one another. The second king, Jehoram, He shows us how lost men are
quick to excuse themselves and always to blame someone else. Always. You see when our text
here in verse 30, it came to pass when the king heard the
words of this woman, he rent his clothes. He rent his clothes. But God's word is rent your heart. It's easy to rend your clothes,
an outward show of repentance. No, rend your heart, God says,
and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God. For he
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness,
and repenteth him of evil. But you see, this man, instead
of rending his heart, that is, repenting for his idolatry, destroying
those idols in his country. He doesn't confess his sin, his
idolatry, as the cause of this famine. No, it's Elisha's fault. It's his fault. He doesn't confess his sin. This
king did the same thing that his father Ahab did. Remember when there was a famine
in that day? And let me read this in 1 Kings,
1 Kings 18. After three and a half years,
there was no rain, and finally, Elijah showed himself to King
Ahab, and what did King Ahab say? Chapter 18, verses 17 and
18. It came to pass when Ahab saw
Elijah that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? You're the one. Are you the one
that's brought all this trouble upon Israel? This famine, this
starvation, it's all your fault. What did Elijah say? Elijah answered,
I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house and
that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou has followed
Balaam. This King Jehoram Ahab's son
does the very same thing. He blames Elisha. It's Elisha's
fault. And so he says, God do so and
more also to me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat,
shall stand on him this day. In other words, he said, you
can count on this. Elisha's going to die today. It's all his fault, and I'm going
to make sure he doesn't live to see another sunrise. But,
here's the second word in verse 32. But Elisha sat in his house,
and the elders sat with him. When all the turmoil, the cursing,
All the excitement going on outside the house, this king in a rage. He's going to put an end to Elisha.
But Elisha sat in his house. Doesn't that just speak to you
of peace? Of peace. All this going on outside. And here's the prophet and the
elders of Israel. They sat in the house. Great peace have they which love
thy law, and nothing shall offend them. In Psalm 112, he shall
not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting
in the Lord. Elisha wasn't afraid of this
king. He wasn't afraid of any word or message he would send
unto him. Isaiah 54 tells us, no weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness
is of me. One writer suggested that Elisha
and the elders may well have been on their knees praying when
the king was cursing. The king sent a messenger to
kill Elisha. But Elisha was forewarned, and
he told the elders, let's read it here, he told the elders,
verse 32, but Elisha sat in his house and the elders sat with
him, and the king sent a man from before him. The king sends
a messenger to kill Elisha, but the king is so mad, he's in such
a rage, He's right behind him, right behind the messenger that
he sends. But as the messenger came to
him, he said to the elder, see you how this son of a murderer,
remember Ab, that's what he was, he was a murderer, has sent to
take away my head. Look, when the messenger cometh,
shut the door and hold him fast at the door. In other words,
don't let him in, this messenger. And now notice, is not the sound
of his master's feet behind him? King Jehoram, he's right behind
him. You don't let this servant in.
The king's right behind him. Now verse 32 is somewhat difficult,
or verse 33 I should say, somewhat difficult to understand, but
I want to give you the way I think it should be understood. While
he yet talked with them, that is, Elisha, while he yet talked
with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him. And he said,
now, I believe this is the king. Remember, they kept the messenger
out. Now the king was right behind him. And he said, the king, Jehoram,
this is what he said. Behold, this evil is of the Lord. what should I wait for the Lord
any longer? In other words, Elisha, you serve
the Lord, you claim the Lord, he is God. This evil is coming
upon you, it's of the Lord. He's mocking Elisha. And then
he said, what should I wait for the Lord any longer? In other
words, I'm gonna kill you and I'm going to surrender to Ben-Hadad. and I'm going to do the best
that I can do to deliver myself from this famine. Why should I wait for the Lord
any longer? He's not gonna help. Don't believe
he's real anyway, Elisha. Don't have any use for Jehovah. And both of those words, Lord,
there is Jehovah, isn't it? Behold, this evil is of Jehovah. Why should I wait? for the Jehovah
any longer. He was in a rage against Elisha. He didn't believe in or worship
the Lord. And now, Elisha, you're going
to die. And we're going to see if your
Lord, your God, can deliver you from my hands. And I will surrender
to Benedet. But the third word in verse one
of chapter four, then, then, Then Elisha said, Hear ye the
word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow
about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel,
two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. Then,
this word then here takes in all that had happened up until
this point. Then, when all the armies of
Syria were besieging Samaria. Then, when there was a great
famine and some were eating their children. Then, when the king
of Israel had sworn to take Elisha's life. Then, what? What would we expect? What word
from God would we expect? What word would we expect to
hear from God? God's patience. is exhausted,
and he's going to pour out his wrath upon you, Jehoram, and
this whole city. No, it's a message of grace,
right? It's a message of grace. Tomorrow,
about this time, shall a measure of flour be sold for a shekel,
and two measures of barley for a shekel. That day, an ass's
head was being sold for 80 pieces of silver, and a fourth part
of a dove's calf dung was being sold for five pieces of silver,
and here comes God's gracious word. Tomorrow about this time,
a measure of fine flour is going to sell for a shekel, and two
measures of barley for a shekel. Isn't that grace? Isn't that
grace, and doesn't that remind us of God's wonderful gospel
of grace? A message to hell-deserving, ill-deserving sinners. Oh, everyone,
everyone that thirsted. Anybody thirsty? Anybody thirsty
for God? To have your sins put away? To
know God? Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear and hear. Incline your ear and come unto
me, hear, and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." A miracle
of grace. A miracle of grace. The Lord willing, I want to go
on with this story next Wednesday. That's not the end of the story,
is it?