Living Water Community Church

We worked our way through the first 16 verses of chapter 9. In this section we see Elisha providing the final fulfillment of God’s command to Elijah to anoint Elisha in his place, to anoint Hazael as king over Syria and to anoint Jehu as king over Israel. As our story opens Elisha commissions a son of the prophets to take a flask of oil to Ramoth-gilead and anoint Jehu as king over Israel in a private ceremony, and then leave with haste. This son of the prophets does exactly what Elisha instructs him to do, and Jehu is anointed as king. When Jehu comes from the inner room and encounters his fellow commanders they ask what has happened and his response is you know the fellow and what he said. This statement indicates Jehu thinks they are in on it and it may be a set-up or joke. Their response however dispels this idea because they tell Jehu they don’t know what has happened. Jehu then tells them the man has anointed him in the Lord’s name as king over Israel. The military commanders who were present removed their cloaks and put them on the steps under Jehu. Then they blew the trumpet and declared him as king of Israel. Jehu then makes plans to go to Jezreel and confront Joram the current king. He gets in his chariot and heads out.

We are turning our attention to what properly might be called the mechanics of prayer. We continued our study of prayer by looking at the how people in the Bible focused on God’s actions as a basis for engaging with Him in prayer. We looked at a bunch of passages where we see prayers or praise rooted in things like His love, faithfulness, and judgements which are cast against His creation. His love extends to the heavens. His love is like the mountains of God. His judgements are like the great deep. What we see again and again is the writers of scripture taking the time to think about God and His works and actions in ways that a vivid to our imagination. This kind of thinking can begin to infuse our own prayers with a deeper sense of connection and awe as we engage our imagination in the pursuit of God in prayer.

We explored the lives of the descendants of Jehoshaphat. They knew the promises of God because of their father Jehoshaphat. They were supposed to lead the people in following God but instead they led the people away from the Lord. This resulted in the judgement of God. Jehoshaphat’s son married the daughter of Ahab, and began to follow the sinful path of the people of Israel. Edom revolted from their rule and set up their own king. Joram went down with an army to quell the rebellion and was routed by the Edomites and had to flee. Libnah which was one of the cities of the Levites rebelled and separated from following Joram as well. Joram did not live long and Ahaziah his son reigned over Judah. He also led the people of Judah in the path of the house of Ahab king of Israel. The king of Israel was wounded in a battle with Hazael the king of Syria and Ahaziah went to see him in Jezreel while he was recovering. This is where we ended the last time.

We looked at two stories at the beginning of chapter 8 which show us how God orchestrates all things. The first story demonstrates God taking care of those who are His. The wealthy woman of Shunam whose son had been raised from the dead returned to the land of Israel to find her property had been taken over during a time of famine. She went to the king to plead her case and Elisha’s servant was with the king recounting the works of Elisha. He had just talked to the king of this woman and her son’s resurrection when she appeared in the court to plead her case for the property. The king heard her story and granted her the property back as well as the revenue generated from the property while she was gone. We would typically call things like this a coincidence. But there is no such thing. God is working behind the scenes to direct people and even conversation to provide for the needs of His people. The second situation involved Hazael a commander who served king Ben-hadad of Syria. Ben-hadad had been sick and sent Hazael with a gift to inquire of Elisha if he would recover from his sickness. Elisha told Hazael his master would recover but he would certainly die. Then he began to weep for the evil he knew Hazael would do to Israel. Eventually Elisha told Hazael that the Lord had revealed he would become king of Syria. This of course happened the next day when Hazael smothered Ben-hadad and claimed the throne for himself. Here we see God raising up a wicked king to destruction and suffering on Israel as a judgement on them for turning their backs on God. Again there are no supernatural miracles here but a clear declaration of God ordering the events of men to bring about the culmination of His plan. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord.

We worked our way through the story of the siege on Samaria. The king of Syria had come down with his entire army and they besieged Samaria. This blockade of the city eventually caused a famine. The writer tells us the famine was so bad the people were willing to pay 80 shekels for a donkeys head. He even reported how the people were resorting to eating their own children. The king of Israel on hearing about these things blamed God for the problems and swore he was going to kill Elisha. He sent his military captain to kill Elisha and Elisha told the elders who were with him to bar the door and not let him in. Elisha proceeded to tell the captain through the door that the Lord was going to provide flour and barley by the next day about this time in abundance. The man scoffed at the word of the Lord and Elisha told him because of his unbelief he would see it but would not get a chance to see it with his own eyes. That evening the Lord caused the Syrian army to believe they were under attack. They fled leaving everything in their tents and cast off things which weighed them down as they fled. This was all discovered by some unnamed lepers who decided since they were bound to die of hunger soon they just might live if they gave themselves up to the Syrians. When they came to the camp they found it deserted so they ate their fill of food and carried off clothing and other goods and returned for more. The conscience of the lepers began to bother them so the went to Samaria and told the guard on the wall the good news which was passed on to the king. The king was suspicious it was a trap, so he sent two men on horseback to check it out. They discovered the camp was empty like the lepers had reported. On top of the camp having horses and chariots they discovered cast off armor and other elements were strewn along the way all the way to the Jordan. To the readers of this story who were in exile it would have been clear that the siege with its famine were a judgment of God on Israel for their idolatry. It is the exact judgement God had declared in Leviticus He would bring on His people if they failed to worship Him and heed His judgments. It is clear from this story they did not heed God’s judgment. But we also see in this story how God’s judgement does not last forever and He ultimately will save His people. So we see in this passage a picture of salvation. The people are rescued from death and destruction not because they deserve it and not because there was something special about the Jews. No, God saves those who He has set His love upon for His own glory and to be faithful to His own promises and no other reason.

Our wants can easily be justified as needs. At the same time we can look at people who accumulate things and think how good they have it. Even wondering sometimes why they have  it so good and we have to struggle so much. The up and coming generation certainly is marked by an attitude of entitlement as a general characteristic when it comes to work and the workplace. Entitlement however is not an exclusive domain held by those growing into adulthood. It is easy for all of us to fall into the trap of entitlement. It is easy for us to simply think more highly of ourselves then we ought to think. Greed and selfishness creep into all of our lives. People do not normally lay down their lives for each other. To the contrary we usually find it easy to demand more from others. We have an uncanny ability to mistake greed for need. We live in a society which is preoccupied with justifying feeling satisfied and safe. We are encouraged on every side to be preoccupied with our own well being. In this kind of environment we can become consumed with ourselves. We can find ourselves defining what is good by what is good for us. Unfortunately this mentality and focus is often a huge influence in our prayers. 

I believe God hears a lot of grossly selfish requests in our prayers. Given the amazing extent of God’s ongoing provision of our needs we must appear to God as an extremely ungrateful people in general. God gives to us an amazing amount of things in His grace and yet we seem to have no trouble coming to God with more “needs”. But we really do have needs and God in His word encourages us to bring our needs to Him. Our intention today is to look at this area of need and consider how the Bible calls us to make our requests to God.

We explored the story of how Elisha tells the king of Israel to avoid certain places at specific times because the king of Syria has laid a trap or planned a raid. The king of Israel would send scouts to verify it and discovered Elisha was saving him from these plans. This frustrated the king of Syria who became convinced there must be a spy in his court feeding his plans to the king of Israel. But the servants of the king know it is Elisha who is aware of the Syrian plans and alerts the king of Israel. The servants tell the king, “Elisha hears all of his plans even those made in secret.” This revelation frustrates the king and he sends his army to capture Elisha who lives in Dothan. The army surrounds the city and Elisha’s servant is frightened by the development. Elisha prays and God opens the servants eyes and he can see the horses and chariots of fire on the surrounding hills are greater then the Syrian army which surrounds Dothan. Again Elisha prays and God strikes the army with blindness. Elisha then leads the blind army to Samaria and delivers them to the king of Israel. After asking God to restore their sight Elisha instructs the king to feed them and send them home. He does and the good treatment of the army leads to a temporary peace between Israel and Syria. Part of the peace was no doubt the ongoing survival of Elisha who the army failed to capture. Here we see laid out how God is working behind the scenes. In this case God’s army protects Elisha. In Jesus case He could have called on God to send an army of angels but that was not part of His plan. God’s plan in Jesus case was for Him to go the cross and die. It was God’s plan to have His Son sacrificed in our place to bear the penalty for our sins. Without Jesus sacrifice we would have no hope of being brought back into fellowship with God. He rescued us from eternal damnation by bearing our damnation for us. Because we are all sinners damnation is what justice demands we suffer. Since God is just we are destined for damnation, but Jesus stepped in and changed all of that by bearing our penalty. This preserves God’s justice and at the same time gives Him the ability to grant us mercy and grace.

We explored a passage which many see as fantastic or legendary. In it Elisha causes an iron ax head to float. From our perspective it seems almost like an extraordinary action for something we would consider a minor loss. But we need to consider the day in which this happened. The iron age had recently come into its own. This was probably about 200 to 300 years after what we would see as the start of the iron age. The amount of time and effort which the creation of iron implements in this day made it a really expensive metal especially when compared to copper, bronze or brass. The loss of an iron ax head in this day may have been similar to wrecking a car in our day. So while this reads as insignificant because of our context it was a great loss in their day. Even with our understanding of the cost it seems to raise the question of why record this event. In the context of the book of Kings this story is the 6th in a series of stories about God meeting the needs of His people. We had the widow who was about to lose her sons to a lender and would probably lose her home ultimately because of this. She seeks God and through Elisha her needs are met and the lender is paid. This was followed by the rich woman who provided a room for Elisha and really had no need even by her own confession. Yet God gave her a son, that son died as a child and suddenly she is found in great need. She seeks God as the answer to her need and her son is brought back to life. Next a group of students called the sons of the prophets are given a large amount of stew which is accidentally tainted with poison. Elisha puts flour in the stew and it becomes edible and nourishing. A gift of barley loaves is given to Elisha and he again gives it to the students but this time Elisha’s servant objects because there are only 20 loaves and 100 men. But Elisha tells him to serve the bread and there will be enough with some left over and there was. The 5th story is about Naaman the Syrian who is dying from leprosy. At the prompting of his wife’s servant girl he seeks Elisha the prophet and his need of healing is given to him by God. In this story the pagan Syrian commander seeks the Lord and swears to follow Yahweh from then on. The loss of the ax highlights again God meeting the needs of one of his own. To the people in exile and even to us today this highlights how God is there to meet all kinds of needs of His people. From grievous personal needs like the loss of a child or a deadly sickness to immediate needs like the need for food or the loss of material possessions. God is the one to look to in every situation. He is the one who meets all of our needs according to His plan and for our good and His glory.

We explored 2 Kings chapter 5 and in it we saw the Lord orchestrating events to bring Naaman the Syrian commander to Himself. God did not simply bring this man facing the death sentence of leprosy to healing he brought a man who was facing the death sentence of sin to faith. It is a remarkable and because of this a famous story which starts with the faith a young girl. A girl captured from Israel during a raid and carried into slavery and captivity. This young girl lives much like Joseph when he was sold into slavery. She serves her mistress as best she can. She sees her role in slavery as an opportunity to do good. She believes by faith that God can use Elisha to heal her master Naaman and she tells her mistress what she believes to be true. You could say the faith of this little girl is the catalyst which God uses to bring Naaman to faith. Naaman goes to the king of Syria with the news of this potential cure for leprosy is Israel. The king sends Naaman with letters to seek this cure from the king of Israel. This is the part which really highlights the faith of the little girl. There was no known cure in Israel. There is no record of Elisha healing lepers in the land before this. Jesus even stated in the New Testament how there was no one in Israel healed of leprosy during Elisha’s time except Naaman the Syrian. This all points to the faith of the servant girl which really drives the story forward. Elisha sends to the king for Naaman to come to him. This relieves the king who is distressed over the letter he has received from Naaman’s hand. Naaman comes to Elisha who sends his servant to tell him to go wash in the Jordan 7 times and he will be healed. Naaman is angered by two things. Elisha appears to do nothing, he doesn’t even come out to meet Naaman. Second the Jordan is a muddy river especially when compared to some of the rivers in Syria, this seems to Naaman to be almost an insult. As he heads out to return to Syria in anger his servants convince him to give it a try since he would have certainly done any really hard thing Elisha might have asked him to do. Naaman recognized the truth in what they said and followed Elisha’s instructions and received the healing Elisha had promised. He returned in gratitude to Elisha and expressed a desire to worship Yahweh alone from then on. This is why we can say Naaman experienced the healing of sin from his life as well as the healing of leprosy. In his gratitude he had offered expensive gifts to Elisha, but Elisha rejected them. It was important for Naaman to know God gives good gifts to His children freely. Elisha’s servant Gehazi seems put out that such wealth would be rejected and he concocts a plan to get some of the money. After Naaman leaves Gehazi runs after him and tells a lie about some fictitious sons of the prophets arriving and need cloths and silver. Naaman gladly gives him what he asks for and more. With his silver and clothing secured Gehazi returns to Elisha. Elisha reveals how he knows what Gehazi has done and rebukes him for his greed, adding that the leprosy of Naaman would now come on him and his descendants. The message which Naaman needed to hear was a message of free grace. Gehazi had set out to corrupt that message. The gospel comes to everyone freely and should not be corrupted with the addition of anything. That is really the core message of this passage. It points us to a savior who gave his life for us and gives us the gift of salvation with no strings attached. We can’t earn it. We can’t work for it. It is ours through faith alone, in Jesus alone. The message of salvation Elisha delivered to Naaman is the same message today. The message of corruption added by Gehazi is the same message people continue to deliver today. This story of faith is one I hope you see through new eyes as you come across it in the future.

We continued our study in prayer by examining how the Psalmist and other writers expressed joy in the midst of difficulty. How did they get to joy and what are some common traits of the journey to joy in a not so joyful situation. This is one of those areas where the Biblical writers give us a variety of examples for doing this. It is also something do not naturally  do and so it becomes something we need to practice and work on. We see this type of expression again and again throughout the Bible. We see it in the Psalms and wisdom books as well as commands by Paul to rejoice in the Lord always. David even appointed a whole section of the priests to do nothing but give thanks to God. This priority of giving thanks and praise to God in the Old Testament should certainly inform our own thoughts as we consider how we approach God and what the content of our prayers should include. We are not saying it should only be joy and thanksgiving but if we don’t find this theme being a part of our prayer life we should consider how it can become a part of our engagement with God.